A Soft Place to Fall

by Barbara Bretton

  "This is your fist Labor Day picnic in Shelter Rock Cove, isn't it, dear?" Claudia asked.

  "It is," Ellen said, "and I'm amazed by it. Our booth has been so busy there hasn't been time to wander around and sample some of those delicious foods I see everyone enjoying."

  "Have a deviled egg," Claudia offered, reaching into the ice chest for the platter. "You too," she said to Sam.

  Ellen reached for an egg then caught sight of the brochure in Sam's hand. "Oh, what's this!" She bent down and peered at the cover then chuckled. "Don't tell me you're one of his devotees."

  Claudia yanked the glossy folder away from Sam. "Roberta and I take workshops," she said with a visible straightening of her Yankee spine. "Mr. Winters is quite a showman."

  "My aunt got involved with one of those radio financial wizards," Ellen said, shaking her head. "She ended up losing everything but her house. Stay away from guys like this, Claudia. They have radar when it comes to women and money."

  "Good heavens," said Claudia with a little laugh. "You take these things much too seriously. For us it's investments one week and tai chi the next." She looked calm and completely in control, not at all the type of woman who handed over the keys to the kingdom without a full background check.

  They were usually the first to fall.

  "You tell her," Ellen said, turning to Sam.

  "Why me?" A ripple of alarm moved along his spine.

  "You seemed pretty absorbed in that brochure when I barged in. I just assumed –" Something in his eyes must have registered on her because she stopped abruptly. "Delicious deviled eggs," she said, wiping the corner of her mouth with a paper napkin. "Good to see you, Claudia. Great to meet you, Sam. I'd better get back to the booth before Hall sends out a search party."

  "Well," said Claudia as the doctor dashed off across the green, "that was certainly rude."

  Sam, who wasn't about to stick a toe in the waters of Shelter Rock Cove politics, kept quiet and thanked his lucky stars.

  #

  He brought her icy cold lemonade, a platter piled high with fried clams and fresh lobster meat and french fries, and a slice of juicy blueberry pie fit for the gods.

  "Sam, this is too much!" Annie said, laughing, as he placed the bounty down on the table in front of her. "You have to share it with me."

  "I was hoping you'd say that." He reached for a crisp, golden curl of clam then popped it into her mouth.

  "I've missed you," she said, popping a fry into his mouth in return. "I hope this hasn't been too deadly dull for you."

  "I hung out with the fire department," he said. "The dentist tried to recruit me but I told him I was just passing through."

  Some of the day's brightness dimmed. "Are you just passing through?"

  "I can't freeload off Warren forever."

  "Sure you could," she said lightly. "Warren loves you. He'd be thrilled if you decided to make Shelter Rock Cove your home."

  He didn't say anything and who could blame him. She had backed him into a spot like one of those terrible women on the afternoon talk shows, the ones who ended up stalking some poor guy and soaping his car windows when he took another woman to dinner.

  Well, now you've done it, Galloway. Why don't you just sew your heart to the sleeve of your sweater while you're at it.

  "Forget I said that." She picked at the lobster with a plastic fork. "It's the lemonade speaking."

  "I didn't know I'd find you here," he said quietly. "I wasn't expecting this."

  "Really," she said, wishing she could crawl under the bandstand and stay there until New Year's Eve, "you don't have to say anything. This is what happens when your last date was during the Reagan Administration."

  She was embarrassed and upset. He could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice, and the fact that there was nothing he could say to make it all better tore at his heart. He wanted to tell her that this was forever, that nothing in the world could tear him away from her but that would be unfair to her. He had no right to ask her to hand over her heart into his keeping when, hovering out there just out of sight, was the real world and all that went with it. One day soon it would come calling for him and he would have no choice but to answer.

  The less Annie knew, the better. He didn't want to see her dragged into a mess she had nothing to do with, all because he was too selfish to keep his own troubles to himself.

  How could you promise a woman forever when you couldn't see around the next corner to tomorrow?

  He took her hand and as he raised it to his lips he saw the narrow white strip that marked where her wedding ring had been. The band of paler skin spoke volumes.

  "It was time," she said. "I was always catching the ring on the florist's wires at the shop –"

  "This is real," he said as he kissed the place where her wedding ring had been. "Whatever happens, I want you to remember that."

  "I know that," she said. "I knew it the first moment I saw you."

  But she didn't understand, not really, and in a way he was glad. She thought he was talking about the uncertainties of life and death and in a way he wished he was. It would be easier to explain the hand of fate than the series of decisions and compromises that had brought him into her life.

  All they had, all anyone had, was the moment and although it wasn't close to being enough, for now it was the best he could do.

  #

  Teddy Webb had been working for the Shelter Rock Cove Weekly News and Shopper for more years than he cared to remember. He had covered the last twenty Labor Day picnics on the green and had run out of adjectives to describe hamburgers, hot dogs, and Ceil's award winning apple strudel. Once you got past delicious, mouth-watering, and delectable the next step was scrumptious and the day his gnarled old fingers typed a word like scrumptious was the day he handed in his press pass and retired for good.

  Teddy had filled a small reporter's notebook with details and once he got back home, he would take a shot of Pepto Bismol then type it all up on his computer and zap it over to the office before they put the issue to bed.

  But he still needed a photo to go with it. Oh, he'd snapped a few of apple pies bursting with fruit and one of Eileen Galloway's sons with a faceful of watermelon but nothing that really rang his chimes. Hell, he could just recycle last year's sack race and be done with it. Nobody would ever know the difference. He was debating the viability of that idea when his gaze happened to land on a sight that did his grizzled old heart good. Annie Lacy Galloway was gazing into the eyes of some guy he had never seen before and you could just about see Cupid aiming his arrows straight at their hearts. Everyone in town loved Annie and they were bound to love seeing her looking so happy again.

  Grinning to himself, Teddy aimed the camera and two clicks later he had his page one photo.

  #

  Susan was extolling the virtues of a central vacuum cleaning system when she saw the kiss. She had been about to tell George and Lily Williams about the glories to be found in not dragging around a ten pound canister when Sam Butler lifted Annie's hand to his lips and kissed it.

  "Susan?" asked Lily, who operated the day care center near town hall. "Is something wrong?"

  "Sorry," she said, trying to snap herself back to attention. "What was I saying?"

  "About the vacuum cleaning system," George prompted her. "We were wondering about filtration capabilities."

  Was that English they were speaking or some foreign tongue Susan had never heard before? She couldn't make sense of any of it, not when Annie was looking into Sam's eyes that way, as if she had been waiting her entire life for that moment.

  A deep yearning awoke inside her chest and its power almost knocked her flat. The last time she had felt anything close to this depth of emotion was when her children were born. When she heard her babies' first cries she had been filled with a rush of love so intense she thought she would die from it. That was how she felt as she looked at Annie and Sam, radiant with new love, as untouchable as the stars.

  #
<
br />   Hall was brushing grass off the back of Willa's white shorts when Mariah pointed across the green. "Eeeyewww," she said, making a face. "That man's kissing Annie."

  "Yuk," said Willa, without even looking. "Gross."

  He knew he shouldn't look. What was the point to seeing everything he had dreaded come to life in front of his eyes? He couldn't change it. He couldn't make it go away. More to the point, he couldn't make Sam Butler go away. Butler came to town without history or baggage. He didn't give a damn that Annie was Kevin's widow. He didn't know squat about the gambling, the babies that weren't meant to be, all the things that had kept Hall trapped in place. No, the guy just drove into town, took a look around, then swept Annie off her feet and into his arms while Hall sat on his deck, nursing a scotch and wondering where to begin.

  "It might not last," Ellen said, joining him as the girls ran off to play. "I don't think Shelter Rock Cove is his kind of place."

  Hall shook his head. "It doesn't matter," he said. "Do you see the way she's looking at him?"

  Ellen's only answer was a sigh.

  #

  "Will you look at that!" Roberta nudged Claudia. "If that's not the most romantic thing I've ever seen, I don't know what is."

  Roberta was too late. Claudia had watched the whole scene unfold from behind her sunglasses. She had seen Annie's smile disappear. She had watched as he fumbled for words. Her breath caught when he took Annie's hand and looked at it as if reading her palm and when he lifted her hand to his mouth, she thought her heart would break.

  She wasn't one for crying. Tears had never changed a thing in this world. They certainly didn't pay your bills or fix the roof on your house and they could never bring back the ones you loved and lost. But those damn tears slid down her cheeks and there seemed to be nothing she could do to stop them.

  "I'll be right back," she said to Roberta. She started out across the green toward Annie's Flowers where she could compose herself but wouldn't you know that old coot Warren fell in step with her before she was halfway there.

  Warren didn't say anything and neither did she. They met each other's eyes and a lifetime of memories passed between them. He reached for her hand as they approached the hill and this time, just this once, she didn't pull away.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Their lovemaking that night was fierce and deeply thrilling, as if they were trying to forge a bond that nothing, neither time nor circumstance, could ever undo. That they both believed such a thing was possible forged a deeper bond than either realized. After a while Sam slept but Annie was too filled with energy to close her eyes. It had been years since she had been all one piece, her body and soul and mind working together as one seamless entity. She was more than an intellect, more than a body, and it was their lovemaking that had restored her soul and brought it all the disparate parts of herself together again, the way it should be. The way it used to be before disappointment and sorrow became her constant companions. She could feel the energy flowing from her heart to her mind and shooting out from her fingers and toes in a rainbow of color and form.

  Nothing lasts forever but this is real . . . this is real.

  Was it? You couldn't see or touch the bond between them, the sense of destiny, but she knew it was there just the same. He knew what it was like to lose your parents before you were old enough to vote. There was nothing in the world that could prepare you for that, no club you could join to help you through it. They both knew that life could be both cruel and capricious and there was nothing you could do to sway the outcome. That knowledge had kept her paralyzed for so long but suddenly she didn't feel stuck in place any longer.

  She wanted to capture it all, gather up the stars and the moon and splash them on a canvas, run her hands along a satiny block of wood until she found the form hiding within.

  Quietly she rose from the bed and slipped one of Sam's tee shirts over her head. Stepping over Max's sleeping body, she let herself out of the bedroom and padded down the short hallway to the room where she'd stashed the boxes left to unpack. Way in the back, tucked behind the boxes marked "Music, Books, Misc" was an old picnic basket that had belonged to her mother. It was an enormous wicker contraption with foldout trays and neat little compartments for cutlery and dishes and food that made a perfect storage box for her pens and inks and painting supplies. She pulled out a vine of charcoal, sharpened it against the sandpaper block, then dug out a nice toothy sketchpad that still had a fair amount of empty pages left.

  She could see the six figures deep inside her head and now she called on them to materialize on the page before her so they could get acquainted. Her hand moved automatically across the paper, leaving shape and shadow behind. The man was young, twenty at most, wiry and strong and fearless, and the five children radiated out from him like spokes in a wheel. Each stood separate and apart but were somehow linked to the man in the center by invisible threads. Sorrow was in their eyes and hope too because that was the gift he gave them. Hope and love, a home of their own where no harm could find them. It was all there, waiting for Annie, flowing from heart to hand as if by magic. She filled page after page with sketches of those people. Long shots, portraits, individual and group. She played with proportion and angle, tried various groupings. In every sketch, the man looked like Sam.

  She saw it as it would look when it was released from a shroud of maple: six figures forming one perfect unit as they gazed out over Shelter Rock Cove, waiting for the sailors who would never come home.

  #

  Sam watched her from the doorway. She worked with intensity, her hand inscribing graceful arcs and angles on page after page of drawing paper. He couldn't see what she was working on but watching her in motion was more than enough. She sat there in that tiny room, lost in the middle of a pile of boxes, and created beauty just by the act of being. She wore his tee shirt and nothing else, her lush curves barely hidden from view. George and Gracie slept happily atop her bare feet while Max looked up at her with open adoration.

  Me too, Max, he thought as he caught a yawn with the back of his hand. She looked rosy and sated as she sat perched atop a cardboard box filled with books and pursued some private vision of her own. He could spend a lifetime watching her smile. Was that love? He didn't know. He had never felt this way before about anyone: just the fact that she existed in this world was enough to make him happy. His siblings had told him that he would know when the right one came along. Some secret door to his heart would swing open and she would step inside and fill all the empty places.

  It had sounded like a lot of romantic crap to him and he had said so on more than one occasion. Now he was beginning to think they might have been right.

  "You'll see," Marie had said to him a few years ago over pizza and a bottle of Bolla. "When you least expect it, she'll show up and you'll be a goner."

  Marie had the head of a reporter and the heart of a romantic novelist. She believed in love at first sight and happy endings, and while her own marriage was filled with the stuff of daily life – diapers and deadlines and bills to pay -- there was no denying she was happy.

  He felt like his best self around Annie. When she looked at him, he wanted to try harder, do more, be the man she believed him to be, and the only way he could do that was to push her away.

  "Are you going to stand there all night," Annie said, "or do you want to see what I'm doing."

  "How'd you know I was there?"

  She threw him a glance over her left shoulder. "Max's tail started thumping so I figured you were close by."

  He picked his way through the stacks of boxes to where she sat by the window. "What're you working on?"

  "I'm not sure," she said. "Maybe something for the Museum." She laughed nervously. "Or maybe something for the circular file."

  He held out his hand. "Show me."

  "I don't think this is such a good idea after all," she said, then handed over the sketch pad.

  What he saw took his breath away. His younger self looked up at hi
m from the page. He saw loneliness in his eyes and fear and strength of character he wasn't sure he had ever possessed. His brothers and sisters surrounded him and somehow, through what magic he couldn't say, Annie had managed to capture bits and pieces of each one of them.

  "They're just preliminary sketches," she said. "I'm trying to block out positions . . . " She saw the figures carved from maple that would grow rough and weathered with time.

  "Warren was right," he said when he could find his voice again. "You're gifted."

  "You're partial."

  "Not in this. You've never met my brothers and sisters but here they are on the page."

  She blushed deep pink with pleasure. "You told me about them and I improvised the rest."

  "This is what you should be doing, not arranging flowers."

  "Believe me, every bit of my training comes into play at the flower shop."

  "You know what I'm saying."

  "Pretty pictures don't keep a roof over your head," she said simply. "I had to find a way to make a living."

  "Warren said your husband was a teacher. Didn't he –"

  She shook her head. "Big house, big mortgage. We were your typical two-income family, over-extended to the max."

  Now it was beginning to make sense to him. The move to the tiny house by the water. The empty rooms. The beat up truck. She was digging out from under the same American dream he had sold to others at Mason, Marx, and Daniels.

  #