Off Season

by Jean Stone

  “I’ll pick her up at the airport. What time?”

  “Four o’clock.” If Amy picked up Jill, Ben would not have to leave the house. He would not have to face his wife until … later. He felt relief in that.

  “Great,” Amy said, heading from the room. Then she stopped and turned. “Hey, Ben? What are you doing in here anyway? Why are you standing in the half-dark?”

  She was right. The room had grown dark. He glanced at his watch. The hands pointed to nearly seven. Had he been standing there that long?

  “I, ah, I just came in to look outside. I thought I heard a car door.” He snapped on the tall floor lamp that stood beside the chair.

  “Are you going out tonight?” she asked.

  Out? As in, among people? He blinked. “No. What about you? Are you working?” His voice sounded surprisingly level, normal, as if he were the same man who had seen her yesterday.

  Yesterday?

  With Amy’s teenage coming-and-going schedule, she must not have realized he’d not been home last night, that he’d been sitting in a jail cell instead of sleeping in his bed.

  “I’m off work tonight,” she chattered. “I thought I’d drive to the Costume Shack in Oak Bluffs to get some ideas for the party. There’s also a place I want to look at …” Her voice trailed off the way it always did when there was something she wanted to ask but was too hesitant. Ben had learned a lot about Jill’s daughter in three short years, almost as much as if she were his own.

  Oh, God, he wondered. Will anyone think I’ve molested her, too?

  He tried to loosen his collar, but the top button was already unbuttoned. “What kind of a place?”

  “I’m eighteen. I want my own place. There are so many winter rentals.…” It was not the first time she’d mentioned flying from the nest.

  “What do you think your mother will say?”

  Amy groaned. “I want to grow up, Ben. But Mom will never let me.”

  She, of course, was right. The last time she’d hinted at independence, Jill had responded by saying perhaps when Amy turned twenty-five. Or forty.

  “It’s really not fair. I have some money saved. I can pay most of my own way. If I were in college, it would cost way more.”

  “I think your mother was hoping you’d change your mind and do just that.”

  “Go to college? God. I only want a winter rental.”

  “Did you ever hear the saying ‘You can’t go home again’?”

  Amy rolled her eyes. “That’s dumb. Besides, Mom came home again. She came back here.”

  Ben did not mention that Jill had waited until both her parents were dead to return to the Vineyard.

  “And anyway,” Amy continued, “I think you and Mom deserve some privacy.”

  Privacy? Right now the thought of being alone with Jill made him uneasy, a feeling he never thought he’d feel, not about her, not about his wife.

  “Nice try,” he said with a laugh. “But we both want you here, Amy.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not like she’s ever around to see either one of us, is it?”

  Standing up, he rubbed his chin. “I’ll tell you what, kiddo. I’ll go with you to the Bluffs to look at the place. No promises. But if I think it’s decent, I’ll put in a good word for you with my significant other.”

  She grabbed her jacket and had it buttoned before Ben remembered he had planned to never leave the house again. Nothing like the distraction of a family to save you from yourself, he thought, putting on his denim coat and following her out the door.

  Distraction, of course, only lasted so long: long enough for Ben to check out the pink and green gingerbread cottage and decide it was too drafty and would cost Amy a fortune in oil heat; long enough for him to try and convince her that his objection truly was to the heat and not to her moving out; long enough to kill a few hours before it was time for bed.

  Distraction, however, had not done much to help him sleep, which was why now, at five A.M., he was sitting on the watchful cliffs of Gay Head, wishing that Noepe would be here meditating.

  Noepe had been Ben’s friend, his best friend, if men could or would admit to having such a thing, to needing such a thing. The old Indian had guided Ben through Louise’s cancer; through her chemotherapy, through her death. He had been there, once again, when Kyle died, when Ben had lost his hopes, his dreams, his strength.

  For years, he and Noepe had met frequently at dawn out there on the cliffs. Sometimes they conversed. Sometimes they were silent, together, yet each alone amid the gentle beauty of the morning.

  It was that unassuming companionship combined with Noepe’s ancient tribal wisdom that Ben had revered. And it was Noepe himself: the Wampanoag tribesman who slid with ease between his deep, ancestral heritage and his job as an accountant; who glided between the past and present on quiet moccasins.

  But Noepe was dead.

  He’d caught pneumonia two years ago; he’d moved on to the next life as easily as he’d traversed the one he had on earth. And Ben had been faced with yet another loss, another grief to process.

  So there was no one Ben could tell. No one with whom he could share this atrocity; no one whom he trusted, who would not be judgmental, who would not be hurt. Noepe was the only one who would have been fair to Ben. For Noepe had nothing at stake.

  “No one knows,” Rick had tried to convince Ben while they were waiting for the arraignment.

  Sure. No one but Hugh Talbot and the woman judge and a couple of other cops and the guard and the court reporter and the D.A. and John, Ben’s son-in-law, and Rick, and, well, Ashenbach. And Mindy.

  No one, really, only them.

  He wanted to scream.

  Instead, he tipped his face up to the awakening sky and listened to the air, hoping to hear Noepe’s wisdom float to him on the wind.

  He heard a gull or two and the surf far below. He did not hear his friend.

  “Goddammit,” Ben said aloud, then dropped his chin to his chest. “How the hell am I supposed to fight this? What am I supposed to do?” The morning air chilled his bones. He pulled his jacket closer against him. And how, he added silently, am I supposed to tell Jill?

  But on the wind there came no answer, for even his friend Noepe could not help Ben now.

  Jill couldn’t wait to get home. Two and a half weeks of living out of a suitcase, of sleeping on hotel sheets and drinking restaurant coffee had definitely run its course.

  Once she had enjoyed life on the road; she had found excitement in unpredictability. But that had been before she’d found a real home, a real life. That had been before Ben—the biggest reason she knew she should say “No, thanks” to Addie Becker, and “I’ll continue to struggle somehow on my own.”

  From her seat in yet another concourse at yet another gate, this one at Logan Airport, Jill tuned out the sounds of people in motion around her. As she stared out the window, her thoughts drifted to Christopher. Over the past few years she’d deftly avoided Good Night, USA—except once when she was on assignment in Kennebunkport. Alone in her hotel room, she’d double-locked the door so no one would catch her, as if looking in on an old lover were a criminal offense.

  She’d poised herself on the edge of the bed with the remote, then boldly selected the channel.

  The first face she’d seen had been, not her ex-fiancé’s, but Lizette’s.

  Lizette the blonde. Lizette the beautiful. And one of the few women in whose presence Jill felt immensely less than, an unsophisticated New England frump beside a sleek California girl-star.

  She’d had to admit that Lizette looked good next to Christopher, who had apparently not skipped a career beat since Jill had left him for Ben. She doubted if he’d skipped any other beats, either.

  For fifteen minutes of the half-hour show, Jill had watched and wondered about what could have been. Then she’d come to her senses and clicked the program off.

  Gazing around the terminal now, past the bank of monitors that heralded comings and goings, Jill looked
at the unknowing faces of unknown travelers. Many of them might have recognized her now, if she had moved up instead of out. But life was about much more than fame, and the days and the nights—at least hers—had been far better without Christopher than they would have been with him.

  She wondered if he had been sleeping with Lizette, and how he would react to Addie’s asinine idea—for surely the idea had been Addie’s. Addie, after all, had set the course; she had once blazed Jill’s personal trail to become the Barbara Walters of the next generation. But that was then and this was now and it was simply out of the question. Jill would make it on her own, or she would not make it at all.

  Then Ben would never have to be jealous.

  And she would never be lured by what might have been.

  She zipped her bag and looked up at the wall clock: fifty minutes remained until her connection to the Vineyard. She decided to find a cup of coffee. It would certainly be more productive and enjoyable than sitting and thinking about … them.

  Crossing the walkway to the Starbucks concession, Jill felt a light touch on her arm.

  “Excuse me,” an elderly woman said. “Aren’t you Jill McPhearson?”

  Jill felt both awkward and pleased. “Yes,” she replied with a smile.

  “Oh, dear, we miss you on television,” the woman continued. “Is it true you’re battling breast cancer? Such a hideous disease, dear, but you do look wonderful—”

  Jill frowned. “No,” she said, “I don’t know where you heard that, but I do not have breast cancer.”

  The old woman grinned and patted her arm. “I understand it’s something you don’t talk about to strangers. But you do look wonderful, dear. Take courage in that.”

  “But—” Jill began to protest as the woman turned and bustled down the concourse, a canvas tote bag slapping her thick hip. “But I don’t have breast cancer,” Jill murmured. I am married again, she wanted to add. This time to a wonderful man.

  But as the old woman merged into the crowd, Jill realized that, of course, there would have been rumors about why she had left: she could not even discount the possibility that Addie had planted them. Realistically, such rumors might have been easy to believe. After all, why else would she have walked away from all that glamour and success and happily-ever-after nonsense?

  She’d walked away because it had turned out to have no more substance than an empty scallop shell on a Vineyard beach, picked clean of its heart by a scavenging seagull. It was an empty shell and nothing more.

  Listening to an announcement for another departure and another arrival, Jill decided the first thing she’d do when she got home was call Addie and decline, before there was any more time wasted on if onlys and what ifs.

  “Where’s Ben?” Jill asked her daughter, who had not had burgundy-colored hair the last time Jill had seen her but definitely did now. She smiled quickly at the thought that burgundy hair and the tiny heart tattoo above her daughter’s ankle once would have seemed earth-shatteringly rebellious.

  “He’s at the museum, I guess,” Amy replied, kissing her mother’s cheek and helping carry the suitcases without being asked. “I left early this morning. I told him last night that I’d pick you up.”

  Once Jill would have suspected that meant Amy had an agenda. Now she expected it and it didn’t matter: Jill no longer lived in a constant state of being braced, waiting for that proverbial shoe—or in Amy’s case, platform sandal—to drop. Since she’d found that once-elusive inner peace, things like agendas and shoes and heart tattoos no longer mattered.

  Still, she thought as they went out to the car and loaded up the trunk, it would be nice to go home, take a hot bath, and maybe go through the mail, before being accosted by the crisis of the week. She smiled, reminding herself that nothing was perfect, nothing at all.

  “What’s so important it couldn’t wait until tonight?” she asked, climbing into the passenger side, liking that sometimes it was fun for Amy to be in control, both at the wheel and in her own life.

  “Mom,” Amy cried with a fake whine as she started the engine, “I missed you, that’s all. And I couldn’t wait to tell you that we’re going to have the Halloween party at the tavern and Charlie’s put me in charge of the whole thing. Do you have any connections with Elvira, Mistress of the Dark?”

  Jill laughed. “Afraid not. Addie might, though. But it’s not quite a good enough reason for me to reconsider. Sorry.”

  Amy was silent a moment, as she steered the car out of the parking lot. “Addie Becker?” she asked quietly. “Wow. There’s a blast from the past.”

  Jill looked over at her daughter. “I know. I can’t believe she called me.”

  “God. What does she want?”

  Despite the burgundy hair, Amy was no longer the same restless, out-of-control teenager she had been back when Jill supposedly could have had it all, back when Addie Becker was in charge of their lives.

  “Don’t worry, honey,” Jill said. “I’m going to say ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ ”

  Amy was quiet again, almost remorseful, as if she were traveling not toward Edgartown but down the dark tunnel of time, back to a place she’d rather not go. “What are you saying no to?” Her curiosity apparently won the tug-of-war with her remorse.

  Jill told her of Addie’s request to fill in for Lizette for a month during ratings sweeps. “My guess is that the show needs a boost. Someone decided a reunion between Christopher and me would give them just that.”

  Amy wrinkled her nose. “If you’d stayed on the show and we’d moved to L.A., Mom, I’d probably be dead. I probably would have gotten into drugs. And sex. Oh, God,” she added with a shudder, “my experience with Kyle would probably have seemed tame.”

  Though Jill knew it was healthy that Amy felt free to talk of the past—and Kyle—she had never quite forgotten the long-ago shock of walking in on her fourteen-year-old daughter having sex with that boy. It was a sordid, piercing picture that the dusting of time had not yet erased.

  “Well, it’s not going to happen. And don’t mention it to Ben, okay? He doesn’t know.”

  “Not to worry,” Amy said. “But does this mean you have no connections for the Halloween party?”

  Jill smiled. As much as she wished Amy had chosen to go to college, it was good to have at least one of her children around to keep life in perspective. “Was that the real reason you picked me up? To see if I could procure the Mistress of the Dark?”

  “No. I wanted to ask you if I can take a winter rental.”

  Jill reminded herself that a minute ago she’d been eager to get home. Before she could say a word, Amy quickly continued.

  “I’m eighteen, Mom. It’s time I started learning how to take care of myself. Before you say no, remember that this is an island. It’s not Boston or L.A. I just want a little independence practically in your backyard. I’ve saved some money and can almost pay for everything myself. I wouldn’t need much financial help, and the way I figure it, if I’d gone away to college, it would have cost a whole lot more.”

  All that said, Amy planted both hands on the wheel and fixed her eyes on the road in responsible-driver posture.

  Responsible, but still young.

  “Not yet, honey,” Jill said firmly. She sensed Amy’s grip tighten on the wheel. Then she closed her eyes and wished they’d get home where Ben would restore the peace she’d just felt slide away.

  • • •

  Jill had spent twenty-five years living off-island and had traveled around the world, but she’d come to learn that, teenagers aside, there truly was “no place like home.” And there was no more comfortable place to eat a meal than at the 1802 Tavern in Edgartown, where she’d grown up waiting for her father to close up for the night.

  Though George Randall had been dead many years, the familiar aromas of clam chowder and dark beer still filled the restaurant, the hand-hewn ceiling beams and whaling prints on the stucco walls still sculpted the interior, and the sounds of thick-Boston-accented voices
like Rita’s and Charlie’s told her that she still belonged there, then, now, and forever.

  She had thought Ben had understood all that, but tonight he’d said he didn’t want to go out. Oddly, she’d found him home when she and Amy arrived: it was only four-thirty in the afternoon, a time when Ben would usually be at the museum.

  “I wanted to be here to meet you,” he’d said.

  She delayed phoning Addie because he suggested they go up to the widow’s walk to the Jacuzzi.

  She’d thought that they’d make love, but they did not.

  With uncharacteristic remoteness, he’d answered her questions about life while she’d been away: about the museum, about the Sea Grove project, about Amy. Then she told him about Addie and Christopher and Good Night, USA. She could not tell if he was surprised that the offer had been made, or if he was pleased with her decision to say no.

  She could not tell, because he seemed so distant. Oh sure, he’d responded; he’d acknowledged her and made appropriate comments once or twice. But he was not himself, and they had not made love.

  She had no idea why.

  And when he’d finally acquiesced to go out, he acted like a stranger, with a familiar face but a phony smile.

  “My table tonight,” Rita said as she approached, pad in hand and pencil tucked in the red curls over her ear. “I wouldn’t mind, but your daughter says you’re a lousy tipper.” It might have been funny, but Rita had said the words mechanically, as if it were a stock waitress joke. Besides, Rita looked pasty and forlorn and in not very good humor.

  “Are you okay?” Jill asked her longtime best friend, who replied with a pause, then a lifeless nod. Jill fiddled with the menu. “Amy’s upset with me,” she continued. “She wants to move out. I say she’s too young.”

  “Yeah,” Rita managed to say. “She told me. She said, ‘As usual, Mom won’t let me breathe.’ ”

  Whether it was Amy’s comment or Rita’s bluntness in relaying it, Jill didn’t know, but something caused anger to rise up in her. Maybe it seemed misplaced that Amy had confided in Rita, Jill’s best friend, not Amy’s. “How did you respond?” the mother of the nonbreathing daughter asked.