Before and Again

by Barbara Delinsky

  Five minutes into imagining the unpleasant scenarios that might result from that, I grew antsy and glanced at my watch. Joyce was a resource, which made her good at her job at the Spa but required being in the know. She might be talking with the farm’s owner, who typically worked the store on Sundays, about whether his cows had started to calve, what he knew about a new restaurant opening in Devon, or where he was filling his insulin prescriptions. They might talk for fifteen minutes. They might talk for thirty minutes.

  Climbing from the car, I wandered toward the barn. Other than a handful of chickens pecking at the mud, the yard was empty. I braced my arms on the pen rail and inhaled. Beyond the familiar scent of moist earth, I smelled the musk of cattle, the sweetness of hay, the tang of manure. As a group, they worked. Bundled together, they sang of life and growth. I leaned back against the rail, closed my eyes, and took another deep breath.

  When I opened my eyes again, I gasped. Edward was walking from the store toward the Jeep in the lot. Despite the mud on its side, the Jeep looked new, and didn’t that spring another memory? He had owned a Wrangler when we first met. He had loved that Wrangler. It remained his dream car before our lifestyle demanded something more.

  This Wrangler might be a rental—and wouldn’t that be great, if he returned it to the Hertz stand at the airport before flying back home?

  But who was I kidding? People from Boston—or Hartford or New York—didn’t fly here. They drove. They didn’t work at the Inn. They didn’t buy a house or receive boxes of bedding. Add that muddy Jeep, the barn jacket and jeans, and the red scarf that hung on either side of his collar? Edward Cooper looked to be settling in.

  One arm held a large brown sack. When he reached the Jeep, he put it inside and, straightening, raised a hand to the vehicle’s roof. He took a breath, like I had done seconds before. He was smelling the same things I had. All were innocent, but suddenly not so.

  * * *

  It was fall. We always came in fall. The first time, I was pregnant. The trip was a last-minute one, just an overnight, but our eyes had met in matching desperation, unspoken agreement that we needed a break. Our parents were driving us nuts. Mine were scandalized that I was pregnant before I was married. Terrified that a bump might show when I walked down the aisle, they had rushed to make arrangements at the church, and although I was in charge of the rest, they phoned multiple times a day asking whether I had called the photographer, the caterer, the florist, the priest. Since Edward was paying for the groom’s part himself, his parents should have just been along for the ride. But they were newly divorced, and neither one particularly wanted to see the other. His mother was trying to one-up his father by badgering Edward on where the rehearsal dinner should be held, what should be served, and who should give toasts. His father wanted to know what his mother was pushing so that he could push for the reverse.

  We chose a getaway in upstate New York that, having a late cancellation, gave us a bargain rate. We had our own luxury cabin, our own butler on call, our own masseuse. The farm was a mile from the resort. We had to pass it coming and going, and Edward hadn’t been eager to stop. He had grown up on a farm and, at that moment, didn’t want a reminder of his father. Then we saw fields of pumpkins and kale, a corn maze, and cars filled with kids. There were no cows in sight, not a one. So we stopped.

  That first year, we walked through the fields and bought a jug of cider at the farm store. The next year, with six-month-old Lily asleep in a BABYBJÖRN on Edward’s chest, we picked a peck of Macouns and bought another jug of cider. Lily was eighteen months the following year and wanted no part of a carrier. She sat still for a hayride, but otherwise ran wherever other children were running. At two-and-a-half, she was helping with the picking, and a year later, after declaring that she needed not one, not two, but three pumpkins so that we could carve a daddy, a mommy, and a little girl, she made her choices from high on Edward’s shoulders, one hand pointing out her choices, the other clutching his hair like it was the mane of a horse. By the time she was four-and-a-half, from the first pumpkin sighting at our supermarket, she was the one begging to visit the farm. We did it all that year—hayride, corn maze, apples, cider donuts—and it was so good.

  We never got there again.

  * * *

  I returned to the present with a pain in my chest. How a memory could simultaneously be beautiful and horrific, I didn’t know, but this one tore me apart.

  Thoughts are just thoughts, CALM said. Let them come and go.

  It was easier said than done. The pain in my chest remained, so I put a hand there to soothe it. The movement tipped him off. His head turned, gaze shifted, realization hit.

  He went still, which was only fair, since I couldn’t move, either. I didn’t know what he was thinking, whether he was back in the past of his own childhood or Lily’s, whether he felt happiness or angst, heard laughter or screams.

  As he looked at me, though, memory began to break apart. Here and now, dressed down but standing tall, looking older and tired, Edward remained striking.

  I don’t know what made one man my type and another not—why only Edward’s brand of tall and dark turned me on—why he had always done it when no other man could. I don’t know why my pulse raced at the sight of windblown brown hair or lean hips in jeans. I didn’t want to feel any pull at all. But there it was. I couldn’t look away.

  Then he hitched his chin, inviting me closer, and the spell broke. With a single shake of my head, I turned my back on him and faced the pen. In the next frantic breath, though, I spun back around. He had taken me off guard three times now, which was three times too many. I wanted to see where he was and know if he approached. He might have some new, mysterious, even vengeful purpose in Devon. But. Devon. Was. Mine.

  I was about to stalk forward and confront him, when Joyce entered my line of sight. Having emerged from the store, she was crossing the lot. Beside her was another sack-carrying man, clearly heading for his own vehicle. I heard bits of an exchange between the three—saw the swish of her hair as she turned from one to the other—and guessed from the levity of it that they had chatted inside.

  She peered into her car, straightened, and looked around. When she saw me, she waved me over. Naturally, she would want to introduce me to Edward—which was a total joke, I knew and felt a moment’s panic. Did I acknowledge him or not? Would he acknowledge me or not? It would be bad enough to say we’d known each other before Devon, but if we admitted we’d been married? In no time, someone would add my first name to his last name to Boston, and my secret would be out. It was everything I’d worked so hard—so hard—to escape.

  I was spared it when Edward said something to Joyce and then disappeared into the Wrangler. Seconds later, he backed out and headed off.

  My relief was shallow. I had dodged the bullet, but for how long? If he was going to be here for any length of time, in the role of Inn owner no less, the link between us would come out. Sometime, somewhere, somehow it would. Our having been married and both ending up here was the kind of coincidence people loved hearing. They would think words like sweet, touching, and charming, until they got to awkward and painful, and if they ever got to wanting revenge? There’d be all hell to pay, with me being the target.

  Oh yeah, Edward and I had to talk, but not with an audience around.

  “He was late for a meeting with Hank Monroe,” Joyce called as I neared the Subaru. Hank Monroe was the first name under Home Renovation in the Devon directory. I might have said he was a thief, if she weren’t still talking, her voice returning to normal the closer I got. “That’s our Ned Cooper,” she informed me with a bright smile, assuming I would tie the name with the Inn. “He bought the Barnstead place. Did you know?”

  “I heard,” I said, but she was already nodding into the next thought.

  “Extensive renovations that one needs. Apparently the guy has the money for it. Money is good, Maggie. You need to meet him.”

  “Money is not good,” I snapped and
quickly winced an apology for the sharpness, “and anyway, we’ve already met.” Neither statement was false, I thought as I slid into the car, but I was surprised that she didn’t hear my heart. It was thudding its way into my throat and on up to my brain. Or maybe what I felt were arrhythmic little bursts of anger. Life had been calm, quiet, and easy here, but no more. Try as I might to keep the past tucked away in its own little box, events of the past few days were poking tiny holes in the bottom and letting it leak.

  Joyce closed the door and buckled up. “I think he’s a little awkward meeting people who work at the resort, like he isn’t sure what kind of professional distance to keep.”

  If she thought that was why he hadn’t wanted to meet me, I was fine with it. “What’s his role?” I asked with just enough curiosity. “Isn’t he representing a group?”

  “I understood he was the group,” Joyce said and, starting the car, backed around.

  “Just him? Uh, no. That can’t be.” Edward didn’t have that kind of money. He didn’t have anywhere near that kind of money. “The last two owners were groups of investors.”

  “Uh-huh, and you see how well that worked,” Joyce remarked, cruising forward at last.

  “It did,” I argued. “Our name is more prominent than it ever was. We’re listed in the best of the best for nearly every category that applies.”

  “We’re losing money.”

  “Not losing,” I said, but the look Joyce shot me, hair swinging, when she slowed at the end of the drive said otherwise. “We are?”

  She turned onto the main road and accelerated. “Yup. Garrett let it slip when we were talking last week. Of course, it might have been sour grapes. He’s interviewing for other jobs.”

  With that, the issue took on a larger dimension. “I thought our jobs were safe. Weren’t we told that?”

  “We were. Garrett wasn’t. Apparently, Ned Cooper will be doing most of what Garrett does now.”

  “Ned.”

  “Cooper.”

  “His name is Edward,” I said without thinking, then barely breathed, but Joyce didn’t seem to have caught the slip. She kept her eyes on the road, relaxed hands on the wheel, and her expression benign.

  “Maybe on paper,” she said, “but he goes by Ned.”

  He never did, at least, not during the time I had known him. He had been Ned growing up, like I was Maggie growing up. But the sophisticated venture capitalist was always Edward.

  “Is this a game for him?” I asked in annoyance. Joyce shot me a surprised look. More gently, I explained, “You have to wonder why someone with that kind of money would want to take over as GM.”

  “Maybe for the same reason Jack Quillmer bought The Devon Times or Nina Evans became Town Manager. Maybe he struck out in another life and needed a change. Maybe he’s tired of the money thing and wants a new challenge.” She sighed. “Who knows if it’ll work out? At least he’s not changing what the Inn is best known for. But he is changing other things. He was just telling me; that’s why I was in there so long. He’s bringing in upgraded computers to replace the ones the government has, but mostly we’re switching to tablets. They’ll be here this week. He hired a team to set them up and teach us how to use them. The security system is state-of-the-art.”

  “On a tablet?”

  “That’s what he says.” She took a quick breath. “By the way, Elizabeth Rossi was in the farm store just now. She said Grace knows the journalist whose account was hacked.”

  I frowned at the road, trying to decide how best to handle Edward Cooper—and he was Edward, not Ned. It wouldn’t be so bad if he was buying the bookstore or the general store. But The Devon Inn and Spa were the town’s major draws.

  He had to have come here for a reason. I had no idea what it was.

  And Joyce seemed to be waiting for a response … to … Elizabeth Rossi … saying … that Grace knows the journalist whose account was hacked.

  “You told me that this morning,” I replied. The Feds may have seized the Spa computers, but its files were synced with iPads already belonging to the GM and Joyce. Once they heard the name Benjamin Zwick, they did a search. “Grace does his hot stones whenever he’s in the area.”

  “Beyond that.”

  We exchanged a glance. She, too, was remembering how Grace had left work today.

  “I told Elizabeth that I didn’t think it was true,” Joyce said, with her eyes on the road again. “I never saw them together. He always requests her when he calls for an appointment, but most of her repeats do.” She paused. The silence stretched as she waited. Finally, she said an uneasy, “Maggie?”

  She wanted me to deny that Grace had had an affair with Ben, but I couldn’t. “I don’t know.” I searched for something I might have missed, but all I could do was repeat, “I don’t know. But does that have to have anything to do with anything her son allegedly did?”

  Of course, it did. If you were looking for motive, resentment of a mother who was having an affair might work.

  * * *

  Joyce dropped me back at the Spa, pulling up close enough to my truck so that I was able to lock myself inside before the lone remaining reporter reached it. When he knocked on the window, I gave an angry headshake and motioned him off. As soon as he backed away, I gunned the engine, and left. My heart was in my throat until I wheeled out of the lot and modulated my speed, but it jumped right back there as soon as I passed under the covered bridge, turned south on the Blue, and heard a rustling right behind me—inside my truck. I was about to scream when the inimitable mess of sandy curls that was Chris Emory appeared between the seats.

  7

  “Jesus,” I breathed and, trembling, veered to the side of the road.

  “Don’t stop, no, no, no, do not stop, they’ll be on our tails for sure!” The words came in a rush, aimed back, then front, then back again, and his voice cracked every few syllables. Puberty had it wavering between man and boy, still not yet sure which way to go, and stress didn’t help. Between the press now and the arraignment tomorrow, he had to be terrified.

  “No one’s following,” I said. I had been checking since I left the Inn. There had only been that one reporter, likely a lowly leave-behind, since the Spa lot had largely cleared out. I assumed the big guns were in the center of town, but the road behind me remained dark.

  My heart slowed its racing enough for me to ask, “What are you doing here, Chris? And how did you get in?”

  His hand appeared. My spare key was in his palm.

  Had the situation been different, I might have laughed. The key. Of course. But in the seconds before it appeared, I had imagined him jimmying the lock, which didn’t bode well for his innocence on the computer-hacking score, given the high-tech security system in my truck.

  The key was the one Grace had forgotten to return when her car was being serviced and she borrowed my truck, which raised the issue of his taking it from her purse.

  But that wasn’t my worry. I had enough others. If Chris had been photographed entering or, worse, inside the truck, Michael Shanahan would be back.

  “You weren’t seen?” I asked. If he had been, media reinforcements would likely already be on the way. Hell, if I had been recognized, they might be. I looked in the rearview again, but all was dark. “How did you do it?”

  Moving under cover of darkness was one thing, but we had just turned the clocks forward, so it was still light. Okay, there would have been more cars in the lot an hour or two ago, meaning more cars to crouch between and hide behind. But there would have been more reporters, too.

  That said, I knew how cunning Chris could be. I had played hide-and-seek in the woods with him and, granted, he was eleven at the time, technically too old. But he had asked, and was totally into it, like he’d been waiting forever to play with someone.

  He was good in the woods. What he lacked in athleticism, he more than made up for in smarts. He moved stealthily and with purpose. I imagined him now, behind the Spa, watching for an opening from the cove
r of nearby trees, waiting for the moment when something else drew reporters like a shark to chum.

  “Hoodie,” Chris said.

  Hoodie. Of course. Like half the men leaving after a day of work at the Inn, the hardware store, or the highway department. Like half the boys heading home after a day of classes at Devon High.

  Hoodie. Right. The hood was down now, but he’d kept it up going in and out of the police station, the courthouse, and Jay’s office. And how did I know that? Since Michael kept tabs on the news, I had to keep tabs on what he saw. I had done it when I got home from Jessa’s last night. As tired as I was, I was too keyed up to sleep, so, resting my laptop on my midriff, I retrieved every article I could. I hadn’t seen myself in any more clips, but Chris was all over the place. Fortunately, his features hadn’t shown. And his hoodie was the same nondescript gray worn by all those other high school kids who wanted more to look cool than feel warm. Huddling into himself in those clips, he’d had the look of someone who was either frightened, guilty as hell, or freezing.

  When my thoughts reached the freezing part, I turned up the heat. The inside of the truck was cold, and he had been in it for God-knew how long, which raised an urgent issue. “Does Grace know you’re here?”

  “No. She’s out.”

  I didn’t want to ask out where—wondered if he knew—feared that if he had been hanging around the Inn for long, he might have seen her leaving the Spa with that guy.

  I grabbed my phone. The call went straight to voice mail, which meant that Chris was just starting to protest when I said a louder, “Hey, Grace, your son’s with me. I’m taking him to my place. You can pick him up on your way home.”

  I didn’t ask her to confirm it, didn’t want to wait for an answer that might be a while coming. She surprised me by texting I will within seconds, like she had her cell right there just in case, which restored my faith a little.