He was right. Unconsciously, I began sliding my fingers lightly up and down my arms, brushing away imaginary germs.
“It’s surprising,” he went on, “how little the essentials have changed. I suppose there will always be plagues.” He smiled, suddenly, and extended his arm to me. “Shall we go?”
“You remembered something,” I pointed out, slipping my arm into his. “You remembered being inoculated.”
“Ah, yes. So I did. Perhaps in time I shall remember everything.”
There was, I thought, an odd touch of irony in his voice.
*****
No one would have guessed, watching us at dinner, that one of us came from a different time and place. The Colonel ordered for us in typical take-charge male fashion and was so convincing the waitress assumed the credit card was his. When she returned it with its receipt on her little black tray, he casually figured in the tip before pushing it across the table for me to sign.
It pleased me, how well we carried it off, and I knew that by the time we returned to Fredericksburg the following Sunday, the Colonel would be as ready as he’d ever be to face the twenty-first century. We still had to come up with a cover story for him, of course, and somewhere we’d need to obtain papers and IDs, but we’d cross that bridge when we came it. We’d also need to decide what and how much to tell Lila. After all, the Colonel would be her houseguest, not mine (since I no longer had any place of my own to stay) — but that was another issue that would resolve itself in time.
We left the restaurant and drove home along the narrow beach road, trapped for several miles between a slow-going Ford Explorer in front (too large for me to see around to pass) and a small, generic car following too close behind.
“Damn,” I muttered.
“If you’re going to swear, Mrs. Finlay, why do it so anemically? Try something more robust like, damn it all to bloody hell, perhaps, or blast your thieving eyes, or—
“Shit,” I said, fuming at the Ford.
“Or that, I suppose. What it lacks in creative bluster it makes up for in sheer vulgarity. What are we cursing at, by the way?”
“The jerk in front of us who’s going ten miles below the speed limit. And the idiot in back of us who’s tailgating me.”
“Thwarted by a plodder. And that will put us home perhaps five minutes behind hand. You would do better to emulate my own infinite patience with such petty annoyances.”
I rolled my eyes. “You aren’t serious,” I said.
“Patience,” he intoned, “is a virtue you’d do well to learn.”
He was trying to amuse me, and it worked. But at the first likely opening, I hit the gas pedal, shot around the Explorer, and exceeded the speed limit the rest of the way home.
I like driving fast on open roads, and I pulled up the drive feeling like one of the Andrettis or maybe Janet Guthrie. The Colonel, too, seemed in better spirits than he had all day. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of remarking on it as soon as we entered the house.
Instantly, his manner became guarded. “I was…tired,” he said. “Sometimes the scope of our undertaking seems rather daunting.”
“Yes, it does,” I agreed. “But that’s not what was bothering you today.”
“Forgive me, Mrs. Finlay. I beg to differ with you—”
“You’ve remembered something.”
“Of course I did. I remembered the cow pox thing.”
“No, something else,” I persisted. “It was important, what you remembered.”
“It was private,” he shot back.
I flushed. He was absolutely right, of course. I could not imagine why I thought his memories belonged to me as well. “Forgive me,” I murmured. “I was prying.”
“That’s true,” he conceded coolly. “You were.”
I was torn between embarrassment and anger, and searching for an appropriately cutting reply, when suddenly the phone rang. It was nearly midnight, and late night calls are rarely good news. This one, as it turned out, was no exception.
“Where the hell have you been?” Cameron’s voice shot through the receiver. “I’ve tried all goddamn night to reach you.”
“Two phone calls in less than a week. Don’t tell me you were worried.”
“No, Kathy, I wasn’t worried. Actually, I could give a good goddamn where you are—”
“Is there a point to this call, Cameron?”
“I need you to get the hell home.”
Suddenly, a trickle of dread slid down my spine. “Has something happened, Cameron? Are the kids—”
“I have no idea how the kids are, damnit. That’s your job, and the last time I checked you had dumped it on your mother.”
There were a couple of obvious replies to this, but I passed on them. “Then why are you calling?”
“You remember that dinner party? The one we’re supposed to go to next weekend?”
“What dinner party?”
“The chief of staff’s. Jesus, how could you forget a thing like that?”
“So that’s what this is all about,” I said, pouncing. “You want me home to play Stepford wife while you—”
“The chief’s retiring, Kathy. You know him. Your mother knows him, and you need to be there. Everyone who matters in this town will be there—”
“You need me for an image-building gig.”
“That’s exactly right. Look at it as payment for all those credit cards you’ve been running up the last few months.”
Anger shot through me like pain. I slammed down the phone and began pacing around the kitchen, throwing stray dishes into the dishwasher.
“You’re upset.”
I turned my head and saw the Colonel leaning casually against the far side of the kitchen counter, his arms folded negligently across his chest.
“I am not upset,” I told him, shutting the dishwasher door with a little more force than necessary.
“I beg to disagree. In fact, I would say you’re rather clearly angry.”
I snatched up a tea towel and began wiping down the counter tops. “I am not angry,” I snapped, giving an excellent impression of an angry person.
“Are you quite sure of that, Mrs. Finlay?”
I threw the towel into the sink. “That was Cameron on the phone, not that it’s any of your business. Cameron often leaves me somewhat…annoyed. Not angry, just annoyed,” I said, dicing up my words like Chinese vegetables. “Cameron’s not worth my anger.”
“Maybe not, but you’re angry with him anyway, deny it though you may. And you’re angry with your mother, too — perhaps angrier than you are with anyone else. Even me, at the moment.”
Somewhere during this speech I came around from my side of the counter to his, maybe because I figured it would be easier to get my hands around his throat. He was right: I was angry. I hadn’t allowed myself to be angry in years. The fact that I was and that he knew it made me even madder.
“You’re not Sigmund freaking Freud, Colonel Upton—”
“Ah yes, Sigmund Freud, father of modern psychology, born…oh hell, help me with the dates—”
“Drop it,” I told him sharply. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I have more of an idea than you think. For example, this divorce you want. You have no intention of going through with it, however much you may talk about it. You’re afraid of being like your mother, the much-divorced Lila. And that’s real reason you’re angry with her.”
“How dare you,” I seethed. “You have no right to say anything to me!”
“Perhaps not,” he conceded quietly. “But you’re lying if you tell me you’re not angry. Bloody hell, you’re lying to yourself: the worst kind of lie, the worst kind of liar—”
My hand shot up, palm open, but he grabbed my wrist and spun me around, jerking my back against his chest, his arm tight around me, holding me immobile. For a long second I stood quietly, inviting him to release me. When he didn’t, I raised my right foot and kicked backward, hitting his shin with my
heel. There was force in the blow. I know it must have hurt him; it hurt me.
But as far as I could tell, he didn’t flinch. He simply brought me up harder against him, lifting me off my feet.
“Don’t!” he said harshly. I could feel his breath against my ear. The man had commanded soldiers. He knew how to get someone’s attention. Besides, this wasn’t getting me anywhere.
“All right,” I conceded, loathing him. “As much as this must thrill you, you can let me go now.”
He released me so suddenly I almost fell. “Tell me, Colonel,” I snapped, grabbing at the counter for balance, “what makes you think you know anything at all—” I broke off, my eyes on his face. It was washed in loss, pain and guilt.
“Because I’ve been angry at everyone, all my life,” he said simply, guessing my question. “Except for Anne. And oddly, except for you.”
It was the memory I had been so hot to know about all day. But now I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to feel for him. I didn’t want to care so much. I wanted to be mad at him, and he was making that difficult for me to do.
“No,” I said suddenly, rushing past him for the door. “You were right the first time. I have no right to know—”
I clattered across the deck on spiked heeled sandals, and flounced down the stairs. On the third step I sat down to pull my shoes off. I heard the Colonel’s footfall on the deck behind me.
“Mrs. Finlay—”
“I’m going for a walk.”
“Is that a good idea? By yourself at night?”
“This is Avon, Colonel,” I pointed out. “It isn’t your London with thieves and cut throats who’d kill you for a farthing.”
“True. Nor is it your capitol city with thieves and cut throats who’d kill you for a quarter. But Avon or not, someone may have slipped in here the other night—”
“I’ll be perfectly safe,” I snapped, coming to my feet.
“Are you quite sure?”
“Quite.” In a swift, unexpected movement, I shot first one and then the other sandal at him, and noticed with satisfaction that he had to scramble to make the catch. Then I turned and marched swiftly down the beach.
Behind me, I was almost sure I heard the Colonel call my name. My first name. My real name.
Kathleen.
In Deep
Chapter 26
I can cover a lot of ground when I walk. I’ve got long legs and strong lungs and when I was in high school I ran track. I still run — or I least I did until I began living in my car during my months-long flight from Cameron and my marriage — so I was able (after throwing my sandals at the Colonel) to put a fair amount of distance between the cottage and myself in a relatively short amount of time.
Walking is therapeutic. Even when I’m pushing myself at a good clip, I can evaluate and solve all the world’s problems within an easy mile or two. So I really hadn’t gotten very far along the beach before I came to realize (or, more accurately, admit) that yes, I was angry, and that (surprisingly) it had felt good. People had spent a lifetime controlling me — Lila, Mae-Mae, Cameron — and I suppose on some level I was afraid that if I got angry, they’d leave me. I had to be a very good girl to keep people in my life.
But the deal was, Cameron had left me emotionally long ago and Lila, overcome by “spells,” left me time and again. Even my father packed his bags and left me, never making any attempt, in the brief years between his divorce from Lila and his death-by-car, to see me. Only Mae-Mae was a constant, but growing up I guarded against doing something that would drive her away as well.
So I never got mad. And when I finally did I made the Colonel a target for my anger. I could get mad at him even when I couldn’t get mad at the others. I could get mad at him because I trusted him. And I wasn’t sure why I did.
Lila’s cottage is at the south end of Avon where houses are nestled thinly among the dunes. You don’t have to walk far before you run out of houses and find yourself on a deserted stretch of beach. Not that it’s inaccessible. There are pull-over spots along the road with pathways through the dunes to the beach, some of them paved with oyster shells and wide enough to accommodate, according to the signs, “authorized vehicles only.” In the evening people sometimes park their cars and walk out to the beach, occasionally building campfires and hauling out coolers of beer. I’m pretty sure both activities are illegal, but the police can rarely see campfires and beer cans from the road, and to my knowledge Dare County employs no Dunes Police.
Anyway, I’ve seen beer-drinking pyromaniacs on the beaches for years, and they’ve always seemed pretty harmless to me. As a matter of fact, I actually participated in similar activities during college, so I really didn’t pay much attention when I passed a group gathered around a small campfire as I headed south along the beach. I walked on for another half mile or more, absorbed in self-examination, wondering if the Colonel was right, that I was afraid of running through marriages like a roll of paper towels. Eventually, I turned back and headed home, feeling unusually straight-in-the-head, almost lighthearted. I knew I owed the Colonel an apology.
When I turned back I could see the campfire some distance up the beach. The fire seemed a lot bigger than it had when I first passed it, as if someone had been feeding it a steady supply of driftwood. A little further on, I heard voices — loud voices, with a good deal of whooping laughter. The closer I got the bigger the crowd seemed. I didn’t remember that many people when I first passed by.
If I had any idea what was going to happen, I would have cut up through the dunes before anyone saw me and walked home along the road. But even with the fire and the noise and the additional people, I wasn’t worried. That is, until I got close enough to see that there weren’t any women in the crowd.
Of course, by then it was too late. Not only had I seen them, but they had seen me, and a thin phalanx of revelers snaked out to intercept me while I was still some yards south of their bonfire.
“How ya doin’, Doll?”
I acknowledged the group with a small lift of my fingers and kept to my stride. I was close enough to the water’s edge that the sand was damp and smooth and the wash from an occasional wave raced across my feet.
“You by yourself, Sugar?” the same voice queried. This must be the gifted and talented member of the group. He talked. The others mostly made animal noises.
I tired to place them, figuring they were too old for high school students and too stupid for college boys, although there are a lot of stupid college kids in the world. Meanwhile, I looked straight ahead and kept on walking.
“Whoa, lady! You stuck up or what?”
Don’t say a word, I told myself. Keep walking and keep your mouth shut.
It was good advice, but unfortunately, it didn’t work. Before I got three paces further, a hand shot out and grabbed my arm. When I tried to fling it away, it jerked me to a dead stop.
Gee, Kathy Lee, this isn’t looking too good. I glanced at the person connected to the hand and saw that he was one of the guys making animal noises.
“Hey, when I talk to you, you’re supposed to answer.”
This was from the first guy, the one with rudimentary verbal skills.
I looked at him, then jerked my head toward the guy who held my arm. “Tell your friend to let me go,” I told him.
“Hey, that doesn’t sound very friendly.”
It wasn’t meant to be. I stood silently for a moment, waiting for some give in the situation. It came when the guy who held me shifted his grasp. I made a sudden and violent jerk, surprising my bodyguard and freeing my arm. And then I bolted.
I took them all off guard and got a good way up the beach before someone stepped out of the shadows and grabbed me, spinning me around so that I was facing my pursuers. I heard my dress rip, heard laughter, and then, from behind me, heard a calm and authoritative voice say: “Unhand the lady.”
No one had seen him coming. At his voice, heads swiveled, and a heavy silence fell. Then someone, mimicking a
British accent, repeated unhand the lady — and snickered.
Suddenly, my hosts began to close ranks, forming a semi-circle around the Colonel. I watched him (rather desperately), looking for a signal, some form of subtle (but doubtless dramatic) instruction, and saw instead a brief, probably unconscious movement of his right hand toward his left hip. A first-rate horseman, a fair swordsman and, truth be told, a poor shot, I remembered him telling me once.
“I said, unhand the lady,” the Colonel repeated evenly.
This pissed off the guy who was holding on to me. He tossed me unceremoniously aside, stepped forward, and swung. The Colonel seemed to step into it, ducked, and brought his fist up into the man’s jaw. Shuffling broke out in the crowd and somebody bumped me. The bonfire was a good way off and there wasn’t much moonlight, but I saw the Colonel drive his fist into an unidentified stomach with impressive results.
For a split second no one moved, and then the crowd seemed to coil into an unpleasant forward surge, leaving me in its wake. In the background I tried frantically to think of a diversion, but all I came up with was hey! look behind you! — which, come to think of it, might have actually worked with these guys. But before anyone did anything, a spotlight hit us with staggering brilliance. Instantly, all movement stopped, save for a dozen arms that immediately rose up to shield eyes. We stood blinded and in a state of suspended animation, when a voice boomed out (a bit unnecessarily, I thought, considering the tableau): Freeze!
It was the cavalry.
*****
Well, actually, it was two Dare County sheriff’s deputies who had seen a suspicious number of cars piled into a pull-off spot along the road, and no doubt instantly thought of bonfires and beer cans. Fortunately, they were in a four-wheel drive authorized vehicle, which meant they could charge their way to the crest of the dunes without either breaking the law or getting stuck in the sand. This gave them the element of surprise, allowed them to blind us with their spotlight, and permitted them to capture a number of drunk and disorderlies in one fell swoop.
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