Snapshots

by Pamela Browning

  His arms full of firewood, Rick ignored the dog, but he couldn’t do the same with Trista, who stood watching him from the kitchen. “Poor baby,” she said to the dog. “I’d let you in if I could.”

  Rick ducked inside as a flash of lightning illuminated Trista’s disapproving face. An instantaneous roar of thunder followed, shaking the very floor and walls. “That dog could hide under the porch stairs until it’s over,” he said.

  “There are snakes there,” Trista pointed out. Years ago they’d witnessed a rat snake undulating out from under the stairs.

  Rick was halfway across the kitchen before he figured out that the dog had slipped inside. Whether her admittance was intentional on Trista’s part, he couldn’t fathom, and he certainly didn’t approve when the dog shook her wet coat, landing droplets all over the floor, chairs and table.

  “I’d better get a towel,” Trista said, though Rick wasn’t sure if she meant the towel for him or the dog. He wasn’t all that dry himself.

  As it happened, it was for the dog. Trista crouched on the floor, toweling the mangy animal vigorously and telling it reassuring things that Rick didn’t want to hear. Worse, the dog now sported a smug self-satisfied expression. Annoyed with both of them, Rick stomped into the living room and built the fire.

  While he was encouraging it to burn, Trista marched in carrying the dog and made a fuss about setting it down beside the couch. Then she began to delve through the photos in the shoe box, and after a few minutes, the dog curled up meekly at Trista’s feet. Rick, who was by now hunkered down on the hearth, figured he might as well go on ignoring this blatant disregard for his wishes since Trista was clearly determined not to let the dog go back outside. He tried to be angry with her, but the two of them together made such a cute picture that he really couldn’t. And the dog didn’t look so mangy now that she was dry.

  Trista was oblivious to his annoyance, or perhaps she was only pretending to be. “We can glue some of these loose pictures in the albums,” she suggested brightly, studying one of him and her on a borrowed tandem bike. “It would give us something to do until the rain lets up. Come on, we’ll spread everything out on the kitchen table.” She got up and headed toward the kitchen, the dog trailing after her and Rick bringing up the rear.

  When the album and pictures were arrayed on the tabletop, Trista stood back, hands on her hips, and regarded the dog with more than a little fondness. “If we can’t give you a real name, I’m going to call you Dog.” As if in answer to Trista’s comment, the dog flopped onto her stomach and pressed her snout against Trista’s foot, glaring up at Rick reproachfully.

  “How about if you sort these out?” Trista said when Rick sat down beside her.

  He began picking through the photos. Some of them he’d never seen; others were familiar. “Mom always told us that someday we’d be glad to have this record of our family life,” he said. “She wanted us to show our kids and grandkids how we grew up here at Sweetwater Cottage because someday they’ll be spending summers and vacations here just like we do.”

  Trista flipped over a page. “Oh my, here’s one of the day when we caught the baby alligator.” She held up a photo of the three of them displaying their prize catch on the back steps. The gator must have been all of ten inches long; they’d encountered it on a sandy bank in the marsh where it was basking in the sun. Martine had dropped a butterfly net over it and hauled it in, much to the dismay of Lilah Rose and Queen.

  “We insisted that your mother take our picture with our trophy,” Trista recalled.

  “We also released it soon afterward.”

  “I didn’t like the gator anymore after it snapped at me and hissed at Martine,” Trista said, but she was smiling as she added the picture to the stack to include in the album.

  “Here, this one goes in there,” he said, tossing it over to Trista. “Martine and your mom, lolling in the sun on the beach.”

  “That’s Mom and me,” corrected Trista. “I had the blue bathing suit, Martine the red.”

  Rick picked it up again. “I was sure that was Martine,” he said musingly.

  Trista bent closer. “Notice how my smile quirks a bit to the left in this picture? Martine’s quirks to the right.”

  These were traits that had been more noticeable when the twins were children. “Okay, if you say so,” he said. He stared across the table at Trista. If he squinted a bit, if he blurred the lines of her face, he would almost think she was Martine.

  “Rick?” she said, puzzled. “Is something wrong?”

  “Sometimes I look at you and see Martine.” Trista’s expression changed when he said it, but even so, he didn’t want to be less than honest with her about anything, ever.

  “I can’t change my features,” she said, sounding hurt. “Short of cosmetic surgery, that is.”

  “Don’t even think about it.” He regarded her evenly, thinking how beautiful she was, how different in mind and spirit from her twin. Now she didn’t resemble Martine at all. How could he have ever thought so? Anyone who was lucky enough to gaze deep into her eyes would see Trista’s soul shining from deep within along with her own unique brand of intelligence and wit.

  “This is hard for me, Rick,” she said slowly. She appeared unsure of herself, a rare occurrence.

  “In what way?” he asked, careful to keep his tone even.

  “A long time ago you assigned Martine and me to rightful places in your heart—Martine as wife, me as sister. Now it’s as if the earth has shifted, as if the tide rushed in and washed away everything that was familiar. I don’t have a clue about how I’m supposed to be.” Her tone was laced with frustration.

  “Maybe we have to realign and regroup,” he said.

  “Easy for you to say,” she answered, turning her eyes away. “This situation wasn’t of my making.”

  “Oh?” he replied softly. “Wasn’t it?”

  Her head jerked around. “What do you mean?”

  Now that the opportunity had presented itself, he wasn’t about to let it go. “Some things have been weighing on my mind lately.”

  She remained motionless, caught by surprise. His heart warmed to her; he couldn’t help it. Nor was there any reason not to speak of things that needed to be discussed if they were to move on from this point in their lives.

  “It threw me for a loop when you became engaged to Graham,” he said quietly, watching for her reaction.

  “I never knew that,” she said.

  “At that time, our senior year of college, I didn’t expect an engagement,” he told her. “I don’t think anyone did. We’d met Graham when you brought him home at Thanksgiving, sure, but—” He shrugged expressively. “Well, we just didn’t have any inkling that it was serious, I guess.”

  On the day he’d found out that Trista was planning to marry, he’d stopped by to visit her parents, not realizing that Trista had arrived home earlier from Furman. Graham had stayed behind in Greenville, and she was showing off her engagement ring to the neighbors, who had noticed her car in the driveway and dropped in to say hello. Through his shock, Rick had mumbled a few congratulatory words before excusing himself as quickly as possible.

  “I thought I loved Graham,” Trista said.

  Rick believed her, but he’d never considered the two of them well suited. “Your engagement changed everything. Martine believed that it was part of your campaign to become your own person after you went away to college,” he said.

  Trista looked stricken and as if she wanted to say something, but he didn’t let her. “No wonder Martine felt adrift. No wonder she came on to me when we both thought you’d chosen Graham and a life separate from ours.”

  She seemed shocked. “Martine came on to you? I thought it was the other way around.” He winced at the catch in her voice.

  He would never tell Trista how one night Martine had shown up unexpectedly at the apartment that he was renting with two of his frat brothers near the university. She’d brought a fifth of vodka, and they’d gotte
n very drunk, something they had never done together before. Their inhibitions dissolved by alcohol, their clothes magically discarded somewhere along the way, they had engaged in wildly passionate sex. Thinking back, it was probably not coincidence that they had both recently learned of Trista’s engagement.

  “She took the lead,” was all he said. “I was surprised.” After that night, Martine’s pursuit had been so relentless that he’d hardly known what hit him. In retrospect, he may have been bewitched by Martine’s resemblance to the woman who was forever lost to him. By the time Martine talked him into shopping for a diamond, a romance between the two of them had somehow begun to seem appropriate and marriage the logical result.

  “You loved her,” Trista said. “You said so.”

  “Like you with Graham, I thought I did at the time,” he said, at a loss to explain the breathless excitement, the mindlessness of those initial reckless couplings between him and Martine. The sex had blotted out the dissimilarities between them, but only at first.

  “It’s easy to be misled,” Trista said. “Easy to believe in something because you so desperately want something to believe in.”

  “You waited until my wedding day to break up with Graham,” he said, trying to keep the overtone of accusation out of his voice and failing utterly. “Why was that?”

  “Because I’d only recently figured out that he and I weren’t good partners. Because I realized that I didn’t love him. Because—”

  “But on my wedding day?” he said, interrupting.

  She stood, a frown bisecting her forehead. “Why not on your wedding day, Rick? What difference did it make when you and Martine were already promised? Had set the date? Were sleeping together, for Pete’s sake?”

  He fought back a hot choking anger at—what? At her? At himself? At Martine for teasing him into a marriage that should never have happened? “If you’d broken up with Graham at any time before the ceremony and I’d found out about it, I’d have called off my wedding immediately. Instead I learned you and he had split just before I took my place at the altar. Hal heard it from Curry Anne, who heard it from Martine on the way to the church.” He paused, giving her a chance to absorb all this. When he continued, it was in a softer voice, though the attendant emotion came through loud and clear.

  “I deluded myself for a long time, Trista, all through high school when I first began to think about you in a new way.” He waited for her to reply to this, but she only stared at him, her eyes enormous, the pupils dark. “I wouldn’t have married Martine if Graham was permanently out of the picture. I swear it.” His gaze burned holes through her, and she dropped her face to her hands. She didn’t raise her head for a long time. When she did, the blood had drained from her face.

  “Are you all right?” he asked curtly. He wanted to go to her, to touch her, but he couldn’t summon the nerve. It was enough to have said all those things, to get them off his chest.

  “I felt light-headed for a moment. Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize.” He wouldn’t. Since she’d arrived, every time the brink of deeper involvement seemed within reach, he’d stepped back abruptly as if afraid of something, and distance would be placed between them again. He had no intention of living like that anymore, at least where Trista was concerned.

  As she started past him, he could no longer keep his distance. He pulled her roughly toward him and would have crushed her lips with his, but she said sharply, “Don’t, Rick. Not now.”

  He released her, became aware that he’d been holding his breath and let it out. The enormity of the incredible things they’d said to each other swept over him, and he was afraid he’d driven her away for good. Something flickered behind Trista’s eyes. Anger? Recrimination? No, it was a more positive emotion, though he was at a loss to identify it.

  “Trista,” he said as she hurried past, but she didn’t acknowledge him. She continued past the dining room and across the living room. Her footsteps rang out sharply as she ran up the metal stairs to the Lighthouse.

  Outside, the rain had almost stopped, slowing to a trickle. Rick sank onto a kitchen chair and exhaled a long breath of exasperation. Sometimes he was sure that he had sparse communication skills where women were concerned.

  If he’d skipped the heavy stuff and kissed her early in the discussion, he would most likely not have to sleep alone tonight, which might have done more for their relationship than all the talk in the world. He pulled himself back from that idea, considering that premature sex with Martine had blinded him to reality for a long time, and he didn’t intend to repeat that mistake. It suddenly crossed his mind that maybe Trista wasn’t ready for where he hoped to take this, and maybe she never would be. His throat ached when he considered another lifetime spent without her, and he was suffused with longing.

  The dog—well, he supposed he could call her Dog now that Trista was already doing it—walked over to sniff his hand, probably angling for a snack. Rick thought about sending her outside but quickly changed his mind. He felt sorry for Dog in a way; he understood what it was like not to know where you belonged anymore.

  Besides, even if Trista had no intention of sleeping with him, Dog certainly would.

  The next morning, Trista had already left for her run when Rick woke up. His first inclination was to find her, since he knew she usually headed for the beachfront park, but after last night’s intensity, it might be better to keep things casual. Dog was gone, too, no doubt let out by Trista earlier.

  Somehow he felt the need to keep moving, so he wandered back to the bachelor quarters, where plain iron bunk beds covered with brightly colored chenille spreads lined the beadboard walls. A set of weights sat on the rag rug in the middle of the floor, and he hefted one of the smaller ones. He had once been in great shape but had allowed his fitness routine to lapse in the past couple of months. Soon he was working out and thinking that he’d have something to tell Trista when she got back.

  Afterward, while he waited for her to return, he tossed slices of bacon into the big old iron skillet, humming tunelessly through his teeth and casting expectant glances down the road every now and then. Trista jogged down the driveway as he was arranging the bacon on paper towels to drain. Dog galumphed alongside her, stopping patiently at the door when Trista came inside.

  He didn’t give Trista a chance to talk about last night. “Hey, you’ll never guess what I did this morning,” he said.

  As he might have predicted, she was slightly standoffish, unsure what to expect from him. Her hair was damp from running in the morning mist, and she wore no makeup. She looked healthy and impossibly young, almost as she had when they were teenagers.

  She went to the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of orange juice, keeping her back to him. “I can’t imagine what else you’ve been up to, but that bacon smells mighty good,” she said.

  “Guess,” he said.

  “Guess what?” She kept her expression blank.

  “What I did.”

  “Well, okay. You brushed your teeth, you shaved, and combed your hair.”

  “Good start. Go on.”

  “Got dressed. Decided you were hungry.”

  “And exercised,” he said triumphantly. “I found the old weights in the bachelor quarters and did an abbreviated military-fitness workout. I think I’ll be sore tomorrow.”

  “Well. I’m proud of you. I’m sure it’s only weeks till you have a perfect six-pack ab configuration.”

  “Maybe a couple of months. Let’s be fair.” He began to whisk eggs in a bowl.

  “Do I have time for a quick shower?”

  “Sure, all of seven minutes.”

  “Time me,” she said, rushing off and up the stairs.

  He considered that things could have been worse. It gave Rick hope when she started singing in the shower upstairs, and he smiled at the sound of her voice. She belted out the song woefully off-key, humming certain parts. He wondered if she always sang in the shower; there was so much he didn’t know about he
r.

  By the time Trista returned, her hair hanging damp on her neck, Dog had retreated from her sentry post at the back door to her favorite spot under the swing. Rick placed a plate of scrambled eggs in front of Trista, and after he spotted her sending a covert look at Dog on the porch, he said, “Yes, there’s enough for her, too,” as he spooned some onto a plate and set it outside the door. Dog immediately snapped out of her drowsy state and attacked the eggs with gusto, wagging her tail all the while.

  “You make the greatest scrambled eggs,” Trista said, apparently in a good mood. “So light and fluffy.”

  Rick shook Tabasco sauce on his eggs. “Queen said every bachelor should know how.”

  “I wish she’d been as forthcoming with that waffle recipe,” Trista said with longing.

  “That makes two of us,” he replied.

  Since he was eager to establish the old rapport between them, he steered the conversation toward mundane and uncontroversial topics. He told her how his mother had recently e-mailed interesting sidelights about her Chinese students, how his brother was having difficulty dealing with the presence of an Alzheimer’s-afflicted father-in-law in his house. In turn, Trista mentioned that she had recently enrolled in a Pilates class and spoke of her continuing concern about her coanchor’s attempts to steal her turf at WCIC.

  Though she’d mentioned problems at work earlier, she hadn’t been specific, and Rick, getting up to pour them both another cup of coffee, asked her to elaborate on what was going on.

  “Unfortunately,” she said as she spread a bit of toast with butter, “while Martine was in the hospital, Byron made a play to become the sole anchor of the evening news. He wasn’t successful, but he’s persistent.” For a moment, she seemed pensive and troubled.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he told her. “What will you do about it?”

  “Now that Byron’s forced the issue, I have decisions to make,” she admitted. “I love living in Columbia, so I’m not eager to move to Atlanta or Richmond, even though anchoring a news slot in either of those places would be a step up. I’ve had a few hard-to-refuse offers, but I’ve been putting them off. Now, because of Byron, I need to address the problem.”