Inside, almost every surface was of scrubbed, sweet-smelling pine: the walls, the slanted high ceiling, the rafters, the floor. The cottage consisted of one main room sectioned into areas—bedroom, living room, kitchenette—and a bathroom. A white brick fireplace grayed with soot was the focal point of the room. Above this fireplace hung a painting of a black Labrador, triumphant with a lifeless duck in its mouth. Ducks of all species swam across the blue of the bedspread, and a painted wood mallard and his mate sat atop the wardrobe. Every detail was familiar to Olive.
“Oh Phil, I love it,” she said, and she wasn’t just saying it to please him. “It’s absolutely perfect.”
Phil deposited their luggage beside the bed. “It looks a little different than it did on their website.” He ran his finger over the sooty bricks of the fireplace with distaste.
“Well, I don’t care what it looked like on the website. It looks gorgeous in person.” She wrapped Phil in a tight hug. “Thank you for surprising me.”
He bent down and kissed the crown of her head. “I’m so glad you like it! I had my doubts, you know, because you’re not much of a nature lover. Well, come on, you’re not! But—well, I’ll tell you why I chose this place later. Brr. It’s a little chilly in here. Why don’t I get a fire going?”
They sat on the floor in front of the fireplace eating peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches and drinking champagne. Olive took off her wool socks, which were just a little too toasty, and wiggled her bare toes.
“We forgot to make a toast,” Phil said when they were almost finished with the bottle. He poured them each a few more drops of champagne, making sure the glasses were equal. “To our future together,” he said. They clinked glasses. Olive mentally tacked on to his toast, And to second chances.
Warm, drowsy, and a little buzzed, she stretched out and laid her head in his lap. “Tell me about the nature of time.”
Phil laughed. He ran his thumb lightly along her jaw. “The nature of time? You mean from a physics standpoint?”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes and listened to the crackling fire. Behind her eyelids, the world was soft and orange.
“Well, there are two theories actually. Newton and Einstein believed that time is its own dimension in the universe and that it flows along at a constant pace in a linear, sequential order. But there were other philosophers who proposed that time is a concept invented by humans to catalog and reference our experiences in relation to each other.”
Olive opened her eyes. “And which do you believe?”
“Newton and Einstein, of course. They have the math to back it up.” He stroked her hair, and her body tingled from her scalp to the nail beds of her toes.
“There are just two theories?”
“No, those are just the most accepted theories. Civilizations have been trying to explain time for hundreds and hundreds of years. You’ve probably heard of the Mayan calendar? The Mayans believed that time was cyclical.”
She propped herself up on her elbow. “Cyclical how?”
“I don’t know really. Something to do with the seasons and the movement of the planets and understanding the past to predict the future. But they also believed in sacrificing people.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Why the sudden interest in physics?”
She pretended to be insulted. “Sudden interest? I’ve always found physics fascinating. Do you think it would ever be possible to fall out of Newton’s so-called linear time?”
“Fall out of?” His eyebrow shot higher. “You mean like time travel?”
“No, of course not!” Olive walked her fingers along the floor toward his knee. “I mean, like now. With you. Is it possible for us to extend this moment, thereby thwarting the confines of time?”
“Yes. Definitely. Here, let’s try this.” He leaned forward and gave her a long, dizzying kiss. “Did that work?”
“I can’t tell yet. What do you say we slip into that big old whirlpool tub together?” she asked. Her fingers started to follow his pants inseam up his leg.
“How’d you know about the whirlpool?”
“I poked my head in the bathroom when I was unpacking the food,” she lied, as her fingers advanced farther.
“Do you think it’s big enough for two?” He grabbed her frisky hand and helped her up.
“We’ll make it fit.”
The water filled the tub slowly. She sat on the wooden edge of the whirlpool and wrapped her legs around his waist. The thrumming rush of the water and Phil’s deep kisses made her forget herself. They undressed each other, then stepped into the knee-high water. Nestled in his arms, in the soothing warmth of the water, Olive felt miles away from all her concerns. Her nerve endings felt like they’d woken up from a long sleep; every inch of her skin was alive to Phil’s mouth and caresses. In this space, she was no longer a duality—Olive past, Olive present; she was only one Olive, and this Olive knew what she wanted. There were no second guesses. She stopped thinking about the year as a whole and focused only on this moment. It was more happiness than she deserved.
The next morning they ate doughnuts in bed and got the sheets full of powdered sugar. They gave the bathtub another try, this time in a more functional way and by taking turns. He washed her hair and body, paying special attention to her breasts to make sure they were extra soapy and clean. She sat on the ledge behind him in her terrycloth bathrobe and rubbed his shoulders and trickled a cup of warm water over his head and down his back. It made him shiver with pleasure.
“Are you up for taking a little walk?” Phil asked later that afternoon. “I want to show you around the area. It’s really beautiful.”
“You bet.” She rolled on an extra pair of socks before lacing up her hiking boots. She put on her down-filled winter jacket, fleece gloves, and pompon hat. He took one look at her and burst out laughing. “What? I want to stay warm,” she said defensively.
“I’m not taking you on an Arctic expedition, I promise,” he said.
They walked out into the crisp, sunlit day, the only kind of day found in February in Wisconsin when it’s below freezing and there’s still snow on the ground for the sun to reflect off—when everything is brilliantly, blindingly blue and white, and shimmering like a mirage. Phil walked ahead, hands thrust deep into his jacket pockets, weaving a path through the naked trees, and Olive followed.
He stopped at a fork in the trail. “I think the lake is down this way.” He chose the path on the right that wound down the hill. The path was pretty steep, and she had to hold on to tree branches and his arm from time to time. “We’re almost there.”
With about thirty feet of their climb down the hill left to go, a view of the lake opened up below them. It was frozen solid and sparkling in the winter sunlight. It was small—more a pond than a lake, really—and shaped like an eggplant with the small end to the east and the fat end to the west.
“It’s stunning,” Olive said.
They descended the hill and began to walk slowly side by side along its snowy shore. Phil was on her left-hand side at first, but he awkwardly stepped around her so that he was closest to the lake. He reached for her fleece-gloved hand, and she accepted his, which looked red and blotchy. She hoped he wasn’t getting frostbite. She tried to warm his hand with her own.
“Do you see that tall fir tree across the lake?” he asked.
There were many tall trees across the lake. “Which one? What’s a fir tree look like?” He quickly pointed, and she followed his arm. “Yes, okay. I see it now. What about it?”
“The guys and I camped at that site last summer.”
“Oh. Is this where you went fishing?”
He dropped her hand and returned his to his pocket. “There was this old guy camping with his grandsons a few sites away, and we got to talking to him one night and found out he used to own this land a long time ago.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t ju
st pulling your leg?” she teased. Despite the extra pair of socks, her feet were starting to feel a little numb. She stamped them to warm up.
“No, he was serious,” Phil said. “He told us the name of the lake.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Lake Olive.”
Olive laughed. “That’s a good one.”
“I’m not kidding. The man said he named the lake after his wife.” Phil stopped abruptly. “And I knew it must be the lake’s real name right away because I’d never seen a more beautiful lake before, and I’ve never seen a girl more beautiful than you.”
She stood next to him and looked out at the iced-over lake. It was bleak-looking now, but she imagined it looked pretty in the summer with ripples and waves and reflections of the sky. “Thank you, Phil,” she said.
“I knew when he told me that that I’d have to bring you here one day. I’ve been in love with you for three years, Olive.” His tone was suddenly formal and scripted-sounding. “Three transformative years. You’ve made me so happy, and I want to spend the rest of my life making you as happy as you’ve made me.” Surprised, Olive turned around to discover him bent down on one knee in front of her in the snow. “Olive Elizabeth Watson, will you marry me?”
She couldn’t move or speak. She could only stare. She was sure her mouth was hanging open. Was he serious? He must be serious. He couldn’t be kidding. There he was, oh my God, yes, there he was producing a little black velvet box from his jacket pocket and then opening it, and there was a diamond ring inside it. His face was pensive and white as the snow. He was waiting for her to speak, but what could she say? The simplicity and clarity she’d been experiencing since last night clouded over as the weight of last year’s events returned to her.
She couldn’t, shouldn’t say yes, knowing what she knew. They had frustrations and misunderstandings lying in wait for them. They had gone on without each other last year. They had dated other people. A month after their breakup, she had left him a voice mail: I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving you, Phil. If you ever feel you can get past this and forgive me, please call. But he had never called her back. She had tried all measures to mend herself—work, Alex, more work. Phil had given up on her, but she, she had remained permanently halved. Was it possible that he had felt incomplete without her, too? Maybe his wary heart had disallowed him from returning to her. She supposed now she would never know.
How could it be that their relationship was balanced on such an extreme precipice? Marriage one way, total dissolution the other?
It struck her then with a bolt of certainty that this proposal had been on Phil’s agenda last year, too. That was why he had wanted the weekend’s events to go so perfectly, and that was why he had been so frustrated when they hadn’t. The night had gone so horribly wrong that he had decided not to propose to her, not to even let her know his intentions. And then a week later, she had done something that made Phil change his mind about her forever. She reeled at the thought of how badly she had hurt him. Had anyone in her family known about his intentions? Had he asked for her mom’s permission to propose? Had he told Kerrigan? No one had ever let on to her.
“Phil,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. Tears welled up in her eyes. “Please stand up. Your knee must be freezing.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “All I care about right now is hearing one little word from you. Say yes, Olive.”
It should’ve been so simple to say yes, but guilt thickened her tongue. Sherry’s words sounded like an alarm in her head. It’s easy enough to change your actions, but it’s a lot harder to change your heart. And it’s impossible to change someone else’s. She could perfect this weekend with her foreknowledge, and she could control her body’s reckless impulses. She could wear Phil’s ring. But what if it wasn’t enough? When it came right down to it, they still had unresolved issues, and until they worked through those, she couldn’t be fully confident in their love.
“You are so sweet, Phil. But marriage is so . . . permanent. How do you know—how can you be so certain—that we’re meant to be together forever?”
He looked into her eyes with disbelief. “Without a doubt, Ollie, you are the only woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
She pictured the way his handsome face had shut down when she’d revealed her betrayal, and then the way he had tenderly brushed back the redhead’s hair in the coffee shop. “You don’t know that,” she said, and her words came out a little more harshly than she had planned.
Phil rose to his feet. He still held the open ring box in his right hand. He brushed off the snow on the knee of his pants with his left. “Yes, I do. Don’t you want to spend the rest of your life with me?”
“I love you, Phil.” She mopped up her tears with the fingers of her fleece gloves.
“I love you, too. Don’t you want to be with me forever?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I’m not ready to answer that question, yet. I need more time.”
“I can’t believe this,” he said. He snapped the ring box shut and thrust it back into his jacket pocket. “I thought you would say yes. I thought we felt the same way about each other.”
“Please don’t be angry. I’m not saying that I feel any differently about you or that I wouldn’t consider one day marrying you—”
“Gee, thanks. That makes me feel a lot better. Just what every guy who’s proposed wants to hear.” He kicked a hard chunk of snow onto the icy surface of the lake.
She didn’t know what to say to make this better. She doubted there was anything she could say.
“Let’s just go back up to the cabin.” He set off up the hill without looking back to see if she was behind him. She had a hard time keeping up with him, and he didn’t offer her his arm this time. Her calves were aching from the climb, and her lungs were burning from breathing so heavily by the time they got back to the cabin. He went directly into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him. Olive collapsed onto the couch.
When the bathroom door finally creaked open, he was across the room before she could even look up. He held her face between his hands. They felt cool against her scalding cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He kissed her eyelashes, then her nose and forehead. “I shouldn’t have roared at you like that.”
“I’m sorry, too.” She managed to catch his lips and press them against her own. “I wish you knew how much I wanted to say yes.”
He twisted his fingers through hers. “You can still say yes.”
Founding a marriage on secrets and lies was out of the question. She told herself it would be unfair to him if she said yes, since he didn’t truly know what he was getting himself into. He didn’t understand the woman she was or what they had been through together in a previous time. There was no way she could accept his proposal without first telling him the truth, but there didn’t seem to be a way to tell him the truth, either.
“I don’t want this to break us up. I’m not ready for marriage yet, but I don’t want to lose you.” She squeezed his hand.
“Okay,” he said simply.
They didn’t make love that night. They left the next day in the late morning. Things weren’t hostile or tense between them. A casual onlooker wouldn’t have suspected a thing. But they both knew things had changed between them. The silliness and affection they had so openly displayed before was all but gone. Olive was reminded of the drive back to Madison last year when she had then, too, pointed out a huddle of brown-spotted cows just to have something to say.
Chapter 8
Oh, man. I still can’t believe you said no,” Kerrigan said. It had been her unrelenting chorus for the past week, as if the current strain on Olive and Phil’s relationship wasn’t enough of a reminder.
Olive ignored her. She brushed her hair into a ponytail and snapped an elastic band around it. It was a Friday night, and they were in Kerrigan’s room. Kerrigan wa
s getting ready to go out; Olive was getting ready for work.
“Has he taken back the ring?” Kerrigan persisted. She threaded a pair of gold-beaded chandelier earrings through her ears. In the ICU, Olive wasn’t allowed to wear earrings or necklaces, perfume or nail polish. Not even clear nail polish.
“I don’t know. We’re not talking about it. It’s kind of a touchy subject, you know?” Olive sat down on the desk chair and crossed her arms. In her faded green scrubs, she felt frumpy next to her friend. She wished she hadn’t agreed to let Kerrigan wear her red halter dress. Kerrigan had the eye-catching cleavage Olive lacked and the dress required.
“I know, I know,” Kerrigan said. “It’s just you and Phil. Phil and Olive: the cutest couple I know. I can’t get over it. You guys are so perfect for each other. I wish I could find that.” Despite her careful primping, she looked miserable. She and Steve had called it quits a few weeks ago.
“You will,” Olive said. “In a dress like that, probably sooner rather than later.”
Kerrigan blotted her red lips on a tissue, crumpled it up, and tossed it into the wastebasket across the room. She had bombarded Olive with questions the moment she’d gotten home from the trip, and when Olive had finally told her that she had refused Phil’s proposal, they had cried together about it. It had felt so good to share her problems with someone other than unsympathetic Sherry that she had been tempted to tell Kerrigan the whole truth. A fleeting temptation, but one that was now resurfacing.
Tonight was the night she had cheated on Phil. She longed to confess to Kerrigan the mix of uneasiness and shame she felt. Surely, Kerrigan would have something consoling to say. With her own checkered past, Kerrigan was not one to judge; she would probably want to hear all the dirty details.
Yet whenever Olive tried to formulate in her head how she would convince Kerrigan of her extraordinary situation, it sounded ridiculous. Do you remember how you thought I had a head injury on New Year’s Day? Well, the reason I was acting so strange is that I’m caught in some kind of time warp. I’ve actually seen the future. Well, at least one year of it. No, that wouldn’t do.
The Repeat Year Page 11
