A Late Hard Frost

by Stephanie Joyce Cole

  Her legs shook as she pulled herself off the bed. She whispered the mantra she had invented for herself. “You’re fine, you’re in charge, you’re strong.” She’d been mumbling the phrases ever since she’d boarded the plane that took her back to Florida. Then, over the drone of the jet engines, she’d mustered her courage. She didn’t want to be the person she’d been when she left Florida months before. In Alaska, she had rediscovered her strength and her value, but she still remembered the fears and insecurities she struggled to overcome.

  Never again. You’re fine, you’re in charge, you’re strong.

  And then, when she was least expecting it, a light knock on the door.

  Her whole body shook as she pulled it open.

  Nick.

  Not Nick.

  The kid from the front desk slouched in the hall, waving a paper in her direction.

  “Ah, Ms. Benton, ah, a phone message…” He handed her the paper and shambled away.

  She held the note in shaking hands. It was a telephone message form, filled out in a loopy loose scrawl. To: Merry Benton. Call time: 7:04 am. Call from: Nick. Message: Sorry missed you last night. Hope you can meet me at boat 3 pm today.

  ~ * ~

  Nick was shivering—no, he was shaking as he squatted on Dreamer’s deck, waiting for Merry. When he’d left the message for her to meet him, he’d had a plan. He’d talk to Cassandra first, to try to straighten out that mess, and then he’d confess to Merry and ask her to understand and forgive him. He’d persuade her, somehow, that they could start with a clean slate and move forward together. That plan had gone haywire, right out the window. He shook his head, swearing under his breath.

  Merry was right on time. His throat closed as he watched her walk down the dock towards him, her steps so light that she was almost prancing. She crossed her arms over her blue wind jacket. Her clothes were way too thin for the stiff wind blowing off the ocean today. She grinned and waved at him as the breeze tumbled her loose brown hair around her head. He stepped onto the dock and stood legs apart, his arms at his sides, his hands curled into fists. As she came closer, her face changed, seeing his, and her steps slowed.

  “Nick?” Her voice was soft, questioning.

  “Merry.” It was a delight and the self-infliction of a lethal wound to say her name. The smile dropped away and she stopped several feet from him, her expression a study in confusion.

  How to start? He cleared his throat. “Merry. You’re back. I…wasn’t sure you were coming back.”

  She nodded vigorously, not moving her eyes from his face. “Yes, I…know. There were so many decisions to make, and I…Nick, what’s wrong?” Her eyes swept across his face, searching. “Is everything all right?”

  “No.” He opened and closed his fists. His mouth didn’t want to form the words that had to be said.

  “Merry, I need to tell you something. I missed you…” He closed his eyes. That was true, but he had no right to say that now, after what had happened. He opened his eyes to see her standing still, absolutely rigid. Damn it, all he wanted was to pull her into his arms. His body ached with the need to touch her. He rubbed his hands on the legs of his jeans, hating the words he knew he had to say to her, almost unable to make his mouth form them.

  “Merry, I’ve waited and hoped that you were coming back. Every day I missed you…”

  He watched her mouth form a tremulous smile, but her eyes stared unblinking into his face, waiting.

  “When you were gone, after a while, we didn’t know if you were coming back. I should have known that you would come back. I should have waited. I missed you so much…” He shook his head and cringed, willing himself to stop. He had no right, none at all, to say anything that would make this easier on himself. He had to tell her, now. She deserved to hear it from him, now.

  “When you were gone, there was a night, I was drunk, but that’s no excuse…”

  He stared straight into her face and braced himself for the impact he knew his words would have.

  “I was drunk and…well, I spent a night with Cassandra. I…slept with Cassandra.”

  This is when he’d planned to beg her forgiveness, to promise to make it up to her somehow, that he’d find a way to make it right.

  Her face had gone ashen white and deathly still. He knew how deeply his words cut. She was betrayed, not just by him, but by her friend too.

  She turned from him, her head drooping, her shoulders and back heaving with deep gasps that seemed to rock her very core. For a moment, he thought she was going to turn back and talk to him, but instead she started to walk away, unsteadily, almost staggering.

  He wanted to give her time to absorb his words, words that crushed her happiness. He didn’t want to wound her any more. But there was more to say. Then again, maybe the rest could wait. Hadn’t he hurt her enough for one day?

  No. He had to tell her all of it, now.

  “That damn dog,” he muttered under his breath.

  ~ * ~

  He’d heard the dog story from a large and very drunk woman who sat down next to him in an airport bar in Los Angeles. He couldn’t remember why she told him the story, slurring her words and almost getting lost somewhere in the middle. Maybe it had something to do with her divorce, but that part was murky. But he remembered what she said.

  “See there was this king, see, who had a little dog that he loved a lot.” She’d taken a long swig of her beer. “A cute little dog…” She stared at herself in the mirror behind the bar, opening her eyes wide, pouting her lips and patting her hair. Her smeary, black eyeliner made her look like a raccoon.

  “There was a law, see, in the kingdom, that all the dogs had to have their tails cut short. And that meant the king’s dog too.” He’d squirmed in his seat, uncomfortable, wondering where this was all going.

  “But the guy who did the cutting, he really liked the king. So he told the king, I’ll take special care of your dog. Don’t worry. And the king gave him the dog.” She was swaying to the music from the speakers behind them, and he had to lean closer than he’d wanted to hear her story. She paused, and he thought the punch line was coming.

  “All through the night, the king could hear his little dog moan and cry. It drove him near crazy.”

  He wanted to move away, she was much too close for comfort, but now he wanted to hear the end of the story.

  “So when the cutting guy brought the dog back the next day, the king asked him why the dog had whimpered and cried all night long. And you know what the cutting man said?”

  He had no idea, so he just sat and looked at her as she cradled her beer, staring at him intently.

  “He said, ‘I know you love that dog, see, so I cut off his tail just a little bit at a time.’”

  ~ * ~

  “Merry.” His voice was harsh, gruff from the effort it was taking to force the words. The words that were going to be the final nail in his coffin. She paused but didn’t look back.

  “Merry. I’m sorry…”

  “Merry.” Every fiber of his body resisted but he pushed the words out. “Cassandra…Cassandra is pregnant.”

  Chapter 8

  Merry stumbled away from Nick. He called her name and she turned back to look at him, and he was holding out a hand toward her. “Merry, please. Please let me tell you—”

  She shook her head and twisted away from him, her breath dying in her throat. She couldn’t breathe, the shock of his words were too much to bear. With his words, all her hopes, all her imaginings of her future, disappeared and in their place huddled the horrible realization that the world was not the way it was meant to be. Nick had betrayed her. Just like Michael had.

  And…with Cassandra. Nick…and Cassandra. Blood thrummed in her ears.

  Somehow she made it up off the dock and onto the sidewalk, but how that had happened was a mystery, because the world was spinning. The heartbeats booming in her ears overpowered all other sound. She walked, she kept moving forward, to somewhere, anywhere, away. Tears wel
led in her eyes, blurring shapes into streaks of watery color.

  She leaned against a spruce tree, pressing her palms into the scaly rough bark, barely registering the scrape of a low branch against her forehead. She closed her eyes.

  I have to leave. I have to go. I’ll go back to Florida. Now, today.

  Nothing made sense. She dug her fingers into the splintery bark and felt a fingernail crack and break, stinging hard, but she ignored it. Nothing mattered.

  She didn’t know how long she had been standing there. The muffled sound of footsteps on gravel came closer, slowed, and then passed her by, a pair of young female voices whispering as they moved away from her. She took a deep, unsteady breath. Her chest ached. Back to the motel. Somehow she had to make it back to the motel, to her room, where she could be alone.

  The main street was too much. Someone might even try to talk to her, to help her, as she stumbled her way toward the motel, tears running down her face. No, she would take the back road. It was a longer way, but it was more likely she’d be left alone.

  She shuffled over the frozen gravel, head down and arms wrapped tightly around her chest. Just get back to the motel. Just get back to the motel.

  “Merry! Oh, my dear Merry!”

  She raised her head and turned in the direction of the cheerful shout, to see a slight figure waving wildly in her direction from the porch of a nearby building. As soon as she saw his crimson pants and his billowy saffron shirt, she knew it was Scary.

  It was too late to escape. Scary jumped off the porch and was running toward her, arms outstretched.

  “Merry, is it really you? How wonderful! I’d heard a rumor you were coming back.” He grabbed her in an enthusiastic bear hug, before pulling back to look at her face, and his smile turned into a look of horror.

  “Oh, my dear, what’s wrong? Look at you! Has something terrible happened?” He was holding onto her forearms, peering into her face. She could feel her mouth contorting, half into a smile and half into a grimace. She could only nod, mutely. Words wouldn’t come.

  Scary threw his arm over her shoulder and pulled her away from the street. “Oh, my dear, come inside, right now.” He led her onto the porch and into the building she now recognized and remembered. Scary’s studio space. He had pointed it out to her months ago, when they drove past it as she helped him move some of his paintings to Moira’s gallery. Months ago, and a lifetime ago.

  He quickly steered her away from the picture window. They sat opposite one another on two rickety kitchen chairs in the back of his studio, the “closed” sign barring the front door. Scary held Merry’s hands while she trembled and wept.

  “I had no idea,” he breathed, as her words tumbled out. “I mean, I’d see them together a lot, but I didn’t think it was like that.” He shook his head.

  Merry nodded. Once she’d started to explain, the words wouldn’t stop pouring from her mouth in gulping fragments between sobs.

  “Yes. I was so sure…never thought…she was my friend…he didn’t wait…”

  Her body shuddered with deep gasps as she tried to get herself under control. She heard her words rasping thick from her throat.

  “…and I just don’t know what to do now. I could go back to Florida but…I wanted here to be home…a new start…”

  Scary sighed and sat up straight in his chair. “Well, I’m afraid we won’t solve that problem tonight.”

  She nodded, pulling her hands free and wiping her face on her coat sleeve.

  “I know. I need to figure this out.” She managed a small smile. “I guess I should get back to Sweenie’s.”

  “No, well, wait.” Scary frowned. “You shouldn’t be stuck in some miserable room at Sweenie’s, not after what you’ve just been through. I would never forgive myself if I let you go back there. Look, there’s sort of an apartment upstairs here. Believe me, it’s not much, and I’ve only been using it for storage, for keeping some stuff I’m working with.” He swept an arm open toward the front of the studio, where three headless horses built from rusty mailboxes huddled closed to the front window. “Why don’t you just stay here at the studio for a few days?”

  Merry lifted her head to stare into his eyes, wondering at the offer. She didn’t know Scary well, but as soon as she’d met him, she’d gravitated to his warmth, his unabashed self-confidence and his ability to be exactly himself in this small town. He was right at home here in Homer, and while his wild clothes and extravagant gestures certainly weren’t the norm, he’d become just another facet in the jewel of local color.

  He smiled, his eyes crinkling into kindness. “It really isn’t much. But it’s a bed and a shower and…” He shrugged. “It’s free.”

  Fragments of memories surged, of arriving in Homer the first time, moving in with Rita, for just one night of refuge, then another, and then a new Merry, tentatively emerging, a butterfly from a cocoon, and refuge becoming home.

  She nodded, swallowing hard. “Sure. That would be so great.”

  He patted her knee, and she followed him up the narrow stairs that led from the back of the studio to the second story. At the top of the stairs, he paused and took a deep breath before opening the door. “It isn’t much.”

  She walked behind him through the door and stared, aghast. She had entered another world, populated by plastic body parts, piles of tinsel in oranges, yellows and purples, and remnants of who-knows-what mounded in every corner. A bed was pushed along one wall, but it was hard to see it under its cover of leprechaun hats festooned with bright green glitter. The head of an enormous fish with marble eyes protruded out of the sink, and the kitchen counter was adrift with paper bags. A faint odor of cotton candy and turpentine wafted on the air.

  “Well, it needs a little tidying.” Scary’s voice behind her was hesitant. “I usually assemble my installation pieces here…”

  And bring them back to die. Did he ever get rid of anything?

  “Well, you know, I wasn’t expecting anyone up here.”

  Merry pulled her eyes away from the chaos in front of her and turned. “You’re being incredibly generous with me. I was just…a little startled.” She bit her lip, and searched for an appropriate reaction to the mythical creature lunging at her from the middle of the room, its legs huge, hairy and muscled like Bigfoot, its torso and head a drop-dead replica of Marilyn Monroe.

  Scary was wringing his hands. “Well, ah, some are works in progress.”

  Indeed. She hid a smile behind her hand.

  “Scary, it’ll be fine.” She dropped her backpack in the tiny square of open space near the door. “And I don’t think I’ll get lonely.” She eyed a series of shrunken heads mounted on Barbie doll bodies, hung across the uncurtained window, staring in her direction. “But if it’s okay with you, I’ll just move a few things.”

  “Of course, of course. I’ll just leave you to get settled. We can go get your luggage from Sweenie’s later. I’ll get us some sandwiches. I’ll just run down to…” Scary’s voice faded as his footsteps clattered down the steep stairs.

  For the first time in days, a burst of mirth bubbled up from inside of her. Talk about strange bedfellows. Giggles escaped, then full-blown belly laughs, as she inched around the packed room, avoiding suspended pterodactyls and a coiled, low fence made with oversized matchsticks. The matches looked real. After a few minutes she pushed aside the green hats and perched on the edge of the bed. It was surprisingly plush and inviting. She wiped her eyes and sighed. She’d have to move the paper mache dragon leering at her from the far corner or she’d likely have nightmares, but it would all do. When her troubles intruded, she could just pick a world to escape to in her head, and she’d have all the props at the ready.

  ~ * ~

  Two days later, Merry sat at a tiny table close to the back of The Twins, sipping a cup of very black coffee and fiddling with a massive cinnamon roll. It had been hard to come here, knowing that there was a good likelihood of seeing someone she knew, and of being recognized. Homer was a s
mall town, and like small towns everywhere, anonymity here wasn’t an option. She cringed at the thought that she might run into Nick or Cassandra, or—horrors—Nick and Cassandra. But after forty-eight hours of huddling in Scary’s studio, periodically dropping into tearful despair and surviving on the stale crackers and cereal bars he had stashed in the kitchenette, she needed to make a move. Since her world had crashed around her, she had no idea about what she would do next. She hadn’t thought out any alternatives before packing her bag and returning here, expecting to simply fall into Nick’s arms and figure out the rest later.

  Well, so much for that. The pain was still fresh and cut deeply. She might be a complete mess right now, but she was not going to fall back into the timid creature she had been when she first arrived in Homer months ago. She had survived a lot worse than this. She lifted her head and squared her shoulders.

  The Twins was bustling, as usual, loud with the clink of forks against china and the exploding whoosh of the espresso machine. The tempting aroma of baking sweet dough hung heavy in the air. A long line of customers shuffled through the arctic entry, hovering patiently over the display case of pastries, staring greedily at the muffins and croissants and banana bread, before placing their orders with the purple-haired server. Merry sighed. It was so comforting and familiar.

  A tap on her shoulder made her jump, sloshing her coffee. “Oh, I’m so sorry, so very sorry,” a soft voice whispered, from behind her. Sabrina, from the cabin, moved into her field of vision, her face flushed, her hands fluttering in embarrassed little circles. “Oh dear, I just wanted to say hello. Did I make you spill your coffee? Can I get you some more?”

  Merry smiled up at Sabrina as she mopped drops of coffee off the table with a paper napkin. “No, no problem…How nice to see you again!” She meant it too, so relieved that Sabrina wasn’t someone from her past life in Homer, and grateful also for Sabrina’s efforts to be friendly. “Please, join me for a minute. Where is your sweet baby this morning?”

  Sabrina perched on the edge of a chair, looking like a nervous bird that was poised and ready to fly away. “Oh, he’s over there with Ren.” She pointed to the other side of the room, where Ren was struggling to hold a flailing Willy above the table. Ren was smiling, but he looked anxious as one of Willy’s kicking feet almost collided with a water glass. Sabrina grinned and ducked her head. “Ren’s still getting used to handling a baby. I’m the oldest of six brothers and sisters, but Ren is an only child.”