Tell Me When It Hurts

by Christine Whitehead

  If Gavin had any doubts that this was something more than a friendship, those doubts vanished when he spotted them walking in. They had the look of new lovers: flushed, buoyant, touching, thoroughly smitten. As Connor helped Archer off with her coat, he stroked her cheek gently and actually seemed to savor the slip of its weight from her shoulders. They were still in that bubble, insulated from the rest of the world. Nothing could pierce it—at least for a while.

  Gavin saw more. Soon Archer would leave them. She would reenter the world, start over. He saw it as surely as he saw that his chance was gone, and it made him inconsolably sad. But because he had loved her for more years than he cared to think about, he was happy for her. She had a chance at a redo. He had hoped it would be with him, but at least she was doing it with someone. Way to go, Archer, he said to himself. Way to go, baby.

  * * *

  As Archer and Connor approached the table, Gavin stood up and leaned forward to shake hands with Connor. “Well, hello. Gavin Kennelly.”

  “Connor McCall. Nice to meet you. Archer has told me so much about you—all of it good, of course!”

  They shook hands, one watching his clear picture of the future now blurring and fading away, the other seeing a vague image of the future taking shape and sharpening. Archer looked at the two men—so different, each distinguished and determined in his own way, both in love with her. She felt not so much flattered as honored. They were two good men, true and honest, gentlemen in the best sense of the word.

  The two men got along well, both self-effacing, each setting the stage for the other to shine, and, in the act, both shining. Archer felt something she had not felt in a long time: a sense of satisfaction at seeing two people who were dear to her joust, laugh, exchange stories, and tease her about her great taste in friends. The evening was a joy, a grand part of a weekend that came as close to perfection as this life allowed. Archer felt shamelessly greedy for more—more laughter, more love.

  CHAPTER 21

  When Connor and Archer returned from Boston, Connor moved most of what he had to Archer’s cabin—starting with Millie. Archer glowed when she saw him emerge from the woods, leading the black mare by her halter. Flinging open the back door, she ran to greet them, laughing, carrot in hand for Millie. Connor had left his tent up, but his base of operations had changed.

  Meanwhile, Felix’s awkward but persistent entreaties to Connor to return to Three Chimneys had become more pointed since their return from Boston, though Connor responded by delegating more and more responsibility to his foreman. It was clear to all that he would not be getting back to the ranch before Christmas.

  Calling to check in, Connor said, “Hey, Felix, you can arrange for the vetting in March, okay? And get Joe Ross in to fix the waterers. How are the lambs out in Jacob’s Field doing?”

  “They’re doing okay, Mac. But I already called Joe and he wants to hear from you. And I’m not sure we fertilized the west hundred enough—may have to do more this spring. You’ll need to check it out, Mac.”

  “Fine. We could do without that pasture this season if we had to. Let it rest, then hit it in the fall.”

  Pause. “Mac?”

  “Yeah, Felix?”

  Pause. “Nothing.”

  “Okay, Felix. I’ll ring you in a few days.”

  For Archer and Connor, virtually no changes were necessary; they were compatible by natural inclination. Both were flushed with the incredulity that in the middle of nowhere, completely unexpectedly, they had somehow found each other. Archer seemed happy, but she seemed to give little thought to the future. Connor was happy, too, but he worried enough for both of them. He had to get back to Three Chimneys, and he was unsure if Archer would come. The matter needed more thought, but, like Scarlett O’Hara, he would think about it tomorrow.

  And yet he couldn’t turn it off. He wanted—no, he craved—connection. He wanted someone to mourn his absence, to rejoice in his return. He wanted Lauren to know he cared for her more than his monthly check suggested.

  * * *

  Christmas was just two weeks away. For the first time in six years, Archer felt like celebrating, maybe putting up stockings on the hearth—and shopping. Driving to the Farmington Mall, she remembered the fun of finding just the right present, the anticipation, the look of surprise, then glee. She pulled into one the few remaining parking spaces, slipped her shoulder bag strap over her head, and entered Lord & Taylor. The whiff of clove and evergreen hit her, and she smiled.

  At the top of the escalator, she found a directory and traced a route to Abercrombie’s, the place Sharon had suggested for Julie’s gift. The interior was dim but lively, with crowds of preteens hovering over tables filled with shirts and jeans. Loud rock music she didn’t recognize blared from unseen speakers as she browsed through racks jammed with sweaters, shirts, and pants, darting occasional glances at what the other girls were buying.

  The clothes were tiny. Some had tears in them. Was this what girls were wearing these days? Torn, grubby-looking jeans? Tops that looked as though they wouldn’t fit a toddler? Archer looked at the mannequins, and sure enough, wrinkled shirttails were hanging out over small dirty-looking denim skirts, all topped by a tiny sweater that covered precious little. Hm-m. She nodded to herself. So that really is the look . . .

  Archer selected a pretty blue sweater with “STAR” in sparkles on the front, and a black denim skirt that several girls around her had also selected.

  From there, she went down an arm of the mall to Williams-Sonoma, for a copper soup pot for Sharon, and on to Brooks Brothers for a sweater for Ted.

  Finally, she found Sam Goody’s on the directory and hurried there to get the CDs Sharon had suggested for David. She quickly found the three on Sharon’s list, then sauntered up to the checkout counter, pleased with her purchases.

  As she stood waiting for assistance, the speakers started punching out the old Temptations song “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.” Archer looked at the cashier. She had piercings in each eyebrow, and hair that bordered on neon blue. The girl was singing along and doing a dance step behind the counter. It made Archer laugh to herself. Annie, too, had loved Motown—no surprise, since Archer and Adam had played it endlessly when she was young. It was from before their time, but it didn’t matter—they were addicted. “Berry Gordy is, and always will be, the king in this house,” Adam would declare as he cranked up the record player to throbbing levels and pulled her to her feet for a dance around the kitchen.

  Annie and her best friend, Sophie, would giggle, then lip-synch the parts, making Archer and Adam weak with laughter. The girls would strut, bend, arch, and howl the high falsetto notes, sometimes enlisting Archer to be the third in a Supremes number. Archer would groan but still got up holding a cucumber or Coke bottle as a makeshift microphone, swooning like Diana Ross or Mary Wilson, and Adam was sometimes persuaded to be their fourth in the Four Tops numbers. The girls had their favorite, the Isley Brothers’ “This Old Heart of Mine,” down pat.

  Archer smiled at the memory. The song ended, and she pushed her credit card toward the girl at the counter.

  “Great song,” the girl chirped with a shake of blue dreadlocks.

  “Yes, it is. Somewhat before your time, though, wasn’t it?” asked Archer, signing the credit slip.

  “Yeah, but the really great ones are timeless, you know. That one was a really great one. Classic, you know,” she advised with a nod.

  “True enough,” Archer said, smiling and collecting her bag. “Thanks.” And she headed back out into the mall.

  What to get for Connor? She paused. He hardly ever bought anything for himself and was always in blue jeans. He wore no jewelry. A book? A new winter jacket? She had to get him something unforgettable, something that would make him swoon.

  CHAPTER 22

  It started to snow lightly on Christmas Eve morning. Archer got up first, started the coffee, and opened the back door to let Hadley and Alice out for their morning run. She peered out the kitchen w
indow, then began to assemble the ingredients to make three kinds of Christmas cookies.

  “Hey, Sleeping Beauty, I need butter if we’re going to have more than four cookies. And judging by the snow, you might want to get out now while you still can,” Archer called over her shoulder toward the bedroom.

  Connor emerged pulling a faded green sweatshirt over his head, rubbing his eyes. Coming up behind Archer, who was leaning over the sink, he put his arms around her and nuzzled her shoulder. She turned to him, laughing, and threw her arms around his neck. In her bare feet, she was tiny next to him.

  “Hmmm, maybe we don’t need butter all that badly,” she purred, feeling light-headed in his warm embrace.

  “Ha, too late! I’m holding you to that offer later, though—hey, look at old Millie out there, rolling in the snow!” He chuckled, pointing outside.

  The mare had all four legs in the air, rolling to one side, then the other, not quite managing to get all the way over. After several rolls, she righted herself, shook off, and ran to the front of the house, bucking and crow-hopping.

  “We should just put some lights on Millie, and she’ll be our holiday decoration,” Connor said. “I’ll just give her some hay, hop in the shower, and get that butter.”

  “That didn’t even make sense, McCall!” Archer laughed, opening the back door to let the dogs back in.

  “Well, look at you, Haddie,” she said to the snow-covered Lab who waddled in. Alice followed right behind, looking like a giant, frosted Rastafarian Scottie.

  * * *

  Connor got back from the store two hours later with butter and some big bayberry candles.

  “Have to put one of these in an east window tonight, for good fortune in the New Year,” he said.

  “I never heard that one, but I’ll try anything once. That reminds me, did you ever see that bumper sticker—you know, the one that says, ‘I’ll try anything once except anal sex and square dancing’?”

  “No, Archer,” he laughed, “it seems I’ve led a sheltered life—but the sentiment is well expressed.”

  “How were the roads?” Archer asked.

  “Not bad,” he said, “if you’re used to Wyoming weather. A couple of spinouts on the side roads, but no real trouble.”

  Archer began the cookies, and by lunchtime she had made pinwheels, linzer tortes, and her specialty, Hungarian nut rolls. The recipe for the nut rolls was a closely kept family secret from her grandmother, the two secret ingredients being a little grated orange peel mixed into the walnuts, and sour cream whipped into the crust mixture. Sharon had the only other copy.

  Helping himself to one of the pinwheels, Connor observed, “Yum, these are great, Arch. Oh, I filled the car with gas, so we’re all set for tomorrow.”

  They took a long walk in the afternoon, dragging an ax along. When they found a tight stand of spruces on the edge of Archer’s land, they chopped down a nice round one and hauled it home to set up in the main room.

  Back at the cabin, Connor got a saw and evened up the fresh-cut tree trunk, then trimmed off a few drooping lower limbs. Archer peeled off her coat, hat, and gloves, and piled them on one end of the sofa before grabbing a small flashlight and heading down the steep basement steps for the Christmas ornaments and trimmings stashed there. She hadn’t put up a Christmas tree in six years, but when she and Adam divorced, she had insisted on keeping her family’s simple glass ornaments.

  Archer flashed the narrow beam of light around the small dirt floor: a few lawn chairs in one corner, some laundry supplies along the wall, a pile of six large boxes in another corner. Going straight to the boxes, she opened the top one: Lenox china. Ha, fat chance of using that again! The last time was Easter Sunday the year Annie died. After an Easter egg hunt at which Hadley discovered at least as many eggs as Annie, Archer had made a big honey-mustard ham and served it on the pretty gilt-edged china. Archer shook her head. It seemed as if all that had happened to someone else.

  Archer closed up the box reverently, moved it to the side, and opened the next box: Clique’s bridle, saddle pad, and blanket monogrammed “ael”—Archer Elizabeth Loh. Maybe someday . . . She closed the flaps of the box and set it to the side.

  Third one. Unmarked manuals from her training for the Group. God, she remembered that year. The first six months were mandatory and held at one of the temporary training facilities. The second six months could be spent “off base,” at the trainee’s option. Trainees could quit anytime they wanted, but if they were to be part of the program, the requirements were inflexible.

  During the initial six months, the trainees’ talents and deficits were clinically assessed, without any shred of sentimentality or compassion. There was no place for a Charles Bronson character with visions of reckless vigilante revenge. This was about careful, businesslike justice, albeit outside the lines. It was about intensive training, objective evaluation, and meticulous planning.

  After the preliminary interview, psychological testing, and skills review, a five-member panel determined whether the trainee’s talents were best suited in public relations, financial recruitment, administration, or “in the field”—another word for sharpshooting.

  It was quickly apparent that Archer fell into the last category, given her previous training and natural talent. This was a useful development for the Group, since it was generally agreed that women snipers roused fewer suspicions: it went against type, so the myth went. That’s a good one, Archer had thought wryly. Peter will love this when I tell him.

  For the first six months, you were paired with a mentor, who became your alter ego. Archer had been partnered with Katharine Barnett. Katharine had been a Group member for over ten years. She dealt primarily with fund-raising but was also on the committee that made the determinations regarding assignments. For every hit the Group did, there were at least thirty it didn’t take on. The egregiousness of the crime, the lack of other remedies, and the accused’s certain guilt all played into the decision to accept, defer, or decline a request.

  For a year, Archer had spent sixteen hours a day in training. Marksmanship was her exclusive focus, including ballistics, advanced ballistics, matching weapon to job and conditions, steep-angle shots, the impact of altitude, wind, and temperature variations, low-light and night shooting, urban and rooftop environments, night vision theory and technique, mental preparation, shot placement, weapon maintenance, and long-range shooting. The fact that she already had training, even though rusty, was a windfall.

  Everyone in her class eventually developed a specialty. Archer’s niche was urban environments with long-range targets, with an emphasis on night and low-light settings. Gavin’s specialty was rooftop and steep-angle shots. One of Archer’s other close friends from training was a dead shot in windy conditions. Above all, the motto of the Group was “one shot, one kill.” The target had to be dispatched with certainty in one—or at most two— shots. No mistakes were excused.

  As Archer put the top manual back in the box, a square Polaroid photo fell out. It showed Katharine and Archer smiling, holding trays in the cafeteria line. Archer had no memory of who took the picture, or the circumstances beyond the obvious. Katharine was one of a handful of true friends Archer had ever had. She was smart, funny, and lovely. With her curly black hair and violet eyes, she looked like a young Elizabeth Taylor. She had been an accountant with Arthur Anderson when her husband and son were killed during a mugging on their way to meet her for dinner in downtown Chicago. Her husband had taught ancient Near Eastern history at the University of Chicago, and her fourteen-year-old son was a high school student and a star swimmer in the Chicago suburb where they lived. Her husband’s hand had been chopped off for a Rolex watch whose elastic band would have slipped off easily, and her son’s head was beaten in with a bat. And yet it was Katharine who had helped Archer get up each day—no mean accomplishment at the time.

  Archer sighed. Katharine had killed herself with a revolver about two years ago. Despite all her own training, she had never go
tten over the complete obliteration of her family, and she finally could not face another night. She had once told Archer that the nights were the worst. During the day, she could push it all into a compartment and keep it closed, but at night . . . oh, at night, out it all came. The night was so ruthless and unforgiving.

  Archer closed the box tightly and pushed it back into place, then opened the fourth box. Eureka! This was the one: Christmas ornaments. She lugged it up the stairs, pulled everything out, spread the contents on the floor, and began testing the strands of lights by plugging them in. Connor was busy attempting to set up the tree in the corner of the room, holding it with one gloved hand and crouching under it, trying to position it without too much lean.

  “Hey, we got a crooked tree!” he called out through the branches.

  “No, we didn’t; you just put it in crooked!”

  “Hm-m. Hey, Arch, can you just hold it for me while I tighten up the stand?”

  “Sure. No problem,” Archer said, coming over and grabbing the tree with a potholder still on her hand.

  Connor was bending down on the floor, tightening the bolts while Archer held the little spruce upright.

  “I think I’ve got it!” he said finally.

  “My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle, a.k.a. Audrey Hepburn in the movie, or Julie Andrews on Broadway, in Professor Higgins’s living room after she nailed the accent!” crowed Archer. “Ten points for me. I see a week of kitchen chores in your future, McCall.”

  “I wasn’t doing the game,” Connor protested, slowly unfolding his frame from under the tree. “I was just saying it myself.”

  “We’re never not playing the game,” retorted Archer, beaming. “But in the Christmas spirit, I won’t insist on getting credit for my answer.”