by Jo Watson
At that, Ash burst through the door. “I have it! I have his name.”
CHAPTER 64
“Abe E,” Mike read.
“Yup,” Ash said proudly.
“What does the E stand for?” Mike asked.
“Well, I don’t know that,” Ash said. “I’m an artist, not a psychic.”
“Funny you should say that; seems your fiancée is a baker and a psychologist.”
“Huh?” she asked, looking at her brother.
“Long story,” I said, and then sighed.
“SEE? HA!” Emelia said. “You sighed.”
“I . . . I . . . Okay, so I did,” I conceded.
“You do sigh a lot, now that I think about it,” Ash said.
Mike gave a small, self-satisfied smile. “Well, at least I don’t stare.”
I looked at him pointedly.
“Oh, yeah.” Ash started nodding. “He does stare a lot.”
“Okay, change of subject, thanks,” Mike said quickly. “What do we think the Abe is short for? Abraham?”
“Could just be Abe?” I suggested.
Ash stood up straight and stretched out her shoulders. “All this detective work has made me hungry. What’s for dinner?”
“Haven’t started it yet,” Emelia said. “Been too busy trying to solve the world’s problems.” She smiled at us.
“Did I miss something?” Ash asked.
“Oh, yes—something being the operative word, there,” Emelia replied. “Something that could be nothing, or something, or whatever.”
And then, suddenly, Ash looked over at me and gasped. “What’s wrong with your face? You’re red!”
I raised my hands to my cheeks and everyone looked at me.
“You weren’t kidding,” Emelia said. “You do go bright red, if you drink.”
I looked over at Mike and, this time, I got a smile out of him.
“Oh, God—this is why I don’t drink. Soooo embarrassing.” I tried to hide my face.
Ash burst out laughing. “You go red when you drink?”
I nodded.
“That would make your job easy, Mike,” she said. “No need for a breathalyzer.” Ash pulled my hands away from my face. “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s just making you redder,” she said.
“Am I splotchy, or is it at least even?” I asked.
The three of them looked at me and then looked at each other, slowly.
“It’s . . . Let’s just say it’s not even.” Mike tried to conceal a smile.
“What? How bad is it?” I asked.
“Mmmm, you know how a leopard has spots?” Ash teased.
“Nooo!” I yelped. “It can’t be that bad!”
They all looked at me again, all trying to hold back smiles. I ran for the closest bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror in horror. I looked ridiculous. My face was spotty, as if I had contracted some kind of exotic rash.
“I can see why you don’t drink on first dates,” Emelia said, with a chuckle, when I returned. “Wouldn’t want them to start thinking you’re contagious.”
Ash smacked her on the arm. “Hey. That’s rude. She doesn’t look that bad . . .”
I gave them all a deadpan look. “Really?” I asked. I ran my hand in big circles around my face. “This doesn’t look that bad, does it?”
At that, all three of them laughed, and, before I knew what was happening, I laughed too.
The rest of the evening was strange. But nice. Me and my red, splotchy face enjoyed a massive bowel of pasta and more red wine—despite the fact that, every time I had a sip, a new red splotch appeared and everyone pointed it out—and then we all “retired” to the sitting room, put some logs on the fire and sat and watched the flames, like primitive man might have done. We laughed, we told each other stories from our lives. Ash and Emelia shared the story about how they’d met and fallen in love. Emelia had, on a strange whim she said she couldn’t really explain (must have been fate, she concluded), decided to drop out of big-city life and move to a small town and set up a pastry shop. She’d hired Ash to paint her shop sign and, from the moment she’d seen her up that ladder, splattered in paint, she’d known! I then shared the story of my previous public shaming and humiliation at the hands of my cheating ex. They said they remembered “cunt-gate” (as they dubbed it) and all those internet memes it had sparked. And they all showed such instant hatred for this man that had wronged me! It felt good. I hadn’t had a group of people rally around me like this before—a group that, on my behalf, despised the man who had done that to me. They also agreed that I should never have phoned his fiancée and, had they known me at the time, they would have all seriously recommended against it. Mike and Ash then started debating which room in the house they should renovate next, and what color they should paint the walls, and whether or not they should redo the dining room and host events in it, like weddings and parties. It was a conversation about something so seemingly banal and normal, but, to me, it was magical. To be sitting there, listening to them talk about their day-to-day things—it made me feel included in a way I don’t think I had ever felt.
When the evening was over, we found ourselves all walking back to our rooms.
I said my goodbyes and walked towards the door, feeling a little skate-y on my feet. As if they weren’t really walking, heel to toe, heel to toe (as they should be), but sort of moving from side to side, as if on ice or something slippery—like the squashed grapes one might use to make wine!
“Well, aren’t you going to walk her to her room?” Ash piped up, and I turned around and looked at them all.
“Who?” I asked.
“Him!” Ash said, pointing at her brother. “It’s the gentlemanly thing to do.”
“It is,” Emelia confirmed.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Big girl and all. Been walking myself to places on my own for many years.”
“Still, it’s a long, dark corridor. It might be fraught with danger,” Ash teased, as she draped her arm around Emelia’s shoulders.
“Fraught with danger,” Emelia echoed.
“No one uses the word fraught anymore,” Mike said.
“We do.” Ash gave her brother a small push.
Mike walked towards me. “Fine.” He opened the door and held it open for me. “Shall we?” he asked.
“Aaaah, so chivalrous,” Ash said.
“Clearly, it’s not dead.” Emelia pulled Ash and they started walking up the stairs together and disappeared.
I walked into the dark corridor that separated the houses, and Mike pulled his cell-phone light out and lit up the path in front of us. I tried to walk in a manner where my feet skated less and did what they were supposed to. I seemed to manage okay and soon we were standing outside my door.
“Thanks,” I turned around and said to him.
“Pleasure.” He looked at me and turned the torch off, plunging us into the soft, warm glow from the crystal chandeliers above us.
“Right . . .” I reached behind me and opened my door.
“Right,” he repeated.
“This was a really nice night,” I said softly, as I began pushing the door open. “I really enjoyed it. Thanks for having me.”
He nodded. “Sure. It was nice.”
“I don’t do stuff like this much. I’m usually a bit of a recluse,” I blurted out.
“I wouldn’t guess that about you.” He was leaning with his back against the wall on the other side of the passage now.
“I am. Usually just stick to myself.”
“So what keeps you company?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe the songs and stories in my head.”
“Sounds lonely,” he said quietly. “You can’t go anywhere, here, without bumping into someone you know. You’re never lonely, here. Even if you wanted to be, you couldn’t be.”
“I’m not lonely . . .” I started saying, and then stopped myself, because suddenly I did feel lonely. Suddenly, after having this evening of laughter and food
and drink, I felt like I was already missing it. I imagined myself alone on a Saturday night, watching Netflix and wondering what Mike and Ash and Emelia were doing. “Maybe I was a little lonely, but I didn’t know it,” I said, again without thinking.
Why was I saying all these things to him—these intimate things that made me feel vulnerable and exposed? I didn’t like to feel like this. He looked at me, and that same familiar feeling rose inside, the one that had been rising non-stop since we’d first met.
“Anyway . . .” I said, trying to diffuse the situation, as one does when one feels uncomfortable and throws words like anyway and so about, with no real intention of actually turning them into a sentence at all . . . Shut up!
“Anyway, what?” he asked.
Damn!
“Nothing,” I said.
“Okay.” He nodded and pushed himself off the wall. “Goodnight, then.”
“Goodnight, Mike . . .” And then I said it. I probably shouldn’t have, and maybe it was the red wine . . . “Hey,” I called after him. “Aren’t I still under arrest, or something?”
He turned slowly. I could see he was trying to conceal another smile. “Technically.”
“So . . . shouldn’t you be watching me? Who knows what I might get up to . . . alone?” Whoa! Had I really just said that? I had. I had.
He smiled. “What might you get up to?”
I shrugged playfully. “Well . . . I was thinking of kidnapping a dog, next. Perhaps I might impersonate a human-hair stylist and start giving the good people of Willow Bay perms.”
He laughed. Oh, God—it sounded good. “So, are you saying that, if I don’t watch you tonight, you might get up to something illegal again?”
“Perhaps. I mean, who knows? I am a bit of a criminal mastermind, these days.”
He laughed. “I disagree. You’re perhaps one of the worst criminals I’ve ever met.”
“What?! I am so offended. I’ll have you know that my criminal skills are . . . are . . . are . . .”
“Really shit!” he added, with a massive smile.
I smiled back at him. “Still . . . who knows what will happen tonight, if I’m left alone?” I was flirting. I had no idea whether it was any good, but I was doing it!
He took a step closer. “So, what are you suggesting?”
“That’s up to you, officer,” I said.
He put his hand on the wall behind my head and leaned in. Our eyes met, and I held on to his gaze as tightly as I could, because I didn’t want him to take it away again.
“You know what?” he said slowly.
I shook my head.
“I’m going to trust you tonight.”
“You are?” I gasped and then almost cried. “Seriously? You trust me again?”
He looked at me for the longest time. “Please—” his voice became soft and desperate sounding—“please don’t let me down and do anything to break that, this time. Not like last time.”
“Are you giving me a second chance?” I asked.
“Maybe.” He didn’t look one hundred percent sold, but I was taking it.
“Does that mean you’ve forgiven me?” I asked.
“Getting there, slowly.” He looked at me seriously.
I started nodding. “I won’t do anything bad, I promise. I won’t let you down, I won’t lie again, I won’t . . . I promise!” My heart felt like it wanted to leap into his hands. He was giving me another chance! Was this him accepting my apology for everything that had happened between us?
“Goodnight, Becca.” He leaned in and planted the smallest kiss on my lips.
“Goodnight, Mike,” I whispered against his mouth.
“By the way,” he said, pulling away slightly, “I like you in red.” He ran a finger over my cheek and then traced the curve of my mouth with it.
I smiled at him and then he turned and walked off.
CHAPTER 65
I was fast asleep when I felt the bed moving up and down.
“Becca!” I heard his voice and then I felt the warm hand on my shoulder. “Becca, wake up,” he said.
“What?” I mumbled, caught somewhere between awake and asleep—that strange no man’s land where your body feels suspended between what is real and what isn’t.
“Come, get up. I think I know where the letters are,” he said to me, a gentle tapping on my shoulder.
At that, I sat straight up. I blinked several times, until my eyes adjusted to the light a little better. The moon was full; it was casting a soft white light into my room and this white light made Mike look like some kind of a statue, sculpted out of a white slab of marble.
“Where?” I rubbed the sticky sleep from my eyes and shook my head awake.
“The stables.” Mike flicked the light on next to my bed and I blinked rapidly as the harsh light almost blinded me. I shielded my eyes with my hands.
“What do you mean, stables?” I asked.
“I was looking through the old photo albums again, and there’s a picture of her and her horse,” he said.
I nodded and yawned at the same time. “I read about that in her diary.”
“Well, its name was Darcy. The horse.”
At that, a little shot of adrenalin woke me up. “And you think, what? That she hid the letters in the stables? That it was a cryptic clue—she didn’t mean an actual book?”
“Wouldn’t you make it cryptic? Something that only the person who knows you would work out?”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s just a slight leap, isn’t it? My favorite book, to the horse stables?”
“And, think about it, the stables are all the way at the bottom of the property, they back on to the woods—he would have been able to get to them, unseen. And, also, if she was unable to get away to give them to him, because my great-grandfather was watching her, she could have easily put them in the stables when she went riding.”
“You’ve thought about this a lot,” I said. I was still skeptical, though.
“I’m going to check it out, whether you’re coming or not.”
I jumped up. “I didn’t say I wasn’t coming.”
“Okay,” he said, and waited for me as I skidded around the room, pulling on a pair of shoes and a jumper.
“It’s inside out.” He pointed, once I was done.
“Mmmm?” I looked down at myself. I had indeed put my jumper on the wrong way. “I’m not very functional in the morning,” I said, trying to pull the thing off, but getting tangled in the process.
“Here.” He moved over to me and pulled at my jumper. “Seems you need some help dressing yourself in the mornings.” He smiled.
I put my arms up in the air and watched him as he pulled the jumper up and off me. He was looking at it with such concentration as he held the hole open for me to stick my head through. I did, and popped out the other end with a smile.
“Haven’t had someone dress me in a while,” I joked.
“That’s surprising, since it seems you need some help in that department.”
“Ha ha,” I teased back, wiggling into the jumper as he pulled it down my body. But, as his hands grazed my rib cage, I stiffened and froze. Suddenly, everything around us felt different again. Very.
His hands stopped what they were doing. They weren’t pulling on my top anymore; instead, his fingertips had come to rest on my rib cage. I could feel his hands through the cotton T-shirt I was wearing; they felt warm and soft. They tightened around me slightly and I shivered. My skin pebbled and the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood straight up. His hands slipped down my sides, tracing my body as they went, and then came to rest on my waist, making me feel dizzy.
“What are you doing?” I whispered, looking up at him. He was staring at his hands, as if deciding what to do with them. Should I tell him what to do with them? Should I let him know where I wanted them? That I wanted them all over my body, in my hair, gripping the back of my neck, on my cheeks, holding my face?
He didn’t answer me, but his eyes did. Th
ey went from green to a stormy black, and an excited shiver ran the length of my body. And then his gaze left my waist and drifted back up to my eyes, seeking me out with such intensity, such a determined focus, that I was sure the room around me just disappeared.
“What are you doing?” I asked again, my mouth going dry as his hands slipped under my clothing and came to rest on my naked flesh—the soft part, where my hips ended and my stomach began. But he didn’t say a word, and neither did I. This strange place we now found ourselves in seemed to be a wordless place—that is, words didn’t really seem adequate to describe what was going on. We were neither here, nor there. We were neither lovers, nor strangers. We were neither together, nor apart. We could touch, but we couldn’t. We couldn’t fall, but we couldn’t stop ourselves either. I could feel that, now. His hands moved round to my lower back, and he pulled me closer to him. I lifted my arms and wrapped them around his neck. I looked at him and smiled.
“Becca,” he said.
“Mmm?” I continued to smile at him, and then he sighed. The second he did, he let out a small chuckle.
“Must be contagious.” Then he stared at me, swaying us from side to side, as if we were dancing.
I laughed. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t know,” he said.
“Just so you know, I don’t dance,” I said quickly.
“Neither do I.”
“So, why does it feel like we’re dancing?” I asked, feeling amused.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Not sure. Maybe it’s because I’m trying to decide what to do with you.” He stopped swaying and we looked at each other, both our smiles fading.
“What do you want to do with me?” I asked, swallowing.
His eyes swept over my face. “Now, that is a good question, and it doesn’t have an easy answer, does it?”
I pushed away from him a little. “No, I guess it doesn’t.” And then I perked up a little. “But, if it helps, I didn’t commit any crimes last night.”
He smiled at me. “That does help.”
“Thanks. For dressing me,” I said.
“Pleasure.” He nodded and walked to the door. “We better go.”
