He hadn’t gotten around to removing his wedding ring yet. He couldn’t bring himself to take it off. He should, he had to—but he couldn’t. Taking it off would be like an amputation.
“I’m not married,” he told her, his voice low and strained.
Shelley’s arms dropped to her sides. “Oh,” she said uncertainly, her gaze lingering on his left hand.
He struggled to reclaim the happiness he’d experienced at finding her here, but it seemed permanently gone. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, looking away. “I—I don’t think—I’m not quite up to going out to a restaurant for dinner,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right,” she said, obviously bewildered. “Some other time, maybe.”
“No.” Suddenly it was imperative that he make things clear to her. He wanted her company; he wanted to learn why she’d left his world so long ago, what had happened to her, what had brought her back to Block Island. He wanted her friendship once more.
But he didn’t think he could survive a fancy dinner at a restaurant, where he would have to dress smartly and act suavely and contend with the presence of other suave, smartly dressed diners seated at tables all around him. “Look, I—” he took a deep breath. “I haven’t got much, but if you’d like to come up to the house, we could throw together some sandwiches.”
She gazed into his eyes. “If you don’t want to—”
“I do want to.”
“Are you sure?”
“Very sure.”
She smiled slightly. “How about if I come up to the house and bring a pizza?”
“Even better,” he said.
She stared at him for a minute longer. Then, with a swift glance at his wedding band, she moved back around the counter to the cash register. “I’ll ring this up for you,” she said, righting the bottle of aspirin and scanning it into the cash register.
He noticed the concentration in her face, the confusion that haunted her eyes for a moment and then vanished behind a carefully wrought mask of brisk competence. She was pulling back from him, withdrawing, interpreting his reticence as a lack of candor on his part.
She slid the aspirin bottle into a paper bag and handed it to him. Her eyes met his and he saw in them doubt, distrust and something else he couldn’t interpret. “Eight dollars and forty-seven cents,” she said.
He gave her a ten dollar bill and she gave him his change. “I really want you to come to the house,” he swore.
Her gaze held his. “I’ll be there,” she promised.
“You remember where it is, don’t you?”
“I could find it with my eyes closed.”
He studied her face, reveling in its blessed familiarity. Something had happened to her twelve summers ago, something significant, something that had altered her existence forever. Something just as traumatic had happened to him. If anyone would understand what he’d been through, Shelley would.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
Her eyes shimmered with tears but she didn’t look away. “I’ve missed you, too.”
“I’ll see you tonight,” he murmured, then turned and walked down the aisle to the front door. He didn’t want to watch her cry, not here, not in this public place, surrounded by jars of acne cream and boxes of gauze.
“I’ll see you,” she echoed, her voice softer than a whisper.
He barely heard her words, but he felt them deep in his heart. And for the first time in ages, he found himself looking forward to dinner.
Chapter Six
HE WAS IN THE CUPOLA when she showed up. The glass in his hand was full; he’d already polished off one dose of bourbon and was starting on his second. For better or worse, the liquor had had no effect on him so far.
He’d arrived at the house besieged by conflicting emotions. The place looked well-maintained, the lawn trimmed, the trees pruned and the rose and honeysuckle bushes trailing decoratively over the stone walls. The house’s exterior must have been painted within the previous year; salty sea breezes could destroy a paint job with ruthless dispatch, but the clapboard siding and gingerbread trim looked clean and fresh. He cruised up the driveway past the house to the detached garage, left the engine running while he opened the padlock that held the doors shut, and drove in.
He told himself, again and again, that coming here was a good idea. He chanted the words like a mantra, waiting for the moment when he would start to believe them. As soon as he crossed the threshold into the front hall, though, apprehension clutched him by the throat.
Coming here was not a good idea. This was a place of happiness, not mourning. It was a place of joyful memories. He felt like a trespasser, polluting the atmosphere with his grief.
Setting down his suitcase and the bag of groceries in the entry, he wandered into the living room. His gaze traveled from the fireplace to the framed print of a Winslow Homer seascape above it, from the overstuffed sofa where his mother used to stretch out, listening to her beloved Handel and Bach on the stereo, to the ancient rocking chair where his grandmother used to doze.
His grandmother had passed away three and a half years ago. Although she’d been eighty-eight years old her death had pained Kip. He’d consoled himself with the knowledge that she’d lived a rich life bursting with experience and surrounded by love.
Amanda had been surrounded by love, too. But she hadn’t gotten her full allotment of experience. She had only just begun to live her life.
He hurried out of the room, stopped to retrieve the groceries, and went into the kitchen. Again his vision drank in not just the scene itself but the memories that haunted it. He surveyed the windowed cabinets, the deep double-basin sink, the door to the pantry, the marble-topped counters. He remembered sitting on one of those counters, munching on an apple and swinging his feet until his mother yelled at him for scuffing the cabinet with his shoes. He remembered sneaking up on Diana when she was seated at the circular table in the walk-out bay and shoving an ice-cube down the back of her shirt. He remembered gobbling his breakfast and then tearing out the back door, eager to join Shelley for a day of adventure.
Amanda would have loved this room. She would have loved the high ceilings, the scent of cinnamon that hung in the air, the spring latches that held the cabinets shut, the black-and-white checkerboard tiles covering the floor. She would have loved spreading out her cooking paraphernalia on the spacious counters, cluttering every available surface as she made stuffed chicken breasts or Creole shrimp. She had always complained about the cramped size of the kitchen in their Pacific Heights apartment.
He issued a pungent curse. Blasphemy couldn’t scare away his thoughts of her, though. She remained stubbornly with him; he couldn’t stop seeing his surroundings through her eyes.
Crossing the room, he removed the sticks that propped the refrigerator and freezer doors open, then reached inside to flick the switch. The lightbulbs in both compartments lit up and the motor began to hum. He set the milk, juice and apples inside, closed both doors, and unloaded the rest of his groceries on the adjacent counter.
After filling a highball glass with bourbon, he carried his suitcase up to the second floor, to the bedroom that had been his. Summer people had been using the room for the last decade, but he still thought of it as his. The rugs were where they’d always been, the framed map of Block Island, the maple dresser with its round knobs, the tan curtains with their white swags. He placed the suitcase on the mattress and his drink on the night table, then opened both the front and side windows to ventilate the room. In the closet he found clean linens. He unpacked and made up the bed, punctuating each task with a sip of bourbon.
Yet when he was done emptying his suitcase and his glass, he remained obsessed with Amanda. He thought about how she would have loved the window seat, the stodgy design of the furniture, the textured white spread covering the double bed...how she would have loved sharing the bed with him.
Abruptly he left the room, descended to the kitchen, refilled his glass and then headed back
upstairs, into the smallest bedroom, up the ladder-stairs.
Compared to the chilly air outdoors, the cupola was stifling. Kip opened the windows and gazed out. It was too foggy to see much, but he resolutely faced north, knowing that on a clear day the view would be of New Harbor and the Great Salt Pond. Looking east toward Old Harbor would mean looking at where he’d come from. He’d journeyed to the island to turn his back on where he’d come from, to escape from it. As if such a thing were possible.
The bourbon slipped smoothly down his throat. He rested his forearms against the window ledge and watched white curls of mist skirt the ground. It reminded him of the fog in San Francisco.
He cursed again.
The sound of an automobile rattling along the gravel driveway jolted him. He had been so deeply submerged in gloomy thoughts, he had all but forgotten about Shelley. Rotating, he glanced out the southern window in time to see a Chevy Blazer coasting to a halt near the front walk. The driver’s side door swung open and Shelley emerged, dressed in blue jeans and a colorful sweater. She reached back into the car and pulled out a flat square box, a brown paper bag and a purse.
Her arrival couldn’t dispel the plumes of fog blanketing the island, but it dispelled the fog in Kip’s mind. He looked at the glass in his hand and frowned, as if not quite sure how it had gotten there.
Less than a minute later he was opening the front door to her. “Hi,” she said.
He held open the screen door and she stepped inside. Her eyes were wide, flitting around the entry. “It feels so strange to be here,” she said.
“It feels pretty strange to me, too,” he admitted, taking the pizza box from her. It was hot, the bottom beginning to wilt from its steamy contents, and he hurried down the hall to the kitchen with it. Turning, he discovered that Shelley hadn’t followed him.
He found her in the living room, hugging the paper bag and gazing about her. He had a pretty good idea what she was going through—the shock of recollection, the blunt impact of realizing how much time had gone by since she’d last stood in that room, how much had happened in that time, how much she’d changed. He understood because he was going through the same thing.
Unlike him, though, she didn’t seem upset. When she rotated to face him her eyes were glowing, her lips spread in a smile. “I’ve lived on Block Island for three years,” she said, “but I haven’t felt I was truly here until this minute. Your house was so much a part of the island for me. And now...” She sighed happily. “I feel like I’m really back.”
Tentatively, he returned her smile. If being inside his house could make her so happy, he was glad to have been able to open the door and let her in.
She extended the paper bag toward him. “I brought some beer, too,” she said. “I considered bringing lemonade, but...” She shrugged.
Lemonade. How many times had he drunk lemonade with Shelley? Yet they’d never drunk beer with each other. If she had returned to the island the year after her unexplained disappearance they would have; that summer, Kip had had his first underage run-ins with beer.
He relaxed, his smile widening. “We’d better eat the pizza before it gets cold,” he suggested.
They walked together into the kitchen. He supposed they could use the dining room, but he felt more comfortable in the kitchen. Shelley had never been one for formality; he assumed she wouldn’t object.
While he set the table with dinner plates and a roll of paper towels he found in the cabinet under the sink, she opened the box and loosened a couple of slices. He pulled the beer out of the bag, removed two bottles and slid the other four onto a shelf in the refrigerator. “Would you like a glass?” he asked as he twisted off the caps.
Shelley shook her head. She was looking at the bottle of Jack Daniels and the filled highball glass on the counter.
He wondered whether he should assure her that he’d prefer a beer to bourbon right now, whether he should explain to her that while bourbon was a good drink to consume in the company of bleak memories, in the company of an old friend beer was more appropriate. He decided to say nothing.
She sat, and he took the chair across the table from her. After she’d placed two slices of pizza on their plates, he closed the lid of the box, giving himself an unobstructed view of her face. Her eyes were still shining, lucid and cheerful, more silver than gray.
He raised his bottle and clinked it against hers. “Here’s to you,” he toasted.
“To you,” she said simultaneously, then laughed. “To both of us.”
“To friendship,” he said, then drank. It was all he could do to keep from toasting her laughter. The mere sound of it brought back so many memories—good memories of romping at the beach and racing each other on their bikes, engaging in cut-throat competition over backgammon, showing off their knowledge and goofing around. Shelley Ballard was a woman now, but her laughter was young and musical and infectious.
She bit off the narrow point of her slice of pizza, chewed and swallowed. Her eyes never straying from him, she grinned. “I feel very self-conscious,” she declared.
“Why?”
“You’re staring at me. Why don’t you eat?”
He dutifully took a bite. He didn’t stop staring, though. “So, you actually live here on the island.”
“I actually do. I’ve got a B.I. zip code, a four-six-six telephone exchange and a Rhode Island driver’s license.”
“And you’re here year-round. What’s it like in the winter?” In all the years his parents had owned this house, he had never been on the island during the winter.
“Empty,” she told him. “Cold and blissfully empty. There are fewer than a thousand people here in the winter. Everyone knows everyone. We look out for each other, but everyone respects everyone else’s privacy. It’s very quiet.”
Why an attractive young woman like Shelley would want that sort of quiet existence puzzled him. He had come to the island to heal in solitude. What if Shelley had come for the same reason?
“How did you wind up a pharmacist?” he asked.
“God knows,” she said, then laughed again, a shimmering laugh that warmed the room. “I don’t think it was a conscious decision. It was subliminal.”
“Come on,” he argued with a smile. “Nobody becomes a pharmacist subliminally. You’ve got to take all those chemistry and biology courses.”
She sipped her beer, her lips curved in a grin even as she tipped the bottle against her mouth. “Once I decided to major in pharmacology, I took the courses I needed. I can assure you I was very conscious of the curriculum. Amazingly enough, I discovered I had a knack for applied science.” She took another bite of her pizza. “How about you? What sort of work do you do?”
“Financial consulting,” he answered. “You were right--I’m a yuppie.”
“Wasn’t your father in finance?”
“Real estate and urban development,” Kip corrected her. “My specialty is helping small companies organize their financial strategies.”
“Did you do that in California, too?”
He nodded, refusing to acknowledge the reflexive twinge any mention of California invariably caused. “I took an M.B.A. at Stanford. My life is really disgustingly yuppie-ish,” he summarized with a smile. When was the last time he’d been able to joke about his illustrious education and his fast-track career? Only Shelley could get him to laugh at himself. “For a while I was in danger of taking up golf, but the urge seems to have faded.”
“Thank God,” Shelley said with pretended solemnity. “You don’t wear plaid slacks, do you?”
“I avoid them like the plague,” he swore, holding his hand up.
“Suspenders?”
“Never.”
“I guess you aren’t too far gone, then.”
He chuckled. “And meanwhile, you’re running around in a white coat, drugging people. You’ve got some nerve making fun of me.”
“Kip, if anyone has the nerve to make fun of you, it’s me.”
“Only because
you know I’ll retaliate. So tell me more about this white-coat job of yours. I still can’t imagine you reading prescription slips and counting tablets.”
“Sometimes I can’t imagine it, either,” she confessed, toying with a strand of mozzarella, her gaze distant as she chased her thoughts. “I think I became a pharmacist because I knew, deep in my heart, that I wanted to live here. I wanted to come back to the island and settle down. And the island didn’t have a pharmacist. If I got the training, I could provide a needed service and support myself, too. It took a while to work it out. I held a job in ‘America’ for a couple of years after graduation, and waited until the pieces fell into place.”
“Do you own the pharmacy?”
She let out a snort. “I’m in debt up to my ears, Kip. Even if I’d wanted to take out a business loan I wouldn’t have qualified for one.”
That surprised him. He had never thought of the Ballards as super-rich, but surely they’d been comfortably well off. Shelley had never been strapped for funds when he’d known her. He couldn’t believe her parents would refuse to lend her some money if there was no other way to finance her dream.
Unless, of course, they couldn’t afford to help her out. Perhaps that was what had happened to her the summer she’d disappeared: a reversal in her family’s finances. “Was that it?” he guessed. “Your family went broke?”
She had been reaching for a second slice of pizza, but as soon as he’d verbalized his hunch she stopped. Her hands fell to her lap and her gaze darted about the room, as if searching for something to focus on.
“You don’t have to answer that,” he said contritely.
“I think I do,” she responded. “That’s why I came for dinner, isn’t it?”
“You came because we’re friends,” he said, astonished at how right that sounded, how true it was. After so many years without a word from her, she could reenter his life and he could still think of her as a friend.
He watched as she curved her fingers around her beer bottle and lifted it. Her hand trembled slightly as she brought the bottle to her lips and sipped. Then she lowered it and met his probing gaze. “Yes, Kip, my family went broke. In every sense of the word.”
Safe Harbor Page 9
