by Nancy Thayer
—
Mack Whitney arrived the next day at twelve-thirty.
When Lisa opened the door, she nearly passed out, shocked by the sensual gorgeousness of the man. How had she forgotten his…his…his maleness?
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Mack.” He extended his large rough hand for her to shake and held hers in his.
“I’m Lisa,” she told him, “but of course you know that, you’re here because I asked you to come, and I’m so grateful. This poor old house needs a lot of love.” Oh, no! Could she say anything more embarrassing? It was all she could do not to slam her hand over her mouth and giggle like a tween. Two minutes with the man and she was talking about love and she never did that!
“I think I’m staring at you,” Lisa admitted. “It’s just, um, are you Dutch? You look like you are.” Trying to make some kind of sense, she added, “I was in Amsterdam once.” Could she sound any crazier?
“My mother was Dutch,” Mack explained. “I was born here.” He was still holding her hand.
“Oh, I see.” Gently, she pulled away her hand.
“It’s a beautiful house,” Mack said.
“Oh! Yes, it is.” Lisa stepped back. “Please. Come in. I’ll show you the dining room. The house must have been stunning when it was first built. It’s Greek Revival, you know, built in 1840, which is why the rooms are so small but still have fireplaces and the doors have those small rectangles of glass at the top so you could look in to see if something was on fire, but you probably know that.”
She led him into the dining room. “Every room needed work when we bought the house. We did what we could, but the children were little—” She didn’t say, and my husband left me for another woman.
She was caught in the past and at the same time in the present where Mack, tall and wide-shouldered, extremely alive here and now, stood waiting. She couldn’t think what to do.
“So obviously you’re concerned about the ceiling,” Mack said, pointing to cracks in the plaster and ominous bulges.
“Yes, yes,” she said, snapping back into her sensible self. “The water from that storm last week got in somehow. I don’t understand. With the second floor and the attic above, how could water get to this level?”
Mack walked around, head back, studying the ceiling with its crystal chandelier hanging from the middle of the handsome plaster rosette that each of the downstairs rooms had.
“It hasn’t damaged the rosette,” Mack said. “My men could take down the ceiling—it will be a dusty mess, but if we don’t replace it, it’s all going to come down someday. We’ll work around the rosette, put up fresh plaster and paint. And I’ll need to get up on the roof and check the flashing around the chimney. If some of it’s missing, that will be where the water got in. Water has its ways.”
“Oh. Well, that’s one major problem we need solved. Also, in the dining room, I don’t know why I never got around to it, but part of the chimney is missing a brick or two, so I’ve never had a fire in here, haven’t had the money to repair it—we’ve got four chimneys—and also there’s no damper, so when the wind gusts above fifty-five miles an hour, it blows down the chimney and into the room. I—this is embarrassing, but it does work, kind of—I stuffed a crib mattress up inside there. It doesn’t show and it’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing.”
“I imagine in a house this size, the heating bills are huge,” Mack said. “I’ll make you a damper.”
“Oh, good. And my bathroom, I guess, we should look at next. It’s old, and the sink was beautiful once, but the porcelain has worn away from the drain hole”—Why, Lisa thought frantically, was hole such an embarrassing word?—“so it’s all black, metal, I suppose, and the faucets drip no matter what I do, so there are stains…”
“ ‘Lay on, MacDuff,’ ” Mack said.
Lisa realized she’d been talking to him and staring at him as if in a trance. As if while she talked she could keep him trapped so she could look at him. She knew he wanted her to take him to the bathroom, but first…
“Wow, you got the quote right,” she said. “Most people say, ‘Lead on, MacDuff,’ but you said it correctly—‘lay on’!” Lisa felt herself blush when she said “lay.”
“Carpenters can read Shakespeare, too,” Mack said, smiling.
“Oh, yes, I mean, no, I mean I didn’t think you didn’t read Shakespeare…”
“Well, I can’t say I’ve read him lately. Mostly I’ve watched baseball but I have seen the streaming plays at the Dreamland. And I bought the DVD of Branagh’s Hamlet.”
Lisa almost clapped her hands in surprise. “Wasn’t that brilliant? The costumes were gorgeous.”
Mack laughed. “Of course you would notice the costumes.” Seeing Lisa hesitate, he added, “Because of your store, I mean. You know all about clothes.”
“Well,” Lisa said mildly, “maybe not all about them.”
“Beth likes to shop there when she wants something special, and she’s never disappointed.”
“Oh, I’m glad. How is Beth?”
“She’s great. Just finished getting her master’s degree in museum studies at BU. She’d like to get a job involved with historic preservation. Eventually, she hopes to work with the Nantucket Historical Association.”
“How wonderful,” Lisa said. “Sounds like she’s a smart girl. And one who knows what she wants to do.”
“She is. You know her mother died when Beth was three—”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Yes, it was terrible. Hard. We went through some rough years, but Beth’s turned out just fine.” Leaning forward, he showed Lisa his phone. “Here’s Beth.”
On the screen was a picture of a lovely young woman with long, lustrous blond hair and green eyes like her father.
“She’s beautiful. She’s got a marvelous smile.”
“Thanks to the orthodontist,” Mack joked. “You have two kids, right?”
“Right,” Lisa said with a light groan. “You know about Theo. He was a darling child, but his teen years were crazy. And Juliet.”
“Juliet was two years ahead, right? A nice girl.”
“My first child. She was the smart one. She’s in Boston now, working for some huge tech company. Theo’s out on the West Coast. He went to college there, but mostly he surfed.” Lisa paused, remembering. “My husband left us when Theo was nine, Juliet eleven. Thankfully, he set us up reasonably well financially. But he really left the kids. No phone calls, no visits, no Christmas cards, no birthday cards. We have no idea where he lives now.”
“What a shit,” Mack said. “Excuse my language.”
“Oh, I’ve called him worse,” Lisa said. “The thing is, I’ve always thought that Theo was such a wild kid because he had no father to show him how to be a man. And Juliet…it was hard on her, too.” Lisa ran her hands through her hair. “I sound like I’m at a therapist’s. Sorry.”
“No need to apologize. Everyone has family problems. Look at poor Atticus Barnes. I knew Paula and Ed. They were great people. They knew Atticus had depressive spells but never imagined he would commit suicide.” Mack paused, then continued. “Beth didn’t, and she was going with him.”
“I know. Theo was best friends with Atticus. The three of them used to hang around here sometimes, especially if fresh cookies were on the counter. Beth was such a nice girl.” Lisa looked down at her hands, as if she would find the right words there. “It was such a terrible time.”
“I remember. Well, I can’t forget.”
“And Theo and Beth…after Atticus died, they seldom saw each other. I think it was too hard. Atticus had always been the center of their group. The magnet. Then he was gone, and they drifted apart…”
For a moment, Lisa found herself looking at Mack, seeing him both as a parent and as a handsome and interesting man. She also saw how thick his blond
hair was, how green his eyes were, and how tall he stood, only two feet away from her.
He appeared to be equally interested in her. His smile was gentle, his eyes warm. The connection took her breath away.
But he was ten years younger than she was.
“Oh,” she said, breaking the spell, “I need to show you the bathroom.”
“Sure,” Mack said.
She turned and led the way, hoping he hadn’t noticed how her cheeks were burning.
* * *
—
A week later, Mack arrived in the morning with a pair of young men and all their ladders and toolboxes and electric power tools. Mack introduced her to the workers, who looked like weightlifters.
“This is Dave and this is Tom.”
“Hello,” Lisa said. “Thanks for coming to help.”
Mack turned toward the men. “Okay. Here’s the first project.” He pointed to the ceiling.
Lisa hung around for a few moments, listening, as if she had any idea what they were talking about, until she realized she was really looking at Mack’s body. He was a gorgeous man, and she didn’t want to leave his presence. She was shocked. She hadn’t felt this way in years. Had she ever?
Lisa pulled herself out of her reverie. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me,” she said.
But of course they didn’t need her. They carefully lifted the paintings off the walls and carried them into the living room. They brought large rolls of plastic into the house and covered doors and walls to protect the rest of the house from plaster dust. Mack drove off to get something, and Dave and Tom set up staging and brought out their power tools.
Lisa was grateful for the narrow back stairs leading down to the kitchen. She turned the kitchen into her everything room, which was fine, because the screened porch was off the kitchen, so she could wander out in the morning and listen to the birds waking up.
Her shop didn’t open until ten—nine once summer started—so she spent an hour or so working on her financials on her laptop at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee at her side. But having the men in the house altered the routine of her days. It was difficult to add and subtract when Mack entered the house. She couldn’t remember responding so physically to a man. She woke up happy, she was seldom hungry, problems were solved more easily, and it wasn’t simply spring. Mack was gorgeous, tall, muscular, strong, and wide-shouldered, with long thick blond hair he held back in a low tail with a piece of string.
She wondered what color his chest hair was…and all his hair. He always wore jeans, an old T-shirt, and worker’s boots. She fantasized about what he looked like in a suit.
Or in nothing.
Of course she knew she was being foolish, thinking of Mack that way. Nothing would happen between them…oh, but daydreams were so lovely.
* * *
—
Sunday morning, the workmen had the day off. So did Lisa, for one last luxurious Sunday before she geared up her shop for the summer crowd. Betsy Mason took charge of Sail this Sunday. Lisa lounged on her wicker sofa on the porch, sipping a glass of iced peach tea and reading a novel. It was her habit and her treat to slip over to the library on Saturday afternoons when Betsy was there to mind the shop. Lisa would go immediately to the new fiction section and browse, as content as a child in a candy store. This morning, she had four new books set out on the wicker table. For a few minutes, she studied each one, deciding which book to start with, and then she settled back in the sofa for a long, delicious read.
She was barefoot, in her kimono, when she heard the kitchen door open, and then Mack was there.
“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to bother you, but I wanted to drop some equipment off so the boys can start plastering first thing tomorrow.”
Lisa said, “That’s fine—good Lord!”
They both looked at the plastering stilts in his hands. Made of steel and rubber, they looked like artificial limbs, and in a way they were, because, Mack explained, the guys would adjust them to the height they needed, fasten them to their feet and knees, and easily reach the ceiling. They had springs for flexibility and rubber soles to make them resistant to skids.
“Very space age,” Lisa said.
“That coffee smells good,” Mack said.
For a beat, Lisa didn’t respond. He was here on Sunday when his crew wasn’t around. He said the coffee smelled good.
“Would you like some?” she asked.
“I really would,” Mack answered. “I don’t know why, but I make crap coffee.”
“Sit down,” Lisa told him, gesturing to a chair. “I’ll get you a cup. Cream, sugar?”
“Black works.”
Her legs were curled up to the side, and when she swung them to the floor and rose, they were exposed. She pulled her kimono together, but the sash wasn’t as all purpose as a zipper, and she knew Mack was looking at her legs. She glanced at him, and she was right.
She did have good legs.
Flushing, she slipped past him into the kitchen. When she brought back the mug, he was seated, just looking around.
“Thanks,” he said. “Beautiful garden. And this is a wonderful space.”
“It’s waking up now,” Lisa said. Mack smiled, she flushed. “I’m cleaning out the fallen leaves and sticks. Oh, and I’ve been spraying the tulips. If I don’t, the rabbits eat all the flowers.”
Mack nodded, not speaking, his eyes intent on her face.
What was happening? Was this the eye contact thing people talked about? “Do you have a garden?” Lisa asked, a bit desperately.
“I guess you could say I have a yard. When Beth was a child, we used to plant flowers and stuff in the spring. Mostly I mow the lawn and water the old geraniums in the pots.”
“I have some ten-year-old geraniums. I bring them in to over-winter in the house. I’ll set them outside soon.”
“Sounds like you’re really good with plants.”
Lisa shrugged. “They’re easier to deal with than ceilings.”
Again, the eye lock. Then, oh of course, here came the hot flash.
“What are you reading?” Mack asked.
“The new Charles Todd mystery. Do you like mysteries?”
“Very much, and thrillers, too. I’m reading a Lee Child book at the moment.”
“Yes, Jack Reacher…”
“Who’s your favorite mystery writer?” Mack asked. “I see you’ve got the new John le Carré here.” He turned the book to face him.
“I don’t consider John le Carré to be a mystery writer. He writes spy thrillers, don’t you think?”
As they talked, the sun slowly moved in the sky, its light brightening the porch, and, Lisa thought sadly, exposing every line in her face. Why was Mack here, she wondered. Maybe her presence was comforting, like a favorite aunt’s, or a teacher’s.
“Would you like more coffee?” she asked.
“No, thanks,” Mack said. “But what are you doing today? It’s warm and sunny. Want to get sandwiches at Something Natural and go out to Great Point?”
Warmth flooded through Lisa, and an extreme joy…and an equally extreme fear. “Oh, I’m sure you don’t want—”
Mack interrupted. “But I do want.” His cheeks reddened. “I’d like your company. Hey, I could have brought the stilts over tomorrow. The reason I dropped in was to see if you wanted to do something today, outside. Away from the house. With me.”
Lisa met Mack’s gaze and gooseflesh broke out over her entire body. Did he like her? That way? “Well, then, so yes, I’d love to. I’ll bring some cold beer and, um, cookies…but I need to get dressed. Just a moment…” She left the room. It was all she could do to keep herself from running up the stairs.
What should she wear? Jeans, sneakers, baggy cotton sweater—not that one with the V-neck, she didn’t want to show even a hint of
cleavage, this wasn’t a date, this was…what? What was this? Could it possibly be in some weird way romantic? Oh, who was she kidding? She was ten years older than Mack. He was only a friend. She pulled on her sports bra so things wouldn’t jiggle when they bumped over the soft sand. A loose cotton sweater, and her L.L.Bean quilted vest. Everything tucked tidily out of sight.
She hurried down the stairs. “Sorry to take so long.”
“No problem.” Mack held the door open for her, and they went out into the day.
They drove through the narrow roads out to the Milestone Rotary, turned left, and sped down ’Sconset road. They turned off toward Wauwinet, and soon were at the ranger station on the side of the road.
Mack had to let the air out of his tires at the ranger station so they could make the drive through the soft sand out to Great Point. It took them forty-five minutes to go about six miles, and the ride was so bumpy they couldn’t really talk. But the views of the pristine beach with the glittering ocean lapping at it mesmerized Lisa. Orange-beaked oystercatchers, piping plovers, and gulls scurried back and forth over the sand and as they neared Great Point, they saw seals swimming or sunning themselves on the beach.
Great Point was a spit of land stretching between Nantucket Sound and the Atlantic. The currents from the two bodies of water met with a gorgeous rolling turbulence that attracted seals, fish, and people. The lighthouse, seventy-one feet of stone painted white, had been first built in 1784 to warn sailors of dangerous shoals. In 1986, it had been rebuilt with new lenses and solar-powered panels to fuel the light.
“Oh, wow,” Lisa said when Mack brought his truck to a stop on the sound side of the point. “I haven’t been out here in a long time. I had no idea about the seals.”
For a while, they sat looking out the windshield at the dozens, if not hundreds, of seals wallowing on the sand. A trustees sign forbade people from walking toward the area where the seals were.
“Let’s have lunch,” Mack said.
“Good idea.”
They left Mack’s truck, carrying a basket, a cooler of iced drinks, and a plaid blanket down a slope of sand to the shore of the calm waters of Nantucket Sound. They spread the blanket on the beach, enjoying the late May sunshine, pleased that there was no breeze blowing to toss sand into their food. They sat on the blanket, with the basket between them, munching sandwiches and watching the aggressive horsehead seals bob up and down in the water, clearly trying to decide if the humans looked good enough to eat.
