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“I’d like to buy the egret,” she said. “Are you the artist?”
Lacey set down her glass cutter and slipped off her safety glasses. “That’s me,” she said, standing up. “I’m glad you’re taking that one. It’s one of my favorites.” This was not a lie, not a ploy to make the woman feel good about her purchase. She loved the shades of green she’d found for the tall grasses surrounding the giant bird. She would make another piece similar to this one now that it was sold, but it would not be exactly the same. She liked the idea that each of her stained-glass panels was one-of-a-kind.
The woman and her friends were just leaving the studio with the carefully wrapped glass egret when a man walked through the front door. His eyes lit briefly on Lacey, then on the large black-and-white photograph hanging on the movable wall in the center of the room. The picture had been there for as long as Lacey could remember.
The man stopped walking. Slipping his hands into his pockets, he stared at the photograph, then at Lacey again. “What a beautiful shot of you,” he said.
“That’s not me,” Lacey said. “That’s my mother.”
“Oh.” The man winced as though embarrassed by his mistake. “Quite a resemblance.”
“People always think it’s me,” she said. A year earlier she had wanted to take that picture down, but Tom was the photographer and she could never have explained to him why a photograph she had once loved had come to disturb her.
“Were you the photographer?” the man asked.
“No. I was only about ten when that was taken.”
“Oh. Of course.” He had wandered toward the display table near the window and carefully picked up one of her kaleidoscopes. “This is beautiful,” he said, holding the heavy stained-glass tube in his hands.
“Look through it,” she said.
He lifted the kaleidoscope to his left eye and faced the window. “It’s beautiful,” he said again, turning the disk, and she knew what he was seeing—triangles of design formed by intensely colored glass beads and slivers of mirror.
Lowering the kaleidoscope, he looked over at her. “Did you make this?”
“Uh-huh.”
He looked like one of those preppy sort of guys you might see modeling clothes in a catalogue. His brown hair was cut short and his eyes were dark, with lashes she could see from across the room. He was hardly dressed for the beach, in his khaki-colored chinos and plaid sport shirt. Although she supposed most women would find him drop-dead gorgeous, he was not her type and that relieved her, because he was obviously interested in her. She would not be tempted. She went for the earthier types—a little disheveled, imperfect features, knowing grins and the sort of eyes that cut right through to her soul. She was grateful that this guy did not come close to fitting that bill.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Lacey O’Neill.”
“And is all this stained glass yours?” He motioned toward the windows.
“Most of it. Some of it was made by Tom Nestor.” She nodded toward Tom’s empty worktable. “He’s at lunch. All the photographs are his.”
The man glanced again at the huge black-and-white print of her mother.
“Including that one,” she said.
He walked across the room to her worktable. He was still holding the kaleidoscope, and he shifted it to his left hand as he held his right out toward her.
“I’m Rick Tenley,” he said.
She shook his hand. “You just here for the week?” she asked, making conversation. Most tourists visited the Outer Banks for a week.
“Actually, no.” He lifted the kaleidoscope to his eye again and gently spun the wheel. “I’m staying in a buddy’s cottage while I’m working on a book. He’s in Europe, and I wanted the peace and quiet.”
She had to laugh. “Not much peace and quiet around here during the summer.”
He lowered the kaleidoscope with a smile. “Well, it’s away from my regular life,” he said. “None of the usual interruptions.”
She spotted Tom walking up the front steps of the studio, and Rick followed her gaze to the door.
“This is the other artist,” she said as Tom walked into the room. “Tom Nestor, this is Rick …”
“Tenley.” Rick turned to shake Tom’s hand. “You do beautiful work,” he said.
“Thanks.”
There was an awkward moment of silence between the three of them. Rick turned to face Lacey again, a question in his eyes she couldn’t read, and in that instant, she knew he wanted something more from her than stained glass.
“Rick is here for the summer, working on a novel,” she said, to break the silence.
“Not a novel,” Rick said. “It’s nonfiction. Dry stuff.”
“Ah.” Tom moved to the coffeepot at the side of the room. He poured himself a cup, then lifted it to his lips, looking at Rick over the rim. “Where are you from?” he asked.
“Chapel Hill,” Rick said. “I teach at Duke.”
She couldn’t help but be impressed. He looked too young to teach in a high school, much less a university. “What do you teach?” she asked.
“Law.”
“Wow,” she said. “That’s great.”
Tom sat down at his table, slipped on his safety glasses and returned to his work, probably figuring that the stilted conversation was not worth his time.
“How long have you lived here?” Rick asked her.
“My whole life.”
He held the kaleidoscope toward her. “I’d like to buy this,” he said.
“Good choice.” She wondered if he truly liked it or if he was simply trying to ingratiate himself with her. Taking the kaleidoscope from him, she began wrapping it in tissue paper. She could feel him appraising her.
Don’t look at me that way, she thought to herself. From the corner of her eye, she saw him glance at Tom, then back at her, and she guessed he was trying to figure out if they might be a couple. A very odd couple. A twentysomething-year-old woman and a fiftysomething-year-old ponytailed ex-hippie. Apparently, he came to the correct conclusion.
“Any chance you’d have dinner with me tonight?” he asked her. “You probably know all the best places to eat.”
“Oh, sorry, I can’t,” she answered quickly, prepared for the invitation. She thought of telling him she was going to the gym, which was the truth, but then he might ask if he could join her there. She slipped the wrapped kaleidoscope into a plastic bag and handed it to him. “I can recommend some places for you, though.”
“Are you … attached?” He caught himself. “Sorry. That was blunt. None of my business.”
She might have lied, but found she couldn’t with Tom listening in on the conversation.
“Not really,” she hedged. “I’m just … I’m busy tonight.”
“Okay.” He seemed to accept that. “Some other time, maybe.” He held the bag in the air like a salute. “Thanks for the kaleidoscope.”
“You’re welcome.”
She watched him leave the studio and walk across the small lot, where he got into a BMW the same color as his pants. She felt Tom’s gaze on her and knew he was smiling.
“He’ll be back,” Tom said, standing up to pour himself another cup of coffee. “A guy like that isn’t used to rejection.”
3
THE COTTAGE WAS TUCKED DEEP IN THE WOODS on the sound side of the island, but when Rick sat on the small, rotting deck, he could see patches of sun-soaked water between the branches of the loblolly pines. He could hold the kaleidoscope to his eye, aim it toward those silvery patches of water, and watch the beads of glass form designs as he twirled the wheel.
The cottage did not belong to a friend, as he had told Lacey O’Neill. He wasn’t even certain why he’d said that. Maybe he was simply practicing for the other lies he would have to tell. He was actually renting this place. It had two minuscule bedrooms, one more than he needed. No TV to distract him from his writing. No air-conditioning, but he could handle the heat. There was a phone line to connect him to e-mail and the Internet, and electricity for his computer. That was all he required. When he’d first entered the musty-smelling cottage four days earlier, he’d guessed it had not changed in the seventy years or so of its existence. He doubted a stick of furniture had been replaced. The tourists who usually came to the Outer Banks for the summer would disdain this sort of place. They wanted houses that slept ten, televisions in every room, hot tubs, pools, views. That’s why he’d been able to get the run-down cottage for a song. And it was perfect.
There was a short, overgrown path that ran from the deck through the woods to a sliver of sand at the edge of the sound. Each day since his arrival, he’d taken a beach chair down to the water’s edge and read or worked or just watched the boats from his nearly hidden vantage point. Last night, when it had been too hot to sleep, he took his flashlight and walked through the trees to the water’s edge, then swam out into the bay, the quiet of the night surrounding him. He planned to make that nighttime swim a habit. There were grasses or something underwater that had given him the creeps as he swam away from the shore, but once he’d gotten past the grasping tendrils, the cool, dark water had buoyed him up and felt good against his skin. He’d floated on his back, and thought about Lacey O’Neill. That red hair. The warmth in her blue eyes. She was a kind person; you could tell that before she even opened her mouth. He would have to try again with her. He was not the type to give up. You didn’t make it through law school by being a quitter.
He’d practiced law for only a year before going the teaching route. The university had overlooked his lack of experience for his excellent command of his material, and he’d been grateful. He preferred teaching law to practicing it. He’d never liked twisting the truth to fit the needs of his clients, and sometimes that had been not only necessary but expected. He could never tell a lie without remembering his father’s advice. He’d been only eight or nine when he’d overheard his father tell an elderly aunt that she looked nice in a new outfit when in reality, she’d looked like a pruny old woman trying to appear far younger than her years. In private, he’d asked his father if he really believed the old woman looked nice. “Sometimes a lie can be a gift,” his father had said. They were the words Rick tried to follow in his life. He would lie only when it was a gift.
He waited two days before returning to the stained glass studio, and he was glad to find Lacey there alone. The older man with the ponytail had made him uncomfortable. He’d seemed entirely too interested in his conversation with Lacey.
She was standing on a stepladder, hanging a stained-glass panel in the window, when he walked in.
“Hi, Lacey,” he said.
She glanced down at him, and he was pleased to see her smile.
“Hi, Rick,” she said, slipping the wire attached to the panel over a hook above the window.
“Do you need some help there?”
“I do this all the time,” she said as she descended the ladder. Once on the floor, she started to fold the ladder, but he took it from her hands.
“I don’t mean to badger you,” he said, folding it for her. “But you’ve been on my mind. Every time I look through that kaleidoscope, I think about you and your red hair. I’d really like to buy you dinner. Any night. You can choose.”
She sighed with a smile, and he knew he was making it difficult for her to offer a graceful rejection.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “The truth is, I’m taking a break from dating these days.”
“Oh. Oh, I understand.” He had the feeling she was being honest, and that only increased his guilt. “I’ve done that a time or two myself. You’re getting over a bad relationship, I guess, huh?”
“Something like that.” She took the ladder from him and carried it over to the side of the studio, resting it against the wall.
“Well, how about if it’s not a date?” he asked. “We won’t dress up. I won’t even pick you up. We can meet someplace very public. And we won’t have any fun.”
That made her laugh. “All right,” she said, shaking her head. “You win.”
They made arrangements for the following night, and he left the studio far happier than when he’d arrived. In the parking lot, he got into his car and buckled his seat belt.
Yes, he thought as he turned the key in the ignition. I win.
4
FAYE COLLIER WALKED INTO THE HOSPITAL GYM and climbed onto her favorite elliptical trainer machine, the one positioned in the middle of the wall of windows, so she could have an uninterrupted view of the San Diego hills while she worked out. Judy and Leda, the two physical therapists in the chronic pain program and her workout buddies, took the elliptical trainers on either side of her. Faye wondered briefly how the three of them looked from the rear. She was Judy and Leda’s supervisor and had a master’s degree in nursing. She was blond, while they were both brunettes, yet she was twenty-five years older than either of them, and when it came to the backs of their thighs, she had no illusion that the physical therapists had her beat.
“What do you think of that new patient?” Judy pressed some buttons on the console and started moving her legs and arms in a long, smooth stride.
“The young guy with bone cancer?” Faye asked. “I think he needs—”
“Hi, Faye.” Jim Price was suddenly next to her, standing between her elliptical trainer and Leda’s. The sight of him put an instant smile on her face. She hoped she wasn’t blushing.
“Hi,” she said, slowing her pace on the machine. “I didn’t know you worked out during lunch.”
“I don’t,” he said. “But I just finished the paper you gave me to read and wanted to compliment you on it. Excellent.”
“I’m glad you liked it,” she said. She could feel perspiration, the result of the workout and a poorly timed hot flash, running down her throat and between her breasts. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.
“I made a few comments on it,” Jim said. “I’ll show you tonight, okay?”
She was blushing now. Judy and Leda had grown very quiet. They both slowed their machines to soften the noise from the flywheels, and she knew they were hanging on every word of her conversation with Jim. “That’ll be great,” she said. In the light from the window, his eyes were a delicate bronze color. She had not noticed that about him before.
Jim motioned for her to lean down so he could whisper in her ear. “You look terrific,” he said, his breath soft against her skin.
She straightened up again, smiling, and mouthed the word “thanks.”
He left her side, and Faye was grateful that Judy and Leda had the presence of mind not to say anything until he was well out of hearing distance.
“So,” Judy asked. “When’s your next date with him?”
“Tonight,” she said. Even though she had slowed her pace significantly, the monitor showed that her heart rate was the highest it had been since she’d climbed on the machine. She could not believe she was allowing a man to have that sort of effect on her.
“You are so lucky,” Leda said.
Faye knew that many of the women—and some of the men—working in the hospital had a thing for Jim Price. Even the young women wanted him. A widower for two years, Jim had left his surgery practice to take care of his wife during the last few months of her life, and nearly everyone found that sort of love and sacrifice laudable. He had money, looks that were rare for a man of fifty-five, and he was kind to patients and staff alike. Faye had known him for years, since he often referred patients to the pain program she had created, but he had not truly seemed to notice her until a few weeks ago, when her book on treating chronic pain was published. Someone must have told him that she had also lost a spouse, and his interest in her had been doubly piqued. In their first real conversation, they’d discovered another commonality: they had both grown up in North Carolina. That fact seemed to seal their fate as two people who should get to know one another better.
“Is it getting serious?” Leda asked.
“Define serious.”
“Have you slept with him?”
“Of course not. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“But this will be the third date, right?” Judy asked.
“Yes. So?”
Leda laughed. “So you’d better shave your legs.”
“Why?” She felt dense. Old and dense. She was also a little breathless and couldn’t help but notice that Leda and Judy seemed to be having no problem talking as they pedaled the machines.
