The Summer Hideaway

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Ross didn’t let himself comment about that. “I can stay for dinner,” he conceded. “Then I need to borrow the car."

“Thank God I caught you,” said Natalie Sweet, exiting the taxicab. “Your mother told me I could catch you if I hurry.”

In the remote parking facility where the car was stored, Ross set aside the car keys and opened his arms. She launched herself at him. They clung together for long moments and he inhaled the bubblegum-sweet scent of her hair. She was his best friend, and one of his oldest. He and Natalie had met at boarding school in Lugano, Switzerland. They had both been scared, skinny kids with mad skills at skiing and families that were far, far away.

Leaning back a little, he lifted her off the ground. “I’m glad you caught me.”

“Welcome home, soldier,” she said, and her voice in his ear was as welcome as an old favorite song on the radio.

“Thanks.” He set her down. “You look fantastic, Nat. The writing life agrees with you.”

She laughed. “Making a living agrees with me. See how fat and sassy I am?” She perched her hands on her hips.

“You look great.”

She had always been pretty—to Ross, anyway. Not a classic beauty; she had typical girl-next-door good looks, with the wholesome appeal of a loaf of freshly baked bread.

“So things are working out at the paper?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you all about it in the car.” She grinned at his expression. “That’s right, soldier. I’m coming with you.”

“I don’t remember inviting you.”

She indicated a slouchy-looking weekender bag on the pavement. “You didn’t. But you’re going to need me and we both know it. We’ve got the Vulcan mind link up and running, right?”

In secondary school, they’d both been closet fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a crazy dubbed version that aired on the Italian national station. To this day, he still remembered how to say “Live long and prosper” in Italian.

“Look, it’s really good of you,” he said. “But I’m driving upstate by myself. It’s not a pleasure trip.”

“Haven’t you figured it out by now?” she asked, giving him a slug in the arm. “I’d rather have a rotten time with you than a great time with anyone else. So we’d better get going, or we’ll get stuck in traffic.”

“You’re not coming.”

“Why would you waste valuable time in an argument you’re going to lose?” she asked.

“Damn. You are one huge pain in the ass.”

A few minutes later they were in a thick but moving line of traffic leaving the city behind, block by tattered block.

“Thanks for letting me tag along,” Natalie said. “This car kicks ass.”

He’d never argue about his mother’s taste in cars. The Aston Martin roadster drove like a carnival ride. He could barely remember the last time he’d driven anything that didn’t involve both hands and both feet simultaneously.

“You didn’t give me a choice,” he reminded Natalie.

“I love George. You know I always have, and I want to do what’s best for him under the circumstances.”

“That’s why I need to see him,” Ross said. “To figure out the circumstances. I can’t go by what my mother reported to me. According to her, he’s suffering from dementia. His judgment is impaired. He might be a victim of some predatory nurse.”

She reached across the console, touched his arm. “I’m so glad you’re back, Ross. I want to hear what it was like over there,” she said. “When you’re ready to talk about it.”

“Yeah, I’m not really there yet,” he said, knowing the trauma of his deployment was still too fresh to discuss with anybody—including himself. Eventually he would need to talk about his time overseas, describe the things he’d seen and done.

Just not now. Everything was all too fresh. It was very, very strange to consider that only hours ago, he’d still been in the military. Only days ago, he’d been embroiled in a life-or-death firefight, and still bore the healing scratches of that final battle. He felt as though he’d been plucked from one world and set down in another. Not that he wasn’t grateful, but he hadn’t quite adjusted.

During the long, intermittently scenic drive upstate, he thought about the more immediate issue. His was a messy, screwed-up family—more than he knew, apparently. No wonder Granddad had taken off. Maybe he’d gone in search of a less screwed-up branch of the Bellamy family.

“Well, when you’re ready, so am I,” said Natalie.

“I’d rather hear about you, Nat. So you say work is good?”

“Work is great. The world of sports journalism is my oyster. I had a big break last year—a piece on an up-and-coming baseball pitcher in the New York Times Magazine. My blog has a big following and I’m working on a book. Oh, and here’s something I bet you didn’t know. It’s our twentieth anniversary.” She touched his arm again, giving him a squeeze. It felt…unfamiliar. People in his unit didn’t touch.

“No shit.” He draped his wrist over the arch of the steering wheel. “I’ve never kept count. You mean we met twenty years ago?”

“Yep. And it was hate at first sight, remember? You totally made fun of my braces.”

“You made fun of my haircut.”

“It’s a miracle we lasted five minutes together, let alone twenty years.”

They had been forced to work together on a school project. The two of them came from completely different backgrounds, although that hadn’t been the cause of their mutual dislike. Ross was an adolescent train wreck, grieving the loss of his father. He came from a family that had money—had rather than made. There was a difference.

Natalie, on the other hand, had been a scholarship student. Her parents were missionaries working in an East African principality that tended to erupt with military coups every few months.

The two of them had teased and fought their way into a genuine friendship. Their bond came from their shared pain; they were both kids who had been set aside—Ross by his mother, who could not abide the thought of having to raise him alone, and Natalie by her parents, whose humanitarian ideals left no room for their daughter.

Reverend and Mrs. Sweet believed they were meant for a higher purpose than merely being parents to a gifted but awkward girl.

“That officially makes you my oldest friend,” she declared.

“Same here. So we’re both old. When are you going to marry me?”

“How about never?” she asked. “Does never work for you?”

It was a running joke with them. They had struggled through dating woes in high school and commiserated at Columbia, where they’d both gone to college, she to study journalism, and he, aeronautics. On a single, ill-conceived night, fueled by too many boilermakers, they had lost their virginity to each other. They’d figured out then that they could never be together as lovers. The delicate alchemy of their friendship didn’t transform itself into passion, no matter how hard they tried.

“That’s not enough for me,” she’d said. “Or for you, either. We’re forcing this, and we shouldn’t need to. When it’s right, we won’t have to force it.”

He’d teased her about having a secret wish to be a psychoanalyst. He hadn’t disagreed with her, though.

As for Natalie, she always claimed her boyfriends didn’t work out because Ross had filled her head full of unrealistic expectations. She’d been serious about one guy awhile back; some musician. Like all the others, it hadn’t worked out.

Every time she broke up with a guy, Ross would accuse her of holding out for him.

“You’re killing me here,” he said to her. “How many rejections can one guy take?”

“From me? The sky’s the limit, dude. What’s your hurry, anyway? Most guys I know run the other way when it comes to marriage talk. You sound like you’re in some kind of race to settle down.”

“It’s not like that,” he said. “It is that.” Especially after what he’d seen over there. “I’m tired of being alone, Nat,” he said. “I want to be someone’s husband. Someone’s dad, eventually.”