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Pete sent a daddy longlegs flying off his boot with a flick of a finger. “So, did the drywall come in?”
His brother chuckled. “No. I just called, though—that’s what I’m doing here at the office—and it’s on its way. Should be here tomorrow.”
“Good. Get the men on it right away, as many as you can spare.”
“I will.” After a short pause Brad said, “So, did you get it?” His voice contained a smile.
As did Pete’s when he replied, “Get what?”
“The measles. Jeez Louise! You know what.”
Pete laughed. “Yeah, I got it.”
Brad whooped. “Oh, man! That’s great. So, tell me about it. Is she as sweet as the ad promised?”
“Sweeter. What a beauty, Brad. I even brought her into my motel room with me last night. Couldn’t get enough of looking at her.”
“Good price?”
“For a mint-condition ‘53 Triumph, the exact same model Brando rode in The Wild One? Yeah, it was a good price. Well, a little steep. The old man knew what he had. But she’s worth it.”
“I can’t wait to see it. Where are you now?”
“Still in New Hampshire, west side of Lake Winnipesukee, about forty miles south of where I bought the bike, although I must’ve put a hundred and forty on it yesterday up in the mountains.” He paused, his sharp builder’s eye sweeping the grounds.
“I wish you could see the motel I stayed in last night, Brad. Separate cabins, each about the size of a garden shed, painted this bright fifties aqua. It’s the genuine article, too, not some fake retro setup with an eye on the nostalgia buck. I’m calling from a phone booth outside the motel office ‘cause there aren’t any phones in the rooms.”
“And you’re having a good time?”
“The best.” He hadn’t taken a vacation like this in so long he’d forgotten how much he enjoyed being on the road, totally alone and freewheeling—how much he needed it. His construction business had thrived this past year, and he’d been working full-tilt all that time, unaware of the wear and tear on his body as well as his spirit. But already he felt better, and he’d been gone from home a mere two days.
“Only you, Pete. Only you.” Brad laughed. “So, are you still going to ride her home?”
“That’s the plan.” That had always been the plan. Pete had flown up from Tampa on a one-way ticket, with only a duffel bag and a certainty of his luck.
“What I’d like to know is,” Brad said, “what are you gonna do with one more antique motorcycle?”
“Love her, cherish her, till the road runs out for either one of us, what else?”
Brad chuckled. “That reminds me, somebody stopped by the apartment yesterday who maybe wishes you’d think about her in those terms.”
Pete was glad his brother couldn’t see his face. He suspected it had fallen to somewhere around his knees. “Sue Ellen?” he asked, trying not to hesitate. Hesitation might give his brother the impression he cared more than he did.
“Uh-huh.”
“What did she want?”
“Came by to hand-deliver her reply to our wedding invitation.”
“Cutting it close, wasn’t she?”
“Sure was. Jill had to call the country club last night with a final count.”
Pete swallowed. “So, is she coming?”
“Of course. She is Jill’s cousin, after all.”
Pete got to his feet and moved around the phone booth like an agitated tiger in a too-small cage. Two teenage girls, walking slowly in his direction and trying to pretend they weren’t checking him out, giggled.
Brad said, “I’m reluctant to give people advice, especially my older and so-much-wiser brother, but now that her divorce is finalized, this might be a good opportunity for you to explore the possibility of getting back with her. She’s a gorgeous lady, Pete, and if you ask me she’s still real interested in you.”
“No, she isn’t.”
“No? Then how come she’s been calling you three times a week? How come she’s been coming by the office?”
“She’s thinking of renovating her house, dummy.”
“A house that was built only six years ago? Come on, Pete, open your eyes.”
Brad was getting a real kick out of this. So were their sisters, Pam and Lindy. They saw it as the ultimate romance, Pete and Sue Ellen, high school sweethearts, getting back together after fifteen years of unfortunate separation.
Pete saw it as a good time to hit the road.
“Listen, kid, I’m not interested in getting back with Sue Ellen, and I don’t want any matchmaking going on at your wedding, hear?”
“Yeah, I hear.”
No, he didn’t. Pete could tell his brother was smirking.
“Look, just because you’re getting married doesn’t mean everybody around you should do the same. Hell, you’re getting as bad as your sisters.”
“It might not be a bad idea to start thinking about settling down, too, Pete. I think I saw a few gray hairs on your head the other day.”
“Yeah, well, they’re my gray hairs and I’ll thank you not to worry about them. Hell, I’m never going that route again. Once was enough for a lifetime. For several lifetimes.”
A few seconds of uneasy silence followed, then Brad said, “Not to change the subject, but when can I expect my best man to get home?” The reminder of Pete’s disastrous marriage had effectively killed the discussion. Pete felt his equanimity return.
“Do you need me sooner than Friday? Not this Friday. The one before the wedding, I mean.”
“Of course I need you. I’m getting as nervous as a turkey in November.”
Grinning, Pete picked at a small tear on the right knee of his jeans. “Well, hell, I’m hardly the guy to have around if what you’re looking for’s support. My advice would be to give up this deranged idea of marriage and come on the road with me.”
“You just haven’t met the right girl yet,” Brad replied righteously. “Wait till you do. You’ll be eating your words.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
“And don’t you go sounding so sure of yourself. But to answer your question—no, I don’t need you. Just be here the day before the wedding. We have to pick up our tuxes and go to the rehearsal.”
“Sure enough. How’s the rest of the family holding up?”
“Good. Pam has decided to have the rehearsal dinner at her house.”
“That isn’t necessary. You know I offered to take everybody to The Sand Dollar.”
“You’ve done enough, Pete. Besides, she really wants to do this.”
“Well, in that case... Has Lindy’s husband made it into work this week?”
“So far.”
Pete sniffed. He didn’t like his brother-in-law a helluva lot. The guy had a serious drinking problem. But he was family, and so, when he said he needed a job, Pete gave him a job.
“How are Abby’s tonsils?”
“Pete, will you stop worrying about the family, already!”
Pete almost said he didn’t know how. He’d been at it too long. But that might come out sounding like a complaint, which it wasn’t, so he just shut up.
The two teenage girls were nearly abreast of the phone booth now, walking stiffly, eyes straight ahead. Pete slouched a little—enough to look disreputable, yet not so much that he’d slide off the bench—and sent them his sexiest half smile and a slow nod hello. Their eyes rounded and their faces turned red as thermometers about to pop. As soon as they’d passed, he sat up, laughing to himself.
“So,” Brad said, “what are you going to do with the rest of your vacation?”
Pete felt a warmth like new love melt over him. “I plan to hit the back roads, do my Jack Kerouac thing, look for America in the slow lane.”
“Man, do I envy you.”
“You should. I don’t have to shave or change my socks for the next nine days if I don’t feel like it.”
“Have fun, but do me a favor? Take a shower before crossing the town line, okay? I’m not sure even I could stand you that ripe.”
“I’ll think about it. Take care, Brad.”
“Hey, you will be here by Friday, right?”
“Yes, I’ll be there. Have I ever let you down?”
When Brad answered, his voice held more emotion than Pete had intended to elicit. “Never, big brother. Never.”
“So, okay.” Pete uncoiled from the seat. “Till then, hang tough. Jill is worth it.”
“I know.”
“I hope so.” Pete ran callused fingers over the heart-enclosed initials someone had scratched into the black paint of the phone. “Don’t let this get around, it’ll kill my image, but I’m the one with every reason to be envious.”
Brad was quiet awhile before mumbling, “Thanks, Pete.”
“For what? See you Friday.”
He hung up quickly, but continued to stand there staring at the phone. He’d added that remark about envying Brad merely to bolster his brother’s confidence and get him through the prewedding jitters. But just for a second...
In general, he was happy with his life. He liked his work, enjoyed his freedom, wasn’t looking for any more responsibility than he already had, certainly not the kind you got saddled with in marriage.
But just for a second he thought he’d felt something, like a faint pang of hunger, an intimation there could be more.
He gave his head a little shake. Well, of course he knew there could be more. He always had. That was why he’d asked Sue Ellen to marry him when they were just eighteen. As things turned out, she broke up with him before they quite made it down the aisle, but that didn’t alter his view of marriage or keep him from marrying Cindy Barstow half a year later.
Pete curled his hand into a fist and pressed it against the phone-booth wall. Cindy. The biggest mistake of his life, a classic case of marriage on the rebound. At twenty-one, though, he’d believed he was in love again.
Cindy was cute, sweet and affectionate, and she fell for Pete very hard, very fast. By their second date they were making love and she was saying, “I love you,” which was exactly what his shattered ego had needed then. Three months after that they were married.
Cindy had another endearing trait that had bolstered his self-image, a soft feminine helplessness that made him feel strong, protective and needed. Like a rescuing knight.
But it didn’t take long for her dependence on him to wear thin and for him to see how draining it was. He began to resent her. He wanted a partner, a helpmate, someone who could occasionally nurture him when he was down—not a little girl.
He soon discovered other things about her that were equally annoying. There were her constant small “tests” to prove he loved her—calls in the middle of the day, for instance, to ask him to leave work to pick up something at the market for her, usually when he was most involved in an important project. She also made unreasonable demands, like having him account for all his time. And then there was the way she said “I love you,” with that plaintive little question mark at the end, her way of asking him to reassure her he loved her, too. Constantly. On the phone, during dinner, in the middle of the night.
Only months into their marriage, he knew he’d made a mistake. Cindy was desperate for love, starving for it, and that scared the hell out of him. Although she claimed to love him, all he saw was her fierce need to be loved, a need that soon became a bottomless pit. No matter what he did to reassure her, her emotional needs remained unsated and insatiable.
How they’d lasted two years he’d never know, but finally there came a day he couldn’t take it anymore. The ante in Cindy’s games had risen to the point where, if he didn’t walk out, he felt sure that dark bottomless pit of her insecurity would swallow him up. In the end it almost did, but that was a time in his life he didn’t like to dwell on.
The only solace he derived from looking back on his marriage with Cindy lay in the fact that they’d never had a child. He’d wanted one, but not with her. Lord, not her. He couldn’t imagine a child growing up with that woman.
After that, Pete was pretty well soured on the idea of marriage. Oh, he’d had relationships with other women, some serious, most too casual even to remember. But marriage? No, never again.
Aside from being incurably gun-shy, he simply liked his freedom too much. Single, he could come and go as he pleased, see whom he wanted—or not. He could smoke smelly cigars, eat chili for breakfast, or drop a bundle on a bike that was forty years old. No one would be at home waiting to chew off his head.
So, why was he suddenly feeling twinges of envy for his brother? And why hadn’t he felt those twinges while Sue Ellen was still married? He didn’t want to marry anyone, even her. She might have been his first love, maybe even his best love, but, no, not even her. She’d hurt him too much when she broke up with him to marry that guy she’d met in college, and he still blamed her for the consequences, his marriage to Cindy.
Cindy. Sue Ellen. They were a mess from his past he’d just as soon forget. And that was exactly what he was going to do. Pete pushed away from the phone, opened the bi-fold door and stepped outside. He had nine days until the wedding, nine glorious, freewheeling days before he had to deal with Sue Ellen again and his interfering relatives. In the meantime—he smiled—it was time to get back on the road.
* * *
ALL THE WAY OUT OF TOWN Mary Elizabeth cried. Tears obscured her vision so badly that, turning a corner, she drove over the curb, nearly hitting a mailbox, and a block after that she ran a red light. By the time she reached the highway, the floor around her was littered with tissues, and the fluffy orange cat lying on the seat beside her was eyeing her with aloof disdain. But she couldn’t stop.
She was leaving behind everything she knew—her family, her friends, her job and hometown—and was going to a place that was totally unfamiliar. The climate, the architecture, the landscape, everything in Florida would be different.
But then, everything in Maine felt different now, too. Learning she wasn’t who she’d always thought she was had changed things. Charles wasn’t her father anymore. Susan and Charlie were only half sister, half brother. Aunt Julia wasn’t even her aunt. And her mother? Mary Elizabeth reached for another tissue from the box on the dash.
As had happened innumerable times that week, the moment when Charles had informed her of her true parentage replayed itself in her mind. Again she felt her initial shock, the confusion and numbing incredulity that had prevented his words from really registering for several minutes. It was sort of like watching the demolition of a high-rise building, she thought. Hearing the boom of the explosives, seeing the jolt through the structure—and then that strange moment when the building simply hangs in place, mortally wounded but still appearing sound, right before dropping story by story into a thundering cloud of devastation. That was how she felt every time she recalled the destruction of her world.
She wiped her eyes, but they filled again almost immediately. Oh, this had to stop. She couldn’t afford to dwell on her illegitimacy anymore or wallow in self-pity. Facing a solitary drive down the entire Eastern seaboard, she needed to be alert, defensive and tough, even though in all her life she’d never been any of those things. Growing up affluent in a quiet New England town, she’d never had to be.
But after several minutes of focusing on her trip, her sadness had been replaced by fear, fear of the journey, fear of the unknown. No, that wouldn’t do, either.
“How hard can it be, huh, Monet?” she asked the fat feline riding beside her. “People make this trip all the time—college kids on spring break, retired folks.” She blotted her eyes one last time and pocketed the tissue. “I have Triple A insurance, my route clearly mapped out, even the best campgrounds to stay in each night. I’ve got food, shelter, credit cards, everything I need. And,” she said with added emphasis, “it’s only three days.”
Morning sunshine warmed her left shoulder as she drove down the highway heading south. She relaxed into the warmth, flexing her stiff neck to one side and then the other. “Actually,” she said, addressing the cat again, “the drive isn’t hard at all. I-95 all the way until we reach Daytona. Just one long road. Amazing, isn’t it? Then at Daytona we’ll cut across Florida to a highway that runs down the gulf side of the state straight to Sarasota. The gentleman I talked to at Triple A told me that only New York and Washington might give us trouble, but if we avoid those cities during commuter hours, we’ll be okay. And once we reach Florida everything’s going to be more than okay. It’ll be great. I’ve got a job interview lined up already. My best friend’ll be there. The weather’ll be forever warm....”
