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| Author: |
Karen Skowron |
| Dated: |
Thursday, February 12 2004 @ 07:04 AM EST |
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1635 times |
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The sound of water splashing woke her and she opened her eyes to an unfamiliar whiteness on the moonlit deck outside the open cabin door. It was a shallow awareness; her head was fuzzy, she could make no sense of the sound or the sight. With little difficulty she went back to sleep.
When next she awakened the sun had just spread over the horizon across the ocean to give a rare moment of water reflected light. Mist scent came in the open windows; a gull shrieked. She was still facing the door to the deck; it was now closed. She was still clutched to the very edge of the double bed. The mattress was sloping away from her. She was not of an inconsiderable size and was accustomed to governing mattress direction.
The likely reason for the present mattress slope slowly occurred to her and she closed her eyes firmly but neither the awareness nor the heaviness in her head went away.
She opened her eyes again and noticed the man’s blue shirt on the bathroom door knob, the docksiders neatly side by side near the stove. At the same time she saw one of her sandals, kicked? thrown? – part way under the sofa. She groaned silently. And panicked. She had to get away.
In spite of the weight in her head and the bulk of her body she slid from underneath the bed cover, got her feet on the floor, herself upright and quietly moved toward the bathroom. She pushed the door open, not touching the blue shirt. Her back felt less naked than her front so she did not turn around but once inside the bathroom she noiselessly closed the door with a backward push. At the last minute she turned her head and peered back into the fast lightening room. A man was lying in her bed staring at her.
She locked the door, sat down on the toilet, hunched and miserable.
On the bed, Jack took in and let out a deep breath as he’d been wanting to do since he’d wakened an hour or so before. He wondered what on earth he was going to do. He had thought of simply getting up and leaving – if he had been sure this woman, Ellen, he thought her name was – if he had been sure she had been sound asleep and wouldn’t awaken he might have attempted it. But she was lying so still and silent he was not sure that she also wasn’t awake.
He’d thought of tapping her on the shoulder and saying, “I’m sorry, but this has been rather a ghastly mistake and…” No, that wouldn’t work.
She might have taken it personally. She’d been rather in a state last night. He, on the other hand, had been cold sober. Which was fortunate or dismal, depending on how you looked at it.
Or how Patricia would look at it. Oh jaysus. The thought of her sent him hurriedly off the bed and into a flurry of clothes gathering.
He had a moment’s debate and then slipped off his damp underwear before he put on his jeans. The jeans were new and felt foreign to him. Pulled over his stomach they felt safe but tight; under his bulge they felt dangerous if comfortable. They would not seem to sit where his normal pants did. The jeans had been Patricia’s idea. From the look on her face when he tried them on in the store he thought she was holding to the idea of casual wear rather than the reality. His body had become rather office-shaped over the years.
With a swiftness he would not have believed himself capable of he got on shirt and socks, tucked the shirt down around his bare bottom, zipped his fly very carefully, settled on low-slung jeans but tightened his belt a notch. Out of habit he bent to tie his shoes but the docksiders did not require this attention. They were new too.
He tried to stuff the underwear into his pocket but the jeans were too tight. As he was deciding what to do with the damned thing he heard the toilet flush. He dashed across to the window, pushed it open wider, picked up a rock from a collection on the sill, wrapped the underwear around it and gave it a huge toss out the window and into the ocean many feet below.
Once he had done this he was horrified. What if the rock were a special keepsake or, lord god almighty, valuable?
The cabin was built on a cliff and the ocean looked deep below. The underwear had disappeared completely. Patricia had packed for him. She was bound to notice the absence of a pair of underwear when they got home and she did the laundry. He felt like a complete fool. He was obviously not cut out for this sort of thing.
Sitting down on the bed he waited, patiently, if not calmly. He had to pee desperately but he did not want to relieve himself off the deck as he had in the middle of the night. Besides he’d splashed his feet and legs trying to aim through the railings.
The bathroom door opened a few inches. Eileen poked her head out and they stared at each other.
“Oh,” she said. “I do know you. I mean, I talked with you last night, didn’t I? I mean, I’m – this – uh, this is an unusual situation for me.”
“Is that a fact,” Jack said.
“Could you turn around, please?” Eileen asked. “I’d like to come out and get dressed.” She was clutching a towel to her but it was not adequate.
Jack quickly stood up and looked out one of the windows.
In the bathroom, after several minutes with her head in her hands, she’d bent over and looked between her legs. It was not an enlightening experience; the action made her head pound so she stood up, carefully did not look at herself in the mirror, washed her face over and over with hot water and then a dash of cold. She brushed her teeth. Then she combed her hair. Risking a look into the mirror she thought she looked far better than she felt, which surprised her.
The bath towel would not wrap around her to provide any sort of covering and it did not occur to her to look in the hamper where she had stuffed her clothes the night before. She looked down at herself. It had been some time since she’d had to care about anyone else seeing her nude. She’d been caught totally unprepared.
So she cleaned the bathroom sink. It was as she was eyeing the toilet, cleanser in hand, that the absurdity of the situation struck her. It was then that she had put away the cloth and the cleanser, picked up the towel, and opened the bathroom door.
“I suppose you think I’m, well, silly, to ask you to turn away- when we’ve slept together,” she said to his back. She was having difficulty with the brassiere. It was twisted.
He thought her hesitant speech was her distress at the circumstances and he tried to help. “We didn’t actually, uh, sleep together,” he said. “We just shared the bed.”
“Oh.” She needed to consider this. First of all, did she believe him? Yes, likely. Drat the bra. Now the strap was loose. He didn’t sound righteous, or worse, apologetic. So they hadn’t made love. Along with relief (unprotected sex terrified her) and a bit of regret (if it did happen then she missed it) she felt some disappointment. Some men found her attractive. Sexy. How come he hadn’t? Or had she put up too much of a fuss? She couldn’t remember.
She could only find the one sandal under the sofa. She would discover the other, two days later, in her mailbox and wonder if she had put it there the night of the barbeque or if the mailman had found it on the road and delivered it to her. She never mentioned it.
“Are you sure?” she asked the man, who was still staring obediently out the window.
“My dear, I did not take advantage of you,” he said, mildly, turning around.
She was looking all around the room and he wondered if she would notice the missing rock. He glanced out and down at the ocean but the discomforting sight of his underwear floating in the water was spared him.
“I wasn’t suggesting that,” she said, still searching. “I can’t seem to locate my glasses.” She didn’t need them so much for sight as for confidence.
He gave a helpful glance around the single room that served all functions by clever placement of furniture and appliances but his need drove him toward and into the bathroom. “There’s a pair of glasses in here,” he called out and passed them to her.
She took them and was relieved when he went back into the bathroom and shut the door. A bit of time to herself would help at the moment. From the fridge she took an Evian water bottle and had a few long sips.
He had seemed a nice man last night when she’d talked to him at the barbeque. Harmless. How on earth had he ended up in her bed? Just sleeping. And why couldn’t she remember?
He came out of the bathroom. He rubbed his stubble; a razor would have been nice. Some men were hooked on coffee and a cigarette in the morning. He was a pee and shave man, he guessed.
“I used your toothbrush,” he told her.
“What!”
“Just joking. I’m trying to ease the situation. It’s a bit awkward.” He had used her comb.
“Well, for me too. I don’t bring strange men home to my bed. And not remember it.”
“Well, I don’t go home with strange women. And fall asleep in their beds.”
“So how did it happen – “
“You were pretty drunk – “
“I hardly drink at all – “
“Well, last night – “
“What was in the punch?“
“I don’t know. I can’t drink. I don’t think there was anything in the punch.”
“Well, whatever it was it knocked me loon-wise.”
They stood looking at each other.
“So did you bring me home?”
“Well, yes, sort of. I saw you – well, lurching off into the darkness and I went after you and asked if you were okay. You were quite woozy. I’d talked to you earlier – do you remember?” – he went on at her nod – “and you’d told me about your cabin on a cliff. I said I’d walk you home. And I did.”
She looked at him, waiting. When he did not continue to speak she asked, “And?” sweeping her hand at the bed.
He shrugged, blew out his cheeks slightly. “You – uh, went into the bathroom and came out, uh, stark naked, and got into bed. I don’t think you realized I was here, then.”
She looked at him thoughtfully. “And you weren’t driven mad with passion by my unclothed body?”
He’d been looking anywhere but at her but now he glanced at her to see if she was serious. There was a bit of a glint in her eye. He raised his eyebrows ambiguously. “I told you I didn’t touch you.”
“Then why were you waiting around? After I went in the bathroom? That’s what I’m wondering.”
“Is that a fact,” he said. “Well, I guess I was just making sure you were all right. I never expected you to do a strip.”
“And once I got into bed?”
“Oh, that.” He had to think fast. The truth sounded a bit bizarre but he could come up with nothing better. Again he was struck by his unsuitability for such an experience. And Patricia thought him predictable!
“I lay down on the bed, fully clothed, beside you, on top of the covers. I don’t know why.” Well, he did know, but he wasn’t about to admit, even to himself, that it was a way of not going back to Patricia, or back to a room without Patricia, just then. “Then I must have fallen asleep. I woke up at three or so and it was too late to leave, or too early. So I slipped off my shoes and shirt” – it seemed indiscreet to mention removing the tight new jeans – “and went to sleep again.”
He hadn’t. Gone to sleep. He’d lain there in the cinnamon darkness, the breeze murmuring off the ocean, the waves steady, regular, soothing. He’d felt so incredibly at peace.
And after awhile he’d become more aware of the breathing of the woman beside him on the bed. He’d turned toward her, under the single light blanket, eased closer until he was as close as he could get without actually touching. He could feel the warmth of her body, smell her human aroma.
At the barbeque he’d been aware of the scent of wood smoke about her; it was a haunting smell. In the cabin he had realized why she was so perfumed – her stove must leak; the smell of smoke hung thick like incense. Close beside her in bed he had gotten used to her smoky smell and became aware of her female fragrance.
At one point he let his hand lightly touch the roundness of her buttock. Her skin was like the chamois he kept in the glove compartment for windshield wiping, soft and yielding.
And for the first time in a long time he’d felt genuine desire, not manufactured, not inappropriately irksome, not to-fit-the-occasion. There was no duty, no pressure, no guilt. Like a schoolboy he’d exalted in his own power and hastily, greedily, satisfied his own need. And was left with wet underpants.
“So it was you on the deck,” she was saying. “I woke up – didn’t know what I was seeing.”
“The bathroom was dark. Outdoors it was lighter,” he explained.
She didn’t get it. Then she did, and blushed. It embarrassed her more to think of him urinating on her deck than sleeping beside her.
“Would you like some coffee?” she asked, moving toward the kitchen part of the room.
He thought of the bed and breakfast place and Patricia and decided the time was not right for returning. “Yes,” he said. “Actually, do you have tea? Or lemon in water?”
She stared at him. “I’ve got some decaf coffee. I think.”
“No, it’s just as bad. I’ve got an ulcer or something.”
“Tea, then? Regular, black?”
“Sure.” He only drank English breakfast at home in his own special brand that kept his insides quiet, but he kept silent.
She busied herself at the sink and stove. “I’m going to make toast, too,” she told him. “My stomach needs something in it. I’ll kill whoever put that in the punch.”
Suddenly she spun around, startling him. “I don’t even know your name.”
“Jack. And you’re Ellen?”
“Eileen.”
“Ah – a mauvoreen.”
She gave him a puzzled look. “My last name’s Boots,” she replied slowly, but she knew this wasn’t what he meant.
He laughed gently at her frown. “No, I meant an Irish lass. Eileen was my mother’s name. Still is I guess, wherever she is. My name’s actually Seamus but when I landed in England at age six or so, to live with an uncle,” he made an unconscious face, “a schoolteacher changed me to Jack.”
“Are you a resident? I’ve not seen you before this and the island’s not all that big.” She had a toaster with sides that flipped down and she was, for some reason, standing with her hand on it, the bread inside, but it was not plugged in.
“I’m on a holiday, actually. I’m staying in a bed and breakfast, The Manor.”
“Oh, the hoity-toity one. No, I’m kidding, the people are very nice, they joke about the name but say it works. I shouldn’t be telling you that.”
It hadn’t been his idea; Patricia had arranged it all. He wasn’t about to tell Ellen – Eileen, this.
“Is that a fact. I’m there with my wife.”
She unplugged the kettle and turned to look at him but he had his head bowed and was staring at his clenched hands. She didn’t say anything.
He wondered if his car was okay in the parking lot – it was a field actually, beside the community hall. “Let’s join the locals at the barbeque,” Patricia had said.
Eileen passed him a cup of tea, then plugged in the toaster and carefully watched the bread. “I wish they would rewire this place: I can’t plug in two appliances in the kitchen at once.”
He realized he was hungry. The toast came out overdone on one side and she let it grow cold before passing it to him along with the butter. He’d gotten used to the American custom of buttering it hot.
“I want some eggs, too,” she said suddenly, getting some from the fridge. They were large and golden brown. When he realized she was going to simply break the eggs into the frying pan he had to say, “Here, let me do it.”
She looked at him in surprise. “Really?”
“Yes, I like to cook.”
He took her place at the stove. She went to the fridge and had a few more sips from the Evian water bottle.
Then she walked across and looked out a window, “Well, will you look at that,” she called out.
Jack nearly dropped an egg. The underwear was floating all too close to his conscience. He went and looked out. She seemed to be staring along the shore where a boat was just disappearing around a point. “That boat should be banned,” she said but he felt she was carrying on a conversation with herself. He went back to the kitchen.
Suddenly he felt as relaxed as he had in the middle of the night. This was his element. He got out a bowl, filled it with warm water, submerged four eggs. Eggs with fridge chill were unthinkable.
Eileen had another sip or two from the water bottle and then sat down at the table. “Do you mind if I watch?”
“No. Why would I mind?
“Oh, not that you would. My dad used to cook once a year or so and make a big production of it. He wasn’t at all good at it but we had to pretend he was and act really grateful. I guess it put me off men in the kitchen.
“Is that a fact.” He had spotted a pot of chives in a pot on the floor by the back door. “Well, I’m very good at it and I don’t expect applause.” The chives needed water – it looked like she used them for a doorstop. He poured a cup of water into the dry earth and when he picked a few blades was delighted to discover they were garlic chives. He pulled them into pieces with his fingers, crushing them as he did so.
“I’ve got a knife, it’s there – “ Eileen began.
“I don’t cut herbs with knives,” he told her and divided the chives into three piles. Most people didn’t realize the different flavour available from a singe herb in one dish if it were introduced at the proper time.
“Have you any whole nutmeg?” he wanted to know.
She’d never heard of it. She was feeling a little less woozy and this allowed room for a feeling of being found wanting in the cuisine segment of her life. “I’ve got licorice root,” she stated.
He stared at her. Anise? Hmmmmm.
“Where is anise?”
Oh god, he would have to want it, she thought, pushing herself out of her chair to rummage in a drawer. She’d bought it in the health food store on a whim. Some idea of chewing it to cover the smell of – whatever.
She gave it to him. He wiped fluff off, reached down for the grater that hung on a nail on a huge log that held most of the kitchen utensils.
When he’d grated some onto the counter he wet his little finger, touched it to the pile, then tasted it, looked thoughtful. “I don’t think so. But – we’ll see.”
He found a skillet he thought would do; browned the butter slightly, sniffing to determine when it was ready. Then he gently stirred half of one pile of the chives into it.
The eggs were already whisked in two bowls, a few drops of water added. Plates were warming in the oven. Eileen was going to tell him she doubted the old china that had come with the cabin would take the heat but she didn’t. He was in command.
He put half of the second pile of chives onto the omelette a few seconds before folding it and once it had lost its glassy look gently slid it onto the warmed plate. He sprinkled the rest of the herb on and added a dash of the licorice. He put it before Eileen with a pepper mill. “It won’t need salt,” he told her. “The butter’s salted.”
“I’ll wait until you make yours,” she said graciously.
“You will not,” he practically yelled. “This has got to be eaten fresh and hot. Now.” He was grinning, but he was serious.
She picked up a fork. “Righty-oh.” The words were an audible, appreciative salute.
Jack began to make up his omelette with the same amount of concentration and detail.
“This is the best omelette I’ve ever eaten,” she said.
He suddenly felt humble and a little shy. The appreciation thrilled him but it also bothered him. Patricia tended to treat what she had once called, “Jack’s intensity in the kitchen” more with amusement than admiration. He was unused to such praise. It was troublesome, the whole idea. It was an “is that a fact” sensation.
He sat down to eat his. It was a good omelette, the licorice flavour pleasant and a bit startling to the palate. Eileen watched him eat, picked at the dry toast she had not eaten, drank her third cup of coffee.
“What do you do for a living?” she wanted to know.
“I’m in sales.”
“Oh, a joke pusher.”
“No,” he answered too quickly. It had been a sore point with him over the years, this notion that it wasn’t selling ability that moved a product but the salesman’s telling of a good story. “Actually I’m in management now.”
“Oh, a wall pusher.”
He paused, and raised his eyebrow.
“You know,” she explained, “these days the economy is such that companies can’t afford huge buildings with lots of space where employees can play musical offices in their hierarchy game so they have to settle on areas with office dividers, moveable walls. It’s square footage that counts now.”
He was staring at her, curiously, not aggressively.
“I should know about the importance of square footage,” she went on, off on a tangent in an intent to right a stumble, “I once sold real estate.”
“What’s bothering you?” he asked. It was the most sincere question he had asked in days, perhaps months. He really was interested to know. It was easy to give when nothing was expected.
She opened her mouth, closed it. What was the matter with her? And he’d just made her such a nice breakfast.
She knew, of course, what was wrong. Women did. But she wasn’t about to try and discuss it with a mere man. He’d try to fix it, likely as not, tell her what she should do. There was lots wrong. Him, here. His wife, somewhere. The relief and the disappointment over the shared but not shared bed. And the reason she’d had a little too much to drink at the barbeque.
The fact of the matter was that she’d gone into her critical mood last night, as she was frightened she was about to do now. The hall had been too hot and the outdoor tables were too cool; she’d hated Mrs. Earl’s polyester pant suit and felt unfair about her judgment: Mrs. Earl was a nice little old lady and should be able to wear what she wanted without such negative, if silent, comment from a person she considered a friend. And Eileen had thought the fish overdone, the lamb underdone, and there were caraway seeds in the cabbage salad that caught in her teeth. It had gone on and on, her litany of grievances. So she’d had a few drinks. They helped.
She must have been well on her way to being ‘helped’ by the booze when she talked to Jack because for the life of her she couldn’t remember what they talked about. She did remember talking to him, and she seemed to recall being quite witty. And uncritical. Glancing at him now she hadn’t realized he was so waspish looking, a bulky man, fuzzy around the edges. And the dear guy had made her breakfast. She got up and took a few more swigs from the water bottle. It helped.
He had asked her what was the matter. He had asked. So few did. So she answered. “To tell the truth, I want a cigarette. Badly.”
“Trying to quit, eh?”
“No – I’ve quit. I can’t smoke. I’d have a heart attack likely if I took one drag.” She raised her left arm and pointed at her arm pit. Jack had some idea she was indicating her heart. He looked polite but puzzled.
“I’m wearing a nicotine patch. At least I think I still am.” She peered under the mass of her arm. “Yep, it’s still there. I’d want a cigarette a lot harder if I didn’t have this. But it makes me irritable. I’m – I’m, sorry.” She hadn’t apologized to anyone for weeks, possibly years.
His Irish grandmother had been said to have second sight. At times Jack had glimpses as well. He suddenly felt the kinks in the journey of her life and he put up no defenses, asked her no questions, offered no solutions.
“So, you sell houses for a living?
“That was ages ago.” She picked up the licorice stick and gave it a few hard chews. The nicotine patch needed help.
“I’ve owned small businesses, off and on. Sell one. Buy another. It’s made me a living.”
Jack leaned back in his chair, unobtrusively let out his belt to a more comfortable notch.
“I remember now, you were telling me last night about a gift shop in – where, Chemainus?”
“Uh-huh, that was a good effort. I should have held onto it longer. I seem to sell my businesses to people who make grand successes of them. Are you in Victoria?” She didn't feel like pursuing why she had owned so many fledglings.
“No, Vancouver. Here on a – “ he paused, laughed, “wild weekend. Actually it’s my wife’s doing. She’s wanting new experiences.” He had a quick wonder at whether returning to the bed and breakfast after going off to a party which her husband had declined to join and finding that said husband had not returned to the bed and breakfast from the barbeque but had gone off to a party of sorts, himself, would qualify as a new experience to Patricia. It was a complicated thought and he gladly abandoned it.
“And you?” Eileen was asking. “Do you want new experiences?”
Lord, jaysus, what is this? he asked but not aloud. “Oh, that’s a fact,” he answered. “I just want to take it easy, wind down, I guess.” He was a mere man and he’d tell her, if he could, but he had yet to tell himself, that he was more and more worried about the betrayal of his body, the stitch in his side (oh jaysus, okay, the pain in his chest) when he walked too quickly upstairs, the thinning hair, the increased effort for lovemaking, the visits to his more and more bemused father. His mother had died of her heart when he was six. He wanted to somehow stop and consider all this. But it was too scary. And his life was so set. And now Patricia wanted to “do things.”
“That makes sense,” Eileen was saying and for a tense moment he thought he had spoken all his thoughts aloud, but he realized he hadn’t.
“Well. I’m glad you understand.”
But she didn’t. “I meant it makes sense to me about your wife wanting new experiences.” Being the gender that tended to face her own mortality before fearful avoidance of the issue forced a life-threatening situation, she understood his wife’s willingness to take risks in the middle years. She was going to do it. Some day.
He was understanding of her understanding of Patricia’s situation. Living mostly peacefully with a woman for so many years he’d learned to be this understanding. His anger came out in chest pains.
“I guess she deserves some fun now,” he agreed. “She stayed home and raised the kids and then never really got a decent job.”
An early butterfly – or was it a moth on its way home to bed; Jack could remember which had hairy antennae but on the wing it was hard to tell – danced its way in a window and in the way of insects who have lived and learned across many generations how to get out of a place with open windows, this butterfly (Jack decided on a simpler taxonomy for this classification – moths chunky, butterflies slim) hovered over the table for a second, turned around, flew back outdoors.
For an instant the colour of its wings had been reflected in Eileen’s eyes and once this was gone the look of incredible wistfulness that remained in her - earth bound mortal-fair took Jack’s heart away. He had not had many such experiences in his life but they had occurred, these gifts of soul.
“You have a lovely place here,” he told her across a lengthening silence as she had taken the sight of the butterfly inside herself, lowered her eyes, traced out patterns with her thumbnail in the plastic of the place mat.
“Thank you. It’s not mine. It’s actually up for sale and I guess I’ll have to move when it sells.”
“Too bad you can’t buy it yourself.”
“Oh, I could. No problem.” This she could explain. A mere man would understand. “I own a house in Victoria. It was a lucky buy, oh, ten or eleven years ago. I was flush when I sold, what was it? Oh, yes, my massage business. I went around to offices and did mini-relaxation sessions, built up quite a clientele and had a rapidly increasing staff – what was I saying? Oh yes, also at that time I had a partner with good ideas – seem to have had a few of these, come to think of it – and he suggested we buy a house. So we did. But he couldn’t come up with his share at the last moment, an ex-wife and a messy divorce – so I jumped in and bought it on my own. Had to rent out part for a few years but it’s paid off. It’s worth a fortune now. It was in a neat area of town that suddenly got recognized. A neighbourhood that raised its self esteem.” She giggled and raised her coffee cup in a mock salute to the self-help term more than to the notion.
“The people who have rented it from me this past year – the rent covers the mortgage and my expenses here – have offered to buy it from me. So I could sell it and buy this place.”
“Why don’t you?
She didn’t answer. She got up and took another drink from the Evian water bottle in the fridge. Her head was feeling much better.
She sat down again. “Do you think I should?”
He tested the weight, the direction, the impact of the ten-foot pole he felt had been offered him, ready for his disclaimer.
“Yes, I do,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I know absolutely nothing about all this. Because my natural reaction is caution, not to offer any comment or advice. Because I’d likely rather be wily and politely give it all back to you by asking you what you want to do. So I’m really going against the grain to say, yes, I think you should.”
She’d cupped her hands around her coffee cup. Her hands were giving the cup warmth. She’d listened to his response focused on the ‘clouds’ in her coffee but now she looked up at him.
“Thank-you, Jack,” she said simply. She sort of wished she dared hold his hands in the circle of hers instead of the cup. But she didn’t dare.
“Where is your wife?” she then asked, answering her own reason for not daring.
“I suppose at the bed and breakfast.” He didn’t want to think about what she had done when she found him not in the room. So he put Patricia aside to follow his own curiosity.
“What made you come here, rent this place?”
She laughed. “I’d sold yet another business. This time not so successfully. I wanted to do something different so I decided to do nothing for a change. Life on a Gulf Island has always appealed to me so I came here – actually it was because I heard there was a business for sale that I first came but I resisted, it wasn’t hard, they were asking far too much, and then I saw that a cabin was for rent. So I stuck to my original thought of doing nothing. And came here. It’s damned hard, doing nothing. I guess I’m used to being busy.”
“You could be busy fixing this up if it was your own,” he found himself saying. He felt she was living someone else’s life in someone else’s house with someone else’s furniture and dishes and smoky old stove. It surprised him that he cared.
Eileen had decided to buy the cabin a few seconds after he had suggested that she should. One part of her had already chosen the electrician she'd call to give her an estimate on rewiring. And she'd--oh-- this she could share with a mere man--"if I extend the deck around this corner and put a window in that wall I'll have a view on 360 degrees. Ocean, mountains and arbutus.
A car door shut at the bottom of the drive, the sound clear and defined in the morning air.
"A bit early for company," Eileen said as they both went toward the door.
Jack did not recognize the car or the woman who had gotten out of the driver's seat-- he thought he might have seen her at the bed and breakfast--but the person who got out on the passenger's side was Patricia. Both women disappeared behind bushes as they navigated the drive and started on the pathway up the hill to the cabin.
"It's my wife," Jack said. His voice gave nothing away. There was nothing much to give. He wasn't really surprised that the 'bush telegraph' of the island had somehow located him. Likely someone had seen him going to Eileen's assistance and passed it on. He was glad, deep down, that Patricia had found him, was coming to claim him. This was familiar.
But where would it go from here? He had reached the edge of vulnerability.
He stared at Eileen. She did not let a mere man down, especially one who had made her breakfast, asked her truly what was wrong, given her a cabin and, she was sure, had made silent, passionate love to her in the night because she was such a desirable woman.
She touched his arm lightly. "You slept there, on the deck in the hammock, after helping me home last night because, because I'd had too much...." Well, she'd almost said it. She'd say it to his wife because then it didn't have to be true. It could be part of the other lie, about where he'd slept.
He brushed her hand gently as she drew it away from his arm and aimed a quick kiss which missed her cheek and landed on the side of her nose. She smelled like wood smoke and licorice and gin. He stepped further onto the deck just as he heard Patricia and the woman reach the top of the path. He gave the hammock a quick shake, to free it from any telltale dew.
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