A Place in the Country (34 page)

They had kissed goodnight—or good morning, at her door, then she'd climbed the stairs to her room, she'd pulled off her clothes once again and fallen into bed. What woke her later was the spurt of gravel as a vehicle meandered up her drive. She climbed out of bed, got her head together and went to the window to look.

It was a delivery truck and two men were already manhandling an enormous wooden crate down the ramp. She quickly climbed into her jeans and a T-shirt and ran to open the door.

“Ms. Evans?” The truck driver checked his invoice, then her.

“Right, that's me. What is it though?”

“Furniture, ma'am. From Singapore it says here.”

Of course! It must be the console tables and the other things Mark had kept from her old apartment. She tipped the driver and his mate to lever open the two crates for her. They dumped the two narrow nineteenth-century elmwood consoles and the Chinese chairs in the restaurant, and left her to deal with them.

Excited, she put both tables against the wall opposite the windows that led to the terrace, then stood back to take in the effect. Their simple elegance was beautiful against the rough stone. She thought Jim would appreciate them.

Rummaging through the crates, she found the lamps that had always stood on them; tall, clear glass columns with plain cream shades, lined with gold so they gave off a warm glow.

Tired, she eyed the other bubble-wrapped packages still in the crates, debating the merits of a cup of breakfast coffee. Coffee won and she went to the kitchen to fix it, praying it wouldn't rain until she had time to get everything out of the crates and into the house.

She had just poured the first cup when Maggie drove up.

“Thought I'd get here before your ma and pa,” she said, hugging Caroline then holding her away to get a better look.

“Smug,” she said. “That's how I'd say you look.”

“What
smug
?” Caroline grinned, lifting a shoulder in a who-cares little shrug. “Okay, so I'm smug. Very happily smug, if you want to know.”

“Oh, I do,
I do.
” Maggie got a mug from the shelf and poured herself some coffee. “Sit. Tell me all.” She patted the chair next to her and Caroline sat.

“Mags,” she said. “I was absolutely shameless, and I loved every minute of it and I want to do it all over again. He's beautiful, perfect, and I haven't felt like this since…”

“Don't even mention his name, you'll spoil it.”

“You know how it is, Mags, when a man looks at you, when he kind of holds you with his eyes…”

“And you couldn't let go.”

“Should I have?”

Maggie considered while she sipped her coffee. “Truthfully,” she said, “I don't see any reason you should. And nor, probably, did most of the customers at the pub last night. You two made quite an exit,” she reminded her.

Caroline grinned. “I told you,
shameless,
” she said and they both laughed. “Just between you and me, Mags,” Caroline lowered her voice and leaned in closer, as though someone might overhear, “I asked myself before … you know, well
before
I ripped off my clothes.”

“You
ripped
them
off
?”

“Well, Jim started and then I went on … or
off
I suppose you might say. But I did ask myself how I felt about him, you know, with my head, my heart, and not just my body. And I do care about him, Mags. I might even love him. I'm just not sure yet. But I am
involved
. Totally. Completely. Absolutely. Right now, anyway.”

“Then you were right to take what he offered and give him what you offered. Not many people get to feel that way in life, in fact some go through their
whole
lives without ever feeling that kind of passion.”

“Jim said he was in love with me.” Caroline looked searchingly at Maggie. “I know that doesn't mean the same thing as ‘I love you.' Does it?”

Maggie set down her cup, exasperated.

“Caroline Evans, you are a thirty-eight-year-old woman who just had great sex with a man she cares about and who cares about her. You are not a teenager, you don't need instructions in life. Haven't you learned by now that the course of life and true love cannot be planned? Take it for what it is right now, and let the future take care of itself. Somehow, it always does you know,” she added.

They heard the sound of a car on the drive and recognized the trundling weight of the Hummer.

“Here's Georgki.” Caroline got up and was going to the door just as he drew up behind the open crates. “Oh, he's brought Sarah and Little Billy,” she cried, spotting them wedged in the back amid a load of plastic bags and cardboard boxes. “Of course, she's moving in today.”

Georgki got out first, then Sarah handed him Little Billy in his car seat, then she climbed out too.

“I hope we're not too early,” she called. “I wanted to get away before that bastard landlord came and forcibly ejected me. I mean, I've paid my rent and all that, he just wants to move the new people in because they'll pay more.
And
the roof leaks,” she added, picking up Little Billy and depositing him on the doorstep. He gazed up at them, and kicked his socked feet, chewing on a rusk, dribbling happily. “Teething,” Sarah explained, just as another car turned into the drive.

Caroline recognized her parents' rental and told Maggie they'd better put on some more coffee. She waved, then took another look. Could that be
Issy
with them?

“Hi, Mom.” Issy wriggled out of the backseat then leaned in to get her bag. “Thought you might need some help. So, here I am.”

For a moment Caroline was speechless: her daughter was
here,
at the barn she despised, the place she was never going to live, that would never be her home …
and
she was offering to help …

She told herself not to make too much of it, play it cool, like it was normal, an everyday occasion … She said, “Well, wonderful. All hands on deck.”

“Grist to the mill,” Issy retorted, and they both laughed. “You are silly, Mom,” Issy said. “Nobody else talks like you do, you know, with all those silly sayings.”

“I got it from your grandfather.” Caroline grabbed her daughter in a hug, savoring the perfume of her just-shampooed hair and her clean fresh skin. It reminded her of when Issy was a baby.

“I'll take my bag up,” Issy said. “By the way, Cassandra and Grandpa can have my room, I'll sleep on the couch.”

“Oh, but…” Caroline started to say, but her mother held up a warning hand.

“Take what you can get, when you can get it,” Cassandra said. “It won't always be like this. Things will get back to normal before you know it.”

“
Normal?
”

“Like Issy rebelling and you two butting heads.
That normal.
”

Another truck chugged along the lane. It went past her turnoff and had to back up, making Caroline wonder if the Place in the Country sign Jim had made was big enough after all. Then it swung into the driveway and parked in back of her parents' car, which was parked in back of the Hummer, behind Maggie's truck, and the two massive wooden crates.

It was her other furniture! Her “ghost” chairs. Her tables. The makings of her restaurant!

“Better come on in and have some coffee,” she told the delivery men as they swung open the back and began to haul stuff out. “Everybody else is.”

She walked into her suddenly busy house, people hanging around, chatting, enjoying the morning, enjoying themselves. Everybody was there, she thought, smiling.
Except Jim
.

 

chapter 81

Jim could not get
Caroline out of his mind; sleep had not found him the way he knew it must have her; he was too keyed up, too excited by her. It wasn't only her lovely body and the way she had responded to him, not in the knowing way some women he had known had, asking
would you like me to do this, does this excite you,
telling him what and how they wanted it.

He had been in love a couple of times before. Two to be exact. The first was when he was eighteen and she was seventeen. His sister called them the “Romeo and Juliet” of their year, because they were both still in school and looked too young to know what love was. But then of course, the young always knew what love was when it smote them over the head. It had gone the way of most young love when they had moved on to different colleges, and distance parted them.

Experience followed experience; girlfriends were just that until a few years later he'd met the girl of his dreams. They had been so wrapped up in their passion for each other, nothing else mattered. He'd thought this was it, he could never live without her, and he asked her to marry him. She said no. Turned him down flat. “I love you,” she said, “but I'm not the type to be buried in the country, I don't ride, I don't garden, and most of all, I don't cook.” She had gone on to become a quite famous movie actress, almost a star, and was married to a famous actor. At least right now, she was. You never knew with her, the press said. Jim guessed they were right.

And now there was Caroline.

He'd decided he'd walk over to the barn, see if she was up yet, see how she was feeling—about him especially.

He came to Caroline's turnoff where the sign he'd carved for her as a surprise swung from a wrought-iron hook hitched onto the old dry stone wall. The cows were back in the meadow, tearing great tongues-full of grass and he smiled, remembering telling Caroline the grassy bank was “virgin cow territory” because she was worried about cowpats.

He'd remembered he'd had to take off her glasses and put them in his pocket … she was so blind without them she probably couldn't even see him, but it hadn't mattered. There was just the sweet dampness of the grass, the shimmer of the pool in the moonlight, the rustle of the trees. It wasn't only great sex, he told himself, it was the emotion, the tenderness, as well as the passion.

He parked behind all the other cars and he spotted Issy and Sam sitting on the doorstep with Little Billy in his chair between them. He also saw two enormous wooden crates and Georgki's Hummer, and remembered Sarah was moving in today. And wasn't that Maggie's truck? And the parents' car?

He stood for a moment undecided, this might be the wrong time. But looking at the packing cases, he thought she might need some help. He and Georgki could take care of everything. Anyhow, he couldn't just leave, because now the girls had seen him and were waving.

“Morning, girls,” he said, stepping past them and over Little Billy whose head rotated to watch him.

“Morning everybody,” he said again, walking into the wanna-be restaurant, where “everybody” was standing around with mugs of coffee in their hands, admiring a couple of exceptional elmwood tables that he'd bet were nineteenth-century Chinese and crafted by someone who knew what he was doing.

“Perfect,” he said, looking at Caroline.

“Just in time to help,” she said, smiling into his eyes in a way that locked out everyone else in the room. He definitely liked it.

 

chapter 82

It was Maggie
who, a week later, suggested Caroline should have a practice run and invite friends and the locals who had helped her, to a special dinner at A Place in the Country.

Caroline looked doubtfully round her restaurant. An upholstered taupe banquette was now installed against the far wall, long enough to accommodate four tables; two tables would seat four and two were for couples. There was a long low mirror behind, French brasserie style, so guests sitting facing the wall could still catch all the action in the rest of the room.

The other tables were mostly for four but could easily be adapted for two, or added to to seat six, or even eight at a pinch, because flexibility, Caroline had been told, was essential. You had to think of groups as well as couples having a night out, Cassandra had explained. Of course Caroline should have remembered that, she had been to enough good restaurants in her life, but she needed that extra help in thinking right now because she had so much on her mind.

Her see-through lucite Ghost armchairs had had their backs upholstered in the same taupe that played so well off the honey-color stone walls, with matching seat cushions. As yet there were no tablecloths, no lamps, no votives, no flowers. Even the tables under the new coffee-colored awning on the terrace were bare naked. Caroline's heart sank. The place felt suddenly “empty” and not just because there were no customers. Somewhere, it had lost its “soul.”

“I can't ask anybody here,” she said to Maggie, “it's not ready. And I don't know how to make it ‘ready,' and I never will. I've lost it, Mags, and so has my Place in the Country. Oh, I know how to cook and I know what I want to cook but I have no experience and, Mags, I'm scared.”

“That's exactly why you have to do it.” Maggie scowled at her. “Get yourself together, Caroline,” she said firmly. “Your future depends on this.”

Of course it did. Once again she was the one in charge. “So what'll I do?” she asked.

“First you decide who you're inviting, then decide on your menu, and when you do remember
who
you are cooking for and what they would like to eat, and get cracking. Friday will be a good night, people are always eager to get out at the beginning of the weekend.”

“Friday! But that's three days away!
Oh my God,
” Caroline said feeling faint at the thought.

“You getting religious or something?” Maggie went to the door and flagged down Sarah who was walking across the drive with Little Billy strapped to her chest, carrying a bunch of flowers picked from the hedgerow. “Opening night, Friday,” Maggie called to her. “You ready?”