Accidental Happiness (34 page)

36

Gina

B
en and Derek were talking. Both dressed up. The music was good. Some live band playing Cajun music. On some level, I knew it was a dream, but it felt audible, tangible, almost livable. I’d come with Derek, but talked with Ben as if we’d been married all along. Everything seemed . . . okay.

When I woke up, I looked out the window, saw storm clouds, tight and hovering over the inlet. I loved the drama of storms in the summer. After days of heat, it always felt like nature’s equivalent of hosing down the sidewalk.

“Hey,” Derek said, coming out of the bathroom. “I went in there to keep quiet. Did I wake you, talking on the phone?”

“No, I didn’t hear you at all. I had a dream. A weird one. I kind of woke up gradually out of it, I think.”

“Did you tell Ben hello for me?” There was a slight edge to his tone, but I could tell he was fighting it. I worried that one day soon he’d decide that I was too damn much trouble.

“Was I talking?” I asked.

“Just a little, nothing detailed.” He turned off the burner, poured hot water for tea.

“Well, I didn’t have to tell him hello for you. You were both there. We all got along just great.”

He nodded, sat down on the futon with his tea, didn’t look directly at me.

“It feels strange,” I said, getting out of bed and going to sit beside him. “I’m sorry if it’s hard for you. Really, Derek, I—”

“The way I see it, it’s something we can’t help,” he said. “We are who we are. You’re a widow. You loved your husband. I’ve fallen in love with a widow who loved her husband.”

He put his arm around me and I snuggled in close.

“You’re different from Ben. A lot more mellow,” I told him. “Easy.”

“You’re not the first person to call me easy.” He grinned.

“I’m serious.”

“Yeah? Is that okay?” He still smiled.

“Yeah, it is.”

“What was Ben like? I mean, I saw him around, but I didn’t know him.” It seemed natural for him to ask. That was a good sign.

“He had to be acting on something. Always moving, thinking. Either planning or doing. That’s why he loved sailing, I think. It demanded action and decision. I loved that about him, but it wore me out too. He was such a force of nature. Sometimes I wondered if I could keep up for years and years. I worried that I’d be a nervous wreck by our tenth anniversary.”

That stopped me, thinking of anniversaries that would never come. I was walking on the edge of a cliff with my emotions, but so far I still had my footing. I looked at Derek. He was hanging in there too.

“But he was kind, like you. And fun. And he loved me. I never felt not loved. That’s why it was so awful to think he kept things from me. Now I know he, at least, tried, wanted to talk about it.”

Derek kissed my head. He would have listened more if I’d talked. But I had said enough.

“The call I got this morning,” he said after a long moment. “It was from
Low-Country Leisure.
”

“Oh yeah. I meant to tell you I gave them your name. They have a staff position open and I thought . . .”

He had an expression that didn’t seem entirely happy.

“Was that okay?”

“Sure,” he said. “When I dropped off your artwork I saw the notice posted there. I was thinking of applying. I just feel a little strange, going from being in bed with you to an interview with them.”

“Derek, they asked me for names. I’ve read your stuff. No matter how good you are in the sack, I wouldn’t have suggested you if you didn’t have a good clip file. And they liked the fact that you’d been to graduate school, that you’re serious and committed.”

He raised his eyebrow, gave me a half smile.

“They’ll either hire you or not after they see what you’ve done. That part won’t have anything to do with me.”

“All right.” He settled back, brushed his hair away from his eyes. “I’m going in this morning to talk with them. It looks like a good place to get my foot in the door.”

“I like working with them,” I said. “It is a good place. Go. Shower. What time do you have to be there?”

“In about an hour. I better hurry.”

Georgie was whining to go out, so I pulled my shorts on and looked around for her leash. When I opened the door to take her out, I saw Lane standing there, hand raised, getting ready to knock.

“Oh.” She jumped. “Telepathy.”

“Hey,” I said. “Do you need Derek?”

“No, hon,” she said, “I came to find you. You weren’t answering your cell and—”

“Oh, right. We went to a movie last night and I turned the sound off. Sorry.”

The uneasy pause that followed left us both looking at anything but each other.

“Guess it’s not a big secret where I am most of the time these days,” I said finally.

She put her hand on my arm. “Good for you, sweetheart. People around here don’t give a damn how you spend your time, and me . . . Well, I’m just jealous.” She laughed, broke the awkward spell.

“Come on in.” I unhooked the dog’s leash and the animal protested, camped out near the door for good measure.

“It’s nice in here,” Lane said, looking around the various sections of the room that made up Derek’s studio. “I guess you’ve had a hand in that, huh?”

“God, no.” I laughed. “He had it all fixed up before he met me. You never saw my house, did you? I have no taste at all.”

She put her pocketbook on the island that separated the kitchen from the den/bedroom/dining room.

“So what’s up?” I asked. I could still hear the shower running. I hoped Derek didn’t come out wearing nothing.

“It’s probably not a big deal. But the school called me. Angel hasn’t been in class for a couple of days now. I’m listed as an emergency number, and they weren’t able to get Reese on the phone to verify the absence so they called me.”

“You think something’s wrong?” I asked.

The shower stopped. I took preemptive action and went to the bathroom door. “Derek, Lane’s out here with me.”

“Okay,” he called back. “Uh, could you pass me something, then?”

“What kind of something?”

“It’s your call,” he said. I found a flannel robe in the closet and handed it in to him.

“I feel like I should at least check on them. Reese hasn’t asked me to help with Angel since I went to the dentist that day.”

“I should have talked with you,” I said, feeling bad that I hadn’t filled her in on things with Reese. “She was upset for some reason that I was there. It didn’t make much sense. There are other things you don’t know about. Why don’t I ride out to the cottage with you? I’ll fill you in.”

“You don’t have to go. I would have just gone out there by myself,” Lane said, “but I don’t have a key. So I thought—”

“No, I’m not doing anything now. I want to catch up with you anyway.”

Derek came out, overdressed for the heat in flannel.

“Hey, Lane,” he said. The studio suddenly became very small.

“Why don’t you meet me at my place?” Lane said. “I’ll drive.”

She made a hasty exit.

“So what’s that about?” Derek asked.

“Reese.”

“Enough said.” He shook his head. “You can fill me in later.”

“Poor thing. Why didn’t she just tell us?” Lane shook her head, kept one hand on the wheel while she fiddled with the air conditioner with the other. “So the sprained wrist and all those problems the other night . . . ?”

I’d told Lane all I knew, or at least suspected, about Reese.

“I’ve read some about it since I talked to my doctor. Symptoms can come and go, so it would make sense. But she didn’t own up to anything when I talked to her about it, so I haven’t heard it from her yet, but . . .” I settled deep into the comfort of Lane’s Crown Victoria.

“Why are all these cars slowing down to let you pass?” I asked. Lane had a clear path on the highway.

“This is what most undercover police cars are,” she smiled. “I get that all the time. Gives me a strange sense of power.”

A snowy egret stood in the grassy median. In the time I’d lived near Charleston, the ubiquitous birds, regal though they were, had begun to seem like pigeons to me.

“Did you tell her we would all help her?” I could see the confusion on Lane’s face. Reese didn’t follow anyone’s pattern of normal when it came to predicting a response.

“Yeah,” I said. “Of course. That’s when she really freaked out on me.”

We didn’t say much for the rest of the drive. I hoped we’d get to the cottage and find Reese happily playing hookey with Angel, both of them laughing at us for worrying. But I somehow doubted it. Things with Reese were never that easy.

37

Reese

“W
hat did you order?” Angel asked, taking a bite of the grilled cheese sandwich the waitress had just put in front of her.

“I’m not hungry,” Reese lied. She smelled the melted cheese, could almost feel the texture of the bread in her mouth.

Half the place was smoking, so Reese broke her own rule about keeping her smoke away from Angel and lit up.

“Don’t you ever start this,” she said, taking in a long, satisfying drag. “It’ll turn your lungs to black pitch.”

“Why don’t you stop?” Angel asked.

“Cancer’s the least of my worries right now.” That sounded harsh, too harsh for a child who’d been ripped from yet another town, another home. “I’m going to quit, baby doll. I need to get us settled someplace and I’ll throw these things away. I promise.”

Angel nodded, took a sip of her Dr Pepper.

After she finished eating, Angel went off to the bathroom. It was a single room that locked, and the door could be seen from the table, so Reese let her go off by herself.

“You want me to take this?” The waitress walked up, started to pick up Angel’s plate.

“She might still be working on it.” Reese reached out instinctively. Nearly half a grilled cheese and a handful of fries sat cold and abandoned. After the waitress left, she put out her cigarette, pulled the plate over in front of her, and started in on the leftovers.

If she was careful, that last paycheck, plus the little bit of money Andrew had given her when she went by the church before she left town, would get them food and another four or five nights in the motel. After that, she had to have some plan in mind.

At least her body seemed to be cooperating. But then, only so many things could go wrong before something had to go right.

38

Gina

I
’d walked through the cottage a half-dozen times before I saw the envelope on the kitchen counter. My name was on the front. I could hear Lane in the den on the cell phone. She was talking with the manager of Ollie’s, trying to find out when Reese had last come into work. Best I could tell, she was getting an earful from the guy. Not a good sign.

The content of the document was clear enough. It made me medical power of attorney in case she couldn’t make decisions for herself for any reason, gave me sole guardianship of Angel if Reese became unable to care for her. It didn’t make much sense to me. Why me? My last interactions with her had been contentious, at best. She all but accused me of trying to make Angel part of my happy family fantasy while I schemed to cut her out of the picture altogether. Looking at the note, that’s what she was handing me.

My name had been written in and initialed with blue ink, the change notarized. I studied the original name typed onto the document and my hands began to shake. Benjamin Melrose. What’s more, on the last page I found his signature. He’d seen the same piece of paper I held. He’d read it, signed it. I started to feel the anger, the betrayal all over again. How could he have made such a decision without telling me? But then I thought of Angel. How could he not agree, under any circumstances?

“What’s that?” Lane came into the kitchen.

I handed her the papers, sat down at the table. I felt disoriented, unable to move or function. The emotional equivalent of a concussion.

“Why me?” I asked as Lane sat down opposite me at the table. “You’re the obvious choice. She doesn’t even like me, much less trust me. I just don’t—”

“I told her no,” Lane said, still staring at the document.

“You what? She asked you about this?”

“She asked me about guardianship, in case something ever happened to her. She didn’t mention she had a chronic condition, but she seemed so serious, insistent.”

“And you turned her down?” I asked. I’d seen Lane with Angel, couldn’t imagine the perfect grandmother saying no.

“I thought about it for a long time. I didn’t imagine that it would ever be an issue, but I figured I should take it seriously. Maybe on some level I suspected more. She was . . . I don’t know, really intense in her concern about it.”

“But you and Angel are so close.”

“I love that child,” she said. “You know that. But I have my children to consider. If I agreed to something like that, I’d be parenting a teenager in my seventies, not to mention committing the bulk of what would be my estate to her care and education. I thought of going to the boys, but I knew they’d tell me to do it, to do whatever I thought was right. It didn’t seem fair to them. I couldn’t . . . Oh, that poor little kid.”

“No, Lane. You’re right. What did they say at Ollie’s?”

Lane let out a long breath, laid the document on the table. “She was scheduled for lunch and dinner shifts yesterday and today. They haven’t seen her.”

I glanced over at the papers in front of Lane. The fold made the pages turn up slightly, and I saw scrawled writing in pencil on the back of the last page.

Dear Gina,

Don’t think the irony of this is lost on me. We’ve never been friends. I doubt we ever will be. But as I think of the last weeks, you’ve been fair with me, and Ben trusted you. I’m hoping you will consider what I’m asking. That you will sign this and keep it someplace safe. I hope it never comes to this, but you know as well as I do that my condition is unpredictable. Angel needs a safety net. Much as I hate to admit it, if you can get over your bizarre weirdness about kids (and Ben was sure you would), you’d be good with Angel. As you know, I don’t have many options, and if you’re the best I can come up with, imagine how desperate I am. I don’t mean to insult you. You’ve been more stand-up these last weeks than I could have expected. Some tension between us is inevitable, but I don’t want Angel to suffer because of it. Please sign this. Otherwise, she’ll face foster care and I don’t think either of us want that. This being said, I hope you never have to make good on the commitment. We are off to make a new start (again). Your information is with me and with Angel. If anything happens, you’ll be the person they call. Please consider this for Angel, and for Ben.

Reese

“She’s gone,” I told Lane.

“What do you mean, gone?”

“She’s taken Angel to ‘make a new start,’ ” I said.

“I thought that’s what they were doing here.”

“A
new
new start.”

We sat looking at each other, wondering what to make of it, how to respond. I wasn’t sure we should do anything at all. Reese was an adult. Angel was her daughter. And this had been the blueprint of their lives. But all I could think about was Angel showing me the pictures in her me-apron. The cottage, the “family” she’d embraced that included me, Lane, even Derek, along with her mom. And Ben looking on from above. I didn’t know what the hell to do.

“Martha Mincey?” Lane was looking at the front page of the document. “Isn’t she the woman who works at the church?”

“Yeah, she is. Why?”

“She notarized this yesterday morning.”

“Okay,” I said. “That’s a place to start, I guess. But Lane, I don’t even know if we should do anything. She’s an adult.”

“She’s yanked that child out of school—again. Turned her life upside down. I can’t imagine why she’d want to leave, but it can’t be all that rational. For Angel’s sake, I think we have to try and talk with Reese. At least figure out what’s going on. If she’s sick, you’d think she’d want a support system. And she got upset when you told her we’d help her?”

“Yep.”

“Well,” Lane said. “I think we have to do something.”

I still had my doubts but I couldn’t pretend Reese’s unexplained flight made sense. I also couldn’t say that it wasn’t any of my business. Angel had meant something to Ben, and could very well be his child. At the same time, did I have any right to interfere in Reese’s life with her daughter?

“Okay, let’s at least go talk to Martha,” I said.

There were no cars at the church. Usually on a weekday afternoon there were one or two, but as we walked to the side to get to the church office, the place appeared to be deserted.

“Maybe they take Thursdays off,” I suggested.

The doors were locked, and knocking brought no one to answer. We turned to go back to the car when a voice called out from across the street.

“Do you need something?” Diane Hanes wore cutoffs and an oversized T-shirt. I’d never seen her casual before. It took me off guard.

“We were looking for Martha,” I said. “She notarized something for Reese yesterday, and Reese and Angel have left town, we think. We’re trying to sort out what’s going on. Would Andrew have any idea?” I wondered if Reese might be a touchy subject with the reverend’s wife. I thought of his solo arrival at the birthday party, his late-night tête-à-tête with Reese on the porch after we left.

“Andrew saw her yesterday morning when she came by.” She seemed skittish, irritated. I didn’t blame her. “They were mumbling about something—I have no idea what—and then he went with her across the street to get Martha to notarize whatever it was. To tell you the truth, if she’s gone, it’s not the end of the world.” Then she seemed to catch herself, remember that she had to maintain some standards as a church wife. “I’m sorry. She’s just caused some tension at our house. He’s been counseling her on some problems.”

“It’s okay,” I said, feeling for the first time that I could actually warm up to Diane Hanes. “Reese has driven us all crazy at one time or another over the last couple of weeks. She was married to my husband—before I ever met him.” I wanted to make clear I hadn’t acted as home wrecker in that particular breakup. “She’s a tough one to deal with sometimes.”

“Come on over if you want to.” She took gardening gloves off her hands, slapped them against her leg to get the dirt off of them. “I’ll wash up and get us some iced tea. We can try to reach Martha at home. Andrew’s at a pastor’s retreat in Columbia, so the church office is closed for a couple of days.”

As she said it, she nearly stopped midsentence before moving on. I think all three of us made note of the coincidence. Pastor Hanes off at a retreat. Reese off on another lark.
Dear God, don’t let her have run off with a preacher.

Martha’s phone rang and rang with, apparently, no answering machine to intervene. Diane hung up the phone. Shook her head.

“When’s Andrew due back?” I asked. “Do you think she might have mentioned to him where she was going?”

The question hung for a second or two.

“Could be,” she said. “He’s due back by about dinner tonight. A couple of hours, I guess. I could call and ask him, but he left the cell phone with me.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “I don’t think it’s urgent. I mean, it’s not unlike her to do this, and . . . well, Angel
is
her daughter.”

Lane looked as if she might cry. She had worries that I hadn’t bought into completely.

“Listen,” Diane said, “let me get you some tea.”

We sat in her den and talked about everything but the obvious. Andrew and Reese leaving on the same day made for odd coincidence, but voicing the concern would only make things worse. By the time we reached the topic of potting soil—what kind works best in a hot climate—we all realized it had reached a last-ditch effort at conversation. Lane and I made our excuses, told Diane to have Andrew give us a ring when he got in.

Derek came to the cottage around eight-thirty. Lane and I had given up on guessing at Reese’s motives. Derek brought pizza that I ate without tasting. A sitcom played on the television in the other room, and the emptiness of the house struck me over and over again as I listened to the canned laughter, then waited for Angel’s full-bellied giggle.

“It’s almost nine o’clock.” Lane looked at her watch. “I can’t even think of calling that poor woman to see if her husband has come home, but you’d think he would have called us by now.”

“Maybe she forgot to tell him.”

Lane rolled her eyes over at me. “Do
you
really believe she’s thought of anything else since we left?”

Of course she hadn’t.

Forty-five minutes later my cell phone rang.

“He’s back.” Diane Hanes’s voice sounded thick, swollen no doubt from crying. “He came in a few minutes ago. His car broke down in a godawful stretch of road and he just hitched a ride back home. I’ll let you talk to him.” I could tell she’d spent her last bit of energy in relaying news, but the relief she felt spread through the phone line. I could feel it as it reached me.

“Hey, Gina.” Andrew’s low voice soothed the raw nerves of the evening. “Sorry I’m so late. Diane told me what’s going on.”

“Any ideas?” I asked.

“Not really. She said she needed to get back to a place where she could figure out all the options for some medical problems. A neurological condition she’s had for some time.”

“She told you about her MS?” I asked, surprised.

“A while ago, yeah.”

“Would have been nice if she’d shared with the class,” I half mumbled to myself.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry. So she didn’t say anything specific to you?” I looked at Lane and Derek, shook my head.

“I was thinking she might mean the place in the mountains. You know, where she was before she came here.”

“Boone?”

“That’s it. I don’t know. It’s just a hunch. Sorry I can’t help you more,” he said.

Andrew Hanes
was
sorry he couldn’t help. I believed him, and for the first time since I’d first seen them together, I think I believed he’d only been trying to help Reese. Nothing more.

“Let me know if you figure it out,” he added.

“Will do.”

He hung up the phone, most likely had to go pull his poor wife off the walls she’d been climbing for the past few hours.

“She only mentioned getting medical help. Nothing specific, but he thought she might have meant going back to Boone.”

“So what do we do?” Lane sounded lost. She had a mother’s worry.

“I don’t have any deadlines for the next couple of days.” I regretted it the moment I began to speak. “I can ride up to Boone. Just see if they’re there and make sure everything is okay.”

“Angel . . .” Lane said, without any apparent thought to finish beyond the girl’s name. She just shook her head at me, wiped away some of the wetness in her eyes. “I can go with you,” she finally offered. “Daniel’s supposed to come in this weekend, but I can tell him to put it off for another couple of weeks.”

Daniel, her son, made infrequent appearances because of his job. She looked forward to his visits for weeks.

“You stay, Lane,” I said. “I’ll be fine. It’ll be a quick trip. Can you look after the dog for me?”

“Sure,” Lane said.

“Listen,” Derek offered. “I’ll get Charlie to cover the security rounds for a couple of nights and I’ll beg off at the marina. I’ll probably be quitting pretty soon anyway.” He smiled at me. “Why don’t I go with you?”

I realized I hadn’t even asked him about his interview at
Low Country Leisure.