Beloved (23 page)

"
Hey, different strokes for different folks. The only standard you have to measure up to is your own. Besides, I don
'
t think you
'
re ready to settle down yet.
"

Oh, sure,
she thoug
ht with a sideways glance
as he expertly downshifted his little red sports car.
You hope.
It had to be so much more convenient for bachelors like him when the women they dated were dead set on independence.

They were at Lilac Cottage now. Bing reached out to stroke her cheek
in
a feathery touch.
"
The only question you have to answer is, ‘Am I doing what I want to be doing?
'
Besides, I don
'
t want you moving out to the West Coast,
"
he admitted with his boyish grin.
"
Connecticut
is far enough. If you
'
re going to please someone else besides yourself, I
'
d rather it was me.
"

"
I didn
'
t say
—
"

Bing slipped his hand behind her neck, pulling her toward him in a deep, silencing kiss. The whole evening had been leading up to this moment: his glancing caresses, the warmth in his voice, the innuendo. And yet, when the moment came, she was surprised. Maybe she expected to be able to resist him; after all, she knew what he was.

But when he released her with a low murmur, she kissed him back. She did it without thinking, without wondering how he
'
d take it or what it meant. She just
...
kissed him back. His mouth was silvery-sweet and delicious, and she wanted to taste it again. It seemed reason enough.

"Jane ... I ..
. you
'
re irresistible to me, you know that,
"
he murmured into her hair.
"
What do I do now?
"

"
I don
'
t know,
"
she whispered, because she wasn
'
t sure how he meant it. Her eyes were closed, her breath a little ragged. It was hard to think.

He kissed her very gently on her lips and then got out of the car and walked around to her side. The brace of night air that wafted in and around her seemed to restore her, but only briefly, because when he helped her out of the low-slung seat, the gesture became an embrace, the embrace a kiss, the kiss a return kiss, and she was left even more dazed than after their first embrace.

They strolled hand in hand to the front door, up the battered steps that she
'
d stood on the day before with Mac McKenzie, arguing about the oversized hollies. She could hear Mac
'
s voice now, serious and condescending.
"
A holly grows very slowly,
"
Mac had said.

And then it becomes irreplaceable.

Should it be the same with a relationship? If you invest time in it, and nurture it along, and try not to rush things, will it end up having a value that
'
s irreplaceable? Did the rules of gardening apply to the dating game?

Bing stood at the door, tall and lanky and beguilingly handsome, waiting for her to open it. Jane reached into the pocket of her coat for her key and slipped it in the lock.
It
'
s been so long,
she heard an inner voice whimper.
I want this relationship. I want it now. Don
'
t worry about whether it
'
s irreplaceable or not. This is the age of Bic pens and disposable cameras; everything
'
s replaceable. Nothing lasts.

But something
—
guilt, maybe, or a compulsion to second-guess
—
made Jane turn to him with an apologetic smile.

"
I
think ... maybe ..
. it
'
s been a wonderful evening,
"
she said, falling back on a well-used phrase of dismissal.

She could see that he was caught off guard by her turnabout.
"
Something I said?
"
he asked mildly; but his look was troubled.

She raked back the hair that had fallen over her forehead.
"
No, not at all. I think I
'
ve had a bit too much to drink, that
'
s all. I don
'
t trust myself.
"

"
Woman,
"
he groaned.
"
Why don
'
t you just smear Krazy Glue on my shoes? Do you really think I
'
ll be able to walk away after a confession like that?
"

"
I know you can,
"
she said with a relieved grin. This was a man she could grow fond of fast.
"
That
'
s why I told you.
"

He sucked in a lungful of air, raised his eyes heavenward, and sent it whistling through his nose.
"
Don
'
t you dare start having a good opinion of me, Jane Drew. It won
'
t work, I
'
m telling you. It won
'
t work.
"
He smiled helplessly, a lopsided, goofy smile, and then he
cradled
her face in both his hands and kissed her tenderly good night.

He left and Jane turned the key and let herself in, still smiling at the thought of him.
"
Okay, so he
'
s never been married,
"
she found herself
murmuring
.
"
There
'
s always a first time.
"

****

The next morning, her shoulder ached. Jane had assumed that that chapter of her life was over; she was bitterly disappointed to see that she hadn
'
t turned the last page on it. She got out of bed, rubbing her shoulder with a viciousness that only the infirm and arthritic can understand, and wandered out to her kitchen-in-progress to make coffee. It was just past dawn, but she knew from recent experience that when her shoulder was on the fritz, sleep would not come.

The hot water was halfway through the Melitta filter when she idled over to the window to see what kind of day
it was going to be. That
'
s when she remembered that she had to take in the laundry, and that
'
s when she saw that it was no longer on the clothesline. It was on the ground, all of it: the sheets, the pillowcases, the towels. Shocked, Jane ran out in her robe and pajamas for a closer look.

She couldn
'
t believe it. Every piece was on the ground, damp and muddy. Clothespins were scattered everywhere. And yet the clothesline itself was intact; even the forked clothesline pole she
'
d used to keep the line from sagging was still in place. She walked around the pieces of laundry, studying them. The sheets looked as though they
'
d been rubbed in the muddy grass deliberately; a sense almost of violation hung over the scene. It was a vindictive, furious thing for someone to do, and it frightened her in a way that the bookcase, the spoon, and the bulkhead doors had not.

She began scooping up the linens in her arms, ashamed somehow that she
'
d slept right through the attack on her laundry. She had no real idea what to do. Report it all to the police? Jane could see the crime log now:
transient reports missing spoon and dirty laundry.
Hire a detective? Even funnier, considering the state of her wallet. Alert the neighbors? She
had
alerted the one neighbor who could
'
ve seen it, and look where it got her: He
'
d slept through it, too.

Unless Bing Andrews himself was the perpetrator.

No.
Jane slammed the door on
that
closet right after she opened it. She refused even to think back whether he
'
d been on the island for each of the other occurrences. It was absurd to suspect Bing, who was no more likely than
...
than McKenzie, or Phillip, or Dorothy Crate, for that matter. But there was on
e thing Jane felt sure of now: i
t wasn
'
t the work of kids. There was something too adult
—
too
symbolic
almost
—
in this last act.

Shivering from the cold, she brought in her bundle and threw it almost feverishly into the washing machine; she wanted to erase any trace of the fury that someone
—
or
something
—
was feeling for her. She turned the setting to hot wash, hot rinse, and poured half a box of Tide into the machine. Then she closed the cover and leaned on it with both arms while the washer filled, as if whatever evil was in there might still seep out, might still blight her with its malevolence.

And yet, despite her efforts, the malevolence seemed to have escaped anyway: the stabbing pain in her shoulder suddenly became a white-hot sword through her flesh.

"
Why are you doing this, why are you doing this?
"
she began mumbling, over and over. She was hovering on the edge of hysteria; her thought processes were a jumble of memory fragments and irrational fears. When the fill cycle ended and the washing machine clunked into its agitation cycle, her mind clunked with it, and she broke into sudden, heaving sobs. She stayed bent over her aunt
'
s washing machine, her head buried in her crossed arms, for a long time.

She lifted her head when she heard the heavy pounding of the brass door knocker. It was Sunday, too early for anyone on a civil mission; it must be an emergency. Jane grabbed a dishtowel to blow her nose in, then went to answer the door.

Mac McKenzie, dressed in workclothes, narrowed his eyes when he saw her.
"
Mornin
'
,
"
he said laconically.
"
Thought I saw you outside earlier when I was headed out. I must
'
ve been wrong,
"
he said, eyeing her getup.

"
No; no you weren
'
t.
"
She glanced at the dishtowel in her hand, then wiped her nose on her sleeve instead.
"
I was taking in the laundry.
"
She said it almost defiantly, as a kind of test, and waited for his reaction.

"
It
'
s probably not a bad idea to hang it in the night,
"
he said in his dry way.
"
Some of the neighbors think it
'
s unseemly to clutter up their view with longjohns.
"

"
Ha! Well, maybe that explains it, then,
"
she said ambiguously.

She didn
'
t explain, and he didn
'
t ask. It continued to amaze her how difficult it was for them to communicate.
I suppose it
'
s because we come from different backgrounds,
she told herself. She found the thought depressing somehow.

"
So what
'
s up?
"
she asked, no longer dazzled by the fact that he could outwait her every time in these little wars of silence.

"
I thought we
'
d get an early start on the holly, Jerry and
I.
Unless you
'
re doing brunch in bed. I
'
d hate to wreck your concentration for the Sunday
Times
crossword,
"
he said with a thin smile.

"
I
'
m not the type who spends Sunday in bed,
"
she answered, retying the belt of her robe with great dignity.
"
And I
'
m certainly not the type to tell you what type I
'
m not.
"