Bitter Sweet (18 page)
In the adjacent lounge a three-piece combo played lazy jazz which filtered into the dining room, adding to the ambience. The tables were draped with white linen; coral napkins stood, pleated, upon each white plate; and crystal goblets awaited filling.
As the wedding guests meandered in, Maggie recognized many familiar faces - a little older now, but unmistakable.
Old Mrs Huntington, who years ago had been a cook at the high school, approached Maggie for a fond hello and offered an expression of condolence over her recent widowhood.
Dave Thripton, who pumped gas at the Fish Creek docks, came up and said, ‘I remember you - you’re Roy Pearson’s daughter. You used to sing for the PTA meetings, didn’t you?’ Mrs Marvella Peter, son, one of the members of her mother’s ladies’ aid group, offered, ‘We live up on the top of the bluff now just two houses off the highway. Stop in sometime.’
Clinton Stromberg and his wife, Tina, who ran a resort near
She was standing discussing the
There had been little mistaking Nancy Severson’s cool reception of her, and though Maggie was eager to resume her conversation with Eric, she felt it expedient to refrain from approaching him again. She found a seat with her own group dear across the dining room from Eric.
Their eyes met once, during the course of the dinner. Eric flashed an impersonal smile, and Maggie broke the contact by turning to say something to Brookie, on her left.
They dined on the yacht club’s renowned seafood extravaganza -scallops Momay, stuffed flounder, cajun catfish, marinated shrimp and steamed crab claws. Afterward, when the mingling and socializing resumed, Maggie found a moment alone. The dancing had begun as she stood at the immense window, watching the westering sun glint upon the blue water of the bay. A pair of sailboats appeared, white and nonchalant as gulls. The waiters had carried off their dripping silver pans and extinguished the blue flames. The strong smell of the Stereo, so peculiar to posh restaurants, reminded Maggie of the Bear Creek Country Club where she had last attended a wedding reception.
Phillip had been alive then, .and they had sat with friends, talked, laughed, danced. Six months after his death she had declined the invitation to another wedding, unwilling to face it alone. Now here she was, having an enjoyable day, another barrier of widowhood broken. Perhaps, as she’d been told in her classes on grief, she had been the one to withdraw from her friends. At the time she had adamantly argued, ‘No, the),’he abandoned me!’
Here, among familiar surroundings and remembered faces, and exhilarated by the imminent changes in her life, she finally admitted to herself a truth that had been a full year coming.
If I’d reached out earlier, I’d have been less lonely and miserable.
The sun had relaxed. It sat atop the water like a great golden coin. Across its path the pair of sailboats gave the illusory appearance of hovering inches above the water.
Nearer, about the moored boats, the undisturbed water lay like cerulean silk, wrinkled only by a pair of mallards out for a last evening swim.
‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ Eric remarked quietly at Maggie’s shoulder.
She controlled the impulse to glance back at him, realizing his wife was in the room somewhere, probably watching them. ‘Beautiful and familiar, which is even better.’
‘You really needed this trip home.’
‘Yes. I didn’t realize how badly until I got back. I’ve been standing here admitting that during the past year I pushed a lot of people away. I don’t understand why, but it happens.
All the time I thought they had abandoned me when actually it was the other way around. What made me finally see it was coming here, doing the reaching out myself. Do you know that this is the first sizeable social function I’ve attended since Phillip’s death?’
‘And you’re enjoying it?’
‘Oh, very much. If I’d had time to consider the invitation I probably wouldn’t have come. As it happened, I was caught off guard by Lisa. And here I am, suddenly not feeling sorry for myself anymore. Do you know what else I’ve discovered?’
‘What?’
She turned to find him near, holding his glass without drinking, watching her. ‘That I don’t feel like a fifth wheel the way I thought I would without a man at my side.’
‘Progress,’ he said simply.
‘Yes, definite progress.’
A lull fell. They studied each other while he stirred his drink with an olive tudded toothpick, took a sip and lowered the glass.
“You look good, Maggie.’ The words emerged quietly, as if he could not keep himself from saying them.
‘So do you.’
They stood close, tallying the changes in one another, pleased, suddenly, that they had aged gracefully. In their eyes were memories which would more wisely have been veiled.
He was the one to pull them out of their absorption with one another, shifting to put additional distance between them. ‘After you called, Ma dug out our yearbook and we hughed at how skinny and long-haired I look. Then I tried to imagine you at thirty-nine...’
‘Forty.’
‘That’s right. Forty. I don’t know what I imagined. An old wrinkled grey-haired dowager in orthopaedic shoes and a shawl or something.’
She hughed, released by his frankness to admit, ‘I did some wondering, too - if you’d gone bald or fat or had developed boils on your neck.’
He tipped back his head and laughed.
‘I’d say we’ve both weathered wall.’
She smiled and held his gaze. ‘Your wife is very beautiful.’
‘I know.’
‘Will she mind our talking like this?’
‘She might. I don’t know. I don’t talk to many single women anymore.’
Maggie glanced across the room to find
Nancy
watching them. ‘I don’t want to cause any friction between you but I have dozens of questions to ask.’
‘Ask away. May I get you a drink?’
“No, thank you.’ A glass of white wine, maybe, or something soft?’
‘On second thought, wine would be nice.’
While he was gone she made a decision to make it unquestionably clear to Nancy Severson that she had no designs on her husband. She skirted the dancers, made her way to Eric’s table and said, ‘Excuse me, Mrs Severson?’
Nancy
looked up, regarding Maggie with lukewarm detachment and replied, ‘It’s Macaffee.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘My name is Nancy Macaffee. I kept it when I married Eric.’
‘Oh,’ Maggie returned, nonplussed. ‘Ms Macaffee. May I sit down?’
‘Of course.’
Nancy
removed her small beaded bag from the seat of a chair but added no welcoming smile.
‘I hope you don’t mind if I pick Eric’s brain for a while. I have so very little time before I have to fly back to
Seattle
, and so much I need to learn.’
Flourishing the flat of her hand and giving her returning husband a trenchant glare,
Nancy
said, ‘He’s all yours.’
‘Here you are.’ Handing Maggie a glass of chilled wine, he looked at his wife, amazed at her undisguised brittleness, which fell just short of outright rudeness. What he’d told Maggie was true- he seldom socialized with single women.
He was a married man and the thought never entered his mind. Furthermore, it felt peculiar to be the one observing jealous reactions instead of squdching them. Given
Nancy
’s traffic-stopping face, he had to do little more than appear in public with her to witness males following her with beguiled glances, sometimes saluting her silently with a raised glass across a dining room. He had come to accept it without feeling threatened, to take it as a compliment to his good taste in choosing her for his wife.
But here he was, on the receiving end of a cool draught of jealousy, and he was male enough- and faithful enough - to appreciate its origins and regard them as healthy in a marriage of eighteen years.
He chose a seat beside
Nancy
and draped a wrist over the back of her chair.
‘So you’re really going to go for it, huh?’ he said to Maggie, reopening the topic of earlier.
‘Do you think it’s a crazy idea? Opening a bed and breakfast in the Harding place?’
‘No, not at all. If the house is sound.’
‘If it is, and if I came back to get a business established, tell me what I’d have to face when I come up against the planning board.’
‘They may grant your permit immediately or there may be outright hostility.’
“But why?’
He leaned forward and propped both elbows on the table. ‘Five years ago a big conglomerate called Northridge Development came in and started secretly dealing on land, using what was later called “kid-glove tactics” to persuade the owners to sell, even though they at first resisted. They applied for a conditional use permit and after we granted it, Northridge put up a thirty-two-unit condominium on a half-acre site, creating problems right and left, starting with parking. Fish Creek’s barely got enough room for tourist parking, crowded against the bluff as it is, and we’re trying damned hard to avoid paved lots, which would ruin the Grandma Moses atmosphere. When the new units were occupied the businesses nearby claimed their foot traffic had fallen off because people couldn’t find a place to park. They claimed the conglomerate had intentionally ignored our density requirements, and raised particular hell with the board over the appearance of the place, which has a few too many skylights and sheer walls for local taste. We had the environmentalists on our backs, too, yelling about flora and fauna and sprawl and preservation of our shoreline. And they’re right, they’re all right.
“But I wouldn’t be putting up thirty-two units. I’d only be opening four or five rooms to the public.’
‘And you’d be dealing with a cross-section of Door citizens that only hear the word “motel”.’
“But a bed and breakfast isn’t a motel! Why, it’s . . . it’s...’
‘It’s sprawl, some of them would say.’
‘And I have adequate parking! There’s an old tennis court across the road that’ll make the perfect parking lot.’
‘The board would take that into consideration, I’m sure.’
‘And I’m not some.., some sly eastern conglomerate trying to buy up valuable property and make a killing selling condo units. I’m a home-town girl.’
‘Which would work in your favour, too. But you have to remember-‘ Eric was pointing a toothpick at Maggie’s nose when
Nancy
grew tired of the animated conversation and drolly pushed his hand aside. ‘Excuse me. I think I’ll go listen to the music awhile.’
Pausing with a half-drawn breath, obviously stimulated by the conversation, he let her go, then pointed the toothpick again. ‘You have to remember, you’re appealing to a group of Door residents who’ve been entrusted to look out for all interests. Right now sitting on the board there’s a farmer from
Sevastopol
, a teacher from the high school, a newspaper reporter, a restaurant owner, a commercial fisherman and Loretta McConneil. Do you remember Loretta McConnell?’
Maggie’s optimism flagged. ‘I’m afraid I do.’
‘What she didn’t own in Fish Creek she coveted. Her people have been here since Asa Thorpe built his cabin. If she decides to vote against your zoning permit, you’ll have a battle on your hands. She’s got money and power, and unless I miss my guess, eighty or not, she gets off on wielding them both.’
‘What’ll I do if they refuse me?’
‘Re-appeal. But the best way to avoid that is to come before them armed with as many facts and figures as you can. Tell them how much you’re willing to spend to renovate the place. Bring in the actual quotes. Get statistics on the number of lodging units that are filled here at peak seasons, and how many potential tourists get turned away for lack of lodging. Reassure them about the parking. Get local residents to speak up for you and talk to the board.’
‘Would you?’
‘Would I what?’
‘Speak up for me?’ The ?’ ‘You were a board member. They know you, respect you. if I can make you believe I’ll blend my business into the environment with as few changes as possible, and that I won’t crowd Cottage Row with cars, would you come before the board with me and encourage them to give me the zoning change I’d need?’