Coffee in Common (54 page)

Mark pushed around the papers on his desk, searching for the
Northern Exposure
bookmark Suzy gave him long ago. He was a big fan of the original series and lapped up reruns for years after. Late one afternoon, Suzy returned from the mall with a mischievous smile. She told him he could either have a kiss or what was behind her back. Mark was no fool. He opted for the kiss, which turned into an evening of lovemaking so amazing he completely forgot about what might have been in her hand. When he awakened the next morning, he found on his nightstand the bookmark, with a freshly-tied blue ribbon around it.

He was about to start cursing when he mumbled, "Oh, what a dope" and turned around to find it on the table behind him, right where he put it three hours before so it would not get lost in the shuffle of papers on his desk.

He leaned back and put his feet up.
I wonder if such forgetfulness could be a sign of early senility
. His soft chuckle was interrupted by the phone.

"Hey, buddy, how's it going?"

"I knew it had to be you, Deek. You're the only one who calls after eight."

"Hey, I just got home from the shop. Haven't even kissed my wife yet."

Dikran Bedrosian, one of Mark's two best friends, lived across the street from Mark when they were kids. These days, he made his home in San Diego, where he operated a network installation business.

Five years ago, after almost seven years of trying, he finally convinced his college sweetheart and longtime roommate, Brooke, to marry him so they could start a family. And start they did. Justin, their oldest, was born ten months after the wedding. Fourteen months later, Shannon came along.

"If you haven't kissed Brooke yet, she's either out or has finally come to her senses and dumped your sorry ass."

Deek laughed. Before they were married, Brooke would regularly threaten to dump him every time he went more than a day without making love to her. Now, with two kids tiring her out and a thriving business keeping him busy, he only heard the threat if he let a week go by.

"She and the kids are out back. I figured I'd give you a call before I joined them."

Despite Mark's protestations about having too much research to do for his next book, Deek spent the next ten minutes trying to convince him to fly out for a visit.

"You know it's been, what, a year and a half since you've been out here. I'm starting to forget what your ugly face looks like."

"I know, I know."

Four years ago, when the love of his life was diagnosed with cancer and chemotherapy caused her hair to fall out, he went to his barber and had his head shaved in a show of sympathy and solidarity. When he returned home that day, and Suzy got her first look at her newly bald husband, she collapsed with laughter. Then, as he knelt in front of her chair, her laughs turned to tears—tears of love for his sweet gesture, tears of hate for the disease that made it necessary, and tears of frustration at her helplessness.

She fought valiantly through five rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, but the cancer would not give in. When her chance of recovery became so slim even she lost hope, she simply said, "enough" and went home to prepare for the end.

Mark was by her side every day for nearly four months, holding her, loving and comforting her, cheering her as best he could until the night she woke him just before four AM and told him it was time. He begged her not to let go, prayed for just a few more days, a few more hours with her, and cried with her as they whispered their love and their final good-byes. Then, with tears streaming down his face, he held her close as she closed her eyes for the last time.

Now, almost two years later, Mark's heart broke anew each morning when he awakened and realized his Suzy was not next to him.

His world began to contract the day he buried the woman who came to define happiness for him. Slowly, but persistently, he withdrew from friends and situations that reminded him of the ten wonderful years he shared with her, until all who remained were his two oldest friends, friends who, despite the distance between them, would not give up on him no matter what.

His world became his study, the grocery and a few other stores, and the library, where he did much of his research, and where he would occasionally borrow an old movie, usually one Suzy loved to watch.

He knew his life was unhealthy, but could not muster the ambition to do anything about it. At least twice a week he told himself that one day soon, he would clean out the closets and drawers where all of Suzy's stuff sat untouched, exactly as it was the day she died.

Mark's last trip west was just four months after Suzy passed. He had enough of everyone's well-meant, but constant consolation and inquiries about how he was doing and how he was feeling and what a tragedy it was. He hoped Deek and Brooke would be able to just let him be for a few days, but they knew he was devastated by Suzy's death and could not help being solicitous.

Five days after arriving, Mark had to get away. He bought a cheap, old, used car and spent three weeks driving home. He desperately needed to be alone, but also to be with strangers, people who would not feel sorry for him, who would treat him like any other guy, like a guy without a gaping hole in his heart, a guy who had not lost the love of his life. The road trip was just what he needed.

Not only did the time alone allow him to begin healing, he found the subject of his next book in a little town in Indiana. He never did learn the name of the place, but when he drove through what passed for the center of town, he was captivated by a large public green with three beautiful footbridges spanning the small stream that gurgled its way from a small pond on one side to a larger pond on the other. He spent several hours sketching the bridges, walking around in the sunshine, and lazing on the grass watching the children play.

"Maybe in the fall," he told Deek. "Maybe we can get Greg out there, too, and the three of us can take off for a few days. Maybe hit wine country or go out to Death Valley."

Gregory Maldonado was the third point on the friendship triangle that actually began with a triangle. When they were kids, Greg lived two doors down from Deek, and it was he who, at age eleven, displayed a bit of his budding skill at engineering when he recognized that the front doors of their three houses were located on the points of a equilateral triangle. A chemical engineer, he lived in Carroll, Ohio with his wife, Elaine, and their four children.

"Are you serious? That'd be great! You think he could get the time off?"

"A better question would be, can he convince Laney to let him go?"

"Hell, he can bring her with him. The kids, too. They can stay here with Brooke and the kids. It'll be fun."

It was Mark's turn to laugh. "Oh yeah? Well you better make sure Brooke thinks it'll be fun before you go inviting them. If you don't, she may do worse than throw you out. She may cut you off!"

9:41 PM

"Thank you very much," Leon Roberts said to the audience, acknowledging their wildly enthusiastic applause. "We'll be back in a few minutes, so don't go away."

Shane, Gail, and Carol sat around a small table. Shane was the last to stop clapping.

"They are so
good
!" she gushed, two strawberry margaritas having overcome some of her shyness. "Thank you for getting me here tonight. I really am having fun. It's been a long time since I went to a club. And thank you for keeping it a girls' night. I mean, I knew you guys were popular, but I never imagined what it was like for you."

All night, guys stopped by their table, always with some line directed at Carol, Gail, or both. As Shane predicted, none of the guys even noticed her, or if they did, they did not think it necessary to acknowledge her.

After a while, Carol noticed it, too, and found herself feeling terrible about it.
It must be awful to be ignored like that. All these years, I thought I had it bad having to put up with guys hitting on me all the time. What must it be like to
never
have a guy pay attention to you?
She shuddered just the slightest bit.

The pained look on her face came and went in an instant, but Gail noticed and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Just thinking about stuff." She had an idea, but she'd talk to Gail about it later. "So Shane, who do you think is the cutest guy here tonight?"

"Heck, they all look good to me."
Did I just say that? It has to be the alcohol talking
.

Her eagerness drew a laugh from her roommates.

"But no one in particular who, you know, makes you think about doing the
nasty
with him?" Gail asked.

Shane blushed, but was amazed to find herself saying, "Well, there is that guy at the table near the door." Carol and Gail glanced over. "He's wearing a blue shirt."

He was slim and tall, with sandy blond hair, and looked a bit like Matt Damon. The girls oooed and ahhed their appreciation of her selection.

"I don't think I'd mind it if he, I mean, if we…you know. But I could never, I mean, he'd never be interested in me." She didn't normally stumble over words like this unless she was talking to a man.
It must be the drinks again
.

"Well," Gail said, "what if I went over there and whispered in his ear that you would like to take him home, get him naked, and show him a level of ecstasy he never imagined existed?"

Horror flashed across Shane's suddenly beet-red face. Words flew from her mouth. "Oh god, no. You wouldn't. I could never… I wouldn't know what to… Please, don't… Oh god…"

"Hey! Calm down, girl," Gail told her. "I was only kidding. I said, 'what if,' not that I would actually
do
it."

Shane clutched her glass and took a long drink, her hand visibly shaking. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. God, I'm such a…" She took another long drink, draining the glass.

"Shane, sweetie, slow down," Carol told her. "We're supposed to be having fun tonight. Why are you getting so upset? He's just another guy and we're just fantasizing. And it's not like you've never done it before."

As soon as she said the words and caught Shane's eyes, she realized the truth.

11:47 PM

Shane and Gail sat transfixed by Roberts' performance of his new piece,
Broadway Blues
. Carol was only half listening. The other half of her brain was processing all she was learning about her new roommate. Once she realized Carol would not pursue the sex issue, Shane relaxed and the band's second break an hour ago was filled with even more conversation than the first. As the song wound down and applause filled the room, Carol suppressed a laugh. Shane was actually bouncing in her chair as she clapped her appreciation of the performance. Then her glee turned to a grimace at the announcement of another break.

"Hey, G. It looks like you have a new convert."

Gail laughed. "The girl does seem to like R&B. Shane, are you faking all this enthusiasm just to make me happy or are you really that into it?"

"You know, I never listened to much music when I was a kid other than the Irish folk songs my mother would play all the time. In college, there was always someone playing rock or pop or something in the dorm or in the quad so I heard a lot then. But I never just sat around listening like most kids did. One time I remember hearing a few girls arguing about oldies like The Beatles and Elvis Presley and about where rock and roll came from. Now, after listening to this, I can see how a lot of the rock songs I used to hear have their roots in R&B."

Gail laughed again. "Leave it to you to come out to a club and end up learning something."

"Well she's not the only one," Carol said. "Think about all we've learned about
her
tonight." One by one, fingers popped up as she continued. "Born and raised in Medford. Saint Joseph's elementary school. Medford High. Graduated from Simmons College summa cum wicked smart with a Masters in…crap…what was it, Shane?"

"Library and Information Science."

"Right. Too many margaritas to think straight. Masters in Library and Information Science. Now you're a librarian. One sister, one brother-in-law, and one nephew. Loves to read. Okay, we already knew that."

Gail interrupted her. "Do we really need a recap of her life story? It's not like we weren't just talking about it. And if you forget some detail, there she is." Her fingers splayed as her arm waved in Shane's direction. "
And
…you know where she lives."

That drew the first giggle either of her roommates ever heard from Shane before she said, "I have to pee. And I might be a little, teeny bit drunk."

Gail snorted. "You think? Maybe even a little more than a teeny bit?"

"You guard the table," Carol said, "and I'll go with her to make sure she doesn't end up in the men's room."

Sunday, May 8

7:35 AM

"Shane Devlin," Carol said. "
How
does a girl get to be twenty-three years old without
ever
having sex?"

Shane's complexion set a new record by racing from healthy pink to Delicious-apple red in just under two seconds. She was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper and enjoying her second cup of coffee when Carol shuffled in, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. They made small talk for a few minutes, while Carol poured herself some of the strong brew, split an English muffin, and popped it in the toaster. Then, cup in hand, she plopped down across from Shane, told her she just had to ask her something, and dropped her verbal bomb.

Shane's inexperience occupied Carol's thoughts all day, yesterday, but between jobs and dates, their paths had not crossed. She knew it was none of her business, and she knew Shane would be mightily embarrassed, but she simply could not go another minute without asking. It might have been different if Shane was still just the person living in the third bedroom, but Friday night changed that. Carol began to think of her as a friend, but that wasn't all of it. There was more to Shane than either she or Gail realized these past months.