Embers (67 page)
Authors: Antoinette Stockenberg
She'd been standing a few feet from him, assuming or hoping
—
she didn't know which
—
that he would gather her in his arms and kiss her madly and that words wouldn't be necessary. But this wasn't the movies. He was leery of her, she could see that. She'd jerked him around once too often.
She walked over to a desk and sat at it; it'd been a very long time. "The Inn Between does look wonderful," she conceded, smoothing her hands over the Formica, trying the desk on for size. "We worked like dogs on it all through fall."
At least it made the time pass.
"But
—
it's still empty. I doubt that we'll bother staying open next winter."
"Really,"
he said, a little sharply. But his next words were said almost with a shrug. "Maybe you need to advertise."
"Are you
kidding?"
she asked, genuinely incredulous. "For a while we were on the front page of every tabloid in the country!"
"I meant something more like
The New York Times,"
he said ironically, wiping the
whiteboard
clean
of his marker
.
"Gee, I don't know why. If you planned to stay somewhere, wouldn't
you
pick the place where the innkeeper had two heads?"
He laughed, and so did she, remembering the brief insanity of it all.
"Did your uncle ever nail down that contract for movie of the week?" he asked, still smiling.
"Oh, that all fell by the wayside. Which was just as well. Uncle Billy said he didn't want Brian Dennehy playing him, anyway; too fat. I think he was holding out for Sean Connery."
Tom sat on a corner of the desk behind the lectern. "And Comfort?" he asked, a little hesitantly.
"Ah! I should've told you!" said Meg, her face lighting up with pleasure. "She had a beautiful, beautiful girl
—
Sally Mary Atwells."
"Hey, that
is
great news. Did everything go all right?" Tom asked, obviously remembering their fears.
"The baby slipped out smooth as a smelt," Meg said cheerfully. "Comfort brought her home the day before yesterday. Wait
—
I have a picture here somewhere." Meg lifted her handbag onto the desk and began rummaging through it with both hands. "It's a cute shot: Sally's on their bed, with a flyrod lying alongside her for scale. That was Dad's idea. He
—"
"Meg,"
Tom said sharply, grabbing both her wrists. "What the
hell
is going on here?"
Wincing from the blast of his vehemence, Meg said in a small voice, "I just thought you might like to see the photo
—"
"Forget the goddamned photo! What are you doing back in my
life,
for God's sake!"
He yanked her up from her desk as if she were an impossibly frustrating student and held her, still by her wrists, close to him. His breath fell hot on her face and his eyes glittered with fury. Meg thought of dragons; she considered retreat.
"W-well, it's Christmas," she said, uttering the first thing that popped into her head.
"Yeah, it's Christmas
—
and last month it was Thanksgiving and the month before that, Halloween. You missed Columbus Day, Labor Day, and worst of al
l, my birthday. I turned forty-
one and I turned it without you, goddammit. You missed four full moons, one of them a harvest moon that hung over the lake in the most
...
ridiculously heartbreaking way. You missed three great concerts in Grant Park, and you missed waking up in my arms every single morning between August eighth
and"
—
he let go of her wrist and
looked at
his watch
—
"today, December
eighteenth
. So why here, Meg? Why now?"
Reeling from the onslaught of his words and the agony in his voice, she said breathlessly, "I
...
the rock. It moved."
His eyes narrowed an infinitesimal amount. "Balance Rock?"
She nodded. "The morning that Sally was born, I took a walk on the Shore Path. It's definitely moved. Everyone says so. Then, too, there was the
...
voice. It came right before Sally. But after Gordon Camplin. Oh
—"
"I know about
Camplin
," Tom said, dismissing him. "Tell me why you're here, Meg. In plain English. Because I can't stand this much longer," he warned in a voice that was raw with tension.
She leaned her forehead against his chest and spoke into his striped tie as if it were a microphone. "In plain English, then:
I love you. I love you more than anyone else in my life. I can live without everyone else
—
without Allie!
—
but I can't live without you. I tried, and I made myself miserable, not to mention everyone around me. And before you ask
—
I can live without
Maine
. But not," she whispered, vanquished, "without you."
When he said nothing she felt as if she'd taken a headlong dive down a flight of stairs. If he didn't catch her she'd be forced to take her broken bones and her broken heart back to
Bar Harbor
and finish out her life an emotional cripple.
She lifted her gaze to his. He had a grin on his face that reminded her of a kid who's caught a home run ball that went into the bleachers.
He held her face between his hands. "It took you four full moons to figure that out?"
He lowered his soft, open lips to hers as she closed her eyes for the kiss. She'd waited so long for this. Every night when she closed her eyes, and whenever in the day she closed her eyes, she imagined it: the warm, soft, totally erotic caress of his mouth on hers, of his tongue seeking hers. If it were possible for a kiss to substitute for making love, then this was such a kiss.
"But ...
if I hadn't come?" she asked in a
humbled
whisper when he freed her at last.
In a voice of quiet triumph he said, "Before I'd taken half a dozen steps away from you that day at Balance Rock, I'd resolved to resign my position and find something closer to you. I lucked out: on the first of the year, I begin a new job in
Connecticut
."
She laughed and kissed him again and said, "I don't know how to tell you this, but from
Connecticut
to
Maine
is
not
a practical commute."
He wrapped his arms around her tight and spun her around. "Witch! I know that," he said, his voice starting to register the joy that she'd felt in his kiss. "I'm signing on with a national pilot program that's aimed at retraining problem dropouts. The kids volunteer; they have to show some interest in turning their lives around. It's a promising program, the best thing I've seen so far."
"A kind of boot camp for delinquents," she mused, thinking how perfectly suited Tom was to inspire lost and troubled kids. "I guess
Maine
's not in the program?"
"Not yet. Coming soon,
I've been told
. But until then," he said, cupping her chin in his hand, "until
Maine
...
will you live with me and be my wife?"
She lifted her head and their eyes met. "Until
Maine
, during
Maine
, after
Maine
, without
Maine
—
yes,"
she said, moved inexpressibly by his old-fashioned proposal. "Yes and always."
"Meggie, Meggie
...
I do love you," he whispered.
Somewhere in the course of the next prolonged and passionate kiss, a security guard appeared and escorted them gently out the door. Exhilarated and unembarrassed, they found themselves standing outside the locked building.
"Downtown!" Tom said suddenly. "I want you to see how the big boys do one before we leave it forever."
He drove her downtown, both of them talking and laughing and reminiscing at a mile a minute, and they checked into a hotel overlooking the lake, the park, and the fountain. There they made wild and completely indiscreet love for several hours without having to worry about paper-thin condo walls. They ordered in room service, because Meg had never had room service, and after that they made love again, and after
that,
Meg, still wired, said, "Let's go walking," because she was afraid to fall asleep, afraid that this was another dream, another vision.
It was the middle of the night, and they were virtually alone in a city of four million. They walked down
Michigan Avenue
hand in hand, peering at the fabulously upscale wares displayed in the windows there, and then went around to
State Street
, because Tom wanted her to see the Christmas windows at Marshall Field's.
"I've come here every Christmas since I was eight," he said, unable to keep the anticipation out of his voice as they approached the fabled department store. "I'd take an El down here myself and leave hand and noseprints on the windows from one end of the store to the other. I loved the village scenes, the happy families. I was a scruffy little urchin, and sometimes I'd have to panhandle for my return carfare. But I never missed the Christmas display. It gave my life
...
hmm
...
continuity, I guess."
He leaned over as they walked side by side and kissed her lightly, his frosty breath mingling with hers. "Little did I know," he mused, "that I was gazing at my destiny."
They came upon the first window, a traditional Santa's workshop scene, with Santa's elves sawing and hammering and Mrs. Claus serving up cookies to all the help, even the little guy who kept falling on his keister. The next several windows were village scenes, charming idylls where the inn and shopkeepers obviously never had to worry about paying the bills, and the carolers never got mugged. After that was a beautiful, elegant creche scene
—
Italian, Tom was certain.
But it was the last window that held Meg and Tom fast in
a sudden
spell: a collection of dollhouses, each on its own pedestal, beautifully spotlighted and shimmering with their own sophisticated magic. At eye level above the others was the Eagle's Nest
itself,
with all its gabled rooms aglow. The open side faced away from
State Street
; one could only peek through the tiny latticed windows.
A note explained that the dollhouse was on loan.
Meg let out a cry of amazement and pressed her hands and nose against the store window for a closer look, much as Tom must've done in his urchin days.
Tom said softly behind her, "Wherever she is, I hope she's at peace."
Meg turned and slipped her arm through his. "I think she's even happier than
we
are," she said, absurdly happy herself.
Tom squeezed her close. "Impossible."
"Nothing,"
Meg
said
with a grin, "is impossible."
A
llegra St. John tapped the cabdri
v
er on the shoulder and said,
"
Stop! Pull into that space!
"
The dri
v
er said,
"
Sure, miss; but the Inn Between
'
s another few blocks yet. You won
'
t be wantin
'
to walk, not with all them packages you got with you.
"
"
Thank you. I don
'
t intend to,
"
she said. She pointed to the painted sign that hung o
ver blue-and-white-
checked café curtains in a small restaurant window:
Comfort
'
s Kitchen.
"
Do you know whether that
'
s owned by Comfort Atwells?
"
she asked.
"
Yeah, sure; Lloyd
'
s wife. Now that I think on it, you might be takin
'
your suppers there. They got some tie-in with the Inn Between. Make sure you ask for a meal voucher when you register. You don
'
t want to miss Comfort
'
s steamed blueberry pudding; her hard sauce is wicked good.
"
Allie thought about marching into the café then and there, but the place was packed. Besides, she didn
'
t want Comfort calling ahead and ruining the surprise
.
So. Comfort got her restaurant after all.
Allie smiled and said,
"
You can keep going.
"