Just Like Heaven (30 page)
Authors: Barbara Bretton
Follow your heart, they all said. Life is short. What are you waiting for? Choose happiness. The advice was the same whether it came from Maeve or Charlotte Petruzzo. It sounded wonderful and maybe there really were romantic souls out there who could do exactly that but apparently, for very different reasons, she and the good Father weren’t among their number.
She had already experienced more happiness in a shorter period of time than she’d ever expected to feel in her life. She should be happy with that and move on.
Same as he had.
He made good time through New Jersey, crossed the Tap-pan Zee around eight o’clock, then barreled north on the New England Thruway. Around ten-thirty he pulled off the road in search of an Egg McMuffin and cell reception.
She picked up on the first ring.
“Did I wake you?” He knew what she looked like when she slept, how she sounded and smelled.
“I heard you leave,” she said. “I kept hoping you would turn back.”
“I wanted to.” He cradled the phone closer to his ear and tried to block out the traffic noise all around him. “I almost turned around.”
“I wish you had.”
“I wish—” There was no point to any of it. The next year belonged to the good parishioners of St. Stephen’s, and after that it was anybody’s guess.
“Finish the sentence.”
“I wish things could have been different.”
“I wish we’d met ten years ago,” she said and he heard her sharp intake of breath as she realized exactly what she was saying. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“I know.” She had done the math. If Suzanne had lived, they wouldn’t be having this conversation. If her marriage hadn’t fallen apart . . . if he hadn’t started driving . . . moved to New Jersey . . . if God hadn’t put them in that Princeton parking lot on that sunny morning—
“I miss you,” he said.
“It’s only been a few hours.” She tried to laugh but the sound was false and strained. Then, “I miss you too.”
“Three hundred miles isn’t so much.”
“Of course it isn’t,” she said. “Just a long commute.”
“We’ll figure this out, Kate.”
“I know we will.”
What they didn’t know was how.
Twenty-three
French Kiss—two weeks later“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sonia whispered to Kate as they finished unpacking a shipment of eighteenth-century salt cellars from an estate sale in Virginia.
“I really wish people would stop asking me that question,” Kate said, popping her thumb along a strip of bubble wrap. “Blood pressure, EKG, CBC, everything’s just fine.”
“That’s wonderful,” Sonia said, “but that’s not what I’m talking about.” She paused a second, but Kate refused to fill the silence with information. “Have you heard from him?”
“I had an e-mail just last night.” A hurried note long on work minutiae and short on sentiment. A fine point the old Kate wouldn’t have noticed.
“And you’ve talked on the phone?”
“What is this, the Second Inquisition? Of course we’ve talked. Would you like me to bring in the tapes?”
“So when are you going to see him?”
“Sonia, really. Now you’re going too far.”
“It’s important,” Sonia said. “Don’t believe absence makes the heart grow fonder. The only thing absence does is screw up a good thing.”
Kate excused herself and stepped out onto the back porch so her assistant wouldn’t see her cry. Better Sonia thought she was annoyed than for Kate to admit to the world that she missed Mark so much that each day without him felt like a lifetime.
He had phoned her twenty-three times that first day, pulling over at every rest stop between New Jersey and New Hampshire to hear the sound of her voice. He had left no doubt about the way he felt.
And Kate hadn’t made the slightest attempt to shield her heart from danger. When he turned on his laptop that first night to download his e-mail, she had made sure there were twelve silly animated greetings waiting for him and four long mushy high-school-girl-in-the-throes-of-first-love letters.
Those first few days apart had been excruciatingly lonely and so painfully sweetly romantic that she finally understood the crazy things women and men did in the name of love.
Like believe that a lapsed Catholic in New Jersey and an Episcopal priest from New Hampshire have a chance in hell?
Geography, religion, and life experience were all stacked against them, and that was just for starters. He was deeply committed to his responsibilities in New Hampshire. Her roots extended deep and wide in the fertile soil of the Garden State. Long-distance relationships worked for some couples, but she knew in her heart that she and Mark weren’t one of them. She missed the dailiness of their time together. The phone calls, the quick trips down the shore, watching him talking to Maeve at the kitchen table.
Extreme circumstances begot extreme reactions. She had a heart attack and he saved her life. It didn’t get much more emotionally extreme than that. Was it any wonder that they had been drawn together?
Of course that didn’t explain the heat, the need, the deep well of affection and respect and understanding that in the real world, her old world, took years to build. If you ever found it at all.
Sonia was right. A year was a very long time. And a year in a brand-new relationship was longer still. Maybe young love thrived on separation, but it had taken her forty-one years to discover what falling in love was all about, and it would have been wonderful if the object of her affections weren’t three hundred miles away rebuilding a life that had nothing to do with her.
Greenwood, New Hampshire“You’ve been here three weeks,” Maggy said, “and you’re still staying at the Motel 6. That’s really not acceptable for the rector of St. Stephen’s. People are starting to talk, pal.”
Mark made a left on Sprucewood and headed toward the open-house flags waving at the end of the block. “I’ve looked at a lot of places, Maggy, but I haven’t found the right one yet.”
“You’re worse than a girl,” Maggy said with a roll of her eyes. “This isn’t New Jersey. We’re not all about choice. We have ranches and we have shacks. Pick one and get it over with.”
The one on Sprucewood wasn’t right. Neither were the ones on Drake, Fremont, and Garretson.
“This is a small town,” Maggy reminded him over coffee at the Pancake Platter. “There’s just so much available. You’ll have to settle like the rest of us.”
“I can look in Bedford.”
“No, you can’t. You’re the rector of a small-town parish. You have to live in the same small town as your parishioners.”
“That wasn’t in the contract.”
“It would have been if we’d had any idea you were thinking of looking in Bedford.” She leaned across the table. “What’s the problem, Mark? I know how you feel about living in the rectory, but it’s beginning to look like you feel that way about the whole town.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then convince me I’m wrong.”
“Most of the places were too big. I don’t need three bedrooms and a family room.”
“The one on Marcotte was a two-bedroom with a workshop in the garage. What was wrong with that one?”
“Nothing,” he admitted.
“So why didn’t you make an offer?”
“What do you want from me, Maggy? I haven’t found the right place yet.”
“Okay,” she said, leaning back against the bench seat. “Don’t tell me. But if you’re afraid I’m going to tell Sam your secrets, I swear I won’t. Just because Sammy and I are engaged doesn’t mean I’m going to betray a confidence. I’ll put your secrets in the vault, same as I always have.”
He didn’t say anything.
“That’s a
Seinfeld
reference,” she said.
Seinfeld
reference,” she said.
He really needed to watch more TV.
“It’s about that woman, isn’t it?”
It was and it wasn’t, but romance was the safer conversational road to follow with Maggy.
“I thought I was covering up pretty well.”
“Not to me.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way, Mags, but I don’t know if she feels the same about me.”
“Did you ask her?”
He shook his head.
“What did she say when you told her how you felt?”
“I haven’t told her.”
“You haven’t told her that you’re in love with her?”
“No.”
“Then you’re a bigger jerk than I thought.”
“Would you talk to Father Billy like that?” Billy Owens was still awaiting an assignment to a church of his own. In the meantime the young cleric had been helping Mark get settled and, as a result, growing even more popular (and indispensable) by the day.
“If he were a jerk, you bet I would.”
“The right house will come along,” he said. “I’m not in a rush.”
“I know,” Maggy said. “I’m just afraid the right house is in New Jersey.”
I tried your cell phone but was flipped to voice mail so here I am.
I really wanted to tell you in person (okay, voice to voice) but I can’t hold it in a second longer.
Gwynn is pregnant! She told me today over lunch and it was one of those times when I wished I was still a practicing Catholic because I needed all the help I could get to keep a big smile on my face. Of course I’m happy that she’s happy. (She and Andrew were beaming like the couple on top of a wedding cake.) But she has no idea the responsibility she’s taking on and there’s no way I can tell her that she’ll understand. I guess we all make our own choices, don’t we?
Ed and I spoke about it for a long time this evening. He’s feeling as overwhelmed as I am. Not at the thought of being a grandparent (although 41 does seem young to me) but at the memories this is digging up. I always thought my pregnancy was a “mistake” but I can see now (hindsight being what it invariably is) that there was no mistake involved in it at all. I wanted a family. I wanted a steady, dependable home life. And I knew somehow (even at that tender age) that Ed could provide all of that. Love, real love, never entered into it. I saw a chance to create my own stable home and I made it happen. No regrets, though. We have a beautiful daughter, a grandchild on the way, and a sustaining friendship to show for it. But I can’t help hoping it’s more than that for Gwynn. I’m hoping she’s found love.
The baby is due in late January so they’ve decided to move up the wedding from next spring to September 15th. Gwynnie wants to know if you could possibly come down to officiate at the ceremony. She
thinks so highly of you.Did you find a place to live yet? I checked out Realtor .com and was surprised how high the prices are. No wonder you’re having so much trouble.
Professor Armitage (Chester to his intimates . . . ) put me in touch with John at Christie’s and John thinks I’ll see somewhere in the low six figures for the collection. I’ve decided to follow through on the idea I told you about and use the money (assuming there is any, fingers crossed) to buy a house for Gwynn and Andy (and the baby). What do you think? I don’t want to embarrass either one of them (esp. A) but the inheritance from the senator’s son changed my life. I’d like to do the same for Gwynn but while I’m still alive! I’d appreciate any advice.
Hope you’re well.
Talk to you soon. PS: I visited Charlotte Petruzzo yesterday. We shared tea and conversation. She sends her love.Other books
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