Out in the Country (3 page)

Everyone was seated, yet the chatter and joking still flew around the room and Molly cleared her throat. No one heard--or perhaps no one bothered to listen--and she did it again, so it hurt a little bit.

“Good morning--” Her voice wavered and not one person even glanced her way. Molly felt her flush intensifying, a prickly heat crawling along her skin. She was going to sink on her very first day, her first minute, and after all her dreams...

Her glance stole inadvertently to the door, and behind the striped pane of glass she saw Luke Michaels smile and give her a thumbs up. The simple gesture buoyed her for that crucial moment, and she spoke again.

“Good morning!” Her voice came out in a near boom, and the class was startled into silence. Molly smiled and moved from behind her desk. “My name is Miss Marshall, and we’re going to start with a poem today...” Moving with firm purpose between the rows of chairs, Molly began handing out the sheets of paper. Her gaze stole once more to the door, but Luke Michaels had already gone.

“Why don’t you come here?” As soon as Lynne
said the words, she knew it was the right thing to do.
She felt it when Jessica asked with a little choked laugh,

“Do you mean it?”

“Of course I do.” In the last four hours Lynne had discovered more of Rob and Guy’s duplicity. Guy had never had any intention of financing the hotel; he’d merely wanted Jessica’s savings to augment his own. She still wasn’t sure if Rob was a dupe or a deceiver, but it hardly mattered at this point.

The venture was well and truly bust.

“Of course I
mean it,” Lynne repeated firmly. “Your flat is sold, you’re at a loose end... why not? You’ve never been on this side of the Atlantic before. It’s about time you came, and you certainly deserve a bit of a break while you decide what to do next. Besides,” she added, feeling a bit of levity was needed, “I was counting on catching up with you! We’ll just do it on this side of the ocean instead.”

Jessica was quiet for a long moment, long enough for Lynne to wonder what she was thinking. Feeling.

“I’d really like that,” she finally said quietly, and Lynne heard both the gratitude and ache of sorrow in her voice.

“I’ll look into flights for you if you want,” she said. “You can do it all online--really, it’s a snap.”

“That would be wonderful.” Jess paused, and in that silence Lynne’s heart gave an answering ache. Poor Jess, to have lost so much, so suddenly. She knew how that felt. It left you spinning, wondering where you were or even who you were. “Thank you, Lynne,” Jess said.

“I’m glad to do it,” Lynne told her.

It didn’t take Lynne long to arrange an inexpensive flight on the internet, and by the time Molly was expected home, it was all arranged. It was strange, she reflected, gazing unseeingly out her kitchen window at Park Avenue’s steady stream of taxis, how quickly plans--and lives--had changed. Her suitcase was still half-packed at the foot of her bed, and the one-way ticket to Glasgow, to leave in less than a fortnight, was on her desk. Yet now neither would be seeing much use.

She suppressed a sigh just as the key turned in the door, and Lynne went to meet Molly in the foyer.

“Well?” She took in Molly’s pale face and tired eyes in one quick glance before smiling brightly. “How was your first day, Miss Marshall?”

“Fine.” Molly smiled back but Lynne heard the strain in her voice.

“You want to tell me about it?” she asked, automatically moving to the kitchen to fill the kettle and plonk it on the stove. Molly sank into one of the kitchen chairs and kicked off her heels.

“Oh, Mom, it was so...” She closed her eyes briefly. “So much.”

“It was bound to be,” Lynne replied, trying to pitch her tone between sympathetic and bracing.

Molly opened her eyes. “I met a teacher right before my first class, Luke Michaels. He’s been teaching there for five years and he’s so cynical. I told myself I’d never be like that, but after just one day I now wonder if I will.”

“What happened?”

“I’d selected one of my favorite poems--Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening--you know it--”

“ ‘Whose woods these are I think I know,” Lynne quoted with a smile.

“ ‘His house is in the village, though,’” Molly quoted back, and then shook her head. “They thought it was stupid. Boring. They
laughed
. When I was a student teacher back in New Hampshire, the kids loved it. They were transfixed. Here... they couldn’t care less.”

“But they wouldn’t, would they,” Lynne said, “on the first day? Give them time, Molly. Give yourself time.”

The kettle whistled shrilly, and Lynne went to make tea.

“I just didn’t expect it to hurt,” Molly said quietly. “I was so disappointed--not one student among them who acted like she cared. Not one.”

“Maybe you just didn’t see one,” Lynne replied, “among the thirty-two. I don’t know of a single teacher--especially at a school like yours--who’s had a fabulous first day.” She placed a cup of tea in front of her daughter, loaded up with milk and sugar.

“You’re right, I know.” Molly smiled and took a grateful sip. “I’m just letting off steam. What’s going on with the Scotland plan? Have you heard?”

“Yes...” With a little sigh Lynne proceeded to tell Molly about what had happened.

“But that's awful! He just ran with the money?”

“Yes, apparently. He was going to put up the bulk of the down payment for the property, and Jessica and Rob had just handed over a good chunk of their savings. Then this Guy character disappeared.”

“But can’t they prosecute?”

“Perhaps, in time, but they didn’t have a formal contract.” Lynne sighed. “It was a business arrangement based on friendship, and in the end he wasn’t much of a friend. And Rob wasn’t much of a fiancé, either,” she added with a grimace.

“It sounds like they were both complete skunks. Poor Jessica. What’s she going to do?”

“Well, actually...” Lynne traced the rim of her mug with one fingertip. “She’s coming here.”

“Here?” Molly sat up in surprise. “For a visit, you mean?”

“Yes, I suppose. To be honest, she’s rather at a loose end--her flat’s been sold, she gave her notice on her job... She put everything into this hotel business, only to have it come crashing down around her ears.” Lynne sighed. “She needs a break, a proper one. And so I invited her to stay.”

“It sounds like a good plan,” Molly said. “I haven’t seen her in ages, since I was in about sixth grade! It should be nice to see her again.”

“Yes...” Lynne smiled and tried to ignore the slight sting of disappointment she felt at her own fledgling hopes shot to earth before they’d even taken wing. Jessica had experienced a far greater disappointment, and Lynne knew her friend needed her now.

Molly must have sensed it, though, for she leaned forward, her eyes darkening with worry. “And what about you? It isn’t just Jess’s plans that have fallen apart.”

“I’m disappointed,” Lynne admitted, and was surprised at
how deeply disappointed she truly was. “I was counting on getting a little distance from... everything,” she continued quietly. “But I like to think there’s a reason the way things happen, so...” She shrugged, trying to smile. Molly didn’t need the added burden of her own disappointments and worries right now.

Molly frowned and took a sip of tea. “Yes, that is a comforting thought, I suppose,” she said, although she didn’t sound completely convinced.

As Interstate 87 wound its way north, the leaves turned from a stretch of placid green to the vivid hues of yellow, scarlet, crimson and gold.

Lynne glanced up from driving, smiling at a copse of yellow-tinged birches. “Wait till they’re in the full glory,” she told Jessica, who smiled in anticipation.

“And then the highway’s clogged with foliage chasers!” Molly chimed in from the back seat.

“That’s true,” Lynne agreed. She glanced in the rearview mirror at her daughter, who was using the four hour trip to Hardiwick, Vermont, to grade thirty-two English essays on Robert Frost.

“I’m sure it’s magnificent,” Jessica said.

Her friend was looking better, Lynne decided as she snuck another covert glance at the passenger seat. When Lynne had fetched her from the airport, Jessica had looked like a shell of herself, her face pale and strained with fatigue, her eyes blank and wide. Now her cheeks had a bloom of colour, although
her eyes were still guarded, shadowed with pain and memory.

She’d been in New York for nearly a fortnight, and they’d hit just about every museum, park, and tourist attraction the city had to offer. The steady stream of activities had been comforting and mindless, Lynne knew, a distraction to keep Jessica from dwelling on everything that had happened.

Yet you couldn’t be distracted forever, and Lynne knew it was only a matter of time before Jessica had to deal with Rob’s betrayal, the loss of the hotel, and most importantly, her own heartbreak.

She was grateful for this trip, a change of scenery for both of them. Two weeks of sightseeing was plenty, she thought wryly.

“There’s the exit for Hardiwick,” she announced and put on her indicator. “I haven’t been up here in awhile, actually. It will be good to see Kathy and Graham in their own home.”

“Adam grew up here, didn’t he?” Jessica asked. “Did you come back much, as a family?”

Lynne considered that question for a moment. They were off the motorway and were driving through a strip of shopping outlets
offering ski wear, real maple syrup, and custom-made pine furniture.

“Not as much as we would have liked,” she finally said, “or perhaps should have. Adam was so busy with his career, travelling, working... and Kathy and Graham were always happy to drive down to the city for get-togethers.” She sighed. “It’s funny, in some ways, to think of Adam growing up as a country boy. He was always the polished city slicker to me.”

“Always?”

“When I met him at university in Edinburgh, he’d been living in New York for five years already.” For a moment Lynne lost herself in nostalgia, remembering the dashing young
visiting lecturer who’d swept away every undergrad with his charming American twang, his ready smile. She’d been working in the reference section of the college library, and soon Adam had been finding excuses to borrow books, have her search the dusty stacks for some obscure volume.

“Mom, I think you turn here,” Molly interrupted her thoughts, and quickly Lynne refocused on the road, turning right away from the shopping outlets. A small green road sign read ‘Hardiwick: 7 Miles.’

Buildings gave way to rolling fields, ringed with tumbledown stone fences, reaching to the thick, grey-green horizon of the Green Mountains. There were mountains fencing the landscape on every side, Lynne remembered, so that you felt like you were enclosed in a giant’s garden.

Above them the sky was hazy and blue, fleecy white clouds scudding across its surface.

They drove in silence, each lost in the tranquil wonder of the world around them, although Lynne saw that Molly had turned resolutely back to her papers, oblivious to the beauty of a Vermont autumn.

Hardiwick came upon them suddenly; the road crested on a hill, and suddenly a town rose from the fields, neatly laid out streets with brick buildings and old-fashioned lampposts. It gave the impression of a city, and yet it was only two streets wide and two blocks long.

A tiny city, Lynne thought, driving through, noticing a new bistro she’d never seen before, half a dozen antique shops, a crafts shop, and a hardware she remembered that looked as if it had landed in Hardiwick straight from the 1950s.

On the other side of town the brick buildings gave way to gracious homes, Victorian houses with cupolas and wide front porches, and it was the third one of these, painted a cheerful yellow with a large front garden still trailing late summer blooms, that Lynne parked in front of.

The air was crisp and carried the faint scent of wood smoke as Lynne stepped out of the car, and Kathy and Graham both came out onto the front porch.

“We’re so glad you’re here!” Kathy exclaimed, and turned to Jessica with a warm, welcoming smile. “And you must be Jess! Come in, come in. There’s lemonade and
cookies on the back porch.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon out on the porch, drinking in the autumn sunshine as leaves drifted lazily down to carpet the soft grass in reds and yellows.

Lynne listened sleepily as she leaned back in her rocking chair. Kathy hit just the right note, she thought, of sympathy and interest when talking to Jessica. She could see Jessica relaxing, the tension that had been holding her together starting to loosen.

She looked around for Molly and saw that her chair was vacant. Murmuring her excuses, she went inside and found Molly at the kitchen table, hard at work.

“It’s Friday afternoon, Moll,” she said quietly. “Can’t you leave it for a few moments?”

Molly didn’t even look up as she shook her head. “I just want to get it done.”

Lynne sighed her acceptance, knowing how driven her daughter was to prove herself.

“Well, I hope you can take a break tomorrow... we’re celebrating Gram and Granddad's fiftieth wedding anniversary all.”