The Beach House (27 page)

Chapter 4

Katherine had on a blue-and-yellow sundress, a size too big, with straps that slid off her shoulders whenever she adjusted the napkin on her lap. Peter didn't know whether he was more tempted to reach over to slip the strap back into place or leave it alone, especially when she leaned forward to take another bite of spinach salad and he saw far more than he had any right to see.

She caught him looking.

“I had no idea I'd lost so much weight. I hope the other dresses I brought fit a little better.” She pulled up the strap and squared her shoulders. “I've been living in jeans and shorts this summer.”

“Nothing special going on at church lately, huh?” It was a safe, if inane question. He shifted in his seat to give the man next to him room to move his chair out of the sun. The sidewalk café on Pacific Avenue where they'd gone for lunch was more crowded than he liked, but it was open and casual and less like a “date” than if they'd gone to one of his favorite, more formal restaurants.

“I think this is the first time I've had a dress on since—” She stopped, as if unsure she wanted him to hear what she'd been about to say next. “It's been really hot in the valley. When I left we were only a couple of days away from setting a record for continuous triple-digit days.”

He'd quit going to church before he graduated high school but found it curious that things had changed so much, the minister's wife could either stay home from services for months at a time or attend wearing jeans or shorts. Because he didn't know what to say, Peter broke off a piece of the crusty sourdough bread that had come with his salad and concentrated on spreading the cold butter with a plastic knife.

Finally, to break the awkward silence, he said, “Going for that kind of record, I can see why you decided to come down here after all.”

“After all?” she asked warily. “I'm not sure I understand what you mean.”

“By yourself—without Brandon and the boys.” Brandon had never spent the entire month with her at the beach house. At the most he would come down on Monday, stay a few days, and then go back home to work on his sermon for the following Sunday. But the kids had always come with her, usually accompanied by a carload of their friends.

Katherine plucked a sunflower seed out of her salad and surreptitiously tossed it to the pigeon wandering between the tables. When she glanced up and saw him watching her, she said, “I know I shouldn't do that.”

“But . . . ?” he prompted.

“They're such amazing creatures—the ultimate urban survivors, living on dropped scraps of food and spilled water.”

He sat back in his chair and stared at her. “You're serious.”

She actually blushed, the exposed skin above her sundress turning a deep red. “Don't worry, I know how crazy it sounds. Which is probably why I've never talked about it before.”

In the back of his mind he'd harbored a foolish hope that getting to know Katherine better would reveal flaws and that she would become ordinary, freeing him from her spell. Instead, even in the ordinary, she was special. “You're not alone, you know. There are people all over the world who feel the way you do. They save scraps of food all week to feed their favorite flocks of pigeons.”

She smiled. “I'm surprised someone hasn't set up a tour.”

“How do you know they haven't?”

“Because there are no tour buses outside my apartment.”

She lived in an apartment? Somehow Peter had gotten the impression Brandon's church provided a much better living. As a matter of fact, he could swear he'd heard her mention a house before. This, too, he didn't pursue. “Where do you suppose they went after the earthquake?”

“You know, I wonder about things like that, too.” She sat back in her chair and stared at the buildings lining both sides of the street. “Looking at this place now, it's hard to believe what a mess it was back then.”

“It was sad to see all those old buildings have to come down.”

“Were you home when the quake hit?”

It was a standard California question, one that fell in the category of what someone was doing on 9/11 or where they were when Kennedy or King or Lennon was shot, noteworthy because it gave total strangers a common experience. “I was just outside San Jose, on my way back from a gallery showing in San Francisco. I spent the next five hours listening to reports on the car radio, and the way they made it sound, everything here was leveled.”

“It took you five hours to travel thirty-five miles?”

“Only because I decided to take a shortcut.”

“Sounds like something I would do. Did you have a lot of damage?”

“A couple of broken windows and cracked walls, but nothing like what happened down here. The houses around the cove really got off pretty easy.”

“Michael was thinking about going to San Jose State, but I talked him out of it. Of course I didn't tell him the real reason—he would have told me I was nuts. He thinks real Californians aren't bothered by earthquakes, they just take them in stride. So I convinced him he should go far enough away that he really had a sense of leaving home.” She chuckled. “So what did he do? He picked a school in Kansas, right in the middle of tornado alley.”

“How does he like college?”

Her face lit up, her eyes filled with wonder and pride, the way they always did when she talked about one of her sons. “I think he felt a little lost in the beginning, but he loves it now. Especially since he decided on his major.”

“Is he still considering going into the ministry?”

She took a drink of iced tea before answering. “That was Brandon's idea. Thank goodness Michael had sense enough to go his own way.”

“Not suited for the job, huh?”

“No more than I would be.” She tossed another seed to the pigeon. This time the action brought a reproving frown from the woman seated at the table next to theirs.

“I would have thought you'd be the perfect candidate for the job.”

She blinked in surprise. “My goodness—why?”

He had to be careful how he answered, separating his personal feelings from those of a friend. “You like people—and you're good with them. Your beliefs are as natural as your hair.” Way too personal. “What I mean is, you show who you are by what you do rather than what you say. Your parishioners would learn from you by example, not rhetoric.”

“How long has it been since you've been inside a church, Peter?”

“A long, long time,” he admitted. He'd never tried to hide from her who he was or what he believed or didn't believe.

“It's the rhetoric that brings people in.” She paused and smiled. “I'm not sure I'd want anything to do with a congregation that showed up every Sunday just to sit around and watch the preacher be nice.”

If she were the preacher, he'd be there every week without fail. He put his hands on his knees and purposely looked her in the eye. “Ready?”

She nodded. “Where to now?”

“The art store. I need to pick up a couple of brushes for the masterpiece I'm starting tomorrow.”

It took a second for the “masterpiece” part to sink in. When it did, Katherine blushed. “Does that mean you're going to use fresh paper, too?”

“Absolutely.”

When she came around the table he started to reach for her arm but pulled back at the last second. There was no such thing as casual contact for him anymore. He wanted her so badly, he carried the hunger around with him like a backpack that grew heavier every day.

“Would you mind if I went in here first?” She indicated a store called Bookshop Santa Cruz. “I've run out of things to read at home.”

“No, go ahead. I'll join you in a couple of minutes. There's something I want to do first.”

He found her in the popular fiction aisle. She was reading the inside teaser of a paperback. As soon as he saw her he knew he'd made a mistake. He should never have given in to the impulse that had sent him to the flower kiosk outside the bookstore. He had no right to buy her flowers, no matter what trumped-up excuse he gave. He started to back away, but she looked up and saw him before he could drop his offering into the garbage can beside the register.

She closed the book, added it to another one she had tucked in her arm, and came toward him. “As soon as I pay for these we can go.”

He wandered over to look at an art book on the bargain table while he waited. She'd seen the flowers, so he had no choice but to give them to her. The trick would be to make it look casual, as if it held no more significance than opening a door or holding a chair.

“I am so in awe of people with talent,” she said, looking over his shoulder. “Any kind of talent. My next life I think I'll come back as an actor—no, a singer.”

“You believe in reincarnation?”

“Not really. But I read something the other day that made me stop and think—when you come back as a whale, you'll be glad you gave to Greenpeace.” She moved to stand next to him. “It's just my way of complaining about my abysmal lack of any but the most ordinary skills.”

“What are you talking about? You're the most extraordinary woman I know.” He returned her smile. “And I already give to Greenpeace.”

Obviously believing he was teasing her, she made a gracious little bow. “You're by far the most gallant man of my acquaintance.”

Could she really be so blind to her own personality, to her ability to make people feel good about themselves because she always saw the good in them? Was it possible Brandon didn't realize he was the luckiest man on earth?

Because he was beginning to feel a little silly hanging on to the sweet peas, he handed them to Katherine.

“These are for me?”

“They go with your dress.”

She stared at the brightly colored blooms as if she expected them to disappear at any moment. “No one has ever given me flowers.”

“Never?” She had to mean as a casual gift.

“Not even when I was in the hospital having my babies. Brandon doesn't believe in it.” She brought the flowers to her nose and took a deep breath. “I mean, he
really
doesn't believe in it. When Michael and Paul were born he asked everyone to make donations to the church's relief association in their names.

“One of the first things he did when he became pastor at the church”—she smelled the flowers again—“was to let everyone know how he felt. We lost a couple of members who were florists, but the rest of the congregation seemed to go along with his feelings, especially when he told them that he felt it bordered on sinful to spend money on something that would last less than a week when it could be used to feed a third world family for a month. You would have thought the donations to the relief workers would have gone up, but they didn't.”

“How do you feel?” he asked.

She smiled with guilty pleasure. “Special . . . very, very special.”

It was such a simple thing. He wondered if Brandon had any idea what his intractable stand had cost him.

Chapter 5

Katherine stood in front of the mirrored closet doors and stared at herself. Peter had said to wear something simple, that he was painting her, not her clothes. In the past half hour she'd tried on all four of the dresses she'd packed and wasn't happy with any of them. How could she have lost so much weight without being aware of it?

Had Brandon been right about her getting chunky? Was that why he'd suddenly found her so unattractive?

Agreeing to pose had been an impulse, made without any real thought to the consequences. What if Peter decided to sell the painting and no one wanted to buy it because she was so uninteresting? Models were supposed to be beautiful, or at least distinctive.

She was ordinary at best. Or, if Brandon was to be believed, deadly boring. For some reason Peter didn't see that side of her. Probably because he wasn't around her enough. Even box turtles were interesting at first glance, but no one wanted to be with them all the time.

What if the painting did sell and everyone wanted to know who she was? Worse yet, what if it created the kind of speculation that had surrounded Andrew Wyeth and his pictures of Helga? She'd never be able to explain something like that to Brandon's satisfaction.

Good grief, what kind of paranoid idiot was she turning into? Was she so desperate for a little excitement in her life that she had to make it up?

She sat on the corner of the bed. How had she gone from the girl invited to every party in high school to the woman whose only friends were at the church her husband had asked her to stop attending?

Maybe she was the one-dimensional woman Brandon would have her believe. Sex with him had never been the breathless kind portrayed in books and movies. The times she'd suggested they try something a little different, like making love in the middle of the day or someplace besides the bed, he'd questioned how she'd come up with the idea. The discussion that followed usually killed any desire. With some things she was a slow learner. Sadly, this was one of them. It took several attempts over the years before she finally got it through her head that Brandon liked his sex as predictable as his life.

Or so she'd thought.

If she'd only tried a little harder to discover what he needed, she wouldn't be facing a meeting with a divorce lawyer when she got home. At least that was Brandon's take on their marriage. She didn't know what to think. She was still too stunned by it all. She likened it to going to the doctor to have a wart removed and being told she had six months to live.

She glanced at the clock beside the bed. She had five minutes to make up her mind about what to wear and get out of there.

 

Peter knew exactly how he wanted to paint Katherine. Over the years he'd sketched her a hundred times from memory, most often with the sea as background. He'd even allowed three of the finished pieces to be displayed in galleries, but always with SOLD signs attached. They were figure pieces rather than portraits, portraying her at a distance, some in repose, others interacting with her family.

In the beginning he'd hoped the exercise would prove cathartic, that he could work her out of his system by using her over and over again as a subject, confident he would grow tired after a while and move on to something or someone else. Only it never happened.

The years of self-inflicted agony finally settled into an acceptance that brought its own form of peace. He loved her. He always would. The sun would rise and set every day, the tide would come in and go out, the cove would have fog in summer, and he would love Katherine—simple, indisputable, inevitable.

She arrived wearing a cerulean blue knit dress that had a round neck and short sleeves. It was fitted to just below her breasts, then fell loose in a soft drape to her ankles. She held out her arms and made a slow circle. “Is it okay?”

“Perfect,” he said, his heart in his throat. He'd let himself imagine her opening her arms to him.

“I have a favor to ask.”

“Anything.” He smiled to lessen the passion of his answer.

“Don't tell the boys I did this. Having your picture painted is something girlfriends do, not moms.”

“What about Brandon?”

She hesitated. “I don't think the subject will come up.”

“But if it does?”

“Then he would have to be told the truth.”

What had he expected, that she would keep a secret that involved him from her own husband? “Would it upset him to know you were posing for me?”

She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her skirt. “Don't worry about it, Peter. Brandon won't be here this summer.”

It was inconceivable to him that Brandon could be away from her for a day, let alone an entire month. “Can I get you something before we start?”

“I'd like a glass of water—but I can get it myself.” She motioned toward the other end of the house. “It's been so long. . . . Is the kitchen this way?”

“I'll get it for you,” he said.

“Please, let me. It makes me uncomfortable to have people wait on me.”

When he sent her a questioning look, she shrugged as if the statement were a mystery to her, too. “Can I get you something while I'm there?”

“No thanks. I just had a cup of coffee.” He watched her leave, thinking how easily she'd made herself comfortable in his home. It was as if she'd always been there . . . as if she belonged.

He shook himself mentally, releasing his mind from its flight into fanciful thinking. Falling in love with Katherine had been an accident, like getting caught in a riptide. Letting himself imagine things that weren't there, things that could never be, made about as much sense as a swimmer caught in that riptide adding lead weights to his ankles.

Katherine returned with her glass of water. “Where do you want me?”

“On the window seat. I thought we'd try several poses, one profile with you looking out to sea, a couple full face, and maybe one or two looking into the room as if you were talking to someone.”

She sat on the loose cushions and naturally brought one leg up to tuck under the other.

“That's good,” he said, liking that she showed none of the stiffness he'd expected.

Propping her arm on the oak sill, and her hand on the hidden side of her face, she did as he'd suggested and looked out the mullioned window. The early afternoon sun had just begun its daily invasion into the living room, its rays no farther along than her lap.

The contrast of light and shadow would change throughout the afternoon, giving Peter constantly changing perspectives. To capture the ones he wanted he would have to do quick sketches, going back later to fill in detail. Now it was the light that mattered most, the way it would move across her body, how it would illuminate her hair, how it would give texture to her skin.

His watercolor style was as detailed as if it were done in oils. Using dry brush over washes, gouache paint for small highlights, wax resist, and masking fluid to give him freedom to experiment had offended more than a few purist critics over the years. But he'd never painted to please critics, only himself.

Peter always worked from sketches, never photographs, believing photographs froze movement. Often his sketches would have lengthy notes written on the back to remind him of mood and location.

He would need no reminder today.

Katherine turned to look at him. “Oh—you're working already.” She jerked her head back. “I was just going to tell you about the bird on your fence.”

“What about it?”

She tried to talk without moving her mouth. “It can wait.”

He smiled. “Put your hand in your lap.”

She did. “Like this?”

“With the palm facing up.” He studied the effect for several seconds before saying, “Don't move. I'll be right back.”

Peter went outside and plucked an orange nasturtium. He arranged it in her hand. “You'll never be without a flower again.”

Her expression changed, her eyes misty with thought, her mind a place he could not go.

 

Two hours passed before the yellow light became too harsh to continue. He'd have to wait for the burnt sienna, raw umber, and yellow ocher of sunset to get what he wanted next. “Ready for a break?” he said.

She stretched like a cat waking up from a nap by the fire. “It wasn't near as hard as I thought it would be.”

“I'm glad.” He laid the sketch he'd been working on facedown on the table with the others. “Maybe you won't mind another session tonight?”

She picked up her glass of water, untouched until then. “What will you do now?”

“With the sketches?”

“With yourself. Are you hungry? I could fix us a snack.”

Was that the role she'd assumed in life, the nurturing provider? “Why don't I fix us something?”

“I don't mind. That way you can relax for a while. You're the one who's done all the work.”

Without thinking what he was doing, Peter took her hand, led her into the kitchen, and made her sit at the table while he took a small round of Gouda cheese and grapes out of the refrigerator. He'd broken his rule about touching her. If she were anyone else, taking her hand would have been a casual, even a natural thing to do; but with Katherine it wasn't something he would forget. The feel of her palm resting in his only intensified his hunger for more. Had it been his right to do so, he would have brought her hand up and pressed his lips to the gently curving lifeline that, if the fates had been kinder, would have included him.

He took a cutting board out of a drawer to slice the cheese. “Tell me about the bird.”

“It was fairly small—a little bigger than a finch—and had a red head and yellow body.”

“Black wings and tail?”

“It was facing me so I couldn't see the tail, but the wings looked black.”

“Sounds like a western tanager, but then no one's ever accused me of being an expert. There's a bird book on the shelf in the living room—bottom left-hand side—if you'd like to look it up.”

She got up, but instead of leaving, came to stand next to him, picked up the grapes, and took them to the sink to wash. “Sorry, I'm just not used to being waited on.”

“How about a glass of wine?” he asked.

“I think I'd like a beer instead, if you have it.”

He started for the refrigerator, then caught himself. “It's in there. Glasses are in the freezer.”

“Very good, Peter.” She patted his arm as she passed.

“Why don't you get one for me, too?”

Now she smiled. “Even better.”

“While you're at it, there's some laundry out back. . . .”

That brought a laugh. “Don't push it.”

She had a beautiful laugh, spontaneous and free, not the forced, polite kind that left you feeling empty, but the kind that left you eager to hear it again.

She tipped the glass and poured the beer down the side. “Have you always lived alone?”

He was still trying to figure out where the question had come from when she went on.

“Forget I asked that. It's none of my business.” She took out a clean dish towel to dry the grapes. “It's just I've never seen you with anyone. You're such a special person, it seems a shame you don't have someone special to share your life with.”

How in the hell was he supposed to answer that? “I guess I haven't met the right person yet.”

“There's never been”—she struggled for the word—“a significant other?”

Peter's first inclination was to put the strange phrase off to her background, and then it dawned on him what she was really saying.

She thought he was gay.