Bitter Sweet (31 page)

‘Hello again,’ he said.

‘You two look comfortable,’ she commented.

They replied in unison.

‘The sun is warm.’

‘Yes we are.’

‘Enjoy yourselves.’ Elsie continued toward the post office.

They finished their sandwiches while townspeople came and went before them. They drank last gulps of milk and Maggie put the half-empty carton back in the sack.

‘Well, I should go home.’

‘Yeah, Dutch will be back soon. We have about six more swags to hang.’

But neither of them moved, only sat with their napes to the wall, soaking sun like a pair of lizards on a warm rock. in the bare locust tree across the street a pair of chickadees sang their two-note song. Occasionally a car would pass, its tyres singing shhhh in the slushy street. The wood beneath them grew as warm as the sun on their faces.

‘Hey, Maggie?’ Eric murmured, as if preoccupied with his thoughts. ‘Can I tell you something?’

‘Sure. ‘

He remained silent for so long she looked over to see if he’d fallen asleep. But his squinted eyes were fixed on something across the street, his interlaced, gloved fingers draped across his belly.

‘I never did anything like this with
Nancy
,’ he said at last, rolling his head to face her. ‘She would no more sit on an icy bench and eat a sandwich than wear Reeboks without socks. It just isn’t in her.’

For moments they studied one another, the sun beating so brightly upon their faces it paled their very eyelashes.

‘Did you do things like this with your husband?’ Eric asked.

“All the time. Spontaneous, silly things.”

‘I envy you,’ he said, rolling his face once more to the sun, letting his eyes drift closed. ‘I think Ma and the old man used to sneak away and find things like this to do, too. I remember when they’d go out on the boat sometimes after dark, and they’d never let us kids come with them.’ He opened his eyes and watched the chickadees. ‘When they’d come home, her hair would be wet and Mike and I used to giggle because we knew she never took a bathing suit. Now I think it’s like that for Mike and Barb. Why is it some people find the secret and some people don’t?’

She took a moment to reply. ‘You know what I think?’

‘What?’ He glanced at her again.

She allowed several beats of silence before giving her opinion. ‘I think you’re allowing one dissatisfaction to magnify others. We all do that sometimes. We’re upset with someone about one specific thing, and it makes us dwell on all the other insignificant or irksome things the other person does. We blow them up out of proportion. What you have to do when you’re unhappy about one thing is to remember the good.
Nancy
has dozens of attributes that you’re letting yourself forget right now. I know she does.’

He sighed, slumped forward, elbows to knees, and studied the sidewalk between his boots.

‘I suppose you’re right,’ he decided after some thought.

‘May I offer a suggestion?’

Still hunkered forward, he glanced back over his shoulder. ‘By all means.’

‘Invite her.’ Maggie’s eyes and voice turned earnest as she sat forward, shoulder to shoulder with Eric. ‘Let her know it’s the kind of thing you’d love to do with her. Get out her warmest jacket, bundle her in it and order two sandwiches from Daddy, then take her to your favourite spot and let her know that the joy you get from it is as much from being there with her as it is from the novelty of eating a picnic in the snow.’

For several beats of silence, he studied her face, the face he was coming to appreciate far too much. Often at night, between lights-out and sleep, it visited him in the dark. At length he asked, ‘So, how’d you learn all this?’

‘I read a lot. I had a wonderful husband who was willing to try things with me, and I’ve taught a Family Life unit in home ec, which means taking a lot of psych classes.’

‘My mother didn’t read a lot, or take psych classes.’

‘No. But I’d be willing to bet she overlooked a lot of minor shortcomings in your dad and worked damned hard at her marriage.’

He looked away and his voice grew brittle. ‘Saying you don’t want a family is more than a minor shortcoming, Maggie. It’s a monumental deficiency.’

‘Did you talk about it before you and
Nancy
got married?’

‘No.‘

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know. I just assumed we’d have kids.’

‘But if you didn’t talk about it, whose fault is it that it’s come between you now?’

‘I know. I know.’ He jumped to his feet and went to the edge of the sidewalk where he hung from the kerb by his heels, staring at the empty lot across the street. She’d put her finger on the thought that had rankled him countless times.

She studied his back, picked up her sack of milk and rose from the bench to stand behind him.

‘I think you need a marriage counsellor, Eric.’

‘I suggested that. She said no.’

How sad he looked, even from behind. She had never realized how sad stillness can seem.

‘Do you have any friends you could both talk to who might help? Sometimes having a mediator helps.’

‘That’s another thing that’s struck me lately. We don’t have any friends, not as a couple. How the hell can we make friends when we scarcely have time to ourselves? I have friends, and I can talk to Mike - I already have. But
Nancy
would never open up to him or to any of the rest of my family. She doesn’t know them well enough, probably doesn’t even like them well enough.’

‘Then I don’t know what else to suggest.’

He turned to face her. I’m some cheery company, huh?

Every time we’re together I manage to dampen your spirits.’

‘Don’t be silly. My spirits are resilient. But what about yours?’

I’ll be okay. Don’t worry about me.’

‘I probably will, the way I used to worry about my students when they’d come to me with some family problems from home.’

They walked towards her car.

‘I’ll bet you were a damned good teacher, weren’t you, Maggie?’

She gave some thought to her reply. ‘I cared a lot. The kids responded to that.’

He found her modesty becoming, but suspected he’d guessed right. She was bright, insightful and unbiased.

People like Maggie taught others without even being aware they were doing so.

They reached her car and stepped onto the street together.

‘Well, the lunch was fun anyway,’ he said, trying to sound cheerier.

‘Yes, it was.’

He opened her car door and she set the milk on the seat.

‘And your dad makes a walloping delicious sandwich.

Tell him I said so.’

‘I will.’

She got into the
Lincoln
and he stood with his hands curled over the top of the open door.

She looked up at him and for a moment neither of them could think of a thing to say.

He still had the most beautiful eyes of any man she’d ever met.

She still looked wonderful in pink.

‘Here comes Dutch. You’d better get back to work.’

‘Yeah. Well... take care of yourself.’ ‘You, too.’

‘So long.’ He slammed the door and stepped back as she put her key into the ignition, then stood in the street until the car began moving, and raised a gloved hand in farewell.

That night, alone in her kitchen, Maggie took out a carton of milk to pour a glass. She popped open the pouring spout and Eric’s image came back as he had looked that day - his chin tipped up sharply, blond hair flattened against the store wall, his eyes nearly closed and his Adam’s apple marking each swallow as his lips cupped the carton. She ran a fingertip over the edge of the pouting spout.

Resolutely, she forced the image from her mind, filled a tumbler and slammed the carton away in the refrigerator. He’s married. And unhappy.

That’s justifying, Maggie, and you know it.

What kind of wife would refuse to have her husband’s babies?

You’re making judgements, and you’ve only heard one side of the story.

But I feel sorry for him.

Fine. Feel sorry for him. But stay on your own side of the street.

The warning stayed with her while she counted down the days until the chamber of commerce breakfast, making her ambivalent about attending. As a woman, she thought it wisest to avoid further meetings with Eric Severson, while as a businesswoman she recognized the importance of not only joining the organization, but of taking an active interest in the group and getting to know the other members. In a town the size of Fish Creek, their referrals could bring in a lot of business. From a social point of view, if this was to be her home, she had to start building friendships someplace. What better place than at such a breakfast? And as for seeing Eric again, who could fault them if they both just happened to be at a breakfast attended by nearly every businessman in the county?

The Tuesday morning of the breakfast she arose early, bathed and dressed in trousers of hunter-green wool and a winter-white sweater with a jewellery neckline, patch pocket and shoulder pads. She put on a string of pearls, replaced it with a gold chain and discarded the chain in favour of a gold pendant watch which she pinned over her left breast. In her ears she wore tiny gold loops.

When her hair was arranged and her makeup applied she caught herself spritzing perfume for the second time and glanced up sharply at her own consternated eyes in the mirror.

You know what you’re doing, don’t you, Maggie?

I’m going to a businessmen’s breakfast.

You’re dressin& for Eric Severson. I am not!

How many times have you put on mascara and eye shadow since you’ve lived in Fish Creek? And perfume? Twice?

But I’m not dressed in pink, am I?

Oh, big deal.

Irritated, she slammed off the lightswitch and hurried from the bathroom.

She drove to the breakfast realizing that already things around town reminded her of Eric Severson. In the steel grey morning

His pickup was parked on

Stepping into The Cookery, she picked him out immediately, from a good two dozen people in the room, and her heart gave a leap that warned she must consciously avoid seeking him out. He stood across the room, talking with a group of men and women, dressed in grey trousers and a dusty blue sports coat over an open-collared white shirt. His blond hair was neatly combed and he held a paper in his hand as if they’d been discussing something written on it.

He glanced up immediately, as if her entry had activated some sensor warning him of her presence. He smiled and came to her directly.

‘Maggie, I’m so glad you came.’

He shook her hand - a firm, hard handshake, absolutely correct, not even a trifle lingering, yet she felt stunned by his touch.

‘You have new glasses,’ she remarked, smiling. They made him seem the faintest bit a stranger and for a moment she indulged in the fantasy that she was meeting him for the first time.

‘Oh, these...’ A mere strip of gold held up the rimless lenses that set off his clear, blue eyes. ‘I need them for reading. And you have a new coat,’ he noted, stepping behind her as she unbuttoned the winter-white
Chesterfield
.

‘No, it’s not new.’

‘I was watching for the pink jacket,’ he admitted as he stepped behind her and took the coat as it slipped from her shoulders. ‘You always did look best in pink.’

She threw a sharp glance over her shoulder and in the instant their eyes met she discovered that a room full of businesspeople was no protection at all, for his words resurrected memories she’d thought only she had fostered, and gave the lie to any pretended indifference she might have assumed. No, he was no stranger. He was the same person who had given her pink trinkets when they were young, who had once said their first baby would be a girl and that they would paint her room pink.

‘I thought you had forgotten that.’

‘I had, until the other day when I stood twenty feet above your head and watched you walk into the post office wearing a pink jacket. It started a lot of old memories rolling back.’

‘Eric -’

I’ll hang this up and be right back.’

‘He mined, leaving her rattled and trying to hide it, leaving her clinging to the subtle essence of his after-shave and admiring his shoulders and the line of his head as he carried her coat. away.