Chance Harbor (23 page)

Catherine blinked, shocked to find herself in the middle of the dance floor. Then she had to pay attention while following the teacher, a brunette in her fifties with the body of a teenage cheerleader. That was Bethany’s point, exactly, when she’d forced Catherine to sign up for Zumba.

“You need things that keep you in the moment,” Bethany had said.

Catherine had tried to stake out a place in the back row—too many intimidating twentysomethings up front—but Bethany had propelled her to the middle of the dance floor. Catherine was soon panting to catch her breath and clearing the floor around her as she tried to get the hang of basic salsa and cumbia steps. She stepped on at least three people.

“You made it!” Bethany teased as they grabbed their water bottles.

Catherine wiped her face with a towel. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a steamroller.”

Bethany laughed. “It gets easier. I promise.”

“That’s what everyone keeps saying to me about everything. But nobody tells me when.”

“Soon,” Bethany promised. “I can tell you’re better already.”

Catherine made a face at her. “Only because I’m half-dead. How can class be an hour long? Ten minutes would have been enough,” she moaned.

Back at the house, she did a few more chores, then showered and changed into a black dress she’d bought on impulse at the consignment store near her clinic. It was a simple, straight dress with long sleeves, but it had delicate beading around the collar. Catherine added her silver hoops and silver bracelets, examining the effect in the mirror, then removed the bracelets because they reminded her of the anniversary trip she and Russell had taken to Mexico, where she’d bought them from a woman on the beach.

She wondered what Russell was doing with Willow this weekend. (She never let herself think about Nola being with them, because the very idea of Russell making Willow spend time with Nola made her see red.) Willow had seemed alternately too quiet and too maniacally happy lately, especially the last couple of days; she was definitely feeling the stress of the separation and probably hating the idea of spending another weekend with Russell and Nola. She’d done nothing but complain about the last one.

“Nola acts like she’s the only person in the world who’s ever been pregnant,” Willow had said. “She’s all about aches and pains and peeing, even though she doesn’t even
look
pregnant yet. I mean, she could be faking it—right? Just to get Dad to marry her?”

“Why in the world would she do that?” Catherine had said, though of course she’d considered that possibility. “Nola strikes me as the kind of girl who’s had no trouble getting boyfriends in the past.”

“Yeah, I know,” Willow had said, sounding glum. “But she says Dad’s the only guy who’s ever treated her like a real person and been really nice to her.” She’d given Catherine a sudden, stricken look. “Does this suck, when I talk about Nola?”

Catherine shook her head and issued her standard party line, the one she and Russell had agreed to use with Willow while they were hammering out the separation agreement. “No. What happened between your father and me is between us, honey. He wants me to be happy, I want him to be happy, and we both want you to be happy most of all. You tell me whatever you feel comfortable saying. I promise not to judge,” she added, even though that last sentence was a lie.

Jesus, she thought now, as the doorbell rang. Willow had to see through that crap. She must know that Catherine was far from wanting Russell and Nola to be happy. Right now she wished a sinkhole would swallow up Nola’s Back Bay brownstone with both of them in it.

Seth had brought her sunflowers, bright and bold. She smiled at the sight of them and invited him inside for a glass of wine while she put them in a vase. “How’s Brady?”

“Still loving his preschool and breathing easy,” Seth said, raising his glass of chardonnay to touch hers. “How about Willow? When do I get to meet her, anyway?”

Catherine sipped her wine, considering this. “She’s fine, but I think Willow’s got enough on her plate right now,” she answered finally. “I don’t want her to think we’re dating.”

“No, of course not,” Seth said.

He’d answered so quickly that Catherine gave him a sharp look. “We’re not, right? That’s what we agreed.”

Seth nodded, but his mouth—which Catherine had kissed exactly once, and liked well enough—turned down at the corners. He ran a hand through his thick auburn hair, pushing it off his forehead. “It’s just that I don’t meet many women I like as much as I like you,” he said.

Catherine smiled. “I appreciate that. Right now I feel like I’m not great company, truthfully, so it means a lot to hear you say that.”

Seth’s eyes lingered on her face, but he finished his wine without saying whatever he clearly wanted to say and stood up. “Better go. The play starts at eight.”

The play was a comedy, thankfully, a clever Oscar Wilde revival. Afterward they went for sushi in Harvard Square and browsed in a used bookstore. “You do realize we’re the oldest ones in here,” Catherine said, looking around at the college students.

“Well, except for that guy. He’s our age,” Seth whispered, lifting his chin in the direction of a man who’d fallen asleep in one of the aisles, his hat on his chest, his snores a noisy rattle. Because this was Cambridge, people just stepped around him and let him be.

As they walked home, Catherine shivered—she’d forgotten her hat, and the air was damp as well as chilly—and Seth put an arm around her. He didn’t relinquish his hold even when they reached Mass Ave and the sidewalk was crowded. Catherine wasn’t sure how she felt about this, other than warmer.

When Seth tried to kiss her good night in the doorway, Catherine let him, trying to surrender to the strange feeling of his broad chest and too-tall body against her own, but everything about it was wrong. She finally put a hand to his chest and gently pushed him away.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she was. How nice it would have been if, after Russell, she could so easily find a man whose company she not only enjoyed, but desired on every level.

“I’m sorrier,” Seth said, and kissed the top of her head before he left.

•   •   •

She shouldn’t have said yes. That was Eve’s main thought as she hastily threw things into an overnight bag on Monday morning. But it was too late now.

Eve zipped the bag shut just as she heard Darcy’s truck pull into the yard. Darcy had called her three times since their picnic on the beach, trying to convince her to come with him to Cape Breton Island. But the call that had actually changed her mind was Marta’s. This was only the second time she’d spoken to Marta since Andrew’s death. The first was when Marta had called to say she was in an ambulance with Andrew—Eve could hear the shrieking, bone-chilling sound of the siren over the phone—and that Eve should meet her at the hospital.

This time Marta caught her as she was painting woodwork in the kitchen. Eve hadn’t bothered to glance at the caller ID, just plucked the phone out of the pocket of her work shirt with her free hand. She’d nearly dropped it when she heard Marta’s voice.

“We have to talk,” Marta said. “There are things you must know.”

Eve had nearly toppled off the ladder. The audacity of this woman! She felt the tension, which had lifted from her shoulders after days of island air and hard work, return like an iron bar pressed across her throat.

“We have nothing to say to each other,” Eve said.

“Oh, but I do.”

Marta’s voice was sultry and low, that German accent thickening every vowel. Eve pictured her as she’d seen her so many years ago, with her thick, shining dark hair, her red lips. That cleavage. If a jaguar could talk, it would sound like Marta.

“Just tell me over the phone, whatever it is, and let’s be done with it,” Eve said.

“I cannot do that. It is too complicated,” Marta said. “Where are you? I could meet you today.”

“In Canada,” Eve said, and then, for good measure, added, “In Andrew’s family’s home. Where we were married.”

There was a brief silence, during which Eve imagined Marta doing any number of things that would suit that cabaret voice of hers: smoking a cigarette, loading a pearl-handled revolver, pulling a knife out of her garter. Finally, Marta said, “It is something of grave importance.”

“I’m hanging up now,” Eve said.

“I will wait for your call when you return from Canada,” Marta had answered, and hung up first.

That was yesterday. And last night Eve had called Darcy, feeling like she might go mad if she had to spend any more time alone, wondering what her husband’s mistress was so determined to tell her.

Bear was in the back of the truck’s cab, squeezed behind the seat. His tail thumped against the rear window as Eve climbed into the cab. “Somebody’s happy to see you,” Darcy said.

She laughed, but was quiet as they drove toward Souris, watching the sky lighten gradually, the spires of the pines emerging first from the hills, the white farmhouses glowing pink in the dawn light. Souris was starting to wake up, the trucks already in line for coffee at Tim Hortons. She and Darcy talked about the town as they waited in line with them, about some of the new restaurants and shops. “Do you know how Souris got its name?”

“No,” said Darcy. “But I know it means ‘mouse’ in French.”

“It was back in the seventeen hundreds. There was a mouse plague of some sort, and French sailors coming into port had to push their boats through waves of drowned mice that had swarmed into the water,” she said.

“That might put me off swimming forever,” he said, making her laugh. And suddenly, as Darcy joined her, his laugh low and rumbling, Eve felt her mood lift.

“So what do you want to do for your birthday?” she asked.

“I had a hike in mind, if the weather holds. Or maybe a boat ride out to Bird Island.”

“Bird Island? Is that even a real place? Sounds like a cartoon.”

“Sure it is. Might be too late in the season to see the puffins, but we’d see eagles for sure, and seals.”

“Well. It’s your birthday. You pick,” Eve said.

“Hiking, then.”

“All right.”

He glanced down at her sneakers. “You’re okay in those?”

“I brought boots, too. How old are you, anyway?”

“Old enough to know my own mind.” He was grinning. “Old enough to know I got lucky, convincing you to come with me on this trip.”

Eve rolled her eyes. “Come on. Just tell me.”

“Sixty-six tomorrow.”

“You’re a babe. I’m way ahead of you. I turned sixty-six in February.”

“Thank God. I was afraid I was robbing the cradle here.”

The tide was out in Souris Harbor as they drove across the bridge. The sand glowed apricot, glittering with quartz crystals as the sun came up all of a sudden, the way it did here, as if hoping to surprise people. Then they were out of the city, the land gradually flattening out as they drove toward the southern shore and the Wood Islands ferry terminal.

There were hardly any cars in line when they pulled up and bought their ferry ticket. They waited about fifteen minutes, leaving the truck to walk Bear up the dirt road toward the lighthouse, then returned and drove down the clanging metal ramp into the belly of the ferry.

Dogs weren’t allowed in the lounge area, so they had to stay on the deck with Bear. (Darcy, too, had dropped the ridiculous name “Sparrow.”) Eve leaned over the port side as the ferry moved smoothly out to sea. She spotted a pair of seals on a sandbar, one of them a black U shape as it arched its back.

Darcy had brought a wool blanket for their laps and a picnic breakfast of egg-and-cheese sandwiches on wheat toast. Eve was suddenly starved. She ate all but her crusts, feeding those to Bear.

“So, are you going to tell me about it?” Darcy asked, leaning back against the bench when they’d finished their food, after first tucking the blanket in around Eve’s shoulders and hips. He didn’t look at her; he tipped his head back against the bench, his red wool watch cap pulled low over his forehead, his hands tucked into his armpits.

Eve glanced at him, startled. “About what?”

He opened one eye. “Your disastrous first Cape Breton voyage.”

Unexpectedly, Eve found herself laughing again. Out here in the middle of the sparkling sea, with the red cliffs of PEI receding fast behind them and the sun a bright yellow disc against a gray sky mottled with clouds, her past problems felt small and insignificant. A storm could come up or they could hit a sandbar. The boat could go down at any moment and they would have to fight for their lives in the cold, choppy water of the Northumberland Strait. Today was what mattered.

What would be the harm in telling someone? Especially a man she’d probably never see again after this trip?

Eve tipped her head back, too, closing her eyes against the brightening sky, and gave in to the feeling of being on a boat, her hip and thigh warmed by Darcy’s long body. Almost like being in bed, she thought, then shook her head a little. Really. At her age?

“I’m not telling you anything about my sex life,” she warned.

“I’ll just have to use my virile imagination.”

She smacked his knee under the blanket. “Behave yourself, young man.”

Darcy laughed, but kept his eyes closed, waiting.

It was surprisingly easy, once she’d begun. She told him about Marta first, about discovering Andrew’s affair. About how he had continued to see her, as he’d confessed in Vermont. “I think he only told me because she’d threatened to tell me about them if he didn’t,” Eve said.

“Probably,” Darcy said.

“Thanks a lot.”

“I’m just being honest. That’s what most people do, isn’t it? Hide whatever they’re ashamed of until some catalyst makes it impossible to hide anymore.”

Bear stirred against Eve’s feet; she glanced down and realized that the dog had thrown his big black body over not only her feet, but Darcy’s, too, effectively anchoring them in place together. If the boat did go down, she had no doubt that this dog would tow them to shore.

She reached down to stroke the dog’s silky back and said, “Anyway, after I found out he’d gone back on his word and was still seeing her, I was all of the usual things: hurt, angry, jealous. I had never felt so unsure of myself. I had a new baby and I’d given up my job with Andrew’s company. I wasn’t coping with anything well, really. So it was a relief to get to Prince Edward Island that summer, to just be in Chance Harbor with Andrew and pretend like we really had left all of our problems behind.”