Hollyhock Ridge (12 page)

“It’s an illness,” Kay said. “She couldn’t help it.”

“If you want to know what I think, it was the devil,” he
said.

“Oh, now, no,” Kay said. “You don’t really believe that.”

“I do,” he said. “Or it was God punishing us for the sin we
committed when Tina was conceived out of wedlock.”

“I don’t believe that,” Kay said. “Young people are not
mature enough to make sensible decisions, what with all those raging hormones.
It’s only natural that mistakes are made.”

“I’ve never forgiven myself for what I did to you,” he said.
“And I never forgave her, either.”

“The Bible says we’re supposed to forgive those who trespass
against us,” Kay said. “You can’t hold hatred in your heart like that; it will
poison your whole life.”

“I never cheated on her,” he said. “Our marriage was never
good, was barely tolerable, but I didn’t run out on her and Tina, even though I
wanted to.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Kay said.

“We were never a real family,” he said. “She didn’t seem to
like being a mother and Tina certainly felt that. My daughter was closer to my
mother than she was to her own mother.”

“I’m sorry to hear you were so unhappy.”

“You never married.”

“I should have left Rose Hill,” Kay said. “I might have met
someone then.”

“You dated that guy from Pendleton for a long time,” he
said. “I thought you might marry him.”

“After Shug retired, he wanted to move to Florida,” Kay
said. “It basically came down to the facts that I don’t like golf and I can’t
leave Rose Hill. I’m like a plant with deep roots; it would probably kill me to
transplant me.”

“I’ve never stopped thinking of you,” he said. “All these
years, it should have been me and you together.”

“I think things turn out like they should.”

“They can now, you mean.”

“I’m sorry,” Kay said. “That wasn’t what I meant. I’ve
accepted what happened. I’ve had a good life.”

“Alone, though.”

“I took care of my parents for many years, and I’ve taken
care of the town. I’ve had my foster kids, and now I have Grace,” she said.
“That’s enough for me.”

“It’s a shame you’ve had to work,” he said. “If you’d
married me, you could have stayed home and taken care of our house and our
children.”

“Even if I had married, I would’ve expected my husband would
want me to do what made me happy. Many women enjoy caring for children and a
home, and I might have been one of them. As it turned out, I had to work. I’m
not sorry about that. I’ve enjoyed taking care of this town, and I’m damn good
at it. I wouldn’t give that up for any man.”

“Sonny wouldn’t mind,” Matt said with contempt. “He’s what
they call a progressive. If it were up to him, we’d have homosexuals running
around flaunting themselves in front of decent people and innocent children. No
one would stay married; Rose Hill would be like Sodom and Gomorrah.”

“I’m not going to talk about Sonny with you,” Kay said. “But
I am disappointed to hear you talk that way. Gay or straight, all people have
the potential to be good, bad, or indifferent. Sexual preference is just one
aspect of a person’s personality.”

“But they’re depraved.”

“Homosexuals don’t do anything in the bedroom that
heterosexual people don’t do, and if you don’t believe me, look it up on the Internet,”
Kay said. “Just because you’re squeamish about someone else’s sex life doesn’t
give you the right to condemn it. As long as it’s between consenting adults
it’s no one’s business but their own.”

“The Bible says homosexuality is an abomination.”

“The Bible says eating shellfish is an abomination,” Kay said,
“but I notice you sell a lot of shrimp at the IGA.”

Kay took a deep breath and attempted to calm herself. Of all
the things she didn’t expect to do today, debating LGBT rights with her high
school sweetheart had to be near the top of the list. It was pointless. Besides
the fact that their confirmation bias was like a brick wall between them,
arguing about Bible interpretation never swayed anyone.

“Let’s stop this,” she said. “I don’t want to argue with
you.”

“You didn’t used to be like this,” he said. “You used to
look up to me.”

“I was sixteen years old, for goodness sake,” Kay said.
“Over the years I’ve learned to make up my own mind rather than let someone
else make it up for me.”

“Don’t marry Sonny.”

“Who says I’m going to marry Sonny?”

“I know he’s going to ask you,” Matt said. “He told our
mother that he thought you’d make a wonderful wife.”

“And I would,” she said, “but I don’t have plans to marry
anybody right now. My life is complicated enough.”

“Just wait six months,” Matt said. “Enough time so that it
won’t look bad if we start to see each other. I never stopped loving you, Kay.
Don’t you still love me?”

There was a knock on the door, and Kay was relieved that she
didn’t have to answer him.

“I hope I’m not late,” Claire said as she entered the house.

As soon as she saw Matt, Claire stopped and her eyes widened.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can come back later.”

“No,” Kay said. “It’s fine. Matt was just leaving.”

Matt didn’t look as if he planned on leaving, and his frown
indicated he wasn’t happy to be interrupted. He stood up, and used the tissue
Kay had provided to wipe his eyes and blow his nose.

“I’ll talk to you later,” he said to Kay.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Claire said as he passed her
on his way out.

Matt compressed his lips, nodded, and then left.

Kay put her hand to her abdomen and took a deep breath.

“Thank you, Claire, for showing up when you did,” she said.

“What’s going on?”

“He needed to talk,” Kay said, “and as his friend, I’m happy
to listen, but he’s got some pretty unrealistic expectations.”

“What did he say?”

Kay shook her head.

“Let’s eat,” she said.

Kay had assembled some delicious-looking chicken
salad-filled croissants along with a colorful green lettuce salad. They carried
their food, along with two glasses of iced tea, to the front porch. They sat
down, and Kay took another deep breath.

“I don’t know if I can eat,” she said. “He’s got me that
riled up.”

“This is so good,” Claire said, as soon as she had swallowed
her first bite. “If it would help to talk about it, I’d be glad to listen.”

“As far as Matt’s concerned,” Kay said, “we’re still the
same people we were in high school.”

“You mean his wife just died and he’s already asked you out?”

“Pretty much,” Kay said.

“Oh, my Lord,” Claire said. “They haven’t even buried her
yet.”

“I know,” Kay said. “It looks terrible, doesn’t it? He wants
me to promise to wait six months so that a decent period of time can pass
before we date.”

“What do you think?”

“Quite frankly, I’m appalled,” Kay said. “It made me sick at
my stomach and all I could think was that I wanted him to leave. Then we argued
about Sonny and also, I think, about Anthony, although he wasn’t explicitly
mentioned. I was so glad to see you. It saved me from having to hurt his
feelings.”

“It does seem kind of tacky that he ran right over here the
day after they found his wife’s body,” Claire said.

“Grief hits people in different ways,” Kay said. “Maybe this
is a temporary insanity.”

“That’s very generous of you,” Claire said. “It sounds more
to me like he’s missing a sensitivity gene in his DNA.”

“I’ve spent years telling myself that if it weren’t for
Diedre, Matt and I could have been happy together,” Kay said. “Now that it’s a
real possibility, I should feel something positive, shouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know,” Claire said. “I’d have trouble getting past
the tacky part, myself.”

“That was unfortunate,” Kay said. “He couldn’t have waited a
while?”

“Except his brother would have the jump on him.”

“Sonny may not be interested in me that way.”

“I saw the way he looked at you at dinner,” Claire said.
“He’s smitten.”

“I don’t kid myself about things like that,” Kay said. “Look
at me.”

She gestured to her body’s generous proportions.

“You’re too hard on yourself, so you think everyone else is,
too,” Claire said. “I’m telling you, I know smitten when I see it, and Sonny
Delvecchio’s got it bad.”

“He’s always been so sweet to me,” Kay said. “I just never thought
of him in that way until this past week. Now I expect him to show up every
morning.”

“And he keeps coming back,” Claire said. “See?”

“There’s too much going on right now,” Kay said. “I can’t
deal with this, as well.”

“That’s how life is,” Claire said. “You’ve heard about the
calm before the storm? Well, smell the ozone, sweetie.”

“People are already spreading less than flattering gossip
about me, thanks to Marigold,” Kay said. “This would delight her no end.”

“So tell them both to back off,” Claire said. “You don’t
have to decide anything right now.”

“You’re right,” Kay said. “I know you’re right.”

“Don’t let Matt pressure you,” Claire said. “If he’s half
the man you’ve imagined him to be, he’ll honor your request.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Kay said. “I do feel better,
thank you, Claire.”

Kay took a big bite of her croissant and rolled her eyes
over how good it tasted.

“I do love my own cooking,” she said. “Thanks for giving me
an excuse to cook and for listening to all my silly problems.”

“Glad to be of service,” Claire said. “Now it’s my turn;
let’s do me.”

“Have you heard any more about Eve’s, um, delicate
condition?”

“It’s not his,” Claire said, and then told her what she had
found out about Eve’s affair.

“What are you going to do?”

“I haven’t completely solidified my plans,” Claire said.
“Somehow I’ve got to get her to confess it to him, otherwise she’ll deny it and
I’ll just look like a sore loser.”

“He’s got to know she wasn’t celibate while they’ve been
apart.”

“But he never bothered to get divorced from her, so maybe
this is fulfilling some subconscious wish he had.”

“Until he knows the truth, Ed will stand by her, right or
wrong,” Kay said.

“Don’t I know it,” Claire said. “That’s the reason it will
probably never work out for us.”

“Why is that?”

Claire paused.

“I had kind of an adventurous life after I left Rose Hill,”
Claire said.

“Well, of course you did,” Kay said. “You weren’t living in
a convent. I imagine life in Hollywood is pretty wild sometimes.”

“Wild doesn’t even begin to describe it,” Claire said. “Even
so, I think Ed has kind of an unrealistically romantic view of women in
general, and of me, in particular.”

“Sounds familiar,” Kay said. “You could be describing most
men over the age of forty in this town.”

“He had kind of a crush on me in high school.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“I know that was a long time ago and people change, but I
meant something to him then, and it’s like I’m finally in a place where I’m
ready to reciprocate his feelings.”

“It’s wonderful you found each other again after all this
time,” Kay said. “It’s very romantic, very chick lit.”

“Let me ask you this,” Claire said. “Do you think you owe
the entire truth about your history to the man you love?”

“That’s not an easy question,” Kay said. “I don’t have much
of a history, so I can’t say it has ever come up.”

“I truly believe that if I told Ed everything I did after I
left Rose Hill, the people I was involved with and the situations I got into,
he would think less of me.”

“The more important question is how do you think of you?”

“I wish I had done some things differently,” Claire said.
“But honest to God, I was just doing the best I could with the brains I had at
the time.”

“You were so young.”

“And naive,” Claire said. “I thought I could be in that
world but not of it, do you know what I mean?”

“I think so,” Kay said. “If you believe that about Ed, he
probably isn’t the one for you. But are you absolutely sure?”

Claire shrugged.

“Meanwhile,” she said. “I told Laurie the whole story and he
didn’t even blink.”

“I wondered how that was going.”

“He’s coming over for dinner tonight,” Claire said. “I told
him Dad probably wouldn’t remember him, but he wants to come.”

“I’ve known Laurie for a long time,” Kay said. “He was so sweet
with his first wife, the one who died. They had their problems, like everyone,
but they were so devoted to each other.”

“No wonder he went off the deep end after she died.”

“I have faith in Laurie,” Kay said. “It seems like he has
the drinking under control, and I think this new job will be good for him. A
new start in a new place is sometimes the best medicine for a broken heart.”

“That’s a dangerous stage for a man to be in,” Claire said.
“I don’t want to be his transitional woman.”

“He just divorced his transitional woman,” Kay said. “I
think you might be right on time.”

When Claire got back to the office, Pip was not waiting
outside, but Eldridge Inn owner Gwyneth Eldridge was. Dressed like the wealthy
high society lady she considered herself to be, Gwyneth was attired in the
current popular style of preppy clothes that looked too small for her already
gaunt frame. From her small, tailored handbag to her tassled two-tone loafers,
Gwyneth could have passed for one of the visiting Eldridge students’ irritated,
self-entitled mothers.

“I suppose it’s too much to ask for you to post when you’ll
be back when you leave for lunch,” Gwyneth said in her snide nasal whine, as
she looked at her small, tasteful watch. “I’ve been waiting quite a while.”

“What can I do for you, Gwyneth?”

Claire unlocked the door and held it open for her. Gwyneth
walked past with an exaggerated lean away from Claire, as if she were terrified
of catching river cooties. She then wrinkled up her nose at the interior of the
office, looked for a place to sit, and when nothing was deemed clean enough to
place her rear upon, she crossed her arms and cocked her hip instead.