Love in Maine (2 page)

He shook his head. “All right, then. See you at five. And you might want to wear a
black T-shirt next time.”

She looked down at her shirt and realized it was covered with a muddy rainbow of grease,
juice, coffee, and unidentifiable muck. “Will do!” She saluted him for some reason,
then felt like an even bigger idiot. “I mean, will do,” she repeated, keeping her
hands firmly at her sides, tamping down her enthusiasm.

Phil showed her out the front door and stood holding it open for her for a few seconds.
“You know how to get to Janet’s from here?” he asked.

“Yes. I think it’s just up that street, and then on to the left . . . Is that right?”

“Yep. That’s right.” He looked at her again as if he were going to ask her what the
hell she was doing in Blake, Maine, in the first place, then thought better of it.
“Say hi to Hank for me.”

“Who’s Hank?”

But Phil was already shutting the door, and she only heard him laugh and lock it as
he pulled the old horizontal blinds down and flipped the sign to “Closed.”

“Henry Van Rensselaer Gilberston. You do not speak to me in that tone of voice.”

“Come on, Mom. You don’t need to speak to me like I’m twelve, either, but this is
crazy.”

“I am not crazy. We settled that years ago. I have the paperwork to prove it.” She
winked at her handsome son, then tried to stay mad at him, which was always impossible.
At twenty-eight, after ten years in the Army, Henry could never hold his mother’s
wrath for long.

“I didn’t say
you
were crazy, I said
this
is crazy,” he said. “I will get a second job or do some part-time work cleaning yachts
over in Back Cove. There is no reason for you to be taking in strays.”

“You make it sound like the city pound. I think Maddie Post sounds like a perfectly
nice lady. And someone I can talk to, unlike you, with your buttoned-up, I-just-want-to-be-left-alone
thing you’ve got going on.”

Hank turned away from his mother and tried to figure out the best way to tell her
he was not about to let some old cat lady from who-knew-where live in his mother’s
house for a few hundred dollars a month.

“You are charging her way too little,” Hank tried, turning back to face her and folding
his arms in defiance. “Donald’s got a roommate who pays six hundred bucks a month.”

Janet Gilbertson folded her arms as well. They looked like mirror images of one another.
Rather, they looked nothing like one another, Hank being bulky, tall, and stock-still,
and Janet being tiny, birdlike, and fidgety. But their stubborn scowls were identical.

“Well, that’s just ridiculous,” Janet said. “Who would pay six hundred dollars to
live in my guest room? In Blake, Maine. That’s just plain old silly.”

“Mom! Are you doing this to make money or just to piss me off?”

She let her hands drop to her sides and turned toward the kitchen. “Are you staying
for supper?”

Typical, he thought. Subject change. Ten years gone and everything stays the same.
“Well, yeah. I am now. You think I am going to let you welcome some Lizzie Borden
into this house without getting a good look at her and running a security check on
her later?”

Hank had followed his mother into the kitchen. Oh, the scenes he’d endured in that
kitchen. His mother and father drunk as loons, kissing or fighting or passed out.
The fear of what he’d find when he came home from a friend’s house during high school.
The desire to bolt, finally achieved when he enlisted on his eighteenth birthday.
The mottled yellow Formica of the countertop was like a visual cue that set all those
memories into motion. He still wasn’t used to being here, even though he’d gotten
back from his final deployment nearly four months ago.

“Hank?”

“Yes, Mom?”

“She’s just a woman looking for a place to stay for the summer,” Janet said gently,
holding out a glass of iced tea for him. “I want some company.” He accepted the glass
and took a sip.

“You always knew how to make the best iced tea, I’ll give you that.”

They heard the slow steps of someone on the path to the front door before they could
see the much-anticipated Maddie Post. Janet had let the hydrangeas grow to massive
proportions, concealing the few visitors she had until they were right at the front
door.

“We need to cut those shrubs back, for security,” Hank grumbled.

“Oh, hush. We don’t need security on a little side street in the middle of nowhere.
You cut that out and be nice.” Janet walked to the screen door at the front of the
living room and pushed it open. “Well, hello! You must be Maddie Post! Aren’t you
just cute as a button!”

Henry groaned in the shadowy corner of the living room, waiting to see some little
old lady come in with her carpetbag.

“This is my son, Henry.”

Hank stepped forward into the center of the living room and lifted his chin in silent
greeting. He felt sucker-punched. She wasn’t little and she wasn’t old.

Maddie hoisted her duffle bag higher onto one shoulder. “Hey! I didn’t realize you
had a son, Mrs. Gilbertson!” She looked at Janet, then extended her hand to shake
Henry’s. He hesitated for a split second before taking it. Her face screwed up for
that tiny moment of confusion, then broke into a big smile when he took her hand after
all.

“Whew! I thought for a minute you were going to be all stormy and moody like Phil
down at the diner.” Hank pulled his hand away after they’d finished shaking.

“Oh, have you met Phil already?” Mrs. Gilbertson asked, steering Maddie away from
her moody, stormy son. “Come this way, dear. I’ll show you your room. I hope you like
it. I didn’t want to make it too cluttered, but I wanted you to feel welcome, if you
know what I mean, and it doesn’t look like you’ve brought too much stuff, so . . .”

Henry listened as the two women went up the stairs and his mother kept a constant
stream of her trademark prattle going. He set down his glass of iced tea, let himself
fall into the big armchair, and stared up at the ceiling. He could follow their movements
by the sounds of creaks and cracks created by their footfalls across the floorboards
of the 1920 home.

What the hell was a hot woman like that doing renting a room in some stranger’s house
in—he had to admit his mother was right—the middle of nowhere? Maddie Post looked
like she should be on the cover of some glossy woman’s magazine with a headline that
promised seventy-four ways to satisfy your man. Long chestnut hair. Dark violet eyes
above wide, high cheekbones. Full, promising lips. Her messed-up shirt and disheveled
ponytail only served to make her look more . . . accessible.

Raking his nails through his buzz cut and along his scalp, Hank tried to ignore the
sound of the mattress springs as Ms. Post bounced up and down on the bed to make sure
it was to her liking. With everything he’d been going through since he got back from
the Middle East—trying to remember what it was like to be a normal person in a normal
town—the last thing Henry Gilbertson needed was to be thinking about some fresh-scrubbed
college girl alone and rolling around in his childhood bedroom.

He hoisted himself up from the chair and went into the kitchen to see what he could
do to help get dinner ready.

After a shower, Maddie felt almost human again. She unpacked her bag in about four
minutes and pulled on a pair of low-slung Brown U. Women’s Crew sweatpants and a white
tank top. She assumed that Hank the Grump would be gone by the time she went back
downstairs, so had to hide her surprise when he was sitting at the kitchen table.
He looked peevish and impatient when she walked into the room.

“Oh! Hi! I figured you didn’t live here . . . I mean, nice to see you again.” Maddie
suddenly felt like her sweats and workout tank were some kind of seductive get-up,
the way he was sizing her up from head to toe. She pushed her shoulders back out of
habit, to steel herself, and tried to act like it was perfectly normal for her to
be walking into a strange person’s kitchen.

“So, Janet, shall I go to the grocery store and stock up or can I just give you money
for my share of the meals?”

“Yes!” Grumpy barked over his mother’s joyful, “No!”

All three of them looked at each other, then Maddie looked at the stove and the sink
and anywhere else she could without looking at Henry Gilbertson. He was too big for
the room. For any room. He was all muscle-y and corded, and even his breathing seemed
more like a dragon exhaling smoke through his nostrils than a mere man releasing oxygen.
And what did she ever do to him, anyway? Maddie wondered. He’d been rude since the
moment she walked in.

“Janet,” Maddie asked gently, “are you sure this is okay? I’m sure I can find another
place—”

“Not for two hundred bucks a month you won’t,” Grumpy said.

“Excuse me?” Maddie had had just about enough crud flung at her for one day and she
decided she didn’t need to take any more of it from this guy. Sure he was hot, but,
well, so was she!

“I said,” Henry repeated slowly, for the resident dimwit, “you are getting quite a
bargain to live here for two hundred dollars a month.”

Maddie chose to ignore the taunt. Having three older brothers had taught her the power
of silence. “Janet, I’m so sorry. I’d be happy to pay more if that’s not enough. I
would never try to—”

“Of course not!” Janet shook her head. “That’s absolutely what we agreed on and I
think it’s perfectly fair.” She stared at her son to quiet him down. “Hank’s just
a bit . . . protective, aren’t you, dear?” Janet patted his clasped hands and got
up to see to the meal.

“Please let’s all sit down and have a nice supper. I made some corn on the cob and
a big salad and some pie for dessert. I’m mostly a vegetarian . . . I hope that’s
okay!”

Henry rolled his eyes. Maddie ignored him.

“Totally fine!” Maddie said. “I’ll definitely need to get some protein sometimes—I
have to stay in shape for my final year of sports at college—but I’ll make sure to
eat my share of T-bones at Phil’s or wherever, if you don’t want the smell in the
house.”

“Oh, it’s not that, dear. Please don’t go to a restaurant, that’s just silly. I just
meant I won’t be serving it or eating it.”

“Well, after tonight I wouldn’t expect you to be serving me anyway—”

“Yeah, right,” Henry mumbled.

Maddie sat up straighter. She was not going to let this guy get to her. So he didn’t
want a stranger in his mom’s house. Okay. Fine.

Janet rolled her eyes as she finished putting dinner together. She stood at the stove
and plated the food. “Just ignore him, Maddie. He’s very suspicious these days.” Janet
spoke as if her enormous son were not even in the room. “I like you. That’s all that
matters. Henry doesn’t live here, so he can just mind his own business.”

The ignored Henry stared at his mother’s rigid back. The room was silent, and even
the nighttime insects outside the screen door and open window over the sink went quiet.

His voice was low and steady when he replied, “You
are
my business, Mom. Or so I thought.” Then he got up and walked over to the stove to
give his mother a kiss good-bye. “You enjoy your dinner and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Janet turned to face her son, and Maddie tried to make herself invisible. “Hank, don’t
worry, sweetheart. I’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine.” She reached up and patted his
cheek. It looked like it was about all the physical contact he could stand. “You go
on home and get a good night’s sleep.”

He nodded once, then turned to the left and showed himself out the back door off the
kitchen.

Janet and Maddie listened to his hard, sure footsteps as they faded into the night.

“Wow. He’s quite . . . something,” Maddie said.

Janet smiled a sad, dispirited smile. “He’s had a rough go, so I probably spoil him.
He’s gotten a little protective in return. He’ll come around. Not to worry. Now, let’s
enjoy our delicious dinner.” Janet had set down two plates piled high with fresh leafy
vegetables, grilled corn on the cob, and a hunk of what looked like freshly baked
bread. Maddie had never tasted better food. Washing dishes for four hours straight
had turned her appetite into something formidable.

Turned out that washing dishes and waiting tables eight hours a day, five days in
a row, turned her appetite into something resembling a ravenous beast. She finally
had to tell Janet that she needed steak and fish and chicken, and lots of it, and
of course she would buy it herself. But since Maddie hadn’t gotten her first paycheck
yet, she asked Janet if she could pay her for her share of the food on Friday night
when Phil was going to pay her. She was down to twelve dollars, after giving fifty
as a down payment to Janet and spending very carefully on food that she had to buy
when she wasn’t at Phil’s.

Luckily, Henry Gilbertson hadn’t crossed her path since that first awkward night.
Janet talked about him all the time, as if the three of them were great old friends,
but Maddie figured Henry was avoiding her and that was fine by her. It turned out
Henry lived in the apartment over Janet’s garage, but it was far enough away that
Maddie never actually saw him. Apparently he worked twelve-hour days, most of it underwater
in two-hour shifts.

Janet went on and on about what a successful career he’d had as an engineer diver
in the Army. And then she went on and on about how smart and wonderful he was. At
first Maddie thought she was trying to play matchmaker, but eventually she realized
that Janet was just insanely proud of him, so she let her rattle on. If half of what
Janet said was true, he was a pretty intense guy. Maddie promised herself that she’d
try to give him a second chance the next time she saw him. As long as he wasn’t a
total jerk again.

Friday afternoon Phil handed Maddie her first paycheck. For some reason, she wanted
to take the sealed envelope home and open it in private. It felt special. Hers. She
had gotten paychecks before, obviously. She’d worked at lots of killer jobs, most
recently at the campus human rights league, doing paralegal work that a regular paralegal
could have charged two hundred dollars an hour for. But this check felt like she had
actually earned it. She wasn’t quite sure how to explain it, but it felt like real
money for real work.