Out in the Country (8 page)

“You can appeal to the zoning board,” Anne allowed. She didn’t sound very optimistic. “For a change in the zoning laws. And if your appeal is denied, there are other options. You could apply for a variance, or conditional use of a home...”

Lynne stared down into her coffee. The terms were meaningless to her; she felt hopelessly out of her depth. With a stab of sorrow, she realised Adam would have known what to do. He’d known all about zoning laws; he dealt with them all the time.

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to appeal then,” she said, sounding far more pragmatic than she felt. She even managed a smile. “Thank you for your time.”

“I’m sorry to give you bad news,” Anne said. “If it’s any consolation, I think this property could make a wonderful bed and breakfast... but I’m afraid I have no control over the town’s zoning laws.”

Lynne walked Anne to the door, then returned to sit at the table and moodily sip her now lukewarm coffee while the late afternoon sunshine poured through the windows and pooled on the worn, wide planks of the kitchen floor. Jessica was out, touring the town, and they were both due to visit Graham later that day. The hospital was keeping him in over the weekend ‘just in case’, but Lynne knew everyone would be happier when Graham was settled in the new bungalow.

Lynne heard the front door open and close, and then Jessica came in the kitchen, her cheeks reddened by the wind, and her hair a soft, dark cloud around her face. She looked younger than her forty-six years, and yet more fragile too; there was a deeper sorrow still lurking in her eyes, a wariness caused by her recent heartbreak.

“I’ve been all around this town,” Jessica said a little breathlessly. “Every street--it’s darling!”

“It is, isn’t it?” Lynne replied, smiling at her friend’s enthusiasm.

“And,” Jessica continued, sitting at the table with Lynne, “I’ve decided. That is... if the offer is still open...”

Lynne’s heart lurched as she thought of the zoning commissioner’s recent news. She couldn’t bear to burden Jess with it now. “Of course it is.”

“Then I’m honoured and delighted to go in with you,” Jess said. Her tentative smile became a full-fledged grin as she stuck out one hand for Lynne to shake. “Partners?”

Lynne smiled back, even though her heart was heavy with fresh worry. “Partners,” she agreed, taking Jess’s hand.

Molly took a sip of her drink and glanced warily around the crowded living room of the Greenwich Village apartment. The room was dim and smoky, and the mournful notes of a jazz saxophone came from a stereo system in the corner. Everyone in the room was at least five years older than her, and impossibly glamorous and sophisticated. After four years in New Hampshire, Molly realised, she’d lost that hard, glittering edge that urban living created. She felt the loss acutely now.

Luke had picked her up at home, and then shared a taxi downtown. He’d been light, insouciant, joking, putting Molly at ease even though she felt in a welter of disappointed confusion
after her unsatisfactory conversation with Jason the day before.

Yet Luke had disappeared now to chat with some friends, and Molly felt like
the proverbial wallflower. She took another sip of her drink and looked around for someone to talk to.

Everyone was engrossed in what looked like a stimulating, intellectual conversation. A peal of laughter rang out nearby, and Molly debated slipping out of the room, or even leaving the party altogether.

“What’s with the long face, newbie?” Luke reappeared at her side, smiling in that gently mocking way of his that Molly was strangely starting to like. “I’m sorry I left you--I had to catch up with a few people. Let me introduce you.”

“You don’t--” Molly began, feebly, but Luke just shook his head.

“I invited you to this party. I can hardly let you languish in the corner all evening.” With one hand firm on her elbow, he guided her to the nearest group of guests. “Elise, Sasha? Let me introduce you to Molly. She’s taking Cooper High School by storm, and already starting to transform the English department.”

“Hardly,” Molly protested, feeling like an impostor, especially considering all she’d confessed to Luke. She didn’t want his pity.

“No?” Luke raised his brows. “I overheard several students in the hallway, talking about ‘a dream deferred’--I wonder where they heard of Langston Hughes?”

“Were they?” Molly murmured, blushing. His words caused a warm glow to spread through her.

The conversation moved on, but next to her, Luke murmured in her ear. “They were, Molly. Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it isn’t working.”

The rest of the party was a happy blur of conversation and chatter; Molly didn’t say much, but with Luke at her side she felt relaxed and a part of things, and she was sorry when it ended.

She lay her head back against the seat of the taxi as they sped up Broadway. “Thanks for inviting me,” she said. “I really appreciate it.”

“No problem.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was deliberately light. “No boyfriend visiting this weekend?”

Molly glanced at him, but even in the pale yellow wash of the street lights she couldn’t quite make out his expression. “No, not this time,” she answered, her voice as light as his. “Next weekend, though.”

“That’s good, then.” Luke leaned forward to address the cabbie. “Take Seventy-Second through the park, please, and go up Madison.” He turned back to Molly. “Well, get some rest this weekend if you can. Round two on Monday.”

“Right.”

They didn’t speak as the cab sped through the nearly empty Central Park transverse, emerging on a deserted Fifth Avenue. The doorman of Molly’s building was at the ready as soon as the cab pulled to the curb at Eighty-First and Park Avenue, so there was no need for Luke to get out. Still, he did, bidding the cab to wait to take him to his less classy digs uptown. “Did I mention what a nice place you have?” he said with a smile, glancing at the elegant building.

“It’s my mother’s,” Molly said quickly. She felt a bit embarrassed to admit that she was still living at home.

“Saves on rent,” Luke replied with a shrug. “Manhattan living on a teacher’s salary isn’t easy.”

“No.”

The cab honked his horn, and the doorman cleared his throat. Luke leaned forward and brushed her cheek with his lips. It was no more than most New Yorkers would do in farewell, yet Molly still had to suppress a shiver.

“’Night, newbie,” he murmured, and then disappeared back into the cab. Molly watched the taxi head uptown, disappearing beyond the next set of traffic lights, before with a little sigh she turned inside.

“So how are things with the inn?” Mark Sheehan as he placed a plate of The Mountain Café’s Sunday special, white chocolate and raspberry waffles, in front of Lynne.

“It’s not an inn,” she corrected with a smile. “Just a bed and breakfast.”

“Ah.” Mark grinned, wiping his hands on the apron that covered his spotless three piece suit. “No competition, then.”

“Well, maybe a little,” Lynne joked, grinning as well, although inside she still felt the familiar pang of discouragement. She hadn’t told anyone about the zoning commissioner’s visit; Jess hadn’t asked, and Kathy and Graham were absent this morning, with Graham still in hospital. She felt as if she were carrying an unexploded bomb, and its detonation would create a wasteland of disappointed hopes. Hers... Kathy and Graham’s... and now Jess’s.

“You all right?” John asked as he took a bite of his own breakfast. Lynne glanced at him, trying to smile. He’d joined them in their pew at church this morning, and had asked if he might go with them to visit Graham this afternoon. She still didn’t fully appreciate the closeness John Tyre had with the Marshall family, especially when she had experienced so little of it herself, yet right now she found she was glad of his strong, comforting presence.

“A bit tired,” she admitted finally. “A lot’s gone on this weekend.”

“How long are you staying?”

“I meant to return to the city tomorrow,” Lynne replied, “but I’m thinking I might stay on a bit, if Jess doesn’t mind. For Graham’s sake.”

“He and Kathy will both be glad to have you here.”

Lynne nodded, her mind still on Anne Jeffries’s news. She stayed distracted all morning, barely aware of the conversation over brunch. Jess seemed almost transformed, her face flushed, her eyes bright, as she regaled both her and John with recipes and plans for the bed and breakfast that might now never be.

After brunch they headed over to the hospital in Rutland in John’s pickup truck. The air was cool and crisp, the leaves nearing the height of their blazing glory. When they arrived at the hospital, they found both Graham and Kathy in good spirits, Graham looking far livelier than he had the day before.

“What are they doing, keeping you in here?” Lynne joked as she kissed his cheek. “You look like you have more energy than I do!”

“I feel fine,” Graham proclaimed, and Kathy rolled her eyes.

“He’s been trying to get the doctors to release him a day early, but they insist--and so do I--that he needs to stay the full forty-eight hours. Better safe than sorry.”

“I’m not sure that’s how I want to live my life,” Graham groused, but his eyes were twinkling. He patted a space next to him on the bed. “Tell me how the meeting with the zoning commissioner went, Lynne. Anne Jeffries, isn’t it? I remember when she was in grade school.”

John raised his brows. “You had a meeting?”

“Yes, yesterday,” Lynne replied, slightly discomfited and even nettled. His tone suggested that she should have told him, and worse, the whole exchange caused guilt to slice through her. She didn’t like keeping secrets, but she couldn’t spoil everything now, not when Graham was feeling so much better, and Jess looked happy and alive for the first time in weeks... “It was fine.” That was too much of a boldfaced lie for Lynne to stomach, so she added, trying to keep her tone flippant, “Naturally there are a few wrinkles, but nothing we can’t iron out.”

“Wrinkles?” Graham said, his tone sharpening with worry, and Lynne patted his hand.

“Not for you to worry about,” she said with a smile. “That’s my job.” Yet somehow instinctively she raised her gaze to John’s, and found he was looking at her with a sort of compassionate curiosity that had her looking down again.

He wasn’t that easily dissuaded, however, and after the hospital visit, he dropped them back at the house, accepting readily when Lynne offered coffee and a fresh batch of Jess’s scones in the kitchen.

“These are delicious,” John remarked, biting into one of the scones. “Do they have apple in them?”

“Yes, I’m experimenting with the local produce,” Jess said with a little smile. “It’s really quite interesting, actually.”

“I can’t wait to try more.” John accepted a mug from Lynne. “Graham was looking a bit more chipper,” he continued. “I think this whole bed and breakfast idea has given him a new lease on life.”

“Yes...” Lynne heard the hesitation in her own voice and glanced down again. After a few minutes of idle conversation, Jess excused herself--Lynne half-wondered if it was a pretext to leave her alone with John--and John asked if she wanted to take a stroll outside.

Lynne accepted, and as the late afternoon sunshine slanted through the maples, they walked down the lawn which sloped gently down towards a burbling stream half-hidden by a copse of yellow birches.

“You’re sure everything’s all right?” John asked, his voice low, melodious, comfortable.

Lynne opened her mouth to say of course she was--she always said she was all right. She
was
always all right. Yet right now she felt discouraged and alone and tired of keeping secrets, so instead she found herself shaking her head.

“Lynne?”

She bit her lip, suddenly, ridiculously near tears. “It’s just... it’s so silly, I knew there was going to be difficulties. I didn’t expect it to be easy...”

John laid a hand on her shoulder, and Lynne found she liked its solid, comforting weight. “What happened?”

“The zoning commissioner told me it was a no go,” Lynne confessed flatly. “This area of Hardiwick isn’t zoned commercially.”

John was silent for a moment, and when Lynne looked up at him she was surprised to see a little smile quirking the corner of his mouth. “So?” he finally asked, shrugging, and Lynne stopped mid-stroll to stare at him.

“
So
?”

John stopped as well, so he was facing her. “You just said you knew there were going to be difficulties. This is just one of them.”

“But if the area isn’t even zoned properly--”

“That can be changed. Didn’t she mention the possibility of an appeal?”

“Yes,” Lynne admitted slowly, “but she didn’t sound very optimistic--”

“That’s just Anne. The Board of Appeals is made of up of townspeople, Lynne, and I can guarantee that most of them will be behind you.”

Lynne shook her head. “But they don’t even know me.”

John’s voice was gentle, and he reached out to tuck a stray tendril of hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering for a brief moment. “Perhaps not, but they knew Adam.”

Lynne felt emotion rise within her, a mix of hope and sorrow. She could still feel the memory of John’s fingers against her cheek. “You really think so?”