Snapshots (15 page)

Rick began taking things out of grocery bags and stowing some of the things in the refrigerator. “You acquired more than fried chicken,” I observed as my gaze swept across the array off food on the counter. He'd bought things he knows I like: Evian water, smoked oysters to eat with saltines, and Bel Paese cheese, which I often melt on steamed asparagus. I was touched that Rick had chosen things to please me, and I thanked him as we put the items away.

“Hey, I've got to keep the help happy,” Rick said.

“Is that what I am? The help?”

“You do wield a mean dust mop. Here's a plate, so grab some chicken out of the bucket. And was that a pitcher of iced tea I spotted in the fridge?”

“I made it earlier. Shall I pour you a glass?”

“Sure,” Rick said.

After I'd poured two glasses of tea and handed him one, Rick gulped a few swallows and sat down at the table across from me.

Encouraged by the improvement in Rick's state of mind, I found myself apprising him of recent developments with my job and how it was more stressful than I liked. Even though I didn't care to get into my difficulties with Byron, mentioning my job brought out Rick's feelings about his own work, and he said he didn't miss the department or working in Homicide as much as he'd expected he would. That was heartening, indicating to me that he was adjusting to this enforced leave of absence. In my opinion, it boded well for his future.

Suddenly, elements in our relationship had somehow shifted back toward the old harmony and understanding we'd once shared. The pleasure of it filled my heart with gladness. I wanted to say fiercely,
Let's grab this moment in time and hang on to it, never let it go. We're still the same people we were. It's everything else that keeps changing. But the core is still honest and true. Like us.
If Rick was aware of these thoughts spinning through my mind, if his were similar, he showed no sign.

We never followed niceties of etiquette at Sweetwater Cottage, though Lilah Rose and Queen had done their best to encourage us otherwise, and Rick tossed a chicken bone into the wastebasket, placed at the ready beside the table. The thump caused a stir on the other side of the screen door, where the dog had parked herself. When she spotted me looking in her direction, she whomped her tail up and down a few times.

Rick, just noticing her, asked mildly, “Whose dog is that?”

“Nobody's. She arrived this morning along with your mail.” I didn't let on how pleased I was that she was back.

“The USPS delivers dogs now? Since when?”

“Of course they don't,” I told him. “Stanley says she's been following him around on the route.”

“So why doesn't he shoo her away?”

“She likes it here,” I informed him. “She wants a home.”

“She'd best ingratiate herself with someone else,” Rick said. He stood and started wrapping the remains of our lunch in plastic wrap. “Let's go scare up a new mailbox—and I'm warning you right now that I'm not buying any of those tacky molded-plastic things shaped like pelicans or fish that the newcomers to the island are putting up. A plain one will do fine.”

“That's okay with me.” A thought occurred, and I decided to give voice to it. “And, Rick, somewhere along the way, how about if we run your car through the nearest car wash.” This was more diplomatic than stating flat out that the car was a mess.

“You're loads of fun, Trista,” Rick said with deliberate irony. “You really are.”

I shrugged as eloquently as I could manage while snapping lids on disposable cartons. “I try.”

“I don't mind having you around. You've got a nice set of—”

“That's enough, Rick,” I warned.

“Acrylic fingernails.”

“Very funny,” I said, eyeing him from behind the refrigerator door. “As if you ever noticed them.”

Rick stood watching the dog. “The mutt is probably hungry,” he observed.

“Stanley said she probably survives by scavenging for food on the beach.” I was halfway hoping that Rick would show some interest, but he turned his back on that pleading gaze. It didn't help that the dog chose that moment to scratch vigorously at a flea bite.

Rick disappeared into his room, and I unfolded the bit of chicken that I'd saved in my paper napkin. “Sweet doggie,” I murmured to the animal as I quietly eased the door open. “I told you to go away.”

Thump, thump, thump
went her tail, and she scarfed down the chicken in one bite.

No time to toss her a few more morsels. Rick, stuffing his wallet into the back pocket of his shorts, emerged from the bedroom, and I wiped the guilty expression from my face.

“Are you finished with your tea?” I asked him as a way of distracting him from the dog, who was conspicuously licking her chops on the other side of the door. “If so, I'll put that glass in the dishwasher.”

He drained the glass and handed it to me, but it was slippery with condensation, and I didn't react in time to catch it as it slid through my fingers. The glass broke as it hit the floor, spraying glittering shards in all directions.

“Oh!” I exclaimed. I felt so clumsy. At least the noise caused the dog to disappear, though I suspected she'd lapsed into lurk mode under the shrubbery again.

“It's all right,” Rick said. “It was only an old jelly glass, though it
was
the one with Tweety and Sylvester. My favorite.” Rick reached into the closet for a broom as I bent to pick up the larger pieces.

“I'm sorry, Rick. I—”

He grinned at me. “Don't worry. I still have the one with the Smurf on it. Careful—don't cut yourself.”

I detected genuine concern in his voice, and something else, too—an absorbed fascination in my bosom. I realized too late that our relative positions provided him with a wide-angle view down the front of my blouse. There wasn't anything salacious about the way he was looking at me, but my predominant emotion was…confusion. To me, Rick was still Martine's husband and therefore unavailable.

They're divorced,
I told myself.
The marriage no longer exists. He's free, as free as he was before he married her.
And I—I had never lost my heart to anyone after Graham, though I certainly hadn't lived like a nun. Why would I? I had my pick of prominent bachelors in Columbia, some of them quite attentive. The trouble was that I'd avoided allowing sexual feelings to surface with Rick for so long that this didn't feel natural or right. Yet now there was no reason for avoidance, no sense in denying what was real and honest and true.

“I'll get the vacuum cleaner,” I said, my voice sounding as squeaky as if I'd been gulping helium. The vacuum was in the hall closet, and I took my time getting it out while I struggled to understand why I was turning into a gibbering Daisy Duck around Rick.

I'd planned to come here and help him find his way back to normal. But ever since I'd walked in the front door, I'd been forced to confront the fact that I no longer knew what normal was. And even if I managed, by some quirk of luck, to help Rick, what about me? I wasn't doing so well myself.

I noticed a faded color snapshot lying on the floor, which probably had fallen out of one of the photo albums that Lilah Rose filled so diligently. It was of me and Rick, and we were riding a bicycle built for two that we'd borrowed from one of the families down the street. We were about fifteen, and our expressions were joyous and carefree, frozen for all time.

Back in the kitchen, with Rick elsewhere, I cleaned up the rest of the broken glass, thinking that perhaps our relationship was as shattered as the painted images of Tweety and Sylvester on the glass. But as Rick had said, he still had the glass with the Smurf. The same kind, only different.

Maybe that's the way it was with us, too. The same, only different.

2004

O
ne summer at the cottage, probably when he was thirteen, Rick had been at odds with the twins for a few days, and, exasperated when no one would talk to anyone else, Lilah Rose had resorted to whisking Trista and Martine off on a shopping expedition to King Street in town. On his own for a whole day, Rick had been at loose ends, and Queen's nephew Stanley had stopped by the cottage to deliver fresh fish after surf-casting on the beach. He found Rick disconsolately picking sand spurs out of his socks and wishing he'd chosen guys for friends instead of two extremely unreliable teenage girls whose emotions blew back and forth with the unpredictability of the wind.

“Hey, Mr. Lonely Man, why don't you help mend some nets,” Stanley had suggested playfully, and Rick, bowled over by the offer of man-to-man companionship after the difficulties of surviving in a household of women, accepted the offer gratefully. With Queen's permission, Stanley carted Rick away in his chugging, old and shiny blue pickup to the white frame house off Center Street where Stanley and some of his brothers and sisters lived with Queen.

Rick had visited the house briefly once before, the time his mother had dropped off a quart of chicken-and-rice soup when Queen was sick. He'd played hide and seek with a few of her young male kinfolk that day, darting in and out of the bushes planted around the house. On the day that Stanley rescued him, those same bushes in the front yard were draped with circular fishnets, and Rick spent an enjoyable afternoon learning to mend them as he and Stanley mourned the vicissitudes of women and devoured a whole sweet-potato pie. Queen had been real unhappy about that part of it, since she'd planned to serve the pie for dinner that night.

This was what was on Rick's mind right after breakfast on the day in the middle of the week when Stanley delivered a bundle of mail, including a letter from Roger Barrineau's former law firm and an envelope from his own divorce lawyer. He stuffed the mail deep into the back pocket of his jeans and shook Stanley's hand.

“Sure is good to see you, Rick,” Stanley said. “Put some life back in this old house again, won't you?”

“I'm not expecting to stay,” Rick hedged. “This is a timeout from real life so I can contemplate my options. I've got some serious decisions to make, and this is as good a place as any to think it all over.”

Stanley blinked off into the distance. “That's always a good idea,” he said, putting the accent on the
i
of
idea.
“At a time like that, you can't just go wheeling off in some direction you don't know anything about.”

“Exactly,” Rick agreed. He was unbelievably happy to be reacquainted with Stanley. “Say, Stanley, you want to come by once in a while? Drink a beer?”

“What? You on the outs with everybody again?” Stanley studied his face.

“Not everybody,” Rick said, deciding not to go into detail.

“I wouldn't mind stopping by now and then when I'm not on duty,” Stanley allowed.

“Great,” Rick said, grinning. “What have you been up to all this time?”

“Working for the post office, most of it. I married Luella Baker, one of the girls I used to bring over here sometimes to fish.”

“Tall girl,” Rick said. “Crazy about you.” Luella liked to visit with Queen sometimes when she was working in the kitchen, Stanley being their foremost topic of conversation.

“Luella and me, we've got children. A boy and a girl.”

“You could bring Luella and the kids, too,” Rick suggested. “They could play on the beach while we kick back on the porch.”

Stanley pushed his hat back off his forehead. “Sounds like you Mr. Lonely Man again,” he said.

“Well,” Rick said, paused in sudden realization of something that had escaped him until that very minute. He wasn't lonely now that Trista was here, but he wasn't going to mention that to Stanley. “Anyway,” he continued, “this weekend is Easter, and you've got time off. Why don't you join us on Saturday. How old are the kids?”

“Boy's ten, girl's eleven.”

“We've got Frisbees tucked away under the house if they'd like that.”

“They might. My wife would enjoy the beach. She works at the social-security office and doesn't get to play much.”

“Trista and I will put a picnic together,” Rick said on impulse. “We'll do it up right.”

Stanley hesitated only a moment. “Okay, you talked me into it. I'll have Lu call you, but I'd better get going now. Got lots of mail to deliver today.” He turned away before angling his thumb toward the oleander bushes. “If you're craving company, seems like you'd invite that poor dog in. She's been hanging around your place for days.”

The dog was sprawled in the shade. “I don't want a pet,” Rick said with what he hoped was sufficient forcefulness.

“Looks like you got one anyway,” Stanley observed.

“Yeah, well,” Rick replied with no enthusiasm whatsoever.

“Be back on Saturday,” Stanley told him as he rounded the curve in the driveway.

After quickly perusing his final decree of marital dissolution and wondering why he didn't feel more upset about it, Rick slit open the envelope from the law firm where Trista and Martine's father had been a partner. He unfolded a short letter and scanned it. It was signed by J. Alston Dubose, the member of the firm who had been closest to Roger Barrineau.

Trista had been talking to Alston about him? She'd never mentioned it.

From beneath the oleanders, the dog regarded him warily as he marched up the back steps and into the house.

“Trista?” he called. “I want to talk with you.”

Trista, who was standing on a stool and dusting the ceiling fans with a tool resembling a cheerleader's pompom on a long stick, frowned down at him as he burst into the room. “You've decided to keep the dog?” she asked hopefully.

“It's not about that.”

“You're going to paint the wicker chairs today.”

“Maybe.” He brandished the letter. “I received this from Alston Dubose. What have you been telling him about me?”

Trista carefully descended from the stool. He noted that she was wearing a pair of tight cropped pants and a snug T-shirt. “I didn't tell him much, Rick. Let me see that.”

He relinquished the piece of paper. “Alston and his wife were at a party I attended a month or so ago,” Trista said after reading it. “They asked about you and Martine.”

“And you said?

“Either not enough or too much, depending on one's point of view.” She handed the letter back to him.

He followed her as she went to the door and shook the duster outside. From under the swing, he heard a sneeze. That damn dog again.

“What the hell does that mean?” he asked, refusing to be distracted.

“I told Alston you were on leave from the department. I mentioned to Eloise that you and Martine had separated.”

He blinked at her. “Why'd you do that?”

“Alston asked me about you, and since he and Dad had often discussed your joining the firm, I decided to bring him up-to-date. Did I do something wrong?” Her glance challenged him as she walked past.

“Informing Eloise of our marital problems doesn't exactly strike me as right.”

“Martine had already filed for divorce, Rick. It was a matter of public record.” She registered the forbidding expression on his face and sighed. “Why are we talking about this? I'm sorry if I did something I shouldn't have.”

He ran a hand across the back of his neck, thinking that he really should get a haircut. “Let's drop it,” he said curtly, immediately regretting his tone of voice.

Trista shook her head as if to clear it. “Rick, you and I aren't on the same wavelength lately. Which is why I might as well go upstairs and get ready to lie out on the beach and start on my tan.”

He followed after her when she headed toward the staircase to the Lighthouse. “Tris—” He reached for her arm.

She wheeled around, the sides of her neck flushing. “Just when we're getting along again, you trigger over something.”

“Noising my private business all over the place is worth getting steamed about,” he said indignantly.

“I thought we were going to drop it.” Her eyes flashed blue fire.

This deflated him somewhat. “We should,” he said, removing his hand from her arm. This wasn't worth fighting about.

Trista sighed. “Rick, have you considered that you're in denial about some important things?” she asked gently. When he didn't reply, she left him alone and pondering the truth.

Rick hated psychobabble but was well aware that it existed for a reason, which was that it was necessary to understanding modern life. These days, if you weren't in therapy, most likely you were acting as your own psychologist. He recognized that some people were better at this than others, and he'd never been much for analyzing himself. But was his lack of feeling when he read his divorce decree a few minutes ago a sign of denial? Or was the divorce simply not as upsetting to him as it had been before?

He had too many questions and not enough answers, so he went into the storage room and began to shake the can of green spray paint so he could get busy refurbishing the wicker chairs. He'd rather be on the beach with Trista, but he agreed that he had a lot to do to spruce things up around the cottage. And he felt better if he kept busy, anyway.

As Rick sprayed the chairs, he forced himself to consider his future. Alston Dubose's job offer was totally unexpected, and working at Barrineau, Dubose and Linder was a possibility that he'd dismissed years ago after Roger's murder. He'd been so angry, so incensed that one of the very people that Roger had tried to help had killed him, that he'd decided to become a policeman over Martine's objections.

After the funeral, he had waited until he and Martine were back at their apartment in Durham before he initiated the conversation about his intended switch of career path, and she had freaked out.

“You can't do this, Rick! What about the firm, what about moving back to Columbia? I've put up with this dinky apartment and never having enough money and you with your nose in a textbook all day long only because we'd have a good life once you got your law degree. And now you want to become a
policeman?
”

“Martine, listen to me,” he began, but subsided under the onslaught of tears and pleading and impossible demands. If he didn't want to join her father's law firm, how about one in Charlotte? It was a big city, lots going on there. Martine could join the Junior League and the museum guild. They'd enjoy a social life befitting a young, up-and-coming lawyer and his wife. They'd buy a big house on the desirable south side of the city, and he could start a career in politics just as they'd planned.

“Just as
you'd
planned,” Rick said resentfully, only to be met by Martine's stony silence.

For the first time in their marriage, Rick walked out of the house. He'd stayed away only for the rest of the afternoon, but when he came back, Martine was subdued and quiet. She hadn't spoken to him for a week, and by that time he'd already signed on with the Miami Police Department. He'd actually been surprised when Martine agreed to go with him.

He'd heard Martine complaining to Trista shortly before the move that she didn't want to live in Florida and that Rick was imposing this awful hardship on her, but somehow Trista had communicated to Martine that this was an opportunity to experience new things, and an adventure for both of them. Good old Trista, he'd thought at the time, always making the best of things, putting a good face on it, cheering him on.

And she was still doing it.

When he had finished painting the chairs and drinking a tall glass of iced tea, he went to the back door and picked out the dog in the shade of the oleanders. She wagged her tail when she saw him. Her ear had a cut on it and it was oozing blood. Flies buzzed around, he could hear them from where he stood.

“Go away,” he said to the dog. “You don't belong here.”

She gazed at him, her eyes round and intelligent.