The Art of Appreciation (29 page)

“Sure.” Chris got up and dropped some bills on the table. “Whatever you say.”

The Catalyst was jumping. Now that the University of Santa Cruz was back in action, it was crowded most nights and unbearable for anyone over twenty-two on the weekends. Their slog through the crowd and up the stairs only bought them an hour’s wait for a pool table. Matt filled the time by people-watching and working his way through a steady stream of glasses and bottles, so many that he lost count. Faces began to blur together. Chris swam in and out of his vision, then a barmaid, and then he was stumbling off the back of a motorcycle and wondering how he ever got on it.

Zoe spread her feet and braced herself to take his weight. “Be careful, big boy. I may be tall, but I can’t hold you up for long.”

“How about I hold you up?” he slurred.

“Promises, promises.” Zoe slung an arm around his waist and guided him toward the door. When they got there, she looked at him expectantly. “Keys?”

Matt thought hard. “Nope. Chris took ’em. Try above the door.”

Stretching on tiptoe took Zoe’s skirt to dangerous new heights. In fact, if it weren’t for the hand she fanned over her bottom, hanging on to the very edge of the fabric, she would have been completely exposed. Matt caught himself staring and felt color creep up his cheeks. He lowered his eyes to stare at his shoes until the door squeaked open.

“Home, baby.” Zoe gestured toward the open door. Matt reached out to steady himself on a porch column. “Oopsie. Let’s get you inside.” Slipping an arm around him again, Zoe guided him into the living room.

Matt stumbled against her as she steered him toward the couch, the softness of her body cushioning his angles, and he felt a surge of lust. The hand on her shoulder that he’d used to steady himself trailed down her back. He was tired of cold sheets, tired of waking up alone. What he wanted—needed—was to lose himself in the current of flesh on flesh and sink deeply into a woman’s warmth…

He’d barely brushed his lips against hers when she pushed him toward the cushions and backed away.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you don’t want to do this. You’re not ‘that guy.’” Zoe smiled sadly. “And I’m tired of being a ‘that girl.’ We both know there’s something better out there.” She dropped a swift kiss on his head. “I’ll see you around.”

“Probably better if you don’t.”

Matt looked around with bleary eyes, not surprised to see Chris in the doorway, expression grim.

Zoe laughed. “I guess I deserve that. ’Bye, Chris.” She patted his arm and closed the door behind her.

Chris watched her go and then turned back to Matt, now slumped on the couch, drifting in and out of alertness. “What the hell were you doing? I left you in front of The Catalyst so I could bring the Jeep around, and when I got back, you were gone. What are we going to do with you?”

“Shoot me. It will kill me faster and hurt less.” Matt was asleep before he heard Chris’s response.

Matt’s shirt and shorts were already smeared with drying clay by the time Chris had grabbed a cup of coffee and chucked a piece of driftwood at the morning’s first screaming gull. His last statue of Zoe was nearly finished; only the upper torso and face weren’t perfectly smooth. Working with the finest of his knives, Matt carved a paper-thin curl of clay from the left side of her nose before stepping back to examine his work. His eyes flitted between a photograph on his corkboard and the clay. He nodded almost imperceptibly and switched to a wire loop to shape the underside of her breast.

Chris leaned against a cabinet, blowing on his coffee. When Matt hadn’t said anything for a quarter of an hour, he boosted himself onto the counter and started to whistle softly.

That ate up another five minutes before Matt grumbled impatiently and paused to clean his loop on his shirttail. Keeping his eyes on his sculpture, he said, “Yes?”

“Oh, nothing,” Chris said nonchalantly, swinging his feet and cradling his cup between his hands. “Just wondering what you’re up to today. I thought maybe we could get the boards out.”

“At this time of year? Really?”

“That’s why God created wetsuits. C’mon. It’s a beautiful day and not killer cold. Could be some tasty waves, dude.”

“Not even tempting. I want to finish this one up today, and then I have some calls to make.” He examined his tools and shook his head. He carried them over to the sink and started the water running. “Maybe Claire can smooth things over with Dunham—Deep Pockets.”

“Why would you do that? Calling him and begging off is the most honest thing you’ve done since I’ve been back.”

Having cleared his tools, Matt stomped back over to the sculpture and started shaping the clay with tight, angry motions. “Easy for you to say. You seem okay with whatever money you get from wherever you get it, but I have to work for a living.”

Chris set his cup down, rearranging his expression so quickly that Matt almost missed the anger that bloomed in his eyes. “Since you never asked, I get an Army pension, earned by seeing and doing things you don’t ever want to know about.” He smiled grimly when Matt straightened up, looking surprised. “What, you thought I lived off telling fortunes?”

“I just assumed…”

“Why, because I never asked you for money? Making the complacent uneasy and soothing the upset or worried is a lot of fun, and I make a little money, but it’s not enough to live on. That was a hell of an assumption. But then you seem to be making quite a few of those lately.”

Matt glared at Chris before getting back to work with a vengeance. “I assume we’re not talking about you anymore.”

“You’d be right.”

“It’s none of your business.”

Chris crossed his arms over his chest. “No changing the rules now. You gave me permission to plunder your private life when I had a life of my own, so here goes: You need to talk to Abby. Especially after what happened last night.”

Guilt whispered across Matt’s expression before it hardened. “Nothing happened.”

“Not for lack of trying.”

“I don’t want Zoe.”

“Of course you don’t. You never have. You want Abby, so call her.”

Matt circled his statue until his back was to his cousin. “It’s not working anymore…We’re running out of things to say. I want to see her and figure out what went wrong.” His movements become jerkier, until he dropped the loop and started smoothing the clay with his hands.

“Then get the hell out of here. It’s as easy as that.”

“Really?” Matt shook his head. “Even if I wanted to go, I have these to finish.”

Chris’s temper broke. “Then finish and go! You have maybe two or three days’ work here. Don’t complicate things by getting into another contract to do something you hate.”

Matt had never seen his easygoing cousin look so upset. “I’m not doing this for me. You know I only take commissions when I have to.” He spun the statue around on its revolving table. “Do you think I want to do this forever? I’m not a whore—doing it for the money has no appeal for me. But—” He stopped talking, and his jaw tightened as he looked out the window for a minute. When he was sure he was under control, he sank down on a nearby table and sighed.

Chris settled next to Matt. “But what?” he asked gently.

Matt studied his hands. “I don’t have anything to offer Abby that she can’t get for herself. So maybe she’s better off in Boston. Maybe it was inevitable that she left. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Who says she wants anything from you but you, Matt? She’s known who you are and what you do from the beginning. Whatever’s happened in your past—” Chris spun the statue around to face them “—you can’t stop thinking about her, either.” He looked at the statue’s torso significantly before he rose and clapped a hand on Matt’s shoulder. “No one says it’s easy, but you’d better decide what’s important.”

He squeezed his cousin’s shoulder before heading for the kitchen. “God help you when Zoe sees that,” he tossed over his shoulder before he disappeared.

Matt sat, stunned, his eyes roaming from one telltale point to another. He traced the curve of the sculpture’s breast with one fingertip, seeing a perfect reflection of Abby’s body. Now that his eyes were open, he spotted more similarities to Abby than to Zoe in hip and thigh and waist as well.

He stared at his creation for a minute, then walked to the table in the corner and lifted off the drop cloth that had covered the sculpture since he’d uncrated it. He’d told himself it was too distracting to remain uncovered, but now he forced himself to face the truth: It was painful to look at the replica and not touch the reality. He spun the table, remembering the days and nights of work that went into crafting his Pretty, and how gratifying it had been to find out that the real woman exceeded his imagination in every way. As he looked at the vague outlines of features, he had a keen wish that he’d defined the face, because what he needed more than anything was to see Abby.

He folded the cloth and laid it on a table. No more hiding from reality. Maybe if he was a different person, a long-distance relationship could work. But he wasn’t, and it wasn’t…and…

“Pretty, what do I do?” he whispered.

The cool bronze had no answer.

A
BBY
S
WAYED
F
ROM
S
IDE
T
O
S
IDE
as she stared out the window at the third day of steadily falling snow, a freak for early November, even in Maine. She mouthed the words to the song coming from an old record player, sipping a cup of coffee between phrases and trying to keep her mind blank. She glanced to her left, at the new painting that she’d started that morning, and considered taking up the brush again. Anything to damp down the thread of misery that had laced her days since she’d left Boston.

The power flickered, and she sighed. She’d better go out to see that the air stack for the generator was clear. Again. She pulled on her boots and gloves and slipped into an ancient parka that had been buried at the back of her parents’ closet. It was a quick trip out the back door, a swift swipe of her hand to brush the thick, white mass away from the metal pipe, and she was back inside, soaked once more.

“Perfect.” She peeled off her snow-heavy jeans and tossed them in the corner before stalking to the bedroom and emerging in a pair of thermal underwear from her mother’s dresser and yet another pair of wool socks. She remained in the forest green sweater that Matt had bought her what felt like forever ago, on that rainy day in San Francisco. She’d put it on the morning she’d left home and had kept it on during daylight hours as a kind of superstitious totem. As long as she had it on, there had to be a possibility that she would leave Maine, right?

The record ended with that particular scratch-thump that Abby remembered from summer childhood evenings, when her parents had laughed and drank wine, cuddling her and arguing politics and art until she’d dropped to sleep in their arms. She rose and flipped through the box of albums again. She placed another on the turntable and dropped the needle into the groove, briefly wondering if she should be using up the gas for the generator on something so frivolous…but never mind. It was something of a miracle that the gennie even worked after so many years of disuse, and another miracle that the propane tank was full. Thank God her dad had a passion, however brief, for hunting, or the camp might not have had a generator at all. It was a gift, and Abby remembered what Nana had said to her when she had once tried to put a gift aside for later:
Nonsense, Abby. A gift is meant to be enjoyed when you get it. You never know what might happen tomorrow.

Where was Nana’s wisdom three months ago?
Abby thought wryly. She knew what might happen tomorrow, after all. You might be three thousand miles from your gift, realizing you’d tossed it aside like an idiot, and hurting.

Abby hadn’t realized how much she’d been counting on Matt’s joyful reaction to her sudden freedom, along with a quick invitation to return to California, until it didn’t happen. Even when he restated his genuine desire to see her at Thanksgiving, she felt small and reprimanded. She’d left Santa Cruz for a reason: to give him time without distraction, and she felt foolish when reminded that nothing had changed.

She dashed tears from her eyes. It seemed like there was a well of salt water deep within her that she’d never known existed until she’d left Santa Cruz, and she didn’t like it. “I did this to myself,” she said aloud, and the sound of her own voice in the silence started her off again. She sank onto the sofa and wrapped her arms around her middle. No amount of being smart or careful or practical or realistic or self-sacrificing was worth losing what she felt when she was with Matt, not even for a minute.

Like an animal licking its wounds, she’d crawled into her den, this cabin, and waited for time to pass and wounds to heal. Leaving Matt, though, had made a cut so deep that she feared it might never close. She relaxed into the sofa’s cushions and pulled a quilt around her shoulders. The beginning of summer, when she’d truly believed her capacity for love was gone, seemed like a long-past joke. Every wall that twenty years of dating and disappointment had built around her heart was turned to rubble the first time Matt stepped out of the surf.

She heard Nana Reynolds clapping in the back of her head, heard her whisper,
Finally. That’s my girl.
And she let the swell of emotion that had been building crash over her.

She didn’t know how much later it was that a particularly loud growl from the generator brought her back to the surface. She sat up and listened closely, feeling a skip in her chest when she heard another, quieter engine snarl.

“Stupid thing,” she said, wiping her palms roughly over her cheeks. She headed for the back door again. Her hand hovered over the parka hanging on the hook next to the door before she let it drop to the door handle. Screw it. She’d just change when she got back inside.

Abby ripped the door open and stopped dead, staring at an equally startled Matt as he stood on her porch, a heavy parka half-shrugged off his shoulders and his hand raised to knock on the door.

He had just enough time to steady himself and let the parka drop indifferently to the wooden floor before his arms were filled with woman. Abby flung herself at him, nearly knocking them both ass-over-teakettle into the snow that had drifted over the porch steps.

She clung to him, her arms wrapped around his neck, holding on for dear life. Her face was tucked under the shelf of his jaw, where she could inhale him, taste the salt on his skin against her lips, feel the warmth of him. Her eyes had slammed shut when she leaped, trusting him to catch her, and she kept them closed as a thousand wordless prayers of thanks ran through her mind.

When she could speak, it was in a ragged whisper. “I thought…Thanksgiving…”

Matt held her against him, his cheek resting against her temple. He rocked her back and forth gently. His hands moved against her back, rough skin catching on wool, and for once he didn’t pull them away. Releasing her, he gently cupped her face, long fingers sliding into her hair. His thumbs caressed her cheeks, and his gaze held hers.

“I thought I couldn’t wait.”

Abby moved back into his arms more slowly this time. She rested her head against his chest and listened to the steady rhythm of his heart. “I love you, Matt,” she said. His arms tightened around her.

They might have stood there for hours, thankful for the way their bodies felt together and the way their breath mingled in one tender kiss after another, if a sudden gust of wind hadn’t blown a swirl of snow under the porch roof and dusted their hair and eyelashes with icy, diamond flakes.

Matt shivered, and Abby first recognized the cream-colored sweater that was a near match of her own. She smiled and ran her hand over the wool that covered his arm, trailing downward until she could entwine her fingers with his. She stepped back, drawing him toward the still-open doorway.

“C’mon in, surferboy.”

“Are you sure? I gotta admit I’m freezing my ass off here.” He followed her through the door, nudging it closed with his foot as soon as he was inside. They stood facing one another with huge, foolish grins on their faces.

Abby’s eyes roved over his damp hair and studied the shadows around his eyes. The laugh lines she loved had deepened in the intervening months, and the bones of his cheeks and jaw seemed more defined, even under the hair that was more beard than stubble. She saw love and need and sorrow in his eyes and wondered if her eyes were sending the same message. Matt’s lips opened in a quiet, hitching breath, and she had her answer.

She held out her hand. “Still pretty as ever,” she said.

“Hey, that’s my line.” Matt took her proffered hand and followed her to the living room.

They settled on the couch with Abby unashamedly sitting as close as she could get without sitting on top of him. He swung his arm over her head and around her shoulders, and she rested against him, feeling more at home than she had since the end of August.

“How did you get here?”

“Walked.” He laughed as she jabbed his stomach with her elbow. Next came a story of a flight to Bangor, followed by a horrendous Jeep drive that had taken him to a sporting goods store when he couldn’t get any closer to her cabin than the road above her lane.

“I was crazy,” Matt admitted. “I’d already looked up your parents, and it was nothing to convince your dad to give me directions—he was just about to head out to check on you himself. Getting that close and not being able to get to you…” He stopped and kissed her. “Anyway, the sales guy got an earful, and then he offered to get me through on his snowmobile. After selling me the coat that is now iced to your porch.”

He refused to let Abby up when she made a sound of dismay and tried to rise, instead he snuggled her more tightly to his side. “Forget the coat. This is way, way more important.”

Abby nodded, relaxing again. The fire crackled and popped, warming the room. “This shouldn’t be so easy,” she whispered, her fingers reflexively clutching the wool that covered his stomach.

“Yes, it should. This is exactly how easy it should be, Abby. We’re
right
. We just make it difficult.”

Abby took a deep breath.
Here we go,
she thought, wistful for the perfect quiet her heart had felt, even if it couldn’t last. She gently moved from beneath Matt’s arm, though she kept hold of his hand. She needed to see his face for this talk. “So,” she said, “do we try to do this? Or are we too scared?”

“I finished Baker’s statues,” Matt blurted. “All six, even the one I screwed up—I’ll tell you about that later. I’ve been working my ass off for a week, no breaks except when I had to collapse for an hour or two, since you said you were coming here. And they’re good, Abby. Really good.”

“I’m not surprised. You’re an amazing sculptor,” she said cautiously, trying to understand his change of topic.

“That’s the thing. I’m a sculptor. Not a copy artist. I don’t want to do that kind of work, or at least not any more than I have to do to live. I’ve never wanted it, and no amount of client meetings will change that. I should have said so before, but I was afraid that I’d disappoint you…and then you quit a great job because of me…” He stared into the fire. “I’m all I have to offer you. Just me.”

Abby turned his face back toward her. “Matt, I was burned out. I’d seen something better, felt something better, and I was
ready
to quit. I’ll have to get another job, of course, but nothing so life-consuming again.” She gestured toward the painting in the corner. “That’s what I want to do. I don’t care if you ever sell a sculpture again—that’s never been important to me. I just want you to be happy.” She smoothed her hand down his face, stroking the hair-roughened line of his jaw with her thumb. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“I want to be with you, Abby,” Matt said. “It just takes a little courage to reach out with no guarantees and no…” He searched for a word, “…no masks. Is that the right word?”

“It’s like you teaching me to surf. We just hold on to each other.”

“Ooh! Surfing metaphors. Glad I wasn’t the one to get so cliché.” They both laughed, but Matt’s eyes were serious when he spoke again. “I can’t steady you this time, though, Pretty. I don’t know any more than you do about this.”

“We’ll have to steady each other, then.”

“Give me your hand, Abby.”

She smiled and shook their joined fingers. “You’ve got it.”

He drew her closer. “You know what I mean,” he murmured. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

Moving slowly, his eyes questioning and getting a positive answer before he even touched her, Matt brushed the lightest of kisses against Abby’s mouth. When he felt her response, he cupped the back of her head and brought his mouth against hers more forcefully, easing her back against the cushions.

Abby slipped her hand under the edge of his sweater and stroked his stomach.

“Abby…” he murmured.

“Is this okay?” she asked, stilling her gentle exploration.

Matt laughed breathlessly. “Better than okay.” His eyes opened, sea-green clouded with stormy gray. “I promised myself, though, that I wouldn’t rush this part with you. You’re not just a body to me.”

A slow smile spread across Abby’s face. “Then don’t rush,” she teased, enjoying the flush that colored his face. “We’re apparently snowed in, with all the time in the world. I suggest we use it well.”

He laughed and pulled her upright, tugging his sweater over his head with his free hand and dropping it carelessly to the floor. He edged his hands under her sweater and slid it upward and off. She guided Matt’s hands back to her waist, and shivered as they began to move over her skin.

Despite his eagerness, Matt’s touch was tender, practiced. Each brush of hand on shoulder, on neck, on chest, was followed by a brush of lips, of teeth, of tongue. Abby gasped, sighed, moving her own trembling hands across Matt’s body, retracing trails of pleasure that she’d discovered months before.

“I love you, Matt,” she said, breathing raggedly as the roughness of his beard and softness of his lips stimulated nerve endings along her neck, trailing to the curve of her shoulder.

Matt chuckled, his breath adding to Abby’s pleasurable torture. “That’s twice,” he murmured.

“What’s twice?”

Matt blew in her ear and laughed when she squealed. “Twice is how many times you’ve said you love me when you weren’t crying. I was starting to get a complex.”

Abby laughed, startled. “Good lord, you’re right. I missed a lot of chances to say I love you. But I do.”

Matt lifted Abby off her feet and kissed her soundly. He moved his lips to her ear and breathed, “I’m gonna go back to junior high and say, ‘Prove it.’”

So she did.

So well and so often that the sun was rising before they even thought of sleeping.