The Do-Over (29 page)

When there was a break in the humanity, John continued to wind along a narrow street until he found a parking spot vacated seconds before like a miracle.

They got out of the car, eyes meeting over the hood, and it felt like a date really beginning. “You want to hear my catalog idea?”

He walked around the grill and took her hand. “No.” She let him lead her back towards the crosswalks, passing small jewelry shops and a large building marked
The Children’s Market
. She’d have guessed anyway. Families intersected at the door, some going in with energetic children, an equal number coming out with tired ones tethered to balloons, hanging onto stuffed animals and candy, a surprising percentage smeared with the remains of ketchup as if fries were dispensed at every shop.

He must have noticed her hesitation, and she appreciated his stopping and asking if she wanted to go in, but she just laughed and shook her head. No matter what Logan might still need from her, she was long passed the stuffed animal, balloon, wiping his face stage.

She realized the two of them were just standing there, holding hands, and smiling at each other, and she should really stop the whole date feel of the outing. “The catalog…”

He leaned closer to her, so close she could see his clean shave, smell Abundance on his skin, and record to memory the grey flecks in his green eyes. “I just want you this afternoon. And lobster.”

She felt a zing at both the intimacy and the word
lobster
and let out a breathy sigh. “I love lobster.”

He tugged on her hand, and they walked toward the silver curve of the bridge above. “It is the gangster of the sea.”

“It is.” She laughed, “is it?” Had that been one of the voice-overs in the IMAX movie? The only thing remotely gangster she could recall were the scallops. “Remember how cranky the scallops were? I thought the crabs were kind of sweet…” They stopped at the crosswalk facing a line of wooden store fronts on the other side.

“No.”

“No, what?” She stood, but he took a step across, and she went with her hand in his.

“No, I do not feel guilty about eating sea creatures I’ve been entertained by in a movie.”

“Not even…”

“We hunt and fish from the top of the food chain. The view is gorgeous and unobstructed from here, and the rewards are delicious.”

The rewards really were delicious and, “salty sweet.”

He pointed at the restaurant’s sign, a lobster’s tail, smiled, and reached for the door. “The best things always are.”

Best. Things. She pursed her lips together when the platter arrived, so she didn’t accidentally drool. She swallowed, just in case, because the platter in front of her shouldn’t be capable of holding an entire buffet, but it did. A lobster buffet. There were lobster cakes with corn all shiny and yellow peeking out and a white bean salsa beside it. There were chunks of lobster tail glazed in citrus judging by the buttery orange slice garnish. Lobster rolls, sliced open on the diagonal, revealed a steamy interior studded with sundried tomato and avocado. Cilantro leaves floating in the lime dipping sauce made her wonder if she could drink from the bowl. And around the edges of the large oval plate, curved roasted asparagus, dark with balsamic vinegar and god knows what other delicious thing she would discover when she ate them whole with her fingers. Well, when she used the serving spoon and placed a few neatly on her empty plate.

“I want to know more about you.”

She stopped in mid-reach toward the feast and let the pulse of flattery run through her before she scooped asparagus and lobster tail onto her plate. She liked to think she was a woman who had her priorities straight even if at the moment her priorities were swirling around in a non-straight, circular pattern. “Yeah, you don’t want to know more about me.”

He raised an eyebrow, and she hoped it wasn’t because she’d taken more than her share of the lobster rolls. There were three cut into six, and she did have four on her plate. She eyed him. Nope. He was questioning her
no
as if he were the kind of guy who really wanted to get to know a woman. Honestly, even with her limited experience, she could figure that one out. “I actually think you want to sleep with me.” She couldn’t believe she’d said it and took in a deep breath. Unfortunately, the oxygen only fueled her blush. Well, there was no going back, she supposed, it was out there, and she was definitely eating the extra roll.

She expected him to react right away but his expression, demeanor, cheek color, remained the same. He just shook out his napkin and asked, “and?”

She opened her mouth, closed it, felt John reach across the mess of lobster between them, and put his hand on hers. “I’m a man. You’re a woman. To an extent, my wanting to have sex with you is in my DNA.” He smiled. “And yours.”

She tried for aloof, worldly, even though her heart was pounding up into her throat. “Is that your backseat necking line?”

“Would it work?”

Her hand fluttered under his. “It’s pretty good.”

He released her to put a lobster cake on her plate and spoon the salsa on top. “But it’s not the point.”

“Not?” She absently put a fork full of the cake in her mouth then had to close her eyes at the pure deliciousness of it. He continued to dish his own plate, and she really appreciated that he was too polite to acknowledge her moment of bliss over the gangster of the sea.

He dipped his roll into the sauce, and she was sure she could smell the lime across the table. “Not. The point.” 

She tried to figure out what he meant by that and studied his curly hair and green eyes, his good-sized shoulders she’d remembered hanging onto when they’d been covered in soapy Abundance. A swift image came to her of their
points
of contact. There, there, and there. She reached for the Gastown Ale he’d ordered for them and took a cooling swig.

He took a drink of his own then reached across the table again, slipping his thumb beneath her left hand and rubbing her palm. “You want to think I’m some kind of poacher and that your entire appeal to me is your proximity.” His fingers swept her left hand ring finger. “And unavailability.”

But her wedding ring wasn’t there. He’d said unavailability, and yet, didn’t her ring sit above the loft’s sink where she’d left it two days before?

He let go and turned back to his meal as if they were just having lunch, but his attention to her never wavered. “So, tell me about yourself. I’m asking you because I want to hear what you have to say.”

She hoped he didn’t notice the tremor that ran through her. But she was kidding herself. She took a deep breath. “I’m from Washington. My dad was a doctor. My mom was a doctor’s wife. No siblings. My mom died when I was eighteen. She was thirty-eight.”

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded in acknowledgment. “I was at Eastern Washington University, majoring in education, dating Dan. We’d met at ice cream night in the dorm.” She rolled her eyes that she couldn’t at least say it had been a drinking event. “That was my idea of excitement.” She smiled without realizing it. It had been exciting, Dan walking straight up to her just because he wanted to meet her. Tall, blond, athletic in a practical sense, solid. She’d loved that. “

He had siblings and parents and a hilarious old school grandfather who would yell a word in his sentences for emphasis.” She lowered her head, kept her eyes on John, brought her brows together like Dan’s grandfather had. Like Dan did. She realized there were a line of Mulligans that led directly to her own son. “This is how lobster
ought
to be served.” They both laughed at her impersonation then quieted as she began the odd task of laying out her life to a man who seemed to want to disrupt it, for a few days at least.

“We were well matched. Also in love. We were. Are. Well, we married the summer of our college graduation. Both of us were teachers. Dan moved into administration. And life went on, we lost his grandfather, my Dad retired to Florida, Logan was born. We bought our house right after Logan, and I left the classroom and got into teacher training. My Dad had a heart attack at seventy and died on a golf course.”

“Sorry.”

She shrugged and felt the ambivalence of it slide through her. “Everyone who spoke at his funeral said he would have wanted to go that way. He was completely into being a doctor and then it was golf.”

“And you? What’s everything to you?”

She would have said her family, the one she’d made, but at the moment she wasn’t walking that walk, so it wasn’t a question she wanted to answer. “One day, I became really, really tired, and I drove to Canada for bubble bath. In ten more days I’ll feel rested and ready to go back and finish the second half of my life.”

“I can’t help you with the going back part.”

“I know.” She picked up the lobster roll. “And I’m not asking you to.”

“Mara?”

She laughed because he had a flirty guy quality that just felt fun even when she knew sadness was right next to her. “John?”

“Even if I could?”

She tipped her head, waited. “Yes?”

“I wouldn’t.” He leaned over the table and surprised her with a kiss, and she surprised herself even more by kissing him back.

When he broke the contact, she sighed. “I’m sorry to say, I wouldn’t want you to.”

They held hands along the waterfront, swung them almost, with a lightness she would have called
ignoring the facts
had it been any other two people. But it wasn’t. It was Mara enjoying Granville Island on a warm summer day with a man who held her attention and gave her his.

They passed dozens of yachts, all lined up neatly for sale, and she wondered if, like cars, it would be called a yacht lot. They’d even picked out their favorites, inventing names for them like
The Bankrupter
,
Ahab Had It Coming
,
The Compensator
, and, of course,
Gangster of the Sea
.

The island itself had seemed small when they’d driven onto it, and since it sat in the midst of a city, half beneath a bridge, how large could it be? Yet, it unfolded as they walked. They passed dozens of brightly colored shops, their exteriors delightfully quirky ads for the art within. She glimpsed a cement business behind an iron gate scrolled into the barrel shape of the trucks, and along the water, a hotel with glass windows pointed in spires to the sky. She’d stay there if she were a tourist. The thought that she wasn’t, pleased her.

At the end of the pavement, where any more steps would put them in the water with a long swim across to the city, they found the market. It felt like the real draw to the whole island, the main attraction all the rest had sprung up around.

They stepped into the cooler, but not much darker, interior. She appreciated the openness and light. Nothing diminished a summer day as much as the hazy dim of indoors. But this indoors felt more outdoors, inviting with just the right salty smell of fish, offset with the clean and color of flower stalls. And, no less beautiful, vegetable and fruit displays, nature’s food flowers, she supposed.

She took in as many details as she could, tried to store in her memory the golden jars of honey, blood red tomatoes, and the calm art of a man who made his living photographing river rocks.

John slowed when she did, seemed willing to engage in whatever caught her interest, but it wasn’t one thing she wanted. She even understood that it wasn’t money that stopped her from purchasing anything. 

What she wished for was the life she could picture there, the life maybe no one had. She wanted to be the woman who picked up fresh greens, scallops, a round of olive and rosemary bread, honey soaked baklava. She would check her watch at the last stall because she needed to get home to make the salad and slip into summer linen and sandals before guests arrived. No, not guests, friends who laughed and accepted without limit whoever stood before them.

“Mara?”

She realized she’d stopped in front of a display of fudge, and the vendor appeared to be waiting for an answer. John reached across the yard of delicious squares, handed the man a bill, and tipped his head for her to choose. She studied the glossy brown chocolate and read the handwritten signs. There were dozens of kinds, expected and un. Cherry, expected. Jalepeno pepper, un. All the nut varieties, expected. Basil, un. “I’ll have the raspberry swirl.” She pointed to the seedy one she realized she’d have to check her teeth after she’d eaten.

“Same.”

That would help.

They added two coffees that the adjacent vendor sold as an antidote to so much sugar, and together they made their way out the other side where a green lawn awaited. The area was large enough to be park-like, but less officially structured. There were no benches or tables, but, circus-like, a traveling display sat in the center, drawing children and adults alike.

By unsaid agreement, they strolled over, finishing fudge, sipping coffee when the rush of sweet got to them. They stopped at the large sign introducing the exhibit, and who didn’t need to learn more about bugs? They passed by the beetle display where three boys clustered, repeating
dung beetle
over and over to great laughter.

John walked ahead and rounded a worm display she knew the boys would also love, and she should not look at while she still had hopes of enjoying her last bite of fudge.

John appeared again, smiling. “You’re gonna love this.”

“More fudge? Bubble bath? Banana peppers?”

“Butterflies.”

She followed him to the next display, the order of Lepidoptera. The
order of
made her picture a gathering of butterflies wearing fezzes and calling the meeting adjourned. John pointed to a large wooden butterfly, its wings detailed with scientific accuracy, but where its head would be, an oval had been cut out for the play of human faces.

She tossed her fudge wrapper in the nearest bin, gripped her coffee, and ducked behind the wings, popping her face into the oval. “I emerge a butterfly.”

“You, my dear, aren’t just any butterfly. You are a Western Tiger Swallowtail.”

She tried to look down but couldn’t see the words on her butterfly body. “Really?”