Chapter
11
I didn’t realize what I was in for. The heart of Bell Valley ate at The Grill, and much as I’d been sitting in clear view on the green, this was truly my public debut. The place was wood and comfortably dark—walls, ceilings, and booths—yet a steady stream of locals stopped at our table to say hello. Some remembered me as Jude’s girl from ten years ago. Some only knew I looked familiar and, since I was with Vicki, were drawn by curiosity.
Not all were warm and fuzzy, our server being a case in point. We immediately recognized each other. Though he was an old friend of Jude’s, he was Jenna Frye’s cousin, so he and I had never hit it off. Now, other than a brief glance to take my order, he didn’t look at me again.
That made me uncomfortable—not so much his relation to Jenna, but his friendship with Jude. Knowing that I knew Jude was back and he didn’t seemed wrong. Of course, not telling Vicki was even worse.
Then came Amelia—talk about feeling like a snake. I should have known she would be here. Amelia was always here, because she didn’t cook. She and I had that in common, at least, though it was little comfort now. I cringed when she appeared, and when she slid into the booth on Vicki’s side, I thought I’d die.
She must have known my feelings, because she hit me with a bright smile and said, “This is nice,” settling in as though she’d had a date with us all along. In a single glance, she had the server over. “The special?” he asked, to which she gave him a nod and a thumbs-up.
Vicki said nothing, which was the only way I knew she was no happier than me. Not that Amelia gave her a chance to talk. She controlled the conversation, asking about my work in New York and what I might do for Lee, and though I bought time, saying that it might take James a while to contact his friend, the guilt I felt about that was nothing compared to the guilt I felt about Jude.
Amelia showed no sign of being affected by whatever she had been drinking earlier, and when her Cosmo arrived, she drank appropriately. Then, mid-sentence, she shot up an arm and waved her hand. “Bob! Here!” she called in an authoritative voice
A couple approached. They looked several years older than Amelia, whom I would have guessed to be sixty-two. She barely acknowledged the female half of the pair.
“Bob, I want you to meet Vicki’s friend, Emily Aulenbach. Emily, Bob Bixby. Bob heads the legal department at the Refuge. Emily is a lawyer, too,” she told Bob, who smiled at me then.
“Where do you practice?” he asked.
“New York,” Amelia said before I could.
“Corporate?” he asked next, and since he was looking straight at me, I immediately liked him better.
“Corporate litigation, actually.” It was its own field, separate from the other.
“What firm?”
“Lane Lavash.”
He frowned, considering. “I don’t know that one. I did criminal work in Hartford before I moved here.”
It occurred to me that Amelia could have consulted Bob about Lee. Criminal work would encompass harassment. But Amelia wouldn’t have wanted Bob to know that she had a relative with a criminal record.
“Emily’s been working with the cats,” Amelia told Bob, “so you know where to find her if you need help.”
“We always need help,” Bob warned, but the words were barely out when Amelia made a shooing motion.
“Here’s our food,” she said. “I’m starved. Go order, you two. Enjoy your dinner.”
I was glad to see her include the wife at the end, but the instant they were gone, even as the waiter was setting down our plates, she muttered, “I have nothing to say to that woman.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Bo-ring,” she sang, turning a brilliant smile on the server. “This looks wonderful, Jake. As always.”
The special was baked haddock. Vicki and I had ordered hamburgers with our zucchini sticks—would likely have had the zucchini sticks alone as an appetizer if Amelia hadn’t been there. But the server knew that she liked everything served at once, and since she would be the one leaving the tip, pleasing Amelia was what counted.
As we ate, Amelia told me more about Bob and about other recent hires whom she considered to be finds. At one point she glanced at Vicki. “You’re awfully quiet.”
“When would you have me speak?” Vicki asked politely enough. “Between drinks?”
“Ouch,” Amelia said. She was on her second Cosmo, but perfectly articulate. Undaunted, she looked at me. “Mothers and daughters do have issues. What about you, Emily? Are you and your mother best friends?”
I was trying to think how to answer when something changed in the restaurant. Conversation didn’t exactly end, but was broken by a vibrating hush.
I had the briefest glimpse of Jude heading toward us, fending off hugs and backslapping, waving an indulgent hand to return people to their talk, before reaching our booth.
“Hello, Mother,” he said, bending to kiss her cheek before sliding in beside me. “Hey, Vick, how’s life?”
In other circumstances, I might have enjoyed Amelia’s shock. But I was shocked myself—that he had chosen this public place to tell her he was back, that he had slid in near me like I’d known he was coming, like he and I were a pair.
He made things worse by looking back and forth between his mother and his sister before murmuring in an aside to me, “I do love a surprise.”
Vicki was suddenly glaring at me. I blew out a puff, held up a hand saying that I knew nothing (which, when it came to his showing up here, was the truth), and scooched away from Jude and into the corner.
He had showered—more likely, knowing Jude, had stood in all his naked glory in the stream—and wore clean jeans and a T-shirt advertising CRAB FISHING IN DUTCH HARBOR. Indoors, his blond hair was sprinkled with a gray that I hadn’t noticed outside.
“What did you do to your face?” Vicki cried.
Jude touched the scar. “I didn’t do it. A buddy of mine did.”
“You look old,” Vicki said, but added a more gentle “older.”
“And you motherly,” Jude replied, lazily stretching his arms over the table.
“Jude, my man!” came the cry of a friend who extended a hand in an exuberant shake. He was no sooner gone when a woman approached, another I knew to be a former lover. Jude hugged her and talked for a minute before sending her off.
Looking confused in ways that liquor hadn’t made her, Amelia stared for another minute. When she finally spoke, her voice was less bold, less loud, but deep with feeling. “Ten years and not a word, then just showing up here like this? Where have you been? Why haven’t you called? Do you know how much I’ve worried? There were times I wondered if you were still alive.” She glanced at me. “You knew about this, didn’t you? You came here for him.”
Before I could deny it, another friend of Jude’s came to the table. When Jude slid out to hug him, I grabbed my chance at escape, pausing only to whisper to Amelia, “I’m here independent of him, and call me a coward if you want, but he’ll suck me into this if I stay. What you have here is a family reunion, and I’m not family.” I slid the rest of the way out of the booth and left before she could respond.
Vicki must have called Rob to say she’d be late, because though The Grill closed at ten, it was well after midnight when she cracked open my door and whispered, “Are you sleeping?”
“Fat chance,” I whispered back as she approached the bed fully clothed. I pushed up against the pillows, but didn’t bother with the lamp. I could see her well enough, and what I couldn’t see, I felt, so I knew she was upset. “How could he do that, Vicki Bell? To your mother? To you? And with me there? He must have been watching—must have wanted me there to soften the blow to Amelia. So is that where you’ve been—Amelia’s?”
“Oh yeah. Not a happy scene.”
“Why not? Isn’t she glad that he’s back?”
“Totally. It’s revolting.” She sank down on the duvet. “Was she really the one who was angry back there at The Grill for his not calling, not writing, not letting her know he was alive? Well”—Vicki breathed voluminously—“all that was easily forgiven. She fawned all over him.” Her voice went lower to simulate Amelia’s. “ ‘What can I get you, Jude? Oh dear, I don’t have Red Bull, but Vicki can run out for some. No? Are you sure? It’ll be so nice having you sleep here in the house again. Why yes, Emma Ruth is still cooking. Roast beef hash for breakfast? With beets? I’m impressed, Jude. She will definitely make that for you. Yes, she’ll wash your clothes. Of course, I don’t mind the holes. The holes are you.’ ”
She made a gagging sound. I turned on my side, letting her vent.
“I should be happy he’s back,” she said. “Right? Well, part of me isn’t. He’s my brother, and I love him, but it’s not like he was a good guy ten years ago. He lived to annoy Mom, but there she is now, acting like he’s a hero. For what? For staying alive in the Bering Sea? I work fourteen-hour days doing laundry, making beds, cleaning toilets, and she walks in with barely a hello and tells me that I’m inconsistent when it comes to disciplining Charlotte, or that the Red Fox should offer a menued breakfast, because, after all, how can I expect people to automatically like what I choose to serve, especially when some are on special diets, and if we want this place to succeed, we have to be aware of these things. Like I’m stupid?”
“You’re not stupid.”
“And here’s another thing,” Vicki spat out. “Noah.”
“Noah?”
“His son. I mean, can you believe that name? He was named after Jenna’s father, but talk about biblical? Mom is counting on him heading the Refuge someday. But what about Charlotte? My child is legitimate, but has Amelia ever suggested that she head the Refuge? No! So … so … is it a male thing?” Vicki asked, sounding bewildered.
“It’s a Jude thing.”
“She loves him more than she loves me?”
“No. It’s Jude. He has a weird power.”
“And before he was a crab fisherman,” Vicki went on, “know what he was doing? Dune racing in Egypt. He did it for money—like, people would bet on him and he’d get a percentage of the take. Then he led glacier tours in New Zealand. I didn’t even know there were glaciers in New Zealand. But his stories are wonderful. I’ll bet he has a great one for the scar. He goes on and on, and you hang on every word. He dares to do things most of us do not. He’s a total free spirit. And Amelia thinks he’ll stay in Bell Valley?” She blew a raspberry. “When pigs fly.”
I was thinking of Jude’s daring. The rest of us lived vicariously through him. Was that part of his appeal then?
Vicki focused on me. “You’re too quiet. You felt something for him, didn’t you?”
“You don’t not feel something for Jude Bell,” I remarked. “You love him or hate him. There’s no in between.”
“Which end are you at?”
“Both,” I said, bewildered myself. “I hate him for the way he steps on people’s feelings. But you gotta love him for that free spirit.”
“Do you find him appealing?”
“I’d have to be dead not to,” I said, trying to make light of it. “That’s one of the things I was thinking of after I left The Grill. Jude’s like a celebrity. He may be older now, but there’s still something riveting about him.”
“It’s called virility.”
“Or ruggedness. You can’t look at him and not want to look again.”
She was quiet for a minute. “He said he saw you this afternoon. Did it all come back?”
“Yup, including the betrayal.”
“The sexual attraction, too?”
“No.” I tried to explain to myself as well as to her. “It was more a mind thing. This sounds crazy, Vicki, but right before I saw him, I saw the coyote. When Jude appeared, the coyote was gone. It’s like that coyote is him. It is totally untamed, and it fascinates me. And it’s been haunting my dreams, so maybe Jude is something I need to work through.”
“Work through how?” She sounded worried.
“I have to figure out what parts of him I want to … capture.”
“Like what?”
“Defying convention. Daring to be different.”
“You’ve done those things just by leaving New York.”
“But what to do with them now? How to make some of it stick? What parts I want to make stick? It’s confusing.”
Vicki exhaled. “So there’s another reason I resent his showing up again. He’s complicating your escape.” Her voice dropped. “You won’t leave just because he’s here, will you?”
“And desert you in your time of need?”
“I’m serious, Emmie.”
“So am I. Where else would I go?”
“Anywhere else might be more peaceful.”
She touched her forehead to mine. “That’s very sweet. Okay, so what’s another thing you’ve been thinking about since you left The Grill?”
I was a minute returning to that part of our discussion. Then I smiled. It might be wishful thinking—and not entirely smart, if Jude was something I needed to work through—but right now, today, certainly until after I talked with James, it worked.
“Jude Bell is not my business,” I vowed.
Not my business. Amelia could have him. I had my own issues, the most immediate of which was Colleen Parker.
Why was I thinking of Colleen when I woke up Thursday morning? Because of Vicki. Because of how we’d helped each other last night. Because of the ease, the trust, the interest we shared.
I waited until after breakfast, then, sitting in my car, gave Colly a call. She was not happy with me—first, because I hadn’t responded to e-mails from the other bridesmaids, and then because of what I had to say.
“You can’t back out now!” she cried in horror. “The dresses are already here!”
“I’ll pay for mine anyway,” I offered.
“No, no, you don’t understand. I’ve done the choreography, with the music and all, and we matched it perfectly, bridesmaids to groomsmen. Now I’ll have one less.”
Gently I said, “Ask another friend, and I’ll give her my dress for free.”
In another tone, to another woman, my remark might have been rude. But I knew my audience, and that audience was angry. Not sorry. Not concerned. Just angry. I tried to empathize with the pressure she felt, but it was hard. My own wedding had been small—immediate family and a handful of friends—so I had no personal experience in staging an extravaganza.
“I asked you to be in my wedding party,” Colly said, “and you accepted. You can’t back out now.”
“I can’t be there.”
“Why not, Emily? Okay, so you’re taking time off, but what could possibly be so important that you can’t come back for one day? Just one day. I mean, like, are you in rehab or something?”
“No. No rehab.” Not in the traditional sense, but I wasn’t explaining that. And yes, I could come back for a day. I might well be back, since Walter’s month would expire long before the wedding. Given the size of New York and the fact that our lives never overlapped outside book group, which I could easily miss, Colly would never know if I was back or not.
For the sake of this wedding, I wanted to be away. If I showed up as a guest rather than a bridesmaid, there would be questions to answer, and the fact was, I didn’t want to be at Colly’s wedding at all. Her half of this phone conversation reinforced the conviction.
“This isn’t right,” she said.
But for me it was. Colly collected friends like bangle bracelets, and I couldn’t be one of those. It would be a betrayal of what I was starting to learn about myself—namely, that I wanted quality, not quantity.
“I’m sorry, Colly,” I said quietly. “I’ll be thinking of you, though.”
I’ll be thinking of you, too, she might have said. I’m sorry you’re going through a rough time. Let me know how you are. Stay in touch. Instead, she sighed. “Okay. I’ll make some calls. I have a cousin who might take your place.”
I repeated my apology, but ended the call feeling no regret at all.
I did feel regret when it came to Lee. I knew I should call James. Lee was a perfect excuse, right?
But I couldn’t get myself to do it. Turning off the BlackBerry, I dropped it on the passenger’s seat of the car and left the Red Fox. The charcoal SUV was on the far side of the green, protecting Lee as I was not. So that was good but not.
At least I wasn’t looking in my rearview mirror as I drove out of town, and once I turned into the Refuge road and entered the parking lot in my dead-giveaway BMW, I was being watched by someone else.
Jenna Frye.
A wisp of a woman with long blond hair and ragged-hem jeans, she looked far more the part of Jude’s consort than I ever had. And she had to know that Jude was back. I wondered if her husband knew and, if so, how he felt. Jude was not the kind of man that other men took lightly.
I climbed from the car, watching Jenna watch me as she crossed the porch of the big Colonial. She looked stricken. Thinking I was here for Jude? For one crazy moment I imagined that she and I might have a lot to say to each other.
I ducked back in my car to put my sunglasses on the dashboard, but by the time I straightened, she was inside.
They needed help today in the laundry room, so I spent the morning doing load after load of towels, pet beds, and scrubs. I half wondered if Amelia had requested that I be sent here as punishment for not telling her Jude was back. But the assignment could have been worse. Had she really been in a mood, she might have had me mucking out horse stalls.
But I wasn’t complaining. Volunteers came here knowing they would be asked to do whatever needed to be done, and I was just another volunteer. Jude wasn’t here; he rarely came, and he had made it clear to Vicki that he planned to do nothing but sleep, eat Emma Ruth’s roast beef hash with beets, and watch the NFL channel. So it was just me, the regular staff, and a handful of other visitors.
My reward, of course, was spending the afternoon with the cats. The wobbly kitten knew me; I was sure of it. She was sitting in a corner apart from the others when I entered the room, and within seconds was teetering my way. There were two other volunteers there, but she made a determined little beeline for me. I wanted to think she’d been waiting.
Lifting her, I put my face to hers before settling her in the cup of my legs. She was so light, so fragile, that I feared she wasn’t eating, so I broke the rule and hand-fed her until other cats crowded in. Several new ones had arrived since I’d come, including a mangy Maine coon with a stumpy hind leg and a scowl, and though he was nowhere near as cute as my Precious, I felt for him. Grumpy and pompous, he reminded me of Amelia. He was parked unhappily in a crate that, earlier that week, had been the home of a Siamese mix recovering from surgery. I didn’t see that one here now, which meant either it had been moved to another room, had been adopted, or had died.
I hadn’t known the Siamese, yet the thought of it dying—the thought of the helpless little tabby in my lap dying—brought tears to my eyes. But yes, cats here did die. Same with dogs, horses, and any manner of other pets that were too injured or old to recover from whatever had brought them to the Refuge. Cremated, their ashes were buried in small tins in a cemetery bordering the cornfield. It was simultaneously the most beautiful and heartbreaking spot. Thinking of it, I bowed low over the little kitty, putting my head to hers.
“Emily?”
I looked up into the face of the man I had met last night at The Grill.
“Bob Bixby?” he prompted.
I smiled. “I remember. The lawyer.” I would have said the word facetiously, lawyer to lawyer, if this man had been younger or more natty. His polo shirt was perfect. But his too-short jeans gave him a vulnerable look.
He settled on a low stool nearby and was quickly approached by a handful of cats, which told me that he had been here before. “I wasn’t kidding last night,” he said as he stroked their heads with a knowing hand. “I could use your help.”
“Ohhh, I dunno,” I demurred. He seemed like a nice guy, and I didn’t want to offend him, but I wasn’t here as a lawyer.
“It’s pretty light stuff,” he coaxed, “a few contracts and other things I’d love second opinions on.”
“You have no associates?”
“A clerical-type person, general gofer, but when it comes to law, it’s just me. What’ya say? Give an old man a hand?”
“You’re not an old man,” I said quickly, because age was as age did, my dad always said, and Amelia wouldn’t have hired Bob Bixby if he couldn’t do the job—but that put the bug in my ear. “Amelia would probably rather I scoop litter.”
“Not true. She told me to draft you. She said that anyone who can make it in a New York law firm can lend a hand here.”
A compliment? If so, it brought no pleasure. I hadn’t exactly “made it” in a New York law firm. My continued relationship with said firm was simply because one man there liked me. Or liked my looks.
That said, I had no idea how I could help Bob Bixby. “My specialty is litigation,” I said.
It was a mistake.
“So is mine,” Bob countered enthusiastically. “Then I retired from it, came up here, and found I could do what needed to be done. We’re talking employment issues, risk management, trademark coverage. I studied these things in law school. So did you, and much more recently than me. If I can handle it, you can.”
“Can I?” I asked Vicki that night. We were slouched side by side on a bench behind the Red Fox, the soles of our feet to the woods. The moon was high, the forest dark but for the occasional lightning bug, silent but for the crickets. The humidity was low, crisping the scene.
“You sure can. You can do anything you want, Emily.”
“Should I, then? When I’m with the cats, I’m lying low. This’d be different.”
“You mean, you might see Jude.” She gave a quick headshake, blond ends quivering. “He won’t be there tomorrow. Amelia’s taking him to lunch with a group of Refuge donors in Concord. She bought him new clothes.”
“Will he wear them?” I asked.
Vicki snorted. “I doubt it. He’s forty, and she’s buying him clothes? How pathetic is that? She’s already said he can wear them or not. My mother is a hypocrite, have I told you?”
“Vaguely.”
“God forbid Charlotte wears jeans to a little girls’ tea party at The Bookstore. Not. Appropriate. Says the Queen. But Jude? Whatever he does is fine. Maybe the reason he’s such an impossible human being is that he was spoiled. She created the monster.”
Pulling my sweater around me, I studied the woods. Monsters? Not here. These woods were distant from Jude’s. They were more tame.
I sighed. “This setting is unreal. Just beautiful. Peaceful.”
“Like New York.”
I chuckled. “Right.”
“Will you go back?”
“That depends on James. I can’t be in New York without him.”
Vicki turned her head against the wood slat. “Of course you can. You’re a strong woman. Leaving last week took guts.”
I still wasn’t sure I agreed, but hearing her say it felt good. “I’ll rephrase that, then. I don’t want to be in New York without him.”
“Do you want to be in New York at all?”
“Bingo.”
“Where else?”
I gazed out into the dark. This place was more mine than Jude’s, and the pull remained. “Those woods.”
“I mean, for your future.”
“Those woods,” I repeated. “They are the ultimate hideout.” My eyes crept the length of the tree line, left to right, from the parking lot to the gardener’s shed. I felt Vicki look at me and follow my gaze at the end.
“The shed has charm,” she granted, “but it’s awful close to the woods. Some people are freaked out by that.”
“Like a bear would break down the walls?” I asked, though the question was rhetorical. The shed was small, not much bigger than my city kitchen, but even the most untrained eye could see how solid it was. Massive logs framed the base, while thick planks dovetailed up the sides. The door was oak, the windows small with decorative grates rising halfway. The grates were the work of a local forge, and while, yes, they would prevent a bear from launching itself inside, that wasn’t why they were there. They were there to showcase wisteria and the work of the smithy, who was a Beaudry relative.
“Want it?” Vicki asked.
I smiled. “That’d be a hard choice—the gardener’s shed or heaven.”
“I’ll make it easier,” she said, apologetic now. “I need your room. I have a couple arriving here on Monday. This will be their fourth summer, and each year they stay in the attic. They reserved it three months ago. I’m sorry, sweetie. I can’t tell them that a friend came at the last minute and wanted it, when I have other rooms that are open. You could have any one of those.”
I continued to look at the shed. I had spent part of a summer living there, and that when it truly was a gardener’s shed. A time or two I had imagined that the hose coiled in the corner was a snake, but even then I hadn’t freaked out.
So what did worry me? The same something that kept me from walking into those woods on my own, though I wasn’t sure what it was. Wild animals? Coyotes? Me? Was I afraid I would go in and never want to come out?
But hadn’t I gone to Jude’s cabin and come out again?
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the gardener’s shed might work. I couldn’t stay in the clouds forever. Moving from the dreamy euphoria of that attic room to the down-to-earth reality of the shed might be small and symbolic, but it was something.
Besides, part of me did want to be close to the woods.
I dreamed of James that night, dreamed he was lying with me, holding me close. I felt the brush of the hair on his legs as they moved against mine, heard the sough of his breathing as he slept, smelled the male something that was his alone.
I didn’t dream of sex; my dream was erotic enough without. We always used to sleep like this, so close that we woke up aching for sex. Lately, it seemed we woke up aching only for more sleep.
When I woke up this night, it was to coyote sounds and a vision of Jude. Bolting up, I scrubbed my eyes, and the Jude on the far side of the room disappeared. The coyote sounds went on.
Falling back, I let my heartbeat steady as I listened, and in time, the sounds, too, were gone.