“Fine. Lindsey’s getting married. Mick, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“There’s something in your voice. I haven’t talked to you in months. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, fine. Well, I’m waiting out in front of a hospital right now. One of the young kids I work with, his mother has MS and is real sick. The ambulance took her to the hospital and I brought the kid and his younger brothers to see her. Seems like they’re pretty much on their own. I’m just waiting here to take them home. Nothing I can do about this, but it’s too bad. You know?”
“I know,” she said. “You always were tender-hearted.”
Except with you, he wanted to say. He just wasn’t there for her. He regretted that but you can only regret the agonies of youth for so long. He just hadn’t been emotionally equipped to do any better. “I’ll lend a hand if I can, but I don’t think I’m going to be here much longer.”
“When will we see you next?” she asked.
“Summer,” he said. She knew exactly when he’d be in Boone, but she didn’t say that and she never made him say it. “I don’t go that way in winter, you know that. But I’ll see you in the summer. Is there anything you need in the meantime?”
She answered him with a small laugh. “I have everything I need. What about you?”
“Isn’t something important coming up? Birthday or anniversary or something?” He knew exactly what was coming up—her fifty-sixth birthday in May, sometimes it fell on Mother’s Day. It had when she was pregnant with Ethan. He bought her a fancy rocking chair and she made such a fuss over it.
“Another birthday,” she said.
“That’s right. Well. Listen, those boys will be coming out in a minute so I’d better get off the phone. I’ll...ah...give you a call before I head that way so maybe we can get together for a cup of coffee. Or something like that...”
“That would be nice, Mick. Now you be careful out there on the road. Be careful on your way back home.”
“You take care, too. Hope Tony keeps feeling better.”
Tony wasn’t exactly sick, but he had some kind of kidney problem that Carol described as not too serious. He was sixty and not as lucky with his health as Al was—he’d been forced to stop farming for the time being at least. Probably those god-awful winters...
Al would see Carol like he did every year. On July twelfth. Ethan’s birthday.
Fourteen
Al got the boys back home after 9:00 p.m., considerably later than he expected. By that time Eric told him to quit for the day, get himself a cold beer or something. There was a spring storm rolling in over the bay and if there was lightning, he might be shutting the pumps down anyway.
Al had a couple of beers in that little refrigerator in his motel room, but the night called for something different. He was still in his uniform but hadn’t had time to get dirty at work yet. It was getting late when he knocked on Ray Anne’s front door. She opened it without asking who was there. She had a rag of some kind tied around her hair, a green, gooey mask on her face, cotton balls between her toes and was wearing cutoff sweatpants and a baggy T-shirt. “Whoa,” he said, taking a step back.
She put a hand on her hip. “I see. You thought I was naturally beautiful....”
He lifted his brows. “Well, hell, you sure come out looking real good.”
“Did we have plans?”
He rubbed his jaw. “Nah. I just had one of those days and was looking for a beer. I can find one somewhere else. I’m obviously interrupting something very important....”
“You scared to come in?”
“I wouldn’t say so, no.” He peered at her closely, squinting. “Does that do anything?”
“It makes my pores small and my wrinkles smaller. You can come in. It’s ripe. I can take it off now.”
“Not on my account,” he said, smothering a laugh.
“Get yourself a beer. I’ll be right back.” And she turned and left him standing in the open doorway.
He got himself a beer from her refrigerator and sat on the couch. A few minutes later she returned to the living room in different clothes, her blond hair fluffed up, eyebrows drawn on and a little lipstick. There was still a little green stuff stuck at her temples. “Wow. What a transformation,” he said.
She went to the kitchen; he heard a cork pop. While she was in there, she said, “I can only assume you now plan to marry me.” She came back with her wine. “Now that we’ve been intimate.”
“Ray Anne, we were intimate before.”
She laughed. “That was sex,” she explained. “Seeing me in the throes of preconstruction—that’s intimate.”
He touched his temple. “You got a little...” Her hand went there immediately, scraping it away. “Who knew you had to go to so much trouble?”
“You’ll appreciate me more now, I bet.” She sipped her wine.
“I apologize. I should’ve called. It was just a shot in the dark.”
“Literally,” she said. “Now what has you knocking on doors at ten at night? Don’t you work late tonight?”
He started to tell her about the Russell boys but found he didn’t want to go into too much detail. It brought his own conflicted feelings out when he thought about how intensely screwed up their little lives were. He just gave her the bare facts—Mrs. Russell went to the hospital, Al drove the boys to see her, make sure she was all right, by the time he took them home it was late and Eric had the station covered. The pumps might be shutting down on account of lightning anyway....
“I heard some rumbling out there,” Ray Anne said. “When you live around here you soon learn the best thing is the sunset over the bay. The second best are the storms. The lightning over the bay.” She closed her eyes and smiled. “It’s spectacular.”
“We could drive down to the marina in the truck. Grab your wine,” he suggested.
“We don’t have to go that far,” she said. “I have a deck on top of the garage. There’s a view from there. I can’t see the whole bay but I can see the sky over the bay and one of the haystack rocks in the water. Wanna go up?”
His eyes lit up. “I wanna go up,” he said.
She grinned at him. “Let me grab this,” she said, pulling the throw off the sofa and tossing it over a shoulder. “It’s still cold out there at night. Come with me. This way.”
She led him through the kitchen, out the door and into the garage. “Grab a beanbag,” she said. “I’ll get one, too.” Then out the back door into the yard where there was a narrow staircase to the roof. “I’ll hold your beer while you toss these beanbags up there.”
“Have you ever thought about a couple of lawn chairs?”
“Oh, you’re new in town.” She laughed. “They’d blow off.”
It only took a minute to get situated up there. Just as they were getting comfortable reclining against the beanbags, lightning over the mouth of the bay started flashing. The wind picked up a little bit and Ray Anne snuggled under the throw and against him. She held her wine, he held his beer and his arm pulled her closer.
“I love this,” he said. “I wonder if I can get on top at the Coastline....”
She laughed at him.
He leaned toward her, nuzzling her neck. “How many lovers have you brought up here?”
She chuckled. “Too many to count.”
“Really? Take a stab at it. How many?”
She sighed. “I haven’t been in this house that long. Just a few years. And I was convinced to buy it when I found out I could put this deck up here. It’s kind of a special place. It’s kind of a secret place.”
“How many?” he persisted.
“Okay, none. All right? It’s all mine.”
“Have you ever slept up here?”
“Not really. I’ve fallen asleep up here a couple of times, just watching the sky.”
“When the weather gets warm we’re going to make love up here,” he said. “Then we’re going to sleep for a while and make love again. This is a great secret to have.”
“I haven’t said I’d do that with you,” she informed him.
“You’ll have to because you said you were going to make me marry you. For, you know, seeing what you do to your face to be beautiful. It’s incredible. Horrific, really.”
“I’m never getting married again,” Ray Anne said.
“Okay,” he chuckled, kissing her ear. “We’ll just have sex on the roof and sleep under the stars. This is great up here. You’re brilliant.”
“If you ever tell anyone about my preconstruction face I’ll sue you.”
“Ray Anne, do you think you’re not pretty? You’re beautiful. And I’ve seen you in the early morning without any makeup.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“What are you talking about? Of course I have.”
She shook her head. “When you stay over, I don’t remove my makeup before bed and when I slip in the bathroom to freshen up, I freshen up—repair the damage, renew the lip gloss, fluff the hair. When I’m alone for the night, I put green stuff on my face and then I lather up in moisturizer, fighting back time. I color my hair....”
“Are you gray?” he asked. He didn’t have that much gray for a man his age.
“Mrs. Santa Claus.”
“Seriously?” he asked with a laugh.
“That goes no further....”
He brushed her hair off her forehead. “You know, you don’t have to go to all that trouble for me—the fluffing, repairing, glossing. You can grease up if you want to.”
“You said you like the way I look....”
“I do,” he said. “You look damn good. It makes me look good, taking you out to a restaurant. Hell, it makes me look good buying you a soda at the station! But when we’re alone, if you want to put on all your lotions, I can go along with that. In fact, I bet all that lotion comes in handy.” He leaned over and kissed her. “You’re a pretty little thing, Ray Anne. But you know what I like best? The way you flirt with me, come on to me, tease me a little bit. And I like your personality—you’re smart. Funny. A little dirty...”
“Dirty?”
He laughed at her. “I mean that in a good way. You don’t have too many inhibitions when we’re alone. I like that. But you know what I like best? I like that you can put me in a better frame of mind. I can be worried or unhappy and the minute I’m in your company, I feel better.”
“You don’t seem like a guy who ever gets unhappy or stressed,” she said.
He pulled her a little closer. “Ah, hell, honey. Under all this perfection, I’m just a regular guy.”
* * *
With the storm building and lightning flashing over the ocean Eric sent Howie home at nine and closed the station a little early. He went home to shower off the day and when he emerged from the bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist, he found Laine sitting on the bed beside a tray. He grinned and rubbed a small towel over his hair. “What’s that?”
“It’s too late for a big meal, but I know you didn’t eat....”
On the tray was a small artichoke dip and crackers, some sliced meat and cheese, a bunch of grapes, a round of brie. His stomach growled. “I’ll be right with you.” He ditched the towel in favor of sweats and came back to the bed. He noticed she had an open bottle of wine and two glasses on the bedside table, but there was also a tall glass with ice and a Coke. His choice.
“Pour me a little of that wine, will you?”