If Only
If Only
2019
I f only the water were deep enough.
Ebby imagines herself diving back into the river and swimming away. Instead, she is forced to stand here, on the riverbank, as Henry Pepper sweeps an arm toward the main house. Henry Pepper, with his long, thick forearms and walnut-colored hair. Henry Pepper, with those gray eyes. Henry Pepper, with his duplicitous ways. He smiles, now, as if they are just old friends, running into each other after a long while.
“So, this is your place?” Henry says. Ebby is slow to respond. She can’t get over the fact that this is the man who abandoned her. A man who is about to check in to the guesthouse that Ebby is managing, and with another woman, no less. Ebby steals a glance at the blond woman, who has caught up with them at the riverbank and has her hand on Henry’s arm. Ebby runs through a quick list of fitting comments in her head, every one of them a cussword.
“No, this is a friend’s vacation house,” Ebby says. She resists the urge to say, You remember my friend Hannah, don’t you? The one who flew all the way from England for our wedding? But no, Ebby will not mention that day. She will not debase herself in front of this other woman. Instead, she says, “My friend asked me to let you in. But I didn’t know it was you. I was expecting a…Cha….” Ebby shoves a hand into the pocket of her gardening smock. She has the name saved in her phone.
“Chastity Williams?” says the other woman.
“Yes,” Ebby says, frowning.
“That’s me. Chastity Avery Williams.”
“Uh, yes,” Henry says, turning to look at his companion. “Ebby, this is Avery. Avery, this is…”
“Ebony Freeman, right?” says Avery.
Oh, merde, thinks Ebby. She recognizes the tone in Avery’s voice. She’s heard that tone for much of her life.
Here, in middle-of-nowhere France, is yet another person who has formed an image of Ebby before they’ve even met her. Someone who knows who Ebony Freeman is, what happened to Ebby as a child, and what Henry Pepper did to her last year.
Ebby wonders how Henry explained away that little episode to this new woman. Or, could it be that this woman is the reason why Henry disappeared that day? Ebby could never be with a man who had done something like that. She grabs a quick up-and-down glance at Henry. She tries to forget their history together and think of him as someone else might see him.
Well, yuh.
With Henry’s looks, his job, and a family like his, he was bound to creep back onto someone’s list of most eligible bachelors. Ebby takes a good look, now, at Avery. She notes the set of Avery’s shoulders, the neat arch of each honey-colored eyebrow as she tilts her head to the side to look up at Henry. Avery looks so settled in herself. As if she knows she belongs wherever she goes and can have whatever she wants. Just like Henry. Of course. Someone like Henry would have been on the wish list of someone like Avery from the get-go.
“So, what are you doing all the way over here?” Henry says.
“Same thing you’re doing here, I suppose,” Ebby says. “Taking a break from Connecticut.” Some break, she thinks. How in the world did Henry end up in this town? She and Henry had talked about taking a trip to Paris, maybe even Nice, but not this part of France. But Henry didn’t make the reservations, did he? It would have been Avery. And how did she know about this place?
“I’d never even heard of this town,” says Henry, as if hearing Ebby’s thoughts. “But then Avery found out about it from somewhere.”
Wait, was this Ebby’s doing? When Hannah came over for the wedding, Ebby encouraged her to leave promotional cards about her vacation rental wherever she went. Hannah left cards in cafés, antique shops, and bookstores . Of course, Ebby thinks. Of course.
“So, you’re here,” Henry says. “You and, uh…?” He looks around as if expecting someone else to appear. Ebby looks at him steadily but keeps her lips pressed firmly together. Henry’s clearly fishing. Why would he even bother? Is he feeling guilty? Would he be relieved to think that Ebby has found another relationship already? Well, Ebby has no intention of going down that road with the man who ghosted her on her wedding day. Ebby blinks slowly and ignores the question. She points toward the rear of the building.
“Here, follow me,” Ebby says. She leads Henry and Avery around the back of the building to the guest cottage, where she has left a set of keys inserted in the front door lock. Ebby takes the keys and holds them up, focusing on Avery and trying not to look at Henry.
“So this key is for the front door,” Ebby says. “The other one is for the back.” She hands the keys to Avery and walks ahead of her into the cottage, trying not to smile at Avery’s exclamations.
“Look at this place,” Avery says. “Hard to believe this was once a barn. Look at these appointments, Henry. The track lighting. The skylights. Large windows. With screens! We’ll be able to enjoy the smell of lavender and rosemary but keep the bees and mosquitoes out. And look at those luscious floor rugs. That glorious ray of sunshine crossing the patio.”
This Avery woman is good, Ebby thinks as she points out the coffee maker and shows her where the extra linens are kept. Avery is acting as though she hasn’t just met the woman her ex was supposed to marry. As if their aborted engagement hadn’t been all over the local news last fall. And she talks like a real estate agent. Could she be a real estate agent?
Out of the corner of her eye, Ebby can see that Henry is nodding at Avery. Why is Henry nodding? Ebby was hoping he would come up with a quick excuse to reject the cottage. Clear out of here right away. Move on to some other town. But this is Hannah’s house and Ebby is supposed to help Hannah’s guests feel comfortable. She wishes Hannah were here with her right now. Maybe Hannah would tell her this is just a bad dream, this isn’t really happening.
This isn’t really happening, is it?
“You can leave the keys in the mailbox,” Ebby says, “if I’m not around when you leave.” She takes care to stride slowly toward the front door, keeping her neck and back looking relaxed but confident. Appearances matter, she hears Granny saying. She does a half-turn, now, and throws them the obligatory parting line: “If you need anything in the meantime, just let me know. My mobile number is on that piece of paper over there.”
She points at a cheat sheet stuck to the refrigerator. She is hoping they’ll get the hint. Don’t knock on my door. Don’t call. Text me instead. Even better, do your own thing and leave me out of it. There is one moment, just a moment, when Ebby dares to look directly at Henry again. She sees him standing there before her with that other woman at his side and hears the roar of memories and resentment rushing into her head. Suddenly, she feels rooted to the spot. Literally unable to move or breathe. Until she hears the distant trill of a phone in the main cottage. The sound of it grabs her by the collar and pulls her out of the flood of panic.
“That must be the house phone,” Ebby says. She knows who it is, too. There is only one person who ever calls the house. An elderly man who rings her every couple of days with the same damn question. Ebby really doesn’t want to speak to him right now, but she is immensely grateful for the interruption.
“The house phone?” Avery says. “Someone actually uses their landline? How quaint.”
Henry chuckles. Henry always was easy to amuse, generous with his laughter, Ebby thinks. Ebby used to love that in him. But now Henry is being generous with another woman. He has chuckled at Avery’s thoroughly predictable quip.
Really, Henry? Really?
The phone keeps ringing, but Ebby needs to stop for a moment and steady herself. She closes one hand over the back of a chair. She imagines pulling it from under the kitchen table and smashing it against Henry’s chest. She wouldn’t mind seeing Henry suffer a bit. She wouldn’t mind seeing a few splinters of wood sullying the blue cotton of Henry’s oxford shirt. Maybe a spot of blood, seeping out of a scratch in his skin and into the weave of the fabric. Well, that’s an improvement. Ebby used to think she might run him down with her car if she happened to see him out walking somewhere.
“I’d better get that,” Ebby says, tipping her head in the direction of the main house and the sound of the phone. Without looking at Avery, she can sense the other woman’s shoulders relaxing. Ebby turns again and walks out, slowly, trying not to show how eager she is to leave. By the time Ebby gets back to the main house, the ringing has stopped.
As she closes the kitchen door behind her, Ebby feels her entire body trembling from the unexpected encounter with Henry. Or is it because she’s still soaked from the river? She steps out of her rubber boots, takes off the straw hat, pulls off her drenched gardening smock, and walks over to the hallway mirror. Her cherry-colored curls looked better this morning. Sideswept and springy. Confident. Now they are flattened in the middle where the hat has been sitting, calling to mind the image of a clown, the red tufts of hair sticking straight out over each ear, flanking a downturned mouth.
Ebby changes into dry jeans and is blotting her wet hair with a towel when the house phone rings again. This time, she ignores it until it stops. It won’t be the last time he calls, she’s sure of it. The caller is always looking for some guy named Robert. She has no idea who this Row-BEHR person might be. Hannah has never mentioned him. If the man keeps calling, she’ll try to find out more, but not today. She is not in the mood.
Ebby plops down at the kitchen table to sip at a cup of tea, trying to get back to that peaceful feeling she had before Henry showed up in the village. She hears a door slam. She moves over to the window and watches as Henry and Avery walk along the river, toward the footbridge that crosses into the park. They are ambling across the bridge, now, Avery’s arm hooked in Henry’s. How dare they amble! Ebby gives a short laugh at her own thinking. But trying to make fun of this ludicrous situation doesn’t take away the sting.