Chapter Six
Six
As anyone familiar with the Washington State Ferries system knew, ferry delays could happen at any time for a variety of reasons, including rough seas, low tides, onboard traffic accidents, medical emergencies, or maintenance issues. Unfortunately a “necessary repair to a vessel safety feature” was being given as the reason for a delay on the Sunday afternoon departure.
Having arrived an hour early to get a decent place in the long parking lanes leading to the ferry landing, Mark was left with time to kill and nothing to do. People were getting out of their cars, letting their dogs out, wandering to the terminal building to get refreshments or magazines. It was overcast and misty, an occasional cold raindrop breaking through.
Feeling restless and moody, Mark walked toward the terminal. He was starving. Shelby hadn’t felt like going out for breakfast that morning, and all she’d had in the apartment was cereal.
It had been a good weekend with Shelby. They had stayed in and talked and watched movies, and on Saturday evening they had eaten Chinese takeout.
A breeze whipped directly from the Rosario Strait, bringing a clean salty scent, slipping into the collar of his light jacket like cold fingers. A shiver chased down his neck. He breathed deeply of the sea air, wanting to be home, wanting…something.
Entering the terminal, Mark headed toward the café, and saw a woman lugging a weekend bag to a nearby vending machine. A smile tugged at his lips as he saw her long streamers of red hair.
Maggie Conroy.
Thoughts of her had lurked in his mind all weekend. In idle moments, scenarios of how or when he might see her again had played in jaunty loops. His curiosity about her was relentless. What did she like for breakfast? Did she have a pet? Did she like to swim? When he had tried to ignore these questions, the fact of having something to ignore had made it all the more persistent.
He approached Maggie from the side, noticing the frown notched between mahogany brows as she studied the contents of the vending machine. Becoming aware of his presence, she looked up at him. The cheerful, quirky energy he remembered had been replaced by a vulnerability that went straight to his heart. He was caught off guard by the force of his response to her.
What had happened during the weekend? She’d been with her family. Had there been an argument? A problem?
“You don’t want any of that stuff,” he said, with a nod toward the array of glassed-in junk food.
“Why not?”
“Not one item in that vending machine has an expiration date.”
Maggie scrutinized the display as if to verify his claim. “It’s a myth that Twinkies last forever,” she said. “They have a shelf life of twenty-five days.”
“At my house they have a shelf life of about three minutes.” He looked into her dark eyes. “Can I take you to lunch? We’ve got at least two hours, according to the ferry agent.”
A long hesitation followed. “You want to eat here?” she asked.
Mark shook his head. “There’s a restaurant down the road. A two-minute walk. We’ll stow your bag in my car.”
“There’s nothing wrong with having lunch,” Maggie said, as if she needed to reassure herself of something.
“I do it nearly every day.” Mark reached for her overnight bag. “Let me carry that for you.”
She followed him from the terminal building. “I meant, the two of us having lunch. Together. At the same table.”
“If you want, we could sit at separate tables.”
He heard a laugh stir in her throat. “We’ll sit at the same table,” she said decisively, “but no talking.”
As they walked along the side of the road, the mist thickened into a drizzle, the air white and wet. “It’s like walking through a cloud,” Maggie said, drawing in deep breaths. “When I was little, I used to think that clouds must have the most wonderful taste. One day I asked for a bowl of cloud for dessert. My mother put some whipped cream in a dish.” She smiled. “And it was just as wonderful as I had imagined it would be.”
“But did you know at the time that it was only whipped cream?” Mark asked, fascinated by the way the mist had provoked little wispy curls around her face.
“Oh, yes. That didn’t matter, though…the idea of it was the point.”
“I have problems trying to figure out where to draw the line for Holly,” Mark said. “In the same classroom where she’s learning that dinosaurs were real, they’re also writing letters to Santa. What am I supposed to tell Holly about what’s real and what’s not?”
“Has she asked about Santa yet?”
“Yes.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I said I hadn’t decided one way or the other, but a lot of people believe in him, so it was okay if she wanted to.”
“That was perfect,” Maggie said. “Fantasy and make-believe are important for children. The ones who are allowed to use their imaginations are actually better at drawing the line between fantasy and reality than those who aren’t.”
“Who told you that? The fairy who lives in your wall?”
Maggie grinned. “Smart-ass,” she said. “No, Clover wasn’t the one who told me. I read a lot. I’m interested in anything having to do with children.”
“I need to learn more.” His voice turned quietly rueful. “I’m trying like hell to avoid ruining what’s left of Holly’s childhood.”
“From what I can tell, you’re doing fine.” On impulse she caught at his hand, her fingers squeezing lightly in a gesture meant to reassure and offer comfort. Mark was pretty sure that was the way he was supposed to interpret it. Except that his hand closed over hers and turned the spontaneous clasp into something else. Something intimate. Possessive.
Maggie’s grip loosened. Mark felt her indecisiveness as if it were his own, her unwilling pleasure in the way their hands fit together.
The press of skin to skin, such an ordinary thing. But it had set the axis of the entire earth off-kilter. He couldn’t seem to assess how much of his reaction to her was physical and how much was…other. It was all tangled together in a way that was new and visceral.
Maggie tugged free.
But he still felt the imprint, the shape of her fingers, as if his pores had begun to absorb her.
Neither of them spoke as they went into the restaurant, the interior fitted with polished dark wood, ancient scarred furniture, and wallpaper of indeterminate design. The air was scented with food, liquor, and slightly mildewed carpet. It was one of those restaurants that had undoubtedly been established with good intentions, but had gradually succumbed to the inevitability of a certain amount of tourist business, and had relaxed its standards. Still, it was a decent enough place to pass the time, and it offered a view of the strait.
An indifferent waitress came to take their drink orders. Although Mark usually drank beer, he ordered a whiskey. Maggie ordered a glass of house red, and then changed her mind. “No, wait,” she said. “I’ll have whiskey, too.”
“Straight?” the waitress asked.
Maggie gave Mark a questioning glance.
“She’ll have a whiskey sour,” he said, and the waitress nodded and left. By this time Maggie’s damp hair had renewed itself into buoyant zigzagging curls. He could easily become obsessed with them. Clearly any attempt to ignore his attraction to her was doomed. It seemed that everything he had ever liked in a woman, including things he hadn’t even been aware of liking before, had been arranged in one perfect bouquet.
Before the waitress left, Mark had asked if he could borrow a pen, and she had given him a ballpoint.
Maggie watched, brows lifting slightly, as Mark wrote something on a paper napkin and handed it to her.
How was your weekend?
A smile crossed her face. “We don’t really have to follow the no-talking rule,” she told him. Setting the napkin down, she stared at him while her smile faded. A short sigh escaped her, as if she’d just finished a sprint. “The answer is, I don’t know.” Making a little face, she gestured with palms turned upward, as if to indicate that the issue was hopelessly complicated. “What about yours?”
“I don’t know, either.”
The waitress arrived with the drinks, and jotted down their lunch orders. After she left, Maggie took a sip of the whiskey sour.
“You like it?” Mark asked.
She nodded at once and licked the salty tang from her lower lip, a delicate flick of her tongue that made Mark’s pulse jump in several places at once. “Tell me about your weekend,” he said.
“Saturday was the second anniversary of my husband’s death.” Maggie’s dark gaze met his over the rim of the glass. “I didn’t want to be alone. I thought about visiting his parents, but…he was the only thing we had in common, so…I went to stay with my family. I was surrounded by about a thousand people all weekend, and I was lonely. Which makes no sense.”
“No,” Mark said quietly, “I understand.”
“The second anniversary was different from the first. The first one…” Maggie shook her head and made a little gesture with her hands, a sort of sweeping-away motion. “The second one…it made me realize there are days when I forget to think about him. And that makes me feel guilty.”
“What would he say about that?”
Hesitating, Maggie smiled into her whiskey sour. And for a moment Mark experienced an appalling stab of jealousy over the man who could still elicit a smile from Maggie. “Eddie would tell me not to feel guilty,” she said. “He would try to make me laugh.”
“What was he like?”
She drank again before answering. “He was an optimist. He could tell you the bright side of just about anything. Even cancer.”
“I’m a pessimist,” Mark said. “With occasional positive lapses.”
Maggie’s smile slid into a grin. “I like pessimists. They’re always the ones who bring life jackets for the boat.” She closed her eyes. “Oh. I’m getting a buzz already.”
“That’s okay. I’ll make sure you get back to the ferry.”
Her hand had crept across the table. She let the backs of her half-curled fingers touch his, a tentative gesture that Mark didn’t know how to interpret. “I talked to my dad this weekend,” she said. “He’s never been the kind of parent who told me what to do; in fact, I probably could have done with a little more parental supervision while I was growing up. But he told me that I should go on a date with someone. A date. They don’t even call it that anymore.”
“What do they call it?”
“Going out, I guess. What do you say to Shelby when you want to spend the weekend with her?”
“I ask if I can spend the weekend with her.” Mark turned his hand upward, opening his palm. “So are you going to take your dad’s advice?”
She nodded reluctantly. “But I’ve always hated the whole process,” she said feelingly, staring into her drink. “Meeting new people, the awkwardness, the despair of being stuck with someone for an entire evening when you know within the first five minutes that he’s a dud. I wish it was like Chatroulette, and you could ‘next’ someone right away. The worst part is when you both run out of things to talk about.” Without realizing it, Maggie had started to play with his hand, absently investigating the crooks of his fingers. He felt the pleasure of her touch all along his arm, responsive chords resonating along nerve pathways.
“I can’t picture you running out of things to talk about,” Mark said.
“Oh, it happens. Especially when the person I’m talking with is too nice. A good conversation always involves a certain amount of complaining. I like to bond over mutual hatreds and petty grievances.”
“What’s your top petty grievance?”
“Calling customer service and never getting to talk to a person.”
“I hate it when waiters try to memorize your order instead of writing it down. Because they hardly ever get everything right. And even if they do, it causes me a lot of stress until the food gets to the table.”
“I hate it when people shout into their cell phones.”
“I hate the phrase ‘No pun intended.’ It’s pointless.”
“I say that sometimes.”
“Well, don’t. It annoys the hell out of me.”
Maggie grinned. Then, seeming to realize that she was toying with his hand, she flushed and pulled back. “Is Shelby nice?”
“Yes. But I tolerate it.” Mark reached for his whiskey and finished it with an efficient swallow. “My theory about meeting people,” he said, “is that it’s better not to make a really good first impression. Because it’s all downhill from there. You’re always having to live up to that first impression, which was just an illusion.”
“Yes, but if you don’t make a great first impression, you may never get the chance to make a second one.”
“I’m a single guy with a paycheck,” he said. “I always get a second chance.”
Maggie laughed.
The waitress brought their food and collected their empty glasses. “Another round?” she asked.
“I wish I could,” Maggie said wistfully, “but I can’t.”
“Why not?” Mark asked.
“I’m barely sober.” To demonstrate, she crossed her eyes.
“You only have to stop when you’re not sober,” Mark said, and nodded to the waitress. “Bring another round.”
“Are you trying to get me drunk?” Maggie asked after the waitress had left, giving him a mock-suspicious glance.
“Yes. My plan is to get you drunk and then take you on a wild, crazy ferry ride.” He pushed a glass of water in her direction. “Drink this before you start on your next one.”
While Maggie sipped the water, Mark told her about his weekend with Shelby, and her list of things a man did when he was ready for commitment. “But she wouldn’t tell me the fifth thing,” he said. “What do you think it is?”
As Maggie considered the possibilities, her face went through a series of adorable contortions: a crinkling of the nose, a squint, a brief gnawing of her lower lip. “House-hunting?” she suggested. “Or talking about having children?”
“God.” He grimaced at the thought. “I have Holly. That’s enough for now.”
“What about more later?”
“I don’t know. I want to make sure I’ve done right by Holly before I even think about more kids.”
Her gaze was sympathetic. “Your life has changed a lot, hasn’t it?”
Mark searched for ways to describe it, feeling awkward in his desire to connect with her. He had never been given to confiding in others, had never seen the point in it. Receiving sympathy was one step removed from being pitied, which to him was a fate worse than death. But Maggie had a knack of asking questions in a way that made him want to answer.
“You look at everything differently,” he said. “You start thinking about what kind of world you’re going to send her out into. I worry about what kind of subliminal crap she’s getting from TV, and if there’s cadmium or lead in her toys….” Mark paused. “Did you want kids with…him?” He found himself reluctant to say her husband’s name, as if the syllables were invisible shims being tapped into place between them.
“Once I thought I did. Not now, though. I think that’s one of the reasons I love my store so much—it’s a way to be surrounded by children without having the responsibility.”
“Maybe when you get married again.”
“Oh, I’ll never get married again.”
Mark tilted his head in a silent question, watching her closely.
“I’ve done it once,” Maggie said, “and I’ll never regret it, but…it was enough. Eddie fought the cancer for a year and a half, and it took everything I had to be there for him, to be strong. Now there’s not enough left of me to give to anyone else. I can be with someone, but not belong with someone. Does that make sense?”
For the first time in Mark’s adult life, he wanted to hold a woman for unselfish reasons. Not in passion, but to offer comfort. “It makes sense that you would feel that way,” he said gently. “But that may not last forever.”
They finished lunch and walked back to the ferry terminal, the rain so light and slow that you could practically see suspended droplets in the air. You could feel the sky pressing downward. The world was painted in shades of steel blue and pale gray, with Maggie’s hair holding an intensity of red beyond red, every lock an inviting sine wave finished in a neat coil.
Mark would have given anything to play with those striated curls, to fill his hands with them. He was tempted to reach for her hand as they walked. But casual contact was no longer an option…because there was nothing casual about the way he wanted her.
Maybe his attraction to Maggie was simply a result of having just made a commitment to Shelby, and his subconscious was trying to find an escape route?… Stay on course, he told himself. Don’t get distracted.
Their conversation was temporarily interrupted by the necessities of driving the car onto the ferry and finding seats on the main passenger deck. After that they occupied the same bench, talking about everything and nothing. Their occasional silences felt like the peaceful interludes after sex, when you lay there steeped in sweat and endorphins.
Mark was trying hard not to imagine sex with Maggie. Taking her to bed and doing everything to her, deep-pitched and half speed, improvised, and stretched out, and repeated. He wanted her under him, over him, wrapped around. Her body would be pale, adorned with a few constellations of freckles. He would chart them, trace their paths with his hands and lips, find every secret pattern and shiver and pulse—
The ferry docked. Mark waited on the main passenger deck longer than he should have, reluctant to part company with Maggie. He was one of the last people to go downstairs to the parking lanes and get in his car. The sky was sherbet-colored and streaked with cirrus. He felt, as always, the relief of returning to the island, where the air was easier to breathe, softer, and the brisk tension of the mainland ceased. The shoulders of the passengers waiting on the deck dropped en masse, as if they had all been rebooted simultaneously.
Mark had to return to his car soon, or it would block the entire lane from moving off the ferry, and he would face the justifiable wrath of dozens of drive-on passengers. But as he looked down at Maggie, every cell in his body resisted the idea of leaving her.
“Do you need me to drive you somewhere?” he asked.
An instant shake of her head, red waves swishing across her shoulders. “My car’s parked nearby.”
“Maggie,” he said carefully, “maybe sometime—”
“No,” she said, her smile gently regretful. “There’s no room for friendship. No future in it.”
She was right.
The only thing left was to say good-bye, something Mark was usually good at. This one was tricky, however. “See you around” or “Take care” were too indifferent, too casual. But any indication of how much the afternoon had meant to him wouldn’t have been welcomed.
In the end, Maggie solved his dilemma by removing the need for good-bye. She smiled at his hesitation and set her hand to his chest, giving him a playful hint of a nudge.
“Go,” she said.
And he did, without looking back, descending the narrow steel-lined staircase with echoing footsteps. He felt his heart beating strongly in the place her hand had touched. Getting into his car, he closed the door and fastened his seat belt. As he waited for a signal to pull forward, he had the tugging, nagging sense of having lost something important.