Chapter 11 #2
But she was hungry and tired after spending all day wandering around, and she felt like eating her favorite comfort food, scrambled eggs and toast. Resolutely, a little defiantly, she got out the eggs a local farmer delivered every Monday morning and cracked two into a bowl.
She was living here. She should be able to make herself a meal.
And she’d talk to Juliet about contributing to the grocery bill and paying rent.
Feeling both better and worse at the thought, she made herself eggs and toast and ate them at the kitchen table, gazing out at the sheep fields, thinking about Andrea and Eva, about Dan Trenton and Mary from the beach café, and, yes, about Alex Kincaid.
All of them with sorrows and stories to tell.
She’d cleaned up everything, wiped the counter and stove top until they gleamed, and even inspected the sink drain for bits of egg, when Juliet came in. Her narrowed gaze took in the kitchen, the plate Lucy was about to load in the dishwasher, and absurdly, she felt guilty.
“I was just thinking,” Lucy said, her voice sounding a little too loud, “that I should contribute to household expenses. And I’ll pay rent.”
Something flashed across Juliet’s face but was gone before Lucy could figure out what it was. “That sounds like a good idea,” she answered tonelessly, and Lucy swallowed.
“So if you think of an appropriate amount . . .”
“I think one hundred pounds a month should cover both bed and board.”
“Okay.” Lucy had seen a sign in the post office shop advertising a room for rent for a hundred pounds a week.
Juliet was being generous, even if it didn’t feel like it.
“Great. I’ll . . . get a bank account, I guess.
” She hadn’t even organized how she was to be paid at school. “When would you like me to . . . pay?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Juliet replied, her tone both flat and brisk. “Whenever you get around to it.”
“Okay.” And then, because it was painfully obvious they had nothing more to say to each other, Lucy started upstairs. The last thing she heard was the sound of Juliet closing the dishwasher she’d left open.
Juliet was out with the dogs when Lucy left for school the following morning; it was another crisp and sunny day, and her spirits lifted at leaving Tarn House—and, she had to admit, at seeing Alex again.
Would he be different towards her, now that they’d had a coffee together and could, perhaps, consider themselves friends?
That question was answered when Alex stalked by reception without so much as a glance at her, or even his usual muttered hello. Lucy felt the expectant smile fade from her face as Alex disappeared into his office, shutting the door behind him with a very firm click.
Okay, so maybe they weren’t friends. Maybe he’d just had a difficult morning. Still, a hello would have been nice.
Moodily Lucy started up the computer and watched the first trickle of pupils come up the hill. She could hear their excited chatter and laughter, and something inside her twisted and ached.
She’d wanted that once. A husband. Children.
An actual family, something she’d never experienced.
She’d tried to find it with Thomas and his sons.
She’d met the boys first, two towheaded imps who had come into the gallery café and careened wildly around, arms out as they pretended to be airplanes.
Thomas had come in after, looking handsome and harassed, and something in Lucy’s heart had squeezed.
She’d made the boys chocolate milk shakes with extra whipped cream and sprinkles, and chatted to them—they’d been to the Boston Aquarium and their father was a professor at boring Harvard—while Thomas had sipped an Americano and had looked, in retrospect, quite self-consciously wryly self-deprecating.
Still, Lucy had fallen for it. She’d fallen for the whole package: the adorable, if a bit wild, boys, the winsomely nerdy academic father, the image of the four of them spending lazy Sunday afternoons on Boston Common.
She’d served Thomas another Americano on the house (actually it had come out of her wages) and listened to him drone on for half an hour about eighteenth-century politics (most boring subject ever), and then his cell had rung and he’d spoken tersely to someone named Monica, who Thomas had explained after the call was his nasty ex-wife.
Actually, Lucy remembered, he didn’t call her nasty.
He just implied it while insisting that he couldn’t speak badly of her because of the boys.
The boys, Lucy had suspected then, had easily understood the subtext. She’d been the only one off in la-la land, feeling sorry for Thomas and his virtually motherless children, and thinking how she could come in and heal everyone and everything.
“Lucy?”
She jerked out of her reverie to see Alex standing in the doorway of the reception area.
“Yes?”
“The photocopier in the staff room needs paper. Would you see to it?”
“Yes, of course.” She stared at him, willing to say something about Saturday, but he looked as purposeful and indifferent as ever.
She watched him disappear back into his office and wondered just what she’d been expecting. For Alex to perch on the edge of her desk and ruffle her hair as they shared some nonexistent in-joke?
Well, not quite.
Actually, sort of.
With a groan Lucy buried her head in her hands.
She was so ridiculous. Her insistent sense of optimism verged on fantasy—about Thomas, thinking that their relationship was actually going somewhere; about Juliet, thinking they could reconcile; and even now about Alex.
But she wasn’t going to make the same stupid mistake again.
She wasn’t going to fool herself into thinking they were flirting or even friends simply because he’d bought her a cup of coffee.
And anyway, she was here for only four months and as she was coming out of a long-term relationship, she had no intention of dating or even flirting with anyone for a long time.
She heaved herself out of the chair and went to find the paper for the photocopier. She’d get that right this time, at least.
The rest of the morning passed uneventfully save for two scrapes at playtime—a tearful Year One followed an hour later by a stoic Year Five who had bloodied both elbows pretty badly but was determined not to cry.
It wasn’t until Lucy had applied the ice pack and filled out the accident report that she realized it was the boy she’d seen at the top of the village, kicking his soccer ball.
“Hey, you,” she said, and wagged her finger at him. He looked as nonplussed as when she’d said hello.
She stuck her tongue out as a reminder, and after a second’s stunned pause he gave her that cocky grin back.
“I can tell you’re trouble,” Lucy teased. “What’s your name?”
“Oliver.”
“Oliver from Year Five. I’m going to keep my eye on you.” She was only teasing, but she watched as Oliver’s grin slid off his face and he gave an indifferent shrug. Then he slipped from the stool, jamming his hands in the pockets of his gray flannel trousers.
“Can I go out again, miss?”
“Yes, just keep those elbows protected.” Lucy watched him go, frowning. Then she swiveled around to her computer and checked the attendance records she’d been logging in every day. Oliver Jones in Year Five had been late every day since school had started.
She stared at the record for a moment, wondering what was going on, and then glanced up as Diana came into the office with her afternoon attendance log.
“Two children out for dentist appointments.” She noticed Lucy’s frown with one of her own. “What’s wrong?”
“I was just noticing that Oliver Jones has been late every day this term.”
“Ah, Oliver.” With a weary sigh Diana braced her shoulder against the doorway. “Poor little lad.”
“He seems like a cheeky little so-and-so to me,” Lucy answered, and Diana nodded.
“He is, but it’s hard on him. His father works on the oil rigs in the North Sea for eight months of the year, and his mother . . .” She hesitated, and Lucy waited “His mother gets depressed,” Diana finally said. “Sometimes she can barely make it out of bed of a morning.”
“And no one can help?”
“Neighbors help out when they can, but in a place like Hartley-by-the-Sea . . .” She paused, her gaze faraway. “Most people know when to step in and when to butt out.”
But he’s nine, Lucy wanted to say. Instead she just nodded. Her mother hadn’t suffered from depression, but Lucy had gotten herself to school most mornings. She knew what it was like not to be able to depend on your mother.
Lucy was still thinking about the boy an hour later when she took a rather terse phone call from someone at Cumberland Academy for Alex.
She put through the call and leaned forward to see Alex at his desk through the glass, his brows drawn together in a frown, the phone receiver pressed to his ear. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes before hanging up.
Lucy threw herself back into her chair and he came into the reception area a few minutes later.
“Lucy.”
She looked up, smiling brightly. “Yes, Mr. Kincaid?”
“You can call me Alex, you know. I have to leave school for about half an hour. If anyone rings, please take a message.”
“Of course.”
“Thank you.” She watched him head out into the school yard, saw something tired and defeated about the set of his shoulders as he walked towards the staff car park, and wondered all over again what that phone call had been about.
Half an hour later Alex returned with a very sulky preteen in tow.
The girl slouching into the school behind him was beautiful, although you wouldn’t necessarily notice that first off.
Her dark, silky hair was covering half her face, and her black school blazer was far too big, with the tie worn loose and the skirt quite short.
She gave Lucy a deliberately bored look, and Lucy saw that the girl’s eyes were a lovely, clear hazel. Her Cupid’s bow mouth was painted an unfortunate fire-engine red.