The Lighthouse on Blueberry Bay: Women's Fiction Romance

Chapter 1

Muriel stood in front of the bathroom mirror of Le Manor’s ladies’ room. Today marked her and Zack’s five-year anniversary and her twenty-fifth birthday. All the signs had been aligned for that exact moment—the flowers, her favorite restaurant, and his nervous behavior. Not to mention the call from the jewelry store he had declined while they were hanging out.

Muriel had been waiting for this moment, this exact moment, ever since she got her first Ken doll at Christmas back at age six. She was certain Zack was going to propose, and she’d done everything to be picture ready.

She had bought a brand-new dress with her bonus check that her meager teacher salary could not afford, but Zack’s soon-to-be-an-associate-at-the-law-firm salary would. She’d gone to the nail salon and gotten both a pedi and a mani. She’d gotten a blowout, but then decided to tame it down before leaving with Zack. She’d “happened” upon a bottle of champagne and had it chilling in the fridge. She had candles set all around Zack’s apartment.

This had to be the night.

Zack would propose on her twenty-fifth birthday. He knew she’d wanted to get engaged by now. Initially, he had wanted them to finish college. Then, he’d wanted to go to law school, which she had supported despite not really understanding why she had to wait to get engaged. But here they were now, three years later, one law degree in, and on their fifth anniversary, her twenty-fifth birthday. Everything in her life was aligning at that exact moment.

She’d rather have Paris, but hey, they should start saving for a house.

She pulled out her phone and focused the camera on the mirror. She would memorialize this moment. The last time she was unengaged. It would be the picture she’d show her daughters.

How would they tell their parents?

She applied the perfect amount of rouge lipstick and brushed out her hair with a small traveling comb she carried in her purse. With one last look in the mirror, she left the bathroom and walked back to their table.

Though she expected to see champagne, she saw Zack placing a key on her plate. Not a pretty gold key with a satin ribbon on it or a fancy emblem like a sports car’s key, but a discolored brass key she was certain was dirty.

She sat down, her heart slowing. “What’s this?”

Her mouth dried and the sting of disappointment hit her. He wasn’t proposing.

“It’s a key to my apartment,” he said, taking her hand in his. “I thought we could move in together this summer.”

“You want to move in together?” she asked, removing her hand and picking up the key. “Oh.”

“Oh?” His eyebrows burrowed together as though he were confused. “I thought that’s what we talked about, for when I graduated and landed the job at the firm.”

“When we got engaged,” she replied.

Zack sat back in his chair. Her confusion instantly changed to annoyance. They’d had this conversation multiple times, so that’s why she was confused he wasn’t proposing.

“I can’t propose to you now.”

“What?” Muriel’s eyes widened. “Why?”

“Because I haven’t passed the bar yet.” Zack looked around the restaurant then back to her and in a whisper said, “We’ll get engaged at some point.”

“This isn’t a My Cousin Vinny scenario, is it?” One of her favorite childhood movies would haunt her forever.

“What?” Zack shook his head. “No, Muriel. I’m not willing to get engaged until I know I have a job. I’m going to get fired from the firm if I don’t pass the bar.”

“But the test is in two months, and then you’ll have to wait to hear about the results.” She didn’t understand why he was making such a big deal out of it. “I love you now as much as I’ll love you in five months.”

“Why not just move in together?”

She didn’t understand why he had to wait. “Because I want to be engaged to be married before I move in with anyone.”

“Why is it that important to you?” he said, shrugging. “I love you. What’s a ring going to do?”

She instantly thought of her mother. The ring had done nothing to keep her father around. Not that she worried about Zack cheating on her like her father had with her mother. Zack was too concerned about following rules and procedures to worry about finding a mistress. But why was he always dragging his feet?

What’s so bad about being engaged? “Why are you pushing this further out? We’ve been together for five years.”

He’d asked her out on a date for her twentieth birthday. They’d both been juniors at the University of New Hampshire. They both wanted to have two kids and a dog. They both wanted to live on the seacoast. They both wanted to start a family together. But he kept pushing things off. How long would she have to wait?

“I just got out of law school,” he said. “I want to be able to enjoy that for a little bit.”

His apartment wasn’t even big enough for the both of them.

“What about moving back to Portsmouth?” They both had lived in the seacoast city for the last year of college. She loved the harbor city and wanted to go back.

Zack shifted in his seat. “I like it here. I like not having a commute. It’s a really nice town.”

“I thought we wanted to start having a family soon?” Her throat started to close.

And that’s when everyone else’s conversations around them drowned out Zack’s silence. She sat there for a long time not saying anything. It suddenly became so terribly obvious, and Muriel couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it until now.

They didn’t want the same things anymore.

“I don’t think I can do this.” She dropped her arms around her stomach because she was about to get sick.

“Do what?” Zack asked.

She didn’t want to put the words out there in the universe, because there was no going back, but she couldn’t revolve her life around what Zack wanted. “Us.”

“Come on, Muriel,” he said, and she thought she saw an eye roll.

“I can’t sit around waiting for you to be ready.” She could see things so clearly now.

“Are you giving me an ultimatum?” He sat back in his chair. “Because I don’t want to have to get engaged.”

“No, I don’t want that either,” she said softly. She didn’t want to force him to be ready.

She looked down at her dress. He hadn’t even noticed how much of an effort she had put in. He had no clue what she wanted, and was she even sure she knew what he wanted?

She picked up her purse, unable to sit there any longer, her heart tearing apart. “I have to go.”

Zack dropped his phone onto the table, letting it thud just loud enough to show his irritation. “What about your birthday dinner?”

He pulled out a box from his pocket. Had she made a big mess for nothing?

Dropping it on top of the key, he stared at her, waiting for her to open it.

From the flat, rectangular shape, she was certain it wasn’t that engagement ring she had hoped for.

“Good night, Zack,” she said, pushing back her chair and leaving the gift on the table.

“Muriel, stop,” he said after her, but he didn’t get up or beg for her to stay. He just crossed his arms like a father dealing with a child’s tantrum. “Come on, we’re supposed to go out with our friends after this. What will I tell everyone who came out for your birthday?”

“That you don’t want to marry me,” she said. She had told all their friends what she’d been expecting.

She couldn’t make it from the table before she could feel the sting in her eyes. She hurried through the tight restaurant and cut through the bar. Businessmen and women sat together having drinks; families having dinner.

How had she been so wrong? Three years of law school. All the engagement parties and weddings they had attended. Most of their friends were buying houses and starting families. He’d said they would get engaged once he found a job, not pass the bar. He had a job. Five years of waiting for him to be ready, and he still wasn’t.

When she got outside, she looked down at her high heels. Her car was at Zack’s apartment and that was over a mile away. Her apartment was farther. The small city had Ubers and Lyfts on Friday and Saturday nights, but on a Thursday? The closest ride would be over a half hour wait. She started walking up the capital’s street toward the center of the city, passing the different restaurants filled with people enjoying the warm summer night. She would go to Zack’s apartment and grab her car.

She turned back to the restaurant where she had left Zack, but he wasn’t running after her or sending any texts.

Her chest squeezed like a noose was wrapped around her rib cage. How could he sit there and act like getting engaged hadn’t been the plan? She was certain he had noticed how excited she’d been for her birthday. Hence the key on her plate. He knew he needed to present her something to keep the relationship going.

He knew she wasn’t going to wait forever. Or did he?

At the corner of Main and Pleasant, she stopped and looked inside a store window. It was a wedding shop she had visited time and time again while her friends went bridal shopping for their weddings. She had tried on so many bridesmaids dresses, but never a wedding dress. She had been afraid to jinx her chances of an engagement by trying on dresses prematurely.

Five years she had waited for that dress.

Her phone pinged with a message.

Happy birthday! Call when you’re done with dinner.

Her sister had texted with a kissing emoji. Cora would tell her she told her so. She had been telling Muriel for years not to wait around for Zack.

Five years!

Unable to contain her emotions, her eyes welled up, the dress wobbling in the window.

“He’s not worth it,” a man said, passing by her.

She jolted, making the tears fall down her face and off her chin. Quickly wiping the moisture away, she pasted a smile on her face and pretended to laugh. “Ha-ha.”

He stopped and looked at her, putting his hands in his pants pockets.

“I saw you in the restaurant and wanted to make sure you’re alright,” he said, looking her over.

She didn’t know what to do or say, and she kept checking to see if Zack would pop out of the restaurant. “I’m fine.”

This made the man shake his head. “If he isn’t running after you, he doesn’t deserve you.”

Was this man for real right now?

“Have a nice night.” She turned in the opposite direction, about to go the long way to Zack’s place.

“Sorry,” he began as she walked away. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

But she had taken off, mortified this man had witnessed one of her worst moments.

She checked behind her to see if the man was still looking and that was when she saw him. Zack walked out of the restaurant and checked his phone. With his head bent down, he began typing with his thumbs. Then he stuffed his phone into his pocket and walked up the street toward another restaurant.

Her phone never received any messages. He wasn’t going after her or going home.

Zack was going out without her.

Barefoot, Muriel cried all the way back to her car and drove straight to her apartment. She snuck inside without her roommates noticing and cried as silently as she could into her pillow. For the rest of the night, she studied all the pictures Zack somehow managed to get tagged in on social media. Picture after picture of “their” friends and him hanging out.

No one even seemed to notice that his girlfriend of five years, their supposed friend, was missing on the night of her birthday. No texts from the other girlfriends or wives asking where she was. No texts from their mutual friends telling her about Zack acting sad or unusual.

She threw her phone aside. Five years of waiting. Five years of promises of, “soon.” Five years for what?

Nothing.

All that time following his dreams, putting off her own, of her loyalty and love to possibly miss her chance to find the one.

She’d thought Zack was her one. But she had just wasted time.

“Muriel?” Her roommate Hannah knocked on her door. “I thought you were going out tonight?”

“I’m not feeling well,” she said, trying to hide that she was crying. “I think I might have gotten food poisoning.”

“Do you need anything?” Hannah asked.

“No, no, I’ll be alright,” Muriel choked out.

“If you need to talk about anything…” Hannah let the words drag out. By the tone in her voice, Muriel could tell Hannah must already know something. She spoke like someone who was giving condolences of bad news. Oh, dear Lord. Had he told people and they still looked like they were having a good time without her?

“I’m okay,” she said.

She grabbed her phone and opened the app. Had he already marked himself as single?

She looked at a group photo. All their friends had wrapped their arms around one another. Zack sat in the middle of the group, holding up his drink with the rest of them. Were they only his friends? Had she just been the girlfriend who had tagged along?

She looked around the cramped apartment bedroom she had rented to live near him while he’d gone to law school. She had moved from her favorite place, Portsmouth, to live in Concord, New Hampshire, a small capital city where nothing happened after six PM. All for what? To live with strangers who were probably bummed she’d come home tonight?

Worse, they knew she’d thought she was going to get engaged. She’d be this pathetic story everyone would talk about. Everyone would know what happened to her within hours, and the small city would feel even smaller. Tiny in fact, since she would see Zack out and about with their friends. She wouldn’t be able to avoid him.

She needed to get out of there, but where would she go?

She could go to her mother’s house. The five-hour distance to her mother’s cottage in Maine from New Hampshire seemed perfect.

She dialed her mom’s number.

“Did you say yes?!” Meredith squealed into the phone.

Muriel broke down the second she heard her mother’s voice.

“What’s going on, Muriel?” Meredith asked, concern lacing her words.

“I broke up with him,” Muriel sobbed out.

Meredith sucked in a breath. “What happened?”

“I need to get out of New Hampshire,” Muriel cried. “I need to get out of this tiny apartment.”

“Come home, Muriel,” Meredith said. “Come home.”