women, and why, in her case, at least, she always had to be the one to smooth things out, make things work. I’m just as tired and hungry as he is, she thought resentfully. And I didn’t exactly ask to be mixed up in all this.
She thought it was reasonable enough that Tom had been moody and preoccupied since they’d left the ferry terminal. Jane had emerged from the ladies’ rest room to find him hunched over the pay phone, his face looking like a thundercloud. She’d figured he was probably checking in with his superiors, or headquarters, or whoever it was he answered to, filling them in on the latest developments in the case of the missing…whatever it was. Which couldn’t have been very pleasant for him. In any case, she’d given him a wide berth.
And when he’d finally joined her, she’d tried hard to be cheerful and positive, making light of their situation. laughing about the moments following their discovery in the back of the moving van, barefoot and blinking, breathing hard and clinging to each other like orphaned babes in the woods. And it
As for what had happened between them in those minutes just before Isaac had rolled back the door of the van…well, Jane wasn’t any more eager to talk about that than Tom was. At least not then. Not now. She was still too shaken; she knew she’d experienced some sort of trauma-to her body and soul, her emotions, her heart-but it was too soon to tell what the consequences were going to be. For now, she just wanted to guard and protect the wounded parts of herself as best she could.
Meanwhile, she was good, had always been good, at pretending things were normal when they were anything but, at smiling and making friendly conversation and going on as if nothing had happened.
But it had happened. Oh, it had. And she was becoming weary of carrying on the charade all alone.
The restaurant they’d chosen, of the many that lined the only highway on the island, was called Teach’s Pub, a reference, Tom told her, to the notorious pirate Blackbeard, who’d supposedly been killed somewhere near here. A casual, friendly and well-lit place, it was busy on a Saturday night even in the off-season, with people calling out to each other and a basketball game going on a big-screen TV. The smells of good things cooking made Jane feel a little faint.
“Okay?” Tom asked her as they were settled at a table, with menus spread in front of them and a promise of coffee to come.
Already hungrily poring over the menu, Jane wasn’t sure whether he was asking after her own well-being, or for her approval of the table. She looked up, smiling vaguely, and nodded-and found that he was meeting her eyes for the first time since they’d left the back of the moving van. Her heart shuddered and began to pound.
Okay? No, she wanted to say, of course I’m not okay. You idiot. You jerk. You dropped a hand grenade into my life, and I will never be the same.
“I wonder if they have she-crab soup here,” she murmured, diving back into the menu.
They didn’t, of course, so she ordered clam chowder instead.
“Is that all?” Tom asked her while the waitress hovered. “I promised you a seafood dinner.”
“You
Tom ordered a medium-rare steak and French fries. “I’m not big on seafood,” he explained in response to Jane’s raised eyebrows. “Never have been,”
“Funny,” she said thoughtfully as she watched the waitress walk away with the menus tucked under her arm, “that you live on a boat.”
“I wasn’t after the fishing.” She looked at him, drawn by the growl in his voice, and found that he was staring fiercely out the window now, at the jumble of umbrella tables on the deserted deck. “I was looking for a particular life-style, is all. Simple. Uncomplicated. Uncluttered.”
“Solitary,” murmured Jane.
His eyes flicked at her. He shifted uncomfortably as he reached for his cigarettes, looking around for No Smoking signs. Jane slid the table’s ashtray over to his side, saying nothing. After he’d lit his cigarette and smoked in silence for a few minutes, he transferred that passionate glare to her and said in a cracking voice that might have been blamed on the smoke, “My wife had died.”
Having already guessed as much, she only nodded and said softly, “You wanted to get away from the memories.”
He didn’t reply. The waitress bustled by, dropping a basket of rolls on their table in passing. Jane took one and buttered it, bit into it with a sigh. Tom smoked on in silence. Intensely aware of him, Jane chewed and swallowed, discovering only then that her throat already had a lump in it. Damn him, she thought, furious. Damn him.
She looked away, her eyes pricking with the tears she couldn’t allow herself to shed. She wondered if he’d done it deliberately, picking a time and place for such revelations when emotions could not be allowed to run rampant.
Almost as if he’d heard her thoughts, he broke that charged silence with a cough and said, “About what happened-” Jane made a reflexive motion of protest, which he overrode by increasing the intensity, not the volume, of his voice “-between us, back there…”
“It’s okay,” said Jane faintly. “I understand.” Is it better, she bleakly wondered, or worse, talking about it like this, in a crowded, well-lit place? If we were somewhere in private, would I fall apart? Make a fool of myself? Again?
Blessedly, the waitress arrived with coffee just then. Jane doctored hers with artificial sweetener and creamer and made a neat pile of the trash, conscious all the while of Tom’s brooding presence across the table, and of his expression, black as the brew steaming unheeded before him. She wondered how she would swallow past the lump that was still wedged in her throat, and whether her hand would shake when she lifted her mug.
“I don’t-” he said, just as she began, “I know-” And it was she who paused and said politely, “Go ahead.”
He looked at her for a moment, and she thought she’d never seen eyes so intense. Then he smiled unexpectedly, his mouth slipping awry in that poignant and so familiar way of his, and he shrugged and said, “That’s just it-I don’t know what to say.”
Jane laughed. Unevenly. I don’t dare pick up my coffee, she thought. My hands will shake and I will spill it for sure. Lightly, she said, “It’s okay, really. I know what you were trying to do. And congratulations-it worked very well. I didn’t get seasick”
He shifted in his chair. “Well, I think there was more to it than that.”
She couldn’t for the life of her think what to reply. It would have been easier, she thought, if he’d just shrugged off what had happened between them in the van, made nothing of it. Pretended it hadn’t mattered. And then, perhaps, she could have done the same.
Heat engulfed her, setting her cheeks on fire. Don’t do this, she pleaded silently.
“I think I got a little carried away,” he said, lopsidedly smiling.
“1 think we both did.” Jane lifted her mug and, supporting it with both hands, lowered her mouth to the rim. She closed her eyes as fragrant steam misted her hot cheeks and sweet warmth filled her insides, and thought that from now on, as long as she lived, she would always remember this particular cup of coffee. Just as she remembered the piece of cherry pie that had been sitting before her when she’d uttered the words, “David, I don’t want to be married to you anymore.”
She lowered her cup and smiled brilliantly at the man across the table. “No big deal. Completely understandable, under the circumstances. I consider my honor unsullied, and I promise not to cringe and blush every time I look at you.”
“I sure wouldn’t want that.” And studying her, he added with unexpected and devastating softness, “I’d really miss your smile.”
“Here you go,” the waitress trilled, blowing in like a nor’easter, dispersing the sultry, weighted atmosphere that had settled over them with gusts of good cheer and wonderful fragrances. And as she briskly deposited plates and bowls in their proper places and left them with instructions to “Enjoy your meal!,” Jane thought what a relief it was, for a time, to have to deal only with a hunger so uncomplicated, and so easily assuaged.
