“I will be as soon as you leave.”
“Why did you come to my cabin?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Were you scared? Lonely? What was it?”
She looked in my eyes. “Do you have any idea how much I hate you?”
“No, I don’t,” I said. “Show me.”
She slapped my face. Just like Mrs. Fulton had done, only harder. I caught her arm on the next swing.
“Let go of me,” she said.
I looked down at her. She was close enough for me to smell her perfume, to feel the heat of her body. “I said let go of me,” she said. I didn’t let go.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I opened my eyes. Through the skylight I could see heavy clouds, a single snowflake, then another. To my left, Sylvia’s head on the pillow, turned away from me. I did not know if she was awake.
I got out of bed. I stood there and looked at her. She did not move. When I started to put my pants on, she said, “You’re leaving.” Not as a question.
“I’ll be back,” I said.
She turned to look at me. She kept the covers tight around her neck.
“I’m serious,” I said. “I’ll be back.”
She didn’t say anything.
“I think it’s snowing outside,” I said.
She looked up at the skylight.
“Are you going to be all right?” I said. It was a weak offering, but I didn’t know what else to say.
“No,” she said.
“You drank a lot of champagne,” I said, putting my shirt on. I looked around the room for my shoes and socks.
She sat up in the bed, keeping the blanket wrapped around her body. “Are you going to say anything else? Or are you just going to run away again?”
I sat down on the bed. “What do you mean, again? When did I ever run away before?”
“You always did,” she said. “Every time.”
“That’s because Edwin was usually on his way home, remember?”
“He’s not coming home this time,” she said. In an instant, she had that look in her eyes again. That sudden flame.
“I have to go now,” I said.
“Do you expect me to beg you to stay?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t expect anything.”
I was ready for something painful. A cold silence, more venom, violence. Instead, she just looked down at her hands. “Do you think I married Edwin for his money?”
I didn’t know what to say.
“I suppose you must think that. Did I ever tell you how I met him?”
“No.”
“I had a flower shop in Southfield. I opened the store myself. I guess I wanted to show everybody that I could do it. You know, my family and everybody. I didn’t realize what a tough business it was, but I was getting by. I was doing all right. One day, Edwin Fulton walks in the store. He’s got this suit on that must have cost five thousand dollars. These incredible leather shoes. The works. So right away, I’m thinking, okay, this guy is gonna come on smooth, try to impress me with how much money he has. He comes up to the counter and he asks me what kind of flower would look good in his boutonnisre. Says he’s terrible with colors, he’s got no idea what would look good with his tie. I had these roses from Central America. Real nice, real expensive. I said, here, you probably want one of these. You know what he said?”
“What did he say?”
“He said no, it looks too expensive. It’ll look like I’m showing off. So he buys a big red carnation instead. Seventy-five cents.”
I smiled.
“The next day, he comes back, buys another carnation. And then the next day and the next day. He always seemed like he wanted to talk to me, but I don’t know, he was just shy. Which was weird, because you don’t expect rich people to be shy. Anyway, a few days later, he finally comes in and orders this huge bouquet. Every rose I had in the store. Three hundred dollars’ worth. It took me forever to put it together. When I was finally done with it, he asked me to fill in the card for him. He said, please make this card out to the most wonderful woman who ever walked the earth. Those were his exact words. And of course, I’m thinking, oh God, how original is this? He’s going to make me fill in this card and then he’s going to tell me the flowers are for me. So I’m pissed off, because now he’s just throwing his money away trying to impress me, and I’m going to say thanks but no thanks and end up putting all the flowers back. But that’s not what he did.”
“No?”
“No. They were for his mother. It was her birthday. He could see I was surprised, so he asked me if I thought he was going to give them to me. I said yes, to be honest, that’s what I was thinking. You know what he said? He said when he finally worked up the nerve to ask me out, he’d buy the flowers at another store. That way he could take them back and demand a refund if I didn’t fall in love with him.”
“That’s great.”
She looked up at the skylight. “Do you think he can see us now?”
“God, I don’t know.”
“You should have heard him talk about you,” she said. “He told me you were the best friend he ever had. Did he ever tell you that?”
“Yes, he did.”
“I hope he can,” she said. “I hope he can see us.”
“Why?”
“All that time, he never knew about us,” she said. “I should have told him. Not because I wanted to hurt him. Just because he had the right to know.”
“Maybe some things you don’t want to know.”
“I don’t believe in that,” she said. “I don’t like things to happen to me without knowing why.”
“I suppose I feel the same way,” I said. “That’s why I need to leave now. I’ve got one more thing I need to know.”
She watched me put my coat on.
“Tell me the truth,” I said. “Do you want me to come back or not?”
“No,” she said. “Not yet anyway.”
“Fair enough.”
“I don’t think we can just start over,” she said. “We can’t pretend none of this happened.”
“No,” I said.
She looked up at the skylight again. The snow was beginning to collect in the corners. I sat there watching her.
“Thank you for being Edwin’s friend,” she said.
“I don’t think I did a very good job of that.”
She smiled. It wasn’t much of a smile, but it was the first one I had seen from her in months. “He would have forgiven you anything. Even this.”
I left. I didn’t kiss her. I didn’t touch her. As I drove away, I wondered if I would ever touch her again.
I swung by my cabin, took a shower, changed my clothes, had some coffee. And then I got right back into the truck and gunned it into the Soo. The snow was building into a flurry, but none of it was sticking to the ground
