Butternut Summer (11 page)

“Well, for one, I don't want you coming in here anymore,” she said, gesturing around the coffee shop. “If you need to speak to me again—although I don't think that will be necessary—you can call me here and we can meet. Privately. I'm not giving this town any more opportunities to gossip about us, and that's exactly what they'll do if you start coming in here.”

“And where am I supposed to get my morning coffee?”

“Anywhere but here,” she said, without missing a beat.

He hesitated. “All right, fine. If it makes you uncomfortable, I won't come in here anymore. Unless you invite me in, of course.”

“I won't invite you in,” she said crisply. “Which brings me to the second ground rule, Jack.” She looked down now, away from his dark blue eyes, which she found distracting, and focused instead on the small triangle of bare, suntanned chest visible above the top unbuttoned button of his blue work shirt. But that was distracting, too. So she looked down at her own iced tea, stirring it vigorously with the straw. “I'm seeing someone now, Jack,” she said. “I have been for the last couple of years.”

“I know.”

“You do?” she asked, looking up with surprise.

He nodded. “His name is Buster, right? Buster Caine. He's retired. Ex-military.”

She frowned. “How do you know all that?”

“Daisy told me.”

“Daisy discussed my personal life with you?” she said, feeling another rare flash of anger at her daughter.

Jack saw that anger, and his face fell. “No, Caroline. She didn't. It wasn't like that. That's all she told me. And the only reason she told me that was because I asked, asked if you were seeing anyone, I mean.”

“Well, I still don't like it,” Caroline said, wondering, with irritation, why Jack was probing into her love life.

“Okay. Don't like it. But blame me. Not Daisy.”

She stirred her tea again, but didn't say what she was thinking, which was that as far as she was concerned, there was plenty of blame to go around for both of them. When she started talking again, she could hear the irritation in her own voice. “Well, whatever Daisy told you, Jack, Buster and I have been dating for a couple of years now and—”

“Is it serious?” he interrupted her.

She looked at him sharply, surprised by the question. “That, Jack, is none of your business. But even if it were, I don't think you'd understand my relationship with Buster.”

“Why not?”

“Because it's an adult relationship, Jack, a mature relationship based on mutual respect for each other. I don't think Buster and I have ever even had a minor disagreement, let alone a real argument.” Here she flashed on an image of her shouting at Jack after one of his late nights out, so angry at him she could have throttled him. “Anyway, Buster and I have settled into a routine—again, something you wouldn't know anything about. We see each other every Wednesday and Saturday night. It's something—”

She stopped then, because she'd seen the corner of Jack's mouth twitch up in an involuntary smile.

“What is it, Jack? What's so funny about two grown-ups dating each other?”

“Nothing,” he said, but there was that twitch again. “It's just . . . don't you ever see each other any other day of the week. On a Tuesday maybe? Or a Thursday?”

She glared at him, not least of all because Buster's way of scheduling their relationship had always been a sticking point with her. But she was damned if she'd let her ex-husband see that. “Look, like I said, Jack. I don't expect you to understand this. We're getting off track, anyway. We're supposed to be discussing ground rules, remember?”

“Okay,” he said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “So what's the ground rule about you and Buster?”

“It's . . . it's not a
rule
, exactly. It's just that I want you to be respectful of him. Respectful of
us
. It's a little awkward for him, having you back in town. I think he might feel . . .” She struggled here. She didn't want to give Buster's feelings credence by repeating them to Jack, but then again, they
were
his feelings, however misplaced they might be. “I think he might feel threatened by your being here,” she said. “I told him that was ridiculous,” she added quickly. “That we don't have feelings for each other anymore. But still, he's worried, I think.” She waited for Jack to say something, something about how crazy it was for Buster to worry that they still had feelings for each other. But when he didn't say anything, she glanced up at him.

He was looking at her, thoughtfully, almost gently, it seemed. “Tell Buster that I'll be respectful of him, and of his relationship with you,” he said quietly.

“I will,” she said, feeling disoriented again, this time by Jack's sudden seriousness. “I'll tell him that.”

“Good,” he said. “Now you probably want me to get going.”

“That . . . that would be nice,” she said. “I've got some things I need to do around here.”

“Okay,” he said, reaching for his empty coffee cup.

“Just leave that, Jack,” she said distractedly.

“All right,” he said, pushing his chair back. “But thank you. It was the best cup of coffee I've had in a long time.” Then he smiled at her. He smiled that smile, that slow, I-have-all-the-time-in-the-world-for-you smile she remembered so well. Only this time, she wasn't having it.

“Don't smile that smile at me, Jack,” she snapped.

“What smile?”

“And don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about either,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “I'm not some girl you just met in a bar,” she added. “I know you, Jack; I know you better than you know yourself.”

He looked at her for a long time, an unreadable expression on his face. “I hope that's not true anymore, Caroline,” he said finally, and he got up and walked out the door.

She sat there then, thinking about what he'd said. She didn't understand it; she didn't understand
him
. And she didn't understand herself right now either, because seeing Jack again had dredged up so many old feelings for her. Most of them were easily identifiable—anger, disbelief, exasperation—but some of them . . . some of them were harder to classify.

Why had he come back? she wondered, using her straw to play with the ice cubes in her glass. Why had he
really
come back? And why now? After all this time? “What are you up to, Jack?” she murmured to herself, clinking the ice cubes together. “What in the hell are you up to?”

W
hen Will picked Daisy up for their date that Saturday night, he felt a twinge of guilt.

“You look really nice,” he said, glancing sideways at her as he drove down Butternut's Main Street.
You look too nice to just be going to the town beach
, he added to himself.

“Thank you,” she said, and she smiled shyly and looked out the passenger-side window of his pickup.

“What do you think about driving out to the beach to watch the sunset?” he asked, stealing another look at her. She was wearing a sundress, and her reddish-gold hair was smooth and shiny. As she turned to face him now, it brushed against her bare, creamy shoulders in an especially distracting way.

“I think watching the sunset sounds nice,” she said, smiling again.

He felt another twinge of guilt. “You don't mind that we're just going to the beach?”

“Why would I mind?”

“I mean, you wouldn't rather be going out for dinner?” he asked, thinking about what Jason had said about dating a girl like Daisy.

“Oh, God no,” she said. “The last place I want to go at the end of the day is to another restaurant.”

“I bet,” Will said, and he made a mental note to tell Jason he'd been wrong about Daisy. She was going to be a cheap date after all. No, not a
cheap
date, he amended.
Cheap
wasn't a word he'd associate with her; she was going to be an
inexpensive
date.

They drove in silence the rest of the way out to the lake. When they turned into the parking lot at the Butternut town beach, Daisy drew in a breath. “It's beautiful,” she said, of the sunset over the lake, which was a swirl of pinks, oranges, and reds.
Inexpensive
and
easy to please
, Will thought, sliding into a parking space that faced the water and cutting the engine.

“I come here, sometimes, in the late afternoon for a swim,” Daisy said now. “But it's so different at this time of day, isn't it? Without all the cranky toddlers? And the Popsicle wrappers?” And Will laughed, because he knew exactly what she meant. By day, the beach belonged, for the most part, to families with children, and to their damp beach towels, and soggy swim diapers, their peanut butter and jelly sandwich crusts, and lopsided sandcastles, and their inflatable rafts that refused to stay inflated. Even now, hours after the last stragglers had left, there were still signs of their presence: garbage cans overflowing with picnic remnants, a set of sand toys forgotten by the water's edge.

But as night fell, the beach took on a different quality. It seemed less domesticated somehow—wilder, and more mysterious. A soft wind blew off the lake, carrying with it the clean, tangy smell of deep, green water; the great northern pines that fringed the beach seemed to sway, almost imperceptibly, in that wind, their branches an inky black against the pale pink sky. From across the bay, a loon's call echoed mournfully, and a little eerily, over the water.

“Are we going to get out?” Daisy asked now, a little shyly.

“Sure, if you want to,” he said, even though getting out of the truck hadn't actually occurred to him.

“That'd be nice,” Daisy said. “Do you have anything to sit on?”

“Yeah, I've got a blanket,” he said. “Let's go.” They got out of the truck, and he reached into the backseat for the blanket and a cooler. Then Daisy slipped off her sandals and, carrying them in one hand, walked with Will across the now cool sand.

“How's this?” he asked, stopping about ten yards from the lake's edge.

“It's fine,” Daisy said. Will put the cooler down, and Daisy helped him spread the blanket out on the sand. Then she sat down on it, and he sat down beside her, careful to leave a little space between them.

“Do you want a beer?” Will asked, sliding the cooler open and reaching into its icy depths.

“No, thank you,” she said.

“Oh,” he said, surprised. “Do you not like beer? Because if you don't, I could get something else. A bottle of wine, maybe.”

“That's okay,” she said, watching him twist the lid off his beer bottle. “I don't really drink alcohol.”

“Not at all?”

“Not really. Is that a problem?”

“A problem? No, of course not.” It wasn't a
problem
. It was just that the second part of the night, the part spent in the backseat of the truck, was more or less dependent on the first part of the night. And the first part of the night involved the two of them drinking enough beer to sufficiently overcome whatever inhibitions they might otherwise have toward each other.

“Why don't you drink alcohol?” he asked.

She lifted her pale shoulders in a shrug. “I don't like the way drinking makes me feel.”

“How does it make you feel?”

“Well, my experience with it is pretty limited. But my freshman year, I went to a party and they were serving these little drinks, and they were so sweet, you could barely tell they had alcohol in them . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“But they did have alcohol in them.”

She nodded ruefully. “Anyway, I somehow ended up drinking too many of them. And I didn't like that feeling . . . that feeling of being out of control, I guess.”

“No?” Will said, putting his beer down. “Because some people get to like that feeling.”

“Well, I don't think I'll ever be one of them,” she said with a frown, her blue eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly. And then Will frowned too, because it occurred to him that the second part of the night might not actually happen.
Score one for Jason
, he thought, taking another sip of his beer.

“How's your dad doing?” he asked, feeling like a change of subject was in order.

“He's doing okay. Better than my mom's doing, anyway. She's furious.”

“At you or at him?”

“At both of us,” Daisy said with a little sigh.

“But you're not mad at him, are you?” Will asked, suddenly interested.

She looked at him, in surprise, and then thought about it. “No, I'm not mad at him,” she said. “Not really. Not anymore. I was, at first, when he got in touch with me again. But that was a year ago. We've talked a lot since then, about why he did what he did. And while I haven't
completely
forgiven him—I don't know if you can ever do that, really—I think maybe I understand him, and maybe even . . . admire him a little. Especially for coming back here.”

“Why would you admire him for that?”

“Why? Well, because leaving is easy, Will. But coming back? Coming back is hard.”

Will thought about that while he took another drink of his beer and watched the sun hang just above the horizon on the opposite shore of the lake. He'd never thought about leaving here before. It wasn't because he wanted to stay, necessarily, but because he didn't give the future a lot of thought, the future or the past. It seemed better—safer—to stay in the present. Repairing engines. Shooting pool. Coming to the beach . . .

“What about your parents, Will?” Daisy asked.

He tensed. Why was she asking him about his parents? But then he realized it was for the simple reason that he'd asked her about
her
parents. “Umm, my mom's not around,” he said, vaguely. “And my dad's around somewhere. But we're not . . . we're not in touch with each other.”