Love and Death in Blue Lake (8 page)

A cluster of women shared a cigarette, and the buzz of their drunk conversation stopped the minute she entered the room.

“You tell Eddie we were smoking, and I’ll yank your hair out.”

God. High school just looped and looped again.

“Stop it, Char.” Another of the group stood up for her. Surprise, surprise. “We were just saying how romantic it is, you and Eddie together again.”

“We’re not.”

“We heard you’re still married.”

“It’s complicated. I’m, uh, excuse me.” She went into a stall and threw up. Sure, the women thought she was drunk, but she knew morning sickness when she felt it.

She came out and someone handed her the empty wine glass. She’d been knocking them back all right. “Guess I better stick to water.” She gave a feeble chuckle and rinsed out her mouth, using a disposable toothbrush.

Everyone laughed and that was that. Until…“Linda saw you. She’s Mark’s girlfriend. He owns the canoe business on Sapphire River.”

Courtney felt queasy. She just wanted to leave and find some soda crackers. Edward probably had them in the kitchen.

“He doesn’t bring women there. It’s his hideout. But you were there last night. Really late.”

She didn’t have to say anything. “Excuse me,” was the best she could do, slipping out the door as more people jammed in the bathroom.

She went into the kitchen, closed for the night, and found oyster crackers. She munched in the dark. Just a few. She should leave. But she wanted to see him so bad. Felicity found her.

“Why are you hiding out in here? You used to love to dance.”

“Still do. Feeling a bit rough at the moment.” She held up the individual-sized crackers.

Felicity’s eyebrows raised, but she didn’t comment. She didn’t ask where Eddie was, either. It was after midnight. Would he even show? To his own party?

“You still live around here?” Courtney vaguely remembered Felicity. They’d been friends in grammar school, and then Felicity faded, just as everyone except Edward had.

Felicity laughed. “Brooklyn. New York.”

The opening chords to
the
anthem of 1992 played. She’d read it was about Kurt Cobain’s girlfriend’s deodorant. She didn’t care. It had spoken to her then, it spoke to her now.

Felicity grabbed Courtney’s crackers and tossed them on the counter. She grabbed Court’s hand and led her out of the kitchen and onto the dance floor, even though this song was not a great one for dancing. It went from slow and dreamy to screamy, but Courtney knew every lick, every beat, every time she needed to move an arm or swing a hip, and so did Felicity. They grinned at each other, mirrors. Some of the class formed a circle around Felicity and Courtney and clapped along, giving up on trying to keep time to such a weird beat. Felicity whipped her long hair and Courtney did a slow shimmy, moving her body up and down to the chorus. How low—she’d show them how low she could go.

The singer looked impressed from behind his microphone. That used to be Edward up there. Now he mentored these kids, his protégés.

After the song, people laughed and clapped and the singer came down off the stage. “You have to be Courtney.” He still had his mike clipped on, and the crowd roared with approval. Huh, tide turns. Courtney glowed, not from the praise of her classmates, but because Edward had told his band about her. In enough detail that they’d picked her out easily. Courtney laughed and nodded and introduced Felicity and slipped off to the sidelines. Too much attention always made her uncomfortable, and she figured it was time to go. She was all out of small talk.

Felicity came over after the singer got mobbed. “That was fun.”

“It was. Thanks.” Dancing was one way she lost herself. Didn’t feel on display. Just felt her body in its elemental state.

“I have to tell you or I’ll hate myself, but I always admired you when we were kids. You always knew what you wanted. You never compromised. You’re the reason I moved to New York to pursue journalism.”

“You are kidding me.” Courtney felt confused. “I was the class joke.”

“Not to me. And not to a lot of people.”

“That was because of Edward.”

“No, Courtney.”

Felicity had always been scary smart. She should listen to her. “I wish you still lived here.”

“Yeah, heard you bought Doc’s house. Just for summer or full time?”

“I don’t really know. It was an impulse. Honestly, I still can’t believe it.”

“Well, your mom is over the moon.”

Felicity’s mom and Courtney’s mom were friends. That’s how the girls had gotten to know each other as toddlers.

“Still a journalist?”

Felicity laughed. “No, not really. I freelance a bit. But mostly I’m a mom. That’s why Brooklyn and not Manhattan.”

Courtney heard the last word but didn’t. Because Edward had just walked in the door with a guitar strapped to his back. And he was with Ruby. She had her guitar, too. And Lily was suddenly there, filming it all.

****

His staff, his regulars, his former school chums, all wanted a piece of him, but Courtney was all he could see. She only had eyes for her daughter. “Ruby, where have you been?” She ran and hugged the girl to her, and the two of them stood whispering. Eddie snapped out of it and went back where he belonged. Behind the bar. Which is where he’d been when Ruby had ambushed him earlier.

His band, the guys he’d been helping get their act together, called out to him, and he had a faint awareness of the sound. The smells of the bar itself were the usual crushed peanut and spilled beer and sweat aromas that were like a heady perfume to his nostrils. But her. She eclipsed everything. Even with a thick wood bar between them. He went over, meaning to talk to the lead singer of the Angry Angels, but it was like he had entered her spotlight and now it was just the two of them on the barn wood dance floor, their gazes locked. Even Ruby drifted out of his consciousness for a minute, until he realized that’s why he’d said yes to her earlier. Because he couldn’t let go. Not of Courtney. It hurt to be with her, but being with Ruby was easy. She was so like Courtney. Ruby giggled at the lady from the grocery store, obviously drunk, who came up and said, “Oh how sweet, the little family reunited at last.” Every word she said meant the exact opposite. That much was clear to Eddie. Courtney was about at the end of her patience. She was going to run out of calm in about two seconds. He tried to think of words to help, but Courtney surprised him. She turned to Ruby, said, “Behave,” then took Eddie’s hand. It seemed natural to lead her out to the dance floor.

From the corner of his eye, Eddie saw Ruby move his guitar case under a table and order what he hoped was a ginger ale from a server. After the dance with Courtney, he would take Ruby up on the stage and together they’d play “Lusitania.” She had to make her public debut sometime, and Eddie thought she was ready. Then he remembered he hadn’t played in public since Courtney left town eighteen years ago. No matter. She was in his arms now, and at this moment, that’s all that mattered.

****

Courtney held on to Edward as tightly as she dared with all the eyes in the building trained on them, including Ruby’s. She wanted to get mad at Edward and say he should have called, but she couldn’t. He had his arms around her, and that’s where she wanted to stay. Forever if possible. Could it be? Had he changed his mind? Would he be okay with her baby? It felt like it. Especially when her heart cracked open and out spilled a lifetime of love, right on the dance floor.

“Where were you two?” she said into his ear, not caring that people stared, not caring that they thought they knew her words.

“She showed up here, then we went to my place to practice for
American Prodigy
.”

Courtney sighed. She knew about that dream. And her mom had mentioned guitar lessons for Ruby. Just not who would be giving them.

“She said she had permission. Anyway, she’s a lovely girl, Court. You did a really good job.”

Courtney laid her head on Edward’s shoulder. If she just lived in this moment forever, everything would be okay.

But then the song was over, and the stage was her daughter’s and Edward’s. He must have been playing regularly because he sounded flawless and so did Ruby. They harmonized on a song she didn’t know as if they’d been singing together for a lifetime. The crowd roared. The Angry Angels looked impressed with Ruby.

After the song, some kind of spell was broken. Ruby was tired and wanted to go home. Too many people and too many shallow conversations made Courtney want the same. Edward was distracted with his band and his bar and his friends. Mother and daughter slipped away undetected.

On the ride home, Courtney was silent until Ruby said, “He loves you, Mom.”

“Now, honey, stop that. There’s a lot you don’t know.”

“So tell me.”

“I will. Just not tonight.”

Chapter Five

Courtney thought she’d see Edward Saturday before the reunion, and maybe they’d talk or spend some time together, but that didn’t happen. She didn’t hear from him. He needed space. She had to give it to him even though it was the hardest thing she’d ever done. What was wrong with her?

She lay in a hammock in her mother’s back yard reading a book of poetry and let it fall on the grass when she read the final line, “I have wasted my life.” Had she wasted her life? The one she should have lived with Edward? Had he realized it already, and they could never get it back?

A woman can never say, when she has a child, that’s ever a wrong turn or a waste. Children are gifts. Life’s most precious.

Still, if she stayed, he’d have to pay attention to her.

The mystery was why she’d waited so long. Just stubborn maybe, waiting for him to come to her. And he never did. So they were both stubborn. Or just living their lives. Their other, parallel lives. It seemed incredible to her now that there was ever a time when she forgot about him, expected to live out her entire life never seeing him again, never touching him again. But now, she’d been given this opportunity, and maybe it was the time to put things right. She felt it. Even though everything was all wrong and the timing could not be worse, she believed in Edward. In the two of them.

So where was he? The fact that he obviously adored Ruby should show him he could love the baby too. She knew she expected a lot from people. From Edward. From Xander. She expected Xander to walk away from a life he’d carefully planned. She expected Edward to step right in. Edward. He was all she thought about. What was he doing right now? Busy at his bar, maybe. But not one little text? He might be enjoying tormenting her.

He might be playing her, paying her back, then when she said yes, when she told Xander all was over, when she announced to her family she and Edward were still married and were giving it another shot, only then he’d say, “Kidding, bitch.”

He had a right. Well, maybe not a right as a decent human being, but she wouldn’t blame him for wanting revenge. Hardly anybody was a decent human being all the time. She wasn’t. Look at her now, ready to leave Xander, leaving him, taking their baby. She had thought about telling him she’d miscarried. This early in the pregnancy, it happened all the time. But he’d demand tests. Could she abort? She didn’t think so.

She was so confused. She should go over to the house and pitch in on the cleaning, although her folks were so elated she was moving back to Blue Lake they’d hired a team of professionals to clean and handle minor repairs on her new home and probably she’d just be in the way.

Her phone rang and her heart popped. Edward?

“Is this Doctor Fass?”

“Yes,” she answered automatically.

“Hi, I ah, I hear you have a new practice here in Lakeland County, and I wondered if I could make an appointment.”

“I am setting up shop in Blue Lake, but things aren’t quite ready. Maybe call back in a few weeks?”

“But, but…” The woman began to cry. “Can we just talk? I went to school with you. Sharon Patterson.”

“Oh, Sharon, hi.” She didn’t think Sharon had been at the bar last night. But maybe. Early. Yes. And then she’d left in tears. Without her husband, who seemed totally unconcerned.

“Can we meet for coffee or something? Off the record? And then maybe I’ll need you. I think I do. It’s hard right now. Please say yes. I’m desperate.”

Courtney invited her over. Just old friends (they never really were) having coffee and talking. Mom made coffee and set out a plate of cookies. She offered the back porch. Courtney thought about high school and last night and her social anxiety. People thought she was stuck up, thought herself too good for the town, but that wasn’t it. She was just better one on one or in a creative collaboration. Those were the areas where she shined. So this would be fine.

Sharon was a mess when she came screeching around the corner in her sports car.

Her mascara was running down her cheeks, and her eyes were bloodshot. She looked like she hadn’t slept in a week.

After they both sat, Courtney in a chair facing Sharon on the sofa, Courtney said, “You didn’t stay long at Eddie’s last night. Did something happen?”

“No. Yes.” Sharon cried quietly into a tissue. “I couldn’t face people. I feel like such an ass. Like everyone knows but me.”

Courtney’s mom had supplied a box of tissue which Courtney nudged in Sharon’s direction. The one she held to her face was in tatters.

Sharon grabbed a fresh tissue and blew her nose with alacrity. Like she’d decided something. Still, she didn’t talk. Courtney tried again. “This is just between us, as friends. I’m not saying anything to anyone. Tell me in as few words as you can if the whole story is too difficult.”

“He, my husband, I saw him put his hands on another man’s ass last night. I wasn’t drinking. I didn’t imagine it. He was loaded, so I was driving. Plus we have three kids. I needed to be sober to deal with the babysitter and my littlest is just two.” Now that she’d started, the story poured out. “We’ve been married ten years. We have a great sex life. He’s a little crabby sometimes, and he does lots of stuff with his buddies, but…” More sobs.

“Okay. That is a tough one. Did you talk to him about it?”