Love in Maine (18 page)

“It meant that I would walk down Main Street in my pajamas, barefoot. In February.
To buy a pack of cigarettes. It meant that I was a screaming, blubbering mess when
my husband drove his car into a telephone pole and was pronounced dead on arrival
at the hospital, and I had to be sedated because I pretty much lost my mind. It meant
that Hank more or less had to raise himself, because his father and I were so far
gone down the path of our addictions that we barely even knew when he was awake or
asleep.”

Maddie was crying, and Janet got up and grabbed a few sheets of paper towel and handed
her one.

“You can’t think any less of me than I think of myself. Of how I was then, at least.”
Janet took a deep breath, then continued. “I feel okay about myself now.”

“I don’t know what to say, Jan. I’m just so sorry. It must have been so hard on . . .
everyone.”

“On Hank, you mean?” Janet had wadded up the paper towel and put it against the corner
of her right eye and then her left. She smiled and tried to laugh. “This isn’t the
celebration I had anticipated for this weekend! We need to quit all this moping and
focus on the real issue. What did you get Hank for his birthday?”

Maddie’s head shot up. “What? When is it?”

“Oh. He is so bad. He didn’t tell you, did he?”

“No. But I guess I didn’t ask, either. Is it today?”

“No,” Janet said. “It’s tomorrow, but I thought maybe the four of us could go out
tonight, and then I figured Hank would probably rather go out, you know, just the
two of you, tomorrow night. Or . . .”

“Oh.” Maddie was embarrassed again. As much as she and Hank had slid into a happy
routine, they never really made any plans. On the few occasions that Maddie had offered
to babysit for Sharon, Hank had come along with her. Neither of them were inclined
to spend money on fancy dinners or going to the movies, when they could be in bed
for free. Maddie tried to shrug it off. “I mean, maybe he has plans. We haven’t really
talked about anything specific.”

The engine of Hank’s truck interrupted their conversation. He flipped off the engine
and was in the kitchen a few seconds later. No more hanging his head over the steering
wheel, that much was certain.

“Hey, you two!” He reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a soda. He shut the
fridge door and leaned against it with an easy smile as he opened the soda tab. He
took a sip, then slowed down. “Who died?”

“Oh cut that out. I was just telling Maddie that it was your birthday, and maybe we
should all go out and celebrate, with Phil, and you, and Maddie . . .”

Maddie nearly cringed, sensing the way Janet had almost said “double date” and hurled
them all into a pit of embarrassment.

Hank shut down. No expression. No comment.

“Or not,” Janet added.

Maddie took another sip of her iced tea and stayed quiet. She heard her father’s stern
patrician voice in her mind: “You don’t have a dog in this fight.”

Hank took another sip of his soda and stared at his mother. “Why do you keep trying
to get us to go out with you and Phil? It’s not like you’re going to marry the guy
or anything.”

The silence fell like that hammer at the high-striker game at the carnival.
Bam.

“Yes, it is like that.” Janet stared back. “I thought you’d be happy for me.”

If Hank could have leaned farther into the solid metal of the refrigerator, he looked
like he would have. “Sure.” He cast the word aside like it was nothing. “Sure, I want
you to be happy, Mom. That’s great.”

Maddie was going to start crying again. She’d never really gotten on her knees and
given thanks for the fact that her parents actually loved each other in that totally
secure way. Coming and going. Passing each other with quick nods or a quick phone
call, but always together at the end of the day, tucked into their chairs in the den,
talking over their days and looking up when one of their four children happened into
the room for one reason or other. No violence. No secrets.

Well, probably some secrets, Maddie thought. But nothing like this. Nothing that hurt
like this. She took another sip of her iced tea to swallow the lump of emotion in
her throat.

Hank finished his soda, rinsed it out in the sink, then put it into the recycle bin.
“So, you guys have a good weekend. I’ll see you later.” He walked out the back door,
and the screen door closed with a quiet slap against the frame.

Maddie was frozen solid.
You guys?
What the hell was that supposed to mean? Did he mean just Janet and Phil or was he
lumping Maddie into their little party?

“That went well,” Janet said.

Picking up her glass of iced tea and taking it to the sink, Maddie tried to think
of something appropriate to say. It wasn’t really one of those things that was covered
in an Emily Post chapter like “How to Decline a Tea Party.” It was a tad awkward that
the first thought that popped into Maddie’s head was, “Hate to dash off, but I want
to go have sex with your son to make him feel better about you getting married.”

Maddie turned to face Janet. “I’m really happy for you.”

“Thanks, sweetie.”

“Have you set a date?”

“Oh, nothing like that. No. Phil’s going to try to tell his mother and see if she
is well enough to leave the home for an afternoon, and then he needs to check with
his two daughters over in Brattleboro. That’s where they were raised, where his wife
was from. Probably early next summer.”

“Oh. Okay. Well. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you get ready or
anything.”

Janet looked winsome. “You’ll be back at school by then, sweetie, but thank you.”

“Yeah.” Maddie took a very deep slow breath. Back at school. So what was she doing
standing in this woman’s kitchen when the man she wanted to spend every spare moment
with was stewing in his own confused mess of feelings a few yards away?!

“So. I think I’m going to go up and see how Hank’s doing. Do you mind?” Maddie was
pointing up toward the garage in a stupid gesture, as if Janet didn’t know which direction
the garage was.

“Yes. That’s a good thing.”

Maddie squeezed Janet’s shoulder as she walked past. “It’s all going to be good.”

Janet smiled, but she looked at Maddie with a skeptical gaze.

A few minutes later, Maddie knocked lightly, then opened the door to Hank’s apartment.
He never locked it during the day, and she’d gotten in the habit of knocking and coming
in at the same time. This time she felt like she should have waited for him to answer
before she barged in.

She stayed there, resting the palms of her hands against the shut door behind her.
Hank was at his drafting table, hunched over some drawings and using a ruler to make
some straight lines.

“Hey,” Maddie said.

“Hey.”

“Can I come in?”

“You’re in already.”

“But I can go. Seriously, Hank. Look up just for one second. Do you want to be alone
or are you kind of hoping I’ll hang around until you finish what you’re doing and
we can order some Chinese food and watch a movie and fool around on the couch?”

He didn’t look up, and she could feel him just seething over there in the corner.
The light was beautiful, streaming into the space. The bright white paint on all the
woodwork, all the effort he had put into making this place simple and beautiful and
plumb.

As long as he didn’t tell her to leave, she was staying. Maddie walked over to the
refrigerator and grabbed a beer.

“You want a beer?” she asked over her shoulder.

“All right.” He muttered it reluctantly, but at least it gave her an excuse to walk
over and touch him. That kitchen departure down there had been brutal. Her body had
started humming the minute his truck was on their street. By the time he’d walked
in with that big happy smile on his face, she’d barely been able to sit in her seat.

And then he’d left.

Of course she was feeling all emotional from everything Janet had told her, but her
body, her physical self, was becoming a demanding, forceful thing.

“Here you go.” She held out the beer for him. Hank reached up to take it from her
without taking his eyes off the complicated engineering blueprints he was making.

She didn’t release her hold on the bottle. He tugged on it once more.

“Look at me, handsome,” she whispered.

Hank looked up at her and she almost collapsed. His eyes, those beautiful dancing
green eyes, were dark and frightened. So sad and confused and tormented.

Maddie pushed her way into him, forcing his swivel seat so she could spread his thighs
apart and slip into his personal space. She let go of his beer bottle, and he took
a sip. He kept his head down, but he didn’t push her away. She let her free hand loop
around his neck, then leaned in and kissed his neck, right near his ear, where she
knew it turned him on the most.

“I missed you today . . . it got so bad . . .” She kept kissing him and touching his
neck.

“Maddie . . .” He was still a mess. She could hear that his voice was still strained,
but if she could pull him out of it, out of that terrifying locked-off place, she
was going to do it. And if it meant that she was seducing him and it was just a surface
solution, a short-term fix, then so what? Maybe the short-term fixes would start happening
more often. And then they wouldn’t be fixes, they would be Hank coping with the natural
waves of feelings that were going to keep cropping up in his life.

Hank took her beer out of her hand and put both of the bottles on the coffee table
behind him. “Come here . . .” He pulled her into his hard stomach with both of his
strong, needy arms, and Maddie felt like she was part of him, part of something amazing
and real. They went into the bedroom a few minutes later and he made love to her with
a silence and tenderness that left her weeping.

“Don’t cry, Maddie, honey.” He was wiping the tears from her face and kissing the
skin where the tears had left shadowy tracks.

Do not tell him you love him right now!
The voice in her head was so loud she was amazed he couldn’t hear it too, or see
it in her glassy expression. He had so much passion and drive and beauty in him, and
it was all clogged up in there. Except for these incredible, isolated moments when
he was with her like this.

“Okay,” she tried. “I won’t. I’m fine, really.” She was smiling, and the tears had
abated. “That was just . . . really great.”
Right
, that practical voice in her brain encouraged,
make it about how good he is in bed.
But it was so unlike anything she had ever said—or ever would say—that Hank looked
suddenly skeptical.

“What?”

Oh, great. Now she had to backpedal, because never in a million years would she pat
a guy on the back and tell him what a tiger he was in the sack. Perfect. “I just meant,
it was a long week, and it felt really good to be, you know, together.” At least that
was true, if still a ridiculous bunch of meaningless words strung together to get
him to stop looking at her like that.

She shifted into a more upright position and gave him a friendly shove on his chest.
“Come on. I’m fine. I want some moo-shu pork and a couple of Tsingtaos. Let’s order.”
Maddie sprang off the bed and pulled on her sweaty running shorts, then her jogging
bra. “Let me run back and take a shower and change into sweats, and we can drive down
to Ming’s. Sound good?”

He was still lying there like a naked, satisfied beast, taking her in, when he said,
“Did you just have your way with me?”

She put her hands on her hips and smiled with the right half of her mouth. “Maybe
. . . You have a problem with that?”

He shook his head no. “Happy to oblige.”

Maddie leaned down and kissed him gently. “You are so accommodating.”

She scooted out of his reach before he could pull her back into bed. “Order dinner
so it’s ready when we pick it up!” she called up to his window as she sped down the
stairs. Janet wasn’t in the kitchen, but Maddie didn’t want to take any chances, so
she darted up the stairs and bolted into her bedroom to take a shower and switch into
clean clothes before heading back to Hank’s to spend the night at his place.

It went on like that for all of August. No plans. No dates. No mentions of birthdays
or weddings. And certainly no mention of first days of school or last days of summer
jobs.

Finally, Maddie couldn’t stand it anymore and asked if he wanted to go camping or
off to a lodge or something for her last weekend. She might have said “our” last weekend,
but she was trying not to be overly analytical. It was hard enough
not
saying ‘I love you’ every second that it popped into her mind, which was every time
he got out of the shower, or stepped out of his truck, or kissed her in the middle
of the night when he wasn’t even awake, and he so obviously loved her back, but neither
of them were ever going to say it. Because what would be the point?

“Sure. If you want. We can go camping or to a hotel in the mountains or something.”
He wasn’t dissing her exactly, but he wasn’t looking up from the diving magazine he
was reading, either.

“Okay. Can I go on your computer?”

He looked up. “Sure. You don’t have to ask permission, you know that.”

Maddie had gotten into the habit of logging onto her e-mail at his place on Sundays,
to send the weekly all-is-well e-mails to her parents and her brother Jimmy. “Okay,
let me see if I can find any last-minute specials. What are you in the mood for? Ocean?
Mountains? Lake? City?”

He looked up. “City?”

“I don’t know . . . Boston might be fun . . . Go to a baseball game, ride the T, get
drunk and stay in a really expensive hotel and not care.”

He kept staring at her. “I choose city. I want to see you with skyscrapers in the
background.” Hank went back to reading his magazine, as if nothing had happened. When
he’d basically just told her that he wanted those memories as badly as she did.