Package Deal (53 page)

He saw the pain in her eyes.
Is she thinking it’s over between us?
H
e
approach
e
d
h
e
r, but
th
e
waving of
h
e
r hands
told
him not to com
e
closer
as
t
e
ars
began to slide
down
h
e
r ch
ee
ks.

“Pl
e
as
e
go.
We can talk more when we’re at the workshop.
I hav
e
work I hav
e
to
finish
and C
e
c
e
is suppos
e
d
to b
e
h
e
r
e
any minut
e
.”

As if on cu
e
, th
e
door op
e
n
e
d
and
the
child
walk
e
d
in. Wh
e
n sh
e
saw
him
standing there and
h
e
r moth
e
r’s t
e
ars,
sh
e
turn
e
d
and glared
at him
.

“You mad
e
h
e
r cry.
Stay away from us
!” sh
e
shout
e
d
.
“
I don’t like you anymore!
”
Wh
e
n
Cecelia
push
e
d
him t
oward
th
e
door, h
e
was surpris
e
d
at how strong sh
e
was.

“Cece. Stop. Right now.” Amanda’s face was a study. “That was uncalled for. You will apologize to Marcus. You know better than that!”

Cecelia refused to look at her mother.
When she glanced in his direction, Marcus thought he saw re
sentment
in her eyes, but she was silent until her mother grasped her arm and
gave
it
a quick shake
.

“Cece. Apologize
. Now.
”

In the smallest of voices, with no hint that she meant it, the child said, “Sorry.”

He reached out to touch Cecelia’s shoulder then thought better of it. “Apology accepted.”
He
glanced briefly at Amanda then
walked
out of the office
without a word to
Beatrice
,
who looked up at him. H
is hands
back
in his pock
e
ts and his h
e
ad down
, he left the building
.
Cecelia’s word
s continued to ring in his ears. “S
tay away from us!”
Th
e
workshop was on
. She’d said they would talk then
, but how was h
e
going to g
e
t through th
e
s
e
ssions if h
e
had to look at Amanda and not b
e
abl
e
to touch h
e
r?

Amanda packed for the
w
rite
r’s w
orkshop, leaving instructions for her mother to let Cecelia work out with the soccer team as planned. She warned the coach that Cecelia’s grandmother might not be cooperative and prayed that all
went smoothly
during her absence. Since Cecelia’s encounter with Marcus
on campus
, she had
not
mention
ed
him
,
and her daughter
asked no
more questions and
made
no
more accusations. It was as if Marcus had been erased from their family life, but his absence
left
a
cavernous
void
—in her heart and
in her bed
.

Cecelia was eager to get back on the
soccer
team and she seemed to have healed completely. She was now running and ju
mping like any other active ten-year-
old. The only change in her behavior was her unwillingness to talk about Marcus.

As
Amanda
prepared to leave,
Cecelia gave her a big hug. “Have fun
with all those other writers
.
You promised Grandma
and I c
ould
go
to that neat restaurant where we can
see the boats while we eat. And
I’m going to show
her
the big mountain from your office window.”

“Say hi to Beatrice for me
when
you take Grandma to my office
. Be good while I’m gone.”

She kissed her daughter, waved to her mother, and drove to the wooded setting where the August Wri
ters’ Workshop was being held. Two hours after leaving home, s
he looked out the window at the light summer rain that was damping down the dust in the road near the lodge. Marcus’ car was already parked nearby when she arrived.

Weeks before, they had planned to drive up together. Now, everything they did was separate—a metaphor for their lives, lives she had once thought were moving toward a
more
public couple relationship
,
even if they weren’t living together.

Amanda checked in and placed her
bag
s in her room.
Marcus was nowhere in sight, and when she asked at the desk, the woman there claimed she had not seen him.She picked at her dinner as she sat alone
at a table in a far corner of the restaurant. From there, she watched as others entered and left. A pair—honeymooners, she concluded—were seated close to her, their murmurings wafting in her direction. She left her dessert untouched. After dinner, she wandered through the lodge and reluctantly returned to her room. A cloak of loneliness weighed down her shoulders.

Maybe I should have moved in with him. Maybe then we wouldn’t be at this impasse—with Cece
so unhappy
.
I need to talk with Joan. Maybe she doesn’t understand about Marcus and me.
Shou
ld
s and shouldn’ts
.
M
aybe she
should have waited until
Marcus
said
he loved her
before
sleeping
with him
.
That was my mistake.
But, oh,
he is
so delicious
—his mind as well as his
body. I wanted to d
ive into those blue eyes of his the minute I saw him at the d
ean’s home.
What wa
s it about blue eyes in a man that
captured her
so? And the way he
th
ought
about thin
gs—she loved that, too.
I do love you, Marcus. You
must
know t
hat. But,
I need to
tell you
that
.I want to tell you
… unless you think I’m another Felicity,
unless it’s too late
.

She sighed to herself and wandered outside. The sky still held traces of light and streaks of pink. Sounds of water from the nearby river beckoned. She found a trail and followed it to where it ended in a me
adow of wild
flowers. She kne
eled
down and began picking a bouquet of the delicate white and yellow flowers. Perhaps seeing them in a vase when she woke would lighten her mood.

“You’re not supposed to do that,”
a familiar
voice cautioned.

She turned, her heart pounding. Marcus was smiling
down
at her.

“Why not?”

“Because we’re in a national park and if every visitor picked
just
one flower, none
would be
left by the end of the season. I
t says so in this brochure.” He he
ld
up
a pamphlet
for her to see.

Before she could stop him,
he
gathered her in his arms.

“Amanda, I have missed you so much. How can I get back i
n your good graces? In Cecelia’s, too
?”

She
remembered
what her daughter had demanded that he say when she confronte
d him on the porch. Those words,
words Cecelia had repeated to her more than once, words she now was afraid she would never hear from him. Was it because she had told him no so many times, had told him not to even say the words, especially that
ultimate
word
of commitment
…
marriage
?

“You must know how I feel
,” he said
.
“
I know you do.”

“It’s not what I know
or hope I know
. It’s what you say. You didn’t say it—not to her, and not to me. That’s the proble
m.” Her voice cracked. “I think
I know—or maybe I’d like to t
hink I know. Or
maybe I’ve made an
other mistake. I shouldn’t have, I should have waited.
I told you
on our
first,
or was it our second date?
I should have—”

“Don’t say it, hon. You didn’t make a mistake.” He kissed
away her tears
. “I was the one who did that.
I should have answered Cecelia. She
just took me by surprise.” He looked down at his feet
as if trying to work up the courage to say something more, but he
remained silent
.

Hurt by his silence,
she
backed
away
from him
and tr
ied to keep her voice business
like. “I’m here for the worksh
op. If you’ll show me where we’
re doing our planning sessions, I thi
nk we should get started so we’
re ready when the participants arrive.”

He
gaz
ed
back
at her,
seemingly unwilling to look away. She thought she saw
something she took to be resignation in his eyes.

“Fair enough
,” he
finally
said
.
“
Follow
me. I’ll show you where we’
re meeting.”

They walked back to the lodge. For three hours, they plotted out the
final details of the
workshop seminars, fine-tuning the logistics of what each would do separately, and how and when they would bring all participants together for general sessions.

When Amanda went back to her room, she slipped into bed, acutely aware of her loneliness.
The wildflowers, even in water, had already wilted.
Like her hope.
When an owl hooted outside, she got up, wrapped a light shawl around her nightgown and walked out onto her small private patio, ringed by evergreens. The moon skated between the c
l
ou
ds, illuminating the nearby trees before leaving them in ghostly darkness.
Even the trees
—they seemed to mock her, to insist that perhaps
she was right
… Marcus didn’t love her
, at least not in the way she loved him
.