The All You Can Dream Buffet (28 page)

Hannah put her hands on her waist and swung the skirt slightly. “I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” She met her mother’s gaze in the mirror. “Please? It’s not like I’m going to wear it to a high school dance or something. It’s a grown-up party.”

For a long moment Valerie was silent, looking at her daughter. Ruby eased over and put a hand on her shoulder. “She looks like
herself
in this.”

Valerie nodded. “All right.”

Hannah clapped her hands. “Yippee!”

After lunch and a bit more shopping, they drove to the ocean, at Ruby’s insistence. She had discovered over the meal that neither Ginny nor Hannah had ever seen it. “It’s only seventy miles from here!” She opened her wide eyes wider. “Lavender! We have to take them!”

So Ruby drove, with Valerie beside her. Ginny and Hannah rode in the middle seats, both of them peering out with excitement, eager to be the first to spot the sea. Lavender stretched out in the far backseat, taking a little nap. Ginny looked at her a couple of times, slightly worried. Lavender had not eaten much of her lunch.

But she was sleeping easily, her color good, and Ginny told herself that because someone was old was no reason to think they were about to get sick.

In the back of her mind, Ginny fretted over the phone messages she had not finished listening to. She also kept mulling the question of whether she would meet Jack tomorrow in McMinnville.

She didn’t think so, but a part of her kept imagining him in a booth in a café, facing the door, looking up hopefully every time a new person came through the door. She didn’t have to kiss him again or anything like that. She could just have a nice glass of iced tea and go back to the farm.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

“I see it!” Hannah shouted. “Right on the horizon!”

Ginny peered hard, and she gave a little whoop when she saw the line of blue against the sky, darker, definitive. “I see it, too!”

They traveled down a bluff to the sand, and during the whole journey Ginny kept dipping her head, trying to keep the water in sight. The ocean!

The van had barely stopped when she pulled open the door and dove out to the parking lot. A stiff wind swept over her face, sending her hair back in a flag. She closed her eyes, wishing Willow was with her, that the two of them could be running on this beach together, seeing the water for the first time.

She bent over and took off her shoes and socks, leaving them in a pile beside the van, and jogged toward the sand, forgetting everything and everybody as the water lured her, a dark blue-gray and endless, restless, under the clouds gathering overhead. She walked through the sand, feeling it shift beneath her feet, and stopped only when she arrived at the edge of the water.

It didn’t matter that a lot of other people were there, that people walked behind her, that some children were squatted over buckets and small orange shovels, making roads in the sand. It didn’t matter that an almost certain promise of doom hung over her life.

Nothing mattered except the fact that, by some miracle, she—Ginny Smith from Dead Gulch, Kansas—was standing with her feet in the Pacific Ocean, and she’d made it here almost entirely on her own will.

For a long time she stood there, watching the waves undulate, little caps here, big waves there, a breaking edge of foam, then a tube of clear water that looked like glass as it rolled toward her, coming from who knew where. Japan. Russia. Vietnam. That water had touched lands and feet in the vast far
away. She imagined she could hear echoes of them, carried on ghostly water radio waves.

She closed her eyes and breathed in the smell, which was like and unlike the coppery notes of a river or a lake. It was denser, deeper, woven with dead flesh and living sea beings and the approaching rain.

But the best of it was the sound, the sibilant ruffling of the water over the sand, the splash and roar born of constant movement. It was vast and incomprehensible. It made her feel tinier than a single molecule in the foaming waves and, conversely, so much a part of all things, everything. For a moment she nearly slipped away into the ether, dissolving into sky and sound and scent.

She realized that tears were streaming over her face. How was it possible she was standing here?

Whirling around, she flung her arms out and whooped. “Woo-hoo!” she cried at the top of her lungs, and then Ruby was there, grabbing her hand, the scarf gone from her head, her hair blowing around her face. They danced in a circle, leaping when the waves covered their feet. Hannah ran up and each of them grabbed her hand, and her hair, too, blew in the wind.

They danced and Ginny cried out, “I am never going back to Kansas!”

When they returned to the farm, Valerie volunteered to make dinner for everyone, since they had decided not to go out. “I promise I won’t poison you all.”

Lavender, looking pale, headed upstairs to take a nap. Ginny wanted to make Ruby’s gown. She’d found pale-blue organza dotted with silver sequins at a big-box store in Portland.

She sewed the simple costume in the workroom of the farmhouse, thinking of her daughter and all the costumes she’d sewn for her over the years. Sticking spare straight pins into her
sleeve, Ginny thought she probably ought to try Christie again. Had Matthew said anything to Christie about the divorce letter?

It all seemed so far away.

As Ginny stitched up the seams and put in a simple hem, the smell of lavender hung thickly in the air around her. Many of the products sold in the store were assembled in the very same room. A long table stood against a windowless wall, lined with baskets of thick-ribbed corduroy and flannel, all in shades of purple and gray and the thread of gold that marked the farm. Canisters of lavender blossoms were nearly empty. Eye pillows, neck wraps, and even gloves were carefully stacked in tidy piles, ready for ticketing or stickering.

In the other room were screens covered with lavender blossoms drying on racks, and in another was the distillery, a big copper teapot that looked like a shrunken still from Prohibition. Ginny had walked around it, curious to see steam circling in a glass tube and lavender oil dripping out of a spout into a jar with a narrow neck. She bent close to the spout and nearly swayed with the power of the oil. It almost seemed she could feel it entering her pores, little purple fingers massaging her temples and chest.

It was quite a large operation, and Lavender hadn’t started it until she was in her late fifties. That was encouraging: Ginny had lots more time to build a sustainable business of her own if she so chose.

Was the blog a business? Did it count, all by itself?

When she finished the gown, she carried it outside, intending to take it to Ruby right away, but she spied the shiny blond head walking amid the chickens, clearly talking to them.

So she took the gown with her to her own trailer, hung it up, called Willow to come sleep with her, and they curled up in the
familiar comfort of the Airstream’s bed. It had been quite a busy day. As she settled down, pulling the quilt over her, the phone rang. She sighed and reached for it, knowing who it would be.

Matthew’s number flashed on the screen. She let it ring again, and then one more time, debating whether to answer. Only the fact that she owed him a report of her safety made her answer. “Hello?” she said, as if she didn’t know it was him calling.

“Ginny, is that really you?”

“Yes, Matthew, I’m so sorry—I dropped my phone in the dishwater the other day and drowned it. I’m—”

“You couldn’t call from a phone booth?”

“They don’t really have phone booths anymore, in case you haven’t noticed. You could have gone to my blog.”

“I did, and it wasn’t all that clear what was going on until last night, and then there was that email from you.”

“Matthew, we can talk about that—”

“I don’t want to talk. You’re just mad about the voice messages, but you know how I get when I’m drunk. You had a right to be mad, but I didn’t mean it. You know I didn’t. I was just lonely and horny and a little out of control, I guess.”

Ginny sat up. “Horny? You?”

He paused. “Have you listened to the messages I left?”

“No, I haven’t had a—”

“Jesus fucking Christ. Then that email was for real?”

“No, I mean, yes, I mean—”

“You want a divorce, Ginny?”

Her heart clutched, cold, condensing down down down to a tiny pea of terror, then she took a breath. “I didn’t mean to send the email—”

“Thank God for that.”

“—but, yes, Matthew.” Her heart swelled with blood and heat and pulsed with new possibilities. “I want a divorce. I’m not coming back to Kansas.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of. You’re having a midlife crisis. You’ll come to your senses.”

“No, Matthew—”

“I’m not talking anymore, Ginny. Erase all those messages from me. They don’t mean a thing.”

“You can’t just”—a click on the line—“hang up on me!”

The line was dead. Ginny stared at it, her head buzzing with the clearest fury she’d ever felt in her life, like a thousand wasps ready to rise up and—

She roared aloud, “Argh!” Willow jumped, tail thumping nervously against the bed. “Oh, I’m not mad at you, sweetie. Never you.” She rubbed her vigorously, turning the fur into a crackling static field.

Unable to bear the tight space of the Airstream, she flung open the door and carried the phone outside, shaky with fury. A brisk wind was blowing up, the same rainstorm they’d been fleeing since they left the ocean, and it didn’t cool her in the least. She punched in the messages he’d left while he was drinking.

At 8:52, his voice considerably more boisterous than in the previous one: “I’m just sitting here with my bros, thinking what bullshit it is that you’re out on the road like this. Why would you do that, Ginny, huh? I’m a good husband. I know you’re all pissed off about the sex, but not everybody cares that much about all that. I’m a good catch, God damn it!”

Ginny pulled the phone away from her ear to see how much more of the message there was, and she was only a tiny bit of the way into it. Without a qualm, she moved on to the next message.

The next one was short, at 10:05
P.M.
: “You know what, wife?” His voice was definitely slurred now. “You’re a cunt. Thass right. I said it.”

Ginny rolled her eyes, the anger settling somewhere along her shoulder blades, hot burning spots beneath her skin, both painful and buzzing. She thought of the Rockies, pointed and bold against a blue sky. She thought of the Columbia River, shimmering in the dusk. She thought of the ocean today, roiling and dancing.

She clicked the next message. Very drunk now, 1:00
A.M.
He was sobbing. “Ginny, I love you. Don’t you know that? You are the only woman I’ve ever loved, ever in my life. I should have been listening, and I wasn’t and I’m sorry. Really sorry. I screwed up tonight and I really am sorry, and I hope you’ll forgive me. You’ll hear all about it, I’m sure, from that crazy friend of yours, Marnie. You know she’s not really your friend, she never has been, she’s always coming on to me, grabbing my privates, and trying to get me to feel her up, and I just got mad tonight, honey, I’m sorry, I really am. I really love you. Only you, all these years.” He started to sob again, and Ginny couldn’t stand it. She hung up.

Had he had sex with Marnie? She couldn’t decide which part of that sentence made her angrier. Sex? Marnie? Both?

In her hand, her phone rang. It startled her so much that she nearly dropped it, and she was about to answer it with sharpness, thinking it was Matthew again.

Jack’s number came up on the screen.

Her heart slammed into her ribs, but she did not answer, letting the ring pulse against her palm. It finally went to voice mail, and Ginny stood staring at the phone, wondering if he would leave a message.

What if he said he had changed his mind and wanted to forget
about meeting her tomorrow in McMinnville? She had not responded, after all. What if he took her reticence as rejection and she never saw him again?

That would be best. She might not be in love with her husband, but she was married, after all. No matter what foolishness he’d indulged in the night before or how he had treated her, she had her own integrity to consider.

The voice-mail signal ticked against her skin. She pressed the icon to listen.

“Hey, Ginny. Sorry to have missed you again. I was hoping you might have replaced your phone by now. And I’m hoping you’ve made it safely to your friend’s place. I got my truck unloaded and I’m headed over to a buddy’s house for supper.”

For a moment, she thought that was it. Then he said, “Look, I don’t want to be a nag, so if I don’t get an email or a phone call from you, I’ll leave you alone. Take care, now.”

Before she even knew she’d do it, she clicked on the callback number. A shiver ran up and down her neck, electrifying the burn on her shoulder blades as she listened to the phone ring.

“Hello?” he answered, and the sudden fact of his living voice in her ear paralyzed her for a second, long enough that he said, “Is that you, Ginny?”

“Yeah. Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Hi, Jack,” she said, and couldn’t think of what else to say. Her cheeks burned as the silence hung between them. Finally she said, “I got your message,” at the same time that he said, “I’m glad you called.”

They both apologized and then they both fell silent again, and Ginny couldn’t help it, she started to laugh. “Sorry, I’m being an idiot,” she said.

“Not at all. I think you’re flustered, which is what I am.”

“You are?”

He let go of a rueful laugh, rough and low. “Hell, yes. You’ve
got me totally rattled, Ginny Smith from Dead Gulch, Kansas. I’ve read about a hundred of your sweet blogs.”

“There are a lot of them.” She thought of the blogs, so many, each one chronicling a day in her life before she met him. How much would he know about her now?

But of all the people in her life back home, who had read any of them, even when she made
Martha Stewart Living
? She thought her mother and Jean might have dipped into them, but not far. Karen and her sister Peggy had read them, still read them, but Matthew made a point not to, making fun of it with his friends—her girly blog, as if it was a teenager thing she indulged in inappropriately, like hip-hugger jeans or blue streaks in her hair. Christie read it most days, as did the Foodie Four.