The Man She Left Behind (8 page)

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Authors: Janice Carter

BOOK: The Man She Left Behind
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“Well, they’ll want to know if something’s off in their kitchen, you know. No one wants a lawsuit from some irate tourist. Besides, I was heading in there myself to meet a client. I just got back from Charlotte and there was a message on my machine about a charter. The guy said he’d be at Howard’s for a late lunch. It was a lucky break for me, bumping into you again.” He paused and grinned. “Amazing, really. Usually I meet my clients at the marina or my office.” He stood up and held out a hand. “Come on in with me, then I’ll drive you home.”
“I’m not going back inside and I can get home by myself.” Then she added in a softer tone, “Thanks, anyway, Spence, but really, I’m all right. This has happened before and I know how to handle it.”
He sat back down beside her.
“This
has happened before? What is
this?”
Leigh cursed herself. Now he’d never let go. He’d chew away at this like a dog with a piece of rawhide.
But she didn’t have to answer, after all. The door of the restaurant swung open and two women strode out into the parking lot. They began walking to a car when one of them spotted Leigh and Spence on the bench. She stopped, clutched her friend’s arm and whispered in her ear.
The other woman, a plump bleached blonde, pivoted sharply. Her jaw gaped open. “It is her! I was right.” She looked at her friend and added in a voice deliberately raised, “And look who she’s with. My goodness. Doesn’t history repeat itself.”
Gooseflesh rose along Leigh’s arms. She looked down into her lap until she felt the pressure of Spence’s arm on her shoulders. Then his finger gently raised the tip of her chin up and toward him.
“Laura Marshall’s mother,” he whispered. “Keep looking at me and repeat these words—She’s a witch...”
Leigh giggled, but her eyes never left Spencer’s face.
“That’s it,” he murmured.
A car door slammed, then another.
“They’re leaving,” he said.
She nodded, her eyes still fixed on his.
A car spewed a wake of pebbles and sand behind it, gunning out of the lot in a surge of power. Leigh closed her eyes and expelled a sigh.
“Tell me,” he said.
But she shook her head. “Not now. Please. I don’t want to talk about it”
He dropped his arm and folded up the square of checked cloth. “Guess I’ll chase up my client, then. Sure you don’t want a ride?”
The offer was tempting, but she still refused. “It’s okay. Thanks, anyway.” She looked away as he headed into the restaurant
When Leigh heard the door flap shut, she stood up and stretched. She felt exhausted and wrung out, as if she’d run a marathon. Certainly a gauntlet, anyway. She spotted the bandanna folded carefully on the bench. She picked it up and looked across at the restaurant door, then tucked the cloth into her purse and headed home.
CHAPTER FIVE
T
HE JUNE ISSUE of the
Island Breeze
lay on the counter. The woman walked past, casually slipped the paper under her arm and continued on outside. Once under the sprawling shade of the magnolia tree on the front lawn, she sat down and carefully unfolded the newspaper. She liked being the first to read the paper, to delve into its pages when they were still pressed and clean. Time often passed luxuriously slowly beneath the tree, and she reveled in the knowledge that she could spend the whole day reading the paper if she wanted to.
But less than five minutes later her hands froze to the edge of newspaper. She stared long and hard at the headline “Islander Returns Home” and then, even longer, at the photograph below. She forced herself to read the article, but knew before finishing it that her first hunch was right.
It’s her! It has to be!
She read and reread the words, smoothing the page until the photograph almost jumped out at her. Then she folded the newspaper up and tucked it under her arm again. She’d have to hide it so no one else would read it and find out. Excitement mounted inside her and she inhaled deeply, remembering the routine and sensing that now, more than ever, she’d have to stay calm. But she couldn’t still the warm glow mushrooming in the pit of her stomach. At long last a connection had been made.
My baby. I’ve found my baby.
“SO WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Mary Ann Burnett’s voice crackled over Leigh’s cell phone.
“About what?”
“Your interview in the
Island Breeze.”
“I haven’t seen it yet. but I trust it hasn’t changed since we talked on the phone the other day.”
Mary Ann’s voice sounded indignant. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Leigh. That’s the kind of thing big-city journalists do.”
Leigh marveled at the way Mary Ann linked the word “journalist” to herself.
“You’ll find it’s just about verbatim as I read it to you.”
The “just about” worried Leigh. “Well, I’ll be sure to pick up a copy and let you know. I hope you played down the reference to the accident as I requested.”
“Sure did. I mentioned that you’d put the past behind you, blah blah blah, and that you were looking forward to seeing old friends during your brief stay.”
Leigh closed her eyes. Blah blah blah. What did that mean? “So, you took out that stuff about the inquest?”
A deep sigh. “Yes, yes.”
But a hint of vagueness in her voice flashed a warning light. “I get the feeling there’s something more,” Leigh said.
“Well, I did mention the old friends you’d already seen.”
A tiny chill traveled down Leigh’s spine. “Like?”
“You know—the gang the other day at Howard’s and, uh, Spence McKay.”
“You didn’t mention his name?”
“Why not? I simply said old friends and then listed them.”
“But that makes it seem as if I’ve been seeing him purposefully.”
“You were seen coming out of that new bakery-deli about seven the other morning. Kind of a weird time to bump into someone, isn’t it?”
Mary Ann’s voice took on a steely edge, reminding Leigh that the woman had never really been a friend.
I shouldn’t have agreed to the stupid interview in the first place.
“I’d been out jogging and, yes, I
did
bump into him. I can’t believe this place.”
There was a slight pause and then, “Guess you’ve forgotten how people here tend to find out everything about everyone.”
It was Leigh’s turn to sigh. “Yeah, guess so.”
“I wouldn’t make such a big deal out of it,” Mary Ann advised. “You went with the guy for two years and then he eloped with your best friend. Surely it must be old news to even you by now.”
Leigh swallowed her retort. She hated the way Mary Ann had emphasized “even you,” as if she’d spent the past fifteen years pining away for Spencer.
“I think you should take a look at it,” Mary Ann said. “It’s not as bad as you’re imagining. I’ll have a copy sent over to you from the office in Hatteras. Do you still have that postal box?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then. And listen, if you run into any flak about the article, let me know.”
“What do you mean by flak?”
“Just, you know, in case some people are upset by it.”
“For heaven’s sake, Mary Ann, you’ve just told me there’s nothing in it to upset anyone. Make up your mind.”
There was a nervous titter on the other end of the line. “Sorry, Leigh. The only people who might comment on your return are Laura Marshall’s mother and Jeffs parents. Everyone else in the village has basically put the accident behind them. The way you have.”
Leigh caught the slight insinuation in the pronoun. She clenched her teeth and decided to ignore it. The article had already been published. “I’ll be waiting for the paper,” was all she said.
“Good. And listen, give me a call later, okay?”
“Fine,” Leigh muttered, wishing you could slam down a cellular phone. Instead, she slumped into the armchair in her parents’ bedroom. She rubbed her hand across her face.
Finish sorting through this mess,
she told herself,
and get as far from Ocracoke as possible.
But then the spark of anger rekindled itself, as it had so many times in the past.
Why do they blame me? I begged them to wait out the storm, but they wouldn’t listen.
And her mother would stroke her brow, shushing her to calmness.
They blame you because you lived and their children didn’t. Feel pity for them, not anger.
But it was anger that fueled her in the aftermath, that kept her spine rigid throughout the inquest, the reproachful looks and the shaking heads. Anger that turned her away from Spencer’s apology about the prom fiasco.
Leigh tossed the cell phone onto the bed and stared down at the box of magazines on the floor. She rubbed her face again, rotated the kinks out of her shoulders and upper back and sat cross-legged on the floor next to the carton.
Daddy was such a pack rat!
Pete Randall had been loath to throw anything away. Leigh recalled many family cleanups when she and her mother had removed boxes to the dump or secondhand stores while Pete was out in his boat. Years of
Life and National Geographic
magazines, every piece of schoolwork Leigh had ever produced, plastic margarine containers or used stamps—everything was eventually consigned to a labeled cardboard box in the attic. After Pete’s death Ellen had most of his collections removed—except for those boxes marked with Leigh’s name. Her mother had insisted those be kept for Leigh’s own future family, and reluctant to dash her mother’s hopes for grandchildren, Leigh hadn’t complained.
But now what? Her mother’s presence suddenly loomed. Leigh closed up the box of magazines and shoved it toward the two other boxes destined for a recycling plant. Then she dragged the first of four cartons labeled with her name.
Sorry, Mom, but there’s no point in holding on to this stuffy any longer.
The journey into her past took Leigh much longer than she’d expected. She couldn’t resist reading every story she’d ever written in elementary school, and the report cards were fascinating. From first grade to eighth, her teachers’ comments had seldom varied.
Leigh is a very shy girl... Leigh is hesitant to answer orally, although she is invariably right when she does... Leigh is a serious and observant student.
The class photos were equally fascinating, but after poring over a couple, Leigh put them aside. The retrospective of changing faces included Laura’s, Jen’s, Tony’s and Jeff’s. They’d all been classmates together until graduation, and there they were, mugging for the camera right up to twelfth grade. Leigh held on much longer to a single wallet photo of Jen and her, taken in an instant-photo booth in Nag’s Head.
She could recall almost every detail of that day. They’d been fourteen and allowed to take the ferry and bus by themselves up to Nag’s Head. They’d gone to a movie, shared a monster banana split and spent the rest of their money in the photo booth. Jen had taken the end of her blond ponytail and draped it across Leigh’s upper lip. Leigh had done the same with her own black swoop of hair and pressed her cheek against Jen’s.
See? We’re twins,
Jen had said. Leigh had laughed until the tears rolled.
Leigh smiled. She tossed the photo back into the box, closed it up and pushed it toward the recycling pile. Half an hour later she’d mercilessly sorted through every carton. Exhausted, she sank onto the cool hardwood floor and stretched out prone. A cold beer was in order, she decided, after such grueling work. She glanced at the recycling pile. It was far too large to be driven up in one load. Maybe a rental truck would do the trick.
Or I could borrow one. From Spencer.
The idea of doing so was tantalizing, but Leigh knew she’d never have the nerve to ask. She sighed, rolled to her side to get up and suddenly noticed the suitcase under the bed.
Damn.
She didn’t know if she could face any more trips down memory lane. On the other hand, she reasoned, best to get all the emotional stuff out of the way at the same time. She reached out and dragged the suitcase toward her.
Leigh couldn’t remember anyone actually using this decal-plastered piece of luggage. The Randalls had seldom left Ocracoke for longer than an overnight stay up the coast on a rare shopping spree. Twice she recalled staying on the mainland when the island had been evacuated during hurricane season. Her father used to say that if everyone in America—he was given to exaggeration—wanted to come to the Outer Banks to vacation, why would the Randalls want to leave? Right, Leigh would mumble, a disgruntled teenager at the time and desperate to see the world.
Well, I’ve seen a lot of the world and now I’m back in Ocracoke--and surprisingly, not minding it too much.
The thought made her pause in opening the suitcase. It was already mid-June, a mere two weeks from the start of the tourist invasion. Yet she felt no urgency to leave and had toyed with the idea of calling Reg to request long-overdue holiday leave.
Right. And stay for what? Another round of reacquainting yourself with old classmates? Avoiding Mrs. Marshall and her friends? Kidding yourself that the past can be relived? Thinking Spencer McKay will be more sincere this time around?
The snap hinges on the suitcase flew up. Nope, Leigh decided. Nothing to keep her here at all. She rifled through the photographs, most of them her baby pictures and some of her parents’ wedding. There was a package of letters addressed to her mother, and Leigh thumbed through them, noticing they’d been sent from her father before their marriage. Love letters, she realized, while her mother had been at university in Raleigh. She didn’t want to read them, yet hated to throw them away. She added them to the small pile of articles she was saving.
There was another stack of envelopes, yellowed and dog-eared, that appeared to contain insurance policies, old bank statements and even the Randalls’ marriage license. Leigh scanned them and tossed them onto the garbage pile. Even Pete wouldn’t have clung sentimentally to the license, but would have claimed, instead, that a piece of paper didn’t make a good marriage any more than a license made a good driver.
Leigh smiled to herself, remembering the day she’d asked to see her adoption certificate. She’d been about ten and had told her. father that a new friend had said she wasn’t really a Randall. Pete’s face had assumed an uncharacteristically sober expression. He’d pulled Leigh to him, wrapped his beefy arm around her shoulders and murmured, “I can show you that piece of paper, honey. It’s tucked away in a safe place upstairs. But that piece of paper is only the legal proof that you belong to us. It didn’t make you our daughter. What made you our daughter was all those nights your mama and I got up for your feedings, all those times we bandaged your skinned knees, went to your school concerts, taught you how to fish for mullet, took you clam diggin’ in Teach’s Hole—and every birthday drank a toast to the day you came to us. All those moments packed into these last ten years. That’s what’s made you our daughter. Not some piece of paper.”
And Leigh had hugged him tightly before running outside to tell that girl she really
was
a Randall and didn’t need any old piece of paper to prove it.
No, Daddy, you wouldn’t worry about my throwing away that marriage license.
When she found the adoption certificate lying underneath the knitted white baby outfit wrapped in tissue paper at the bottom of the suitcase, Leigh couldn’t resist reading it before she tossed it, too, on the garbage pile. There had never been any secrets about her adoption, and Leigh had never felt any inclination to pursue her roots. “My roots,” she’d once told an inquiring friend in New York, “are on Ocracoke Island and my parents are Ellen and Pete Randall.”
She plucked the knitted outfit from the tissue paper and wondered why her mother had saved this particular item of baby clothing out of all the others she must have had. Her mother had never been as attached to things as Pete had, so the outfit must have had a special significance. She held it up, amazed at its size. Hard to believe she or anyone else could have been so tiny. Then she rewrapped it in the tissue paper. If her mother had packaged it up so carefully, she must have considered it important. Leigh decided to keep it.

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