A Time to Mend (17 page)
Her body language did not bode well for their meeting.
He was at a Starbucks, tucked back in a corner at a table for two. Wavering after nearly six weeks of life without his wife, he’d called her.
Claire didn’t walk like Claire. She didn’t look like Claire. Not that she looked bad, exactly. She wore something Tandy might have had in her closet, an ankle-length skirt and long-sleeved, unbuttoned blouse over a shirt. All she needed to complete the ensemble was one of those little triangle scarves, like in
Fiddler on the Roof
. A babushka. Totally out of character.
She stopped a couple of feet in front of him, not near enough to touch.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
The moment was awkward, no two ways about it.
He attempted a smile.
She attempted one back. An indecipherable upward nudge of the mouth corners, it probably mirrored his own.
He said, “I’m early.”
“I noticed.” She glanced at the table. “Drinks already?”
“Yeah. Johnny-on-the-spot. Shall we sit?”
They sat.
She touched the clear plastic cup. “What is it?”
“An Americano. You like those, right?”
The outline of the tip of her tongue appeared in her cheek.
“What?”
At last she met his eyes. “What makes you think I like it? I’ve had two in my life.”
He felt the flush start in his neck.
“Once by myself. Once with Neva.”
He had asked Neva what his wife liked at Starbucks because he himself had never been to the place with her. “At least I knew you like Starbucks.”
Claire’s stony expression revealed nothing.
“Give me some credit.”
She glanced away.
“I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry I don’t know what you like here.”
When she looked back at him, something softened in her greenish eyes.
“Let’s start over,” he said. “Hi.”
After a moment, she replied. “Hi.”
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, thank you.”
He heard his own breathing. In and out. “How are you?”
Her eyes unfocused, as if she were carrying on an internal conversation. He sipped his black coffee and noticed her hair. Though clean and shiny as usual, it was longer and tucked behind an ear. At the top, dark roots contrasted with blonde strands.
The change in Claire was slightly unnerving. Clothes and hair he could handle. But when he’d called her the previous day and left a message inviting her to meet him and then waited all afternoon for her to return the call, Phil pointed out his irritability. Max admitted to himself that annoyance was getting an upper hand. It reminded him of the time several years before when another driver ran a red light and slammed into his car, totaling it. Although he hadn’t been hurt, the shock of that moment had stayed with him—that moment of absolute loss of control.
That’s how Claire made him feel.
On the phone she’d said yes, it was time they talked. There were developments she wanted to discuss. She hesitated at his offer of din-ner, though. He’d scrambled and tossed out the idea of the coffee shop.
Scrambling for Claire was not familiar territory.
At last she said, “I’m well. I got a job.”
“A job!”
“Violinist with the symphony. Substitute, but sort of full-time. Someone took an emergency leave of absence the day I auditioned; they don’t know how long she’ll be gone. My first concert is Saturday. One of the summer outdoor ones, down by the stadium.”
“You don’t need to work. You don’t need money.”
Her throaty chuckle was not an expression of delight. “How high shall I jump, Max?”
“Sorry. It’s just so . . . so . . . so . . .”
“So . . . what? So not according to your plan?”
“I was going to say uncharacteristic of you.”
“I love playing my violin.”
“But you haven’t. Not for years.”
“Life got in the way. I guess it’s not in the way anymore.”
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out exactly what had changed in her life. “Was I in the way?”
She didn’t respond.
Tired of their separate lives, he’d vowed to make a supreme effort to listen and not go off half-cocked like the last time. He’d almost blown it right off the bat with that Americano thing. Not a smart move, consulting Neva. He figured he had about half a chance left.
“Claire, you can say it. I won’t bite. I promise.”
“Yes, you were in the way.”
Hearing that it was his fault did something to his gut. They’d been there before. Wait. They? No, he’d always been there. Things were always his fault.
“But,” she said, “I’m not totally blaming you. In a sense, I allowed you to be in the way.”
He stilled.
“Let me back up. I found my parents’ marriage license in one of those boxes we brought back from North Carolina. It turns out they
had
to get married. I was on the way by about four and a half months.”
“Really?”
“Yes. They lied about the year.”
He shook his head. His in-laws were idiots.
“The thing is,” she said, “it explains a lot. Like why my dad resents me. Maybe why my mom drank and why they fought.”
“And you felt like it was all your fault.”
She stared at him. Her eyes filled up with tears.
“Hon, you’re preaching to the choir. Somehow it’s my fault my brother got shot down in Vietnam.” He shrugged. “BJ’s the hero, but I’m the one left to take care of the fallout. Mom and Dad couldn’t think straight for six months. I moved home. Made sure they took care of themselves. Handled all the military communications. Not that I did any of it right, according to them.”
“You understand.”
“Probably not. Does this have something to do with us?”
She nodded. “I told you I don’t feel safe with you.”
“Except when I was your knight in shining armor.”
A smile lit her face briefly. “Right. You rescued me from my unsafe childhood.” She paused. “Understandably, I craved peace and security. You offered that. I thought I’d better not make any waves. You might rescind the offer.”
“How would you ‘make waves’?”
“By causing you to be unhappy. If you didn’t like the violin, then I didn’t like the violin. I shaped my opinions around yours. I ignored my wants and needs.”
He stared at her. She echoed what Neva had talked about, how in the early years Claire believed her purpose for being was to keep him happy. “You got a little carried away with that submission thing.”
“I did. And you let me. But why wouldn’t you? It kept the peace in our household.”
He let that settle in. “Then we were both wrong?”
“Yes, Max, we were both wrong.”
“Okay. And listen, you are not responsible for your parents’ mis-takes.”
“Neither are you for yours.”
He smiled.
She tapped her temple. “Head knowledge. My heart still hurts.”
The smile fizzled. “Come home. Let me make it all up to you.”
She turned and stared toward a window. “You can’t make it up.”
“Claire.” He reached across the small table and touched her arm. “I’ll do anything. Talk to a marriage counselor. Take some time off. Whatever. I don’t want to live like this, apart from you.”
She leaned back in her chair, shifting her arm out of his reach, and studied his face for a long moment. “Whatever? Do you really mean that?”
“Yes, whatev—” What had she said that other time?
Sell. Sell the whole kit and caboodle.
“Whatever within reason.”
Her mouth twisted, a quick but distinct expression of disappointment. She understood what he was saying. “Well, there isn’t any-thing you can do, anyway. This is about me.”
“No, it’s about
us
. It’s our marriage.”
She waved a hand in dismissal. “We’re two separate people. We can’t be a real couple until I find me again.”
“Until.” Max clung to the word as if it were a lone tree sticking out the side of a sheer cliff. His feet dangled a fatal distance above the earth. His heart boomed in his chest.
“The truth is, I’m not sure we’re even friends. I hear these sappy stories about husbands and wives who break up and wish they could talk to their best friend about it. But they can’t, because their best friend is their spouse.”
That stung, but he had no response. He’d never considered Claire his best friend. Phil and Neva were his closest friends. Claire was his wife.
Abruptly she pushed back her chair. “I have to go.”
“Claire, wait. What about Saturday? The mayor’s wedding.”
“I know. I already sent a gift.”
“Will you go with me?”
“Max, I just told you my first concert is Saturday.”
“This isn’t business.” He caught sight of her raised brows. Okay, yeah, he wanted to keep channels open with the city by going to the mayor’s wedding. “Not totally business. We’ll see the Landons and the Greenes there.”
“Give them my regards.” She stood. “And regrets.”
“Claire, please.”
“You’re pressuring, Max. I can’t take that.”
He hit his limit. “Well, I can’t exactly take what you’re doing!” he hissed in a low tone. “Talk about a bombshell out of the blue! What am I supposed to tell people?”
She walked away.
With great effort he remained in his seat and forced himself to take deep breaths. He would not chase after her. He would not grovel. Palm trees would grow in the Arctic before he called her again.
He noticed the plastic cup on the table. Condensation streamed down its sides. Melting ice pushed the coffee against the clear lid. The straw stuck out, no lipstick marks on it. Claire hadn’t touched the drink he’d gone to such effort to arrange just so.
Right there in the middle of a busy coffee chain store that he despised, Max Beaumont nearly lost it.
W
hoa!” Tandy pumped her elbows higher and lengthened her strides. “Again she pushes the envelope!”
Alongside her friend, Claire huffed and puffed and stepped in double time, trying to keep up with Tandy’s brisk speed as they rounded a corner.
“You really told Max he was in the way? That it was his fault you stopped playing your violin?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Tandy punched the air, her arm raised high. “Yes!”
“Gloria Steinem, here we come.”
“Oh, lighten up. I’m not going off the deep end. I’m proud of you for telling him the tough stuff.”
“But I’m not totally blaming him. I was at fault too.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. But still, you did good, girl. You did real good.”
Claire ignored the compliment. “Life in general got in the way too. You know how it is with kids. They’re wonderful and all-consuming. Something has to give.”
“For a season. We haven’t been full-time moms forever and a day. Ergo, Max got in the way too. It wasn’t just life. I know he never wanted to do concerts with us. You two always seemed too busy with other things.”
As they zipped along the blocks, past condominiums and palm trees, Claire thought of how true that was. Max even pooh-poohed her time on the symphony board. Raising money for hospitals and charities was one thing, but for music? For the arts? Forget it.
“Music is a mystery to him. He has no background in it. I guess it just doesn’t make sense to him, and he never cared to learn more about it. He resented the time I put into it, time I could have spent doing something productive for the agency or our home. He went so far as to say I acted snooty when it came to my violin. So that’s where the need to keep the peace entered in. I eventually quit playing, even for myself when he wasn’t around.”
Tandy dodged a fire hydrant. “You had it really bad, didn’t you? I mean, you lost your own identity. You totally conformed to what he wanted you to be. Just to keep the peace.”
“And now, come to find out, it wasn’t really peace and safety. Only an absence of conflict. I think I just got tired of holding my breath.”
“Claire, why did you hold it for so long?”
In the two days since she and Max talked, she had pondered his challenge:
“Was I in the way?”
And her straightforward reply:
“Yes.”
She’d thought about her parents, about her determination not to repeat their marriage.
She said, “I think my life has been lived as just one long reaction to other people. I do and think this or that because my mom drank, because my dad ignored me, because my husband will be unhappy if I don’t.”
“Eww.”
“Eww.”
“Guess you’d better forgive them.”
Claire halted in the middle of the sidewalk. “What?”
Tandy looked over her shoulder, turned around, and stepped back to her. “Forgive them. They all hurt you, Claire. Don’t deny it, but let it go. Don’t allow them to define you any longer.”
Claire stared at her friend. Her cheeks were as red as her hair, her mouth set in a grim line, her green eyes unflinching in the shadow of a visor.
Tandy touched her arm. “It stinks. I know. But let me tell you. Big-Hair Bimbo from Bishop and Trevor the Toad both would have been long dead by now. If I hadn’t forgiven them, you’d be visiting one tough prison mama.”
Claire frowned. “You never told me.”
“I’m pretty sure I did. It probably didn’t click.”
“You’re strong and independent. You moved on.”
Tandy shook her head vehemently. “I forgave them.”
“Really?”
“Really. I had to learn how to move on. Now I’m convinced I could live through anything. In a sense, I’m grateful Big-Hair came into my life.” She smiled. “Strange, the things that teach us what we need to learn. Nasty women, surprise birthday dinners. You never know, Claire. You just never know.”
Forgive her parents? Forgive Max?
Not likely.
S
aturday evening, her violin and bow in hand, Claire walked onto the outdoor stage. Located at the Embarcadero, the small peninsula jutted out into Mission Bay. The marine air felt warm. Yachts and sailboats glided by. The stage backdrop gave the effect that she was inside a giant concave shell. Before the evening was over, the sun would set, and she would be able to see stars.
It was a glorious setting for a pop concert.
Giddy almost to the point of hyperventilating, she hoped with all her might that she would be able to sit still and read the score. She knew Mozart; she didn’t know Gershwin.
