As Good as It Got (31 page)

After his next round of pacing he stopped in front of the bed, looking down at her with a perplexed expression.

“There is something different about you.”

“Camp has been good for me. You and Patty were right.”

He winced at Patty’s name, as she knew he would.

Cindy felt suddenly serene and powerful, like she’d turned into Martha. “I’ve learned a lot here. About myself.”

Now he was looking worried. She wasn’t sure she’d ever enjoyed herself this much with him. Not since the beginning when everything was so innocent and new and passionate between them.

“I did quite a few things for the first time.” She thought of Patrick underneath her, and felt her smile grow wicked.

“Today I made a decent loaf of bread. I even brought you some to try.”

Kevin stared blankly at a piece of bread she held out to him. “Bread? Cindy, I’m trying to say something here, and you want to talk about baking?”

She felt her spine stretch up until she was sitting as straight and tall as a woman in a yoga mountain pose. “Yes, I do. I made bread today and cupcakes. I’ve never been able to do either of those things before.”

She extended the piece of roll farther toward him.

“Patty was a mistake. She . . . wasn’t who I thought.” His voice cracked and he abruptly pressed his lips together.

“She left you.” The bread in her hand started to tremble.

She didn’t want him coming back because he was cast off.

“No. I left her. She wasn’t . . . she wasn’t you, Cinds.”

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“Oh.” The bread decided trembling wasn’t nearly enough and started shaking in earnest. Yes. Yes. This was how it should go.

Kevin took the bread from her hand. He tossed it onto the bed beside her, reached for her waist and lifted her up and against him. “Please come back.”

His voice was rough and low, and she knew how much it cost him to beg.

But she found herself turning to look at the discarded crust of bread, which had deposited a few crisp brown crumbs on the blue and green floral quilt.

“Kevin . . . ”

He gathered her hands, clasped them together in his. “I know that I have not been a good husband to you. But I swear this time I’ve learned my lesson, I have come to understand how valuable you are to me, to my life, to our life together.”

Cindy found herself wondering if maybe Patty didn’t like to do dishes, or have meals ready for him when he got home, or let him retreat into his study in the evenings when he was too tired to interact with anyone. Maybe Patty didn’t like the way Kevin put work first, put himself first, put everything ahead of his partner.

“Why didn’t you try the bread I made?”

Kevin’s eyes narrowed. How often had she seen that displeasure? “What is this fixation on bread? I’m asking you to come back. I’m telling you it’s over with Patty.”

“I’m telling you I made that bread and I want you to try it.”

He stared, incredulously. “You want me to try bread.”

“Yes. I do. I’m very proud of it.”

“Okay. I get it. This is you telling me that it’s going to be more about you from now on, is that it?”

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“No, this is about me telling you I want you to try the roll I made.”

“Jesus, Cindy, what is it with you? Haven’t you heard anything I’ve said?”

“Yes. I have. I’ve heard everything you’ve said. For twenty years I’ve heard everything you’ve said. And for twenty years I don’t think you’ve heard a single thing that I have.” She was terrified. She could not believe these words were coming out of her mouth. It was as if someone else had taken possession of her body, someone much stronger and angrier than she was.

“I’m going to try harder from now on. I promise you that.”

He still made no move toward the piece of bread that he’d thrown onto the bed behind her. Cindy felt that it was utterly ludicrous that the fate of her marriage should depend on flour, wheat germ, oats, sesame seed, honey, and yeast.

Risen twice. Baked at 350 degrees for twenty-five minutes.

But it did.

She wasn’t going to ask again. But she sat down on the bed, folded her hands in her lap, and turned to look at the crust, then back up at Kevin. “No more women? No sex with anyone else but me for the rest of your life?”

“No one else.”

He answered calmly but couldn’t hold her gaze. And it hit her out of nowhere with quiet certitude that he would do it again and that nothing she could do or be would stop him.

She picked up the bread and took a bite, chewed happily, savoring the fresh natural flavor. She’d made this. She had.

“Thank you for coming here, Kevin. Thank you for admitting that you made a mistake.”

“You’re welcome. Darling. Cynthia.” He held out his arms, eyes warm, smile meant only for her.

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She took another bite of bread. “This is really delicious.

You totally missed out.”

His smile faltered. His arms floated down. “You’re still angry. I don’t blame you. I’m staying at a hotel nearby. I’ll come back tomorrow after you’ve had time to cool off.”

“Tomorrow I’m on a trip with my friends.” She smiled and popped the last of the bread into her mouth. “I’ll be busy all day.”

“Okay.” He put his hands on his hips. “I deserve this, I know. I’ll wait, though. And when camp is over, I’ll bring you home with me.”

Home
. The bread lost its taste, and she swallowed before she’d chewed long enough and nearly gagged. Home with Kevin. Lucy’s home, the one she still needed even though she was nearly grown up. Nowhere else in the world was home to Cindy except camp, and her parents’ house. She couldn’t stay here and she’d rather eat live snails than crawl back to her mother and father now. Their daughter, the con-summate failure.

What had she been thinking? That a new life would fall into her lap just from needing one? Hadn’t she just learned during baking class that wanting to be different, or deciding to be strong, wasn’t enough to make her that way? Where else would she go but home with Kevin?

He had come back. But now instead of welcoming the long-awaited chance to return to her life, she felt trapped, suffocated, claustrophobic. Probably how he felt all those years with her. Why were they together? She’d forgotten.

“Okay, Cindy?” His voice was tender, warm, the voice he used to get her to do what he wanted. His gentle touch on her cheek, his hands raising her to standing again; neither As Good As It Got

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his tenderness nor his strength impressed her. His lips met hers; she responded by habit. “I’ll be back to take you home on Saturday.”

She thought of Patrick’s kisses, thought of Ann’s embrace on the archery field, thought of Martha’s forgiveness and her calm guidance. Thought of how it felt around the bonfire with dozens of her fellow campers, singing with all their hearts “I Am Woman.”

She’d never be the same. Camp Kinsonu had changed her.

But enough to turn her back on the entire lifetime that had come before?

“I’ll think it over.”

“That’s my girl.” He held her chin, tipped her face up and kissed her mouth, the way she always thought was so sweet and sexy. Then he drew back and smiled, and she knew that he knew it was only a matter of time until she got over her cute little pretend show of strength and came back where she belonged. “I’m at the Harrington Inn if you change your mind sooner and want to come home.”

He went to the door, turned and winked before he left the room. She heard him speak, and Betsy respond. The front door to Betsy’s cabin opened, closed. She heard his voice again, slowly fading as he walked away, talking on his cell.

Cindy sank back down on the bed. She couldn’t go back.

But neither could she go anywhere else.

The phone in the room rang and made her jump. She heard Betsy answering it, then her steps coming closer to the bedroom. A gentle knock. “Cindy? It’s your daughter. Would you like to speak to her?”

Lucy. What timing. Unless she was on standby and Kevin had just called her.

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“I’ll talk to her.” She crossed the room and picked up the phone. “Hello? ”

“Mom, what are you doing?”

She backed up and sat suddenly on the blue, hard chair.

“Talking to you.”

“I mean why aren’t you going back with Daddy right now?

He said you were going to think about it. What do you have to think about?”

“Lucy . . . ” Cindy let her head drop back until it hit the pine wall behind her. How could she communicate to this girl-woman who needed her parents and her home that Cindy was a woman as well as a mother, and that she might want something different? “I don’t know if I can go back.”

“
What
? What are you talking about?” The patented Lucy Instant Hysteria. “Why not? You said Dad would come back and you were right. Now he’s back, what more do you want?”

Cindy had never understood when characters in books said they saw red, but she definitely couldn’t see anything in front of her face at the moment, only the view was black for her. “I want me. I want
me
back. I don’t want to be your slave and I don’t want to be his doormat, is that so hard to understand?”

Silence on the line. Cindy put her hand to her forehead.

What had she done? She’d never ever yelled at her baby before.

“Geez, Mom.” A sudden sniff, the sound of tears in Lucy’s words. “You don’t have to bite my head off. I didn’t know you were so unhappy.”

“I didn’t either.” She gentled her voice, giving in, giving up, always the peacemaker, at the same time noting that her explosion had triggered an internal pressure release valve and As Good As It Got

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given her some peace. Going forward she needed to speak the truth more often. Maybe that would be enough to make life better.

She didn’t know. She didn’t know what she wanted, not really, because she didn’t know who this “me” was that she wanted back. How could she, who had so much trouble learning how to do anything, think that she could launch herself out into a completely new life and be successful?

She couldn’t. She had no place to go and nothing to do when she got there. She had a life with Kevin, a duty to her daughter. Maybe there were ways she could make those roles more bearable. That was the most she could hope for.

So. She’d failed at being strong, just as she’d failed at everything else. One batch of rolls and one batch of cupcakes wasn’t enough to set her free.

“I just need these last two days, Lucy. Then I’ll go back.”

Chapter 18

Ann stood on the beach, waiting for Patrick to show up and take Cabin Four out on
Stronglady
, the camp boat, to Eagle Rock Island for the day. One last bonfire tonight, and tomorrow they’d be graduates, sprung, reworked, and ready to face the rest of their lives. Right? Sure. Except she hadn’t given Clive a final answer yet. Would she or wouldn’t she? If she decided to stay, she’d still need to go home tomorrow, pack up what she’d need and bring it back. She had a feeling once she was back in Massachusetts, this time in Maine would recede into fantasy, and accepting the haven Clive offered would seem like a desperate attempt to avoid the tough stuff she needed to face. Being without Paul. Getting a job. Rebuilding her life.

She turned and glanced at the women of Cabin Four.

Dinah, not surprisingly, was talking, Cindy listening politely, as she’d done for the past two weeks, though she didn’t look as if she were processing the words. Cindy was going back to As Good As It Got

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Kevin, even after they threatened to pitch her in the ocean if she did. She was the only one going back to the same life.

Martha’s boyfriend had died; she had twenty years of being hidden away and nothing to show for it.

So were they all better? Maybe, but Ann didn’t think so.

This morning in particular the mood in the cabin had been edgy and tense. Kinsonu had been a nice break, but you couldn’t cheat grief out of its full punishment.

“Hello, ladies.” Patrick strode down onto the beach, looking tanned and particularly handsome in blue shorts and a blue and white striped shirt, swinging a picnic basket that must contain their lunch. Ann had a contribution to lunch all her own—two bottles of wine she’d picked up in a tiny store on Route 1 the previous evening. She figured the girls deserved to celebrate together.

Driving home from the liquor store, she’d been tempted to stop and see Clive, but realized with his before dawn schedule that he’d probably be asleep already. She then inanely went on to picture him in bed, and found herself wondering if he slept in pajamas, underwear, or nothing, and boy oh boy did danger signals start flashing then. It was one thing if she accepted his platonic invitation and spent time here relaxing and examining her life and what she wanted to do next, another if she spent the time imagining him naked.

She wasn’t ready for that. Look how quickly she’d backed off from Patrick after they’d been intimate. She needed to get to a clear-headed place. Nothing brought on brain clouds like lust. Of course, Patrick was Patrick, and Clive . . .

She turned to find Patrick-was-Patrick watching her with a sexy smile she couldn’t help returning. What a piece of work. You couldn’t help having a crush on Patrick, and you 280 Isabel

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couldn’t regret it either. Undoubtedly plenty of women in camp would happily have traded places with her in the mossy clearing.

“You ready for the big adventure?” He strode over, grinning, and she couldn’t even keep back the girly thrill at being singled out.

“Oh sure. Me with my extensive big-game safari experience, I’m ready for anything.”

He laughed and escorted her to the boathouse, where the two of them carried the skiff down to the water’s edge.

Patrick rowed Martha and Ann out to the
Stronglady,
then went back for Dinah and Cindy, handling the oars compe-tently but not as if he were born to them like Clive. Because he wasn’t, and Clive was, and what the hell was she comparing for?

Female cargo aboard, he drew up the anchor, stowed it in the front of the boat, started the engine, and off they went.