Skin Deep (22 page)

“Garland…” he murmured, dipping lower to kiss her neck then returning to her mouth. His breath was warm and quick. “Oh God, Garland, to hell with coffee. I want you.”

She’d tried, all that evening. She’d tried very hard. But all at once knew she could not—could not—get out of his car and go inside with him. She disengaged as gently as she could. “Rob, I—”

“Garland?” He drew back to look at her, still cupping her head.

“I—I think I’d better go home.”

“Are you all right?” His voice was concerned. “Did something at dinner disagree with you?”

It was so tempting to say yes, to say that she suddenly felt sick to her stomach, that maybe she’d had a bad mussel in the bouillabaisse. But she couldn’t lie. Not to Rob. “No, I’m all right. Physically, I mean. But I just…can’t. I can’t go inside with you.”

“But…” His hand fell, and he slumped back into his seat. “I see. There aren’t just two of us in this car, are there?”

She swallowed. “No.”

He was silent for a moment, then hit the steering wheel. “Damn it!”

“Rob—”

“I’ve planned this evening for weeks, ever since you said you couldn’t think about touching another man till your divorce was final. I made sure you had lots of time to absorb that you were through with your ex and would be officially and legally single. That’s what you’d said—that you needed time to finish cleaning Derek out of your head, right? Maybe you did, but Alasdair moved right into his place.”

“That’s—I am not in love with Alasdair!”

“No? Do you swear that you aren’t? Can you look me in the eye and say, ‘I have no feelings whatsoever for Alasdair’? Can you?”

She looked down at her hands. They were gripping each other tightly. She forced them to relax and took a deep breath. “This is ridiculous.”

“Is it? I’ve seen the two of you, you know. I’ve watched how he looks at you when you can’t see him. And I’ve seen how you look at him, too. I’ve seen how you move near him and I’ve heard your voice when you talk to him. Do you even realize how you act around him?”

“No,” she whispered.

“I only wish to God you were the same way with me.”

“Rob, listen—it’s—it’s nothing. He won’t stay forever—”

“So you figured that one out, did you? But not before he got what he wanted?”

“Rob!”

“Garland, what am I suppose to think? The first evening we spent together was wonderful. Then suddenly you retreated. It was like he was pulling you away from me, bit by bit. Christ, it’s made me angry—you’re so vulnerable, and he’s been treating you like you’re his private property, and you’ve been powerless to resist him.” He started the car. “I’ll take you home.”

They were silent for most of the drive. Garland huddled in her seat, head bowed. Not until they came to Eldredge Point Road did Rob speak.

“So is he staying or leaving?”

“Leaving.” She fought to keep her voice steady.

“When?”

“Another day or two, as soon as I finish making him his quilt.”

“Nice of you to offer to make one for me.”

She winced. “Rob.”

He exhaled. “I’m sorry. That was unnecessary.” They turned into her driveway. Rob pulled up to the front door, but didn’t take the car out of gear.

“You’re home,” he said pointedly.

She reached down for her purse and opened the door.

“Garland.” Rob’s voice stopped her.

“What?” She didn’t look at him.

“I’m sorry if I said anything that hurt you, but I’m hurt too. Right now I feel like I’ve just had my skin peeled off. You know my phone number. When Alasdair is gone—
really
gone—you can call me if you want. I will be thrilled and make a complete fool of myself telling you in detail how much I love you and how I’ve missed you. But I don’t want to hear from you until he’s gone.” His voice was low and steady.

She paused and stared at her feet, already out of the car. “I understand. And—I’m sorry. I truly am.”

He didn’t say anything more, so she climbed out and shut the door carefully. He did not wait while she fumbled for her keys and let herself into the house.

Chapter 13

T
he clock in the front hall said it was just under two and a half hours since Rob had picked her up. It had been a very long two and a half hours.

Garland dropped her purse on the table in the front hall and went into the kitchen. She’d make herself a cup of tea and then sit at the kitchen table and watch it steep itself into inky undrinkability while resting her head in her hands and feeling miserable—

No. No, she wouldn’t sit and feel miserable. Rob had been right—she did need to get her past out of her head, the recent as well as the not-so-recent. It was too late to go upstairs and work on Alasdair’s quilt, and Alasdair and Conn were probably already asleep. But she could go and clean out Derek’s old office so that as soon as Alasdair left she could move the beds out of her quilt room and down here. Welcome to single womanhood, where you got to move your own furniture. Good thing she hadn’t let Derek tease her out of taking strength-training classes at their sports club. “Are you trying to be stronger than me?” he’d once asked, pinching her biceps. “Why not just stick to aerobics classes and get some of those hot little thong leotards?”

She hadn’t listened. Derek had met his new wife-to-be, Chelsee, not long after that conversation. She’d been a part-time aerobics instructor.

She tiptoed upstairs to change out of her dress and into a t-shirt and old running shorts, got a roll of trash bags from the kitchen cupboard, and flicked on the light of Derek’s old office, determined not to think—just
do
.

It felt a little funny to stand in the doorway and look at the enormous desk and leather chairs and tall mahogany bookcases that seemed to scream A Very Successful Man owned them. With the exception of the bookcases and two leather wingbacks, she hated all of it. Nothing could have been more out of place in a seaside home. Kathy had said that her older brother was looking for a new desk for his office and would be happy to take it off her hands. He was welcome to it.

The bookcases would be easy to clear out. Derek had already taken the few things he’d wanted, and all that was left were knick-knacks and photographs. Most of those she unceremoniously dumped into a trash bag: a picture of Derek with a large dead fish at a fishing derby; a picture of Derek with some sports team owner at a play-off game; a picture of Derek presenting a large check to the Mattaquason Historical Society. A very ugly set of bull and bear bookends. A Tom Brady-autographed New England Patriots football helmet which she set aside to donate to the library’s silent auction fundraiser in July. Dozens of back issues of
Barron’s
and
Fortune
, interspersed with the odd copy of
Penthouse
. A decorative rack of antique golf balls that looked like a row of petrified kiwi fruit.

After a few minutes of sorting and tossing she realized she was humming. This had definitely been the right thing to do after the evening’s fiasco. She was in control of her life. Taking this room apart proved it.

She tied up one bag, dragged it to the garage, then looked around the room. Those awful curtains had to go next. She pulled down the heavy maroon paisley chintz panels Derek had chosen and folded them to go to Goodwill. She’d move the bookcases into the great room and paint this room cream and pale sage green, and never let another copy of Fortune into the house again.

She double-checked the large credenza that concealed file drawers, but Derek had cleaned those out last fall. Good. She didn’t want to have to deal with sending anything to him. So that just left the desk, and presumably he’d cleaned that out too.

Her presupposition seemed to be correct. The large middle drawer contained a few hundred paper clips—did they breed in drawers left unopened too long?—a letter opener shaped like a nine iron, and Derek’s Waterman pen, which she tossed into the trash with glee. The two top drawers on either side held odd ends of stationery and ancient receipts from the lawn service and trash hauler. The other drawers held an equally uninteresting mix that also went directly into a trash bag.

Except for the lower right hand drawer.

Garland pulled out a stack of cardboard boxes and glanced inside the top one. Just more stationery with the Mattaquason address imprinted on it. Derek certainly wouldn’t need that anymore. She started to dump them into a bag then paused. Might as well save the envelopes. She could put new address labels over Derek’s name and use them for bill paying.

When she opened the last box she saw that the envelopes inside it were already addressed. To Derek, at his office. There were at least two dozen of them, and the top one was postmarked last year, just a few weeks before Derek had moved out. As she stared at the round, immature handwriting on the top envelope, she realized what these were: letters from his girlfriend.

Sense told her to return the letter to the box and bury the whole thing in the bottom of the recycling bin. Or better yet, burn it. But curiosity won. She pulled the pages—letterhead from the health club where they’d met—out of the topmost envelope and unfolded them.

And wished she hadn’t. Detailed descriptions of ecstatic, juicy encounters in a broom closet at the health club were more than she could stomach, even if they were funny in a sick sort of way. But then from the bottom of a page she saw her own name leap out at her.

i just cant wait until you think its time to finally leive garlind and be with me. You poor baby how can you stand it, i know you married her to get your start in business and all and you have been so pashent and put up with so much all these years. Its about time you realy started living and having a real home life with someone who loves you. When you were saying those things about her the other day i felt so bad  it must have been just a misrable life for you stuck in that big house with her and her not respecting you and not wanting to give you any children, i will give you as many as you want i love litle babies and want alot of them remember the docter we went to said i would be a baby machine. i’m counting the days until we can be together forever darling sweety so i can take care of you like you diserve.

Garland stared at the page with the lower case “i’s” dotted with little hearts and wondered why all the air had been sucked out of the room, because suddenly she couldn’t breathe.

“Garland?”

She realized that she was curled into a little ball on the floor behind Derek’s desk, still clutching the letter. Alasdair stood over her looking puzzled, wrapped in Derek’s kanji robe, and she also realized that he had called her name several times now. She opened her mouth to speak, but all that would come out was a rusty, wordless croak. She looked up at him again and his face blurred and fractured and finally dissolved in a wash of tears.

* * *

Alasdair had watched Garland go that evening feeling as if a battle were going on inside him. He knew from the hints she dropped that the healer had hoped to keep her with him late into the evening, which could only mean one thing. The rational side of him had pretended to be pleased—it would be good for Garland to find love in the healer’s arms tonight. He’d felt her bewildered pain ever since he’d told her that he had to leave and it had been almost more than he could endure. But the rest of him had struggled not to keep her from going out to the healer’s car and take her upstairs to make love to her himself. Being ripped at by Mahtahdou and his demons had not hurt more.

So when he heard the tires of a car and the sound of her key in the door as he lay abed, and a few minutes later her light tread up and then back down the stairs, he decided to stop pretending to sleep. He looked over at Conn, curled up in Garland’s purple shirt and sleeping soundly, then put on his robe and went downstairs after her.

He found her in the work room that had belonged to her husband. She had taken off the dress she’d worn earlier to dine with the healer and was in skimpy clothes that left her arms and legs bare. He hung back in the dark hall and watched her drop piles of papers into bags and sweep the coverings off the windows. Her movements were brisk and determined but there was a strange, unhappy expression on her face that puzzled him. Alasdair felt a sharp, gloating jab of satisfaction—so the healer hadn’t been able to coax her into his bed after all. It was wrong of him to be so pleased at the fact. It was also impossible not to be.

Had something happened between them? Was that why she was cleaning this room now—because she was too upset to sleep? Maybe he should go back upstairs now and let her work out her feelings in peace…but no. If Garland was unhappy, he couldn’t desert her. Even if she didn’t know he was there.

When all the shelves and surfaces were bare she knelt on the floor behind the big desk, sorting through the papers in the drawers and emptying them into the bags. From where he stood he could just see part of her back and shoulders hunched over her work. The clock in the front hall chimed eleven times. Would she stop cleaning when she’d finished the desk and go upstairs to her bed? If so, then he should go back up now so that she didn’t see him. What would she say tomorrow when he asked her how her evening with the healer had been? Should he even ask her, or—