Tea and Primroses (13 page)

Patrick Waters glanced over at me, just a skirt of his glittering green eyes and then back to the drink Doris had set in front of him. He downed the entire pour in one gulp and swiped the corners of his mouth with his index finger and thumb. My eyes lingered on his mouth, wondering for the briefest of moments what it would feel like to brush my fingers there.

He moved his eyes back to me. “Wouldn’t you agree, Oregon?”

I averted my eyes. My mouth opened and closed. What was he asking me?

Doris rescued me. “This is Constance Mansfield, Patrick. She writes for John at the paper.”

He put his hand out. “Nice to meet you, Oregon.” He pronounced it like a newscaster might. Or-eh-gen. It sounded lovely. It made my heart flutter like a schoolgirl’s again. I was already making myself sick practically swooning over this man. Doris was right. He was dangerous.

I reached out and shook his hand, which was twice the size as mine. There were calluses on his palms, like my father’s and Reggie’s. Did he work outside? How was this possible for a New York City editor?

“What? You just write instead of speak?” he asked me, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Nah, she can talk,” said Doris. “Oregon accent and all.”

“We don’t have accents,” I said, my voice barely out of hiding at the back of my throat, in obvious rebellion at my blatant lie. “You guys do.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” said Patrick, moving his glass in a circular motion, just as he’d done earlier with the spoon. He turned on his stool to look at me, his long legs stretched out so they were only inches from mine. “Wouldn’t you agree that who you marry is the most important decision of your life, Oregon?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m never getting married.” I said this with a hint of haughtiness, fully believing my own story.

“That right?” He looked amused and cocked his head to the side, like he was observing some kind of rare bird.

Doris, taking a sip of her drink before hiding it under the counter, leaned on her elbows, looking at Patrick. “You want something to eat? We close in a half hour so it’s now or never.”

“No, Doris, I mostly certainly do not want something to eat. I want, instead, to sit here and drink your life-giving whiskey and gaze at beautiful Oregon in an attempt to forget about my wreck of a life.”

Both Doris and I stared at him.

“What? Do I surprise you ladies with my candor? Someone telling the truth? Hell, if I can’t do it with you two, then who?”

Doris laughed—loud enough that Frank stuck his head in the kitchen window for a moment and, apparently assured that all was well, disappeared again. Frank looked like Mr. Rogers, except he wore a T-shirt and an apron rather than a sweater.

“Well, then, Patrick Waters, by all means don’t let us stop you from either telling the truth or drinking yourself into oblivion. I’ve done both many times myself. The bad news is that when you wake up from your stupor, the demons still hover about.” Doris pulled the flask out from under the bar and filled his glass to the halfway mark. “You want ice?”

“No, ma’am, I do not want ice. I want it to burn my throat. I want it to hurt going down.” He took another sip of whiskey. “You know what else?”

“Pray tell,” said Doris.

“Clowns scare the hell out of me.”

I laughed, despite my attempt to remain aloof and detached.

“Ah ha, she can laugh,” said Patrick, slamming the counter with his hand. “I can rest easier now. Someone so pretty should always be laughing.” He moved the glass in a circle again. “Doris, you want to know the best decision I ever made?”

“Sure,” she answered, taking a sip of her own drink and leaning on her elbows again.

“Keeping my dad’s house. Because now that my life’s falling apart, I have someplace to go.” He lifted his glass and gestured at me with it in a sort of toast. “That, Oregon, has kept me from falling into the abyss.” Squinting his eyes, he gazed at me for a long moment. “Wait a minute. Are you the columnist for the paper here? I recognize you now from your byline photo.”

I nodded, still too stunned and shy to speak.

At that moment, Frank called to Doris from the back. She made her apologies and promised to return in a moment. I barely noticed her departure.

Patrick Waters turned his full attention on me like I was a painting in a museum. “Scrutinized” was the word floating around in my head. “I enjoy your column. You’ve got chops.”

“Chops?”

“You can write.”

I felt my eyes go wide. “Thank you,” I managed.

“First time I read it, I thought, wait a minute now, where did John find this girl?”

“Thanks. I think.”

 “There’s substance to it, which is unexpected. And heart. Can’t fake that.” He lifted his glass, gesturing at me with it once again. “What’re you doing here? You should be working at one of the big papers. Maybe afford something to eat instead of living on Doris’s crackers and coffee.”

“I do fine.” I moved my hand over the plastic saltine cracker wrapper.

“Come on now. A waist the size of the span of my hands, a face so thin you could rest a golf ball under your cheekbones. When was the last time you felt full?”

I stared at him. How did he know all this? “Not often. My mother was a terrible cook. And now, whenever Doris takes pity on me and gives me a free burger.”

He smacked the counter with his empty hand. “There you go. You’re hungry. And ambitious, I can see that. So what the hell are you doing here?”

“I can think here. I find cities to be counter to clear thought. Plus, it gives me time to do other things.”

“Yeah, like what?”

I smiled.  “Never mind that.”

He smiled back at me. “Let me guess. You’ve a novel in a drawer?”

I flushed, feeling ridiculous. “Yes, actually. And two others not yet ready for the drawer.”

“Three? Jesus, do you do anything else but write? You can’t be more than twenty-five?”

“Twenty-four.” I lifted my chin. Damn him for making me feel stupid. “And I have no intention of hitting you up for anything, if that’s what you think.” I flushed deeper, feeling the perspiration start under my armpits.

“You going to write about me in your column?”

I looked at him, surprised. “Why would I do that?”

“New York editor drunk at 4:30 in the afternoon, confessing to the utter despair of his life.”

“No, sir, I usually just write about happy things in my column.” I put down my pen, which I had only just realized I’d been holding tight in my left hand for the entire time he’d been in the diner. “Or, simple things, anyway. Nothing about you appears simple.”

He shook his head, taking another sip of his drink. “That’s where you’re wrong, Oregon. I’m as simple as they come. That’s the trouble. I’m an uncomplicated man in a complicated life.”

“That’s interesting.” I felt myself softening toward him, felt something like compassion, or was it familiarity?

“Why’s that?”

“I’m a complicated woman in an uncomplicated life.”

“Well, that’s a good combination. Do you know that?”

I turned toward him. “I do, actually. It makes you a writer.”

He toasted me and finished the rest of his whiskey. “Amen, to that, Oregon.” Setting his now empty glass on the counter, he gestured at the door. “Come on, let me buy you a decent meal. You can pitch me your novels.” He stood. “Suddenly I don’t feel like getting drunk after all.”

I asked myself all the questions one might imagine in this situation. What are you doing, accepting dinner from a married man? An unhappily married man, no less? It was all so trite and ripe with nothing but disaster. There was no way for it to end well. But there was something about Patrick Waters I couldn’t say no to. I’ve questioned it, again and again, all these years later. Was it just that I wanted to pitch my books to him? And the answer is no. In that moment, as I walked out of Doris’s diner, catching a whiff of his spicy aftershave and leather jacket, I barely remembered the manuscript gathering dust in the drawer of my rickety desk in my stark room above the barn.

I thought of nothing but him. From that moment on, it was always just Patrick.

***

He took me to the nicest restaurant in Greeley, a little bistro at the end of town that had recently changed ownership. I’d written a column about the young couple from Boston who had saved their pennies for ten years to make a down payment on this small-town restaurant. As we walked in, I glanced up at Patrick. “I forgot. I was last full here. I wrote a piece on the new owners and they thanked me with a meal.”

“Ah, so you’re a local celebrity. I’ll be on my best behavior.”

I laughed. We stood by the hostess platform, waiting to be seated. It was a Friday night but the restaurant was only half full. “Not exactly. Plus, practically this whole town knows who you are, according to Doris.”

“Did you?”

I shook my head. “No. John told me he was going to ask you to take a look at my manuscript. He was appalled I didn’t know who you are.”

He chuckled as Becky, one of the owners, came toward us, holding menus. “So I knew who you were and you had no idea who I was. I like it,” he said.

Becky greeted me warmly. To Patrick, she said, “Welcome back. Where’s your lovely wife tonight?”

“New York.” He said it flat, matter-of-fact.

Becky’s gaze darted to me and I swear there was a friendly warning from her clear brown eyes. She took us to a table in the back. Several people nodded to us as we came through. Others stared at us like we were some kind of oddity.

Patrick held my chair until I was settled and asked Becky to bring us a bottle of Bordeaux.

“I thought you weren’t getting drunk tonight?” I asked it lightly but already I felt protective of him.

He smiled, leaning back in his chair, his green eyes glittering under the soft lights of the restaurant. “I’ll sip slowly.”

“I’m more a beer girl.” Something about him made me want to argue.

“No. You’re a red wine drinker. All the complicated, smart girls are.”

I raised an eyebrow. “No, I’m a beer girl. I’m from Oregon.”

“They don’t have wine in Oregon?”

“Well, no, not really.” Now I was flustered. “Well, they do, I guess, but where I’m from no one drinks it. Only beer and whiskey.”

“Tonight’s the beginning of your wine-drinking days.”

I smirked at him, pretending to be scandalized when really I wanted to laugh. “You’re extremely bossy.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

He looked up as Becky approached with the wine. We were silent as she opened it and poured a small amount in Patrick’s glass. He swirled and sniffed with his nose deep in the glass before taking a bit in his mouth. “Great.” He pointed at the menu, his voice soft, indulgent. “Order anything you want. I mean it.”

“Steak dinner,” I said, my mouth watering.

“Make that two,” he said to Becky. “I like mine rare, practically mooing.”

“Medium for me, please.”

After asking us if we wanted baked or mashed potatoes, and what kind of dressing on our dinner salads, Becky finally left us alone. Patrick turned his gaze back to me.

“This is turning out to be an odd day,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I just wouldn’t have predicted meeting you and having dinner with you and, well, you know, talking like this.”

“Have you ever met someone for the first time and felt like you knew them better than is actually possible? There’s something both mysterious and familiar between you, as if you’d known one another in a previous life or another dimension? Do you understand what I mean?”

“Yes.” I looked at my placemat, embarrassed and feeling completely exposed.

“Tell me you feel it too.” He chuckled and lifted his glass. “Otherwise I look like a fool.”

I laughed, suddenly comfortable again. “I feel it too.”

“Thank you. I’m better now. And thank you for coming to dinner with me. I promise to be a perfect gentleman.” He picked up his glass and gestured for me to do the same. “A toast to you. Thank you for saving me from a terrible hangover tomorrow.”

 “You’re welcome.” I took a sip of my wine. It was wonderful. Later, I would learn to describe it as dry and full-bodied—just one of the many things Patrick taught me.

Over the salad, he asked, “What do you want for your career?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll laugh and I can’t bear for you to think I’m ridiculous.”

“I won’t laugh.” He put his hand over his heart. “I promise.”

“I want to be a bestselling novelist.”

Without a hint of mockery, he asked, “Why would I think that’s ridiculous?”

I flushed. Flushing appeared to be a hazard when I was with Patrick. “Well, you must hear it a thousand times a day. I mean, in your profession.”

“Not a thousand. But some. Although, in general, I believe people, not just writers but those in all professions, aim too low, making excuses or apologies about their talent or the validity of their dream. The truth is someone has to be a bestselling novelist. Why shouldn’t it be you? And the most important thing is to know what you want and declare it without fear or embarrassment. One can accomplish the impossible. It happens every day. But you must know what the impossible is first. You, Oregon, appear to know this already. That fact will make all the difference.”

I ducked my head as my eyes filled with stinging tears. I was a cactus in those days, needing little water to survive. I’d grown up with a mother stingy with compliments and affection and my father was so reserved I’d learned to expect little encouragement from outside sources. I was a self-sustaining force but to hear actual encouragement felt emotionally overwhelming.

The most important thing is to know what you want.
These words echoed in my mind for the next thirty years. I taught them to Sutton. I lived them. They changed my life. In the months to come I learned that one of Patrick’s many gifts was condensing what seemed impossibly complex into something exquisitely simple.

But tonight I did not know how those words would affect all the decisions, all the lucky blessings that befell me later. No, tonight I knew only Patrick and his glittering eyes and how much I wished I could take him home and make him mine.