The Owl & Moon Cafe: A Novel (No Series) (16 page)

“Adventure?”

“Aren’t you afraid someone will steal your job out from under you? That’s basically what happened to me. Of course, it’s my own fault for not finishing my thesis. Not that I had the time.”

Fergus set the bread down on the plate and appeared to study the foil butter wrapper. “What a funny packaging. In Scotland, butter comes in a roll, not bits like this.”

“What are you saying? American butter sucks?”

He laughed. “Your infrequent descents into the vernacular captivate me, Mariah.”

“All I know of you is that you live on a boat and like your lamb rare. I have to ask questions.”

“I suppose I’m like any bloke who sees the big four-oh looming, and wants to scarper off. I certainly don’t intend to live the remainder of my life the way I did the first half.”

She swallowed a gulp of the stout and coughed. “God, it’s like drinking yeast.”

“That’s what makes it so wonderful.”

She grimaced. “Are you going to tell me about the first thirty-nine years over dinner? If so, when will you have time to eat all that food?”

“Excellent points, all. Being of like mind—academic mind—I’ll go straightaway to the essentials. I feel I must confess something to you.”

“Confess what?”

“About the love of my life, Theodora.”

Mariah felt her heart pull back like the worn-out rubber band that it apparently was. Jesus Christ Almighty. This wasn’t a budding relationship clunking along until it found its way. Fergus wanted a quick bout of athletic sex with the American waitress, and figured two “teas” and a couple of dinners were payment enough. Men and their waitress fantasies! Why was sex so uncomplicated for them? She took hold of her purse strap, ready to bolt. “Theodora,” she said. “By all means, tell me. I can’t wait to hear about her.”

Fergus smiled, retrieved his wallet from his jacket and flipped it open to where most men kept photos of their wife and children. He took a long, loving look at the picture before he turned it to Mariah. “Look at that face and tell me she isn’t the most beautiful girl on the planet.”

Mariah steeled herself and looked. Inside the plastic sleeve was a photograph of a brownish-gray dog with a shaggy coat and whiskers. Mariah reined in the embarrassment of being duped as best she could. “She’s breathtaking,” she said. “How long have you two been together?”

“Six months now.”

“Any kids?”

Fergus chuckled. “I wish you could see your face. Priceless.”

Mariah went hot. “You ought to know I don’t like being made fun of.”

“Come along! Did I really upset you?”

“Take a good look, Mr. Applecross. You won’t fool me again.”

“I might.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Now you’ve gone and done it. Thrown down the gauntlet. I’m compelled to defend the clan plaid. Fifty quid says I can fool you again. Quite possibly tonight.” He picked up the bread again, and then set it down. “You see, Mariah, you’re—”

He was unable to finish his sentence because at that moment the waiter showed up with his dinner—a huge, steaming portion that would take him at least an hour to eat. Mariah stared at her small salad. Fergus held up his Guinness. “To forging a lifelong friendship?”

She raised her own glass. “To shaggy dog stories.”

“Theodora’d have a fit if she heard you say that. She’s a purebred Scottish deerhound, the breed of choice for the Picts, the Earls, and the likes of me, a bit of a fool for history and tradition.”

Mariah rolled her eyes.

“She’s a rescue animal. Everyone should have a soul mate, don’t you think?”

Mariah agreed. But if you could find a soul mate in a large dog that needed a home, wouldn’t the world be thick with dogs already? Oh, this night was just one awkward moment after another. How could you not admire a man who rescued a dog? Allegra was right: Fergus was more her type than Mariah’s. Maybe after he drank another stout he would loosen up, tell her she was pretty, or comely, or whatever the hell the Scottish slang was for that. She’d put herself in this situation, even when she knew better. It was going to be a big, drawn-out, messy, emotional entanglement that would end badly. “Can I meet your dog?” she said.

“Of course.”

After taking the Carmel Gate onto Seventeen Mile Drive, they rounded the Spanish Bay golf course, and Fergus exited at the Lighthouse Gate, turning toward the wharf. Mariah wondered if after introducing her to Theodora, Fergus would try to put the moves on her. Seemed like by the second date everyone had sex. Allegra’s voice rang in her ears: Wear cute underwear! Mariah was horrified to realize she was wearing a pair of Lindsay’s panties because she’d put off doing the wash. Maybe if she didn’t let him grope her, he wouldn’t want to see her anymore. They lived in a world of computers and think tanks, but did communication between men and women get any easier? All those internet dating services, personal ads, and blind dates doomed attempts to fill yet another chasmlike gap. Sociologically—oh, shut up, she told herself.

Fergus opened her door, then walked her down the pier, unlocking a gate, and headed toward a sailboat with the name
Ellen Cole II
painted on the side. “Who’s Ellen? Another greyhound?”

“Deerhound,” he corrected. “There’s quite a difference. Ellen was my mother, rest her soul.”

“I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me.”

“Not to worry. Let me just switch on the lights, and find Theodora’s leash. You cannot let a deerhound off-leash,” he said. “Their brains revert in a matter of seconds. By the time you shout ‘come back’ they’re two kilometers down the lane, chasing imaginary lure.”

Mariah’s dog experience had been strictly limited to Allegra’s Chihuahuas. They were spoiled rotten things, especially Khan, who only liked a select few people. But this dog coming on deck from the cabin below was elegant. Quiet and somber despite the shaggy coat, only her thumping tail gave away her delight at seeing Fergus. Mariah held out her hand. Theodora sniffed her fingers, then the suede jacket. Then she moved away until she was beside Fergus, her head coming to rest under his palm.

“I should have brought her something from the restaurant.”

“There are three things to remember about deerhounds,” Fergus said. “First, they’re an ancient breed, once only available to those with the rank of Earl, or above. Second, they have an insatiable desire for human companionship, and generally bond with only one person. Third, Sir Walter Scott got it crack-on when he called the deerhound ‘the most perfect creature of heaven.’”

Mariah listened to the burrs in his accent. Drinking the stout—Fergus insisted she finish the glass—made his accent even more intriguing. He switched on the cabin lights, as well as the fairy lights twining up the mast like electrified ivy, and she realized that this was the boat she’d noticed when driving by the arena the night Allegra was told she had leukemia. A small beacon, beckoning. All the ropes were tightly coiled. Fergus wasn’t a neat freak, but clearly he liked order. He’d never find that in Mariah’s life.

“I’m plugging the kettle in,” he said. “Fancy a cup of tea?”

“What kinds do you have?”

“Chinese powder keg, blackberry, some herbal crap I’ve never tried. And, of course, Red Rose, which I drink by the bucketful. Don’t think for a moment that I buy it for the little ceramic creatures that come with it.”

He pointed to the ledge above the tiny sink, which had a good start on Noah’s ark. Mariah picked up a pastel blue rhino, felt its horn, and set it back in place. Fergus sat down, and Theodora walked sure-footed toward Mariah, resting her head on Mariah’s knee. She stroked the dog’s ears, and her eyes closed in bliss. I’m still not sleeping with him, Mariah thought. Not even if he wears three condoms.

“So do you own a kilt?” she asked. “Do you play bagpipes, or the pennywhistle? Do you have haggis down there in that tiny refrigerator? Clotted cream for your tea?”

“Every Scotsman worth a sod has a kilt. I’ve messed about with the pipes. I thought you might notice that I’ve been having my tea at The Owl and Moon. I like the food, as well as the company.”

Mariah was grateful for the low light, so he couldn’t see her face burning. “Tell me about your job in Scotland,” she said. “Did you love it?”

He looked out to the water, where a seal was splashing around before settling on one of the buoys for the night. “I did indeed love it. But when the chance to do this came about, I jumped at it. Offered the position of academic dean, I thought, here’s a way to see if I fit in with that sort of thing. If that’s a direction I care to pursue.”

“I envy you having options,” Mariah said. “Instead of being let go, I was hoping for a tenure track offer.” She looked out onto the black water, tried to laugh and failed. “My life’s just one slippery slope after the other these days.”

Fergus reached across and handed her a cup of tea. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how hard you work, and the pressure you’re under.”

“Thanks.”

“My pleasure. If you let me kiss you I’ll pull strings at the college when you put in your application.”

“There’s a deal I can’t turn down.”

Five minutes into the “snogging,” his word for it, Mariah was out of breath, all beating heart and racing pulse. Their previous dates had consisted of tea at Bookworks on Lighthouse, and listening to the Puss Pinebluff Trio practice for their evening gig at a dimly lit nightclub filled with people who appeared to have a close relationship with the bartender. Fergus wouldn’t care about the panties. Maybe Allegra was onto something, using sex for fun. But when the silence stretched and she could have asked for it, she found she couldn’t.

Oh, try to sleep after a night like that, Mariah thought, as she tossed and turned in her bed, a room that had in a previous life been a kitchen. Feeling desire like this again almost made her sick. There was scientific proof that infatuation did crazy things to a person. Anytime the body was focused on one feeling, fixed with hormones and neuropeptides and yearning, good sense sailed right out the window. PEA—phenylethylamine—the in-love hormone, acted like crack cocaine, speeding the body up, causing one to stay up all hours talking, kissing, anticipating the inevitable fast-and-furious sex, like she had with Ephraim, once in his office, even, while students walked by outside, oblivious.

He’d offered her five hundred dollars when she told him she was pregnant.

“What for?” she said, shocked that such a shabby dresser had that much money in his wallet.

“An abortion.”

“You want me to flush our child down the toilet? Are you insane?”

“You’re the one with the pro-choice bumper sticker,” he’d said. “I sure as hell don’t want to raise another kid at this stage of my life.”

Ephraim had been through a nasty divorce, lost custody of his son, and now he wanted the sex life of an adolescent boy. He was Mariah’s first. She could hardly sleep for thinking of seeing him again.

Just as quickly as phenylethylamine spiked, so could it crash. When the depression set in—just remembering his words—Mariah would have sold her soul to have that happy-crazy state back again.

With tears rolling down her face, she’d told Gammy she was pregnant with Lindsay. “I’m sorry. I know how much you were counting on me to do better,” she said. “I wanted to be the person you hoped I would be, smart, with a good job, maybe someday married, having kids when it’s respectable instead of like this. I guess I’m just like my mother after all.”

Her grandmother held her in her arms, patting her back. “I won’t say I’m thrilled. I wish you’d waited. But remember, Mariah, Jesus loved the little children most of all.”

Mariah had sniffled and said, “Jesus didn’t get pregnant and humiliate his family.”

“He did call a little attention to himself, though.” A wistful smile crossed her grandmother ‘s face. “Mariah, let me tell you a story. The year is 1960-something. I’m working as usual, stocking the same old shirts and belts that haven’t sold in two years and won’t in two more. A men’s haberdashery—what the devil was I thinking? I’d come to a crossroads, and I had to make a decision. Bess, I told myself, maybe it’s time to sell this property, buy a little house in some small town, and live simple. Maybe work for somebody else, manage their accounts payable. I’ve always been good with money. In walked your mother, pregnant, penniless, holes poked in every one of her dreams. I wasn’t surprised. From the day she was born Alice was as stubborn as a two-headed goat. She was carrying on just the way you are now, like it was the end of the world. Honey, the thing with spilled milk is you have to wipe it up and rinse out the dishcloth or things start to smell awful. Your mom had the pioneer gene. She made great bread and cookies, so I thought, why not have a fire sale with these old shirts and try a little bakery? It’ll take her mind off turning up pregnant, barely sixteen years old. The Owl and Moon was a goofy name in my opinion. I asked her, Alice, what do you think people will think we serve when they see that name? She had her heart dead set. With all of us here, your baby will have three times the love.”