The Unforgiven (9 page)

But her mind kept running back over the things he’d said, the way he looked at her. He had even brought her a present. She could not help but smile when she thought of how shy he had seemed in offering it to her. She glanced up at the mantelpiece to admire his gift.

The bottle was gone.

Maggie leaped from her chair and approached the mantelpiece. She ran her hands over its smooth surface, even though she could see clearly that the amber vial was not there. “I put it here,” she said aloud. Then she wheeled around, her eyes searching the room as if she expected to see someone behind her.

The room was in perfect order, just as she left it. She turned back to the mantel and stared at her fingers
curved tensely around its edge. Someone had been in the house. That was the only possible explanation. Thieves? she wondered. She scanned the room sharply. All of the Thornhills’ ornaments were in place. She walked over and lifted up a sterling silver candy dish on the bookcase. There was a faint ring of dust around its base. It had not even been touched.

It didn’t make sense. Why would someone take a bottle of perfume and leave a sterling silver plate? Maggie hurried to her bedroom. As she came through the door, she half expected to see all her belongings strewn on the floor. She steeled herself.

The room was neat and undisturbed. She rushed to her closet and threw open the door, her heart pounding in her ears. Everything was there, all in order. No one would come into a house and take just a bottle of perfume. As she turned away from the closet and switched on the bedside lamp, an unfamiliar shape seemed to wink at her in the mirror across the room. Her eyes darted to the dresser top. There sat the bottle of perfume.

Maggie stared at it a minute. Then she walked over to pick it up.
Now, how did this get in here?
She retraced her steps of the morning. She had put the perfume on the mantel, and then.… “And then I came in here and got a sweater,” she said aloud. Relief made her laugh aloud.

It must be prison; it turned forgetfulness into suspicion and paranoia. Still, it made her realize how jumpy her nerves were. She looked down at the bottle, safely in her hand. Either that or you’re lovesick.

Then she banished the thought.

6

Maggie glanced up as Evy entered the office and sat down at the desk across from hers. All day she had barely seen the girl, who had been relegated by Jess to a job in the art room. Evy inserted a piece of paper into her typewriter and studied the roller as she turned it. She looked up, startled to find Maggie watching her.

Maggie quickly lowered her head and began shuffling through the papers on her desk. Then she opened her desk drawer, pulled out a pencil, and closed it again.

“How was your weekend?”

The question took Maggie by surprise. She met Evy’s gaze diffidently. “Fine, thank you,” she replied.

The girl nodded and seemed to cast about for a way to begin a conversation. “Did you do anything special?” she asked.

Maggie contemplated the girl for a moment without replying. Taking the initiative in a conversation seemed to be beyond Evy’s usual scope. It occurred to Maggie as she looked at her that Evy must have been a scrawny, unattractive child. The kind of child that people forget to hug and kiss. The thought gave rise to a wave of protective feelings for the girl.

“I went up to see some puppies,” she offered. “I think I found one.”

“That’s nice,” said Evy. “What kind?”

“Just a mutt. Mostly beagle.”

“Where’d you get it?” the girl asked.

“Well, I don’t have it yet. It can’t leave its mother for a few days. Some people named Wilson have the dogs.”

“Oh, I know them,” said Evy. She was silent for a moment. Then she asked, “How did you know they had puppies there?”

Maggie squirmed slightly. “I was just driving by,” she said. “I saw a sign, so I stopped in.” She began an exaggerated motion of making an erasure on the paper in front of her.

“Well, that was lucky,” said Evy. She hesitated. Then she asked casually, “Did you go by yourself?”

Maggie stopped short, then slowly continued her erasing with hard, deliberate strokes. She heard the anxious catch in the girl’s voice. Jess. That was what this sudden interest in her weekend activities was all about. Maggie sighed. “Yes,” she lied. “I was just out exploring.”

“That’s nice,” said Evy enthusiastically. “You should have called me. I would have come with you.”

Maggie gave her a grateful smile. The friendly overture made the lie seem worthwhile. “Thanks,” she said. “Next time I will.”

Just then, they heard the outer door slam. Grace trudged into the office and dumped several packages down on her desk by the door. “How’s everything?” Grace addressed herself to Evy.

“Okay,” said Evy, and she returned to her typewriter.

“Grace, have you got that.…” Jess rushed in and met Grace’s irritated glance. “Sorry, take your coat off. I’m looking for that column on fishhook injuries.”

“I don’t know where it is,” said Grace. “She had it.”

“It’s right here,” said Maggie, ignoring Grace.

“Thanks,” said Jess absently, and he began running his forefinger down the page.

“Honestly, I’m so disgusted,” Grace announced. “Friday is my mother-in-law’s birthday, and I went up to Croddick’s to get her a sweater she wanted, and it was gone. Now I don’t know what to get.”

Jess looked up from his reading. “Try the pharmacy. He’s got lots of nice perfumes and soaps and things.”

“Since when are you the expert on ladies’ toiletries?” Grace asked him, bemused.

Jess shrugged, but his eyes held a guilty, laughing look, and he shot a brief glance at Maggie. “I get around, you know,” he said.

Maggie could feel Evy’s eyes on her, but she did not look up.

“Well, why don’t you get her a book?” Jess suggested.

Grace stared at him. “What?”

“Your mother-in-law. Get her a book on gardening.”

“A book!” said Grace incredulously. “She’s half blind.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ll think of something,” she muttered. Grace unbuttoned her black coat and shrugged it off. Then she draped it over her arm and headed for the coatrack in the hall.

Jess smiled at Maggie conspiratorially. Evy began to type. “Just trying to be helpful,” he said.

Maggie forced a smile.

“You okay?” he asked.

Maggie nodded. Jess came over to her desk and sat down beside it. “What’d you do yesterday?” he asked.

“Nothing much,” she said. “Things around the house. Cleaning. I did some reading.”

Jess toyed with the letter opener near the edge of her desk. He picked it up, ran it down his palm, and then replaced it. “I had a nice time with you on Saturday,” he said. “I guess you’ll be glad to get that puppy home.”

Maggie shifted uneasily in her chair. From Evy’s direction the typing faltered, then stopped.

“Yes,” she replied softly.

“I’m glad I could show you a little bit of the island. There are a lot of other beautiful spots I’d like you to see.”

“I’m sure there are,” said Maggie grimly.

“Listen,” said Jess, “I know it’s short notice, but I was wondering if you’d have dinner with me tonight.”

“Tonight,” she repeated, staring at him. “I can’t.” She could feel her face burning and was acutely aware of the silence from Evy’s direction. She was conscious that she was trying to say as little as possible, although she realized that Evy had already heard more than enough.

“Well,” he said, “that’s too bad.” He got up from the chair as Grace reappeared in the doorway.

“Thank you anyway,” she whispered. Surreptitiously, Maggie glanced over at Evy. The girl sat facing her
typewriter, her hands clenched in her lap. Maggie could see the muscles in her dead white face working as she stared straight in front of her.

“Evy,” Grace broke in, “are you done with those paste-ups?”

“They’re on your desk,” Evy snapped.

“Pardon me,” Grace sniffed, then flipped through the sheaf of dummy sheets. “Well, these are all right,” she pronounced. “Now, why don’t you work on those new subscriptions for the rest of the day.”

Evy pushed back her chair and stood up. “No, I can’t. I’m going home.”

“Home?” Grace yelped. “It’s only four o’clock.”

“Well, I feel sick, and I’m leaving,” Evy muttered, shoving the chair into the desk.

The older woman was immediately concerned. “What is it, honey?” she said, coming over and placing a hand on Evy’s forehead. “Do you have a fever?”

Evy shook off her hand and stared at Maggie. “I feel like throwing up,” she said.

“Uh-oh,” Grace clucked. “Well, all right. You get on home.”

Evy picked up her purse and started for the door.

Maggie spoke up in a strained voice. “Do you need a ride?” she asked.

“No,” the girl retorted.

Grace wrapped an arm around Evy’s shoulders and accompanied her out of the office, murmuring words of advice.

•   •   •

At 5:15, after an hour of silence save for a few razor-sharp exchanges between them, Maggie watched Grace retrieve her black coat, put it on, and gather up her packages. With a brusque “Good night,” she left, slamming the front door behind her.

Maggie sat back in her chair and stared over at Evy’s empty desk. In the silent room Maggie had the eerie sense that the battered old antique accused her for the absence of its occupant. Slowly, she rose to her feet and crossed over to it. Everything on the chipped and gouged-out desk top was neatly in place. There were piles of papers and a group of pencils all sharpened and carefully aligned on the sides of the blotter. A box of rubber bands, paper clips, and a stack of typing paper sat on the right. Nothing on the desk betrayed anything of the girl who sat there, except for a round, crystal paperweight with a blue-, black-, and golden-winged butterfly inside it, which rested on a stack of papers. Maggie ran her fingers over the object, then picked it up to examine it. She frowned as she inspected the fragile creature, trapped in its crystal orb. It was beautiful, suspended there. Beautiful and lifeless. Maggie replaced it on the papers and noticed that her fingers had left smudges clouding the glass. Guiltily she picked it up and tried to wipe it clean with a tissue from her pocket. The smudges lengthened into smears.

“Maggie.”

She started and looked up. Jess stood in the doorway in his coat. “If anyone calls, I had to run over to the health food store and pick up their ad copy. Last-minute amendments from the counterculture.”

She tried to conceal the paperweight. “Okay,” she said without looking at him, “but I’m just about to leave.”

“All right.” He seemed about to add something, but then he thought better of it and left.

As he disappeared out the door, Maggie replaced the paperweight on Evy’s desk. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but it was better this way. The memory of Evy’s stricken face recurred, as it had all afternoon. She sat down heavily in the girl’s chair. A feeling of shame overcame Maggie as she recalled the girl’s awkward attempt to find out the truth, and her own lies, now exposed, that she had given in response.
I was only trying to protect her,
she thought. Whatever the motive, it had done more harm than good.

The girl’s infatuation with Jess was so apparent. Naturally she’d resent any attention he showed to another woman. Maggie realized that she had come, unwelcome, into Evy’s life and disrupted her fantasy. Evy was very young, and in love with her boss, and it was painful. Stinging memories of Roger recurred as she sat in Evy’s seat. She too had been young, alone in a strange town. She had fled her home and the years of silent recriminations from her mother, whispered imprecations from Sister Dolorita. She had settled in a new place and had promptly fallen in love with her boss. For months she would go home to her lonely rented room at night and think of him. And at work her stomach would churn with jealousy when she heard the familiar, disembodied voice of his wife on the phone.

And then, unbelievably, she found her love returned.
That was when the guilt, and the pain, had begun in earnest. But she had been vulnerable, like Evy, and she needed him.

Maggie rubbed her eyes, as if to banish a disquieting vision. Then her glance fell on a bag under Evy’s desk. Glad for any distraction, she reached down and picked up the package, which had a pharmacy’s mortar and pestle insignia on the front. She looked inside and found that the bag contained two bars of soap, a tube of toothpaste, and two vials of prescription pills. The labels indicated that the pills were for Harriet Robinson, to be taken three times a day.

Maggie rolled the plastic containers around in her hand. She read the labels again. Harriet Robinson. The pills were obviously for Evy’s grandmother. In her anger, Evy must have forgotten them. Maggie dropped the vials back in the bag and rolled the top closed. Then she wedged the bag under her arm and went to gather up her purse and coat.

Setting out, Maggie felt confident that she could find the way. But the dusk was gathering rapidly, and the roads, once she was out of town, looked confusingly similar. She crept along in the old Buick, craning her neck to see the street signs which the headlights dimly illuminated.

The old car coughed and rattled. Maggie gripped the wheel and glanced apprehensively at the gauges as she made her way down the country roads. Through the bare branches of the trees she spied an occasional light from a farmhouse like a beacon in the purple
dusk. The farther along she drove, the fewer the isolated glimmers became.

Just as she began to feel certain that she had lost her way, she came upon a traffic island in the road. She slowed the car and strained to make out the street signs, partially obscured by branches that drooped down from the trees like tangled strands of gray hair.

Barrington Street. The old car groaned in protest as she turned the wheel and accelerated.
This is it,
she thought.

The Robinson mailbox, clearly lettered, jutted out at her about half a mile along Barrington. Maggie turned up the long driveway, the gravel crunching under the tires of the car, and came to a halt beside the house. She turned off the engine, and the car sighed.