The Unsung Hero (21 page)
God, Kelly had wanted to be part of her father’s life so badly. She’d had this crazy dream that together they’d race his sailboat. She’d help him win first prize again and again, and he’d tell her how much he loved her.
“You didn’t fight very hard to get her to change her mind. You didn’t even argue at all. You just lay down and let her win. I was so angry with you—I thought you were such a loser.” Kelly couldn’t believe those words had just come out of her proper Ashton mouth.
Neither could Charles. He opened his own mouth, then shut it.
“What?” Kelly said. Please talk to me, Dad. . . .
“You never knew the seriousness of the situation that day on the boat,” he finally said stiffly, stiltedly. “The truth was, I couldn’t have made it back in without your help. It was sheer luck we didn’t capsize. You weren’t a strong swimmer and I was sure you’d drown, even with the life vest on. After that day, I didn’t want to take you out on the boat again.”
Her father had been afraid that she would drown. Her father, afraid. It was hard to imagine. He’d been so calm, practically blasé, even during the worst of the storm.
But suddenly other things made sense. “That was when you signed me up for those awful early-morning swimming lessons with the pool Nazis.” She’d thought—despite his momentary lapse when he gave her that medal—that he simply didn’t care for her and wanted her out of the house as often as possible.
Charles actually looked at her now. “Pool Nazis?”
“ ‘Excuse me, Herr Commandant,’ “ Kelly said, making her voice that of a young child’s. “ ‘But it’s only sixty degrees this morning, and the water temperature is fifty-two. I’ve heard of this thing called hypothermia—’ ‘You vill get into ze pool, unt you vill stay varm by doing zwei hunnert laps of ze breaststroke, ja?’ “
Charles coughed. It might have been a laugh, but Kelly wasn’t certain. “I had no idea.”
“By the time I got my swimming certificate, the summer was over. And the next year, you sold the sailboat.”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t using it. And when someone made me an offer . . .”
“You weren’t using it because you were drinking.”
Well, there was an ugly little truth that came plopping out and now just lay there between them.
Kelly spoke to fill the sudden, tense silence. “My other perfect, golden day was when I wiped out on my bike at the bottom of High Meadow Road and completely bent the front wheel’s rim.”
He harrumphed. “I’m noticing an alarming correlation between your idea of a perfect day and near catastrophes.” His tone was less than pleasant, but God, at least he was still talking. After that drinking comment, Kelly had been certain he wasn’t going to say another word.
“I had my first beer at a party that day,” she admitted, “and I thought I was going to throw up. When I left, I took the hill too fast, skidded into the corner, and skinned my elbow.”
He sniffed. “So naturally you remember it fondly.”
“I was sitting by the side of the road when Tom came along on his motorcycle,” Kelly told him. “That’s what I remember fondly. I spent the entire rest of the day and most of the evening with him, just driving around.” She smiled. “We drove past this antiques fair, and we went in on the pretense of getting a soda, but I knew he really wanted to look at all the old stuff. He was so into the history of it, and so nice to me, all day long. I’ll never forget a single minute of that day. It was perfect—even the scraped elbow, because that’s what made him stop to help me.”
She could still remember the way it had felt to ride on Tom’s motorcycle, with her arms wrapped tightly around him, her cheek against his back, her legs pressed against his thighs. She remembered later that same night, sitting next to him in Joe’s station wagon, with her bike in the back. . . .
“I’m going to add today to my list of special days,” Kelly told him. “Because even though it started out really dreadfully, it ended wonderfully. Daddy, when I came home and heard that you and Joe spent the day together without fighting . . . When I saw you in the living room . . .” She started to blink back her tears, but stopped, letting her eyes fill. Let him see how moved she’d been, how moved she still was. Let him see. “I was so glad you’ve realized how precious this time is—this time you’ve got left—especially for the people who love you.”
Charles closed his eyes. But he didn’t order her to get out.
So she pushed even harder. “I know you don’t want Joe to talk to that writer, I know you’re angry with him, but I don’t understand why. I’m still so afraid you’re going to argue more, that you’re going to say something in anger and then die before you can get a chance to take it back. I’m afraid you’re going to die wishing you could erase your angry words, without ever having found peace.” Her voice shook. “Daddy, I wish you would talk to me. I wish you would tell me what you and Joe have been fighting about. How can I help if I don’t know what the problem is? I don’t understand what could possibly come between two people who’ve been friends for as long as you’ve been.”
Charles was silent for so long, Kelly knew he wasn’t going to answer. In fact, as she sat there, she was certain he’d shut her out so completely that he’d fallen asleep.
“I love you,” she whispered, daring to say the words aloud. “I want to feel as if I’m a part of your life. Even just a small part . . .”
But then he spoke, his eyes still shut. “It was a woman,” he whispered. “Her name was Cybele Desjardins.” The French name sounded musical on his lips, his French pronunciation flawless. “She was with the Resistance. She saved my life—she saved dozens of Allied fliers, scores of Jews. Everything she did was dedicated to defeating the Nazis. She thought nothing of risking her life to sabotage German railroad shipments and ammunition sites. She was incredibly brave and remarkably beautiful. Such eyes . . . Such conviction . . .”
He looked up at Kelly, and she realized with a jolt of shock that his eyes were swimming in unshed tears. And his lip, that stiff Ashton lip, actually trembled. “I was married,” he told her, “and I knew Joe was in love with her, and . . .”
Kelly took his hand, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, her father actually held on to her. A woman. This fight between Joe and Charles was over a woman. She never would have believed it possible, never in a million years.
“I still can’t talk about her,” he said, closing his eyes again. “I can barely stand to think about her. What Joe wants to do will rip my heart out all over again—he wants to tell the whole story to the entire world.”
Kelly pushed her father’s hair back from his face, aching for him, wishing he’d tell her more, knowing he’d already told her far more than she’d ever believed he would. A woman.
“Do you want me to talk to Joe?” she asked gently. “Do you want me to see if I can make him change his mind?”
“I want what I can’t have.” Charles didn’t open his eyes. And when he spoke again it was so quiet, Kelly wasn’t certain he’d actually said the words aloud. “Fifty-six years, and still, all I want is to have her back.”
The baby oil was wicked disgusting.
Mallory had come out of the bathroom after changing into one of the bathing suits from David’s costume box, to find Brandon smearing himself with baby oil.
It was amazing. He was even better looking in person, with golden brown hair that shimmered and a Ben Affleck–perfect nose. He was tall—at least five inches taller than she was, with broad shoulders and anatomy-textbook-model muscles.
His smile was a flash of quicksilver, his eyes a wondrous shade of blue.
He was one of those people who was always in motion, filled with a kinetic energy that could knock you on your ass if you accidentally stepped into his path.
She could picture him sitting in his lifeguard chair at the Baldwin’s Bridge Hotel pool. Even slouched, he would be in motion, constantly swinging his whistle on its chain, wrapping and unwrapping it around his hand.
“The oil helps provide muscle definition for the camera.” Brandon handed her the bottle. “I hate to be forward, but if you slime some on my back, I’ll slime some on yours.”
It was weird to touch him in a way that seemed so intimate. Especially considering they were both wearing next to nothing.
The top of the bathing suit David chose for her was a little too small—two triangles of thin fabric that tied around her neck and around her back, barely containing her megaboobs. The bottoms were cut high in the back, not quite a thong, but not the kind of suit her grandmother would’ve worn, either.
“So, David tells me you live in Baldwin’s Bridge year-round.” Brandon took the bottle from her and spread oil across her shoulder blades. “That must be so great.”
It was the first time she’d ever heard her status as a Townie described as great, but she stayed silent. His hands felt too good against her skin for her even to open her mouth to speak.
But he was done far too soon and Mallory took the bottle back from him. She covered her legs and then the tops of her breasts and her stomach with the oil, aware that Brandon was watching her. David was glancing at her, too, but he was less obvious about it than his friend.
“I’m going to need to take a shower after this,” she said, suddenly terribly self-conscious. It was cold in here. She was freezing—a fact that neither of them could possibly have missed. God, she wanted a cigarette.
“That’s no problem,” David said quickly. “I have a shower you can use in the bathroom.”
He blushed as if he realized how stupid he sounded.
“I hope you’ve got a shower in the bathroom,” Mallory said. “I mean, like, instead of in the bedroom closet.”
Brandon laughed as if she were Jerry Seinfeld. It wasn’t that funny, still, his laughter was so infectious she couldn’t help smiling back at him.
He took her hand—his was still slimy, but otherwise very nice—and pulled her onto a sheet that was spread out on the floor. They stood on it, in front of a bare white wall, looking like a thoroughly slimed-up version of Frankie and Annette from one of those campy beach movies. Except Frankie and Annette never wore bathing suits like these.
Brandon kept up a constant chatter as David looked through his camera and did things with his light meter.
“This is the boring part,” he told her. “Once Sul actually gets behind the camera and starts shooting, it’s a lot more fun. And tonight it’s going to be even more fun than usual.” He winked at her. He was the first guy she’d ever met who could actually pull that off. Winking made most guys just look stupid. “He’s making sure he’s got the right amount of light for every little last detail. . . .”
David held the meter up to her face, then lowered it so his hand was nearly touching the tops of her breasts. He was completely focused on whatever that little box was showing him. He looked from the light meter to her breasts—completely dispassionately, though—then to the meter and to her breasts again.
“Every detail,” Mallory echoed. “As in, every nipple? Excuse me, David, are you having fun down there?”
Brandon shouted with laughter, and David looked up at her in surprise, directly into her eyes. As she gazed back at him, she saw her words finally penetrate his intense concentration, saw as he realized what she’d said. His gaze dropped back to her breasts as for a fraction of a second he really looked at her before he forced his eyes up, guiltily, to her face. And he blushed. Again.
“I’m sorry. Honestly, I don’t mean to be disrespectful.”
She believed him. He was painfully sincere. No one was that good an actor. “Any chance we can turn down the instafreeze setting on the air conditioner?” she asked him.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, blinking at her from behind his windshield. “Are you cold? I didn’t realize.”
“Are you kidding?” she asked. “Am I cold? Hello? You want to look at me again, Einstein, this time with your eyes open?”
Brandon laughed again as David did a quick about-face, lunging for the industrial-size air conditioner laboring in the window across the room.
“Bran usually complains about being too hot under the lights.” David adjusted the temperature control, his face pink again. It wouldn’t take much to keep him blushing all night long. “Maybe I should offer a complete apology in advance. I get pretty intense when I’m working. But please, I want you to know, I absolutely do not intend any disrespect.”
He was completely embarrassed; in fact, it was more like mortified. He didn’t intend any disrespect. It was funny, but besides her uncle Tom, and her great-uncle Joe, Mallory couldn’t think of a single person who actually intended to be respectful when they interacted with her.
“I think you’re quite possibly the most uniquely beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life,” David continued, “but I’m also well aware that there’s substantially more to you than your body and face, and if at any point tonight I start to treat you like some kind of object, please let me know. And please keep in mind that it’s not intentional. At all. Whatsoever.”
“Go, Sul,” Brandon said. “Way to sling the woo.”
This time, it was Mallory whose face was heating up. She’d heard a lot of bullshit compliments in her life, all intended to get her into the backseat of some loser’s car, but this was different. David actually meant what he’d said. He was serious. It was incredibly sweet. He was incredibly sweet.
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