The Violets of March (20 page)

I stood up suddenly when I heard distant music floating through the night air. I recognized the melody in an instant; Billie Holiday’s voice was unmistakable. “Body and Soul.”

My eyes searched the front porch for Elliot, but all I could make out was a fishing pole angled against the railing. The scene was as I remembered, a vision frozen in time.

And then, out of nowhere, arms wrapped around me. I didn’t flinch or pull away; I knew his touch, I knew the smell of his skin, I knew the pattern of his breathing—I knew it all by heart.

“You came,” he said into my neck.

“How could I not?” I said, turning around to face him.

“Have you thought of me?”

“Every second of every day,” I said, allowing myself to fall into his arms completely. His pull on me was magnetic.

He kissed me with the same fire, the same ferocity that he had years ago. I knew, as he did, that whatever was between us was still there, just as strong as it ever was. Just as real.

I heard a rustling sound coming from the trees near the trail that wound up to the road. But I didn’t stop to look or worry—not tonight, not when Elliot was taking my hand and leading me up to the house.

We walked through the door and into the living room. He pushed the chair to the side, and then the coffee table, and laid me on the bearskin rug by the fireplace.

As he unbuttoned my dress, I didn’t think about Bobby, the man I should have been with on this day of my wedding anniversary, or my baby asleep in her crib, or the lie I’d told to get there. I just felt the warmth of the fire on my face, and Elliot’s breath on my skin. It was all I wanted to feel.

March 8

I tried not to overthink Jack’s words.
But didn’t he say he’d be back from Seattle today?
I stared at the clock a dozen times before breakfast that next morning, wondering. I thought about the way Elliot had kissed Esther. I wanted to be loved with the same passion, the same fire that Elliot seemed to impart so naturally, so perfectly.

The phone didn’t ring at eleven a.m.; nor did it ring at noon.
Why isn’t he calling?

I went for a beach walk at two, but the only sound my phone made was a chime alerting me to a text message from Annabelle.

By five, Bee began mixing a drink and asked if I wanted one too. I set the phone down and said, “Make it a double.”

After about an hour, Bee was back in the lanai, working her magic with the liquor bottles, but this time she didn’t offer me another. “Get dressed, dear,” she said. “Greg will be here soon.”

I had almost forgotten about the plans I’d made with Greg. I walked to my room quickly to dress, choosing a long-sleeved blue knit dress with a deep V neckline. I liked the way it felt against my skin.

Greg arrived at seven, just when he’d said he would, looking freshly scrubbed in a pair of clean jeans and a crisp white shirt. His golden skin almost glowed against it.

“Hi,” he said as I walked out to his car. “Ready for Chinese?”

“Sounds wonderful,” I said. “I’m starving.”

We drove into town, past the Town and Country Market, and parked where several restaurants and cafés dotted Main Street. It was a warm evening, at least by Bainbridge Island standards, and a handful of people were sitting outside, eating alfresco.

Inside the restaurant, Greg gestured to the hostess. She looked like someone I had known in high school: Mindy Almvig, with her dangly earrings and spiral perm. “I called in an order about forty-five minutes ago.”

“Yes,” she said, smacking her gum. “It’s ready.” The place smelled delicious, of Szechuan sauce and spring rolls fresh from the fryer.

He paid, and then picked up the rather enormous paper bag. We climbed into the car, and I noticed a little restaurant nearby. Diners were seated outdoors under heated lamps. And that’s when I saw
Jack
.

He was with a woman, that much was clear. I couldn’t see her face from my vantage point, just her
legs
, which were barely covered by the short black dress that clung to her thighs. They were drinking wine and laughing, and as Jack turned toward the direction of our car, I pulled the sun visor down and turned in the other direction.

Who is she? Why didn’t he mention that he’s involved with someone else? Maybe she’s just a friend. But if she was a friend, why didn’t he say something about her?

Greg drove for about a mile before he pulled up into a gravelcovered driveway. His home, a yellow farmhouse, complete with a white picket fence, frankly shocked me.
Greg with a picket fence?

“Here we are,” he said.

“I’m so surprised,” I said.

“You’re surprised?”

“Yeah, I mean, it’s so
cute
. It’s so Martha Stewart meets Old Mac-Donald. I guess I never imagined you living somewhere like this.”

He smiled and pulled the keys out of the ignition. I saw the edge of a tattoo I’d never noticed peeking through his sleeve.

The house’s interior was much too decorated for Greg to have accomplished it himself. Everything matched—the pillows and the sofa, the rug and the wall color. There was a wreath on the front door. A
wreath
. This was the work of a woman. What man chooses an ottoman covered in green toile fabric?

Yet, upon closer examination, I could see that if there had been a woman in his life, she hadn’t been around for a while. There were dishes piled in the sink. The counters hadn’t been wiped down, and there was a basket of laundry at the foot of the stairs.

“So, this is it,” Greg said, a little embarrassed, as if my being there had allowed him to see the place in a new light.

The bathroom door was open, so I took a quick peek: The toilet seat was up and there was a roll of toilet paper on the floor, not in the dispenser where it belonged. Here was the home of a single man.

“There,” Greg said, placing two napkins, plates, and sets of chopsticks on the coffee table next to the wine he’d poured for us. “Dinner is served.”

It wasn’t exactly dinner at Jack’s house—no linen napkins or gourmet cuisine—but it was Greg-style, and after the scene in town, it made me appreciate Greg a little more than I had. At least he was being real.

“How long have you lived here?” I was eager to satisfy my curiosity regarding the female in his life—or his former life.

He looked up at the ceiling as if trying to calculate the years. “About nine years,” he said.

“Wow, that long? Have you always lived here alone?”

“No, I had a roommate for several years,” he said. He didn’t offer whether the roommate had been male or female.

“Well, you’ve really done a nice job with the place. It’s lovely.”

Greg helped himself to more chow mein. “I just keep thinking about running into you at the market the other day, out of the blue like that.”

I swallowed a bite of dim sum. “Me too. Honestly, you were the last person I expected to see that morning.”

He turned to face me. “I always hoped we’d see each other again.”

“Me too,” I said. “I used to play this little game with myself. Whenever I’d come across one of those Magic 8 Balls, I’d shake it and ask, ‘Will I ever kiss Greg again?’ And you know what? I never got a no. Not even once.”

Greg looked at me with a teasing face. “And what else do you consult your Magic 8 Ball about?”

I grinned and sank my teeth into another spring roll, deciding not to tell him that I’d actually consulted the 8 Ball at Annabelle’s apartment the day before my divorce went through.

We finished our dinner and Greg kept my wineglass filled so efficiently, I lost track of the number of glasses I’d drunk.

It was dark outside, but under the light from the moon I could make out a patch of flowers through the French doors in the back. “I want to see your garden,” I said. “Can you give me a tour?”

“Sure,” Greg said. “It’s my little piece of heaven.”

I felt a bit woozy as I stood up, and Greg must have noticed because he held my arm as we walked out onto the slate stone patio. “Over there, those are the hydrangeas,” he said, pointing to the far left corner of the yard. “And here is the cutting garden. This year I have daylilies, peonies, and dahlias coming up.”

But I wasn’t looking at the cutting garden. Just below the kitchen window stood a row of tulips, white with striking red tips. They were brilliant nestled against the house’s yellow siding, and I walked over to have a closer look. I’d never seen them before, of course, but I felt as if I had. They were identical to the ones Elliot had given Esther in the diary.

“These tulips,” I said, a little astonished, “they’re beautiful.”

“Aren’t they?” Greg said in agreement.

“Did you plant them?” I asked, almost accusingly, as though I expected him to have Elliot upstairs, bound and gagged in a bedroom closet.

“I wish I could take credit,” he said. “But they’re volunteers. They were here when I bought the house. They’ve been multiplying over the years. There must be three dozen now.”

I reminded myself that the diary I was reading was probably only a story, not reality. Yet I couldn’t help but wonder if Elliot and Esther had once walked this island, perhaps in this very spot.

“Who did you buy the house from?” I asked.

“He paused to think. “I can’t remember her name,” he said. “She was an elderly woman whose kids were moving her into a retirement community.”

“Where? Here on the island?”

“No, I think it was Seattle.”

I nodded and looked back down at the tulips. They were breathtaking.

“Hey,” Greg said, “why do you want to know?”

“I don’t know,” I said, reaching down to pick one of the flowers. “I guess I just have a thing for stories of the past.”

Greg looked at me in the way that used to make me wild. “I wish our story had a different ending.”

I felt his breath on my skin, inviting, beckoning, but there was that voice again, the cautionary voice. “Let’s open our fortune cookies,” I said, breaking free from his gaze.

“Nah, I hate fortune cookies.”

“Come on,” I said, reaching for his hand.

Once we were seated on the couch, I handed one cookie to Greg and kept one for myself. “Open it.”

He cracked his open and read the tiny piece of paper in his hands: “ ‘You will find the answer to what you are searching for.’ See?” he said. “Totally meaningless. You could read into that a million different ways.”

I opened mine and stared blankly at the words: “ ‘You will find true love in the present, by looking to the past.’ ”

“What does yours say?” Greg asked.

“Nothing significant,” I said. “You’re right. It’s nonsense.” I carefully tucked the scrap of paper into my pocket.

Greg inched closer. “What if it isn’t nonsense? What if it means something? About us?”

I remained motionless as his hands caressed my face, then I closed my eyes as they traveled down my neck and shoulders to my waist.

“No,” I said, opening my eyes and pulling away from his arms. “I can’t, Greg. I’m so sorry.”

“What’s wrong?” He looked wounded.

“I don’t know,” I said, disoriented. “But I think my heart is elsewhere.” What I didn’t say was that “elsewhere” meant, plain and simple,
Jack
.

“It’s OK,” he said, looking at his feet.

“I guess I better go,” I said awkwardly as he stood up to get his keys. Before I got into the car, I ran back to the garden and retrieved the tulip I’d picked.

Greg drove me back to Bee’s and before I got out of the car he said, “He’s a lucky guy, whoever he is.”

“Who’s a lucky guy?”

“The guy who ends up with you.”

Chapter 10