Tides of the Heart (36 page)

“I can’t believe a lot of things,” Ginny said. “Like I can’t believe what you’re telling me about Melanie and about Richard, and that you’re actually going to leave here and do as he wishes.”

“I don’t have much choice, Ginny. I don’t want to ruin Melanie’s life. Or Richard’s either, for that matter.”

“So they hold all the cards, is that it? Shit, kid. I thought you stopped letting people dictate your life when you got rid of your husband.”

“You talk as if you’re any better. You still haven’t come up with a plan to take care of this mess with your stepson, other than deciding he should be killed.”

“I’ve changed my mind about that,” Ginny said. “I decided to have him throw his back out instead. I think it’s more painful.” She groaned and squinted her eyes. “Those damn pills Dick’s doctor gave me only last half the time they’re supposed to.”

Jess went back to the bed. “Oh, Ginny, I’m so sorry. I’m being so selfish and you’re in so much pain.”

“No problem, kid. But even though I think you’re being a jerk for not wanting to meet Melanie, for not wanting her to know the truth, I really don’t want you to hang around on account of me. I may be here a while.”

“I’ve seen her,” Jess said. “I’ve seen her and I’ve seen my granddaughter, and now I know what happened. It’s really hard to believe that Father did this—well, I suppose to protect me. It’s really hard to believe he cared enough about the baby to be sure she had a good life.” She twisted her emerald and diamond ring and tried to smile. It’s hard to believe, but I’m working on it.”

“And dear Daddy is dead, so you can’t ask him.”

“No. But I can be happy, Ginny, if I choose to be. Until a few months ago, I thought my baby was dead. Now I know better, and now that has to be enough.”

She told Ginny she’d bring her some tea later, after she’d had a nap. She’d wait until Phillip and Lisa came back from wherever they’d gone off to, then tell them she would catch the seven-thirty ferry out of Oak Bluffs. It was time to get back to her life: to her business and to the family that truly was hers.

An hour or so later, Jess was awakened by a rustling at the door of room number seven. She looked down and saw a pale pink envelope on the floor. She pulled herself from the bed, yawned, and bent down to pick it up. Walking toward the window, she rubbed her eyes. Then she caught her breath, and rubbed them again. But the recognition was quick: an instant flashback.

Printed on the envelope was the name
Richard Bryant
, followed by an address in Connecticut. She did not have to wonder what the envelope was, because she knew it was one she had addressed herself—a letter sent three decades ago—one of the letters that had gone unanswered.

She bit down on her lip and with trembling hands, opened the envelope that had already been unsealed.

But her letter to Richard was not inside: instead was a note, hand-scrawled in black ink.

Meet me after dinner in the West Chop Woods
, it read.
Take the entrance off Main Street. Follow the markings for the red trail. Come alone. Tell no one. We have so much more to discuss.
It was signed simply, Richard.

“I thought she wanted to leave tonight,” Phillip said to Ginny as he and Lisa stood in a man’s bedroom where Ginny had apparently spent an interesting night and a very painful day after. It was already late afternoon: Phillip and Lisa had spent the rest of the day walking—along the water by the harbor, past the pier and the West Chop lighthouse, clear around to Tashmoo Pond. They had walked and talked and walked and didn’t talk. Phillip had savored every moment, trying to freeze each word from her mouth, each movement of her body into his memory. He did not know why.

“She made reservations on the seven-thirty ferry,” Ginny said. “I have no idea where she is. How did you two make out?”

“We didn’t,” Lisa said. “Melanie wasn’t there.”

Ginny nodded. “Maybe it’s just as well.”

“Yeah.” Phillip glanced at his watch. “Well, I guess I’d better get down to the Tisbury Inn and pack my bag,” he said. “When Jess comes back, tell her I’ll be ready.” He looked at his shoes—
Damn
, he thought,
why am I looking at my shoes?
—then he pulled his eyes up to Lisa. “Well,” he said. “It was nice meeting you.”

Lisa nodded. “You, too, Counselor.”

He shuffled his feet a moment, then moved from one bedpost to another. “I hope your back gets better, Ginny.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

He put his hands in his pockets. “Well, then. I guess this is good-bye.”

“If you’re ever in L.A.…” Lisa said.

He smiled. “Yeah. I’ll call.” Then he took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and turned and left the room.

“You’ve gotten to him,” Ginny said.

Lisa laughed. “What are you talking about?”

“Phillip. He’s crazy about you.”

“Well. He’s nice.”

“So are you. You deserve someone like that, Lisa. Not someone like Brad. Not another jerk.”

Lisa crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. “Phillip lives three thousand miles away, Mother. And we both have demanding careers. I doubt there’s much hope.”

Ginny raised an eyebrow. “Then you do like him?”

She closed her eyes. “I told you. He’s nice.”

Ginny put her hand on Lisa’s arm. “Look, kid, we all know I don’t have the best track record when it comes to men. But one thing I do know is that when you find yourself someone decent, don’t lose him. There are too damn few of them in the world.”

Lisa looked around the room. “Is that what you’ve found here with Dick Bradley? A decent man?”

“Hey,” Ginny laughed. “He’s a good nurse. Right now, that’s all I need.”

“Did someone call for the nurse?” Dick asked as he entered the room carrying a tray with a teapot, two mugs, and a plateful of cookies.

“Now that’s what I call good medicine,” Ginny said, eyeing the cookies. She tried to prop herself up; the pain
stabbed her back. It was not as bad as it had been, but it stabbed her nonetheless. “Shit,” she said.

Dick set down the tray and rearranged Ginny’s pillows. She was able to half sit, half lie and the pain was not as bad.

“In another hour you can have two more pills,” he said.

“Yeah. Right. And the damn pain started again an hour ago.”

“If you’re not better by tomorrow, there’s a holistic healer on the island I can call.”

“Great,” Ginny said, taking a cookie. “Just what I need is a voodoo doctor hovering over me.”

Lisa smiled. “Ginny has never been one to want help from anyone.”

“Well, she’s got to have it now. By the way, have you seen your friend? I thought she was checking out today. Karin wants to know if she can rent the room out.”

Ginny frowned. “Jess? I don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen her since she went to take a nap. She must have gone for a walk.”

“I’ll go check on her,” Lisa offered.

“Take your time. It looks like Dick and I are going to have a tea party. Ah. A little afternoon delight.”

Dick blushed and Lisa laughed. “I’ll be back later,” she said.

“Oh, Lisa?” Ginny called. “You might want to look for Jess at the Tisbury Inn,” she said with a wink.

“The Tisbury Inn? But Phillip is there.…”

Ginny turned to Dick. “Sometimes my daughter is so intelligent it is truly heart-stopping.”

“Ginny!” Lisa cried.

“Like I said, you might want to try the Tisbury Inn.”

It took Phillip only three minutes to pack. He had crumpled his tie and folded his suit and decided to wear the
Black Dog T-shirt and jeans. They were comfortable. They felt more real.

After zipping his bag, he looked around the room, then sat in the chair by the window. He gazed two flights down, out onto Main Street, not really seeing the crowds on the sidewalks and the slow stream of cars that jockeyed for parking spaces. To him now, it all looked fuzzy and out of sync, people going about their lives, whether happy or sad, but going about their lives.

He did not want to go back to New York. He did not want to go back to Joseph and Nicole and racquetball or even the new uptown office. He wanted to stay here on the island; he wanted to run in the mornings on the quiet, dewy streets, he wanted to sit side by side with Lisa on the beach looking off at the sunrise and the sunset and everything in between. No, he did not want to go back.

He folded his hands and looked down at his city manicure—the clean, neatly trimmed nails of a corporate attorney, the soft, pale skin that had not spent enough time in the outdoors, was not accustomed to rugged, hard work, honest work, like sanding a boat bottom or chopping wood for the winter. He thought about Dick Bradley, nearly forty years older than himself, yet probably in better shape, despite Phillip’s running, despite his attempts at physical fitness. There was nothing, he supposed, as healthy as doing things naturally, as breathing the fresh salt air as you worked, instead of the air in a sweaty gym.

He wondered how fresh the air was in L.A., and if the smog was thinner up in the canyon where Ginny lived. Then he realized his thoughts were drifting back to Lisa. He got up, shook his head, picked up his bag, and decided to wait for Jess at the sidewalk café.

Just as he turned the knob to open the door, a knock came from the other side.
Jess
, he thought quickly, opening the door.

But it was not Jess. It was Lisa.

“Hi,” she said.

He went mute for a moment. “Hi,” he finally answered. “I thought you were Jess.”

“No,” she said. “I’m Lisa.”

He smiled. “Yeah. I know.”

“May I come in?”

“In? Yeah. Sure.” He stepped out of the way, set down his bag, and closed the door. “Did you find Jess?”

She shook her head.

“I wonder where she went,” he said, though what he really wondered was why Lisa was here, and what he was supposed to do next.

She went to the window and looked out. “Nice view,” she said.

“Main Street,” Phillip answered, as if it wasn’t obvious.

“Phillip—”

“Lisa—”

They laughed.

“Phillip, I hate to see you leave,” she said. “I have the oddest feeling that I’ll never see you again.”

A strange, light feeling rose in his stomach. “Well, there are worse fates, I suppose.”

She walked over to him. She stood close. He inhaled her scent—clean, fresh.
God
, he wondered,
why am I such a sucker for the way a woman smells?

“Phillip. I don’t think you understand.” Her voice was low and deep, a sensuous voice like he had never heard. “I like you a lot,” she said, lowering those magnificent topaz eyes so he could not see them.

Without thinking, Phillip put his hand under her chin, then lifted it to see those eyes. And when they looked back at him, he slowly bent down and kissed her, kissed her smooth, full lips, tasting her cleanness, her freshness. Then he put his arms around her and kissed her again, more deeply this time, more urgently, as passion quickly rose within him, as every nerve in his body stirred and sparked, as every minute of every day of his life before this and after
dissolved on the wings of the moment, this moment, the only moment in the world, or in life, that mattered.

“Oh, God, Lisa,” he moaned. “I want you so badly.”

And then he felt her arms around his back, caressing him gently, then firmly, her long, strong fingers gripping his flesh with ache and need.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”

He scooped her from the floor and buried his face in her hair, her silky, vanilla-scented hair. Then he paused. “I …” he hesitated, “I don’t have any … protection.”

Lisa smiled. “I do. In my purse.”

“I wasn’t planning …”

“Me either. But Ginny has always insisted … just in case.”

“Because it’s the nineties …”

“And other reasons.”

“So there won’t be more like us in the world?”

“Right. Not that we’re so bad.”

“No,” he said, and carried her to the bed. “Not that we’re so bad.”

Then he lay her on the bed and slowly began to unbutton her blouse.

The sign on the side of the road was so small that Jess nearly missed it.
West Chop Woods
, it read.
Sheriff’s Preservation Trust.

She had walked from the inn; it was further than it had looked on the map. It was also less inviting than she had expected. It was merely a dirt path leading from the roadside into a thicket of tall trees. Why Richard had wanted to meet her here was puzzling. Yet he must have a reason. Maybe there was a special place on the red trail. Her heart beat softly. Maybe he was going to bring Melanie here to meet her, away from his father and sister, away from people whom he might not want to have know.

She stepped onto the path and began walking. A few feet
into the woods was a signpost that held a rustic-looking map hand-painted onto a small board. Jess moved close to it: the woods were depicted, along with four distinct trails. Blue. Green. Orange. Red. She followed her finger along the red trail, then looked for an indication of where it began. Off to her right she saw it: a small red arrow was staked into the ground.

Wishing she’d worn something other than the damn calfskin shoes, she gingerly began following the trail, eager to meet Richard, eager to know what he was planning to do.