“I…what?”

“I’ll take you and Mr. Macelli and his wife. The doctor.”

“Olivia?”

“Yes. Olivia. The young lady who brought magazines here a few weeks ago. Just the three of you.”

“Uh, Mrs. Poor, I don’t understand. Olivia really has no need to be there, and I believe she has to work tomorrow. Nola, on the other hand, has been a very active member of the committee from…”

“No,” Mary said. “Nola is not invited. I’ll take you and Mr. Macelli and his wife and that’s it. Otherwise there’s no tour.”

“But if she’s working…”

“Then we’ll pick a day for the tour when she’s not working.”

Alec was quiet for a moment. “Well,” he said, “all right. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good. I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

Alec hung up the phone, frowning. That was weird. Mary Poor must finally be losing it. He sat at his office desk for a few minutes, debating his options. Then he picked up the phone again and called Olivia.

“This puts you in an awkward position, I know, but could you do it, please? One last favor?”

“Paul’s going to be there?”

“He needs to be there. You, on the other hand… I guess you made an impression on the old woman.”

“Well,” she said, “I suppose it’s good in a way. It’ll force me to see Paul. I’ll finally have to tell him about the baby.”

“You still haven’t done that?”

“I haven’t talked to him at all. He’s left messages for me to call him, but I’ve been avoiding the situation.”

“Olivia.” He wished she would get this over with. “What are you waiting for?”

She didn’t answer.

“It’s none of my business, right?” he said. “Well, would you please call Paul to let him know the change in plans? I have to call Nola and uninvite her.”



CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE


“There is no earthly reason for you to go on that tour, Olivia,” Paul said.

She held the receiver between her chin and shoulder as she opened a can of cat food for Sylvie. “I’m aware of that,” she said, “but apparently Mary Poor refuses to do it if I don’t go.”

Paul groaned. “Christ. She’s so damn…controlling. How does she even know you exist?”

Olivia tensed. “I met her one time when I dropped Tom’s old magazines off at the retirement home.”

Paul was quiet for a moment. “Was that something else Annie used to do?” he asked.

“Yes.” She didn’t offer him any more information than that. She didn’t like him just then.

“Why haven’t you returned my phone calls?” he asked.

“I haven’t wanted to talk to you.”

“That’s not what your good friend Alec told me. He said there’s something important you need to talk to me about.”

Olivia set Sylvie’s bowl on the floor. “Well, actually, I do have a lot to tell you—to straighten out with you. Could we go out for an early lunch somewhere after the tour tomorrow?”

“All right,” he said. “You’re not going to show up for the tour with your hair dyed red or anything, are you?”

She gritted her teeth. “You can be very cruel.”

He hesitated again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just feel as though you’ve become a stranger all of a sudden. You’ve been living a life I know nothing about.”

“You’re the one who wanted it that way.”

“I know.” He drew in a weary-sounding breath. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Olivia pulled into the small parking lot near the keeper’s house at nine the following morning. Paul and Alec were already there, leaning against Alec’s Bronco. She felt their eyes on her as she parked next to Paul’s car, and she took a deep, steadying breath. Could there be a more awkward group than the three of them? She smoothed her blue jersey over her new white drawstring pants and got out of the car.

Seeing Paul and Alec side by side was unnerving. Two very attractive men. As she walked toward them, she felt a little of the sleaziness Alec had spoken of the other night. She had slept with both of them.

Alec looked a little tired. He smiled his greeting at her, holding her eyes a moment too long. There was a camera around his neck, a camera case over his shoulder, and he wore jeans and a blue short-sleeved shirt, the dark hair on his chest clearly visible at the open collar. She quickly moved her eyes to the relative safety of her husband.

“Good morning, Paul,” she said.

He nodded stiffly. She didn’t think she had ever seen him look quite so uncomfortable.

She was relieved when the van from the retirement home pulled into the parking lot. Alec helped Mary down from the passenger seat, his hand on the old woman’s elbow. Mary was wearing a white-and-blue-striped dress and white sneakers.

A young blond woman jumped out of the driver’s seat, a paperback book in her hand. “I asked Mary if I could do the tour with y’all, but she said no way.” She grinned. “When Mary says no, you don’t argue. So I’ll be out on the beach.”

Mary watched her young driver strike out for the beach before turning to her uneasy guests. “Good morning, Mr. Macelli. Mrs. Macelli,” she said.

“Hello, Mrs. Poor,” Olivia said, and Paul grunted a barely audible greeting.

Mary turned her gaze to the house. “It’s been a good long time since I’ve set eyes on this place,” she said. “I thought for sure I’d never see it again.” She looked toward one of the bulldozers near the edge of the dune and shook her head. “Well, let’s take a look inside.”

They followed Mary slowly to the front door of the house. She walked with the aid of a cane. She was taller than Olivia had expected her to be, and she looked very old, much older than she’d seemed at the home.

Alec walked next to Mary, with Olivia a few steps behind them, and Paul behind her. Olivia glanced back at her husband once, encouraging him to keep pace with her, but he looked straight through her. He seemed very unhappy about this entire outing, and she figured that her presence was the cause of his dismay.

They walked into the spacious, airy living room of the house. There was a large brick fireplace, faced by two wicker rockers and a wing chair. Paul clicked on his tape recorder, while Mary turned around in a circle in the middle of the room.

“Needs a paint job in here,” she said, lifting her cane toward one of the dingy walls. “I never would have let it get this gray.”

Alec took a few pictures while Paul stood rigidly in the center of the room, holding the recorder in his outstretched palm.

“Well, let’s see. What can I tell you about this room?” Mary asked herself. “It was, of course, the hub of the household. When Elizabeth was young, she and Caleb and I would play games in here at night, and I remember a few nights when this room would be filled with survivors of one wreck or another. We’d keep them for a few nights or so, till they could get back to the mainland.” She looked down at the wicker rocker. “I did many a crosswords in that chair, I can tell you that,” she said.

It was, if anything, slightly cool in the living room, yet Olivia could see that Paul was perspiring. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. She couldn’t imagine that her presence alone was enough to have drained all color from his face. She wanted to ask him if he was ill, but it was too quiet in the room. He wouldn’t want the attention drawn to himself.

They walked into the kitchen. “The damn room I fell and broke my hip in.” Mary touched Alec’s arm. “If it weren’t for that wife of yours, I’d still be lying there on that floor.”

Alec smiled at her.

Mary told them about the hand pump that used to stand in one corner of the kitchen, and the cisterns that collected rainwater to be used in the house. She showed them the pantry and the large downstairs bedroom, along with the tiny bathroom that had been added on in the sixties.

“Upstairs now,” the old woman said, lifting her cane toward the narrow stairway.

Alec and Paul practically carried Mary up the stairs, each of them taking an elbow and nearly lifting her off her feet as they climbed to the second story. They stopped at the first room on the right, a large bedroom with rustic furniture and a quilt on the bed.

“Caleb’s mother made that,” Mary said, pointing her cane at the quilt. She began talking about the room. It had been the bedroom of her daughter Elizabeth, she said, whose boyfriend had set a ladder against her south window one night, and carried her away with him to escape the isolation of Kiss River.

Paul was not well. He closed his eyes as Mary spoke, and his breathing was fast and shallow. Olivia could actually see the staccato beating of his heart in the collar of his shirt. She leaned toward him. “Are you ill?” she whispered.

He shook his head without looking at her, and she took a step away from him. Mary spoke about Elizabeth’s bedroom a few minutes longer, and Alec took some pictures before they moved on to the next room, another bedroom, this one much smaller than the first. Olivia saw the white spire of the lighthouse through the window.

“And this one was Annie’s room,” Mary said. They stood in the hallway, peering inside.

“Annie’s room,” Alec said. “You mean…my Annie?”

“Yes indeed,” Mary said. “The room where Annie brought her young men.”

“Where she…?” Alec frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Mary turned to look squarely at Paul. “You know what I mean, don’t you, Mr. Macelli?”

The Adam’s apple bobbed in Paul’s throat. His face had gone gray, and his fingers shook as he turned off the recorder and hung it on his belt. “I have no idea,” he said.

“Oh, I think you have a very good idea,” the old woman said. “An excellent idea. She loved the way you looked when you’d come over in your costume. You know, from the Lost Colony play.”

Alec turned to face Paul. “What is she talking about?”

Paul shook his head. “God only knows.” He looked at Mary and spoke loudly. “You have me confused with someone else,” he said.

Olivia could barely breathe. She wished she could do something to break the tension crackling in this hallway. She wished she could stop Mary Poor from saying another word, but the old woman was already opening her mouth, already pointing her cane toward the double bed.

“How many afternoons did the two of you spend in that bed?” she asked Paul.

“I’ve had enough.” Paul turned toward the stairs, but Alec caught his arm.

“What’s going on, Paul?” he asked. “I think you’d better tell me.”

Paul faced them again, but he shut his eyes. He took off his glasses, rubbing the reddened patches of skin where they had rested on either side of his nose. He looked miserably at Mary. “Why are you doing this?” he asked the old woman, his voice very soft. “What possible good can it do?”

Mary shrugged. “I guess that’s up to you.”

He hesitated a moment before putting his glasses on again and shifting his eyes to Alec. “I did know Annie at Boston College,” he said.

“Paul,” Olivia said, stunned.

“The truth is,” Paul said to Alec, “I knew her long before you did. We had a relationship. A very serious relationship. We were together for two years before you ever met her, before you even had a clue she existed.” There was a weird sort of pride in his voice. “She was mine long before she was yours. That blue cloisonné horse in your kitchen? I gave it to her. She loved it. She treasured it.” Paul looked at the floor for a moment, as if collecting himself, as if trying to decide what to say next. Olivia didn’t dare look at Alec, but she could hear the raw sound of his breathing.

“We talked about getting married,” Paul said. “About raising a family.” A slight smile played with the corners of his lips. “We even had names picked out for our kids, but then the summer after our sophomore year she met you and broke it off with me. The problem was, I could never get her out of my mind.” He looked pleadingly at Alec, as though surely Alec could understand. “How could anyone know Annie and just forget about her?”

Alec shook his head, almost imperceptibly. “No,” he said. “Please don’t tell me you…” His voice trailed off and Olivia rested her hand on his back. She wanted to hold him, to slip her hands over his ears so he would not hear whatever Paul had left to say.

“Paul,” she said. “Maybe that’s enough.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. “I came down here one summer, years ago.” Paul folded his arms across his chest, then unfolded them. He slipped his hands into his pants pockets, took them out again. “I got an apartment and a part in the Lost Colony play.” He was no longer looking directly at Alec. Rather, his eyes were focused on the floor of the small bedroom. “I saw Annie and realized there were feelings left—on both sides. We…a few times we met here.” He glanced up at Alec and nodded toward the bedroom.