Ex’s and Oh’s Read online

  “A lot of people up here claim a connection to Hemingway, who spent summers near Horton Bay when he was a boy. If you want the locals to know you’re a tourist, call it Horton’s Bay.”

  “I’ll take it under advisement.”

  He didn’t get into his car. It was as if he had something on his mind. That, at least, wasn’t surprising. She knew his situation, and the man had more than his fair share of problems. A little while ago she’d been picturing an urchin pulling up vegetables in his neighbor’s garden. That urchin had grown into a man who read the classics to a dear old friend. “Karl’s lucky to have you.”

  He shrugged.

  “What did Karl do?” she asked. “For a living, I mean.”

  “He was a lawyer for forty-five years. I thought you knew that.”

  Caroline shook her head. “All I know is what you and Karl, and Anna, have told me.”

  Shane nearly singed his arm where he attempted to rest it on the top of his car. Being careful not to touch the hot roof, he looked at Caroline over the top of it. Until now, he hadn’t thought about how it would feel to have to make the kinds of discoveries she was making. He’d always known exactly where he came from. He knew his father had taken up with other women from time to time and that his mother drank too much. In the summertime when the windows were open, everyone on their street had known. Shane knew he resembled his uncle in Wisconsin, and he knew that if he needed anything, either his sister down in Baton Rouge or any one of his cousins would come through. He couldn’t imagine not knowing those kinds of things.

  “Do you think Karl ever guessed the reason Anna married his best friend?” she asked.

  Sweat ran down the side of Shane’s neck as he answered. “If I’d received a letter like that, I would have wondered.” He thought about the care meeting he’d just had with Karl’s doctor. During a recent examination, Dr. Anderson had noticed something unusual when he’d listened to Karl’s heart. The subsequent EKG had revealed a leaky valve. Time was running out for his old neighbor.

  “Besides the letter,” she said, “did you find anything else in the lighthouse?”

  “Sixty years’ worth of dust.” He squinted as he looked at her, the hot breeze ruffling the collar of her shirt at her neck. “I searched the entire place, Caroline. That diary isn’t there.”

  “That means that everything I’ll ever learn about Karl will come in the form of the brief memories he shares over morning tea. He must have received that letter while he was in France, and yet he hid it in the lighthouse. I wonder why.”

  “Maybe he felt it belonged there.”

  “That’s what Anna’s first entry said, too, and yet it’s not there.”

  “There is another place it might be,” he said, then silently cussed himself out for opening his mouth.

  “Where?” she asked.

  “In Karl’s house. Maybe he’s the one who found it.”

  She wasn’t asking anything of him. He could have gotten in his car and gotten the hell out of there. Instead, he heard himself say, “Would you care to conduct a little search sometime?”

  He hadn’t meant to offer. Caroline knew, because he practically bit through his cheek after asking. “When?” she asked.

  “Lately I have a long list of things I’m not doing, but my to-do list is wide-open.”

  She wasn’t surprised he wasn’t going to let her live that down. “Imagine that. When?” she asked again.

  “The week before the Fourth is always hell at the marina. How about next week. Tuesday?”

  “Tuesday, it is.”

  He finally got in his car and drove away. He didn’t look back. She knew, because she watched to see if he would, not that it would have mattered. His beard hid his expressions anyway. Perhaps that was why he wore it.

  She didn’t know what was wrong with her. Here she was, sweltering in a parking lot that smelled like hot tar, wearing the most unbecoming clothes she owned—she couldn’t even zip up her pants all the way anymore. And she was wondering what Shane would look like in the middle of her bed, wearing nothing at all. Last night she’d cried while watching a movie. She never did that. The books assured her it was normal to be emotional right now, due to fluctuating hormone levels. She wondered if it could have anything to do with these fantasies. She didn’t have any idea who to ask, which was fine, since she had no intention of acting on the fantasy anyway.

  On Friday, Caroline watched the salesclerk ring up her purchases. The impeccably dressed woman looked extremely happy. She was probably working on commission.

  “Didn’t I tell you Auntie Tori would take care of everything?” Tori asked, nudging Caroline’s shoulder with her own.

  Eyeing the stack of clothes being placed carefully into bags with sturdy handles, Caroline said, “Remind me never to go shopping for maternity clothes with someone who looks like that.”

  The clerk smiled. Clearly, she wasn’t buying this “Auntie Tori” business any more than Caroline was. That was nearly all Caroline hadn’t bought.

  Everything in the boutique had been designed by two sisters who, when pregnant themselves several years ago, had found that the fashions available at the time looked as if they came from a tent and awning shop. The sisters had decided to design their own line, and the pieces were fabulous.

  Tori had an eye for fashion, and had helped Caroline select most of today’s purchases. Some were fluid and were designed to conceal her growing waistline. Others were fitted and would accentuate it.

  “Now,” Tori said, helping Caroline carry the packages. “For the right shoes.”

  “Did you say shoes?”

  Caroline reached the sidewalk, laughing.

  Something was happening to her this summer. For most of her life she’d been dynamically focused and completely goal oriented. She’d had Maria and her grandfather and a few colleagues with whom she’d been friendly. Not one of those colleagues had contacted her since she’d left Chicago. It was as if she’d stepped off the face of the planet, fallen through the stratosphere, and had landed here in Harbor Woods. All because her grandfather hadn’t thrown away a letter written long ago by the girl he’d loved and married.

  “Do you believe in fate, Tori?” Caroline studied the other woman closely.

  All morning she’d been trying to find a way to broach the subject of Shane. She and Tori had talked and they’d laughed and Tori had teased Caroline about her growing waistline, but there hadn’t been an opening into which she could slip Shane’s name casually. She didn’t want to blurt it out, for doing so would make it seem as if there was more to the relationship than there was. Outside of one brief fantasy, there wasn’t much to tell.

  “I believe we create our own fate,” Tori answered. “And I believe in shoes. Are you coming or aren’t you?”

  Caroline started to follow, only to pause, dizzy.

  “Are you all right?” Tori asked.

  The question took Caroline back to her grandfather’s house in Lake Forest when she’d been sure she would explode if one more person asked her that. She no longer felt like exploding. And it wasn’t difficult to breathe. She was light-headed, however. “I think it’s this heat,” she said. “Would you mind if we shop for shoes another time?”

  “Do you need a ride?” Tori looked concerned.

  Reaching for the bags Tori carried, Caroline said, “I think I’ll slip into something cool, such as the restaurant on the corner, and have something cold to drink.”

  “In that case I’d better keep moving,” Tori said. “Are you coming to girls’ night tomorrow?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  They parted ways. The heat wave had continued, ringing in the busiest months of the summer. Tourists were everywhere, dressed so skimpily that much more than their noses were sunburned. Falling into step with the flow of pedestrians, Caroline started toward the corner restaurant. A sign in a storefront caught her attention. She stopped abruptly in the middle of the crowded sidewalk, forcing surprised shoppers t
o veer around her.

  There on the window were the words Karl T. Peterson, Attorney-at-Law. The script was old-fashioned and professionally printed. Directly above it hung a faded red sign: For Sale or Lease.

  Caroline had gone to the museum on Lake Shore Drive after visiting Karl today. The displays of coins, anchors and sunken artifacts were impressive, but the real treasures had been buried in the newspaper archives at the library on the corner of Third and Elm streets where she’d read a dozen articles about the town’s formidable lawyer. Karl Peterson had sat on committees and boards, but more often than not, the grainy photographs had depicted him with the people he’d helped. In one photograph, he stood next to the parents of a slain girl, the father wrongly accused of the horrific crime. In another, he was leaving the courthouse with a poor farmer following a land dispute with the state, and in yet another he stood beside a woman victorious after a long battle to win custody of an ill child.

  She’d earned a six-figure income for years, and yet she doubted she’d changed any of her former clients’ lives in any lasting, meaningful way. Karl hadn’t made a great deal of money, and yet he’d touched more lives than she knew.

  Trying to keep from getting run over by window-shoppers, she shifted the bags into one hand and reached into her purse for a pen. After scribbling down the number, she stared at the name in the window. She’d looked at office space in Charlevoix. And here was Karl’s former office, vacant, and right here in Harbor Woods.

  More and more, Caroline was coming to believe in fate.

  CHAPTER 10

  For a long time, the only sounds in Elaine’s grand living room were those the four massage therapists made as they worked their magic on the friends stretched out on portable massage tables evenly spaced down the center of the room. Nell, Elaine and Tori were lying on their stomachs on the padded tables, a sheet covering them from thigh to waist. Caroline was lying on her back, her pregnant stomach making it difficult for her to get more than a shoulder massage. Aromatic candles flickered throughout the room and mood music played from a technician’s portable CD player.

  “Oh, yeah,” Tori said. “Right there.”

  Nell giggled. “Sorry,” she told her technician. “That’s a ticklish spot. If I forget to tell you later, thanks for tonight, Elaine. This is fabulous.”

  Caroline could only imagine how much it must have cost to hire four licensed, uniformed technicians for an entire Saturday evening of facials, manicures and massages.

  “Don’t thank me,” Elaine said, getting comfortable. “Thank my lying, cheating, two-timing, ass-is-grass husband.”

  “Does Justin know you know, then?” Nell asked from the table next to her.

  “He knows something is going on. He’s been watching me closely, and yesterday he sent me two-dozen peach-colored roses, despite the fact that I pretended to be asleep when he wanted to have sex the night before. He’s still seeing her.”

  “What are you going to do?” Nell asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” Elaine said. “I’d like to talk to you about that, Caroline.”

  Silence.

  “Caroline?”

  Caroline was drifting too far off the table to reply. It felt wonderful to relax. She’d been keyed up since discovering that vacant office space yesterday. It wasn’t uncommon for her to be impatient. It was just that in the past she’d always been able to use it to move things along. Standing on that sidewalk yesterday, pedestrians streaming past her, she’d known exactly what she wanted. And there was nothing she could do about it until the owner of that office space returned her call. Even Tori’s hands were tied.

  Caroline had spoken with someone at the State Bar Association, and had been assured that it was indeed possible, and in fact highly likely that she would be allowed to waive into the Michigan Bar, providing she supplied them with the proper information and it met with the review board’s approval. That wasn’t going to happen overnight, either.

  She’d been dizzy again earlier while walking along the channel. Resting in the shade in a little park at the edge of Oval Lake, she’d seen Shane and his son. They were riding bikes, and had stopped to rest, too. Although Shane had introduced them, Andy had barely met her eyes. She understood why Shane and Tori worried.

  “Caroline?”

  “Yoo-hoo. Are you awake over there?” Elaine called.

  “Barely,” Caroline crooned softly.

  “It’s too bad Pattie couldn’t join us,” Nell said. “But she’s spending the weekend with Dave and the kids.”

  “I guess I can forgive her for being happily married,” Tori grumbled. “My ex is seeing someone.”

  Shane was seeing someone? Caroline thought.

  “Who?” Nell and Elaine asked at the same time.

  “I don’t know, but I hear she’s chunky. It figures. He never did appreciate everything I go through to look good.”

  Caroline digested the information. She remembered how alone Shane had looked that moment before he dove from the rock. No one should be that alone. The fact that he was involved didn’t affect her one way or the other. She’d overreacted to simple human kindness. Still, if Shane was seeing someone, there was no sense mentioning their association to her friends.

  She wondered who he was seeing.

  Giving herself a mental shake, she lifted her head to look at Tori, only to lower it again dizzily. That was strange. She was light-headed again. She probably shouldn’t have come. She’d felt better after resting in the shade by Oval Lake earlier. If they’d been planning anything other than the most decadently relaxing treat, she would have stayed home.

  “You don’t care, do you?” Nell asked. “I mean, you’ve been divorced for a long time.”

  “Why would I care?”

  “Atta girl. Whose turn is it?” Nell asked.

  Elaine and Tori groaned. Evidently, they went through this two or three times a year, when Nell asked everyone to suspend reality and visualize the life she wanted.

  “Nell, this is the most lame pastime in the world. Aren’t we a little old for what-if?” Elaine asked.

  “Who are you calling old?” Tori said. “What do you want, Elaine? Come on. Nell’s right. It never hurts to dream.”

  “Fine,” Elaine grumbled. “I’d like to take Trish and Tracy to Rome and never return. And while I’m there, I’d like a piano to fall on Justin’s mistress. And I’d like Justin to experience what I’m feeling. And if that isn’t possible, I wish he’d get his johnson stuck in his zipper and have to have it surgically removed.”

  “The zipper or his johnson?” Nell asked.

  Everyone chuckled. Even the massage technicians.

  “He deserves worse,” Nell said. “But for someone who didn’t want to play, that’s a lot of wishes. You’re next, Caroline. What do you want?”

  “My wish doesn’t involve pianos or zippers.”

  “Count your blessings,” Elaine mumbled.

  “I want to open a law practice in Harbor Woods. And I would appreciate it if Logan and Bernice Carlson would return my call. Who puts a For Sale sign in a window then doesn’t have the decency to return a simple phone call? Okay, ten simple phone calls.”

  “They’ll call. Who’s next?” Tori asked.

  The technicians continued kneading and massaging. In the center of the room, Nell said, “I want to lose twenty more pounds, and I’d like to do it eating hot fudge sundaes. Your turn, Tori. What do you want?”

  “I want to experience the breathless wonder of anticipation of a girl at her first dance.”

  Caroline, Nell and Elaine all raised their heads to look at her.

  “Just making sure you’re listening. What I really want is hot, blazing, mind-altering, ravenous sex.” Eyeing the other three, she said, “Don’t tell me you don’t want the same thing.”

  Caroline wasn’t certain Nell’s latest giggle was due to another ticklish spot.

  “It isn’t too late to change your wishes,” Tori cajoled. “Oh,” she said around
a deep moan. “I have one more wish. I’d like breast implants, too.”

  Even the massage therapists groaned.

  By the time the massages were over, everyone felt sluggish. Caroline dressed in the hall bathroom. Taking a moment to splash her face with cool water, she studied her reflection in the mirror. Her skin was glowing from the facial, her nails beautiful from the manicure, her muscles relaxed at last. Her light-headedness had finally passed.

  The entrepreneurs had taken their tables, candles and mood music, and gone. Feeling much better, Caroline left the bathroom, intent upon joining her friends in the living room.

  She didn’t make it far before the wooziness returned.

  Caroline stopped in her tracks, placing a steadying hand on the wall. Lights flashed before her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” Nell, the group nurturer, asked.

  “Caroline?”

  Tori’s voice came from far away.

  “Something’s wrong with her.”

  “She’s pale as a ghost.”

  “Sit down, Caroline. Now.”

  Caroline blinked. “I think I moved too fast. I just felt—something.”

  “What?” Elaine said, rising quickly from the sofa.

  “I think I’m going to—” Caroline took another step. But only one.

  “She’s coming to.”

  “There you are.”

  “Can you hear me?”

  Caroline stared up into three familiar faces, one narrow, one round, one nearly perfect, all etched with concern. “Why am I on the floor?”

  “You fainted.”

  “I did?”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “She didn’t hit her head, Nell,” Tori insisted.

  “Do you have a better suggestion?” Nell grumbled.

  “I’ve been feeling strange today,” Caroline said groggily.

  “Strange, how?”

  “Light-headed.”

  “All day?” Elaine asked.

  Caroline rolled to her side. The moment she sat up, noise roared through her ears. She quickly lay down again.

  “What should we do?” Elaine asked.