Summertime Guests Page 3

  “Stop it,” she says aloud, scolding Walt for sneaking up on her, on this of all days. “You’re always getting in the way,” she tells him, though, to anyone else it would appear as if she’s talking to the glossy interior of her Subaru. “So can you please be quiet for once?”

  She waits for a sign, maybe a bolt of lightning skewering the sky above, a flat tire, some indication of her late husband’s displeasure with her plan. But there’s nothing. Only the automatic sprinklers switching on in the yard at the adjacent house, the hum of the air conditioner and NPR on the car radio.

  It was easy enough to find Marty’s home address, even though nearly three decades have passed since last they spoke. He’d skipped every one of their high-school reunions, to the point where Claire wondered if he were doing it to avoid her personally. Also he seems to be the one person on earth who lacks any social-media presence. Still, Claire, a journalist at the Providence Dealer, could have found him over the years if she’d really wanted to. She could have picked up the phone, tracked down an email address. But after all this time, something about calling Marty or emailing him out of the blue didn’t feel right. No, tracking him down in person, she’d decided, made the most sense.

  Which is why she has driven the fifty-eight miles up to Boston and checked into the Seafarer Hotel for a week. She’s on a mission, even though it’s bizarre to think that Martin has been so close, only a stone’s throw away, all these years. She hadn’t allowed herself to search for him online until Walt passed away, almost a year ago now, because what was the point? Marty could have been in Seattle, or in Katmandu for that matter, and the result would have been the same. Getting together with him under any other circumstances would have felt like a betrayal, a mockery of her marriage. And Claire, for all her romantic notions, isn’t one to cross that line.

  Martin, she thinks. The man has continued to take up space in her mind, like an old, comfortable recliner she can’t bring herself to throw out.

  Claire’s children, Ben and Amber, didn’t like the idea of her driving up to Boston from Providence all by herself—in fact, they’d vehemently disapproved—even though they’ve no idea about the real reason for her trip. Claire promised them that she’d be absolutely fine. “Good grief,” she protested. “Just because I’m sixty-one doesn’t mean I’m helpless. Even a two-year-old could find her way to Boston with a GPS!”

  But she understands they have other concerns on their minds.

  Well, she’d made it to the hotel fine all by herself. Even managed to check herself in. And guess what? No one recognized her. Not one person asked her if she were Claire O’Dell from the Providence Dealer, the journalist who’d been asked to take an indefinite leave of absence. Providence news, it seems, doesn’t travel as swiftly or as easily to Boston as her children might believe. She even called Amber to tell her so, promptly after the cute bellboy deposited her suitcase on the bed. “People here could care less about my little debacle,” she said into the phone. “Like I told you, I could be anyone here.”

  “Okay, Mom, but please promise me you’ll still be careful.”

  “Cross my heart,” Claire said, running her finger in an invisible X across her chest. (Sometimes the speed with which their roles have reversed takes her breath away, her children now insisting she check in with them whenever she travels.) She appreciates their concern, but, really, what harm can one middle-aged woman do in the world? Or the world do to her, for that matter?

  On her fourth loop, Claire pulls up across from Marty’s house on the other side of the street. It’s a modest gray Cape, two dormer windows on top, a two-car garage. In a few places, the paint shows signs of peeling, blanched wood poking out from behind it. Redbrick steps ascend to a blue front door with a Welcome sign. It’s a tidy enough house, Claire decides, possessing a certain amount of charm, even if a bit worn-looking. The small front yard appears well-tended, and beneath a wide picture window an avalanche of pink Cape roses tumbles to the ground. Attached to the house’s left side sits an odd little room capped by a sloping roof.

  Marty could have done worse, Claire thinks. Though somehow, a part of her expected him to do better. Maybe one of those new minimansions that sits on two lots. Or a New England saltbox with a wide yard and breathtaking views of the sea. That her old boyfriend’s house is none of these deflates her spirits unexpectedly. Of course, thirty years ago, when she first imagined Marty’s house, his life, it included her. Marty’s home, their home together, would have reflected Claire’s own eclectic style. Rooms with high ceilings and sunlight spilling onto hardwood floors, hallways that ended in an inviting window seat, a wide front porch with a swing and maybe a rocking chair or two.

  The driveway sits empty, the garden hose neatly coiled around its spin handle. When she’d searched for him online, she’d discovered that Marty’s wife, Audrey, had passed away three years ago. Claire met Audrey once during a chance encounter in Boston years ago, the streets gray and slushy with old snow. She and Walt had bumped into them at a Legal Sea Foods downtown, where both couples were waiting to be seated. “What are the odds?” they kidded loosely with each other, but when Marty introduced Audrey as his fiancée, Claire was struck speechless. Somehow, she’d always assumed Marty would seek out her approval before moving on to another woman, past their memories together.

  That he was engaged to someone so slight, so waiflike and soft-spoken, someone so much the opposite of Claire, surprised her. During the entire meal, Claire kept snatching furtive glances at the lovebirds while she barely touched her own meal, flitting in and out of conversation with Walt. When Marty reached across the table to clasp Audrey’s hand, Claire quickly excused herself to the ladies’ room, tears stinging her eyes.

  Hadn’t Marty told her she’d always be the one for him? And hadn’t she secretly, foolishly believed him? That Marty would never find another girl like her and so would wait for Claire for the rest of his life, even if she married someone else. Even then, staring at her reflection in the washroom mirror, it occurred to her that, yes, she had, on some level, always assumed Marty was hers. And that if life with Walt didn’t pan out (had she suspected it even then?), Marty would always be available. How unfair of her, how presumptuous! How very selfish!

  Especially when she was the one who’d broken things off. They’d dated for seven years—two in high school and four in college (Marty at UNH; Claire at Northeastern), plus a bonus year afterward. But somewhere along the way, Claire began to doubt their bond together. When he started tossing around words like marriage and family and kids, she could feel herself shrinking ever so slightly, Marty’s grasp feeling increasingly like a strangle. Because the truth was the life he was proposing didn’t particularly sound like the one she wanted—three kids, two vacations a year, life as a stay-at-home mom. For Claire, motherhood represented the last stepping stone toward full-fledged adulthood—a big white rock that would one day lead her to the solid shore of grown-upness.

  A rock she wasn’t quite prepared for.

  The more Marty pressed her about getting engaged, the more she distanced herself. When she fell into an editorial-assistant position at the Boston Globe, Claire felt her world expanding, a fledgling planet in full orbit for the first time. It was a chance to establish herself in the writing world, the place where she felt most comfortable, and perhaps to be with a few other men (Marty had been her first and only, which her girlfriends said made her either a hopeless romantic or a prude).

  Then, one winter evening, after Marty got off his wait shift in Faneuil Hall, he grabbed her wrist a little too tightly, demanding, “If not now, then when, Claire? When can we get married?” Never one to respond to ultimatums, Claire decided then and there that they were through. “What?” he’d sputtered in disbelief. “What about our plans?”

  As if he didn’t quite understand. As if they’d signed a binding contract, sealed in blood.

  She shrugged off his question like ba
d poetry. “People change,” she said. “I don’t want this anymore.” And then, as if the pain she’d already inflicted hadn’t been enough, she added “I don’t want us anymore, Martin. Don’t you see?” She’d been so cruel, their breakup as clean as a fresh snap in the femur. But it was the only way to ensure her freedom, to become the journalist she so desperately wanted to be. Martin thought it would be okay if Claire wanted to go back to work part-time after they had kids, but Claire wasn’t about to let a man set the parameters of her career, her life.

  So, onward.

  When, a few weeks later at a conference in Providence, Walt appeared, Claire was easily charmed by the two tall yards of him, his generous wit. He was a grown-up, thoughtful and sensible in ways that Marty had never dreamed of, bringing Claire egg-noodle soup when she came down with a horrible case of strep. Compared to Walt’s mature gestures, Marty’s love-struck pleas seemed foolish and juvenile. A year and a half later, she and Walt were married.

  And yet. If she’d realized how her relationship with Walt would evolve, one tied up more in practicality than passion, would she have still chosen him? And how ironic that Amber, her first, had been a honeymoon baby: all that worry about becoming a mother too soon with Marty had played out anyway—but with another man.

  She stares at the house, giving herself a moment to gather her thoughts, and a soft laugh escapes her. What on earth is she doing here? There’s no point in driving circles around the man’s house, especially when it appears he’s already left for the day. Maybe, she thinks, she can come back later tonight. Or tomorrow.

  The butterflies begin to settle in her stomach. She has a full week to find Martin, to see if she can set things right. There’s no need to rush. After all, there’s an entire list of places to visit and things to do while she’s in town, a list that she now pulls up on her phone:

  Visit the MFA.

  Eat a cannoli from Mike’s Pastry.

  Have dinner in the North End.

  Walk along the Greenway.

  Visit the aquarium.

  Get a massage.

  Enjoy a cocktail.

  And, of course: See Marty.

  * * *

  If she heads back to the hotel right now, maybe she can book a massage appointment and relax by the pool. Already the car thermometer reads seventy-five degrees, and when she’d traipsed by the pool earlier this morning, where a dozen or so older women were vigorously performing water aerobics in the shallow end, it struck her as the perfect place to sip margaritas. On impulse, she digs in her purse for a pen and her notepad before she begins to write:

  Hello, Marty! Surprise! I hope you won’t mind my leaving a note, but I’m in Boston. For the week. Would love to catch up. Call me. I’m staying at the Seafarer. Yours, Claire

  She adds her cell phone number in a postscript, then folds the note over and scribbles his name on the front. Before she loses her nerve, she hops out of the car and aims for the black mailbox sitting at the bottom of the driveway. In the note goes, her heart pounding as she hurries back to the Subaru.

  She shifts the car into gear and sets out in search of a Starbucks and, more specifically, a chai latte. It’s comforting to think that no one will judge her today, that there’s no need to worry if she has misstepped or said something out of line. Which, when it comes right down to it, is largely what her life has become these last few weeks.

  Not once does she notice the black sedan trailing her, about two blocks behind.

  FOUR

  “What’s with you lately? It’s like you’re mad at the world,” Gwen says.

  Jason stares across the table at his girlfriend and tries to decide how best to answer. It’s Tuesday, the 8th of June, and the events of the next four days (e.g., that a woman will come crashing down at the hotel where they’re staying) aren’t even a flicker in his thoughts. Jason can hardly read his girlfriend’s moods, let alone the future.

  Does Gwen want to start an argument, or is she inquiring in a concerned, caring way? Some days it’s hard to tell. Just because he changed his order twice and then reprimanded the waiter for bringing him nachos instead of the shrimp cocktail doesn’t mean that he’s mad at the world, does it? Maybe a little annoyed with their waiter, but mad at the world? That seems unduly harsh. Maybe he’s still trying to get his head around the fact that his girlfriend has spent a small fortune on his thirty-third birthday present—four nights at the Seafarer Hotel—and frankly, he’s not sure he deserves it.

  “I thought you could take a few days off now that the semester is over,” she’d said as she rolled over on top of him this morning, the bedsheets twisting around her body in a seductive bow. “Your dissertation can wait. Check-in time is at one o’clock this afternoon.”

  “Wow—that’s amazing,” he’d replied, too surprised to react otherwise. The truth is, he can’t remember the last time he actually worked on his dissertation. Lately he’s been spending large chunks of time at the library taking long naps and working toward the world record for fastest completion of the New York Times crossword puzzle. Typically, he comes home, tosses his briefcase on the couch, cracks a beer and listens to Gwen talk about the students in her freshman English seminar. “I mean, you’d think these guys had never heard of Shakespeare,” she complained one night. “Do you know one told me he thought Shakespeare was overrated because all he wrote was clichés?” Jason had groaned sympathetically. Gwen, a teacher’s assistant, is working toward her master’s at the same small New England college where Jason is an adjunct professor and earning his PhD.

  She also happens to be five years younger, which on most days seems like no big deal, but on other days feels like light-years, as if she won’t ever catch up to Jason’s slightly jaded worldview. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing: Gwen’s ebullient overtures have often provided a welcome counterpoint to his more dour moods at dinner parties. But sometimes he wonders if they’re compatible for each other in the long run. More specifically, he worries that she might be too good for him. Gwen is head-turning gorgeous, tall and blonde and smarter than any other woman he’s ever dated. What she’s doing with him is a bit of a mystery, but if he probes too deeply, there’s a chance she’ll recognize her mistake. So for the moment, he focuses on enjoying their time together.

  “Nah, I’m fine,” he says in response to her question and twirls the ice in his scotch. “Just recalibrating to vacation time, you know?” He has yet to tell her that this vacation may be more permanent than she knows, that he may not go back to finish his PhD or teach next year.

  A few Fridays ago, while he stood lecturing about the Bolshevik Revolution, his students had stared back at him with what he interpreted as disinterest and, quite possibly, disgust. And that’s when it hit him: these kids didn’t give a shit about the Bolsheviks. They could barely remember what someone had texted them a few hours ago, let alone an event from one hundred years ago.

  So, he’d lost it, in front of twenty-one kids, breaking the cardinal rule of teaching: never let your students see you sweat.

  “You know what? If you guys don’t give a damn about what I’m teaching you, why should I?” he’d demanded, rousing a few of them from their stupor. No brave hands went up, however. “I can’t force you guys to be interested.” His eyes darted around the room, daring someone to challenge him, to restore his faith, but not one kid met his gaze long enough to return it. His books and lecture notes went sailing into his briefcase. “We’re done here,” he said, “until someone can prove to me that you’re actually interested in learning.” Well, that got their attention. A boy in the back row who’d yet to say a word the entire semester raised his hand. “Yeah?” Jason practically shouted.

  “So does that mean, like, we automatically pass, or do we have to take the class again next semester?”

  And he’d thought I’ll be damned. They really don’t care. He grabbed his briefcase and spun around. “Enjo
y the rest of your semester. Finals are in two weeks,” he said. “You dudes have my email if you want to be in touch.”

  That was nearly four weeks ago. Now finals are over, grades have been passed in and while he has heard some murmurings on campus, he assumes none of his students dared to rat him out to the administration. Because they don’t care enough; for them, canceling class was probably a godsend. And even though Jason thinks he might have handled the situation better that day, it was a tipping point: he’d been growing weary of teaching entitled, unengaged students. Now the thought of doing it for the rest of his life makes him want to rip his fingernails out. Before he tells Gwen, though, he needs to figure out what’s next. Because he’s pretty sure he wants to call it quits on academia altogether. The teaching, the dissertation. The whole kit and caboodle.

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that’s all it is,” Gwen says and leans over to kiss him lightly on the mouth. Her lips, sticky, taste like strawberry daiquiri. “For a minute there, I thought I was going to have to find someone else to have wild sex with this weekend.”

  “Ha. Fat chance,” he says and grins. They’ve already dropped their bags off in their room overlooking the harbor. It’s on the tenth floor, and there’s a giant king-size bed that Jason can’t wait to roll around in tonight, and maybe, if he’s lucky, later this afternoon.

  “But first,” she says, raising her glass, “I’d like to propose a toast. To the birthday boy!”

  “I’ll drink to that.” He clinks her glass, and the Johnnie Walker goes down smooth and smoky.

  “And cheers to our first vacation away without having to worry about the dog,” she adds. Jason sets his glass down. He’s not ready to toast the dog’s departure quite yet.

  About three months ago, they’d adopted Muddy, a chocolate Lab, whose temperament had turned out to be a cross somewhere between the Terminator and Rocky. Muddy devoured everything: grass, leaves, rocks, pens, Kleenex. A brand-new set of AirPods, reading glasses, the fireplace brick. A cashmere wrap that he’d bought Gwen for Christmas. No matter what bitter-apple spray they coated their belongings with, nothing prevented the dog from chewing it to shreds.