The High Season(100)

“I have an accepted bid on another house.”

“Oh.”

“But I can still get out of it. Ruthie, are you sure? I mean about all of it.”

“Very sure.”

“All right, then. That’s what we’ll do.” Adeline looked at her hard. “Why are you doing this? You’re protecting Jem, but you’re protecting me, too. I thought you hated me.”

“I just want the best outcome,” Ruthie said.

Adeline only grimaced. “I don’t know what that is, in the middle of all this mess.”

She thought of Mike and Adeline glimpsed through a window, his hand on her head. “I don’t want to sound like a complete cheeseball,” Ruthie said. “But it’s when love wins.”

    Adeline’s gaze traveled back to the painting. “Joe told me to buy the painting from Lucas. But not actually buy it, give him an advance on his inheritance. Personally I never want to see it again. I know he wants to move to LA.”

“That’s good.”

Ruthie heard the kitchen door shut, and Mike and Joe walked in.

Mike immediately saw the sign of distress on Adeline’s face. “Roberta?”

“No, I haven’t heard anything.” She turned to Ruthie and Joe. “I’m waiting for a call. Roberta…hasn’t been well. She’s been in the city for tests.” Adeline’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s just that…she’s my person, you know?”

Penny, Ruthie thought. “I know.”

The cellphone on the table rang, and Adeline jumped. She grabbed it and walked quickly out of the room. Mike started after her.

Joe inclined his head toward Ruthie. “I think we should go.”

As they moved to the front door Ruthie saw Mike reach Adeline. He put his hands on her shoulders. He bent his head close to hers. Adeline leaned back against him and gripped his hand while she pressed the phone tightly to her ear.

They walked out, quietly shutting the door, out onto the lawn.

Ruthie opened her mouth to speak, but Joe started talking.

“Adeline will never show the painting,” he said. He looked over her head, over at a bush, anywhere but at her face. “Some paintings have bad karma. This one was designed to hurt someone.”

Shamed. She was shamed. He knew she’d painted it and he despised her for it.

Except she had this need to confess.

“This is best for everyone,” Joe said. “Sometimes the right thing happens if we let it.”

He was talking fast, filling up the silence, because he didn’t want her to confess. If she did, she would implicate him as well. That was clear. She would have to take a reprieve she didn’t deserve. Just like Lucas.

    It would always be between her and Joe. Any future, closed.

She had already done that, the first time she’d laid down a brushstroke of blue.

“People mourn the end of summer, but I’m happy,” Joe said, his tone shifting. “Business slows down but the oysters just get better. What about you? Fall plans?”

“I have no idea,” she said. “It’s all up in the air.”

Up in the air. Ruthie stopped, aghast. The words echoed, the way they do when you say the worst thing at the worst possible time. If there was sympathy between the two of you, you acknowledged it. Ruefully, the near-miss of the accident still fresh, you smiled, maybe you even laughed. Someone would maybe say, “Too soon?” And the remark became part of your history together, the anecdote you started and the other person finished. Remember that time…

“Goodbye, Ruthie,” Joe said.





65


DOE STOPPED FOR sandwiches for dinner. They would pack tonight, and take the early ferry tomorrow. They would drive through Connecticut, they would drive through New York, they would cross the Hudson, they would find New Jersey. They would drive through states they’d never been to, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, unfashionable states where a farmhouse with a porch didn’t cost a million dollars. She would have to hear Shari cry with joy at every charming town, every vista, “Maybe we should live here!”

A miracle, people were saying about her landing. Who would have thought you’d land in a pool, on top of an oversized inflatable pool toy?

Unlike some other unlucky person, a kid, for example, who wanted to show his sister that he could swim, and didn’t have an inflatable mutant to land on. Why would one drown, and not the other? There was no answer to that question, and yet you still had to go on living.

When she pulled up there was a Porsche in her driveway and Daniel was sitting on her lawn, cross-legged. His hoodie was up.

    She got out slowly. It saved time if you were willing for a scene to play out. She sat next to him, grunting with pain as she lowered herself down. He didn’t even open his eyes. What an arrogant bastard. She tried not to wonder what Daniel wanted, because what was the good of that.

At last she heard him exhale, and he swept off the hood. She expected him to ask how she was, but of course he didn’t.

“I’ve been on the phone with lawyers all morning,” he said. “Lark is dealing with the Belfry board. Dodge is threatening to sue us for negligence and for harming his reputation.”

“And then there’s me,” Doe said.