At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)(80)

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The Gazette hit the front door at six forty-five the next morning.

Laquita hit the front door at six fifty-five.

Gracie, who was fortunately an early bird, invited her in. "I made coffee," she said, "but the toast isn't ready yet."

Laquita waved away Gracie's words. "Did you see it?" she demanded, holding the Gazette under Gracie's nose. "Did you read it?"

"I've only been up twenty minutes," Gracie said. "I thought I'd skim it over breakfast."

"Read it," Laquita ordered, very obviously an oldest child. "I marked the column right there on page eighteen."

She noticed Noah's byline and pushed the paper away. "I'll read it after breakfast."

"I think you should read it now."

"I can't read on an empty stomach. I need caffeine and calories."

"Make an exception."

"I don't have my contacts in."

"You don't wear contacts."

"You don't know that."

"Lucky guess. I have to get ready for work. Please read it, Gracie. You won't be sorry."

Gracie delayed as long as she could after Laquita left but her curiosity finally got the better of her and she glanced down at the first sentence.

She walked in out of the rain with my daughter in her arms

.She put down the paper and pushed it away. She poured herself a second cup of coffee even though her heart was beating like she'd mainlined caffeine. She drummed her fingers on the tabletop while she tried to convince herself she didn't want to read the rest of the column. She almost believed it too until the phone rang and Don Hasty said, "So when's the wedding?" which was followed by a call from Annie Lafferty who said, "I knew it when I saw you yesterday morning... I just knew it!"

She quit answering the phone after Joann, Tim, and Patsy from the coffee shop all called to weigh in on the subject. She picked up the newspaper and forced herself through the rest of the column. She felt like a voyeur; his view of the workings of a man's heart was undeniably moving. There was no doubt that Noah was a gifted writer. He had managed to say so much about the two of them and their past and still never say anything at all. He never called her by name. He never identified her by either family or career or the color of her hair, and yet short of publishing her fingerprints, he had turned the spotlight on her just the same.

It was a love letter of sorts, angry and bittersweet enough to catch the eye of half the town but when Gracie examined the text, she saw that he wrote more about his little girl and her bad hair day. So why did she see herself in every line? How was it she knew he was telling her that he loved her and hoped he never saw her again?





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"He did it again," Laquita said at six fifty-one the next morning. She had highlighted the most moving passages in Noah's second column in Day-Glo yellow. "Read this one but make sure you have your Kleenex handy."

"I don't want to read it," Gracie said. "It's bad enough everyone else in town is reading it." She frowned. "Has Ben seen it?"

Laquita shook her head. "But he knows all about it. Ben won't go near the Gazette."

"Then he's the only one in town who won't. I think I've heard from everyone else."

"He can't believe there was ever anything between you and Noah. I have to admit the idea doesn't make him too happy."

"Right now the idea doesn't make me very happy either."

She tasted like moonlight, of summer nights spent in the shadow of the lighthouse.

His words angered her. He had no right resurrecting their past this way. It was over. They were over. Did he have to make her feel as if her heart had been sliced in two? Payback, that was what it was. Payback for leaving him with his heart in his hand and a wedding ring in his pocket. She wanted to stuff those words down his throat, noun by noun. He had no idea what he was doing with these columns, what forces he was unleashing. It was too late for the truth. The truth would only hurt Ben and Ruth and Noah and even Sophie. If he kept up this ridiculous string of columns, something terrible was bound to happen. You couldn't play on emotion this way and not pay a price somewhere down the line. She pulled the telephone number off the masthead and dialed up the Gazette, enduring layer after layer of voice mail nonsense until she finally reached Noah. Except that it wasn't Noah at all but his mailbox. She slammed down the phone without leaving a message.