Chapter 14
The moment Nell had taken a seat at her desk that morning Dr. Levy had stopped by to say that she had been at the reading the night before and had seen Nell in the audience. “It was wonderful, wasn’t it?” Dr. Levy said. “He reads so well.”
Nell agreed that Eric did indeed read well. Dr. Levy had then moved on to the lab; she had not said she had seen Nell speaking with Eric, and indeed, even if she had witnessed their brief conversation, she might well have assumed they had been discussing Eric’s work, not arranging a private assignation.
Nell found herself blushing. Assignation? Really? No sooner had Dr. Levy gone than the senior vet technician, a gifted young woman named Heather, stopped at Nell’s desk to deliver a file. “You’re looking happy today, Nell,” she said. “Getting into the holiday spirit?”
“I guess I am looking forward to Christmas,” Nell admitted.
“It’s always been my favorite time of the year,” Heather said, “even if it has been overly commercialized. By the way, I saw Mick Williams on my way to work this morning. What a nice young man. You must be so pleased your daughter found such a gem.”
Nell smiled, though she was pretty sure the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “Mick is wonderful.”
He had come by the house that morning with his third gift, a heavy linen dishcloth printed with the image of a sprightly hen. Molly had barely glanced at the cloth before stuffing it back into its wrapping and giving Mick a quick and very sisterly peck on the cheek. Luckily, Felicity hadn’t been around to notice and comment on her sister’s less than enthusiastic response. She had gone off early to deliver a tin of her mother’s cookies to Yorktide’s firehouse.
“Has Molly set a date for the wedding?” Heather asked. “I know they’re not officially engaged yet, but I can’t tell you how many people are looking forward to seeing those two get married.”
“Not yet,” Nell said, her smile faltering.
“Well—”
Just then the front door of the clinic opened and in rushed a man and woman, carrying between them a large dog wrapped in a blanket. “He was hit by a car!” the man cried, tears streaming down his face. Within seconds, Nell and Heather were helping the couple and their dog into one of the examination rooms. Dr. Levy and another technician came running from the lab, and all thoughts of anything but helping in what ways she could vanished from Nell’s mind.
* * *
Nell sat behind the wheel of her car outside the tiny café on a rarely traveled road just beyond the large property owned by the Gascoyne family. She didn’t know what sort of vehicle Eric might be driving; one of the two cars parked alongside her own might belong to him. Or he might not yet have arrived. Or he might not be coming at all. And if that proved to be the case, then only Jill would know her shame. Nell had told no one else about her lunch date.
Gathering her courage, Nell got out of the car and made her way into the Golden Apple. A quick glimpse told her that Eric was not there. It was five minutes past one. Nell was shown to a table for two. She sat and glanced again at her watch.
A few minutes later the door to the café opened with a rush of cold air. Nell looked up eagerly, but the man who had entered was not Eric. Another few minutes later and Nell was beginning to feel a bit pathetic. Just when self-pity was morphing into downright social embarrassment, the door opened again, and this time Eric Manville was indeed the person scanning the café. When he saw her he smiled and came hurrying over.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said. “I got a bit lost. Reception gave me directions, but they went in one ear and out the other, and my GPS thing doesn’t seem to be working. After going in circles for a while I finally stopped at a little grocery store and asked for directions. Turns out I was just down the road.”
So much for the cliché of men never stopping to ask for directions, Nell thought. Then again, Eric always had been out of the ordinary. “It’s all right,” she said. “Finding your way around this part of the world takes some getting used to.”
When Eric took off his coat, a bulky puffer that made him look like the Michelin man, Nell saw that he was wearing the same clothes he had worn the night before. She was not surprised that fame and money hadn’t made him a diva.
“I’m starved,” Eric announced. “What’s good here?”
“Everything,” Nell told him. “It’s a family-run business so there’s great quality control. Mom handles the financial end of things, Dad rules the kitchen, and the kids do the rest. That said, the fish chowder here is amazing.”
The waitress, the daughter of the owner as Nell had mentioned, took their order—two bowls of fish chowder—and went off to the kitchen.
“Thanks for meeting me today,” Eric said. He leaned forward and folded his hands on the table.
Nell nodded. She felt a bit disconcerted under his direct and penetrating gaze. “Sure,” she said. “I mean it’s my pleasure. It’s good to see you. I thought . . .” Nell laughed nervously. “I suppose I thought I’d never see you again.”
“Life is full of surprises.” Eric smiled. “I won’t say you haven’t changed in twenty years because you have. You’re lovelier than ever.”
Nell shook her head. “Eric, please. I’m . . . I’m not.”
“No, I mean it.” His tone was earnest. “Experience has given you a certain patina. It’s like you buy a shiny gold ring and it’s lovely and you wear it through thick and thin, through good times and bad, and then you realize that now the ring glows in a softer, richer, deeper way.”
Before Nell could frame a response to that observation—if there was a response to be found—the waitress brought their chowder.
“Are you still married?” Eric asked the moment she had gone off. “I heard about your marriage, of course. And yes, I know. I’m as blunt as I used to be back in college.”
Blunt, Nell thought, and entirely without pretense. “No,” she told him. “Joel and I have been divorced for some time. Our daughters live with me. Molly is a senior in college and Felicity is a senior in high school.”
“I’m sorry about the divorce,” Eric said feelingly. “So, why aren’t you showing me pictures of your girls?”
Nell smiled and pulled her cell phone from her bag. “Molly is on the left,” she said, handing the phone to Eric. “This was taken at Thanksgiving.”
“I can see you in both of them,” Eric noted. “In Molly the similarity is mostly around the eyes. In Felicity, there’s something about her posture.”
“You always were a keen observer of people,” Nell noted as Eric returned the phone. “It must help with your writing.”
“It does. What work do you do, Nell?”
Nell hesitated. She was proud of her job, but it wasn’t what she had once dreamed of doing, and she worried that Eric might be disappointed in her. Then again, why would he care enough to feel anything other than polite interest in what she had become? “I’m the office manager at a veterinary clinic called Mutts and Meows,” she said. “The team does amazing work. Just this morning Doctor Levy performed an emergency surgery that saved a dog’s life. And we also help place animals in forever homes.”
“And how do you fit into the team as office manager?” Eric asked.
“Well, I design and manage the website. I handle billing and help with staffing matters and keep track of office and medical supplies.” Nell shrugged. “I’m just generally there. When that poor dog came in this morning Doctor Levy asked me to stay with his owners while he was in surgery and offer what comfort I could. That’s the best part of the job by far, though it’s definitely the most difficult.”
“I’m impressed,” Eric said. “Not only by the care-giving component of your work but by the business stuff as well. Technology and I aren’t friends, and organization has never been a strong point.” Eric grinned. “You probably know that.”
Nell couldn’t help but laugh. “I remember the time you lost ten pages of a twenty-page paper between one corner and the next. We searched every inch of that street for those missing pages, only to realize that somehow they had migrated from your hand to your backpack.”
“Yeah, well, an irresponsible college kid is amusing but an irresponsible adult, not so much. I worked on getting my act together. I’m not entirely changed, but then I wouldn’t want to be.”
“I wonder if anyone can entirely change,” Nell mused, “should he or she want to.”
Eric shrugged. “Doubtful, but I’ll leave that question to philosophers, theologians, and psychiatrists.”
“Excuse me. Eric Manville?”
A nicely dressed middle-aged woman was standing by their table, her hands clasped in front of her in a gesture of supplication.
“Yes,” Eric said with a smile. “That’s me.”
The woman leaned forward, and when she spoke her voice was almost a whisper. “I’m so sorry to bother you,” she said. “But I wonder if I might have an autograph. I just love your books.”
“Sure,” Eric said, patting his pockets. “I’d be delighted. If I can find a pen . . .”
Nell held out the pen she always kept in her bag, and Eric reached for a napkin. “What’s your name?” he asked the woman. “And will this napkin do?”
“Carol,” she said. “Thank you so very much, anything will be fine.”
Nell watched as Eric penned a note and signed his name. Then he handed the napkin to the woman, who thanked him again, practically curtsying in her gratitude.
“I’m sorry,” Nell said when the woman had gone off. “I thought this place would be out of the way enough so you wouldn’t be bothered.”
“I don’t mind,” Eric assured her. “Meeting a reader makes my day.”
“Just part of the glamorous life of a famous novelist?”
Eric laughed. “There’s nothing glamorous about living under a microscope. One time I was buying toilet paper in the local bodega and this man took a picture of me on his cell phone. I mean, who could possibly be interested in what brand of toilet paper I buy?”
“Did you say anything to him?” Nell asked.
“What could I say? I just paid for the toilet paper and left. I did look over my shoulder once or twice on the way back to my loft to see if he was following me, but he wasn’t.”
“Have you ever been really frightened by a fan?” Nell asked.
“Not at all,” Eric said. “What scares me is failing to live up to the standards to which my readership holds me. People see my name on the cover of a book and they expect a certain level of quality. It’s hard always trying to improve on what you’ve already accomplished. But at the same time it’s a challenge, and without a challenge to keep you moving forward, well, where would you be?”
“Standing still.” Which is something I know an awful lot about, Nell thought. “I’ve read a few of your wife’s articles,” she said. “I found them very perceptive and well written.”
Eric nodded. “Katrina is an excellent investigative journalist, but she’s no longer my wife. We’ve been divorced for two years. Katrina’s contacts helped us keep the news out of the press.”
“Oh,” Nell said. After a moment she added: “I’m sorry.” And she genuinely was sorry. But she was also not that sorry. She bent her head and took a spoonful of chowder, hoping very much that Eric, the observant writer, wouldn’t be able to read the mixed emotions on her face.
“Thanks,” he said evenly. “It was probably as amicable as a divorce can be. When you routinely don’t see your spouse for months on end, well, not many relationships can survive that. Ours couldn’t, though we stuck it out for ten years. That’s a terrible thing to say, isn’t it? You shouldn’t be sticking out a marriage. You should be thriving in it. And before you ask, no, we had no children. I would have liked a family, but I knew from the start that Katrina wasn’t interested. Who knows, maybe I just didn’t want kids badly enough. If I had, maybe I would have made different choices. But that’s all hindsight.”
Hindsight. Different choices. You should be thriving in a marriage. Suddenly Nell felt desperately sad, much as she had the night before at the Bookworm when the reading had come to an end and she had come to her senses.
“I should get back to the office,” she said abruptly, before the tears could begin to flow.
“Of course. And I should get back to my computer.”
Eric paid their check and they went out to the cold and bright December day. Eric pointed at a vehicle that might charitably be called a beater. “I call her Mustang Sally,” he said, “though she’s about as far from a Mustang as she can get. I’ve never been into fancy cars. As long as it gets me where I’m going, it’s fine by me.”
“I remember that old VW bus you had in college,” Nell told him. “One of the doors was held on by wire and a broken window was covered with duct tape.”
“Yeah, it probably shouldn’t have been on the road. When I tried to sell it for parts the mechanic just laughed at me. At least Sally’s passed inspection.”
Nell managed a smile. “It was good to see you again, Eric,” she said. “Goodbye.”
Eric frowned. “Didn’t I mention that I’m staying on for a few weeks?”
“No,” Nell said. Surprise made her almost shout the word. “You didn’t.”
“Really? I could have sworn I had. The thing is, I don’t really have any reason to go home at the moment. Wait, that sounds pathetic. It’s just that I’ve gotten out of the habit of celebrating holidays with anything other than take-out Chinese. With Katrina traveling so often Christmas sort of fell by the wayside, and with my own crazy schedule even my family doesn’t expect me to show up until a week or two after the fact.” Eric smiled. “So, I know you’re busy, but maybe you could show me the sights?”
“You might be bored,” Nell warned. “Yorktide is pretty quiet at all times, and even Ogunquit is a bit of a ghost town in winter.”
“I won’t be bored,” Eric stated, pulling his cell phone from his pocket. “May I have your phone number?”
“Of course.” Nell gave it to him and then put out her hand. “Well, goodbye for now.”
“I think we’re beyond handshakes,” Eric said, and before Nell knew what was happening she was engulfed in his arms. Tears pricked at her eyes as she eased her arms around him.
When he released her he was smiling and Nell, blinking back a few tears, responded in kind. “Thanks,” she said.
“Hope I didn’t squish you with the coat. I found it in a thrift shop for thirty dollars, and it’s the warmest thing I own. I figured it was the right thing to bring to Maine.”
Nell laughed. “It is pretty . . . large.”
“That it is. I’ll call you, Nell. Goodbye.”
Eric got in his car, pulled out of the lot, and turned in the direction of Ogunquit. Nell got in her own car and headed toward Yorktide. Only when she had reached the clinic did the full reality of what had just transpired hit her. Eric was divorced. He was staying on. He wanted to see her again. Nell felt exhilarated. She felt terrified. She felt confused. But she no longer felt sad.