Coast Road (28 page)

Today they had agreed on a partial face frame. Katherine was carefully layering Tracey's hair, using foil and three shades ranging from light brown to ash to create a subtle glow around Tracey's face. There wasn't much talk. Early morning appointments rarely jabbered, and Tracey didn't need therapy. She was refreshingly content with her young marriage and her work. So this was a gentle wake-up time for them both. The sounds of a New Age harp drifted through the shop, along with the scent of freshly brewed coffee. Tracey, a tea drinker like Katherine, was nursing a fragrant lemongrass herb tea when, almost dreamily, she said, "Mmm.

There's a nice one." Katherine followed her line of sight out the front window. The shop was on a street that was a block off Carmel's main drag. This early in the day there was little by way of either vehicular or pedestrian traffic, which meant what Tracey saw stood right out. It was a runner, a man. He was gone before Katherine could do more than admire his shorts and his stride.

"I'm envious, " she said, resuming her work. She slipped the tail of her comb under another layer, deftly catching alternate strands.

"Certain people have the build to do that." She took a square of foil.

"It's a physiological thing. Have you ever run? " She knew that Tracey was into aerobics, they often compared classes and instructors.

But running was something else.

"Not me, " Tracey said. "If I have to exercise, I'd rather enjoy what I'm doing. Running is torture." Katherine used a brush to slather the separated hair onto foil with one of the three colors in nearby bowls.

"Not so torturous, if your body is made for it. Watch a marathon, and you'll see it. Those runners are lean. They're not even heavily muscled, though you know they're in perfect condition." She set the brush aside and folded the foil in half.

"Which comes first, " Tracey asked, "the chicken, or the egg? Are they lean because they run? Or do they run because they're lean? " Katherine started again with the tail of the comb. "Both. I think there's a genetic factor. I tried running two years ago. I was about to turn forty and decided that running a ten k would be a great birthday gift for myself. That's only six-something miles. Piece of cake." She reached for the foil.

"No? " "No." A second brush, second color. "After two miles, wicked shin splints. I rested and tried again. Same thing. I backed up to a half mile and slowly added. No go. I had every test in the book done.

The only thing they could find was that I was pronating. I changed sneakers.

I got orthotics. I did special stretches and longer warm-ups." She folded the foil. "It bought me a mile. So I could do three before the pain."

"What did you do for your birthday? " "A friend threw a party. It was a ball. A little caviar and champagne, a little cake with sugary icing. My shins felt great." She took up the comb. "So that's my running story."

"There he is again." Katherine's first thought was that it couldn't be the same man, but the stride had the same length and litheness, and those running shorts were the same�navy and of normal length. She noticed things like that. She hated running shorts that showed groin.

She also hated ones that were so long and loose that they could hide diapers underneath.

"Sharp guy, " she remarked.

"He's looking here, " Tracey said.

Katherine noticed that, at the same time that she noticed his hair. It was a brown-gray shade, sweaty and spiked. She had seen that hair before.

She returned to the rhythm of her work�separate hair, insert foil, brush on color, fold foil, separate hair, insert foil, brush on color, fold foil. She had wanted to do this to Rachel's hair, to add a subtle variation in color. Rachel had been on the verge of giving in when the accident happened.

She missed Rachel. Rachel thought the way she did. Katherine didn't know what she would do if Rachel didn't wake up.

Enya was chanting something soulfully Celtic. Katherine let it take her to another time, another place, and it worked for a bit. Then two things happened. First, she finished with foil and color and turned on a three-headed ultraviolet lamp to speed the processing. Second, she looked out the window again.

"That's his third time around, " Tracey said. "Do you know him? " Katherine sighed. "I do." With a reassuring hand on her client's shoulder, she leaned around the lamps. "You'll need fifteen minutes here. Can I get you anything�more tea, biscotti? " "I'm fine, " Tracey said, opening the latest Vogue. "Go." Katherine stripped off her thin rubber gloves�surgical gloves, irony of ironies�and pushed the color cart aside. She checked the appointment book, giving Steve Bauer a chance to leave. But he remained across the street, feet firmly planted in front of the curb, hands on his hips, sweat on his T-shirt, which was navy as well. Though it galled her to admit it, he looked gloriously male.

She went outside.

"I thought it was you, " he said, breathing faster than normal.

Katherine worked too many early mornings to know that he didn't normally run down this street. She made no effort to hide her cynicism.

"Were you just . . . trying out a new street today? " Bless him, he didn't even blush. Rather, he took a steadier breath, drew himself up, and smiled. "Actually, the Internet had two numbers, work and home. I called work and got the name of the shop, decided to run by and take a look. I wouldn't have expected you here so early."

"I wouldn't have expected you here so late. Don't you have rounds or something to do?

" His eyes sparkled. In broad daylight, they were a striking blue.

"Yesterday was my long day, " he said, "rounds at dawn, teaching in the city, private patients between surgeries." A trickle of sweat began to roll down his cheek. "I was in the OR until nine last night. I figured I'd sleep in today." He wiped the sweat from his cheek with a shoulder.

"So. That's your shop? " "Uh-huh."

"Looks chic."

"It has to be, in a town like this, or I'd be out of business in no time flat."

"Have you had it long? " "Five years."

"Ah. Steady clientele? " She thought about that and conceded, "Steady enough with locals.

Tourists fill in the gaps."

"How do tourists know you're here? Do you advertise? " "I give referral discounts to the hotels." He smiled. "Clever." He gestured toward an Italian restaurant halfway down the block. "Ever eaten there? " Katherine was grateful when he looked that way. Always a sucker for blue eyes, she was relieved to be released. "I have. It's great." Too soon his eyes caught hers again. "I've never tried it.

Want to go with me? " "Mmm, I don't think so."

"Any special reason? Husband, fiance, significant other?

" She thought about Lying, but that wasn't her style. "No. I'm just .

.

. not interested right now." Those blue eyes clouded. "Is it me? " l !

Oh, it was. She liked the way he looked, liked the way he dressed, liked the way he ran. He didn't evade questions. When she thought he was handing her a line, it turned out to be a legitimate one, and even aside from that, there was something intangible going on. She didn't understand what it was. She didn't know why a woman fell hard for a particular man. Chemistry, more than logic?

Oh, yes, it was him. But she wasn't ready to take another chance. Not yet. Not when she was finally starting to feel good about herself.

It had taken a long time�anolher thing they hadn't warned her about.

She was forty-two and finally believing that she wasn't soon going to die. The shop helped. It spoke of a future. The way people looked at her helped, too. They saw not only the healthy woman she was but the attractive woman she wanted to be.

Still, she wasn't ready to take her blouse off for anyone yet, much less a man�which was no doubt jumping the gun. Steve Bauer had asked her out to dinner. He hadn't asked her to bed.

But it was coming. She saw it in those blue eyes. Worse, she felt it in the tiny place in her belly that hadn't been revved up since her surgery.

Oh, it was revved up now. She could do it with this man. The question was whether things would go dead if he had a problem with her breasts.

Those eyes were still clouded. He seemed concerned, on the verge of hurt, and Katherine wasn't one to hurt. "No, " she said. "It's not you.

It's me."

"Why you? " "Bad experiences." With a regretful smile, she started walking backward toward the shop. "Maybe someday we'll have dinner.

Not yet." His eyes dropped to her mouth, and for a split second, she felt caressed. "I'd settle for lunch, " he said with such endearing directness that her smile grew coy.

"Tell you what. Get my friend out of her coma and I might go for that.

" "I'm not God." She shrugged. Turning, she walked with deliberate reserve the rest of the way back to her shop.

JACK reached the hospital before nine. Cindy was bathing Rachel. The only change that had occurred was the arrival of a new, largerthan-ever flower arrangement from Victoria.

"Hi, Rachel, " he said, but she showed no sign of hearing. "No more movement? " he asked Cindy.

She shook her head.

From his briefcase, he took a handful of CDs that the girls had pulled from Rachel's collection. Flipping through them, he said, "We have another Garth, we have Clint Black, we have Collin Rye, Shania Twain, and Wynonna. Okay, angel, what'll it be? " When Rachel didn't answer, he said, "Hope said I'd like Collin, so let's do it." He put the CD on low.

While Cindy finished up with Rachel, he disposed of the flower arrangements that were dead and went to the shop downstairs for replacements. In response to his request for something vivid, the florist pulled out an orange hibiscus and a deep pink kalanchoe.

"They'll bloom for months, " the man said, and just that quickly, Jack decided on roses and tulips. The roses were yellow, the tulips pink.

They would last a week, no more. He wanted Rachel to be home by then.

Cindy had dressed Rachel in a nightshirt that was bright pink with orange and blue splashes�sent by the owner of a Big Sur crafts shop, along with a card that was tacked on the bulletin board beside Hope's drawings and other cards�and was trying to tuck stray strands of Rachel's hair into the loose topknot that Samantha had created with Hope's scrunchy the afternoon before.

"Leave it, " he said to the nurse. "It's pretty, curling against her cheek." Moments later, alone with Rachel, he touched that curl. It was soft, silky. There was life there yet.

Taking one of the roses, he moved it under her nose. "Bright yellow, " he said and, studying the rose, pushed himself to see it as Rachel would. "Sunshine. Barely open but wanting to, just the tips starting to curl outward, like delicate paper." He tipped the rose to his own nose. "And fragrant. Smells like sunshine, too. Makes me think beach roses in Nantucket. Remember those? Good vacation." He returned the rose to Rachel's nose, then exchanged it for a tulip. "This one is soft pink. Baby pink. Smooth. Tall and graceful. A dancer. An elegant spring dancer." He teased the tip of her nose with the tulip.

Then he told her about going out to the car that morning and seeing deer in the woods. A doe and two fawns�blacktails, he could have sworn he heard her say, though his own memory may have dredged it up. And he told her about Boca.

"See, it isn't just the money, " he said, because if it was he would never have blown off a job. Then he leaned closer, so that no one else would hear, and confessed, "Maybe it was, for a while. But it wasn't conscious materialism. It was wanting to be a success. If I got lost in it, I'm sorry. But success has always been a thing for me, more than for you. Back home, I was shit growing up. I still feel that way sometimes.

You, you've always been a success. Hell, just growing the girls for nine months and giving birth was a coup." Oh, he had been proud, and not only of his daughters. Rachel had been the most beautiful, most serene mom during her brief-as-briefcould-be stays in the maternity ward. He remembered lying just this close when she was back home and nursing, watching her doze off with a baby at her breast. She hadn't changed�same gracefully arched brows, same short nose, same freckles.

He felt the same familiarity, the same closeness, that had made their best years so good. Even at the end, some things had worked. Like the girls tumbling with him in the yard, while Rachel captured it all on film. Even at the end there were smiles.

But okay, he hadn't been there emotionally for her. She hadn't pointed it out. He had felt her increasing silence. She had felt his increasing distance.

"It's like you get started in one direction and pick up speed, and you may forget where you're going and why, but the momentum takes you there an, wway. Only, you find out when you arrive that it isn't where you want to be." He wasn't sure if he was talking about work or about the divorce. Since the divorce was a done deed, he focused on work.

"The problem, " he said, pulling shop drawings from his briefcase, "is that I can cancel on a project like Boca because nothing's been signed yet, but there are too many others where the commitment's been made. " He unfolded the drawings. They were the designs for Napa�heat and air ductwork, lighting, kitchen fixtures�submitted by the various subcontractors and overnighted to him in Big Sur. They needed study and approval. It was the least he could do after postponing another set of meetings.