Embers (7 page)

"Not right away. She knows I need to spread my wings and make some real money first. I've told her that later when I'm rich I'll come back to
Bar Harbor
and buy her the biggest hotel in town. C'mon. You can take me to lunch. If we don't eat now, we won't have room for high tea at the Jordan Pond House. No one comes to
Bar Harbor
without having high tea there; it's the oldest tradition in town."

****

Wyler had kept his eyes wide open on the road to the summit; on the way down, he kept them closed. They reached the foot of the mountain in thirty-two seconds. Allie delivered him in one piece, which made him feel the same affection for her that, say, a bungee jumper feels for the guy who runs the crane.

Whatever the reason, he was enjoying the rush. When Allie dragged him into a restaurant with great seats and a view of the harbor, he was delighted. This was more like it.

The fact was, he
had
become something of a fart since
Lydia
walked out on him. During the first whole year after she left with their son for the West Coast, he did nothing but lick his wounds. During the second year he buried himself — even more than before the divorce — in his work. Third year: ditto.

He'd convinced himself that he was honing his skills to be razor-sharp. What he'd really done was blunt his judgment with overwork until that star-crossed night in the hallway of the housing project, when all of it — his resentment, his hurt, his guilt, his fatigue — got blown apart with four shots of a nine-millimeter. Three for him. One for little Cindy.

Wyler's euphoria evaporated. He sat smiling at Allie, who was bubbling over the menu and the size of her appetite; but he was feeling as flat as an uncapped bottle of seltzer. He wanted it back, that high; it felt good. Right now he'd take it any way he could get it. He thought of wine.

"How about a bottle of Chardonnay to celebrate the taking of
Cadillac
Mountain
?" he said as the waiter stood by.

The cheerful look on Allie's face disappeared; she became a mirror image of his own faltering mood. "Oh? Do you think so?" she asked vaguely. She glanced at her watch. "Oh — too early," she said, tapping on the crystal.

He looked at his own. "Ten to twelve? Is it critical? We can let the bottle breathe for ten minutes. Or move our watches ahead," he said, smiling.

But she wasn't smiling along with him. They ordered lunch and no wine. It was no big thing. And yet it was obvious to him that he wasn't going to be happy either with or without the Chardonnay, and neither was she.

It was a quiet lunch.

" He's getting in his
car,"
wailed Allie, spying on Wyler through a curtain of polyester lace.

She was in the parlor with Meg, who was cleaning up the remnants of the cocktail hour at the Inn Between. The crackers and cheese were gone, and so were the guests, off to dine at
Bar Harbor
's restaurants, probably the cheaper ones.

"Now
what do I do?" Allie wanted to know.

Meg was gathering up the sample menus, returning them to the wicker basket that lay on the carved drum table.

"What do you mean, what do you do? You wash up and then you help Comfort set the table for supper."

"Not that," Allie said distractedly. She turned away from the window. Her face was pale. "I couldn't tell him about the drinking, Meg. It came up at lunch, and I couldn't tell him."

Meg had a tray of empty wineglasses in her hands. She put the tray back down and said, "Come sit. Tell me."

Meg took the Windsor chair, and Allie took the wing chair. Meg remembered how tiny and lost her sister had looked the first time she climbed up into it on her own. She still looked tiny and lost.

"He wanted to order wine for us and I panicked. Usually I'm pretty good about saying I'm in AA. But not today."

"Well, that's no sin, Allie. No one says you have to tell everyone you meet."

"But I
want
him to know. I want him to know that I had a problem in high school — okay, a big problem — but that I'm in recovery. Meg, I'm not kidding about him. We had a wonderful time. He's so
...
so droll. He's more mature than anyone else I know."

"Because he's older than anyone else you know."

"More than that. I felt
...
I felt
good
around him. I felt right. Kind of the way I feel around you, only with a lot more sizzle."

She slid her hands between her blue-jeaned thighs and  hunched her shoulders together with a waifish smile. "It was a wonderful morning — until the wine. What will I do, Meg? I  can't just go to breakfast with him for the rest of my life."

"Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself?" Meg asked. Which of course was absurd.
Ordinary
human beings got ahead of themselves. Women like Allie merely had to whisper, "Jump," and the men around her asked how high.

Allie gave her sister a look of one part sadness, one part longing.
"You
tell him."

"What? Me? Why?"

"Only this one time. Tell him that I ran around with a wild bunch—Bobby Beaufort and the rest of them—because I was young and didn't know any better. Tell him what it's like in
Bar Harbor
in the off-season, how dull, how boring it is. Tell him
...
tell him about what an awful time it was for us, about Mom dying young and Paul being killed. Tell him about your miscarriages."

"What do
my
problems have to do with Tom Wyler?"

"You were depressed," Allie said simply. "First one miscarriage, and then — right after Paul died — another. Well, actually, I thought you held up amazingly well," she admitted. "But don't tell Tom that. Tell him you were too depressed to watch over me. Without you or Mom, well, drinking is what happened to me."

"Allie! You're supposed to take responsibility for your own actions."

"I know. I
do.
But just this once," she pleaded. "It won't sound like whining and excuses if you do it for me. Meg — I'm so ashamed of it all. But he has to know."

Meg started to object, stopped, waited, shook her head. Allie was dearer to her than anyone else on earth. Ten years earlier, after Allie had begun to behave erratically, after her grades had begun to plummet — but most of all, after Meg had found a pint of vodka in Allie's clothes hamper — Meg had been forced to pull out of a downward spiral of her own, caused by Paul's death and, after that, her second miscarriage.

Allie hadn't wanted Meg's help. The sisters had fought, cried, talked, and fought some more. The road to Allie's recovery had been filled with a thousand potholes and detours; but it became Meg's deepest desire to see her sister safely down it. As far as Meg was concerned, it was Allie who'd saved
her.

"You really don't want to tell him on your own?"

"I can't," Allie said in a whisper. "I just can't."

"All right, then, tell you what. I'll do it for you, if you agree to send your résumé to the White Horse Hotel here in town."

Allie looked up sharply. "Meg, I don't
want
to work at —" She sighed melodramatically. "Okay. But it's a waste of time.''

Allie returned to her stakeout of the Elm Tree Inn. But when Tom Wyler didn't come back until very late, she devised an alternate plan: she'd visit friends in Ellsworth the next day, leaving Meg plenty of time to hoe the field for her.

The next morning it was foggy and damp, which fit right in with Allie's scheme.

"He'll be socked in all day," Allie said. "Make an excuse; take him something."

She began rummaging through the kitchen cupboards. "Here! Blueberry chutney. Take him this. He can't possibly have any. Ask him how he's doing. See if he needs anything. Tell him about my drinking, but try to get a feel for how he feels about me first. Tell him what a great time I had and tell him not to go seeing anything without me, only don't say it like that. Ask him back over to dinner — no, don't do that, I'll do that — but try to find out his favorite food. I think they make something out there called goowumpkee; maybe Comfort has a recipe. He's been divorced for three or four years, you know, so he's not on a rebound or anything. He has a son, Mike, who's twelve. And he wasn't raised by his parents. And his name really is Wyler; I saw it on his Visa card. And, Meg?"

"God in heaven,
what.
What else?"

"No one else would do this for me, I know that. I do love you."

A breathless kiss, a scented hug, and Allie was off, leaving Meg in the novel position of having to sell her sister door to door.

How hard could it be?

All morning Meg kept an eye on Tom Wyler's Cutlass behind the Elm Tree Inn, telling herself that she'd go over there first thing with the blueberry chutney. But one crisis (a mouse in the toilet in room 4) led to another (three people showed up for a room with one bed), and by the time Meg looked up again, the sun was out and Tom Wyler was walking toward his car.

In a panic Meg ran next door, gripping the jar of chutney as if it were the key to the city, hoping to intercept the lieutenant. As it turned out, Wyler wasn't going anywhere except back to his room with the map of
Mount Desert Island
that he'd retrieved from his glove compartment.

"Oh. Well. I happened to see you, and I wanted to give you this. Before you left for the day," Meg added illogically, thrusting the jar at him.

He stared at it blankly. "What a treat. Thank you."

She laughed, despite herself. "You'll never eat it. It's an excuse. I wanted to talk to you about my sister."

A careful look settled on Wyler's brow, the kind of look she was sure he got when some stoolie offered to turn in his mother. Meg didn't like it, but it was too late to back out now.

"Why don't we have coffee in my room?" he suggested pleasantly. "You'll be my first guest."

His room was actually a small efficiency apartment that Meg found depressingly updated and charming. Everything, from the pine shutters and floors to the needlepoint rugs, was warm and cozy without being precious, just the thing for a convalescent. Behind a folding screen she saw part of a bed neatly made up with a log-cabin quilt. A small sofa, a natural-finish wicker chair, and an oak library table that doubled as desk and dining table took up the rest of the room. There were shelves for books that he was in the process of filling.

"Julia has a wonderful knack," Meg admitted ruefully, looking around her with an innkeeper's eye.

"It's very nice here," he agreed. "Very quiet."

"As opposed to us, or to
Chicago
?" she demanded.

He flashed her a grin. "Definitely both."

Coffee had been freshly made. Wyler filled two mugs while they chatted about fog, a new event for him, and then they got down to the business of Allie. Meg took the chair, which left him the sofa.

By now she thoroughly resented the errand she was on. She said, "It was Allie's idea that I come here, Mr. Wyler. My sister thinks you misinterpreted her behavior at lunch yesterday. She had a wonderful time, but she's afraid that when the subject of alcohol came up, she didn't handle it very well. There's a reason for that.

"When she was in high school, Allie had a problem with alcohol," Meg continued.  "But she got counseling, and she's been in recovery since then. Personally, I think she's put it completely behind her, but I guess they don't like you to say that. Everything with them is one day at a time."

"Sure."

"She's
very
up-front about it. Usually. But you seem to have thrown her off her stride."

He stroked the handle of his mug thoughtfully. "I didn't mean to."

Meg hid behind a sip of coffee, trying to assess his reaction. Tom Wyler had a heck of a poker face when he wasn't around Allie. "Anyway," she continued dutifully, "Allie is anxious to finish the grand tour with you whenever you feel up to it."

"Great," he said easily. "I'll look forward to it."

"And your favorite food?"

He blinked. "Pardon me?"

"Allie wants to know that, too," Meg said lightly.
And then I'll be done with this mission, thank God.

"Junk food, I suppose," he said with a startled laugh. "It's an occupational hazard."

He really
did
have a nice laugh; too bad it took an act of Congress to wring one out of him. Allie was right: He
was
good-looking. Tall and square-jawed, with a good head of hair
...
  that take-it-or-leave-it smile
...
okay, so maybe Meg
was
able to see why Allie was so taken with him.

But she still had to wonder what kind of man it was who felt obliged to hang a gun on his bedpost in a town like Bar Harbor.