Queen of Broken Hearts (47 page)

I study him, his bleary eyes and drawn face, then lean forward to say, “What do
you
want?”

He looks at me in surprise. “I just told you. Not to go through all that crap again.”

“That's what you don't want. Tell me what you want.”

“I just did,” he insists, frowning, and I let it drop. I ask him, “Does Elinor know that you're here?”

Instead of meeting my eyes, he watches a hummingbird dancing around the red-globed feeder that hangs from the branch of the dogwood tree, bare of its leafy foliage. “Naw. I left a note saying I was going to the marina.”

I can't help but wonder if they made love, or if he was too drunk. I force myself to put the thought out of my mind and say, “Lex? You've told me the basic stuff, but I'm not sure I understand exactly what happened to cause your marriage to end. When did things start to go wrong?”

Lex's eyes take on a faraway look, as though scanning a distant sea. “From the first minute I met her, I was crazy in love with Elinor. So much so, I kind of lost my mind.”

“That's as good a definition of love as any I've heard,” I say with a smile. “In the early stages, it feels a little like going crazy, doesn't it?”

“Sure does. All I could think about was Elinor. I caught myself just sitting and staring sometimes, thinking about her. Damn, was she beautiful. I'd never imagined a woman could be so beautiful. Everything she did, every move she made, blew me away. I felt like I could be happy the rest of my life, just looking at her.” He stops to glance my way. “But it was more than just her beauty. I'm not sure I can describe it.” He sips his coffee as he struggles with the effort.

“It's okay. Just tell me how you felt,” I suggest.

“I knew you'd say that.”

“Lex!”

“You know I can't talk about how I
feel.
It comes out sounding hokey as hell. I felt like a fool, was how I felt. That a woman like her could even look at somebody like me …” He glances my way. “Bet you don't know this, but guys talk about their fantasy woman, or whatever you want to call it. Especially in the barracks or at sea. Mostly bullshit, a way of passing the time. Except with me, it was more than that. Probably had to do with me growing up in the long dark winters of Maine with nothing to do but fantasize, but I had it all worked out. How I was going to meet the perfect woman and fall in love and all that touchy-feely stuff. Sounds like a bunch of corn, doesn't it?”

“Not at all. We all have our fantasies and daydreams.”

He looks embarrassed, his shoulders hunched and his head hanging down. “After I married Elinor, I found myself living my fantasy, crazy as it sounds. All I wanted was to take care of her and … Aw, you know, all that stuff. That never changed. All our years of marriage, it didn't change. You believe me?”

“Why wouldn't I?”

He shrugs. “Most guys I palled around with, naval guys, you know, had women on the side. Even career officers with model kids and perfect wives, they'd have their girlfriends, too. You'll think I'm shitting you or trying to adjust my halo, but I swear I wasn't like that. Just wasn't interested. I had Elinor, and I felt like the luckiest man in the world.”

I struggle to keep my face from revealing my thoughts. When he said he'd gone crazy earlier, obviously he had. “So, when did things start to go wrong?”

He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Lately I've been looking back, trying to figure it out. I think Elinor took up with me in the first place mainly to piss off her mother, one of those snooty Boston bitches. Jesus, did they have a bad relationship. Elinor's old lady was always telling her she wasn't skinny enough, or pretty enough, or smart enough. The old biddy hated my guts the minute she laid eyes on me. I was her worst nightmare.”

Now I know where Elinor gets her charm genes, I think, but I keep my face expressionless as Lex continues. “Elinor's old lady tried to convince all the other high-society biddies that I was from one of Maine's prominent families, and since none of them knew jack about Maine, I guess they bought it. They sure had lots of parties and stuff for us.”

“Did you like that kind of thing?” The image of Lex in Boston society is beyond my imagination.

“Hell, no. But I was a young stud and pretty full of myself back then. And I'll admit it: I wanted to impress her folks, thinking I'd make them like me. My career was going better than I ever imagined; I'd been promoted to captain; and to top it off, I'd landed a classy beauty like Elinor. Guess I was a cocky bastard.”

“
Was?
” I say, hoping for a smile from him, but he furrows his brow, remembering.

“I got the big head, thought I was on top of the world. When we first married, we were stationed in the Philippines for a few years, which was right up Elinor's alley. Everything went great for us, you know? We had maids and gardeners and a fancy house and lots of friends, and Elinor seemed happy as a clam. She spent her days at the officers' club and her nights with me. She couldn't have been more loving or attentive, and I was in heaven. When we got back to the States, we were sent to Pensacola, then to Baltimore. We finally had a kid, and hell, I hoped we'd have a houseful. Not Elinor, who said one was more than enough for her, that it took her forever to get her figure back. When Alexia started school, Elinor opened up her dress shop, and stupid me, I thought everything was going great. The first time she claimed to be miserable and said she was gonna leave me, I was floored. It came out of the blue.”

“I'm sure it felt that way, but it never does. Even when it's a surprise, usually we can look back and see the signs.”

He shakes his head. “I was too damn busy to look for signs.” He crooks his fingers to indicate quotation marks over the last word. “I was brought up piss-poor, when times were always hard. Elinor never really believed that as a kid, I went to bed hungry half the time.” He pats his belly and looks up with a half-smile. “No chance of that now, huh? If I didn't work so hard, I wouldn't be able to see my shoes. Anyhow, when we had a kid, I didn't want her to ever want for anything, so I started working my ass off to provide nice stuff for Elinor and Alexia. Once Elinor's store took off, things got better. Until then I was always doing overtime, working weekends so they could have expensive things, like everybody else.” He shrugs. “Maybe I was still trying to impress her folks, convince them she hadn't married a loser after all.”

“The first time it came up, did Elinor say why she wanted to leave you?”

“Just that she was sick of me being such a loudmouth and a lout and not having fancy manners. Said she was ashamed to go anywhere with me. I told her she knew what I was when she married me.”

“So that was her reason? She was ‘sick' of you?”

He nods glumly. “Yawp. She said she'd been able to overlook things until we had a kid, but Alexia needed a dad she could look up to. Turns out I'd embarrassed Alexia at her school play.” He grins sheepishly. “When Alexia came onstage, I stood up and clapped and whistled. Guess it
was
pretty embarrassing for a young girl.”

“So Elinor left after that?”

“Went home to her mom and stayed half the summer, but she and her old lady fought the whole time, and the shop didn't do well without her, so she came back. It was tough while they were gone, though, not seeing my little girl. Elinor told me I could see her anytime, but first time I showed up, she'd sent Alexia to camp. I said I'd be back for my daughter's tenth birthday regardless, and Elinor claimed she'd never keep me from my child. I got there, no one was home, and none of the maids would tell me where the fuck they were. I acted the fool and yelled and kicked in the front door. When Elinor and Alexia got there, I started yelling at Elinor, and Alexia cried and ran off, scared to death of me. What a god-awful scene that was. Ended up, Elinor agreed to come home if I'd go to a marriage counselor.”

“So the two of you have had counseling?”

“Couple of times after she came back. Not that it did us much good. Mainly because every time she threatened to leave, it'd scare me so bad that I'd go out and get drunk. We'd fight, then I'd sober up and promise to do better. Jeez, it was miserable. The bottom line was Elinor had stopped loving me. I filled her with disgust, I think. I had a hard time admitting it, but there it was.”

Leaning over, I place a hand on his arm. “She must love you in spite of everything. She came here with you—”

“Then she promptly left my ass,” he reminds me.

“Yes, but she's decided now that was a mistake. Let me assure you that you're doing the right thing to get a commitment from her before rushing back into a reconciliation, however.”

He grins. “A commitment, huh? You folks have your little buzzwords, don't you?” Before I can respond, Lex slaps his knees and gets to his feet. He's said all he's going to. “Jeez, I've been yapping for an hour. You're gonna be late to work, and I've got a marina to run.”

I look down at my watch. “Yeah, I have someone coming in at nine.” I'll be rushed, but it was worth it. Lex has talked more this morning than he has since we've known each other. I get to my feet, too. “Maybe your blood pressure has gone down a few points, if nothing else.”

“The coffee helped get rid of my hangover.”

“I hope you'll have better sense than to overindulge like that again,” I say, but I'm thinking I'd get drunk, too, if I were him and faced with getting back with Elinor. But it's what he wants, so I put an encouraging hand on his shoulder as we start walking toward the kitchen, Lex carrying the tray with my untouched bowl of yogurt and our coffee cups on it. “If you promise you'll keep me posted on how things are going, I swear I'll return your calls,” I tell him.

But it turns out to be a promise I don't have to keep. Friday after work, Lex and I, back on good terms, plan another trip to the Landing. When he runs several minutes late, I check my messages. It's him, apologizing that he won't be able to go with me after all. Elinor just showed up at the marina, ready to discuss that commitment he's asked for.

Rye's historic old house is located on a high bluff overlooking the bay, which is spectacular at night. He and I often sit on the upstairs balcony off the master bedroom suite because it offers the best view, perched among the tops of the spreading oaks like a tree house. It's such a glorious and star-stunned night that we can't resist taking our brandy to the balcony, in spite of a biting wind blowing in. We pull our chairs together for warmth and raise our glasses in a salute to Mobile Bay, a vast, shimmering piece of black silk spread out under stars close enough to reach up and touch. The lights of downtown Mobile sparkle on the dark horizon like a city of diamonds. “Wish we had a fuller moon,” Rye murmurs, but I reply that it couldn't be more perfect.

We started the night with champagne, one of Rye's prized bottles of Dom Perignon he'd been saving for years, topped off with a feast of pickled shrimp and chocolate-pecan cake his housekeeper had left us, which she knows to be my favorite. “What are we celebrating?” I asked in surprise when I arrived. “Us,” Rye replied mysteriously, putting his hand over mine to steady the glass as he poured my champagne.

After having two pieces of chocolate cake and licking the thick dark icing off my fingers, I'm so stuffed I don't want to move. I pull my legs under me on the cushioned rattan chair, grateful that I wore a long full skirt, which now serves as cover against the chill wind. I usually wear a swirly skirt when I go to Rye's, since our evenings almost always end with a run-through of our latest dance steps. I look over at him with a smile and raise my glass. “What a lovely evening this has been!”

He tries not to look too pleased with himself as he clinks his glass against mine. “I thought you needed a treat after all you've been through with Haley lately. And I had an ulterior motive, I'll admit.”

I take a tentative sip of cognac in the fat-globed glass I hold. I've never cared for brandy, but Rye insisted I give this kind a try. The taste isn't too bad, and it feels really good going down. “That sounds ominous.”

“I just wanted to gossip,” he says with a chuckle. When he leans over to light a candle in a hurricane lamp, it occurs to me that he hasn't mentioned having a smoke. I wonder if he's quit, but I'm not about to bring it up. “You've been occupied with your new retreat site, and Dory's taken off with Son, so I haven't had anyone to gossip with.”

“Oh, boo-hoo. Half of Fairhope would line up in a hurricane to hear one of your juicy morsels, and you know it.”

Rye has the same quicksilver eyes that Mack had, but his are livelier, dancing as he says, “The well has run dry.”

“You mean you've attended every Mardi Gras party in a five-hundred-mile radius and haven't picked up enough gossip to keep you happy?” I say with a laugh.

He wrinkles his nose in distaste. “Are you suggesting that
I'd
go to that debauchery in New Orleans? Please. At least our celebrations have retained an element of tastefulness.”

“A tasteful Mardi Gras parade is an oxymoron, Rye.” I eye him suspiciously, then say, “Wait a minute. Why are you asking me about gossip, my good man? Surely this isn't another sly attempt to get me to betray a professional confidence. I thought we'd settled that.”