The Guest House (5 page)

•   •   •

F
ive days later, Lexi, pulled a strappy tie-dyed silk dress off the rack at Klein’s on Main Street and slipped it on in the dressing room. When she shoved the curtain back and emerged, Kim whistled.

Lexi shook her head firmly. “I look like I’m trying too hard.”

“Well, of course you’re trying,” said Kim. “Why else are we here looking at some dress that costs more than dinner at Osprey?”

Lexi tugged at the tag to read the price and sighed.

“Your folks will flip when they find out,” Kim said. “So will Owen.”

“They won’t find out.”

“But what about when Hudson picks you up at the house?”

“He’s not picking me up at the house,” said Lexi. “I’m meeting him in front of the library. No one will know.”

Kim grinned. “Unless, of course, you fall madly in love and have his little Moss babies and then
everyone
will know.”

Lexi stepped back into the dressing room and yanked the curtain closed. “It’s just dinner,” she said.

“Bullshit,” whispered Kim through the curtain. “You don’t buy a new dress for
just dinner
.”

What could Lexi say to that? Her best friend knew her better than anyone, knew that for all of Lexi’s insistence that she couldn’t care less about the Moss family or their oldest son, she’d been utterly dazzled by Hudson Moss and his startling blue-gray eyes and his Southern accent in less time than it took to load a dishwasher. She’d imagined herself somehow immune, special.

She wasn’t.

Lexi returned the dress to the rack, as if not buying it might keep her from caring so much about one date. A flash of fear struck her as they stepped back out onto the sidewalk, as though she’d lied on a job application and been subsequently hired, as though at any moment she might be found out to be a fraud. There was still time to quit, to confess. But the bigger part of her wanted to see if she could succeed in her imagined charade, though she wasn’t sure who she might be trying to fool.

“I bet he takes you to Weatherly’s,” said Kim with a wink. “And if you don’t order the most expensive thing on the menu, I’ll never forgive you.”

•   •   •

B
ut he didn’t take her to Weatherly’s. When Hudson Moss picked her up in front of the library, insisting on climbing out to open and close the passenger door for her, he drove them past the two blocks of expensive restaurants and out of the village.

“Where are we going?” Lexi asked.

He smiled. “A friend’s house.”

She scanned the view as he turned them off the main road and down a private drive. When he swung the car between two high stone walls and steered them toward a massive house that rose up at the end of the driveway, her stomach lurched.

She knew the house well. It was one of the newer ones on the shore, an overbuilt monstrosity put up to replace a once-stunning shingle-style cottage that had been left unattended in the wake of an estate battle. Her mother had wept openly when the board had approved the original cottage’s demolition and quickly denounced the new design as an architectural horror to anyone who would listen.

Lexi stared up at it, guilt filling her. “What are we doing here?” she asked.

“Whatever we want,” said Hudson, taking her by the hand and leading her up the wide curved steps to the front entrance. “The Foxes are out of town for another week. Their son and I are good friends. Seth gives me the new code every summer.” Hudson plucked a key from the leaves of a potted fern and slipped it into one of the oversized double doors. Inside, the shriek of an alarm sounded; Hudson reached to the keypad on the wall and deftly tapped in a code. He flicked on lights as they made their way through the house, one chandelier after another bursting above them.

He led her downstairs into a series of rooms decorated in a Tuscan style, complete with stone archways and murals of vineyard views. She watched as he slipped behind the bar and pulled a bottle from the shelf.

“Isn’t this place amazing?” he asked as he filled two tumblers with an obscene amount of rum.

Lexi couldn’t answer. She’d caught her reflection in the mirror behind him. Swells of outrage rose in her throat. She’d fussed over her outfit for two hours for
thi
s
?

She marched toward the stairs.

“Hey—hold up!” Hudson called behind her.

But Lexi wasn’t about to wait, a fact that was clear to Hudson as he followed her up the stairs to find her on her way to the front.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, catching up to her just before she’d reached the entrance.

“This is your idea of a date?” she said. “Bringing me to this hideous house and getting me drunk?”

“What? No! Heck, I thought you’d be impressed.”

“Impressed that you bring me to an empty house because you don’t want to be caught in public with me?”

“Is that what you think?”

“What else can I think?”

For a long moment, Hudson looked wounded and remorseful, like a chastised boy; then he straightened and said purposefully, “Okay, then.” He reached past her for the door, threw it open and stepped back out onto the front porch. “Let’s go back to town,” he said. “You pick the restaurant. Better yet, we’ll go straight back to the house and sit right at the table with my folks so they can meet you. Come on.”

Lexi remained on the steps, frozen. She’d vowed she wouldn’t invest any part of herself in tonight, in needing him to prove something to her, and here she was, making demands. She knew what she’d stepped into by accepting his invitation and yet minutes into their evening, she was crying foul. And worse, he was calling her bluff. Lexi wasn’t sure which scared her more: if he didn’t take her to his house or if he did. Being faced with Tucker and Florence Moss wasn’t her idea of a good time.

Hudson let out a deep breath and slowly came back up the steps to face her. “I didn’t take you out because I wanted you all to myself,” he confessed softly. “I was worried if we went out, you’d see all these friends of yours and I’d lose you to ’em.”

She searched his face, his pale eyes, trying to decide if he were telling the truth.

He squinted up at the house and smiled sheepishly. “You think it’s hideous, huh?”

She felt her own lips pulled into a small grin. “Ugly as sin.”

In the quiet, the breeze fingering his blond waves, he looked rakish and just tender enough that she couldn’t imagine leaving. Out of the confusing knot of emotions that twisted in her stomach—guilt, hurt, shame—desire untangled itself and rushed to the top, victorious. This was her choice to make, wasn’t it?

“I’m an idiot. Tell me what to do to fix it,” Hudson said, stepping closer to her.

She looked beyond him to where the sea hid beneath the rise of the lawn, abandon coursing through her like liquor. “You really want to impress me?”

He nodded.

Then, without a word, she dashed past him and pushed through the grass for the beach.

•   •   •

T
hey stopped their race at the edge of the surf and looked out at the water. Lexi swallowed, trying to slow her heartbeat even though she knew their chase wasn’t to blame. A moment ago she’d had her chance to flee, to circumvent the certain drama that would unfold if she stayed and saw this night through, but she’d chosen instead to take it with both hands, to hold on to its reins no matter how hard it might try to buck her off.

And it would.

She turned to face Hudson. He smiled down at her, his breathing quick too from their sprint, his eyes flashing playfully.

“You mean this?” he said, nodding to the water. “You want me to get in and do laps to impress you, that it?”

She shrugged, the idea foolish to her now. There must have been girls in North Carolina: college girls with skin that never freckled from the sun, girls who never smelled like the sea, who never had to shake sand out of their shoes or their sheets. Girls who didn’t ask anything of him. Why in the world would he indulge her demands?

To her shock, he began to undress. First his shirt, then his shoes, then his socks. She’d been sure he’d stop before removing his pants but he’d kept on without hesitation, flinging his clothes beside him until he stood in just a pair of boxers, his body smooth and shining in the fading light. Without a word, he stepped into the curling surf, wincing as he moved farther in, his arms fisted out at his sides as if he were walking a tightrope. Lexi watched him until he was waist-deep, at which point he leaned forward and dove into the oncoming wave.

She sucked in a sharp breath, waiting for him to emerge, which he did, a few seconds later, and with a loud, victorious hoot.

He climbed out of the water and returned to her, smelling of cold and seaweed and a hundred other familiar smells that drew away all doubt.

“You didn’t think I’d do it, did you?” he asked, winded.

She blinked up at him. “No,” she managed. “God, no.”

He smiled triumphantly. “Good.”

•   •   •

S
he would find he was full of surprises. The best one arrived at the end of their first summer together, on a rainy August afternoon that she and Hudson had spent holed up in the guest house, much to Florence Moss’s displeasure.

“Close your eyes,” he said.

“Why?” Lexi asked, flutters of excitement already dancing in her stomach.

“Just close them.”

Up until the moment Hudson revealed the Hasselblad film camera on the table, Lexi had been sure she could never love anyone or anything as much as she loved Hudson Moss. A Hasselblad! Before that day, the closest Lexi had come to holding a real camera was standing in line for school pictures. She’d taken a class the summer before—Intro to Photography—at the college but even those cameras weren’t much better than her parents’ ancient Instamatic.

She may not have ever used a Hasselblad but she knew how much they cost and her throat went dry.

“I could never afford this,” she said, her hands shaking as she turned the camera, gently and reverentially, like the egg of a rare bird.

“I know; that’s why it’s a gift,” Hudson said, then added with a wicked grin, “I have only one condition: You have to promise me you’ll take lots of dirty self-portraits with it. Preferably nudes.”

She smiled, leaning in to his chest, gratitude and pleasure charging through her. She wanted to rush home at once, to gather her parents and her brother together, to set the gift in front of them and declare: See, see! Not every Wright woman is cursed to heartbreak at the hands of a Moss man.

I
t was always apparent from the shingled front of Tides Natural Foods what season it was. On the first day the thermometer rose above seventy degrees, a pair of umbrella café tables would appear outside, where customers would enjoy mugs of French roast and crumble-topped cranberry muffins. Hanging pots of begonias flanked the doorway. Two water bowls were always stationed—and continually refilled—in a shady nook beside the front door for canine guests. The window display would lure indulgent summer visitors with playful setups of organic wines and gourmet trail mixes for beach and bike excursions, shade-grown coffees, and herbal sunscreens.

Lexi always loved that first inhale when she’d step inside the store, a cool, smoky blend of fresh herbs and nutty grains. As much as the interior and the inventory had changed in the ten years that Kim had owned the store, the smell never had. Van Morrison’s “Tupelo Honey” played low. Lexi slipped past a shaggy-haired young man in a blue Tides T-shirt stocking the dairy case and found Kim behind the store’s café counter.

“The place looks great,” Lexi said, sliding onto one of the counter’s stools and running her hands over the porcelain-tiled surface—Owen’s handiwork four years earlier.

“Okay, so out with it,” declared Kim, setting down a cup of coffee in front of Lexi. “What’s he like now?”

“Who?”

“Who do you think? Cooper.”

Lexi picked up her mug and blew across the top, the memory of Cooper’s dimpled smile forcing its way to the front of her thoughts. “He’s exactly what you’d expect. Well-mannered. Well-spoken. Cordial.”

“Oh, please. Who cares about all that crap? Is he hot?”

“Kim . . .”

“He must be,” Kim said with a teasing grin. “You’re turning bright red.”

“I am not,” Lexi defended sharply. God, was she? She downed a fast sip of coffee.

“It just seems strange that Hudson wouldn’t come too. Maybe Laurel didn’t let him,” Kim suggested. “She always felt so threatened by you.”

Had she? Lexi had once hoped so, desperately.

Kim sponged the counter. “So you don’t think it’s weird?”

“What?”

“There we were, talking about Cooper Moss, and out of the blue, he calls you? You know what this is, don’t you?”

“A coincidence.”

“A
sign
.”

For Kim, every coincidence was a sign, a cosmic signal that could—and usually would—change a person’s life.

“A sign of what,
exactly
?” Lexi asked warily.

“I don’t know.” Kim smiled, looking utterly pleased as she tossed her sponge into the small prep sink behind her and dried her hands on her hips. “I guess we’ll find out.”

•   •   •

T
he first time Lexi heard of Laurel Babcock was when she was sipping the foamy head off a dark beer.

It had been late spring. She was visiting Hudson at his dorm, one of three visits she’d get in the four years he was at Duke, and he’d taken her downtown for burgers. A friend of his, Timmy Watson, an angular med student with flame-red curls, had been their chauffeur.

“Oh, you know Pearl Pizza, Hud,” Timmy had insisted during one of their debates on the best local food. “The place with the purple booths. The one around the corner from Laurel’s apartment.”

Laurel
. The name had been thrown out like a comment about the weather, inconsequential, neither prefaced nor lingered upon, and yet Lexi had seized on it, the way only a woman might. Something in Hudson’s eyes, something fleeting yet unmistakable—a flash of panic, a blink of interest?—had given the comment roots, and those roots burrowed deep into the soil of Lexi’s thoughts for the rest of the visit. That night, she and Hudson made love, and even then, even as she’d lain under him, certain there was no way she could allow him to come any deeper inside of her, her hands splayed across his broad back damp with sweat, even then, she’d chewed on that name like a piece of tough meat that simply wouldn’t soften enough to be swallowed.

Laurel.

The next morning, as they’d spooned sugar into weak coffee at a table in the cafeteria, she’d demanded an answer.

“Who’s Laurel?”

“Who?”

“Laurel,” she said again. “Timmy said her name last night.”

He began sawing into an overcooked omelet. “What are you talking about?”

For a moment, Lexi had felt a deep sense of regret and embarrassment, as if she’d been heard talking in her sleep. Her voice came out soft and small, a voice she didn’t recognize and immediately disliked.

“Last night,” she said. “Timmy mentioned a girl. Laurel. I wondered who she was.”

Hudson had just stared at her. His expression had been so full of condemnation that Lexi had wanted to run from the cafeteria then and there, but instead she’d reached for her coffee and taken long sips, hoping the moment and her foolish inquisition would dissolve in the quiet.

“She’s just some girl Timmy knows,” Hudson said, stabbing a triangle of egg with his fork and dragging it through a puddle of ketchup. “Some girl whose party we went to once.”

Some girl
. The relief had been as soft as a down comforter, and Lexi had snuggled under it. Never minding the doubt that began to gnaw and scratch at the surface of her heart like a mouse.

•   •   •

I
s there someone else?”

The question had come out, as all unfortunate questions do, on the phone a month later. Lexi had been folded into the window seat in her room on a snowy February night, bundled in a blanket and watching her reflection in the frosted glass as she’d held the receiver tightly, her heart racing in the quiet as she waited for Hudson’s answer.

He’d crumpled. “It’s not what I want,” he’d said. “
She’s
not what I want.”

Laurel. It had to be Laurel.

“What then?” Lexi had asked, that awful soft voice returning.

“My parents. Her parents. We’ve practically grown up together.”

“So have we,” Lexi said back.

“No, I mean from the time we were kids.”

We’re
still
kids
, she wanted to say, but tears blocked her voice. But he wasn’t a kid, and this proved it. Did he see her as a kid just because she’d chosen to stay on the Cape to attend community college and live at home until she could afford a place of her own? Outrage and hurt wound within her. Of course he did. Wasn’t it obvious?

Lexi swallowed. “Is she at Duke too?”

“Not right now. She’s abroad this year. Spain.”

Abroad. No wonder Lexi had never met her. Convenient.

Her mind began to spin, imagining scenes between Hudson and this Laurel who was supposed to be just “some girl,” the history they must have shared, the one that had been set in stone long before Lexi had stepped into Hudson’s world. She’d imagined her love for him like a handprint in soft cement, always permanent once dried. All this time there’d been someone else, another print.

Nausea turned her stomach, making her skin hot. She pressed her cheek against the frost-flecked glass to cool it and closed her eyes.

“Do you love her?” she whispered.

“I don’t want her the way I want you, Lex.”

“Come see me,” she pleaded, emboldened by his confession, choosing to ignore that he hadn’t answered her question. “Come for spring break. We’ll go to the Vineyard. I’ll get us one of those cottages in Menemsha and we won’t come out until they make us.”

He laughed at that, as if she might be kidding. Or worse, as if the idea were a preposterous one.

“I can’t. You know I’m going with Timmy to Aspen.”

“You can choose what you want,” she said. “It’s your life.”

“But I
do
want to go to Aspen, Lex.”

“I’m not talking about Aspen,” she said.

•   •   •

F
our months later—four months of falling asleep on a damp pillow and thin meals and phone watching—Hudson had arrived on the Cape with the words Lexi had been dreaming of.

“I ended it,” he said. “I told her I want to be with you.”

And just like that, Lexi had melted back into him. Like egg whites folded into cake batter. She’d yielded every part of herself to make him sweeter, to make him complete. Never imagining a person could change his mind, that even dried cement could be split apart.