The Things We Do for Love (9 page)

By the time Mary Anne arrived at the library she was tired, and she was actually grateful for this—it defrayed some of her nerves about her upcoming non-date with Jonathan. She’d used most of her free time between the day’s appointments writing her weekly society column for
The Logan Standard and the Miner,
as well as editing pieces filed by other reporters. Though she had a paid position at the newspaper, several of the paper’s regular contributors worked for free. And so she found herself teaching writing and journalistic technique to many of them.

She’d had time for a quick shower and change of clothes before dinner. Then she’d set out for the art opening at the library dressed in jeans and a long, lacy overblouse with a gray leather coat she loved.

The artist’s name was Susan Standish. She painted oils of Appalachian life. A resident of Huntington, West Virginia, she’d been invited to display at the library as part of Logan’s Focus on Mountain Culture series.

The opening was set for six-thirty, and Mary Anne arrived on time. The head librarian spotted her at once and drew her over to meet a small woman with reddish-blond hair in a long braid. Susan Standish was dressed in a raw silk jumper with a turtleneck beneath. Mary Anne had her SLR digital camera around her neck and said she’d like to photograph the artist with her work. But first she wanted to see the paintings.

Susan herself showed her around the exhibit. Mary Anne was charmed by her work. Coal miners with sooty faces, a mother and child with the thin, long bones she knew from this world, two grandmothers quilting, a blond girl on a tire swing. That last painting was labeled Not For Sale, but Mary Anne still leaned close to read the title.
Briony in Autumn.

Mary Anne trembled, took a second look at Susan Standish, wanted to ask. Couldn’t, because how would she, Mary Anne, know about Briony Corbett? Yet the artist could be the sister of the woman whose photo Mary Anne had seen on the Internet.

“My sister,” Susan said. “It’s from a photograph I took when we were young.” She added, “She passed away.”

“How?” Mary Anne asked without missing a beat.

“Staph infection. Strange, when we hear so much about antibiotic-resistant staph infections these days. But she never got sick. She wasn’t sick. She was playing soccer, intercollegiate, and she literally dropped dead on the soccer field.”

“My God,” Mary Anne said. “I’m so sorry.”

Susan nodded but didn’t seem inclined to linger on her sister’s death.

But Mary Anne had to ask, had to have it confirmed. “I think someone I know—” How could she phrase it?

“Graham?” Susan met Mary Anne’s eyes and, seeing confirmation, said, “Yes, she and Graham were married. Did he mention it?”

“Yes. Yes,” Mary Anne said quickly, anxious to show this woman that Graham had spoken of Briony appropriately—though why she should feel this need she had no idea.

“He had a bad time,” Susan said. “Really lost it.” Firmly, she moved onto the next painting. “Have you been up to Marshall? You might know this store…”

Mary Anne made notes as she followed the artist from painting to painting, then collected a copy of the artist’s statement to flesh out her article. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the library’s glass door open and she wondered if it might be Jonathan. It wasn’t, and she flushed. The newcomers were Clare Cureux, her ex-husband and Bridget, with a man who might be Bridget’s husband, plus the two children Mary Anne had seen at Clare’s house.

Mary Anne swiftly turned her back on them. She was standing in front of a painting called
Serpent Handling,
looking but not seeing, when a male voice said, “Fancy meeting you here.”

Jonathan. She glanced sideways at him, annoyed as she felt her face grow hot. It was just that his “Fancy meeting you here” seemed flirtatious, a reference to their plans to meet. And he looked flirtatious, too, eyebrows lifting slightly as he smiled at her. He wore a black chambray shirt and a pair of corduroys; his dark hair was wayward, and behind his glasses, his blue eyes were checking her out—not lasciviously but with good-natured appreciation. Or so it seemed.

Mary Anne looked all around him, then peered around the end of the nearest library stacks. Turning back to Jonathan, she said, “I wondered if Angie might be with you.”

“Ah…no. You and I have radio business to discuss.”

“But to the opening…”

“I don’t think she even knows about it.”

Mary Anne wondered if Angie knew about their plans for dinner. But she couldn’t ask. Jonathan had just reiterated that this was a business meeting.

Despite herself, Mary Anne said, “Have you gotten over your case of cold feet?” She smiled to make clear it was all the same to her whether or not he married Angie Workman.

“No,” he replied succinctly.

“You will,” Mary Anne assured him, not at all sure she spoke truly. “Look at this.” She tilted her chin toward one of Susan Standish’s oils,
Quilting Bee.
“I love how she does faces.”

Jonathan made a sound of acknowledgment—then went on about his relationship. “Before we were engaged I thought I was the luckiest man in the world, that I’d found a simple woman who would bring permanent peace to my life.”

The statement said much to Mary Anne. She was fascinated that Jonathan should
want
peace. “And now?”

“We’re not alike,” he replied. “The fact makes me nervous. You, for instance, are more like me. You might even understand me better than Angie does.”

Mary Anne felt a renewal of the guilty excitement she’d experienced when he’d asked her to have dinner with him. Here was what she’d hoped for with the silly love potion.

Well, wasn’t it?

He’s still engaged to Angie.

And if that ceased to be the case? If Jonathan broke his engagement?

Words came to her unbidden, in a voice she knew well, a voice thousands of radio listeners knew just as well:
Imagine how you would feel with someone who
loves you so much that he wouldn’t dream of saying anything that could hurt your feelings…He’s going to say things like, “I can just imagine you in that dress. You will look so beautiful. But you’re always beautiful to me. I love you so much. I cannot wait till you’re my wife.”

Graham Corbett, who had a long history of saying things that hurt Mary Anne’s feelings, but who had abruptly stopped doing so.

And while she couldn’t quite imagine Jonathan Hale behaving in the way Graham had described to his caller, Mary Anne found she
could
see Graham acting that way.

She studied the transported features on the face of the preacher who was holding two rattlesnakes in the air, proclaiming. Jonathan had done a feature on snake-handling churches two years before. There had been negative local response, irritation that he had presented Appalachia as a place filled with religious maniacs. It hadn’t helped that the serpent handlers were too frequently associated with crime. Finally, she asked, “So where
is
Angie tonight?”

“She’s with her grandmother. Her grandmother doesn’t get around well, and she and Angie play bridge every Friday night.”

Like Nanna and me.
“You don’t play bridge?”

He shook his head. “Not my thing.”

Mary Anne tried to imagine what he and Angie had in common and realized she had no idea.

Jonathan examined the next painting, a porch scene, with women knitting. Mary Anne decided that she had what she needed for her article. So there was no harm in going through the paintings again with Jonathan, until he was ready to go to dinner.

T
HERE SHE WAS
. With Hale. Actually looking as if she was
with
Hale.

Graham wouldn’t have missed the opening. He’d been the one who’d encouraged Briony’s sister to send slides to the library. But even before he greeted Susan, his eyes had swept the area for Mary Anne.

There she was.

He had never felt so irrationally jealous in his entire life.

Turning away, he spotted Briony’s sister and strode forward to embrace her. Susan kissed his cheek. “You look great,” she told him.

He wore a wool sports jacket over a button-down Oxford-cloth shirt and velvety brown corduroys. “Thank you. So do you.”

Graham tried to ignore the searching look in her eyes. Unlike most of the people who lived in Logan, Susan knew exactly what a wreck he’d been after Briony’s death. Now, that vulnerability was something he wanted to forget. Who in the world would want to remember such a time of supreme weakness?

“Nice people here,” Susan remarked.

“Have you met Mary Anne?” He had to say her name.

“The reporter?” Susan nodded.

“She’s going to be on the show with me for eight weeks, starting Saturday.”

Susan read what he hadn’t said. Her eyes twinkled, and her reaction relieved him. Briony’s family wouldn’t resent his falling in love. They knew that it wouldn’t change the love he’d felt for Briony.

That was when he spotted David Cureux and a woman with long gray-streaked black hair. His ex-wife? Graham had always been curious to meet her, especially given the
tartness with which the physician sometimes spoke of her. Graham sensed that although David felt many of Clare Cureux’s views were nonsense, he still considered her a close friend—perhaps his closest friend.

David saw his attention and nodded to him. Graham excused himself from Susan and went over to join his neighbor.

Introductions were made, including a young woman with dreadlocks, her bearded husband and two small children. Bridget—David and Clare’s daughter—said, “You’re the one who does the radio show with talk therapy.”

“Not exactly that,” Graham replied. “It’s more like an advice show. I try to make clear that it’s not therapy, or a substitute for therapy.”

“Have you ever thought of doing a segment on love—falling in love?” Bridget asked, much like someone with a hidden agenda.

Graham told her about his upcoming series with Mary Anne.

“Oh, my God!” exclaimed Bridget. “
She’ll
be perfect. She can talk about the link between magical herbalism and finding one’s soul mate.”

Graham frowned, trying to see a connection between herbalism and dating. He couldn’t imagine Mary Anne Drew, a very mainstream sort of woman, involved in such things.

David Cureux said, “There is no connection, and there’s no such thing as a soul mate.”

“You’re a skeptic,” Bridget accused. She told Graham, “My brother and I grew up dodging intellectual missiles in the great cosmic battle between mystery and all things rational. The scale of this ongoing disagreement between
my parents is, contrary to my father’s point of view, divine proof that soul mates exist.”

This intrigued Graham, who suspected he would weigh in on the side of all things rational and a world without soul mates. “What is the connection?” Graham asked. “Between herbalism and dating?”

“Love potions,” Bridget said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world. “People do have the power to influence love, to shift its direction.”

Graham categorically disbelieved this. He was, however, fascinated by the development of extreme viewpoints in children of high-conflict marriages. The daughter of David Cureux, a skeptic, clearly believed in something preposterous. Her father looked at Bridget with what appeared to be a mixture of pity, concern and exasperation.

After Graham had told them all it was nice to meet them and moved away again, he heard David tell his daughter, “I think I’d prefer you to believe that the earth is flat.”

Bridget said, “But that’s ridiculous.”

Graham stepped around one of the tallest stacks of books to see Jonathan Hale touching Mary Anne’s arm and asking, “Shall we adjourn to dinner?”

Mary Anne glanced up, saw Graham and reddened. “Hello,” she said. Then, to Hale, “Yes. I’m ready.”

Hale looked at Graham with an expression that seemed misplaced on someone’s fiancé. There was smugness there as he smiled at Graham, gave a slight wave of his fingers and said, “Ta-ta.”

To Graham, it sounded a lot like “Ha-ha.”

“S
O
,
WE’LL ROVE AROUND
Logan, visit the campaign headquarters and interview candidates as they await the results of the local election. Our focus is going to be local. We’ll steer away from the national election, although we’ll be interrupting our broadcast for NPR coverage of that.”

“All right,” Mary Anne agreed.

“I think you’ll be a natural at this. You’re so comfortable interviewing people.”

The food was good and inexpensive, and Mary Anne allowed Jonathan to pick up the bill at the station’s expense. She didn’t know how long such a restaurant would survive in Logan. The economy wasn’t exactly thriving, and it was hard for any new restaurant to make a go of it. They sat at the table making notes of election concerns that would interest the listeners. Glancing out the window, she saw Graham step from his Lexus and come around to open the door for someone else. Mary Anne looked at her watch. Seven-fifteen. Yes, the opening was over, and that was Susan Standish getting out of the passenger seat.

Jonathan followed her eyes. “That’s fast work,” he remarked.

“They knew each other. He was married to her sister.”

Jonathan lifted his eyebrows and looked slightly chagrined, regretting what he’d just said. “Ah.”

Mary Anne could tell by his tone that he knew about Briony Corbett’s death.

He said, “That’s a weird thing. But you hear about people dying suddenly from staph these days. I think it’s hard because so many of the people who die that way are young and apparently healthy.”

“Yes,” Mary Anne agreed, trying to imagine what Graham must have felt when his wife died so suddenly.

“I think our Graham must have lost it for a bit.”

Mary Anne looked at him, curious. It was strange to her that being with Jonathan in this restaurant felt completely natural and, yes, somewhat exciting—yet it wasn’t at all as she’d anticipated. She was wondering if Susan Standish was married, and she told herself that Graham was undoubtedly just showing her courtesy as a member of his late wife’s family.

Jonathan said, “I didn’t know him then, but a friend of mine knew him at Marshall. There were some pretty wild events. And general dissolution. He went to seed, missed appointments with clients, just about destroyed his life.”

“Poor man,” Mary Anne murmured, meaning it, yet not at all sorry that she wasn’t in love with a man who went to seed among “wild events” and “general dissolution.”

“I always had the feeling you weren’t impressed with Graham Corbett.” Jonathan had lowered his voice, even though the nearest diners were three tables away.

“I’m not. I mean—” That had been a stupid thing to say. She was going to be on Graham’s show Saturday. She said at last, “I think it’s hard for anyone to lose someone they love.”

The rest of the dinner passed comfortably, though Mary Anne found herself disconcerted when Jonathan occasionally touched her during the meal. They were small, affectionate gestures, a brief squeeze of her hand as he laughed in shared amusement at a scene they’d both witnessed at the station the previous week, a teasing brush of his knuckles against her cheek. And as they occurred she found herself thinking,
If my fiancé behaved this way to another woman, he’d find himself unengaged pretty fast.

Which led her to wonder if she really was in love with Jonathan Hale. No, more precisely, if she really
wanted
him. And she felt nothing but relief when they parted near her car, and all he said was, “See you Saturday.”

S
ATURDAY CAME QUICKLY
. In the days between, Graham called Mary Anne to run through a proposed schedule for the program, getting her agreement that an appropriate topic for the first session was Getting a Date. The eight-week program would be advertised as
Life—with Dr. Graham Corbett, joined by guest Mary Anne Drew on The Things We Do for Love.

In no time, it was happening. They were on the air. Live.

“And we have a caller,” Graham said.

“Hi, Graham,” said the male caller. Mary Anne listened as well, with headphones on. “And hello, Mary Anne. I’m Luke. Okay, so I like this girl. Woman, I guess.”

“How old are you, Luke?” Graham asked.

“I’m twenty-three. Anyhow, I work in a coffeehouse and she comes in all the time, but we’re not supposed to hit on customers.”

“You need to arrange to be where she is
outside
work,” Mary Anne couldn’t help interjecting. “Or you resign
from your present position, get a new job, then wait for her at the coffeehouse where you used to work and tell her the lengths you’ve gone to just for the privilege of asking her out.”

Luke laughed uneasily. “So you think it would be okay to ask her outside work, even though I only know her
because
she’s a customer?”

“You’re a barista,” she said. “You’re not a military official asking out a defense contractor. It’s not a case of insider trading.” She suddenly noticed Jonathan Hale outside the sound booth, a mischievous expression on his face.

“On the other hand,” Graham remarked, “why is the rule in place? The coffeehouse management doesn’t want to lose a customer because an employee asked her out and now the whole thing has become awkward.”

Mary Anne thought about that. She said, “All right, then. You’ve got to choose between your job and the woman you want to go out with.”

Jonathan Hale suddenly looked in danger of having his knees go out from under him and the phones went wild.

“Maybe she’ll be impressed that you changed jobs so you could ask her out,” Mary Anne added, a bit doubtfully. Color came to her face.
She
didn’t think the barista should change his job, and now she found herself glaring at Graham. “Or,” she said, “you could do what most people would do and find a way to run in to her outside of work. Then you strike up a conversation with her and see if there’s any interest on her side.”

Too soon, the next caller was on the line—a woman. “Graham, I want to know why you selected a so-called dating expert who would advise someone to betray his employer in order to ask out a woman.”

Graham frowned at Jonathan, who had accepted this caller. Jonathan made a helpless gesture, one that suggested the woman hadn’t represented herself honestly before getting on the air. Graham said, “And who is calling?”

“Anna.”

“Anna, I think we’re assuming that Luke’s job is important to him and we’re trying to come up with a solution in the spirit of what his employer expects of him. I think that probably his employer doesn’t want him making a nuisance of himself to any of the customers. Asking a woman for a date when both are away from the coffeehouse seems a reasonable compromise in this case. Thanks for your call, Anna.”

The next caller was with them in no time. “I’m Jack. I’ve got a coffeehouse in Morgantown, and, hey, I don’t want my baristas picking up customers. Period. A girl comes in for a cup of coffee. That’s what she wants. She doesn’t want to have to field offers.”

“Thanks for your point of view, Jack. And our next question about getting a date…”

“Hi, Graham. Hi, Mary Anne. My name’s Jennifer. I really like this guy Adam, at my gym, but I read this book called
He’s Just Not That Into You,
which said I shouldn’t ask him out because guys don’t like it. I want to know what Graham thinks about this and if he has read the book.”

“Actually, I have, Jennifer, and I like it. I like it because it encourages people to think about how they really want to be treated in relationships and about how they themselves treat people.”

“So you don’t think I should ask him out.”

“I didn’t say that. And some men categorically
do
like to be asked out, and some find themselves enjoying a date
with a woman whom they would never have thought to ask out. Nonetheless, there is something biologically interesting to men about pursuing a woman and winning her affection, and asking her on a date is a nice early step. Mary Anne?”

“I’ve never exactly asked a man out to dinner, per se,” she admitted, “but I have said, ‘Hey, want to go hiking sometime?’” She flushed, remembering asking Jonathan this once. She didn’t dare look at him. “Usually, a guy will say that sounds good. If he’s interested,
he’ll
bring it up again. Or we might make a plan right then.”

Graham said, “How come you’ve never asked me to go hiking?” He was clearly teasing, playing to the listeners.

Mary Anne said, “
That
should be obvious.”

He laughed. “I asked for that, didn’t I? So, Jennifer, I think you’ve heard it. There’s probably nothing to be lost in asking him to go for a hike or join you at a football game.”

“And maybe everything to be gained?” Jennifer asked hopefully.

Mary Anne thought of hiking dates, of coffee dates, of so many dates that hadn’t worked out. She felt for this other woman, but also had a sense of futility. Why had she agreed to do this? How could anyone give advice on these topics, how could anyone give advice on anything?

The next caller was Sheryl. “I have the same question as Anna. What makes Mary Anne an expert on dating?
I
don’t think men want to be asked out. Well, they might want to be asked out, but it’s just for ego gratification. Men don’t fall in love with women who ask them out, call them up or pursue them. I think it’s biological, like Graham said. Men prefer to be the active pursuers, with women as recipients of the attention.”

“Do you think that might be an outdated philosophy?” Mary Anne asked.

“I don’t think biology is outdated,” snapped Sheryl. “Obviously, Graham doesn’t, either. Graham, aren’t you less likely to fall for a woman who does the asking?”

“Actually,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about this and I have to admit, my late wife asked me out on our first date. She asked me to join her and a group of her friends for dinner.”

“Mate selection is the prerogative of the female,” said Mary Anne firmly. “Even if he does the asking, we do the choosing.”

Graham looked a little startled at this and Mary Anne wondered if she’d just imagined reading that somewhere, about mate selection.

“Thanks for your call, Sheryl,” he said.

By the time the show was over, Mary Anne had the dreadful suspicion that the armpits of her silk blouse were soaked with sweat. Her blazer no doubt hid the fact from Graham and others in the studio, and the show hadn’t been a complete fiasco, but still….

She exclaimed, “They’re
right,
Graham. I’m no expert.”

“Neither am I,” Graham told her. “You did fine. Our reservation is for seven. Shall I pick you up at six forty-five?”

“Thank you,” she said, thinking with relief about going home and showering.

C
AMERON
M
C
A
LLISTER
lay on her bed, Mariah beside her, her running shoes and dirty socks strewn across her rag rug. She turned off the radio in the middle of the news broadcast following Graham Corbett’s show.

Mary Anne had begged off the Women of Strength
hike, the herb walk with Clare Cureux. It had been a legitimate bailing out, Cameron agreed, the chance to be a guest on
Life—with Dr. Graham Corbett.
Mary Anne had done all right on the show, and how Graham had flirted with her. Well, didn’t he always?

Cameron had asked Clare, “Okay, so what if someone has already been dosed with one love potion and we hit him with a different one?” Cameron wasn’t sure
what
she believed about the love potions, but she
wanted
them to work. She wanted Graham’s interest in Mary Anne to have been caused by the love potion. And she wanted to cure him of that interest.

Clare had said, “Who are you thinking of?” in that no-nonsense way of hers. It had occurred to Cameron first that Clare was afraid of her dosing Paul and second that Clare
wanted
Cameron to like Paul.

Cameron told her.

Clare had said, “He’s all wrong for you. He’s right for her.” Then, she’d proceeded to point out a medicinally valuable grass, thus closing the subject.

So Cameron now lay on her bed, depressed. Depressed because the turnout for the hike had been just three women—self-defense classes definitely drew a bigger following, as did caving excursions. Depressed because what lay ahead was an evening during which Mary Anne would be on a date with Graham Corbett.

She reached for the nearby stack of her grandmother’s romance novels, remembering when she and Mary Anne had talked about which classic heroine each of them resembled. Mary Anne had told Cameron that she was like Emma. Cameron had said, “An immature busybody, who thinks her mind is better than everyone else’s?”

Mary Anne had said, “That’s not how I perceive Emma.”

Cameron had told Mary Anne that she was like Rebecca. And had been secretly pleased that it had taken her cousin two whole days to realize that Cameron had said Rebecca herself and not the heroine of the book, the second Mrs. de Winter.

She flipped through the books and selected
Behind the Cloud
—“The warm and thrilling story of a beautiful girl alone with the men of an Alaskan air base.” Cameron was pretty sure her recollection of the tale had to be wrong, because she thought that the heroine had married the hero to save the reputation of a worthless relative and been so traumatized by her actions that she forgot the ceremony had occurred. She opened it eagerly, trying not to wonder who Clare Cureux thought
was
right for her.

T
HAT EVENING
, Graham parked his Lexus in front of Jacqueline Billingham’s house and hurried up the walk to ring the doorbell. He’d dressed in a dark jacket and was wearing a tie. Rick’s, named for the restaurant in
Casablanca,
was one of two restaurants in Logan with a dress code. He’d once seen the maître d’ surreptitiously slip a tie to a patron—Jonathan Hale, as a matter of fact.