The Way Life Should Be (20 page)

“No, I had no idea.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. I’m actually going there Tuesday. I have to drop a table off in East Blue Hill. If you want, I could stop by and see what they’ve got.”

“Or maybe I should just go there myself, if you tell me where it is.”

“Or…hmm,” he says.

“What?”

“Well, if you want, we could go together. The delivery will only take a few minutes. I could drop you at the market and pick you up.”

“Really?”

“Why not? I have to go anyway. I’d like the company.”

I glance at Katrin, who is checking out of the conversation, and Rich, who is checking out the female bartender. “Okay. That’d be great. I’ll be at the coffee shop all day, if you want to stop by.”

“I’m thinking early afternoon.”

“Could we make it after the lunch rush? Say, one thirty?”

“Good.”

“See you then. Nice to meet you,” I say to Katrin, who gives me a tight smile and pulls Tom toward the bar.

In the car, Rich says, “So why didn’t you invite me to your cooking class?”

“You knew about it,” I say. “You saw the sign-up sheet.”

“Well, I didn’t know it would be
fun,
” he says.

“Katrin is not in the class,” I say pointedly.

“She isn’t? I thought—”

“No.”

“Oh,” he says.

A wave of indignation washes over me. “This is a girl who’s clearly angry with you for dissing her friend—and she’s with another guy—and you’re with
me,
who just saved your ass, and
you’re scamming her
?”

“Of course not,” he says defensively. “But you’re the one who said we should keep our options open.”

I’m not—but it’s hardly worth fighting about.

At home, I stoke the woodstove,
and in a few minutes the living room is warm. Sam jumps up on the couch expectantly. When I sit down beside him, he shoves his wet nose under my hand, demanding to be petted. I stroke his head and think about the evening—Rich’s quasi invitation to move back in, the encounter with Tom and our plans to go to Blue Hill, Katrin’s disgust with Rich and, by association, with me.

Though we didn’t actually say the words, Rich and I both know we’re through. I feel unexpectedly melancholy. My bond with him was the only connection—however tenuous—to my original impulse to come to this island. The path I followed to get here has been swept away by the tide.

Perhaps it’s time to let go of the fantasies that brought me
here. Perhaps I can learn to glide contentedly, alone, from one momentary pleasure to the next—the softness of a down pillow against my cheek at night, the beanbag weight of my dog curled against me on the couch, the warmth of a fire I made myself. The rich smell of just-ground coffee. Blueberry muffins fresh from the oven. Life’s small details are the ones that interest me, anyway. The big questions are too hard to parse.

CHAPTER 20

“So what kind of stuff does he do?” I ask Flynn at the shop on
Monday.

“What kind of stuff does who do?”

“Tom. What kind of furniture?”

Flynn raises an eyebrow. “Thinking about him, huh?”

“I’m just curious,” I say nonchalantly, wiping the counter. “I’m tagging along to Blue Hill with him later this week. Apparently there’s a farmers’ market on Tuesdays.”

“Uh-huh,” Flynn says. “And what about the girlfriend?”

“It isn’t like that.”

“Uh-
huh
.” He wipes down the espresso machine, taps the filter into the sink, puts the milk away in the minifridge, generally takes his time.

“So.”

“So?”

“The furniture.”

“Oh, yeah, the furniture,” he says. “Well, it’s pretty high-end stuff—tongue and groove, inlaid wood, dovetail joinery, all that. I went to Tom’s workshop once—it’s basically a converted barn. He has this revolving group of acolytes, mostly from art schools, who sand and treat the wood and help put the pieces together. They’re a funny bunch. A little woo-woo. When they’re not
working, they sit around and practice Zen meditation, listen to harmonious music on the high-tech sound system. One teaches a yoga class. In the summer somebody—maybe Tom—plants a garden out back. And they open the doors to the neighborhood kids, give them blocks of wood to paint on, teach them how to make macramé bracelets.”

“Oh,” I say. Groovy workshop, Zen meditation, edgy girlfriend with black glasses. It’s all so much cooler than I am that I promptly lose interest, which is, I’ve found, a useful coping mechanism. One that has served me quite nicely over the years.

“Ready to go?”
Tom asks. It’s early Tuesday afternoon, and he’s hovering in the doorway of the coffee shop. He looks dorkier than necessary, with his trucker cap on backward. The chartreuse sweater he’s wearing is not the best color on him. I am instantly at ease.

“Give me a sec,” I say, untying my apron. Crouching on the floor, I riffle through my bag to make sure I’ve got the essentials: wallet, cell phone, sunglasses. Breath mints. Hmm, as long as I’m here…

“What’s that rustling?” Flynn says, standing at the counter beside me.

“Nothing,” I hiss. Why do so many of our exchanges take place like this, under the counter?

“Could that be—Altoids?” He reaches for one, and I slap his hand. He motions toward Tom, standing near the door reading the notice board, threatening to expose me as a breath-mint popper right before an alleged nondate. I hand over the minty bribe, and put the Altoids in my bag.

“Be sure to get her back before she turns into a pumpkin,” Flynn calls over to Tom. “She’s not much good in that condition.”

“Useful for muffins and soups, perhaps, though?” Tom says.

“Nicely played,” Flynn remarks approvingly.

Tom opens the passenger door of his Jeep. I think his gesture is quaintly gallant until he bends down and begins tossing items in the backseat: carving knives, a can of putty, two jackets,
New Yorker
and
Wired
magazines, old paper coffee cups, a mitten. “I should’ve done this earlier,” he apologizes.

“No problem.” The day is mild and clear, the winter sun low. The yellow-and-blue-toned sky is as vibrant as an illustration in a children’s book, and I’m in an unusually good mood. Feeling the transformative glow of the sun, I tilt my face upward and close my eyes. The world is orange, the sun warm on my lids. For the first time in weeks I remember—my whole body remembers—what summer is like. I think of lazy beach days, picnic baskets with canteens of fresh-squeezed lemonade, sand as thick and crumbly as brown sugar, and I sigh.

“I know. I’m such a slob. Sorry,” he says, half turning around.

I laugh. “I’m not sighing at you, I’m just enjoying this beautiful day.”

Tom ushers me into the Jeep with a sweep of his hand. Ensconced in the heated leather passenger seat, I glance around. The interior is cluttered, but also clearly new and expensive. Fancy sound system, airplane-style control panel, tinted skylight. “Nice car.”

“Thanks,” he says, shutting his door and turning the key. The car hums to life. “I got tired of driving a beater. Didn’t think I could face another winter without four-wheel drive.”

“The furniture business must be good.”

He shrugs noncommittally. “Can’t complain.”

As we drive off the island, sun glitters on the snow. We drive past the now familiar tourist shops, cheap motels, hardware stores. Tom puts in a CD, and I recognize the smoky voice and jazzy refrain.

“Oh, Nina Simone,” I say. “I saw her in concert at the Beacon in New York.”

I glance over, wondering how old Tom is. Nina Simone is something of an acquired taste, usually appealing to an older crowd. At the concert I attended, most of the audience were in their forties and fifties. Looking closely, I see crow’s-feet, thinning hair, a few laugh lines. In some ways Tom seems surprisingly youthful: He has the frankness and curiosity of a twenty-year-old. But he also possesses a world-weary air.

“Trying to guess how old I am?” he says.

“No, of course not!”

“You were.”

“Well, now that you’ve brought it up—”

“Guess.”

“Not so old.”

“Let’s just say I’m old enough, theoretically, to have figured out some of life’s big questions.”

“Such as?”

“Such as, you know. Marriage. Family. Career.”

“Oh,
those
big questions.”

“Yeah, those big questions.”

“And have you?”

He drums his hand on the steering wheel.
Bah dump dum.
“Not even close.”

“Ever been married?”

“Yep,” he says.

This surprises me. “Really? When?”

“In my late twenties. For quite a while, actually—I was twenty-eight and Beth was thirty. An older woman,” he says with a rueful smile. “We divorced right before I came here.”

“You met in San Francisco?”

He nods. “I have to say, she was—is—a wonderful person. I was—am—the jerk.”

“It’s rarely one person’s fault, though, right?”

He shrugs, shakes his head. “I take full credit for this one.”

Passing through Ellsworth, we stop at one red light after another. Usually I’m impatient on this stop-and-go stretch, but today I’m content to take it slow. “So what happened?” I venture.

He looks over at me and raises an eyebrow. “Do you really want to know?”

“I don’t mean to pry.”

“I don’t think you’re prying,” he says. “Or maybe I do. But I don’t mind.” He stops at yet another light. “I didn’t really know how to have a relationship. For one thing, I was working way too hard. I practically lived at work during that whole mid-to-late nineties period. A friend and I started a software company on the waterfront—one of those Internet companies that boomed and eventually went bust. I worked ninety hours a week when we were doing well, and a hundred hours a week when we started to crash. It was brutal, and our marriage didn’t survive it.”

Tom turns left down Main Street, crosses the stream at the bottom of the hill, and forks another left at the sign for Blue Hill. “I can be a single-minded bastard,” he continues. “I’ve been that way since I was a kid. First I was obsessed with dinosaurs, then baseball cards, then music. With the whole dot-com thing, I felt like a pioneer, setting off into uncharted territory. I mean, we all did. Every day was brand new. You know?”

I nod. A part of me can relate to this kind of obsessiveness. Or maybe a part of me can relate to him.

“Beth was—is—a midwife. A very different profession from mine. I think after a while it wasn’t just my hours that she’d had
enough of; she also thought my work was morally and spiritually bereft.”

“Did you agree?”

“Not at first,” he says. “I was furious with her holier-than-thou attitude. Above the fray. Of course, what I was really angry about was that somewhere along the way, she’d fallen out of love with me.” He looks over and gives me a wry smile. “My business partner and I got out at the right time, managed to sell the company before everything fell apart. But I couldn’t let go—didn’t want to give up the adrenaline rush. After Beth left and there was nothing else to distract me, I took a good look at myself and realized she was right. I
had
changed—I’d become someone I didn’t like that much. So I decided to make a clean break. My grandfather’s hobby was woodworking, and I’d grown up spending summers in Washington state with him in his workshop. I cashed in my chips and moved to Bellingham, the town where my grandparents live, and persuaded him to let me apprentice with him. I stayed for a year and took classes at the local college in furniture design and craftsmanship. Afterward, I wanted to go somewhere on my own. That’s when I remembered this island. And I just did it—I came here, two and a half years ago.”

I listen, struck by the similarities between our stories—big city, desire to simplify, craft learned at an Italian grandparent’s side, impulsive move to Maine. In the same instant, though, I remember my tendency—as with Rich Saunders—to invent connections that don’t exist, just as one invents recognizable shapes in the clouds.

“So I got some of your story the other night,” he says. “But tell me more. Who are you, Angela Russo?”

“That’s an awfully big question.” I look out the window, wondering how to answer. I don’t think I
can
answer. Inevitably, the stories we tell about ourselves are filled with half-truths,
distorted recollections, and blind spots as well as occasional moments of insight, I think. It’s all in the spin, isn’t it? The emphasis on this particular event, that milestone, revealing more about how we want to see ourselves than who we really are. Not just in the stories we spin to other people, but in the stories we tell ourselves—the narratives we craft from memories to convince ourselves that our lives have order and meaning.

We pull into the parking lot of the Blue Hill Armory.

“You’re off the hook,” Tom says. “For now. But don’t think I’m not going to make you tell me, after I’ve spilled my guts to you.” He looks at his watch. “I’ll be back in about half an hour. You have my cell phone number, I have yours. All set?”

“Don’t forget me,” I say, hopping down from the Jeep.

“Of course not,” he says. “I’d have to answer to Flynn.”

Squinting, I enter
the dim, cavernous barn that houses the farmers’ market. Expecting little on a December Tuesday—perhaps some dry tubers and greenhouse tomatoes, a few jars of blueberry jam—I find instead a vibrant emporium with twenty-odd vendors selling everything from organic spinach and baby lettuce to free-range eggs and chickens, honey and maple syrup, dried blueberries and cranberries. As I wander up and down the aisles, passing stalls with low-fat granola and whole-milk yogurt, goat’s milk cheeses and roasted soybeans, I chat with farmers and examine the produce.

Before I know it, Tom is at my elbow. “Look at this beautiful eggplant.” He holds it aloft. “I can see my reflection.”

“Back already?” I say with surprise.

“It’s been half an hour,” he says. “I’m a man of my word. Today, at least.” After strolling around for a while longer, he helps me carry bags to the car: asparagus, Parma ham, eggplant, eggs, parsley, ricotta and Parmigiana, hearty tomatoes. I’m envision
ing a menu of small courses for tomorrow night, each a different taste of Basilicata. All that’s left is to pick up clams and mussels, ocean fresh, at the harbor in the morning.