“They had as many arguments as any couple,” Joey said. “Vacations brought out the worst in them—they never wanted to do the same things. If he wanted to golf, she wanted to go to the beach. They usually ended up going somewhere he could golf while she lay on the beach, which might sound like a reasonable compromise, except for one thing—they weren’t spending the vacation together. That used to piss her off,” she added. “And Mel, pissed off, is unbearable.
“And,” Joey went on, “he was lousy with money. Paid absolutely no attention. His focus had been purely on medicine for so long, he’d forget to pay bills. Mel took over that job right away to keep the lights from being turned off. And he was pretty anal about tidiness—I’d eat off the floor of his garage in a second.”
Such urban, upper-class problems, Jack found himself thinking.
“Not an outdoorsman, I guess,” Jack said. “No camping?”
“Shit in the woods?” she laughed. “Not our man, Mark.”
“Funny that Mel would come here,” he said. “It’s rugged country. Not too refined. Never fancy.”
“Um, yeah,” Joey said, looking into her coffee cup. “She loves the mountains, loves nature—but Jack, you need to know something…this was an experiment. She was a little crazy and decided she wanted everything different. But it isn’t her. Before Mark died, she must have had subscriptions to a dozen fashion and decorating magazines. She loves to travel—first class. She knows the names of at least twenty five-star chefs.” She took a breath and looked into his kind eyes. “She might have a fishing pole in her trunk right now, but she’s not going to stay here.”
“Rod and reel,” he said.
“Huh?” Joey asked.
“Rod and reel, not a fishing pole. She really likes it.”
“Take care of your heart, Jack. You’re a real nice guy.”
“I’ll be okay, Joey,” he said, smiling. “She’ll be okay, too. That’s the important thing, isn’t it?”
“You’re amazing. Just tell me you understand what I’m telling you. She might have run from that old life, but it’s still inside her somewhere.”
“Sure. Don’t worry. She was good enough to warn me.”
“Hmm,” Joey said. “So, what do you do for vacation?” she asked him.
“I’m on vacation everyday,” he said, smiling.
“Mel said you were in the Marine Corps—what did you do then? When you had leave?”
Well, he wanted to say, if I wasn’t recovering from some wound and we were in country, I’d get drunk with the boys and find a woman. A far cry from flying first-class to the islands to tan on the sandy beach or snorkel in the bay. But he didn’t say that; it was another life. One he left behind. People do that, he thought briefly and hopefully; leave another life behind and move on to something new. Different. “If I had a long leave, I’d visit the family. I have four married sisters in Sacramento and they live for the opportunity to boss me around.”
“How nice for you,” she said with a grin. “Well, you have any more questions? About Mel? Mark?”
He didn’t dare. More information about the sainted Mark might do him in. “No. Thanks.”
“Well, then, I’m going to get going—I have a long drive and a plane to catch.”
She jumped off the stool and he came around the bar. He opened his arms to her and she happily gave him a robust hug. “Thanks again,” she said.
“Thank you,” he returned. “And Joey, I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Jack. You don’t have to compete with him, you know.”
He put an arm around her and walked her out onto the porch. “I can’t,” he said simply.
“You don’t have to,” she said again.
He gave her shoulders a final squeeze and watched as she walked across the street to where her car sat at Doc’s. She gave one last wave as she drove out of town.
Jack couldn’t help but spend way too much time trying to picture Mel’s life as it had been with Mark. He saw an upscale home and expensive cars. Diamonds as birthday gifts and country club memberships. Trips to Europe; to the Caribbean to unwind and relax from the high stress of city medicine. Dinner dances and charity events. The kind of lifestyle that even if Jack could fit into it, he wouldn’t want to.
The upscale life wasn’t alien to him—his sisters lived in that world very well. They and their husbands were educated, successful people; they had grappled with finding the best schools so their girls would be likewise. Donna, the oldest at forty-five, was a college professor, married to a professor. Jeannie, the next at forty-three, was a CPA married to a developer. Then there was Mary, thirty-seven, a commercial airline pilot married to a real estate broker—they were the country clubbers. His baby sister and the most bossy—and his favorite—was Brie, almost thirty, a county D.A. married to a police detective. He was the only one in the family who had gone into the military as an enlisted man—as a mere boy—educated only through high school. And found that what he had a gift for was physical challenge and military strategy.
He wondered if Joey was right, that Mel couldn’t possibly be happy here for long in this dinky little town full of ranchers and blue-collar types, without a five-star chef within three hundred miles. Maybe she was just too classy for this backwoods life. But then an image of the Melinda he’d fallen in love with would float into his mind—she was natural and unspoiled, tough and sassy, uninhibited and passionate, stubborn. Perhaps it was a premature worry—he’d hardly given her a chance. It was always possible she’d find things here to love.
He didn’t see her all that day. He never left the bar, just in case she came by for a sandwich or cup of coffee, but she didn’t. It wasn’t until almost six that she showed her face. As she walked in, he felt that sensation that had become so common for him lately—desire. One look at her in those tight jeans and he was in agony. It took willpower to keep himself from responding physically.
There were people present—the dinner crowd and about six fishermen from out of town—so she said hello to everyone she knew on her way to the bar. She jumped up on a stool and, smiling, said, “I wouldn’t mind a cold beer.”
“You got it.” He fixed her up a draft. Now this woman, looking like a mere girl really, asking for a beer and not a champagne cocktail, this did not fit the picture he’d had earlier of the country club set, the diamonds, the charity dinner dances. Still, seeing her in a fitted, strapless black dress—he could manage that. It made him smile.
“Something’s funny?” she asked.
“Just happy to see you, Mel. Going to have dinner tonight?”
“No, thanks. We were busier than I thought we’d be all morning, so I fixed Doc and I something to eat at around three. I’m not hungry. I’ll just enjoy this.”
The door opened and Doc Mullins came in. A couple of months ago he’d have sat at the other end of the bar, but no more. He was still as grouchy as he could manage, but he took the stool next to Mel and Jack poured him a short bourbon. “Dinner?” he asked the doctor.