Retreat to Love Page 7

Caleb turned to smile at her. “Hi. Sleep good?”

  She rose up onto her toes a moment. “Like a log.”

  “You seemed so tired.”

  I threw a questioning look Wren’s way. She just batted a hand at me as she reached for a coffee cup. “You all need any help?”

  “No, we’re fine.”

  “You can watch me set the table if you want.” I reached for a pile of plates and nudged her towards the dining room.

  Seeing my raised eyebrows, she shrugged. “It’s not what you’re thinking, unfortunately. He’s not alluding to anything.”

  “Well, did he walk you home?”

  She nodded. “But that was it. A little good night hug. We just kept talking about how sleepy we were after the big meal.”

  I glanced back through the transom to see if he was watching us. “It sounds good, though. He seemed pretty happy to see you this morning.”

  “I know!” She hid a giggle in her coffee cup. “I’m not saying I’m not encouraged.”

  Lizzy came in. “God, you’re really a couple of early birds, aren’t you?”

  I yawned again. “No, but the latke-miester in there runs a tight camp.”

  “I hope they’re as good as they smell. Brandon came up with pan-fried chicken and a side of canned green beans for us last night.”

  “Goddess, what did Angelica eat?” She was the other vegetarian, with Caleb and I. Which hadn’t stopped her from letting Theo make bacon or sausage every morning, of course.

  “I scrounged around and made her a rice pilaf to go with the beans. Had some of it myself, actually, and it was pretty tasty.”

  “I hope you’re willing to recreate it if he’s planning on serving those pork chops in the fridge tonight,” Caleb said, coming in with the first platter of pancakes.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll look after you,” Lizzy promised. She waited until Caleb went back for the applesauce. “Did you get some dirt on him? How was dinner?”

  Wren leaned in to us. “Your cabin after breakfast, okay?”

  I nodded. “And yes, I’ve got dirt. Boy, do I ever.” I straightened up as Caleb came back in. Poor guy. I could just imagine his expression that night, coming home late to hear Ann. Maybe some of those smile lines were from tension and tears. Our gazes locked for a while over the table as I contemplated him, then I retreated to the kitchen to bring out the juice and coffee.

  As we ate, Caleb passed some of the credit for the latkes to me. Rafael didn’t show (surprise) and Theo came in to pack a tall plate for the two of them, so it was just my group and Brandon. I guess he felt a little left out, since he shut up after six or seven obnoxious comments and headed to the computer room with his second cup of coffee.

  “You know, I’m almost sorry for the guy.”

  Lizzy looked at Caleb. “Don’t. Have you not seen his stuff?”

  Caleb winced. “Well, there is that.”

  “He needs all the working time he can get. Sitting here with us won’t make him any better.”

  “But will sitting in there on the computer help?” Wren pointed out. “The man needs to develop a purpose, then develop some pics to go along with it. What is he trying to do?”

  “You know what?” I stood. “As long as you don’t ask him when I’m around to listen to the answer, I don’t care. I think an artistic mission statement from him would be more than I could handle.” Gathering the rest of the plates, I went to the kitchen. “You’d think a dishwasher wouldn’t be too much of a convenience, wouldn’t you?”

  Caleb, following me with the empty pitcher and a tub of cups, told me Margie and the founders’ philosophy about hand-washing building community spirit while discouraging any one team from leaving a half-load of dirty dishes for the next to deal with. “Which is not to say we can’t leave this until lunch time, if you want.”

  “No, we’d best to get it done now. Like I said, I don’t like to spend a lot of time cooking in the afternoons.”

  “I’ll do it, then, you go on to work.”

  “Why? That’s not fair.”

  “It’s fine, I think well when I’m cleaning. And I feel bad for underestimating your kitchen prowess.” I glanced back through the transom, where Lizzy and Wren were whispering and obviously waiting for me to spill the beans.

  “You sure?”

  He wrapped a dishtowel around his waist. “Sure.”

  “I’ll make it up to you later.”

  His eyes locked with mine again. “I’ll count on it.”

  “So, I take it you’ve heard the high points of dinner,” I said, flopping onto the sofa beside Lizzy.

  “Pretty much so.”

  “Dinner’s nothing. Tell us what Zach said,” Wren insisted as she came out from the bathroom.

  “You pee more than anyone I know.”

  “Shut up. I have a weak bladder, I don’t like to take medication.”

  “Okay, as long as you’re aware of the situation,” I said.

  Lizzy nudged me. “We don’t care about Wren’s toilet habits. Tell us what Zach said.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, as it turns out ...” I watched them to see who would choke me first. Just as Wren lunged at me I added, “Zach had told me this when it happened, since it was so awful, and neither of us remembered it was Caleb until we started talking about things last night. Zach feels terrible now, but I told him Caleb wasn’t going around blaming him or anything.”

  “For what, for God’s sake?” Lizzy asked.

  “Okay, here it is. First, Caleb and Zach mostly just saw each other at the computer lab, so he didn’t have much intel on casual girlfriends. Just, he seemed pretty relaxed about dating, you know?” They nodded. “But then there was this one woman, Ann, who got kinda tight with Eva, so they all spent more social time together.”

  “And?” prompted Wren, when I broke off to drink water.

  “And they doubled a few times, went into San Francisco for concerts, stuff like that. It had been going on between them for most of their junior year, and she was pre-med so she was talking about where she’d end up, and he was saying maybe he could go along, since he wasn’t going to get an MFA right away. Oh, and her last name was Kym, and everybody made jokes about her being Dr. Kym-Kendall, so it must have gotten pretty intense between them. Then one night they were all meeting at Eva’s for a movie, and Caleb was late, so they missed the beginning and decided to just skip it.”

  I sipped again. Talking after eating makes me thirsty. “There was a party in Eva’s courtyard, some of the residents were doing, like, a potluck social or something, so they went there instead. When Caleb showed, all apologetic, Ann gives him the cold shoulder, so he talked to Zach a while then headed off alone.”

  “She didn’t come home?” guessed Lizzy.

  “No, she did. Zach dropped her off on his way back to his dorm.” I snorted. “Not that he slept there much, unless he had an early class. But Frank and Bernadette were paying for it, so he popped in once in a while just to confuse his roommate and check his messages.”

  “Then what was the drama?”

  “She slept with Zach?” asked Lizzy.

  “No! You’re terrible at this game,” I told her. “Zach and Eva were joined at the pelvis. He wouldn’t, anyway. No, this was a few weeks later. Eva had started wondering why Ann kept coming by just to say a quick hello, as she put it. Then one night she’s headed out to the library and sees someone down the hall with a suitcase. She knew there were a couple of empty units on her floor, so she didn’t wonder much. After the library she goes to the computer lab. The usual crowd of geeks is there, including Zach and Caleb. They invite Caleb to go for a late-night latte with them, but he says no, he’s headed home. So Eva and Zach go on their own.”

  “Ann was gone?”

  “I told you to stop guessing, you’re horrible. Besides, it’s worse than anything you’d think up.” I wished there was some room to pace in this den, or we were all in my studio, or outside. The whole thing made me restless. �
��Caleb goes home at his usual time. Everything’s dark, so he thinks Ann’s turned in early. She’d been acting a little stressed with microbiology, or something.”

  “She was hacked up, right?”

  “Ooh, yuck. No!”

  “Well, you said it was bad.”

  “It was. Shush. Like I said, it was dark. So he’s quiet, not wanting to disturb her. He sits on the sofa to take off his shoes. As he bends over, he hears it.” I looked at them one at a time. “Sex. People coming. And one of them, he knows for sure, is Ann.”

  Wren let out a sad little chirp, and Lizzy gasped, “Who else?”

  “Eva’s neighbor, a guy named Ted. They’d been at it since the night of the party. But apparently Caleb was such a sweetie she couldn’t stand to tell him it was over. So instead she staged the overheard sex act. Ted didn’t even question why they were going to her place for once. She timed it all so Caleb would be home when they climaxed.”

  “What did he do?” Wren’s eyes were moist.

  I shook my head. “This is what kills me. She obviously thought he’d storm in there and have it out, but instead he just got up and left. He went to the cafe where Zach was, actually, but he didn’t tell them anything. Just sat there not drinking his coke and pretending to listen to the conversation. Around one they all leave and he goes back to the apartment to sleep on the sofa. Ann’s still in the bed, but Ted is gone. He checked.

  “She got up early and showered and left, not even a note. He was awake but pretended not to be. Once she was gone, he goes to pack up her stuff, and it was all gone.”

  “The person with the suitcase?”

  “You got one right, yeah. That was her, moving everything into Ted’s place. She’d figured after they were caught and had the fight, she wouldn’t want to stick around and pack. Pretty practical, if you ask me. Pretty nasty, too.”

  “Then what did he do?” Wren again.

  “Called a locksmith. Had the doorknob changed and took the old one, along with a couple of things like barrettes she’d forgotten, and bundled it all up in the sheets she’d fucked Ted on.”

  “They were never still on the bed?” Lizzy’s face was aghast.

  “No, they were. He stuck everything in a box and left it at the campus mailroom for her.” I couldn’t stand to sit anymore, and went to the front door to look out. “They never fought at all, never talked at all, according to her. She told Eva most of it, and he told Zach a little. It was pretty close to the end of term. When they came back senior year they acted like it never happened. Zach saw them around each other a few times and it was as if they were strangers.”

  We all were quiet for a while. I sighed. “I don’t know, I mean, I thought it was horrible when Zach first told me about it, but now I know him,” I turned back into the room, “it’s just bad, is all.”

  “Bloody hell,” said Lizzy. “And I thought Moira was a bitch.”

  “Poor guy. Did Zach say anything else?”

  “Nah, he hadn’t even remembered it was Caleb it happened to until I asked him about it. They’ve pretty much been out of touch for years now.”

  “Never mind,” Lizzy told Wren, “that’ll give you enough to work with. He’s cautious, dislikes cheaters, and finds long hair attractive.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “Where do you get the part about the hair?”

  “You said she left behind hair clips, obviously she had to put them in something. I doubt they just marked the pages in her textbooks.”

  “Well, I hope it’s true, cause it’s the one thing I know I’ve got going for me.”

  “Yeah, I noticed you flipping it all over the place last night.”

  “Did you?” Lizzy hooted. “I guess we’re not quite so shy after all, are we?”

  She turned red. “Was I obnoxious?”

  “No, you were fine.” I smiled and ruffed my own head. “But since I don’t have your advantage I can’t help but notice it in others.”

  “Do you think he noticed?”

  “Well, he doesn’t have long blonde tresses, either, besides which I think you hit him with it a couple of times, so I’d say so, yeah.”

  “Go Wren, you got it, go Wren, you work it.” Lizzy did a little dance to accompany herself. Wren doubled over, but I felt I had to put a stop to it.

  “Elizabeth, I must say, your hip-hop American accent is even worse than your regular one. I tell you this only as a friend.”

  “Aisling, if you won’t call me that, I’ll try not to offend your Americanized self.”

  “Girls, girls, settle down! We don’t need no internecine wars here. I thought we were all united in a common goal.”

  “Getting you in bed with Caleb is our mortar?” I asked.

  “Hey, whatever works,” Wren replied.

  Women artists searching for ways to express their unity or lack thereof with the world, meeting for two months of soul-searching and sharing, and what we had going for us in the way of bonding was gossip and plotting to catch us a man. Fantastic.

  Wren poked at me with her toe. “That, and the fact I really like you. Both of you. Wipe the pout off your face.”

  I stood and stretched. “I know. I was just thinking of the time. If I’m going to get anything done before lunch duty hits, y’all need to get going.”

  “Can’t believe this woman. Comes to a retreat and actually wants to work while she’s here. Have you seen the like?”

  Wren shook her head. “Never. Come on, let’s go play and let Ms. Dedication here get her quilting done. We don’t want to stand in the way of progress!”

  They gave me hugs and headed out. Alone at last, first time since Saturday afternoon. I was a lot more used to personal space than I’d realized when I moved off on my own and complained of the solitude. Taking the tools I’d snatched from the Main House, I hung some display hooks I’d brought along, and stretched what I had of Chains of Love on the studio wall. The patch portrait of Gran was done, and I’d tacked it to a piece of muslin with the strips for the chains weaving their way across it.

  Standing ten feet back, I decided to bring the Gran patch closer to center left, the radiant locus of the design. One broken chain for Berneen and Albert would head towards the top left, and the one for Pappa would be smack in the center, the link actually connecting them broken but the ones surrounding them and their life together keeping them always close. I didn’t like the prevalence of gray tones in the chains. They needed to be more vibrant, with some reds and oranges. I sifted until I had floss in the right tones and moved forward to braid them around and through some of the chain strands—the chain would be the last element actually pieced, overlaid on the rest so the chains would not be forging the connections, but reinforcing them.

  Nodding, I stepped close to work on their construction, but was stopped by coming face to face with my stitched version of Gran.

  She’d become increasingly wrinkled the last few months, and I knew my moving out was more of a strain than she let on. Pappa’s death a decade earlier had slammed home Gran’s own mortality, and the overnight frailties she’d developed as a result of his loss aged her considerably. From the time toddler me had analyzed and memorized her, until that mournful March day, she’d changed only subtly. But with Pappa gone, her arthritis constricted more, her insomnia took hold, and her thirst to always be doing something new turned into more of a sipping acquaintance.

  I didn’t think about the time, or my tears, until the knock at my door heralded the gazpacho king. Tracing a finger down the painted Gran’s cheek, I set aside my art and prepared for the crucial work of slicing and dicing.

  Chapter 6

  Lizzy pulled me aside after lunch the next day. “I’ve had an email from my parents. They’re coming. They figured out how fare alerts worked, just so they could show up here unannounced.”

  “You don’t seem very pleased.”

  “Ashlyn, they’ll be here at the weekend. They want to see my rural Texas home, they want to meet my friends, they want to tell
agonizing stories about my infancy.” Her brow compressed. “I need your help.”

  Another one. “What can I do?”

  “Tell them all about your grandparents, distract them with questions about the old country. I can’t have them talking to Brandon about my first fallen souffle.”

  “They’d hardly do that.”

  “They would. You don’t know. My parents turn me into a naive girl with a whimsical fondness for big rocks. I may as well not be talented, or adult, or anything when they’re around.”

  Lizzy was scraping the toes of her Doc Martens back against the edge of the porch. Her callused hands were buried in the spikes of her hair, her eyes had rounded and gone moist. I sighed. “How long will they be here?”

  “A day, they’ve said. Saturday morning they’re driving in from Austin, and I have dinner duty that night so I told them they had to leave by five.”

  “Why not just go up to Austin to meet them?”

  She shook her head and pushed up her glasses. “If only. They have an agenda. They’re connecting to Dallas and picking up the car, driving past the grassy knoll, stopping in Waco to take pictures of the Davidian complex, and will be in Austin for just long enough to tour the capital and have dinner. That’s all they want out of this state, other than to see me and the artistic little world they’ve sent me to.”

  “They paid?”

  She nodded briefly. “For the flight, they did. Anything else I do here is on my own punt.”

  Wow, the tug of the financial apron string. I’d seen many people hung from it, but never thought someone as resolute as Lizzy would be roped in. “I still don’t know what you’re so afraid of.”

  “You may never will. But you’re my friend, you’re half-Irish, and you’re another artist, so if they can corner you for an afternoon I can distract them from everything else. Please just give me this time.”

  I supposed there could be worse things. “Saturday?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m still on lunch.”

  “I know. But if I help you make it early, maybe you could ask Caleb to serve and clean up?”

  “You’ve got it all figured out.”