Summer Friends Page 16

  Maggie sighed. She couldn’t make herself decide on going out or staying in. She began to feel a bit pathetic. She wondered if she was too invested in Delphine, too reliant upon her for a social life. She had always considered them inseparable. Even when they were kids and she had gone back to Massachusetts for the school year, she had spent an awful lot of time writing to and calling Delphine and not so much time hanging out with the girls from her class. And what had Delphine done for friends all those years? Maggie realized that she didn’t know. Delphine had never—or rarely—mentioned any other friend. Maybe she had been entirely invested in Maggie. Until Robert Evans had come along.

  Maggie had liked certain guys, and some of them had liked her back. But she had never been in love, like Delphine was so obviously. Love meant the separation of friends. Love was going to divide her from Delphine. It wasn’t fair. It shouldn’t be that way, but Maggie had a bad feeling that it was that way.

  She got up from the bed and took a step toward her closet. She intended to get dressed. She intended to go to that Irish pub. And then, she turned back and lay down on the bed again.

  28

  Maggie turned the Lexus into the Crandalls’ front drive Saturday morning. Maybe she was being stupid or naive coming out to the farm again, trying one more time to make a connection with someone who didn’t seem to want a connection at all. But what the hell, she thought. I have nothing to lose except, maybe, my ignorance.

  She found Delphine at her desk, as she thought that she might. She knocked on the door frame and Delphine looked up. Maggie was relieved to see that she didn’t look angry or even annoyed.

  “I came to apologize,” she said.

  A very small smile appeared on Delphine’s face. “Okay.”

  “I shouldn’t have interfered with the Dave Junior situation. It’s just that I didn’t see it as interfering. I’m used to people coming to me for advice. I get paid for it. Still, I shouldn’t have tried to tell you how to handle family business. I’m sorry.”

  Delphine’s smile grew. “That’s okay,” she said. “I probably got too worked up about it. I’m pretty used to handling stuff on my own.”

  “Yes. I imagine you are. So, apology accepted?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good,” Maggie said. “That’s a big relief.”

  Delphine hesitated, and then she said, “And, well, Maggie, I am glad that you’re here. Really. I guess I’m just still a bit . . . stunned that you are. Here. After all this time. In a way it seems unreal. I feel like . . . I feel like I don’t know what I’m supposed to do or say.”

  “You’re not ‘supposed’ to do anything,” Maggie said. “And just say what you want to say. It’s me.”

  It’s me. Delphine wondered if Maggie had the right to assume that familiarity, that intimacy. But maybe, she thought, I’m being too . . . prickly—again. Maybe I’m overthinking. And maybe taking on the responsibility of Maggie’s friendship wasn’t entirely a bad thing at this point. Besides, in a few short weeks Maggie would be going home and life could get back to normal.

  “Hey,” Maggie was saying, “are you okay? Looks like you went away for a while.”

  Delphine shook her head. “Sorry. Look, I really do have to get back to work now, but maybe we could get together later?”

  Maggie nodded. “Okay. I’ll call you this afternoon and we’ll figure something out.” With a little wave and a spring in her step, she was gone.

  29

  At Maggie’s suggestion the women met for a picnic on the beach that evening. She had brought sandwiches from the Village Food Market and, as a treat, two brownies from the Bread & Roses Bakery. She wasn’t sure if alcohol was permitted on the beach, so she had brought two bottles of Pellegrino instead. Delphine brought a large, slightly threadbare blanket; she didn’t own beach chairs. Maggie was wearing the periwinkle sweater she had bought from Delphine. It really did look good with her blond hair. Delphine was wearing a well-worn green sweatshirt.

  The tide was coming in, so they sat well up the beach, close to the dunes. Most of the families with small children were long gone back to their hotels to shower, change, and find dinner. Only a few older couples and a scattering of teens remained.

  “I can’t remember the last time I did this,” Delphine said when they had settled. “Had a picnic on the beach.”

  “I think if I lived in Ogunquit I’d come down to the beach every day, rain or shine.”

  Not if you had a life like mine, you wouldn’t, Delphine thought.

  They ate for a while in companionable silence. Delphine was always hungry and finished her sandwich quickly. The brownie didn’t last long, either. She hoped that Maggie would eat only half of hers and pass the other half on.

  “Tell me about Harry,” Maggie said when she’d finished her sandwich. “I don’t know anything about him, other than his last name and that he lives on Agamenticus Road. And why haven’t I met him yet?”

  “No reason,” Delphine said. “He’s just been really busy with work. He drives a truck for Charron Lumber. Besides that there’s really not much to tell. We’ve been together for about ten years. I think I told you that already. He’s a good man. He helps my father around the house when he can, you know, with the bigger stuff, shoveling snow in the winter, raking the leaves in autumn. Dad doesn’t like to get on a ladder anymore if he can help it, so he calls Harry if Joey or Dave Senior aren’t around.”

  “Well,” Maggie said, “that’s good of him, to be there for your family. So, are you planning on getting married someday? I know you don’t live together, but it sounds like you have a pretty domestic kind of relationship.”

  Delphine had known this moment would come. And why shouldn’t Maggie know the truth? Everyone else in Ogunquit did. “Harry,” she said, “is already married. His wife is in a nursing home. She had a really bad car accident about twelve years ago. She wasn’t found for kind of a long time, so there was oxygen loss. She has traumatic brain injuries. I really don’t know all the details except that she can’t function on her own.”

  “Oh.” Maggie paused. “That’s so terribly sad. But if she’s incapacitated . . .”

  “He won’t divorce the mother of his children. He still loves her. He visits her once a week. So . . . We won’t be getting married.”

  Maggie was silent for a moment, thinking. There was an obvious question to ask. What about when Harry’s wife died, which for all Delphine knew could be at any time? Would Harry ask her to marry him then? Maggie hesitated a moment longer and then said, “Well, maybe I shouldn’t ask this, but—”

  “Then don’t. Sorry. Lately . . . I don’t know. It’s become a bit of a touchy subject with me. Sorry.”

  “Lord, Delphine, don’t apologize. I’d be upset, too, if—”

  “I’m not upset,” Delphine said. “Not exactly. Are you going to eat that brownie?”

  “What? Oh, no, you can have it.”

  “We could share it.”

  “Sure.” Maggie unwrapped the remaining brownie and broke it in rough halves. Delphine ate her half; Maggie rewrapped hers.

  “I don’t know how you can be okay with the situation,” Maggie said finally. “Here I am interfering again. But don’t you think you deserve more? I think you deserve more!”

  “Be that as it may, you don’t get into a fight with an enemy you can’t beat.”

  Maggie thought, This is just like when Delphine went back home to Ogunquit after college. She doesn’t give life a chance. She doesn’t try for anything. She just accepts what’s put in front of her as all she’s worthy of having.

  “Your life,” she said, “could have been so much—”

  “So much what?” Delphine interrupted, her tone challenging. “Better?”

  “No. That’s not what I was going to say. Other. Your life could have been so . . . other than what it is now.”

  “The same could be said for you,” Delphine pointed out. “The same could be said for anyone. But I don’t want my li
fe to be anything other than what it is. My life is exactly what it should be.” But Delphine wondered if she really believed that. Maybe she was just being defensive. She fiddled with the cap of her water bottle and wished they could be talking about something neutral, like casserole recipes. She liked casseroles.

  “I wish I could say the same,” Maggie said after a while. “That my life is exactly what it should be. But I can’t, not anymore.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. What would you change, if you could?”

  Maggie chose her words carefully. “I guess I would like my marriage to be more . . . interesting. More passionate. But maybe that’s not possible with Gregory, so maybe what I would change is the man. . . . I mean, maybe I would choose to be with someone else.”

  “Are you serious?” Delphine asked. “Are you thinking of leaving your husband?”

  “No, no,” Maggie said quickly, “of course not. I’m just—just thinking out loud. The thing is that lately I feel I could be happier. I feel that I could be—that I should be—more fulfilled. I’m not an old woman yet. I think I deserve some more excitement before I am an old woman and can’t enjoy life like I could be enjoying it now.”

  “What do you mean by ‘excitement’?”

  “I don’t know. That’s part of the problem. I can’t seem to think clearly about my life.”

  Delphine shook her head. “Change for its own sake is all well and good for the young,” she said. “They have so much time to recover from their mistakes. But at forty-nine I can see sixty and even seventy, if I squint real hard . . . and I don’t know. The abandonment of what’s good if not necessarily wonderful in my life seems absurd, if not downright stupid.”

  “That’s smart,” Maggie conceded. “But maybe I don’t want to be smart just now. I don’t know. I just feel . . . restless.”

  And maybe, Delphine thought, I’m just a big coward.

  “You know,” Maggie said. She hoped to sound casual, though she had finally decided to bring up the name of the one person Delphine might not want to talk about at all. “I never told you this, but I don’t know why I should be keeping it a secret. Robert contacted me a few times after you came back to Ogunquit. He was confused. He wondered if I knew more about your decision to end the engagement. Of course, I didn’t know anything more than he did. And even if I had known more, I’m not sure I would have told him. It would have been betraying your trust in me as your best friend.”

  Delphine was silent. She had been expecting this conversation since Maggie’s phone call back in the spring. That didn’t make it any less surprising or comfortable. “So,” she said finally, “you didn’t tell him anything?”

  “What was there to tell? It didn’t make much sense to me, either, your ending things with Robert and going back home. After a couple of calls I told him he should just contact you directly. Did he?” Maggie asked. “Did he ever call, or write? Did you ever talk to him again?”

  Delphine couldn’t answer right away. How could she possibly explain what it had been like for her those first months back home in Ogunquit, the disturbing mix of relief and heartache, knowing she had done the right thing yet feeling that she was going to curl up and die because of it?

  “No,” she said finally. “We never spoke again. He did write to me, twice. Maybe three times, I don’t remember. It was in that first year. But I never responded.”

  “Why?”

  Delphine shrugged. “It was over. What was the point in writing back? What else could I say to him?”

  “Did he want you back?” Maggie asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “And I couldn’t go back to him. I didn’t want to.” That was a bit of a lie, but Delphine had never talked about this to anyone. She had thought that she never would. And now, all these years later . . .

  “God, Delphine,” Maggie said, “didn’t you feel any regret, not even a little? You were so in love with each other. It took every ounce of my will not to be jealous of you two. Sometimes, I failed pretty miserably.”

  Delphine looked out at the water. The tide was inching its way up the beach. More people had gone home, leaving them virtually alone with the seagulls searching for any scraps of food left behind.

  “All right,” she said finally. “Yes, I did feel some regret. Of course I did. I did want to go back to him, a little. For a while . . . For a while I was still in love with him.”

  Maggie sighed. “It must have been so hard for you. Honestly, Delphine, why? Why did you end things with Robert and come back here? I know I asked you this at the time, but I have to ask it again. Did he cheat on you? Did he hurt you in some way?”

  “No, no,” Delphine said. “Robert was . . . perfect. Perfect for someone else. I . . . I had to be here, in Maine, in Ogunquit, with my family. I was needed. That’s all.”

  “Couldn’t you have married Robert anyway, and visited your parents a few times a year, even once a month?”

  “It wouldn’t have been the same thing,” Delphine said firmly. “Besides, Robert didn’t like it here. He felt it was too . . . provincial.”

  “I just can’t believe you broke up over a little thing like where to live.”

  “It’s not a little thing,” Delphine replied vehemently. “You don’t understand what this place means to me.”

  Maggie looked at her closely. “I guess I don’t. So explain it to me.”

  “I don’t know if I can. Just take my word for it. I needed to come back here. The world I would have had to live in with Robert would not have been my world at all. I would have been . . . lost.”

  They sat in silence for a long moment. After a time, Maggie said, “Robert was—he is—a wonderful man. He makes a huge difference in the world. He’s a man worthy of being loved. I’m sorry, Delphine, but I don’t think I’ll ever understand how you could have walked away from the love of your life.”

  The love of my life, Delphine thought. Had Robert really been the love of her life? Or was the love of her life this beach, this town, this land? Was it her family? She really didn’t know. She didn’t think that it mattered.

  “I saw Robert on TV not too long ago,” Maggie was saying now. “He was one of the people being interviewed for a documentary on China and its changing workforce. It was on PBS.”

  “I saw that show, too.” What Delphine didn’t say was that she watched every documentary and interview and that she read any article with any connection to Robert Evans. She had bought all four of his books. They were in the bookcase in her workroom, hidden behind the collection of Dickens’s work. She wasn’t entirely sure why she felt the need to keep them hidden away.

  “How does it feel,” Maggie asked, “watching, listening to the person you were once so in love with?”

  “I don’t know,” Delphine answered with a small laugh. “Weird. I feel like I’m watching a stranger, but at the same time I keep thinking, I know he has a little mole on his right shoulder and all those other people at home watching him don’t know that. It’s like I have privileged information. Frankly, it makes me a bit uncomfortable.”

  “I think he dyes his hair.”

  “What? No, I don’t think Robert would be so vain. He’s a serious journalist, not some silly, shiny anchorman.”

  “Not vain?” Maggie laughed. “Are you kidding me? Robert Evans has a lot of good qualities, but humility isn’t one of them! He was always sneaking a look in a mirror. It didn’t really bother me because he was always nice to me and, more importantly, he treated you really well. It used to make me laugh, though. I don’t think he realized everyone saw him checking himself out.”

  “I don’t remember his being concerned with his appearance,” Delphine said. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Of course I’m sure. And of course you never noticed. You were in love and love is blind. If you had married him, lived with him, I’m sure that after a while your eyes would have been opened. But maybe not. I mean, if you and Robert had married, maybe your influence would ha
ve cured him of his vanity. At least, helped him keep it in check.”

  “Maybe,” Delphine said. “But it’s all moot now. There’s no point in speculating about what might have happened.”

  The two women were silent for a while. The sun was sinking and now the final few remaining sunbathers were packing up. Delphine was remembering that about a year after coming home to Ogunquit she had thrown out Robert’s letters, all of them, even the ones he had written her when they had first started to date. She had been determined to purge her present life of her past. Now, she almost—almost—wished that she had kept the letters, not necessarily to read them again (that might be too painful) but just to hold them. His words, on paper he had touched, written especially for her. At least she would have something tangible of a time that, while frightening, had also been magical.

  Maggie was thinking not of the past and Robert Evans but of the present and Harry Stringfellow. “You know,” she said, breaking the silence between them, “technically speaking Harry’s cheating on his wife with you. He’s an adulterer, though I suppose not a lot of people would really blame him. Still, if he’s so devoted to his injured wife, then why is he sleeping with another woman? You can bet she doesn’t know about you.”

  Delphine sighed. “I’m not sure she’s capable of understanding anything much about life outside her own head.”

  “That’s not the point,” Maggie argued. “Look, I’m certainly not perfect, but—”