where all the fresh stuff was. Her ass was perfectamundo. I had her undressed, legs wrapped around me in a death grip, by the time we reached the apples.
“What do you like?” she asked.
I looked at the stacks of vegetables. “Asparagus,” I said.
“Okay, that is too expensive. How about spinach?”
“I don’t know how to cook it.”
“Just zap it in a little water in the microwave. Covered. Not with plastic, though. That’s toxic. Just stick a paper towel over it. But wash it real well first.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s gritty.”
It sounded like too much work, but I didn’t complain when she picked up a bag of spinach and handed it to me.
We went through the stacks of fruit and she put a few things in my cart, a few in hers. I started feeling weird. She was being way too sweet, like Dawn or somebody hired her to be nice to me. Something felt off about the whole thing.
“So where do you live?” she asked.
“Surf City.”
“Really? I’m staying in Topsail Beach.”
We were practically neighbors. “Why are you shopping way out here?”
“On my way from an appointment,” she said. “How about you?”
“Same,” I lied.
“Listen—” she suddenly stopped her cart in front of the eggs “—I’m from Asheville and I don’t know people around here. How about I cook you something tonight? Make you dinner?”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t have many friends here,” she said. “Like none, really.”
“I don’t think so, thanks.” The old me would have given anything for a few hours with a babe like her.
“Oh, come on. Please?” she said. “I don’t usually have to beg guys to spend time with me.”
She didn’t have friends in Topsail, so I’d do for now. Then she’d meet some good-lookin’ dude and sayonara Keith. I could skip the pain. I had bigger things on my mind, anyhow.
“Thanks. I’m just not in a great place right now.”
She tipped her head to one side. “Excuse me for prying,” she said, “but were you one of the people in that fire I heard about?”
I looked away. “Depends on what fire you heard about.” I sounded mean.
“Sorry,” she said. “That was way too personal.”
“No, it’s okay. Yeah. The lock-in fire.”
“You’re still really good-looking,” she said. “I don’t think you know that, but I mean it.”
Oh, man, did I want to believe her, but I had a mirror in the trailer. I knew the truth. What the hell was her game?
“Going through something like that…like a fire and all the recovery and stuff. It’s got to be hard.”
“I really gotta check out.” I started to push my cart past hers.
“I did this all wrong,” she said.
I stopped walking. Couldn’t help myself. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“I came on too strong. Made you feel uncomfortable.”
“I’m not uncomfortable.”
“See? I did it again.”
“Don’t give yourself so much credit.” I started pushing my cart again. “You’re not all that powerful.”
She grabbed the corner of my cart. “I’ve been hurt, too.” She had the kind of blue eyes you could go swimming in. “Only difference is my scars are on the inside,” she said. “But I know what it’s like.”
“You don’t have a fucking clue.”
Her cheeks turned red. “All right,” she said. “Sorry I upset you.” She let go of my cart and began pushing her own away. Why was I being such a prick? She scared me. She could look right at my face and not freak, and that just seemed too damn weird.
“Wait,” I said.
She turned around. Her hair swept through the air like she was in a shampoo commercial. “Sorry,” I said. “You can cook me something. Not tonight, though. I feel like crap today.” Not really the truth. I was nicely medicated, but I needed some time to adjust to a girl like her being interested in me.
“Soon?” she asked. “Can I have your cell number?”
She pulled a scrap of paper from a tiny purse and wrote down my number. She wrote hers down, too, then tore the sheet in two pieces and gave me the half with her number on it.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Keith.”
“Well, hey, Keith,” she said, sticking her hand out toward me. “I’m Jen.”
Chapter Thirteen
Sara
Angel’s Wings
1990
SOMETIME DURING THE FIRST YEAR THAT I BABYSAT MAGGIE, I began leading my double life. It crept up on me gradually until, before I knew it, it had me by the throat. By then it was too late for me to change a thing.
I hadn’t given up trying to help Laurel, despite being so rudely kicked out of the house the first time I visited. Or, I supposed, it was really Jamie I was trying to help. I’d pick up groceries for the Lockwoods when I went to the commissary and I brought over the occasional meal. Laurel tolerated me. She was nearly always on the couch when I arrived, her expression flat as she watched TV. If Maggie was with me, Laurel barely seemed to notice her. I sometimes felt as though I was Maggie’s mother instead of Laurel.
In early January, Jamie’s father was hospitalized with pneumonia. Since Steve was in Monterey studying Arabic, I kept Maggie at our small rental house outside Camp Lejeune while Jamie spent most of his time at the hospital in Wilmington. Jamie called often, ostensibly to check on Maggie, but the conversations quickly began to shift to something deeper. He told me how afraid he was that his father might die. I had lost my father when I was sixteen and it was easy for me to sympathize with him.
“I can’t talk to Laurel about any of this,” he said at the end of one of our phone conversations. “I…It’s not her fault. She loves my father, and I know she’s worried about him, but it’s as though she can’t really see outside herself right now. It’s like she has nothing to give me anymore.” He hesitated. “Or Maggie. Or anyone.”
“I know.” I was sitting in a rattan rocker in the third tiny bedroom of my house—the room that had become Maggie’s nursery away from home. Jamie’d furnished it with a crib, the rocker and a changing table. “It must be so hard for you,” I said.
“I keep reminding myself that she’s sick,” Jamie said. “If she had a physical illness, I’d take care of her, so this shouldn’t be any different. But you’re right. It is hard. I sometimes feel like I’m losing my ability to empathize with people.”
“Oh, no, Jamie,” I said. “I watch what happens when you’re in the chapel on Sundays.” People would file into the small five-sided building, talking quietly among themselves as though the morning was nothing special. Then Jamie would walk into the chapel, and the atmosphere would shift to a higher plane. I could see the change in the faces of the people. I could feel it happening inside my own skin. “Think of how many lives you touch there.”
“Yeah. The lives of strangers.” He sounded annoyed with himself. “Yet