“So…uh…” Nick was as uncertain as she was about what the hell he was doing.
“I’m just going to have a shower and change out of these tennis things,” said Abby.
“Mmm,” said Nick which didn’t help either of them figure out the situation. “Are you going to the beach then?” He hoped not. He’d had enough sun the day before.
“Actually, I was planning on going into Braywood…it’s a little town near here.”
Nick brightened. “I was thinking of doing that too. Is there a shuttle from the hotel? Or do you take a cab? Maybe we could share one.” For some reason, he wanted to put distance between himself and Marybeth and Lisa. Or maybe he just didn’t want to be seen in a bathing suit.
“Actually,” said Abby, “I have my car. I drove out here from Chicago.”
“Oh,” said Nick, disappointed.
“It has a passenger seat,” said Abby. Nick looked confused. Abby grinned, “Would you like to go to town with me…I mean, would you like me to drive you to town?” She could feel herself blushing.
“Yes, I would like to go to town with you, Abby Fremont,” said Nick. Why did the girl put herself down all the time? “Why don’t you go shower and change and I’ll meet you back here. I have to go get a hat and sunglasses.” Now it was his turn to blush. “In case…” he said sheepishly.
“I know,” said Abby with a smile. “There are fans everywhere.”
Nick nodded. Yeah, and some of them even bought my records, he thought.
They agreed on half an hour. Nick made his way to Rose Cottage and got a baseball cap and sunglasses. He applied some more lotion and then a thick layer of sunscreen. He made his way back to the lobby. He didn’t have long to wait before Abby stepped off the elevator.
She looked awful. She was wearing a denim jumper with a pale yellow t-shirt underneath. The jumper hung on her frame like on a hanger. It was shapeless and ended just a few inches above her ankles. Her hair hung loose around her face. It was still damp from the shower and she had no makeup on. A pair of flat canvas espadrilles completed the disaster.
She walked up to him. “I asked James to call for the car,” she said. She walked to the concierge’s desk.
“Here you are, Miss Fremont,” said James, handing her the keys. “It’s out front.” He glared at Nick. Nick gave him a small smile and followed Abby through the front doors.
He didn’t know what kind of car he was expecting her to have. She was well-off, at least her family was, so he was thinking…not a Toyota or a Ford Focus. But she seemed so…so practical…so not wild… not a Corvette or a Porsche. He didn’t figure she’d have an SUV if she lived in Chicago…city traffic and all.
Ahhhh, he thought when he saw the Mercedes Cabriolet convertible sports car. Perfect!
“Nice car,” said Nick, climbing into the passenger seat. “Lots of leg room.”
“You can push that seat back even further,” said Abby. “There’s a button on the side.”
Abby drove out of the circular driveway in front of the hotel and turned into the long lane which led to the road. “I should warn you,” she said, “I’m a very good driver but I tend to speed.”
“Really?” said Nick. “I wouldn’t have thought…”
“Why not?” Abby cut him off. “Homely is only skin-deep. I can be a wild child inside.”
“Stop it, Abby,” said Nick. “Stop putting yourself down.”
“Oh,” she said mildly. “I thought it was you that time.” She didn’t give him a chance to respond but said instead, “Here.” She handed him the small velvet box.
“Where did you get this?” he asked, thinking that it was a stupid question but not really knowing what else to say.
“I caught it,” she said. “I have good reflexes. You’re lucky I wasn’t holding a tennis racquet or it would be in the middle of Lake Michigan.”
Nick rubbed his thumb over the box and then put it in his pocket. He felt the temptation to throw it out of the car into a passing field, but common sense told him that getting his money back for it was a better plan.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t return it earlier,” she said, “but I kind of forgot I had it. Stuff came up…”
“Yeah,” said Nick, with a sigh. “Stuff.” Then he brightened. “But screw the stuff. I mean, let’s forget all that for today, okay?”
Abby nodded. “Okay, let’s. We’ll just wander through the shops and be tourists.”
“Cool,” said Nick. “Is there a good place to have lunch?”
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
Nick had only been trying to make conversation, but he was embarrassed. It seemed like his whole life revolved around food these days. “No, I was just wondering…trying to plan out the day.”
“Well, if you can hang on until a bit later,” said Abby, “there’s a hotel in town that serves afternoon tea.”
“Food too?” asked Nick. He wasn’t all that hungry but a cup of tea wasn’t going to be enough to take him to dinner. Not after just a muffin and fruit for breakfast.
“No, it’s a whole meal, really. They serve little cakes and sandwiches…and scones with jam and clotted cream.”
Nick thought he knew what scones were, but he didn’t even want to know what clotted cream was. “Okay, sounds good.” He didn’t sound all that enthusiastic.
Abby laughed. “You’ll enjoy it. Trust me.”
Nick did trust her. She hadn’t been wrong about her driving. She drove fast…really fast! But she was a good driver. Not once did she do anything he considered unsafe. She never took her eyes off the road. He felt totally comfortable with her. And the car was built for speed.
“It’s too bad these roads are all bendy,” he said at one point. “I’d like to see what it could do on a straightaway.”
Abby grinned and made a sound that let Nick know that she had indeed found a straightaway somewhere and made good use of it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Braywood was a little town that re-invented itself every couple of decades to keep up with the times. It was now an artsy tourist place. The main street was lined with shops…art galleries, books stores, fancy linen places. There was a shop that only sold jam. The sidewalks were wide and there were flowerboxes at intervals. The boxes were a riot of color. Many of the stores had awnings. There was a large wooden building at either end of the street. One was the hotel that they would go to for their tea. The other was a small theatre. There was a very good regional theatre company there, Abby told Nick.
“Is the jam good?” asked Nick, when they went into that shop. It wasn’t a big store, but the walls were lined floor to ceiling with built-in wooden shelves full of jam jars.
“Did you like the jam at the hotel?” asked Abby. Nick nodded. “It’s from here,” she said.
They examined the jars. Plum, grape, raspberry-rhubarb. And strawberry. Lots of strawberry. It was on special. Nick looked at a display – a carefully-constructed pyramid of glass jars.
“I’m not going near that,” he said, with a grin. He could picture the jars toppling over, rolling on the floor at his feet, breaking and leaving a huge, strawberry mess.
“Oh, go ahead,” teased Abby. “Why don’t you take that one, the one there…on the bottom?”
“Are you trying to get me into trouble, girl?” Nick narrowed his eyes in mock anger.
“I shouldn’t imagine you need any help with that,” Abby replied with a smile.
“You’re right,” said Nick, with a sigh and he went away inside himself for a moment. Then, “why so much strawberry?”
“They’re in season,” said Abby, simply.
Nick nodded and started picking jars off the shelf. “I’m going to get some to take to the fellas next week,” he said. “What flavors should I get?”
They discussed the various choices and Nick tried to match each of his friends with a particular jam type. He spent a lot of time deciding, which made Abby believe that the meeting next week was very important to him. Finally, he made his decision and paid for the jam.
They moved further along the street, gazing into the shop windows. They stood for ten minutes watching a man make fudge in the chocolate shop. They laughed as they went through a rack of t-shirts with tacky sayings at a novelty store. They browsed the offerings in the real estate agent’s window. They spent a long time wandering through a store that had an eclectic mix of interesting artifacts, from genuine antiques to true kitsch. Nick wanted to buy a five-foot statue of Betty Boop and was only dissuaded when Abby told him laughingly that either he or Betty could ride back to the Lodge with her, but not both.
They stopped at an ice cream parlor. They mulled over the many flavors available and then discarded them all in favor of the old standbys. Nick had chocolate and Abby had French vanilla.
At the end of the main street, they spent a moment looking at the posters in the glass display cases outside the theatre. This month’s offering was a comedy…Same Time Next Year. They had both heard of it, knew that it had been made into a movie, but neither had seen it.
They crossed the street and started up the other side. Abby noticed that Nick got very fidgety when he wasn’t interested in something and he seemed to make his mind up very quickly whether or not he was interested. In their quick foray through the linen shop, she thought he actually twitched once or twice.
“How long are you staying?” asked Nick, out of the blue. “At the Lodge?”
“I think I’ll go back on Friday,” answered Abby. She figured she should be able to stand the sight of her parents by then.”
“Me too,” said Nick. “I have a flight out of O’Hare at two.”
They walked in silence for a moment. Then Abby said, “Would you like me to drive you to the airport?”
“Oh, I wasn’t asking that,” said Nick. Driving someone to the airport was a big, big deal in L.A.
“I know,” said Abby, “but I’m going that way. I live in Chicago.”
“But…”
“Never mind. It’s okay. I just thought it…made sense.” Obviously, thought Abby, he doesn’t want to do this. Her head dropped and she walked, staring down at her feet.
“It does. It does,” said Nick, realizing that he had offended her. Jeez, she was so touchy. “And it would be really great of you to do that…if you’re sure it doesn’t put you out…”
“It’s just a ride to the airport,” she said. What did he think she was doing, proposing? Oops, she thought, better not ask him that.
“Well, then that’s great. I accept. Thank you.”
“Of course,” she said, with a small smile, looking up at him through her hair, “the whole deal is off if you decide to buy Betty.”
