All alone.
Nick looked up at the moon. “Why?” he wailed. The word reverberated off the rocks and echoed out over the lake. Why? Why? Why?...each one growing softer until the sound faded away.
Why? Nick knew Ronni was getting frustrated with her so-called career. She was a beautiful woman, but she couldn’t act for beans. Nick knew that he was no Laurence Olivier himself, but Ronni was truly bad. He had worked with her a couple of times, running lines with her for one of her auditions. It had been almost painful. And she hadn’t been too receptive of his suggestions, either. It was hard to believe, because when she was playing a joke on him, one of her childish games, she fooled him every time. He guessed being a good liar wasn’t the same as being a good actor.
The camera didn’t do her justice either. She didn’t look nearly as beautiful on film as she did in person.
Nick didn’t care about any of that. He would be happy just for her to be his wife, his companion, for her to travel with him, to be there when he got home. But he hadn’t said any of that to her. He hadn’t wanted her to think he was being negative about her acting, not supporting her career aspirations. Maybe if he had said something… Her words came back to him…’all that L.A. crap’… Maybe if he had just said something before, instead of saving it all for some dumb, dramatic speech in some dumb artificial atmosphere like dumb fucking Rose Fucking Cottage. Maybe then she wouldn’t have run off with dumb fucking Blast-from-the-fucking-past James Fucking Fenton!
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuccckkkk!” He wailed again.
But one week? That was all it took for her to effect this huge change in her life? One week to go from ‘I love you and I’m practically living with you, Nick’ to ‘I’m married…please be happy for me’? One week? One lousy, stupid, fucking week!? She’d just been using him obviously, making the most of him until something better came along…or came back, as the case turned out to be.
“Bitch!” he shouted, shoving his hand in his pocket. His fingers closed around the box. He took it out, then spun around and threw it as hard as he could toward the trees.
“Hey, watch what you’re doing?”
Nick froze. Sitting on the top of the rock outcropping was a person – a girl.
“What are you doing here?” demanded Nick. “Isn’t it obvious I don’t want company?” If this girl asked for an autograph, he was going to lose it completely.
“I was here first,” she said quietly, giving a small shrug.
Nick peered at her in the moonlight. She was sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees. She was wearing a long skirt and a baggy sweater. It all looked too big for her, although she didn’t look like a short person. She was ugly, thought Nick. Well, maybe not ugly, but…plain. Yeah, that was it. She was plain. Her skin was awfully pale. That might be a reflection of the moonlight. Even though it was hard to see her face, because she kept her head bent. Her hair was parted in the middle, stringy, hanging just past her shoulders. It hid her face when she bent her head.
“How much did you hear?” he asked.
“All of it,” she said. Then with another shrug. “All three words.”
Nick realized that all of the thoughts that had spun through his head had been just that… thoughts. But he figured that she could put together a pretty good scenario from those three words. Why? Fuck! Bitch! And the ring sailing past her ear into the woods would be another clue. He hoped she wasn’t a fan. No one but Mary had known any of his plans for the evening and he hoped to keep it that way.
He climbed up the rocks and sat down on one a few feet away from her.
“I’m Nick,” he said, looking for a sign of recognition. He didn’t get one.
“Abigail,” she said.
“Abigail,” he repeated softly. “Do you go by that, or Abby…?”
She looked startled. “I like Abby,” she said finally, and a wisp of a smile crossed her lips. It didn’t reach her eyes.
“So Abby, what brings you down to the rocks this fine evening?”
She didn’t answer for a moment. Then she waved her arm in a wide semi-circle, encompassing the lake and the trees and the sky. Nick looked up at the moon and the stars and then back at her.
“The beauty of nature,” he said, nodding and then added, “I guess you weren’t counting on some lunatic charging across the scene, ranting and throwing stuff.”
“No, I wasn’t counting on that,” she said quietly.
Nick sat for a moment looking out over the lake. She wasn’t a fan. She didn’t recognize him. He hadn’t told her his last name. Good! Now, he just had to extricate himself from the awkwardness of the situation. A cloud passing over the moon made it darker. She shivered.
Nick stood up. He hadn’t quite defeated the headache and thought he might get some more Tylenol. “Well, I think I’ll go back. Are you going to go back now or are you going to stay here a bit?”
“I’m not done here yet,” said Abby.
“Okay. Sorry again for disturbing you.”
“That’s okay,” she replied.
Nick nodded his farewell and turned away. He picked his way carefully down the rocks. He reached the beach and started back to Rose Cottage. The moon came out from behind the clouds and he looked over his shoulder at it. Abby was silhouetted against the sky, standing now at the edge of the rocks. She had her shoes in her hand. Nick turned to watch her. She set down the shoes and then she removed her sweater. She folded it carefully and set it down on her shoes.
What was she doing? She couldn’t be too warm, surely. Even though the day had been warm, there was a chill in the air now. She seemed to be unbuttoning her blouse. The lake was way too cold yet for swimming. Nick started back toward her.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~“Don’t.”
The word came softly from behind her. Her hands became still. She clutched the blouse tight in her fists.
“Go away.”
He stepped around in front of her. She didn’t look up at him. “Don’t,” he said again, his voice still a whisper.
“This is none of your business.” Her voice shook with anguish. He could barely hear her.
“It is now,” he said with determination in his voice.
A whimper escaped her. “No,” she said in a tiny voice.
He wasn’t going to argue with her, but he also wasn’t going away. He stood in front of her, between her and the icy water.
“Please,” she begged. The pain in her voice was visceral. It cut through him, but he stood his ground, not moving and not saying anything.
Finally, she looked up. “Do you have any idea how much courage it took for me to get here?” she said defiantly.
“None,” he said. She blinked in astonishment. “The courage comes,” he continued, “when you turn around and walk away from this.”
She winced at his words and slowly shook her head.
“Just suck it up and go on,” he said. He wasn’t trying to be cruel. He was trying to break through to her. “What could be so bad that you can’t get over it?” he asked. He hadn’t actually meant to say it out loud, and he wasn’t asking for specifics. It was a rhetorical question.
She didn’t treat it that way. Her face was a mask of pain as she said, “My parents tried to hire someone to marry me.”
Her answer sucked the air out of his lungs and left him breathless. He couldn’t decide which was the word that hurt her the most…’hire’…or ‘tried’. How awful! It was unthinkable.
She read his thoughts as they passed across his eyes. Slowly, she nodded. “Yes, it’s pathetic, isn’t it?” He knew she meant, “I’m pathetic.” He didn’t reply. He had no words for this situation.
She shook her head slowly and then took a small step. He wasn’t sure if she was going to turn back or if she was trying to move around him, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He raised his arm to stop her. She looked up at him again and saw the determined set of his chin. Her whole body sagged. He knew that he had defeated her, or at least defeated her sense of purpose.
“Come on, let’s go back,” he said softly. She didn’t move. “Come on, now,” he said again, and finally he touched her…just on the elbow, just to turn her away from the water.
She drew her elbow sharply away from him, but she turned toward the beach. She quickly buttoned her blouse and then bent down and picked up her shoes and sweater. She moved agilely from rock to rock and jumped off the last one to land lightly on the beach. Nick clambered over the rocks and dropped down beside her with a grunt.
“I’m staying in Rose Cottage,” he said. “There’s two bedrooms.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s okay. I’ll go to my room at the Lodge.”
He looked doubtful. “I’d really rather…”
“No,” she said more forcefully. “Don’t worry. I won’t…do anything…tonight. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”
He moved to protest, but she turned away and started up the hill to the Lodge. “I promise,” she said.
“I’ll see you at breakfast then,” he said to her. She didn’t answer.
Nick watched her go. When he saw her disappear through the doors into the Lodge, he walked around the lodge and followed the path to Rose Cottage. Well, this day sure turned out to be straight out of hell, didn’t it? A day that had held so much promise in it at the beginning and which turned out to have so much drama and tragedy by the end. Well, maybe tragedy was too strong a word, he thought, as he made his way up the path, but there’d certainly been loads of drama. He looked over his shoulder at the lodge. And there could have been tragedy.
What if he’d just walked away? What if he hadn’t looked back? Would she have done it? What would he have done if she had jumped in? That part was easy. He would have gone in after her. He thought about Ronni. Here he’d felt worse than he’d ever felt in his life, and he hadn’t thought about ending it all.
My parents tried to hire someone to marry me. Boy, there was a lot packed into that sentence, he thought. He knew all about manipulative parents. His mother could give a course in it. He thought about his mother and Ronni. Now, there were two women who had hated each other on sight. Nick shook his head recalling the awful day they’d first met. Jane Carter assumed, as she always did, that Ronni had ulterior motives, that nobody could love Nick just for Nick. Ronni thought Jane had no class. Nick thought now that maybe they were both right. Jane Carter certainly had no class. And money hadn’t managed to buy her any. And apparently, Ronni didn’t love Nick for Nick. Ronni didn’t love Nick at all.
And with that depressing thought, Nick pushed opened the door to Rose Cottage. He looked around. The detritus from the dinner was gone, although a faint smell of clam sauce lingered in the air. It made his stomach a little queasy, but not too much. He wasn’t going to throw up again, he knew that.
He stood in the center of the room. Let’s see, he told himself, I’ve cried, I’ve eaten like a pig, I’ve had too much to drink, I’ve cursed and howled at the moon. I’ve felt sorry for myself, I’ve thrown up and I’ve gotten mad. What’s left? There didn’t seem to be much left to do except break something and he was past that point. He swallowed some more Tylenol and took off his clothes. He pulled back the sheets and climbed into the bed.
He tossed and turned, reliving the day, thinking about how it could have been different, missing Ronni. He moved into the middle of the bed and tried to make it seem less empty.
A flutter of heartbreak made tears prick his eyes again, but he shook them away. Get over it, he said. You can’t change it. You’re not going to let it bring you down. You’re not going to let her bring you down. Suck it up and go on. His mind turned to the girl with the lost soul, standing on the rocks, ready to give in, to quit, to let them beat her. Abby.
And with that thought, he drifted off to sleep.
