Philadelphia was gone.
Crash stood barefoot in the early morning dew, staring at her campsite in disbelief. She’d left, lock, stock, and barrel. There was not a single bit of evidence to show that she’d ever been there. Somehow, she’d stolen away in the middle of the night without his knowledge, probably just before daylight, for that’s when he’d finally dropped off to sleep.
“Great Caesar in a hearse,” he said softly.
It was all his fault. He should never have kissed her, never have spread her upon her sleeping bag, never have made the first advance toward her.
Suddenly he remembered how vulnerable she’d been the night she thought a bear was after her. He didn’t know the circumstances, but he knew that somebody had rejected her.
She probably thought he’d done the same thing. He could kick himself. Instead he sat on the ground in his shorts and looked into the distance.
If only he could see her again, he’d apologize.
She’d left no clues. Her license plate had said Pennsylvania, but what was she doing camping in Tennessee? Somewhere out there was a woman he’d done wrong, and he didn’t even know where to find her to say “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t know where to find her to say anything at all. Suddenly it hit him: He would probably never see Philadelphia again.
For the first time in his life Crash wondered whether there might be something more to life than traveling wherever whim took him.
o0o
“I can’t believe you’re home,” Maxie said.
They were in B. J.’s office, Maxie with hands on hips, her hair tied in a red bandanna, a streak of yellow paint on her nose, and B. J. with her briefcase.
“You weren’t supposed to be here until sometime next week.”
“Well, I’m here now, and I don’t want to hear any more about it.” B. J. shoved swatches of cloth and bundles of wallpaper off her desk, then flipped open her briefcase and pulled out her brass nameplate. When she set it on the front of her desk she felt better.
“You mean you’re going to work?”
“That’s exactly what I plan to do.” If she didn’t work, she’d go crazy. Probably within the next few minutes.
“I won’t be finished with your office till the end of the week.”
“Carry on, Maxie. You won’t be in my way.”
“Yes, but you’ll be in my way.”
“That’s tough.”
“B. J., what’s got into you?”
“Nothing. I’m working, that’s all.”
She took a stack of files from her briefcase and spread them across her desk, then she added a couple of legal pads and three pens. Maxie watched her as if she’d lost her mind.
“Why are you doing this, B. J.?”
“I have to earn a living.”
Maxie snorted. “You could take five years off and never make a dent in your savings. If I were in your shoes, that’s what I’d do.” She looked her sister up and down. “Good grief.”
“What’s the matter now?”
“You’re wearing pumps.”
“I always wear pumps when I’m working.”
“This office is a mess, you don’t have a shingle, you don’t even have any clients. What exactly happened up there in the mountains?”
The thought of Crash’s hands on her actually made B. J. feel faint.
“Nothing happened.”
“Yes, it did. I can tell. What was it?”
“Maxie, give it a rest.”
“It’s Stephen again, isn’t it? What’d he do this time? Track you down to ask how to turn on the water in his new house?”
Every room was a stage to Maxie. She swept around making dramatic faces and dramatic gestures. Any other time B. J. would have been amused. Now all she could think about was Crash.
She’d never see him again. She didn’t know why that thought saddened her so.
“I ought to find him and kick his aristocratic butt,” Maxie said.
“It’s not Stephen.”
“Aha, I knew it. There was somebody in the mountains.” Maxie sat on the edge of B. J.’s desk. “Tell me what he did to upset you, and I’ll go beat him up.”
B.J. surprised herself by laughing. The idea of five-foot-two, hundred-pound Maxie beating up anybody, let alone Crash, was ridiculous.
“What’s so funny?” Maxie asked.
“If he knew about that threat, he’d be quivering in his boots.”
“Who?”
There was no use continuing to pretend. Maxie wasn’t about to let it drop. Anyhow, B. J. needed to confide in somebody. If Helen and Kathleen were there, they’d pop some corn, open a bottle of wine and have a good, old-fashion cry fest. For now, though, all she had was Maxie. Thank goodness, they were not only sisters but also best friends.
“He called himself Crash.”
Maxie grinned. “Sounds like my kind of man.”
“He was. Wild, unconventional, irreverent. Extremely good-looking and also extremely young.”
“How old was he?”
“I don’t know. But younger than me.”
“How do you know?”
“I could tell.”
“Did you ask?”
“For Pete’s sake, Maxie. I’m trying to tell you something, and you’re hung up on his age.”
“I’m not, but I think you are.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Thirty-eight is not old, B. J.”
“Tell that to Stephen.” Suddenly all the events of the past six months crashed down around B. J., and thirty-eight felt like the beginning of the end.
“Even if I were pregnant right this very minute, I’d be nearly forty before the baby was born,” she added.
Maxie pulled a wadded-up tissue from her pocket and handed it to B. J.
“I’m not crying.”
“In case you do.”
B. J. sniffled into the tissue, then blew her nose.
“It only takes nine months,” Maxie said.
“Thirty-nine is nearly forty. And look what happened to us.”
Their mother had married late and was thirty-six when B. J. was born. Eight years later she’d died giving birth to Maxie. Their father had spent the rest of his life mourning her death, and if it hadn’t been for their paternal grandparents, they’d never have known what it was like to grow up in a family. Fortunately the Corbans had been salt of the earth farming people who had imparted their work ethic to B. J. and their sense of fun to Maxie.
“I’m going to kill him,” Maxie said.
“Who?”
“This Crash person.” Maxie jumped off the desk and began her dramatic march around the room. “The very idea, getting you pregnant and then abandoning you.”
“Wait a minute. He didn’t get me pregnant. We didn’t even have sex.”
“Why not?”
B. J.’s insides jolted as if she’d been shocked. Not because of her, that was for sure. She’d wanted Crash as she’d never wanted another man, not even Stephen, not even the very day she’d stood at the back of the church and imagined them tangled together on the white sands of St. Croix. At night, of course. Hidden by the darkness and a big beach towel.
“Maxie, this is not about sex.”
“What’s it about, then? I’d like to know.”
“Well, if you’d quit jumping to ridiculous conclusions, I’d tell you.”
“What’s ridiculous about my conclusions? You’re a sexy woman in the mountains with a hunk.”
“I didn’t say he was a hunk.”
“You were only doing what comes naturally.”
“We didn’t do anything, I told you.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
And now they were at the heart of the matter. B. J. felt hot tears pushing against her eyelids. Sometimes she wished she were the kind of woman who could get ranting, raving mad instead of the kind who cried. It was ironic that she was so tough in her professional life and so vulnerable in her personal affairs. You’d think Maxie was the one who would cry at the drop of a hat.
She might look like a China doll, but if you did wrong by Maxie or anybody she cared about, she came out fighting.
B. J. held out her hand, and Maxie plopped another tissue into it.
“That’s the problem,” B. J. said.
The wonderful thing about their relationship was that B. J. didn’t even feel foolish making that admission. No emotion was too messy for Maxie; tears, screams of agony, outright sobbing, maudlin confessions. She embraced them all.
“I wanted Crash and he didn’t want me,” B. J. added, sniffling, and her sister silently handed her another tissue. “I made a fool of myself, Maxie.”
“If I had a dollar for every time I’ve made a fool of myself, I’d be rich.” Maxie grabbed her hat, an outrageous big-brimmed Panama with hot pink and bright orange ribbons streaming down the back, then grabbed her purse. “Come on, B. J.”
“I can’t go anywhere. I’m a mess and I’ve got work to do.” Even as she spoke she was following her sister out the door. “Where are we going?”
“I know a little place that sells the best homemade chocolate pie this side of heaven. And after we finish with that, we’ll share a banana split.”
“My hips are widening even at the thought.”
“Soul food. It’s good for what ails you.”
They climbed into Maxie’s car, an old red Volkswagen with a white stripe painted on the top to cover the rusty spots. After a couple of backfires, they drove off down Broadway.
“There’s a good movie on at the mall theater,” Maxie said. “After lunch let’s go to a matinee.”
“What’s the name of it?”
“Who cares? Tom Cruise is starring. An afternoon of ogling him should drive Bash completely from your mind.”
“Crash... and I doubt it.”
Maxie twisted around to stare at her, and the little Volkswagen careened into a forsythia bush in full bloom. B. J. grabbed the wheel and steered them back on the street.
“Wow,” Maxie said. “You really fell hard.”
“I did not. I just stumbled a little. That’s all. Anyhow, I’ll never see him again.”
“You never know,” Maxie muttered. “Look on the bright side, at least he made you forget Stephen.”
That much was true. Not that she had forgotten what Stephen did, not by a long shot, but thinking about him no longer hurt. She no longer fantasized about his new wife leaving him for a younger man and him coming to his senses, then begging B. J. to take him back. Not that she would ever take the scoundrel back, but she would like to see him beg.
Crash was a different story. For one thing, he was not the type to beg. For another, all her fantasies about him were X-rated.
Even now, sitting in Maxie’s little car with the air conditioning going fall blast, B. J. was so hot thinking about Crash, she had to pull off her jacket.
Or maybe she was having premature hot flashes. Some women started early. Wouldn’t that be horrible?
First hot flashes, and boom! she was out of the childbearing stage.
At least she had Baxter.
“We have to go by the house first,” she told Maxie.
“Why?”
“I have to check on Baxter.”
“I’m confused. I thought his name was Crash.”
“Baxter’s a dog.”
“So is Crash.”
They laughed, then B. J. told Maxie how she’d come to have a little mixed-breed puppy named Baxter. The edited version, of course. As much as she loved and trusted Maxie, there were some things that were too private even to tell a sister.