Chapter 28
Aisle twelve was Peter’s favorite aisle in the Food Master supermarket. Aisle twelve was the fixer-upper aisle or, as Jake called it, ‘the he-man aisle.’ Aside from his small list of groceries, Peter stocked up on electrical tape, duct tape, light bulbs, and batteries.
Peter was thumbing through extension cords when he heard a voice laugh quietly behind him. He turned to see a man with silvering temples and strong cheekbones pushing a cart next to a woman with long black hair over the shoulders of her cream-colored trench coat. She whispered something in his ear to make him blush. Peter turned away and continued to look through odds and ends of the fix-it aisle, but he was intensely aware of their presence. They crossed behind him, carefully excusing themselves as Peter moved out of their way. He smiled and put the extension cord he happened to be holding into his cart. He tried not to stare as they paused nearby, and the man with the silvering temples slipped his hands around the woman’s waist under her trench coat. She laughed. The man leaned back so that she could lift a box of laundry soap from the shelf, then he whispered in her ear, and she slapped his arm, laughing and whispering, “You’re terrible.”
Peter pushed his cart down the aisle past them, struggling to keep his eyes off them. Finally they turned the corner and strolled to the next aisle. Peter paused and wiped his forehead. He crossed back to further aisle for English muffins and a pre-packaged roasted chicken double-pack with a small square of cornbread. He sighed as he glanced at the tag: “Meal for One.”
It wasn’t that he missed Tara. He understood that she had a commitment to her family, and he had a ton of work to do. It wasn’t that at all. In Boston circles, Peter knew he appeared to have it all. What bothered him with an ache deep inside his soul was what he had just witnessed on Aisle Twelve and the fact that he had that once.
Peter folded his last brown bag and placed it under the sink among the other grocery bags. The microwave chimed, and he removed his “meal for one.” He shoved his work plans aside to sit at his round oak dinette table. He took a sip of cabernet and gently placed the glass on the table as he lifted a leg of chicken and touched the cornbread. The last time he had eaten at Jake and Amanda’s, her mashed potatoes and gravy had made him salivate before he had even sat down at the table.
He stared at his over-cooked store-bought chicken.
Jake had it made. Peter wanted to come home after a long day of work and phone calls and plans and deadlines and collapse in his favorite chair to the sound of voices speaking and laughing in the other room, coming closer, his own children climbing into his lap.
Peter smiled at the image of Maddy, her nose crinkling and her smile lighting up the room.
After dinner, Peter dried his plate and set it back in the cabinet, wiped and dried the counter and placed the small cutting board down on the side of the sink. He turned off the kitchen light and loosened his collar as he went along the darkened hall. Peter stopped in the doorway and looked at his bed. The sheets were still down from the night before.
It all felt so lonely.
He walked to the closet, pulled his favorite sweatshirt out of a stack of folded shirts, and pulled it over his T-shirt and plaid pajama pants. He glanced at his laundry bag, and there was the shoebox on the floor back in the corner. Peter grunted and picked it up. He threw himself on his stomach across his bed and twisted to rest his head on the headboard with a pillow under his back. He turned the shoebox over and poured the contents onto the white sheet by his side.
He leaned forward and opened his wallet on his bedside table. Carefully he slipped out the photo he had taken to work with him every day since he’d found the shoebox. It was the photo on the beach. He looked at it deeply, trying to memorize every part of her face.
“Maddy,” he whispered.
He laid the photo facedown against his chest and closed his eyes. He could see that day so clearly in his mind. The sand and the sea, the wind whipping Maddy’s brown hair around her face as she laughed up at him.
When he opened his eyes again, he turned to the contents of the shoebox on the sheet and lifted the postcard Maddy had once sent him from the Outer Banks. The pink lipstick was till intact. He pressed his lips to it.
1965
It had been a hot summer afternoon. Ann Marsden and Maddy’s sister Kate stood by the open trunk piling bags into the back of their white Chevy Impala, while Tom threw a rope over the top of the car to hold down his fishing poles and gear. Maddy ran across the hot asphalt of the street in her flowered shorts and sandals to where Peter stood watching in the shade of the Michaels garage.
He held onto her fingers, unable to let go. “What am I going to do without you all weekend?”
She stood on her toes and kissed him, laughing. “You’ll think of something.”
“All my thoughts have you in them.”
She smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck. She kissed him long and deep, and then pulled her chin back to meet his eyes, her own twinkling.
“You’re going to have to do better than that.” He tightened his grip around her waist. “That kiss wouldn’t even get me through tonight.”
She jumped up and down lightly in his arms as she peeked across the street at Tom tightening his rope and knotting it deftly into a sailor’s knot. She turned and pushed Peter with both hands flat against Richard’s blue Cadillac. Peter growled softly as he lifted her into his arms, and they kissed passionately as he held her, her weight so slight, her lips so soft and sweet.
The car horn honked across the street.
“Madeline!” Ann’s voice called out. “It’s only until Sunday night.”
Peter reluctantly set Maddy back on her feet, and she gave him one final kiss on his chin. Then she was running backward out of the garage into the sunshine, turning at the last moment, she mouthed the words: “Love you forever.”
1985
Peter’s head dropped back against his headboard and he bumped his head. He rubbed the back of it and repositioned himself against the pillows. He held the postcard out a bit and read the familiar handwriting: “Place lips here.” She wrote in perfect cursive. “Getting tired of walking the beach without you. Being with Kate is not the same. Wish you were here, really. Love you, your Maddy.”
Your Maddy. It echoed in his head. He lifted the silver chain and held it dangling in the lamplight, the tiny diamond chips of the leaning heart sparkling. He laid it against his neck and closed his eyes.
He pictured Maddy on the beach, pausing to pick up a shell along the sea’s foaming ebb, the sun shining down on her brown hair. She loved to jump and run on the beach, her hair streaming back in the wind, her face full of joy. She twirled with the seagulls as they hovered watching her beneath their wings. He saw her run along the sand toward a small landing near a wooden boardwalk and, maybe, a small visitors’ store. He imagined her walking inside on bare feet, carrying her small beach bag with only her towel and wallet. In his mind, she twirled a small wire postcard rack and stopped between a beach scene with a seagull on it and a wharf scene with two children tossing a beach ball before a sunset ocean. She put a finger to her mouth and chose the seagull.
Peter smiled and flipped the seagull side of the postcard to run his thumb over the lipstick imprint. He laid the postcard carefully in the shoebox and put back along with it the skating rink tickets, the photographs, and the little diamond necklace.
He sat up and threw his legs over the side of the bed. “Eight forty-five.” He groaned and rubbed his hand over his head.
He walked barefoot into the living room and leaned over his table full of work papers in piles. There were the urgent, the not so urgent, and the tomorrow’s-too-soon-to-bother-with piles. The quiet of his apartment came down around him. He looked up. There was only the sound of the refrigerator defrosting.
Peter stared at the tidy piles and looked up at the still apartment. What was the difference between urgent and not so urgent? Had he lost the ability to tell?
He exhaled and crossed the room quickly; uncertain of where he was going or what he was going to do. He paused by the hall entrance, looking around the empty living room with its table piled with papers, the kitchen bar with its unused bar stools, the kitchen cupboards and counter beyond. Maybe tomorrow was too soon to bother with any of it.
He sighed and shook his head, and after a moment he turned off the living room light and walked away down the dark hall to his bedroom.