Saving Jack. Chapter 16

16

For Mitchell Blair, it had been one hell of a night. As was usually the case in large, alcohol-saturated ballrooms, he was the center of attention. Could he help it that he knew more jokes than anyone or that he was a one-liner machine? It didn’t hurt that he could handle his liquor better than anyone, living or dead. Drinking, especially to excess, transformed the normally serious, buttoned-up Mitchell Blair into an off-the-hook life of the party, the happiest drunk since Otis. By 2 AM, he had gathered a crowd of diehards around the grand piano in the hotel lobby, regaling everyone within earshot with the five or six songs he knew how to play—mostly Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis tunes. Since midnight or so, Margaret Levinsky had been draped on his arm—she of the leopard-skin cocktail dress, the thriving brokerage shop in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the recent acrimonious divorce. The juxtaposition of these two personalities in this particular setting was a recipe for disaster.

Mitchell considered himself a good man. He worked hard, paid his taxes, did right by his clients. He went to church, coached Little League, and gave money to practically every charity in town. The only acknowledged blemish on his character was his systematic infidelity to his wife for the better part of twenty years. He was discreet about it, never getting involved with anyone back in Richmond. His preferred dalliance had always been of the Margaret Levinsky variety: out-of-town, alcohol-fueled one-night stands. It was his way of rewarding himself for nearly thirty years of marriage to Tricia Blair, the patrician beauty who much preferred sinking her hands into garden soil than flesh. The thrill of a new beautification project was the only passion that ever stirred in the beautiful Mrs. Blair. She was aware of her husband’s hobbies and accepted them as just recompense for her frigidity. She was grateful for her husband’s financial success, since it maintained the lifestyle to which she had been accustomed since birth. They had reached an unspoken bargain.

As Mitchell stumbled through the hallway toward Margaret’s room, he thought of Jack. Where had he slipped off to? Jack always performed a disappearing act at sales meetings. Just when the fun was getting started, he was nowhere to be found, probably back in his room on the phone with Evelyn. Ah, Evelyn. Hell, if he had married someone like her, he’d be doing the same thing. He’d never let someone like her out of his sight. 

Mitchell loved Jack. He admired his work, his brainpower and seriousness, the unyielding moral compass that guided his every move. They were good for each other, their business relationship and friendship built on respect and admiration. It had worked well. But . . . there was Evelyn. She was the unattainable prize, the unscratched itch, the constant, unsatisfied longing of his life. He joked openly about it to release the pressure that always built up in his conscience. But he knew that he was incapable of acting on any of his fantasies where she was concerned. The only thing that Mitchell Blair had longed for more than Jack Rigsby’s wife was Jack Rigsby’s respect. To that end, he would rouse himself from the arms of Margaret Levinsky early enough to slip back into his own room before sunrise. He preferred not to be on the receiving end of one of Jack’s disappointed glances.

As he struggled with the key, the door to Jack’s room opened across the hall. The guy was probably going for a morning run, Mitchell thought. So typical of his Boy Scout partner. Then Mitchell turned and saw her, their cocktail waitress from The Cavern . . . slipping quietly out of Jack’s room. 

What the hell was this?

                                                                           * * *

Starla saw his kayak emerge from behind the trees and immediately felt her heart beating in her chest. She was taking a big risk coming here, and she knew it. He could very well conclude that instead of a desirable figure from his past, she was nothing more than an obsessed stalker. She had planned her words carefully and had felt confident that she could make it work, but now as he came into view, that confidence wavered. She took a slow, deep breath, smiled, and gently waved her hand.

For a brief moment, Jack mistook her for Evelyn, come for one last visit. But a closer look revealed that for the fourth time in less than a week, he’d come face to face with the most notorious woman of his life. In the park she had startled him, catching him talking to himself. They had recognized each other later from a distance of nearly two football fields across town. Then there had been the conversation at the Café. All of these encounters seemed random, circumstantial. But now . . . this. There was nothing random about Starla standing on his dock, dazzling in the late afternoon sun. She had sought him out. She had found Loon Magic. He let the kayak glide for a minute as he approached and saw her smile more clearly. He managed a smile of his own. 

“How did you find me? How did you find . . . this place?” Jack heard himself ask.

Starla began with her rehearsed answer. “The same way I found you twenty-six years ago, I suppose. Kismet?”

“I don’t think so,” Jack answered as he brought the kayak aground on the small beach beside the dock. “I don’t believe in fate.”

Starla abandoned her script. “Then, I guess I’m just a lucky girl with a great sense of direction.”

Jack pulled the kayak up into the yard, turned around, and gave her a long look. Starla returned his stare with one of her own, unsure of the terrain and afraid to speak. It was a moment of treacherous silence between them that dragged on, gathering tense momentum. The sounds of nature seemed to crescendo, the soft currents lapping against the shore, the wind chime tinkling in the birch tree, the chickadees chirping busily. Starla watched for a signal; Jack checked for confirmation . . . is it really her? Finally, Jack spoke.

“Coffee?”

Starla, realizing that she had been holding her breath, let out a long sigh. “You have anything stronger?”

Inside, the hum of nature silenced, the atmosphere heavy as lead. Jack walked to the refrigerator while Starla looked around the beautifully decorated living room. She sensed the creative graces of an elegant and sensitive woman. Then Starla spotted a framed photograph of the two of them on the mantle above the fireplace. Her hand trembled as she reached to pick it up.

“I’ve got beer . . . or if you prefer, there’s wine, too. No hard liquor. I’ve never been a fan.”

“Beer’s fine, thanks.” 

She replaced the picture on the mantle and lowered herself into an overstuffed chair by the fireplace. Jack poured a couple of beers into two tall glasses, handed her one, and sat down on the sofa.

“So, you just went for a walk and ended up at the end of my dock, is that it?”

“Actually, I drove my rental car. For someone who doesn’t live here full-time, an awful lot of people in Camden know you.”

“It’s a small town. That’s what happens when you come here every summer for twenty years, I guess. What I want to know is . . . what brings you all the way up here?”

Starla scanned through the speech she had memorized and locked away in her head, searching for her line. What was it she was supposed to reply to this one? Her nerves were frayed; she felt rattled. 

She took a breath and decided. “Several months ago, I suffered a loss . . . a child passed away. I’ve had a hard time recovering. A friend of mine suggested that I get out of town . . . escape everything for a while. She suggested Camden, Maine, and since this is just about as far away as I can get, here I am.”

Jack hesitated, unsure of himself. “I’m sorry for your loss. That must have been tough, losing a child.”

“Yes, it was. It is, actually . . . still tough.”

They tentatively sipped their beers, glanced around the room, then at each other. 

Starla pointed to the photograph on the mantle. “Your wife is beautiful.”

Jack looked away. “Yes, she was beautiful. I lost her last year. Actually, that’s why I’m here without her. So, I guess we’re in the same boat . . . trying to recover the unrecoverable.”

Starla took in his words, the sound of his voice. She could hear his pain. It was her heart language—the anguish of loss. Her script lay in pieces. 

“Jack, I’m so sorry.”

Suddenly unmoored from her plan, she found herself oddly calm and composed, and ready to talk. 

“You know, when I first saw you in the park, I didn’t recognize you. It was only after you began speaking, explaining the difference between talking to yourself and thinking out loud, that it clicked. It was your voice. It’s very different, your voice. I just couldn’t believe it was you. How long has it been? But there you were. What are the odds?”

“Yes, what are the odds?”

Jack busied himself with pouring two more beers while Starla kept talking.

“Did you recognize me at the park?”

“No, I can’t say that I did. But eventually it came to me, and when I saw you at the Café, I was sure it was you. Your hair was exactly like I remembered it.”

“I suppose I should be flattered that you remembered me at all.”

“I wasn’t likely to forget, though I must admit I’ve spent many years trying my best to. Carolyn, I was married to my wife for thirty years, and I cheated on her one time . . . with you. I suppose I never really forgave myself.”

“Did she forgive you?”

“She never knew.”

The silence in the room instantly took on an electric charge. Starla fought back an unexpected surge of emotion. Of course she never knew, she thought. 

“What about you?” Jack was eager to steer the conversation away from Evelyn. “Did your husband forgive you? It would give me some consolation to know that it didn’t ruin your life.”

“He never knew, either. We divorced a few years later for other reasons. For what it’s worth, you were my only infidelity as well, although I’m sure that’s hard for you to believe coming from someone like me.”

“Someone like you?”

“That’s sweet of you, Jack . . . but I was a cocktail waitress, remember? I slept with you after a ten-minute conversation. You’d be forgiven for assuming it was a common practice.”

“I don’t know. I never really thought of you that way, I guess.”

“How did you think of me?”

Jack paused. The conversation was racing along under its own power—faster than he thought prudent—toward a place he couldn’t imagine. He reminded himself that the woman sitting across from him in Evelyn’s favorite chair was not the ghost of his imagination. She wasn’t the suppressed fantasy that had lived rent-free in his subconscious for 26 years, making erotic appearances at the strangest times, loading him down with guilt and self-loathing. She was not a phantom, resurrecting to remind him of his hypocrisy. This woman across from him had a beating heart, and she was grappling with her own guilt and loss.

“How did I think of you? When? Then . . . or now?”