It was not until Les Whitehall’s car pulled into the drive that Lucy realized how many preconceived notions she had had about this visit. She thought that he would be driving the same car he had left in. But the big Pontiac was gone, replaced by a smaller, newer car. When he opened his door and closed it, it didn’t hurt her ears. She stood in the doorway, looking deliberately at the car instead of at Les. She had thought that the passenger door would swing open and a girl would step out. Les’s notion of being an adult was to do something slightly challenging, which would put anyone who commented in the position of seeming gauche or childish. Lucy had assumed that he would bring a woman with him for protection and dare her to say that it wasn’t perfectly adult behavior, which would be difficult because there was no ostensible reason why they couldn’t all be blandly sociable. No one cared about anyone else anymore, right? No woman. Les was walking toward the house. He caught sight of Nicole, who didn’t interrupt her stretching routine. He waved. She waved back. St. Francis barked wildly, but it was a hot day and he stopped after a minute, settling back into his deep gully beside the rhododendrons. Silver balloons that had been tied to Lucy’s willow tree by Don Severs bobbed on the tree. It must have seemed like an unusual scene to Les — it couldn’t have been what he expected, either. His first words, as he gestured behind him, were, “What’s all this?” She could tell, because he tried to appear casual, that he was scared. Something about the way he walked that she couldn’t explain let her know that he was nervous. He looked the same. She had expected him to change: gain weight, lose weight, grow a beard, longer hair, more of a tan — she had no exact image in mind, except that she had been sure he would come across the lawn with a woman at his side, and now there was no woman. It was painful to see him looking the same, as though he had just left briefly, to do an errand.
“Vermont,” she said. “Come in.”
“Who’s the kid?” he said.
“Oh, darling,” Lucy said, “Don’t you think she looks just like you?”
It didn’t get even half a smile. His mouth moved slightly. He looked past Lucy, as if he expected someone else to be present.
“Sit down,” she said. “You remember where the furniture is.”
She walked past him into the living room. Though she sat in the chairs every day, today she realized how low to the ground they were, forcing you to extend your legs if you wanted to sit without gazing over your kneecaps. The chairs had once been in her mother’s house. She had sat in one of them the day Nicole was christened and tumbled into her arms. Today Lucy had on shorts and a white shirt. She had given a lot of thought to what she wore, and had finally decided that what she chose would inevitably make the other woman uncomfortable: it was so casual that anyone else would appear overdressed. Now that there was no one else, she wished that she had put on something prettier so that Les would remember whom he had left.
Les was standing by the mantel, where the sketches of the Stephanie Sykes doll were propped up. St. Francis’ old collar was there. A glass vase — Waterford crystal, another hand-me-down from Rita — filled with black-eyed Susans. Lucy noticed that the stems were no longer in water.
“Lucy,” he said, “do you really hate me? There’s no point in my saying anything if all you feel toward me is hatred.”
“Did you think I’d be happy to see you?” Lucy said.
“You’re so unforgiving,” he said.
She could see the conversation that she was going to get bogged down in. She thought that even if what Les said was true, she was entitled to her feelings. She had not left him. She had not written Love Always, Lucy.
“We didn’t have a relationship,” he said. “I was a psychological study for you. You thought everything I did was duplicitous. That would drive anybody crazy. You couldn’t see that I was sincere.”
“You disappointed yourself, Les. That was your problem. Not that you disappointed me.”
“How did I disappoint myself?” he said. Before she could answer, he said, “Is it asking too much to try to find out whether we can have a reasonable discussion?”
“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think we could. You never put yourself anywhere — or stay anywhere — where you’re not on top. When you weren’t voted most popular teacher, you exiled yourself to Vermont. When I tried to deal with you as a real person instead of idolizing you, you left.”
“You’re the one who thinks of everything in terms of power plays. I was trying to have a saner life, living in the country. I realize that I’m too exacting a teacher to please all the students who want to float through. I know why that turned out the way it did. I just underestimated how sick you were and how tied to Hildon you’ve always been. I brought that on myself by moving here and putting you under the influence of the person you’ve always wanted to have overwhelm you. I thought that you loved me, and it wouldn’t happen. You never cared about me the way you cared about him.”
“Les — it wasn’t my feeling about Hildon that made us move to Vermont. You insisted that we move to Vermont.”
“How many things did you ever do that I insisted on?”
“See? You’re talking about things in terms of who has the most power again.”
“You can really be awful,” he said. “Are you being awful because I left you and you still care about me?”
He walked across the room and settled himself into the sofa, crossed his legs, and smiled. “Got a new BMW. Handles great,” he said. “New girl. New car. New apartment. Just your all-American guy, the one you’ve always loved.”
She reached for the nearest thing and threw it. He caught her sunglasses before they hit him in the face. He looked at them. Then he put them on, and jutted out his chin the way Lucy did when she was angry. “So you’ve got a new car, Les,” he said. “Big deal. At least you’re doing what’s so important to you by appearing to be prosperous. And the women are a notion pretty much like cars to you, aren’t they? Turn one in, get another one. When you do these things, aren’t you embarrassed? Or can you really pretend, pretend so well that you convince yourself?”
Next, she threw a glass bowl. It hit the wall in back of him, missing him by at least three feet. The pansy that had been floating in it fell onto the sofa. Water streaked the wall. She started to cry.
“Just because I don’t get off on pessimism the way you and Hildon do doesn’t mean I’m Pollyanna. My optimism reassured you plenty of times. When you had the flu that first winter and you thought you were going to die. I was the one who told you you could work things out with your mother. Talk about me being in exile in Vermont. You couldn’t be near her. You barely knew how to talk to her on the phone before you met me. I told you you could get the job teaching art at the school. It wasn’t the great Hildon who …”
Lucy had stopped listening. She was biting her bottom lip, looking past him to the doorway, where Nicole was standing.
“It’s something awful,” Nicole said.
Les looked over his shoulder. “Hey,” he said, shrugging. “Sorry I was yelling.”
Nicole looked at him, tears welling up in her eyes.
“People have got to care about each other to bother to yell, right?” he said.
“No,” Nicole said. “I never noticed that.” She walked toward Lucy. By the time she got to the chair, she was crying. “St. Francis ran down the road after a tractor,” she said. “I just had him off his lead for a minute, and he ran down the road and wouldn’t come back when I called him. You’ve got to drive me. Get the car, Lucy. Come on — we’ve got to get him.”