There had been countless girlfriends since Olivia, of course. He wasn’t clueless when it came to women, after all. He found them attractive and interesting, but more than that, he was genuinely fond of them. He was proud of the fact that he’d never had what could even remotely be considered a painful breakup for either him or one of his exes. The breakups were almost always mutual, petering out like a soggy fuse on a firecracker as opposed to the big kaboom of fireworks overhead. He considered himself friends with all of his exes—Monica, his latest, included—and figured they’d say the same thing about him. He wasn’t right for them, and they weren’t right for him. He’d watched three former girlfriends get married off to great guys, and he’d been invited to all three weddings. He seldom thought about finding permanence or his soul mate, but in the rare times he did, he always ended up imagining finding someone who shared the same active, outdoor passions he did. Life was for living, wasn’t it? Sure, everyone had responsibilities, and he didn’t mind those. He enjoyed his work, earned a good living, owned a house, and paid his bills on time, but he didn’t want a life where those things constituted all there was. He wanted to experience life. No, change that. He needed to experience life.
He’d been that way for as long as he could remember. Growing up, Travis had been organized and capable when it came to school, getting good grades with a minimum of fuss or anxiety, but, more often than not, just as happy with a B instead of an A. It drove his mother crazy—“Imagine how well you could do if you applied yourself,” she repeated every time a report card came home. But school didn’t excite him the way riding his bike at breakneck speed or surfing in the Outer Banks did. While other kids thought about sports in terms of baseball and soccer, he thought of floating on air on his motorbike as he soared off a dirt ramp or the rush of energy he felt when he successfully landed it. He was an X Games kind of kid, even before there was such a thing, and by thirty-two, he’d pretty much done it all.
In the distance, he could see wild horses congregating near the dunes of Shackleford Banks, and as he watched them, he reached for his sandwich. Turkey on wheat with mustard, an apple, and a bottle of water; he had the same thing every day, after the exact same breakfast of oatmeal, scrambled egg whites, and a banana. As much as he craved the occasional adrenaline rush, his diet couldn’t be more boring. His friends marveled at the rigidity of his self-control, but what he didn’t tell them was that it had more to do with his limited palate than discipline. When he was ten, he’d been forced to finish a plate of Thai noodles drenched in ginger, and he’d vomited most of the night. Ever since then, the faintest whiff of ginger would send him gagging to the bathroom, and his palate had never been the same. He became timid about food in general, preferring plain and predictable to anything with exotic flavor; then gradually, as he grew older, he cut out the junk. Now, after more than twenty years, he was too afraid to change.
As he enjoyed his sandwich—plain and predictable—he wondered at the direction of his thoughts. It wasn’t like him. He usually wasn’t prone to deep reflection. (Another cause of the inevitable soggy fuse, according to Maria, his girlfriend of six years ago.) Usually he just went about his life, doing what needed to be done and figuring out ways to enjoy the rest of his time. That was one of the great things about being single: A person could pretty much do what he wanted, whenever he wanted, and introspection was only an option.
It had to be Gabby, he thought, though for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why. He barely knew her, and he doubted whether he’d even had a chance to meet the real Gabby Holland yet. Oh, he’d seen the angry one the other night and the mea culpa one just a little while ago, but he had no idea how she behaved under ordinary circumstances. He suspected that she had a good sense of humor, though on closer reflection, he couldn’t pin down the reason he thought so. And she was no doubt intelligent, though he could have deduced that on the basis of her job. But other than that . . . he tried and failed to picture her on a date. Still, he was glad she’d come by, if only to give them a chance to start over as neighbors. One thing he’d learned was that bad neighbors could make a person miserable. Joe’s neighbor was the kind of guy who burned leaves on the first gorgeous day of spring and mowed his lawn first thing Saturday mornings, and the two of them had nearly come to blows more than once after a long night with the baby. Common courtesy, it sometimes seemed to Travis, was going the way of the dinosaurs, and the last thing he wanted was for Gabby to feel any reason to avoid him. Maybe he’d invite her over the next time his friends came by. . . .
Yeah, he thought, I’ll do that. The decision made, he gathered his cooler and started back toward his truck. On tap that afternoon were the regular assortment of dogs and cats, but at three, someone was supposed to be bringing in a gecko. He liked treating geckos or any exotic pet; the idea that he knew what he was talking about, which he did, always impressed the owners. He enjoyed their awed expressions: I wonder if he knows the exact anatomy and physiology of every creature on earth. And he pretended that he did. But fact was a bit more prosaic. No, he of course didn’t know the ins and outs of every creature on earth—who could?—but infections were infections and pretty much treated the same way regardless of species; only the medication dose was different, and that he had to verify in a reference book he kept on his desk.
As he got in the car, he found himself thinking about Gabby and wondering whether she’d ever gone surfing or snowboarding. It seemed unlikely, but at the same time, he had the strange feeling that, unlike most of his exes, she would be up for either of those two things, given the opportunity. He wasn’t sure why, and as he started the engine he tried to dismiss the notion, doing his best to convince himself it didn’t matter. Except for the fact that, somehow, it did.
Five
Over the next two weeks, Gabby became an expert in making a covert entry and exit, at least when it came to her house.
She had no other choice. What on earth could she say to Travis? She’d made a fool of herself, and he’d compounded the matter by being so forgiving, which obviously meant that coming and going required a new set of rules, one in which avoidance was Rule #1. Her only saving grace—the only positive thing to come out of the whole experience—was that she’d apologized in his office.
It was getting harder to keep it up, though. At first, all she’d had to do was park her car in the garage, but now that Molly was getting close to her due date, Gabby had to start parking in the driveway so Molly could nest. Which meant that Gabby thenceforth had to come and go when she was certain Travis wasn’t around.
She’d come down on the fifty-year limit, though; now, she figured a couple of months or maybe half a year would suffice. Whatever amount of time seemed long enough for him to forget, or at least diminish the memory of, the way she’d acted. She knew that time had a funny way of dimming the edges of reality until only something blurry remained, and when that happened, she’d go back to a more normal routine. She’d start small—a wave here or there as she got in the car, maybe a wave from her back deck if they happened to see each other—and they’d go on from there. In time, she figured they’d be fine—maybe they’d even share a laugh someday at the way they’d met—but until then, she preferred to live like a spy.
She’d had to learn Travis’s schedule, of course. It wasn’t hard—a quick peek at the clock when he was about to pull out in the morning while she watched from her kitchen. Returning home from work was even easier; he was usually out on the boat or the Jet Ski by the time she arrived, but on the downside, that made the evenings the worst problem of all. Because he was out there, she had to stay in here, no matter how glorious the sunset, and unless she went over to Kevin’s, she’d find herself studying the astronomy book, the one she’d purchased in hopes of impressing Kevin while they did some stargazing. Which, unfortunately, hadn’t happened yet.
She supposed she could have been more grown up about the whole thing, but she had the funny feeling that if she came face-to-face with Travis, she’d find herself remembering instead of listening, and the last thing she wanted was to make an even worse impression than she already had. Besides, she had other things on her mind.
Kevin, for one. Most evenings, he swung by for a little while, and he’d even stayed over last weekend, after his customary round of golf, of course. Kevin adored golf. They’d also gone out to three dinners and two movies and had spent part of Sunday afternoon at the beach, and a couple of days ago, while sitting on the couch, he’d slipped off her shoes while they were sipping wine.
“What are you doing?”
“I figured you’d like your feet rubbed. I’ll bet they’re sore after spending all day standing.”
“I should rinse them off first.”
“I don’t care if they’re clean. And besides, I like to look at your toes. You’ve got cute toes.”
“You don’t have a secret foot fetish, do you?”
“Not at all. Well, I’m crazy about your feet,” he said, beginning to tickle them, and she tugged her foot away, laughing. A moment later, they were kissing passionately, and when he lay beside her afterward, he told her how much he loved her. By the way he was talking, she kind of got the impression that she should consider moving in with him.
Which was good. It was the closest he’d come to talking about their future, but . . .
But what? That’s what it always came down to, wasn’t it? Was living together a step toward the future or just a way to continue the present? Did she really need him to propose? She thought about it. Well . . . yes. But not until he was ready. Which led, of course, to questions that had begun to creep into her thoughts whenever they were together: When would he be ready? Would he ever be ready? And, of course, Why wasn’t he ready to marry her?
Was it wrong to want to get married instead of simply live with him? Lord knows she wasn’t even sure about that anymore. It’s like some people grew up knowing they’d be married by a certain age, and it happened just the way they planned; others knew they wouldn’t for a while and moved in with the ones they loved, and that worked fine, too. Sometimes, she felt she was the only one without a clear plan; for her, marriage had always been a vague idea, something that would just . . . happen. And it would. Right?
Thinking about this stuff gave her a headache. What she really wanted to do was sit outside on the deck with a glass of wine and forget everything for a while. But Travis Parker was on his back deck, flipping through a magazine, and that just wouldn’t do. So she was stuck inside on a Thursday night again.
She wished Kevin weren’t working late so they could do something together. He had a late meeting with a dentist who was opening an office and thus needed all sorts of insurance. That wasn’t so bad—she knew he was dedicated to building the business—but he was heading off with his dad to Myrtle Beach for a convention first thing in the morning, and she wouldn’t have a chance to see him until next Wednesday, which meant she’d have to spend even more time cooped up like a chicken. Kevin’s dad had started one of the largest insurance brokerages in eastern North Carolina, and Kevin was taking on more responsibility with every passing year at their office in Morehead City while his dad edged closer to retirement. Sometimes she wondered what that must have been like—having a career path already charted from the time he could walk—but she supposed there were worse things, especially since the business was successful. Despite the whiff of nepotism, it wasn’t as if Kevin didn’t earn his way; his dad spent fewer than twenty hours a week in the office these days, which usually left Kevin working closer to sixty. With almost thirty employees, management problems were endless, but Kevin had a knack for dealing with people. At least, that’s what a few of them had told her at the company Christmas party both times she’d gone.
Yes, she was proud of him, but it still left her stuck inside on nights like this, which seemed like a waste. Maybe she should just head over to Atlantic Beach, where she could drink a glass of wine and watch the sun go down. For a moment, she considered doing just that. Then she decided against it. It was okay to be alone at home, but the thought of drinking at the beach alone made her feel like a loser. People would think she didn’t have a single friend in the world, which wasn’t true. She had lots of friends. It just happened that none of them was within a hundred miles of here, and the realization didn’t make her feel much better.
If she brought the dog, though . . . now, that was different. That was a perfectly ordinary thing to do, even healthy. It had taken a few days and most of the painkillers she’d had in her medicine cabinet, but the soreness of the first workout had finally passed. She hadn’t returned to the Body Pump class again—people in there were obviously masochists—but she had started to keep a fairly regular routine at the gym. For the last few days, anyway. She’d gone on both Monday and Wednesday, and she was determined to make time to go tomorrow as well.
She got up from the couch and turned off the television. Molly wasn’t around, and guessing she was in the garage, she headed that way. The door to the garage was propped open, and when she walked in and turned on the light, the first thing she noticed was the collection of wiggling, whining furballs surrounding her. Gabby called out to her; a moment later, however, she began to scream.
Travis had just gone into the kitchen to pull a chicken breast from the refrigerator when he heard the sudden, frantic pounding on his door.
“Dr. Parker? . . . Travis? . . . Are you in there?”
It took only an instant to recognize the voice as Gabby’s. When he opened the door, her face was pale and terrified.