“I’m sorry, Jake. I should have gone to your mom’s to see your work. I’ll be sure to go now. She always came to see my mom, to read to her.”
“You know she enjoyed that,” he said. “Sometimes she spends an hour at the store, visiting, talking to shoppers. I’d see one thing in her cart, but just couldn’t get her to leave. I told her I could bring her what she needs, but walking to the store is good for her. I won’t complain until she starts coming in five times a day, and then—”
His voice faded to a low buzz as something caught Adele’s eye. The couple in the front left booth, sitting together so they faced the front door, backs to Adele, leaned their heads together for a deep kiss. The man’s reddish-brown hair curled around his collar, just a little long. The woman’s short white-blond hair was teased up all spiky in a slightly dated style.
Then Adele’s brain started to play tricks on her. It looked like Scott, her brother-in-law, his tongue down the woman’s throat, his hand cupping the back of her head. They broke apart, laughed into each other’s open mouths and she stroked his cheek briefly, saying something that made him kiss her open mouth again. It was Scott. He must think that even though Adele lived in Half Moon Bay, she would never be out on a Saturday night, having a pizza. It was a good bet, since that was a very rare occurrence. Adele would have pizza delivered. And a date? Forget about it.
Then Scott and the unknown woman became other people as a very old and painful memory rose to the surface. Hadley and his wife materialized in their place. Hadley, her psychology professor, with whom she’d had a steamy affair. She’d taken the class because he was so hot. Hadley, the father of her baby. He had told her it was impossible for him to leave the wife he claimed to hate, to marry Adele. He told her the university might fire him for falling in love with a student. They decided she would terminate the pregnancy. He would then divorce his wife, they’d have a fresh start, begin to date as if the affair and the baby had never happened. They’d marry and eventually have a family. Everything would be fine and they’d live happily-ever-after. And she’d been naive enough to believe him.
She did what many a woman her age would do—she drove by Hadley’s house a dozen times a week. Then one morning she saw what she should have known she would see. He stood in the doorway with his beautiful blonde wife, an arm around her waist. She still wore a robe or dressing gown. There was a small blond child holding on to his leg. The child was also beautiful. Angelic. Hadley’s wife had a small baby bump. Hadley pulled her against him and covered her lips in a loving kiss. A deep and long kiss. One of his hands cradled her head while the other ran smoothly over the bump.
Hadley wasn’t kissing his wife as though he was planning on getting a divorce.
Adele was supposed to have an abortion while Hadley got the gears moving on his separation and divorce. He said he’d try to scrape up some money for the procedure, but he couldn’t be obvious about it or his wife wouldn’t let him go. They would have to be discreet.
Eight years later, she still couldn’t believe she’d bought those lies. She didn’t go through with the abortion but her baby slipped away, stillborn. And Hadley never came looking for her. While she cared for her parents and mourned the loss of her son, she’d heard he was suspected of other affairs with students.
Scott and the woman he was with materialized again. The bastard was stepping out on her sister. She briefly thought about rushing over to them and pouring something over their heads, like a pitcher of beer. Luckily, she didn’t have anything like that on hand.
She noticed out of the corner of her eye that Jake looked at her, looked in the direction of her stare, looked back at her. Her mouth was open and gaping, and a large piece of pizza drooped limply in her hand.
“Addie?” he asked.
“Shit,” she muttered. She closed her mouth and looked at him. “Jake, I need a favor. Can we get a box for the pizza and leave? Right now? I can explain when we’re in the truck.”
“Something happened,” he said. “What happened?”
“Shh,” she said, hushing him. “Can you go back to the kitchen, ask for a box, pay the bill and get me out of here? Quietly?” she whispered. “The guy in the front booth with the blonde—that’s my brother-in-law. And that is not my sister he’s making out with.”
Jake couldn’t resist. He looked again. “Whoa,” he said, probably recognizing Scott at last. Then he slid out of the booth and made tracks to the kitchen. He was back with a box very quickly, and they transferred the pizza into it.
“I hope everything was okay,” Bonnie said as they were leaving.
“Oh, it was fine, I just remembered I left the stove on,” Adele said with a smile. By the time she got to Jake’s truck, she felt weak. When he got in and closed his door, she was shaking. “That bastard!”
“What’s he doing here?” Jake asked. “He lives in San Jose, right?”
She held out her hands, examining her trembling fingers. “He probably thinks no one knows him here, which except for me, maybe no one does. And he probably thinks I’d never be out for the evening, because what are the odds? While my sister is home worrying about her job, her husband is out deep kissing some woman—”
“Cat,” Jake said.
“Huh?”
“Cat Brooks. She owns that kayak and snorkel shop on the beach. Cat’s Place. It should make a killing, but it’s been through three or four owners in the last dozen years. I think she owns it with her brother or something.”
“Well, that makes sense,” Adele said. “Scott works part-time at a sporting goods store in San Jose where he gets a discount on all the gear he can stuff into his car. That’s what he does—plays. He loves to kayak. And golf and scuba dive and play ball and you name it. I bet his salary doesn’t even cover the cost of his toys. Justine works such long hours, he complains that she works so much and this is what he does instead.”
Jake put his truck in Reverse and backed out of the lot.
“And I’ll have to tell her,” Adele said.
“You have to?” he asked. “Why do you have to?”
“Come on!” she said. “I can’t let Justine get caught unaware! Telling her now might not even help. Clearly he’s into something serious, and he can’t support himself and his fun times. Justine has been the primary breadwinner for at least twenty of their twenty-eight-year marriage! And he has the nerve to complain about her hours. As if the income would just materialize while she took time off to entertain him. Oh! I want to kill him right now!”
“Addie, don’t do anything too soon here,” Jake said. “I’ve seen it before. She might hate you for telling her.”
“Now why would she do that?” Adele asked.
He took a breath. “It was Marty who told me Mary Ellen was cheating. I hit him in the face.”
“Because you didn’t believe him?”
“No. Because he ruined the illusion I had that I could make it work in the end. It was like a knife to the heart. It was in that instant I knew it was over. And it was going to get ugly.”
“I’ll tell you what’s going to get ugly—me driving to San Jose.”
Justine felt confident she’d made an impression on Adele. Surely her younger sister would finally get serious about getting her life on track so that Justine wouldn’t feel obligated to support her forever. Just from looking at the comparable sales in the area, she judged the house to be worth roughly six hundred thousand, and it was paid off, free and clear. If she could get her own Realtor and decorator involved in cleaning up and staging the property, it could be worth more. She’d worry about how to scrape up the money to help in that effort later.
Adele would probably have to put off going back to school for a little while. She had to get a job. Justine was determined to make it up to her. Somehow. Eventually.
It was true that her company was struggling right now, downsizing here and there, and the stress was overwhelming. But she was hoping she could repair her real problem before she talked to anyone about it.
Scott had informed her that he didn’t love her anymore. He was sorry but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t have much hope for the marriage; he thought it might be best if they broke up. He wanted to cash out. She was holding him back, expecting too much from him.