Despite all that…
While on the phone, she’d seen Tru walk past her house on the way to the pier with his fishing gear and couldn’t help smiling. She still had trouble believing she’d actually had dinner with him. Her thoughts drifted back to their conversation…she was surprised by how pleasant the evening had been, and how effortlessly they’d seemed to get along.
She wondered whether he’d take her advice and visit Kindred Spirit after he finished fishing. With storms on the way, tomorrow would probably be too late, but that went for her as well. After her appointments, she guessed she might have some extra time to swing by the mailbox, and as she walked the beach, she made the decision to do just that.
But she had to get going or she’d be late. She had a hair appointment in Wilmington at nine and a pedicure at eleven. She also wanted to see if she could find an appropriate pair of shoes to wear to the wedding—the burgundy pumps that Ellen had picked out for the bridesmaids pinched her feet terribly, and she’d decided she couldn’t spend the whole night in agony. Traffic would probably be heavy, and cutting the walk short, she called to Scottie before turning around. Not long after, Scottie barreled past her with his tongue hanging out. As she watched him run, she glanced toward the pier. She could see a cluster of people, but they were nothing but shadows, and she wondered whether Tru was having any luck.
Back at the cottage, she dried Scottie with a towel, then took a quick shower. Afterward, she dressed in jeans, a blouse, and sandals. She’d worn pretty much the same outfit the day before, but when she glanced in the mirror, she couldn’t help feeling that she looked different—prettier, maybe, or even more desirable—and she understood that she was seeing herself as a stranger might see her. The way Tru had seen her last night, as they’d sat across the table from each other.
With that realization came another decision. Hope rummaged through the drawer beneath the phone, finding everything she needed. After scribbling the note, she left through the back door and descended to the beach. Taking the steps and using the walkway at the house next door, she tacked the note next to the latch of the gate, where Tru couldn’t help but find it.
She returned the way she’d come and grabbed her handbag as she headed out the door. As she got in her car, she let out a deep breath, wondering what was going to happen next.
Tru wasn’t sure what Hope had done.
He’d seen her emerge onto the back deck, maybe forty minutes after she’d returned from her walk with Scottie, and then make her way to the house where he was staying. He felt a pang of disappointment at the thought that she’d gone to see him when he wasn’t there, but at the gate, she’d stopped. He supposed she might have been debating whether or not to proceed to the back door, but she was only there for a few seconds before she retraced her steps and vanished inside her parents’ cottage. He hadn’t seen her since.
Strange.
His thoughts remained on her. It would have been easy to chalk his feelings up to infatuation, maybe desperation. Kim, no doubt, would agree with that. Since the divorce, his ex would occasionally ask him whether he’d met anyone. When he would reply that he hadn’t, she’d jokingly suggest that he was so out of practice that he’d probably end up falling head over heels in love with the first woman who so much as glanced at him.
That wasn’t what was going on here. He wasn’t infatuated with Hope, nor was he desperate, but he admitted to himself that he found her arresting. Ironically, it had something to do with Kim. Early on, he’d realized that Kim knew exactly how attractive she was and that she’d spent a lifetime learning to use it to her advantage. Hope seemed to be the opposite, even though she was equally beautiful, and it spoke to him in the same intuitive way as when he finished a drawing and thought, That’s exactly the way it should be.
He knew that it wasn’t appropriate to think such things, if only because nothing good could come of it. Not only was he leaving on Monday, but Hope would return to her life on Sunday, a life that included the man she thought she’d marry, even if they were having difficulties at present. Nor, with their respective weekends on tap, was he sure he’d even see Hope again.
Feeling another tug on the line, he played the game, timed it right, and set the hook. After a struggle that surprised him, he ended up pulling in a fish different from the flounder, but one he still didn’t recognize. The older man in the ball cap wandered back toward him, watching as Tru began to remove the hook.
“That’s a helluva whiting,” the man said.
“Whiting?”
“English Whiting. Sea mullet. Big enough to keep, too. Sure would be nice to cook it up. If you were planning to throw it back, I mean.”
Tru handed over the fish, watching as it vanished into the cooler again.
He didn’t have much luck the rest of the morning, but by then it was time to call Andrew. He packed up his things, walked to the shop, and got some change, then went to the pay phone. It took half a minute and a lot of coins to get through to an international operator, but eventually he heard the familiar ring as the call was placed.
When Kim answered, she agreed to accept the charges, and Andrew came on the line. His son had all sorts of questions about America, most of which had to do with various movies he’d seen. He seemed disappointed to learn that there weren’t endless shootouts on the streets, people in cowboy hats, or movie stars on every corner. After that, the conversation settled into something more normal and Tru listened as Andrew caught him up on what he’d been doing in the past few days. The sound of his voice made Tru ache at the thought that the two of them were half a world apart. For his part, Tru told Andrew about the beach and described the two fish he’d caught; he also told him about Scottie, and how Tru had gone to help him. They spoke longer than Tru had anticipated—nearly twenty minutes—before Tru heard Kim reminding Andrew that he still had homework to do. She popped on the line after Andrew.
“He misses you,” she said.
“I know. I miss him, too.”
“Have you seen your father yet?”
“No,” he answered. He told her about the meeting planned for Saturday afternoon. When he finished, Kim cleared her throat. “What was that I heard about a dog? It was hit by a car?”
“It wasn’t that serious,” Tru said before repeating the story. He made the mistake of mentioning Hope by name, and Kim immediately latched onto that.
“Hope?”
“Yes.”
“A woman?”
“Obviously.”
“I’m assuming that you two hit it off.”
“Why would you assume that?”
“Because you know her name, which means that the two of you spent some time in conversation. Which is something you never do anymore. Tell me about her.”
“There’s not much to tell.”
“Did the two of you go out?”
“Why is that important?”
Instead of answering, Kim laughed. “I can’t believe it! You’ve finally met a woman, and in America of all places! Has she ever been to Zimbabwe?”
“No…”
“I want to hear all about her. In exchange, I won’t ask you to reimburse me for the call…”
Kim stayed on the line for ten minutes, and though Tru did his best to downplay his feelings about Hope, he could almost hear Kim smiling on the other end. By the time he hung up, he was disconcerted by the call, and he took his time on the walk back up the beach. Beneath a belt of clouds that were turning the color of lead, he wondered how Kim could have deduced as much as she had so quickly. Even if he accepted the idea that she knew him better than almost anyone, it struck him as uncanny.
Women were indeed the mysterious sex.