And of course by then you’ll be too old to take care of a dog, Bea thought, but she didn’t say it. The man’s life was none of her concern. Just as well. She had never entirely trusted men who didn’t like cats.
Bea turned her head to address Allie in the backseat. “The cat will be fine. It’s been a long, difficult day. Let’s get back to our host’s house and have a shower and get some sleep.”
They stepped into his living room together. Casper flipped on the light.
The first thing Bea saw were the animals, which were of the nonliving variety. A full-size adult bear, a victim of both a hunter and a taxidermist. Then she saw the head of some kind of horned elk mounted on the wall. Beside it, two long guns and a huge swordfish sat mounted on a wooden plaque over the fireplace.
Oh dear, Bea thought. This will upset the child no end.
She looked over at Allie, but the girl did not return her gaze. Bea waited for a rude comment, but none was made.
Casper noticed, though.
“Not everybody’s cup of tea,” he said. “But just so you know, I always get a clean shot. I shoot well to avoid their suffering. It’s a point of pride with me.”
“That’s good to know,” Bea said.
Still, it seemed a shame to kill a fish and not even eat it. It seemed a waste. Maybe he had eaten the rest of the elk, at least.
“Well, dibs on the first shower,” Allie said. “Then I’m going straight to bed.”
Bea thought she must be terribly upset about the dead animals. But a moment later Allie caught Bea’s eye and gave her a sly wink.
Then the girl slipped into the guest room, leaving Bea alone with an actual man. As though there were nothing the slightest bit terrifying about that.
Bea sat out on the balcony of Casper’s home, looking over the ocean and up at the stars, intermittently. Wishing Allie had stayed.
“A glass of wine?” Casper called in from the kitchen.
That would be a lot of alcohol in just a couple of days, Bea thought. And a bit unlike me.
“Sure,” she said. “Why not?”
A moment later he appeared at her left shoulder, holding out a glass of something red, which she accepted.
“It’ll help me sleep,” she said.
Casper settled in the chair next to hers, and sipped from his own glass.
“Do you get up early in the morning?” he asked her.
“Depends. Why?”
“Something I want to show you and your granddaughter. Someplace, actually. I want to go down there around sunrise, because too much later and it’s absolutely overrun by tourists. To see it at its best you have to get up pretty early in the morning. That way you can have the place all to yourself. Or in this case we could have it all to ourselves.”
“I think that sounds worth getting up for. Allie is trying to teach me to be more adventurous.”
“She’s a delightful girl.”
“She is,” Bea said. In that moment she didn’t even mind admitting it.
A long silence fell. As it progressed, it began to feel heavy. Awkward.
“You must think I’m a pathetic old man,” Casper said after a painful length of time.
“No, why would I think that?”
“It must be so obvious that I’m lonely since my wife died.”
“That’s not pathetic, though. That’s just human.”
“Have you been lonely since your husband died?”
Bea pulled a deep breath, then let out a long sigh. She sipped her wine before answering. It made everything a little smoother. A little easier.
“Not so much as you would think. At first I was devastated by the loss, but I didn’t turn out to be one of those people who jumps right back into being a couple again with somebody new. I keep my own company too well, I suppose.”
“So you don’t even think about that now? You wouldn’t even consider it? Oh, I’m sorry, Bea. Don’t even answer that. Don’t say anything. That came out completely wrong. We don’t even know each other. We’re one day away from being perfect strangers. Not even a whole day. And I was not—repeat, was not—putting the moves on a lady I only met this morning. I can’t stress that too strongly. I guess I just thought it was nice getting to know you, and I suppose part of me wondered if you might be inclined to stay in these parts a little bit longer. You know. Just to see what’s what with that.”
Bea knew the answer was no. But she needed to say more, to explain why, so he wouldn’t take it wrong and be hurt. So she sipped her wine and mulled her thoughts for a moment before responding.
She thought about the rifles and the dead animals in the living room, and the vote of no confidence in cats. They reminded her what it meant to allow someone into your life. You see something you like in a man, so you ask him in, but what comes in is all of him. Not only the parts you took a liking to, but the many parts that don’t fit with you at all. That’s always the way it worked.
But she knew she wouldn’t tell him any of that.
“Oh, Casper,” she said, uncomfortable and slightly giddy at the same time. “I’m so flattered I can hardly tell you. But I could stay here for years and not be ready for a thing like that. It’s not you. You seem like a nice man. But relationships are so . . . I don’t know. It’s me, I guess. I’m just not easy with other people. Never really have been. Romances feel like so much trouble. So much constant compromising. I know for a lot of people it’s worth it. But I don’t think it is for me. When Herbert died, I was so lost. And then, after I realized I could get by on my own, life began to feel simple. It sounds terrible to say, but in some particular sense it was almost a relief.”
She fell silent again, and stared up at the stars, pulling longer gulps from her glass. She did not look over at his face, because if he was hurt she didn’t want to see.
“Well, you can’t blame an old fool for trying.”
“You’re not a fool.”
“Absolutely I am. I pride myself on it.”
They sat without speaking for a few minutes, looking up at the stars. Bea was relieved they could be silent. She felt exhausted by communication. In time she heard the water shut off and heard Allie open the noisy shower stall door.
“That would be my cue,” Bea said. “It’s been a long day.” She rose, but hovered a moment, knowing more was needed. “Thank you for everything,” she said, and placed a hand lightly on his shoulder.
He turned his head to look at the hand. He smiled at it, but the smile was a tired, sad-looking little thing. It seemed to use up the last bit of energy Casper owned.
“I can’t believe I got to take a real bath in a real tub,” Bea said to the girl, who was already in bed. Bea stood in her pajamas, toweling her hair, wondering why she didn’t feel sleepy.
“That’s how it is at my house, too,” Allie said. “Big bathtub on one side of the bathroom, shower stall on the other. Was this the kind of deep tub you said you wanted?”