Penny assessed her, her big blue eyes narrowed. “I’ll tell you something, Miss Supposedly-Can’t-Stand-the-Man. In all the time I’ve known you, the only person who’s gotten any reaction from you is Play-the-Field Fielding.”
“Horsewhip.”
“I can see it now!” Penny yelped, pointing at her. “You’re excited!”
“God’s sake, Penny, I just told you I turned him down, didn’t I? If I was interested in him, would I not have said yes?”
“I don’t know. You might be out of practice. Scratch that. I know you’re out of practice.” Penny sighed. “Weren’t you even a little bit curious?”
Ellen willed her cheeks not to answer that question. “Go and have fun with your accountant.”
“Oh God, one of these days, Ellen,” was all Penny said before they stepped out of the back room and she had to smile up at her date.
Ellen followed them through the front door and turned right, toward the car park. As she began to enter the relatively dark parking area, she automatically took her keys out of her purse and arranged them so they poked through between her knuckles: an instant knuckle-duster. Her other hand held her little flashlight that doubled as pepper spray. She approached her car, crouched down, and looked under it, then looked under the ones next to it. All clear. She peeked in the back window, shone her flashlight in, then opened the door and got in, throwing her handbag on the passenger seat as her other hand locked the door.
She started the car quickly and backed out, relaxing with the familiar feeling of safety she always got in her car. Having a car in the middle of the city was a pointless expense, but not to Ellen. Late night cabs and subways held too many dangers. She needed this cage like she needed three locks on her apartment door.
She parked in the lot of Francesca’s building, took all her precautions in reverse, and went to meet the dog, who was barking before Ellen got to the door.
Francesca opened her door a crack. “Do not come near me, cara.”
“It’s okay. I had my flu jab.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me. I meant to get it but... Here, I have sneakers, and here is the leash and look out because here is Cabo on the end of the leash.” Cabo squeezed out of the door and tried to give Ellen a stand-up hug.
He was a Bernese mountain dog with a big smile and obviously a lot of love to give. Ellen decided against the sneakers, as her heels weren’t too high, and she was only planning on walking him around the block. This, she soon found out, was a mistake; for Cabo, apparently every walk was really a run, and the Halloween revelers drove him wild. Ellen’s shoulder was soon complaining from pulling him back; he seemed to want to personally examine every fancy costume they passed. She decided to increase the walk to a good ten blocks, to try and use up some of his energy, but he just got happier and bouncier the more ghouls and pirates they met.
The partygoers were building up outside the bars; despite the chill of the air, people didn’t seem to mind being there. The drinking crowds would normally have made Ellen extremely nervous, despite the self-defense classes she continued to take at the gym with Lucía, but Cabo was a wonderful deterrent. No one looked at her. They were laughing at him while making sure he didn’t slobber over their costumes. I should get a dog. Why didn’t I think of that before? Something big and hairy that scares people off.
For no good reason whatsoever, an image of Kane Fielding’s hair curling that little bit over his collar flashed through her mind. She stopped dead in the street at the heat that suddenly went through her body; Cabo, miraculously, stopped too. Only when someone behind her bumped into her did she set off again, cursing herself all the way down the street.
Back at Francesca’s place, Ellen feared for her friend’s sanity, with a dog as big as Cabo bouncing around her flat. She knocked on the door again. “Francesca, let me take him this weekend. I don’t have anything else going on, and you’re ill.”
“That is too much to ask of you,” came Francesca’s muffled voice through the door. “He is so big and—”
“And he likes to test rotator cuffs, I know. There’s no way you can take care of him in your state. Get his food and bowls and whatever.”
“You are sure you are available?” Francesca asked as she opened the door to hand Ellen boxes and bowls. “No Halloween parties to go to?”
Definitely not. Crowds and drunken men and the anonymity of masks. No.
She had to make a couple of trips to her car to get the dog’s stuff in it. Each time she brought Cabo with her. Francesca said, “Ellen, you are such a good friend. I will never, never forget—” and gave an almighty sneeze. “Ow, my sinuses! Okay, I got to go. I’ll take you out for lunch when I’m better.”
Ellen waved her off and took a happy Cabo back to her car.
By the time she finally got back to her flat, one arm was numb from keeping the dog in the back seat the whole way. He seemed to think the front seat was the only way to travel. Once she was in her front door, she closed and triple-locked it. Now, she was really safe. The cold, set face she put on for work relaxed.
She set up Cabo’s bed in the living room and was relieved that he knew what “bed” meant and went there obediently. In the tiny kitchen area, flicking on the television and throwing her shoes toward her bedroom nook on the way, she made the quickest meal she could think of: baked beans on toast with grated cheese—English cheddar, of course—over the top. She rationalized it by adding a carrot on the side and telling herself that most of the food groups were represented.
She lived in overstuffed, rather messy surroundings, with shelves packed with books, and lots of throw rugs and pillows for spending nights in with a DVD. The required pictures of her family were arranged on the shelves. A spider plant that she’d been given three years ago was on the windowsill, along with seven or eight pots of baby spider plants that the darn thing kept sprouting. All the colors in her flat were muted, soft greens and creams. Here she didn’t have to explain why she ordered baked beans from England instead of eating the brand that looked exactly the same in the supermarket, or why putting water in a microwave to make tea was so disgusting. She could listen to the British news on the internet and try and convince herself that not much had changed over there since she’d come to America. She could invite in only a select few friends and relatives, and keep the rest out.
For about the forty thousandth time, she contrasted her life now with the one she’d given up when she’d left England. Had she given it up? Or had Edward taken it from her? She’d been devoted to him, ready to commit her whole future to him... until the night he’d become someone else. Someone who’d cursed at her, beaten her. Raped her, if she was going to get technical about the term.
Perhaps it was her fault. He had said it was. Even now, the memory of his words, his weight on her, mocked her trust in him and made her flinch back into the couch cushions. She should have known him better. And if Edward could hide a dark side so well, why not other men?
She took her empty plate into the kitchen to snap out of the memory. She was here now; she had made a cocoon of safety for herself, and she liked it. She was good at her job and respected for it, whatever her reasons had been for coming to it. And she had unexpectedly fallen in love with Boston: with its age and its history and its respect for its old buildings and spaces, and with the Charles drawing everyone to its banks every time the sun came out.
Pulling on a pair of boots, and making sure she was holding the pepper spray, Ellen went out to the car to get Cabo’s food. When she got back the second time, the ten o’clock news was on. The newscaster began to speak of the fire in Grand Rapids. The reporter on site showed the impressive spectacle of twenty fire trucks surrounding the inferno that had been a Fielding lumber mill. He said that the fire had blazed until four o’clock Thursday morning, and that Kane Fielding had stayed until the end.
They showed him standing by the ruin. The image held Ellen in place. He was very still, not looking anywhere but at the mess that had been the mill, his jaw set, mouth tight, eyes hidden in shadow. This was the man who’d come into the lobby: tired and carrying a huge burden.
Then his face came up again, while the voiceover told of the press conference he’d held on Thursday afternoon. Now, he looked more like he had in her office. His thick hair fell attractively over his forehead, and when he brushed it away, his deep-set, animal eyes were even more noticeable. But when he said, “It’s all too easy to set a fire in a lumber mill if you really want to,” fine lines appeared, bracketing his mouth and making him look older than the thirty-five years the papers said he was.
There were no leads. When some of the press had gone to the Grand Rapids site the day before the fire, to ask about precautions, the site manager had explained that they had safety systems all over the plant, and that since Mr. Fielding came every year to inspect them himself, they were all in perfect working order. She looked at Kane’s face while the other man spoke; he looked furious about something.
Ellen, sitting in a pool of soft light from the lamp beside her, a warm throw blanket covering her and protecting her in her safe, structured little world, felt that disturbing side of her again, that reached toward him instead of sensibly running the other way.
But when a female journalist asked him, “Are you dating anyone we know?” he looked at the woman with a grin that chased the clouds from his face and made even Ellen’s breath quicken, and answered, “Why, are you offering?” which won him a laugh from his audience. Ellen switched off the television, thankful for the reminder that he was a chauvinist pig. He couldn’t even keep his mind on this serious matter for one moment. It just went to show how throwaway his offer to her was, and how it didn’t matter how melty that feeling in her stomach was when she remembered his eyes, or his hair falling over his forehead.
