It Began with a Crush

As a couple, Lee and Mac seemed incredibly happy together, but their relationship had gone from zero to sixty in about fourteen seconds, if you wanted to stick to the automotive theme. She’d gotten pregnant so early into their involvement, they’d had a lot to deal with and sort out in the months since, and they still had decisions to make about where they would settle, long-term. Mary Jane had berated herself more than once for feeling impatient about it.

Decide, already, so I know where I stand with running the resort.

Okay, no, it’s not fair of me to think that way. It’s not about me. It’s about them.

But sometimes she had the unhappy feeling that nothing was ever about her...

“Here,” Joe Capelli suddenly said.

“What? Oh, sorry.” She’d been barreling down North Street, forgetting that she should be slowing down for him to point out his house. Now she had to brake too hard, and with a garage mechanic sitting beside her, she was self-conscious about her less-than-exemplary driving. “Which one?”

“This one, on the right.”

“Oh, wow, it’s beautiful!”

“Thanks,” he drawled, and she realized that her frankly expressed surprise hadn’t been especially complimentary.

She’d driven past this house numerous times before, but hadn’t known it was the Capelli family’s place. It was a classic white two-story clapboard with dark green shutters, modest in size but impeccably maintained, with a wraparound veranda floored in hardwood, and a shady, grassy garden all around it. At this time of year, the flower beds were full of color and the trees were beautifully green. It was gorgeous.

Now she managed to slow just in time to turn into the driveway, which consisted of two long strips of brick paving with grass in between and on either side. Because she’d turned just a fraction too late and too crooked, Mary Jane missed the strips and drove onto the grass instead, and unfortunately the brick was at a slightly higher level, so when she tried to steer the wheels back onto the harder strips, she could hear the tires scraping before they bumped into place.

She was sweating at this point. Driving badly, after neglecting her own car. Making transparently snobbish assumptions about what his house would be like, when, if he remembered her from high school at all, he would have remembered that she’d never spoken to him or smiled at him and had glared at him or looked the other way with a frozen expression on her face whenever they chanced to meet. He would be in no doubt about what she’d thought of him then, and what she thought of him now.

“Thanks so much for the loan of the car,” she said. “Sorry I’m driving it so badly.”

“You’re doing fine.” More famous last words. “I’ll let you know when yours is ready. Here’s my card, though, in case you want to call and check on how it’s going.”

He didn’t seem keen to linger. Well, why would he be? A quick, “See you, then,” and he was out of the car and striding toward the house, his legs looking lean and fit and strong in those faded old jeans, and his butt lovingly sculpted by the soft weave of the—

Stop it, Mary Jane!

Before he reached the front porch, she reversed back down the drive and turned into the street, hoping he hadn’t noticed that she’d bumped one wheel down off the curb.

Or that she’d been looking at his backside.

Supermarket. What was that list, again? Butter, milk, bread, eggs, cheese, salad, maybe some pasta and a jar of sauce, or steak and vegetables for an Asian stir-fry. Did she have any rice? And Daisy had given her a list for the restaurant, too. She tried to remember the conversation.

“We’re out of...” Blank.

Think, Mary Jane! She hit the highway and sped up. Joe had been right. This car was so similar to hers, she really didn’t have to think too much about it.

So she thought about Daisy’s list instead, about Daisy ticking things off on her fingers. But the memory wouldn’t come. Cream and— There were two more things. Two items probably with a short shelf life, because they sometimes did tend to run out of those between regular deliveries from their suppliers. Cream and—

Not cheese. Not milk.

She took the exit and there was a red light ahead. It turned green and she thought, “Good, don’t have to stop,” but the car that was already stopped at the light took longer to get going than she expected. The driver was on his phone and hadn’t seen that the light was green, and when he did, he tried to shoot off too fast and stalled. The light turned orange, the driver gave up trying to get through and sat there. Before Mary Jane knew what was happening...

Crash! There came the sickening metallic crunching sound of Capelli Auto’s loaner car rear-ending the car in front so that it pushed several feet into the intersection. The light turned red, leaving both of them stranded, with horns sounding and drivers steering around them. Mary Jane was shaking like a leaf when she climbed out of the vehicle.

The whole front was badly crumpled. The man in the other car was furious, even though his vehicle appeared to have much less damage. Thank heaven neither of them seemed to be hurt. He wanted her contact details for the insurance, and in a shaky hand she wrote them down on a piece of paper in her purse that, if she’d been more organized today, could have had a shopping list on it and she might have avoided all this.

Because she knew it was totally her own fault.

She was distracted, and she was driving a car that might have been very similar to her own, but wasn’t exactly the same. She should have been more careful and alert. The brake pedal took a little longer to grab than it did on her own vehicle, and she should already have known that because she’d slammed her foot on it in front of Joe’s house.

People had stopped to help, and someone must have called the traffic police because she saw a vehicle with flashing lights pull up. The whole process seemed to take quite a long time, and when the officers directed her to move the car off the road, she couldn’t get it to start. They had to push it onto the verge.

“You’ll have to get it towed, and have someone come pick you up. Is there someone you can call?” an officer said.

“Yes, there is.”

Unfortunately.

* * *

The girls were in the bath when the phone rang. Joe left them alone long enough to grab it, heading back with it toward the bathroom before he’d even figured out who was calling. Even now that they were seven, he never liked leaving them in the bath too long without supervision, and usually found a task to do in his adjacent bedroom while they were in there—laundry folding or internet banking on his laptop.

“Joe?” The voice was female and very wobbly, the reception not that clear, and for one horrible moment he thought it was the girls’ mother. That was the only way he ever thought of her, now. Factual. Practical. The woman who’d given them life, but nothing more. Nothing good, anyhow.

It wasn’t her.

“Joe, it’s Mary Jane Cherry.”

“What’s up?”

“I’ve— Something terrible has happened. I’m so sorry. I’ve crashed the car.”

“You’ve—”

“Rear-ended someone. It’s all crumpled in front and it won’t start, and it’s going to be towed, and I thought you might want it towed back to the garage, and that you might have a towing company you could recommend.” She sounded very, very shaken, and undeserving of his immediate inner rage.

You are kidding me! This is the last thing I need.

“Wait, are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine. I think. Shaken. The police have cited me and I know it was my fault.”

“Don’t worry. It’s insured.”

“Yes, I was sure it would be, but still, I am so, so sorry. I’ll cover your deductible, obviously.”

“Don’t worry about that now.” He swallowed his anger, told himself that this was going to be way more of a pain in the butt for her than for him, and that these things happened to the best of people on a bad day. “Let me give you the name of a towing company, and yes, have them bring it back to the garage. Do you have a ride home?”

“N-no, I don’t.” Now she sounded close to tears, but two seconds later she’d brisked herself up, with an effort he could hear over the phone line. “But I’ll get a cab, so that’s fine.”

“I’ll come pick you up.”

“You don’t have to do that.”