After Hours

“I’m not going to. Because I don’t know the answer.”

Lucy stared at her thoughtfully. “You didn’t hit it off with Quentin, did you?”

Marcia scowled. “Did you invite me out for lunch just so you could subject me to an inquisition?”

“Yes,” said Lucy, with one of her insouciant grins.

The waitress gave Marcia her Greek salad and Lucy her seafood salad. “Can I get you anything else, ladies?”

“That’s fine, thanks,” Marcia said, and picked up her fork.

She was worried sick about her job—that was an undeniable fact. But there was another reason that she looked far from her best. And that reason was Quentin. She’d only met the man twice, but somehow he’d insinuated his way into her life, so that his rugged face came between her and the computer screen and his loose-limbed stride accompanied her down the corridors of the institute. At work, where she was so disciplined, she’d more or less managed to keep him in order. But at home in her condo it was another story.

She hadn’t slept well all week. But when she did sleep she dreamed about Quentin, night after night. Sometimes they were dreams so erotic that she woke blushing, her whole body on fire with needs that even in the darkness she could scarcely bring herself to acknowledge as her own. But at other times she woke from nightmares—horrible nightmares that left her heart pounding with terror and her palms wet.

They were always the same: she was drowning in the sea, being pulled down and down into the deep blue depths of a bottomless and merciless ocean, and when she suddenly saw Quentin’s face through the swirling currents and tried to signal to him to rescue her he was always out of reach, his black hair waving like seaweed, his smile full of mockery.

“I really don’t want to talk about Quentin, Lucy,” she said shortly.

Lucy, known for being impulsive, chewed on a mouthful of shrimp and said nothing. Marcia picked at her black olives and decided they’d used too much olive oil. She said at random, “What did you think of Mother’s friend Henry?”

“I thought he was a sweetheart. Do you think she’ll marry him?”

“Mother? Get married again? No!”

“She must get lonely sometimes. Troy and I live in Vancouver, and you and Cat are both very busy women.”

“Workaholics, you mean,” Marcia said drily. It was the word Quentin had used.

“I’m trying to be polite,” Lucy chuckled. “Oh, Marcia, it’s so neat that Troy and I are having a couple of months in Ottawa! I love Vancouver, and I don’t have to tell you how much I love Troy and Chris—but I do miss my family.”

It was the perfect opportunity for Marcia to say that she missed Lucy. But was it true? Or did Lucy, with her tumbled curls and her untidy emotions, simply stir Marcia up in ways she both resented and feared? “Families are complicated,” she said obliquely.

“Mmm, that’s true enough ... You know, it’s funny, but I really thought you and Quentin would like each other.”

“Lay off, Lucy.”

“When we saw him yesterday he looked as awful as you do. And he didn’t want to talk about you any more than you want to talk about him.”

“Then maybe you should take the hint.”

“But he was such a good friend to me on Shag Island—I met him there, remember, when Troy and I were separated.” Lucy speared another shrimp. “He was like the brother we never had.”

Marcia could not possibly picture Quentin as her brother. She said flatly, “He’s too intense for me—he came on too strong. I’m sorry I spoiled your fantasy, but there it is. Now, can we please talk about something—or someone—else?”

Lucy sighed. “Troy’s always telling me I’m a hopeless romantic. Okay, okay—I’ll drop it. But I will give you the key to the cottage and the directions. You should take your own food—Quentin’s not what you’d call a model housekeeper. And, providing you leave there by Friday morning, there’s no danger of you running into him. More’s the pity.”

Marcia glared at her. Lucy went on hurriedly, “Next Saturday why don’t you come for dinner with Troy and me and we’ll go to a movie? Cat’s offered to baby sit.” She gave a shamefaced smile. “I’m still not comfortable leaving Chris with a sitter who doesn’t have an MD after her name. Silly, isn’t it?”

“I think it’s very understandable,” Marcia said, sharing the last of the carafe of wine between them. “What movie do you want to see?”

As Lucy began discussing the merit of various new releases Marcia found herself remembering the year that Lucy had lived in Ottawa and then on Shag Island, and Troy had lived in Vancouver; their unhappiness had been a measure of the depth of their love—she hadn’t been so wrapped up in her own concerns that she hadn’t understood that. She had been helpless to fix what was wrong, and that, too, had been a new experience. She liked to feel in control of events.

Maybe, she thought slowly, that was the year when she’d begun to sense the sterility of her own life; the tragedy that had struck Lucy and Troy had been the origin of a confusion and a lack of focus that was both new to her and horribly unsettling.

And that made Quentin fifty times worse.

“There’s that new historical movie too,” she said. “One of the technicians at work saw it and really liked lit.”

For the rest of their lunch they talked about anything but family and men, although Marcia did find herself clutching the key to the cottage and a map sketched on a paper placemat when she went back to her car. And why not? she thought rebelliously. If she spent all next week in her condo, she’d be talking to the plants. A few days beside a lake with lots of books and no people would be just fine.

But she’d leave there Thursday evening, to make sure that she didn’t meet up with Quentin.

Marcia got away on Monday morning, her little gray car loaded with food, clothes, books and a portable TV. She drove along the eastern shore of the Gatineau River, humming to herself. How long since she’d done something like this? Too long. Her vacations tended to be carefully planned affairs with equally carefully chosen friends, not last-minute escapades all by herself.

She was going to read all the novels she’d bought in the last year that had been stashed on her shelves because she hadn’t had time to get at them. She’d experiment with some new pasta recipes. She’d watch the shows she always missed on TV because something needed doing at the lab. She was going to have a great time.

Marcia got lost twice trying to follow the penciled squiggles on her sister’s map; Lucy wasn’t blessed with a sense of direction. But finally the little side road she had been following forked in two just as it was supposed to. When she took the right fork within three hundred yards she saw a wooden gate with a plaque attached to the post. “Richardson” it said. That was the name of Quentin’s friends, the ones who owned the cottage.

Marcia got out, opened the gate, drove through and closed it behind her. Her car bumped down a lane overhung with newly leafed beech trees and red-tasseled maples. Then she emerged into a clearing and braked.

Through the lacy fretwork of the trees the lake sparkled and danced. A carpet of white trilliums patterned the forest floor. And the cottage—the cottage was beautiful.

It was a house more than a cottage, a cedar house with a wood-shingled roof and a broad stone chimney; it merged with its surroundings perfectly. Smiling fatuously, Marcia drove to the circle of gravel at the end of the driveway and parked her car.

Over the deep silence of the woods she could hear the ripple of the lake on the shore and a chorus of bird song. The front of the house, which faced the lake, was made of panels of glass set in thick beams reaching to the peak of the roof. The tree trunks and the blue of the sky were reflected in the glass.

Like a woman in a dream she walked up the stone path to the front door. The key turned smoothly in the lock. She stepped inside and gave a gasp of dismay.

What had Lucy said? Something about Quentin not being a model housekeeper?

That, thought Marcia, was the understatement of the year.

Clothes were flung over the furniture, books, newspapers and dirty dishes were strewn on the tables and the floor and an easel and a clutter of painting equipment decorated the corner with the most light. She wrinkled her nose. Over the smell of turpentine and linseed oil was a nastier smell. From the kitchen. Bracing herself, she stepped over an untidy heap of art magazines and discovered on the counter the remains of Quentin’s supper: a wilting Caesar salad over which three houseflies were circling. The anchovies were the source of the odor.