That Old Cape Magic

imprisoning and ultimately embittering the hearer, playing upon her terrible need to believe. He could feel the
I love you
forming on his lips. Would he have said it if she hadn’t interrupted?
    “See?” she said, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand and smearing her makeup. “Right there.
That’s
what I’m going to miss.”
    He slept. It was after nine the next morning when he finally woke up, and perhaps because the last time he’d slept so long and so well it was in this same bed almost exactly a year ago, his first drowsy thought was that the preceding twelve months had been a dream. The door to the balcony was partly open, just as it had been the morning after Kelsey’s wedding, and on the other side of it a woman was talking on a cell phone, her voice low. Joy, he thought sleepily, talking to their daughter about her engagement to Andy, discussing the possibility of a wedding next spring. Later in the morning—there was no hurry—they’d drive to Truro and see if they could find the inn where they’d honeymooned. Which in turn meant that his mother was still alive in Indiana and that he’d
not
spent the last nine months in L.A. It meant he was a happily marriedman, that his wife had never accused him of being otherwise, that she’d never been other than happy herself. It was a fine narrative, plausible and coherent. He found himself smiling.
    He heard her say goodbye outside, heard the cell phone’s cover slap shut, saw the door to the balcony swing inward. In another split second Joy would appear, and he’d beckon her back to their bed. But of course it was Marguerite who stepped into the room, trailing cruel reality in her wake. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she touched his forehead with the back of her fingers. “Your hair’s always funny after you sleep,” she informed him. He was about to ask whom she’d been talking to when she said, “Tommy says thanks for being so predictable.”
    “Tommy,” he repeated. Why was it that every time a woman who was supposedly with him made a secret phone call, it was always to the same guy? “Predictable how?”
    She was now running her fingers through his hair like a comb, apparently trying to make it look less ridiculous. “We had a friendly wager. I had this dumb idea we’d be stopping off in Vegas to get married. He bet you’d end up back with your wife.”
    “What does he win?”
    She smiled ruefully. “He gets to take me out to dinner. He said the way he looked at it, he’d come out of this with a good woman no matter what. He just wasn’t sure which one.”
    “Tell him I said he doesn’t deserve a good woman.” As if any man ever did.
    “I also called the airline and got them to change my flight.”
    “Why?” Griffin said, suddenly alarmed. Had he hallucinated the proposal he’d reluctantly agreed to last night in the Olde Cape Lounge after it became clear that Marguerite’s mind was made up? They’d have a leisurely breakfast at the B and B, after which he’d drive her to Logan in plenty of time for her flight back to L.A. After that he’d drive down to Connecticut, to what had once been home and might be again. There, if possible, he’d reconcile with thewoman he apparently still loved. If he failed, if it was too late to fix the mess he’d made, he still had his plane ticket.
    “Well, the next few days are supposed to be beautiful here,” Marguerite explained, “and Beth says the store will survive a couple more days without me, so…”
    “Uh—”
    “Oh, don’t look so mortified. None of this involves you.”
    “I don’t get it.”
    “I made one other call, too.”
    Griffin nodded, finally understanding. No need to ask who the other call was to.
    “I better not hear you been mean to her,” Harold warned him an hour later. He was studying Griffin’s still-swollen, now-yellow-green eye with interest. “If I do, I’ll make it so that’s your
good
eye.”
    He’d pulled into the B and B’s driveway just as they emerged with their luggage.
    “Harold,” Marguerite said, handing him her suitcase before Griffin could say a word in his own defense. “Quit. He wasn’t mean to me. Pay no attention,” she added to Griffin, who these days was paying close attention when anyone offered violence.
    “Because this woman and I go back a long way,” Harold went on.
    “On his worst day,” Marguerite elaborated, “he was nicer to me than you were on your best.”
    “And when her mouth’s not