Twisted

see her wearing it), and had been on her way to the restaurant when the lights of the harbor—and the gently rocking motion of this elegant boat—caught her attention.
    Through the plastic windows on the rear deck of the Maine Street, she saw the couple sipping champagne and sitting close together, a handsome pair—he was tall and in very good shape, plenty of salt-and-pepper hair, and she, blonde and pretty. They were laughing and talking. Flirting like crazy. Then, finishing their champagne, they disappeared down into the cabin. The teak door slammed shut.
    Thinking about the lingerie in the bag she carried, thinking about resuming dating, Marissa again pictured Dale O’Banion. Wondered how this evening would go. A chill hit her and she rose and went on to the restaurant.
    Sipping a glass of fine Chardonnay (sitting boldly at the bar by herself—way to go, girl!), Marissa let her thoughts shift to what she might do for work. She wasn’t in a huge hurry. There was the insurance money. The savings accounts too. The house was nearly paid for. But it wasn’t that she needed to work. It was that she wanted to. Teaching. Or writing. Maybe she could get a job for one of the local newspapers.
    Or she might even go to medical school. She remembered the times Jonathan would tell her about some of the things he was doing at the hospital and she’d understood them perfectly. Marissa had a very logical mind and had been a brilliant student. If she’d gone on to graduate school years ago, she could’ve gotten a full scholarship for her master’s degree.
    More wine.
    Feeling sad then feeling exhilarated. Her moods bobbed like orange buoys marking the lobster traps sitting on the floor of the gray ocean.
    The deadly ocean.
    She thought again about the man she was waiting for in this romantic, candlelit restaurant.
    A moment of panic. Should she call Dale and tell him that she just wasn’t ready for this yet?
    Go home, have another wine, put on some Mozart, light a fire. Be content with your own company.
    She began to lift her hand to signal the bartender for the check.
    But suddenly a memory came to her. A memory from life before Jonathan. She remembered being alittle girl, riding a pony beside her grandfather, who sat on his tall Appaloosa. She recalled watching the lean old man calmly draw a revolver and sight down on a rattlesnake that was coiled to strike at Marissa’s Shetland. The sudden shot blew the snake into a bloody mess on the sand.
    He’d worried that the girl would be upset, having witnessed the death. Up the trail they’d dismounted. He’d crouched beside her and told her not to feel bad—that he’d had to shoot the snake. “But it’s all right, honey. His soul’s on its way to heaven.”
    She’d frowned.
    “What’s the matter?” her grandfather had asked.
    “That’s too bad. I want him to go to hell.”
    Marissa missed that tough little girl. And she knew that if she called Dale to cancel, she would have failed at something important. It would be like letting the snake bite her pony.
    No, Dale was the first step, an absolutely necessary step, to getting on with her life without Jonathan.
    And then there he was—a good-looking, balding man. Great body too, she observed, in a dark suit. Beneath it he wore a black T-shirt, not a white polyester shirt and stodgy tie you saw so often in this area.
    She waved and he responded with a charming smile.
    He walked up to her. “Marissa? I’m Dale.”
    A firm grip. She gave him back one equally firm.
    He sat next to her at the bar and ordered a glass of Pinot Noir. Sniffed it with pleasure then clinked his glass to hers.
    They sipped.
    “I wasn’t sure if you’d be late,” she said. “Sometimes it’s hard to get off work when you want to.”
    Another sniff of wine. “I pretty much control my own hours,” he said.
    They chatted for a few minutes and then went to the hostess’s stand. The woman showed them to the table he’d reserved. A moment later they were seated next to the window. Spotlights on the outside of the restaurant shone down into the gray water; the sight troubled her at first, thinking about Jonathan in the deadly ocean, but she forced her thoughts away and concentrated on Dale.
    They made small talk. He was divorced and had no children, though he’d always wanted them. She and Jonathan hadn’t had children either, she explained. Talking about the weather in Maine, about politics.
    “Been shopping?” he asked, smiling.