Three For The Road. Shannon Waverly

done enough, Pete. Besides, she really wants to do this.”

      “Well, in that case... Has Lindy’s husband made it into work this week?”

      “So far.”

      Pete sniffed. He didn’t like his brother-in-law a helluva lot. The guy had a serious drinking problem. But he was family, and so, when he said he needed a job, Pete gave him a job.

      “How are Abby’s tonsils?”

      “Pete, will you stop worrying about the family, already!”

      Pete almost said he didn’t know how. He’d been at it too long. But that might come out sounding like a complaint, which it wasn’t, so he just shut up.

      The two teenage girls were nearly abreast of the phone booth now, walking stiffly, eyes straight ahead. Pete slouched a little—enough to look disreputable, yet not so much that he’d slide off the bench—and sent them his sexiest half smile and a slow nod hello. Their eyes rounded and their faces turned red as thermometers about to pop. As soon as they’d passed, he sat up, laughing to himself.

      “So,” Brad said, “what are you going to do with the rest of your vacation?”

      Pete felt a warmth like new love melt over him. “I plan to hit the back roads, do my Jack Kerouac thing, look for America in the slow lane.”

      “Man, do I envy you.”

      “You should. I don’t have to shave or change my socks for the next nine days if I don’t feel like it.”

      “Have fun, but do me a favor? Take a shower before crossing the town line, okay? I’m not sure even I could stand you that ripe.”

      “I’ll think about it. Take care, Brad.”

      “Hey, you will be here by Friday, right?”

      “Yes, I’ll be there. Have I ever let you down?”

      When Brad answered, his voice held more emotion than Pete had intended to elicit. “Never, big brother. Never.”

      “So, okay.” Pete uncoiled from the seat. “Till then, hang tough. Jill is worth it.”

      “I know.”

      “I hope so.” Pete ran callused fingers over the heart-enclosed initials someone had scratched into the black paint of the phone. “Don’t let this get around, it’ll kill my image, but I’m the one with every reason to be envious.”

      Brad was quiet awhile before mumbling, “Thanks, Pete.”

      “For what? See you Friday.”

      He hung up quickly, but continued to stand there staring at the phone. He’d added that remark about envying Brad merely to bolster his brother’s confidence and get him through the prewedding jitters. But just for a second...

      In general, he was happy with his life. He liked his work, enjoyed his freedom, wasn’t looking for any more responsibility than he already had, certainly not the kind you got saddled with in marriage.

      But just for a second he thought he’d felt something, like a faint pang of hunger, an intimation there could be more.

      He gave his head a little shake. Well, of course he knew there could be more. He always had. That was why he’d asked Sue Ellen to marry him when they were just eighteen. As things turned out, she broke up with him before they quite made it down the aisle, but that didn’t alter his view of marriage or keep him from marrying Cindy Barstow half a year later.

      Pete curled his hand into a fist and pressed it against the phone-booth wall. Cindy. The biggest mistake of his life, a classic case of marriage on the rebound. At twenty-one, though, he’d believed he was in love again.

      Cindy was cute, sweet and affectionate, and she fell for Pete very hard, very fast. By their second date they were making love and she was saying, “I love you,” which was exactly what his shattered ego had needed then. Three months after that they were married.

      Cindy had another endearing trait that had bolstered his self-image, a soft feminine helplessness that made him feel strong, protective and needed. Like a rescuing knight.

      But it didn’t take long for her dependence on him to wear thin and for him to see how draining it was. He began to resent her. He wanted a partner, a helpmate, someone who could occasionally nurture him when he was down—not a little girl.

      He soon discovered other things about her that were equally annoying. There were her constant small “tests” to prove he loved her—calls in the middle of the day, for instance, to ask him to leave work to pick up something at the market for her, usually when he was most involved in an important project. She also made unreasonable demands, like having him account for all his time. And then there was the way she said “I love you,” with that plaintive little question mark at the end, her way of asking him to reassure her he loved her, too. Constantly. On the phone, during dinner, in the middle of the night.

      Only months into their marriage, he knew he’d made a mistake. Cindy was desperate for love, starving for it, and that scared the hell out of him. Although she claimed to love him, all he saw was her fierce need to be loved, a need that soon became a bottomless pit. No matter what he did to reassure her, her emotional needs remained unsated and insatiable.

      How they’d lasted two years he’d never know, but finally there came a day he couldn’t take it anymore. The ante in Cindy’s games had risen to the point where, if he didn’t walk out, he felt sure that dark bottomless pit of her insecurity would swallow him up. In the end it almost did, but that was a time in his life he didn’t like to dwell on.

      The only solace he derived from looking back on his marriage with Cindy lay in the fact that they’d never had a child. He’d wanted one, but not with her. Lord, not her. He couldn’t imagine a child growing up with that woman.

      After that, Pete was pretty well soured on the idea of marriage. Oh, he’d had relationships with other women, some serious, most too casual even to remember. But marriage? No, never again.

      Aside from being incurably gun-shy, he simply liked his freedom too much. Single, he could come and go as he pleased, see whom he wanted—or not. He could smoke smelly cigars, eat chili for breakfast, or drop a bundle on a bike that was forty years old. No one would be at home waiting to chew off his head.

      So, why was he suddenly feeling twinges of envy for his brother? And why hadn’t he felt those twinges while Sue Ellen was still married? He didn’t want to marry anyone, even her. She might have been his first love, maybe even his best love, but, no, not even her. She’d hurt him too much when she broke up with him to marry that guy she’d met in college, and he still blamed her for the consequences, his marriage to Cindy.

      Cindy. Sue Ellen. They were a mess from his past he’d just as soon forget. And that was exactly what he was going to do. Pete pushed away from the phone, opened the bi-fold door and stepped outside. He had nine days until the wedding, nine glorious, freewheeling days before he had to deal with Sue Ellen again and his interfering relatives. In the meantime—he smiled—it was time to get back on the road.

      * * *

      ALL THE WAY OUT OF TOWN Mary Elizabeth cried. Tears obscured her vision so badly that, turning a corner, she drove over the curb, nearly hitting a mailbox, and a block after that she ran a red light. By the time she reached the highway, the floor around her was littered with tissues, and the fluffy orange cat lying on the seat beside her was eyeing her with aloof disdain. But she couldn’t stop.

      She was leaving behind everything she knew—her family, her friends, her job and hometown—and was going to a place that was totally unfamiliar. The climate, the architecture, the landscape, everything in Florida would be different.

      But then, everything in Maine felt different now, too. Learning she wasn’t who she’d always thought she was had changed things. Charles wasn’t her father anymore. Susan and Charlie were only half sister, half brother. Aunt Julia wasn’t even her aunt. And her mother? Mary