Page 112 of Drawing Home
During a solitary, early dinner at Wölffer Kitchen, she mentally replayed the conversation with Emma over and over. She sipped her rosé, picked absently at her cod, and had the realization that if Emma had such a horrible opinion of her, so must Angus.
Bea pushed her plate away, her stomach churning. She had to talk to him.
“Young lady, the check, please,” Bea said, hailing the waitress impatiently.
“Would you like that to go?”
“No,” Bea said. “I’m finished.” But it gave her an idea.
She walked around the corner to Dockside Bar and Grill. A breeze blew off the water, the air particularly fragrant. The gulls squawked, couples walked by holding hands, and all the while Bea felt like a virtual criminal. She had made a mistake. Now she had to find a way to make it right.
The outside patio was already full, and she felt a pang to see the table where she had happily sat with Angus not that long ago.
After checking in with the hostess, she ordered the pulled-pork dish with cheddar and black beans to go. While she waited, she debated whether to call Angus first and tell him she was stopping by but decided against it. Why give him the opportunity to tell her not to come?
The food took quite some time, enough of a wait that she nearly lost the nerve to visit him. But once the hostess placed the package in her hands, the idea of simply retreating back to Windsong, sticking the food in the refrigerator to stand as a shameful reminder of her aborted mission, was equally as distressing. And then the task of apologizing to Angus would still be ahead of her.
She called a taxi to take her to Mount Misery. The sun was just beginning to set but it was still close to ninety degrees. The taxi driver somehow hadn’t thought to put on the air-conditioning, so that unpleasant exchange added to her roiling nerves. At least when she was back in the city, she would have her regular driver. She would, of course, need to start looking for a new assistant. At the moment, her former assistant was probably yet another person who was angry with her. Well, that was one apology she had no intention of making. She might have made a mistake, but she still didn’t answer to Kyle Dunlap.
The front of Angus and Emma’s old house looked different. The decorations and trinkets that had once hung outside—had it been a whale above the door?—were gone. She wondered if Angus had already moved out.
Holding the dinner package in the crook of one arm, she rang the bell. Long minutes passed before Angus opened the door.
“Oh, good! Youarestill here,” she said.
“What are you doing here?” he said through the screen.
“I’ve come to apologize.”
He hesitated. She hadn’t considered the possibility that he might close the door in her face.
“I realize it’s an imposition to show up at dinnertime but I’ve brought you food from Dockside. It would be a shame to let it get cold.”
Angus shook his head but opened the door and stepped aside for her to enter.
The house was nearly empty. In the living room, the only remaining furniture was the couch and an end table. All of the picture frames, vases, magazines, and knickknacks that had cluttered the place during her last visit were gone.
“Have you decided where you’re moving?” she said.
“Don’t pretend to be my friend, Bea. That’s over.”
The comment hurt—a lot. “I’m not pretending,” she said quietly. She handed him the bag from Dockside, and he took it from her, stone-faced. She followed him into the kitchen, standing awkwardly in the doorway while he shoved the food into the refrigerator. He turned to her, shaking his head.
“You think you can just show up here as if nothing has happened?” he said.
“Of course not. I’ve come to apologize. That’s why I’m here.”
“The part I can’t get past is that during all of our talks, during all the time we spent together, you were secretly helping Emma’s ex-husband. How could you even look me in the eye?”
She swallowed hard. “There were times when I couldn’t. It bothered me—it did. I felt conflicted but I was looking at the transaction with Mark as a business decision. It took some time for me to see things through a different lens, but as soon as I did, I set out to make it right.”
“Did it occur to you that it might be too little, too late?”
“No, because it’s not. It’s going to get fixed. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Angus seemed not to have heard her. He pulled a chair from the kitchen table and sat down. When he finally spoke, it was while looking down at the braided cloth place mat in front of him.
“The worst part for me is that it had been such a long time since I enjoyed the company of a woman my own age. I had thought maybe…”
