and neither of us was looking for a relationship. Yet we’d fallen so deeply in love that we’d hastily—and some might say foolishly—cast our lots together. We were just settling into our lives with each other, and we were happy, goofily, giddily so. I was more at peace than I’d been in a long time, maybe ever, and I believed Emmet to be also. So what did I think I was doing, bringing Emmet back here? Here, of all places, where the ghosts of his past lived on? No wonder I was so restless. Emmet had been right. By bringing us to Moonrise, I’ve stirred up things that would have been better left alone.
A LITTLE NEIGHBORLY SPYING
Itell myself that I’m not going to look this time. I tiptoe toward the bathroom quietly so Noel won’t hear me from his room down the hall. And passing by the windows, I avert my eyes. After doing my business, I make sure I don’t bang into the dresser on my way back to bed. Which is what woke Noel last night. Or was it the night before? Whichever, I had no idea that Noel had heard me banging around or cursing the damned dresser until he flung my bedroom door open. He stood there wild-eyed and half naked, and I screamed like a banshee. It was funny the next day, though neither of us laughed at the time. Even less amusing was his accusing me, yet again, of spying on Emmet and the Bride. He claimed to have caught me in the act, as though I would’ve left my warm bed for the sole purpose of doing such a thing. The very idea.
Tonight, I return to my bed quickly and snuggle under the covers. The thing is, I didn’t really have to look. If a light had been on at Moonrise, I would’ve seen it as soon as I turned off my bedside lamp. A few years ago I discovered, quite by accident, that any lit-up room at Moonrise, except those in the back of the house, is visible through my bedroom window. It happened after Noel had some tree limbs cleared out around the cottage. Moonrise is such a distance away that I can’t really see anything except the occasional shadowy figure moving around a room. Even so, I teased Rosalyn by claiming I could see her and Emmet in bed together. Being Rosalyn, she had a ready comeback. “Trust me, sweetie,” she’d said with a roll of her eyes. “After all our years together, there’s not much to see.”
The real, honest-to-God truth is, Noel has caught me turning the binoculars toward Moonrise a couple of times recently, and it’s caused some problems between us. The first time, he was exasperated but also a bit amused, which he tried to hide from me. The next time he was utterly furious. Noel’s like that. He’s easygoing to a fault, and so laid-back he’s practically in a coma, unless he gets pissed. Then you’d better watch out. Usually I know just how far to push him, but all this stuff with Emmet and his new wife has been a different matter. I can’t quite figure out where Noel’s coming from these days, and it’s bothering me more than I’ve admitted to anyone. Even myself.
The tension between us started in Atlanta, before we came to Highlands for the summer. I know Noel so well, and we’re closer to each other than I was with Rosalyn, or Noel is with Linc and Emmet, but in a different way. So I know I’m not just imagining this. Closing my eyes and hugging my pillow tight, I burrow under my deliciously warm quilt and try to remember when I first knew that something was going on with him.
I guess it was the time he called me to see how the packing was going, a few days before we closed up our respective flats for the summer and headed toward the hills. The packing wasn’t coming along that well because my closet depresses me so badly. I stood inside it—easily since it’s bigger than your average room—trying to decide what to take to Highlands, and I couldn’t make myself continue. Since the day that Kit and I packed up Rosalyn’s things so Annie wouldn’t have to, I haven’t been able to bear my closet, with its color-coordinated hangers and cubbyholes. Whatever made me think I wanted, much less needed, all that stuff ? And what would happen to it after I was gone?
I almost didn’t answer the phone that day because I knew it was Noel. I’d already snapped at him earlier, and wasn’t ready to pick up our fight. After lunch I’d stopped by his office to tell him I was going home to pack. I didn’t remind him that I’d finished the invitation design for the fall Tour of Homes, way ahead of schedule, and was exhausted. After all, a perk of being friends with the boss should be taking off when you want to. “You’re packing for Highlands?” Noel had said, giving me a look of amused irony (which no one does better). “What could you possibly need to take, dear girl? Your part of the cottage already looks like a Goodwill store.”
I told him to bugger off, that his royal ass had never been inside a Goodwill store to know what one looked like. Then I got out of there before he could start in on his favorite topic—me, and my neuroses. I’ll admit, I have quite a few, and I’m rather prone to go on and on. After Rosalyn’s death, all of us got downright morbid. Then Linc had a stroke and almost died, and our mortality became an obsession.
Linc, even as sick as he’s been, has done his best to help me deal with my funk. After he got out of rehab, I drove over to Tuscaloosa and spent several days with him so he wouldn’t be alone. That self-centered wife of his, who pretends to be so devoted to him, had prissed her fanny back to New York to do one of her New Agey poetry workshops. So I had Linc all to myself. I’m well aware of the irony, my calling Myna self-centered when I was there to take care of Linc, yet all I did was cry on his shoulder. Linc ought to be used to it, though. He’s always been my Zen master, the one who will listen to me ad nauseam when I bore the others shitless.
With the calm reassurance that Linc’s known for, he told me I would remain miserable until I accepted death as a natural part of life. Contradictory as it sounds, we only begin to live when we acknowledge that we’re going to die. All the great philosophies teach the basic concept of birth, life, death, and rebirth; nature’s ongoing cycle. On the day I was headed home, Linc had a rather bizarre suggestion. He reminded me that I used to spend a lot of time wandering around Atlanta’s most famous cemetery, Oakland. Although it’s a habit that makes me look even crazier than I am, Linc suggested that I pay another visit to Oakland as soon as I got back to Atlanta. It could very well help me get some perspective.
I thought it was a great idea, but found to my surprise that I couldn’t do it. Instead, every time I drove past Oakland, I’d catch myself averting my eyes. It’s true; I used to enjoy going there, wandering around and reading the old gravestones. I would take flowers to my mama’s grave, then to the Clements plot, where I’d talk to Mr. Clements about whatever Noel and I were doing. Sometimes I’d bring flowers to the much-visited graves, like Margaret Mitchell’s, or to those lonely plots that never had any. My favorite place was the mausoleum. I loved the way sunlight filtered through the wrought-iron entrance, and how appropriate everything seemed—the eerie light, the faint odor of decay, the chill of stone and marble. I’d spend hours sitting on a nearby bench and wondering about the stories of those resting there, how they lived and died. But after Rosalyn’s death, my musing took a different direction. What difference does it make, I thought, the silly little ways each of us fritters away our lives? The graveyard is where all our stories end.
On the day I was supposed to be packing, Noel kept calling until I had to either answer or unplug the phone. I picked it up to tell Mr. Smarty-Britches that he was right, everything I needed was already at Laurel Cottage. Of course, he gloated for a long moment before asking, “So. Have you talked to anyone today?”
“Just Linc,” I told him. “Big surprise. Myna’s not staying.”
“No.” Although Noel said the word flatly, I heard the bitterness in his voice. “God forbid she give up anything for him. Her career has always come first, as we both know. Linc’s the only one who can’t see that.”
“Yeah,” I’d murmured in response. Then I’d reminded him that we were plowing old ground there. And that Linc was the most perceptive and introspective of men except when it came to his own life. Maybe
