She had a car with four-wheel drive, but drove her truck into town, to bring back what she needed. She had a new wheelbarrow on her list, and a lawn mower part the head gardener wanted, the sandpaper, and weed killer. There was a time when she would have gone to Bergdorf’s to buy shoes in New York on a Saturday, or taken Robbie to buy a new windbreaker for school, or taken him to Central Park to play with him. They had rented a house on Long Island in the summer, and gone to Sag Harbor, where other couples and writers they knew spent their summers. But those days were long gone. The hardware store in the village was the main event for her now. She hadn’t bought new clothes since she’d lived there. She wore what was left of the wardrobe she’d kept. She’d given most of it away when she moved. She had no need for fancy clothes. She had no social life, and only wore jeans and her rough work clothes. The bikini top she’d worn was one she’d bought in the South of France, on a trip there with Carson and Robbie. She looked better in it now than she had then. Her body was toned and strengthened by four years of hard labor. She swam once in a while in a nearby lake in the off-season, or took a dip in the stream that ran through her property. No one saw her in the bikini or cared about how she looked. The T-shirt stuck to her as she drove to the village, her long, dark hair piled helter-skelter on her head again.
Phil Pocker, who owned the hardware store, nodded at her as she walked in. The T-shirt she wore was an old faded one from her days at Columbia nearly thirty years before. He usually smiled at his customers, and was more effusive, but he knew better with Melissa. She rarely smiled, and was loath to engage in conversation, except to comment on the weather, or ask his advice about a product she had read about and wanted to try.
“Hot enough for you?” he asked her with a serious look. He was in his seventies and had a son, Pete, who was about her age and worked in the business with him. His son had never liked Melissa, and thought she was stuck up and unpleasant. Phil thought she was a beautiful woman, even though she didn’t talk much. She was tall and graceful, with a pretty face and a slim figure.
“She’s not stuck up,” Phil had defended her. “She’s just quiet. She’s a woman of few words. She’s always polite to me. I’d rather deal with her than the summer folk around here. She knows what she’s doing, and her contractor, Norm Swenson, says she works harder than any of the men on her property. She hires from around here, and pays a good wage. She pays her bills on time. She’s a good woman. She’s just not friendly.”
“That’s an understatement,” his son, Pete, had said. “She nearly took my head off and treated me like an idiot when I didn’t have the size wrench she wanted.”
“It’s just her way. She doesn’t mean any harm by it.” He always gave her a pass. Phil and Norm agreed that there had to be a reason for how reclusive she was. She was still young enough, and striking looking, and there had been no sign of a man, or visitors of any kind, since she’d owned the property. Norm said that there were pictures of a boy around the house, but she had never said who he was, or if he was any relation to her. They both sensed something tragic in her background. It was in her eyes, and her stiff demeanor, as though she might break if you pushed her too hard.
“I worry about fire this time of year,” Phil said to her, as he piled the objects on her list on the counter. She was going to pick up the wheelbarrow outside, and he said he’d have someone put it in the truck for her.
“I worry about that too,” she said quietly. “I have my boys clearing away the brush down by the stream. I think it’s going to be a long, hot summer.” It was still only July.
“What are you working on now?” he asked her in his Massachusetts twang.
“I’m taking all the doors down to the original wood, and getting a hundred years of paint off them. I just started.” She smiled at him.
“That’s hard work.” He smiled back at her. She was a pretty woman, although she never played up her looks and didn’t seem to care. She had a great body, which he never admitted to noticing, but even at his age, he enjoyed seeing a good-looking woman as much as the next man. Pete didn’t agree with him, but his own wife was a knockout, and had been a cheerleader in high school. They had been married for twenty-seven years, and had five children. Phil had been widowed for fifteen years, lost his wife to cancer. His hardware store, Pocker and Son, was the best one around for miles and did a booming business. Phil kept their product line up to date with high-quality goods, and he knew every trick in the business for doing complicated repairs, particularly plumbing and electrical work. Melissa often asked his advice and found it useful. And Norm had a deep respect and affection for him too. Norm and Phil had dinner together once in a while. Norm was closer to Phil’s son’s age, but liked Phil better. He was a no-frills person, with a sharp mind, and had helped Norm many times with good advice when he started his contracting business.
Melissa carried her own bags out to the truck, as she always did, after she said goodbye to Phil, and the boy they hired in the summer put the wheelbarrow in the back for her. Less than an hour after she’d left, she was home again, with everything she needed.
Norm stopped by Melissa’s place that afternoon. He dropped in occasionally when he had something to do on a construction site nearby. She was sanding again, and didn’t hear him until he was standing in front of her. He was a tall, burly man, with a full head of dark blond hair, bright blue eyes, and powerful arms and shoulders. He had a kind face. He had gone to Yale, and dropped out after a year, and decided to do what he loved instead, working with his hands and building houses. He said college life wasn’t for him, but he read voraciously, was knowledgeable on a wide variety of subjects, and they’d had some interesting discussions in the past four years. He was divorced and had no kids, which appeared to be her situation too. He was fifty years old. He referred to a girlfriend from time to time, but it never sounded serious, and they never discussed their personal lives or her past history with each other. She never volunteered it, and he asked no questions, although he had wondered who the little boy was in the photographs. He didn’t want to pry. There were no photographs in the house of any man, and there had never been any evidence of one for the four years he had known her. She chose to remain a mystery, and he respected that. All he knew about her was that she had moved up from New York. And since her books had been written in her maiden name, he didn’t know about her life as a bestselling author either.
“Phil said you’re stripping all the doors,” he said, smiling at her. She nodded, and put down the sandpaper. “That’ll keep you busy for a while.”
“Yeah, like a year or two.” She grinned at him. “It suddenly occurred to me that they’d look a lot better if I take them down to the wood.”
“I can help you if you want,” he offered, but already knew what the answer would be. She liked doing everything herself.