Susan Wiggs - That Summer Place - Island Time / Old Things / Private Paradise

She stood and jerked the sweater down over her butt and ran back to the bathroom, where she swiped on some deodorant, brushed her wet hair back and twisted it up, then stuck in a hair pick to hold it.

She slapped on some makeup. She didn’t need any blush; her face was too flushed already. She was nervous, so she put on more deodorant, then stood back and looked at herself.

He had been attracted to her once, when they were young. But what would he see when he looked at her now?

When she looked at herself she saw her outside changing, growing older, while inside she still felt young. Aging was a strange thing—made you feel like you were wearing a striped shirt and plaid pants. Mismatched. Because you never felt as old inside as you looked on the outside.

There were those days now when she went to put on her eye shadow and little lines of it caked at the corners of her eyes. She had to smudge the eye shadow into her skin with a Q-tip.

And there were those little vertical lines along her lips that her old lipstick had recently started bleeding into. She’d had to change types of lip liner and lipstick, something matte that wouldn’t seep in the age cracks that were just beginning to show on her lips.

She put one finger at each end of her mouth and pulled her lips back. Collagen? A peel?

Neither appealed to her.

Bad pun.

She stood there for a long time, gripping the sides of the sink with her hands, hesitant to go out of the bathroom. Scared. Deep down inside, she wanted to still be young for him.

She stared at herself in the mirror. A moment later she pulled her bra straps out of the neckline of her sweater and tightened them another half an inch, then she bent over and grabbed the bottom of her bra and wiggled so she filled the cups differently. Higher. Younger?

She looked at the result in the mirror, then tugged down on her sweater. That was better. She wished she had packed perfume. She lifted her arm. She smelled like Camay soap and baby powder-scented deodorant.

Better than smelling like a garden slug.

Her hand closed over the glass door knob. She took a deep breath and finally mustered the courage to leave the bathroom.

Michael knew the exact moment she stepped into the room. It should have frightened him that he could be so attuned to another person that her mere presence could distract him. With anyone else he would have fought that awareness with a vengeance. Because it was a control thing, and he was a man who needed to be in control.

His awareness of Catherine was different; it didn’t threaten him. It somehow felt right, as if the power between them, this thread of something that linked them together, was an innate part of him.

He glanced up at her from over the rim of a coffee mug. She stood framed in the hall doorway as if she were a painting that had just come alive.

She had been a knockout when she was a young woman. Fresh and tall and sleek. Now she was thirty years older, still beautiful, but added to her face was something better than youthful beauty.

She had character.

He had lived long enough to understand and respect that life did that to you, etched lines of experience on you that said to the world, “I’ve been there, done that, and lived through it.”

On Catherine all that living only made her sexier.

“Hi,” she said and walked calmly into the room, which suddenly felt smaller and warmer.

Aly and Dana had come back downstairs earlier and had been talking to him. Well, Aly had been talking to him. Dana was sitting on the sofa, pretending to work on the puzzle when she wasn’t eyeing him like he was the Antichrist.

Catherine came over to the sofa in that same old long-legged walk of hers that after all these years could still get him hot and tight.

She poured herself a cup of coffee.

Aly scooted over and patted the spot next to him. “Sit here, Mom.”

“No!” Dana said so suddenly Catherine looked up from her coffee with a startled expression.

The only sound for that split second was the rain on the roof, tapping tensely. It was the kind of constant monotonous warning sound that made you follow it with your hearing sharp and your breath held, waiting for the explosion.

Catherine cast a quick apologetic glance at him, then gave a small shrug.

So this wasn’t Dana’s normal behavior with men, he thought. It was him alone and not just any man that made her oldest daughter so protective.

Catherine sat down next to Dana at the opposite end of the sofa. She looked up at him. “We were doing a jigsaw puzzle before the power went out.”

He nodded. “So I see.”

She looked at Dana, who was hunched over the table. “What piece are you looking for?”

“Steve Tyler’s belly button,” she said without looking up.

Catherine looked at him as if she didn’t know what to say to that, which Michael knew was why Dana had said it. Shock value.

He reached out and picked up a puzzle piece and held it out to her. “Here, try this one.”

Dana looked at it, then up at him, then took the piece.

It fit.

He winked at Catherine, who looked as if she wanted to strangle Dana. He shook his head slightly. It didn’t matter. Catherine needed to ignore her daughter’s behavior. It would work better than letting her teenager trap her into getting angry, which was Dana’s objective, even if she didn’t consciously know it.

The tension in the room was so taut you couldn’t have broken through it with two hundred pounds of muscle and a timber ax.

Aly was quietly sitting cross-legged next to him. She had a huge book propped in her lap and seemed oblivious to what was going on with her sister.

Catherine looked at her and asked, “What are you reading?”

“An encyclopedia.”

“Oh.” Catherine frowned. “Why?”

“I was just curious about something.”

“What?”

“Those slug things.” She looked up and grinned. “Slugs are just like you, Mom. They don’t have a mate.”

Michael choked on his coffee and tried hard not to laugh.

He had his answer. There was no man.

Catherine just sat there numbly looking like Christmas in her bright green sweater and her even brighter red face.

“It says here that they are mollusks.”

He caught Catherine’s eye and told her exactly what he had been thinking. “Not only does Aly look just like you did at that age, she is you.”

Catherine sighed and gave him a weak smile. “I know.”

Aly groaned and slammed the book shut. “Everyone says that.” Then she stopped and looked back at her mother. “Not that you aren’t pretty, Mom. It’s just weird, you know?”

“I understand, kiddo. At eleven you want your own identity, not your mother’s. I felt the same way. So did Dana.”

“And at school everyone knows I’m Dana Winslow’s younger sister. Mr. Johnson, the science teacher, even calls me Dana sometimes.”

Dana looked up then. “Do you answer him?”

“I have to. If I don’t he thinks I’m not participating.” Aly got up and trounced over to the bookcase.

There was another lapse of awkward silence.

Catherine took a sip of coffee. “So. The island hasn’t changed much, has it?” She didn’t look at him.

He should tell her now, that he had changed, that he wasn’t a handyman. He watched her and found himself staring at her hair. If she looks at me, he thought, I will tell her the truth.

She stared into her coffee cup as if she were searching inside of it for something to say.

Aly plopped back down next to him. “Mom says there’s plenty to do here. Fishing and sailing and stuff.”

Before he could answer Dana asked, “Do you have a boat?”

Michael nodded. “Yes.”