Mercy

  At least once during her shift she'd look to the Rialto, making a wish as had become her habit. She had asked for money, she had asked for adventure, she had asked for love. She pinned her wishes onto the foot traffic on the bridge, believing that, like a falling star, she had a better chance if someone walking by could carry her desires farther away.

  She never looked at the faces of the people on the bridge to whom she had entrusted her dreams; she figured that they were only messengers, after all.

  She thought that maybe this had been the biggest mistake of her life.

  Mia remembered, with a jolt, the moment days ago that Cam's hand had taken the picture of Carrymuir out of her own. She recalled the shadow that passed over his face when he refused to believe that they might have had a history which began before they'd met. She thought of him standing on the Rialto, his hair as bright as the lire in her apron, and she lifted her chin a fraction. "Prove it," she said again.

  It seemed incomprehensible to Cam that he could have been within a mile of Mia Townsend without knowing it. Proof? He could have told her about the violet tablecloths and the heart-shaped backings of the ironwork chairs, but as Mia had said before, these were things he could have learned from a postcard. "I wanted to go there," he said simply. "I didn't have the time." He shifted his weight to his other side. "What were you doing at a Venetian cafe?"

  Waiting for you. The words were at Mia's lips; she held her hand over her mouth to keep them back. Then, with a brittle smile, she jammed her hands into her coat pockets. "Well," she said brightly. "What a coincidence. We'll have to tell Allie."

  Bringing up Allies name made her feel a little better; she was able to breathe, and her skin didn't feel flushed. Cam nodded, smiling too, and took a step backward. He told her to have a nice day.

  Mia watched him walk in the direction of the station. Then she turned and ran down the street. But instead of going to the flower shop where Allie was expecting her, she flew back to her room at the Wheelock Inn..She rummaged through her knapsack, tossing papers and pencils and small bags of seedlings out of the way until she found what she was looking for.

  Dear Cameron, she wrote on a scrap of paper from the desk, Better late than never. Mia. She addressed a matching envelope to the police station and marked it personal and confidential. Then she picked up the cocktail napkin she'd taken out of her knapsack. It was from The Devil's Hand; it was one of the things she had taken with her--she made it a point to take at least one item from everywhere she'd been, to give her at least the semblance of a history.

  She stuffed the note in the envelope and took one last look at the napkin. It was frayed at the edges and emblazoned with the cafe's logo: two faceless lovers in a circle of fire, which--even in silhouette--seemed to leap and burn and ruin.

  Mia took a deep breath and jammed the napkin into the envelope. She licked it and closed it, sealing her future.

  SEVEN

  In between the bill from the lighting company and a pamphlet from the local mechanic who serviced all the cruisers was an envelope from the Wheelock Inn. Cam sighed and ran his hand through his hair. Probably a complaint about the way Zandy had handled the investigation of the room that Jamie MacDonald had been using; maybe even a mention of some scrap of evidence--his officers were always instructed to ask the parties at the scene of the crime to contact the station if they came up with anything else. He picked up the sterling letter opener on his desk and slit the corner of the envelope.

  He pulled out the napkin first and what he noticed was not the stygian logo of The Devil's Hand, but the scent of Mia Townsend-- cloves and rainwater and sweet grass--that now seemed to fill the room. He picked up the tiny ragged square and held it to his cheek.

  He noticed the note as he went to throw the envelope in the wastebasket. The lettering was done in pencil, neat and precise, and he smiled, knowing that as a third-grader she had never strayed outside the lines. He read the short letter, and then read it again. He held it up to the light to see if there was anything that had been erased.

  He took the note, hid it in the folds of the cocktail napkin, and placed it in his coat breast pocket.

  Then he pulled a piece of stationery out of his desk drawer. Mia, he wrote, staring at her name on the page. He crumpled it up into a ball because the three letters drooped down.

  Mia, he wrote a second time, on a different sheet of paper. Then he wadded the page up and threw it hard into the wastebasket. What the hell was he doing?

  He sat back down at his desk, slicing open the light bill and the other pieces of mail and putting them in piles for Hannah to pay or to type suitable replies. He braced his hands, palms flat, on the desk.

  He closed his eyes and made a bargain with God. If You send someone into this office by the time I count to twenty, he thought, I will not write this note. Then he held his breath and began to count.

  He heard Hannah shuffling through the overstuffed filing cabinets outside, and Zandy picking up his things before going home for the day. He heard the front door open and close again, and an unknown voice muffling through a request at the front desk. He heard footsteps in front of his office.

  Fourteen, fifteen.

  He opened his eyes, picked up the pen and began to write.

  Mia, he said, Now the only thing I need is a cappuccino. I hate drinking alone. Will you meet me?

  He did not sign his name. He sealed it in a Wheelock Police Department envelope and, walking from his office, set it on Hannah's desk with the outgoing mail.

  Allie wiped her hands on the white baker's apron, scattering bright yellow nasturtium petals over the kitchen floor. She had packed a suitcase to take to Jamie's house in Cummington; she had cleaned the bottom half of the house; and now she was preparing dinner for Cam and Mia, a thank-you in advance for taking care of things while she was away.

  She was roasting a chicken, stir-frying asparagus, and making her nasturtium-lettuce salad. It was lovely to look at, all that red and orange and yellow against the greens of spinach and endive. She served it with walnut oil, and when people got over the shock of eating flowers for dinner, they always complimented her on her originality.

  Cam hated it, said it made him feel like Robinson Crusoe, making do with twigs and weeds. But she knew that Mia would appreciate it. She liked the idea of showing Mia something she did not already know how to do.

  "Cam," she yelled, "was that the door?"

  In the living room, Cam was trying to read the evening paper. He had heard the doorbell, had known it was Mia, and tried to stuff the information into the back recesses of his mind. When Allie told him that she had invited Mia for dinner, he'd felt the blood rush from his head. He could not imagine anything more uncomfortable than sitting across a table from both his wife and the woman he could not stop thinking about.

  "I'll get it," he said, pushing to his feet. He walked to the front door and leaned his forehead against it for a moment, considering whether by sheer will he could prevent this evening from taking place.

  She was wearing a huge beige sweater and an ivory turtleneck and skinny little leggings the color of oatmeal, as if her clothing was her way of blending into the background. Cam wished he'd thought of it.

  "Hi," he said.

  She did not meet his eye. "Hello." She reached into her big carpetbag knapsack and pulled out a bottle of blackberry wine. "I brought this. I think it goes with any kind of entree."

  "Allies in the kitchen." Cam stared at Mia. He wondered if she had gotten his letter. Occasionally, letters that were being sent somewhere within Wheelock boundaries were delivered the same day they had been mailed.

  Mia pushed past Cam and walked toward the kitchen. He could hear the two women talking and laughing, high runners of music that reminded him of the conversation of birds.

  He did not know how long he had been standing there staring at nothing when Allie touched her hand to his shoulder. Mia was a few steps behind her. "Cam," Allie said, "can you open the wine? I'm almost don
e. If you don't mind taking care of Mia."

  "No," Cam said, surprised by the steadiness of his voice. "Of course not."

  He poured the blackberry wine into fancy glasses they had received as a wedding present, belled like tulips with thin golden stems. When he handed Mia her glass, her fingers shook a little and spilled wine over the back of his hand.

  "Oh," she said, turning around to find a napkin. "I can't believe I did that."

  Cam brushed his hand against the leg of his pants, not giving a damn if it was going to stain. "It's nothing."

  They sat for a few long, quiet minutes at the far ends of the couch, sipping the wine, until Allie fluttered in with a tray of spanakopita. "This isn't seventh grade," she said, laughing. "Boys and girls don't have to stand on opposite sides of the gym."

  Cam watched her move back to the kitchen, wondering as always how she managed to turn simple motion into a dance. He wished she would stand beside him. Then he'd be able to chatter about the weather and the news and he wouldn't have to worry about trusting himself.

  Mia was running her finger along the rim of the glass, making an unholy sound like the keen of a ghost. "My first boyfriend taught me how to do that."

  "Oh?" Cam said, his throat closing. "And who was that?"

  "Freddy Hornburger. No joke; that was really his name. He was my best friend's brother. He took me aside at her fourteenth-birthday party and asked if I wanted to see an owl turn its head all the way around. But when we got to the backyard, there wasn't an owl, and he pushed me onto a chaise and kissed me so badly I thought I was being swallowed."

  "And you still became his girlfriend?"

  Mia shrugged. "I figured we had nowhere to go from there but up. I spent one week ignoring him, though, and swearing that I was never going to kiss anyone ever again." She lifted her glass in a toast. "I changed my mind eventually."

  Cam raised his glass too. "Here's to Freddy," he said, but found when he took a sip he could not seem to swallow.

  Mia shifted on her side of the couch, which Cam could feel all the way down to his end. "I have a lot of trouble talking to you," she admitted. "I don't feel very comfortable."

  "I know what you mean. I feel like that too." And he truly did not understand it. In a way he felt as if he knew Mia better than he knew himself, and vice versa, but he could not seem to get past the polite simplicities. He wondered if, like him, she sensed that there was a dam to their conversation, and that the tiniest trickle would rush into an unstoppable flood. He wondered why she did not mention his letter, or the fact that she had sent him a note in the first place.

  "Dinner," Allie called.

  Allie was a very good cook. She said it was only a matter of being a voracious reader, since finding the right cookbooks made all the difference. "God," Mia said, slicing into her chicken, "I could never make anything like this."

  "It's not too hard. You stick it in the oven and wait for the little button to pop out its side."

  "Still," Mia demurred. "I haven't gotten much past Spaghettios."

  At this, Allie frowned. "I was going to ask you to have Cam to dinner over the next few days, but I guess he can heat his own can of Spaghettios."

  Cam dropped his fork. He listened to its ring, and all the subsequent echoes. "I can take care of myself."

  Allie placed her hand on his forearm. "I know that. I just didn't think you'd like to."

  "Besides," Mia said, "the kitchenette in my room isn't equipped for much past boiling water."

  Allie took a helping of asparagus and passed the serving bowl to Cam. "That settles it, then. Cam will have you over here."

  Cam will have you over here. For a moment, Allies words hung in the air in front of Cam, palpable and festooned and so conspicuous that he marveled no one else was commenting on them. Cam will have you over here. He pictured Mia, flushed and waiting, the quilt upstairs pulled haphazardly over her bare, fine limbs.

  "So," Mia said, "how long do you think this will take?"

  "Cummington, you mean? Or the trial?" Allie did not wait for an answer, but began to speak again. "I don't know, really. I'm figuring on three or four days to speak to the neighbors and people Jamie left on his list; a day to go through his house." She paused. "I feel so strange about it. Like I'm stepping into someone else's place."

  "It's not snooping." Cam was careful not to look at Mia. "You have Jamie's permission."

  "Well," Allie said, chewing thoughtfully. "There is that."

  When there was only a scatter of platters and bones, and circular bruises on the tablecloth from spilled blackberry wine, Mia pushed back her chair. "I'm doing the dishes," she said, "I'm not taking no for an answer."

  After Mia had cleared the table and the water began to rush in the kitchen sink, Allie pulled Cam out of his chair and propelled him toward the living room. He sank deeply into his leather wing chair, surprised when she chose to sit on its arm beside him. They each had their spots in the room: his was the wing chair, hers was the couch. Allie wrapped her arms around his neck and yawned with her cheek against Cam's hair. "I hope she'll go soon."

  Cam looked up at her. "Why'd you invite her?"

  Allie grimaced. "I feel responsible. She doesn'r know anyone else around here, and I'm leaving her with a whole store to run." She bit her lower lip. "I mean, it was a nice dinner, but I'd like to say goodbye to you without an audience."

  "I'm sure she'll leave," Cam said, tightening his fingers on Allies shoulder. "I know she'll leave." He thought of Allie as she would be an hour from now, her white cotton nightgown buttoned to the throat so that he could take his time removing it, the nightstand lamp on his side of the bed casting her body into a familiar pattern of shadows. He knew she would brush her teeth and then go to wait for him in bed; he knew that she'd be the first to reach out under the covers. He knew the exact pattern their lovemaking would take, and in spite of Allies intention of saying goodbye, he knew it would be a familiar welcome.

  He suddenly did not want Mia Townsend in his house. If you removed the temptation, you had nothing to worry about.

  Cam stood abruptly. "Where are you going?" Allie said, recovering her balance without him in the chair.

  He smiled at her. "I'm going to hurry things along."

  He walked into the kitchen and found Mia standing at the sink, her sweater rolled up to reveal sharp pink elbows. He stood silently, watching the natural grace she exhibited even when using an S.O.S. pad, seeing the curls at the bottom edge of her hair jump when she scrubbed particularly hard. In retrospect, he did not understand how he had managed to survive dinner, to say the right things, preoccupied as he was with the rhythm of Mia's breath, the pitch of her questions, the curve of her brow.

  He picked up a dish towel and began to dry.

  "You left Allie alone?" she said, the very name putting a thick, viscous barrier up between them.

  Cam nodded. He ran the striped blue and white cloth along the edge of the oval roasting pan, feeling the material dampen and give with subsequent strokes. He picked up a serving fork and worked the cloth between its tines. When he realized there was nothing left to dry, he looked up to find Mia watching his hands.

  "What did you do with the napkin?" she whispered.

  "I kept it in the pocket of my shirt all day." Cam watched Mia reach for his hand, slowly, as if it were an action beyond her control. She laced her fingers through his and he could feel the soap and warm water sealing them.

  He thought of the old Scots custom of handfasting, by which two people could marry simply by clasping palms and announcing their intent in front of witnesses.

  "That drink," she murmured. "I'll meet you tomorrow at seven."

  The moon sat cross-legged on the windowsill, its white skirt reaching to the plush bedroom carpet. It turned Allie into a creature of light, someone she would not recognize in a mirror; someone who was as sure of her worth as she was of her beauty. She lay with her head propped on the pillows, watching Cam.

  He kissed the curve of
her throat and then traced a snaking path between her breasts to her stomach. Allie watched Cam's hair spill over her ribs and she touched it, surprised for a moment by the soft, cool strands she'd been picturing as fire.

  She liked foreplay. She knew she had the better end of the deal; Cam would, by ritual, move gently over her body, and then when she started to feel guilty she'd push him onto his back and run her fingertips over his chest and between his legs. But Cam always built to a fever pitch quickly, and it would be only a matter of minutes before he pressed her against the mattress and drove into her for release.

  He began to skim his way up her, pushing her knees apart. "Not yet," she whispered, and Cam looked at her from under a fringe of hair. He took her hand from his shoulder and kissed it, then brought it down between them to rest on the folds of herself. She could feel his fingers between hers, and the sweet, damp heat. "Now," he said.

  She clawed at his back as he came deep inside her so forcefully they scooted inch by inch across the sheets. She waited until his head was thrown back and a moan tore from his throat before she let herself go.

  As always, Cam immediately jumped to his feet and walked into the bathroom. Allie heard the water running and knew that he was soaping himself and washing off whatever remained of her.

  She knew this was nothing but force of habit, but she always wondered exactly where Cam thought she'd been. She liked to imagine that just once, he would lose himself so completely during sex he'd be unable to move afterward, incapable of doing anything more than reaching for her hand in a silent, joyous connection.

  Once, shortly after they were married, Allie had been sick at home and had watched "The Newlywed Game" on TV. One of the questions the wives had been given was, "When you're making whoopee, it's most like which Olympic sport: marathon running, gymnastics, or ice hockey?" When Cam came home from the station, she'd asked him what he thought. "Hockey," he had said, without hesitation. And he was right--there was a fury to their lovemaking, as if they were punishing each other for being something different from what they each had hoped. Many nights after that game show she had lain awake, listening to the tide of Cam's breathing, wondering why one of the multiple choices hadn't been something slow and lovely, like pairs' skating or water ballet, something partnered in grace and beauty and trust.