The Vineyard Read Online Free Page A

bedroom, which she painted with a soft blue sky and a forest of floor-to-ceiling trees. She used a sleep sofa in the living room for herself. The sofa was flanked by a pair of lobster traps standing on end, each holding lamps. An old wood trunk on a dolly—both painted sea green, like the lobster traps—served as a clothes chest and waseasily rolled away at night. An overstuffed easy chair sat to the side, large enough for Olivia and Tess to share for bedtime reading. An antique, early-American table with matching chairs—Olivia’s birthday gift to herself the year before and the inspiration for hours of imagining who had owned it before them—stood in the kitchen end of the room.
    They no sooner opened the door this day when the phone began to ring. Their eyes met, their expressions knowing and vexed.
    â€œIt’s Ted,” Tess said.
    â€œUh-
huh
.”
    â€œWe’re ten minutes late. I bet he’s been trying that long.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œHe’s probably frantic about something,” the child advised, scornful in a way that Olivia would have considered disrespectful if she didn’t know Tess was so right.
    Ted was always frantic. He was a high-strung, type-A personality, an impulse buy on Olivia’s part, picked up at the checkout counter of a bookstore. In hindsight, she should have known he was trouble from the fact that he didn’t smile once during that initial encounter. But he looked her in the eye, which was more than many men did, and talked readily, as some men did not. He was even interested in what she was reading and why.
    Naturally, she initially thought his intensity was infatuation. He brought flowers, took her to dinner, rented movies. He phoned her so often that she finally suggested he not call her at work. By that time she had realized that he wasn’t infatuated at all, but was simply approaching their relationship as neurotically as he approached the rest of his life. They had been dating for five months, and now the end was near.
    Olivia had to hand it to herself. She had a knack for picking losers. Not that she wanted to. Not that she planned to. Typically she fell for one feature—say, great eyes or a sexy voice—and it wasn’t always physical. She had fallen for Pete Fitzgerald because he could cook. He cooked Irish, Italian, and Jewish. He cooked Greek. He cooked the lightest Russian blini she had ever eaten. Out of the kitchen, though, he was a dud.
    When the phone continued to ring, she snatched it up. “Hello?”
    â€œHi,” said Ted. “Just checking in. It’s been a hell of a day here—one meeting after another—like this is a plan to change the wholeworld for eternity when all it is is a five-year plan for one puny little company that’ll probably go under before the first year’s done anyway. Why are you late getting home?”
    â€œThings backed up,” Olivia said, rolling her eyes to make Tess laugh, “but listen, I can’t talk now.”
    â€œI know how
that
is—haven’t had time to do anything for
me
since first thing this morning—I swear I’ve been talking that whole time—I’m probably not good for much more myself—I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”
    â€œNo. Tess and I have stuff to do. I’ll call you later.”
    â€œWell—okay—I’ll be here for another hour, then at the gym for an hour—but that is
assuming
the machines I need are free, which is a
big
assumption—meatheads monopolize the free weights for hours—I mean, I’m no ninety-eight-pound weakling but they sneer at me and I run—so just in case it takes me longer than an hour, why don’t you try me at home at eight?”
    â€œI’ll try. Gotta go.” She hung up the phone, exhausted. Ted had that effect.
    Tess’s chin quivered. “Mrs. Wright sent a note.”
    â€œOh, dear.” Ted was quickly