Twisted Read Free Page B

ago, she could’ve gotten a full scholarship for her master’s degree.
    More wine.
    Feeling sad then feeling exhilarated. Her moods bobbed like orange buoys marking the lobster traps sitting on the floor of the gray ocean.
    The deadly ocean.
    She thought again about the man she was waiting for in this romantic, candlelit restaurant.
    A moment of panic. Should she call Dale and tell him that she just wasn’t ready for this yet?
    Go home, have another wine, put on some Mozart, light a fire. Be content with your own company.
    She began to lift her hand to signal the bartender for the check.
    But suddenly a memory came to her. A memory from life before Jonathan. She remembered being alittle girl, riding a pony beside her grandfather, who sat on his tall Appaloosa. She recalled watching the lean old man calmly draw a revolver and sight down on a rattlesnake that was coiled to strike at Marissa’s Shetland. The sudden shot blew the snake into a bloody mess on the sand.
    He’d worried that the girl would be upset, having witnessed the death. Up the trail they’d dismounted. He’d crouched beside her and told her not to feel bad—that he’d had to shoot the snake. “But it’s all right, honey. His soul’s on its way to heaven.”
    She’d frowned.
    “What’s the matter?” her grandfather had asked.
    “That’s too bad. I want him to go to hell.”
    Marissa missed that tough little girl. And she knew that if she called Dale to cancel, she would have failed at something important. It would be like letting the snake bite her pony.
    No, Dale was the first step, an absolutely necessary step, to getting on with her life without Jonathan.
    And then there he was—a good-looking, balding man. Great body too, she observed, in a dark suit. Beneath it he wore a black T-shirt, not a white polyester shirt and stodgy tie you saw so often in this area.
    She waved and he responded with a charming smile.
    He walked up to her. “Marissa? I’m Dale.”
    A firm grip. She gave him back one equally firm.
    He sat next to her at the bar and ordered a glass of Pinot Noir. Sniffed it with pleasure then clinked his glass to hers.
    They sipped.
    “I wasn’t sure if you’d be late,” she said. “Sometimes it’s hard to get off work when you want to.”
    Another sniff of wine. “I pretty much control my own hours,” he said.
    They chatted for a few minutes and then went to the hostess’s stand. The woman showed them to the table he’d reserved. A moment later they were seated next to the window. Spotlights on the outside of the restaurant shone down into the gray water; the sight troubled her at first, thinking about Jonathan in the deadly ocean, but she forced her thoughts away and concentrated on Dale.
    They made small talk. He was divorced and had no children, though he’d always wanted them. She and Jonathan hadn’t had children either, she explained. Talking about the weather in Maine, about politics.
    “Been shopping?” he asked, smiling. Nodding at the pink-and-white-striped bag she’d set beside her chair.
    “Long underwear,” she joked. “It’s supposed to be a cold winter.”
    They talked some more, finishing a bottle of wine, then had one more glass each, though it seemed to her that she drank more than he did.
    She was getting tipsy. Watch out here, girl. Keep your wits about you.
    But then she thought about Jonathan and drank down the glass.
    Near ten P.M. he looked around the emptying restaurant. He fixed her with his eyes and said, “How about we go outside?”
    Marissa hesitated. Okay, this is it, she thought toherself. You can leave, or you can go out there with him.
    She thought of her resolution, she thought of Jonathan.
    She said, “Yes. Let’s go.”
    Outside, they walked side by side back to the deserted park she’d sat in earlier.
    They came to the same bench and she nodded at it and they sat down, Dale close beside her. She felt his presence—the nearness of a strong man, which she hadn’t felt for