Say My Name by Allegra Huston

Author:Allegra Huston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin (UK) Ltd
Published: 2017-08-22T04:00:00+00:00

The tangy smells of sedge and salt mingle with the scented steam rising from a mug of fresh thyme tea, which Eve cups in both hands, enjoying the heat soaking into her palms. A bowl of ripe figs sits on the table in front of her. The walls of Barbara’s kitchen are a pale robin’s-egg blue that merges with the sky; Eve imagines that on other days, when the clouds are low and misty, the room blurs into the ocean. The cabinets are made of weathered driftwood, which Barbara collected herself, she told Eve—the remains of wrecked whaling ships and fishing boats, whose sailor ghosts she talks to sometimes.

On the drive to Long Island, Micajah told Eve that he was half in love with Barbara. You’ll see, he said; you will love her too. Eve fought off her jealousy, telling herself that if Barbara was a rival, he would not be bringing her there.

Barbara is beautiful, with loose silvery hair and a wide mouth, lines etched in her skin by years of sun and wind, emotion and thought and laughter. It’s not jealousy Eve feels, but envy. This, she thinks, is who I want to be when I grow up.

“Falling in love! Such a ridiculous idea! Like falling into a pit with sharp stakes at the bottom. And what do you catch when you want someone to fall in love with you? A Heffalump.”

Barbara sautés mushrooms while Micajah slices tomatoes, freshly picked from a small fenced garden, crowded with flowers and vegetables, to one side of the door.

“It took a while, but I finally learned to run away at top speed from any man who was falling in love with me,” Barbara says. “Or me with him. Who wants to fall? So much better to climb into love.”

She pulls a few silver-green leaves of sage from a pot on the windowsill and adds them to the pan.

“The great thing about being seventy-six is that you can aspire to a post-sexual state. Love everybody, but nobody in particular. The secret of happiness. But you have to earn it.”

“With blood and tears?” Micajah asks.

“No, my dear boy. Just with time. By aging. By paying your dues. You must have loved deeply and truly, at least once. Without an agenda, and absolutely without a list of things that need fixing. Have you, Eve? I won’t even ask Micajah, he’s much too young.”

“No. I haven’t.” She gave up wishing Larry was different not out of love, but out of fatigue.

“I hear women talk, and it’s all about what’s wrong with their men. Basically, they’re remedial projects. Like a house. It’s never done. Once you’ve changed the knobs on the kitchen cabinets, the roof is leaking and the plaster has to be patched. And by then you’ve fallen out of love with the bathroom. The problem is this absurd idea that we’re supposed to be monogamous for a lifetime. We’re not penguins! Or is it grebes. How old are you, Eve?”

“Forty-nine in September.”

“Forty-eight,” says Micajah almost simultaneously.

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