I Left The Cake Out In The Rain

I got down on the first, which was a Monday. I had been vacationing here the month of October for the past few years. The snowbirds had started to migrate, but it was before the crush of season. I rented the house at the end of Wightman Lane. I got a deal from the owner. He was a friend of Zack’s. He was an airline pilot. He came down the first of November. I always left the place well stocked. He told me he got some interesting people coming to his door looking for Rat. Well, if it worked for him, it worked for me.

The lot was covered with tropical foliage. The house had three bedrooms. Across the gulf-side was a large, screened porch. It had a wet bar in one corner and an outdoor dining table in the other. In front of the bar, there was a seating arrangement with two club chairs. The club chairs faced the water which made them perfect for sunset drinking.

After I got settled in, I went over to Zack and Mary’s house. They had sold the restaurant to two of their employees. The circulation in Zack’s legs hadn’t got any better. They had just returned from a trip to California. We had dinner and shared a couple bottles of wine. They told me about where they had gone and what they had seen.

On Wednesday, Mary left to visit her mother in Charlottesville. She would be gone for five days. Zack and I would have some playtime. He was back into his old ways. He was fun again.

We were sitting at the bar of the Mucky Duck on Thursday late in the afternoon. We had been on the water all day. We both were fried but in a good way. Nothing beats being on the water here. We were fishing but we were also catching. We pulled in three good size black groupers and a kingfish. We also caught a slight buzz drinking one or two cold beers. It was five or six, but nobody likes a “counter”.

It’s hard to describe the feeling you get when you’re coming back. You're zipping through that water with a cooler full of fish. The sun is warm on your back and Jimmy Buffett is in your ears. There's a salty coconut aroma in the air. You’re sun tired and the water around you is so blue. If it’s a real good day like today, a couple of dolphins will be surfing your wake. It was sweet.

We tied up at the dock, washed down the boat, and filleted the fish. We gave the fish to Victor the owner of the Duck. His chef cut them into portions and put aside two nice cuts of grouper for our dinner. We were having a beer at the bar. The Duck didn’t sell liquor. They sold only beer and wine. The sun was almost setting.

As we watched it, Zack said, “Rat, we’ve been friends for a long time, haven’t we?”

“Yes, we have, but I know where you are going with this. We’re not going to stop playing gin. Your lack of skill has become the foundation for my retirement.” We only played for a few dollars, but the bragging rights were a gold mine.

“Don’t worry about that. I’m not giving up yet. That streak of yours has got to end soon.”

“Well, if you would like to try and end it right now, I’m game.”

“After we eat, there’s no rush.” He was quiet for a minute then he said, “Can I ask you a question?”

"Sure.”

“Have you ever had a perfect moment? A moment so perfect you can't put it into words.”

“Yes, when I was catching that big grouper today.”

"Yes, that was good moment but not what I mean. I’m talking about a perfect moment, one that breaks your life into two parts, before it happened and after.”

“Don’t ask me something like that. I'm not good at that touchy-feely shit.”

“Yes, I know. Give it a shot,” he said.

“The problem with a moment like that is you don’t realize it happened until it’s over,” I said.

“And you think it will happen again. And it never does,” he said.

“And then you question whether it happened at all.”

“Yeah…. Forget it.”

“I figure... if it’s that perfect a moment and you talk about it, it’s not so special anymore.”

“You’re right.”

He turned away to watch the sun disappear. I could tell something was bothering him, but I didn’t know what. When he turned back, we returned to more serious discussions, which had to do with fishing or politics. I don’t remember.

We played gin later that night. He didn’t break the streak. I didn’t see him again until sunset on Sunday. He was walking on the beach. I called him over to have a drink. He was slow coming up the steps. He sat in one of the club chairs. He stared out at the water. He had a look that concerned me.

“Zack, where have you been? I went over to the house a couple of times. I couldn’t find you.”

He looked at me and said, “I’ve been with Abby.”

I was at the bar. Hearing what he said, I dropped my glass. “You’ve been with Abby?" I hadn’t heard him say that name in twenty years. "Hang on. I’m going to need a drink for this and so are you.” I poured two doubles of single malt scotch then added one large ice cube to each.

“I’ve always wondered where I was going and when I finally got there if she would be there. I wanted her to be there.”

I shook my head and handed him his glass. “Tell me what happened.”

He took a sip and said, “She lives in Atlanta. She flew down. I rented a place at Casa Ybel. We had dinner and talked. We went for a walk on the beach. Things happened. We ended up spending the weekend together.”

“What exactly do you mean by ‘together’?”

“We were ‘together’ in every sense of the word.”

“My guess is, Mary doesn’t know about this. She’s got an open mind but not quite that open.”

“No, she doesn’t know.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I left the cake out in the rain.”

“What?”

“Jimmy Webb."

“I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t think I’d ever have that recipe again.”

“Now you’re talking crazy. After what Abby did to you, I thought you let go of her a long time ago.”

“Memories don't go away when the other person goes away."

“No, they don't.” I knew that for a fact.

"I've thought about her for 20 years."

"She dumped you. Forget her."

He stood and walked over to the screen and looked out at the water. “I tried... From the first time I saw her until she walked out was the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. How do you forget that?”

“Mary is not going to like this. Women don’t want to hear that another woman makes you happy, especially that kind of happy.”

“I’ve been making Mary unhappy for years.”

“She’s been good for you, Zack.”

“Yes, she has.... I didn’t plan for this to happen. I didn’t know what to do… I missed the feelings…”

“The past is not something you can change. You need to let it go.”

“Yeah.” He looked away for a minute then said, "Did I love her back then?"

“It looked like you loved her. The question you should be asking is, did she love you?”

“She told me she did,” he said.

“People lie, you know.”

“You and I lied a lot. We told a lot of girls we loved them. You knew her. She never told me a lie. Did she ever tell you one?”

“No… She never lied,” I said.

“If the words come too easy, you don’t really mean them. Those words didn’t come easy to her.”

“How in hell did you find her?”

“I sent a letter to her parents. I knew they would get it to her.”

“You kept her parents’ address all these years?”

“It was her old address, her parent's house… We were kids back then."

"You send her one letter, after twenty years, and she agreed to spend the weekend with you? That must have been a hell of a letter."

“No, I’ve been sending letters for a while. I sent the first one four years ago.”

“You’ve been hiding this from Mary for four years?”

"I’ve been hiding stuff from Mary for a lot longer than that.”

I sat down in the chair beside him and looked out at the water. “Zack, you have fucked up. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I do know that when you’re married and you have feelings for someone that's not your wife, you shouldn't be married."

"If you leave Mary, there’s no coming back. She doesn’t work that way."

"I know."

“So, you're going to leave?”

He didn’t say anything for a minute. “I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you see Abby on the side? Mary wouldn’t have to know.”

“She would know. I’m a terrible liar. She would know.”

“Well, you may be a terrible liar, but you’ve kept this from her for four years... or 'a lot longer than that'. Maybe you’re not as bad as you think.”

“Then I would be lying to myself.”

“What did Mary do?”

“Mary has never been happy with me. I don’t fit the mold of her perfect husband. I never will. But to answer your question, she didn’t do anything, I did this all by myself. I always thought all this, all these toys would make me happy. I was wrong.”

"Mary loves you. Why start all over again with Abby?”

“That first night… When I looked into her eyes… There was a look of recognition between us. It was like neither one of us had ever been a stranger to the other... Shit, I can’t explain it. I’ve never been good at words. If I was a college graduate, I'd be good. I’m just a cook.”

“Some cooks see what other cooks don’t. That makes them special. That means something.”

“It does. It means I’m not good with words… Rat… It took less than a minute and we were back there. Like no time had passed at all."

“Damn.” I said as I downed the rest of my drink, got up and poured another. “You want some more?”

“No, I’m going to need a clear head for this. Things never happen the way you think they will.”

“What the hell did you think was going to happen?”

“I thought we broke up because she didn’t love me, but I wasn’t sure. I wanted to meet her, face to face, one more time. Then I would know if things worked out right twenty years ago. Then I could let her go and get on with my life.”

“You're a fucking idiot."

“I know. I didn’t think our feelings could come back... No, I did. There was the letter she wrote after I sent the music."

“The music?”

“Yes.”

I looked over at my old friend. I thought at some point in the last twenty years, in a drunken state, he must have fallen and injured his head. There had been plenty of those drunken states. He had to have amnesia to have forgotten having his guts kicked out twenty years ago. And he must be suffering from Stockholm syndrome to still be in love with the woman who had done it. I was about to have him slapped with the Baker Act when he answered my next question. After that I couldn’t. “Why after twenty years?”

“… She made me laugh… I loved her…. and she always made me laugh.”

“She made you laugh?”

“I was a fool. I thought there were going to be plenty of women like her. I didn’t realize there would only be one. I reached the point where I would have given anything to hear her voice, to smell her hair, to feel her touch, to be with her just one more time. I would have given anything. Haven't you ever...”

He didn’t say another word. He shook his head, set his glass down and walked out the door. A long time ago, I had been a fool too and he knew it.