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So, when Ashlie came along four years later, the work on the shack nearly complete, he was ready to get serious.
Ashlie Thebideux was the English teacher at Saint Anthony Padua High School. Like Adam, she’d also been a student there, a freshman when he was a senior. The daughter of a logging swamper, Ashlie attended the private Catholic school on a scholarship from the archdiocese.
The full-time teaching position had become available just as her student teaching semester ended. The nuns had tried unsuccessfully to fix her up with the dashing physics teacher, but she let them know right from the start that she wasn’t interested.
Adam Spencer was handsome and friendly, but despite his position as the son of the wealthy grocer in town, he was nothing more than a small-town teacher. Ashlie wanted more out of her life than living in a backwater like Cypress Cove, a place she longed from which to escape.
When they’d offered Ashlie a full-time teaching job, the nuns hoped she’d give Adam a chance. But the answernohad the additional caveat…
“I’m engaged to my—aplastic surgeon,” she’d said.
To the nuns’ delight, something happened to the doctor between Ashlie’s college graduation and the next September. When the school year got underway, an obvious switch in the atmosphere took place and suddenly, she was interested in Adam, and where before there was no attraction, she now had instant chemistry. The entire staff made it their goal to see that Ashlie and Adam got together and when they finally made it public that they were a couple around Christmastime, everyone was overjoyed.
They looked perfect together too; the tall, dark, and handsome Adam with a build on him that even the nuns noticed. “He has thighs like alabaster, his body the Cedars of Lebanon,” Sister Mary Catherine confided in a whisper. Admonished by her colleague Sister Agnes, Mary quoted the Scripture verse. “What? It’s Song of Solomon 5:15!”
Ashlie was gorgeous. Radiant was a word used to describe her, with a flawless complexion, huge blue eyes, and full lips. In the months Adam and Ashlie were together, he never saw her look unkempt. The exterior Ashlie was perfection.
They looked good together in a superficial way. Ashlie hated blue jeans and casual clothing, Adam’s basic wardrobe, which meant every date was a dress-up occasion.
“Don’t you just want to laze around occasionally?” he’d asked.
“I don’t even get gas in my car without full makeup,” she admitted. “What if I run into someone I know?”
Ashlie was insatiable, too, and the first weeks together were a whirlwind of sexual exploration for Adam, with Ashlie as his instructor. After a month of it though, he was getting bored, and that made him examine his motives. What was wrong with him? He had a gorgeous, bordering on nymphomaniac girlfriend, and all he really wanted was for her to share a hobby.
“Do you want to go kayaking?” he had asked when he didn’t think he could perform again, even with drugs.
“I don’t like any kind of water sports,” she said, pointing to her hair.
“How about a game of Scrabble? You’ll beat my pants off.”
“I hate board games,” she said. “I’ll play strip poker, though. You got a deck of cards?”
One important touchy issue—Ashlie hated where Adam lived. The first time she visited him there, he tried not to let his feelings get hurt when she flared her nostrils and grimaced, looking around the place like it was a hovel.
“I’m sorry, but I would never live in the swamp. I’ve spent my life trying to get as far away from the swamp as possible. I don’t want to be reminded of my roots.”
“Look at how nice it is inside, though,” he said, trying to placate her, but she wasn’t moved.
“I hate the smell of old cypress,” she complained. “It reminds me of cat piss. No.”
When they were together, it was always at her polished apartment in a new building in Saint John’s Parish.
Her parents loved him, the son of the Spencer’s Grocery Store dynasty—did they really call it a dynasty?—and college educated.
His parents thought she was a little snooty. “What?” Paulina asked when Adam explained why they wouldn’t spend any of the holidays in Cypress Cove. “She too good for it?”
He didn’t want to say yes, but shewaskind of too good for it.
“Nah, it’s not that. She wants to be with her friends in New Orleans.”
“Is that where you want to spend it?” they asked.
“I’ll divide my time between you and Ashlie,” Adam said, kissing his mother.
By the end of Lent, a crack in the perfect surface of their relationship appeared. The plan was to spend Easter weekend and spring break together. On Good Friday, with only a half day of school to get through, she made a confession. The spot she broke the news was in the hallway outside of the library.
He saw her walking by and ducked out.
