Homecoming

by Janet Wellington

“And she won. Sara’s like a dog with a bone—she pretty much gets what she goes after. And she’s about to have a baby, actually. Any day, now.” Cory started filling up one side of the porcelain double sink with hot water and dish soap.

  Jake didn’t reply, but got up and grabbed a cotton dishtowel from the counter to dry the dishes as she washed them.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said.

  “Look, Cory. You don’t have to be so formal with me. We’re going to have to relax a little around each other. I’m going to live here, you know.”

  She shot him a glance, but didn’t answer. With him what seemed like only inches away from her right hip, she could feel the heat radiating from his body as he took a dripping dish from her hand. She didn’t like the way his close proximity made her feel all mushy and...well, young. Three months...only ninety days. She could certainly do ninety days...somehow the thought of days sounded so much shorter than months.

  “So, am I supposed to check your almighty lists for what needs to be done, is that it?” This time he definitely sounded like he was teasing.

  “Why don’t you just tell me what you’d rather work on, and I’ll adjust my list. Not everyone can see the big picture like you, Jake Randall. This binder has helped me deal with all that needed to be done after Tillie died. You should have been here and seen this place six weeks ago when I...” Her voice faded when she saw the storm clouds gather in his blue eyes, sure what he had heard was: six weeks ago when you should have been here.

  “I think I’m finished here,” he said. “I’ll change and then go outside and start working on the yard. I think I can find the tools I need. I could use some fresh air.”

  Jake handed her the dishtowel and turned to leave the room. She sighed. It wasn’t a great start, and she should have been more sensitive. It must have been such a shock for him to have learned about his great-aunt and then to have all his own plans dashed, forced to stay where he clearly didn’t want to stay.

  She vowed to do better the next time they were together, but she also vowed to try to keep a little more physical distance between them so she didn’t have to keep dealing with her pounding heart.

  ***

  Jake stood in front of the shabby wooden garden shed and pulled the door handle, which promptly came off in his hand. Great. By the looks of it, he’d need to rebuild most of the shed if it was to be of any real good as storage. Termites and dry rot had taken a pretty good toll on the small building.

  After trying to squeeze his fingers into the door frame to pull the door open, he finally gave up and retrieved the jack handle from his car, using it like a crowbar. The door actually came off its hinges as he pried it open, and when he peered inside, he saw an awful lot of daylight streaming in. Studs would need to be replaced and new pieces of plywood would need to be used to replace some of the walls.

  A jumble of yard tools were piled in one corner and finally he spotted the leaf rake. He took it and an empty trash can to the front yard. He started by gently raking the mulched flower beds that bordered the front of the house, knowing the dozens of tulip bulbs and daffodils Tillie had always kept planted there.

  Pointed green leaves had pushed several inches up and through the dark soil and he pulled the dead leaves away from the wider leafed tulips that, in just a couple of miraculous weeks, would produce stems, then bright red flowers.

  Tillie had insisted on only red tulips, and all the flower beds had been organized in a specific palate of color—no wonder she’d liked Cory. They were two of a kind with their lists and rules.

  He’d not been that surprised to see Cory’s notebook in the kitchen. She had always attacked any project they’d worked on together in high school with a systematic approach that had just about driven him crazy at times. They were opposites in that way. He had the ability to see the big picture, preferring to fly by the seat of his pants rather than be tied to a detailed step-by-step list she’d insisted on keeping even then.

  His creative juices would start flowing at the beginning of one of Mr. Foster’s assignments, and she’d write down all their brainstorming onto neat little pages, filling notebook after notebook for the class. The teacher had paired them at the beginning of their senior year and Jake had been a little uncomfortable at first. Especially since Cory had already approached him, and her seeming to be interested in being more than just friends.

  Cory had even mentioned at one point how it had seemed like fate brought them together. He had been quick to correct her, reminding her Foster had said the pairs had been random. In response, she’d tipped her chin at him then, just like she’d done in Weismann’s office, her stubborn streak plainly showing.

  Jake leaned on his rake and looked around the yard, evaluating the amount of work to be done. He could probably spend the entire three months outside—between rebuilding the shed, cleaning and oiling the tools, mucking out the flower and vegetable beds, pruning the trees and bushes, painting. And maybe it would be better if they stayed away from each other. He certainly didn’t like the way he felt around her. Cory Wells—Richards—needed to stay firmly a part of his history, and besides, he had absolutely no intention of returning to any part of his past.

  Whatever they had shared was over. He hadn’t been good for her then, and he was willing to wager that nothing had really changed.

  ***

  Cory looked out her bedroom window and down to the part of the yard where Jake had been working. The breeze had stilled and with the sun shining from a cloudless sky, he’d taken off his red-and-black flannel shirt. His muscles worked as he dragged leaves into haphazard piles, stopping every so often to scoop them into a trashcan.

  She remembered the first time she’d seen him without a shirt. He’d been alone and running the track, letting off steam, he’d explained. The work his father made him do around the house plus his after school job at the plant had begun to put muscles where she’d imagined they should be...on a man’s body. To her Jake had always been a strange mix of boy and man. Now there was no mix. His solid muscular build was testament to that.

  Jake’s skin was already reddening and she was fairly certain he hadn’t bothered with sunscreen.

  She walked to the bathroom and pulled a bottle of SPF 30 sunblock out of the medicine cabinet and went downstairs.

  “You’re getting red. You should put this on.” She held the bottle out, staying at her spot on the porch.

  Jake looked up from his work, squinting in the bright sun. A trickle of sweat traveled down his cheek and he wiped it away as he walked toward her, stopping with one foot resting on the bottom step.

  “Thanks, you’re right. I haven’t been out in the sun this much in years.” He took the bottle and squeezed a generous portion into his hand, then handed her the bottle. He quickly spread the lotion over his arms and chest. “Do my back?” he asked, then turned around without waiting for an answer.

  She bit her lower lip, then squeezed a pool of white into the palm of her hand. She was doing him a favor, saving him from a bad sunburn. But the thought of running her hands over his back still made unwanted butterflies take flight in her already jumpy stomach.

  What was the matter with her? She’d touched him before, even rubbed sunscreen on him before...so what if it had been over a decade. She put the bottle on the railing, then stepped down a step as she rubbed her palms together to warm the lotion.

  Then she held her breath.

  She spread the sunscreen in slippery circles over his wide shoulders, down to his trim waist, then up again to make sure the back of his neck was sufficiently covered.

  Smoothing the lotion over his skin was doing terrible things to the butterflies in her stomach and before she passed out from the lack of oxygen, she stopped, and took a fresh breath.

  “There,” she pronounced. “I’ll let you get back to your work.”

  Quickly she grabbed the bottle, then wiped one hand on her arm so she could manage the door and, without looking back, went upstairs. After
she’d returned the sunscreen to its place in the medicine chest she went back to her bedroom window.

  Jake was still standing with his back to the house, rubbing excess lotion into the skin of his arms and chest. She watched as his shoulders seemed to involuntarily shudder and she wondered if he’d felt something too when she’d touched him.

  I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.

  Hippolyte Taine

  Chapter 4

  Jake had awakened and gotten up before Cory for once, heading to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. He’d discovered she was still a morning person, while he was barely civil until his third cup of joe. Even as a teen he’d had to have his morning caffeine; then it was Mountain Dew, his goal to get at least one down before first period.

  He and Cory had settled into somewhat of a routine over the last couple of weeks, though more than once he’d almost run smack into her in the hallway coming back from the bathroom in the middle of the night. They’d ended up sharing the upstairs one because the downstairs toilet needed some professional plumbing help, and Faythe’s only plumber was booked for weeks.

  The last time he’d met her in the hallway, she’d been wearing a blue robe, and he wondered if she had finally figured out her nightgowns were revealing more than she realized.

  A glimpse of the last nightgown had kept him awake for an hour as he’d tried to banish the vision of her standing in the moonlight in the satiny pink material held up by tiny straps—more like threads—and how the tops of her breasts were nicely rounded above the low neckline. Her creamy skin had gleamed in the soft light.

  The blue flannel robe was a big help.

  They would usually work all morning, and then—if his cell phone wouldn’t scare up a signal, which was the case ninety percent of the time—he’d go into town so he could check in at the office. Luckily, there was always cell service at The Java Hut, and he’d easily gotten hooked on that extra cup of coffee he’d have while he made a few calls.

  At first he’d called almost every day, checking in with Margie—who assured him all was well and he needed to stop calling—and then with his boss, who also insisted things were fine. When Jake had first mentioned he needed to extend his vacation, his boss all but ordered him to use some of his accrued vacation. And he’d reminded him that Rod would handle the Stuart account if anything couldn’t wait until Jake returned at the end of July.

  That comment had just about sent him through the roof and when they’d finished settling on a return date, he’d asked his boss to transfer him back to his admin assistant. Margie, too, had been delighted at his absence, citing his workaholic schedule was going to send him to an early grave or, at the very least, to the hospital with a bleeding ulcer.

  “Look at it as a positive,” she urged. “We’ll be okay here and I’ll keep an eye on Rod and keep you posted. Your email working yet?”

  “Nah. The wireless service here is pretty spotty. Half the stuff I’ve tried to send you either deletes itself while I’m working or bounces back. It’s like this town is possessed by techno-gremlins.”

  “I’ll check your email, then, and take care of what I can and put the rest into new Outlook folders. You’re just going to have to find a way to slow down, Jake. There’s more to life than being the next ‘Veep’ of Think Tank, you know.”

  “Marge, I need meetings,” he said in an exaggerated cartoonish whine. “I need arguments and discussions and brainstorming. I need your meeting recap notes and your wonderfully strong coffee. I need—”

  “You need,” she interrupted, then paused for emphasis, “to do exactly what you’re doing right now.”

  He’d closed his eyes for a moment and listened to the unsympathetic silence on the other end of the phone. He was getting no help from his right hand, so he gave up. “Okay, Marge, I surrender. I’ll call you once a day and check in. You can give me the Rod-update, and I’ll be a good boy.”

  “If you call me every day I’ll go crazy, Jake. Call me once a week. And just try to have a nice time. It’s healthy to be nostalgic once in a while, you know.”

  “Bite your tongue. And while you’re at it, bite Rod’s tongue too.”

  She’d groaned. “Ask me to pinch off his head and I just might. That man’s never up to any good, if you ask me. Goodbye, Jake. I’ll talk with you in a few days.

  He hated not being able to be in touch, but when Jake had complained to Cory, she’d shrugged at the lack of cell service in the house. How could she exist without putting a phone line in? But it seemed that for anything and everything he’d questioned so far, her answer was the same. It was what Tillie had wanted. How was he supposed to argue with that? Did she know how successfully she diffused his irritation with her simple reply?

  So, just for spite, that morning he’d made the coffee twice as strong as she usually did, and he was already on his third cup and zooming into his day. With two of Cory’s freshly baked monster-sized apple walnut muffins wrapped up in a napkin, he headed for the attic. And he didn’t care if cleaning the attic wasn’t on her friggin’ list.

  ***

  Cory awoke to heavy footsteps on the floor above her head. She looked up at her ceiling, following the noises. Then she heard what sounded like something being dragged along the uneven floorboards. Finally silence.

  Jake was up awfully early. Maybe he was having trouble sleeping. Good. She didn’t want to be the only one. She’d already read the books Sara had recommended she take home from the library, glad for the escape they provided, and glad to concentrate on the printed page rather than the sounds of Jake in the room next door.

  Leona shifted her small body on the pillow next to hers and she reached up with one hand to rub the kitten’s rump, which immediately started her purring.

  Amber and Oscar jumped down from the bed the minute Cory moved, disappearing out the door she’d left ajar so the cats could come and go during the night.

  She gave up her attempts to get back to sleep and instead showered, ate a light breakfast, then climbed the stairs that led to the attic to see what Jake was up to. It had been pretty quiet for a while.

  “Finding anything interesting?”

  Jake looked up, the open surprise on his face revealed he had been so lost in thought he must not have heard her come up the stairs. He glanced at his watch. “I can’t believe I’ve been up here so long looking at this stuff.”

  He was sitting in an old rocking chair, surrounded by open, dusty cardboard boxes. To one side of him was a large black trunk with leather straps still securing the lid closed. That must have been what she’d heard him dragging. It looked heavy; something someone in Tillie’s family must have brought with them from Europe, perhaps.

  “You ever look at any of this stuff before?” she asked as she pulled over a three legged stool to sit in front of him.

  He shook his head no. “I didn’t know Tillie was such a pack rat.”

  Cory smiled. “Tillie would have preferred collector, I think.” He rewarded her with a large smile of his own which brought an immediate softening to his features.

  “Okay...collector. I was just looking at these old photos. I guess I’m not the only one who just throws them in a box. No, I bet you have all yours in albums and scrapbooks, right?”

  She grinned mischievously. “Like I would even tell you.”

  “Take a look at this one.” Jake held out a black and white photo.

  She took it from him and stared at the young girl who looked maybe three or four; she was holding a balloon in one hand and a woman’s hand in the other. The woman had blond hair set in a 1950s pageboy style, her full-skirted dress was cinched at the waist with a matching fabric belt, and she wore shiny black pumps.

  “I think the little girl might be my mom,” he said.

  “How old was your mom when she had you?”

  “Early twenties, I think.”

  She did the math in her head. “Your mom would have been three or four in t
he early fifties, I’m guessing. So the woman in the photo is dressed in the right style. It fits.”

  “My mom looked a lot like that woman,” he said, taking back the photo and examining it more closely. “I never knew my grandmother.”

  “Tillie’s sister?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you find any pictures of yourself at that age? Do you look like your mom or your dad?” As he glanced up at her, just a hint of a scowl formed; his eyes clouded for just an instant, then cleared.

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Not yet.”

  She nodded at him, then reached for an old stationery box that was filled with color photos. She went through them as he continued with the box that was in his lap.

  She wondered if he’d avoided the box on purpose because it was obviously filled with baby pictures, obviously of him. Even as an infant, Jake had had a full head of golden hair. He looked like an angel.

  “Here’s the first one I remember of Aunt Tillie and me.”

  She looked up at the photo he held for her to see. Tillie was dressed in a yellow flowered dress covered by the red gingham apron that still hung on a wooden hook next to the stove. Cory loved wearing it while she baked; it had become important to keep a piece of Tillie in the kitchen.

  “Aw, you’re cute,” she said, looking more closely at the photo. Jake looked about ten, fair-haired, shirt too tight for his growing body, knobby knees sticking out below denim cut-offs. He smiled the typical fake grin of a boy hamming it up on cue for the camera. “Do you remember who took the photo?”

  “Not really. Not my old man, though. He never came over here. He and Aunt Tillie were not, as they say, on speaking terms.”

  “Why?”

  Jake rubbed his mouth and her gaze lingered on his full lips for a moment. His habit of rubbing his mouth was very familiar, something he did unconsciously when he was about to begin a difficult conversation. She’d learned to watch for it in high school.

  He hadn’t talked much about his childhood or his family during that year they were together in high school. He’d refused to answer any questions about any of it, so she’d let it alone. He’d also forbidden her to meet his father, or even to go to his house.