My Very Best Friend

by Cathy Lamb

  Toran and I sat out on his deck and watched the sun go down over the hills while we drank wine and ate cheese and crackers. We played Scrabble. “I thought playing a word game might inspire your words.” I started to sniffle. “Are you going to cry again, Charlotte? It’s okay if you do. But let me get the tissues.... One moment, luv. . . .”

  The kitchen and family room walls were painted a light yellow, my parents’ bedroom light blue, and the other bedrooms and the loft white. All the ceilings were painted white, too.

  Toran and I made pancakes for dinner. He cut the pancakes into letters. “To make writing edible.” My chin wobbled. My lower lip shook. “There, there,” he said. “Here’s a tissue. I’m keeping them in two places downstairs now, luv. . . .”

  A new, white claw-foot tub went in upstairs in my bathroom, as did a pedestal sink. I lay down in the tub. Toran and I could fit together. It would be tight. I liked tight.

  Toran treated me to an Italian lunch one day, then a Japanese dinner another day, in the village.

  “I’ve heard that it’s important to put food in your manuscripts. So people can taste it with you. . . . Didn’t mean to do this again, luv, more tears . . . Here, would a napkin do?”

  I had saved my mother’s chandelier that had still been hanging over the kitchen table and cleaned it off. It sparkled, though I’d had to buy a number of new crystals. The Stanleys hung it with appropriate ceremony and reverence. “This is where your grandma often made her Scottish Second Sight predictions, according to my mother,” Stanley I said. “Always right, she was, though it was a wee jumbled up.”

  Toran and I played chess until two in the morning. He won twice, I won once. I am a satisfactory chess player. I have two pen pals with whom I communicate about chess and chess moves, but he is more victorious sixty-six percent of the time.

  “Chess is a brain activator, isn’t it, Charlotte? Thought it might take your mind off the writing worries, luv. . . .”

  He is an incredible member of the male species. Total man.

  My house was days away from being done.

  I would be able to move in soon.

  I didn’t want to move. That was the truth. I liked Toran’s.

  Sadness, like liquid loneliness, crept in. I was familiar with liquid loneliness. I liked it less now than before.

  I fell in love with Toran when I was a teenager. It hit all of a sudden.

  I had grown up with him. He was the older brother of my best friend. He and I, Bridget and Pherson, were Clan TorBridgePherLotte. Secret handshakes, chants. Battling invading alien armies and marauding giants united us.

  As we grew older we didn’t play our imaginary games anymore, but we were still together, running through the meadows, into the sea, laughing, talking. My father called us The Gang of Four. We hung out at my house and Pherson’s, sneakily getting Pherson and Bridget together to avoid Carney’s wrath.

  Toran and I talked all the time. I told him everything. I told him anything. I told him about the stories I wrote in my journals. I told him how I loved butterflies. I told him that I loved science, and we talked about space, geology, the history of the earth, time travel, black holes, and biology. Endlessly. I told him I was scared of his father. I told him I felt sorry for his mother because she seemed scared.

  I listened to him. His fury at his father. How he felt after Carney hit him one day, and he hit his father back so hard, his dad crashed against the wall. His father screamed at Toran to kneel on the floor and pray, then he took off his belt. Toran refused. His father came after him again, swinging the belt, and Toran knocked him out cold. His father didn’t hit him again.

  I listened to Toran talk about his anger at his mother for not protecting him or Bridget, for her constant, life-numbing drinking.

  I often saw Toran protecting Bridget, putting her behind him, as their father raged at her for some minute infraction. Her skirt, he bellowed one time, that dent in his head shiny red, was too short. “I won’t have other men thinking Carney Ramsay’s daughter is a whore!”

  Toran and I were best friends, laughing and goofing off one day, and then, when I was fifteen, we were more. We were at my house. My parents were on a date in the village, at dinner, and he pulled me close and kissed me.

  My teenage self almost went up in flames. That one kiss turned into more kisses, and pretty soon he was on top of me and my legs were wrapped around his waist on our couch. When we heard my parents’ car pull up, we broke apart, scrambled up, buttoned up, settled down, and said hello.

  We smiled at my parents, and luckily my mother had had too much to drink. My father carried her into the house, said a hearty hello to the both of us, and kept singing a Scottish love song about passion and disgrace as she giggled. He followed her into bed. The springs squeaked.

  And that was that. The start of Toran and me.

  He kissed me good night. That was a crazy kiss, too.

  We knew that Pherson and Bridget were already together, despite Carney’s possessive wrath, and that night I couldn’t have been happier. I remember it as one of the happiest moments of my life.

  Bridget and I laughed and giggled. We drew our wedding dresses, Bridget’s gown a work of wedding dress art. I had her draw mine, too, as her drawings were better. We thought we’d all be together forever and our kids would be best friends, Clan TorBridgePherLotte Number Two.

  Not too long after that, Toran and I were saying good-bye, our tears running into our kiss, and I thought I’d never see him again.

  I drove by my cottage the next evening. The men Toran had hired had laid sod, front and back, and the grass added color, structure, and a place to read books.

  On one hand, it hurt me to be here, my father and grandparents gone, my mother on another continent, my life on an isolated island in the Pacific.

  Yet it lifted me, too. I had happy memories of this house, Scotland, Bridget, Toran, and Pherson.

  I could see the undulating green hills, Toran’s sprawling farm, tractors and red barns in the distance, and the far meadow, filled with narcissi. The blue-gray sea waited beyond that.

  I could feel that Highland wind, a dash of salt, a sip of mint tea.

  But I belonged in America.

  Didn’t I?

  Or did I belong in Scotland?

  I belong to Clan Mackintosh. I grew up listening to Scottish legends and the stories my father told of our brave, warrior ancestors, both men and women. I grew up listening to Scottish music, bagpipes, fiddles, and harps and dancing the traditional Highland dances, wearing kilts. I grew up going to the Scottish games watching men throw rocks and logs, pipe competitions, and hundreds of bagpipers playing at once in the parade of massed bands. I grew up listening to my father playing “Scotland the Brave.”

  I am half Scottish. Half Irish and Italian. Yet full-blooded American, too.

  Clan Mackintosh.

  I heard bagpipes in the distance, a soulful echoing.

  The notes of the bagpipes blended with my memories of my father. I felt him hug me, his red beard tickling my face.... I heard him telling me an enchanting story about tiny faeries who lived in the ruins of the cathedral.... I heard his booming laugh.... He picked me up and twirled me around in our garden.... He told me to listen to his mother, the seer, for she could tell the future.... I heard him say, “I love you, lass. I’ll always love you. . . .”

  The bagpipes faded, a blast, then a note at a time, drifting off on puffs of wind, to be caught in the branches of the oak trees, the wings of the butterflies, the stems of the bluebells and daffodils. I took a deep breath.

  I would stay for a spell in this mysterious land with the whispering wind and the endless ocean, the legends of my ancestors and the spirits of my family.

  I would stay until I could seduce Toran into some bed gymnastics. If he didn’t want me, wanted only friendship, and started dating a blond bomb, I’d leave. Seeing him with another woman would be worse than having bagpipes thrown in my face a hundred times, worse than never s
eeing him.

  I would try not to run over the blond bomb with the truck Toran had lent me.

  That would take some effort and restraint.

  Damn. I was a woman I didn’t want to be. Waiting to see how a man would react, what he wanted. I hated giving up control of my own mind and emotions to someone else, but it’s not like I can force him to want me.

  On the positive side, it was a charming cottage and my mother’s garden did need work.

  “Your house is almost done,” Toran said. We were walking along the ocean after Toran had taken me to a French restaurant in town for dinner. We’d had ratatouille, hot bread, wine, and chocolate éclairs. We left our shoes in the sand, the sun scooting down to the left, ocean on our right.

  “It is.” I unbuttoned one button on my blue blouse with pink stripes because I was heating up beside Toran. In the process of unbuttoning, I somehow knocked my glasses off. Toran reached down and handed them to me. He took my breath away. Biologically speaking it’s not possible, but it sure felt true.

  “I wish it wasn’t, Char.”

  “Why?” My chest tightened. It hurt at the thought of moving out.

  He took a second to answer, then stopped and turned toward me. “Because I like having you around.”

  “I like living with you, too”—so much, you macho stud—“but I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”

  “You could never do that.”

  “You’ve let me stay for weeks.” Can I stay for decades?

  “I’ve wanted you to stay. I was offended when you asked me not once, lass, but twice about moving to a bed-and-breakfast.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to . . . crowd you.” I kicked the water with my feet. The oceans had been here for billions of years, frozen, melting, frozen, melting. How many tears from lovestruck people had fallen into their waves? “I’m glad I stayed with you.”

  “Me too. I wish you were staying longer.” His voice caught. “Maybe I’ll tell the Stanleys to slow down.”

  I laughed, but I thought, Please, do. Tell them to accidentally blow the roof off or cut the kitchen cabinets in half with a chain saw.

  “I’ll be down the road, Toran.”

  “Not the same.”

  No, it wouldn’t be the same. I wanted to wake up and see him, see him before I went to sleep. “We’ll visit.”

  “All the time.”

  “Is that a promise, King Toran?” My feet grew cold in the water. I wondered where the water had been, where the currents had swept it to. Had another couple, one desperately in love with the other, maybe in Russia or China or the Netherlands, walked in this same water?

  “It is. I don’t break my promises, Queen Charlotte.”

  “I know you don’t.”

  He never did, never had. When we were younger, if Toran said we were all going to meet, we met. If he said he was going to take care of a bully at school who was bothering Bridget or me, he took care of it. If he said he was going to fix my bike or my wagon, or one time my sandal, as the sole had come off, he fixed it.

  “We can still meet for dinner, Char.”

  “And chess.”

  “And to talk books.”

  “And your farm, and I’ll be seeing you because I’m doing the bookkeeping.”

  “Aye.” He sighed. “I thank you for that. You’re a genius.”

  “I like numbers. They’re addictive.” For example, the numbers here. How many women had watched the sun set on one side of the earth and watched the ocean on the other side and wondered if they would live forever without the man they loved and lusted after?

  “I’ll miss your Scotch lamb chump.”

  “I’ll make it for you.”

  “I’ll miss talking to you, Char.” He blinked rapidly.

  “Me too.” I choked up and turned away.

  Where did the puff of wind off the waves come from that was now cooling my hot face? Had it swept by another woman whose heart was aching? Had it rattled the windows of a lonely widow? Had it swept by a war, a broken romance, a kiss?

  “I’m sorry that Bridget isn’t here, but your living in my home brought light to my life.”

  “You turned the light on for me, too.” What a trite thing to say. “I mean. What is . . . I liked living with . . . you in the light. With you.” I let myself drown in that face. His hard-jawed face, the lines crinkling from the corners of his eyes, the blueness. His cheekbones had a touch of red to them.

  Was there more here than I thought? I am bad with men, bad with men’s signals, bad with being sexy and seductive. If I tried being sexy and seductive, I would probably look like a drunk coyote in heat.

  Toran hadn’t even tried to kiss me. That, to me, said he was not interested in me as anything more than a friend. Friend zone, that’s where I was. Wretched place.

  Was I supposed to make the first move, ask him to lie down here and make love to me in the sand?

  I couldn’t do that. What if he was repelled, like the wrong ends of magnets?

  What if he thought it was like having his sister kiss him? That would be incestuous.

  What if he was so put off, he avoided me altogether? I’d have to move back to my island in Washington by four o’clock, to avoid mortal, repetitive humiliation.

  Please, Toran, I thought, kiss me. Tell me. Put one hand on my breast and one hand over my buttocks and make it clear what you want.

  I will miss you if I move back to my island, Toran. My tears will drop into the ocean and maybe one day they will reach the coast of Scotland.

  I have always missed you.

  We picked up our shoes on the way back and didn’t say another word, the ocean beckoning us back when we started up the crooked path.

  I picked up the newspaper in town after I left Estelle’s Chocolate Room.

  ST. AMBROSE DAILY NEWS

  FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY

  OF MISSING PRIEST

  Part Two

  By Carston Chit, Reporter

  Another mystery behind Father Cruickshank’s disappearance from St. Cecilia’s Catholic School for Girls are the rhymes that the children here in St. Ambrose sing. Who wrote them? When did they start? Are they true? Who believes them? Who doesn’t and why?

  Was Angus Cruickshank murdered?

  Were You Ever True

  Father Cruickshank, Father Cruickshank,

  Were you ever true?

  Father Cruickshank, Father Cruickshank,

  Whatever did you do?

  Father Cruickshank, Father Cruickshank,

  Where’d you run and hide?

  Father Cruickshank, Father Cruickshank,

  Do they know you lied?

  The Man in the Frock

  A man came to town one day

  Wearing the holy frock.

  He blessed us all, and laid us down

  Then took out his shrivelly cock.

  A man came to town one day

  Wearing the holy frock.

  God saw his sins, and cursed this man

  While the victims cried in shock.

  A man came to town one day

  Wearing the holy frock.

  He hurt the girls, one by one.

  Keep the secret or you’ll be clocked.

  Father Cruickshank, Where Are You?

  Oh, Father Cruickshank

  What happened to you?

  You ran off so quick,

  You and your dirty dick.

  Oh, Father Cruickshank

  Were you killed?

  Who did it, we cried.

  We’ll give them a pie.

  Oh, Father Cruickshank

  My sister you attacked

  Come forth, come back,

  We’ll nail you to a rack.

  Bam, bam, bam!

  I felt ill. I dropped my extra-large-size box of chocolates. I felt a rush of fury so thick, I’m surprised I didn’t spontaneously combust.

  If Angus had been killed, who would have done it?

  I grabbed a pen and my list book out of my b
ag and wrote “List of People Who Could Have Killed Father Angus Cruickshank.”

  1. Toran.

  2. Bridget. She would have been young, and hurting people isn’t in her personality, but she had every reason to go after him.

  3. Carney or Bonnie Ramsay, one or the other, possibly both.

  4. Chief Constable Ben Harris. He would have been enraged at the thought of a man attacking girls. Perhaps he went to investigate and things got carried away?

  5. Pherson. He loved Bridget.

  6. Another girl Angus attacked, or her brothers, mother, uncles, or especially her father.

  7. One of the nuns at St. Cecilia’s who knew what was going on.

  Clearly, there were many possibilities.

  I hoped he suffered.

  10

  When my mother took Bridget and me to the village of St. Ambrose, she would let us walk down the cobblestone streets without her. We would always meet at Sandra’s Scones and Treats Bakery.

  Bridget and I would peer into the shops, filled with fabrics and yarn, sweets and cakes, gifts and antiques. We would explore the children’s section of the bookstore, where my mother would buy us one treasured book each and check out books at the library.

  We could not envision a more exciting future than living in the middle of St. Ambrose. We would live together and have a lot of cats, we decided. She would also have a pet monkey, and I would have a pet lion. She would draw all day and I would do science experiments.