My Very Best Friend

by Cathy Lamb

  I. Am. Bad.

  You are my only friend. I think you would be my friend even if you knew, but I am not going to risk it. I am a bad person. A burden. Dirty. Better off gone. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep.

  I remember everything. Everything. Hand on throat. Rip. Pain. Blood. Can’t breathe. Dark. That’s why I scream.

  Where is my daughter? I want my baby back. Legend. I love you, Legend.

  Love you,

  Bridget

  I went outside my cottage and screamed.

  Bridget, where are you? Please come home.

  12

  I worked for about seven hours the next day in the office, reconciling Toran’s accounts with the bank’s statements. I took, and made, many calls. I was getting more and more involved in the farm, and I liked it.

  In the late afternoon, I decided to take a hike into the hills. I passed the graveyard but did not yet go to my father’s grave. I would soon.

  I walked through the meadow, the bluebells and narcissi swaying. I stopped when I came to the viewpoint over Toran’s lands. It had been a rainy night, but the skies were clear, the blue low and pure, scoopable.

  Someone, somewhere, was playing the bagpipes.

  I thought about my writer’s block. Writer’s block can be explained by having a brick stuck in your head where your brain should be. I seriously wondered if I would ever write another book in my life. The words were stuck, the thoughts were stuck, the storyline was stuck.

  The last sentence I wrote, before I left my island, was “Peanut butter sticks to my mouth and makes me feel like I’m choking. McKenzie Rae does not eat sausages because they’re too phallic.”

  Maybe I was done as a writer.

  Am I done?

  Did I want to write more books? I have written nine books. Is that all that’s in me?

  But if I didn’t write, what would I do?

  Go back to research? Work at a university? Teach? Get my doctorate in one of my favorite biology topics?

  The bagpipes blasted a long, haunting note, then went back to a quicker rhythm.

  Could I become a farmer?

  I gazed down at Toran’s fields, the different types of potatoes, the long, endless lines of blueberry bushes, the apple orchards, tended and well cared for.

  I liked tractors. I grew up driving one on our land. I liked building fences. I liked planting and watching crops grow. I liked helping my father and mother to load produce onto trucks where it would be sold at markets all over Scotland. I liked being outside. I liked gardening. Even large-scale gardening.

  I liked being the numbers woman.

  A farmer? Again?

  I smiled. I could so do it, and I’d love it.

  Was I giving up on my dream, though, of being a writer? Was that a dream I had, then accomplished, and now it was time for a new dream? Did I care about being a writer anymore? Was I giving up on my writing career to help a man I was so in love with my brain was now mush?

  The notes of the bagpipes swirled around me, a cocoon of music, the songs of Scotsmen and women, all my relatives, who had come before me, whose shoulders I stood on, who stood on the shoulders of Scotsmen and women before them.

  One final noted sounded, and I thought of my father, playing for my mother, for me.

  I loved it here.

  It felt like home.

  In my books, McKenzie Rae Dean always saves people. Every time. Sometimes it’s one person. Sometimes two. Sometimes it’s a multitude of people.

  Save, save, save.

  I couldn’t save him, but McKenzie Rae, she will save. She will win. She will overcome.

  She is the me I wanted to be when my dad needed saving.

  One would think after all the books I’ve written that I would have worked this part out.

  The saving part.

  I haven’t.

  I looked up at the hills, where he was buried. I would go soon.

  Soon.

  Not yet.

  “Come and sit by me, Charlotte.”

  Toran was sitting on his leather couch. I sat down next to him. I was wearing one of my new skirts, light blue, and a summery top with blue flowers that was cut low enough for my red bra to peep on through.

  When I first arrived at his home that night, we went for a sexual tumble, which ended up with me on his butcher block counter, and then we ate. I did sterilize the counter. Twice. It is important to rid a kitchen of germs, but it absolutely was not going to stop me from having butcher block sex.

  He picked up my hand and kissed it. “I want you to know my intentions, how I feel about us and our future. I don’t want you to leave Scotland. I want you to live here. We can settle out the rest later. I don’t want to push you or make you uncomfortable, or press for something you’re not yet ready to give. We have only been together for a short while, but I cannot imagine my life without my best friend, without my best love, ever again.

  “If you left, after what we’ve had, I think . . .” He paused, and those blue eyes shone bright. “I think I’d hide out in my home. Never wear my kilt. Never participate in the Scottish games. Never look at the sunset. Never shave. My fields would go to rot all because of you, beautiful lady, so I’m afraid I can’t let you go.”

  “Never?”

  “No, lass, never.” He smiled. “If you left I’d have hair to my shoulders, a beard to the floor. I’d be an embarrassment to the Ramsay ancestors. I wouldn’t be able to wear our plaid with pride. I could not look at our family crest without sadness.”

  He kissed me on the lips, tender and sweet.

  “What do you say, Queen Charlotte? Stay with me here in Scotland? Please. Stay.”

  Stay in Scotland. Give up my island house, the whales, the fox, the deer, the birds. My gardens. I loved my home on Whale Island.

  “Yes.”

  His face, which had been worried, tight, stressed, relaxed into hopefulness.

  “Yes, you’ll stay? You’ll make me the happiest man in a kilt ever?”

  “I’ll stay. I need my cats. And their stroller. My science book collection. My model of DNA and my telescope. Teacups my mother bought me.”

  “We’ll fly back together and pack up what you want and need.” He stood up, bowed low and said, “Queen Charlotte, I thank you.”

  I stood and curtsied. “King Toran, it is my pleasure. Thank you for asking.”

  We did a secret handshake, palms together, then back of the hands, then all ten fingers touching. We yelled, “Crusaders against evil forces unite,” and he twirled me around and kissed me.

  Scotland had called me back since I left. This time, I answered the call. Most important, I answered the call of my Scottish Warrior.

  I laughed at myself. That sounded like one of the cheesy, swoony lines out of my books.

  We later tried Against The Wall Sex, my ankles locked around him. It worked out well.

  My father told me the legend of one of our ancestors, Rose “The Loyal” Mackintosh. She was in charge of the Scottish skies at night. At first, everything was black. The only bright spot was the moon, and it shone across the land because of the courage of Blackburn “The Protector” Mackintosh.

  But the sky needed more light. Rose went on an arduous journey, up into the deep, secret forests of Scotland, where few had gone before. Tucked in a back corner, between two rivers, inside a stone cottage, she found the wise woman she had been searching for. “How can we put more light in the sky?” Rose asked.

  The wise woman didn’t answer for a long time, her blue and black tartan wrapped around her shoulders, her hair in a long black braid. “For light, you must fill the sky with love.”

  Rose didn’t know what to do, and the wise woman would say nothing further, so she turned to go home. Along the way she saw a mother kissing her son on the cheek, a sister hugging her sister, two lovers embracing. She understood then what she must do. She asked each of them for a little of their love. Each of them gave her one of their kisses and she placed them in a glass box.


  Rose traveled long and hard across Scotland, gathering kisses. She did not rest. When she was an old, old woman, her back bent, her fingers gnarled, she finally had enough love. One night, on the darkest night of the year, she threw all the kisses up into the blackness. They scattered across the horizon in swirls, arcs, and spirals.

  The kisses lit up the sky with their love. Finally, Rose “The Loyal” Mackintosh rested.

  “When you look up into the night sky,” my father told us, “and you see the stars, think of love.”

  He was a legendary storyteller.

  Dear St. Ambrose Ladies’ Gab, Garden, and Gobble Group,

  We need to plan for our annual fund-raiser, not only what to sell but to whom to donate the money to. Last year it was the library, the year before that the local school. I am thinking of a pig auction. Please write your ideas at the bottom of this letter. Pass it around to the other ladies.

  Olive Oliver

  Ladies Olive and Garden Gollys,

  I am on my third glass of wine and I was thinking of our annual fund-raiser for garden ladies eating ladies club. I know we have not decided on the winner yet, but I was thinking that we need something to bring in more money this time. Spilled my wine.

  We could always sell plants, straight away, that’s a fine dandy idea, but perhaps we could buy white ceramic statues, like cherubs, those fat babies with wings? We could paint them yellow, orange, red, purple, banana, apple colors.

  Wouldn’t that be bright and original? We could add those wobbly eyes you can buy at a craft store spilled more wine and maybe some white feathers for the wings. For people of a more violent nature, we could paint white teeth on the statues with a splattering of blood or for those who like humor, we could turn them into monsters with horns. Spilled my wine. What do you think? Summer garden art with a twisty.

  The Arse has promised the kids a trip to London. I’m going to lose the house because I can’t make the bank payments and off they go. The Slut is apparently paying for it. I don’t know how on her salary. Perhaps she’s going to sell her boobies.

  I will bring my lamb casserole to garden ladies eating ladies club. What do we call ourselves again? Gab and Garble? Garden Goblets? Hoblets? Boblets? Booblets? Can’t remember.

  I am on my fourth glass of wine, but thought I’d share the idea of blood red cherubs with wobbly eyes that bite. Spilled again.

  I’ll give this note to Kenna first because she likes blood.

  Rowena

  Dear Olive and Garden Gobbling Ladies,

  I have an idea for our fund-raiser.

  We could see if Denise’s brother, Mark, could make us, say, fifty clay faces. He has a kiln. Wouldn’t that be lovely to have a clay face in your yard? You could nail the face to a tree trunk, attach a face to a trellis, or hang a face on your fence. A face could even be screwed into the outside wall of your home. Why, when you went out to your yard, you could see all these hanging faces and believe that you had friends, waiting for you. We could call them Clay Face Friends.

  After my work with all the blood and bodily organs during the day, I could use some friends in my yard.

  Do be honest with me, Olive, I am trying to be helpful and think of something creative. Garden Gabbing Club is the only fun thing I do outside of cutting people open and my kids. Sometimes I don’t like either. I’ll pass your note along to Gitanjali. I’m going to buy spices from her today.

  Cheerio.

  Kenna

  PS I’ll bring my Scottish Highland soup that my husband says keeps the hair off his chest. I think he means it’s too spicy. His flatulence would attest to that.

  Dear Ladys,

  I thinkie about fund-raiser. I have idea. We sell exotic plants from other countries. That new word for me. Add international to our garden in Scotland. We call it, “Bringing strangers home” or “Immigrants Coming to Your Yard” or “Foreign people, foreign plants, copulate together.”

  My English, it not always good, so let me know how you think it.

  I be bringing biryani with saffron and dim sum to Gab On Your Garden Groupie on Tuesday night. (I not remember our name. Apologizes.)

  With kindness and love,

  Your friend,

  Gitanjali.

  Dear St. Ambrose Ladies’ Gab, Garden, and Gobble Group,

  I have an idea for our garden club fund-raiser. We could sell plants, as usual, always a precious link between selling plants and a garden group but we could also sell... hold on to your panties . . . garden underwear. This is not a joke! I saw it in a magazine the other day. The panties are rather large, so they don’t rise up your crack, sorry for being crass, but I thought it was a fine idea. I’m going to order some myself. I can’t stand panty creep!

  They come in pink, green, yellow, and white. Some have flowers, like chrysanthemums, bluebells, and ferns, and others have garden hoes and rakes and lawn mowers.

  We could call it the Pick-a-Panty St. Ambrose Ladies’ Gab, Garden, and Gobble Group Fundraiser.

  I’m going to kill Nonie and make a chicken pie for Tuesday night.

  Remember! Sign your name at the bottom and pass this note around. The red is not blood, it’s Rowena’s wine.

  Olive

  Dear Olive,

  I could not believe it when Kenna told me at Estelle’s Chocolate Room that she wanted to make clay faces for the fund-raiser. I have seen Mark’s clay faces. They’re a combination of a drugged witch and a banana, all long like that, just so. I told her that. Kenna is batty. I swear she has a bug in her head. That simply won’t work. No one wants to look at a drugged witch/banana face in their yard. I told her that, too.

  I’ll think of something else. Someone has to do it. It’s always me.

  Mrs. Lorna Lester

  Dear Lorna,

  I understand you thoroughly hated my idea of making and selling clay face friends for the garden. I believe you told Rowena, “The entire idea makes me shudder. It’s a disgrace. Against what a Scotswoman stands for in the garden.”

  Have you thought of another idea, then? I am longingly awaiting a new idea for our fund-raiser from you, as you are quick to cut other people’s ideas down. I am sure your idea will be fascinating.

  May I make another suggestion? Perhaps we could make Garden Butts.

  We could take off our pants and sit, briefly, in wet cement to make an indentation. We would make your cement pad extra large, don’t you worry. If the cement gets stuck to your fat arse I can scrape it off at the hospital.

  From,

  Kenna

  I received the note from the Garden Ladies about the fund-raiser. I had no idea what to suggest. I would rather write a check than do this.

  It will be the time of the bees.

  My father, Quinn Mackintosh, died when our horse, Sergeant Salt, bolted, then bucked, and fell on top of him in the middle of our fields. It was the bees that made Sergeant Salt buck. They had been attracted to our orange trumpet vine. The sky was an unusual bright orange that day from a burning blaze in the Highlands, all as my grandma predicted.

  My mother ran to him, wailing, shouting. I have never heard my mother scream like that. I can still hear her raw, unhinged keening, her head on my father’s heart, which would never beat again.

  Toran, Bridget, Pherson, and I were in the hills, talking at our fort, and we sprinted down. Toran took charge. He was seventeen. He held my father still, did CPR, while I ran to the house to call an ambulance, my whole world crackling, crumbling.

  The funeral was attended, I heard later, by almost everyone in town. We buried him in the Mackintosh Ramsay cemetery, sheltered by oaks and willows. Bridget, Toran, and Pherson stood right behind me. My mother cried and cried. I tried to hold it in, but when Toran gave me a hug, I couldn’t stop crying.

  When everyone else went down to the house after the burial, Bridget, Toran, Pherson, and I went to the fort. We all crawled inside and I sobbed until my whole body hurt, Bridget on one side, Toran on the other, Pherson holding my hand i
n front.

  It will be the time of the bees.

  My mother and I left Scotland, after she hacked that trumpet vine down to nothing with an ax, her cries an anguished roar. Ben Harris and his wife helped her throw it out.

  I’m still crying, in many ways, for my father.

  What if he hadn’t been on that horse?

  What if he had gotten off one minute sooner?

  What if there hadn’t been so many bees from our trumpet vine?

  What would it feel like to have my dad in my life? What would my life have been like had he not died and we stayed in Scotland? Would I have married Toran, or would we have been best friends? Would I have become a writer or a farmer’s wife? Would we have children by now?

  I try not to let those questions plague me, because the answer is: It is what it is.

  As simple as that phrase is, it’s helped me through the years: It is what it is. Acceptance.

  I don’t like that my father died.

  But I accept it.

  And that’s what brings on the tears, one more time.

  For me, for us, it was the time of the bees.

  And I would go to his grave soon, I would.

  Not yet, though.

  “Charlotte, it’s Maybelle. Are you done having your nervous literary breakdown?”

  “I’m not having a nervous literary breakdown.” I put my feet up on a chair in my backyard. At a thrift shop I had found a black wrought iron table and four chairs with curlicue backs. I’d added a pot of marigolds. Excellent place to read my new book, Astrophysics.

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m not.” My garden was coming along. I’d hired the Stanleys. Toran came, too, when he had time. I had brick pathways now, created from the old brick, and the wood from the old trellises was being used for a long grape arbor. The trumpet vine had not dared to pop up again.

  “You’re not writing, I can feel it. It’s time to put the breakdown aside and start your story.”