by Lena North
“How did you know what time I was supposed to take my samples?” I asked when he answered.
“Well, hello to you too,” he said.
“Jamie,” I sighed.
“Talked to some people. Wanted to know what you’d be involved in. Figured it’d be interesting. Thought I could help you out in case you needed it.”
Oh. Well, that was kind of sweet of him. Unnecessary, but sweet.
“I’ll be home for the weekend, need someone to show you around Croxier?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” I said, thinking that the weekend was several days away and the town was small, so I would have walked a few laps around it by then.
“Goody,” he murmured. “I have the late shift on Friday, but I’ll get someone to take me over after it. I’ll come pick you up Saturday morning, we can have breakfast?”
“Sure, that sounds good,” I said.
“Where are you staying?”
“I’m in a small house, just by the beach,” I said and went on to give him directions for how to find me.
He was silent for a long time, and then he said slowly, “You’re in Dee’s house?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to make it seem perfectly reasonable, which it was.
He had sounded weird, though.
“Why?” he asked.
“They didn’t want me in one of the rooms behind the bar, so I got this one. Is that a problem?”
“Hopefully not,” he said.
What did that mean?
“I’ll make sure it isn’t,” he added.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Why would there be any issues with me renting Nick’s house?
“Remember how we talked about drugs?” Jamie asked. I didn't like what he hinted at, but he kept talking before I could protest. “The guy whose house you’re renting, well… he has a rather liberal view on using them, that’s all.”
Nick? Using drugs? No way.
“Okay,” I said quietly. “I’m just renting the house, Jamie,” I added.
“I know,” he said. “We’ll talk more about it over the weekend, okay?”
“Sure,” I promised.
Then he told me he had to run some errands, which sounded like a very bogus excuse to hang up on me. I said I had to make breakfast, which was true, and we closed the call.
There was absolutely no food in the house. At least not any kind of food I wanted to eat. There were a few boxes of granola, instant porridge, and a few cartons of low fat, sugar-free yogurt in the fridge. Yuck.
I grabbed my bag and was locking the door when a motorcycle turned off the main road and came roaring down the short lane. Nick stopped the bike and grinned at me.
“No fan of granola?” he guessed, accurately.
I just stared at him. When we used his bike on the mainland, he had protective gear, and I’d made countless jokes about the size of his helmet because seriously? Fitting all those dreads into it meant it was huge.
That kind of protective accoutrements was apparently optional on the Islands because he wore a pair of cut-off jeans shorts and a ratty old pair of sneakers, and nothing else. He handed me a helmet, though, and nodded toward my feet.
“You’re okay to go in flip flops or do you want to change to shoes?”
Was I okay to… What?
“You don’t even have a shirt on for Christ’s sake,” I snapped.
He looked down as if this fact had escaped him, and then he grinned. I should have scolded him for not thinking about safety but his happiness was infectious, and I couldn’t hold my own back.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Breakfast, and then grocery shopping.”
“Flip flops work for me,” I said, and he held out the helmet again. I wanted to feel the wind in my hair, so I shook my head to indicate that I didn’t need it, and whined when he kept holding it out. “Why do I have to wear one when you don’t?”
“Thick head,” he said and pointed to his forehead. “Pretty head,” he said and pointed at me.
“You do realize that you sound like a caveman when you say shit like that?” I asked as I took the helmet and put it on.
He just grinned again, and I got up behind him, put my arms around his warm belly and turned my head a little so I could rest my jaw on his shoulder. I fully expected us to stop for breakfast at one of the small coffee shops, but Nick just kept going through town and up the hills behind it. When he stopped in front of a low stone house painted in a soft peachy-pink color, I looked around on the residential neighborhood in surprise. He nudged me softly, and we got off his bike.
Before I could ask him where we were, he shuffled me through the entrance and into a bright hallway that seemed to lead straight through the house to a courtyard.
“They’re here!” I heard someone call out and there was a shuffle of feet.
I turned to Nick, but he was still moving us forward to greet the middle-aged couple coming toward us.
“Hey, calm down, Mama, it’s not like we’re late. Papa, good to see you.”
I stopped walking and said absolutely not a word. Mama? Papa? He’d brought me to his parents? Seriously?
“Come on, Snow,” he murmured and tried to move us forward but I took a step backward instead.
He tried to grab my hand but I slapped it away and then his parents were at our side.
“Hello,” the woman who apparently was Nicks mom said quietly.
I opened my mouth, tried to smile and, murmured, “Excuse me.” Then I turned to the grinning fool next to me. “Can I have a word with you please?”
“Okay,” he said.
“Outside,” I clarified.
“I’m hungry, so, no.”
“Son,” his father said warningly, although it sounded like he was laughing.
“Nicky,” I snapped. “I need a few minutes in private with you or I will start walking back down the hill.”
When I turned toward his parents, I reared back a little. They looked like someone had slapped them, and my polite smile faded when I realized how incredibly rude I behaved.
“I’m so sorry,” I started but Nick’s father stopped any further apologies by putting a strong arm around his wife’s shoulders,
“We’ll leave you for a while, son,” he murmured as they walked away.
I rounded on Nick as soon as they’d disappeared around a corner.
“Your mother?” I asked, and when it looked like he was about to say something, I cut him off immediately, repeating myself. “Your MOTHER?”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Jeez, Snow, it’s not a big deal. They’re cool.”
“I am wearing flip-flops,” I said.
“Huh?”
“I’m in a pair of cutoff jeans shorts, I have no makeup, my hair is all over the place and also... I. Wear. Flip-flops.”
He started laughing and I turned to start walking back toward the town only to find my progress immediately halted by a strong arm pulling me back gently. I ended up with my back against his warm chest and he held me there with both his arms wrapped around me. His body still shook a little from laughter and he smelled like sunshine and the outdoors.
“I’m sure my sisters have shoes lying around, do you want me to go and find a pair of heels?” he murmured into my hair.
“You have sisters?” I asked in surprise.
“Well, yeah,” he said as if this was something I should be aware of when he’d never mentioned them or even hinted that he had siblings.
“How many?”
“Three.”
“Eighteen cousins and three sisters?” I asked.
That was one big family.
“Nope. Eighteen in total. Technically, my sisters are also my cousins.”
What?
I turned in his arms but he didn’t let go of me and when I tilted my head back he was grinning down at me.
“Say again?”
�
��Papa married my aunt. Had three daughters, and realized he’d married the wrong sister, partially because my aunt is a whiny woman who’s never happy about anything. Divorce. New marriage. Me.”
My mouth fell open and a low, hoarse sound slipped out.
“So. Have you calmed down? Do I need to get shoes for you or what?”
My brain was still reeling from his family history but the strangeness of it made the whole situation seem less threatening somehow, so I took a deep breath and a step back.
“Yes, I’m calm again. But Nick?”
“Yeah?”
“You could have warned me.”
“You wouldn’t have come.”
“I –”
“Snow, you wouldn’t have.”
Shit, he was right. I would probably have come up with some lame excuse and stayed in the small house by the beach.
“Exactly,” he smirked, reading my face. “Can we get going now? I’m hungry.”
“Okay,” I said quietly.
“Babe, they’re cool. I bet Mama wore no shoes at all. Why are you so worried?”
I closed my mouth with a snap because Nick had a point. There was no need for me to act as if I was there as his girlfriend, meeting my in-laws for the first time. My behavior was ridiculous.
“I’m not worried,” I said breezily and giggled.
It was the girly giggle I’d practiced to perfection. The one where I tilted my head back a little and moved my long black hair over one shoulder while letting soft, happy laughter bubble up my throat. He immediately pulled me into his arms and I hadn’t expected him to, so I stumbled a little.
“God, I’m so sorry,” he murmured. “You’re right, I should have warned you. Let’s go to one of the coffee shops instead. Mama and Papa will understand.”
“Nick –”
“I hate that laugh, Snow. It’s fake and I get why you do it, but you never gave it to me before. I’m so sorry I did something that made you do that. I’ll just go talk to them and –”
“I’m sorry too,” I cut him off.
No one had ever realized that my giggle was totally fake before, or at least, no one had called me on it, and his remorse was apparent and very cute.
“I’m okay. You caught me by surprise, that’s all. Let’s go and have breakfast.”
He leaned back and our eyes met. I got that weird feeling that he was reading my mind, but I was pretty sure he didn’t. Dante had been poking around in my head my whole life, and I talked to my bird often, so I was quite sure that I would have known.
“Come on, Nick. Let’s go. I’m hungry too and your parents must wonder about the weird girl you brought to their home.”
He looked at me for a few more seconds and then he visibly relaxed.
“Babe. You’ve not met my sisters, so you can’t know how normal this kind of drama is in my family.”
He let go of me and we moved toward the courtyard, and the family breakfast I apparently was about to attend.
“Will they be there too?”
“Nope. Carrie works on the mainland and Andy is off on a trip somewhere.”
“And the third?”
He stopped abruptly and when I saw his face, I knew what he would say even before he said it.
“We lost Maddie almost six years ago, Snow.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said immediately, wishing I had better words to give him.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Maddie was sick on and off most of her life. The doctors didn’t give her much hope but she was so damned stubborn. She beat that shit back again and again until she lost.”
I took hold of his hand and leaned my forehead on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated.
He just squeezed my hand and tugged it a little to get us moving. I knew what it felt like to lose someone so I could understand his reluctance to talk about his sister and followed him meekly over the cobblestones. His parents were waiting for us at one end of a huge table, and they both turned toward us.
“Shit,” Nicks mother muttered, and I blinked slowly.
“Curry!” Nicks father exclaimed, with considerable glee in his voice, which made Nick start laughing as he pulled me along.
That was weird, but I wasn’t given any chance to ask about it because we’d reached them, and Nick said, “Mama, Papa, meet Snow.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said as I stopped in front of his mother. “For coming here looking like this, and for behaving like I did. To my defense, if I had known Nick would take me here I would have made an effort with my appearance.”
“Don’t worry about it, Snow,” Nick’s mother said. “We’re not very formal on the Islands.”
“Then I’m sure I’ll like it here,” I said. “I’ve only been here since yesterday, but I’m looking forward to my visit.”
She looked nervous and her eyes darted over to her son, and then back to me again. Nick moved a little to stand behind me, and I felt one of his arms circling my waist. He seemed tense, and without thinking I put my hand briefly on top of his and squeezed. Both his parents’ eyes were glued to my hand and I stretched it out toward them.
“Thank you for inviting me here for breakfast.”
The mood swirling around us was unexpected, and more than a little bizarre, but then Nick’s mother straightened and a broad smile spread on her face.
“I’m Pauline,” she said, and added with what I thought was a surprising level of enthusiasm, “You are so welcome to our home, Snow.”
Yikes, I thought. She seemed to believe that I indeed was Nick’s girl, there to meet the future in-laws for the first time. Then I shook hands with Nick’s father, who was also called Nicholas. He gave me a lazy grin that was so genuinely happy that I couldn’t do anything but smile back. And it wasn’t my fake giggle at all.
“So, you’ve met my mother?” he asked. “She’s a quite determined old lady, isn’t she?”
That was an understatement, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.
“She is,” I agreed instead. “She was bossing Nicky around within seconds.”
“Because I let her,” Nick said behind me.
His arm had relaxed and he sounded happy again, so I turned and smiled sweetly at him.
“Mrs. Mariah has promised to teach me how to handle you, remember?”
Nick’s smile turned into a chuckle and I heard Nick’s father murmur something that sounded surprisingly like the f-bomb, but before I could turn to him, Pauline announced that we should have breakfast before the coffee went cold.
The mood was cheerful, but there was something beneath the surface through the meal that bothered me. It was as if the happiness was just a little forced, or maybe surprised. I wondered if the family thing Nick had said he’d been pushing back had been a fight with his parents. I decided that it probably had been, so when there was a lull in the conversation, I came up with things for us to talk about, and slowly everyone around the table seemed to become more relaxed.
I got an explanation for the curry comment and had to laugh out loud when I heard about the bet they’d made on Nick’s ability to talk me into staying for breakfast. Apparently, Pauline had lost and would make curry for dinner, which she hated and Nicholas loved. They also mentioned Pauline’s sister, who also was Nicholas’ ex-wife, casually, as if the whole situation was perfectly normal, which it was to them I assumed. Pauline talked about her girls, just as if they were her daughter’s and not her sister’s.
Nick had been right, they were very cool.
Before we left, Pauline walked me around their enormous garden. Two big dogs were strolling along with us and we slowed down every now and then to look at the flowers and vegetables she was growing.
In a shaded area far away from the house there was a small white statue and when we stopped in front of it, my eyes suddenly started to burn. It was an abstract sculpture but it somehow conveyed despair, or maybe sorrow.
“Madelen
a,” Pauline said quietly. “Her grave is in the churchyard, but we mourn for her here.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, feeling hopelessly inadequate.
“Me too,” she said and there was an ocean of sadness in that simple statement.
We stood there for a long time and I swallowed again and again.
“My son tells me you’ve lost your parents, so you know what grief is, but you should know that I sit here with our girls sometimes and we laugh. We remember Maddie and we do it with joy because that’s how she was. Joyful.”
Suddenly my chest felt tight and it was hard to breathe. It felt like I would break into a million small pieces and I closed my eyes but that made it even worse because suddenly images from my childhood started playing in my head. My parents laughing and dancing on our back porch. My mother teaching me how to make sugar cookies and how we sang while we worked together. My dad turning around that last time to grin his wide, cocky grin. Joyful.
I opened my eyes again and turned my head a little to the side. I couldn’t handle the emotions and I didn’t want to fall apart. The last time I’d broken down I had Dante to help me, but he was too far away and I wasn’t sure I’d manage to pick up the pieces on my own.
“I’m sorry, Snow. I didn’t mean to –”
It hurt, physically, but I twisted my lips into a tight smile and interrupted Pauline.
“It’s okay,” I said.
Before I could say anything else, my eyes locked on some plants just a few steps away, behind the trees and bushes around the statue. I’d never seen that kind in real life but I’d certainly seen pictures, although these were bigger than anything shown in my biology books.
Behind the statue where they mourned their dead daughter and sibling was a small field full of cannabis plants.
Chapter Eight
Lazy
“How do you make money, Nick?” I murmured sleepily.
I was sprawled out on a big beach towel soaking up the sun on a small secluded beach that Nick had taken me to. We’d had lunch in the shade of some big pine trees, and after a quick dip in the ocean, I was ready to snooze for a while. Island life was very different from the mainland, I’d discovered. Doing as little as possible, or perhaps doing as much as possible with no effort involved, seemed to be the way. I wouldn’t ever have guessed that I’d enjoy the slow pace of life, but it worked for me, big time.
