by Karen White
“You make it seem so nice, I’m thinking I should. The thing about being a doctor is that you can be a doctor pretty much anywhere. I can either join an existing practice or start my own. My mama would be disappointed if I didn’t go home to Charleston, but I like to keep my options open.”
“That’s nice,” she said, a feeling like fluttering wings tickling the inside of her chest.
He looked sideways at her, as if unsure whether she was joking. “The way I see it, the only thing lacking in Georgetown is intelligent, suitable young men. I can’t believe you don’t have any suitors breaking down your door.”
She stopped and looked up at him, the moon framing his head like a halo. “You don’t need to flatter me, Boyd Madsen. I’ve already let you lead me onto the beach and walk far enough away from everyone that if you kissed me, I would probably let you.” Ceecee wasn’t sure where all those words were coming from. Maybe she’d seen too many movies with Margaret and Bitty and thought that was how women were supposed to talk to men. Or maybe it was the moonlight and the sound of the waves and the distant musical notes sliding their way into the breeze and this man whose presence seemed to make all reason and caution disappear.
“Is that so?” He gently nuzzled the underside of her chin with his finger before tilting her face upward. “Because even though I’ve been thinking about kissing you from the moment I first saw you at the Esso station, I’ve been doing my best to be a gentleman at least until tomorrow when I see you again.”
“So, you’re already planning on seeing me again tomorrow?” she asked, trying to sound provocative the way Deborah Kerr had in King Solomon’s Mines. Instead, her voice was so soft, she wasn’t even sure she’d actually spoken. She’d been keeping her hope that he’d want to see her again wrapped up inside her chest, where it couldn’t be seen or ridiculed as being overly optimistic. Her mother was always accusing her of that, so Ceecee had learned to keep her dreams tucked inside a corner of her heart.
He pulled back slightly. “Only if you want me to.”
And because she was afraid he might change his mind, she stood on tiptoes on the shifting sand and pressed her lips against his. She’d never kissed anyone on the mouth before, but Margaret had told her and Bitty to practice on their pillows so they’d know how to do it right when it was time.
But nothing could have prepared her for what it was like to kiss Boyd. There was softness, and heat, and soft tongue that made her knees buckle. His large hands came around her waist to support her, and because her hands had nowhere else to land, she slipped them around his neck and held on tightly, pressing herself against him because she had the oddest thought that they were two halves of a shell, fitting perfectly together to become a whole.
Eventually, he pulled back, breathing heavily, his hands slipping from her waist. “Wow. That was a surprise.”
“You . . . you didn’t like it?”
He cupped her head in his hands. “I liked it a little too much.” He pressed his forehead against hers, still breathing heavily. “You’re something else, Sessalee Purnell.”
“And so are you, Boyd Madsen,” she whispered.
“We should get back to your friends,” he said. “Before your reputation is completely ruined.”
She knew what he meant—as a way to keep Ceecee on the straight and narrow, her mother had been drilling her about what happened to girls who’d lost their reputation. Not that her mother had ever been able to go into the actual specifics of what a girl had to do to lose her reputation. She was fairly sure going somewhere alone with a man and kissing him was pretty close, but she also knew there was much more they could have done that would have sealed her reputation as a loose woman.
He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm again as they walked back to the hotel and the others, the moon at their backs casting long shadows in front of them. The dark sand swallowed their footsteps, hiding them as if they’d never been there at all, making Ceecee shiver.
“Are you cold?” Boyd asked, taking off his jacket and placing it around her shoulders before she could answer.
“Thanks,” she said, pulling the lapel closed over her neck. She was busy thinking of ways to extend the evening, when she spotted Bitty coming down the steps to the beach and running toward them.
“There you are—thank goodness,” she said. “Margaret’s not feeling well, and we need to get her home.”
Ceecee let go of Boyd’s arm and began walking quickly toward the steps. “What’s happened?”
Bitty leaned toward Ceecee and lowered her voice. “I think too much to drink and too much dancing. Reggie convinced the band to play some jitterbug music, and I think it just shook up Margaret’s stomach.”
“How can I help?” Boyd asked. “Can I carry her to the car?”
Bitty started to say yes, but Ceecee interjected. “No, but thank you. We can manage.” She told herself that she wasn’t ready to share Boyd yet, but she knew it was more than that. She wasn’t ready for Boyd to meet Margaret. Even the flash of shame she felt at the thought wasn’t enough for her to change her mind and ask for help.
She turned to face Boyd, reluctantly handing back his jacket. “Thank you. It was a lovely evening.”
“Can I see you again? Tomorrow?”
Ceecee pretended to think, knowing she owed her mother at least that. “All right. Meet me at the Pavilion—say five o’clock?”
“Can’t I pick you up?”
She shook her head. “I’ll meet you at the Pavilion. At five.” She turned to follow Bitty, who was headed to the ladies’ room, where she said she’d left Margaret after she’d propped her on a bench with a wet towel pressed to her forehead. Ceecee looked behind her once and found Boyd watching her, a question in his eyes.
But she just smiled, then turned around and kept walking, unwilling to admit even to herself that she wasn’t ready to find out whether Boyd Madsen really liked daisies better than roses.
eleven
Larkin
2010
The smell of what could only be breaded and battered chicken frying in the kitchen assaulted me as I ran up the steps to the front porch, the rolled-up ribbons from the Tree of Dreams in my pocket thick against my hip bone. I untucked my blouse as I stepped inside, hoping to cover the small bump. I had so many questions and had decided to start with what Bennett had told me about Ceecee and the fire. All the things Ceecee had never thought to mention to me in the last twenty-seven years.
I rounded on her as soon as I’d closed the door behind me. I stopped midturn and with my mouth partly open when I spotted the figure standing behind her in the doorway to the dining room.
Ceecee smiled. “You remember Jackson Porter, don’t you, Larkin? His daddy has always been our insurance agent, and now that he’s in semiretirement, he’s letting Jackson handle some of his accounts. Jackson is here going over some paperwork, and I’ve invited him to stay for dinner. It’s your favorite—fried chicken.”
I had the sudden urge to burst out laughing, the situation so surreal that I couldn’t quite adjust my emotions to compensate. The new controlled and mature Larkin fought very hard to overpower the younger version of myself who’d once sat on the bleachers at Georgetown High School, cheering the star quarterback as he burst through the GHS Bulldogs banner surrounded by the cheerleaders’ waving pom-poms.
“I . . . ,” I started to say, but stopped as Jackson stepped forward and enveloped me in a hug before kissing my cheek. He wore the same cologne, soft with a hint of spice that still made me think of Jackson whenever I smelled it. When I was sixteen, I’d bought a bottle of it with my birthday money to keep hidden in the back of my drawer so I could smell it whenever I wanted to. I cringed at the thought, not just at how stupid I had once been, but at how pathetically stupid I still was. I should have been telling him that he was a jerk, that he had no business hugging me. That he should apologize for
ruining my life, even if he probably had no idea that he had. Over the years, I’d told myself that ignorance was no excuse for compliance, yet looking at Jackson Porter now, I forgot everything except how I’d felt watching him burst through that banner on the football field, believing that over all those other girls, he’d picked me.
He stepped back, regarding me with hazel eyes that sometimes seemed more green than brown, depending on what he wore. My high school diary had contained a paragraph at the end of each day listing what Jackson wore to school, and what color his eyes were that particular day.
“You look . . . amazing,” he said, grinning that grin that belonged in men’s underwear commercials. That’s what Mabry had told her all the cheerleaders said in the locker room after games, and then I’d started to say it as if the words were my own.
“Thanks,” I said, grateful for the skinny jeans and the spaghetti-strap blouse. And in my stupid, sixteen-year-old heart, grateful that he’d noticed. “You do, too.”
He shrugged. “I try to keep fit—still throw a football around with Bennett and some of the guys. But you . . . wow! You’re completely different.” He must have realized that couched somewhere in between his words was an insult, so he added, “I mean, I always knew you were pretty. I guess I didn’t realize until right this moment just how pretty.”
I watched Ceecee beam from behind him, and I was grateful yet mortified at the same time. If she had any idea of what my past relationship—if you could call it that—with Jackson had been, she would have thrown him out the door on his ear. But I’m glad she didn’t know. Because then I didn’t need to excuse his behavior, or mine, and instead could pretend we’d been simply classmates who’d met up again after nine years.
“Come on in and sit down,” Ceecee said, motioning for us to follow her into the dining room, where the table was set with Ceecee’s best crystal and china, and where Bitty was pouring sweet tea into glasses and looking up at me with worried eyes. She doesn’t know, I told myself. She couldn’t. It’s just that Bitty had always been more perceptive than Ceecee, always seeing what was really there. Ceecee only ever saw what she wanted to.
“I had Bitty set a place for Jackson right next to you on this side of the table,” Ceecee said, touching the rim of a delicate piece of antique French bone china. She indicated the single place at the foot of the table. “I set a place for your daddy just in case, but he said he’d probably stay at the hospital and eat something there.”
“I’m real sorry to hear about your mama,” Jackson said, pulling back my chair for me to sit before heading to the front of the table to do the same for Ceecee while Bitty pulled out her own and sat down before Jackson could make it to her side of the table.
“Thank you,” I said, placing my napkin in my lap and looking everywhere but at his face. Because every time I did, I was reminded of the last time I’d seen him before I spotted him at the ice-cream shop. And what he’d said. “We’re all hoping she’ll wake up any minute now. It’s given us all a real scare.”
“But it’s brought you back to Georgetown,” Jackson said, accepting the bread basket from Ceecee. “I know your relatives aren’t the only ones happy to see you back.” He grinned that grin again as he passed the basket to me, and I almost dropped it.
“Bennett and Mabry were certainly excited to see her,” Bitty said, stabbing the stick of butter with her knife. “You should ask them over sometime, Larkin—meet Mabry’s husband and little boy. Go out on the river or something.”
I frowned. “I really don’t expect to be here long enough to do much socializing . . .”
As if I hadn’t said anything, Jackson said, “I’ve got a boat—we can all go skiing and have a little party while you’re here. It will be just like old times.”
I stared at the chicken breast I’d placed on my plate and felt almost physically ill. I nearly asked him whether he was joking. I finally raised my eyes to his, just to make sure. But there was no recognition or memory to dim his enthusiasm.
“Maybe,” I said. “Of course, it all depends on when Mama wakes up and how much recovery time she’ll need.”
“Of course,” he said, putting his hand briefly over mine.
Smiling, I found myself relaxing and even managed a few bites of my chicken and butter beans. We talked about old classmates and teachers, about his sister, who was four years younger than we were and who’d graduated from Carolina but was in California getting her graduate degree in physical therapy.
I’d imagined this scene so many times when I was in high school, of having Jackson Porter sitting next to me at dinner, of having him touch my hand and smile at me, that I almost pinched myself a few times to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. I tried to push the memory of the last time I’d seen him before I’d fled to New York into the forefront of my thoughts, but years of infatuation superseded my common sense.
When Ceecee brought out her lemon sponge cake for dessert and I helped clear the dishes, Bitty went to the old stereo console in the front parlor and put in an eight-track tape. It was one of those things Ceecee never saw the need to replace no matter how outdated or how warbly the music sometimes sounded because the tape had stretched in places. If it worked and her supply of eight-tracks lasted, she’d keep the circa 1970 stereo. As I placed the dessert plates on the table, I listened to the opening strains of a familiar song, and before the first lyric was sung, I said, “Linda Ronstadt. ‘You’re No Good.’”
“Excuse me?” Jackson asked at the same time Bitty coughed into her hand.
“The song.” I jerked my head in the direction of the parlor. “That’s the name of the artist and the song. It’s a thing I do.” I thought he knew that about me. Or maybe I just thought that he should have known that about me.
“Yeah,” he said, vaguely nodding his head as he accepted a slice of cake from Ceecee and placed it in front of me before holding up his own plate.
I cut a forkful and put it in my mouth, the taste bringing back memories. I’d always loved Ceecee’s lemon sponge cake and had eaten half of one the first time I hadn’t made the cheerleading squad. I’d eaten the second half the following day when Mabry had come by to tell me she was going to resign from the squad if I found it too hurtful. I’d smiled and hugged her, then told her she was being ridiculous, that I wanted to focus on the school play and my writing and editing for the school paper. And then Ceecee had come in and told me that I was better than all those girls on the squad, and that it was their loss. I pretended to believe her, and when she’d left to go to the grocery store, I’d finished the cake.
When we were done with dessert, Jackson turned to me. “It’s nice outside—would you like to go for a walk?”
As much as I wanted to get Ceecee alone and ask her about Margaret and the fire, I found myself unable to say no. But before I could respond, Bitty said, “We’ll need Larkin to help clear the table.” She leaned over and took Jackson’s plate without asking even though there were still a couple of bites left.
Ceecee gave her old friend a stern look. “Even at our advanced age, we are more than capable of clearing the table without help.” Facing Larkin, she continued. “You young people go enjoy the nice evening. It won’t be too much longer before the heat and humidity arrive and make walking more than a block a miserable experience.”
Jackson smiled gratefully at Ceecee, but he gave an even bigger smile to Bitty, who continued to frown at him as he escorted me out the front door.
We retraced the route I’d taken the previous night to the Harborwalk. When Jackson reached for my hand, I let him take it. I felt self-conscious at first, and then held tightly, thinking—misguidedly or not—that I had earned it.
“I saw you at Gabriel’s last night, didn’t I?” he asked. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. I don’t think I would have even known who you were if Ceecee hadn’t introduced us.”
Again, I felt as if there were
something vaguely insulting in his confession. “Yes, well, that’s all right. You looked like you were busy, so I didn’t want to disturb you.”
He blew out a breath through his nose. “That was Ashley—she’s a receptionist at the agency. We were working late, so I offered to walk her home and on a whim stopped for some ice cream.”
I didn’t say anything, and he must have taken my silence as understanding, because he asked, “How is it that you’re still single?”
I pretended that I hadn’t dreamed of this exact conversation more times than I cared to admit. I felt myself blushing and kept my head down. “I work a lot, and most of my coworkers are female, so not a lot of opportunities to meet guys.”
He grimaced. “And I’m working in the same town I grew up in, where everybody knows my family, so it’s almost like we’re in the same boat. A lot of tourists bring in fresh faces, but nothing permanent, you know?”
The word “permanent” and the sound of the lapping river brought a sense of déjà vu, a reminder of us having been here before, or someplace similar. On his daddy’s boat, anchored offshore, the sound of the river pushing against the fiberglass. Part of me wanted him to remember, too, while the other part wanted him to forget. I had made up my mind to ask him when he spoke again, and the moment passed.
“Do you remember Melissa Griffin?”
I did remember Melissa. Ceecee used to tell me we could have been twins. She said it so often that I actually believed her. Melissa was the cheer captain, and the student council president, and she also visited nursing homes as an extracurricular. She was also on the varsity field and track team, which gave her the athletic body that I hadn’t had until I started running in college. But I never noticed that she and I were as different as nonsisters could be, despite what Ceecee said.
“Yeah, I remember her.” I stopped there, not willing to admit that I’d had my hair cut just like hers and imagined that it made me look even more like her. It didn’t, of course, but I wouldn’t realize that until years later, looking at our senior yearbook. I’d tossed it in the garbage.
