by Jodi Thomas
Connor stepped farther away from Jillian, but it seemed as wide a gap as the Grand Canyon.
“I’ll be right there.” He clicked the phone off and reached for his coat. “I have to go.”
He froze, staring at her in the firelight. “I...”
Jillian could see his struggle and tried to help. “No strings. No promises. No worries. What almost happened, never happened. There is nothing to say.”
“Right.” He kept staring.
“Your daughter’s waiting.”
“Right,” he said again and jerked as if he’d been poked with a cattle prod.
He was gone before Jillian could ask if she should forget what almost happened or wait for another chance. He didn’t seem like a man who found himself alone with any woman, and the chances he’d be with her totally alone again were slight.
She couldn’t save an almost-memory. What almost happened, never happened.
She turned off the gas flames beneath the logs and walked back to the kitchen. She could still feel him near her as she cleaned up. They’d been outlaws stealing cookies for only a blink in time, but it made her smile.
“It’s Saturday,” she whispered to herself. She’d have a whole day tomorrow to think about what had almost happened. Then she’d put it away and try her best to forget him holding her during the storm.
The logs were glowing when she passed back through the parlor.
“Six minutes more might have been more than I could handle.” Her words echoed through the empty rooms. “If I allowed myself any more, one of us, maybe both, would walk away hurt.”
Only she hadn’t even gotten a chance to find out. Her words drifted in the still air, but no answer came.
“No regrets, though,” she called to the empty house, then waited to see if an answer echoed back.
When the ghost didn’t answer, she said, “I don’t want to know what you’re thinking, Mr. Willie Flancher. I don’t even have time for a ghost to haunt me.”
Laughing at herself, she wondered if crazy people settle in small towns or normal folks move there and are driven mad. In her case it appeared to be a fifty-fifty split.
As she climbed the stairs to her room, she decided it was time to make the drive to Oklahoma City. She was getting too involved with the people in this town. She needed to know that she could leave. She had to make sure she’d have everything in order.
The trip to Oklahoma City would put her mind to rest. The drive would give her time to think, to plan.
She’d deposit money in her account at the bank, then check her mailbox she’d paid rent on for years. She also needed to visit her secret stash and make sure her dad’s letter was still in the stacks at the library.
Surely someday he’d wonder how she was. Maybe he’d check his old hiding place. It had been the first place she’d looked at the end of her freshman year. Her papers were still there, along with five hundred dollars. Nothing of his remained.
But now, after ten years, maybe he’d checked on her. Maybe he’d left a note for her. One thread was all she wanted, all she needed.
Tomorrow she’d go check, then she’d take the rest of the day to think about how the moments she’d shared with Connor had felt before she put them away in the back of her mind.
Papa’s rule: Don’t pack memories. They’ll weigh you down.
She knew he was right. Tonight she’d almost collected a memory that would have been hard to leave behind. Now it was just a thought of what might have been. That was enough.
10
Sunnie sat beside Gram’s bed, watching her sleep. The day had been endless, but being here close to her great-grandmother made everything seem right with the world. Gram was always there for her. She’d been the only one Sunnie could talk to when her mother died. If some people are solid as rocks in your life, Gram was a boulder.
She had stood beside her when Dad took the call from the Reno Police Department saying her mother’s body had been pulled from the wreckage of a small plane. Sunnie had a thousand questions but was afraid to ask. She was old enough to realize she might not want to hear the answers.
Gram stayed close in those first few dark days, and she took her hand as they walked away after the funeral.
“It’s going to be all right, Sunnie,” Gram had whispered. “One thing I’ve learned is life goes on.”
Even though Sunnie didn’t believe her at the time, she felt better just hearing the words.
Finally, when the nightmare settled to a dull ache inside and all the company had gone home, Gram just held her tight and whispered, “We all walk close to death until the end, when death comes one last time and walks beside us.”
A part of Sunnie thought maybe if she held Gram’s hand real tight, death would never come for her gram. Discovering someone worth loving wasn’t easy, and she’d been lucky enough to be born with Gram’s love already waiting for her.
She had a feeling love would never come that easy again. Of course, her dad would always love her, but probably no one else. She wasn’t pretty, or smart, or funny, or talented. And too tall, she added to the list. Look at Jillian; she was shorter than her and wasn’t married.
Maybe she should forget about looking for what the songs call true love. Forget about even making friends. Better to make it through life alone than to constantly lose people. Jillian James obviously had the right idea.
Speaking of losing people. Sunnie had no doubt Derrick would never speak to her again. Not after she’d left him steaming mad on the sidewalk. His face was red, and his nostrils flared like a bull about to charge.
The visual made her smile. Serves him right. Flirting with a woman almost twice her age, like Jillian might go out with a guy in high school. Dumb Derrick probably didn’t even consider that.
Mr. Irresistible turned creepy fast. Handsome must be a thin coat of paint that can wash off in rain. She might consider looking a little deeper next time. She’d thought Derrick was the whole package. Turns out he was just the wrapping.
But then, Sunnie hadn’t really considered what would happen when she walked away from him either. The coolest guy in school. The bad boy everyone wanted to talk to or hang out with. A few other sophomores had seen her with him and acted like they were jealous. She was suddenly cool by association.
But no more. She’d be an outcast tomorrow. Not that the label was anything new. Sunnie didn’t play sports, wasn’t a cheerleader or in drama. She wasn’t in any stupid club that wore matching shirts or had lunch together on Wednesdays. No band or orchestra. No talent for anything. At the rate she was going, she’d have nothing next to her name in the yearbook.
Or, maybe they’d print Held the Record for Doing Nothing, Including Dating, for Four Years.
Sunnie tucked her gram’s hand beneath the covers and kissed her goodbye lightly, with what Gram always called “angel kisses.”
“Good night, Gram. Sleep tight.” She grinned. At least one person, her gram, thought she was perfect.
Her great-grandmother didn’t open her eyes but answered, “Don’t let the bedbugs bite, Chloe.”
Sunnie slowly moved away. Chloe was Gram’s sister, and she’d been dead twenty years. Maybe she came back to visit in Gram’s dreams.
When Sunnie walked down the hall, it seemed more like midnight than nine o’clock. Her friends would be climbing into cars and driving around. Looking for something to do was the main activity on weekends in a small town.
The thought that she might have been somewhere with Derrick about now bothered her more than she wanted to admit. Weird how he’d gone sour so fast.
She’d fallen madly in love with him when he called her Shorty, and just as quickly fell out of love with him when he stared at Jillian’s boobs like he was in a library and her chest was something he could check out.
Being Derrick’s girlfriend had the shelf life of war
m ice cream.
The greeter at the Acres’s reception desk waved as Sunnie passed. “Good night, Sunshine. Come back anytime.”
“Night, Sharon.” Sunnie kept walking, even if she did want to stop and tell the woman no one called her Sunshine anymore.
How could her mother have ever thought Sunshine was a great name? When she complained to Dad, he’d told her he wanted to name her Moonbeam. Then she could go by Moo.
After that, she shortened her name to Sunnie and swore she’d never get pregnant without having a name picked out and already inked in on the birth certificate. The drugs they give you during childbirth must really mess with your brain.
Dad was waiting for her when she walked out of the Autumn Acres Senior Living Home. For a change, he was smiling, despite the dribble of rain slowly washing the dirt off his old pickup. She thought of asking him if he got laid, but the last time she did that he cut off cable for a year.
“Did you enjoy the movie?” he asked.
“Yes. I helped take ice cream orders and made deliveries to the people in wheelchairs. One old man tried to tip me a quarter when I delivered his banana split, hold the banana, cherries, and whip cream. He said I was the first person who ever got his banana split made just like he wanted it.”
Dad, as usual, missed the whole point of what she’d said. “Working there isn’t a bad idea. You could save your money for something special.”
“Dad! I’m already working at the quilt shop. I was just pointing out how a banana split isn’t a banana split without the banana, the cherries, or the whipped cream.” She shoved her wet hair back. “Oh, never mind.”
“Right, but the job at the quilt shop doesn’t offer tips.”
“What did you do without me tonight, Dad?” It occurred to her that once she left home, he’d probably binge-watch CSI reruns for the rest of his life.
“I went to dinner with Jillian.”
“That was nice of you. She seems so alone. Gram says Jillian told her that she doesn’t have one living relative. Imagine that.” Sunnie thought for a minute. “You think we could give her Mom’s whole side of the family? There’s not one I’d pull out of quicksand.”
Dad laughed, as she knew he would. “Surely there’s one worth saving?”
“Uncle Rob is the best looking, but he licks the snot off his upper lip.”
“Surely not.”
“He does. I saw him do it when he thought no one was looking. You’d think he’d use one of the million tissues in his pockets. If his side of the family tree evolves, they’ll all have pouches so they can steal more funeral tissues off the pews at church. Last summer at Great-Aunt Whoever’s funeral, I saw Uncle Rob just pick up the whole box when he walked out, like he thought it was a party favor.”
“That’s not fair, Sunnie—he has allergies. His nose is always running.” They’d played this game before, and both loved it. Dad picked another. “What about your mother’s aunt Dot. She’s a great cook.”
Sunnie shook her head. “She’s a better eater. If one of her six sons doesn’t finish his food, she cleans the plate between the dinner table and the kitchen sink. By the time the potato salad bowl made it inside from the last family picnic, it had been licked so clean she probably just put it back on the shelf.”
“Now I know you’re exaggerating.”
It crossed Sunnie’s mind that maybe they should talk about what happened today with Derrick in the middle of Main, or he could give her a lecture about boys in general, but that wasn’t her dad’s way.
She watched streetlights reflecting off rain-soaked sidewalks as he drove through the streets, splashing through puddles.
Laurel Springs seemed to sparkle on stormy nights. Autumn Acres was on the far side of town, and her father always took the winding road through the dead neighborhood that the kids called “the district” like it was something out of a sci-fi movie and not just a vacant, crumbling part of yesterday. Maybe he crossed through the abandoned warehouses and workshops because he owned them. Or maybe he just didn’t like traffic on the highway road. Even her dad wasn’t old enough to remember the district being alive, but still it seemed to draw him.
“You ever going to do anything with this area, Dad?”
“Someday, maybe. The good thing about owning land is it’ll wait until the time is right.”
Like never, Sunnie thought as she looked around. A few of the buildings were leaning like old soldiers trying to stand their post one more year. One brick building had lost the roof. The walls were crumbling like a decaying skeleton.
“There’s a light over in that green building.” She pointed left. “Strange.” The sudden sign of life reminded her of a heartbeat from a corpse.
She stared at a barn of a building that had probably been painted bright green years ago but had aged into olive. A low light shone from the second-story windows, giving the place foggy yellow eyes shining out onto the black street.
Dad glanced at it with little interest. “That’s probably Joe Dunaway. I told him a few weeks ago he could use any building he liked for a workshop. Joe is inventing Toe Tents. Tiny little tents that fit under the covers so your feet won’t feel cramped. He’s really excited about the project. Jillian tells me he stops by almost every day to tell Gram about the progress.”
“Did you have him sign a lease, Dad?”
“Nope.”
“What if he doesn’t pay his rent?”
“I’m not charging him any. The building is just sitting there. He might as well be using it.”
“So, he pays no rent and he can stay forever.”
“Sunnie, he’s in his eighties. Forever isn’t that long.”
She gave up. Her father had no business sense, and until she grew up, he was in charge of the Larady family businesses. When she made it to twenty-one and got her inheritance from her grandfather, it would probably be handed out in change.
Dad didn’t even charge for the paper he put out, and if someone did want to buy an ad, he usually offered them one free. He could charge for ads on the daily blog he did, and the real paper about the town he actually printed every season should cost a dollar at least.
His job of mayor paid a dollar a year for some odd reason, and he used his truck, older than her, to haul stuff for the town. As soon as she was old enough, she planned to ask a few questions. He was either the poorest rich man in town, or the richest poor man.
But he was her dad, Sunnie reasoned, and somehow he made everything work. People depended on him, respected him. She guessed that was worth something.
“You want to stop for dessert at the Pancake Barn, Dad? It’s probably the only place still open.” The banana split she’d had for supper was long gone. Gram had offered her tiny cucumber sandwiches to snack on. Sunnie swore she’d never be that close to starving but about now, they didn’t sound all that bad.
He slowed the truck. “I’m not really that hungry, but I could use a cup of coffee.”
“It’ll keep you up.”
He shook his head. “I have a feeling I’ll be up thinking for a while anyway. Might as well enjoy the coffee.”
After driving over the bridge he turned into the Barn’s parking lot. This was the one place you could eat any meal from the menu anytime.
“You remember when I was little, you’d let me order whatever I wanted?”
“How could I forget? You ate pancakes every night and hamburgers with fries for breakfast. That strange habit probably stunted your growth.” He cut the engine. “You can still have whatever you want, Sunshine.”
“I know,” she answered and knew he wasn’t talking about the menu.
He’d never put a brick on her head, or on her goals. Dad just let her know he was there to help when needed. If she wanted to stay in college for ten years, he was behind her. If she wanted to pack up after high school graduation and take off to s
ee the world, he’d hand her the credit card along with a lecture to be careful.
That kind of freedom sometimes terrified her. More than anything, Sunnie wanted to not to be ordinary. She wanted to explore the world, and she guessed he wanted that for her, too.
Maybe he felt that way because he never went anywhere. His only adventures were in the mysteries he wrote and never sold. The closest he ever got to a wild love affair was probably watching one by accident on PBS.
“Dad,” she whispered as they walked into the almost-empty Pancake Barn. “Have you ever thought of taking a woman out to eat on a date? A real date.”
“Sunnie, Jillian and I were just both hungry. It wasn’t...”
“I know. But she’s a nice lady. You could ask her out. I wouldn’t mind.”
“I’ve invited her to join Gram and me at lunch a few times.”
“We’re not talking about lunch here, Dad. We’re talking about a date. Ask her out. Comb your hair. Pay for the meal. Kiss her good night if you remember how.”
He shook his head. “So that’s how dating is?”
Sunnie almost said no. It’s only like that in the movies. In the real world you just agree to meet up. There is no meal, just parking outside the city limits or going over to a house where parents weren’t home.
She knew how it worked, all right. She’d heard girls talk. Make sure you have your phone so you can call someone to come get you if it doesn’t go well. Don’t get drunker or higher than him. Make sure he has protection. Don’t let him take pictures. Don’t ever tell your parents anything.
It all sounded so ugly. So ordinary. Maybe she should forget about boys for a while. She didn’t want ugly or ordinary.
If she planned to live an extraordinary life, she might as well start now. Her first goal was never, ever stick her tongue in a mouth that wasn’t connected to a brain because if she did, she’d probably end up with children who looked like her mother’s side of the family.
“Dad,” she said as she sat down and the waitress handed her a menu. “I think I’ll have pancakes tonight with a side of fries and tomatoes.”
