by Rachel Hauck
As I near the BMW, I press the unlock button on the remote. Other than my youthful restlessness and zeal to see the world, life in Beauty wasn’t so bad. My memories are pleasant.
“Nice ride.”
I turn to see Dylan striding across the country club’s manicured lawn, a root beer can dangling from his hand. My eyes send messages to my heart—beat faster, beat faster!
“What are you doing out here?” I open the passenger door and drop the gift onto the seat.
“Eating barbecue.” He approaches, motioning to my car, eyeing it as if it’s a rare impressionist painting. “Who’d you steal this from?”
“Kid on the corner. He wanted to sell it to buy a bike.”
He laughs. “Casper & Company is treating you well.” He walks around the Beemer again, chin jutted out.
“They did.”
“This is quite a big deal for your dad and mom,” he says, leaning against the passenger door, his legs crossed casually, regarding me with his blue-green eyes and an expression I can’t describe. Interest? Curiosity? Something stuck between my teeth? I run my tongue over them just in case.
“Yes, it is.”
“Your dad is quite the businessman.”
“Yes, he is,” I answer robotically, an odd quiver in my voice. My heart swirls with surreal images of the night he visited my place, the night he almost kissed me. (I think.)
Stop, Macy. Don’t get your heart in a wad over a guy you’ll never have.
“You look beautiful,” he says. “Was it your idea to dress like your mom?” He gives me a coy look and sips from his can.
“What do you think?” I laugh. He’s looking right at me! My insides shimmy. Is my green light on or something?
“Probably not, but only you could pull it off, Macy.”
His compliments so confuse me. I know he’s sincere, but where is it all going?
“I got the second reunion flyer,” I say, changing my stance, putting some distance between us.
“Alisa said she mailed them out. How’d you like it?”
“It’s weird seeing my name in such large print. Macy Moore.” I talk too loud and too fast.
He shakes his head, laughing. “I don’t know why you discredit yourself, Macy. You’re a star, don’t you know?”
A falling star. I’m on a confidence merry-go-round and right now the horse is sinking down.
“Why’d you come to visit me that night?” I blurt out.
He looks into my eyes. “I wanted to see you.”
I tip my chin up. “Any particular reason?” I ask without considering where this conversation might end up.
He coughs. “Anything wrong with a friend visiting a friend?” He taps the heel of his shoe against the pavement.
“No, I guess not.” I feel disappointed, a little. Maybe I didn’t know where my questions would lead, but I suppose I wanted more than a friendship answer.
Why? I can’t say. I’m acutely aware that Dylan lives in Beauty. Always has, always will. And I’m bound for some northern city. Better make sure the green light is off.
Propped against my car, we slip into a gentle conversation, talking about anything and everything. He really is amazing to be around.
When the sun begins to slip behind the trees, haloing them in gold and red, I say, “I’d better get back to the party.” I’m leery of losing my heart to the fairy-tale magic of this moment.
He glances skyward. “Me, too.”
Silence. Staring in opposite directions, neither one of us moving. It’s as if all these unspoken words linger between us, yearning to be said.
My heartbeat picks up the pace to a light jog. This causes me to draw a deep breath, and while I don’t mean it to, the air whispers out of my lungs in a perfect Marilyn Monroe impression.
He snaps his head around. I jump to life. “Gotta go.” I beep the car locked and stride toward the country club.
He runs up behind me. “Wait, I’ll walk with you.”
I look back at him. “Dad has a bluegrass band lined up for the evening,” I say for no reason other than to fill the air. Otherwise, I might blurt something like, “Why don’t you love me?”
“Should be fun. I need to get going, but will I see you at church in the morning?” he asks.
My heart thuds. I glance at him. “Yes, and then Sizzler.”
He laughs. “Yes, Sizzler. It’s a Beauty Community Church tradition.”
“Who am I to buck tradition?”
He laughs with a deep, resonant cadence. “You’re all about bucking tradition, Macy Moore.”
At the clubhouse he goes in one direction, I go in another. I find my purse, drop my keys inside and tell my heart to stop dreaming.
Mid-May. Where have the days gone? Still no word from Myers-Smith. I expected more from them, but at the same time, expected nothing at all.
What’s so hard about dashing off a letter on corporate letterhead, letting a girl know she didn’t get the job? Use a lot of corporate buzzwords about how you found a candidate more tailored to their corporate needs and yadda, yadda, blah, blah, the deed is done.
On a positive note, Peyton Danner returned my call. No, she had not heard about my interview in jeans, but she dismissed it with “I’ve heard worse, much worse.”
She’s talking with other companies about their need for a person of my substantial (her word, not mine) qualities, but these things take time.
So I go about my daily, unemployed routine. Up around eight, power walk three miles (cancel all mental notes to rejoin the gym), shower and dress, then sit down for prayer and Bible reading.
I try not to let my mind drift and wander down dark mental trails during the quiet moments of my devotional time. I try not to dwell on the fact that I’m both jobless and husbandless at thirty-three.
It’s The Apprentice meets The Bachelorette. Maybe I should write Mark Burnett.
But I’ve come to grips with the fact that “finding myself” lies not in the soul of Macy Moore, but in the heart of God. Easier said than done? Yes.
After prayer, I hop on the Internet looking for jobs. I’ve posted my résumé with about ten companies, but so far, no nibbles.
Sometime during the day I check my bank balance to see if it’s miraculously multiplied. It hasn’t. Around the middle of August my well of severance and vacation pay runs dry and I’ll be broke unless I dip into my 401K or land a fabulous job.
At noon I break for lunch. Habit, I guess. I make a sandwich or run out for fast food, which totally negates my three-mile power walk, but for the moment I’m keeping life in precarious balance. Lost my job, lost my man, I’m hanging on to my deep fried potatoes.
Around three I visit Mrs. Woodward, who is completely recovered from gallbladder surgery. The past few days, Drag has joined us for a rousing game of Scrabble. His dumb surfer dude shtick is a phony and a fake. He’s crazy intelligent.
Tuesday night I meet the Single Saved Sisters at House of Joe’s, sans Lucy. She has to work. Something about an early deadline for the local news pages.
At eight o’clock Tamara and I are the only ones here. We sip lattes and chew the fat, wondering what happened to Adriane. Her empty chair is like the calm before the storm. Something is up.
“Where do you think she is?” I ask Tamara with a quick glance toward the door.
“Maybe she’s on deadline?”
“No, she turned in her latest manuscript the week I went to New York.”
“You think she forgot?” Tamara looks at me as if she knows it’s a wild idea, but she’s reaching.
“Has she missed a meeting since we started this ridiculous club?” I check the door again.
By eight-thirty she’s still missing, not answering her home or cell phone. Tamara is contemplating a call to the hospital when Adriane Fox finally waltzes in and floats over to our table.
“What is up with you?” Tamara demands, sheathing her cell phone with vigor.
“Nothing,” Adriane says, but the singsong in
her voice and the sparkle in her eye tells a different story.
She orders her coffee and rejoins us, going on and on about inane stuff like how the driver next to her at a red light looked like the hero in her first book, Hearts & Roses, and how she thinks we should all go shopping at the Viera outlets on Saturday, and has anyone seen the new Lexus? It’s gorgeous.
Tamara rallies with a wicked cross-examination, but Adriane maneuvers around her. Me? I observe, saying nothing.
Then it hits me. “You met somebody.”
She snaps, “What makes you say that?”
Now Tamara’s caught on. “You did. You met someone. I wondered why you were yapping so much.”
She crumbles easily. “Okay, what if I did? You’ve been pestering me for years to—”
“Date?” Tamara interjects.
“If that’s the word you choose.”
Tamara and I woo-hoo right in the middle of House of Joe’s. This is fantastic news. Out of the corner of my eye I see Claire is about to take the stage. I’m glad she’s singing again tonight, glad we didn’t interrupt her set.
“Why the cloak-and-dagger?” I want to know.
“We recently realized how we felt and I’m not sure where things are going.” Adriane scrunches up her shoulders, and shades of her usual pessimistic self shadow the conversation.
“Hold it,” I say, standing, palms up, “until I order another round.”
“Let me buy,” Adriane insists. “You’re unemployed, Macy.”
“Thanks. I forgot.” Women in love are so arrogant. “Just tell everyone in earshot I don’t have a job, that I’m a failure.”
“You’re not a failure. Get over yourself.” Adriane scoots away to order lattes.
“A pessimist in love,” Tamara says. “Not sure I can handle it.”
Come to find out, Adriane’s new man is an editor with her publishing house. While e-mailing and IMing over one of her manuscripts, they became friends.
“He’s a Christian?” Tamara asks. “Don’t be walking the line like our girl Macy.”
“Hey!” It’s a primitive defense, but the best I can do on short notice.
“Please, I’ve been that route. Yes, he’s a Christian,” Adriane says. “Talking about our faith is how we became friends.”
I recognize the expression on her face. The same one I’ve seen on my sister-in-law Suzanne’s face. The one Lucy now wears. The look of love.
Eric Gurden, Adriane’s new love, was in Orlando on business and drove over to see Adriane Sunday afternoon. The rest, as they say, is history.
We hear how Eric hung the moon and lit the stars, and set Adriane’s heart in motion. It’s good to see her touched by love. Not once during the evening does she poise her hand as if waiting for a cigarette.
“You know,” I say suddenly, sort of thinking out loud, “when and if I decide to get married, I’m going against the grain.”
“Oh, yes, same here,” Adriane echoes.
“Not me,” Tamara counters with a shake of her head. “Tradition, tradition, tradition. Stained-glass-window church, wedding march, big reception. The works.”
“I want a wedding under the stars,” I begin, “with me in a white, flowing cotton dress. No flowers or unity candle. I’ll walk down the aisle to the music of a violin. I’ll curl my bare toes in the grass and make a covenant with God and my man to never give up on love.”
“Oh, Macy, how lovely,” Adriane says, exhaling. “I might have to steal that scene for a book.”
“And I want chocolate, lots of chocolate,” I conclude.
Tamara slaps the table. “Now you’re talking.” Then she stands. “I hate to go, but I have an early-morning meeting.”
“It’s only nine-thirty,” I protest.
“I know, I know, but I was falling asleep at my desk today.”
She takes a last gulp from her mug. From the corner of my eye I see a man passing by our table, staring at Tamara. He stops, then backtracks. “Tamara Clayton?”
“Yes.” She turns around.
“I can’t believe it. It’s me, Sam Peterson from Live Oak.”
“Well, Sam Peterson.” She hugs him, then looks at us. “He was my brother Phil’s best friend.”
“I just moved into town. Came in with a new project at Rockwell-Collins.”
“Well, welcome.” Tamara flirts. Right out in the open. No shame. I don’t blame her, though. Sam is very fine.
“Maybe we could get together, talk about old times,” Sam suggests, his gaze glued to her face. “You know, growing up, I always had a crush on you. Phil’s little sister.”
Tamara chortles. Oh, brother.
“Why don’t I take you on a tour of the town?”
Sam’s big white smile brightens his entire being. “That would be wonderful.”
Before our very eyes, Tamara makes a date. Then they leave House of Joe’s, her arm linked with his, gabbing ninety miles an hour as if Adriane and I don’t even exist.
“How do you like that?” I muse.
“Don’t be bitter, Macy,” Adriane says.
“What? Bitter? I’m not bitter.”
“Well, life has thrown you a few curves—”
“But I’m still in the game, Adriane.”
“That’s my girl. Keep that positive attitude,” she says, like pip, pip, cheerio.
Who does she think she’s talking to? Keep a positive attitude, huh! I’m about to say something when her cell phone jingles. By the way she answers and the flush on her cheeks, I know it’s Eric. She grabs her stuff, waves goodbye and I’m left to walk out alone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Memorial Day weekend I have a brain freeze. I don’t know what happens, but I let the Single Saved Sisters talk me into attending the church singles function.
“Will there be more than ten people there?” I ask during a late-afternoon visit with Lucy. Bored, I drop by the paper to see what morbid news story she’s working on.
“Of course. Stop this ridiculous phobia. You’re in crowds of more than ten people all the time.”
“Ridiculous phobia? Please, it’s self-defense.”
“You ride on airplanes with hundreds of people and it never bothers you.”
“I read where Robert Mitchum had a crowd phobia.”
“And he’s your role model? A fifties actor?”
“I’m just saying.”
“Say you’ll be there.”
“Okay,” I say, but call her bluff. “I’ll go if you fry a hamburger in a skillet on the stove.”
She fades to green. “Gross.”
“As I thought.” Feeling puffed up, I sit back. We all have our phobias.
Lucy leans my way. “Macy, you have no boyfriend, no job and all you do is sit home in those ratty shorts, conduct phone interviews and surf cable channels.”
I make a face. Cheater. “Okay, I’ll go.”
So here it is, Memorial Day, and I’m going to a singles shindig.
I get ready for the Bash on the Beach, packing my tote with a towel and my cooler with shrimp salad.
The silver lining to this cloud is that Lucy is off the market and perhaps, oh, if I can dream, the one or two cool guys will gravitate my way. Just for the day, that’s all I ask.
Lucy and Jack pick me up around ten. She’s bubbly and beautiful in a pale green sundress. He, I’ve learned, is not at all like Barney Fife. Strong and wiry, soft-spoken and kind, Jack reminds me of a nineteenth-century, Old West cowboy. Salt-of-the-earth type. Fear the Almighty, work hard and love your woman.
In no time, we’re beachside and pulling into Nance Park, where I see a sizable crowd has already gathered.
I stick on a smile and greet everyone. Tamara and Adriane arrive with their men. I’m like the seventh wheel. Third wheel is doable, the fifth is a little embarrassing, but the seventh? Downright humiliating.
Adriane introduces us to Eric Gurden, a floppy-haired blonde who reminds me of Tom Berenger. Tamara cleaves to Sam as if she wants to be
his permanent appendage and smiles so much my face hurts. They’ve been thick as thieves since running into each other that night at the coffeehouse.
At the last Single Saved Sisters meeting, I alone showed up, sipped half a white mocha and left.
The seven of us set up camp under one of the pavilions. Out on the beach, the volleyball is out and being tossed around. Now hear this—I stink at volleyball. Right down to my size-ten feet.
I watch the preliminary action, hoping no one remembers I’m five-ten. Every volleyball game is the same. Stick the tall girl in the front line and tell her to spike.
Tina Farrow harangued me during this inane game in eighth-grade gym class. Awkward and geeky with my new long limbs, I fumbled over my own feet during one game and landed in the net, arms and legs everywhere. Even our P.E. teacher faced the wall to hide her laugh.
After that, I refused to play such a cruel sport. In high school I was always sick that semester.
“Anyone for volleyball?” one of the guys hollers toward the pavilion.
“Macy’s here. She can play,” Lucy shouts down to them, pointing at me.
I gape at her. “Have you gone mad?”
“Look, a whole bunch of guys are here—Greg, Kip, Tomás what’s-his-name.”
I peer over the rail. No Velcro sneakers or bad combovers. Greg, Kip and Tomás are very cool—in fact, the largest gathering of cool I’ve ever seen at one of these things.
“Go on.” She pushes me.
“No way.” I grit my teeth. “You know I hate volleyball.”
“Just stick your hands in the air and spike it.”
“Come on, girl. I’ll go with you.” Tamara jerks me by the arm.
I don’t know why, but I go. I’m an idiot.
“All right, Macy, Tamara,” Tomás says, big white grin splitting his brown face. “I got dibs on Macy.”
“I’m really awful,” I confess, loudly, as a way of warning, watching Tamara cross under the net to the other side.
“Just stand in front and spike it.” He takes my hand, walks me to the front center and gives me a thumbs-up.
