“That’s sweet,” I forced out.
“She used endearments too. She called me häschen,” he went on with sharing.
“That’s . . . sweet?” It was a question this time because I didn’t know what that word meant.
He chuckled. “It means little hare. She called my brother mäuschen. That means little mouse.”
“Yes, sweet,” I murmured.
“Spätzchen means little sparrow and no, she never got that,” he stated bluntly, reading my thoughts, and my breath arrested. “Iz?” he called when I concentrated on forcing myself to breathe.
“I’m here.”
“I wouldn’t do that to her,” he said.
Of course he wouldn’t.
“Right,” I whispered.
“More importantly, I wouldn’t do that to you.”
My breath arrested again.
More importantly?
“We clear on that?” he demanded to know, sounding like he was ticked.
“Are you angry?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“Okay,” I said softly, realizing he really just wouldn’t.
“I didn’t call her anything I got from Grams.”
“Okay, Johnny.”
“We clear on that?” he repeated, definitely wanting to make sure we were.
“We’re clear on that,” I told him.
“So that doesn’t happen again,” he declared.
“Sorry?”
“That kind of shit, it doesn’t enter your head.”
“Johnny, I don’t think this is—”
“Say it, baby. Let that shit go,” he coaxed gently, definitely wanting me to do that too.
“It doesn’t enter my head,” I whispered.
“Good,” he stated. “I’ll talk to my bud, call you about Mist.”
“Okay.”
“Have fun at the festival,” he bid.
“Are you, um . . . going?”
“I always swing by. The garage sponsors a tent that makes money for Pop Warner. I think this year it’s a hog roast. Or ribs. Or something. My GM sets it up but I gotta make an appearance.”
That was all he said. Not that he’d meet me there. Not that we could hang there for a while then go to Home and hang there for a while, and then maybe go to his place, or mine, and fuck each other until we pass out.
So maybe him calling me a pet name as derived from his German grandmother, something he didn’t give Shandra, wasn’t what it might seem to be, especially to Deanna if she knew about it (which she wouldn’t, I was learning).
And anyway, I’d just promised not to let that enter my head.
It wasn’t my business.
They were who they were and would be whatever they became.
And we were who we were and would be whatever we became.
And Johnny clearly did not intend for the twain to meet.
“Oh, okay,” I replied.
“Have a good day at work and talk to you later.”
“You too, Johnny.”
“Later, babe.”
“’Bye, Johnny.”
We hung up. Our texts came back up. And I stared at the screen, confused at what had just happened.
Deanna would sort it out.
But I was not telling Deanna.
I also wasn’t going to take her advice, though part of it I was.
I wasn’t going to pay attention. I wasn’t going to read into things to see if Johnny intended to make any play, then let him make it, possibly getting my hopes up only for them to be dashed.
What I was going to do was be careful, look after me and do what I’d told myself I was going to do weeks earlier when this all began.
I was just going to be.
As I drove up my drive that night, I stared at the yellow Ford Focus parked in front of my house, my heart thrumming a mad beat.
The dogs were out and they avoided my car as I parked, but they were on me the minute I opened my door.
I loved my babies.
But it was only cursory pets I gave them before I ran to my front door, the screen shut, the door behind it open.
Me and Swirl and Dempsey pushed through and we barely got two steps in before I shouted, “Addie!”
My sister appeared at the back of the hall coming out of my kitchen, my nephew on her hip.
“Jeez, the drama,” she drawled.
I raced down the hall and threw my arms around her and Brooks.
She only had one arm but she wrapped it around me and held tight.
Brooks pulled my hair.
I shifted a bit away, not letting her go, and declared happily, “I can’t believe you guys are here!”
“Well we are, in the flesh,” she returned.
I smiled at her, turned and gave Brooks a sloppy kiss on his neck. He tilted his head toward the kiss and squealed. I looked back to my sister.
“Where’s Perry?” I asked after my brother-in-law.
Her face shut down.
Oh no.
My enthusiasm at her surprise visit started to dissolve.
“What’s happening?” I queried gently.
“Nothing,” she answered, pulling from my hold but then depositing Brooks right in my arms before she moved back into the kitchen. “Brooklyn and me just needed a little vacation. We can’t afford a five star on the Riviera so we came to the next best place.” She stopped at my island and turned back to me. “Here.”
“And Perry couldn’t come on this vacation?” I pushed.
She shrugged one shoulder.
Brooks attacked my necklace.
I turned my attention to him, lifting a hand to carefully disengage the chain from his grip. “No, baby. That’s delicate and it was Grandma’s,” I whispered.
He looked at my face like I swear he understood me then giggled so hard, his roly-poly body bobbled in my arm and his attention shifted to the floor when Swirl trotted in.
Brooks squealed and reached toward my dog.
“The chicken is in the brine,” Addie declared and I looked to her. “I’m making my famous chicken parmigiana.”
“It’s my famous chicken parmigiana,” I corrected her.
“Even if someone steals something, they’ve stolen it so they have it so it’s theirs,” she returned.
“But I still have it so it’s mine.”
“We can share it,” she replied.
I didn’t want to talk about chicken parmigiana.
I wanted to talk about why my sister and her son were in my house without warning and Perry wasn’t with them.
“Addie—” I began.
“Put him down. The dogs love him and he loves them. He’ll be fine,” she ordered, moving toward the fridge.
“Addie—” I tried again.
“And get changed. I brought two bottles of tequila and the makings for my famous margarita mixer, and that is mine even though you stole it and you can’t say it isn’t.”
She was right. That was hers and I totally stole it, her margaritas were that marvelous.
“We’re eating, putting Brooks down and getting loaded,” she finished.
I decided to wade into the Perry situation after she’d had a margarita or two.
“It’s the Memorial Weekend Food Festival in Matlock tomorrow,” I shared.
She sent a smile my way.
A smile that was not her usual devil-may-care Adeline Forrester smile.
“Awesome,” she decreed.
“I take it you want to go,” I noted, bending to put Brooks on the floor.
Dempsey instantly moved to him with Swirl not far behind.
Brooks shrieked when he got doggie kisses and then started giggling.
“Sun, copious amounts of food, my baby and my sister? Heck yeah I wanna go.”
“Great, doll,” I murmured. Louder, I told her, “I’m gonna run and get changed. I’ll be right back.”
“Right on.”
“Did you get your stuff in?” I asked.
“We’re all sorted,” she replied, whisking eggs in a bowl.
“’Kay. I’ll get on margaritas when I get back.”
“That’s a deal.”
I left the room and was putting my purse that had been over my shoulder through all that on the hall table when it rang.
I pulled out my phone and saw it said Johnny Calling.
I let it ring more than once that time because I didn’t want to be in earshot of Addie when I answered.
She was going to tell me about Perry, I’d make sure of it.
I was not going to tell her about Johnny. If she knew about Johnny, she’d drug my margarita, take me to the mill herself and put me in his bed.
“Hey,” I answered when I was halfway up the steps.
“You driving?” he asked.
“No, I’m home and my sister’s here. Surprise visit.”
“She bring Brooks?”
He asked about Brooks like he’d not only met him but helped raise him.
“Yes.”
“Cool for you, baby,” he murmured.
“Yes,” I agreed, and it was. I loved my sister. I hated her living so far away.
What I didn’t love was knowing something was up. Something she wouldn’t tell me.
“I won’t take a lot of your time then,” he said as I entered my room. “Talked to Ben. They’re taking off next Saturday. I’m gonna go get Mist and bring him to you that day if it’s good with you.”
“It’s good with me,” I replied distractedly, flipping off my shoes.
“You sure?” Johnny asked.
“Of course,” I answered.
“I’ll bring feed and muck out his stall after he goes back home, which’ll be the next Saturday.”
I juggled my phone in the crook of my neck as I went for the belt on my slacks. “It’s fine, Johnny. Serengeti and Amaretto were stabled with a bunch of horses before we came out here. They like company.”
“Fantastic, babe. Now I’ll let you get back to your sister.”
With my belt undone, I gave up on my slacks, sat on my bed and blurted, “Her husband isn’t here.”
“Say that again?” Johnny demanded.
“Perry. Her husband, who I want to like, I’ve tried to like, but I can’t like because he’s a loser, isn’t here. She’s here. Brooks is here. And Perry is not here. She’s not telling me why. She’s keeping something from me.”
“Shit,” he muttered.
“Yes,” I agreed.
“How’s this guy a loser?” he queried.
“He can’t hold a job because he’s convinced himself he’s the next Chris Robinson and has to be available for gigs that never materialize since he’s no longer even in a band. But he’s okay watching TV, drinking beer and going out with his buds while she holds one down and does overtime. They had Brooks, and for Perry it was about someone giving him something to play with. Not the responsibility of raising a child and all that comes with that like diaper changes, feedings in the middle of the night, looking after him because he can’t fend for himself, and oh, I don’t know . . . contributing to the household to keep a roof over his head.”
“Shit,” Johnny repeated in a mutter.
“Yes,” I repeated my agreement.
“Where are you?” he asked a strange question.
“At home,” I answered.
“No, spätzchen,” he said quietly with gentle humor. “Where are you that it seems like you can talk without her hearing?”
“I’m in my bedroom. She’s in the kitchen.”
“So you can talk without her hearing?”
“Yes, Johnny.”
“She needs to dump this guy.”
I blinked at my bare feet at his frank and inflexible decree after I’d shared the little I’d shared about Perry.
“He’s her husband and the father of her child,” I reminded him.
“Don’t give a shit. She’s there, that’s good. Something’s going wrong at home, she’s the best place she can be. With her sister. With family. With someone who’ll take care of her, look out for her and have her back. There’s a scale of assholes to dipshits. Murderers and rapists are at the top of that scale. But men who don’t look after their wives and kids aren’t closer to the dipshit end. They’re up top. She needs to scrape him off, and since you got her, you need to guide her to that.”
“She loves him,” I shared.
“Love isn’t everything. When it comes to this kind of thing, love is nothing. I can see those people who stay together for their children because they both love their kids and they both want to work at giving them a good home. I can’t see those people who stay with someone who’s a fuckwit because they love him.”
“This makes sense,” I murmured, even if his declaring at all that “love was nothing” was a tad alarming.
“Izzy, baby, there are good guys out there. She scrapes this one off, she’ll find one of those guys.”
“My mom didn’t,” I told him.
“My mom left, my dad didn’t find a good one either. But he had fun trying. And she gave him two things that meant everything to him. His sons. So your sister, she’s doin’ all right. She’s got you and she’s got her boy and whatever comes after that comes. We all gotta settle in with what we got and just rejoice if life gives us more or gives us better. She not only has more, she’s got her son, so she’s got better.”
I wanted to know about his mom. I wanted to know about his dad. I wanted to know about his brother. I wanted to know why he seemed to have all the time in the world to listen and advise about a possible problem with my sister that even I didn’t know what was happening.
And I wanted to tell him how much it meant to me that he’d listen and advise but also that he was the kind of man who would say the kinds of things he was saying.
But being careful and looking out for me, I wasn’t going to give myself any of that.
“We’re having a margarita night so maybe I can pry something loose and give her your honesty,” I said.
“My experience with you is that margarita nights lead to really good things, so I’m rooting for you, baby.”
I again stared at my feet as those particular words made my toes curl.
“Now I’ll let you go be with your sister. Take care, Iz.”
“You too, Johnny. ’Bye.”
“Later, spätzchen,” he murmured then he hung up.
It was then I realized he didn’t say “bye,” he said “later,” and that was a version of “bye” but it could also mean something entirely different.
After realizing that, I realized that I was paying attention and picking apart some nuance that Johnny had given me instead of just letting whatever we were becoming be.
Anyway, I had to change clothes and get down to my sister. She didn’t live close so I didn’t have near enough of her.
And she wasn’t talking but I knew she needed me.
A Reunion
Izzy
“WE’LL GET A patch of grass, stake our claim and then we can go back and start sampling,” I suggested to Addie as we wandered down one of the many crisscross walks in Matlock’s town square late the next morning.
She was pushing Brooks in his stroller and we’d made a loop to check out all the booths and tents.
This year’s festival was bigger than the one I’d been to, some of the stalls going down alleys and one of the streets off the square shut down so food trucks could roll in.
There was everything a festival could have that was all about food but also all the festival vendors with all their wares on display, not to mention the face painters, hair braiders, flower laurel makers, balloon animal sellers, and then some.
The place wasn’t yet packed, but it was busy and festive.
But I was in hell.
My hell was due to three reasons. Drinking too many margaritas the night before. Staying up until four in the morning talking to my sister. And the fact she’d firmly avoided any chat about Perry, but I’d spied she’d obvio
usly loaded up her car to the gills and brought it all to my house, mostly Brooks’s stuff.
I didn’t have a kid and I knew when you had a baby you didn’t have the luxury to travel light.
But you didn’t have to travel like she’d done to spend a few days off with her sister.
She had a portable crib, a portable high chair, a ton of his clothes (and hers by the way), several bags of diapers, wipes and the rest, what had to be every toy he owned and enough food to last a month.
So as we wandered I was tired, hungover and very worried, and to top that off, the sun was shining bright. The day was the warmest we’d had that year so far, and all I felt like doing was lying down and taking a nap or shaking my sister and demanding she tell me what was happening.
But I knew my sister. She wasn’t one to hold things in forever, she shared when it was her time. I just had to wait it out.
I didn’t like it but it was my only choice.
“How about here?” I asked, motioning to a wedge of grass shaded by a large tree, the surrounding areas quickly being taken up by other festival goers.
“Works for me,” Addie replied, looking rested and alert, something I found annoying but then she was a mom and she was a waitress at a high-end restaurant. She was used to late hours and lost sleep and being run off her feet.
I dumped the basket I was carrying that had napkins, plastic cups, real forks, spoons, knives, wet wipes, treats for Brooks and a bottle of sunscreen for touch ups, and I slid the plaid blanket out of the handles, unfolded it and flicked it out to lay it on the grass.
“I can’t believe you have a picnic basket like that,” Addie remarked.
I looked at the double door basket with its pink and white gingham lining rimming the edges then at my sister. “I got it at a garage sale for twenty-five cents. It was dirty but in perfect condition. Except I had to replace the lining, and that material I bought at a yard sale for five whole cents.”
She fell to her knees on the blanket and twisted to a sleepy Brooks in his stroller at its edge, saying, “That’s my Iz. If there’s a deal or a steal, she’ll find it.”
I said nothing because I considered that a high compliment.
Addie looked to me. “Except for dog food, cat food and bird seed, you ever pay full price for anything?”
“No,” I answered, and I had no problems with that either.
“Right,” she muttered, turning back to Brooks and pulling him out of his stroller, still speaking. “I blame Dad for a lot of things and that’s one of them.”
The Hookup Page 14
