by Milly Taiden
Her shoulders sagged slightly. “About the same.”
“Who’s Mike?” A growl rolled through my chest under my words.
A small smile played in the corner of her mouth. “Some guy Jenn knows.”
“He’s overly touchy-feely.” I frowned and drank more of my beer.
She sighed. “He’s a guy. At a bar. On a Saturday.” She paused and stared at me. “Probably not a stretch to figure out what’s on his mind.”
Yep. She assumed I was on the prowl with the Tom Cat. “Maybe his friend dragged him out to be the wingman.”
Her nod told me she heard me, but didn’t fully believe me.
Most of the things I knew in life couldn’t help me when it came to women. Fishing, cars, rules of soccer, and types of trees proved useless. I knew how to flirt, how to please a woman in bed. Emotional stuff? No clue. I never let it get far. Not even with Kelly. Sure I liked her. Really liked her.
Everything felt different, larger with Diane. I shut down and shut her out on the beach. Now what?
Like the other night when I stood in her driveway, I waited for a sign, something to show me what I should do.
I opened my mouth to say we should talk. Nothing. I balled my fist against my leg and drained the rest of my beer.
She saved us from further awkwardness by changing the topic to include her friends. The latest celebrity gossip and shoes to make your ass rounder weren’t topics I had much to contribute on. After a few awkward minutes of staring into my empty glass, I excused myself, offering to get more drinks for everyone.
I retreated back into the bar where thankfully the band had taken a break. With a glance toward the wall where Tom stood with tonight’s interest, I shouldered my way through the crowd. The wait at the bar discouraged me. Mike was nowhere to be seen. At least I wouldn’t have to talk with the guy. If I hadn’t offered to get a few drinks for Diane’s friends, I would’ve bailed altogether. The distraction of a night out faded when I saw Diane.
A hand pressed against my lower back. Warmth spread from the point of contact and for a second I thought it might be Diane. When I turned, different brown eyes met mine.
“Sorry. Excuse me,” the not Diane woman said.
“No problem.” I hid my disappointment behind a friendly smile.
Slow, tortuous minutes in line gave me time to think, which was the last thing I wanted to do. Tonight wasn’t the time to talk with Diane. Not here, not with her girlfriends sitting around like an audience, not when she thought I was here trolling for action like Mike.
My head spun, but not from the alcohol. I’d had two beers all night. Making my decision, I ordered the cocktails and returned to the table. I told Donnely my plans when I passed him
“I’m going to head out. You ladies have a fun evening.” I set the drinks on the table and then squeezed Diane’s shoulder, trying to communicate I was leaving alone.
A few of the women frowned and tried to convince me to stay. Mike sat in his spot next to Diane, but chatted up Jenn, clearly having shifted his sights. Good. If I accomplished nothing else tonight, at least I’d scared him away. Diane gave me a sad smile and told me it was nice to run in to me. No see you later or around or anything to give me hope I hadn’t screwed up everything.
On the ferry back to the island, I stood on deck at the front of the boat to watch the island come into view. Behind me the lights of the rest of the world blinked and burned. Let them. I didn’t want them. Solitude suited me better.
I’d messed things up with Diane. Maybe this was the reason Maggie never gave in to my flirting. Living next door to someone you made a mess of things with would be torturous. I believed I was in love with Maggie at one point last year. Looking back, it was nothing more than a crush. At least compared to how I felt about Diane.
The dark shadow of the island grew larger when the ferry approached the dock. A few bright spots of lights littered the beach and bluffs. Each one was a reminder of the solitary island life of living away from the bright lights and seduction of the city.
*
“How’s Diane?” my aunt asked while spooning green beans on my plate.
I held my hand out to stop her from creating a mountain of vegetables I’d be forced to eat out of politeness.
“I assume she’s fine.”
“Oh, dear.” She frowned.
“What?” I shoved beans off my pork chop.
“I thought you were fond of her.”
“I was. I am. We’re not spending a lot of time together right now.” I shrugged, an attempt to end the conversation.
“Honey, leave the man alone. The more you pester him, the more he’ll dig in his heels,” my uncle interrupted, holding his plate out for a spoonful of beans. “You should know that by now.”
“I know no such thing,” she said.
“It hasn’t worked for him and Ted, what makes you think your pushing will work with this girl. Leave it be. Give him some room to breathe and figure it out on his own.”
Helen set the beans down next to her plate and sat in her chair. “I guess you know what you’re doing.”
“Guess so.”
“It’s your life, John.”
I waited for her next words.
“I want you to be happy.”
“I’m happy. I swear. Got everything I need.”
She sighed and gave me a mothering look, which told me she didn’t believe me, not by a mile, but would let it drop. For now.
“Great meal,” I said, shoveling pork and mashed potatoes into my mouth.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she chastised. I’d upset her. Great. She was mad at me, too. What was it lately with me and all females?
“Diane’s never said she planned to stay on the island. At least not to me. What’s the point in starting anything if she’s going to leave soon?” I sounded stupid even to my own ears.
“No one can say what’s coming up for any of us. Or how long we have.” My aunt spoke in clichés when she gave advice. “You find your people in life and you hold on tight. No one is promised a future more than today.”
Her words were about Diane, but could have been spoken any time over the last decade about my mom. Or me.
“Holding on won’t keep them with you,” I said. I held on to my pain over my mother and my anger toward my father for ten years. And had nothing to show for either.
“I have a framed needlepoint around here somewhere your grandmother made. Has a quote about loving and letting go. Want me to find it?”
Needlepoint? What was I supposed to do with a needlepoint? Put it in my powder room?
I don’t have a powder room.
“Nah, it’s okay. I get it.”
“Good,” my uncle said. “Now, if you two are done with all your talk about emotions, what’s for dessert?”
Pretty sure my uncle just called me a woman.
“I baked a cherry dump cake. Ice cream?”
My uncle patted his large belly. “Of course.”
I decided to turn the talk away from me and all the “emotions”. “Speaking of sugar, how’s the diabetes these days?”
Peter grumbled something about his health being his own damn business.
“Peter, no swearing at the dinner table.”
“Damn woman has sonic hearing I swear,” he mumbled into his water glass. “Doctor says I need to lose more weight or I’ll have to go on some other kind of meds.”
“Should you be eating sweets?”
“Probably not. Life’s too short to follow all the rules. I stopped all the other fun stuff I used to do. A piece of cake every once and a while won’t kill me. You gotta live your life.”
“Truer words have never been spoken.”
I complimented my aunt on dinner and told my uncle we’d go fishing soon before saying I’d see them next Sunday.
Dinner with them often turned into a free advice session or morality lesson. They weren’t old, not by a long stretch, but I guess that’s what happened w
hen you settled down. You found other people’s problems and lives to advise and mess with.
***
CHAPTER TWENTY
Expectations.
Trouble stemmed from having them. That I knew for certain. When I said the word “girlfriend” aloud to Kelly and she denied me, it stung. I buried it with anger, but the seed of it hurt. No amount of deer fern would remove the sting like it did with nettles.
Damn nettles. I’d run into a thicket of them on the job site today without my gloves. My fingers prickled and the palm of my hand burned even after crushing up fern fronds and rubbing them over my skin. Shows how little focus I had. Lack of focus led to injuries or death in logging, so I spent the rest of the afternoon in the work trailer. Given it hadn’t stopped raining for three days, being in the trailer was the better option.
Everything outside was saturated and muddy. Streams flooded, standing water pooled on roads, and giant puddles took over parking lots. Miserable. My own jeans hadn’t dried out from the morning and my jacket steamed from where it laid on top of the space heater.
At three, I sent the crew home and cut out early myself.
The rain and mud didn’t help my bad mood. On Monday, Helen called to apologize for prying into my life and upsetting me. I told her it was fine. If she didn’t pry, no one would. I think that mended things between us. They were the closest family I had and mattered more to me than I let them know.
The source of my mood centered on the mess I’d created with Diane. Things were unresolved with us and I didn’t know how much time I had to make them right. She needed to know the issue wasn’t with her. I was trying to save her from all of my own shit.
That was a lie. I was so scared about her walking out of my life, I’d kicked her out. Could I admit that out loud?
To add to my self-inflicted misery, I hadn’t seen a sign of Diane in over a week. Nothing since I ran into her at the bar over in town. I’d made sure she saw that I left alone, but that might have been too little too late.
Whenever I had checked on her house this week the lights were off downstairs, and it was quiet. I didn’t see her Jeep in the driveway yesterday or today when I left for work. It wasn’t there when I got home.
Could she have left the island? I knew she came home after Seattle last weekend, but had her plans changed?
A mature person would text or call her, even stop over and knock. That person was not me. Instead, I called Maggie. May was here and she’d be returning to her house for the summer, which meant Diane would be leaving soon. And I didn’t know when or where she’d go.
Maggie picked up with a surprised hello.
“Are you okay?” Her voice sounded worried.
“Hi to you, too. Everything’s fine,” I said, a defensive tone to my voice.
“Are you sure? You never call me. Other than a few texts the last few months, the last time you called, my house was on fire.”
“Almost. Smoke, no fire.”
“Right. So what’s going on?”
“Nothing. Was wondering when you were coming home. And if you’ve come to your senses about leaving the professor behind in Portland.”
“Hush. No, Gil’s coming with me. He’s looking forward to the summer. In fact, he wants me to ask you if you’ll take him fishing.”
“Really? I didn’t figure him for the type.”
“Don’t judge a man by his elbow patches. Gil grew up fly fishing in Colorado. Just because he lives in the city, doesn’t mean he can’t bait a hook.”
Her words reminded me of Diane and our fishing excursion. As if reading my mind, she brought her up.
“Diane told me you took her fishing.”
“You two talk?” Why hadn’t I assumed they did? Maybe Diane had called her and told her about us. About how I’d messed things up.
“Sure. Email more than anything. I’m excited to meet her soon. Weird we know each other online and she’s living in my house, but we’ve never met.”
A perfect opportunity for me to ask about Diane, but when I started to speak, I found my mouth dry and my tongue unable to form the question.
“She’s great. Isn’t she? I lucked out with her for a tenant.”
“Yeah, great.”
“You sound distracted.”
Here was my opening to talk about Diane and figure out what was going on in my head, but I couldn’t find the words.
“Hello? John? Did the call drop?” she asked.
“I’m here.”
“Are you moving around? I couldn’t hear what you said.”
“I’m not. Satellite must have shifted. I didn’t say anything.”
“You know, Diane told me you two spent a lot of time together the past few months. That’s nice of you.”
There was that word again. Nice.
“Yeah, we hung out.”
“Past tense?” she asked.
I rubbed the back of my knuckles along my jawline, pressing them into the bone and scowled. “Kind of. I’m not sure what’s going on there.”
“Oh, John.”
“Geez, don’t give me the “oh, John” in that voice. Your disappointment is palpable.”
“What happened?”
“Not sure. We were hanging out and then after we went camping, it all kind of fell apart.”
“Wait. Wait a second. You took her camping?”
“Yeah.”
“She must like you. Camping and fishing. Wow. Are you in love?”
“Why do you ask that?” My words were clipped.
“Come on. A young, single woman who is willing to go camping and sit in your boat for hours surrounded by bait? Only a woman in love would do that.”
Again, I lost my words.
“Hello? Can you hear me? Damn island cell service,” she muttered into the phone.
“I’m still here.”
“Oh, I thought the call dropped. You never answered my question.”
“What question?” I played dumb to buy myself some time while the word love bounced around in my brain like a pinball.
“Are you in love with Diane?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know or won’t say? And what happened to Kelly? Is she still in the picture? John Day, if you are two-timing these women, you’re in big trouble.” Her voice rose in exasperation.
“Not seeing Kelly anymore. I thought I told you about that. Pretty sure she’s back with the husband.”
“Ouch. What a bitch.”
“You said it not me.”
“I’m glad. The last thing you need is messy emotional baggage.”
I shuddered. “Yeah.”
“Got it. There’s no reason you and Diane can’t be together.”
Another opening. This time I rallied my courage and took it. “There’s a big reason. You’re moving back into your cabin. She’s leaving.”
My phone was silent. I pulled it away from my ear to see if the call had been dropped this time. Maggie’s voice squawked from the speaker, but I couldn’t hear her.
“What?”
“What what? I asked when the last time you and Diane spoke was.”
“Um, it’s been over a week. Closer to two really.”
“Jesus, John!”
“What? Why are you yelling at me?”
“You haven’t spoken with her at all?”
“No, I told you it’s been a while.”
More unintelligible swearing followed.
“What are you saying? All I hear is cursing.”
“Okay, where are you?” she asked.
“I’m standing in my living room.”
“I need you to sit down.”
My heart stopped and I held my breath. People only told you bad news when they asked you to sit down. Dad told me to sit down when he called me in the middle of the night to tell me about the accident.
Oh, shit.
Tingling spread up my arm from my finger-tips. Blood rushed in my ears. “Is she okay?” I whispered, backing up until my le
gs hit the chair. I slumped against the arm and silently chanted, “Please be okay” in my head.
“John? I don’t want you to beat yourself up. You didn’t know. I figured you knew already. That’s why I asked if you were okay. I didn’t say anything because I thought, well, I thought you would’ve been with her at the hospital.” Her words were said in what was Maggie’s attempt at a soothing tone.
“Tell me,” I shouted.
Fuck.
Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay.
“There was an accident.”
***
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Accident.
I never wanted to hear those words again in my life. Ever.
“Is she home?” I stood up too fast and the room swam with stars.
Shaking my head to clear my vision, I already had my hand on the door when Maggie spoke, “She’s okay. Now. She’ll be fine. But she’s in Coupeville.”
“Coupeville?” Why would she be in Coupeville?
“John, she’s still in the hospital.”
I started the truck before I even realized I had left the house, the phone and Maggie’s voice tucked between my ear and shoulder.
“John? What are you doing? Hello?”
“I’m here. I’m in the truck.”
“Stop. You need to calm down before you see her.”
Shit. I banged my hand against the steering wheel. The horn sounded.
“Listen, she’s okay. I swear. She’s being held for observation with a bump on the head, bruised ribs, and a broken wrist from the airbag.”
“What the hell happened?”
“On the way to Langley this morning she hydroplaned after avoiding a deer and lost control. Ended up in a ditch. I’m surprised you didn’t hear already. Typically news travels fast up there.”
“I’ve been ignoring everyone and everything all week.”
“I’m so sorry. I assumed you knew. I honestly didn’t know or I wouldn’t have asked all that stuff about love.”
The burning sting settled back in my chest.
“It’s okay. You didn’t know.”
“You all right?” she asked.
