How Sweet It is

by Sophie Gunn

  Lizzie’s mind drifted to Tay. Whenever she thought of Tay, a twitter of excitement ran through her. Not just physical excitement either, but something stronger. “That’s why your dad’s coming back. He can traipse all over the world buying fancy stationery and pretending to be European for fourteen years, but he still has to face his past.” Lizzie reached over to steal a handful of popcorn. It was still warm, but the salty crunch didn’t satisfy her the way it usually did.

  “So can I get the passport? It takes like eight weeks, so we have to get on it now,” Paige said, ignoring Lizzie’s motherly wisdom. “You should get yours, too.”

  “Me? Where am I going?”

  “Don’t you wonder even a little bit if maybe Dad still loves you?”

  The word still hung in the air over Lizzie’s head like a black cloud. The word dad bumped up against it, then love. Lizzie waited for the thunder in her head to clear before she spoke. She was glad it was too dark for Paige to see her face clearly. Dad. Still. Love.

  Ever?

  Of course not. “We’re not going to be one big happy family, hon. This isn’t exactly a family reunion coming up.”

  “It’s exactly a family reunion,” Paige said, interrupting Lizzie’s thoughts. “The Christmas tree will even be up. What do you think Dad’ll bring me?” Before she could answer, Paige said, “I think he’ll bring a snowboard. I bet he’s been following me online and he knows what I love. It’ll probably be a Ricco. They sell those in Europe. You can’t even get them here.”

  “Please don’t tell me about strangers following you on the Internet,” Lizzie begged.

  Paige rolled her eyes. “Everyone does it.”

  “Are you trying to kill me?”

  “Well what do you think he’ll bring me?” Paige asked.

  What does a missing father bring the daughter he’s never met? Probably something lame, like a teddy bear wearing a Swiss flag sweater that he picked up at the airport. Lizzie rubbed Paige’s toes. When had her child’s feet become so gigantic? “What do you want for Christmas?”

  “A father.”

  “Done. What else.”

  “And a passport.”

  Lizzie faked painful death throes.

  Paige relented and patted Lizzie’s limp hand. “What do you want, Mom?” Paige asked.

  Lizzie opened one eye. “I want you to be happy.” She put her hand on Paige’s knee. “That’s plenty for me.”

  “Now it’s my turn to die,” Paige said, fake gagging. “I’m choking on those rainbows you’re shoving down my throat! Stop! Stop!”

  I want Tay. But she wasn’t about to say that out loud. Lizzie patted her daughter’s knee. “One day, you’ll be a mother and you’ll understand.”

  Paige recovered from her near expiration. “I’d rather be a father and be able to run around and have an exciting life.”

  “I don’t think you would. Ethan Pond lost out big-time on this deal. I got the good end of things.”

  Paige looked at her mother doubtfully. “You are so lost, Mom.”

  “You think that Ethan Pond, a man who’s never met his own daughter, is happy?”

  “Are you happy? All you do is work and hoard money and work and feed those dumb birds on the porch that poop all over the place. Oh, and work.”

  “That sounds like a lot to me. I like my birds. I like my regulars at the diner. I like my life.”

  “But it’s not exciting. It’s not Geneva. It’s just feeding people—and birds!”

  But Lizzie realized that she really did like it. If she said “caring for people and other assorted creatures is all that matters” out loud, Paige would start gagging again. So she just shrugged and said, “Your father isn’t the answer, Paige. Life isn’t that easy or simple.”

  “But, Mom, what if it is? What if it’s as easy as knowing what you want and then going for it, no matter what?”

  Lizzie rolled her eyes, finally understanding. “You’ve been talking to Nina again.”

  “So what if I have? I like her,” Paige said. “Of all your enemies, she’s the one who gets me. She’s going to let me into her Thursday yoga class for free to help with my flexibility. She says if I learn to breathe properly, I can do anything.”

  “I don’t believe in wishful thinking, Paige,” Lizzie said. “Look where it got Nina. She steals the creamers from the diner when she thinks I’m not looking, hon. She lives in a house that’s not hers and scrapes by teaching yoga and doing little art jobs. She can let you into the class because it’s not full! We all breathe just fine without her. Listen, Paige, the hardest thing in life is knowing what you want. It’s much, much harder than it sounds.”

  “So what do you believe in if you don’t believe in Nina?” Paige asked, stuffing the last of the popcorn into her mouth.

  “Hard work and sacrifice.” The words sounded lame, even to her ears.

  Lizzie looked at her beautiful daughter. She had put a pink streak into her black Cleopatra hair. Her athletic, perfect teenage body looked powerful, as if it could do anything. She had no fear. She had huge dreams.

  “What if I already sacrificed enough?” Paige asked.

  Lizzie relented. How to reason with a teenager who thought she’d seen the worst life had to offer at fourteen? “Okay, tell you what. We’ll go to the post office this week to apply for a passport. Just in case.”

  “And one for you!” Paige pulled out a folder of papers from under the coffee table. “I got a list of everything we need to bring. I printed it all out.”

  “No. Just for you.”

  “You’re a coward, Mom. Just get one. It costs like eighty bucks. Will you? Please? Your Christmas present to me? Because I know you think that you won’t want Dad, but what if you do? Huh? You need to be ready.”

  CHAPTER

  28

  Tay came back, promising that this was the day he’d finish Lizzie’s fence, even though he had no intention of doing so. When the fence was done, he’d have to stop, unless he came up with some kind of trade that would satisfy her, and he didn’t have a clue what that could be.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about the way her hair escaped from her bun and spiraled down around her red, full cheeks. How she’d kissed him so passionately, and then asked if he was okay.

  He replaced a rotted-out slat near the corner.

  Another by the gate.

  When all the wood was finally in decent shape, he started to scrape the ancient paint off the slats, trying to keep his mind on his work.

  White jumped out of the truck and settled herself in a sunny spot on the path. She watched him work, perfectly content to laze next to Dune, who was chewing what was left of his tennis ball, which wasn’t much.

  Tay worked his way down the fence while the animals watched, picket by picket. White dozed off, her head on her paws. “Go catch yourself some breakfast, you lazy beast,” he muttered.

  White slept on. Dune climbed onto Lizzie’s porch and dozed off, too. Tay scraped some more.

  “I’m not going to feed you. You know that,” he muttered as he passed the cat again. He tried to keep her home at the lake house, but if he didn’t let her into the cab with him and Dune, she jumped into the back of the truck, a tiny stowaway. And if he kept her in the house, she destroyed what was left of the shabby furniture. Plus, if he locked her in, how would she leave? “Might as well go. Shoo. Go on. Bet that old lady watching us across the street likes cats. Bet she’s got a hundred of them.”

  White looked up at him, blinked, set her head back on her paws. She knew he’d feed her. And the good stuff, too. It was hard not to buy organic when her small, scarred body seemed as if it had been through too much hardship already. He wondered how long she’d been begging at that rest stop before she’d joined his crew.

  He turned back to the fence.

  “Since you’re becoming a permanent fixture here, we’re going to have to do something about that cat.”

  Tay’s scraper slipped. A splinter jabbed into his thumb and
he cursed, then he looked up and cursed again, this time silently.

  Lizzie looked good, as always. She wore a purple faux-fur jacket over her uniform to fight off the morning chill. He hadn’t felt the cold at all until he saw her. He rubbed his arms with his hands, feeling the goose bumps under his fingers.

  How did she do that to him?

  “If she eats one of my birds, I’m never going to forgive her,” she said. “We need to put her in the truck. Or if you want, I can put her inside.”

  He looked at what could be mistaken for a bird-feeder store on Lizzie’s front porch, at the two empty birdbaths in various states of disrepair on her lawn. White would surely be curled up asleep in the sunniest of them soon, because he’d be damned if he’d try to pick that beast up. She’d shred him for sure. “White’s not my cat. Remember? She does exactly as she pleases.”

  “The feline version of you,” Lizzie pointed out.

  “Believe me, I’d love nothing more than to get rid of her.” He thought of his superstition. “She won’t leave my side.”

  Lizzie held out her hand and the cat came to her. She patted her back, then scooped her up.

  “Hey, you traitor!” Tay said. “She hates it when I pick her up. If I tried to do that, I’d have no eyes left.”

  “If she’s not yours, then now she’s mine,” Lizzie said. She walked with White up onto the porch, unlocked her front door, and dumped the cat inside. Before the door was relocked, White appeared in the dining room window, sniffed around a bit, then settled down to look out at them. She definitely looked pissed off. “There’s a key under the third flowerpot. Let her out when you leave.”

  “No way. Finders, keepers.”

  “Tay, there’s no litterbox in there. You have to take her home.”

  “You trust me to go into your house?” he asked.

  Lizzie said, “Remember, Tommy has your info. Anyway, if you want to steal anything, you’ll be terribly disappointed. It’s not like I keep a stash of cash under the mattress.”

  His eyes lingered on her. He liked the way Lizzie stood, with her hands on her hips, completely at ease, in control.

  “Well,” she said. “I better get to work.”

  “Me, too,” he said. As much as he knew it was ridiculous, he felt like White’s agreeing to hang out in Lizzie’s house marked some kind of triumph. He examined his finger. He tried to pull the splinter out with his teeth. Damn thing went in deeper.

  She considered him for a moment. “What?”

  “Splinter.”

  “Give me that hand.”

  “It’s fine. It’ll come out on its own.”

  She rolled her eyes, messed around in her bag, then pulled out a tiny matchbook.

  She was going to set it on fire?

  She opened the matchbox, which turned out to be a tiny sewing kit. He hadn’t been with a woman in so long, he had forgotten how practical they could be. She took out a pin. “You’re a coward. Give it here.” She held out her hand for his hand.

  “Forget it. It’s fine.”

  “Stop protesting and give me your hand. You have no choice in this until you come up with something better that you want. For now, you fix my fence, I fix your finger. I still want us to be at least a tiny bit even.” She took his hand and scraped around above the splinter with her pin.

  “That’s not sterile,” he said stupidly. He was getting delirious from the flower aroma of her shampoo. I can smell her shampoo. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d smelled flowers.

  “Tough cookies.” She handed him the pin to hold while she squeezed his finger. “Boy, Tay, I gotta tell you. I really like this doing-whatever-I-please stuff.” The tip of the splinter popped up, but not enough to grab. “Shoot, I don’t have a tweezers.”

  “Are you sure?” He nodded at her enormous purse. “I’d put money on you having at least three pair.”

  She took the pin back and scraped some more. Then said, “I’ll squeeze. You yank.”

  He smelled her hair some more as she leaned in again. His lips brushed against her hair and she pinched his finger. Hard. He winced and pulled back and she smiled. The tip of the splinter cleared his calloused fingertip and he pinched it easily between his thumb and forefinger.

  She moved away. He felt the distance between them snap a connection that he now had no choice but to acknowledge had been there and had been strong and that he wanted back.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “What?” she asked. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

  “Every time I get near you, I want to kiss you, even though I know it’s a terrible idea. Because I’ll start out kissing you—” He paused. “Like this.”

  Before he could think about it, he pulled her to him.

  Their lips crashed together and she opened her mouth under his. She tasted good. She’d gone soft and limp in his arms. She moaned softly and then it hit him—

  The images.

  He tried to hold on. Pulled her closer. Kissed her harder.

  Then stopped.

  “And then, I’d have to stop because I’d feel awful.”

  “So, feel awful. Maybe that’s what’s supposed to happen. You have to keep feeling awful until all the awful is gone.”

  “I’m not so sure there’s not an unlimited supply of awful. It’s like my brain short-circuits.”

  “So, we just have to circumvent your brain,” she said. Her hand teasingly brushed his side, producing a whole different kind of ache.

  Oh, hell, he wanted to kiss her all over again. “I’m an awful companion,” he said.

  “Well, no one here is perfect,” she said, raising her arms to take in her falling-down house. “Except maybe Mrs. Roth.” She waved at her neighbor peering out from behind her drapes. “I better get to work,” she said.

  She started down the sidewalk.

  He watched her go and it killed him. He couldn’t stand this anymore. He wanted to be normal. He was sick of feeling bad. “Lizzie!” he called after her.

  She turned.

  “I have an idea.”

  She waited.

  “Can you tell me about the Enemy Club? Every detail. I need to understand how you guys did it.”

  “Did what?” She walked back toward him.

  “How you guys forgave each other. I want to know what you did to become enemies, then how you made up. I want to hear every story. That would be payback for the fence.”

  “Just stories? It wouldn’t, Tay.”

  “I swear, it would.” He took her hands. “I can’t find that money, Lizzie. I can’t make it right for Candy. But you guys made it right somehow for each other. I want to know how. I want to know if I stand a chance.”

  CHAPTER

  29

  Bedtime stories?

  She’d asked him what he wanted and he’d asked her for stories?

  Or had he? Maybe what he was really asking for was her. He wanted to understand her.

  Lizzie had agreed to come out to his lake house after lunch the next day even if his deal was, as she put it, completely nuts. He was surprisingly nervous, not just because he’d asked her for such an odd thing, but also because despite all the time they’d spent together and all the kisses—and aborted kisses—they’d shared, this felt like a first date.

  He hoped he could go through with it.

  He’d changed twice, from one pair of jeans to the other. From one T-shirt, to another, to another. The only other clothing he had was the button-down shirt he’d bought to wear to dinner at Annie’s house last Friday night, and that felt too fancy for now.

  “This is weird, isn’t it?” he asked when she got there. She had borrowed Annie’s car, a red Toyota, and had left it at the top of the driveway. “I’m not so good at these conventional things.”

  “No. I like it,” she said. “It reminds me of another date. I almost feel as if I’ve been here before.” She had a sneaky smile on her face, but he had butterflies in his stomach and was too nervous to ask what she
meant.

  “Do you want to go out somewhere to eat?” he asked.

  “No. This is nice, Tay.”

  “Good. Because I made you lunch,” he said, leading her into the cabin.

  They went inside. He fixed turkey sandwiches and tall glasses of iced tea with fresh mint. They carried the meal to the living room and ate side by side on his couch, while White and Dune watched with intense interest.

  He was too nervous to taste his sandwich. But he didn’t think that it was the numbness of his guilt, but nervousness at having Lizzie so close.

  Finally, when they were done and had run out of little things to chat about, he took her plate and put it on the coffee table. He leaned back on the couch. “So, tell me a story.”

  She offered a stray flake of turkey that had fallen on the table to White, who turned up her nose. “I don’t know where to start.” Dune wolfed down the chunk, then jumped onto her lap, hoping for more.

  “How did the Enemy Club start?” he asked, pushing Dune back to the floor.

  She made herself comfortable, tucking her legs under her. “You sure you want to hear this?”

  “Positive.”

  She sighed. “Okay. Jill and I were the founders. See, we’d always been enemies. All through grade school we fought, threw sand, pulled each other’s pigtails, that sort of thing. When we got older, she single-handedly kicked me out of the cool clique. All the girls feared her. All the boys loved her. I still got a little attention, but you know how it is. There was the alpha group and then there was everyone else. Jill controlled the alphas. Always.”

  “Always?” he asked.

  “Well, except once.” Lizzie couldn’t help slip a little smile.

  “Ethan,” he said.

  “Yep. A fraternity from Galton was going to come to the high school to tutor once a week. I was never great at school, so I jumped at the chance to get some extra help for free.”

  “And you ended up with more than help.”

  “The next day, it got out how cute the Galton tutor boys were. Sure enough, the next week, there’s Jill and her cheerleader friends. But Ethan was already tutoring me. She tried to pry him away. Tried everything.”