“You gonna tell me, baby?”
I look at him through squinted eyes. “Why would I be mad, Travis? I mean, you didn’t do anything wrong,” I say, lifting a few lavender flowers out of the tall galvanized bucket beside the daisies.
“I feel like this is a trap,” he says.
I ignore his comment.
“It’s not like you broke into a house or anything.” I move and make my way over to some pretty daylilies. He follows. “And, of course, you didn’t get caught breaking into that house.” I grab a handful of the lilies and lay them in my basket before picking up some baby’s breath. “You definitely didn’t get arrested and go to jail for breaking into that house.” I glare at him.
He lifts his brow. “Get to the point.”
I stop and stare at him. This boy drives me crazy. He doesn’t even show remorse for what he’s done, but regardless, I still want to be around him every minute of every day.
What’s wrong with me?
You love him, my inner conscience says.
Yeah, but he doesn’t care that Mama will find out everything, and it makes it harder for us to see each other, my reasonable side cuts in.
But you love him, my no-good inner conscience repeats and she’s right. Damn her.
I hear him sigh. “Yeah, I fucked up. It was dumb. It’s over. Can we move on?”
“Can we move on?” I reply unbelievably. “Do you even realize that Mama knows what you did? She’s told me I can never see you again, Travis.”
“It’s not the first time,” he says, annoyed.
I shake my head at how blithe he is being. “Do you want to be with me?” I ask, looking over to face him.
“Of course, I do,” he says, his boyish grin disappearing.
“Then why do you keep doing dumb stuff? Mama says she’s embarrassed for your mom because you can’t seem to get right.”
“Frankly, baby, I don’t give a shit what your mom thinks, and I don’t want to be with you on her terms.”
“Don’t you see? That’s the only way we can be together. I need her acceptance, Travis. She’s my mom. She’s done everything for me.”
He exhales loudly and roughly runs a hand through his hair. I put my hand on my hip.
“Are you going to be a delinquent for the rest of your life? I need to know.”
Taking his smokes from his front pocket, he slides one out and puts it between his teeth. “I was just having a little fun, Charlotte. Of course, I’m not going to do this for the rest of my life. I’m going to be with you, remember?” He smiles and lights his cigarette, showing me those irresistible dimples and obviously trying to make light of the situation.
He just pours his boyish charm out at me like I won’t be able to resist, and he’s so damn right. It should make me sick, but it doesn’t. It makes me all kinds of things, but sick isn’t one of them.
“Now let me show you something?” he asks again so nicely. “Wait till she goes to bed and sneak out. Meet me down at Taylor Creek.”
I sigh. “Travis Cole, you’re going to drive me crazy one of these days.”
“But you love me,” he says lightheartedly, and we both realize what he’s just said. We stare at each other, my eyes slightly narrowed, and a smile playing on my lips as he presses his tongue up to the roof of his mouth. He clears his throat and slides his hands into his pockets
“So, you cool? You going to meet me?” He’s nervous, and it’s adorable. I love this boy more than anything; he has no reason to be nervous. He hits his smoke and exhales.
“I do,” I say.
He tilts his head sideways, questioning my answer.
“I love you,” I say.
He grins. “Yeah?” he asks, lifting his brow.
I nod slightly.
He reaches out and lazily tugs on my arm. Drawing me closer to him, he tosses his smoke, and I swallow as his eyes go down to my lips.
“Me, too, Charlotte, so much,” he confesses as he kisses me. He places his hand on the side of my face as he pulls away.
“Meet me, okay?” he says.
“Okay.” I nod. He reaches for his peach that’s sitting on the table he was leaning on and I watch him walk to the parking lot. I exhale a deep breath before I gather up the rest of the fruit I need, thinking about those three little words and feeling so happy I could float back to our house.
Chapter Six
You know that saying, It’s five o’clock somewhere? Well, apparently, Maggie lives by that rule. It’s not five o’clock; it’s just after two, and she’s three margaritas in and clearly tipsy. Cynthia and I sit out on the deck and watch her while she dances with the “hotties,” as she calls them. They’re retired old farts who only come here during the summer.
After our beach trip, Maggie convinced Cynthia and me to play a round of golf in her new golf cart. “It’s the best of its kind,” she told us. With a Bose, high-performance Bluetooth speaker system, hot pink leather seats, and an extremely furry, baby pink steering wheel. It also has spoke rims and great shocks. Which we got well acquainted with because she was hauling ass over the hills. I thought I might fall out, and I’m sure I have a bruise on my ass.
Anyway, here we sit at the clubhouse now, me babysitting a piña colada while Cynthia drinks a Redd’s Apple Ale beer, which she made me try, and it’s actually pretty good. I look over at Cynthia as she scrolls through her notes. Today she has on black-framed glittery eyeglasses, and her hair no longer has purple in it, but emerald green. It’s quite beautiful, but I do like the purple better. Maggie insisted on French braiding it for her before we got here, and she has loose pieces framing her face. Cynthia is a pretty girl. I’m not sure why she appears to be such a loner. I’m hoping she’s only hanging out with us two old ladies because of the story she’s writing.
“How’s the writing coming along?” I ask her. She looks up at me with red lips and a wrinkle between her brows.
“I’ve got a mess going on, honestly. I need to sit down and straighten it out. I just have tons of notes.”
“Let me know if I can help with anything,” I tell her as Maggie comes over. She’s got purple metallic leggings on and a hot pink visor. The woman is a sight, I swear.
“Charlotte, why are you being such a party pooper? Drink that drink!” she says. “It’s starting to look like watery mush.”
Cynthia picks hers up and takes a sip. “That’s the good thing about beer. It can’t get mushy.”
Maggie unzips her fanny pack and fans out some dollar bills. “I won off bingo last night. What kind of shot do you two want?” she asks, smiling happily and waving her money.
I put my hands up. “Oh, no. No shot for me.”
“Aw, come on, Charlotte. Can you tell me the last time you had a little fun?”
“I don’t have to get drunk to have a good time, Maggie.”
“Well, you need to get something,” she replies. “Lookie here.” She reaches down into her fanny pack again. “I scored some Jazz Cabbage from one of the boys.”
I look at Cynthia, and we both burst out laughing. “Good Lord, Maggie. Put that away.” I scowl, rubbing under my eye.
“Come on, ladies. What do you say we go hit this joint a few times out back?” She waggles her eyebrows.
“Maggie, you should be ashamed of yourself being a bad influence on Cynthia.”
“She’s twenty-one years old, Charlotte. Live a little.”
Cynthia looks over at me with a grin. “Why not, Charlotte?” she says.
“Are you two serious?” I ask.
“Serious as that frown on your face,” Maggie chimes in.
I huff.
“Come on,” Maggie says, grabbing Cynthia’s hand and pulling her off the stool.
My eyes grow wide. “You are not serious!”
“I am, too. Now come on,” Maggie insists again. I look around us, but realize not one person here is looking our way. Groaning, I get up and follow reckless and my interviewer.
Thirty minutes later
/>
I’m covered in flour and tears stream down my face as I laugh at these two idiots who have convinced me to smoke pot. I don’t know why I did it, but honestly, I haven’t laughed so much in God knows when. Maggie stops telling dirty locker room jokes, and I look down. She has flour hand splotches all over her leggings. I roll my eyes as she dips her finger into the brownie mix.
“Probably should have asked this before we stopped at the store, but do you own a coffeemaker by chance?”
“I do actually,” I tell her. “It was Travis’. He loved coffee.”
“You kept his coffeemaker?” Cynthia asks from her spot on the floor. Yes, she’s sitting on the floor.
“I kept a lot of his things,” I reply. She shrugs and continues to scribble in her notebook with a slight smile on her red lips.
“It’s in the cabinet over there,” I tell Maggie. Cynthia slides her glasses up onto her head as I step over her and put the butter back in the fridge.
“You know, you never said what Travis wanted to show you,” she says to me as I shut the door and carefully step back over her outstretched legs.
Maggie chimes in, “That’s right. You didn’t.”
I grin. “Wipe your face off, woman. You’ve got flour all over you.”
“Where?” she says, looking for a dishtowel. I open the drawer next to the sink and hand it to her.
“It’s on your nose and cheek,” I say. She takes it from me and rubs her nose.
I laugh. “Now it’s on your lip.”
She sticks her tongue out and licks it.
“Eww,” Cynthia says, giggling like a little schoolgirl. More like a stoned schoolgirl. She reaches for Maggie’s hand, and with a grunt, Maggie helps lift Cynthia up from the floor.
“How long on the brownies?” Maggie asks, setting the coffeemaker up as Cynthia takes her seat at the table. I twist my fat pig timer.
“Twenty minutes,” I answer, putting it back on the stove.
“Oh hell, that’s twenty minutes too long,” she says, taking her pink visor off and flopping it down on the table.
“Quit your griping, woman,” I reply, grabbing the carton of eggs from the counter.
“Tell us about Travis,” Cynthia says. I shut the fridge door after I put the eggs up. Reaching down, I grab her pen and notebook she neglected to take with her.
“In case you want to take more notes,” I say, putting them on the table. We hear a loud boom, and the windows rattle in the kitchen.
“I didn’t know it was supposed to storm today,” Maggie says, looking out the kitchen window. I look also and see that it’s grown darker outside, and I hear my wind chimes on the porch.
“Me either,” I reply, walking over to the TV remote. I flip to the local news channel, and we three watch as the weatherman tells us we are under a severe thunderstorm warning.
“I hope the power doesn’t go out or we won’t get any brownies,” I say, turning the volume down. “Just in case, let’s get the storm candles out. They’re all in my hope chest.” I walk out of the kitchen. “Travis bought a crap load of them once when we had bad weather coming. Luckily, our power didn’t go out then, so I’ve kept them just in case. They’ve come in handy several times. In his old age, Travis was way more cautious about things.” I laugh, thinking how odd that is. My bad boy turned into a cautious man, but with age comes wisdom. Cynthia and Maggie follow me to my room. I walk over to the chest and lift the top.
“Is that a photo album?” Cynthia asks, looking over my shoulder.
“There are several in here,” I tell her as I move some things to the side to get to the candles. “That’s the thing about young people. You upload all your photos on these social media sites and on your phones. I like the surprise of running across an old photo and looking at the age on it,” I say, spotting the candles.
“I agree,” Maggie says.
“Can I see it?” Cynthia asks me.
I shrug. “If you’d like.” I lift it and hand it to her, and then I grab the candles and holders. I set them down on the bed and tell Maggie, “Grab the matches over on the dresser.”
“Let’s go sit outside on the screened-in porch,” Cynthia says.
“I think that’s a great idea,” Maggie says. “But first coffee!”
––––
After the girls get their coffee and I pour myself a glass of sweet tea and check the brownies, we walk out onto the porch and take a seat on the patio couch and chairs. Ominous clouds show in the distance, and luminous lightning brightens the dark sky.
The smell of a match fills my nose when Maggie strikes one and begins burning the candles, setting them all around us on the porch as she does.
Cynthia flips open the photo album.
“This is your son?” she asks me.
“Yes, and that’s my mama and daddy.” I point to show her. I continue to tell her who people are as she flips the pages over, landing on one that makes me smile.
“That’s Travis?” she asks, like she already knows.
“Yes, it is.” He stands beside me. One arm around my waist, pulling me close to him as he kisses the side of my hair.
“Wow, your hair was beautiful,” Cynthia says.
“I do miss how thick it was,” I reply as Maggie takes a seat.
“He was a looker,” she says, giving me a wink.
I smile at her. “That he was.”
We flip through more of the photo album until the timer goes off and their coffee needs warming up. After I walk inside with them behind me, I take the brownies out and let them sit for a few minutes.
“I’ll go put this back up,” I say as I take the photo album from Cynthia and walk to my room.
On my way out, I hear Maggie, “I’m not sure if you have any idea what you’re doing, kid, but I’ve never seen this woman step out of her shell like this.”
I stop and step back a little.
“I’m not doing anything,” Cynthia says in return.
“You’re doing more than you know,” Maggie replies. “I’ve known Charlotte for years now, and she always turns me down on doing anything out of her comfort zone. You come in the picture, and she’s like an open book. She’s smoked pot, had a drink, and laughed more than I’ve ever seen with my own eyes.”
Cynthia sounds uncomfortable. “Well, the weed was all you, Maggie.” She laughs a little, trying to get the attention off herself it seems. “Anyway, I haven’t been around her that much.”
“You followed her around for weeks before she agreed to this. You’ve been around,” Maggie says. “I think she’s forgotten what life is about. Maybe that happens when you lose a piece of you, I don’t know,” she says sadly. “I’m just glad she’s found someone to help put her back together.”
I shut my eyes for a moment and, surprisingly to me, tears fall down my cheeks.
“Yeah,” Cynthia murmurs.
Quietly, I walk back to my room and into my bathroom. I shut the door and look at my reflection. With a slight shudder, I grab a tissue from my vanity and blow my nose. I toss it into the trash and look at the age on my face. I still feel like I’m in my forties, but the person looking back at me is surely not.
Wrinkles are inevitable. I used to use those fancy creams to try to stop them, but with every new day, time assures more appear, and time is uncontrollable. I run a hand over my pinned-up hair. I’ve tried to keep the gray contained over the years, but eventually, I grew tired. I look down at my body. Gravity sure has done its worst, and I haven’t done a thing to help. Truthfully, I’ve let myself go. I’m not sure when this happened… That’s a lie. I know exactly when it happened. When the love of my life left, I thought, why try? No one else cares what I look like. The one person who mattered is no longer around. But maybe that’s not true.
Maybe it doesn’t matter to anyone else what this old lady looks like, but it should matter to me. I should matter to me, and I’m going to try a little harder.
––––
The evening sky has
turned dark from the storm. With a plate full of brownies, we sit out on the screened-in porch and listen to the waves as they crash angrily down at the beach. The ceiling fan twirls above us, and a gust of wind comes through every so often, making the candles flicker. Shadows show on the wall, and thunder booms over the ocean. A huge bolt of lightning strikes, and the ceiling fan slowly stops turning.
“There went the electricity,” I say as I bite into a brownie.
“Well, at least these delicious things finished baking,” Cynthia says with her mouth full. Crumbs fall out when she speaks, and we all laugh.
“Here’s the rain,” I say as I hear it begin to fall. It starts small and soon comes down in sheets, surrounding us completely. My back porch is very cozy, and it’s one of the things I love most about my house. With plenty of comfortable sitting space and an enormous ottoman for feet propping, it is the go-to spot for stormy days. I set my plate down onto the tray and get up to pull the shades down on the sides so rain won’t come in on us.
“So, can we finally hear more about Travis?” Cynthia says as she wipes her mouth.
“Yes, let’s,” Maggie says, smiling. She kicks her sandals off and props her feet on the ottoman.
“Okay,” I reply, taking my seat. “Where was I?”
“You were buying fruit, and you and Travis just said I love you for the first time,” Cynthia says, grinning.
“Oh, right.” I smile. “After Travis left the farmers’ market, I paid for my things. I headed straight home so I could help Mama finish with the baking. After we were done, I remember looking at the clock, and I swear the damn thing wasn’t moving. Mama noticed and asked me if I had somewhere to be. I lied, of course, saying I just wanted to get to bed early because Jennie and I were going to watch the sunrise in the morning…”
––––
July 1973
I see it’s almost nine, and I sit in the living room staring at the TV waiting on Mama to say she’s going to bed. I know that means she’ll take a shower first, so I’ll have to wait a good hour still before I know she’s fast asleep.
If I'd Known Page 6
