When Flora and Annie finally got inside the movie theater, it was already packed. In the small town, there wasn’t much to do at night in early spring, so when a new movie came out, it was normally pretty popular.
As they walked into the movie theater, the lights were just going down, and they had to stumble around to find a seat. From nowhere, a hand came out and grabbed Flora. It was Doris. She was seated next to Ethel on the back row.
“Here,” she said. “There’s a couple of seats right here.” She pulled them down into a pair of seats just as the coming attraction started.
The movie was very funny, and as much as Flora had not wanted to, she really enjoyed it, except there was a twinge of sadness. She wished Dan had been next to her, holding her hand. She had kept her phone on silent in her lap the whole time, but there had been no incoming calls.
The lights came on, and everybody started to move. Flora darted out into the aisle. “I’m just going to pop to the bathroom before I go.”
“I’ll come with you,” Annie responded. They said their good-byes to Doris and Ethel, who seemed comfortable to sit and watch the credits as they finished a huge bag of popcorn.
Chapter Twenty
THE KISS OF DEATH & AN ISLAND TYPHOON
Farther down the rows of seats, Marcy jumped to her feet and motioned to Dan. “Come on, let’s go.” She stepped out into the aisle and, hooking her arm into his, fluffed up her hair. He felt very uncomfortable but just wasn’t sure how to deal with the situation. As they got to the top of the aisle, he heard someone call his name.
It was Doris. She was standing in the center of the aisle with her arms crossed, looking very severe. Dan was acutely embarrassed about Marcy hanging on his arm again. “Hello,” he said, trying to sound buoyant.
But before he could say any more, Marcy pulled him in closer and giggled. “It’s us again.”
Doris looked at them coldly, saying with obvious distaste, “Yes, it is.”
Marcy was all teeth and sunshine as she burbled on. “Nice to see you, but Dan and I should really be going.” Then she tugged at Dan’s arm, and they were swept away by the heaving throng.
As Dan and Marcy exited the theater, they both stopped short. Rain was bucketing down like a waterfall, pouring off the theater roof in a heavy stream and bouncing up off the pavement in an angry torrent. Dan was glad he’d managed to park so close.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s run for it.”
“No way,” Marcy said, wrinkling up her nose. “I’m not going out in that. My hair would be a mop before I even reached the car.”
She looked around and pointed down the street. Under the protection of a line of awnings, light streamed out into the night from a window. Above the window, a jaunty, creatively painted sign with the words “The Wine Nook” swung back and forth in the storm.
“Let’s go,” she said, enthused. “We can get a glass of wine or something until the rain stops.”
Dan was disinclined. “I’m really tired, and I would like to get home.”
Secretly, he wanted to call Flora one more time. He really wanted to speak to her.
“Oh, come on,” she said, pouting. “One drink won’t kill you, and by then it should have passed.”
Dan looked down at his clothes and realized that even parked so close he was still going to get soaked, so he reluctantly followed the crowd of people running under the shelter of the awning. All of them seemed to have the same idea.
Careful to avoid the puddles, they made their way toward the wine bar. Once they got inside, they saw it was packed. Marcy pushed her way through and found a little table close to the window, overlooking the street with a view of the bay opposite. She pushed Dan down into a chair, then pulled assertively on the arm of a server who was taking an order behind them. He took their order too, then squeezed his way through the crowd back to the bar. Marcy drew up a wooden stool close to Dan and giggled.
“Now, this is more like it,” she said, looking at the heaving throng. “Finally, some life on this dead-end island. Let me know if you see anyone you could introduce me to.”
Dan checked his phone. He was discouraged to see that his battery was dead. He put his phone away and tried to concentrate on what Marcy was saying. She was babbling on about some school play they’d been in together.
There was a long line in the bathroom. Flora and Annie waited patiently, talking about their favorite moments in the movie.
When they eventually walked outside, the onslaught of rain was overwhelming. Annie pulled up her coat collar and opened the umbrella she had brought with her. “I’ll run for it,” she shouted to Flora over the deluge. “Be ready to jump in when you see my car.”
“Okay,” Flora shouted back, just about being heard above the sound of the cascading rain.
Annie dashed to the road and headed for the car.
Flora put up her own umbrella and decided to walk down to meet Annie halfway. Walking up to just underneath the last awning before the parking lot, she decided she could keep fairly dry underneath it.
As she waited, she noticed she was standing outside the Wine Nook, and she turned to see if she there were any familiar faces inside. The windows were pretty steamed up, the rain mixing with the hot air created by the usual busy weekend crowd. As she peered in, it seemed even more packed than usual, with hordes of people apparently taking shelter from the weather.
All at once, for a fleeting moment, she thought she saw Dan through the misted window—or maybe someone who looked just like him. Her heart skipped a beat. She stepped closer. Yes, it was definitely Dan, and he was talking to someone.
Oh, she felt overjoyed. Maybe she could just pop in and give him a hug or at least say hello quickly before Annie made it back up the busy street, maybe even invite him back to her cottage.
She turned to walk toward the door when the person Dan was talking to leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. Flora stopped and drew in her breath. Her heart felt as if it had been squeezed in an ice-cold vise. Her mind just wouldn’t believe what she was seeing. Distraught, she struggled to see the girl, who was sitting with her back to her. The girl tossed her hair back over her shoulder, and the move was unmistakable. It was Marcy.
Traumatized, Flora stood rooted to the spot, unable to move or breathe as her blood felt as if it had just run right out of her body. Suddenly, from behind her, a horn honked. Flora couldn’t move. She was frozen, replaying what she had just seen over and over again in her mind. She just peered at them both through the window. Dan seemed totally serious and engaged in the conversation. The horn blasted again, and when she finally turned, she saw Annie motioning her through her windshield.
Blankly, she stepped out into the rain, not even bothering to put up her umbrella, allowing the rain to mingle with fresh tears as it soaked her to the skin. She was truly gutted, and now she understood why people said that. It actually felt as if someone had kicked her in the stomach.
So, this is heartache, she thought as she got into Annie’s car. This was how it felt to have your heart broken by someone, and it was about the worst thing she’d ever experienced in her life.
She felt as if she held her breath the whole way home. She kept replaying the picture in her mind. As she did, her chest seemed to tighten and tighten until she couldn’t wait to leave Annie’s car and get out into the cold damp air. It was hard to digest. She couldn’t even bring herself to tell Annie about it, didn’t want to admit it outside of her head, didn’t want the words to leave her lips. Flora kept thinking if she didn’t say it out loud, then maybe somehow it wouldn’t be real. She was smashed to pieces. She felt everything she had hoped for, everything she had trusted and loved, had been taken from her in one fleeting moment, and she felt that her life would never be the same again.
Flora got out of the car, walked quietly into her cottage, closed the door, and crumpled into a heap behind it, sobbing.
Dan didn’t know what to say at first. He was completely taken aback. Ma
rcy had just kissed him, and he had no idea why.
“What are you doing?” he demanded with a mixture of anger and confusion.
“The play I was telling you about.”
“What?” Dan said, not wanting to admit that he had not really been listening. It was just too hard for him to focus on her over the clamor in the bar.
“The play we were in, remember? Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and you were one of the brothers.”
“Yes,” he said, vaguely remembering an awkward costume and dance moves he had hated. He looked at her again, intently, trying to make sense of what she was saying.
“Don’t you remember, you had to kiss me at the end?”
Dan was not sure. He remembered the play, but he’d forgotten that it was Marcy he had kissed. He’d been more concerned with the tight shoes he had to wear, a whole size too small. “What about it?” he asked, none the wiser.
“Weren’t you listening to me?” Marcy asked, more than a little put out.
Dan didn’t know what to say.
Marcy huffed and said with much irritation, “I just said to you, ‘Do you remember the kiss,’ and you said, ‘Yes,’ and I said, ‘Do you remember how awkward we both were?’ and you said, ‘Yes,’ and I said, ‘We could always try it again now that we’re older. I bet that would feel better,’ and you said, ‘Yes,’ so I kissed you.”
“I didn’t hear that with all the noise in here,” he said, slighted. Then he added, more seriously, “Don’t do that again. It could give people the wrong idea about us.”
Marcy pouted and was about to respond when their drinks arrived, and someone who recognized Dan came up to say hello. Marcy came alive and started to flirt openly with her new audience.
By the time the rain stopped and he had managed to talk Marcy into leaving the wine bar, it was almost 10:45, and by the time he’d dropped her off, it was after eleven. Too late to try phoning Flora again, he thought.
Marcy had recovered from his rejection pretty well and had been her usual happy, narcissistic self. The friends Dan had introduced her to had apparently liked her. She was an island novelty; new people often were. They had buzzed around her like bees around a honeypot. They had also invited her into town for a coffee the next day.
As she got out of the car, she asked if Dan minded picking her up. He had first said no, as he wanted to get to Flora’s early, and then she had whined, not letting go of the open door. She had reasoned that if he was going to town to see “that girl,” then he was going to drive right past her house, and surely it wouldn’t be much just to swing by and drop her off on his way. She made it sound so simple that he had reluctantly agreed, stressing that she would need to find her own way home.
He drove back to his aunt’s house a little sad. He hated the fact he had been unable to see Flora. For a wild minute, he thought of turning the car around and driving to her house, then he thought of how ill she had looked earlier that day. She probably needed to sleep. He could see her in just a few hours.
Chapter Twenty-One
A VISIT FROM STEVE MCQUEEN
Annie was up early, exercising all the dogs. She’d had a wonderful fenced-in play area built just for them, and she’d nicknamed it Dog Disneyland. Filled with toys, tunnels, and tires, it was a dog’s haven of fun and discovery. She took them all there to play every morning and evening, and it was the highlight of her day. She had never married or had children of her own, so these dogs were the closest thing she had to family. The fact that these bundles of fur and fun would greet her every day with such unconditional love meant the world to her.
After playtime, she sometimes liked to take the dogs for a run in her woods. It was such a lovely day that she decided to go exploring. Spring had arrived, and the higher ground on her property was now firmer and accessible. Her merry band leapt and barked around her feet as she threw the occasional stick for them and ruffled their damp, shaggy coats. With her happy group surrounding her, she made her way to the top of her property, which afforded her the best view. As she looked out across her farm, she felt the now-familiar knot return to her stomach.
Suddenly, one of the dogs spotted a wayward squirrel, and the pack careened off, bouncing and barking deeper into the forest, with Annie chasing and shouting at them to heel. She finally caught up with them, and after admonishing the ringleader, a spritely liver-and-white-spotted terrier, she sat down on a log to catch her breath. As she sat in the sunlit coppice, she noticed spring flowers were starting to raise their heads, and new green shoots were thrusting forth from the soil through carpets of soggy fallen leaves scattered on the forest floor. She had the most beautiful woodland flowers in the deepest parts of her property and decided to gather a bunch to cheer up her kitchen windowsill.
She led her tired little band back to the barn, and after closing up the last kennel, she stepped out into the morning sunlight. As she did, she took a moment to look out over the farm once again. She had so many warm memories of this place. She’d had a golden childhood, one that had seemed to go on forever. The happiest days for her had been working in the kitchen with her mother, baking banana bread and chocolate chip cookies made with fresh eggs she had gathered from the henhouse and helping her dad in the fall when many crops needed to be brought in. Back then, they had hundreds of fruit trees, and she had loved being a part of her father’s work, gathering fruit side by side with him and the people he employed to pick. The memories of her childhood were full of wonderment, and she knew losing the farm would be like losing her parents all over again. She was suddenly so grateful for the Rejected Writers’ Book Club and the community she lived in. They were going to make this plan work. They had to.
She had just entered the farmhouse when she heard a car in the driveway, heralded by the chorus of dogs in the barn. She picked up Popeye so he wouldn’t run away when the door opened, and the rest of her family of five gathered in the hallway, barking and wagging their tails, ready to greet a new visitor.
Annie opened the door, regarding the young man who stood on her doorstep, and the first thought that entered her mind was a young Steve McQueen dressed in a smart, light-gray suit and blue shirt. His eyes flashed as he thrust out his hand, saying, “Annie Thompson?”
Annie took his hand and thought that maybe he had been just a little too eager with the aftershave, but it wasn’t unpleasant. He didn’t look local, she thought as she released his grip. There was the air of the city about him.
“Yes,” said Annie cautiously.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” he said, turning and looking out across her vast pasture.
She thought maybe he was from the church or looking for a charitable donation, but didn’t those people always come in packs? He seemed a little too friendly, as if he wanted something more from her.
“John Meyers,” he said, as he spun back around to greet her. “Nice to meet you.” Before he even explained who he was, he looked across the farm again, saying, “Yes, it’s some place you’ve got here.”
Annie waited patiently as he continued to take in the view. Realizing she had boarders arriving with two dogs within the hour, she asked, “Can I help you?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, turning back toward her and laughing to himself as his blue eyes twinkled. “I just was so struck by this beautiful view.” He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a card with the polished speed of someone who had done it a hundred times before. “I’m the guy the bank sends in to talk through the details of your farm. We find it friendlier to meet the homeowners in person as we aim to work through any issues.”
Issues? A lump found its way to Annie’s throat. This good-looking, sweet-smelling man was the person who was going to try to take her property from her. She wanted to shut the door and run away, but instead she just swallowed hard and said, “Oh, okay. But you should know that I’m actually going to be paying back the past mortgage payments and get myself back on track. I have a plan in place to raise the money, so there won’t be much for u
s to talk about.”
John nodded. “Of course,” he said, appearing to shrug off any serious intent to his visit. “I just have to check in with you and see what help we can offer, take a look around the place, that sort of thing.”
“You’re here to assess it,” stated Annie plainly, the penny finally dropping.
“Among other things,” he responded quietly, and for the first time, he raised his intent gaze to a spot just over her right shoulder. Then he rapidly changed the subject. “I see you have dogs. I love dogs. I’ve got two myself. Irish wolfhounds. Lovely animals. Sure is a beautiful home for dogs here,” he said once again. Then, as if he were rehearsed in getting into people’s homes, added, “Can I come in?”
Annie wanted to say no, but instead she nodded and opened the door wider.
That was the signal for Annie’s entourage of wagging tails to come forward to greet the young man. As they gathered at his feet, he bent down and took a minute to ruffle all their ears. They were eager to respond with happy noises, except Bruiser. He ambled toward the young man, and as John stretched forward to stroke him, he backed up and started to growl in a low, threatening way.
Annie was surprised. She admonished her dog and apologized for him. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “He’s normally very friendly, but he’s getting old. I guess we all get a bit crotchety as we age.”
John stood swiftly to his feet, apparently not even willing to try to win Bruiser over as he followed Annie into the sitting room. He placed his briefcase on her table.
“What do you need from me?” asked Annie suspiciously.
“This is just a friendly chat,” he said matter-of-factly. “I just want to talk about the house and the different things that you’ve done here and on the land. Maybe even get a little tour,” he added, raising his eyebrows in expectation.
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