The Light Before Us

by Stephanie Vercier

  “I get to see more of you now,” Barbara says, picking up a crossword book from the TV tray next to her. “So I think it was worth it.”

  “Yeah, this is kind of nice,” I agree, not especially wanting to imagine where I’d be right now if I’d gone through and married Michael. “If I wasn’t hanging out with you this summer, I’d have gone through my entire life without ever watching The Flying Nun or The Brady Bunch or Gilligan’s Island.”

  She laughs. “Don’t forget Bewitched!”

  I smile. “No, of course not. That one’s my favorite.”

  Melissa hadn’t liked the idea of paying me less. She said it felt like she was short-changing me, but she agreed to pay me what I’d been making before, bringing dinner from the diner most nights to make up for the extra hours. Me being here more often short-changes my time with Jack, but we make the best of what we have, and Jack and I both know the sacrifice won’t last forever.

  As the day moves into the late afternoon and early evening, Melissa shows up with some big to-go boxes, setting them on the dining room table while I help Barbara into her wheelchair.

  “I call it the garden special,” Melissa tells me once we’re all at the table with giant salads and drinks in front of us. She looks tired from a long day at work, but the waitress in her never seems to stop serving.

  “It looks amazing,” I tell her, colorful vegetables and seeds topping the greens.

  “Where the hell is the meat?” Barbara asks, using her fork to lift up leaves of romaine and spinach.

  “There isn’t any meat. It’s a garden salad!” Melissa gives her mother the sort of look mothers give children who don’t want to finish their vegetables. “I’ve been playing with the menu, thought I’d start doing some advertising in Ashland. We could even have our diner featured in some of the tourist pamphlets and in the nicer motels here in Meadow Brook. And I’ve put out some feelers to a few more nearby farmers so we can get more of our produce locally.”

  “Hmm.” Barbara picks through her salad, remaining unimpressed.

  “I think it’s a great idea,” I tell Melissa, then widen my eyes at Barbara, coaxing her to give it another chance.

  She shrugs, then opens up the bottle of dressing next to her and nearly drowns her salad in it. “If you say so.”

  Melissa just sighs.

  For all of Barbara’s fussiness, she seems to be enjoying her meal as she and I recount our day to Melissa. About halfway through, Melissa sets her fork down, takes a drink of water and then says, “It’s getting boring around here, isn’t it?”

  “Boring?” I set my fork down as well, then look over to Barbara, wondering if she’s told her daughter she doesn’t feel challenged by the activities I’ve been coming up with for her each day.

  Barbara shrugs. “I thought watching I Dream of Jeannie was pretty exciting stuff, but then again, I’m easy.”

  Melissa laughs. “You? Easy?”

  “I’m sure she’d love to get out of the house,” I offer, imagining that, yeah, it’s got to get pretty dull being cooped up in here all the time.

  “That’s just what I was thinking.” Melissa leans forward, her eyes aglow. “How would you feel about going up to Ashland for one of The Shakespeare Festival performances?”

  The Shakespeare Festival is probably what Ashland is most famous for. It’s what attracts tourists from all around the world. For all of the ballets, operas and orchestras I’d attended over the years with my family or Michael, we’d never taken time away from summers at the cabin to attend.

  “That would be great!” I’m more than excited to go, but I turn to Barbara to make sure it’s something she’s in for as well.

  “I could do with some theater,” she says with a shrug, her lower lip jutting out into a put on, pretentious look.

  “I think you missed your calling, Mom. You should have been an actress,” Melissa says.

  I smile, thinking she might just be right. “How will we all get there?” I ask, suddenly thinking of Barbara’s cast and the sets of stairs outside the house.

  Melissa has an assured look on her face. “You just leave that to me. And you wouldn’t be on the clock. I’d hire someone to help my mother—”

  “Who? I don’t want anyone but Natalie! She at least has the decency to close the bathroom door when I’m evacuating my bowels!”

  My mouth goes wide before I bust out into the same laughter that Melissa does. How could we not?

  “Well, Natalie needs a break, Mom,” Melissa says once she regains her composure. “And she’ll be too busy with Jack anyway.”

  “You’d be okay with Jack coming too?” He and I have kept mostly to ourselves at the cabin, but I love the idea of us being out in public, as a couple, unafraid of who might see us.

  “Of course. He’s important to you, isn’t he?”

  The way she says it tugs at my heart, and I nod, afraid that if I were to speak, I’d start crying.

  “That’s what I thought. And he won’t be the only man there—I’ll have a date as well.”

  “A date?” Barbara’s eyes widen in shock. “And who in the hell is that going to be?”

  Melissa raises one brow. “You just leave that to me, Mother.”

  “Well, la-di-da.” Barbara says with that same exaggerated air. “If you can safely get me the hell out of this house, then I guess it doesn’t matter who you bring along with you.” She turns to me, light in her eyes. “How about you, kid? You and Jack up for this little excursion?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Jack didn’t need any convincing to join us for what could be described as a sort of weird group date. In fact, though he tried to play it off, he was the one who contacted Melissa with the idea in the first place. It had been his plan all along to build an intricate wheelchair ramp for Barbara so she could get out of the house without the help of an ambulance crew.

  “I could tell it bothered you she couldn’t get out of the house,” he’d told me in explanation. “And it’s really not that difficult to build a ramp.”

  “You’re the sweetest guy,” I said, knowing he was downplaying the work it took to make sure every twist and turn of the ramp was stable and safe, not to mention the money he’d spent on the lumber to build it.

  But regardless of who came up with the idea, it was beyond wonderful having Jack at Barbara and Melissa’s house for the solid three days it took him to build it. It didn’t even seem to matter when Camille came by, throwing me disapproving looks while she ogled Jack. And it’s all led to tonight, our evening away in Ashland, a well earned reprieve for all of us.

  “He’s nice, don’t you think?” I ask Jack, the two of us sitting one row behind Melissa and her date in the theater, with Barbara and one of Melissa’s nurse friends up toward the front to accommodate the wheelchair.

  “Dwight?”

  I nod. Dwight Eller is Melissa’s date and an English teacher at Meadow Brook’s high school. He informed us that the play we’re about to see, Much Ado About Nothing, is one of his favorites.

  “Yeah, he seems nice enough to me. Maybe on the older end, but I’ve got nothing against that.” He shrugs and smiles at me.

  I nudge him. “I guess Melissa likes older guys too.”

  “Oh, so I’m now in the older man camp, huh?”

  “Technically, yes, even if you don’t have gray hair yet.”

  “That’s not too far off.”

  “I’m sure you’ll look very distinguished.”

  “Just distinguished?”

  “Sexy too,” I whisper, slipping my arm through his and leaning into him, suddenly wishing we weren’t in a theater and were instead back in his bedroom at the cabin.

  “Careful,” he says, kissing the top of my head. “You’re going to make it very difficult to sit through this play if you keep turning me on.”

  “I didn’t realize I was turning you on.”

  “Oh, you are,” he says. “You always are.”

  I have to make a conscious effort
to steer my thoughts clear of Jack while we watch the play. That’s pretty difficult considering the masculine scent of his cologne and the bulk of his manly body so close to me. Damn, even the metered tone of his breaths turn me on. But we both behave ourselves, me reminding myself that it’s not every day I get to see a Shakespeare play being acted out on stage.

  The fact that we both paid attention works out well for us at the café next to the theater we all go to after the play has ended. It’s here we find ourselves discussing the finer points of Much Ado About Nothing with Dwight.

  “The one-liners always get me,” Dwight says, amusement in his spectacled eyes. “It’s a nice break from the heaviness of Othello or the sometimes clichéd aspects of Romeo and Juliet.”

  “How about Macbeth?” Jack asks. “That’s always been one of my favorites.”

  “Believe me, I’ve got plenty to say about that,” Dwight replies, eagerness filling his voice.

  I squeeze Jack’s hand and let the two guys go with their Shakespeare discussion while I turn my attention to Melissa.

  “He’s nice,” I tell her quietly, tilting my head toward Dwight.

  Melissa lifts her eyes from the drink menu. “He is. And he didn’t throw a fit when I told him this was going to be a group date. He’s been nothing but kind to my mother, which earns plenty of points for him. This night has really been wonderful for her.”

  “And she seems to like Sandy okay.”

  While Barbara had at first scoffed at the idea of anyone but me assisting her on this outing, she seems to be getting along with Sandy, a nurse from the local hospital who also happens to be one of Melissa’s friends. The two are currently off to the restroom, and I have to admit that it’s nice to sit back and let someone else help out.

  “She should. She’s known her since she was a kid. Sandy and I used to hang out with each other a lot, and I just finally took her up on the offer she’d made many times to lend a hand. And I don’t think it hurt with her knowing we’d be seeing Shakespeare.”

  “I wasn’t sure Shakespeare would really be your mom’s thing, though.” We’d spent so much time watching old movies and sitcom reruns that I didn’t picture Barbara actually wanting to sit through a live stage adaption of a Shakespeare play, no matter what she said. I figured she just wanted out of the house.

  “She’ll surprise you,” Melissa says. “Mom can be crusty, but she isn’t opposed to the finer things.”

  There is a muffled ring tone coming from somewhere, and I then notice Jack pulling his phone out from his pocket. After a quick look at the screen, he tells Dwight, “I need to take this,” then turns to me and gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be just a minute.”

  “Okay,” I say, still feeling the touch of his lips on my skin as he walks away, arguably the most attractive man in this entire café, maybe even all of Ashland or Seattle. But for me, he’s the most attractive man in the entire world.

  Other women aren’t blinded to his looks either as they turn their heads while he moves past their tables and then eventually through the doors to the back patio. The café is large but just as full of people, their voices echoing off the dark painted walls, so Jack’s best chance of hearing anything on the other line is to be outside.

  “I wonder who that was?” Melissa asks me.

  “I don’t know. Business I suppose.” But what sort of business, I have no idea, and it bugs me just a little that I don’t know the identity of the caller.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever met a plastic surgeon before,” Dwight tells us, as though that thought has been rattling around in his head all evening.

  Melissa laughs. “You thinking of getting some work done I should know about?”

  Dwight’s eyes widen. “You have something particular in mind?”

  She shakes her head and laughs again. “No. I think I like you just the way you are.”

  I’m glancing toward the patio doors, the sweetness of Melissa and Dwight’s back-and-forth making me smile, when, out of the corner of my eye, I see Camille’s form come out of nowhere.

  She’s on us like a predator, me being the prey that has no time to react.

  “Well, what the fuck is this?” Camille slurs, stumbling the last couple of steps to our table. She’s wearing a short summer dress with one of the straps hanging loose over her shoulder and lots of makeup.

  “Oh, for god’s sake! What are you doing here, Camille?” Melissa draws her hands to the sides of her cheeks, as if bracing herself for an attack.

  “Followed your stupid asses up here is what.” With glassy eyes, Camille falls into the chair vacated by Jack.

  “You drove?” Hands still holding her head, Melissa shakes it like she can’t believe this is happening. Dwight, on the other hand, doesn’t look so surprised.

  “No, I didn’t drive,” she hisses, then looks up and around the café, extending her arm and pointing. “He did.”

  I follow the direction the tip of her finger is pointing to, across the café and to the bar that takes up nearly half of the wall. But it’s not the bar itself her shaky finger points at, but to a person.

  Will.

  “Why would you follow us?” I ask Camille, though my eyes are still on Will—he’s holding two drinks in his hands and already making his way over to our table. He stares right back at me.

  And for whatever reason, the sight of him chills me to the bone.

  “Yes, why in the world—” Melissa begins before being rudely cut off by her daughter.

  “Because!” Camille turns to me, her eyes drilling into my head. “It was his fucking idea,” she garbles. “Does every guy in this town need to have a thing for you?”

  Confusion grabs at me. Sure, Will was on the persistent side, but I’d made it clear there was nothing between us. What had I ever done or said to give him the idea I’d be okay with him following me up to Ashland when I was with Jack and Camille’s family?

  “It doesn’t matter whose idea it was,” Melissa snaps as Will continues to push his way toward us. “You’re drunk, and you’re ruining a perfectly nice evening for the rest of us.”

  “An evening you didn’t want me to be any part of.” Camille drags her hand up her face. “You’d think this bitch over here was your daughter and not me!”

  “That is no way to speak about a lady!” Dwight stands up, just as Will arrives at our table.

  “Hey! Didn’t expect to see you guys here,” Will says, completely contradicting Camille’s story about their arrival here. “Everything okay?”

  “No, it’s not,” Dwight replies in a gruff tone. There is still no sign of Jack. “Your girlfriend needs to find a place to sober up.”

  Will completely ignores Dwight, setting one drink down while Camille snatches the other up. “Nice seeing you, Natalie,” he says to me, something predatory I don’t like in his eyes.

  “What are you guys doing here?” I ask him, wanting him to offer a believable, innocent answer that would rebut Camille.

  I expect some snark, something like, “It’s a free country, isn’t it?” but he just shrugs and says, “Saw you heading north in that Jack guy’s truck. Figured I’d follow to make sure everything was okay.”

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Melissa says, moving past her shock at Camille and Will’s appearance here.

  And it is.

  Camille already knew about our plans to caravan to Ashland—it’s not like it was a state secret or anything. She’d obviously told Will who in turn convinced her to come along with him as he followed us up here, though I can’t be sure why.

  “Natalie and the rest of us are completely fine,” Melissa continues. “There’s absolutely no need for the scene you two are causing!”

  “Oh, I’m causing a scene?” Camille darts her head back and forth from her mother to me. “And I suppose little miss perfect here makes everything just right, huh?”

  I have no clue what to say to that. The last thing I’d ever want would be to s
take claim to someone else’s position within their family, but for everything I know about Camille, it seems she’s done a good job of ostracizing the people she now feels rejected by.

  “Can I talk to you?” I say to Will, already up and out of my chair and completely ignoring Camille.

  “Sure thing,” Will says, and I can feel the weight of his heavy eyes on me.

  Putting aside the weird vibe I’m getting from him, I know that the only way Melissa has any chance of settling her daughter down is if I make myself scarce for a few minutes. And I imagine Will’s presence at the table isn’t helping much either.

  Melissa shoots me a concerned, somewhat confused look. “I’m not sure that’s a very good idea.” She sounds like a worried mother, and I’m grateful for the care.

  “I won’t go far,” I assure her. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  Camille mumbles something incoherently nasty.

  With Jack still away on his call, I say, “Come on,” to Will and tug his shirtsleeve in the direction of the bar.

  “If you wanted to get me alone, you could have just called me,” Will says when I come to a stop at the end of the bar, out of the way of patrons lined up at the counter.

  “That’s not what this is about.” I cross my arms and send a sharp look Will’s way.

  “No? You gonna tell me you’re in love with that guy… Jack? You seriously still dating him?”

  “Why in the world should it matter to you?”

  His nostrils flare. “For one, he’s too old for you! You don’t think you should be with someone more age appropriate?”

  “It’s none of your business, Will, and that’s not why I asked you over here.”

  “No? Then why?” His posture grows more rigid, as does my unease.

  I’d like to ask him if he’d been at this café waiting for us on the off chance we’d all come over or if he stuck Camille in here with enough money to get plastered while he waited outside the theater to see where we’d end up. Either way, his behavior runs toward stalking.

  “I wanted to politely ask you to call it a night and promise to get Camille safely back home,” I end up saying instead. “Or maybe she can spend the night at your place, and—”