by S. A. Wolfe
“Dylan, give this lovely girl a tour of her home. You know these walls better than anyone,” Archie instructs.
“Absolutely.” Dylan turns to me. “Come this way, lovely girl.”
I follow him up the winding staircase and, while I admire the rich buttery tones of the wood paneling and the modern touches of contemporary paintings to make the home brighter, I’m really focused on Dylan’s cute backside. I try to suppress a giggle; I never find myself in these types of situations and it’s highly amusing that I have this hunky guy to myself.
Dylan reaches the first floor and spins around. “What, lovely girl?” he asks. “What’s so funny? You’re bruising my ego with all that giggling behind my back.”
“Nothing, I’m still in shock at being here, I think. And don’t call me ‘lovely girl’. It’s sweet coming from Archie, but it’s a little smarmy coming from you.”
Dylan’s smile fades and that alone makes me waver. I was only teasing him; I don’t really think he’s the smarmy type, so why did I say something that could possibly be hurtful?
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t intended to be creepy.”
“My fault. I’m very defensive. It’s part of being an only child driven by obsessive, demanding parents.” I give him a weak smile and a nervous laugh.
Dylan studies my face intently. For once I don’t blush and look away like I normally would. I take in his baby-face good looks with his big blue eyes and full lips, and I know that he must have been very popular in school while I would have been the shy girl who watched him from a distance. I don’t know how long the moment lasts, but it could go on forever for all I care. For the first time, I don’t have to rush off to a class or work, I don’t have to bury my head in front of a computer to get a job done and I don’t have to dance with a guy who’s attractiveness disappears the minute he opens his mouth or puts his hands on me in a way that gives me the willies. For once, I can breathe and simply stare at this person in front of me.
“Why would you be defensive about a compliment? I’m sure you’ve heard it a thousand times before,” he says, sounding more serious.
“Heard what before?” I ask, distracted by our physical closeness as well as my wandering mind.
“That you’re beautiful,” he answers. I’m still studying his lips that said beautiful before I understand what he’s saying.
“Oh, no. I mean, there’s always someone who will say something flattering, but for the most part, my parents only complimented my grades and test scores,” I say, listening to how stupid my explanation sounds.
“Your boyfriends must have told you how pretty you are. You know, attention from guys who aren’t Archie? Guys under one hundred?”
I laugh, but I don’t have an answer for him that doesn’t make me look pathetic. Yes, I’m twenty, but I’ve never had a real boyfriend because I’m a serial dater. One date per guy and then I dump them in disgust because I’m the smart, pretty girl who only attracts jerks. Please don’t tell me you’re a jerk because I’m having too much fun for this to end.
“Okay, sure. Guys have complimented me before, so thank you for the compliment. Now let’s move on.” I forge ahead and end up in what must be the study.
I scan the room which is filled with leather couches, the old, cracked kind that you can sink into, stacks of books on the floor and in boxes, an immense desk piled with more books, a full wall of bay windows that overlook hills of green and two walls of built-in bookcases that are unfinished.
“This is the library. Carson and I have to finish the shelving and stain it, and when it’s done, we’re going to load about four thousand of Ginnie’s books in here, and what do you mean, let’s move on? Am I making you uncomfortable?”
“This room is fantastic.” I ignore his question. “I can totally picture myself sitting at that desk with my computer and looking out at that incredible view.” I have my back to Dylan now and I’m hoping that will stop him from asking about my personal life, or rather, my sorry-ass dating life. Nope, that doesn’t stop him. He barrels around the desk, in his big, dirty work boots, stomping on my newly inherited floor and gets right in my face.
“Can I assume by your obvious jitteriness that you don’t have a boyfriend?” he asks, putting his hand on my arm. His confident smile is back.
“No boyfriend.” Cringe. Admit defeat.
“Shit. I mean, excuse me. Shit,” he repeats. Bingo, this is usually when I discover a guy is an ignorant, illiterate Neanderthal and I lose interest. Actually, Dylan, you’ve made it farther than most guys. You’ve held my interest for almost a full hour!
I shake off his hand, walk to the window and pretend to take great interest in the large, ancient trees in the yard. “So when is all this renovation work going to be done?” I ask, facing the window. “When are you and your brother going to be out of here?”
“Oh, wait a minute.” He laughs and turns me around. “You aren’t getting rid of me that fast, and you aren’t leaving this town without me getting at least one date with you.”
“I just met you. How did we go from talking about finishing bookcases to going on a date?”
“No, you think you just met me. I’ve known you for years. Look around this room. Really look.”
I don’t know what he’s getting at, but I look around the room. I see paintings on the floor, leaning against the wall. The paintings of people and abstract backgrounds are familiar; maybe something Aunt Virginia painted years ago. At least she and I have our art in common. Then the sun comes through the window and strikes a swath of golden light across the wide pine planks and the crackled leather couch and I remember those paintings hung on the wall where the bookcases are currently being built. How do I know this?
Another memory assaults me; I am jumping off the couch and being chased by a laughing boy. We hide under the massive desk, covering our mouths to suppress the laughter. Another voice calls our names. It’s another boy, older than us. We hear him jump on the desk.
“He jumped on the desk to scare us,” I say, staring at the distance between the couch and the desk caught in the sunlight.
“What?” Dylan asks. I turn back to him and I can tell he is excited that I’m remembering something he knew all along.
“It’s you,” I barely whisper.
Dylan puts his hands up to my face. He is gentle, but his firm touch and his scent give me a pleasant jolt. “Do you remember me?”
“I’ve been here before. In this room.” Dylan nods, though he doesn’t let go of my face. “You were the boy hiding with me under the desk, right?”
“Yes. You were five—almost six—and I was eight. We were hiding from Carson. Ginnie and your mom had him babysit us while they went to the farmers market.”
“Carson jumped on the desk to scare us and we were laughing.” I notice I’m shaking.
Dylan lets go of my face and rests his hands on my shoulders. “Yes, that was us. In this room. Laughing. I remember everything about that summer you lived here.”
“I lived here the whole summer?”
Dylan nods his head. “Carson and I lived here that summer, too, and you and I played together every day. I didn’t think I could stand being with a five-year-old, but you were so smart and we had a lot of fun together. It was right after my mom died and Carson became so serious. He was eleven and felt he had to watch over me. He stopped being fun. And then you came to town.”
I take in everything he is saying and will myself to remember more. Dylan moves closer and puts his head down to mine. “I have been waiting for you to come back.”
There is so much longing in that statement, but then I think I understand where it’s coming from. We were children and maybe he feels I’m like a long lost friend, perhaps someone very special to him because I was regarded as unique. I was the smart, mouthy little girl who could play with boys and often act older than my age.
I feel a soft, forceful mouth on my lips. I open my eyes at the same time I accept Dylan’s kiss. We both pull back si
multaneously. I am confused and nervous while Dylan simply looks amused.
“I missed you, Jess. I’ve thought about you a lot over the last fifteen years.”
“I can’t believe you remember me. We were little kids and it was one summer of hide and seek and the baby pool. I remember that crappy little pool!”
Dylan laughs. “The baby pool that Carson would always turn over to make us miserable. Or he’d chase us with the water hose. Remember?”
“My God, I do. We were the troublemakers and he was the warden.”
“Don’t feel sorry for Carson; he got paid some mighty fine coin to watch over us.”
“He didn’t say anything when I saw him at Archie’s office. He barely acknowledged me.” I think of the cold greeting I received from Carson earlier that day.
Dylan shrugs. “It’s been hard for Carson. He was devastated when our mom died and he felt it was his job to be the man of the house. Our dad was still alive then, but her death didn’t stop him from disappearing for weeks at a time. Ginnie took us in. I mean, we had a home with our dad, but when he was gone, missing or whatever you want to call it, we stayed here with Ginnie.”
“I didn’t know any of this,” I say with regret, but also with a touch of mounting anger. “My parents didn’t stay in touch with my aunt and I didn’t know what happened. I didn’t know she was still alive. All these memories faded.” I was getting worked up and about to cry.
“I know.” Dylan’s hands are back on my arms to comfort me. “I know, Jess. I know everything, but we promised we wouldn’t find you and tell you. We promised Ginnie.”
“But I’m here now. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“You better believe it. I’ve been waiting for this day. Come on, let’s finish the tour to jog those memories and then we’ll sit down with Arch to go over things.”
Five
I’m surprised that our walk through three floors and a basement, all of which consisted of twelve rooms—five of which are bedrooms and five bathrooms—doesn’t overwhelm me. I’m used to three people living in the space of a walk-in closet with one lousy, cramped bathroom.
Bits and pieces of memories come back as I enter each new room. Some haven’t changed from what I can remember; the same worn furniture or an old-fashioned light fixture next to one of Aunt Ginnie’s abstracts is enough to wake up some of my stored memories. Dylan shows me photos in my Aunt’s room. Dozens of frames showing a beautiful, red-headed woman with various people. My aunt was stunning; the camera captured her vivacious joy. There are even a few photos of my mother, young and beautiful, with me and two young boys, Dylan and Carson.
Dylan takes his time walking me through each room and describing repairs that have been done or what needs to be done, however, underneath his calm exterior, he is anxious to talk about the years that have passed without me.
We finish downstairs in the pantry, a room of smooth, worn, wood counters and floor-to-ceiling cabinets. It’s a space directly off the kitchen specifically designed for the cook who would prepare elaborate meals for the grand dinners that used to be hosted in the stately home over the last century.
“This pantry is about the size of my first off-campus apartment,” I tell Dylan.
“There you two are! You forgot about me. I forgot about me. I fell asleep in that dusty chair and you were gone so long I think I missed my hundredth birthday.” Archie stands in the low doorway to the pantry.
“Sorry, Arch. We had a lot of ground to cover,” Dylan explains. “Jess remembers.”
Archie takes in a long slow breath. “Oh my.”
“I don’t remember everything. Just parts of that summer I was here. Mostly images or events that were highly entertaining for a five-year-old. Most of those seem to include Dylan, but I’m missing huge chunks. Dylan said you’d both fill me in.”
“Oh my,” Archie says again. “I didn’t expect all of this to happen so fast. I thought it would be discussed over days as you go through your aunt’s possessions; however, I suppose the game has changed now that you have a new awareness.”
“Isn’t it great?” Dylan says as more of a statement rather than a question.
I’m still caught in a veil of confusion between the kiss and Dylan divulging that he has missed me all these years. Missed me in what way?
“Hmm,” Archie says with a tentative smile. “Great it is, my dear.”
“Don’t do the Yoda thing on me, Arch,” Dylan says. “I’m going to take Jess’s bags up to the yellow room.”
“That’s my old room, the one with the white lilies on the yellow wallpaper, right?” I shout like I’m a game show contestant.
Archie is a little taken back by my enthusiasm. “If this is how it works, I can tell it’s going to be an exhausting evening.”
Dylan is laughing. “Isn’t it a hoot? She’s like an amnesia patient.”
Archie looks horrified with that comparison. “Let’s make this less morbid, shall we? First, we’ll need food and beverages. Dylan, call Lauren and Imogene. We’re going to need them.”
“I seriously doubt they want to shop and cook for us after they’ve been working all day serving other people,” Dylan comments.
“Of course, Dylan. I want you to order food from Bonnie’s and have the girls bring it. We need enough for five of us, no seven. I’m going to call… you know what? No, wait.” Archie taps his head with his finger.
“You’re slipping into Yoda again. Make sense, old man.”
“Oh, fine. Order enough food to feed seven and go down in the cellar and bring up three bottles of Bordeaux,” Archie says, leading us out of the pantry and back to the front entryway. “Jessica, I don’t want you to be overwhelmed with all these people trying to fill in missing pieces, but we’ll make this a celebratory occasion, not a time for eulogies.”
“Great, a party. Do I have to call Carson?” I sense that Dylan has no intention of calling his brother. There’s some type of sibling conflict going on there which is lost on me.
“Well, Carson should be here, but our moody friend seems to have other things on his mind at the moment.” Archie takes a cell phone out of his suit pocket. “I’m going to go outside and call Lois and Eleanor.”
“You don’t need to leave if you want privacy. I’ll go upstairs and unpack,” I say.
“No, dear. There’s terrible cell phone service here. This house is like a vortex of technological mishaps. It drives me insane when I’m talking to someone on my phone and they simply disappear. It never seemed to bother Ginnie, though.”
“You can help me,” Dylan says, grabbing my hand and rushing me down the porch steps to his Jeep.
“Slow down, my legs are half as long as yours.”
Dylan pulls me in fast, swinging me against his body and capturing me with his hands in my hair. I only get a glance of his determined expression before his mouth is warm and urgent on mine. I close my eyes and give in to the glorious rush of his aggressive kiss. I can’t believe I’m letting him put his tongue down my throat, while at the same time I don’t want him to stop. I pull away and gape at him, almost panting with my lips still wet and tender.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he says, edging closer to me.
“Why do you think you can kiss me like that? I wasn’t your girlfriend at the age of five, so where do you get off pretending that I am now?” I’m not angry, yet I feel like I am losing control around him and that’s definitely something that is new to me.
“It felt right,” he says, moving even closer and letting his hands run up and down my bare arms. “There’s something between us, right? You were kissing me back.”
I groan in frustration and lean against his Jeep. “This has to stop. You move too fast, mister. I remember you as a little boy, I barely know you now.”
“Yeah, I keep forgetting that, even though I’ve been thinking about you for over a decade, I’m new to you. I’ll give you a little time to catch up,” he says, giving me one of those damn winks.
“You were special to me. You weren’t like a sister, that’s for sure. I kind of thought of you as a magical creature. You were so smart, even at five. The clever things that came out of your mouth would amaze me. Carson had to take a summer math program, and you’d glance at his homework then rattle off the answers to problems he needed a calculator for. Not to mention that your vocabulary was far beyond my level. You’d read the morning paper to Ginnie like a news anchor. Then there was your hair, it was just like it is now, red and long with blond streaks from the sun. It would get curly and wild after a rainstorm. You looked like some kind of powerful fairy,” he explains with his hands miming my wild hair. “You look the same. Just taller and, well, more like a woman of course.”
I am quiet as I dwell on his flattering comments. To be remembered and revered is an extraordinary feeling for me; I don’t think my parents have ever thought of me as positively as Dylan does.
“Thank you,” I say as I wrap my arms around myself.
“For what? For kissing you?”
“For telling me these things about myself.” I pick up my art supply box while Dylan grabs the two suitcases and we start walking back to the house. “The jury is still out on the kiss.”
Dylan laughs. “It wasn’t good enough?”
Oh, it was good enough. Good and steamy. “My life is in New York. I don’t want to make things complicated here while I’m visiting.”
“We’ll see about that,” Dylan says as he holds the front door open for me.
Six
As the house fills up with people, I can hear the cheerfully raucous voices carrying up to the third floor where I am unpacking in my old bedroom with the faded yellow wallpaper. I hang a couple of blouses and a summer dress in the empty closet that smells like cedar. Then I put my jeans, T-shirts, and underwear in a creaky, stiff dresser that I don’t recall being in this room.
