The Lemonade Year

by Amy Willoughby-Burle

  “What is this, Oliver?” I ask again.

  Oliver takes his hand from the door and runs it through his hair. He smiles shyly. “I apologize for the mixed signals. Seriously, I like you, Nina. Obviously, right?”

  I tilt my head, not quite conceding. He steps closer to me and slides his finger down my forearm. The suddenly intimate gesture stops my breath.

  “I don’t want to rush this. The decisions we make—big or small—they matter, you know? But I’m not even sure which one this is.”

  I look him hard in the eyes, trying to search out the source of his indecision. My age? Some other relationship?

  “I don’t get it,” I say, settling on the difference in our ages. “What about all the little chickadees you work with? Some of them are really cute. Why in the world do you want an old thing like me?”

  He shakes his head, but it explains nothing.

  “I want you,” he says. “But I want other things too. I don’t want to be unfair to you.” He steps back from me. “I’m being terribly flaky. I wish I could tell you more, and I probably should . . .”

  He opens his mouth like he’s about to spill all his secrets, so I step forward and press my finger to his lips.

  “You don’t owe me anything,” I say. “We’re not at ‘divulge all the secrets’ stage yet.”

  I say it to let him off the hook he’s wiggling on, but in truth, I say it to buy myself some more time. If he’s about to toss me back into the water, I don’t want to go. I’m being awfully selfish, but I need this—him—right now.

  He presses his eyes closed as if keeping it in is as hard as letting it out.

  “I can’t promise you anything,” he says. “But I really would like you to stay.” He pushes a lock of my hair behind my ears. “If you don’t need to leave right away.”

  “It is pretty messy out there right now,” I say, nodding at the door and the storm just outside it.

  A good, hard, spring rain blurs the world outside the window, while inside there is the safety of someone moving slowly and intentionally—someone as confused as I am, but someone who desires my company.

  “Stay?” he asks softly. “I promise I’ll be on my best behavior.”

  He looks like a lost soul eager to be found. There’s a desperate note of urgency to his voice that I can’t place and a shadow of distraction to his eyes, as if he’s going through some obstacle course no one else can see and he doesn’t know the right way to get through it.

  “Do you have any lemons?” I ask. “Or cherries?”

  “Pardon?” Oliver asks.

  “If I stay, I need to work,” I say. If I don’t I’ll get too distracted. “I’ve got my camera out in the car. I really do have a deadline. Mind if I tool around your kitchen?”

  He exhales and smiles.

  “Not a bit,” he says. “You work. I’ve got some reading to do. I’ll be around.”

  I have the sudden feeling that I’m in someone else’s life, that if I looked in a mirror I’d see someone else’s face. I check the clock—seven p.m. I haven’t heard from Cassie. I imagine her and Lola curled up on the couch in front of the television.

  Oliver helps me bring in my camera equipment from the car. I have a small tabletop setup that allows me to travel shoot. In Oliver’s kitchen I find three lemons, a nice blue glass, some basil leaves, and some strawberries. I can work with this. Number twenty-seven is a strawberry and herb-infused concoction.

  “I’ll give you some space,” he says. “Call if you need me. It’s nice having you here.”

  “Thanks,” I say, feeling a pleasant wave of relief, a peaceful comfort.

  “It’s been a while since there was anyone here other than me,” Oliver says. “I didn’t realize how much I missed the sound of someone else moving around.”

  He walks out of the kitchen, leaving me with my lemons and too many questions.

  I arrange the ingredients and tweak the lighting. I shoot a few shots and then rearrange, take a few more. I don’t have to do this now, I could just politely excuse myself, but I want to stay. It seems we are both hiding from something, but for now, that’s ok.

  I make the recipe as best I can remember it. I taste the lemonade. Not bad. All the while I’m eyeing this angle and setting up for another one, my mind is going back to Oliver. I look around for my old friend, guilt. I wonder if I left him at the cemetery. He’s going to be pretty mad when he realizes he has to float home on his own.

  I chuckle out loud. Don’t worry, old friend. I’ll come get you soon.

  I set up the shoot in a different way and begin again.

  “Why are you taking pictures of lemonade?” Oliver asks, coming back in. “I thought you worked for a cookbook company.”

  “I do,” I say. “This is my job there.”

  “Lemonade photographer?” he asks. “Cool.”

  Cool. I’m dating someone who says the word “cool.”

  I stop short at the word dating. Is that what I’m doing? Is that was this is? My heart races at the implication of moving forward like this.

  “I’m a food stylist and photographer,” I say, talking to stop from thinking. “I’m working on a book called 32 Ways to Make Lemonade.”

  “You’re kidding,” he says and hoists himself up on the far counter. “There are thirty-two ways to make lemonade? I thought it was all lemon juice, water, and sugar.”

  “Essentially,” I say. “I guess the difference is what you do to it then.”

  “Spice it up, you mean,” he says. “You ever tried a Sweet Tart?”

  “Like the candy?” I ask and click off another shot.

  “Sort of,” he says. “It tastes like candy. Before I switched majors, some college friends of mine and I used to drink it all the time. You just take lemonade and add in some Southern Comfort. Voila.”

  I look up at him, surprised. “You mean to tell me that you and your college dudes were drinking something called a Sweet Tart?”

  He winks and smiles. I lift the camera and take a shot of him.

  “All right, you got me,” he says. “We made it for the ladies. Like I said, it tastes like candy.”

  “You’re the devil,” I say, joking.

  He chuckles to himself. “I used to be,” he says and hops down from the counter. “But I changed my ways and became a new man.”

  “And now you have it all figured out?” I ask, hopeful that maybe someone does.

  “I thought I did. But I took a little tumble along the path, and now I’m not so sure where I’m going.”

  A wry smile works its way across his face, and I feel the same expression on mine.

  “I know what you mean,” I say. I take another picture.

  I look at my phone—eight thirty p.m.

  “Expecting a call?” he asks and kisses me on the head. “Your daughter?”

  I look up at him, shocked. “Yes,” I say. “She’s at my sister’s house. She’s supposed to call me.”

  He nods and sips my lemonade.

  “You didn’t think I knew about her,” he says—not a question. “It doesn’t bother me. Older women think it makes them less sexy. I’m not after sexy.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I say and toss a lemon at him.

  He laughs. “I didn’t mean you aren’t.”

  I roll my eyes at him. “Let’s not get carried away,” I say.

  “Her name is Carly?” he asks.

  “Cassie,” I say.

  He was Dad’s aide. Of course he had seen us all visiting. Had he seen Jack? I twist my wedding ring around my finger. If Oliver notices me doing it, he doesn’t let it show. I gave him a pass on airing his secrets, maybe he’s doing the same by not asking why I’m still wearing the rings.

  “Teenagers are tough,” he says. “Of course, I only know that from being one. I imagine they’re more
difficult than I know.”

  “I’m feeling very old,” I say. “Perhaps this is why ‘older women’ don’t mention their kids.”

  “Worry over age is pretty shortsighted,” he says and takes another sip of the lemonade. “Besides, feeling young is overrated.” He winks.

  “What does young feel like?” I ask.

  “Unburdened,” he says, putting down the glass and coming closer to me. “Oblivious. Irresponsible.”

  “How am I supposed to feel young again?” I ask. “Are you going to make me a Sweet Tart?”

  He chuckles. “I enjoy your sense of humor, Nina. You’re funnier than you think you are.”

  “I am?” I ask, a little breathless.

  He takes my camera from my hand and sets it carefully on the counter. He pulls me close to him. He’s warm and comfortable.

  “The other night, out by your car, you asked me if I would kiss you,” he says. “I don’t think I did.”

  “That’s ok,” I say, about to launch into all the reasons why it was wrong of me to ask.

  He presses his finger against my lips. “If the offer still stands, I’d like to. I still can’t make you any promises. I just know that it feels like I’m falling for you and I’d like to see if I’m right.”

  He kisses me, softly at first and then more forceful. He pushes us back against the counter and a lemon rolls onto the floor. His lips are soft, and although his hold on me is firm, I feel a measure of restraint on his part. When he lets go of me, I open my eyes and look at him.

  “So are you right?” I ask, my heart racing.

  “I’m afraid I might be,” he says quietly.

  Just then, my phone rings. He reaches beside me on the counter and hands me the phone. It’s Lola asking if Cassie can stay the night. I say no this time.

  “I’ll be over to get her in a bit.”

  I know she won’t be happy, but something is happening here and I think that perhaps I’m the one who’s the devil. Best that I go.

  “Leaving?” Oliver asks.

  “I should.”

  Oliver nods and rakes his hands through his hair. I think he might want me to stay, but he doesn’t stop me from going

  “Thank you for dinner and the time to hide out a while,” I say as Oliver walks me to the door.

  “I understand needing to take a break,” he says. “Sometimes you just need to take a step back and figure out what you’re doing. Sorry I drank your photo shoot.”

  I chuckle, and he leans in to kiss me again.

  “See you soon?” he asks.

  I nod and leave before the devil gets the best of us both.

  9

  “What’s all this craft crap supposed to make anyway?” Ray says to me when I walk into the room. “What makes people want to glue felt to a paper plate and then cover it with glitter?”

  “Good morning,” I say to Ray.

  He’s at Mom’s dining room table with the Sunday paper open in front of him, looking at the job listings. He’s in his usual spot, having pushed the hobby supplies to the side to make room for himself. Why do people cut a soda bottle in half and poke Popsicle sticks through it? It seems a pointless effort to take a bunch of useless junk and turn it into something someone might want.

  I guess that’s why.

  “With my record, I’ll be lucky if I can get approved for anything other than fry cook,” Ray says, crumpling the paper in an angry attempt to fold it closed. “Good morning, by the way.”

  Having Ray in Mom’s house is still surreal. It almost feels like one of those reality shows where they toss mismatched people into the same house and create uncomfortable situations for them just to see how quickly they’ll end up in a fistfight. Or one of the shows with the disgusting physical challenges like who can eat the most chicken feet in sixty seconds. I hope that’s not the one we’re on. No, Ray would be the surprise guest from the past who has been flown in to rock the boat just when you thought you had it all figured out. Or was that Oliver? I shake my head to clear away the jumble of thoughts.

  “I’ve got an old friend who might be able to help me out,” Ray says as my reality show goes to commercial. “He thinks he might have found me an apartment—crummy, but clean. I’m sure a poor paying job won’t be that hard to come by.”

  “You got a place?” I ask, but he doesn’t say anything else about it.

  I’m afraid to say anything, not want to break the spell. Ray is looking for a job. Finding something will be difficult and he knows this. Making the effort, however, will have been the hardest part. This is a good step.

  Mom breezes through the dining room, but doesn’t speak. She’s afraid to break the spell, too. Each time she comes in, she gets something else off the table and takes it into the kitchen. Some felt. Googly eyes. Yarn.

  I let Ray go on circling ads. I hope he’ll take the next step of calling the numbers, speaking nicely over the phone, setting up an interview, dressing appropriately, and actually showing up. There are a lot of steps to take, and there’s a good chance he won’t make it past the dining room table.

  Mom comes back into the room.

  “Do those circles mean you’re thinking about sticking around?” she asks Ray. She picks up some pipe cleaners from the table and a hot-glue gun.

  “I’m thinking about it,” Ray answers.

  “You can stay here as long as you need to.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Ray says. “I appreciate it. Really.”

  He looks at me and shakes his head. He doesn’t want me to tell Mom about the apartment. She smiles at him like this little bit of acknowledgment means everything to her, and I think that maybe it does. Ray makes a face like he knows it, too, then another face that means he thinks he’s a jerk. All these years, he’s thought we were happy to be rid of him. All these years, he’s been wrong. His life here has continued on without him, all of us, just waiting for him to reenter stage right and pick up where he left off. Of course, that’s easier said than done.

  Mom pats Ray’s hand. They make eye contact and hold it. It’s like a searing pain to watch, and I almost blurt out the secret about Michael in an attempt to make it stop. Like divulging it will lessen the depth of the visual probing. I don’t know what either one of them is looking for—sincerity, forgiveness, truth. Then Mom lowers her eyes and smiles to herself. Maybe she wasn’t looking for anything from Ray. Maybe she just wanted him to see her.

  She disappears into the kitchen again.

  Ray manhandles the paper, wrestling it to the table. He gets up and grabs his keys from the key bowl.

  “Where you headed?” I ask.

  “Into the fire,” he says and pulls Michael’s picture from his shirt pocket. Ray looks at it and puts it back.

  I hear Michael’s little voice talking from inside Ray’s shirt.

  It’s a step, Mister. But you better keep stepping.

  I go into the kitchen to see what Mom is doing with all the random stuff she kept retrieving from the dining room table. She jumps when I enter the room.

  “Oh, Nina!” Mom says, wearing a terribly handmade werewolf mask. “You startled me.”

  She motions around the room, proud of her work. On little hat stands throughout the kitchen there is a veritable Halloween boutique.

  “It’s May, Mom,” I say.

  As usual, I’m unsure of what she expects from me. I tool around the kitchen looking at her handiwork.

  “I think your father would have gotten a kick out of this,” Mom says through the lopsided mouth hole in the werewolf face.

  “Yes,” I say in agreement, well aware that today is Dad’s birthday. “He really would have.”

  I finger the masks and think about Michael, Oliver, and mistakes made. I put on the cat face and walk down the hall to Dad’s den.

  “That glue might still be hot,” Mom calls after
me.

  Dad’s den looks as if he might come in at any second, apologize for the disarray on his desk, turn on the radio by the window, and busy himself with the things the man of the house busies himself with. But it’s the way the room feels that tells the truth. It’s like walking back into your house after you’ve been gone on a two-week vacation. Nothing has been moved and even the air is undisturbed. The feeling is emptiness.

  I sit down at Dad’s desk. I know the pipe-cleaner cat whiskers are a pity at this moment, but it helps nonetheless. I touch some of the papers on his desk. I want to speak out loud to him, but I can’t. Not at his grave, not in his den. Not on a train, not in the rain, not in a boat, not with a goat. Or something like that. I laugh out loud. Typical Dad—making me laugh when my feet are failing beneath me. I see now, how much I had measured myself through him. How I’d used him as my map of the world. My compass pointing due north.

  Mom had used a cocktail glass to steady herself. It backfired most of the time, but she had meant well. When Lola woke up after the accident, Mom stopped drinking and poured all her need into caring for Lola. I felt left behind. It had been Dad who scooped me up and set me back on my feet. But Mom seemed to have lost touch with the rest of us.

  Lola saw it, though. Lola saw everything.

  She knew even then, even when she didn’t know more than my name and who I was supposed to be to her, that I was falling through the cracks in the universe, cracks that spread out like spider veins—purple and blotchy, permanent and useless.

  Lola was eleven, still using crutches, still in therapy. That part seemed to take a long time. I was fourteen and on the girls’ basketball team. Lola made Ray drive her to all my games. Mom had no interest in sports; she was just trying to hold herself together. As much as Dad wanted to see the games, he had taken to working the late shift because the pay was better and there were medical bills left over from the accident and more to come. Lola sat in the bleachers and banged her crutches on the wooden seats when everyone else clapped their hands. Already she had begun to cover the braces with brightly colored leg warmers. Making everything art.