Melanie couldn’t tell because the porch swing faced that direction anyway, but she thought her mom was staring at the Fletchers’ house. She wondered if Lavinia and Lance were married yet, if they were staying with Mr. and Mrs. Birdwell for the summer, and if Lavinia was already pregnant with Beau, who was only a little younger than Melanie. She wasn’t sure how many months younger, but they had been in the same grade.
“Roots,” her mom echoed. “What is that old quote about roots? The two things parents should give their children? ‘One is roots. The other: wings.’”
“I don’t know. I’ve never heard that before. But I like it.”
As her young parents-to-be rocked on the porch swing, Melanie realized that her dad’s interpretation of why they had left the lake house had been wrong. Leaving hadn’t been a notion that had suddenly struck Christine that particular summer. It had been a prevailing idea that had been with her from the very start, probably once her mom and Vinnie had ended and her mom and her dad had begun.
“Remind me again why you don’t like the name Kenneth?” he asked suddenly.
“There was a boy named Kenneth in my second-grade class who picked his nose and didn’t even try to hide it. He sat in the front row.”
“Ah. Right. Old Kenneth the Front-Row Nose Picker. And we’ve definitely vetoed Charles Junior? Chuck for short, of course.”
Christine’s lips were twitching with amusement. “If your heart is really set on Charles Junior, that’s fine by me. But I keep telling you—we don’t need to worry so much about boys’ names, because this baby is a girl.” She affectionately patted her swollen abdomen. “This baby is our Melanie Jane.”
Chapter Sixteen
Beth wasn’t exactly giving Kelsey the silent treatment, but she had made it abundantly clear that Kelsey’s “day off” stunt had demoted her from her previous status of most trusted confidante. In fact, she hadn’t even shared with Kelsey how the mother-daughter trip to Tennessee had gone, but Kelsey intuited that it had been a disaster by the way Beth kept sneaking out to “run errands” and taking private phone calls in her office with the door closed. Her grim, defeated expression spoke volumes.
According to Taylor, things had gone pretty smoothly on Sunday. They’d only had a few mishaps, such as when she had accidentally let a toy poodle in heat into the yard with two male dogs, a boxer and a beagle. “But Josh was really good about helping me separate them!” Taylor gushed. “He was so nice and patient with me all day!”
Kelsey had to take her word for it because Josh had several days off in a row, and he hadn’t responded to her text. He worked Wednesday, but that was finally her much-needed day off, so she didn’t get to see him then either. She would have to wait until Friday, when they both worked, to get his version of events and gauge just how irritated with her he was.
In the meantime, she enjoyed her day off with Sprocket. She didn’t tell Melanie she wasn’t working, because she badly needed a break from the lake house. It was hard to believe that only a few days ago, she had been so eager to get out there that she had skipped work for it. But things had changed. She hoped if she waited it out long enough, Everett would finish the basement restoration and she wouldn’t have to see him again. And as for the house being formally listed, the impending open house the next weekend, the memory of her mom and Vinnie’s conversation in the basement, the thought of her poor, young, unsuspecting dad sitting alone in front of the bonfire, and the fact that her mom had countered their childhood photograph with dead radio silence—well, Kelsey didn’t want to think about any of it.
She spent hours at the dog park, Sprocket flitting from scent to scent like a happy hummingbird. A friendly guy with a dachshund approached them, but at the end of the exchange, he didn’t ask for her number, and she didn’t offer it. He was a bit too short for her liking, and his khakis had a perfect crease down the front of each leg. Don’t be so shallow, she could practically hear Melanie scolding her. True attraction is fifty percent looks and fifty percent personality. Which was easy for Melanie to say because not only was Ben the nicest guy ever but he also looked like a model from a Land’s End catalog.
She went to the grocery store and bought two hundred fifty dollars’ worth of groceries—butterfly-cut pork chops and rib roast and shallots and spinach and rhubarb and ginger root and something that smelled spicy and heavenly. She didn’t know what it was but intended to find out. Kelsey also bought dog food and enough rawhide bones to last Sprocket through the rest of the summer as well as two bottles of red wine, two bottles of white, and more flour, sugar, vanilla, and cocoa to replenish her baking supplies. That evening, she binge-watched four hours of cooking shows as she caramelized shallots on the stove, tied the pork chops with kitchen twine, and drank half a bottle of red wine.
When she arrived at work on Friday morning, she couldn’t help feeling slightly nervous to see Josh. She wouldn’t blame him if he gave her the cold shoulder like Beth. She had, after all, abandoned him on one of the busiest days of the year. But instead of Josh, with his black-framed glasses and crooked grin, Kelsey found lumberjack-bearded Alan in Pooch Place, mopping the floor. Apparently Josh had called him the night before to see if Alan could come in for him. Alan didn’t know for sure, but he’d assumed Josh wasn’t feeling well.
Is he giving me a taste of my own medicine? It seemed too timely to be a mere coincidence, but she wasn’t so egotistical that she supposed he had called in sick simply to avoid her. Or am I? As she and Alan silently and efficiently took care of the dogs, Kelsey fretted that she had ruined her friendship with Josh. Besides Beth, he was her favorite person to work with. They joked around all day long, and the hours flew by. But without Josh’s easy banter, and with Beth depressed and hardly speaking to her, Kelsey felt the drudgery of her job for the first time.
She clipped nails. She cleaned cages. She picked up poop. She measured out food. She ran in circles around the yard. She picked up more poop. I’m approaching thirty, and this is what I do for a living?
On Saturday, she was thrilled to see Josh’s pickup truck in the parking lot. But when she hustled inside, she found him talking to Taylor at the front desk. Taylor was giggling like Josh had just said something hilarious.
“Hi, K. K.,” he said when he saw her. “How was the lake?”
She couldn’t tell if he was being genuine or passive-aggressive. “It was fine, thanks,” she said. She wanted to apologize for leaving him high and dry, but she couldn’t exactly do that in front of Taylor without offending the girl. She stood there awkwardly for a minute, feeling like a third wheel, while Taylor scrolled through Google images of monkey-looking creatures to show Josh. “Well, I’d better go fill up the pool like Beth asked. It’s supposed to be ninety today.”
“Okay,” Josh and Taylor said at the same time.
Dejected, Kelsey hauled the blue hard-plastic pool out of the storage area all by herself. She dragged it to the backyard, unwound the hose, and turned on the water. Usually pool days were her favorite days at the pet lodge because she loved watching the dogs splash around. But that morning a sludge of guilt, sadness, and jealousy had settled in the pit of her stomach, and even the sight of Cookie—the timid little spaniel who had been staying with them for a week and seemed to miss her owners like crazy—dropping her tennis ball joyfully in the pool and fishing it out again and again couldn’t cheer Kelsey up.
“Fine, thanks?” Josh had come out into the yard without her noticing. “I slave away for ten hours on Sunday so that you can go catch some rays at your family’s lake house—nice tan, by the way—and that’s all you’re going to tell me?”
She was so happy he wasn’t really mad at her that she almost hugged him. “No, that’s not all. But I thought you might want to tell me about your adventures first.”
He picked up the hose and ran his hands under the stream. “My adventures? Hmm. Well, how much time do you have?”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, making a face. “I felt so bad bailing
out on you like that at the last minute, but I was just so burned out. Then my sister invited me to this cookout on the beach...”
“You can tell me all about it at Tony’s,” he said, dropping the hose back into the pool with a small splash. The icy droplets tickled Kelsey’s leg. “When are we going? I’m free tonight.”
Kelsey tried not to look as stunned as she felt. The text—she had meant she would order pizza sometime when they were both working, not go to the restaurant together after work some night, not like a date. Does he think I was propositioning him?
He was smiling at Cookie, tossing her waterlogged ball for her, seemingly oblivious to the delay in Kelsey’s response. It seemed like minutes but was probably only seconds. Josh was tall and loose-limbed, comfortable in his own skin. In their two years of working together at Green Valley Pet Lodge, she had talked to him about everything under the sun—when she first got Sprocket, her family, ex-boyfriends, recipes she was dying to try—and Josh did the same, telling her about his tabby cat, Tumnus, his woodworking projects, and the obnoxious antics of his three older brothers, all with their J names—John, Jason, Jordan, and Josh.
“Tonight works for me too,” she said, and the weight of sadness that had been burdening her for days suddenly became lighter.
TONY’S PIZZA WAS MOSTLY a delivery and carryout place, but they had a small seating area with rickety bistro-style tables and a lot of dusty fake plants. Kelsey and Josh had gone home after work to feed and take care of their respective pets and agreed to meet at the restaurant an hour later. Kelsey had changed out of her Green Valley T-shirt and shorts and into her jersey-knit dress and gladiator sandals. She’d eyed herself in the mirror then whipped the dress over her head and opted for a white lacy tank top and the same shorts she’d worn to work. Sprocket watched all of it with grave interest.
“Sorry, buddy,” she said as she threw him a treat and locked the front door behind her.
She was reassured to see that Josh hadn’t dressed up either. He had changed out of his work T-shirt into a different T-shirt, and his wet hair suggested he had showered, but he looked like the same old Josh, and she could see that the green dress would have been a mistake.
They found a table among the families with young children and teenagers hanging out with their friends.
“You said any toppings I want, right?” Josh asked, tapping the large laminated menu with his pointer finger. “How would you feel about basil, artichokes, sundried tomatoes, kalamata olives, and goat cheese?”
“That sounds delicious,” she said. She walked over to the register to put in their order, and when she came back, Josh was sitting ramrod straight in his chair with his hands folded on the table. She wanted to tease him for his schoolboy posture, to say something to defuse the tension that had suddenly snuck up on them, but was, for the first time in his presence, at a total loss for words.
“I’m so glad Cookie had a good day,” she said lamely, grasping at the first topic that came to her mind. “Her owners are coming for her tomorrow, aren’t they? She’s going to be over the moon.”
Josh eagerly clung to the conversational life raft she had thrown him, and for several minutes, they rehashed work and talked dogs and vented and complained. Then Josh gave her the real scoop on how things had gone down on Sunday with Taylor filling in.
“So I explained to her the order that we should let the dogs out in the yard,” he said. “But not the reason, I guess, so it was kind of all my fault. I was out there with these two males, when all of sudden, here comes Taylor with Starlight, and she lets the poodle off her leash. And Starlight tears across the yard to the beagle, practically thrusting her butt in his face. So then I sprint across the yard just in time to scoop her up before he could mount her! I mean, I’m pretty sure he’s neutered, but you never know. Could you imagine Jeannette’s reaction if her dog got knocked up while she was staying with us?”
Kelsey was laughing so hard, her sides hurt. “Those high schoolers behind you are staring at you like you’re nuts,” she whispered. “Probably your references to ‘mounting’ and ‘neutering.’”
He laughed his nice, normal, non-Ernie-sounding laugh. “Eh. All in a day’s work, I guess.”
She pulled out her phone to show him the house listing, and as he flipped through the photos, his eyes got wider and wider. “Holy cats! I didn’t know you were an heir to the Kennedy fortune. Why are you still driving that old junker?”
Their pizza arrived, and it was so good, and they were so hungry, that it wasn’t long before they were haggling over the last piece.
“I think I should get it because I’m the girl, and after all, I did pay,” Kelsey said.
“Well, I think I should get it because I had to deal with humping dogs because of you.”
Giggles erupted behind them, and Kelsey and Josh joined in.
“Fair enough,” she said, but he cut the last piece in half with a knife and handed her one of the slivers.
The teenagers were scraping their chairs against the floor and teasingly pushing each other as they left the dining area. An employee in a black apron came in with a broom, scowled at them, and stalked back out. Kelsey was startled to see that she and Josh were the only ones left.
Behind Josh’s retro glasses, his eyes were a kaleidoscope of colors. Kelsey had always thought he had green eyes, but she could see that was just the outer rim of his irises. Radiating from each pupil like a golden sunburst was a yellowish-brownish-orangey inner ring. Once she noticed it, it was hard for her to look anywhere else. It was so unusual, so striking.
“I think that’s our cue,” he said and took one last swig of his root beer before hopping up.
Kelsey got up reluctantly. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him just yet, but she didn’t know what the alternative was. Asking him to get a drink at The Blue Lounge seemed wrong, but even worse would be suggesting they go back to her place to hang out. She followed him past the surly waitress out into the parking lot. Josh stood with his hands in his pockets, as if he were unwilling to part ways too.
“It’s such a beautiful night,” he said. When the sun had gone down, it had taken a lot of the heat and humidity of the day along with it. “You wouldn’t want to walk to Gosling Park with me, would you? It’s only about three blocks from here.”
“Sure,” she said. “We can burn some of those calories off.”
The sky was thick and textured with clouds, and the moon peeked out like a white button nestled in a pillowy quilt. Kelsey tried to match her strides to Josh’s longer ones.
“Do you want me to come to your open house next weekend and stand around saying things like, ‘They’re not asking nearly enough for this place,’ and ‘Are these original 1900s oak floors? Why, I never!’”
“That’s quite all right,” Kelsey said, smiling at the thought. “Actually I think I’d prefer if you went around pointing out flaws instead. Maybe that way no one would put in an offer.”
Josh scratched his cheek and glanced at her sideways. “Still having second thoughts about selling?”
“Only every hour of every day,” she said dismally. “Melanie makes a compelling argument, and my brain is totally on board. But my heart is a different story.” Her heart felt like the sale of the house would encompass not only the physical structure and the land but also the summers of her childhood, a hundred years’ worth of history, and the last living link she had to her mom.
“Have you guys talked about alternatives? Maybe continuing to rent it out year-round? Or hiring a property manager to rent it for short-term stays in the summer? Or you could even turn it into a B and B.”
“A bed-and-breakfast?” Kelsey snorted. “Who would run it? Melanie’s not going to leave Kinsley College to do it. And everyone knows I’m a total flake. It would be like Amelia Bedelia trying to run a bed-and-breakfast.”
They had reached the park, which was little more than some plastic playground equipment, a small grove of trees, and two benches.
&nbs
p; “I’m not sure who Amelia Bedelia is, but you’re not a flake,” Josh said with conviction. “You’re smart and dedicated and a hard worker. If you wanted to make it happen, I bet you could.”
A ready retort was on her lips—Thanks, Dad—but she suppressed it. He was being so earnest. He had worked alongside her for two years, and he thought she was smart, dedicated, and hardworking. It was nice to know that someone did.
“Thanks,” she said.
Instead of sitting down on one of the benches, Josh headed for the row of swings. Kelsey hesitated a second then followed suit.
“I could handle the breakfast part of it.” She sat down and started to pump her legs. “Muffins and scones. Quiches and frittatas.” She envisioned a snowy-white tablecloth spread over the table on the wraparound porch, and a middle-aged couple drinking mimosas out of champagne glasses. They would love her strawberry pineapple bread so much, they would ask for seconds.
In the moon-dappled park, flying high on her swing, Kelsey felt like a little girl again—like anything was possible, like entire aisles of possibilities stretched out in front of her like goods in a grocery store. She just needed to stretch out her fingers and choose one. Turning the lake house into a bed-and-breakfast? Sure, why not? Convincing Melanie to go along with it? Easy peasy. Falling in love with someone who’s kind and good and won’t break my heart?
She turned her head to study Josh. The swing’s momentum was blowing his floppy brown hair back, out of his eyes and off his forehead.
He must have felt her eyes on him, because he turned, too, to beam at her—a little dopey, a little self-conscious but full of glee. “What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I can’t believe you’ve never read the Amelia Bedelia books,” she replied.
Chapter Seventeen
Versions of Her Page 20
