“Yeah,” I managed, clearing my throat. “Doing okay.”
“Good,” she said, clearly not believing me but not planning to press, thankfully. “Well I’m glad you guys are going to join us today! Don’t worry about anything, okay? Cal and I will pick up what we need, and I’m making a picnic dinner, plus I know they have stuff there. Just maybe make sure the girls have sweaters.”
“Good plan,” I said, feeling a little relieved that April didn’t seem to expect anything of me.
“Wanna meet on the square at four-thirty?”
“Sounds good.” I glanced at the clock. I just had six hours to survive until then. “See you.”
We hung up and I did my best to pull myself together. “Pancakes!” I announced, forcing my voice to be cheerful and light. “Who wants Mickey Mouse with chocolate chip eyes?”
Both girls squealed and leapt to their feet, dancing over to the kitchen to make suggestions about other shapes.
“Yuke!” Maddie was yelling. “Dr. Paige can make a Yuke cookie. You make a Yuke pancake!”
“She has a cookie cutter, stupid,” Taylor said, her voice cutting.
I stopped moving around the kitchen and considered my older daughter. Should I be worried about her dislike of Paige? It was beginning to color all her reactions to the pretty doctor. “Taylor, that’s not nice,” I told her.
“Well she does. It’s not like she made that herself.”
Maddie ignored her sister. “Yuke,” she said again.
“I’ll try,” I promised her, and she turned back to the TV. “Taylor,” I tried. “Why don’t you like Dr. Paige?”
Taylor sighed and rolled her eyes, channeling sixteen so effectively I actually got a sick feeling in my gut. I wasn’t ready for teenagers. “She’s always around,” she said. “Why doesn’t she go have her own family? She’s a grownup.”
Wow. Okay. “She’s a friend, Taylor, and she’s been pretty nice to us.”
When she didn’t say anything, but didn’t leave, I tried again.
“Without Dr. Paige, we definitely would have had to get rid of Luke.”
“We already did get rid of him. You gave him to her!” She was yelling now, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.
Those words hit me like a tiny fist to my solar plexus. Ugh.
I shook my head and knelt in front of her. “No, honey. It really is temporary. Besides, Dr. Paige is moving away soon.”
Taylor stopped moving when I said that, her face freezing as she considered these words. “She is?” Her voice was small now, none of the fire that was there a moment ago evident in her tone.
“Yes. In a couple more weeks, I think.” I hated saying it out loud. Some small part of me wished it weren’t true, but I knew it would be the thing that would snap my life back into place. Back to where we’d been before we’d met her.
“Oh,” she said quietly. And then without further comment, she turned and went back to watch television.
The rest of the day was relatively quiet. The girls were happy when I shared our evening plans—they loved their uncle (he had the luxury of not having to actually parent and was known mostly for sugar and fun).
At about two o’clock, the doorbell rang. I’d settled in to try to get a bit of work done while Dragon Tales played on endless repeat in the living room (I didn’t always have the energy to limit screen time … sue me.)
I went to see who it was, pushing away the galloping hope that Paige would be standing there on the other side of the door when I pulled it open. A glance out the side windows told me it was not Paige, unless my gorgeous neighbor had cut her hair, shed about six inches and gained a significant amount of girth, all while embarking on a new career as a delivery person.
“Delivery,” came the required word as the person on the other side of the door shoved a clipboard my way. I signed, trying not to stare, either at the person or at the large box standing on the porch next to the person. Both were a mystery to me. The delivery person was of indeterminate gender, the gruff voice and chin-length hair giving nothing away, and I also had no idea what could be in the box.
“Thanks,” I said, waving awkwardly as the delivery driver departed. I turned to the box, which was a mystery I could solve.
I carried it inside, finding it surprisingly light.
“What’d I get?” Taylor asked, eyeing the box.
“It’s not for you,” I told her. “It has my name on it.”
She frowned.
“You want to open it?” I asked her, offering in an attempt to thwart a potential sour mood that might last all day long. As her face slid back into happy land, I did a quick mental scan of parental best practices—I didn’t think most people worried about unexpected packages carrying anthrax or explosives, at least not people who spent their days doing other people’s taxes.
“Yes,” she stated firmly, running to the kitchen and returning at an even faster run, carrying a butcher knife.
“Oh shit,” I said, pulling it from her hand. “You can’t run with knives, Taylor,” I told her.
“You swore.”
“You were trying to kill yourself with a giant knife!”
“I was going to open the box.” She crossed her arms and I felt the teenager coming to visit again. “How about we use this?” I asked, producing my significantly smaller pocketknife from my pocket. “Away from you,” I told her, cringing as I handed my child the blade.
“What is in the box?” Maddie asked, appearing around the doorway to the office where I’d set down the box.
“Come in. We’re about to find out.”
Taylor used the knife with remarkable care, handing it back to me by the handle and then pulling open the top of the box. There was a note inside, which she tossed to the floor. I retrieved it and watched as she dug through a mountain of packing peanuts, her hands reappearing with a very large kangaroo grasped between them. My breath halted for a moment as she tugged the very real, very large, very dead animal from the huge box. Someone had sent us a stuffed marsupial. I had a feeling who it was, I just didn’t know why.
“Kangaroo!” Maddie screamed, clapping her hands excitedly.
“Oh my goodness,” Taylor gushed, all little girl now, no sign of the surly teen in sight. “Can I have him?”
“He’s mine!” Maddie screamed.
My head began to pound.
My children were fighting over a stuffed kangaroo that had no business being in my house in the first place. Taylor hugged him to her body—a mean feat considering he was bigger than she was—and took off running toward her room, shrieking, “Mine!”
Maddie followed, scattering a trail of packing peanuts in her wake and wailing. I heard the door slam, and wondered for a moment if Taylor forgot that they actually shared a room, so escaping to her room was a pretty poor defense. Then again, she was only seven.
“Mine, mine, mine!” Maddie was screaming, banging her tiny fists against the door.
I took a deep breath and opened the envelope that had come with our new houseguest.
It read:
Cormac: Enjoy this very valuable gift. Perhaps your questions are not as important as they once seemed? —Antoine
This was a gift from my taxidermists. A bribe, it seemed. One that would only work for people who saw great value in stuffed marsupials, however. It turned out I was not one of those people.
I looked around for someone to appreciate the ridiculousness. I had descended to a place in life where people believed stuffed kangaroos were an appropriate bribe. Not money, not women. Something about me screamed, “send me a lifelike marsupial to display proudly in my home so its creepy dead-eyed gaze can follow me everywhere!”
Perfect.
I went to the back of the house to mediate the fight.
Cannibalistic Wallabies
Paige
I texted Cormac around noon, after taking a long run and trying to settle my brain into some kind of equilibrium. I’d had it before—I’d been balanced and
calm, focused on the plans I was making for my life. Plans engineered to broaden my horizons, my opportunities. Plans devised partially in hopes that changing my location might also broaden my chances of meeting the right person, getting the family I had always just assumed I’d have.
The run didn’t help much, though at least I wasn’t bouncing off the walls with anxiety afterwards, and it left Bobo and Luke—both of whom had come—in contented piles of tired dog in their beds. I hoped maybe the expenditure of all that nervous energy would help me be a little more settled in my interactions with my neighbor.
Paige: Did the girls want to come see Luke today?
Cormac: They can miss a day. We’re definitely taking advantage of you.
They weren’t going to come? Why did I feel like my heart might break?
Paige: No you aren’t! Not at all.
Cormac: Thanks for having us last night. Did you get some sleep?
Something about Cormac referring to sleeping felt intimate, and despite being alone in my kitchen, I felt a warm blush creeping up my cheeks. I took a deep breath and looked around at all the boxes of cake mix waiting for me to get back to work.
Paige: Yes. Thanks. You?
Thinking of Cormac in his bed … well that was not something that seemed appropriate around boxes of cake mix. Cake mix was wholesome and good, and the things I was thinking about … Thoughts flew into my mind, images of those golden eyes glimmering in the darkness, echoes of that deep voice filtering through shadow. A shiver went through me.
Cormac: Not especially. Nothing new.
And that? That only made me want to ask why my neighbor wasn’t sleeping. It made me want to see if I could help, if somehow I could bring him sleep. After the sex, of course.
Paige: Sorry. Well … not sure if you’d be up for it, but there’s a movie in the square tonight in town. And a picnic kind of thing. I could take Luke and the girls could see him there?
Cormac: We were planning to go, so that would be perfect.
My heart sagged a bit to hear they’d already made plans, but I quickly reprimanded myself. He was not my boyfriend—he was barely a friend. We were neighbors. Of course he had other people in his life.
Paige: Oh, okay, well, I’ll just see you there, then?
Cormac: Definitely.
We signed off and I went to take a long shower. One in which I vowed not to think about Cormac.
By five o’clock I was strolling the grassy expanse behind the town square proper—the area many townspeople referred to as “the hill.” We had a proper fairgrounds down a bit farther south, but this was where smaller events like the movies on the square always happened.
The perimeter of the big open field was lined with tables and carts on one side—popcorn and hotdogs, slushes and a beer truck. There were a couple of local restaurants with actual food trucks along the street at the far edge, and the other side was left open for bounce houses and pony rides for kids.
Mom had let me know she’d be waiting for me to come sit with her, but she’d also mentioned her friend Helen would be attending with her, which made me less eager to figure out where, exactly, they were sitting. Helen was ninety, which would lead most people to believe she was probably a sedate little old lady, but most people had never met Gran. I’d been in school with Helen’s oldest granddaughter, Juliet, though I was a couple years older. Juliet had gone on to become a movie star, and her grandmother had stayed exactly the same—terrifying.
“Your dog’s a lot better looking than I remembered,” a strong but weathered voice said.
I’d found them. Gran sat in a camping chair, a tumbler in her hand, her body clad in a shocking pink jogging suit, complete with fancy sneakers.
“There you are!” Mom sang out, leaping to her feet to give me a hug.
“Hi Mom,” I said, hugging her back. “Hello Mrs. Manchester,” I said to the older woman. “And this isn’t my dog. This is Luke. He’s Cormac Whitewood’s dog actually.”
The woman lifted a brow, which crept up behind the mirrored shades she wore despite the less-than-sunny day. “Doctors so hard up they’re dog-napping these days?” She smiled a little, to herself I thought, and then sipped whatever was in her cup.
“No,” I said, settling to my knees on Mom’s blanket with Luke beside me as Mom offered me a tumbler of my own and a sandwich, which Luke seemed very interested in. “I’m dog sitting for a little while. Cormac got the dog for his girls, but he’s allergic.”
“You know,” Helen said, lifting the shades to the top of her head. “Why more people don’t just get chickens, I’ll never really understand.”
I frowned. That was a bit of a non-sequitur, but when you were ninety, I supposed you were entitled to a conversational slip now and then. Fine, we’d discuss having home-laid eggs, if that was what she wanted. “I don’t think the village is zoned for chicken coops, though having eggs at home would be nice.”
Helen made a little “pish” noise, and then said, “Not for eggs. For pets. Chickens are very loyal and very good company.”
This was different. I looked at my mother, who just smiled and tried to hand me a piece of cake. “I’m good, Mom.”
“How’s the baking going, Paigey?” she asked.
“I’ve made five more since I brought the last batch over for freezing,” I told her. “What day are you decorating?”
Helen turned her shrewd gaze on my mother. “For fuck’s sake, are you doing the cakewalk all by yourself again?”
My mother straightened. “I am,” she said. “The girls are helping.”
Two days before the festival every year, my mother assembled and decorated all the cakes—usually at least fifty. It was a gigantic effort, and it usually took the better part of twelve hours, and she fully expected Amber and I to take part. It reminded me of pulling all-nighters in med school, only with more sugar and fondant involved.
“What the hell is that?” Helen cried out, distracted from my mother’s insanity by something she could see through the crowd in front of us. I turned to follow her gaze, and found I couldn’t answer her. There, bobbing through the gathering crowd spread out on blankets between us and the giant movie screen, was a huge kangaroo. It was moving up and down, progressing through the people around it almost as if it was hopping.
But I didn’t care about the huge out-of-place marsupial too much, because walking next to it was Cormac Whitewood. “A kangaroo,” I managed to say, despite the way my heart had begun tap dancing in my chest.
“Where did he get this animal?” My mother asked.
“It’s a wallaby. They are bigger. And they eat their young,” Helen said, matter-of-factly. “You should know, you have a whole squad of marsupials at your house.” She was referring to my mother’s pet chinchillas, which I did not think were actually marsupials and I’d never heard about them eating their young. “Can you hand me my Manhattan thermos, Lotts?”
As I turned to question Helen, Amberlynn strode up, carrying another blanket and a small cooler, and I thought better of my questions about marsupials. “Hey,” Amber said, sounding distracted. “What’s going on?”
“Standard debate about Australian marsupials and cannibalistic tendencies,” I said, and Amber just nodded as if this was, actually, standard. She hugged my mother and said hello to Helen, and then came to sit next to me. “Brought some wine,” she said quietly.
I turned and poured my iced tea into the grass out of Mom’s sight and let Amber refill me with white wine. We touched tumblers and then I took a second to really look at my sister. “Everything okay?”
She sighed. “Wiley didn’t want to come. Something about mash and brew and having to hire someone new or something.”
“A distiller’s work is never done,” I quipped, hoping to lighten her mood. My sister’s fiancé worked more than I did. We didn’t see a whole lot of him, and I was starting to think she might not either.
“Sometimes I think he loves work more than he loves me,” she said, twisting h
er engagement ring in circles on her finger and then taking a long gulp of wine.
“I’m sure that isn’t true,” I told her, though Wiley had missed quite a few dinners at Mom’s, and I was starting to think maybe there was actually trouble in paradise. I hoped not.
“Paige, hi,” a very masculine voice distracted me from my examination of my sister’s sad expression, and my insides immediately did a fast loop as I recognized Cormac, standing just in front of us.
“Cormac,” I said, practically leaping to my feet. Luckily, I didn’t spill my wine, but I did earn a comment from Helen who muttered, “she’s more excited to see him than the dog is.”
Luke was excited to see Cormac, and he’d jumped to his feet too, and was panting happily and looking up at the man we both seemed to admire.
“Hey,” I said, trying to push my voice to be casual.
“Hello ladies,” Cormac said, greeting my mother, Helen and Amber with a friendly nod and smile.
Amber got to her feet next to me, and so did my mother, all of us evidently blocking Helen’s view of the kangaroo, still bobbing up and down in the mass of people a ways away.
“I can’t see the killer kangaroo, people,” she muttered in a non-dignified whine I wouldn’t have guessed a ninety-year old woman was capable of.
“Sorry,” my mom told Cormac. “Someone has brought along a large wallaby, and there’s been some discussion here about it. Not something you see every day!”
“Even in Singletree,” I added.
Cormac’s smile faltered just a tiny bit and he glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, er. Yeah, that’s Frederick. He’s ours.”
“You brought a kangaroo?” I asked. Was he trying to find a pet he wasn’t allergic to?
“Well, I didn’t, technically. Maddie did.”
“Oh,” I said, still not really getting it. Why didn’t the guy just look for a gecko or something?
“It arrived this afternoon, so Taylor took a long turn with him and by the time she gave him to Maddie we had to leave, so I let her bring him along, which was maybe a mistake.”
Second Chance Spring Page 11
