Ordinary is Perfect

by D. Jackson Leigh

  I love you.

  Becki

  Autumn laid the letter on the table, gently smoothing the creases.

  “Hey, AA, you okay?” Jay’s familiar jovial quip was soft and his tone solemn.

  She shook her head, sniffing back a sob as she handed the letter to him. Another week, and Becki might have been knocking at her door, pulling her into her arms. God, she regretted every summer, every day, every hour she’d wasted by wallowing in her unfounded fear of rejection.

  Jay finished scanning the letter. “Wow.”

  Autumn stood and began to pace. “God damn me. I never gave Grandma Swan or Becki a chance.” She threw up her hands in exasperation and turned to pace in the other direction. “I just assumed they’d be horrified that I was gay. So I walked out of their lives.” She stopped, closed her eyes, and wiped tears from her cheeks. “Becki didn’t fail me, Jay. I failed her.”

  Jay stood, his expression stern. “And now?”

  Now? Becki was gone. The sheriff had said she’d already made her own funeral arrangements. She could ask him to let the neighbor friend arrange a memorial service for Becki’s friends in the community, then contact the lawyer to handle any other legal matters in probating the estate. She could keep her past in the past and focus on making AA Swan Inc. a big dog in the social-media marketing business. She wouldn’t have to go back to where she and Becki had played barefoot in the fields, shared Grandma Swan’s brownies and glasses of cold milk on the back steps. She wouldn’t be tempted to sit in the front-porch rocking chairs to stare at the endless stars winking at her from a midnight-blue sky.

  She met Jay’s eyes and stared down the challenge they held. “I won’t fail her now.”

  He nodded and retrieved his laptop from his backpack. “Then let’s see if we can reschedule some of these appointments or turn some of them into teleconferences.”

  Chapter Three

  Autumn killed the engine of her new Oxford edition Mini-Cooper and stared at the farmhouse. Her ears throbbed with the echoes of Kendrick Lamar’s rap in the almost startling quiet. When had she become so conditioned to constant city noise that silence made her uncomfortable? Had she changed that much? She scanned the yard and house. Even though Grandma Swan was gone, some part of her wouldn’t have been surprised to see Grandma push open the screen door, wiping her hands on a dish towel while she checked out who had come to visit. Some things were unchanged, but a lot had evolved and updated with the times.

  Grandma’s dirt drive, which had become a muddy playground after a summer storm, was covered with crushed gravel now. White board fencing had replaced the barbed wire strung between rusting metal posts to separate the house and yard from the surrounding fields and pastures. Instead of the plain, white asbestos-shingle siding she remembered on the house, she saw warm, medium-blue vinyl siding with white trim and blue-black shutters. Flower beds and baskets hung from the frame of the long front porch, a riot of colorful blooms. She smiled and teared at the same time. Becki’s warm, inviting personality was everywhere.

  Autumn jogged up the steps, but no one responded when she knocked on the door. She tried the doorknob and found it locked. Damn. She really had to pee. Becki and Grandma never locked the house. Back door. Maybe it wasn’t locked or someone was in the backyard. She turned and spotted a familiar figure. Could it be? One of his ears was broken off, and she remembered his little vest as red, not purple. But it appeared to be the same ceramic monkey that held Grandma’s spare house key. She dashed over and turned him bottom up, extracted a tarnished brass key from his butt, and hurried back to the door.

  “An-n-nd, I’m in.” Her celebration was short—a millisecond, actually—because her bladder GPS registered the close proximity of relief and issued a fresh, more urgent warning. She dashed down the hall to the bathroom and sighed in relief as her body said good-bye to two Big Gulps of sweet tea and a venti hazelnut mocha coconut-milk macchiato from Starbucks. Well, maybe not all of that. This was the third time she’d made a potty stop in the last three hours of the six-hour drive.

  She surveyed the bathroom as she washed her hands—bright-yellow walls and new faux-antique fixtures. The pedestal sink looked new, but the claw-foot tub was the same, except for the showerhead that rose from the tub faucet and anchored a bright daffodil-accented, waterproof curtain that circled the tub. Becki must have done well for herself. These upgrades weren’t cheap.

  Becki. Even the cheery surroundings didn’t stop the suffocating gloom that settled on Autumn’s shoulders. Why hadn’t she called? Autumn would have come. She would have tried to help. Wouldn’t she? Autumn tucked that doubt away. She couldn’t deal with her guilt or examine whether her drive for success had evolved into simple self-absorption right now.

  She emerged from the bathroom and walked tentatively through the house. “Hello? Anybody home? Hello?” She opened the back door and, instead of the small six-by-six concrete porch, found a wide deck outfitted with patio furniture and both gas and charcoal grills. At the end of the large, neat yard stood the old red barn, its paint fresh, but the structure just as she remembered.

  A willowy figure in cut-off overalls and a tank top, face shaded by a wide-brimmed straw hat, stood in the barn’s open doorway and waved, then began walking toward her. It couldn’t be. Autumn struggled to breathe, suddenly swimming in a whirlpool of nauseating dizziness. She held on to the door with one hand and clutched the door’s frame with the other. “Becki?”

  “Who are you?”

  Autumn startled, then turned toward the challenge that came from a young girl standing behind her. “I, uh…” She pointed to the barn, but the figure was gone. “I thought I saw…maybe—” She couldn’t say it. The girl, whose gaze was boring a hole between Autumn’s eyes, would think she was crazy. Becki was gone. She shook her head to reset her brain. “You asked me a question?”

  “Who are you? How did you get in the house? I locked it up last night.”

  A dog barked in the distance as Autumn considered her answer. “I’m Autumn. Autumn Swan. Becki is…was my cousin. I got the key out of the monkey’s butt to let myself in.” It wasn’t literally in the monkey’s butt, but she and Autumn had liked to say that. It made them giggle. This girl didn’t laugh. Didn’t even smile. Autumn cleared her throat. “It was an emergency. I had a long drive and had to pee really bad.”

  The barks were louder and drew closer, and then the scramble of paws and thud of boots on the front porch drew her attention. A broad-shouldered woman of average height wearing jeans, work boots, and a faded red Henley followed a medium-sized brown dog through the front door. The dog went directly to sit next to the girl, his soulful eyes watching Autumn. The woman pulled a battered brown fedora from her head and eyed her, too.

  “I’m Catherine Daye, Becki’s neighbor. I’m kinda looking after the place until—” She waved her hat in a helpless gesture. “Until things are settled.” She cocked her head, her expression turning curious. “I guess I’m not doing a very good job if I left the house open. I thought Gabe locked up last night. I should have checked myself.”

  “I locked it.” The girl, apparently named Gabe, frowned at Autumn. “She got the key out of the monkey’s butt.”

  To her dismay, Autumn was unable to stop the laugh that rolled up from her belly and exploded from her lips. She slapped a hand over her mouth. Gabe glowered as though she wanted to skewer Autumn. “Sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s just that Becki and I always found that so funny. Anytime one of us was upset or gloomy, the other would just say ‘monkey butt’ and we’d end up holding our sides, laughing.”

  Gabe’s face was stone. “She’s not here. She’s dead.” Her voice was flat, but not emotionless. Each word was edged with sharp anger meant to cut. Gabe flinched when Catherine rested a hand on her slim shoulder.

  “Gabe, you and Elvis go feed the chickens and collect the eggs. Miss Franny’s getting some of the ladies together to bake cakes and cookies for the memorial, and I promised to take all the eggs we
could spare to her house tomorrow. Then, and I know it’s early, see if you can get them in the coop so we don’t have to come back later.”

  Gabe shrugged off Catherine’s hand and stomped past Autumn to the back door. Elvis looked to Catherine, who flicked her hand toward Gabe, and then he followed. When he passed Autumn, he stopped, gave her a long look, then licked her hand once before continuing and pushing the screened door open to catch up with Gabe.

  Catherine cleared her throat again. “I’m sorry. Gabe is normally a well-mannered kid, but this has thrown her hard.”

  “It’s okay.” Autumn rubbed her forehead. She felt like she’d fallen off the monster caffeine wave she’d been riding, tossed and tumbled, then spat out onto the beach drained of her last bit of energy. She really needed a nap, but she should check in with Jay first. They had so much to do, so much to reschedule. Her irritation ratcheted up a notch with each task that came to mind, and Catherine’s frank appraisal of her was just about the last straw. The last thing she needed was a butch farmer looking to donate some sack time to keep the city girl happy. Everybody knows city girls are sexually fluid and hop from bed to bed like they shop for groceries. Butch on aisle four. Two-for-one on aisle eight. And bi-friendly couple available on aisle twelve.

  “You’re Becki’s cousin, aren’t you?” Catherine asked.

  Autumn bit back the slap-down she was about to throw out, realizing her mistake just in time. Catherine hadn’t arrived yet when she’d introduced herself to Gabe. “I’m sorry. The trip was long. I did introduce myself to…to Gabe before you got here—” She stuck out her hand. “Yes. I’m Autumn Swan, Becki’s younger cousin.”

  Catherine’s hand was large, her knuckles slightly red and chapped. “Nice to finally meet you. Becki talked about you a lot.”

  “Good things, I hope.” Autumn tried to smile to lighten the tension, but she didn’t feel very convincing. “I guess that’s how you knew not to shoot me for breaking and entering.”

  Catherine shook her head and pointed to a bookcase against the wall in the front room. “Actually, I recognized you.” She walked over to take a framed photograph from the middle shelf and turned it for Autumn to see.

  Tears blurred Autumn’s vision when she realized the picture was of her and Becki, arms slung over each other’s shoulders and grinning at Grandma, who was the photographer. She took it from Catherine and let the memories flow. It was Autumn’s last summer at the farm, and in a sudden spurt of growth, she was nearly as tall as Becki. Not that either of them was tall. Five feet six was almost considered short these days.

  “Whoa.” Catherine’s hand that cupped Autumn’s elbow was rough with calluses, but her grip was strong.

  Autumn realized she’d started to sway, so she let Catherine lead her to the worn sofa draped in a colorful quilt. She was too tired to be embarrassed by the tears that dripped from her chin onto the glass protecting the photograph, but she accepted the tissue Catherine pressed into her hand and wiped the glass clean before dabbing her eyes and nose. She traced Becki’s face with her finger. “Grandma was our safe haven every summer. I didn’t want to be around while my parents harvested their annual crop of marijuana, and Becki’s parents were just redneck trash. The summer she was twelve, she told Grandma she would sleep under her bed when her father’s friends came over to party because they scared her when they got drunk. She never went back home after that summer. I don’t know how Grandma got custody of her, but she did.” She wiped her eyes again to clear her vision. “She was more like a big sister than a cousin. That shirt she’s wearing was my favorite. I never considered her clothes hand-me-downs. I wanted to be just like her.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  Autumn swallowed past the lump that seemed stuck in her throat. “At Grandma’s funeral, but we didn’t get a chance to talk.” She huffed. “Both our parents showed up—hers like vultures hoping to pick over Grandma’s assets—and got into a loud argument at the graveside. I left without going to the visitation afterward. I’d already received papers about a trust Grandma bequeathed me. She left a similar trust to Becki, as well as the farm. I was fine with that and didn’t have any reason to stick around for the ‘flower children versus the rednecks’ show.” Damn it. She was starting to cry again. “I should have stayed and helped Becki run them off.”

  Catherine shook her head and smiled. “I wasn’t living here then, but Becki told me the whole story. She had Sheriff Cofy throw her parents in jail on domestic-violence charges, so they had to stay there overnight. They were furious your parents weren’t jailed as well, but more than happy to get the hell out of Dodge the next morning.”

  Autumn needed to take care of things here and get back to Decatur. She clutched the picture to her chest and straightened to look around. She felt like she was waking from a dream, and everything she needed to do came pouring back like the rude morning sun. “I need to check in with my assistant and let the lawyer know I’m here so he can set up a time to meet about the will.”

  “Gaylord said he tried to get in touch with you earlier today, but cell signals can be spotty when you drive through the mountains. He wants to read the will at eight tomorrow morning,” Catherine said. “He’s hoping that’ll work for you, because he has to be in court in the next county after lunch. And a few other people are invited, so he had to work around their schedules, too.”

  Autumn’s sinuses were swollen from crying, and her head was starting to pound. “How many people are we talking about?” Had her cousin become a millionaire in the past ten years and nobody told her?

  Catherine smiled and shrugged. “Gaylord said it was complicated.”

  “Okay.” She massaged her throbbing temple, then stood and returned the picture to the bookcase, tracing her finger over Becki’s image one more time. “I need to head out. The only decent hotel Jay could book for me is thirty minutes away.”

  “You can stay here.”

  Autumn turned toward the soft voice. Gabe stood behind the island that separated the kitchen and the living room, studying her sneakers and nervously flicking the tag on Elvis’s collar back and forth as he leaned against her leg. A look of bashful regret had mysteriously replaced her defiance. How long had she been standing there?

  “It’s okay,” Autumn said. “I don’t want to impose.”

  “Nobody else here,” Gabe said, lifting her eyes to meet and hold Autumn’s.

  Autumn looked to Catherine, who shrugged. “It’s Gabe’s call.”

  “Bacon and eggs in the fridge.” Gabe’s moment of shyness was gone as quickly as it appeared. Gabe-in-charge strode past them. “Bread should still be fresh enough for toast. I’ll put out some clean sheets and towels for you.” She disappeared down the hallway, but Elvis stayed, his eyes fixed on Autumn.

  “I really appreciate it,” Autumn said to Catherine. “But I need high-speed internet to complete some work I had to reschedule to drive up here.” She barely had a cell signal here.

  “Password to the internet is taped to the bottom of the coffee table.” Gabe’s voice carried down the hall and into the living room. “It’s not exactly Google fiber, but it’s the highest speed the cable company offers.”

  Autumn moved closer to Catherine and lowered her voice. “Are you sure this is okay? I mean, it still feels like Grandma’s house to me, but I don’t want to upset anyone by staying here.”

  Gabe reappeared before Catherine could answer. “Really. It’s okay. You can use the bedroom on the left,” Gabe said.

  “Thank you, then. I think I will.” The decision to not have to get back in the car seemed to release a wave of fatigue her caffeine high had been holding back. Maybe she’d take something for her stuffy, pounding head and lie down for thirty minutes. She functioned very well on little sleep as long as she could squeeze in a power nap.

  Gabe slid her hands into the pockets of her shorts and cast a glance at Catherine before facing Autumn. “I’m sorry for being rude earlier.”

 
; “Thank you, but I understand.” Autumn waved her hand to dismiss the incident. “We’re all a little on edge, I’m sure.” She just wanted the air cleared so they would leave, and she could take some aspirin and close her eyes. But who was this girl? She’d assumed that she was Catherine’s charge—adopted or fostered because she looked nothing like Catherine. Obviously biracial, Gabe had a smooth, attractive, medium-brown complexion that wasn’t a shade you’d get from tanning, and her dark hair was a riot of short, tight, corkscrew curls. It was a startling contrast to her hazel eyes, which were a swirl of green and brown rather than pale and grayish. She’d be very pretty if she would smile. Her high cheekbones, full lips, and the lines of the profile were high model quality despite her boyish mannerisms.

  What stumped Autumn, though, was that Gabe was acting like she was in charge of Becki’s house. Autumn was Becki’s next of kin, and Catherine was her adult neighbor. Gabe was just a child, but Catherine had deferred to her. Autumn stifled a yawn. She was too tired to think about all this now and needed to get her suitcase and laptop from the car. She looked up to find Gabe watching her.

  Gabe’s expression was thoughtful as their eyes met and held. What was going on inside that girl’s head? What more did she have to say or ask of Autumn? Gabe blinked, then looked down to tap Elvis on his head. “Did you forget something?”

  Elvis jumped to his feet, his claws scrabbling on the hardwood floors in his race to one of the bedrooms. A few seconds later, he returned triumphant, a twelve-inch rawhide bone in his mouth.

  “I guess we’re ready, then,” Catherine said, as if she saw nothing remarkable about the dog’s behavior. She started for the door, then looked back. “Oh, yeah. You can ride with us in the morning, if you like.”