21. Winnifred
T he moment my sneakers touched Willow Creek dirt, I felt every particle of anxiety or fear disintegrate entirely.
Before my Papa’s old Tacoma could come to a complete stop at the entrance of Willow Creek’s gravel road, I hopped out and stood there, still, taking in the picture ahead. I heard Crew jump out as well, telling my grandfather thank you and agreeing that yes, we promise we will be at dinner tonight.
I wanted to answer too. Wanted to ensure, once again, that I was grateful to be here and tell Papa that I loved him and a million other things I felt. But I was frozen in this time and place. Like I was seeing it for the first time.
In the distance, the main farmhouse stood proudly, its windows glowing faintly. Down the dirt path to the left I notice the light on in the bakehouse. The same one I used to run with Aunt Sonja when times were busy and the city of Oak Ridge all decided to pop in at once. Staring at the old wood cottage I practically caught the rich scent of cinnamon drifting from inside. I imagined fresh apple pies and warm loaves of bread being pulled from the ovens, croissants waiting in the glass with my name on it. Sourdough sandwiches with apples and brie and a touch of cranberry being rolled up for the workers.
I closed my eyes and could hear the rhythmic sound of hooves on the ground as what had to be Knox and Felicity riding horses through the fields. Their laughter mixes with the rustling of the leaves and the occasional neigh of the horses made my eyes water. I was home.
Even if it was for a few days just for now. I made it. All thanks to Crew, with the gravel beneath his boots crunching softly as he moved to stands next to me.
“Wow.” I looked his way, catching how his eyes were stuck to the fields. Rows of wild flowers stretching for acres, meeting to where the signs pointing toward the pumpkin patch to the far right followed. “This is…”
“I know.” I smiled up at him, repeating what he said when we met at his spot. Parroting his unwavering understanding that something about this place was just pure magic.
“Wow.”
The bake house door opened and out came none other than Lottie Jane Meadows, the person my homesick heart longed to see the most.
“I’ll pay you back, Sonja, you know I always do.” She called over her shoulder. Her white tank top, with a smear of chocolate across the left boob, was tucked into her ripped Levi shorts and her tan legs stretched for miles falling into her red Tecovas that she practically screamed for on her nineteenth birthday.
“No, she won’t, Sonja!” I cupped my hands around my mouth and called back.
Lottie’s neck snapped my way and her thousand-watt smile stretched to ears. “Oh you’re one to talk!” She ran straight towards Crew and I, the chocolate croissant bag in her hands falling onto the dirt path in front of us.
With Lottie’s arms stretched wide, I met her half way and let our bodies collide together.
“Oh my gosh,” she squeezed me around the neck tight enough to almost cause me to gag. Lottie was always the strongest of us, her brother included. Her strength came from far more than just physicality.
“It’s so good to see your face.” She pulled back, two firm hands wrapping around my jaw. “Your freckles aren’t out.”
“Well, I haven’t been in the sun a lot.” I laughed.
“We’re changing that, instantly, okay? I’m talking bikini sunbathing by the creek all day every day. You can use my green one, it will look so good with your hair.” Her fingers trail through my auburn hair, tugging the ends playfully and I smile. Home.
Crew cleared his throat a few feet behind us. “I would join you, but you know my bikini body isn’t ready yet.”
I turned and saw him smiling back at me. “Oh, right. Lottie, this is Crew.” I widened my eyes just enough for her to make sure she knew not to embarrass me.
“Ohhh, you’re the one with the big hands!” She trailed down the path and grabbed at Crew’s wrist, pulling his hands to her face for inspection. “Hmm, I totally see what you mean, Win.”
My cheeks blushed as Crew squinted at me. “You got a thing for my hands, Winnie girl?”
“I made one comment on the size, that’s all.”
“Psh, one comment.” Lottie scoffed. “Try fifty. Actually try hour long phone calls with nothing but discussing the veins on the back of-.”
“Alright, I think that’s enough.” My eyes rolled and I yanked Crew’s wrist from my cousins inspection. “Where is everyone?”
“Okay, so Aunt Sonja is in the bake house but she’s totally cranky cause something happened with an oven or something? And then Knox and Flick are, well you know.”
I did. Because the two of them were attached at the hip since day one and despite Felicity, or as Lottie calls her- Flick, being my cousins best friend she still was Knox’s girl.
“Oh, mom and dad are at the stables wrapping up so they can go to the main house to get dinner ready, and then Odie and Lawson are both working the back fields with the new guys.”
I nodded along with a smile that was hurting my cheeks.
“Look at you,” my cousin looked at me with her nose scrunched up. “All grown up.”
“You’re only a few years older than me.”
“Ahh, but I am wise beyond my years, little Win.”
She checked the time on her phone before sliding it in her back pocket. “Come on, love birds. You can walk with me.” She took off to the ‘sister houses’ as we called them. Basically a duplex with two cottages connected together through a garage.
Lottie’s parents built it for her after her accident as a bribe to keep her on the property. If I had that house back when I was looking at moving, I would have jumped to stay too, I believed.
Crew and I followed her a few feet back, he leaned down to whisper low in my ear. “I thought you said we weren’t fake dating?”
“We’re not.” I blushed. “Lottie is just…Lottie.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Really?”
“Mhmm. Gives me an excuse to do this,” Crew wrapped his long arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze as we walked in tandem to the sister house and I smiled to myself.
This was going to be the best weekend ever.
After Lottie walked us to the main house, she shouted up that she would be at her place in case we needed to, and I quote, ‘make sweet love while no one’s home.’ To which I replied, ‘thank you,’ and slammed the door in her face.
“Come on, we can stay in my old room.” Crew followed me up the steps and down the hall where my childhood bedroom sat.
When we stepped into my room, the first thing that caught me was the walls. A pink blush with framed art of my favorite scientists and different quotes about life that seemed important to my young adult self.
My bed had the same super plush pink comforter that I could sink into, and a mountain of throw pillows in different shades of pink and a few with metallic accents, like rose gold.
I had a full-length mirror right by the closet next to a small bookshelf where I kept all of the books I couldn’t fit in my suitcase to Philly, and a few decorative pieces—like a cute photo frame with a picture of me and Lottie and some girls from high school. There’s a movie ticket that I was never going to admit to Crew was from my first date with he who won’t be named. I made a mental note to burn the thing when no one was looking.
I had a bulletin board filled with old Polaroids, fair ticket stubs, and random little memories pinned up from over the years. Crew set down his backpack- all he needed for the weekend apparently- and leaned in to see the newsletter cutouts and graduation flyers.
“Winnifred Meadows,” he turned on a heel to face me. “You were the it girl in high school weren’t you?”
I scoffed a laugh. “I was not.”
“Look at you,” he squinted at the picture. “Prom Queen and valedictorian. You never would have took a second glance my way.”
“Not true,” I sank into my fluffy mattress and wiggled my eyebrows. “You would have wowed me with your big city muscles and your elote.”
He snorted and joined me on the bed. “Nah, but I probably would have followed you around and got on your nerves until you noticed me.”
“Were those your moves back then?”
“Worked well for me for a little while. Homecoming with Becky Wright was excellent.” His brows wiggled.
“Oh my gosh, ew, I didn’t need to know that.”
He laughed and I caught myself smiling regardless of my hatred to this Becky. “You asked.”
“Well, I wish I didn’t.”
“It’s okay, you can tell me all about your Marshall escapades.”
“Well, not to mess this up for you, but most of those escapades were done on this bed.” I patted my mattress.
“Agh, gross.” He shot up, “Now you ruined it. I’m sleeping on the floor tonight.”
I giggled. Maybe it was being in my old room or being just away with Crew but I felt young. I felt fresh and new and excited.
“Hey,” I sat up. “Let’s skip dinner tonight.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Let’s go out to eat.” Not only because I felt like seeing the rest of the town, even for just a single meal, but also because I knew Crew had sensory issues and would probably appreciate not having two Meadows family dinners in a row with Thanksgiving coming Thursday. My family was excellent but they were loud and proud and had never known the word ‘shy’ or ‘demure’ a day in their lives.
Chances were my grandmother would tell Crew he was too skinny- despite my previous pestering that that is not a compliment to some people, and my cousin Knox would probably try to recruit him for his rivalry fantasy football teams that had lost every year for the last ten years.
“I did promise your grandfather I would be coming.”
“Eh, I’ll tell him we’ll make it up to him by watching the NASA documentary clip he’s been begging to watch with me for the last month.”
“Hmm, well then whatever you wanna do, I’m down for.”
“Mmkay.” I sighed and rolled onto my side to face him. Crew followed suit, resting back on his side and looking down at me.
“What’s going on in that head?” He flicked a piece of hair of my shoulder.
“I am so glad I didn’t poison you years ago.”
Crew scoffed. “Is that right?”
My throat hummed in confirmation. “Thanks for bringing me here. I mean it.” I leaned in a little, pulling out the star shaped pillow who’s corner was stabbing into my ribs. The movement brough us closer than before, Crew leaning just a hair above me, our noses close enough to brush if either one of us decided to.
“Thanks for letting me come.”
I nodded, slow and languid, just staring at those two full lips. Heat rising through my skin, I feel my neck burning hot, but still I just take in the sight of Crew almost on his back for me. Hair tossed lazily, shirt tugged on the edge he laid on, showing off his thick neck leading down to broad shoulders. His bicep flexing as he supported the weight of his head in his palm. My gaze finally landed on his face and I notice those light brown with a sprinkling of hazel were staring right back at me, just above my chin. I bit down on my cheek.
Was he thinking about it too? That we were alone, in this room, in this house? And as many times as we had been forced in a tight kitchen space together with band aid fixings and accidental rubbing against each other, there was no forcing this. If he leaned in, or I, there was no excusing it on needing to reach for a glass on a top shelf or injuries to be kissed. No fear of flying to have a thumb war over. No fake dating for anyone to see. Just us, raw and real and here.
“Crew,” I whispered, so low that I almost wondered if he had ever left my mouth.
“Yeah?”
“Are you going to-”
“IS MY BABY HOME?”
“Oh, dear God.” My grandmother. My very old, very wise, but wow, very traditional mother of my mother was heading up those stairs right now. And although the house was big and the woman had already had double hip replacements, she could move.
I sat up and adjusted my shirt. “You can’t be in here.”
“You’re in your late twenties?”
“My nana thinks I’m a virgin, so scoot.”
“Where?” Crew laughed, but the remains of his previous blush was still fading from his neck and cheeks.
I lifted the skirt of my bed, checking the height and mentally thanked my young adult self for ordering bed risers that felt silly at the time but now were literally going to save my life.
“Under the bed, hurry.”
“Winnie, I am not hiding under the be-”
I lowered my voice to a growl. “Now, Crew.”
“Alright, alright.”
The skirt shifted back together as soon as my friend had crawled his way under my bed frame.
“Winnifred, honey!” Nana, without so much as a knock, flung the door wide open and gave me a big, wrinkly smile. “My baby is home.”
She waddled over, favoring her right leg this time, and squished me into her surprisingly strong arms. Despite my fear of this woman’s presence mere seconds ago, I let my hands wrap around her neck and pull her close to my chest. I was by no means tall, but I did tower over my grandmother.
“I missed you so much.” I give a gentle and yet firm squeeze right back.
“Have you been here long? Are you hungry?” She patted my belly. “Probably not. You always were such a good eater. I remember you never had issues eating all of your tomatoes, unlike those cousins of yours. Little birds, just pecking away. My girl always made a happy plate, huh?”
If this woman hadn’t sacrificed everything to raise me, I mean really, if it were anyone else…
A quick snort came from under the bed and I cleared my throat to cover it. “Sorry, Nana, got a tickle in my throat.”
“You know, if you’re getting sick, Knox has been growing some kind of special healing mushrooms in the far back of the property by the creek if you need some. He says they can heal cancer and dementia and all kinds of stuff. Your papa has been taking them daily in the morning.”
I thought he looked a little away from Earth when he picked us up, talking about the vibrant colors of street signs and exits ahead.
“Ah, I’m good. Thanks though.”
“Of course, dear. Oh, where’s your friend?” Her eyes caught on the black backpack against my vanity, covered in different patches from Crews travels.
“Settling in.” …to my mattress.
“Right, well, you’re both coming to dinner tonight, yes?”
“Well, I thought maybe I’d take him to Riley’s tonight. You know, for the burgers and all. Since we’ll have Thanksgiving here and all of that.”
“Ahh, good girl. Well, I won’t keep you two.” She squeezed my hands in her always cold fingers. “I can’t wait to hear all about this man, Lottie told me on my way in he is a real looker.” Nana winked up at me exaggeratively just as I felt fingers lightly brushing the back of my ankle, Crews rough hands making small, fluid motions on the most sensitive exposed parts of my skin. Goosebumps instantly raised across my whole body and I felt everything inside of me tingle.
I squeaked a “Mm!” and gave one last hug. “Well, I need to get ready for dinner and all, so I will just-”
“Oh! Yes, yes, okay,” Nana blew two kisses my way and inched her way out of my door, before closing it gently.
When I heard his footsteps creek on the last step I fell to my knees and reached a hand under the bed frame to swat at Crew’s shaking shoulders. His laughter bubbled out as he grabbed my hand to stop me from my incessant pounding.
“You are sleeping on the floor tonight.”
Crew popped out from under the bed shoulders up. “Good, I don’t want any Marshall germs on me anyway.”