17. Keaton The Flashlight
I know, Mom,” I say as I balance the phone between my ear and shoulder and pour Salt’s food into his bowl. “But I’m just saying that this house is going on tour, it’s probably going to sell, and you might want to go through some of this stuff before we have to clear it out for a buyer. I mean, there’s your dad’s journals, your mom’s jewelry, chests overflowing with family photos and Christmas cards…” I pause dramatically for effect. “And, Mom, Becks wrote you a letter.”
I never knew what to call her. It was weird to call your grandmother by her first name, but I never got to be that little kid who sounds out Gigi or Gaga. Suddenly, that makes me feel very sad. I’d always thought you couldn’t miss something you never had. But maybe I’d been wrong about that.
“A letter?” Mom asked.
“Yes. In her dressing table. And her ring, Mom.”
I could almost hear her perk up. “Her engagement ring?”
“Yes,” I say.
“That is so odd.”
I still haven’t been able to bring myself to talk to Mom about the idea that maybe her parents didn’t die in a car wreck. Somewhere deep down, I’m still that little girl who’s worried about upsetting her just by mentioning them. And things have been so good between us lately that I don’t want to ruin it. “Have you told Lon?” she asks.
“No. I haven’t talked to him in a few days. Want me to just snatch up all the jewelry for us and not tell him what I found?”
She laughs. “No, you can tell him. I don’t care. I could never wear my mother’s jewelry anyway.”
I hold my hand out and admire the ring. “Mom, you have to be kidding me. Do you remember her ring? It’s insane.”
“Oh, I know. Her jewelry was beautiful. But it’s just too sad.”
I can see how it must be hard. “You take it please, sweetheart,” she continues. “And whatever else. Tell Lon what you want, and I’ll settle up with him when the house sells.”
I gaze down at my hand. “Oh, no, Mom, I really couldn’t,” I say, but only because it’s the polite thing to do.
“I insist,” she says. “I want you to have it.” I want me to have it too.
“Mom, you know the Old Homes Tour is tomorrow and Sunday, and the house looks so good. I think you would love—”
She cuts me off. “You are doing such a fantastic job without me, sweetheart. I can’t thank you enough. Plus, I couldn’t possibly get away.”
We say our goodbyes and I think, So that’s a no, then.
When I get to coffee with the Dames around ten (they stay at coffee for hours), I plop down, frustrated. “I can’t get Mom to come to the tour this weekend,” I say. “She just can’t do it.”
Violet reaches over to pat my hand. “We’ll help you, sweetheart. We’ve all been through this, and we’re in a good place to know what to save and what to throw out.”
“Throw it all out,” Suzanne grumbles. “You’ll never look at any of it again.”
Arlene shoots her a look and then screams, “Holy Mother of God!” as she grabs my hand. “It’s the flashlight!” I had ultimately decided it wasn’t right to wear the ring until I talked to my mom about it. But now that I had her blessing…
I laugh. “The flashlight?”
Betty nods. “That’s what we used to call Becks’s ring because, well…” She pulls my hand into the light and we all have to cover our eyes.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Violet says. “Becks wasn’t wearing her ring when she died?”
“Weird, right?” I ask. “It’s been sitting in her vanity for all these years.”
“Weird,” Violet agrees.
“Want to know what’s weirder?”
They all nod in agreement.
“My mom doesn’t want the ring.”
Betty slumps back in her chair. “Well, that settles it. She is certifiable.”
I nod. “I agree.” I see Bowen walking down the dock then. He stops, shades his eyes, and grins when he sees me. He waves, and I wave back.
I realize maybe my wave was a little too enthusiastic because all eyes are on me. I bite my lip but say nothing. I’m trying not to get my hopes up.
“So,” Betty says, raising her coffee mug, “cheers to Violet for pulling off the most spectacular opening-night party in Old Homes Tour history last night.”
We all clink our mugs.
“Cheers to Keaton for getting Bowen to come to an Old Homes Tour event,” Arlene adds.
I hate how girlish and smitten I sound when I laugh. Bowen had scarcely left my side the entire night, introducing me to most of the people in town I hadn’t met yet. Just thinking of his hand on the small of my back as he led me through the party gave me butterflies.
Suzanne taps her pencil on the table. “Not that I’m not incredibly interested in the dramatic love story unfolding here, but can we go down to your house? We need a final walk-through before the tour tomorrow.”
My eyes widen. “I can’t believe it’s here already. And you’re sure it’s okay to let people inside in its current state?”
“Absolutely,” Violet says, which is expected because she’s in charge of this thing and where would that leave her if I backed out at the last minute?
“Lon told me when I first got here that he really thinks we need to redo the kitchen and bathrooms, strip the shag carpeting, get rid of the furniture, and give the interiors a fresh coat of paint before we put it on the market and, well, show it to anyone. He’s, um, not super happy that we are putting it on tour in this state.” Harris found this further proof that I was getting way too sucked into Beaufort life, and that it was getting me offtrack. Maybe it was getting me offtrack. But I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this happy. And shouldn’t happiness be worth something?
“You don’t have to put it on the market now,” Violet says. “You might want to keep it a while…” She winks at me, and I shake my head. But she isn’t wrong.
The ladies and I walk the two blocks toward my house, chattering and laughing along the way. The most fun thing about participating in the upcoming tour is that I have learned so much about the house from the docent training, and its stories both excite and unsettle me. According to Alex’s lore—which, I mean, a person has to take with a grain of salt—a famous pirate was killed right in the living room, which makes the fact that Salt goes in there and barks at “nothing” for like twenty minutes at least once a day even more disconcerting. But I also know that my great-great-great-great grandfather built this house for his daughter and her husband as a wedding present—that, in the old days, it sat right on the water instead of across the street. The street was added later in front as flood protection. I also learned that my grandparents, only weeks before their deaths, hosted the kickoff party for the first-ever Old Homes Tour, which was attended by most of the town, right here.
We walk through the front door and, since the ladies are still chattering around me, it takes me a second to recognize that there are voices coming from the library.
As I make my way toward them, I hear Anderson saying, “This thing must be worth a fortune, right?”
A man’s voice—one that takes me about a half second to recognize—replies, “Oh, yeah. A fortune. But you know someone will never let us sell it.”
“Harris! What are you doing here?” I squeal as my brother turns, and I run to hug him. Even though I didn’t know he was coming, I’m not actually surprised he’s here. My entire life he has acted cool and detached in that big brother way. But he is also the one who skipped his own classes on more than one occasion to go home and get homework I forgot so I wouldn’t get in trouble. He is the one I cried to over breakups and skinned knees. Harris has always taken care of me. Always. And given how concerned he’s been about my small-town Suzie life… well, I should have known he’d show up eventually.
“I wanted to fly a little this morning,” he offers in terms of explanation. “It was such a nice day. And then I figured I could use a few days’ vacation. So I figured why not fly here and make sure my sister isn’t dressed in colonial wear?”
“Aw,” I say sarcastically. “You missed me.”
“Get a load of the brother,” I hear Violet say from behind me. I turn to her and point my finger. She is so bad.
Wow, Betty mouths at me.
Harris is rather handsome, I suppose, in a fitted-khaki five-pockets and button-down kind of way.
He pulls back and looks at me, turning me around. “Good,” he says.
“What?” Arlene asks.
“She isn’t wearing our grandmother’s clothes.”
“Oh, but she should!” Betty trills. “They are spectacular!”
Harris shakes his head and pulls up my hand, eyes wide at the ring I’m wearing. “Whoa.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I am channeling her a little, I guess.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he says. “I approve.” He smiles. “You wouldn’t shut up about this Old Homes Tour thing, so I thought I’d better be here to check it out for myself.”
I smile and hug him again. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
I introduce him to the ladies, who, well, fawn. As if Harris needs any more women fawning over him. “And I see you’ve met my neighbor, Anderson.”
“I have indeed,” he says. “And Anderson has made a shocking discovery.”
Anderson, in his Patagonia swim trunks and Aftco fishing shirt, points to the books on the shelf. “See all these Hemingways?”
I nod, and he hands me one. “They’re all signed to your grandfather. All of them. And they have notes in them about fish they caught and stuff.”
I’m taken aback. “Really?”
He hands me The Old Man and the Sea, and I read the note scribbled on the title page out loud. “Dear Townsend, a man among boys: the Key West waves might try, but they can never defeat us. Here’s to many more days on the open water with a true sportsman. I look forward to our next battle in Beaufort one day. My best, always, Ernest.
“Wow. But really? Our grandfather fished with Hemingway?”
“According to this he did,” Harris says, handing me an open journal. “In Key West on his and Becks’s honeymoon.” I can see the empty spot on Townsend’s journal shelf in the bookcase where he got it.
Now I am incensed. “Harris!” I scold. “I have a system here. I’m going through these in a very specific way and now I’ve lost my place.”
Violet points to the ladies. “We’re going to go practice our docent lines in our assigned rooms,” she says.
“What she means is,” Arlene adds, “we’re going to leave you two to your family drama and stay out of it.”
Suzanne leans against the wall. “Speak for yourselves. I’m staying right here.” But Betty pulls her arm, and they are gone.
“Who are they again?” Harris asks.
“They’re my besties,” I say.
He laughs, and Anderson, who is back on his stool dusting an empty shelf, adds, “She’s serious, man.”
Harris points at Anderson. “That kid is a trip.” If you like the kid, I think, you should see the father.
Surrounded by all these people who have given me such purpose over these last few weeks, I pause. Have I ever, in my adult life, felt this happy? I was up half the night stressing about getting my résumé together and applying for jobs and going back to New York, but is that how it has to be? Bowen loves living here. Alex, Jimmy, and Clayton have all found ways to pursue their passions. Amy is the cutest kindergarten teacher slash barista in the known world, and she has found her place. What if I was meant to come here? What if this was always how my story was supposed to unfold?
“Keaton.” Anderson turns to me, breaking me out of my thoughts. “Is my dad taking you on a date tonight or something?”
I wish. “What? No! What would make you say that?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. He asked me to help him pick out a shirt, and it seemed weird.”
Harris and I exchange glances. “So is that what your dad does when he goes out on dates? Asks for your help picking out his clothes?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “My dad never goes out on dates.”
Harris covers his laugh with his hand. The butterflies in my stomach are multiplying. I mean, we usually walk to Black Sheep together on Fridays now to meet Amy, Alex, Jimmy, and Clayton, so I figured I’d see Bowen tonight, but… I have to calm down.
As I’m trying to get my mind off it, I realize an extra perk to my brother being here: I would very much like to know what happened to my grandparents, and I’ve wondered if Townsend’s journals hold any clues. I’ve only read the early journals, the good, sweet, love-conquers-all ones. I haven’t made myself look at the later ones yet; I’m a little afraid of what I’m going to find there. So I pull the last two—from the 1970s—from the bookshelf and hand them to Harris. “Your assignment,” I say. “These are our grandfather’s last two journals. I can’t bring myself to read them.”
“Like mother, like daughter,” he says, smirking. Then he leans over and kisses my cheek. “I’m really glad I came. I missed you, sis.”
I’m glad to hear him say that, because I have done exactly zero in the way of looking for a place to live after Beaufort. It’s becoming likelier by the moment that I will have to live with him for at least a short while when I get back to New York.
“Sure, sure,” I say, crossing my arms. “But I’m glad you’re here for immersion therapy. Want me to get you a strand of Becks’s pearls to wear too?”
“Maybe,” he says. “But for now, which room should I sleep in? Doesn’t this place kind of give you the creeps?”
“No!” I say, offended, which makes no sense since, yes, I was also creeped out at first. But now I’m over it.
“Have you been in Mom’s room yet?”
He shakes his head.
“Harris, I have something shocking to share.”
He looks like he doesn’t want to hear it.
“I think our mom might have been cool.”
He shakes his head again. “No way.”
“No, her room is, like, very cool.”
“Everyone was cool in the seventies,” he says. “But I’m cool now, and we don’t have to stay in the seventies. Maybe let’s just stay at the Beaufort Hotel.”
“A hotel?” I turn to see a fish-gut-covered but slightly less smelly than yesterday Bowen leaning against the wall.
“Ah, this must be Casanova,” Harris sighs. I shoot him a stop it right now or you will be sorry look.
“Bowen, this is my brother,” I start, as Anderson exclaims, “Dad! Signed Hemingways!”
He nods. “Oh, yeah. I remember Violet’s husband Dr. Scott telling me that your grandfather fished with Hemingway.”
That pang again, that all these people have all these stories about my family and I don’t.
“I just wanted to make sure Anderson was here. I shouldn’t be surprised. I was going to swing by and pick you up tonight to go to Black Sheep.” He pauses. “Unless you wanted to hang out with your brother?”
“If it’s okay with you, I think Anderson and I can make plans for pool and burgers at the Royal James.”
Anderson nods. “And beers.”
Harris ruffles his hair like they’re old friends. “How about root beers?”
Anderson chimes in, “Violet has so much to do for the tour tomorrow that she wouldn’t have time to babysit me.” He pauses. “Please, Dad?”
Bowen looks from Harris to Anderson to me. I nod my approval. “He’s a competent babysitter for a child who is completely self-sufficient.”
A knock on the front door stops us all in our tracks, and I think we’re thinking the same thing: Who knocks?
Harris goes to answer the door, which is good because I can’t quite seem to physically pull myself away from Bowen’s general vicinity. I hear a voice that, for a split second, I think I recognize. But it couldn’t be. “Oh, Harris, you just get more handsome!” I freeze as I hear a pair of footsteps coming through the house and into the kitchen.
“Who is it?” Anderson asks, clearly sensing my change in mood.
“Allison?” I say, tentatively. I step toward the kitchen, thinking I must be mistaken. This must be a dream. But as I enter the room, she’s looking around and Harris is standing behind her, shaking his head with a truly unhappy look on his face.
“This is a trip,” she says, mystified. “I mean, it’s like a museum of the seventies.”
The way she’s acting like it’s so normal that she is here unnerves me. She hugs me, and I feel like an idiot because I let her. What feels worse is that I’m almost relieved to have her hug. I haven’t admitted it to myself, but I’ve missed her. For better or worse, we became really good friends while I worked for her. And suddenly I have this notion that she’s a little bit right. Jonathan was her husband before he was my boyfriend. I had always felt like I crossed a line by being with him, but they both seemed so okay with the whole thing that I blamed myself for being terribly provincial.
She has the tiniest bump under her linen maxi dress, but her face is as narrow and her arms as toned as ever. She is the picture of glowing good health. “Um, hi,” I say. “How in the world did you know where I was? And what are you doing here?”
She smiles like that’s a quaint question, like she has the FBI on speed dial. “Just did a quick google search, sweetie. Since the Saint James House is on the Old Homes Tour website, it was a pretty easy find.” I can’t believe she’s here; I feel ambushed. And I realize this is what she wanted. Allison is the absolute master of shock and awe. Prepared people can tell her no. She’s catching me off guard on purpose. Only, I don’t quite know why yet.
“Oh, I’m so glad I came,” she says. “I missed you. I needed to lay eyes on you, make sure you were okay. I ran into your mom and she told me what you came to do, and it felt like…” She looks around at her audience.
Thanks for telling me you ran into Allison, Mom, I think, trying to control my eye roll. Although, in her defense, maybe she just didn’t want to bring up sore subjects.
“This is Anderson,” I say, gesturing toward him. “And this is Bowen. You obviously know Harris. Anderson and Bowen, this is…” My old boss? My ex-mentor? The third angle of my equilateral love triangle?
“I’m Allison.” She sticks her hand out, and Bowen gives me a disapproving look. He doesn’t offer his.
“I see my reputation precedes me,” Allison says, laughing lightly. “But it was all a misunderstanding, and I’m here to clear it up.”
Bowen’s face says this is above his pay grade, and I don’t want him to think I’m some drama-fueled, immature woman.
I shoot a pointed look at Harris, and he seems to get the picture.
“Oh!” Harris says. “Does this place have internet?” he asks Anderson.
“Oh yeah,” Anderson says. “And you won’t believe what TV on that big box in there looks like. Can you believe it isn’t flat? Dad, we’ve got to show him.”
Harris laughs, and I smile. I’ve never seen this side of my brother, and, I have to admit, I kind of like it.
Bowen eyes me warily but follows them out of the kitchen.
Allison pauses, her eyes fixated on Bowen. “Who is that?” She squeezes my forearm, raising her perfectly shaped eyebrows. I can’t help but smile and I want to be mad at her. This is how cults begin. Impossibly charismatic people like Allison start them and they have some mystical ability to trick innocent humans into following them even when they act terribly.
“Want to sit down?” I ask Allison, pointing toward the breakfast table in the corner of the kitchen. “Can I get you anything?”
“I don’t suppose you have any chilled ginger tea?”
“Um, no.”
“Well, then I’m fine,” she says, sitting down. “Just a little queasy.”
I smile tightly, annoyed by her mention of her love child with my ex-boyfriend. And then I smile for real, because what’s more seventies than a love child?
“Look, Keaton,” she says, “I know Jonathan has been texting you, and I get why you haven’t responded. I wanted to come here in person to say that I’m sorry. I didn’t handle our meeting well; I haven’t handled the past few months well. I treated you badly, and I feel terribly about it. But I’m here because I want to fix things between us. I’m here because I want to beg you, on my knees if I have to, to come back to All Welcome.”
I hate how happy I am that things are clearly falling apart without me. I am the type-A, controlling counterpart to Allison’s hippy-dippy, I’m-the-ideas-you’re-the-execution management style. And, if I’m honest, what I’m going to do once the house has been sold has been keeping me up at night. I’ve barely even started looking for a job, and every time I do, nothing seems to fit. I’m either underqualified or overqualified for everything. And, while I don’t want to go back to All Welcome, I have to think that if I take the promotion and eke out even six months, I’ll be launched into any job I want next. Plus, I miss being so close to my parents and brother.
Then it hits me all at once: My relationship with Allison is a lot like my relationship with my mother. I take care of her. I do her dirty work. Maybe it’s dysfunctional, but this is what makes us work. This is a role I know how to play. Maybe I do want my job back; it’d be easier than starting over. I can’t stop myself, every day, from thinking about campaign launches or books we’re publishing, all the new projects I had lined up and waiting. And as much as I hate to admit it, I’ve missed that. All Welcome wasn’t just a job for me. It was a relationship, complete with a breakup that I didn’t want to happen.
But I’m not just going to fall at her feet and thank her for a second chance. “You know, Allison, I’ve got a lot going on here.”
She looks around. “Uh-huh. Yes. The Old Homes Tour seems very taxing.” I smirk. “Well,” she continues, “I was thinking that if you came back right away—”
“Anderson’s school play,” I hear Bowen’s voice say behind me. I hadn’t realized he had come back.
“What?” I ask.
Anderson appears beside his dad. “I have my school play next week, Keaton,” Anderson says. “You promised you would come.”
“You promised,” Bowen repeated.
I have no recollection of hearing the first thing about any sort of school play, and, for a split second, I’m afraid I’m losing my mind. But then, as I look into Bowen’s face, I realize this is a made-up play. Or, at least, my participation in it is made up. He’s protecting me.
I turn back to Allison. Bowen is private and damaged and hasn’t seriously dated in like a decade. I am lonely and in a weird place. Am I just projecting my feelings onto him? Allison is offering me a real chance at a real job. In my mind, I walk upstairs and pack my bags because what am I doing here anyway?
“It’s, um, the end of June,” Allison says. “Does Anderson attend year-round school?”
Good plan, guys. Really smooth.
As if summoned by Bowen’s obvious lie for corroboration, Violet, Arlene, Betty, and Suzanne trail in, clearly having overheard. “It’s part of the Old Homes Tour festivities,” Violet says, so seamlessly that I start to believe that maybe there is a play.
“Oh, yes. It’s very good,” Betty chimes in, giving Allison a look that dares her to ask more questions.
Allison smiles and says, earnestly, looking from Anderson to me, “Okay, then. We will work around the play. And I’ll move Jonathan to another department. You won’t even have to see him. It will be just the two of us at the helm,” she says.
I study her for a moment. “Wait. I thought you wanted me to come back as director of marketing.”
She shakes her head. “I want you to come back as VP of Operations, which, as you know, means stock options, six weeks paid vacation, paid volunteer days, votes in how we disperse foundation dollars—really, anything else you can think of. Just ask. I want you as my number two, Keaton.”
“But isn’t that Jonathan’s position?”
She shrugs. “He wants to be home with the baby some. I will create a new position for him.”
I know I shouldn’t worry about Jonathan; he certainly didn’t worry about me. But I do. I look at Bowen and Anderson. I look at Violet, Arlene, Betty, and Suzanne and think about our mornings at the Dockhouse. I look out the window at the water rolling by. I have been so happy to get a peek into another life. But could this be my real life? Or has it just been a respite?
As I think about the years I’ve spent climbing the ladder, building my career, the idea of going back seems so much easier than starting over. And I have to wonder: Has Allison just made me an offer I can’t refuse?