Chapter Twenty-Nine
Anson
I wake up next to Tabby in the RV. It’s getting easier. The more time I spend sleeping here, the less awkward it is. That, or my spine is just getting used to contorting in unnatural ways. I roll off the bed and slip through the sparkly beads to relieve myself, then step to the sink to splash some water on my face. Then, I try to dress quietly, trying not to rouse Tabby, but I knock my shin against the bed frame and yell a curse as I hop around.
I glance over to see her stretch, and the sheet falls, giving me a great view of her breasts, bathed in the golden morning light.
“You all right?” she whispers groggily.
“Yeah, shit,” I grit out. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“That’s okay.”
“Come here,” I say.
She gets on her knees and climbs to the edge of the bed. I wrap my arms around her and palm her perfect ass, pulling her to me for a kiss.
“I wish you didn’t have to go,” she purrs.
“Me too. Fucking job,” I mumble, and she laughs.
“Dinner at my parents’ tonight,” I remind her.
“Yeah,” she says, nervously.
“Hey,” I say as I kiss her once more, “like I said last night, they’re going to love you.”
She nods. “Okay.”
“Good. I’ll pick you up at seven,” I say, then smack her behind. “Now, get this beautiful ass back in bed. You deserve a few more hours of rest after last night.”
She giggles, but before I can even get out the door, she’s curled up like a baby and fallen back asleep. I have to fight the urge to call Sebby and tell him I’m taking a sick day.
It’s a good day, but I couldn’t get off the boat fast enough. Margie left me a message, saying the sellers are willing to give me a key so I can start moving boxes into the garage this week, ahead of our closing. I’m eager to take Tabby by to show her the place. But it’ll have to wait until tomorrow. First, it’s dinner at my parents’ house.
I take a shower at the office and drop by the market before leaving the wharf to grab the steaks that Dad had the butcher cut. After dropping off the meat with him, I stop in the yard to gather a bouquet of wildflowers before getting back in my truck and heading to pick up Tabby.
When I pull into the campground, she’s sitting on the porch of the office with Freda. She jumps up immediately and comes bouncing down the steps. I wave to the older woman as I get out to open her door, grabbing the bundle of flowers from her seat and holding them out to her as she approaches.
“You brought me English daisies?” she asks.
I glance down at the white-and-yellow blooms. “Um, I guess. They were growing in my parents’ yard, and I thought they were pretty flowers.”
“They’re weeds,” she says.
I wrinkle my forehead and frown. “Weeds?”
She smiles as she takes them from my hand. “Yeah, beautiful weeds that make ordinary lawns interesting. They’re one of my favorite things,” she says as she brings them to her nose and inhales.
“Makes sense,” I murmur.
“What’s that?” she asks as she slides into the passenger seat.
“Why they reminded me of you. You make ordinary things more interesting,” I say before shutting her in and walking back to the driver’s side. I climb in beside her. “So, a weed is your favorite flower, huh?” I ask as I back out of the campground.
“I didn’t say that. I said they were one of my favorite things. Yellow dahlias are my favorite flower.”
“Yellow dahlias,” I repeat, committing it to memory.
“How was work?” she asks as I turn toward town.
“Good. What about you? What did you get up to today?”
“I biked to the library to do some research on self-publishing,” she says. I raise a brow, and she continues, “I want to write and illustrate a children’s book one day.”
“Wait, you’re a writer too?” I ask.
“No. Well, kind of. I’ve written a few poems, and one was published in a collection with others. But the idea of doing a children’s book has always been in the back of my mind. It’s based on a story my grandma and I made up about a frog that lived in her mailbox,” she explains. “I was thinking about her the other day, and I started to draw him.”
“Him?”
“Yes, Fernando the Frog —that’s the title and his name. He sits in the mailbox and observes life on his street, watching the children and keeping an eye on them as they grow up.”
“I see.”
She shrugs. “I have to work out the story, of course, but I have an entire sketchbook full of illustrations.”
“Sounds like you should go for it,” I suggest.
“I don’t know.”
“And why not?”
“Probably fear. What if I’m not any good?” she admits.
“All right, I’ll be the judge. Let’s hear it,” I say, turning my gaze toward her.
“What?”
“Your poem. Share it with me, and I’ll tell you if you’re good enough,” I say.
She shakes her head. “It was something silly I wrote in high school.”
“Come on. Let me hear it.”
She lets out a sigh. “All right, but please don’t laugh,” she says before taking a deep breath. She closes her eyes and recites it from memory.
I am not me.
For deep inside, I’m not the person that you see.
I have a different life within the boundaries of my mind.
Dreams of a wonderful and mystical kind.
For in my mind, I am the perfect one.
The one whose every hope and dream is sure to become.
For reality’s not really real.
It’s only what others can see, hear, and feel.
I have my own reality and blueprints of what should truly be.
That lie between the secret and fine line. That lie deep within the boundaries of my mind .
When she’s finished, she opens one eye and turns to look at me nervously.
“Wow, you wrote that in high school?” I ask. “It’s great. I couldn’t even write a convincing absence excuse and sign my mom’s name to it. You should go for it.”
“You think so?”
“Sure. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“It could suck,” she replies.
“Nah. The worst that could happen is, it could be good, but you never took the chance to find out.”
“Don’t use logic with me, Anson Leggett,” she says, but I don’t miss her pleased smile.