5. TOO SWEET
5
TOO SWEET
HOZIER
JACK
Dinah.
Donuts.
Thinking about getting a cat.
Collect rent.
Be nice.
Sharing a space with anyone is a challenge after essentially living on my own since college. I went eight years without checking in with anyone. Tidying the way that I know to be right—just how my mama taught me. Paying bills. Cooking for myself. No need to label food in the fridge and cabinets to ward off others from eating it.
Sometimes I feel like I’ve time warped backwards. I’m the strangest version of codependent that I’ve ever been. I thought by now I might share my home with my wife. Kids. A dog. I had the woman and life we’d share, in mind. But all of those ideas were basically obliterated three years ago, and I never could have imagined where I’ve ended up.
Winnie snores from where she’s passed out on my couch. She sleeps over at least one night a week, usually if she’s too tired after a late shift at the tattoo shop. She says going to her own apartment, the one she rents a few blocks away, is just too far to travel. But I know these are just excuses for her dutiful babysitting.
One leg hangs precariously off the edge, kicking a little bit with every breath she takes. Winnie’s always been a mouth breather, and I just happen to be the lucky guy to witness it this morning, violent snoring and all. She looks exactly like Owen right now. Normally I’d tell her to earn her annoyance, but I’ve already given her a piece of brotherly love she hasn’t discovered yet, so I’ll forgo for now.
Instead, I throw a pillow at her body, and she jumps off the couch like she’s being mauled by a mountain lion.
“Whoa! What’s happening? Are you okay?” Her voice is groggy and ash brown hair, rumpled wildly by sleep, but her eyes are on high alert. I almost feel bad.
“I’m fine. I just need to get to work.”
She scratches her head, then her face, and I have to hold back my laughter. “Okay. You still need me to do deliveries today?”
“If you don’t mind.” I wish I didn’t need my baby sister to pick up my slack, but Gregory, the kid who usually delivers for me, has mono. I’m desperate and in a bind.
“I don't mind, Jacky.” She skips over to me and plants a kiss on my cheek.
Growling low, I stomp to the coffee pot, where—surprise, surprise—another note waits for me.
We could name the cat something cool.
Larry
Lucy
Coconut
As always, the lists this fool makes are pointless and less than helpful. I don’t know if he means let's name the cat that we are NEVER getting Larry, Lucy, or Coconut or if the latter is a part of his grocery list. I crumple it and throw it in the trash with the others he’s left over the last few days.
“You're such a caveman.” Winnie pushes me aside, surprisingly strong for the miniature woman she is. I grunt and earn a chuckle. For whatever reason, knowing I made my little sister laugh, no matter how insignificant, makes me feel as if I’ve won something.
Unbidden, thoughts of Dinah pass through my mind, wondering what her laugh would sound like. Which is so far-fetched considering I met the woman for a whole five minutes, and I certainly didn’t make a good first impression. Internally, I cringe at just how terrible it really was.
Of course, Winnie notices and nudges me with her hip, pouring a cup of coffee and then pushing herself into a seated position on the counter before taking a long sip.
“So.”
I lift an eyebrow.
“The girl.” She's only the third member of my family to mention Dinah since my initial meeting with her last week. It did not go well. That much is clear. And apparently the whole Jones family, and extended family, and likely the rest of the town have heard about my epic failure and discussed it ad nauseam.
According to my house and journal notes, Mr. Cotten spent an exorbitant amount of time in the shop explaining the dos and don’ts of properly wooing a woman. I never said I wanted to woo anyone, but that didn’t stop him from offering more than enough advice on the subject. And Mrs. Cotten, a known town gossip, likely made a call train and probably ordered a small-town meeting to convene over my epic failure.
“What girl?” I decide playing stupid is the best course of action. Winnie isn’t a busy body, but she also isn’t easily swayed. Once she goes down this imaginary path, there will be no reeling her in.
“Dinah Knot. Pretzel queen. Your new, very pretty neighbor. Ringing any bells?”
I choke on my sip of coffee and feel the sting as some goes up my nose.
Winnie’s immediate laughter doesn’t elicit the same response in me as before. It reminds me of the doctor who suggested I try acupuncture, but the entire time I was far too aware of the needles prickling against my skin in a way that made me feel claustrophobic rather than at ease. She takes pity on me and playfully kicks my side with her socked feet.
“Come on, Jacky.” Not Jack or Jackson. Always Jacky. “We can talk about it if you want to.”
I definitely do not want to.
“It’s been a long time since you’ve asked someone on a date. Not since Stacy and—”
“Please don’t,” I all but beg her, and I know by the look in her eyes, she won’t push any harder. “I know how long it’s been. I’m not gonna ask her out.”
She pinches her lips together in the way that tells me she has so much more to say and little patience to filter her words.
“You’re telling me that no part of you is interested in her, at all.”
I suspect we both know the answer to that question, and since she doesn’t need more ammo in this conversation, I refuse to take the bait. Gulping the rest of my coffee before dumping the remnants in the sink, I pat her leg twice and flick my head to the door.
“Whoops. Gotta get to work.”
Winnie lets out an exasperated sigh, and just when I think I’m free, she catches a glimpse of her reflection in the microwave beside her.
“Jacky! You didn’t!” she screeches, jumping off the counter like a spider monkey and attaching herself to my back as I try to leave.
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Win!” I carry her on my back to the couch with her pinching my arms and pulling the hairs at the base of my head before I dump her where I found her this morning.
“I cannot go to work with a mustache, you butthead.” She covers her mouth like it will make the Sharpie mustache I drew across her upper lip while she was sleeping disappear.
“You’re a tattoo artist, Win. You can do whatever you wanna do.” I surprise myself with a chuckle and head for the door.
“And I’m sure my clients will appreciate it. See ya later, mister.”
When I took over the flower shop from my Gran two years ago, I thought of it like a new start, and that’s how she spun it. A way to leave the old behind and press on to the new, no matter how skewed the new picture might be. I’d spent enough time working there as a teenager and a young adult that Petals didn’t feel intimidating to run.
In fact, it felt like therapy. Like purpose and peace. Using my hands to create something felt like all those calming words I hated repeating. It was silence , solitude, and safe when I so often felt the opposite of those things in this new brain and body I’ve found myself trapped in. Petals, in so many ways , felt something akin to hope.
I am more at home behind the distressed, wooden counter, where I carved Jack with a pocketknife when I was ten, than I am in the apartment upstairs. It’s where my grandparents held their fiftieth wedding anniversary party and then where we held my Gramps’ wake the following year when he passed.
I kissed a girl for the first time in the storage room, trapped between the paper towels and the decorative vases. Owen busted a lip on the window sill at the front of the store, and I helped him clean up the blood before Gram saw it. Owen and his childhood best friend, Daniel, snuck in after hours as teens and toilet-papered the place as an ill-advised prank with Winnie as their lookout, only to find the next day that Gramps had installed cameras inside the shop the week before. Gramps and I ate popcorn from the street and chaffed them as they cleaned for a day.
Memories. I have memories at Petals. Ones that remind me of who I am… or who I was… before my life changed so dramatically. It’s a feeling I haven’t been able to put into words when I’m surrounded by my friends and family who are all attached to a version of me that I’m not certain I am any more. I remember him, but I don’t know him.
All I know is that when I’m at Petals, I feel like myself.
But every minute I’m here this morning, refrigerating my weekly shipment of flowers, pruning bad spots, or planning my schedule for the week, is another minute I hear Dinah on the other side of the wall. Her music, lower than before but still present, grates on my nerves in a different way today. Because now I can imagine what her mouth and full pink lips look like as she belts out all the wrong words to her playlist. And I replay the way her smile, warm and inviting, disappeared so quickly upon meeting me for real.
I should do my best to make things right, but to what end? Because we’re neighbors? Fellow business people? Our… acquaintance… can’t go anywhere further than that. As soon as Dinah hears through the Honey Hill gossip mill what a nutcase I am, she’ll bail. And I won’t blame her. She certainly wouldn't be the first.
By mid-afternoon, though, Dinah’s upbeat tracks slowly switch to something melancholy and impossible to ignore. I’m in the business of cheering people up. Or my flowers are, at the very least. The idea of her slopping around next door, sad about something, has me more annoyed than the ‘80s greatest hits playing earlier.
When a delivery I’ve been waiting on finally arrives, I set aside work and trudge next door to make nice with the woman who’s taken up more space in my already muddled brain than I’d like.
The sign for Knotty & Nice reads closed which I think is odd given it’s three p.m. on a Tuesday and what I assume would be a decent business hour.
“She’s closed today, son.” Mr. Cotten waddles up to me with his wife on his arm, joining me as I stare into the bright shop window. “Not a good start, if ya ask me.”
“I see that.”
“Ya here to yell at her some more or are ya gonna put yer money where yer mouth is and give her a ring?” Mrs. Cotten’s gray hair, highlighted with touches of lavender, is teased in a bouffant so large it shakes at me as she speaks. Looks like someone at the salon had some fun recently. I’d bet all the flowers at Petals it was Owen’s best friend, Brooke.
“You do know we just met, right, Mrs. Cotten? I don’t plan on giving anyone a ring.”
She huffs her annoyance at me and narrows her eyes at the box in my hand.
“I didn’t come empty handed.”
“A ring would be better,” she says, tut-tutting me and shaking her head, incredibly disappointed with my peace offering.
“Hiya, folks.” Maloy struts up the sidewalk in our direction with Nate at his side.
I groan at the sky. Why do I have to have an audience for this?
“What do we have here, my guy?” he says.
Maloy and Nate are my two oldest friends. We played Little League together, fought over girls in high school, played college ball, and were even roommates for a short period of time. Our former closeness is probably why I can always tell when they aren’t sure how to approach me from day to day.
“Maloy. Nate,” I greet them, each with a bro nod that I hope says, good to see you, now please kindly get lost.
“Comin’ to say hey to Dinah?” Nate asks, a knowing smirk on his dumb face.
“Yup.”
“And”—Nate’s gaze travels to the box in my hands—“carbs say...?”
I growl because I don’t know what else to say. I did not intend on laying out every intention for my day to the entire town outside my own business and home.
Maloy slaps his hand on my shoulder. “I think that’s Jack’s way of sayin’ he calls dibs.”
“You can’t call dibs on a woman,” Nate chastises.
Mrs. Cotten leans in closer to her husband, but says loud enough to gain the attention of other curious bystanders across the street. “What’s dibs, dear? And how do you call it on a woman?”
Her husband shrugs. “Beats me. Could be one of them eupharisms.”
“Euphemisms, Mr. Cotten.” I feel my blood pressure rising, and the ache that’s a dull constant behind my eye begins to beat like a slow and steady drum. “And it’s not. And I’m not,” I say pointedly, eyeing Maloy.
He rubs his hands together like he’s looking for warmth. “Good deal. Then you won’t mind me runnin’ on in to say hello to Dinah for myself. Because I absolutely don’t mind callin’ dibs.” He begins to push forward when my hand juts out, slapping him in the chest and stopping him in his tracks.
“No.”
“No?” he questions with a sly grin I’d like to knock off his face.
I face forward, staring at that Closed sign and think about the woman on the other side of the door compelling me forward. I’m a moth, following the flickering of a flame against my better judgment. Wordlessly, I push on the closed door, finding it unlocked, and leave the audience on the street behind me.
“Hello?” The place is empty and void of activity, save the ballad blaring over the speakers right now about some guy begging to be pulled out of a train wreck. It’s haunting, and I kind of dig it.
“Um…” I warily step behind the counter and peek around. “Um, excuse me? Dinah?”
Suddenly, a pink blur flies through the swinging kitchen door, clutching her hand to her chest. Her bright green eyes are red-rimmed, cheeks rosy, and pale pink lips trembling.
She gulps like she’s out of breath. “What are you doing here? I thought I locked the door… I’m closed.”
I’m immediately on guard. I may not be the most emotionally adept guy out there, but I have a mom and sister who claim not to wear their emotions on their sleeves, and yet we all know when something’s amiss thanks to a few tell-tell signs.
Watery eyes.
Incessant sniffling.
Shaking lips.
And finally, the ability to claim, “I’m fine,” while avoiding eye contact, or my least favorite, silently sobbing into the atmosphere.
The difference between the bubbly, welcoming—and yes, feisty—woman I met last week and the flustered, teary-eyed one in front of me now is jarring. Something primal inside of me wants to take care of whatever is bothering her.
Clearing my throat like it's my job to come to her rescue, I step a little closer and bend so that we might meet eye to eye, all the while internally questioning why I’m not running out of this place instead of throwing my nose into this woman’s business. “Are you okay?”
I am a hero… clearly calling dibs.
“I’m fine,” she snips.
So, definitely not fine.
“You seem… agitated, Polly.”
Pasting on a smirk, I do my best to disarm her, taking a look around again and seeing my initial judgement of the place is the same. Knotty & Nice really does look like the inside of those Polly Pockets Winnie used to play with as a little girl. But somehow it works. The splashes of color and pastels uniquely suit the woman glaring at me now.
And it quickly dawns that using the word agitated was not my best work. Sometimes it’s hard to find the proper vocabulary in the cloud of disarray in my mind. Especially under duress.
Like at this moment. When a woman is obviously upset with me, at me, or in proximity to me. Dinah’s striking green eyes darken with a storm of what I now would define as clear agitation before she crosses her arms defensively and juts out her hip. It’s a move I saw last time I was here and one that would probably be more intimidating if she weren’t in overalls and Converse again and inadvertently pouting out her lip. The closer I look, the more adorable I find her.
In fact, her posturing has the opposite effect, sending my eyes on a little road trip down her neck, along her arms, and across her curves, then back up again before landing on those raging green eyes. Whoops. Sorry, not sorry. She’s stunning, and her fury has done nothing to dim that fact.
“Polly?” Her eyebrow raises and she clears her throat. So, clearly not a fan of nicknames. “Did you need something?”
“You… had… You were crying.”
“No.” She shakes her head but otherwise doesn’t move.
“Yes.” I may be crazy, but I’m not blind. I don’t know this woman, but I know if I leave her here to cry about something all alone and my mama finds out, I’d never be able to look either woman in the face again. Something in my demeanor and line of questioning is obviously not getting through to her, though. She’s growing taller with defiance the longer we face off.
“No. I wasn’t. I’m fine.” There’s that word again. “Everything’s fine.”
I step forward, feet moving of their own accord. My need to be closer to a woman clearly uninterested in a conversation with me cannot be explained. Only, I feel as though I’m being magnetically pulled towards her. My voice softens. “I wanted to check on you. I… I heard your music change.”
She steps back, but her voice grows louder. “Oh, did you? Was it too loud again, Grandpa? Goodness, I thought after I talked to your brother things might get better.” Her hand perches on her hip, and I’m honestly proud of how I manage to keep my eyes on hers and not on a retrace of their earlier venture, but then my mind skids on her last words.
“My brother?”
“Yes.” She adjusts her stance and brings her hands to her front. “We talked, and I assumed after he asked me on a date, he’d speak to you about your attitude or that you might at least try to be friendly with me.” She throws her hands up and waves them around my face. “But clearly not.
A date. My throat plummets into my stomach.
Owen asked Dinah out? He must have met her the other night. I should be happy for him. He’s been hung up on the same girl for way too long, but something in me bristles instead. Something I shouldn’t even consider for myself. Not now.
“Oh.”
Dinah shakes out her hair, pulling it into some sort of knot on the top of her head. The light hits the soft red so perfectly, it almost looks pink. I inadvertently clench my fists. Something I find myself doing every time I’m near her.
“So, you heard my music change and thought you should come over… again… to correct me?”
“No. I—”
“Listen, pal—because you still have yet to tell me your name—I am fine. Has it been a rough day? Yes, and it’s getting a little more sour by the second. I’m not crying,” she says as tears definitely line the rims of her eyes again. She sniffs and wipes her cheek with her hand.
Definitely crying.
“I just… I have flour in my eye. I’ll keep my music down, and I will only play happy tunes from now on if that’s what it takes to stop these little interludes of ours.
“Now, if that’s all you came by to say, if you don’t mind, I will lead you out.”
“I, uh…” Words, Jack. Words. “Your rent is due.”
Not those words, you turd.
I try to backtrack, scrambling when I see the fury reignite in her eyes. “Rent? YOU’RE my landlord?”
“Yes, but that’s not why I came— Ugh,” I groan. “I’m sorry, Dinah.”
Her breath catches, and I’m so afraid she’ll cry again—and this time I’ll be at fault—so pushing the pastry box I’ve been holding into her hands, I mumble another apology and make for the hills. This has gone badly. Again.
Before pushing out onto the street, I peep over my shoulder and see her slam the box of donuts closed, cheeks tinted a glorious shade of pink and eyes staring back at me.
“And, my name’s Jack.”