Chapter 23 Jack
I T’S REALLY DISTRACTING TO BE intensely stared at while I have a knife in my hand.
“Can I help you?” Tommy, Luke, and Dove all stare back at me over their coffee mugs like they don’t know what I’m talking about. “The staring has to stop.”
“What did you do?” Tommy asks, his eyebrows pinched together.
“He definitely did something,” Luke adds, propping himself up at the counter.
This is the worst part about spending time with Sailor like a good uncle; she usually comes along with these three assholes, who are determined to annoy me all day. “Where’s Clara today?” Dove says in a singsong voice.
“That’s a blush! He’s blushing,” Tommy yells, pointing dramatically at me across the table.
Sailor shushes him and he apologizes to her immediately.
“I’m trying to concentrate here,” she says seriously.
We’re attempting to carve the stamps for Small Business Saturday, but we’ve been constantly distracted by her unhelpful parents and uncle since we sat down.
Sailor is the only one acting like a grown-up.
“She’s at a print shop an hour away picking up her rush order for the stamp books. That’s what Flo told me anyway.”
I’m lying. I haven’t seen Flo today. I did see Clara though. This morning when I first opened my eyes. Her auburn hair was splayed over my pillow like fire. My T-shirt bunched around her waist. Her creamy soft skin pressed into mine while she slept peacefully.
She’s devastatingly beautiful and I regret not telling her that yesterday.
“I thought Flo was visiting her sister this morning,” Dove says, bringing her coffee cup to her lips.
Ah, shit. “Caught her on her way out the door.” Another lie.
Tommy narrows his eyes at me like he’s about to ask if I also stole a pie from a windowsill.
“You didn’t rob Flo again, did you?” he asks, eyeing me.
“I need everybody to move on from that one error in judgment,” I mutter.
Sailor holds up her stamp proudly. “Look! This one’s a candy cane. It’s for Sweet Caroline’s.”
I lean over to inspect it. “That’s perfect, kiddo.”
She beams, teeth and dimples and all. It hits me all over again—how much this town means to me. How much these people do. Even if they’re annoying.
“I better get back to work,” Luke says, ruffling Sailor’s hair as he passes.
She brushes off his hand and holds up her next rubber block. “I’m making one for Miss Celia’s store too. It’s a book!”
“She’s a baby,” Dove says, nudging Luke with her elbow. “And already more productive than Tommy.”
“I resent that,” Tommy mutters, stealing one of Dove’s muffins anyway.
“I resent being called a baby,” Sailor says in her most grown-up tone.
“I’m sorry, sweet girl,” Dove says gently, a tone that’s exclusively reserved for Sailor. “Hey, let me help you. Pass me that one.”
“That’s for Flo’s Fancies,” I say.
She smiles, pushing her pink hair back into a ponytail. “Oh, I know.”
Small Business Saturday has always been more successful on paper than in practice in Fraser Falls, but this year it might actually work.
Because Clara came in and made it make sense.
She designed stamp cards with little illustrations and shop maps.
She scheduled social media posts. And when I said I was worried we didn’t have the budget for the number of flyers Flo was requesting, she made them herself in the seat next to me while we hung out on my couch.
We haven’t talked about what happened yesterday. About what I did . I don’t know how to talk about it. Not without giving something away I’m not ready to lose.
Because she’s going to leave. Eventually, she’ll go back to New York, and Davenport, and whatever sleek glass office she came from.
I’ll stay here, answering my neighbors’ calls, sketching new toy ideas I’ll never bring to fruition, and trying not to think about the fact that I’m always only one tiny step from everything going wrong.
The front door creaks and then slams.
“Jack?” Flo’s voice calls down the hallway of Dove’s house. “You have a delivery. Apparently postal worker is something I can add to my résumé.”
I stand and wipe my hands on a dish towel. “Watch the carving,” I tell Sailor, who salutes me seriously before squatting down so she’s eye to eye with the stamp.
“Clara dropped this off. I said I’d bring it since I need to speak to Luke about the Christmas tree,” Flo says, handing me a flat cardboard box.
I nod. “Thanks.”
Flo narrows her eyes at me. “You look like you didn’t sleep.”
“I slept a little,” I lie.
“Well, make sure you sleep tonight. I won’t accept sleep deprivation as an excuse for being rude to your customers tomorrow. I’ll be checking the reviews,” she says, patting me on the shoulder and floating out the way she came.
I carry the box back into the dining room and open it.
Inside are the printed stamp cards. Each one is perfectly aligned, with thick paper and the Fraser Falls logo Clara embossed in gold on the cover.
The inside features a map of Main Street, a space for each business, and a checklist of festive challenges like “compliment a barista” and “post a picture and hashtag Fraser Falls.”
She thought of everything. Flo is going to be talking about this for years. I’m so screwed.
Back at the table, Tommy’s whispering something into Dove’s ear that I already know I won’t want to hear.
“Don’t,” I say, pointing at him.
“What?” Tommy grins. “I was only saying I think I believe in love now. Or maybe witchcraft. Hard to tell.”
“You’re a total d—” My eyes move across the table to Sailor, who’s working hard. “Doofus.”
Dove tilts her head. “Do you think Clara knows what she’s doing to you?”
I drag my hand down my face and drop myself back into my chair. “She’s not doing anything to me.”
They say “Hmm” at the same time and I want to scream.
I ignore my friends and focus my attention on the task at hand. “Do you think a heart with S-B-S in the center is okay for the welcome table?”
“Yeah,” Sailor says. The only helpful person at a table full of adults is the child. “But make sure you don’t write Clara in the heart, Uncle Jack.”
I take that back.
S AILOR PRESSES THE FINAL RUBBER stamp block into the ink and tests it on her piece of paper.
I pull thirty dollars out of my pocket and put it on the table in front of her. I don’t know what the going rate is for children in the workforce but I’m just happy I could talk her down from the fifty that she asked for.
We’d settled at twenty but she stood up to shake my hand (to seal our deal, like a real negotiator) and I told her she looked like the Fraser Falls bear mascot in her overalls.
She stormed off and I got a lecture from Dove about self-esteem in young girls.
Took an extra ten dollars to coax her out of her bedroom to start carving.
“Well done, kid. You’ve done me proud today.” She really has.
“What do people win if they get all the stamps?” she asks, tucking her money into her overalls.
“A crown,” Dove says. “And a free drink at Uncle Tommy’s bar.”
“No cash?” she says, looking disappointed.
Dove raises an eyebrow. “Go check on the goats before you start getting up to mischief, please.”
She skips out of the room humming to herself.
“She’s a good kid,” I tell Dove.
“She is, and you’re so good with her. You should definitely settle down with a nice woman and have one of your own.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of your own voice?” I ask her, throwing a piece of carved rubber at her when she shakes her head.
“I like Clara. There. I said it,” Dove says, like I somehow forced the information out of her.
“I know I’m not supposed to because her family business is an endless list of all the things I’m against, but I can’t help it.
She’s kind and she’s sweet and she’s trying really hard.
I’ve never tried this hard at anything.”
“I know she is.” I pull the rubber scraps into tiny pieces. “Not going to keep her here though.”
Dove picks up the piece I threw at her and throws it onto the pile in front of me. “No, but it’s nice to pretend.”
Tommy comes back and the topic changes to work and family and town gossip that Dove acquires at an unfathomable rate. I listen and laugh and contribute, but deep down, I’m questioning how much longer I’m going to have to pretend with Clara.