Chapter 7. Sage
The morning welcomes me with a metaphorical ice-water-bucket-dump of nerves from the moment I open my eyes. Warmer nights always make my dreams more vivid and insistent—living, breathing things that gnaw at me.
I may have promised I’d quit inserting myself into people’s affairs, but of course, doing so has made my subconscious bristle, which is my only explanation for the back-to-back dreams I had last night after Fisher stormed off. The first one consisted of his niece falling out of her window while trying to sneak out, on a loop. The second: her tumbling down the cliff trail at the back of the property. The mouth of the trail is, technically, about three feet into the Andersens’ property and not on mine, but as the path steeply zigzags its way down to our small, shared beach, it repeatedly crosses over, so I suppose I could be potentially liable for any injuries incurred there.
Still, I do my morning chores, and I try to shake the nightmares away. It’s none of my business, especially after Fisher’s fit last night. The last thing I want is to feel as though I’m some simpleton archetype in his eyes—some nosy busybody.
He’d been so polite and grateful that first night we met—almost charming, even. I suppose a few days of people knocking down his door may not have been the ideal welcome, but…
Bud lets out a low whicker as I run the brush down his sides, like he senses the turbulence in my thoughts. The sound brings my mind swiveling back to when he first came to live with me. He’d been warm enough at first, plied with sugar cubes and extra hay. But he fairly quickly grew testy with me, even worse with Wren and Ellis when they’d visit. He was dealing with big change and bigger uncertainty and trying to make sense of his surroundings. He didn’t care for the judgmental cat roaming around, and the overlarge dog made him anxious. I had to learn to let Bud have his space first, and wait for his trust by showing him my own. I’d be sure to keep Legoless contained in my arms when Bud was around, and I’d make Sable sit and stay at a distance to show him I was somewhat in control, too.
Maybe it’s similar with Fisher, in a way. Maybe instead of adding to all the new being thrown at him (even with good intentions like I had with Sam), I could help out with his environment first.
It is exactly the opposite of the promise I made to myself, but screw it. It’s also in my best interest. Not just to protect myself from possible legal action with a potential Indy injury but to simply make the best of things in general. If they’re going to be in Spunes all summer, we might as well make it a good one—especially since he’ll have a hand in starting a business here that my compatriots and I will want to go on to enjoy. I could make his life easier and could act as the sartorial gatekeeper between him and Spunes, ensuring maximum success and comfort for all.
I’ll just have to convince him somehow.
I decide to march over the meadow before I change my mind.
The marine layer is clingy today, but the warmth promises that the sun will burn it off soon. The scents coming from the flower garden are thick in the air; the last of the peonies were cut in May, but the mock orange, lavender, and sweet peas are more than making up for their absence.
I don’t realize that I forgot to check the time until Indy opens the door with a squinted glower and obvious bed head. My face stretches into an immediate wince before I glance at my watch.
“Fisher’s not here,” she snarls.
“Ahh, shit. Sorry. Didn’t realize it was only seven.” Off to a tremendous start with the comfortable-environment plan. “Where’d he go?” Doing even better with the subtle approach. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me. It’s none of my business.”
Her lip curls in annoyance, and she holds up a note in response. A single word written in an angry-looking scribble: STORE.
She raises her brows in a silent question. Probably something like, “Are we done here?”
And damn my brain for working how it does, but in this moment, I can’t help but compare her to Legoless. He’d been fully grown when he’d shown up with a broken leg behind the local coffee shop, the Magic Bean. Serena Lindhagen’s father, the senior Dr. Lindhagen, amputated the limb and recommended he go to a home that could care for him indoors. Somewhere he could maintain a cushy, relaxing life. Dad had just died, and Ellis was still malleable when it came to me, so he let me bring the cat home.
Legs was a terror. Growled, hissed, spit, scratched anything living to pieces, and pissed on half the house. He stubbornly kept trying to put weight on the missing leg, stumbling and yowling more every time he met the ground.
Until Silas and Micah had an all-out row that resulted in a broken screen door, which Legs promptly hurtled himself through at full speed. I was inconsolable, despite how rotten the beast had been to me.
I’d felt abandoned by so much back then, in that nonsensical way that kids do. Obviously my parents hadn’t left me voluntarily, but I don’t know that I understood it at the time. That damned cat felt like one more loss.
When Legs showed up a day later, bounding joyfully through the meadow with a dead rabbit in his maw, it all made sense. He’d dropped the thing at my feet like a sick and twisted offering, and I realized that having something to chase after had improved his gait and tamed him, in a way. Having a purpose had given him… well, purpose.
“You know what, I’m here for you, anyway,” I tell Indy. A truth, even if it’s newly born. “You think you could help me out with a few things?”
She blinks in slow motion, thrice. “Who even are you? Aside from the quirky neighbor, of course.”
I lift a brow at the tone. This isn’t one of my students I’m accustomed to, whose parents’ addresses I could probably recite and who therefore show me a healthy amount of fear. “I’m Sam’s aunt. Sage.”
“Oh.” She straightens in surprise, and bless Sam for having the ability to enchant someone, at least. “That’s right. I, uh, I forgot,” she says. “But—yeah, okay. Give me ten?”
“Sounds good. I’ll meet you at the fence.”
Fifteen minutes later, she approaches, her arms securely folded and her face scrunched with worry. “You’re not gonna do the whole ‘Sam’s a good guy, and if you hurt him, I’ll insert-bodily-threat-here’ speech, are you?” she asks.
I laugh through my nose. “No, I actually just wanted to have a discussion with you about safe sex,” I say dryly, and if fainting from mortification was a thing, I’m convinced it’s what she’d be doing. “You see, when two people like each other very, very much, sometimes those feelings create these urges—”
“Ohmygod, no. Please stop! I don’t need any of the talks, I swear.” She flaps her hands like the embarrassment is so great it’s causing her to vibrate.
I can’t stop a full belly laugh from barreling out of me. “I’m kidding, Indy.” I couldn’t resist being a shit back to you, I don’t say. Let’s get your hands busier and your mind idler (and more open) before we attempt too much sincerity.
And that’s exactly what we do. To her credit, she is an excellent hand with surprisingly few complaints. We make minimal small talk—the stock remarks about the weather and weekend plans as she helps me outline and dig a new hole for a small, shallow plaster pool I got for the geese. Once we get everything dug out to the right dimensions, we pack it down with decomposed granite before we install the liner and secure the edges with river rock.
Gary starts acting oddly attached, following her around and voicing his complaints when she’s not nearby. When Gronk heedlessly gets closer to her, Gary has a meltdown unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed from him. He bites and jabs his beak at Gronk and positions himself between them, his neck curling into an aggressive hook.
“Uh-oh,” I say aloud. I think I realize what’s happening.
“What?” Indy asks, wiping some sweat from her brow after returning the wheelbarrow to its spot in the shed.
“Do me a favor. Go lie down over in that grass? I want to see something.”
Surprisingly, she does it with only a small eye roll and little fanfare, and sure enough, Gary grabs the nearest twig and waddles over there as fast as his little legs will carry him. He places it by her head before he traipses off to grab feathers, more sticks, a bit of string, and even some clusters of moss. All of it he lovingly starts to pile around her frame.
“What’s he doing?” she sneers.
A snort tears out of me helplessly. “He’s building you a nest.” And god, I wish she’d appreciate a melodramatic rendition of, “YOU IMPRINTED ON MY SON?!” and get the reference, but alas, I think the nuance would be lost on her. And I suppose it’s not her doing, anyway. “He’s decided you’re his wife,” I inform her through a sigh.
The corners of her mouth turn down when she levers up to a seated position and throws him an affronted glare. “Weird-ass bird.”
“Aren’t we all,” I declare laconically. In truth, this could present a small problem. Geese need to be in pairs. Gary and Gronk were never mated before, but they’d been amicable partners, at least. Now Gary would pluck Gronk clean if he thought it’d make Indy happy.
I add that to the list of problems for future Sage and set us on a path for our next task, when something else occurs to me.
“It’s been, like, almost three hours. You think Fisher’s still at the store?”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes. The first time he went, he was out for nearly four.”
“In our store? In Spunes? Why?”
She shrugs before she returns her arms to their standard crossed position. “Probably not. He always goes to multiple. But he’s starting work on a menu, so I guess that means he looks for things locally. He never knows what he wants to make, I guess. Don’t ask me,” she adds when she sees that I’d like to ask more. “I don’t get it, either.”
“Hm,” I say, frowning. Inexplicably sad at the mental image of a chef struggling inside a store, unsure what he wants to make.
“Oh god,” Indy scoffs. I turn to find her looking at me with exasperation. “Don’t feel sorry for him. He wouldn’t accept the pity, and he doesn’t deserve it, anyway.”
I shake my head and smile. “And you think you’re the authority on what’s pitiful?”
There’s a challenge in her double-edged grin. “Dead mom, so kinda. Yeah.” She points to her chest. And this is one of my favorite things about teenagers, actually. Where adults require a foundation of small talk, followed by steps that build up before they’re comfortable with the more revealing things, I find that teens are usually hoping to be perceived with minimal effort. Eager to be understood and seen.
Also, I recognize and appreciate some gallows humor—the brand of choice for this generation. “Orphaned at twelve.” I point to myself.
“Dad didn’t even want me in the first place.” Her nose scrunches apologetically. “So, technically, I was also orphaned at twelve and left by choice well before that. Double whammy,” she counters.
“Raised by adolescent brothers,” I volley back. “Being forced to grow up too quickly into my emotional maturity means I surely missed developing some of it somewhere, which seems to manifest itself in me forever endeavoring to be important to someone or something.” Oof, hurt my own feelings a bit with that one. “I say yes too easily to people for fear of abandonment if I’m not useful,” I add, a bit disconcerted over the epiphany. “I… I think I keep my world small so I don’t feel insignificant in it.”
She blinks at me strangely before she says, “I want the opposite of that. I want my world big enough that I can’t be cornered or stuck in it. Room to actually do big things, or at least have a chance to.”
I nod and shrug in slow motion. “According to the holy trinity otherwise known as the Chicks, wide-open spaces give one room to make some big mistakes, too.”
She chuckles in spite of herself. “I can see how that would be nice, too,” she admits.
When Fisher gets home an hour later, Indy is moodily crouched at the ladder beneath me while I unfasten the lattice. He slides out of his truck and quickly marches over to her, starts speaking in clipped, muttered tones.
“You ready?” I call down to Indy.
“Yup!” comes her reply. I start lowering it, and I spy Fisher toss down his bags.
“You really think your neighbors would be happy about you dismantling their house and climbing their ladders?” he yells up at me.
I give him a beaming grin. “I do their Christmas lights every year!” I say before I make my way back down.
He mumbles more irritated sounds before he takes the lattice from Indy and holds it in place. I retract the ladder and turn to them both.
“That seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen,” Fisher says, nodding to the ladder and me.
“Am I done here?” Indy asks.
“Speaking of lawsuits,” I expertly pivot. “I need to show you the right path to the beach. It can be dangerous.” I don’t leave room for protests before I set aside the ladder and walk them over to the trail, showing them the markers for the safest way down.
I turn to find them standing in matching poses, arms crossed and mirrored, wrinkled brows.
When Indy reads the silence as an opening, she blurts out a rapid, “Okay, thanks,” before she makes her escape back to the house. Fisher starts to walk away, too, but I stop him by telling him, “Hey, she was a great help today.”
He swings back, frowning suspiciously. “She was?”
“Yep,” I say. “If you’re okay with it, I might ask her for other help this summer here and there. With other farm and garden stuff.” I hastily add, “Paid, of course.”
He cocks his head with a peculiar look. “You’d just offer her a job? What if she’s a criminal?”
“I’d need more information,” I say with a laugh. “And is she?”
He studies me like he’s considering something. “No convictions.” He sighs. “And thank you. That would be really great. I’d like for her to be included in something.” His eyes skate away after he says it, like he’s unsure if it was okay for him to agree. The last of the clouds have evaporated in the afternoon sun, making him the lone dark spot with the golden meadow at his back. A bee buzzes past him in a lazy whir, and he doesn’t flinch, lost in thought again. I recall what Indy said about him not ever knowing what he wants to make, and wonder what’s got him so uncertain.
“You’re welcome,” I say, pulling his gaze back to mine. “In more ways than one,” I add. And then, because that didn’t sound quite as weird in my head until I spoke it aloud just now, “I mean, you are welcome for offering, and you are both welcome, like, here.” I make a circular motion with my hands.
He chuffs a small laugh, and oh, his face is so warm when he laughs, even just barely that way. I enjoy a brooding pout as much as the next person, but I’ve always thought there were faces that look the most like themselves when they smile. Something in me shouts, Again! Do it again!
“Thanks,” he says, mood and shoulders visibly lifted.
Yep, I’m gonna say it again. “You’re welcome.”
His responding chuckle has a little more sound behind it this time, deep and rumbly in a way that makes my returning smile so wide I have to bite my lip, nowhere else for it to go.
He swallows and swings a look back at the house. “Uh, I’d better go get my groceries put away,” he says, waving a thumb over his shoulder.
“Oh shit, that’s right,” I reply. “Sorry. I’ve gotta grab my ladder, too.”
We hastily head back, and I automatically reach into his truck and begin grabbing bags to help.
“You don’t have to do that,” Fisher says, awkwardly flustered as I use my elbow to open his front door. “You’ve done enough.” I can’t tell if he’s annoyed or only thrown off-kilter by me. Likely both.
“You can help me carry the ladder back if that’ll ease your masculine guilt,” I joke back.
He snorts, an eyebrow jumping up his face. But he stops a retort when he sees me trying to figure out the collection of items I’ve unpacked. Things like caviar and cuts of meat I don’t recognize, and freshly sealed bags of salmon he must’ve purchased down by the docks.
“Not a chicken-and-rice kind of guy, I take it?” I say.
He glares at me from the other side of the island. “I don’t look down on chicken and rice,” he says. “Don’t judge me for fish eggs.”
I put my hands up innocently. “Believe it or not, it wasn’t the caviar itself that threw me,” I say. “More that I didn’t know it was even sold here. You’re most likely the only person to buy that from the market this year.” It was probably some special request item put in from one of the tourists last summer, I don’t say.
He goes back to putting things away. “I’m working on designing a menu for the new restaurant being built in town. Starhopper, they’re calling it.”
“It’s gonna be a no-star-flopper if you try to put caviar on the menu,” I laugh, cutting it short when he gives me a dirty look. “Listen, I’m sorry for the god-awful joke—truly, that was one of my worst—but… no one will eat that here. And I’m not trying to be insulting, I promise, but you might want to consider something more approachable.”
He makes a tired sound. “More sage advice, huh?”
He’s right. I cannot seem to stop myself. He must find me insufferable already.
“We really only have an influx of tourist business in August,” I gently explain. “The rest of the year, your patrons would be us.”
He nods woodenly. “I’ll help you with the ladder,” he says, effectively cutting the discussion short.
We each take an end of the ladder when we get back outside, quietly carrying it across the properties and into my garage. When I spin around to bid him a short farewell, I find him with his hands on his hips, shifting on his feet like he’s got something to say.
“Maybe I could get your take on menu things as I go, or something,” he says with a grimace that threatens to make me yelp out another laugh. Clearly, the idea of my help in this respect is agonizing to him.
“I’d love to,” I say. He only bobs another nod, a dark lock of hair flopping forward in the motion, then leaves without saying anything more. I watch him walk off, rolling his shoulders and rubbing his neck like he’s trying to break a knot away.