Chapter 4
S ir had gone wild, and I got excited myself—unlike him, I didn’t drip drool from my lips, but I felt my heart beat faster.
The driver of the truck got out and waved, and as he did that, the dog jumped into the back seat and then leaped forward one more row.
He landed in the place that I already occupied and wedged himself into the small space between my chest and the steering wheel.
I instinctively hit the brakes and luckily, I lived on this lonely road where there wasn’t anyone behind us to run right into our bumper as we slid to a stop.
My mouth was full of fur and I couldn’t see a thing over his massive body, which was also crushing me beneath its weight (probably even more than a hundred pounds now, because he’d been eating well).
I was also deafened by the barking so close to my ears, but my sense of touch remained intact.
I managed to find the door handle and I released him from the vehicle, hoping that Caleb would catch him before he took off again.
“Hell,” I heard. “What did you do to her? Sit.” There was a pause.
“Good boy, Sir.”
I was rubbing my thighs where his giant paws had compressed them and taking big breaths into my lungs since they were no longer constricted.
“It’s fine,” I announced.
“Really?” Caleb asked.
“I thought he’d killed you.”
“No, I feel ok. Well, I feel like an idiot for telling you even more of my personal business while wearing cocktail attire, but beyond that…” I looked down at my dress, which was now in even worse shape than it had been after the soaking it had received at the farm.
My clothes had dried, but my sense of humiliation had only grown as the hours had passed.
“Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about what you said,” he agreed.
“That makes one of us.” I shut the door to pull my car into my driveway, and then I peeled myself out of the seat where it felt like Sir had done his best to permanently entomb me.
He was still sitting placidly, as just as Caleb had commanded him, and I frowned.
It had been a real peach of a day and he had been part of that for sure.
“You don’t listen well,” I told him, and he wagged his tail like I’d given him a compliment.
“You may have to be a little more stern with him.”
“I’ve tried that. Watch,” I said, and then looked at the dog.
“Come!” I stated firmly.
Sir did get up, but he walked over to sniff the truck before he looked back over his shoulder at me.
“What, you mean right now?” he seemed to ask.
“I’ll get around to it, sometime.”
“That was you being firm?” Caleb shook his head.
“It sounds so nice, like you’re issuing an invitation. Sir, come,” he said, and I fumed as the dog ran right over.
“Somebody taught him commands. He just doesn’t want to when you’re the one trying to make him.”
“We have a different kind of relationship,” I said frostily.
“I don’t have to make him obey, because we’re friends.” I started to trudge toward my house in the shoes that had dried a little funny after their drenching and mud bath today.
They were now squeaking in an unfortunate way.
Both of them followed right behind me, so where was the problem?
It seemed like I had pretty good control, except over my own mouth.
“I need to get out of this dress,” I announced, and Caleb took Sir out into the back yard.
I watched him toss one of the toys I’d purchased, but then he had to walk over and get it himself to demonstrate for the dog how things were done.
Retrieving didn’t seem to be one of Sir’s natural instincts.
By the time I came out of the bedroom, now in sweatpants and thick socks for my freezing feet, Sir was happily fetching the bouncy thing because he was smart and learned quickly.
It had taken him less than a minute to figure out that the cheese was kept in the refrigerator, and he’d also determined that if he sat and cried in front of that appliance, I turned into a real sucker.
“I usually walk him now,” I explained as I opened the patio door, and that was fine with Caleb.
He even held the leash as we went and gave my hand and arm a break from the constant tugging.
Warm, dry, and without being pulled along, my mood improved a lot.
“It’s kind of exciting that tomorrow will be a new year,” I mentioned as we left through the back gate and headed down my street.
“Really?Why?”
“It always felt like starting fresh to me. You know, like you could flip the page in one of your million and two books and the next chapter is blank, ready for you to fill it.”
“If I ever found a blank chapter in a book I bought, it would piss me off a lot.”
I laughed.
“You know what I mean!”
“I do,” he said.
“I never had that feeling, but I understand your analogy. Are you going to make any resolutions?”
“Just to keep going,” I answered.
“I say that every day, though. My aunt tried to give me a lecture about self-love in the shower…not what you’re thinking, but about doing affirmations. ‘Today will be a great day! Today I’ll find happiness and love!’” I quoted Aunt Amber, using her ringing tones and Mississippi accent.
“I already do them in my own way. When I wake up, I make promises to myself, like, ‘You’ll get through it, there are only fourteen hours before you can get back in bed.’ Or I’ll say, ‘You’re ok. Your hair will turn out really good.’”
“You’re setting the bar a little lower than your aunt did,” he pointed out.
“Aunt Amber sets every bar out of reach. When we were kids, she made us all compete in pageants and we were supposed to win the big trophies every time.”
“Did you do it?”
“I won some of the talent portions,” I said.
“And I won a few sashes for my smile or my personality. None of us ever took home the big ones, though, and we never won a bunch of money, either. I got some, but not a lot, and I probably didn’t come close to covering the cost of my wardrobe.” It had all been a stretch for my parents, but they knew that I liked to perform and they’d wanted me to be happy.
I owed them.
“I had no idea that I was out with a beauty queen,” Caleb mentioned.
“I was Junior Miss Big Charisma in Mt. Juliet,” I acknowledged.
“While you were reading and doing chores, I was busy, too. I was buckled into a minivan and off to the next pageant so I could sing.” I thought back.
“I’m pretty sure that I came in first in the talent portion in Huntsville that same year.”
“I was probably already in high school when you were Miss Magnetism, because we’re far apart in our ages,” Caleb said.
“A decade.”
“No, only about nine years,” I corrected.
It was surprising that a guy who worked in finance wouldn’t have been more precise with numbers.
“But I guess you were actually in your dorm room while we were endlessly out on the road. I liked it, though. I loved to perform and also, we usually got ice cream on the way back to Tennessee.”
“So, ice cream is the way to your heart. Do you still sing?”
“Sir gets to hear it.” He looked over at me.
“You hear me when I’m in the shower,” I reminded him.
“Our neighbor may hear it too, poor guy, but he hasn’t complained. He hasn’t said anything about Sir, either.”
“Has he been barking?”
He had been at times, although I’d tried hard to keep him quiet.
We talked more about my dog’s behavioral issues, and Caleb suggested that Sir might want to come for visits at his farm.
“He could run off-leash and work through his desire to roam.”
I didn’t mentioned that the dog had already roamed away from me again, and had made a trek of several miles on his own.
“I don’t trust him. I don’t know if he’ll come back,” I said.
“This isn’t one of those things of ‘let him go free and maybe he’ll show that he really loves you.’ This is a thing of Sir disappearing forever and me losing him for good. I don’t believe in that ‘let him go’ stuff, anyway. If you love someone, you have to maintain a grip. Otherwise, who knows what they might be doing out of your eyesight?” And in my personal experience, my boyfriends had done a lot.
So had I, to be honest.
“Is that how you’ve been conducting your love life?”
“I don’t think you’re one to give advice about that,” I countered.
“You told me you haven’t had time for a relationship, but you’re just about forty. In all those years, you’ve never been able to squeeze one in?”
“I’m six years away from forty,” he said, which showed a lot about his level of denial.
“I have been with people,” he said next, which sounded defensive in the extreme.
“But you’ve never been close to marriage or even an engagement.”
He paused.
“Uh, no. That’s true.”
“So we’re both idiots,” I said, which felt better than being in it alone.
“I’m not willing to concede that,” Caleb said.
“One of us is, and it’s the person who suggested that you’re not good at your job and that you were only hired because your cousin feels sorry for you. I’m sorry I said that, and I’m absolutely the idiot.”
“No, you’re not. But I did ask Marc, and he told me that I’m helpful to his business.”
“You don’t have to prove anything to me,” he responded.
“I don’t mind that you told me about your problems in the past, either. I’m glad that you came through that and now you’re enjoying your job, taking care of Sir, and doing well.”
“It sounds better when you put it that way.”
“It sounded better to me when you talked about a new year like a blank chapter. Anything could happen,” he said.
“Maybe something good.”
“Maybe a lot of good things,” I encouraged.
“Marc could make your barn so nice. Sir will come visit and hang out, you could get heat in the house and bring the kitchen into the present.”
“All positives,” he agreed, nodding.
“How about you?”
I considered for a moment.
“I used to think into the future like that,” I said slowly.
“I used to tell myself, ‘This year, I’ll meet someone who will really love me!’ and I’d have these dreams about my boyfriend taking me to Florence, Italy.” The farthest I’d actually gone with a boyfriend was Gatlinburg and then his car had broken down and he’d claimed to have forgotten his wallet.
“Sir and I just watched a six-part series about traveling over there and he loved it.”
“Imagine him on a plane,” Caleb remarked, and I shuddered.
“Maybe not Europe,” I agreed.
“Another thing I always dreamed about was music. I’d think, ‘This year, a rep from a big record company in Nashville will hear me and think that I have the voice they’ve been looking for!’ I imagined that they would sign me to a huge contract and I would have used the money to fix up my parents’ house, because they spent so much helping me that they put off doing things. I might have gone on tour like my cousin Cassidy except that I would be the singer.’” I paused for breath.
“I don’t really think those things anymore.”
“You just go day to day,” he said, and I nodded.
“I focus on smaller stuff, attainable stuff. Like, ‘Today I won’t cry until I’m back at home and wearing my PJs again.”
“Hell, that’s awful.”
“But it doesn’t have to be sad things all the time,” I assured him.
“I don’t focus only on how I’m lonely and loveless. Next year I could say, ‘Today, I’ll run for a block with Sir’ or, ‘Today, I’ll drink my whole bottle of water instead of avoiding good hydration and using it on the plants in the office.’”
“I was a runner,” Caleb said.
“When I showed up for high school, I realized that I was very behind in sports. I started doing cross country that fall, but I haven’t gone out regularly in a while.”
“Why did you stop? Wait, I can guess. You got too busy?”
He smiled back at me.
“I hurt my knee, actually. By the time it healed, yeah, I got busy. I did my undergrad degree in two years, I started my company, and I got my MBA while I was working. Busy.”
“How’d you do college in two years?”
“I was ahead by the time I started boarding school. My mom pushed me to go farther than most kids.”
“You were two years ahead?” I wondered.
“In most subjects. I was four years ahead in math, so they let me take courses at the university, and I had finished most of the high school science classes, too.”
“My Lord.” I thought about my own experience.
“I struggled a lot in high school.”
“So did I,” Caleb concurred.
“Not so much with the academics, but I was lost when it came to dealing with the other kids. I could kind of get by with the boys in my dorm. A lot of them were there because they had family problems, too, so we understood each other better. But the girls?” He whistled.
“I was stunted. I was physically unable to speak to them and act like a normal human being.”
“How did you get over it? Because I’m a girl, and you’re doing great,” I said encouragingly.
“Thank you. By the time I was finishing college, I had relaxed. It was habituation more than anything else. I asked a woman out and she said yes. We had dinner and it was very normal, up until the point when she wanted to sleep with me and I…uh, never mind.”
“Everybody does it for the first time at one point,” I encouraged again.
“I would imagine that she was pleasantly surprised.”
“I don’t know about that. She was nice, though, and gave me credit for trying my best.” He hesitated.
“I think I’m blushing.”
I checked.
“You are,” I confirmed.
“I’m pretty glad you’re saying things that embarrass you after I told you some of my personal horror story. I’m not going to do that anymore.” That statement was meant to reassure him, and also to remind myself.
“What should we do tonight?”
“What should we…we?” I echoed.
“I don’t have plans and you took off the fancy dress. I’m still not exactly Casanova, but I do know that most women don’t wear sweatpants to go out on New Year’s Eve. I also remember how you told me several times that you don’t have any plans tonight. What if I picked up dinner? Is the sushi restaurant still open?”
“My Lord, no,” I said.
“I could tell you stories about some really unfortunate stomach problems stemming from that place. How about pizza? That’s usually a safe option.” I looked over at him.
“Do you have any friends from high school around here?”
“They were mostly boarders and unlike me, they were mostly from other places. I’ve kept up with some of them but not too many.”
So, if he didn’t have pizza with me, he’d be going back to sit alone in his cold house.
Having him over for dinner wasn’t exactly charity, though.
It would be great for Sir, for one thing, and it would also have been good for me.
I’d been thinking about staying up to watch the ball drop, but the thought made me pretty sad.
But our dinner together was much, much better.
We had fun, mostly talking about future improvements on his house and the iffy behavior of the dog.
Caleb was sure that Sir needed to have obedience classes, but I pointed out that he obeyed just fine.
“See? He’s not allowed to beg at the table, so he’s over there—my Lord, Sir! Stop chewing on my shoe!”
I woke up the next morning at the beginning of an empty chapter with that dog next to me.
My phone was full of messages and pictures from my cousins, like Aria kissing her husband and kids, Cassidy kissing Jack, Amory and Aubree with their husbands, and Brydon sitting with a duck.
He did his own thing and seemed very happy about it.
I sent back a picture of me and Sir, in which he looked sleepy but extremely handsome, as always.
Aria called me a moment later.
“Happy New Year!” she said.
“I was awake to ring it in, since both kids are sick.” I said I was sorry, but she seemed pretty cheerful.
“Only colds,” she explained.
Aria was generally cheerful, even on just a little sleep.
“Sir is such a beautiful dog.”
“I’ll tell him you said so.” He was currently jumping up and down at the patio door and I also told him to be quiet.
I accompanied him outside to make sure he stayed that way, and didn’t disturb my next-door neighbor.
That guy had also been up late the night before.
“Is that…” Caleb’s eyebrows had raised almost to his hairline when the sounds had started coming through the wall.
“I think my neighbor has a girlfriend. I mean, that’s live, right?” We’d listened until Caleb had started to blush again.
“It sounds authentic to me.”
“Did she just ask him if he took a shower this week?” He shook his head as the woman had screamed more, now phrases of encouragement about keeping the pace and going harder.
“How often does he have company over and get, uh, active like that?”
“It’s a new thing for him,” I said.
And it was a little sad—not for my neighbor, but for me.
He didn’t seem to shower very much, enough that it was sometimes uncomfortable to pass him in the driveway if there wasn’t wind to blow the smell away…
and yet, he had somebody.
It was somebody who’d screamed, “I’m coming!” and had apparently done that for a super-long period of time.
I was able to count “one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three-Mississippi,” all the way up to twenty-seven!
Was that normal? It had never happened to me!
“I don’t know,” Caleb had said when I’d asked him that question the night before, and he’d held up his fist to hide his laughter.
“Can we turn on some music? Loud music?”
Aria also laughed when I told her about the extended orgasm, but she wouldn’t tell me how high she could count when she was with her husband, Cain.
“I’m very satisfied,” she said primly.
But then she added, “It has nothing to so with me alone in the shower, either,” and we laughed together.
I was in a good mood as we chatted and I threw the bouncy thing to Sir.
That lasted right up until my cousin asked, “So…is this serious?”
“I don’t really know my neighbor well enough to ask.”
“KayKay!” she scolded, and I imagined her shaking her head, her auburn hair bouncing.
“I meant with you and this Caleb. Did you kiss him at midnight?”
“He was gone by ten. I thought it was a good idea because of all the drunks on the road.”
There was a silence that my cousin broke by clearing her throat.
She, like the rest of my family, remembered that I had also been one of the drunks—not on the road, not as far as I remembered.
My Lord, had I done that?
Probably.
“How bad was I, Aria?” I asked her.
“I love you,” she said, an avoidance answer if I ever heard one.
“I love you so much, and you and Cassidy have always been my best friends.”
“But it was bad when I was high.” It was bad enough that her husband didn’t trust me to take care of their children, not alone.
He hadn’t come out and said that to my face, but he always asked someone else to show up when I was supposed to babysit, so that I had a partner to watch the kids and to keep an eye on me, too.
“You’re doing so great now. It’s more than three years, Kaleigh! I’m very proud.”
“Yeah,” I sighed.
So great. I tried an affirmation.
“My hair might turn out well today. It could.”
“You have beautiful hair,” she agreed.
“I love how you’re wearing it straight.”
That was from a lack of attention and the last time I’d seen her mother, Aunt Amber, I’d been treated to a lecture about how I needed to find my way back to my curling iron.
“Maybe I’ll get some highlights. Or lowlights. Or ombre. What if I did it really dark, like Sir’s fur?”
“Isn’t he grey?” she asked, and there as a lot of doubt in that question.
“I like your color right now, natural.”
“Brown. It’s just naturally brown,” I reminded her.
“My eyes are just brown, too. There’s nothing special.”
“They’re the color of dark chocolate,” she said.
“And your hair is like maple syrup! Everyone loves pancakes.”
“Aria, that’s a stretch.”
“I love pancakes, I really do. And your irises also have those gold streaks running through them, like…like a beautiful cat!” she continued, defending me against myself.
“You’re gorgeous.”
“You’re a good friend.” But I thought about the pageants suddenly, remembering all the big trophies that I hadn’t won.
“I had personality, not looks,” I told her.
“I don’t have that anymore. I sat at home last night listening to my neighbor’s girlfriend have those long orgasms and I started counting up mine. I mean, I was counting up how long it’s been since I had one with someone else.” I sighed.
“I haven’t been with anyone since the guy who left with the carnival.”
“Oh, my word. I forgot that you got together with him.”
“We did it in one of those swinging cars that flips over, and he got it really rocking. Not from the sex, just by throwing his weight around. I almost got sick and there was no fun happening at all.” Not long after that, I’d gone to rehab for the second time.
I’d been…twenty-two?
Yeah, it had been that long.
“What about Caleb?” she asked.
“No one wants a girl with issues.”
“Are you quoting my mother?” Aria demanded, and then she got nervous.
I could almost feel it through the phone.
“Kayleigh, are you all right?” she asked next, and she used the calm tone that I’d heard before when she’d spoken to one of her horses who had been spooked.
“I’m not going to do anything crazy,” I assured her.
“I haven’t been drinking or taking anything, smoking it, snorting it…I can’t remember if I ever injected it, but I don’t think so. I’ve always been so afraid of needles.”
I had meant that as a joke to lighten up the conversation but Aria hadn’t found it funny.
“Please don’t do any of that,” she said.
She sounded a little desperate, which reminded me of what I’d put them all through.
“If you want to talk...because, if anyone understands…”
“No, I don’t have anything to say. Ari, I’m fine,” I insisted.
“Did I tell you that Sir and I are going to start running together? I’m going to work up to three miles. I have goals to look forward to.” Because I had changed.
I was a different woman now, even if I wasn’t always happy with how my transformation had gone.
“How far do they run in cross country races?”
“Are you really asking me that? I only run when the kids need me, or Cain does.” And I heard her husband call her name in the background now, saying something about a nasal aspirator, and she had to go.
“Are you sure you’re ok?” she asked one last time, and I swore that I was.
I even told her that I had my hand on a Bible, which probably made the lie even worse.
The rest of the day, which Marc and I had taken off, was quiet.
I heard from many more relatives wishing me a happy New Year, including my aunt Paula from Signal Mountain.
“When are you coming up to visit me?” she wanted to know.
“In preparation for dying, I’m giving away a lot of my old stuff. Want some?”
“You don’t need to bribe me. I could come this weekend to say hello,” I suggested.
She said fine, and we set a vague time, somewhere before noon on Saturday when she was awake and after she had drunk her coffee.
That night, I went to visit my parents, taking the dog with me so they could meet the newest member of the family.
It did not go well.
“I’m ashamed of you,” I told Sir when we were in the car on the way home.
He cried, his usual sad whining about riding in the back, but I didn’t want to hear it.
“I can’t believe you behaved that way! If you’re sick later, it’s entirely your own fault.”
And he was sick later, very sick all over my bed and it went deep into the mattress.
“This is what happens when you gulp down a whole pot roast! That was supposed to feed six people, with leftovers for me!” I told him, because besides the three McCourts in my own family, my mama had invited over new neighbors and their son, who was about my age.
She’d thought I might want to meet him, in case things with Caleb weren’t going to work out.
There was nothing working with Caleb, the person who hadn’t made any move to kiss me even though it was traditional on New Year’s Eve (even if it had been a little early when he’d left).
Anyway, the new neighbor’s son had spent a significant amount of time discussing the girlfriend he loved so much, who was moving to Tennessee from Arkansas so they could be together.
“Well, I didn’t have that information when I invited them,” my mother had confessed when I’d cornered her in the hallway.
It was then that we’d heard the crash in the kitchen as her heaviest stew pot was pulled off the stove and onto the floor.
Before we’d managed to grab him, Sir had run off with the hunk of meat, dripping it all over my parents’ carpet as he raced through the house and then he had, apparently, swallowed a four-pound chuck roast in less than five seconds.
After we’d recovered from the initial shock and horror and I’d hysterically checked his mouth for burns, my dad had gone to get pizza.
So I’d had that for the second night in a row, along with the traditional New Year’s Day black-eyed peas.
Their neighbors had been less than impressed by my dog and my parents felt the same way.
He wasn’t welcome in their home anymore.
And now that I was cleaning up his vomit, which had definitely gone into the foam that I was supposed to sleep on?
“I’m ashamed!” I told him again and I was, as well as feeling more than a little sick myself.
Marc heard the story from Taygen, who lived in their neighborhood—the news had spread.
He was already laughing about it when he came into the office the next morning.
“He ate the whole pot roast?” He snickered and Sir, who had totally recovered, bounced happily.
“It’s not funny. I’m in a terrible mood,” I warned him.
“I know something that will make you feel better. I sent the bid on the barn over to Caleb Woodson yesterday, and he already got back to me.”
I stood up.
“And?” I prompted. My cousin smiled and I whooped.
“We got it!”
“Thanks to you,” Marc told me after we’d finished our celebration dance.
“It’s because of you.”
“I didn’t do anything but tell him the truth about what a fine person you are,” I said.
“I wonder who else bid on the project.”
Marc shrugged.
“I asked around and nobody even heard of it, so maybe we’re the only ones.”
“That can’t be right. Caleb does financial services .”
“What does that mean?” my cousin asked.
“I don’t fully understand but obviously it’s to do with finances. He’s exactly the type to get multiple bids.”
“Maybe from contractors based in Chattanooga, then. Nobody else local knew about him, unless they’re just not saying because they’re mad that the new guy won.”
We did another dance, and Sir joined in by jumping.
I had Caleb’s number because he’d gotten mine before he’d gone to pick up the pizza, just in case.
He’d texted to ask if I wanted him to get some drinks while he was out, and he’d brought back sweet tea.
Nothing alcoholic, although I’d told him that I didn’t mind if he had a beer or two.
“I’m not much of a drinker,” he’d told me.
“I won’t miss it.” I thought about texting him now to say thank you, but then decided that I should leave him alone.
This was business, nothing to do with me.
“I’m going out to his place today,” Marc said, grinning, but I made him sit down and together we produced a very detailed strategy and timeline for him and the subs.
It took us what felt like forever, and we were both hungry and snippy when it was finally finished.
“Do you even allow lunch?” he asked me.
“You’re the boss!” I reminded him angrily.
“If employees are going hungry, it’s your fault, not mine!”
“Let’s blame our lack of food on Sir, because I bet you would have brought some good leftovers if he hadn’t gotten into the roast.”
That was true, because the collards and black-eyed peas had disappeared fast as the dinner party guests had waited for my father to come back with the new main course, pizza.
My mama had been humiliated.
Marc went to get lunch for both of us and I stayed back to keep prepping for what would be this company’s biggest test yet.
He was remodeling his own house, which had formerly belonged to our cousin Cassidy, and that was a big job, too—but he was generally unconcerned about timelines or even about cost. Now, with this barn project, we would be doing things differently.
While Marc was out, I texted him several times about issues I considered very pressing, so that when he got back (still hungry), we had more to argue about.
In fact, my cousin slapped a paper bag on my desk and told me I was taking things too far if I couldn’t even let him go for half an hour without harassment, and I stomped over to him and said that things weren’t going far enough, because I’d seen his credit card bill and if he wanted to pay for his wedding, he’d knock off…
I stopped myself. Most of his charges had been things for Taygen, and we weren’t getting anywhere with fighting.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“We’ll have lunch first and then I’ll take Sir for his walk.” But when I turned around?
That dog had grabbed my sandwich off my desk and had left me with only a bit of greasy paper.
I got another lunch, then spent some of my afternoon exploring dog training options.
It seemed that he needed some work, but who didn’t?
You could fail any number of times, but you had to get back up and try again, even if someone had taken your sandwich.