2. Mandy
Amanda has no real business experience, and she often misunderstands basic principles until someone takes the time to explain them to her. She’s also doggedly determined to do things her own way, even when her way is just bad. It’s frankly a miracle that she managed at all after her first husband Paul died.
But she does have something going for her that most people don’t—the uncanny sense of a bloodhound in sniffing out when something is just a bit off in really any aspect of life.
I should’ve guessed that, after I put them off for several days, she and the girls would show up at my door, but they’ve been so busy that I thought I had a little time before it happened.
When I open the door, I’m careful to make sure I sound breezy and comfortable. “What on earth are you three doing here? I thought you were too busy to accost old ladies these days.” I lean against the doorframe so they can’t just push past me without taking a risk of knocking me over.
“You’ve been putting me off, and it’s weird you never want to meet here.” Amanda arches an eyebrow.
“What?” I ask. “No way. I may not be a newlywed with dogs and kids, but I also have things to do. I’ve just been busy.”
Emery swivels her phone around so I’m looking at my own text to her about why I wasn’t available to pick her up for breakfast yesterday. “You weren’t washing your hair all day.” Emery folds her arms. “You could have squeezed me in. And anyway, isn’t that a lame excuse women gave for being busy like, a hundred years ago?”
I press my hand to the back of my hair, hoping that the subtle color I got to darken it from fading grey to a slightly richer and more luminous grey isn’t too obvious. “I didn’t say I was washing my hair. I said I was doing it. And I did.”
“It does look nice.” Amanda narrows her eyes. “Did your friend already get here?”
My laugh isn’t totally normal, but hopefully they won’t notice. “My friend? Are you still going on about Tommy?”
“See?” Emery jabs Maren. “He is real.”
“We were beginning to think Emery had made him up,” Maren says. “She said that when she answered the phone, he said he was coming to visit, but it’s been months, and no one has ever shown up.” Maren narrows her eyes. “We’ve been watching.”
Like hawks, in fact, which is just more motivation for me to keep Tommy away from them. They’re too interested. “He’s real,” I say. “I just haven’t had the time or energy to want to host anyone lately.”
“But now school has started up again,” Maren says. “We’ve been so busy, how would we even notice if he did come?”
She’s often overlooked as the pretty one, but she has a surprising amount of insight in some areas, just like her mother. I like to think that Maren’s the one who surprises you, like a sneak attack. I paste a smile on my face. “I’ll be sure to let you know if Tommy ever does make it out to Manila. You can count on that.”
“Why haven’t you invited us in?” Amanda asks. “We’ve been standing here like traveling Bible salesmen for five minutes.” She’s peering around my shoulder now.
Curse her and her stupid bloodhound instincts.
I shake my head. “I was going through some things and the house is a terrible mess.”
Jed, my black and white potbelly pig bumps at my leg, opening the door just a hair wider.
“It looks fine to me.” Emery peers around my shoulder. “Except for that huge painting? I’ve never seen it before. Is it new?”
I grit my teeth. “It was in storage. I thought I’d try it out.”
“Ooh, I want to see it.” Amanda tries to push past me, inadvertently stepping on Jed’s foot when I refuse to budge.
Jed starts howling like, well, like a stuck pig, and Amanda’s scowl deepens. “Why won’t you let us in? What’s going on?”
“Just give me a few days,” I say. “I’ll explain what’s going on then.”
Amanda folds her arms and huffs. “Why? Are you sure you won’t be dead in a few days? Skipping town again, are you?”
“I promised I’d never do anything like that again.” I still refuse to regret it, but that decision definitely caused a major breach of trust I’m still paying for today. “I’m not doing anything bad. I just need a little space.” I can’t help muttering, “Something that seems to be in short supply around here.”
Amanda backs up, gesturing to the girls. “Let’s be respectful of her wishes and just go.” Her sigh is beleaguered, but it sounds like defeat. Thank goodness.
I’m locking the door with an exaggerated sigh of my own when Jed heads for the fridge, clearly wanting treat compensation since I didn’t let him play with the girls. I’m rummaging around looking for a plum—I’m almost sure I had one left—when I hear a strange rustling on the back porch.
Before I even realize what’s happened, Amanda bursts through my back door and shouts, “Aha! I guess you forgot that I have the back door key.” It only takes her a few seconds to blink and shuffle forward to let the girls in before her jaw drops. “What in the world is going on with your house?” She spins around on Emery. “A painting? That’s all you noticed?”
“You just can’t let anything go.” I want to kick her, but the person who really deserves a kick is me. The back door. It’s such a basic move. I should have seen it coming and done the deadbolt.
“You’re being so weird,” Maren says. “Almost as weird as Mom.”
Emery’s pointing, her eyebrows raised. “I told you the painting was of the Eiffel Tower, and look! It’s huge!”
The painting now hanging over the sofa fills half the wall. I had no idea it would be that large when I ordered it, which is really at the heart of the problem with all internet ordering. Unfortunately, Manila is still a complete dead zone for home decor. Unless you want a t-shirt that says, “I run like the Wind(ed),” or a sign for your laundry room that says, “Please excuse the noise and mess. The kids are making happy memories,” you’re pretty much out of luck. That’s all the True Value carries.
“The wooden giraffe is stranger than the painting,” Maren says. “And what’s up with the huge gourd vase things?” She’s grimacing and turning around slowly. She has never looked more like her mother in her entire life.
“Is that a tiger rug under the coffee table?” Amanda can’t decide whether to laugh or cry, and I’m not sure which would be worse.
“I’m old,” I say. “I like to change things around now and again. I only have a little time to enjoy myself before I die.”
“It looks like Pier One threw up in here,” Amanda says. “And not in a good way.”
“Do people ever use puke analogies to describe something good?” I wish I could shoo them out, but now I’m pretty much stuck with them attacking everything.
“Is that a plaid blanket?” Maren starts for the family room, her hand outstretched.
This is only going to get worse. “I can tell you don’t like my new decor, but it’s not really?—”
“This has something to do with Tommy, doesn’t it?” Emery’s question is soft, as if she wanted to ask it at a level that’s just for my ears.
It freezes me.
I’ve spent a lifetime trying to be different from my parents. I don’t lie about everything, especially to people who matter. Except for the whole dying thing, I guess. But that was really important.
And so is this.
“It is about Tommy,” I finally confess. “He’s coming to visit tomorrow, and I need you guys to leave me alone while he’s here.”
Amanda looks hurt—badly hurt. That’s what I was trying to avoid. The one time I lied to her, even though it was to help get through her big old pigheaded stubbornness, it almost broke our relationship. I still wonder if we’ll ever fully recover.
I decide, in that moment, to let them in on the secret. I hate admitting my lie, but I’m not sure what else to do. It’s the only way they might possibly understand, and it’s really my only remaining play.
“Can you all just sit?” I point at the family room, cringing a little at the tiger rug.
“Is that a real tiger?” Maren’s peering at it as if it might miraculously regain its strength—and skeleton—and attack her, but they do finally all sit, like peas in a pod, all lined up, prim and proper on the couch.
I sit across from them on a chair. “Tommy Collins is, other than Jed, my oldest friend. And unlike Jedediah, we were never romantically involved. Actually, I was never romantically involved with Jed, either. The point is, I know Emery got excited. I understand why. It probably felt like a story from some movie. It’s not. He’s just an old friend.”
Amanda cuts her gaze sideways, meeting Emery and Maren’s eyes. “What does that have to do with?—”
“I’m getting there,” I say. “Just be patient.” I stand up, needing to move as I speak. Or maybe it’s that I hate the pressure of their eyes, staring at me. “When I was going through all the high school drama—dating Clyde and dealing with Jed hating me during and after, I only had one person to talk to.”
“Tommy,” Emery says.
I nod.
“And that’s when you fell for him?” Maren asks. “Because Emery says he’s really good looking.”
“Pshaw,” I say. “Nothing like that.”
“And what does that have to do with all the bizarre decorations?” Amanda pokes the carved wooden elephant on the coffee table with her foot. “Because none of this goes together, and you are so not helping me with any design stuff at the resort anymore.”
“I gathered these things myself on my extensive travels,” I say.
“What extensive travels?” Amanda asks. “And how can that be?” She frowns. “None of this was here when we lived here, and all the stuff you’d collected and stuffed in boxes burned up with the shed when you left.”
I clear my throat. “This stuff was in a storage room at the time.”
Maren blinks. “There’s a room we didn’t know was?—”
Amanda stands up, spearing me with a glare. “Make some sense, please, or we’re taking you to the hospital to get you checked out. This is exactly the kind of nonsense someone who’s losing function would say.”
I collapse into the chair. “You all know that I haven’t traveled anywhere. I spent my entire pathetic life right here, but while I settled in after high school, helping my parents and running the ranch for them, my best friend Tommy went out into the world. He would write me letters each week, and after a few years, he started threatening me.”
“Like, some kind of murder threats?” Amanda blinks. “Why?”
I snort. “Nothing like that. No, he said he would come back home and tell Jed how I felt, unless I did it myself.”
“He—what?”
“I couldn’t risk him doing that, so at first, I told him that I wasn’t even home. When I was younger, I always talked about wanting to see the world, and he knew that. So I started sending him letters recounting my travels.”
“You. . .” Amanda sits again, shaking her head. “You told him you’d been. . .where exactly?”
“Oh, you know, everywhere. Africa. Europe. India. Asia. South America.” I scrunch my nose. “I had to put him off for a while. Every time I said I came home, he’d threaten to come tell Jed again.”
“And you supposedly got all this horrible stuff on those trips?” Maren frowns. “Because it all looks brand new. It’s not even dusty.”
“Well, I stored it carefully in the spare room.” I can’t help my growl. “And dust wipes off, which you would know if you ever cleaned.”
Emery peels a sticker I missed off the back of the elephant. “I suppose Tommy might not have noticed this.” She hands me the price tag.
I snatch it out of her hand and shove it into my pocket. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
“Let me get this straight,” Amanda says. “Your oldest living friend thinks you spent the last sixty-something years traveling around the world?” She shakes her head. “How dumb is he?”
“No,” I say. “He thinks I went to all those places, and then. . .” I sigh. “Look, I can’t ask you to lie for me, so I think it’s better if you just don’t meet him. He’s only coming into town to sell me his old family land. He’s hung onto it all this time, but he’s ready to sell, finally.”
“I think there’s something else,” Amanda says. “I think you told him something worse than the lie about the traveling, something so bad that you don’t even want to tell us what it is.” She leans toward me, bracing her hands on her knees. “Spill it, Mandy, or we’ll be sure to stalk your house like, well, like tigers until we figure it out.” She holds up her hands like they’re paws next to her face and says, “Rawr.”
I wouldn’t put the stalking past her. It’s not much worse than sneaking through the back door when I’d already kicked them out. My nostrils flare, and I ball my hands into fists, but that bothers my arthritis. The problem is, if they figure out my bigger lie by coming here and visiting with Tommy, he’ll probably realize it’s not true as well.
I’m stuck, really.
I’ve already been caught.
Now all I can do is mitigate the damage.
“How about I go ahead and make you a deal?” I ask. “I’ll create a college fund for both Emery and Maren, and in exchange, you guys never ask me about this again?”
“Like you’re not going to do that already.” Amanda frowns. “Out with it. What horrible lie did you tell him?”
“I think I already know,” Emery says.
Everyone stares at her. “You can’t possibly,” I say.
She frowns. “You lived with him when you faked your death. You’ve known him for a long time. You told him you were traveling around the world. You wrote him letters every week. He was looking at you just like Jed was in that photo. . .” She shrugs. “I think he liked you a great deal, and I think he left because it was too hard to watch you pining after Jed.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I say. “First of all, he left when his father died, and secondly, there’s no way that Tommy?—”
“He told you he’d come out here and tell Jedediah how you felt if you didn’t do it, right?” Emery arches one eyebrow.
“I said that already.” I fold my arms.
“So you told him that you did tell Jed, and the obvious next step is to tell him that you’re getting married—you and Jed, I mean.”
I can’t help my gasp. “You must have snuck in here and read my letters.” I want to throw them out. I want to break something. “There’s no way you could have guessed that without?—”
Emery shakes her head. “Tommy Collins was in love with you, but you didn’t know it. The only thing that kept him from coming out and telling you that. . .was your lie about Jed.”
She’s right about my lie, but not about Tommy. He was just being a good friend, and in his mind, it worked. “I did tell him Jed and I were together,” I say. “But you’re wrong about the other part. I’m absolutely sure that Tommy Collins never liked me.”
Amanda sits down again, slowly. Then she pops her feet up on the coffee table. “I’m going to need you to sit down.”
I drop my hands on my hips. “Why?”
“Because you have some explaining to do if you want to convince us that you’re right, and that much pacing might overload your heart.”