24. Megyn
CHAPTER 24
MEGYN
D espite how exhausted I was, I still felt a bit of my old nerves when letting him inside. I’d been moving a lot of things around, furniture and shelves, to sweep and vacuum and dust, and most areas of the house were in a state of chaos.
And as it that wasn’t bad enough, dust hung thick in the air, drifting around, catching the light coming in through the windows. I always used natural light in lieu of electricity whenever possible, but it sure did make the dust show up vividly.
Carter took off his shoes and set them aside on the rack. He glanced around at the living room, through the archway to my dinky and rusting kitchen. “I can see you’ve been working hard. You’ve done all of this in one day?”
“I started last night,” I told him. “I needed something to do when I got off work. Fiddling around with my sewing stuff wasn’t really doing it for me.”
Carter stood in the middle of the living room. “Can you tell me how you got into sewing, Megyn?”
I blinked at him, a little surprised that he’d care. He had never asked before. Then again, maybe there hadn’t ever been a right time. “Necessity.”
He turned to me. “Can you elaborate?”
“Necessity,” I repeated. I gestured to the house around us. “I’ve lived here my whole life, remember? Clearly, Dad couldn’t afford anything better.”
That sounds rude.
“I mean…”
Carter shook his head. “I understand. Go on, please.”
Did he understand? Maybe. I had to remember he had won his wealth himself, though that didn’t mean he’d grown up poor like me.
“I couldn’t go to camp or anything that cost money. No sports. Couldn’t pay for jerseys, couldn’t spend extra money on lunch or snacks. No extra school activities. No wasting gas by ferrying me around. I had to be happy with cheap activities that could keep me busy for a long time. As it turns out, there’s not many options. Reading is one, except there’s no library on Staten Island. I had to make do with books from school.”
Carter listened quietly, intently. I wondered if he was hearing more than he wanted to and was merely being polite.
“Eventually, Dad figured out just about anyone could stay entertained for days if they had some thread and a needle. And Mom had had both. He gave me her sewing kit. And I guess I just never looking back from that. I enjoyed doing it. I’m lucky, I guess, that I liked what I had to do.”
“So you discovered your passion early,” Carter remarked. “I’d say that is lucky. A lot of people don’t.”
“I guess so. Not that it really means anything.”
“Megyn…”
I waved him off. “I’m just telling the truth and you know it. Maggie told me sometimes you can’t get to your dreams the way you thought you could. Well, what I wanted was someday to turn this house into a sewing store. It’s just too expensive for me to hang onto.”
Carter sat down on my displaced couch. “You’ve never said much about your parents. Your mother died when you were a baby, I know. But what about your dad? Your step-mother?”
I shrugged, leaning on the back of the couch. He looked up at me, the gray hairs of his beard gleaming silver in the light. “I don’t think Dad knew how to be a dad. I don’t think he knew what to do without Mom. It was an aneurysm that took her. The doctors think it formed during labor, and then it burst a few months later.”
Carter made a soft, pained sound, a perfect representation of how I felt, too.
“They never knew. She was there and then gone, and Daddy was all alone. He did his best, but it couldn’t have been easy for him.” I folded my hands. “I think he started looking for a way out long before he left.”
“And that way out would have been your step-mother. Crystal?”
I jolted in surprise. “You remembered!”
“I remember everything you said to me.”
Could that be true?
I moved around the couch and sat down next to Carter, though I kept half a cushion between us. I went back to regarding my hands, not yet ready to look him in the eye. “Crystal was, I think, everything Mom wasn’t. She represented for Dad everything that he didn’t have. Freedom. A lack of responsibility. He pretty much left me for her.”
“I’m not quite sure who I blame more in this scenario,” Carter murmured.
I shook my head. “I don’t blame anyone. I don’t know enough about Crystal to do that, even though I don’t like for. For Dad… He was looking for someone and there she was. I don’t know how happy they are now.”
“What makes you think they aren’t happy?”
“Whenever I talk to Dad, it’s almost as if he thinks he has to do whatever Crystal says.”
Carter frowned. “Can I give my opinion?”
“I’ll give you a dime for them.”
“Hey, what about inflation?” Carter protested.
“Just because that’s what it’s worth doesn’t mean that’s what you’ll get.” I smiled a little. “I have to make a profit.”
Carter laughed. He touched my knee, or made to and changed his mind. If he made contact, it was too light and fast for me to tell. “That’s how it’s done. What I think is going on with your dad is the newness of the relationship is wearing off and he’s wondering if he made the right choice. Maybe Crystal is, too.”
“She is like half his age,” I said softly. I wondered if the age gap between myself and Carter had anything to do with our recent dispute. “They’re in different places, mentally.”
Carter grew serious. “Sure. But I don’t think gaps in age will automatically doom a relationship. I think it can be nice. You can have different things to offer each other.”
Carter has money. And what do I have to offer? Not much of anything at all.
Carter suddenly spoke again. “This might be a bit pushy. I know some writers don’t like to show a project unless it’s done. But could I see some of the things you’ve worked on? Even if it’s just the apron you’re making for Suzie?”
Sewing was always a safe topic. “Sure,” I said, and got up. “I do all my work in Mom and Dad’s old room.”
Carter trailed along behind me. I could feel his question hovering around his lips, a water droplet about to drop from the tip of a leaf. I went ahead and answered it for him, to save him at least a little bit of embarrassment from having to deal with me.
“It makes me feel closer to Mom. Dad always used to tell me I got my talents from her. She used to sew. I got her toolbox, remember? And she used to knit. She knit me a baby blanket before I was even born. I still have it. I can show you.”
“I’d like to see it. But I’d like to see your work first.”
“Sure,” I said, and took him into the unused bedroom, my unofficial work station. I led him over to a combination dresser and TV stand. “Dad took the TV when he left. Now I use this to hold all my supplies.”
“Every drawer?” Carter asked, looking fascinated.
I nodded, blushing a little bit. “I’ve picked up a lot of discount fabric and stuff over the years.”
I pulled open one drawer, filled with nothing but spools of thread. I shut it, then opened the next, filled with an array of pins, organized needles, scissors, and other assorted necessities. I skipped a few more drawers and tugged open a larger bottom one, showing off my collection of thread and fabric.
“This is quite the collection.” Carter pointed at boxes on top of the dresser. “You keep your projects in these? Or are these from cleaning up?”
“They’re my projects.” I picked up one box and hefted it onto the bed. “Go ahead.”
Carter grasped the flaps of the box.
I waited, nibbling on my lower lip. I didn’t often show off what I worked on, not even to Maggie. I knew I was good at what I did, but would Carter think the same?
Could men appreciate sewing?
Carter opened the box and reached in. He brought out the first thing, a little smiling doll outfitted in a pink crochet dress and matching striped stockings. Her long yarn hair was styled into pigtails.
Carter turned the doll over in his hand. He gave a little tug on the crochet work. The knots stretched and pulled back into place, exactly as they were meant to. He turned the toy over again, skimming his fingers through the yarn hair.
I watched and waited, my heart in my throat. He showed no emotion at all. I knew that I must have failed him with this pathetic creation. He had to be just searching for the right thing to say so he wouldn’t hurt my feelings.
Carter lifted his head and broke out into a grin. “You made this?”
I nodded.
“The clothes too?”
I nodded again.
“Holy crap, Megyn!”
Carter set the doll aside and brought out another, this one in the same style, but with red yarn hair, sleepy eyes, and baggy overalls. He put her down, took out two more, a matching boy and girl pair with dark skin, curly hair, and huge smiles. He took out several more dolls and arranged them on the bed and stood staring at them with that same huge grin. “These are amazing! Show me more, Megyn. Please.”
I brought him another box, feeling dizzy, uncertain if I could trust the happiness rising up in my chest.
This one held felt food, soft toys resembling doughnuts, cookies, pie, pizza, strawberries, eggs over easy, broccoli, avocado, sushi, and anything else a person could possibly eat. Carter started laughing with pure delight as he pulled banana after banana after banana out of the box. “A whole bunch of bananas,” he joked.
His laughter made me smile.
I brought him another box and explained to him about quiet books, little sewn books for young children, with simple activities on each page. In the same box, I had sewn baby clothes and blankets and cute pillow covers.
Carter smoothed a dinosaur pillow case out on the bed, next to the assortment of other items. “Megyn, I don’t really swear much, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, but fuck , I am blown away by all this!” He spun and grabbed my hands, held them tight in his. “You are extremely talented!”
I blushed and ducked my head. “It’s nothing.”
“No, way, this is everything! Trust me, I know talent when I see it.”
I started to tell him he had to be mistaken, and then I stopped. This man had made his career upon recognizing talent.
Maybe he’s just humoring me? Because he likes me?
Carter grabbed my shoulders and brought his face close to mine, so close I smelled his cologne. My knees shook. “Megyn,” he whispered, looking right into my eyes. “I know talent when I see it.”
I swallowed hard and nodded, my nose brushing on his. “Thank you.”
“Thank you ,” he said, “for showing me all of this.” He suddenly seemed to realize the position we were in and released me, backing up. He looked at the bed again and touched a felt waffle, complete with a pat of butter and a little blob shape of syrup. “What will you do with all of this if you move?”
“I planned to save it all for the store,” I replied. I picked up a doll with golden hair and green eyes. She had her name on her underwear, a cute little touch I gave all the dolls. She was Tiffany Green Apple. “But I’ve been thinking that maybe I shouldn’t keep holding on to all of it. There are places I could donate to. Like the children’s hospital, or a Goodwill or something. I haven’t decided.”
Carter nodded. “I think if you donated them, you would make a lot of little children very, very happy. Whatever you decide will be the best, I’m sure.”
I imagined sick little kids holding dolls, kept company by Tiffany Green Apple and DJ Danish and Priscilla Pickles on nights when their parents couldn’t be there. I pictured nurses using the pretend food to entice their ill wards to eat. And I started to smile, envisioning little boys and girls sleeping so much more comfortably with their heads resting on hospital pillows decked out in dinosaur and heart covers they’d picked out themselves.
And then I imagined the same products, on shelves in a store I didn’t own and might never own, the delighted squeals when their parents bought them the toys they wanted. A phantom wave of pride warmed my chest.
This is why I can’t decide. What’s right? What’s wrong? Am I selfish to keep dreaming?
Carter cleared his throat and put his hand on my shoulder. “Megyn, if you don’t mind, I’d like to stay and help you clean a little.”
I jerked out of my daydreams. “You really don’t have to do that.”
“But I want to.”
And there wasn’t really anything I could do to change his mind, I knew, so I didn’t even try. I put him to work with getting all the toys back in their boxes and when that was done, assigned him to vacuum duty. He zipped around with that vacuum like it was his job and I couldn’t help but to smile every time I saw him at it.
A few hours later and I had had enough cleaning. It was more like I really needed to sleep or I would pass out in the bathroom while scrubbing the toilet. I went in search of Carter to see what he was up to, since I hadn’t heard the vacuum in a few minutes.
I found him in the kitchen, leaning over the sink with his head tilted at an odd angle.
“What are we looking at?” I whispered, coming up beside him.
Carter pointed and shifted aside.
I stepped up where he had been and took a peek. A big blue van parked a few houses down had some people milling around outside of it in a way that could only be called suspicious. The people got back inside their van and drove off.
I looked up at Carter. “What was that? Was that a news van?”
“I think so.”
I peered out the window again, but the van hadn’t returned. “Was something happening out there?”
Carter sighed and ran his hand over his hair. “I think they were looking for your house, Megyn. They walked around a lot and seemed especially interested in yours, but they must not have been sure.”
“Why my house?”
His green gaze was dark. “Because I’m here.”
“Oh.”
“They might be trying to exploit us.”
I put my back to the window. “You mean me.”
“Megyn…”
“Well? You’re you. And I’m me. I’m the girl with the sad life you’ve chosen to date. If they really were looking for me, you know that would be why.”
Carter held out his arms to me.
I hesitated, but I did feel a lot better after having worked alongside him for the past little while. I went into his arms and lay my head on his shoulder.
Carter folded his body around mine and held me close to his chest. His warm breath tickled my ear. “If anything, you can use this as free marketing for your dolls.”
I surprised myself by smiling. “Leave it to you to look at things on the bright side.”
“That’s what I want to be for you.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I kept smiling.