Chapter 12 #2
“Tight,” she said. “You know who else has tight quads? Tony. He wouldn’t let me really get in there.
” As she continued to work on Harrison’s quad, she talked about how someone named Tony was resistant to her help.
Harrison gradually figured out that she was talking about Tony Cho, a fellow PGA golfer.
And that, apparently, Hillary had been dating him?
Tried to date him? Wanted to date him? It was a bit unclear.
When she made Harrison roll over to work on his hip, he got up the nerve to ask her. “Are you and Tony dating?”
“That is my point! Are we? Like…do you see what I mean?” she exclaimed as she massaged his hip.
He did not see what she meant and he was terrified to ask for clarification. Not that he needed to—Hillary kept up a running stream of discourse, in which he lost track of who had done what to whom.
By the time she’d finished and asked him to take another swing, Harrison had to admit that his knee felt better.
“Epsom salt,” she said as she folded her table. “At least a thirty-minute soak in it tonight. Here you go.” She handed him a packet of Epsom salt. “And the exercises I showed you. Three times a day.”
“I will. Thanks again, Hillary. I’m sorry you had to come all this way for a session.”
“No problem! Anything to get out of Detroit this time of year. See you tomorrow, about the same time?”
Harrison hesitated. “Tomorrow?”
“Oh, I forgot to mention that Clay paid me for a week. He put me up at the resort up the hill. It’s a beautiful place but they are absolutely dead.”
Harrison couldn’t quite wrap his head around this. “Clay sent you here for a week?”
“Yep. He said you needed to be good to go by the first of the year. You’ve got a gig in Scotland, I think?”
“I don’t have…” Harrison stopped. There was no point in explaining his frustration with his manager to Hillary.
He wanted to say that Clay didn’t own him and could not decide things like this on his behalf without talking to him first. But apparently, Clay did own him, because here was Hillary, looking very pleased with her situation.
“He said if you hadn’t made significant progress in a week, to let him know, and you two would come up with another plan. But we can do it, right?”
“Umm—”
“Don’t look so dubious,” she said, and playfully swatted him. “I’m very good at my job. Just ask Tony. He had that hip thing, remember?”
Harrison did not know anything about Tony Cho’s “hip thing.”
“I cured it. Okay, I’m going to go. Let me know if you’re looking for something to do. We could meet up at the resort.”
Harrison felt a slight surge of panic. “Thanks, but I—”
“I didn’t mean today. See you tomorrow!” With a cheery wave, she loaded up her massage table and walked back into the house, disappearing from view.
After a few moments of standing in one place, hands on hips, wondering how he could get out of this situation with the woman who would ruin his vibe here, Harrison went back inside. “Angels We Have Heard on High” was piping overhead.
He went into the kitchen to look through the window at Amy. He could still see her in there, but the easel had moved to the other side of the studio. She was looking away from the pool area now. He wondered if he and Hillary had disturbed her.
Duchess, on the other hand, was on the pool deck, facing away from the pool, sunbathing. Except there was no sun.
He sat at the bar and scrolled his phone, debating whether to call Clay and give him a piece of his mind—the debate somewhat muted by the fact his knee actually felt much better, but the principle and all that—when he heard a knock on the door.
Hillary? He got up and made his way to the foyer. Through the sidelight, he could see the front end of an older model of pickup truck. A giant wreath had been attached to the grille.
Harrison opened the door to find a man wearing a trucker hat and a dirty puffer jacket. “Amy Casey?” he said to Harrison.
Harrison sincerely hoped he didn’t look like an Amy Casey. “Nope. She’s out back.”
“No problem. You can sign for her.” He held up a clipboard.
“Sign for what?” He took the clipboard the man offered him and glanced down.
A delivery from Bellah’s Grocery Store. Amy had ordered groceries?
After yesterday? She must be really worried about the snowtastrophe.
But the fridge was full. He remembered seeing another one in the garage, so he shrugged and signed.
The man took the clipboard back, lifted a few pages, then tore out a pink page and handed it to Harrison.
It was a triplicate of the order and his signature.
He walked back to his truck, tossed in the clipboard, then reached into the bed of the truck and lifted a box.
He brought it to the porch and set it down, then made two more trips with two identical boxes.
When he’d put the third one down, he said, “Looks like you’re all set for the snowtastrophe. ”
“They’re really calling it that?” Harrison asked.
“They say we could get up to six inches. That much is unheard of here. Have a good day,” and went back to his truck, climbed in, and drove away.
Harrison began to haul the boxes inside. It was strange that Amy had ordered so much food. But he wasn’t going to complain—he could see more chips and some beer in one box. Ooh, and his favorite—a box of Santa-shaped sugar cookies with red icing.
When he’d brought the groceries in, he figured this had given him a reason to knock on the studio door. Didn’t everyone want to know when their groceries arrived?
He walked down the path to the studio and rapped lightly on the door. He heard her muffled voice, and would have sworn she said to come in, but when he opened the door, she lunged for her canvas like she’d painted something obscene and twisted the easel around so he couldn’t see it.
“Sorry,” he said, as Duchess appeared from nowhere and waddled past him, sniffing her way to her bed under the window. “I thought you said to come in?”
“What? Oh.” She straightened her smock and smiled. “I said I’d be right there. What’s up?”
She seemed nervous, and Harrison could feel the tension of invading her space. He felt like an idiot. “Nothing. I just thought…” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Your groceries came.”
“My what?”
“Groceries.”
Her brows dipped into a frown of confusion. “My groceries? I’m not expecting groceries. We just bought groceries.”
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “But the guy asked for you, then unloaded three huge boxes.”
“But who…” She didn’t finish her question; she swooped up Duchess, brushed past Harrison, and headed for the main house.
Harrison should have followed her straightaway, but he couldn’t help himself—he took two steps into the room, leaned to his right, and glanced at her painting.
It wasn’t what he thought it would be, but he liked what he saw.
It was a view of the lights across the lake, shimmering on the water’s surface, as seen through a rain-spattered window.
Not unlike the view they’d had last night.
And then, in the corner next to the window, was a spindly little Christmas tree with a red bird on top, a single red ball hanging from a bough, and a gingerbread man.
Harrison didn’t know how appealing this painting would be to art lovers because he knew nothing about art.
But he would very much like to have it to remind him of this week.
The only problem was, he had no place to hang it.
Haul it back to Florida? Sure…but he would never see it if he hung it there.
Something was terribly wrong with that picture. It made him feel a little ill.
He left the studio and closed the door behind them, then hurried to catch up to Amy. He found her in the kitchen, pulling items out of the boxes, staring at them, muttering under her breath, and looking more and more confused. “What is all this?” she asked. “Where did it come from?”
If she didn’t know, he was just as confused. “You sure you didn’t order it? Maybe before you came?”
“No. What would I do with a giant box of Cheez-Its? I mean, besides the obvious. Was there a receipt or something?”
He had forgotten about the pink page and looked in the third box where he’d stuffed it. He pulled it out and handed it to her. He withdrew several bottles of wine from that box as Amy studied the receipt.
“That’s my name, all right,” she said, frowning. Her eyes skimmed the page. Then stopped on something at the bottom of the page. “Oh my God.”
“What?” Harrison leaned over, trying to see what she was looking at.
Amy dropped her arm and groaned to the ceiling. “This is from my mother.”
“Your mother?”
Amy lifted her shoulders in the universal, I-don’t-know way. “Maybe she was afraid I wasn’t eating?”
“Or drinking,” he said, pointing at the wine. “I’m impressed. No way my mom would worry if I had enough to eat, and if she did, she would send cauliflower. This is party food.”
Amy glanced at the boxes.
“Chips and soda, cookies, cheese and salami. This has party written all over it.”
“Where did she get the idea I was having a party? I specifically told her I was going off to make art. And how did she know where to send it? Julie must have told her. But why didn’t Julie tell me?”
“What do you want to do?” Harrison asked. “There is a lot of food here. Look, pounds of ground beef.”
“I guess we put it away?” She picked up a package of Oreo cookies and tore it open, helping herself to a couple. She munched one, eying him, then handed him the package. “I saw you had a visitor today.”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “I tried to be discreet.” He took the Oreo package, helped himself to one, then put it down. “Check it out,” he said, and held up a jug of margarita mix.
Amy wrinkled her nose. “My mother believes in buying quantity over quality. That’s probably made with lighter fluid.”
“So you won’t try it?”
“I didn’t say that. Too bad you didn’t find it before your guest left. Did she?” Amy asked, her voice a little lighter and airier than normal.
“Hillary? Yeah, she left. If you’re wondering—”
“I’m not,” she said too quickly, and crossed her heart.
“Hillary is a conditioning coach with the PGA that my manager sent my way.”
“Oh. How did she…?”
“I made the mistake of telling Clay where I’d be in case something urgent came up. I had no idea she was going to drop in. Complete surprise. Or that she is staying nearby for a few days. Apparently, Clay would really like me to go to Scotland.”
“Ah,” Amy said. “So you have some meddlers in your life, too.”
“Boy, do I.”
“I don’t know, it makes me feel a little fuzzy inside to know that I’m not alone in that.” She grinned as she reached for the jug of margarita mix. “Shall we drink to it?”
“It’s not going to drink itself. I can start a fire in the firepit if you’re up for it. I mean, if you’re through working?” He barely refrained from crossing his fingers. He did not want to interrupt her work here, but then again, he really, really did.
“I think I’m done for the day. I’ll feed Duchess and bring the giant box of Cheez-Its. Oh, and this,” she said, and pulled a fifth of tequila from the box.
“Ooh,” he said, grinning. “Gourmet. See you there.”