Chapter 54
I don’t even know how he does it. How? How does a person throw together a raucous party on a dime like this?
I don’t know. But Killjoy does it.
Charlie Rucker, the High Dive bartender, and his brother, Boomer, bring two enormous speakers and set them up outside. Charlie gives me a big hug and says, “I had work later, but I got my shift covered. I had to see the Birdsong gang!”
Weird. The shift when we saw him last. In the future and the past and nowhere in between.
Boomer hugged me too, saying, “I did not have work because I’m funemployed at the moment? But anyway, sorry about your mom. And also congratulations on still being hot.”
Matt was next to me when they said this, and he cracked up. The Ruckers were the kind of sweet, kind of dumb teddy bears you can’t help but find endearing.
Gladys and her divine sisterhood of old biddies show up with bottles of wine and a six-pack of beer, wearing big hats and bathing suits. All of them stop to give a warm, if cursory, acknowledgment of Babe’s death and promise to be here tomorrow for the service.
Taylor Rae, her husband, Ryan, daughter Holly Jo, Mabel, and her kid came, both with tinfoil-wrapped plates.
Harrison shows up, too, with a guy I remember he used to always hang around with, plus his and Taylor Rae’s other two brothers.
And then suddenly, as if life were normal and this is the sort of way I might spend any Saturday, I’m knee-deep in a game of cornhole.
“Oh come on!” I shout, when my bag goes in the hole instead of on the board, putting us beyond the final score limit and setting us back again. We’d been about to win.
It’s probably obvious given every other corner of my personality, but I’m very competitive.
“I get this, it’s game,” Austin taunts, holding his bag up to me. “Blow on it for good luck?”
“I wish you nothing but sand.”
He shrugs. “All right, I’ll do it without you then.”
His goes right in the hole, giving his team the three points they needed to win.
He unceremoniously tosses his other bags one by one, onto the sand a few feet from us, staring at me gloatingly.
I pretend to be angry, and realize then that I hadn’t actually cared so much about winning as I usually would.
His teammate, Des, is a guy I’ve never met who works at the tennis club. He comes over now to celebrate with him. He’s loud and cheerful, with a loose magnetism that makes you feel like you’ve known him forever.
“Ooh, you were doing so well, too,” he teases. “But I guess all great things come to an end, huh?”
I run my tongue over my teeth and cross my arms, playing into the competitive banter. “Yeah, yeah, well, when you have a professional athlete on your team.”
“Former professional,” Des corrects, arm around Austin, patting him on the chest. “Now he’s just an athletic club rat.”
“Fuck off,” Austin says, grinning.
Des, I’m sensing, is the kind of guy who has a good ability to tell how and when to give people shit.
“I need sunscreen, but I will rematch you and I will win,” I shout as I walk away.
“We’ll see, we’ll see. I heard Gladys kicked your ass at beer pong earlier.”
I rush back. “Oh my god, she did not say that—Gladys!” I call across the sand. “You did not say you beat me at beer pong.”
In her low, steady Southern accent, fanning herself, she says, “Don’t rob me of my truth, honey.” Her friends laugh. Only on an island like this would nobody let you catch a break just because your mother died.
And I love them all for it.
I go back up to the house, rinsing my feet with the hose before I go in.
A Carole King song is playing and Sammie and Nora are dancing in the kitchen as Sammie refills her mimosa glass.
“Can I get one of those?” I ask.
“A mimosa?” she hesitates. Surprised. “Sure.”
“And hey, I’m sorry about—” I start.
“It’s fine,” she says, giving me a sad smile. “We don’t have to do this. We should just have fun. It’s Austin’s day after all.”
“Having fun, fun, fun,” says Nora spinning around in circles on the ground.
“That’s right, Nor,” she says.
Matt comes to the back door and says, “Hey, Nora, want to see a cool gecko?”
“Ooh!” she says, and off she goes.
“You’re really good with kids,” I say to Sammie.
She smiles and says, “They’re so fun. They don’t care about how they look or what everyone is thinking around them. They’re just livin’.”
This makes me laugh. “Yep … they are. Funny to see her here, playing with our toys and reading those old books.”
“I know!” she whispers. “It’s kind of crazy, right? I still feel like a kid sometimes.”
This doesn’t surprise me, and I let it pass without comment.
“Do you think you’ll have kids?” she asks.
“Me? Oh, god. Uh … probably not.”
“Really?” Her face falls. “But you’d be so good at it.”
I shrug. “What about you?”
“It’s funny, when I was younger, I kind of just wanted to go out and do my own thing,” she muses. “But these days, I kind of feel like I’ve done enough of that. Seen enough. I feel ready.” Then, sensing my concern, she adds, “I’m just missing the guy, obviously.”
“Not Johnny.”
“Not Johnny, no. But you know, you and Austin would have such cute babies!”
I give her a light push on the shoulder. “That’s not gonna happen. We’re just … it’s the being here of it all. Austin and I aren’t getting back together. Obviously, I don’t even—”
She watches me tumble through my clunky words. “Uh-huh.” She finally fills my glass and hands it over. “Or maybe you’re soulmates.”
“Yeah, well, you wouldn’t say that if you knew what happened in Texas.”
“Matt told me.”
I take a big sip of my drink. “Wow, he really did?”
She drops her chin. “Who loves good gossip more than Matt?”
“Besides a Bennett woman?” I say with a drawl.
She matches it. “Besides us, no one, darlin’.”
I sigh. “Well, that’s true. Then you know what a jerk Austin was.”
“I do,” she says. “But you know … that boy loves you more than anything.”
I try not to levitate at the idea. “He doesn’t. He likes flirting. And … you know.”
“I think he likes flirting and having sex with you,” she supplies for me, “but it’s more than that.”
“Maybe.” I have a grape.
“I mean when we were here last. That last summer you guys were a couple … was he so wrong in what he said?”
“Sure felt like it.”
“Yeah, then. But now?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you should forgive him.” She leans back on the counter.
“Maybe if he asks to be forgiven, I’ll consider it. But for now? He hasn’t asked me for anything of the kind.”
She thinks about my words, and then says, “Fair enough.”
I swirl my mimosa and wonder … what exactly would feel fair to me?