Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
RUSTY
A sh breaks into my house Saturday morning and makes me breakfast before I wake. She and Pookie are waiting for me at the table when I get up at 6 a.m. She sits at the table with me while I eat. She joins me on the riding mower while I mow. She comes with me to Granny Belle's house to unclog a drain.
I hardly say two words, but she happily fills in the silence or sits in it with me.
It's so nice, I can hardly stand it.
On Sunday, she shows up in my pew at church. She follows me for brunch afterwards and sits with me and Lola Nina and her husband at the diner. She doesn't push physical contact — much — but she stays by my side the whole day.
On Monday, she skips toward me in the Sugar Maple Farms warehouse at 5:15 AM wearing jeans, cowboy boots, a red-and-white checked shirt tied at the waist, and her hair in pigtails.
Oh, and the biggest, most infectious grin I've ever seen .
I have to fight to keep the grin off my face. I can't let myself get swept away in the idea of us.
She has no such restraint. She plants a huge kiss on me before asking how she can help. Then she proceeds to work alongside me for the rest of the morning. When I load boxes, she loads boxes. When I go to my office in the Nest, she sits there and watches me organize spreadsheets. She listens to my conference calls, watches my Zoom meetings, and gets me coffee. All day, she's my shiny, happy shadow.
I don't leave the farm until eight at night, and she somehow hitches a ride back to my house, insisting that she needs to see Prairie.
"Pookie," I correct without thinking. Then I kick myself.
She rolls her lips together but doesn't say anything.
Pookie ignores me completely. I send Tripp an SOS text, asking him to send Jane to pick up Ash.
Tripp's only response is a "Ha ha" to my message.
So I drive her home.
"Aren't you going to walk me to my door?" she asks.
"Ash, come on."
"It's scary out there! I saw a snake yesterday! Well, actually it was Lottie's jump rope from when she came over to play, but it could have been a snake. Did you know South Carolina has thirty-eight different types of snakes? And like a million of those are venomous!"
"Six of them are."
"Exactly. Those are scary odds. Do you really want to abandon me to whatever venomous snake could be waiting for me?"
So I walk Ash to her door.
And I stick my hands in my pockets to keep them off of her, a struggle made harder when she wraps her arms around my waist, rests her cheek on my chest, and sighs.
"I love you. Thanks for always taking such good care of me," she says. I turn my lips to stone as her breath tickles them. She keeps her mouth agonizingly close to mine while my heart pumps harder and harder and my breath comes faster and faster.
I cannot kiss her.
When her lips make the slightest hint of contact, I almost collapse with want. But I stay strong, reminding myself that I don't get to have her. I can't risk hurting her.
"G'night," she whispers, the words puffing against my skin.
I stand there motionless well after she goes inside.
The next day, Ash somehow finds me at 5:15 AM again, just as bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and beautiful.
And she's there the day after that and the day after that for the next week.
I don't know how she's getting anything done for Jane 3
I should have watched the reels more carefully.
…
Those three dots remain for far too long. Then finally, a text appears.
I'm trying to think of the Southern way to say this. Are you out of your mind? No, that's the Yankee way. Okay, how about this: do you really think you're such a special sinner that you're accountable for a mistake no one could have planned for? You didn't sign off on the reel, babe, and even if you did, no one is to blame for a fan figuring out what everyone will know in September when the tour starts, anyway. Get over yourself.
…said lovingly because I'm super in love with you and we're not fighting but I also don't think you stretching to make this about how you're unworthy is remotely helpful, let alone accurate. So again, this time with extra smooches: get over yourself. 3 LOVE YOU!
How does she always know what to say to make me think twice? Am I such a special sinner? For the millionth time, I wish I could talk to Tag. I could really go for some parental wisdom right about now.
I get everything done early at work, and because he's the only guy I know determined to stay single forever, I head to the bar to see Patty.
I normally go round to the kitchen, but without thinking, I walk in through the front doors and run into none other than the Canasta club.
A handful of tables are reserved with signs that read "Canasta and Cocktails Only".
The Hens — Mrs. Beaty, Lola Nina, and Granny Belle — are seated at a table by themselves, probably because everyone else is a little intimidated by them. I am, too, but I'm too intimidated not to stop by.
"How are the most beautiful women in all of Sugar Maple?" I ask.
"Oh, you sweetheart," Lola Nina says, patting my cheek.
"You may be blowing smoke up our britches," Mrs. Beaty says, "but you always were a good boy."
I'm so tired of people saying that, I can't hold back a rebuttal. "I wasn't either. I was angry."
"Pfft," Granny Belle says. "Who wouldn't be angry with a no good bum of a father like yours? But you can be angry and good."
I huff.
Granny Belle raises both eyebrows at me so high, she creates new lines on her forehead. "Is that anyway to talk to your elders?"
"No ma'am. My apologies."
"Mm-hm." She side-eyes me. "Still a good boy, though. Nothing like your father." I don't snort, but I do look away. "He was a bully even young."
"He was," Mrs. Beaty says. "I had him in class. Never known a meaner boy at such a young age. Always tried to blame it on his father."
"Oh, Boyd." Granny Belle sighs and puts a hand over her heart. "He was a drunk, but he was a nice one."
"You knew him?" I ask.
"Knew him?" Granny Belle laughs loudly, but it's swallowed up in the bar sounds. "Boy, I married the man!"
I drop to the open seat. "I had no idea."
"Not too many people do. Or at least they're polite enough to only talk about it behind my back."
Mrs. Beaty and Lola Nina laugh.
"Bless your heart," Mrs. Beaty says, and the three of them hoot with laughter.
"Your grandfather, God rest his soul, was a kind man, just like you. He would do anything for the people around him. Did you know he dropped out of high school so he could join the army? Yes he did. He got sent to Korea and then got injured and sent home. We were married the day he got back, but only a few months later, I knew there was something wrong with him. He started drinking heavily. He'd seen too much and couldn't shake it. My father made me annul the marriage — told the judge that Boyd wasn't of sound mind. Maybe he wasn't. But it broke my heart to leave him. I never once heard an unkind word out of his mouth. I still think about him every day." She smiles at me with wet eyes. "You got all of his good parts and none of his bad."
"Arlo, on the other hand, got the opposite," Mrs. Beaty says. “None of his good parts and all of his bad."
I feel like I've stepped off a moving walkway and forgot to keep going. "But my dad said he was just like his father. He said he married my mom to escape? — "
"He lied," Granny Belle says, looking at me like she can't believe I would believe something so patently, obviously false. Water isn't wet. Grass isn't green. Rusty doesn't love Ash. "Arlo is a snake worthy of the Garden of Eden."
"But … my temper."
The three matriarchs laugh in unison. "What temper?"
"I'm always so angry."
"When?" Mrs. Beaty asks.
"Whenever I'm with Arlo."
"Join the club," Lola Nina says.
"And at Ash's ex."
Granny Belle shrugs. "You're in love with her. Of course you hate her ex."
"And rumor has it," Mrs. Beaty says, "he was a manipulative S.O.B. "
"But I wanted to hurt him."
Mrs. Beaty studies me. "Are we talking torture or socking him in the jaw? Those are two very different things."
"I did punch him."
"In the ice rink," Lola Nina says.
"No, here, too!"
Granny Belle shimmies like she's reading a steamy novel. "Ooh, I heard about that! He grabbed Ms. Ashley and you taught him never to grab a lady."
"Especially yours," Mrs. Beaty says suggestively. "Romantic."
"It's not romantic! I wanted to hurt him!"
They all look at me. "So?" Lola Nina asks. "I almost ran Rose here off the road tonight for taking too long at the stop sign."
"We drove here together," Mrs. Beaty says. "But she's right. We all get angry. It's what you do with your anger that matters. And from where I'm sittin', you don't do much."
"You don't understand. When Teddy humiliated Ash at the chamber of commerce meeting, I intimidated him. I threatened him."
Mrs. Beaty rolls her eyes. "I'm gettin' bored, sugar. I'm not sayin' you don't have a protective streak, because you do. But I've taught enough boys and known enough men to know you're not an exception. Didn't Tripp try to lay Teddy out for what he said about Jane? And wasn't he out on the ice with you pushing and shoving your girl's rotten ex?"
"Sure, but? — "
"But nothing." Mrs. Beaty takes a long sip of her drink.
"Work on it," Granny Belle says. "If you think you're too overprotective, go see someone about it. Join one of the groups at church and talk about it. But think about something, young man. Everyone you 'threatened' was tryin' to make your girl feel small or tryin' to hurt someone you love. You were protecting the vulnerable. Arlo, on the other hand, targeted them. He preyed on them. "
Mrs. Beaty nods. "Big difference."
"The only thing you have in common with Arlo," Granny Belle says, "is DNA. And you share a lot of that with a banana, too."
Maybe it's the fact that these women have all tutored and taught me at pivotal times in my life — elementary school learning I have dyslexia and getting the resources I needed; high school and having a teacher believe in me and push me into college; grieving my sister's death and receiving the support at church that helped me keep going — but it's impossible not to listen.
It's impossible not to … not to …
Believe them.
I actually believe them.
"I'm nothing like Arlo," I say. I start weeping. "Nothing."
All three of them wrap their arms around me and let me cry.
"Such a good boy," Mrs. Beaty says.
I laugh. "Thanks. I try."
When I've cried myself empty, Lola Nina wipes my face with the napkin. "Now don't you have a woman to go kiss and make up with?"
"One of her friends is going through something. I'll give her some time? — "
Granny Belle gives an eye roll worthy of a GIF. "Sugar, enough. You've punched every spot on your Good Guy card. You get a free pass."
“Not the best phrasing,” Mrs. Beaty says, “but she’s right.”
I hesitate. "Are you sure?"
"Listen to your elders!" Granny Belle gives me an actual push, and I swear, it's the last push I'll ever need.
Time to go get my girl.