15. Summer Girls
LFO
15
SUMMER GIRLS
Dakota’s mission to slow burn Sadie—a term his romance lovin’ sisters had explained—to ensure she knew, without a doubt, that she was seen by him and important to him, had gone from a monumental, hand-holding win at the library to a bit of a nose dive over an outdated PBS show. He internally fought over how to rectify the situation but then imagined a younger version of Sadie.
Thinking of her alone, reading a book to escape the reality of a less than an ideal childhood, didn’t sit right with him. He’d moved as a kid a few times, but he’d always had his sisters. Sadie was right about that. Georgia, Caroline, and Ginny were his built-in best friends. They always had been. They drove him crazy, but they were his pals through thick and thin. Not to mention, his parents, who dove into whatever community they were a part of at any given time. So Dakota had, likewise, naturally done the same. He had always come by friends easily and, like most military kids, would usually invest in those relationships as quickly as possible, knowing he might be on borrowed time.
But it seemed Sadie’s experience had been entirely different from his own, and the idea of her feeling as if she needed to justify herself somehow made him want to reach across the console and pull her into his lap to just… hold her. He wanted to find a way to make sure she knew, as long as he was around, she’d never have to feel like that ever again.
Since Sadie already mentioned feeling as if she were in a hostage situation, he assumed full-body snuggles were off the table. Instead, Dakota thought it wiser to fill her with fresh air and a snack—a tip from Griffin, who preached at length about the importance of keeping a lady from becoming hangry. So Dakota pulled over at a roadside stand outside of Perdido Key, just off the beach and a short drive to their next destination.
“Ya wanna get a snack and go for a walk?” he asked, nudging her with his elbow. “I feel like we could all use some air.”
Sadie agreed, so they ambled out of the car and, spying a food stand of some sort, approached the two sweatiest kids Dakota had ever seen. The bigger one, with sweat stains dripping down the front of his shirt, rubbed his hand across his red face and put the same hand out to shake Dakota’s.
“Good afternoon, sir and ma’am,” the kid said, clinging tight to Dakota’s hand and slicking it with moisture. “Would y’all happen to have any interest in purchasin’ some boiled peanuts or freshly squeezed lemonade today?”
Dakota took back his hand and wiped it across his shirt. “Depends. Did you squeeze the lemons with those hands?”
Sadie elbowed him in the gut.
“I mean…” he adjusted, rubbing the sore spot, “we’d love some.”
“My little sister, just there, made the lemonade. I boiled the peanuts with my daddy.” He pointed to his little sister, who’d taken an immediate interest in Gus, who sat hissing at her from his spot perched atop Sadie’s feet. The girl paid no mind, though, and cooed at him like he was sweet as syrup.
“That sounds great,” Sadie said, pulling out cash from her bag.
Dakota grabbed her hand, stopping her from paying and mumbled, “There is no way this is FDA approved.” He handed the kids more than enough to cover their costs and accepted the questionable snacks from the boy’s slick hands. “Let’s go watch the waves while we eat. A snack and show.”
He led Sadie and a tethered Gus over to a quiet stretch of beach where they slipped off their shoes and nestled their toes in the sand.
“There is nothin’ better than hot boiled peanuts in the summer!” Sadie declared, sucking the juices from a shell and tossing it into a paper bag they were using for trash. She let Gus nuzzle into her lap before reaching for another.
“I mean, I can think of some things better…”
“Name ‘em, Wade,” she dared, opening another one.
“Bomb Pops.” He winked, earning an eye roll. “Ice-cold sweet tea on my mama’s porch, fruity drinks with twisty straws, nachos by a poolside… Basically anything not handled or manufactured by a nine-year-old with sweaty palms.”
“They weren’t so bad really. I love a little entrepreneurial spirit.” A light breeze, floating in with the tide, brushed up against their cheeks.
“No, Sadie, you love kids. It’s endearing, if not just a tad ill-placed sometimes. I once saw you eat a gummy bear Theo found in his pocket, and you acted like you were winnin’ a prize.”
“But he’s so precious, Kota!” she whined. “I can’t help myself. It’s the cheeks. Theo has amazing cheeks. Sometimes ya just gotta mind-over-matter it.”
“If you gotta play mind games for a snack, ya shouldn’t be eatin’ it, Sadie Girl. That’s just asking for food poisoning.”
“Says the man who ate his weight in pies not a week ago.”
Dakota drew circles in the sand. “Yeah, but I didn’t win. So it doesn’t count.”
“You threw the fight,” she said, blatantly.
“Nah.”
“Yes.”
“Doesn’t sound like somethin’ I would do.”
“Kota, come on.” She gave his shoulder a nudge. “Why’d ya do it?”
Dakota felt himself tense at her observation. He hadn’t intended on losing. He never did. But he’d seen the ferocious look in his sister’s eyes when those two buffoons had thought they could fight a stupid battle over her, and he’d just stopped.
“She needed the win.” He shrugged. “Don’t ever tell her though, alright. Virginia Remillard is a prideful woman. I don’t wanna have to out-eat her in pies every weekend when she finds out and decides she needs to prove a point.”
“I wouldn’t dare.” Sadie leaned into him, a light but glorious weight against his side. “It was real sweet, Dakota.”
“Reeeallly?” Dakota sang, playfully. “Vampires and losin’ food eating contests are on Sadie’s Must Have list?”
“Yeah. Right next to grown men who play war with ceramic dolls.”
“Collectibles.”
“Adorable, secret collectibles.”
Dakota slapped his hands together, brushing off the sand. “I think we’ve had enough snack time, don’t you? Let’s go get some coffee! Say, bye beach!”
“Bye beach,” Sadie yelled, giggling as they ran back to the car.
“We’ve only got about fifteen minutes before we get to the distributor, and then I got us a couple of rooms at the hotel nearby. We can leave tomorrow morning for Tybee.”
Sadie fanned herself and opened the vents wider. “Sounds good. Man,” she used her hands to fan herself again, and Dakota felt himself growing warmer. Sweat dripped into his eyes. “It's so hot, right? Like, it doesn’t feel like any air is comin’ out at all.”
They spent the next fifteen minutes fiddling with the air conditioning controls, to no avail. At one point they thought it had started working, only for the vents to smell like a precarious mixture of an electrical fire and dust. And from then on out, they only emitted hot air. To make matters worse, the cloth covering on the interior roof seemed to be bubbling in the heat, causing it to suddenly sag and drape against Dakota’s head as he drove. He kept swatting at it, more and more unnerved with its constant touch and the sweat dripping from his pores.
“This is not how I wanted things to go,” he muttered, finally reaching the distributor’s warehouse and slamming the car in park.
“Hey!” Sadie shouted. “Easy! I’m so sorry Stella isn’t up to your standards, but let's remember to treat her with some respect.”
“Sadie. I respect you. I do not respect your hunk o’ junk car. And,” he pointed at her forehead, “I’d probably take you more seriously if you weren’t sweatin’ bullets and your hair didn’t look like it was wilting like a sad flower in this hot box of torture you call Stella.”
He whipped open his door and stepped into the Florida heat, which somehow felt less imposing than his previous situation. Once Sadie—again—wrapped Gus in his ridiculous leash and adjusted the shorts and tank top stuck to her body, they marched, silent and soggy, into the building.
Only after they’d gotten the coffee beans for Good Start and checked the task off their proverbial list did they agree to grab dinner before reaching the hotel, then parted ways for the night. And Dakota was left to contemplate how awry the day had gone while basking in a cold shower to wash it all away.
The Paradise Strawberry Festival boasted online—and on countless billboards for the fifty miles prior to arriving at the tiny city—bold statements like: A Fragrant and Fun Festival, Celebrating Delicious Berries Abundant, A Berry Good Time, and World’s Largest Strawberry.
He’d known Sadie would love the festival and only had it confirmed when Sadie squealed with delight each time she saw one of the signs, barely keeping her bottom in the seat as she bounced in excitement.
“Can we stop, Kota? Please?!” she begged after the first sign, biting her full-lipped smile and looking at him with all the hope in the world.
“I think we better. Berries Abundant… We can’t miss that.”
On day two of their journey, sweating with the lack of AC—and precariously close to heat stroke—but still committed to another full day in the slowly dying car, Dakota knew he’d do anything to keep that bright smile on Sadie’s face.
But now that they had nearly arrived at their first destination of the day—a tiny blip on the map starred as Paradise, GA—Dakota was beginning to doubt this part of his plan. The place was in the middle of nowhere. He worried sweet and sturdy Stella, the little car that couldn’t, would finally give up on her Sugartree life and settle down in this berry paradise, leaving them stranded.
They drove past rows and rows of pecan orchards, brimming with bright green leaves. Then even more wide-spread cotton fields, not yet blooming, as far as the eye could see. Dakota aimed them towards Paradise and loved seeing the excitement brewing in Sadie, bouncing in her seat as they drove down Main Street, where every home along the road seemed to have a sign advertising the Strawberry Festival. Poster boards pegged into the dirt advertising the event began to pop up every few hundred feet.
1 Mile Up… Just Yonder… Past the Primary, Ya Can’t Miss It… Berries Awaitin’...
Briefly stuck behind a tractor hauling hay at twelve miles per hour, they had all the time in the world to read each hand-painted poster.
When they reached the town's single, four-way intersection, bracketed by a small park, public library, police station, and an antique shop named Peddler’s Paradise, the top of a giant strawberry came into view.
“Well, this is not what I expected,” Dakota said, pulling into the gravel parking lot of a run down, giant strawberry, cement house. The paint had long ago chipped away, so that it looked more like a white and faintly red-speckled, strawberry hat on top of the building.
“They made it sound so whimsical,” Sadie whispered.
“It's definitely haunted.”
She slapped his arm. “It looks… quaint.”
“Quaint is a word Southern ladies use instead of sayin’ lame, Sadie. So, yes, this is so very, very quaint. Those signs back there should have said, Berry Spooky.”
“Likely Desserted… Get it? Like dessert?”
“Yeah, Edwin. I got it.” Why did she always have to be so adorable?
She shivered and blew out a breath. “Look at the sand pit.”
Both their heads turned in the direction of a giant lot of sand framed by faintly painted, red Adirondack chairs, where a single child rolled around with zero supervision. Dakota shook his head, knowingly.
“Like I said, haunted.”
Sadie giggled and strapped Gus to his leash. “Come on, Wade. Me and Gus want ice cream.”
“I’m not givin’ that lactose intolerant cat ice cream. He smells bad enough as it is.”
They hopped out and were greeted by an actual, living human—likely the kid’s mom—as she hollered from inside the strawberry for him to “run on home for some lunch for their visitors.”
Dakota wrapped his arm around Sadie and pulled her close—taking quick mental note of her lack of squirming—and whispered close, “Please don’t make me eat whatever that sandy kid brings back for lunch.”
Sadie laughed his favorite laugh and, to Dakota’s absolute pleasure, wrapped her arm around his middle, dragging him forward. “You got this, Remillard. Strawberries and ice cream…”
“And ghosts.”
“Sure. And ghosts.”
Perfectly timed clouds moved over the sun bearing down on them, only making the heat more oppressive as it fought to shine through the cloud coverage. They ordered impressively-sized strawberry cones and far more baskets of strawberries than Dakota thought necessary, or possible, to eat. But Sadie insisted his sisters would love them, and he couldn’t hitch together a single argument to her logic—or any logic—once he saw her put her mouth to a single strawberry. So he complied, paid, and followed her to the giant litter box where Gus promptly relieved himself, then settled at her feet.
“This isn’t so bad, right?” she asked, licking her cone and doing a happy dance in her seat.
“Sitting in a sand pit next to a giant piece of cement fruit? Oh yeah, it’s a Berry Grood Time,” he answered, slurping his own ice cream. “If you’re happy, I’m happy, Edwin.”
Using each of her feet, Sadie flipped off her shoes and socks and buried her toes in the sand.
“I’m happy,” she said, locking eyes with him over the top of her giant pink cone.
“Y’all want some egg salad sandwiches?!” A child’s voice interrupted their stare, startling Gus, who hissed and ran in circles around the pit until Dakota chased him and managed to throw his foot on the end of the leash, stopping the surprisingly agile cat in his tracks.
“How you run that fast at your size is a scientific mystery. You should be studied, man,” Dakota said, out of breath and sweating even more than he had been.
Gus hissed and flailed, scratching down Dakota’s arms as he tried to pacify him using every insane trick he’d seen his mother perform for the beast. Gentle cooing. Rubbing his oversized belly from left to right—not right to left—as he discovered too late. And then, to Dakota’s utter humiliation, he tried singing the first Dolly Parton song he could think of, since his mama loved to proclaim Dolly as Gus Gus’ favorite.
“Are you singing Islands in the Stream… to the cat?” Sadie brushed up beside him and took Gus without preamble or struggle.
“I’m not proud, Sadie.”
“Clearly,” she joked, then tucked Gus into her arms with ease.
“Now, how in the heavens did you do that?” Dakota showed her his forearms, “I’ve got battle scars, and y’all are cuddlin’!”
“Ya just need the right touch, Kota.” She smirked and sang, “Tender love is fine, it requires a dedication…”
“Tender love is BLIND, it requires dedication… It’s blind, Sadie.” Thunder rolled in the distance. Likely the Lord warning Sadie not to sing the wrong words to a Kenny and Dolly classic. “Ya gotta get Dolly right, girl.”
She waved her hand dismissively at him. “Whatever. Fine. Blind. Same thing. Makes no difference. Just don’t manhandle him.”
“Right. Because Gus is so gentle.”
Another boom of thunder shook the air as more clouds rolled over.
“Looks like you won’t have to eat that sweet boy’s sandwiches after all,” Sadie said, studying the darkening sky.
“What boy?” Dakota raised his eyebrows up and down with mischief. He’d seen the boy scatter into the cement strawberry at the first sound of thunder, but it sure did help his ghost theory.
“You’re crazy, Dakota Remillard.”
“And you love it, Sadie Edwin.” He winked but didn’t catch the displeasure he’d expected. Sadie merely shook her head, a perfect, almost shy, grin lighting her face as the deluge threatened overhead.
They sprinted to the car, settled Gus and their countless bushels of strawberries in the back seat, then once again fought to try and get Sadie’s window to raise up and stay put. Just then, the rain hit in a downpour, rather than a sprinkle, pounding into the car loudly, and Dakota silently questioned whether Stella could withstand the beating.
“Just scootch to my side for a minute!” Dakota yelled over the storm and dashed around the car, opening Sadie’s door wide to raise the window by hand, pulling it with his fingertips and then his palms until it reached the top and blessedly stayed there. Rain poured in until he hopped in and slammed the door shut. The window rattled but stayed.
“Whew. Sure am glad Stella is… what did you call her?”
“Strong and sure.”
“That’s right. She sure is, Edwin.” He nipped a strawberry from the back and settled into her seat to eat one, drenched and out of breath from the exertion. “Not sure if we’ll be able to drive for long in this downpour if the storm keeps up. The weather channel this mornin’ said it’d be a good one. Supposed to rain for a few days. Wanna switch spots, and I’ll get us outta here while we can?”
They carefully maneuvered around one another. A game of car Twister. Or more like Operation, as Dakota prudently attempted not to touch Sadie.
Touch her and you lose, Kota.
Once settled on her side, Sadie grabbed a strawberry and rested her feet on the dash. “Good thing we have Berries Abundant,” she quipped happily, biting into the ripe strawberry.
Dakota put the car in drive but glared at her legs until she removed them from the dash.
“It was fragrant and fun,” he said, peeling out of the gravel lot and heading to their next destination.