20. Court
20
COURT
T he moment I ask the question, I know it’s the wrong one.
Lucy’s happy expression dissolves. She pokes at her food with her fork.
I decide to pivot. “Never mind. It’s fine. How’s Matilda holding up?”
Lucy bites her lip, but she answers. “She’s good. She likes the mist.”
I regret trying to make small talk. This is why I don’t have women over. Or anyone over. I’m shit at this.
The room rings with the sounds of our silverware stabbing the plates in the silence.
I scoot my chair back, planning to make an excuse to hole up in my bedroom.
But Lucy speaks, so low that I almost don’t hear her. “It was my Grandma BeeBee.”
I lean forward. “BeeBee?”
“Her real name was Beatrice, but I couldn’t pronounce that when I was little.”
“Cute.”
“She was my father’s mother. She had a small farm. It had been bigger, back when my grandfather was alive, but she’d sold off pieces of it every few years so she could pay the taxes on the part she lived on.”
Lucy’s face relaxes as she talks about this woman.
“She grew most everything she ate. She had goats.” Lucy’s smile grows wide as she remembers the good parts. “And a cow, also named Beatrice. Always. Lots of different cows I remember, and they were always Beatrice.”
“Her little joke?”
“She was very self-deprecating.” Lucy takes a long drink of water, and I’m mesmerized by the movements of her long, tender throat.
“You two were close?”
She nods. “I practically lived over there. We grew plants. Pickled and preserved everything from jam to radishes.”
“Was your dad not like her?”
Lucy shakes her head. “Not in the least. It’s like he tried to be the opposite. I was the only one in the family who felt the same as she did about the earth.”
“She sounds special.” I don’t want to ask if she’s around. It’s clear she’s not.
Lucy confirms it. “She was. She died while I was in college. My father had Beatrice the Eighth cut into steaks and put BeeBee’s farm on the market to be sold to a strip mall developer.”
I sit up. “He didn’t ask if you wanted it?”
“He’s a commercial real estate agent. BeeBee’s farm was probably a real feather in his cap.”
Now her eyes glisten.
“Oh, Lucy. I’m sorry. Did it get built?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I refuse to drive out there and look. It’s outside Louisville. I can’t bear to see it. I want to remember it as it was.”
“I passed through that area last year. There’s farmland out there.”
“But the city was encroaching.” She returns to dragging her fork through the casserole.
I run the back of my hand over my beard. So, this is her fallout with her parents. “What about your mom?”
“She’s a petroleum engineer!” Lucy’s lips press tightly together. “It’s like he married someone as far from BeeBee as he could get!”
“Were you vegetarian when you were a kid?”
“As soon as I could protest. Age six or so. They went to great lengths to fool me. Grinding up meat and mixing it in my soups. Lying about the ingredients in pretty much everything. It’s like they thought I was judging them for eating meat. I don’t care who eats meat. I just don’t want to. The farm was the last resort.”
“Did you ask your dad about buying it yourself?”
“I begged him to hold onto it until I got a job. I would pay for it. I would find a way. But he didn’t want me living out there. He wanted me to have a big-city job, like my brother. I was majoring in finance because that’s what he would help me pay for.”
Another mystery explained. “What does your brother do?”
Lucy shakes her head, setting her fork down. “He’s a crypto, blockchain, tech bro.”
“And Dad is proud?”
“Totally. He thinks he’s cutting edge.”
“When was the last time you talked to them?”
“Graduation. I didn’t invite them, but they showed up anyway.”
“How long was that after BeeBee…”
“Her funeral? About four months. When I first saw them there, I was stupidly hopeful, like maybe he’d give me the deed to her farm as a graduation gift.”
“And he didn’t.”
“He offered me a job at his company! Buying and selling more strip malls!” She pushes a hunk of hair behind her ear. “I took off. I didn’t answer their calls. And I never took a job in finance.”
“Have you been living in a yurt all this time?”
“No. I lived with April and Summer until I got Matilda. In school, I had an internship as a clerk in a small accounting office, and I stayed there awhile after graduation. But then I got tired of being around people who worried so much about money. So I left and added more yoga classes to my roster.”
“And then you came to the Castle Hotel for New Year’s Eve.”
“And then I met you. Yes.”
I sip my water. “Hard to say which of these events was the most impactful.”
“Oh, you, by a long shot. There has never been three minutes of my time that was more life changing.”
“Three minutes!” I sit up. “What are you talking about? We were in that room for hours!”
She laughs at that, and despite the insult, I’m relieved to see her recovering from talking about hard things.
“You are too easy to tweak, Court Armstrong. But the most critical part was maybe thirty seconds.”
“You think the condom was defective?”
“Did anything seem wrong with it when you took it off?”
I think back. I remember pulling out of her and grabbing a Kleenex from a box on the side table. “I didn’t inspect it. Did you feel extra juicy?”
She bites her lip again. “I was, uh, pretty wet already.”
My dick stirs at that. “I seem to recall that.”
“It was pretty hot, the whole thing.”
“It was.”
She fiddles with the linen napkin in her lap. “I don’t usually do things like that.”
“And here we are.”
“Here we are.” She meets my gaze, and I wonder if she’s thinking about that night. I sure as hell am.
She’s not far. I could reach out and touch her easily. Run my fingers up her arm. Tangle them in her hair. Bring her face to mine.
I’m already cock-deep in the memory of her at the doctor’s office, naked, glowing, round and soft. My hands twitch with the need to travel over the mound of her belly.
She’s here. We could test this thing. See what else there might be.
We stare at each other. Is she leaning in? What can we even do? Would sex hurt the baby? Does she want that?
Would it complicate things?
I’m on the verge of reaching for her, when she blurts, “I appreciate you letting me stay nearby until the baby is born. I understand you need proof.”
Right, proof.
I wait a second, see if we can slide back into the magic, but she’s looking away, her foot tapping anxiously on the floor.
The moment has passed. I probably imagined it. “It’s fine. We’ll get you situated on a farm again once that big expo or whatever is over.”
“Caroline invited me to that.”
“Did you want to go?”
“I did, but I couldn’t go with her knowing about the operation at the back of her farm.”
That makes sense. “What do you want, Lucy? How do you see this playing out?”
Her brows draw together. “I don’t know.”
“You must have had some idea as you were traveling several days to get here.”
Her laugh is rueful. “I think I was just trying to get from moment to moment during that. But I wondered what it would be like to meet you again. I remembered you as being gruff.”
I kick back in my chair. “I’ve been told that.”
“What makes Court so salty?”
Not going there.
I stand and pick up my plate. “You want more? Are you done?”
She scoots the plate closer to me.
I take both of them to the sink to rinse them.
She keeps sitting at the table. I don’t normally do anything with my dishes. I have so few of them that I leave them for Maggie to handle. I’m not even sure how to turn the dishwasher on.
There’s salad in the bowl and casserole in the dish. I should cover them with something and store it. Plastic wrap? No, Lucy will protest. I should have aluminum foil. Maybe.
Lucy walks over. “I’ll handle this.”
“There are no gender roles here.”
“No, but there’s competence and incompetence.”
I’m about to make a gruff retort, but I stop myself. She’s right. “I don’t eat here very often. But my mother made us wash dishes. I know how to do that.”
“Good.” She turns on the water and closes the drain. “Find a clean dish towel, and you can dry.”
I open drawers, relieved we’ve found our way beyond another impasse.
Life sure looks different from what it was a week ago.
I guess I can make some sort of effort.