Chapter 25 #2
I hate how far away you are and wonder if ever I’ll see your beautiful face again. How can I prove myself to your father when he hates everything about me from the color of my skin to my prospects for the future? We’re doomed, my love, yet you have my heart and that will never change.
Whoa. I have to stop, take a breath.
I also look at the envelope. Sent from A. Chen in New York City to Millie Anderson in San Francisco. The letter I’m reading isn’t dated, but I can just barely make out the postmark: 1958.
My mind whirls in a hundred directions. Why did Millie’s family move?
How old were Millie and ... A? I stop and look ahead—Andrew was his name.
Did they ever get together? Did they get past her father’s prejudice?
And if not ... where did they end up? And with whom?
Did either of them ever find happiness with someone else?
My afternoon is lost in Andrew’s words. I spend hours reading his every letter to Millie.
I don’t have her responses, of course, but the fact that these still exist means she loved him, too.
The next time I’m able to, I’ll google around to see if by some miracle I can find out anything about them.
But right now, I’m drawn into the heartbreak of their love, the distance between them, and all the devotion Andrew spills onto the pages of his love letters.
This is why I keep up walls and wear armor.
Heartbreak. It’s all around. It’s here for Millie and Andrew.
It’s at the Last Chance Café in Joy Lynn’s haunted eyes.
If I stop this thing with Matt now, I’ll never have to know heartbreak.
It’ll just be a very pleasant memory of that police chief I lived next door to for a few months, who was so different from me, but who made me laugh, and made me feel pretty and normal when I started out just the opposite, and how we had that one amazing night together that made me feel . .. whole again.
He’s made me feel whole again. That’s being dramatic about it, admittedly, but ... it’s true.
So maybe I’m wrong about the stupid armor?
Maybe I’m actually better off as a bendable, swaying little willow tree?
Maybe it’s better to risk complications and heartache and God knows what else than to .
.. feel nothing, experience nothing, and walk through life standing tall and . .. a little bit empty inside?
The truth is, I don’t know the answer to that question. There’s a lot to be said for keeping oneself safe from harm.
As a result, I decide to eat ice cream for dinner and just see what tomorrow brings.
The next day is bright and hot and clear.
I make a long-haul Walmart run to Hazard, and while I’m there, I buy a simple sundress in a calico print and a second flowy sleeveless dress that falls past my knees and feels sort of easy and breezy to me.
Just for everyday wear when I’m in the mood.
I’ve never been much of a casual dress wearer—for me, dresses have always been tailored and professional-looking for on-air presentation.
But the one I wore the other night felt good on my body, and maybe I’m ready to change things up a little.
I also didn’t wear my hat. Easier because I was going to Hazard, where no one knows me or would think: Oh, hey, Jessica isn’t wearing a hat.
The anonymity felt good, and no one blinked twice.
I guess that means my little helmet of brown hair isn’t just a helmet anymore—it’s actual hair.
Very short hair, but presentable hair just the same.
I put on the easy-breezy dress when I get home.
It’s a mellow but uplifting shade of blue that’s almost periwinkle, and I feel like wearing it, even only to police the Martian heads, water the petunias, and read a book on the back porch.
I’ve finished the JoAnn Ross novel and moved on to another on Mabel’s shelves—one by Robyn Carr that sucked me in immediately.
When dinnertime comes, I cut up a Mr. Freeman tomato, then shred a carrot with a peeler and tear up a head of lettuce for a salad.
Sometimes I still buy my salad in a bag, but I’ve learned that other times I actually like handling the fresh food myself, turning it from one thing into another.
It has the same satisfying effect that deadheading the snapdragons does to create more flowers.
Speaking of which, I have so many new blooms!
The deadheading is paying off big-time, and while I was in Hazard, where they have a decent internet connection, I posted a few pictures of my beloved blossoms online.
Life isn’t all about lost items—I still want to show people things I’m finding along the way, too.
When a light rap comes on my back window, I look up from where I’m washing dishes to see none other than the police chief next door against the backdrop of an electric-pink sunset. He’s gripping a bottle of wine by the neck and casting me a hopeful look. My heart flutters unexpectedly.
I hold up a finger, turn off the water, wipe my hands on a dish towel.
“Hey,” I say, stepping outside a minute later with two wineglasses.
“I like the dress,” he tells me, starting to pour while I hold.
“I was in the mood for a change,” I explain, “so I picked up a couple of things at Walmart.”
He glances up at me, clearly amused. “You’ve never struck me as a woman who updates her wardrobe at Walmart.”
Funny, because I’ve worn mostly simple summer tops and shorts for the entire time he’s known me—not exactly haute couture. But maybe I give off a vibe that goes beyond that. Maybe it’s the fedora. “I’m not,” I confess. “But when in Rome ...”
This makes him laugh.
“Want the pie you missed the other night?” I ask. “I still have some. Chocolate cream.”
He pats his stomach through his T-shirt. “All these wine-and-dessert dates are startin’ to add up on the scale. But it’s worth it, so yeah, I’ll have the pie.”
Dates. Worth it. I take in all his word choices as I go inside and cut the last chunk of pie into two healthy slices.
But then I try not to examine it all too much.
Because who am I kidding? Of course they’re dates.
The Lost and Found version of dinner and a movie.
Just simpler, slower, like everything is here.
“Did you get your meth addict under control that night?” I ask as I hand him the pie, careful not to spill it on him this time and happy when we’re both in rocking chairs unscathed.
“Yeah, got the situation resolved,” he answers, even if it comes out sounding discouraged.
“Much as it can be. I mean, the girl’s still an addict.
And Scooter and Betty are never gonna feel quite as safe in their own home again.
So it’s awful. But it’s the best we can do.
And now that we’re gettin’ better laws in place about narcotics, we’re finally creatin’ less addicts, and at least in my jurisdiction we’re seein’ a big drop in incidents. ”
“I was surprised to discover that even Lost and Found has an ugly underbelly. I’d really started to think it was all blue skies and blackberries here.”
“No words,” he tells me, “for how much I hate drugs. Seein’ what they do to people firsthand ...” He stops, shakes his head.
“Well, I’m glad it’s gotten better.” I bite my lip. “But I ... shouldn’t be worried, should I? That someone’s going to just walk into my house?” In the city, I lock the door anytime I’m going farther than my own yard, but here I haven’t been as careful. Particularly when I walk to the winery.
Matt gives a quick shake of his head. “Not much deters an addict, but most folks around here know where the police chief lives, even the users. If I thought you were in any danger whatsoever, I’d be standin’ guard at your door.”
I take that in and, despite myself, like the protectiveness. I’m so accustomed to having to protect myself . And silly as it may seem, I proceed to eat my pie feeling a little bit safer in the world for having Matthew Cordray sitting next to me.
“How’s your Dollywood shirt?” I ask. “Did it survive?”
“Haven’t done the laundry yet,” he tells me. “But either way, that was worth it, too.”
I look away because his sexy grin is moving all through me, and it feels different now that we’ve had sex—more intense, slicing directly to my core.
He’s wearing the ugliest T-shirt I’ve ever seen on him—white with the words “Great Smoky Mountains” in navy blue above an equally navy-blue bear in silhouette.
Yet the main thing I notice is how well it fits him—not muscle-guy tight, but just right.
It hugs his shoulders where it should; it fits his chest in a way that reminds me how much I liked kissing it.
I consider defusing my own reaction by teasing him about the shirt, telling him maybe I should have crammed a piece of pie into that one.
But I’m uneasy, torn, and decide maybe it’s better not to bring up the whole pie-spilling incident, because that would also be bringing up the whole sex-having incident.
We talk for a while about random things.
“I didn’t realize Grace had trouble getting around until the other night.
” “Samantha’s comin’ home in a few weeks—can’t wait to wrap her up in a big bear hug.
” “Did you see the snapdragons? I do believe I single-handedly saved the flower garden.” “Sky’s clear tonight—ton of stars out.
” And on and on the conversation goes until the pie is gone and the wine bottle’s empty.
Things have turned easier. Okay, I’m still aware of his body next to me, still remembering kissing it, and I’m still taking in the deep timbre of his voice and the stubble on his jaw in a whole new way—but it puts me at ease that we’re not talking about it.
Setting my empty glass aside, I stand up and walk to the edge of the porch, lean against a wooden post, and take in the stars. “You’re right,” I say, gazing upward. “So many. I can’t see the stars at all where I live.”
“How come?” he asks.
“Light pollution. I’m directly across the river from downtown Cincinnati.”
“Damn, I’d hate not being able to see stars.”
I’m still peering up at them, taking in the vast numbers, as I blow out a sigh.
“It’s like anything else, I guess. You don’t realize what you don’t have.
” I glance over at him. “I’d almost forgotten.
About the stars. That they could look like this, that the sky could seem so full of them.
My dad and I used to sit in lawn chairs in the yard on summer nights and eat ice cream.
He knew some of the constellations and could even point them out. ”
“Do you have that same skill?” Matt asks.
I’m still studying the star-studded cosmos, trying to figure that out myself.
“I might see the Big Dipper,” I tell him, squinting a little.
Then, talking to myself as much as to him, I remember out loud, “And if I follow the dipper’s handle, that should lead me to Cassiopeia, which is a big W in the sky.
” I tilt my head one way and then the other. “And I ... maybe see it?”
Matt gets up, comes to stand behind me. “Show me.”
I turn my head to find his face close to mine. Like the other night, I can smell the manliness of him. It makes me feel like an animal in the wild, suddenly responding to scent this way. But I look back to the starlit expanse above us and try to point it out.
Problem being, when there are a million stars in the sky, I’m not sure how to help him differentiate between them all, and I’m saying, “It’s a dipper, like a ladle of sorts.” I’m pointing up to where I think it is, but the truth is that I’m not sure.
What I am sure of, though, is that even though we’re not touching, I feel him there, like we’re touching. An electric current sizzles in the bit of space between us. And it’s getting hard to take.
“Not sure I see it,” he says. “My dad used to study that stuff, too, but I wasn’t good at seein’ it then, either. Mostly I just think all those stars are awesome to look at.”
I nod. “They are.”
We stand there like that, silent, taking them in, the billions of pinpoint lights that remind us how mind-blowingly enormous the universe is.
“I’m tryin’ to leave,” he announces abruptly.
I swing my head around to look at him. He’s still so, so close. I can practically taste him. “Huh?”
He lets out a big sigh, drops his gaze to mine, but then shifts it back to the sky.
“It’s clear to me you’re not sure what you want—when it comes to you and me.
So I’m tryin’ not to be some pushy creep who keeps tryin’ to get you into bed again.
I came over here just ... wantin’ to see ya.
And now I’m figurin’ it’s time I say goodnight. But ...”
I pull in my breath. “But?”
“It’s hard to make myself go.”
“Why?”
“You know why. Because I want you.”
Now I blow that breath out, my chest tight with lust and confusion.
Maybe I wish he would persuade me a little, even if that’s un-PC.
Maybe I don’t want to have to make the decision on my own.
Since maybe the decision scares me. I don’t recognize this person who’s so .
.. willowy, bending first one way and then the other.
Usually I know what I want. When it’s about sex and romance, sometimes it’s the wrong choice, but I don’t normally hesitate to take control of the situation—until now.
Though I have to, I suppose. Because he’s being a gentleman, doing the right thing.
So I guess all I can do is ... follow what my body ... and my heart ... are telling me.
I lower both hands to my sides, then reach back to find his, pulling them up around my waist until he’s hugging me from behind.
We stay that way a moment, and I have to bite my lip when I feel the hardness of him pressing into me.
“Does this mean,” he whispers in my ear, his breath warm on my neck, “that you like standin’ here lookin’ at the stars with me ... or that you want me, too?”
“Both,” I whisper back.