Chapter 22
Dear July,
I didn’t mean to write about that. I meant to do my usual thing where I tell you that I miss you so much it feels like my heart is being ripped out. Then I meant to ask you again how you’re doing, and then I meant to beg you again to write me back. I’m sorry. I’m feeling really, really bad tonight. I really need you to write, July. Please.
Joe
“Hey, Joe. Whatcha doin’?”
A big family-sized van slows beside me, and a grinning Maisie waves out a back window. Sam and Meg and David and the three younger kids look at me with interest too.
“Want a ride?” David must’ve hit some button inside because the side door slides open.
Maisie unbuckles her safety belt and scoots around the seat to join Julian and Ruby in the wayback, making room for me.
“Thanks.” I hop in, stow the plastic bags I’m carrying, and fasten the belt so as not to be a bad example.
We’ve only got three blocks to go, but I’m glad for the ride. It’s a scorcher out. Probably wasn’t smart of me to try carrying fifteen pounds of raw meat in this heat, even if it was only a seven-block walk.
The younger kids are so excited at the prospect of swimming that Meg has to raise her voice, laughing, to make sure they all put sunscreen on before they got in the van.
It’s Sunday and a perfect day for a pool party. Rose had pounded on my door Friday at lunchtime, and when I answered she handed me four grocery bags full of raw sirloins and ground beef. “The Sam and Maisie support group meeting has been moved to our house Sunday. Three o’clock. This is your contribution.” When I peeked into the bags at the meat, she added, “July says you were great on the grill at the steakhouse and that you’re a genius at seasonings now.” She waved her hand at the bags. “Do something with that, will you? Marinate it or dry rub it or whatever. Angus says you’ll be helping him grill it Sunday.”
She was gone before I even got a word out.
So I did my thing with the meat, and then yesterday I went to the farmer’s market in Asheville and came home with a beautiful selection of peppers and onions and mushrooms which are now ready for grilling along with the meat. And a few minutes ago, I loaded it all back into bags and set out for Angus and Rose’s.
July had pointed their house out to me on one of our runs. It’s an immaculately kept little Victorian just a few blocks off the square. Apparently Rose and Angus fell in love when she hired him to do renovations. “They have me to thank for that.” July flashed me that grin that melts my knees. “I recommended him to her. So yay me!”
We haven’t run since the last softball game. At first she claimed soreness from our collision with the trash can, but by last night I was pretty sure she was coming up with reasons to avoid me.
I won’t pretend that doesn’t hurt.
Maybe today I can show her it’s okay, I get it, we’re just friends. If I act normal enough—polite without being too friendly, disinterested without being rude—maybe I can at least have my running buddy back.
Or maybe for the next twenty years, we’ll avoid each other except for the occasional can’t-skip gathering like this one.
She’s in Rose’s kitchen when we get there, the two of them laughing over some joke we just missed. Rose is stirring a bowl of corn and black bean and tomato salsa. July is moving what looks like cheesy potato puffs from Tupperware containers onto baking sheets.
“We can just pop these into the oven a few minutes before we’re ready—” She breaks off when she sees me, but Meg and David’s family streams in with Sam and Maisie, everybody carrying some kind of food, before an awkward silence can form.
“Joe, Angus is outside.” Rose waves me to the back door.
I step out into an area that could be straight out of a magazine. “Wow.” A lattice-shaded flagstone patio stretches across the back of the house, leading to a big in-ground pool surrounded by flagstones surrounded by beautiful plantings surrounded by privacy fencing. It’s like a private tropical resort.
“Like it? Rosie designed it and we did it all ourselves, except for the pool.” Angus steps out from behind the grill and surveys the yard.
“Nice!” I guess I’d look satisfied if I built paradise with the love of my life too. But I’m not going to think about that today. I hold up the bags. “Meat.”
He takes one and peers inside, sniffing. “What’d you do to it?”
“Magic.”
He snorts and leads me over to the grill. “You’ll be in charge, but I’m going to stand here with you and look busy.”
His reason becomes clear as the back door bursts open and the kids race out, Sam and Maisie behind them warning, “Don’t run near the pool!”
Another minute and David comes out too. He keeps one eye on the kids, who have shed their T-shirts. Julian and Melly are navigating the stairs at the shallow end, but Ruby’s having none of that. She does a cannonball that splashes everybody within range.
David closes his eyes, tips his head back, and laughs. “Want me to put up the net?”
Angus shakes his head. “Give ’em a few minutes to get some of that energy out. Then I’ll help you.” He points at a big cooler in the shade. “Help yourselves. Plenty of soda and beer in there. Cans. We don’t bring glass out here.”
The women come out then. They root through the cooler for drinks, then settle on lounge chairs on the far side of the pool, pulling off their swimsuit cover-ups and passing around a jumbo tube of sunscreen.
July’s suit makes me want to smile and cry at the same time. It’s not revealing and it’s very practical—a snug tank with skinny straps and drawstring shorts with dolphins on them—but her silky skin begs for my mouth and hands. Maybe a little bit of teeth. I have to force my eyes away from her as she smooths on the lotion.
“You look like you need a cold one,” Angus mutters as he and David step around me to set up the net for water volleyball.
Christ. He’s not wrong. I fish out a Fat Tire from the cooler and try to look busy at the grill. “How long before you want us to eat, Rose?”
“Give the kids a few minutes before you start grilling. Don’t wanna have to pull them out of the pool right away.” She raises her Coke to me in an air-toast.
Angus comes back over when everyone else gets in the pool for a quick volleyball game. After a few minutes, I put the meat on the grill and try not to be too obvious about where my attention really is.
“Jesus, dude, just ask her out.” Angus’s low rumble lets me know I failed.
“Nah, man, she…” I shake my head. “Just nah.”
“Why the hell not? Why waste time?” He sounds genuinely curious.
“She’s not interested. I thought maybe she was…but I was wrong.” Don’t know why I’m telling him this.
He frowns a little, his eyes on the way I’ve arranged the meat on the grill. “Did you actually ask her?”
“No, but I…” Huh. No, I did not. “Sorta.”
He cocks one brow at me. “You’ve had something with her in the past. There’s still some thing between you.”
“Something. Yeah.”
“And you want something more.” He cocks his other brow.
I just stare back at him.
“We’re not kids anymore. Just ask her.” He glances toward the pool. “She’s it, right? Your person?”
I don’t give permission but my head’s nodding anyway. Reluctantly.
“Don’t waste a minute of that, man.” His eyes are on Rose.
She seems to feel it. Looks over, gives him a little wave and a brilliant smile. And the giant, scary dude beside me melts. His whole face softens and he smiles back at her.
What the fuck am I doing?
***
July
When Joe and I got together the first time, everything seemed so easy. He asked me out not long after he started working at the steakhouse. We spent time together every day—usually at the lake, talking for hours—for two full weeks before he even kissed me. I hadn’t really had a boyfriend before that, so I didn’t have any expectations. Didn’t even recognize all my feelings. But after that first kiss, it seemed more natural to be touching each other than not. We never stopped talking; we just did it with our arms around each other.
But Joe’s disappearance not only broke me; it made me question everything. And now everything between us feels mixed up and confusing. Are we friends? Are we not? Can we even be friends? Is there any hope for anything more between us?
I do a pretty good job, in a totally middle school kind of way, of not staring at him when he’s over at the grill. But then, when all the food’s ready and Rose calls everyone over to start fixing their plates, Joe wipes sweat from his forehead, glances at the pool, and then quietly moves toward the water as he pulls off his shirt.
His board shorts hang low on his lean hips, and I see that my instincts were right. He’s filled out some across his chest and shoulders. Not a lot, just…enough.
And now when I look at him, I know exactly what lust feels like, exactly what I’d like to do with him—slowly and thoroughly with my mouth, my hands—and exactly how I’d hope he’d respond.
But now I have trouble remembering how it was so easy to touch and talk and laugh and feel confident and comfortable all at once. I’m not sure I can do that anymore.
So when, after swimming silently halfway across the pool underwater, he comes up for air, slicks his hair back, and finds me with his burning eyes, I blink away, moving to the kitchen door as if I actually have some thought of food at this moment.
I don’t think I’ve been hungry since he’s been back. I have no idea how many meals I’ve skipped without realizing it until my head starts to hurt. It’s not on purpose this time, but it scares the hell out of me. I can only seem to focus on one thing at a time. Any more makes me drop the self-care ball. Or the work ball. Or both.
I’m still pretending not to notice him—that’s how mature I am—an hour later as we’re eating Italian ice and popsicles in the shade. He’s still shirtless, sprawled in a chair with a grape popsicle, admiring a sketch Sam made of the kids jumping into the pool. But I am so not noticing.
“Maisie, Sam.” Meg starts off the conversation, our reason for being here today. “You’re still wanting to apply for emancipation next week, right, after you hit your six-month milestone here, Maisie?”
Maisie nods. “Yes. Sam too, at the same time. We’ve been reading all about it.”
Meg looks at me.
My cue. I lean forward. “Joe and I want to help you guys with that. Remember the lawyer you met at that meeting at the restaurant? We want to hire her to help you make the best possible case.”
Maisie and Sam look from me to Joe, who nods.
Rose goes next. “Angus would like to look the cabin over to see how we can make it sturdier or more weatherproof for you. He’d check the roof and the wiring, make sure there’s nothing weak structurally. And I’d like to fix up a good study area for you. I understand you’ve been working and eating at an old folding table…?”
The kids nod.
David says, “The point is for everyone to respect you as adults. So it’s up to you, how much we help.”
Sam and Maisie look around the circle at each person’s face. The younger kids are silent, seeming to understand the seriousness of the moment.
Maisie leans over and says something softly in Sam’s ear. He nods, then replies too quietly for me to hear. Maisie squeezes his hand and looks at us all again. “We’d really appreciate your help. But we want to be able to give back.” She looks at Meg and David. “To you two too.”
Sam says, “We can babysit or paint or clean, or do yardwork or laundry. I can do a mural or sketch anything you’d like. So everybody think of something we can do for you.”
My vision blurs and I have to clear my throat. We’ve known these two are resourceful and mature, but this… Raised brows and tiny nods from around the circle. The others are as impressed as I am.
“Okay, then.” Joe reaches out with his bare foot and shoves Sam’s knee gently. “Well done.”
“I know what I’d like.” Rose’s eyes are bright. “Ever weed a vegetable garden?”
Soon she’s got Maisie and Sam over near the tomatoes, pointing at the ground and answering Maisie’s questions about growing produce.
“You think we could put in something like this up at the lake?”
Rose shrugs. “Probably, if you’ve got a sunny spot and good soil.”
Sam and Maisie exchange a glance and a nod. Another challenge they’ll meet together.
I’m so proud of them.
I swipe at my eyes, hoping no one’s noticed my sentimentality. How is it that some people—Maisie, Sam, Joe—can rise above massive obstacles at a really young age while others of us…can’t?
I admire that strength. That grit.
Wish I had that in me.
We clean up the dinner mess and get back in the pool for cutthroat volleyball. Well, as cutthroat as you can be when there’s a seven- and a nine-year-old playing. We make a rule that six-foot-four Angus has to stand flat-footed in his position. And another rule that only Ruby and Melly can spike the ball, which doesn’t stop the adults from lifting the little girls up high to spike. Eventually David puts one girl on his shoulders, and Joe puts the other one on his, which makes Julian laugh so hard that we’re all cracking up.
Rose and Meg argue that they too are short enough they ought to be able to sit on someone’s shoulders. Angus volunteers to loan them his trench coat. Says together they’d almost make one normal person. At which everyone hoots. “Honey,” Rose says, patting his arm, “nobody believes you’d have a trench coat.”
Through it all, I manage to keep my hands to myself, even when Joe’s smooth back is only a foot away. Even when his eyes crinkle and shine. Even when he’s making sweet kids laugh and clutch his hair and shriek in triumph at their first successful volleyball spike. And miraculously, even when he turns to me and includes me in that big crooked grin of his. Lord have mercy.
Then it’s getting dark and the bugs come out to feast on us and we’ve all worn each other out. I go inside to put my empty—I’d baked forty-eight cheesy potato puffs, and not a single one is left—Tupperware containers in a bag for the walk home. Meg and David offer me and Joe a ride, and heaven knows their van could transport a small army, but I thank them and tell them I’m up for a stroll.
Joe looks at them and then at me and says he’d like a stroll too.
And the next thing I know, I’m calling out, “Thanks!” and “Good night!” and letting myself out Rose and Angus’s front gate with the man who is temptation on two legs right behind me.