Chapter Twenty-Five Lily
I’m going to vomit,” says Mom the next morning. “I actually think I may puke.”
She leans against the back door of the cottage, pressing her arms against the screen like she’s physically holding it back from being barged open.
“What?” My voice is rusty with sleep, hands wrapped around my coffee cup as if in prayer. I made it in a groggy state a few moments ago with robotic precision: chilled espresso, ice, milk, cream. I kept thinking about the lyrics “Clouds in my coffee… clouds in my coffee.”
Henry texted me this morning. Hey, did I see you at The Box last night? Why didn’t you say hey? he wrote.
I haven’t responded, but the text unnerved me just the same. Why is he still reaching out? It’s over. It has to be over. I can see that now. No matter what any psychic has to say.
Mom’s face is red, and she begins to frantically move about the room, picking up a teapot and then immediately placing it back down, scooping crumbs into her hand, and then looking around dazed, as if suddenly uncertain where the trash can is.
“I mean, I didn’t think he’d be in there—I had no idea. ”
“What?” I repeat. “What are you talking about?”
“Tommy, of course!” she says, like I’m being intentionally obtuse. “I just walked in on him in the outdoor shower.” The redness across the ridge of her nose looks like a sunburn.
“You walked in on him showering?” I suppress a laugh, relieved that this is all that’s wrong. But then I remember what I saw last night: Thomas and Josie leaning in close at the karaoke bar. My smile drops.
Rose continues to busy herself, fanning her face with an oven mitt. “I mean, it’s not my fault, I was just trying to water the flowers, but I ran straight into him as he was exiting. His towel nearly fell off.”
Now I can’t help but giggle. Mom narrows her eyes.
“It’s not funny!” she says. “Poor Matilda was outside, watering her garden and heard my shriek. She could have had a heart attack.”
Matilda is an eighty-year-old widow who lives across the street. She and Lottie had a famously contemptuous relationship—Matilda always complaining that Lottie’s rosebushes were extending over the property line, Lottie complaining that Matilda had “a broom-sized stick up her ass.”
“Matilda probably got her binoculars out,” I say, still laughing.
I debate telling her about what I saw last night: Thomas and Josie together in the booth, evidently on a date. I start to speak but then chicken out. I don’t want to face her wrath. She’s already agitated. Maybe now isn’t the best time. Or maybe I’m just a coward.
“Do you think I should go next door and say something? Apologize?”
My brain is still slow, the coffee just beginning to work its magic. “To Matilda?”
Mom narrows her eyes even further. I’m impressed she can still see.
“No, obviously not. I mean to Tommy,” she whispers, nodding her head in the general direction of the guest quarters.
“I must have scared him. And I mean, it is his right to use the shower. I said he could in the welcome packet. But of course, that’s before I knew who the renter was… ”
She trails off, wringing her hands around a dish towel and looking out the window, torn. “I should apologize,” she decides. “It’s common courtesy.”
“Maybe wait until he’s clothed this time,” I say. Mom rolls her eyes. “But actually, what good would that do? I would just leave it alone.”
Thomas and Josie’s image from last night bobs back up to the surface of my brain: him leaning in, her throwing her head back laughing.
Their knees touching. I understand if he wants to move on from Rose after the disastrous wedding setup, but Josie is far too close to home.
I can’t believe he would do something so…
careless. It feels wildly out of character.
Rose is still staring out the window with an anxious expression. “No,” she says. “You’re right.” But her lips are pursed.
A knock startles us both, and I turn to see Thomas standing outside the screen door, hands behind his back, looking exceptionally polite.
Mom turns to me with frantic eyes and whispers, “Be cool.”
“Hi!” she says, smoothing her pink button-down when she opens the door. “What can I do for you?”
Thomas speaks in a calm, deliberate manner, but his cheeks are reddened, too. “I just want to apologize for a few moments ago. I didn’t know you were outside.”
Mom laughs too loud and waves the dish towel at him playfully. “Oh, that?” she says, trying for nonchalance. “That was nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
Thomas is now, mercifully, dressed in a plain white shirt and tan pants. His hair is still wet. When he nods his head, a few longer strands fall into his face. “Of course,” he says. “Again, my apologies, however. I’ll be more mindful in the future.”
They stand for a moment in silence, just staring at each other. The tension is a physical presence, weighing the air down. I half expect the clocks to start running backward, the stove to magically turn on.
Rose opens her mouth like she’s about to say something more, but then closes it, back to wringing the towel. The blush on Thomas’s face deepens, but he too stays silent.
I’m confused. I know my mom is with William and said that she and Thomas would never work, but looking at them now, it’s impossible to deny the pull. I’ve never seen anything like it. Rose is usually so composed, and yet here she is, speechless.
“Do you want to—I mean, no pressure, of course—but do you want to maybe come in for a coffee?”
Thomas’s eyes lift. He teeters on his feet, looking into our small, crowded kitchen like he’s just been invited to the White House.
“Are you sure? I mean, I wouldn’t want to intrude…”
“No! Not intruding at all, please. Come in.” She opens the screen door for him, but as he is about to enter, my father appears.
“Hey, Tommy boy!” he says. “It’s good to see you again, you handsome devil.”
If it’s possible, Thomas’s face turns even more red. He was about to take a step forward, but he leans back on his heels.
“Oh, hello,” he says. “I didn’t know you were here.”
My father makes an exaggerated, performative yawn. “The rumors are true. I’m still couch surfing.”
“I really should get going, anyway,” says Thomas to Rose, one eye still trained on my father behind her copper-colored hair. “Thank you for the offer.”
Mom looks like she’s about to stop him, but before she can say anything, he’s gone again. She stares after him for a moment and then returns to our small coffee table, slumping down on a seat, dejected.
“What’re you ladies up to tonight?” asks my father, oblivious. He takes out Lottie’s favorite porcelain mug. It has a chip on the lip. “Am I finally going to get to see my Gardner girls tonight?”
He leans against the kitchen sink, looking disturbingly at home.
I’m irritated by how carelessly he’s taken up space in our house, like he has some sort of natural right to everything that is ours.
A smaller part of me is also mad at Mom for allowing him here.
All throughout my childhood, this would periodically happen.
My father would deign to appear in various states of sobriety, and Rose permitted the disruption.
I never understood why. Especially for a therapist, it should have been a clear boundary.
“I have plans with William tonight,” says Rose. She hands him the coffeepot. He takes it, and for a moment, I see a glimpse of what they might have been like as a couple: the same routine and rhythm that I saw last night between Henry and Mary. Effortless.
“You have plans with William again?” I ask.
“Yes, again,” says Rose, her tone still a little sharp. “Is that a problem?”
“No,” I say, although I do wish she would be around more often. Besides, she seemed a little eager to invite Thomas inside for someone who has a date tonight. “I have plans tonight, too, actually.”
An excited, mischievous expression overtakes Rose’s face. “With who?” she asks, hope evident in her tone.
“Theo,” I admit, sheepish.
Rose yelps. “I knew it! Yes! This is exciting! I adore Theo.”
I tell my mom about karaoke and Theo’s serenade, ignoring my father’s presence and his increasingly disgruntled expression.
The memory makes me smile again now, but I’m also nervous.
I’ve suspected there might be something between us, but I was enjoying living in the in-between period where we could still claim to just be friends.
It’s like when I have a new idea for a painting and I’m struck over the head by the inspiration.
It explodes out of me, fills every inch of my being.
But then, as soon as I paint the first stroke, the doubt seeps in.
Dating is like that, too. Right now, Theo is sunshine on my face, someone I look forward to seeing every day but I’m not overly anxious about. Once we take this next step, that will change. Relationships always end, and I was hoping to keep Theo around.
Regardless, I can’t back out now. He made me promise to go on a proper date tonight. I hoped he would forget or go back on his word, but he texted again this morning: 7 p.m. reservation for two at Galley Beach.
I covered my face with a pillow when I read the message and let out a loud groan.
Galley Beach is one of the nicest restaurants on island.
Obviously, he’s trying to be a gentleman and pull out all the stops.
Located right on the beach, Galley has the best sunsets and a menu neither of us can afford with our pay.
“Who’s Theo?” asks my dad. “Should I give him the talk?”
Rose and I both give him a look. “When’s the last time you gave anyone ‘the talk’?” asks Rose, amused.
“Is this research?” I ask in a mock-supportive voice. “For a new movie you’re producing? Are you trying to learn how to be a real dad?”
“You girls are pretty but you’re cruel,” says my dad, retreating back into the hall. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be entertaining Aunt Elizabeth’s latest rash again.” He cracks his back. “And this couch sucks, by the way.”