Finally his truck is gone, and I go back inside with what’s left in my wine glass and curl up on the living room couch, Ein lying on my feet—literally—and the more nimble Chaco jumping up to cuddle. I check my phone again and find several texts from my new friends—
Tina: You know murder is illegal right? It’s also highly frowned upon from a moral standpoint. Hope you’re even now being banged against an oak or something. Or maybe that wouldn’t be as fun in the dark.
Tina: Also, Ghost is still a dick. He ate my cannoli.
Harry has also started a group text to both Tina and me, which makes me grin.
Harry: You guys owe me a drink. This man might not smell, but he worships the flying spaghetti monster. I don’t think he gets that it’s a joke, and he’s making a compelling argument. It’s starting to freak me out. Like, maybe it is real?
Tina: Spaghetti is basically a religion for my family. If there was a spaghetti monster, I’d know. Consider yourself reassured that it’s fake. We’ll get you drinks soon to find you another terrible date. Right, Molly?
Smiling, I respond: My sister’s here this weekend. But maybe we can all meet at the tea shop at the end of your Tuesday shift, Tina?
Both of them are quick to agree, and I have to wonder if Harry’s hiding out on another balcony or in a bathroom or something.
Nicole has texted me too, but in her usual perfunctory style, it’s just an email address and phone number for Augusta Glower, followed by: Don’t ask how I got this, but if you plan on ambushing her, I’d like to hear all about it.
Duly noted on both counts, I answer.
There’s one from Mary too, but it’s just confirmation that she will be here tomorrow morning, and even though I’m a little anxious about spending so much time alone with her, I’m excited to give Aidan the gift I found him the other day—a giant stuffed stegosaurus to feed his dinosaur obsession. Of course, he’s probably too old for stuffed animals. I don’t see him nearly as often as I should, and each time I do, it’s like he’s grown another several inches and become an entirely different person. I try to FaceTime with him every week, but he’s never been fond of it. Mary says she thinks it’s a sensory assault for him—he prefers seeing people in person.
I feel a thickening of emotion in my throat. Here, I’m just a couple of hours from Aidan, now that Mary and Glenn live in Charlotte, and I’ve already made friends, real friends, in Asheville, and Cal…
Maybe it’s pathetic, what with me being closer to thirty than twenty, but I’ve never felt like this about a man. Tonight at the Cluster, I felt like I’d stumbled onto the secret to something, and I’m not sure whether it’s the Bad Luck Club, Cal, or myself.
You could stay.
But I can’t, can I? That Rogue Word job is perfect for me, and chances are good I’ll get an offer after I type up my notes and send the editor a draft. Because even without Cal and Bear’s names, it’s a juicy story.
The thought of moving to Tinseltown leaves me cold, though, and even though I should spend the night working—Bear gave me so much—I just sit there for a while, sipping wine and texting everyone back, living in the slight buzz I’m feeling, which has nothing to do with alcohol.
When I do pick up my laptop, it’s not the Bad Luck Club I write about. Instead, it’s the beginning of Roxie Dahl’s relationship with Henry, the pilot who put that loving light in her eyes. He was Agnes’s father, and she told me even more about her parents’ unconventional courtship—including the fact that she was apparently conceived in a plane. While I write, my eyes blurry from staring at the screen, I think of Cal and what he said to me.
Maybe he’s right, maybe I am a storyteller. Because sitting here, writing this, I can see them—Roxie and Henry—falling in love, choosing to give it their everything even though they knew they might come to ruin. I possess the 20/20 hindsight that their love will fall apart—that husband number four, the furry, will come along. But right now, I’m in the thick of their love, and it feels so right it almost hurts. This is what I’ve always loved about writing, telling people’s stories, trying to tap into the marrow of what motivates them. Even in my silly scoops for Sheets, I always looked for the story within the story.
Maybe I’m being foolish, but it occurs to me that Mrs. Dahl’s life is more than big enough for a book. I’d like to be the one to write it. Maybe it’s something I can run by her and Agnes.
It’s late by the time I finish for the night, but I still find sleep hard to come by, because my idea refuses to quit, and because I can’t stop thinking of my own Henry and the hot, heady press of him against me, even as he told me he was leaving. The look of lust and something deeper in his eyes. The thrust of him from yesterday…
My first thought is confusion. One moment dream Cal is smiling up at me from between my legs, about to put his wicked tongue to work, and the next the off-pitch doorbell is assailing my ears. Dear lord. I need to get Maisie to tune that thing.
A glance at the clock reveals it’s seven a.m., too early for company. But I get out of bed, and Chaco and Ein follow me, Ein using the little ramp Jack inexpertly but very sweetly made for him, moved over from the master bedroom since the dogs don’t like to sleep alone. When I get downstairs and to the front of the house, I peek through one of the sidelight windows and see my sister Mary. She’s alone.
What the hell?
Fear races through my veins, because even now, through the window, I can tell something is wrong. Her short, dark auburn hair is askew in a way she would never normally allow, and she isn’t wearing any makeup. She has on a T-shirt and shorts, something I’m surprised she even owns in her wardrobe. Worse, there’s no sign of Aidan.
I tug the door open as she reaches forward to knock, and she’s so caught off guard, she almost punches me. The dogs are wagging their tails now, trying to paw at their auntie’s legs, but her eyes are wide and fixed on me.
“Well, that’s one way of saying hello!” I say, then immediately think of Cal telling me that I don’t always have to make a joke of everything. “Come in,” I say, sobering. “Dogs, hurry up with the pee. We have coffee to make. Lots of coffee.” They scurry out in a rare show of obedience, on Ein’s part anyway, and Mary squeezes in past me and heads to the kitchen.
Every bit of her seems tightly wound, like a pocket watch on the verge of breaking.
The dogs seem to sense our urgency, because it doesn’t take them long to scurry in after us.
When I join Mary in the kitchen, she’s fixing the coffee, her hands trembling slightly. Since routines have always calmed her, I let her finish, but my own heart is racing in my chest.
“I left Aidan with his grandparents for the day,” she says finally, once she’s pressed the start button on the machine. “I figured that would be better. I know I said we were going to be staying over, but…there’s something I need to tell you. You and Maisie. I’m going back tonight to get him. I need to leave by five.”
“Mary, what’s happening?” I ask, my voice rising.
She lifts a hand. “Aidan’s fine, and I’m fine. I mean, I don’t have inoperable cancer or anything.”