by Sarah Hogle
His mouth. It’s too late, I’m looking.
“I have to use the bathroom,” I blurt. “It’s going to be a while. Don’t wait up.”
Wesley smiles confusedly, eyebrows knitted, as I dash away. “O-kaay?”
I throw myself into the bathroom and give up on life. This is bad. It’s so, so bad. All it took for me to flush my sense down the toilet was an attractive man cutting a star out of aluminum foil. Surely I am not this weak.
I check my reflection in the mirror. The Maybell I find opposite me is a damn disappointment: chest heaving, red and blotchy all over, hairline damp. I’m a certified mess. I check the window, that threatening horizon looming closer—a stone’s throw away. I’ll be fine. I only need some space. Until Saturday, I need to avoid all interaction with Wesley, and thinking about him. We’re talking zero-tolerance policy. Total ban.
Or else I’m screwed.
* * *
• • • • • • •
I SUCCESSFULLY EVADE WESLEY for the rest of the day, citing an upset stomach. The next morning I’ve got a new bottle of Pepto Bismol outside my bedroom door. He doesn’t initiate any more contact, thankfully. And sadly. Maybe he hates me now? Maybe he was just about to like me, but I ruined it, which I should be grateful for, because IT WOULDN’T WORK ANYWAY, MAYBELL. Maybell Parrishes don’t cycle through the five stages of grief. We burrow into the denial leg of the journey like tourists overstaying our welcome and live there forever and ever. We also chug peppermint hot cocoa whenever we’re drowning in dramatic passions (I’m on my third pint of the day) and mythologize ourselves in the plural.
But on Wednesday, Wesley texts me. It’s a serve I didn’t expect.
He’s snapped a picture of my recent addition to the ballroom mural: the tiny My May Belle chugging along near his pirate ship. I didn’t consult wind patterns before painting it and the two boats are on track to smash into each other.
He adds this question, sans punctuation: Why did you add an e
I look up the Wikipedia page for My May Belle, a showboat that cruises the Tennessee River in Knoxville, and send him the link.
A young Julie Parrish had dreams of sailing away on that riverboat, I type. When she was pregnant with me she tried to run away from home, but the sheriff found her and brought her back. My name was supposed to be May Belle, but Mom was loopy on pain meds when she signed the birth certificate.
Growing up, she built up this boat in my head until it was larger than life, the pinnacle of Southern charm, telling me we’d go there someday to have lunch in big Kentucky Derby hats and white dresses. We finally went for my thirteenth birthday, but her boyfriend at the time’s daughter came along and I got jealous of the attention Mom gave her, then subsequently moody. Mom tended to be extra-specially nice to the kids of her boyfriends, trying to win them over. I ruined the day for everyone.
I like Maybell without an e, he types back.
I went once, I tell him. I told the staff what my name was and they gave me free dessert.
The occasion had been so talked up, so looked forward to, but ultimately I remember regular old Happy Meal dinners with more fondness. I think my mom was trying to re-create a pale image of her own childhood nostalgia.
Is there a story behind the name Wesley? I ask.
He replies: I was the fifth son. They ran out of names.
A minute later, he tacks on: My mom had a dream while pregnant that she was putting wooden letters above the crib. They spelled out Wesley.
Aww, I like that story.
Better than my brother Humphrey’s. He was named after the paramedic who delivered him in a Walgreens parking lot. Then he sends another photo of the mural, playing a game of Can You Spot the Difference? A dark shape in the water swans away from the kraken.
Is that a sea snake?
The Loch Ness Monster, he says. She’s real and she’s out there.
I’m about to respond when I get a grip on myself and turn off my phone before temptation destroys the shred of self-control I’m clinging to. Distance. Space. Eyes on the prize. If I want to ward off a crush, it’s the only way.
I’m not so strong that I don’t duck into the ballroom a few hours later and paint a small island in the lagoon, complete with a palm tree and a tiny man laying out for a tan. When I check it again on Thursday, Wesley’s given the tiny man sunglasses and a sunburned nose. I also find two miniature people, a man on board the kraken-caged Felled Star and a woman waving a handkerchief at him from the deck of My May Belle.
* * *
• • • • • • •
I STRAIN TO IGNORE the mural all day Thursday, but on Friday I’m swept away by a marathon of Hallmark movies and it punctures a hole in my already flimsy self-discipline. I take pity on the pirate, about to be sent to the ocean floor courtesy of an enormous sea monster. My May Belle throws a life preserver out. I dot all the trees with tiny silver stars, even the palms.
Wesley notices immediately, adding ornaments and lights. We take turns sneaking into the ballroom to add more and more, until it doesn’t resemble your average waterfall-lagoon mural so much as Neverland. I have a sickness. I’m communicating with Wesley more now than I was when we were verbally talking.
We’ve both fully moved into the manor, he into my old bedroom and me right below in a guest room. I hear his footsteps above at night as he paces out of his room down the hall, then it falls quiet, then he’s pacing again. I can’t fall asleep until he’s completely still, not because the noise bothers me but because I get caught up in visualizing him, wondering what he’s doing, what he’s thinking about.
He texts on Friday night. Want to head out at 9 am tomorrow? Or 10, if 9 is too early?
This is the part where I should cancel the treasure hunt, apologies to Aunt Violet. She’ll understand if we don’t carry out this wish.
I reply: All packed and ready to go at 8:30. Just filling some virtual shopping carts with all the decorative rugs I’m going to buy with the solid gold bars you’re digging up tomorrow!
I’m about to turn off my phone, to be on the safe side, but he responds swiftly. My brother Casey built my landscaping website, and he’s making one for my animal sanctuary. He offered to make a website for the hotel if you want. Unless you’ve changed your mind and realized a hotel would be awful.
I sit up so fast that if there were water in this claw-foot tub I’m lounging fully clothed in, it would have gone sloshing all over the ballroom floor.
He’s told his brother about my hotel. His brother knows I exist. I wonder if Casey is the one who got married in that black-and-white photo of Wesley in a tuxedo, but I can’t pose this question without Wesley pressing the sensitive topic of my having seen that photo in the first place.
That would be fantastic!!! I say. What are his rates?
He replies so quickly, he had to have had the response typed up and ready to send. I’ve identified the font they used in your postcard as Fanal, in case you wanted to use it in brochures or advertising. Thought maybe you’d be interested, since you like the postcard so much. I tried my best to color-match the house. If you want to imitate sunset, we’ll need a few different colors. These ones are the closest match I could find. What do you think? He includes links to three shades of paint—Bermuda Breeze, Raspberry Mousse, and Oxford Gold.
Neither of the pinks he’s chosen is quite identical to the hotel in the postcard, but my heart has taken too many arrows for me to dream of doing anything other than enthusiastically agreeing. He went to the trouble of researching the font. Color-matching the house. This surly giant buttoned up in ten thousand buttons, who likes plants more than people, is going to paint his house pink because a woman he’s only known for a month mistakenly thought Falling Stars was supposed to be that color.
“You don’t like it?”
I jerk my head. Wesley’s in the ballroom.
I grip the sides of the bathtub and steel my spine, praying I don’t look anything close to how I feel. “Huh?”
“You didn’t reply.”
I glance at my phone. The time stamp on his message shows he sent it fourteen minutes ago. I’ve been staring moonily into space for fourteen minutes.
“Sorry, I got distracted. Those shades are perfect, thank you. And thanks for looking up the font, too. That’s a good idea, going old-fashioned nostalgia for advertising. Playing up the historical . . . ness.” My voice is squeaky, words rushed.
Lying in a bathtub in the middle of the room feels a great deal different when I’ve got a man towering above me. He tilts his head as he analyzes me, gesture revving my pulse. “What?” I ask lowly, nervous. Wesley’s gaze sweeps over me: my knees are bent, heels propped up on the lip of the tub. My sundress has slid down to midthigh, and while I wouldn’t think twice about showing this amount of leg on any ordinary day, the position I’m in leaves me feeling exposed as well as uncharacteristically lewd.
His lips press together. I used to think that was a sign of annoyance, but now I’m not so sure.
I cross my legs in a stab at modesty, but the action makes my hem slip down even farther and I hurriedly smooth the material back up my legs. Wesley revolves to face the wall, rubbing his jaw with one hand. I am burning all over.
“Eight thirty a.m., then,” he says, voice gravelly.
I sink down into the tub, skin scorching. “Yep.”
My face hidden by porcelain, I glance at the wall in time to watch the profile of his shadow turn, throwing another look back at me. He’s got a fist pressed to his mouth.
“I gotta . . . I’m going back upstairs.” He sounds weak.
“Yep,” I repeat, an octave higher. “See you in the morning.”
I see Wesley well before morning. He visits me while we’re asleep.
I’m back in the ballroom, standing above him. He’s the one in the tub now, sprawled out lazy and regal, wearing a pirate costume. He holds out his arms for me to climb aboard. “Time for your bath, Maybell.”
I wake up at 8:29 Saturday morning hot, sweaty, and doomed. Nothing like a sex dream between friends to speed up the unavoidable: I’ve got a full-blown crush.
Chapter 13
NOT TO BE DRAMATIC, but I would rather drink battery acid than be in the throes of a crush.
Crushes are fun in theory (ask me about my many dreamland husbands), but in reality, they’re energy vampires that are more trouble than they’re worth. The preoccupation is exhausting. I get sick to my stomach from swallowing too many butterflies, I lose sleep, my already intrusive penchant for fantasizing levels up a thousand degrees. I start worrying too much about whether my hair looks perfect or if I’m talking too loud, and prescription-strength deodorant becomes the safety pin holding my precarious shit together. All this emotional work, only to always end up being hurt by it? When I drag a glance over my dating history, the polls are conclusive. Nothing good ever comes from a crush.
Wesley’s wearing a knitted white cardigan this morning, lounging against the wall and peeling a banana, when I stroll into the kitchen with my camping gear. Cardigans are my kryptonite. I don’t know how he knows, but he knows. What am I talking about? Of course he doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. Oh lord, this is already wretched.
He makes a come here motion and shows me one of the X’s on the treasure map. “I figured we’d start over here, then work our way northeast. The truck won’t be able to pass beyond this point”—he raps a cluster of trees—“so I hope you won’t mind carrying the pack with our food and smaller supplies?” His questioning look prompts me to nod.
Wesley’s pack is considerably larger, containing our tent and sleeping bags. He’ll also be toting a shovel. I think about the roll of toilet paper in my pack and regret every choice I’ve ever made that’s led me to this point.
“Great.” I unscrew a bottled water, proceeding to chug the whole thing.
“Hey.” He bends his knees and tilts to look me in the eye, the ghost of a smile quirking his lips. “You all right? You good?”
“Yep.”
The playful light in his eyes falls flat. “You don’t want to?”
“Are you trying to talk me out of this?” I pick up my pack, narrowing my eyes at him jokingly. “That treasure’s mine, Koehler. Let’s roll.”
The smile returns, bigger now. “Okay, Parrish.”
It’s shaping up to be a balmy spring day, and the drive is gorgeous. Wesley’s pickup barrels through tunnels of green, bright and rich, like being inside an emerald. Irises and bleeding hearts are in bloom, garden-variety flowers petering out the farther we go, overtaken by native plants. He calls them all by name, pointing out lady’s-slipper orchids, phlox, silverbells growing directly out of cracks in the road. We’ll eventually have to get the road repaved, as it looks like it’s endured several earthquakes and an apocalypse. The prospect makes me a little sad. I’m starting to like the wildness of Falling Stars, nature reclaiming what we stole.
All too soon, we’re parking in a field and Wesley’s killing the engine. “This is it,” he announces, opening his door.
“Already?” I grab the map, calculating how far we are from the first X, then how far away the second X is from the first. There are five potential treasure sites. Over two hundred and ninety-four acres.
“Hope you’re wearing hiking shoes.”
I am. With special Dr. Scholl’s socks that are supposed to prevent blistering. The last thing my dumbass libido needs is for my feet to give out on me, leaving Wesley responsible for carrying me home.
“Hope you’re wearing shovel-digging gloves,” I counter.
“Hands are already callused.” He raises his brows, a touch haughty. “I’m in landscaping, remember? No stranger to shovels.”
Oh. Right.
I have no business dwelling on his callused hands, or how sturdy and capable he looks when he shrugs his pack on. I bet he could lift me up on his shoulders right now without a faltering step. If I’m going to survive this, I’ll have to pretend he isn’t my hot exploring companion but a . . . guard bear . . . or something. A bear with the stubble of a beard and minty mouthwash on his breath. And a cardigan. Oof.
I’m fine. I’m fine! I’ll fight this off like an infection.
“So, Koehler,” I begin casually as we slip into the trees. Effortlessly casually. Breezily, in fact. “How’d you get into the landscaping business?”
“I grew up on a farm. Tell me about your dad?”
I nearly walk into a tree.
“Sorry.” He looks it, too. “I didn’t mean to put it so bluntly. It’s just, I’ve been wondering. I know the name Parrish came from your mom’s side of the family. You’ve never mentioned your dad . . .” His face is reddening.
He’s awkward, but I’m about to be even more so. “I don’t know who my dad is.”
“Oh no, I’m sorry. I’m not the best conversationalist—I’m much better in text messages and notes left in dumbwaiters.”
“It’s all right.” I offer him a rueful smile. “You want to hear something bonkers? Whenever I think about my dad I picture Mick Fleetwood. You know who I’m talking about? One of the guys from Fleetwood Mac?”
He laughs. “Are you serious? Why?”
I know this sounds ridiculous. And illogical. “Mick Fleetwood was about forty years old when I was conceived, and also, he’s Mick Fleetwood. I know he’s not my father. And yet.”
He arches a brow. “And yet?”
“It’s funny what the human brain does with one little puzzle piece when it’s missing the rest of the picture. My parents met at a Fleetwood Mac concert. She was more of a Johnny Cash girl, but her friend had an extra ticket.”
Wesley’s eyes are fixed on the forest floor, a wrinkle in his brow. “Mm.”
“That’s all she’s
told me about him. Fleetwood Mac’s the only piece of information I’ve got, so even though my dad was probably some scrawny teenager, all my life I’ve pictured the middle-aged guy on the cover of the Rumours album.” Which I bought with my first paycheck, and have memorized. “I think he must have blue eyes, though, because mine are blue and Mom’s are green.”
“My parents have been together since middle school.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, it kind of sucks for all their kids that our parents found their perfect match so young. They think it should be that easy for everyone. All I ever hear when I visit is that the clock is ticking and I’m going to die alone.”
I wince. “You’re not going to die alone.”
He shrugs. “I’m fine with it if I do.”
I sense that he’s starting to clam up, so I change the subject, digging my compass out of my pocket to pretend I know what I’m doing when I aim it this way and that. I got the thing from a box of Lucky Charms when I was a kid. “You sure we’re not gonna run into Bigfoot today?”
He knows what I’m doing, but it works—he grants me a sidelong almost-smile. “You haven’t been paying attention in class. Sasquatches don’t live in Appalachia.”
“Sasquatches, the Loch Ness Monster,” I remark, unable to hide my curiosity. “Do you believe in them?”
“Will you laugh at me if I say yes?”
“I would never.”
He considers this. “Then I might believe in them. Or I might believe in the possibility of them. Wouldn’t it be incredible, if these creatures are real and they’ve successfully eluded humans all this time? I mean, humans have taken over everything. We cage animals, we pillage, we destroy.”