Here I Go

by Jamie Bennett

  “Except for the hair,” I added, because usually I heard that next. It had been even brighter (redder) when I’d been a little girl, when he’d known me. Luckily, it had darkened to a deep auburn which I was very, very careful to keep out of the sun to avoid any natural highlighting. On my head, highlights went pumpkin orange. I tilted a little toward the shadow of the eaves now, just in case.

  “No, I wouldn’t have recognized you at all,” he repeated. He ignored my hand, and I dropped it slightly. “When I left here, you were a little girl.”

  “Five,” I said. “I was five. You went away right after my father died, and then we moved, too.”

  He nodded slowly, but didn’t say anything, and I was left standing awkwardly in Miss Liddy’s empty flowerbed with my hand still stuck out.

  “Well,” I said, because the silence was so uncomfortable. “Well.”

  “Are you trying to fix that?”

  “The shutter? I was just pushing it back in place. I already called my uncle to come by with his tools and do it right,” I answered. “He said that he can tomorrow.”

  “I forgot about that,” Cain said.

  “What?”

  “I forgot how people here do things like that. It’s different where I live now.”

  “In California?” I asked eagerly. Images of wide beaches and palm trees filled my mind. “That’s where you live, isn’t it?”

  “I also forgot that everyone here knows everything about everyone else,” he said. “Gossip about their neighbors is the main entertainment.”

  Oh. “I don’t know everything,” I said. “Sorry.” I stepped over the edging for the bed, rotten and tilted as it was, and walked to the driveway. “Please tell Miss Liddy that I hope she feels better.”

  There was a little silence before he answered, “I will.”

  I got to my car in the street and had the door open when he spoke again. “Aria?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you come in and talk to my aunt? She’s having a bad day today. Please?” he added.

  “Oh.” I felt my heart clench in sadness at the words. “Of course I will! I’ll come right now.”

  Miss Liddy was in her bedroom, leaned back against pillows. She’d always been a small person, but now she looked absolutely tiny and frail, and as pale as the white sheets she rested against. They were mussed and none too clean, and the room wasn’t very neat, either.

  “Hi, Miss Liddy!” I said to her. “Do you remember me? I’m Aria from next door.”

  “Oh, my goodness! Aria McCourt.” She tried to sit up more so I rushed over.

  “No, ma’am, you’re fine, don’t move an inch,” I said, and plopped down in the chair next to her bedside so she didn’t have to strain to look at me. “Your nephew invited me in. I hope that’s all right.” Both of us looked toward the bedroom door, but Cain Miller wasn’t there.

  “That’s just fine. I’m happy to have a visitor, even though I’m such a mess.” Her hands went to her hair.

  “Oh, I can help you with that!” I said immediately. “Can I? I wanted to be a stylist, you know. I still may do it.”

  She nodded and I found a brush and fixed her hair, and then as we talked more, I went around and picked up the room some and opened up the curtains to give her a little light. That made the dust show, though, so I also found my way to the kitchen for some cleaning supplies from under the sink.

  “Aria, honey, you don’t have to do that,” she told me as I wiped down her dresser.

  “Miss Liddy, it’s my pleasure if you don’t mind it!” But I put down my cloth and sat next to her again, so she wouldn’t worry. “We always helped Mama around the house and I’m used to it.”

  “And you in that pretty dress,” she fretted, but I waved my hand.

  “This is old,” I told her, and it was. It had been my sister Bree’s, then Mory had worn it a few times, and now it was mine. I liked it, even if it was a hand-me-down.

  “It’s so nice to have you here,” she said, and patted my hand. “It’s wonderful to have my boy home, too. He’s such a help to me.”

  “Is he?” I asked doubtfully. Cain didn’t seem to have done much yet, not to her house, anyway.

  “He is,” she said decidedly. “I missed him so much. It’s a shame that it has to be under these circumstances but I’m still glad he’s here.”

  “Well, while I’m here too, I can do a little more cleaning in your room. Is that all right with you?” I asked her, and she agreed, although reluctantly. But I thought she’d feel better with her room straightened up—I always did, when my apartment was clean. We talked as I worked, about old neighbors and my sisters and my mama, until her words got softer and she tried to hide her yawns. I told her I’d visit again soon and I crept quietly through the door as her eyes closed and she slept.

  The house was just like our old one, with all the rooms laid out exactly the same. I tiptoed down the hallway past the bathroom with the identical pink tile that we’d had, past the bedroom that had been mine and my sisters’ in our former place. I could hear a voice, angry and demanding, coming through that door, so I kept going until I got to the kitchen. Then I opened the cupboards and was bending to look in the refrigerator when I heard Cain Miller again.

  “Hungry?”

  I straightened up so fast that I hit my head on the bottom of the freezer. “No. I could see how you’d think it about me, but no!” I rubbed the back of my skull. Ow! “I was just checking to see if there’s anything Miss Liddy needs that I could pick up for her at the store.”

  “I’ll take care of my aunt’s groceries,” he told me shortly.

  “Oh. Ok, then. I’ll go,” I said, and I went right to the back door, the one that led through the porch and to the yard. I remembered, suddenly—I remembered running through that door, out to my swing set, and I remembered Cain Miller coming across our little lawn in the twilight.

  I stood for a moment with my hand on the handle before snapping to the present. “Oh,” I said again. “Sorry, I’ll go out the front.” I went past him and walked through the living room to let myself out.

  “Aria?”

  I turned on the pathway I’d swept. “Yes?”

  “Thank you for the flowers. Thank you for coming over and talking with her.”

  “I was glad to!” I answered. “I’ll come again, if that’s all right.”

  “She’d like that. All of her friends are older and they have trouble getting around, or they’re dead already,” he said bluntly. “She’s lonely.”

  “Oh,” I said, putting my hand over my heart. It ached a little, hearing that. “I’ll be glad to come by and visit with her. I always liked Miss Liddy so much!” She’d baked cookies for us, I remembered, and sewed tiny clothes for our dolls because she said that she didn’t have little girls of her own to make them for. “Is there a time that’s best for her?”

  “We’re getting a new schedule for her treatments next week. Can I let you know?”

  “Sure!” I told him my number, and he typed it into a brand-new phone, the kind that Kayleigh had been wanting but her plan wouldn’t allow because it was too expensive.

  “Ok, then,” he said. “I’m going in.” Cain was staring at me, and I realized that I’d been standing next to my car, nodding and smiling at him, for much too long.

  “Right. Bye!” I got in fast and drove off down the street. When I looked back in my mirror at the house, he was already inside.

  “You’ll never believe who I saw!” I called as I came into my apartment. I put down the bags of groceries that were cutting into my palms. “Cain Miller!”

  “Aria, can you turn it down, please?” Kayleigh asked sourly. She lay on the sofa with an ice pack on her forehead and a glass of water resting on her stomach.

  Cassidy made a face at her that Kayleigh couldn’t see over the cushions. “You did? Where? What happened?” she asked me.

  “First tell me about Bo,” I said, and Cass immediately puckered up.

  �
��There’s nothing to tell,” she informed me. “I don’t know why my mama keeps asking him to family functions.”

  “Maybe she wants him to be a real part of our family!”

  “Aria, seriously! Why are you so loud?” Kayleigh griped.

  “Let’s go to our room,” Cass suggested, but even after we’d thrown our purses into the corner and settled across her bed, she still wouldn’t tell me any more about Bo. “I like him just fine,” she said firmly, “but that’s all. He had his chance with me in high school, remember?”

  I sure did. I remembered her expecting some kind of ring, promise or engagement. But after his graduation, Bo had told her that he wasn’t ready to settle down. He had enlisted almost immediately, almost before Cassidy had a chance to tell him that fine, she wasn’t ready, either, and if she was, she wouldn’t settle for him!

  Four years later, he’d been honorably discharged after a training accident had left him with a bad back injury that was still bothering him a lot. Cass claimed that she didn’t care at all about him, but she listened hard when her mother shared the gossip she’d heard about treatments he was getting for the problem and how the pain was making it difficult for him to work at his father’s construction business.

  “If he’d wanted to be with me, he shouldn’t have run off to the beach in South Carolina to play in the sunshine,” she said.

  “I don’t know if I’d call boot camp at Parris Island playing in the sunshine,” I said doubtfully.

  “He had his chance,” she said more forcefully. “Anyway, Kayleigh heard that he went out with that girl who drove the Mustang in our junior year.”

  “No!” I gasped, horrified. “Her?” She’d been pretty, but not the kind of girl you’d want to marry. She went out with everyone. “Maybe he really isn’t ready to settle down,” I said sadly.

  She nodded briskly. “He’s not worth my time. Now, tell me all about this Cain.”

  I did, starting with how different he looked. “He’s beautiful,” I said.

  “Like a girl?” She frowned.

  “No, not at all! More like…like you’d see a statue of a man in an art museum and say, ‘That’s beautiful! That’s masculine and beautiful and perfect!’” I hadn’t ever said that myself, though. I hadn’t actually been to a lot of art museums.

  “Really,” she remarked, and she sounded impressed.

  “Really. He grew up. And out,” I said, flexing my arm muscles to show what I meant. My word, I had better get myself to the gym! There was hardly anything there to flex. “He has those same blue eyes, do you remember them? Icy.”

  “Icy eyes!” Now Cassidy sounded excited. “Ooh, are you seeing him again?”

  “Probably I’ll run into him when I visit with Miss Liddy, but that’s all. He’s not the type to settle down either, I’m sure of it.”

  Cassidy flopped backwards and blew a raspberry at the ceiling. “Where are the settling guys?” she asked me.

  Darned if I knew.

  Chapter 2

  I loved them. I loved every single one. “How are you going to pick?” I asked.

  My friend and coworker, Eimear, sighed. She certainly didn’t look very happy, not how I would have felt if I was choosing between floral arrangements for my wedding! “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t really care very much.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond to that statement. She didn’t care about her wedding? Hadn’t she spent her childhood planning it? I had a whole scrapbook full of ideas from when I’d been a kid, and of course, I had my more recent online scrapbook, too. “You don’t care?” I repeated. “You don’t care?”

  “Griffin likes the pink ones, which makes sense since it will be in the spring. He’s interested in flowers in general,” she said.

  So, her fiancé had more of an opinion about their wedding than she did? “How’s your dress?” I asked, feeling nervous even as I asked it. “You picked that already, didn’t you?”

  “I haven’t really thought about a dress yet.”

  I was unable to hold back. “Eimear, you have to! It’s only…” I checked the master calendar we used to keep track of all the important dates for the various cases and actions our law firm handled. Eimear and I were both assistants to Gary Andonov, Esq., and it was a nice place to work.

  I clutched my hand over my heart when I saw how much time remained until the wedding, which I had added to the master calendar even though it was really only for deposition dates and things like that. “Oh, my word!” I exclaimed. “Eimear, you only have seven months! You’re choosing your flowers before you have the dress checked off?”

  “I’m looking at arrangements because Griffin’s friend is going to do them for us, and he sent over pictures. Do I really need to worry about a dress, too? Seven months is a long time.” She looked even unhappier.

  I was horrified but tried not to let her see. There was no need to upset her. “It’s not long for a wedding dress! You absolutely have to worry, right away!” Oh, darn, that probably had been upsetting! “What kind of dress do you want?” I asked, much more calmly.

  “Something simple. I guess it has to be white,” she answered and lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “I mean, no one cares that we’re already living together, do they?”

  “Yes, it has to be white,” I agreed, nodding firmly. “It’s like Shakespeare said, every woman should wear a white dress, no matter the circumstances.”

  “Shakespeare?”

  “It might have been a movie.” I looked at Eimear and thought about the style that would suit her. She was right: simple would be better, because she was so delicate and petite. A dress like I planned for myself, a ball gown with layers of crinoline, beading, and lace, would have been too much for her. I had the dramatic hair to carry it off and a flared skirt would hide a lot of what I didn’t need the world to see, namely what I carried in the hip, thigh, and behind regions.

  “We did it!”

  The voice coming through the speakerphone was so loud that both Eimear and I jumped. She practically hit the ceiling. I turned to look at our boss, Gary Andonov, behind the glass wall that separated his office from our cubicles. “What did you say, Gary?” I called to him, and he leaned forward and punched the button on his phone again. “Here it comes,” I warned Eimear.

  “We did it!” he shouted into his microphone, and the echo of his words bounced around, deafening us. Eimear put her hands near her ears like she wanted to cover them, but maybe that would have been insulting to our boss.

  “Gary, come on out and talk to us face to face,” I yelled to him through the glass, because we could all hear each other perfectly well in this place. We caught every word of his phone conversations through his walls, for example, even when he didn’t put them on speaker.

  He jumped up and joined us at the cubicles where Eimear and I sat next to each other. “We did it, ladies! They settled! We won!” He started whooping and kind of dancing around the office, which looked so fun that I joined in even though I wasn’t quite sure yet what we were celebrating. My work shoes were so much more comfortable than my going-out shoes, it was easy to dance!

  “Are you talking about the Kritikos family?” Eimear yelled over his noise. We’d been working on their case forever, a terrible story because their poor son had been struck by a drunk driver and was in a coma. “Did we get the money for them?”

  “We got the money!” Gary hollered back, and Eimear started dancing, too. Oh, she really struggled with that! But the three of us boogied around the office until Gary collapsed down into my chair and wiped his face with his tie.

  “How much?” I asked excitedly, and when he told us the number, I had to sit down in Eimear’s chair in shock.

  “They deserve it, every penny,” she said. “They’d rather have their son back over any amount of money.”

  That remark settled us right down, but then Gary slapped his knee. “We’ve been working non-stop for weeks. Ladies, let’s take off a little early and go celebrate!”

/>   Eimear checked the time on her phone, and I knew that if we were leaving early, she would want to go home to her family. But she surprised me by saying, “We should. For a little bit, anyway.”

  “I’m in!” I agreed, because I didn’t have anyone to go home to see. Which made me sad, but then I reminded myself that we were celebrating. We’d done a good job for that poor family—or Gary and Eimear had, because they’d both put in a ton of work. I’d done what they’d asked me to do, but I didn’t have my heart in this job the way the two of them did. In fact, Eimear was even taking classes to get her undergraduate degree so she could become a lawyer and work with Gary as his associate! I didn’t have that in me, but I did like working with them both.

  “We’ll go to my club,” Gary decided, and Eimear and I exchanged a quick look. Gary’s club was not the kind that I went to on weekends. His was downtown, yes, but more of an old guy kind of deal, a fancy building where you might sit and smoke a cigar with your grandfather rather than the kind of place the two of us girls would have picked to celebrate. But then again, Gary was kind of an old guy himself so it made sense.

  “We’ll have a great time,” I assured everyone, because I thought we could make that happen wherever we went, even at this club where they probably served only fancy old men-type drinks and nothing fruity at all. Anyway, I wasn’t twenty-one yet, not until the next fall, so I wouldn’t be having any kind of specialty cocktail no matter what they served.

  I hitched a ride with Gary, since Cassidy had dropped me off that morning in the carpool we had going. He talked for a while about the settlement but then glanced over at me and got a serious look. “Now, Aria,” he started off, and I had the bad feeling that he was going to talk to me about my Future Prospects. He just had that tone.

  “I want to talk to you about your Future Prospects,” he continued, and I nodded back glumly. As I had suspected.

  “I think they look good,” I said, trying to head off the conversation. “I’m very pleased with them.”

  “But what are they?” Gary pressed me. “What are your plans?”