by Kim Hornsby
The drive from Seattle to Carnation was glorious as she cruised down the highway in her mother’s Mercedes, the radio cranked up on a Sheryl Crowe song. Tina pulled off Interstate 90 and onto the much smaller, two lane road to Fall City. Once again, she marveled at how picturesque this state was, so different from Hawaii. Western Washington was forest and fresh air, snow-capped mountains, and farmland, ocean smells, eagles and little rocky islands. This was where people dressed in Gore-Tex and hiking boots, not flip-flops and swim suits.
Crossing the bridge over the Tolt River, Tina continued towards Carnation. Jamey’s plan was to meet her at the top of the driveway. Turning right onto a residential street, she called his cell phone.
“I’ll see you at the top of the driveway. I’m there now,” he said.
When the street turned into a forested, twisty road, she saw him up ahead, his thumb stuck out like he was hitch hiking. Coming to a halt, she laughed as he jumped in. “Thanks for picking me up, Lady. I need a ride down this driveway, here on the right, but before we turn in, can I ask if you’ve ever done the nasty deed with a hitchhiker before, because you look really hot in those jeans.”
His smoldering look almost made her turn the car around to find the nearest motel. “Don’t start with me, hitchhiker. I’ll have you arrested in the next town if you try anything. I have a boyfriend, and he’s a trained soldier. I’m going to meet him right now, and he’s going to pound you into the ground and stand on the spot where you disappeared when I tell him you propositioned me.”
Jamey laughed and told her to stop the car. When she did, he kissed her long and deep.
She pulled away and made the attempt to collect herself. “I’m trying to put on a respectable face to meet your father. I can’t look all flushed and just-kissed for that.”
“Sorry.” He gave her the sweetest kiss anyhow, whispering against her lips, “I love you, Tina.”
She needed to hear that, and wanted to say it back to him, but not here. They stared at each other for a few beats, and then he patted her thigh and sat back in the passenger seat. “Pops is waiting. Drive on.” Jamey pointed down the forested driveway where she could see the edge of the house about a hundred yards in.
Parking the car in the driveway behind Jamey’s beat-up Toyota pickup, Tina saw a grey-haired man descend the steps of the house and walk slowly towards them. The look on his face said it all, and without waiting for Jamey, Tina left the car. He held his arms open for her and she walked into the hug. “Hello Pops.” She hugged him back. “So good to finally meet you. Can I call you Pops?”
“Tina, if you didn’t call me that, I don’t know what else you’d call me.” He pulled back from the hug, still holding her. She could see Jamey in those eyes. “Everyone around here calls me Pops.” He smiled sympathetically. “I’m so sorry about your husband, sweetie.”
Tears came to her eyes. How had this man brought such emotion to her carefully guarded surface in only one sentence? “Thank you. Your son has been my lifeline, you know.” She was fully aware that Pops knew everything about them, and dream jumping, and all about Hank and Noble.
He nodded. “He’s a good kid.”
She laughed to hear him being called a kid. “That he is. You did a fine job.”
“Hey, you trying to take my girl?” Jamey laughed as he approached them.
Pops smiled at her. “I don’t think anyone could take this girl away from you, Jamey. Am I right, Tina?”
She shook her head. “No one. I’m sticking with him.” She put her arm around Jamey and looked up at him. Had she ever been this happy? Her heart was full. It sounded so corny in her head, but true. She wanted to do a jig right there in the driveway but Pops scooted them inside.
“A keeper, eh? That’s music to my ears, darlin.” He motioned to the house. “Let’s go in.” They started up the stairs. “Jamey needs a good woman. It’s been a long time for him.” Pops looked over to Jamey who was one beat away from rolling his eyes. “Let’s go sit down and I can grill you on how Jamey is treating you,” he said, motioning for her to enter his house.
“That’ll be a short conversation, starting and ending with ‘like a princess.’” She smiled and squeezed Jamey’s hand. He looked so handsome here on his turf, in the forest of Carnation. His home. His Dad. This day would reveal a whole new side to Jamey, and she wasn’t sure how much deeper her love could go.
Chapter 11
After lunch of cold cut sandwiches, and homemade new potato salad, Pops suggested Jamey show her around, take her for a walk to the river or something that didn’t involve an old guy. “I can see you two can’t wait to be alone. I remember what it felt like,” he said.
Jamey helped Pops hook up his oxygen and grinned. “Oh, you remember what it felt like to love a woman so much you think you’re gonna burst?”
“Yup, I do.”
Jamey had told her that after his mother left thirty-five years ago, Pops never dated, or so much as looked at another woman. Not that Jamey knew. For Pops the pain was too great having the woman he loved leave him without an explanation.
“Such a shame,” she’d said. Now that Tina saw what a lovely person Pops was, it seemed worse.
Jamey showed her the house, picking up pictures of his family, and talking about his life growing up on the bank of the Tolt River. Eventually, they walked into his room upstairs and he joked that they couldn’t stop and play, not with Pops listening downstairs. “He has his hearing aid on and probably turned it up, hoping to hear something juicy,” Jamey said as he kissed her neck. “But, if you stay here tonight, I’ll confiscate that thing from his bedside table, and we can have wild, monkey sex without anyone hearing anything.”
She kissed him on the lips, and said that staying overnight completely depended on how her parents were doing. “I’ll find out later. Millie said she’d check on them tonight, if I didn’t make it back.” Tina grinned at the thought of sleeping in Jamey’s bed. “Funny thing, we both still have bedrooms in our parents’ homes. Not many people can say that, at our age.”
“I’ll show you the river,” he said with a twinkle in his eye that made her wonder if he had something else in mind.
Walking around the house on the pebble pathway, they crossed the expansive backyard lawn and wound their way through the birch and alder trees towards the Tolt River. She could hear the gurgling of moving water beyond the trees and when they reached the bank of the river, Tina wondered if a young Jamey had floated around in there when the water’s flow slowed down in the summer. The river was running fast this time of year. It looked frigid to Tina. “This must’ve been wonderful, to have a swimming hole in your backyard.” Her parents would’ve had it removed or filled in like they’d done with the swimming pool after Kristoffer died.
“We were popular kids with our friends,” he said. They watched the dark water rush around a bend to the right, Jamey behind her with his arms wrapped around her shoulders, his warm breath on her hair. “I used to fish just to the right, almost every day in the summer. That, or swim right here.” He pointed to a small bay in front of them.
“No wonder you like scuba diving,” she said, remembering how her parents discouraged her from joining the high school swim team. Becoming a great swimmer had been Tina’s idea of acting out. Like other kids who did drugs or partied on the weekend, Tina swam.
They eventually sat down on a grassy patch, warmed by the sun, and dangled their legs over the edge of a rise, the dappled afternoon sunlight making the scene almost fairylike. “It’s like a beautiful painting,” she said.
“Summer in Carnation is like nowhere else.”
A sturdy knotted rope was wound around a huge tree that hung over the river. Tina imagined him as a young boy with his brothers and sister, swinging from a rope into the river. “You suit this place.” She’d grown up in the city, shuttled to classes and clubs, golfing with her father, playing field hockey at her private girls’ school. Her upbringing had been about as far away from the carefr
ee life on a river with scrappy siblings as Tina could imagine.
They talked about those differences, until it was time for Jamey to get the girls from school. The plan was to bring them back to Pops’ house to meet her.
Jamey grabbed Tina’s hand on the walk back to the house and kissed her fingers. Back inside, they found Pops napping at the kitchen table. He woke and smiled at them. A smile so sweet tears threatened again. “I’ll wait here while you get the girls,” she whispered to Jamey.
“I’m resting up for those granddaughters of mine,” Pops said.
Tina made a pot of tea while Pops told her stories of how mischievous Jamey was as a youngster. “When Jamey discovered he had an ability everyone else didn’t have, it changed his life. Even though he was only eight, he took it like a little man, tried to be true to the gift.” Pops blew on his cup of steaming Darjeeling tea. “He adored my brother, Donny, who also had the gift.”
Tina nodded and sat down to pour herself a cup. She’d heard most of this from Jamey, but coming from his father, the information seemed different. Pops was easy to talk to and she found herself smiling fondly at him.
Soon after they’d finished their tea, the door opened and little girls’ voices floated in from outside. “I didn’t say that Jasmine. What I said was...”
Then, they heard Jamey’s low voice, like he’d taken them aside to tell them something.
Tina stood, not sure what she should do when she saw them. Hug? Shake hands? She didn’t have much experience with little girls, and Jamey hadn’t said how she should act. The excited voices got closer, the footsteps louder, until suddenly, two girls stood in the doorway, eyes wide, smiles tentative. Jamey moved in behind them. His children stood tall, almost reaching his armpit.
“Go on in, Peewee,” he said, coaxing one forward.
They looked very similar, and frighteningly similar to their father, with the same eyes and smiles. They had straight, light-colored hair and both wore shorts and T-shirts. Tina talked first. “Hi. I’m Tina.” She smiled tentatively. “Which of you gorgeous women is Jade and which is Jasmine?”
The girls giggled.
“This is Jasmine,” Jamey said, his hands on one girl’s shoulders. Her face was slightly thinner than the other one. “And this is Jade.” He motioned for the other girl to come forward. They looked too shy to say anything, so Tina took a few steps and curtsied.
“Pleased to meet you,” she said.
They laughed again, and she joined them. “I wasn’t sure if I should hug you, or if that would be scary and horrible, so I thought I’d curtsy, but I don’t think I did it right because I’m not wearing a dress.”
Jasmine pulled her baggy T-shirt from her legs and tried a curtsy. “Like this.”
Tina tried again by pulling her tight sweater out from her waist. “My top isn’t big like yours,” she motioned to them. “But this is way better than a hug.”
Jade laughed. “A hug would scare me.” She ran over to Pops and took his hand.
“Not me.” Jasmine smiled at her dad as if to say “watch this.” She moved in, and gave Tina a small sideways hug with one arm.
Tina hugged back with just the tiniest bit of strength. “Very nice hug, Jasmine. That’s what I call the upright sideways hug.” Both girls stared at her. “I’m not sure how to hug a ten-year-old, exactly, and I just decided to return the upright sideways with one of my own,” she said. “But, there are other types of hugs I could try with you sometime. I could bend down like this, and do the frontal crouch hug.” She lowered herself five inches. “Or like this?” She stood, bent over at the waist and held out her arms for no one. “Or should I just let you hug me while I stand up? I call that the full frontal tall small hug. Thing is, I’m not that tall myself, not for an adult and you girls are kind of tall for kids. We might be almost even.”
The girls giggled and glanced at Jamey, who looked thoroughly amused.
Things were going well, so far, and she continued. “The upright sideways hug seemed like you were this tall.” Tina motioned to her neck. “Or was it here?” She made a level hand beside her ear.
Both girls were captivated with her dilemma. Jasmine shrugged. “I want to try the last one. Where you stand up. The tall small.”
Tina hugged Jasmine lightly and pulled away, smiling. “I may have to rename that one to full frontal small adult, tall kid hug. And you’re right. I like that better than the upright sideways.”
Jade moved in. “Let’s do the bend over one. I’m taller than Jasmine so you won’t have to bend much.”
That started an argument on who was taller until Jamey interrupted. “Well I’m not afraid of any type of hug, but this is how I hug my beautiful girlfriend.” He grabbed Tina in his arms, lifted her off the ground and spun her around. He planted a big kiss on her lips and put her down.
“That’s the way,” Pops said, before the girls moved in and tried to get Jamey to do the same for them.
“Do me now. Without the mouth kiss.” Jade made a face. “Just spin me.”
While Jamey spun his kids around, Tina sat back down with Pops and poured them each another cup of tea. Pops winked at her as if to say, “nicely done.” Jamey’s face was all bright and happy, boyish, and she couldn’t stop smiling at the three of them.
When they finished spinning, the two girls stared at her. Jamey got himself a beer from the fridge and poured the girls glasses of apple juice. Tina needed to say something. Ask them a question. Like talking with tourists on Maui, she needed to engage the customer. “What do you girls like to do in your spare time?”
Jade spoke. “We play soccer. Do you have plans for the weekend?”
Jasmine sat next to her with the glass of juice. “We have a game tomorrow.” She looked over at Jamey who was taking off his jacket. “Dad, are you and Tina coming to the game?”
“I don’t know, Squirt. Tina’s father is kind of sick. He just got out of the hospital, and she probably needs to go back to Seattle.”
Both girls pinned Tina with their gaze, waiting for an answer.
“If my dad is feeling better, I’d love to watch you girls play. Soccer is one of my favorite sports.”
The girls glanced at Jamey excitedly.
“Do you have a soccer ball here?” Tina asked. “Maybe we could kick one around outside. I haven’t done that in such a long time.” She hoped it was a quick, easy way to their hearts.
Twenty minutes into a soccer game in Pops’ front yard, an SUV pulled down the driveway. When a man got out of the dark vehicle, the girls ran up to him. He grinned at Tina. The Dunn eyes were obvious from forty feet away.
This was the brother who worked at Microsoft. “I’m Katie’s Dad, Gavin. You must be Tina.” Even his voice was similar to Jamey’s.
“Hi, Gavin. Nice to meet you. Katie is awesome. She’s my right hand man at the scuba shop.” Tina shook his hand and chuckled. “And your brother is just plain awesome.”
He laughed. “Good. We think so, too. Right, girls?”
The twins jumped around and kicked the ball in a circle around their uncle.
“I heard you were in Carnation and wanted to barge in here to meet you for two reasons.” He folded his arms across his chest. “To say thanks for watching out for our Katie over there on Maui. And I came here on my way home from work out of plain old curiosity. See who Jamey was all fired up about.”
Tina laughed.
They climbed the stairs to the house, talking about Katie, and walked in to the kitchen. Gavin greeted his father and brother who were smirking at his intrusion. “I needed to come over to borrow. . .” He looked around the room and grabbed a spoon off the counter. “. . . this.”
“Sure you did, Gavin.” Pops smiled. “You wanted a look at Jamey’s girlfriend.”
Jamey grinned at Tina and winked. “Checking out who could possibly fall for me, Gav?”
Gavin smiled. “She said you’re awesome, which sounds about right.”
The adults sat around the tab
le talking over a couple of beers. “What’s the deal with this Ned guy?” Gavin asked Tina.
There was very little Tina could say that made Ned sound like a good choice of boyfriend for the gregarious twenty-three-year-old, but Katie had a good head on her shoulders. “Ned keeps her amused,” she said. “He’s young, but harmless.”
Gavin shook his head. “She always goes for the worst guys.”
Tina looked to Jamey. “I used to do that too, but I came around.”
Gavin eventually headed home, and while Jamey got the grill started, Tina slipped away to the living room and called her mother to see how things were at home. Her dad was doing well according to the home nurse they’d hired to spend nights at his bedside. Her mother was probably exhausted after two nights on a cot in the hospital.
“The nurse is quite thorough, and now I can’t do anything for him,” Elizabeth said.
“Think of it this way, Mom. Now you can get a good night’s sleep,” Tina said. “You and Mr. Boo.” She couldn’t resist teasing her mother about the cat.
“Oh that hairy thing will sleep almost on top of your father. I’ll have to warn the nurse. You stay out there in Carnation, if you want. We’ll be fine with Millie and the nurse. I’m sure Dad is out for the night now. I’m going to the guest room tonight so the nurse isn’t staring at me while I sleep.”
This new version of her mother was strange, but likeable. Normally, her mother would preach about the improprieties of Tina spending the night with a boyfriend, or at least ask what room she would be sleeping in. This recent turn of events, however unfortunate for her father, seemed to serve a purpose in re-focusing her mother’s priorities.
Back in the kitchen, the twins had warmed up enough to want to braid Tina’s short hair. “Get the elastics,” Jasmine said to an unwilling Jade. Tina was glad she didn’t have to rush back to her parents. The girls had been given permission to sleep over at Pops’ house, seeing it was Saturday.
While braiding, Jade said that their mom was so busy with Wyatt and Mango that they never got to play with her anymore. “She used to let us braid her hair. It’s red and long but it’s hard to braid because it’s curly.”