The Fable of Us

by Nicole Williams

  Boone cocked his brow a bit higher, waiting for my answer.

  I shrugged. “Dance.”

  His smile started to form, the light in his eyes firing. He remembered. Not that a person could ever forget those times. The ones where two people just got up and danced or put on a show for a crowd to prove that they didn’t give a flying fruit what anyone thought of them. Whether they were walking through a school cafeteria, or eating eggs and bacon at a downtown café, or mingling in a crowded room at my parents’ New Year’s Eve party . . . or being shunned by a roomful of family and friends-of-the-family years later. We gave them a show to prove they could stare all they wanted, but we weren’t going to hide.

  Boone fired a wink at me, bobbing his head to the beat of the song before throwing himself back onto the dance floor. His hands shoved off of it in quick succession, clapping every time he pressed off the floor. He still had the body of a teenager, and he could still move like one too.

  Had I even been capable of performing the mad moves Boone was playing out for everyone, The Thing would have burst open at every seam if I tried now, so I kept my moves a bit more contained, though what I lacked in mobility I more than made up for in theatrics. As Boone popped out of his floor routine, moving onto a series of hip thrusts that would have disgraced a male stripper, I did something that was reminiscent of the sprinkler meets the mermaid, and every eye that hadn’t been turned our way did.

  Boone wrapped his arms around his head, popping his elbows forward in sync with his hips. A few whoops came from the circle of Charlotte’s friends who’d been circling the bar most of the night.

  “To us doing us,” he said, his smile stretching as he watched me pinch my nose, shimmy my body lower, and do another mermaid.

  Letting go of my nose, I smiled back. “To us.”

  Morning Two.

  Two down, four more to go. That I was counting down the wake-ups until I could leave was an indication of just how unwelcome and uncomfortable I felt in the place I’d called home for nearly two decades.

  When I went to stretch, I moaned when I found my arms restricted from their usual range of motion, along with the rest of my body.

  “Yeah, me too,” a sleepy-sounding voice answered from the floor.

  “You also had the best sleep in your life?” I grimaced when I rolled onto my side toward where Boone had camped out on the floor again. My waist, along with my hips, felt either bruised or in danger of losing circulation. I wasn’t sure how, but somehow The Thing seemed to have shrunk another size overnight.

  “Positively the best,” Boone said, moaning a bit louder than I had. “By the way, Clara, your floor? It’s hard. I know there’s carpet and everything and your parents probably made sure it was the expensive plush shit, and there’s probably just as expensive and plush of a pad below it, but I’ve slept on hardwood floors and woken up with fewer knots in my back.”

  I tucked my lips between my teeth to keep from smiling. “You’re saying this isn’t the first time you’ve had to sleep on someone’s floor? Big baby?”

  “Not even close to my first time,” he answered through a yawn. “Miss Pillow-Top Mattress.”

  I was just rolling over a bit farther to look at him when I caught myself. My eyes sealed shut before I glanced his way. “Hey, Boone?”

  “Hey what?”

  “Do you, you know . . .” I made a few motions with my hand that filled in the rest, starting and ending at the place south of his navel.

  “No, we’re good. It seems that along with my back, other parts of my body didn’t like the sleeping arrangements.” When my eyes stayed closed for another few moments, he exhaled. “That means you can open your eyes already. No morning wood to blind you with.”

  “Are you naked again?” I asked.

  “Why? Would you like me to be?” His voice went down a few notes.

  I grabbed the pillow behind me and launched it in his general direction. “Not unless you’re planning on coating yourself in honey and rolling in a pile of feathers.”

  “I don’t believe that’s on my schedule. This morning.”

  I peeked one eye open. He still had the sheet tucked over him, but he had an undershirt on, so I took that to mean he was also wearing something that resembled boxers or briefs or whatever below that. I opened my other eye too, taking my chances. “What is on your schedule for today? I was supposed to be rehearsal-dinner dress shopping with my mom and sisters this morning, but since I’m still dealing with the repercussions of the dress I got forced into yesterday, I’m going to pass. Besides, I’ll be camped outside of that bridal shop this morning, and God help me if a seamstress is not on staff today, I will declare myself one and pry This Thing off of me through whatever means are necessary.”

  Boone grinned at me, his eyes still looking sleepy. “You could always declare me a seamstress and I could do the honors.”

  “That sounds scary. I’m not sure I even want to imagine how you’d go about getting This Thing off of me.”

  Boone rolled up onto his elbow, his expression darkening just enough that the band around my stomach cinched tight again. It was like certain looks of his were hardwired to that invisible band, making it tighten and squeeze at just the right—or generally wrong—moment. Like when he was three feet in front of me, both of us still sprawled out in our respective beds, behind a locked door.

  “It wouldn’t be my first time freeing you from a dress, now would it?”

  My throat flamed white hot. “So you’re saying you’ve got this because of all your experience in the dress-freeing department?”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be from inexperience, that’s for damn sure.” His expression darkened another shade as he sat up, then that smoldering look was instantly replaced by one of pain. Reaching for his lower back, he grumbled as he rubbed it.

  “You’re way too young to be complaining of back pain from sleeping on a floor,” I said, feeling like I was about to break a sweat from keeping the unaffected look plastered on my face.

  “No, not really. We’re at that awkward, stuck-in-the-middle stage. The ‘too old to be young, but too young to be old’ thing.” He continued to rub his back for another moment before throwing off the sheet and getting up.

  “Old enough to know better, but too young to give a damn?” I called as he traipsed toward the bathroom. The way he was moving now, a person would never know he’d spent the last two nights sleeping on a hard floor.

  “Something like that.” He closed the door halfway.

  Just when I was anticipating hearing the shower blasting to life, I heard the toilet seat lifting, followed by another typical morning ritual.

  “Boundaries,” I called, shaking my head. “They’re a good thing.”

  “According to who?” he called, still letting it flow. “They seem like more an excuse for keeping people at arm’s length, you know? Just another excuse for keeping your walls up when it comes to others getting to know the real you.”

  “An issue you clearly don’t struggle with,” I said right before I heard the toilet flushing and the toilet seat closing. At least he was a barbarian with manners.

  “Hey, you get the good with the bad right from the start when it comes to me. I’m not going to wrap myself in gold paper and throw a silver bow on top and pretend my shit doesn’t stink and the only flaw I’m in possession of is my affection for shelter animals.” Boone snorted right before the shower fired on. “No wonder so many marriages wind up in divorce. A person thinks they’re marrying one person only to find out they married someone else entirely. That’s a bunch of crap. The woman who marries me is going to get the same me the day after the wedding as she had on the first date.”

  His undershirt and boxers flew out from behind the bathroom door and landed in a couple of heaps in the middle of the floor.

  “Lucky lady,” I muttered, rolling out of bed.

  “So really though? What have you got going on today?” he hollered from the shower as I crossed the room t
o collect his dirty clothes. I tossed them in the laundry basket with my dirty clothes from yesterday. “Because I’m not looking forward to another eighteen holes of golf followed by a limo tour of the different distilleries around the city. Sunburned, dehydrated, and drunk—not the way I was hoping to spend my day. Plus spending it with a bunch of ass-clowns in the same condition.”

  I barked out a laugh. “Since I got a pass on the whole rehearsal-dress shopping outing thanks to my mom and Charlotte deeming my need to get helped out of The Thing an acceptable excuse, I highly doubt they’ll let me bail on the afternoon of touring the local wineries.” I stopped in front of my vanity to check my reflection, making sure I ignored what the mirror showed me from the neck down. My hair was messy, but after some brushing, it cleaned up enough to meet the passing bar.

  I was about to sweep on some blush and a coat or two of mascara when the shower turned off, and I decided to sideline that idea. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want Boone to see me putting on makeup. I didn’t want him to think I was doing it for him. I didn’t want him thinking, most importantly, about why I wanted to look my best around him.

  “A winery tour? A distillery tour?” Boone’s voice echoed in the bathroom. “Your family knows how to drink. I got to hand them that.”

  “You’ve spent a good chunk of time around them. It’s a survivalist measure, the only reason we’re all still alive and haven’t been given life sentences for pre-meditated murder.” I folded up Boone’s blankets, sheet, and pillow and carried them into my closet so they wouldn’t seem suspicious to any snoopy—a.k.a. my mom’s—eyes.

  Boone’s chuckle carried out into the room. “God bless America and it’s repeal on Prohibition.”

  “Please, my great-great-granddaddy was supposedly quite the puppet master in the bootleg industry in this part of the country. We present-day Abbotts would be well-stocked either way.”

  After making my bed, I slid into a comfy pair of sandals and scanned the room, looking for something else to do, or at least distract myself with. Boone had just charged out of the bathroom, steam billowing behind him, with nothing clothing him but a tiny towel cinched tight around his waist. His skin wet, his hair wet, his gaze landed on me, and that smile I’d been sure at one time had been created for me alone slid into place . . . I needed something to distract myself with.

  “What have you got in mind for the day?” I turned away from him and headed over to my dresser to reorganize the porcelain figurines I’d been given every year on my birthday—a series of angels holding whatever age I’d turned that year. “Other than making fashion statements at the country club again and marinating yourself in a vat of premium scotch?”

  From behind me, I heard what sounded an awful lot like a towel dropping to the floor. My instinct was to spin around to find out if I was right, so I made myself stay frozen, moving nothing but my hands as I moved the porcelain angels around.

  “Well, I need to get back to my place sometime today to get a change of clothes. I turned my boxers inside out yesterday, but two days is really the limit for anyone’s underwear, and I’d prefer not to go commando tomorrow too. Just because I like sleeping that way doesn’t mean I like going about my day in the same condition.”

  I swapped the eighteen angel with the eight one, curling my nose. “That’s disgusting.”

  “Oh, please, let’s not act like I’m the only one recycling their underwear, because unless some sort of immaculate swapping miracle happened while we were both asleep, you’re wearing the exact same panties you pulled on yesterday morning, Clara Abbott.”

  I felt my cheeks heat. He was right. In fact, I hadn’t even been able to use the restroom thanks to the restrictive qualities of The Thing. I’d limited my fluid intake after learning I’d be trapped in it until sometime this morning, and the rest of my bodily fluid had been sweated out by the liter yesterday.

  “Let’s just mind our own business when it comes to our respective underwear habits,” I said, swapping a few more angels around as I tried to pretend I wasn’t so focused on what he was doing, I could pinpoint every part of his dressing ritual. The rustle of his old jeans as he pulled them on, one leg followed by the next, the sound of his zipper lifting, the flutter of his shirt as he tugged it over his head, followed by the stuffing sound of him tucking it in.

  “How many times are you going to move that eighteen angel around?”

  I nearly jumped when I heard Boone’s voice right behind me. A glance over my shoulder revealed he was dressed and barely a foot away.

  I hadn’t realized I’d been moving her from one spot to the next for a while until Boone brought it up. I withheld a sigh and laid her on the desk close by. “Until she finds her place.”

  While I withheld mine, Boone didn’t contain his sigh. “Come on. Let’s get you out of The Thing. Since you’re not thrilled with the idea of me ripping you out of it the old-fashioned way.”

  I heard the eyebrow wag in his voice, so keeping my eyes forward, I delivered an elbow jab into his stomach before heading toward the door. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Cavanagh. Why, I just made your acquaintance last night, and I’d never let a man do that sort of thing to me on a first date.” I opened the door and waited for him. We were a team, whatever else we were or whenever we’d “met.” I knew that if I knew nothing else. “I’m not that kind of girl.”

  Boone covered his chest with his hand and gave me an appalled look as he crossed the room. “You say that like you’re implying I’m that kind of guy.”

  “Not implying anything. Again, I only just met you. I don’t know enough about you to make that sort of assumption.” I waved him through the door before closing it behind us. Not that shutting it would do any good. My mom had never been one to adhere to the closed-door policy of privacy. “All I know is that you know how to tear it up on a dance floor and that you have troubling hygiene standards when it comes to your undergarments.”

  Boone’s laugh rolled down the hall, seeming to spill down the stairs into the foyer. Like yesterday morning, the house was quiet, but today I knew the reason for the silence. Breakfast was being served outside, buffet-style, which was only about a million times more preferable than yesterday’s crowded, stuffy counterpart. I might actually be able to take more than two and a half bites of my breakfast this morning.

  “So is the future on the list of acceptable topics to be discussed today?” Boone asked as we headed down the stairs at an inchworm’s pace.

  In The Thing, stairs were next to impossible to maneuver with any speed. It probably would have been quicker and easier to roll me down.

  “I got a good night’s sleep. No one’s yelled at me yet about my hair, my dress, or my weight, so sure, let’s go crazy.”

  When I took the next step down, my toe caught on the step and threw me off balance a bit. Boone’s hands were bracing me, keeping me upright, before I knew I was off-kilter. I thanked him with an embarrassed smile and slowed to a senior citizen inchworm’s pace.

  “You own a business. A successful one, from the sounds of it,” Boone started, keeping his hands up—I guess in the event I decided to take another spill down the stairs.

  “Yes, and yes, maybe,” I answered.

  He gave me a look that suggested he knew I was being modest.

  “Okay, yes, it’s been successful beyond what I imagined it would be,” I admitted with an eye roll.

  “Nice,” he said, sounding like he actually meant it. If I’d admitted the same thing to the majority of my family, I’d be met with similar comments that would sound as if they meant the total opposite. “Warning you upfront here that I’m going to sound like an ignorant hick, but what exactly is your business?”

  I smiled at the floor as we took the last step that put us in the foyer. “That doesn’t sound ignorant at all. That sounds honest. Like the question most people would ask instead of pretending they know what the hell I’m talking about.”

  “So yeah, I’m an ignoran
t hick. Every one of my teachers’ assessments of me from kindergarten through senior year study hall has been confirmed.” He threw his hands up in the air like he was celebrating. “At last, I’ve finally lived up to someone’s expectations.”

  I nudged my shoulder into his. “I’ve created a consulting business that works with large corporations to make them more energy efficient, ultimately saving them thousands, sometimes millions, of dollars a year, and doing my part to help the environment too. I see it as a win-win.” I glanced at him and added, “And you’re not an ignorant hick. God knows I’ve spent my fair share of time around them, but never has one minute of that time been with you.”

  He nodded as we moved through the kitchen toward the back door. “Your family is one of the oldest, wealthiest oil families in this country’s history. Who would have seen their oldest child going into the business of saving the environment instead of advancing its demise?” He smiled at me, almost like he was proud I’d done one of the most outrageous, disgraceful things I could in my family’s eyes by opening a business with the goal to lessen the country’s dependency on oil, instead of doing everything I could to increase it. “And thanks for saying I’m not a hick, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. You can paint it white and braid its mane, but at the end of the day, you can’t turn an ass into a unicorn, no matter how much glitter and flowers you sprinkle on it.”

  “You lost me around the glitter part there, but now you can understand why my visits home have been so infrequent. My dad couldn’t talk to me without practically going cross-eyed after I told him about the company I’d started back in California.”

  “So pretty much the same look he gave you yesterday at breakfast when you told everyone you were expanding nationally?” Boone asked as we stepped through the screen door onto the back porch.