by Sarina Bowen
When she’d asked me to move in last spring, I’d been so happy. I’d thought I’d finally found someone who would be mine forever.
Ugh. I turn my back on the stupid bed. “Let’s go,” I say.
“Not so fast,” he says, putting his hands on my shoulders. “Room by room, okay? Do you have anything in the bathroom?”
He’s right. In my haste I’d forgotten about my toiletries. I’m not petty—I leave the new box of tampons we’d just bought, and the shampoo. I take my fancy moisturizer, my toothbrush, and my hairdryer.
Daniela can air dry, damn it.
“What’s in there?” Alec points toward the spare bedroom.
“Not much.” I walk over and open the door, even though it makes me feel stupid. I had imagined we would eventually need this room for a nursery. I’d wanted us to adopt a baby girl from China. Lately, when I’d brought it up, Daniela would change the topic.
I’d missed every damn clue she’d given me.
My eyes sweep over the mostly empty room, and just as I’m about to shut the door, I spot my knitting basket in a corner. It’s dusty from neglect.
“This is mine,” I say, retrieving it. There’s at least two hundred dollars’ worth of yarn and needles in the basket, but I haven’t knit anything in ages. Daniela had made a crack about my old-lady hobby more than once.
Goddamn her. Why had I listened to a thing she’d said?
Because you were lonely, my subconscious reminds me.
Oh yeah. That.
Alec takes the knitting basket from my hands. “No suitcase needed for this,” he says. “I’ll put it in the back seat. You check the kitchen?”
Here, too, I need to grab a few things. A ceramic pie plate that belonged to my grandmother. A couple of mugs, a rolling pin I’d brought to the relationship. Everything fits into a paper grocery bag.
I leave an entire defrosted chicken in the fridge. Tonight I’d meant to roast it for dinner, but now I bet it will just rot. Daniela didn’t ever cook for me the way I cooked for her. She didn’t care enough to plan meals or ask me what I wanted from the store.
Taking the chicken would be psycho, right? Who removes a defrosted chicken from the fridge when she moves out?
But it’s organic. It cost six bucks a pound.
These are my crazy thoughts as I spot Daniela’s new iPhone resting on the countertop. She must have forgotten it again, which happens a lot. In her defense, Vermont’s cell service is so spotty that smartphones aren’t as useful as they are elsewhere in the world.
I pick up the phone and unlock it—the phone knows my thumbprint, so that I can choose tunes when we’re in the car together. For the first time in our eleven-month relationship, I open up the messaging app. I’m not a snoop. I’m a trusting person. But now that my trust has been eviscerated, I’m curious how long her affair has been going on.
Sure enough—right under a thread of messages with me is a thread with “Trax,” as Daniela’s ex called herself. (I know way too much about this woman, which meant it was always going to end this way.)
I read the last few texts, and I’m already nauseated.
Trax: Tomorrow can’t come soon enough, honey love. I’m so hot for you. Gonna make you scream again.
Ugh! I scroll up hastily to verify that the texts have been going on for weeks. But I scroll one time too many, because I find a picture of Daniela naked on our bed. Her legs are spread, fingertips lightly touching her—
I make a noise of dismay.
“Time to go,” Alec says softly from where he stands leaning against the doorframe. He doesn’t say so, but I can tell he’s keeping watch. He’s trying to protect me from another brutal confrontation.
And that’s a good impulse. I’m done here. Truly done. I click the phone off, so the screen goes dark. But that’s not satisfying enough. So I open the dishwasher, which Daniela forgot to run. I toss the phone into the top rack, slam it shut, and push the ON button.
“Okay,” I say, as the sound of water swishing around inside the machine begins. “I’m ready.”
Alec is frozen in the doorway, staring at me. Slowly, the corners of his mouth quirk upward. Then a full smile blooms. “You are a badass, May Shipley. I’m a little in awe of you.”
* * *
I don’t feel like a badass, though, as we roll toward my family’s farm in Tuxbury. I only feel like a failure.
“Everything okay over there?”
“Yes. Sorry.” I’m a terrible conversationalist. “Just trying to rearrange my brain. My family is not going to be graceful about this.”
“What? Sure they will be. They’ll be happy to see you.” Alec’s tone is soothing—the way you’d speak to a crazy person.
“Maybe. But I have quite the rep now as the family fuck-up. When I turn up tonight with your truck full of my stuff, and move back into my old room…” I groan, just picturing their faces. “There will be a lot of handwringing and watching me for signs of stress. I’m my family’s only hot mess.”
Alec chuckles. “No, you’re the family’s only lawyer, right? If you want to be a hot mess, you gotta try a little harder than that.”
This makes me smile, because I like Alec’s take on the situation better than mine. Unfortunately, he’s wrong. While I might be the only Shipley with a graduate degree, I’m also the only alcoholic. Sometimes they treat me like I’ve contracted a novel and potentially fatal disease.
I suppose they’re right.
“It will be awkward.” I sigh, picturing all the sympathetic looks I’m about to receive. Poor May. She’s lost her way again. “You know, I think I jumped into living with Daniela too soon mostly because I didn’t want to be under their microscope anymore.” My family can be hard to take.
“So now you’re back under it?”
“Yeah.”
“Look on the bright side.” He reaches across the cab to nudge me with a warm hand. “Free food and rent!”
The man has a point. Nobody ever starved at Shipley Farm.
Though, as the dark miles roll by, I can’t stop myself from replaying the ugly scene in Alec’s bar. “Maybe it sounds weird to fixate on this,” I grumble. “But I can’t believe she was wearing that sweater. If you were going out for a date with the Other Woman, would you wear a sweater your live-in girlfriend made? I spent a hundred hours on that thing, and at least two hundred bucks. It was angora!”
“Good thing it wasn’t cashmere.”
“Right? Jesus. That would have been four hundred bucks worth of yarn.”
“Really?”
“Totally. It actually costs more to knit a sweater than to buy one.”
Alec turns his head to give me a quick glance. “Then why knit them? Serious question.”
“Because you can make whatever you want. But also out of love. A handmade thing is better than a store-bought thing.”
“Not always,” Alec points out. “If you ate my cooking you might not agree.”
“Fair enough.” I smile at his handsome profile. “This is going to sound stupid.”
“Try me. I say stupid shit all day long.”
“There’s this old wives’ tale that you’re not supposed to knit a sweater for the man in your life. They say that if you knit him a sweater, he’ll never marry you.”
“Ouch.” Alec’s handsome profile frowns. “I hope you don’t believe that. This thing wasn’t your fault.”
“It wasn’t the sweater that did it,” I say quickly. “Of course not. The funny thing is, though, that the wives’ tale refers to a man. I made a joke that it didn’t matter if I gave Daniela a sweater because wives’ tales don’t cover lesbians.”
Alec laughs, filling the cab with a warm, happy sound. My life is falling apart right now, but Alec is still easy to talk to. It must be a gift that bartenders have. Like priests. Sitting at his bar chatting him up sounds like a good time.
Too bad I don’t go to bars anymore.
Before I’m ready, we’re rolling up the driveway of my f
amily’s farmhouse. That’s when I notice that the driveway is packed with vehicles. “Oh, hell.”
“Lotta company tonight?”
“It’s Thursday Dinner.” It’s a weekly family event. It’s not always at our house. But tonight? Of course it is. And earlier today I’d told my mom that Daniela and I weren’t coming.
I groan again. Loudly. Because I’m just realizing something.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m an idiot. Daniela hasn’t been coming with me to Thursday Dinner because of her pro bono work. But there never was a Thursday pro bono meeting. She just picked that night for her hookups so she could avoid coming out to Thursday Dinner with my family.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Who wouldn’t want to eat dinner with you?” he asks softly.
“Her, obviously.” The kindness in his voice is a little hard to hear right now. And god, I want a drink. So badly. But I keep that to myself, because I’m pathetic enough already.
Alec kills the engine. “What’s the plan, here? Do you want to stash your stuff on the front porch and come back later?” He’s eyeing the farmhouse, where a dozen people are visible through the lacy curtains in the dining room.
“No, it’s fine. I’ll just go in and get it over with.” Alec has already given me enough of his evening. “I’ll just haul my stuff in through the kitchen door and chuck it into the TV room.” That way, at least, I won’t be clomping up and down the stairs while my family eats dinner.
This is going to be awful.
At least I’ll get a slice of my mother’s apple pie out of it.
Chapter Three
Alec
May and I ferry two loads of her belongings stealthily in through the kitchen door of the farmhouse.
But on our third trip, we’re busted by her grandpa as he fills his water glass in the kitchen sink. “Well, well, well!” the old man shouts. He’s either hard of hearing or likes the sound of his own voice. “Look who’s sneakin’ in like a thief in the night!”
“Thieves carry things out,” May grumbles. “This is the opposite of that.”
“Did you finally leave that harpy of a girlfriend?” Grandpa Shipley barks.
May closes her eyes like he’s causing her physical pain. “Can you say it louder, Grandpa? I’m not sure they heard you all the way to Rutland.”
So that’s the end of stealth mode.
“What’s this?” Ruth Shipley—May’s mother—appears in the room, an empty water pitcher in her hand. “You left Daniela?” Her jaw is practically on the floor.
Poor May.
“Can we talk about it later?” she asks as the doorway fills with more curious faces. “Everyone sit down, okay? Nothing to see here.”
There is a beat of awkward silence, and then Ruth remembers she’s on a mission. She carries the pitcher to the sink to fill it. “I assume you haven’t eaten. May, get two plates, honey. Alec, you’re staying for dinner.”
“Yes ma’am,” I say, because Ruth Shipley’s voice is more authoritative than the commanding officers I met during my brief stint in the military.
“Sorry,” May whispers.
I should probably get back to the Gin Mill, but at least there’s a text on my phone telling me that Connor had driven over to pick up my shift. So the bar is doing fine.
And I feel a little weird about just dropping May with her stuff and running away. Meanwhile, the food smells amazing. Ruth is famous for putting up a nice spread, and I’ve never been inside the farmhouse before. The Shipleys used to feed the kids who came to pick fruit on their farm, but they kept us outside, like the riff-raff we were.
In spite of myself, I’m curious. “Let me just close the truck’s doors.”
“Let me…” May says, but I catch her shoulder in one hand.
“I got it. It’s fine.”
Two minutes later I poke my head into the dining room, and it feels a little like walking into enemy territory. My old pal Griffin sits at the center of one side of the table, like a king surrounded by his family and his wife.
I’ve known the Shipleys my whole life. They’re like a postcard family—two boys and two girls—everyone smiling and wearing hand-knit sweaters and singing campfire songs together.
They probably do that for real.
The Rossi clan, on the other hand, is a rougher, trailer-park version of the Shipley family. There are four boys and one girl. We’re louder, and—to my lovely mother’s dismay—a little cruder. We have tattoos and punk-rock T-shirts instead of knit sweaters. We smile, too, but usually while we’re pummeling each other.
“Over here, dummy,” a voice calls.
I turn to spot my sister waving me down. Zara is seated on a bench, holding Nicole, my toddler niece, on her lap.
“Well, hi kids,” I say, taking the seat next to them. “Fancy meeting you here.”
And honestly it is a little weird. Zara is yet another reason I’m not close to Griffin Shipley. She was in love with him in high school, when he never looked in her direction.
But then a couple years ago he did. They had a fling that Griff eventually ended, breaking Zara’s heart all over again.
That’s all over now, though, and Zara has a new man and a baby. She’s probably the happiest of the five Rossi kids. But I still don’t understand how Zara can be so close with the Shipleys now. She and Griff’s wife are best friends and business partners.
I’m still pissed off at Griffin on Zara’s behalf. But my sister is thriving. She and Audrey have a busy coffee shop located on my property, beside the Gin Mill. They rent their building from me, but that’s the extent of my involvement.
I sit down beside her and put my linen napkin in my lap. Mom would be proud.
“Ack,” Nicole says, because my niece is my little sweetheart even if she can’t say “Alec” yet. The baby and I used to spend a lot more time together when they were living in the apartment beneath mine. But now Zara has an historic house in the center of Colebury.
Nicole tries to climb into my lap, but Zara holds onto her hindquarters. “Let Ack eat, okay? You can climb him like a jungle gym later.”
Someone passes me a basket of dinner rolls, and I take one.
“You’re the fellow who owns that new speakeasy!” Grandpa Shipley shouts.
“It’s a bar, gramps,” Griffin says. “Evening, Alec.” He reaches across the table and forks a slab of ham onto my plate. Then he puts one on his sister’s plate, too. “So…” He clears his throat and passes me a bowl of mashed potatoes. “How is it that you drove May home tonight?”
He gives me a wary look, which irritates me. Griff is sort of a grouch, generally. He gives everyone the side-eye.
May answers the question. “Alec was just in the right place at the wrong time,” she says, scooping applesauce onto her plate beside the ham. “And he volunteered to drive me home.”
“And that place was…?” Griffin waits.
“My bar,” I say between bites. And, wow. Mrs. Shipley’s ham is terrific. I think she smokes it herself. She probably enters those contests at the Tunbridge World’s Fair, where they give out blue ribbons for the best pie and the best applesauce.
When the Rossis go to the fair, we’re only there for the roller coasters and the deep-fried pickles.
There is another awkward silence. I glance around the table at all the gawking faces, and try to figure out what’s wrong. It’s a lot of faces, too There’s the younger brother—Dylan—but not his twin sister, who’s away at college. And the Abrahams, who live down the road. And Jude Nickel and his wife, Sophie.
They are all looking at May with worry in their eyes. And it dawns on me that if I’d told May a week ago about Daniela’s cheating, she might have been able to avoid a scene at the bar. And she could have chosen the right moment to tell her family, too.
May meets my gaze from across the table. See? her expression says. Told you.
This awkward silence is all my fault.
Then May brea
ks it. “There I was, strolling into Alec’s bar, demanding a fifth of whiskey,” she says aloud.
Her mother gasps.
“Kidding.” May puts down her fork. “This afternoon I did a real estate closing in Waterbury. So I passed the Gin Mill on my way back south. And I spotted Daniela’s car in the lot.”
“Oh,” Ruth says, looking relieved.
Griffin nods. “Not like you could miss that car. All those bumper stickers. Kinda militant.”
May rolls her eyes. “Anyway. I went into the bar just to say hello. Daniela supposedly has a Thursday meeting.” May swallows hard. “I didn’t even think it was weird to see her car there because I thought maybe they get a drink afterward, and she didn’t say anything because she was being kind—since grabbing a drink isn’t something I do.”
The story stops there for a second while May takes a deep breath. There is silence from everyone, even my baby niece.
“But…then I spotted Daniela in a booth. With her ex-girlfriend. And they were, well, wrapped around each other.” She looks down at her plate.
“Oh, hell,” Griffin says. “I’m going to kill her.”
“Honey,” Ruth says quietly. “Are you sure you interpreted that correctly?”
“She absolutely did,” I put in.
Pity rises in the room like a mist, and I can feel May’s embarrassment from all the way across the table.
“Did you confront her?” Griffin asks.
“You could say that.” May looks up, her eyes finding mine, her cheeks going pink.
“Oh-oh!” Zara says. “Were their fireworks?”
“Nah,” I say at the same time May says, “Unfortunately.”
Cue another curious silence.
“Well, fine,” I admit. “May yelled. But who wouldn’t?”
“I may have used some very colorful language,” May grumbles.
“Oh, honey,” her mother says. Maybe the Shipley women aren’t supposed to curse.
“I called her a…” May closes her mouth quickly, realizing that she doesn’t want to say “cuntmuffin” in front of my niece.
A bark of a laugh escapes me, and for a split second our eyes meet in a silent exchange of humor.