Vacancy: A Love Story

by Tracy Ewens

  Hollis tried to pull back, to look into his eyes, but he held her close while he finished. “He was gone in less than six months.” After a few more beats, during which Hollis was sure her uncle was collecting himself so he could finish his story, his arms loosened and his glossy eyes found hers. He held her by the shoulders and softly said, “It is the one thing that matters, Tots. All the rest of this… stuff seems important, but it’s not.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  He laughed and quickly wiped away any tears that threatened to fall. “Do you think you have the market on hiding?” He walked behind his desk, back to his scanner.

  Hollis picked up her suitcase.

  “Now go put those fancy shoes back on. You should probably get a pedicure too before you return to the circus.”

  The circus. Apparently, everyone saw it but her.

  “I’ll be back.”

  “I know,” he said and went back to scanning, lost in his own memories.

  Matt had paced around The Bean long enough. Poppy was about to throw him out, so he left and walked toward the cabins. Her car was parked out front and as he approached, she was on the pier. The memory hit him like some kind of epiphany. In all these years, after what they’d been through, not much had changed.

  The summer of thirteen, after they became friends but before he’d kissed her, they started jumping off the dock. The first time they stood shoulder to shoulder, toes curled off the edge of the warm wood. Matt took her hand, threaded their fingers together as they were poised to jump. Hollis wiggled her fingers free.

  “Don’t hold that way. I need to be able to slip free if I don’t want to go where you’re going once we’re in the water.”

  He could hear her young voice in his head as clear as if she was as close to him as she was now. The woman, even at thirteen, knew how to throw him off center. She had a certain security, a sense of self that Matt had never experienced before, nor did he have it himself at that age. Maybe Hollis taught him how to be a man, how to stop being a boy. He was grateful to her because as he stood in front of a grown-up Hollis, he was going to attempt something far more impossible than a double flip off the pier. He was going to try to make her stay.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as he stepped into the buffer of space Hollis liked to keep around herself.

  “I need this to be about now. I get that we have a past, but we’re not those people anymore. I can help you, love you, and that’s all I did.” He touched her face. “This is different now and yet you’re doing it again.”

  “What are you talking about? It’s not like we can stay here. I need to go back at some point. You made sure I have a job. I suppose I should thank you, but I’m still pissed.”

  “I know. I’m not talking about going back to the city.”

  “Then what?”

  He took her face gently in his hands as if that would somehow reach her, remind her that this was her life, her home as much as it was his. “When you run this time, Holls, what do you want me to do?”

  “Matt, I’m not running. We both have lives. We’re adults.”

  “Answer the question. What do you want me to do?”

  “Look, I’m going back. I’ll call you.”

  “What are we?”

  “I don’t know, okay. What do you want me to say? I’m not running. I’m simply getting back to my life.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Give me a little space to get back and figure things out.” He’d heard that one before.

  “Space,” he repeated.

  “Yes, space.”

  She was already gone. The embarrassment or whatever she had told herself was a reason to leave was placed firmly between them and as before, there was nothing Matt could do. He was getting tired of not having options. She was preparing to return. He’d never known another woman, or man for that matter, so capable of shutting down. Every fiber in his body told him to grab her, make her stay, but that was not a tactic that worked on someone like Hollis, so he did what he swore he would never do. He stepped back and let her leave, again.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Hollis turned toward the window behind her desk and stared out at the other tall buildings. She’d been back a little over two weeks and was finally ready to move Pretty Boys to the “Client Maintenance” file on the corporate shared drive with the rest of her success stories. She’d spent some time at the spa getting all quaffed back to perfect and no longer had sand between her toes. In fact, her toes had returned to their biweekly pedicure schedule. Her hair was blown out and glowing, so it seemed a shame that the tear that escaped messed up her liquid eyeliner. Hollis looked down at her Ferragamos. Silk blouse, pencil skirt, and chickpea salad for lunch, the old Hollis was back. She was whole again, except for one part. It was a vital piece, but she’d once again left it by the cove. Her heart would probably stay there forever this time, and she honestly couldn’t blame it.

  She turned back to her computer one last time to the picture Poppy sent her of Hannah, who was getting bigger every day, and closed down the pictures of Sage’s honeymoon and her ever-so-slightly growing belly. Surrounded by importance and wealth, Hollis told herself life was all about different paths. She was meant to be right where she was and as soon as she accepted that, she would return to her happy.

  Hollis had thrown out her broken flip-flops when the doorbell rang. She shoved the suitcase she’d finally managed to unpack into her closet and went to the door.

  “Mom. Why are you here? Is everything all right?”

  “I don’t think it is. May I come in?”

  Hollis stepped aside, and her mother walked in with a box in her hand and went straight to the kitchen.

  “What’s in there?”

  Her mother opened the box to what looked like a dozen oatmeal cream pie things, but way better than Little Debbie.

  “Oatmeal cream pies?”

  “Yes, your uncle told me you were eating those packaged things, and I thought you might need a better version.”

  “Where did you even find these?”

  “There’s this little bakery right off of Birch. Divine, you should—”

  “So you drove into the city to show me the proper way to eat an oatmeal pie?”

  “No. Do you have tea?”

  Hollis nodded and pulled down a teapot.

  “I drove into the city to tell you that maybe your father and I messed up, but I won’t apologize.”

  “Okay.”

  “You are a strong, wonderful woman and that is hard to do—those don’t grow on trees.”

  “Did Uncle Mitch say something?”

  “He did, but you know him, it’s all metaphors and my God, I think the man has fifty of the same Hawaiian shirt. But that’s not the point. I’m here to tell you a story.”

  “Like Uncle Mitch?”

  “No, this one is better, and it proves my point.”

  Hollis settled in.

  “When you were little, we had this huge chestnut tree in our backyard. Do you remember?”

  “I think so. In the old house before Annabelle was born?”

  Her mother nodded. “Yes, so each year birds nested in the tree and sometimes it was windy and tiny birds would fall from the nest. Your father would go out early in the morning and check to make sure there were none on the ground before you girls went out to play.”

  Hollis made more tea. She had a feeling this was going to be a long one. “I’m listening.”

  “Anyway, one day you and Sage were out early and there was a baby bird that had fallen from the nest.”

  Hollis rejoined her mother. “Did Dad get it?”

  “No. You found it. It was bigger than the others he found before. It had some feathers and could move its head. It was alive. You came running into the house and made your father come help.”

  “I think I remember this. Didn’t we make a nest for it?”

  “Yes, you had learned in school that you needed to leave it on the ground and keep
it safe. You did that.”

  “I remember. And then the bird was gone one morning. Flew away.”

  “Yes. But after two weeks. For two weeks, you took care of that bird.”

  “I thought Sage did.”

  “No, she lost interest after a day. You took care of that bird, watched him day and night, and there was one night we thought he was going to die. His breathing was slow and you slept outside with him.”

  “I don’t remember this.”

  “I went outside to give you another blanket, and you were talking to the bird. ‘Are you listening to me, little guy?’ you said. ‘Giving up is not an option. You have to fight and get back up in that nest. Do you hear me?’”

  Hollis didn’t move, not even at the sound of her mother’s excellent impersonation of her as a child.

  “‘We are Jeffries. You are a Jeffries bird because you are in our tree, and we do not fail,’” her mother continued.

  Hollis held her hand to her mouth.

  “‘So, I’m right here with you and we will make it through the night. You are tough and you need to fly.’ That’s what you said.” Her mother’s eyes welled up. “That’s who you are, sweetheart. You’re a fighter and you bring people up, make them stronger. I can’t have you walking around telling people you’re a horrible person because it’s simply not true. You make things happen, Hollis Marie. You’re my daughter and I would expect nothing less. Mistakes are merely challenges to overcome.”

  “Mom.”

  “No. They’re part of life. It’s what we do with them, how we survive that makes up who we are.”

  “But—”

  “You found yourself pregnant while you were in college. So?”

  “How did you know—”

  “Oh for crying out loud, a mother knows these things. I waited for you to tell me and when you didn’t, I called Matt. He told me what happened and I let you be. You needed to find your way.”

  “You are exceptional, my dear. A wonderful force, but you are not a horrible person. Maybe I didn’t teach you this, but you need to be kind to yourself, forgive the bumps as you keep going down the road. If you collect them, you’ll never make it to my age.”

  Hollis was now crying.

  “That boy loves you, he always has. Now you need to give him a break and stop playing so hard to get. Mistakes aren’t the same as failure. You know that. You said it yourself. Now it’s time for you to take your own advice.”

  Chapter Thirty

  He had not heard from her in the two weeks since she left the cove. His parents had both come up to check on the store and Poppy was now back full-time. Matt was free to go back to his life and yet, like one of those snow globes his parents bought him one year at Disneyland, he was all over the place.

  Sometimes if you want something, you have to take it. The phrase popped into his head as he sat back at his office and finally stopped reading the same e-mail over and over again. If life were as easy as simply “taking it.” Outside of the movies, most people who tried to run on in and take what they wanted were shot or arrested. When it came to Hollis, severe body damage was likely. So, Matt worked, bought a plant for his apartment, and tried to find the life he’d managed before a guy named Zeke turned the world on its axis. Matt learned that Fat Pigs was a huge success, and he was sure the follow-up game they were already pushing with the slogan, “Let’s get dirty again,” would probably be as big.

  In an effort to keep her from being humiliated, he’d helped, which in turn sent her away. While that was a sobering thought, Matt wanted her to want to be with him, not simply settle because there were no other options. Watching Hollis fall at the hands of some asshole with a name like Liam was never an option. Bradley had handed him Hollis’s blue folder, and Matt had paid the bill and she’d hated him for it.

  With a weekend stretched out in front of him, Matt decided to check in on Poppy. He wasn’t returning again to Mitchell’s Cove hoping Hollis would return. He wasn’t that naive anymore. Even though he had plenty of things to do in the city this weekend, he was returning because it had been two weeks and the one way he knew to be close to her was to be there. If that was pathetic, he no longer cared. Every day as his eyes opened, all he wanted was a life with her. If he couldn’t have that, if she didn’t want him now that her life was back in order, he would love her by being there.

  “We really should learn to play a proper card game,” Mitch said several hours later as they sat out on the patio drinking beer. “Hollis would lose her mind if she knew this was the extent of our parlor games.”

  “Old Maid is a proper game,” Matt said, discarding a card and trying to breathe at the first mention of her name.

  When Matt arrived, tie still dangling from his dress shirt, Mitch immediately put in an order for chowder and settled Matt at the end of the bar with a beer. Mitch had not pried for details or told him he was a fool. He’d simply offered chowder, beer, and now a game of cards, albeit a children’s game.

  “Do you have any Gary Gophers?” Mitch asked with a straight face and took a pull of his beer.

  “Have you heard from her?” Matt handed over two gophers.

  “Other than an e-mail with links to virtual tax accountants she wants me to contact, no. Your turn.”

  “Do you have any… What is this one… Billy Blaze? Christ, how old is this game?”

  Mitch laughed. “Old.” He handed over one card with a fireman on it. “How are things at home?”

  The question struck Matt as odd because for a minute, he forgot this wasn’t his home. “Good, getting back to normal.”

  Mitch raised his eyebrows, still looking down at his hand of cards.

  “I’m here to make sure Poppy is adjusting to full-time.”

  Mitch tossed his last card into the pile between them and declared himself the winner. Matt threw his cards into the pile and finished off his beer. There was a group of people close to the dock having a bonfire. Matt could hear them playing charades and marveled at how normal, how relaxed they sounded. His life had never been relaxed. No matter how hard he tried, there was work or expectation or… Hollis. She pushed in life and while a lot of people would find that off-putting, Matt never minded. In fact, now that she was gone again, he found the drop in urgency depressing. He almost wanted to take up a new hobby or read some ridiculously long book to occupy his mind because when he slowed down, closed his eyes, she was there. He knew from past experience it would get better, but he didn’t want it to this time. He wanted her to come back and mess up his life all over again.

  So much for the damn split-apart theory, he thought, helping clean up. Mitch shut the lights off behind the bar and walked Matt to the door.

  “She’ll be back,” he said as they locked up and stood in the empty parking lot.

  “I’m not so sure.”

  Mitch nodded. “You told her you were coming for her this time. What are you waiting for?”

  “I don’t know. I think it’s that whole easier said than done business.”

  Mitch nodded. “The doing is often the hardest part, but she needs you to get her. She would never admit it, but I think she wants the gesture.”

  Matt wrapped his arms around Mitch and swallowed back the feeling that maybe this was what advice from a big brother felt like. God, if Hollis thought she was a mess, Matt was right there with her.

  “Right? That’s good advice,” Mitch said when Matt let him go.

  He nodded because he was afraid if he said anything, he’d make a blubbering asshole of himself.

  “Good, so go get her.” Mitch patted him on the back and walked away.

  Matt had spent his life waiting for a lull in his dad’s priorities, waiting for the pain in his mother’s eyes to ease into one son being enough, and, of course, waiting for Hollis. In the space of one September evening, standing in a parking lot alone, maybe he was done waiting. He shook his head to clear it and walked toward his car.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  In typical Hol
lis form, before he had a chance to snap himself into the “doing,” she’d sent the e-mail.

  She needed him. Sure, it wasn’t some grand cry for help, she hadn’t begged him or texted him a million times. Hollis wasn’t that woman; she was like one of those paintings Bradley bought for the lobby of their offices. From a distance, it looked like one thing, but when a person moved closer, it was made up of tiny parts of something entirely different. She was intricate like that, so Matt knew exactly what the e-mail he’d received an hour ago meant. It was an article about a lighthouse in Maine that was looking for an innkeeper. One of about a dozen lighthouses still manned, and she sent it to him with the subject—Vacancy. That was it, nothing more.

  If he showed the e-mail to anyone else, they would say he was crazy, but as Matt made his way to the financial district, he knew she was asking. Asking him to remember what she had said. “If the opportunity…” He remembered, the pink in her cheeks for the wind and pain in her eyes and the way she brushed it off with a joke. That was Hollis, which was how the woman he’d loved his whole life operated. She offered up these tiny cryptic windows and if—when—he missed them, she moved on without him.

  “I don’t even know how to change diapers, do you?” she asked him the morning after they found out she was pregnant. He’d been so stunned at the idea of being a father, so wrapped up in the “hows” and “whens” of building a life with her, that he’d missed it. She was asking him the one way she knew how. There was so much in that question. Do you want to have this baby? If you don’t know how to change diapers, will you learn? I don’t know anything. I’m scared.

  Matt had answered with a simple one word: no. Hollis showered and was back in her parents’ house in less than forty-eight hours. Window closed.

  The lighthouse article was the same thing. It wasn’t some interesting piece of news; it was another question. Do you want to love me, scratchy sweaters and stew?

  All he needed to do was follow her; go after her. So that’s what he was doing as he pulled into the parking garage at 411 Bass Ave. He had absolutely no idea how to “take” Hollis for his own, but he didn’t care. He’d start with “I can’t live without you” and go from there.