Didn’t Oscar Wilde die lonely and unhappy?
I meant to nab Doyle a flower, as a symbol of our platonic friendship, but the hibiscus blooms are gone before homeroom is over, and I can’t even find a ratty carnation after first block.
Ansley bounds into English with a clutch of assorted flowers, laughing and tossing her ponytail.
“Are you freaking out that Doyle made more money than you? They announced the totals raised, and Ag smoked Rose Court, hands down!” Lonzo hoots.
Ansley’s bright smile stalls for a second, but she forces a laugh. “Freaking out? It was all for charity, Lonzo. Plus I adore hibiscuses. If I was mad, I wouldn’t have accepted all of these, would I?” As Ansley humble-brags about her flower-based popularity, she sends me a pitying look. “Guess nobody clued you in ’bout our Valentine’s tradition, Agnes? Bless your heart, don’t worry. It’s just some flowers.” She smirks, and I come up with nada on the crushing comeback scale.
It’s no big deal.
It isn’t. If I’d gone to Newington this morning though, I’d have exchanged gifts with Ollie.
But I didn’t.
No biggie.
Khabria turns in her seat and rolls her eyes. “Ansley, she could’ve had her pick of flowers. When someone forgot to put Doyle’s flowers on the order forms, Nes is the one who got Ag Club organized. She’s probably just flowered out by now.”
I smile at Khabria and would have called it a pretty successful Galentine’s based on Ansley’s furious expression alone. But jest then two underclassmen come in carrying a glittery box loaded with the most gorgeous blooms. They beeline past Ansley, who was clearing her desk to make room, and place the box of flowers in front of me. One of them opens a card, clears his throat, and reads:
“To Penelope,
“Thank you for all your help. We made enough for the greenhouses. I know you probably wanted a carnation, but there were none left.
“Hope these are okay.
“Ulysses”
“Her name isn’t Penelope,” Ansley announces in a panicked squeal. No one is listening.
Everyone cranes their necks to see the garden on my desk. Doyle had to be eavesdropping outside the door because he saunters in like he knows exactly what kind of entrance he makes.
He heads to me with a large pink flower, kneels down, and says, “Happy Valentine’s. Thank you for saving my ass.” There’s a chorus of aws that’s so saccharine, the air tastes sweet.
“I meant to get you one,” I tell him quietly.
He winks a violet eye and heads to his desk. “I prefer live plants. Jest water that tree and think of me, and we’ll call it even.”
“Doyle?” He pauses. I finger the soft pink petals. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome. You and me? We make a good team, Nes.”
If my heart flutters a little, I’m blaming it on allergies from all this pollen.
SEVENTEEN
A rhythmic tapping jolts me awake, and I grab my field hockey stick, ready to bludgeon whoever’s stupid enough to bother me this early. Outside the window, I see a familiar truck. I drop my weapon and bury my head in the covers, not sure if I want to laugh or cry or murder Doyle Rahn with my bare hands.
I text him after the next tap, because I don’t trust my willpower if I see his face.
I WILL KILL YOU IF YOU DON’T GO AWAY!
Short, sweet, to the point.
He taps again.
“Dammit, Doyle!” I croak in something between a sob and a scream. “I’m tired!” I pound my fist on the mattress, then jump up and raise the window sash.
Doyle leans in and surveys my room. “Sparse. Wanna swim?”
Dawn is not my favorite time, but Doyle convinces me to give sunrise a shot. I make sure my sigh is audible, but the sound just cracks out his smile. I’m shockingly defenseless when it comes to that smile.
“Five minutes,” I grumble.
I slam the window shut, root around for my bikini, brush my teeth, and avoid the mirror. Doyle’s waiting, feet in the pool, proper swim trunks on, smiling like he’s just seen the answer to all his problems.
Which is impossible, since I’m nothing but problems right now. I start to drag the inflatable lounger out of the shed, but I step back and yawn when Doyle intercepts. My feminism is still asleep at this hour. I’m tired enough to let chivalry win this hand.
Once it’s in the water, I fall facedown on it, fingers trailing in the water. He does quiet laps around me like a seal circling a boat.
“How the hell are you so chipper?” I gripe as he dives and rolls. “Didn’t you have to help your cousin babysit fleahoppers again last night? You should be like the walking dead.”
“I don’t need a lot of sleep.” He cups water in his hand and squirts it at me.
I turn my head and glare. “Force my hand and I will jump into action and drown you so fast, you won’t have time to beg for your life. Stop.”
Just like that, the wind collapses from his fun sails and I feel like Comandante Buzzkill.
“Talked to Critter. ’Bout the night you got pulled over.” He zeroes in on me, waiting.
I groan and fling an arm over my eyes. I start to get hot and think about how cool the water would feel on my skin, but my laziness wins out over my discomfort. “You seem calm about it. I’m going to guess you agree it wasn’t a big thing?”
Doyle cracks every knuckle on both his hands in immediate response, which kills that wet dream.
“You never mentioned his name when you told me ’bout that night.” He sets his mouth in a grim line.
“He did say he knew you.” I left that out in my abridged retelling. “I assumed he meant he knew you the way cops in small towns just know everyone?”
“He’s my cousin,” Doyle admits.
I vow then and there to never say a word about anyone to anyone else ever as long as I live in this one-horse town, because I’ll never be able to untangle the knotted web of family and friend and lover and former lover and enemy and whatever-the-hell else that ties every person to everyone else in this place.
“Okay.” I slide into the water to cool my skin and this conversation. “Maybe he went hard on me because he wanted to make sure nothing shady was going down—”
“My cousin’s a dickhead,” Doyle declares. “And a fucking racist.” The last word shoots out and rattles us into silence.
I tilt my head back and feel the cool of the water spread over my scalp. “Maybe that too. I don’t mean any offense by this, I swear…but racism’s kind of a thing down here, right?”
He gapes at me like I just blasphemed all over the noble truth of his existence.
“What?” I reach up and squeeze the water out of my hair a little too aggressively. “C’mon, I don’t mean it like that. Trust me, New York has tons of racists too. I guess I just never experienced much firsthand, like, directed at me before. And, it sucks. It does, no doubt. But that’s just what things are like down here, right? Like you said, change isn’t exactly high on anyone’s agenda.” I try to do this flippant shrug, but my heart isn’t in it.
Under all the bravado, I’m still pretty shaken up.
“You’re wrong.” Doyle’s eyes meet mine, looking like two flames burning dangerously hot. “Change is on my agenda.”
“Okay.” I try to tread lightly. “You know, I don’t think you’re a racist or anything.”
“How’s that possible, if I see things happen and jest keep my trap shut?” he counters.
“Fair enough. But you can’t go up against the police force, right?” I repeat the last word with a little more insistence. “Right?”
“Not the cops. Though my cousin’s gonna be sorry he messed with you,” he says darkly. “I guess I gotta start with somethin’ I can change.”
“Like what?”
My interest flares up immediately. I know nothing about mudding, tubing in rivers, drunk baseball…but activism? Not to toot my own horn, but back at Newington I was treasurer
of SPARK, the feminist club, and cotreasurer with Ollie of the Random Acts of Kindness Club, all of which I am proud to say I was part of. Admittedly, I was the worst treasurer ever, and we always had to throw together last-minute bake sales or chili cook-offs to make up for the deficit.
Doyle opens his mouth and chooses his words carefully. “So I’m not sure if you know? ’Bout prom?”
“Prom?” I try to picture a Southern prom and nearly drown myself belly laughing. “Holy crap, I bet you guys go crazy over prom down here, don’t you? Girls get all dolled up for gym class, so prom’s probably like some ball straight out of Gone with the Wind, right?” I stop the chatter.
Doyle’s expression is hard to read, but if I had to, I’d say it’s embarrassment.
“Oh. Do you not have prom?” I’ve heard there are schools that can’t budget proms. But considering Ebenezer has a football field with stadium bleachers and state-of-the-art lights that look like the ones used to light Beyoncé during the Super Bowl, I don’t think money can possibly be an issue.
“We do.” Doyle cups water in his hand and dribbles it along the back of his neck, avoiding my eyes. “We have two.”
“Like a prom and homecoming? Or do you mean like junior and senior prom?”
We had a fall fling at Newington, since our football team was kind of pathetic and technically played for the nearby Catholic school since there were only enough players for a team when we combined schools. Everyone else played soccer, which made sense since thirty percent of the students had parents who were foreign nationals and soccer fanatics.
“Not exactly like that.” When the French doors open, Doyle’s head jerks up and he sighs like he’s relieved.
I swivel as my mother walks out. I may be seriously annoyed with her, but it’s not shocking she got caught up in a love triangle. My mom is the kind of mom people constantly mistake for my friend. People routinely compliment her perfume/smile/outfit/hair. The mystery isn’t why my mother had an affair; it’s who she chose to have it with. She could’ve chosen anyone.
“Doyle, right?” My mother sashays across the patio in a black pinup-style bathing suit.
My mother has amazing style. We used to raid each other’s closets all the time. Since she took a jackhammer to our life and I took one to our relationship, my wardrobe has never been grungier.
Doyle Rahn is too much of a gentleman to greet my mother while he floats in the pool like some wet rat. He hoists himself out of the water, wipes his hand on his dry shirt, and shakes her hand while making eye contact. He’s pure manners.
“I never got a chance to introduce myself properly before. Doyle Rahn, ma’am. Pleased to make your acquaintance, officially.”
“The famous Doyle. It’s nice to properly meet you.”
I close my eyes and wish they’d both let me nap.
My mother uses the pool for laps, not for leisure, so I know we’re cramping her style, but I’m too exhausted to drag myself off my float.
“It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”
I wonder if my mother finds the soft, rolling way Doyle speaks as charming as I do. Even half-asleep, that voice makes my body prickle with goose bumps.
“I don’t want to crash the party—”
“Not at all, ma’am,” Doyle exclaims like the prince of proper behavior he is. “We were jest talking.”
My mom makes small talk with Doyle—mostly answering his polite questions about the classes she’s teaching and discussing weather and trees and other topics that are basically making for the world’s most boring conversation lullaby—and I appreciate how cool around my friends she is, never trying too hard, but never tiptoeing around us.
My social isolation has made things worse for the two of us. We’re marooned in this house like two gnarly castaways, clawing at each other’s throats for survival, and there’s no one to keep up polite appearances in front of, so our worst floats to the surface like the grimy slick of oil on top of dishwater.
I nod off to the sound of my mother and Doyle chatting and wake up to Doyle leaning over the edge of the pool, jostling my shoulder as my float bumps into the side. “You wanna go inside to nap some more? Your mama invited me to stay for lunch, and I don’t turn down food. I was gonna help her make it. Somethin’ called puttanesca?”
I groan and unstick myself from the raft. I wait to feel the awful tingle of early onset sun poisoning, but someone pushed me under a big canopy-style umbrella Mom and I eyed a thousand times but never figured out how to set up.
“Mom didn’t know how to work that.”
“It’s tricky,” Doyle’s smile makes it clear it’s not. Not for him at least.
“So.” I slide off the raft and drift to the stairs. He comes over to join me. “Plants, baseball, umbrellas, cooking—is there anything you aren’t amazing at?”
“Not so fast on the cookin’. I mean, I can grill, of course. Imma Southern man. And I mastered my gramma’s secret biscuit recipe. Fair warning—I may use it on you in case of emergency.” He nudges my shoulder. “I don’t cook real fancy though.”
“Stop worrying,” I say with that kind of chuckle that’s meant to be the opposite of reassuring. “Puttanesca loosely translates to whore pasta in Italian. It’s definitely not fancy.”
“What’s it made with?” For the first time since I’ve known him, there’s fear in Doyle’s eyes.
“Are you afraid it’s made with whores?” I’m giddy over seeing überconfident Doyle Rahn ill at ease. “You’ll just have to get in the kitchen and see.”
If I had any thoughts about upending this little repast or catching a few more z’s, that’s all back-burnered by my desire to catch a glimpse of Doyle in an apron.
By the time I’ve pulled on a pair of cutoffs and a tank top, Mom has Doyle in a black Kiss the Chef apron. He stands at the counter clutching a knife and frowning suspiciously at a can of anchovies. The oldies station blares and Mom shakes her hips, singing into her wooden spoon about stopping in the name of love.
“You swim with gators. Are you seriously afraid of these tiny canned fishies?” I whisper as I slide up alongside him.
His smile is weak. “I don’t know if I ever ate one before.” He pokes at the can with the tip of the knife like he’s ready to use the blade in self-defense.
“It’s nothing a big, strapping lad like you should be scared of.” I peel the top off the can back, hold it under my nose, and inhale deeply. “Mmm. Delicious.” I pinch one out by the tail and dangle it over my open mouth.
Doyle’s eyes bug wide. I give a commercial-grade smile as I drop the miniature fish in and chew ecstatically.
“Aggie, please don’t eat all the anchovies,” Mom scolds.
It’s more playacting than actual discipline, but we both pause. The tension in the air creates an atmospheric shift intense enough that Doyle notices, and he shifts uncomfortably.
My mother gathers herself like a gladiator in the arena. She squares up, not about to back down. It’s not the most dramatic coup, but I’ve been waiting for this, for the return of my mother the parent. Now that she’s showing signs of blooming, I decide not to screw it up.
I slide the tin across the granite countertop to Doyle and meet my mother’s gaze. “Sorry. I guess I should be in charge of the capers or something gross?”
Doyle’s laugh slices through the tension. “Grosser than tiny dead fish in a can?”
Mom spins toward the stove like she’s afraid to say anything, but she belts out the next lyrics so loudly, Doyle jumps.
“Cooking makes her a little crazy,” I whisper, and, damn, it all feels good and right.
Not like I’m ready to forget everything that happened in the last few months, but being a constant bitch wasn’t exactly a peaceful way to exist. A new calm settles over us as we move toward getting back to our version of normal. We chop and mix and sing along with the sweet songs that play on the radio. Doyle’s rendition of “Stand by Me”—belted out in part on his knees, arms raised, eyes close
d, like the words are coming from his soul—turns me and Mom into whooping fangirls. While the sauce simmers, Mom hums along to “Earth Angel.”
“My father used to come home, stinking drunk on whiskey, and dance with my mother to this song in our little yellow kitchen in Belle Harbor.” She closes her eyes, and I feel like I can see what’s inside her mind: Grandma and Grandpa’s galley kitchen with the big blue ceramic fruit bowl on the wooden table and the stained-glass sun catchers winking in the window. I imagine Grandma, young and pretty like my mother, her arms around my charming grandfather’s strong neck, rolling her eyes as he clomps around, drunk and so in love.
When I look over, Doyle is holding out his hand to me.
I’m not sure any words have ever sounded more amazing than the two that fall from his lips right in the middle of my kitchen.
“May I?”
“Right here?” I’m not prone to blushing, but a hot rush of blood tingles up my neck and cheeks.
“I don’t think we oughta put on airs.” He crooks his finger. “It was good enough for your gramma and granddaddy,” he teases.
My mother turns to check on things that don’t need checking. I step into Doyle’s arms. I’m guilty of having a serious Cinderella-at-the-ball secret fantasy. I’m barefoot in our sunny kitchen, but the way Doyle looks at me makes me feel like I’m decked out head to toe.
He looks at me like looking is only the beginning of what he wants to do. Like his eyes are searching out beautiful things no one else has ever bothered to notice about me.
I’ve never had such a visceral reaction to being looked at before. My heart seems to pirouette in tight, quick circles, and I go dizzy. He folds his arms around me, one hand anchored at the small of my back, one tangled around my fingers, locking my hand tight to his chest.
How can someone have such a loose, easy way of walking, but be so graceful and sure-footed when he dances? In his arms, I don’t have to think about how to move. I allow my body to melt against him and follow his lead.
“I’m just a fool,” he croons, tugging me a step closer so the space between us erases.
“You sure are.” It doesn’t come across as light, the way I mean it to. It scratches like my words are about to tear open something dangerous.
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