I raise my eyebrows. “You’re sure she doesn’t want your help? Who’d want to cook for five hungry dudes every single day?”
“I swear if she’d let me in, I’d help. I think cookin’s her way to destress. She makes magic in the kitchen. You gotta try her brown-butter greens sometime.”
“I’d love to try them. Sometime. I mean…if you wanted me to.” The quiet between us speaks volumes.
“I know you’re probably curious to meet my family. You better not be thinking I’m ashamed of bringing you around or somethin’.”
I stutter, thrown off guard by how accurately he reads my embarrassing insecurities.
“N-n-no! If I thought you were ashamed to be around me, I’d have kicked you to the curb a long time ago, Doyle Rahn.”
He raises one eyebrow high, but lets it go. “Jest so you know, in case you ever have to meet ’em, my brothers are kinda dicks. And you met Brookes. Not the most fascinating person in the world. My grandparents are nice folks. Just old-school.”
I wonder, by old-school, does he mean “adorably confused and hokily out of touch” or does he mean “very, very tied to the way things are and have always been, which does not include saucy, dark-skinned Brooklyn girls hanging around their grandson”?
“So, you’re sure it’s not about me?” I ask to double-check.
He points at me, wagging his finger. “I knew it. You don’t trust me. Fine. Decision made. We skip swimming and your mama’s delicious Italian, and I take you to my place. But I’m warning you—it’s chaos. I know it might seem excitin’ when you imagine it, but trust you me…” He leans close, so close I tilt my head back, lick my lips, let my eyes flutter shut. “It ain’t.” My heart lurches as he pulls back. “You wanna follow me?”
I nod and press a hand over my palpitating heart.
He’s right.
Excitement really isn’t all fun. And I have a distinct fear that the excitement I’m dredging up every time Doyle Rahn gets too close might just kill me.
NINETEEN
We pull up at a house a quarter the size of the one Mom and I rent. It’s white with a broad gray porch and tons of beautiful plants growing all over outside and up trellises, arches, and lattices, with twisting vines and flowering blossoms everywhere.
It’s not so much a house with nice plants as a miniature Garden of Eden with a domicile in the middle.
“Wow.” I stare, mouth gaping. Doyle takes my hand and drags me to the door.
“Yeah, a green thumb runs strong in the Rahn family. Would be pretty embarrassing if we weren’t able to grow some nice stuff on our own plot.”
I dig in my heels as he tugs on my wrist. “C’mon,” he insists.
“I’m looking.”
“You’re stalling.”
“You’re being pushy.”
“You’re chicken.”
“That’s not very gentlemanly of you.”
He presses a finger to his lips.
“Shh. My gramma catches wind I’m screwin’ ’round when it comes to manners, she’ll take a switch to my backside.” He points to a low, old tree with far-reaching branches. “We picked our own switches, from that oak. Never grew quite right. Stunted or something. Those thin branches down low cut like a whip. The thicker ones leave black-and-blues like you been clubbed.”
He shares this like it’s some fond and hilarious childhood memory. It makes my guts clench. My parents did not believe in spanking or any form of corporal punishment.
“Doyle,” I hiss. “That’s, like, child abuse.”
His smile falls. “Ain’t nothin’ but good old-fashioned discipline, trust me. A whippin’ smarts enough to leave you thinking over what you done wrong. A real beating?” The shake of his head is knowing. “No rhyme, no reason, and you don’t get the luxury of thinking anything, ’cept that you wish you could sleep a week and wake up outta pain.”
It’s like Doyle’s speaking a language I’m not fluent in. I’m unconvinced there are gray areas to beating on a kid, and his description of bad versus unspeakably worse doesn’t convince me violence is just a different form of discipline. But I obviously hit a sore spot, and I don’t press him.
“Wanna go in?” He nudges me toward the door.
I know exactly how Gretel must’ve felt standing outside the cute little house made out of gingerbread and marzipan. Am I about to walk into a place where the adults are lunatics who cage and eat children?
Metaphorically, of course.
Literally, they just beat them with switches.
“Okay.” I step over the threshold, relieved to see there isn’t a giant walk-in oven dominating the place.
All the walls are white and the floors are lemony polished wood. My room at home is light on decor, but this place is Spartan and so clean, you could perform surgery in the living room. There are two big brown couches and a plaid La-Z-Boy, plaid curtains, a wooden coffee table with a glass dish of fancy marbles, and a fireplace featuring a mantel crowded with pictures of boys: boys fishing, boys hunting, boys covered in dirt and grime, boys standing at attention in freshly ironed button-downs and staring at the camera with grim, cornered looks.
Doyle’s easy to spot. He’s the one with the hair that looks like it’s on fire. The other boys are darker and lighter blonds. They all share identical cheekbones and only slightly varied smiles. Doyle’s is the biggest by far.
Banging from the kitchen interrupts my portrait inspection. Doyle drags me toward the noise, and I catch a glimpse of a small, sharp-looking woman, with tired eyes and teased hair dyed butter yellow, standing over a counter dusted with flour. She glances at the two of us and puts down her rolling pin slowly.
“How’d the dentist go?” She gestures for Doyle to lean in and he opens wide for her without being told.
“Good enough. Still got most of my teeth.”
“You brought company for supper.”
It’s not a question or an accusation, she’s just announcing a fact. I sense it’s a big deal, her acknowledgment of me.
“Gramma, this is Agnes Murphy-Pujols.”
“It’s nice to meet you.” I say polite words, but my brain is consumed with figuring out how she gets her hair that shade of neon yellow. Maybe she uses highlighters… Doyle elbows me in the ribs, and I glare, then immediately shout, “Ma’am!” so loud his grandmother jumps a little.
She sighs. “There’ll be plenty enough to eat.” She looks at me pointedly. “I always cook plenty.”
“Thank you. For the food. Soon. I mean, thank you in advance. Because you’re cooking. For the—” Doyle drags me to the back door before his gramma can smack me upside the head with the rolling pin just to shut me up.
“Gramma, Imma go tend to the pumpkins!”
“It’s a fool’s errand, Doyle. Pumpkins spoil in the sand. Too hot, too wet,” she warns, but Doyle’s already heading to the backyard.
The backyard is a denser, more colorful Eden than the front. Birds perch on the edge of stone birdbaths and flit between budding branches, tweeting and squawking and chasing each other. Rainbow-winged butterflies and swirls of humming bees nuzzle inside bright flowers in a twirling rhythm that feels like modern dance choreography.
“This is like something out of a fairy tale,” I marvel. Doyle takes a knee next to a patch of dark earth and rotates each of several tiny pumpkins like he’s handling baby dragon eggs.
“Like Grimm?” He pushes his hat’s bill back off his forehead so he can see more clearly.
I consider the ethereal settings and the strange, dark details that lace through every Grimm fairy tale and nod. “Yup. Like a Southern Gothic version of Grimm’s fairy tales.”
“My gramma likes you.” He glares at what looks like a tiny green watermelon as he says those moronic words.
“Uh, nope, you couldn’t be more wrong. Your grandma definitely thinks I’m a moron. Makes sense, since I acted like one in the kitchen.” I plop down on an overturned bucket and watch two birds in vicious combat ove
r what looks like a stick while Doyle fondles squash gently. I feel jealous. Of squash. I’m officially out of my gourd. And punny. “Did she like Ansley?”
“Why would you ask that?” His words are even, but Doyle’s lips pull down a quarter inch on each side.
“Inquiring minds want to know.”
“Ansley Stickland ain’t worth the headspace you’re giving her.”
“I asked one question. You don’t have to answer.” I stretch my leg out and tap his hip with my toe.
He stands and brushes the dirt off his knees. “I’m not gonna lie—my grandparents were excited when I brought Ansley home. They thought I was finally rubbing shoulders with the right people, and they liked that she’s a Southern girl to her marrow. But Ansley’s self-centered and small-hearted. They weren’t surprised when I stopped bringing her around, and no one wondered why.”
I’m embarrassed for being so reassured by his words. “Can I tell you something? But you’ve got to promise not to get pissed.”
“I promise,” he lies. I narrow my eyes, and he loops an arm over my shoulder. “You can’t ask me to make a stupid promise like that. If you tell me something that pisses me off, Imma get pissed off.”
“Why did you promise then?” I demand.
“Because I can jest act like it don’t bother me.”
“Which would make it a double lie.” I snort. “Anyway, I can read you like a book, Doyle Rahn.”
He leads me to a wrought-iron bench, and we sit so close our knees knock. “Go ahead. Hit me with your best shot.”
“Ansley had a little chat with me before English.” He just finished bragging he’d be able to hide his reaction, but he’s already failed. A spark flares in his eyes.
“Yeah?”
I nod. “And before she talked to me, she talked to your cousin.” I pause. “Reginald.”
He pushes off the bench with unexpected force and kicks at a clump of thin-stemmed flowers. I wince as their lazy yellow heads go flying. “What was their talk ’bout, exactly?”
“Keeping an eye on me.” He swings his head toward me, his face twisted with rage. “She’s trying to play me, Doyle. The weird part was, Lovett overheard.”
“What did she say?” He stalks back to the bench and flops down too close with such force I almost wind up on his lap. He reaches for my hand and links our fingers like he’s reminding me we’re in this together.
I take in the contrast of our hands, the dark and the light.
“All kinds of ‘keep your chin up’ and ‘fight the good fight’ stuff,” I tell him. “She said your cousin harassed her grandson, roughed him up when he didn’t go along with some bullshit questioning. She gave me a book about a mixed-race lady back in the day who passes.”
“Passes what?” He shoves his pissed-off-ness aside in favor of curiosity.
“Passes for white. She was mixed race, but light enough that she looked white, and she chose to walk away from her black family and friends and live a more privileged life as a white woman. But it was a huge risk, because if she ever had kids, they could be dark, and the white community would ostracize her for lying.”
“So what happens in the end?” he asks, eyes wide.
“I don’t know. I only got to read it during study hall. But Lovett recommended it, so it’s probably depressing.” I sigh. “She said even though it’s about the Harlem Renaissance, there’s a ton about it that still holds true today.”
“I’m sorry, Nes. I hate that things haven’t changed more. I hate that my own blood treated you like crap.” His shoulders buckle over his chest.
“You don’t get to choose who you’re related to.” I rub a hand between his shoulder blades.
He presses his forehead to mine and brushes the tip of his nose against mine. “I’ll fix this.”
“I’m not asking you to fix anything. It isn’t fixable. It just is.” I pull back and laugh when I get a good look at him. “Your pissed-off face isn’t as convincing when you’re leaking drool.”
He swipes the back of his hand over his mouth. “Dammit! It feels better.”
“It looks fine. I think you’re just a drooler.”
“Doyle! Dinner in five!” A tall guy flings open the back door and holds up his hand, all five fingers spread out. His features mirror Doyle’s except there’s none of Doyle’s laid-back good humor.
“That’s Lee, my older brother. We better hustle. Gramma’ll blow a gasket if we don’t have our butts in our chairs in five.” He stops short at the door, dips his head close to mine and kind of growls out the next words, “It’s true things are what they are ’round here, but I’m still not lettin’ this go.”
He navigates me inside and down a hall to a small bathroom where Lee, Brookes, and one more Doyle clone I assume is Malachi elbow each other, a bar of Irish Spring jumping from soaped hand to soaped hand.
Lee rinses his hands and backs up when he catches sight of me in the mirror, then glares at the other two. “Hurry up. Lady’s waiting.”
I flutter my fingers in a nervous wave as the guys rinse and file out, the faucet still running, the green bar of soap abandoned in the basin. The three guys linger in the hall, staring, until Doyle snarls, “Take a damn picture, it’ll last longer.”
Lee, clearly the alpha, barks, “Move out,” and they all march down the hall.
“You could have just introduced me.” I breathe in the scent of the soap. It’s very…masculine. My mother and I are shameless soap snobs. Everything we use is French milled and delicately scented.
“They coulda not been a bunch of apes.” He passes me a clean hand towel.
“I think you need to prepare yourself for the fact that your family might hate me.” Doyle escorts me out the bathroom, his damp palm flat on my back.
“They won’t.” It’s a little weird how he says the words so confidently, as if he actually thinks he has some control over whether or not they do.
“I can’t help it anyway,” I say, and then I square my shoulders and march to the table.
Meeting Doyle’s family is extra hard because everything was too easy with Lincoln. His parents were impressed that both my parents are professors, they loved that I’m bilingual, that my name was stamped all over the Newington Gazette, that I knew what colleges I wanted to apply to.
Lincoln’s mother once said, “My boy needs to spend time around people of quality. He needs someone refined, grounded. That’s you, Agnes.”
Someone of quality. Refined. Grounded.
Me.
Me?
We head into Doyle’s grandparents’ dining room, where a long, distressed table is loaded with so much food, the legs have to be wobbling. Five pairs of eyes survey me, and I don’t get the sense anyone feels like they’re looking at someone refined and grounded.
I’m well aware I give off a different vibe down here—rebellious, smart-alecky, underdressed, cocky. And that’s before I open my mouth and my Brooklyn accent comes clanging out.
Doyle’s grandfather smiles at me, and there’s a twinkle in his eyes—pale blue with hints of lavender, a slightly faded version of his grandson’s.
“Hoyt, would you say grace?” Doyle’s grandma watches me out of the corner of her eye.
I’m aware they’re probably not Catholic, but it doesn’t feel right to pray unless I make the sign of the cross first, so I do. Doyle’s grandfather asks Jesus to bless the food we’re about to eat.
My stomach rumbles in answer. En el nombre del Padre, del Hijo, del Espíritu Santo, amén.
The guys chow down in ravenous silence. Doyle’s grandmother’s biscuits are incredible—buttery, featherlight, and mouthwatering. When there’s only one left, Malachi reaches for it and Lee raps his knuckles. I think back to Doyle’s earlier threat to use his grandmother’s biscuit recipe against me and seriously question my ability to resist.
“I know we ain’t had a lady other than Gramma at the table in a while, but I can’t believe you’d forget your manners so quick.” Lee snatch
es up the basket and offers it out to me. “Nes, please, take it.”
This is about more than a tasty biscuit. This is hospitality. Chivalry. A peace offering dripping with butter and wafting its fragrant aroma into my nostrils.
I’m not rude. I’m also not made of biscuit-hating stone.
“Thank you, Lee.” I make sure I eat like a lady, but I feel like I’m in a den of wolves and the pack leader tossed me a juicy bone.
Once every morsel of food has been devoured, I expect them to jump up from the table, but only Doyle and his grandmother stand, and they won’t accept my offer to help clear. I look with panic at Malachi, who still seems to harbor resentment about the biscuit resting comfortably in my belly; Lee, whose stone face is unreadable; and Brookes, who’s endless yawning is contagious. Only Grandpa gives off a remotely friendly vibe.
Doyle darts back into the dining room and whispers, “I don’t want you to freak out…but Gramma made homemade peach cobbler with peach ice cream.” He waltzes into the kitchen, a stack of plates balanced on his forearm, whistling.
Like a dwarf on his way to the gem mine.
I guess that makes me Snow White, and Happy just left me sitting with Sulky, Broody, Sleepy, and Grandpa.
“You the gal lettin’ your tree die?” Grandpa accuses.
“Guilty as charged.” I try to laugh, but my attempt at revelry goes over like a lead balloon. “I get it. Trees are people too.” Crickets. You’d think I’d have learned to quit while I was ahead. Nope! “Sometimes, being with Doyle, I feel like I’m hanging out with Johnny Appleseed’s brother.”
Malachi finally snickers. “He’s like one of them flower-child hippies.”
“Don’t make fun.” Grandpa shakes a warning finger. “You should be following your brother on the job, learning a thing or two. But you’re always at that damn interweb. I told your grandmother getting you that laptop was a mistake.”
Malachi stares at his hands, which he curls into fists and relaxes flat, like a pulsing heart. They’re the exact same shape as Doyle’s, with the same long, strong fingers, but Malachi’s are soft and pale, unlike Doyle’s, which are calloused and caked with dirt he can never seem to wash away entirely.
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