You're Still The One

by Janet Dailey

  “What?”

  “Well, we’ve got an offer on the place now. It’s low, but Ona wants to take it.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I don’t see why we have to be in a hurry to accept a lowball offer.”

  Jane nodded and began to breathe normally again. She knew nothing about real estate transactions, but it had to be a good thing that Roy wasn’t chomping at the bit to get out of town. Although . . . “An empty house isn’t a great place to stay.”

  “There’s still the box spring and mattress in the guest room upstairs. It’s like camping out, but comfortable.”

  “You could stay at the garage apartment.”

  He put his arms around her. “That sounds good.” They kissed, and for a moment she indulged herself in the fantasy of having Roy waiting for her at the end of the day. Greeting her at the door next to Buddy and Squeak.

  He broke the kiss, leaning his forehead against hers, his hands still looped around her waist. “It also sounds crowded. Besides, I can’t come over tonight.” He gestured to the Mac set up on the kitchen counter. His workstation. “I need to figure out some kind of speech for the auditorium opening tomorrow. I’m so dreading it. I have to give speeches for work sometimes, but this . . .”

  She knew from her dad that it was going to be a big to-do. Their congressman was going to be there. “You haven’t prepared anything?”

  He shook his head. “I could wing it, but then I risk the chance of going into a Don Knotts nervous meltdown.”

  She laughed. “I can’t imagine that.”

  When she got back to the clinic that afternoon, everyone was buzzing about the new ultrasound machine that had been delivered at noon. Though Marcy told Jane that Erin was waiting for her, Carl whisked her into the other exam room, where they’d wheeled the machine, and went over all the new features as excitedly as a guy in a showroom demonstrating a new Mercedes.

  “Do you like it?” he asked her.

  Given his enthusiasm, it was hard not to catch the fever. “It’s great, Carl. Big improvement.” That wouldn’t have been difficult. Their older one had gone on the fritz several times. A couple of times they’d even had to send patients to a clinic in another town.

  But his eager expression and the hopefulness in his voice suddenly made her remember her mother’s words. Like a bowerbird. Was this really a machine for taking sonograms, or another twig in his fastidious nest building?

  She took a deep breath; the air still smelled of fresh paint. “I need to go look at Erin’s cat. But this is terrific, Carl. Excellent purchase.”

  She hurried to the next room and greeted Erin, who was in the middle of blowing her nose. “Is something the matter with Smudge?” Jane asked.

  The big white cat seemed perfectly calm—his green eyes were certainly clearer than Erin’s red-rimmed ones. “I came home for lunch and as I was about to leave, I found him like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Covered in blood!”

  Jane carefully turned the animal so she could see the angry red splotches underneath. At the sight, Erin began to quiver. She looked way more traumatized than Smudge did.

  At least she wasn’t threatening to take him to the shelter anymore. The two must have bonded again a little bit.

  Erin collapsed into the plastic chair and honked again into a Kleenex. “I don’t see how he could have cut himself. But he must have, even though there wasn’t a trail of blood around the house. Just a few”—her voice began to crack, and she barely wheezed out—“little red pawprints.”

  The animal’s abdomen and two of his feet were red. Jane frowned. She put on gloves and then rubbed the area on his abdomen gently. Smudge purred and flopped over as if he were on a sunny windowsill instead of an exam table.

  Jane lifted the glove to her nose and sniffed. Smudge’s blood had a pleasant garlicky-oregano aroma. “What did you have for lunch today?”

  Erin sniffed. “Pizza. I had some left over from last night, so I got the box out of the fridge and put it on the table, grabbed a piece and . . .” Her face fell as a possibility occurred to her.

  “And left it on the table while you watched television, maybe?” Jane prompted.

  Erin’s eyes widened, and a flush crept into her cheeks. A tomato-colored flush, appropriately enough.

  “You’ll probably find little paw prints in the remaining slices in the box. But I think all Smudge needs is a bath.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Erin said. “And y’all are so busy!”

  “Never so busy that we don’t like a happy ending,” Jane told her as she wiped more sauce off Smudge with a towel.

  “I guess I just got so upset that I didn’t stop to think. I was so worried that something was really wrong, and that I’d be . . .”

  Her voice broke off and Jane didn’t press her to finish. She knew . . . and that I’d be alone again.

  After she’d returned Smudge to his carrier and collected herself, Erin touched her hand to Jane’s arm. “I don’t know how I’m going to get through these crises without you.”

  Jane rolled her eyes. “Not you, too.”

  “Isn’t it true, then?”

  Sadly, she didn’t have to discuss what “it” was. “It hasn’t been discussed.”

  Erin looked relieved. “Oh good.” Then she looked guilty. “I mean, that’s good for me. You’re practically my last friend from school still around. And we were just talking at the salon about how we’d all miss you.”

  “So many people have me moving, I’m already beginning to miss me, too.”

  Erin laughed. “We need to have a night out. Paint the town red—or at least a dusty pink. After Roy leaves, let’s get together.”

  Jane seconded that motion, even as her heart constricted a little. After Roy leaves. Her brain just didn’t want to wrap itself around that.

  It felt as if every person in Mesquite Creek had turned out for the opening of the new auditorium. The high school marching band, decked out in full uniform, marched up Main Street from the Food Saver to the campus, followed by a caravan of cars carrying local dignitaries. Along the way, people sat in folding chairs or stood outside the smattering of businesses, watching. Jane was among them. Her father had told her about all the plans for the day. Still, she couldn’t hold back astonishment when Roy drove by in an open convertible next to the congressman.

  Jane had taken the afternoon off to see Roy give his speech, and Kaylie was covering the event for The Buzz. They’d had to park a little ways from the school, since Jared and the other policemen had closed off Main Street to parking. By the time they arrived at the auditorium, it was almost full.

  “Oh! I see someone.” Kylie waved at Tom Anderson, editor of The Buzz, who was sitting on the other side and had an empty seat next to him. “I can probably get a ride when this is over, Jane.”

  Jane nodded and hung back. The new auditorium was twice as big as the old one, with a real stage and curtains, instead of a narrow raised platform. The seats were nice, too—like theater seats instead of the old, hard folding wood seats that had made long assemblies and ceremonies a torment. She would have liked to try out one of those seats, but the place was full. All the students and faculty were in attendance, and just a small section had been saved for visitors.

  Onstage, the Skeeter choir was singing “Wind Beneath My Wings.” In front of them, a podium awaited. To the side of it was a line of chairs that started filling up with the speakers for the day.

  She scanned the crowd until she saw a cluster of men working their way up to the stage. Her father was among them, as was Roy. She felt absurdly impressed by the fact that he was wearing a suit—a really nice one, dark with a striped tie. She’d seen him dressed up before, but never looking so like a grownup. So like what he was. A man who could get an auditorium built.

  Her father was first to the podium, to welcome everyone. He talked about the importance of having a place to gather—to commemorate, to celebrate and entertain, to honor and
remember. He reminded them that in the next two weeks alone, the auditorium would be the venue for the year’s senior play, and then the very next week would witness members of that class graduate. Someone from the audience shouted out a joke about june bugs, and it took her father a few seconds to stifle the laughter and pass the mike to the congressman.

  The congressman talked and talked, praising the building and its primary funder so lengthily that Jane was pretty sure he’d lose votes in the next election for sheer windbaggery. She took advantage of the time he was droning on to look at Roy again. How far he’d come in the world had never struck quite so forcefully until now, seeing him back here where he’d started. Where they’d both started. Once or twice she thought he caught her eye, but she couldn’t be sure. There were a few stage lights on, so it was possible that people up there couldn’t actually pick out individuals in the crowd.

  She was relieved and—she had to admit—a little nervous when the congressman wound up the speech and started in on a long intro to Roy, sketching out his modest beginnings and listing his big achievements, including a Clio, various other business awards whose names meant nothing to Jane, and finally, this auditorium. The crowd clapped and rose to their feet as Roy stood, shook the man’s hand, and took his place at the podium.

  Jane wished she’d found a seat, because her legs jittered with nerves. She crept along the side of the auditorium, as much from restlessness as from the need to get a little closer. She missed the first line of Roy’s speech, which got a laugh. He seemed to be looking down at notes; obviously he hadn’t wasted his time the night before.

  But he sounded wooden—even though she knew he meant every word about his gratitude toward the town, and how he wished his mom could be there. If there was a heaven, Wanda McGillam was the happiest person in it today. Jane glanced around the audience to see if anyone else noticed that Roy seemed a little stiff, but all the faces turned toward the stage appeared rapt. She finally picked her mom out in the crowd. Even Brenda seemed entranced. But none of these people knew Roy like Jane did. They couldn’t have heard the slight tension in his throat, the hesitation as he tackled the next bullet point on his note cards.

  Finally, it seemed as if his speech was heading for the finish line. He addressed the students, and at once his voice changed, became more natural and conversational. He no longer even glanced at his notes. “I especially appreciate your being here, not just because the building is for you, but because I know it might not seem like that big a deal to you. What’s an auditorium? What’s it to me? you might be asking. Until I was seventeen, I would have been scrunched down in my seat toward the back row, probably doodling, only half paying attention. Because I didn’t know that the next year I’d be cast in a play, and that play—Romeo and Juliet—would change my life. Not just because I got the chance to recite Shakespeare. I wasn’t that good at that, frankly. And I didn’t look so hot in the costumes, either.”

  Chuckles rippled through the audience, and it felt as if the entire audience leaned forward a little in their seats.

  “Up till then, I didn’t understand how full of possibilities life really was,” Roy continued, more eagerly. “I had dreams, sure, but I didn’t have a lot of confidence. The play gave me that.” He frowned. “No, Jane gave me that.”

  For a fraction of a second, she wondered if maybe she’d just imagined that he’d mentioned her name. Maybe it had just been an aural hallucination. But then Roy turned toward her, picked her out with his gaze as if she were the only person listening. The only person who mattered. The audience tracked his gaze and pivoted toward her.

  “Jane,” Roy repeated.

  Heat rushed to her face.

  “I know you don’t trust this,” he said to her, as intimately as if there weren’t several hundred people looking on. “We took separate roads—but that doesn’t mean we can’t go back. No”—he shook his head—“not back. Forward. Life is still full of possibilities for us. And one of them is us, together. Jane—”

  Is he really doing this? Panic coursed through her. In that moment between sentences, Roy was a man stepping off a curb into the path of an oncoming bus. She wanted to wave her hands at him, shake her head, yell at him to stop. She had a horrible feeling that he was going to—

  “—I love you. Will you marry me?”

  A collective gasp went up, and she could have sworn she heard something drop. Probably her mother hitting the floor in a dead faint.

  She’d never been so close to passing out herself. Her face was on fire, and though she couldn’t look out at the people sitting in the seats—that would have been death—their gazes felt like a force field. She was frozen in place, fighting off successive waves of love, anger, panic. Could she marry Roy? Was this really the place to figure that out, right this moment? Did he actually expect her to answer now?

  Apparently, he did. He was waiting for her answer. So were a few hundred other people.

  Seconds ticked by. Dragged by like centuries. Someone cleared their throat.

  Love. Anger. Panic.

  Panic won.

  Jane turned and fled the auditorium as fast as her legs would move.

  Chapter Eight

  Aunt Ona exhaled a dragonlike stream of smoke. “That was seriously weird.”

  Roy half expected her to laugh at him, but she didn’t. She just stared fixedly at the cloud she’d created, her mind no doubt replaying those indecisive moments in the auditorium—agonizing to Roy, then and now—before Jane had pivoted on her heel and sprinted for the door.

  She shook her head in amazement. “I never thought of her as the athletic type, but she can move pretty fast when she needs to, can’t she?”

  If only he had been able to escape as quickly. Instead, he’d been trapped onstage, frozen in shock and disappointment. Eventually the four hundred pairs of eyes that had been focused on Jane’s crazed dash turned back to him. Including the school superintendant’s harsh glare. Amid a rising buzz of chatter, Mr. Canfield finally pushed Roy aside at the podium and thanked everyone for coming. He then directed the choir to sing their planned closing song, which was a distracted rendition of “Let the River Run.” Roy winced every time the solo singer had drawn out the phrase about her heart aaaaaaaaaaaching. When the speakers stood to go, he hadn’t been able to get out of there fast enough.

  “You know,” Ona said, “even if you hadn’t donated a truckload of money, this town might have named that auditorium after you just for coming down and giving that speech. Bet they’ll be talking about it longer than they talked about Liston Pruitt scoring the goal on the buzzer at the state championship in ’56.”

  “Too bad they don’t give out trophies for being an ass,” Roy grumbled. “They could give me one and show it off as an example of how not to propose to a woman.”

  “Ha. Consider yourself dipped in bronze, because right now you’re pretty much a walking example.” His aunt clucked at him. “Have you talked to her since?”

  “She wasn’t at the clinic today, and she’s not answering my calls.” He let out a long breath. “But why should she? She gave me her answer.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “Look,” Roy said, “the reason I called you over here is that I talked to Lou. I told him to go ahead and accept the offer on the house.”

  Ona’s jaw dropped. “I thought you said it was too low.”

  He shrugged. “A house is worth what someone’s willing to pay for it. Besides, it’s some family moving in from out of town. I’d like to think of a family living here.”

  “And you just want to get it over with.” Ona stabbed her cigarette onto an old chipped saucer that hadn’t been deemed sale-worthy. “Well, sounds good to me.”

  “I figured it would,” he said. “The cleaners are still scheduled for tomorrow. Could you let them in?”

  Ona’s eyes widened. “You’re leaving that quick?”

  “Tomorrow, around noon. I don’t see any reason to stick around. I can handle all the
details of the sale by fax.”

  “What about the details of getting Jane back?”

  Roy tensed and felt his lips turning down into a frown. “I don’t think there’s any back about it. For a while I thought . . . But maybe we were just clutching at something out of nostalgia.”

  Ona looked as if she was going to give him an argument, but then she let out a long breath. “I’m glad we’re selling this place, at any rate. It seemed stupid to pass up a decent offer.”

  When Ona left, he felt a crazy kind of sadness. His aunt was his closest living relative right now, and the only tie left to his mom. And Mesquite Creek.

  Maybe he would invite her to visit him. She’d have fun in the city—his mom had always gotten a kick out of it—and surely he and Ona could stand each other’s company for a few days.

  When he heard someone walking up to the porch just after Ona had left, he opened the door, expecting she’d come back for something she’d forgotten. The invitation was on the tip of his tongue, but died when he saw Jane beneath the porch light, her hand raised to knock.

  He felt speechless. Too bad he couldn’t have felt that way this afternoon.

  “Can I come in?” she asked.

  “I’ve been calling you.” He shifted his feet. “Also went by your house.”

  “I hung out at Erin’s for a while.”

  He stepped aside, allowing her to pass through. In the small foyer they almost brushed one another, and for a moment he caught the faint scent of a flowery perfume. He closed his eyes a moment, then followed her into the empty living room. A stubborn optimism rose in his chest, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up too high. Also, he couldn’t help feeling a trace of bitterness. Maybe he had instigated the awkward incident at the auditorium, but she hadn’t smoothed things over any.

  “I came to apologize,” she said. “I guess I looked pretty silly this afternoon . . .”

  “Not as silly as I did, according to Ona,” he assured her.