Touch of Heartache

by Joy Penny

  Pembroke nodded and Lilac decided to throw her a bone and pivot the discussion. “Well, good luck with whatever you decide.” She was more certain than ever now that she’d made the right decision. Sure, Minnesota was still a new place to move to, but Florida? Beaches and sunbathing, year-round heat and the cuddly cute tapir named Tildy. She was going to be living the dream—her childhood dream come true.

  Gavin mumbled something about “trouble at 3:00,” and Lilac’s feet floated back to the floor. “Is it 3:00 already? I thought all our parents weren’t coming until after dinner anyway.” They were all coming for one last hurrah, a grade-wide graduation dinner and campus tour followed by the ceremony tomorrow morning.

  Brielle jumped to her feet, her attention drawn over her shoulder. “Right. Thanks for the heads-up. See you guys tomorrow!” She gathered up her tray and left.

  Lilac supposed Brielle might be so busy with her mom and sister’s arrival that she hadn’t planned to sit with them at dinner. All the better. Both sets of Lilac’s grandparents were coming and she knew that between them, her parents, and Gavin and his grandma, there wouldn’t be room for any more.

  “I hate that guy,” said Gavin, wiping his hands with his napkin and shaking his head.

  “What guy?” asked Lilac.

  Gavin nodded in Brielle’s direction and Lilac witnessed Brielle storming off angrily toward the cafeteria doors with a lanky, gangly guy in a Hershey’s T-shirt hot on her tail. “Oh. The ex?” said Lilac, only half-sure.

  “Daniel…” said Pembroke, who stared a little too intensely after them as they vanished from sight. Ew, thought Lilac. Was Pembroke—Pembroke of all people, who hadn’t so much as glanced at a boy in all her four years here—checking out that skin-and-bones jerk? That made for two women in Lilac’s circle with no taste. Not to mention, he was younger than them. Not her type at all. All her college relationships had been short and sweet—they’d scratched an itch, but they hadn’t really done much for her. But seeing as how the only older men in her social circle here were professors—which, no, despite any leers she may have detected coming from that way on occasion—it had been frat boys with commitment issues or nothing. Good thing she hadn’t cared about any of them committing.

  “Why can’t he leave her alone? Honestly.” Gavin let out a breath as if Brielle’s love life affected him deeply. “He’s such an asshole.”

  Pembroke’s face flushed and she stood, gathering her own tray. “Yeah,” she said, almost as an afterthought. “So I… I’m going to get ready for my dad,” she added, not meeting either Gavin’s or Lilac’s eyes.

  “See you later, sweetie,” said Gavin, as if she were a kindergartner. Not that Lilac could blame him. She often found herself acting like the tiny blonde-with-blue-streaks was a kid as well.

  “Bye,” said Lilac, and Pembroke mumbled her farewells before retreating to the dishwashing station to deposit her things.

  “So,” said Gavin, inching his chair back so he could pivot to face Lilac entirely, one elbow on the back of the chair, his other hand clasping his wrist.

  “So,” said Lilac, grinning and echoing his posture.

  Gavin batted his eyelashes. “When were you going to tell me?”

  “I just did.”

  “Yeah, you sprung it on me. That’s cold, Li.”

  Lilac pouted. “I just didn’t want to repeat myself,” she said, then turned to say, “¡Hola! ¡Felicitaciones!” to a couple of other senior girls from her advanced Spanish classes who’d walked by and wished her the same.

  Gavin rolled his eyes at her as he waved and smiled at a group of guys and girls who sat down a table away. “Lilac Townsend, a woman of few words. Hates to have to repeat herself—especially when it comes to juicy gossip.” He didn’t drop the friendly, greeting smile off his face or even turn to look at Lilac the entire time he spoke.

  “Stuff it,” said Lilac, who went to playfully slug his arm. Instead, she gave him a big hug. “I’m going to miss you, Gavvy.” She’d never call him that in front of the others. It was too embarrassing. But whenever she was alone with Gavin, she could feel her defenses melting.

  “I’ll miss you,” said Gavin, running a gentle hand down the length of her blonde hair. It came down to her mid-back when not tied up, though she usually preferred a bun. Today she hadn’t been dressed to impress. Just her school sweatshirt and pajama pants. She’d look smarter by the time her family arrived. The family who had shaken their heads and sighed but had all said, “That’s our Li” when she’d told them about Florida, as if “impulsive” and “reckless” were her middle names. Grandma Violet had put the blame all on “Daisy Francesca,” or “Aunt Frankie,” as she preferred Lilac to call her (she insisted so because she wanted to buck the Townsend-women-flower tradition), who had always been a wild, impetuous child, as her grandparents liked to remind her. Lilac liked that about Frankie, though.

  “Am I… doing the right thing?” asked Lilac, almost afraid to ask.

  “You’re asking me now?” said Gavin, a hint of humor beneath his words. “Now that you’ve already gone and committed to it?” He winced as he said that, as if remembering that she’d committed to Minnesota, too, and he grabbed her by the upper arms, pushing her gently away. “Have you committed?”

  “It’s all done,” said Lilac, struggling to meet his eyes. “I’ve burned my bridges in Minnesota—they weren’t happy to have to scramble to find someone else, and then there was the matter of the educational grant they’d offered me for taking the job last year, but Daddy paid it back and then some—and I have my plane ticket. I’m leaving Monday morning.”

  “So you’ve known about this new job for a while,” said Gavin, pinching his lips into a straight line.

  “No,” said Lilac, honestly. “It all went down yesterday.”

  “Li,” said Gavin, shaking his head. “That’s… Wow.”

  Lilac pulled away from him. “I knew you wouldn’t approve.”

  “What do you care if I approve or not?” There wasn’t a hint of anger in his words—in fact, there was encouragement more than anything. “You have to do you, Lilac.”

  “This is me,” said Lilac. She dared to look back at Gavin and he didn’t seem angry or shocked or anything. This was why he was her best friend.

  “Then you go be you,” said Gavin. He smiled. “And clear me some room on Frankie’s couch because the second I have some free time, I want to work on my tan alongside you.”

  Lilac bopped his nose with one French-manicured finger. “You can sunbathe with me, but I’m going to slather you with sunscreen,” she said. “Melanoma, remember?”

  Gavin laughed. “You think I’m going to be on a sunny, Florida beach and let you slather sunscreen on me?” Shaking his head, he grinned deviously. “I’m going to bump into my true love there and ever-so-innocently ask him for help reaching my back, thank you very much.”

  Lilac chuckled and wiped her eyes, realizing tears had started to form there. “All right,” she said. “But he better have a hot, single father who’ll lather me up too.”

  “No thank you and ew,” said Gavin, shaking his head. “You and your daddy issues…”

  “Don’t call my taste in men that!” Lilac shuddered. “Especially when I’m going to see Daddy today.” She paused. “Okay, don’t say anything about me saying Daddy,” she added, knowing full well how calling her dad “Daddy” creeped Gavin out. But she couldn’t help it. Daddy had always been “Daddy” to her.

  They stared at one another, a silent showdown, each waiting for the other to comment further. Then they both laughed. Leave it to Gavin to boost Lilac’s mood, to help her shove those doubts all the way deep down where they belonged.

  Chapter Two

  It may have been five o’clock somewhere, but here, it was ten in the morning and Lilac’s entire family was drinking. If I don’t get past airport security soon, thought Lilac, I might not make my flight. Despite the fact that she and practically her entire family had arrived hour
s in advance. Her mom and daddy had insisted they make a day of it. They were off to the Caribbean themselves, an impromptu trip born from her mom’s envy of Lilac heading for a sunnier clime. Her mom’s parents had to catch a flight home to Rochester. Her daddy’s parents lived in the same town as her parents during the summer months and New Mexico during winter. So they weren’t going anywhere, but they’d tagged along, too, and now the seven of them sat around a rather cramped table in a restaurant at the Hilton connected to one of O’Hare’s terminals. They’d finished eating ages ago, but everyone cradled a drink they kept nursing at the rate of one sip per half hour. Lilac had already downed hers ages ago and had refused a refill, her nerves a bit on edge. This was a good thing, damn it, but she always did get nervous even before good things happened.

  “Cheer up, princess.” Her daddy raised an eyebrow as he lifted his shot glass to his lips. “You look like you’re on your way to a funeral, not a theme park.”

  “Rodney!” Lilac’s mom shook her head as she stirred her martini for the dozenth time.

  “What?” asked Papa William, laughing. “Afraid the next time we’re all together like this we’ll be missing one family member?”

  “That’s not funny,” snapped Lilac’s mom, but she was fighting to keep a smile from cracking her lips. “Besides, you’re hardly an old man. You’ve got time yet.”

  “Oh, so it’s my number that’s up next, is it?” Papa William raised his shot glass in the air. “I’d better drink to that. To us old people.”

  “You’ll drink to anything,” said Nana Abigail, her pearl bracelet slipping down her arm as she moved to fan herself with the dessert menu. “And I’d appreciate you not calling us ‘old,’ dear, despite appearances.” She reached into her purse, bringing out a compact to touch up her already-perfect lipstick. Nana Abigail was like a supermodel—if supermodels were allowed to get white hair and wrinkles.

  “If I recall, Lilac always got nervous before traveling,” said Grandpa Matthew, who took up more than his fair share of the small table with both forearms laid out in front of him. The shock of white arm hair against his tanned skin marred by the scars from melanoma surgeries urged Lilac to rifle through her carry-on to make sure she’d packed her SPF 50.

  “There she goes,” said Grandma Violet, as if everyone was in on some joke. “Checking to make sure she remembered everything. Honey, you’ve done that already. Four times since we sat down.”

  Lilac clutched her bottle of sunscreen, feeling her palm go clammy, and let it go as a feeling of relief washed over her. “I just want to make sure,” she said. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to get back here, so I don’t want to leave anything important behind.”

  “Your mother or I can always send you anything you’ve forgotten,” said her daddy.

  As if they’re ever home. Her daddy had inherited a sizable fortune from his grandfather at the age of twenty-one, as had Aunt Frankie. Technically, her daddy considered himself a stock trader or something, but Lilac knew he hadn’t worked an 8-5 in her lifetime. Her family had had a successful business once—long ago. But her grandpa had retired decades early and sold the company to someone more interested in running it. Someone who probably didn’t have quite as big of an investment fund to fall back on.

  Lilac also had one somewhere, funds overseen by her daddy, who had his accountant handle Lilac’s taxes. But she wasn’t going to while away her days doing nothing. Her daddy hadn’t seen the irony in insisting she not do as he did, that she not just lounge around Spain for a few more years. To be fair, he never stayed put in one place long enough to need more than a tourist visa.

  “I know,” said Lilac, bringing out her phone, “but you might not be home for a while yet.”

  “Not at the table,” said Nana Abigail, snapping her compact shut. Lilac noticed it wasn’t from the cosmetics company that had been responsible for the Mahoney fortune. That stuff was probably too cheap for her grandma.

  “Yes, Nana,” said Lilac, slipping the phone back into the front of her bag. She’d just wanted to check the time—and she supposed she did have enough time left. Her leg bounced under the table.

  “Excuse me,” said Lilac. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

  “Say you’re ‘powdering your nose,’ dear girl,” said Grandma Violet. “I swear you’re not even in Daisy Francesca’s house yet and she’s already rubbing her crassness all over you.”

  Lilac plastered a faltering smile on her face and headed around the bar. Instead of turning toward the restaurant bathrooms, though, she stopped, looking toward the terminal entrance. Just for a few minutes, she thought, digging her phone out of her purse.

  Gavin was busy moving to his temporary apartment—it was Memorial Day, so he didn’t have to work yet. Brielle was probably not that busy and Pembroke… Who the hell knew what she was doing? But did she really want to reach out to either of them right now? She didn’t need to hear any of Brielle’s lectures and when had she ever solo-texted Pembroke?

  Group text it was. Lilac looked around for a good spot. It was crowded today—one of the reasons why the waitress kept giving her family the stink eye for taking up a table for so long, she was sure—but she managed to find a spot by one of the glass walls that afforded her a good view of some of the planes in the background. Not any from the airline she was riding, but whatever.

  She put her bag down and squished it between her sandaled feet, digging through for her compact mirror and making sure there were no flyaways in her hair. It was overcast in Chicago, but she grabbed her sunglasses anyway and put them carefully atop her head, checking again to make sure the movement hadn’t rustled her hair. With her flowery, off-the-shoulder blouse, she was going for the “Florida” look—and who knew if she’d have the time and energy to pose once she got there. She held her camera above her, making sure she got some of the planes in the image, and smiled, flashing a peace sign at the camera.

  So nervous but sooooo excited! she typed in a group text to Gavin, Brielle, and Pembroke. Satisfied with how the picture had turned out, she uploaded it to Instagram as well for all those other friends who rarely texted her to see. Starting a new chapter in my life, she typed. Goodbye, cloudy skies!

  Once she posted it, she caught sight of the time again and her heart practically leapt out of her throat. Though she knew she was being overly cautious, she felt like she needed to get past security like now, but she couldn’t very well go without giving everyone their goodbye hugs. She grinned as she saw an emoji thumbs up and a wacky face from Gavin in the text—of course, neither Brielle nor Pembroke had bothered to comment yet—and she stuffed the phone into her bag, practically running back toward the restaurant. At one point, her left sandal flew off and she had to run back to collect it, apologizing profusely to the older woman in a business suit whose rolling suitcase the shoe had whacked. She was almost at the restaurant, though, so she just carried it and limped the rest of the way, coming upon her mom and grandmas at the front of the restaurant.

  “There you are!” said her mom. “We couldn’t find you in the bathroom, so we were about to send in the National Guard.”

  “I went to another one,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder. She really did have to go, too, but she was going to have to wait until after security now.

  Grandma Violet took Lilac into a one-armed hug just as her daddy and grandpas exited the restaurant, Papa William tucking his credit card into his wallet—they’d probably all dueled it out to decide who would pay.

  “Hugs and kisses for Grandma,” said Grandma Violet, kissing her on each cheek. Lilac could feel the lipstick left behind and went to rub it off with her palm, although she smiled the whole way. Grandma Violet grabbed her tightly by both shoulders. “Now, don’t you let Daisy Francesca talk you into doing anything unseemly.”

  Lilac rolled her eyes. “Aunt Frankie isn’t like that, Grandma. She’s just… eccentric.”

  Grandma Violet scoffed at her daughter’s nickname as Grandpa Matthew de
manded a hug from his little “all grown up Li-Li,” and she gave him butterfly kisses as well.

  “We’ll let you all get going,” he said as Grandma Violet hugged both her son and daughter-in-law. “Stay in touch!” he called, nodding to Lilac’s other set of grandparents and wrapping an arm around his wife before heading toward hotel parking.

  “Don’t you have to leave at 12:40?” asked Lilac’s mom, blowing a strand of dyed platinum-blonde hair out of her face as her fingers flew over her phone.

  Lilac jumped, shoving the shoe back onto her foot. “Yeah, we should get going!”

  “Not so fast,” said Papa William. “We all have to go to different terminals, so let’s say our goodbyes here.”

  Lilac turned around, her legs still bouncing, and hugged and kissed her other set of grandparents. Nana Abigail bristled a bit and went to check her makeup as soon as she broke away, but she smiled to find her foundation unmussed. “You’ll love Florida, honey,” she said. “Make sure you get plenty of beach time in.”

  “I will,” said Lilac, already on to hugging her mom.

  “Congrats again, sweetheart,” said her mom, shoving her phone into her purse and taking Lilac’s face in both hands.

  “Mom,” said Lilac, her eyes flitting back and forth to see if anyone was watching.

  “Oh, cut your mother some slack,” she responded. “My baby’s going off into the big, wide world…”

  “And she better be on the lookout for big, bad wolves,” said her daddy. He took over from his wife and swung Lilac in his arms, letting out an exaggerated oof and cradling his back after he put her down. Lilac could feel her face flush, but she gave her daddy a peck on the cheek anyway. “My little girl’s not so little anymore,” he added.

  “Well, that’s flattering,” sniped Nana Abigail.

  “Mom,” Lilac said, looking from one parent to the other and taking a hand from both. “Daddy. Thank you for everything.”