“So, did I hear Jared say this is your birthday?” Georgia asked as they pulled out to the main road.
“Yes.”
“Well, happy birthday.”
Liv almost burst out laughing but refrained at the last moment. “Thank you,” she managed instead.
“I guess you two had plans.”
“Snorkeling.”
“At least that explains what you’re wearing.”
Liv couldn’t help herself, and she let out a chuckle. “What? You don’t like it? I thought it was what all the nurses were wearing.”
Georgia glanced over at her, curiosity crackling.
“Yes,” Liv said, “I’m a nurse too.”
“I had no idea.”
“I worked in the O.R. until I had some health problems. I start back on Monday, and I’m hoping to be transferred to the pediatric clinic when I get back. At least, I hope to have that chance if there's an opening for me.”
Why am I blathering my whole life story to this woman?
“You did have a way with that little girl in the waiting room.”
“I love kids.”
“Do you have any?”
“No. You?”
“Two daughters. They’re grown and living in Charlotte.”
The clackety-clack of tires against highway filled the space of the next couple of minutes while Liv tried to figure out what she was doing trapped in a car, sitting next to the one person who disliked her more than anyone else in the whole state of Florida.
“Looks like we’re gonna get some rain,” Georgia commented, and Liv glanced at the churning sky while Georgia clicked on the radio just as the weatherman said:
“… could turn out to be our first tropical storm of the season. I don’t see this turning into an actual hurricane, but I do feel pretty confident that we’re going to see some very serious storm activity within the next twenty-four hours.”
“Boy, oh, boy, oh, boy,” Georgia declared as she turned down the sound.
“The storms sure do kick up quick and out of nowhere down here.”
“That's the Florida motto,” she replied in her thick Southern drawl. “If you don’t like the weather, kindly wait an hour.”
As if on cue, huge droplets of rain began to pour from the turbulent gray sky, pelting the windshield with thunderous conviction. Georgia flipped on her headlights and turned the wipers to their full speed. “Oh, my!” she exclaimed as a sudden burst of wind pushed the car until it rocked.
“Do you think we should pull over until it calms down?” Liv asked.
“We’ll be at your house in just a few minutes. I think that's our best bet if we just take it slow and steady.”
Liv grasped her seatbelt and squinted to keep a closer lookout on the road ahead, and then she gasped as six feet of tree branch bounced across the road in front of them. Georgia barely missed it as she swerved and navigated around it, and then she and Liv released harmonious sighs of relief.
When they finally pulled to a stop in Josie's driveway, Liv reached over and clutched Georgia by the wrist for a moment, out of instinct.
“Well, that was quite a ride, was it not?” Georgia breathed.
“Indeed!”
“I’ll wait here until you get safely inside.”
“Georgia, I’m thinking you should come in until the storm lets up.”
“You go ahead, Olivia. I live nearby.”
“Are you sure?”
Georgia nodded.
Liv hopped out of the car, grateful for the reprieve but still dreading sending someone back out into the storm, even if that someone was Georgia. She hadn’t yet reached the curve of the sidewalk when a strange hissing noise drew her attention back to the driveway. Before she could even turn around, a crash sounded, and then she heard a scream.
Liv stood there with both hands over her mouth, her heart pounding and her breath sputtering.
Georgia's eyes were as wide and round as plates. A large tree had crashed down on the back of her car, and caved-in the metal down to the backseat.
“Are you okay?” Liv yelled.
“Yeah,” Liv muttered as she ran toward the car and yanked at Georgia's door to open it. “This is more like it.”
“What? What did you say?”
“I was just thinking that this is much more like the birthday I was expecting.”
15
Prudence's donkey eyes were so wide that they ached! Despite the fact that the winds blew in great gusts, and every tree bent over beneath them, the creatures in the clearing stood shoulder to shoulder around her.
“What are they doing?” she brayed at Horatio. “What's happening?”
“You’re being protected from the winds of change,” her owl friend explained. “Your friends are shielding you.”
“But why?”
“Because they know it needs to be done.”
Boofer stood before Georgia, snarling and barking like a machine gun.
Ratta-tat-tat-tat-tat.
“Boofer, please,” Liv snapped. “Be quiet. I’m sorry,” she told Georgia. “Just ignore her and come on in.”
Georgia slipped the door shut behind her and then leaned on it as she watched the dog with caution.
“Boofer! Enough!”
Liv figured she must have struck just the right tone when Boofer's change of heart was immediate.
“She's been in the house all day. I’m going to take her out for a quick second. Just relax on the sofa, and I’ll put some coffee on before we lose power.”
Liv clipped the leash into place on Boofer's collar and stood at the trunk of her car near the edge of the open garage while the dog sniffed at the nearby grass and considered doing her business despite the sideways spray of rain and wind working against her.
Georgia's mangled Camry was tucked up close enough to the back of Liv's rental that there was no possibility of getting it out to take the woman home. Wasn’t this just too perfect! She was trapped with Georgia Brown on her fiftieth birthday.
And the birthday curses blaze on.
I’m sure you think you’re hilarious, she told the Lord in silence. But this is so not funny.
Boofer led Liv back through the garage, and she flicked the button to close the door. As she entered the house, Liv freed the dog from her leash and headed into the kitchen to start the coffee, but she found Georgia there with a pot already brewing.
“I thought I’d lend a hand,” she said. “Coffee sounded pretty good.”
“Great. There's no sign of things letting up out there. It's pretty severe. And even if it did let up, I can’t get my car out around yours.”
Georgia ran her finger around the rim of one of the two coffee cups she’d set out on the counter. Timidity was the last thing Liv expected to find in Georgia, but there it was just the same.
“You know,” she began, and then she gave a quick glance upward before returning her attention to the china cup, “I am probably the last person in Florida that you’d like to be confined with for more than five minutes.”
“Well …” Liv didn’t know how to respond.
“I haven’t been easy on you.”
The Understatement of the Year Award goes to—
“I hope you can understand. And forgive me.”
I’m sorry. What?!
“The truth is I’ve been hoping for something with Jared for years, and the connection just wasn’t there for him.”
Oh, please don’t tell me any more.
“And then you came along, and the spark was hard to miss. I guess you just got my dander up.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
What a lame thing to say.
“I know. The way you two were together today, especially when we were leaving the hospital. Well, I just don’t think I’ve ever seen the good doctor look at a woman like that in all the time I’ve known him.”
“Thank you,” Liv said in a raspy voice.
“For what?”
“For saying that.”
>
“I just can’t figure out why you’re leaving tomorrow for Ohio when the love is so deep right here in Florida.”
Liv stared at Georgia, a deer caught in headlights one more time.
“Well, you are in love, aren’t you?”
Not a single word sprang to mind. Liv's brain was a blank, white canvas. Every paint color in the universe sat on the sidelines, brushes at the ready … and yet … nothing.
“Cake,” she finally mumbled.
“Beg your pardon?”
“I have birthday cake.”
“Oh. Well. All right.”
Liv yanked open the door to the refrigerator and produced the white bakery box Jared had delivered that morning. Pulling back the flaps until the box lay flat beneath the cake, she discovered that two candles were taped to the inside of the box: A big, white number 5, and a matching 0, both of them with blue polka-dots.
“You’re fifty!” Georgia exclaimed as Liv peeled away the tape.
“Sure am.”
“Well, I hope your mama bottled those genes, sugar. You don’t look a day over forty!”
Liv couldn’t decide if Georgia was sincere, or if she was still just trying to make up for the bad blood between them since the day they met.
“Well, you’re full of it,” Liv said with a grin. “But I’ll share my cake with you anyway.”
“No, honey, I’m not kiddin’,” Georgia declared. “Fifty!”
Liv pressed the candles into place on top of the cake and then produced a lighter from the kitchen drawer.
“Jared made me promise I’d light them.”
“And make a wish. You have to make a wish.”
For a moment Liv thought about all the wishing she’d been doing, for such a very long time. She’d wished that Robert had taken better care of himself and his heart, and she’d wished that her doctor hadn’t uttered the word cancer all those months ago. If wishes were donuts, she knew she’d easily weigh five hundred pounds.
Closing her eyes, Liv clasped her hands together.
Instead of a wish, she thought, how about a prayer? I’m just praying, Lord, that there is no more cancer in my life; that there's some joy and some love and some fulfillment instead. I’m praying that trees will stop falling on cars in front of me, and that Clayton will wake up tomorrow with your healing in his body and spirit. And I’m praying that you would please take the sting out of leaving Jared behind, and that you might make the way ahead of me clear so I can’t mess it up.
Liv opened her eyes again, and Georgia smiled, almost sweetly. “That was quite a wish.”
“I’m very wordy.”
“Blow out the candles then.”
Amen, Lord. She finished her prayer, and then she blew out the 5 and the 0.
“What kind of cake is this? It smells like coffee.”
Liv cut into the cake and transferred a slice to one of the plates Georgia produced. “It looks like a cream cheese filling,” she said, dipping in her finger and taking a taste. “With espresso or coffee mixed in!”
“I’ll have a bigger, fatter piece than that.”
“Me too,” Liv said with a chuckle as she added another sliver to the plate. Georgia poured coffee.
The two of them settled at the dining room table, facing the lighted patio. The storm was at full throttle, and the surface of the pool looked as if an industrial-sized fan was directed at it from one side.
“Oh!” Liv groaned as she tasted the first bite. “This is the best cake in the history of cakery.”
“I do believe you’re right.”
“Listen,” she continued, licking icing from the side of her fork, “I think you should stay the night.”
“Well …”
“Seriously, I just think it's the better side of wisdom to just—”
Before she could complete the thought, a sudden snap cut her words in half, and a loud boom exploded in the distance. The entire house went dark.
“Your point is well taken.” Georgia's voice sounded shaky from her spot in the shadows. “I think I’ll stay.”
Jared stood next to Don Morgan, scrubbing his arms and hands. “I think that went pretty well.”
“It's always such a stunner when someone in that kind of shape comes up with a blockage,” Morgan commented. “The guy is active, he's fit, and yet his arteries were a mess.”
“He swims laps several days a week,” Jared concurred. “Goes to show how important diet is.”
“The older we get, the more important it becomes.”
“Well, thanks for letting me scrub in. Clayton lives on my street, and I’ve been his physician for years.”
“I’ll copy you in on my reports,” Morgan said as one of the nurses untied his surgical gown.
“Be careful driving,” the nurse called out as Dr. Morgan hit the door. “The weather has turned really ugly.”
He nodded, waved at Jared, and then disappeared.
“Storms?” Jared asked her.
“They expect it to be classified an official tropical storm by morning,” she replied as she pulled the ties on the back of his gown. “It's been pouring pretty hard—lots of power outages.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
Jared flicked open the last locker in the row and produced his cell phone from the shelf. Liv's number went to voice mail on the first ring.
“Liv, it's Jared. Clayton's out of surgery, and I think things went well. I just heard about the turn in the weather, and I want to make sure you made it home all right. Try my cell when you get this.”
The parking lot was littered with branches and trash and even several overturned bins. After navigating his way out to the main road, Jared flipped open his cell phone and pressed the number two on speed dial.
“Rand? Hey, buddy, where are you?”
“We’re at Shelby's mom and dad's on Captiva. What about you?”
“Clayton Clydesdale had a heart attack today and surgery tonight.”
“He okay?”
“It looks like it. I’m headed home and just wanted to check on your whereabouts.”
“Everything's cool on this end,” Rand reassured him. “Are you in your car?”
“Yeah, on my way home now.”
“Well, drive safe. It's a mess out there, Dad.”
“Talk to you tomorrow.”
A squall of sidelong rain pelted the car in gusts, and Jared could hardly see the road, even with the wipers turned up to maximum speed. He thought about dialing Liv again but figured it would be much smarter to just keep both hands on the wheel and his full attention on the road before him.
When he finally turned the corner and rounded his street, the first thing his headlights illuminated was Georgia's Toyota mashed beneath a fallen tree. Jared's heart began to pound out a wild rhythm, and he slowed for a closer look as he passed the driveway.
That girl sure wasn’t kidding about birthday disasters.
As soon as his own car was parked safely in his garage, Jared jogged against the wind gusts around the side of his house and up to Josie's front door. Raindrops pelted him like sharp little needles, and the scent of burning rubber wafted past him as he made it to the front porch and pressed the doorbell.
Boofer yowled from the other side of the door and, when it opened, Liv stood before him with a burning candle in hand.
“Thank God,” she exclaimed when she saw him, and she wrapped her free arm around his neck, hugging him as she drew him inside. “I was so worried.”
“Is Georgia okay? I tried calling, but I think the towers are blocked by the storm.”
Jared noted that another figure was bathed in yellow candlelight behind Liv, and he squinted to bring Georgia into focus.
“What in the world happened to your car?” he asked her as he strode into the living room. “I hope you two weren’t in it when that happened.”
“Georgia was,” Liv replied. “I was heading for the front door, and she was just five seconds too long in reversing out of the driveway.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine,” she told him. “Olivia invited me in for birthday cake and coffee, and now she's invited me to stay the night.”
“Did you light the candles?” he asked, grinning at Liv.
“She did. And she made a birthday wish.”
“And then we ate like teenagers at a slumber party,” Liv said.
“Is there any left?”
“There is. Would you like some?”
“I sure would.”
“I’ll get it,” Georgia said, hopping to her feet. “You two sit down and relax.”
“The coffee's cold by now,” Liv told him. “Do you want something else to drink?”
“Just birthday cake is fine by me.” He flicked the blue light on his digital watch to see that it was 11:21 p.m. “I wanted to celebrate with you on your birthday. I guess I got in right under the wire.”
Jared craned his neck to make sure Georgia was out of sight, and then he slipped his arm around Liv's waist and pulled her toward him.
“Happy birthday,” he said with a whisper and gave her a tender kiss.
“I’m so glad you made it.”
“Me, too.”
“Olivia,” Georgia called, “do you want cake too?”
“Oh, my, no!”
“I didn’t think so,” she said, laughing. “Just thought I’d check.”
“How much cake did you girls eat?” Jared teased, and Liv just shook her head furiously.
“It wasn’t pretty, Jared. I think you’re fortunate there's a piece left for you.”
Jared and Liv shared the sofa, with Boofer wedged between them, and Georgia took the easy chair by the front window.
“Tell us about Clayton,” Liv said, folding into the corner of the sofa with her legs crossed beneath her.
“The surgery went well.”
“Don Morgan is one of the best,” Georgia added.
“Will he recover?” Liv asked him.
“He will. He's a tough old guy.”
Liv reached over the dog and quickly scooped a fingerful of icing from Jared's plate. He took a playful stab at her hand with his fork, and she poked her finger into her mouth with a grin.
The Big 5-OH! Page 14