“Let me see where my mom is,” Macy said, thinking how odd it was to have Buzz back in the house, almost as if no time had passed. It occurred to her as she opened Brenda’s door that maybe he’d been waiting all this time for them to return.
She leaned into the bedroom where her mom was, once again, reading a book. Macy noticed it was a romance novel and wondered when she had taken up reading those. Brenda had always been more of the political-thriller type. “Buzz Wells is here,” she said, smiling. “Come help me think of stuff to talk about.”
Brenda laid the book down on the bed. “I was just about to doze off for a bit.” A frown crossed her face, but she stood up anyway. Her hand flew to her hair as she paused in front of the dresser mirror to study her reflection. “I’m hardly decent for company,” she fussed.
“You can’t leave me out there floundering,” Macy retorted, and turned from the room, hoping her mom would follow and rescue her. She did. By the time the two got back to the living room, Max was there too, clapping Buzz on the back and smiling.
“It’s great to see you again, Buzz,” Max said. He sounded sincere, and after some reflection, Macy realized it was great to see Buzz again.
Buzz looked around the room, then turned and fixed his gaze on Macy. “I remember one year after you all had already finished your vacation, my son, Wyatt, came here to visit me. He lived with his mom then. He snuck into this house, saying he wanted to meet the little girl I’d told him about.” Buzz laughed. “He thought you were here. I had to drag him out, kicking and screaming. Lucky for me it was before the new renters got here. After that, he was always sneaking over here, convinced that one of these times, he’d get to meet you. And now you two have finally met.”
Macy got the distinct impression that Buzz was trying to play matchmaker. She smiled at his kindness even as she thought about her late-night prayer by the sea to find the boy who’d drawn the pictures. She wanted to ask Buzz for more details like, “Did you ever find him drawing in the guest book?” but she refrained, dismissing the likelihood of Wyatt— with his good looks, smart mouth, and calloused hands — having the heart of an artist beating deep within him.
Macy noticed Buzz was looking at her mother with a funny expression on his face. Brenda, on the other hand, seemed to be looking everywhere but at Buzz. Macy guessed it had to be hard for Brenda to see him again, a reminder of Darren now standing right in front of her.
Usually Brenda jumped into hostess mode, but clearly seeing Buzz had rattled her, so a moment of awkward silence passed before Macy remembered her manners. “Can I get you anything, Buzz?” she asked.
“I’d love some coffee,” Buzz said, grinning at Brenda and looking completely at ease. He turned to Macy and Max. “It’s just a coffee kind of day,” he offered as an explanation. “You know, the rain.”
Macy watched the unwelcome rain splattering on the porch, the reason she and Emma were trapped inside instead of enjoying the beach. She had to agree with Buzz. “I like Buzz’s idea,” she said to her mom. “Let’s have some coffee.” She caught her mom’s arm and walked toward the kitchen, grateful for an excuse to slip out of the room. She heard Emma begin to talk and knew Buzz and Max would be entertained.
Brenda pulled a filter from the cabinet, popped it into the basket, and began filling it with coffee grounds, Folgers, which she had picked up on the way home from church the day before. At home Macy used nothing but Starbucks. Brenda called her a coffee snob and claimed she couldn’t taste the difference between the two. Macy never bothered to argue. Brenda filled the carafe with water and dumped it into the machine. The gurgling sound of percolation started and the two of them leaned against the counter while they waited.
Macy had loved coffee since she was a teenager, sneaking it when her dad wasn’t looking. With a guilty twinge, she thought about the one time she’d tried drinking it in front of him when she was fifteen.
He’d been banging around in the house to wake her up because he didn’t like her sleeping so late. She’d stomped into the kitchen, angry at the interruption of her sleep and ready for a fight.
“Is there coffee?” she asked.
“Coffee? Coffee?” He’d grabbed her in a headlock and rubbed the top of her head with his knuckles. “No child of mine is drinking my coffee! Coffee is a grown-up drink, my dear!”
She’d wrenched free from his grasp and stepped backward. “Stop it, Dad!” she exclaimed, her temper flaring as it did sometimes, with no warning and little provocation. The same exchange between them another time would’ve been enough to send her into a fit of laughter.
Her dad had looked at her with the confused expression he sometimes got. He dropped his hands to his sides and mumbled an apology, then left the room. Her mom had stared at her, disappointment etched into the lines on her forehead. Fortune tellers read people’s palms; Macy read her mother’s forehead.
“What?” Macy had asked with exasperation in her voice. All she’d wanted was some coffee.
“Your dad was just trying to have some fun, Macy,” her mother said. “You didn’t need to yell at him.”
“First he woke me up, then he started messing with me!” she responded.
Her mother’s reprimand had made her feel bad, but she wouldn’t—couldn’t—show her that. She wished her mom would just leave, but she’d stood firmly planted in the kitchen, the two of them squaring off with their eyes. Macy had grown tired of the stare down and stalked out of the kitchen, back to the safety of her room.
There wasn’t a day that went by that Macy didn’t wish she could go back and undo that scene—or any of the ones exactly like it from the year before her dad died. She’d been trying so hard to be her own person, to adopt this dark, cool persona she thought was necessary to be a real artist.
Years later, the grown-up Macy watched the rain hit the window and slide down, the droplets making patterns on the glass. She listened to the quiet melody of the shower hitting the roof, wishing she could curl up in bed and nap instead of play host.
“Why do you think Buzz is here?” she asked Brenda, addressing what neither of them was saying. She didn’t mention seeing him at church, but wondered if Brenda had noticed. She thought of Buzz in this house that last terrible year. She could still see his face as he tried to talk to them, to reason that they didn’t have to stop coming. Come to think of it, it had been raining then too.
Brenda looked away, began fussing with the cream and sugar, making a production of service as only she knew how to do. Macy had missed that gene somehow. She hadn’t even thought of cream and sugar.
“He said I’d be back,” she said so quietly Macy almost didn’t hear her. She turned back to face Macy. “He said that until I came back, I wouldn’t fully deal with the loss of … Darren.” She smiled bravely. “And he was right.”
The coffee finished brewing, and she pulled the carafe from the machine and held it in front of her like a shield.
“This past year, I just kept hearing Buzz’s warning to me, and I knew I had to come back here. I had to face it instead of run from it like I’ve been doing.” She pressed her lips into a thin line. “The running hasn’t worked very well, has it?”
Macy thought of the shrine to her dad back home, the missing guest of honor at the yearly birthday party, the gaping hole in all of them that never seemed to fill. She could hear her daughter and brother and Buzz laughing. Emma, as always, was perking things up as only she could.
Brenda didn’t wait for an answer. “Bring the cream and sugar, Macy. We can come back and get the cups.” She walked out of the kitchen without saying more, even though there was, they both knew, so much more to be said on the subject. It was, after all, the reason they were back.
Macy stood and watched the rain, wishing for a moment that she could be ten instead of twenty-six, that when she joined the others she would find the life she’d once had and be able to hold onto it.
Buzz stayed for dinner, offering to treat them all to Chinese takeout. Her m
other agreed quickly, which was uncharacteristic of her, and Macy wondered if it was because she welcomed the break from cooking or because she was enjoying Buzz’s easy presence in the house. When Brenda went so far as to agree to ride with Buzz to pick up the order, Macy and Max exchanged confused glances. As soon as they left, taking Emma with them, Max snickered.
Macy held up her hand. “Don’t make this more than it is,” she said.
Max held up both hands. “What?” he asked. “I’m happy for her. I just can’t believe it, that’s all.”
“Don’t go marrying her off just yet,” Macy said defensively.
“Look,” Max said. “Buzz is a nice guy. If he wants to take Mom out, more power to him. He’s got a lot to live up to, and he knows that better than anyone.” Max paused and ran his hands through his hair. “They were great friends. I think the guy’s just glad to have us back here. For a long time he probably felt like us coming here all those years … never happened.” He looked at Macy. “We were just gone.”
She thought of Buzz’s advice to their mother all those years ago and felt sorry for him. “I think the past few years have been about all of us wondering if any of those vacations happened, or if they were something we all dreamed.”
Max smiled. “Well, it was a great dream to you. To me it was a nightmare. I hated getting dragged here. I spent all my time trying to escape their clutches.” He tried to laugh, but Macy could hear that he was forcing it. “Now I think if I could go back just one time …”
“Would you do it differently?” Macy challenged, thinking of the times he’d made their father so angry he would sit silently on the beach instead of playing with her, the times Max disappeared after dark, and her parents argued behind closed doors over “what to do about Max,” a popular topic during Macy’s growing-up years. It was, it turned out, a question with no answer. Sometimes Macy got angry with Max for the black mark he’d left on her childhood, the way he’d introduced tension into what was otherwise a happy family.
Max looked at her, the corners of his mouth turned down, all traces of his usual jokes gone from his face. “I would do so many things differently,” he said. It wasn’t an apology for the past, but it was as close to one as she’d ever heard from him.
Macy smiled. “Well, we can’t go back, but we can go forward,” she offered, thinking of the words in terms of herself and not just him.
Max nodded. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”
Macy smiled at him. “You and me both.” She thought of the guest book in her bedroom and wondered yet again if it was merely a part of her past or also the key to her future.
That night, after Macy had turned out the light, her bedroom door swung open. She sat up, prepared to see Emma rubbing her eyes and asking to climb into her bed after a bad dream. Instead, the light from the hallway revealed her mom’s form in the doorway.
“Mom?” she asked. She wondered what was wrong. Macy hoped her mom didn’t want to talk about Buzz like some schoolgirl. She wasn’t ready for that.
“Buzz offered to take Emma to camp tomorrow, because he knows the woman in charge,” Brenda said. “I’d go with him, of course,” she added. “I thought you’d like the break.”
She shifted, her dark form moving in the light from the hallway. Was her mother nervous? Macy couldn’t see her face or read her eyes, which always gave her away.
“Sure,” she replied. “That sounds great. I’d love to be able to sleep in.”
“Good. See you in the morning,” her mother said as she backed out and closed Macy’s door.
Macy flopped back onto the mattress and thought about working on a new picture for the guest book, a crazy notion to even think he’d ever see it, but something in her had to reply to his long-ago picture, left for a teenage Macy. The grown-up Macy would respond differently, and maybe — somehow — he would sense that she had. She thought of her prayer, and what Buzz had said about Wyatt sneaking into this house year after year. She smiled in the dark. Maybe during this trip, Macy would get to show the artist the picture instead of just leaving it for him. Maybe her crazy prayer would get an answer.
She pulled her pillow close and closed her eyes, refusing to think about her mom or Max or Buzz or Chase or even her mystery artist. She willed sleep to come quickly, to keep such thoughts at bay. But the ringing phone kept that from happening.
thirteen
Macy stood in the den trying to figure out how she could go get Max since he’d taken the only car. She’d wanted to tell him to figure it out himself this time, but then she remembered the times he’d been there for her, saw his hand encircling hers on the gearshift of his car on their way to the hospital after their dad’s heart attack. It was this image that always spurred her into action on Max’s behalf. Through the window she could see Buzz’s porch light burning like a beacon. She looked at the clock. One o’clock in the morning.
Not taking long to think it through, she snuck quietly out the front door and crossed over to Buzz’s house, hoping she wouldn’t find Wyatt there at this hour. She crossed the front yard, climbed Buzz’s front porch stairs like a cat burglar, and then knocked lightly on the door. After a few seconds she heard footsteps from inside and heard Buzz’s voice through the closed door. “Macy?”
“Yes.”
She looked around at the empty street, the island closed for business until the early morning shell-seekers came out to see the sunrise and retrieve the best offerings from the sea. She remembered Max’s early morning venture to one-up her when they were kids. Two images clashed in her mind: Max placing his prize shell beside her butterfly shells, and Max fishing a fast-food napkin from his glove compartment so she could dry her tears before they walked into the hospital. The napkin had been grease-stained, but it had worked.
The door swung open to reveal Buzz wearing gray sweatpants and a T-shirt advertising an auto parts store. He squinted at her. “Macy?” he asked a second time.
“I’m sorry to wake you, Buzz, but I’ve got a little emergency, and though I hate to drag you into it, I—” She looked at the dark house next door where her daughter and mother slept. “I need a ride.”
Buzz reached around to the little entry table he kept by the door and grabbed his keys. “Well, then it’s a ride you shall have, m’ dear.” He stopped short and looked down at his clothing. “Should I get dressed for this errand?”
“You probably should.”
Buzz shrugged and shuffled back into the house, looking much older than he had earlier that afternoon when they’d sipped coffee and laughed together, reminiscing about old times, happy times.
Macy’s hands curled into fists at her sides. Max! For someone with past regrets, he was doing a sloppy job of moving forward like they’d discussed.
Buzz returned moments later, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt that advertised the Ingram Planetarium, a place Macy wanted to take Emma to before they left. She followed him to his car.
Buzz didn’t speak until they had driven to the other side of the bridge. “Where we going?” he asked.
“Bolivia?” Her voice caught and she cleared her throat. “To the jail there. Does that sound right?”
“Lemme guess. This has something to do with your brother.” Buzz got an odd expression on his face as he spoke. “Darren used to worry about something like this.”
Macy looked down at her hands. “Well, he was right.”
“Happen a lot?”
“He gets in scrapes a lot. Never anything he can’t get out of … with my help, that is. I guess he thought he could drive the short way home after having a few too many.”
Buzz pulled his cell phone from his driver’s seat visor and dialed a number. When the person he’d called answered, he simply said, “Meet me at the police station in Bolivia.” Then he ended the call and put the phone back up in his visor, flipping the visor up with a little more force than was necessary.
Macy thought about her mismatched sweats and hoped he hadn’t just called Wyatt. She didn
’t ask for fear she’d look like she cared and he’d take it as some sort of sign, maybe even tell Wyatt she asked.
She realized with a start that she did care what Wyatt thought of her appearance, and the thought bothered her more than she wanted to admit. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the cool glass of the passenger window, glad that for once she wasn’t going alone to rescue Max. Right or wrong, she was tired of handling things on her own.
Buzz patted her hand affectionately. “You rest. We’ve got a bit of a drive to get there,” he said. She gave him a little smile, more grateful to him than she could say.
“Thanks, Buzz,” she whispered, and then dozed off to the sound of country music playing softly and Buzz humming along to it, the music covering her like a blanket.
“Macy. Macy. Wake up.”
She woke up to the muffled voice of Pastor Nate coming through Buzz’s driver’s-side window. Buzz was gone. She thought about her appearance and stifled a groan of embarrassment. She’d taken Buzz’s words to heart and rested all right.
She sat up and started to grab for her door handle. “How long have I been asleep?”
The pastor opened the driver’s side door and slipped into the spot Buzz had been in minutes ago. Or was it hours? The clock on the dashboard said 2:34 a.m. and the radio was still on. A man was singing about going fishing. She blinked at Nate. “I need to go get Max. Where’s Buzz? Why are you here?”
Nate’s hand was warm and soft on her arm as he stopped her from reaching for the door handle for a second time. “Hey, Buzz called me. He’s in there now getting Max. Don’t worry about it. Just sit tight. I’d like to take Max home for you. Buzz is going to put him in my car.”
She couldn’t resist. “You going to teach him a lesson? Make him an offer he can’t refuse?” She did her best Godfather impression.
The Guest Book Page 10