Firefly Nights

by Katie Winters

  “Snap out of it!” she told him, giggling. “We need to focus.”

  “I can’t,” Zach whispered under his breath.

  Just in the thick of the madness, Zach grabbed her hand and yanked her into the office again. He pressed her hard against the back of the door, just out of sight of everyone else in the kitchen, and kissed her like he meant it. When he lifted his head again, Christine’s legs were jelly.

  “Is that all you wanted to talk to me about?” she asked.

  “I think that covers it,” he returned.

  Just like that, they were off again. They barreled back into the kitchen as though nothing had happened. Ronnie hustled into the kitchen with tear-stained cheeks and said, “A drunk woman spilled her drink on herself and blamed me!” And immediately, there were more fires to put out, more angry clients to assuage. Christine got lost in the chaos, falling into the hours until suddenly, she found herself leaning against the counter, panting, as the busboys cleaned up the last tables just after ten-thirty.

  “Good job, everyone!” Zach called through the kitchen. He then opened the door out onto the war-zone of a dining area and said the same to the straggling wait staff and busboys out there. “Thank you for all you did today. Really spectacular stuff. I don’t think we could have remained afloat without each and every one of you.”

  Christine and Zach helped for a bit with the clean-up, then removed their aprons and grabbed their things in the office. Zach snuck to the wine cellar to nab a bottle of French rose, and then he gripped Christine’s hand and led her through the dining area and out onto the back porch, which looked out over the water. Christine heard several snickers from the wait staff as they walked hand-in-hand, along with several others, who whispered, “I knew it.”

  Still, she was bubbling over with happiness. As long as she didn’t focus on anything else and just on Zach, her stable rock, a foundation she had never known, which really made her feel so good. Really, really good.

  They sat at the edge of the porch with their legs swinging down beneath them. Zach popped the wine cork and poured them both glasses. The moonlight shimmered perfectly over his face. With every second that passed, Christine swam in the memory of when Zach had grabbed her and pushed her against the door and made her forget her name.

  “To a wonderful night,” Zach said, clinking his glass with hers. “Thank you again for coming.”

  “Of course.”

  “What happened at the hospital?”

  Christine heaved a sigh. Although she’d touched on it very briefly during their sleepover the previous week, she went into more detail about Stan Ellis, her mother, and Stan Ellis’s new ex-step-son, who they hadn’t known anything about.

  “Lola seems smitten with him,” Christine continued. “But while we waited for him in the lobby, Stan Ellis arrived. We had a stand-off and then he just ran away. Like he did at...”

  “Ah! That’s right,” Zach said, snapping his fingers. “I understand, now. That night at Edgartown Bar.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Christine said.

  “He’s your elusive ghost,” Zach returned.

  “Yes. I suppose so and we’re his too.” Christine swallowed. Slowly, she inched her hand across Zach’s knee. Somehow, she wanted to touch him in as many ways as she could. She’d never wanted someone so badly before; it felt like an animal, eating her up from the inside.

  “Zach. I feel like I should say something.”

  Zach’s eyes burned toward her. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve been afraid of intimacy and honesty for basically my entire life,” Christine continued. “I don’t even know if I could be honest with my sisters or my mother when it mattered the most. Right now, now that I’ve lost so much, I want to try my best to be as honest with you as I can at every single juncture.

  “I also want to be brave enough to demand what I want in this life. I think part of the reason I’ve been so lost is that I haven’t really known what I wanted. I was overly willing to get too drunk to think about it. That’s how I’ve lived the past twenty years of my life.

  “But I’m done with that, now. I want to start something new, and I want to start it with you. You should know, though, that there is a more than likely possibility that I will be raising my niece’s baby, at least until she’s ready to take the reins. She’s only nineteen years old, and the thought of struggling through that life right now terrifies her. Lucky for her, the thought of it thrills me. The first smile. The first steps. The little hugs and the laughter. Even the diaper changes. Everything about it.”

  Christine squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force herself not to hope too much.

  Zach’s hands found hers and held them tightly. His thumb traced across the top of her knuckles. When she opened her eyes again, she found him sharing the slightest smile with her.

  “You look so beautiful right now,” he marveled.

  “I’m not used to being so honest.”

  “It suits you,” Zach said. “And you know what else suits you? This version of motherhood. Although...” He gave a slight shrug. “I don’t know if there’s any reason we can’t adopt more—down the line, I mean.”

  Christine looked at him in shock. She could feel the tears starting but held them back and threw her arms around him instead. She held him tightly against her. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or just cry. When she fell back, Zach wiped the tears that she couldn’t hold back anymore from her cheeks. His smile was infectious.

  “I can’t believe I get another chance at life with my mortal high school enemy,” he said chuckling.

  “If you had told me even two months ago that I might be falling in love with Zach Walters from Martha’s Vineyard, I would have smacked you across the face,” Christine returned.

  Christine held her head tighter against his chest and gazed out across the waves. Zach’s heartbeat was sure, solid: the kind of sound that she could rely on. She imagined them several years from now, with Audrey’s baby, aged three, and maybe another adopted baby, one she would be allowed to call her own forever.

  Her heart hurt at the enormity of all of it. She ached that her mother was long gone and would never know Audrey or Amanda, her grandchildren; she hated that Zach had already been through so many horrors with the death of his own girl, Quinn.

  But Christine knew that you had to press forward. You have to fight for the life you want, armed with the love of the ones who know you best. And there was no better place on earth to do that than on Martha’s Vineyard.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Christine spent the night at Zach’s place. When he dropped her off the following morning, she found Audrey and Amanda on the back porch, in front of another selection of wedding magazines. Nobody had mentioned that Amanda would be returning, but the sight of the two cousins together again filled her heart.

  “And where on earth have you been, young lady?” Audrey said, arching her brow.

  Christine laughed as the girls put on a little show for her: crossing their arms and pretending to be her parents.

  “We were worried sick when you didn’t come home last night,” Amanda boomed, pretending to be the father.

  “All night, we stayed up watching the window and wondering. And you know what I keep asking myself, Amanda?”

  “What’s that, Audrey?”

  “I keep asking myself, what did we do so wrong to lead her so astray?” Audrey continued with a straight face.

  Lola appeared at the porch steps and burst into laughter. “Are they doing their routine?”

  “Oh, yeah. They’re giving me the full brunt of it and they are damn good,” Christine said.

  Lola headed up the steps, wearing only a bikini, her hair drenched from a swim. She grabbed a hanging towel and wrapped it around herself.

  “I can’t believe my mom is going to have better abs than me soon,” Audrey grumbled.

  “Your body is going to pop back like that,” Lola said, snapping her fingers. She turned her eyes back toward C
hristine and said, “By the way. We talked about it and... You and Audrey are right. It is the best idea. Thank you so much for offering. I can’t think of a better person to take the reins of my grandbaby until she’s ready to do it.”

  Christine hugged Lola a bit too hard so that a lot of her shirt was drenched in seawater. When she stepped back, laughing, her eyes met with Susan’s. Susan also stood at the base of the steps, and in her hand, she held an electric razor. Her eyes meant business.

  All the Sheridan women stared down at Susan. Susan lifted the razor higher and said, her voice booming, “It’s time.”

  Nobody spoke for a long time. Finally, Amanda said, “Mom. Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Isn’t it better to just get it over with?” Susan asked. She marched up the steps and gingerly knelt toward the outdoor electrical outlet, where she plugged it in. “And I want you girls to do it. I want it to be a little party—just the five of us.”

  Lola shrugged, entered the house, and came back with a pair of shears. “I checked on Dad. He’s upstairs asleep with Felix again. I swear that cat calms him down so much.”

  “He did the same for me all these years,” Christine admitted.

  Audrey fetched the radio from inside and changed it to the ‘90s station. Susan clapped her hands and said, “Oh, I love this song,” as Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” churned in from the airwaves. “It’s the perfect one to play while you snip my hair away. Who wants to do the first honors?”

  Lola placed the scissors in Amanda’s outstretched palm. “I’ll do it, Mom, but only because you want me to,” Amanda said.

  “That’s my girl. Thank you,” Susan said.

  Amanda brought a long piece of Susan’s glorious dark hair skyward and grimaced. “Should we say something before I start cutting?”

  “Susan, you always had the prettiest hair,” Lola said with a sigh.

  “It looks just like yours, Lola. We all have the same, dark, chestnut hair. Finally, I’ll differentiate myself from you two,” Susan said, chuckling. “Good riddance, I think. I spent way too much time with a flat iron all these years.”

  “All right. Count of three,” Amanda said.

  Together, the Sheridan women recited, “One, two, three,” and Amanda cut the first long wedge of hair. It fluttered to the porch ground, and Amanda blinked at it for a long time.

  “See?” Susan said in the silence. “It doesn’t hurt at all.”

  They got to work after that. Amanda did several more pieces, before handing off the scissors to Lola and Christine and Audrey. Everyone had a turn until finally, Lola got impatient and cut off the rest. Then, she took the electric razor and buzzed it close around Susan’s head, making perfect, lawnmower lines.

  “Wow,” Christine breathed. She felt she had never seen anything braver.

  “Finally,” Susan said. She snapped her palms together and stood again. She seemed to have more energy than usual, probably because it had been a few days since her last chemo treatment. “Now, I should tell you, everyone is coming over for a BBQ at noon.”

  “Everyone?” Lola groaned.

  “Yes. Everyone,” Susan said. “We haven’t had a proper party here in a few weeks, and I don’t want the summer to go to waste. This means that we all have quite a few jobs to do to get this place ready in time. I have Scott out now buying bags of ice, but that leaves us to buy burger meat, chips, pop, and some beer and wine. I’ve made a list.” She grabbed a piece of paper from her back pocket and unfurled it.

  “Ugh. Susan Sheridan, off to the races again,” Lola said with a sneaky grin.

  “Don’t be sassy, Lorraine,” Susan returned. “Oh, and Christine. I should tell you. Whoever it was you were with last night, I want you to invite him. This is a family affair, and everyone knows you’re falling in love with someone. I’ve just been too out of it to find out who it is. Give us all a break and just include him in the family already.”

  With that, Susan burst back into the house, leaving a pile of her long-dead and already forgotten hair on the ground behind her.

  Lola clucked her tongue and said, “I really never know what any of us are going to do next.”

  Christine still glowed after the night she’d had with Zach. Grateful she had the day off from the bistro, she flung into action to help Susan prepare another of her terrific BBQs at the house. She leaped back into the car to drive Lola and Amanda to the little grocery store at the edge of downtown, where they piled two carts with beer, wine, burgers and chips and countless other little snacks, including hummus, which Amanda insisted on. “We’ve got a health nut over here,” Lola said with a smile as Amanda slipped the hummus into the cart.

  “Hey. Only one of us has to wear a wedding dress,” Amanda said.

  “Don’t speak so soon. Both Christine and I are hunting for our grooms, too.” Lola winked.

  Amanda laughed. “Fair enough. Maybe we’ll have a whole year of weddings.”

  “On second thought, maybe we should get more hummus,” Christine offered teasingly.

  Back at the house, they piled up the snacks and fired up the grill. Scott arrived, carrying large bags of ice from his truck to the cooler. He stopped short when he saw Susan for the first time, but there was no less love in his eyes. He stepped up the porch steps and gazed at her, mesmerized, then placed his hands on her cheeks and whispered, “You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.” He kissed her in front of everyone.

  When their kiss broke, Susan looked a tiny bit woozy, but she soon smiled and said, “And you’re the most amazing man ever! But are you sure this is enough ice?”

  Everyone laughed and said that he’d certainly brought enough. This was a constant worry at every BBQ, one that seemed to put any BBQ organizer in a tizzy. Christine wondered if she and Zach would ever have a BBQ for family and friends in Edgartown, if she ended up moving in with him, that is. These were early days; words could very well be empty promises.

  Of course, she really didn’t think they were.

  Just after one, Wes awoke from his nap and padded down the steps with Felix hot on his heels. He stepped out onto the porch to find the beginnings of a BBQ, and he chortled with laughter.

  “I have to say. This loss of memory stuff really makes for some unique surprises,” he said.

  “Don’t worry, Dad. This was a surprise to all of us, too,” Christine offered.

  “My, my. Susan,” Wes said. His grin broadened when he spotted her. “It looks good.”

  Susan patted her head absentmindedly. “Oh, sure. It doesn’t matter to me much. Do you think you could change into something a little more formal? It’s just, everyone is coming over, and I don’t think they necessarily want to see you in your sleeping shirt.”

  Audrey hopped up in her sleeping shirt and stretched it out in front of her. This particular one was covered in Snoopy designs. “Does that go for me, too, Aunt Susie?”

  “Absolutely,” Susan said. “Everyone, let’s try to put our best foot forward. We’re the Sheridan clan, and we’re here to stay.”

  People started to arrive just after one. Naturally, Aunt Kerry and Uncle Trevor arrived first, carting their twin grandchildren, Abby and Gail, along with them. Soon after, Claire and her husband, Russel, arrived, with Claire chasing Gail down to give her allergy medicine. After that, came Charlotte and Rachel, Kelli and her husband, Mike, along with their children, Sam, Josh, and Lexi.

  After that, non-family members, who might as well have been family members, arrived, including Lily and Sarah, Susan’s best friends from high school. Both of them squeezed Christine tight.

  “I had no idea you were going to stay, Christine!” Lily cried. “Susan had told me you’d gone back to New York City, and I just never envisioned the likes of you returning. But then, one day, my husband Timothy came back to the house with these remarkable croissants. I couldn’t shut up about these croissants, I’m telling you. I come to find out you’re the one who baked them!”

  “Guilty.” Chris
tine grinned. In her brooding, teenage years, she’d never particularly liked Susan’s friends. Now, she couldn’t remember why.

  “Are more people talking about the croissants?” Zach’s voice boomed from behind her, forcing her to turn quickly and fall into a hug.

  “I didn’t think you could get away from the bistro so soon,” Christine murmured into his ear.

  His hand found the little curve of her lower back. “Who could turn down a classic Sheridan family BBQ? I heard they’re the best parties on the island.”

  Susan returned from the kitchen with her hands on her hips. She’d changed into a dynamite purple dress, which highlighted her powerful curves and her flat waist. Her eyes burned toward Zach as she said, “Ah! I guess I should have known. Zach Walters, good to have you here.”

  “Thanks for having me, Susan,” Zach said. Then, he turned and whispered to Christine, “What is she talking about?”

  “She knew I was falling for someone, but she didn’t know who,” Christine returned.

  The party was off to the races. Scott had long since started piling burgers and hot dogs onto people’s plates, and various members of the clan sat at the extra picnic tables in the yard that led down toward the Sound. As Christine and Zach walked toward the long table, where they’d placed out bottles of wine, Aunt Kerry gripped her elbow and yanked her back.

  “Are you going to introduce me to your handsome young man?” she demanded.

  Christine chuckled. “I thought maybe you’d met? He’s the head chef at the bistro at the Inn.”

  Aunt Kerry’s lips turned to a round O. “My goodness, young man. You’re doing a remarkable job over there, you know. Really wonderful.”

  “Thank you. I couldn’t have done it without Christine. She’s changed the place around since she came back to the island,” he said.

  Wes, who sat across from Aunt Kerry, beamed at them. “You two make a great couple,” he said. “I love seeing my Christine this happy.”

  Christine blushed, while Zach made small talk with Wes about the Inn and the bistro. Although Wes didn’t work there so often anymore, he still wanted to feel informed about every aspect.