The ride from Mason’s Jewelry Store to Tyler’s mother’s house was oppressively silent until Donna finally said, “Well, Dr. Rhoades, what you must think. But all I can say is I never in my life stole anything. That Tilly Mason drinks, you know.”
“Mom. Stop talking,” Tyler said. “Just. Stop. Talking. Please.”
His mother’s house was a beige-and-brown structure designed to look like a Swiss chalet set against a backdrop of huge white pine trees. An old, rusted, mint-green pickup truck sat next to the garage. It looked like it had been parked there for a decade and a half. Tall beach grass grew up all around it.
Gravel crunched under our feet as we got out and three black Labrador retrievers bounded into the yard, greeting us with effusive barking. Carl was on the front porch smoking a cigarette. His face was in shadows, but the blue terry cloth robe was a dead giveaway. I could just barely see it in the fading light.
“Donna, where’ve you been?” he called out. “I had Salisbury steak and tater tots all heated up and ready to go for dinner. It was my night to cook.” He stepped forward. “Oh, well, hiya, Doc.”
He ground out his cigarette on the porch railing as we walked up the steps. My peripheral vision caught Tyler shaking his head.
“Carl, you remember Evelyn?”
I held out my hand. “Nice to see you, Carl.”
He caught up my fingers and kissed the back of them, arching a white eyebrow. “A pleasure, Evelyn. Welcome to our home. May I interest you in a sloe gin fizz?”
“Carl, Mom has something to tell you,” Tyler said, taking my hand from his stepfather’s grasp and leading me inside. “It’s eighty degrees out here. Aren’t you a little bit hot in that bathrobe?”
Carl smoothed the lapel. “I love this robe. You mother gave me this robe. Didn’t you, Donna?” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “But where’ve you been?”
“Shopping,” she said noncommittally.
We walked inside. The house was a mishmash of tacky collectibles; tarnished framed photos; old, tattered magazines; mismatched furniture; and dead animals. Fortunately, those animals were just heads mounted on the walls. A few deer, a fox, a rabbit, and what looked to be your average, garden-variety billy goat.
“What do you think of my hunting trophies, Red?” Carl asked, walking in behind us and lighting up another cigarette.
“Did I mention Carl’s a taxidermist?” Tyler whispered in my ear. “These are all things he’s shot himself.”
A goat? Where was the sport in killing a goat?
We walked through the cluttered family room into a yellow kitchen with gold-flecked linoleum. A scarred-up pine table filled the center of the room. Everything here was frayed and well used.
“I’m sorry about the state of the house, Dr. Rhoades. We’ve been meaning to clean it,” his mother said.
“Oh, it looks fine,” I assured her. “Please call me Evie.”
Her smile was strained, and she reached up to pat her hair again.
Carl stepped around us. “Move over, Donna. I was just about to make the doc here a sloe gin fizz. You want one, Ty?”
“No drinks for us, Carl. We just came to drop Mom off. She had a little episode at Mason’s Jewelry Store.”
Carl turned and looked at his wife, and then at Tyler. “What kind of episode?”
“She tried to steal a watch.”
Donna stepped forward and put her arm on Carl’s. “It was for Scotty. He’s leaving soon and it’s his birthday, so I wanted to get him something special.”
Carl’s eyebrows lifted, his lips pursed. “A watch, huh? You never stole me a watch.”
“I think you’re missing the point here, Carl,” Tyler said, visibly deflating.
His stepfather shrugged. “No, no. I get it. She’s not supposed to steal stuff. Donna, Donna, Donna. Shame on you. Do you want a sloe gin fizz?”
He turned back to the counter and started pulling bottles from the cupboard.
Tyler sighed and looked at me, his gaze vulnerable and raw. I smiled back, because what else could I do? I reached out and took his hand. I wanted to kiss him then and tell him this was all fine. Hilary might be right. His family was a fucking train wreck. But they were his family, and so that was that. It didn’t change my opinion of him, and I wanted him to know.
“I’d like a sloe gin fizz,” I said. “And then can you show me your dad’s boat?”
About half an hour later, we made our way down a dirt path to an ancient barn. Tyler unlatched the door, and the hinges creaked as it swung open. It smelled like straw and old wood inside, and off to the left I could see what looked like a workbench covered in tools.
An old red pickup truck was right in the front, but what caught my eye was what was behind it.
“There it is. A thirty-eight-foot Bertram. Sturdy as hell. You could take that thing out into the ocean if you wanted to.”
I walked over and touched the hull. “Why does it seem so much bigger than those boats we saw at the marina?”
Tyler’s smile was indulgent. “Because it’s not half underwater?”
“Oh. Yeah. For a smart girl, I guess I should have figured that out myself. So what would it take to get this in the water?”
He looked at me as if that question was just as silly as the first. “A trailer?”
My hands landed on my hips. “I mean money-wise, smartass. How much would it cost to start up your dad’s charter company again?”
He looked down. “Oh, that. A lot. Probably forty or fifty grand by the time I made repairs to the boat and got it tricked out with fish-finding sonar and rods and such. Plus there’s the monthly rent on the slip out at the marina, and the gas for this thing is diesel, so that’s not cheap either. It all adds up pretty fast. At least keeping it here is free.”
“It’s such a shame to have it just sitting here.”
He stepped closer and put his hands on my hips, right over my own hands. “Well,” he said, “it is just sitting here. But it does have a comfy berth. Should we check it out?”
I looked around this dusty old barn and looped my arms around his shoulders. “Tempting. But I have a better idea. Let’s go to my place and I’ll float your boat over there.”
Chapter 28
MOVING DAY! AT LAST IT was moving day. Tyler was there, helping me pack up the last of my few meager belongings.
“I’ve never seen so many scraps of paper,” he said as he walked around with a trash bag.
“Careful what you throw away. Some of those little scraps are very important,” I answered.
“Then maybe you should keep them in a file or something instead of all over the place,” he teased.
“Why do you think I’m moving? So I have a house with file drawers.”
He continued picking up my litter as I folded the last of my clothes and put them into a suitcase to drive across town. The moving men had arrived to put my few pieces of furniture into a truck. In just a few hours they had all the bits and pieces of my life loaded into the back of a U-Haul.
I looked around my apartment and felt a little bereft once everything was gone. I stared at the now-barren room. Tyler had grown quiet, standing beside me.
He’d been quiet for the last hour or so. A subtle change in mood and I wasn’t sure why.
“Are you all right?” I asked, looping my elbow around his.
He paused. “I’m good. Just tired. And I have someplace I need to be for a couple of hours this afternoon. Remember?”
“I remember. Where are you going again?” He hadn’t told me. In fact, he’d been downright evasive, and I didn’t want to push him to tell me, except that I was pushing him to tell me. Because, yes, I did want to know.
“Just some stuff for my brother before he leaves town. I’ll catch up with you later. You’re all done here, it looks like.” He nodded at the empty room.
“Yep,” I said. “I guess this is good-bye. I had some good times here. We had some good times here.” I squeezed his arm, but he kept looking forward.
“Yep.” He turned and walked out the door. “We did. But it looks like it’s time for good-bye.”
“All that crap goes straight down into the basement, girlfriend. No composite woods up here on the main floor,” Fontaine said as I instructed the movers to take my bedroom dresser up to one of the guest rooms.
“This dresser needs to go in one of the extra bedrooms,” I said.
Fontaine shook his head emphatically. “I’ve got it all under control. Trust me.” He pointed to the basement steps, and the moving men obeyed. Fontaine might be little, but he was also scrappy and bossy.
“The last time you said trust me, I ended up with purple walls in my bedroom.”
“It’s Vineyard Passion and it looks fa-fa-fabulous. Wait until you see it with the bedding. You’re going to love it. When does the boy toy get here? Isn’t he supposed to be helping today?”
“He helped this morning, but he had someplace he needed to be. He’ll show up later. We’re having dinner tonight in my fancy shmancy new kitchen.”
“Sounds delish,” Fontaine answered, winking suggestively.
While the moving men unloaded my apparently unacceptable belongings, Fontaine took me on a tour of my own house. I had to give him credit. The place looked amazing, with funky new light fixtures; quirky, whimsical pieces of art; and freshly painted walls in bold but appealing hues. He was pretty good at this decorating thing.
Even my bedroom was gorgeous, with walls a deep, deep purple, so dark it was nearly brown. Apparently that’s what Vineyard Passion looked like. The new furniture was rustic antiqued white, and all the accent pieces and bedding were in muted shades of charcoal and silver. The pillows on the bed were plumped up and happy, just waiting for a lusty couple to roll around on them.
Tyler was going to enjoy this room. I bet he’d enjoy my six-headed, sexy-time shower too.
This house was a dream. My dream. It represented the culmination of all my years of hard work. All those late nights on call and early morning rounds. All the cramming for medical school exams and long days of surgery. I’d earned this nice, big, beautiful house. It was my trophy. And I wanted to share it with Tyler.
I wanted to share dinner with him too. Gabby had dropped off all the fixings for a spaghetti bonanza, but it was nearly seven o’clock before I heard his Jeep in the driveway. Panzer walked around, trying to figure out where to stand for his barking frenzy.
I opened the front door before Tyler could knock. “Hey, it’s about time. Where’ve you been?” Panzer licked his hand and got an ear scratching for his troubles.
Tyler hesitated on the porch, finally slipping off his shoes before I latched on to his hand and pulled him into the foyer. “Well, come on. Let me show you around.”
“Sorry I’m so late. My stuff today took longer than I expected and, well, you know.” He shrugged, and I moved in to hug him. The embrace was perfunctory. Whatever had started to bother him this morning was still riding on his shoulders. My joy dimmed.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just a long day.” He wrapped his arms a little tighter around my middle.
“Want to tell me about it?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, I want you to make me forget about it.”
I smiled and squeezed. “I think I can do that. I made you dinner. I practically cooked.”
“You did?” I should have been insulted by his level of surprise, but other than the soup I’d heated after having the flu, he’d never seen me so much as toast a bagel.
“Yes, I cooked. Sort of. I used two separate burners on the stove. I think that counts.” I stepped back and led him toward the kitchen. “Do you want the tour first, or should we eat? I’ll have to reheat everything anyway since I thought you’d be here half an hour ago.”
“I told you I had stuff to do.” The snap in his voice startled me.
“I know you did. It’s not a problem. I just meant that the pasta cooled off.”
“I’m sorry.” A fauxpology. He sure didn’t sound sorry. He was still grouchy, and I still had no idea why.
“Maybe we should eat first.”
He looked around, turning slowly in a circle. “I think we should. Something tells me the tour might last awhile.”
“Sit down then. Want some wine? Gabby brought over a wonderful cabernet.” I was already on my second glass, celebrating the warming of my home.
“Do you have any just regular beer?” He said it as if wine was simply too pretentious.
“Sure.” I opened the refrigerator, glad I’d thought to pick up a few necessities, like beer, coffee, and toilet paper. As long as we had those three things, we could be set for quite a while.
I handed him the bottle and he popped off the top.
Dinner was quieter than I’d hoped. He wasn’t very chatty, but the food and drinks seemed to rub away some of the sharp points of his mood. He took my hand at the end of the meal.
“This was nice of you. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Thanks for all your help.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Of course you did. You helped me pack, and helped load the truck, and you’ve helped me with the dog, and—”
“OK. OK.” He nearly smiled.
I pulled his hand up to my lips and kissed it. “So, what’s on your mind, Tyler? You’re not yourself. Don’t you like the house?”
“I do, Evie. Of course I do. Even what little I’ve seen is amazing.”
“OK, then why so blue?”
The sun was dipping beneath the edge of the lake, turning gold shadows to gray, and I could hear the waves rolling in over the sand, just as I’d longed for. This moment should be sublime. It should be perfect, but it was all wrong. Tyler was in a funk, and it tarnished everything.
He pulled his hand from mine and stood up, picking up our plates and carrying them to the kitchen sink. “I went to see my lawyer today.”
My very full stomach fell hard to the ground. “You did? Why didn’t you tell me that’s where you were going?”
He turned around and leaned against the counter, frowning again. “I don’t know. I just didn’t want to.” That hurt my feelings. I knew he was embarrassed by all of this, but he shouldn’t be. And he should certainly trust me enough by now that he could tell me. “So what happened?”
His sigh was big and came from deep within. He crossed his arms and looked down at the floor. “I have to pay for the dock, which I expected. But this guy is saying I also messed up his shoreline and he had to have a landscaper come out to fix it. It’s bullshit, of course. I didn’t mess up his shore. That’s not the worst of it, though.” He paused, and unease brushed over me, like a spider on my skin.
“I was hoping the Jet Ski could be repaired,” Tyler continued. “I didn’t think there was much damage, but according to the owner, it has to be replaced, not repaired. That means more out of my pocket.”
“How much will a replacement cost?”
His jaw clenched for a second before he answered. “About five grand. So right now, with the dock and the yard and the legal fees, I’m looking at close to fourteen thousand and some change.”
“Fourteen thousand dollars?”
“Yep. But if I try to fight it, if we go to court and I lose, I could end up with a misdemeanor on my record. And I didn’t realize this before, but Evie, if I get a misdemeanor, I’d lose my job at MedPro.”
My heart squeezed tight. “Oh, Tyler. That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”
I stood up and walked over to him. He didn’t look at me. He just stared down at the floor. My beautiful, site-finished mahogany floor that probably cost as much as this settlement.
“Does your brother know this?” I asked.
He shook his head, slow. Sad. He finally looked up at me. “No, and I’m not going to tell him. He doesn’t have the money either, Evie. Plus he leaves for Fort Jackson in two days. It’s done. I’ll pay it. It just means I have to put off the paramedic training for a while. A long while.”
“Why? Couldn’t you finance that?” I reached out and touched his arm, but he moved away from the sink, and away from me. He walked into my professionally decorated living room with my real suede sofa that probably cost more than his Jeep.
“Why? Because I’m already making payments on my medical bills. And my mom needs some help with her mortgage. So even if I could set up a payment plan for tuition, I can’t take on another bill. Not right now. I’ll just have to keep working until I’m caught up.”
My bright, shiny house suddenly felt ostentatious, and my joy over it insensitive. I was angry at Scotty for putting him in this predicament, and I was angry at Hilary’s husband for not being a better lawyer. None of this was fair. Tyler was wrong to get on that Jet Ski after drinking. There was no question about that, but he’d been trying to help when all of this spiraled downward.
I walked over to where he stood. He practically crackled with tension, and I didn’t know how to help. Ironic, really. Making people feel better about themselves was a big part of my job, but fixing how they looked on the outside was far easier than fixing how they felt on the inside. This situation was fraught with elements I had little control over, and neither did Tyler. All I knew was that I wanted very much to cheer him up. Or at least distract him for a while. I slid my hands down his arms and took hold of his hands. “I wish I could fix this for you.”
“I know. It’ll be fine. I’ll figure it out.”
He would. He always did.
“I have something upstairs that might make you feel better. Do you want to see it?”
He sighed, and a tiny, resistant curve curled the edges of his mouth. “What is it?”
“A shower. A six-headed steam shower. Maybe if we went in there I could wash all your cares away.”
Best Medicine, The Page 24