I stuck my chipped horrors behind my back and made a mental note to take care of those myself before this evening. “Oh, me either. I’m headed right now to write my story and turn it in. Busy, busy. But you and Mother have a wonderful time.”
She offered us one last chance.“You’re sure? We would have a wonderful time.”
“No, we’re sure. I’ve got to finish reading my book anyway,” Paige said, turning to give me a sideways glance. I rolled my eyes.
“And I’m having lunch with Lucy and Manuel.”
“Well, okay,” she said picking up her multicolored Louis Vuitton, which was a perfect complement to her red tube top. “But you’ll miss all the fun.”
“We know.” Paige assured her.“We have a way of doing that.”
“Toodledoo, girls.”
“Toodledoo,” we offered in unison, watching her bouncy locks disappear down the stairs.
Paige threw herself down on the bed. I followed.“You stink,” she said.
“It’s called sweat, and that’s what happens when you exercise.”
“Who needs to exercise this body? Look at this stomach.” She patted her pooch.
“Everything looks smaller lying down. It spreads out, genius.”
“Spreads out nicely, I might add.”
“So, you want to go to lunch with us?”
“No, no fifth wheel today.”
“You’re never a fifth wheel.”
“I have officially become one.” She rolled over to look at me. “Don’t get too close.You really do smell like fish.”
I slapped her.“You are never a fifth wheel in my life. I hope you will always know that.”
“I do. But Thomas, who’s still avoiding your mother at all costs, has a group of people going out on a friend’s boat today. He invited me.”
“Thomas? Invited you?”
“Yes. I am a rather exciting person to have around. Plus, he knows you’re totally up to something. So he’s looking out for me.”
“He’s trying to get information, isn’t he?” The other reason why he was continually having her hang out with him made me too nervous to consider.
“Probably. And he is a royal pain, but he can be nice too. How are you?”
“You sure you don’t want to come?” I asked, getting up and taking her hands to give her a tug. She wouldn’t budge.“Serious, you need to exercise.”
“I’m sure I don’t want to come. And I’m even more certain I don’t want to exercise. I mean, Jennifer Lopez is famous for a bum like this,” she said, giving hers a firm slap.“Why ruin a good thing?”
“Of course, how silly of me.”
“Yes, how silly of you.”
Lucy and Manuel were already at the Hurricane Oyster Bar when we arrived. I had finished my story. Then I had happened upon Joshua. And he had happened to be available. So we happened their way. He had already been on the beach when I found him,wearing an irritating (okay, charming) look of satisfaction when he saw me.
The salty breeze that wafted up through the small Obe shopping-and-eating district made the thought of seafood all the more appropriate.
“Lucy and Manuel, I’d like you to meet Joshua North.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Joshua,” Manuel said, extending his hand.
Lucy looked breathtaking as usual, her deep, rich Spanish features illuminated by the sun. Her thick accent hovered over her words.“Joshua, what a wonderful treat to meet you. We’ve caught a few sightings of you this week.”
“Oh, you have, huh?” He turned his face to me.
“Let’s sit,” Manuel said, motioning to the chairs.
“I love oysters,” Joshua said, all but licking his lips.
“I hate oysters,” I replied.
“You hate oysters? You live in Savannah, love seafood, and hate oysters,” Joshua summarized.
I looked into his dark eyes and wanted to brush that loose curl off his forehead, but it felt inappropriate somehow. Too intimate. “Yes, you don’t know everything about me, you know. I absolutely hate oysters. But I love peel-and-eat shrimp.”
“Ooh, me too,” Lucy offered.
For the next hour and a half we talked of our lives, Manuel’s retirement from Southeastern Freight Lines, the hurricane that changed their lives, and the mother who continually changes mine. We watched their gestures and their thoughtfulness and their love.And I had to listen to the sound of oysters being sucked the entire time. Oh well, all things have their price.
We left completely full and completely satisfied.
“I’ll look forward to seeing you at dinner,” Joshua said as Manuel and Lucy left to stroll the beach.
“Well, I won’t be hard to find. I’ll be the uncomfortable one.”
He leaned over and kissed me in that perfect way of his. “No, you’ll be the beautiful one sitting right next to me.”
“This is going to be completely disastrous. Can’t you play sick or dead or something?”
“Lie?”
“Lie? I would never suggest lying,” I said with my hand across my chest in shock.
“What, a half truth then? Don’t you know half truth is no truth at all?”
“Oh my stars. That is exactly what my father says.You scare me.”
“You scare me more. No lying. I will come to dinner. I will try to prevent your mother from hating me more. I will try to convince Amber I’m worth hating. And I’ll try to convince you that you are only steps away from finally falling in love with me.”
I studied him for a moment. His faint smell of cologne. His rich dark eyes. His tanned arms. For a moment I wasn’t even sure what I was about to do myself. Then I reached for his hand and took it in my own, bringing it firmly to my heart. “I’m not so certain, Mr. North, that I have very far to fall.”
I walked away, kicking myself for the second lame remark in a span of a couple days. He was still smiling.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Sundog Books is one of Seaside’s oldest busi-nesses. It used to be in the space now occupied by Hooch and Holly’s, the stationery store, my second favorite place in Seaside. But Sundog Books is now nestled next to Shades. Its new building came when the Town Center was revamped during the filming of The Truman Show.When you enter, it’s as if you enter another world. You won’t see any of the neatly stacked shelves of Katherine’s Bookstore here. Sundog’s is a book lover’s dream. You can tell the owner is all about books. Not magazines, not cappuccino and scones. Even the newspapers are relegated to wooden shelves outside the door. Why? Because this is a bookstore that sells books! Loads and loads of books.
The shelves are piled high with books, and then books sit on the bookshelf in front of the books. So you have to move books in order to find other books. It is absolutely captivating. And for me, at moments, a stinging reminder of what I might have achieved.
“What have you been doing since retirement?” a lady asked an elderly gentleman as he and his wife (I assumed) came through the door with her.
“He’s writing a lot these days,” the wife answered for him, as I’ve noticed wives tend to do.
“Oh, George, that’s wonderful. What kind of things?”
“Oh, just short stories, mostly,” he said.
The stout questioner smoothed her skirt.“Think you’ll ever get anything published?”
“He could,” his wife said.
“Who knows? Right now the writings are just for me. Maybe I’ll let someone read them one day. But today they’re just for me.”
I picked up a book off the table in front of me and examined the cover—a pair of slippered feet—as their conversation slipped away. I turned the book over and studied the picture of the thirtyish writer from Hackensack,New Jersey, who had written her story and watched it get stacked on the shelves of bookstores nationwide. The old comrade of hurt began to make its way up my throat. Even the months of fulfillment at the paper and now with Joshua couldn’t completely quell the emotion that appeared every now and then over my lost dr
eam of writing novels. It had been years in the making, from notebook pages in middle and high school to short stories in college to novels in my master’s studies to the contest that I had legitimately won . . . and then lost for all the wrong reasons.
I hadn’t even been able to pick up my manuscript to leaf through it since then. I just hoped for the day that it would all go away completely. The desire and the sting. And that I could just be satisfied with the place I was: the land of “almost there.” I perused the shelves and left with a biography. I may not read it for a year, especially at the rate I was going with my latest novel, but I couldn’t leave a bookstore without a book any more than Paige could come out of a store without something to eat.
The fragrance from the honeysuckle around the fence of Josephine’s Bed & Breakfast was especially spirited today. The afternoon humidity strengthened the aroma. And the vacated bicycles lining her walk proved I wasn’t alone in enjoying their scent.
The bird that had parked his way in front of me was in no hurry to scurry.
“What did you do, fly south for vacation?”
He cocked his head, huffed, and trotted off. Maybe I had missed my calling altogether and should have become Dr. Doolittle. I laughed to myself and pulled the new book close to me. Life was bittersweet. I had let go to receive. I had let go of the dream of being a fiction writer and discovered the world of journalism. I had let go of Grant, then received Joshua. Amazing how life requires letting go to receive. But in each instance, no matter how painful, each brought me to a different place, a better place, dare I say a wonderful place. I shed tears over what I had lost, but I would always know in my knower that what I received in exchange would take me to new and better places.
“Come here, Magnolia. It’s Mommy.Yoo-hoo!” I heard the sound of clicking three-inch heels on the brick street.
About that time, a white fur ball wearing a black-and-white zebra-print collar came running in my direction. I snatched her up, only to meet my mother heading down the street,“glistening.”
“Lose something?” I asked, returning her prize in my uplifted right hand.
“Oh, Savannah darling. Thank you. I do declare that Duke unlocked her cage and opened the screen door himself in hopes she would end up dinner for a tomcat.”
“I can’t say I’ve seen any loose tomcats hanging around. But I do declare you’re sweating,” I said, mimicking her deep Southern drawl.
“Women do not sweat, Savannah Phillips.Women glisten.”
Who knew what the difference was, but she was certain there was one. The closer we got to home, the more her little ball of fur quaked.As we opened the gate that led to the front door, I do declare I saw a glimpse of mischief in Duke’s eyes.
“There’s no way,” I said to myself as I passed him. I turned back to look at him. He raised his right eyebrow at me.And I was sure I heard the sound of snickering. Maybe I do have a second calling, because I do believe that creature just snickered. But when I turned back around to make sure, he was scratching himself.
“Males. Nothing keeps their attention very long.”
Amber’s floor was littered with lingerie and belts and shirts and divorced shoes. Paige bolted out of the room with a hat hidden behind her back.
“What are you doing?” I asked as I followed her to our room.
She waved the floppy object in front of my face.“If she goes out in this, I’m ordering take-out. I mean, I know we’ve both been craving fresh lump crab meat”—her speech slowed and began to slur as her eyes started to roll back in her head— “drowned in butter over saffron rice.” She shook herself violently as if forbidding her body to completely miss what she had been trying to say. “And I can’t wait to see how this evening transpires, but that woman is insufferable. She has modeled thirty . . . count them”—she wiggled her fingers, at least the ones that weren’t holding a hat—“thirty outfits, and nothing makes her happy. Didn’t she just get a new dress for this occasion? Her perfect size-0 body is too lean, or too wide, or too this, or too that . . . Ugh! ” she pushed the bedroom door open.“I’m not a drinker,well, not a big one anyway, but this woman . . . she might just send me right over the edge.” She threw her body over the bed and tossed Amber’s hat over her face.
“That’s attractive,” I said, opening the closet door. I stared at its contents.“I thought she was your new friend, and you enjoyed all of this.”
“She’s a sweet girl, but she’s obsessive. I mean, that is just a trait that I can’t handle. In large doses of course.” She looked at me as if I were the obsessive-compulsive one.True, I had just been eyeing a stray hair lying on the floor of the bathroom, which would need my complete attention in about one moment. Come to think of it, our bathroom was filthy.
“Don’t even think about it!” she hollered, knowing I indeed had an obsessive-compulsive disease when it came to cleaning bathrooms in moments of stress, like having dinner with your boyfriend whom your friend is completely infatuated with and your mother disdains.
“And,” she continued,“if you try on anymore than one outfit, I will make you go to sleep tonight listening to . . . I don’t know, maybe the sounds of Shelley Winters.”
“You wouldn’t,” I said, still looking at the bathroom. “Anyway, she doesn’t sing. Plus she’s dead, and you know I don’t do dead people.”
“Okay, well, how about this? If you make me comment on one item of clothing in that closet, I’ll sing you to sleep myself.”
I turned my attention from the bathroom to the closet, forgetting that I actually had to be dressed for this dinner too. I laughed.“Would I look better in the white slacks or the black ones?”
The hat missed me by an inch. It was a big hat.
CHAPTER THIRTY
If it weren’t for the sign with the exotic Caribbean face with yellow earrings, Criolla’s would be easy to miss. But if you do miss it, well, slap whoever’s driving, because you just missed a piece of heaven on earth. The piece of heaven I’d been waiting for since we got here.
Amber pushed her way past us all. She traveled past the palm trees, past the pale stucco walls, past the lamp posts lighting the walkway with teal-green shades that match the teal-green window shutters.
As she stepped through the door, she took the breath right out of the room. She did that most everywhere she went. I slinked in behind her. I did that most everywhere she went too. Joshua was waiting at the bar in the center of the restaurant. He was leaning against a table, staring at the door. And as the beautiful lady who looked more like a goddess than a human made her entrance, I watched his eyes scan her and then cross her shoulder and meet my own. And with the smile that lit up his eyes, I knew. I knew that his heart truly was for me. Every other mouth standing agape may be drooling over the vision in jeans, ones that definitely needed washing by now, but not him. Not my man. I mean, if that man could see the amazing creature in front of me and still have eyes for the midget in the black linen sundress behind her, he had something that I had never found in a man before.
Amber reached him first. Of course.
“Oh, Joshua,” she said, starting to wrap her arms around his neck. He took her hands in his own, a vision of politeness, and returned them to her sides. She wasn’t deterred for a moment. “I’m so glad you could come.You are just going to love my family. Family,” she announced as she turned around. Paige moaned. Thomas rolled his eyes. “This is my wonderful, and extremely handsome bo—” She caught Vicky’s eye. “My lovely friend Joshua.”
Joshua was so gracious. He extended his hand to each member of Amber’s family as Amber introduced him.
Mother eyed him like an inspector inspects a house for termites. He never faltered. He took her hand, held it between his own, and said so genuinely,“Mrs. Phillips, it is a pleasure to personally meet you. And I hope my mistakes of the past will not prevent you from getting to know me for my other qualities this evening.”
I do believe her heart fluttered. He had her in the palm of his hand, lite
rally. Unbelievable. Her very posture softened as Frank, the maître d’, led us to the round table in the far right corner that we would occupy for the evening. Joshua stayed behind for me and whispered in my ear as he placed his hand in the small of my back,“Exhale.”
I did. Loud enough for Thomas to turn around.
Joshua helped me and Amber to our seats. Thomas was ever the gentleman and sat Paige in hers while Dad did the honors for his lovely princess. “You look beautiful,” Joshua mouthed as he made his way to his own seat, chosen by Amber. Next to her. Across from me.
Criolla’s interior was completely Caribbean just like its cuisine. The pale peach walls were accented by deeper peach tones below the chair railing. Teal was the accent of choice in the seat cushions, the ceramic bread baskets, and the carpet.
My eyes caught a mother and daughter having dinner alone in a corner table. They conversed casually and laughed often. As I looked across the table at my own mother, who sat on the other side of Joshua, poor man, I realized I couldn’t even remember the last time Mother and I had shared a meal together, alone. She looked exceptionally beautiful in her vibrant orange jacket and white tank. The color made her dark eyes even more vibrant. Looking at her there, so beautiful, smiling graciously at the man who had all but stolen my heart, I decided we would have to do that soon. Maybe even this week, while we were still on . . . vacation.
“So, Joshua, tell me exactly what your intentions are with Amber.”
Or maybe we wouldn’t. I kicked Dad’s leg. I’m sure he would regret sitting next to me by the end of the evening. “Victoria, why don’t you let us order. Give yourself a chance to get to know Joshua before you interrogate him.”
“Well, I just think we need to know what he—”
“I said we will order, and then we will get to know Joshua this evening.”
We all knew what he meant. Even she knew. He meant,“Sit there like a duchess and shut your yapper!” I patted his knee. It was the least I could do. The man would be bruised for weeks.
I looked at Joshua. A light band of perspiration had broken out above his lip.“Exhale,” I mouthed. He did. Twice. Hard.
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