Magnolia Bay Memories

by Babette de Jongh

  Quinn had sent a few texts, just checking in.

  Adrian had responded to those using the phone’s auto-fill options.

  He hadn’t heard anything from Heather.

  The nap didn’t take, but at least he managed to lie there long enough to give his aching muscles and joints a rest. Yesterday’s bender had him tied up in knots, and he resolved to book a massage as soon as he got up. But would that even help? Maybe his problem wasn’t the lingering hangover. Maybe it was the realization that all the small self-indulgences he had once reveled in now felt shallow and meaningless compared to the life he had begun to imagine with Heather and her kids.

  He sat on the balcony, but the mighty Mississippi rushing past didn’t magically carry his woes away.

  He played the piano, but the music didn’t soothe him either.

  Admitting defeat, he dressed in jeans and a plain white T-shirt, pocketed his keys, and walked barefoot across the hall to knock on Jamie’s door.

  She opened the door with a smile, her newly whitened teeth blinding him. Her hair was pink today, he noticed. It matched her strappy pink dress and mani-pedi.

  “You’re all matchy-matchy today,” he commented.

  “Thank you… I guess.” She stood back to let him walk past. “Did you have a nice nap?”

  He lowered his eyebrows with a don’t even start look.

  “Okay,” she said. “Have a seat on the therapist’s couch and tell Auntie Jamie all about it.”

  He collapsed on the couch. “I don’t know. I guess I’m…depressed or something.”

  She sat on the chair across from him. “What happened?”

  He leaned forward, put his head in his hands, and told her the whole story. “I honestly don’t know what to do to get back on track. I’ve tried to go back to my old life, but it doesn’t seem to fit anymore. It’s like I’m trying to wear a pair of jeans that used to fit in high school, but now they’re too tight in all the wrong places. Maybe I need a prescription for Xanax.”

  She came over to the couch and put an arm around his shoulder. Then she took one of his hands and held it tight. “If all she can offer you is her friendship, then you need to take it.”

  He scoffed. “Bullshit.”

  Jamie put her head on his shoulder. “Hon, how do you think I felt when you booted me from your bed to the friend zone, hmmm?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “I thought you felt the same way. You never—”

  “I never let you see that you’d broken my heart, but believe me, you did.”

  “But—”

  “Ade, we can’t make people love us the way we want to be loved. But we can allow them to love us in whatever way they’re capable of loving.”

  “Well, shit.” He leaned back against the couch cushions, and Jamie leaned back, too, looking over at him with a soft expression. She didn’t say anything, just gave him the space he needed to mull over what she’d said. “So what do I do now?” he asked.

  “Go back to Magnolia Bay and be her friend. Give her your whole heart, and see if she can find a way to fit it into her life.”

  ***

  Heather wished she’d taken the time to bring the real ladder into the shelter’s laundry room instead of trying to reach the top shelf by standing on tiptoe on the stepladder. They’d just received a fabulous donation of a dozen fleece blankets, and she was unsuccessfully trying to store them on the shelf above the dryer. She planned to take them home to cut them into dog-blanket-sized squares and hem the edges, but not anytime soon.

  “This. Is. Not. Working.” Violating all sorts of safety regulations, she climbed onto the dryer, got to her knees with a stack of folded blankets in her arms, and slowly got her feet under her to stand.

  “I know you miss me, Heather, but it’s not worth killing yourself over.”

  She turned in surprise at the sound of Adrian’s deep, teasing voice and nearly lost her balance. He knocked the stepladder out of the way and grabbed her hips to steady her. “Anyway,” he said, “taking a header off the washing machine isn’t likely to kill you. Maybe just put you on crutches for a while.”

  She set the blankets on the highest shelf, then turned around and eased down to sit on the dryer. “It’s a dryer, not a washing machine,” she corrected him. “And I’m not trying to kill myself over you. If you must know, I’ve been so busy, I’ve hardly had time to think of you.”

  He took her hand in his. “I see you’re still wearing your…friendship ring.”

  She shrugged. “Why not? You gave it to me no strings attached, so it’s mine to wear, is it not?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Without being asked, he put his hands around her waist and plucked her off the dryer, setting her firmly on her feet. “Abby’s been blowing up my phone about some paperwork, but she’s not in the front office.”

  “She’s gone to the pet store to pick up some soon-to-be expired dog food they’re donating.” She brushed her hands on her jeans and glanced at Adrian from under her lashes. He looked tired. Still gorgeous as ever, even with those dark smudges under his eyes. The scar across his forehead was still red but not raised. The medics had been right; he’d lucked into a good surgeon who knew how to sew a fine stitch. In time, the scar would fade away. “Kind of you to grace us with your presence finally.”

  “I’ve been out of town on business until yesterday.”

  “Abby will be happy to see you. She needs the help, and legalese is not my first language.” She turned her back on him. “I’ll show you where everything is. You can use my desk.”

  “I was thinking that after I finish here,” he said as he followed her down the hall, “I’d go to your place and ride Charlie, if that’s okay.”

  “Charlie would love a nice ride, I’m sure,” she said over her shoulder. “But he’s not at my house anymore.”

  “He’s not?”

  “He’s still at Bayside Barn. He likes it there, and I can afford to board him now, so…” She opened the file cabinet behind the two catty-corner office desks and set a thick manila folder on her desk. “It’s filed under A, for Adrian’s to-do list. Do you need anything else before I get back to work?”

  ***

  Charlie was hanging out in the field with the horses and donkeys, munching sweet grass while the sun warmed his back, when he heard a familiar whistle. His head popped up, eyes wide, a tangle of grass hanging from his lips.

  The whistle came again. Charlie ran for the fence to meet Adrian, who stood at the gate with a saddle on his hip and a bridle hanging from his fingers. Adrian set the saddle on the fence rail and leaned over the fence to slip the bit into Charlie’s mouth and fasten the bridle. Then he opened the gate and led Charlie through to finish saddling him up.

  Charlie was so excited to see Adrian that he snorted and pranced. Adrian laughed but didn’t allow Charlie to run the way he wanted to. Instead, they took a slow walk through the gates of Bayside Barn and then ambled along the mowed edges of the blacktop, communing without words and getting reacquainted.

  Charlie tossed his head and did a little dance. His person was back.

  ***

  Adrian pulled into Heather’s driveway and got out of his car with the key to her house in his hand. Reva and Heather had cornered him at the animal shelter on his first day back and insisted that he spend some time with Winky before the cat destroyed Heather’s house.

  Adrian didn’t give either of them the satisfaction of knowing he’d been hoping for the invite to Heather’s house. Instead, he made some noise about not having all the time in the world to jaunt all over Magnolia Bay, and then he finessed the situation so he’d still be there when Heather’s kids got home from school.

  He was taking Jamie’s advice about letting Heather decide how much of him she wanted in her life, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t grease the skids a little by doin
g exactly what she’d asked him to do when she still wanted him: getting to know her kids.

  The house was quiet when he walked in. Jasper was at the shelter with Heather, and the kids weren’t home yet. “Winky? Here, kitty, kitty.” Heather had told him to make himself at home, so he took off his shoes and left them by the back door, then tossed the keys on the kitchen counter and checked the fridge. No beer, but he grabbed a soda, popped the top, and ambled into the den. “Winky?”

  The cat leaped down from the bookshelf and sauntered over, meowing and purring like Quinn’s Harley. Adrian sat in the recliner and turned on the TV. Winky jumped into his lap and paraded in circles, rubbing his head all over Adrian’s shirt and drooling with ecstasy.

  He petted the cat’s head and flipped to the sports channel. “I’m glad to see you too, buddy.”

  Adrian and Winky watched tennis together until the kids got home. Josh slammed through the back door first. “Ade!” Apparently realizing the imminent pouncing that was about to occur, Winky took off and ran out of the room a half second before Josh leaped into Adrian’s lap. “You’re here!”

  Caroline came in more slowly, a shy smile on her face. She leaned against the recliner and patted his shoulder but didn’t say anything. They’d taken two steps back while he’d been gone, but Adrian knew that with patience, he’d be able to make up for lost time.

  ***

  Disturbed by the disruptive young human, Winky ran into the kitchen and hunched in front of the communal water bowl he shared with the dog. Winky lapped up some water, wrinkling his nose at the knowledge that even though the water in the bowl was fresh from this morning, he was still sharing saliva with a canine.

  Why couldn’t it go back to being just him and Adrian, like before?

  Winky had manipulated the humans successfully so far, but he knew that the subtlety of subterfuge was an art that took time and strategic planning to implement. He cocked his head at the sound of high-pitched human voices melding with Adrian’s more soothing tones.

  Winky drank his fill, then sauntered over to where Adrian’s shoes had been left by the door. He sniffed the new-smelling shoes and considered his options. He knew that he had the ability to make his displeasure known and push these humans to the next level of compliance, but he struggled with the decision.

  He had used his powers of persuasion to encourage Heather to bring Adrian back to the family—and therefore back to Winky—where he belonged. The undisciplined dog and the small, squeaky humans were less-than-ideal aspects of Winky’s life now, but he had only just now convinced Heather to do the next right thing in bringing Adrian home.

  Maybe he should save his super-powers of pee for another day. Humans, after all, were slow creatures who needed time to adapt to new circumstances. Winky settled for rubbing his face against the shoes to put his scent on top of the new leather smell.

  Humans were a simple species who seemed not to understand anything about scent-marking. But Jasper, at least, would understand that he came in second-place when it came to Adrian.

  It had been a good day, Winky decided as he headed to his domain in the laundry room.

  Tomorrow, he would decide how to wield his powers of persuasion. For now, he’d content himself with checking whether the kibble in his bowl was still fresh enough to eat, or whether it needed to be knocked down from the shelf onto the laundry room floor.

  ***

  Adrian’s Wednesday afternoon visits to Heather’s house while she was at work became a regular thing, and since he’d offered, Heather had even taken to leaving him little honey-do notes on the counter along with money for a pizza dinner. (He didn’t need the money, obviously, but she insisted.) He figured that his ability to change the menu one day a week meant he was making progress.

  The routine he had feared would be boring became comforting instead. Every Wednesday, he let himself into the house and took off his shoes, grabbed a cold beer from the fridge, and turned on the TV. Winky sat in his lap while he watched the sports channel, and to hear Heather tell it, Winky’s failure to use the litter box was a thing of the past. He still scratched the doorframes, but as Adrian told Reva, everybody’s gotta be thankful for what they’ve got now and hold out hope for more of what they want in the future.

  The Wednesday after Halloween, a chilly breeze promised rain along with the first hint of almost-fall weather in the sunny South. Instead of watching TV with Winky, Adrian took the ladder out of the pole barn and propped it against the side of the house. He’d just finished cleaning the gutters when the school bus stopped and the twins scrambled out and ran toward the house. Adrian climbed down from the ladder and took off his work gloves in time to catch Josh’s tackle. “Hey, buddy. How was school?”

  “Good. I didn’t get in trouble at all this week.”

  Adrian patted the kid’s back. “That’s okay. The week’s not over yet.”

  Caroline held up a gold-edged certificate. “I won the best book contest,” she announced. “You want me to read it to you?” The kids had been making their own stapled-together books in class during the month of October in anticipation of the upcoming book fair in November. He’d been hearing all about it.

  “Sure. Let’s go inside.” Caroline grabbed his hand and swung it while she skipped along. Somehow, he’d ended up carrying her backpack. Cunning little critter. He hadn’t even noticed. He set her backpack on the bench by the back door. “Y’all wash up first, and I’ll set out some snacks, okay?”

  After snacks, Caroline brought out the dog-eared, stapled-together book. “Sit,” she demanded, “so I can read my book to you.”

  He sat in the recliner, and she climbed onto his lap.

  “My family.” The carefully crafted title on the front cover was written in crayon.

  The first page was a cartoonish picture she had drawn of Jasper. “Jasper is my dog,” she read. “He likes treats.”

  Next, a picture of a one-eyed cat. “Winky is my cat. He likes to pee.”

  Adrian stifled a laugh at the next picture: a wild-eyed woman with an hourglass shape and yellow hair. “Heather is my mama. She likes to cook.”

  She turned another page. “Erin is my sister. She likes to read.”

  “Josh is my brother. He likes to make messes.”

  The next page had a picture of a man with wings. “Dale is my daddy. He likes to fly in heaven.”

  Then she turned to the last page. “Adrian is my mama’s special friend. He likes to drive her crazy.”

  She closed the book and hopped down. “The end!”

  ***

  Adrian closed the sliding door of Charlie’s stall at the far end of the barn, then turned off the barn lights. Abby and Reva had already put the rest of the barn critters up in their stalls a little early because of another incoming storm. This one was expected to roll in just after dark as a strong Category 2.

  “You want a beer?” Quinn asked as they headed down the flagstone walkway toward Reva’s house.

  Adrian glanced at his watch. “Just one. I’ve gotta catch a flight to Dallas early tomorrow morning, and I want to be back in NOLA before the storm hits. Anything else need doing before I head out?”

  “Let’s ask.” Quinn opened the door to Reva’s house. “Welcome to Dog Heaven.”

  “Shit,” Adrian said with a laugh as he was mobbed by dogs, each of them leaping up and vying for attention while Georgia and Wolf and Jack looked on with disdain from their perches on the couch. “Now, I definitely need a beer. Why are all these dogs here instead of the shelter?”

  “This is insane,” Quinn muttered as he squeezed through the door without allowing any dogs to escape. Abby and Reva were nowhere to be seen, but the kitchen smelled divine, the air scented by whatever was cooking on the gas stove. Quinn took several dog biscuits from the antique cookie jar on the counter. “These are the dogs Reva says are too afraid of bad weather to sta
y over there during a storm. Even though those kennels are better built and safer in a hurricane than this old farmhouse. Come here, dogs.”

  Quinn lured all the new dogs (which turned out to be only four, not the fifty-four it had seemed like when they were leaping against Adrian’s legs) into the metal crates that had been lined up along the kitchen’s island. Then he took three treats to the resident dogs, who had waited patiently on the couch.

  Reva had them trained that treats came to them, so they didn’t have to enter the fray of undisciplined dogs who thought they had to clamor to get what they wanted. If Adrian ever got a dog, he decided, he would take it to live with Reva for a couple of weeks before bringing it home.

  After dealing with the new four-legged ruffians, Quinn took a couple of beers out of the fridge and handed one over before taking a seat at the oak dining table. “Wonder where the girls are?”

  “Here,” Reva answered, coming into the kitchen from the laundry room. “We brought all the parrots in for the storm.” Loud squawks from the laundry room confirmed Reva’s statement. “They’re not happy about my decision to make them stay in travel cages overnight, but I didn’t want them to be out there in the aviary where I can’t check on them if it gets bad.”

  Abby closed the laundry room door, muting the sound of squawking, but not by much. “If we’re gonna blow away,” she said, “we’re gonna blow away together.” She walked into the kitchen. “Who wants wine?”

  Adrian held up his beer. “Quinn and I have beer already, thanks.”

  A text pinged in Adrian’s pocket. He felt a zip of anticipation when he checked his phone, but the text wasn’t from Heather. “My flight’s been delayed because of the storm,” he read out loud. “I can reschedule without penalty if I want.”

  “You know it’ll be canceled.” Abby uncorked a bottle of red and brought it to the table with empty wineglasses for her and Reva. She sat next to Quinn at the table and pulled up the weather app on her phone, then showed it to Adrian. “See? You’ll be driving back to NOLA for nothing. You might as well cancel the flight and tell those folks in Dallas not to expect you until next week.”