The McCloud Home for Wayward Girls

On duty at the reception desk for an AWOL Ruby, Jill heard the porch boards creak and looked up to see Keith filling the frame of the original carved walnut door. She smiled, although she felt a worming in her belly. At least this go-around she was the home team and had pulled together both a uniform and a game plan. She wore gray linen pants, a white eyelet cotton blouse, and her favorite black wedge sandals. Earlier, Jocelyn had inspected her and proclaimed a wardrobe absent of color exposed one’s chi. Jill figured she’d worn these pants for at least a dozen business meetings and hadn’t felt she flashed her chi at anyone yet. Regardless, this was going to be a no-nonsense appointment; a typed contract specified the menu, prices, hours of service, staff details, and payment terms.

Keith strode up to the antique check-in table and dropped three tattered books on top of the contract that was to be her script.

“Good afternoon,” he said. He wore a red short-sleeved cotton shirt and Levi’s. He’d always worn Levi’s. The car’s seat belt had left a diagonal crush of wrinkles from his left shoulder to his right hip.

“Good afternoon,” she said with his same almost formal tone. “What are these?”

Keith patted the top book with his hand. She noticed, and remembered, the surprisingly golden hairs that feathered his forearms, extending far down onto the backs of his hands.

“These were the only personal effects my aunt kept in her room at the nursing home. They obviously meant a great deal to her.”

He leaned over to her side of the desk and flipped open the top book’s cover. He smelled the same. All these years later, the guy still lathered up with Irish Spring.

“Here.” He pointed with his index finger. “They’re signed ‘To H. With all my love, D.’ H is obviously Hester, but I figured the D must be Daniel.” He closed the book and rapped it with his knuckle. “I thought you’d like to have them, since they were originally your father’s.”

Jill stood and stacked the books on their side, quickly browsing the titles: The Good Earth, The Grapes of Wrath, and The Confessions of Nat Turner. “Thank you.” Somehow this small distraction flustered her. “I do remember he liked Steinbeck,” she said, fluffing her hair and regaining composure.

“I hope you don’t think it’s odd, given their broken engagement. Anyway, I figured they belonged here on your shelves. I would have just given them to charity.”

“No. Not odd if they were signed by my father. Thank you.” She gestured with her hand toward the back of the house. “Would you like me to walk you through the arrangements?”

“If it isn’t the prodigal son returned,” Jocelyn said, coming from behind Jill and barreling into Keith’s chest for a fullcontact, boob-squashing hug, one, Jill noticed, he seemed surprised by. “Like they say, lost socks, stray dogs, and all toes turn up eventually.”

“I thought it was bad pennies,” Keith said, straightening his shirt.

“Them, too,” Jocelyn said, jutting her molten-chocolate-colored skirt against the desk. Her flamingo-pink blouse had a frilly collar that she fingered with her left hand.

Had she changed? Jill wondered. She’d been in jeans and an Aéropostale T-shirt, hadn’t she? As she fiddled with the books, Jill’s eye was drawn to the large, desktop calendar. In Jocelyn’s handwriting, under her own “Keith, 4 p.m.” notation, an all-caps “BREATHE” was scribbled. Jill huffed at a piece of advice she considered on par with other ridiculous expressions like “relax” and “loosen up.” As if the intake of oxygen were voluntary, and bones, muscles, and sinew lightened on command. She lifted the small stack of books and placed them over today’s box on the calendar.

“So what’s the game plan?” Jocelyn continued.

“I was just about to go over tomorrow’s arrangements with Keith.”

“Sounds boring,” Jocelyn said.

“It’s a wake,” Jill said. “There’s no game plan because there are no games.”

“Pity,” Jocelyn said. “I’ll leave you two to it, then.” She sauntered off toward the kitchen, her heels clacking across the hardwood floors.

“Sorry about that,” Jill said. “She should have been more respectful.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve had plenty of doom and gloom this week.” He dipped his head to the side. “Besides, we played a few games in our day.”

Jill’s heart hammered up and down. “You sucked at Hungry Hippos.”

“My greatest defeat to date. But I did manage a game or two of Monopoly on you. And Life—I owned you at Life.”

Jill was thankful for the easy banter—a relief given the awkwardness of their previous run-ins and so unlike the way they’d originally parted—still, his choice of words left her with a hollow in the area where her heart had so recently pounded. His greatest defeat? He owned her at Life? On that one, she had to begrudgingly concede, though he had once peopled one of those tiny cars with a couple and four little blue and pink “brood” pegs and called it “their future.”

“Should we start in the dining room?” she asked.

Though the plans were straightforward, Jill’s tummy was jumpy as if she were in front of a crowd, not one all-smiles individual who was fully engaged, asking sensible questions, and wobbling his head in approval of every aspect of the event. She’d forgotten—or suppressed—the uncanny way his eyes followed her, focused on her, so clearly relegating all else to the periphery. She wished he would stop.

They ended up in the lounge at the window overlooking the brick terrace and view of the pond.

“I always loved this house.” Keith walked to the floor-to-ceiling fieldstone fireplace and rubbed his hand along the rocked front. “I forgot how massive this thing was.” He gave it a good tap with the flat of his palm.

“The home was built before central heating,” she said.

“This would have done the trick.”

“Plus the other six original fireplaces upstairs.”

“Six?”

“Twelve now,” Jill said. “When I remodeled two years ago, I added six more and converted them all to gas.”

“The place looks great.”

“It did bump the property up to four stars.” She failed to mention that it had also bumped her monthly expenditures beyond what she could afford.

She wondered if he had to think about anything as crass as money. Hester’s estate had long been the subject of gossip, but no one knew for sure how much, if anything, remained. The business end of their meeting had concluded so quickly, too quickly.

“Can I get you some coffee or tea?”

“No, thank you.”

Too bad they weren’t arranging a wedding. There would have been a lot more to discuss. And even possibly a rehearsal dinner to coordinate as well. They might have spent the better part of the day together planning a wedding.

Jill was so paralyzed by the inanity of these thoughts, her feet froze. She braced herself against a club chair.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes. Fine.”

A wedding for which he was the planner could only be his.

He clasped his hands. “I enjoyed meeting Fee.”

A comment that did nothing to improve things.

“She’s very pretty,” he continued.

Worse still.

“And you.” He held his palms open. “Look at you. You haven’t changed a bit.”

“Libations,” Jocelyn said, stepping into the room with a tray of drinks balanced on her right palm. “Dirty-tinis, my specialty.” She held the tray up to Jill and Keith.

“I shouldn’t,” Jill said, checking her watch. “I have to set out the nightly wine and cheese for the guests.”

“Fee’s got it under control,” Jocelyn said. “She’s putting it out on the patio. It’s going to be a gorgeous evening.” She waved the tray back and forth, causing the drinks to lap against the sides of the wide-rimmed glasses. “Help me out here; these things are getting heavy.”

Keith relieved her of a drink. Jill did the same.

“I do like a good dirty martini now and then,” Keith said, lifting the glass in a toasting gesture.

“Here’s to it,” Jocelyn said, raising her own. “The dirtier the better.”

Keith spluttered and coughed either in reaction to the drink’s potency or to Jocelyn’s obvious innuendo.

Wary of both, Jill sipped at the brackish liquid. She’d never been much of a gin fan, but the salty olive juice did much to improve the Pine-Sol-ish aftertaste. She took a bigger swallow, and then another.

“Let’s have a seat and relax,” Jocelyn said, plopping herself smack-dab in the middle of one of the two face-to-face sofas. Keith settled against one of the arms of the opposing couch. Given Jocelyn’s squatter’s sprawl, Jill had no choice but to sit next to Keith.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” Jocelyn said, crossing her legs and unfurling her non-drink-holding arm across the back of the sofa.

Jill took another swig of her drink. It was nice, she had to admit. Very nice. An unexpected cocktail so early in the day: a luxury she rarely enjoyed given she was usually waiting on others. With another slurp, she felt an overall sense of cheer slide down her throat, ripple over her tummy, and continue down to her toes with a small fizz. She deserved this; she vowed to do it more often.

As if this small pledge had angered one of the more spiteful of fates, Fee appeared in the doorway. “Mom, one of the guests spilled. What gets red wine out?”

Jill stretched to set her empty drink on the coffee table. Before she could react, Jocelyn was halfway to the kitchen. “I’ll take care of it.”

Jill called through cupped hands, “Dish soap and hydrogen peroxide. Both are under the kitchen sink. And blot, don’t scrub.”

“I thought it was club soda,” Keith said.

“Doesn’t work nearly as well. Even white wine works better.”

“So, should one of your guests spill red wine down their front, one of your remedies is to spray’em with white. It sounds like fun, anyway. How do you get out ketchup stains?”

“I guess I should try mayo,” she said, beating him to his own joke. “Although, I’ve got one underfoot right now that I wouldn’t mind hosing down with mustard—gas.”

He laughed, shaking the sofa. She covered her smile with her hand. It was wrong, deliciously wrong, to disparage a guest. She then placed her hands at either side of her, intending to get up and check on Jocelyn and Fee.

“A light moment is just what I needed,” he said, fidgeting and dropping one of his fists over her flattened, palms-down hand. “I knew I was looking forward to today’s meeting.”

She froze, the ball of his hand still resting on hers. It was an innocent gesture—one clenched mitt resting atop the back of another’s hand—nothing like the way their fingers had once intertwined seemingly of their own accord. From the dining room, Jill saw Jocelyn advancing with two more drinks in her hands.

“Refreshers,” she said, eyes zeroing in on their point of contact.

Keith pulled his hand away, lifting both in a shieldlike front. “Not for me.”

“Jill!” Ruby’s voice croaked from the hallway.

By her mother’s plaintive tone, Jill could tell she had some sort of grievance or ailment. A moment later, Ruby pushed around the door frame. Again, she wore a head scarf and dark sunglasses, but this time with a frilly sleeveless nightgown. She held her fingers to her forehead as if it were in danger of detaching, the effort of which caused both her forearms and pendulous breasts to jiggle. “I have a splitting headache and can’t find any Tylenol.”

“Did you check my bathroom?” Jill asked.

“Empty bottle,” Ruby said.

Jill shot a quick look at Keith, who had graciously walked back to the window for another look out onto the property. “I’ve got some in my purse. I’ll bring them to your room in a minute.” Ruby shuffled off with a wobbly gait and Jill was instantly alarmed. Bleary-eyed and in her pajamas at five p.m.? She wasn’t just drinking, she was drunk. It wasn’t the first time Jill had had suspicions about Ruby overindulging, which Ruby categorically denied—but this was obvious. And what must Keith think? The whole damn household, guests included—Fee the only exception—was on some kind of bender. Jocelyn, to fan the flames, stood holding one of the drinks she had offered to Jill and Keith, while knocking back the other.

“I’m sorry,” Jill said to Keith. “I should check on my mom.”

Keith batted her apology away with a swipe of his hand. “I need to be going anyway. Visitation hours. And Hester never did like to be kept waiting.”