CHAPTER 13

gray: the winner

“Remember that picture of Brooke with her in that sombrero drinking the fishbowl margarita?” I asked Marcy as we lay in the front yard, waiting for our lemonades to wear off so we could go paddleboarding.

She cracked up. “That was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. I mean, Greg is a total tool, but that is, like, seriously the worst.” She sat up all of a sudden and said, “Hey, where’s hottie with a body?”

“He had clinics this morning and then he’s coming over.”

Marcy leaned over me, her nose mere inches from mine. “Are you going to marry him?” she whispered. “I mean, seriously. Y’all are like all in love. If you get married for the second time before I get married for the first, I’m going to be super pissed.”

“Marcy, you’re making me jealous,” I heard from behind me.

We all started cracking up as Andrew made his way toward where we were lying.

“Oh, oh, oh, it’s my little stud muffin. I have miiiisssed you.” I sat up and planted a big, wet kiss on him.

He backed away and made a face. “Babe, what have you been drinking?”

“Mike’s Hard Lemonade,” Marcy said through her giggles.

I pointed toward the guesthouse. “With Diana and her friends who have tolerances much, much greater than mine.”

He nodded. “I can see that.”

“Wait. Are you mad?”

“No!” He laughed. “In fact, I’m relieved. It’s going to make you a lot easier to sway.”

“Do I need to leave for this?” Marcy said, lying back down. “I mean, I’m not going to. But if I’m not supposed to be here, I’ll try harder not to say stuff.”

Andrew laughed. “It’s fine. I might want you on my side.” He took a deep breath. “Gray. I want you to come out with me on a proper date to a proper place, in public, where you will probably see people you know.”

“No.”

He laughed. “What? Why not? It’s been weeks, and I’m ready to take this thing out on the open road.”

Marcy started laughing.

“We can’t be frolicking around town together,” I said lazily, feeling myself starting to get tired.

He sighed. “So, what then? Am I supposed to sneak around in the shadows with you forever—well, I mean, forever until I go back to grad school in the fall? Is that the deal?”

I leaned forward and tried to charm my way out of the situation. “I kind of like sneaking around in the shadows with you.”

He backed away. “I’m serious, Gray. Can’t I at least meet your friends? I know they all know about me.” He gave me that boyish grin that I found irresistible. I bet his mom never punished him. That thought horrified me. His poor mother. She would just die if she knew he was dating a thirty-four-year-old woman. It was probably a good thing that my mother was dead because she would have killed me. My resolve was strengthened.

Marcy interjected, “You know me. I’m the only friend who matters.”

I pointed at Marcy and made a triumphant face. “See?”

But then he said, his irritation rising, “Are you embarrassed by me?”

Was I embarrassed by him? I looked him over, closed one eye, looked him over again. Nope. Not one single bit of that adorableness was embarrassing.

I scooted in closer to him. “Sweetheart, I am not even close to embarrassed by you. You are a prize if ever there was one.”

“Then what’s the big deal?”

Marcy raised her eyebrows at me and mouthed, You’re going to marry him.

“Look. I’m embarrassed of myself. I’m way too old to be gallivanting around with you when I have an eight-year-old and am in the middle of a divorce.”

“I’m the one who pursued you and wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Andrew said.

I sighed. “Andrew, come on, this has to stop.” But I think we both knew I had no intention of stopping anything.

“Why would we stop something so amazing?”

“Because it’s a fun summer fling, but we’ve taken it too far.”

He lifted his head from my shoulder. “I’m ready to not say that anymore. I don’t want to hear it again.” He paused. “It is going to be my birthday. I want to go out with you in public. Those are my terms.”

I was about to say no, but he was serious. No Andrew coming over to keep me company when Wagner was gone.… No one making me laugh, wrapping his arms around my waist, telling me I was beautiful.… I wasn’t ready for this bright spot to be over.

I smiled. “Okay. I agree to your terms.” I shook his hand with my left one because it was easier to move, my bangles tinkling as our arms moved up and down.

“Yay!” Marcy cheered.

“But we are not telling Wagner.”

Andrew nodded.

“So, what did you have in mind there, soldier of love?” Marcy asked Andrew.

“Oh, I have something in mind that would be perfect,” I said.

“What’s that?” Marcy asked.

“Hospital. Foundation.”

We both laughed because we knew, without further explanation, that those two words translated to: Beating. Greg.

Andrew kissed me, and I felt like, out in public, in private, wherever he wanted me to be, I was the winner here no matter what.

diana: settled

Of all the photos I ever developed, the wedding ones were my favorites. The laughing, the kissing, the kids all gathered around the bride in their Sunday best. Every last one of those photos reminded me of Frank. In every Costa Rican sunset, there’d be his head and mine; in every hand-holding, before-the-priest moment, it was me and Frank.

Only it wasn’t me and Frank, because we’d ruined that good a long time ago. He’d been texting me since that afternoon he left. I hadn’t responded, not even one time, because I wasn’t real sure what I wanted to do. But the girls, they got me thinking: here’s a man I’d been holding on to in my heart for more than two decades, and this was my chance to see if all that had been worth it. I tried telling myself that it didn’t matter if we ended up in those wedding photos. We just needed to see if, all these years later, it would work out in any form.

My old Impala was spitting down the road, and I started having some second thoughts. Frank had been the light I’d carried inside of me all these years, the person who, through it all, I believed was the one. If we did get back together and it didn’t work out, I wouldn’t have anything to hold on to anymore, nothing to get me through the dark days and nights when life feels like being too alone to even take.

My stomach was churning; I was exhausted from being up these past few nights trying to figure what was the right thing. I pulled into Meds and More where I used to work, and next thing I knew Mr. Joe was right there beside me, hugging my neck in the Tums aisle.

“We sure do miss you ’round here,” he said, little wet eyes shining.

“I sure miss y’all too,” I lied. Well, I mean, it wasn’t really a lie. I did miss the people.

“I begged Bill to bring you back in. I overheard him telling this lady that comes in here all the time that he fired you on account of some cropping not being right and a lot of problems with the photos. But I told him that wasn’t on account of you not being good at your job. That was on account of the machine and—”

I put my hand up to stop him, my mind racing. “Wait. So you mean Mr. Marcus told her it wasn’t her fault I got fired?”

Mr. Joe, he looked kinda confused. “Well, I…” he stammered. Then he shrugged, all red-faced. “I don’t really remember, Di. I didn’t realize it was important.”

I felt glued to my spot, my heart racing, but I couldn’t tell exactly what I was feeling right yet. “Gray Howard? Eight-year-old son?”

He nodded. “Yup. That’s the one.”

I didn’t say anything, caught somewhere between super pissed off and washed over with love. I didn’t need Gray’s charity, I huffed on the inside. But, really, that little voice said, I kind of did, didn’t I? Was she trying to patronize me? Hiring me like that and telling me that she got me fired? And all this time, had she really known? Was she waiting to confront me about it? Did she know I had lied to her? Mr. Joe, he was chattering on and on and on, and I couldn’t even hear him, all in my head like I was. I couldn’t hear him, that is, until he said, red as I’ve ever seen a man, “I sure would like to take you out to dinner sometime.”

Oh no.… Was he asking me on a date? Sweet Mr. Joe. I looked down at myself. If a man asks you out when you’re wearing a stained, ripped Big Rock Fishing Tournament shirt from fifteen years ago, he really likes you. Gary, the owner of this shirt, had been the mate on the boat that won the Big Rock in 2005. He got $50,000 of the $1 million prize and went on a month-long bender in Vegas. Blew through every cent of that money and then came crawling back to me. Needless to say, I did not answer the door.

It was right about the time Mr. Joe asked me out that I decided to look at the bright side and assume that Gray had given me the job because she needed me and she was a nice girl. No harm, no foul. Just a little white lie. Lord knows I’ve told my share. And it was also right about that time, when I heard myself say, “Oh, Mr. Joe, that sure is nice, but I’m seeing someone,” that I made up my mind about Frank too.

I put the Tums back, deciding I didn’t need them, seeing as how me settling everything had settled my stomach.

As I pulled out of the parking lot, I knew I had to go talk to my brother. Instead of heading to Frank’s, like I thought I was going to, I went to Cape Nursing. Phillip was really lucky because he didn’t have a roommate right now. The girls at the home had moved the other bed out of his room, and I’d put in two chairs I’d found on the side of the road in Gray’s neighborhood—I checked them for bedbugs before I took them—and I’d picked some flowers from Gray’s yard and put them in a mason jar on the windowsill. The carpet was still old and stained and dirty, and the window unit was still real loud, but it made it look a little better in there.

The TV was on when I walked into Phillip’s room, and he was staring at it, but he looked over at me. “Hi, buddy,” I said. “Can I turn your TV off?”

“Okay,” he said, as I hit the button on the remote.

I sat down in the other chair with the starfish cushions on it right beside him. “How you doing today?”

He didn’t say anything, but he smiled at me, light behind those green eyes of his.

“You won’t believe it,” I said enthusiastically. I had gotten so good at having mostly one-sided conversations with him, at being as excited as I could manage to maybe give him a bright spot in his day. “I’m finally working on opening a restaurant. On a boat!”

“A boat,” Phillip repeated.

I nodded. “You’ve met my friend Cheyenne. She comes by to see you sometimes. Her husband is helping me get it all fixed up, and I’m saving up some money to get it started. You’ll work there when I get it open, right? Help me some?”

“Yeah,” he said.

I wanted to hug him, but I didn’t. I could see it clear as day. The two of us in my little boat restaurant, rambling around our new place together at night… with Frank. When I saw Phillip and me together in my head, Frank was there too. And that’s what gave me the strength, I think.

As I pulled into Frank’s driveway a few minutes later, I thought about the first time he ever brought me here.

I felt sick to my stomach looking out onto the beach, remembering that right there on that dune, that’s where we’d made that baby. At least, I think so. There was something so special about that night. I knew then that Frank and me, we’d be together forever. I turned to the house, but before I even got a chance to walk up the steps, I heard Frank’s feet thudding down. When he turned the corner, I was standing right there on the bottom one, just waiting and smiling.

He put his hand on his chest, a little out of breath. “Di, you always did know how to get my heart racing.”

He leaned in to kiss me, but I backed away.

That handsome face fell.

“Please, Di. Please don’t be here giving me bad news. I can’t take having you and then having to be without you again. Please.”

“Frank, I’m so mad at you,” I said. “Still. All these years later. You abandoned me just like the rest. Worse than the rest because you knew how hard it was for me to let anyone in. How can I ever trust you again?”

He took my hand, and I let him. “Di, it isn’t an excuse. I realize that it isn’t. But I was twenty-two years old, and I wasn’t just in danger of losing those stores. I was in danger of losing my family.”

My ears perked.

“Look, like I said, it isn’t an excuse, but my momma and daddy weren’t taking away the stores; they were taking away themselves, our relationship. Everything. I loved you. I wanted you, and I see now that I made the wrong choice, but at the time I couldn’t imagine my life without Christmases around the tree at the beach house and Easter lunch at Grandma’s. It was too much. It was too big a choice. So I didn’t choose. I just hid.”

Now, I know for most women, that wouldn’t be a good explanation. But for me, it couldn’t have been better. Because I had never had a family. At least, not in the way I wanted to. And if I ever had, I wouldn’t have let it go either. I’m damn sure about that. I was okay on my own. I was. But when you have a family and then you lose it, all you want forever is to get that back.

“I have never moved on past that day you walked away.” He put my hand up to his heart. “I’ve carried you right here all these years. I love you, D. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.”

I could feel the panic rising in me that he couldn’t ever really love me, that he was going to leave me, that if I let myself fall, even a little, it would be over, just like everything else. I couldn’t bear it. “You don’t even know who I am, Frank,” I practically shouted, my voice suddenly shaking with fear and anger and passion. “You have no idea.” I could feel myself trying to push him away; I was terrified that he would find out who I really was and leave me. I had to tell him now. He had to know the real me. It was easier for him to leave me now than later. “Two months ago, I had sixty bucks to my name. I was homeless. I was living in my car. I was washing my underwear in a sink at the marina.” I was so worked up I had to pause to look away. “That isn’t something new for me, Frank. I’m not some shiny, hopeful eighteen-year-old anymore. I’ve been through things that I could never even explain to you. Life has worn me down. Life has won.”

He took my face in his hands. “I don’t care where you’ve been or what you’ve done. I don’t care about any of it, Diana.”

“Your mom was right,” I said, my voice still raised. “I’m a trailer trash orphan. That’s all I’m ever going to be. I will never be good enough for you.”

“Diana,” Frank said quietly. He rubbed my arms, trying to soothe me. I was having trouble breathing. He bent down just a little so his face was even with mine. “She has always been shortsighted and she has always been wrong about you. You are more than enough for me. Hell, you are the only one for me.”

I was calming down now. I was hearing him. And this huge part of me knew that he was right. We were meant to be. There was no other way to describe how it felt.

“I love you no matter what,” he said. “I love you more than myself. I love you more than time.”

There were tears in my eyes now, but I didn’t want him to see so I looked away. All I could manage was, “What if it isn’t as good as we think?”

“If what isn’t?”

He sat down on the bottom step and patted beside him.

“Our life together,” I said, sitting down, our hips touching. “What if it was all fun and games when we were kids, but now, as adults, it’s just drudgery like everything else? I can’t bear to ever be like that with you. You’re the one I’ve always carried in my heart, that great love I held on to and compared to everyone else.” I looked down at my polished toe peeking out of my sandal. “If that’s gone, Frank, I don’t think I can bear it.”

He put his arm around me and pulled me in close to him, pushing my head against his strong chest. “We’ve spent the last two decades dreaming about our love. Let’s spend all the rest of them living it.” He looked down at me. “Okay?”

It was the perfect thing to say. It was the exact thing that all those nights I lay awake in bed alone or beside yet another wrong guy I had hoped and prayed to God that I would hear out of those very lips, lips I hadn’t laid eyes on in so long that their memory was fading. Lips I couldn’t quite see, but, if I closed my eyes, I could feel them on mine, just the same as it had always been. I felt that race in my heart and that ache in my stomach, the warning bell that told me to run. Could I be this happy? If I was this happy and it ended, would I ever be able to go back to living like normal again?

I don’t know what gave me the strength. But I nodded. “Okay.”

He kissed me long and hard, and I felt in that moment that everything in my life that had been tough—losing my mom, all them foster homes, losing Frank, losing my baby—this moment was where all that got made up for. I might have been a forty-year-old princess. But I was going to have one hell of a happily ever after.