The Guest Book (17 page)

T
hey were finishing a late dinner when Avis called Wednesday night. Their long vacation was going by so quickly. Buzz was over again, a familiar fixture at Time in a Bottle. Brenda had made more cranberry spritzer, which they were planning to take up to the roof deck. It was almost like old times. Macy answered the phone without saying hello. “Avis, I’m usually glad to hear from you, but this time I have to say I’m not.” Avis had said she’d call if Hank started making trouble.

“I’m just calling to give you a heads-up. Heard Hank grumbling this morning to Starla about you being gone. Said you weren’t appreciative of your job, that you think you’re too good for him, taking off for your fancy vacation. Said he’s going to get you to come back for the Saturday morning shift.
He says he can’t get anyone to take your shift, but I think he’s doing it for pure meanness. Just to show he can.”

Macy exhaled loudly. “Thanks for warning me, I guess.”

“Honey, you know I’d take your shift if I could, but I’m already working that morning.”

“I know you would. I guess we just have to come back Friday.” She shot her mother a panicked look. With only one car between them, her early departure would force everyone to leave early.

Her mother stood up from the table and picked up her plate. “Is Hank causing trouble? Don’t you worry about him. I’ll just make a phone call and fix that situation right up,” she said, loud enough for Avis to hear from her end.

“I like the way your mother thinks,” Avis said.

“Who’s Hank?” Buzz asked.

Her mother waved her hand through the air, dismissing Hank. “The old codger Macy works for. I’ve patronized his establishment for years. He knows better than to tangle with a loyal customer like me.”

“Not to mention he’s got a huge crush on her,” Avis said.

“Yeah. Mom, Avis says he’s got a huge crush on you too. It’s not all about him being loyal to the customers.”

“Do I have something to worry about here?” Buzz teased, caught up in the moment. Brenda shushed him, but not before Macy and Max exchanged looks.

Avis’s voice on the other end of the phone distracted Macy. “Are you having a blast? Tell me you’re having a blast.”

Macy moved out to the back porch and took a seat on the
porch swing, juggling her glass of spritzer and the phone as she settled in. “I am.” She couldn’t keep the giddy schoolgirl tone out of her voice as she said it.

“Ah, I can hear the seagulls and beach air blowing in the background. The beach is such a magical place.” Avis sighed.

“You can say that again,” Macy said, giggling.

“All right. Spill it,” Avis said. “There’s a story here, and you know I love a good story.”

Macy told Avis all about her prayer on the beach and the three men who had come into her life since then. “I went on a date with a pastor, Avis. Me. And I painted a room with a guy who looks like Matthew McConaughey. And I had another mysterious guy make me a surprise picnic.” Macy chuckled at each recollection.

“Girl, you got your hands full. Good for you!” Avis chuckled like a proud mother. “I can see why you don’t want to come home even one day early. You’re afraid of what you’ll miss out on.”

“No kidding,” Macy said, pushing off with her foot against the rough grain of the porch flooring. The swing moved back and forth, creating a welcome breeze.

“What about what’s-his-name?” Avis said. Even over the phone Macy could detect Avis wrinkling her nose in distaste.

“Believe it or not, Chase is thinking about moving away. He called me and told me he’s realizing what we had just … isn’t there anymore.”

“Well, wonders never cease. Sounds to me like you shoulda prayed sooner,” Avis quipped.

Macy laughed. “You always make me laugh, Avis. Wish you could be here.”

“Well, it sounds like you’ve got plenty of people around you for now. Besides, you need me in your corner over here.”

“For what it’s worth …” Macy felt the brief moment of laughter ebb as she thought of Hank’s threats.

“Look, your mama said she’d take care of Hank, and I’ll do what I can here. We’ll take care of it, so don’t you go worrying about it. I know how you love to worry.”

A grin crossed Macy’s face as she thought about how well Avis knew her. “I guess I need to relax and enjoy myself.”

“Truer words were never spoken, girl. Now go do that. Figure out which one of those men is God’s answer to your prayer.”

Macy agreed she would try and ended the call, laying the phone beside her and leaning her head against the back of the swing as she wondered who was God’s answer, or if, in some strange way, they all were.

When she walked back inside, Max was rounding up Emma for an after-dinner ice-cream run and Brenda was leaving with Buzz, her face shining from more than sun exposure. When she had a moment alone with Brenda, Macy was going to ask her what was going on between her and Buzz. Macy couldn’t explain the protective feelings she felt —whether they were just toward her mom or toward her dad’s memory. Sometimes, though, she wondered if that was why Brenda liked spending so
much time with Buzz. He was part of her past, yet from the look of things, willing to be part of her future. Macy watched out the window as they walked to Buzz’s car in his driveway. She saw Buzz glance back toward the house before he took Macy’s mother’s hand. Macy stepped back from the window. Just how serious were they? She knew someone who would know.

She watched as Buzz backed out of the driveway and drove away before marching next door and knocking. Chances were Wyatt wasn’t there, but she hoped he was. He’d been there a lot working on the house. Sure enough, she heard footsteps approaching the door, her heart racing in time with his steps. She felt a little thrill when the door opened, and he blinked at her. He scratched his head, his hair sticking up in awkward clumps. “Macy?” he asked. He glanced in the direction of Time in a Bottle. “Is it my dad?”

“Oh! No! Sorry if I scared you. Were you … asleep?”

“Yeah, wasn’t feeling great. Worked in the heat just a little too long. Had an early dinner and fell asleep.” He looked around, disoriented. “What time is it?”

She checked her watch. “It’s 8:30.”

His eyes widened. “Really? 8:30? Gosh. I … Wow. I never do this, I swear.”

She shrugged. “I don’t care if you took a nap, Wyatt.”

“I wouldn’t want you to think I’m a lazy bum.” He ran his hand through his messy hair again and grinned. “In case you can’t tell, I’ve been trying to impress you, and this — “ he pointed to his hair — “isn’t exactly impressive.”

She could feel the heat in her cheeks rising from his compliment.
She didn’t know how to respond, so she chose to ignore his comment altogether, skirting the issue of what was between them. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t find him attractive. But she’d found Chase attractive and that hadn’t turned out well. There had to be more to a relationship than attraction. There had to be … deep conversations and openness, much like what she’d experienced with Nate at lunch on Monday. And Nate was no slouch in the looks department either.

“Actually,” she said, looking down at the painted porch floorboards to keep from looking into his eyes, “I wanted to see if you knew what was going on between your dad and my mom.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Other than that they’ve been spending a lot of time together? It’s kind of cute, don’t you think?” He opened the door wider. “Come on in.”

She glanced around as if someone might be watching.

“I don’t bite,” he said. “Come on. I want you to see the picture I hung after we painted the other day.” He waved her in and she followed.

He looked behind her. “Where’s Emma?”

“Oh, Max took her for ice cream.” She wondered if she should tell Wyatt about the lunch she’d had with Nate. She’d never done this before, had no idea of the protocol for seeing more than one guy at a time. Instead, she stopped in front of the painting he’d hung over the kitchen table, staring silently. It was a painting of three butterfly shells, just like she had found — and drawn in the guest book —all those years ago. She looked at Wyatt.

“Do you like it?” he asked after a moment.

She nodded. “I used to love those shells when I was little” was all she said.

“And now?” He came to stand closer to her.

She smiled a little. “I still pick them up when I see them intact. It just seems like a miracle that they last, that waves or people’s feet don’t break them apart. It’s a miracle they stay together. It feels like a promise, I guess. That that kind of staying power is possible, even in something so fragile.”

She felt his hand on her arm, felt his finger tracing a line up her arm that made her shiver. His hand moved up to her hair. With the same finger he moved her hair off her shoulder, his touch light but intense. She found herself wanting him to grab her with both hands and pull her to him. She stepped slightly away, just far enough that he couldn’t reach her.

“I like that thought. I’ll never look at butterfly shells the same way again.” He smiled and stepped toward her, closing the gap she’d created between them. She felt his lips on her neck, in the spot he had moved her hair from a moment before. She stood stone still for a moment and let him kiss her neck, knowing she should stop him, yet losing herself in the newness of him, the passion without the history, the attraction without the fear. She felt his hands tangle in her hair, pulling her to him as he worked his way from her neck to her mouth. She wanted to stop time, to be suspended in this moment for as long as possible — a place entirely apart from reality, where only the two of them existed.

He was the first to pull away. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Guess I shouldn’t have done that.”

Flustered, she moved into the den and sank into a couch
cushion, her head in her hands. “I didn’t come over here to do that,” she said, her voice muffled. She felt the cushion sink under his weight as he sat down beside her. His hand and arm slid cautiously around her shoulder.

“I know. Neither of us meant for that to happen but … since it did — “

She shifted away from him, guilt gnawing at her over Nate. “We should probably just talk about our parents.” She bit her lip. “That sounded weird.”

He shrugged. “There’s nothing to talk about. They’re crazy about each other. My dad’s been crazy about your mom for years.”

Years? This wasn’t something that just started?

“I guess I just don’t know how to feel about it. I’m surprised to see my mom with another man.”

“Macy?” Wyatt asked.

“Yeah?” The room had grown dark as the sun slipped below the horizon. But neither of them made a move to switch on a light.

“How long has it been since your dad died?”

Coming from Wyatt, the word sounded too harsh, too final. It hurt to hear him say it, even after all this time. She swallowed, thinking that just because she couldn’t say it didn’t make it any less true. “Ten years,” she said.

Wyatt looked out the window for a moment before turning back to face her. “That seems like a long time to be alone.”

Macy thought about Brenda baking Macy’s dad’s birthday cake each year, the shrine in the living room, the way she mentioned him so often it seemed he’d just run to the store for milk.
She nodded. “I guess it is.” She thought about the nights she’d been lonely after Chase left. Even one night of loneliness was painful. Five years had been awful. How must ten feel?

“Then maybe it’s time to just let your mom be happy. Even if it means letting her go.”

Macy’s heart beat rapidly. “What do you mean?”

Wyatt pointed at his dad’s house. “Living here.”

“But she hasn’t … this is all … too soon.”

“I think she’s just been waiting for the right moment to tell you.” He held up his palms. “Why do you think he’s had me over here all the time working so hard to fix up the place?” He chuckled. “Practically as soon as you guys pulled in the drive, he started working on making this place worthy. Of her. He’s waited a long time for this chance. A second chance.”

Second? That meant there’d been a first. She thought back to that last summer when she’d been so consumed by her own grief, she’d barely noticed anyone else’s. But there was that one morning …

Hearing a car pull in next door, she stood to go, crossing the room before Wyatt could get to his feet. She fumbled for the knob and opened the door, the porch light illuminating his face just behind her. Wyatt blinked at her. “You’re leaving?”

She nodded. “I need to talk to my mom. Give her the chance to tell me what’s going on.” She kissed his cheek. “Thanks,” she said. “For the talk.”

Before he could stop her, she went out the door, ran down the steps, and quickly made her way across the yard, back to Time in a Bottle and the answers that waited inside.

S
he heard the music as soon as she walked into the house. Macy assumed that Max and Emma were in Emma’s room. She would look for them later. She crossed the room, walking toward the music that was coming from the back porch, beach music like her mom and dad used to shag dance to, their hands joined as they pivoted and side-stepped and twisted. Macy had always told them they looked silly, but secretly she loved to watch them. They always looked so happy. The song changed as she got closer, a song so familiar she thought that when she looked outside she’d see her mom and dad there.

The Tams were singing “What Kind of Fool Do You Think I Am?” as Buzz wrapped her mother in his arms and swayed, smiling down at her for a moment before taking her hand and spinning her away. Brenda giggled as he did, but recovered
nicely, keeping a firm grasp on his hand as she began to move her feet in time to the music, her eyes locked on Buzz. He pulled her to him and kissed her as Macy stifled a gasp. She’d been telling herself that her mother was just being nice to Buzz. Or Buzz was just being nice to her. But the truth was, Wyatt was right. They had feelings for each other.

She pulled back from the glass door and was about to escape to her room when she heard someone behind her. She turned, expecting to see Emma, but saw Max instead.

Max held a Bible against his chest and looked at her with an amused grin on his face. “Spying on them, are we?” he asked.

Macy moved away from the door so Brenda wouldn’t know she’d seen anything. “I was trying to find her to talk to her. Where’s Emma?”

“I put her to bed; she was tired. Looks like you found Mom, I guess.”

“She’s not alone.”

Max shook his head. “Nope. She’s not. Not anymore.”

“I don’t know how to feel about that.”

“I guess we should feel happy.”

“But is she ready for that? Is he the right person? Shouldn’t we be looking into his … background or something?”

Max laughed. He crossed his arms over the Bible like he was hugging it. “Now how would you have taken it if I’d asked for a background check on Chase when you first brought him around?”

Macy crossed her arms like Max had done, sans the Bible. “In hindsight, I’d say you should have.”

Max yanked his thumb in the direction of Emma’s room. “Really? You’d really say that?”

Macy dropped her arms helplessly. Max had a Bible. Brenda had Buzz. Macy had Wyatt and Nate and even, oddly, Dockery. Everything was changing so fast. She pointed at the Bible. “You want to explain that?”

He held it up. “Your friend Nate. He’s a pretty smart guy. He’s been helping me sort through some stuff. About life … And death.”

She thought about seeing Nate and Max together. Nate had said Max would fill her in when he was ready. She wasn’t really surprised that Nate had been helping Max with spiritual stuff. She could already see changes in her brother as a result of his short friendship with Nate. Wonders never ceased. Max. With a Bible.

“I’m happy for you, Max.” She thought of her prayer that night by the ocean, how long it had been since she’d talked to God prior to that moment. The last time she’d opened a Bible was in a youth Bible study she’d faked her way through before giving up on religion altogether right after her dad died. Later, Chase had become her religion. Now her Bible was on a bookshelf back home, covered in a thick coat of dust. She knew the inscription on the inside by heart: “To Macy. This book will help you be exceptional. Jeremiah 1:5. Love, Daddy.”

“I’m going to check on Emma,” she said. She squeezed Max’s shoulder, knowing it did a poor job of communicating the love she felt for him just then. She was proud of him.

Macy slipped into Emma’s room and tiptoed to her bed. She
knelt down beside her daughter’s sleeping form and brushed the hair from her forehead, gently kissing her warm cheek. Emma smelled like ocean water and sun and, faintly, of chocolate. Emma must have talked her uncle into having hot fudge on her ice cream. “I love you,” she said to her sleeping child.

Emma sighed in her sleep and rolled over as if Macy was interrupting a good dream. Macy smiled and rested her hand on her back, content to sit beside her for a while. “Sweet dreams,” she whispered, promising herself that she’d spend every moment she could with Emma the next day. Their time at the beach would be over soon. For just a moment, Macy wished she could go home knowing who the guest book artist was. She didn’t have to end up with him. Just knowing his identity would be enough. At least, that’s what she told herself.

Hours later, unable to sleep, Macy got up and went to the den. All the lights were off. She stood still in the darkness, thinking of the strange week she’d had, of Wyatt’s kisses and seeing Brenda and Buzz dancing, of her lunch with Nate and her morning of teaching without Dockery. She lay down on the couch and pulled a decorative pillow shaped like a seashell into her chest and hugged it. She closed her eyes and waited for sleep to come. Instead she heard footsteps. She opened her eyes.

“Macy?” her mother said.

She rose up on one elbow, blinking into the darkness as
she made out her mother’s form standing at the end of the couch. “Yes?”

Her mother took a seat on the coffee table. “Why are you out here? Can’t sleep?” she asked.

“No.” She sat up as faces ran across her mind: Dockery’s, Nate’s, Max’s, Wyatt’s, Buzz’s, Emma’s, and Brenda’s — so dangerously close to Buzz’s when he pulled her close as they danced.

“Did you have a nice day?” her mother asked, almost as if she were inquiring about Macy’s school day like she used to do.

“A better question would be, did you?” Macy said, tilting her head as she watched her mother for a response.

Brenda laughed like a girl. “You mean with Buzz?”

“Exactly.”

“We did. He’s a very nice man, you know.”

“He was Dad’s friend.”

“And mine.”

“Yours? I never saw you so much as talk to Buzz other than to ask if he wanted his drink refilled back then.”

“The year after your dad … died. He was my friend then. That last time we came here.”

Macy was quiet, weighing her words. “Did you have … feelings for him?”

Her mother didn’t say anything for what seemed like a very long time. Macy listened to the sound of a car driving slowly down Main Street. Finally, she heard her mother exhale, as if she were releasing a secret she’d held inside for a very long time.

“I didn’t know what I felt.” She sighed. “I loved your father so much, and I was so heartbroken. Buzz was sympathetic, a good listener. He loved your father too. It was very confusing, because all of that got tangled together and became this … issue between us. He wanted more. I wasn’t ready, of course.”

Brenda clasped her hands together and Macy noticed she wasn’t wearing her wedding ring anymore. More than the words her mother was using, that detail told Macy all she needed to know.

“So you ran?” Macy had made a similar decision that last summer. She thought of the look on her mother’s face the morning she’d walked out to the back porch and found Brenda and Buzz there.

“I’ve decided we should go home,” she’d said as she strode out onto the porch, interrupting a conversation between her mom and Buzz that, upon reflection, looked intense. But she hadn’t seen that then. She’d only seen her own pain, her own resolve to flee the place that did nothing but keep her pain at the surface. Her dad was everywhere she looked.

Her mom had blinked at her a few times. Then looked at Buzz, a long look passing between them. “I guess that’s our answer,” she’d said to him. Macy recalled that now, putting it into context all these years later. Brenda had risen from her seat and smoothed out her shorts. “I think you’re right,” she’d said to her daughter. Macy had nodded and turned to go inside to pack, never once looking at Buzz’s face. If she had, she would’ve seen pain there, rejection, confusion.

“I guess you could say that. I did what I thought was best at the time. I told Buzz someday I’d be back. I just never thought it would take me so long.”

“When I found you together on the back porch that morning … had he spent the night here?”

Brenda paused. “Yes. And no. He’d spent the night, but not like you’re suggesting. We’d stayed up all night talking about what was happening between us. I’d just said I thought we’d better slow down, and right at that moment, you walked out and said you never wanted to come back. I took that as a sign.”

“So why’d you come back now? And how did you know he’d still be here?”

Her mother smiled, her white teeth glinting in the moonlit room. “About once a year I’d hear from him—a card usually just before the anniversary of your dad’s death. Just saying he was thinking of me, that he was waiting for me whenever I was ready. Can you imagine, waiting all these years?”

Macy thought about the guest book. “Yes,” she whispered, “I can.”

“Well, this year the card didn’t come. And I found myself missing that card. Such an insignificant thing, but I realized that I’d actually looked forward to receiving it each year. And then I realized something that surprised me.”

“What was that?”

“That I was scared of Buzz. I wanted him only in that card, where he was safe and contained. In that card, I could still hold onto the hope of him while not having to deal with the reality
of him. And I realized that I might’ve waited too long. So I called the rental company right away, booked the house, but I waited to tell you kids until the birthday dinner.”

“So was that the last birthday dinner?” Macy asked. She hadn’t realized she’d depended on that tradition in an odd sort of way. She certainly never thought she’d miss it when it was gone. But there was something about seeing it end that meant other things were ending too.

“I think so, Mace.”

Macy nodded in the dark, listening to the sounds of Max getting up in the night, his room door opening and shutting as he padded down the hall to the bathroom. Some other time, she would ask her mom if she’d noticed the changes in Max. For now, she just tried to absorb the changes in her mother. Good changes, necessary ones. Changes Macy had wanted to see for a long time. And yet now that they were upon her, she didn’t know if she was ready.

Macy stretched out on her bed, waiting, for the second time, for sleep to come, her eyes fixed on the guest book. She thought of her mother’s words about Buzz, how as long as he stayed somewhere she could contain him, she felt in control. It was embracing the reality of him that was hard.

Was that how she thought of the boy she’d traded drawings with? Was he a perfect picture to hang on to, a person she could go to in her mind when everything went wrong? Was
he real? Was he Nate or Wyatt or Dockery? And if he wasn’t, what did that mean for each of them? Was he the person she was meant to be with, or was he just supposed to trigger this strange search she was now on? Maybe all she was supposed to find at the beach was the answer to what she’d been running from: her fear that if she opened up to someone, she would be left again.

That fear had kept her from going to meet him ten years ago.

She’d opened the guest book on that last visit expecting to find the usual drawing from him, already thinking of what she could draw that would help him see her grief, experience her loss. This time his drawing was of the gazebo near the pier. And this time, with that drawing, there’d been a note. She’d never seen his handwriting before. Never exchanged written words with him except when she’d written her name, hoping he’d finally reveal his.

She’d read his note asking to meet her. And then, every day during that awful week, she’d read it again and thought about what it would mean to see him. Was she ready to change things, to break the rules he’d referred to? Or did she want to have one thing — just one thing — that stayed the same for her? Instead of facing what he’d asked of her, she’d played putt-putt with her brother, eaten banana-flavored snow cones, and taken long walks as she mourned the loss of her father, the noise of her sobs drowned out by the crashing waves. In the end, she’d left him a letter telling him she wasn’t coming. And that she didn’t know when she’d come back. Then she’d
marched out onto the porch and told her mother to take her home. She’d run away from him and missed the chance to find out who he was.

She’d had no idea if he would leave the final picture she’d asked him to draw—no way of knowing if he was angry over her decision not to meet him. In a way, she’d been frozen in that moment in time, in the moment she’d left that note in the guest book, gotten into the car with her mother and Max, and driven away from Sunset Beach. The truth was, she’d found an odd sort of comfort in the not knowing, in standing still.