“Yeah, but he’s not exactly Smudge. He isn’t playful like I remember. He’s just a lump. And he won’t eat dry food. I had to break down and open a can of tuna.”
“What are you saying?”
Erin shifted and after a moment’s hesitation admitted, “I think I’ve fallen out of love with my cat.”
“Oh no,” Jane said.
“It’s true,” she insisted. “I’m over him. I’m even thinking about trying to find someone else to take him, or seeing if the animal shelter—”
“No—you will not take him there.” What was it with everyone? Had someone declared this Give Up On Your Pets Week and not informed her?
“You volunteer there,” Erin pointed out.
“I don’t care. You can’t take him there. They do their best, but it’s animal Auschwitz. You’d be dooming Smudge to die.” Or dooming Jane to owning another cat. She took in Erin’s implacable expression. “You’re really serious, aren’t you?”
“How would you feel if you’d been abandoned for months and then the guy just showed back up again looking fat and happy, and with completely new appetites?”
Hmph.
“He’s a cat, not a guy,” Jane argued. “Besides, we don’t know what happened to him. Maybe his disappearance wasn’t his fault. Maybe he got snatched, and was force-fed tuna until he made a valiant escape to get back to you.”
“Oh sure—take his side,” Erin said, joking.
At least, Jane was pretty sure she was joking. There needed to be relationship counseling for pet owners. “Promise me you won’t do anything rash.”
Erin hesitated only a moment before relenting. “Okay—I’ll give him time.” She aimed a pointed look at Jane as she took two blood samples. “What about Roy?” Erin asked. “Any change in his appetites?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t call me last night.”
“I ended up at Mom’s. Roy’s return has made her a little frantic, so I let her beat me at canasta. But I’ll come by soon and fill you in on all the details about what didn’t happen.”
Erin looked disappointed. “You’ll probably soon take off for parts unknown, too.”
Jane laughed. “Not likely.”
“Why not? You never meant to live here permanently, did you?”
“No, but . . .” She was about to talk about all the things that made her heart clench up at the thought of leaving. Her parents. Her friends—primarily Erin and all the people she worked with. Even the town—a place she could have traveled through blindfolded. There was something comforting about running weekend errands and recognizing most every face she encountered. Sure, sometimes the town felt a little stifling, a trifle dull, but there was a safe feeling about it, too. “I seem to have become a Mesquite Creek lifer.”
Erin scooped up Smudge and put him in his carrier. “Well, as one lifer to another, come by the salon and let me cut your bangs. Roy could be sending you come-hither looks, but you’d miss them for all the hair in your eyes.”
The clinic was busy enough that morning that Jane managed to forget about lunch until Kaylie buttonholed her as she was staggering to the back room for a Diet Coke.
“Roy’s been calling you,” the receptionist informed her.
Jane grunted.
“Your mother, too.”
“Did she say what she wanted?”
“She wanted to know if Roy had called you.”
“Maybe I should give them each other’s numbers,” Jane mused.
Kaylie laughed. “Ready for the interview?”
They sat at a picnic table that was set up next to the dog-walking area. No one else was there, and Jane was glad for the privacy. She wouldn’t relish taking this stroll down memory lane in front of the rest of the staff. In fact, she’d rather not be taking it at all.
To begin, Kaylie read questions from a notebook she had brought with her. “What do you most remember about playing Juliet?”
Jane didn’t have to ponder that one long. “Stage fright. We gave three performances, and I was terrified the whole time.”
Kaylie twiddled her pen, unsatisfied. Jane felt as if she’d already bored her audience of one. “Yeah, everybody’s talked about stage fright already. My question is, if you were so nervous, why did you try out?”
“I didn’t. The speech teacher, Mrs. Humphrey, asked me to be the stage manager. I was really happy to do that. I loved going to all the rehearsals, figuring out what props needed to be where, and cuing the lights. Plus I ran lines with the actors. That was a blast. But then our Juliet, Lacey Butler, got sick at the last minute. And since I’d been running lines and going to all the rehearsals, I knew the part. So Roy told Mrs. Humphrey that I should do the role.”
Interest sparked in Kaylie’s eyes. “Roy McGillam asked for you to be his Juliet? Weren’t y’all going out?”
“Not really. That happened . . . well, during the show.”
“You mean you
fell in love
with your Romeo?”
God, that sounded so corny. “I guess we’d sort of been, you know, attracted to each other for a while before that. But, yeah, we started dating during the show, and then for the rest of senior year. Back then, we had the senior play earlier in the fall, not the spring.”
From the rapturous look on Kaylie’s face, she could tell that Kaylie didn’t care if the play happened in November, May, or Whenevuary. The story was now all about sex. “So basically, Roy was swoonworthy even back then?”
“Oh yeah. He always was, from first grade on. I’d always thought he was too cool for me. I’d always been a geeky study wart. I was really shocked when I figured out that he liked me.”
“When was that?”
Jane tried not to blush. “Well, we had to kiss onstage a couple of times. The first time was in rehearsal, and even though I really wasn’t that experienced, I knew it wasn’t a playacting kind of kiss.”
“That’s so sweet. What else do you remember?”
Encouraged, Jane rambled on with a few more anecdotes. She talked more about Roy, and dating Roy, and the friction it caused because their mothers had been rivals for homecoming queen. And she mentioned a few incidents involving other people in the cast, like the time Jared had a costume malfunction and the crotch of his leggings kept falling around his knees, to the point that he toppled off the edge of the stage one night.
“But the audience just thought it was part of the fight scene,” she explained, remembering too late that some of this might find its way into print. She didn’t want to embarrass Jared. “He really did a great job.”
“So you and Roy kept going out after the play, right?”
“All through college. We broke up just after we graduated. I mean, we didn’t really break up, but we went separate ways—him to Seattle, me to vet school at College Station.”
“Star-crossed lovers,” Kaylie said.
“There was never any big scene. No poison or daggers.”
“So you two never really fell out of love?”
“No, not really. I mean—there was never a breakup.”
“And neither one of you has married?”
“No.” Jane’s brows knit as she watched Kaylie scribbling on her pad. “But we’re definitely not involved now. That’s clear, right?”
“Oh sure.”
“I probably shouldn’t have rambled on so much about Roy. Everybody has their experience with young love, right?”
“Exactly.” Kaylie smiled brightly at her. “Thanks so much for talking to me, Jane. This has given me
a lot
to work with.”
Jane tilted her head doubtfully. “It has?”
“Definitely.”
Jane wasn’t so sure that was a good thing.
Chapter Four
When Jane got home from work on Saturday afternoon, she changed into shorts and sandals and walked to the convenience store near her house on her way downtown. Driving anywhere today was ill-advised. Disgruntled locals spoke of the Jam with a double meaning, since it was the only time of year Mesquite Creek ever had a problem with traffic.
The Jam was a family-friendly event—which in Mesquite Creek meant that alcohol would not be sold. Which in turn meant that everybody brought their own. Jeff Sims, the owner of the Quik Stop, was probably the happiest person in town that day. He took note of Jane’s six-pack with a grin.
“Meeting your sweetheart at the Jam?” he asked.
She laughed. “Not unless I manage to scrounge one up while I’m there. You know I’m footloose and fancy-free.”
“I might, but
The Buzz
don’t.”
She looked down at the papers stacked in the wire rack by the counter. There was a picture of a new police vehicle taking up most of the front page, but right above the fold she glimpsed the headline “Star-Crossed Juliet Haunted by What Might Have Been.” Next to the words was a smaller picture, very familiar to anyone who’d been in Mesquite Creek High School during the past fourteen years, of her and Roy, their mouths centimeters apart. Beneath the picture was her truncated quote, “We never fell out of love.”
“Oh no,” she said, taking a copy.
Jeff added it to her total. “And here all these years I thought you’d dumped the guy. I don’t see why a pretty thing like you should pine away half her life.”
“I haven’t been!” She skimmed and realized that the article made it sound as if she’d been doing exactly that. Her quotes were familiar to her, but they seemed to have been put through a filter that shifted their meaning from what she’d intended when she’d spoken them.
“I’m going to strangle Kaylie.”
“Why? If Roy reads this, maybe he’ll see you’re still in love with him.”
“But that’s just what I
don’t
want.”
What a nuisance. She dreaded going to the Jam now. This stupid article would be fresh on everyone’s minds.
“Have you sold many of these today?” she asked Jeff.
“Yep. Lots of people looking at that article. There’s the bit with you and Roy, but it continues on page six, where there’s another picture of old Miss Tatum as Juliet back in the fifties.” He whistled. “Man, she was
hot
. Who knew?”
Jane paid for her things and left the Quik Stop, catching herself casting furtive glances around to see if anyone was coming before scurrying to the sidewalk.
She was acting so ridiculous. Over what? Just a little article. Who read
The Buzz
anymore, anyway? And, despite what Jeff said, who really cared?
Her phone rang, and she pulled it out of her purse. “Hi, Mom.”
“Have you seen it?”
“Just now. I’m on my way to the Jam.”
“You’re going?”
Jane laughed. “Yes.” Somehow, her mother’s horrified overreaction shrank her own down to a bearable feeling of rueful amusement.
“I don’t know what made you go on like that in front of a newspaper reporter. You’re usually so much more diplomatic.”
She made it sound as if Jane gave interviews all the time.
“It was just Kaylie, from work, and I don’t remember saying half those things. Or I don’t remember them sounding so . . . pathetic.”
“Why don’t you come over to the house? I’ll break out the
Mamma Mia!
DVD and some chardonnay and you can forget all about it.”
As plans went, it wasn’t a bad one. If she wanted to hide away and let people assume the newspaper story was true.
“Mom, I’m thirty-one, not fifteen. Being the object of gossip, even a few sneers, isn’t going to kill me.”
“But what if you see Roy? What if he thinks it’s true that you’re still pining away for him?”
Clearly, she didn’t want him to have that satisfaction.
Jane tried to keep her phone to her ear as she shifted her beer to her other hand. “I’m pretty sure he won’t believe it. It’s not as if I welcomed him with open arms the other day. And I’ve been too busy, tired, or indecisive to return his calls. So don’t worry—and don’t drink all that chardonnay by yourself. I might need a few slugs of it when I get home tonight.”
Silence crackled over the line. Jane knew her mom was dying to tell her how to run her life, and she loved her for fighting the impulse.
“You’re coming over for lunch tomorrow, aren’t you?” Brenda asked her. “I’m making a roast.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” she replied before signing off. She was probably the last thirty-something in America who still had pot roast lunches with her parents every Sunday.
Her stomach fluttered a little as she approached the downtown square where the Jam was held. Bunting had been hung between light poles, and the open area had been converted into something resembling a Bedouin blackberry bazaar. Different vendors sold blackberries, blackberry goods, festival souvenirs, and crafts. There were also carts and card tables set up on the sidewalk by people offering ice cream and other treats. The first person Jane ran into was Marcy, who she had just parted company with at work an hour ago.
“Howdy, stranger,” Marcy said. “After I saw Kaylie’s story, I expected your mother would have you hidden away.”
“Oh . . . so I guess people have read it?”
“Read it? Devoured it, from what I’ve heard around here. I had no idea you were still in love with him after all these years. You hide it pretty well.”
Jane clucked in frustration. “I only intended to say that there was no big breakup, no moment when we decided to call it off or . . . you know, stop being in love. But that doesn’t mean we still are.”
“Uh-huh.” Marcy looked confused by the distinction. “Well, maybe if I tell Keith your sob story, he’ll decide it’s time to seize the day and get off his ass and propose. You think?”
“I’m not the best person to be asking for advice on happily-ever-aftering.” Jane looked around. “Where is Keith?”
“He said he’d be showing up later. You know how the afternoons are. It’s all the lame music, blackberry-jam prizes, crowning Little Miss Blackberry, and kids getting sick on too much cobbler.”
Jane had hoped to see Erin, but she probably couldn’t get away from the salon yet. On a stage, about ten women with a sign proclaiming themselves to be the Mesquite Creek Flute Choir were doing a peppy rendition of “Wimoweh.”
“I saw Roy around here not too long ago,” Marcy said, perusing the crowd. “Look—there’s his aunt.”
Oh heavens. Jane turned and caught Ona’s glare seconds before the woman began chugging toward her.
Maybe she should have opted for
Mamma Mia!
and chardonnay, after all.
Ona resembled Roy’s mother, only she was twice as vigilant about guarding her size four figure. She wore pink pedal pushers and a white shirt that showed off her midriff, and her makeup was carefully done, if a little on the heavy side.
“Where’s Roy?” Ona’s tone suggested Jane had the man bound, gagged, and hidden away somewhere.
“I don’t know. I just got here.”
“But y’all have plans to meet.” She stated it as a foregone conclusion.
“No,” Jane said. “We don’t.”
Ona grunted. “I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. I read the paper. If you think you’re going to convince him to keep Wanda’s house—”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Jane said, cutting her off. She was angry enough at the woman now, that she felt her chest rising and falling in heavy breaths.
Ona studied her for a moment before backing down. “Well, if you do just so happen to bump into my nephew, tell him to call me.”
She huffed away.
“Aren’t you sorry you didn’t marry Roy?” Marcy asked as they watched the older woman’s departing figure. “You’d have the awesomest in-laws.”
As Jane scanned the crowd, she caught several huddles of people staring back at them.
Marcy tugged on her sleeve. “Oh boy—look who’s up next.” The flute choir cleared off, making room for Doug Sims and his guitar. People gathered round. Doug wasn’t the greatest singer, but his standard opener was “American Pie,” which was a crowd-pleaser. Everyone always sang along, so by the end his voice was mostly drowned out anyway.
He thumped the mike to test it, and the reverb screeched through everyone’s spines. He had the crowd’s attention now. “I’d like to dedicate this song to a gal I went to school with,” he said. “In fact, I’d never have gotten through biology without her helping with homework during study hall.” Doug’s gaze zeroed right in on Jane, causing the crowd to pivot toward her. “Jane, this one’s for you. Keep your chin up, babe.”
A few whoops and catcalls echoed in response. Jane hoped she was smiling—whatever expression was on her face, she was sure it was going to be frozen there for the entire length of the song.
Luckily, nothing kept people from wanting to sing along with the Don McLean classic, and she was able to back away from the crowd and slip around the side of the courthouse, where there was a concrete bench next to the recessed rear door. Most of the time it was where county employees came out to smoke during business hours. During the Jam, it was a secluded spot where kids usually hung out. She rounded the corner and found it almost empty.
Except for Roy.
Roy smiled when he saw Jane’s hunted, surprised look. “Escaped from the wolves and ran smack into the bear,” he guessed. Her brows lifted and he explained. “I read the article.”
She hitched one hand on her hip. “Who are you hiding from?”
“Aunt Ona.”
He’d also been wallowing in a little self-pity. He’d hoped the Jam would be his best chance of seeing Jane. When he hadn’t found her in the crowd, he’d wondered if he should go back to the house and do some work. A crisis was brewing and he wasn’t sure Evan, his second in command, was handling it well. But he hadn’t relished spending the afternoon thinking about contracts.
Now his mood lifted considerably.
“Coming here I expected I might roust some teenagers making out or sneaking a beer,” she said.
“Why should teenagers have all the fun?” He angled a look into the sack she was carrying. “Speaking of beer . . . are you sharing?”
She appeared to debate the question for a moment, then sat next to him on the bench. “Better to hang out with you than people who think I’m obsessed with you.” She handed him a can and popped one open for herself. “At least you know better.”
“Or I thought I did, till I read the morning paper,” he said.
Her expression flashed a warning. “Watch it—or I’ll give your location away to your aunt.”
He laughed. “Do you have anyone specific you’re trying to avoid today, or was I it?” he asked. “You did a great job dodging my calls yesterday.”
She expelled a long breath. “Today is a whole new ball game.”
“The article,” he guessed.
Jane might not want to talk about it, but it was out in the open now. Pointless to avoid it.
“Kaylie made it sound as if I’m a love-obsessed spinster,” she said. “Old Miss Tatum came off way better.”
“Could you believe that picture?”
Jane leveled an amused glance at him. “You and every guy in town.” She took another sip of beer. “It sounded as if I’m a kook, saying that we hadn’t ever fallen out of love. But you know what I meant, right?”
“Exactly.”
She looked relieved until she caught him staring at her. He couldn’t help it. The article was one hundred percent right, as far as he was concerned. He hadn’t fallen out of love with her, forgotten about her, or stopped wanting her. Yes, he’d felt stung. He’d dated other women and worked his heart out. But sometimes the only way he’d made it through the years away from Jane was by imagining that fighting the good fight against rabies, mange, and boredom in Mesquite Creek had aged her like Miss Tatum. But no, here she was, almost as if she’d been preserved in amber. And with all the personality quirks, expressions, and the voice that made the ache in his heart tear right open again.
Maybe if they’d had a big blowup, it would have been easier to move on. Instead, he’d dragged the memory of her with him wherever he went. And the possibility that someday . . .
“Every time I’ve seen you since I moved away, you’ve always put up a great show of indifference,” he said. “I assumed you didn’t care for me at all. I’d decided there was no hope.”
She angled a distrustful look at him. “Are you between girlfriends or something?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” He smiled.
“How long does that usually last? I don’t remember you ever being dateless back in school. In fact, I do remember a time when you had one date too many.”
Her harsh glare made him wince. Once, when they were sophomores in college, he had taken a girl from his drawing class to a movie and had bumped into Jane in the ticket line. The incident had exploded into a breakup for the rest of the semester, although they’d gotten back together in the summer, after they ran into each other at their favorite swimming hole on the creek.
“Do you remember making up over the break?” he asked.
She took another sip, avoiding his eyes. Avoiding the question. “About the article . . . it really was just a case of diarrhea of the mouth.”
“Of course. Everyone knows you’re a chronic babbler.”
“I only meant to say that we had never formally broken up,” she continued. “We just went our separate ways. Which was a good thing, considering how things worked out. We’ve both found success in our work. And isn’t that the best thing that can happen to people—to love what they do?”
“There are other good things that can happen, too.”
She scrutinized him for a moment. “I can’t believe you haven’t gotten married. Your mother always made it sound as if you were the Rudolph Valentino of Seattle.”