You're Still the One (5 page)

“You’re even more beautiful now than you were years ago, Allie.”

Whew!
“Don’t say that.”

“Why not?” Jace leaned back in his chair on the deck, watching me carefully, the picnic table between us. “I’ve missed those gold eyes of yours, all that hair, your smile . . .”

I fixed my gaze down the hill on my dad’s run-down home, sagging and sad in the distance. In contrast, Jace’s home was an architectural delight, modern but log cabin-y, too. That’s the only way I could describe it. The great room had high ceilings, the wooden rafters exposed. There were wood floors, a two-story rock fireplace, leather furniture, and windows that invited in the expansive view of mountains, hills, vineyards, orchards, and farmland from all corners of the home.

His deck, where we sat, wrapped around most of the house. As he said, “I can see the sun come up and the sun go down. It’s like watching the world move.”

When we arrived at Jace’s house, I actually took a shower. It was embarrassing to ask, but I had to. I was sure I smelled Spunky Joy on me, and both dogs, dear as they were. He had jokingly said in a singsong, “Sure. I’ll be in there in a minute, honey,” and I had said, “The door is locked; don’t you dare.”

I drummed my fingers on the arm of my chair. “Don’t say that I’m more beautiful now, because I don’t want to hear it.”

“Why?”

I was trying real hard not to get sucked in by him and his engaging, masculine, he-man, most alluring personality. He was danger on wheels, and I knew it. “Because I’m not ready for it.”

He nodded, and I knew he got it. “When
will
you be ready for it?”

“I don’t know, Jace.” I rubbed a hand over my forehead. “I’m still the same head case you knew before, only older.”

“You were never a head case, Allie.”

“Yes, I was. I hid it. I pretended things were better than they were. I pretended I had confidence, that I knew what I was doing, but I didn’t.” Childhood scars have a way of wrapping around your whole soul. They weave in and out and grip you tight.

“You were independent—still are, I can see that. You’re outrageously intelligent. And funny. Very funny. You kissed incredibly well, I remember that most of all. Hugged well, too, and—”

“Stop that, too. No flirting.” I tried to smother a smile. It was hard.

“Why?”

“I appreciate the breakfast. I appreciate you sewing me up, bandaging me up, and taking out my splinters. I appreciate all of it, but we can’t . . . we can’t . . . see each other again.”

Those dark eyes flashed and his face stilled. “Why not?”

I ran my hands over my hair. I needed a haircut. I needed makeup. I needed a decent outfit on. “We were . . . in the past. And the past is over, and we’re over . . .”
and I am so attracted to you still.

“We did have a past. And now we have now.” His eyes sharpened up. He was a very bright, perceptive man.

“What’s
now
, Jace? I’m not staying here. I’m moving. I have to get a job. I mentioned I’m unemployed? I don’t want to be in my dad’s house.”

“I understand completely. What does that have to do with us not talking again?”

“I don’t think we need to talk again, after today.” A shooting pain blasted through my heart.

He leaned forward, broad shoulders and all. “I think we should.”

And there it was. That tone, that intensity, that will.

Jace could be seen as an easygoing man. Watching him in action at the hospital only reinforced what a talented doctor he was, with his calm and calming bedside manner. He cared about all his patients. But Jace was no pushover. He was strong willed, like me; independent because he’d had to be, like me; and he had a tough side, like me. He was a wall of steel, a man in the fullest sense of the word, one who did not back down, and anyone who overlooked that part of him was a fool.

“No, Jace.” I studied the scenery and wrapped my arms around my body. My brain said no to him, but my body said,
Heck yeah!

“Allie, we were together a long time ago. We broke up under really sad circumstances, which I still don’t understand.”

“And I don’t want to talk about those circumstances.”

“I do. And we will. Someday soon. I want to know what happened. I know what you told me, but I didn’t believe you. There was something else you weren’t telling me and then you cut off contact; so I deserve to know what happened, but I won’t push you on it yet.” He spread his hands out. “But we can be friends again, Allie.”

“Friends?” I laughed, but it wasn’t a funny laugh; it was more bitterness running through a scoff. “Do you honestly think that it’s possible for us to be just
friends
?” I took in that black hair, that hard jaw, the steely personality behind it all that was born in his rocky childhood. Two people, both with troubled childhoods. One more thing in common.

“Sure. Close friends. Best friends.” He winked at me.

I tilted my head in challenge. He knew what I was saying. The desire between us was there and leaping.

“For example, Allie, we can walk around my property as friends, and when you want me to kiss you, tell me and I’ll oblige.”

“That’s what I’m talking about.”

“What?”

“This . . .” I waved a hand between us.

He smiled, slow, seductive, absolutely firm in his belief that we could be together. “I like
this.
It’s still there. Can’t deny that. When I held your thigh in my hand at the hospital, it all came back. And I like you. Still do. Always have.”

“You don’t know me anymore.”

“I know that you’re still brave and funny. You didn’t even cry when you came into the hospital. You downplayed your injuries. You talked about the menopausal horse and beating the battle with the ladder. I like how you’re kind to the animals at your place. You have integrity, Allie; you always have. We laugh at the same things. Our conversation is quick, you’re witty as hell, and we talk about everything. We flow. I’ll bet you’re still good at puzzles. I’ve missed your smile and your laugh. I like your lips a lot.
A lot.
Can I check out your lips with my lips?”

I bent my head, trying to get control of emotions that were already on high, then rolled my eyes at him. “You are a force like a brick wall—did you know that, Jace Rios?”

“I like brick walls. They add architectural interest.”

“You’re like a kind and funny hurricane.”

“I don’t like hurricanes. I’ll take the kind and funny part.” He put his palms up. “Look, Allie. I’ll try to take it slow. I’ll try not to hug you or kiss you or ask you to get into my hot tub naked. Don’t shut down on us.”

“Jace, I don’t want to be involved with anyone. I like being on my own.” That was a lie. I had been achingly lonely for years. “I like my own company.” That was a lie, too. I preferred his company. It was my own company, my own memories, that made me nervous and angry.

“Let’s not call it getting involved. Let’s call it . . .” He ran a hand through that thick hair. “Hanging out in the country.”

Hanging out in the country naked.

Hanging out in the country in bed with naked Jace.

Hanging out in the country at night in a hot tub with Jace.

One graphic vision after another danced in front of my eyes. He was all man. He had shoulders to grip and a chest to lie on. He had legs that were hard and strong and a back full of muscles. “You are fire on wheels and you always make me lose my head, but I can’t this time.”

“Well, you have a very pretty head, and your gold eyes have haunted me for years, so please don’t lose it. We’re older now. We had an incredible relationship last time. I thought it would end in a different place than it did. But it doesn’t mean we can’t try again.”

He didn’t even know what I’d done. If we were involved, I’d have to tell him. When he knew, I couldn’t imagine he’d want to be with me anymore. He would lose all respect and find me dishonest and secretive. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to deal with it. I was still steaming about my dad’s death, too, and I could feel myself coming apart. I don’t know why Jace and my dad are somehow connected, but they are.

“No.” I shook my head. “No. I’m going, Jace.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“I can’t.” I felt the tears fill my eyes. “We were together once.” He was my best friend, my boyfriend, everything. “And it was so hard . . . so hard to have it end, and I’m not up for it again. I can’t do it.”

“Who said it has to end? I’m not even talking about it ending; I’m talking about it starting. Allie, don’t go.”

“Good-bye, Jace. I’m glad you’re well. You look amazing. I’m glad you’re a doctor. I know I already said this, but you’re really good at it. So incredibly talented.”

“Please, Allie, come on.”

He stood in front of me and I pushed by him. He gently grabbed my arm; I pulled away. He asked me to stay; I declined. He said he would drive me home, but I ignored it.

He followed me out, telling me again he wanted to talk, that we could talk about something else, but I started hobbling down his hill.

He climbed in his truck, pulled up beside me, and insisted I get in. I refused, and he actually got out, picked me up again, and put me in the cab. “You’ve got a bruised ankle and stitches. I am driving you home. If you want to fight with me on this, I’ll win, Allie. Stay in the truck.”

He was angry, he was stony. He was ticked off, and I didn’t blame him. We didn’t say another word.

When he dropped me off at home and drove away, I grabbed my keys, drove to the store, and bought a pint of chocolate chip ice cream and three romantic movies. I got in my sweats and an old yellow robe and watched TV while I cried. I read a Jane Austen novel, thought of my mother who had loved Jane, too, then I read a crime thriller. I couldn’t sleep that night.

The lights in his house were still on.

I could not stand living without color in my dad’s house. It reminded me of our dull, dreary trailer, and almost made me ill. I knew I would list the house and land for sale as soon as I had a job and knew where I would live, but I couldn’t stand to live in the bleakness anymore.

I went shopping and bought blue-and-white flowered slipcovers for two chairs, and a blue slipcover for the sofa I had covered with my mother’s red-and-white flowered quilt. I bought throw pillows with designs in red, blue, and yellow. I also bought two pillows with apples on them, one with a hummingbird.

I bought bright woven rugs for the family room, kitchen, and my bedroom. I bought two floor lamps and three table lamps with flowered and striped shades to bring light in. I bought two plaid tablecloths, and red cushions for the kitchen chairs. I bought a new bedspread in bright yellow with a swirling design, and four huge yellow pillows. I bought white towels and white bath mats and thick red ceramic dishes and mugs.

I bought two pots of chrysanthemums for the deck. I bought scented candles. I bought three vases to display wildflowers in my bedroom, on the kitchen table, and in the bathroom. I hung up photos of my mom and I in Bigfork, kissed my finger and brought it to her smiling face.

My dad’s place had been transformed.

There was life in it.

Cheerful, bright life.

The clinging, dirty, dangerous trailer feel started to recede, along with that sick power my dad had had over me.

I took the dogs for a walk.

The squirrels taunted Bob.

Later that evening I turned on the oven, found a cutting board, then settled down at the table to chop the apples I’d picked from the orchard to make an apple pie, my first in a long time.

My mother and I made apple pies here in Oregon when I was younger, and later when we moved to Montana. We made one the day before she was killed in an avalanche in Montana when I was eleven years old.

She was skiing with two friends. Ironically, it was the first time we’d ever been away from each other. One of the husbands offered to babysit the kids of all three mothers. We had so much fun until that terrible news stalked us down.

My mother, MaeLynn, was a pretty woman with wavy, long brown hair, like mine. I inherited her golden eyes, tipped a bit in the corners. The resemblance between us was startling. After we escaped from my dad, we lived in a blue, two-story house in Bigfork, Montana, and I loved it because for the first time I wasn’t living in an unpredictable war zone.

She worked as a waitress, and after rent was paid we did not have much money, but she showed me how to make used clothing, bought from Goodwill or garage sales, look modern and stylish.

My mother encouraged me to
Show your Montana style!
Looking back, I realize she was simply trying to charge me up and make me feel more confident about looking different from the other kids because we couldn’t afford new clothes.

We sewed on lace, ruffles, and satin to make boring shirts or skirts fun. We made earrings, necklaces, pins, and bracelets out of beads, crystals, and charms she found at garage sales. Other kids loved them and wanted to come over and make them, too.

We sewed on fancy patches to hide the holes in my jeans. I wore cool belts made out of rope or leather, fastened up with buckles wrapped in glass beads. I wore embroidered headbands and wristbands and ribbons that matched my outfits. We even added silk flowers or ribbons to hats, and I’d wear those to school, too.

My mother knew how to make regular clothes original, and she taught me everything she knew. Most especially she taught me how to keep my chin up.
We may be temporarily poor, honey, but hard work will change that. Chin up, shoulders back. We’ll show the world who we are!

After her parents died in a car accident, she found out they had left her enough money in their estate to go back to school. They had disowned her when she married my dad, hoping the pressure would make her walk out of the marriage. She went back to school while waitressing full-time, earned her teaching degree, and taught second grade at my school.

My mother had been the principal’s favorite waitress:
She knew how to make her customers feel cared about, so I knew MaeLynn would do that for the kids, too,
he’d told me.

I remembered how scared she was with my dad, how she cowered in corners, how he intimidated and insulted her, called her stupid and worthless, backhanded and shoved her. She was never allowed money and he accused her of having boyfriends, yelling right in her face. He wouldn’t let her go anywhere; she could not drive his truck. Looking back now, she was incredibly brave to leave and take me with her, because he had crushed her spirit and her will.

I remembered how he came to see us in Bigfork about two years after we left. My mother had changed her name, so he probably couldn’t find us at first, and when he got good and fed up with no one to browbeat, I’m sure he’d had to hire an investigator.

When he landed on our doorstep, my mother took the gun off the top shelf of our bookcase, opened the door, and pointed it at his forehead.

“Get the hell off my property, Ben,” she said, real quiet, then cocked the gun. My mother had become a new woman since she’d escaped from his violent clutches.

My dad could not have been more shocked if a monkey had dropped from the sky. “You wouldn’t shoot me,” he told her.

She shot clean through the deck about two inches from his feet and I saw him jump in shock. She shot a second time when he didn’t leave. He swore at her something awful but turned around and backed off. He was running by the time he got to his truck, and she shot two bullets right into the cab.

He didn’t come back. She looked at me and said, “I will not let you live with that monster again, my love. I failed you once, but I will not fail you again. Let’s make apple muffins, shall we?”

We both trembled that day, making the apple muffins, but she was taking no more crap. Hence the gun, to help alleviate the crap.

After that avalanche everything changed. My dad came to get me. I stayed with a neighbor until he arrived. Her name was Mrs. Ashley. She cried over me many times and told me, “What a wonderful mother you had . . . we’ll all miss her, honey
.
Tragedy for you, for everyone here . . . all her students crying . . . heavens to Betsy, why did this have to happen?”

My dad drove up, engine growling. He hardly glanced at Mrs. Ashley, slammed the door to his truck, which still had the bullet holes in it, and snapped, “Let’s go, Allie. Move your butt. I drove all the way out here to get you and I don’t got time to waste.”

Mrs. Ashley and her husband were appalled. Mr. Ashley said to my dad, “Now, maybe we should talk for a sec . . .”

“Who the hell are you? There ain’t nothing to talk about,” my dad said, his face scrunched up and angry, his scars so prominent. I didn’t know why he was angry at Mr. and Mrs. Ashley. “This is a big inconvenience to me, coming to get this kid.”

“Her mother just died—” Mrs. Ashley had one hand to her heart and the other on my shoulder.

“How about if you leave Allie with us for the school year,” Mr. Ashley said, adding his hand to my other shoulder.

“No. That ain’t happening. Her whore of a mother kidnapped her and now she’s coming with me.”

“How about another month—” Mrs. Ashley said.

“I said no.” My dad’s hands clenched into fists.

“Can she come and visit this summer?”

“What are you, deaf?” my dad shouted, chest puffed out. “She’s not coming back.”

He gave me time to pack: “Five minutes and not a minute more, apple
-
core face.” I cringed hearing that name.

Mrs. Ashley raced to help me. She gave me one of her suitcases, and while she packed my clothes, I packed things from my mother in my backpack: a locket from her deceased mother and a harmonica from her deceased father, whom she never stopped missing; her favorite books; two china plates with tiny purple flowers that we loved to eat pie off of; three dessert cookbooks; and two aprons with apples, one for her, one for me. I grabbed three photos of us together in Montana. There was no time to get anything else as my dad was already shouting from outside to “Move, Allie, move!”

I looked longingly at my picture frames with the pink ballerinas, my mother’s tablecloth with the yellow tulips, her perfume bottles, the tiny mirror with the ornate gold frame, her photograph of an apple orchard bathed in sunlight.

My dad’s horn honked incessantly. “Get out here right now, Allie. Don’t piss me off!”

Scared to death, I went tumbling out of the house with my backpack, Mrs. Ashley following behind with the suitcase, swearing at my dad. She called him many bad names, I remember that, and my mother had always said she was a God-fearing woman.

We went speeding down the road, me waving and crying out the window, our blue house fading in the distance. I would not see my swing set again, my bedroom with the yellow walls, the kitchen wall where my mother had painted a mural of a tulip field. I had helped paint the tulips.

My dad told me to “Sit down, strap up, and shut up,” and that’s what I’d done. He then grilled me the whole way about my mother and her “harem of boyfriends,” and said terrible things about her. “I hope you’re not like your mother. I won’t tolerate you being like her—loose, wild, slutty.”

I told him she wasn’t like that at all and he punched my face, loosening a tooth. I turned toward the window and willed myself not to cry.

That was a microcosm of what happened for the next five years. I willed myself not to cry in front of him and stuffed my emotions down, hard as I could, until I was on autopilot, hands over my head, cowering, but somehow also fighting to live.

I rolled out the crust on the counter, my hands trembling.

After I made that apple pie, I made another one, then another.

It was apple pie therapy. I realized how much I’d missed making pies.

Why had my dad been so horrible? Why hadn’t he had any redeeming qualities? Why had he been so unkind to his wife and to me, a little girl who had lost her mother?

I was so angry at him. I often thought I hated him. The hate was hurting
me
, though, not him.

I would have to figure out who to give the apple pies to.

I had apple pie for dinner that night.

I did not look up at Jace’s house.

But I did hear my dad’s voice in my head.
You will always be a no one, Allie. Like your mother. You’re trailer trash. I’m trailer trash. You think that doctor’s ever gonna marry you? Yep. You do. Can ya hear me laughing? You’re not good enough for him and you’re stupider than I thought.

 

 

Mr. Jezebel Rooster woke me again when the sky was still black, the morning still sleeping. I stomped outside, I don’t know why. It’s not like the rooster speaks English and would understand my swear words or that he would enter into some sort of mediation with me on how we could resolve our conflict.

When he saw me he cock-a-doodle-doo’d again. I yelled at him to stop it. He did.

I turned away. He cock-a-doodled.

This went on twice more. The second time I turned and saw the lights of Jace’s truck coming down his driveway, toward the road. He would be leaving for the hospital. Through the darkness I saw him get out of the car and wave. He must have seen me in those headlights, railing against a rooster.

“Good morning, Allie.”

“It’s not a good morning,” I yelled back at him. “It’s too early. Come and get this rooster.”

“I think I’ll do that soon.”

I heard him laugh as I stomped back into my house.

Jezebel Rooster cock-a-doodle-doo’d again.

I missed Jace.

That afternoon, I went on a careful, slow bike ride on my fancy bike in my fancy bike clothes.

It reminded me that I’m not poor.

It reminded me that Jace and I used to love to bike together around Yellowstone.

It reminded me that we would not ride together again.

I pedaled faster.