Goodbye Paradise

Daniel shrugged. “I don’t think so. See, Maggie is a great girl. And she loves you with all her heart. It might be a little bit of a surprise to her. She’s got no experience with this. But that doesn’t mean she can’t get used to the idea.”

  I shivered. Even if I thought there was an eighty percent chance she’d be okay with it, that still wasn’t enough. Because if Maggie ever told me that she regretted asking me to care for her child…

  That’s the sort of thing I didn’t know if I could get over.

  “I don’t want to tell her,” I said.

  Daniel’s face fell. “But how does this end?” he asked.

  I had no earthly idea.

  “It’s your secret to tell,” Daniel promised me. “But I think you’d feel better if you got it out in the open.”

  Maybe he was right. But I was too scared.

  Twenty-Two

  The next few days were crazy.

  Maggie and Daniel bought Miriam a Greyhound bus ticket. “I would have flown her out here,” Maggie said, “but she has no ID, so she can’t get on a plane.” Instead, they put her on a bus and wired her money for food. She was set to arrive three days after she’d phoned.

  Meanwhile, Operation Apartment Renovation kicked into high gear.

  “We can sleep out there even if there’s no plumbing in the kitchen,” Caleb pointed out the morning after Miriam’s fateful call.

  “True. But we might as well just push through and finish it,” Daniel argued. “What if we both took the afternoon off to install the appliances?”

  Caleb arranged that with his boss, and so the two of them went for it.

  Maggie, though eager to help plan for her sister’s arrival, had to work. The preparation of a wedding reception for two hundred and fifty people could not be put off. It was a big wedding for a small catering company, and they’d been planning it for weeks.

  That meant Chloe and I spent some quality time together while Maggie and Cecilia prepped for the wedding. “Thank the Lord this event happens before Miriam comes. I can’t wait to take care of her,” she said.

  “I’ll bet,” I agreed.

  “Hey, Josh? I want you to work this wedding with me tomorrow night.”

  “What? You mean babysit?”

  Maggie shook her head. “Cecilia and I need an extra set of hands. And I choose you.”

  “But what about Chloe?” I asked.

  “She’s too young to carry passed hors d’hoeuvres,” Maggie quipped. “Daniel can take her for the evening. He and Caleb can’t work all night long on the apartment.”

  “Okay,” I said. Once in a while I helped Maggie with a catering gig, usually when she was short-staffed.

  “Wear those black pants I got you and a white shirt, okay? Be ready at six.”

  “Sure,” I promised. “Now, Chloe. Are you ready to say ‘Josh’ this morning?”

  “Dada” she said.

  Right.

  * * *

  At six o’clock, I was waiting for Maggie in black trousers and a white shirt. I was wearing a pair of Daniel’s shoes, because I didn’t own anything more formal than work boots. Caleb and I still lived incredibly frugally, owning almost nothing. We were just so used to owning nothing. Shopping wasn’t a habit of ours. I had everything I needed, anyway. Being with people who loved me were all that I really cared about.

  After a long day of food prep, Maggie came home to change. Then we sped off together in her Prius. I was happy to be buzzing along with Maggie in her car, watching the quiet country roads pass us by. Maybe she’d chosen me to help tonight because I didn’t get out much. If that was the reason, then I appreciated it.

  “Here’s the schedule,” she said. “We’re doing passed appetizers from seven until seven-thirty. You’ll carry a tray, okay? After that, we’ll move the guests into the dining room for dinner, which is served buffet style. At that point, I’ll need you to fill water glasses and then pass out flutes of champagne for the toast.”

  “Got it,” I said. Weddings were strangely fancy in the outside world. They went on for hours, and everybody wore what I thought was outlandish finery. The girls from the Compound would die of shock to see the wedding dresses at these affairs. At least the big white puffy thing made the bride easy to spot in a crowd.

  This wedding reception was held in a converted barn, and I loved the place immediately. It had high ceilings with thick, pine beams and giant old doors. In the roomy kitchen, I helped set up the trays for cocktail hour.

  “Josh? This is Trey,” Maggie said, grabbing my arm and introducing me to another man. “Trey, this is my cousin, Josh.”

  I shook his hand, trying hard not to notice his giant green eyes. “Wow,” he said in a sing-song voice. “Aren’t you pretty.”

  “Trey,” Maggie chided. “Save it for the bar tonight, okay?”

  “I just call ‘em like I see ‘em,” Trey said, giving me a wink.

  “Ignore him,” Maggie said. “Trey is a huge flirt. Sometimes the guests want to chat him up. But when he’s not distracted, he’s one of our best servers.”

  “One of?” Trey yelped.

  Maggie flashed him a smile and walked away.

  All the while, my chest squeezed in discomfort. It wasn’t because I didn’t find Trey fascinating. In fact, I had to make a big effort to turn back to the tiny quiches I was loading onto a tray. But men weren’t supposed to call each other pretty. Not that I had even a lick of experience guessing these things, but my gut said that Trey was gay.

  Did Maggie know?

  Gay Trey. My stomach spasmed with the urge to laugh at my own joke. Easy, I cautioned myself. It was going to be a lot of work to ignore him tonight, when what I wanted to do was study him. But if I paid too much attention, Maggie would notice.

  Not worth it.

  I became an appetizer machine, loading trays like there would be an inspection any minute.

  “Guests arriving!” Trey called out in a high voice.

  “Battle stations!” Cecilia called from the stove.

  Trey and I and two other servers all took platters of food and carried them into the cocktail area. Hungry guests swarmed, of course. My plate of quiches was empty almost immediately, and I headed back to the kitchen.

  “Here, hon,” Trey said, passing me a platter of tuna tartare. “These are always popular.”

  “Thank you,” I said, my voice strangled. When he was close by, it was like I didn’t know where to put my eyes.

  Luckily, the next hour was an exhausting whirlwind of food and beverage service. There wasn’t time to be preoccupied with gay Trey. I kept my head down and served round after round of appetizers, and then about a hundred champagne flutes.

  That’s when we got a breather. It was rude to have servers walking around during the toast, so I stood at the back of the room like my coworkers.

  A woman got up from the head table to make the toast. Usually men did this job, so that was the first thing that got my attention. My eye fell to the head table, taking a casual inventory of the wedding party. Uh oh. The bride was missing. Why would they start a toast without the bride?

  Nobody else seemed bothered by it, though, which was odd.

  “Family and friends,” the woman said with a smile on her face, and a flute of bubbly in her hand. “I have helped to plan weddings before. But never have I had so much fun as helping Joe and Evan plan their special day.”

  Something went a little wrong in my stomach when I heard these words. Did she just say what I think she said? My eye fell on the table again, where two men in tuxedos were smiling at one another.

  I leaned back against the wall behind me, because I felt a little lightheaded all of a sudden.

  “…When my baby brother said the following words five years ago, I was stunned beyond belief.”

  I’ll bet.

  “ ‘I met someone,’ he said.” The audience chuckled. “Maybe that doesn’t sound unusual to you. But my brother spent his high school and college years dating every man on the East
ern seaboard.”

  There was loud laughter then, and I actually wondered if I might be having a dream.

  “After only a few months, Joey told me, ‘Evan is the man I’m going to marry.’ And I actually laughed. Because it was wayyyy too romantic a thing for my silly little brother to say. And I didn’t take him seriously. I laughed him off, even though he sounded serious. But I wish I hadn’t.”

  The mood in the room dimmed a little bit, then. A current of worry washed through the place, and I didn’t know why.

  “…That fall, Joey told us that there was something a doctor had found on his lung, and that he had to have a little procedure. We were all really upbeat. I mean, Joey was only thirty-three. Why worry, right?”

  At the front of the room, the woman’s eyes had begun to sparkle.

  “Joey, it was a long three years, baby brother. There were scary, scary days.”

  I didn’t know these people. I’d never seen them before in my life. But it was as if I had been just sucked into their little reality. I was hanging on every word, wondering how this story ended.

  “…Through every minute of this awful time, Evan was there. When he shaved his head in sympathy during your chemo…” The woman stopped to brush the tears from her eyes. “I’ve never laughed and cried so much in a single day. I’m so impressed with your love for each other, and the way you dealt with the dark times. You’re both so strong and amazing.” She had to stop again, this time to take a deep breath. “Nothing makes me happier than to stand up here and toast your beautiful marriage. I could not be happier for you both. To Joey and Evan.” She raised her glass, the tears running freely down her cheeks.

  The room erupted into applause, and glasses began clinking together all around me.

  That’s when I kind of lost it.

  My eyes began to pour forth, which in turn triggered my instinct to flee. Since Maggie was somewhere to my left, I went right, ducking out of the room and ending up in a hallway. I was on the wrong end of the building for the men’s room, so I dropped onto a bench and tried to look invisible.

  That’s hard to do when you’re sobbing.

  “Hey!” someone said, sitting beside me. “What’s the matter, hon?”

  It was gay Trey. Of course.

  “I just…” Gulping, I tried to find a logical answer. “Um…”

  “Got a run in your pantyhose?”

  “Uh…” I sobbed. Even if I felt like leveling with him, I probably couldn’t have managed it. Because it wasn’t clear at all to me why I was crying. But my heart had just been ripped from my chest at the idea that two men could survive so much together. And that a sister would stand up in front of hundreds and be so proud to support them.

  It was as if the world had suddenly grown into a bigger, brighter place than I’d thought it was.

  Not that I was going to try to explain it to a stranger.

  Trey put a hand on my back and rubbed, just like Caleb would have done if he was there. “That speech made more than a few people cry, you know. Not every Joey finds his Evan.”

  I’d already found mine. I was just terrified of having to choose between him and my home. “You should h…help Maggie,” I stammered. She’s sh…short staffed.”

  Trey stood up. “I’ll tell her that you’re feeling a little ill.”

  “Thank you.” I took several deep breaths, finally getting myself under control.

  About sixty seconds later, Maggie came skidding around the corner. “Josh! There you are. Oh God, honey. I didn’t mean to wreck you.”

  “You… what?” I wiped furiously at my cheeks, but my damned eyes just wouldn’t stop leaking.

  “I wanted you to meet Trey. And I knew this wedding was really special, so I wanted you to see it. But maybe I overshot a little.”

  Pinching the corners of my eyes, I tried to figure out what she was trying to say.

  Maggie sat down beside me just where Trey had been, and put a hand on my back. “You know I love you, right?”

  Oh boy. More flooding was imminent. “I love you, too. And Chloe. And Daniel.”

  “That’s never going to change. And I feel terrible that you’ve worried about what I’ll think of you.”

  “D…did Daniel…” tell you? I couldn’t finish the sentence. Even now, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was too afraid to take the last step.

  She cleared her throat. “Well. With Miriam coming, I started badgering him about the beds again. I wanted to call the mattress company and order a set of twin mattress sets for your apartment.”

  “Oh,” I said. My eyes were still leaking, but somehow I got my breathing under control.

  “Yeah. Daniel said, ‘just don’t worry about the freaking beds, okay?’ He just sounded so exasperated. Somehow, that’s what it took. I just understood all of a sudden.” She kept rubbing my back. “I’m sorry I didn’t catch on before.”

  Now she was apologizing to me? That made no sense. “No, Maggie. You don’t have to… It’s not your…” I shoved my face in my hands. “I’m sorry. I am.”

  Maggie looped her arm around my shoulders. “It’s only been a year, honey. You spent a long time listening to all the hateful things they say at the Compound. I can only imagine what you’d hear there…” she cleared her throat. “It’s still echoing in your head, I’ll bet. I forget sometimes how recent that was. One of the reasons I loved Daniel pretty much immediately was because he is so free of that kind of thinking. I got raped, Josh.”

  What? I stopped hiding my face and turned to Maggie. “You… when?”

  “Right after I ran away from Archer. I left the compound, and I was homeless. And a man offered to drive me to California, so I got in his car and…” Now Maggie’s eyes were leaking. “It was bad, and I was such a mess afterward. I felt really guilty and used up. First a teenage bride to a mean old man, then a stupid girl who got into a stranger’s car.” She shook her head. “I felt dirty and horrible. But that’s not what Daniel sees when he looks at me.”

  “Of course it’s not,” I said, grabbing her into a hug.

  She smiled at me through her tears. “See? I know you went through hell, too.”

  “Not like that,” I said quickly.

  She shook her head. “The hell in here.” She tapped my forehead with one soft finger. “But we don’t think like that, Daniel and I. We love you and Caleb. And if you love each other, that’s really great, Josh. It makes you lucky.”

  Oh, boy. I was probably going to float away on my tears. “I am lucky.”

  “I know. And I want you to be able to feel that way without worrying, okay? That’s why I brought you here tonight. I’ve known Trey a while now. He doesn’t apologize for himself. And the men who got married tonight — they sure don’t.”

  “It’s hard for me to get used to,” I said.

  She gave me one more squeeze. “Yes, it is. It won’t happen overnight. And, I’m so sorry, but we have to serve dinner now. Two hundred people aren’t going to understand if we’re…”

  “…Sobbing in the hallway?” I supplied.

  Maggie pulled me to my feet. “You get to load the trays this time. Because your face is a mess. And I’ll man the buffet with Trey.”

  The kitchen was mayhem. “About time you two turned up,” Cecilia complained from the stove. “Take that tray of salad, and let me know what needs refilling.”

  Maggie grabbed the salad and high-tailed it out of the kitchen.

  Cecilia turned to me with a frown. “As for you…” she stopped. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, getting embarrassed. “Just give me a job.”

  Cecilia squeezed my shoulder. “Okay, honey. Find some more pats of butter in the walk-in.”

  * * *

  We were all exhausted by the time the cake was cut. But at least I’d pulled myself together well enough to help serve coffee. We all cleaned the kitchen, and then it was finally time to go.

  “Nice meeting you,” Trey said as he shrugged on his coat
at the end of the night. “I hope your week turns around.”

  “It already has,” I said quietly.

  To my surprise, he leaned in and kissed me on the cheekbone. “You are so cute, so I need to ask. Would I be making anyone angry if I did that again?”

  My face heated, probably turning the color of a strawberry. “Yeah,” I said.

  “Bummer.” He brought his car keys out of his pocket. “It is a guy, though, right? I’m not totally losing my mind?”

  Now I was sweating. Because I couldn’t believe what I was about to say. “Yes. It is.”

  Trey held up a hand, and luckily it took me only a half a beat to realize that he was waiting for a high-five, which I delivered. “He’s a lucky guy. Night, Josh.”

  “Night, Trey.”

  * * *

  The car ride home was quiet. Maggie probably understood that I was too exhausted to talk much. But as we approached the final turn toward Runaway Farm, she cleared her throat. “I hate to bring it up one more time, but there’s still the matter of… furniture.”

  Oh. The beds. We still had to talk about the stupid beds. “We’re okay with whatever,” I choked out.

  “Well, we could move the queen-sized that’s in your room up to the apartment. And Miriam could have the twin that’s finished.”

  “Okay,” I said quickly.

  “But… if we have to call the mattress company either way, I was thinking we should get a king-sized for you two, and leave the other bed for Miriam.”

  “Either way,” I said quickly.

  “I’ll call them tomorrow,” she said. “You and Chloe can take delivery, because I have to go out and buy my sister some real clothes! And nice shampoo. And a hair dryer. All the things that she hasn’t had before. Fuzzy slippers. Nightgowns that don’t look like Laura Ingalls made them.” From the passenger seat, I could see her grinning in the dark.

  “She’ll be so happy, Maggie.”

  “I know.” She was practically bouncing in her seat. “Right now, she’s on a bus somewhere, having no idea what happens next. But we are going to just wrap her up and hug her until she isn’t worried anymore.”