There was nothing that hinted Austin was provoking Emma, but the squaring of her shoulders indicated that’s how she took it. “Since the last time Ty stepped foot in this house was the summer before I entered first grade,” Emma said, drilling holes into Austin’s back, “no, I haven’t cooked this for him. Kind of difficult to when he’s got a personal policy against even toeing the line of the bad side of town.”
There were so many undercurrents in her tone, it was impossible to determine which was the most prominent—irritation, shame, anger—but I didn’t care. I’d take any mark against Ty Emma would give me.
“Well, it’s not like you invite people over, just like the rest of us,” Austin said, dropping a couple of cups around the table. “In fact, I can’t remember the last time you had anyone—”
“Austin.” That was all it took, one word, to silence her older, bigger brother mid-sentence. I didn’t doubt the same would hold true with the other three brothers, and that she would yield to them at their first name warning. I knew this because it was familiar, something my family had been forced to adopt as well. When secrets weave together your past, you have to keep the threads from being unraveled.
Placing her hands over my shoulders, she steered me to a seat. “Patrick, you can sit here by me. As the guest of honor, you get to help yourself first.” She pulled out the metal folding chair for me, waving her hand at the spread on the table. “And you’d better hurry and dish up because as soon as the four hyenas arrive around the table, there’ll be nothing left.”
“I don’t want to disagree with you, but my mother would probably reach out from the heavens and slap me across the hand if I even thought about sitting down and dishing up before you and your mom had,” I said, scratching the back of my neck. This wasn’t a rule I followed to the letter, but it was one I tried to follow most of the time, and it was one I was going to obey when in Emma’s house.
Sliding to the chair beside mine, I pulled it out. “Miss Scarlett?” I said, gesturing to the chair.
The skin between her brows wrinkled, but she was smiling. “Is this whole gentlemen thing you’ve got going on an act or the real thing?” she asked, settling into the chair.
“Both,” I answered honestly, sliding her forward. “My brothers are more the natural gentlemen in the family where I’m . . . less so, if left to my own devices, so part of the time I have to remind and force myself to be a gentlemen. But the other half of my gentlemen air comes from growing up in the South with a very Southern mother who put manners in the same category as showing up for church on Sunday early. So a lot of it has been pounded so deep into me it comes naturally.”
Standing behind my chair, I leaned down at her. “Why? Are you impressed?”
“More like shocked,” she retorted, folding a paper napkin in her lap.
“I’ll take shocked,” I said, lowering my voice. “As long as you feel something for me. And it isn’t disdain or loathing.”
A clenched jaw-ed Jackson leaned in between us, clearing his throat as he lit the votive raised on an overturned water cup.
Forging roads of romance between Emma and me was going to be impossible with four brothers an ear’s and arm’s length away. A thought struck me, one I didn’t want to give credit to, but one I couldn’t dismiss. Maybe, guessing the way I felt about her, and knowing the way her brothers felt about me, she’d invited me here because she knew me putting the moves on her would be as successful as Canada winning a world war.
My mood and smile dampened simultaneously.
“Hey, Ma,” Jackson greeted, nudging me further away from Emma before moving away from us.
Tex helped the still as unresponsive Mrs. Scarlett into her seat and when I saw her in the full light of the kitchen, the flatness stifling her expression became familiar in a way that chilled me to my marrow. Despite Mrs. Scarlett looking nothing like Emma, she had the same dark skin and hair of her sons, that expression of nothing she wore was identical to the one I’d seen shroud Emma’s face before. That faraway look that had landed her in a land of living nightmares and a place that had been sucked dry of all hope.
I couldn’t look away from Mrs. Scarlett fast enough. I’d seen that look on her daughter one too many times; I couldn’t witness her paralyzed in this dark place too.
I took my seat, trying to make sliding my chair closer to Emma nonchalant. Her sideways smile indicated she hadn’t bought it. In a combined effort, eight hands lunged towards the nearest food filled plate only to be promptly slapped away.
“Are you forgetting something?” Emma said, glancing with annoyance at each of her brothers. “Grace?”
They rolled their eyes like they’d been victim of this rebuke before. Austin, clenching his hands together, looked to the ceiling. “Rub a dub dub. Thanks for the grub,” he said, smirking at his disapproving sister across from him. “And thanks for the sister who knows how to cook it. Amen.”
“Amen!” was the shouted chorus before those eight hands returned with a vengeance. Piling, heaping, and scraping whatever they could get their hands on, before another set of hands took it, onto their plates.
So the Scarlett boys hadn’t grown up with a mother who would make them write out, in perfect penmanship, the first chapter of The Iliad if they even considered helping themselves before the women and guests at the table had.
“Save some for our guest!” Emma shouted, smacking as many hands away as she could. “And the woman who gave birth to you.” She fought a spatula out of Dallas’s hand and shot an elbow into Jackson’s side when he made his move for it. “And for the sister who prepared this feast for you barbarians.”
Tex slid a full plate in front of Emma, situating the other one in his hand in front of his mom. Being a middle child myself, I understood the need to please at any opportunity. Other than this birth order curse we could share, any man who looked out for Emma was good people in my book. Tex won the award for my favorite Scarlett brother by a landslide.
“You better get in there,” she said, gazing over what was left. “Before there’s nothing left to get.”
Women were served, food was in short supply, I was a starvin’ marvin. I didn’t need another invitation. Showing the Scarlett boys how we Haywards did it, I outmaneuvered Austin for one of the last pork chops, scooping up a couple of potatoes swimming in the grey gravy in the same swipe.
“Nice move,” Austin said, raking up the last pork chop before Jackson made his move for it.
Once every morsel of food had found its way onto someone’s plate, an orchestra of sighs, groans, and open mouthed chewing ensued. Except for Mrs. Scarlett. She nibbled a bite of lettuce and apparently lost interest after that. Her plate steamed, untouched, in front of her empty face.
An elbow nudged me. “What do you think?” Emma asked, taking a modest-sized bite and chewing with her mouth closed, a practice her brothers should make use of. “It’s not gourmet Moroccan prepared by a five star chef, but it’s not bad either.”
I’d been too absorbed in the chaos that was a Scarlett family dinner to have taken a bite of my own dinner, but when I did, I joined in with the moaning.
“Holy crap, Emma!” I said after a second mouthful. “This could be one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Don’t tell my sisters-in-law,” I said, shamelessly talking through another bite.
Laughing, she said, “You’d be amazed what a little cream of mushroom soup, whole milk, and garlic can do to a plateful of cheap meat and potatoes.”
“Well, you’re a genius,” I said, getting why the guys fought over the food like it was Helen of Troy.
Spearing a forkful of gravy saturated potato, she said, “I am, aren’t I?”
A raucous of chair legs screeching across the linoleum announced the end of dinner for the Scarlett brothers and set a new world record for food shoveling.
“Don’t even think about it,” Emma warned, stabbing her fork in the direction of the boys retreating out the back door. “You know the deal. I cook. You guy
s clean.” Sweeping her eyes over the greasy, goopy pan and plates scattered around the table, she said, “Have fun. Patrick and I are going out for some fresh air.”
Few things could have tempted me away from finishing the half-eaten dinner before me. One of those things was being alone with Emma in the dark.
I was out of my chair so fast it nearly tipped back to the floor.
“Mom?” Emma said, sliding out of her chair and crouching beside her. “Make sure you eat a few more bites. Let the boys know if you need anything.” She planted a kiss on her cheek before turning to find me.
I was already at the door, holding it open for her.
“Can I interest you in a tour of our illustrious, expansive backyard?” she asked, pausing in the doorway for my response.
“Interest me,” I said with a look that was too lingering for the five Scarlett family members feet away from us, four of which would have happily castrated me the old fashioned way.
I followed right behind her, double checking to make sure I fastened the door tightly behind us. If it wasn’t for the shoebox window above the sink, we would have had complete privacy.
“My childhood stomping ground,” Emma said, watching me over her shoulder, examining me as I took in the backyard.
I had tomato gardens bigger than this back in Montana, and this is where five children had spent their formidable years exploring and challenging nature.
Like the front yard, it was more dirt than grass, but even more so back here, and the only sign that someone had put any effort into the yard was the leaning fence surrounding it with a plank missing every four or five spaces. The fence was the eeriest part of the whole set-up.
I don’t like fences. I don’t like the premise of them keeping something locked in or out. I don’t like being fenced. I wasn’t sure if that was because I’d lived in wide open spaces my whole life or because that was just me, but I could almost feel the stirrings of hyperventilation when Emma hung her head, toeing the ground.
“It’s not much, but it was what we had,” she said. “When you grow up without a whole lot, you become very industrious. This was like our own Neverland, somewhere we could escape, somewhere we could be safe. Somewhere we could be somewhere else.” Running a fast hand over her eyes, she smiled into the dark. “We didn’t realize backyards came landscaped and with pools and barbeques and things other than dirt and spotted grass until we got invited over to Ty’s parents’ house when I was in kindergarten.”
Whether it was the memory or thinking of Ty that had brought a smile to her face, I didn’t like it. Not because she was smiling, this was the steady state I wanted Emma to be in every moment of forever, but because Ty—or a memory of him—had made her so happy.
“I dig it,” I said, finding it was quite a nice place when the silver light of the moon cast its mirage on her face. The leaning fence, the arid soil, the brown grass, it morphed into a secret garden that was as beautiful as her sweet face and as boundless as her goodness.
“Come here.” She gestured at me to follow her as she crossed the lawn toward the back corner. “I want to show you what got me through my teenage years.”
Intrigued by that promise and the sway of her hips floating into the darkness, I ran after her.
She was already sliding out of her sandals when I reached her, using a metal spring to balance herself on.
“A trampoline,” I said, crossing my arms. “This has got to be some story if this is what got you through your teen years.”
Tossing the other sandal to the side, she leaned against the rusting metal, looking up at the sky. “You ever notice when you’re staring at something as vast as the sky, it’s impossible not to feel absurdly small?”
I didn’t get how this realization had helped a teen who, as a species, is trying to express independence and identity. “Sure,” I answered, “all the time. But how was this your saving grace as a surly teen?”
“Well, along with feeling utterly insignificant in the scale of the universe, so did my problems. If I was nothing more than a speck in the scale of things, then so were my issues.” Lifting a shoulder, she said, “That’s what got me through when I didn’t think I had anything left to . . . get me through.”
When she looked at me, that’s when I got it. Really got it. Emma’s life had been tainted by the monsters and black spaces that position, love, and some luck had saved me from. I didn’t doubt those three things were in short supply in Emma’s life.
Her eyes swept skyward once more, tugging mine along for the journey. “Perspective, you know?” she said. “Sometimes that’s all you need to overcome anything.”
I had a desperate urge to cross the space separating us and fold her into my arms and attempt to leech out every dark moment from her memory. I was just getting after putting intention into action when a sharp rapping interrupted us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jackson wave a “big brother” hand in front of the window.
Emma flapped her hand at him in a go away gesture until the window went vacant.
“You wanna jump?” I asked, wondering how many moments would pass us by before the powers that be stopped wasting them on us. I untied my shoes and tossed them where hers were scattered in the center of the yard.
Pausing once she had hoisted herself over the springs, she glanced at me before running her eyes down her length. Mine had no issues in following. “Sorry, but girls in shelf bras and wispy skirts don’t bounce on trampolines. At least, not ones who don’t spend their nights working for tips.”
The heat was too instant and too intense, so I knew it had to be diffusing over my face.
“Blushing,” she said, surveying me. “I didn’t take you for the blushing kind. Red’s a good color on you.”
Looking for a distraction, I launched onto the trampoline in one leap, bumping into her not by accident. “So what did you have in mind then? If it doesn’t involve using a trampoline to bounce on. I don’t know why I’d be so foolish to make such a suggestion.”
She let me hold the non-existent space between us, our bodies rocking against each other as the vibrations of my cannon-ball jump evaporated.
Without warning, she crashed down on the trampoline, stretching out her legs and crossing her arms behind her head. “I was thinking we could get a little perspective for awhile,” she said, her eyes bouncing between the stars. “I’ll provide the location.”
I took a giant leap, going supine in the air before crashing down beside her. We’d be feeling the aftershocks of the jump for awhile.
“And I’ll provide the sparkling conversation,” I said, adjusting my body when it popped up so I’d land shoulder to shoulder with her.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.”
The trampoline quieted beneath us. I wished my heart could have followed suit.
“I’m waiting for you to wow me with your vast knowledge of the cosmos,” Emma said at last. “Sorry if my continued silence didn’t make that clear.”
I pretzeled my arms behind my neck, my elbow overlapping hers. “Forgive me. I’ve never been good at reading minds. Let me clarify. I’ve never been good at reading your mind.”
“And you have no problem reading everyone else’s mind, is that what you’re saying?”
“Pretty much. A woman’s mind is a tough nut to crack, although not impossible, but we men are simple creatures who only have one of three things on our mind at any given time,” I said, feeling like I was about to betray some code we kept secret so the women wouldn’t use it against us. “Once you realize that, all you have to do is inspect the eyes and you can tell with one hundred percent accuracy what he’s thinking.”
“The eyes,” she said like she didn’t believe it.
“They are the windows to the soul, you know?” I said, bouncing her elbow below mine. “I’ll give you the knowledge—you test it to see if it’s true. So if a man has those wide, kind of manic, kind of desperate eyes, he’s hungry. If he has sunken, glazed over eyes, he’s
tired,” I continued, realizing how pathetically predictable we are when I verbalized it to a woman. “And if he has that partially narrowed, pupils dilated, tortured look in his eyes, he needs, wants, or desires sex.”
“Wow,” Emma breathed. “You men never left your caveman roots behind.”
Nodding my head, I said, “Sad, but true. Don’t get me wrong though, there are varying degrees of those three male essentials.”
“How evolved of you,” Emma said, nudging closer to me. Unlike me, she didn’t try to disguise it. “Now that you’ve got me convinced that we’ve got nothing more than a band of suit wearing monkeys running the country, why don’t you get back to telling me everything you know about the stars?”
“I’m afraid our conversation would end in about five seconds flat,” I admitted. “If you want an astronomy lesson, you want to talk to my brother William. He’s the modern renaissance man you women love, but he’s good looking too—I mean, he’s my brother, so he’d have to be—so that combo makes him irresistible.” Was that a sour ring I just detected in my voice? “I can get him on the phone, provided he has cell reception wherever he is in the world, and you can ask him any star related question you like and he’ll give you a full and informative answer.” The sourness in my words wasn’t because I knew William was a better man than me, it was because I wanted to be the best man I could for Emma. I wanted to be as good as William because that’s what she deserved.
“Thanks, but I’m good with the present company,” she said, settling her head in the triangle of my arm. I didn’t dare look over for fear of confirming it wasn’t really her head resting in my arm, but a figment of my colorful imagination.
“Do you mind?” she asked suddenly, when I stayed quiet, tensed and fumbling for words.
“Of course not,” I said immediately. “My arm, along with any other piece of me you need, is at your beck and call.” My eyes squeezed shut when I realized what I’d said and how it could be construed, especially coming from someone who’d just admitted men had one of three things on their mind. Real smooth, Patrick. Way to pave the path with romance.