“If we must.”
“I think I might want to go on a cruise. Any thoughts? Recommendations? The ideal honeymoon?”
David raised an eyebrow. “Amber?”
“Oh, David, leave her be,” Lisa said with an apologetic look.
“What?” David shrugged innocently.
“I’ll take a pass,” Amber said. Clay had had his fill of torture for the night. But it would be the Dominican Republic, if she ever got to choose.
“Okay. Sure. Clay?”
Lisa threw up her hands at him. “David. Now you’re just being mean.”
Clay dried his hands and turned to face everyone.
“Clay, come on. Ideal honeymoon. Go.”
He didn’t miss a beat. “A cabin in the woods. A case of bottled water. And not a single distraction from creating a foundation of intimacy with my lifelong bride. Most newlyweds—”
“That’s enough.”
With a satisfied smile, he turned back and began washing another dish.
David raised his beer in Amber’s direction, but Amber found herself watching Clay do his work. The guy could hold his own. Most of the time, it seemed, he chose not to. He took a lot of heat. Dished very little of it back. Knew what he believed. Stuck to his guns. She tried to think about anyone in her life who felt as strongly about marriage as he did. Certainly not her parents.
With all she knew about him so far, she could pretty much tell that what happened tonight between David and Lisa was Clay’s doing in the most indirect way possible. And she kind of liked him for that.
But she was still getting mixed signals from him. Sometimes she could make him laugh. Other times he looked like he wanted to run for his life. Was she just imagining some chemistry there? When she caught him staring across the room at her, was it because he wanted to ask her out or because he was planning an escape route?
Amber listened to David and Lisa decide on their perfect honeymoon destination. She smiled and laughed with them, pretending not to be bothered by the fact that for the rest of the evening, Clay never turned around again.
“YOU WANT HIM! You got him! Lucky Chucky Sexton. Dr. O. The dean of depravity. The vicar of vice.”
The guitar riff sizzled through the radio, filtering in from the back room of the floral shop as Amber and Trish worked on a funeral arrangement.
“Live from the City of Angels, in the heart of Hollywood, and far too good-looking for radio. Time to sit down before it’s too late. Time to go to school, kiddies. . . .”
“You listen to this?” Amber asked Trish as she clipped a ribbon for her.
Trish shrugged. “Sometimes. He’s hilarious.”
“He says women are stupid.”
Trish shrugged again.
And off he went into the microphone. “You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. How true it is. A friend of mine—we’ll call him Moron—has lived with this broad for years. Strike one. Strike two? He knocked her up. Now, no longer content with only partial self-destruction, strike three: they’re getting married. What’s the point of all this pain?”
Amber leaned toward Trish. “I saw a couple get engaged Saturday night! It was so romantic.”
“Big ring?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t even notice. But big surprise. It was so cute.”
Lucky Chucky hardly took a breath. “I’m awash in ruin. I know this guy. I love this guy. We were in the same fraternity in college. Yeah, I was a frat boy. I bet you didn’t see that one coming.”
Amber rolled her eyes. This guy made her sick to her stomach. The question was, why didn’t he affect Trish?
“Now, the only ray of light in this whole apocalyptic meltdown is . . . where there’s a wedding, there’s a bachelor party.”
Carol walked in from the back room, setting some boxes down. “Trish, am I going to have to take that radio and throw it through the front window?”
“Sorry, Carol. Didn’t know you were here.” Trish rushed to switch the radio off.
Otherwise, Carol seemed to be in a good mood. “How was your weekend, girls? I had me a big date!”
Trish pitched her thumb over her shoulder at Amber. “So did Amber. With Mr. Old Fashioned.”
Carol’s eyes grew wide and Amber sighed, giving Trish the same look Clay had been giving David at the party.
“Did she now?” Carol’s hands slid onto her hips. “Details. And to make sure I’m understanding correctly, you linked date and Clay in the same sentence?”
“It was a birthday party. Bunch of people. He didn’t even invite me himself.”
Trish stuck more baby’s breath around the tulips. “My theory is he’s gay. Any guy who’s not trying to play Operation by dessert on the first date has got issues.”
“Come on, that’s not fair,” Amber said.
“What? He owns an antique shop. Hello! Plus, look at that gorgeous hair.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then he’s got a disease. Or some other . . . tiny problem.”
Trish and Carol cracked up. Amber managed a smile but then went to the back room for more ribbon.
When she returned, Carol leaned on the counter, caught her attention. “You like the freak show.”
Amber looked down at what she was doing. “For now.”
“Well, lady, more power to you. Dating Cupcake was the best seven weeks of my life. It was all the mess afterward that practically sent me into a diabetic relational coma.” She touched Amber’s arm as she walked past her. “Just be careful.” Then she hollered from the back room, “And hey, can you wrap that rose bouquet on the shelf in bubble wrap? We’re shipping it.”
Amber laughed at the irony of Carol’s advice. Just be careful. That was the whole problem. Clay was too careful. It was like he wanted to live his life insulated by bubble wrap.
And apparently she was the one who was going to pop all those bubbles and turn his safety net into an ordinary sheet of plastic.
Well, she was addicted to popping bubble wrap.
But chances were, he wasn’t even thinking about her this morning.
Right on time, George pulled up in his truck. But Clay didn’t hear him. He was absorbed in his thoughts of Amber, trying desperately not to be, but consumed with how beautiful she had looked at the party. The more he tried to think of other things, the more that image of her sitting on the couch drove everything else out.
George honked his horn, causing Clay to race into the sunlight, fleeing his thoughts.
“Come on, I don’t got all day,” George said.
Clay walked to the back of the truck. “Sorry.”
George sighed. “Light load this week. The love seat is solid.” He gestured toward it, his hands shakier than usual, Clay noticed. “Vintage too. Needs a bit of work. Hey, by the way . . .” He pulled a picture out of his shirt pocket. “Would you look at that.”
He handed the bent photograph to Clay, who unbent one of the edges as he brought it closer for a better look.
“Got it dirt cheap. Auction down in Eustis. Nice, right?”
Clay turned it sideways, trying to figure it out. “Was that a car?”
“Is. Is a car! It’s a Rolls-Royce!”
Clay turned the photo right-side up again. The car was so beat up and rusted it only looked like a heap of metal.
“It’s my new hobby. When I get done with it, watch out. My brother-in-law’s got this body shop. Scrap yard. Just what I need.”
Clay patted him on the back. “If anyone can do wonders on it, it’s you, George.”
George slipped the photo into the front pocket of his flannel shirt again and patted it twice. “Okay, now. That love seat is calling your name, right?”
“George, how long have you been married?”
“Thirty-six years.”
“How did you . . . know?”
“Know what?”
“Know.”
“Know?” George seemed genuinely confused. He stared into the back of the truck, fi
xated on the love seat. Then, “Oh. Know. Know. Good question. Let me think.”
Clay smiled, ready for a good story.
“Well, we grew up together. Same grammar school. Junior high. High school. Never thought much of her, to be honest. Sophomore year she asks me to the Sadie Hawkins Day dance. That’s where the girls ask the boys—not sure if they still do that or not. Do they?”
“Not sure.”
“I don’t want to go but I don’t want to hurt her feelings either, so I say yes. It’s only one night. After the dance she decides to kiss me and, well, I kiss her back. Not so good. She still can’t do it right. Point is, now I had to date her for at least a month or so because I felt guilty for kissing her and, you know, didn’t want to make her feel cheap.”
Clay shifted. This was way more information than he thought he might get.
“After a month, right before I’m going to dump her, her mom gets diagnosed with tuberculosis and she starts freaking out, man. Crying all the time. Calling me. It just didn’t seem fair to break up with her then—I mean, my people knew her people. So almost a year goes by and things calm down and I figure it’s time. But I realize junior prom is only two months away and you only get one junior prom. I figure, take her to the dance. That’s it. So I take her. After the dance, we, uh . . . Well, now I absolutely felt guilty. But I didn’t care. It was over. That’s no reason to stay with somebody. Know what I mean?”
Clay couldn’t even nod, but he did something with his expression that kept George going.
“Then. Then she thinks she’s pregnant. So now we got to date at least a few more weeks to wait and see, right? She ain’t, so I’m scot-free. But when I show up to swing the ax, the first thing she does is blurt out that her dad just lost his job and how grateful she is to me for being the only security she has in her life. That’s two or three more months automatically. Then Valentine’s. Senior prom. Graduation. Then I’m nineteen and getting drafted into the Army, and . . .”
His words trailed off and the horror of thirty-six years washed over George’s face. The bright-pink flush of his cheeks dimmed, right in front of Clay. Clay felt a lump grow in his throat as the two men stood in silence for a moment.
Then George pointed into the truck. “You want the love seat?”
The sun had set a good hour ago, and Clay would normally have left the shop by now. But instead, with a single light on in the back, he sat on the right side of the love seat that George had managed to talk him into.
And he thought about George.
Wasn’t it better to just be alone? He couldn’t stop picturing the hopeless look in George’s eyes—that sickening realization that thirty-six years had passed. That he was sixty now. That his life was almost over.
But as Clay looked into the emptiness of the quiet antique shop, it seemed its own hollow grave. Four clocks ticked, each on its own rhythm and time, reminding him that they were not on his side. One was a grandfather clock that had lost its ability to chime out the hours. But it ticked, nevertheless, authoritatively.
The single lightbulb above him drew his attention. The room was quiet enough that he could hear it buzzing, its light waning ever so slightly. It’d been threatening to end its life for three years.
Within the light, he could see sawdust all over the place, a fine haze dusting every surface. He loved the smell of it. The soft feel of it in the palm of his hand.
But . . . what if that’s all he ended up having in life? Someone else got the perfectly carved piece of wood and he was left standing in the sawdust.
He continued to sit on the love seat, wondering whose it had been. Where it had come from. Did it ever host two lovers?
Clay looked at the ceiling again, hoping to hear above the ticking clocks the gentle padding of her feet. It was quiet, but she was up there. From the shop door he could see the square light cast onto the ground from the window. She was right there. So close.
Why . . . why didn’t he just go ask her out? Why couldn’t he stop watching her at the party?
Why was she getting to him like this?
Girls had come and gone throughout the last nine years. Many of them nice young ladies. Most ended up thinking his theories were outrageous and outdated. Or often, boring. They at the very least lost interest. Some read the signals wrong, and friendships became complicated and burned up against the hot sizzle of misunderstanding.
Clay rose and went to the old phonograph sitting near the front door of the shop. It was the first thing Amber had looked at when he noticed her there. He turned the crank, lowered the needle, and that same piano solo played.
There was nothing to do but watch it spin.
Then, above him, he heard her walking.
“Well, that was a good movie,” Amber said, turning off the DVD. “Honestly, I’m not sure I could resist a man in a fedora. Especially Gary Cooper. Wow.” She took money out of her pocket and placed it in her money jar. It wasn’t close to being filled yet.
But it wasn’t money or her jar that was on her mind tonight. She paced her apartment, biting her fingernails. Why was she so caught up in this quirky guy? Clay was starting to make Cupcake look normal. Why did he seem so drawn to her and then terrified to sit on a couch with her?
“It makes no sense, Mr. Joe,” she said. She got her teapot, filled it with water, turned on the gas.
Darn. It works.
“Why am I so intrigued by him? He seems like a bad idea, right? Right? I mean, typically at this point, I’m telling the guy that we’re moving too fast. And then we move too fast. And then somehow I justify it. Then the fights start. Then we decide we’re in love. Then we realize we’re not. It’s a general pattern. This is like breaking the mold. Shattering it. Turning it into sawdust.”
She leaned against the counter, trying to get a grip. She had to find a way to get this guy off her mind.
But as she stared into her sink, an idea struck, which was usually when she got herself into trouble.
Against her better judgment, she went to the fridge. “Don’t say a word,” she said, pointing a sharp finger Mr. Joe’s direction. His tail twitched. “And don’t give me that tail. I know what you’re thinking.” She started grabbing food out of the fridge, tossing it on the counter. “You know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking I’m alone. No offense. But you can’t tell me I’m pretty. And by the way, he did say that. Did I tell you? Yep. Right there by the Cocoa Puffs. So I don’t think I’m chasing after the wind here.”
Mr. Joe got interested in all the food that was being pulled out of the fridge and jumped on the counter.
“It’s just that we’re going to have to go about this in an unconventional way. Typically I smile a lot and find something in common. The problem is, I don’t have anything in common with him. At least not that I know of. Maybe we do. He’s so uptight about personal space that the only real conversation we’ve had has been at the grocery store. But hey. I’m not above a challenge.” She glanced at Mr. Joe. “Now. Keep your mouth shut at what you’re about to witness.”
Clay climbed the steps to the apartment. It was cold tonight, so he’d brought an extra blanket. But as he looked up, Amber was already standing out on the stoop, bundled in her coat, smiling. She held the door open for him and he walked in. The screen door closed behind him.
“So, um, you say that you just threw the switch and it ground to a stop?”
“Yeah. It might be time for some new kitchen appliances.”
Clay stooped down to unplug the disposal. Amber peeked her head in and watched him for a moment, then said, “So why antiques?”
“My great-aunt Zella—my mother’s mother’s sister—she used to own this place. I worked for her part-time while I went to college.”
“I drove by the university when I first got to town. It was stunning. All those fall leaves. That stonework.”
“Yeah. Bolivar University. It’s where David teaches. Zella, too, before she retired. She taught mathematics.”
“So you and
David both went there?”
“Same fraternity. Same major.”
Amber looked genuinely perplexed. “You were in a frat?”
“I was.”
“Wow. Wow.” She laughed. “What happened?”
He was about to answer when a massive glop of food dropped out of the disposal under the sink. “What . . . ? How did all this food . . . ?”
“I never finished college,” she continued.
Clay reached for a dustpan, paper towels, anything to try to clean up the mess.
“Seven years, off and on. I could never seem to—watch out for that mousetrap under there. Anyway, to focus. Got everything but my language requirement. I’m only three credits in Spanish away from a BA in like six different degrees.”
Clay glanced at her, trying to both listen and figure out what was going on with the disposal. Mr. Joe walked by, eyeing the food. All ground together, it did look an awful lot like cat food. The smell was kind of . . . fishy.
“So you bought this place from your great-aunt when she retired.”
“She gave it to me. For graduation.”
“That’s some present.”
“Yeah. You could say I owe her.”
“She’s still alive? That’s why you keep it?”
“She is. But I keep it for me.”
Clay stood, wiped off his hands, put them on his hips. He studied his shoes for a moment, trying to find a way to make her understand. “I know I’m a punch line. But when I was in college, I wasn’t like this.”
She looked at him with a gentle tilt of her head. “I’m sure you weren’t that bad.”
Clay tried to keep his expression steady. “My senior year, everything changed. My goals. What I wanted out of life.”
Amber studied him as if she were staring straight into his soul. “What do you want out of life?”
“To be a decent person. That’s it. A good person.”
She shook her head. “Are you for real? That’s it? A good person?”
“I needed to believe my life could be different than it was. That I could be different.”
She didn’t appear totally convinced. But at the same time, she seemed genuinely interested. He guessed he could understand her skepticism.