Butterfly Weeds (16 page)

             
“How’s living in
St. Louis
? Do you like it?” I asked, trying desperately to keep the conversation going. I felt like I was trying to row a johnboat against the
Missouri
current.

             
“It’s fine. It’s all fine. Are you seeing anyone?” he blurted out softly, changing the subject unexpectedly again.

             
I cocked my head to the side so that I could see his shadowed face under the bill of his cap. He looked mysterious and almost seductive under that baseball cap of his – kind of like a famous country singer that was a model in his past life. Okay, that might be a stretch, but there was still something about him that didn’t make him look like he belonged in this one-horse town.

             
When he continued to stare into the water, I slowly returned my gaze back to the lake as well. I should have been more surprised by his question, but I wasn’t. He had a wonderful habit of throwing that same query into every one of our conversations since our own demise. I hated it, and I hated answering it too. I wanted to get lost in the past for awhile – not the present. And I had no idea how he would react to my reply each time. In the end, I wanted to tell him that I had found someone really special, and I wanted him to be happy for me, but then I knew this hope was in vain. No matter his relationship status, he never reacted positively to my response. But, in the end, I understood. Of course, I understood. I wouldn’t exactly jump for joy at the mention of his love interests either. So why did he always ask about mine?

             
“I am,” I finally said in answer to his question. “I’m still seeing Brady.”

             
“Uh-huh,” Will said slowly, continuing to stare at his bobber, still bouncing up and down on the water’s surface.

             
Now, it was my turn to ask him, I guessed.

             
“What about you?” I asked, trying to stay positive, a forced smile reappearing on my face. I didn’t really want to hear the answer.

             
“What about me?” he asked.

             
“Well, how’s Miss New Year’s Eve?” I asked. I couldn’t help but grin, remembering the commotion that was that night. Now, it felt like a lifetime ago.

             
“Gosh, you still remember that? Jules, that was years ago. That whole thing was just a bad idea,” he admitted, shaking his head.

             
I let my laughter out of the hold I had had it under.

             
“Didn’t work out?” I asked, now trying to stifle the remaining giggles.

             
“Did you expect it to?” he asked, smiling too now.

             
I paused for a second.

             
“No,” I admitted, shaking my head and smiling softly.

             
“Me neither,” he said.

             
For a moment, we sat in silence again, watching the ripples soothingly bunch together and then disappear into the outer edges of the lake.

             
“Jules, I’m sorry about that night. I…,” he started, turning toward me.

             
“Will, it’s fine,” I stopped him. “It was a long time ago,” I said, smiling and catching another glimpse of his baby blues.

             
His eyes went back to the bobber when I finished. He wasn’t smiling, but he was nodding his head.

             
Then, as if a silent timer had gone off, he reeled in his fishing pole, set it beside his chair and stood up.

             
His movement forced me to turn in his direction. Where was he going? What was he doing? In a moment, he had just transformed into an alley cat again. And now, I felt more like his trapped mouse than his alley-cat friend. It was times like these, though, that helped to remind me that the two of us were just simply two, different people – two, different people who had taken different paths in life and had changed along the way. He was an alley cat now, and I was still the opossum. I slept during the day everyday and roamed for food at night every night, and I would play dead when expected. It was always the same routine. I was the predictable one. Alley cats don’t understand opossums, and I no longer understood him and he no longer understood me, and that had become evident throughout the years.

             
I watched him dust off the back of his jeans.

             
“Well, I have to go to my parents’ house for dinner tonight,” Will said, now stretching his muscular, long arms and towering frame to the sky. “Mom’s making her specialty. I promised her I’d be there.”

             
I hesitated for an instant, nodded my head and then spoke.

             
“Okay, yeah, can’t miss that. I’d better get going then,” I said, taking his awkward cue. “It was nice seeing you again.”

             
I rose from my chair then, fiddling with my jacket and somewhat dissatisfied by our conversation and my decision to see him at all. Because now, my phrase,
What could it hurt?
looped across my mind like it was on a digital billboard continuously mocking me. I was quickly realizing that seeing Will might not have only hurt our friendship, but also my chances of having a nice, drama-free Saturday evening. I was silently admitting defeat when Will’s alley-cat voice threw me off again.

             
“Come,” he blurted out in his deep, raspy tone.

             
I instantly stopped adjusting my jacket and looked up at Will. I wasn’t exactly sure what he had meant by his sudden outburst or even sure if I had heard him right.

             
“What?” I asked softly, hesitantly – confused.

             
“Come with me,” he propositioned me again.

             
I smiled, and my eyes darted to the ground near my shoes. Had anyone else asked me the same question, I would have politely declined. However, it wasn’t just anyone who had asked me. It was Will, and I had nothing to do that night, and I loved his family and hadn’t seen them in a long time. A dinner couldn’t hurt. I bit my tongue. Well, it couldn’t make it worse. In fact, a dinner with his family might salvage my Saturday night.

             
“Okay,” I said softly, while nodding my head and smiling back at him.

             
Will smiled too.

             
“Let’s go,” he said, seemingly happy again, grabbing his fishing pole and making his way back to the small porch.

             
I watched him walk away for a second, temporarily paralyzed, stuck on a tiny patch of dirt and grass, wondering what I had just agreed to.

             
“You coming?” he called out cheerfully, turning his attention back to me.

             
I smiled, nodded and followed after him.

             
I
followed Will to his parents’ house in my jeep and walked with him up the stone walkway to the door of his childhood home – something I had done so many times before.

             
I was a little hesitant at how Will’s family members would react to me being there, but each one greeted me with hugs and smiles as usual – just like I had never taken a four-year leave of absence from their lives.

             
The meal too played out as if I had never left. Then, after dinner, I followed Will, glass of lemonade in hand, out to the deck that overlooked a piece of the Uptown. I immediately spotted a familiar, cushioned lounge chair that hadn’t seemed to have moved an inch in four years, and I fell into it. The chair felt safe. I was home again.

             
Satisfied, I took a deep breath in and with it, inhaled the autumn smell of fallen brown, saffron and yellow leaves mixed with burning logs. The air was still somewhat warm, but the breeze was cool. I took one more sip of Will’s mom’s homemade lemonade and set it onto the floor beside me.

             
When my eyes returned to the horizon, they caught the flash of several businesses’ lights that were just starting to come alive along the main highway that stretched through town. And in the west, the very last piece of the crimson, setting sun neared the edge of the earth as a quiet darkness slowly crept across our sky.

             
My eyes followed the lines of the sunset until I noticed a familiar-looking object in my view, resting up against the wooden banister.

             
“Do you still play?” I asked. There was a curious excitement in my voice. I could even hear it myself.

             
Will followed my eyes’ path to the six-stringed instrument. And without missing a beat, he sauntered over to it, picked it up and took a seat in a chair next to me, laying the guitar gently in his lap.

             
He was smiling as he slowly and methodically swung its strap over his head and wrapped his other arm around its base.

             
“This song is all yours,” he said with a boyish grin now planted on his face as he slid a pick out from underneath the guitar’s strings.

             
More surprises from the alley cat.

             
“Mine?” I asked, strangely flattered. A smile battled and eventually won its way to my face as well.

             
“Yep, all yours. Everyone needs a song – this one will be yours. I’ll never use it for anyone else,” he vowed as he began leisurely plucking its strings.