The Chesapeake Diaries Series 7-Book Bundle: Coming HOme, Home Again, Almost Home, Hometown Girl, Home for the Summer, The Long Way Home, At the River's Edge (51 page)

“He hasn’t asked once,” Dallas murmured aloud.

“What’s that, dear?”

“Cody. He hasn’t asked when we’re going home, not even one time. Apparently because he thinks it’s going to be soon and he doesn’t want to know.”

“Will it be soon, Dallas?”

“I don’t know. Do you think not knowing bothers Cody?”

“I think it would be most helpful to him if he knew he’d be here for another week or however long you plan to stay.” Berry appeared to be choosing her words carefully. “There was talk this morning about a party at the library next Thursday for the official dedication of the new children’s wing, and all the others signed up for an activity. Cody wanted to leave before it was his turn at the sign-up board.”

“I really hadn’t thought about how long we’d stay,” Dallas admitted. “I didn’t think it would matter. For the first time in three years, I don’t have a schedule to keep and I’m enjoying having some free time. It’s been such a pleasure to not have appointments and meetings and rehearsals.”

She thought of the screenplay she’d been wanting to work on. And there was that wonderful book she’d read earlier in the week, the one that was just screaming to be made into a film. What might she do with that, if she gave herself the time to work on it without other distractions?

“I don’t mean to push you into staying or going, though I will readily admit that I love having the two of you here. I’d be delighted if you’d stay … well, for however long. I would never interfere in your life or in the way you raise your son. But you did ask …”

“Yes, I did. You know I value your opinion. It hadn’t occurred to me that winging it this summer, while liberating for me, might not be the best thing for Cody.”

Dallas thought for another moment, then asked, “You really think he’s making friends at the library?”

“As I said, he and another little boy sit together every day. They share books with each other and laugh together the way little boys do. There’s a little girl there who sometimes sits with them. Yes, I’d say he’s making friends. Or at the very least, would like to.”

Dallas tried to recall the last time Cody had referred to another child as his friend, or the last time he’d been asked to play at another child’s house. Or the last time he’d asked to have another child over to play after school. Birthday party invitations didn’t count. His school had an “invite one, invite all” rule in place, so he’d been invited to many parties over the past year. Though now that she thought about it, he hadn’t been overly eager to attend any of them. And there’d been that invitation she’d found stuffed in the bottom of his book bag toward the end of the school year that he said he’d forgotten about …

“I’ve had an idea for a screenplay,” Dallas told Berry. “Had I mentioned that?”

“You may have said something about it.”

“And the novel I finished reading on Tuesday …” Dallas continued to think out loud. “I keep envisioning it as a film. It has two very strong female characters. They’re just marvelous women—a woman and her middle-aged granddaughter—and I keep seeing them, big as life, on the screen. I’ve been toying with the idea of buying the film rights.” She left out the part about how she saw Berry in the role of the older woman.

“Oh?” Berry turned to her, interested.

“I think I’d like to work at maybe adapting it, writing the script myself.” Dallas looked at Berry for a reaction.

“I do like the sound of this.”

“I’d only do it if I thought I could do it really well.”

“Of course you’d do it well,” Berry assured her. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“I’ve never attempted anything like this before. Actually, until I had this one idea for a film, I never even thought of doing such a thing. Then I finished reading this amazing book, and I can’t get the characters out of my head. I keep seeing them, hearing their voices. Berry,” she added in a hushed voice, “it would make a magnificent film.”

“Then call Norma and have her pursue the project, dear. What’s the very worst that can happen? The author says no and you don’t make a deal. Otherwise, what do you have to lose?”

“Nothing.” Dallas stood, every nerve ending tingling. “You’re right, Berry. I have nothing to lose. And if I’m successful in buying the rights, I can work on the screenplay right here.”

“Here?” Berry asked cautiously.

“We could stay for the rest of the summer here, couldn’t we?”

“Of course you could, dear.” Berry was trying hard to contain herself. “Why, we could set up that third-floor room for you to use as an office … or, no, no. We’ll take the library on the first floor and you’ll use Grandfather Eberle’s desk. Wouldn’t the old man be proud?” she mused.

“First I have to see if I can get the rights,” Dallas reminded her.

“And if you cannot?” Berry’s smile began to fade. “What then?”

“Then I will go back to writing the original screenplay
I was thinking about before I read
Pretty Maids
. Actually, I think I should start on that right away. Who knows how long it might take to obtain the rights to the novel.”

“Are you certain that’s what you want? I didn’t mean to influence you.”

Dallas shook her head. “I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a long time. It just hadn’t occurred to me that I could do it here.”

“I’m delighted. I won’t say I’m not happy that you’re not going home.”

Dallas looked at the big house with its gables and turrets. “This is really the only home I have right now. The house we’ve been in is rented and it’s never felt like home. There are other houses we bought over the years but they’re all tied up in the divorce. To tell you the truth, I don’t want any of them. I don’t have any happy memories of any of them. Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t really have happy memories of any place except here.”

“You’re welcome to stay for however long you’d like. But I do think you should let Cody know what your plans are. He needs to know.” Berry paused. “You did say the rest of the summer?”

Dallas nodded. “I think we both need a break.”

“Dallas, are you sure …?”

“I’m sure, Berry. There’s nothing for either of us back in L.A. I don’t have any work lined up, though my agent emailed me last night and told me she had a ton of scripts for me to read. I can read them here as easily as I can there.” Dallas laughed. “Better actually, because I won’t be tempted to run out for lunch and pick up on the latest gossip and who’s doing
what with whom, or get lured out to parties I don’t really want to go to or to see people I don’t really like. Cody’s school doesn’t start until the second week in September, so we can stay through the end of August and go back after Labor Day. We should probably give ourselves at least a week to get ready for school.”

Berry sat back in her chair, a smile lighting her face. “The entire rest of the summer! I never dared hope you’d be with me that long.”

“This is your last chance to change your mind. Once I tell Cody, it’s a done deal.”

“Well, then, go tell the boy. I’m sure he’ll be as happy as I am.”

Dallas got out of her chair and leaned over her aunt and kissed her on the forehead. “That will make three of us.”

After supervising Cody in the old-fashioned claw-foot tub, Dallas tucked him into Wade’s old twin bed for the night. At odd moments it struck her how strange it was that this was her child, her son, not her little brother, that she read to each night. Cody did favor Wade in some ways, Berry was right about that. She glanced down as she began to turn a page in the latest favorite book, and realized that Cody was sound asleep. She hadn’t thought it possible that he’d fall asleep at all, since he’d gotten so excited over the prospect of spending the rest of the summer in St. Dennis.

“The whole rest of the summer?” His eyes had widened at the thought. “All of the summer?”

“Well, we’ll have to leave sometime to get you ready to go back to school, but we’ll stay until right after Labor Day. I think I’ll see if we can make arrangements to fly back on the Tuesday after Labor Day.”

“When is Labor Day?” he asked.

“It’s always the first Monday in September, but offhand, I don’t know the date this year. Let’s go take a
look at the calendar.” They went into the kitchen and opened the pantry. Dallas pointed to the large wall calendar that Berry had tacked up on the door. “See, here we are, in July. And we will stay here through the whole rest of the month of July, and the whole month of August. Here’s Labor Day. September sixth. We’ll go back the next day. September seventh.”

Cody moved the step stool under the calendar and stood on it to touch the days.

“Wow, that’s a lot of days.” He turned his face up to hers, and the joy was unmistakable. “I can go to all the stuff at the library. I can do lots of stuff.”

“You can do lots of stuff,” she agreed.

“Yay!” He hopped down from the stool. “I’m going to tell Berry that we can stay until September—” He stopped and turned around. “What day did you say?”

“We’ll leave on September seventh.”

“September seventh,” he repeated as he ran from the room. “September seventh …”

She couldn’t remember ever having seen Cody so happy. It reinforced her decision to stay. Perhaps he’d needed that little bit of stability even more than either Berry or she imagined.

She kissed the top of his head, turned off the light, and tiptoed out of the room and down the stairs.

The first floor was quiet, and she wondered where Berry had gotten to. The faint sound of voices drew her to the front of the house, and in the dim light, she saw Berry at the foot of her driveway talking to someone. She was just about to open the door to join them when the phone rang. Dallas all but ran to the kitchen
to grab the phone from the wall before it could wake Cody.

“Eberle residence.”

“Dallas? It’s Grant.”

“Oh. Hi.”
How brilliant
, she thought.
How original. How … juvenile
.

“Hi. Is your aunt around?” he asked.

“She’s here but she’s out front. I can run out and get her if you don’t mind holding on for a few minutes.”

“When she comes in, just tell her that there’s a dog here at the shelter that might be right for her.” He paused, and she could hear his breathing, soft and steady. “That is, if she’s still thinking about adopting one.”

“I honestly don’t know what she’s thinking,” Dallas replied, “but I can tell her when she comes in and she can call you back.”

“There’s no real hurry. The dog has only been here for a few days, but she’s a really special dog, so who knows how long she’ll be around.” He paused. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of her before.”

“Got it. I’ll let her know.”

“You have my numbers, right?”

“Ah, no, I don’t think I … oh. The card.” She reached for her bag and pulled out her wallet. The card was right where she left it, in the slot behind her driver’s license. “Yes. I have it.”

“Great. I’ll wait to hear from you. I mean, from her. About the dog.”

“I’m sure she’ll be in touch.” Dallas walked to the back door and looked out at nothing in particular, then back to the counter, then to the windows.

There was a silence that neither of them seemed
able to break, but neither made a move to hang up. For a split second, Dallas was sixteen again, standing on this very spot, holding this very phone, and pacing from the back door to the counter to the windows. Just as she was doing now.

Déjà vu all over again
, she mused.

Finally, Grant said, “So. How’s it feel to be back in St. Dennis after all this time?”

“It’s great. It feels great.”

“You said it’s been a few years since—”

“Yes. Three. I think it’s been three. But I didn’t stay very long that time. I got called home for work. The town sure has changed a lot since I was able to spend any time here.”

“Yeah, it’s changed a lot since when I moved away, too.”

“The changes look like they’ll be good, though. I mean, I heard that the new shops and the restaurants are big attractions for tourists.”

“It’s all good for the town. Tax dollars and all.”

She nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see her. “Right,” she said. “I guess your sister’s doing well.”

“Steffie had the right idea at the right time. She makes a great product—you know she makes all her ice creams herself?”

“Berry told me. I’m really impressed with what she’s done in that old shack. I seem to remember that it didn’t look like much, back when we were kids.”

“It wasn’t. That’s the old picking shack where my grandmother and my aunts used to pick crabs. You know, steam them and then pick the meat out for shipping to restaurants.”

“I do remember that. I remember trying it one time
during camp.” Dallas laughed softly at the memory. “I wasn’t very good at it. I cut my fingers so many times on those hard shells, I was dismissed.”

“There is a knack to it. They say you need to be born on the Eastern Shore to know how to do it properly.” Grant cleared his throat. “Dallas, listen, I don’t know if this is the right thing to say or not, but I heard about … well, about the trouble you’ve had, and I just want to say how sorry I am that you and your son are going through this.”

“Thank you, Grant.” For some reason her throat threatened to close. She hadn’t been expecting that.

“I mean, the guy is obviously a moron. Any guy lucky enough to—” He stopped. “Sorry. I’ll just let it go at sorry.”

Another silence followed. She wondered about his wife, and what had happened there, but couldn’t bring herself to ask. Instead, she simply said, “When did you move back to St. Dennis?”

“Almost a year ago. The old vet in town was ready to sell his house and his clinic right at the time I was at a point when I had decisions to make, so it seemed to be the best solution to several problems. The price was right, the facilities were good, although I had to do some major updating. I’m still working on the house but the clinic is up-to-date. We use the old barn for our rescued animals, so it’s all worked out nicely.”

“There are several shelters in the area where we live in California. I didn’t realize there were so many abandoned animals that needed rescuing.”