The Fortune Quilt (15 page)

“You know what?” I say, standing up. “I just remembered. I’ve got a thing… a book. A phone call. I have to go.” I gather up my yarn and needles and stuff them in the small canvas project bag Brandy gave me. “I’ll just see myself out.”

Brandy stands up. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” I back toward the door, almost trip over a pile of quilts, then turn and scurry toward my escape, waving at them awkwardly over my shoulder.

“Thanks,” I say. “See you tomorrow.”

I shoot out the door and almost flip ass over teakettle on Brandy’s stoop when I hear the door open behind me. I turn around and there’s Will, a bemused half-smile on his face as he looks at me.

“Hey, Will.” I sound more like a fifteen-year-old than ever, and I clear my throat.

He tucks his hands in his pockets and dances easily down the steps. I’ll bet the satanic door buzzer doesn’t zap him, either. Psychic’s pet.

“Hey,” he says. “I was wondering. What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Um, nothing.” I have the day off from Janesse’s and the only plans I’d really made were to drink some wine and work on my scarf-turd.

“Well, I was wondering if you might want to go on a little hike through the foothills. There’s a big, flat rock on the east side with a cool view of the valley. It’s the perfect place for a picnic.”

“It sounds nice, but…” I lean forward a bit and lower my voice. “I don’t really hike.”

“Well, I have a secret for you.” He leans forward and lowers his voice as well. “Hiking is just walking. You can walk, right?”

“That’s up for debate.”

His smile quirks up one side of his face and I have to prevent myself from sighing.

He straightens up. “Pick you up at ten tomorrow morning?”

I nod, my attempt at playing it cool. “Sure. Step out of your front door and take a right. I’ll be there.”

Will watches me for a moment, and I think he’s going to say something, but then he just turns and jaunts back up the steps and into Brandy’s place. I stare at her front door as it closes behind him and then turn to walk back to my cabin, only stumbling once on the way.

Yay me.

***

Will, as it turns out, is full of shit. Hiking is not walking. Walking is something you do on a nice, level surface - like a sidewalk, or a path, or a floor - to get from Point A to Point B. If Point A and Point B are too far apart, you get in a car and drive, the way God intended.

Hiking, on the other hand, involves climbing over rocks and stepping through foliage that doesn’t particularly want you there. And Point A and Point B? Are very far apart. By the time we get to the big, flat rock, I’ve swallowed two bugs, ripped a hole in the knee of my jeans while stumbling over a branch, and formed a blister on the heel of my left foot.

Despite this, I’m still having a pretty damn good time. Hiking out here in the wilderness ingesting bugs, I’m about as happy as I’ve been in recent weeks, and this is all the proof I need that I have a huge, unwieldy, ill-timed and yet undeniable crush on Will Kelley.

“You doing okay?” he asks as I pull my sad self up onto the rock. He’s already unpacked a fleece blanket and laid it out and is now pulling cheese and crackers out of his big, yellow outdoorsy-guy backpack.

“Fine,” I say. I throw myself down on one edge of the blanket and lie back, face to the sky, dramatically gasping for breath. “You’re right. View’s gorgeous.”

He laughs, sits next to me and grabs my hand to pull me up to sitting. He motions out toward the valley and I have to admit, it’s pretty. It looks almost European, all the buildings huddled together in the valley, their asymmetric roofs winking in the sunlight between the vibrant red soil of the copper-rich foothills on either side.

“It’s beautiful,” I say, and mean it. Will grins and dives back into his pack, from which he pulls out two plastic wine glasses, just the cup part, with a tiny plastic screw sticking out of the bottom. He hands the decapitated glasses to me, then sticks the equally pathetic plastic stems in my hand.

“Make yourself useful,” he says. I screw the stems onto the glasses and he pours the wine. I feel positively wooed, and I have to admit, I like it. We clink our plastic glasses and drink, looking out at the scenery. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect. I grab a cracker and a slice of cheese and chew happily.

“I thought this might cheer you up,” he says. “This is where I come when I’m feeling… I don’t know. Just when I’m not right with the world. It helps give me perspective.”

I feel the cracker stick in my throat and wash it down with a bit of wine as I realize that this isn’t a date. It’s therapy. If this is the case, I’m pretty sure Will hasn’t brought enough wine.

“You know, I’m really okay,” I say, grasping at the flailing threads of my frayed dignity. “Really. I know I must have seemed like a total basket case the other night, but I’m okay. Really.”

He gives me a little smile and nods out to the valley, pointing to a spot off in the distance.

“See those? That’s where we live.”

I squint. He’s right. I can see Brandy’s roof at the edge of the valley, where the foothills begin, and then nestled within the foliage behind her place are our two smaller rooftops.

“And that,” he says, shifting his index finger down and to the left, “is Janesse’s art shop. And there’s the café.”

I stare at it, transfixed with wonder. “It all seems so tiny.”

“See?” he says. “Perspective.”

I’m fairly sure I’ve never felt this embarrassed. I try to regroup, appreciate the gesture for what it is - an attempt by a really nice guy to help his total case of a neighbor. I grab another cracker and decide to be gracious and pleasant. And to immediately change the subject.

“So, what’s the deal with Brandy and Janesse?”

He gives me a surprised smile. “You don’t know?”

I shake my head. “No. But every time I mention one of them to the other, they both get weird.”

Will gives a small, sad smile. “They used to be married.”

I blink. “Lesbians can get married in Arizona?”

He laughs. “They’re not lesbians.”

I am silent, drowning in dumbfoundedness. Will leans forward, throws me a bone.

“Janesse used to be Jamal.”

I feel like I should be saying, “Ohhhh,” but I still don’t get it. And then…

“Ohhhh,” I say. “Oh. Oh, man. Wow. Really?”

Will nods. My initial reaction is to be kind of annoyed, because Janesse is a thousand times prettier than me. She’s gorgeous.
 
He’s
 
gorgeous. Wait, no.
 
She
.

Yeesh
. I’m confused. I can’t imagine how Brandy must feel.

“Poor Brandy.”

“Yeah.” Will brushes some crumbs off his knee. “She took it pretty hard. I think it’s still hard for her.”

“When did he… I mean, she… become a she?”

“About three years ago. I moved into the cabin right after the big blowup, so I mostly just witnessed the aftermath.”

“Ah, so I guess that’s when you and Brandy…?” I start, not sure how to finish the sentence.

“When me and Brandy what?” There’s a slight twinkle in his eye, and I get the distinct impression that he’s enjoying making me grope around on this one.

I roll my eyes and look out at the horizon. “Nothing. Just… you two seem… close.”

“We are.” He leans toward me a bit. “Not like that, though. She needed a shoulder to cry on and I happened to have one available.” He smiles at me. “We’re just friends.”

“Oh, good.”
 
Way to play it cool, Zuko.
 
”Not that it matters, you know. I mean, it wouldn’t bother me or anything if you two were…”

Oh, man. This is just sad. I stuff a cracker in my mouth to shut myself up.

“Good crackers,” I say, and a few crumbs fly out of my mouth.
 
I. Am. Smooooooooth
.

“Glad you like them,” he says, his voice thick with amusement. I grab my wine and wash down the crackers.

“Did you bring Brandy out here, too?” I ask tentatively. “You know, to cheer her up?”

He keeps his eyes on mine, and a small smile quirks at one edge of his mouth. “No.”

I am shamelessly happy to hear this. We sit in companionable silence for a while. I stare out at the valley, and this is when the thinking starts, which is followed soon by the talking.

“I think there’s something wrong with me.” The words are out before I realize I’ve said them, and I instantly regret them.

“Just one thing?” Will shakes his head and takes a sip of his wine. “You got me beat, then.”

“No, I mean…” I sigh, feeling stupid. But then again, I’m not weeping all over him, so yay me. “I don’t feel like me anymore.”

He looks at me for a moment, his eyebrows knit slightly. “I don’t understand.”

I swallow hard. I didn’t fully realize this until now, and I’m a little nervous sharing it with him, but I keep going anyway. “I used to be confident. Strong. Articulate. I knew what was what and who was who and suddenly, it’s like I don’t know anything.” I close my eyes and blurt out the rest. “The other day, I was watching Oprah and she did one of those long-lost family reunion shows…”

“And what?” he says. “You cried?”

“No,” I say. “I
 
wept
. With blubbering and everything. For an hour.”

He seems nonplussed. “Those shows are sad.”

“You know the commercial with the talking baby?”

He pauses. “The one for the sub shop?”

I look at him, challenging him to make that redeemable. He grins.

“Okay. You win. You’re emotionally unstable.”

“Thank you,” I say. “And it’s not just the crying. Allegra talks about sex and her two daddies and beta-males being good in bed and I get all flustered and awkward and change the subject to the weather.”

“Well, I don’t think getting flustered around Allegra is all that unusual…”

“It is for me. I don’t get flustered. Ever.”

Will shrugs. “Maybe it’s just that you’ve never had the option.”

I look up at him. “Huh?”

He stares off into the sky, his face thoughtful for a moment before he looks back at me.

“When we were dating, Ella talked to me a bit about what happened. How your dad kind of hid in his work after your mother left, really relied on you to take care of Five. You basically became a mother at the age of twelve. That’s gotta be hard. Maybe now that you don’t have those responsibilities anymore, maybe your emotions are just catching up and it’s throwing you off your game.”

This is a little too Psych 101 for me, but since it’s Will and I’ve under the influence of the Big Crush, I try to look as though I’m considering it.

“Maybe. I don’t know. All I know is I used to have it together and now I feel like I don’t know anything about anything.”

“Well,” he says with a shrug, as though the answer is obvious. “You’ve been Towered.”

I stare at him, trying to see if he’s kidding or not. I can’t tell, but my vote would be not. “What the hell does that mean, anyway?”

He laughs. “I don’t really know. It’s a Brandy-ism, I usually just nod and smile. As far as I understand it, it just means that your life has been kinda bulldozed, you know? And now you have to rebuild it.”

We share a smile. I grab a cracker. “Have you ever been Towered?”

He picks up the wine bottle and refills my glass.

“I’m in Bilby, aren’t I?”

***

At work the next day, Janesse is still prettier than me. I find myself staring at her all day. She’s tall for a woman, definitely, and now that I’m looking for it her wrists do seem a bit bigger than those of most of the women I know. Her feet don’t look that big, though, but then again, mine are size six and every foot bigger than mine kinda looks the same to me, so…

“Who told you?” she asks as she sidles back behind the counter. I realize I’ve been leaning on the counter and straighten up, wondering if I was too obvious with the staring.

“Who? Told me what? Hmm?” I ask in what I hope passes for casual.

She raises one eyebrow at me. “That I used to have a dick.”

“Oh. That.” I sigh and relax. Big deal. She used to have a dick. Get used to it. Welcome to Bilby. “Will. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. Was I staring?”

Janesse laughs. “Honey, if staring bothered me I would have ended up like Mr. Trimble a long time ago. I’m used to it.” She shoots me a sideways glance and a smile plays on her lips. “But really? You didn’t know?”

“No,” I say. “I had no idea.”

She giggles and turns to me. “No, seriously. Even with these hips?”

“What hips?” I say, rolling my eyes at her.

“Exactly. Real women have hips. And booties.” She turns her back to me and shakes what she’s got. “I have no ass.”

I grin at her. “You are one hundred percent woman, trust me. Men are not insecure about their asses.”