You Take It From Here (30 page)

I finished with, “I’m not trying to get preachy here. I want you to know that you can do this. Do not spend your life worrying what others think of you. They aren’t in your house. Only you are. Fill it with love, and don’t worry how many crumbs are on the floor. That just proves you lived there.”

When I hit Send I realized I’d effectively destroyed my own business. And not to get too mystical about it, but at the same moment, the rain abruptly stopped. It got silent in my car, quiet enough that I looked around, spooked. Had I just gone deaf? Had my life been put on pause?

Down South, Mother Nature was just like any other Southern lady. All hellfire and crazy for five minutes, making you worry everything you love is about to catch on fire from a lightning bolt. But then, just as suddenly: sunshine and breezes. Everything’s a little cleaner and the sky looks like it has no recollection of what it just did.

I’d pulled my car to the side of the street, but only now was I given the chance to gather my whereabouts. Turns out I wasn’t too far from the party supply store; it was just up ahead a couple of blocks. I leaned forward to peer at the sky. That’s when I saw another looming pool of darkness headed my way at a steady clip. When I looked back at the road, there was Tucker, running down the street in his escape clothes.

I got out of my car and headed toward him.

TWENTY-SEVEN

I
t isn’t easy to run alongside a man who’s pretending he’s not trying to outrun you. I wanted it to come off like it was no big deal to trot alongside of him, but I was in a pair of Chuck Taylors, feeling the gritty, slippery concrete through the thin rubber bottoms.

Tucker seemed torn between showing off and keeping pace to hear what I had to say. He opted to stare straight ahead, soaking wet, rainwater dropping from his curls like he’d just stepped out of a shower.

“I wanted to apologize,” I said, already feeling the burning in my lungs. Fifty yards in and it was the most exercise I’d done in months.

Tucker didn’t respond. He just kept jogging, his tongue jutting a lump from the inside of his left cheek.

“You’re not going to talk to me?” I asked.

I stopped running and had to drop my hands to my knees. “I cannot believe you’re letting a girl chase you down the street.”

Tucker swung back around to me, stretching his arms behind him. “You aren’t the first.”

We took a moment to catch our breath.

“Thanks for stopping,” I said.

“Hey, what’s your business is your business. I no longer care.”

“Please don’t be like that.”

Tucker walked in a circle, hands on his hips, his breath quieting as he shook his head in amazement. “I have a feeling you are about to ask if we can just be friends,” he said.

“I don’t even mean it that way.”

He flipped his head back toward the darkened sky as the wind picked up around us. “Why do women always need to decide on everything?” he asked. “Why must it be discussed until it is boring? Can’t some things just suck or be broken and then we leave them alone?”

“Are you talking about us?” I asked, confused.

“
Us?
What
us
? You haven’t even called me.”

“I wanted to.”

“She wanted to,” Tucker said to a passing mother seeking shelter. She was frantically pushing a stroller toward the nearest building, unaware Tucker was talking to her. “I like how you
wanted
to. That’s touching, really.”

My skin was sweaty from the jog and damp from the humidity. I always forgot how the heat could stick around until November sometimes. Just under my right knee, a mosquito bite was reddening on my shin. “I did want to, Tucker. I thought about it.”

“I feel stupid for thinking things were better when I was with you,” he said.

He started walking away, but I followed. “It’s not stupid,” I said. “I feel better when I’m with you, too.”

“That’s because you’re away from Smidge. Henry’s miserable, do you know that?” A breeze flipped his hat, exposing swirls of damp hair clinging to his forehead, his neck. Before it hit the ground, Tucker bounced the hat off his knee and caught it. “You two aren’t fooling anybody, and I just hope you know what you’re doing. Because it sure does seem like . . .”

“Like what?”

He exhaled here, incredulous. “I don’t know. Forget it.”

Heavy drops of rain started to fall, pelting the back of my head, gaining intensity by the second.

“What do you think it is, Tucker?” I asked, hoping he’d say it. Just say it, and we could move on, we could get to the part we all needed to get to.

Suddenly the sky lit white, flashing like the gods were taking our picture. A thunderclap immediately followed. But we didn’t move. We didn’t stop standing at that curb, not fifty feet from a convenience store where we could have safely waited it out.

“Do you like me?” he asked, a surprising change of subject. “Seventh-grade-question time. Do you like me?”

I nodded. “I do.”

“Good, because I like you, too.” Tucker put his arm around my head and clamped his hand over my mouth. “No more talking. Drive me back to my house, let’s get in the shower, and then you are going to get in my bed.”

I moved his hand. “But I have to pick up cupcake papers.”

“Woman, don’t make me do this!” He picked me up and carried me to my car, splashing through every puddle.

This time I didn’t resist.

TWENTY-EIGHT

I
thought I’d be so strong, all business, when I got back to Ogden, but your mother and I were both dragging out the part before things had to get real, pretending we didn’t have something looming. I was sleeping with Tucker again, and from the smell outside the house as I walked up, Smidge was busy making cookies.

She didn’t ask where I’d been all day, even though it was after dark when I walked in wearing slightly damp, wrinkled clothes, holding a definite lack of cupcake papers. It didn’t take long to see why I was the least of her concerns.

She was firmly in the middle of an enormous fight with you.

You were both in the kitchen, standing on either side of the island, arms up to elbows in brightly colored mixing bowls. You were crying and Smidge was as close to it as she got, her face orangey-red.

“Why are we crying and making cookies?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

Smidge shouted, “Because it’s important to make memories!”

“Just let me leave!” you screamed.

“No!” Smidge shouted back. “Not until we’ve made six dozen cookies for my birthday party!”

Face streaked in tears, cheeks flushed pink, a glob of something that looked like butter stuck to your cheek, you turned to me and screeched, “Why is she being so mean to me?”

“Danny,” Smidge said, “tell this fool child that she needs to learn her mother’s cookie recipe and to stop being an asshole.”

This was not a good situation I’d walked into.

“Mom said I could go over to Mandy’s party and now she’s making me stay in just to make stupid cookies with her! On a Friday night! She’s so unfair!”

“Maybe I just grounded you again, how about that? Maybe I’m not done being mad at you for parading around with boys, lying behind my back, and going out asking to get pregnant.”

“That was forever ago! You go wherever you want. All the way to Los Angeles. You’re selfish, skinny, and gross, and I hate you!”

My heart was whacking against my chest. I had no idea what to say or do here, but I knew this was an important moment for Smidge, and one you’d remember forever. I had to do something.

“Okay,” I said, hands outstretched like I was entering a lion’s den. “There’s a compromise here.”

“Agreed,” said Smidge. “Remind this hateful, evil little girl that I’m her mother, so she should
compromise
to what I say.”

I peered inside your mixing bowl. “Chocolate chip,” I said. Sweetly, like I was talking to a kitten. “Those look good.”

“They look stupid,” you said. “I hate cookies.”

“Okay, that seems like a lie,” I said.

“Danny, tell my child to behave,” Smidge said.

“You could be a little nicer to your mother,” I admitted.

You looked at me like I’d just slapped you across your face. “She called me an asshole!” you said, eyes wide and mouth flapping like a giant trout who just realized he’s not in the water.

Smidge was licking cookie dough off a spoon, one bare foot crooked up against the inside of her thigh. “Did you get cupcake papers?”

I gave her a warning look that made her straighten up.

“Jenny, look. You only have to do this until the cookies are done,” I said. “Then you can go to Mandy’s party. Okay? I just declared that, and your mother’s going to agree to those terms.”

“But I’m supposed to be there already,” you said, chin quivering as your tears resurfaced. “I don’t want to be late. This isn’t fair.”

“Life ain’t fair,” Smidge said, leaning over the counter, taunting you like she was by your locker at school. “You’d better learn that right now.”

“Make her stop,” you begged me, tugging at my arm, wailing as if you were going to be forced into the oven with the cookies.

“Okay, everybody,” I said. “Let’s just calm down, take a second, and focus on finishing mixing.”

You whacked and stabbed at that bowl like you were holding a machete. Meanwhile, Smidge pretended to be very interested in a single chip that had fallen onto the counter. She carefully placed it back inside her own bowl.

“That’s good, everybody,” I said, sounding like I was teaching a cooking class in an asylum. “See, we can do this.”

You wiped your face, angry at your own tears. Smidge gave a small cough and a sigh. It fell quiet again, but the tension was still there. It took a second to talk over this absurdly overheated situation.

“You know, some people believe that the cookies won’t taste good if you don’t have fun while you make them. The cookies can sense if you were angry when you were combining the ingredients. So let’s all think happy things right now, okay? Jenny, what are you thinking of? What’s your happy thought?”

I remember you were mashing a wooden spoon against the side of the bright green bowl you held against your chest. You were looking down at the dough as you mumbled, “That one day my mom will be dead.”

You said it like a curse, like a wish, and like you knew exactly what you were doing. It sounded so awful, Jenny. I couldn’t believe you were capable of that. You were never young again.

I immediately said to your mother, “You know she didn’t mean that,” but the damage was already done.

Smidge faced the refrigerator, hiding her expression. She struggled with her breath like she’d been kicked in the stomach; a grunting gasp accompanied her swallowing as she stretched her neck toward the ceiling.

“Jenny, tell her you don’t mean that,” I said.

You threw yourself against the counter. “Whatever. She doesn’t care.”

Smidge snatched the spoon out of your mixing bowl and used it to smack you over the head. She didn’t hit you hard, but it made such a terrible pop it startled us all.

You stood there waiting for her to say something, anything, but she didn’t. She couldn’t do it, Jenny, without telling you everything. Her pride and her fear got in her way.

You just held the top of your head, staring at your mom, waiting for her to fix what had happened. Instead, she sent you away.

“Just go,” she said. “I’m sick of looking at you. You’ll regret this so soon, you won’t believe it.”

Before I could say anything, you were already gone, running down the sidewalk toward that party, which must not have been too much fun after that.

Smidge calmly spooned balls of cookie dough onto waxed paper atop metal cookie sheets.

“How ’bout that for a memory?” she asked.

“Smidge, she’s just a child.”

“You don’t know my daughter better than I do, so quit it.”

“I had it all wrong. It’s not your cancer that’s selfish. It’s you.”