1
Bea
“Bea, go get the door!” Mom calls from the kitchen currently filled with scents of all kinds of sweet and savory things. My legs trudge down the stairs in heavy footfalls. I pause halfway down as my eyes dart to the photographs on the wall: My parents at prom, followed by their wedding and then my dad’s night school graduation. My brother’s birth, and taking his first steps before I came along. My fingers touch the frame, missing my brother, Deacon, who isn’t home this holiday.
“Beatrice Nicole, get the door!” It also has Mom in a bit of a mood to know that Deacon is spending this Thanksgiving with a girl and her family before my mother has met her.
Another step down and my mouth waters for a taste of her caramel apple pie and nutmeg pumpkin cheesecake bites. I have to hand it to my mom—she knows how to coax me out of a bad mood with her home cooking. I almost feel bad about my thirteen-week funk, but she made an extra pumpkin pie I don’t have to share with my cousins…so maybe not too bad.
“I got it.” Skipping down the stairs, I wonder why I’m the one who ends up answering the door every holiday. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of other people in the house perfectly situated to open the door. I bet it’s one of my bonehead cousins expecting a free meal (minus my pumpkin pie) and a chance to watch the game on the flat-screen television my dad recently bought. That theater-sized screen made our house the most popular in Darlington, North Carolina because we all know my Uncle Arty is a cheapskate.
A hard knock sounds outside and I shout, pulling the door open wide, “Jesus, Evan, it’s not like you haven’t been here…before.” My bottom lip trips over the top, and the first thing I notice are the shiny boots peeking out from a set of military dress blues. My mouth dries up as my eyes slowly travel up the body of a boy who said goodbye thirteen weeks ago and returned looking like…I gulp in an unsteady breath…a man with broad, full shoulders stretching the seams of his crisply pressed uniform.
Son of a…
My eyes must be deceiving me, because this isn’t possible. I gave up hope that he’d call, text, write, or send a freaking carrier pigeon my way as an explanation for why he left, ghosting me. The uniform only enhances the newly bulked muscles that I fondly recall hoisting me up in his arms, or holding me down on a hot summer night under a full moon and lightning bugs mingling with the stars in the dark sky. I force myself to shake off the memories and remember this for what it is: an unwelcome surprise on Thanksgiving Day.
“Oh hell.” I push the door shut as quickly as I opened it, squeezing my eyes closed saying a whimpered prayer. This can’t be happening. I’m not really seeing him here on my parents’ stoop, looking all smug and fine, as if the last three months hadn’t left me broken and in agony over a shitty goodbye. The worry that something might have—could have—happened to him churns in my empty belly.
The sneaky shots of mulled apple cider I took with my dad earlier churn like acid, sloshing up toward my broken heart.
A hand with neat-clipped nails curls around the wood doorframe. “Awe Honeybee, don’t be like that. At least let me come in and explain.” He sticks his booted foot with the blinding black shine in the door, having expected this reaction from me. His hand flexes, holding the door steady despite my best efforts to slam it in his cocky face.
I strain to dislodge him but he chuffs at my efforts. The thing about this guy is that he’s real good at waiting me out. From the day we met, he seemed to understand what made me tick better than I did myself. I’ll exhaust every effort before he even thinks about giving up. From the moment we met, we were constantly running circles around each other.
I hate it.
I’m mad at him for breaking my heart. I’m mad at myself for letting him get under my skin in every way possible. I could close my eyes to the man in front of me, refusing to see him standing there, but I couldn’t close my heart to the things I felt while he was gone.
The aunts dubbed it puppy love.
It felt like an affliction.
The flu, perhaps.
“Beatrice? Who’s at the door?” Mom comes out of the kitchen cleaning her hands on a towel that’s seen better days, and I feel a pang of guilt for the sacrificial turkey about to feed twelve of us. Once she sees his face she’ll know exactly who this man is to me.
I glance between them and growl. “No one, Mom.” His smile drops marginally and I think, good, about time he feels some of my pain. His chin drops like he wants to say something, but he holds back.
“Sure don’t look like no one, honey.” Aunt Elisa pops up from practically nowhere, sharing her unsolicited opinion. The aunts have this sick sixth sense about things and show up at the worst times. I’ve come to accept this fact and merely look up at him, shaking my head no.
“Yeah, Honeybee, invite this fine, strapping young man inside,” Aunt Doris drawls, crooking her witchy finger. My mother’s sisters are older than my mother, Irish twins born less than a year apart. They feel the need to comment on anything and everything they shouldn’t, assuming their age gives them a free pass. I love them dearly, but this is the last thing I want to hear about or discuss.
“You know, Doris, I think this is the man that gave our Bea a case of the malaise this past September.” Elisa fixes her eyeglasses, checking him out, while Doris hums, patting her fluffy hair, which is a shade of powder blue.
Aunt Doris drawls, dragging out her Southern accent slower than molasses. “Yes, I think you’re right. Bea was unfit for polite company this September. Only reason she left her room in October was for the Halloween candy we brought.”
“Uh huh, she sure put on all that weight she lost real quick with those chocolate bars.”
I glance at them, hissing, but I’m ignored. I don’t want him to know I was wallowing in self-pity and grief. It’s embarrassing.
He gives me an appraising look up and down, like he’s trying to figure out where the weight went. My butt or my breasts sums up my curves. When his smirking gaze comes back to my eyes, he winks at me. Asshole.
I groan, wishing the floor would suck me up right now.
“Come on, Honeybee,” my visitor cajoles, letting his hand on the doorframe drift down to my clenched fingers. His touch still feels like little zings of electricity as he smooths my rigid digits. Furious, I snatch my hand back.
Henry Edward Andrews, better known as Tank, winks playfully, holding out his hand. I despise how eager my body is to melt right back into his arms as if nothing happened.
“Didn’t you miss me?” His lips turn up in a panty-melting grin.
“Nope,” I pop, and roll my eyes when he frowns. I sigh, admitting in a whisper, “I missed you liked peanut butter misses jelly.” It hurts to think about how inseparable we were.