The two men just looked at each other. Then a car zoomed past, the doorbell jangled, and a customer entered. Nothing had changed. Angry words didn't stop the world from turning round.
"Just do me a favor," said Andre. "When you go back to the coast, call your sister occasionally. Maybe even Pat now and then, okay?"
A nod.
"Thank you."
"Lydia and I have plans," said Vaughan, reaching for my hand. He squeezed my fingers tight, his grip sweaty. "I'll catch you before I go."
"All right."
"It was good to see you again, Andre," I said, offering a brief smile.
"You too, Lydia." He stepped forward, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. "Take care."
We were out of the shop, down the street, and into the Mustang in under a minute. Two steps for every one of Vaughan's, I almost ran to keep up, puffing all the way. He didn't talk until the key went in the ignition, the engine revving, loud and proud. Slowly, his shoulders descended, the walls came down. But they didn't disappear. Not really.
Not for him and not for me.
"Sorry about that," he said, gaze firmly on the road ahead.
"It's fine."
"Better get back, finish that work on the house."
"Right." I fussed in my seat, gripping the handbag in my lap.
Someone once told me that when people pass in assisted care facilities it's common for men to be found holding their penises. Women, however, grab hold of their handbags. Our money, our identities, our lives, are stuffed into those things. All of the bits and pieces we've collected over the years. Everything we might need to make it through any minor, or major, emergencies.
Men are so much less reliable than handbags.
"I need to read the documents from the Delaneys," I said, putting my priorities back into place. "I should pack my stuff properly too. Nell and I just threw everything into boxes. It'd be horrible if more got broken in the move."
A grunt from the man temporarily at my side.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"Hey."
The man lying spread-eagled in the backyard raised a hand, then let it fall back to earth.
"For you," I said, passing him a beer.
"You're an angel." The sweat on his body glistened in the moonlight. Dark wet tendrils of hair clung to his face. He chugged a good three-quarters of the beer in four, five seconds max. It was impressive. Very manly.
Just as well I'd brought out a six-pack.
The scent of cut grass filled the air. Every bush had been neatly trimmed. Instead of an Idaho Amazon, the backyard now resembled a neat suburban garden with an awesome stone fire pit at its center I sat on one of the surrounding rocks, sipping my beer. Stars twinkled overhead. The moon shone. Soon enough, Vaughan finished off his beer and I passed him another.
He sat up, elbows resting on his knees. "You going to say something?"
"About what?" I asked, looking round. "The garden? Great job."
"I meant about the fight with Andre."
I raised my brows, taking another sip. "No."
Nothing beat ice cold beer on a summer's night. I'd showered and changed into a loose cotton dress. After the dust of the garage and repacking almost everything I owned, it was necessary to clean up. Wet hair sat up high on my head in a topknot. All the better for adding a bit of bounce to it tomorrow. It also left my neck exposed to the beautiful cooling nighttime breeze, a definite bonus. It felt so good after the heat of the day.
He looked at me, then he looked around. A process he repeated quite a few times, occasionally stopping for a mouthful of beer.
"I don't know you, Vaughan," I said, when I couldn't take the silent questioning any longer. "Not really. And you don't know me."
His brow furrowed.
"What Andre said was enough to send you spiraling into some sort of frenzied gardening bender. I'm not going to add to it."
"The yard was just a job that needed doing," he mumbled around the top of his beer. "No need to make it a big deal."
"Right. Just a job that needed doing ... for seven hours without a break."
One shoulder lifted. "That's how long it took."
"In your underwear."
"It got hot." He took another mouthful of beer. "Thanks for putting out the bottles of water earlier."
"No problem."
For a while, we drank in silence. Up high the tips of the old pine trees swayed in the breeze like they were waving at the stars. Someone somewhere played Simon and Garfunkel a little louder than necessary. Otherwise the night was peaceful, nice.
"Good thing about the fences," I said eventually.
"Hmm?"
"Otherwise the neighbors would have had a wonderful time watching you trim the hedges in your boxer briefs."
He snorted. "True. Those fences aren't tall enough to keep out runaway brides, though."
I breathed in through my teeth, making a hissing noise. "A nasty invasive breed. I'd be surprised if anything could stop them."
He motioned to the neat line of hedges with his half-empty bottle. "This is how Dad used to keep it, all neat and tidy. Then Mom would plant flowers everywhere she could fit them. They'd be spilling out all over the place. Total chaos."
"Yeah?"
"I'm pretty sure she did it just to drive him nuts." A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "Every year she'd do a different color. All white flowers one summer, all yellow the next, and so on. Want to hear another of my embarrassing stories?"
"Hells yes."
"One year, I accidentally broke a lamp. I was throwing a ball around inside the house, completely against the rules," he said. "Anyway, I blamed it on the dog. This yappy ball of fluff Nell had begged them to buy her for Christmas. She even called the stupid thing Snowball."
"What happened?" I asked.
"Well, Mom knew I was lying about the lamp, but she couldn't prove it."
"What about your dad?"
A laugh. "He hated the dog too. Gave me the benefit of the doubt."
"Poor Snowball."
"Mm. He had to spend more time outside after that," he said. "Nell wouldn't talk to me for weeks and Mom was definitely not impressed."
"I bet. You sound like a terrible child," I joked.
"Hold on, I'm not finished." He turned my way, his smile definite this time. "So I was having a water fight in the backyard for my eighth birthday party. Had been planning it for months. I'd stockpiled all these water balloons and me and Eric spent weeks building these giant forts out of cardboard boxes. It was going to be excellent. Absolutely no girls allowed."
"And?"
"Mom planted pink that year. And not just light pink, oh no. Big bright pink flowers everywhere. They were hanging in baskets and filling pots. She went berserk with them, far worse than normal." He paused, drank. "You couldn't come out here without being struck blind by it all. It looked like a flock of flamingos had exploded."
"Oh, no," I cried out dramatically. My senior year drama classes were finally proving useful, thank god. "Your poor burgeoning masculinity and street cred. Gone!"
"Right? I was completely humiliated." He stretched out his legs, semi-reclining back on his elbows. "Eric wanted to dig them all up right before the party and try blaming it on Snowball. But I really didn't see how that could work twice."
"Probably a wise call."
A nod.
"You mom sounds awesome," I said with no small amount of wonder.
"Yeah. She was."
With no ace parenting tales of my own to share, conversation lapsed again. This time, however, it didn't feel awkward. We were just two people hanging out, star gazing on a summer night. It was all good.
"I do know you," he said quietly. "You're wrong about that."
My gaze jumped from the stars to him. Both equally stunning. His eyes shone in the moonlight, which was singularly useless. I couldn't read him at all. I needed more light to see his expression, so I could figure out where this was going.
"You've done nothi
ng but show me who you are since I met you," he said.
And that right there was the problem. "I'm not sure it's fair to judge me on recent events. The last few days have quite possibly been among the most bizarre and traumatic of my life."
"Lydia, you've broken into my house, punched a lying asshole in the nose, stayed with me when I didn't want to be alone, stepped in to help my sister's business, forgiven me when I behaved like a dickhead, cleaned me and my house up after a brawl, and pushed me into having rough sex with you."