The Belle and the Beard Page 6

  "Yeah, we're doing this. You're in my basement. You can answer a damn question."

  He shifted to face me, holding out his hands and letting them drop to his sides. "I'm gonna grab these last two boxes and then I'm leaving. You happy now?"

  "Not in the slightest."

  He tipped his head to the side as if he needed a better look at me. "Are you really upset about this? Or have you decided this is the sort of thing you want to be upset about and you play the part real good whenever you get the chance? Because it seems like you haven't experienced a true emotion since you realized you can manipulate people with those plastic smiles and fake-sugar comments."

  My heart lodged in my throat. I tried but I couldn't speak around it. Couldn't form the only defense I ever had—my words.

  "Yeah. That's what I thought." He bent, wrapped his arms around the remaining cartons, and left me alone in the basement.

  A minute later, I heard the front door close.

  I sat down on the stairs, my elbows on my thighs and my head in my hands. Nothing was working for me this week. Nothing was going right anymore.

  First it was the water heater and its assorted problems. This house needed serious work and there was no way I could finance all these projects on my own without steady employment. While I did have a few offers, most of them were of the political commentator variety, but creating a talking head persona out of my on-air scandal wasn't the path for me. I wasn't even particularly good at the mechanics of television—hence the hot-mic screwup—and the idea of it made me cold. Being penned up with the other squawking politicos and scrabbling for five uninterrupted seconds of airtime was my last resort.

  I didn't get into politics because I wanted to make it seem like the sky was falling as a result of every little political maneuver. I didn't come here for entrenchment and tribalism, or purity tests.

  A long, long time ago, I was an idealist. A believer. I thought change was possible and that people did this work for the purpose of serving the greater good.

  A few weeks ago, I was a master campaign strategist. A weapon of political destruction. I had the personal phone numbers of everyone who was anyone and I wasn't afraid to call in favors. All that in my hot little hands.

  Now…well, now I was persona non grata in a big way. I was exactly what Linden accused me of being. Everything was an engineered moment, a sound bite, a photo op. Always a political maneuver.

  I had a run-down old house which I couldn't afford to repair. Not the big stuff, anyway. If it was only a matter of ripping up the shag carpets and tearing out the weird cabinets, I'd have this locked down. But I couldn't rewire a house or replace turn-of-the-century plumbing.

  It was a mess but it wasn't like I could go home. No, home was nothing like Hogwarts—help wasn't granted to those who asked.

  Even if I did return to Georgia, my pride and principles slashed and burned, it wouldn't make anything better. I'd get the same old bullshit as always, the same toxic stories about where I belonged, what was good for me, what I deserved, and the same trap of shame and powerlessness.

  That place was like falling down a well. I could always see the light but it didn't matter because I'd already screamed myself hoarse and worn my fingers down to the bone trying to climb out.

  Home wouldn't help. Even if I was allowed to stay there rent-free—doubtful—I'd be endlessly crucified for everything I'd done since leaving there almost twenty years ago.

  Earning a college degree? Elitist.

  Working for a progressive candidate? Baby-killing devil worshipper.

  Moving to D.C., sharing a bed with a man before marriage? Harlot. I refused to repeat the word they'd use if they knew I'd also shared a bed with a woman before marriage.

  Bad-mouthing that candidate's lactose intolerance on live television? Shrew.

  That last one though…I wouldn't be able to fight that.

  Home wasn't an option, and that was an ancient ache but it didn't trouble me. I'd solved that problem ages ago. There was no sense being sad about it now.

  Selling Midge's house was an option. Even in this condition, the market was ripe enough to leave me with enough cash to get through a few years without a paycheck. If I played it right and made the place look a little less like a forgotten fallout shelter and more like an exciting fixer-upper opportunity, I'd walk away with enough money to reinvent myself.

  All I had to do was bide my time and keep my ear on things, and I'd have my choice of campaign gigs.

  That sounded fantastic but it also required me to sell the house. To hand it over to someone else and never return again. I wasn't sure I could do that. I wasn't sure I wanted to. It had taken me two years and a personal disaster to acknowledge Midge's death in a real way. Selling her house meant accepting it and I was nowhere near prepared for that.

  Hell, I teared up every time I found another Country Crock tub filled with expired coupons or buttons or matches from restaurants she'd visited back when matches were still viable swag. I shed a tear or two when I ripped out the raspberry carpet in her bedroom, which she'd loved and treasured to no end, and again when I found a load of her navy blue nylon knee socks in the dryer, cold and waiting all this time to be paired. I cackled and cried over the boxes of All-Bran in her cupboards and the coffee can of Allen wrenches labeled L-shape things under the kitchen sink. And I didn't think I could stay in my skin after discovering the plastic bag filled with all the Mother's Day cards I'd sent her over the years, from the crayon-scrawled homemade ones to the drugstore For a Special Aunt variety as I grew up. There were Christmas and birthday cards in there too, and photos my mother must've sent from graduations and other celebrations.

  I couldn't walk away from the only safe space I'd ever known, from Midge.

  There was no solution to this problem for me, no amount of get-it-done to get this particular task done. I couldn't fix this, and that realization, more than the home I couldn't return to and the aunt I couldn't say goodbye to and the gut-punch email I'd ignored for nine days, knocked the air out of me.

  7

  Linden

  Well, I was an asshole.

  I'd known it when I stomped up those basement stairs. Known it when I cleaned up the mess from the broken box. Known it when I'd hopped in my truck and drove to the liquor store forty-five minutes away, the one that stocked the good white ale from Clown Shoes Brewery. And I knew it when I looked out my kitchen window and caught sight of Jasper sitting on her back porch, her shoulders shaking in the unmistakable shudder that accompanied sobs.

  That was my fault. All my damn fault.

  I didn't stop to think. I hooked my fingers around the beers and made a beeline across the backyard. I didn't know what I was going to say but I knew I couldn't watch anymore. I couldn't do it earlier today, I couldn't do it now. And maybe that meant I was all the things Jasper accused me of being. Maybe I was a terrible neighbor. But I couldn't sit back and watch her cry out here, all alone.

  She sat on the edge of the porch, her legs folded in front of her and one arm banded over her waist while she kneaded her forehead with the other hand. Loud, hiccupping sobs filled the night air—and made my arrival more stealthy than I'd intended.

  I had to announce myself. It was that or wait until her tears slowed enough to notice me here, standing sentry to her meltdown.

  Couldn't do that either. I couldn't just be here, I had to do something.

  What the literal fuck was wrong with me? For real. What the fuck.

  I set the beer down on the porch's battered floor, hard enough to grab her attention. "Hey, Jasper." I snagged a folded bandana from my back pocket and held it out to her as she lifted her head. "Sorry about, you know, everything."

  She plucked the bandana from me and pressed it to her face. "Oh my god. Linden, seriously, I can't right now."

  "I'm not—"

  "Can we do this tomorrow? Please?"

  I shook my head. "I'm trying to tell you—"

  "I can't fight with you tonig
ht and I can't just sit here and take it while you yell at me either."

  I sank down beside her. "Would you shut up for a minute?" She sniffled. "I brought beer."

  She dropped the bandana, just enough to eye the quartet of tall cans. Her brows lifted before she resumed mopping her face. A time that bordered on painfully long passed with only the sounds of early night mingled with her sniffles and shuddered breaths between us. It was a warm evening for this point in September, the breeze mild and dry. Hoots and calls echoed from the forest.

  Then, "I have wine." Jasper held up an unopened bottle. "I don't need your beer."

  "When did I say I was sharing any with you? I just said I brought it."

  This pulled a splashy, hiccupping laugh from Jasper. "I can live with that. If you'd brought a cheese plate and refused to share, things might be different."

  "That's your end zone? A cheese plate?"

  "Oh, yeah. I'd fight you for that." She patted the porch floor, its paint nothing more than a faded suggestion of color now. "No one sits on my ramshackle porch without sharing their cheese with me."

  I cast a glance over the structure, its wood planks rotted in some spots, warped and jutting up from the surface at others. "Goddamn, this place is one problem child after another."

  Her shoulders shook as she pressed the cloth to her eyes again but her sobs seemed to mingle with laughter this time. "It's like you're physically incapable of keeping these observations to yourself, Linden." She glanced over at me. "Like, for once, do you think you could not call out my shit? Just once?"

  "I didn't mean—"

  "I know what you meant. You came over here after being in your clean, sturdy house with its fancy hot water and reliable electricity, and you can't not stare at the deck that's five minutes from collapsing under us."

  I freed one of the beers from its ring and popped it open. "Sorry about that. And what I said earlier too."

  Jasper dropped the cloth to her lap and shifted to face me. "Is that why you came over? Because you thought I was—I was upset about this afternoon?"

  I jerked my shoulders up in agreement as I sipped.

  "I wasn't crying because of anything you said." She reached back, grabbed the wine bottle by the neck. "I was crying because I don't have a corkscrew."

  That didn't make sense. Not even a little bit of sense. No one became this upset over inaccessible wine.

  I set my beer down and pushed off the porch to reach into my back pocket. "I can take care of that for you."

  "Why am I not surprised to hear this?"

  I pried open my Swiss Army knife and beckoned for the bottle. "You could've come next door and asked to borrow a corkscrew."

  With the cork freed, Jasper held out her empty glass. "The last time I went over there, you insulted my baking."

  "Your baking insulted me," I replied, filling her glass.

  "See? This is why I didn't ask you. I didn't need another round of unwelcome commentary."

  I returned to my spot on the porch floor while Jasper tucked into her wine. "You would've changed your mind about that if I had a cheese plate."

  "Do you?"

  I mentally paged through the contents of my refrigerator. There wasn't much. "No."

  "Don't tease a girl like that. Can't you see I'm up to my ears in issues, Linden? Don't dangle cheese in front of me unless you have the goods."

  She wasted no time putting that wine away and soon held out her glass for a refill. "There's this little market around the corner from my apartment. They sell cheese plates for one. Just a little assortment of cheeses, some apple slices and fig jam, a bit of bread and nuts. Whenever I was in town and had the night off, I'd pick up one of those. Even knowing exactly what was in it, I don't think I could perfectly recreate it. I don't know why. It just wouldn't come out the same."

  "Really is your end zone," I murmured.

  She replied with a quick shrug. "You don't have to stay. You've uncorked my wine and saved me from attempting to saber it with the axe I found in the garage—"

  "Jesus Christ, Jasper."

  "—which is an adequate apology for your little rant today."

  "Please don't use that axe for—for anything. Okay?"

  "I do not need your permission." She turned her gaze toward me now, her brows lifted and her eyes softer than I'd ever seen them before. Probably the wine at work. That was it. Nothing else. "This thing really is five minutes from falling apart, isn't it?"

  I glanced around the weathered structure. "Yeah."

  "It took me most of the week just to fix up the side steps, and since we're on the topic, why does a small house need so many entry points? The side door, the back door, the front door. It's bananas. Just one door, in and out, that's all I need." She frowned at the floor. "It would take all month to tackle this thing. My god." Her frown deepened. "I guess I have the time. There's gotta be a YouTube tutorial for it."

  "Is that what you were hammering? Those little stairs on the other side?"

  She nodded slowly. "Mmhmm. Since I was replacing the broken glass in the door, it seemed like the next logical task."

  "How'd it go?"

  "I only did it wrong three times. I think that's probably good." She cut a look in my direction. "You were listening to my banging?"

  Two things were true right now. One, Jasper was a mess. A hot mess but a mess nonetheless. I'd lived a lot of low days, and I knew breakdowns like the one I walked into weren't the result of a missing corkscrew.

  And two, I didn't hate her when we were sitting here and talking like this. I didn't hate anything right now.

  "Couldn't miss it if I'd tried."

  "Still not sure why it bothers you so much that I'm here."

  "It doesn't bother me," I replied quickly. It bothered me in many complicated ways, none of which I could explain to myself, let alone Jasper. "I'm…I'm concerned. This place is in bad shape. I wouldn't be comfortable staying here for long." Since I enjoyed making things worse, I couldn't stop myself from adding, "I wouldn't let my sister stay here."

  Jasper took a sip, blinked at me over the rim of her glass. I could almost sense her coiling up to strike—and seeing as I was more than a little perverted when it came to this woman, my pulse quickened in anticipation.

  "You have a sister."

  "Yeah. Magnolia. We're triplets."

  "Triplets," she repeated, nodding. "Well, that's nice."

  "Something like that."

  "And you decide where and how this sister spends her time?"

  I almost—almost—said Magnolia had a husband for that now but stopped myself with a long pull of my beer. Now empty, I set it aside and reached for another. "If my sister was living in this place, I'd get my ass over here and help her fix it up. It's the right thing to do."

  "Is it though? I'm sure your sister is capable of looking after herself or requesting support when she needs it. Why is it incumbent upon you to insert yourself into the situation?"

  "You're missing the point."

  She shook her head. "I think I'm seeing it rather clearly."

  "You're seeing what you're choosing to see. Sometimes it's not that complicated. It's helping someone out, even if they have a hard time asking for that help." Before she could interject with another twisted remark, I added, "You know who always inserted herself into situations? Midge. The first year I lived here, I couldn't get her to leave me alone. I started thinking I'd made a huge mistake buying my place because I couldn't go a day without her banging on my front door over one thing or another."

  Jasper wanted to continue debating me. She wanted to make her point and make it hard enough to be sure it stuck. I saw it in the way her lips parted, poised to fire back with another explainer on my overbearing behavior. It was in her eyes too, narrowed in contempt. And her hands, my god. Her hands were frozen in an I'll explain your problems to you gesture.

  Yet she dropped those hands to her lap. "What? Why?"

  "Any number of reasons. She was going to drag the weed
whacker out of the shed, did I mind if she trimmed around my driveway? She had an extra jug of milk, did I need some? She thought her electricity was flickering, was mine? And whatever it was, she was mad about it. Like, the power had personally offended her by going out for a second and she wanted to recruit allies for the fight."

  "That sounds like Midge."

  "It took some getting used to. When I moved here, the last thing I expected was a neighbor who yelled at me when she had extra milk. It was so confusing."

  "Tell me more."

  "She was very concerned that I'd be hosting a lot of loud parties. She provided me with a copy of the town's noise ordinance and the fines for violations so I knew she meant business."

  "That old bird loved her ordinances and bylaws, didn't she? I keep finding town council meeting agendas covered in her notes and remarks for the public comment sessions." Jasper laughed, her eyes warm and her mouth soft. The beauty of it hurt. It made me ache. "I went to a few of them with her when I was a kid. She said it was important to keep a close watch on elected officials because they lost their sense and their spines when they got elected but they grew an iron grip on the purse strings."

  "She'd bang on my door at the crack of fucking dawn to give me a rundown of the meeting the night before and—"

  "She didn't know how to sleep in! She didn't know how to get a minute more than her six and a half hours of sleep and there was no way in hell she'd just lie in bed for an extra hour."

  I refilled Jasper's glass when she pushed it toward me. "Loved mowing the lawn at six in the morning on Saturdays. It was religion to her."

  Jasper was quiet for a minute as she considered the wine. "She had such a good heart. Even when she was impossible. Even with all her nutty quirks. She'd help anyone, anytime."

  Even if they said they didn't want it.

  As much as I needed Jasper to face that fact, neither of us were going to be proving any points tonight. We'd stopped hurling insults and we'd managed to share each other's presence without resorting to violence. And seeing as Jasper was gut-twistingly beautiful with her blotchy cheeks, swollen eyes, and slightly buzzed smile, I'd swallow my own fist if it meant a few more minutes with her, just like this.