The Belle and the Beard Page 9

Not sure if I've mentioned this enough but you don't have to bake anything. I would appreciate fewer treats to choke down.

  It should come as no surprise I enjoy putting big things in small, tight places. If I wanted a Hobbit fantasy, I would've installed a round door. Good catch though.

  My sister is pregnant with twins and happily miserable about it. Apparently she misses beer, not that I remember her drinking much of it before the pregnancy.

  I have residential appointments in town all day. I'll head out around nine or nine thirty at the latest, and be back around five.

  –L

  Linden,

  Pregnant with twins allows her to be happily miserable. Is this your first time around as an uncle?

  Is it possible you don't have a taste for sweets? Could that be it? Because everything I bake cannot be dreadful. While you have said the baked goods aren't strictly necessary, I am honor bound to recognize your hospitality. You'll have to put up with the molasses cookies I've made for you today.

  Also, please don't feel obligated to give me your hours. If I don't see your truck in the drive during the workday, I'll assume you're out for a bit.

  I am curious, however, about your thinly veiled commentary about big things in small places. Seems like an intentional choice, no? Is there something specific you're getting at?

  ~ J

  Jasper.

  Did I hear you running a saw this morning? What are you building now?

  The cookies had no sugar in them. Not a single grain. Can you tell me if this is an alternative lifestyle thing? Are you still cooking everything in a crockpot? Because that's not helping matters.

  Is there a way for you to work out your honor without leaving "treats" in my refrigerator every day? It's really starting to remind me of the birds and mice Sinatra leaves at the door whenever he's around. Thank you but please make it stop.

  I'm going to keep telling you my schedule because it forces me to figure out where I'm going before I hit the road in the morning. You shouldn't have to keep watch. I'll be out from ten to six tomorrow.

  Last thing—you know what I'm getting at. You know you're living rent-free in my head too. Enjoy that shower. –L

  Linden,

  Yep, that was a saw! I'm tackling the porch now. It was getting on my nerves and I needed a break from painting.

  Here's the thing: you don't like the birds I murder for you—or treats, as I call them—but I'm using your shower and laundry and I need to drag something dead to your door as a show of my appreciation.

  Should I chop your wood instead?

  While you mull that over, enjoy some authentic homemade southern biscuits.

  Also, the crockpot is not up for conversation. Please accept that it's an important part of my life.

  Why do I get the impression you'd wander in the woods all day if you didn't check that schedule in the morning?

  ~J

  Jasper.

  Three things.

  1. Don't even think about chopping wood. I've seen the way you wield a crowbar. An axe is out of the question.

  2. The biscuits weren't terrible. They were burnt on the bottom and undercooked in the middle but they weren't terrible. I'm not sure if I've grown accustomed to your baking and anything edible seems like a blue-ribbon biscuit or these are somewhat good.

  3. Why isn't your husband rebuilding that deck for you?

  –L

  Linden,

  Because he lives in Northern Ireland with his fiancée.

  ~J

  Jasper.

  Why the hell is he in Northern Ireland?

  –L

  Linden,

  My husband moved because his boss was appointed Special Envoy to Northern Ireland. It's a plum gig and being asked to join a new envoy as chief of staff is an offer you don't refuse.

  I stayed because my work is here. More than that, there was no reason for me to join him. There's nothing for me there.

  ~J

  Jasper.

  None of this makes sense. I'll be home around three or four today. You can explain it to me then. Stay away from that axe.

  –L

  9

  Linden

  "You're emotionally constipated."

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, my fingers pressing hard against my skin as I traced the notches and grooves of my brow. My eyes squeezed shut, I heaved out the kind of thorny, painful breath one could only gather when your mother made bananapants comments while strolling through the lanes of the local garden center.

  "What…does that even mean, Mom?"

  "It means you're backed up. You don't let anything out."

  Maybe she was high. My mother popped cannabis gummies all the time. Oddly enough, it prevented her from reverting to her naturally scatterbrained ways. "That's the situation, huh?"

  With a young spruce tree between us, she jabbed a finger in my direction. "Don't get smart with me, young man. And don't think you can tell me you're thirty-six so you're not a young man anymore. As long as I'm alive, I'll always be older than you and I'll never be able to breathe easy while one of my babies is unhappy."

  "Believe me, Mom. I'm happy. I'm great." I peered at her, not knowing what the hell this was about. When she offered no explanation, I continued, "What brought this on? What happened to replacing your bayberry bushes? Have you been hitting the candy already? It's pretty early for recreational use, don't you think?"

  Bent over a collection of five-gallon azaleas, she replied, "We can do two things at once and I'm bringing this up because I can sense it, Linden. I feel it in my heart and that has nothing to do with my medicinal herbs. You're holding something in and you're giving me a distinctly unsatisfied vibe." She stood, a hot pink azalea cradled in her arm. She had nowhere to put it but she'd squeeze it into her garden somewhere. "Why don't you just tell me what's going on? Is it one of your intimate friends? Or…more than one of them?"

  It felt as if screws were turning on either side of my jaw, drawing everything tight and close and on the verge of snapping, but there were two reasons I allowed this conversation to continue instead of enforcing some boundaries.

  First—and the thing most people found surprising about me—my mom was one of my closest friends. Not in some fucked-up way where I leaned on her to wash my clothes and cook my meals in exchange for the smallest insight into my life, but as an actual friend—or whatever it was when you and your parents were finally adults and your interactions weren't moored by the stagecraft of parenting.

  Obviously, as this moment proved, the stagecraft of parenting was never completely absent.

  The meddling aside, Mom and I shared some of the same interests and I enjoyed her perspective on things. She was big into gardening and my job was looking after trees. She volunteered with several conservation causes in the area and I supported those efforts. She championed lots of small, local restaurants and bakeries and I liked to eat. It worked out for everyone when she didn't pull a lunch hour shakedown.

  Second—and probably most importantly—I wanted to fast-forward this day. I wanted to get back home and get in front of Jasper before I lost my damn mind. I needed the full, unabridged story of how she came to be married and living an ocean away from her husband.

  Since my mother would carry on this conversation as long as she wanted, I couldn't dodge her and expect it to get me out of here any sooner.

  Even on the topic of intimate friends.

  Ever since my mother let herself into my hotel room and encountered me in the middle of a sweaty, sticky pile of pansexual skin the morning after my sister's wedding last summer, she'd made the occasional pointed statement about my romantic life. The overarching message was one of support, but at the same time she was growing weary of my avoidance of serious relationships. She wanted me to settle down and she didn't mind needling me about it when she got the chance.

  I inclined my head. "There's nothing going on. Nothing to tell."

  She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips in a grim mate
rnal smile that invited me to go ahead and lie to her face. "Have you met someone? Is that why you're distressed today? Someone new?"

  The quick answer was yes, I'd met someone, and yes, she was the source of most of my problems right now.

  But I hadn't met someone the way my mother wanted me to meet someone. I had a painfully beautiful belle of a neighbor who shouldn't be allowed to use power tools or kitchen appliances without supervision. She was naked in my house every day which meant she was naked in my dreams every night but she was also the pain in my ass intent on poisoning me.

  None of this was tracking in the direction my mother wanted and it wasn't what I wanted either. I liked chill, uninhibited people who understood I wasn't looking for anything serious.

  Jasper was serious like dynamite. Every moment with her was explosive and there was a very good chance one of us would die.

  For reasons that had nothing to do with self-preservation, I still liked her. I still wanted to understand her marital status and the circumstances of her arrival next door, and if given the chance, I wanted to get her under me. That was all it would take to get her out of my system.

  My mother cleared her throat, arched her brows up. I rubbed my forehead again. "Is that really the conversation we need to have right now?" I crossed my arms over my chest. "We need to find a replacement for those bayberries and I have two tree warden stops to make today. Can we set this aside for another day?"

  "You'll only be more backed up with emotional shit the longer you wait," she muttered.

  "Is there a different metaphor you could use? Literally anything else? I'm not a fan of this one."

  Very much ignoring me, she peered at a five-year-old dogwood that was much too big for her yard. "Has it ever occurred to you," she started, strolling down the aisle again, "that every time you've been presented with a path in life, you take the solitary one? Even if it means you're forging your own trail and blindly hacking your way through the woods?"

  A headache was gathering behind my eyes, a dark, heavy cloud of pressure born from too little sleep and too much coffee. I squinted in response to the pain but that only diffused it into my temples, the base of my neck. The smart course of action involved leaving this greenery, drinking a ton of water, eating a meal that didn't come in a cup from Dunkin' Donuts.

  Yet I stayed here, my fingers flexing and my head throbbing, my throat dry and my body strung tight from too many days spent wondering what the hell was going on with Jasper. Whether she was all right. How anyone could leave her and leave so abruptly. It seemed abrupt to me. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe…I didn't know. Maybe there was an explanation, like she was hoping he'd come back for her. "There's something wrong with that? I had no idea. No one ever mentioned it."

  My mother whirled around and ducked under the branches of a lilac tree to face me. She folded her arms over her chest, her persimmon cardigan clashing with the thunderous glint in her eyes. She stared at me until I was certain that thunder was real, that it was rumbling in my ears and threatening to kick up a downpour.

  "Linden, listen to me. Of all my babies, I've given you the most time to find your way. You were the last to arrive and you did so well when I stopped expecting you to follow anyone else's path."

  I stared at my mother, unmoved by the millionth reminder that I pulled up the rear of the Santillian triplets on all things, born about thirty minutes behind my brother and sister and damned to a lifetime of last-place comparison.

  She tapped her index finger twice as if hammering her thesis to my sternum. "You've never been in a rush like Ash or lost like Magnolia but you have been alone—and I don't believe that's what you truly want from your life."

  "And that's why I'm—what is it, full of emotional shit? Because I'm alone? As you love to remind me, I have plenty of friends."

  "I don't have to explain to you the difference between that kind of company"—she pinned me with the most unimpressed stare in human history—"and meaningful emotional connections."

  I was very interested in offering a quip about sex being an especially meaningful connection if you did it right but I could still hear her thunder inside my head and she would totally send me to my room without supper. Even if I lived in my own home and cooked for myself.

  "All right." I jerked my shoulders up with as much acquiescence as I had to offer. "You make some fine points. I will think about them. Sorry for worrying you."

  "Oh, no, no, no." A brisk laugh cracked out of her as she dropped her hands to her hips. "No, Linden, you are not getting off easy with a hangdog shrug and some 'sorry, Mom.'"

  "What did you have in mind?"

  After flaying me with a stare, she crossed to the autumn annuals arranged on waist-high tables. She didn't need another dozen chrysanthemums to clutter the front steps but I wasn't going to be the one to take up that fight.

  "Your father and I are celebrating our fortieth anniversary this year," she called over her shoulder while I trailed behind her. "We haven't finalized all the details yet but we're throwing ourselves a big party. We didn't want to wait for our fiftieth. That seems like a terrible way to tempt fate."

  "Don't say shit like that." I shook my head as she gave a quick shrug and tucked a few strands of hair over her ear, as if she hadn't thrown a mortality grenade into this discussion. "Just…don't say shit like that, Mom."

  "We won't be around forever. There's no reason to pretend otherwise."

  "I know that. I get it. Okay? But we've covered a fuckton of messy topics today. I'm going to need you to hold the circle of life convo for another time."

  My mother offered a series of grumbles, sighs, and harrumphs before returning to fully formed words, eventually saying, "We're planning a party for November or December. Probably November because we don't want to compete with holiday gatherings and your sister's due date."

  "That sounds delightful." I was aiming for sincerity with that comment but also hoping like hell I didn't have to help plan the menu or hire a band.

  "You won't have to do anything other than show up," she said, and that wasn't the first time my mother had more or less read my mind. "But I expect you to bring someone special. Someone you care about." She tossed open her hands. "Or two people. Whatever your arrangement is, as many people as you want to love, Linden. Whomever your heart chooses."

  Of all the fucking things, the memory of Jasper crying on her porch chose this moment to flood my mind.

  What the actual fuck was that?

  Just…fuckkkk. No. Not that.

  Jasper aside, I didn't want to experience any form of heart-choosing. I wasn't like my brother or sister. My heart didn't choose anyone because it didn't want anyone. My heart loved solitude with some fun thrown in when the mood was right. My heart craved the predictable cadence of the earth moving through seasons. My heart wanted to beat free of entanglements.

  My family was enough for me. I had my siblings and the families they were creating. That was enough. It was plenty.

  "Mom, I hear where you're coming from," I said with as much patience as I could manage. "And I appreciate it, I do. But look. It's almost October. I'm not going to meet anyone and develop this epic relationship before your anniversary party."

  "Yes, you are."

  That was it. Just "Yes, you are" and a firm bob of her head and a pert grin that made me stand up taller and straighten my shoulders.

  "And don't think you can bring a hookup friend or someone you met that week and play it off like you're mad for each other," she added. "I will figure it out. I know these things. I am your mother and you've never successfully lied to me once. I've let you think you've successfully lied to me but I always know. You will not pull that kind of stunt at my party."

  Oh, for fuck's sake.

  My parents weren't the kind of people who imposed their expectations on us as kids or adults. We were always free to pursue our own interests and goals without much backseat driving. The rough side of that coin was the rare event in which they did levy an expectation.
It was so uncommon that rising to the occasion was never in question.

  But I couldn't do this for her. I couldn't. More than that, I didn't want to do it.

  And Jasper Cleary had to get the fuck out of my head right now.

  "Mom, really, that's extremely ambitious and—"

  "And if you don't," she cut in, "I will make it my job to find someone for you. As you know, I had no problem doing that for your sister and I'll be happy to do it for you."

  That wasn't an option. Nope. Hard pass. It'd been amusing to watch my mother take charge of my sister's romantic affairs but there was no way in hell I wanted firsthand experience with that kind of inquisition.

  "Mom, get real. That won't be necessary."

  Another crisp nod. "Because you'll make an effort at meeting someone."

  "No, that's not what I mean," I said. "It won't be necessary because I'm not Magnolia and I don't need you setting me up on dating services or launching surprise blind date attacks."

  "You're right. You're not Magnolia." My mother grabbed two purple mums from the table, her arms now overloaded with plants. She wandered away but returned quickly with her goods in a wagon. "Magnolia had her own emotional shit but she wasn't busy pretending she was better off alone. You, my darling son, are full of very different shit."

  "You're asking a lot," I said. "You're asking me to meet someone tomorrow, pretty much, have a ton of intense feelings, and bring this person to your party. That's a crazy timeline."

  At this point, I couldn't get Jasper out of my head. All I could think of was the press of her lips and her hungry little hands yanking up my shirt. It wouldn't stop. I ignored it just the same.

  "It seems like a lot to you because you've determined people are too risky, too much work."

  That wasn't true. Not at all.

  She reached for another purple mum before glancing up at me. "Prove yourself wrong for me and give me that as a gift."