In Stereo Where Available (25 page)

When I got out of bed the next morning, Jerry was already sitting at the kitchen table with his parents, chatting about golf and drinking a cup of coffee. His pink sunburn had already faded into a nice-looking tan. As I wandered into the kitchen, he smiled at me and got up from the table, kissing me on the cheek. He smelled like wintergreen shaving gel.

“Good morning,” he said cheerfully. “Hey, get your shoes on. We need to get on the road.”

“Do I have time to get some breakfast, at least?”

“If you insist. Get your shoes on, anyway. We can have breakfast outside.”

“Outside?”

“Yeah, it’s a nice Florida morning. Trust me.” He smacked me on the butt and gave me a nudge toward my sandals. As I slipped them onto my feet, he pulled the back door open and in his best Rhett Butler voice said, “Phoebe, will you please join me on the piazza?”

I looked out into the backyard. “I don’t see a piazza.”

“Yeah, my parents are cheap. Say, you want an orange? You can eat them right off the tree this time of year.”

“Sure.” I followed Jerry over to one of the orange trees and started to pull one off of one of the bottom branches.

“No, not that one. That one’s not ripe.”

I looked at it. “How can you tell?”

“Color and shading. Anyway, the ones closer to the top of the tree get ripe first. I’ll show you.” He pulled himself up onto one of the lower branches and slowly climbed his way up the tree.

I put my hand up against my eyes to shade them. “What on earth are you doing?”

“I’m getting breakfast. What does it look like I’m doing?”

“It looks like you’re getting ready to break your neck.”

“Oh, that’s overrated. I’ve already done that once.” He picked an orange and started descending back through the branches. At the bottom he flipped the orange over and showed me the navel on the bottom. “See? Look at the shape of the navel. That’s how you can tell it’s ripe.”

“Really? Jeez, they never tell you
that
at the grocery store. I know the thing about pressing at the top of the cantaloupe, but I never heard the navel thing.”

“Local secret. Here, you try.”

I laughed. “You want me to climb that tree? I don’t know.”

“Come on, it’s easy. Don’t tell me you’re willing to commit breaking and entering on school property, but you’re not adventurous enough to climb an orange tree.”

“You
actually committed the breaking and entering. I was only an accessory.”

“Oh, just go.” He put his hands against my waist and steered me toward the tree. “I’ll spot you if you fall.”

I climbed up a few branches, dodging the bees that buzzed around between the leaves. About eight feet up, I reached for an orange and looked down at Jerry. “Is this one okay?”

“Nope. That one would taste like battery acid.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. My parents have been living here for like twelve years, remember? I know my oranges.”

I sighed and climbed up a few more feet. “Keep going,” Jerry called.

“I’m not sure I want an orange this badly. How about this one?”

“Nope. Look at that navel. Nowhere near.”

“Jerry, I’m like fifteen feet up. You can’t even
see
the navel.”

“I’ve got a well-trained eye. No, not that one, either.”

“How about this one?”

He squinted and made a little acquiescing nod. “Yeah, that one looks okay.”

“
Finally
.” I climbed back down the tree quickly. “You’re nuts. I’m not doing that again.”

Jerry sat down with his back against the tree trunk and started to peel his orange. “You city folk don’t understand the value of a little hard work.”

“City folk
. You’re from Maryland, same as me.” I sat down beside him and stuck my thumb into the top of the orange peel.

“Yes, but you’re from Takoma Park. I’m from Lusby. I spent the first fifteen summers of my life dangling chicken necks in the bay to catch crabs while you and your kind were buying them off the back of a truck.”

“Excuse
me
. You’re the one who thinks carry-out is too much work when there are a zillion delivery—” I pulled my orange in half and something fell out into my lap. I let out a little screech, thinking it was a bee.

“Something wrong?”

“Yeah, there’s something in my orange.” I stood up and brushed off my shorts, then bent over to pick up the thing that had fallen to the ground. It was a diamond ring.

“Oh, you got one of the lucky ones,” said Jerry.

I held it in my palm and looked wide-eyed at him. He nodded earnestly, eating a section of his orange. “I told you I could tell by the navel,” he said.

I looked down at the ring in my hand, then back up at Jerry. Finally he laughed, carefully balanced his orange skin-down in the dirt, and shifted forward onto one knee. He took the ring from my palm and reached for my left hand.

“I love you, Phoebe,” he said. “You’re the best doggone thing that ever happened to me, and I want to be with you forever. Will you marry me?”

I swallowed hard. “Of course I will.”

He slid the ring onto my finger, and as I held my hand up in front of me, I thought of Madison, the tears beading her eyes, her impossible hopes made real.

We got back into town late the next evening, surprised to find that an inch of snow had fallen in our absence. The plants were a little droopy, and the floors were wispy with cat hair, but everything was otherwise quiet and normal—from Jerry’s perspective, at least. As I stepped into the foyer and looked over the living room and kitchen, letting the cats rub up against my legs, I realized I was standing in the house where I would live with Jerry as his wife. It was exciting and disorienting at the same time.

He went across the street to pay the teenager who had watched the cats, and I waited for him, sitting on the sofa without taking off my coat. When he came back inside, he grinned at me and leaned against the wall to kick off his snow-crusted sneakers.

“Is it
that
cold in here?” he asked.

“No, it’s fine. Why?”

“You’ve still got your coat on.”

“I’m going to head home in a minute. Lauren’s been watching the animals for almost a week.”

“Oh, she can handle them for one more night. It’s almost nine o’clock. Just stay over here.”

I tucked my hands between my knees. “I don’t know. I don’t want to take advantage of her.”

He hung his coat in the closet and shrugged. “You’re not. Just move your animals over here tomorrow. Solve that problem once and for all.”

“Then you’ll be stuck dealing with them all the time.”

“Not if you come with them.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re over here half the time anyway. And we’re going to get married, right? So they’ll all be over here sooner or later. So will you, and—” He put his hands on his hips and gave me an appealing look. “I’m asking you to move in with me.”

I folded an arm over my waist and bit my knuckle. “Oh.”

“You don’t really want to go back, do you? Sleep alone all week long? Make dinky little one-person dinners? I mean, what’s the point in both of us living like we’re single when we don’t have to?”

Lauren would have a million answers to that question, but I didn’t have even one. The truth was, I’d fallen asleep in Jerry’s arms for four nights in a row, and the idea of going back to my apartment and sleeping alone sounded downright repellant. I could have moved in with him that night and never looked back. But it wasn’t quite that easy.

“Lauren’ll be mad at me,” I told him. “She’s already afraid I’m going to move in with you and stick her with the rent. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“So give her a month. Say you’ll pay it through January. She’ll be able to find someone else, Fee. People do that all the time.”

I gnawed my bottom lip and looked around the room. I wanted to be with him, I’d said yes to his proposal, and yet there was still a part of me asking,
What about giving up my own space? What if something goes wrong? What if I find out it really is too good to be true?

He walked over to me and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Sleep on it, okay? You don’t have to decide tonight, but stay the night anyway. We’ve been up since six. We’re both tired.”

I smiled at him a little. “Not
that
tired.”

He grinned back. “Well, let’s go to bed anyway.”

The next day, while Jerry was out grocery shopping, I loaded Tristan and Isolde’s cage into the front passenger seat and the guinea pig and rabbit’s box into the back and left them in the spare bedroom at Jerry’s house, closing the door against the cats and leaving a note taped to the freezer door. And when I came back a little later with Lucy the iguana and an armful of clothes on hangers, I found half of the bedroom closet already empty, for me.

“We need to talk,” said Lauren.

“I know. I was going to catch up with you after dinner.”

“I’ve got time now.”

She closed the file folder on the table in front of her and turned toward me in her chair. She still had her work clothes on, her smooth bluish-gray suit and suntan stockings and black high heels. Behind her black-framed glasses, her green eyes were sharp and businesslike. I wondered if this was what it felt like to be sitting across a restaurant table from her on a date, watching her mentally checking off the boxes of the application form in her head.

“Where’d all the animals go?” she asked.

“I took them over to Jerry’s. I was going to tell you. Thanks for taking care of them, by the way. Listen, I’m not running off on you. I’m going to be here another month, and then I’m moving in with him. February first.”

“I thought you said you weren’t going to go off and stick me with the rent.”

“I’m not. It shouldn’t be that hard to find a new roommate. I can ask around if you want.”

She stood up and walked over toward me. “Damn it, Phoebe. You’re out of your mind. You’ve known the guy all of three months. He could be a psychopath for all you know.”

“He’s not a psychopath. He’s a nice guy.”

“Yeah, sure. You
said
you weren’t going to do this. Not two weeks ago, you told me I didn’t have to worry.”

“Well, I didn’t know. I didn’t realize he was going to ask me to marry him.”

Her eyes widened, and her gaze dropped down to my hand. “Oh,
God!
”

“Anyway, obviously one of us is going to move out eventually. That’s the whole reason why we’re month-to-month in the first place. You’d do the same thing if one of your guys worked out. I’m giving you a month, okay? That’s as fair as I can make it.”

“Yeah, that’s really fair. It must be really nice for you to just stand there and tell me how great a deal I’m getting, since you’re about to get a house in Kensington and free rent for the rest of your life.”

“Free rent?” I folded my arms in front of me. “That’s a little snotty, don’t you think? I
work
, you know. And he’s not exactly a millionaire. You know what I think?”

“No.
What
do you think?”

“I think you’re jealous. I could tell you I’d pay half the rent for the next six months and you’d still be just as mad at me. You’re just angry that I got an A on a test I didn’t study for.”

“Oh, bull. I am not.” She sat down in my armchair and kicked off her high heels. “I’m glad for you. Really.”

The living room fell silent around us. Without the animals, the room seemed empty, like a house on moving day. Lauren stretched her toes out in her stockings, the maroon nail polish still perfect, her calves shapely and long in the muscles, like a tennis player. There was something a little babyish about her bottom lip, the way it tucked under the top one. She ran her hand along her cheek, her fingers slipping up under her glasses for a moment before resting at her temple.

“I just want the same thing everyone else wants, you know?” she said.

I nodded. “I know.”

“Why does it have to be so hard?”

“Maybe you should try looking for a guy who’s not perfect.”

She smiled wearily. “You think I should lower my standards?”

I thought about that for a moment. “No,” I said. “Just add in another category. Keep looking for all the same things, plus something to forgive him for.”