Olivia (36 page)

When the last of the mulch was spread, she thought they were done, but Clete slapped a paint brush in her hand and pointed her in the direction of the scary, creepy concrete block restroom.
Eww!
She painted the outside while two, braver women painted the inside. Through teamwork and perspiration, they turned the drab green, gang-tagged building into a bright blue and yellow one free of markings. Olivia still wouldn’t set foot inside that bathroom, even if someone paid her a million dollars and triple-dog-dared her to do so, but at least it was pretty to look at.

As she washed up at the water pump, she smelled food, and when she returned to the picnic area she saw mountains of it—hamburgers and hotdogs and salads and brownies and beer—lots and lots of beer. Clete twisted the cap off an ice-cold bottle and handed it to her, and then grabbed one for himself and wandered off to bullshit some more. Everyone there was his friend, and everyone there loved him. The kids clambered around him and the women fussed over him and the men clapped him on the shoulder and shared man-style gossip with him. Here Olivia had been living with the hero of South for the past few days, and didn’t even know it. Huh. Will wonders never cease?

A woman not much older than Olivia handed her a plate of food. They sat at one of the new picnic tables with a few other women and their children. They were a rowdy bunch who seemed to know each other well, and they made Olivia feel as though she belonged. They peppered her with a few questions about herself, but she was amazed by what they already knew about her. But then again, everyone knew Eugene, and everyone knew George, and everyone knew Clete. So they knew her by association.

Kenny and his family showed up, as did Mel and her brood. Izzie and John walked by hand-in-hand and stopped to talk to Olivia for awhile. Carla came, as did Eugene and Chester, though Eugene parked his lawn chair on the perimeter of the hubbub and watched from a distance with Chester at his feet. Louise toted in a cooler full of half-melted popsicles for the children and handed them out. Within five minutes, every child’s chin was streaked in purple, orange, or red, or a combination thereof. Olivia stood back and watched it all, amazed in wonder. How had she missed out on all the community love and support flourishing in South? She had been living on the surface, desperate to break free, while everyone else there had been living on the inside, proud to be who they were, and where they were, living the life country songs are written about.

Clete came up behind her and said, “Thank you for helping today.”

She turned around and smiled at him. “You didn’t exactly give me much of a choice.”

“Would you have come if I had?”

“Probably not,” she admitted. “Thank you for knowing that and dragging me here.”

“Anytime.”

“So, you did all this, huh?” Olivia waved her hand, indicating the amazing park transformation. “Highly impressive.”

“Not by myself. There are some remarkable people in your community, Olivia. You should get out every once in awhile and meet them.”

She smiled. “I’m looking at one of those amazing people right now.”

“A long time ago, you asked me why you can’t hear the train whistle blow in Northside. Do you remember that?” he asked.

“I… yeah… what?” She remembered asking the question, definitely, but she had asked it in a vivid dream… Hadn’t she? As she looked into his eyes, and slipped into the omniscient blue pools, she realized the hallucination had been real. No wonder she had felt as though she knew him the first night they actually met. “Was that you?”

“It was.”

“What happened to the Walmart scooter?”

Clete ignored her question. Instead, he answered the one she had asked so long ago.

“Whether or not you hear the whistle has nothing to do with the trees or the buildings or how close or far from the tracks you are. If you’re looking to run, you’re going to hear the whistle blow. But, if you’re happy where you’re at…” He trailed off as he stepped closer to her to tuck a stray, wild curl of her hair behind her ear. His touch stole her breath. “I’ve never heard that train whistle blow… and I live three blocks from the tracks.”

“Daddy!”

Olivia turned at the sound of Allie’s voice and watched as the little girl flew into Clete’s arms. He scooped her up and covered her face in kisses and hugged her so tight it was as though father and daughter had been apart for a lifetime instead of only a few days.

“Ooh, I missed you so much, Monkey.” Clete squeezed his daughter tighter and kissed her cheeks again. Allie giggled and snuggled into him.

A tall, thin woman in breezy silk and low heels followed close behind. She brushed a cool kiss on Clete’s cheek. Ex-Wife up close and personal was even more beautiful than she had been in pictures. Olivia looked down at her own dirty track pants and stupid, retro Ms. PacMan t-shirt with the ketchup stain over her left boob, and felt like a total frump.

“Did you like my room?” Allie asked Olivia as soon as Clete set her down.

“Loved it,” Olivia said. “Better watch out, I may decide to live in it forever.”

“That would be
awesome!
Can Liv live with us?” Allie asked Clete, hopping up and down in excitement. “Please, Daddy! Please, please, please!”

“No,” Clete answered without even considering it.

“Aww.” Allie frowned. Olivia frowned, too. He didn’t have to be so rude about it.

“Allie’s bags are in the car. You
are
still taking her home tonight, right?” Snotty Ex-Wife asked. Her eyes swept over Olivia from head to toe in contempt, leaving Olivia to wonder if ‘taking her home’ meant bringing Allie home, or dumping Olivia off somewhere like a lost dog.

“Yeah,” Clete said with a glance at Olivia that didn’t make the lost-dog feeling go away. It grew more pronounced.

“We should go then,” said a man who had been standing on the outside of their awkward group. Olivia glanced over at him for the first time, and her heart catapulted into her throat.
Oh. My. God!
He was the other officer in the pictures with Clete! And he was with…
her?

But…

“What time’s your flight?” Clete asked him.

“Six in the morning,” Ex-Wife groaned.

“Well… drive carefully and have fun in Maui.” Clete gave Ex-Wife a stiff hug and shook Former-Partner’s hand. “Say good-bye, Allie.”

Allie hugged her mom and the man and ran off to play with her friends. Olivia and Clete stayed behind and watched his ex-wife and former best friend walk off hand-in-hand.

“Is that…?” Olivia asked.

“Yeah,” Clete answered.

“But I thought…” she trailed off.

“What?”

“Never mind.” She sighed. Now she was confused. “Why are they going to Maui?”

“Vacation. They go every year on their wedding anniversary.”

“Liv!”

Olivia whipped around, and her heart skipped a beat at the sight of him. Clete and the rest of the world ceased to exist as she ran full-speed and jumped into his arms. He caught her with ease, and kissed her as though they had been apart for a lifetime.

“George,” she breathed on a heady exhale, and kissed him more.

He moaned in longing. “I’ve missed you, Baby Girl.”

“Take me home and show me how much,” she whispered hot into his neck. Oh, god, she needed him.

“I should say hello to everyone first. At least to Clete.”

“Boo.” Olivia pouted and slid out of his arms, back onto her feet.

George held her close as they walked and talked. He didn’t care that she was dirty and probably smelly and dressed like a thrift store junkie. He loved her and made her feel special and included her in every conversation. He kept her supplied in beer and snuck in nuzzles and kisses, and she tucked her hand into his back pocket and her head onto his shoulder as they walked side-by-side. Loving George was like coming home. He was her Jack and she was his Diane, and before long he snuck her away to do as he pleased.

Once they got back to his apartment, they slowly undressed each other and their bodies became reacquainted as they danced in the moonlight. She turned around in his arms with her back to his chest, and as his hands cupped her breasts and splayed across her stomach, a hot, tight tension coiled inside her. His lips kissed and played across the back of her neck and down her spine, and as the music controlled the rhythm of their hips they became one body.

They danced wordlessly and made love breathlessly, with only their bodies talking as the moon slid slow across the night sky, tucking into the horizon. In the pink of early morning light, just before the sun came up, George laid her back onto the bed, and trailed his fingertips down her breastbone and around her navel. His eyes held hers as he spoke the first words of the night.

“Will you promise to love me like this forever?”

His question took Olivia by surprise, and she couldn’t answer.

“I’m in love with you, Olivia, more than I have ever been in love with anyone before. I didn’t understand it—any of it—but while I was home I talked to my mom. I told her
everything
—about my relationship with Nick and how I felt for him, and I told her about you, and about us, and about how you make me feel, and she thinks sometimes it’s not so much about being gay or straight, but about two souls connecting. And she’s right. You and I are connected in a way that would be pure insanity to ever throw away.”

George lifted her left hand and brought it to his lips, gently kissing and tasting her skin before adorning her finger with a sparkle of light. She drew in a breath that she didn’t dare exhale lest the moment evaporate into nothing more than a dream.

“George…”

The ring he slipped on her finger was not the traditional engagement ring with a single diamond. Instead, it was a platinum band with chips of diamonds circling all the way around. It was beautiful in its simplicity, it fit her perfectly, and it stole away every single word from her vocabulary.

“This is called an eternity band. I picked it up at this little antique shop in the Old Market while I was in Omaha. It’s from the early 1900’s, and according to the shop owner, the woman who first wore it lived to be 104.” He traced the band with his fingertip. “See how the diamonds go all the way around? They make it unbreakable. It will stay a perfect, never-ending circle, for all of eternity, just like my love for you.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said when she finally found her voice.

“Liv…” His eyes drifted down to his hand. As he watched his fingertips trail down her side and around her hip, she felt a part of him slipping away from her. She grabbed onto him, bringing his eyes back to hers.

“George?”

“I don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring, Baby Girl. I can’t promise you the sun will always shine, or the wind will always blow the way you want it to. I can’t promise I will always be the one holding you while you sleep.”

A rush of hot tears filled her eyes, shattering the morning light into glistening fragments as her heart ripped in two. “Is this…?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

“No.” He cupped her face in his hands and wiped her tears away with a soft stroke of his thumb. “This is not ‘goodbye.’ This is me thanking you for the incredible way your love strengthens me. This is me promising you that I will
never
stop loving you as fiercely as I do in this moment.” His hands wove into her hair as he brought his lips to hers, kissing her with a butterfly touch before kissing her cheeks and her eyes, along her jaw and her chin before returning to her lips to kiss the pattern again. His tears mixed with hers, the flavor of them bittersweet. “I promise you with my entire heart and with everything that I am that if there ever comes a day when I can no longer make love to you with my body, for
whatever
reason, I will forever make love to you with my soul.”

“George…” Her hands slipped around his waist to his hips as she lifted her body into his.

They had already made love all night long, but as they joined together and danced in the rays of the sunrise it was as though it was their very first time all over again, feverish in passion as their hearts united, vowing eternal love to each other. The last little empty corner of Olivia’s heart exploded with light, and she wept in joy.

*  *  *

George woke her up early to feed her an omelet stuffed with ham and cheese, French toast strips, and sliced strawberries in bed. They shared the food and sipped from the same cup of sweet, creamy coffee, and as soon as she finished eating, George removed the tray. She moved in to him to thank him for breakfast, but he stopped her and handed her a thick manila folder full of papers.

“What’s this?” She started to open it, but George placed his hand on top of the file and held it closed.

“I lied to you by omission, Olivia, and I hope you can forgive me. I also hope you will forgive me for what I’m about to tell you, but before I begin, I want you to know I only did this because I love you more than anything in the world,” George said.

“What did you do, George?” she asked and looked at the file in confusion.

“I butted into your life.”

She pushed his hand off the file and tried to open it but he stopped her again.

“I went to Omaha for Kitty’s, but I also went there to talk to a friend of mine. His name is Richard Collins, and he is a private investigator that I used on more than one occasion for my old job. He’s a good guy who’s smart as hell and knows how to be discreet. Clete and I contacted him awhile ago—”

“Clete?”

George opened the file and pulled out a picture as a means of explanation. The photo was of Toni Tennille Dinwiddie. More accurately, it was a mug shot of Toni Tennille Dinwiddie, but the name on the placard she held said Michelle Lynn Reed.

“She’s not your sister,” George said.

“I know that!” she cried in instant anger as her body quaked and her breakfast lurched in her stomach. Toni had
never
been Olivia’s sister. Olivia snatched the picture from George’s hand and ripped it into two, then whipped the torn pieces across the room. “Damn you, George!”