Slow Moon Rising (10 page)

I pulled into my parking place and shut down the engine of my Mustang. “Did you and Dad have a fight the other night?”

“I'm surprised you didn't hear us.”

“I left.” I gathered my book bag and purse from the seat beside me, all the while keeping my phone wedged between my shoulder and ear.

“It was not a pretty picture to say the least, and I'm sure her royal majesty got quite the kick out of it.”

I opened the car door. “Heather. If you're going to spend tomorrow night ripping Anise to shreds, I'd just as soon not go anywhere with you.” Heather remained quiet. I shut my door with a pop of my hip against it. “Okay?” I continued.

“You know, Ami . . . I've always been there for you. You'd think you could be here for me now.”

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry.

“There are things you don't understand because you're still young,” she continued.

I stopped walking, stared up at the brick and stucco building, watched several of my fellow classmates filing into the school. Talking. Laughing. Making beelines to first period.

Maybe, I thought . . . maybe I
could
talk to Heather about what Mom had told me.

“Heather, I'm at school now.”

First bell rang.

“So I hear.”

“I'm going to be late if I don't hurry, so I'll see you tomorrow after practice.”

I heard her sigh. “Hey, little sis . . . don't be mad at me, okay? I just can't wrap myself around Anise the way the rest of you have.”

“It's okay,” I said. “I love you, Heather.”

“I love you too, Ami. See you tomorrow afternoon. It'll be fun. I promise.”

Fun. Maybe. Sure. Why not.

But, more than that—hopefully—informative.

Heather has always been a sucker for Winter Park's Park Avenue, but no more so than during the Christmas season. Florida doesn't boast chilling weather in December but rather pleasant enough to sit outside the many coffee shops, restaurants, and cafés. Inside, stores brim with merchandise perfect for gift giving, and outside the brick-laid, live oak dotted streets are washed in colors from strings of seasonal lights and banners.

All that aside, enjoying Park Avenue has been the one thing Heather and I have had in common. It brings out the credit cards in her and the poet in me.

When Mom was alive, it brought out both for her. Dad's bighearted allowance meant her whipping a credit card out at every store, if we saw something we loved. We'd often sit outside the Briarpatch Restaurant, sipping on cappuccinos in the cooler months or enjoying decadent ice cream when it was hot (those days we sat inside). Being on Park Avenue now wasn't the same as being there with Mom, but—what with Heather looking so much like her and being so generous with Andre's credit card—it was close.

We started with Santa's White Christmas coffees and biscotti at Barnie's. Heather kept the conversation to my schoolwork, asking about the joys of being a senior and my dance troupe at school and the one at Straight to Broadway. She then asked the kinds of things people ask this time of year when they don't really want to talk about whatever it is that is on their minds: Christmas gifts.

“So what are you hoping for from Santa?” she asked, tipping her cup toward me as if it really held Santa's coffee.

I'd just bitten into my biscotti and was chomping away on it. To pass the time, I watched the white-blonde curls dance around my sister's temples in the afternoon breeze. She tilted her face up as she waited for my answer, closed her eyes, and allowed the moment to pass over her. She was so beautiful. Not just because she looked so much like Mom, but . . . I genuinely loved the color of her hair, the blueness of her eyes, the paleness of her skin. Mine was olive in tone whether I wanted it to be or not. As a ballet dancer, I'd prefer a fairer complexion, but we take whatever we are given in life and make the best of it. In my case, that meant staying out of the sunshine as much as possible during the summer months and out of tanning beds, which was the way so many of my classmates had taken to getting a tan.

Heather opened her eyes as I swallowed. I took a sip of my coffee and said, “I really haven't asked for anything. I mean, seriously, what do I need?”

“Oh, give me a break, Ami. You? Come on now. Surely you've mentioned
something
to Dad.”

I shrugged. “Not really. Clothes, probably. But nothing he'd pick out. I'll take whatever he gives me in the form of a
gift card.” Best, I reasoned, not to mention that Anise would probably do an excellent job at picking out the right thing.

“That's a stocking stuffer for Dad, and you know it.”

“I saw some boots on the Neiman Marcus website I wouldn't mind owning.”

She smiled. “Send me the link. When I get around to speaking to Dad again, I'll mention it to him.” She offered up a half smile.

“Thanks.” I sipped on my coffee, struggling with whether or not—and even
how
—to tell her about Christmas Day. “What are your plans for Christmas?”

Heather placed her hands flat on the round table between us. “We'll let the kids wake up and have Christmas around the tree, of course. Kim and I were talking last night about her having Christmas dinner over at her house this year. You
do
know that Christmas Eve is on Sunday, don't you? I'm sure we'll go to service as a family that night.”

“‘We' as in you and Andre and the kids or ‘we' as in our whole family?” I paused for a millisecond. “That would mean Anise too, Heather.”

Heather frowned. “Well, I
did
mean ‘we' as in our whole family. For one brief, glorious moment, I'd forgotten about Anise.”

I sighed. This wasn't going to go well. Better to avoid it altogether, I decided. I glanced over my shoulder and down the sidewalk filled with shoppers and sample goodies outside the open doorways, meant to entice those who walked by. “So,” I said, returning my attention to my sister. “Where shall we go first?”

She drained the last of her coffee. “You got out of that one, didn't you?”

I wiped my mouth with the small paper napkin imprinted with the Barnie's logo. “I don't want to fight, Heather . . . but I do want to talk to you about something. First, let's shop. Then we'll go to dinner. I vote for Pannullo's.”

“You always do.” She reached for her purse slung on the back of her chair. “And I always acquiesce.”

I laughed at her. Maybe today wouldn't be so bad. At least I'd get good Italian food and some of my shopping done.

I decided to drop the bomb on Heather just before I left her house for home. She had walked me to my car. We'd practically filled the backseat with shopping bags stuffed with packages wrapped in Christmas-themed foil paper. I turned at my opened driver's door to hug her, to tell her I loved her, and then said, “Heather, like I said earlier, I have to tell you something.”

Her blue eyes narrowed. “I'm listening. Suspicious that you've waited until now to ‘tell me something.'” She hooked her index fingers in the air as she quoted my words. “But listening.”

“Dad wants to spend Christmas in Cedar Key this year.” I spoke quickly and winced, prepared for the worst.

Heather's porch light barely reached my car, but even still I could see her pale complexion blanch before her cheeks turned pink. “Oh, he does, does he?”

“Heather, Dad has a right to say where he wants to spend Christmas.”

She gave me her best “are you serious?” look. “Have you been planning that line, Ami? Or did it just now come to you?”

I felt anger stirring inside me. “Why do you do that, Heather? Why do you treat me as if I'm stupid or something?”

“I suppose he's going to take
her
there,” she said in an obvious avoidance of my questions.

“Anise, Heather. Her name is Anise.”

“Keep your voice down. I don't want the kids running out here in their pajamas.”

“No, Heather. That's not it and you know it. Truth is, you don't want your kids to hear you yelling at their favorite aunt about a woman they have seemingly no problem with.”

Frustration at the truthfulness of my words washed over her. “I'll talk to Dad. Don't worry, Ami. You won't have to spend Christmas Day with Anise in Cedar Key. Not if I can help it.”

I inched closer to the inside of my car. “That's just it, Heather. I don't mind going to Cedar Key this year. I really don't. It'd be kind of like having Mom there. What with all her things. The memories of past Christmases spent there.”

“It took Anise all of—what?—ten seconds to totally redo Mom and Dad's bedroom. No doubt she'll have the beach house completely redone too.”

“Can you blame her?” I asked. “On either account?”

Heather's face took on a firmness I'd never seen before. Anger flashed from her eyes. “Yes, I can. She has no right being here. She shouldn't have married Dad. Any woman worth her weight in salt would know better than to marry a widower not seven months after his wife of over thirty years dies. Not to mention before she's even had a chance to meet his children. His grandchildren.” She looked around as if
to make sure no one was listening but me. “Let me tell you, Ami, I've got that woman all figured out, and I told Dad so.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I know the truth. She's nearly forty and never married. Never married? Women like that, Ami—just so you know—are the ones who have affairs with married men. Then, when all their options are used up and they are too, they latch on to a widower like Dad—handsome, well-to-do, established in his community, who knows nothing of her—and bam! They're married. I have no doubt whatsoever that she snared Dad while he was up there, knowing he was heartbroken and lonely. She seduced him into her bed and then convinced him they should get married so she could make all his middle-aged dreams come true.” She slammed her fists into her sides. “Sorry to have to put it like that, but you're old enough to know the wherewithal of life, Ami.”

I shook my head for what felt like ten minutes before I spoke. Before I could
even
speak. “First of all, Heather, yeah. I am old enough to know the ‘wherewithal of life.' Believe me. Second, you don't know what you are talking about. You seriously don't. I live with them, remember? Anise didn't
seduce
Dad. She
loves
him. I've never seen such love as the way she looks at Dad.”

Heather spewed in laughter, spraying my face in the process. I wiped my cheeks with my hands.

“You really are naïve, Ami. I love you, but Mom and Dad kept you too protected in the palace, princess.”

I pushed my sister's shoulder with my fingertips. “You listen here, Heather Dutton. You don't know anything even close to what you think you know.”

She pushed me back. “Don't you push me, Ami Sabrina Claybourne.”

I pushed her again. “I will if you keep being stupid. And you are. You've got issues, Heather. You need to see a therapist or something.”

She opened her mouth, and her jaw locked before she huffed and said, “What in this world are you talking about?” She waved her hands left to right, left to right. “No. I don't want to know.
I've
got issues?
You've
got issues, Ami. Especially if you think Anise Kelly is in
love
with our father.”

Her teeth had now come together and she spoke through them. My sister, who I loved so much and thought to be so beautiful, looked more like a monster right then than a china doll.

“And
especially
if you think I'm going to Cedar Key for Christmas. Or that
any
of us are.”

I dropped into the seat of my Mustang, reached for the door handle—which always seemed to be just out of the reach of my long arms and fingertips—grabbed hold of it, and slammed the door. I started the car, powered down the window, and said, “Oh, I'm going, Heather. I'm going even if Dad doesn't, so what do you think about
that
?” I watched her mouth drop open a final time before I turned to the backseat, rummaged through one of the packages, and pulled out a wrapped Ahava gift set. I threw it at her; she caught it. “Here! Merry Christmas!”

I jerked the car into drive and tore out of the semicircular driveway.

I needed to talk to someone. I wanted to talk to Dad, but that wasn't practical. Anise was out as well. Especially about this.

I called Jayme-Leigh, always my first choice after Mom. She didn't answer her cell phone, so I called the house. Isaac answered.

“Hey there, Ames.”

I loved my brother-in-law enough to allow him to call me by the pet name. But only from time to time.