The Best Week of My Life (7 page)

Yet walking through the store made us feel rich, and that was really the only purpose to go there. To be something you weren’t, at least for a little while.

Carter hung behind me as we moved further down the street, and my mom and dad walked ahead.

“So your mom and Henry don’t
do
anything while they’re here?” I asked him over my shoulder. I’d noticed they didn’t go out much.

Carter’s reply was loud in my ear. “No. Mom says she likes the ‘beach atmosphere,’ and Henry is happy wherever she is.”

I slowed and moved to his side, leaning in and softening my voice. “My parents are the same way. I don’t get it. I mean, it’s the beach. You should swim, or at least, dip your toe in the water.”

He didn’t respond to that, and I guessed there was no need.

We kept walking, passing by a dozen more clothing shops. Then my mom swerved in the doorway of one and the rest of us dutifully followed. This store looked like all the others, filled with fashions I had doubts women actually wore, marked at prices I had doubts real people paid.

“How do you think these stores say open?” I asked. Figuring their overhead costs in my head, I realized they’d have to sell a powerful lot of stuff to make the monthly budget, and yet every one we’d been in was relatively empty.

Carter flipped over the tag on a purse. It was an ugly thing – gold with rhinestones and a leopard print handle.

“Wow,” I said, reading over his shoulder.

He dropped it as if scalded.

“I think it pays to be realistic,” I said.

My arm through his, I led him through the store and back onto the sidewalk. My mom had yet to emerge. “I mean, if you’re going to spend a lot of money on something, it needs to be practical, and even then don’t be ridiculous. Say you need a car. Don’t buy one of those.” I pointed at the assortment of expensive automobiles. “If it gets you from here to there, then that’s what matters.”

I turned to Carter, and he gazed down at me. He was about three inches taller, right at six feet. “You okay?” I asked. He hadn’t said much, but then with me talking, what space had he had?

He tilted his head and tapped me on the nose. “You make me okay.”

That was a curious way to put it and the second time that day he’d said something like that. I didn’t understand it any more now than I had at the aquarium.

“How’s that?” I asked. I genuinely wanted to know. I’d never thought of myself as able to fix anything. In general, I usually messed things up.

He sat his hand on my shoulder. “By being yourself. By talking about cars and rich people and anything else.”

“But …” I let my voice trail off.

It seemed to me like Carter was always thinking, and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing because too much thinking can do damage to your heart. And I remembered what he’d said about why Carrie broke up with him – about how he was too sensitive.

Well, so what if he was. He was also patient and kind. I mean, he tolerated me, which was taking on a lot. He’d kept me from falling apart earlier. He’d made light of my mistakes. He was pretty well perfect in my opinion.

He took my hand in his and squeezed my fingers. “Like I said. I like you exactly like you are, and that makes me happy. I think this has been the best day,” he said.

I smiled. I liked giving Carter a “best day”. I glanced away from him at the milling crowd. “You know, for me, too. Despite the whole stingray thing. And I even think this is becoming the best week ever.”

He hugged me, and I leaned against him.

The best week of my life because Carter Pruitt had walked into it and actually liked me. How could I ask for anything more than that?

***

It occurred to Carter on the drive home that he could never go back to being who he was before Daphne Merrill landed at his feet, back to the lonely insecure seventeen-year-old who thought no one ever wanted him, back to doubt and uncertainty and apprehension over the future. Because she saw in him all the things he thought he was not, and that simple faith made a difference. A huge difference.

Yet it left him with questions, the biggest of which was, could he measure up to her ideal? Daphne had him on some pedestal, and how he’d gotten there was confusing. Part of it was her need to be rescued – in a lot of ways as her mother had suggested, by gallantry. The other part seemed to be a result of the example of her parents.

He liked Howard and Martha Merrill. He’d told her that. They treated him fairly, were generous to buy his meals and take him places. They’d shared pieces of their life with him. Yet their marriage was rock solid, unlike that of his parents, and so they were another high standard to live by.

What if it was too much? What if he, like his parents’, couldn’t make it work?

He kept his peace on the ride back, lost in his thoughts, climbing out of the car in the hotel lot to follow Daphne down the narrow hallway toward the stairs. But at the Merrill’s hotel room, it came to him what he should do.

He should talk to Howard Merrill. Daphne was his daughter. So surely, Howard was the best person to speak with about all these thoughts roaming around in his head. Besides, he had no one else. He certainly wasn’t talking to Henry Kozecky.

But the trouble was getting her dad alone, and so an hour went by before Carter found his opening. Martha asked Daphne to help her unload groceries they’d picked up on the way, and Howard stepped outside on the landing. “For air,” he said.

Carter trailed after him, the weight of Daphne’s eyes pressing on his back. He waited to speak until the door was tightly closed. “Mr. Merrill? Can I ask you a question?”

Howard Merrill looked at him beneath thick brows. “Absolutely.”

“It’s about me and Daphne.”

This changed her dad’s expression to a mix of curiosity and fearfulness. “Go ahead.”

Carter inhaled. “I … I like her … a lot. In fact, enough I want to date her, but I’m feeling a little … overwhelmed, I guess is the word. How do I be all the things she expects me to be?”

Howard Merrill chuckled, his eyes growing soft. “You won’t, Son, so don’t set that standard for yourself.”

Deflated, Carter stared at his feet.

“Now, don’t go there either,” her dad continued. “I know Daphne, so I know what you’re feeling. Her mother’s the same way. But, you know, much of what we struggled with in our youth we’ve worked through. However, it took time. There simply isn’t any easy, quick answer.”

Standing taller, he crossed his arms over his chest. “But that shouldn’t discourage you. It’s like taking a trip. You have to enjoy all the preparation and the travel as much as getting there. Really the arrival is a small and insignificant period of time in the grand scope of things, especially when so much happens between point A and point B.”

He laid a hand on Carter’s shoulder. “In so many ways, you remind me of myself. Martha was headstrong and apt to leap into things when we met, and yes, like Daphne, always somehow making mistakes, but that was what I fell in love with. Truth be told, that was what I needed. And it’s never been boring or given me any regrets.”

Carter swallowed nervously, his mouth dry, and curled his hands into fists. “One more thing,” he said. One thing huge to say, this being her dad. One thing he wanted more than anything to come true. But what if it didn’t what then?

“What if I don’t fall in love with her?” he asked. “Does it make a difference that I want to?”

A wide smile spread on her dad’s lips. “I think you already know the answer to that. I see it in your face when you look at her and in hers when she looks at you. Relax and give yourself time to realize it.”

“Carter?” The door swung open and Daphne’s head popped out. “You left.”

He turned around and took her outstretched hand. “I’m right here. Just talking to your dad.”

She stepped out the door and cold air gushed through the crack. “About what?”

“Oh, nothing. Guy stuff,” he said.

***

The darkness descended so thick it hid the horizon and everything along the beachfront but the steps immediately in front of me. The waves made their constant swish-swish, flooding outward and receding, such a soothing sound that every time we came to the beach I missed back at home.

I held Carter’s hand, his fingers enfolded in mine, his palm warm, and swung it back and forth in an effort to get him to lighten up. He was excessively gloomy, and after his happiness earlier, I didn’t understand why. So I thought I’d bring him out of it with more useless trivia.

“My favorite color is blue,” I said. “But not sky blue, more turquoise. You have a favorite?”

“Blue’s good,” he said.

Well, that had failed, so I tried another angle.

“But you can’t just pick my color. You have to pick your own. So if you like blue, that’s good, but what shade of blue?”

“The sky color’s nice.”

I formed a frown, something he couldn’t see in the darkness, and switched gears again. “You said you didn’t like cabbage. What else?”

He was silent a second. “Broccoli.”

I understood that. I could eat broccoli, but it wasn’t my favorite.

“Brussels sprouts,” he added.

“Me too,” I said. Brussels sprouts seemed like something only adults would eat. My mom and dad loved them. “What’s your favorite food?” I continued. “Mine’s chocolate cake.”

He thought for a minute. “Roast and gravy, I guess.”

“Your mom’s a good cook because the lasagna was great.” It really was. And she’d had garlic bread and Italian beans to go with it. And my mom had actually convinced her to play cribbage, though his mom hadn’t any idea how to play.

“She likes to cook,” he said. “Used to cook a lot for my dad.” He clammed up quick at mention of his dad, which made me want to know. It was, after all, the one thing he didn’t talk about.

“Carter?” I ventured his name.

“Hmm.”

“Can … can I ask about your dad?” I swallowed hard. “I mean you don’t
have
to say, but it seems like it bothers you.”

He stopped walking and pulled me to him. I laid my head on his chest.

“There isn’t much to say. They fought a lot. Mom said she couldn’t live like that anymore, so they divorced. Nothing happened, at least, nothing they told me. It was more they simply didn’t love each other anymore.” He spoke slow and deep, the pain evident in his voice.

And it came to me maybe what he was afraid of – of being like them, of falling in love and it not being real or lasting. I didn’t know if we were in love or not. It’d only been a few days. Yet it seemed like there was so much happening between us, so much possibility. And possibility was a positive thing.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice muffled by his shirt.
Sorry
seemed lame and worthless, but necessary to say.

“Not your fault,” he replied. “Not anyone’s fault, I guess.”

I pulled my head back, looking upward, and saw he was looking at me. Right directly at me. He lowered his face, and his breath blew hot on my lips, and moist and fervent. I sensed the trembling of his chin, the slight flutter of his heartbeat, and shaking of his hands. Something passed between us, electricity, fire, whatever you’d call it. I was awake and alive.

Then he jerked backwards, and almost stumbled in the motion. “I … can’t,” he said. “I like you, Daph, so very, very much. But … but I … I gotta think. I’m sorry. Can we go?”

However, it wasn’t
if
we could go anymore; it was him walking away and me keeping up. I willed the tears to stay inside. I hadn’t asked him to kiss me right then, so the fact he hadn’t shouldn’t matter. I hadn’t led him on either.

Yet maybe we’d said too much to each other these few days, made too many statements and shared too much. Maybe like he’d said, he wasn’t ready for a girlfriend.

And worse yet, maybe, just maybe, though he’d said different, maybe he wasn’t ready for
me
.

CHAPTER 7

It rained all night:  thunder and lightning, tempestuous winds, in essence, a torrential downpour. The kind that blocks out anything else in your hearing. And I was grateful at first because what was going on in my head was awful and heartsick and sad. If I could describe it in one word, I’d say I was miserable. Misery of my own making.

Yet after a while, I simply wanted the rain to stop; it seemed like until it did, my mood wouldn’t change. Nevertheless, just like my mood, the squall had set in for good.

My dad turned on the TV to prove it, and so we watched the weather over and over.

I don’t know why people do that. After all, you can see it’s raining, can see it’s not stopping, and yet you feel obligated to torment yourself with the evidence of it on the radar.

Then my dad announced it, and that made it final. “Gonna rain all day,” he said.

I sighed and my depression swirled around me. I’d seen no sign of Carter, though I’d glanced out the front window several times, knowing all along he’d get drenched coming up here. I wasn’t even sure he’d want to come at this point. We’d parted on such weird terms.

That was the only way I could describe it. Weird. He’d said goodnight at the door and disappeared, his head ducked low between his shoulders, and I’d gotten this image of an anchor sitting on his back. Could be he felt that way, and I sure hoped it was nothing I’d put there. But my gut said I had.

“Let’s play a game,” my mother said, interrupting my thoughts.

“Not cribbage,” my dad replied.

She scowled at him. “Of course not. I was thinking charades.”

My parents playing charades should really be recorded for all time. That way I could play it for my kids in the future and have a good laugh. I wasn’t much into laughing right then, but they brought it out in me. Dad standing on one leg like a stork. Mom belly dancing. I sucked at the game. I had two left feet. But participated as best I could, and it did help while away the time. A good two hours in fact.

We ended the game and all sat there staring at the blustery sky. Then my dad spoke. “And the rains came and the wind blew,” he said, quoting the Bible story.

My mom finished the quote, “And beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.”