The Fable of Us (23 page)

Boone’s mom had lived, and I guessed she still lived, a few miles in the other direction. I assumed he wanted to be close to her without being too close. I’d been more of the mindset that I wanted to be far away from my family, as far as the country would allow.

“How long have you lived in your place?” I asked.

Boone continued pruning with his back to me. I was temporarily distracted from the plants by watching him. Before the past two minutes, I hadn’t known Boone knew what it took to tend to a garden. To keep so many different types of living things alive and thriving. I couldn’t figure out if that was my impression because he’d never outright admitted to not knowing the root of a plant from its flower, or if it was because I couldn’t recall a single living thing growing outside or inside his mom’s trailer, a stray piece of crab grass included.

“I bought it from my uncle when I was eighteen, but I didn’t move in until a couple years after that.” Boone shuffled down the row of herbs, tearing off little bits of each and collecting them inside his shirt pocket.

“Why didn’t you move in right after you bought it?” I remembered Boone’s uncle who’d lived out here—crotchety was the way most people who knew him described him—but I’d never known Boone had bought his house from him.

“I wasn’t ready,” Boone answered, continuing down the garden, getting farther away with every shuffle.

I stood and wiped the tomato with my dress. “Can I see it?”

He was quiet. I was almost convinced he hadn’t heard my question until I noticed him nod.

“I’ve got to get some fresh clothes sometime this week, right? Before your family realizes I really do own nothing more than the shirt I’ve got on my back.” His tone was light, but I knew there was a heaviness in his meaning.

I was just about to bite into the tomato and eat it like an apple when something flashed at the other end of the garden. The sun was catching something just right. My eyes watered from its brightness, but it didn’t stop me from moving closer. Every step I drew closer, the light became less severe, and it was bearable when I was a handful of steps back.

It was a sign made out of different kinds of metal and welded together by someone clearly skilled with a blowtorch. I’d only known one person in my life who could wield a blowtorch like most kids did a pencil.

“What is this?” I hollered at Boone, who was still fussing with the herbs.

When his head tipped in my direction, his back went rigid. “It’s a sign.”

I crossed my arms and continued to study it. “Thank you for that world-shattering revelation, but my question had more to do with what it says.”

“What do you mean?” Boone lifted himself up but stayed where he was.

“‘Clara’s Garden,’” I read. “That’s what the sign says.”

“It does.”

I couldn’t stop staring at the sign, puzzled over why it was there and what it meant. “Is that Clara as in me . . . or a different one?”

I saw Boone slowly making his way in my direction, but there was no urgency in his steps. “I’ve only known one Clara in my life so far.”

“So that means . . .?”

“Yes, I named the garden in your honor.” His bootsteps padded closer, cushioned by the thick layer of chestnut soil.

My eyebrows pulled together. “Why?”

Boone came to a stop. “Because you always wanted a garden of your own, and I wasn’t sure if you’d ever have one. So I guess this was my way of making sure you did.” He tugged his shirt free from his pants and wiped the soil from his hands. The soil was so rich with nutrients and water, more of it streaked his hands than brushed clean of them.

“Really?” I asked, brushing the sign with the tips of my fingers. It was hot from baking in the sun, but none of the metal edges were sharp.

“Really. Plus, you were responsible for making me feel that I was worth more than what the rest of the world was going to give me. My goal was to give these kids here at this center the same thing you did for me, so in a lot of ways, I couldn’t have given the garden a more fitting name.”

“You didn’t need me in order to do great things with your life, Boone. This center proves that.” I looked at him and lifted the tomato.

“No, but I did need someone else to believe in me first, before I could believe in myself. That person was you. You gave me the time of day when no one else from your circle would. You showed me that I was worthy of someone’s love and trust. How you saw me . . .” Boone shook his head. “It was like you were seeing me for the man I could be, instead of the floundering boy I was. That was what this center was about, that was what you did for me, and that was the reason I named the garden after you. No other reason.” Boone’s gaze fell on the sign, and almost immediately, the skin between his brows creased. He looked away.

“Whatever your reasons,” I said, smiling at the sign before turning and inspecting “my” garden, “thank you. I did always want to have a garden, and you were right—I still hadn’t gotten one.”

Boone stretched out his arms. “Well, you’ve got one now.” His arms fell back at his sides. “If only in sentiment, since Clara’s Garden now belongs to The First Bank of South Carolina.”

“Sentiment works just fine for me.” I felt shy when I turned to face him. I wasn’t sure why; shy was one of the only emotions I’d never felt around Boone. “Thank you.”

He plucked a tomato of his own from a vine before lifting it to his mouth and taking a bite. “You’re welcome.” He did another slow spin, inspecting the garden, before tipping his head toward the gate. “You’ve seen it all now, and fresh clothes aren’t going to pack themselves. Ready to move on?”

“No.” I shook my head. “But I don’t think I’ll ever be ready, so we better go before my feet take root with the rest of the plants in here.”

“I guarantee you you won’t have to worry about the same thing happening at my place,” Boone said as he moved toward the gate.

“What does that mean?”

“It means the house might have a roof that doesn’t leak and a functioning air conditioner, but my place isn’t exactly what most people would consider welcoming. Or inviting.”

“What would they call it?” I asked as he held open the gate for me.

“Marginally hospitable.”

“I’m sure it’s just fine.” I finally took a bite of my own tomato. It was so juicy and sweet, it made the ones I’d bought at the farmer’s markets in California seem like they were red circles of air and seeds.

“As the owner and sole occupant, I’m not even sure it’s fine, but thank you for being nice.”

When we came out of the garden, Boone turned toward the back of the center’s property and started powering in that direction. I wasn’t in heels, but even in my flat sandals, I couldn’t match his pace. It felt like he was marching off to war and couldn’t wait to get there so he could get it over with. I huffed and puffed, trying to keep up.

We hadn’t been walking/tromping for more than a minute when a structure came into view. It wasn’t as bad as Boone had led on, not even by half. Like the center, it looked freshly painted and the windows gleamed. It didn’t have much of a yard, but the landscape made up for it. From the looks of it, there were just as many old oaks draped in Spanish moss surrounding the perimeter of Boone’s place as there were on the entire fifty acres of my family’s estate.

Boone glanced back, and he broke to a stop when he saw me so far behind. Apparently he’d been too distracted to realize he’d left me in his dust.

“Sorry,” he said as I got closer. “I guess I’m in a hurry.”

“A hurry for what?” I asked, trying not to sound like my heart was beating through my chest.

Boone’s gaze shifted from me to his place. A sigh followed. “To get this over with.” Offering nothing else, Boone continued toward his house, his pace slower.

The old truck he used to drive in high school was parked off to the side, looking exactly as I remembered it, save for the addition of another rust spot or two above the wheel wells. There was a detached garage behind the house, just as well tended, and in addition to the glider on the house’s front porch, I spotted two rocking chairs on the other end.

Boone caught me looking at them as we climbed the front steps. “For when I have company,” he explained, like owning two rocking chairs was a crime. “Every decade or two.”

I fell a step behind him thanks to my lungs being about to give out from the sprint through the field. “At least the kind of company that doesn’t come tiptoeing through your back door in the middle of the night, clutching their panties in one hand and their stilettos in their other, right?”

Boone’s back seemed to stiffen, but I couldn’t tell if that was because he was wrestling a set of keys from his pocket or because of what I’d just said. It had been more in jest than anything, but jokes aside, there had been no shortage of girls who’d wanted in Boone’s pants when we were teenagers. I could only imagine how much longer that list had become since he’d become a man.

“You can just wait out here for me and stay cool. I’ll be quick, and the furniture out here is the most comfortable stuff I have anyway.” Boone turned the lock over with the key, but he didn’t open the door. It seemed like he wasn’t sure how to open it with me standing right beside him. “You should wait here. I won’t be long.”

“It’s a furnace out here, Boone. I think I’ll wait inside.” I wiped at my forehead to prove my point. It was a rare day when it was anything cooler than a furnace during the summer in Charleston, but I could tell he didn’t want me to go inside. That made me want to go in that much more. It wasn’t like I was going to snoop through his dresser drawers or anything. I just wanted to see the place he’d spent the last five years of his life in.

“I turned the air conditioning off when I left a couple of nights ago, so it’s going to be stifling inside. At least out here you’ve got air movement,
and
I’ll bring you a cold glass of lemonade. Unless your preference has changed and you’d rather have sweet tea now.” Boone rubbed the back of his head with his hand, his other hand still stalling with the key in the lock.

“I lived eighteen years in the South and never once did I take to drinking sweet tea. If that didn’t have the ability to change my tastes, seven years in the anti-sugar state certainly won’t either.” I leaned into the side of the house and gave him a pointed look, but he wouldn’t look at me. “I’d love a lemonade, thank you, but I’d love to have it inside. I’ll take my chances with the stifling.”

Boone exhaled.

“Come on. Do you think I’m really going to care if you’ve got a bunch of dirty laundry piled around the place? Or if every dish you own is piled up in the sink?” I shook my head and waved at the door. “I just want to see inside for a minute. No snooping around, I promise. I won’t round up the dirty underwear and start a load of wash either. Or run a sink of soapy water for the dishes.”

“You? Willingly clean up a mess—someone else’s or your own?” Boone pushed on the door, opening it a crack as he smiled at me. “Yeah, that’s something I’m not worried about.”

My mouth dropped open right before I gave him a shove. “Is that your way of hinting that I’m messy? Because in case you were wondering, it hasn’t been the Cleaning Fairy visiting and picking your clothes off of my bedroom floor.”

Boone’s eyes rolled. “Just that you’re not a clean freak. Nothing more, nothing less.” The door was halfway open, but we were both still on the porch.

“We all have our downfalls,” I said. I might have been a tad on the messy side as a kid, but that had changed, which he might have realized if he’d stopped to think about who’d picked up his discarded clothes and shoes every morning.

“Yeah, and we all don’t grow up with a houseful of maids trained to clean up our every mess, further enabling us.” Boone fired a wink at me before lunging through the door before I could take a swing at him.

I was too busy chasing him, pretending to be outraged, to realize I was inside his house until I was halfway through the living room. Boone had already disappeared down the hall and rounded into what I guessed was his bedroom when I slowed to a stop to look around. Boone’s house. I was standing in the middle of it.

That was something I never thought I’d be doing, not after everything that had happened between us.

In keeping with the outside, the inside was clean and tidy and decorated with a clear focus on function rather than aesthetics. A sofa, a couple of chairs, and a few side tables and lamps made up the living room. From what I could see of the kitchen, a basic wooden table surrounded by four chairs was all there was to it. There were a few pictures staggered around the walls and tables, mainly ones of him and his sister from when they’d been kids, and one that looked to have been an old senior photo of his mom.

“If you want to make a truce, I’ll brave coming out into the open to grab you the lemonade I promised,” Boone shouted from inside the room he’d disappeared into.

I lifted my eyes to the ceiling. “Truce.”

He stuck out his head, studying me to gauge if I could be trusted not to fire my half-eaten tomato at his face. Tempting . . . but nonetheless, I lifted the tomato before backing up and slowly setting it on one of his end tables.

From the look on his face, it was like I was holding a loaded weapon and could open fire on him at any second.

“Truce,” I repeated, cocking an eyebrow.

Boone grinned, then stepped the rest of the way out of the room. “Darn.” He pulled something out from behind his back. “I was really hoping you were going to go the other way with that.” He tossed the tomato into his other hand. “Because my tomato’s bigger.”

“You men and size. Even when it comes to your produce.”

Boone tossed me his tomato when he walked by. I caught it, but barely. “You say this like you’re surprised.”

“Not really,” I replied, setting his tomato beside mine while he headed into the kitchen. “Just restating the obvious.”

He laughed as he opened the fridge. “Make yourself at home . . . or at least make yourself comfortable.”

“Need any help?” I started for the kitchen. Like the rest of the house so far, the walls were painted white.

“I think I can manage a couple glasses of lemonade. You know, growing up without an army of maids and all.”