Bowled Over (7 page)

“Kathy Cooper, you have no right to speak to me that way,” Jaymie said, her cheeks flaming with a mortified blush that was spreading down to her neck. “You should really watch what you say to me, you know,” Jaymie said, her voice
trembling, “or you’ll be sorry.” How she’d be sorry, Jaymie didn’t know, but she was humiliated and furious and had to say something.

Craig Cooper, his expression dark, strode toward them as Anna approached Jaymie’s party hand in hand with her little daughter. The confluence of new arrivals broke up the argument. Craig angrily whipped his wife’s blanket off the ground and folded up her chair. He grabbed her arm, talked to her in low tones, and moved a ways away, setting up their spot off the walkway, just down from Jaymie’s group.

“What was that all about?” Anna asked.

“That was one more incident proving Kathy Cooper’s hatred of me,” Jaymie said, watching the couple, who appeared to be arguing.

“Kathy Cooper?”

“Yeah, Kathy and Craig, her husband,” she said, motioning toward the couple. “
You
know. At least Craig seems to have some good sense.”

Anna looked toward the two and frowned, but as Valetta claimed Jaymie’s attention, she spread a pretty pastel plaid blanket on the grass and set down their little wicker basket. It was one Jaymie had found for Anna, and she had filled it with children’s melamine dishes and pastel vintage linens for the Joneses. Tabby then insisted on having her fairy wings attached, and she fluttered around while Hoppy barked at her.

As Valetta went back to her brother, Anna tugged on Jaymie’s sleeve. “We need to talk,” Anna said, shooting worried glances toward the Coopers.

“Okay. What’s—oh, wait; there’s Becca!”

Arm in arm, up the walkway from the docks, came Becca and her new fellow. Jaymie examined him from afar, wondering if this would be brother-in-law number three. Number
one had remarried and now had a family, and number two had moved back to England, leaving Becca a poorer but wiser woman. This guy was older than Becca. He looked to be in his early fifties, with a trim gray beard and sunglasses, and he wore cargo shorts, a short sleeve shirt and a Tilley hat.

“Jaymie, this is Kevin Brevard. Kevin, this is my sister, Jaymie.”

“Hello, Jaymie, so nice to meet you,” he said, holding out his hand, then pulling Jaymie in for a hug. He smelled nice, like a bottle of allspice, and had a faint English accent.

They chatted for a while, and he gratefully shared her tea, doled out into melamine mugs. He didn’t sit down on the ground. Instead, he had a walking stick that folded out into a stool, and he sat on that while Becca fussed around him, making sure he was comfortable. Tabby took to him immediately, and he picked her up to sit on his knee and told her a story while they waited for the sailboat race to begin.

Becca pulled Jaymie aside. “Well?” she said.

“Well what?” Jaymie said, with a deliberately blank look. When Becca made a sour face, Jaymie laughed. “Of
course
I like Kevin. He seems really nice.”

“He is. And he’s…kind.” Becca chewed her lip while she watched Kevin and Daniel talk. Daniel was pointing into town, toward where his house was. “We went to see Grandma Leighton on the weekend, and she took to him so fast! You know how she can be; no one is good enough for you or me. But Kevin told her a joke about a parrot, a vicar and a barmaid, and she was howling with laughter. She took me aside and told me to marry him.”

“That’s a little fast, isn’t it?” Jaymie said, watching her sister’s face.

Becca had a round face, and right now an earnest but undecided expression, her mouth pulled down, her eyes
squinted. She fiddled with her long string of red, white and blue beads. But at Jaymie’s assertion, she nodded, and said, “Of course.
Too
fast.” She turned to Jaymie. “What about you and Daniel? How is that going?”

“I like Daniel,” Jaymie said, “but…” She trailed off as she saw Joel Anderson and his girlfriend, Heidi, walk over and first talk to Kathy and Craig Cooper, then move on to Valetta. Heidi, a pretty, slim blonde, bent over to talk to Brock’s kids, then took his daughter, Eva, by the hand to some open grass and showed her how to do a cartwheel.

Becca followed Jaymie’s line of sight, and her lips tightened. “You’re not still pining after him, are you? Joel is a jerk.”

“Why do you always do that?” Jaymie said, rounding on her sister. “Do you think I’ll magically one day agree with you and hop away transformed?”

Becca put her hand on Jaymie’s arm. “I’m sorry. I should know you have to get over this in your own time.”

“I’m almost there, Becca, really. Just leave it alone.”

“Okay, I just…” She trailed off and shrugged.

“No, I’m fine. I don’t miss him, I don’t want Joel back. I think I miss the naïveté I had, that my feelings were true and returned, that I had nothing to fear, that it was all real.”

Becca nodded. “I get it. I’ve been there.”

They rejoined the others, and Heidi skipped over to Jaymie and squealed, jumping up and down. She grabbed Jaymie’s bare forearms in a tight grip. “I’ve been dying to talk to you! Guess what?” she asked, then continued, “I can’t wait for you to guess. Joel and I are getting married this December! Isn’t that great?”

Four

J
AYMIE SAT ON
the blanket watching, through the railings along the walkway, the brilliant sun sparkle off the St. Clair. Sail craft from the marina were jockeying for position at the harbor mouth, the starting point for the race, anchoring until the official start time. Each sailor was likely testing the wind, hoping it would stiffen and praying it wouldn’t die.

Daniel eyed her with concern, and that was irritating the heck out of Jaymie. After Heidi’s announcement, she had done pretty well, she thought. She’d hugged her new friend and congratulated Joel. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, intent on not alienating Daniel with her irritation at his concern. But it reaffirmed that she was still a ways away from being ready for something more serious with him, despite his obvious interest.

The race, part of the week-long St. Clair Regatta, started, and the boats sailed off in the stiffening breeze. Jaymie and
the others watched, but once they disappeared downriver, it would be an hour or more before they were back in sight.

“Want to go for a walk?” Jaymie asked, turning to Daniel. He took her arm, and they strolled off with Hoppy.

There was a carnival atmosphere in the riverside park, and they wove in and out among groups of picnickers. There were lots of folks dressed up, and a proliferation of Uncle Sams and Betsy Rosses. There was even one clever Statue of Liberty costume.
They really should have a costume competition
, Jaymie thought, pointing out to Daniel two Uncle Sams playing Frisbee. She giggled at the incongruous picture, as Hoppy jumped and quivered, wanting to join the game.

To deflect the inevitable conversation about Heidi and Joel, Jaymie told him, as they walked, about her troubles with Kathy, and how she really did not know what it was that had started the feud between them. He talked about his own high school days, how he was the techie nerd who took a lot of flack, which changed when he got into college and found friends with whom he could really bond. It had been a revelation to him, he said, that he didn’t need to be friends with everyone, and that he would always find people who liked him just for himself.

Again Jaymie was reminded of Daniel’s stellar qualities as a man and a friend. He was someone whose advice she should be seeking, she realized suddenly. She moved closer, and he put his arm around her. It felt right to be walking with him this way, and it was comfortable. “How do you think I should handle the trouble with Kathy?” she asked, looking up at his beaky profile. “If I had any clue what I did that upset her, I might be able to fix it, but she won’t tell me!”

“I think you’re on the right path. Just keep hold of your temper. I had an employee once who liked to push his
coworkers to the brink. Then, when they blew up, he could act innocent, like they were the ones who had the problem, not him. She seems to be trying to irk you enough that you’ll blow up.”

“I never really thought of it that way. She’s doing a good job,” Jaymie said. They had reached the far end of Boardwalk Park, where a large gazebo, built in the style of a Victorian bandstand—octagonal, with ornate gingerbread and a railing around it—provided a stage for local dignitaries and school bands. Jaymie and Becca had agreed that it would be too crowded and too noisy near the gazebo, preferring the farther end of the boardwalk for their picnic ground. They were right, as the mass of people milled around listening to the fife-and-drum corps of a local Revolutionary War reenactment society. She and Daniel listened for a moment, but when one of the fife players screeched an especially sharp note, she grimaced, and said, “Let’s go back. What do you think of Becca’s new boyfriend?”

Their conversation returned to Kevin as they strolled back, hand in hand; they agreed that he seemed to be a nice guy from their limited observation so far. When they got back to the others, Jaymie noticed that little Connor, Kathy’s nephew, was nearby, sitting with his mom, Kylie Hofstadter, and an older man Jaymie assumed was the late Drew Walker’s father, Andy. Craig was sitting with Kathy, but the two were not talking; instead, both appeared to be texting, while Kathy kept shooting unhappy glances at both her husband and her sister.

Once Jaymie sat down, Valetta tugged on her T-shirt.

“Look down there,” she murmured to Jaymie, pointing down the walkway to a tall, shambling fellow in ripped shorts and enormous, unlaced work boots. “Johnny Stanko.”

Jaymie kind of remembered him from high school.
Stanko was always a troublemaker who started fights, skipped classes and smoked in the washroom—and not just cigarettes. He was the local pothead, a grade or two ahead of her. Each grade had taken him a couple of years to complete, so he was older, probably in his late thirties by now. Hands shoved in his shorts pockets, gaze turned out to the river, he seemed to be just ambling with no goal in mind. But on his current course, he would inevitably meet with Craig Cooper, the object of years of his relentless bullying.

“And here we go,” Jaymie whispered, as Stanko came up even with Craig and Kathy Cooper and stopped to stand and watch a freighter ease upriver in the shipping channel. “Surely he must know what he’s doing? He can’t have stopped there accidentally.” There was a tension in Stanko’s powerful shoulders that warned that he knew exactly who was behind him.

Kathy said something to Craig; he shook his head. She leaned over and said something more vehemently. He ignored her. She stood and walked over to the railing and tapped Stanko on the shoulder. When he saw her, he did a double take, then stepped back. So maybe he hadn’t known who was sitting there. Jaymie watched, fascinated. Daniel asked her what was going on, but she just shook her head and said, “Wait. I’ll tell you in a minute.”

Valetta grabbed Jaymie’s wrist. “Kathy’s totally peeved; you can see it in the way she’s standing, hands on her hips. I think she’s going to rag him out.”

“For all that stuff that happened between him and Craig back in high school?” Jaymie said. “Good grief, she really can hold a grudge and not just with me!”

It was like waiting for the fuse to burn down on a Roman candle, watching Kathy and Stanko together; Craig kept his distance, his wrinkled brow and frown evidence of his
uncertainty. Stanko turned away, but Kathy grabbed his arm and shook it.

Isolated words from their confrontation began floating on the river breeze:
years ago, mean, old days
. Jaymie glanced over at Valetta, whose compressed lips indicated that she heard, too. Craig finally got involved, but not before Stanko shook his free fist at Kathy and pulled his arm out of her grip. Kathy’s husband surged to his feet and approached, saying something to Stanko.

“Then you oughtta keep your old lady in check, Pooper,” Stanko shouted, his booming voice now making every word audible. “If I had any guts at all, I’d whack the both of you!” He stormed off and headed down to the dockside.

Daniel, who had watched the whole scene, shook his head as Kathy and Craig went back to their blanket on the edge of the walkway. Gesturing toward Kathy, he said to Jaymie, “She may be one of those who you just can’t reach. That guy, though…why would she push him like that? He looks like trouble.”