The Girl Who Chased the Moon (13 page)

“Of course not,” he said immediately.

“But your father does.”

He hesitated. “I can’t speak for him.”

“My grandfather told me that my mom got angry because the Coffeys wouldn’t let her into their social circle, and that’s why she did what she did.”

“That’s how the story goes,” he said. His eyes bored into her with a sudden and intense curiosity.

She pushed her hair behind her ears, and his eyes followed the movement. “I just want you to know that … I’m not mad.”

“Excuse me?”

“That your family doesn’t like me. I understand why. And I’m not mad.”

“Oh, Emily,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re making this very hard.”

“What? Leaving?”

“That too. Next time?”

She nodded. She liked that, the continuance, the anticipation. What would he do? What would he say? She was too enamored of him, too fascinated. But she couldn’t seem to help it. She wanted to fit in here, and he made her feel like she did.

“Next time,” she said as he walked away.

EMILY MET Julia by the bandstand as promised, and she could tell that both their moods had changed since they’d last been together. They bought Grandpa Vance a barbecue sandwich and a fried pickle, then headed home. Neither of them was particularly chatty.

Julia said a distracted goodbye when they reached Grandpa Vance’s house. Emily watched her walk away. Something was definitely on her mind.

When Emily walked into the house, she knocked on the wall beside the accordion door to Vance’s bedroom. “Grandpa Vance, I’m home.”

When he opened the door, she caught her first glimpse of his bedroom, which had obviously once been the living room.

The curtains were drawn over the windows to keep the heat out, but the light through the rust-colored material cast a glow of permanent sunset over the room. The room looked like it should smell stuffy, but there was actually a very faint scent of sweet perfume lingering in the air, as if a woman had left only moments before.

There were rows upon rows of photographs on the shelves on the far wall, older photos of the same woman, a pretty woman with blond hair and Emily’s mother’s smile. That must be her grandmother Lily. Where were the photos of her mother, she wondered. Did he have any?

She held up the foil-wrapped food. “I brought you some stuff from the festival.”

“Wonderful! I think I’ll eat in the kitchen. Will you join me?” He led the way. As soon as they reached the kitchen, Vance went directly to the laundry room. Emily heard the dryer door open, then close. Then Vance walked back out. “So, how did you like our little barbecue shindig?”

Emily smiled. “It wasn’t little at all.”

“What did you and Julia do?” He went to the breakfast nook and sat, absently rubbing his knees as if they ached.

“Wandered around. Ate too much. She bought me this T-shirt.” Emily walked over to him and placed the food on the table, then sat opposite him. She brought the T-shirt out of the small bag she’d been carrying.

“Ha! That’s a good one,” Vance said as he read what was on the shirt. “Did you see any kids your age?”

Emily hesitated before she said, “Just Win Coffey.”

“Well, it is their festival,” he said as he unwrapped his food and began to eat. “You need to meet some other people your age. As I recall, my friend Lawrence Johnson has a grandson … in middle school, I think.”

Confused, Emily said, “Do you think he’d want me to babysit?”

“Yes, I guess that is a little young for you,” Vance said. “It’s only July. School doesn’t start until next month, and you’re going to get bored.” He suddenly looked worried. “That friend of your mother’s, Merry, said she would take care of getting you registered and your class credits transferred. Do you think I should check the school, just in case?”

Emily had been so focused on what was going on here, she hadn’t given Merry much thought lately. That startled her. “Merry probably handled everything. She’s very detail-oriented, just like Mom.” Emily looked down to the T-shirt in her lap. “Mom helped found the school I went to. Did you know that?”

He nodded. “Merry and I had a long talk. Your mother had a remarkable life. Merry told me a lot about you, too. She said you were involved in a lot of activities.”

Emily shrugged. Her old life felt so bound and heavy now. “They were school requirements.”

“I bet there are a lot of activities you can get involved in here. Lots of stuff you can do at night.”

She knew what he was doing, being about as subtle as an eight-foot-tall man. He didn’t want her associating with Win. She understood why. At the same time, she wondered if she could change this, if the reason she came here, in the whole scheme of things, was to make this right. Like her mother said,
Don’t wait for the world to change
. She’d been thinking a lot lately about clues her mother might have given her over the years, either on purpose or unconsciously, about her time here, about lessons she’d learned. Who she’d become, Emily was beginning understand, was her penance. She’d hurt people when she was young. She’d saved them when she got older. But for all the good she’d done, she’d never thought it was enough. Her mother had never been satisfied.

After Grandpa Vance ate, he got up and threw the food wrappers away. Then he went back to the laundry room to check the dryer.

She couldn’t stand it any longer. She had to know. When he came back out, she slid out of her seat in the breakfast nook and asked, “Why do you do that? Check the dryer so often?”

He laughed and gave her a sly look. “I was wondering when you’d ask,” he said. He walked to the refrigerator and took out two green bottles of
7UP
. He handed one to Emily. “I was a little uptight when Lily and I first married. I’d lived alone for quite a while before she moved in. Without realizing I was doing it, I would follow her around when she would do housework, to make sure it was done the way I’d always done it. The thing that bothered Lily the most was my checking the dryer after her to see if she’d left any clothes behind.” He shook his head at the memory. “Because I’m so tall, I can’t see that low into the dryer, so I just reach down and feel. One day, after she’d walked out with a basket of laundry, I went in and stuck my hand in the dryer … and felt something cold and slimy. She’d set a frog from the backyard in the dryer for me to find! I jerked my hand out so fast that I fell down. Then out jumps the frog. I watched him hop from the room, past Lily’s shoes. She was standing in the doorway, laughing. Well, I learned my lesson. Over the years, she’d tell me to go check the dryer as a joke, and I’d always find a small gift from her.” Her twisted the top off his bottle and took a drink. “After she died, I just kept checking. I don’t know why. It’s not like I ever find anything. But it makes me think of her. And when I get worried or anxious about something, I go check, just in case she wants to tell me something.”

“I think that’s sweet, Grandpa Vance,” Emily said. “I wish I’d known her.”

“I do, too. She would have liked you.”

They said good night at the staircase, and Vance went back into his room. Emily made it halfway up the staircase before she stopped. She hesitated, then walked back down and went to the laundry room.

She studied the dryer for a moment, even going so far as to lean over it to see what was behind it. Before she knew what she was doing, her hand went to the handle and she quickly opened the door, jumping back as if something inside might fly out at her.

She cautiously peered in. Nothing was there.

She almost laughed at herself as she walked out. What had possessed her to do that?

What sign was
she
looking for?

HOURS LATER Emily slowly opened her eyes, not sure what had awakened her. She took a deep breath. When she exhaled, in her sleep-addled mind, the air came out as blue as smoke. She stared at the ceiling and it gradually came to her. Something was wrong. The room was normally brighter than this.

When she’d gone to sleep, light from the moon was shining in through the open balcony doors, sending rays as pale as cream into the room. She turned her head on the pillow to see that the balcony doors she’d left open were now closed, and the curtains had been drawn over them.

Her heart suddenly gave a single hard thud of surprise and her scalp tightened, which felt like every hair was on end.
Someone had been in her room
. She reached under her pillow and turned off her MP3 player, then she slowly sat up on her elbows.

She knew it was him. His presence
felt
different, different from anyone she’d ever known. She could feel the lingering warmth of him still in the air.

She pulled the earbuds out of her ears and got up and went quickly to the light switch. When she flicked it on, the chandelier bathed the room in cobwebby light.

But no one was there.

From across the room, she saw a piece of paper peeking out from the curtains. The twin doors had been shut with a note tucked between them. She hurried over and pulled the note out.

I’m sorry I had to leave the festival. I didn’t want to. Will you spend the day with me? Meet me on the boardwalk at Piney Woods Lake this morning
.

—Win
.

Emily immediately swung open the doors and stepped out on the balcony, looking around.

“Win?”

Nothing. The only sounds were the katydids and the papery rustling of leaves in the wind.

Her heart was still thumping, heavy and fast, but not so much from fear now as an incredible sense of anticipation. It had been a long time since she’d felt anything like this. It had been months since she’d looked forward to anything—food, birthdays, weekends. He made her remember how it felt.

The edge of her nightgown was fluttering against her legs, and the air around her was charged with energy. She didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to let go of this feeling.

A few minutes later, she heard an engine turn over. The lights of Julia’s truck, parked at the curb in front of her house, suddenly sprang to life. Emily watched the truck pull away and drive down the street.

She guessed she wasn’t the only one who wasn’t going to sleep that night.

Chapter 12

W
hen Sawyer opened the door to his townhouse, he was irritated, as anyone would be if they were forced out of bed at dark-thirty by the incessant ringing of a doorbell. The neighborhood had better be on fire.

The door flew open and hit the wall as he flicked on the porch light.

Julia took her hand away from the doorbell, and the grating shriek inside his house immediately stopped.

He blinked a few times. “Julia?” he asked, just to be sure.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Now?” He wasn’t at his best.

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, now.”

He took a good long look at her. She hadn’t changed clothes. She was wearing the same faded jeans and embroidered white peasant blouse she’d been wearing at the festival. He should have stayed there with her, but he’d been angry. She thought he only wanted a piece of her, that he would accept a fling. While he’d certainly had his share of flings, most of which he’d greatly enjoyed, he wanted to be nobler than that with Julia.
And she wouldn’t let him
. “Are you drunk?” he asked.

“No, I am not drunk. I’m mad.”

“Oh, good, because for a moment there I thought it was going to be something unusual.” He stepped back. “Come in.” It was an automatic gesture. He didn’t think anything of it until she walked past him into his darkened living room. That’s when it hit him. She was in his house. Exactly where he wanted her to be. And he had no idea what to do next.

The only light came from his kitchen, where he kept the hood light over his oven on at night. She looked around, nodding slightly to herself, as if his space was exactly what she expected it to be, like there was a fine, crisp scent of privilege here that she didn’t like.

“Is this about the big thing you wanted to tell me?” he asked, slightly afraid that it was. One big thing left to tell him, and then she wouldn’t want anything more to do with him?

She turned to face him, her brows lowered. “What?”

“Last week, you gave me a cake, told me you started baking because of me, then said there was some big thing you were going to tell me later. Is this later?”

“No, this has nothing to do with that. Why would I be mad about that?”

He sighed. “I don’t know, Julia. When it comes to you, it’s all guesswork.”

She began to pace. “I was fine here until you went all humble on me. And you almost had me, too. I almost trusted you.” She made a scoffing sound. “And you accuse
me
of being conniving.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about what you said today.”

He rubbed the side of his face. The blond stubble of his beard made a scratchy sound. “Refresh my memory.”

“You said that I’m only letting you in because I’m planning to leave.
And then you walked away from me
.”

“Ah.” He let his hand drop. “That.”

“I wasn’t saying that at all, which I would have told you if you’d stuck around. But it doesn’t matter that it wasn’t what I meant. Because, so what?”

He was beginning to think it wasn’t his sleepy mind after all. She really was making no sense. “Excuse me?”

“So what if I was only letting you in because I’m planning to leave. Why would that matter to you? You’ve been trying to get into my pants ever since I came back, and you were going to let something like my leaving get in your way? It didn’t get in your way last time.”

His head suddenly felt hot. She’d struck a nerve. “For the record, you know as well as I do that I could get into your pants at any time.” He took a step toward her, so close his chest grazed her breasts. “Because I know exactly how to do that.”

“So do it now,” she said, obviously trying to be brave, but her voice faltered a little.

“I want in here, too.” He put his finger to her temple.

“You are there.”

“What about here?” He put his hand on her chest, over her heart. Her heart was racing. Was it anger? Fear? Lust?

She suddenly took a step back. “You’re not going to do that to me again.”

“What?”

“Weasel your way into my heart. Charm me and make me think it’s for real, that it’s forever. It took years to get over it last time. You are
not
going to insinuate forever to me again. You’re not going to promise me anything, and I’m not promising you. So that ‘Stay, because you’re nowhere near where I want you to be’ crap isn’t going to work. Do you know how much easier it would have been if you had just promised me one night? That night? Do realize how much I hated you for making me think you loved me?”

“Julia …”

“No. Promise me one night,” she said. “Don’t promise to love me. Don’t ask me to stay.”

To hell with nobility. He reached for her and kissed her. It was all at once passionate, as if there was too much in him to contain. He was immediately swept up in it. It took no effort, the difference between swimming on your own and being washed away in a flood.

His hands went to the hem of her shirt and slowly pushed it up. When his hands brushed over her bare breasts, her back arched. He broke their kiss. Her fingers automatically tightened in his hair, as if wanting him back. “Jesus, you came here without a bra on,” he said.

He backed her against the wall, and soon her shirt was over her head. She started moving restlessly against him. It made him groan. He clamped a hand onto her hip and surged against her. She met his rhythm flawlessly.

He reached down and unbuttoned her jeans, and she tried to help him push them down while not breaking their kiss, but their lips kept separating. Finally he simply used his foot to slide them the rest of the way down, and she stepped out of them.

“You want one night, I’ll give it to you,” he said as he picked her up and carried her to the couch. “But it’s going to be one hell of a night.”

He stood over her, staring down at her so hungrily that she made an attempt to cover herself. His hands went to the waistband of his pajama bottoms and pushed them down, not taking his eyes off of her. He put one knee on the couch beside her. She swallowed and put her hand up to his bare chest. “Wait, Sawyer.”

He hung his head, sucking in breaths. “What are you doing to me, Julia?”

“I meant, wait because I have to get the condoms out of my jeans pocket.”

He lifted his head, surprised. “I wasn’t lying. I can’t have kids.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” He got up anyway, completely unself-conscious, and went to her jeans. He dug out the condoms and made quick work of putting one on.

“No more waiting,” he said as he covered her body with his.

“No more waiting.”

It had never been like this with anyone else. They held on to each other as if the force of their bodies coming together could make everything that had ever separated them disappear. And it did, for a short period of time, time he wished he could stop so he could live inside it for the rest of his life.

Afterward, breath gone, clinging to each other so hard they would leave marks, Sawyer, whose head was buried in Julia’s neck, managed to say, “Contrary to my lamentable lack of restraint just now, I have actually learned a few things since I was sixteen.”

She gave a sudden laugh.

“And as soon as I have the strength to get up, I’m taking you to my bedroom and showing you.”

IT WAS morning, but still dark in his bedroom when she woke up. Sawyer watched as she blinked a few times and turned her head on the pillow to find him staring at her.

Her hair was rumpled, the pink streak curling around her ear. She took a deep, defeated breath. “I thought I had every-thing figured out.”

“Do you think promising you another night might clear things up?”

She smiled, but didn’t answer.

He brushed one finger lightly against her forearm. He saw the moment she realized he was following the lines of her scars. She immediately pulled her arm away. He pulled it back.

“Why did you do this to yourself?” he asked.

She watched him as he watched his finger trace the lines. “It was my way of dealing with the depression and isolation I felt. I didn’t know how to cope, and all my anger was turned inward, so this is what I did. Don’t think I’m naturally this enlightened. That’s years of therapy speaking.”

He met her eyes. “Do you ever think of doing it again?”

“No. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m very good at expressing my anger these days.” She shifted slightly, then winced a little.

“Are you okay?”

She cleared her throat. “It’s … been a while.”

Was it wrong that that made him happy? He didn’t care. It did. He’d spent a lot of time wondering about what she was doing in Baltimore, thinking about who she was with. He knew so little about that part of her life. “Why didn’t you come back to Mullaby, Julia?”

“I didn’t think there was anything left for me.” She rolled her head back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling.

“Didn’t you ever get homesick?”

“I’m homesick all the time,” she said, still not looking at him. “I just don’t know where home is. There’s this promise of happiness out there. I know it. I even feel it sometimes. But it’s like chasing the moon—just when I think I have it, it disappears into the horizon. I grieve and try to move on, but then the damn thing comes back the next night, giving me hope of catching it all over again.”

He’d never heard her so raw and honest. Julia, who always kept her feelings to herself. “Is that the big thing you were going to tell me?”

“No.”

He groaned. “You’re killing me. Is it something good?”

“Yes.”

He put his hand on her thigh and started moving his way up. “Better than last night?”

“There’s no comparison.” She put her hand on his, stopping the movement. “What time is it?”

He lifted himself on his elbow and looked over to the clock on the nightstand. “A little after nine.”

She hesitated. “In the morning?”

“Yes.”

She gasped and jumped out of the bed. She went to the heavy curtains and threw them open. Morning light immediately cut into the dark room. When the spots left his vision, he found himself staring at her naked body, silhouetted in the window. He was riveted. She made his stomach tight, his head light.

“I can’t believe it’s morning! Why didn’t you tell me? What kind of curtains are these?” She grabbed the offending material and looked at it closely. “I thought it was night!”

“They’re insulated light-blockers. I’d be blinded every morning if I didn’t have them.” He sat up against his pillows and put his hands behind his head. “I really enjoy this side of you, but I think you’re giving my neighbors the best view. Why don’t you turn around?”

She quickly stepped away from the window and covered herself with one of the curtain panels. “I can’t believe I just flashed your neighbors. On a Sunday morning.”

“I know I saw the face of God.”

“I’ve got to go,” she said, eyeing the door.

“No.”

“I have to make the day’s cakes at the restaurant. I’m so late. I’m usually there and gone by now. Where are my clothes?” She looked around, then said, “Oh, downstairs.” And she darted, naked, from his room.

He smiled and got up. He took his robe from the back of his door and put it on as he walked down the stairs after her.

She was quick. She already had on her jeans and her shoes, and was pulling her shirt over her head. By the time her head poked through the collar, he was there, backing her against the wall by the door.

“We’re back where we started. I think this is a sign that we need to do it again.”

“If you let me go, I’ll bake you a cake.”

Suddenly there was a knock at the door, directly to the right, which startled Julia so much she let out a small scream.

Sawyer winced and rubbed his ear.

“Who is that?” she whispered.

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t answer it. Maybe they’ll go away.”

“And call the police because there was a woman screaming in here. What’s the problem? You don’t want people to know we’ve been together?” He turned and went to the door before she could answer, because he was afraid of what that answer might be. Even after last night, she was still water in his hands. He didn’t know how to hold on.

Sawyer opened the door. When he saw who was standing there, he thought,
Oh, damn
. This wasn’t going to help things at all.

“Hi, Sawyer,” Holly said as she walked in. “Was that you screaming like a girl?”

Holly stopped when she saw Julia. There was an awkward moment when the three of them, cramped in the small space by the door, didn’t say anything, just stared at one another.

“Holly,” Sawyer finally said, “you remember Julia Winterson?”

“Of course,” Holly said, giving Sawyer a pointed look before turning to Julia and smiling. “It’s nice to see you, Julia.”

“You too. I’m sorry to run, but I’m late.” And in seconds, she was gone. Again.

Sawyer closed the door and turned to his ex-wife. “I forgot you were coming by.”

Holly kissed him on the cheek and walked through his living room to his kitchen and began to make coffee. He followed her, remembering the feeling he had when he first asked Holly to be his girlfriend in sixth grade, that intense I’ll-finally-get-to-hold-her-hand feeling. She was his best friend all through school. He valued her. He respected her. But he didn’t know if he was ever in love with her. That night with Julia on the football field should have told him that, but he’d been too afraid to give up on the future he’d planned.