Keep You (19 page)

**

              “There’s a reason Delta’s the first of her friends to get married,” Jessica said as she and Jo stood beneath the shade of a gnarled, whimsical little apple tree in the Billingsly gardens. “Not a one of them’s wife material.”

             
Jo took another swig from her water bottle and nodded in agreement. In all honesty, she had no idea what made the perfect wife – she herself wasn’t the perfect anything –  but she was pretty sure these females did not fit the bill.

             
Jo had not brought a dress aside from the green one she’d wear in the wedding and because jeans had been an “unsuitable” option, Jess had dug a dress out of her own bags for her to wear. Jessica was taller and flatter in the chest than Jo, but the dress was a wrap and adjustable enough that it didn’t seem too ill-fitting. It was lilac, Jess said it “made her eyes look gorgeous,” and cinched in around her little waist with a sash. CZ stud earrings, her sterling silver J pendant, and Jess’s knee-high, black leather riding boots almost made it look like a well thought out ensemble.

             
The other girls were in jewel-toned mini dresses, their tits threatening to spill out, the hemlines flashing bare ass every time they bent over. They strutted through the garden like peacocks, giggling and tossing their hair, looking like so many show ponies after flies with swishing red and blonde and black tails. Their jewelry glittered in the sun. Their tans were blindingly orange. They talked about parties they were missing back at home and were the equivalent of a skid mark across the timeless, flawless Irish landscape. Jo was embarrassed to be within thirty feet of them.

             
“I don’t even think they know where they are,” she lamented, letting her gaze take another leisurely stroll around the gardens. Jo didn’t have a green thumb, but the cobbled paths that meandered among fruit trees, roses, wild grasses and carefully tended vegetable beds were enchanting. A tiny, artfully crafted model sawmill was nestled among a collection of mosses and smooth river rocks, a manmade creek turning its wheel as it babbled its way through a forest of variegated iris. Arbors covered in climbing roses offered shady spots. Benches were tucked away beneath willows, the paths between the ferns dotted with stepping stones. In the shadow of the castle, the fantasyland of flowers, low brick walls, fountains and concrete garden angels was the sort of thing that evoked a thousand daydreams. Jo had never been a frilly sort of girl, but this wasn’t frilly. It was royal and peaceful, elegant. The Secret Garden come to life.

             
Only, One through Eleven, Delta, and Regina were ruining it.

             
“You two get over here,” Regina called. She was fanning herself with her packet of itineraries – she’d given one to Jo with a snarl – and plucked at the front of her too-tight royal purple tube dress. Her cheeks were splotchy, her skin beaded with perspiration, and she looked like a sausage stuffed in satin. Her hair was rapidly turning into a cloud around her head, its kinky strands springing up like she’d stuck her finger in an electrical outlet.

             
“We didn’t want to get in the way,” Jess said coolly, moving back toward the group.

             
Jo followed, thankful she had her sister here to help her deal with the others. Jessica’s cold, composed calm was the perfect weapon with which to combat bitchiness and she never had to stoop to bitchiness herself.

             
Regina narrowed her eyes, not sure what to make of that comment. “Gladys will tell you where to stand.”

             
“Well then direct us to Gladys so we can have the official instructions.”

             
Again, confusion marked her splotchy face, but she said nothing.

             
“We don’t want to be the flies in the ointment,” Jess said, her tone grave, as if this were the most important thing she’d ever done. When Regina waved them over without another word, Jess turned to give Jo the slightest of smiles over her shoulder. “That’s how you handle that, little sister. Don’t let your feelings get hurt by them.”

             
Easier said than done
.

             
Gladys, a graying Amazon of a woman in a gauzy floral skirt and peasant top, her hair tangling wildly around her shoulders, a pair of oversized sunglasses threatening to slip off her nose, was the wedding photographer. She had a voice like a babbling Irish stream, light and melodic. She wore her camera around her neck and stood beside the wedding planner – castle provided of course – Maureen, who was Gladys’s polar opposite: just upward of four feet tall, with a blunt brown bob and narrow, stern face. She wore a black pantsuit and carried a clipboard, checking off items and conferring with Delta at five minute intervals.

             
“Alright, ladies,” Gladys said, clapping her hands together. “Let’s get the tall girls in the back, the little ones in the front, right here in front of the fountain.”

             
Delta had chosen a circular crossroads among the paths, a concrete fountain that was two cherubs pouring water from urns as the backdrop. Beyond the gardens, a stretch of green lawn and the distant shimmering brightness of the lake would be visible in the shot. They were supposed to pose, to sit on the cobblestones and “look natural,” like “Celtic goddesses” Gladys had told them. Delta would stand, arms raised, head flung back.

             
It was going to look stupid. Dumbass Sluts on Ice stupid.

             
But Jo folded her knees and knelt as she was supposed to, trying not to damage her sister’s dress or boots –

             
“Oh my God, ohmyGod!” Number Seven, a bottle blonde in a black mini, screamed, charging through the group, waving her arms over her head like her hair was on fire and she was trying to put it out. “
Ahhhh
! There’s a
bee
!”

             
Nine and Ten, who were best friends who had matching choppy red bangs and matching teal minis, let out matching shrieks as they dove away from the fountain. “Bee! Beeee!”

             
Stampede.

             
Someone’s knee knocked into the back of Jo’s head and sent her tumbling forward. She caught herself on her hands, but felt the stones grit beneath the dress.
Oh, not Jessica’s dress…

             
“
It’s after me
!” Seven screamed, leaping over a low brick wall and into a flower bed, trampling the delicate bluebells in it beneath her gladiator sandals.

             
“Oh my God, there’s another one!” Someone else yelled.

             
“I think I stepped in the nest!”

             
“Shit! Shit!
I just got stung
!”

             
A hand looped around Jo’s arm and hauled her upright. She scrambled to her feet and let her sister tow her out of harm’s way. The two of them retreated down the path, not encountering a single bee along the way, and turned back to watch the bedlam.

             
There were five girls raking their hands through their hair and dancing in place, straining the too-tight seams of their dresses as they engaged in the universal there’s-a-bug-on-me dance. The others were swatting at bees with itineraries and trying to shoo the insects away from their friends. Seven was holding her hand to her chest, red-faced, tears streaming down her cheeks. Gladys cradled her camera, her sunglasses lying broken on the cobbles. Maureen watched with stoic disapproval.

             
And Delta stood on the concrete lip of the fountain’s pool, flailing her arms like an air traffic controller, shouting to no avail. “Girls! Girls! Please! Everyone calm down. Everyone….
you’re ruining the photo shoot
!”

             
“You know what?” Jo asked, resting her head against her sister’s shoulder.

             
“What?”

             
“I’m so glad we didn’t ruin the photo shoot.”

             
Jess’s chuckle was soft and reserved, in keeping with the rest of her. “Just wait. We could still ruin it.”

**

              “Tammy!” Randy was just an accent away from being Irish himself; his boisterous shout across the dining room made Tam smile. “Come eat with us.”

             
French doors, hidden the night before behind thick velvet drapes, were opened out onto a slate patio, a noontime breeze sighing into the cavernous room, ruffling table linens and tugging at women’s hair. The royal ambiance from the night before had been traded for all the charming cuteness of a tea party – fresh flowers and little tea service trolleys, rose colored linens and napkins – and the effect was no less nauseating to him. He spotted Beth and Randy sitting alone near one of the open doors, the incoming sunlight touching the lines and shadows of Beth’s tired smile, adding a coat of bronze to Randy’s tan face. Big and strong, small and soft, they were contrasts and compliments, their clothes comfortable, their faces weathered by the trials of raising five children. They looked like parents were supposed to look – like the parents he wished he’d had – and he felt not the slightest embarrassed in their company. If they’d been his blood family, he would never have been one of those kids who hated being seen in the presence of his folks. At least that’s what he told himself.

             
Tam returned their waves, heaped his plate with eggs, mashed potatoes (which left him slightly confused) and six of the little link sausages that sizzled in a warming pan, then joined them, sitting so his back was to the sun since his eyelids were still scraping across his eyes like steel wool.

             
“Hi, sweetie.” Beth leaned over and touched his hair, the same way she did with all her children. “Did you get enough sleep? You look tired.”

             
“My stomach woke me up.” There were about eight too many forks laid out in front of him. He grabbed the nearest and shoveled a bite of eggs into his mouth.

             
“You almost missed breakfast.” Randy jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the pair of employees whisking the serving platters off the sideboards and disappearing with them out in the hall. “They said they start serving dinner at one. Can you believe that shit?”

             
“Randall,” Beth hissed. “Language.” She rolled her eyes at Tam. “They call lunch ‘dinner’ and dinner ‘supper.’ Someone can’t remember that.”

             
For the first time since he’d turned in the night before, he grinned as he speared a sausage with his fork and bit off one end. “I think the Irish like a good ‘shit’ now and then.” Tam glanced at Randy who beamed approval. “Probably a ‘fuck’ here and there too.”

             
Beth’s toe collided with his shin beneath the table.

             
“Sorry, ma’am.” He ducked his head over his food, but still smiled. He’d missed this – pretending he was a Walker, being chastised for stuffing too much food in his mouth or cursing at the table. He missed Randy’s unending good humor and support. When he’d left Jo standing up against the side of her dorm, raindrops turning to steam when they hit the hot pavement, her face slick with tears, her anger a physical thing that gnawed at his heels, he’d known that he was taking a knife to all those strings he’d tied between himself and the Walker family. Mike had lived on his own by then, and he’d met Jordan in clubs and bars and at Mike’s place, not wanting to hurt Jo worse, not wanting to be the man who’d dumped her and then circled back to her house to remind her of it. And so he’d stopped being a part of the family like he had been.

             
It was killing him. Years later, and it still killed him.

             
Beth cleared her throat. “So what are the menfolk doing today? The girls had to be up and out for a - ” she drew a deep breath and let it out with a sigh as she said, “photo shoot.”

             
Tam swallowed. “I had big plans to go back to bed after this.” He’d showered, shaved, had put gel in his hair, but still, the fluffy pillow top of the mattress upstairs was calling to him like a siren song. The only thought more appealing was the mental image of Jo’s face when she’d been told she had to be present for a photo shoot.

             
“Who’s going back to what now?” Jordan, slim, light-footed, as quiet as a cat, dropped into the seat across from Tam and between his parents without tipping off his approach. No one was startled to see him, nor were they surprised to see his plate loaded with carbs: potatoes, two muffins, and toast that was made from thick, crusty bread, slathered in butter. He’d been a track state champ in high school, and now that he was trying to snag a coaching job, he continued his enviable runner diet. “I had to lift food while they were taking it back to the kitchen. If they could have dumped it on me, they would have.” He split a muffin in half with his fork and steam curled up from it, the scent of warm cranberries floating across the table.