The Guest Book (11 page)

Macy headed in the direction LaRae had pointed, poking her head into one room, then the next. She was having flashbacks from church, wondering what she’d find when she found her daughter. Wet paint and —

“You seem lost,” she heard behind her.

She turned to find Emma giggling next to the man who’d spoken. He smiled at her.

“Emma and I have been having great fun talking about her interest in art. She’s an exceptional artist,” he said.

She reached out to hug Emma, who raced into her open arms. Macy held her daughter close, focusing on how right her world seemed whenever she was with her. She loved having breaks, but it didn’t take long before she was itching for her daughter’s presence. She inhaled the smell of her skin, now mixed with paint and ocean breeze. There wasn’t a sweeter smell in the world.

She looked up from the hug and found the man looking down at her with an amused expression.

“Thanks for bringing her to me,” she said, grasping Emma’s hand and backing toward the common room.

“No problem whatsoever.” He leaned against the wall as though he had all the time in the world. He was wearing a surfing T-shirt and khakis that hung low on his hips. He had dark hair and dark eyes that seemed to bore into Macy as he gazed at her without speaking. The seconds stretched out. He gestured toward Emma. “She says she got her artistic talent from her mom. Is that true?”

She briefly wondered what type of man volunteered to
spend his free time with the preschool set. “Umm, I guess so? Well … thanks,” she added. She pulled on Emma’s hand as she made her way back to the main room. She looked back to see if Dockery was still standing behind her, but he was gone.

She swung Emma’s hand playfully. “I bet you’re ready to hit the beach, huh?” she asked her.

“Yeah,” Emma said.

Macy could hear the exhaustion in her voice. As they left the community center, Macy found herself scanning the parking lot. For what she couldn’t say.

Emma was quiet on the way home from camp, staring out the window from her perch in her car seat as the beach businesses that lined the streets between Ocean Isle and Sunset Beach slipped by. “You feel okay back there?” Macy piped up, trying to catch her daughter’s eye in the rearview mirror.

Emma nodded without looking at her.

“You’re not acting like yourself. Are you wishing that Grandma and Buzz picked you up? I know they took you to get ice cream after camp yesterday.”

It was a grandparent’s job to be fun, Brenda always said.

Macy wanted to be fun as a parent. “How about I take you to Sunset Slush today?” she asked.

At least that offer generated a response. Emma turned from the window to look at Macy. “We already passed it,” she said with a resigned sigh.

“What if I told you I know where another one is?” Macy hoped that whatever was bothering Emma would melt away as fast as the slush she was going to buy her.

“Another one?” Macy heard the note of hope in Emma’s voice.

“Yep, just down this street. Not far at all.”

A new song came on the radio, and Macy sang along, wishing that Emma would sing too, like she usually did.

“This song’s usually your favorite, Emma Lou. Don’t you want to sing with me?” Max always called her Emma Lou, among an assortment of other nicknames he dreamed up for her. When Macy was in an especially playful mood, she sometimes borrowed his terms of endearment.

Attempting to get a giggle out of Emma, she fumbled over the lyrics to the vaguely family country song. When it was clear she was botching the song terribly, she started making up her own silly lyrics — anything to coax a smile out of Emma.

Emma rewarded her with half a smile as Macy parked the car and pulled the key from the ignition. Even though her goofy singing didn’t elicit the response she’d hope for, she pressed on. “So what kind do you want?”

Emma shrugged. “What kinds do they have?”

Together, they got out of the car, so Macy could read off a long list of flavors. As she read them, she thought she would splurge and get one for herself as well, instead of just taking a polite bite of Emma’s. What were vacations for if not to indulge?

“How about a cotton-candy one? That looks good.” Macy
pointed as the people in front of them accepted their dishes of hot-pink-colored ice.

Satisfied with that flavor, Emma nodded her head, and Macy placed their orders. For herself, she ordered a piña colada slush, humming the old piña colada song softly to herself and thinking about her dad. Whenever they came here, he used to belt that song out even though Brenda always shushed him due to the “inappropriate” lyrics. Now that she was older, she knew what the song was about, but back then all she cared about was the sound of his voice and his silly antics.

It was too hot to sit outside to eat, so they sought shelter inside the car and ate with the air conditioning cranked and the radio on. Macy twisted around in the front seat so she could see Emma. The minutes ticked by as they each enjoyed the sweet, sticky goodness.

“So are you going to tell me what’s bugging you?” Macy finally asked.

Emma held her half-full dish in her lap and looked at Macy with a sober expression, a ring of pink lining her mouth. “Okay.” She sighed. “I’ll tell you.”

Macy stopped eating, placing the white plastic spoon in her own dish. The air conditioning in the car was having a hard time keeping up with the heat. If Emma didn’t talk fast, their slushes would melt into juice.

“Today at camp, one of the other kids — Lexi — said I wasn’t a good drawer.” She started to cry. “And she said it in front of Dockery, so now he thinks I’m not a good drawer either.”

Suddenly Macy understood why Dockery had been talking to Emma about her art. He’d been trying to build her confidence in the face of what that other little girl said.

“Didn’t you hear what Dockery said about you?” Macy asked. “He said you were an exceptional artist.”

Exceptional. She heard the word in her head, a word she’d not thought of in a very long time. She could hear her dad saying the word to her as they had driven home from getting her the colored pencils she used to draw her first picture in the guest book at the beach house.

Macy rested her chin on the back of her seat as she eyed her daughter. “Do you know what
exceptional
means?” she asked. Her dad had asked her the same question.

Emma shook her head no, her eyes serious and sad. Young Macy had answered the same way. She smiled at the way history repeated itself. “
Exceptional
means that you are special and uniquely talented. You have a gift—a gift God gave you. A gift that makes you different from anyone else. Emma, you have a lot of gifts, and one of them is art. As you grow older, you might decide to really focus on your art, develop it.”

“Like you, Mommy?”

Macy bit back the argument that rose up inside of her in answer to that question. She thought back on her insight to the handsome pastor’s sermon about the talents. That was something she needed to give more thought to. But for now, she needed to convince her daughter to embrace what she’d been given, to embrace the very thing that made Emma truly exceptional. “Sure, honey. But I think you’re even more exceptional than me.”

Emma breathed in sharply. “I could never be more exceptional than you, Mommy,” she said, admiration shining in her eyes. Macy felt her eyes fill with tears. Her daughter’s love was so intense, she sometimes worried she could never live up to it. But, oh, how she wanted to be the person her daughter thought she was.

“Honey, you’re the best person I’ve ever met,” she told Emma. “And I love you so much.” She put down her empty paper cup on the seat beside her, turned, and started the car. As she backed out of the parking spot, she caught Emma’s eye in the rearview mirror and winked at her, just like her dad had done all those years ago as they drove home after buying the colored pencils.

When he’d explained what
exceptional
meant, she had nodded, thinking about her kindergarten teacher, who’d picked her picture of cardinals on a snow-covered branch to frame and hang in the school’s front office. The other kids’ cardinals, Macy had noticed, didn’t even look like birds. They just looked like blobs of red paint.

Her daddy had continued talking to her. “In the Bible, Jeremiah 1:5 talks about how—before you were even born — God set you apart, He made you special so He could do something special with your life. I believe that about everyone’s life, but with you” — he’d smiled at her—”I look at you, and I know it’s true. I know God has something special for you to do with the talents you’ve been given. Do you believe that too?”

Macy hadn’t been able to figure out how painting pictures of cardinals could be special for God. But she knew her
daddy knew things about being a grown-up she didn’t. So she’d nodded.

After she drew the butterfly shells in the guest book, she’d imagined the other guests who came to the beach house wondering about the little girl who’d drawn the picture. She wondered if they would say her drawing was exceptional. She wanted to do something special for God with her talents, like Daddy had told her to. She wanted to be exceptional.

She’d said the word to herself just like he had taught her, practicing it over and over again, silently so no one else could hear but her.

She thought she’d remember that word forever, but she’d forgotten it along the way, left it behind in the mess of loss and rejection and making her own way.

“I’m not going to let you forget that you are exceptional,” she told Emma as they neared the beach house. She didn’t add,
Like I did.
She turned into the drive, her dad’s words echoing through her own, proving she’d been listening all those years ago.

M
acy studied herself in the mirror, wondering if the sundress she’d selected was too revealing to wear on a date with a pastor. But it was the beach, after all. And yet, maybe a polo shirt and capris would be more … suitable for a date with a preacher. A wolf whistle stopped her inspection.

“Trying to make him lose his religion?” Max asked from the hallway, tapping into her insecurities as only a brother could. She looked over at him with a panicked look.

“Is it too much?” she asked.

“Try too little?” Max quipped, resting his hand on the doorjamb.

“Great.” She waved him away with her hand. “Close the door. I’m going to change.”

He smirked back at her. “Too late. He’s here.”

She looked at the clock on her nightstand. Beside it sat the guest book. “He’s early!”

“Actually he’s been here a few minutes already. I’ve been talking to him.”

She thought again of sitting with Nate in the car while Buzz and Max were inside the police station working out what Max had referred to only as “the misunderstanding.” Maybe Nate could help Max prepare for his upcoming court date to resolve the misunderstanding. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, her stomach clenching as her heart raced.

“Go,” Max said. “Don’t get all nervous. I was just messing with you about the dress.”

She ran her hands along the skirt of the sundress and looked back at Max. “Are you sure?” She looked back at the mirror. “It’s not too … revealing?”

“Something tells me Nate can handle it.”

“But I mean, he’s, like, a preacher. A minister. A man of God.”

“He’s also, like, a person.” Max laughed at his own joke. “Did you know he used to come to this very house when he was a kid on vacation? Just like us? It’s not like he’s spent his life in some monastery or something.”

Macy thought of the guest book sitting within her reach, and her heart beat even faster. She remembered the way she’d felt as Nate studied her in the darkness of the car, and she wondered why she’d ever prayed that ridiculous prayer.

“How do I get myself into these things?” she asked out
loud. It was a rhetorical question she didn’t really expect Max to answer.

But he did. “You follow your heart.”

“Yeah, well, I thought I’d learned my lesson about that,” Macy retorted.

Instead of his usual witty comeback, Max just backed up a bit with a smile. “I’ll tell him you’ll be out in a minute. You look very nice just the way you are, so don’t you dare change.”

He started singing the Billy Joel song just as Macy expected him to and ambled back down the hall.

She took one last look in the mirror, wondering if people who knew Nate would see them together tonight and wonder what he was doing with her. She wondered if he would wonder what he was doing with her. She breathed in deeply and practiced smiling in the mirror. Then she wondered if he had special God-powers that helped him know what she was really thinking.

If so
, she thought,
I am in big trouble.

“Your brother’s a nice guy,” Nate said, as they waited for their dinners. He’d taken her to an out-of-the-way seafood place frequented by locals and recommended she try the scallops or sea bass. She’d taken his advice and was glad she had. Her scallops were served in a sherry cream sauce that made her want to lick the plate.

It didn’t take long for him to ask about Emma. Macy hadn’t been on many dates since Chase left, but the ones she had been on usually involved the guy in question using her daughter as a go-to conversation piece. She wasn’t surprised to hear this question from Nate.

“She’s the great love of my life.” She told him about Emma at the beach that day, how she had danced on the edge of the surf, staying just out of the waves’ reach. “Sometimes when I look at her, it’s like I’m seeing her for the first time. I try to hold onto those moments because I know this will all go by so fast.” She ducked her head. “I mean, that’s what my mom’s always saying.” She took a sip of water, feeling like a complete dork, rambling on about her kid. But he had asked.

Nate seemed unfazed by her gushing. “Your brother said her dad’s … out of the picture?”

Macy wasn’t going to lie, even if she may never see Nate again.

“Nearly,” she confessed. “I’m working on that part. He left right after Emma was born and only recently came back to town.” She made a mental note to remind Max that informing suitors of the status of her past loves was not his job.

Nate smiled. “I’m sure it’s not as neat and tidy as you’d like when you have a child involved. There’s what’s true and what you wish were true.”

Macy rested her chin in her hands and smiled at him gratefully. “Exactly. That’s exactly what it’s like.” She paused. “You talk like you’ve got experience in this.”

He laughed. “Hardly.” He leaned forward too, so their
faces were close. She moved backward slightly, hoping he didn’t notice the distance she’d created.

“I’ve got experience in what breaks and repairs hearts though,” Nate continued. “But … let’s not talk about all that just yet. I want to hear about you. Tell me your whole life story.”

Macy laughed. “My whole life story? You don’t have time for that!”

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms behind his head. “I’ve got all night, Macy. So go. I want to hear it all. Let’s take a walk so we can talk.”

“Okay,” she began. “But remember. You asked.”

It was dark by the time they reached the beach. Based on how stuffed she was, Macy agreed a walk by the ocean was a good idea, not to mention pretty romantic. They kicked off their shoes and walked barefoot in the sand. Macy marveled over how the cool, dry sand felt like powder under her feet.

“Sunset Beach sand is different from Ocean Isle Beach sand,” she commented, trying to fill the silence.

Nate started explaining the difference in the sand, pointing out the positioning of the two beaches and how erosion caused Ocean Isle to need to have sand dredged up from the ocean ledge. Macy’s attention began to drift until Nate caught himself.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “My career choices were between being a marine biologist or becoming a pastor.”

“What made you choose pastor?”

He was wearing an old, blue oxford shirt over a T-shirt, and a pair of black shorts so faded they were nearly gray. The unbuttoned oxford billowed around him in the strong winds coming off the ocean, exposing his lean torso, the body of a runner. He looked more like a marine biologist, Macy decided. She could see him scanning for dolphins from the helm of a boat.

Noticing her assessment, Nate put his arm around Macy companionably. She could smell his cologne, a scent she would like to keep in a bottle so she could smell it again and again. She resisted the urge to ask him what kind it was.

“I want to help people find God, to know Him like I do.”

“I’m guessing I’m your newest pursuit in that arena?”

He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Not exactly. I don’t usually give parishioners this much, um, individual attention.”

“Oh, I thought this was part of the job. Sailors have a girl in every port. Single, handsome pastors in beach towns have a new girl every week.” She laughed and was relieved when he laughed too, relieved that he’d gotten her joke and hadn’t been offended. But he quickly turned serious.

“That’s hardly me.” He stopped walking. “I hope you know that.”

“Oh, sure.” She smiled, a bit flustered by his change in tone. “I was just kidding around.”

“I mean, I do want to answer any questions you might have about God. But that’s not why I asked you to dinner.”

“Well, if I have any questions about God, I’ll be sure to
come to you first,” she said, laughing his serious tone away. She intended to keep things light even though part of her wanted to ask him about her prayer by the beach—and if he could be the answer. But they were far from ready for that conversation yet.

He chuckled. “Deal.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes. She thought about the boy she’d kissed on the beach when she was fifteen; the boy she’d wished was the artist. It seemed all her trips to the beach always came back to him. The name of the boy she’d kissed had gotten lost in the details of her life. She was trying to remember it when Nate spoke again.

“So I want to hear all about you, remember? Tell me your life story,” he said.

Evan. That was his name. But she certainly wasn’t going to share that memory with Nate.

“My life story is pretty boring, actually,” she said instead. “Not sure you want to hear it.”

He elbowed her lightly. “Sure I do.” He thought about it for a moment. “How about you tell me why you stayed away from Sunset for so long? You clearly love it here.”

“Wow, way to get right to the heart of the matter, Pastor.”

“Ugh. No calling me Pastor. That somehow feels … can we just stick with Nate?”

She laughed.

He stopped walking and sat down in the sand, patting the space next to him as an invitation. She sat down and gathered her sundress, tucking the fabric under her legs to keep it from
blowing around. They looked out at the ocean together, their bodies close enough that his thigh was touching hers. She shivered a bit at the closeness and thought back to the night she’d woken up to find him staring at her through the car window. She realized now she wouldn’t mind waking up to his face at the start of the day, those eyes looking into hers.

“So spill it,” he said, “before I kiss you and get this date headed in the absolute wrong direction.”

She had to fight against asking why that would be the wrong direction, reasoning that it had to do with his profession. She respected that, but found herself a bit disappointed at the prospect.

She could make out his profile in the moonlight, his complexion glowed a sultry blue.

Macy swallowed and began talking, telling Nate about her family’s decision to never return to Sunset Beach the year after her father’s death. “That last year we came here without him was very hard. The memories of him were all around us; we could scarcely move without bumping into one. And I just got to a point where I couldn’t take it anymore. My brother Max and I went to play mini golf one afternoon, and I had what I guess you could call a panic attack while we were there. Of course, I didn’t know what to call it then.”

He nodded, a mix of understanding and sympathy in his eyes that made her like him even more.

“So that night I could hardly sleep, I was so afraid it was going to happen again, that I would literally die of grief — and guilt.”

“Guilt?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I felt really guilty about how I’d treated him the year before. I’d been too hard on him, withdrawn from him, just been unnecessarily mean to him.” Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them away. “I worried that I’d broken his heart and that that caused his heart attack.”

Nate rested his hand on her bare shoulder, his hand warm and firm, comforting her with his touch. “You know you didn’t, right?”

She smiled, nodding. “I do. But I still feel badly about that last year —and I wish I could take it back, could have that last year back.” She continued. “So after that sleepless night, I got up really early and told my mom that I wanted to leave, that I thought we should go home and never come back to that house, to this place that was so
him
.” She looked into Nate’s eyes. “I couldn’t separate the two.”

“And now?”

She thought about it for a minute — about the guest book, about telling Chase she wished he’d gotten to know the little girl she was when she was here, about the way she’d felt when she prayed on the beach. None of that had anything to do with her dad. “I think I’ve separated them.”

He held his hand up, and she gave him an obligatory high five, feeling self-conscious as she did.

“‘Atta girl,” he said.

She thought back to the morning she’d told her mom she wanted to leave, and the part of the story she hadn’t told Nate. It just wasn’t time. Not yet. But she could tell him other parts,
so she continued telling her story to Nate, enjoying having someone listening who really wanted to hear it.

“It’s like I left all the things I used to feel deeply—my love for my dad and for this place, and my faith — here.”

“So this trip has been about finding all that again?” he asked.

She thought about that. “Yeah, I guess it has been. I mean, that’s not what I thought when we first decided to come. I thought it would be more about coming to terms with my tendency to run away when things get hard.”

“And now?”

“Now I think it’s more about dealing with things I left undone. My feelings about losing my dad. And why I stopped talking to God.”

“Have you figured it out yet?”

“I think I relegated God to my childhood and nothing more. He was part of my past. My dad told me Bible stories, but he also told me fairy tales. God was a good bedtime story, but He seemed no different than those fairy tales. I convinced myself that’s all He was. He couldn’t bring my dad back or help my family not be sad when he died. And I was mad at God for a very long time, so it helped to tell myself that He wasn’t real, wasn’t important.”

“But you feel differently now?” Macy could hear the note of hope in Nate’s voice. He might want to be just a man when they were together, but he couldn’t stop being a pastor.

“Yes. The other night I actually prayed for the first time since I was a kid.” She smiled at him in the darkness, surprising
herself by her admission. “It felt like coming home to someone who’d been waiting up for me for a very long time.”

Nate looked at her intently. “You can bet that God is going to answer that prayer too. Whatever it may have been.”

Macy blushed, grateful he couldn’t tell in the dark. She changed the subject to avoid discussing her prayer in any detail. “Nate, Max said you used to come to Sunset as a kid.”

“Yeah, my family would always come here. Every year. I promised myself I’d come back here to live someday. As a kid I thought it would be as a marine biologist, but of course, God had other plans.”

“And you stayed at Time in a Bottle?”