The Guest Book (9 page)

Undeterred and just naive enough, Macy had pressed her.

“Yes, I was hoping you had some sort of record of the names of the families and the ages of their children. This person has to be around my age, because we’ve been … corresponding … since we were five years old.”

The woman’s eyes widened. “Well, if that’s not the cutest thing.”

Macy had believed she was home free, her heart thrilling at the thought of how close she was to finally finding out who the artist was at that moment. “Yes, ma’am,” she’d said. “I think so.” Now if she could just get the woman to open up her log book or whatever it was that housed their rental information, she would have the answers she needed, or at least the beginnings of the answers. Macy’s heart hammered inside her chest. She was so close to his name, convinced this woman held the key … right up until the woman frowned at her again.

“I’m sorry, honey, but I am simply not allowed to give out that information. Our rental records are confidential.” The woman’s sad expression hadn’t looked entirely genuine. “But I sure wish I could help.” She leaned forward, propping her round face on her two plump fists. “Can you think of any other way to find him?”

Macy tried not to cry in front of the woman, willing her eyes not to release their threatening tears. Her entire plan had revolved around this being her answer. In her imagination, she’d marched into that office and retrieved the names of all the families who rented Time in a Bottle after hers. She’d planned to spend the rest of this year’s vacation tracking them down using the pay phone and her allowance, which she needed
to feed into it, until she determined which one had a son around fifteen who liked to draw. It had all seemed so simple.

The woman sighed as she pretended not to notice Macy’s glassy eyes. “Nothing’s ever simple, is it?” She looked at Macy like they were in it together, like she understood. “Believe me, I know the feeling.” The woman rolled her eyes and slouched dramatically in her chair, resting her hands on her ample stomach. “Love never does get any easier. When you’re your age you think it will, but it won’t. Men don’t get less mysterious, they get more mysterious. Every time you think you have one figured out …”

The front door to the office had opened and a man wearing polyester khakis and a golf shirt bearing the name of one of the local golf clubs had strolled in, looking tan and entirely too confident in spite of his paunch of a belly and thinning hair. The woman sat bolt upright in her chair, her hand flying to her hair, patting it down as a smile came over her face. “Hello, Tom,” she said, her tone changing from discouragement to excitement.

The man breezed through the office, unaware of the woman’s reaction to him, unaware of the way she’d brightened as soon as she saw him, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. “I’ll be in my office,” he mumbled as he walked past.

Macy watched as the woman looked away from the man’s closed door, turning her attention back to her desk with the smallest of sighs. Macy wished she could capture the feelings swirling in the room at just that moment with one of her drawings, wished she could take all the energy and emotion that
love requires and put it on the page so that everyone who saw it would feel it too.

“Thanks for your help,” Macy offered, extending comfort instead of receiving it. She glanced out the window as a little boy ran by clutching a kite to his chest. Just then, an idea for her next guest book entry began to form in her mind—a red kite against the blue sky, the tail bobbing amidst the clouds. The artist would know Macy was that kite, moved by the currents of the wind, dipping or soaring on forces beyond her control.

The woman, distracted, waved. “Good luck, honey,” she said. “I sure hope you find him.”

Me too
, Macy thought but didn’t say. With her hand on the door leading outside, she looked back at the woman, who was staring forlornly at the man’s closed office door.

Years later, Macy could still remember how her thought at the time had been that she didn’t want to grow up to be like the woman, pining away for a man who didn’t notice her. She realized the irony of that thought as she turned into the parking lot of the pier and continued toward the gazebo, feeling a little wave of regret as she rode past it.

After her big plan had failed, fifteen-year-old Macy had gone back to Time in a Bottle and drawn the kite picture she’d envisioned at the real estate office. It was her response to the picture he’d left of a beach rose. She knew his picture was telling her how he saw her, as something beautiful that grew along the path he walked every day, put there for him to notice, to reach for. But she felt more like that kite—unpredictable and unreachable.

She still felt that way, Macy realized with a pang as she finished riding the bike around the pier parking lot and back out to the sidewalk. She pedaled back to Time in a Bottle with the wind at her back, thinking about how one answered prayer could give her just what she needed to soar.

“So tell me what you learned today at church,” Macy said, pulling Emma onto her lap and leaning over to help her button her pajama top. Their faces were so close their noses bumped and Emma giggled.

Macy thought about all the times her father asked her to tell him what she’d learned at church, how it always seemed as though her dad knew God personally, just like other people knew their family members or best friends. Her dad had always made God seem very near. As a child, Macy had felt she’d known God that way too. Now she stopped just short of doubting His existence, having decided a long time ago that while He might be concerned with some people, He wasn’t concerned with Macy personally. Still, she felt it was important to ask Emma about church, to focus on something spiritual for once. A little religion was good for a child.

“We learned about the foolish man and the wise man. Do you know that story?”

Macy nodded. It was in the same classroom Emma had been in today that a woman who looked like a 1990s version of Emma’s teacher had passed out butter cookies and pink-tinted
punch the other kids called Bug Juice. Macy’s parents were in church, and Macy was enjoying the story the woman told them as they munched on their cookies and drank their punch. She was being lulled into a feeling of comfort by the sound of the woman’s voice, even if she didn’t totally understand what she was saying. The woman told them the story of a wise man who built his house on the rock and a foolish man who built his house on the sand. She said that they could all build their own houses on the rock. Macy remembered being confused by the story. She wasn’t building a house.

After church, she had asked her dad what the story meant. He’d pulled her onto his lap much the same as she was holding Emma now.

“Is that a story for when I’m grown up, Daddy?” she’d asked him. “For when I really build a house?”

He’d smiled. “Well, yes and no. The thing is, Mace, you can start making decisions about building your house on the Rock right now. Do you want to do that?”

“Sure, Daddy,” she’d said. She didn’t want to be like the foolish man who’d stood on the beach watching his house wash away.

“Well then, starting now you can learn more about God’s Word, and you can pray and ask Him for wisdom. He will start shaping and molding you, helping you build your house — which is really just another way of saying growing up — on the Rock. Because God is the Rock we build our houses on.”

Her dad had pulled out his Bible and began reading her the story.

“So if I do what God says, then I am building my house on the Rock?” she’d asked.

He’d tweaked her nose. “Exactly.”

“The Rock is a good place.”

“It sure is,” her father had answered. He’d been proud; she could see it in his eyes. He’d been sure his daughter would grow up to be a godly woman.

Maybe it was better he never saw the mess she’d made out of her life. Talk about a house built on the sand …

She turned her attention back to Emma. “Why don’t you tell me the story?” she asked her. “I’d love to hear it again.”

“You mean like me telling you a bedtime story?” Emma asked, incredulous. This was a first.

“Yes, I think I’d like a bedtime story. Would you like to tell me one?”

Emma giggled. “Okay, but first you have to lie down, and I have to tuck you in.”

Macy walked to Emma’s bed and scooted down into the sheets, pulling the covers up to her chin. “Is this tucked in enough?” she asked. She could tell that Emma was enjoying this role reversal.

Emma nodded.

“Okay. Then I’m ready for my story.”

Emma perched on the edge of the bed and told the story almost exactly as Macy remembered it. Macy smiled with pride as Emma added dramatic elements to the story. When the storm came along to knock down the houses, Emma imitated the sound of the wind whooshing and the rain pelting and the
thunder cracking. Macy pretended to be scared during these parts, and she cheered when the wise man’s house was still standing at the end of Emma’s storytelling.

“What a great story,” Macy said.

Emma leaned over her, a serious look on her face. “So what did you learn from it?” she asked, her brow furrowed in total sincerity.

Macy thought about it for a moment, remembering what her dad had taught her all those years ago, wishing that he could be there for this, that he could have this moment with Emma, see this come full circle as clearly as Macy did. He would’ve loved it.

“I learned that I need to build my house on the Rock,” she said, thinking of her dad and feeling the twinge of guilt and conviction as she said it. She’d built her house on sand even though she’d known better. And then she’d been surprised when the storms hit and washed her house away. She had to do a better job of creating a stable home for her daughter — maybe the Rock was where she needed to start. She couldn’t believe she was even having the thought, and yet, there it was.

“That’s exactly right. Good job,” Emma said, giving her a thumbs-up. Then she climbed in beside Macy and threw her arms around her.

“You know what, Mommy?” she asked after she’d gotten settled.

“What, Emma?”

“I like church. I think we should go there more often.”

“You might be right,” Macy said. She looked at the ceiling
and wondered if God was trying to talk to her through her daughter. It didn’t take long for Emma to fall asleep, and though Macy meant to get up and go to her bed, she fell asleep nearly as quickly, lulled by the warmth of her daughter’s nearness, her father’s memory, and faintly, something that felt like the presence of the God she’d once known.

O
n Monday, it rained, so they all stayed indoors and did nothing after Emma’s first day of art camp. Macy was snuggling with her daughter while they watched a movie about a talking Chihuahua when she heard a knock on the front door of the beach house. She waited to see if someone else was going to answer the door, but she didn’t hear any movement in that direction. Sighing, she kissed her daughter’s head, extricated herself from the clutches of the couch, and lurched stiffly toward the door. She’d been so close to a nice, cozy nap.

She peered through the peephole, ever the city girl. Buzz Wells was waiting on the other side, shifting from foot to foot as if he was nervous or in a hurry.

She opened the door. “Buzz! Come in!” She held the door open for him.

He smiled at her, his gray hair grazing the doorjamb as he walked in. She had forgotten what a formidable presence he was. Tall and broad, he filled up a room just by entering it. And he’d always loved to laugh and tease, usually targeting Macy. As memories came flooding back, Macy was the one to shift nervously from foot to foot.

“Emma’s watching a movie,” she said, waving in Emma’s direction, who was thoroughly engrossed. She cleared her throat. “Emma,” she said, louder. “We have company.”

Emma barely waved before turning back to the television. Some help. Macy looked around the room, wishing her mom or Max would show up and take the pressure off her to entertain Buzz, who was basically a stranger after all these years.

“My son enjoyed meeting you,” Buzz said, taking an uninvited seat on the loveseat opposite the couch.

In her mind’s eye, Macy could see Buzz seated in the exact same place as the family scurried past him, intent on packing for a day at the beach. She could hear her father’s voice coming from the bedroom. “Has anyone seen my loafers?” He always wore loafers to the beach, even though it embarrassed Macy terribly as she got older. He thought flip-flops were for sissies, and he never seemed to mind having to stop by the boardwalk to empty the sand from his shoes.

“Let me see where my mom is,” Macy said, thinking how odd it was to have Buzz back in the house, almost as if no time had passed. It occurred to her as she opened Brenda’s door that maybe he’d been waiting all this time for them to return.

She leaned into the bedroom where her mom was, once
again, reading a book. Macy noticed it was a romance novel and wondered when she had taken up reading those. Brenda had always been more of the political-thriller type. “Buzz Wells is here,” she said, smiling. “Come help me think of stuff to talk about.”

Brenda laid the book down on the bed. “I was just about to doze off for a bit.” A frown crossed her face, but she stood up anyway. Her hand flew to her hair as she paused in front of the dresser mirror to study her reflection. “I’m hardly decent for company,” she fussed.

“You can’t leave me out there floundering,” Macy retorted, and turned from the room, hoping her mom would follow and rescue her. She did. By the time the two got back to the living room, Max was there too, clapping Buzz on the back and smiling.

“It’s great to see you again, Buzz,” Max said. He sounded sincere, and after some reflection, Macy realized it
was
great to see Buzz again.

Buzz looked around the room, then turned and fixed his gaze on Macy. “I remember one year after you all had already finished your vacation, my son, Wyatt, came here to visit me. He lived with his mom then. He snuck into this house, saying he wanted to meet the little girl I’d told him about.” Buzz laughed. “He thought you were here. I had to drag him out, kicking and screaming. Lucky for me it was before the new renters got here. After that, he was always sneaking over here, convinced that one of these times, he’d get to meet you. And now you two have finally met.”

Macy got the distinct impression that Buzz was trying to play matchmaker. She smiled at his kindness even as she thought about her late-night prayer by the sea to find the boy who’d drawn the pictures. She wanted to ask Buzz for more details like, “Did you ever find him drawing in the guest book?” but she refrained, dismissing the likelihood of Wyatt— with his good looks, smart mouth, and calloused hands — having the heart of an artist beating deep within him.

Macy noticed Buzz was looking at her mother with a funny expression on his face. Brenda, on the other hand, seemed to be looking everywhere but at Buzz. Macy guessed it had to be hard for Brenda to see him again, a reminder of Darren now standing right in front of her.

Usually Brenda jumped into hostess mode, but clearly seeing Buzz had rattled her, so a moment of awkward silence passed before Macy remembered her manners. “Can I get you anything, Buzz?” she asked.

“I’d love some coffee,” Buzz said, grinning at Brenda and looking completely at ease. He turned to Macy and Max. “It’s just a coffee kind of day,” he offered as an explanation. “You know, the rain.”

Macy watched the unwelcome rain splattering on the porch, the reason she and Emma were trapped inside instead of enjoying the beach. She had to agree with Buzz. “I like Buzz’s idea,” she said to her mom. “Let’s have some coffee.” She caught her mom’s arm and walked toward the kitchen, grateful for an excuse to slip out of the room. She heard Emma begin to talk and knew Buzz and Max would be entertained.

Brenda pulled a filter from the cabinet, popped it into the basket, and began filling it with coffee grounds, Folgers, which she had picked up on the way home from church the day before. At home Macy used nothing but Starbucks. Brenda called her a coffee snob and claimed she couldn’t taste the difference between the two. Macy never bothered to argue. Brenda filled the carafe with water and dumped it into the machine. The gurgling sound of percolation started and the two of them leaned against the counter while they waited.

Macy had loved coffee since she was a teenager, sneaking it when her dad wasn’t looking. With a guilty twinge, she thought about the one time she’d tried drinking it in front of him when she was fifteen.

He’d been banging around in the house to wake her up because he didn’t like her sleeping so late. She’d stomped into the kitchen, angry at the interruption of her sleep and ready for a fight.

“Is there coffee?” she asked.

“Coffee? Coffee?” He’d grabbed her in a headlock and rubbed the top of her head with his knuckles. “No child of mine is drinking my coffee! Coffee is a grown-up drink, my dear!”

She’d wrenched free from his grasp and stepped backward. “Stop it, Dad!” she exclaimed, her temper flaring as it did sometimes, with no warning and little provocation. The same exchange between them another time would’ve been enough to send her into a fit of laughter.

Her dad had looked at her with the confused expression he
sometimes got. He dropped his hands to his sides and mumbled an apology, then left the room. Her mom had stared at her, disappointment etched into the lines on her forehead. Fortune tellers read people’s palms; Macy read her mother’s forehead.

“What?” Macy had asked with exasperation in her voice. All she’d wanted was some coffee.

“Your dad was just trying to have some fun, Macy,” her mother said. “You didn’t need to yell at him.”

“First he woke me up, then he started messing with me!” she responded.

Her mother’s reprimand had made her feel bad, but she wouldn’t—couldn’t—show her that. She wished her mom would just leave, but she’d stood firmly planted in the kitchen, the two of them squaring off with their eyes. Macy had grown tired of the stare down and stalked out of the kitchen, back to the safety of her room.

There wasn’t a day that went by that Macy didn’t wish she could go back and undo that scene—or any of the ones exactly like it from the year before her dad died. She’d been trying so hard to be her own person, to adopt this dark, cool persona she thought was necessary to be a real artist.

Years later, the grown-up Macy watched the rain hit the window and slide down, the droplets making patterns on the glass. She listened to the quiet melody of the shower hitting the roof, wishing she could curl up in bed and nap instead of play host.

“Why do you think Buzz is here?” she asked Brenda, addressing what neither of them was saying. She didn’t mention seeing him at church, but wondered if Brenda had noticed.
She thought of Buzz in this house that last terrible year. She could still see his face as he tried to talk to them, to reason that they didn’t have to stop coming. Come to think of it, it had been raining then too.

Brenda looked away, began fussing with the cream and sugar, making a production of service as only she knew how to do. Macy had missed that gene somehow. She hadn’t even thought of cream and sugar.

“He said I’d be back,” she said so quietly Macy almost didn’t hear her. She turned back to face Macy. “He said that until I came back, I wouldn’t fully deal with the loss of … Darren.” She smiled bravely. “And he was right.”

The coffee finished brewing, and she pulled the carafe from the machine and held it in front of her like a shield.

“This past year, I just kept hearing Buzz’s warning to me, and I knew I had to come back here. I had to face it instead of run from it like I’ve been doing.” She pressed her lips into a thin line. “The running hasn’t worked very well, has it?”

Macy thought of the shrine to her dad back home, the missing guest of honor at the yearly birthday party, the gaping hole in all of them that never seemed to fill. She could hear her daughter and brother and Buzz laughing. Emma, as always, was perking things up as only she could.

Brenda didn’t wait for an answer. “Bring the cream and sugar, Macy. We can come back and get the cups.” She walked out of the kitchen without saying more, even though there was, they both knew, so much more to be said on the subject. It was, after all, the reason they were back.

Macy stood and watched the rain, wishing for a moment that she could be ten instead of twenty-six, that when she joined the others she would find the life she’d once had and be able to hold onto it.

Buzz stayed for dinner, offering to treat them all to Chinese takeout. Her mother agreed quickly, which was uncharacteristic of her, and Macy wondered if it was because she welcomed the break from cooking or because she was enjoying Buzz’s easy presence in the house. When Brenda went so far as to agree to ride with Buzz to pick up the order, Macy and Max exchanged confused glances. As soon as they left, taking Emma with them, Max snickered.

Macy held up her hand. “Don’t make this more than it is,” she said.

Max held up both hands. “What?” he asked. “I’m happy for her. I just can’t believe it, that’s all.”

“Don’t go marrying her off just yet,” Macy said defensively.

“Look,” Max said. “Buzz is a nice guy. If he wants to take Mom out, more power to him. He’s got a lot to live up to, and he knows that better than anyone.” Max paused and ran his hands through his hair. “They were great friends. I think the guy’s just glad to have us back here. For a long time he probably felt like us coming here all those years … never happened.” He looked at Macy. “We were just gone.”

She thought of Buzz’s advice to their mother all those years
ago and felt sorry for him. “I think the past few years have been about all of us wondering if any of those vacations happened, or if they were something we all dreamed.”

Max smiled. “Well, it was a great dream to you. To me it was a nightmare. I hated getting dragged here. I spent all my time trying to escape their clutches.” He tried to laugh, but Macy could hear that he was forcing it. “Now I think if I could go back just one time …”

“Would you do it differently?” Macy challenged, thinking of the times he’d made their father so angry he would sit silently on the beach instead of playing with her, the times Max disappeared after dark, and her parents argued behind closed doors over “what to do about Max,” a popular topic during Macy’s growing-up years. It was, it turned out, a question with no answer. Sometimes Macy got angry with Max for the black mark he’d left on her childhood, the way he’d introduced tension into what was otherwise a happy family.

Max looked at her, the corners of his mouth turned down, all traces of his usual jokes gone from his face. “I would do so many things differently,” he said. It wasn’t an apology for the past, but it was as close to one as she’d ever heard from him.

Macy smiled. “Well, we can’t go back, but we can go forward,” she offered, thinking of the words in terms of herself and not just him.

Max nodded. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”

Macy smiled at him. “You and me both.” She thought of the guest book in her bedroom and wondered yet again if it was merely a part of her past or also the key to her future.

That night, after Macy had turned out the light, her bedroom door swung open. She sat up, prepared to see Emma rubbing her eyes and asking to climb into her bed after a bad dream. Instead, the light from the hallway revealed her mom’s form in the doorway.

“Mom?” she asked. She wondered what was wrong. Macy hoped her mom didn’t want to talk about Buzz like some schoolgirl. She wasn’t ready for that.

“Buzz offered to take Emma to camp tomorrow, because he knows the woman in charge,” Brenda said. “I’d go with him, of course,” she added. “I thought you’d like the break.”

She shifted, her dark form moving in the light from the hallway. Was her mother nervous? Macy couldn’t see her face or read her eyes, which always gave her away.

“Sure,” she replied. “That sounds great. I’d love to be able to sleep in.”

“Good. See you in the morning,” her mother said as she backed out and closed Macy’s door.

Macy flopped back onto the mattress and thought about working on a new picture for the guest book, a crazy notion to even think he’d ever see it, but something in her had to reply to his long-ago picture, left for a teenage Macy. The grown-up Macy would respond differently, and maybe — somehow — he would sense that she had. She thought of her prayer, and what Buzz had said about Wyatt sneaking into this house year after year. She smiled in the dark. Maybe during this trip, Macy
would get to show the artist the picture instead of just leaving it for him. Maybe her crazy prayer would get an answer.