You're Still the One (25 page)

“He’s a dog I’m fostering until I can find him a better home.”

Her mother heard her evasion right away. “What they were saying at the grocery store was true, then. You’re seeing Roy again.”

At the grocery store? “No, I’m not. He brought his mom’s dog in, was all.”

“He dumped Wanda’s dog on you?” Her mother tsk-tsked. “Isn’t that just typical. And I have to say . . . that animal doesn’t look in the best of shape.”

“Believe me, for ten, he’s doing well.”

“I guess he’ll fit right in with your menagerie,” her mother allowed. “Or misfit right in.”

Jane smiled. Her poor mom. In a more benevolent universe, Brenda Canfield would have had a tutus-and-tiaras daughter, a pink-loving princess to spend afternoons shopping with. Instead, she’d gotten an animal nut. Starting in elementary school, in the absence of a pet of her own—Brenda hated animals in the house—Jane had started dragging in doomed wildlife: orphaned baby squirrels, birds with broken wings, and anything else slow enough for her to catch and stick in a jar or a shoebox.

“Still . . .” her mom continued, “there’s something wrong about a man coming back after all these years and dumping his mother’s dog on you. So selfish.”

“I volunteered.” She couldn’t believe she was defending him. But this was her mom. Old habits died hard.

“You always were a pushover,” Brenda said, and just as Jane’s spine was stiffening in response, she added, “for animals.”

Looking around her small apartment, there was no way she could disagree. Especially when she saw the parakeet cage where Luther huddled on his perch, half-bald from overplucking. Jane grabbed a peanut and crossed the room to hand it to him.

“Oh my heavens!” Her mother’s whispered shout, followed by a sharp intake of breath, stopped Jane in her tracks. “Don’t answer your door,” Brenda said.

Jane laughed, imagining her mom still hovering behind a curtain. “Has the ax murderer arrived?”

A knock sounded and the two dogs exploded in barks.

“Just pretend you’re not at home,” her mother advised.

Jane pulled open the door. Roy stood on the porch. No wonder her mother was so agitated. Jane stepped aside to let Buddy and Squeak attack Roy. “I’ll call you back,” she told her mom.

“But—”

Jane pressed End Call and leaned against the door, watching Roy get bathed in dog slobber. The only way for him to escape would be to back over the railing and leap fifteen feet to the ground. He cast a glance in that direction, as if he was actually considering jumping, then let his gaze drift across the driveway to her parents’ house.

“You live here?” he asked.

“So it would seem.” The truth was, from the moment she’d moved back, she’d considered her stay here temporary. Carl’s wife and partner, Maggie, had died six years ago while Jane, fresh out of vet school, had been employed at a clinic in Austin. Jane had returned to help out for a while. She’d worked at the Mesquite Creek Animal Hospital all through high school and summers during college, and Maggie Fenton had been her mentor and role model, practically her idol. To Jane, Maggie had had the perfect life. Unfortunately, leukemia hadn’t cared about perfect.

When Jane came home, the garage apartment had seemed an ideal short-term solution. All through Jane’s youth, it had been a combination storage room, playhouse, clubhouse, and home to both short- and long-term visitors. Jane paid her parents nominal rent, ate dinner with them on Sunday afternoons, and spent Sunday nights thinking she should really make an effort to find another place. Busy weeks always made her forget her resolution.

Roy straightened from petting Buddy and pushed Squeak’s snout away from his crotch. “Would you mind if I came in for a second?”

She stepped aside and gestured him in.

“I remember this place,” he said.

Of course he did. It had been one of their favorite places to sneak off to during the summers they were home. Their playhouse. Images from those days popped unbidden into her mind, and she felt a blush rising.

“It hasn’t changed much,” he said, eyeing the haphazard collection of castoff furniture. Much of it had been here in the old days. His gaze halted at the huge cage in the living room, where poor Luther was fluffing anxiously. “That bird looks half plucked.”

“He’s got a nervous condition. From being abandoned, I think. That’s how I’ve come by most of these guys.”

Roy looked down at the floor for a moment before glancing up at her again. “I never meant to fob Buddy off on you.”

“I’m just fostering him until I can find a permanent owner.”

Roy took in the three-legged poodle, the cat with one eye, Olive hunched on the television, then Luther. “Just like you’re going to find homes for all the rest of them?”

“They’re none of your business,” she said. “Neither is Buddy, anymore. You gave him up, remember?”

“I wasn’t thinking what it would mean to you.”

“It’s okay. It means that I’ll have a great dog for a little while.”

Roy flopped down on the nearest chair.

“Make yourself at home.”

He didn’t smile. “You want to know the truth? It wasn’t just Buddy that brought me over here. Talking to you today wasn’t how I hoped meeting you again would be.”

“You’d imagined our big reunion scene, had you?”As the words came out of her mouth, she wanted to retract them. She couldn’t seem to get the awful jokey-acerbic tone out of her voice. Her vocal needle was stuck on sitcom.

She couldn’t evade his gaze for long. At one time she’d known Roy’s face almost as well as her own reflection. It seemed more angular now. But the intense eyes—those hadn’t changed a bit. They’d always been her undoing. The eyes and that voice.

“Haven’t you imagined it?” he asked.

She smiled tightly. “Maybe you should go. We’ve already set tongues wagging today.”

“I know. I’d forgotten how crazy this place is.”

“I thought that’s why you stayed away.”

“I came back,” he said defensively. “I came back every year or so.”

“Flew in to visit your mom for a weekend. Flew out.”

He stood again. “You didn’t want to see me.”

“I didn’t want
not
to see you.”

He blinked at that, as if the idea that she would have wanted to spend time with her old boyfriend had never occurred to him.

He lowered his gaze again. “Mom always wanted me to visit for longer. But . . .” He sighed. “I always thought there would be time. That she’d be here.”

He looked so hangdog, so mournful . . . but she would not comfort him. So he’d been given a crash course in Life Is Short.
Welcome to adulthood.
“How long are you staying this time?”

“Oh . . . just till things are settled.”

“Things?”

“My mom’s stuff. And they’re making a big deal of the auditorium. I don’t know why.”

“You obviously haven’t been to the school campus lately. It’s half portable buildings. When the auditorium burned down it felt like a town tragedy. Getting a new one up and running so soon is a big deal. You’re a hero.”

“I’m glad—to have helped, I mean.”

“The seniors are doing
Romeo and Juliet
again, breaking the place in before graduation.”

“ ‘For never was a story of more woe.’ ” He laughed. “Remember? It’s woe all over the place in that play. I’ve never said
woe
so much in my life. In fact, maybe never, since then.”

Jane couldn’t help smiling, recalling those days. “I have great memories of that play, woe and all. Even if I did want to throw up for an entire week.”

He laughed again, no doubt remembering her nerves. She’d gotten the shakes every time she set foot on the stage, to the point that they’d worried the entire audience could see the balcony jittering.

“Anyway, I had a good time,” she said. “The boy playing Romeo was really funny.”

His eyes met hers. “Was he?”

“Mm-hm. For years he’d acted as if he didn’t know I existed, and then one day turned on a dime and decided I was actually his Juliet. Life mirroring art . . . or art mirroring mental illness. Something like that.”

“Or maybe just boy getting a clue.” He moved closer to her. “I’m not kidding, Jane. When I think of those days now, they really do seem like the happiest days of my life. Back then I wanted to kick myself for all the time I wasted before I found you. And when I look at you now, I feel I’ve wasted nine years.”

The words worked like a balm on the hurts that had festered since he’d picked up and left Mesquite Creek. She’d sometimes wondered if she’d just imagined their closeness, but now she knew she had meant as much to him as he did to her.

Or at least that he wanted her to think that.

She frowned. “Why did you really come here, Roy?”

She wasn’t sure she expected an answer right away, but he had one. “To give you something.” He reached into his pocket. Her mind raced, panicking at what he could possibly want to give her. Had he carried some token around all these years and now intended to present it to her? With Roy—the old Roy—there had never been any knowing what he’d do. Once, he’d spent his student loan money on a birthday gift for her. She had to frog-march him back to the store to return it.

“Roy, I don’t think you should—”

He pulled out his wallet and fished for a couple of twenties. “Here,” he said. “Take some money. For Buddy.”

She shrank away from his outstretched hand. “That’s not necessary.”

“Caring for him is bound to be expensive.”

And he thought eighty bucks would cover it? He obviously wasn’t a pet owner. Or maybe that eighty dollars was just meant to assuage his guilt. “I don’t want your money.”

He dropped his hand in frustration. “Why are you being like this?”

“Because I thought you came here to . . . out of friendship. Not to pay me off.”

“I’m not paying you off,” he argued. “I’m just giving you money.”

“And I’m telling you I don’t need it. Thanks.”

Someone knocked at the door, setting the dogs off again, and Jane couldn’t help rolling her eyes in irritation. Her mother trying to rescue her, no doubt. She probably assumed they were all over each other. She crossed to the door and swung it open, not bothering to mask her irritation. “See? No orgy.”

But then she looked up and it wasn’t her mom standing there. It was Carl.

She gaped at him until she noticed that all his attention was focused, bird dog–like, on Roy. Roy, whose eyes glinted in amusement at the situation.

“I’m sorry, Carl. I expected you to be someone else.” She stood aside. “Come on in. Roy was just leaving.”

“I was?” Roy asked.

She flashed a glare at him before turning back to Carl. “You remember Roy McGillam, don’t you?”

“Sure.” Carl walked toward Roy, hand outstretched. As he passed her, she caught a stronger-than-usual whiff of Aramis. The two men shook, and for a moment Jane was struck by the stark differences between them. Roy might have bulked up since his early twenties, but he still seemed slight next to Carl. With his rusty blond hair and ruddy tan, Carl sometimes reminded her of a pioneer man stuffed into modern clothing. Roy looked urban and hip next to him. Jane supposed that was what he was, at heart. He lived in Seattle, worked as an artist. Mesquite Creek probably seemed like the boondocks.

Heck, even she thought of it that way most of the time.

“I don’t mean to rush you off,” Carl said. “I just came by to talk to Jane about some things.” When Roy continued to stand unmoving between them, Carl added, “In private.”

Understanding dawned on Roy’s face, causing Jane to smile. But at the same time she couldn’t help thinking,
This is so weird.
Carl never popped by her apartment. If not for the time he’d given her a ride when her car was in the shop, she doubted he would have known where she lived. Nevertheless, she was comforted to have him here now.

“Thanks for dropping by, Roy.” She moved none-too-subtly toward the front door.

He skulked after her. “We’ll see each other again.”

“Bound to,” she answered, “in a town this size.”

His face fell and she felt a zing of satisfaction until she shut the door behind him and thought, too late, that the chance existed that she might never see him again.

“Are you okay?” Carl asked when her gaze fixed too long on the door she’d just closed.

She nodded, but didn’t quite trust herself to speak yet. For a few moments before Carl showed up, it had felt as if she and Roy had some of their old rapport back. But then he’d handed her that money and something in her had snapped. Now she wondered why. Maybe he hadn’t meant to seem so impersonal, as if he was buying his way out of something.

“I heard about Wanda’s dog.” Carl scratched Buddy behind the ears. “Is this going to put a strain on your existing population? I could take him in . . .”

He’d do it, too. She crossed her arms. “It’s an occupational hazard, isn’t it?” Carl had a menagerie of his own, including a goat that lived in his backyard. “But I’ve always liked Buddy.”

Actually, she’d always liked Roy’s mom, and by extension, her dog. Whenever Wanda had brought Buddy into the clinic, Jane had been able to ask her about Roy.

“Marcy told me you didn’t like the new couch for the clinic,” Carl blurted out. “You left before I had a chance to talk to you about it.”

The abrupt subject change required a mental shift of gears. This morning seemed forever ago. Since then, her mind had been filled with Roy.

“I wanted to brighten things up,” Carl continued with Jiminy Cricket eagerness. “But maybe I went overboard, huh? I should have asked for your input. What’s your favorite color?”

“For a vet’s office?”

“For anything. You must have a favorite color.”

Did she? No one had asked her to pin one down since third grade. “Maybe green,” she said. “But color is . . . well, it’s not really the point here. The design of the furniture might not hold up very well at the clinic. Maybe we should just keep the wooden chairs we have and repaint. Paint can lighten a room, and if it gets stained you just paint again.”

He listened intently, as if she were conveying priceless pearls of wisdom. As if no one had ever thought of repainting a room before. “That’s a great idea. Really great.”

“We can send the couch and chairs back, I’m sure.”

He snapped his fingers. “Already done. I called as soon as I heard you didn’t like it. Shane will pick the stuff up again tomorrow.”

Shane will love that
, she thought.

“You know,” Carl said, hesitating a little, “the clinic’s had that other furniture since the beginning. Maggie picked it out.”

“I know.”

Any mention of his late wife, who’d been Jane’s old friend and mentor, usually sent Carl into a funk, but he weathered this moment better than usual. Although his face did grow more solemn. More Carl-like. “Can we sit down and talk for a moment?” he asked.

“Of course.” She didn’t know where her manners had gone. Out the door with Roy, she supposed. “You want some coffee, or a beer?”

“No, thank you.”

She feared something was wrong and settled on the couch, primed for bad news. Maybe he was selling the clinic. Could that explain his sudden mania for redecorating? “Is everything all right?”

He sat down next to her. “Everything’s . . . well, it just seemed to me that we need to talk. About how you feel about things.”

“Things,” she repeated, clueless.

He took a deep breath. “About the clinic, say.”

“Is this still about the couch and chairs? I didn’t mean any offense. Honest. I just don’t think a vet clinic should go too Martha Stewart—”

He cut her off. “What I was wondering was how you feel about the place in general.”

It didn’t take her more than a second to respond. “I love it. I always have. It’s been like a second home to me.”

He drank in her words but looked as if he didn’t quite trust them. “For instance, where do you see yourself in five years?”

The classic interview question. “Working in the clinic,” she said without hesitation.

“And in ten years?”

Ten years.
That number struck her more forcefully. In her mind, she tried to stare down the next decade. A lot could happen in ten years. Then again, a lot could
not
happen, and that might be even worse. Here she was, living in her parents’ garage apartment and working in the same clinic where she’d had her after-school job in high school. Time hadn’t changed much except for the first gray hairs she’d noticed making their unwanted appearance, and the way her knees felt crunchy after she exercised.

In ten years, she’d be creakier and grayer. Aging was inevitable. But would she still be living above her parents’ garage? Still working in the same spot? Those last two possibilities spooked her.

“Jane?”

Ten years. She surveyed her cramped apartment, her little herd, the hand-me-down furniture. She actually had a plump bank account, but she lived as if she was trying to get a jump on being the town’s cat-lady kook. At the very least, her life seemed to be showing a failure of imagination, or initiative. “I’ll probably be exactly where I am now.” The words emerged as gloomy resignation. “The triumph of inertia.”

“Or proof that you love what you’re doing,” he pointed out. “But if you’re unhappy . . .”

She snapped out of her own thoughts and studied his face. What was he getting at? Did he not want her to stay? Or did he believe, not unreasonably, that someday she might actually go somewhere else.

Perhaps Roy’s sudden appearance had set him to thinking.

She half blamed Roy for her own funk. His showing up had pulled a rusty lever in her brain and set her to wondering what would have been different if she’d run away with him to Seattle all those years ago . . .

Well, that train had left the station.

“If you think that just because Roy was over here that I’m considering running off to Seattle,” she said, “believe me, that’s not in the cards.”

The lines in his brow smoothed in relief.

A laugh burbled out of her. “God, you
didn’t
think that, I hope.”

“You hear all sorts of things,” Carl said. “And Kaylie was jabbering all about that
Romeo and Juliet
stuff this afternoon when I got back. Of course, that was all a lifetime ago.”

It hadn’t been
that
long. Still . . .

“Roy’s done a great job making himself scarce all these years,” she said. “I imagine now that Wanda’s gone, he’ll go back to Seattle and we’ll never hear from him again.”

“Good.” When he caught Jane’s look of surprise, he explained, “I mean—well, it’s not like there’s much for him to stick around for . . . is there?”

“No, there’s not.” Why did that thought depress her? Roy hadn’t been around for nearly a decade. Twice the time they’d been involved. And it wasn’t as if they’d hit it off today, except for those few fleeting moments.

“Jane?”

Her attention lurched back to Carl. She’d obviously missed something. “What?”

“I was just asking about the Jam. If you had plans to go.”

The Blackberry Jam, Mesquite Creek’s May festival, was an excuse to celebrate all things blackberry and for regional musicians to play in front of the courthouse. Skipping it wasn’t an option. Jane could open up her windows and hear the thing happening a few blocks away, and the traffic usually backed up to her street.

Not that she would willingly miss the one time a year the town really came alive. “I’m always there. But if you need me to work late Saturday, that’s no problem,” she offered. “Just let me know.”

“I was only wondering whether I’d see you there. I was thinking about going myself.”

She was glad. Despite being a much-beloved figure in the town, Carl had kept to himself since Maggie had passed away. “It’s great that you’re going, Carl. You’ll have fun. I’ll see you there.”

“You will?”

“Of course.” She laughed. “It’s not
that
crowded—and that hair of yours makes you easy to spot.”

He swiped a hand self-consciously over his rusty hair, which managed to defy classification as brown, blond, or red. He seemed on the verge of speaking, stopped himself, then a split second later managed, “I should probably go home now.”

“Okay,” she said.

After he’d left, she counted to three slowly and was able to pick up her mother’s call before the first ring had ended.

“What did Carl want?” Brenda asked.

She thought for a moment. “Not sure, actually.”

“Don’t be naïve. Carl is an eligible bachelor.”

“He’s also my boss.”

“You work together—there’s a difference. Remember, he and Maggie were partners, too.”

Jane shuddered. That was the problem. She had come back to Mesquite Creek to help out after Maggie’s death, not to take Maggie’s place. And she couldn’t help thinking of Carl primarily as Maggie’s husband. Besides, he’d been an adult when she’d first known him as a teenager, a fact that formed a mental barrier that kept her from imagining Carl as a romantic object. “No, Mom.” She couldn’t imagine going out with him any more than she could imagine going out with her junior high math teacher. “Just . . . no.”

“I could give you the e-mail addresses of ten women in this town who would date Carl Fenton in a heartbeat.”

Jane laughed. “Give them to Carl, not me.”

“But what would he do with them? He wants you.”

“Mom, you’re a trip. First you think that Roy is carrying a torch for me, and now you’re convinced Carl has the hots for me or something. Is there anyone else I should know about?”

“I don’t see what’s so funny.”

“Well, for one thing, for the past few years I’ve been lucky if I could scrounge up a date every six months or so. Now you’re acting as if I’m Mesquite Creek’s number-one bachelorette.”

“You could be, if you put a little effort into it.”

With that, her mother’s conversation threatened to veer down the well-worn path of if-only-you’d.
If only you’d dress better . . . wear more makeup . . . take ballet . . . flirt more . . . bleach your teeth . . .
It had been going on for years. “Mom . . . I’ve got to go. These pups need to get out for a walk.”

“I walked Squeak at lunch.”

Her Mom always complained about how hideous Squeak was . . . but then she always came in around noon to check on him. “Thanks.”

“How are you going to handle two dogs at once?” her mother asked.

Jane stared down at big brown eyes and two thumping tails and felt a smile tug at her lips. “It’ll be easier than juggling all the gentlemen callers you’re imagining beating down my door.”

“Well . . . but it seems like I ought to get to know the new guy a little. He’s a purebred, isn’t he?”

She smiled. Her mom was a snob even when it came to canines. “He is.”

“Could you use a hand? I just happen to have my tennies on.”

She could just imagine her mom in the breakfast room, ready to go. Sometimes she wondered if it was normal for people to communicate by phone when they lived only fifty feet apart. They both probably could have traded in their calling plans and just used walkie-talkies.

“I can always use a hand,” Jane said.

“I’ll be right over!”

 

 

The next morning, Kaylie was lying in wait for her. “Can we talk at lunch?”

“What about?”

The receptionist’s face fell. “The article? You’re the last Juliet I have to talk to . . . and frankly, I hope you have something interesting to say, because Kelli Owens and old Miss Tatum sure didn’t.”

Jane bit her lip. She’d been hoping Kaylie wouldn’t follow through with that. “Maybe that’s a sign you should write about something else.”

“Too late now. I promised
The Buzz
I’d have something for them tomorrow.”

“Well, okay,” Jane said reluctantly. “I have a short breather at twelve thirty. I could squeeze in a sandwich and a chat.”

“Great! And don’t forget the photographer’s going to be here at three.”

“Photographer?”

“Carl’s idea. He wants a picture of the staff. You know—one big happy family.”

That was weird. Carl had never had picture day before. Then again, he had never shown any interest in decorating before. Or come over to her house in the evening. Or asked about her future.

Jane hurried into an exam room and was brought up short by the sight of her friend Erin standing across the room from her long-lost cat, Smudge, who was draped across the stainless steel exam table.

Jane let out a whoop of surprise and joy. Erin, who ran a salon downtown, had been depressed for months because Smudge had disappeared. “When did he come home?”

Erin looked considerably less excited than Jane felt. “He showed up on my doorstep yesterday morning.” Her mouth quirked. “I hear someone showed up on your doorstep, too.”

Ignoring that topic, Jane petted Smudge and then started giving him a going-over. “Has he actually
gained
weight?” He’d never been small to begin with, but now he seemed even puffier and sleeker than ever. His white fur shone, and the single dark gray tabby mark on his back stood out even more.

She leaned over to the counter and read the notes Marcy had made on his chart after checking him in. “Says here he’s put on over a pound.”

Erin grunted. “All these months, I’ve been crying my eyes out because I imagined him lost and starving. He was obviously whooping it up somewhere.”

Jane listened to his heart, which sounded fine except that it was hard to hear over his loud purring. He was such a sweetie, she had a hard time not making cooing noises at him.

Her friend crossed her arms. “There’s something not right about him.”

“Well, there’s no telling what he’s been up to. I’ll run a blood test on him and check him for FIV.”

“It’s like that old movie,” Erin said. “You know—the one where the guy comes back from the war and no one knows if he’s who he says he is?”

Jane laughed. “This is Smudge.”