Dolly All the Time(48)

“We have that too,” he says, gesturing to the platter. “My mother uses the tea set all the time.”

“And the dinner plates around St. Patrick’s Day,” I say. “It was in the paper; my mom was all over it.”

My back is to the kitchen sink, and he takes a step toward me. “I like those curtains,” he says, to the window behind me. They’re white, with red poppies embroidered along the bottom.

“I made them,” I say. “Out of an old dress of my grandmother’s, actually.” I take the bottles of wine from his bag and put them in the refrigerator. I empty the big piece of crockery we keep spatulas in and fill it with ice.

“Maud?” he asks.

“Yes. I’ll show you where I sew.” So much easier to say than I’ll show you where I dream about kissing you.

I lead him to the sleeping porch. He looks around and smiles.

“This is paradise,” he says.

I smile, because I know he means it, and I totally agree. “This is Maud’s sewing machine. It’s old-school obviously, pedal operated. But it makes the most perfect stitches, slightly irregular, like they’re by hand.”

“You made those curtains here?”

“Yes. She used to wear this dress all the time in the summer. She died when I was ten and I missed seeing her in it, the way the little red poppies swished around her ankles when she walked. So when I got a little older and mastered that machine, I made curtains out of it. When the wind blows, it’s that same happy effect.”

He steps toward me and my whole body tells me that he’s about to touch me. He’s going to put a hand on my waist and pull me toward him. The fizzy feeling I’ve had all day is at a boiling point. It’s a mix of two energies—wanting something and knowing it’s a bad idea—and it’s causing a reaction inside me, just under my heart.

He crosses his arms instead, taking them out of play, and asks, “What else did you make?”

I turn around and gesture to my bed. The place where I lie all night, replaying a scenario where I leaned in at the exact second he did. I look up at Stewart to see if he saw that thought cross my face. He’s looking at me like he did. “This is all new,” I say to the bed, trying to hide the red in my cheeks. “I made the duvet cover and the pillowcases, to replace what burned. I wanted it to be a lightweight pale blue fabric.” Like that shirt of yours, I don’t say. “There was nothing like that at Target.”

“It’s beautiful,” he says, and picks up a pillow to inspect it. “You know what I think you should do with the ten thousand dollars?” I shake my head. I never thought I’d see the day Stewart Whitfield would be spending my money. “Rebuild this so that you can replace the screens with windows in the winter.”

“And a fireplace,” I say.

“Yes. Just there. Maybe river stones.” His expression is almost boyish. He’s excited about this project.

“It would be beautiful,” I say. I would never spend money on something like that, but it’s fun to talk about in this waking dream where Stewart is here with me in my personal space.

“Let me get you some wine,” I say.

When we’re seated on the porch, Stewart across from me with his back to the Newtons’, my dad says, “We don’t see that much of you out here. I see Oscar and Busy all the time in the summer.”

“I haven’t been for the whole summer since high school. But this summer a lot of my office is working remotely, so I’m here.”

“Do you work in your grandfather’s office up top?” my dad asks. “With all the windows?”

“How do you know about that?” I ask.

“Saw it in a newspaper article when he passed. The whole thing looks like a lighthouse, three hundred sixty degrees of windows.”

Stewart nods. “Yes, we call it the crow’s nest. My dad’s been working out of his study, so it’s my office now. Though I have to admit it makes me dizzy if I’m up there too long. I can see too far in every direction, and I get a little overwhelmed.”

“It’s a lot of responsibility doing what you do, big shoes to fill.”

“They’re not quite mine to fill yet. I’ve got to beat out my cousin,” Stewart says. “But yes, it’s a lot of pressure. Like anything.” He catches my eye, and we meet in that place where I know just how much pressure it is. This happens to be the same place where I climbed into his lap.

“Do you think you’ll win?” asks Gus. “I mean, are you better at your job than him?”

Stewart leans back in his chair and considers the question. “I’m not really sure, actually. I’m more interested in what we’re doing than how much money we’re making. So I guess it’s up to the company to decide what they want.”

“They probably want money,” Gus says.

Stewart laughs. “Probably.” He takes a bite of his bass. “This is so good. Do you guys eat fish every night?”

Christopher says, “Gross.”

“We eat a lot of it,” my dad says. “Except for when Dolly treats us to chicken.” My dad winks at Christopher, opening the floodgates. When Christopher laughs, it is infectious. It comes from deep inside him, and he lets it go on as long as it needs to. He doesn’t have that That’s enough, I’m done shutoff valve the rest of us have. So we laugh with him, always such a gift to tap into his joy. Stewart is laughing too, though he doesn’t even know what’s funny.