Dolly All the Time(8)

My childhood princess fantasy flashes in my mind, swept away by the gentle man and the white horse she gets to keep. “Life’s swept me away plenty, Naomi. Not a big fan of it.”

She doesn’t say anything, which is the true beauty of old friends. She was there when my mom left. She was there when I found out I was pregnant with Gus. She came for the month I was on bedrest and stayed a week after he was born. She held him while I cried in the shower. If anyone understands why I don’t want to set myself up to be abandoned again, it’s Naomi.

“Speaking of you doing every goddamn thing around here, what’s going on with Patsy?” she asks.

I laugh. “She’s good. Busy with work and kids and stuff.”

“And you here with all your free time,” she says, and here we go. I never argue on this point, because God knows I agree. But it’s a circular discussion because Patsy’s not interested in pitching in. And sometimes it’s easier to take care of things than it is to ask for help.

I grab two beers from the fridge. “I can’t help it if I’m so great at everything,” I say with a bow. “And speaking of which.” I reach into my back pocket and grab Stewart Whitfield’s handkerchief as a prop for the story I’ve been dying to tell her.

She recognizes the monogram immediately. “Holy shit. Where did you get that?”

This is going to be even more fun than I thought. Naomi has a very short fuse for excitement, and nothing excites her like the Whitfields. “Oh, just from my pal Stewart. When I stopped to change his tire.”

“Get. Out.” She grabs the scraper from my hand to garner my full attention. “Start from the beginning. Where was he? What was he wearing? Did you smell him? Was this the first actual contact outside the fish house? Sorry. Just talk.” She pulls a chair from the table and sits.

“I knew you’d ask, so I checked—he smells like leather and freshly cut grass. The backs of his hands are tan, and he has strong-looking wrists. I’m guessing tennis.” She’s leaning in to my details, and I swear this was worth the trouble of changing his tire. “He was on the side of the road out by Eight Oaks and I was on my bike. He was in a blazer and sort of acted like I worked for him. He even offered to pay me.”

“How much?”

“I said no.”

Naomi nods approvingly. “Is he still ridiculously handsome? It’s been years since I’ve seen him in person. He looked good in that engagement photo, sort of brooding.”

“Definitely still handsome.” I’m not going to mention his neck. Or the reckless electricity that comes off his skin. “But get this: Audrey Mills dumped him for a Yankee.”

“Gross,” Naomi says. Then, with horror on her face, she says, “Please tell me you didn’t bring up striking him out. Total boner killer.”

“What? There was no. Eww.”

Naomi’s laughing at how easily she’s gotten me flustered when Christopher calls, “Dolly!” from the front porch.

I turn to the window and see Gavin McCumber, the fire chief, walking up our front steps.

I open the door to let him in and give him a few seconds to run his eyes up and down Naomi. I honestly don’t blame him. “Naomi,” he says, removing his hat. “Hi, Dolly.”

“Hi,” I say. “Thank you for responding so fast last night.”

“It was no problem, barely a fire at all,” he says. “Looked like an isolated electrical problem.”

“Doesn’t look too bad back there,” I say. “I think I can sand and paint it, and no one will ever know.”

“Yes, I’m sure you can,” he says. “But I wanted to talk to your dad about the roof.” Our roof is original to the house, making it about eighty years old. Because I can’t really see it, it’s the one thing in this house I don’t worry about. “We were up on ladders last night, checking the roof for embers. There were none, which is good, but the roof is shot. Water’s gotten in, there’s rot and visible mold. The whole thing is going to need to be replaced.” I should have known. The only real problems that ever materialize are the ones I haven’t thought of.

“My dad’s outside. Barbecuing,” I say. As if this will somehow stop this line of conversation: He’s busy so you can’t give him bad news. Instinctively, I finger the ten-dollar tip in my pocket.

Naomi asks because I don’t dare. “How much would that cost?”

“This size house? With the mold cleanup, I’d guess about fifty grand.”

I laugh a hard laugh. “Yeah, I’m not sure the house is worth that.”

“Of course it is,” says Naomi.

“Okay, but my dad doesn’t have the money. We can work around it. Replace parts of the roof as they fail.” Just when he was about to get out of debt, here we go again.

“You can’t,” Gavin says. I turn to the fridge and offer him a beer. He holds up a hand to decline. “The thing is, Dolly, now that I know about it, and I know it’s not safe here, or at least it won’t be soon, I have to report it. And if it’s not fixed this place could be condemned.”

“No,” I say. I turn to Naomi. I want her to make a joke about how I’ve misunderstood, how I’m a worrywart. The furrow of her brow tells me I’ve heard correctly. I shove a rich man’s handkerchief deep into my back pocket. “No. They can’t. Christopher can’t leave, this is his home. My dad’s. No.”