My gaze met Shay’s and the quick shake of her head came as a relief. I couldn’t manage a meal with her. I’d barely processed her reappearance in Friendship and the power she still held over me. I couldn’t bring her into my house and sit next to her at my kitchen table too.
“That is so sweet of you, Gennie,” she said, “though I just moved to this town and there’s nothing in my house, so—”
“So you probably don’t have anything to cook,” she said. “But we always cook so much that we have lots of leftovers.” Gennie turned her big brown eyes on me. “Remember how you said I could have a playdate this week?”
“That was before you were expelled from summer school,” I said, trying to keep my voice low. “And I don’t think you can have a playdate with an adult. Playdates are for kids.”
“Then it’s just a date?” Gennie asked. “Can I have a date with Shay?” My life was coming full circle in strange, unpleasant ways, and I didn’t get a chance to respond before Gennie added, “I can show you my room and we can go on the swings and we’ll have so much fun!” She set Brownie on the ground and ran toward me, her hands pressed together like she was praying. “Please, Noah.Please.No one ever wants to come over for a playdate with me.”
And that basically broke me.
I glanced at Shay, trying as best I could to silently release her from all involvement here. As kind as she’d been to Gennie—and me too, I had to admit—I knew this was the last place in the world she wanted to be. She could leave the way she always did and we’d be fine without her. Gennie would take it hard but as soon as I pressed play onPirates of the Caribbean, she’d lapse back into character and get over the total infatuation that came with meeting Shay. And I’d get over it too—all over again.
We’d be fine. We had to be.
Then Shay said, “I’d love to stay, Gennie. Thanks so much for inviting me.”
My niece and the love of my stupid teenage heart walked into my house hand in hand and I felt a hard knot of pressure form deep in the center of my chest. I rubbed my knuckles against my sternum but it didn’t help.
* * *
Dinner wasa death march to the end of my endurance when it came to Shay Zucconi.
I barely remembered eating or negotiating with Gennie over finishing her vegetables. I must’ve done both, seeing as Shay and Gennie were busy carrying dishes to the sink and loading the dishwasher. And that left me standing in the middle of the kitchen while the entire universe tilted beneath my feet.
This couldn’t continue. It just could not. I wanted the sanctity of my house back but more than that I wanted the freedom that came from believing Shay was long gone from my life. If she was out of reach, I was okay.
“Can we have another playdate? Tomorrow?” Gennie asked her. “We can play at your house this time.”
“It’s almost time for your bath,” I said to my niece. She frowned at the clock on the stove. She wasn’t great with telling time but she knew this was at least an hour before her usual bath time. “Say good night to Shay and thank her for spending the afternoon with you.”
Gennie looked up at Shay, her dark eyes wide. “Thank you for spending the afternoon with me,” she said. “I don’t have to go to summer school anymore so we can play tomorrow if you want. I can help you. I’m a really good helper. I put things away all the time. And, Noah, you said we had to go down to the tulip farm because there’s a lot of poison ivy all over the place. So, we can do that tomorrow.”
Fuck.
Now I remembered what I’d forgotten when parking those trucks down at Twin Tulip.
“There’s poison ivy?” Shay yelped. “Where?”
“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “On the beech trees along the main drive. Especially around the trunk of the one with the tire swings.” I met Gennie’s hopeful gaze. “I guess we’ll come down with the goats at some point this week.”
Shay laughed and I had to work at not smiling in response. “You’d like to inflict that upon the goats?”
“No. They’ll eat it,” I said, dropping a hand to Gennie’s shoulder. I steered her toward the stairs. “Get ready for that bath. I’ll be up in a minute.”
“Good night, Shay,” Gennie called as she climbed the stairs at a glacial pace. “I’ll tell Dottie and Lacey about our playdate.”
“Thank you, my new friend,” Shay said. “It was so much fun to visit with you.”
Once Gennie was out of sight and I heard her bedroom door creak open, I said, “Thanks for indulging her. Don’t worry about those playdate plans. She’ll forget about it tomorrow.”
Shay wiped her hands on a dish towel and busied herself with straightening everything on the countertop. Tiny touches and nudges. The smallest possible imprint. And now it was everywhere. She was everywhere. And I’d never be able to forget it.
“But…goats?”
“Yeah.” I yanked off my hat, shoved it back on. “It’s nothing. I’ll send someone down to handle it. We’ve been doing it as long as we’ve had the goats. Just slipped my mind this summer.”
She nodded once and that seemed like the end of this discussion, the end of this horror show of a day. Then she said, “It really is good to see you, Noah.”
