Jamie
Shoot. Jamie had been checking his watch, like always, but he hadn’t connected the hands with anything other than his smoking journal. “Uh. Mom.” Okay, he’d known her most of his life and he still wasn’t sure if the girlfriend comment was a joke. “This is Jo. Jo, this is my mom, Helen.” Mom blocked Jo’s retreat, since the only other way off the porch was through the house, so he turned like maybe his raised arm had always been for an introduction.
Mom smiled the close-lipped smile that she seemed to think fooled everyone as she held out her hand. Her nails were long and cherry red, and she had two gold bracelets on her wrist, both from Dad: one for her first child, and one for her first grandchild.
Jo’s nails were short and unpolished, and it was impossible to tell if she had any bracelets because her sweatshirts sleeves were down over her knuckles. She had to pause, though, and decide what to do with her backpack to get it out of that hand before she shook.
It didn’t go back on the porch, but it didn’t get hefted onto her shoulder, either. She set it down on the chair and shook briefly. “Hi.”
“Well, now.” Mom clucked her tongue and raised one penciled eyebrow in his direction. “And I thought Jamie spent all these hours back here alone.”
“Mom,” he cut in before Jo could react, keeping his eyes on Mom so he wouldn’t see exactly how Jo reacted. “I just met Jo today.”
“Uh-huh.” That was her tone of many layers, and he never caught them all, but maybe Jo did when that raised eyebrow turned on her. “You kids and your internet dating. Well, I’m off work,” she pointed out unnecessarily, “but don’t let me … interrupt.” Helen Whittaker never did anything so gauche as winking broadly, but she twiddled her fingers in a little wave before she opened the sliding door and disappeared into the house.
Shit. Whatever this was, if it had been anything at all, it was over. Mom ruined it.
It was a single conversation. Why did Jamie feel like he was losing something?
Jo cleared her throat, which meant she was still standing here. At least she stared after Mom, so she hadn’t caught whatever was on his face. “So, uh.” Both eyebrows raised, she turned to look at him. “Don’t get many guests?”
“Drop the M,” he muttered, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets.
She snorted, then clapped both hands to her face and turned away. It was a poor attempt to hide her giggles, though, so maybe he hadn’t messed this all up? Was that even possible?
And shoot, it was time to update the journal again, and add another log to the fire. He could basically do this in his sleep, even though he made sure to stay on top of things, anyway, so he could deliver a consistent product. The main problem was that, with Mom gone, turning to the smoker meant Jo would be able to get that backpack up on her shoulder and retreat.
“Look, I should go,” she blurted, swiping under her eyes as she turned back. Her face was red, not in a blush but in blotches that meant she was on the verge of crying.
Okay, confronting a total stranger about a subject deeply connected to both her personal and professional life was probably stressful, but he still didn’t want her to go. “Leave me a copy of your stuff,” he blurted, shrugging just shy of helplessly when she frowned up at him. “All your new evidence.” Jamie gestured at the bag she had to heft. “Maybe it’ll jog my memory.” Milwaukee was twenty years in the past, but it was the only thing he could think of. She’d given him her card, so he had some contact information, but he couldn’t be sure he’d think of anything else to get her to come back.
Jo blinked, sniffed, and shook her head. “Uh. I’ll have to make copies.”
“Okay. There’s, uh.” He pointed across the street, which really meant pointing through the house. “The library has a copier.” Plus Mom wasn’t there anymore.
She shook her head a little. “I’ll do it tomorrow. I’m going up to the archives, anyway.”
Tomorrow was okay. He smiled, even though this probably wasn’t a smiling sort of situation. “I’ll be here all day.” Maybe the head tilt toward the smoker was too much, but here meant literally here, for another round, because he supplied it for one of the downtown restaurants and not just for his food truck.
The way her eyes flickered up and down made him think that yeah, the smile was really the wrong thing, but then she nodded. “Okay. I’ll bring it by tomorrow.”
Wrong or not, the smile wasn’t going away. He waved, which was probably stupid, and watched as she went down the steps and disappeared around the corner of the house.
There wasn’t the sound of a car starting up. Come to think of it, he hadn’t heard one arrive, either.
Mom’s house—he’d lived here as a grown man for years and it was still Mom’s house—wasn’t far from downtown, where there were some hotels, but hadn’t she said she was here for the whole summer? Jamie remembered to check his watch again, and he marked the non-standard time in the journal and current temperature. There. He had a record of it now. Something threw him off, and even though he didn’t usually go back through past records, he’d know this one was here, forever.
Seriously, what was that? It was like he’d never seen a woman in a red dress before, maybe a bit early for the season—so either she was from the U. P. and used to it, or she wasn’t and she’d misjudged the late-May weather—or maybe just that he’d never seen a woman before.
That was silly. Jamie knew who he was. He’d been that way for forty-seven years, so why would any of it change now? Nobody ever caught his eye, of any gender. Maybe he was the disappointment because Allan had at least been married three times and even if Shane was in the middle of a divorce, he’d not only had a wife but fathered two kids. Jamie was eternally just Jamie, the middle child who could be guilted to uproot his entire life and move back in with Mom after Dad died because it was only his life.
Right. He picked up his root beer and swirled it around to judge how much was left before sitting back down, finding his place in his book, and trying to focus his eyes on the words.
Chapter Five – coming October 5
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