I tilted my chin in acknowledgement and was about to return the greeting in the form of a hey, what’s up, or how ya doing? when a basketball with a case of terminal velocity decided to cruise my way.
I would have had to drop the items in my hand to stop the ball before my chest did, but since I’d agonized over my selections, taking a speed ball to the chest was the only option. Just as I was bracing for impact, Emma pivoted in front of me, freezing the ball between her hands.
“What do you think you’re doing bringing flowers to a girl who has a boyfriend?” rocket launcher asked me, smirking at his little sister.
Think fast, think fast, think fast. He was right, in his way, but I was right in my way. Emma liked flowers, Ty didn’t see fit to get her any, I—as her pretend/project/wannabe/hopefully future boyfriend—should be allowed to get her some. However, I knew this response would start the night off on, what would you call it? the wrong foot, so I put my fast on my feet thinking cap on and pulled out an explanation.
“These are for your mom.” I raised the bouquet, lifting my shoulders like it was the most obvious thing.
“Who’s the fancy box of chocolates for then?” was the immediate response when his eyes moved to the item in my other hand.
Giving another shrug, I said, “Your mom.”
“So what did you bring for Emma then?” he said, his smile identical to Joseph’s when he was taunting me in a similar way.
“Give it a rest, Tex,” Emma said, firing the ball back his way. “And great first impression, by the way. What a way to welcome a guest to our home and lead him to believe we’re nothing other than a bunch of dumb rednecks.”
“You know I love ya, Emma-Bema,” Tex called out before spinning and landing a swisher. Judging by their performance, four Scarlett boys could have or could still represent the starting lineup for Stanford’s men’s basketball team. That is, if they could keep themselves from fouling out in the first quarter.
“Oh, and Hayward?” Tex called out while he waited for his ball to bounce back to him. Swinging an arm to the chateau de Scarlett, he said, “Welcome to our humble abode.”
Emma puffed out a breath of air, shooting a glare at her brother’s back before turning back at me. “So how do I recover from that warm, disjointed welcome? Take two?” “Miss Scarlett.” I bowed, all 1700’s Southern gentleman like, extending the gifts in my arms at her. “As a token of my gratitude at you and your family’s boundless hospitality,”—I arched a brow at the basketball court—“please accept my humble gifts. Oh, and I might have lied about these being for your mom,” I admitted. “Seemed the best way to stomp out the fuse before it ignited.”
Plastering on a Gone with the Wind smile, Emma fanned her face. “Why I declare,” she said in a drawl that was as Southern as my manners, gathering up the oldest trick in the man book of gifts.
I wasn’t one for clichés, but in this case, it was a well proved one. I hadn’t met a woman who wouldn’t melt a degree or two at the arrival of flowers and chocolates.
“And you’re right,” she whispered in her Emma voice. “The boys would have no qualms over hanging you from the basket by your underwear and leaving you overnight if you would have admitted these were for me.” Weaving her elbow through mine, she led me across the front lawn that was more soil than sod. “But thank you for the gifts. I’m sure my mother will enjoy them,” she said, jabbing an elbow into my side.
“You know, I’m surprised your brothers need another excuse to draw and quarter me,” I said. “After last night and everything.”
“I told them what happened. Exactly what happened, not what got blown up by the rumor tank,” Emma said, stopping at the foot of the stairs. “And friend or not, no one talks to their sister like that. By their estimate, you did them a favor by teaching Ty a lesson.”
“So your brothers like me now?” I asked, thinking they had a strange way of showing it. “Gosh, no,” she said, making a face. “They still hate you. They’re convinced you’re the big bad wolf and I’m little red riding hood.”
“Big bad wolf?” I said, hitching my hands on my hips. “As in a werewolf?” The twisted irony of it was kind of funny.
“They watch too many movies,” she offered with a shrug. “But even though they’re quite convinced you’re out to get me, they still owe you a debt of gratitude for standing up for their sister’s honor. It’s safe to say you should escape a session of Scarlett Slapping. I think,” she added, her mouth twitching.
“You think?” I said. “Scarlett Slapping?”
Climbing the stairs, she said, “Exactly what it sounds like.”
“Super,” I muttered, following behind her. Our steps made a symphony of creaking all the way up.
“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you. They may outnumber me by three and outweigh me by eight times, but I have secret super powers over the male species.” She smiled at me over her shoulder, kicking a pair of boots to the side.
“That’s old news to me,” I said. “I’ve been a victim of your power for awhile now.”
Her shoulders tensed, just barely, but just enough for me to know I was bridging a delicate area. “Dinner’s in five,” Emma yelled across the lawn at the foursome, two of which were swinging from the rim like a couple of monkeys. “If you’re late, exceptionally stinky, or slightly rude, you’ll be eating your dinners on the back porch.”
A couple of waves and nods answered her while the Scarlett brothers thundered on with their game.
Emma stalled with her hand on the screen door handle. “Oh, and by the way, my mom is kind of . . .” she paused, brushing her hair behind her ear. “Quiet,” she settled on. “So don’t be offended if she doesn’t respond to your attempts at creating sparkling conversation. Okay?”
I caught the signs of someone coloring the truth with an easy to swallow color, the lowering of her eyes, the muscles clenching in her shoulders, the tone of the words, but I had secrets too. So did she. At last, a sign that this girl was for real.
“Well, wait until she gets a load of me then. She’ll be a changed woman after spending fifteen minutes with me.” I placed my hand over her back, in a way I’d meant to be reassuring, but ended up feeling more intimate than anything else.
She shot me a look of we’ll see as she tossed the screen door aside and stepped inside.
Following after her, I stepped into Emma Scarlett’s home. It wasn’t what I’d expected. Someone like her came from a two-story colonial with emerald green lawns and pancakes and maple syrup present in the air no matter what time of day it was.
It was hard to reconcile how a woman like Emma came from a shoebox of a home that was absent of warmth, charm, family photos, and that intangible quality of a safe haven. Even in my mother’s absence, my father had somehow managed to create that sense of peace and safety, but until I’d stepped foot in this home where it was glaringly absent, I hadn’t realized how vital it was to making a house a home.
A chill weaved up my spine and I automatically moved nearer to Emma, and the chill evaporated. She was my personal sun, without even applying for the job.
“Mom?” Emma said, passing a nervous smile back at me where I lurked by the front door. “Mom, we have company. You remember the guest I told you we’d have tonight? He’s here.”
She tip-toed across the decades old carpet, worn bald in areas, towards an upholstered chair floating like an island in the middle of the room. “Mom?” Emma repeated, her hand rounding over something midway up the back of the chair. A shoulder, a woman’s shoulder. I could have jumped from surprise if Emma’s eye hadn’t found mine right then. A woman so frail she looked a few days better fed than a runway model slouched in the chair, eyes focused on the black and white television flickering a few feet in front of her, propped up on a milk crate.
“This is Patrick,” Emma said, her voice low as she crouched beside her mom. “He brought these for you.” She set the flowers and chocolates in her mom’s lap, but she could have been laying them
in a coffin for all the recognition she received.
Emma glanced at me from the side, where I loomed a foot away from the exit, and I knew what she was experiencing. That her secret, one of them that she’d let me in on at least, would be enough to scare me away forever. This was a fear that plagued me as well.
Crossing the remaining distance, which was not far, towards Emma and her mother, I planted my best smile on my face and forced myself to act like there was nothing unusual, peculiar, or moderately terrifying about my surroundings.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Scarlett,” I said, kneeling next to Emma. “Thank you for having me here tonight.” Placing a hand on Emma’s knee, I gave it a squeeze. I could feel the relief deflating from her like a balloon. Her eyes were glassy when they met mine. She didn’t say anything—she didn’t need to. It was all right there.
A buzzer went off a few feet away from us, jolting the both of us, although her mother remained unaffected. Emma flitted towards the kitchen like she was overthrowing Paris, our moment passing us by.
Defeated by the bell again.
“Patrick?” Emma called out from the kitchen, as a racket of metal beating metal rang out. “Will you be all right in there? I’m just pulling out dinner and then we’ll be all set.”
“I’m fine,” I answered her, forcing myself to look—really look—at her mom. “We’ll just chat for a few minutes. I’m planning to press her to divulge all your most embarrassing moments growing up.”
“Ha!” Emma hollered from the kitchen, right before something clattered to the floor. For all the raucous, she could have been running a metal factory in there. “You’ll get nothing.”
I wasn’t sure if that was because she had very few juicy moments of her past worth telling or if her mother’s lips were sealed, literally, on the matter.
“Do you need any help?” I asked when another something clanged to the floor.
“Just stay out of the way,” she warned, before uttering the first curse I’d heard come from her lips when something that sounded an awful lot like glass shattered. Even at her worst, the best curse word she could pull was crap. If that wasn’t proof for opposites attract, I don’t know what would have been.
Turning my attention back at the inhaling and exhaling corpse slouching in front of me, I forced a grin. “It really was kind of you to have me here tonight. It’s nice to be able to meet the family responsible for making Emma who she is today.” Okay, a touch wordy and a tad sappy for a non-responsive person in front of me, but it was too late to take the words back.
“You like my Emma?”
I wouldn’t have believed the words had come from her mouth had I not been watching her. Everything else about her face and body remained unchanged except for the movement of her mouth. It should have been a relief, but instead Mrs. Scarlett just became creepier.
However, she was Emma’s mom. And that made her good people. “Yes, ma’am,” I answered, lowering my voice. Not that Emma could overhear me with the cacophony of noise coming from the kitchen. “A whole lot.”
Mrs. Scarlett nodded her head once, her eyes blinking for the first time. “She’s a good girl. And special too.” Her voice was tight, strained, like it would snap at the slightest disruption in the air, but the conviction behind those words was fierce.
“Yes, ma’am. She most certainly is.”
A commercial length silence ensued before she said anything else. “She doesn’t think so, though.”
I wanted to disagree with her, to tell her the Emma I knew was positively bursting with self-worth and confidence, but I couldn’t lie to the woman who had birthed her. “I’d have to agree with you on that.”
Mrs. Scarlett sighed, never once looking my way. When her eyes glazed over during the second sigh, I reached for the flowers about to fall from her lap to the floor. “Let me put these in some water for you.”
I was smack in the center of the kitchen in three strides. It was more of a closet than a kitchen in what I defined as what one would prepare a meal in, but Emma seemed to be holding her own as she pirouetted between the stove, sink, and refrigerator. Her forehead was beading with sweat, and her brow was set in a don’t mess with me warning.
“Vase?” I asked, short and sweet.
“That cupboard.” Her elbow pointed at the one beside her as she decimated a head of lettuce. “Top shelf.”
“Are you sure you don’t need some . . .” The word caught in my mouth when she spun at me, woman crazed look in her eyes, butcher knife raised in warning.
“I’m. Fine,” she said, before turning back towards taking out her frustrations on leafy greens. “Besides, isn’t it your gender’s general opinion that my gender’s proper place is to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen?”
I laughed, a full, rolling one. I laughed at the way her weapon free hand had flitted in the air as she’d said it, I laughed at the irony that, in my time, that had been the way it was, although it wasn’t the expectation, it was just the way things were. And I laughed at Emma, trying so hard to be tough and choke her own fit of laughter back down.
Opening the cupboard door she’d indicted, I pulled the chipped-mouth vase down and decided it was time to press a little luck again. Keeping an arm stretched on the open cupboard door, I reached my other arm around her, pressing myself against her just enough to feel the tension ripple through her body. The cutting board stilled, where it sat balancing precariously on the sink’s ledge, as my arm stretched around her further.
Turning the water on, I filled the vase until it was spilling over. I couldn’t move, I was incapable of it. I had her in my grasp, protected, shielded, everything I’d ever wanted I held within the six foot span of my arms, and there was nothing the world could throw at me to break this moment.
Nothing in the world save for her.
Ducking beneath my arm braced over the cupboard, she dodged in the direction of the oven, but not before meeting my eyes. The widening of her pupils told me she was excited. The narrowing of her eyes told me she was upset, maybe even angry. But what couldn’t be read with everything I’d read and studied pertaining to physical tells was if she wanted to feel the length of my body against hers every day forward.
“You could have made that easier on yourself, Gumby man,” she said with a half smile before flinging the oven door open.
“I could have,” I answered in the peaked tone that insinuated everything I wanted to.
“Patrick Hayward,” she said with a sigh as she pulled a tin-foil covered pan from the oven. “What am I going to do with you?”
It was one of those rhetorical questions people tended to throw at me a lot, because, let’s face it, I was the rhetorical question, but she’d cracked open a door I was going to bust right through.
Making sure she was looking at me before responding, I said, “Anything you want.” Peaking my brows a few times, I added, “As long as it involves scented candles and silk sheets.”
Emma snatched the dishtowel hanging over the stove’s handle and pitched it at my face. “My mother’s in the next room,” she hissed, fighting her smile at every word.
“And her brothers are coming through the side door,” a voice that was all bass announced immediately after a door screeched open.
If that wasn’t a proverbial cold shower, I don’t know what could have been.
Sweeping the chop sueyed lettuce into a bowl, she weaved through the five other, rather large, male bodies packed into the kitchen like we were rammed against the rail at a sell out rock concert.
“The only time you’re not late is when food’s involved,” she said, situating the salad bowl on the plastic folding table.
“That’s the only reason to be on time, Em,” Jackson said, dropping a kiss on her head. “Especially when you’re cooking pork chops a la commode.”
“If you’re all going to cramp my already cramped work space, make yourselves useful,” Emma said, pulling a bottle of dressing from the refrigerator and tossing it a
t me. “Dallas, you set the table. Austin, you fill the glasses with water. Jackson, light the candles.”
“We have candles?” Jackson mumbled, fishing a box of matches from a drawer beside the sink.
“And Tex,” Emma said, elbowing him while she carried a steaming pan of . . . something. “You’ve got mom duty.”
From the ensuing groan, I knew this was the least desirable chore in this household, and I could guess why Emma had doled it out on the brother who’d been the majorette of my welcome parade minutes ago.
“Pork chops a la commode,” I said in explanation, staring at the foreign grayish dish that looked the farthest thing from appetizing. But I didn’t care if it was laced with arsenic—if Emma took time to make me dinner, I was going to eat it. And ask for seconds.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” Emma guessed at what I was thinking. “The boys called it toilet pork chops when I first starting making it because,”—she motioned at the main course—“that’s pretty much what it looks like. But, taking great insult that they were labeling my best attempts at feeding them such vulgar names, I threatened to never cook for them again if they called it toilet pork chops again. They promised, and I renamed it pork chops a la commode.”
“Em?” I said. “Did you ever take French?”
“Only four years,” she said, clearly pleased with herself. “But the boys didn’t.”
“So you can call it toilet pork chops, just so long as no one else does or knows they are?” Devious wasn’t a word I would have placed in Emma’s characteristic bank.
“Precisely,” she said, sharing a smile with me. “Just look at that. They are toilet pork chops, but they’re a Scarlett house favorite because they’re filling, cheap, a one pan meal, and most importantly—”
“They’re freaking delicious,” Dallas offered, dropping the last fork into its spot.
“Couldn’t have said it any better.” Emma smiled her thanks at her brother.
“You know, Emma doesn’t make pork chops a la commode for just anyone,” Austin said, from his post at the sink where he filled seven plastic cups of varying sizes and colors. “This is a meal reserved for family birthdays and special occasions. I don’t believe you’ve ever even made this for Ty, have you?”