The What If Guy Page 5

  “The man you’ve loved since you were twenty-years-old shows up in Fairfield, Washington, of all places, and he’s your son’s teacher. That’s not a sign?”

  “No. That’s God playing a very cruel joke on me.”

  “Open your eyes. This is your second chance.”

  “That ship has sailed.” I shook my head and popped the last bite of cookie into my mouth.

  “No, it hasn’t. He’s going through a divorce. And he took a job at Palouse Plains, of all schools. If that isn’t fate, then what is?”

  “Why would he be teaching at Palouse Plains, Holl? I don’t get it. The guy is from San Francisco, for Pete’s sake. Why on earth would he come here?” I stared into space, picturing Henry in front of his classroom.

  Holly shrugged. “Maybe he likes the small-town lifestyle. He’s got the whole sexy, rural look down already.”

  “This is nuts. I should be out finding a job, not discussing Henry Tobler. No matter how hot he looked.” I pressed my eyes closed, trying to eliminate images of “Mr. T” from my mind.

  She giggled. “Pretty hot?”

  “Oh, lord, those eyes literally make me weak, I’m telling you, I…” The right descriptive words eluded me. I grabbed the last cookie.

  “Now I’m screwed,” Holly said, rising from the table.

  “Why’s that?”

  She held up the empty plate. “I don’t have any dessert for my kids tonight.”

  “There were fifteen cookies on that plate.”

  “Not anymore.” Holly placed the plate in the sink. “Let me wash it, then I’ll bring cookies to you next time.”

  My heart swelled. “Really?”

  Patting her flat stomach, Holly grinned. “Eating for two, remember?”

  I suddenly felt self-conscious. “I hope you accept my apology. When I stopped talking to you, I was—”

  “You were in a big city, chasing your dreams, and becoming an artist.” Holly plucked a crumb off of the plate. “I stayed here and became a farmer’s wife.”

  “That wasn’t it. I was in the big city, and I was knocked up and embarrassed. I’m surprised my dad never told you about the drama in my life.”

  “Your dad was never very forthcoming with information about you. When he referred to his grandson, I caught on that you’d had a child, and assumed you got married. Otherwise, I heard nothing.” Holly squeezed my shoulder. “I’m not mad at you for leaving. It doesn’t matter what happened between us. I’m just glad you’re back.”

  I stood and pulled her into a fierce hug. “Thank you for forgiving me.”

  I got in my car with a stretched-out smile on my face. I was still stuck in Fairfield, jobless, living with my alcoholic father again—and I’d just injured the man of my dreams. But everything seemed less daunting with an ally, and made my attitude about living in the sticks a little more positive.

  Just a little.

  Chapter Four

  As soon as I returned from Holly’s house, I went into my dad’s puny bathroom and filled the tub. I caught a glimpse of myself in the warped mirror. I looked like hell. My hair begged for highlights, my eyebrows needed waxing, and I’d long since run out of my expensive facial night cream. I’d tried some generic hand lotion I found in my father’s medicine chest that made my skin feel like a balloon blown too tight.

  If I was going to live in the same town as Henry, I had to put some effort into grooming. I wanted to look like the girl Henry had loved. But sadly, my body was different—my hips a little wider, my breasts a bit fuller. I looked less like the ballerina I’d resembled in college and more like an hourglass, and fine wrinkles had settled at the corners of my eyes. I didn’t mind the way I looked, but it was a vast difference from what I’d looked like in college.

  Thinking of Henry in his blue shirt and jacket made my spine tingle for the first time in years. Seeing him today had awakened something in me that had been dormant for longer than I cared to admit. Even though I’d acted like a blithering moron, there was a sense of familiarity between us that I’d not forgotten—something warm and comfortable bubbling beneath the surface.

  I longed to relax in a bubbly bath and marinate in that feeling. I checked the temperature of the bath water. Perfect.

  The phone rang. I hesitated, then wrapped a towel around myself and dashed into the kitchen to answer it.

  “Hello?”

  “Auto?” My dad’s voice crackled on the line.

  “What’s up?”

  “I’ve been calling all morning. Why don’t you answer the damn phone?”

  I rested my head on the wall next to the old-fashioned rotary phone. I’d told him last night I had to take Elliott to school in the morning. Twice.

  “What can I do for you, Dad?”

  “Get dressed.” Not a request, but an order.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Why?”

  On the line, a truck horn honked in the distance, then someone called my father’s name. “Come downtown. I got you a job.”

  §

  My new job was at the pharmacy, right next to Smartie’s and kitty-cornered from Fisk’s Fine Foods. My dad had been in the pharmacy, refilling his prescriptions, around the same time I was at El’s school, committing social suicide. He’d overheard that they needed a second cashier. Without my permission, Dad had committed me to working five days a week for a disturbingly meager wage plus a discount on cigarettes. I didn’t smoke.

  But he did.

  Elliott returned after his first day at school and begged me to take him back to Seattle. He hadn’t greeted news of my employment with a cheerful disposition.

  He hunched over his plate of spaghetti. “A job?”

  “Yes. Isn’t that great?” I gave him a nice, fake smile.

  Working at the Fairfield Pharmacy, where they sold twenty-year-old bottles of Jean Nate perfume and rented VHS tapes of obscure B movies, was not the employment opportunity I’d hoped for. But with the bills piling up and heading for collection, and my dad’s questionable ability to maintain his job, I had to take what I could get.

  “But that means we’re staying,” Elliott whispered.

  I nodded slowly.

  His eyes filled with tears. “Forever?”

  I looked at my father, sitting in the living room, picking at his food while a random sporting event raged. “For now,” I said apologetically, tears welling in my eyes, too. I hated seeing Elliott so unhappy.

  He swiped away a tear as he took his plate to the sink. “I hate it here.”

  “What happened, El?”

  He peeled around the corner towards the spare room, and I followed.

  “Tell me about your first day.”

  He shut himself in his room with a reverberating door slam.

  I started training at the Fairfield Pharmacy the next day with Doris, the cashier who’d worked there since I was in grade school. She explained how to properly dust the post card rack—seriously, who sent a postcard from this place?—and the protocol for alphabetizing the expired bottles of cheap perfume. My mind wandered as I organized the shaving cream assortment, remembering how I’d walked in on my father shaving earlier in the week. Elliott had been watching him with curiosity, while my dad had rattled on about nicks and how to properly apply a piece of toilet paper to stop the bleeding. When I’d smiled at the two of them, my cheer had been met with dual scowls. I’d left feeling deflated once again.

  My father moved slowly, and his hands shook all the time. My son acted as if he were bound for a Turkish prison every time he got on the school bus. And I had a job that required me to wear a mustard-colored smock with the name Judy embroidered on it.

  I decided to just do my job, and let the time pass. I needed to make enough money to pay off my bills, and make sure my dad and El were fed and sheltered. All I needed to do was get through my shifts and try to render myself invisible.

  Fat chance.

  Around four-thirty on my second day, shortly after Elliott came into the pharmacy to
pick up the house key—and remind me that I’d ruined his life by moving him to small-town hell—I heard an all-too-familiar deep voice rumbling behind me.

  “Are you sure that’s safe?”

  I tore my attention away from dusting the vast collection of miniature John Deere combines and looked down from the ladder on which I teetered. There stood Henry, looking as dapper as he had at school. But he glared at me with an evil eye. I cringed at the sight of the purple bruise beneath his nose.

  I stepped down, and my foot slipped on a rung. “Oh, crap.” I stumbled into Henry’s chest with a thud. He caught me by my elbow and pushed me away as if I were poisonous.

  “I rest my case,” he grumbled.

  I looked into Henry’s steely eyes and my knees knocked together. Straightening my blouse underneath my hideous smock, I silently thanked God for helping me find something cute to wear to work that day. “Sorry. How’s your nose?”

  He took a step back and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Hurts.”

  Tension hung in the air. There were so many things to ask him. How, out of the entire United States, did he wind up working in the very school Elliott attended? Why, after living in cities like San Francisco and Seattle, did he end up living in little Fairfield, Washington? Was this a joke? Was I being Punk’d?

  “Why are you here?” he demanded.

  “I work here.” I jutted out my chin.

  “You know what I mean. Why are you in this town, Autumn?” He said my name as if it tasted bad in his mouth.

  My defenses flared. “I live here.”

  Henry looked perplexed. “Since when?”

  “Since birth, mostly. What’s your excuse?”

  “I’m a teacher at Palouse Plains.” Henry clenched his teeth, his gaze chilling. He most certainly didn’t love me anymore. I think he hated my guts.

  I folded my arms and returned his glare. “Isn’t it a bit odd that you took a job teaching in the town where I grew up?”

  Henry’s eyes narrowed. “Are you suggesting I did that on purpose?”

  I did my best to look haughty, despite the idiotic mustard smock. “I’m just saying, it’s a little ironic.”

  “You’ve got some nerve. I’m here because I’m teaching middle school history. You weren’t here when I signed on for this job, otherwise I might not have taken it.”

  I flinched. That one hurt.

  “Well,” I said, after an awkward pause, “this has been an especially heartwarming reunion, but I should get back to work now.”

  “Good. I need to go, anyway.”

  I spun on my heel, snatching the dust rag off the counter. Henry shoved open the glass-paned door. I wrung the dust rag in my hands and tried not to cry.

  “Henry?” Helen, the pharmacist, waved a white prescription bag from behind the raised counter. “You forgot your ointment.”

  Poetic justice.

  Henry muttered something unintelligible, then went to the counter.

  That’s what he deserved for being so blasted mean. I sprayed Windex on the cracked jewelry case and wiped it, my satisfied smile hiding looming tears. I couldn’t fall apart on my first day on the job, and worse than that, I couldn’t let Henry see me cry.

  “Just smear a little dab in the corner of your eye, and try to keep it closed for at least thirty seconds afterward,” Helen told him.

  “Got it.” Henry took the prescription and stalked toward the door.

  “Allergies can be the worst.” Helen went on obliviously. “Try some Zyrtec. It’s pricey, but works pretty good.”

  Henry kept moving toward the exit. “Thanks for the advice.”

  Doris followed him with a smile. “Seems like you and our Autumn know each other?” She blinked innocently as she waited for the inside scoop.

  Henry bunched the prescription bag in his fist, and I raised my eyebrow at him. This was not how I’d envisioned our reunion. In my imaginary version, the two of us ran toward each other in slow motion on a beach, then tumbled onto the sand, waves washing over us as we made out.

  Things were not working out that way.

  Without missing a beat, Henry and I spoke, our voices ringing in unison. “No, we don’t.”

  Chapter Five

  “Come on, Mom.”

  I smiled despite my prickly-as-a-cactus mood. Today was my birthday, my first Halloween back in Fairfield, but there wasn’t much to celebrate.

  I’d encouraged Elliott to make the best of his new school, but he became unhappier every day. At school, he didn’t look right, didn’t talk right, didn’t have the right gym shoes, didn’t have the right binder—the list went on. He’d come home distraught yesterday because he was teased about the contents of his lunch.

  I walked him to the bus stop every morning. Each day, his head hung lower, and his eyes darkened more and more. Worrying about El and my dad was starting to keep me up at night.

  The only bit of good news was that Elliott really enjoyed Henry’s social studies class. Social studies assignments were the only homework he did without a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas.

  Life in my father’s house wasn’t exactly getting comfortable, either.

  I’d stopped in to bring my father lunch at the grain elevators the week prior, only to find that he’d taken a long lunch to drive to Spokane for a doctor’s appointment I hadn’t known about. My dad drank in the morning before work and, immediately after his shift, drank more. He functioned better with alcohol in his system than he did without. His shaking had gotten progressively worse, and he seemed to be in constant gastrointestinal turmoil. I’d spent an entire day off work calling his doctors and the hospital, unsuccessfully trying to find out what was really wrong with him. Damned privacy laws prevented me from learning anything new. After three weeks of living with my dad, I was no closer to knowing the reason behind his hospitalization than the day I’d returned.

  I was forced to live in the same town as Henry, and it seemed he’d only seen me at my worst. If I had a good hair day, he was nowhere to be found. When I’d finally pulled out my look-at-my-ass jeans and worn them to work, he hadn’t shown up for any prescription ointments. And, most recently, Henry had jogged past our house as I’d half-walked, half-carried my dad inside after he’d spent the afternoon at Smartie’s, supposedly watching football.

  “Come on,” Elliott griped from the doorway. I put on my coat and pulled on a bright yellow beret. “Holly’s kids are waiting in the front yard, and I think Thomas just peed on the bushes.”

  “I’m coming.”

  I looked at my son, dressed in his wizard costume, and my heart clenched. His lips pulled tight like a wire across his face, and his brow seemed perpetually furrowed these days. When I’d told him that I couldn’t afford a new ski coat for him to wear to school—his navy pea coat had earned some snickers—he accused me of trying to ruin his life. I wanted so badly to make Elliott happy. If I thought that juggling knives would help, I would stock up on bandages and get to it. My throat tightened as I followed him to the door. He was disheartened and disappointed, his faith in me wavering. I’d brought him to this place where none of the other boys liked him, and in his mind, I was letting him flounder.

  We left for trick-or-treating, and Elliott eyeballed my hat. “Do you have to wear that?”

  “I thought you liked this hat.”

  “I liked it in Seattle. But I don’t like it here.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “It’s not a very Fairfield hat.” He stomped down the stairs to join Tabitha, who waited on the sidewalk wearing her Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz costume, smiling at him. Holly and I suspected a budding romance between them, but every time I mentioned it to El, he groaned and walked away without a word.

  “Why does my hat even matter?” I called after him, shutting the door behind me.

  Holly walked up and put her arm around my shoulders. “Don’t be too offended. Tabitha informed me that I’m not allowed to walk with her tonight.”

 
; I adjusted my hat. “I wore it at home all the time.”

  “Home?”

  “I guess I need to think of Fairfield as home again.” I sighed.

  “Auto!” Holly’s husband, Cody, joined us. He hugged me while his wife smiled. “Welcome back.”

  “Thanks. You’re looking good,” I said. “Fourteen years hasn’t changed you at all.”

  He raised his Mariner’s cap, revealing a receding hairline. “I’ve changed some.”

  I shook my head. “You two still look like teenagers. And siblings. Freaks. The both of you.”

  Cody looked as good as he had in high school—the same blond hair that made Holly and him look more like brother and sister than spouses, the same baseball cap, and the same hoodie sweatshirt pulled over a random T-shirt. He’d gotten a little thicker than he’d once been—hadn’t we all?—yet he wore the same bright smile. He took Holly’s hand, and the two shared a quick squeeze. My heart clenched.

  We walked down the sidewalk, following the kids.

  “In the city,” I said, “we usually went to Halloween parties. I forgot how cold it is to walk around, trick-or-treating. It would help if people weren’t staring at me.” I cast a frustrated glance at a neighbor who watched me with pointed interest.

  “It’s not as bad here as you think. People in town are really glad to have you back. But Doris says that you seem pretty stressed all the time.” Holly nudged me playfully.

  “I am. I still don’t know what’s going on with my dad. He’s acting so old. He itches all the time and sometimes scratches himself raw. He hardly eats a thing, and when he does, he winds up in the bathroom all night. Elliott is freaked out by how much he shakes, too. I really need to find out what’s wrong with him, but his doctors won’t tell me anything. Neither will my dad.”

  Holly’s eyes grew sad. “He’s been hitting the bottle heavy for the past decade. Those first couple of years after you left were rough for him. He lost his license for a while and had to walk everywhere. My mom and dad found him asleep in their front yard one night.”

  I cringed at the thought of my father passed out among Mrs. Momsen’s yard gnomes. “Oh, lord, how embarrassing.”