Nicki grinned at the joke—our old dining hall at UNCW. To tell you the truth, their pasta station was out of this world.
I should take this moment to explain that Nicki and I have lived our entire lives in the Wilmington area. Well, she eventually moved to Carolina Beach, but that’s a mere thirty minutes down the road. We both attended UNCW because I didn’t want to leave the beach when I graduated from high school, and Nicki didn’t want to leave our mother. I stayed on campus even though my parents lived ten minutes away. I still wanted that college experience, and Dad was kind enough to refrain from bitching about the cost. Mom worried I’d drive my roommate insane with my OCD. I’m happy to say it wasn’t the OCD. She couldn’t stand my music choices.
“I’ll call you next week to discuss,” she said.
“So no to Wagoner Hall,” I clarified.
Nicki cocked her head and sighed. “Really, B?”
I shrugged and finished off Nicki’s margarita. The rest of lunch was spent discussing wedding favors and make-up artists and how to walk and keep sand out of one’s shoes.
“I don’t think you wear shoes,” I said. “I think you’re supposed to be barefoot.”
“I don’t want some hippie wedding,” Nicki replied, crinkling her nose.
“I think you can look elegant and be barefoot at the same time,” I said.
“God, Bailey. You really don’t have a clue.”
***
“Bailey!” Soledad called over the wooden fence. I could only see her forehead and eyes, and I know she stood on tiptoes.
“Come on over,” I said, waving her in.
In an instant, I heard the latch lift, and Soledad pushed through the gates dividing our properties. I was in the middle of gardening. Yeah, I forgot to mention that I have a slight obsession with gardening. Not like old lady gardening. I didn’t have those rabbit and snail statues all over the place.
I started on my back yard immediately after I purchased my house—installing stone walkways, lining them with shrubs and varieties of perennials that bloomed at different times of the year. My father and I built a pergola toward the back of the property complete with a fan and twinkle lights. I found a discarded patio set on the curb in front of someone’s home with a sign attached, reading, “Take Away” and fixed it up. Recovered all the chairs and cleaned and painted the tables. It found a new home under my pergola that’s now overrun with yellow jasmine and purple clematis—fragrant shading.
“Bailey, un muchacho lindo apareció en su puerta la semana pasada,” Soledad said. “En su pijama!”
She was playfully admonishing me. Now, what could she be chastising me for? I thought and thought, then settled on simply telling her what I was doing outside.
“I’m gonna have to cut back a lot of these flowers soon. The cold is coming,” I said. “I’ll miss my Shasta daisies.”
“?Por qué estaba en pijama, Bailey? ?Es un nuevo novio?”
“I hate when it gets cold, and I’m cooped up inside. I like being out here, but then you know that ‘cause you see me all the time,” I replied.
“Creo que es guapo. él se ve fuerte e inteligente. Debes traerlo para que yo lo pueda conocer,” Soledad said. She knelt beside me and helped me pull weeds.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said, placing my hand over hers.
“Déjame ayudarte!” she replied, slapping my hand away and resuming her work.
I think we got that exchange right, actually. I smiled to myself.
“My sister’s getting married. I keep telling everyone. I told Reece—the guy who came over last week in his pajamas. Did you see? Well, I told him and I don’t even know him all that well. Obviously if I’m telling everyone it means I’m totally bothered by it. And not because I don’t love my sister. It’s got nothing to do with that. Even though she is a bit of a bitch. It’s just that it makes me look pathetic. And now I’ll look even more pathetic standing beside her during the ceremony as her maid of honor, not matron of honor.”
Whoa. That was a lot of words. I watched Soledad absorb a language she didn’t understand before replying.
“Hay muchas malezas!”
I just assumed she called my sister a bitch.
We conversed a while longer while we cleaned out a flowerbed running the length of the back fence. Soledad hugged me before saying goodbye—I do know “adios”—then I went inside to wash my hands and call Reece.
I stayed on the phone with him through dinner, through late night TV, and into the wee hours of the morning when I finally fell asleep to the sound of his even breathing.
***
“Wow.”
“‘Wow’ what?” I asked.
“What do you mean ‘wow what?’” he replied, staring into my back yard. “This should be in a magazine.”
My head inflated just a little. My heart followed.
“Why are you just now showing me?” he asked.
“The last time you were over, we were busy with breakfast,” I reminded him.
“Why didn’t we have breakfast out here?”
I shook my head. “I guess I didn’t think about it. And anyway, we couldn’t have all of breakfast out here, if you know what I mean.”
He laughed. “But I see a privacy fence.”
“Nope. Soledad, my next-door neighbor, likes to peek over the edge.”
“Ohhh, I see. Well, then that might have been a little embarrassing,” Reece replied.
“You think?”
He nudged my side. “Take me for a tour?”
“When we get home,” I said, checking the time on my cell phone. “You’ve never been to an antique fair before, have you?”
Reece shook his head.
“Okay. Well, bitches are crazy. They get there early and snatch up all the best stuff. We’ll be standing in a line, just so you know. To get in, that is,” I explained.
“Seriously? For a bunch of milk jugs?”
“You better believe it.” I grabbed his hand and pulled him along to Erica’s truck. We swapped vehicles for the day in case I found something huge, like a bureau or fireplace surround.
“Bailey, you don’t have a fireplace,” Reece pointed out.
I chuckled. “Oh, Reece. It’s not for a fireplace. It’s for my bathroom.”
He looked at me confused. “I don’t understand a thing.”