Chapter 12

12

Georgia parked her Mini outside the ranch house in Skokie and turned off the ignition. She usually liked to take a moment to access the best version of herself before she met with her clients: cheery, but not too over the top; understanding without condescension; kind and ready to take the cues from the family. It was a balancing act, but she’d been walking this tightrope for most of her life.

Today, however, she was feeling out of sorts. This morning, she’d risen earlier than her usual 10 a.m. to find the house empty and a post-it on the fridge from Banks.

See you Saturday.

Five days without him. She’d planned to cook breakfast, to make up for the not-so-stellar dinner last night and her hasty kitchen exit, but he was already gone. She should be glad of the breathing room. She wouldn’t have to be on her best behavior, trying to impress a man who excelled at throwing her off her game with his pin-point observations and strip-her-soul looks.

Something happened.

Yes, a huge mess that she needed to fix.

The door to the ranch house opened and Debbie Draven, a pretty brunette in her early forties, stepped outside with a wave. With a wave back, Georgia popped the trunk, climbed out of her car and grabbed the shopping bag, gussied up with ribbons and crepe paper. What must she look like, showing up in her designer duds in a cute seafoam green Mini?

A trust fund chick with a guilty conscience, that’s what.

“Hi, Debbie,” she said, moving in for the hug. “How are you?”

“Hanging in there. You look gorgeous, but then brides always have a glow, don’t they?”

Georgia sighed. “Wouldn’t have taken you for a gossip rag reader.”

“Are you kidding? You married a Rebel. That’s a big deal around here.”

Why couldn’t she have chosen an anonymous hunk to marry?

Because there’s nothing anonymous about Dylan Bankowski.

She threw out the stock lines. “We’ve been trying to keep it hush hush, so we could settle in.”

Debbie led her inside. “Dad’s gonna love hearing all about it. We kept you a slice of birthday cake.”

“I’m sorry I missed the party.”

“Not a bother. We know you have other people to see.”

She did. The charity she volunteered for, Cherish the Days, usually had three or four birthday clients for her each week. Her job was to show up with a gift and chat with the recipient, for whom that birthday would likely be their last. Some of them had family, others had no one but hospice care staff. While the charity informed her when one of the people she spent time with had passed on, there wasn’t usually any ongoing relationship.

Until Jim Dixon.

A year ago, she showed up with an Ella Fitzgerald CD, a bottle of Glenlivet, and a smile. She’d chatted with Jim, his daughter Debbie, and her husband Mick, and they’d hit it off. There was no expectation of seeing them again—this was the point of her visit after all, to deliver a gift on a final birthday—but Jim had taken his pancreatic cancer diagnosis of eight months and borrowed several more from the gods. At first, she stopped in once a month, but as it became clear that every day was closer to his last, she increased the visit frequency to weekly.

Mick stood in the kitchen, ready with a cup of coffee and a slice of cake. Normally Georgia wouldn’t indulge in a slice so huge, and especially not before lunch, but evidently the family had been waiting for her to arrive.

“This is gigantic! I can’t eat this alone.”

“Oh, just a couple of bites.” Debbie added a huge dollop of whipped cream. “Take it in and chat to Dad.”

“Will do.” Picking up her plate, she took a sip of coffee and headed into the parlor, as Debbie called it. It used to be the room they kept for visitors, but since Jim had come out of the hospital, it had been configured as his bedroom. His weak smile did little to disguise his pain, his sunken features even more pronounced than they had been a week ago.

“Hey, gorgeous.” She set the cake down on a sideboard and leaned in to kiss his cheek, its skin as thin as the crepe paper in the gift bag. “Happy birthday.”

“You’ve been a busy girl,” he said with a slight cough.

“Let’s do the gifts first before we get into all that.” Why did everyone want to talk about Banks? She smiled at Debbie, who had followed her in. “You want to help open your dad’s gift?”

“Of course. Let’s see what we have.” Debbie pulled on the ribbons then withdrew a bottle of Dom Perignon, four flutes, and a—God forgive her—Rebels ball cap. A couple of weeks ago, she had seen the team calendar propped on Jim’s dresser beside his military medals and a hockey puck, signed with some illegible signature. (A quick flip through, but no Banks, unfortunately.) As Jim was a fan, she had popped into a sports memorabilia store and bought the hat. Only as she took it out did she realize she could have asked Banks to sign it, but that would have raised questions she wasn’t ready to answer.

“Oh, that’s fun,” Debbie said, holding the cap up. “Perfect for the birthday boy.” She placed it gently on his head and smiled.

“And champagne,” Mick said. “Very fancy.”

“I thought we could have a little something with the cake. Another year, Jim. It’s a great reason to celebrate.”

“It is!” Debbie sniffed and shared a glance with her husband. “Opening that up without taking an eye out is your job.”

Mick wisely elected to uncork the bottle in the kitchen, the loud pop making them all chuckle, even Jim. Debbie set the flutes on the dresser and Mick poured, at which point Debbie worried that the flutes should have been rinsed first. Everyone assured her they were fine.

“Happy birthday, Jim.” Georgia helped him hold his glass, clink it with hers and his daughter’s, then raise it to his lips. “I know you’d prefer a glass of whiskey, but I couldn’t give you the same gift two years in a row.”

“Nothing wrong with some variety.” He patted her hand and handed the half-empty glass to her, which she set on the nightstand. “You’ve got some ’splaining to do, Georgia.”

“Dad, it’s none of our business.” Though the sly look Debbie sent Georgia’s way said she would love to know the details.

“I have no secrets!” Georgia sipped her champagne and scooped some cake onto her fork. Banks’s version of their origin story was as good as any. “I’m not sure I mentioned it, but Dex O’Malley is my neighbor.”

“You certainly did not mention it!” Debbie was agog. “You hear that, Dad? She lives next door to that randy so-and-so, Dex O’Malley. A revolving door, I’ll bet.”

“Not anymore. He’s found a lovely girl to settle down with.” Tara had texted her the details. Dex had emerged from his court case this morning with a tap on the wrist and a reunion with Ashley before the boys headed to Dallas for a game. “That’s how I know Banks. Dylan.”

“You’re a dark horse, that’s for sure,” Jim said through dry lips. The cap hung loosely on his head, which had shrunken with the ravages of his illness. Why hadn’t she gotten it signed? It was the least she could have done. “All this time, I could’ve been asking about the Rebels.”

“But then we wouldn’t have time to listen to Ella and Billy and Count Basie, would we?”

Debbie gave her a look, making it clear she’d much prefer some Rebels gossip. “Was it romantic?”

“What?”

“The wedding!”

“Oh, that. It was Vegas. Glam, quick, unexpected.” Not romantic, except for what he called her.

Peaches.

She squeaked.

“You okay?”

“Fine! Absolutely fine. So tell me about the birthday party? Who showed?” As Debbie filled her in on Jim’s party, Georgia’s mind strayed to that night.

Peaches. That’s what you are.

He’d called her that last night—and that night. What did he mean by that? Since then, he’d mostly called her princess, a way to demean her, assess her uselessness. Put her in her place.

As Debbie launched into a recap of Jim’s party, Georgia decided that maybe not remembering that night clearly was its own sort of blessing.