Chapter 11 A Surprisingly Bangable Handyman

Chapter 11: A Surprisingly Bangable -Handyman

"I'm not going out there." Scarlett stepped back from the gift table, her mind racing. "Is something on fire in the kitchen? I think I smell something burning..."

Too late. Nate was standing by the threshold between the lobby and dining room. "Hey all," he said. "Where's this new piano I'm supposed to move?"

"Oh dear, I'm sorry," Mama sighed. "I should have let you know. I'm afraid we're still working on conjuring one."

"Sorry to hear," Nate said. "Chalk it up to those misbehaving oak trees, I guess."

"Afraid so." Mama turned to Scarlett. "Darling middle child, as Nathan has taken the time to stop by and see us, I suggest you go do what you know you need to do."

"Mama . . ."

"Go on. And don't dawdle—we have much to accomplish before you girls investigate the grove tonight. Go apologize for whatever it is you said."

"I didn't say anything."

Here came that Melrose Glare again. "It's all over your face, Scarlett."

"Nuh-uh!"

She turned to Luna for support, but Luna just shrugged. "Kinda is, Scar."

Scarlett folded her arms across her chest and gazed up at the ceiling for a moment. This one's gonna sting. "Hey, Nate, since you're here . . . Can I talk to you for a second?"

***

The back of the dining room looked out over a large stone patio. Beyond the patio sat about an acre of gardens, ringed with tall trees. In the center sat a large granite fountain, which, in better days, would send water jets arcing high into the air. The garden had once been a masterpiece of landscaping, with immaculate gravel paths winding through beds of fragrant roses and lavender shrubs. As a little girl, Scarlett used to chase the butterflies and hummingbirds that flitted from blossom to blossom. Today, the fountain was full of dry leaves, the blossoms just a memory.

Strolling around the yard, Scarlett was disturbed by the preponderance of unpulled weeds, untended shrubs, and unraked leaves. The once-immaculate garden, a source of Melrose pride and joy, was a specter of its past self. "She hasn't really kept it up, has she?"

"Well . . . your mother has a lot going on, especially since magic started glitching. And, uh . . ."

" And ," Scarlett said, finishing what Nate didn't want to say, "tending the garden was always Papa's thing."

The back corner of the lot was the site of Papa's greatest love—his vegetable patch, where he'd spend uncountable hours from the first thaw to the first frost. Unlike her sisters, who never took to gardening, Scarlett had loved helping her father dig in the dirt. She'd enjoyed the affectionate labor involved in gardening, even without the use of magic. Although, from time to time, a little magic never hurt.

"I did my first spells out here." Scarlett led Nate to a cast-iron bench under a weeping willow tree. "Papa needed more earthworms for the garden, and I got to conjure them. Very basic spell, but I was only about five. The very idea of creating life like that was quite thrilling. A couple of years later, we had a bit of an aphid problem, so I was allowed to make ladybugs." She laughed at the memory. "I got completely obsessed with perfecting the number of black spots on their backs . . . Eventually, Papa explained that mommy and daddy ladybugs are perfectly capable of making their own baby ladybugs, and I'd best not go overboard."

"Quite an education to be had out here." Nate settled on one side of the bench. "You've got the birds, the bees, the bugs, the whole deal."

"Indeed, you can learn a lot in a garden . . ." Scarlett sat on the other end of the bench and stared straight ahead, not wanting to look at him for this next bit of conversation. "So listen . . . I'm a jerk."

Nate chuckled. "I mean . . . not most of the time?"

"No, yeah, I am . . . Mama told me about your father . . . and your secret uncle? Apparently?"

"Ohhh, I see. That's what this is about. Yeah, at the store this morning . . . you wouldn't give me a chance to explain."

"I kinda freaked out," Scarlett admitted.

"That's for sure."

"I was out of line. I don't know, it's like . . . I spent ten years becoming an adult, and then I get back here for five minutes, and I'm—"

"Seventeen all over again?"

"Ha, you're being generous. I think I was acting even younger than that. And listen." Here she turned to face him, hoping her words came out as sincerely as she intended. "I'm so sorry, Nate. I'm sorry about how I acted. And I'm really sorry about your dad . . . Is he okay?"

"Oh, my dad's fine." Nate frowned. "What did your mother tell you?"

"Just that you had to perform some sort of dramatic rescue?"

Nate laughed. "Wow . . . well. That's not the whole story. She told you about my uncle Viz?"

"Yeah. How'd that even happen? Hundreds of years of only-children and then twins suddenly?"

"Nobody ever admitted anything. But my grandmother may have resented the one-child rule. And she was a witch, so . . . maybe she cheated? In any case, it backfired because my dad was always considered the ‘real' son. I'm told that everybody treated Viz like he was just this weird, gift-with-purchase kid. Not a bad boy, everybody said, but he just didn't fit in. So when he turned eighteen, he left. Which meant, of course, that he quickly forgot all about Oak Haven or that he had a family at all. Before he left, he told my dad he wanted to check out Texas, maybe work on a ranch. But that was all anybody knew."

"I don't remember you ever mentioning him while we were growing up."

"Are you kidding?" Nate said, making a face. "Big family secret. But then . . . I don't know what happened exactly. Dad hit middle age, and he just . . . he got it into his head that he should find his brother. Took several years to track him down, thanks to the Forgetting Spell."

"Sure. Because non-witches can leave Oak Haven and remember it, but not for very long."

"Exactly. Growing up in Oak Haven gives people like me and my dad a little resistance to the nonsense trivia . . . but it's weak. Non-witches like us can keep our memories solid for about three days, and then somewhere on day four, all this trivia starts buzzing around in our heads. Like, you try to remember a phone number, but all you can come up with is the fact that Martina Navratilova won Wimbledon a grand total of twenty times. It gets gradually worse, and by day six? Total amnesia. No recollection of the past at all. But Dad decided the risk was worth it, and he set out looking for Uncle Viz. Texas is a big place—even bigger when you can only search for three days at a time. So it took a while, but he did find him. And Dad started taking these trips out west to visit. Dad tried to convince Viz to come visit Oak Haven, but he wouldn't. Viz said he'd left for a reason, and even if he didn't remember what that reason was, he was going to trust himself that it must've been a good one."

Scarlett smiled. "That sounds exactly like something a rancher would say."

"Absolutely. Anyway, it kind of worked—Dad doing the visits. Then, a few years ago, he was headed home but only made it as far as Atlanta. Then his flight got delayed, and delayed some more, and then canceled. He ran out of time. We went to the airport to pick him up and found he never got on the plane."

"Oh my God. So . . . what . . . I mean, what happened?"

"Mom worked the witch connections—she knew somebody in Boston who knew someone in a coven in Savannah, I think it was. Just an all-points-magical bulletin, basically, looking for Dad. It turned out, he'd never left the airport. He got confused and missed his flight, and then he just stayed. I flew out to Atlanta to get him—found him sitting in a Macaroni Grill in Terminal 3. He had no idea who I was. That was the worst part. I walked up to him and said, ‘Hey, Dad,' and it was just—" Nate gestured at his own face "—just blank. Nothing. It's one thing to be told, oh , Dad has amnesia , whatever. But to have him just look right through me like that?"

"Oh, Nate . . ." Scarlett reached over and squeezed his hand. "I'm so sorry."

"No, it's okay, he's all right now. But what sucked at the time was that my first reaction was to be mad. I was, like, so so mad at him, for a long time. It wasn't his fault—it's just that stupid Forgetting Spell. And, of course, I knew that, but . . ." He sighed. "I don't know. I couldn't get over that moment when he didn't know who I was."

"If he didn't recognize you, how did you get him to come home?"

"Mom planned for that. She wrote him a letter for me to give to him when I found him. I don't know what she wrote, but whatever it was, it was enough to convince him that he could trust me."

"But you say he's fine now, right?"

"Totally fine. It took a week or so, and Earl Twelve was back to his old self. Me, though . . . Not so much. It's so stupid because I know he didn't do anything wrong. But I still dream about that blank expression sometimes."

Scarlett studied Nate like a stranger—just a young man beside her on the bench, sitting there with his sadness. She felt like she was seeing him for the first time—seeing him as a real person. Not Nate, the surprisingly bangable handyman, or Nate, the over-idealized, never-quite-was boyfriend. Just Nate, a good guy. A good guy and a true friend, who she'd left in the lurch so long ago. "I should've been here."

"Nothing you could have done." Nate turned slowly, his gaze finally meeting hers. "I thought about getting in touch. I really did, but I couldn't bring myself to make that call. I mean . . ." He sighed, struggling to find the right words. "When you got so upset at the store today . . . I just wanted to say, Scarlett, be serious. Do you really think I didn't want to visit you?! Of course I wanted to visit you. Of course I did." His voice carried a level of frustration that took Scarlett by surprise. "I think about you all the time. About us . . . or about what we might've looked like if there had ever been one. But what am I supposed to do, visit you for three days at a stretch? That's what it would have been—just like my dad and my uncle. Three days, no more. Would that be enough for you? Because it wouldn't for me."

"Nate . . ."

As he gazed at her, Scar looked at his lips and suddenly the only thing she could think of was what it might be like to finally, finally kiss them after all these years.

"Scarlett? Were you about to say something?"

"Uh. Yeah. I . . . um." She turned away, hoping a thought—some thought, any thought—would return to her abruptly empty brain. "Look, I feel shitty about having just walked away from us being friends or whatever."

"Friends . . . or whatever ?" Nate tilted in his head in the sexiest way—he really could be a bastard sometimes.

"Yeah . . ." Scarlett laughed awkwardly. "Uh, that was weird of me to say. I just meant that, uh, friends are extremely important. And old friends are even more so—I mean, there's a whole song about that, make new friends and keep the old and so on, and I don't know how long I'm even going to be in Oak Haven, but while I'm here, like, uh—why can't we be friends?"

Nate grinned. " Why can't we be friends ? That's a song, too. Very musical conversation we're having. Okay, friend . Do you mind if I make a request?"

"Please," Scarlett said, a little desperately. "Please make a request so that I can somehow stop talking."

"I heard your mother say you and your sisters are checking out the oaks tonight. I was wondering . . . could I come along? I would really love to see that grove again."

"Of course. But I'm not following why you need to ask?"

"Right." Nate nodded. "This happened after you left. Yeah, they passed a law that non-witches such as myself aren't allowed in the grove."

"Ohh," Scarlett said, finally understanding. "Because of what Bill did."

"Exactly. Ole Bill really messed things up for the rest of us."

"Well, screw that guy," she declared happily. "Of course you can come . . . friend."

Nate nudged her shoulder with his own. "You got it, friend."

"Hey, uh. Since we're pals now and all . . . I have to ask you something."

"Go for it."

"Okay, I'm just curious . . ." Scarlett said hesitantly. "It's totally not important to me, but I'm just wondering . . . Polly?! I mean . . . really? You and the Triple P?"

Nate laughed. "What's wrong with Polly?"

"Nothing," she said. "I just don't see the two of you together, is all."

"Well, what'd you expect? What have you been picturing, all these years? Was I supposed to sit here and wait for you? Maybe take a picnic basket out to the woods and just sit there staring off into space, sighing a lot, writing wistful poetry: Scarlett return to me? "

"Oh my God, Nate, no! No, I'm so sorry. I never meant that you—" But then she realized his eyes were twinkling. "Oh, for fuck's sake. You're teasing me."

"You asked for it." He grinned. "No, there's nothing between me and Polly—that's the truth."

A little jolt of happiness went through her, which she decided it was best to ignore. "Well, I spoke to her at the store earlier, and she certainly implied otherwise."

"Bah." Nate stood up. "She was probably just trying to wind you up."

Or wishful thinking on her part, Scarlett thought.

"No," he continued. "I help out with repairs at the bookstore, is all. Same as I do with all the shops downtown. Which reminds me, I should get back. I didn't plan on being away from the store quite this long."

As they headed back toward the patio, Nate said, "But I mean . . . even if I were seeing Polly, it wouldn't matter to you anyway." He lifted an eyebrow. "Right? Since we're just friends?"

"Absolutely. Totally fine by me, friend. Bang away."

"Great, glad to have that understood." He gave her a playful tap on the arm. "So I'll see you tonight."

"See you tonight!" Scarlett grinned, feeling a thousand pounds lighter to have things settled with Nate. And if something deep inside nagged at her that friends was not the right description for them at all? Well, let that be a Future Scarlett problem. "Fight the power, break the law," she joked. "Come stare at trees with us."