“Charcoal’s ready.” He seemed proud of that announcement.
“I told you to wait until I got back,” Daniel said.
“I can do it. I did it. You worry too much.”
Daniel apparently had no answer to that. “Wanna beer?” he asked Cleo.
“No, thanks.” It probably wouldn’t be a good time to mention that she was a vegetarian, she decided.
Daniel grunted and headed for the refrigerator. She heard the hiss of a bottle cap.
“Come on,” Beau said, taking her arm and pulling her toward the patio doors, leading her outside.
Beau had done the decorating-she could tell. He’d strung plastic lights shaped like cowboy boots and red chili peppers. In the center of the wooden picnic table, four candles waited to be lit.
Dark clouds skittered away, revealing a sky of brilliant pink that cast a warm glow over everything. Out past the covered patio, a brick path wound through a perennial garden to end at a small shed. Near the shed, not far off the path, was a blue ball-one of those shiny glass orbs found in country gardens. “Who takes care of all of this?” Cleo asked, failing to imagine Daniel Sinclair knee deep in lavender.
“I do mostly,” Beau said. “Danny helps me sometimes. But he’s not very good at it. When my mom gets home, she can take care of it again.”
“Where is she?”
“Park Manor.”
A nursing home, she assumed.
“Before Danny came back I took good care of her.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“Come on. I’ll show you the gazing ball.”
The brick path was only wide enough for one person. Beau insisted she go first, not with a motion of his hand, but with an easy shove, until they both stood admiring the blue globe, as shiny and out of place as a cheap Christmas ornament.
“I spray it with window cleaner and shine it.”
She’d seen a lot of them in her life but had never been able to figure out what purpose they served- unless being an eyesore was a purpose. Kind of like a plastic pink flamingo, she supposed.
“At night you can see the stars,” Beau stated, staring reverently at the globe.
Cleo glanced up. “Stars?”
“Yeah. You look in the ball and see the stars.”
“Oh.”
She was stunned by her own ignorance. All along she’d thought the globes were worthless, only to discover they were something remarkable. How could she not have known? How could she not have noticed something so remarkable? Were there other things she was missing? Other things that, on the surface, looked ordinary but upon closer inspection were a wonder?
People always complained that there was nothing new under the sun, but they never stopped to appreciate what was there, Cleo being just as guilty as the next person. And then there was someone like Beau who saw the beauty of the everyday. Not only saw it, but recognized it.
Cleo smiled at him. “I’d like to see those stars sometime.”
“Maybe you can see them tonight.”
She looked up at the watercolor sky, afraid it might not be clear enough.
Behind them, the patio door slammed. She turned to see Daniel heading toward the grill with a plate of raw meat. She heard a sizzle. Smoke and flames flared, then died back down. A feeling of nostalgia washed over her, the smell of the charcoal and seared meat reminding her of childhood cookouts.
“Sometimes my mom would go for a walk and she wouldn’t come back,” Beau said. “She would forget how to get home. Isn’t that weird? I never get lost. I know every street in this town, and every store. And not just in town. I know all the country roads too. When the mailman takes a vacation, me and another guy deliver mail, because I know the roads and I know where to go.”
“That would be wonderful, to have such an amazing memory.”
“They said I couldn’t take care of her anymore, but I could. I really could.”
“I’m sure you did a great job. Is that why Danny came back? Because your mother was forgetting things?”
“No…he just wanted to come back. He likes it here. He’d rather be here than anywhere.”
Beau seemed to be trying to convince himself of Daniel’s contentment as much as he was trying to convince Cleo.
They began walking back in the direction of the patio. “I heard Danny talking about you bein’ here to help find a key. I lost a dog once. His name was Fido. Do you know where he is?”
Oh, boy. The direct question. How could she sidestep this one? “How long ago did you lose him?” she asked, stalling.
He squinted and looked brainward. His expression cleared when he found what he was looking for. “I was eight.”
Cleo relaxed. Nobody would expect her to find a dog that couldn’t even exist anymore. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-six. I’m always kidding around, calling Danny my little brother, even though he’s bigger than me.” Beau laughed, and the sound was so infectious that Cleo joined him.
“What’s so funny?” Daniel asked.
Beau hadn’t allowed himself to be detoured from his original question. “I asked Cleo to help me find something.”
Intent on his cooking, Daniel said, “I’m sure Cleo can help you find anything you lost. Isn’t that right, Cleo?”
“Not a dog that vanished over twenty-five years ago.”
“Oh, Fido. No, I don’t think Fido’s coming back.”
“He might,” Beau said, for the first time giving Cleo a glimpse of stubbornness.
“Do you have a Frisbee?” she asked, trying to distract Beau from the Fido problem. “Premonition can catch Frisbees.”
“Yeah. Wow. I’ll go get it.” Beau loped into the house, with Premonition following.
“Nice manipulation.”
“Apparently drinking makes you even more sociable.” She indicated the new beer in his hand. “What happens after a couple of six-packs? Do you get all giddy and giggly, or do you just pass out?”
“You should know the answer to that. In fact, I can’t see a need for you to ever ask any questions.”
“You’re overreacting. I never claimed to be omniscient.” And then she got to the real issue. “Why do you hate me?”
Her direct question caught him off guard. Perhaps it was too much for him, because he didn’t answer.
“People like me are marketing hope,” she informed him, poking a finger in his direction for emphasis. “And hope is something everybody needs.”
He finally found the words he was searching for. “That’s a bunch of shit.”
“Are you an ass with everybody, or just me?” She found herself staring at the dark roots of his sun-bleached hair, the dark roots of his sun-bleached eyebrows. It was that same striking combination that had made Peter O’Toole so mesmerizing in Lawrence of Arabia.
He took a long swallow from the brown bottle in his hand. “What are you doing? Reading my aura?”
“Maybe.”
“Is it black?” he asked blandly. That was funny, but there was no way she would reward him with a smile. Instead, she looked up at him and said, “I see a man who feels trapped by circumstances he believes to be beyond his control.”
“You’ve been talking to Beau.”
“I’ve been keeping my eyes open.” She’d had enough arguing. She looked around, searching for a new subject. “The garden-it’s beautiful. It’s nice of you and Beau to take care of it until your mother comes back.”
Behind her hung a heavy silence. She turned. For the first time that evening, Daniel looked uncomfortable. “She’s not coming back.”
“Oh?” Did they feel they couldn’t take care of her?
Daniel cleared his throat. “She died two years ago.”
“But Beau told me-”
“I know what Beau told you. The same thing he tells everybody. For some reason, he won’t face the fact that she’s gone. He refused to go to her funeral. He said he was going to stay home and keep her company instead. Sometimes I hear him whispering to somebody, and when I ask him who he’s talking to, he says it’s Mom.”