Waiting for December, page 11
Jesse grips my hand even tighter.
“Right now,” he says, “I’m passionate about keeping the inn. And I’m passionate about getting you to the other side of this. And if finding a passion is important to you, then I’m passionate about helping with that in any way that I can.”
I’m about to thank him when the tattoo artist tells me she’s finished.
I check out my design before she bandages it.
Jesse inspects it too, and now he’s the one who’s wincing.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he replies.
“That’s not your nothing face.” It’s crazy I already know his nothing face, but that moment by the fire earlier showed it to me. “You were definitely thinking something.”
He bites his bottom lip as if still debating whether or not he’s going to tell me what’s on his mind.
“Say it,” I demand and he sighs.
“I know it’s a little late to mention this. But you’ve only been here three days. Are you sure you want that tattooed on your wrist for the rest of your life?”
I give his arm another smack. “You’re right. It is a little late to say that.”
“You told me to tell you what I was thinking!”
Fair enough. I can’t be mad. As the tattoo artist starts applying my bandage, covering up the letters VT that are now permanently etched on my wrist, I explain that it’s just a symbol.
“This trip to Vermont is about being true to myself and reminding myself that it’s never too late to start over. I think those are two good things for me to remember forever.”
Jesse smiles. He looks relieved, and also convinced, that I picked an okay tattoo after all. “Yeah,” he says a beat later, confirming that I also read both of those looks right. “I think so too.”
—
“If you need help checking off an item tomorrow, can it be an easier one?” Jesse asks when we get back to our cottages.
When Jesse parked his car, we ran into a few guests getting back from dinner and visited with them for a bit, so it’s late now and I’m tired, but not too tired to laugh.
“Tomorrow I was planning on starting thirty days straight of yoga,” I say. “It’s an easier activity and one I don’t need help with. Seems you’re off the hook on both counts.”
He wipes a hand dramatically across his forehead, and I laugh again.
“Today was fun,” Jesse says, leaning against the maple tree outside our cottages. “I haven’t had fun in a while.”
“Me either,” I reply. As soon as the words leave my mouth, I think of my time with Sky and feel bad because that was fun too. It was just a different kind of fun. When I was with Sky, my heart and head were going a million miles a minute because feelings were involved. Tonight was no-pressure fun. With a friend. You really can’t compare the two.
“What’s on tap tomorrow?” I ask.
“Meet at the chicken coop, serve breakfast, check in guests, happy hour, then cocktails at the fire?”
“Sounds like we’ve got our routine down,” I point out.
“Yeah, I guess we do.” Jesse concurs. “Goodnight, Harper.”
“Goodnight,” I say as I walk up my porch steps and let myself in. It was a good night, I decide as I pull off my shoes. And a good day. Did I mention that I like it here? The only thing that would have made it better is a letter from Sky. I plop down on my bed and stare up at the ceiling.
How many more days do I have to wait until I can get my hands on another?
fourteen
FIVE. IT TOOK popping into town three times over the course of the past five days to receive another letter.
The first time I came wasn’t specifically to check, though. Jesse brought me into town to get more groceries—which was a slight deviation from our routine, which I’m loving.
Most routines are boring. But I could do the daily routine Jesse and I have every day, and it would never grow tiresome. The guests are always changing, which keeps things interesting. The chickens keep things interesting. And trying to last at least fifteen minutes at the fire every night definitely keeps things interesting. Especially when the elements don’t cooperate, as was the case last night.
Jesse and I were forced to share one umbrella while he held another over the fire during a downpour that ended with thunder and lightning. We both darted inside the second the timer Jesse had set started beeping, and Jesse had to make us a second warm drink because we were so cold and wet.
The next time I walked into town was to check to see if Sky had written me. That was yesterday—a full week since I’d heard from him last, so I assumed checking was a safe bet. But still, nothing.
And today I popped into Milk & Maple again because no guests were checking out or in. I had the time. And, okay, the suspense was killing me!
Fortunately, I found Letter Number Two sitting in my inbox. Sky and I are going to have to figure out a better system going forward. Maybe in this week’s letter I’ll tell him that I check my email on Wednesdays so that I’m not holding my breath each week.
I remind myself that I can let out the one I’m currently holding. Once I do, I take a sip of my latte. I ordered a regular one this time, no flavoring, and the waitress seemed pleased. She even told me “good choice,” when she set it down. I decide it was a good choice after taking another sip. Then I start reading.
To: Harper
From: Sky
Subject: Letter Number Two
Date: September 27
Dear Harper,
If you’re wondering why this letter took me over a week to write, it’s because my flight route changed and I’ve been adapting to a new schedule, which has been nuts. If this is the first time you’ve checked your email since last week and the thought of why I haven’t written hasn’t even crossed your mind, disregard this entire first paragraph. I shouldn’t assume that I’m on your mind as much as you’re on mine—which is constantly.
Now that I’ve got this new flight route, I’m flying to Maine all the time. I’ve flown there six times this week already. I’m mentioning this because each time I pass right over Vermont, and when I do, I think about you. You asked what my life in Atlanta is like. In a nutshell, this is pretty much it: fly to Maine, think about you, fly to Maine, think about you, fly to Maine, think about . . . you get the picture.
Speaking of pictures, I saw a new view on my LinkedIn from a Harper James. Were you trying to find a picture of me? I can’t imagine you were interested in my credentials. Although I suppose you might have wanted to verify that I am indeed a pilot. In that case, I’m sure you were pleased to see I do hold a license—at least for now. I almost lost it this week when I tried to land the plane in VT instead of ME and sneak in a special visit to an inn where this girl I’m crushing on happens to be working. (How am I doing on the flattery? Is this overkill or just right?)
It almost feels like torture that I fly over you and can’t stop and say hi. In case you haven’t figured this out, I didn’t ask for this reroute.
Anyhow, my hope was that the real reason you were checking out my LinkedIn page was because you missed my face. If that’s true, I’m happy to send you a better photo. And if you want to send any pictures my way, please feel free to do the same. I’d love to see photos of you ambling around Stowe or at work at the inn or lounging in your guest room or maybe even as you’re turning in for the night just before the lights go out.
Good God, woman. Somehow you’ve managed to turn me on from the other side of the country without even saying a word. I’m just sitting here imagining receiving a photo of your skin against the sheets and BAM. I suppose this is a good time to say that if you’re inclined to type up those fantasies you mentioned you were having, I’m clearly very willing to read them. ;)
You asked about my other dreams for my future in your last note. To be honest, I feel like they’re changing. For the longest time, I thought my photo albums for the rest of my life would just have pictures of trip after trip. But now I’m not so sure about that. I’m staying open to new possibilities. And just to be clear, those new possibilities include you—at least in my imagination.
I love hearing that you’re enjoying your job there. You’ve got eighty-eight more days to go, so make each one count. Not that I have a countdown going. Okay, fine, it’s pinned on my fridge. I included a photo so you know I’m not lying. (Have I flattered you enough yet? I hope I’m getting the job done.)
Until next time,
Sky
Three thoughts pop into my head when I finish reading.
Damn that Sky can write a good letter.
There are only eighty-eight more days until I see Sky!
I only have eighty-eight more days left in Vermont.
The last nearly threatens to dash my great mood, so I try to fix my attention on the first two, which put a smile on my face. Then I write Sky back.
To: Sky
From: Harper
Subject: Re: Letter Number Two
Date: September 27
Dear Sky,
I know you might not love your reroute, but I love that now each time I hear a plane and look up, I can imagine that you’re right above me. Somehow the thought of this makes me miss you less.
I am thinking of you constantly too, and I did in fact check my email several times this week to see if you’d written me. And I was a little bummed (okay, a lot bummed) each time I couldn’t find one in my inbox.
Let’s solve this: How about you send me an email on Wednesdays? Usually this is a slow day at the inn for me, and I can get to town to read what you’ve written and to write you back.
Now that logistics are out of the way, I have a very important question that needs addressing: You have a better photo of you than the one on LinkedIn in the pilot’s hat? Where? How? Because talk about giving a girl something to fantasize about . . . Please bring that hat with the condoms when you show up on Christmas Eve. I promise you’ll make all my wildest fantasies come true. And now I need to change the topic . . .
Out of curiosity, is Atlanta where you’ll always want to live? Or is it where you are because of work? I know you said you’ve moved around a lot, but do you feel settled there, or are you open to alternative home bases? Share with me in your next letter.
I have one more update to share. I got a tattoo! It’s my first one and I was a bit terrified, but that was the point of it, in a way. Do you remember my list of things I wanted to try in Vermont? Well, getting a tattoo was one of the items. I’m currently in the middle of trying thirty days straight of yoga, which is also on the list, along with a handful of other things that are supposed to challenge me while I’m here. Though the biggest challenge so far is not seeing you. (There’s my flattery right back at you for this letter!)
And speaking of seeing you, I love the countdown on your fridge. In your next letter, can you send me a few more pics of your apartment? I’m very visual and would like to imagine you there doing more than just looking at the countdown while standing in your kitchen. Plus, I just want to see you. :)
Fair is fair, so here’s one of me in this coffee shop to hold you over for now.
Until Wednesday,
Harper
I snap a photo, AirDrop and attach it, and press send. It was the best I could do for a sexy photo in public. My shirt was pulled down a little to show some cleavage, and I was tugging slightly on my bottom lip with my teeth. I shake my head then and laugh at myself. I can’t believe I even just tried to take a sexy photo in a coffee shop, just because he hinted at it. Who am I? Sky just pulls out this extra flirtatious side of me.
I kind of like it.
fifteen
“I LIKE IT. I really like it!” Jesse is up ahead of me on the trail, so I yell this from about fifty feet behind him as I continue to trot along on Clementine, the brown-and-white horse I’m riding.
Though there are no horses at the inn, Jesse has a friend from high school who has a stable. When he saw horseback riding on my bucket list, he must have noted it because he surprised me today by blindfolding me and driving me twenty minutes to his friend’s place.
“Happy birthday,” he said, when he took the blindfold off. I was shocked to find myself at the stable and that he knew it was my birthday.
I didn’t tell him it was my birthday because I didn’t want him to feel obligated to do something big since I’m turning thirty. And I knew he would feel obligated because that’s the kind of guy I’ve learned Jesse is. But my birthdate was on my application to the inn, so he had it on his calendar already. Plus, Zoe and Grace had emailed the inn asking how they could send flowers. (Apparently, those are waiting for me in my room when I get back. Jesse went to town to pick them up on their behalf.) And my parents kept calling the inn’s direct line last week until Jesse answered so they could ask him to pick me up a cake. (He did. It’s in the fridge in his cottage.)
“Special occasions deserve to be celebrated,” he said. “And what better way to celebrate than by crossing off another item on your bucket list.”
I wrapped him in the tightest hug I think I’ve ever given. I know Zoe and Grace are the best friends to exist on this planet, but Jesse is quickly making his way up the ranks. “This was the perfect gift,” I said. “And the perfect way to celebrate.”
“I’m glad you like it!” he replied then, just as he replies now, letting me know he heard what I said. Jesse’s horse, Lemon, is much faster than mine, so even though Jesse keeps trying to get him to walk, he often takes off cantering, which maintains a wide gap between us.
“Come on, Clementine,” I say, tapping her sides with my heels to get her to pick up the pace. “Good girl, Clem.” All the horses are named after fruit because Jesse’s buddy has an apple orchard on the property. After our ride, we’re going to pick as many apples as we want. I might have died and gone to fall heaven.
“So far I love being thirty,” I say once Clementine and I catch up to Jesse and Lemon. The path opens up, and soon we come upon an open field glistening in sunlight that allows us to walk the horses side by side.
“That’s good to hear,” Jesse grins.
“How old are you?” I ask.
“Thirty-four.”
“Any wisdom from the new decade?”
“Find good coworkers—they make a world of a difference.”
Leave it to Jesse to find a way to make his answer complimentary. Really, I should be the one complimenting him—he was definitely employee of the week.
So many things went wrong the past few days. The refrigerator in the inn quit working. The housekeepers called in sick at the last minute one morning. A guest wanted to extend his stay an extra week, but all the rooms were full. And Jesse just handled it. All of it. In a way that was as calm and cool and collected as the way he seems to handle everything.
“If you hadn’t decided to take over the inn,” I say, “was your plan to continue working at your other job? Or did you have another dream you were working toward before this one?”
The question has been on my mind all week because of how well-suited Jesse seems for the life he’s currently living. I really can’t imagine him doing anything else.
He shrugs. “What I do has never been as important to me as the people I’m doing it with. I liked my team at my other company, so I suppose I would have stayed as long as most of them did. This inn holds Brendan’s memory, so I feel like he’s here, in some way. And right now, I meant what I said about having a great coworker.”
I flush and fortunately he’s looking ahead so he doesn’t see the reaction his answer has triggered. “Does this mean you’re happy at the moment?”
“Yeah,” he grins. “Are you?”
“Yeah,” I smile back, thinking that so many times in life you say this and don’t mean it. But right now I mean it with my whole heart. That’s a pretty great way to feel at the start of a new decade.
—
Jesse’s friend, Will, greets us as we get back to the stable. I met him when we first arrived. He’s tall and lanky and sports scruff on his face just as Jesse does.
Jesse told me when we first started riding that he hasn’t seen Will since Brendan’s funeral, but you wouldn’t know it from the way the two of them picked up talking. You’d think they grabbed beers all the time.
When I said as much to Jesse, he said that they used to. They were buddies in high school, then lived together all through college, and have remained fairly tight since. But this year Will took over his family’s farm, and for a while after Brendan’s death Jesse didn’t really want to socialize.
I can tell the two of them have a lot of catching up to do, so once we get off the horses and all head to the orchard, I try to give them a little space. They start collecting Granny Smith apples on one side of the row we wandered down, so I start filling my bucket with the Pink Lady variety on the other side.
I can still faintly hear their conversation from where I am, though, and I perk up when Jesse shares some of the funny moments we’ve experienced at the inn the past few weeks—like the other night when we had to help a guest who’d had a few too many drinks get back into his room after he locked himself out. He accidently walked into the hall naked, thinking he was opening the door to his bathroom. Another guest came downstairs to inform us that he was outside his room door, trying to break it down. I rushed up with a towel and Jesse got a spare key, and we both walked away hysterically laughing.
Jesse also tells Will about the afternoon when two moms came to the front desk complaining that they couldn’t find their kids. Jesse and I searched the property only to find a young teenage boy and a girl of the same age making out behind a tree. Jesse had to awkwardly clear his throat and tell them that their parents were looking for them. Later, Jesse told me he felt bad for breaking them up.
It’s harder for me to decipher the conversation once Will starts getting Jesse up to speed on the farm because I’m not familiar with the stories, so I shift my focus to filling my basket to the brim. I tune back in, though, when I hear Will ask Jesse if he regrets not moving to New York.
