The First Law of Love Page 3

  “You should have seen your sister this week,” he told me, still snuggling Camille to his side, their youngest daughter (at least until October, anyway), perched on his other arm. He added, “She’s been so excited for you to get here.”

  To my surprise, Lorie held out her arms to me and with pleasure I took her into my own, cuddling her soft little chubby body against mine. She smelled sweet, like Kool-Aid, evidence of this beverage ringing her little mouth with purple stickiness. Her dark hair was tucked into two pigtails that stuck out from behind her ears. She regarded me with serious eyes, just the same golden-green as Camille’s.

  “I’ve been excited to get home too,” I said, shifting so that Lorie fit on my lap. “I miss it here so much.”

  “Are you ladies ready for us to serve you?” Uncle Justin asked, joining us as well, his dark eyes going right to Aunt Jilly; even I could see the love that passed between the two of them, the way their eyes held and spoke in ways that only they understood. Zoe had squirreled down from his back to chase after the bigger kids.

  “I’ve got steaks, brats, burgers, the whole works,” Mom’s husband Blythe said, balancing two platters. Mom moved to help him, smiling softly at him and catching him for a quick kiss. Blythe loved my mother so much, and had always been kind and patient with Ruthie and me; we had lived in their house all through high school. He was also an incredibly good-looking man, but I didn’t notice that about him anymore; I just saw my stepdad. As Ruthie headed directly for Liam’s lawn chair, probably to make out with him, I muttered, “I just need a drink,” and handed Lorie off to Camille to go in search of the beer cooler.

  We ate outside as the sun sank and painted the clearing with soft golden light. The kids elbowed and horsed around with each other at the designated kids’ table until Dodge threatened to drag the entire thing, them included, to the lake.

  “See how you like eating when you’re in the water!” he told them, though he was such a big teddy bear that no one believed him anyway.

  Rae said, “Grandpa, you wouldn’t do that!”

  Riley said, “Grandpa, Rae’s calling you a liar!”

  “You tell him, son,” Uncle Justin teased.

  Aunt Jilly muttered, “Oh for the love.”

  It was loud and rambunctious at the adults’ table too, and so Clint had to lean across so I could hear him, “Tisha, so no chance your friends are making it up here?”

  I rolled my eyes again and said, “No, they can’t take the time, not even to meet Mr. July.” Clint flushed beneath his tan, laughing at this. I continued picking on him, asking, “Aren’t there plenty of girls around here? What about Claire or Erica?”

  “Tish, seriously, they’re both married now,” Clint said.

  “Even Claire?” I was surprised; Claire Henry had always had eyes for Clint.

  “Yeah, but she wasn’t the one for me,” he said.

  “Trust me, Grace isn’t either,” I said. “She may be my friend, but she’s a materialistic bitch. You’d hate her.”

  Clint rolled his own eyes, blue as Aunt Jilly’s, and mine. Aunt Jilly used to joke that the stork had brought me to Mom by mistake. He said, “Yeah, I probably need a girl who likes to fish, at the very least.”

  Camille commandeered my attention, saying, “The Rawleys are all set to show you around Jalesville the minute you get there. Oh, you’ll love it, Tisha. It’s beautiful. The mountains, I’m telling you. The air smells amazing.”

  “You sound like a travelogue,” I teased her.

  “Thias and I are hoping to go and visit next summer again,” she said, using Mathias’s nickname. “Where are you staying out there?”

  “Dad said that Ron, you know, who I’m hoping to work for, is going to provide me with a fully-furnished apartment. I’m actually kind-of excited about that.” I had never lived in my own space, without so much as a roommate or a pet. I said, “And Uncle Justin fixed up that old Honda of Aunt Jilly’s for me to drive out there, so I have a way to get around.”

  “You’ll be busy,” Camille allowed, as I’d given her the short and sweet version of what was happening in Jalesville. “But be sure to get out to The Spoke to hear the guys play. It’s so worth it. Clark will show you around, and so will the boys.”

  “They’re hardly boys anymore,” I reminded her. “And besides, I can find my way around just fine. It’s no bigger than Landon, right?”

  Camille studied me for a long moment and I wondered what she was thinking; she appeared so serious. Then she smiled, leaning to kiss my forehead. She said affectionately, “Same old Tish.”

  ***

  In my old bed that night, the one in Mom and Blythe’s house that was nestled in the woods near Shore Leave, I lay restless, hearing the muted murmur of Ruthie on the phone in her own room, Matthew snoring from his; it was almost like being back in high school, though I shuddered a little at the thought. Not that high school had been so terrible. It was just so far removed from the person I had become; recalling my old, unsophisticated self just made me squirmy with discomfort.

  You’re a college graduate now. You have a future at Turnbull and Hinckley. Ron won’t refuse you anything after this. Just get through the summer and you’re golden. What’s one summer? Besides, it’s probably beautiful out there. You’ve never been farther west than Minnesota, after all. It will be a good experience.

  I rolled to the far side, my eyes tracking to the window, open just a few inches to the sounds of night. I imagined sneaking out and into the woods; I had exactly three cigarettes stashed in my purse, if Aunt Jilly hadn’t “borrowed” them, and at that thought I smiled a little. At first I seriously considered sneaking away to have a smoke, but then I reminded myself I was an adult. If I wanted to have a cig, I could just go sit on the porch. I remembered bitching at Mom for smoking when I’d been a teenager.

  My, how things change, I thought, with only a touch of irony. You should get some sleep. When will you have a chance to sleep anytime soon?

  But restlessness wrapped around my mind the way a damp sheet would my body. I had been trying to avoid the thought that kept surfacing for attention, the one that had been uncomfortably in the background of my brain since I’d learned I would be spending the summer in Jalesville, Montana. And it was here, in the dark of my old room, that at last I gave in and let myself remember.

  Camille’s wedding.

  I hadn’t given that afternoon more than a passing thought in years, but right now it was effectively destroying all chances at sleep. Sighing, I sat up and tugged on my jeans, shrugged into a hoodie sweatshirt. Outside the air was humid, the sky was overcast, blotting out all trace of moon and stars, any appreciable illumination. The flame of my lighter nearly blinded my eyes, remaining impressed in red-yellow on the back of my eyelids as I blinked, and then inhaled deeply.

  Shit, no more after these last few.

  It had been October of 2006. I had been a freshman at the U of M, as arrogant as my father at his worst, I understood clearly now. Big city girl, I’d felt, gracing Landon with my worldly presence.

  Oh God.

  Only the weekend before the wedding I’d had sex for the very first time in my life, with another freshman, a guy from my English class. I thought at the time that we were headed for serious couple-hood; now, almost seven years later, I could hardly remember his face. I had wanted to tell Camille all about it, wanted the focus of the attention to be upon me, especially from my older sister, who I worshiped, even though I would never openly admit that to anyone.

  It was her wedding and you were a selfish brat, I acknowledged.

  Of course Camille had been a little preoccupied. The intention had been to keep the wedding small and sweet, but with all of the Carters, Davises, and then the addition of the out-of-state guests, it had swelled beyond original proportions. Shore Leave had been bursting at the seams. The Rawleys, a family that consisted of one father and seven boys (two sort-of adopted, I didn’t fully understand the actual connection), arrived from Montana th
e Thursday before. Although Camille and Mathias were delighted at their presence, I had only been irritated; here was yet another distraction.

  Now, years later, alone in the dark, I blew smoke rings (I was pretty expert) and winced as I recalled my behavior on that long-ago weekend. Were these things in my mind only because it was likely that I would run into those people…that person, truly…fairly frequently this summer? Surely that was why I was torturing myself with these memories.

  I thought of his name then, studying the tops of the pine trees; my eyes had adjusted to the darkness by now. The air was energized as though with a coming storm and I shivered a little in the damp chill.

  Case Spicer.

  I really hadn’t known he existed until that Thursday, back in October of 2006. Even when Camille and Mathias related the pretty damn amazing story of what had happened on their trip out to Montana the preceding summer, I hadn’t paid strict attention to names and details (my mind had been overloaded with college plans), and besides, my sister had left out one critical piece of information, assuming that I would only be annoyed. And I had been.

  This guy, this Case, came to Minnesota carrying a picture of me in his wallet. Apparently he thought I was pretty, or something, and had decided without so much as meeting me that I was the one for him. Even now, years later, I felt that this notion was more than a little absurd, romantic nonsense for which I had zero tolerance. To my eighteen-year-old self, it had bordered on insane and stalker-ish.

  But did you have to be so fucking rude to him?

  I lit my second-to-last smoke with the tail end of the first, thinking of that long-ago Saturday. Autumn in Landon was sensory overload, the trees flaming into their fall colors, nothing half-assed in the north woods. Scarlet, maroon, orange and brilliant yellow, fire burning in every direction. Flickertail solemn and deep-blue beneath a crisp sky. Mathias’s oldest sister Tina had begged for scarlet to be our bridesmaid gown color, and we had looked like a crew of vampire princesses, as I had joked (God, what a little mouthy bitch I’d been), though nothing could deflate Camille’s buoyancy that day.

  The wedding took place at White Oaks Lodge, Mathias’s family’s gorgeous hotel, on the opposite side of Flickertail Lake. I had been vaguely aware of the red-haired guy from Montana, but only peripherally; at the groom’s dinner on Friday I had caught him looking my way a time or two, but he had not so much as come within ten feet of me. Saturday, however, he had loaded up on some liquid courage and it was a different story.

  Mathias had taken the stage at their reception in order to sing to Camille. It was his thing, and so totally, utterly romantic (I could appreciate that now, but at the time I had actually been texting, for God’s sake, sitting at the head table texting the guy I thought I was in love with back in Minneapolis). Everyone was completely focused on what a wonderful, sweet man Mathias Carter was, singing “Amazed” to his blushing bride, when someone sat next to me and leaned on his forearms over the table linen.

  “Can I tell you something?” he’d asked, with no other introduction or invitation.

  I turned to regard this intrusion with eyebrows knitted in clear irritation. My hair had been twisted high into a series of complicated knots, my make-up applied meticulously by Mathias’s sister Glenna, my satin dress as red as any sin. It had been a spectacular gown, and was currently hanging in a dry-cleaner’s bag in my old closet. The guy sitting near me was in a state of dishevelment that spoke of the end of a hard night; his reddish-gold hair was messy, his tie missing, collar undone two past the top button, and his breath sharply scented with something about fifty proof.

  “Can I?” he’d asked again, while I gave him about one-third of my snotty attention; my phone flashed on the tabletop, indicating a new message.

  “Well?” I prompted. Even in the dim, candlelit ballroom, I could tell this guy was sloshy-drunk.

  “God, your eyes are so beautiful, I can’t take it,” he said, his voice low and with a tone I had never before heard from a man. Reverent, almost.

  My eyebrows lifted high at these unexpected words, almost into my hairline probably. Instead of thanking him for the compliment, I responded inarticulately, “Huh?”

  “I wrote a song about you,” was the next unbelievable statement from his lips.

  “What are you talking about?” I snapped. “You don’t even know me.”

  “I know, I really do, but see…the thing is…” he stumbled over his words, covering his face with both hands for a second before seeming to gather himself back together. He tipped his chin and looked steadily at me, saying, “The thing is, I know you’re the one for me. I know this with all my heart.”

  I was stunned into speechlessness, stunned into forgetting my flashing cell phone. He swallowed hard then; clearly it had taken a great deal of bravado to say this to me. And then I immediately suspected two things: alcohol was contributing tenfold to these words and/or he was outright fucking with me. Both suspicions did nothing to endear him to me in any way, shape or form.

  “You are drunk,” I said slowly, as though speaking to a misbehaving child.

  He shook his head and then said, words falling on top of each other, “I mean, I am, but that’s not why…that has nothing to do with…”

  I decided being forthright was the only way to go here. I turned to look him full in the face and said meanly, “Well, you’re wrong.”

  I might as well have punched him in the gut; even as unperceptive as I was at that age, I could see this. He blinked then, owl-like, and opened his mouth to say something else, but I stood up and shoved the chair back from the table, intending to hide out in the bathroom for a minute. I was embarrassed, and angry at him, however unfairly, for saying such stupid things and putting me in this uncomfortable position.

  Immediately he followed after me, and though he was drunk he seemed to have no trouble keeping up.

  “Wait, please wait,” he said.

  I hurried faster, in spite of the heeled shoes I would never wear otherwise. At the bathroom door, when it was apparent he might actually follow me into the ladies’ room, I spun to look up at his face and snapped, “Leave me alone!”

  He held up both hands and said, “Just listen…”

  “No, you listen!” I felt all hot and tight, as though my dress might have shrunk. I continued, “I don’t know you and I don’t want to know you! You think I like being followed by some drunk moron?”

  Ouch. Now, rocking gently on the porch swing drawing on my smoke, separated by years from that moment, I reconsidered the use of this word. At the time I had been pissed off enough that it had seemed appropriate.

  He blinked again and then said, almost as though in pain, “I don’t understand how I know we belong together, but we do. I know this.”

  My heart had responded oddly to these words, swift and intense, but before he could say anything else, I shoved into the restroom, almost ready to lean against it so he couldn’t follow behind; I needn’t have worried, as he had been nowhere in sight when I reemerged minutes later, my heart not yet having resumed a normal, non-frantic pace. I hadn’t seen hide or hair of him the rest of the night. And they’d all returned to Montana the very next day.

  Case Spicer.

  Of course I’d demanded the entire story of Camille, who had somewhat unwittingly related the tale of what had happened regarding Case and my picture, out in Jalesville, back during that July when she and Mathias had first met him and the Rawleys.

  “He’s actually really sweet,” my sister had insisted. “He’s a honey. You just don’t know him.”

  “And I never will! God, Milla, how could you keep something like from me? He had my picture? God, that’s so creepy!”

  Camille couldn’t resist needling me, saying calmly, “I’m sure he still does.”

  “You didn’t get it back from him?!”

  Since then I had heard only marginal information regarding this guy, Case, who kept in contact with Mathias. Camille and Mathias had brought the kids out the
re to visit a few years ago, and all of the Rawleys (just them, not the Spicer brothers) had come for a two-week stay in the July of 2010. I’d been home for the summer then; it was just before I started law school in Chicago, and I had been in the clouds with elation, so proud of myself for earning acceptance into Northwestern Law School, once attended by my own wealthy, charming and very successful father.

  The Rawleys were great, I had to admit. I remembered Clark, their father, and all the brothers well; Camille called them the ‘Peter Pan tribe,’ and Grandma and Aunt Ellen spoiled them ridiculously. It was their favorite thing after all, caretaking. The oldest brother, Garth, brought along his wife, a woman named Becky; there were four additional brothers, all looking so much alike that I’d joked they should wear nametags, but after the first few days I’d been able to distinguish between Marshall (who was a drummer, part of a band that included Garth and Case, as he explained), Sean, Quinn, and Wyatt (nicknamed Wy), the youngest.

  “Case told us he’d break bones if any of us tried anything with you,” Marshall had told me when a bunch of us were out swimming one night that summer.

  I had laughed over this ridiculousness, saying, “You tell him that he’s funny.” And then, a spurt of anger flared into my belly as I treaded water. I said heatedly to Marshall, “And if I wanted to try anything with any of you, it would be my business. No one else’s!”

  Marshall, who was very good-looking but not really my type (as in, he wasn’t bound for a high-profile corporate law career in Chicago), teased me, asking, “Is that a hint?”

  “You wish,” I groused, splashing him.

  “I’m jealous as hell over her anyway,” Marshall had said then, indicating Ruthann, who had been riding on her boyfriend Liam’s back near the dock, both of them half in the bag and laughing hysterically about Ruthie having apparently lost her bikini top, compensating for this by keeping her bare front side pressed tightly to Liam’s back. Her wet, curly hair, long enough that it hung nearly to her slim waist, made her look more than ever like a naughty mermaid. Marshall watched them intently, shaking his head, muttering, “I hope he knows how fucking lucky he is.”