Page 50 of My Favorite Lost Cause
June 9, 1916
I was walking home from town today when the skies opened up and you will never believe who pulled up beside me in his Model T. William Howard. He offered me a ride, and I was on the cusp of refusing when lightning cracked directly overhead and he shouted at me to get in the car using words I am too much of a lady to repeat.
I told him a gentleman would not have used words like that in front of a lady and he replied that I wasn’t a lady until I had enough sense not to walk home during a lightning storm. We said nothing to each other for the duration of the ride, although when I was shivering, he reached in the back and got a blanket for me, which I guess was sort of nice. I thanked him when we got to the house and he said “thank me by being more careful” so I slammed the door as hard as I could and ran inside. I don’t know why he has to be so awful even when he’s being nice.
June 13, 1916
George asked me to go for a walk last night and William said he would walk with us. My jaw dropped. He stayed with us the entire time, just to be a pest. And what’s worse is that somehow everything George said sounded a bit dim with William there, listening in. I wish William had never come to Riverbend. He’s ruining my entire summer.
“Obviously,she’s falling for William Howard and doesn’t have a clue,” I tell Charlie as we make dinner side-by-side. I’m making a red wine reduction while Charlie’s handling the potatoes on his own—which should be interesting. “I bet they got married, but why didn’t their children save this place?”
“You do realize you’re not reading some book with a vampire on the cover?” he asks, shaking some salt into the potatoes. “These are real people, so it’s possible they won’t follow your little rules for their story.”
“Of course they will, Charles. By the way, I might need you to take me grave hunting at some point.”
He gives me a side-eye. “Is that your idea or Casper’s?”
I scoop a taste of Charlie’s potatoes on my finger, and he taps my hand with a spoon.
“More salt,” I tell him. “I’m still trying to figure out why there’s not a trace of information about any of them. The woman in town said they were probably buried on the property, though I’m also not sure I want to know.”
“It floods here a lot, so they tend to bury people high. If they’re anywhere, they’re probably on the bluff about a half mile down the cove. And I think you’re messing that sauce up.” He sticks his finger into the pot, and I attempt to tap his hand with the spoon, the way he did mine, but just end up splattering sauce all over my T-shirt. “More salt,” he says, just to be annoying.
I grab the salt and add it to his potatoes before I return to my sauce. But when I reach over and dip my finger into the potatoes again, he grabs my wrist and wraps his mouth around my index finger. He meant it to be silly, a way to get me back, but there’s a rush of heat at the contact.
My gaze meets his, and for a half second…there’s something more going on. His eyes are molten. My nipples are pinched so tight they hurt.
I wrench my finger away from his warm tongue as fast as I possibly can. “Charlie, gross,” I say, marching to the sink to wash my hands as if those two seconds of contact haven’t left me soaked.
He shrugs as if I’m being ridiculous, but I don’t miss the odd way his left hand clenches before he continues with the potatoes.
We eat dinner and clean up. He brushes his teeth in my bathroom and tells me to lock the door behind him, the way he always does. I climb into the shower, desperately trying to thinkof anything but his tongue against my finger and it doesn’t work. It’s all I’ve thought of since it happened.
Think about Margaret and William. Think about anything else. Please.
When I climb into bed, I grab my phone and type the name Margaret Howard into ancestry websites, but none are the correct Margaret Howard. Fortunately, there are no Margaret Graves either.
I pick up the diary again when I slide between my sheets, and even though, as Charlie pointed out, these are real people who might not live out the romance I’ve created for them in my head. I’ll take their disappointing romance over the things my brain wants to make of that incident in the kitchen any day.
June 17, 1916
Today, I went to the second ball of the season. William was talking to all the girls but particularly to Melanie’s older sister, Rose, who’s just back from the teacher’s college. Everyone says Rose has hair like spun silk. No one’s ever said that about mine. George and I danced three times and he said I was the prettiest girl there, but somehow it wasn’t as thrilling as it was the first time. George is a very nice boy, but I do worry sometimes that nice boys don’t make the most interesting husbands.
June 23, 1916
The dance was at George’s home, but George was off taking his second set of entrance exams. Everett Meyer spilled punch on my dress and William was talking to Rose again and I was so dispirited that I just went out to the porch rather than endure another second of it. I’d barely sat for a minute before William came out after me and asked why I wasn’t dancing. I said I was tired and he said, “I guess that means I’m not getting a dance.”
“Why would you want a dance?” I asked. “You don’t even like me.”
And he pulled me to my feet! My heart hammered in the queerest way. It’s doing it now too. And then he spun me around the porch as if I were a queen, and I swear, for a moment, he intended to kiss me. I don’t know what to make of it, but I haven’t been able to think of anything but him since.
My eyes fall closed as I picture this unfolding. William’s nostrils flaring as he grabs my wrist and puts my finger against his hot tongue and?—
My eyes fly open.
Ever since I started reading, I’ve been picturing myself as this unnamed girl falling hard for William Howard. That makes sense.
But I didn’t realize until now that it was Charlie I was picturing as the hero. It was Charlie’s tongue against the pad of my finger, and it was Charlie’s nostrils that flared for a half second, like a predator scenting prey—and I guess those things did happen, but they’re getting so confused in my head.
