Page 63 of Leave It to Us
“Oh.” She didn’t know what else to say.
“Tami’s been full speed ahead with ideas and implementing the ones she knows how. She’s also pretty eager to learn more. But she hasn’tbeen as talkative as usual. And Lana ...” He paused and then gave a shrug. “She’s been pretty much how she’s been since the beginning, but sadder, I think.”
“Wow, you’ve been paying a lot of attention to the Butler sisters.”
He nodded. “That’s nothing new. I mean, I never got the chance to be this up close and personal with you before, but I noticed y’all some of those summers you were here. I especially noticed you.”
Now that took her off guard, and she couldn’t help but stare at him quizzically. “Really? You noticed me?”
His brow furrowed, and he moved his head back a little as if he were as startled as she’d been by his comment. “What? Why do you seem so shocked that I’d notice you?”
“Because I wasn’t anything to notice back then. I mean, Lana was the stunning one, with her long, thick hair she mostly wore in braids, and equally long legs—and she definitely developed as if she were the oldest sister,” Yvonne said, remembering the envy she’d once had over her sister’s body and looks.
Everybody loved Lana’s skin tone, even though she’d always seen it as a reason her sisters didn’t get along with her. But Yvonne distinctly remembered hearing some of the women at their church remark on how she had that “pretty, dark chocolate–brown skin,” and then there’d been a few of the guys on the neighborhood basketball courts, where she and Lana would sometimes walk past on their way to the store for Mama when they were teenagers, who’d call Yvonne the “cute redbone,” but Lana was the “sexy Nubian queen.”
“Yeah,” he said with another nod, his face going back to normal. “Lana was cool, but I always found myself staring at you longer. One time you came to the church, and your father was with you. Ms.Betty didn’t come, but Mr.Daniel brought y’all into the church house and sat in the second pew like y’all were every-Sunday parishioners. But that was fine with me ’cause that meant I could look right in your face. Since my mama always made me and Emory sit right up front on thoseside pews so if we dared to doze off during the service, everybody in that place would see us and somebody would most likely come by and shake us awake.”
She laughed at that because Mama had done that to them plenty of times when they’d fallen asleep during service.
“You had this long dress on, so I couldn’t see your legs that day.” He was grinning now as he stared out at the water like he could see the long-ago scene playing out in front of him. “I’d seen your bare legs like a day or so before when you were swimming in the creek with Lana and a couple other girls.”
“So you were a creeper teenage boy, huh?” she asked, but there was no animosity in her tone.
“Not at all.” He grinned. “But I was a normal, horny twenty-four-seven teenage boy.” They both laughed at that. “But for real, though, the dress was kinda plain, like a pink or real light-orange color, I think. And it had those thin straps at your shoulders. I kept looking at your shoulders for a long time because they looked so soft and creamy. Then, when I felt things getting a little too happy in my dress pants, I quickly pulled my gaze up to your face.”
“For real?” she asked, but continued to laugh. “How could you sit in church and have those thoughts?”
Now he had that faux frown that made him look like an adorable child. “Are you serious? I was fifteen, Yvonne, and you were like a goddess or something. Coming onto the island for what felt like three of the shortest months of the year and then staying up in that big ole house like you were every bit a princess most of the time.” He sighed. “But when I looked at your face that day, I was like, ‘Man, I’m done for.’ I couldn’t get you out of my mind after that.”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything to me? I don’t think I even noticed you back then.”
He shook his head. “You and Lana really acted like you didn’t notice any of us on the island. And me and the fellas, we talked abouty’all all summer long, but none of us were bold enough to approach you.”
“‘Bold’? What was there to be afraid of? We were just girls, and I’m sure you were talking to other girls throughout the year that lived here,” she said.
“They weren’t Ms.Betty’s granddaughters. Nobody was trying to get swatted on the back of the head for thinking they were good enough for one of her granddaughters. The way your grandmother talked about y’all and all the fine work y’all were doing in school and extracurricular activities, it was like there wasn’t anybody on Daufuskie or even the planet that was good enough for y’all. And then your father was built like a linebacker, so we were all like, nah, we’ll look but we ain’t even crazy enough to try and touch.”
She used her free hand to swat at his arm then. “Now, I didn’t say anything about touching.”
He grinned. “I dreamed about touching you.” His thumb ran over the back of her hand as he looked down at it and then back up to her. “Like this, I mean. Not the other way.”
She smiled. “Yeah, right.”
More chuckling ensued, and Yvonne found herself letting her head rest on his shoulder. “I wish my childhood had been different. I wish my life now was different.”
He waited a beat before saying, “Your life can be whatever you make it, Yvonne.”
She sighed, feeling the hope in those words and letting it settle over her.
“Right after we arrived here—and Tami talked so passionately about not only wanting to fix this house up but fixing up the blue house too—I did something.”
He somehow knew to remain silent and wait for her to continue, and she appreciated him even more for that.
“I called the HR department at the school system, and I asked for the steps to taking out a loan from my 401(k). I know of a few teachers and other administrators that I’ve met over the years who did that to get the down payment on their homes or to take care of other really big expenses. So I applied for an additional fifty thousand dollars to be used if we went over budget here. I wanted to make sure we did all the renovations, even on the blue house.”
“Did you do that to ensure you’d get the best price once you sell the house?” he asked.
She looked up from his shoulder and shook her head. “No. I did it because I wanted Tami to feel everything that Grandma Betty felt when she was here. I wanted her to feel like she’d accomplished something and that our family legacy would stand.”
