C.J. Carmichael - Small-Town Girl

Julie leaned close to her husband. “Should we lock the car?”

He smiled indulgently. “It’s okay, Julie.”

She glanced over her shoulder. A significant portion of their worldly goods were stowed in that U-Haul. Clothing, family photos, her favorite pieces of art. “I’m going back to get the keys, at least.”

Russell shrugged, following his parents inside. When Julie returned, keys in her purse and both car and U-Haul safely locked, she found the men in the living room. Larry had already served his son a cold beer, still in the bottle.

In the five years since her last visit, little had changed in this room save the addition of a few more framed photos and a couple of new knickknacks on the fake mantel. Fifteen years ago the Matthews had purchased their living room furniture with comfort and price the main concern. Those same principles guided the decor of the entire home.

“Mother’s in the kitchen,” Larry told her.

She nodded, accepting the dismissal, barely registering her husband’s faintly apologetic smile.

The kitchen was past the dining room to the right. She heard her mother-in-law before she saw her.

“Here’s a wooden spoon, Ben, honey. Stir the gravy for me, would you? I’ve made Yorkshire puddings. I remember how much you liked them last time you were here.”

No one seemed to notice Julie when she first stepped into the room. She stood straight, hands clasped in front of her, like a schoolgirl summoned to the principal.

“May I help?”

“Sure.”

Julie couldn’t miss the subtle tension that stiffened Betty’s voice. She noticed the effort with which Betty gave her a smile.

“I have a salad on the table. Could you put out the bottles of dressings? I’ve got Thousand Islands, Ranch and Italian.”

Julie smothered the impulse to offer to make a vinaigrette. She uncapped the bottles that she’d found lined up on the refrigerator door, then put them on the table as they were.

“Larry already carved the roast.” Betty took a white platter from the oven and removed the covering of foil. The meat was uniformly dark gray—very well done. “I’ll put out the gravy, then we can eat. Ben, would you call your dad and grandpa, please?”

Sitting at the table, listening to her husband say grace, Julie had a flash of prescience. This was only the first of many times the five of them would sit here. From now on, she would mark off the weeks of her life with Sunday dinners just like this one. She would become middle-aged in this town. Accumulate wrinkles and gray hairs. Maybe in time she would develop a taste for overcooked beef, and sofa sets covered in afghans, and pictures hung about a foot higher than eye level on the wall.

Julie tried, but she couldn’t eat the food on that particular Sunday. She couldn’t focus on the conversation, either. Ben looked happy. So did Russell. Her husband and her son seemed so real to her right then. Their voices were strong; their laughter, assured. She marveled at their ability to fit in, to adapt, to accept.

And secretly worried that this had been their kind of world all along.

THE NIGHT BEFORE SCHOOL started, Julie and Russell had their first visitor who wasn’t family.

The moving truck with their furnishings had arrived four days earlier, and the hours since then had been a tangle of unpacking and sorting, arranging and rearranging. Ben had spent most of that first week with his grandparents. Tonight, though, he was reading in his room. Julie had made an effort to set up his furnishings as similarly as possible to how they’d been in Vancouver. Though Ben didn’t seem to care much.

He hadn’t complained about anything to do with the move. Nor did he appear unduly concerned about his fast-approaching first day at a different school.

“I’ll get the door,” Julie told Russell, leaving him standing at the back window, holding a sheet of fabric she’d been pinning for new curtains.

The window treatments were for show more than necessity. Julie couldn’t imagine wanting to shut out the view of sparkling lake, with green pastures and woods beyond. In Vancouver, they’d enjoyed a peek-a-boo view of the ocean. But here, the lake literally lapped at their backyard.

See? You’ve found something about this house that you like.

Walking down the hall, Julie smoothed her shirt, her hair. Stopping at the mirror by the front entrance, she checked her lipstick, then she opened the door.

“Hello?”

The woman on the welcome mat—an attractive, disheveled, smiling redhead—looked surprised to see her.

“Oh. You must be Julie.” She stepped forward, offering a wicker basket full of cookies. “I’m Heather Sweeney—an old friend of Russell’s. Just wanted to welcome your family to town.” Her gaze dropped to the pincushion in Julie’s left hand. “But you’re busy. Perhaps another time….”

“Now is fine. We were just measuring for draperies. Please come in. I’m sure Russell will appreciate the break.” She glanced at the basket in her hands, the still-warm, aromatic cookies. “How lovely of you.”

“Basic chocolate chip. Can’t really miss with those.”

“Julie? Do I have to keep holding this?” Russell’s voice traveled from the back of the house.

“No. We have company. Come and say hello.” She swiveled at the sound of his footsteps in the hall.

“Heather!” Seeing their visitor, Russell broke out in a smile, the kind that still made Julie’s toes curl. The kind she hadn’t seen in a very long time.

“I thought it might be nice to have a chance to chat before the mayhem of the first day of school,” Heather said.

Julie stepped to the side as the two friends hugged. Heather, shorter than Julie, had to stand on her toes. In Russell’s arms she closed her eyes briefly. To Julie, it seemed she deliberately took a deep breath, as if to inhale Russell’s very essence.

Silly thought.

“Let’s have a drink on the deck,” she invited. “It’s a splendid evening.”

“Good idea. I take it you two introduced yourselves?” With a hand on each of their backs, Russell led them down the hall, to the kitchen. Julie set the cookies on the counter. “We’ll have them for lunch tomorrow,” she said.

After taking orders, Russell poured a glass of pinot gris for Julie, a lager for himself and juice for Heather. They sat out on the cedar decking in padded aluminum chairs that Julie hadn’t yet had time to wipe down.

“I’m sorry for the dust.” She brushed off her own seat with her hand before sitting. “We’ve been concentrating on the inside.”

Heather wasn’t perturbed. Of course her denim shorts would wash easily.

“You must have been working hard,” she said. “The inside looks amazing. You have a talent for decorating. But then, that’s what you are, isn’t it? An interior designer?”

“Julie studied interior design in London, before she got her master’s in journalism from UBC.”

“Wow. Maybe I could have you over sometime. Get some pointers. I’d feed you dinner in exchange.”

The woman had a very friendly smile. Her light-blue eyes seemed incapable of hiding even the smallest of uncharitable thoughts.

“I’d be happy to,” Julie said, not entirely honestly. “But tell me how you two know each other.”

Their glances met and they both smiled.

“We went to school together,” Russell said. “Although I was two grades ahead.”

Heather paused to sip from her glass. “Then Russ went to university in Vancouver. We didn’t see much of him after that.”

“Heather earned her education degree in Saskatoon,” Russell told Julie. Turning back to Heather, he said, “Mom passed on the news about your wedding.” His smile faded. “And the accident.”