Nicholas Sparks - The Best of Me

“Alice?”

“Just some swimsuit supermodel who happens to own the place. No reason for you to be jealous.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure. How was your morning?”

“Good. Went for a nice run and had a chance to take in the changes around here.”

“And?”

“It’s like stepping into a time warp. I feel like Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future .”

“It’s one of Oriental’s charms. When you’re here, it’s easy to pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist and that all your problems will simply float away.”

“You sound like a commercial for the Chamber of Commerce.”

“That’s one of my charms.”

“Among many others, I’m sure.”

As he said it, she was struck again by the intensity of his gaze. She wasn’t used to being scrutinized this way — on the contrary, she often felt virtually invisible as she went through the well-worn circuit of her daily routines. Before she could dwell on her self-consciousness, he nodded at the door. “I’m going to get that bottle of water, if that’s okay.”

He went inside, and from her vantage point Amanda noted the way the pretty twenty-something cashier tried not to stare at him as he walked toward the refrigerator case. When Dawson neared the back of the store, the clerk checked her appearance in the mirror behind the counter, then greeted him with a friendly smile at the register. Amanda turned away quickly, before he caught her watching.

A minute later, Dawson emerged, still trying to end his exchange with the clerk. Amanda forced herself to keep a straight face, and by unspoken agreement they moved off the porch, eventually wandering toward a spot with a better view of the marina.

“The girl at the counter was flirting with you,” she observed.

“She’s just friendly.”

“She made it pretty obvious.”

He shrugged as he unscrewed the cap of his bottle. “I didn’t really notice.”

“How could you not notice?”

“I was thinking about something else.”

By the way he said it, she knew there was more, and she waited. He squinted out at the line of boats bobbing in the marina.

“I saw Abee this morning,” he finally said. “When I was out for my run.”

Amanda stiffened at the sound of his name. “Are you sure it was him?”

“He’s my cousin, remember?”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s good, right?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

Amanda tensed. “What does that mean?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he took a sip of water, and she could almost hear the wheels turning in his mind. “I guess it means I stay out of sight as much as possible. Other than that, I guess I’ll play things as they come.”

“Maybe they won’t do anything.”

“Maybe,” he agreed. “So far, so good, right?” He screwed the cap back on the bottle, changing the subject. “What do you think Mr. Tanner’s going to tell us? He was pretty mysterious when we talked on the phone. He wouldn’t tell me anything about the funeral.”

“He didn’t say much to me, either. My mom and I were talking about the very same thing this morning.”

“Yeah? How’s your mom doing?”

“She was a bit upset that she missed her bridge game last night. But to make up for it, she was nice enough to coerce me into having dinner at a friend’s house tonight.”

He smiled. “So… that means you’re free until dinner?”

“Why? What did you have in mind?”

“I don’t know. Let’s find out what Mr. Tanner has to say first. Which reminds me that we should probably get going. His office is just down the block.”

After Amanda secured the lid on her coffee, they started down the sidewalk, moving from one patch of shade to the next.

“Do you remember when you asked if you could buy me an ice cream?” she asked. “That first time?”

“I remember wondering why you said yes.”

She ignored his comment. “You took me to the drugstore, the one with the old-fashioned fountain and the long counter, and we both had hot fudge sundaes. They made the ice cream there, and it’s still the best I’ve ever had. I can’t believe they ended up tearing the place down.”

“When was that, by the way?”

“I don’t know. Maybe six or seven years ago? One day, on one of my visits, I noticed it was just gone. Kind of made me sad. I used to take my kids there when they were little, and they always had a good time.”

He tried to picture her children sitting next to her at the old drugstore but couldn’t quite conjure up their faces. Did they resemble her, he wondered, or take after their father? Did they have her fire, her generous heart?

“Do you think your kids would have liked growing up here?” he asked.

“When were little, they would have. It’s a beautiful town, with a lot of places to play and explore. But once they got older, they probably would have found it confining.”

“Like you?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Like me. I couldn’t wait to leave. I don’t know if you recall, but I applied to NYU and Boston College, just so I could experience a real city.”

“How could I forget? They all sounded so far away,” Dawson said.

“Yes, well… my dad went to Duke, I grew up hearing about Duke, I watched Duke basketball on television. I guess it was pretty much etched in stone that if I got in, that’s where I’d go. And it ended up being the right choice, because the school was great and I made a lot of friends and I grew up while I was there. Besides, I don’t know that I would have liked living in New York or Boston. I’m still a small-town girl at heart. I like to hear the crickets when I go to sleep.”

“You’d enjoy Louisiana then. It’s the bug capital of the world.”

She smiled before taking a sip of her coffee. “Do you remember when we drove down to the coast when Hurricane Diana was coming? How I kept begging you to take me, and how you kept trying to talk me out of it?”

“I thought you were crazy.”

“But you took me anyway. Because I wanted you to. We could barely get out of your car, the winds were so strong, and the ocean was just… wild. It was whitecaps all the way to the horizon, and you just stood there holding me, trying to convince me to get back in the car.”

“I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“Are there storms like that when you’re on the oil rig?”

“Less often than you’d think. If we’re in the projected path, we usually get evacuated.”

“Usually?”

He shrugged. “Meteorologists get it wrong sometimes. I’ve been on the fringe of some hurricanes and it’s unnerving. You’re really at the mercy of the weather, and you just have to hunker down while the rig sways, knowing that no one’s coming to the rescue if it goes over. I’ve seen some guys completely lose it.”

“I think I’d be like one of those guys who lost it.”

“You were fine when Hurricane Diana was coming in,” he pointed out.

“That’s because you were there.” Amanda slowed her pace. Her voice was earnest. “I knew you wouldn’t let anything happen to me. I always felt safe when you were around.”

“Even when my dad and my cousins came by Tuck’s? To get their money?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Even then. Your family never bothered me.”

“You were lucky.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “When we were together, I’d see Ted or Abee in town sometimes, and every now and then I’d see your father. Oh, they’d have those little smirks on their faces if our paths happened to cross, but they never made me nervous. And then later, when I’d come back here in the summers, after Ted had been sent away, Abee and your dad kept their distance. I think they knew what you’d do if anything ever happened to me.” She came to a full stop under the shade of a tree and faced him. “So no, I’ve never been afraid of them. Not once. Because I had you.”