Again Lexie held it out, preening like a schoolgirl. Doris caught Jeremy’s eye.
“Did you pick this out yourself?”
Jeremy shrugged. “With a bit of help.”
“Well, it’s gorgeous.”
At that moment, Rachel poked her head in. “Hey, Lex. Hey, Jeremy. Sorry for interrupting, but the hush puppies are running low, Doris. Do you want me to start another batch?”
“Probably. But wait—before you go, come see Lexie’s ring.”
The ring. Women the world over loved to ogle the ring, even more than they loved saying the word fiancée.
Rachel walked over. With her auburn hair and reedlike figure, she was as appealing as ever, although Jeremy thought she seemed more tired than usual. In high school, Rachel and Lexie had been best friends, and although still close—it was impossible not to be close in a town this size—they’d drifted apart when Lexie went off to college. She eyed the ring.
“It’s gorgeous,” she said. “Congratulations, Lex. And you too, Jeremy. The whole town’s been in a tizzy since they found out.”
“Thanks, Rach,” Lexie said. “How are things going with Rodney?”
Rodney, a local deputy sheriff with a penchant for weightlifting, had pined for Lexie since they were kids and hadn’t been all that happy when Lexie and Jeremy became an item. Had it not been for the fact that he started dating Rachel soon afterward, Jeremy was pretty sure Rodney would have preferred that Jeremy stay in New York City.
Rachel’s gaze faltered. “They’re going.”
Lexie watched her, knowing not to push. Rachel brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “Listen, I’d love to stay and chat, but it’s a zoo out there. I have no idea why you let the mayor use this place for these meetings. People get crazy when it comes to hush puppies and bingo. See y’all later. Maybe I’ll have some more time to chat.”
As soon as she left, Lexie leaned toward Doris. “Is she okay?”
“Oh, it’s her and Rodney,” Doris said. She waved a hand as if it were old news. “They had some sort of spat a couple days ago.”
“Not on account of me, I hope.”
“No, no, of course not,” Doris assured her, but Jeremy wasn’t convinced. Despite the fact that Rodney was dating Rachel, Jeremy had no doubt that he was still sweet on Lexie. Crushes, even in adulthood, were never easily forgotten, and the argument seemed to coincide with the news of their engagement.
“Well, here you are!” said Mayor Gherkin, interrupting Jeremy’s thoughts. Gherkin, overweight and balding, was color-blind when it came to clothing. Tonight he wore purple polyester pants, a yellow shirt, and a paisley tie. The consummate politician, he never seemed to draw a breath while speaking. And speak he did—the man was a veritable typhoon of words.
Not surprisingly, Gherkin was still going on.
“. . . hiding away in the back . . . why, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were making secret plans to elope and deprive this town of the ceremony it rightly deserves.” He lumbered over, grasped Jeremy’s hand, and pumped it up and down. “Good to see you. Good to see you,” he said almost as an afterthought, before continuing on. “I’m thinking the town square under the lights, or maybe right there on the library steps. With enough hoopla and a little planning, we might be able to get the governor to swing by. He’s a friend of mine, and if it coincides with his campaign, well, you never know.” He stared at Jeremy with his eyebrows raised.
Jeremy cleared his throat. “We haven’t even discussed the wedding yet, but actually, we were thinking about something more low-key.”
“Low-key? Nonsense. It’s not every day that one of our town’s most prominent citizens marries a genuine celebrity, you know.”
“I’m a journalist, not a celebrity. I thought we’d been over this—”
“No need to be modest, Jeremy. I can see it now. . . .” He squinted as if he actually could. “Today, columns for Scientific American; tomorrow, your own talk show, beamed to a worldwide audience from right here in Boone Creek, North Carolina.”
“I highly doubt—”
“You’ve got to think big, my boy. Big. Why, without dreams Columbus would never have sailed to the New World, and Rembrandt would never have picked up a paintbrush.”
He slapped Jeremy on the back, then leaned down and kissed Lexie on the cheek. “And you are even lovelier than usual, Miss Lexie. Engagement definitely suits you, my dear.”
“Thank you, Tom,” Lexie said.
Doris rolled her eyes and was about to shoo him from the room when Gherkin turned his attention back to Jeremy again.
“Do you mind if we talk business for a minute here?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Now, I’d be remiss as a public servant if I neglected to ask if you were planning to write something special about Boone Creek, now that you’re living here, I mean. It might be a good idea, you know. And good for the town, too. For instance, did you know that three of the top four catfish ever found in North Carolina have been fished from Boone Creek? Think about that . . . three out of the top four. There just might be some sort of magical quality in the water.”
Jeremy didn’t know what to say. Oh, his editor would love that one, wouldn’t he? Especially the title: “Magic Water Responsible for Giant Catfish.” Not a chance. He was already on thin ice for leaving New York; if there were ever any cutbacks at the magazine, he had the sneaking suspicion that he’d be the first to go. Not that he needed the income; most of that had come from the freelance articles he sold to other magazines and newspapers, and he’d invested well over the years. He had more than enough to survive for a while, but the column at Scientific American definitely kept his profile higher than it might have been.
“Actually, I have my next six columns done already. And I haven’t decided on the next story, but I’ll keep the giant catfish in mind.”
The mayor nodded, pleased. “You do that, my boy. And listen, I want to officially welcome you both back to town. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that you’ve chosen our fine community to be your permanent home. But I have to get back to the bingo game. Rhett’s been calling the numbers, but with him barely able to read, I’m afraid he’s going to make some sort of mistake and a riot’ll break out. Lord only knows what the Garrison sisters will do if they feel they’ve been cheated.”
“Folks do take their bingo seriously,” Doris agreed.
“Truer words have never been spoken. Now if y’all will excuse me, duty calls.”
With a quick turn—remarkable considering the man’s girth—he was out of the room, and all Jeremy could do was shake his head. Doris peeked beyond the door to make sure no one else was coming, then leaned toward Lexie. She motioned toward her granddaughter’s belly.
“How are you feeling?”
Listening to Doris and Lexie whisper about Lexie’s pregnancy, Jeremy found himself thinking that there was an irony involved in having and raising children.
Most people were aware of the responsibilities of having and raising children, he knew. Having watched his brothers and their wives, he knew how much their lives could change once a child came along; no more sleeping in on the weekends, for instance, or going out to dinner on the spur of the moment. But they claimed they didn’t mind, since they viewed parenting as a selfless act, one in which they were willing to make sacrifices for the betterment of their children. Nor were they unique. In Manhattan, Jeremy had come to believe that this view was often taken to extremes. Every parent he knew made sure his or her child attended the best schools, had the finest piano teachers, and participated in the right sports camps, all with the goal of enabling the child to one day attend an Ivy League college.
But didn’t this selflessness actually require selfishness?
That’s where the irony came in, Jeremy thought. After all, it wasn’t as if people needed to have children. No, he knew that having a child was essentially about two things: It was the next logical step in a relationship, but secretly it was also a deep-down desire to create a miniaturized version of “you.” As in “you’re” so special, it was simply inconceivable that the world should be burdened with the fact that there’s only one of “you” to go around. And as for the rest of it? The sacrifices that led to the Ivy League? Jeremy was certain the only reason a five-year-old would even know about the Ivy League was that it was important to the parents. In other words, Jeremy had come to the conclusion that most parents wanted to create not only a “you,” but a “better you,” because no parent dreams of standing around at a cocktail party thirty years later saying things like “Oh, Jimmie’s doing great! He’s out on parole and has almost kicked his drug habit.” No, they want to say, “Emmett, in addition to becoming a multimillionaire, just finished his PhD in microbiology, and The New York Times just ran a feature on how his most recent research is likely to lead to a cure for cancer.”
Of course, neither of these issues pertained to Lexie and Jeremy, and Jeremy felt himself puff up just a bit at the realization. They weren’t typical parents-to-be for the simple reason that the pregnancy had been unplanned. At the time it happened, they hadn’t been thinking of a “little you and me,” nor was it the next logical step in their relationship, since technically they hadn’t had much of a relationship yet. No, their child had been conceived in beauty and tenderness, without any of the selfishness characteristic of other parents. Which meant that he and Lexie were better and more selfless, and in the long run, Jeremy figured, this selflessness would give their child the ever important leg up when it came to getting accepted to Harvard.
“Are you okay?” Lexie asked. “You’ve been sort of quiet since we left Herbs.”
It was getting close to ten o’clock, and Lexie and Jeremy were at her house, a small, weathered bungalow that backed up to a grove of ancient pines. Beyond the window, Jeremy watched the tips of the trees swaying in the breeze; in the moonlight, the needles appeared almost silver. Lexie was snuggling beneath his arm as they sat on the couch. A small candle flickered on the end table, casting light on a plate of leftovers Doris had prepared for them.
“I was just thinking about the baby,” Jeremy said.
“Really?” she said, cocking her head to the side.
“Yeah, really. What? You don’t think I think about the baby?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just that I got the impression you sort of tuned out when Doris and I were talking about her. So what were you thinking?”
He pulled her closer, figuring it was best not to mention the word selfish. “I was thinking how lucky the baby is to have you as a mother.”
She smiled before turning to study him. “I hope our daughter has your dimple.”
“You like my dimple?”
“I adore your dimple. But I hope she has my eyes.”
“What’s wrong with my eyes?”
“Nothing’s wrong with your eyes.”
“But yours are so much better? I’ll have you know, my mother loves my eyes.”
“I do, too. On you, they’re seductive. I just don’t want our daughter to have seductive eyes. She’s only a baby.”
He laughed. “What else?”
She stared at him, concentrating. “I want her to have my hair, too. And my nose and chin.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “And my forehead, too.”
“Your forehead?”
She nodded. “You’ve got a wrinkle between your eyebrows.”
He absently brought his finger to it, as if he’d never noticed it before. “It comes from furrowing my brow.” He showed her. “See? It’s from deep concentration. Thinking. Don’t you want our daughter to think?”
“Are you saying you want our daughter to have wrinkles?”
“Well . . . no, but you’re saying that all I get is a dimple?”
“How about if she gets your ears?”
“Ears? No one cares about ears.”
“I think your ears are darling.”
“Really?”
“Your ears are perfect. Probably the world’s most perfect ears. I’ve heard people talking about how wonderful your ears are.”
He laughed. “Okay, my ears and dimple, your eyes, nose, chin, and forehead. Anything else?”
“How about if we stop? I’d hate to think what you’d say if I told you I also want her to have my legs. You seem pretty sensitive right now.”
“I’m not sensitive. But I happen to think I’ve got something more to offer than ears and a dimple. And my legs . . . well, they’ve turned heads, if you really must know.”
She giggled. “Okay, okay,” she said, “you made your point. What are your thoughts on the wedding?”
“Changing the subject?”
“We do have to talk about it. I’m sure you want to have some input.”
“I think I’ll leave most of that up to you.”
“I was thinking about having it take place near the lighthouse. Out by the cottage?”
“I remember,” he said, knowing she was referring to the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, where her parents had been married.
“It’s a state park, so we’ll need to get a permit. But I was thinking maybe late spring or early summer. I don’t want my tummy showing in any pictures.”
“Makes sense to me. After all, you don’t want anyone to think you’re pregnant. What would people say?”
She laughed. “So you don’t have any opinions on the wedding? Anything special you’ve always dreamed about?”
“Not really. Now, opinions on the bachelor party, that’s something different. . . .”