Jane of Austin Read online

  Are you hungry? I can’t imagine what they fed you on the plane. Pilar made oatmeal cookies, but we can stop for tacos if you need a real meal.

  I also have Dr Pepper with me. Do you still drink Dr Pepper?

  And so on. I smiled, and sent a quick text to let him know I’d landed before I pocketed the device and scanned the plane. Just families with children looking under seats to make sure they’d gotten every last bit of child detritus. I took a deep breath and planned my next move. With the armrests shifted upright, I could scoot down the row and get to the end where I’d have more room. I planted my right foot, using my cane on the left and pushing up with my right arm to get myself up before finding my balance on my right foot and the new, unfamiliar prosthesis that took the place of my left knee, calf, and foot.

  A brief glance up revealed the petite flight attendant, watching with worry in her eyes.

  I’d worn my uniform, thinking it was its last hurrah as I left the life I never thought I’d leave. With the flight attendant’s eyes on me, I began to regret my decision.

  “I’m all right, ma’am,” I said. Aware that she was watching closely for any sign of weakness, I reached inside the open overhead compartment and wrestled my bag down.

  While it met the airline’s size requirements, it probably weighed as much as she did.

  I used my left hand to steady myself with the cane and chose not to react to the painful pressure of the additional weight of the bag. Suck it up, Beckett.

  I maneuvered myself and the bag down the narrow aisle, where the flight staff waited. “Thank you for your service, sir,” said the gentleman in the captain’s uniform, reaching out his hand to shake mine. With the bag slung over my shoulder, I shook his hand, the copilot’s, and the two flight attendants’ with the petite attendant last. She looked up at me, her eyes huge and dewy. “You’re an inspiration,” she said. “Merry Christmas.”

  I was many, many things, but I was pretty sure an inspiration wasn’t one of them. But I nodded to be polite, thanked her, and made my way down the jet bridge. Inside the terminal, I texted Ian.

  On my way out. Need to stop at checked baggage.

  My phone buzzed back a second later.

  Cool, man. Need a hand?

  I typed a quick reply. Nah, it’s just a couple bags. I’ll be fine.

  Those words sank in deeper as I approached the baggage carousel and saw my two camo-print bags and green duffle float once and then twice around.

  Thirty-three years old, and everything I owned was in those bags.

  I put in the required quarters for a luggage cart; there was a time when I didn’t need one, but I wasn’t a masochist. With a deep breath, I wrestled the bags and duffle off the conveyor belt without tipping over. Then I pushed the cart out into the Austin, Texas, air. I tucked my cane into a bag, and so help me, I used the cart as a support.

  Ian’s white Cadillac Escalade rolled around a split second later, the passenger-side window rolling down even as he leaped from the car. “Beckett! You made it!”

  He hugged me with his boundless, Ian-like enthusiasm, his hand pounding me on the back. Ian was a giant who played football with me at the Naval Academy. I was a midshipman fourth class when he was second class—what other colleges would have termed freshman and junior years—and in the two years we played together, he was the tallest and broadest player on the team. He earned the nickname “Blond Fezzik” and wore it with good humor.

  After graduation, Ian served as a navy officer, and two years later, I continued in my intention to join the marines. We stayed friends though, even after Ian decided the military wasn’t ultimately for him; with his family’s oil money, he didn’t exactly need the job. So he’d been discharged honorably before focusing on other pursuits. His wife, Mariah, for one and his love of dogs, for another.

  My first two years at the academy were not easy ones. But somehow, we hit it off enough on the practice field for him to decide we’d be friends for life. Oddly enough, it seemed to have stuck. So when I knew I was returning to Austin, staying with Ian was my first thought.

  As he greeted me like he would a long-lost brother, I knew I’d made the right decision. “It’s good to see you!” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “You’ve got to be exhausted.”

  I gave a slight shrug and slid my carry-on from my shoulder. “Reagan to Bergstrom isn’t a long flight.”

  Ian used his key fob to open the back of his SUV and energetically tossed my bags inside. “Still, air travel takes it out of you. Every few years, Mariah suggests getting a time share on a private plane, and every time I think it’s a waste of money, and then I fly and reconsider it.” He paused and held his arms out. “Look at me. Do I look like I fit on a commercial plane?”

  I chuckled. “Mariah and the kids good? Thanks for picking me up today. I’m sure the traffic was a nightmare.”

  “Happy to do it, and glad you can spend the holidays with us.” Ian said, and I believed him. He’d offer his right arm and consider it a pleasure to do so. “Mariah’s great, the kids are…spirited.” He closed the back and unlocked the car doors. “You know how kids are at those ages. I know how I was.” He chuckled. “So I’m probably getting off easy.”

  “Haven’t spent any time with kids for a while, not American ones, anyway,” I said, climbing inside. “I wouldn’t know.”

  I thought of the village kids who had followed us, alternately trying to beg candy and possibly pick our pockets. “How are the dogs?” I asked, opting to change the subject.

  “The dogs!” Ian’s face lit up. “Well, Miriam just had a new litter, and I think it’s her best yet.”

  He continued on in that vein, detailing the number and health of the puppies and offering me one, which he’d done with nearly every litter, even while I’d been overseas. After several moments, his face sobered, and he glanced at me before returning his focus to the road. “I’m sorry about your dad. Sounds like it was sudden?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Is there going to be a service?”

  It was my turn to shrug. “There was a small service, no family present.”

  Ian set his chin. “If I’d known, I would have been there.”

  “I know you would have. I didn’t know until it was over.”

  That was the thing. My accident and my father’s death had occurred within hours of each other. I was medevaced to Germany before being transferred to Bethesda, in Maryland. There had been several surgeries—surgeries to try to save my leg, surgery to remove it when the earlier ones failed. I’d spent so much time unconscious that they didn’t tell me about my dad.

  Roy, my dad’s best friend and executor of his estate, finally tracked me down. He visited me at Bethesda and gently broke the news.

  We hadn’t been close, my dad and I. There were a lot of reasons. And looking at Roy, with his weathered brown face and kind eyes, I felt like I knew him better than I’d ever known my father.

  Roy had told me about my dad’s will too.

  There was the house, for starters, the one I’d grown up in. But the one that took me aback was the news I’d inherited his chain of barbecue restaurants, the one that my father had devoted himself to for his entire adult life. The one he’d planned to leave to my older brother, before Cameron died when he drunkenly crashed his Corvette into a tree.

  When I lost my leg, I figured that I’d get my new leg and do my best to content myself with a desk job. I’d been within spitting distance of promotion to major. Going back to Austin hadn’t ever been in the plan. Too many memories. But as Roy detailed what had happened with the restaurants and the number of jobs on the line, I knew. I was done. I had a whole new set of responsibilities.

  So I pursued a medical discharge, which was granted without a fight. And just like that, I was a civilian for the first time in twelve years, home for the first time in ten.

  “That’s a raw deal,” Ian said. “But I know it’s been a raw deal for a long time.”

  I no
dded, not knowing what else to say.

  “Well, you’re welcome to stay at the house for as long as you like.”

  “Technically,” I said, “my dad’s place is mine now. But Roy said it looked like it needed some work.”

  If Roy had said so, it was true. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t care. I’d stayed in enough places without electricity or running water—or any water, for that matter. So the idea of being in my dad’s ramshackle house didn’t present a practical challenge. But the truth? I wasn’t ready to darken that door. Not yet.

  “You stay as long as you need if you want to fix up your dad’s place, find a place of your own, or both. We’re happy to have you. Now,” Ian continued, “I’ve had Pilar make up one of the guest rooms for you. We do have the guesthouse, but I’ve promised that to my cousins.”

  “Oh?” I asked, conversationally. If he wanted to put me on the roof, I didn’t care. “Which cousins are these?”

  “They’re my cousin Rebecca’s girls. Rebecca died in a car accident, some years back. Drunk driver.”

  I worked to stifle a grimace. That was the one bright spot in Cameron’s death; he’d driven drunk, but managed to only harm himself. He hadn’t taken anyone with him.

  “Anyway, Rebecca’s husband…let’s not get into that. But her daughters were always real nice, and they’ve just lost their lease in San Francisco, and the oldest one e-mailed to ask if the Austin market might work out for them. I told them to come on out and find out.”

  “How old are they?”

  Ian paused to think. “I dunno. You’re going to make me drive and do math at the same time? Let’s see. Rebecca was fourteen or fifteen years my senior, and I was about eight when Celia was born—I guess Celia, she’s probably about twenty-eight or so, and Jane is a couple years younger. And then Rebecca had a surprise baby when she was older, and she’s still a teenager.”

  “So they’re all coming out from San Francisco?”

  “Once they’re all packed up. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “It’s your property, Ian. You can do whatever you like.”

  “I haven’t seen them in years, but they’ve always reminded me of Rebecca, and Rebecca was my favorite cousin.”

  I could see the wheels turn in Ian’s head as he shot me a sidelong glance. “That side of the family is the good-looking side too. If you don’t have a girl, you know…”

  “You sound like you’re setting me up with your sister,” I said dryly. “That’s just awkward, man.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  But I knew, deep down, that wouldn’t be the end of it.

  4

  There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

  —HENRY JAMES

  Jane

  Christmas passed in a haze. We paused for a candlelight service and a gift exchange for Margot’s benefit. Still, the mood from behind the handheld candles was grim. Packing to the dulcet sounds of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” didn’t take the edge off of the fact that we were soon leaving home.

  We threw a party the night before we closed, three days after Christmas. Our neighbors helped us carry all twelve tea plants from the balcony to the tea salon, where Celia strung twinkle lights among their leaves. We played music, Margot invited friends over, and we danced with our customers—well, Celia did, and I danced with Celia. Secondhand dancing.

  It felt like the Christmas ball in Meet Me in Saint Louis but without the happy ending.

  Celia didn’t mention Teddy. I wondered if he’d come by; we were all friends, after all, before he and Celia began to see each other seriously. But in the sea of familiar faces, his remained absent.

  At the end of the night, we crowded around the vintage bar and carried it carefully, slowly, out the front double doors.

  Patrick, one of the stylists from next door, shook his head. “I feel like we’re pallbearers,” he said, “carrying the spirit of your business away.”

  Carly, the candy maker from two doors down, gave a grunt of dismay. “If this were a spirit, it wouldn’t weigh so much.”

  “I’m just glad it’s going with you,” Patrick said. “I don’t want her to have it.”

  Patrick had been at the shop the day Phoebe made an appearance, and the impression hadn’t been favorable.

  “I’d take it all if I could,” I said, as we passed very slowly through the doors toward the trailer waiting on the street.

  We quieted as we got the bar into place. Heaven knew how we’d get it out, but that was a logistical problem for another day.

  “Did Atticus know?” Patrick asked, as we gazed out at the street from the mouth of the trailer. “Did he know Jonathan would practically evict you over the holidays?”

  Patrick put voice to a question that had certainly come to my mind in the previous weeks. While ours was a business relationship with Atticus, it had been a personal relationship as well. We knew when he had surgery on his knee and sent bouquets of macarons on his birthdays. He helped Margot with her homework, delivered soup when we were sick, and brought his chess-club members to the salon on the third Tuesday of every month.

  Were these the actions of a man planning to leave his holdings to a nephew?

  A nephew like Jonathan, married to a woman like Phoebe?

  The person with the answers now resided at the San Francisco National Cemetery.

  None of the questions meant I loved him less; I just hadn’t expected events to turn out exactly as they had. But what had I been expecting, really? We’d been living in a bubble for too long, and now we were on to our next chapter.

  Margot spent the night at a sleepover with her friends. I stayed up way too late putting together playlists for the drive.

  The next morning, Celia and I loaded the plants into the back of my pickup truck, with the canopy over the top to protect them from being whipped by the wind.

  “You okay, Jane?” Celia asked as I yanked on the tie-down straps.

  “I can’t look at it,” I told her. “I can’t look or I’ll cry.”

  “It’ll be okay. The leasing agent I told you about says there’s a great property in a vintage neighborhood that’s perfect for us. We’ll start up again, and next year we’ll go all-out for Christmas, you’ll see.”

  “It’s just…we’ve already started over. This was the do over. This was supposed to be our version of smooth sailing from here on out.” I held up a hand before Celia could placate me. “I know. It’s a small business, and things happen, and we’re lucky to have even made it this long. I just thought we’d already been through the wringer and could coast a bit longer. Apparently,” I said, glancing up at the sky, “that is not the plan. But I wanted it to be the plan.”

  Tears filled my eyes, and I swiped at them quickly with the back of my hand.

  Celia wrapped an arm around me. “It’s a big change.”

  “We just weren’t supposed to have more change. The next change was supposed to be Margot going off to college and, you know, getting her nose pierced.”

  Celia just rubbed my arm while I tried to wrestle my feelings to the ground.

  Because the truth was we’d been so close. I’d felt close to my dream of being able to go back to college and finish a botany program.

  But now? Those dreams were on the back burner. Again.

  I shook my head and patted Celia’s hand, the one that rested on my arm. “I’m okay, really. It’s just an emotional day.”

  Celia rubbed my arm. “What do you think? Are we ready to go get Margot?”

  “And tear her away from her friends?” I leaned against the trailer. “Let’s give her another fifteen minutes.”

  I hated pulling Margot away from her friends. There were tears and promises to connect over social-media platforms I was only vaguely aware of. To keep the mood light, I plugged my phone into our ancient, non-Bluetooth stereo and began one of the most important discussions we would have.

  Road-trip music.r />
  “So,” I said. “I’ve got the necessary soundtracks downloaded, so we don’t have to worry about data—Elizabethtown, Almost Famous, About a Boy, and You’ve Got Mail.”

  “Hamilton?” Celia asked.

  “Cast recording and the mixtape.”

  “High School Musical?” Margot asked, her voice still sounding a touch weepy.

  “Because I love you, we’ve got the full suite, if you will. I also went mad with power and put in the soundtracks to Frozen, Enchanted, and Moana. Also, there are playlists.”

  Celia, behind the wheel, patted my leg. “You wouldn’t be you if there weren’t.”

  “We have our Norah Jones playlists, our upbeat indie mixes, the flat-out pop mixes—whatever flavor you’re in the mood for, I’ve got.”

  Celia widened her eyes innocently. “ ‘Free Bird’?”

  “There is a Lynyrd Skynyrd mix.”

  “How about we drive around the block and call it good?” Margot asked.

  “We can drive around the block,” Celia said patiently, “but we still have to keep going.”

  “Okay, if you guys can’t decide, I’m making an executive decision.” Three taps on my phone screen, and the stereo speakers released the opening bars to the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.”

  “There,” I said, turning to look at Margot in the backseat while shimmying my shoulders. “I dare you to be sad while this song is playing.”

  Margot gave a valiant effort, but I danced in the front passenger seat, waving my arms and hands until she couldn’t fight the smile any longer.

  And that’s how we left—singing along, waving our hands, trying not to let the heartbreak get to us.

  As it turns out, driving across the country while towing a trailer takes a long time. Even longer if you’re transporting a teenager with a bladder the size of a walnut.

  “We’re going to cut off your liquids, Margot,” I threatened as we pulled into yet another dilapidated gas station in the middle of Nowhere, Arizona. “I mean it.”

  We drove long days. Although we made an educational stop at the Grand Canyon, much of the drive was long and grueling. By the time we reached Roswell, New Mexico, we were thrilled to find an actual city with places to eat dinner and a Starbucks for the drive ahead.