Page 81 of Hideaway Whirlwind
“Are you two lovebirds ready yet?” Russell asks.
“Yes!” Sydney yells, bouncing off the bed first and smoothing down her dress. “I’m so bored.”
“And hungry,” Dustin adds.
I laugh, taking a long, deep breath, slipping my fingers between Elliott’s. “Ready when you are,” I tell my husband.
Elliott
When Russell introduces us as Mr. and Mrs. Elliott and Teagan Berenson, the crowd collectively throws up their hands and voices with cheers, and I have the immediate impulse to retreat back into the bedroom. Never have I had so much attention on me since my murder trial, and it’s nerve-racking until Birdie pumps my hand, reminding me I don’t have to facethe spectators all alone.
While the kids take off to play with their friends, like a King and Queen receiving their audience in a grand chamber adorned in black and silver fabric and florals, members of our community line up to introduce themselves and offer congratulations. They have kindly stuck to the jewel-tone dress code, else Russell would have had no problem turning them away at the door. Though I personally know all of them, even if I haven’t had much interaction with them in recent years, as I had increasingly isolated myself, I am just as overwhelmed as Birdie.
Toward the end, the retired old-timers, who practically live at Granny’s Diner and somehow sustain themselves on an unhealthy amount of coffee and pancakes, introduce themselves as a group. Out of all of them, Old Freddy is the one I know best. His familiar mischievous smile spreads across his dark brown face beneath short silver curls, and it’s with a sudden surge of emotions that I let go of Birdie’s hand and carefully pull the man who was as much a father figure to me as my dad was when I was growing up into a hug.
“Thank you for being here,” I say, getting choked up.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world. You know that.” He taps my back with a raspy chuckle when the hug ends, quickly wiping away a stray tear. “It was these old farts,” he says, wagging his thumb toward his friends, “who needed to see it to believe it, but I always knew your time would come. Plus, you earned me a pretty penny, and it’s time to collect.” He holds out a palm turned up to the side.
Pete’s bushy gray mustache twitches on his sun-aged tan face. He pulls a mini spiral notebook and golf pencil from his suit jacket, flips to a back page, and crosses out a line of goingbets—of which they’ll bet on anything and everything. Then he produces a large wad of folded cash and slaps it in Freddy’s palm.
“Still not quite sure I believe it,” Pete says.
“Believe what?” Birdie asks, ducking under my arm to hug my side.
“That it would eventually catch up to him.” Pete’s eyes soften on my bride. “But I sure am happy for you, even if you cost me the vacation to Argentina I was planning to take this summer.”
“What would catch up to him?” she asks.
“The whirlwind,” Freddy answers, pocketing the cash.
Birdie is momentarily stunned. “So you really believe in this ‘whirlwind’ thing, too?”
“Of course, I do,” Freddy says. “I proposed to my Maria four weeks to the day after we met.”
He’d told me it was fate that brought the perfect woman for him and her car into his shop to be serviced. I had thought, at the time,who wouldn’t fall in love with the woman with a swoop of black curls, bright red lipstick, and the kind of laugh that made everyone’s head turn?That’s not fate—it’s good sense. And also, Freddy’s was theonlymechanic shop in town. Merely convenient. I know differently now.
“How is Maria?” Mickey asks, his skin more freckles than anything else in his deeply lined face. “I heard she came in first place at the…at the…what was it?”
Freddy’s smile turns doleful, soon replaced with concern since Maria passed nine years ago, her last winning entry from the International Quilt Festival in Houston enshrined in a place of honor at our county library.
“Come on, Mickey,” Pete says, taking his elbow and leadinghim away, shuffling their feet so Mickey doesn’t trip, helping him to sit on the couch.
“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” I ask of Mickey’s Alzheimer’s.
Freddy says with a nod, “‘Fraid so. Congratulations again.” He says his goodbyes to sit with his friends of nearly sixty years.
The kids are causing a ruckus when we move deeper into the house. Or rather, only two in particular—strike that,one, and it’s not the least bit surprising.
Wyatt’s son, William, who is closer to Sydney’s age, stomps his boot and points at Lily, playing dolls with Kendall on the floor. “She’s my pumpkin! Mine!”
“She’s a baby. And a girl. Girl babies are gross,” Dustin says, getting in William’s face.
Misunderstanding what Dustin said, William yells, “My baby red, not yours!” As large and bulky as William is, Dustin is still bigger at six years old and doesn’t budge when William pushes him.
“Lord, help me,” Wyatt says, pushing between our guests to pick up William when his son tries to push Dustin again, who only sticks out his tongue.
Lily finally looks up when Wyatt carries William toward the foyer. She pouts, then calls out for him, “Illy Willy!”
