Chapter 4
I hate boys.
I know that Jack is twenty-eight years old, and hasn't thought of himself as a boy in years, but if he's going to act like one, that's what I'm going to call him.
Because that's exactly what he's acting like right now.
When I went to see him the first time the day after we, um, were lovers – after I finished my practicing for the day, because Grandma only lets me leave off in the middle of a song when Jack comes to see me – I saw him working in the fields from far back down the road.
Yet, when I got up to the farm, he was nowhere to be found, and all the lights were off in the house.
I think he was hiding under the bed. Coward.
Then he the same thing two more days.
And then I proved that sometimes, girls can act just as dumb as boys, and ran away on that trip with Aunt Penelope after all. I thought obviously he's sorry it happened, because he doesn't like me as much as he thought he did, or his conscience has just caught up with what's below the waist and he's realized that it's wrong to play with a girl's emotions just because he wants to bed her.
Maybe it wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done, and maybe I should have kept trying until he had to talk to me, but I just couldn't stand the thought of him explaining, kindly and gently, that I was a beautiful girl, but he needed a woman, and he didn't want to wait for me to become one.
It was even worse to think about him giving me these guilty little half-smiles and all but running away whenever we met on the road, and never taking me out for walks anymore because he didn't want to lead me on any further.
I never expected him to feel the same way, you know. I fell for him in seconds, because Grandma says that just what girls do when they're sixteen and silly, but he's twenty-eight, and handsome, and talented, and witty, and amazing, and I never expected him to notice a teenage would-be piano prodigy who couldn't cook or sew or plant as anything other than a baby sister. But when he started looking at me like maybe he did feel the same way, I couldn't just let the chance slip past until he fell madly in love with Celia or someone.
And then, when he started acting like he regretted what happened, like he didn't feel the same way but couldn't bring himself to break my fragile young heart, I turned as much of a coward as him and ran away.
But at least I'm showing signs of growing up; when that letter came from Muffy – Lumina, Jack cares very deeply for you, and I know you cared for him the night you came to talk to me a little while before you left. If you still feel the same way, please write to him and patch things up, because I don't know what happened, but I do know you're both miserable, and that's silly, when you could both be happy with just a little bit of effort. You're two of the most wonderful people I know, and you deserve only joy and happiness – and a little bit of pain and sadness, too, but you can still go through it together!
I think Muffy must have been either very excited or very drunk when she wrote it, although it took so long for the postal service to finally track down Aunt Penelope and me that she probably doesn't remember which it was anymore.
Yes, I've grown up, but Jack doesn't seem in any danger of it.
He has a right to be shocked; I've just materialized out of nowhere, creased and messy from a fourteen-hour plane ride, and confessed by undying love.
After letting myself into his house and climbing into bed next to him.
He thought it was Muffy; I'll have to get the whole story when I'm done pounding some sense into him. For such a flirt, Muffy is surprisingly old-fashioned, and I'd like to know why he didn't know that, when they're good enough friends that he's told her all about his fractured love life.
And now the idiot is trying to push me towards the door! I'd be really, really mad, if he didn't look so cute in striped pyjamas, with his hair sticking up in every direction.
"Lu, we can talk tomorrow," he tells me pleadingly, reaching past me to open the door.
None of this, Jack. I didn't cleverly evade Auntie and come tearing back home from Spain just to be pushed aside. The door slams shut.
"Or we could talk now."
He sighs, but he does let go of my arm and doesn't stop me when I follow him to the bed.
"What happened to your trip?"
I grin.
"I'm sure Aunt Penelope is still enjoying herself. She'll get used to fending for herself, surrounded by all those handsome Spanish men."
"What about school?"
"That doesn't start until autumn," I scoff. "I suppose I'll go meet Auntie sometime before then. Unless…" I choke a little on the words, even though I've just gone through fourteen hectic and nerve-wracking hours to say them. "Unless I get a better offer."
He smiles briefly.
"You're hoping for better than a full music scholarship to one of the best schools in Europe? You're good, Lu, but that's just cocky."
"You know what I mean," I huff, but if anyone ever tells you that I stomped my foot, they're a rotten liar. "I would much rather stay in Forget-Me-Not Valley if I could. For example, if this nice, handsome farmer I'm a little bit madly in love with would get his act together and marry me."
"I can't."
I turn Grandma Romana's patented Angry Eye on him.
"Why not, exactly?"
"You deserve better."
"And Muffy doesn't deserve better?"
His expression right now is priceless.
"I guess you heard."
"She told me in her letter," I tell him unconcernedly.
He chokes.
"Letter?"
"She told me about the wedding, and she told me that she wasn't going to go through with it, because she's not in the habit of marrying men who are in love with someone else." I don't tell him what she told me about Mr. Griffin, because there's really no reason – if I know Muffy, she would be doing this even if it meant life as a lonely old lady with forty cats.
"And she told you to cut your trip short and come racing back here?"
"Actually, she suggested that maybe I should write to you and patch things up, if I still felt the same way. And I do. If—if you still do."
He groans and hunches over, burying his face in his hands. Oh, it's not so bad, is it, old man?
"Come on, Lu. You know I love you. But I can't trust myself around you. You know that, too."
Alright, what is he on about now?
"And why can't you trust yourself?" I ask very calmly, like a grown-up trying to reason with a little boy. He's crossing a wide range of ages today, isn't he?
"I can't risk hurting you again."
"By marrying me?"
"Like the night we…Lu, I didn't even ask you."
"I didn't try to push you away, you dummy."
"You were crying."
I…was I? It's hard to remember, because between the giddy delight of knowing that he did want me after all and the four hours I spent that night mentally decorating our house of dreams, and the panic of suspecting that he was avoiding me because he didn't want to lead me on anymore, I can't really remember.
"I think I was embarrassed," I finally tell him. "I've never done it before, so I wasn't very good."
He laughs, but it doesn't sound particularly happy.
"You were just fine, Lu."
Before I can do more than sort of blush and hide, the door bangs open, and I go spinning back as two hands latch onto Jack's shirt and haul him away.
By the time I manage to dust off my traveling clothes and my dignity, Griffin is already well into his frothing-at-the-mouth tirade.
"So it's true, huh? You just got tired of her, is that it?" the bartender growls, tightening his grip on Jack's collar until these funny choking noises start to emerge. "You had some fun with her, and decided on a younger model? I knew I was crazy to expect that you'd treat her any better."
I have the strangest feeling I should be doing something to stop this, but I'm absolutely mesmerized by the swinging motion of Jack's feet as Griffin shakes him.
And, as it turns out, it hardly matters, because seconds later, the door bangs open again, and a streak of blonde and red blue and and dusty, bruised bare feet flies at the wrestling match and hauls Griffin away from Jack.
"I asked you to wait!" Muffy exclaims furiously. "I was in the middle of a story, and if you men would just listen, you could have saved yourself a lot of embarrassment! And anyway, you know it's not good for you to get so worked up."
I move to help Jack up, and we both stare in wonder as Muffy continues to scold her boss, almost two decades her senior.
"Just so you know," she finally concludes softly, "I wrote Lumina and asked her to come back."
Now, I really must interject. I may be harbouring a grudge with both of them for breaking up my alone-time with Jack just when we were getting somewhere, but that doesn't mean I'll let Muffy take all the blame for this.
"Um, you just said to write to Jack."
She fixes me with a stern look.
"Sweetie, I remember being sixteen. I knew you'd come back."
"That doesn't change anything," Griffin tells her, glare almost drilling holes in Jack, who is trying very, very hard not to look at anyone in the room. "You're a sweet girl, and she's a sweet girl, and you don't want to take another girl's boyfriend. Makes sense. But he still proposed, and gave you a lot of time to get your hopes up."
By this point, I'm almost dancing in place trying to contain my secret special knowledge, and if Muffy doesn't tell Griffin what she told me very soon, I'm going to do it.
She's had her chance to meddle in my love life, right? Now it's my turn.
"Um, actually," she begins, blushing beautifully pink, "I was going to call off the wedding anyway. And not only for Lumina's sake. I, um, sort of have someone else in mind."
Ohh, he's not going to get it from that, Muffy! You have to spell it out with these men! Even when they're supposed to be old and wise.
Griffin, for example, is looking like he's just been punched.
"Oh, yeah? Well, that's great, kiddo."
"He's a little older than me, and he has this complex about his age, but he's sweet, and gentle, and easygoing, and he's amazing on the guitar. Although, he has a bit of a violent streak," she finishes teasingly. "And I don't think he would catch a hint if it fell on him."
He stares, incredulous joy almost radiating from him. Then he forces it resolutely away.
"You sure about this, Muffy? I'm a lot older--"
"Oh, enough!"
What a scene! Three adults staring blankly at a little teenage girl in the process of having a hissy-fit.
"She loves you, you idiot, she told me so! And you love her, or you wouldn't have tried to strangle Jack before bothering to get the whole story. So why on earth is a few years age difference any good reason to not be together? You know, it's not like you're so much wiser and more mature than she is – quite the opposite, just like all men. Now, both of you, go back to your bar and talk about this without an audience, because believe it or not, we were in the middle of something."
"R-right," Muffy agrees, choking back a laugh. I wish she wouldn't – I like Muffy's laugh. It's pretty, just like Celia's.
"Sorry about the manhandling, Jack," Griffin finally thinks to add, and Jack just sort of grins nervously.
"No problem, man. Just...punch me instead next time."
"Jack, lend Muffy some shoes; she's going to hurt herself walking over that road in bare feet," I order imperiously, and seeing a six-foot-two twenty-eight-year old man scurrying to obey a five-foot-nothing sixteen-year old is another sight to behold.
Finally, they're gone, and the door is locked again. Some miracle let Takakura sleep through the whole scene – or at least, decide he would be an overall happier man if he didn't get involved – so there are no more interruptions.
"So?" I prompt when several moments go by without a word from Jack.
He laughs.
"Are you kidding? After that, I'm never going to cross you again." Then he sobers. "But Lu, are you sure?"
I show him just how sure I am by climbing into his lap and snuggling against his shoulder. Yes, Grandma, of course I'm being very forward, but I'm hoping to be a lot more forward before the night is through.
It was an evening wedding, and all things considered, it was really beautiful.
Oh, not mine and Jack's, of course; no, even before Grandma got through with him he had decided that we weren't getting married for at least the four years of my scholarship, and possibly more if I was offered a touring opportunity.
I, of course, am furious, but helpless before the combined will of the two most irritatingly stubborn people I know.
It seems that Jack has gotten over being afraid of me.
But we do have the rest of the summer, starting with holding hands and giving each other syrupy-sweet looks all through the wedding – Griffin and Muffy's. It's a little funny, that they've spent so long living together, yet from the night I got back to Forget-Me-Not and he almost killed my fiancé, he's insisted that she stay at the Inn.
She shared a room with Nami. That must have been interesting.
Grandma let them hold the wedding in the front hall of our house, in the evening, because both the bride and the groom are far too used to sleeping until noon and staying up all night for a morning wedding.
The reception, naturally, was at the Blue Bar, and Jack is a horrifically mean person, because I was looking so forward to finally trying one of Griffin's famous cocktails, but he strictly forbid it, and glared at Rock when he tried to sneak me a glass of wine.
I suppose he would have had to answer to Grandma if I'd come home reeking of alcohol.
At least I can be consoled by the fact that no one else got to drink Griffin's cocktails. Celia and Marlin thought it wasn't fair that he had to spend his own wedding reception serving guests, so they took over the mixing duties. Jack says Marlin actually mixes a decent Martini, and he should have known. And Celia came up with a wonderful creation for the under-age drinkers (me), all foamy and strawberry-flavoured and topped with whipped cream, so I forgave Jack and let him kiss me goodnight when he dropped me off.
Alright, if you must know, I jumped on him and dragged him behind a bush for several minutes.
I suppose it all ended well, and no one really got hurt.
And anyway, Aunt Penelope says that a little drama makes life interesting.
All the same, I think I can do without it in the future; being happy is a lot nicer than being interesting.
End Notes: Hee! Okay, so this ended with a huge dose of fluff. What can I say? I am so, so not good at sustained angst and sad endings. Well, despite the fluff, I hope you enjoyed it, and thank-you for reading. :)