Sweet Caroline(17)

“Let her be.” Andy sets the trash down. The want ads are rolled in his hand. “She needs to blow off steam.”

“What about you?”

“Lost my head for a second. I’ll find something to do in this town. Gloria’s back isn’t bothering her as much these days. She can go back to work until I get a job.”

“I’ll stick around, Caroline.” Russell speaks for the first time. “I’ll find work after we shut down.”

“Shut down. Come on, y’all. I haven’t decided.” Yet? “Andy, what should I do?”

“Can’t tell you.” He taps his chest. “Only you know what’s in your heart.”

Mitch sits on the back porch when I pull up home Wednesday evening.

“Hey,” I take the steps slowly, watching as he rises from the bench swing. “How long have you been here?”

“A few minutes.” His easy stride is accented by his baggy shorts, oversized shirt, and flip-flops. “Well, maybe like thirty minutes. Okay, forty-five.” He stops in front of me, smiling. “Actually, I have no idea. I dozed off.”

With a laugh, I squeeze past him. Even now, he’s electric and exciting. “Dork. Why didn’t you come to the Café?” I unlock the kitchen door and head inside.

“I figured you’d be home sooner or later.” He stands by the door, his blond hair loose about his face.

“Are you coming in or just holding open the door for the flies?”There’s a note in Posey’s handwriting tacked to the fridge. Gone shop-ping in Savannah. Dad & Posey.

“Guess I’ll sit for a bit.” Mitch walks the rest of the way in, taking a seat at the table. “Does your dad still have the soda fridge? He kept the drinks so cold, ice chips floated on top.”

“You know some things never change.”

“Like you.” His album-cover smile knocks at the closed, locked door of my heart.

Head: Go away.

Heart: Yeah, no one is hoooome.

“I’ve changed.” Haven’t I? Yes, definitely. How, I’m not sure, but surely I’ve changed. Yes, lookit, I’m ready to move way over to Spain and take a job I have no idea I can do. “Do you want root beer, diet, or what?” I shove open the mudroom door. The hinge is loose, so the bot-tom scrapes across the board floor. Dad’s tackle keeps the room perpetu-ally perfumed like rotten fish. “How long are you in town?”

“Root beer sounds good. Most of the summer. Taking some time for myself.”

“Nice.” Jerking on the leverlike handle of the old fridge, I take out two root beers. When I set his down in front of him, he says, “So, you and J. D. an item?”

Slowly, I pop open my drink. “We’ve gone out a few times.” Talking to Elle and Jess about my love life is one thing. Talking to Mitch? Awkward.

“He’s a decent guy.”

“Decent? Kind of a bland thing to say about your old buddy.”

Mitch grins. “Is it? I thought it was a compliment.”

“What about you? Last time I saw the cover of Country Weekly, you were engaged to that new singer Mallory Clark.”

Mitch pops the top off his root beer and slurps the foam oozing over the top. “We broke up six months ago.”

Curling my leg under me, I sit in one of the kitchen chairs and sip my icy soda. “I’m sorry. Who’s your woman now?”

Looking contemplative, he shakes his head. “Flying solo these days.”

“Mitch O’Neal, running around Nashville untethered? What is the world coming to?”

“Confounding, isn’t it? I’m working on a few life adjustments.”

“You seemed different to me last night.”

His exhale is half laugh, half regret. “Took God knocking me upside the head, but I’m waking up to some realities.”

“Realities?” Mitch hasn’t referenced God since before his Nashville days. I’m curious about the “realities” belonging to a distant, leave-me-to-my-business God. (Mind you, if there is a God. Jury is still out.)

Mitch fiddles with the root beer can, looking as if he can’t formulate an answer. Finally, “Frank Sinatra’s wrong. ‘My way’ isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“From where I sit, your way has worked well.”

“Let’s just say I’m a long way from the preacher’s kid who walked an aisle and begged Jesus to live in his heart—whatever that meant. I just knew He was real.”

“Isn’t this what you wanted? Escape from the life of a small-town preacher’s kid?”

He taps his finger over his heart. “Yes, but nine years later, it’s left me pretty empty.”

The emotion in his voice moves me. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

Hungry, we decide to cruise down Highway 21 to the Shrimp Shack for a shrimp burger. And, Mitch wants to drive Matilda. “It’s been a while.”

The Shrimp Shack is busy, and when Mitch steps out of the car, he creates a stir. Customers dining at the picnic tables, and those waiting to pick up, buzz, “Is that Mitch O’Neal?”

Beaufort County has changed so much, the newcomers are not used to seeing one of our favorite sons.

Mitch graciously signs a few autographs—he doesn’t seem to mind this part of his reality—before we take our food to an outside picnic table and sit in the shade of a tall palm tree.