“I hope nothing too upsetting or dramatic?”
“I don’t know. We’ll see. I can’t talk about it right now, but hopefully I can tell you when I see you tonight.”
She didn’t want to tell him about the situation with Emma without her permission first. She understood how important it was for a person who had suffered trauma to be able to control who knew about it.
“So, I wanted to talk to you about something…”
Her heart started to flutter. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was the moment that he was going to propose. Of course, she didn’t know if that had been the plan at the restaurant, but maybe it was the plan now.
“Okay…”
“You and I have been together for a while now, and you know how much I love you and enjoy your company…”
“Excuse me! Excuse me!” A frantic woman came running from seemingly nowhere, waving her hands in the air.
“Oh good Lord…” William muttered under his breath.
“Is something wrong?” Janine said, standing up.
“Did you see a golden retriever run past here?”
“A golden retriever?” William said, irritation in his voice. Janine elbowed him.
“We’re here visiting, and we saw this beautiful little stretch of beach. Thought we would come down here and check it out but my dog got off the leash. She doesn’t know the area, and I’m scared to death she’ll get eaten by an alligator or something worse!”
“What’s worse than an alligator?” William muttered. This time, Janine pinched his arm.
The woman was obviously very upset, and Janine felt like they had to help her. “We haven’t seen a dog, but we just got here. Maybe we can help you look for him.”
William stared at her, surprise on his face. “Right. Of course we’ll help. We weren’t doing anything else,” he said, dryly.
“We have to help her. She doesn’t know the area,” Janine whispered in his ear.
For the next thirty minutes, they scoured the beach, the trees nearby and even the backyards of the few cottages that were in that area. No sign of a dog. Finally, as they were all walking back to their cars, a very wet golden retriever came running up, barking, holding marsh grass in his mouth. Evidently, he had run far enough to end up in the marshlands, and he was probably pretty lucky that he didn’t get eaten by an alligator.
“Elvis, are you crazy?” the woman yelled at her dog, as if he understood. Janine almost wanted to ask the backstory on naming her dog Elvis, but she was truly afraid the woman would spend the next half hour telling her, and she didn’t have that kind of time. She had to get back to the studio and get ready for class. “Thank you so much for helping me look. I’m so sorry I interrupted your picnic.”
“It’s no problem, really. We’re just glad you found your beloved Elvis,” Janine said.
As they watched the woman walk off with her dog, William cleaned up the “picnic that never was”. Janine grabbed a few bites of food, shoving them into her mouth quickly before they had to head back to town so she could teach class. She could tell that William was upset, but she wasn’t totally sure why. Even though she was assuming that he was yet again going to try to propose, she was starting to feel like something was always going to get in their way.
Being the woo-woo type of person that she was, that was starting to concern her. Maybe the universe was putting obstacles in their path so that they didn’t end up married. And maybe he wasn’t going to ask her at all. Maybe she was just pie-in-the-sky dreaming things up in her head. At this point, she didn’t know what to think.
“Well, thanks for the picnic,” she said, forcing a smile.
“There was no picnic. Instead, there was a search for an idiot dog named Elvis who likes to eat marsh grass.”
She smiled. “It’s okay, William. We have plenty of time for picnics. At least we did a good deed today.”
“I guess so. Good luck with your class. I’ll see you tonight.”
She hopped out of the truck and watched him drive away wondering whether they would ever get married or if she was destined to just be his girlfriend for the rest of her life.
Emma locked the door to the lighthouse after the last guest left. Today had been a long one with two school groups, a church group and a screaming baby that seemed to echo through the entire building.
All she wanted to do was run herself a bubble bath in the old clawfoot tub that was in the cottage and soak until her skin turned into a prune-like texture.
This morning, she had gotten a call from Caroline who had, of course, talked to Steve. Again, she tried to talk some sense into Emma, but Emma couldn’t seem to make her understand that she wasn’t coming home. This was her new home, and she was starting to find some semblance of happiness here.
The ocean soothed her. The marshes still scared her a little bit, but she was starting to grow accustomed to the smells and the sounds that happened at night in the South Carolina lowcountry.
She was looking forward to manning her own table at the Spring Festival tomorrow. She had worked up the flyers which the city council had approved, and she was hoping to bring even more business to the lighthouse. As long as she did a good job with the tours, she got to keep her job. She got to keep her free housing. She got to continue living her new life.
“Hey!”
She turned around to see Janine standing near her front door. She wasn’t expecting company, and normally she wouldn’t have minded if she wasn’t so incredibly tired.
“Hey, Janine. I didn’t know you were coming by this evening.”
“I know, and it’s really rude of me to just show up here but I
