Challenge Fic: New World Coming (Duck/Dan)
Title: New World Coming
Fandom: Wilby Wonderful
Pairing/Characters: Duck/Dan, Sandra, Emily, Carol, Buddy, Mackenzie
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: So very, very not mine.
Summary: And for three days, Sandra walked up to every conversation she heard, wielding her coffeepot, smile firmly in place, and said, "Well, I think it's sweet, don't you?"
Author's Notes: Written for the greatestfits Classy Motherf*cker Headstones lyrics challenge. Many, many thanks to visionshadows for the beta, commiseration, and hand-holding.
Together they have built a world / A lot of it is real
And we are here to ease them through / The parts they can't conceal
i. Sandra
Word spread.
Of course word spread and Sandra, being where she was, heard it all: whispers spreading outwards like ripples in a pond, volleyed back and forth like fading echoes in a cave.
The first afternoon after that, that night, as Sandra was calling it in her head, it was variations on the theme of flowers: "-picked them himself-" "-wild flowers, from the Watch, a bouquet-" The next: "-stayed until the doctors kicked him out, I heard-" "-sitting on his bed, holding hands-" The third: "-releasing him-" "-pick him up, do you think?"
And for three days, Sandra walked up to every conversation she heard, wielding her coffeepot, smile firmly in place, and said, "Well, I think it's sweet, don't you?" She saw a few grimaces, a few reluctant nods, and a noticeable reduction in the echo effect.
In Iggy's, at least.
Freaks like them needed to stick together, after all.
The fourth morning she pulled her car into the tiny yard out in front of Duck's house, into the spot right next to his truck. She slammed the door, the only warning she could give of her imminent arrival since Duck, she knew, didn't have a doorbell, then opened the back door to the car and pulled out the box of muffins, the travel thermos of coffee.
When she unbent far enough to turn back to the house, Duck was there, standing in the doorway, watching her. Smiling.
He was wearing his overalls, paint-splattered as always, but one of the straps was undone, hanging down loose against his back. She could see it swinging when he started walking towards her, hands already out to relieve her of her packages.
She said, "I've got it. I've got it," and he nodded and stopped where he was, but he didn't go back again. He waited until she was beside him, past him, then ushered her into the house. Three rooms: kitchen, bedroom, all-purpose living room-dining room-workshop. There was a stack of newspapers by the table, a piece of stained canvas draped over the third chair, a pile of paint cans underneath the window. She saw his toolbox over by the couch, two empty glasses on top of the television, and behind her, she heard Duck clearing his throat.
When she turned to look at him, now holding out the box of pastries for him to take-he didn't-she saw that he was dipping his head, running his hand over the flatter than usual spikes of his hair.
He said, "Sorry, sorry. Wasn't-we weren't exactly expecting company, you know."
"I know," she said. Smiling, too. Turning again after a moment to set the cardboard box and the coffee down on the table. "I heard that you'd brought Dan home last night-that is, I heard that they'd released him from the hospital and that you'd picked him up. That you'd brought him. Home."
Now Duck was looking away from her, though, turning towards the front door, as if he could see into the town that way, see who was saying what, running his hand across his hair again, flattening it even more.
"I guess we're the talk of the town then. Still."
For a moment, Sandra was sure that it was Duck who had spoken, despite the fact that she hadn't seen his lips move, that the soft, tired voice wasn't his. She twisted her head in the direction of the voice, though, and saw Dan standing a few feet away, in the doorway of Duck's bedroom, a turtleneck pulled up high around his neck.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Duck turn too, take an instinctive step forward, then stop, his hand starting over his hair again, going halfway before he pulled it away, cramming it into the pocket of his overalls.
"This week," Sandra said, looking between Duck and Dan and back again, smiling her most comforting smile. "Next week there will be something else: maybe Mimi Ambrose's husband will catch on that she's been sleeping with her gardener-you know, Clarence's youngest-for the last two months. Or maybe someone will finally do the math and figure out that if Ellen Hunter is truly as far along in her pregnancy as she looks, her husband wasn't on the island to do the deed."
Both of them were looking at her then, Dan with an almost wary expression on his face, Duck looking less nervous and more amused.
"Work behind the counter of a coffee shop enough hours in a day," she said, lowering her voice as if she was telling them a secret, "enough days a week, and you learn things. Like the fact that your flowers were a very sweet gesture," she said to Duck, and then to Dan: "and the fact that you came here last night."
Dan started to open his mouth, to say what, Sandra didn't know, but then he closed it again, and silence descended. Well, near silence. She could hear the sound of Dan's feet shifting over the floorboards, the sound of Duck's almost stilted breathing.
A beat, two of quiet, long enough for her to start to feel a little awkward-if only because she didn't know Dan as well as she knew Duck-so she said, "But anyway. I didn't know when you boys were going to feel like heading into town again, so I thought that I'd bring you some muffins, some coffee. A sort of welcome home present, if you will."
"Sandra," Duck started, but she just shook her head and said, "And on that note, I really need to be going. I don't want to leave Emily alone for too long, in case there's a lunch time rush. Because we've opened the kitchen now, did you hear? Full service. You'll both have to come in sometime: breakfast, lunch. We'll fix you up something good."
She was looking back and forth between them again, issuing the invitation to the both of them, and she saw Duck start to nod, a platitude, an 'of course, sometime, you know', but then he stopped and she watched as he glanced over at Dan. Watched as they held each other's gaze for a moment, a long moment that probably wasn't, probably only seemed long to her, on the outside as she was, but then it was broken by a twitch of Dan's head. Faint, hardly noticeable, except that Duck turned back towards her then and said, "Yeah, we'll have to do that. We'll do that. Maybe later this week."
And it still could have been a platitude, she thought, but she was choosing to interpret it as a commitment, so she said, "Okay then. Okay, I'll be expecting you."
Then she stepped towards the door and Duck opened it for her, laying a hand on her arm as she stepped back outside. When she reached her car, though, when she turned back to wave, she saw that Dan had joined Duck. That they were both standing in the doorway, shoulder pressed to shoulder.
Duck, she saw, was not the only one waving goodbye.
ii. Carol
On the fifth day of the rest of her life, as Buddy was calling it, Carol came home from work, changed into jeans, poured herself a glass of iced tea, and walked out onto the back porch, barefoot.
She sat down on the top step and stared out across the yard, watching a bird as it hopped from branch to branch, feeling the gentle evening breeze. It was quiet, the sounds of Wilby seemingly almost muffled, and how long had it been, she thought, since she'd let herself sit out here like this? Consciously not doing the things she knew she needed to be doing.
Had it been since she'd stopped smoking, taking her smoke breaks? Longer?
Probably longer.
Five days before, she wouldn't have even considered doing this.
She would have been at work still, she thought, probably attempting to get in touch with Duck MacDonald, to check on the progress of the new sign. To make sure that it really would be ready to hang the next day. She would have been at one of her listed properties, opening windows and airing the place out, arranging for a gardener to come by and water, weed, mow the grass.
Or, if she'd been at home, she would have spent the evening calling clients, saying, "Yes, Joan, David, I think I've found the perfect place for you. Two bedrooms, two blocks from the high school. How would Monday work for you. No? Well how about Tuesday?"
Five days ago, though, she'd asked Buddy what had happened to her and he'd said, "Think of it as part of another life." A life where she'd been… happy, she thought. That was the implication, at least, and she was pretty sure he was right about that. She was pretty sure that she remembered liking that person.
So, that was what she was trying to do. Taking small steps backwards, towards those memories. Yesterday, lunch with Buddy; tonight, time spent on the porch with cold tea, quiet.
She was still sitting out there when Buddy arrived half an hour later, actually. From her step she listened to the muted sound of his cruiser pulling into the driveway, of the front door opening, then closing. His footfalls, heavy on the hardwood floors. She could hear him walking around inside: kitchen, living room, up the stairs to their bedroom, then back down again.
Finally she heard his voice: "Carol?"
"Out here!" she answered. "I'm out back."
Footsteps again, the sound of the backdoor opening and then he was outside, too. She didn't turn to look at him, though, not as he sat down next to her, closer than he would have five days before. Close enough for their knees to brush, which they did.
Then she turned, looked, raised her drink and said, "You should get yourself a glass. It's good."
He nodded, but didn't move. "I'll go grab some in a bit," he said, then just let the silence stretch out between them.
It, in itself, wasn't totally uncomfortable, actually, but there had been enough silences between them recently that Carol found herself searching for something to say, somehow needing to fill it.
"Deena told me today," she said finally, "that when Dan Jarvis left the hospital two days ago, he went home with the painter, Duck."
She glanced over at Buddy and saw that he was nodding, as if he already knew. Which he probably did, she reminded herself, because it was his job to know these things. What was going on in the town, those sorts of things.
"Her friend Sandra Anderson-you know, the woman who took over Iggy's?" she continued, still looking over at Buddy, and was that a flinch she saw? No, it was probably the sun, bright rays filtering in between the branches of the trees.
"Well, apparently," she said, "Sandra went to visit them out at Duck's place and said that Dan looked like he was doing well. That he looked happy. Er. Happier, anyway."
She kept her eye on Buddy as she talked, but didn't see anymore flinches, no telltale twitches that maybe there was something going on that she didn't know about. In fact, Buddy looked more relaxed than she'd seen him in a long time, months, possibly. He even grinned at her as he said, "Good. That's good to hear."
Silence again, but shorter this time, because she said, "I was thinking. I was thinking it might be fun to invite them over for dinner one night, maybe later this summer. Sometime. We could have a barbecue."
As she watched Buddy, though, his smile started to slip off of his face. Then he was frowning, not deeply, but there was a small line between his eyebrows.
She said, "What? It's been a long time since we've had a barbecue."
He held her gaze for a moment, then turned to look back out at the backyard. Grass, trees. He folded his hands together, letting them hover in the space between his spread knees. "They won't want your pity," he said. "They won't want to be one of your projects."
She must have made an offended sort of sound, because he looked back over at her again, one eyebrow raised. "Come on, Carol. They aren't exactly part of your 'set', now are they? They aren't exactly your sort of people."
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her hands were wrapped tightly around her drink, her knuckles pale against the flower-patterned glass. She wanted to say, no, they aren't. She wanted to say, but seven-or even five-years ago, she was pretty sure that they would have been. Back when she and Buddy would spend whole weekends on the mainland, never leaving their hotel room. Back when her idea of an ideal Saturday was to spend it out at the Watch, tubes of paint spread out next to her on the rocks.
Instead she said, slowly, "Oh, I don't know about that. We mainlanders have to stick together, you know."
She wanted to say, small steps, right? Small steps. But she didn't.
Maybe Buddy understood anyway, though, because after a moment he nodded and said, "Okay then," the corners of his mouth relaxing into a grin again. He repeated it, "Okay," and reached out for her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her close.
iii. Emily
Mackenzie was waiting for Emily when she stepped out of Iggy's that afternoon, pulling the door shut behind her. Her mother was still inside, cleaning; even outside, Emily could faintly hear the sound of the griddle being scraped down.
She nodded at Mackenzie as the other girl fell into step beside her, as Emily turned in the direction of her apartment. As they walked, Mackenzie took a cigarette out of her pack, lit it, and then dropped the lighter back into her bag.
"Summer school sucks," Mackenzie said as she took a drag. "God. You wouldn't believe what Tonkenmeir made us do in physics today. We're supposed to build these, these, like, egg pillows or something-"
And she kept talking as they walked, and Emily didn't tune her out, but she sort of maybe wasn't listening as closely as she could have been, because she'd heard pretty much the same thing the day before, and the day before that, and last week, too. She said, "Uh-huh," and "oh yeah, I know," and other sorts of encouraging things, though.
"-because get this, apparently we're going to be dropping them off the top of the equipment shack out by the sports field, and can you please tell me how exactly that relates to real life? Seriously, like I'm ever going to be in a life or death situation where the only thing that can save me is my ability to make something that will stop an egg from breaking, if I drop it from the top of the equipment shack? God. It sucks."
Another drag on her cigarette. "So anyway, I heard that that painter and the guy who tried to kill himself last week came into Iggy's today."
As always, Emily felt a little disoriented by Mackenzie's sudden veer of topic, but then she said, "Yeah, yeah they did. They came in for lunch. I guess Duck was in town, putting up some of those 'Wonderful Wilby' signs. Or at least that's what he told my mom."
A beat, and then Mackenzie said, "And?"
Now Emily looked away from the leaves that she'd been kicking and said, "And?"
"And so what happened? Oh my God, Emily. Don't be dense. Were they, like, all over each other in the booth?"
"No!" Emily said. "No, of course they weren't. It was lunchtime. They were eating lunch."
They'd sat across from each other in one of the booths by the window, where her mother had seated them with a "Well, hello, boys! I was wondering when you were going to come by!" and as Emily had been getting Mrs. Tillson's coffee ready, she'd watched them. They hadn't been touching, not even their feet under the table, and they hadn't really talked at all, but the glances they'd been darting at each other…
"Well that's good," Mackenzie was saying with a heavy, almost relieved sigh. "Because old people making out? That's just gross. They're, like, my parents age, you know, and that just makes me think of, like, my parents making out, which is just, ew, no. Gag me with a rusty spoon."
And Mackenzie was looking at her, as if waiting for Emily's nod of agreement as to how gross it would be, and while Emily certainly had no desire to ever walk in on her mother making out with anyone ever again, those little looks, she'd seen… The small smile that had been curving Duck's lips, the answering one on Mr. Jarvis'…
For the last week, her mother had been telling anyone who would listen how sweet she thought it was that Duck would take Mr. Jarvis flowers, how good she thought they were, for each other, and Emily, well.
She knew this much: Taylor (arsehole) had certainly never looked at *her* the way that Duck and Mr. Jarvis had been looking at each other, and she was pretty sure that she'd never looked at him that way either.
"I don't know," Emily said. "I think they're sort of sweet, you know?" and for a moment Mackenzie looked at her with something that could only be called askance horror.
Emily continued, "I mean, I'd much rather see Duck and Dan than Taylor, right?" and then Mackenzie rolled her eyes and took another drag of her cigarette, and said, "Well, duh. Taylor's an arse. And yeah, I mean, they aren't my parents so I guess it's not like, like rusty spoon worthy. Just. Whatever, right?" and Emily said, "Okay, yeah. Okay."
It was more than 'okay', though. It was-it was good.
Then Mackenzie said, "Hey, you'll never guess what Missy told me about Jason Connors today during algebra…" and, still smiling to herself, Emily said, "No, what?"
iv. Buddy
He heard the talk, of course. He couldn't not, what with the way people were talking about it on the street: "-freaks-" "-ship 'em back to the mainland, where they belong-" The way some people were actually coming into the station to complain. "Public indecency!" "This is a wholesome community!"
He stomped the talk where he could, emphasizing that Wilby was a wholesome community, welcoming everyone. He said things like: "A month ago, Mr. Willard, you were telling me how glad you were that Dan Jarvis had opened up his shop here. I remember you saying, 'finally, someone who knows there's more to the Western genre than John Wayne!'" and "Mrs. Tillson, you've known Duck MacDonald since the day he was born. Are you trying to tell me that he's changed somehow, in the last week?"
Still, he couldn't interrupt every conversation he heard-not like he heard Sandra was doing. He couldn't force people to change their opinions. He could just listen. Try to keep his finger on the pulse of the town, trying to judge if or when words might change to actions and deeds.
He could try to do his job: prevent and protect.
The first night he stood up from his chair as soon as the sun was set, flipping the television set off halfway through the news from the mainland, Carol had looked up from her own magazine, Interior Decoration Today, and raised an eyebrow. She'd asked, "Buddy?"
"Just going to take one more circuit around the island," he'd said. Casual-like, while slipping on his jacket.
He didn't think that she'd put two and two together that night, connecting his sudden urge to patrol with the news that he'd told her at dinner the night before, that Dan Jarvis had been released from the hospital, but the second night, he was pretty sure she did.
Maybe, he thought, she'd heard more talk than just Deena's news of Sandra's visit.
Still, though, at her querying eyebrow, he'd said, "You know, with Stan on 'leave' for these next few weeks, we've all got to step up. Do our part."
The third night, the previous night, she hadn't said a thing. She'd just reached out to touch his arm as he'd passed by the couch. She'd leaned into the hand he'd run over her hair.
He was on his fourth night now, though. Sitting in his cruiser, lights off, maybe fifty yards away from the house. He could see Duck's truck in the driveway, it's ladder gone from the top of the roof. The porch light was on, as was a light in the living room. Once he saw a figure pass behind the window shade, a shadow too tall to be Duck, and that was it.
Lights. Quiet.
Words-talk that was echoing around town, that was maybe just words, but maybe wasn't, and as he sat there on the quiet road, minutes slipping away, Buddy wondered how many more nights he would hold this vigil, do this.
In a change from previous nights, though, this night, the door opened and Duck stepped out onto the porch, and Buddy could see him clearly, illuminated as he was by the single bulb overhead. Duck didn't look around at all, just leaned back against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest, and stared straight at Buddy. He was looking serious and Buddy half-expected that he'd start up to the car at any moment, ask Buddy what the hell he was doing there.
But he didn't, and after a minute or two, Duck turned back towards the house, cocking his head as if listening, and then Buddy could see him saying something in return, lips moving, smiling almost, sort of shy. A moment later, though, he was back to staring at Buddy, his gaze seemingly more intense than before.
Then he nodded once, definitively, an okay, okay then, Buddy thought, and turned back to the house, stepped inside, and closed the door. Buddy watched as the light on the porch went off, then the one in the living room. Still, though, Buddy stayed.
How long would he do this?
As long as he needed to, he thought. Just to be sure.
v. Dan
At dinner that night, Dan said, "So. So I was thinking that tomorrow, I might drive into town. Start getting the video store set up again."
They were eating pasta, dry spaghetti out of a package, powdered sauce mixed with a few tomatoes from Duck's backyard, and he was twirling it around his fork, watching as the pale strands slipped through the tines.
He'd been meaning to say that he should probably start looking for a place of his own, that he'd been thinking of stopping by Carol French's office to see if she had any suggestions. He'd been staying at Duck's house for nearly a week now, though, and they were just starting to learn each other's rhythms: how Duck only took ten minutes in the bathroom every morning, showering and shaving, but a half hour every night, cleaning up after he got home from work. How Dan never wanted to talk before he had his coffee in the morning. How Duck would always migrate to Dan's pillow in the middle of the night, even if he started out on his own; how Dan found that he slept better, a large hand pressed to his chest, just below his heart.
A week now, though, and Duck had never once mentioned Dan going any place else. In fact, when he woke up every morning, he looked down at Dan with bright eyes and sleep-tousled hair, and ran his fingers over Dan's rough cheek. He looked happy.
Just like he was looking now, Dan saw when he finally looked away from his plate. Smile wider than Dan'd seen it before, genuine and true, and when Duck said, "That'd be good. That'd be great. That'd be-" Dan thought that he'd said the right thing.
He was sure of it when Duck reached out to still Dan's fork, palm wrapping around the back of Dan's hand and holding him there. Holding him.
"Okay," Dan said. "Okay then."
End.
Fandom: Wilby Wonderful
Pairing/Characters: Duck/Dan, Sandra, Emily, Carol, Buddy, Mackenzie
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: So very, very not mine.
Summary: And for three days, Sandra walked up to every conversation she heard, wielding her coffeepot, smile firmly in place, and said, "Well, I think it's sweet, don't you?"
Author's Notes: Written for the greatestfits Classy Motherf*cker Headstones lyrics challenge. Many, many thanks to visionshadows for the beta, commiseration, and hand-holding.
Together they have built a world / A lot of it is real
And we are here to ease them through / The parts they can't conceal
i. Sandra
Word spread.
Of course word spread and Sandra, being where she was, heard it all: whispers spreading outwards like ripples in a pond, volleyed back and forth like fading echoes in a cave.
The first afternoon after that, that night, as Sandra was calling it in her head, it was variations on the theme of flowers: "-picked them himself-" "-wild flowers, from the Watch, a bouquet-" The next: "-stayed until the doctors kicked him out, I heard-" "-sitting on his bed, holding hands-" The third: "-releasing him-" "-pick him up, do you think?"
And for three days, Sandra walked up to every conversation she heard, wielding her coffeepot, smile firmly in place, and said, "Well, I think it's sweet, don't you?" She saw a few grimaces, a few reluctant nods, and a noticeable reduction in the echo effect.
In Iggy's, at least.
Freaks like them needed to stick together, after all.
The fourth morning she pulled her car into the tiny yard out in front of Duck's house, into the spot right next to his truck. She slammed the door, the only warning she could give of her imminent arrival since Duck, she knew, didn't have a doorbell, then opened the back door to the car and pulled out the box of muffins, the travel thermos of coffee.
When she unbent far enough to turn back to the house, Duck was there, standing in the doorway, watching her. Smiling.
He was wearing his overalls, paint-splattered as always, but one of the straps was undone, hanging down loose against his back. She could see it swinging when he started walking towards her, hands already out to relieve her of her packages.
She said, "I've got it. I've got it," and he nodded and stopped where he was, but he didn't go back again. He waited until she was beside him, past him, then ushered her into the house. Three rooms: kitchen, bedroom, all-purpose living room-dining room-workshop. There was a stack of newspapers by the table, a piece of stained canvas draped over the third chair, a pile of paint cans underneath the window. She saw his toolbox over by the couch, two empty glasses on top of the television, and behind her, she heard Duck clearing his throat.
When she turned to look at him, now holding out the box of pastries for him to take-he didn't-she saw that he was dipping his head, running his hand over the flatter than usual spikes of his hair.
He said, "Sorry, sorry. Wasn't-we weren't exactly expecting company, you know."
"I know," she said. Smiling, too. Turning again after a moment to set the cardboard box and the coffee down on the table. "I heard that you'd brought Dan home last night-that is, I heard that they'd released him from the hospital and that you'd picked him up. That you'd brought him. Home."
Now Duck was looking away from her, though, turning towards the front door, as if he could see into the town that way, see who was saying what, running his hand across his hair again, flattening it even more.
"I guess we're the talk of the town then. Still."
For a moment, Sandra was sure that it was Duck who had spoken, despite the fact that she hadn't seen his lips move, that the soft, tired voice wasn't his. She twisted her head in the direction of the voice, though, and saw Dan standing a few feet away, in the doorway of Duck's bedroom, a turtleneck pulled up high around his neck.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Duck turn too, take an instinctive step forward, then stop, his hand starting over his hair again, going halfway before he pulled it away, cramming it into the pocket of his overalls.
"This week," Sandra said, looking between Duck and Dan and back again, smiling her most comforting smile. "Next week there will be something else: maybe Mimi Ambrose's husband will catch on that she's been sleeping with her gardener-you know, Clarence's youngest-for the last two months. Or maybe someone will finally do the math and figure out that if Ellen Hunter is truly as far along in her pregnancy as she looks, her husband wasn't on the island to do the deed."
Both of them were looking at her then, Dan with an almost wary expression on his face, Duck looking less nervous and more amused.
"Work behind the counter of a coffee shop enough hours in a day," she said, lowering her voice as if she was telling them a secret, "enough days a week, and you learn things. Like the fact that your flowers were a very sweet gesture," she said to Duck, and then to Dan: "and the fact that you came here last night."
Dan started to open his mouth, to say what, Sandra didn't know, but then he closed it again, and silence descended. Well, near silence. She could hear the sound of Dan's feet shifting over the floorboards, the sound of Duck's almost stilted breathing.
A beat, two of quiet, long enough for her to start to feel a little awkward-if only because she didn't know Dan as well as she knew Duck-so she said, "But anyway. I didn't know when you boys were going to feel like heading into town again, so I thought that I'd bring you some muffins, some coffee. A sort of welcome home present, if you will."
"Sandra," Duck started, but she just shook her head and said, "And on that note, I really need to be going. I don't want to leave Emily alone for too long, in case there's a lunch time rush. Because we've opened the kitchen now, did you hear? Full service. You'll both have to come in sometime: breakfast, lunch. We'll fix you up something good."
She was looking back and forth between them again, issuing the invitation to the both of them, and she saw Duck start to nod, a platitude, an 'of course, sometime, you know', but then he stopped and she watched as he glanced over at Dan. Watched as they held each other's gaze for a moment, a long moment that probably wasn't, probably only seemed long to her, on the outside as she was, but then it was broken by a twitch of Dan's head. Faint, hardly noticeable, except that Duck turned back towards her then and said, "Yeah, we'll have to do that. We'll do that. Maybe later this week."
And it still could have been a platitude, she thought, but she was choosing to interpret it as a commitment, so she said, "Okay then. Okay, I'll be expecting you."
Then she stepped towards the door and Duck opened it for her, laying a hand on her arm as she stepped back outside. When she reached her car, though, when she turned back to wave, she saw that Dan had joined Duck. That they were both standing in the doorway, shoulder pressed to shoulder.
Duck, she saw, was not the only one waving goodbye.
ii. Carol
On the fifth day of the rest of her life, as Buddy was calling it, Carol came home from work, changed into jeans, poured herself a glass of iced tea, and walked out onto the back porch, barefoot.
She sat down on the top step and stared out across the yard, watching a bird as it hopped from branch to branch, feeling the gentle evening breeze. It was quiet, the sounds of Wilby seemingly almost muffled, and how long had it been, she thought, since she'd let herself sit out here like this? Consciously not doing the things she knew she needed to be doing.
Had it been since she'd stopped smoking, taking her smoke breaks? Longer?
Probably longer.
Five days before, she wouldn't have even considered doing this.
She would have been at work still, she thought, probably attempting to get in touch with Duck MacDonald, to check on the progress of the new sign. To make sure that it really would be ready to hang the next day. She would have been at one of her listed properties, opening windows and airing the place out, arranging for a gardener to come by and water, weed, mow the grass.
Or, if she'd been at home, she would have spent the evening calling clients, saying, "Yes, Joan, David, I think I've found the perfect place for you. Two bedrooms, two blocks from the high school. How would Monday work for you. No? Well how about Tuesday?"
Five days ago, though, she'd asked Buddy what had happened to her and he'd said, "Think of it as part of another life." A life where she'd been… happy, she thought. That was the implication, at least, and she was pretty sure he was right about that. She was pretty sure that she remembered liking that person.
So, that was what she was trying to do. Taking small steps backwards, towards those memories. Yesterday, lunch with Buddy; tonight, time spent on the porch with cold tea, quiet.
She was still sitting out there when Buddy arrived half an hour later, actually. From her step she listened to the muted sound of his cruiser pulling into the driveway, of the front door opening, then closing. His footfalls, heavy on the hardwood floors. She could hear him walking around inside: kitchen, living room, up the stairs to their bedroom, then back down again.
Finally she heard his voice: "Carol?"
"Out here!" she answered. "I'm out back."
Footsteps again, the sound of the backdoor opening and then he was outside, too. She didn't turn to look at him, though, not as he sat down next to her, closer than he would have five days before. Close enough for their knees to brush, which they did.
Then she turned, looked, raised her drink and said, "You should get yourself a glass. It's good."
He nodded, but didn't move. "I'll go grab some in a bit," he said, then just let the silence stretch out between them.
It, in itself, wasn't totally uncomfortable, actually, but there had been enough silences between them recently that Carol found herself searching for something to say, somehow needing to fill it.
"Deena told me today," she said finally, "that when Dan Jarvis left the hospital two days ago, he went home with the painter, Duck."
She glanced over at Buddy and saw that he was nodding, as if he already knew. Which he probably did, she reminded herself, because it was his job to know these things. What was going on in the town, those sorts of things.
"Her friend Sandra Anderson-you know, the woman who took over Iggy's?" she continued, still looking over at Buddy, and was that a flinch she saw? No, it was probably the sun, bright rays filtering in between the branches of the trees.
"Well, apparently," she said, "Sandra went to visit them out at Duck's place and said that Dan looked like he was doing well. That he looked happy. Er. Happier, anyway."
She kept her eye on Buddy as she talked, but didn't see anymore flinches, no telltale twitches that maybe there was something going on that she didn't know about. In fact, Buddy looked more relaxed than she'd seen him in a long time, months, possibly. He even grinned at her as he said, "Good. That's good to hear."
Silence again, but shorter this time, because she said, "I was thinking. I was thinking it might be fun to invite them over for dinner one night, maybe later this summer. Sometime. We could have a barbecue."
As she watched Buddy, though, his smile started to slip off of his face. Then he was frowning, not deeply, but there was a small line between his eyebrows.
She said, "What? It's been a long time since we've had a barbecue."
He held her gaze for a moment, then turned to look back out at the backyard. Grass, trees. He folded his hands together, letting them hover in the space between his spread knees. "They won't want your pity," he said. "They won't want to be one of your projects."
She must have made an offended sort of sound, because he looked back over at her again, one eyebrow raised. "Come on, Carol. They aren't exactly part of your 'set', now are they? They aren't exactly your sort of people."
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her hands were wrapped tightly around her drink, her knuckles pale against the flower-patterned glass. She wanted to say, no, they aren't. She wanted to say, but seven-or even five-years ago, she was pretty sure that they would have been. Back when she and Buddy would spend whole weekends on the mainland, never leaving their hotel room. Back when her idea of an ideal Saturday was to spend it out at the Watch, tubes of paint spread out next to her on the rocks.
Instead she said, slowly, "Oh, I don't know about that. We mainlanders have to stick together, you know."
She wanted to say, small steps, right? Small steps. But she didn't.
Maybe Buddy understood anyway, though, because after a moment he nodded and said, "Okay then," the corners of his mouth relaxing into a grin again. He repeated it, "Okay," and reached out for her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her close.
iii. Emily
Mackenzie was waiting for Emily when she stepped out of Iggy's that afternoon, pulling the door shut behind her. Her mother was still inside, cleaning; even outside, Emily could faintly hear the sound of the griddle being scraped down.
She nodded at Mackenzie as the other girl fell into step beside her, as Emily turned in the direction of her apartment. As they walked, Mackenzie took a cigarette out of her pack, lit it, and then dropped the lighter back into her bag.
"Summer school sucks," Mackenzie said as she took a drag. "God. You wouldn't believe what Tonkenmeir made us do in physics today. We're supposed to build these, these, like, egg pillows or something-"
And she kept talking as they walked, and Emily didn't tune her out, but she sort of maybe wasn't listening as closely as she could have been, because she'd heard pretty much the same thing the day before, and the day before that, and last week, too. She said, "Uh-huh," and "oh yeah, I know," and other sorts of encouraging things, though.
"-because get this, apparently we're going to be dropping them off the top of the equipment shack out by the sports field, and can you please tell me how exactly that relates to real life? Seriously, like I'm ever going to be in a life or death situation where the only thing that can save me is my ability to make something that will stop an egg from breaking, if I drop it from the top of the equipment shack? God. It sucks."
Another drag on her cigarette. "So anyway, I heard that that painter and the guy who tried to kill himself last week came into Iggy's today."
As always, Emily felt a little disoriented by Mackenzie's sudden veer of topic, but then she said, "Yeah, yeah they did. They came in for lunch. I guess Duck was in town, putting up some of those 'Wonderful Wilby' signs. Or at least that's what he told my mom."
A beat, and then Mackenzie said, "And?"
Now Emily looked away from the leaves that she'd been kicking and said, "And?"
"And so what happened? Oh my God, Emily. Don't be dense. Were they, like, all over each other in the booth?"
"No!" Emily said. "No, of course they weren't. It was lunchtime. They were eating lunch."
They'd sat across from each other in one of the booths by the window, where her mother had seated them with a "Well, hello, boys! I was wondering when you were going to come by!" and as Emily had been getting Mrs. Tillson's coffee ready, she'd watched them. They hadn't been touching, not even their feet under the table, and they hadn't really talked at all, but the glances they'd been darting at each other…
"Well that's good," Mackenzie was saying with a heavy, almost relieved sigh. "Because old people making out? That's just gross. They're, like, my parents age, you know, and that just makes me think of, like, my parents making out, which is just, ew, no. Gag me with a rusty spoon."
And Mackenzie was looking at her, as if waiting for Emily's nod of agreement as to how gross it would be, and while Emily certainly had no desire to ever walk in on her mother making out with anyone ever again, those little looks, she'd seen… The small smile that had been curving Duck's lips, the answering one on Mr. Jarvis'…
For the last week, her mother had been telling anyone who would listen how sweet she thought it was that Duck would take Mr. Jarvis flowers, how good she thought they were, for each other, and Emily, well.
She knew this much: Taylor (arsehole) had certainly never looked at *her* the way that Duck and Mr. Jarvis had been looking at each other, and she was pretty sure that she'd never looked at him that way either.
"I don't know," Emily said. "I think they're sort of sweet, you know?" and for a moment Mackenzie looked at her with something that could only be called askance horror.
Emily continued, "I mean, I'd much rather see Duck and Dan than Taylor, right?" and then Mackenzie rolled her eyes and took another drag of her cigarette, and said, "Well, duh. Taylor's an arse. And yeah, I mean, they aren't my parents so I guess it's not like, like rusty spoon worthy. Just. Whatever, right?" and Emily said, "Okay, yeah. Okay."
It was more than 'okay', though. It was-it was good.
Then Mackenzie said, "Hey, you'll never guess what Missy told me about Jason Connors today during algebra…" and, still smiling to herself, Emily said, "No, what?"
iv. Buddy
He heard the talk, of course. He couldn't not, what with the way people were talking about it on the street: "-freaks-" "-ship 'em back to the mainland, where they belong-" The way some people were actually coming into the station to complain. "Public indecency!" "This is a wholesome community!"
He stomped the talk where he could, emphasizing that Wilby was a wholesome community, welcoming everyone. He said things like: "A month ago, Mr. Willard, you were telling me how glad you were that Dan Jarvis had opened up his shop here. I remember you saying, 'finally, someone who knows there's more to the Western genre than John Wayne!'" and "Mrs. Tillson, you've known Duck MacDonald since the day he was born. Are you trying to tell me that he's changed somehow, in the last week?"
Still, he couldn't interrupt every conversation he heard-not like he heard Sandra was doing. He couldn't force people to change their opinions. He could just listen. Try to keep his finger on the pulse of the town, trying to judge if or when words might change to actions and deeds.
He could try to do his job: prevent and protect.
The first night he stood up from his chair as soon as the sun was set, flipping the television set off halfway through the news from the mainland, Carol had looked up from her own magazine, Interior Decoration Today, and raised an eyebrow. She'd asked, "Buddy?"
"Just going to take one more circuit around the island," he'd said. Casual-like, while slipping on his jacket.
He didn't think that she'd put two and two together that night, connecting his sudden urge to patrol with the news that he'd told her at dinner the night before, that Dan Jarvis had been released from the hospital, but the second night, he was pretty sure she did.
Maybe, he thought, she'd heard more talk than just Deena's news of Sandra's visit.
Still, though, at her querying eyebrow, he'd said, "You know, with Stan on 'leave' for these next few weeks, we've all got to step up. Do our part."
The third night, the previous night, she hadn't said a thing. She'd just reached out to touch his arm as he'd passed by the couch. She'd leaned into the hand he'd run over her hair.
He was on his fourth night now, though. Sitting in his cruiser, lights off, maybe fifty yards away from the house. He could see Duck's truck in the driveway, it's ladder gone from the top of the roof. The porch light was on, as was a light in the living room. Once he saw a figure pass behind the window shade, a shadow too tall to be Duck, and that was it.
Lights. Quiet.
Words-talk that was echoing around town, that was maybe just words, but maybe wasn't, and as he sat there on the quiet road, minutes slipping away, Buddy wondered how many more nights he would hold this vigil, do this.
In a change from previous nights, though, this night, the door opened and Duck stepped out onto the porch, and Buddy could see him clearly, illuminated as he was by the single bulb overhead. Duck didn't look around at all, just leaned back against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest, and stared straight at Buddy. He was looking serious and Buddy half-expected that he'd start up to the car at any moment, ask Buddy what the hell he was doing there.
But he didn't, and after a minute or two, Duck turned back towards the house, cocking his head as if listening, and then Buddy could see him saying something in return, lips moving, smiling almost, sort of shy. A moment later, though, he was back to staring at Buddy, his gaze seemingly more intense than before.
Then he nodded once, definitively, an okay, okay then, Buddy thought, and turned back to the house, stepped inside, and closed the door. Buddy watched as the light on the porch went off, then the one in the living room. Still, though, Buddy stayed.
How long would he do this?
As long as he needed to, he thought. Just to be sure.
v. Dan
At dinner that night, Dan said, "So. So I was thinking that tomorrow, I might drive into town. Start getting the video store set up again."
They were eating pasta, dry spaghetti out of a package, powdered sauce mixed with a few tomatoes from Duck's backyard, and he was twirling it around his fork, watching as the pale strands slipped through the tines.
He'd been meaning to say that he should probably start looking for a place of his own, that he'd been thinking of stopping by Carol French's office to see if she had any suggestions. He'd been staying at Duck's house for nearly a week now, though, and they were just starting to learn each other's rhythms: how Duck only took ten minutes in the bathroom every morning, showering and shaving, but a half hour every night, cleaning up after he got home from work. How Dan never wanted to talk before he had his coffee in the morning. How Duck would always migrate to Dan's pillow in the middle of the night, even if he started out on his own; how Dan found that he slept better, a large hand pressed to his chest, just below his heart.
A week now, though, and Duck had never once mentioned Dan going any place else. In fact, when he woke up every morning, he looked down at Dan with bright eyes and sleep-tousled hair, and ran his fingers over Dan's rough cheek. He looked happy.
Just like he was looking now, Dan saw when he finally looked away from his plate. Smile wider than Dan'd seen it before, genuine and true, and when Duck said, "That'd be good. That'd be great. That'd be-" Dan thought that he'd said the right thing.
He was sure of it when Duck reached out to still Dan's fork, palm wrapping around the back of Dan's hand and holding him there. Holding him.
"Okay," Dan said. "Okay then."
End.