Page 16 of The Magic We Made

Frankie

I’m placing another plate of tuna—the regular kind, from a can, not bluefin from Mark’s fish purveyor—in front of my porch steps when I hear it:PUTT PUTT PUTT.

I can’t believe it.

I don’t know why I’m surprised. It’s been a week since Mrs. Baumgarten and her husband moved out. Someone was going to have to show up eventually, either to clean out the place for the next renter or change the locks.

I just never expected it to be the homeowner himself.

Ash parks his decrepit truck (that Mark assured me cost “forty grand, easy”) and gets out. He’s not wearing his usual business-bro uniform of dark jeans, white shirt, and dark linen jacket today. No, he’s swapped those for a pair of utility trousers, vintage tee, and flannel shirt. The fact that it’s over eighty degrees outside hasn’t seemed to deter him from wearing what appear to be winter hiking boots, I’m unsurprised to see.

Whatdoessurprise me is the fact that, for the first time ever,when he gets out of the truck, Ash doesn’t have his phone pressed to his ear. Maybe Rochelle has finally gotten through to him about the seriousness of the situation.

I have to wonder what she told him, though, since instead of ducking straight into his house without a word to any of his neighbors, as usual, he turns that bro-flowed head of his and looks at... me.

Andwaves.

I glance around. It’s a beautiful late summer afternoon, but I’m the only one of my neighbors who’s out in her front yard. The rest are all either at work, or down on the lake. I can hear the laughter of Mrs. DeLong and her grandkids and the occasional splash of their kayak oars, along with the quiet hum of Mr. DeLong’s lawnmower and the coos of my resident mourning doves. It’s been too hot for them to think of migrating south.

I’m sure Ash has to be waving to someone else since he has never once spoken to or even acknowledged me, a fact for which I have always been grateful.

But when I can’t see anyone else—even the cat is still stubbornly refusing to come out from his cool, dark hiding place—I have no choice but to admit it:

Ash Merit is waving at me.

Reluctantly, I climb to my feet—I’ve been kneeling in the bald dirt that had once been Richard’s impeccably groomed lawn—and wave back.

“Hi,” I say, though inwardly I’m thinking,What have I done to deserve this? First Summer People, now Ash Merit.

“Hi.” Ash is taking the exact same path toward me from his house as Mrs. Baumgarten did last week, only his stride is looseand confident, whereas hers had been shy and hesitant. “We haven’t met before. At least, not officially. I’m Ash Merit.”

Before I have a chance to reply—not that I’m sure what I would have said.Nice to meet youwould be a lie—he asks, “You’re Dr. Giovanni, right?”

“Frankie,” I correct him. “You can call me Frankie.”

“Oh.” He looks slightly disappointed. “Rochelle at Harbor Hideaways says you’re a doctor.”

“She’s right, I am,” I admit. “But of philosophy. I’m not a medical doctor.”

“Oh, okay.” Ash has now reached my side and is pointing down to the plate of canned tuna sitting in the dirt. “What’s going on here?”

“Um...”

I don’t know why I feel so embarrassed. I don’t care what Ash Merit thinks about me.

But the fact that he, of all people, caught me in the act feels deeply embarrassing.

“There’s a stray cat living under there,” I hear myself explaining. “I’ve been trying to get him to come out, but—”

To my surprise, Ash kneels in the dirt beside my feet, leaning down until his head is even with the space where I’ve seen the cat crouching in the dark.

“Oh, yeah,” he says. He sounds delighted even though his right ear is only an inch above the dirt in my yard. His dark hair—which he probably pays a fortune to have cut, to maximize the sway of his tousled curls—is so long, some of the ends sweep the dirt. “I see her! Hello there, kitty.”

Of all the scenarios I’ve imagined about my first meeting withAshraf Merit—played out in my head during my morning workout, the rage helping to fuel my pace—I never pictured this. Hitting me with a lawsuit for snipping his speaker cables? Sure. Telling me off for suggesting to his tenant that she cancel her lease? Certainly.

But striding over and kneeling in the dirt to talk to the stray cat living beneath my porch?

Never.