A Different Kind Of Forever (7 page)

“Okay.” He was gone and Diane walked into the hallway to wait for Sue. She leaned back against the wall, her legs suddenly shaking. She could hear Emily’s voice, loud, complaining. Why did they have to leave? Alison was arguing with her mother. But Sue led them all out into the hallway, turned on them sharply, and shushed them all.

“Okay, ladies, shut up now. You are six of the luckiest girls in West Milton and you should all be humble and grateful instead of whining and complaining. It’s time to go. Now. Walk to the end of the hall and wait under the exit sign and not another word.”

The girls looked shamefaced and filed silently away. Sue watched them for a moment then turned to Diane.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course. Why shouldn’t I be?”

“You’re still blushing.” She looked at her friend thoughtfully. “Listen, what’s going on with him?”

Diane lifted her shoulders. “Who?”

Sue looked disgusted. “Hey, it’s me, okay? And I know fireworks when I see them. Shit, I was waiting for the two of you to rip your clothes off right there in front of everybody. No wonder his sister swooped in.”

“Sue, you’re ridiculous.”

“You’re not fooling me, kiddo.”

“Did the girls notice?” Diane asked, concerned.

“No. There was too much else going on. Why would they want to look at old Mom?”

“Old Mom. Oh, God. Do you know how old he is?”

“Yeah. Good for you. Are you seeing him again?”

“He’s going to call.”

“I bet he is.” She turned and walked back toward the girls.
 

They said very little after that. All during the long ride home, Sue hummed along with the radio, while Diane stared out the window into the darkness. She remembered feeling this way before, the powerful rush of wanting. She had stopped feeling that way about Kevin during those last years. She often wondered if the lack of desire had been the reason for the failure of her marriage, or if it had been the other way around. She had loved sex, reaching for her husband often. But it wasn’t just the physical longing that had waned. As she had slipped from raging passion to quiet affection she had stopped wanting his conversation, caring about his day. They both loved the girls, but that had not been enough for her.

“Sue, are you still madly in love with Pete?” she asked quietly.

Sue glanced into the rearview mirror. “You mean do I still call him to come home for a nooner?”

Diane chuckled. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Yes. I’m still madly in love with my husband. I still smile every time he walks into a room. I still touch him whenever I can. He’s still the person I want to spend the most time with.” She glanced over at Diane. “You didn’t have that with Kevin, did you?”

“No. Not for a long time. I think I figured every marriage just kind of faded out to something else, like mine had.”

“I can’t imagine putting up with all the shit that being married and having kids means without feeling the way I do about Pete, even when he’s part of the shit. He still makes me feel like a silly nineteen year old. When he gives me a certain look I get all wet and itchy. I figure it’s God’s reward for fighting the good fight, you know?”

“You’re lucky.”

“Pete and I are both lucky.”

“Yes.”

They drove a few more miles. The girls in the back were starting to quiet down. Diane turned and looked back into the van. Megan, Becca and Joann were all texting. The older girls, in the very back seats, were talking quietly together.

“We went out to dinner,” Diane told her, her voice low. “Last week. Last Friday.”

“Diane. You did? And you didn’t even tell me? Did you have a good time?’

“I had a great time. He’s smart and interesting to talk to. He had me laughing all night. And he’s a terrific kisser. I swear, my knees buckled.”

 
“Holy shit. I knew something was going on. This is so cool.”
 

“Yeah, well it’s all new to me. Did anything like this ever happen to you? Instant physical attraction?”

Sue smiled in the darkness. “Lust at first sight?”

“Yes. My whole body was all tingly, you know? And that good, achy hurt you get right in your, well, you know where.”

“From just a kiss? Where were his hands?”

“Sue,” Diane pleaded, “be serious. Please?”

“Okay. Yes, that exact same thing happened to me.” Sue checked the rearview mirror again. “With Pete. We had a blind date, left before dessert, and spent three days in bed. And look how we turned out.”

Diane closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the seat. All she could see was Michael’s face, and hours later, as she tried to sleep, she could still feel his skin against hers.

M
ICHAEL
C
ARLUCCI HAD
always known he would be a star. His sisters had been telling him so since he was a baby, and they wouldn’t lie to him. When he was eight, his mother died of cancer. She had been sick most of his life, and had always been a fragile, inconsistent presence in his life. He had loved his mother, worshipped his gentle, silent father, but he depended on his sisters for strength, confidence and support, and they had never failed him.

The year his mother died, his piano teacher told his grieving father that Michael’s talent needed more guidance than she could provide. Marie found someone else, and Denise took the train to Manhattan with him every week for the next five years. Angela had already bought him a smaller-sized guitar, so his tiny hands could more comfortably reach around the neck. By then, her guitar instructor had taken Michael under his wing, and all the girls knew they had something special on their hands.

He had sat with them since he was old enough to toddle down the hallway into their bedrooms. At first, they thought it was cute, the way he remembered the words to every song they played on their stereo. Then they realized that he was not only singing the words, but remembered melodies and harmonies. His voice, for such a little boy, was huge. It was also always on key.

 
He was always the smallest kid in his class. The Catholic School bullies pursued him mercilessly, so he learned to be the toughest kid as well. He played piano in the concert band, made straight A’s, collected model cars and waited for his sisters’ dreams for him to come true.

Dave Adamson had stared at Denise in disbelief when she asked him to consider Michael for his brother Joey’s band. Joey had put together Mitchell Street with his best friend Seth Bascomb, and they were starting to get something of a reputation in the wide open North Jersey club scene. But the band was just a cover band, and lacked the extra kick that could mean success. Besides, Denise Carlucci was beautiful and sexy and when they were in bed together, he couldn’t say no to her. So, he agreed to listen to Michael. And he had been blown away.

 
Getting the band to accept Michael had been easy, once they heard him play and sing. Getting Anthony Carlucci to agree to let his underage son go on the road had been another story. But Denise had kept up her end of the bargain with her father. Michael’s grades never dropped. He never had a beer with his band mates, never smoked a joint.

Three months after he began performing with the band, just days after he turned sixteen, a twenty-three year old fan followed Michael into the unisex bathroom in a bar in Ithaca, New York. As he came out of one of the stalls, she was waiting for him, bare breasted, and she pushed him back into the stall, gave him a blow job as he stood balanced up on the toilet seat, then left without saying a word. Denise came in moments later to find her sweet, beautiful little brother fumbling to zip his jeans while a hard-looking blonde rinsed her mouth out at the grimy sink. Denise never said a word to him. She never had to. One look at the disappointment on her face was enough for him. It didn’t happen again.

Michael graduated high school the following year. He had been accepted to Princeton. He had been rejected by Julliard. The band was asked to go on tour with BonJovi. Anthony Carlucci traveled down to Princeton and received the personal word of the head of the Department of Mathematics that his son would be more than welcome the following year should he choose to take some time off to travel the country. So NinetySeven went on tour. Denise and Dave had married that spring, so Denise traveled with them while David continued to work at home and pay the bills.
 

When the band received an offer from PolyGram records, Michael told his father he wasn’t going to Princeton after all. Michael had grown up, filled out, and was no longer a skinny awkward kid. His youthful confidence had grown to a real power. Everyone could see it, especially his father. Anthony took one look at the contract the band had been offered, tore it up, and drew up another that at least would assure his son a shot at some real money. Anthony then took all the savings that had been earmarked for his only sons’ Ivy League education and offered to send Denise to law school, providing she specialized in entertainment and would look after her brothers’ business affairs. Denise agreed, and after the release of the first album, Dave went out with the band on tour.
 

In six gleeful months, Michael tasted every formerly-forbidden fruit. Drugs did not appeal to him. He didn’t like the feeling of being out of control, and worse, the loss of creativity. Too much alcohol made him physically sick. Women, however, had no distasteful side effects. With his beautiful blue eyes, blazing smile, and adorable face, he found himself drowning in them. He was careful, respectful, and considerate. He thought he had been in love a couple of times. But when he had looked into Diane Matthews’ big, brown eyes, he knew he had lost his soul.

He couldn’t believe how lovely she was. Not one of the usual beauties that drifted in and out of the vague world known as show business. Most of the women who had appealed to him until now had been model-thin, with translucent skin, straight, streaming hair and serious, intense eyes. Diane’s skin was dark and warm, her hair thick and curling. She had smiled and laughed when she could have been shrill or severe. Her face was all ovals - large, bright eyes, full, smiling lips, high cheekbones. Her body round as well. When he held her, she was soft and yielding, no hard bones and angles. And her lips had been soft, sweet and warm. On top of all that, she was smart and funny. He could not get her out of his head.

Saturday morning after the concert, he started calling her at nine in the morning. No answer. He left a message, then tried calling again after fifteen minutes. An hour later he went to his computer, downloaded directions to her address, and was on his way. She had said she would see him. She had said she would be home. No point, he thought, in wasting the day.

Her house was in an older neighborhood, the streets lined with shade trees and brick sidewalks. He pulled into number 17, a white, expanded Cape Cod, with green shutters, and lots of daffodils blooming. The front door was closed. A Subaru wagon was in the driveway, and the garage door was open. She was home. He went up the walk and rang the bell. There was no answer, but he could hear music. He walked around the house, past the garage. A post and rail fence surrounded the back yard, and as he pushed through the gate, he could hear the faint jingle of a brass bell that was attached to the gate. It should have announced his coming into the yard, but the sound was drowned out by the music that blasted out of open French doors.

Diane was toward the rear of the yard, trying to dig up an oversized azalea bush. He could see she had already prepared a new hole for it, right beside a large, slate patio. She was dressed in overalls, faded and baggy, caked with dirt. She was wearing a sleeveless tee shirt underneath, and her hair was pulled up and off her face in a spiked ponytail. She had been working for a while, and had almost completely dug up the bush, but it was stuck, and as she strained to uproot it, he could see the muscles on her arms tighten from the strain. Sweat trickled down the side of her face, soaked the neck of her shirt. She pushed against the shovel with all her weight, grunting with the effort, but the bush did not move, and as her arms began to tremble she threw up her hands.

“Fuck,” she said very loudly. Michael broke onto a grin.

She was wearing green canvas gloves, and she pulled them off and threw them down.

“Fuck.” She turned away from the azalea bush, then walked back to it and tried to kick the shovel with her foot. She missed, and stumbled, off balance.

“Fuckfuckfuck.”

Michael walked toward her. “Would you like some help with that?” he called, trying not to laugh.

She whirled and stared at him, her mouth open in surprise.

“Michael. God. Hi. What are you doing here?”

“I tried calling, but you weren’t answering, so I thought I’d take a chance on just coming over. You said you’d be home.”

The blood rushed to her cheeks. “Oh, right. My ex picked up the girls early, so I’ve been out here all morning. I can’t hear the phone, especially with the music. I’m sorry. I should have brought out the cordless. I knew you were going to call.” She wiped her hands against her thighs. “I was trying to keep busy. I didn’t want to be hanging over the phone all day.” She looked away from him, biting her lip

“Oh.” He was watching her closely. When she looked back at him, he grinned. “So, do you want some help?”

“That would be so great. I was starting to get a little frustrated.”

“So I heard.”

She looked sheepish. “Not exactly appropriate language for an English professor, is it?”

“No, I thought it was perfectly appropriate. Do you have a pitchfork?”

“Yes.” She walked back toward the house and picked up a pitchfork from off the grass. He took it from her, and plunged in into the moist dirt. He worked quickly, using his weight, and in a few minutes, the bush heaved and flopped sideways. He and Diane lifted it into a wheelbarrow, he took it over to the patio, and moved it into the new hole. He shoveled in dirt and she tamped it down, then she dragged over the hose.

“Thirsty?” she asked. He nodded, so she handed him the hose and went into the house. She turned off the music, and returned with a tray laden with two glasses and a tall pitcher. Michael buried the end of the hose into the base of the plant, and they sat down across from each other in two Adirondack chairs, drinking iced tea.