Be Sweet (25 page)

I give him a hard appraisal. He doesn't at all look the small-town type, but there it is.

“Funny, I would picture you more at home in the hub of a big, noisy city.”

“Then you've got me pegged all wrong.” He turns off the classical music on the radio as though this is a serious discussion. “Not that I don't enjoy the big city, I do. It's just not where I want to live. Give me quiet evenings on a porch swing among the sounds of crickets and locusts. A lazy afternoon fishing down at the stream.” He turns to me, eyes twinkling. “I love the simple things in life.”

“And teeth. Don't forget teeth.”

“Right. I love teeth.” He laughs. “You're still doing okay with that job I did on you the other night?”

“Good as new.”

“Great.” He pulls his car into the parking lot and kills the engine.

Before I can sneak on more lipstick, he dashes around to my side of the car, opens the door, and takes my hand to help me out.

“Okay, I could get spoiled if you keep this up.”

He pulls me up until my face is right next to his. “That's the idea,” he says with a husky voice that rattles my constitution.

His fingers reach up and brush a strand of hair from my forehead. My skin tingles beneath his touch as his head dips toward me, lips touching mine so briefly I wonder if I imagined it. Then with another tug, he pulls me a little closer and this time kisses me with enough force to give me a glimpse of the passion that burns within him, but easing up to show that he promises to keep things in line.

Leaving me dazed, he pulls away slowly, gives me a grin, and puts his arm at my back as we head for the door of the coffee shop. It's a good thing he's guiding me, or I'd pull the Tipsy thing and faint straight up.

Once we get our drinks, we find a table and settle in.

“So, tell me about this Peter guy.”

“Whoa, you don't waste any time, do you?” I laugh at his boldness.

Russ grins. “It never hurts to know the competition.”

There's that word again. I attempt to lift my eyebrow in a seductive, Betty Grable sort of way. “Oh, really?”

“Really,” he says, slurping the whipped cream off his frappuccino, and thus confirming that I should leave the Betty Grable look to, well, Betty Grable.

“Peter is a great friend. He owns the real estate company where I work. We've been seeing each other for six months.” I take a drink of my maple macchiato, but my eyes never leave his face. “But like I said, we're just friends.”

“I see.” He swirls the straw around in his cup, stirring the remaining whipped cream into the mixture.

Why is it men can eat real whipped cream without gaining an ounce? In my book that mystery is right up there with the eight wonders of the world.

“Friends or not, six months is a long time,” he says, staring glumly into his frappuccino.

“It is?”

“Isn't it?”

“I—I don't know.”

“No serious plans on the horizon?”

“No.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

“Did you minor in psychology? Am I on
20-20
? Related to Barbara Walters?”

He laughs. “Listen, I know it's none of my business. You don't owe me any explanations.” He leans over the table toward me, and his hand covers mine. “But I care about you and guess I wanted to know if you feel the same way.”

Oh, believe me, babe, I'm feeling it.

Why is it my tongue refuses to move at times like these? It just flat out will not move. Not even the slightest twitch. It's like an obese snail on sedatives.

A wounded shadow flickers in Russ's eyes. “Oh, I get it.” He takes his hand from mine and leans back in his chair. “I've let my assumptions get away from me.”

“No, no, it's not that.” I reach for him now. “I'm just not sure about anything since I've been back here, Russ. I mean, I like you. I really do. Peter is a great friend, but we've never been really serious in that way. Just comfortable with one another more than anything. Does that make sense?”

He nods. “And he's okay with that? To leave it there, I mean?”

Remembering my earlier conversation with Peter, now I'm not so sure. “He has been.”
Up to now
. “It's just that, well, you live here, and I live in Maine. It's hard to have a long-distance relationship.”

“Hard, but not impossible.”

I smile at his determination.

We carry on with surface conversation after that, and Russ takes me home. Once there, he opens my car door and walks me to the front porch.

“Glad to know I'm still in the running,” he says, his lips mere inches from mine. His arms wrap around me and pull me to him as though I'm something fragile that could easily break. Guess he's figured me out. He leans forward and tenderly kisses me again. Then again. Then once more. My teenage years come back in a flurry—my first kiss with Eddie, the thrill of his touch, the wonderment of knowing I was the one he had chosen to share this moment with. Only this isn't Eddie. This is Russ. And the excitement is more intense, even painful—because those feelings are supposed to be dead and buried. Stamped out. Never to return. But they're not dead. They're back. In full force. And to make matters worse? They're all grown up.

I pull away. “Good night, Russ.”

His eyes are glazed, his breath shallow. “See you, Charley.” His thumb traces the side of my face, causing my cheeks to burn.

As I watch him walk away, my heart twists and my stomach churns. Okay, I knew coming home would be complicated, helping with the syrup and party planning while trying to maintain my life back in Maine. But it was also an opportunity to show my family how I've changed. “Charlene Haverford moves beyond her past to face the future.”

Yeah, right.

“Char, get up! The condo next to Mom and
Dad's place is burning!” My eyelids blink open, and I find Janni staring over me in my room. Seems my family enjoys startling people first thing in the morning.

“What?” I rub my eyes, wondering if I heard her right.

“The condo next to Mom and Dad's is burning.”

Whipping off the covers, I jump out of bed and slip on my robe. “How do you know?”

“Someone from the fire department just called.”

“How bad is it?”

“The fireman said they were able to contain it, and it didn't do much damage to Mom and Dad's place. It started in the building next to theirs and they were able to put it out before it did substantial damage to Mom and Dad's building. There is some minor smoke damage that needs to be fixed, though, and he said they wouldn't be able to move back in for a week or two.” Janni heads for the door. “Daniel's working with the others on the sap, but I'm going over to Mom and Dad's place to check on things for them.”

“Let me get dressed, and I'll go with you,” I say, already pulling off my robe and heading toward the dresser.

“Okay, I'll wait. Come downstairs when you're ready.” With that Janni turns, and I hear her feet dash across the hardwood and down the stairs.

I get dressed in record time and meet Janni in the living room.

Mom's face is lined with new wrinkles. She wrings her hands together and looks up when I come downstairs. “We want to go with you.”

“Mom, let us check things out first, then we'll take you over. It's hard to say what we'll find right now,” I say.

“Milton, tell them we're going.”

Dad walks over and puts his hand on Mom's shoulder. “It's all right, Viney. They might be right. The more people that congregate there, the more confusion there will be. We'll just get in the way of the workers.”

Mom's shoulders slump, and her eyes droop.

“It will be okay, Mom,” I say, giving her a hug. “We'll be back shortly and let you know what's going on there.”

She says nothing, merely nods.

Dad still looks weak from the surgery, but he's holding his own. “Thanks for checking on things for us, girls.”

It breaks my heart to see them looking so—so vulnerable. I haven't realized until this moment just how old they are getting. It's as though I've been looking through a shadowy glass and now I'm seeing clearly. I don't want to face the truth that I might one day lose them. Mom and I have our differences, but I love her fiercely.

“Wish I could go with you,” Daniel says, before giving Janni a kiss good-bye. “Call me and let me know how everything is.”

Janni agrees.

“It will be all right. You'll see,” I say to Mom and Dad, giving them a hug. Janni and I head out the front door, and I pray that I'm right.

“Now, let 's see, Mom wanted some pajamas,
right?” I rummage through the top drawer of her oak dresser, expecting a couple of cotton housedresses.

“Right.”

A gasp lodges in my throat.

Janni turns to me with a start. “What's wrong?”

With disbelief I lift a slinky black negligee from Mom's drawer. “Never in a million years would I have pictured Mom as the Victoria's Secret type.” The silky unmentionable dangles from a tiny strap that's hooked on my index finger.

“Eeew.” Janni scrunches her face.

“It boggles the mind, doesn't it?” I shake my head. “Don't think about it any longer. It could warp us.”

Janni obediently shakes her head. We don't say another word. It's like we're carrying around this deep, dark secret that we don't want any-one to know. And truly, we are. It just wouldn't do for church members to think of Mother in that light. It's not healthy. For anyone.

“Listen, I talked to Greg Boyle at church.” Janni lifts one of the suitcases we brought with us onto their bed and starts filling it with Dad's clothes and shaving things.

“The psychologist?”

“Yeah. He says with the trauma of her move, Mom could have retreated into her books and made them her new reality. Maybe that's what's bothering her. She might be reading about a love affair where ‘the other woman' is trying to bump off the heroine.”

“Could be.”

“Maybe we need to hide her books.” Janni heads for the closet.

“Getting Mom away from her books? Okay, that should be easy. Right up there with ripping a bear cub from her mama.”

Janni chuckles, then disappears into the closet.

“Here's their old cake topper.” She reappears, holding the plastic piece with the reverence an actress would give a Golden Globe.

“Oh, perfect!” She brings it over to me. “The traditional wedding couple,” I say, inspecting it. “Retro clothes.” The wire arch over the couple is covered with garlands of fabric flowers and leaves and an off-white satin bow. Two wedding bells complete the decoration. I set it aside to take with us when we leave. “You know, I'm surprised we haven't seen any of Mom's books here,” I say, filling Mom's suitcase with the things from her list.

“Probably brought them all to my house. You don't suppose she's reading smutty romances, do you?” Janni says with pure horror in her voice.

I laugh. “Mom? Smutty romances? Never in a million years.”

Janni walks over and lifts the black negligee, dangling it from her finger and setting my stomach to full tilt.

“That does it. I'm looking for books.”

Janni nods and joins me in the search.

Turning to the bed stand, I pull open the drawers and rummage through the contents. “Thinking back to all the times I was livid at her for messing around in my room when I was a teenager makes me feel a tad guilty about this.”

“You can remedy that by thinking about those times when she had no problem whatsoever reading through your journal.”

I whip around to face Janni. “She read my journal?” My breath hovers somewhere between my lungs and my esophagus.

She looks at me. “You didn't know?”

“No.” At this bit of news, every smidgen of guilt vanishes.

“Every day she went into your room to read your entries. I spied on her. She never knew that I knew. That's why I never kept a journal.”

“Why didn't you tell me?” Ruthlessly, I rip through the sheets and check for a book.

“Thought you knew.” Janni flips up the bedspread, gets on the floor, and looks underneath the bed.

“No wonder she thinks I'm a failure. We write things at that age that we don't mean.” I check behind lamps and in hidden nooks.

“What? She doesn't think you're a failure. Why would you say that?” Janni pushes herself back up and brushes the dust from her hands. “I'm sure it's not true. You're too hard on yourself. You're not to blame for what happened between you and Eddie.”

Pulling a light suitcase from under the bed, I unzip it. “Things are never one-sided, Janni. There are always two sides to every story.” Nothing in the luggage, so I zip it back and return it to its place under the bed.

“You can't blame yourself for the miscarriage. Those things happen.”

“Because I was exercising.”

“You don't know that.”

“Yes, I do.”

“You have always been fit. Your body was used to it.”

“Obviously not.”

“Who's to say you wouldn't have lost the baby anyway?”

Once I finish rummaging through the books in the bookcase, I look at her. “I don't know.”

“Exactly. You need to let it go. It happened, but it wasn't your fault. It's life. Losing a child is no reason to leave your wife and have an affair.” With her hands on her hips, Janni surveys the area. “She must have her books with her.”

“I guess. You know how much he wanted children.”

“Nothing makes it right. He needs to own up to it. Stop blaming yourself.”

We edge our way out of their condo, and just as we pass the hall closet, I take a last-minute look inside. “Bingo,” I say, pulling a book from the top shelf.