Happily Ever After? (3 page)

“Bellamy’s at seven. Get a sitter. Wear something pretty.” And then she hung up on me.

I am extremely curious about this guy my mother dug up for me. Now, what the hell am I going to wear???

’Til next time,

V

I never registered Pete for camp this summer. God help me. Now I get to put my single mother survival skills to the test.

These days, there is nothing quite as exhausting or demoralizing as getting dressed. I’ve got plenty of clothes, but nothing
fits. So much for those great DKNY pants I bought on sale last year. One glance at the waistband and I knew they would never
make it up and over my ass. I finally settled on my old standby: black stretch jeans, white scoop-neck top, and black blazer
for MBC (maximum butt coverage). Putting on makeup was another ordeal. I smeared layer upon layer of concealer to cover the
dark circles and sun spots and emerging zits, and by the time I was done I looked like a mime. I wiped it all off and settled
for a more natural, albeit hideously flawed, look. As for the hair, suffice it to say that I could probably get a job on the
Weather Channel. Who needs Doppler radar? I’d just point to my frizz and say, “Eighty-five percent chance of rain.” If I couldn’t
look good, I might as well smell good. I spritzed myself with perfume and inhaled deeply. It’s yellow jacket season. It has
been weeks since I last wore any fragrance.

When I brought Pete next door, Lynette whistled through her teeth. “Wow, Val, you look gorgeous.” Lynette’s house looked as
if it sprang from the pages of
Country Living
magazine. I could smell something cinnamony and homemade baking in the oven, and I could hear Lynette’s husband greet my
son heartily as he ran into the family room. I wanted to live in that house. Maybe they could adopt me.

By 7:15 I was pulling up into the Bellamy’s lot. I took one last look in the mirror and decided Lynette was right. I looked
good. I wended my way through the people waiting to be seated and scanned the restaurant for my mother. She was at a table
in the back, waving happily, but the fronds of a showy palm obscured her companion. I said a quick prayer (God, don’t let
him have genital herpes) and moved toward the table aiming for a sleek stride. I was afraid to look.

“I’d make introductions,” my mother said, “but I believe you two already know each other.”

The man stood and extended a warm, freckled hand. It was Detective Avila!

I was stunned. “Yes, of course.” I reached for his hand and he pulled me in for a completely unexpected hug. He smelled delicious.
He was taller and broader than I remembered him.

“How are you, Detective?”

“I’m better now that you’re here. And please, it’s Michael.”

My mother was beaming like a flashlight. It was surreal,
sitting there with the two of them. “How do you two know each other?”

“Through hospice,” Michael answered, filling my mother’s water glass. “My mom has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I went to an open
house for caregivers. That’s where I met your lovely mother. We started talking and discovered we had something in common.”

“You mean, hospice?”

“No.” His eyes twinkled. “You.”

I stole a sidelong glance at Michael and wondered what I had done to deserve this magnificent man as a dinner companion tonight.
He was the kind of guy who looked more confined than comfortable in suits; I enjoyed seeing his big arms strain against the
sleeves of his blue jacket. He wore a cream-colored shirt and silk maroon tie, and there were a couple of shaving nicks on
his Adam’s apple. I felt a pang of tenderness imagining him preparing nervously for his big date.

The rest of the evening was, in a word,
perfect.
Michael was by turns funny and shy, and seemed to get better looking as the night wore on (I wasn’t drinking, by the way).
One problem: The handsome detective has never been married. And while I don’t disagree in principle to the idea of bachelorhood,
I also can’t understand how a man this lovely can make it to his thirty-eighth year without getting hitched at least once.
But the truth is, I’m not ready for a relationship. Seriously. No, really. I’m not. I mean it.

Michael insisted on walking me to my Jeep. After I
sat down behind the wheel, he reached in and his hands seemed to move toward my breasts. I stopped breathing. God, what was
he doing? Then I realized he was reaching for my seat belt. I felt the heat radiating off his hands as he slowly drew the
belt across my body and clicked the buckle into place. “It’s the law, you know,” he said, staring at me.

“Thank you, Officer.” My lips tingled under his gaze.

“So.” He was still staring at my mouth. “Any predictions about the future?”

It took me a moment to realize he was referring to my supposed psychic abilities. “Too soon to tell.”

He made a little pouty face. “Fair enough. Can I call you?”

When I got home I found a new message on my machine and assumed it was he. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The message was from Lynette. “Don’t panic, but you’d better get over here just as soon as you get home.”

We’d arranged for Pete to sleep there, so I quickly concluded from her message that he must have been overcome by a bad case
of homesickness. I put my hand on the door knocker, a shining brass eagle holding a ring in its impressive beak. I pulled
back on the ring and let it snap against the smooth red door. Lynette opened it at once. Her house had the soft, dim, shuttered-up
look of a home and family unaccustomed to late-night activity. Most of the lights were off and the
only noise was the grinding of the dishwasher. “Lynette, what is it? Is everything okay with Pete?”

There was restrained panic in her face. She seemed to be trying to telegraph some message to me through her bugged-out eyes.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.

“I’m not sure. I wanted you to hear this for yourself.”

I followed her into the living room. Her husband and the boys were sitting on the couch, a constrained floral affair with
nary a grape stain or crayon mark to be found. They all looked bleary-eyed. I moved toward Pete and he wrapped his arms around
my legs and leaned his head sleepily against my thigh (“Mommy’s built-in cushions,” he likes to call them.) “I want to sleep
at home tonight,” he muttered.

“Sure you can,” I told him. “But first I want to hear what Lynette has to say.”

Lynette kneeled down next to Pete. “Let’s talk to your Mom about what you were telling me before, okay? And then you can get
home and get snugly in your own bed.”

Pete shook his head in reluctant agreement.

“Go on, Lynette,” I said. “Let’s just cut to the chase, please? You’ve got me in suspense here.”

“Well, we were reading a bedtime story,
Knights of the Kitchen Table.
What a great book!” I could tell that Lynette was trying hard to sound lighthearted, which only intensified my urge to scream.

“Then Pete happened to ask me a question. A very
interesting question.” She was cuing him. “Can you tell your mom what you asked me, hon?”

Pete kept his head on my legs and squeezed a little harder. I pried him off and coaxed him back onto the sofa. I held his
face in my hands. “What is it, sweetie?”

“I dunno.”

“Sure you do. You can tell me.”

At this point, Lynette’s husband led Hunter away. “Too many distractions for the Petester.” He hoisted Hunter onto his shoulders.
“Come on, chief. Let’s hit the hay.”

“Pete,” Lynette prodded, “remember what you said? About your name?”

“I wanted to know why you named me the same thing as penis and why you couldn’t just give me a regular name like other kids.”
He blurted it out in one breath, then recoiled and shoved his thumb in his mouth.

At this point I was absolutely hating Roger. I had insisted on a tease-proof name, one that wouldn’t easily lend itself to
some cruel nickname. But he’d demanded we name our son after his great-great-grandfather, some old codger who did something
of historical distinction, I don’t remember what. Roger was a genealogy buff, and he loved comparing his blue blood branches
to the twigs on my own lowly family tree.

“Oh, honey, did someone in school pick on you because of your name?” I asked, thinking it had to be that brat Gregory Martindale.

Lynette held up a hand and shook her head. “It’s not that.” She leaned in closer. “Pete, sweetie, can you tell your mom what
you told me? About the coach?”

My heart clenched violently. I knew it. Damn it. I knew it!

Pete clamped down on his thumb. I gently pulled it from his mouth. “Talk to me. Please.”

What I’ve managed to piece together is this: Jerry Johansen told Pete that his name was also the name of a “very special”
body part. “Some people use the word ‘peter’ to mean penis. Did you know that?” Pete told him no, he didn’t know that. Jerry
then asked if he would like to see what a grown-up peter looks like and Pete said, “That’s OK. I already saw my dad’s.” At
this point, Jerry backed off and said something like, “It’s fun to see how peters are all different. It’s actually scientific.
But maybe we can do that some other time.”

By the time my son was through with his story, I was ready to spit blood. I couldn’t understand how Jerry found the time or
privacy to talk to him. I’d been to every practice, every game … except one. I wanted to cry. I’d missed one practice to meet
with Omar.

I lifted Pete into my arms—no easy feat at seventy pounds—and brought him home. It was 10:30
P.M.
I called Tucker Daley, the league director, who insisted that Pete must have misunderstood. I hung up and phoned Johansen
himself.

“Oh, Lord, what kids will say to get attention,” he
said, chuckling. “I thought I’d heard it all. But this beats all.” He’d worked himself up to a hissing laugh. “Valerie, I’m
going to pretend we never had this conversation. No hard feelings, okay?”

“Excuse me?” I couldn’t believe his strategy, that lying big-headed bastard.

“Look. Your kid basically lost his dad. He’s living in that house with you and your psychic adventures and God knows what
else. So I’m not surprised that Pete would make up stories.”

I was choking on my rage now. “Look. I think you’ve got a problem. And you need help. But whether you get help isn’t my business
right now, Jerry. Right now all I care about is Pete, and making sure you don’t get your hands on him or any other boy on
the team. Do you understand me?”

“Settle down, now. You’re sounding crazy.”

I slammed down the phone. There was one more call I had to make. I still had Michael’s home number in my wallet. He answered
on the second ring.

“Avila.” His voice was low and sandy. I knew I woke him up.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry. You were sleeping.”

“Valerie?” I was surprised he knew my voice right off. He coughed and cleared his throat. “Hey. No. I mean, that’s all right.
Are you okay? Is something wrong?”

I told him about Jerry Johansen, my suspicions, Pete’s revelation. He promised me he’d check into Johansen’s
background tomorrow. “I’ll make the early mass at St. Paul’s and head over to the precinct. I’ll call you if I find out anything.”
He paused. “Unless you want to come with me.”

“To church? Or to the precinct?”

“Either. Both. Whatever.”

Oh boy. He liked me. He really liked me. “That’s okay. We make chocolate chip pancakes on Sundays. It takes five minutes to
eat, two hours to clean up. But they’re Pete’s favorite.”

“Hey. Mine too.” It wasn’t until after I’d hung up the phone that I realized Michael was fishing for an invitation.

’Til next time,

V

Michael called at 11. I’d been awake since 5:45. I snapped up the phone at once. I braced myself for stomach-turning details
about Jerry Johansen.

“The guy’s clean,” Michael said. “Not even a parking ticket.”

“I could kill that creep with my bare hands!” I heard Michael chuckle softly. “Why are you laughing?”

“Oh, Valerie, Valerie Ryan.” His voice was soft and musical. “I’m not laughing at you. Please. Don’t misunderstand.
I just … I’m admiring your fierceness. You’re like a mama lion protecting her cub. I like that.”

“You do? You mean, you don’t think I’m a neurotic, paranoid lunatic?”

“Well, that too.” He laughed. “Seriously. I think you’re great. Now why don’t you have Pete transferred to another team and
put this ugly episode behind you?”

Eventually I will. But now I felt it was my obligation to let other parents know what the coach had said to my son. I found
the team phone list and started making calls. To my amazement, no one seemed particularly concerned. Tomorrow I’m having Pete
transferred to another team. And then I’m going to Indulgences Day Spa, where I plan to forget all about Jerry Johansen.

’Til next time,

V

Mission accomplished. Pete is on a new team. And after six hours of pampering at Indulgences, Jerry Johansen is just a little
brown stain on the wall-to-wall carpet of life.

I have lived in this suburbia for eight years, and among my major achievements, this one tops the list: I had managed to successfully
elude the dreaded Klenkastreicher basket party … until last week.

I received the postcard in the mail.

You’re invited to a Klenkastreicher party!

And beneath that, in Lynette’s graceful script:
Hope you can make it!
Lynette had called later that day to ask if I’d be coming. “You don’t have to buy anything. Just have some wine, play a few
games. Bring Pete. He can play with Hunter. I’ve got a sitter.”

How could I say no? Lynette, who dutifully watched Pete whenever I asked, who helped me unearth Roger’s gold with her trusty
fencepost digger, who is always there with sympathetic ear and tray of fresh-baked brownies … How could I say no? But what,
exactly, did she mean by GAMES???

I showed up tonight in the closest thing I had to suburban chic: a red and white striped Liz Claiborne top, denim skirt straining
across my thighs, black platform slingbacks. Lynette’s house was impossibly clean; her kitchen floor was cleaner than my kitchen
table, and even the windows were sparkling, no small feat given all the rain we’ve had in the last two days. There were lemon
tarts and chocolate biscotti on a red and white checked tablecloth, a pitcher of sangria and another of spiked lemonade and
Perrier for the teetotalers.