Mourning Becomes Cassandra (32 page)

“It did occur to me,” I grinned, “but I figured I wouldn’t mention it until the next guy asked you out.”

“There will be no next guy,” vowed Joanie impetuously. “I am, as of tonight, going on a dating hiatus—oh, well, except for this Friday because I was so pissed at Roy that I went straight back into Chaff and asked out the first guy I could find.” In answer to my questioning look she added, “Some bald guy named Bo with an annoying, hissy laugh. Divorced, I think.”

“Joanie made his Christmas, I bet,” laughed Phyl. “He’ll probably want to ‘drop by’ his ex-wife’s place to show her off.”

“Well if he does, you and Wayne are coming with,” said Joanie. “I’ve convinced Phyl to double with us because I had barely asked him out when regrets choked all further utterance. I don’t suppose you and James want to come, Cass?”

“Not on your life. You’ve used up all your allotted sympathy, and we’ve already made plans to go skating this Friday. Now come on, ladies. Let’s see if between the three of us we can hang up the garland.”

“Could you spot me some money until my next payday, Cass?”

After hurling the question at me, Nadina wadded up her elf hat nervously and then jammed it back over her spiky blond hair. James and I had agreed to meet at the rink that evening, and I had come early to see her. While waiting for him, I had been struck by Nadina’s air of discomfiture. My wariness must have shown because, before I could formulate a response, she huffed, “Never mind. I knew you wouldn’t.”

“Now hang on a second,” I objected. In our months of knowing each other, Nadina had never made a request like this, and beyond the usual uneasiness people feel when they’re hit up for cash, the change in pattern disturbed me. “You work two jobs, and your mom pays your school tuition, so why are you feeling hard up?”

“When is James getting here?” she changed the subject. “Are you guys together?”

“Soon, and no,” I answered curtly. “Answer my question.”

She busted a roll of quarters open on the edge of the till. “Don’t worry about it, Cass. I knew I shouldn’t have asked you because you’re so friggin’ stingy and nosy.” Before I could react to the injustice of this accusation, she barreled on. “Sonya was saying that Louella is taking her to
The
Nutcracker
, and Ellie got a gift card for iTunes—”

“Are you saying you want a Christmas present?” I demanded. “I do happen to have one for you, and it’s not a bunch of guys leaping around in tights. That can be arranged, however.”

Nadina rolled her eyes but had the grace to look a little abashed. “No, forget that. That was stupid. I don’t even want to see the friggin’
Nutcracker
. I’m just saying I never asked you for anything before, and you just shut me down.”

“I didn’t shut you down,” I protested, “I asked you a question, which you haven’t bothered answering, and I haven’t even ruled out the possibility of—”

“Shhhh!” she hissed suddenly, slamming the till shut. “Just forget it, okay. Go skate.” Bewildered by her abrupt about-face, I followed the direction of her anxious gaze. At first I couldn’t figure out what she was looking at, but then, slouching out from behind a bundled-up family, I saw a slight young man making his way toward us. He was wearing a forest-green plaid flannel shirt over a black t-shirt and jeans even rattier and lower-slung than I’d seen on Kyle or Tan or any other Camden School boy. His towhead was whiter-blond than Nadina’s, and his skin several shades paler. No tanning sessions for this kid, apparently. Light green eyes flicked over me with a dead curiosity, but when he reached the counter he had already put me from his mind.

“Did you get it?” He slapped his hand down on the glass-covered counter, and the silver rings he wore made metallic clinks. She shook her head mutely, not meeting his eyes. Judging from her strange tension and the obvious familiarity between them, a creeping suspicion was coming over me—was this ratty little fragile creature
Mike
?

Before I could ask, the bundled family bustled up to the cash register, the father waving a credit card at Nadina. In silence, she processed it, and in equal silence the off-putting young man stood his ground and stared fixedly at her. When the family was on its way, Nadina slammed the till shut and said, a note of challenge in her voice, “Mike, this is Cass. Cass, this is Mike.”

I wasn’t sure what I had expected, whenever this fateful meeting would take place—invective? violence?—but Mike did no more than nod infinitesimally at me and return his pale green gaze to Nadina. After hearing so much about how he disliked me and seeing repeated proofs of his power over Nadina, I realized for the first time that he was, after all, only twenty years old, and he might even be as intimidated by me as I had been by the imaginary Mike. Not only that, but if it came to violence, I think I could take him.

I took a step closer to get him to look at me. “Hello, Mike. It’s nice to meet you finally.” An outright lie, but a sacrifice to manners. I held out my mittened hand. He ignored it.

Uttering some kind of curse, heavy on the consonants, under his breath, Mike said to Nadina, “I’ll give you a few more minutes.” Without a backward glance, he took his delicate little self off to the snack bar to torture some other rink elf.

I whipped around. “What was that about?”

“None of your business,” she answered automatically.

It took me a minute or two to bite back the first words that came to mind. I knew if I made any choice comments about her dear Mike, Nadina would turn on me. Choice comments like,
Are you ever worried you might accidentally sit on him and kill him?
Finally I settled on: “Was that why you wanted to borrow money?”

“None. Of. Your. Business!” was her infuriating response. “Here’s James. Go skate with your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I insisted, distracted.

“I’m not her boyfriend,” came James’ echo. I could hear the laugh in his voice. “Cass swears I’m not her boyfriend.” Catching sight of my distressed face, his grin faded, to be replaced by a questioning look.

Nadina swiped the ten-dollar bill James held out, slapped it in the till and slammed the drawer shut without saying another word.

“Hey, what about my change?” James pointed out. “I thought Kyle’s been helping you with your math.” Scowling, Nadina punched the button for the drawer again. When it shot open, she yanked out two ones, threw them on the counter, and slung the drawer shut.

“Good thing you came early to butter her up,” James teased, when we were out of earshot and lacing up our skates. “What’s up with her?”

“I hardly know,” I murmured. “But she tried to borrow money from me when I got here, and before I could even find out why, her boyfriend Mike showed up and then she wouldn’t tell me.” James whistled. “He’s still here,” I added. “He’s that pale little hominid in the snack bar—don’t look now!”

Obediently, James waited until we were out on the rough, divoted ice, circling leisurely, to look in the direction of the snack bar. Mike was hunched at a table, sipping a hot chocolate or something, his eyes fixed on Nadina.

“Him?” asked James incredulously. “I bet our Nadina could snap him in two. Did you meet him?”

“In a manner of speaking,” I replied, recounting the uncomfortable introduction. “I just wonder if she wanted the money from me because she knew he was going to show up and that he was expecting her to have some.”

“Good thing you didn’t give her any then,” said James practically. “Charming as he appears, I’m not sure he would have put it to the best use.” He pulled on my hand. “Come on, you. Let’s not let the ‘pale little hominid’ spoil our undate.” Laughing, I tried to pull away, but he hung on and swung me around so that I was skating backwards in front of him. “Let’s see some of these famed elementary school moves, Cass, that you bragged about in front of Rachel.”

“Bragged about? I did not either brag about them,” I objected, giving him a push with my free hand and spinning back around to skate next to him.

“Sure you did, so don’t pretend to be outraged,” he persisted, winking at me. “You know you wanted me.” This time I gave him a harder shove and yanked my hand away, but he was too comfortable on skates to lose his balance and merely whisked around to my other side and took my hand again.

“Not in front of Nadina,” I pleaded, feeling myself start to blush.

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, trying to judge my mood, but then he obligingly dropped my hand and put his own behind his back. Relieved and yet mildly disappointed, I smiled my thanks, and we made a few more circuits in silence.

After a while, James began again. “I was going to be patient,” he said. “I was going to be well-behaved and just ‘hang out’ with you until you got used to the idea, but I’m not a very patient person.”

“So I see.”

“It would be one thing to be patient if I needed to give you time to learn to like me,” he continued, “but I think—I think you already have.” Swinging out in front of me, he skated backwards so he could look me full in the face.

Well, here it was. James was a charming, attractive, well-liked man, and he liked me, for some reason, but he wouldn’t wait around forever. And he was young and impatient, and I suppose two weeks in this relationship limbo had seemed long enough to him. If I put him off again, would he give up and move on? But if I said yes, what would it mean? He might lose interest in a few more weeks anyhow, but what if he didn’t? Would we somewhere down the road have to wrestle with the question of marriage?

I thought back to my brain-damaged wedding dream, and it was no more natural to picture James waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs than it was to see Daniel there. It wasn’t that James wasn’t a good, faithful man or that he wouldn’t make someone a good husband—it was that I felt so much older than he was, not only in years, but also in all the things I’d been through. As if I stood on the other side of some emotional chasm, and I didn’t know how I could pretend life was simple and made sense anymore.

All of a sudden, Joanie’s voice popped into my head, as if she had sprung up next to me: “For Pete’s sake, Cass, don’t over-analyze! You don’t have to marry him. Just have fun. Get out of your scary cave.” She had taken a risk, after all, to confront Roy; surely I could take a similar step to overcome my fears. It was true: I didn’t have to marry him. All he wanted was to give going out together a try, and chances were he’d dump me before it even became an issue. And until that happened, it would be…fun.

I think James knew what I had decided, when I finally raised my eyes to his, because a huge smile spread over his features. “Good,” he said simply, a note of excitement under his voice. “Good. I’d kiss you right here and now, but I think I can wait till Nadina isn’t around since you’re being so reasonable.”

Funny what a difference it made, knowing I’d said yes. Although he didn’t try to take my hand again, and only once touched me to brush some snow out of my hair, we may as well have parked it in the center of the rink and made out—I was so conscious of him. For the first time I let myself look at him as much as I pleased, and I couldn’t seem to stop looking. The hokey music and flirting groups of teenagers and children screaming after landing smack on their heads—it all receded into faintness, and, like a bad ‘70s after-school special, I noticed only the laughing gray eyes and pleasant voice and quick, sure movements of the man next to me. Never mind that, at the age when I might have been watching after-school specials, James was still mastering potty training.

The rink was small; we probably went around and around at least two hundred times and would have blissfully racked up a thousand laps, had reality not intruded—reality in the shape of the Zamboni.

“At this time we’d like to ask all skaters to please clear the ice,” intoned the infinitive-splitting, deep-voiced, snack-bar elf. “We will be resurfacing for the next ten minutes.”

James took advantage of the ensuing hubbub to close the gap between us, and I heard his voice right at my ear. “Let’s get some hot chocolate—my treat. Maybe if we’re lucky, we can sit with Mike.”

So much for my deep caring for Nadina—I’d completely forgotten about the whole Mike-money incident, and when I hastily glanced around now, I didn’t see him anywhere. Giving James a quick smile, I said I would join him in line and clumped over to my girl.

She was slumped on her stool, staring into space, and hearing me call her name, she positively jumped.

“Jesus H. Christ, Cass!” Nadina yelled, turning red. “What the hell?” I might have asked the same of her, the way she began darting nervous glances over my shoulder. The rogue thought crossed my mind that, if she was this preoccupied, maybe I should have made out with James center ice after all.

“Didn’t mean to startle you,” I said apologetically. “Where did Mike go?”

“Away. Home. Away!” was her flustered answer. “I don’t know.”

“What?” She was genuinely worrying me now, and I saw she was sweating. “He didn’t want anything. I can’t talk now, Cass—I have to work.”

“So work,” I responded evenly. Her lips were trembling. “Nadina…are you okay?” I tried again. “You seem stressed.” Or guilty. Or both.

She wavered and said almost involuntarily, “Mike is stressing me out. I can’t talk about it right now, Cass. Maybe I’ll—maybe I’ll tell you some other time.”

I waited silently, hoping she would change her mind, but all that happened was that her eyebrows drew closer and closer together as I didn’t leave.

She still didn’t trust me, then.

I sighed. Mark Henneman was right—trust couldn’t be forced, try though I might. I still did have one idea, though. Unbuttoning my wool coat, I unzipped the inner pocket and pulled out the forty-two dollars left over from hitting the ATM that afternoon.

“Here,” I said, pushing it across the counter to her. “This may be a bad idea, but we’ll talk about that later.”

Stunned, Nadina unfolded the bills and counted them. Something flickered across her face, but it disappeared almost instantly. “Thanks,” she muttered. “You better go. James is waiting.”