Promise Me A Rainbow (11 page)

But he had enough to be concerned about at the moment without considering D’Amaro Brothers’ possible bankruptcy, and he pushed the worry aside. When he was well out into the street, he couldn’t resist looking upward at the windows of the Holben’s woman’s apartment.

This time she wasn’t there. He still wasn’t quite sure what he thought of her, except in a superficial way. She worked with those pregnant kids, and she probably meant well. And she was attractive enough, more so than she realized, he thought. And he found that . . . interesting. Lately he’d had more than enough of women who knew what they had and used it. God, he hated going home. He was going to have to talk to Fritz, and he didn’t want to do it. Maybe the Holben woman was right. Maybe he did want the status quo.

But what he wanted generally had little to do with what he got. Something was the matter with Fritz, and he couldn’t pretend otherwise. He should have known about the gnomes. He should have known how much she loved them. And he should have had an alternative to selling them. He was so tired of needing money, of doing everything he knew to do and working as hard as he could work and still coming up short. He wished he had his brother Michael’s optimism. Michael really believed that they were just around the corner from the big job that would make them solvent, the big job that would end all the troubles he was having with his wife. Poor, dumb Michael. He really believed that keeping Margaret faithful was merely a matter of giving her the diamond jewelry, the big car, the country-club membership she wanted.

And Margaret was yet another worry Joe had no time for. She had been coming to the house more and more often of late. Her visits seemed innocent—she wanted to take Della shopping or she’d brought over some paperwork or blueprints from Michael. But she was a beautiful woman. She’d made it perfectly clear that it didn’t matter to her in the least that she was married to his brother.

He was sure now that Catherine Holben wasn’t anything like Margaret D’Amaro. Catherine Holben was smart, tough enough to tell him he had a problem with his kid whether he liked it or not, and real enough to share her apples with him and to walk around barefoot. And she was a nice-looking woman. And Fritz liked her. Fritz. God, he had no idea what he wanted to say to her, and he had no time to think of something. Fritz was sitting on the front porch steps as he pulled into the driveway, her head bent over a book so he wouldn’t think she’d been waiting for him.

He hesitated for a moment, then got out of the truck, carrying his lunch box inside with him. Fritz stared intently at her book, turning a page now and then as he approached.

“Doing your homework out here?” he asked. He set his lunch box down and sat on the steps beside her.

She looked at him furtively, then nodded and turned another page. “Della’s listening to her
Infernal Majesty
music.”

He smiled. “Loud, huh?”

“You know Della,” she said, her eyes carefully on the pages of her book.

He reached to move it so he could see the title. “Dinosaurs and Other Reptiles,” he read aloud. “Pretty heavy for the second grade, isn’t it?”

“I’m going to talk about Tyrannosaurus Rex.”

“Like show and tell?”

“I’m too old for show and tell. Besides, all the boys keep bringing their monster toys. Now Sister says we have to tell about something in science. She doesn’t want to see anything that shoots or changes into something else. And no dolls.”

He smiled, but he could feel her worrying, and her worry had nothing to do with making an oral science report.

“So what do you think?” he asked.

She looked up at him, the worry he could feel clearly visible in her eyes. How long had it been since he’d really taken the time to talk to her?

“About what?” she asked.

“About Tyrannosaurus Rex,” he said kindly.

“I’m glad he’s extinct.”

“Oh, I don’t know—probably be a lot more building jobs with a big guy like that around.”

The joke was feeble, but she smiled anyway. He put his arm around her shoulders. “Things going okay with you?”

“Yes,” she said. One single word, dropping like a stone.

“Sometimes I get so busy, I forget to ask. You know, if things aren’t okay, you can tell me anyway—even if I look busy.”

“You get mad,” she said, cutting him to the quick.

“I get mad when I’m worried. Last night I was worried because I didn’t know where you were.”

“I was okay.”

“Yes, I know that. Now. But I didn’t when Della called to tell me you hadn’t come home.”

“I came home. You brought me home. I just didn’t stay.”

“Della didn’t know that. She was upset, Fritz. She’s responsible for you, you know.”

“Is she?”

“You know she is.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s the oldest. That’s her job.”

“Do I have a job?”

“Yes, you do. Your job is to make sure you don’t do anything like that ever again without permission.”

“That’s not much of a job,” she said, and he tried not to smile.

“It is to me. And you do it so I don’t worry.”

Fritz leaned against him, her fingers restlessly picking at the edges of the pages in her book. She felt better now that they were having this talk, but then again, she didn’t. “Catherine said I shouldn’t,” she said, bringing up the subject that would make Joe mad again.

“Shouldn’t what?”

“Shouldn’t worry people who love me if I can help it. Last night, I couldn’t help it,” she said earnestly.

“Yes, you could, Fritz. You made a choice. A wrong choice—and that’s
my
job. To tell you when it’s wrong so you won’t do it again.”

She sat quietly, her head bowed. “Am I getting punished?” She was pretty certain that was likely, but it never hurt to ask.

“Yes. No television for two weeks.”

“Saturday, too?”

“Saturday, too.”

She gave a quiet sigh. That would be the hardest, no television on Saturday, but she had no doubt that she deserved it.

“Did you . . . see Catherine today?” she asked, getting to the reason she’d been waiting on the porch. She hadn’t been waiting to mend her fences but to find out if he’d had another run-in with the new owner of the gnomes.

“Yes, I saw her.”

She gave another small sigh, as if that were the worst news he possibly could have given her. It
was
the worst news. Catherine hadn’t done anything; she didn’t want him to be mad at Catherine, and she was almost certain that he would have been. She loved Joe, but he wasn’t nice to people sometimes, and people didn’t understand that it was because he was still sad about Lisa. Her Grandmother D’Amaro had told her that, that Joe’s sadness was like a thorn in his heart, and sometimes he didn’t feel anything else but that. He’d probably yelled at Catherine and said bad words like he had the night before—when Catherine didn’t deserve it. She had made hot chocolate and she’d acted like a real mother and told her about when she was a little girl and everything.

“Ms. Holben says you can come see the gnomes again sometime if . . .”

“With you?” she asked, interrupting.

“Yes, with me. I’d have to take you . . .”

Fritz abruptly stood up. “I couldn’t do that,” she said, because Joe didn’t understand. He’d made Catherine feel bad—and he’d made her feel bad, too. She couldn’t go back there. Catherine wouldn’t be like a mother
now
.

“Why not?” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders to make her look at him.

But she wouldn’t look. “I couldn’t do that,” she repeated, her voice small and quavering.

“I thought you wanted to visit the gnomes. I thought you liked Ms. Holben . . . Catherine.”

She kept her head down. “She’s all right,” he thought she said.

“Fritz,” he said firmly, and she finally looked up at him, but her eyes barely grazed his.

“Please, can I go inside, Joe? Please.”

He gave her a small hug because she was miserable and he didn’t know what else to do. “Go on. Tell Della to cut that racket down before the neighbors call the police.”

He sat on the steps. Surprised by Fritz’s reaction, hearing and not hearing
Infernal Majesty
blaring from Della’s room when the front door opened and closed. My God, he thought.
My God!
Fritz was only seven years old—and she was ashamed of him.

Blue eyes, Catherine noted again. And hair not as dark as she remembered. Brown, but not dark brown. His looking at her that way was more surprising than offensive. She would have guessed that he found her more nuisance than woman. She also thought he would walk on, but he didn’t. He sat down on the bench beside her instead.

“Nice day,” he said after a moment, squinting up at the sun. “I should be working, but you can’t always do what you ought to do when you have children.” He glanced at her, as if he thought the comment might have offended her. “Della’s filling out applications to work during the Christmas season. I don’t think there are any computer stores here, so it’s hard telling what Charlie’s doing.”

“And Fritz?”

He looked at her for a long moment before he answered. “You know, I thought you might ask that.”

“And you sat down, anyway?”

He folded his arms across his chest. “I didn’t mean for you to think your interest in Fritz . . . offended me, Ms. Holben.”

“Didn’t you?” she asked. Their eyes met briefly, and he was the first to look away.

“No,” he said. Then, “Yes.”

He gave a quiet sigh. “Look. If you don’t mind, I’ll just sit here. They’re bound to come by sooner or later.” He looked at her, and this time he let his eyes linger on hers, as if he’d decided not to work so hard at hiding, as if he wanted her to see what might be there.

How sad you are, Catherine thought immediately, but she forced the thought aside. She didn’t want to know that about him. She didn’t want to know anything about him.

“This is a public place, Mr. D’Amaro. You can sit anywhere you like.” She moved to gather up her purse and the paperback books she’d just bought at a half-price sale in the bookstore. Books were her other major indulgence—besides gnome sculptures.

“About Fritz,” he said when she was about to stand up. “I think maybe you were right.”

She stayed where she was. She tried to look into his eyes, but now he didn’t want that. He stared off into the distance, clearly regretting having said anything.

“I’m sorry,” she said. And she was, both for the problem with Fritz and for his discomfiture at thinking he’d revealed too much to her. She was a stranger, after all.