Promise Me A Rainbow (14 page)

“Sasha, are you worried about anything?”

“I’m worried about not feeling good.”

“But nothing else. Everything’s okay with your grandmamma?”

“Yep, me and her, we’re good.”

“When you get home, I want you to go to bed and rest. Don’t come to school tomorrow if you don’t feel like it, but be sure to keep that clinic appointment. And if you feel worse before then, call the number the clinic gave you, all right?”

“All right, Ms. Holben.”

“Go on now. I see Beatrice waiting for you.”

“Thank you, Ms. Holben.”

“You’re welcome, Sasha.”

She’s a sweet child, Catherine thought, glancing at Pat. Pat was still sitting at the desk, her head propped in her hands.

“You want your blood pressure checked?” Catherine asked.

“Only if you’ll let me stay out of school tomorrow, too,” Pat said tiredly. She rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ve got cancer. Haven’t you heard?”

“One of these days I’m going to hit you over the head with the first thing I can pick up—deal or no deal! I asked you a question!”

“All right, all right! Jesus! I forgot I was already on your shit list! I’m getting a cold. Maybe my chest hurts a little bit.”

Catherine came closer, reaching out to touch Pat’s forehead the same way she had Sasha’s.

“Maybe you’ve got a fever, too,” Catherine said sarcastically. “A high fever. You haven’t talked to the doctor, either, have you?”

“I will,” Pat said, getting up from the desk.

“I’d strongly advise it.”

“Oh, well, if Ms. Holben says so. Ms. Holben’s word is law around here, isn’t it?”

“You’re damned straight. What?” she said to the same woman from the office who stood hovering in the doorway.

“Telephone call for you.”

“I don’t want to talk to him,” Catherine said.

“It’s not the same man. This one called right after you left the office. I told him one of your baby chicks was out of whack, and if he’d call back in about fifteen minutes, he could probably talk to you.”

“Is it
him
? The filthy beast?” Pat asked archly.

“Oh, shut up,” Catherine answered. “You go home and call your doctor. Do you feel like driving?” it suddenly occurred to her to ask.

“Yes, I feel like driving!”

“Then do it!”

“Why don’t you go answer the telephone!”

Catherine grinned. “Think I will.”

She hurried down the hallway well behind the woman from the office, who would likely advise her coworkers that Ms. Holben’s telephone call was from
him
—among other things.

All eyes turned in her direction as she came into the office. She took a deep breath before she picked up the telephone, noting both her anticipation and a certain degree of nervousness, neither of which should have been there.

“Ms. Holben,” she said, hoping to throw the office staff off the track.

“So how’s your baby chick?” Joe D’Amaro responded.

“No,” he answered. Period.

Fine, Catherine thought. You carry the conversation, Mr. D’Amaro.

She stood there. Waiting. There
was
no conversation.

“Look,” Catherine said when she couldn’t bear the awkwardness any longer. She kept her voice low so Fritz wouldn’t hear her. “We don’t have to do this. You can tell Fritz whatever you like.”

He glanced at her, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Ms. Holben—”

“I don’t want to intrude on a family gathering, Mr. D’Amaro.”

“You wouldn’t be intruding,” he said, looking at her now for the first time since he’d arrived.

“Then what would I be doing that makes you so miserable?” She hadn’t meant to ask that, but there it was.

“It’s not—”

“I’ve been on the wrong end of your goodwill enough times now to recognize it when I see it, and I’ve told you before—”

“Ms. Holben!”

“What!”

“Do you think you could let me say something here? At least a whole sentence, if it’s not too much trouble?”

“Say it.”

“This makes me nervous.”

She was surprised by the revelation, but she tried not to show it.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I . . . don’t know what you think.”

“What I think? I think you want your little girl to feel better, and you hope that inviting me to this cookout will do it.”

He looked so relieved that she nearly laughed. She certainly didn’t have to worry any longer that he might have an interest beyond her significance to his daughter.

“Okay, Mr. D’Amaro?” she asked pointedly.

A small smile worked at the corners of his mouth. “Okay,” he said.

“Fine.”

“You could call me Joe,” he suggested.

“I could,” she agreed. “But I don’t want you to think I want us to be engaged.”

He laughed—an actual, genuine laugh. “You must think I’m an arrogant son of a . . .”

“Yes, I must,” she assured him.

“You’re probably right.”

He was still grinning, and she saw the difference it made in his features. He really was a nice-looking man, she thought yet another time.

“Are you ready to go? That is, if you’ll still go with us.”

“I’m ready,” she said. “And I’m still going—for Fritz.”

He watched as she went to get her jacket, Fritz tagging along behind her into the other room without invitation. Catherine Holben didn’t seem to mind, he thought, and he was still puzzled my Jonathan’s remark. Why wouldn’t she want children? She seemed to like them—she liked Fritz, anyway. He was certain about that.

She looks pretty today
. The thought surfaced when he really wished it hadn’t. There was no point in his standing around admiring her appearance. She’d looked pretty the other day, too. Not beautiful like Lisa—or Margaret. But pretty in that soft, womanly way she had. She was wearing jeans again. He wondered if she had any idea what she did for the back pockets on a pair of jeans, as Charlie had so astutely put it.

He felt rather a fool for having implied that she might have designs on him. I just don’t go out with women much, he’d almost said in his own defense when he realized that a relationship with him was the farthest thing from her mind. He’d forgotten that she wasn’t over Jonathan. He’d seen her face when she’d found out that Jonathan was getting married.

“I’m the A-number-one helper,” Fritz was telling her when they came back with Catherine’s jacket. “Della won’t help because she doesn’t want to smell like smoke, and Charlie forgets what he’s doing and everything.”

“So what does an A-number-one helper do?”

“I remember stuff—like which one is medium and which one is rare.”

“Well, that sounds like a good thing.”

“Sometimes I get to turn over stuff. And if the meat catches on fire, I get out of the way.”

Catherine laughed, glancing at Joe.

“And she finds the salt shaker when I lose it,” he said, opening the front door for both of them.

“Yeah, he’s always doing that.”

He caught a whiff of Catherine’s perfume as she went by him. Oh, God, he thought, once again regretting his impulsiveness.

The weather was mild, the day sunny and beautiful—excellent for the Annual D’Amaro Family Cookout. He drove the distance to the house deep in thought, with Fritz sitting between them in the truck. He had nothing to complain about. Unlike most women, Catherine talked to Fritz; she didn’t bother him with the kind of small talk that always made him impatient or with inane questions about where he came from and how long he’d been here. He wondered why that was. Probably she simply wasn’t interested.

The house was in one of the quiet, older neighborhoods—vintage 1940, not one of the old Victorian ones that were so sought after in Wilmington now. The place was too small for the four of them—Della should have a bedroom of her own—but it had been all he could afford when he moved the family here, and certainly it was all he could afford now. He’d done a lot of work on the house; he still did when he had the time. In the three years they’d lived here, he’d managed to squeeze a bedroom into the attic space, and a yellow paint job and new white shutters had given it a major facelift. Small and unfashionably old or not, he was proud of it.

“This is it,” Fritz said as he pulled the truck into the driveway. “D’Amaro Estates.”

Catherine smiled. “You did the restoration, didn’t you?” she said to Joe. It was the first thing she’d said to him since they’d left, and he was beginning to wonder if she was one of those women who pouted when things didn’t suit her—like Margaret.

“Yeah, why?”

“Why? Well, you said you liked to restore old buildings better than you liked to build new ones, and this house has been restored. It’s lovely, so I thought you probably did it.”

He frowned. She was already getting out of the truck, and he glanced at her, then at the house. She meant it. He looked at the house again. Yeah, well, hell, it
was
lovely. He just hadn’t expected her to say it.

“Take Ms. Holben in through the front door,” he said to Fritz. “Show her the inside.”

Fritz was clearly thrilled. “I’ll show you my room, Catherine. It’s Della’s room, too, but half of it’s mine. I’ve got a seashell collection and everything.”

Catherine Holben didn’t know what she was letting herself in for, he thought as he watched Fritz drag her away. The kid must have a thousand seashells. Della complained about them taking up space all the time. He walked toward the gate in a tangle of hedge that separated the backyard from the front. All the guests, invited and uninvited, were on and around the back patio. They were a noisy, exuberant crowd—practically everybody he knew was here—and it had already occurred to him that Catherine’s arrival might prove interesting. He’d only told Michael that he was going to pick up a friend of Fritz’s and, unless Della or Charlie had told him otherwise, he was going to be expecting another seven-year-old.