Promise Me A Rainbow (31 page)
Read Promise Me A Rainbow Online
Authors: Cheryl Reavi
“Well, that’s a good thing . . . isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
“I asked first,” he said, and she laughed. He liked that about her, her laugh. Her smile. Her.
“Catherine?”
“Yes, Joe,” she answered, and she was smiling still, teasing, looking into his eyes.
He didn’t say it. Fritz wasn’t the daughter he wanted to talk about. He wanted to talk about Della. He wanted to tell her that he was having a problem with Della and that he didn’t know what to do about it. Della was his firstborn; he loved her and he didn’t want her to be unhappy, but maybe he was more than halfway to loving Catherine, too. If Catherine didn’t feel the same, he didn’t want to sacrifice Della for nothing.
You’re not giving me the business, are you, Catherine?
he wanted to say.
You’re not here with me just because we’re good in bed together, are you? Tell me what you’re feeling. Tell me you want me the way I want you, so I’ll know what to do.
But he didn’t say any of it. It was too soon. He wasn’t sure and she wasn’t sure, and he was scared, scared of finding out that Catherine didn’t care about him, scared of finding out that she did. It surprised him how scared he was. Della was his problem, not hers. Catherine had problems of her own. He didn’t want to complicate her life, not when everything between them was so fragile and new.
“What?” she asked again.
He managed a smile he wasn’t particularly feeling.
“Ah, nothing. I . . . don’t want to go, either, and I’ve got to.”
She nodded and looked away, afraid, for once, of trying to determine what he
didn’t
say.
No words of love, she thought again. No words of commitment.
He brought Fritz by to see the gnomes on Sunday afternoon, but he didn’t stay. He owed Michael the time he’d taken with Catherine the afternoon before, and he left Fritz there while he went to the building-site trailer to catch up. He made a point of telling Della that he would be seeing Catherine Holben that afternoon, albeit briefly, staring down her incredulous look until she had no alternative but to sulk in her room. He imagined that she would be immediately on the phone, pouring out her troubles to Margaret.
Fritz was very quiet after Della’s indignant send-off, and Catherine was beautiful and worth the aggravation. She looked so pretty to him, and it was all he could do to keep his hands off her. He had to rely on inane conversation and furtive looks to get him through his arrival and almost immediate departure, because he couldn’t do anything else with Fritz there. God, he wanted to stay, but he wanted to hit Michael for another free Saturday afternoon he could spend with Catherine more. Afternoons were good for him. Fewer distractions. No irate children, because they supposedly didn’t know where he was. He wondered if Catherine had had any idea how much he wanted to make love with her again and what he was planning. He smiled to himself as he drove out to Wrightsville Beach. He thought he’d tell her if he got the chance, just to make her blush.
The smile faded. He hoped that Fritz wouldn’t say anything about the scene he’d had with Della before they left home. He didn’t think that she would. Fritz was always very careful of other people’s feelings, and it didn’t occur to him to tell her that there were things she shouldn’t say.
He didn’t have to work as long as he’d intended. Michael had nearly everything in order; they were ready to build from the paperwork standpoint, at any rate. Now, if they could just get the weather to cooperate.
He went back to Catherine’s, expecting to let Fritz visit longer so that he could spend some time with Catherine. But he was greeted with the bane of the best laid of parental plans—a child running a fever—and he had no alternative but to take his ailing Fritz home.
“How are you doing, Fritz?” he asked when they were nearly there, because she looked a little green.
She gave him a sigh and a thumbs-down. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I remember.”
“Remember what?”
“No barfing in the truck.”
She managed to spare the truck, but not much else. He was up most of the night holding Fritz’s head and finding clean sheets and pajamas. Della had nothing but a cold shoulder for either of them.
“Wait a minute,” he said, finally losing his temper at one of her long-suffering sighs. “Your little sister is sick. You can be mad at me, but don’t you take it out on her, you understand me? Do you understand me!” he yelled when he got no answer.
“Yes, Daddy! I’m just
trying
to get some sleep.”
“You try much harder, and you’re going to get a lot more than that.”
“Go ahead and ground me, Daddy. I don’t care.”
“Della, I have just about had it with you—” He stopped because Fritz was pulling at his sleeve. “Again?” he asked her more kindly than he felt.
“Again,” she told him.
Fritz was still running a fever
in the morning, and Della was stonily silent.
“I want to talk to you. Come by the building site when you get out of school.”
She gave him a surprised look. “We don’t have anything to talk about, Daddy,” she said, as if he were too dense to have realized that.
“I said
I
want to talk. What you do is be there.”
She pressed her lips together, and he could feel her trying to decide how far she wanted to push this. “Oh, all right!” she said, apparently making up her mind.
“Good. And don’t be late. I’m going to have to take Fritz to work with me, so you can bring her back home later after
I
talk.”
He could tell that prospect hardly thrilled her, but it couldn’t be helped. The family had to work together or it didn’t survive. “You got some problem with that?” he asked.
She smiled. “No, Daddy. No problem.”
He stared back at her, wondering why he felt like the spider’s first-choice fly. “Don’t leave for school without Charlie,” he warned her. He didn’t have time for any crap this morning.
“Daddy, give me some credit!”
“I give you what you deserve,” he said.
Fritz came downstairs, looking as pale and wan as she probably felt.
“Am I going to school?” she asked, apparently willing to try whatever caused the least trouble.
“Nope. You’re going to the building site with me.”
Charlie came through on the run. “She didn’t leave me, did she?”
“No, Charlie, I’m right here!” Della snapped.
“In that case, let’s go! Let’s go!”
“Della!” Joe called as she went out the door behind Charlie. She heaved a great sigh and turned back to him.
“What!”
“Have a good day.”
“Oh, I
will
, Daddy. I will.” She smiled that smile again, the one that made him so uneasy. “Fritz,” she said to her sister, “feel better, okay?”
“Why would she want me to do that?” Fritz wondered aloud after she’d gone.
“She’s your sister,” Joe said.
Fritz shot him a look:
Oh, please!
Fortunately for his frazzled temper, she didn’t say it.
He called the pediatrician’s office, to find that the doctor could see Fritz immediately, except that when they got there, they had to wait. And wait. He arrived at the work-site trailer shortly before eleven—with a folding lawn chair, a quilt, three pillows, a box of Popsicles, a box of crackers, a bottle of ginger ale, a bag of ice, and Fritz.
“What the hell is all
this
?” Michael said when he came in with the first load.
“Walking wounded,” Joe said absently, looking for a place to unfold the lounge chair.
“Joey, who?”
“Fritz. Michael, get out of the way, will you? She’s got the works – ear infection, sore throat, upset stomach. I couldn’t send her to school.”
“She’s going to stay
here
?”
“I can’t board her at the pound, Michael.”
“Oh, that’s cute, Joey. Real cute. Where is she?”
“In the truck.”
“I’ll go get her. Don’t put that there! Move it down at that end where she’ll stay warm.”
“Don’t say anything in front of her about her causing a problem. She takes everything seriously.”
“I’m not going to say anything. What do you think, I’m stupid? Jeez!”
“Come on, Cleopatra,” Michael said as he carried Fritz in. “Your barge awaits.” He made great ceremony of helping her off with her coat and placing her on the lounge and arranging her pillows, making her smile in spite of her misery. “Up or down?” he asked her about the back of the chair.
“Down,” she said. “I’m awful sleepy.”
“Best thing for you,” Michael assured her, covering her with the quilt. “What are you doing?” he asked because Joe was taking all his beer out of the small refrigerator.
“Making room,” Joe said, stuffing in ice and Popsicles.
“Making room,” Michael repeated. He slid the trashcan closer to the lounge, rearranging the plastic liner and taking out bits of paper that had been thrown into it. “Here, Fritz.
Don’t
use this, but if you do,
do
. Got it?”
“I got it,” she assured him.
“Smart cookie,” Michael said, and she grinned.
“You want anything, Fritz?” Joe asked her.
“Nope.”
“Okay, I’ve got to go get Fritz’s prescription filled—” he said to Michael.
“You got a phone call,” Michael said, interrupting.
“Something about some stained glass at the Cotton Exchange. You might as well see about that, too, while you’re at it.”
“Yeah, I think I will. Fritz, I’ll be back in a little while.”
But she was nearly asleep. He bent down and put his hand on her forehead. It was still hot.
“You’re going to feel better before you know it,” he told her.
She nodded, snuggling deeper into the pillows. “I like it here,” she told him. “I can hear the ocean. Tell Uncle Michael I’ll try not to throw up while you’re gone.”
“She’ll try not to throw up while I’m gone,” Joe said, passing it on.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Michael said, making Fritz smile again. “Hey, Joey,” he said as Joe started out the door. He came closer and lowered his voice. “You got another phone call—Catherine.”
Joe couldn’t keep from smiling. “Yeah? What did she say?”
“Nothing. She just wanted to talk to you, and she said tell you she called.”
“If she calls back, tell her I’ll call her first chance I get.”
“Hey,” Michael said when he was about to go out the door again. “Is this . . . serious with you and her, or what?”
I might as well say it,
Joe thought. He certainly felt it. In admitting it to Michael he was finally admitting it to himself. “It’s . . . serious.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“
How
serious?”
“More serious than I’ve got time to stand here and explain. I’ll see you later.”
He left the prescription
at the drugstore and went on to the Cotton Exchange. He negotiated his fee for the repair work that needed to be done on the stained glass faster than he ordinarily would have, because he had to get back to Fritz. He decided to go ahead and take one of the transoms with him, borrowing a ladder from the janitor.
The Cotton Exchange wasn’t crowded, but he still had to watch for shoppers as he worked to get the transom down from one of the passageway doors. Three young girls kept milling around and giggling just beyond where he was working. He had to stop and start because he couldn’t see them through the stained glass, and he thought they intended to pass by the ladder. The last thing he needed was to drop a transom on some kid’s head. When he had to stop for the third time, he came down a few steps on the ladder to tell them they could come on through.
But he couldn’t see their faces. When he bent down to speak to them, all three of them looked at him in what could only be described as abject horror.
“Little girl,” he said, pointing to the one farthest away, “this is
not
your lucky day.”
“Della sick, too?”
Michael asked as they came into the trailer.
“No, she’s not sick. She cut school. I caught her at the Cotton Exchange.”
“What the hell did she do a thing like that for?”
“How should I know? I’m only her father.”
“I don’t know what you’re so upset about, Daddy!” Della put in, folding her arms in a way that reminded Joe of Margaret.
“Sit down and be quiet!” he snapped at her.
“There’s no place to sit.”