Seems Like Old Times (12 page)

"Tell her the place has video games, Dad," Ben
said, then spun in front of Lee and started walking backwards. "They're great,
Lisa."

"Oh?" she said, unable to contain a wide smile
as she watched him.

"Do you play?" Tony asked. "Watch where
you’re going, Ben."

"I've never tried," she replied.

"Then you got to come," Ben shouted, jumping up
and down in excitement. "I can show you a whole bunch of neat games,
okay?"

She glanced at Tony,
then
her
eyes lingered on Ben. "How can I refuse such an offer?"

"All right!"
Ben threw
both arms in the air like Joe Montana after a touchdown. God, where had that
image come from, she wondered? Now she was even remembering old northern
California sports scenes, and she didn’t even like sports.

As they walked along, her gaze kept veering toward the man
she used to know so well, and to his son, who greeted her with such openness
and warmth. Ben was very much the way Tony used to be, open, curious, warm and
friendly. Inexplicably, her heart felt heavy.

Ben must have felt her staring at him because he suddenly
turned her way. "Are you really on TV?"

"Yes, I am."

"Wow, neat!" He ran ahead to the parking lot.

o0o

The Pizza Palace was the place to go if you were a Little
Leaguer. It crawled with little boys in uniforms. Tony led Lee to the side of
the Palace that had three enormous television monitors, each broadcasting a
different game--the Giants on one, the A's on another, and a tennis
championship on the third.

The video games were on the other side of the Palace, and
Tony gave Ben two dollars to play them while their pizza was being prepared.
Ben left, but immediately came back.

"I promised Lisa, Dad."

Tony looked at her, "She might want to eat
first."

The thought of sitting alone with Tony was disquieting.
"Now is fine. Let's go, Ben."

"Wait, son." Tony exchanged the two dollar bills
for a fiver. "You'll need a few tokens--and Lisa will need a whole lot of
them."

"Yeah, she probably will."

Lee gave them both a "That’s what you think"
look and followed Ben to the token machine.

Tony sat with his elbows on the tabletop, watching the two
of them make their way through the crowd. She was as puzzling to him as ever.
Lee Reynolds had the reputation of being one of the sharpest interviewers on
TV. She did her homework well, went for the political jugular and her
interviews had made a shambles of more than one career. He wasn't surprised.
Even in high school she had
drive
, sharpness,
an
edge to her that made people take notice...and be wary.
Yet, she'd come to a pizza parlor and she'd shown up at two Little League
games. He was afraid to speculate on why, but the attraction that had glued him
to her side when they were teens still sparked between them, like kindling
ready to ignite. It was there amazingly.
Wonderfully.
Frighteningly.

There was a cool control about her now, an odd formality
that spoke of experience and poise, yet was provocatively seductive. Once she
had been all freshness and promise, but now she was changed--much more a
challenge, much more a woman. He recognized her defenses because they mirrored
his own, and the hell of it was
,
they only made him
want to be with her that much more.

 Christ, but he must have been an arrogant cuss when
he was young to think an intelligent, sophisticated woman like that would want
to stay with him. Even his wife had left him, and compared to Lisa, she was
nothing. He snorted. That was the problem with their marriage. He had always
compared her to Lisa, and she had always come up short. His failed marriage to
Catherine had been as much his fault as hers.
Probably more.

He'd been a fool about Lisa once. And she'd stripped him
of everything--his pride, his
self esteem
, his very
manhood. He'd given her his heart and soul, and she'd turned her back on him.
He would never forgive her for that, as much as she might charm him now. He was
older, wiser. And he wouldn't make the same mistake about her twice.

Still, she was the most beautiful thing on two legs. And
her baby blues, he feared, could still tie him up in knots faster than a
Cy
Young winner could pitch one over the plate.

He hated the confused way she made him feel.

A good half-hour after ordering the pizza, Tony heard his
name called over the loudspeaker to pick up his order. The Palace liked its
customers to have plenty of time to lose money on video games before they ate.
He went in search of Ben and Lisa.

Lee was a study in concentration as she tried to get a
little plumber to make his way through some sewers without getting killed by
the monsters lurking within them.

"She's pretty good, Dad," Ben said.

At the words, she looked up, and flashed Tony a warm,
radiant smile that snagged his breath. Suddenly it was as if the clang and
cling and buzz of the electronic games were being played right in his head.
"I don't have a clue what I'm doing," she said, facing the video
screen again. "But Ben knows all about it."

"Jump!"
Ben yelled.

Lee pushed the jump button and the little plumber leaped
safely over a hole in the earth.

"All right!"
Tony and
Ben cheered.

She was so pleased, she eased up on the controls,
immediately allowing a whirling dervish to plow into the plumber and blow him
to smithereens.

"Oh, no!"
Ben cried.

Lee stepped back from the controls. "Silly
game," she muttered, her lips pursed as she glared at the screen.
"One more
try
." She dropped another token
into the slot.

Tony and Ben’s eyes met, and they laughed.

o0o

Tony drove Lee back to the parking lot at Settler's Park.
Ben had crawled onto the backseat. Lee sat at Tony’s side, cocooned in the
warmth of his big SUV. It was filled with sports gear, tack, and ranch tools,
and smelled of earth, sweat and sunshine. When Tony pulled into the lot and
stopped beside her Cadillac, she turned, peering between the bucket seats, to
say good night to Ben. He was stretched out on the back seat, fast asleep, his
baseball cap still on his head.
He looked little, and
completely angelic.
She had spent enough time with him that evening to
know he was no angel. He kept Tony hopping, not because he was bad--he
wasn't--but he was all boy, full of energy, curiosity and fun. She cocked her
head and kept looking at him, feeling a deep, wrenching tug at her heart as she
did so.

"He's had a busy day," Tony said softly. Turning
like Lee, he, too, peered between the front bucket seats rather than trying to
look over the headrests. His head moved close to hers, so close her skin
tingled.

"He's a fine boy, Tony," she whispered.

"He is." Her gaze shift from Ben to him, and she
could see the pride in his eyes. Quickly, awkwardly, as if realizing they were
too close, he straightened, sitting back away from her. Her chest tightened.

Tony got out of the Jeep, and walked around it to open the
door for her. He'd left his own door ajar, and closed hers softly so that Ben
wouldn't awaken. All the other cars but her rental were gone from the lot and
the park had been given over to the night creatures of Miwok. She could hear an
owl hoot, and she was sure skunks and raccoons and possums were scampering
about, with only the stars to watch their play.

He walked with her the few steps to her car. She found her
key in her purse and unlocked the door. When she glanced up, his features were
highlighted by the moonlight. Seconds passed, and silence fell around them. The
collar of his black jacket was turned up and the jacket puffed out a bit from
the breeze, "Thank you for inviting me this evening," she said,
breaking the quiet.

Once he would have reached out for her
now, touched her face, or at least a lock of her hair.
He slid his
fingertips into the back pockets of his jeans. "I hope it wasn't too dull,
compared to what you're used to."

She gazed up at the moon peeking through the oak branches.
"What I'm used to is sitting in an apartment with four locks on the door,
reading summaries of news events and special features we'd be showing on the
air." She faced him squarely. "Tonight was fun for me, not dull at
all."

The silence built again as dark brown eyes pulled her into
their dizzying depths. They were close enough to touch, but didn’t. He placed
his hand on the roof of the car. "I'm glad," he said softly.

She looked at his hand, familiar yet different, and it was
all she could do not to reach out and touch it with her own. How could she feel
this way, this strongly, about him? And if she felt this strongly, what did
that say about her?
About Bruce and her?
She stared
hard at the back of his hand, the long fingers,
the
square, clipped nails. It was just a hand, she told herself, just a hand.
"I guess I had better get home."

He gave the roof a light rap,
then
stepped back.
"Right."
She looked down,
grasped the door handle and pulled it open. Quickly, before she made a fool of
herself, she slid into her car. She reached for the door, but Tony held it.
Their eyes met,
then
she drew her arm inside, eyes
ahead, and waited. She heard the door
shut,
the lock
catch. She gave him a little wave as she started the engine and backed out of
the parking space.

Tony stood and watched as she turned out of the lot toward
home.

The next day, Lee vowed to stop humoring her aunt and to empty
as much as possible from the house. She couldn't believe how much work there
still was to be done. What had she been doing all these days besides wasting
time? She obviously left her brains along with her common sense back in New
York. She needed to go home. Seeing Tony was madness--fun, she had to admit,
her pulse hadn’t raced like that in more years than she could remember--but it
was insanity nonetheless. And getting to know Ben...She had to leave soon.

She put on chinos and a tee shirt, and let her hair fall
loose just past her shoulders. Dishes, linens, cleaning products, cosmetics,
photo albums, not to mention all of Judith's clothing, still had to be sorted
and bundled for discard or contribution to charity.

No sooner had she vowed no more distractions when Miriam
announced that a lovely way for them to celebrate, so to speak, their last
weekend together would be to go to the annual Miwok Indian Festival picnic and
barbecue at Settlers Park on Sunday.

"Don't expect me to go with you, Miriam. I was never
one for picnics," Lee had announced, looked up from the stacks of tax
papers, receipts and home repair and maintenance records she was sorting on the
kitchen table. The various utilities would probably have to be stopped--she
needed to check with the realtor. At least the phone service could be
disconnected.

"But you're special to this town, Lisa." Miriam
filled a teakettle with water and put it on the stove. "You're one of the
few people who made it big. People here proudly tell their friends that you're
one of their own, and now you have a chance to say hello to a lot of people who
remember you and have followed your career. You should do it."

She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "I scarcely
know them anymore. I've been away too long."

"Yes, that’s true, and that's all the more reason to
let them know you haven't forgotten about them, and that you still care about
your hometown." She placed tea bags in cups and put them on the counter.

"Do I?" Thoughtfully, she rubber-banded a batch
of receipts and labeled them, adding them to other neatly ordered piles, then
turned to face her aunt. "Most of the time, I feel like a stranger."

"There have been changes on the surface. But go below
them, and you’ll see that people are the same. That you're the same."

"I’m not, though. I’ve changed. What’s strange, the
longer I’m here, the more I realize how much and how complete that change has
been."

Miriam took a seat at the table. "How can that be,
when I see so much of the little girl I knew so well? And I'm sorry to say I
still see too much of the unhappy young woman who came to me, too. But all that
happened, it's all part of you, Lisa, it makes you who you are--just like Miwok
does."

"That unhappy woman is completely gone now."

"Is she?" Miriam asked. "Or are you still
hiding from yourself?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"It isn't anything I can explain. Someday, I hope,
you'll understand." At the kettle’s whistle, Miriam filled the cups with
water and placed them on the table along with cream and brown sugar cubes,
then
sat again. "Let's just say I'd very much like to
go to the picnic, and I'd feel awkward going alone. You wouldn't disappoint
your poor old aunt, would you?"

At the guileless tone, Lee shook her head, pausing from
her work in order to remove the tea bag from her cup. She remembered, from her
time with Miriam how delicious milk and brown sugar tasted in tea. These days,
she drank hers black. "Miriam, you still have so many friends in this town
it isn’t even funny. You won’t be alone for ten seconds."

"Sure I will! And there’s my knee, you know. What if
it locks up on me? But then, if you won't go, I understand." She gave a
heavy, hangdog sigh. "I’ll just sit here all day Sunday, knowing my
friends--and yours--are at the picnic, in the sunshine, enjoying
themselves
. Maybe somewhere along the line, they'll toss a
fond thought my way, and raise a barbecued chicken leg in a
toast
"