Seems Like Old Times (8 page)

"One day might not be enough time. Why don’t you call
and change your ticket?"

Lee frowned. "All I have left is to buy the carpeting
and drapes. Then I’m done and free to go home. That won’t leave time for much
else today, though."

"But that means we can’t spend the day together in
San Francisco. How could you miss seeing the city again?" Miriam was a
mixture of hurt relative and a Chamber of Commerce commercial. Lee nearly
laughed.

"It would be such fun for the two of us to spend the
day in the city," Miriam continued. "We could play tourist and hit
all the hot spots. Of course, I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble at work
just because of me..."

Although Lee had told the news director that she wasn’t
sure how long she’d have to be away, she had fully expected to be finished with
Miwok in a few days, and go back to work soon after that. She had a two-week
vacation coming, and had planned to save the remainder of her vacation time for
a later date.

She was quite sure Miriam had understood that her job was
not a problem. "I don’t know why I didn’t simply agree to stay a few extra
days when you first suggested it," she said.

"You would have
save
me a
lot of whining," Miriam agreed with a big smile.

"I knew it!"

"Stay through the weekend. You’ll enjoy yourself, I
promise."

o0o

"Hey,
paisan
, what are you
doing?"

Tony, crouching over a disassembled tractor mower engine,
looked up to see Gene
Cantelli
strolling into his
workshop. "I'm giving this son of a bitch an overhaul." He reattached
the socket wrench and went back to work. "It conked out on us again this
morning."

Cantelli
put his hands in his
pockets and gave a low whistle at the parts scattered over the floor. "I
think you should give it last rites."

"It'll be humming soon. Like a babe in arms."

"Or a woman."

Tony frowned then gave a hard yank on a lug that had
refused to loosen.
"Got it."

"Speaking of women..."
Cantelli
picked up a rag and
rubbing some grease off the exhaust.

"Were we?" Tony bent lower and started working
on another lug.

"Your friend Lee's quite the dish. Cheryl Stanton
brought her into my shop a couple days ago. Too bad you didn’t show up. On TV
she looks like a cold bitch, but not in person. I was afraid my teeth would
fall out the way my mouth hung open around her."

Wearily, Tony stood, straightened his back, then bent
backwards to work the kinks out. He ran his arm over his forehead to wipe away
the perspiration. His hands and arms were smudged with grease, and he now had a
streak of grease on his forehead. "Yeah, when Vic brought home the new
saddle he told me you got the royal visit. I didn't know you had a red carpet
to roll out."

"I know Vic doesn’t care for her, but I’ll tell you,
she wasn't that way."

"Well, I wouldn't know. I knew her in high school,
that's all." He began putting the sockets he’d used back into their case
in the proper order.

"That's not the way Vic or Cheryl
tell
it."

"Then they’re both wrong. I’m sure as hell glad I
give you guys something to talk about behind my back!"

"Why are you biting my head off?"

Tony faced him. "What's your problem,
Cantelli
?"

"My problem?"
The older
man chortled, and folded his arms across his broad chest as he regarded Tony, a
wide, provocative smile spread under his thick mustache. "I'm not the one
with something gnawing at my gut. Go see her, talk to her. Here's your chance
to get whatever's bothering you out in the open."

"Hell, Gene, it's nothing like that." Tony offered
him a bottle of warm Gatorade. When Gene shook it off, he opened it for himself
and took a long draught. It took him a moment before he was willing to talk, to
try to explain. "Sometimes when you hear about someone, old memories pop
into your head. They don't mean anything anymore, but you can't help it. The
past's long gone. I don't even know this Lisa, or 'Lee,' Reynolds. The girl I
knew died years ago."

"What do you mean?" Gene's smile faded.

He relaxed against a tall workbench filled with tools and
parts. "She changed, almost
over night
. She left
town and never came back. Before I knew what happened, Lisa was gone and this
Lee character was in her place. Lisa's as good as dead for me. Either way, she
doesn't exist."

"Maybe the old Lisa isn't as dead as you think. See
her and judge for yourself. She played nonchalant, but I noticed the way she
looked at your pictures, and I saw her expression when I mentioned that we were
friends."

"It doesn't matter, Gino."

Gene stood in the workshop doorway, eyeing his friend’s
son,
then
lit himself a cigarette, letting the smoke
billow outdoors. "Are you afraid to see her?"

"Let it go," Tony warned.

"All the years I've known you, I've known there was
something about Lee Reynolds and you--some unfinished business that still
bothered you.
Now's your chance to get whatever it is over
with.
Resolve it, and put it aside once and for all."

Tony put down his drink,
then
rubbed his brow. "It's not worth it."

Gene gave him a long look. "Isn’t it? I remember
listening to you talk to Ben one day after a baseball game. It was a game where
he made about four errors, including dropping a pop fly that let the other team
score
the winning run. He wanted to quit and never
play ball again. You told him he had to go out there and play the next game.
That nothing was
so
bad as running away. Face it, get
it over with and go on. You should take your own advice, Tony."

"This is different, Gene. No
way
"

"Dad!
Where are you?"

Tony looked through the window and saw Ben standing
outside the house calling for him. He went to the door to the workshop.
"I'm in here, Ben."

Ben came running. "Billy's mother gave me and Josh a
ride home. But she got mad and said we were making too much noise Oh, hi Gene.
What're you guys doing?" He walked over to the once upon a time motor.
"Uh oh."

Cantelli
snickered.

Tony wiped some grease off his fingers with a blackened
rag. "I'm fixing it. Don't worry. It'll work."

"But what's Grandpa going to do in the
meantime?"

"You keep bugging me and I'll make you ride around
with Billy's mother some more."

"Oh, no!"

"Actually,"
Cantelli
said, "I've seen Billy's mother. I wouldn't mind a ride with her
myself."

"She's a terrible driver," Ben said.

Gene and Tony glanced at each other. Gene laughed, and
Tony picked up a wrench to begin attacking the motor once again.

"I'm going to go see Grandpa," Ben shouted as he
bounded out the door.

"See you later, Ben," Gene said as Ben waved and
ran off.

"Dinner will be in about an hour," Tony called
after him. The two men watched him a moment, each remembering when they had
been that young and filled with such energy and enthusiasm.

Gene said, "Speaking of women that you need to deal
with..."

"Were we?" Tony cocked a sardonic brow at his
friend. It seemed to him that Gene had been doing all the talking.

"Any word from his mother?"

Tony’s insides churned sickly at the mention of his
ex-wife.
"Same old garbage."
He tried to
sound complacent, but failed.

"And?"

He placed both hands on the motor as if needing it to
steady himself. "She thinks I'm going to feel sorry for her, but she's
wrong. It's taken her eight years to realize she's a mother.
Eight
years and a rich husband who can't give her any more kids.
The hell with her."

"It's tough. In a way, I do feel sorry for her."

"You don't know her." He slammed the palm of his
hand against the motor. "God, I hate what she's doing! Ben deserves to be
more than a substitute for what she can't have."

 "She
still asking
for
joint custody?"

Tony shut his eyes tight, trying to ward off the nausea
that threatened whenever he thought of losing his son. "That's what her
lawyer calls it. But they expect Ben to live with her." He yanked a bolt
free and it flew from the wrench across the workshop. "No one's taking Ben
away from me, Gene.
No one."

Gene nodded, then ground out his cigarette and picked up
another wrench to help.

o0o

Lee drove straight to the city without bothering to shop
for carpets or drapes along the way. Her heart simply wasn’t in it. Once she’d
given in--in the long run, what did three more days matter?--she found that,
like Miriam, she wanted to see the familiar sights.

A few of the spots, like
Coit
Tower and the Palace of Fine Arts, were places Miriam had gone to with her
husband, Patrick Dailey. Patrick had been a black haired, blue-eyed man of
Irish descent. He had flown reconnaissance missions off an aircraft carrier
over the Arabian peninsula. Miriam still kept his picture by her bedside, and
each night, she'd once admitted to Lee, she still whispered goodnight to him,
just as she did when he first went into the service. He’d been shot down and
was listed as missing-in-action. As the years passed, and the fear he wasn’t
ever coming home became a reality, she had become used to being alone. She had
thought of remarrying, but every man she met fell short of the one she’d lost.
Finally, she’d come to accept that Patrick was the only man she would ever
loved
, and the only one she would ever want to love.

They drove through Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf in San
Francisco, ate an early dinner at an Italian restaurant in North Beach,
then
went home exhausted but sated. Lee had almost forgotten
how beautiful the area was. Now, seeing it again through Miriam's
eyes,
made it all the lovelier.

About nine o'clock that evening, Miriam had just finished
making some tea when the doorbell rang. Lee flipped on the porch light,
then
opened the door.

Cheryl stood in front of her. "Hi. I hope I'm not
interrupting anything."

"Not at all.
Come in."

"Actually, I was wondering if you could come out. I
just had a huge fight with Mark. I thought I'd stay away from home for a couple
of hours so he'll appreciate me better when I go back. Right now, I was heading
over to Big Bob's for a hot fudge sundae. I was hoping you could join me.
Nothing makes me feel better after a fight than something sweet from Big
Bob's."

"Oh...well..." Lee thought Cheryl looked
remarkably calm for someone who just had a big fight with her husband. She
wondered if Cheryl fought with him often. Maybe that passed for entertainment
in Miwok?

"Come on, Lisa. Remember how we used to cry on each
other's shoulders? I could use a shoulder right now. I really could."

Cheryl was right. They'd always been there for each other
when they were growing up. Anyway, she had nothing better to do tonight.
"Why don’t you say hi to Miriam while I grab my
purse.
She’s in the family room. I know she’d love to see you again."

Cheryl got them to the restaurant in no time flat. She and
Lee sat in Big Bob's parking lot talking of trivial things. Cheryl rambled from
one object to another, apparently in no hurry to go inside, and Lee was content
to follow her lead, her usual self-restraint standing her in good stead. A jeep
pulled into the lot. "We'd better go in," Cheryl said abruptly.
"No sense having others ahead of us in line."

Lee looked around at the few cars in the lot. What line?
Cheryl's behavior seemed very peculiar. "Sure," she said as they got
out of the car. "By the way, I’m not leaving tomorrow after all. Miriam
convinced me to stay until Monday."

Cheryl’s eyes lit up. "Hey, that makes it even
better!"

"What’s better?" Lee asked, but Cheryl was
walking fast and she had to hurry to catch up.

Just inside the entrance was a large waiting area with
benches, cigarette machines, telephones and rest rooms. Cheryl stopped at the
cigarette machine.

"I didn't know you smoked," Lee said.

"Only when I'm nervous.
Or
upset.
Like now.
The fight with Mark, you know."

"Of course."
Lee
glanced at the tables beyond the cashier as she waited for Cheryl to find the
right change for the machine.

"Oh my, look who's here." Cheryl’s voice rang
out.

Lee spun around.

Tony Santos stood in front of her, his dark brown eyes
intense and questioning as if he were as shocked by the encounter as she. The
air squeezed out of her lungs then seemed to rush through her, stronger than
before, vibrant and alive.

Her gaze passed over him quickly, absorbing everything
that she could. He wore a cream colored mohair pullover, with drop shoulders
and wide, loose sleeves over a yellow oxford shirt. His trousers were brown, as
were his loafers. The boy in sweat shirts and denims was gone, and in his place
was this handsome man, this stranger.

A husband and a father now.

Her gaze lifted to his and held. She couldn’t stop herself
from studying his face. His eyes were still the dark, deep pools that carried a
hint of the Aztec, his butternut skin smooth except for faint
crows
feet at the corners of eyes framed with long, black
eyelashes and arched brows. His nose was high, straight and proud, and a few
strands of gray brushed the temples of straight black hair, neatly trimmed. He
used to be reed thin, which made his elbows and knees
pronounced,
even his feet had seemed too big for him. He’d grown nicely into his body. He
was broader and thicker now, but still, everything about his carriage announced
the sleek, well-honed strength of an athlete.