The Fixer Upper (30 page)

“She just dumped you for no reason?”

“She dumped me because she thought I was bribing her to get you into Hudson.” Ned let out a tired breath. He probably shouldn’t have told Eric, but the kid had goaded him. If he was old enough to act like an adolescent, then maybe he was old enough to hear the truth.

Eric laughed. “
Bribing
her? What were you bribing her with?”

Sex.
No, Eric was not old enough to hear that truth. “The fireplace,” Ned said.

“She thought you were fixing her fireplace in exchange for getting me into Hudson?”

“Something like that, yeah.” Ned tried for indignation, but the words emerged sounding forlorn.

“Why would she think that?”

“Because other parents try to bribe her all the time. They send her gifts and letters and chocolate.”

“Hey, for chocolate, I’d probably let a few kids into Hudson,” Eric said. Ned glanced sharply at him and realized from his grin that he was joking. “Well, if that’s what people do, and there you were, fixing her fireplace free while I’m trying to get into the Hudson School…Maybe you can’t really blame her for thinking you were bribing her.”

“Of course I can blame her,” Ned snapped. This time Eric was the one to stare at him. He shrank beneath his son’s critical gaze. Damn, but he’d like a beer. Maybe five beers. Maybe a whole keg, followed by a few glasses of that fine Scotch Libby’s ex-husband had given him.

Ned stuffed some spaghetti into his mouth. Eric, incredibly, had stopped eating and simply regarded him across the table.

“What?” Ned asked. “You believe I can’t blame her?”

“Okay, there’s this kid in my class, Simon, right?”

Ned nodded, encouraging Eric to continue.

“So last month he wound up getting sent to the principal’s office three times for being rude to Ms. Engelhart. So yesterday we’re in the art room, and Ms. Engelhart hadn’t come in yet, and Kyle Molino writes a bad word on the blackboard.”

“What bad word?”

“Just a bad word, okay?”

“What bad word?” Ned demanded.

“Okay,
bitch
. So the teacher comes in and sees the word there, and she immediately assumes Simon did it. He didn’t, but I mean, can you blame her? He’s mouthed off to her so many times.”

Ned considered this example of injustice. “Are you saying the art teacher was right to accuse Simon?”

“No. What I’m saying is, you can’t blame her.”

God. Eric had gone past adolescence to full maturity. How else to explain such wisdom? No ten-year-old should be so smart.

Ned set down his iced tea and stopped wishing it were beer. He shoved his plate away and checked his watch. “What time does the concert begin?” he asked.

Reva was spectacular. Libby would have believed that even if she weren’t Reva’s mother, but—God, she was amazing. The outfit Bonnie had bought her, a black satin pant suit that resembled a tuxedo as conceived by Picasso, with asymmetrical lines and buttons along one side and a deep-cut front that exposed the lacy edge of the white camisole Reva wore underneath the jacket, was so sleek and elegant that she looked like a high-fashion model in it—a short model, although her dress sandals added two inches to her height. The chic ensemble made her stand taller, too. She held her shoulders back and her chin up, and when she stepped forward and belted out “See me, feel me, touch me, heal me” in her crystalline voice, Harry, who was sitting next to Libby, with Bonnie on his other side and a big bouquet of roses for Reva resting in his lap, socked Libby in the arm and mouthed,
Wow!

Wow. That about summed it up.

For the first time in weeks, Libby forgot herself. She forgot her anger about misjudging Ned and her grief about no longer having him in her life. She forgot the stress and exhaustion of her job, which had kicked into high gear as she and her committee plowed through the thousands of applications the school had received. Each application had to be read by the full committee. Then they had to discuss each applicant. Whoever interviewed the child had to report on the interview. They had to weigh the child’s strengths and weaknesses, evaluate what the child would bring to Hudson
and consider what Hudson could give to the child. More times than not, they had to make decisions they knew would disappoint families.

But tonight, as her daughter stood at the center of the stage in the lower school auditorium and sang her heart out, all Libby could do was kvell.

The choral arrangement of
Tommy
was the final performance on the program. Libby had already sat stoically through the orchestra’s mauling of excerpts from Handel’s
Water Music
and the school band’s
Sousa Suite
, played at a tempo suitable for a funeral procession. Muriel Froiken had done a superb job with the chorus, though—and of course Reva had done the most superb job of all.

Tears of joy and pride blurred Libby’s vision as Reva took her bow to enthusiastic applause. People continued clapping even after the lights came up. Libby dug a tissue from her purse and dabbed her eyes.

Bonnie leaned across Harry’s lap. “That was really something,” she said. Her hollow cheeks were rouged and her lips were slicked with a maroon lipstick. “How about her outfit? Gorgeous, huh?”

Gilda reached across Libby’s seat back to hug her. She and Irwin, Vivienne and Leonard had all come to the concert, as well, and if Libby was a touch teary, Gilda was bawling. “Oy, my
bubbela
is such a princess! When did she become so talented?’

“She was always talented,” Harry huffed.

Gilda glared at her son and resumed sobbing on Libby’s shoulder, while Irwin fingered his tweed cap and beamed, his eyes suspiciously damp. Vivienne leaned toward Libby and whispered, “She’s a mensch, your daughter. Can a girl be a mensch?” Next to her, Leonard looked mildly bored. But at least he’d attended the concert with her. Their relationship seemed to be improving.

With a final blubber, Gilda released Libby, and she turned to view the stage. The chorus had filed off. They’d be congregating in the hall outside the auditorium, where audience members could meet up with them. “Let’s go find her,” Libby said, edging along the row of seats to the aisle.

They trouped en masse out of the theater, working their way through the sluggish, chattering crowds to reach the hall. Squealing young voices ricocheted off the walls as sopranos and altos embraced one another and the few boys—who were mostly altos but were called tenors for their egos—scuffled manfully. All the singers wore black and white, but none was dressed as stylishly as Reva, whom Libby spotted near the end of the corridor, talking to a lanky boy with floppy black hair.

“I know that kid,” Harry muttered. “He was with Reva the day she showed up with all her friends at my apartment.”

Libby tried not to stare, but she couldn’t help herself. The way the two of them talked—the boy’s arm propped against the wall, his posture casually slouching and his head bent to Reva, who tilted hers up and smiled and—Libby wasn’t sure, but it looked as if she’d applied mascara to her eyelashes, which she batted at him…Oy vey. Reva was flirting with that boy. The boy she’d been with the afternoon she’d vanished and Libby had aged ten years.

“Come on,” Libby said, grabbing Harry’s elbow. “Give her the flowers.” They marched down the hall, passing dozens of giggling, babbling students and doting parents and one solemn young band member toting a tuba that was nearly twice his size.

Reva turned as they approached, and smiled. “Hi! How was I?”

“You were fabulous.” Ignoring the boy, Libby swooped down on Reva and gave her a crushing hug. “Unbelievable.
I am so proud of you! Your father brought you some flowers,” she said, releasing Reva so she could accept a hug from Harry.

“Oh, cool! Thanks, Dad! These are beautiful!” She dipped her head to sniff the roses, and her eyes glowed. Definitely some mascara on her lashes, Libby noted—but she supposed that on such a night, mascara wasn’t out of line. “Mom, Dad, this is Luke Rodelle. He’s a friend of mine. Luke, this is my mom and dad. They aren’t married to each other,” she added.

Luke straightened up and dutifully shook Libby’s hand, then Harry’s. ‘We’ve met,” Harry said, his voice carrying a slight threat.

“Right. Yeah.” Luke smiled sheepishly. “Well, um, Reva, if you’ve got to be with your folks…”

“Why don’t you just say a quick hello to the family,” Libby suggested. “Grandma and Grandpa are here, and Aunt Viv and Leonard and Bonnie. Then you can talk with Luke some more.”

Harry seemed less than pleased by the prospect of Reva spending more time with Luke, but he nodded to the boy and ushered Reva over to her waiting relatives, all of whom—with the exception of Leonard—had to hug her, as well. Bonnie appraised Reva’s outfit—“All that hugging, it’s going to get wrinkled”—and hugged her more carefully than Gilda and Irwin had.

“Let me say goodbye to Luke,” Reva said once she’d been thoroughly hugged. She tugged her mother’s wrist, and Libby took a few steps away from the Kimmelman mob. “Mom,” she whispered, “he asked me to go to the dance with him. Is it okay if I say yes?”

“Do you like him?” Libby whispered back, allowing herself a glimpse of the young swain waiting at the end of the hall.

“Well, I mean, he’s a guy. But yeah, I guess.”

“Then if you want to say yes, by all means, say yes.”

“Okay.” Reva appeared luminous, more beautiful than the flowers in her bouquet. She took a step toward Luke, then turned back. “If you see Eric here, say hi for me, okay?”

Eric? Eric Donovan? Why would he be here? Libby couldn’t ask Reva, because she was already hurrying back to Luke.

Libby spun around—and discovered Eric and his father chatting with Harry. Her stomach lurched upward, forcing her heart against her ribs. Emotional heartburn spread through her chest.

Ned looked…weary. Wary. And more handsome than she’d remembered. He wore jeans and a battered leather jacket. His hair was in need of a trim and his smile was rimmed with sadness as he talked to Harry. She moved toward them and he noticed her. His smile faded altogether.

“We wanted to hear Reva’s solo,” Eric announced, clearly far more chipper than his father. “She was great!”

“She’s just down the hall if you want to say hello,” Libby told him. She didn’t think Reva would mind if Eric interrupted her tête-à-tête with Luke.

Lifting her eyes, she found Ned still gazing at her, still unbearably handsome, still not smiling. “Can we talk?” he asked.

Not with her ex-husband and all her ex-in-laws hovering around. “Excuse us, please,” she said in a low, taut voice as she moved away from her curious relatives. Ned followed her down the hall and around the corner to a less-crowded corridor. The walls were festooned with artwork reflecting Hudson’s revisionist view of history: “Christopher Columbus Was Not The First European To Visit The New World,” proclaimed a banner above several drawings of Columbus’s three ships. Another drawing was entitled “Leif Erickson
Day” and depicted a Viking ship that appeared oddly similar to the Columbus ships.

“Libby,” Ned said. He stood so close to her she could feel his breath against her face. The slightest movement and she’d be in his arms. The slightest shift and her mouth would meet his.

But he’d used her. Like so many other eager parents, he’d plied her with gifts—the gifts of his time, his skill, his lovemaking…. She felt her cheeks warming with a blush at that thought.

“I love your fireplace,” he said.

“My fireplace.” She inched back so she could see him better.

He seemed perfectly serious. “I know you thought I renovated your fireplace to get Eric into Hudson. That’s the irony. I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me.”

“For you?”

“The project I’m working on now—the woman’s demanding Greek columns in her bathroom. She’s a head case, but she’s paying the firm a lot of money so we’re going to give her as many damn Greek columns as she wants. When I saw your fireplace, I thought, now this is something I’d like to work on. This is old. It’s real.”

“You wanted to make it all that it could be,” she recalled.

“Yeah. It was very nice of you to let me, but I was doing it for my own satisfaction. Not to earn points with you.” He peered down at her, his eyes bright and earnest. “I hope you can believe that, because it’s the truth.”

She remembered his enthusiasm for the project, the satisfaction he took in the work. She remembered his calling her repeatedly to join him inside the fireplace, to admire his efforts. She remembered the nooner they’d indulged in on the floor in front of that lovely green marble mantel.

“You misjudged me,” he continued, his voice low and
hypnotic. “And I blamed you for that, but I shouldn’t have. Everyone in the world—or at least every parent in the city—is trying to earn points with you. How could you assume anything different about me? Especially when you knew how much I wanted Eric to get into Hudson.”

“He’s in,” she let slip, then pressed her fingers to her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“He’s in?”

“We reviewed his application two days ago. I discussed his interview and my impressions of him, and I told them that when I interviewed him, you and I were just—well, we weren’t anything. I told them that we’d later become involved and that therefore I couldn’t vote on his application. But the interview report had been objective, and I urged them to use it in evaluating him. Then I left the room.”

Ned lifted his hands to her shoulders and caressed them. “That must have been hard for you.”

“Leaving the room wasn’t so hard,” she admitted. “Not being able to vote on Eric was hard.”

“And telling a roomful of colleagues that you were involved with a prospective student’s father?”

The hardest thing about that had been acknowledging that she and Ned were no longer involved. She’d lost the chance to help Eric get into Hudson, and she’d lost the man who’d lost her the chance.

“Are we involved?” he asked.

“Given the past few weeks, I would guess no.”

“Can we change that?”

She heard a plea in his voice, an undertone of desperation. Was he as wretched as she was about their lack of involvement?