The Year Everything Changed (20 page)

“You do?” She asked in such a way that I knew it excited her to have that kind of power. “Want me to do it again now?”

I didn’t wait for her. I put everything I was feeling into the kiss I gave her, hitting her square on the mouth. I didn’t realize until I let her go what a huge mistake I’d made. I’d scared her. Her eyes opened wide, the white showing all the way around the blue. She started crying, this time for real.

It was a lesson I never forgot.

Chapter Thirty-three
Rachel

Rachel slid the frozen lasagna into the oven. She was making an actual sit-down meal for the kids tonight, one that included green beans, fruit salad, and John’s favorite—garlic bread covered in Parmesan cheese. For fun she’d picked up a CD of an Italian opera she’d found in the discount bin at the store where she’d gone to buy candles.

This was going to work.
It was time to make the kids realize that being with her on the weekends wasn’t a temporary thing but the way it was going to be from now on. And the three of them weren’t just going to make the best of it, they were going to thrive.

She’d been moving toward this decision for the past two weeks, ever since listening to the first two tapes. Hearing Jessie talk about his life, how he’d pulled as much energy from his defeats as his victories, made her realize she’d been spending her days with Cassidy and John as if there were a bank where she could withdraw more. This time with them was too valuable to spend casually.

The doorbell rang. They were early. She smiled in anticipation. Not for an instant did she doubt that she would open the door to find Cassidy and John standing there. No one else, well, no one except Ginger, had visited her apartment.

But it was Jeff, and he was alone, a bouquet of daisies in one hand, a drugstore box of chocolates in the other. He’d lost weight since their separation and looked as cut and fit as he had in his twenties. His hair was a week or two past needing a trim and long in back the way she liked it. Dressed in jeans and a white polo shirt that hugged his chest and arms as if it had been tailored, he looked disarmingly sexy. She leaned against the door frame and crossed her arms. “Where are the kids?”

“Home. With a babysitter.”

“Why?”

“We’ve tried picking up the pieces and going on, and it’s not working. I figured it was time we tried starting over.” He handed her the flowers. “This was all I could afford the first time I took you out. They’re still my favorite.”

“Then why do you always buy me orchids?” He sent her flowers for everything, once just to celebrate Tuesday, a day of the week he insisted was normally neglected. She’d come to expect his little surprises and then, sadly, to take them for granted.

He shrugged. “Our lives changed. I thought you weren’t a daisy kind of girl anymore. My mistake, not yours.”

He’d been withdrawn since the night they made love, dropping the kids off and picking them up with a minimum of communication, letting her believe he’d finally given up on them. She’d gained an odd kind of strength in his aloofness and was afraid of being pulled back again. “I remember that night,” she said softly. She took the flowers from his outstretched hand and held them to her chest. “You sold your autographed copy of the Doors’
Waiting for the Sun
album to get the money to take me out.”

“The best investment I ever made.” He held out the candy and grinned. “Sorry—I couldn’t remember what kind I bought back then. I just remember it was cheap, and this was the cheapest I could find.”

“It was chocolate-covered cherries. Pretty provocative for a first date. My roommates thought it was hysterical.”

“You never told me.”

“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

The statement hung between them like a broken promise. “Can I come in?” When she hesitated he added, “While you get ready.”

“For what?”

“Our date.”

She glanced at her silk shell and linen slacks. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” She hadn’t meant it to sound like an acceptance, but did nothing to correct the impression.

“You’re overdressed. This is a jeans and T-shirt kind of date.”

She could still say no, could still save herself from getting back on the roller coaster. “I don’t know if this is a good idea, Jeff. We’re getting along better than we have in months the way things are. The kids are—”

“This isn’t about the kids. It’s about you and me. I don’t want to look back ten years from now and wonder if we should have tried harder. I want to know we did everything we could before we gave up.”

“And what about what I want?”

He took a deep breath. “You can’t have what you really want, Rachel. I can’t make what I did go away. Nothing can. Whether it’s with or without me, for your own sanity, you’ve got to find a way to get past it.”

“I can’t. I’ve tried.”

“That’s bullshit. You’re the strongest woman I know. Look at what you went through growing up. Look who you had as a role model for a mother and then look at the incredible mother you became. Look at where you are at work, the promotions you’ve earned, the money you make. How many women coming from your background could have pulled off any of that?”

She smiled despite herself. “You get so passionate when you’re in your cheerleading mode.”

“Well? Are we on for tonight?”

Why was she fighting something she wanted? “Give me a couple of minutes.” She started to leave, then turned back. “You might as well come in—and make yourself useful. I put a lasagna in the oven that will need something done with it.”

He moved past her, lightly tossing the candy on the table by the front door. She caught a whiff of something that tweaked a memory but that she couldn’t identify. “What is that you’re wearing?”

“Old Spice.”

She laughed. “I didn’t know they made that anymore. You really did go all out.”

“Wait till you see where I’m taking you for dinner.”

The neon light over the converted boxcar said
Tiny’s Elegant
urger
ar
. When Rachel hesitated going in, Jeff assured her he’d eaten there twice in the past couple of weeks and had survived unscathed both times. After surreptitiously checking out the food on the tables they passed on their way to the counter, Rachel gamely ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and a root beer milk shake. To her embarrassment, she finished it all.

“You realize what this indulgence in gluttony means, don’t you?” She tilted her glass to gather the last drops of milk shake. “I’m going to be eating salads for a week.”

“Ah, but was it worth it?”

“Ask me next Wednesday.”

Jeff reached across the table to wipe a trace of salt from the corner of her mouth. “Hey,” she protested. “I was saving that.”

He caught her hand in his and twined their fingers together. “When did we get caught up in believing money mattered more than time?”

“Somewhere between not having any and thinking we were immune to its effects?” Because she liked having her hand in his, liked pretending it belonged there, she untangled her fingers from his and put her hand on her lap, out of his reach. “I don’t know. It just kind of happened.”

He pretended not to notice her withdrawal. “Ready?”

“Date’s over?” She didn’t care that she was giving him mixed signals. She wasn’t ready to go home.

“Not yet.”

They drove with the windows down, the remnants of the ninety-degree day rushing into the car with sensuous summer abandon. It was an evening of untucked shirts and unbuttoned collars, of deep, contented sighs and hair lifted languidly off the neck.

Jeff wandered through the Oakland hills, finally stopping at a wide spot in the road with a turnout that looked across the bay to San Francisco. The sun was still a half-hour from setting, the sky an explosion of pink and orange, the lights on the Bay Bridge and in the city dim promises of the spectacular land-bound milky way they would become in an hour.

“It seems I never stop to just look at anything anymore,” Rachel said, transfixed by the beauty of something she saw every day but failed to notice.

“Me either,” Jeff admitted. “If the kids don’t point it out, I don’t see it.”

She unbuckled her seat belt and turned to face him determined to be more than a passive participant in the evening. “So, tell me what’s been happening with you lately.”

“Not much. I was offered a job last week,” he said, making it sound casual. “One of the firms I’ve been doing consulting work for had something open up that they thought would be a perfect fit. They’re being pretty persistent. I assume it’s because they’ve gotten it in their heads I’m holding out for them to sweeten the deal more than they already have.”

The news stunned her. It wasn’t even within shouting distance of anything she’d expected. “If it’s something you want, I’m sure we could work things out.” She didn’t mean it. She counted on him being there for Cassidy and John.
They
counted on him.

“The job is in Michigan, Rachel.”

“Oh.” Her mind raced with the ramifications of his taking a job half a continent away. She had no right to ask him to refuse. Their agreement was that he would stay home with the kids until they were in school, use his consulting work to maintain his contacts, and then rejoin the workforce. He was already a year behind schedule. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m not going to take it.”

Her heart started beating again. “Are you sure it’s what you really want to do?”

“You know what I want, Rachel. There isn’t a job anywhere at any money that would change that.”

For an instant there was an opening to the world she used to know, a place where she had loved Jeff with irreproachable trust. She was filled with an ache to stay there. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. I only told you because I have a feeling they might contact you. I wanted you to be prepared.”

“You know that half of the money I’m getting from Jessie is yours.”

“What brought that up?”

“It’s just that in case you think we need the money.”

“We’ve never
needed
money, Rachel, we wanted it.”

“It doesn’t matter. Now we have it. Or we will in five months.”

“I know we’ve had this discussion before, but it’s worth saying again—
you don’t have to take it
.”

“Face it, Jeff. As much as you want to believe I could walk away from ten million dollars, I can’t. It sounds noble as hell in theory, but there’s no way I want to spend the rest of my life looking back wondering if I made a mistake. What if something happened to one of the kids and we couldn’t get the help they needed because I made this grand gesture?”

“I guess he knew what he was doing.”

“If you’re saying Jessie knew his daughters could be bought, then you’re right. We all showed up at Jessie’s house, even Elizabeth.”

“Why ‘even’ Elizabeth?”

“She was the one who walked out of the first meeting at the lawyer’s office when she discovered she had sisters.” Rachel had told Jeff some of the details at one of Cassidy’s soccer games, using it as an excuse to fill an awkward silence. Tonight she told him because she wanted to. “Elizabeth and Christina aren’t like me and Ginger. They seem conflicted about their feelings for Jessie—kind of a love/hate thing. But then they’re the ones who actually knew him. Ginger’s already forgiven him. Why wouldn’t she? She didn’t know he existed until a couple of months ago, and he never did her any real harm.”

“And you?”

“All these years I’ve had a picture in my mind of who he is and he’s not anything like I expected. At least not on the tape.”

“He’s putting on a show. Of course he’s going to make himself sound good.”

“But that’s just it, he’s not. At least not yet.” She leaned her head against the seat. “He talks about the most remarkable things in this completely off-hand, self-effacing way. I actually think I might have liked him if I didn’t know who he was and what he did to my mother.”

“Has he talked about her?”

“Not yet. At the rate he’s going it will probably be another couple of months before he gets to me and Ginger.”

“Do you think he’ll tell the truth?”

“His version of it.” And it scared her because she was afraid she would believe him. He was going to take away the fantasy that with him her mother had been different, that she hadn’t used him the way she’d used all the other men in her life. Growing up, Rachel’s hatred for her unknown father had been a crutch, an excuse for what her mother became. He was the target for her hurt and humiliation and disappointment, an enemy who allowed her to love and protect her flawed mother with the fierce tenacity of a neglected child.

“The kids like Ginger,” Jeff said.

“I do, too.”

“And the other two—Elizabeth and Christina?”

“They haven’t met them.”

“I meant you. How do you feel about them?”

“I don’t know. Christina’s smart and funny, but she’s got a lot of baggage. Some guy—I’m assuming it was her boyfriend—broke her jaw a couple of months ago. She wanted us to think it happened some other way, but I could tell it was personal.”

“Is she still with him?”

“I don’t think so. At least there isn’t anyone living with her at Jessie’s house. I’m hoping eventually she’ll get comfortable enough with the rest of us to tell us what really happened. I think we could help her.”

“I’ll be damned,” Jeff said softly. “Did you hear what you just said?”

She went back over it in her mind. “It’s not what you think.”

“They’re family, Rachel.”

“So is my mother’s brother, but you don’t see me claiming him.”

“What about Ginger?”

“She’s different. We have a lot in common, and we look at things alike.” She gave Jeff an acknowledging smile. “Okay, so I’ll add her to the list.”

He glanced at his watch. “Time to go. I promised the sitter I’d be back in time for her to meet her boyfriend.” He put his seat belt on and started the car. “You want to pick up the kids tonight or have me bring them over in the morning?”

She’d been worried she was going to have to be the one to end the evening and to insist that things went no further. Now that it had happened, she was disappointed, not ready to end what had been the best hours between them since the separation.

They were halfway home when Rachel asked, “Have you heard from her?”

Jeff let out a heavy sigh. “Why would you do that? We managed to capture a little of our old life tonight, Rachel. Why try to destroy it?”

“Have you?”

“How many times do I have to tell you it was over a long time ago before you believe me?” His voice rose in frustration. “I’ll give you the phone bills. You can see for yourself—nothing to Texas.” He sent her an angry glare. “Is that what you want?”