by Charish Reid
John raised his arm above his head and held it there while he addressed his mothers. “I’m not stewing, I’m just tired.”
Sandra scoffed. “He’s tired.”
As he stood in the middle of the kitchen with one arm poised for a high-five, he prepared himself for a tag team interrogation. The odds were not in his favor. If John were more honest with himself, he couldn’t handle just one of them on his best day. “No one told me that it was Becca’s responsibility to bring cookies to school. I thought that ended when you got to middle school.”
“Becca said she gave you a note from her class,” Margaret said. “Did you lose it?”
He resented his mother’s implication, but knew it came from a place of truth. John did have a habit of losing papers. “I don’t know. I don’t remember the conversation.”
“Really, kiddo. Parenthood is full of permission slips and last minute demands.”
“I’m not a parent,” he reminded them.
“Of course,” Sandra said. “But you’re one for two months. Get with the program.”
“I fail to see where the carved pumpkins fit into this afternoon,” John said, changing the subject. “You said you needed cookies.”
“Because it’s a nice touch, Johnny,” his mother said with an exasperated sigh. “I didn’t show up to your school with the bare minimum, did I?”
John rolled his eyes as he remembered how Margaret had showed up to his own school with Christmas cookies and Santa hats for all of his classmates. It was just as embarrassing then as it was now. She may have been a hit with his friends, but at the tender age of nine, John had his reputation to consider. “Christ,” he said.
“But this isn’t about cookies or pumpkins,” Sandra said. “Something else is bothering you.”
“It’s the good doctor Reese, isn’t it?”
John could always count on the two of them to pounce on his weaknesses and pry them out of him. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Bingo, Maggie,” Sandra said, sprinkling chocolate chips into the batter. “He’s having woman trouble.”
“I thought so,” his mother said with a knowing smile.
“He’s got John’s glare when he’s stewing,” Sandra with a laugh. “Do you remember counting the wrinkles in his forehead?”
Margaret chortled into her fist. “God rest his soul, but that man knew how to pout!”
As old as John was, he could never get used to the two women talking about his late father. Long ago, they’d reconciled easily with the idea of being married to the same man. After all, the divorce had been his mother’s idea. When he went on with his life, Margaret had been relieved. With no animosity on her end, she had welcomed Sandra and Jessi into the fold with an ease that John never understood. He still thought of his father as a rigid unyielding man who barely spoke to him as a child. Hearing his mothers describe his actions as reminiscent of John Sr., irritated him. John sighed and decided now was probably a good time to relent. “Alright, it’s Victoria.”
“We know, kiddo. Catch up,” Sandra said, spooning mounds of batter onto a baking sheet. “Now just tell us the problem so we can dig you out of your hole.”
“What makes you think it’s my fault?”
“I just said you were in a hole, I didn’t say you dug it.”
John finally dropped his hand and sat next to his mother at the kitchen table. “The short version is that she’s afraid of a relationship.”
“I’m well acquainted with that,” Margaret said, perching her chin on her fist. She narrowed her hazel eyes as she peered at her son. “The greatest thing that came from my marriage to your father was you. But we were incompatible from the start. I don’t blame a girl for being a little skittish.”
“Is there anything about me that should make a woman skittish?” John asked, gesturing to himself. Both women looked over at him and paused to think.
“Nothing comes to mind,” Sandra said. “You’re a perfect gentleman, kiddo.”
“But, we don’t know the full story,” Margaret said. “Much as I love to defend my own, I really liked that Victoria. She seemed like a keeper.”
“You’re right, Maggie,” Sandra said, wiping her hands on her apron. “She’s a smart gal and cute as a button.”
“Wasn’t she though?” Margaret asked. “A tad nervous, but just as sweet as can be.”
As far as the women were concerned, John wasn’t even in the room anymore. “That’s all true,” he interrupted. “But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s not interested in me like that. I asked for more and she turned me down.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that,” Margaret scoffed. “You’re a lovely young man. Maybe it was something you said. Maybe the way you said it. Tell us the conversation.”
John tried his best to relay the argument without revealing every scandalous detail. As he spoke, Sandra continued spooning batter on the baking sheet while Margaret nodded occasionally. When he’d finished, he made a useless gesture. “Now how am I the monster in this situation?”
The pregnant pause between the two women made him nervous.
“Well?”
“Do you want this one, Maggie?”
His mother sighed and shook his head. “You take it, Sandy.”
“What is it?”
“These kids think they’re the first at everything,” Sandra said with a chuckle.
“I swear as old as he is, you’d think he could see it himself.”
John pushed down his irritation and held back his growl. “What the hell are you two talking about?”
“And as well-read as he is,” Sandra added. “Jesus, kiddo, have you never been in love? It’s been two weeks and you’re losing your damn mind over a girl. You never considered that you were just falling in love with her?”
John was dumbstruck.
Sandra put the first two pans of cookies in the oven and set the timer before starting on the next pan. “Surely someone told you that some opposites attract and stay attracted,” she continued. “This Victoria needs someone like you to undo her tight little rubber band ball and you need someone like Victoria to keep you on the ground. This combination is hardly new, is it Maggie? He’s looking at me like I’m speaking French.”
His mother eyed him suspiciously. “I think he’s coming to the realization, Sandy. Let him get there.”
John finally opened his mouth. “I don’t...”
“Girl, he’s taking too long,” Sandra said. “You should have just told her how you felt in the office. Had you said three simple words, she probably would have still ran away, but she’d have a good long think about those words. A clear firm hand isn’t always a bad thing, kiddo.”
“Are you getting it?” his mother asked.
He stared at them in disbelief. He didn’t love Victoria...did he? “No, you’ve got it wrong. We’re so opposite, it’s a laughable cliché,” John said. “I might be in lust, but I don’t think we’re in love. I’ve only just met her and we’re supposed to be professional and...” He trailed off because the excuses were piling up and they didn’t look good. The women weren’t buying it.
“He’s almost there,” his mother said.
“And he doesn’t want to get hurt.”
“Will you two stop talking like I’m not sitting here?”
Sandra shrugged. “Alright then, now what are you going to do?”
John didn’t know what to do. “I can’t do anything about it until she comes back from her trip to Chicago.”
“Showy gestures are lovely,” Margaret suggested. “Women like something with flourish.”
“Ugh, this isn’t some movie, Maggie,” Sandra said with a frown. “She’s a professional woman who apparently doesn’t care for flourish.”
“And that’s why my husband worked better for you.”
Sandra�
�s brow shot up. The two women exchanged knowing looks before dissolving into giggles. “I swear, Maggie...”
“Oh god, you two are the worst,” John muttered.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Only when John left his mothers to pick up Becca, did he really have time to think about his predicament. Love? That required being with her in a long-term relationship, dating, learning everything he could about Victoria. All he knew was that she was a military brat with a deadly jab. And that when she was a child, she yearned for stability so badly, she dreamt of being a farmer. The crop wasn’t important. He knew that she liked reading romance novels as much as she enjoyed living them with John. He knew that she was a hardworking woman who wanted to accomplish all her goals all the time. God, he knew that any day he spent not seeing her, not hearing her voice, felt as if he was being raked over the coals of ache and want.
John struggled to remember a time he’d felt this distracted and listless. He had woken that morning to take Becca to school and his mind had been somewhere else. Only when they got to the school parking lot, did he remember she was without lunch. His niece wasn’t upset when he fished a twenty from his wallet for her. She kissed him on the cheek and skipped off. When John got to the library, he’d read books to the afternoon crowd of children, but his heart wasn’t in it. The performance was dull to say the least. And now he had a cut hand to remind him what happened when he daydreamed about the woman who had quietly backed out of his life.
When he pulled up to the pickup curb, he waited for Becca and her gaggle of girlfriends to be released from their after-school detention. Seven girls were escorted from the building, all of them laughing and chattering about nonsense to be sure. John counted them again. Seven? He was certain that the feminist collective was only four. Becca walked tall with a confident grin as the girls huddled around her, gesticulating wildly and screeching. It dawned on him that one of those girls was probably Becca’s nemesis, Megan or whatever. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said with a low whistle.
As they approached his truck, she waved at him. He could overhear her saying in a nonchalant voice, “That’s my uncle Johnny, he’s a librarian.”
The gaggle of girls glanced over at him and giggled. The three he recognized from the slumber party called out in unison, “Hi, Mr. Donovan.”
He gave a half salute. “Ladies.”
His niece continued to chat with her small cult following until John rolled his eyes and laid on the horn. “Time to go, Becca,” he called.
“Hold on!”
“Call us tonight? I want to hear everything. Again.”
“Me too! I just can’t believe he would even.”
“I will, we have to Skype earlier though,” Becca said with a grin.
“Becca!”
“I’m coming!”
More giggles and a round of goodbyes later, Becca flung open the door and climbed into the cab. “I had The. Best. Day. Ever,” she screeched.
John waited for the rest of the girls to cross in front of the truck. “Who are all of those girls?”
“Jenny, Megan, Bridgette, Devon, McKenna, and Kelly,” she recited as if it were common knowledge.
John looked down at her. “Didn’t you get into a fight with them?”
“We’re friends now,” Becca said. “Catch up, please.”
He frowned. “When did this happen?”
His niece returned his frown with her own. “Like, after the first day of after-school detention. We all had some group therapy or something and we learned a lot. Jenny was being mean to me because her parents just decided to get a divorce and she didn’t know how to handle it. They apologized and we accepted.”
Really? That simple? “And this is why you’re having the best day ever?”
Becca scoffed. “No, that was ages ago. I’m excited because of Connor.”
“Who’s Connor?” John asked as he started the engine.
“The boy in fifth period P.E. He’s so cute and amazing.”
John swallowed his shock. There were a few ways to play this out and if he shot his mouth off too quickly, Becca would clam up. The first night they’d worked in the library, Victoria had told him to listen to his niece and she might continue to share. Instead of demanding the boy’s address so John could drive there and wring his neck, he tried something else. “So what was so exciting about fifth period P.E. with Connor?” He tried to make his voice light as he gripped the steering wheel.
“Omigod, it was incredible,” she crowed. “I was showing McKenna the new kicks I learned at the gym and Connor just walked over and asked me if I wanted to sit with him at lunch tomorrow.”
That’s it? The kid hardly sounded like Romeo. A relief, but cafeteria lunch didn’t sound like the greatest overture. “Yeah?”
“And then he said he liked the way I kicked and wanted me to show him how to do it. He’s not really good at it, but he was trying it anyway.”
“Okay...”
“I haven’t even gotten to the best part. We started the square dancing unit in P.E.”
John was lost. “They’re still square dancing in gym class?”
“Connor asked to be my partner! He turned like, three shades of red and asked if I wanted to dance with him. He’s terrible at that too, so I didn’t feel like a klutz. We held hands and skipped and do-si-doed! It was magical...”
John glanced down at her to see if she was on the verge of swooning. “Huh, well that sounds okay, I guess.”
“Okay? It was more than okay,” Becca said. “It was—”
“—magical. Right.”
“And now we’re going to have lunch tomorrow.”
“And that’s what the girl gang wants to talk about tonight?”
“I have to show them the outfits I might wear tomorrow. I’m thinking about my purple jeans and the green sweater, but I know that Kelly is going to suggest the pink sweater. I think green pops more. Do you think I should keep my hair like this?” she asked patting her afro-puffs.
John shrugged. “Sure, your hair always looks cute.”
“Man, I wish I had braids like Victoria. Do you think I could get them?”
He crossed the intersection before answering. “That’s one of those ‘Ask Mom’ questions.”
“Victoria’s friend, Regina, did hers.”
“I don’t think that’s happening any time too soon,” John said, pausing at a stop sign.
“You could ask Victoria,” Becca pressed. “When are you seeing her again?”
He did his best to control his breathing by twisting his hands against the steering wheel. He winced at the sharp pain in his injured hand. “Victoria and I are finished working together.”
“But she’s your girlfriend,” his niece said. “I mean...” She screwed up her face as if she too were speaking French to him.
John was getting just a little tired of the women in his family treating him like a small boy. “She’s not my girlfriend.”
“You’re in a bad mood,” she said, with a suspicious expression that mirrored her mother’s. “Did you guys break up?”
He couldn’t wait to drop this child off at her grandmother’s house. “What made you think that she was my girlfriend in the first place?”
Becca laughed, her large brown eyes twinkling with mischief. “That’s easy,” she said with a broad grin. “Because you looked like Connor when you talked to her.”
“Excuse me?”
“When we saw her at the dress shop, you were all, ‘Uh, hello, uh Dr. Reese,’ and you turned three shades of red.”
John didn’t have anything clever to add to this conversation. His twelve-year-old niece had found him out. She had no doubt caught some of the Donovan women gossip as well. The four of them were becoming more and more insufferable as he traversed this...whatever the hell it was, with Victoria. He certainly di
dn’t need a child to make declarations on something she didn’t understand. “What did your grandmother tell you about grown folks’ business?”
Becca crossed her skinny arms over her chest and stuck out her little pointed chin in defiance. “It’s for grown folks.”
“That’s right. Get back to me when you’re thirty and we’ll talk. For now, just worry about this Connor boy and lunchtime chicken nuggets.”
She went back to swooning in no time. “He’s so cute, Uncle Johnny. And so brave too. Boys don’t just walk up to girls and say they want to square dance with them, but Connor did. He’s really shy, but he took a chance.”
As John slowed down on Sandra’s street, he peered down at his niece. She wore a dreamy smile on her face that accurately described “puppy love.” She was smitten beyond repair. He hoped that this Connor was worth a damn because he couldn’t very well punch a child. He also heard her words. Connor was brave. Connor square dances. Conner took a chance.
“Are you going to the gym?” Becca asked as she gathered her backpack.
“For a little while,” he said. “I’ll come back by and get you when I’m done.” He stopped outside of Sandra’s house where his mother’s yellow Volkswagen was still parked. “Your grandmas are still making your cookies.”
“Oh good.” She was about to jump out of the truck and run up the driveway, but paused to look at him. “Uncle Johnny?”
“Hmm?”
Becca pursed her lips as she examined him. “I could use a hug...how about you?”
John didn’t think that trick could be employed on him, but he welcomed it immediately. “Yeah sure,” he said, cracking a smile in spite of himself. “I could use one.”
Becca caught him across the midsection with her arms and squeezed him tight. With her face pressed against his chest, she murmured, “Be brave.”
John hugged her back, placing a quick kiss on her crown. “I’ll try that.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Just ten minutes.
It had only taken ten minutes for Victoria to start eyeing the front door as a means of escape. After setting down her weekend bag and hugging her parents, she was still in the foyer of their Lake View home, getting a tongue lashing from Katherine.
