A Wish Upon a Star

by Jeannie Levig

  Chapter Eleven

  Erica marveled at how delicious and fun dinner was. Siena hadn’t wanted to leave her new jungle, so they’d eaten mouth-watering spaghetti, a beautiful salad, yummy garlic bread, and Wonder Woman ice cream at a folding table in the living room. Was Leslie truly a fabulous cook, or was it simply so wonderful to have someone else make dinner on a Friday following a hectic week? Or maybe it was eating in the middle of The Jungle Book that made it feel so special.

  Siena was back to her usual chatty self—with the added delight she tended to express around Leslie—and Erica was relieved. She hoped things were back to normal. Something still wasn’t quite right with Leslie, though. Erica could sense it in the occasional furtive glance Leslie shot her way.

  Maybe she’d been right. It was possible Leslie’s withdrawal could have something to do with Erica as well, even though her explanation to Siena hadn’t included that. Leslie had extended the dinner invitation to her, too, but that might have been only to keep things from being awkward. That was okay. If Leslie had an issue with her, she didn’t mind stepping back. She trusted Leslie with Siena. It would be fine for the two of them to be friends without much involvement from her. In the short term, it might actually be better. That would give Erica a chance to get over her attraction to Leslie.

  Siena scooped a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. “How do they make the golden lasso part?” she asked, staring into her bowl.

  “The gold chunks are caramel chips, and the lasso is swirls of graham cracker,” Leslie said, studying her own dessert. “I think that’s what was on the carton.”

  Siena looked thoughtful. “That’s a really good way to make a golden lasso. I wonder whose idea it was.”

  Leslie smiled. “I don’t know, but it was someone very smart.”

  Siena tilted her head and looked at Leslie. “My mom said that you think I’m smart.”

  “I do,” Leslie said. “And you are. You understood everything I told you about Buddha, and you told me things I needed to know to help you and your mom when she was sick. And you helped me figure out the right way to put my new sheets on my bed.”

  Siena grinned.

  Erica suspected Leslie could have managed getting her sheets on without help, but she appreciated Leslie’s way of pumping Siena up.

  “And my mom said you think I’m amazing,” Siena went on.

  “You are.” Leslie rested her arm on the table and leaned forward. “The way you made sure those delivery people got all my furniture in the right rooms…that was amazing.”

  Siena sat up taller in her chair. Then she squinted quizzically at Leslie. “What’s enchanting?”

  “Enchanting?” Leslie asked. She glanced at Erica and sent her the tiniest of smiles, obviously remembering their conversation that first weekend they’d all met.

  Did Leslie have any idea how at ease she’d made Erica about Siena meeting someone new with just that one little teasing sentence?

  “Uh-huh,” Siena said. “My mom said to ask you what it means, because you think I am.”

  “I see,” Leslie said, returning her full attention to Siena. “Enchanting means there’s something special inside you that wins people over and makes them want to be around you.”

  “Something? Like magic?” Siena asked, her eyes twinkling.

  “Yeah,” Leslie said with some consideration. “Kind of like magic.”

  Siena turned to Erica, her whole being smiling. “Mommy, I’m magic.”

  Erica laughed, the sound bubbling up from the swell of pure pleasure. “Yes, you are, sweetie.” She couldn’t help a quick look at Leslie. And so are you.

  As they all pitched in to do the dishes, Erica let most of the interaction be between Leslie and Siena. She enjoyed the game of Yahtzee they all played, listening as Siena told Leslie about her first few days of school. She’d even learned a little more about Siena’s teacher and a couple more kids in her class. Erica quietly played, petted Gus, and watched.

  As the hour approached Siena’s bedtime, Siena’s eyelids drooped. She balked at the idea of leaving, but Leslie assured her the jungle would be there the next day, and the following, and every day after that. It surprised Erica. She’d have thought it was more of a temporary thing. Siena wanted her nightly story and, of course, wanted Leslie to read it, but she wanted Leslie to read it to both her and Erica as they’d done when Erica was sick. So she and Siena and Gus had all piled onto the bed, while Leslie sat in the rocker and read the first of the Mowgli stories from the copy of Kipling’s The Jungle Book she said she’d picked up for Siena when she’d been shopping for all things jungle related.

  As she lay beside Siena with Gus tucked between them, Erica had a feeling of contentment, of settling into something new. She let herself explore it for a brief moment. She watched Leslie’s lips move as she read the words and did the voices of the story. She smiled at the faces she made that brought giggles from Siena. She studied her hands as she turned the pages. And she felt something else. Not contentment. Not even something particularly new. That same stirring of attraction, of arousal, that same longing for something she’d never known. She closed her eyes to block the image, to stop such thoughts and feelings. Leslie was Siena’s friend, and Erica couldn’t and wouldn’t do anything to make that difficult. When the story was over, she opened her eyes to find Leslie staring at her. Siena was asleep.

  Leslie closed the book and smiled over the top of it.

  In unspoken communication, they rose, Leslie from the chair and Erica slipping off the bed, and left the room together. As they stood at the bottom of the stairs, an awkward pause hung between them as each seemed to be waiting for the other to speak.

  “Thank you again,” Erica said finally. “For coming back and making things right…for Siena, I mean.” Her cheeks heated. Don’t ruin it. She grazed her fingertips across her temple to brush her hair back. She’d forgotten it was still in a braid.

  Leslie caught her wrist. “Don’t do that,” she said. “Please? Don’t try to avoid…I was hoping we could talk, if you’re not too tired.”

  Erica laughed softly. “I kind of hate that you’ve figured that out about me.”

  Leslie lifted the corners of her mouth. She released her hold. “Sorry.”

  “I kind of like it too, though. No one’s ever paid attention like that before.” Erica wished Leslie hadn’t let go of her. She missed her touch.

  “That’s one of the things I want to talk to you about,” Leslie said a bit shyly. “That…and I want to explain some things.”

  “You don’t have to explain anything,” Erica said. “I mean, you can if you want to, but you don’t have to.”

  Leslie held Erica’s gaze, hers sincere. “I want to.”

  Erica nodded. “Okay.” She took Leslie’s hand long enough to give it a reassuring squeeze. “Would you like some tea? This sounds serious, and my mother always said that any serious talk should take place over tea.”

  Leslie smiled, but it seemed strained. “That would be nice.”

  They chatted in the kitchen while waiting for the kettle to boil, the small talk dangling in the air between them like a snared rabbit until it simply died. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with talking about Erica’s first few days of the semester or the new website Leslie was building. There was something else, though, waiting to be said, and until it was, there wasn’t any point to anything else.

  When they were seated on the couch in the family room, steaming mugs in hand, Leslie leaned back and stared at some invisible point or moment in front of her. “I want to start with an apology to you, too,” she said. She held up her hand, stopping Erica’s objection. “Just hear me out. I’m sorry I pulled away. That isn’t the kind of friend I usually am, and I want to explain. This might be a bit of a long story, but I want you to hear it so you’ll understand if I act strange from time to time.” She ran the pad of her thumb along the edge of her cup. “I want to tell you about Elijah.”

  Erica wait
ed.

  Leslie didn’t go on. Finally, she shook her head. “I don’t really know how to start. I’ve never told anyone the whole story at once.”

  Erica was touched. She could tell how hard this was for Leslie. “Would it help if I asked some questions?”

  Still not looking at Erica, Leslie gave a slight nod. “Maybe.”

  Erica thought for a moment. Whatever this story entailed, it was going to be painful for Leslie. Maybe she could ease her into it. “Siena said Elijah lives with his other mom. Tell me about her. How long were you with her? How did you meet?”

  Leslie didn’t move, but her expression shifted from one of anxiety to recollection. She seemed to have found a starting point. “We met through work. She was a graphic designer in the PR department of a company I was hired to do a website for.”

  “How long ago was that?” Erica asked.

  “About eleven years.” Leslie sighed, her shoulders visibly relaxing.

  “What’s her name?” As a journalist, interviewing people, Erica had learned to begin with simple questions, ones that didn’t take much thought but that put the person she was interviewing at ease. Then at some point, a switch would be flipped, and the person would just start talking.

  “Cassie,” Leslie said.

  “How long were you together?”

  Leslie hesitated, as though pondering the question. “I don’t…” she started, then faltered. She looked into her tea. “We weren’t ever together. Not as a couple. Not the way you mean.”

  “But you had a child together,” Erica said, genuinely curious. “Doesn’t that make you somewhat of a couple?”

  Another pause, then Leslie lifted one shoulder. “We were friends. When we met, we really clicked…in a friend way. We liked a lot of the same things. Movies, concerts, restaurants. Our work overlapped. We had similar senses of humor. We just started doing things together, hanging out. She was straight and a lot younger than me, and I was more of a big sister figure to her. She was cute and funny, and I had a little bit of a crush on her, but it wasn’t anything I would have acted on under normal circumstances.”

  “So what happened?”

  Leslie glanced at Erica, then sighed and leaned her head against the back of the couch. This was it—her turning point. “We’d been friends, really close friends, for about three years. Confidants. Workout partners. There for each other after bad dates and breakups. Then one afternoon, she showed up at my front door in tears, told me she was pregnant by the guy she’d been seeing for the past several months, and she didn’t know what she was going to do. I told her whatever she decided, I’d be there for her.”

  Naturally. Erica smiled to herself.

  “The guy ended up being an asshole, not wanting anything to do with the baby.” Leslie stopped abruptly, realization moving across her face, then gave Erica an apologetic look. “Sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  Erica chuckled. “It’s all right. I’ve thought of Trent that way myself at times. Go on.”

  “Anyway, he didn’t want the baby, or Cassie at that point, and Cassie couldn’t bring herself to have an abortion, so she decided to go through with the pregnancy, thinking she’d go the adoption route. I meant what I said about being there for her, so we planned on doing the birthing classes together and me being in the delivery room with her. And I did all the midnight craving runs and took her onion rings and Frosties at two in the morning. Then at seven months, there were complications, and she was ordered to bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy. Since she lived alone, her doctor was going to admit her to the hospital for the last two months, so I said I’d stay with her and take care of the things she needed.” Leslie frowned. “That made us even closer. She was so grateful, and we really were very compatible.”

  Leslie had slipped into the memory, a pleasant one, Erica could tell from her tone and the faraway look in her eyes. She waited, silent, letting Leslie enjoy that slice of her past.

  “Then when he was born and I held him…” Leslie broke into a brilliant smile. She shook her head, obviously reliving her disbelief in that long ago moment.

  Erica could relate. That instant with Siena when the nurse nestled her into Erica’s arms and Erica had looked into that tiny face for the first time resided firmly in its own special place in her mind and heart. To this day, it brought tears of wonder, awe, and overwhelming love to her eyes.

  “He was so amazing, so perfect,” Leslie said, astonishment in her voice. “And he looked straight at me.” She turned to Erica for the first time since they’d sat down. “It felt like he was seeing right into my soul. And that was it. I was in love. I thought I’d been in love before, but I’d never felt anything like that.” She searched Erica’s face, as though seeking confirmation, or maybe understanding.

  Emotion filled Erica’s chest like the swell of a huge wave. It rose into her throat, drowning any words. She nodded. I know.

  Leslie drew in a deep breath, then released it, as though gathering herself. “Cassie had a C-section, so I planned to stay with her and Elijah for a while longer. Until she got back on her feet and got used to taking care of him on her own. We figured maybe a couple more months, but then it stretched out to another. And we’d gotten settled into a routine. And it all started feeling like we were a family.” She was staring straight ahead again, her expression pensive. “Finally, when Elijah was six months old, I thought it was time. It wasn’t that I wanted to move back to my own place. It was that I knew I was probably in the way of Cassie making her own life with Elijah. I knew I’d still see them. When I told her, at first she said okay, she understood. But a couple of nights later, she met me at the door when I got home from the gym. She’d put Elijah to bed and made a nice dinner that she had all set up with candles and music. She told me she’d fallen in love with me and she wanted me to stay. She wanted the three of us to be a family. And she kissed me.”

  The story held Erica in thrall, even though she had to wonder if Cassie had been telling the truth, or if she’d woven a web of manipulation.

  Leslie glanced at her. “I know. I’m an idiot.”

  Erica hadn’t been aware she’d let her doubt show. “I don’t think that,” she said softly.

  Leslie grimaced. Clearly, reliving everything brought up the old pain. “It’s just that I didn’t want to go.” She shrugged. “Not because of Cassie. I knew deep down that she wasn’t in love with me, that she was pretending. I think because she was scared of doing it all on her own. And my feelings for her were friendship, a deep one, but still…friendship. But we were comfortable with each other. We knew one another better than anyone else did. It was easy. And I was so in love with Elijah. I couldn’t imagine not being there with him in the morning when he woke up, or getting to witness all his firsts, or being the one that gave him a bottle in the middle of the night. That was our special time—just him and me.” A sheen of moisture shone in her eyes.

  Erica gently took her hand. She ignored the tingle that ran through her, the heat that ignited in their touch, the subtle yet definite throb between her thighs. This was about comforting Leslie, nothing else.

  Leslie squeezed Erica’s fingers, then slipped from her grasp. “So I pretended, too.” She sighed. “We had sex that night and pretended we were making love. Got up the next morning and pretended everything was new. Went on from there, pretending we were a couple. The weird thing is that we didn’t have to pretend the three of us were a family. That part came so naturally. So we did that. For five years.”

  Erica waited, watching the past move through Leslie’s eyes, travel over her face, tighten the muscles in her neck and shoulders. When Leslie didn’t go on, Erica asked, “What happened at five years?”

  Leslie cut her a glance. She seemed startled, as though she’d forgotten Erica was there. She gave her a closed-lip smile, and a short and humorless laugh sounded in the back of her throat. “You can only pretend for so long before everything comes crashing down.” She leaned forward and set the mug that held her u
ntasted tea on the coffee table. “Cassie came home from work one day and announced she’d been secretly seeing someone, and he’d asked her to marry him. And she’d said yes.”

  Astonishment overtook Erica. She felt her jaw drop and her eyes widen. “That’s it? There was no discussion of what that meant?”

  Leslie rose and crossed the room. “I don’t think what followed would be called discussion. There was some disbelief, some yelling, a lot of begging on my part, apologies and crying on hers. Nothing that mattered. The decision had been made and plans were already in the works. Russell—that’s his name—wanted to meet Elijah right away, and he’d made it clear he wanted me out of the picture entirely, because he wouldn’t know how to explain my role in Elijah’s life to his friends and family. He didn’t want anyone to know about Cassie having been with a woman.”

  “And she went along with that?” Erica was outraged. With what she knew of Leslie—how Leslie was with Siena, how thoughtful she was, willing to do anything for anyone—she couldn’t fathom someone treating her that way. “She just used you because she was afraid of raising her child on her own, then threw you out of their lives when something more acceptable came along?”

  Leslie looked surprised at Erica’s outburst. A small smile touched her lips. “Pretty much. Although, in all fairness, I used her, too. If I’d been honest and told her I understood she was scared and I still intended to be there for her and Elijah—if I’d made her admit she wasn’t in love with me—things might have ended much differently. I’ve come to terms with all that. It took me a while, but I did. What I still have a hard time bearing is Elijah’s absence in my life and mine in his. I don’t know what they told him or what he thinks happened. It kills me that he might believe that I left him without a word.”

  Erica stared at her. “You didn’t get to say good-bye?”