by Gina Ardito
Reunion in October
by
Gina Ardito
Copyright © 2014 Victoria Ardito
Cover art by Elaina Lee
Edited by Jane Haertel
This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any existing means without written permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events, locales, or actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
For Katie Winsjansen. Not only my cousin, you were one of my first neighbors and first friends. You taught me to ride a two-wheeler. (Do you remember?) So much of my childhood involves memories of you and your family. Thanks for reading. Thank you for warm summer nights, rainy days, songs, and laughter. Oh! And thanks for that two-wheeler thing, too…
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Emily
No one should have to face a morning with decaf.
As I stared at the ineffectual coffee in my mug, Roy bent closer and gave me the same perfunctory kiss as always. “See ya later, Em,” he said, his focus already on the back door. “Have a good day.”
A second later, he disappeared. From upstairs came the inevitable shouting match between Melissa and Corey about the bathroom. At sixteen, Melissa required hours in front of the mirror to agonize over her hair, her skin, her makeup, and her clothes. Corey, two years younger, had no patience for any girl, much less his older sister. Normally, I understood Melissa’s insecurities. I remembered those days all too well. This morning, I had even less patience than Corey.
I sank into the nearest chair, and moisture seeped into the seat of my pants, straight through to my underwear. The sticky residue on the table revealed all. Someone had spilled orange juice and not bothered to wipe it up. Terrific. Some days, I went through more wardrobe changes than an awards show host. And the hits kept on coming…
For the moment, I couldn’t move. Every muscle in my body weighed me down. My skull pounded with the pending doom of another headache—my second this week. Seven-thirty in the morning, and I was already exhausted. I still had to get my six-year-old, Gabriella, up and ready for school, then Lucas and I would go to the pediatrician for his eighteen-month checkup. Above me, feet stomped, a door slammed, and Lucas’s inevitable wails pierced my foggy brain. Wonderful. What else could go wrong?
“Moooooommm!” Corey’s frantic shout echoed down the staircase. “Something’s the matter with Freckles.”
Oh, no. Not now. Freckles, our fifteen-year-old beagle, had seemed lethargic and off-kilter for about a week now. I kept reminding myself to call the vet, but there just weren’t enough hours in the day. I pushed my sorry, wet butt out of the chair.
“Moooooommm!” Corey called again. “Hurry up. He won’t move. I think he’s sick.”
Meanwhile, Lucas had resorted to screaming to get out of his crib.
“Coming.” I trudged upstairs. First stop: the nursery for Lucas, who stood at the rail, face almost purple as he screeched his outrage. “Okay, sweetie,” I crooned and scooped him up. “Mommy’s here. It’s okay.” I doubt he heard me over his own bellows. Hoping to soothe him, I bounced him gently in one arm as I carried him to the dressing table. The other arm snaked into the nearby stack of clean diapers.
“Moooooommm!”
“Corey,” I shouted back, “get ready for school. I’ll check on Freckles as soon as I’m done with your brother.”
A rumpled Gabriella appeared in the doorway. Still in her Care Bears nightgown, a hand-me-down from her older sister, she rubbed her eyes. “Mommy?” she asked through a wide yawn. “What’s going on?”
I pulled off the baby’s pajama bottoms and ripped the tabs off his diaper. On a deep inhale that sent pain knifing into my chest, I forced a calm tone. “Nothing, sweetie. Why don’t you get dressed? As soon as I’m done with Luke, I’ll start your breakfast. Waffles okay today?”
“Apple cimmanim?”
I smiled at her awkward pronunciation. “I think that can be arranged.”
“K.” She toddled away, and I finished changing Luke in record time.
“Mooooommm!” Corey again.
“I’m coming.” I hefted Luke on my hip. “Come on, little man. Let’s see what’s going on with Freckles.” I strode to the end of the hall where my oldest son, barefoot and shirtless, crouched in the corner. Our beagle curled up on his right side against the closet door, with only the occasional flick of his ear to confirm he was still alive.
“He won’t get up,” Corey whined. “I think he’s really sick.”
I knelt beside the dog. “Okay, Corey. I’ve got it. Go finish getting ready for school. Your bus will be here in five minutes.”
Melissa, wearing a pink t-shirt with “Juicy” in glitter across her chest and jeans with shredded knees, traipsed out of the bathroom. “What’s going on?”
“Freckles is sick,” Corey said.
“I’m not surprised.” She shrugged. “He’s old and he smells. We should just put him down already.”
I gasped. “Melissa!”
“Well, it’s true.”
“You’re a witch, Mellie,” Corey said. “No wonder no one likes you.”
“No one likes me because they know I have a loser for a brother.”
“E-nough!” I said, exasperation cutting between each syllable. “Both of you. Bus. Downstairs. Go. Now.”
The teens split into opposite directions in search of backpacks and shoes while I returned my attention to Freckles. The poor dog hadn’t moved except for that one twitchy ear. With Luke still straddling my hip, I reached down to touch his muzzle. He felt unusually warm to me. Did dogs get fevers?
“Come on, boy.” I nudged him behind the shoulder. “Get up.”
The dog never stirred. I watched his chest rise and fall to make sure he was breathing. Yes, thank God.
“I told you,” Corey said from the other side of the hall. “Something’s wrong with him.”
I jabbed my arm at him, index finger pointed at his chest. “Bus. Now. I’ll call the vet. You go to school.”
“Will you text me and let me know if he’s okay?”
“Not during school hours. You can wait until you get home to find out how he is.”
“But—”
“No buts. Go.” So I can panic without you watching me.
With one last sad look, he turned and headed downstairs.
Luke wrapped a fist in my hair and yanked. Hard. My scalp stinging, I rose, one hand braced on the wall to bolster my shaky haunches. God, I was seriously out of shape. When was the last time I’d done any exercise? At least two kids ago. Which might explain the distance growing between Roy and me.
Oh, I felt it. Hard to miss really. We rarely talked, and when we did, our conversations centered on the kids or the bills. At night, we both fell onto the king-sized mattress in our room, too numb and drained to do more t
han sleep. Somewhere—and I didn’t know where—Roy and I had lost the spark we’d kindled in high school. Finding lost homework, money for school trips, and shoes the kids didn’t outgrow a month after their purchase took time and energy away from spark-hunting.
Luke’s fretting increased to crying, and I put thoughts of my crumbling marriage on the back burner, as I’d been doing for years now. “Okay, little man. Hang in there. Breakfast is coming.”
In the kitchen, my feet stuck to the sheet vinyl floor with every step I took. Ah, yes. The orange juice. Something else I’d have to take care of. One thing at a time. I strapped Luke into his highchair and prepared banana oatmeal for him, apple cinnamon waffles for Gabriella. The oven clock glowed with the time, 8:03. I had twenty minutes to feed the baby, pack Gabriella’s lunch, and drop her off at school before I took him to the pediatrician. Then it was daycare for Luke while I worked the twelve-to-eight shift as a 911 operator at the Snug Harbor Police station. Roy, home by five, would pick Luke up after his day as a janitor at Morrison General Hospital.
Now I also had to find a way to squeeze in a visit to Dr. Bautista for Freckles. How much would that cost me? In time and dollars? Only one way to find out. The vet’s office wouldn’t open ‘til nine, a good news/bad news scenario. Good, because Gabriella would already be at school so she wouldn’t hear the conversation. Bad, considering I had a full morning already and wouldn’t get a chance to call until at least ten, which pretty much guaranteed I’d be late for work. I could opt for the twenty-four hour vet clinic, but that would require an additional thirty-minute drive. And God knew what they’d charge me. With Dr. Bautista, I could work out some kind of payment plan if I had to.
A familiar tightness settled around my chest. I rubbed my cleavage with two fingers until the tension eased. By then, both kids had finished breakfast, and I raced them out the door to my minivan for the next leg of my marathon day. For once, the pediatrician ran on time, and Luke fell asleep the minute I strapped him into his car seat after the visit. No better time than now to call the vet.
I pulled out my cell, found his number in my digital address book, and hit dial. When the receptionist answered, I identified myself and gave her a sketch of my poor beagle’s condition.
“Dr. Bautista isn’t in today, but Dr. Herrera is free at ten forty-five,” she said. “Can you be here by then?”
I’d never met the new vet, but I trusted Dr. Bautista enough to hire someone competent and compassionate. “I’ll take it,” I said.
If my luck held out, Freckles would only have a cold that could be treated with an antibiotic, and I’d get to work on time. If not, well, I didn’t want to think about that right now.
****
Francesca
“What do we have here?” I strode into Examination Room Five and stared at the blood seeping from a familiar man’s forehead. Oh, no. Not again.
“Hey, Doc.” Joshua Candolero grinned up at me from the hospital bed. His clasped hands wrapped a battered white hardhat that sat on his washboard stomach. “Long time, no see. How are you doing today?”
“Josh.” My heart flipped in my chest as I eyed the damage.
Yes, head injuries tend to bleed a lot, but for some reason, the blood level seemed excessive on such a gorgeous face. Josh, a carpenter in his father’s construction business, had spent so much time in the E.R. at Morrison General Hospital in the last few months, I knew most of his vital statistics by heart. Twenty-eight, single, with no remarkable medical history aside from a wrist surgery, ten-plus years back, after a lacrosse injury. No known allergies.
On paper, Josh was a nearly perfect specimen of manhood, except for his penchant to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, resulting in frequent visits to my emergency room for treatment of superficial injuries.
I brushed away a lock of dark hair stuck to his brow and nearly lost myself in the unusual hue of his eyes, their almond shape a gift from his Korean mother. Not quite green, not hazel, not brown, but they glowed in a combination of all three that evoked images of a spring meadow filled with goldenrod. I shook off the instant thrill of attraction that rippled through me. He was a patient, not a Chippendale stripper, despite the low slung jeans on his narrow hips and the black t-shirt that perfectly framed his sculpted broad shoulders. Seriously, if Joshua ever needed extra cash, a few turns on the catwalk to any Barry White tune would garner him a truckload of dollars.
Oh, God, what was I thinking? With one last lingering analysis of his muscular arms, I pulled up the patient chart at his feet. While taking measured breaths, I read the vitals listed on his admission summary until I believed I’d be able to look at him without a fluttery sensation erupting in my stomach.
“Don’t tell me,” I said after an additional minute or two. “Let me guess. You wound up on the wrong end of a nail gun.”
Only slightly less dazzling than his eyes was his smile, with even, white teeth inside full, dark red lips. “Nope. Screwdriver.”
I’d been joking about the nail gun. Josh, however, wasn’t. I arched a brow at him. “Excuse me?”
He struggled to prop himself up on his elbows. “Not a big deal. Jimmy DeMarco was goofing around and managed to slam a screwdriver into my skull.” While that knee-melting smile never hardened, he pointed at the hole in his head. “Lucky for me, I’ve got a lot of bone up here.”
I puckered my lips into a moue as I gazed at his forehead. “Not much of anything else, though. Where was your hardhat?”
“On the sawhorse. It was lunchtime.”
I opened a foil-lined packet and dabbed at the wound with an antiseptic wipe. When he winced at the sting, I had to bite back a chuckle. “Well, clearly, you’re not safe at lunchtime, either.” I pointed to the hardhat perched on his abdomen. “You might want to consider wearing that thing from the minute you get up in the morning ‘til you go to bed at night. What is this? Your second visit to the E.R. this month?”
“My first,” he corrected with a hint of umbrage in his tone. “Technically, last Tuesday was still September. So this is my first time here in October.”
“Oh, my mistake. Well, welcome back.” I turned to the nurse hovering near the triage area. “Helena, would you get me a suture tray, please, and surgical glue?”
Joshua sat up higher. “Surgical glue? Whatzat?”
“It’s like Krazy Glue for lacerations,” I said and dabbed him again, simultaneously pushing him back into a supine position. “Relax. If the wound isn’t too deep and I can stop the bleeding, we can glue your head back together, rather than stitch. Then you won’t have a scar marring that beautiful face.”
“You think my face is beautiful?” He batted his lush eyelashes like a cartoon heroine, and I dove back into the chart to review his blood pressure and pulse rates until mine returned to normal.
“Easy, Romeo. Save the charm for ladies your own age,” I scolded, replacing the chart on the bed.
“You are my own age.”
“Uh-huh,” I said flatly. “Give or take a decade.”
“Six years is not a decade.”
Once again, I looked up into his face, this time in surprise. “How do you know how old I am?”
For the first time since I walked into the exam area, his expression was solemn. “I may be a wood jockey, but I can do basic math. You were my babysitter for years before you went to college. When I was ten, I remember you telling my mom about your sweet sixteen party.” He shrugged. “I figure the age gap between us has stayed the same over the years. Unless you found some kind of break in the time-space continuum that you haven’t shared with the rest of the world.”
“My sweet sixteen party…” I brushed another antiseptic wipe across his brow as I thought back to those cringe-worthy days.
“Yeah. You wanted a Spice Girls theme. I thought it was a totally lame idea and tried to convince you to go with the Power Rangers instead.”
A cloudy memory sharpened into focus. Me, in my god-awful “Rachel” haircut that was so po
pular back then but made my plank-thick hair look like a bad Cleopatra wig. I sat on the faux leather couch in the Candolero den, regaling Mrs. C. with details of what I’d planned for my big day, from a cardboard version of the double-decker Spice Girls bus to lollipops shaped like microphones. Little Joshua, cute but totally annoying in those days, chimed in every five seconds with the advice that I could be the pink Power Ranger, and he would be the red one. Or blue. I was kinda fuzzy on the details.
“I had the hugest crush on you.” Josh’s confession blasted away the memory.
With a start, I realized how close I leaned toward him while dabbing at his wound with the gauze. For God’s sake, my boobs practically brushed his chin. Then he smiled at me again, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking.
Thank God Helena chose that moment to reappear with my requested surgical supplies. “Ahem!” She rolled the tray in noisily. “Here you go, Doctor.”
I snapped upright. “Thanks, Helena.” After brushing a gloved finger over the wound, I checked for the amount of seepage still coming through. Would the glue work, or did I have to resort to stitches?
Josh spoke again, but I was too involved in keeping his skin closed to heed whatever he said. “Hold still,” I ordered.
“I asked you what time you get off work tonight, Doc,” he said.
I answered without thinking. “Eight o’clock.”
“Great. Let’s go out.”
“Let’s try the glue—” I stopped short, and my jaw dropped. He couldn’t have…“Wait. What did you say?”
“I’m asking you out. Pick your poison. Dinner? Movie? Dinner and a movie?” His speech grew rapid, and his voice rose with excitement. “Hey, I know. Have you ever been to Promises, Promises? The nightclub? In the summer, it’s crazy crowded, but off-season’s pretty quiet. Well, as quiet as a dance club can be.”
I stood there, numb, trying to figure out the most ridiculous of the thoughts flying through my head. Had I heard him right? Had this young man—barely more than a kid—just asked me out? To a nightclub? A place I hadn’t visited since the goth club I used to frequent changed names from Tiki Torcher to a Top Forty dance club called Promises, Promises about ten years ago?
