What Might Have Been

by Glenda Sanders

  But as she placed her hand in his, his fingers tightened around hers and his eyes settled on her face. “God, Barbara. Who’d have thought we’d run into each other like this, three hundred miles from home in the Orlando suburbs?”

  “My friends call me Barb now,” she said.

  “My friends call me Rick.”

  She laughed gently. “I guess we really did grow up.”

  Reluctantly he released her hand. “You’ve got another parent waiting.”

  “Let me know what you decide about the counseling.”

  Richard nodded, then left, walking as though his feet were heavy weights.

  Barbara waited until he was out of sight, then sank into her chair, hugging herself as a tremor of reaction shivered through her. She had always wondered how she’d feel if she saw Richard again.

  Well, she’d seen him, and now she knew.

  She felt sixteen. And very much in love.

  It’ll pass, she assured herself. It was just a combination of memory and nostalgia. All she had to do was laugh at herself and how silly she was being and she’d get over it.

  In another seventeen years or so.

  In the meantime she had plenty to keep her busy, including the concerned parent waiting in the reception area.

  Richard lingered hauntingly in her mind for the rest of the day, the evening, throughout the night. Over and over, she relived the magic and splendor of their relationship, the hurt and bitterness of his betrayal. She was no more successful at escaping the image of Richard as he’d been in her office: concerned, frustrated, alone, and plagued by guilt and confusion. She thought of Missy, too—pregnant, vulnerable, motherless Missy. Richard’s child.

  And she tried very hard not to wonder whether, if she’d had a child with Richard, her child would have looked like Missy.

  * * *

  ONCE OR TWICE the next morning, it crossed Barbara’s mind that Richard might call to let her know what Missy had decided about going into counseling, but she wasn’t expecting to find his name on the sign-in list of people wanting to see her later that morning. Her surprise must have been evident as she scanned the waiting room for him, because he quickly rose and walked over to her. “I took a chance that you’d have time to talk. Just for a minute.”

  Her gaze locked with his. She never refused to talk to a parent, but as they stood looking at each other, they both knew that his presence there extended beyond the concern of a parent for a student. “If you don’t mind waiting—”

  “I’ll wait.”

  Later, in her office, she said, “I hope you don’t mind if I nibble while we talk.” A paper bag from her drawer yielded a sandwich, a bag of chips and an apple.

  “I didn’t mean to take up your lunch hour.”

  “It’s not the first time I’ve eaten at my desk. It probably won’t be the last. Oh, and you can take off your coat, if you’d like. It’s not a formal meal.”

  Though he’d seldom worn suits when she’d known him, the way he moved as he removed his blazer and draped it over the back of his chair was hauntingly familiar. She had known him so very well.

  She tossed the apple to him, baseball style.

  Catching it easily, he eyed it critically, then grinned. “Trying to tempt me, Mrs. Wilson?”

  “Just being polite,” she assured him. “I’d offer you my sandwich, but you can go to a drive-through on the way back to your office, and I’m stuck on campus.”

  “If I had realized, I’d have brought baby quiches and strawberries in a wicker basket.”

  Her laughter was comfortable, genuine. “How often do you have quiche for lunch?”

  He pretended to consider the question seriously. “At least once or twice a...lifetime.”

  He hadn’t lost his sense of humor. He was still Richard. The realization brought the sting of tears to Barbara’s eyes.

  The Richard who’d ripped her heart to shreds, she reminded herself as she took a bite of her sandwich.

  “I talked to Missy about counseling,” Richard said tentatively.

  “What’d she say?”

  “She was agreeable—with a stipulation.”

  Curious, Barbara abandoned her sandwich. “What’s the stipulation?”

  “She wants you to counsel her.”

  “Me? But—”

  Richard shrugged. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I don’t know the protocol, but Missy—” He sighed. “Missy thinks she could talk to you, and she was adamant about not wanting to go to a stranger. So I told her I’d ask you about it.”

  “But I’m not licensed for that kind of counseling,” she said.

  “I would pay you, of course.”

  “It’s not a question of money. I couldn’t possibly take money for counseling a student.”

  “It’s not as though she’s in danger of becoming an ax murderer,” Richard said.

  “I couldn’t give her the type of attention she needs here at school.”

  “She feels comfortable with you,” Richard argued persuasively.

  “I suppose we could work something out once or twice a week.”

  “Thank you,” Richard said, obviously relieved. “Barbara—”

  She looked at him expectantly, but he just shook his head. “Just...thank you.” He sighed dismally. “Sometimes I’m more confused than Missy.”

  Barbara smiled indulgently. “Missy’s young, with the blessed obliviousness of inexperience. Parents are cursed with an awareness of reality.”

  The philosophical observation segued into a prolonged silence. Finally, Richard rose. “I’ve taken up too much of your lunch hour.”

  “But you haven’t finished your apple,” she observed.

  Richard looked at the apple, grinned and placed it gently on the edge of her desk. “I couldn’t take an apple away from a teacher.”

  Barbara knew she should say something clever or, at the very least, coherent. But suddenly Richard was looking at her in a way that unleashed a flood of memories and she was too overwhelmed to speak.

  “This is insane,” he said, the three words packed with frustration. “I’ve got to see you. Not here. Somewhere where we can talk.”

  She nodded.

  “Tonight? I’ll take you to dinner.”

  “Come to my apartment,” she said. “We’ll be more comfortable there. I’ll make dinner.”

  He smiled nostalgically. “Do you still make those brownies?”

  “I haven’t made them in years,” she confessed. “But I’ve still got the recipe.”

  She stopped at the supermarket for cocoa and nuts for the brownies on her way home from work. She also stopped at the drugstore.

  This time, it wasn’t mascara she bought.

  3

  THE BROWNIES were cooling on a rack on the kitchen counter. The potatoes were wrapped in paper towels, ready for the microwave. The chicken breasts were marinating.

  Barbara was also marinating—in scented water in the bathtub. After the frantic orgy of shopping, cooking and cleaning, she had allotted herself fifteen minutes to relax, and let go of the anxiety that had had her tied up in knots ever since she’d recognized Richard’s voice on the telephone.

  The deep breaths she took in were renewing and the tepid water leeched surface tension from her muscles, but nothing could still the turmoil in her mind.

  Richard Benson was coming to dinner. She’d made him brownies. It was as if seventeen years had dissipated in a poof! She was feeling the same giddy, butterflies-in-the stomach exhilaration she’d always felt when she thought of Richard, experiencing the same sense of euphoria she’d always experienced while waiting for him to come over to see her. She’d even gotten the same warm, fuzzy feeling she’d always gotten from making him the brownies she knew he loved.

  She reminded herself that she was not a seventeen-year-old with no responsibilities anymore. She was a thirty-four-year-old guidance counselor. And Richard wasn’t a suave college man. He was a very troubled father of a pregnant teenager in
desperate need of female support.

  A languid sigh pushed through her lips as she rested her neck on the rim of the tub. Why couldn’t she have bumped into him at the supermarket? At the zoo? He sold real estate—why couldn’t she have encountered him when she was trying to buy a house?

  Richard. His face danced in her mind as she closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, held it, then released it slowly. He was so much the same, yet so different: mature and confident, yet desperately concerned over his daughter.

  His daughter. Missy. Dear, sweet, vulnerable Missy, who’d decided Barbara would be an easy person to talk to.

  Barbara groaned, hoping she didn’t live to rue her decision to counsel the girl. True, Missy wasn’t unbalanced; she was just desperately in need of female companionship. And Barbara had a soft spot as big as a crater for children in need of love or attention. But was it wise to become so involved with Richard’s daughter?

  Richard’s daughter. How strange life was at times. Richard had been given a child he hadn’t planned when he was ill-prepared for a child, while Barbara had been denied children of her own. Now she was being drawn into Missy’s life in the intimate role of friend and confidante.

  It probably wasn’t wise to become involved with Richard’s daughter, but the wisdom, or lack thereof, of becoming involved had not been a factor in her decision to counsel Missy. She would have helped any student in need of her help. The fact that Missy was Richard’s child only made her more precious to Barbara. If things had happened differently—

  Barbara forced the thought aside. What good were ifs and might-have-beens? She’d put the hurt of Richard’s betrayal behind her and gone on with her life a long time ago.

  She just hadn’t realized that, although she’d set aside the hurt and betrayal, her affection for Richard had remained intact, scrunched unobtrusively in a corner of her heart, waiting for the mention of his name, the sound of his voice and the sight of his face to bring it back to life. She did not remember the hurt or the betrayal when she looked at Richard’s face; she remembered the scent of honeysuckle flavoring the air on warm summer nights, the sound of his laughter, the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the hardness of his chest under her cheek as they danced to slow, sentimental songs.

  Reluctantly she let the water out of the tub and dried herself with a towel. Richard would be here soon, and she wanted to look good. Not conspicuously good, as though she’d made a special effort, but good. After much deliberation, she decided on charcoal jeans and an oversize coral turtleneck. The jeans fit her perfectly; the coral was a flattering color for her, and the silver puffed-heart pendant on a long chain that her parents had given her for her birthday added an elegant touch to the stark simplicity of the sweater. A touch of color on her cheeks, an extra fluff of her hair and she was as ready as she was ever going to be to greet Richard.

  She arranged the brownies on a serving plate and set the table, fussing with the place mats and napkin holders until the doorbell signaled Richard’s arrival. She forced herself to walk to the door slowly.

  He’d brought flowers, a mixed bouquet wrapped in colored cellophane and tied with a ribbon. He offered them to her sheepishly. “I wasn’t sure you’d like wine.”

  “They’re pretty,” she said, lifting them to smell one of several pink roses in the bouquet. “Thank you.”

  He followed her to the kitchen and watched as she unwrapped the flowers and put them in a vase. His presence in the small room unnerved her, and she fussed with the flowers unnecessarily before giving them a final pat of approval.

  Immediately she shifted her attention to the potatoes, checking to be sure they were snugly wrapped before putting them into the microwave oven and setting the temperature control and timer. She smiled awkwardly before picking up a pot holder and opening the oven door.

  A cloud of fragrant steam wafted from the interior as she pulled out the rack and, using a large spoon, basted the sizzling chicken breasts with marinade before sliding the rack back into place, closing the door and replacing the spoon in the ceramic spoon rest on the stove top.

  “You always were a good cook,” Richard said.

  “I don’t think nuking potatoes in a microwave and baking chicken qualifies me as a gourmet,” she said, grinning. “By the way, would you like something to drink to wash down that brownie you just snitched? Milk?”

  “What?” he asked, unable to suppress a smile as he brought his right hand around from behind his back, letting her see the brownie he’d been hiding. “No lecture about ruining my appetite?”

  “I’m not your mother,” she said, reaching into the refrigerator for the milk carton. “Besides, I don’t recall anything ever spoiling your appetite.”

  Richard took a hefty bite of brownie, closed his eyes as he concentrated on the taste of the rich chocolate, then sighed ecstatically. “They’re as good as I remembered.”

  And not just the brownies, he thought as he chased the brownie with a draft of milk from the glass Barbara handed him. Milk and brownies...and Barbara. Her face, her voice, her unpretentiousness and generosity carried him back to a time when everything had been simpler, before one foolish mistake had turned everything upside down.

  He’d spent seventeen years regretting that youthful error in judgment, trying to recover from the fallout of his macho stunt. Seventeen years! Fatherhood. A wife who couldn’t adapt to marriage or motherhood. His mother’s ill-concealed contempt. The struggle to keep afloat financially. Guilt over all the people he’d hurt and disappointed, himself included. And Barbara.

  He’d lived a long time with the memory of the hurt on Barbara’s face when she’d seen him walk into the stadium with Christine hanging on his arm. There had been no satisfaction in that hurt expression, not even a momentary sensation of triumph. There had only been the sudden certainty that he was making a horrible mistake and the even more humiliating realization that he hadn’t wanted to stop what he’d started. Christine had snuggled up to him with sex on her mind, and Barbara—Barbara with the big doe eyes filled with hurt—had been the one who’d pushed him away. He remembered thinking that it was time she grew up and realized what a man needed.

  Man! He’d been a horny, nineteen-year-old virgin out to prove his virility. But the only thing he’d proved was that he could produce sperm that were strong swimmers.

  “These’ll be beautiful on the table,” Barbara said, carrying the vase of flowers to the small table already set for two.

  Richard watched her work, marveling at the familiarity of her gestures and the way she moved. She was a woman now, mature, yet she was the same Barbara he’d known in those days of innocence and frustrated yearning—and just looking at her sent a familiar fire burning through his blood.

  The microwave sounded and she scurried past him on her way back to the kitchen. “Time to rotate the potatoes.”

  Potatoes were supposed to be rotated? Well, that could account for the dried-out, crunchy hand grenades he wound up with when he tried to nuke potatoes in the microwave. He followed her, stood at her elbow as she switched the potato on the left to the right and vice versa, then gave the potatoes half a turn.

  “You’re supposed to do that? Move them around?” he asked.

  “At least once, sometimes twice,” she replied. “Otherwise you have spots that are overdone, and spots that are raw.”

  “Hmm,” he replied.

  “I’m also lowering the heat.”

  “Told you you were a good cook.”

  “I just read the instruction book that came with the microwave.”

  “They come with instruction books?”

  “Usually,” Barbara said, amusement in her voice. She spun abruptly, not realizing he was so close, and they collided, chest to chest. She shrieked in surprise, then laughed nervously. “Sorry. I—” she backed up half a step “—I’m not used to anyone else in the kitchen.”

  Especially not Richard Benson. He was just under six feet tall and slender, but he seemed so much larg
er in the small room. She’d moved back so far that her hips pressed against the cabinet, but she could still feel warmth emanating from him. There was a familiarity about his warmth, like the taste of hot chocolate or the weight of a favorite blanket on a cold night, that was luring and seductive.

  For a moment, as their gazes locked, she sensed that he was feeling the same seductive pull. His smile was tinged with reluctance as he lifted an eyebrow and said drolly, “I’ll, uh, just guard the brownies while you cook.”

  Barbara had to grin as he picked up a second brownie. “I used to wonder if you just pretended to like them to please me,” she said.

  The sound of his belly laugh, rich and spontaneous, unleashed another wave of memories. “The way you pretended to like Young Frankenstein to please me?”

  “Young Frankenstein? I wasn’t pretend—”

  His gotcha expression silenced her denial. “We went to see that movie six times—”

  “Seven,” she corrected.

  “Seven times, and you never watched it all the way through. You buried your face against my arm any time it was the least bit scary. And then you’d tell me how funny it was and how much you enjoyed it.”

  “I knew you loved it, and I didn’t want you going to see it with anyone else,” she said. “I was afraid if you went with Mike and Tubbs and the rest of your buddies that you’d gawk over Teri Garr’s knockers.”

  Richard burst out laughing. “God, Barbara. Teri Garr’s knockers? The only reason I kept taking you back to see it was that when you were hanging onto my arm for dear life, your own knockers were pretty close to my biceps. That was enough to make me forget about almost seeing Teri Garr’s on the screen.”

  Barbara felt her face color as she stared at him, astonished. Richard shrugged, also a bit embarrassed by his confession. “I was only eighteen.”

  Barbara’s soft laughter gave him permission to laugh along with her. They’d both been young—almost achingly young.

  Another ding of the timer on the microwave drew Barbara’s attention back to the potatoes. “Done,” she pronounced, after giving each a subtle squeeze. “What do you like on yours?” she asked, taking sour cream, margarine and grated cheese from the refrigerator.