by Arlene James
On Thursday she told him of Thailand, of her earliest memories there, of being wet so much of the time that her fingers and toes stayed puckered and her mother had to scrape things off her skin. She remembered being ill and taking a boat and then a cart and finally a train to see a doctor. She spoke of her early weeks at boarding school, how strange it was to be surrounded by Caucasian faces and to hear English spoken all the time and how exposed she’d felt sleeping without a mosquito net.
That day he also found himself talking about his own life. He told her about meeting Anne in college. The sweetness of the recollection surprised him, but not so much as the ease of it. Had he feared the pain so badly that he hadn’t allowed himself to dwell on the memories? He decided that must be the case when she asked, in the course of conversation, about his wedding to Anne. He found himself describing the event with much the same joy as he had experienced it.
“I thought the whole thing was much ado about nothing,” he told her, amused at himself now. “We’d been engaged almost two years. Both sides of the family knew every detail of what was going to take place. I was sick of the whole thing, if you must know, and then that morning it hit me. Bam! ‘This is it, buddy. You’re about to be a married man, a real grown-up.’ I got sick to my stomach.”
“Were you scared?” she asked, oddly prescient.
“Terrified. I couldn’t get dressed for throwing up. It was so bad that my best man, my cousin Jack, took a black marker and wrote on the soles of my shoes—new, pale leather, mind you—the words Help me.”
“Oh, no.”
Mitch had to chuckle. “Imagine kneeling in front of two hundred and fifty people with the words Help me written on the bottoms of your shoes. Help on the left, me on the right. At the time I couldn’t imagine what all the snickering was about.”
“What an awful joke to play,” she said.
He just grinned. “I know someone else who would agree with you. It was all over, and we were out in the vestibule waiting for the procession to play out in reverse so we could go back and take more pictures. Me, I was just relieved to have gotten through the ceremony without fainting—or worse—and there comes my mother. She literally chased Jack, smacking him with her open hand, and him a foot taller than her.”
“I don’t blame her,” Piper muttered, but it all seemed like a lark to Mitch now.
“And Dad—” Mitch remembered aloud, “He couldn’t stop grinning all the time he was telling me about seeing my feet come up as we knelt.” Mitch shook his head. “When Annie found out, she nearly swallowed her tongue.”
“I would imagine so,” Piper said, obviously empathizing with Anne’s reaction.
“They had to retouch the photos,” he recalled.
“Well, thank goodness for that.”
“We were married a year before I could have Jack over to dinner.”
“He’d have had boiled shoe leather at my table,” Piper vowed, but she was smiling as she said it.
“When Anne died,” Mitch said, surprising himself again, “Jack sobbed like a baby.”
Piper made no comment for a moment. Then she softly said, “You loved her very much, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “Still do. Always will. But my life didn’t end with Anne’s.” He had never been more keenly aware of that fact than now.
Piper looked down. She always did when she wanted to hide her thoughts, but he waited, and she finally squinted off into the distance, asking, “How do you ever get over that kind of pain?”
For a moment he felt as if the world must be holding its breath. It was the same feeling he sometimes got in a group session when one of the newer members approached a breakthrough, as if the situation might have suddenly become real or a little more manageable or just slightly understandable on some, any, level. He didn’t think it was his expectation at work here. She had never said that she had lost someone; she hadn’t come to group for counseling. It was just something he sensed in her, an all-too-familiar ache and confusion with which he keenly identified. Was she ready to talk about it finally? Hoping that she was, aware that she might not be, he considered his words carefully.
“Grief is very personal. No two people grieve in the same way. In my case, I don’t think I’ll ever ‘get over’ the death of my wife, but I have finally gotten past it. And I’m ready for…more.”
He wanted to ask her for whom or what she was grieving, but he knew better than to push. When she was ready, she would tell him about it. And maybe he was wrong. He hoped, prayed that he was wrong, because he didn’t want grief to be the reason that God had brought them together—not the only reason. He was torn between relief and concern when she abruptly flashed a bright, brittle smile at him and the moment passed.
Leaning into him, she said, “Worked on any interesting cases lately?”
He chuckled. She wasn’t even trying to be very subtle about changing the subject. “You could say that. Would you believe two cabbies going at each other with knives because of tribal rivalries they should have left behind them in Africa? The sad thing is that one of them is a doctor who can’t practice here until he gets a license, and he can’t get a license until he lands a residency, and how is he going to get a residency with a felony conviction?” He shook his head. “Worse, INS may deport him.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked, concern evident in her voice.
“Right now I’m trying to prove that deporting him would put him in jeopardy due to the same tribal rivalries that landed him in this mess. If I can swing that, I can plead him down to a misdemeanor on self-defense. In the meantime I’ve arranged—”
“Counseling,” she supplied.
“ESL classes,” he corrected, bumping her with his shoulder. “English as a second language.”
Her amber eyes glowed warmly. “You’re a very nice man, did you know that?”
He wanted to ask if he were nice enough for her to trust him with whatever was bothering her, but his training won out. Or was it something else? Was the truth more that he was afraid to know her secrets? He searched for her hand with his, and when it came to him, curling into his own, he decided that was enough. For now.
She laid her head on his shoulder, and he couldn’t resist dropping a light kiss just below the tiny peak in the center of her hairline.
They would have time to say all that should be said, he told himself. Maybe a lot of time.
Maybe they would even have the rest of their lives.
On Friday Piper was waiting when he got to the bench they had staked out as their own. She smiled up at him, and then as he folded himself down onto the seat next to her, she pursed her lips and leaned forward almost absently. He kissed her, just a light smacking of lips, and wondered if she even realized what she’d done.
“How was your morning?”
“Fine. Yours?”
“Okay.”
She was unwrapping a sandwich on her lap. He reached into his coat pockets for the first of two sandwiches and a bag of chips that he had brought for himself.
“What’ve you got?”
“Chicken salad,” she said around a bite. “You?”
“Fried bologna.”
“Yuck.”
He chuckled. “Guess that means you don’t want to trade.”
“You guess right,” she said from the corner of her mouth. Then she swallowed, looked at him and said, “You want to come swimming on Saturday?”
“Swimming?”
“The pool at the apartment is heated, but they’re not stupid enough to keep it going all year round. It closes after this weekend, hence the building-wide pool party.”
“Ah.” He was smiling inside. “Sure, I’d like to come.”
“Okay. About two? There’s going to be a big cookout later in the afternoon. Melissa and I bought burger makings last night.”
“Should I bring anything?”
She shrugged. “If you want. Chips, maybe, or soft drinks. I’m making cookies for dessert, and Melissa’s doing c
oleslaw.”
“Sounds good.”
She lifted a cautionary hand. “Just warning you. They play their music loud.”
“No problem. I’m not a partyer, but I’m not a killjoy, either.”
“If it gets rowdy, we’ll just go in and watch a movie or something.”
“My thought exactly.”
They smiled at each other, in complete accord, and he wondered if she knew that he was teetering right on the edge of falling totally in love with her—and whether or not it was what God intended.
Chapter Nine
Mitch actually had to go out and buy a bathing suit, not an easy task in late October even in Texas, where it stayed warm far later than in most of the country. The old one that he habitually wore for swimming at the gym was faded and beginning to come apart at the seams—the result, no doubt, of repeatedly being soaked in chlorine without rinsing. He’d have to remember to bring the new one home occasionally and throw it into the wash.
Once he had the suit on under his jeans and T-shirt and a towel in the car, it was just a matter of picking up a six-pack of canned cola and a large bag of potato chips. On impulse, he snagged a small jar of jalapeños, then on second thought he put it back and took a larger one. He couldn’t be the only one who liked a little fire on his burger. Then he found some hot mustard and, well, he couldn’t pass that up, now, could he? And, oh, man, he thought, he’d forgotten all about those peppered pickles that his mom used to keep for him! Why hadn’t he remembered to buy them before?
“No antacids?” the clerk asked as she checked him out.
“Nah, that’s what the cola’s for.”
He said the same thing to Piper later as she was unpacking the grocery sack he’d hauled into the courtyard of her apartment. She seemed equally unconvinced, but Scott Ninever was “blown away” by the peppered pickles.
“Hey, man, where’d you get these?”
“Off the shelf in the grocery store.”
“Yum, can’t wait to get my teeth around some of these babies.”
“Help yourself.”
“Thanks.” He promptly put down that jar and reached for the jalapeños. “We can grill these right into the burgers. What d’you say?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“O-kay! Man food.”
Mitch laughed, because Scott Ninever was little more than a boy. It was shocking to realize that he’d been about the same age when he’d married Anne.
The Ninevers were sweet kids, and they’d clearly taken Piper under their combined wing, but they made Mitch feel as old as the hills. Most of the other apartment residents were young, too, most of them in their mid-to late twenties, about Piper’s age. Yet she somehow seemed more mature than they did.
Maybe it was because she didn’t pile on the makeup or wear her hair in a wildly spiked or scissored style or put strange piercings in odd places. Piper’s beauty was all natural, and it was blatantly obvious, especially in a swimsuit—even a conservative one-piece with a filmy little sarong-type thing covering her from knees to waist.
Other women in the group wore much less, but not one of them affected Mitch like the sight of Piper, with her bright braid hanging down her back. It fell over the crisscrossed straps of her simple moss-green suit. Her feet were bare, and he couldn’t stop looking at her little toes with their coral-painted nails. Something about them struck him as highly intriguing. It was almost embarrassing. He tried to keep his gaze on her face, but then her mouth just made him want to kiss her.
Funny, but he missed that little greeting kiss that he’d had only once before. How ridiculous was that? If they hadn’t been part of a group, he’d have initiated it himself.
Not many of the dozen or so women in the crowd actually got into the pool, and they didn’t parade around in their bathing suits for long, either. Seventy degrees with a breeze was just too cool to walk around with that much exposed skin. Most of them donned clever little cover-ups well before the sun began to hang low in the western sky. Piper did get into the water, but kept her hair dry as best she could, pinning her braid up on top of her head. Mitch kept an eye on her as he played a rowdy game of water polo with the guys. By the time they called it a match—no one had bothered to keep score for longer than a goal or two at a time—she was out and sitting on the deck with Melissa, wearing jeans and a short green cardigan with a hood and long sleeves. Her toes were covered with canvas slip-ons.
Mitch dried off and tugged on his jeans and T-shirt before joining Scott at the grill. The guys were all helping themselves to his jalapeños, pickles and hot mustard. The ladies were concentrating on salads and potato chips. Melissa and Piper split one of the “monster burgers” that the guys had tossed onto the grill. Everyone ate Piper’s chocolate chip cookies as if they were going out of style, including him, though he had to practically snatch them out of other people’s mouths.
As Piper predicted, the music did get loud around sunset, and Mitch figured it was just a matter of time before some knucklehead tossed one of the women into the pool just to hear her screech. He slipped a warming arm around a shivering Piper and asked if she was ready to go in. To his surprise, Scott invited himself and Melissa along.
“Hey, yeah, let’s go in. You guys play any games?”
Mitch looked to Piper, who telegraphed a shrug with her eyebrows. “Sure. What kind of games? Board games? Dominoes?”
“No, man, like video games. I’ve got a cool one upstairs, for team play, you know?”
Mitch looked to Piper again, saying hesitantly, “I’ve used a controller a time or two.”
“I’ve got more cookies in my apartment,” Piper suggested, pointing toward her door, “but no computer or DVD player.”
“I’ll grab my stuff,” Scott said. “Lissa, help me?”
“Sure thing, babe.” She flipped Piper a wave as she turned to follow her husband, saying, “We’ll be right down.”
Standing close to Piper, Mitch watched them climb the stairs, one thumb snagged in his belt loop. “Looks like we’re going to play video games.”
“Do you mind?” She seemed concerned.
“Nah. Might be fun.”
She let out a little breath of relief and smiled as she turned toward her apartment. He fell in beside her, not at all surprised to hear shrieking and a large splash, accompanied by laughter. Glancing back over his shoulder at the pool, he urged her to pick up the pace.
“Looks like we’re cutting out of here just in time.”
“It’s been fun, though, hasn’t it?” She sounded worried again.
Smiling down at her, he said, “I’ve had a real good time. I always do when I’m with you.”
She smiled and dipped her head, a faint blush rising to her cheeks. “I always have a good time with you, too.”
“Not always,” he said before he thought.
She stopped dead in her tracks, looking up at him. They were both remembering the times she had run away in tears or pulled back in anger. “It was never because of you, Mitch.”
“Then why won’t you tell me about it?”
Stark pain drained her face of color and sent her gaze slithering away. “Tell you about what?”
“Piper, don’t. Honey, can’t you see that I’m here to help you?”
“I’m not one of your legal aid clients,” she snapped.
“And I’m not speaking to you as an attorney.”
“What, then?”
He cupped her face in his hands. “As someone who cares, Piper, someone who cares deeply for you.”
He couldn’t tell if her expression was one of horror or fear, but then she burrowed into his arms, pressing her cheek to his chest.
“I care for you, too. Isn’t that enough?”
He supposed it would have to be. For now.
“So long as you know that I’m here for you.”
“I do. And I’m here for you, too.”
To a point, he thought. But not to the point of trust.
Oh, Lord God,
have I read this all wrong? Is she for me? Or is it all the other way? If I’m supposed to be helping her somehow, I’m sure not doing a very good job of it. Help me get my personal desires out of the way, so I can know what I’m supposed to be doing!
She pulled back then. “Come on. I think I’ll make some hot tea to go with the cookies.” She wrinkled her nose. “Do you think Melissa and Scott like hot tea?”
He chuckled and grabbed her hand. “If we can play video games, they can drink hot tea.”
“Oh, wait, you don’t like hot tea.”
He just smiled at her. “I must like it more than I realized. It actually sounds pretty good.”
She lifted her eyebrows skeptically at that, but then laughed and hurried once more toward her apartment.
Great, he thought, just what I need in my life—another woman whose hot tea I can’t refuse.
The thought was not particularly dampening.
Thankfully, Piper’s hot tea was not so bad. The peppermint flavoring enhanced the chocolate in the cookies quite nicely, and Mitch decided that he was going to buy his mom a large quantity of the stuff for Christmas. Melissa downed her share, but Scott let his go cold, too caught up in the video game to bother with it. The cookies he could stuff into his mouth in the blink of an eye, between finger maneuvers in the game.
At the mechanics of the game, Mitch wasn’t much competition for Scott, but Melissa was, so they teamed up that way, leaving Piper to play with Scott. She gave a pretty good accounting of herself, especially when it came to strategic decisions, which also happened to be Mitch’s forte. Before long it became apparent that they were fairly evenly matched as teams. Scott and Piper won in the end, but it was close.
Melissa proposed a guy-gal competition, and she and Piper made a good game of it, though at the last the guys ran away with it. Mitch and Piper tried it together and got soundly whacked by the more experienced husband-and-wife duo.
All in all, it was more fun than Mitch had anticipated, and he spent several minutes just practicing his thumb and finger technique with Scott, who had an intimate working knowledge of the controller and the medium. It was going on ten o’clock when Mitch finally set aside the controller, stretched and said that he ought to be heading home.
