“Don’t report cards have spaces for comments?” She was pretty sure she remembered that on hers, but of course, things had likely changed since she graduated high school.
“He’s in kindergarten. They don’t get graded on anything. A good thing, too. Black skies, indeed,” he scoffed. “She never sent any of his pictures home.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Of course I am. If he had, I’d have seen them.”
Oh, how Gypsy longed to confront him with the truth, to tell him that everything Kevin brought home ended up in the garbage, certified “junk”, not worthy of adult attention. But she knew from past experience he believed no wrong of Lorraine. “How do you know she never sends any home?” Gypsy had to content herself with asking. “Have you ever asked?”
“If anything good ever come home with him, of course Lorraine would’ve showed it to me.”
“Assuming she recognized it as good,” Gypsy murmured while thinking that it was more probable, from the little she had learned about Auntie Lorraine that the better a picture of Kevin’s, the less likely it was to be shown to Lance.
“Why wouldn’t she?” Lance glared. “You did, and you’re less familiar with kids than she is.”
“I suppose,” Gypsy said noncommittally, “you must rely on her very heavily.”
“Of course I do. She looks after my home and my son, and does both very well indeed. And that’s why I know if the teacher had ever sent anything good home, she would have showed it to me.”
“It’ll be really hard on your she ever decides to leave—get married or something.” Gypsy sounded thoughtful.
“Lord, yes!” Lance was emphatic. “My only alternative would be to hire a stranger and that would be rough on Kevin.”
“He, um, mentioned one day that he has a grandmother,” she said.
“What? I didn’t know he remembered her.” He snorted. “My former mother-in-law. She’ll never get her hand on Kevin. Never. No, I’ll just have to hope Lorraine stays content with what she has.”
“You could always marry her yourself,” Gypsy suggested sneakily, trying to find out if there was such a chance. It hurt to think of it, but think of it she must.
He shot her a quizzical glance, almost a pained one, she thought, and said, “I’m surprised you, of all people, suggesting that. After all, would you accept second best?”
Gypsy’s breath hissed in over her teeth with the stab of pain his words produced. “No,” she whispered, hurt beyond measure that he would remind her so cruelly that to him, she, as well as Lorraine, would be second best. “I only mentioned it as a possible alternative to having a stranger for Kevin, should she ever decide to leave you. You’re the one who thinks she’s indispensable.”
“She is. She runs my household perfectly, beautifully, lets me get on with my work and never bothers me with trivialities.”
“Your son being one, I assume?” Gypsy asked bitterly, still sore about that “second-best” business.
“Of course not! Gypsy, you know that’s not true! I am interested in what he does.”
“Is she?”
“Why are you so down on someone you’ve never even met? You don’t know her, don’t know anything about her. How could you? Until tonight, I’ve hardly mentioned her to you. Lorraine is very competent. That’s why I can’t understand why I haven’t been told about Kevin’s ability unless the teacher was at fault. If only I had known.” He shook his head sadly.
“You know now,” Gypsy reminded him tartly. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Get drawing lessons for him, I guess.” He took in her skeptical look. “When he’s a little older.”
“Not help him, encourage him, yourself, now, to set up a background of knowledge?”
“You saw hopeless that was!” His gray-green eyes were bleak.
“I still think it’s worth a try,” she insisted. She thumped a fist on the table. A plate rattled and the lid of the teapot jumped. “If you’d only give yourself a chance.” Her eyes shone with the zealous intent to make him listen.
“Will he give me a chance?” Lance leaned his elbows on the table, put his fists against his forehead and spoke quietly, with desperation. “I want to have that chance to help him learn, Gypsy. I know it’s not fair to ask it of you, the way things are, but… I have to, for Kevin’s sake. Will you help me to help him? Will you let me spend all my time with the two of you for our last week or so here and will you help me keep the atmosphere light while I try to reach him? I know spending time with me might not be what you want, but Gypsy,” he raised his head and looked at her steadily. “I won’t touch you. That’s a promise.”
Lance noticed that her face and gone pale and strained, with the scar an angry red line bisecting her cheek lengthwise, before she swung her hair down and averted her eyes.
It’s useless, useless! Gypsy thought. Trying to convince him I wasn’t fool enough to fall in love with him is futile, so why did I spend so much time and energy trying? He knows! And it makes him as sad as it does me that he cannot return my feelings.
“All right, Lance,” she said quietly, lifting her head and smiling sadly. “I’ll help.”
~ * ~
For the next three days the trio wandered the paths and trails of the island, Kevin drawing trees and rocks and flowers, leaves, clumps of grass and far-reaching points of land. Some were good, others less than mediocre and there were times when Lance’s fingers itched and burned with the need to grab the charcoal from his son’s sweaty little fingers and show him instead of just telling him. But Gypsy with her insight… instinct, Lance came to believe, always managed to catch him in time and with a look, a word, or a gesture, draw him back, leaving Kevin to do his own drawings in his own way. All she permitted Lance to do was advise, suggest and instruct, never to touch, never to scold, and always, always to praise something well done and criticize poor work constructively. Never forget he’s only six! That became the unspoken mantra Lance forced himself to live by.
Gypsy called for frequent breaks, during which she ran and raced, chasing Kevin, playing tag with him, literally forcing Lance to join in by smacking his arm and shouting, “Tag! You’re it! Run, Kevin! Don’t let him catch you!”
Kevin, not much to Lance’s surprise, was very good at dodging and ducking and, being small, was notoriously hard to catch. Gypsy, not so much, and try though he did, Lance couldn’t prevent himself tagging her whenever he got a chance. Her skin, soft and supple, begged to be stroked. Her hair, loose and flying when she ran with it streaming out behind her, often left him as breathless as the running did. Kevin’s happy shrieks of victory when he managed to tag one of the adults filled Lance’s heart with a joy he hadn’t felt for a long time.
He’d never seen anything like Kevin’s enthusiasm for searching out seagull and crow feathers and with his longer reach, was able to score a real eagle feather from way down on a ledge. He presented it to his son, earning himself a gap-toothed smile of delight. Between drawing sessions, they cracked open more clams and fed the gulls, and laughed when crows began dropping in, and squabbles between black birds and white took place. Lance made swift sketches of the birds in flight, seagulls being chased away from the feast, crows hopping and dancing then taking wing when they suddenly became outnumbered by their larger foe. Kevin just laughed.
Gypsy told stories and encouraged Lance to participate by asking questions to which he knew she knew the answers, so that he would tell her, and so be talking to his son, as well. On the third day, sensing a break was much needed, she called a halt.
“No more drawing today,” she decreed. “I don’t know about the two of you, but I’m sick to death of the site of charcoal and pastels and papers.” She did know about the other two. Lance was becoming frustrated. Kevin was bored. A new diversion had to be sought before the whole plan blew up in their faces. Kevin’s work had improved dramatically, as had his relationship with his father, but both still had a long way to go.
&nbs
p; Though he could now manage curves—having studied the feathers in his collection and copied their arcs—Kevin much prefer drawing boxes, houses and streets, just as he preferred to play with Gypsy most of the time. Just now, Lance had wanted Kevin to try to draw a bird, and the outcome had been as close to disaster as he cared to come.
“Kevin tells me you have fishing gear,” Gypsy said. “And so, oh great provider, I want a salmon for dinner or at the very least a lingcod.” She sat down and pulled up the legs of her baggy jeans and lay-back. “I’m going to get another layer of tan on my legs.”
Lance scoffed at the idea of catching a fish but the sight of her lying there, jeans rolled high on her thighs, shirt off to reveal the skimpy bikini top, was too disturbing. Holding out a hand to Kevin who surprisingly, took it, he said, “we seem to have been delegated the job of providing dinner. Let’s see what we can do about it.”
It took nearly three hours of disappointments, of having the line blown back when he cast it out into the surf, of having unproductive nibbles from some unknown source, and three hours of complaints from Lance before they had any luck.
“I don’t believe there are any salmon here,” he said plaintively to Gypsy who ignored him.
“There must be something wrong with the lure,” was his next complaint. “What I need is live bait. I saw some fish in the creek and if…”
“No!” Kevin shrieked.
Gypsy leapt to her feet shouting “Don’t you dare!”
“What did I do? What did I say?” Lance stared at each of them in turn.
“Those are our fish,” Gypsy said.
“We feed them,” Kevin piped up. “Worms. Their names are Harry and Gertie.
Lance continued to stare at the two of them. “The worms have names?”
Kevin giggled. “No the fish have names. They used to be Jake and John but Gypsy said one of them needed to be a girl and she named it Gertie.”
“Gertie…” Lance shook his head.
“It was the fishiest name I could think of,” Gypsy said in her own defense.
Lance snorted. “I’m surprised you didn’t call it Wanda.”
“That,” she said, “would have been far too trite for me.”
Kevin, looking bewildered, said, “Who’s Wanda?”
“A fish in a long-ago movie, so old I’m surprised Gypsy’s even heard of it,” Lance said.
“So you didn’t build the dam to make the pool big enough to swim in? You built it for a pair of little fish?”
“Little fish need room to grow,” Gypsy said just as Lance began to dance wildly on the slippery grass, sliding toward the edge, trying to catch his balance which had been badly disturbed by the struggle going on the submerged end of his line.
“I’ve got something!” he bellowed as Gypsy rushed to help him stand firm. She tugged on him while Kevin held her, and the three of them, laughing and shouting with excitement finally edged back up from the brink where Lance began to play the fish for all he was worth.
And it was worth the time it took to bring it in, Lance later admitted, accepting another portion of the salmon, lamenting again the lack of lemon juice to add to the flavor.
Kevin, spluttering, his mouth full, said, “I like clams and abalone’s better. They don’t have these…” He extracted a bone from between his teeth and put it with the pile on his plate. “But it tastes good.”
“It tastes good because your dad caught it,” Gypsy claimed, smiling across the table at him.
“It tastes good because Gypsy cooked it,” Lance said, also smiling at the child.
“That’s what Mickey’s dad said about the cake his mommy made.” Kevin beamed his smile around the table. “Gypsy, I think you should really be my mother. Not just for pretend.”
Gypsy looked down at her plate. Lance shifted his gaze to the open doorway. Kevin added, “If you cooked nice things for me, I don’t think my tummy would hurt anymore.”
~ * ~
“There are two days left, Gypsy. Maybe three. I don’t want an answer now, but I’d like you to think about an offer I once made and then rescinded almost immediately. Before we say goodbye, I want you to think about what Kevin said at dinner time and consider what it would mean to him if we were to become a family. We both love him and the fact that we don’t both love each other could be overcome by that. I know it’s not the recommended way to start a marriage, but I’m willing to take the chance, if you are.”
Gypsy looked around the cabin, at the reflection of the two lanterns shining in the window over the crooked pump, at the double shadows, hers and Lance’s, and in their own two shadows, cast by the twin lanterns, she fancied she could see two different shapes… her own… and Catherine’s. Could she live with the shadow of another woman? Could she live without Lance, now that she was being offered a chance to accept a life that included him?
When she would’ve spoken, he laid his fingers across her lips and was all she could do to prevent herself kissing them. “No,” he said. “Don’t even try to answer now. Think about it and then when Mary and Jim come to pick us up, you can tell me your answer. But not on this island. I’ll be coming back here and want no bad memories, if that’s what you’re going to give me. Tell me your decisions sometime during the trip back to the harbor. Goodnight Gypsy.”
Chapter Nine
There were not three days, two, nor even one during which Gypsy could think and make a decision. For, when she awoke, it was to the sound of bacon frying, and eggs being cracked into a pan. Eggs? she thought groggily… Eggs? We ran out of eggs ages ago. When the import of what she was hearing struck her, Gypsy scrambled from her bunk and dressed, suddenly wishing she had something other than her scruffy, cut down jeans and this old shirt of Lance’s. With a quirk of humor, she briefly considered making yet another entrance in the red bikini and mink cape, with the now shabby silk scarf around her hair, instead of her waist as a makeshift belt, but second thought decided for her that it might not be politic.
She tugged a comb through her hair, tied the long mass back with a piece of shoelace, pulled ineffectually at the shirt and jeans trying to make them look less disreputable, slipped on her dirty sandals and emerged from behind her curtain. A stout, elderly lady, dark gray streaked hair pulled into a bun behind her head, stood at the stove wearing a print cotton dress and a cardigan sweater, looking quite at home as she flipped the eggs over, one by one so intent on her task she did not at first see Gypsy.
When she did, however, she started. Her face went blank for a moment, then took on an expression of disbelief. “Oh!” She patted her ample bosom with the flat of one hand. “You gave me such a start! For a moment, I thought your were—” She gave her head a quick shake.
“Catherine?” Gypsy asked.
“Well… yes, but I know, of course, you aren’t. I’ve been hearing a good deal about you, my dear. I’m Mary Hopkins. Jim and I have known Lance for many years. He worked as a deckhand on our seine-boat three summers running during his teens. He put himself through college that way, you know.”
“I… No. I didn’t know that.”
“Oh, yes. We do love and admire that young man and were thrilled when he wanted to buy the island from us. I know we’re a few days early for the pickup, but just last night, my Jim found the flare pistol Lance was to have used if he needed us to come over with the boat. My, my, I can tell you that worried us, because what if there had been an emergency? We wouldn’t have known. It must have fallen when we were carting his and Kevin’s things over here last month.”
She suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth. “Well, bless my soul. There was an emergency, wasn’t there? I’m so sorry, my dear, about the way you came to arrive. What a terrible time for you, and with Lance having no way to contact us, he must have suffered, too. Not that he’s complained, mind.”
She smiled and slid eggs from the pan onto a platter. “Butter that toast, will you, dear?” She gestured at the browned slices on a rack over the hottest part of the stove. G
ypsy grabbed them up and dropped them to another plate and began to spread butter on them.
“Of course,” Mary Hopkins went on, “he didn’t need to buy the island. All he had to do was wait and he’d have inherited it from us. We never had children of our own, but Lance is like the son—well, grandson, I suppose—we never had. He came to us when he was ill. After the crash when his mother died.” She clucked her tongue. “To think they put him in a hospital and kept him there all that time when what he needed was someone to look after him. When we heard about that, we went and got him. I gave him lots of TLC, I can tell you. Poor lamb. But at least he got his little one back from that terrible woman, the grandmother, even if he didn’t get his business back. Tsk! That’s such a shame, and he’d been doing so well, too, with it.”
She put the plate of eggs into the oven, where a large platter of crisp bacon lay, emitting the odor Gypsy had awakened to. “Better turn the rest of that toast before it burns.”
Gypsy hadn’t noticed the woman put more bread on the rack. Quickly, she flipped each slice over to brown the untoasted side. She’d learned more about Lance’s life in two minutes from this woman than she had from Lance in a month.
“I’ll call those boys in,” Mary said. “The table’s all set. When the toast is done, just put it on the table and then we’ll get the rest of the food out.” She bustled to the door, shouted “Grub’s up!” and returned.
“That’s quite an adventure, you’ve had, isn’t it?”
Gypsy produced, with difficulty, an answering smile. “Yes,” she agreed. “You might call it that.”
I wonder if all Lance’s friends are going to react this way. Will I be able to stand it, seeing the initial shock, followed by the growing understanding, accompanied by pity when they meet the one he has chosen to replace his Catherine? Yes. If I want the life he’s offering me, I’ll have to accept being second best.
The sound of footsteps, loud and multiple on the porch broke her out of her dismal thoughts and she looked around to see Lance come in followed by rotund little man with twinkling blue eyes and strong sinewy arms holding Kevin’s knees. Kevin perched happily on top of the old man shoulders. His fingers clinging to the sparse gray hair.
Gypsy Magic (The Little Matchmakers) Page 17
