Another Summer

by Georgia Bockoven

  “I’ll get Karen,” Deanna said.

  Maria gave Cheryl a frantic look. As much as she would need her friends for support later, she needed time alone now. “Why don’t I call Andrew?” Cheryl asked. “He can drive you to Oakland.”

  Maria took a second to consider the idea. “What about Paul? I know he would take me. Would that be okay with you?”

  Cheryl was sure there were at least a dozen reasons she should say no, but she’d deal with them when and if they became a problem later. “I’ll call him. You get ready.”

  Maria started to leave, then came back for a quick hug. “Thank you.”

  “Alma is going to be all right,” Cheryl told her.

  Maria silently nodded.

  PAUL SAT IN A PLASTIC CHAIR AT THE END OF the hallway. Maria drifted back and forth between sitting with him and maintaining a vigil in Alma’s room. He’d told her he didn’t mind waiting alone, but she continued to come out to check on him as did Juanita, her mother.

  He liked Juanita. She was a lot like Maria, and he was long gone on Maria. For a while he’d tried to put his feelings off to the fact she was a challenge, but it was more than that. He thought about her all the time–he nagged her about going to college at UC Santa Cruz, a cover for getting her within dating range.

  Now that she was opening up to him, he understood what she meant about leaving her family being complicated. When they’d gone to the house to pick up Enrique, he’d understood why she was worried. If his family lived where they lived, he’d worry about them, too.

  He glanced down the hall and saw Maria coming toward him. “How is she?”

  She sat next to him. “Starting to wake up. The test they did came back positive. It is rohypnol. A policewoman came by to take a report.”

  “Was she …” He couldn’t say the word. It was as if saying it aloud would make it true.

  “No. Whoever dropped her off outside the emergency room door must have panicked when she started having trouble breathing.”

  “Did anyone see him?”

  “It’s supposedly on one of the security cameras.”

  He took her hand, entwining his fingers with hers. “How’s your mom doing?”

  “She’s scared. She’d never heard of roofies before tonight. Now she says Alma and Rosa aren’t going to any more parties–ever. And they can’t go out with any guy she doesn’t know. Like it’s only guys you don’t know who do things like this.”

  “Maybe you should move to another neighborhood.” He sensed it was a mistake the minute the words were out. She let go of his hand and folded her arms across her chest.

  “Where did you have in mind?” she asked, finding a new target for her anger. “Maybe down the street from you in one of those million-dollar houses that only have one bedroom? How much do you suppose the rent would be for a place like that? How much more ironing would my mother have to take in to pay for it? How many more hours would I have to work at the nursery?” Her voice quavered, and tears welled in her eyes. “Or maybe you were thinking Chris Sadler would let us stay in his house when he wasn’t there. Of course it might be a problem when he did want to use it, but then we could always camp out on the beach until he was gone again.”

  “That’s not fair. I’m only trying to help.”

  Now she was crying for real. “You can’t. No one can.”

  There had to be a way. “If your mother could leave here, would she?”

  She looked at him as if he’d asked the question in a foreign language. “Do you think we want to live like this?”

  Enrique came down the hall and motioned to Maria. “Alma’s awake. She wants to see you.”

  Maria stood and started to leave then turned back to Paul. “You don’t have to stay. Go home. I’ll call you later.”

  She wasn’t simply sending him away from the hospital, she was dismissing him from her life. “I don’t want to go home,” he said.

  “Andrew needs you at work.”

  She was right. Losing one of them was bad enough, losing them both would put Andrew in a real bind. “I’ll call him and tell him we’ll come in Sunday.”

  A profoundly sad look came into her eyes. “I can’t go back. My mother needs me here.”

  He could see it was useless to argue, and selfish. “Okay, I’ll tell him that it’ll just be me,” he said, defeated.

  “And that I’m sorry?”

  He nodded.

  Enrique impatiently shifted from one foot to the other. “Alma’s waiting.”

  Maria tried to give Paul a smile but couldn’t pull it off. “Thank you,” she whispered, then turned and followed her brother down the hall.

  MMARIA STAYED WITH ALMA, TALKING TO HER, reassuring her, and crying with her until she was exhausted and fell into a natural sleep. Because she’d developed a fever, the doctor had decided to keep her another day. Juanita took Enrique and Rosa home to feed them and let them sleep in their own beds. She was due back at ten to relieve Maria.

  She was curled into an uncomfortable chair beside Alma’s bed, deep into memories of her three weeks at the beach house when she looked up and saw her mother standing in the doorway.

  “You look so sad,” Juanita said softly as she crossed the room. “Is Alma all right?”

  “She’s fine.” Maria unfolded her legs and stretched. “Her fever’s gone. The doctor said she can go home in the morning.”

  Juanita went to the bed and looked closely at her sleeping daughter, touching her fingers to her lips and then to Alma’s forehead. She said a silent prayer and made the sign of the cross, then went to Maria and touched the side of her face. “What is it? Why are you still so troubled?”

  Maria came forward and put her arms around her mother’s waist, her head against her chest. “I’m afraid, Mama. Enrique is so angry. He’s convinced he knows who did this to Alma. What if he does something stupid and winds up like Fernando? How are we going to stop him?”

  “You think it would be better if we left?”

  The question threw Maria. She put her head back to look at her mother. “Where would we go?”

  “To Santa Cruz.”

  “Why would we do that?”

  Juanita frowned. “Because of your friend.”

  “What friend?”

  “Paul.”

  Now she really was confused. “What has Paul got to do with us moving?”

  “He didn’t talk to you about this?”

  “About what?”

  Juanita put her finger to her lips, motioning for Maria to speak softer. “Maybe he should tell you about it himself.”

  Maria glanced at the clock. “It’s too late to call him tonight.”

  Juanita shook her head. “Why would you call him when he’s right down the hall?”

  “Paul’s here? At the hospital?” She stood and ran her hands through her hair. “I told him to go home.”

  “He didn’t listen. He said he was waiting for you.”

  Her heart did a funny skipping beat. She couldn’t believe he’d stayed. “I don’t know what to say to him.”

  She smiled and made a shooing gesture to get Maria out of the room. “Go see him. You’ll think of something.”

  Paul was at the window staring at the night sky, his back to Maria. She came up behind him without saying anything. Without turning, he asked, “Have you ever seen the Milky Way?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “It’s amazing. There are so many stars you think you’re looking at a cloud.” He moved to make room for her. “You have to get away from the city to really see it in all its glory, like somewhere deep in the mountains, where there are no lights.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  He took her hand. “Because I want to see it again. With you.”

  All her life happiness had been doled out in small, manageable pieces. This was big. Maybe too big. “What did you say to my mother?”

  “It was just an idea I had. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.
” He smiled. “As if you would.”

  “What did you do, Paul?”

  “I called Andrew.”

  “And?”

  “Asked him if he needed that house for his office.”

  At first she didn’t understand, and then it came to her in a rush. It couldn’t be true. Things like that didn’t happen to people like her. If she didn’t say anything, she could hold on to the fantasy a little longer, but not even that could keep her from asking, “What did he say?”

  “The house is yours, if you want it. I told Andrew that your mother might be willing to come to work for him and that you would probably come in a couple of times a week, too.” Before she could say anything he held up his hand to stop her. “I know–it’s none of my business, and I had no right to interfere, but I don’t care. This was too important. I wasn’t going to let you–”

  “My mother would be so good with the plants.” Maria didn’t even try to contain her enthusiasm. “She can make anything grow. And she will love the ocean. So will Rosa and Alma. I don’t know about Enrique. He can be so stubborn sometimes.”

  “Gee, I wonder where he got that.”

  She looked at him wide-eyed. “I’m not stubborn.” He didn’t seem convinced. “Really, I’m not.”

  “Prove it.”

  “How?”

  “Go out with me.”

  “I did go out with you.”

  “On a real date, not one where you have to pretend you’re doing me a favor.”

  “Pretend?” she teased, happier than she knew how to be.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do,” she said. “And I will.” She came up on her toes to give him a kiss.

  When she was little she’d thought Cinderella was an especially stupid fairy tale and that any girl who waited around for Prince Charming to rescue her didn’t deserve to be rescued. She was obviously going to have to rethink her position.

  September

  1

  ANDREW WENT FROM THE LIVING ROOM into the kitchen, a paintbrush in one hand, a damp rag in the other. It was his final pass-through. He looked for places that still needed touching up with the trim color they’d used on the windowsills and baseboards. He wanted the painting finished by that afternoon to give it a few days to dry before the new carpet was installed.

  Paul came out of the bedroom, his face sprinkled with sunshine yellow freckles from the roller he’d been using on the ceiling. “Done,” he announced. “And another career choice bites the dust.”

  Andrew smiled. “Decided painting’s not your thing, huh?”

  He looked down at his paint-splattered T-shirt and jeans. “If I had to pay for the paint I spilled, I’d never be able to make a living.”

  They’d had to use the last drop in the bucket after Paul stepped off the ladder and into the freshly filled roller pan. “It’s the finished product that counts, and the room looks great.”

  He grinned. “Yeah, it does.”

  Spotting a bare corner on the window over the sink, Andrew made a quick swipe with the brush, checked the coverage, and stood back to check the other corners. “Have you talked to Maria in the past couple of days?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Did she say whether Enrique was coming around yet?” Initially, only Maria and Juanita had come to talk to Andrew and see the house. Maria had been a nervous wreck when she introduced her mother to Andrew and during the entire time he showed her around the greenhouses. Juanita was hesitant in the beginning, looking for reasons the move wouldn’t work and asking a hundred questions about working for Andrew.

  Instead of being put off by her questions, Andrew was encouraged. Juanita was interested and enthusiastic and looking for something long term. If she had the same innate feel for plants that Maria demonstrated, in a couple of years she would be as invaluable as Alfonso, allowing Andrew to be away from the nursery for more than a week at a time.

  Just when it looked as if the job and house were a done deal, Enrique announced he wasn’t moving. He didn’t want to leave his friends in Oakland.

  Paul took the roller to the sink and dropped it in a bucket of water. “Maria said she talked him into giving Santa Cruz a year. After that, if he still wanted to go back, she would help him find a way.”

  “If he’s anything like I was, all he has to do is meet the right girl, and he’s here for the duration.”

  Paul laughed. “Ain’t that the truth.”

  CHERYL STOOD BACK AND LOOKED AT THE table setting. Everything was perfect, from the linen to the crystal to the silver. The candles were ready to be lit, the champagne cooled and ready to open, the lobster casserole ready to put in the oven.

  The only thing missing was Andrew. He was late. But then he had no idea she was at his house waiting for him. She’d come down a day early as a surprise and was beginning to wonder if he’d gone to Oakland a day early to surprise her.

  She was about to call the nursery when she spotted his truck coming through the forest. After a quick check of her reflection in the front window, she went outside to greet him.

  He parked behind her car, got out, and stopped midway down the driveway to look at her. “Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?” He shook his head in wonder. “How did I get so lucky?”

  She smiled. “Luck had nothing to do with it. I put a spell on you.”

  He came forward and took her in his arms for a long, slow kiss. “Nice surprise. Thank you.”

  “I couldn’t wait.” She touched a streak of white in his hair. “Been painting?”

  “Getting the house ready for Maria and her family.”

  “Have I thanked you enough for what you’re doing for them?”

  “Purely self-interest. If Juanita works out as well as I think she’s going to, I could turn the place over to her in a couple of years …” He tucked his chin under hers and nuzzled her neck. “Then I can spend all my free time doing things like this with you.”

  She tilted her head to make it easier for him to kiss her, sighing when he caught her earlobe between his teeth. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  He let her go, took her hand, and led her into the house. Spotting the table setting, he smiled. “Give me five minutes for a shower, and I’m all yours.”

  He was out in four, dressed in khaki slacks and a chambray shirt, his damp hair finger combed. Cheryl was at the kitchen window staring at the beginning of what promised to be a spectacular sunset. Andrew came up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. She leaned into him. “Hungry?” she asked.

  “For a lot of things,” he murmured against her hair. “Want me to make a list?”

  “It scares me to think how easily we could have missed this moment. If I hadn’t gone to the reunion, if you had listened when I told you I didn’t want to get back together.”

  “None of that matters,” he said. “I’ve decided we were destined to find each other again.”

  She turned to look at him. “Do you really believe that?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. There isn’t one logical reason I chose this place to settle and start a business except that I wanted you to be able to find me if you ever came looking. I was willing to wait forever.”

  “You know you could have looked for me.”

  “I talked myself into believing I gave up that right.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “However, I’m not sure how much longer I would have gone down that noble road.”

  She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I don’t care how we got here. All that matters is that we did.”

  He put his hands on her arms. “Mother Nature is putting on an amazing show for us out there.” He’d wanted the perfect time and setting for this night, and nothing he could have come up with could match what was happening outside. “I think we should show our appreciation.”

  Instead of watching from the deck, Andrew grabbed a throw off the sofa, and they headed for the beach. He spread the plaid blanket in the shelter between two large rocks, s
at down, and held out his hand for Cheryl to join him.

  “I’ll bet you think I don’t remember this place,” she said, sitting between his legs and leaning her back into his chest, her head into his shoulder.

  “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”

  This was where they’d made love for the first time, where they’d vowed to love each other forever. The sunset that night had been glorious, too.

  The sun wore a belt of dark blue clouds and the sky around it was awash in pink and orange and purple. A slowly moving line of pelicans flapped and glided in silhouette against the finger-painted background. In seconds the sea would reach up and snag the brilliant ball. Cheryl waited for the magical moment when they would meet and merge and let out a soft sigh.

  Andrew leaned to his side to dig something out of his pocket. His chin on her shoulder, he held an open velvet box in front of Cheryl. In it, a large blue sapphire caught the light, and for a moment it seemed as if it, too, belonged in the sky.

  “You remembered,” she said, her voice a low, emotion-filled whisper.

  The last time they’d been together in San Diego, they’d window-shopped while waiting for the bus that would take Cheryl home. She’d stopped to look at wedding sets in a jewelry store window and loftily told him she’d decided diamonds were for ordinary people and ordinary lovers. She wanted a sapphire, dark blue and emerald cut.

  The very ring he held in front of her now.

  “I guess I should make this official,” he said. “Will you marry me?”

  She nodded.

  “Is that a yes?”

  She nodded again, afraid to trust her voice.

  Andrew took the ring out of the box. She held up her hand for him to slip the two-carat sapphire on her finger.

  She held her hand against the vivid sky. “It’s even more beautiful than I imagined.” She shifted to face him. “And I’m happier than I thought possible.”

  “Do you need more than a week to plan a wedding?”

  “One week?” She couldn’t have heard him right. “This week?”

  “If that’s too soon, we could make it the end of the month. I just figured the adoption would go easier if we were married a month or two first.”