The Trouble with Joe

by Emilie Richards

  “My mom’s at the fountain,” Mary Nell managed to say as the woman began to drag them in that direction. “We were going to buy the markers. We were just trying ’em out.”

  “You certainly are going to buy them!”

  Corey saw the look on Sam’s face as she and Mary Nell were dragged toward the wrong table. Then she saw the look on the woman’s face as Mary Nell pointed toward Miss Polly. “That’s my mom,” she said. “And that’s Miss Sam. She’s taking care of Corey now.”

  The woman dropped their arms. Mary Nell sprinted across the short distance and fell into the booth next to her mother. Corey didn’t know what to do. Miss Sam stood and beckoned. Corey had never been so glad to be wanted in her life. She threw herself into Miss Sam’s arms and buried her head against her.

  “They were using markers on her cast.” The woman said the last word as if it were somehow distasteful and pointed to Corey. “They didn’t pay for them.”

  “We were going to pay for ’em on the way out,” Mary Nell told her mother. “I needed some for school. Remember?”

  “I certainly do remember.” Polly looked the woman up and down. “Next time, why don’t you check with me before you scare my daughter half to death?” she asked in her best first-grade-teacher voice.

  “I’m sorry. I really am. I just saw her—” she pointed to Corey again “—and I thought there was some trouble.”

  “Well, the next time, why don’t you check with me,” Sam said, “before you scare my...little friend here? She’s staying with me now, and I’ll expect her to be treated like any other little girl in town.”

  “Well, she’s stolen things before,” the woman said.

  “Just a candy bar.” Corey still had her head against Sam’s side. “Once. Just one time.” She wanted to add that she’d been pretty hungry that day waiting for her mother to come back home, but she didn’t think it would make any difference.

  Sam reached into her purse and fumbled for a dollar bill. Her hand was trembling. She held it out to the woman. “Consider it paid for.”

  “I don’t want your money, Mrs. Giovanelli. I just didn’t know the—”

  “Take it,” Sam said through clenched teeth. “And then we can both forget this ever happened. But I expect you to give Corey a fresh start.”

  The woman looked helplessly at Polly. Polly nodded. The woman stepped forward and took the bill. “This really isn’t necessary.”

  “I think it is. Corey’s part of my family now, and the Giovanellis take care of their own.”

  Corey didn’t understand exactly what Miss Sam was saying, but she knew that from that moment on she wasn’t going to have to be afraid of anybody in town again. She felt the way she always did when she fit that last jigsaw-puzzle piece into place. She didn’t know why. She just did.

  * * *

  JOE WATCHED COREY limp into the kitchen in one of the new outfits that Sam had bought for her. One of the many new outfits.

  “It looks wonderful,” Sam said enthusiastically. “You look wonderful.”

  “Don’t,” Corey said.

  “You look very pretty,” Joe said. “Did you get your hair cut, too?”

  Corey looked away, obviously embarrassed at the attention.

  “I took her in to my stylist to have her bangs trimmed and the rest of it shaped up just a little. She wants to let it grow long.”

  Like Sam’s. Joe knew that as surely as if Corey had told him herself. If the child hadn’t already worshiped Sam before today, now she would probably be willing to lie down on a holy altar as a human sacrifice to the goddess Samantha Giovanelli.

  “How did you fit in all those appointments?” Joe had heard about trips to the pediatrician—Corey was basically healthy, although definitely undernourished; the dentist—Corey would definitely need more trips there; and now, the hairdresser. Not to mention a buying spree that would go down in Foxcove economic history.

  “Well, we worked hard,” Sam answered. “That’s why we’re having pizza from town. Besides, it’s one of Corey’s favorites.”

  “What don’t you eat?” Joe asked Corey.

  The little girl seemed perplexed, and he felt immediately ashamed of himself for putting her on the spot. “How do you feel about spinach?”

  “Don’t know.”

  He wondered if she had ever eaten vegetables at home.

  Sam seemed to read his mind. “Corey’s going to help me in the vegetable garden tomorrow. Then we’re going to cook whatever we pick for dinner.”

  Corey wasn’t as big as the row of withering cornstalks in the back of the garden or the hoe that Sam would probably give her to wield. She would be nothing but a threat to all vegetable life and a huge distraction. But Sam seemed hardly able to wait for the experience.

  Joe could feel something simmering inside him. It had simmered since the morning and heated up since he’d come back home to find Sam and Corey trooping inside with half a ton of shopping bags. He didn’t begrudge the money. His feelings had nothing to do with money.

  “Corey, run on upstairs and wash your face and hands,” Sam said. “Then why don’t you unpack the puzzles Mary Nell gave you and start one on your desk? I’ll call you when the pizza’s ready.”

  Corey looked rebellious at the first suggestion, but the second seemed to intrigue her. She left the kitchen, and Joe could hear her clattering up the stairs in her new shoes.

  “That was another stop I didn’t tell you about,” Sam said. “Mary Nell insisted we follow Polly home so she could give Corey about two dozen puzzles and a bagful of books, besides. You should have seen Corey’s face.”

  “Thunderstruck, I’d imagine,” Joe said.

  “At least that. Anyway, this will keep her busy for a while so you and I can chat in peace. How was your day?”

  “Calm by comparison.”

  “Oh, come on, things at the high school are never calm. Even when the kids aren’t there yet.”

  He described his day in as few words as possible. She didn’t seem to notice his brevity.

  “Well, it sounds as if the year’s getting off to a good start,” she said.

  He watched as she bent over to slide the pizza, cardboard box and all, into the oven. When she straightened her cheeks were flushed with heat. “I feel like I accomplished about a bazillion things today. And I’m still brimming with energy.” She smiled, a seductive Samantha smile. “I hope you are, too, because I seem to remember we have plans for later.”

  He saw the sparkle in her eyes, the flush that wasn’t fading in the cooler air, and he knew why she felt so alive. Not because of him and a promised night of lovemaking, but because today she had lived out her fantasies of motherhood, fantasies that his sterility had made impossible.

  “Playing fairy godmother must be energizing,” he said.

  “Is that what I was doing?” she asked, still smiling.

  “Yes. To Corey’s Cinderella.”

  The smile faded slowly. “You’re angry, aren’t you?”

  “No. I’m not angry. I just see the handwriting on the wall.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you know what it’s going to be like for that child when she has to leave? Anybody ever give you a Christmas package and then snatch it away at the last minute?”

  She looked away. “I thought about that. I really did.”

  “Not hard enough.”

  She drummed her fingers on the stove. “What was I supposed to do, Joe? Was I supposed to treat her like a secondhand piece of merchandise so she won’t get used to feeling special? Should I have done all her shopping at the Goodwill store? Bought her only a couple of things and washed them every night?”

  “You overdid it, big time.”

  “All right, I did. Like I said, I knew it. But I couldn’t s
eem to stop myself. I remember what it was like to be that age. I can’t tell you what I would have given to have someone focus on me and what I wanted.”

  “You? You had everything! What did you ever want that you couldn’t have?” The words were out of his mouth before he could take them back. And it took only a second to realize how wrong and how cruel they were.

  “I was given everything my parents thought I should have and not one thing more. And nobody ever looked me in the eye or paid attention to who I really was. Not until you came along.”

  He felt lower than an earthworm. He stood and took her in his arms. “I’m sorry.”

  She pulled away. “You know what I think? I think you’re right. In the short term caring so much for Corey might make it harder for her when she has to leave. But I’m willing to take the chance that in the long run she’ll remember that somebody did care, somebody paid attention, and it’ll make her a happier, more secure person.”

  “No. You’re setting her up.”

  Sam kept her voice low. “You’re setting me up. You didn’t want Corey here and you still don’t. And now it’s eating you up because it means so much to me. Today was wonderful, and now you’re trying to make it a lot less so. You’ve forgotten how to look me in the eye and see what I really need. You’ve forgotten how to pay attention to anybody but yourself!”

  “I’m not talking about you or me. I’m talking about that little girl and what’s best for her.” But even as he proclaimed his innocence, Joe knew she was right.

  “Do you even care?” she asked. “Can you remember how to care about a kid, Joe? Or did you stop caring the day you found out that you were never going to father one of your own?”

  * * *

  COREY WASHED HER hands and face, even though she didn’t see why she should. Miss Sam had funny ideas about how clean a little girl should be. Sometimes she was afraid her skin was going to peel right off the way Miss Sam scrubbed. Washing the hand in the cast was hard, and using one hand to wash her face was harder. But she managed.

  In her room she peered around warily. There were no shadows now. It was still early, and the room looked pretty nice. There were kittens on the curtains just like the ones on the bed. They looked alive, and almost as pretty as Tinkerbelle’s kittens. Miss Sam had let Corey hold Tink’s kittens in the summer, when she had brought Mr. Red here for her to fix. Corey was sorry the kittens were all grown up now and gone.

  She hugged her bear, then stuck it down between her cast and her body. The cast was a lot prettier now. Mary Nell could draw real good. She thought maybe Mary Nell was going to be her friend.

  She put the puzzles on the shelf that Miss Sam had said to use for her toys. Having toys of her own felt kind of strange. She’d had a few from time to time, but never so many and all at once. Besides the puzzles and books there was the bear, and all kinds of things to draw and color on and with. And there was a doll that sat in the corner and stared at her. Miss Sam said it was mostly a looking doll because it was very old, but she said that tomorrow she and Corey would shop for a playing doll.

  Corey wondered if they really would.

  She saved the best puzzle to dump out on the desk. It was a big one, with lots of bitty little pieces. The picture on the front of the box was a farm, with cows and horses and a little girl—blond like her and Miss Sam—feeding a rooster and a whole flock of hens. She was just about to start it when she heard voices downstairs.

  They weren’t loud voices, but they weren’t talking voices, either. Frowning, she went to the door and poked her head into the hallway.

  She couldn’t hear what Mr. Joe was saying, but he sounded angry. When Miss Sam answered, she sounded angry, too, almost as angry as she had sounded at the drugstore.

  Corey remembered the way Miss Sam had talked to the lady at the store. She hadn’t even asked Corey why she had stolen the candy bar that time. She had stuck up for Corey then, and Corey thought maybe she was sticking up for her again with Mr. Joe.

  The thought pleased her. She liked Miss Sam a lot, but Mr. Joe was another thing. He didn’t like her. She could tell. She guessed he would do just about anything to make her leave. But maybe if he and Miss Sam were mad at each other, he would leave instead.

  That thought gave her real pleasure. If Mr. Joe left, then Miss Sam might just keep Corey there. She would need company, wouldn’t she? And Corey could help out and stuff. She could do lots of things.

  The voices stopped. When Miss Sam finally called her to dinner, Mr. Joe wasn’t there anymore. Miss Sam said that he’d had to go out for a while. Sitting next to Miss Sam at the table, Corey hoped that he wouldn’t ever find his way back home.

  Chapter Ten

  SAM KISSED HER mother’s cool cheek and inhaled a faint drift of the specially blended scent that was as much a part of Kathryn Whitehurst as her perfectly groomed blond hair. Kathryn was dressed in clothes only she would consider perfect for a Labor Day family barbecue: white linen slacks with a knife-edged crease that pointed the way to powder blue sandals, a short-sleeved blue silk sweater and understated platinum jewelry. Never mind that a drop of barbecue sauce would ruin the slacks, a walk to the pond would ruin the sandals. This was Kathryn at her most casual. Sam was learning to be tolerant.

  “I wish you could have come to see us, Samantha,” Kathryn said after she had pulled away. “This was too much of a trip after all the traveling we did this summer.”

  “I know, but it would have been Thanksgiving before Joe and I could have gotten out of town. School starts tomorrow. I’m glad you decided to come.”

  “Your father decided.” Her tone implied that she had been against it, but Sam suspected that Kathryn found some sort of pleasure in getting together with Joe’s family, even if it was just perverse fascination that her only child had married into such a rowdy crew.

  “Well, I fixed your favorite picnic food, just to make it worth the trip,” Sam said.

  “It was worth the trip just to see you,” Kathryn said, unbending just a trifle. “And to catch a glimpse of this child we’ve heard so much about.”

  “You’ll probably only catch a glimpse. Corey’s off playing somewhere with the nieces and nephews.” Sam turned to greet her father, who had been on the other side of the car talking to Joe. Joe was always unfailingly polite to both of her parents. He found them every bit as fascinating as they found the Giovanellis.

  She said all the appropriate things to her father and listened politely to his responses, but her eyes flicked over and over again to Joe. His polo shirt was a blinding white against his tanned skin, and his shorts were just tight enough to hint at delicious secrets.

  Unfortunately everything about Joe was secret these days. In the weeks since Corey had come to live with them he had thrown himself into his work with a fervor that, even for Joe, was obsessive. Sometimes she found herself longing for the days before Corey had come, days when there had been the occasional, if rare, shared moment. Since the day she and Corey had come home from their marathon shopping trip, Joe had been a total stranger.

  Sometimes she wasn’t even sure she was still a married woman.

  Joe caught her gaze and held it as her father made one more comment about the house. Something simmered behind Joe’s dark stare. She didn’t know what; she would probably be the last to know. She wanted to take him by the arm, lead him into a sheltering bough of pine trees and demand that he talk to her. But she knew where that would lead. Nowhere. And she wasn’t Kathryn and Fischer Whitehurst’s daughter for nothing. She knew the duties of a hostess.

  She settled her parents on the front porch with drinks and Rose. Rose adored Kathryn because she listened raptly to Rose’s stories about her grandchildren. Sam suspected that her mother was in the market for a couple of grandchildren of her own, even though she had never mentioned the subject to Sam. Sam hadn’t yet told her that the
re would be no children with Whitehurst-Giovanelli blood running through their veins.

  Back in the empty kitchen she stood at the counter for a moment, resting before the next onslaught of guests. All Joe’s family had been invited, along with Polly and her husband and Mary Nell, who to Sam’s surprise seemed to genuinely enjoy spending time with Corey. Johnny and Teddy were already down at the pond with their children, who were having the last swim of the season. Francis and his brood were there, too, along with one of Joe’s sisters and her family. The others would probably arrive later because they had farther to come.

  She felt warm hands on her shoulders before she even knew that Joe was there. “Do you need any help in here?” he asked.

  She experienced the rumble of his deep voice in parts of her body that had nothing to do with her hearing. She leaned against him, and his arms came around her. For a moment she was frightened to breathe, frightened that anything would scare him away.

  “I could make another gallon of lemonade, boil water for tea, make more hamburger patties,” he offered.

  “Just do what you’re doing.”

  He nuzzled an ear. “I’ll add a thing or two.”

  “Oh, by all means.”

  “Mama’s showing your mother my baby pictures.”

  “She’s sure my mother loves you like a son.”

  “She can’t imagine anyone who doesn’t adore me.”

  “Neither can I.” Sam turned in his arms and threaded hers around his neck. “I adore you.”

  He didn’t smile, but his gaze remained fixed on hers. “I don’t know why. But I’m damned grateful.”

  “Joe—”

  He put his finger on her lips. “Shh... This isn’t the time or place for confessions. But I’m sorry. I’ve made the past few weeks harder for you than they needed to be.”

  She kissed his finger; then she kissed him. He tasted like hickory smoke and sunshine, the end of warm summer days. “It’s an adjustment having Corey around. I know it’s hard sometimes.”