"What happened?"
Hearing her brother's voice behind her took Nan by surprise. It never failed to annoy her that her siblings felt free to just walk into her house. The fact that it was also their mother's house kept her from saying something about it. "What are you doing here, Stu?" she snapped, answering his question with one of her own. "I was expecting Becca."
"She asked me to sub for her," he said.
"Mmm. Okay. Thanks." Nan felt a small twinge of guilt at her earlier tone. She was well aware that their mother's odd behavior and increasing disorientation made him nervous, yet he had agreed to stay with her tonight. That counted for something. Not all that much, but something. A corporate executive, championship archer, and husband to a state senator, Stuart had no tolerance for anything other than being on top of things. He generally avoided all situations that made him feel the tiniest bit uncertain. Even when they were growing up, he hadn't known what to do with Catherine, and now he was totally out of his league.
"What happened?" he asked again. "Did she fall? Mom, did you fall?"
Catherine looked at him as if she had never seen him before, and Stuart actually took a step backwards. Nan felt sorry for them both. "She was looking for something she thought was on the bottom shelf and she lost her balance, I think."
"Shouldn't we take her to the hospital?"
"No!" Catherine shrieked. "No, no, no! I'm not leaving this house! You hear me? This is my house and I'm not going anywhere!"
"It's all right, Mom. You don't have to go anywhere."
Nan knew she was much too eager to acquiesce to her mother's wishes. But in truth, Catherine took that sort of minor fall at least once a week these days, and so far–thanks to wall-to-wall plush carpeting–there had been no damage. They couldn't be rushing her to the ER every time it happened. The hospital environment, the long wait, the coming and going added a little to her confusion, every time.
"Do you really think it's okay to leave her here with me?" Stuart asked.
"You can be my handsome date," Catherine said, her panic of moments ago replaced by a trace of laughter. "Nanny has a date."
Matt helped Catherine into the living room, settled her into the corner of the sofa, and went back to her room to get the clippings. They paged through one of the scrapbooks while Nan filled in Stuart on the household routine. He nodded, ran his hand nervously over his chin, and made no effort to hide the fact that he didn't want to be here. Nan gave him the portable phone and the card she'd prepared with emergency contacts, set her mother's coffee on the side table and kissed her again, then shot a now or never look at Matt.
CHAPTER SIX
Matt raised an eyebrow, a trick he'd perfected in his salad days. He remained childishly pleased with the accomplishment. Nan tried to do the same, gave up, and used her fingers to raise hers. He laughed.
"We have to go, Mom," she said. "We'll miss the concert."
"Oh, I wish I could go to a concert!" Catherine half lifted herself off the sofa. "Could I come? Oh please, oh please."
Matt started to say something, but Nan cut in quickly. "You and I have tickets to hear that guy who impersonates Frank Sinatra, next week, remember? Just the two of us."
Catherine sent Matt a coy smile. "Perhaps your gentleman friend could accompany us."
"Perhaps," Nan said. "Matt, we really should go. Mom, Stuart will be here with you."
Stuart stepped forward awkwardly. Catherine's gaze lighted on him and a look of joy came over her face, as if she had suddenly recognized him. "Stuart! My firstborn! How wonderful!"
"She can't stay by herself at all?" Matt asked as they hurried to Nan's car.
"I'm never entirely sure," Nan said. "I leave her if I'm just going to run to the store, but I keep waiting for something to happen that will make it clear she can't be left alone at all. I don't know what we'll do then."
"I don't mind if we miss the first few minutes. Seems a small price to pay." Matt patted her arm as she stopped the car at a light. She clearly liked that. "You're great with her," he said.
She smiled over at him. "So are you. Sorry about the delay but I think we're okay. West Point's not that far."
"West Point?" The light changed. A station wagon ran the red light and narrowly missed them. Matt felt as if they had collided with it as a stab of pain in his right eye was followed by an aura of blinding lights. He dug his palm into the pain and stared out of the passenger window so Nan couldn't see his face. He'd been suffering from them since Eliot made his accusation. More often than not, they were accompanied by extreme nausea and vomiting and were debilitating. On top of that, talk of Eliot crept over his skin like slime from a stagnant pond, which was why he had become habituated to frequent showers and to scrubbing himself well nigh raw.
"Is something wrong, Matt?"
He shook his head. "I just–uh–didn't realize the concert was at West Point."
"Yeah. In the auditorium."
"You didn't mention that." The headache was taking hold. No matter how much he wanted to be with Nan, he couldn't do this.
"I didn't think I needed to mention the venue, since I'm driving. Is there a problem?"
Matt turned to face her. "I'd rather not go to West Point, Nan. My son went there, and he had–trouble. They asked him to leave. I blame myself. The place holds too many memories."
Nan looked disappointed and angry. She detoured to the college campus, found a parking place under one of the lights, and pulled in. "All of that makes sense, I guess, except the part where you blame yourself. Why would you blame yourself for Eliot's problems at West Point, for Chrissake? I mean, there are limits to what parents can take credit or blame for."
Matt leaned his head against the seat. "Eliot...he...had problems with authority, I guess you could say."
After a pause, Nan said, somewhat uncharitably, "Yeah? And?"
He reached for her hand. To his surprise, she didn't pull away. "I'm sorry, Nan. I'll reimburse you for the tickets."
"That's hardly the issue–"
He touched her cheek. "I like you, Nan Jenssen."
"I like you, too, Matthew Mullen. Very much."
His head was easing up. With luck, this wouldn't become a full-blown migraine. "Nan Jenssen, Matthew Mullen. Our very names are poetic. Rhyme and alliteration."
"I like that," she said.
"How about we take a walk? It's a nice night and I could use the fresh air."
She smiled sideways at him and nodded. He was pleasantly surprised by how easily she could be mollified. They met on the sidewalk. Almost at once, they were holding hands. He squeezed her fingers. "I just happen to know some of the places the kids go on campus when they want to be alone."
"Is that so? Didn't take you long to find that out."
He pulled her close. "I had a feeling the information might come in handy."
Arms around each other, they made their way into a grove of trees and flowering rhododendron bushes around the library, which was closed and blissfully dark. The gazebo was unoccupied, the encircling bench shadowed. They were kissing before they sat down, and touching each other. She let her tongue play against his lips, and he made a soft sound of pleasure before pulling back. He did not want to ask for too much too soon. "You looked smashing in those photos," he said.
"That was a while ago."
"You still have great legs." He rubbed one of them lightly.
"Don't get carried away." She placed one hand on top of his.
He cupped her chin in his other hand and looked at her seriously in the lamplight. "Actually, I am doing just that," he said. "I'm getting my hopes up, and I don't know if I dare let that happen."
Nan leaned into him for another kiss.
After a while, he whispered, "Would you like to go to my house? I have a pretty extensive music library. I'm willing to bet we could find something we like."
"I bet we could, too," she whispered back and held the keys up for him.
They held hands for a while across the f
ront seat. When she released his hand to rest hers on his knee, he traced her knuckles with a fingertip. They did not look at each other until he drove into a neighborhood of apartment blocks and pulled into a nondescript parking lot, adjacent to a building like several others. He turned off the lights and the ignition, and they were in each other's arms. His hair had begun to come loose from the elastic; Nan tugged it free and ran her fingers through. He held her face in his hands and kissed her deeply.
Then he sat back against the door and gazed at her tousled hair, her disheveled clothes, the flush that was visible even under these lights.
"What?" she demanded, laughing.
"You're beautiful," he said. "You are beautiful."
"So are you," she breathed. He leaned over to her, kissed her ear, and whispered, "Let's go inside."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Nan sent two hard, accurate serves into the opposite court. A few more like that and she might succeed in taking the edge off her frustration, she thought grimly. Thanks to Matt's several out-of-town poetry readings, they hadn't been able to get together for almost a week. Their daily affectionate phone conversations and intimate if not quite erotic emails fueled both her memory of that evening at his house and her fantasies of reprising a sexual experience that was frighteningly close to ideal.
She'd chaffed, surprised by how much she wanted to see him. Touch him. The rhythm of his poet's voice aroused her, creating mind-pictures of the planes and angles of his face and the outlines of his body with which she now had a tactile as well as a visual familiarity.
"So, Nan." Dan Masterson leaned into the gate that led onto the court. "I hear things are going nicely between you and our Dr. Mullen."
"Oh." For the first time in years, she felt herself blushing. "Yes, they are. Why, what did he say?"
"Nothing I didn't already know. That you're smart and attractive." He grinned down at her. "Well, maybe some things I didn't know."
She had slid a ball next to the side of her foot in order to pick it up with her racquet but stopped in mid-action. "All right. What did he tell you?'
"Honestly, Nan, he didn't tell me anything personal. He's not exactly the kiss-and-tell type. But I've known him a long time and it's good to see him happy."
"How well do you know him?"
Dan shifted uneasily. "Well, we're buddies."
"Buddies. Does that mean friends?"
"Now that's an interesting question. Gender differences in the use of language."
She punched his arm, only half-playfully. "Stop with the professor routine, okay? I want to know what's going on between Matt Mullen and his son."
"His son?"
"His son. Eliot. You know, with one L, like the poet."
Dan abandoned the pretense of not knowing what she was talking about. "They haven't spoken in years. I think he emails Eliot once in a while."
"Does Eliot answer?"
Dan shook his head. "I don't think so. It's the tragedy of Matt's life."
"What happened between them?"
Dan's characteristically happy-go-lucky manner was replaced by a seriousness she'd never seen in him before. "I don't know. He won't talk to me about it. Actually, we don't talk about anything very personal."
"So that's the difference between 'buddies' and 'friends?'"
He gave her a poor facsimile of his cheery boyish grin and a wave that missed being jaunty. "Ask him about Eliot yourself," he said. "As I'm sure you know, he'll be back tonight."
Impatiently, Nan scooped up the tennis ball, tossed it into the air, and slammed it into the far fence. Then she inhaled deeply and told herself to calm down. Ashley would be here any moment, bringing Jordan for a lesson and to spend the weekend.
"Grandma!"
Jordan raced toward Nan and all but leaped into her arms. She held the child to her, reveling in the sunny smell of her hair and the strength of her little body. Over Jordan's head she smiled at her daughter, and when she could she made a point of hugging her, too. "How's my favorite kid and grandkid?"
"We're your only kid and grandkid!" Jordan shrieked in delight.
"That's right. My only and my favorite." They both giggled at the familiar game. Nan set her down on her feet and nodded approvingly at the long hair, tied back in a ponytail, and the child's white tennis outfit. Old-fashioned though it might be, she liked seeing white on the courts, especially on an eight-year-old who had yet to learn the history and traditions of the game. Many of today's outfits were fun, sometimes even flamboyant, but for her–probably for most Baby Boomers–the game had lost something indefinable.
"Thanks, Ash." Nan smiled at her daughter.
"For what? You're the one who's doing us a favor, taking Jordan for the weekend."
Nan watched Jordan take the cover off her racquet and double-check the laces on her tennis shoes. "I meant thanks for trusting her with me. And for dressing her like a player."
"She enjoys dressing like you in your photos almost as much as she loves being with you. You're a terrific grandmother."
Ashley and Kevin were going away for a romantic interlude at Bear Mountain Lodge. Nan smiled at the certainty that it wouldn't for a moment occur to her daughter that her mother might be having romantic interludes of her own. Or what she happily supposed could now officially be called an affair.
She wasn't prepared to share this with Ashley or anyone else. Not all secrets were bad; this one was delicious.
"What are we going to do today, Grandma? Could we play a real game? Pleasepleaseplease."
"Soon," Nan said. "There's a lot to learn first, Sweetie."
Jordan started to pout.
"Shades of the past," Ashley said, smiling.
"What does that mean?" Jordan asked.
"It means your Grandma told me the same thing when I was your age."
"Did you get mad, too?"
"Yes, I did, but it didn't help."
Jordan sighed heavily. "You're stu-stubborn, Grandma," she said seriously.
Nan laughed. "Pick up all the balls around the court and put them in this bucket so we can get started practicing your serve."
"Do I have to?" Without waiting for an answer, Jordan picked up the pail and stomped away, mumbling to herself. Nan tried not to laugh at the child who reminded her so much of herself.
"I'll leave Jordan's things over here at the gate." Ashley dropped a small duffle and a jacket onto the clay, pushed them against the high fence that surrounded the teaching court, and walked over to hug her mother. "Thank you," she said. "I owe you."
"What's one more?" Nan teased, hugging her daughter. "Go."
"I'm done, Grandma," Jordan called out. "Now could we play a game?"
"My answer hasn't changed," Nan said. "Take the bucket to the service line and start practicing your serve."
"Pleeease."
The child was whining. If there was one thing Nan found intolerable, it was whining. "I said no, Jordan." Nan's words sounded harsh, even to her own ears. That was the problem with a name like Jordan; there was no diminutive that worked to soften that kind of imperative.
"Why are you saying no to such a beautiful young lady?"
The voice came from directly behind Nan. She turned around to see Matt standing in the morning sun. He was holding coffee and biscotti. How nice, she thought, how sweet that little things like this could become traditions so quickly. Our song. Our secluded grove. Our coffee and biscotti.
"What are you doing here? I thought you weren't due back till this evening."
He came out onto the court, set down the cardboard tray. "I can always come back later," he said and took her in his arms. She didn't resist his kiss, but moved quickly away.
"Not here," she told him. "Not now."
He didn't quite let her go. "Why not? It'd do the students good to see their elders falling in love."
Falling in love? Was that what was happening? Not at all sure, Nan was nonetheless inordinately pleased to hear him say so. "Not exactly professional," she protested w
eakly as he nuzzled her ear.
"Who cares? The semester's almost over." Arms around her, he struck a pose. "If not now, Milady, pray tell when? If not here, then where?"
Nan indicated Jordan, who was twirling her racket and watching them. "My granddaughter–"
At that moment, Jordan served the ball with a measure of strength such as Nan had never seen from her before. She would have been impressed had it gone where it was supposed to. Instead, it hit Matt squarely between the shoulder blades, forcing the air out of him and making him stumble. He let loose a string of epithets, and, on the other side of the court, Jordan burst into tears and sank onto the clay. "I'm sorry, Grandma! I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! I'm sorry!"
For a moment Nan was paralyzed. Then she made her choice and sprinted toward the hysterical little girl. As she gathered the child to her, she saw Matt striding toward them. Jordan squealed and hid behind Nan, who was shaken by the fury on his face. Before he reached them, he was shouting. "What's the matter with you? What's the matter with her? She could really hurt somebody!"
Jordan wailed, "Grand-ma!" and burrowed into her grandmother.
"Matt, are you hurt?" Nan called to him. "She didn't mean to hurt you."
"She ought to know better than that!" He squatted too close to them and shook his finger in Jordan's face when she peeked out at him. "You ought to know better than that!"
"I'm sorry!" Jordan whimpered.
"You're not sorry! You did that on purpose! You were jealous–"
"Stop it, Matt," Nan said evenly. "You're scaring her."
There was a silence, broken only by Jordan's ragged breathing. Matt stood up. "Fine," he said icily. "Fine," and strode off.
For what remained of the day, long after Jordan had calmed down and apparently forgotten the incident, Nan's outrage escalated. She taught while Jordan played happily around the courts and chatted to anyone who looked the least bit willing. Time and again, she thought about calling Matt to make sure he was okay, but his over-the-top anger with her granddaughter made her not want to talk to him at all.
Great sex aside, growing affection aside, she was not about to get herself entangled with a man who had some deep dark secret and acted that unreasonably. It might very well be over. She would be sorry if that happened, but better now than later.
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