A New Kind of Bliss

by Bettye Griffin

  Then I remembered that mustard I spilled on my T-shirt at the buffet. I’d immediately gone into the ladies’ room and wiped it with a damp paper towel with liquid soap, but obviously I’d missed a spot. I looked down at my shirt and saw the offending spot, plus a faint yellow outline from my efforts to wash it away. It would be embarrassing to be presented to family with mustard stain on my shirt. And what about my hair? It came out a lot better than I thought it would after I washed it, but I’d been reclining and sleeping off and on all day, and I thought I’d thrown my brush into my suitcase.

  “They’ve noticed I’ve been going out a lot lately, and I know they’re curious about whom I’ve been spending my time with,” he said with a chuckle.

  “I suppose I can’t blame them.” If he didn’t take me in and introduce me they’d probably be peeking out from behind the curtains, trying to catch a glimpse of me. I suddenly saw a way out, and I jumped on it. “Are you really sure your kids are ready for this? They’ve suffered a tremendous loss, and I can’t imagine how difficult it would be for them to see you with someone other than their mother.” At least until I had a chance to put on something without a mustard stain across the chest.

  “I think they’re more curious than anyone else. Their friends’ mothers have been trying to set me up with their friends, their sisters, their in-laws….”

  I was human enough to be curious. “Do they know you’ve been with me for the last day and a half?”

  “No, not really. To them it’s just another quick business trip for a speaking engagement or something. I saw no point in telling them otherwise. They know they can always reach me on my cell phone, but they usually hear from me first.”

  “Do they at least know where you went?”

  “Oh, sure. They know I was going to Indianapolis and would be gone two days. I couldn’t give them a hotel name because I didn’t know where I’d be staying.” He chuckled. “My mother-in-law tried to press me for information, but I just told her I’d be back tonight, and if she needed to contact me, to call my cell. They don’t know anything.”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about being kept a secret, like some backstreet mistress, even though the cat was about to be let out of the bag. I didn’t understand why Aaron had been so hush-hush about seeing me. “Why didn’t you just tell her the truth?”

  “Because it’s none of her business. I’m fond of my mother-in-law, Emily, and grateful to her as well, but Beverline will ask me questions my own mother wouldn’t dare ask. I won’t allow her carte blanche to my personal affairs.”

  That, I realized, was exactly what I’d become. A personal affair.

  I managed to pull out my comb out of my purse and give my hair a going-over and catch it in a coated rubber band just above the nape of my neck. Before I knew it, Aaron was pulling into a private driveway that led to a Spanish-style stucco mansion. The iron gates swung open after he entered a password on the keypad. It was all I could do not to gasp audibly at the sight of the mansion. It’s not like I expected him to live in a shack, but this place looked like it could be home to the King of Spain. It was a lot to take in after a long, boring drive through Middle America, where most people lived in ordinary ranch houses, Dutch Colonials, and old-fashioned A-frame farmhouses.

  “Nice,” I murmured.

  “I wasn’t sure what to do after Diana died,” he said. “I thought buying a new place might help the kids cope better. I talked to them about it, and they all wanted to stay.”

  “Understandable.” I looked around in awe. This wasn’t just a house; it was an estate. Aaron stopped the car in front of one of the three single-car garages that attached to the main house, forming an L shape. The entire house had two stories, and I guessed at least a dozen rooms. There even appeared to be living space above the garage.

  “Diana did a fabulous decorating job on it when we moved in when Billy—he’s the youngest—was just two.”

  Remember that, I told myself, more nervous than ever. His son’s name is Billy.

  “Let’s go in,” he suggested.

  I waited for him to come around and open the door for me, more out of stark terror than out of a desire for him to be chivalrous. I had barely alighted from the passenger seat when one of the massive oak front doors opened and a bunch of kids came running. “Daddy, you’re back!” they exclaimed.

  I stood back politely while Aaron embraced each of the youngsters, two teenage girls and a boy about eight or nine. Their happy reunion brought a smile to my face, and I kept it even after I became aware of a plump, white-haired woman wearing plaid Capri pants coming outside and staring at me apprehensively.

  “Daddy’s back,” Aaron said jovially. “Everything okay here?”

  “Fine,” the children said in unison.

  “We saw the lights,” the woman said. “But I told the kids not to go outside until they saw it was you. We didn’t recognize the car. At first I thought someone had managed to get through the gates.”

  My shoulders tightened up. Aaron’s mother-in-law thought my car belonged to vandals? All right, so I didn’t drive a late-model foreign number, but my six-year-old, no-more-car-payments Nissan was, well, reliable.

  “I rode with a friend. Beverline, kids, this is Emily Yancy. Emily, this is my mother-in-law, Beverline Wilson….”

  I smiled in response to her rather stiff nod.

  “My daughter Kirsten…”

  The older girl said a polite, if frigid, hello.

  “My daughter Arden…”

  A stare somewhere between shyness and hostility, with the edge toward the latter.

  “And my son, Billy.”

  A friendly “Hi!”

  Finally, a happy face. One out of four. Looked like I had some work to do. Instinct told me that Aaron had made a mistake by bringing me here tonight, although I saw no way to get out of it. I could understand a mother-in-law not wanting to see the widower of her deceased daughter show an interest in other women, just like I could see how two daughters would fear their father might be forgetting their mother. A little forewarning from Aaron might have been nice. From what he told me—and I knew it was the truth—he hadn’t brought any women home since his wife passed. But, on the other hand, if they were that unhappy to see me, maybe they should have kept their asses in the house. Beverline had admitted to looking out at us through the window, so it wasn’t like they didn’t know I was here.

  I noticed Aaron’s mother-in-law looking at my license plate. “You’re from Indiana,” she said, sounding happy about the distance between Indiana and New York.

  “I’ve lived there for quite a while now. But Euliss is my hometown, and I’ve moved back, at least temporarily.”

  “Oh. You’re from Euliss.”

  She said it like I’d just announced I was from Uranus. “Yes, I am,” I said matter-of-factly. I’d long since been accustomed to well-to-do folks from White Plains or New Rochelle putting on airs. So what if Euliss was a poorer city overall? That didn’t mean it was entirely populated by thugs.

  “I see,” Beverline said, as if there was really something to see. “Uh…I’m confused. Did you two meet on the plane?”

  I thought I actually saw Kirsten’s and Arden’s ears do little jumps, but I wasn’t about to answer that one. I merely looked at Aaron.

  “No, Beverline,” he said. “As Emily just explained, she’s back in Westchester for an extended stay.”

  I hated it when people said Westchester as a cover for Euliss. Apparently, many people felt there was little point in giving the name of a tacky city if you could get by naming a county that was home to many a wealthy suburb. Euliss is where I was from, and that was that.

  “I flew out to help her drive her car here,” Aaron concluded.

  I sneaked a glance at all three females, all of whom looked distressed at this news that proved that Aaron and I hadn’t just met, but had known each other previously. I could see the wheels of their respective brains turning as they recognized a connection betw
een Aaron’s frequent absences from home and the somewhat disheveled me.

  “I see,” Beverline repeated. I decided that line was a favorite of hers, probably uttered when the situation called for something vocal and she had nothing else to say. I wondered if she always said it the exact same way, like that ring announcer on HBO who opened each boxing match with, “Let’s get ready to rummmbllle!”

  “Have you two eaten?” Beverline asked, graciously changing the subject. “Shirley made smothered pork chops.”

  Aaron made a “Mmmmm” while I wondered who Shirley was.

  “We stopped for a good meal in Pennsylvania, but that was a while ago, and I think it’s worn off for both of us. I know it has for me.” He turned to me. “Emily, why don’t you come in and have a little something?”

  He was right; all those dishes I’d stuffed myself with at the buffet had long since been digested, even if part of the evidence lingered on my shirt. “An open pork chop sandwich sounds real good to me right about now.”

  The children and Beverline went inside. I followed them into an exquisitely designed house decorated in a Southwestern flair. Just beyond the entryway to the sunken living room hung a large portrait of a lovely young woman in a black scoop-necked top—maybe it was a dress—a large diamond gleaming at her throat, her manicured hand loosely holding a red rose. It had to be Diana. Now the finger-shaking figure from my dream had a face, and a pretty one at that, as well as an elegant-appearing hand.

  I turned away, not wanting to make unflattering comparisons between her and myself. I did have one major factor going for me, one that Diana couldn’t compete with: I was alive.

  “I’d better give my mother a call,” I said, “just to tell her that we got in safely, and that I’ll be home shortly. I don’t want her to worry.”

  “Emily, are you sure it’s safe to drive home so late?” Aaron asked.

  Beverline’s smile relaxed to a bemused expression. Aaron had never said anything along the lines of Euliss being unsafe before. I knew he was just looking out for me, but I cursed his timing nevertheless.

  “I’m sure,” I said firmly, holding his gaze. “It’s a quiet street, Aaron. And it’s not exactly the middle of the night.”

  Billy came into the kitchen. “Daddy, guess what? I did a backflip this afternoon.”

  Aaron gave his son a high-five. “Hey, good for you! I’m sorry I missed it.”

  “I’ll do another one for you tomorrow. It was easy.”

  “There you are, Billy,” Kirsten said accusingly, appearing from another room. “Don’t you know not to bother Daddy when he’s eating?”

  “And who instituted that rule?” Aaron asked, obviously startled.

  Kirsten’s mouth quivered. “I just thought that…”

  “She just wants to make sure that Billy behaves himself for Miss Yancy,” Beverline said easily. A grateful Kirsten moved next to her grandmother, who put a reassuring arm around her shoulder.

  “Oh, I think Emily can see us as we really are,” Aaron said with a smile. He winked at me, an act I found so sexy that for an instant I considered staying. Maybe I’d get lucky and he’d sneak into my room. This house was probably big enough no one would even notice. We were overdue to get to know each other a little better, and we’d both sleep like the dead—no, that wasn’t the right word—like babies afterward.

  Beverline placed plates containing a pork chop smothered in gravy, a generous helping of macaroni and cheese, and a few spears of broccoli in front of each of us. “Oh, how wonderful it looks!” I exclaimed. Realizing that I probably sounded overly enthusiastic—God forbid Beverline think that all people from Euliss ate nothing but McDonald’s—I hastily added, “I hadn’t realized I was this hungry. I hope we didn’t put you to too much trouble.”

  “Not at all. I enjoy rumbling around a little in the kitchen, even if the housekeeper does do most of the actual cooking.”

  My eyes darted toward the entry. I half expected to see a uniformed maid come in, ready to put the food back in the fridge. That must be the Shirley Beverline alluded to.

  Obviously Kirsten noticed my action. “She left hours ago.”

  “Oh. Um…Mrs. Wilson, can I trouble you for a piece of bread?”

  “No problem, Miss Yancy.” Beverline turned to Kirsten. “Get Miss Yancy a piece of bread, Kirsten.”

  The teen obeyed, but her stiff movements told me she didn’t want to get anything for me.

  I lowered my head so no one would see me rolling my eyes.

  “That was delicious,” I said sincerely, wiping my mouth with my napkin.

  “Oh…I think you might have spilled something on your shirt,” Beverline said.

  The mustard. “Actually, that happened at lunch.” How had I known that wouldn’t escape her eye and that she’d comment on it? She hadn’t exactly made me feel welcome. Of course she wouldn’t miss a chance to try to convince Aaron I was a slob or something.

  I cleared my throat. “I hate to eat and run, but I really should be getting home.”

  “You know, Emily, you don’t have to drive home tonight if you don’t want to,” Aaron said. “Maybe it would be better if you stayed here tonight. We’ve got an extra room for you.” He glanced at his watch. “I know it’s not the middle of the night, but it’s going on ten.”

  One look at Beverline’s face told me Aaron had gone too far. She hid it well, but that little smile she offered was tighter than last year’s jeans. I felt kind of bad for her. She might have been able to absorb that her late daughter’s husband had begun dating again, plus the possibility of having the woman in question sleep under the same roof, if she’d known Aaron was seeing someone. But it was an awful lot to swallow in one gulp. I suspected she’d rather I sleep under a bridge somewhere than under this roof.

  “Oh, ten o’clock isn’t that late,” I replied breezily. “And parking isn’t bad on my mother’s street. It’s a cul-de-sac,” I explained to a relieved-looking Beverline, although I suspected she’d be thrilled to be rid of me if I were to meet with an unexpected case of death on my way home.

  Aaron walked me to my car after I said good-bye to the others, and when he kissed me good night I didn’t care if anyone was watching or not. Aaron’s kisses had that effect on me. His lips straddled the fine line of being both soft and insistent, and he always smelled so deliciously masculine. I burrowed as close to him as I could.

  I kept rubbing my lips together as I drove. And I smiled, knowing that Aaron would be grilled about me like hot dogs on the Fourth of July by Beverline the minute he stepped back into the house.

  Mom was sitting in the living room when I got in, watching CNN. “How did it go?” she asked, her eyes all lit up with the unasked questions, Did you do the deed? Seal the deal?

  “Fine, Mom.”

  “I wish you’d had time to stop at Cissy’s. She called me. She was so disappointed.”

  “Like I told you, Mom, it was a quick trip with a purpose, not a leisurely drive across a third of the country. I’m exhausted. We drove all day, for nearly thirteen hours. Aaron did most of the driving. I can only imagine how he must be feeling. And he’s got to go to work Monday. All I have to do is sit and wait for the phone to ring to see if Dr. Norman was able to talk those snotty sons of his into hiring me.” I’d decided I’d rather work at the Norman Family Practice than at the hospital. I sighed. “I just hope they come up with an offer before the hospital does.”

  “I’m sure you won’t be waiting long. Where is Aaron, anyway?”

  “He’s home. We were driving my car, remember?”

  “Oh, that’s right.” Her eyes flashed with excitement. “So you got to see his house. Tell me all about it.”

  “Better than that. I met his entire family, his kids and his mother-in-law.”

  Worry instantly clouded my mother’s features. “I wish he’d given you a chance to clean up a little. Isn’t that a stain on your shirt?”

  Go figure. Mom couldn’t thread a needle two inches
from her face, but she could see a slight spot from five feet away. “A little mustard sauce from the spareribs I had for lunch. I’m sure they weren’t expecting me to look like Miss America, especially once they learned we’d been on the road since early this morning.”

  “What were they like?”

  “Oh, his daughters and his mother-in-law were a little apprehensive, but that’s to be expected. Aaron told me he’s never brought a woman home. And they didn’t know he’s been with me; all he told them was that he was flying to Indianapolis and would be back the following evening. Naturally, they assumed it was a business trip. I think seeing him pull up with me, in my car, came as somewhat of a shock. As for his son, he’s a sweetie. But he’s a lot younger than his sisters and probably doesn’t see the implications.”

  “I’m sure you’ll charm them.” Mom chuckled. “You know, Mavis must have asked me three times if you were back yet.”

  I made a face. “Tanis must have put her up to that. She probably learned Aaron had gone to Indy and put two and two together.”

  “I’ll just bet she did. If you ask me, she needs to forget about Aaron and look for somebody else. He’s smitten with you, Emmie.”

  My expression changed to a scowl to a faraway look as my thoughts went from Tanis to Aaron. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts, to savor the memory of our making love and to daydream about all the wonderful things the future might hold. “Mom, I’m going to go to bed now. I’m awfully tired.”

  “I understand. Sweet dreams, sweetheart.”

  Chapter 10

  The job offer came Monday morning. Dr. Norman asked if I could start right away, and I was only too happy to oblige. It looked like this new chapter of my life was all falling into place.