“He’s got hair on his chest, but his back is completely smooth,” the girl continued.
So Sophie knew this man intimately, Phyllis concluded, adding this information to the mental list she was compiling.
“My third stepfather had hair all over his back. It was totally gross, like he was some kind of gorilla or something. He used to walk around the house with his shirt off. Ugh.” Sophie shivered.
And Phyllis wondered if the man had done anything else to offend the sensibilities of a developing young woman. Another subject they’d return to. If they got the chance.
“So this guy you’re in love with is handsome,” Phyllis said, guiding Sophie back. If they were going to get anywhere, they had to stay on track, examine the issues one at a time.
“Yeah, but he’s far more than that,” Sophie said, her eyes soft as a doe’s. “He’s responsible, reliable. He’s smarter than I am, and the greatest artist I’ve ever known.” She glanced at Phyllis, looking a little embarrassed as tears sprang to her eyes. “His talent is amazing to me, Dr. Langford,” she said. “There’s no end to the images and illusions he can come up with.”
Phyllis could relate. She’d thought the very same thing about Matt’s talent that day she’d spent with him in the theater.
Of course, with Phyllis, it had just been an appreciation of talent.
“But you know what I love most about him?” Sophie asked, her eyes and voice still full of emotion.
“What?”
“The way he makes me feel about myself. It’s like he thinks I can do anything. And when I’m with him, so do I.”
Phyllis really liked this man. And was suddenly hopeful that helping Sophie wasn’t going to be all that difficult. Not when she had a support system like the one she was describing.
“So why haven’t you told anyone about him yet?” Phyllis asked, rocking back in her chair, rolling a pen between her thumbs and forefingers.
“I don’t know. I guess because it’s still too special.”
“But you’re certain he loves you as much as you love him.”
“Oh, yeah. I matter to him. A lot.”
“He’s told you so?”
“He tells me all the time, and in ways that really matter, too.” Sophie sat up straight. “You should hear him,” she said, grinning again. “He’s always telling me how much he values me, how much he wants me around. I can’t count the times he’s told me he doesn’t know what he’d do without me. He praises absolutely everything I do, finds good even when it isn’t there. You know how love is blind,” she shared in an aside.
Yes, she did. She’d wasted four years on Brad because she’d been blinded by love.
“And when I’m down or having a problem, he just has to look at me with those dark eyes and there’s so much warmth and concern there that it takes my breath away. I only have to be with him for a few minutes and I feel better.”
Phyllis flashed back to the day Matt had taken her to Phoenix. After her exam, while they’d been waiting for Dr. Mac to come talk to them in her office, he’d given her a look similar to the one Sophie had described. Of course, Matt’s eyes weren’t just dark. They were black.
And while there’d been warmth and concern, the emotions had been impersonal. There’d been no love present.
Still, he’d made her feel better.
“Since he’s so eager to be with you, he probably wouldn’t be happy that you’re keeping him a secret,” Phyllis said, homing in on the only thing about Sophie’s boyfriend that wasn’t making sense.
“He’s okay with it,” the girl assured her hastily. “As a matter-of-fact, for now, he prefers it that way.”
Phyllis’s instincts were nagging pretty strongly. There were so many similarities between Sophie’s “boyfriend” and Matt Sheffield. Too many?
No. She trusted Matt. If Sophie was telling the truth, she couldn’t be talking about Matt.
“Why is that?” she asked. “Why does he want you to keep this a secret?”
“I’m sure it’s for my sake,” Sophie said, not seeming at all concerned, although both her legs were now bobbing slightly. “He’s trying not to rush me, to give me a lot of time so I’m sure about what we’re doing. I kind of suspect he wants me to finish school first.”
“You don’t know?”
“He’s never come right out and said so, but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t want to put any conditions on me.”
Hmm.
“Well, I suppose if you’re sure you love him, there’s no need to rush.”
Sophie’s leg-bobbing was becoming more pronounced. “It’s just that…” She stopped. Phyllis thought she saw a flash of uncertainty cross the girl’s face, but it was gone so quickly, confidence once again at the forefront, she couldn’t be positive. “He’s older than I am,” she finished with more than a hint of defensiveness.
The pen between Phyllis’s fingers stilled. “How much older?” Were the girl’s emotions playing a cruel joke on her? Was she trying to find a father and mistaking security for love?
Now that could explain the eating disorder.
“Just a little over ten years.”
Not quite father material, then. But within Matt’s range.
Stop it, she admonished herself. Matt would never get romantically involved with one of his students. Never.
“And he’s uncomfortable about that?”
“I don’t think so.” Sophie shrugged. “He just wants to make sure I’m with him all the way, doesn’t want to rush me through my college years, give me time to sow my wild oats if I need to. I really love him for that. It’s just another way he shows me that he’s thinking about me, loves me. I’ve never felt so cared for in my life.”
Phyllis felt increasingly convinced that she wasn’t talking about Matt; he would never lead a girl on, as this man seemed to be doing. “And do you need to sow any wild oats?” she asked mildly.
Think, Phyllis.
“No way. I’ve always known that when I found the man who was right for me, I’d recognize him—and I’d be done looking.”
Phyllis studied Sophie carefully, her certain expression, the legs now still, her open body posture. “And you recognize him?”
“Absolutely.”
Or was it just that this young girl had nothing to compare her current lover to?
“Have you had other boyfriends?” Phyllis asked. She only had about ten more minutes before she had to leave for class. She wasn’t finished yet.
“Several,” Sophie said. “One of them, Paul, is still hanging around, though I haven’t gone out with him since April thirteenth of last year.”
“You remember the day of your last date?” Kind of remarkable, considering she had no interest in the guy.
“I remember because the very next night he slept with someone else.”
Phyllis filed that information away, too.
“Did you love him before that?”
“I thought I did.”
“And how does that feeling compare to what you feel now?”
“There is no comparison. The man I love would never be unfaithful. Not ever.” One of Sophie’s legs was bobbing again. And she was studying her right index finger, frowning as she ran her thumb over the marked knuckle.
Phyllis wasn’t quite as satisfied as Sophie that this paragon of virtue was as perfect as he seemed.
If the man loved her so much, was so concerned about her, why didn’t he see that she needed help? The symptoms had been obvious even to Matt, and he only saw her a few hours a week in class. During shows and rehearsals, too, but everyone was occupied with work during those intense and busy hours.
Sophie continued to worry her knuckle—and Phyllis continued to watch that slow back-and-forth motion of thumb over forefinger.
The girl was far too confident, considering the very serious problem she had. If Sophie wasn’t careful, she was going to kill herself.
“Have you ever made yourself throw up?” Boldness wasn’t Phyllis’s us
ual style.
But they were running out of time. If Phyllis couldn’t coax Sophie into coming back for another meeting—and since the girl thought she had no problems, getting her to come back wasn’t likely—she had to reach her within the next five minutes.
“Hasn’t everybody?” Sophie asked, resettling herself in her chair and reaching for her bag on the floor by her feet. “Haven’t you ever had too much to drink and known that if you could just throw up, you’d feel better?”
Phyllis had never been much for drinking.
“Have you ever made yourself throw up?” she repeated. “When you think you’ve had too much to drink—or eat?”
“Sure. Everyone does it.”
Yeah, and that’s a way to avoid the fact that you have a problem. Convince yourself that “everyone” does it, thus making it normal.
“How often does everyone do this?” Phyllis dropped the pen she’d been holding. She had to leave for class now.
And didn’t want to go at all.
Sophie slung her bag over one shoulder. “Whenever they have to, I guess.” She stood up. “I should get going. I have class in ten minutes.”
So did Phyllis. And a hike across campus to get there. She stood, as well, gathered the pile of papers and folders she had ready for her class and left the building with Sophie beside her.
“You mind if we talk again sometime?” the girl asked as Phyllis scrambled for some way to broach the idea of a future meeting without scaring Sophie off.
“Sure,” she said immediately; trying to hide her surprise.
Sophie gave a quick shrug. “I think it would make Matt happy if I told him we were going to be friends,” she said, stopping as she reached the sidewalk that branched off from the one Phyllis had to take.
Phyllis didn’t like the way Sophie had said that. Maybe it was just the fact that she didn’t want to be someone’s friend just to please someone else. Which, in this case, didn’t matter at all. Or was it because Sophie had sounded too possessive of Matt Sheffield?
Phyllis shook her head. She wasn’t going to doubt him. She knew Matt. Really knew him.
And he would not—absolutely not—involve himself with any woman, let alone a twenty-year-old student.
For now, Phyllis was just glad she’d have at least one more chance with the girl.
“How about Thursday for lunch?”
Sophie frowned. “I can’t then. I’ve got shows all week.”
Phyllis knew that. Matt was going to be working late every night this week. But he was planning to take his dinner hour to drive to her place and do whatever chores needed to be done.
If the bleeding after last Friday’s cleaning hadn’t scared her so badly, she’d tell him not to come.
“How about Saturday morning, then?” Phyllis asked. She wanted Sophie committed to a time.
“That’d be great,” Sophie said, smiling. “Where?”
“The park?” There was only one in Shelter Valley, and it was a popular meeting spot.
“Sure. That’s not far from my dorm.”
“I’d be happy to swing by and get you.”
“That’s okay. I’m happy to walk,” Sophie said. “I can use the exercise.”
As she bade the girl goodbye, Phyllis added that last comment to the list of things she had yet to discuss with her. Was the girl an exercise addict, too? To the point that she couldn’t accept a ride to the park? Another symptom typical of anorexics.
Of course, it was also possible that Sophie really did just enjoy a walk now and then.
In any case, the girl had not only agreed to see her again, she’d instigated the meeting.
There was a lift to Phyllis’s step as she headed to class. She could help Sophie—and if not, she could get this confused, misguided and oddly appealing girl the help she needed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MATT LOVED HIS JOB. He loved having shows brought to him and making them better. Loved the manipulation, the illusions, the fantasy created by careful staging, painting and lighting.
And the highlight of each day that next week, as he and Sophie and the rest of the students put another show together, was the hour he took away from the theater each evening. Dinner hour.
He’d started going to Phyllis’s out of duty. To atone for what he’d done. But he was enjoying himself because of her. Every night that week she’d had dinner waiting for him, insisting that, if he was going to give up his dinner hour to help her, she was at least going to feed him.
And while he stood at her counter and ate, she sat at the table, eating also and talking with him. They covered everything from movies and mountain ranges to the vagaries of teenagers. The part he enjoyed most, though, was just talking about their individual days. It was comforting, somehow, to have someone waiting to hear what had happened in his life that day.
It was something he’d never had before.
And he found himself storing up things throughout the day. He’d have to tell Phyllis that, he’d find himself thinking. And she’d always seem genuinely interested to hear about it later, when he told her.
He also looked forward to sharing her day. It almost seemed as if another dimension had been added to his own life. She’d visited Tory each afternoon after school, and Matt really liked the way Phyllis’s face lit up when she talked about her friend and the perfect baby Tory had borne. They were calling the little girl Chrissie.
She’d told him about Sophie, too. Matt was surprised to hear about the girl’s love interest, able to shed no light whatsoever on the mystery man; he was mostly just relieved that Sophie was talking to Phyllis. And that she was going to do so again. The girl was in good hands. The best.
Thanks to Phyllis, he’d been able to relax around Sophie again as they’d worked together that week. She’d still hung around him a lot, but that didn’t worry him so much now that he knew she was leaning on someone else. As usual, he took extra care to praise her for a job well done—because she did do a great job—but also because he sensed how badly she needed to know that someone believed in her.
Saturday afternoon, shortly after lunch, Matt showed up at Phyllis’s door again. They were planning to take a look at the spare bedroom that weekend to see what they’d have to do to turn it into a nursery.
Phyllis was wearing leggings again—dark gray ones—and a cream-colored knit top that hung halfway down her thighs. She looked beautiful. Far too beautiful.
Matt had been alone for a long time. Why was he suddenly feeling such a strong need for female companionship—and sexual intimacy? Why now?
Considering all the hours he owed Phyllis until she had this baby, his libido couldn’t have awakened at a worse time. It wasn’t like he had any extra hours to run into Phoenix for a liaison or two.
“How’d it go?” he asked as he climbed the steps to her front porch where she stood waiting for him.
“She was right on time. We had a good talk,” Phyllis answered.
“Did you find out who this guy is that she’s seeing?”
“No. We really didn’t discuss him today, if you don’t count the number of times she slipped in a comment about him.”
“And the anorexia, did you talk about that?”
“Not really, although I dropped some thinly veiled hints that I thought something was wrong.”
They walked into her house. Matt went immediately to the kitchen to get the trash. And then to the laundry room to pick up the basket of clean and folded clothes, ready to go back to the bedroom. He’d carried out the full basket of dirty clothes the night before. And mowed the grass in her backyard the night before that. He’d have done the front, too, she was sure, except that it had desert landscaping.
“So what did you talk about?” he asked Phyllis, who was following him as he worked.
“Her stepfathers. I have a feeling one of them did something inappropriate with her.”
He turned, frozen. “Raped her?” He could barely get the words out.
Phyllis shook h
er head. “I don’t think it got that far, but he made her feel uncomfortable—and pretty bad about herself.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“No, but most of the morning she talked about the third one. He really bothered her the most. She was thirteen when her mother was married to him, and that’s a very impressionable age for a girl. It could just be that he was jealous of Sophie. He wouldn’t let her mother spend much time with her.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder, feeling for the kid. He knew what it felt like not to matter. “You think that happened?”
“I know it did. And the worst of it, of course, was that her mother chose to give in to him rather than put Sophie first.”
He understood that, too. Hell, he and the kid had more in common than he’d known. Maybe subconsciously he’d sensed that. And maybe she’d sensed some kind of kindred spirit in him. Maybe that was why they had such a good student-teacher relationship.
Of course, it could also be simply that she was the most gifted student he’d ever had.
After looking at the spare bedroom, Matt decided to take the twin beds down. He was going to store the frames in her garage and the mattresses in an unused room in his house until she decided what she wanted to do with them.
“Any more bleeding?” he asked as he worked on the first bed frame with the wrench she’d provided.
“No.”
“When’s your next visit?” He was lying on his back, arms underneath the frame as he tried to loosen a bolt from a screw that was stripped. He was certain he had a replacement screw that size in the collection in his garage.
“Monday afternoon. When Dr. Mac released me from the hospital, she said she wanted to see me in two weeks.”
“I’ll drive you,” he said.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I’d like to be there.”
“Matt…” She’d been sitting on the bed that was still assembled—minus the bedding they’d folded together—but she stood and walked over to the window. “What’s going on here?” she asked. “What are we doing?”
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