“I believe in living dangerously.”
“You must if you’re serious about marrying me!”
“I’ve never been so serious in my life.” He nibbled on her earlobe.
“I want to have a serious discussion,” she said indignantly.
He shoved back, walked across the kitchen and leaned against the countertop, his arms folded across his chest. “Okay, so discuss.”
Rachel swallowed. Her lips burned from his kisses. “Married forever?” she asked. “Or until we can adopt Chrissy and we could be divorced?” She was afraid to hear his answer.
His eyes were direct and unyielding. “I don’t believe in divorce, Rachel. But I do believe in us. Marry me. Give us a chance. If you’re not happy, you can leave.”
“And take Chrissy with me?” She couldn’t imagine marriage to Joe. She couldn’t imagine living with him day by day. What was more, she couldn’t imagine divorcing Joe even if it didn’t work out.
“I wouldn’t fight you for custody, if that’s what you’re worried about. You and the baby—you look natural together. You must have been an incredible mother.”
No time to object that if she’d been a better mother, she’d still have her children. No time to even think about it. This was about Chrissy and how to save her; this was about the two of them, about her and Joe, who could so easily become the three of them. A family. A unit.
“If we did get married, no one could take Chrissy away again,’ Rachel said. “If we adopted her, I mean.” She well recalled the situation with little Derek. When Derek had first entered foster care, his birth mother had thought she would reclaim him eventually, but she’d finally acknowledged that she wouldn’t be able to provide a stable home for him and had gladly released him to Rachel and Nick, who could. Once the adoption was final, Derek would have been irrevocably theirs. It would be the same with Chrissy.
Someone knocked impatiently on the kitchen door. “Are you two through in there?” called Ivan.
“Are we?” Joe asked Rachel pointedly.
Looking across at this charming man who had expressed a heartfelt desire to marry her, she almost melted. But she’d been happily married once before, and she knew that marriage was a lot of hard work. It wasn’t to be entered into lightly for even the most altruistic purpose.
The kitchen door opened. Ivan was standing there. “Well?” he said. “Are you through keeping us in suspense?”
From the living room everyone was still staring at them, and Rachel was embarrassed. They didn’t know her. They didn’t know anything about her. Joe’s family still thought she was a schoolteacher. She and Jœ needed to talk about that, he needed to inform his family that she wasn’t who they thought she was, that she was Rachel Hirsch, a widow. She had lost three children. If they knew the circumstances, would all these Marzinskis think she was good enough for their Joey?
Joe’s little Christmas ruse had complicated things beyond belief, and she was about to pull him back into the kitchen for further discussion and negotiation when it occurred to her that this was a very private matter. It was bad enough having to have this discussion with Joe, but for all these people to be party to it was difficult, to say the least.
“What are you going to do, Rachel?” asked Gladys.
“Yes, yes, what are you going to do?”
Rachel stood uncertainly, wishing she could walk out of the kitchen, go in the bedroom and shut the door. She wished she’d never found the baby in the manger, and she wished she had never met Joe Marzinski.
No, that wasn’t exactly true. She wished she could have met him under more normal circumstances.
“Maybe this setting is not romantic enough for Rachel,” suggested Ynez.
Joe stepped out from behind her. He had a funny little half grin on his face, one of his most endearing expressions.
“Oh. Well, maybe what we need is a little romance. You know, I haven’t had much practice in proposing to people.” To Rachel’s utter amazement, Joe dropped to one knee and took Rachel’s hand in his. “In the presence of all these witnesses, my love, I do humbly request your hand in marriage. I adore you. I have since the moment I first saw you. Marry me, Rachel. Marry me soon.”
If this wasn’t such a solemn moment, Rachel might have dissolved in hysterics. She still might. She looked from Joe to Gina and around at all the people, all of whom seemed to be holding their breath. What was she supposed to say? What was she supposed to do?
“Well, Rachel?”
She drew a deep breath. “I don’t know, Joe,” she said. “I’ll have to think about it.”
Chapter Eleven
After such an anticlimax, everyone left. Joe did, too, saying that if Rachel needed time to think things over, he’d understand. Rachel took to her bed, downed by a nasty headache that no doubt owed its origins to the distressing and unsettling events of the afternoon. She had no intention of going to sleep, but she must have dozed for a while because suddenly she was dreaming that the phone was ringing. And then she realized that it wasn’t a dream—the phone really was ringing. “Hello?” she said fuzzily into the receiver.
“Rachel?”
She swung her feet over the side of the bed. “Mimi! Oh, Mimi, I’m so glad it’s you. You wouldn’t believe what’s been going on.”
“If it has something to do with that guy who showed up fixing things on Christmas Eve, I might. What’s happening, dear?”
“Where are you?”
“In India. Today I rode an elephant.”
“Well, something almost as exciting happened to me. Jœ Marzinski asked me to marry him.”
Her grandmother indulged in a stunned silence for al· most thirty seconds at expensive international telephone rates. “What did you tell him?” she asked cautiously.
“I said I’d have to think about it.”
“Rachel, I don’t know how to give grandmotherly advice when I haven’t even met the man, but I have one question to ask you. Do you love him?”
‘I’ve only known him for a few days.”
“I didn’t ask how long you’ve known him. I know how long you’ve known him. What I asked is if you love him.”
“I think so. I’m pretty sure. He’s a good man, Mimi, and he’s crazy about me.”
“Oh. Well, it sounds like something hormonal. I’d better call Gladys or Ynez and get the real scoop.”
Rachel jumped up and began to pace the floor. “Don’t you dare call them! They like him. And guess what—Gladys and Ivan are falling in love.”
Her grandmother gasped. “Rachel, that is simply not possible. Not Gladys and Ivan. They were always nattering at each other. She’s always called him a pompous old fool, and he thinks she’s an obnoxious busybody.”
“They might both be right, but listen, Mimi. Gladys wears perfume now. Ivan gets this ridiculous idiotic expression on his face whenever he looks at her, which is all the time.”
“I’d better cancel the rest of this trip and come home. It sounds as if you’ve all lost your alleged minds. Tell me, is Ynez part of this madness?”
Rachel thought for a second. “She’s unwound her hair from those pink foam rubber curlers and looks better than she’s ever looked. She seems to have taken more of an interest in life in general.”
“That’s a good thing. Ynez folded up and gave in when her cat died, and it was like she simply didn’t choose to participate in life anymore. Why, she even quit the community theater. But back to this marriage proposal from this Joe Syzinski. Wasn’t it a bit sudden?”
“Marzinski. Joe Marzinski.”
“Sorry, dear. But answer my question. Hasn’t this all happened much too fast?” Rachel thought back over all that had happened during the past days. “Sort of. But there was a natural progression. And, oh, Mimi, the HSS came and took the baby. We all love her, and we didn’t want to see her go. And I’m a foster parent but couldn’t keep the baby because the state requires two parents in a foster home, and Joe asked me to marry him. If we were married, we
could make a home for the baby. Don’t you see, it’s the perfect solution.”
“Rachel, I’ll be home as soon as I can get a flight. I can’t believe this—I leave town for a month and everyone goes bonkers.”
“I have to call Joe in the morning. I have to tell him what I want to do. And I have a terrible headache, I can’t even think.”
“Lie down on my magnetic pad. The one on my bed. I know you never believed in it, but it will cure your headache and help you dream good dreams. But don’t—and I repeat don’t—do anything.”
“Mimi—” She was going to tell her grandmother that she didn’t believe in the magnetic pad’s ability to cure anything, but Mimi wouldn’t listen.
“I’m hanging up right now. I can’t believe this. I’ll see you soon, Rachel.”
“Mimi!”
But her grandmother had already hung up.
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HIS LIFE, Joe Marzinski had asked a woman to marry him. And with most of his family watching and listening and waiting to hear her answer.
And what had she said? “I’ll think about it.”
She’d think about it! Sheesh. He thought he’d done his part by accepting the challenge of converting her from one of the walking wounded into a woman who was ready to move forward with her life. All she had to do was say the word, and a whole new vista would open up for both of them.
It was all right with him if Rachel needed time and space to think things over, as long as she came to the right conclusion in the end. To maximize her chances of doing that, Joe had ushered everyone out of apartment 11E, kissed Rachel goodbye and driven Gina back to her sister’s house. Then he’d gone straight home.
Now he was doing some much-needed repairs around his own apartment. What was that they always said about the shoemaker’s children never having any shoes? It was like that with him and his apartment. He might always be fixing someone’s drain or dealing with air conditioner problems in the condominiums he serviced, but he needed screens replaced in his own apartment, and so that was what he’d decided to do tonight.
He had a roll of screening stretched over the door and was tugging it into place, trying to get it to fit inside the grooves of the aluminum frame. If only dealing with Rachel could be this easy! He pushed and pulled at the screen, making it fit, using the tool that would fasten it tightly. He was sliding the refurbished screen experimentally along its track when the doorbell rang.
He almost didn’t answer it. It was late for unannounced visitors, ten o’clock at night, and he had work to do. But perhaps it was Rachel. In case it was, he left his task and went to the door. A look through the peephole revealed Gina standing there.
He was worried about her, fainting like that today, and now here she was at his place. He opened the door, and Gina gave him a tentative smile. She was all dolled up, and she looked as if she might have been out on a date. He hoped so. A boyfriend might be exactly what she needed to get her mind off more serious matters.
“Well, come on in,” he said heartily, glad to see her. He hadn’t expected her to be out tonight, and he certainly would have advised her to stay home if she’d mentioned going anywhere, but now that she was here, maybe they could have that heart-to-heart that he’d been planning.
“You’re not busy, are you?” Gina seemed nervous and uncomfortable.
“I’m doing some work around the house. I find that it helps to keep busy when I’m concerned about something.” He ushered her into the kitchen. “Want a snack or something? I’ve got tortilla chips and maybe some salsa in the refrigerator.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Where have you been? You look nice.” She was wearing a navy blue dress, high heels and gold earrings. He realized that she had grown into a beautiful woman in the past year or so.
“Anna and Mitch took me out to dinner. They asked me to go to a club with them, but I thought they might like privacy and, anyway, I didn’t want to overdo.”
“How’d you get here?”
“Drove Anna’s car.”
“Come on out on the patio while I put the screens back on the track. Then you can keep me company while I install a new faucet on the kitchen sink.”
Gina followed him outside and perched on one of the patio chairs while he finished with the screens.
“Have you heard from Rachel? About whether she wants to get married?”
He glanced over at her. “Nope. My offer is still on the table.”
“Aren’t you worried, Joe? I mean, what if she says no?”
Joe tossed a screwdriver back in his tool kit. “I hope she’ll say yes. I haven’t allowed myself to think that she might not.”
“I hope you and Rachel get married. I hope you live happily ever after.”
Gina’s impassioned words made him look at her closely. It seemed to him that her emotions were teetering on a fine edge. Maybe she just needed to talk. Maybe he could find out what had been bugging her lately by encouraging her to open up to him. He’d always been her first choice for confidences and advice. In the early days after she’d moved in with his parents, Joe had been the only one she trusted. He didn’t know why there had always been a special bond between them, but that’s the way it was.
“Let’s work on that faucet,” he said easily. They went into the kitchen, where he showed her the new faucet and explained how he was going to install it, and she seemed interested in the way it worked.
“Maybe you don’t want to get an MBA in marketing after all,” he teased, hoping to make her smile. “Maybe you’d rather learn condo crisis control.” This, he thought, was the perfect opening for her to talk about her change in courses, which was what he thought had been worrying her ever since she’d been on break, but she didn’t pick up on it. Instead she moved closer and watched as he removed the old faucet.
He completed the attachment of the new one quickly, perhaps too quickly. Something went wrong—perhaps he hadn’t tightened it enough—and when he turned on the water again, water sprayed all over the place, inundating him and the kitchen and Gina, as well.
It was only a few moments before he had matters completely under control, but by that time he was soaked. So was Gina.
He ruefully wiped the water from his face and handed Gina a clean towel so she could do the same. “I’m sorry,” he said, but Gina didn’t seem unduly upset.
“It’s an old dress,” she told him. “It’s completely washable. Being wet doesn’t feel so great, though.” She picked wryly at the wet fabric.
“I’ll change clothes and find you something else to wear,” he said.
Gina had already taken her shoes off and was padding around barefoot by the time he came out of the bedroom with one of his Condo Crisis Control T-shirts and a pair of shorts for her to wear. This reminded him of how he’d found Rachel something else to put on when she’d spent the night, and the memory tugged at him. He wanted to call her. But it was eleven o’clock. He thought she might be asleep.
Gina changed clothes in the bedroom and hung her dress to dry on a hanger on the patio while Joe sliced each of them a piece of the chocolate cake that his mother had sent home with him as a reward for fixing her stopped-up drain.
“This reminds me of old times,” Gina said as she sat down across from him at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. “Remember how you used to come to see me when I lived at your parents’ house? And we used to raid the pantry?”
“Mom always has something good to eat around,” he said.
“Yeah, like fresh-baked bread. And she always made extra fried chicken because she knew I liked to nibble on cold drumsticks.”
Joe exchanged a smile with Gina across the table.
“You were lucky, Joe. To grow up in a home with parents like you had, I mean.”
“I know.”
There was a silence, and Joe dug into the cake. It was good, his favorite. He wondered if Rachel knew how to make chocolate cake. He wondered if it mattered.
“Joe,” Gina said suddenly. “I ne
ed to tell you something.”
Here it is, Joe thought. This is what Gina’s been worried about. He thought he was prepared for whatever she might have to say. But he still didn’t believe his ears when she spoke.
Gina shifted uncomfortably in her chair and looked as if she’d rather be anywhere else. “Joe, I’ve done something awful. Chrissy—well, Chrissy is my baby.”
AGAINST HER OWN better judgment, Rachel slept on the side of the bed with Mimi’s magnetic pad. It took her a while to get comfortable on it, but she eventually fell into a deep sleep. The sleep was accompanied by vivid dreams, one after another, and she knew she was dreaming but was powerless to stop it. Then the dreams slowed, and she fell into a deeper sleep. It was then that she had the strangest dream of all.
She was floating through the Marzinskis’ living room, and all the children were watching. She was looking for
Joe and couldn’t find him. She felt scared and lonely, or as lonely as anyone could feel when in the company of all those kids. And she thought she might never find Joe again. There was also someone else she couldn’t find, someone who might be waiting for her in another room of the house.
But she couldn’t move very fast. It was as if she were swimming through the air, similar to when she and Joe had swum in the ocean. She rounded a corner and saw the entrance to the sunporch. On the doors was the mural of the Santa scene, complete with elves. She vaguely recalled that one of the children had painted it on the door, and although she hadn’t paid a whole lot of attention to the mural on Christmas Day, when she’d been there for dinner, now she was aware of every detail.
What surprised her was that she walked up to it and then took one more step, only to find that she was actually inside the picture. And Santa, who was standing at a table helping an elf cobble together a toy house, glanced up and smiled at her.
“Come in, Rachel,” he said. “I’ve been expecting you.”
Rachel looked wildly around. She saw the glass door through which she had gained access to the picture, and on the other side were all of Joe’s nieces and nephews, their faces pressed to the glass and listening to every word.
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