by Jenny Jacobs
However, he turned out to be extremely helpful, holding tools as she marked the placement for the rod brackets, drilled the holes, and screwed the brackets in. He never distracted her from the task at hand or suggested he could handle the tools better than she. He helped thread the curtains on the rod, then held up his end of the rod without letting the curtain slide off onto the floor.
When they were done, she stepped down from the stepladder and gave a small nod of satisfaction, twitching one of the fabric panels into a better hang.
“They look good,” Ian said. “Tess really knows what she’s doing.” Then: “As do you.”
“Nice save,” Greta said, an unwilling smile tugging at her lips. She turned to survey the room. With the exception of the recliner, it had all come together well. These walls had already been painted, so the curtains were the last thing on the to-do list. That made one room down — how many to go? No, she wasn’t going to count. It was just a matter of Michael and Tess finalizing a few things. They would be done soon. From now on, Greta would check caller i.d. before answering the phone and she’d make Tess respond to any calls from Ian, no matter how quickly and easily Greta might be able to resolve the matter at hand herself.
Ian folded up the stepladder and brought it into the hallway, where he leaned it against the wall. She knew men worked in stages and eventually it would make its way back to the garage where it belonged but not before it had inflicted stubbed toes and hip contusions on three different people and got knocked over by the paperhanger, who wouldn’t be expecting it there. But she said nothing because it was Not Her Problem. So much of the pain in life could be avoided by not getting involved in things, including men who were Not Her Problem.
She headed for the stairs, saying, “Let me know if you need anything.” She didn’t tell him that she wouldn’t actually be answering any of his calls and that she’d dispatch Tess for whatever he needed. Revealing one’s strategies to the enemy was foolish.
“Uh, Greta.”
She stopped on the second step from the top. She eyed the front door. So close to freedom. Just a few more steps and she’d have been out the door. She sighed and glanced over her shoulder at him.
“Yes?”
“I was wondering if I could take you to dinner.”
Her jaw dropped. He seemed perfectly serious. She hadn’t thought anything he did could surprise her, but he’d had a nice big surprise up his sleeve.
“I assure you, there’s no need to thank me by taking me to dinner,” she said, deliberately casting his invitation in the most businesslike terms she could. “You pay your bills on time and that’s all the thanks I need.” In fact, there’d be another bill in the mail this very afternoon, but she didn’t mention that.
“I didn’t mean it as a business dinner,” he clarified, even though she was trying to spare him the humiliation of outright rejection. Well, if he couldn’t preserve himself, why should she go to any extra effort to do so? If he didn’t care about his own feelings —
“And you think I should agree because?” Greta demanded, but Ian didn’t seem daunted. The annoying thing was that a dinner date with Ian didn’t seem half as appalling as it should. Unlike Donald, Ian was incapable of boring her into a stupor. And he had such an attractive smile that a woman could delude herself into believing he shared it only with her. And those gray eyes showed exactly how appealing he found her, which was flattering at such a basic feminine level that it was practically impossible to combat. And she would bet his kisses were neither perfunctory and dry nor wet and sloppy but just right.
She shook off that line of thinking.
“I just want to give it a chance,” Ian said, as if he were the reasonable one. “We’ve got this sparky thing going on and I’d like to see what it’s about.”
Sparky thing? Apparently eloquence was not his strong suit. Of the very many things that were not. “I don’t even like you,” Greta said, practically daring him to contradict her, which he proceeded to do.
“Actually, I think you do like me,” he said. “It’s the parts you don’t know that you don’t like.” He said the last as if it made sense, which it did not.
Unwillingly, unable to resist, she asked, “What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? I mean, for example, I’m a retired Army officer and you think you know what kind of man that makes me.” His words might be a little muddled but now his point was perfectly clear.
“I know exactly what kind of man that makes you.”
“You may think you do.”
She put her hands on her hips and glared at him, but that did not stop his oration. It didn’t even slow him down. “You may even be right about some of it,” he conceded.
“Oh, thank you,” she murmured. She doubted he even heard her.
“But if you’re honest, you have to admit that you like the parts of me that are exposed.” He paused, frowning. “I mean — ”
She marched back up the stairs to confront him. Standing toe to toe with him was necessary in this case. Necessary and exhilarating. She would show him — or at least tell him.
“You think I like what I know about you? That’s quite a claim. You’ve hardly spent any time with me — ”
“Which is why I’d like to spend more — ”
Diverted by his interruption, she said, “You know I find you insufferable. I’ve told you frequently enough.” That wasn’t her main point. She’d let him shake her concentration. But — she drew a sharp breath — he couldn’t keep her off-track forever.
“You think I’m insufferable only because I disturb you,” he said in his insufferable way. “If I left you unruffled, like your lawyer friend, you wouldn’t call me insufferable. You’d call me dull.”
He had a point. The point deflated some of the wind from her sails. “Dull you’re not,” she agreed.
“There, you see? We have something to go on. Neither of us is dull.”
“I’m not interested in establishing a relationship with someone like you — ”
“I’m not talking about calling the caterers, Greta,” Ian said. “What would be wrong with having a little fun?”
Fun. She was taken aback. It was just a little word but it took her breath away. She gave him a measuring look. Fun. That was exactly what had happened last time. She’d had fun. And then it had stopped being fun. The rule she’d devised and abided by for so many years was to stay away from fun, and thereby avoid deep emotional pain.
“Fun,” Ian said. “Nothing more than that.”
Greta watched his gray eyes. He meant what he was saying. Fun. Why was she even tempted? If she felt her life was a little dull, then she should take a class. Or go to the theater. Babysit Belinda for the weekend. That’d liven things up. She should not go out with Ian in pursuit of fun. Or for any other reason whatsoever.
“Fun is good,” he said.
“That’s your argument? ‘Fun is good’?”
“Yes,” he said firmly.
“I’ll think about it,” Greta said.
Chapter Eleven
Fun.
Greta paced the bedroom carpet. As usual the bed was piled with materials needing her attention. Ordinarily, she would dive right in and get to work, but now she eyed the mass of paper distastefully. Finally she snatched up the phone, punched in Ian’s number, which she had unfortunately memorized, and demanded, “Give me an example of fun.”
“Greta?”
Who else would be asking him a question like that? Undoubtedly every other female he knew was a good time girl who wouldn’t have to ask. “Try to keep up,” she said.
“Okay,” he said. He didn’t seem to take offense at the sharpness of her tone. Probably because he sensed she was weakening. Maybe if she gave in just once and went out with him, he would lose interest and find someone else to be in
sufferable with. He was just the type of man to be more interested in the thrill of the chase than in the prey that was at the end of it.
Bolstered by that thought, she repeated her request. “Fun, Ian. Define fun.”
“That’s easy,” he said promptly, and maybe it was for a man like him. “It’s Friday, which means high school football. The Firebirds are playing their crosstown rivals.”
“High school football?” she echoed. She had picked up the phone, braving the loss of her own self-image, sacrificing a good half hour’s work, to be told that fun equaled a high school football game? She should have known. She hadn’t even liked high school football when she was in high school.
“Wear jeans,” he said as if her capitulation were only natural. “Don’t eat first. I’ll treat you to a hot dog there, so bring your appetite. I’ll pick you up at six.”
“A hot dog?” Wait. Of all the orders he had given her, it was the hot dog she objected to?
“You bet. Gotta support the PTO.” He paused. “You’ve had a hot dog before, haven’t you?”
• • •
She’d had a hot dog before, just not like this one. Greta wiped ketchup from her fingers with a thin paper napkin that wasn’t up to the task. She took another dainty nibble, not liking the way the relish threatened to slip off the bun. She concentrated on preventing it from plopping to the ground. Most of the other hot dog eaters were more careless, as evidenced by the spots of various condiments on the concrete patio near the stands.
She looked up. Ian didn’t bother to hide the amusement in his eyes at her efforts. He ate his hot dog in three huge bites, then took a big gulp of his root beer and tossed his trash in the can near the food stand.
“You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to,” he said.
“It’s fine,” she said, but when he held out his hand, she thankfully surrendered the mess and let him throw it away.
“We’ll try a pretzel at half-time,” he said. “I should have remembered we’d need to take this step by step. Stadium food is definitely an acquired taste.”
“I usually like pretzels,” Greta admitted cautiously, not wanting to commit herself wholeheartedly. You never knew what a football fan might think constituted a pretzel.
The loudspeakers squawked and Ian tilted his head, apparently able to make out the announcer’s words.
“Come on,” he said, seizing her sticky hand and tugging her through the crowds. “Let’s get some good seats.” He steered her toward bleachers located near the center of the stands, a half-dozen rows back from the field. He greeted some of the other fans around them, introducing her as “My friend, Greta. She’s the one decorating my house.” She didn’t point out that she preferred to be called an interior designer — to Ian she would always be a decorator, and just try dislodging something like that from his brain — and smiled politely at the people, shaking hands when they were offered. How had Ian gotten to know so many people in town? He hadn’t lived here very long. Of course, she thought sourly, he was a friendly man.
“So tell me,” she said as they finally settled on their cold metal seats. “What is the purpose of this game?”
“The purpose of this game is to defeat Lawrence High School,” Ian said. “Here, you should have brought gloves.” He pulled a pair of leather gloves from his jacket pockets and handed them to her.
“I know that beating the opponent is the basic idea,” she said. “But I mean, what is the purpose of football? In general?”
“You’ve never seen a football game?” She had his full attention now and she wasn’t sure she liked it. She waved a gloved hand dismissively in his direction.
“Oh, I’ve seen them,” she said. Her ex had enjoyed watching football, beer in one hand, remote in the other. But he didn’t like interruptions. He didn’t like talking or questions. He didn’t —
Greta blew out a breath and said, “Michael’s always watching football,” as if that were her sole exposure to men and their football viewing habits. “All it appears to be is a bunch of men falling on top of each other.”
Ian grinned. “There is a little more to it than that, although that is the main theme.” He explained about the sides and the basic plays and continued the conversation even after the game started, never getting impatient when she interrupted his concentration to ask about what was happening on the field. By the end of the first quarter, she was able to start making sense of what the players were trying to accomplish: moving the ball at least ten yards in order to earn a new batch of downs, punting the ball if they didn’t manage that, running to gain yards sometimes and throwing for the same reason at other times, with the ultimate purpose of putting the ball over the goal line in some way, shape or form.
She intuitively understood the importance of field position and had even grasped the principle of each of the major penalties — really, men made the game sound so much harder to understand than it was — and she thought by half-time she might be able to guess why a penalty had occurred without having to ask, at least some of the time.
The boys playing seemed young but they were very serious and confident as they took their places for the next play. Listening to the fans yelling on the sidelines, she hoped they didn’t take the game too seriously. After all, it was just a bunch of kids trying to have fun on a Friday night.
Was it fun? Was she having fun? It was hard to say —
“Oh, no!” Ian’s groan caught her attention.
“What?” she demanded, looking around in concern. She couldn’t immediately identify the problem.
“They’re bringing on the kicker,” he said mournfully, subsiding back onto the bleacher seat. “They’re going for the field goal.”
That was the cause of his heartfelt groan? “You said he’s a good kicker, so he’ll probably make it. That’s good, right? They’d get three points.” She was rather proud of herself for remembering that. When had she ever remembered a football fact? When had she ever known one?
“Yeah, but a field goal is not a touchdown,” he explained. “You gotta go for the touchdown when you can.”
“Ah. I’m starting to understand men much better than before.”
He glanced over at her. “Did you just make a joke?” he asked suspiciously. “Are you having fun?” He recoiled in pretend horror and she laughed and pulled his knit cap down over his eyes.
The Firebirds lost in a squeaker, but though he groaned, he shrugged and said, “Next week will be better.” Standing up, he said goodbye to his acquaintances in the bleachers and took her hand as they made their way down from the stands. He brought her to the sidelines to say a few words to the coach, whom, it turned out, he knew. He introduced her as his friend again, this time leaving out the information about decorating — in deference, she supposed, to the level of testosterone floating around. He greeted a couple of the players and said a couple of platitudes that Greta recognized from chance exposure to ESPN. Then the team trotted off to the locker room, while parents and other fans milled about, talking and reliving the experience, complete with sound effects.
“How do you know the players?” she asked Ian. “You haven’t even lived here that long.”
“I met some of them at the Boys and Girls Club.”
That was so unexpected she blinked and looked up at him, baffled. “What do you do there?”
“I volunteer, help out with the programs. Prevent fist fights.” He shrugged. “The usual.”
Well, no, it wasn’t the usual. She didn’t know anyone else who volunteered there. She hadn’t even been aware that the organization served Lawrence. “I didn’t know you were a kid person,” she said. She was pretty sure you’d have to like kids a lot to keep going back long enough for the kids in question to remember your name and to look happy to see you. Why had she automatically assumed that because he was a still bachelor at his
age he couldn’t possibly care about other people?
The crowds began thinning, leaving small knots of people talking here and there. The overhead lights were still on, but the night beyond was quite dark and she thought about having no place to go on an evening like this, especially if you were a kid, restless and bored.
“I don’t help out because I’m a kid person,” Ian said. “I do it because I was a kid once.”
“Ah,” she said. She rubbed her arms. Even in her quilted jacket she was getting cold. But she didn’t want to suggest they leave just yet because she was curious about Ian now and they’d established this odd rapport. She’d never been curious about him before and she wasn’t sure why she was now. “You didn’t have an easy time of it, did you?”
“No.”
Obviously it was tough for him to talk about — ordinarily he was not a man of one-syllable answers — but she just kept quiet, watching him. Either he would make some flippant remark, and that would tell her one thing about their relationship, or he’d say something serious, and that would tell her a different thing. Finally, he said, “I was lucky. I don’t know what would have happened if people like Mrs. M hadn’t been there for me. People who had no relationship to me, people who had no reason to mentor or guide me except they thought it was the right thing to do.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away. He had chosen serious. Great. She was trying very hard not to like him, to remind herself how insufferable he was, and he picked serious.
“Mrs. M? Michael’s mother?” She couldn’t keep the question out of her voice. She knew Michael and Ian were long-time friends, but it had never occurred to her to ask either of them how their friendship had come about. On reflection, it was clear that their age difference — Ian was about five years older — meant they wouldn’t have been classmates.
