by Beverly Farr
“I figured I’d stay out a while, get a bite to eat, maybe see a movie or take a nap, and sneak back in when she’s asleep.”
“Get a room,” she advised. “It will be better for your back.”
“You’re right.” He stretched his arms. “My mom says I need to get out more, have fun with friends. Date.”
His mother sounded like a wise woman. “Then why don't you?”
“Why don't I what?”
He still sounded tired. “Date, etcetera.”
Michael rubbed his eyes. “I don't know anyone.”
“You know me.” The words were out before she had the wisdom to stop them. She felt her face flame pink and she looked down at the lock on the door between them.
“You seem pretty busy.”
He made it sound like she had a revolving door. Had he been watching her like she’d been watching him? She looked up and met the challenge in his cool blue eyes. She shouldn't like him, but she did. She knew what her mom would say. Let him make the first move. But if she waited for him to make the first move, nothing would happen. He'd go back to sleep in his truck, and she'd spend the evening watching a movie with her cats. She chose her words deliberately. “I'm not busy now.”
He looked at her, his gaze inscrutable. Her heart stood still. Was her mother right?
“I’ll be honest,” he said flatly. “I don’t want to date. I’m not interested in romance or finding anyone. If we do something together, it’s just hanging out, just friends.”
He was an engineer: cool and precise, putting everything in the correct social box. She smiled. “I’m okay with that.”
He smiled, too. “Thank you for understanding.” He hesitated, then in a brighter tone, said, “What do you want to do?”
Anything with you. Olivia looked down at her clothes. She was wearing faded gray yoga pants and a baggy t-shirt. Not attractive. “Let's go to my house first so I can change,” she said. “We can decide on the way. Besides, I want to show you something.”
He unlocked the passenger door for her and pushed it open. “What?”
She raised her eyebrows and grinned mischievously. “It's a surprise.”
#
Normally Michael didn't like surprises, but her enthusiasm was contagious. An hour earlier he had been exhausted, but now he was wide awake and looking forward to the evening.
He glanced over at Olivia. Wispy tendrils of hair that had escaped from the braid, curled around her ears and neck. She smoothed a few strands back from her forehead. Her clear skin glowed with health. How did she do it? Even without make-up, she was pretty.
When the got to her house, he parked in front and they walked up to her door.
Olivia unlocked the door. “Home, sweet home,” she murmured.
Michael followed her inside. She turned on the light and he stood still, surprised. He didn’t know what he had expected, but he hadn’t expected this.
She said, “It’s like a time warp, isn’t it?”
“No,” he assured her. “It’s nice.” And it was nice; just old-fashioned looking. The colors and styles of her furnishings reminded him of homes in the 1970’s or 1980’s. “It’s homey.”
“I inherited a lot of stuff from my grandparents and my parents.”
That made sense. He and Mary Ellen had received a lot of hand-me down furniture, too. But over the years Mary Ellen had replaced it with sleek, modern furniture.
He followed her through the house and saw a framed print of a girl in a peasant dress over by the kitchen table. “We had that picture when I was growing up,” he said, surprised to see it again. “It was in our bathroom.”
She nodded. “The goose girl was very popular.” She said, “I’ve got my mother’s collection of pottery ducks, too. Somewhere.” She frowned. “I hope I don’t look like a hoarder.”
“No,” he assured her. She had too many clutter-free, flat surfaces for that. Everything was neat and clean, and her house smelled fresh. It didn’t have the musty odor common in older people’s homes.
“Well, have a seat. I’ll change and be back in five minutes,” she said and motioned to the couch in the den.
“No rush.” He didn't think it was possible for a woman to change her clothes in less than twenty minutes. Mary Ellen never took less than half an hour. A fat gray tabby jumped up next to him and stared at him. “Hello,” Michael said seriously, staring back.
The cat's green eyes narrowed as he meowed.
“That's Crick,” Olivia called from the stairway.
He put his hand out for the cat to sniff, waited to be accepted, and then rubbed the cat's head. Crick rolled over and bared his stomach, so Michael rubbed that, too.
As he sat on the couch, he noticed a wooden frame set up in the corner of the room. Olivia was a quilter.
He was surprised. He didn’t think anyone quilted any more. His mother had, years before, but not now. Olivia was an old-fashioned girl, but it suited her. He imagined her in a long, velvet medieval gown, quietly stitching on a tapestry.
As the cat purred, Michael glanced around the den, noticing the bookshelves, full of books and a collection of DVDs.
Curious about her taste in movies, Michael walked over to read the titles. He recognized some of the Jane Austen movies that his mother liked.
“Do you want to see a movie?” she asked.
He turned to see Olivia standing in the doorway. Good to her word, she had taken only a few minutes. She looked great. She wore a pink, v-necked, short sleeved sweater that buttoned down the front and narrow legged jeans. She'd undone the braid and brushed her hair until it crackled with static. Her light brown hair was longer than he had imagined, flowing down in waves almost to her waist. How would it feel to run his hands through her hair?
Not that he was ever going to find out.
She nervously adjusted her headband and pushed up her glasses.
“See anything you like?” she asked.
You. Michael put the yoga DVD he was holding back on the pile. “I'm not in the mood for a movie, are you?”
She slid her hands into the front pockets of her jeans and rocked back slightly on her heels. “No, I'd rather do something, go somewhere.”
If he saw a movie, he’d probably fall asleep. “So would I.”
The gray tabby approached Olivia and meowed. She picked him up and held him in front of herself, petting him. She looked over at Michael. “Do you like cats?”
“We had one when I was in high school,” he said, then realized that there was another cat, orange, watching them from the kitchen. “How many do you have?”
“Seventeen.” She laughed at his look of horror. “No, I’m not a weird cat lady,” she assured him. “I have two. They keep each other company during the day.”
He wondered how his children would react to her cats. They would probably be fascinated and want to grab handfuls of fur. Not a good idea.
She said, “Do you want your surprise now?”
“Sure.”
“Then, follow me.” She put the gray cat down and walked towards a staircase.
Michael hesitated at the foot of the stairs with his hand on a wrought iron railing. Just what was he getting himself into, he wondered, then dismissed the thought. Tonight he was going to have fun and enjoy himself without analyzing every sentence, every action.
Olivia peered down at him. “Are you coming?”
She was so lovely, fresh and sweet. She'd be appalled if she knew what a mess he and Mary Ellen had made of their lives with all the arguments and recriminations.
But he wasn't going to let memories of Mary Ellen ruin this evening. Olivia wanted to be friends, and he could use a friend. Men and women could be friends without physical attraction complicating everything, couldn't they?
Michael took the stairs two at a time, which spooked the orange cat and made him run away.
Olivia laughed.
As they approached a door, he asked, “Should I close my eyes?”
CHAPTE
R FIVE
Olivia led him down the hall, past her bedroom door, closed, to the door of her work room, also closed. She flung the door open. “Ta da!” she said with dramatic flourish, then realized for the first time how chaotic the room looked. It looked as if a hurricane had gone through, mixing up her art supplies and sprinkling papers, mostly crumpled up ones, all over the floor.
So much for impressing him with her organizational skills.
A large white drawing table with a sloping top dominated the room. From the swivel chair in front of it, one could see out a window into her backyard. There were metal shelf units along one wall, overflowing with boxes of pastels, pencils, and paints. Everywhere she looked there were pencils, new ones, stubs, and half used dull ones. Graphite and charcoal and grease.
Olivia hurried to the overflowing trash basket and stuffed several papers down into it. But there were more papers than would fit. “As you can see, this is definitely a work room,” she said. She picked up several loose pastels on the floor and put them in an empty mug. She didn't want him to accidently step on them and crush them into her carpet.
But he wasn't looking at the mess. He was standing in front of the eight foot by eight foot cork board hung on the wall to her left. The cork board was covered with pictures of babies. Pictures torn from magazines and printed off the Internet. Photographs she had taken at the park, the mall, and the hospital. There were hundreds of babies, all different ages and races. Happy babies, crying babies, sleeping babies.
“I guess you like babies,” he said finally.
“Yes.” En masse they were overpowering. She carried a large black portfolio over to her drawing table. “Take a look.” She stood back and bit her lower lip. She knew the portfolio held some of her best work, but it was always scary to have someone else look at it.
He opened the front cover and looked at the first drawing in thick dark pencil on a large sheet of stiff white paper. “The Baby Tree,” was written in large letters with a saggy diapered baby climbing on top of the letter r. Underneath that, it read, “By Livykins.” He looked over at her, surprised. “You wrote those books you gave me.”
“Keep reading.”
He turned the large sheets of paper carefully. Like her other two books, The Baby Tree was a wordless picture book. It started with a young married couple driving up a dirt road to an old fashioned general store. Once inside, the wife looked at an antique butter churn while the husband turned the pages of a dusty catalogue.
The next picture showed them carrying packages, including a small tree, out to their car. They planted the tree in their backyard and watered it. The tree bloomed with three flowers and inside every blossom was a tiny baby. The couple were overjoyed and carried the babies into their house.
Then one night as the father was pacing the floor with a baby in his arms, he looked out the window and saw five more blossoms with babies on the tree. “This looks familiar,” Michael said, and turned to the next drawing.
He laughed out loud. The picture showed eight little babies, all with bibs on, sitting in a row, all screaming while the husband and wife ran toward them with their arms full of bottles. “Looks like breakfast time at our house.”
Olivia remembered the morning she had told him about her broken windshield. “I know.”
She watched Michael's face as he turned back to her drawings. She wanted to see where his eyes focused, what pages he liked best, what made him smile.
He slowly looked through the rest of the drawings, which showed the couple coping with an increasing number of babies: giving them baths, visiting the doctor's office, and taking them for walks in a train-like stroller system. Autumn came and the leaves on the baby tree changed color and fell to the ground. The parents, with more than thirty children now, sat in a living room with a big fireplace and a roaring fire. The children spilled out over the furniture, playing quietly.
“Definitely fiction,” Michael said, and turned to the last drawing. “The end,” it read, but above the words was a picture of the large family playing outside underneath the baby tree. It was spring and the tree was filled with dozens of little buds, each with a tiny baby's face. “Oh no,” Michael said and laughed again.
Olivia said, “I'm glad you like it.”
Michael looked at her. “This is great.”
“Thanks. You’re the first one to see it.”
“I'm honored. Thank you for sharing it with me.”
She shrugged. “You gave me the idea. You and your children.”
“Perhaps, but you've done a fantastic job. When is it going to be published?”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” She smiled wryly. “I don’t know when. Last time I went with a traditional publisher, but the market has changed, so I’m looking into self-publishing.”
“Sounds like a lot of work.”
“And there’s more to do. These are just preliminary sketches. Right now I'm working on the actual paintings. I've finished two. Would you like to see them?”
“Of course.”
She carefully showed him the large illustration boards.
He smiled at the detailed scenes. “These are brighter than the pictures in Put That Back.”
“Those were watercolors. These are acrylics. I debated a long time about which medium to use, but decided to go with acrylics. They're easier for me.”
“I can't say enough,” he said finally after a minute of looking at the paintings. “These are beautiful. You should frame them.”
It was nice to hear his enthusiastic approval, but it made her self-conscious, so she changed the subject. She put the paintings away and said, “I have an idea for tonight. We can go ice-skating.”
He was startled. “Where?”
“Several of the malls have skating rinks. Do you want to go?”
“I've never gone ice-skating.”
Olivia watched him closely. “Are you willing to try?”
“Why not?”
Olivia smiled. This would be interesting. It wasn't precisely fair, but she used ice-skating as a litmus test for men. The guy didn't have to be proficient at ice-skating to win her approval; his attitude was what she wanted to check. If he thought ice-skating was juvenile or a waste of time, he was off her list.
Not that Michael was on her list, she reminded herself, but she still wanted to see what he'd do. She had taken Larry ice-skating. He'd been a good sport, but only lasted fifteen minutes before he was bored.
She wondered how long Michael would last.
They were halfway down her stairs, when he stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Wait a minute,” he said, eyes narrowing. “Do you really enjoy skating, or is this a dare?”
Olivia hesitated. With him down a few steps, they now stood eye to eye. She pushed up her glasses. “What do you mean?”
“I mean is this just a way to see me fall down and make a complete fool of myself?”
She laughed. “What a suspicious mind you have.”
“Okay,” he said and turned back around. “But just remember, if I go down, I'm taking you with me.”
“Only if you can catch me,” she said lightly. She watched as he stepped carefully over Crick, who was lying at the foot of the stairs.
You'd better watch your step, too. This man is observant.
#
Michael didn't like malls. The worst years of his life had been spent waiting outside a women's dressing room, with Mary Ellen's purse on the floor by his feet. Why would anyone willingly subject themselves to Madison Avenue's psychological warfare? That's what malls were. The floor plans, the colors, even the smells were all carefully manipulated to make one spend money.
To her credit, Olivia didn't check her reflection in the large glass windows, and she passed several shoe stores without having to run inside to try on a pair.
They walked behind a woman who had a child attached to her wrist by a long plastic cord. Michael said, “Before I had children I thought it was terrible to put a kid on a leash, but n
ow I think it's a good idea. I don't know what I'm going to do when they're all eighteen months old and eager to run.”
Olivia smiled. “I can imagine you with five leashes all tangled up. You're going to look like a maypole.”
“Add it to your book,” he suggested. “Actually I was thinking of ankle straps, more like a toddler chain gang.”
“I can see it now.” She started walking stiff legged, swinging her arms. Michael smiled at her silly sense of humor. She sang in a low voice, “Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to shop we go,” then stopped abruptly. “Look at that,” she said quietly and pointed.
He turned to see two children tossing pennies into an elaborate water fountain.
“Wouldn't that make a great picture?” she asked. She stopped and squatted down to be on eye level with the children. “Look at the serious expression on the little girl's face,” she whispered, so as not to disturb the children. She glanced up at Michael, and saw him watching her instead of the children. “Sorry,” she said, standing up and brushing her hands on her jeans. “It's the artist in me. I'm always watching, filing images in my mind. It can be distancing, I know.”
He found it difficult to believe that there had been people in her life who found her behavior annoying. “I don’t mind,” he said. She had a great talent, and it was fascinating to see her creative mind at work.
#
Michael clung to the walls around the rink. He took slow, tentative steps rather than graceful glides. Children of all ages, some of them barely toddlers skated past him. He smiled at Olivia, but she knew he was having a terrible time. She skated up to him. “I'm sorry,” she said. “This was a bad idea. Let's go sit down.”
“No,” he said fiercely. “I insist on going around the entire rink, at least once.”
That was macho pride speaking, not common sense. Olivia held out her arm. “Do you want to hold onto me?”
“I thought you'd never ask,” he joked, but she read relief in his eyes.
He slid his arm around her waist in a sudden movement that nearly toppled her. She struggled to steady them both and put her arm around his waist. It was a surprisingly intimate gesture. His waist was firm under the soft cotton of his t-shirt. He smelled like sandalwood and baby lotion.
