Always Florence

by Muriel Jensen

  “Nate understands you’re going to leave him?”

  She put both hands to her face, then lowered them. “He doesn’t have to. He doesn’t want to come with me any more than I want to stay with him. There’s nothing real between us, Dad.”

  He shook his head and forked a big bite of pancake. “You’re a mystifying generation. Eat up. We have things to do.”

  While waiting for her father to get ready for their walk, Bobbie sent Laura a quick email, telling her about her dad and Stella’s exciting meeting and about Nate’s kiss, certain her friend would enjoy the ongoing drama.

  She hadn’t had a response to her last email, but was sure Laura was busy trying to make a baby.

  * * *

  NATE FOLLOWED STELLA down the grocery store aisle with a cart mounded with the makings of Thanksgiving dinner. Since she’d decided to join them, she’d insisted he cancel the prepared meal he’d ordered. The boys kept adding treats to the cart and Nate had long since lost track of their purchases. His brain was stuttering. He kept remembering Bobbie in his arms.

  He was so pathetic. Only a year ago he’d had more women sharing space in his life than was probably prudent, but they’d liked the way he treated them and weren’t interested in anything permanent. It had suited his purposes then.

  This morning, he was completely distracted by the memory of one kiss he’d given Bobbie no choice to reject, and the feel of her in his arms. Her body was forever imprinted on his, warm and soft and a little delicate. He didn’t dare even think fragile.

  And then, as though the magic of his memories had conjured her, she came around a corner in the produce aisle, a beautifully shaped pumpkin in one arm and a pot of burgundy mums in the other.

  Her eyes lit up when she spotted him. Given the way they’d parted, he’d expected hostility. But she was definitely happy to see him. Maybe more than happy. Something inside him melted. He felt all the old anger dissolve into a puddle.

  “Hi,” she said, the simple word filled with soft emotion. He walked around the cart to greet her, needing to touch her. But the boys’ radar told them she was around, and they came running. So he simply took the pumpkin and the plant from her as she greeted them and accepted their hugs.

  “Hey, Nate!” Dennis came around the corner with a cart. “Are those Bobbie’s? Here, put them down.” He pushed the cart up to Nate and held it still so he could place the objects inside. Nate spotted premade piecrusts, cans of pumpkin and mince filling, and a pumpkin cheesecake. Dennis abandoned the cart to greet the boys, then Stella, who’d been half an aisle ahead and was on her way back to say hello, several colorful gourds in her hands.

  “Hi!” Dennis took them from her and placed them in their cart. He grinned at Nate. “I make a mean mulled wine. Can I bring some tomorrow?”

  “Please. Stella’s making eggnog because the boys love it, but I’d prefer the wine.”

  “Great.” Dennis leaned on the cart handle. “You’ve done such a good job with the boys, according to Bobbie.” He indicated the end of the aisle where she and the boys stood, looking up at a honeycomb turkey hanging from a fixture. “Must have been quite a shock to your own life.”

  Nate was surprised to hear she’d complimented him. “Really. She tells me I shout too much.”

  “Sometimes you have to shout to be heard.”

  “That’s just what I tried to explain.”

  Dennis shifted a little uncomfortably. “Would you mind if I asked Stella out to dinner?”

  “Ah—no. She very much has her own life. It would be entirely up to her. Her son is my friend, but he has no say in what she does, either. It’s your call. Bear in mind that she’s a great lady.”

  Dennis laughed. “You have to love a woman who takes nothing from nobody.”

  Nate had his own reason to laugh. “Yes, you do.”

  Bobbie came up to him. “Do you have a couple of minutes to spare?” she asked. “I need some facial detail for the painting.”

  “Why don’t I just go home with you?” he suggested. He smiled at her dad. “Would you mind going home with Stella and helping her haul in the groceries?”

  Dennis didn’t even blink. “Is that all right with you?” he asked Stella.

  “Um, yes. Okay.” Her glance at him had sincere anticipation in it. Nate smiled to himself.

  Dylan folded his arms and looked from one to the other. “And what happens to us? Does one of us go with Uncle Nate and one with Mr. Molloy, like the kids in that Parent Trap movie? Or are you going to leave us here?”

  Nate put his large hand over Dylan’s face. “Ha, ha. You’re coming with me.”

  “Oh, goody,” Dylan said with a clear lack of enthusiasm, but he grinned at Bobbie.

  “Are you going to make us cookies?” Sheamus asked, catching her hand.

  “No, but I did buy some. And some ice cream.” She pointed to those objects in her cart.

  Dylan tugged on Nate’s jacket sleeve. Nate leaned down so he could hear him. “Yeah?”

  “I like to go to Bobbie’s, but she doesn’t have—you know—up-to-date electronics. She’s got a TV and that’s it. And it’s not even a plasma. No Sports Channel, no DVD player.”

  “Up-to-date electronics?” Nate scoffed playfully at Dylan’s criticism. “You won’t have time for that. We’re going to help Bobbie make pies and rolls.”

  “Me?”

  “Hey, if I have to do it, you have to do it.”

  The boy winced. “But then we have to eat it tomorrow.” He made a face, clearly not trusting their skills.

  “Right. So we’d better pay attention to what we’re doing. And, you know, you might ask Santa for a personal DVD player for such emergencies.”

  Dylan looked both horrified and intrigued. “Santa? I’m going to be eleven.”

  Bobbie and Sheamus led the way down the aisle and Nate pushed the cart to follow, Dylan at his side.

  “Everyone believes in Santa at Christmastime,” Nate said. “I do, and I’m going to be thirty-six.”

  His nephew made a face at him. “Come on. You’re our Santa. So maybe I should ask you for a personal DVD player.”

  “I’ll see that your message gets through to him.”

  “Sometimes,” Dylan said with long-suffering tolerance, “you’re kind of nutty.”

  Nate took that with a smile. “That’s a criticism I’ve heard before.”

  * * *

  BOBBIE STOOD AT the easel crammed in a corner of her small workroom. Her drafting table had been folded up, and leaned against the closet door, and all her inks and calligraphy materials packed up and put away to make room for her to work on the painting. With her father here, she was sleeping on the sofa.

  The kitchen was across the hall and she could hear the boys putting her groceries away. She’d given them free rein to stash things where they thought best, as long as perishables were refrigerated.

  “I can’t believe the boys don’t like my television,” she said to Nate as she leaned forward to tilt his chin at a sharper angle. He sat on her windowsill and looked out at the rainy day as though it were the wide Columbia in the painting. She felt stubble under her fingertips and the hard line of his jaw.

  “Oh, they like it, they’d just like it better if you had all the ESPN channels.”

  “My father,” she said, her voice diminishing in volume as she focused on perfecting the line of his jaw, “likes your housekeeper.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  Satisfied that she had the angle correct, she made a few adjusting brushstrokes. Then she looked up and simply admired his profile for a moment. “I think you should ask his intentions. He always asked that of my boyfriends.”

  “He intends to invite her to dinner. I don’t have to know anything else. She’s a very capable woman. And Hunter wo
uld kill him if he didn’t treat her like a lady.”

  “Dad wouldn’t know how to hurt anyone.”

  “So, if they develop a relationship, you and I might be connected beyond January. I mean, what if they end up together and you come to visit? I’ll be here, disturbing your uncomplicated artist’s life.”

  “If they got serious,” she speculated, peering around the canvas at him, “she might quit her job. Then you’d have to get married. Maybe call that client in Portland or the model. One of those variable women might have had a change of heart and decided she’d like a family, after all.”

  “You know, for someone who doesn’t want a relationship, you tend to bring it up a lot. Maybe deep down you wish you had one. Or—and this is just occurring to me—maybe you don’t know how to have one.”

  She blew air between her lips in a very unladylike raspberry. “How hard is it to have a relationship? You have things in common and you care about each other. Big deal. Anybody can do it.”

  She knew she was talking nonsense, but didn’t want to get into a serious discussion.

  Sheamus appeared suddenly in the doorway, holding up a bag of cookies. “Can we have one of these?”

  Bobbie dropped her brush in a jar of water. “Lunch before cookies,” she said. “Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches?”

  Sheamus cheered, hearing the menu, and went to tell Dylan.

  “You can move now,” she told Nate as she dried her hands on a rag, pretending she’d forgotten about the subject under discussion.

  Nate took the old hat off and placed it carefully on a bookshelf.

  “Now you go from artist’s model to sous-chef,” she said. “First, we have to take this off.” She went to help him remove the jacket, and hung it back up in its paper wrapper. He had to think she was as removed as she pretended to be.

  He carefully pulled off the shirt and stood there in a white T-shirt molded to a sturdy chest and shoulders.

  The urge to touch him was overwhelming. His watchful gaze caught hers. He took her hand and placed it on a warm, solid pectoral muscle. “Nothing to be afraid of,” he said softly. “It’s just me. Or does that scare you? If you really believe what you just said about relationships, it’s clear you haven’t had one. Been too devoted to your art, maybe? A little bit afraid of a world that doesn’t exist on canvas or pretty paper, but in real flesh and blood?”

  * * *

  HE HAD HER. Her eyes went darker, wider, and in her small, pale face they seemed enormous. Her lips firmed, but her hand under his trembled. “You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?” she asked. “That I’m a poor, repressed innocent and that’s why I won’t be anything but your neighbor? Did it ever occur to you that I may just not be attracted?”

  “Oh, you’re attracted,” he said with a small smile. “You can deny it all you want, but your body betrays you. Every time I touch you, you tremble. You’re just afraid of the kind of intimacy we could share, because you’re not sure you’re strong enough to care for me and still walk away.”

  “I told you once,” she said, enunciating carefully, “that I can stand up to anything.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Big talk.”

  He got precisely what he wanted when she grabbed a fistful of the front of his T-shirt, pulled him down while she stood on tiptoe, and claimed his mouth. Then he lost awareness of everything but the warm, mobile lips reshaping his, the hand that still clutched his shirt, the other that wandered over his shoulder and into his hair.

  He was out of breath when she finally drew back and gulped in air. She looked into his eyes with a shocked and horrified expression. Then she ran from the room and left him standing there.

  * * *

  AFTER LUNCH, BOBBIE wrapped kitchen towels around the boys’ spindly bodies, and everyone was given a job. She made quick bread biscuit dough, spread it on the floured countertop and rolled it out. She gave each boy a glass with the rim dipped in flour, and placed them at either end of the flattened dough. She showed the two how to cut a biscuit with the rim of the glass and place it on the parchment-covered tin.

  Nate watched her work. The unspoken rule seemed to be to pretend that the moment in her studio had never happened. She was doing it beautifully, but he felt the effort like an anvil on his shoulders.

  Apart from that, he’d have liked to employ her method, whatever it was, of getting the boys’ rapt attention. She watched them begin their jobs, seemed satisfied with their efforts, and handed Nate the jar of mincemeat.

  “I’ll pour that into a piecrust,” she promised, “if you can get the lid off.”

  “What? Out of a jar?” He gave the lid a quick turn and handed it back to her. “No large stone pot with bits of lamb and beef and fruit and brandy?”

  “Get real, Raleigh. Thank you.” She walked across the room to where the piecrust waited, then smiled at him over her shoulder. Brat. Like smiling at him wasn’t hard at all. “This is the here and now.”

  The first batch of biscuits went into the oven and the boys began to work on the second tin. Bobbie handed Nate a bowl with pumpkin puree in it and seasonings on top. “Would you mix those in, please?” She stuck a wooden spoon in the bowl and placed a prepared piecrust on the table beside him. “Then turn it out into this.”

  “Gotcha,” he said.

  As she went back to check on the boys, she gave him another look over her shoulder that he interpreted as “No, you don’t,” though she didn’t say the words. What was he going to do, he wondered, if she could just walk away?

  He mixed the spices in and caught the familiar aroma of traditional pumpkin pie. It took him back to his childhood and the loud, cheerful holiday celebrations with grandparents and aunts and uncles who were all gone now. The nostalgia was poignant for a moment. Then he caught sight of the boys and thought of life carrying on despite loss.

  The back door opened after a brief two-rap knock and Sandy walked in, carrying a plate of what looked like homemade candy. Hunter followed her, seemingly relieved to see Nate there.

  “Hey!” He walked around the women, slapped each boy on the shoulder as he passed and came to greet Nate. “What are you up to? I didn’t know you had culinary skills.”

  Nate pulled a chair out for him. “I don’t. I’m just stirring. Hard to get that wrong. What are you doing?”

  Hunter sat as though he really needed to. “Sandy had a bunch of errands to run for her mom, who’s cooking tomorrow, so I’m providing chauffeur service.”

  “Your mother still thinks you’re going camping?”

  “No. I finally told her the truth. Then I brought Sandy and the girls by to introduce them. You were right. Mom was a little annoyed with me for not being honest with her, but thrilled that I’m seeing someone and that she has children. Sandy’s mother invited her to join us, but Mom told them she was cooking for all of you.”

  “I’m sorry. She could have gone with you. We wouldn’t have minded.”

  “No, she wants to cook for you. And...” He leaned closer to say quietly, “I think she likes spending time with Bobbie’s father. Last time I talked to her she seemed happy as a clam. Where does that expression come from, anyway? How do we know clams are happy?” Hunter kept smiling though his eyes were troubled.

  “You okay?” Nate asked in a low voice.

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “I’m just glad to see another guy. I’m on estrogen overload today.”

  Nate laughed sympathetically. “Come on over Friday. The boys and Bobbie’s dad and I are going to watch college football all day, and guy movies. The girls are going shopping.”

  “Great. I’d love to. I’ll bring pizza.”

  “Good.”

  “Hunter?” Sandy said his name with a sweet lilt Nate wasn’t used to hearing in her voice. Stella always said Hunter’s name with pride, and at work, the wom
en either spoke his name with playful abuse or reverence when he found solutions for impossible clients.

  He gave Nate a harried look before he pasted on a smile and turned to Sandy. “Coming.”

  She caught his hand as he went toward her, and they walked out together. Nate had never seen Sandy so taken with a man. And he’d never seen Hunter look so frightened. He followed Bobbie out into the chill air to wave them off.

  A crash reverberated from inside and Sheamus shouted as they turned back to the house. Bobbie ran in, Nate right behind her. They found Sheamus standing in the middle of the kitchen, with unbaked rolls all over the floor. His chin quivered and his blue eyes were wide with guilt.

  “I hit the tin with my elbow,” he said as Dylan picked up the circles of dough. Nate got down to help him. “I didn’t mean to do it, it just—”

  Bobbie put a fingertip over his mouth. “It’s all right. It’s just dough.”

  “It was an accident,” Dylan corroborated, getting to his feet, dough in hand. “He was reaching for the glass and accidentally hit the full pan with his elbow, and it tipped off the counter. Shall I throw these away?”

  Bobbie glanced at Nate, who looked up from his task in surprise. She must have recognized, just as he had, that it was unusual for Dylan to come to Sheamus’s defense.

  “Yes. I’d made extra, anyway, so we’ll still have plenty.” She pinched Sheamus’s chin. “You’re more important to us than the rolls, Sheamus. Everything’s okay.”

  He sniffed. “I’m really sorry.”

  She kissed the top of his head. “Nothing to be sorry about. Go ahead and finish. We’ll take a break when the last batch goes in the oven, and have milk and cookies.”

  Sheamus smiled, his eyes bright, and went back to work.

  “I’ll scrub the floor for you,” Nate said, tossing the rolls he’d picked up into the trash, “as soon as we’re all done. Do you have a swab mop,” he asked, “to help me get into character?”

  “Aren’t you cute?”

  “So you’ve told me.”