“Think about it, baby,” Mommy said reaching across the table to hold my hand. “I don’t want to hurt you, but you’ve got to remember, when he had a choice he didn’t choose you. You weren’t good enough. Now that he’s damaged goods, now he wants to be with you. And you’re just so in love with him you can’t see that. Is that why he’s divorced? Did Christina dump him when he got hurt? It’s a cruel world, Rae, but I can understand Christina. It’s not easy to take care of a cripple. Some women—”
Walk on Water “He doesn’t need anybody to take care of him!” I cut her off, snatching my hand away from her. “And it doesn’t matter to me why Christina left him. We’re together now. And I think it’s wonderful.”
Mommy shook her head.
“You’ll see,” she said. “When you see how many problems you have being with him. The places he can’t go. The things he can’t do. You’ll see how hard it is. Relationships aren’t easy, Rachel. I know you know that. You think it’s your dream come true, but I’m telling you some dreams can turn out to be nightmares.”
But nothing Mommy could ever say could make me want to wake up. This was ours, like Luke had said. It was odd to think of Mommy and Betty Sterling as allies, and they would probably never know it. But Luke and I were allies too, and I reassured myself with thoughts of how we would prove them both very wrong.
I didn’t call Brian when I got home. Instead I fed the cats and stretched out on the floor to let them sniff me while I stroked their soft coats. Then I took a shower and got ready for bed. I wondered if Luke would call to say goodnight. Last night he had breathed the words on the back of my neck and I had fallen asleep next to him. Ruin my life. Luke had rejuvenated it.
Corrine had been right all along. I had been working out to get ready to be naked in front of him, and I was pleased with what I could now show him, ecstatic with the way he stroked and caressed me. And if I was sharing the sacred space of his bed with Stephanie-the-teacher then maybe she was encountering the scent of Juniper Breeze on his sheets.
Around ten-thirty I decided to call Luke’s home number. He answered on the second ring, his voice releasing dozens of butterflies in my stomach, not to mention a ready dampness between my legs.
“Hi,” I heard myself practically cooing. “Just wanted to say goodnight.”
“I’m glad,” replied Luke. “How was your day?”
“Good.”
“It went okay with your mom?” he asked.
Had he been worrying about it? Surely he must realize that I was my own person as capable of independence as he was.
“Yeah,” I said easily as if it had. “You have a lunch date the first Sunday in December.”
“Cool.”
“I told her we’re seeing each other,” I confessed.
“She’s all right with it?”
I hesitated. He detected it.
“My wheelchair,” Luke supplied.
“Your politics,” I countered dishonestly.
“What?”
“The Sterlings are Republicans, right? Well the Cunninghams are Democrats. Mommy takes her politics very seriously.”
“What if I told you I was an Independent?” Luke laughed softly.
“Too nebulous,” I giggled. “Cunninghams are not your both/and kind of people.”
“So either/or?”
“Either/or,” I confirmed.
“I can handle that,” he said. “Now—scoot that gorgeous naked body of yours under the covers and get some sleep. I want to see you tomorrow, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”
“How do you know I’m naked?” I challenged.
“You like sleeping in the nude.”
“How would you know?” I giggled softly.
“You told me you do…A long time ago.”
“You remember that?” I asked a little amazed.
“I remember everything you ever told me, Rachel Marie.”
I smiled to hear him say my middle name.
“So choose your words carefully,” he added. “They can change everything.”
TWENTY-THREE
In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, between working and working out, and spending time with Luke, I was basically a visitor to my own house. Fortunately cats were famously independent creatures, so although very loving, T-T and Agatha were okay with my demanding schedule as long as I took care of their needs, including playing and petting time. Mommy’s Sundays of course remained sacred even when I spent the night with Luke, but about the only girlfriend-time I had with Corrine was over lunch at the office. I was really clocking up the miles in my faithful little Corolla, and some evenings I was getting home pretty late or not at all, but I was too happy to feel sleep-deprived. All of my engines were humming in overdrive.
I just wished that my building had an elevator. I wanted Luke to see my place. I wanted to wake up next to him in my bed. Maybe I could move. Being frugal I had a decent savings account, and I could afford to upgrade.
Luke 2.0 was totally charming, and I couldn’t get enough of him. But the really magical thing was that he seemed unable to get enough of me too, sometimes even calling or texting me in the middle of the day just to say hi because he was thinking of me, or missing me. Yes it was a little sappy and a little Robert-like, and certainly not like the usual Luke, who as a numbers man was not one to waste time or money. However, it was also exciting, and I absolutely reveled in the attention, at times having to struggle to write up my case notes due to the distraction of being in love. Requited love. You didn’t usually hear the word requited but having spent half of my life in the unrequited state, I relished every moment and celebrated the change. I started carrying my cell phone with me all the time.
But I didn’t completely forget that this was early. I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that it was precarious this wonderful happiness I was having. What if his children didn’t like me? And Betty Sterling wasn’t the type to have a sudden conversion experience. Besides exes reconciled. Wasn’t this very relationship actual proof of that?
Corrine wanted to know right away if we had made it official—as in mutually monogamous—but I couldn’t say yes since Luke and I hadn’t talked about it. I couldn’t make up my mind to press for definitions. The relationship was too fresh and fragile, and what if he wasn’t ready then what would I do? I had driven him away before by being so needy. It was absolutely essential that I give him his space even if he didn’t seem to want it that much.
“If he hasn’t made up his mind about you after twenty years,” Corrine had insisted over grilled chicken salad at lunch one day. “Then what’s the point?”
“It hasn’t been twenty years,” I had defended Luke, as well as myself. “It was a twenty-year gap.”
“Whatever. You crossed his mind plenty of times. I bet you that.”
I wanted to believe that I had, but I doubted it. Luke’s life had been very full, rich, busy. There were all those photographs hanging on his walls to confirm it. Thank God Christina’s face was not in his bedroom too. No, this must be new. Luke was different and so was I. And it—whatever it was between us—was good. And this with that was sufficient to have me singing along with every love song I heard, turning them all into the latest editions of Rachel’s Favorites.
Luke was taking the whole Thanksgiving week off. Kimberly, Patricia, and TJ the three younger kids, were flying in Tuesday night, and Luke Jr. was due to arrive Wednesday morning. Luke was very much looking forward to having his children with him for the week and he had made plans for their time together beyond the obligatory holiday meal at his parents’ house. He seemed so excited about their coming that I wondered again why he had moved away from them in the first place; even though I was very glad that he had.
I also wondered how he would have felt about our child—if we had had that child. Was I regretting not having that child now? Maybe. A little. It was ironic the worst fight, the only fight really, that Luke and I had ever had was over that pregnancy, which never was in the first place.
He believed in the curve of his trend lines, in plotting his life and measuring it by cumulative data, but it was the outliers on the graph that changed everything.
Still here we were. Here and now. And the trend line was on a wonderful trajectory. Tuesday morning Luke called to invite me to lunch. I was delighted, especially because it would probably be our only alone time for the week, but also because he was coming to my office to pick me up which would give me the chance to show him a bit of my world. It wasn’t my home, but it was at least my office, my friends and colleagues. I was proud of the life I had made for myself, and proud of Luke too.
When he arrived in the parking lot outside my office building Luke buzzed my cell.
“Want to come in and see my office?” I asked eagerly.
“Uh, okay,” he replied. “If you want me to.”
He seemed surprised, so then I felt a little foolish. He couldn’t just jump out of the car and run in, now could he? And I couldn’t take much more than an hour away. Why waste time?
“Oh…well, that’s okay,” I course-corrected. “Corrine can come out and say hi.”
“That may be easier,” replied Luke.
As Corrine and I took the stairs down to the office lobby, I made her swear to me that she wouldn’t say something embarrassing.
“Luke’s a very private person, Corrine,” I urgently cautioned her. “He won’t like references to his sex life or his love life for that matter.”
“I’m not an idiot, Rachel,” she returned sharply. “But he is a grown man.”
“I’m just saying—”
“I know. I know,” Corrine laughed easily. “Don’t offend Luke the Magnificent by telling him he is.”
Spotting Luke’s car I waved to him and hurried in that direction, Corrine in tow. Luke lowered the power window.
“Hey babe,” he greeted me.
“Hi!” I returned and we kissed lightly on the lips.
He smelled of a light citrus fragrance and was wearing a forest-green turtleneck sweater and dark-wash jeans. As usual he looked great. Casual, career, after-five-formal, he made it all look easy. While he and Corrine were saying hello I was beaming at him like I had won a trophy.
“Congratulations,” Corrine was saying. “And speaking for our team, thanks.”
“For what?” asked Luke with his own smile.
“Since you came along the rest of us finally have a chance at getting the outstanding employee award.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Nothing like being in love to reset a girl’s priorities and cure her workaholism.”
And there it was: the embarrassing thing, except that I wasn’t unhappy that Corrine had said it, even though the notorious 4-letter word hadn’t been spoken between Luke and me at all. Not twenty years ago, not now. Luke rarely talked about feelings and taking my cues from him, I didn’t either. And yet I had been able to feel it, his feelings for me; and I had shown it, my feelings for him. I had learned to think that maybe you didn’t need to say it, that maybe showing it, feeling it was enough. However, the bright twinkle in Luke’s dark brown eyes now suggested otherwise.
“I hope you’re right,” he replied to Corrine although he was looking at me, his beautiful smile tingling every nerve cell in my body.
“Oh trust me, I am!” declared Corrine from a place apart from us.
“We better get going,” I said thinking again about the time.
“Where are you taking him?” Corrine wanted to know.
“I was thinking Mac’s. It’s quick.”
“Oh, Luke, they’ve got the best potato soup you’ll ever eat in the world,” Corrine enthused.
“Is that right?” asked Luke.
“It’s to die for! I could eat it every day.”
“Well I better try it then. So you, uh, want to join us, Corrine?”
“I thought you’d never ask!” she quickly replied, yanking open the backseat car door to get in.
Luke threw me a quick apologetic grin.
“Just push my chair out of your way,” he said over his shoulder to Corrine.
“No problem!” she replied. “Besides lunch-time is usually my Rachel-time anyway, but I guess you’re taking that too.”
I cringed but Luke laughed merrily. So much for our alone time. But what could he do? Corrine was my best friend. And lunch was fun. Luke liked telling Corrine stories about my undergraduate days, and she relished getting him up to speed on me since I had come to work for our agency. For my part, I mostly had to sit there like an audience to my own life as they interpreted it, but I enjoyed it too.
Once we got back to the office, Corrine jumped out of the car as quickly as she had gotten in before, thanking Luke again for picking up her tab and wishing him a happy Thanksgiving.
“Take your time, Rae,” she offered hurrying away. “I’ll cover for you.”
“She’s a trip,” said Luke with a chuckle as we watched Corrine go into the building.
“I know,” I agreed. “But I love her to death.”
Turning back to me, Luke pulled me into his arms. His breath smelled minty from the stick of gum he had popped into his mouth after lunch.
“What about me?” he asked. “Love me to death?”
Was he joking with me or being deathly serious? The answer was yes of course, but was I supposed to admit it now? And if I did would I get it back? Butterflies hovered over the potato soup in my belly. My best bet was to stay with the joke, telling the truth just not really.
“Absolutely,” I replied seductively. “I’m surprised you had to ask.”
For a moment, Luke studied me intently, then kissed me intensely.
Thank goodness for tinted glass.
“I’ll call you tonight,” he said when we eventually had to part to catch our breath.
“You’ll be busy with your kids,” I replied giving him an out in case he did get too busy.
“I’ll call you tonight, Rachel,” he repeated firmly.
“Okay,” I smiled at him, stroking his chest through the fine knit of the sweater. “I’ll wait up.”
Catching my hand he held it tightly against him, squeezing my fingers.
“I may be a selfish bastard,” said Luke. “But I’d wake you up anyway.”
Thursday morning, Mommy and I set out for Mommy’s hometown, Ennis, Texas for Thanksgiving dinner with our family. Mommy was at the steering wheel for ninety-minute drive south of Dallas. The car radio dial was set to Christian music. I gazed out the window at brown pastures and bare-branch trees.
Thanksgiving dinner always turned into a Cunningham mini-family reunion. Since most of the clan had never ventured much farther than central Texas it was relatively easy for us to get together. It was forbidden to miss graduations, weddings, Big Daddy and Granny’s anniversaries, and of course Thanksgiving. With us all around him, Big Daddy, my grandfather, would strut around like a tribal chief, constantly flirting with Granny as if he were eagerly ready to add to his enormous brood.
Mommy had been the only one of her sisters to get in trouble in high school, and during the pregnancy Big Daddy had been so ashamed of her that he would barely speak to her. “But once he saw your cute little puckered-up face,” Granny had assured me when I was older. “All that changed. You was his little doll, and he’s been proud of you ever since.”
Yet as good as he was to me, Big Daddy was not my father, and I had always felt funny being the only one without a father among my cousins. My grandparents’ home was filled with the studio portraits of their children’s families, and among them only Mommy’s had two people. The addition of Robert may have helped appearances but once the divorce had been settled, Granny’s copy of my wedding picture had been put away, although you could still come across Robert in some framed family get-together shots.
“So I guess Betty Sterling’s in her element today, this whole week for that matter,” Mommy said, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“For sure,” I agreed. “I’m sure she’s
very happy. She likes having her grandchildren visit.”
“You meet them yet?” asked Mommy.
“Friday,” I replied. “We’re having dinner together.”
“How do you think that’s gonna be?”
Her tone sounded like Mommy already knew, and that it wouldn’t be good.
“It’ll be fine,” I said.
Mommy grunted.
“It will,” I insisted. “I’m looking forward to meeting Luke’s kids.”
“They’re Christina’s kids too,” Mommy reminded me. “They’ll take her side.”
“What side? There is no side.”
“Trust me there’s always sides.”
“They were divorced before I came into the picture, Mommy.”
“Before you came back into the picture, you mean. Just what do you think Christina’s going to say once she finds out that Luke is involved with one of her bridesmaids? You mark my words, there will be sides.”
TWENTY-FOUR
It was Friday afternoon, evening almost since it was close to six o’clock. I had worked a half-day and then gone home and baked a batch of brownies to take to Luke’s house. According to Luke, at his kids’ request, dinner was going to be pizza. I hoped brownies would be okay. I wasn’t about to show-up empty-handed, and in the office I had a fabulous reputation as a baker. Yes, I wanted to impress.
For all intents and purposes, it was a very big first date, fraught with all the perils of the fix-up. I tried not to think about what Luke might have told his kids about me since his descriptions would probably be too generous for me to live up to. I needed to be smart and attractive, so naturally I had been nervous about what outfit to wear. I wanted to look cute enough for their handsome dad but not slutty. Maybe a little preppy but not persnickety. My makeup had to be age-appropriate and pass an adolescent girl’s review, which I had decided meant a little powder for shine control, a little eyeliner for eye definition, a tiny touch of blush, and lastly some tinted lip balm. Christina’s daughters were as pretty as their mother. I just hoped they weren’t mean girls.
Parking my Corolla on the street just to be sure I wasn’t in the way, I took a deep breath and opened the car door. At least I wasn’t in a pink satin dress and my shoes were comfortable. I had studied blended families in my Marriage and Family classes when I was getting my Master’s degree. While all families took some work, step-families had special challenges that could be particularly stressful for the children. Maybe that was why Mommy had never married. Divided loyalties could be painful. Not that we were going to become a step-family any time soon, or ever. I didn’t even know for sure if I was an official girlfriend.
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