“A challenge?”
“I’ve seen grown men cry at baseball.”
“You’re on. The game’s Saturday at three.”
“Sounds good. Do you know where I live?”
“Chandler, isn’t it? Quite a bit out of the way. I’ll meet you at the stadium, by the main entrance at two o’clock. Reese showed me a snapshot of you.”
Wow! Not even willing to make the effort on a first date? Strike one on Gary. “All right, I’ll meet you there at two.” She hung up without any of the anticipation she had three minutes ago. Was she was doing the right thing?
At two o’clock the next Saturday she paced the rotunda, scanning the crowd for a stranger. She looked as good as she could with a new green peasant blouse topping freshly pressed jeans. She checked the time. Two twenty-five and he still wasn’t there. She plopped down on an empty bench. Was anything worse than getting stood up on a blind date? He had ten more minutes and she was gone.
“Allie!”
She spun her head toward the booming voice. Found it attached to a long-legged man in jeans and a red team T-shirt jogging her way.
“Oh my God, Allie. Sorry I’m so late.” He halted beside her, waves of thick dark hair falling over his forehead. He shoved it back and uncovered brilliant blue eyes. High cheekbones, strong chin, and grooves framing his mouth that said he smiled often… good job, Reese! “My ex was supposed to pick up our son by noon and didn’t arrive until one-thirty. Then Corey couldn’t find his homework. To top it off, I was in a rush to leave and forgot to bring your number. I couldn’t even call to let you know what was going on.”
Okay, so everyone’s day falls apart from time to time. She gave his arm a little pat. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s just enjoy the afternoon.”
She followed Gary up the escalator, located their seats on the upper deck. The dome was open today, the warm afternoon sun angling in and blinding her, but from this height she couldn’t see more than the vague shapes of the players on the field anyway. The stadium was far from full. An ex-wife must take a good portion of a principal’s salary if these were the best seats he could come up with.
She settled into her seat beside him. He seemed like a nice guy. She should be kind and enjoy what she could see of the game. But added to his request to meet at the stadium, and then his tardiness, prickles of apprehension ran down the back of her neck and had Gary teetering on the edge of strike two.
“Yo!” Gary yelled to a beer vendor, stuck up three fingers. The paper cup sloshed suds as he passed it to her. He fisted the other two, drained them, roared out a belch. Nice guy, her ass! By the fourth inning he’d downed two more beers and his comments to the surrounding fans were obnoxious. So much for fun. Her face seared, and not from the blistering sun.
Six cups were stacked beneath his seat by the end of the sixth inning, each as empty as his threats to the opposing team, and she was done. Strike three, she was out of there. She popped to her feet, the folding seat clattering shut without her weight.
“Hey, Gary, thanks for a great time, but I’m heading home.”
Her sarcasm sailed right over his head.
“Why you leavin,’ toots? Game’s not over.”
She forced a smile. His game was lost long ago. “It’s getting late. I want to get a head start on traffic.” She bent to pick up her purse, but by the time she stood Gary was already distracted by the action on the field. And here she was, worried about making a scene in the bleachers. She made her way downstairs, outside, into her car. Which she wouldn’t have if Gary wasn’t an ass.
What a waste of a perfectly good Saturday afternoon. Which was really too bad, because she’d done a lot of thinking in the past week. It might be nice to have someone to spend time with, after all. She didn’t want a long-term relationship, no. But as she hit the drive-thru for a lonely dinner, she decided a little company would have been far more pleasant.
Allie tossed her sacked dinner and purse onto the kitchen counter. At the blinking telephone message light she pushed play, listened while she pulled a glass tumbler from the cupboard, filled it with juice.
“Allie, I’m dying here. Call the minute you get home. With details!”
That made her laugh. Reese was a lot of things—subtle was not one. She waited for the next message to boot.
“Hey, there. Haven’t talked to you since the kid left, wanted to make sure you’re okay.” There was a short pause, then, “Bye, babe.” Her lips spread in a smile. Jake.
The unwrapped burrito sat in her hand while she punched in Reese’s number. She took a bite and waited until the fifth ring for her to answer.
“I was about to hang up.” The glob of machaca and tortilla in her mouth was hard to talk around.
“I was watering the garden and had to run to catch the phone.”
Allie swallowed what she was chewing. “So, how are the tomatoes?”
“Screw the tomatoes, Allie. Spill the goods!”
“Anybody ever tell you you’re nosy?”
“Sure. All the time. Now tell me.”
She could just picture Reese’s smartass grin. “I think I know why Mrs. Principal chose to get un-married.” Allie lifted her glass, sipped apple juice, and detailed the events of the day.
“Oh, the dirty rotten creep. I thought he… Jeez, he’s just a creep.”
Reese’s seething buzz snapped through the phone line. Allie shook her head and smiled. “Down, Fido. We’ll simply list this in the ‘worst date ever’ column and move on. Everyone needs a funny story to tell.”
“Maybe, but this kind of funny just stinks.”
“Agreed.” Reese may not have children of her own, but her maternal wrath was firmly in place. Warmed, Allie stretched to her feet, sacked up her wrappers and walked it to the trash. “So tell me something funny from school. With all that prepubescent angst swimming the hallways of Jefferson Middle School, something’s bound to blow.”
“Yes, but will it be their hormones or my temper?” Reese laughed out loud. “You have a classroom full of five-year-olds. I’ll bet they keep you in stitches.”
Allie leaned against the counter, stretched out her legs. God, she needed to unload. “Usually. Not this year. This year I have a boy whose parents are in the middle of a nasty divorce. They’re using their kid for the rope in this epic battle of tug of war and it’s turning him into a real…” She hesitated. There had to be a more politically correct word, right?
“I believe the word you’re looking for is brat.”
Allie blew out a relieved chuckle. Bless Reese again for letting her whine, but not letting her wallow. “Did I sound like I was playing the pity card?”
“You were, and you win. Let me tell you about this seventh-grader who locked himself in the john.”
Allie grabbed a dust rag; room by room dragged the cloth over the low wood tables, the bookshelves against the wall. Her mood was lightened. She had Reese to thank for that. Even the housework with its tangy aroma of lemon oil was enjoyable.
When she came to the living room, she paused as she ran the rag over photographs of Trey when he was a baby, and then a young boy, and then a young man. She and Ben were in many of the photos. Why hadn’t she removed those yet? Now was as good a time as any.
She wandered the room, moving from surface to surface, collecting several frames, a lifetime of firsts. Ben with his fists punching the air as a very young Trey tumbled across the goal line holding a football. High-fiving Trey as the youngster hopped on home plate, celebrating his first home run. The ceremonial first shovel of dirt on their first project, Ben standing alongside Jake, both grinning, both still so young. Trey’s high school graduation, standing beside Jax. She and Ben holding Trey, grinning proudly on the day of his birth. The last two photos she returned. They would stay. The others she gathered in her arms and carried into Trey’s empty room, where she shoved them between trophies and souvenirs, on wall shelves and the wooden dresser. Now these mementos were Trey’s.
She
folded the last towel from the dryer and placed it atop the pile, gathering the stack in her arms. She was almost to her bathroom when the telephone rang. Setting the load on her bed she checked the caller ID, prepared to ignore the call if it was Gary.
Jake. Her face lit up.
She punched the answer button.
“Hi, Jake.” She sank into her armchair and drew up her knees, wrapping her arms around her shins. “What’s up?”
“Sitting in the pool, cold beer close by. Thinking about you and the kid. It’s been a couple of weeks since you dropped him off at school. Is he all settled in?”
“I got him into his dorm room, and Jax was already there. Classes started on Tuesday, but I haven’t heard from him yet. Maybe I’ll call soon. I don’t want to be that helicopter mom.”
“Helicopter?”
“You know. Hovering.”
He laughed softly. “Clever. You sound like you’re doing okay. No mommy meltdowns?”
They had these conversations for years. She was comfortable telling him what was on her mind. “Actually, I’m fine. It’s pretty quiet around here though. Times like this make me wish more than ever we had more children.”
“I always wondered about that, but I figured it was the choice you and Ben made. I remember, though, you always talked about having kids. Plural.”
Water sloshed around Jake’s words. Wouldn’t it be nice to be there, too, relaxing in the pool. “No, it was Ben.” She could finally say this without a sad sigh attached. “After Trey came there was always some reason why we should wait, why it wasn’t a good time.” She paused. “He was afraid we didn’t have enough.”
“Enough?”
She wiggled deeper into the chair. “Hmm. Time. Money. She hesitated. “Love. It frightened him. I used to beg him. Actually, we fought about it. But in the end, it’s just Trey.” She hesitated again. “There’s something… oh, never mind.”
“Regret is hard to live with.”
His voice was mellow in her ear, like he’d given this a lot of thought. Her chest grew tight with the regret she tried to forget. Regret for herself. For Jake, who never held his own newborn child. Even for Ben, who probably didn’t deserve it.
“And I think we’re a little past never mind.”
Yeah, they probably were. She stumbled ahead. “Do you ever feel that there’s something missing in your life? That something is calling out from your soul? Like something important is unfinished, incomplete?”
“Who doesn’t? It probably sounds foolish after all these years, or corny at the very least, but I wish I found someone to… to have that big romance with. I would have liked to share my life. Maybe have children. It’s too late now.”
Allie marveled that he could sound merely retrospective. She was pretty sure her plea sounded desperate. “It’s not too late. You’re a great guy. You’ll find someone and have everything you ever wanted.” She sat in the dark shadows of her bedroom, curled into her chair, with only the fixture from the hallway to dimly light the room. He did deserve it all. “What ever happened with Michelle? I thought you two would end up married.”
“It was good for a while, but she worked so much. Then it sort of… fell apart.”
“She travelled a lot. Was there someone else?”
Jake paused a beat before he answered. “I guess you could say that.”
Oh, no. “I’m sorry. You know, you’re always there when I need someone. You can talk to me, too. If you need somebody.”
“I know, babe. I appreciate that.” Jake’s slider scraped open and after a moment the refrigerator slammed shut, a can hissed open. “But, she’s in the past and the mood is way too serious.” His voice brightened. “So until Ms. Perfectly Wonderful shows up, we’ll just talk about funner stuff.”
She laughed. “Let me tell you about today’s experience with funner stuff.”
“Yeah, what did you do, ride the elephant at the zoo?”
Hey Allie, the zoo called. No, not going there tonight. “No, actually, I had a date.”
Jake’s voice sputtered like something he drank went down wrong. “A date?”
“Yeah, if you can call it that. We went to a baseball game. Sounds like it should be fun, right?” She steamed ahead, her earlier irritation poking through. “First of all, I had to meet him there. Then we had nosebleed seats. And to top it all off, the entire game he was a wasted, obnoxious ass.”
“Charming.”
“Yeah, a real prince. Thankfully I was over it by the time I got home. Poor Reese got an earful, though. She’s the one who set us up.”
“Poor Reese is right.” Jake’s laughter rumbled in her ear. “So now we’re both on the prowl?”
So not funny. “I don’t want to think of myself that way. I won’t. I just want something. Someone who’s interested, who’s interesting, who makes me laugh.”
“The perfect man.”
“…ish, Jake. Nobody’s perfect.” Her tone was light and cheerful, despite her words. “I’m tired of being lonely. “This is weird for me, like my life is on do-overs.”
“What if we do something next weekend? Then we won’t be lonely together. Do you already have plans?”
“With Maddie for Saturday, and I usually bring work home to go through. Why don’t you come for dinner Sunday? Bring a movie.” And the loneliness was already sliding away
Jake arrived the next Sunday at four o’clock with a bottle of wine and a DVD. Allie took a peek at the cover as he walked through the door and burst out laughing. “Oh Jake, that is such a guy movie!” She continued to chuckle as she stepped over to the stereo to turn the music off. “You are such a guy.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He couldn’t control the huff in his voice so he strolled to the entertainment center and inserted the movie disc in the player. Allie set the wine on the kitchen counter and got out the opener. His gaze shuttled between Allie and the empty box in his hand. “I’ll have you know this is a great action movie. A big heist, a hot girl, cool cars. What more can you ask for?”
His only response was a laugh from the kitchen.
The smell of clam sauce wafted into the living room, mixed with the clink of glass as Allie lifted a lid. He wandered in, lifted his wine, then stood beside her, peering into the pot. “Mmm. Something smells delicious.” And standing so close to her, dinner wasn’t the only thing, but he didn’t dare say that.
“It’s spaghetti night.” With a final rap of the spoon on the lip of the pan, Allie led the way back to the living room.
By force of will he kept one eye on the movie as his mind wandered. What would it be like to sit like this with Allie every night? For her to cuddle close to him? To smell her cooking and know she made the meal for him. For them. To talk about their day. To turn out the lights and walk down the hallway together when the day was done.
Oh hell, what brought on these thoughts tonight? Then it hit him, and blades twisted in his gut. Allie was dating. She was ready to share her life with somebody new. How could he stand it? Could he do nothing while she went out with other men? But what could he do? She was Ben’s wife. He was supposed to take care of her. He promised.
The final credits rolled. “All right, I liked the movie.” She rolled her head against the back of the sofa. “And the boy gets the girl, always a satisfying ending.” When he didn’t return her grin, she let hers fall, inched closer. “Are you all right?” Her hand landed on his forearm. He was pale, and he looked ill.
His smiled seemed bright enough, though.
“Fine, didn’t get much sleep last night. So the movie wasn’t a bust? Do you trust me now?”
“Oh, I trust you. It’s the devil inside you I don’t trust.” She stood, tossed a saucy grin over her shoulder. And laughed because he was so easy to be with.
“Ha! My favorite line. Next time you pick the movie. Let’s see what you come up with.”
“I accept your challenge.” With Jake trailing her, his hands occupied with empty stemware, she hit
the kitchen still wearing a smile—dropped pasta into a boiling pot of water, pulled out romaine for a salad.
“So, hear from Trey yet?”
While he uncorked the wine with a pop, refilled glasses, his eyes soft with caring, she mixed croutons and dressing into lettuce, gave it a toss. Her voice softened with a smile. “Yes, he finally called. Everything’s good.” Parmesan shavings fell from her grater and fluttered like snow over dressed greens. “Said he’ll come home in a couple of weeks.” She gave the sauce a stir, lifted the spoon so he could taste.
“God, that’s good. And now you’re not worried.”
She lifted her eyes, met his gaze. “I’m always worried.” And blew it off with a shrug. “It’s a mom thing. He said to tell you hi.” She pushed the salad bowl into his empty hands, nudged her chin toward the table.
“I have a job starting soon up in Cottonwood.” He walked the bowl across the room as directed. “Maybe I’ll make a quick detour.
“He’d like that.” And suddenly she laughed again. “He’s come a long way in the past few years. Remember when he learned to drive? I was ready to put him up for adoption.”
He shouldered her away from the stove, hefted the heavy pasta pot, drained it into a colander in the sink. “Aw, he’s a good kid. You did a helluva job with him.”
She dished a serving of noodles, blanketed it with clam sauce, handed it to him. Shooed him to the table. Her voice turned thoughtful as the face of a light-haired girl came to her. “Just lucky, I think.”
Salad tongs hovered in midair as his eyes searched hers out across the room. “Lucky? Why’s that?”
She took the seat across from him, scooped noodles and sauce onto her own plate. And couldn’t get rid of the ache in her heart. “Reese and I were in Starbucks the other day, and in comes this mom with a girl who was deaf. She was young, the girl, like one of Reese’s students.” She twirled pasta, took a bite. Jake was nearly done already. “For some reason it really hit me, made me stop and be grateful for everything we have—our health.”
Twice in a Lifetime (Love Found) Page 16
