Rebecca frowned. “It’s been a couple of weeks, Jaime,” she said as gently as possible.
“I’m getting a feel for this town,” Jaime protested. “You never brought me here – I’m curious about it. I’m trying to understand the world you kept me away from.”
“Kept you – Jaime! I never took you there because there was no one who wanted to see us!”
“Oh, Mom,” Jaime sighed, and Rebecca could imagine the exasperated roll of eyes. “How do you know that?”
“Uh – the fact that he denied he was your father?” Rebecca snapped, then sighed. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m just tired. I’m not used to having a pre-teen around the house anymore.”
“It’s good for you,” Jaime said, letting Rebecca’s earlier words flow over her.
“When are you coming home?”
“Oh, Mom – I don’t know! I haven’t had a chance to talk to my dad yet! He’s been out of town.”
Sure, Rebecca thought sourly. He probably left the minute he was told there was a strange woman in town who looked like him. Jaime had lived in a big city all her life, and while there were many similarities to living in a small town, she’d never truly experienced a grapevine until she experienced the grapevine in a small town. Rebecca had no doubt Devon had known Jaime was there less than half-an-hour after she checked into her motel.
Rebecca returned her attention to the conversation.
“Besides,” Jaime was saying, “this is my first holiday alone since I married Blake. I’m really enjoying the freedom from responsibility.”
“I’m sure you are,” Rebecca said neutrally, “but Tris misses you and -”
“Oh, honestly, Mom! You almost sound like you can’t wait for me to take Tris off your hands!”
“Well, she is your daughter,” Rebecca reminded her mildly.
“I’m having a good holiday, Mom! Please stop trying to ruin it for me!”
“I’m not trying to ruin anything for you! But you have responsibilities here – a daughter who misses you and wants her mother around.”
“It’ll be good for Tris to be away from me for a while.”
“And good for you, too?” Rebecca asked cynically.
“Look,” Jaime snapped, “I don’t need you putting pressure on me right now! I’ll be home when I’ve gotten to know my dad. I don’t think it’s asking too much for you to look after your granddaughter.”
“While you’re off doing what, exactly?” Rebecca snapped.
“Coming to terms with my past – a past you denied me,” Jaime shot back.
“You could have done this any time since you were eighteen. Why now?”
“When exactly would I have had the chance? Huh? I was married at nineteen and a mother at twenty! I had a baby too young!”
“You had a baby too young?” Rebecca muttered under her breath.
“What was that?” Jaime snapped.
“I said I’m sorry about that, hon,” Rebecca sighed, “but you can’t just – just walk away from your life and leave everything hanging.”
“Why not? Manny’s doing it.”
“Manny didn’t park her child with her mother!”
“I should have known you wouldn’t understand, and that you’d be more concerned about how much it inconveniences you! You’ve always put yourself first.”
“Jaime!”
“Whatever. Tell Tris I’ll call her later.”
And Rebecca was left with nothing but dead air.
~~~~~
“She said what?” Manny demanded, disbelieving, wiping sleep from her eyes. She adjusted the pillows behind her and made herself more comfortable. She’d been snuggled under the covers on the verge of sleep when Rebecca called.
“That I always put myself first.” Rebecca’s voice was choked, and she sniffled into a Kleenex.
“Maybe after she got married – but before that?”
“You know, I tried to do my best. I never brought men home; I was always here when she got home from school. I tried to make sure she had everything she wanted.”
“Well, this is just something else she wants. You to look after Tris while she...I don’t know – finds herself by bonding with her father, I guess.”
“If he’ll let her bond with him,” Rebecca said cynically.
“It’s been thirty years. Maybe he wants to bond with her.”
“You never know, I guess.”
Rebecca sighed.
“Thanks for listening, Manny.”
“No problem. What did Daisy have to say about it all?”
“Nothing yet – she wasn’t home.”
Manny frowned. “No? Were they out for supper or something?”
“Hub? Go out for supper with his wife? That’d be the day! No, Daisy was out on her own. At the casino.”
“On a Thursday?”
“Manny – she goes to the casino every night.”
“What?”
“That’s what Hub told me when I called looking for her. He was pretty, um, vocally unhappy about it.”
Manny let out her breath in a long sigh. “Damn – is she in trouble?”
“Well, with Hub, anyway. He was really pissed off – although whether it’s because she was at the casino or because he was home with the kids – it was hard to tell.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have much sympathy for him,” Manny said drily.
“Me neither. Hub’s been pretty much an absentee father and husband for way too long.”
“To be fair, he never used to be. He just seemed to drop out of their lives a couple of years ago. Daisy’s especially. When’s the last time they did something together?”
“I know,” Rebecca sighed. “Listen, I didn’t mean to worry you – not about Daisy, or me or Tris. Tell me - what have you guys been doing?”
“Driving, mostly,” Manny groaned. “We’re headed to a small town in Arizona for a classic film festival that starts in a week or so. Zeke doesn’t know why we’re going there.”
“You haven’t told him? Why not?”
“Because it’s hilarious watching him get all wound up about what we’re doing next. I don’t think he handles ambiguity well.”
“Or else he just doesn’t like having someone else in control,” Rebecca suggested drily.
“That’s much more likely. You figured him out pretty quickly after only meeting him once.”
“Nothing personal – it just seems to be a typical male trait.”
Manny laughed. “Speaking about Jackson, are you?”
Rebecca laughed. “Jackson does like being in control – when he thinks it’s worth the effort.”
“Is he back in town?”
“They got back Monday, but I haven’t seen him yet. We’re going out for supper on Saturday.”
“Are you going to send Tris to Daisy’s for the night?” Manny asked slyly.
“That’s a better idea than my plan to rent a hotel room for a couple hours,” Rebecca mused.
“Although the hotel room has some merit, too.”
Rebecca laughed throatily. “Good point.” She sighed. “Thanks for listening, Manny. I miss you, you know.”
“I miss you, too, Rebecca. You and Daisy.”
They ended the call, and to Manny’s horror, hot tears suddenly filled her eyes. She really did miss both of them. Which was ironic, she thought, sniffling slightly, since she talked to them more now than she had when she’d been home.
She shook her head, turned off the light, and snuggled under the covers once more. She made a mental note to ask Daisy about her trips to the casino, and to make her the truth about her relationship with Hub.
* * * * *
Day 28
Zeke watched Manny with a puzzled air.
He’d expected her to press him on Dixie, to ask him if he’d called to apologize. He’d expected her to express her disappointment at his lack of feelings for his ex-girlfriend.
She did none of it.
As far as Zeke could tell, she treated him ex
actly the same: a bit reserved, friendly, accepting his decisions regarding whether he would join her for yet another day of sightseeing. She always asked him what he did on those days he wasn’t with her, but she never pressed him for details if it seemed he didn’t want to share.
It...
He leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers on the table beside his laptop.
Not disconcerting.
No.
No maiden aunt with her hair in a bun could ever disconcert him.
No, it was...distracting.
Yeah. That was it.
And it was making it difficult for him to write his next blog.
That evening at supper, after they shared the small happenings of their day and Zeke learned more than he’d ever thought there was to know about this nameless small town Manny had insisted on exploring, he decided to confront the elephant in the room.
“So,” he said, setting down his beer mug, “let me have it.”
Manny blinked. “Let you have...what, exactly?” she asked carefully, a tiny frown line wrinkling the middle of her forehead.
“Dixie.”
The frown deepened.
“What about her?”
“You don’t want to know if I called her? Or how it went if I did? Or why I haven’t manned up and made the call? You don’t want the chance to say ‘I told you so’, or try to play matchmaker – or – or -” he trailed off as Manny clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her laughter.
“I’m sorry,” she managed between giggles.
“I sound ridiculous, don’t I?” he sighed.
“Just a little.” She grinned at him. “I’m sorry I’m not living up to your expectations of a nosy, interfering old maid but I have no interest in living vicariously through you. I get enough of that by talking to Rebecca and Daisy. Besides, you’re a big boy, Zeke. Last I checked, you could walk and even go to the bathroom on your own. Most of the time.”
Zeke gave her his best scowl, which only sent her off into another fit of giggles. He rolled his eyes as he waited for her to calm down, but a reluctant smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Manny shook her head. “Have you ever thought that maybe you’re expecting me to give you a hard time about Dixie because you think you’ve done something to deserve it?” she asked, reaching for her wine glass.
This time Zeke’s scowl was real.
“I’m just putting it out there,” she said, waving his scowl away.
“No,” he snapped and reached again for his beer.
Manny considered him thoughtfully, then shrugged. “Whatever you say,” she said lightly. “Now, what do you want to do tomorrow?”
Zeke scowled even harder as Manny easily moved on to other subjects.
~~~~~
“So, what’s the problem?” TJ asked once he stopped laughing. “And – for the record – my mother was a very nice woman.”
“Her son – not so much,” Zeke snarled. He shifted to put one arm beneath his head and stared up at the ceiling of his motel room.
“Hey!”
Zeke huffed what might have been a chuckle, then said, “I don’t know – doesn’t it seem weird to you? I mean, she just dropped her little pithy observation, then moved on. You’ve been married forever -”
“Don’t let Leah hear you say that!”
Zeke ignored the interruption as he continued, “Do you think she’s just gonna pull the topic out when I least expect it and try to convince me to do what she thinks is right?”
TJ sighed. “I couldn’t tell you,” he said. “I haven’t been with the woman virtually non-stop for almost a month. If you can’t figure her out, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to. What I can tell you is, she isn’t necessarily wrong. You do have a tendency to be...well...”
“Firm in my decisions?”
“Pigheaded is the word I was looking for.”
“Hey!”
“I’m just saying, Zeke – I’ve known you for a long time and I’ve never known you to be the first one to forgive and forget. How long has it been since you’ve seen your father?”
Zeke hesitated, then slowly said, “Fifteen years.”
“Exactly. And he only wanted what was best for you.”
“That’s different,” Zeke protested weakly.
“Yeah? How many women have you walked away from because they wanted something you weren’t prepared to give them?”
“I’m not the marrying kind, TJ.”
“I’m not talking marriage, Zeke! I’m talking – I don’t know – fidelity! Hell, I’m talking respect!”
“I respected all of them!”
“Just not the relationships?” TJ asked cynically.
“Look, TJ – I know I have a reputation – but I’ve never cheated on a woman once it got serious and long term – you know that! But I like to flirt and they just couldn’t trust me enough to let me be myself, and still be faithful to them. Or believe that I could do both. And no, once a relationship is done, it’s done. There’s no point hanging around where I’m not wanted, is there?”
“Or where you don’t want to be?”
“Either way, the result’s the same. The past is past, and there’s nothing to be gained in trying to change somebody’s mind when it’s a lost cause.”
TJ sighed. “I suppose so,” he conceded.
“But?” Zeke prompted.
“But I’m worried that someday you’re going to wake up and regret the people you left behind without a fight.”
* * * * *
Day 29
Rebecca took a sip of her wine, her mouth dry from all the talking she’d been doing. She smiled ruefully at Jackson as she daintily replaced her glass on the table.
She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed him until she saw him in her doorway. She felt almost light-headed with pleasure and happiness as she looked at him sitting across the table from her in their favourite restaurant, his dark, expressive eyes intent upon her face as he listened to her.
Jackson was still boyishly handsome at forty-six, his thick, unruly black hair in perpetual disarray. He didn’t look like a successful businessman, with his messy hair and five o’clock shadow, wearing jeans, t-shirt and sneakers, but Rebecca thought he looked delicious, and more precious than gold.
Even after all this time, she couldn’t quite believe they were still together. Jackson was an old friend of Max’s and had met Rebecca after he’d separated from his wife and found himself in the market for a new house for himself and his two young children, of whom he had sole custody. The rest, as Rebecca was fond of saying, was history.
She sometimes thought that many of her former lovers would be shocked to find her dating such an unpolished man. She’d been shocked the first time he asked her out, and she’d found herself agreeing, when she’d fully intended to gently refuse. She later told Daisy and Manny that she couldn’t say no to his eyes, large, dark and vulnerable, fringed by thick black lashes she would have killed for, and looking as hopeful as a puppy in a window. Over the last two years, those eyes often intently watched her, like she was one of those computer programs he was paid big money to create or fix.
She smiled at him now.
“Jackson, I’m sorry. This is our first chance to see each other since you got back, and here I’ve done nothing but complain.”
Jackson smiled in return. “It’s okay. You need to vent.”
“But – well, this must be boring for you – hearing about my daughter’s journey to meet her father, and the day-to-day trials of living with my granddaughter.”
Jackson shook his head. “No, no. I’m just happy you’re sharing these stories with me. Finally.”
Rebecca frowned. “Finally? I – I’m not sure -”
“We’ve known each other for almost three years now, and we’ve been seeing each other for over two – and you’ve always kept your family strictly off-limits. I mean, I’ve never even met them! Just as you’ve always refused to come home with me and meet my kids.”
Rebecca flushed guiltily as she began to stammer out a response.
Jackson waved her efforts away. “Oh, I get it – don’t think I don’t. Dayle and Ryder are around the same age as Tris – believe me – I get it. But Rebecca,” he leaned forward, his dark eyes intent upon her face, “sooner or later – you have to let someone in.”
Rebecca stared, her eyes wide in consternation. “You are in,” she protested weakly.
“No,” Jackson said firmly, “I’m not.”
Rebecca hesitated, her mind whirling as she desperately tried to think of something to say.
Jackson said, “I know this’ll take a bit of time for you to get used to, but...”
He reached across the table and placed his hand over hers.
“Listen. Rebecca. I’m not planning on going anywhere. I hope you know that – but I don’t want to live in limbo, either. I don’t want to always be on the outskirts of your life.”
Rebecca swallowed painfully. “Wh – what are you trying to say?” she whispered.
Jackson gave her a sweet, heartbreakingly vulnerable half-smile. “I’m trying to say I love you, and I want a real life with you.”
* * * * *
Day 31
“Oh, my God – what did you say?” Daisy squealed.
Rebecca laughed at her reaction, then sobered.
“I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t think of what to say! This is so...so...”
“If you say this is so unexpected, I swear to God I’ll reach across the table and give you such a smack!”
Rebecca grinned. “No, it’s not unexpected. I guess. It’s just so...I never thought he’d want to move things to a whole different level. He seemed happy with the way things were, just like me. I had no idea he wanted something more than what we had.”
She shook her head.
“So when are you going to meet his kids?” Daisy asked. “When’s he going to meet Tris? Maybe you should have the kids meet each other at the same time!”
Daisy trailed off as she realized Rebecca was once again shaking her head.
“What?” Daisy asked suspiciously.
“We’re not meeting the kids anytime soon,” Rebecca said firmly. “God, his kids are around Tris’ age! And if there’s one thing these last few weeks with Tris have proven to me, it’s that I’m too old to start raising kids again! I don’t have the energy, and I sure as hell don’t have the patience!”
A Life Less Ordinary Page 10
