One More Time

by Deborah Cooke

  “Forget it,” his older brother said. “It’s my turn.”

  “Then we’ll play each other.”

  “Hello!” Annette interjected. “I am the champion.”

  “Wasn’t that a song?” Matt asked, and the adults smiled.

  “Think of what we have to look forward to,” Nick said to Philippa who put her hand over her rounded belly.

  “We’ll have enough of them to have them take care of each other,” she said.

  Nick chuckled. “Is that how it works?”

  James leaned closer to him and dropped his voice. “Never. It never works that way. Just so you know.”

  “Thanks a lot. It’s not going to change much now, though. This one’s on her way.”

  A chorus of congratulations echoed around the table, and Philippa had her cheek kissed by her mother. “A girl?” Beverly asked.

  “That’s what the ultrasound technician said. So Michael will have a baby sister.”

  The toddler in question squirmed and once Nick let him down from his seat at the table, he set off in pursuit of his older, more interesting cousins. The sound of laser fire carried from the living room, as well as good-natured bickering.

  “You didn’t put your dishes in the sink!” Leslie called after the kids. “They came back sheepishly and did her bidding, moving quickly so they didn’t delay their game much.

  Then they disappeared. Champagne and Caviar ran after them, Champagne barking that she was being left behind. Caviar paused to sniff something on Michael’s overalls, then to lick it off. The toddler seized a handful of the dog’s coat and steadied his balance. He grinned triumphantly at his mother, then continued to the living room.

  “Always the tough guy,” Matt teased Leslie, but he was smiling.

  “Well, you have to be,” Maralys said, taking sides with Leslie. Her little one, Zoë, began to fuss, so she plucked her out of the high chair and bounced her on her lap. Zoë seized a tablespoon and seemed to find it fascinating. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to teach college kids.”

  “You just remember what a challenge you were,” James said and Maralys laughed.

  “Pretty much. I didn’t make anybody’s life easy.”

  “Imagine that,” James said, looking too innocent to be believed. The pair exchanged a hot glance across the table and Leslie met Matt’s gaze in surprise.

  He smiled a slow smile that heated her to her toes, then leaned forward. “Go ahead, Leslie, tell them your news. Being the tough guy has its spoils.”

  “Well, I guess. I’ve accepted a new position.” She named the college and told them a bit about the program, unsurprised that they were surprised she’d leave her alma mater. “I needed a new challenge and this is it. Plus I want to focus on my own research more than I’ve been able to in recent years. I’ll finish this term, then spend the summer settling in there.”

  “But the best part is how you were recruited,” Matt prompted.

  Leslie laughed. “Oh, the headhunter was a kid I failed twice. He told me that I was the only person who’d ever demanded more of him than he could easily do. He ultimately graduated summa cum laude.”

  “Score one for the good guys,” James said, and the group applauded her.

  “There’s a bottle of sparkling wine in the fridge,” Maralys said. “Let’s drink a toast to Philippa and Nick and their new baby, to Leslie in her new job.”

  And to Matt’s book. Leslie met Matt’s gaze, knowing that it was still their secret because he wanted it that way. She smiled at him, hoping he could see her pride, and liked the gleam that lit his eyes.

  “I shouldn’t have any alcohol,” Philippa protested.

  “Have a sip for luck and give the rest to me,” Nick offered.

  “A martyr to the cause,” Matt teased and the men laughed together. It turned out that each of them only got a sip once the bottle was split seven ways, but it was the principle of the thing. Leslie felt buoyant—and it wasn’t from the bubbles. It was the way Matt watched her over the rim of his glass, silently toasting her from across the table.

  “They’ll give you a nice office, I hope,” Beverly said and Leslie laughed.

  “I don’t much care. Actually, I expect to telecommute more and do some work at home. It will be nice to see Annette, at least in passing, more than I have.”

  “But where will you work?” Beverly demanded.

  It seemed rude to point out that if Beverly moved her stuff out, then there would be room in the living room—sort of—to set up a desk. Leslie had herself been concerned about the space issue and thought she had found a compromise solution.

  “Well, I might just set up a desk in the basement…” she began, but got no further.

  “Basements are for potatoes,” Beverly interrupted her crisply. “I have a better idea.”

  Everyone looked at her, probably expecting her to announce that she’d taken an apartment somewhere.

  “Gray Gables.” Beverly considered each of them, her smile as victorious as little Michael’s had been. Leslie gasped, but Matt appeared to be considering the idea. He frowned and leaned forward in the same moment as James.

  “It’s my family home,” Beverly said. “And my moving back there makes perfect sense. The girls need space to run. I don’t want to sell the house, it has too many memories, but I don’t want to live alone, either.”

  “We’re close by, at Lucia’s house,” Philippa said, referring to Nick’s grandmother. The couple had been living with Lucia in Rosemount since their wedding.

  Beverly shook her head. “No, I think I need someone in the house. And Leslie needs an office and Matt needs an office and the house has room to spare.”

  “But any of us could use more space,” Leslie argued, even as her heart began to pound at the possibility.

  James shook his head firmly. “It’s an hour and a half drive from Boston, and only if there’s no traffic.”

  “When you go to work, it’ll be bumper to bumper,” Maralys said. “It would take you three hours each way.” She nodded at Leslie. “We’re better off right here, where we can see more of him.”

  “They’re not likely to move the courthouse to suit me,” James said with a grin.

  “But…” Leslie protested.

  “We have Lucia’s place,” Nick said, “and believe me, no one alive needs the responsibility of two old houses.”

  Philippa laughed. “It’s not that bad!”

  “But it’s a lot of work. One house is plenty for me.”

  “What about Zach?” Leslie asked.

  “He’ll never live out there,” James said. “He couldn’t wait to be gone.”

  “But it’s not fair to everyone else,” Leslie said.

  “It’s my house,” Beverly insisted. “I want to live there. When I die, it’ll be divided between the four of you anyway.”

  Matt grabbed a sheet of paper and started to scribble. “So, let’s figure out whether Leslie and I can afford to buy the rest of you out. What do you think the house is worth?”

  James named a figure that made Leslie blink. “That’s too low,” she argued. “It’s a beautiful house.”

  “But it’s in Rosemount. It’s too far to commute.”

  “Location, location, location,” Maralys agreed.

  “We could check with a realtor, but I think that’s a reasonable working number,” Nick said, bending to look at Matt’s calculations.

  A moment later, he shoved the paper across the table to Leslie. He’d subtracted a quarter of the total, done a side calculation of their house’s value, subtracting how much they still owed. When that was taken from the sum, there was still a hefty balance left.

  Leslie did a little mental calculation, then swallowed and shook her head. “I don’t think we can manage this.”

  “Of course, you can,” Beverly said sharply. She took the pencil and scribbled a number at the bottom. “There’s the monthly rent the girls will pay. They need room and to be accommodated in the style to which
they’ve become accustomed.”

  “The girls can pay that much rent?” James and Nick demanded simultaneously.

  “They have a trust fund and I see no reason not to use it,” Beverly said haughtily. “After all, I couldn’t rent a nice apartment in Boston for that much per month.”

  No one could argue with that.

  “So, it’s decided?” James asked. “Since Zach is Father’s executor, I’ll have him check that the power of attorney didn’t extend to the property…”

  Zach was Robert’s executor? Leslie blinked, but didn’t comment. No one else seemed surprised so they must have known.

  “Gray Gables was explicitly excluded from that agreement,” Beverly said. “I wasn’t that drunk.”

  “Which reminds me,” James said, sparing a glance to the clock on the wall. “It’s that time again.”

  Beverly sighed with forbearance and rose to her feet. She drained the last of her mouthful of sparkling wine and gave her eldest son a glare. “Tell them about this mouthful and I’ll ensure that you regret it.”

  He laughed, unafraid. “You’ll have to do penance for it and go to another meeting Friday.”

  “Not me,” Beverly said as she swept out of the kitchen. “I have a dinner date Friday night.”

  If she intended to give everyone in the room something to think about, she certainly succeeded.

  “Details!” Maralys hissed as James followed his mother. “Get us the scoop!”

  “We want to know who it is,” Philippa agreed.

  “You’re a nosy bunch,” James teased, then winked. Maralys chucked a napkin at him and he laughed. “I’ll see what I can do.” He showed little resemblance to the courtroom shark Leslie had always believed him to be. She looked around the table, wondering how much else she didn’t know about these people who had been part of her life for almost twenty years.

  And she resolved to find out.

  She found Matt’s gaze upon her again and smiled at him. “Maybe we should get going, too, as it’s a school night. I’ll just give Maralys a hand with the dishes first.”

  “We all will,” Matt said and rose from the table.

  * * *

  The dishes were done quickly, so many hands making light work, then Matt and Leslie and Annette were in the Subaru, heading home. Matt was keenly aware of his wife’s presence and he couldn’t help but think of that night a few weeks before, when the atmosphere in the car had been almost toxic.

  Tonight it was filled with promise. Magical.

  Of course, there were two dogs in the back seat as well, which made the car seem particularly crowded.

  “Jimmy is such a pig,” Annette ranted in the back seat. “I can’t believe how he thinks he’s so hot. No one in my school would even give him the time of day—”

  Leslie put her hand on Matt’s thigh and his heart stopped. He was still getting used to her taking the initiative: it shocked him and excited him both. He turned a corner, then closed his hand over hers. In his peripheral vision, he saw her smile.

  “I was thinking,” she said softly, so softly that Annette’s rant flowed uninterrupted. “I was thinking that your toes must be black and blue.”

  Matt couldn’t make sense of that, so he waited.

  “From tripping over the furniture in the living room,” she said quietly. “I don’t know how you find the couch every night.”

  Matt grinned. “I don’t. I just fall and sleep wherever I land.”

  Leslie laughed, causing Annette to fall silent.

  “What are you two whispering about now?”

  “Nothing that concerns you,” Matt said.

  Annette flung herself against the back seat. “SEX. You’re talking about sex. I seriously don’t want to know anything about you two having sex. Parents shouldn’t be allowed to do that. It’s like so gross.”

  Matt nearly stalled the car in his shock, which would have been a trick given that it was an automatic. “Excuse me?” he said finally, and Leslie laughed as if she’d never stop.

  “Be gentle with your father, Annette,” she said when she caught her breath. “Dads never want to know that their daughters have even heard of sex.”

  “You can say that again,” Matt grumbled.

  “Besides, he doesn’t even know about Scott Sexton—”

  “I told you that in confidence!” Annette cried. “I should never have trusted you. I should never have told you.” She settled into a rant while Matt focused on driving.

  He heard Leslie laughing softly, then she leaned closer. “At least you weren’t part of the expedition to buy her a vibrator,” she whispered.

  The car swerved. Matt couldn’t help it. “This is seriously more than I want to know.” He shook a finger at Annette in the rearview mirror, knowing he was foolish to be surprised. “You’re not allowed to grow up. You hear me?”

  She tossed her hair. “As if.” She sat back and sighed theatrically, then grinned at him. “Don’t worry, Dad. I’m not stupid.”

  “I know. You’re smart enough to be careful and to ask questions when you need to.”

  “Well, yeah, but I do have some reference materials.”

  Matt slanted a glance at his wife, primary source of reference materials, and found her smiling a Cheshire smile. She undid the top button of her blouse and slid her finger down her chest, parting her clothes. She watched him, still smiling, her gaze heated. Matt saw the creamy slice of her skin, then the lacey edge of a bra.

  It was black. That was all he needed to know.

  It was the invitation he’d been waiting for, and he didn’t intend to decline with regrets. He squeezed her hand, still trapped within his, and Leslie squeezed his back.

  It was indisputable that he drove home a bit faster than he’d initially planned.

  * * *

  Runt dunt dada dadala dunt da.

  Leslie finds herself on the end of a tightrope. Her father is there, but remarkably silent. The crowd murmurs as the barker’s cry fades. All proceeds as it has a dozen times, until her father tries to hand her a box.

  “No, thank you,” Leslie says, to his obvious astonishment. “I’ll have a pink parasol instead.”

  And suddenly there is a pink parasol, leaning against the wall o the big top, just a few paces away. It’s frilly and feminine and precisely the way she has always imagined she’d want a pink parasol to be. It is precisely the parasol that she always expects her father to hand to her in this dream, the one she expects when she gets a box instead.

  Has it been there all along?

  Or did it manifest only after she dared to voice her desire? What came first: the parasol or the request? Leslie doesn’t know and the dream doesn’t allow her much time to consider the philosophical ramifications of the parasol’s existence. Her father, with a familiar grunt of disapproval, gets the parasol and hands it to her.

  “Careful what you ask for, lass,” he says, with a bright glance. “Lest you get it when you’re least expecting it.”

  And Leslie sees with painful clarity that her father was afraid to ask for anything for himself. She can’t teach him this lesson or give him this gift: it is her parasol and her journey across the wire and she can only provide an example.

  She smiles and gives him a kiss farewell, the one she never gave him in real life, then turns and steps out onto the wire. She is jubilant, triumphant, her parasol held high, her steps proud and confident.

  She walks like a woman who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to ask for it. She sees a little girl in the front row, far far below, and on impulse, casts her parasol down to the little girl. She waits until the little girl catches it, until the little girls’ face lights with joy and the crowd cheers.

  Then Leslie leaps off the tightrope and flies with the greatest of ease.

  Without a trapeze.

  When the crowd disappears and the floor of the tent drops down down down, Leslie swoops low, toward the eternal fires burning far below. To her astonishment, the letters they form don�
��t make the word FAILURE.

  She sees the word emblazoned against the darkness, the last message she would have expected to see. She reads it again, then laughs out loud and soars high once more.

  GO FOR IT is what the letters urge.

  Leslie awakened smiling in the cool darkness of the morning. The house was quiet, as was the street outside, but someone somewhere was whimpering.

  It was a poodle dream.

  Leslie nestled deep into the covers, content in so many ways that she’d lost track. It was early, too early to be awake, but she was filled with such optimism from her dream that she knew she wouldn’t sleep again. She snuggled closer to Matt’s warmth and recalled every detail that she could before the dream completely faded.

  Her strongest memory was of how wonderful it had felt to fly. How simple it was. How elegant and effortless and joyous. She yearned already to do it again.

  She also felt a confidence that was new to her, another gift from the dream. Leslie now had a curious conviction that her job would work out just fine, that she had been offered the job because she had wanted it.

  No, because she had wanted it and she had dared to ask for it.

  It was hard not to love the idea of living in Gray Gables, a house the like of which Leslie had only dreamed about in the past. She liked the idea of Beverly not living alone, too. Annette loved the idea of living with the girls for perpetuity. The house was everything Leslie had ever wanted, and was coming to them in a way that she never could have anticipated.

  A little bonus prize from the universe for believing.

  Matt had said that he would make his office in another room than his father’s study, but it was clear that he had good feelings about returning to his childhood home.

  And Annette would learn to drive the Jag.

  It was a perfect solution. Mrs. Beaton would have new neighbors to worry about, but Leslie decided she could live with that.

  Matt’s book would sell, Leslie believed, or if it didn’t, his next one would. She knew with quiet certainty on that drowsy Saturday morning that he would be fine, that he would recover from the shock of that gruesome discovery, because he had reached out to all of them for help. He was strong and resilient and he would demand honesty from himself.