Nothing but Trouble

by Susan May Warren

  “Davy?”

  Deaf again.

  Connie had turned two of the bedrooms into her own private suite. PJ stood at the lip of the master, briefly contemplating commandeering the room for her stay. Navy brocade curtains fell ceiling to floor, pooling on the white carpet, and overstuffed pillows avalanched across the top of the king-size bed. A bouquet of fresh flowers adorned a round cherrywood table with silk-seated chairs pushed up to it, and upon a matching chaise longue in front of the window, a copy of The Purpose Driven Life lay upside down.

  Perhaps Connie had already found it.

  PJ edged away from the oasis and found the next available room, this one smaller. It appeared straight out of a Craftsman catalog, a milk-glass overhead fixture pooling light onto the pink chenille coverlet spread over the wide-slat double bed and white-on-white embroidered curtains at the window. Side tables held more milk-glass lamps, and a lowboy armoire with a mirror completed the Craftsman theme. The room came equipped with its own bathroom, vintage in pink tile and a freestanding scrolled sink.

  The room—the entire house—bespoke Connie’s order, her coordination. Her neatly attired life.

  PJ changed into her Superman lounge pants and a tank, then after another check on Davy, found the kitchen.

  On the granite counter lay a tome titled, simply, “David.”

  Just the first page had PJ searching the freezer for ice cream.

  Dear PJ, I know that David is in safe hands! Thank you for coming home to look after him. Please make yourself comfortable. I have suspended the cleaning service for my time away, but I know you won’t make much of a mess. Attached is a list of instructions that will assist you in taking care of David. Sergei didn’t have time to go to the bank before we left, so if you incur any expenses, we’ll reimburse you. Thank you again!

  Love, Connie

  1. David is allergic to peanuts. Please check all ingredients on prepackaged food.

  2. David spends thirty minutes each morning on one of his preschool Pilates tapes while his breakfast is cooking. You’ll find the selection on the shelves over his desk.

  3. Menus are attached. Please uphold the rules on good manners during mealtime. No chewing with open mouth, no speaking with mouth full, napkin on lap.

  4. David is to be in bed precisely at 7:30 p.m. No snacks after dinner, please.

  5. Please limit his PlayStation game playing to thirty minutes per day.

  Page 2 listed his favorite outfits, additional no-no foods, acceptable programming.

  No wonder Connie had left PJ, a woman with no visible parenting skills, with her precious son. PJ didn’t have to think really. Just follow the rules.

  Connie, of all people, should have known better.

  But PJ had made promises. And this time—for two weeks at least—she could keep them.

  Especially if she wanted to stick around. Maybe even make her mother proud.

  Yeah, right. Perhaps she should keep her expectations within reason.

  Rummaging through the refrigerator, she found some lemonade, added ice cubes, and wandered around until she discovered the back porch. Overstuffed rattan chairs, a hammock, and an indoor fountain—an island getaway in the middle of Minnesota, all enclosed by enough screen to keep out the rain forest. On the lawn, past the grilling deck, was a fortress of outdoor fun—swings, rings, two slides, a bridge, a climbing net, a sandbox, and even a netted trampoline.

  Indeed, Connie had invested that life insurance well. PJ raised her glass to her as she eased into the hammock and closed her eyes.

  “Welcome back, PJ.”

  Boone walked into her thoughts like he’d been waiting in the wings for his cue. He didn’t in the least resemble the man at the clubhouse, the one with the taunting smile and risky prophecies. This Boone, the apparition born from the persuasions of her fickle heart, she liked.

  And in her daydreams, at least, he couldn’t betray her.

  He leaned against the doorframe, thumbs hanging on his belt loops, wearing his cutoff Kellogg High School Mavericks sweatshirt, his biceps thick after a summer caddying at the club. “I thought you’d never get back.”

  She looked up at him, smiled. “Really? You missed me?”

  Swaggering toward her, he held her gaze with way too much sweet mischief in his eyes. “Of course. We have some unfinished business.” He knelt beside her, running his hand through her hair. “You changed it. But it’s cute.”

  Then, before she could respond, he leaned close and—

  No. Her eyes opened, and she held the sweating glass to her forehead.

  Less than a week ago, she’d been hoping to be Mrs. Matthew Buchanan.

  PJ got up, the tile cold and bracing on her bare feet. If she was honest, she would have to agree that even Matthew couldn’t stir her like Boone had.

  “It’ll be different this time, Peej. I promise.”

  She walked to the screen and stared up at the sky, now streaked with the straining of twilight. “I do want it to be different, Lord. Except—”

  Glass breaking in the kitchen spun her. She put down her lemonade, imagining Davy on the counter, pulling antique crystal from the shelves. “Davy, if you just ask, I’ll get you a—”

  Boris crouched in the kitchen, sweeping up glass, wearing a pair of skintight workout pants that stopped PJ short and forced her to avert her eyes. “Uh—”

  He looked up and said something in Russian.

  I broke the towel?

  A close enough translation.

  “Da,” PJ said, trying to come up with the words for Please stay out of the kitchen.

  Especially when she spied his after-wedding snack. She peered closer, just to confirm—yes, a plate of raw bacon.

  Boris finished sweeping the glass, dumping the shards of Connie’s precious, probably antique, crystal into the garbage can beneath the sink. Which suggested that he might have practiced this a few times.

  PJ pressed her hand to her stomach as Boris took out another glass and poured himself lemonade. Then he sat down at the table with his bacon.

  She couldn’t help it—she watched with a sort of morbid stare-at-the-accident fascination as he slobbered the bacon down.

  “No! I want my mommy!”

  Mommy. Oh yeah, that was her cue. PJ raced up the stairs.

  Vera sat on the bedroom floor, sumo wrestling Davy into his jammies. Was it past seven thirty already?

  “Let Grandma draw,” Vera said, to PJ’s closest guess.

  Grandma Vera looked like she might be able to take on a Siberian tiger and win, with her wide workman’s hands and a grim set to her mouth that screamed nyet to quitting.

  PJ approached with caution.

  Davy launched himself into her arms.

  “Shh.” She smoothed his hair. Perhaps she could figure out this auntie thing. The future strobed in her mind—playing baseball on the beach, swinging on his swing set, licking the beaters from the chocolate chip cookie dough . . .

  Davy looked up, met her eyes. She saw in his the burble in time, the hiccup between rescue and realization. Then, This is not my mother.

  “Davy . . .”

  His face crumpled even as his little body stiffened.

  “Davy—it’s okay.”

  Too late. Davy’s mouth opened and released a wail so wrenching it tore something from PJ’s heart. His grief drifted out through the screened windows and into the early summer night.

  Oh, please, Lord. The prayer emerged as a moan as PJ attempted to dress the flailing child.

  She could feed hungry gorillas, even muscle a motorcycle through a motocross track. Certainly she could dress a four-year-old in a pair of Spider-Man pajamas.

  Vera, beside her, barraged him with Russian, which, judging by the tone, might be criticism or platitudes. Come to think of it, she might have been talking to PJ.

  PJ finally resorted to Hoffman’s Method of Persuasion. “Davy, if you get dressed, Auntie PJ will give you a cookie.” She could recognize an emergency when it un
raveled in front of her. Oh no, did Connie even have any cookies? Thankfully she had some in her canvas bag, comfort food purchased at a truck stop in Peoria.

  Davy stilled, eyes huge and watery, and tugged on his pants.

  Three crushed Oreos and some eight books later, he went to sleep, black crumbs ringing his mouth. PJ slouched on the opposite side of his room against the closet, surrounded by Mike Mulligan and Horton, the hall light a portal to sanity.

  Davy sighed. Sweetly. As if he might be dreaming of sugary, drippy treats.

  She snuck back to his bed. Sweat slicked his hair, and he gripped a ratty blue bear, his mouth half-open, drool forming at the edge. His chest rose and fell, and rising from him, almost in defiance, was the scent of freshly washed pajamas. It evoked memories of a homemade flannel nightgown under floral sheets.

  She brushed his hair back, listening to the chirrup of crickets outside the window. By now, Connie would be on her flight to her happily ever after with Sergei.

  And PJ had been left in charge.

  “Please, God, please help me not to mess this up.”

  PJ listened, but in the dark quiet of the house, no voice rose to reassure her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  PJ should have figured that Connie would enroll her son in Fellows. Probably the moment the two little pink lines appeared.

  She pulled her VW neatly between a Beemer and a Jag and stared at the red and gold sign perched on the lush green lawn of Fellows Early Education Academy. She could nearly smell the air of importance in the elegant building with its redbrick attire, gold-trimmed windows, and manicured front garden, the sprinkler shooting out with a rhythmic whisper of respect.

  “You about ready, champ?”

  Behind her, Davy sat in a slouch, in no apparent hurry to unbuckle his seat belt. Even the prospect of clobbering her with his shiny new Spider-Man lunch box held no appeal apparently, although he’d tried twice while she’d loaded him into the car. He had connected with the leather briefcase he’d dragged out of his closet and glued to his chubby little hand.

  She recognized the late Burke’s initials on the brass monogram plate on top and decided to let Davy cling to his persona. He did look lawyerly in his blue jacket, pressed white shirt, long shorts, and black wingtips.

  She turned in her seat. “Okay, I know you’re less than thrilled, and frankly, I’m pretty sure you’d get just as good an education with a day at the beach, counting scoopfuls of sand, but your mom really wants you to go here, and she’s probably right. . . .”

  Davy wiped his nose with the back of his pressed arm. He looked about how PJ felt—rumpled and angry. Never mind that she’d pulled up to the school in her Superman pants, tee, and flip-flops—thanks to Davy’s ever-so-cooperative spirit as she wrestled him into his uniform. And just because she’d started the morning unproductively by burning the oatmeal didn’t mean he had to spit it down his shirt. Twice. She’d finally returned to his room to fetch a new oxford and discovered that he’d unloaded his toy chest and created a traffic jam of bulldozers, Hot Wheels race cars, school buses, and a slew of hit-and-run stuffed animals in time to the cadence of his Pilates instructor’s smooth, calming tones. She didn’t blame him.

  She was stopping by the store to buy a shipping container of cereal on the way home. Mostly because, after returning with said clean shirt, she’d had to plea-bargain Davy down to two more Oreos she’d unearthed in her bag in exchange for two minutes of stiff-armed calm.

  “I’m not going.” He blew up his cheeks, holding his breath, little blue eyes glaring at her.

  “C’mon, Davy, you have to go to school.” She got out, pulled her front seat forward, and reached to unlock his buckle. He gave her a kick, but she pushed his leg away and pulled him from the car.

  “No! No!”

  “Davy, please. Your mom really wants you to Go. To. School!”

  Davy had gone limp, a dead carcass impression right there in the grease-stained parking lot. “I don’t wanna go!”

  “Get up, David. You have to go to school.”

  “Nyet!”

  Thank you so much, Babushka Vera, for that language lesson.

  “Don’t you want to go and learn how to read?”

  “I know how to read.” He yanked his hand from hers, crossing his arms over his chest and locking his hands in his armpits.

  Sure, Connie, he’ll love Fellows. PJ could hardly hold him back. She stared down at him, breathing out long breaths.

  Probably, under all that dark curly hair, Davy was cute. Loveable. Especially with that spray of freckles over his nose, crinkling when he smiled. Surely, lined up with a battalion of other tots in blue knickers and jackets with the Fellows crest on the pocket, he would be downright pinchworthy.

  Surely.

  “Yes, I know you can read. You corrected me twice last night, remember?” He probably had the book memorized. He must have had the book memorized.

  He glowered at her.

  “Don’t you want to make friends and meet your teacher?”

  “No.” He rolled over, burying his face in the pavement. PJ hooked him around the waist and hauled him to the curb. He’d soiled his white shirt. She made it to the grass—the wet grass—and deposited him.

  Singing filtered out of the building. Happy preschoolers learning the Fellows Academy song.

  “They’ll probably have snacks,” PJ said, crouching beside him, hating how she’d become a weak and pitiful briber.

  Davy lifted his head.

  PJ nodded vigorously, held up a finger, crossed her heart, and determined to arm the teacher with a year’s supply of Ho Hos if it came to it.

  Davy narrowed his eyes as if trying to decide if she would lie to him. Then, pouting, he stood and marched toward the school.

  PJ retrieved his briefcase and lunch box and slunk in behind him. I’m sorry, Connie.

  A hall monitor, wearing a ladies version of the Fellows uniform—blue skirt, blue jacket, and white oxford that washed out her already sunless expression—stopped them. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Davy ignored her—PJ was starting to appreciate his selective hearing—and followed the singing.

  “I’m with him. Note the new uniform.”

  “You’re late.” Hall Monitor wore a helmet of thin, cropped black hair and clasped her hands behind her back as if she’d graduated top in her class at West Point. She regarded PJ in her civilian clothes, aka Superman pants. “We don’t tolerate lateness.”

  “Of course you don’t—” PJ noted the woman’s name on the pin hooked to her chest—“Mrs. Nicholson.”

  “Ms.”

  “Ms. Nicholson. Listen, we’re really sorry, and we promise not to let it happen again.” PJ moved forward, but the woman took defensive action and stepped in for the block. Beyond them, Davy opened the door to a room and disappeared.

  “We allow three tardies, Miss . . . ?”

  “Sugar.” What if Davy went in the wrong room? She perked her ears for howling. “We had a rough first day. I’m sure you can understand.”

  No movement. PJ cut her gaze back to the woman/prison guard. “It won’t happen again.”

  When PJ was about ten years old, she’d accidentally backed into a door at the school after troop meeting, breaking it with her, well, backside. Sometimes her scouting leader came to her in nightmares, wearing the exact dubious look Ms. Nicholson was wearing now.

  PJ held up three fingers, as she had so long ago. “I promise.”

  “And maybe tomorrow, you could make sure you’re fully dressed?”

  PJ opened her mouth, words forming. Bad, non-Sugar words. But Connie appeared in her brain, pleading. “He’s been on the waiting list for three years. It’s very important he is there on time, pressed, combed, and smiling.”

  “Right. Fully dressed.” She brushed past Ms. Nicholson, flip-flopping toward the room Davy had entered.

  Davy sat with the other preschoolers in a circle on the floor, the model child. He even smiled
up at the teacher, a woman also dressed in the Fellows dress blues. She knelt on a red carpet, her knees just touching the edge. An alphabet chart hung at one end of the board, a numbers chart at the other. A giant world map stretched across the back wall.

  Desks, tiny desks made for Oompa-Loompas, queued up front to back on each side of the thick, square red carpet.

  Boris and Vera would be right at home.

  PJ eased in, eliciting the attention of other parents stationed around the room, most in suit coats and business attire. So, she could see the hall monitor’s point about attention to clothing choices. Still, she was here for Davy. She could endure some staring.

  Davy clapped with the other children, learning the Fellows song. See, he was cute.

  Just not when he looked at PJ.

  “Aren’t they adorable?” This from a woman leaning next to her. Her straight, buttery hair looked freshly colored, and a white jacket over black dress pants suggested either a working mom or someone who knew the importance of being fully dressed for orientation at Fellows.

  “Very,” PJ said, smiling back.

  “Macey Harrison,” the woman said, holding out her groomed hand. “And you are?”

  PJ took her hand. “Davy’s nanny.” That one was for you, Connie.

  She slipped out during the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a stream of other parents.

  Pulling into the Red Owl Grocery Store, she took in the updated rides outside the door, remembering the days when she’d begged her mother for the quarter it took to make them move. She brushed her fingers over the head of the dolphin on her way in, wondering if she should fulfill a childhood dream and “waste” her quarter on a carnival ride.

  She grabbed a cart, calculating what it might take to fill Connie’s coffers, and tooled down the aisles. She didn’t really remember anything beyond the chip and pop aisle and was delighted to discover a deli section with Thai food. She ordered a container of Thai noodles, then began her quest for non-peanut items and somewhat healthy foods. Where exactly were the healthy foods?

  “I can’t believe it . . . PJ Sugar.” The voice behind her said it slowly, drawing out the syllables as if each word, even each letter, had its own devout relevance.