Asking for Trouble (The Kincaids)

by James, Rosalind

  “And then what?” Susie prompted. “Come on, Joe. Tell us.”

  “Guess they think there’s something there that turns out not to be,” he said. “They want me to share my feelings. They say I don’t.” He shrugged. “They want a different guy.”

  “Don’t know where women got started with that notion,” Dixie said. “Share your feelings? Men don’t have that many feelings.”

  “Oh, now,” Alec protested as all the men at the table laughed. “We have feelings.”

  “What?” Dixie challenged. “A man thinks, why’s the truck making that funny noise, should I take it into the shop. Glad to be home for the day. What’s for dinner. And I hope it’s bedtime soon. That’s a man’s feelings.”

  That got a good laugh out of everyone. “I won’t say you’re wrong,” Alec said. “But hey, those are some powerful feelings. You can’t really blame us for that.”

  “And who wants a man to yap at them all the time?” Dixie went on. “She’s got girlfriends for that. Can you listen?” she asked Joe.

  “I can do that,” he said. “I can listen.”

  “There you go, then,” she pronounced triumphantly. “If you can listen when she talks, that’s plenty. A woman with any sense at all wants a good, strong, reliable man, one who’s going to be there to hold her when she’s had a bad day, fix things when they break, solve problems. That’s what a man’s good for.”

  “Well,” Joe said, “that’s good for me, then, because that’s about what I can do.”

  “Then you just need to find yourself a quality woman,” Dixie insisted. “Maybe you’re looking in the wrong places. You tried church?”

  “No, ma’am. No, I haven’t.” Joe was struggling not to smile now, Alyssa could tell.

  “There you go, then. Find a good church, and you’ll find a quality woman.”

  “There are more places than that, though,” Rae said. “I’ve met most of the guys I’ve dated at work, or through friends. Both of those are good. I’d never have gone out with Alec if I hadn’t known him through work. Never.”

  “Wow. Thanks,” he said, laughing. “How immensely flattering.”

  “Me too. I mean, I got to know Gabe by us working together too,” Mira said, as always a little flustered when everybody looked at her. “Sort of.”

  Dixie waved a liver-spotted hand. “Same difference, or maybe even better. You met him where you could see him day in and day out, see how he treated other people, how he acted when things didn’t go right. It’s easy to act all nice and lovey-dovey taking a girl out on a date, trying to impress her. It’s a whole different thing to do it every day.”

  “You’re right there, not that I’d ever argue against church as the best dating service,” Dave said. “But if you want a marriage to work, you have to be able to work things out when the going gets rough. That’s where I’d disagree with you, Dixie. Joe doesn’t have to talk much, but he has to talk some. You can’t fix things if you can’t talk them over.”

  “So true,” Alec sighed. “I can attest to that. Rae tells me I’m wrong, and I tell her she’s right, and there you go, we’ve talked it over. Problem solved.”

  “I do not,” Rae laughed. “We don’t argue much because I’m so good at knowing what you want, I’ve already made it happen.”

  “Also true,” he said. “And in Mira and Gabe’s case, Mira thinks Gabe’s perfect, so they’ve got no differences to work out at all. That’s the other approach.”

  “That is not true,” Mira protested. “We have differences. I know he isn’t perfect.”

  “All right,” Alec challenged. “Name my brother’s imperfections.”

  “Well . . .” She hesitated. “He doesn’t like to use his turn signal,” she finally produced with triumph.

  “Uh-huh. He doesn’t like to. But he does?”

  “Well, yes,” she admitted. “If he’s driving me. Because I don’t like him not to.” Even Mira had to laugh at that one, which put her in company with the rest of the room.

  “Oh, yeah. He’s an outlaw,” Alec said. “And let’s hear Mira’s flaws, Gabe. Since we’re sharing.”

  “Not critical enough,” Gabe said with a smile. “Come on. I’m not answering that. I may only have been married six months, but I’ve already got the cardinal rule down. Girlfriend: sometimes right. Wife: usually right. Pregnant wife: always right. And wife pregnant with twins: infallible.”

  That caused an outburst that didn’t die down for a full minute, during which Mira was laughing, pink with pleasure, and Susie had come around to hug her, and Gabe had put his arm around her, looking, Alyssa thought, like he’d personally done something incredibly clever and talented, because he was obviously pleased as punch and twice as proud of himself.

  “You’ve got that one right,” Dave said at last, wiping his eyes on his napkin. “Twins. The fun is just beginning.”

  “Let’s see, Mira,” Alyssa said, pulling her sister-in-law up from her chair and taking both her hands, standing back to check out her waistline. “I thought you were looking pudgy.” Which caused everyone to howl even more.

  “What’s your due date, Mira?” Susie asked when the laughter had died down.

  “July twentieth,” she said, sitting down again, still looking flushed and flustered, but so happy.

  “Oh, perfect,” Susie exclaimed. “Halfway through my summer break from school. Though twins will probably come early. Even better.” Her mother still worked at the elementary school secretary job she’d held for years, seemingly happy to stay. “I do get to come and help, don’t I?” she asked in sudden alarm. “Before the babies, and afterwards? I could stay in the trailer,” she began to plan, “so I’d be out of your way, and Dave could come down from time to time.”

  “And just like that, I’ve lost my wife of thirty-six years,” her husband said in resignation. “I can see I’m going to be spending the next six months saying, ‘Repeat after me. These are Mira’s babies. Not your babies. Mira’s babies.’”

  “Of course I want you to come,” Mira said hastily. “Of course I do. I’d be so happy. I’d be so grateful.” She was actually crying, Alyssa saw with some shock. “Sorry,” she said, gulping a little, laughing, but still crying. “Hormonal. I’m crying at phone company commercials. But I want you. I do.”

  “You’ll want her more when you see how much work twins are,” Dave said. “You have no idea. And people say God doesn’t have a sense of humor.”

  Susie looked at him and laughed. “Oh, dear. It’s so true. But oh, my goodness, Mira, you’re already so far along!”

  “Ten weeks,” she said, brushing at her eyes with an apologetic laugh of her own. “But we didn’t want to steal Desiree and Alec’s thunder from the wedding, so we thought it would be better to wait to tell everyone.”

  “Pretty fast work there, bro,” Alec said.

  “Thanks. I do my best,” Gabe said modestly. “But,” he added seriously, “it’s because we knew we wanted to have more than one. Of course, we didn’t realize we’d be having more than one right out of the gate.”

  “And I’m thirty,” Mira added. “I’ll be thirty-one by the time the babies are born. We figured if we wanted to space them a few years apart, it was time to start. And we thought it might take a while, once we started trying. But it turned out that it happened the first month.” She smiled at Gabe, her color mounting a bit higher, and he smiled right back at her.

  “Just another example of Mira’s efficiency,” he said with a grin for his brother. “And don’t tell me Desiree doesn’t have a full time line mapped out for the two of you, because I won’t believe you. Or that Dad agreed to marry you without some major premarital counseling, including who’s cleaning the bathroom and how many kids you both want and whether you keep your money in a joint account, because I know he didn’t. I’ll bet you got it from Rev. Wilder, too, just like we did.”

  Alec laughed. “Could be. On both counts.”

  “But wait a minute,” Alyssa protested, still
stuck on Topic A. “I thought twins only ran in families on the female side. I thought I was the only one more likely to have them.”

  “Fraternal twins, that’s true,” Gabe said.

  “Oh.” Susie’s hands were clasped in front of her chest, and she looked like she’d just got the best Christmas present ever. “Are you saying . . .”

  “One placenta,” Gabe said. “Identical twins.”

  “Identical twins,” she breathed. “Oh, that’s . . . Girls or boys?”

  “They think boys,” Gabe said. “We won’t know for sure for another month or so, but it’s looking like they’ve got the equipment.” And he looked even more smug.

  That made her parents laugh at each other again. “I am definitely coming to help,” Susie said. “You just try to keep me away.”

  And that was all very lovely. All very heartwarming. And depressing as hell. Everybody so wonderfully successful, everybody so happily partnered. Everybody except Alyssa, unemployed and single, sleeping alone in her childhood bedroom on Christmas Eve with not a single good prospect on the horizon, boyfriend-wise, job-wise, anything-wise. And this year, she was thirty.

  It was time to start. Pretty hard to start all by yourself. Well, she thought as she scraped plates and loaded the dishwasher, at least she’d get to be an aunt. She tried to feel good about that. It wasn’t that she wasn’t happy for Mira and Gabe, because she was. But it was so hard not to be jealous.

  “Don’t save that,” she told Joe as he began to put the leftover spaghetti noodles into a plastic container, working deliberately, the way he always did. Which made her want to grab the container from him and show him how to do it fast, like a normal person.

  “Why not?”

  “They don’t taste good warmed up. The texture’s all wrong. It’s better to use fresh ones.”

  “But if you save them, you don’t have to cook fresh ones. And they’ll have sauce on them. You won’t really be able to tell,” he said, sounding perfectly calm, perfectly reasonable.

  Mira had a husband who used his turn signal just so she’d feel safe. And Alyssa couldn’t even get her way about the noodles, because Joe didn’t think her opinion counted for anything, and he didn’t care if she was happy. The tears came to her eyes even as she recognized the childishness of the thought, and she shoved the last plates into the dishwasher, then threw the dish brush with a little extra force into the sudsy water she’d been running into the left-hand side of the divided sink, hard enough so foam and water splashed out and splattered onto her sweater, soaking it to the skin over her stomach.

  She jumped, pulled at the wet fabric and swore in helpless frustration, the worst word she ever said, which was pretty bad, and saw his head jerk up at it. Because she didn’t usually swear in front of him, but why shouldn’t she? Why the hell not?

  He didn’t say anything, just handed her the plastic container. “Toss them, if you want. Makes no difference to me.”

  She snatched it from his hand and stuffed the noodles savagely down the disposal, feeling like she was going to either scream or cry. “Why won’t you ever fight with me?”

  “Do you want to fight?” He looked startled again.

  She realized how stupid she sounded. She blew out a breath, flipped the switch for the disposal, and gave the noodles a couple pushes to help them down.

  Joe grabbed her wrist hard, pulled her hand out of the sink. “Get your hand out of there!” He reached around her, turned the motor off. “You never put your fingers that close to something that sharp. Use a spoon! Use the brush!”

  “I wasn’t going to cut them!” she flared back. “I was being careful. I’m not going to stick my hand down the hole. Do you think I’m an idiot?”

  “No. I think that was careless,” he said, back under control again. Of course he was. “I think you need to think before you act, so you don’t get hurt.”

  She opened her mouth to defend herself, but couldn’t think of anything good to say. She’d said she wanted him to fight with her, and he’d yelled at her. She’d got her wish. She picked up the dishcloth and turned away from him, began to wipe down the stove. Saw him, out of the corner of her eye, starting to scrub serving dishes with her abused dish brush.

  “I’m grouchy,” she admitted after a minute. “Too much family time. I did a run this morning, but it wasn’t enough, I guess. Want to go for a walk with me when we’re done with this? Look at the Christmas lights?”

  He kept washing, and she wondered mutinously why Joe always took so long to answer. How long did it take to answer a simple question like that?

  “I brought some work,” he said at last.

  “On Christmas Eve?” She felt the lump forming in her throat, the prick of tears. He couldn’t even stand to take a walk with her?

  Luckily, Rae came through the swinging door into the kitchen then. “Hey, Alyssa. You guys need any help?”

  Alyssa began wiping off counters. “About done,” she said. Then added impulsively, “Want to go for a walk with me?”

  “Sure,” Rae said. “OK if Alec comes too?”

  “Fine,” Alyssa muttered. Couples again.

  “I’ll come too,” Joe said.

  She stared at him. “I thought you didn’t want to go.”

  “I didn’t say that,” he said. “I said I brought work. I’ll do the work after the walk.”

  You just didn’t want to go with me, she didn’t say, and swallowed against the sudden desolation of it. Tomorrow morning, in church, she’d count her blessings. But not tonight. Tonight she was going to feel sorry for herself. Because Joe still didn’t like her, not really. He just put up with her, as part of the family. Alec’s silly, careless, troublesome little sister.

  He’d been so hot, that first Christmas. When she’d first seen him looking at her, his face set and still, rough-hewn even then, seeming to have been carved, not too expertly, out of slabs of rock. Cheekbones, brow ridges, jawline, chin, all so strongly drawn, so uncompromising. His light brown hair cut short, the pale blue eyes intense, so compelling that she’d found it hard to look away.

  He had eyes like an animal, she’d thought in a flight of fancy, lying in bed that night and remembering the way he’d looked at her, savoring the image of him. Not a lion or a tiger. A wolf, maybe. A blue-eyed wolf, intent, watching. She shivered at the thought of it, not even quite sure how to put a name to the feelings that were making her hot enough to kick off the covers, shift restlessly in bed, shove the pillow between her legs.

  And it got worse the next day. When she saw him in his boots and black leather jacket, it turned her insides to liquid, started delicious tingles down low in her belly. He was taller than her father, six-three at least, even taller with the boots on. As broad across the shoulders as her dad, too, as broad as Gabe, though there was a rawboned look to him. He was all thick muscle and heavy bone, nothing soft about him, not one bit a boy. So much a man. So much older than her brothers, especially when he turned that level gaze on her.

  She’d done her best that week to make him like her as much as she liked him, to penetrate his wall of reserve. She’d teased him, the way that usually made boys smile, made them laugh, made them hang around her locker to talk to her. And when she’d got Joe to smile, a quirk of the lips, a warming of the eyes, she’d felt a rush of triumph that had proved short-lived, because after that, she could feel him drawing back as if he didn’t want to be close to her, didn’t even want to look at her. And the more she tried, the more she seemed to drive him away. She’d concluded at last, a little hurt, a little angry, that he just didn’t like her. Or, worse, that he could tell she had a crush on him, and it embarrassed him, and he was trying to discourage her.

  There had been one bright spot, the morning of the day when he and Alec had left to go back to school. She’d been lying on her stomach on the couch, watching cartoons on TV, because she was bored and there was nothing to do, and he came into the room with something bunched in his hand, then stopped halfway in, seeming to
hesitate.

  She sat up, grabbed for the remote and hastily turned the TV off so she wouldn’t look immature. She wished she’d been watching something educational, or reading a book, or doing homework, even though school was out. Studying. Wearing glasses, maybe. Looking serious, like him. He probably liked serious girls.

  He was still standing there, so she shoved her hair back behind her ear and smiled at him, hoping she still had some lip gloss on. She’d put it on along with some mascara this morning, as she had every morning during this vacation, but that had been before breakfast. She should have checked again.

  “I have this,” he said, frowning at her the way he always did and hefting the thing in one big hand. “An Eielson T-shirt. The Air Force base,” he explained. “In Alaska. And I thought . . .” He cleared his throat. “It seemed like you like T-shirts.”

  “I do,” she said, still smiling encouragingly. “I love them.” She was wearing her Huskies Football T-shirt right now, the one Gabe had brought her from Washington.

  “My sister sent this to me,” he said. “For Christmas. But she didn’t know I’d grown, I guess, and it’s too small. So I thought . . . I mean, just if you want it. I don’t want to throw it away.”

  He held it out, and she jumped up from the couch and took it from him, held it up in front of her. A simple dark-blue T-shirt, the base’s name emblazoned on the front.

  “It’ll be too big, I know,” he said hastily. “And it’s a man’s. So maybe not.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s perfect. I’ll wear it to bed. I love it.”

  He looked even more stone-faced, not even pleased, just gave her a little nod. “OK, then.” And then he turned around and left the room, and an hour later, left with Alec.

  She’d worn his shirt to bed every night for months, and thought about him, and dreamed about him. Her first tentative sexual fantasies had been about Joe. Vague and romantic, with kissing heavily featured, and him telling her how crazy he was about her, how he couldn’t get her out of his head.