The Second Time Around

by Marie Ferrarella

“Yeah, I know.” Robert smiled warmly, taking the hand that was extended to him and shaking it. “You’re one lucky guy,” he told his host with an honesty that Jason found disarming.

  Laurel quickly took over the introductions. “Robert, this is my sister, Lynda Taylor. Lynda, this is Robert Manning. Robert and I went to school together,” she prompted when faced with Lynda’s dazed expression. Her sister looked as if she’d just had a spell put on her by a renegade fairy godmother.

  Leaning forward, Robert took Lynda’s hand in his. “I see good looks run in the family.”

  His smile was warm, as were his eyes when he met hers.

  Lynda felt herself melting. And her mind rendered a complete blank. Coherent thoughts refused to form in her head. The man was just too good-looking for words. A glib lawyer with a sharp, legal mind, she suddenly felt as if she was ten years old, wearing mismatched shoes. Her confidence plummeted.

  She glanced over at Laurel. “I thought you said that he was a geek,” she protested. Too late, she realized how that had to sound. She forced herself to face her sister’s guest, knowing that she’d inadvertently insulted him. Even though she had meant the complete opposite.

  “Reformed geek,” Robert said before Laurel could find her tongue. Humor highlighted his features. Far from insulted, he seemed really amused. Almost pleased, Lynda thought. “I’ve joined GA.”

  “GA?” Jason repeated.

  “Geeks Anonymous,” Robert supplied. “I’ve had a few setbacks, though,” he confessed, looking at Lynda. “They found me solving quadratic equations in the closet a couple of times and once, when no one was looking, I designed a new software package.”

  The self-deprecating humor put her at ease. Lynda heard someone laughing and realized a moment later that the sound was coming from her.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Jason asked, slipping into the role of host.

  “Maybe later,” Robert demurred. He turned toward Lynda again. “I’ve got a feeling I’m going to need a clear head tonight.”

  It was at that point that Laurel began to feel rather pleased with herself for bringing this evening about. She caught Jason’s eye and smiled smugly just before she turned on her heel to walk back into the kitchen. “Dinner will be ready in five minutes,” she promised, then disappeared.

  Belatedly, Lynda came to life. “Um, let me help,” she called after her sister.

  “Go back into the dining room,” Laurel whispered urgently. “If I need help, I’ll call Jason.” Lynda made no move to leave. “I want you out there, Lyn.”

  But Lynda shook her head. “He’s too pretty.”

  Granted, Robert Manning could be the poster boy for late bloomers, especially in light of his awkward high school years. But she didn’t see what Lynda’s shaky protest had to do with her hiding out in the kitchen.

  “So?” Picking up the platter, she handed it to Lynda. Since her sister insisted on being here, she might as well be of some use.

  “So, I can’t expect someone like that to pay attention to someone like me.”

  “And just why not?”

  Lynda sighed. “Because I’m me, that’s why not.” When she realized Laurel was still waiting for an answer that made sense, she added, “I’m terminally boring.”

  Something, no doubt, Dean had drummed into her head, Laurel thought angrily. “Now you listen to me, Lynda Rae Taylor. You are not boring. You’re bright, funny and witty. And beautiful. I will not stand and listen to you run yourself down that way. If this ‘terminally boring’ thing is something that Dean said to you, or made you feel, then it just proves he was a loser with no taste. If it makes you feel any better, Bobby Manning was the guy most of the girls wouldn’t have been caught dead around in high school—and now look. He’s successful, well-off and teeth-jarringly good-looking. And all those people who were nasty to him are nowhere on the map.”

  Laurel realized that she sounded as if she was pontificating and stopped herself. Instead, she gave Laurel a long, hard look the way she used to when they were growing up together. “Now I’m your big sister and I order you to go back out there and have a good time. Or else.”

  Lynda sighed, turning back toward the living room, the platter of food before her. “If only it was that easy.”

  To her surprise, although not Laurel’s, once Lynda relaxed, really relaxed, she discovered that it actually was that easy.

  CHAPTER 27

  Jason walked out of the bathroom and over to the window. The temperature in the house had dropped in the evening, but it was still warm. He took off the window’s safety lock and pushed open the sash. He’d had to walk by Laurel to do it. There was no missing her expression. She was smiling from ear to ear.

  “Pretty pleased with yourself, aren’t you?” he asked as he crossed back to the bed.

  She stood on the opposite side, taking off the decorative pillows and placing them against the bureau. Jason slept on the left, she on the right. It had been that way ever since they’d gotten married. She paused for a second, considering his question. “Are we talking about the baby, or the dinner?”

  Jason lifted the comforter on his side and pushed it down to the foot of the bed. It was way too warm for down comforters, no matter how much he liked the feel of one. “Well, seeing as how it wasn’t possible for you to deliberately determine the baby’s sex on your own, I’d say I was talking about the dinner.”

  She got into bed on her side, spreading the pale blue sheet out until it was smooth. “The food was rather good, wasn’t it?”

  “We’re not talking about the food and if you were any more smug, I think you’d burst,” he said.

  Unable to hold back anymore, Laurel turned toward him as he got in and grinned. Jason was right. She was very, very pleased with herself. Everything had gone off without a hitch. Lynda held back at first, but Robert didn’t seem to mind. He drew her out until, by the end, they were both talking, their voices blending and dovetailing, as was the sound of their laughter.

  To say that she felt triumphant was a vast understatement.

  Laurel wiggled a little, as if burrowing a space for herself on the mattress. She would have loved to hug her knees to her chest, the way she usually did while sitting up and talking in bed, but for the time being, those days had passed.

  “He did seem to like her, didn’t he?” She shifted slightly, trying to find a comfortable position. That was becoming less and less of a possibility, she thought. “Give me the male point of view.”

  He told her what he knew she wanted to hear. That it was also true did help the situation. “Yes, he seemed to like her.”

  Laurel looked up toward the ceiling, seeing beyond it in her mind’s eye as she visualized the sky. She pumped one arm down in a sudden, victorious motion. “Thank you, God.”

  Jason understood that his wife was happy the dinner hadn’t been a disaster, but he saw no reason for the degree of enthusiasm in Laurel’s reaction. Has she always been this emotional during her pregnancies? He couldn’t remember.

  “Lynda’s only thirty-five, Laurie. It’s not like she’s desperate.”

  She could only shake her head. “Spoken like a man.”

  “That’s the whole point, isn’t it?” he asked. “I thought you were asking for a male point of view.”

  “Just about another man, not my sister—”

  A hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth when he asked as seriously as possible, “So you don’t want me to tell you that Lynda’s hot?”

  Laurel’s mouth dropped open. She knew her sister was pretty. More than pretty. They both took after their mother who had been first runner-up in the Miss California contest years ago. But Jason had never commented on Lynda’s looks before. Ever.

  “You think Lynda’s hot?”

  “Sure,” he said innocently, doing his damnedest not to laugh out loud. “Not as hot as you, of course.”

  “Now you’re just backpedaling.”

  Jason gave up trying to look stone-
faced. “As fast as I can. How am I doing?”

  She shrugged carelessly. “Verdict’s still out.” And then, because she couldn’t help it, because within every woman, no matter how open, how understanding, beat the heart of a competitor, she asked, “You really think my sister’s hot?”

  Jason sailed right past what obviously had become an incriminating sentiment. “Which is why I said she’s not desperate.”

  “Women who want families start feeling desperate as the number of their single friends decreases and the number of candles on their cake increases,” she told him. She could see that he didn’t really believe her. “Men age better,” she elaborated. “There’s no stigma attached to a man in his forties. He’s still young, virile, on the prowl. People regard a woman of the same age as having been passed over. She’s passé.” Laurel sighed, shaking her head. Feeling bad for countless faceless women who were up against that kind of prejudice. And thankful that there, but for the grace of God, went she. “It’s not a fair world, Jase.”

  Smiling, Jason drew Laurel close to him. Lynda might be “hot,” but it was Laurel who got his blood going, Laurel who filled his heart. Funny how he could go for months, taking all that for granted until it suddenly leaped up and hit him between the eyes with the force of a two-by-four.

  “Aren’t you glad you found me?”

  She laughed. He made it sound as if he’d been hanging on some clearance rack. “Oh, I remember it well.” She laid her wrist to her forehead melodramatically. “There you were, in the bargain bin, cast aside by Heather Daniels, alone, forlorn.”

  Jason kissed her forehead, stopping her before she was off at full gallop. “Your details are a little off, but the bottom line is still the same.”

  There were times when she thought they were on the same page but they weren’t. So she asked, “Which is?”

  “That you saved me from a horrible fate—a life of clubbing and partying. A different woman on my arm every night.”

  Laurel nodded her head. “Empty, shallow existence,” she agreed.

  He laughed softly as he slid down on the mattress. “My sentiment exactly.”

  Laurel remained sitting. Looking down at him, she pressed her lips together, debating asking. Finally, unable to help herself, she gave in.

  She asked. “You really think Lynda’s hot?”

  Jason raised himself up on his elbow. Now he sincerely regretted his earlier assessment of Lynda, even though it was true. This was going to haunt him for a while, he decided. He only hoped that eventually, it would die down. But for now, he had a method to handle it.

  “I guess there’s only one way to shut you up.”

  He was already snaking his arms around her. “What’s that?”

  Jason didn’t answer her. Taking his wife into his arms, he showed her instead.

  Two weeks later, in the middle of preparing breakfast, Laurel dropped several sheets of paper in front of Jason, just on top of the newspaper he was reading. Picking up the sheets, he glanced at them. There was a smiling baby in the upper left-hand corner.

  “What’s that?” he wanted to know.

  Why don’t you read it and find out? She put the question to him silently. Laurel had already crossed back to the kitchen counter.

  “It’s a schedule of different Lamaze classes being offered at the hospital,” she finally said, even though it was right there on the top, written in black and white with a smiling baby as an emblem.

  He continued looking at the sheets of paper in his hand, not seeing them, not turning them. “Lamaze?” he echoed in disbelief.

  Maybe he thought she was getting ahead of herself. “I know it’s a little soon,” she agreed. She poured the oatmeal she’d prepared into a bowl. The sight of oatmeal made her sick, but Jason seemed to love it. Turning, she placed the bowl in front of him, then moved over the maple syrup. “Most people attend somewhere in their third trimester, but it’s never too early to register. Spaces fill up fast.”

  He pushed the pile of stapled papers away. “For God’s sake, Laurie, you’ve had three kids. You could teach the damn class if you wanted to.” He sprinkled two tablespoons of sugar and then about a quarter of a cup of maple syrup into the otherwise-bland concoction and began mixing it. “We don’t need to attend any Lamaze classes.”

  She could sympathize with his reluctance. She wasn’t exactly thrilled, either, but there was no getting around it. “Hospital rule, Jase. If you want to be in the delivery room, you have to get certified that you took the class. Besides, it’s been over twenty years since we went to one of those.”

  “And what, they’ve discovered a new way to give birth in that time?” He added a little milk to the cereal, which had already begun hardening. “I don’t think so.”

  She hadn’t thought about his not attending. She wanted him with her. In class and especially in the delivery room. But he was getting that stubborn look on his face.

  “Honey—”

  Jason gave up trying to scan the morning paper, but as to the other matter, he remained firm. “Listen, I don’t want to go and have a bunch of barely out of puberty couples staring at the ‘old couple.’ They’ll think we’re in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s and wandered into the class by mistake.” He saw the exasperated expression on her face and raised one hand, not in surrender, but in the spirit of compromise. Sort of. “If you want to go, go ahead, I’m not stopping you. But me, I’m just not up for that.”

  “I can’t go without a partner.”

  He shrugged, turning his attention back to his breakfast. “Fine, ask Lynda to go with you.”

  “Lynda’s life has suddenly gotten very full,” Laurel informed him. A matter he would have known if he bothered to listen to what she told him. Lynda and Robert were seeing a great deal of each other now and she for one couldn’t have been happier. “And besides,” Laurel added, annoyed, “she’s not my husband.”

  “What do you mean, full?”

  “She’s seeing Robert on a pretty regular basis. With any luck, this will continue—and don’t change the subject.”

  He thought that was part of the subject. There were times when a woman’s mind—his woman’s mind—completely mystified him. And now he was getting a pint-size version as well. Life was really going to get confusing.

  “One thing at a time, Laurel,” he cautioned. “We have the wedding this weekend,” he added when she eyed him quizzically.

  “I don’t need reminding of that,” she retorted.

  The closer the wedding came, the more beset she was by mixed emotions. She was extremely happy for her son and yet she found herself unaccountably battling a sadness that seemed to loom larger with each passing day. She was at a loss as to how to shake it off. This pregnancy had certainly come at a bad time.

  Jason was surprised by the edge in her voice. He left the last bit of oatmeal in his bowl and pushed the bowl away. “Something wrong?”

  She didn’t bother trying to mask her feelings. “Other than you making me feel as if I had two feet in the grave, no.”

  Tact and quick thinking had always been his saving graces. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking of you, I was thinking of me.”

  How could he possibly think of himself as old? “Well you’re still gorgeous. And if there’re any single mothers-to-be in the group, you’ll probably wind up being hit on.” She sighed, sitting down at the table opposite him. Reaching out, she put her hand on his. “Tell me you’ll at least think about it.”

  “Will that get you to stop talking about it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said quickly. Then, because they had never lied to each other, she added, “For now.”

  He sighed. “At least that’s something. Okay, I’ll think about it,” he promised.

  She smiled at him as if she’d already won her victory.

  She probably had, he thought darkly.

  CHAPTER 28

  Adjusting his jacket sleeves, Jason walked back into his bedroom. The wedding ceremony was starting in less
than two hours and Laurel had disappeared on him, which wasn’t like her. They needed to get moving.

  He found his wife sitting on the edge of the bed, the two sides of the dress she’d chosen to wear pooled about her distended waist like a silver skin that had been shed.

  Laurel was in tears.

  He knew it.

  Jason sighed and shook his head as he knelt down beside her. Up until now, she’d been a trouper and he thought they’d get through this without a hitch. He should have known better. He placed his hand over hers. “Honey,” he said gently, “you’ve known this day was coming for a long time now.”

  She shook her head. “That doesn’t make it any easier to put up with,” she squeaked. “I tried so hard.”

  Yes, yes, she had, he thought. Even at the wedding rehearsal, she’d remained dry-eyed, laughing and talking instead of being sad. It had given him hope that they could get through the ceremony without having her cry. “And you did a great job.”

  Laurel looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “What?”

  She was worse off than he’d thought. Just when he thought he knew her inside and out, another door opened and out stepped a new Laurel.

  “Think of the bright side, Laurie. Like the old saying goes, you’re gaining a daughter.”

  She wasn’t gaining a daughter, she already had one, albeit the baby was still forming. “What old saying?”

  Jason continued to speak softly, all the while acutely conscious of the minutes that were ticking off in his head. He absolutely hated being late. “The one about not losing a son but gaining a daughter.”

  It took her a second to absorb his words. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  He was getting a little desperate. “I thought it might help you not feel sad.”

  Couldn’t he see what she was dealing with? Was he blind as well as dense? “What would keep me from being sad is if I was five—no, ten pounds lighter.”

  It suddenly dawned on him that they weren’t talking about the same thing. “Wait a minute, back up here.” He rose to his feet again. “Just why are you crying?”