Always Florence (16 page)

“What?” Sandy asked.

Laughing, Stella told her the story.

Sandy laughed, too, then her expression turned wistful as she picked coffee cake crumbs off her napkin with her index finger.

Stella dabbed at her lips with her napkin, then picked up her purse. “Excuse me, girls, while I run to the ladies’. Don’t touch my coffee cake.”

“What can I do for you?” Bobbie asked Sandy. “Besides get you a fork?”

She sat back in her chair with a look of dismay. “I don’t think you can do anything for me,” she said frankly, “but if you don’t mind listening to me whine a little...”

“By all means. Whine away.”

“I think the only reason Hunter agreed to go out with me was because he didn’t know how to say no.” Sandy made that simple declaration, then leaned forward again, her eyes dark with distress. “I don’t really understand what’s wrong, but I’m definitely sensing that I want this relationship more than he does. He seemed to like my mom, and he’s surprisingly good with the girls for a man who has no experience with children. But when we’re together, he looks like he’d rather be anywhere else than with me.”

“You’re a hard driver, Sandy, and he’s kind of laid-back.” Bobbie placed an apologetic hand on her arm. “Maybe you scare him a little. Sometimes you scare me, and I know and love you.”

Sandy nodded and fiddled with her spoon. “Yeah. I just like him so much. And the feeling seemed to be mutual, but I think he’s pulling away.”

Bobbie put an arm around her shoulders. “This is something you can’t force to work out through sheer will and determination. He knows how you feel, so let him come the rest of the way. Give him time to get to know all your wonderful qualities.”

Stella returned, frowning at the serious expressions on their faces. “Everything okay?” She studied Sandy worriedly. “Sandy?”

“We’re fine, Stella.” Sandy caught her hand and pulled her gently into her chair. “Bobbie was just giving me advice. Sort of like a life coach. But she plans to leave her own budding romance behind, and live a life of celibacy in Italy?”

“Celibacy?” Bobbie teased. “Who said anything about celibacy? Solitude, maybe.”

Sandy laughed and downed the last of her latte. “Yeah. You’re such a wild woman. Why don’t you just take Nate and the boys with you?”

Bobbie groaned and let her head fall back. “Please! I just went through that with my father. I have to go alone. Sandy, you know why it’s so important to me.”

Her friend was suddenly quiet. “I think I do, Bobbie. But I wonder if you do.”

Oh, no. Not another one.

“What does that mean?” she asked, her tone testy.

Sandy didn’t seem to want to say.

Bobbie leaned toward her. “You can tell me. I may slug you after, but you can tell me.”

She began intrepidly. “You made this promise to yourself when you weren’t sure you’d survive treatment. I think it’s come to mean life to you. You think you have to fulfill the promise—move to Florence, make art—or...” She sighed and forced the words out. “Or you’ll die.”

Bobbie rolled her eyes. “That’s ridiculous. My life depends on those contrary mutating genes, not on where I choose to live.”

Sandy patted her hand. “Then why are we arguing? Let’s get to Ross’s before all the good stuff is gone.”

“Fine.” They stood, gathering up packages. Bobbie punched Sandy on the arm before she picked up her bags. She smiled at Stella’s surprise. “I told her I’d slug her.”

Sandy punched her back. “And sometimes
I
scare
you?
”

* * *

D
YLAN
WASN
’
T
SURE
he understood what was going on here. Uncle Nate, Dennis, Hunter, he and Sheamus were scattered across the living room, watching football and eating all kinds of stuff he and Sheamus weren’t usually allowed to eat unless there were vegetables with it. They had pizza without the salad; hot wings without celery and carrot sticks; jalapeño and cheddar potato chips, corn chips with guacamole—he thought that was kind of gross, but everybody else seemed to like it; and taquitos with hot sauce. He really liked those.

It was a great day. All the women were shopping and the men did nothing but sit around and watch football. He sat on the sofa between Uncle Nate and Hunter, and Sheamus sat on the love seat with Dennis. They passed food around and he and Sheamus had as much pop as they wanted.

By the middle of the afternoon, Uncle Nate had put the food away but left the chips, and brought out cookies they’d gone to the bakery for this morning. Then he handed everyone a Snickers ice cream bar from the freezer.

They put their feet on the coffee table and burped out loud. They did have to say, “Excuse me.”

When Uncle Nate went to the kitchen to get Dennis more coffee, Dylan elbowed Hunter. “How come we get to do this?” he asked.

“Because it’s a day without women,” Uncle Nate’s friend said. “We still have to be sort of civilized, but we can eat what we want without having to worry about whether or not it’s fattening, or good for us, and enjoy the fact that there’s no one around telling us to put our feet down, or wanting us to turn off football and watch the Hallmark Channel. It doesn’t happen very often, so we try to take advantage of it when it does.”

“We don’t like having women around?”

“No, it’s not that at all. But sometimes we have more fun as guys when they’re not here.”

Dylan didn’t quite get that, but didn’t care. He was having a great time. And his uncle seemed to be nicer lately. Or maybe it was just that things didn’t seem quite as awful to Dylan as they had for a long time. The last few days, everybody was getting along better in the house, but he’d noticed that Bobbie hadn’t come over today before going shopping. She and Uncle Nate usually saw each other every day. He’d even seen them hugging. It would be cool if she moved in, but he’d heard his uncle say she was going to Italy after Christmas. That was across the ocean and you had to fly there, or take a cruise.

Hunter and Uncle Nate had talked about women while making coffee in the kitchen. Hunter was saying he didn’t understand them, and Uncle Nate said he’d like to help him, but didn’t understand them, either. Dennis had said that you had to love them without understanding them or you’d go crazy.

Hunter had asked him how you could ever love something you didn’t understand. Dennis had smiled and told him that if he loved a woman, he’d find out.

Hunter leaned toward Dylan now and asked, “Would you go get us another ice cream bar?”

“Uncle Nate usually only lets us have one at a time,” he answered, then remembered that this was Life without Women Day and that rule might not apply.

“Me, too!” Sheamus pleaded, then turned to Dennis. “You want another one?”

Bobbie’s father nodded. “Yes, please.”

Dylan went into the kitchen and relayed the unanimous request to his uncle, who was pouring coffee into this tall thing that kept it warm.

“Sure.” He pointed to the freezer at the bottom of the fridge. “Help yourself.”

Dylan hadn’t thought about it before, but since he’d drawn the picture and had to think about what had happened to his parents, it didn’t exactly hurt less, but he felt a little better about the fact that he and Sheamus and Uncle Nate were still here. And that Uncle Nate was taking care of them.

“Do you know Justin Parker?” he asked as he dug the ice cream bars out of the freezer.

His uncle screwed the top on the coffee thing. “Think so. The blond kid that helped you with the Mentos geyser.”

“Yeah. Did you know his mom died?”

Uncle Nate turned to look at him. “No. I know Mr. and Mrs. Berg have a foster home and he lives with them.”

“Yeah. When his mom died, his dad left. Justin doesn’t know where he is.” He was having trouble holding four bars and his uncle reached above his head to get a bowl for him to drop them in.

“That’s terrible about Justin.”

“Yeah. And people don’t like to adopt older kids.”

“Who told you that?”

“Justin. Some other foster kid told him. So, Mr. and Mrs. Berg are nice and everything, but he’s really lonesome.” Dylan drew a deep breath and looked into his uncle’s eyes. He was beginning to realize that saying thank-you about big things was hard. He sucked it up. “I’m really glad Sheamus and I didn’t have to go live with a foster family,” he said quickly. “I’m glad Dad had a brother.”

Uncle Nate was quiet for a minute, then he said, his voice a little funny, “Yeah, me, too. It helps me a lot to have you and Sheamus.”

Dylan didn’t know what to say after that, so he ran off with the ice cream bars. But he felt good. And it had been such a long time since he’d been anything near happy.

* * *

N
ATE
WENT
TO
Rolling Thunder Barbecue for ribs, beans, potato salad and rolls. When he returned home, a bright yellow envelope stuck out of his mailbox. “I KNOW WHAT YOU DID” was written in capital letters on the front. He ripped it open and unfolded a plain white note card. “And that was the sweetest, most generous thing anyone’s ever done for us,” it read. “Thank you, Nate! Our daughter sent us a check. Here you are. We’ll tell everyone we know what a good man you are.”

Nate pocketed the note and smiled to himself. He was beginning to understand that there were all kinds of things in life that simply didn’t show up on a profit and loss statement.

He went inside to serve dinner and turn on
The Dirty Dozen.
Sheamus was fast asleep, but Dylan was wide-awake and soon totally absorbed in the movie.

While completely upside down about his relationship with Bobbie, Nate was happy and hopeful over his brief conversation with Dylan about his friend in foster care. Nate knew it didn’t mean all their problems were resolved, but there was an understanding at the base of their relationship that could be built on as Dylan grew older and communication probably got harder.

They were all in a stupor of overindulgence when the women returned around 8:00 p.m. Nate heard them in the kitchen and was a little surprised to hear laughter, since they’d been up since 5:00 a.m. Maybe being without men was as good for them as being without women had been for him and Hunter and Dennis.

Still, each man’s head turned toward the kitchen and the bubbling sound of female conversation. There was crunching plastic, rustling paper and—he couldn’t quite believe his ears—giggles.

He got up to investigate. They were all standing around the table, an enormous pile of bags, paper and a lot of things they’d bought strewn across it.

Bobbie had a knitted hat made to resemble a raccoon sitting atop her head. It was too small for her, but he gathered from her remarks that it was one of two she’d bought, for Addie and Zoey.

Sandy ran a hand over a dark blue sweater. “My!” Stella said. “Cashmere. Is that for Hunter?”

Stella had pulled on a plush yellow bathrobe for her daughter and she looked a little like a tall Easter “Peep” when she leaned over to touch the sweater.

“I can’t believe,” Nate said, walking bravely into the middle of their estrogen-infested area, “that you’ve been shopping for fifteen hours.”

All three women turned to him with smiles. Despite their joviality, they did look tired.

“We shopped for about twelve hours,” Bobbie corrected, covering a yawn. She looked soft and sleepy. He felt completely disarmed. “We spent the other three eating and drinking coffee.”

The room was suddenly filled with Hunter and Dennis, the boys and Arnold.

Bobbie pulled a squeaky toy shaped like a bone out of a bag and tossed it at the dog, which leaped into the air bit down on it, making any conversation impossible for the next minute. A one-note squeak repeated over and over.

Nate smiled at her flatly. “Thanks a lot, Bobbie.”

“Sure.” She studied him as though he puzzled her, then he realized she was probably uncertain what to do about her feelings for him. Another point for his side.

She turned with a smile to everyone else. “Hi, Dad. Hi, guys. Hey, Hunter.” She delved into another bag and surfaced with two miniature Christmas trees. She worked a switch on the bottom and they lit up, each decorated with tiny ornaments. She held them out to the boys. “For your rooms.”

“Cool.” Dylan took his from her. “Thank you, Bobbie.”

“You’re welcome. I bought a couple of other little things to put you in the holiday spirit, but I’m not sure which bag they’re in. I’ll bring them by tomorrow.”

Sheamus held his tree as though it were a puppy. “My own tree!” he said. He smiled up at Nate. “I wish Bobbie lived
here!
”

A sudden silence fell and vague discomfort filled the room.

Bobbie pulled the raccoon hat off her head and ruffled Sheamus’s hair. “Well, I’m close enough that you can run over anytime,” she said bracingly.

“Yeah.” Sheamus sounded halfhearted, but with another look at his tree, he perked up again and took off to put it in his room. Dylan followed, and Arnold raced after them, squeaking his toy as he pranced in their wake.

“Need a ride home?” Hunter asked Sandy.

She seemed surprised by the invitation. “Yes, please,” she replied, watching him a little warily as he picked up her things

“Okay, well...” Arms loaded with Sandy’s purchases, Hunter started for the door. “Thanks, Nate. Most fun I’ve had in ages. Take care, Dennis. Bye, guys!” he shouted toward the stairs.

Sandy ran ahead of him to open the door. Nate flipped on the outside lights. He couldn’t hear their conversation as they packed the back of Hunter’s car, but it sounded increasingly agitated. By the time they were both in the front seat, voices were raised and they were too busy arguing to wave as Hunter backed out of the driveway. Nate watched them go, wondering what had happened.

In the kitchen, Dennis and Stella seemed to be making a date for breakfast.
Good,
he thought.

Bobbie was moving her purchases from bag to bag, trying, he guessed, to make a more manageable burden.

“Want me to help you carry that stuff home?” he asked.

She gave him that wary look again. “I’ve got it,” she said. “Thanks, though.”