If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now (35 page)

“She has her moments.”

“She’s amazing.” Once we’d shoved our plates aside, he looked around the restaurant. People were hovering, waiting for tables
to open up. “Let’s go somewhere quieter to talk,” he said. “I mean, if you have time?”

“I’m good.”

We walked out of the restaurant and got back in the car.

“Where should we go?” I asked.

He stuck the key in the ignition. “I don’t know. Somewhere quiet. You have any ideas?”

The word “quiet” had given me one. “I do, actually. Only—are you in a hurry to get back?”

“Nope,” he said. “I have no plans for the rest of the day.”

“Me either.” I leaned forward and punched an address into
his GPS, hiding it with my left hand so he couldn’t see what I was putting in there. “Follow the directions.”

“Seventy-five minutes?” he said, squinting at the screen as it reset. “Really?”

“You said you had time.”

“I know, but—” He shrugged. “Okay, but this better be worth it.”

“It will be.”

“It’s a little scary,” he said, swinging the car out into the street, “not knowing where I’m going.”

“It’s good to take risks.”

“Just promise me it’s not Cambria.”

“It’s not Cambria,” I said. “There’s nothing the slightest bit twee about this place.” There was a pause. I glanced over at
him. “So can you tell me now what you were thinking about that you still haven’t told me or do we have to wait until we get
to our destination?”

“I guess we can talk now.” One hand on the steering wheel, he used the other to pull off his baseball cap and toss it over
his shoulder, into the backseat, then he ran his fingers through his hair, making it stick out. “It’s just… Back at the party—at
Casino Night—when you and I were talking in my office—” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to go back into the other room.
I wanted to stay in there, alone with you.”

I sneaked another look at him. Without his cap and with his hair all rumpled up, he looked really young. I forgot sometimes
that he wasn’t even a year older than me. Every other adult I spent time with these days was a lot older than me, but not
him. “And that got you thinking?” I said, a little faintly.

“Thinking,” he said. “And also agonizing. There was the whole Gracie issue—” He darted a look at me. “Is this okay, that I’m
saying this stuff?”

“I’ll stop you if I get offended,” I said with a stiff laugh. I felt like this couldn’t possibly be real: this whole conversation,
driving alone with him in the car, everything. It was what I wanted but it didn’t feel real so I wasn’t letting myself believe
any of it yet.

He went on. “And then there was the school thing too—that you’re the mother of one of the kids I teach. That seemed… problematic.”

“So you were thinking about that?”

“I was
trying
to think about that,” he said in a low voice. “I knew that was what I should be thinking about. But mostly I kept thinking
about how you looked in that red dress and how much I like talking to you when no one else is around.” There was a pause.
Then he said, “Before I drive the remaining sixty-seven minutes to this mysterious destination of yours, I guess I should
ask you whether, knowing all this, you still want to go there with me.”

“How worried are you about the school stuff?” I asked. “That I’m a mother there and all?”

“Not enough to turn the car around because of it.”

“Good,” I said in a small voice. “I don’t want you to turn it around.”

“Really? You sure?”

I put my hand—tentatively—on his leg. “Really.”

He put his right hand over mine. “I’m glad.”

We rode like that in silence for a little while.

Then I said, “Would you have broken up with Gracie anyway? Even if I had worn a black dress that night?”

“It wasn’t really the color of the dress that mattered.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t know if it would have happened that night, but eventually, yeah. We’ve been heading in that direction for
a while.” He put his hand back on the steering wheel and I pulled my hand off his leg. “When we met, we were both on these
high-powered career tracks. But then I went from being corporate and ambitious to being an elementary-school coach—and happier
than I’d ever been, to my own amazement. But Gracie couldn’t understand how I could be so happy doing something that wasn’t
ever going to make me rich or famous. Especially since she’s so—” He stopped. “Well, you saw her at the party. Practically
chewing up poor Marley Addison and James Foster. I mean, I guess that’s how you have to be to succeed in her line of work.
And here I am just hanging out with kids all day long. Which maybe makes me a loser, I don’t know.”

“Were you living together?”

“No, we spent a lot of nights together, but we always kept our own apartments.”

“That’s good,” I said. “Otherwise—”

“Otherwise I’d be driving a moving van right now,” he said with a little laugh. “Not going god-knows-where with you.”

“Trust me,” I said. “It’ll be good.”

A short pause. “I should probably ask you what your situation is. I mean, for all I know you’re seeing someone.” His fingers
flexed briefly on the steering wheel. “Are you?”

I hesitated, not sure whether Ryan counted or not, whether he was worth mentioning.

“I was hoping for a simple no,” Andrew said bleakly after a moment had passed. “I can still turn the car around, you know.”

“No! Don’t do that.” I realized my silence had given him the wrong idea. “There’s no one. Not really. Just this guy I sometimes
see when he’s in town. But he travels and we’re not serious.”

“Hmmph,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. When’s he due back in town?”

I touched his leg again. “Don’t know, don’t care.”

“Really?” he said.

And I started to let myself feel happy.

W
ow,” Andrew said when the GPS directions guided us down the road toward the beach. “This is beautiful. Where are we? What
is this place?”

“My mother’s condo. It’s right on the ocean. Should be quiet today—no one comes this time of year.” I showed him where to
park, and he turned off the car. “I just have to get the keys from the manager.”

He waited by the car while I ran into the office. I came out with the keys dangling from my fingers. “Want to go on up or
take a walk on the beach first?”

He glanced around uncertainly. “Let’s check out the beach,” he said, and I gratefully agreed. It wasn’t that I didn’t want
to be alone with him in a room or anything: it’s just that the hope and excitement were kind of overwhelming and it was a
relief to postpone whatever was about to happen between us.

We had the beach all to ourselves. No surprise, since it was cold and windy out there. I was wearing a light jacket but it
felt like nothing with the wind slicing through it, so I squeezed my arms across my chest and tried to hug myself warm. Andrew
only had on a T-shirt but if he was cold he didn’t show it. He had taken off his sunglasses a while ago and must have
left them in the car: the closer we’d gotten to the beach, the cloudier it had become, and here, on the sand, the sun was
nowhere in sight.

We walked down to the water’s edge. “What is it about the ocean?” he said as we gazed out at the waves.

“It’s big,” I suggested.

“And it doesn’t stop moving.”

“And waves are cool, the way they keep coming in.” A gust of wind made me shiver, and he looked at me.

“You cold?”

“Freezing.”

“Me too. Let’s go inside.”

We entered the building through the back entrance. In the elevator, we backed to separate walls.

“Hi,” he said. “Why do I feel so nervous?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I do too.”

The elevator doors opened and we headed down the hallway. “It’s this one,” I said and unlocked the door.

The apartment was pretty much the way we’d left it after winter break, except cleaner. Mom always arranged for a cleaning
lady to come through the day after we left. The furniture was old and comfortable, because my mother said you shouldn’t have
to worry about keeping your feet off the furniture when you’re on vacation.

I tossed my jacket on the shabby plaid sofa as we came in. “Come see the view,” I said, leading Andrew across the living room
to the sliding glass door.

“Oh, good,” he said. “It’s been thirty whole seconds since I last saw the ocean.”

We went out on the balcony, where it felt even colder than it had on the beach. This time, when I shivered, Andrew said softly,
“Don’t be cold.”

I turned to him and he held his arms open and kind of made an uncertain “Well?” gesture with his outstretched hands. I moved
into the circle of his arms and he put them around me and held me tight against his chest.

After a moment he said, “Warmer now?”

I nodded, my head moving against his shoulder. I put my face up and as soon as I did, he kissed me. His mouth was literally
trembling with nervousness. For such a nervous kiss, it felt pretty good.

When he raised his head again, I whispered, “So what do you think?”

“I wasn’t thinking,” he said. He slid his hands along my arms. His fingers were warm and rough against my skin. “You’re still
shivering. Let’s go inside.” He took my hand and we went back through the sliding door and closed it behind us.

“Now what?” I said.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Let me think about it.” He pulled me back to him and we kissed again, longer and deeper and more
confidently this time.

Then we stood there for a while, arms wrapped around each other, my head on his chest, not kissing. “This is nice,” I said,
a little sleepily. I felt warm all over now. A sudden loud ring from across the room made me jump. “Sorry,” I said, pulling
away from him. I ran over to where I’d thrown my jacket and fished my cell phone out of its pocket. I answered it and then
tried to focus on what Noah was saying. I finally cut him off. “Tell Grandma I say you can watch TV since you played ball
all morning. Okay?” He said it was okay. “Bye, Noey.” I closed the phone and slipped it back in my jacket pocket.

“Does he need you?” Andrew asked.

I shook my head. “The great thing about living with my parents is that I’m covered.”

“That does seem like a good thing.” We stood there a moment, looking at each other. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi.” I moved back into his arms and we kissed again. The taste and scent of him were becoming almost familiar. Our growing
confidence was verging on eagerness.

“Let’s sit down,” he said after a moment, and we sat down together on the sofa. I snuggled right up next to him, my thigh
against his, my hand holding his across his lap. He put his other arm around my shoulder and leaned his head on mine. We were
all woven together.

“You hated me back in Dr. Wilson’s office,” I said after a moment.

“
You
hated
me
. You were the one who was angry. I was just trying to defend myself.”

“Still,” I said. “When did you decide I was okay?”

“I never thought you weren’t. You were looking out for your kid. I got it. And you were kind of right. There are kids it’s
easy to get impatient with and teachers can fall into that trap. But those kids are the ones who usually need you to be extra
patient with them.”

“You’re pretty patient from what I’ve seen.”

“Thank you.” He threaded his fingers through mine. “How about you? How’d you go from wanting me fired to… this?”

“Well, you’re cute,” I said.

“Come on.”

“You are. Or at least cuter than any other guy at school.”

“Which isn’t saying much.”

“True.” I squeezed his hand. “You’ve been so great to Noah. It’s like—there was this moment, at the game today, when I looked
at you and you were so bummed he had struck out. And later, you were as happy as I was when he got the hit. Do you know what
that’s like for me? Having someone care like
that? And it was because of you he did okay today, all that extra coaching… and setting him up as your assistant. He loved
that.”

“I’m glad.” A pause. “So, you just like me because I’m nice to Noah?”

“Also,” I said, “you’re cute. Did I mention that?”

“That’s it?” He sounded disappointed.

I put my leg over his and rocked it back and forth. “Every time we talked together, even when it was just about scheduling
stuff, I didn’t want it to end,” I said. “We’d be done and you’d start to walk away and I’d try to come up with an excuse
to call you back and make you keep talking to me. I couldn’t get enough of you—I know that sounds stupid but I don’t know
how else to put it.”

“It doesn’t sound stupid,” he said. “I felt like that too.”

“Really? Why? I’m kind of a loser. A single-mother college dropout…” It scared me a little, saying it out loud, like maybe
he’d change his mind hearing it put like that. But I also needed to get it out or it would feel like this huge unspoken thing.

He shifted so he could look right at me. “You should see your eyes right now,” he said. “So big and hopeful and worried. You
can read your every thought in your eyes. Did you know that?”

“Rats,” I said. “I want to be mysterious.”

“I like that you’re not.” He touched my cheek gently with the back of his hand. “Rickie, I come from a family where everything
has to be just right all the time. My mother is…” He shrugged. “Well, she’s a grown-up version of Gracie, is the truth. She’s
never left the house not looking perfect—both her and the house. Always perfect. No matter what happens, she puts on her makeup
and does her hair and smiles and says everything is absolutely fine. The day after my father had a heart attack, she was getting
on the phone and telling people
we were all doing ‘wonderfully.’ I mean, you’ve got to admire her but it’s tough to be her kid. You can never live up to all
that perfection. Gracie’s the same way. Everything has to be perfect, even when it’s not.”

“Yeah, well, I’m definitely the opposite of perfect,” I said. “Is that what you like about me? That I’m a total mess?”