John Riley's Girl (5 page)

O
LIVIA MADE
her way to the back of the house, keeping her head down to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes, grateful for the darkness that concealed her from view. A few minutes to get herself together, and she would be fine. Just fine.

What in the world had she been thinking?

Coming back here had been nothing but a mistake. How could she have believed anything else?

Once, she’d had a panic attack on a crowded elevator in an Atlanta bank. She’d been standing in the back, and it had hit her before she ever saw it coming, tightening her chest, refusing to let air in her lungs.

That’s how she felt now. As if breathing had become something she had to think out second by second.

Tall, old oak trees threw evening shadows across the backyard. Wrought-iron chairs were arranged in a circle on the brick patio. Olivia pulled one away from the halo of light dancing out from the lanterns hanging by the French doors. She sat down and dropped her head onto her hands.

How could something still hurt this much after so long? She had not seen John Riley in fifteen years, and in all that time her heart had not gained an ounce of immunity to him.

“Whatcha doin’?”

Olivia shot up from the chair and whirled around. A small face stared down at her from the second story of the house, the curious eyes disturbingly familiar.

“Oh. I was just…”

“You’re crying.”

“No. I…well, not really.”

The little girl disappeared from the window, popped back seconds later and said, “Here.”

Two tissues floated down. Olivia caught them. “Thank you.”

“They’re the soft kind. Are you sad?”

This was John’s child. If Olivia had not been able to tell from the eyes alone, her shoot-from-the-hip manner would have been a dead giveaway. “A little, I guess.”

“It’s okay to be sad. That’s what Aunt Sophia
says. And she says sadness can’t get better until you ’knowledge it’s there.”

A name from the past. How many afternoons had she come with John to this house after school where they would do their homework at the kitchen table while Sophia fixed dinner? Olivia had helped her peel potatoes or shred lettuce for a salad. Sophia had taught her how to make homemade biscuits. They were John’s favorite, and he’d made her promise she would make them every morning for breakfast after they got married. After leaving Summerville, Olivia had never made biscuits again. “Sophia is a wise woman,” she said.

“She’s real smart.” The little girl nodded, rubbing an eye with the back of a small hand. “My mommy died. I’ve been sad a lot. I think my daddy has been, too. Only he won’t admit it.”

Olivia took a step back. Shock ricocheted through her like a stone skimming the surface of a pond. Laura Riley had died. That pretty girl who had answered the door on a winter afternoon so long ago was dead. John’s wife.

How many times had she imagined the kind of life John would have had with Laura? Imagined her being the kind of woman who sent him off each morning with a hot breakfast and greeted him at the door each night with the smell of bread wafting from the oven.

The wondering seemed trivial now, intrusive even.

She took a deep breath and finally managed, “I’m so sorry.”

“She was a good mommy.”

“I’m sure she was,” Olivia said, her throat so tight she was surprised the words had actually made their way out.

“Daddy says she’s in heaven, and that it’s a good place. He says she gets to have her real hair there, and she won’t even have to chew sugarless gum. She can have real bubble gum.”

Olivia’s heart contracted. “That’s nice, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “But I wish she didn’t have to go. I miss her. Daddy says God sometimes takes the good people and leaves the rest here to give them a chance to figure out how to be that way. I’m not good sometimes ’cause I don’t want to leave Daddy. He needs me. Every once in a while I won’t eat all my dinner or forget to make up my bed.”

“I bet God understands.” Olivia swallowed hard at the little girl’s matter-of-fact assessment. “What’s your name?”

“Flora. What’s yours?”

“Olivia.”

“That’s pretty.”

“Thank you. So’s Flora.”

A black nose appeared in the window and nudged Flora’s arm aside. “We woke up Charlie.”

“I see we did.” Olivia peered up at the golden retriever now framed in the window beside Flora.

“It’s Charlie, short for Charlene. A lot of people think it’s weird for her to have a boy’s name since she’s a girl.”

“I think Charlie’s a good name.”

“She sleeps with me in case I have a bad dream at night.”

“It looks like you’re in awfully good hands.”

The dog licked Flora’s face, obviously aware she was being discussed. Flora giggled again. “Yuk, Charlie. We better get back to bed before Daddy sees us.”

“Okay. It was nice to meet you, Flora.”

“’Night.”

“Good night.” The window slid closed. Both little girl and dog disappeared.

A second later, the window popped back up, and the tow-headed child stuck her head out again. “Are you still sad?”

Olivia shook her head and tried to smile. “I’m better now.”

Flora looked pleased. “Good. Okay. ’Night.”

The window zipped back down, and she was gone, leaving Olivia’s heart bruised with knowledge and a sorrow she would never have expected to feel.

C
LEEVE FILED IN
at the tail end of the not-insignificant line waiting at the bar. He checked his
watch and angled a look across the crowd. Still no sight of John. If he didn’t turn up within the next five minutes, Cleeve was going looking for him. Matter of fact, maybe he’d get the bartender to pour him a couple shots of bourbon to take along in case he found him. Granted, it was a quick fix. But John probably needed one right about now.

“Guess they gave everybody something to talk about tonight, anyway.”

Cleeve turned around. Racine Delaney stood behind him, a hesitant smile on her face. “Hey, Racine.”

“Hi, Cleeve.”

“Guess you saw the John and Olivia thing.”

“Kind of hard to miss it.”

Cleeve sighed. “Yeah, he’s never been real reasonable where that gal was concerned. I think he was a little caught off guard.”

“I was kind of surprised to see her here.”

Cleeve nodded, surprised himself to find Racine having a conversation with him. The only time he ever saw her anymore was in the post office, and for some reason, he’d never thought she liked him much. She somehow managed to dole out his book of stamps each time without quite meeting eyes with him. “So…you havin’ a good time?” he asked, feeling awkward and not at all sure why.

“Uh-huh,” she said, glancing around as if she were hoping somebody else would appear and save
her. She lowered her gaze and smoothed a hand across her dress.

Which he noticed then for the first time. It was pretty, some odd blue that women probably had a name for. In fact, Racine looked pretty. She was an attractive woman, completely different from the girl with the thick glasses he remembered from high school. He could see she’d taken extra pains tonight. Her hair, which she normally wore pulled back in a tight ponytail, hung straight and shiny, just grazing her shoulders. “You look real nice, Racine,” he said and meant it.

Her eyes lit up. And then as if catching herself, she cleared her throat and said, “Where’s Macy?”

“She made other plans for the weekend.”

“That’s a shame,” she said.

They were the kind of words that would have sounded placating from most people. But somehow, when Racine said them, it sounded like she meant them. Cleeve rolled that around for a few moments, and then, “Heard about you and Jimmy.”

“About time I wised up, huh?”

“You all right?”

“Better than I’ve been in years.”

“Jimmy had no idea what he had.”

“Thank you.”

“Truth doesn’t need any thanks,” he said. Cleeve had heard the rumors for a long time, seen Racine’s attempts to cover up suspicious-looking marks on
her face. And one time when he’d picked up his truck after having some work done on it, he had tried to talk to Jimmy, suggested that maybe he ought to go see somebody. Jimmy hadn’t been too thrilled with the suggestion. Cleeve didn’t give a hoot about that, but he’d always worried that Jimmy might have taken it out on Racine when he got home that night. It was beyond him how a man could hit a woman at all, much less one he claimed to love.

“You know, I’m not really thirsty after all,” she said, backing up. “I see someone over there I wanted to say hello to. See ya, Cleeve.”

“Are you sure I can’t get you—” He raised a hand to stop her, but she was already gone. And he stood there wondering what he’d said to make her leave so fast.

R
ACINE MADE
a beeline for the other side of the yard, her high heels refusing to cooperate with the speed she was asking of them. Her cheeks felt as if they’d spent a couple hours under a sun lamp. What in the world had possessed her to strike up a conversation with Cleeve Harper? She’d spotted him standing there in that line alone, and it was as if someone had thrown a cable around her neck and just steered her right over.

Oh, no, you’re not getting off that easy, Racine. You wanted to talk to him! That’s why you went over there.

Strangely enough, the self-chastisement had her mother’s voice. Oh, boy, would she love that. Her divorced daughter flirting with a married man.

Well, it hadn’t exactly been flirting. She’d just been making conversation.

So, why did you light up like the Fourth of July when he complimented your dress?

Go away, Mom.

Racine did not need her mother telling her that Cleeve Harper was nothing more than a dead-end street. She was fully aware of that fact, and she’d already taken the only dead-end street she intended to take in this lifetime.

Over by a stretch of board fence, Jerry Dunmore stood by himself nursing a can of Sprite. Voted Most Shy, it looked as if he hadn’t yet managed to overcome the label. Racine put Cleeve from her mind and headed over.

So That’s How It Was

O
LIVIA HAD JUST
ventured back into the crowd of classmates in the front yard when Cleeve Harper came striding toward her, a big smile on his very unchanged face. Still numb from her encounter with John’s little girl, Olivia welcomed Cleeve’s all-encompassing bear hug. Her feet dangled above the ground when he said, “Still pretty as a picture.”

He plunked her down, and she looked up at him with a smile. “And what’s your secret against aging?”

Cleeve let out a pleased-sounding scoff. “Shoot. Wish I had one.”

“You look great, Cleeve.”

“Well, you’re the one who’s gone and made us all so dang proud.”

“Thank you. That’s awfully nice.”

“You’re good at it. Me? If I got in front of a camera with millions of people watching, I’d freeze up faster than an ice cube at the North Pole.”

Olivia laughed. That had always been one of Cleeve’s talents. Making people laugh. He’d had a definite way with the girls, too, which was a little surprising considering he’d grown up on a dairy farm with very strict parents and had never even been into the town of Summerville until he was eleven years old. He and John had been friends from the first day they’d met, in much the same way she and Lori had been. It might have been awkward between the two of them now, but Cleeve had never been the type to judge, and she was deeply appreciative of his acceptance of her here in light of John’s obvious disapproval.

Lori jogged up just then, a few pieces of her neatly upswept hair having escaped its bobby pins. “Cleeve, have you been hogging her?”

“I just saw her,” he said, indignant.

Lori gave him a playful thwap on the arm. “Likely story!” she said. And then to Olivia, “I got tied up with five different emergencies, but I’ve been looking all over for you. We’ve barely talked.”

“I went for a walk,” Olivia said.

Lori put a hand on her arm. “You and John all right about all this?”

“Everything’s fine,” Olivia said, reaching for her most convincing smile.

“Sorry he was a little less than gracious,” Cleeve said. “I’m planning to turn him over my knee if I ever find him.”

“That I’d like to see,” Lori said. “I’ve just got one more thing to do, Olivia, and my duties are over for the night. This won’t take but a few minutes. I promise.” And then before Olivia could say anything else, Lori was headed up front to the edge of one of the big tents where a microphone and podium had been set up. She stepped behind it, picked up a piece of paper and tapped the mike.

“Attention everybody!”

The buzz of the crowd softened to a murmur.

“Senior superlatives!” Lori said, waving the paper in her hand. “Best Smile! Most Likely to Succeed! You remember! Let’s see if the awards still fit!”

A collective groan went through the crowd while Olivia’s stomach dropped like an elevator whose cable had just been cut. “Oh, no,” she said.

“This should be good.” Cleeve wiggled his eyebrows at her.

“Come on, don’t tell me you haven’t all been waiting for this!” Lori cajoled.

“She’s enjoying this a little too much, I think.”

Olivia looked over her shoulder. An attractive blond man with lively blue eyes and small wire-framed glasses smiled at her. “I’m Sam Peters. Lori’s husband. And you’re Olivia.”

“Sam. It’s so nice to meet you,” she said, turning to clasp his outstretched hand between her own two.

“Hey, Cleeve,” Sam said.

“Hey, Sam. You’re right. Your wife is enjoying this. She’s got that gleam in her eye.”

“Know that means trouble.”

Both men laughed.

“I’ve heard an awful lot about you over the years, Olivia,” Sam said, his voice appealingly deep and sincere. “It’s good to finally meet you.”

“You, too, Sam. Really. You’re exactly what I would have imagined for Lori.” And he was. A little bookish. Athletic with a winner of a smile.

He laughed. “I hope that’s good.”

“It is,” she said.

“All right, everyone, let’s get started.” Lori’s directive drew their attention back to the front of the crowd. En masse, the group moved in closer to the podium. Olivia wished for some discreet way of leaving, but with Cleeve and Sam on either side of her, it wasn’t possible. She did a quick mental scramble for that flag of courage she’d been waving all the way from D.C.

“First off, Best Smile,” Lori announced. “Tammy Young and Harry Sigmon!”

The crowd clapped and cheered while Tammy and Harry threaded their way through to the front where Lori pinned them with badges declaring their superlative. “I think they still qualify,” Lori said, and indeed, the two classmates wore the kind of friendly smiles that can somehow get a person’s day off to the right start.

Tammy and Harry stepped back and started a row behind Lori who again dipped her head to the microphone. “Best Sense of Humor. Sally Acres and Kip Fincastle.”

Sally and Kip were standing close to Olivia. She smiled despite the buffalo-size butterflies that had taken up residence inside her. Kip carried a chair up front with him. After receiving his badge and bowing to the crowd, he held it out for Sally who sat down with an oh-thank-you look on her face. The chair made a less than polite noise. Sally shot up, reached beneath the seat and yanked out the whoopee cushion Kip had planted there.

The group erupted in laughter while Sally pretended to look shocked, but it was obvious she’d been in on the gag all along.

Olivia didn’t dare look around for fear she’d meet eyes with John who was no doubt dreading what lay ahead as much as she was.

Lori announced the next two: Most Likely to Succeed, Least Likely to Change. Loud cheers and wolf whistles as these four made their way to the front.

“Most Popular,” Lori said. “Cleeve Harper and Aggie Lester.”

Cleeve took mock bows all the way up, offering the crowd his best Miss America wave. Still blond and pretty, Aggie was positively tame beside him. Just before they got to the stage, Cleeve swooped
her off her feet and carried her the rest of the way. A wave of laughter rolled through the crowd.

Lori shook her head and said, “You should have been Least Changed, Cleeve.”

“Never did like to disappoint my fans.”

More laughter.

Smiling, Lori announced, “Next up, Best-looking.” Whistles went up from the crowd. “That would be Olivia Ashford and John Riley.”

Olivia wished she could disappear.

“Come on, now,” Cleeve waved at her from up front, and then added, “Where is that boy? Get on up here, John!”

The crowd started clapping. “Whoo, John!”

Among the clapping and hoots, Olivia somehow managed to put one foot in front of the other.

Without looking, she knew John was behind her, felt his gaze on her back and the reluctance rolling off him like steam off July asphalt after a sudden thunderstorm. They both stopped just short of the microphone and waited while Lori pinned them with their badges. John had to bend forward so Lori could reach him. His shoulder brushed Olivia’s, and they both jumped as if they’d been touched with a hot poker. And as they turned to take position with the other classmates on stage, their eyes met and betrayed them, failing to conceal their remembrance of the first time they’d been awarded the title. It wasn’t something either one of them had taken seriously,
but after the assembly was over, John had pulled her behind a set of bleachers and kissed her, teasing, “I voted for you. Who’d you vote for?”

“Pete Simmons,” she’d said with mock seriousness. Pete had been their star quarterback and changed girlfriends as often as most guys changed shirts.

John had picked her up and whirled her around.

“Okay, okay,” she’d said, laughing. “I didn’t.”

He’d put her down and kissed her again, and they’d both gotten tardy slips for being late to their next class.

“They still have it?” Lori asked the crowd, bringing Olivia back to the moment.

More hoots went up. From the women: “All right, John!” And the men: “Ooh, baby, Olivia!”

The next twenty minutes on that stage felt more like four hours, and were as awkward and uncomfortable as anything Olivia ever remembered enduring. She and John were the only two standing far enough apart not to look like a matched set, looking instead exactly what they were: two people who had been forced into a situation neither wanted to be in.

With a smile frozen on her face, Olivia ridiculed herself for ever thinking she could come back to this place and not be affected by the man next to her. It was one thing to live hundreds of miles away, far from visual proof of all that had been lost, of everything that might have been. Physical distance was
a sort of anesthesia. Here, next to this man with whom she had once had every intention of sharing her life, she felt raw and exposed, every nerve ending screaming for numbness. There was none here. On some level, she had known this, had not come back before now because of it.

To be here in this place where their lives had once been entwined was to feel.

Her choices were clear: turn around and head back to shore. Or keep swimming and aim for the other side.

J
OHN DIDN’T WASTE
any time getting off that stage. What was it about reunions that made people come up with all sorts of masochistic ways to look back at the past?

Standing up there beside Liv had been like being subjected to one of those water-dripping tortures designed to drive a man crazy a moment at a time.

Halfway across the yard, Cleeve jogged up from behind and caught him by the arm. “Where you runnin’ off to now?”

“Done for the night,” John said.

“You know, this doesn’t have to be such a bad thing,” Cleeve said, giving him a squinty frown of disapproval. “Might even do you some good.”

“How’s that?”

“This is just Dr. Harper talkin’ here, but I don’t think you ever got over her.”

“I got over her a long time ago, doc,” John said, keeping the words light. “I don’t need any counselin’ sessions this weekend, but I do have a bottle of bourbon stored away that’s been looking for an excuse to be opened.”

Cleeve hesitated a moment, as if he wanted to continue the lecture, but decided to shelve it for now. “By all means,” he said, “let’s go give her one.”

R
UBY’S HADN’T CHANGED
in fifteen years.

The reunion had begun to break up around eleven. When Lori suggested meeting at the café in the center of town for pie and coffee, Olivia had been glad of the opportunity for the two of them to have some time to talk.

Judging from the number of cars parked outside at this late hour, Ruby’s was still the place to go for a good, reliable meal and familiar faces.

From the front entrance, Olivia took a long look, nostalgia hitting her in one of those aching waves of longing for a past that can only exist in memory.

The green vinyl booths were the same. The white tile floors cleaner than clean. Behind the front counter was the same soda fountain that had been there when she had been a little girl and a Cherry Coke had been a rare treat. The sameness of the place made her memories all the more real: she and Lori coming here after school for a milkshake and
fries; she and John stopping in after a movie and sharing a banana split in the booth by the window which they’d come to think of as theirs.

She took a seat in a corner of the diner as far from that particular booth as she could get. The place was over half full. Olivia felt the not-so-subtle stares from the tables around her. She had long ago gotten used to the scrutiny that came from being recognized, but for the first time in a long while, she wished for anonymity, to sit here with her old friend and just fit in.

“Hi.” Lori tossed out the greeting a few yards from the table, hung her purse on the back of the chair and sank onto the seat. “Tell me you’re not mad at me for not warning you about the superlative thing.”

Olivia shook her head. “Guess you knew better.”

“Selfish, maybe, but I didn’t want you to leave.”

“And I probably would have.”

Their waitress appeared, her smile quick and sincere considering the hour. “What can I get you?” she asked.

“Coffee for me,” Lori said. “And what the heck? I’ll have a slice of your coconut-cream pie.”

“Make that two,” Olivia added.

The waitress scribbled something on her pad, then glanced up. “You want cream and sugar with—”

She broke off there, recognition flooding her face. “Why you’re that—You’re—” She snapped her fin
gers. “Olivia Ashford! Well, I’ll be. Marcille!” she yelled over her shoulder at the waitress taking an order from the next table over. “We’ve got a real celebrity in tonight!”

Marcille glanced up from her order pad, squinted at Olivia, then Lori, then returned to Olivia again. “Sure enough!”

She hustled across the room, waving her pad and saying, “Oh, could I get an autograph for my mother? She
loves
your show.”

Olivia smiled, and ended up writing one out for both women, a little uncomfortable with the request simply because she wanted to be nothing other than Lori’s old friend without the differences in their lives getting in the way.

Once the two enthusiastic waitresses had headed off toward the kitchen, Lori said, “I’m sorry about the scene with John.”

“I should have expected it,” Olivia said. She hesitated and then, “I didn’t know about his wife.”

Lori fiddled with the handle on her coffee cup. “I thought about telling you when I called a couple weeks ago, but I didn’t know how to bring it up. Laura didn’t deserve what happened to her. She was a really wonderful person.”

“I’m sure she was judging by her daughter.”

“You met Flora then?”

Olivia recalled the sweet face peering down at her from the bedroom window. “She’s adorable.”

“John is crazy about her. She’s what kept him going. There’s no question about that.”

“Is he okay?” Olivia heard the concern in her own voice, but refused to take the time to analyze it or to try and cover it up.

“Some days, I think. It’s been almost two years. It’s been difficult. John hasn’t changed much really. Still thinks he can handle everything himself. To be honest with you, when I asked him if we could move the reunion out to his place, I never expected him to say yes. He’s pretty much isolated himself since Laura died. Doesn’t go out or anything.”