MAKE ME A MATCH (Running Wild) (15 page)

And just like that, she caved, but not with good grace.

Tulips are the vodka of flowers

“Okay, okay, we’ll take them. But I want to be back to go to the intensive. The instructor already said I have a lot of potential for channeling, I just need to develop it. ”

Jesus. Eric figured his dotty, selfish sister could use a course in family relations and generosity taught by her husband, but he wasn’t about to say so and have her change her mind again. Instead he gave a sigh of relief and said, “Okay, it looks like we’ve got this sorted. As long as Karen agrees, I’ll book her a ticket to Mexico. The damned funeral is tomorrow. You think she’s in any shape to go, Sophie?”

“We’ll let her decide.”

Eric nodded.

Sophie said, ‘You gonna call the parents and tell them she’s coming, or you want me to do it?” “I’ll do it.” It probably wouldn’t do any good to tell them Karen needed their help, but he’d try it anyway. “Maybe you could talk to Karen, though, Soph? She’s liable to get it in her head that she won’t go away without the kids.”

Sophie thought about it. “I don’t think so. I think she’s exhausted, physically and emotionally. She’s overwhelmed with everything. She’s asleep right now, but the shot I gave her will wear off in a couple hours. I’ve got to go back to work, but I’ll come back about six and stick around for the weekend.”

Bruno shot Anna a defiant look. “I’m gonna take the kids to the park now for a couple hours and then we’ll go for burgers. We might see that movie that’s on, the one about dinosaurs. I’ve been wanting to see it. You coming, Anna?”

“Bruno, you know I can’t. I’ve got to meditate, and then I’ve got my yoga class.”

“Fine, I’ll take the kids on my own.”

The doorbell rang, and Anna shot to her feet. “I’ll get it. I’m leaving anyway. Bye everybody.”

She waved a hand in Bruno’s direction, but she didn’t look at him. There was silence as she grabbed her handbag from the counter and hurried down the hall to the door.

“Everyone’s in the kitchen, just go straight through,” Eric heard her say, and a moment later Tessa walked in.

She was carrying an immense bouquet of red and yellow tulips, and Eric could see she was ill at ease when she found them all there. Her eyes went from one to the other and met his full on.

“Hey, Tessa, give me your coat.” He got to his feet and waited as she slipped her raincoat off. He hung it in the closet.

Sophie said, “You remember Anna’s husband, Bruno Lifkin?”

Tessa shook her head, so Sophie made the introductions. “You want a coffee? I’m about to make a fresh pot. And let me take those tulips. They’re totally beautiful. Karen’s gonna love them.”

“Where is Karen?” Tessa handed the flowers over.

“Asleep. Come sit down and we’ll explain.” Eric patted the chair Anna had vacated, right next to him.

She sat, and he could smell her perfume. Her hair had shiny raindrops hidden in the thick dark curls. She was wearing a short denim skirt, and no stockings. She crossed her legs, great legs. He noticed her hand when she reached down to put her handbag on the floor beside her chair. She had good hands, strong and long-fingered. No rings. Damn, she was one sexy lady.

Her voice was hesitant. “Is—is anything wrong? I decided to drop by after work, I tried to reach Karen at the hair salon, but maybe I had the wrong place because the woman who answered said Karen wasn’t working there anymore.”

“She isn’t.” Sophie poured a cup of coffee for Tessa. “Karen sort of lost it at work today and her boss fired her. She’s sleeping just now.”

“What can I do to help? Can I take the kids for the weekend?”

Classy, this lady
. Anna could learn from this. “Thanks, I think we’ve got the kids sorted, but if you and Eric could maybe stick around for a while?”

Tessa tensed, but then she nodded. “Absolutely.”

Sophie glanced at her watch. “I have to get back to the ER, Bruno’s taking the kids out, but somebody should be here when Karen wakes up. I didn’t give her a very strong sedative. I’ll be back about eight-thirty, nine.”

Bruno went to get the kids.

Sophie left, and the excited boys burst into the kitchen, searching for shoes and jackets. Eric and Tessa helped. After a short, frantic, noisy time zipping zips, fastening shoes, and locating an action figure Ian insisted had to come with him, Bruno got them out the door and silence fell in the small yellow-painted kitchen.

Eric hadn’t noticed till now that there were plants in the window, crumbs on the counter, finger marks on the cupboards, Lego pieces scattered around, artwork on the door of the fridge.

The tulips blazed. And there was him and Tessa and with any luck at all, Karen would go on sleeping till Soph got back.

A little block of time with the lady. What would she do if he came on to her?

“More coffee?” Eric lifted the pot and set it down again when she shook her head.

“I’ve had too much caffeine today.” She gave him a look. “Rough day at the office, lots of complaining.”

“Yeah, I heard.” He winked at her.

She smiled and shook her head, then waited until he sat down, across from her this time because it seemed silly to take the chair right beside her when they were all alone, even though he really liked it there.

“Eric, can you tell me exactly what happened with Karen, or is it confidential?”

“Nope, it’s the sort of thing that ought to be posted as a warning to nasty customers on the walls of beauty salons.” He related the story, enjoying the way her dark eyes widened and her mouth dropped when he got to the head-shaving bit. He liked her with her mouth open.

“Omigod.” He could see her struggling with the urge to laugh and losing. A giggle bubbled up and out, and she put her palm over her mouth.

“Sorry, sorry, I just keep seeing—” she lost the battle. Between chortles she gasped, “It’s perfect, good for Karen.” She sobered and added, “Maybe not so good, though. She lost her job. Will she have trouble getting another one?”

“Who knows?” He hadn’t got that far yet. “Losing her job isn’t the worst part. Losing her cool is what has me worried.” He explained what the family had decided to do.

“I love the way all of you support one another.” He shrugged, pleased but also a little embarrassed. “Hey, it’s business as usual. All families hang together in a crisis.”

“Nope.” She scowled and toyed with her coffee mug. “Mine doesn’t, not in the same way. But I guess it’s harder when there’s only one kid.”

“Doubly hard when your folks are split up.”

“It wouldn’t even be that bad if they’d only just make up their minds once and for all to stay divorced.” Her voice and her face reflected her disgust. “Would you believe that as we speak, my mother is probably somewhere on the freeway on the back of a motorcycle driven by my dad? Who, I might add, has two citations for speeding already on that thing.”

She did righteous really well. “What’s Maria doing riding around on the back of Walter’s motorcycle?”

“They’re dating. After years and years of hating each other, now they’ve decided to date again.” He wanted to laugh at the appalled, outraged expression on her face, but he didn’t dare. “So what do you think brought on the peace settlement?”

She held out her hands, palms up. “Who knows? For years I’ve listened to Maria go on about Walter’s faults, how she was way too young when they met, how he took advantage of her, how she should never have married him, this, you understand, even though she was five months along with me at the time. Which always made me feel responsible for the whole mess.” She blew out an exasperated breath. “Then she suddenly broke the news that they were seeing each other again.” She paused and then added, “It really bugs me.” Her voice dropped and she leaned toward him.

Her shirt was high necked, which was a real shame.

“I think they’re even having sex, Eric. They go across the border to this pub and then they don’t come back until the next day. Mom even told me the name of the motel they stay at, in case I need to get in touch with her. It’s absolutely gross.”

“Sex, huh?” He clucked his tongue. “At their age. What are they, in their fifties now? That is revolting.” Eric tried to keep a straight face and couldn’t manage it. He broke up, and after a minute, she did, too.

“Well, the very idea of my parents in bed together is enough to send me running to a nunnery.”

He gave her a long, lazy look, imagining her in bed instead. “I’d give that more thought if I were you. I don’t think it’s a step you ought to take as a protest gesture. Why not try burning something instead?”
Like your underwear
?

“That’s a thought. My birth certificate, maybe?”

“I’m with you there. I knew early on that having kids should be a licensed operation.”

“Your parents weren’t around much, were they? I always thought it was so romantic, you guys having musicians for parents. Mine were so boring, salesperson, insurance adjuster.”

Eric snorted. “I’d have traded Sonny and Georgia for almost anybody else’s folks. We grew up with a string of sitters, because they spent most of their time traveling with the band, playing gigs in every small town in B.C. The only times they stayed home for any length of time was when Georgia had a baby. Thank god somebody clued them in about birth control after Karen was born or I could still be raising kids.”

“Didn’t you have a woman staying with you? Flaming red hair, long black dresses. Karen used to call her Auntie Mo.”

“Yeah, our aunt Maureen, Sonny’s sister. She never married, fancied herself an artist. She painted, never sold a thing. Dad talked her into living with us when I was fourteen. It meant there was an adult on the premises, so social services couldn’t step in, which I think they were threatening to do by that time. Maureen was a token babysitter; she had a major drinking problem, spent most of her time in her room. Poor old Mo, Soph says she was suffering acute depression as well as alcoholism.”

“She still alive?”

“Nope, dead. She died of liver cancer when I was in my early twenties. She’d been sick for a while, she and I were the only ones living at home by then. The girls all moved out. Sophie and Anna were living in residence at university, and Karen had an apartment with three other students from the School of Hairdressing. I was just getting the business started, running it out of the house. But right after Maureen died, the parents sold it, so I had to find somewhere else to set up shop.”

“Wow. Weren’t you pissed off at them?”

“Big-time. I still am, matter of fact.”

She propped an elbow on the table and leaned her chin on her hand. “I mean, first they leave you to raise your sisters, and then they boot you out of the house. That’s straight out of Dickens. What’s up with them, anyway?” She watched him, brown eyes big and sympathetic.

He didn’t want to think about Sonny and Georgia, and he really didn’t want to talk about them. It always made his gut burn. “It’s pretty simple. Some people should never have kids.”

“Well, they stayed married, that has to count for something.”

“Maybe it’s easier to stay married when you have no sense of responsibility.”

“You have, though, maybe they knew that. You did such a good job raising your sisters. It’s amazing, when I remember how you were with them. How you still are.”

He shook his head. “You remember wrong. Mostly, I ran the household by bullying the girls into submission.” The memory made him squirm. “No fourteen-year-old boy can do a proper job of parenting. That’s why Karen’s so screwed up now. And look at Anna, out there in la-la land. ”

After tonight’s performance, he wondered if Anna had more than a little of her parents in her. He was also starting to worry about her marriage.

“Is that why you don’t want kids? Because you figure you wouldn’t do right by them?”

She really went for the jugular. He really didn’t want to talk about this. Damn women, anyway. There were the Nemas, who didn’t want conversation at all, and then there were the Tessa’s, who wore a guy’s skin off with talking. He’d far rather she was rubbing it off another way.

“I’ve never thought about it much. It’s just a gut reaction.” Dangerous zone. Change the subject, Stewart. “Hey, enough about me, Tess. How about you, what about this matchmaker thing, you like it? Is it gonna be a long-term career move?”

She sank back in her chair and crossed her legs. The skirt hiked up higher and for a minute his mind went blank.

"Well, before you came along, I was even liking the rough parts.” She didn’t smile, but her eyes were sparkling. “It’s not the way I thought it would be, but there’s always action, it’s got typing legal briefs beat all to heck. So yeah, I really like it.” She gave him an assessing look. “How are you at keeping secrets?”

“Hey, I’ve got sisters. If I couldn’t keep secrets, I’d be dog meat.”

She leaned toward him and clasped her hands. “I’m buying the business. Clara is having marital problems, and she’s offered to sell to me.”

“Well, congratulations. That’s a big step, buying a business.”

“I’m a little nervous about it, and I’d like to talk to your office person to see about getting a computer. I’m gonna modernize the business, I’ve got so many good ideas—” she stopped and bit her lip. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this; after all, you’re a client.”