Once Upon a Project (8 page)

Wait a minute. Didn't her brother play with this man who stood smiling at her now? Could that be possible? He'd been such a kid, maybe nine or ten years old at the most.

“Aren't you Craig Corrigan's sister?” he asked.

“Uh, yes, I am. I think I remember you, too.”

“Craig and I used to be best buddies back in the day,” he said.

His eyes openly roamed over her body, an action that to Grace could be handled either deftly, in a suave manner, or in a way that made her feel like a side of beef on a hook to be inspected. Eric Wade fell into the latter category, and even though his facial expression told her he liked what he saw, it made a warning bell go off in her head.

“You gonna be here for a while?” he asked.

“I just got here, so I guess so.”

“Yo, Eric. Whassup?”

“Hey! I was lookin' for you, man.” Eric started to step away, then looked over his shoulder. “Can I catch up with you later, Grace?”

“Sure.” She shrugged easily and moved on.

Gradually she made her way to the back room. A few folks were dancing in the empty space in the room's center. Elyse caught her eye and waved to her from the table for four where she sat with Susan.

Susan looked old with all that gray in her hair, Grace thought. But Elyse looked fantastic, even with the extra weight. Hell, she could afford to carry some extra pounds. She had a husband at home, and a good one, even if he'd lost some juice. Franklin Reavis had been a handsome, fit dude of about thirty-five when Elyse married him, and the few times Grace had seen him since, he'd looked pretty good. But from the way Elyse complained about his lack of drive, she imagined him now as a big fat dude lounging in a La-Z-Boy and calling out to Elyse to bring him another beer. Grace wondered if Elyse had had the foresight when she married him to think ahead thirty years, or if his turning into an old stick-in-the-mud was more than she had bargained for.

After Grace joined her friends, she began to feel better about coming down here. She might get something out of it, something named Eric Wade. That little kid she remembered from nearly thirty years ago couldn't be called that, any more than she could. So what if he was a little younger? She could hardly be accused of robbing the cradle.

Besides, she hadn't had sex in months, and she was raring to go. It was time for a harmless diversion, and Eric looked like he'd fill that bill just fine.

Grace and her friends were exchanging the names of people they recognized in the bar when she saw Susan's expression change to one of distress. “Susan, you all right? You look like you've just seen a ghost.”

“Over there,” Susan hissed. “He just came in. It's Charles Valentine.”

Chapter 11

S
usan's throat felt dry; it actually hurt to speak. She'd allowed herself to entertain how she'd react if she saw Charles tonight after such a long time, seeing it as a harmless fantasy rather than as a reality. She never really thought there was any chance that he might actually show up. . . .

Elyse's sharp whisper stopped Susan's reverie. “Susan! Stop staring at him!”

“He's sure to notice you soon enough,” Grace said. “Or some big-mouth who remembers what happened with him and Douglas—and this place is full of them tonight—is sure to fill him in, and he'll start looking for you.”

“All I need now is for Douglas to come waltzing in,” Susan lamented. “We can pick up right where we left off twenty-five years ago, only in a different place, and with a bigger audience.”

“I wouldn't worry about that,” Grace said. “Douglas is in jail.”

Susan's lower lip dropped.
“Again?”

“They got him on a DUI.”

“How'd you know, Grace?” Elyse asked.

“Pat's an ADA, remember? She told me they gave him a year.”

Susan didn't know what to say, but she had a mental picture of Ann Valentine's murderous expression when she looked at her this afternoon. Douglas ruined his life with his substance abuse. For Ann to blame her was so unfair. She'd paid a price, too. She'd had to give up Charles, whom she'd deeply loved, and head for an uncertain future, a future that took her years to find and now looked as dismal as the inside of a medicine cabinet.

Of the two brothers, Charles had actually been the better partner for her. When she was very young she thought she loved Douglas, but now she knew that that had been mere puppy love compared to her feelings for Charles. But she didn't see how they could possibly be happy together with the shadow of Douglas's anger hanging over them, plus the disapproval of their mother. Susan knew she'd made the right choice in refusing to marry Charles. Even her current unhappiness with Bruce didn't make her waver.

Elyse was asking a question. “All those legal troubles have to have a hefty price tag. Was Mrs. Valentine able to hold on to the house Douglas bought her?”

Douglas had bought his parents a modest home in Hyde Park after signing with the NBA. Many folks expressed surprise that he hadn't bought them a mansion up in Kenilworth or some other pricey suburb, but others understood that Douglas was on the lower end of the NBA pay scale.

“As far as I know she still lives in it. The rumor I heard was that he paid cash for it, so it had no mortgage.”

“I'm so nervous,” Susan said. “God. I wasn't this nervous when I went into labor with Quentin.”

Grace gave her a dubious stare. “Now,
that's
nervous. I was scared to death to give birth. Of course, it didn't help that I was just eighteen.”

“I think he knows you're here, Susan,” Elyse said. “It looks like he's looking for somebody.”

“Oh my God, here he comes.” Susan practically hyperventilated as she said the words. She felt mesmerized as she watched his tall frame come around the bar, losing him momentarily every few steps as he disappeared behind this group or that. At six two, Charles did not have the exceptionally tall height of his younger brother, but he did stand tall enough to allow her to wear heels when they went out together, so she didn't have to worry about towering over him. Susan's adult height of five feet ten put her head and shoulders above most women.

He rounded the corner, and she felt the years melt away. She hadn't laid eyes on Charles Valentine in nearly half a lifetime. Normally it would be a typical bittersweet reunion of two lives that under different circumstances might have been intertwined but instead went down different paths. But she was at a vulnerable stage in her life. Not only was she living with a disease that could kill her, but she'd been rejected by her own husband because of it at a time when she needed him the most. If she had any sense she would grab her purse and make a run for her car.
But I'm riding with Elyse, and my car is parked in her driveway up in Lake Forest. Running down Cottage Grove Avenue will only bring the police
.

In the end she just sat transfixed, watching him get closer and closer. Moisture returned to her mouth, and she stood to greet him. It turned out she had no need for words. He held out his arms, and she walked into them. For a few moments they simply stood, her palms pressing into his back and his arms encircling her shoulders, their cheeks pressed against each other, oblivious to the curious stares and arm poking of most of the patrons of the bar. Then they each took a step backward to look at each other.

“You look great,” he said. “I like you with your hair short.”

She self-consciously fingered the short curls. “Thanks.”

Charles turned his attention to the others at the table. “Looking good, Grace,” he said with the ease of someone who's seen a person in the not-too-distant past. His eyes settled on Elyse and registered surprise. “Elyse Hughes? Girl, is that you?”

Elyse stood up, and Susan tactfully stepped back to allow her to give Charles a quick hug. Charles beamed down at the five- feet-four Elyse. “It's good to see you again.”

“You, too.”

“Join us, Charles,” Grace suggested.

Because Susan had slid in the booth next to Elyse, Charles sat next to Grace. Grace felt that the way they sat benefited her. The four of them talked animatedly, and to anyone—specifically Eric Wade—who didn't know the past history and wasn't close enough to see the fondness in Charles's eyes when he looked at Susan, who sat across from him, he or she might think Charles had sat next to her because he was interested in her. The way she saw it, it could only help if Eric thought he had a little competition. She'd seen him chatting with Stacey Noe at the bar, and although her interest in Eric didn't extend beyond the carnal, it bothered her just the same.

A little while later when Eric sidled over to her while Charles and Susan were dancing, Grace suspected he'd been watching and waiting for Charles to get up. He asked her to dance.

She nodded acceptance, and at that moment she began to feel sweat form on her brow and between her breasts. Damn it, not another hot flash! She'd been noticing them for the past few months, and her gynecologist had told her she was perimenopausal, still getting regular periods but beginning to experience symptoms of the change. How was she supposed to get through ten minutes of dancing when she was sweating like a pig? Eric already knew she was older than he. She wanted to give an impression of youthful energy, not of a grandmother of two embarking on the change of life.

Oh, Lord. Were they actually playing “Got to Give It Up,” that marathon number recorded by Marvin Gaye in the late seventies? Even back then she had difficulty getting all the way through it. That deejay had to know this was an older crowd. What was he trying to do, give somebody a heart attack?

To her relief, the deejay mixed a short portion of the original version by Marvin with a newer, jazzier instrumental of the same tune, then rolled into Michael McDonald singing “Ain't No Mountain High Enough.” When he started mixing in another tune, she gestured to Eric that she was ready to sit down.

“Grace, would you like a drink?” Eric offered.

“Chardonnay would be nice, thanks.”

 

 

Elyse was beginning to feel like somewhat of a wallflower. Susan and Charles were dancing. Grace had gone off to the bar with someone who looked like a member of the large Wade family from Dreiser, and the sociable Pat still hadn't made her way to the table where Elyse now sat alone. She wished Pat would finally get over here so she wouldn't feel so self-conscious. How much could she possibly have to say to these people?

“Elyse, is that you?”

She looked up to see Kevin Nash smiling at her. “Kevin! How are you?”

“Fit as a fiddle and ready to dance.” He snapped his fingers and did some energetic steps. “Come on and dance with me, girl.”

She laughed as she got to her feet. She'd known Kevin since first grade. He didn't live in Dreiser—his family owned a home a few blocks away—but he lived in the same school district, and he and Elyse shared many of the same classes straight through to high school graduation. Kevin had never been the type to tease the girls or pull their hair. He was an all-around nice kid who, she remembered, used to have some difficulty with his studies. She was delighted to see him again. Happily she fell into step opposite him.

 

 

“Oh, I'm exhausted,” Susan said, fanning the neckline of her blouse. “Let's sit.”

Charles followed her back to the table, which, save for half-empty drinking glasses, was deserted. “I guess everybody's dancing,” she remarked as she slipped into the booth.

He sat beside her this time. “Good. It'll give us a chance to talk.”

She smiled at him, her heart racing. The years had been kind to Charles. He was just as handsome at fifty-one as he'd been in his midtwenties. She wondered what he thought of
her.
...

“It's good to see you, Susan,” he said quietly. “I'm glad you came.”

“It was a last-minute decision, but I'm glad I came, too. I would have felt terrible if I'd missed the opportunity to see you again. It's . . . it's been a long time, and we didn't part under the best of circumstances.”

“Ancient history,” he said easily.

“How is Douglas, anyway?”

“He's hopeless,” Charles said, as casually as if he were placing a lunch order. “He's broken my mother's heart. Back in jail again for the umpteenth time. It's his second damn home.” He shook his head. “When he's out it gets a little awkward around the house. I live in that basement apartment in my mother's house. She likes to have me close by, now that she's gotten older and my father's gone. And every time I say I'm going to move out when Douglas is there, he gets arrested again for some petty crime and is gone again.”

“That's unfortunate.”

“Yeah, well, enough about him. Tell me about you.”

“Well, I've been married for thirteen years, and I have two children, a boy and a girl.” Susan smiled at the thought of Quentin and Alyssa. “I brought them with me to the luncheon this afternoon, and Elyse's daughter is watching them up in Lake Forest while I'm here.”

“What about your husband?”

Did she imagine it, or was there a hopeful note in his tone, like he hoped she and Bruce had broken up? “He's at home, but I didn't feel like driving all the way back there to drop off the kids.”

“All the way there? Where do you live, out west?” The roads leading to the Chicago's west suburbs were traditionally jammed.

She decided to have a little fun with him. “Lake Shore Drive.”

“Lake Shore Drive? Life must be treating you extremely well, Susan, if you live on the Gold Coast. Wait a minute.” His eyes narrowed. “You're pullin' my leg. Lake Forest is farther north than Lake Shore Drive . . . a whole lot farther.”

“I live on Lake Shore Drive . . . in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin.”

“Oh. I don't know anything about that area, but I can understand why you didn't want to drive home and then come back to the South Side.” The corners of his eyes crinkled. “I guess your husband doesn't know about your great love before you met him, or else he wouldn't have let you come out alone.”

No point in saying he was wrong to describe himself as her great love; that's exactly what he'd been. “We never really did a lot of talking about our past love lives. We were mature people in our thirties when we met. There didn't seem to be much point.” She suspected Charles wanted to know how much time had elapsed between their breakup and her involvement with Bruce. She wanted him to know it had been quite a while, eight difficult years.

He seemed to accept her response. “Are you still an accountant?”

“No. My husband and I agreed that I would be a stay-at-home mother, at least until the kids were in middle school. So I haven't worked in about eleven years.”
Here I am, a flesh-and-blood desperate housewife
.

“Nice deal, if you can swing it. I guess your husband does pretty well. I've never been to Pleasant Prairie, but anything called Lake Shore Drive is probably the better section of town.”

“He owns a credit card–processing service up in Milwaukee.” But she didn't want to talk about Bruce. “What about you, Charles? Are you still teaching?”

“Yeah, and a little private tutoring on the side, trying to help these kids make something of themselves.”

“You aren't at our old school, are you?”

“No, I'm at Lincoln Park High. But the kids are just as wild. Sometimes I think I should have gone into the business world and made some big money instead of doing something as thankless as teaching.”

Susan guessed Charles felt a little inadequate because he clearly didn't earn as much as Bruce. She sought to console him. “I think teaching is one of the most important jobs there is.” A question suddenly occurred to her. “Charles, did you ever get married or have any kids?”

His gaze searched her face before breaking into a slow smile. “No. How could I? The only woman I ever wanted to marry left me.”