Stuck in the Middle (8 page)

His furniture deal settled and delivery arrangements made, he stepped outside into the hot sunshine. As he walked toward his car, he shook his head. He must have been wrong about her. The last thing he wanted was to get involved with a jealous woman.

Joan stood behind the counter, Ken’s application in her hand. She watched him get into his car, close the door, and pull out of the parking lot.

He liked Tori.

The knowledge burned in her stomach like she had swallowed a lemon. Why was she surprised? Of course he liked Tori. Everyone did. She was everything he admired, like he said. Fun and pretty and smart and . . .

Her throat tightened. Who would choose Plain-Jane-Joan over Perky-Pretty-Tori?

Nobody, that’s who.

~ 6 ~

Joan closed the car door and walked across the driveway toward the front porch, her step slow. The morning might have started out dead, but the afternoon brought a steady stream of customers that kept her and Rosa running. She rejected the thought that Ken’s huge sale, the first of the day, had brought her good luck.

She glanced at his empty driveway. What sort of shift did he work? He seemed to always be gone whenever she was at home. She could ask Mom . . .

Not a good idea. Knowing Mom, she’d feel the need to drop a few hints like Gram had. Besides, he was a nice guy, but he was interested in Tori, not her.

She pushed the front door open, stepped inside onto the landing, and inhaled. Supper smelled heavenly. Gram said this morning she planned to make lasagna, and Joan detected the spicy odor of tomato sauce. Her stomach gave an expectant rumble.

“Gram, I’m home.”

From the direction of the kitchen, she heard a soft sob. Her heart stuttered. “Gram?”

Joan threw her purse to the floor and dashed through the living room. She catapulted through the doorway and stopped.

The oven door stood open, and heat poured into the room. A mound of browned mozzarella and long ribbons of pasta formed an untidy lump in the center of the tiled floor, midway between the oven and the counter. Splatters of thick tomato sauce covered the floor and cabinets, and left a red trail where chunks slid down the lower half of the refrigerator. In the middle of the mess sat Gram, surrounded by shards of glass and the splattered remains of supper. Hands resting motionless in her lap, shoulders wilted, her chin trembled as she surveyed the wreckage.

Joan’s pulse thumped in her ears. “Are you alright?” With an effort, she kept her tone even. “Are you hurt?”

Her grandmother drew a shuddering breath, and then raised a tear-streaked face to Joan. “I dropped it. I was taking it out of the oven like I’ve done a thousand times, and I dropped it.” A sob broke her voice, and she lowered her head to cover her face with her hands.

Joan’s heart twisted at the misery in Gram’s voice. She stepped across the room, careful to avoid the worst of the mess, and pushed back a shard of glass before dropping to her knees beside her grandmother. Placing an arm around the shuddering shoulders, she pressed her cheek against Gram’s wrinkled one.

“As long as you’re okay, it’s not a big deal. People drop things all the time.”

“Not me.” The old woman peeked between her fingers at the mess and sobbed. “I couldn’t hold on to it. It wasn’t that heavy. But it slipped right out of my hands.”

Joan squeezed her shoulders. “Is your arthritis bothering you today?”

Gram lowered her hands and held them before her. She turned them over, studying them as though they belonged to someone else. Joan looked at the wrinkles, the dark purplish age spots, the swollen knuckles. They were the hands of an old woman, not as strong as they had once been.

“All that food wasted.” Gram shook her head, her expression tortured. “Children starving in Africa and look what I’ve done. I’m old and useless.”

“It was an accident.” Joan took Gram’s hand in one of hers and pressed gently. “It could have happened to anybody.”

Gram speared Joan with a mournful blue gaze. “I promised Carla lasagna when she got off work.”

Joan got to her feet and bent to assist Gram. “Then we’ll make another one. She won’t be home before morning, so we’ve got all night.”

Doubt clouded Gram’s features as she struggled to stand. Joan forced a confident smile to her face. “Come on. Let’s get this cleaned up, and then I’ll take you out for a hamburger and a milkshake before we go to the grocery store.”

Joan retrieved a plastic garbage bag from beneath the sink and knelt to scoop the mess into it, keeping a furtive eye on Gram. She moved slowly, picking up shards of the broken baking dish with care and placing them one at a time in the trashcan. Her hands trembled. She looked older tonight than she had this morning. Sick fear settled over Joan. Should she talk to Mom about this incident? She shied away from the idea. No reason to act like this was a big deal.

Gram disposed of the last big chunk of glass and turned a worried face toward Joan. Tomato sauce splattered her blouse and skirt and also a streak of white hair.

Joan lifted a tender smile toward her. “Why don’t you go get cleaned up? I’ll take care of this.”

She gave a single nod and disappeared down the hallway. Joan listened to the shuffle of her shoes on the carpet, and the soft click of her bedroom door.

Uncertainty clenched her throat. What if she was wrong? What if Gram really was too old and frail to be home alone?

She shook her head to clear it. No. If Gram had Alzheimer’s or dementia, Joan would be the first to admit that she needed to be someplace where people would look after her 24/7. But she didn’t. Her grandmother was perfectly rational and capable of taking care of herself. She was just getting on in years, that’s all. She’d spent a lifetime caring for others and had earned the right to grow old gracefully in her own home.

If Joan had to stand up against Mom and Allie and her entire family to protect that right, she would do it.

For the fifth time in as many minutes, Joan rolled over in bed and wiggled on the mattress to find a comfortable position. Fatigue dragged at her limbs, but her mind refused to release her to sleep. Counting didn’t work, though she had paraded entire herds of sheep and cows and a bunch of other barnyard animals across the dark stage inside her eyelids. She’d tried every relaxation technique she knew, to no avail. She even tried reciting “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” in her mind. When she was in school and had to memorize Coleridge’s entire work, that never failed to put her to sleep. But now she only managed to get as far as “The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared.” There were a bunch of verses between the harbour and the albatross, but she couldn’t remember how to get there.

The clock’s face glowed 2:47 in vile red numbers. With a disgusted jerk, she tore the sheet away and got out of bed. The only thing the poem had done was make her thirsty with thoughts of “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”

She padded up the stairs, the thick carpet cushioning any sound her bare feet might have made. A seashell nightlight illuminated the kitchen with a dim yellow glow. The overhead light might wake Gram, so Joan left it off. She opened the cabinet and scanned the contents for her favorite mug. The collection had grown over a lifetime, a mishmash of sizes and colors. Some bore slogans, like “World’s Greatest Mother,” and some came from the conferences Grandpa used to attend. Everyone in the family had their favorite. Joan moved Mom’s blue mug out of the way and pulled out the one with a flock of dancing pink flamingos in polka- dot swimsuits. She filled it from the faucet and, standing by the counter, sipped at her water.

No wonder she couldn’t sleep. This had been a difficult day, and not just because of Gram’s lasagna episode. Rosa was in a bad mood after her fight with Luis, so Joan felt like she had to tiptoe all day or risk setting her off on a tirade. And then they had a couple of customers who were poor credit risks. As the manager on duty, the responsibility of delivering the bad news that they didn’t qualify fell on Joan. She hated that, hated seeing the embarrassment and disappointment in their eyes. They didn’t often turn people away at Abernathy’s, so two in a single day was hard.

Joan gulped a mouthful of water. And then there was Ken’s visit. She reached into the cabinet to reposition a coffee mug, trying not to remember the harsh disappointment that gripped her like a fist when he talked about Tori. Of course she wasn’t surprised at his choice. And she would never in a million years let on that she thought anything more of him than a friendly neighbor with a dog. But here, all alone in the dark kitchen, she wouldn’t lie to herself. For a little while, like half a day, she actually thought Ken might be the guy to fill the empty place in her life that Roger left.

“Well, that’s not going to happen, so I need to get over it.”

Somehow the sound of her own voice speaking the words that had whirled through her brain a million times in the hours since she went to bed brought a sense of relief. She stacked the blue mug neatly on top of another one. Okay, so she was attracted to the guy. Who wouldn’t be? He was gorgeous, smart, with a good sense of humor. But he liked her sister better than he liked her. It wasn’t the end of the world. Her attraction would fade eventually. She could handle Ken as a brother-in-law. And having a doctor in the family would be great. She turned a stoneware mug so its handle faced sideways. Hopefully she could find a decent-looking guy to take her to the wedding so she didn’t look like the spinster sister.

Joan laughed at herself as she emptied her mug and set it in the sink. Look at the path her thoughts had traveled. Tori and Ken had just met. They’d barely spoken to each other, and here she stood, planning their wedding.

Besides, who was she kidding? She didn’t want a brotherin-law she was attracted to. That was just wrong. She wanted Tori to find a nice guy, sure, but somebody brotherly. Like Eric.

And, however unlikely it was to happen, she wanted Ken for herself.

She turned away from the sink, reaching to close the cabinet door as she did so. Her hand froze. The mugs lined the shelves in neat rows, arranged by color, their handles pointing the same way at exactly the same angle in military-like precision.

Stunned by the realization of what she had done, Joan couldn’t make her feet move. She had stood here in the middle of the night and organized the mug cabinet. And the worst part was that it felt
good
, like she had accomplished something worthwhile
.
She’d be able to sleep now.

Standing in the dimly lit kitchen, a deep horror stole over her. Gram’s kooky organizing quirk was hereditary!

“Dr. Fletcher, you’ve got a customer.”

Ken swiveled the desk chair toward the nurse standing in the doorway. “Thanks, Debbie.”

She slid a thin folder across the desk and disappeared. Ken rubbed his eyes. Bad enough to work the midnight shift, but sitting in this closet-sized office while he filled out endless reports on the computer was enough to lull anyone to sleep. Good thing he wasn’t claustrophobic.

He opened the folder. A ten-year-old male with a laceration on the bottom of his left foot. Immunizations up-to-date, compliments of the health department. Vitals all good. Weight a little light for his height, but in the acceptable range. The responsible party was his mother. Ken closed the folder and left the office. He walked past the row of empty hospital beds to the one across from the nurses’ station. The curtain had been pulled closed for privacy. He took a breath and arranged his features into a pleasant expression before stepping through the curtain.