The One That Got Away (13 page)

They had a standing date for her to drive Ruby to the Thursday night ballroom dance at the Promise community center. Sometimes they had dinner beforehand, but Ruby had a date this week with a fellow who’d invited her to dinner before the dance.

Ruby cocked her head to the side, nearly knocking off the purple feather fascinator she wore.

“Oh, dear,” she said, putting a hand up to steady the tiny hat. “Guess I’d better add a few more bobby pins.”

She disappeared down the hallway and came back a minute later still fussing with her hat arrangement.

“I know what it is,” she said. “You’re falling in love.”

Ginger blinked at this news. “No I’m not,” she said too quickly.

Ruby offered her a sly look. “I’m old, but I’m not stupid, you know.”

“Well, you’re wrong.” She crossed her arms over her chest, glancing at the ancient cuckoo clock on the wall. “Don’t you have to meet your date at six? We should get going.”

“A lady’s always a few minutes late,” her neighbor said, one of her oft-recited maxims.

As she got closer, Ginger could smell the cloying scent of flowery cologne that Ruby had applied liberally.

“Well, you look spectacular,” she stated, hoping the topic of love would be dropped.

And Ruby did look amazing. She wore a beaded purple dress that swung dramatically about her legs and revealed her still-enviable décolletage. Her date was going to be floored.

But the very thought reminded Ginger of the way her own body had responded to Marcus’s touch. Years of therapy and a small army couldn’t have stopped her from falling into his arms.

They left the house, Ruby pausing to lock up, and crossed the yard to Ginger’s driveway, where her little white Prius sat waiting for them.

Once they were in the car, headed toward town, Ruby said, “So tell me what’s happened with your true love.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ginger lied.

“You’ve got that delicious hunk of a man over there living with you, the only man you’ve ever loved, and you show up on my doorstep today glowing like a lightbulb and expect me to believe nothing’s happened?”

“I told you I’m not in love with him anymore.”

“Of course you are. True love never dies, especially true love that’s never been consummated—or
has
it? Hmm?”

Ginger tried to stay annoyed, but she couldn’t fight eighty years of wisdom. She laughed. “You’re insufferable.”

They rounded a bend in the road and passed the sign for Rainbow Farm. She’d been meaning to get out to Soleil’s place for another visit, and made a mental note to take Izzy with her. She had a feeling the girl might even want to do a little volunteer work there now that she was used to getting her hands dirty.

“I imagine you finally stopped kidding yourself and took that gorgeous man to bed, didn’t you?”

Ruby was relentless.

Ginger pursed her lips, unsure how much to reveal. “Things…progressed last night.”

“Ah-ha! I knew it. You have the telltale glow.”

“There’s no such thing.”

“Of course there is. Oh, maybe it’s something about your posture or the lightness of your step or the way your face looks more relaxed— I don’t know. But I can see it.”

Ginger sighed. “It’s a disaster, though. I never should have let it happen.”

“You listen to your therapist too much. Tell me, does that woman have a happy love life?”

“I don’t know. We don’t talk about
her.
We talk about me.”

“I’ll bet you my fortune she doesn’t. You can intellectualize your life all you want, but until you stop thinking about it and start living it with your heart, you’ll never find out what’s possible for you.”

“Maybe I should be paying
you
to be my therapist,” Ginger teased.

Ruby laughed, clearly liking that idea. “My Teddy died a happy, happy man.”

“Have you ever thought about remarrying?” Ginger asked, deftly steering the conversation away from herself again.

“Oh sure, I’ve had offers. But I married young and never got to sow my wild oats, so I figure I ought to spend plenty of time doing that before I settle down again—if I ever do.”

Ginger smiled. “What do you mean, ‘if’?”

“Most of these old geezers my age are looking for a nursemaid. Someone to take care of them and cook their meals.”

“I see.”

“It’s hard to find anyone who can live up to the standard Teddy set for me. He was a rare find. I got lucky, and I don’t expect to get that lucky again.”

“You never know.”

“So how was it?”

“How was what?” Ginger asked as they arrived at the main intersection in town and waited for the red light to change.

Ruby snorted. “The sex. With Marcus.”

“Oh. Aren’t you being a bit nosy?”

“I’m living vicariously.”

“It was…great,” she said, keeping herself in check. No sense in gushing about something that she knew for absolute certain was a disaster, no matter how toe-curling and way better than her wildest fantasies it had been.

“For the sake of that poor little girl, I sure hope you two can come to your senses and stick together.”

Ginger had no comeback for that. Maybe in a perfect world, if she and Marcus could fall in love and stay together, they could all be a happy family. It wasn’t likely to happen until hell froze over, but didn’t Izzy deserve something that resembled a more perfect world after all she’d been through?

“How’s she doing?”

“Izzy? She’s okay, I guess. Not quite as volatile.”

“I saw her out there working with her dad. That was a good idea—whoever thought of it.”

“Marcus did. Yeah, I think it’s giving her something else to focus on, and she’s even starting to like it, now that she’s getting better at handling the tools.”

They pulled into the parking lot of the Trattoria Ginolina, where Ruby was scheduled to meet her latest beau.

“Thank you for the ride, my dear.”

“You’re welcome. Have fun.”

Ruby paused halfway out of the car, the feathers on her fascinator brushing against the roof. “Just think about that girl, is all. Think about what she needs.”

“She told me she wants to live with me.”

“Of course she does. You two are kindred spirits. You have the same hole in your heart.” Ruby reached out and patted Ginger’s hand, then climbed the rest of the way out of the car.

“Oh, are we still on for you to drive me to my doctor’s appointment tomorrow?”

“Absolutely,” Ginger said.

“Bye-bye!” Ruby called as she entered the restaurant.

Ginger waved and drove away, her mind spinning. She knew, of course, how much it would have meant to her to have had an intact family while growing up. The ache was so deep she still felt it. Granny Townsend, loving as she was, couldn’t replace what she’d lost.

And Ginger could never replace what Izzy had lost.

But she did know her pain. She knew it well.

And knowing it, she couldn’t ever add to it. She knew Ruby was right—she had to do whatever she could to help Izzy grow into a happy, secure person. Everything in her life had been leading her to that very purpose.

A week after she’d started working with her dad on the house, she was really getting into it. Sometimes she pretended she was one of those people on the reality TV shows, fixing up a house for some person who’d written in to ask the show for help.

She wiped her sweaty hands on the old jeans she’d bought with Ginger yesterday at the secondhand store, and went to the workbench to get her water bottle.

She and Marcus had spent the morning measuring and cutting wood, and now they were about to start demolition on the second window to be repaired—the one in Izzy’s room. At least, she’d come to think of it as her own.

She believed Ginger really did want her to stay. She could tell when adults were lying, and Ginger was definitely telling the truth.

But she didn’t know yet what Marcus thought about staying in Promise, and she was afraid to ask. Which was weird.

Izzy had never been afraid of asking questions. She’d been kind of famous at her old school for asking teachers questions that no one else would have dared to ask. Like “Mrs. Dupinski, why do you write the same comments on our papers, no matter what we say?” And “Mr. Floyd, do you really think no one knows you’re having an affair with the vice principal?”

That second one had gotten her detention for a week.

The late-morning sun was just starting to heat up, and already Izzy’s body ached from work. She was hot and tired, and she wore grungy clothes she wouldn’t have been caught dead in a week ago. Her hair, pulled back in a ponytail, hadn’t been washed yet today, and she wasn’t wearing a spot of makeup. Not even concealer, which she used to be terrified of leaving the house without.

Izzy smiled to herself. This was what the country life was doing to her. Turning her into a sweaty, un-stylish tomboy.

But the funny thing was, she felt better than she had for as long as she could remember. Maybe the last time she’d felt this good was when she’d been a little kid running around, getting dirty, not caring about anything but having fun.

Marcus came over and took off his work gloves, then grabbed his own thermos. “I’m hungry,” he said. “What do you say we take an early lunch break?”

“Sure,” Izzy said, shrugging.

She’d been pissed at Marcus for the first few days they’d worked together, but there was something about him that made it hard to stay mad.

He was nice. He wasn’t like a lot of adults, who talked to kids like they were just dumb kids. He talked to Izzy like she was an adult. And he was patient when she screwed things up. Which she did pretty often.

And he made her laugh. Like when Lulu kept getting under his feet yesterday. Instead of getting mad at the dog, he’d picked her up and put the work goggles on her, then acted like he was teaching her how to level a window frame. Then for the rest of the day, he kept acting like he was teaching the dog carpentry lessons, when it was really Izzy he was teaching.

They went inside now, and Izzy got all the sandwich ingredients she could find out of the fridge. This had become their lunch routine. They’d put everything on the table and see who could make the most creative sandwich. That was the cool thing about Marcus—he could even turn fixing lunch into a game.

“Where’s Ginger?” Izzy asked, wishing she was around to join them.

“She had to take Ruby to a doctor appointment in Santa Rosa. They’re supposed to be back this afternoon.”

“Oh.”

“Didn’t she ask if you wanted to go along and go shopping in town with her?”

“Uh-uh.”

“She said she was going to, but I complained about her taking my assistant away. I guess she figured you’d want to stay and work.” He flashed her a grin that said he knew she’d much rather have gone shopping.

Izzy rolled her eyes.

“Hey, I was wondering,” he said as he sat down at the table and started opening a jar of pickles. “Did your mom ever get married or have a serious relationship?”

Izzy watched him closely, wondering how he felt about that. When she was younger, she used to fantasize that her dad would reappear and marry her mom and they’d all live happily ever after.

“She didn’t get married, but she had boyfriends.”

“Did any of them ever live with you?”

“Yeah, Jay did. For a few years.”

“And then they broke up?”

“Then my mom got sick, and he didn’t want to stick around to watch her die.”

Marcus’s face went hard. “That’s pretty lousy.”

Izzy shrugged. She’d been kind of relieved to see him go. She used to have her mom all to herself before Jay moved in.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Did you get along with him?”

“I guess. He didn’t really pal around with me or tell me what to do.”

“He didn’t try to be a parent to you.”

“No.” Izzy busied herself slicing avocado for an avocado, cheese and veggie sandwich.

“Will you make one of those no-meat sandwiches for me, too?”

“With pickles?” she asked, since all his sandwiches contained pickles.

“You decide.”

She worked in silence for a minute. Then she said, “Why’d you ask about Jay?”

“I’ve been wondering if I’m one of a long string of guys who’ve come along and tried to be your dad.”

“But
you
are my dad. You don’t have to try, right?”

He shrugged. “It seems more like a right I should have to earn, don’t you think?”

“No,” she said without looking at him.

Something about this conversation was making her throat get all tight and her eyes burn. She didn’t want him auditioning for the role of dad in her life, because that meant he could decide not to show up for the tryouts. He could just vanish if he didn’t like the part. Like he’d already hinted he would.

“You think biology trumps performance?” he asked, his tone teasing now.

“I guess.”

“How about social studies?”

“What?”

“Sorry, bad joke. I can’t be on my game all the time. So what was this Jay guy like?”

“Are you sizing up your competition?”

“Absolutely.”

Izzy finished making the first sandwich—whole-wheat sourdough bread piled high with avocado, Monterey Jack cheese, sprouts, lettuce, tomato, pickles and mayonnaise. She put it on a plate and pushed it across the table to Marcus.

“Now that’s a work of art.”

He picked it up and took a bite, while Izzy started assembling her own sandwich.

“Jay looked pretty different from you. He was small and kind of nervous. But he was a musician. He played jazz guitar, and he went on the road a lot, and my mom kind of didn’t like that. They fought about it sometimes.”

“Was he nice to you?”

“Yeah, I guess. But I thought he needed to, I dunno. Grow up?”

“Why is that?”

“’Cause he was older than my mom and still trying to be a rock star, you know? He didn’t have a real job and didn’t want to get married and didn’t want to have kids, but just wanted to have fun.”

She glanced up and caught Marcus looking kind of weird. As if he didn’t like what she was saying, and then, in an instant, she knew why. Because Marcus was kind of like Jay.

Maybe her mom had liked a different type of guy than Izzy had thought—maybe she liked irresponsible guys who couldn’t grow up. Marcus didn’t want to get married or have kids or get a real job. He just wanted to run off and have fun, far as she could tell.

When she thought of it like that, she wanted to fling all the food off the table and break the dishes.

“How about your mom? Did she want to settle down and get married?”

“I guess. I don’t know. She talked like she didn’t, but she was always depressed after any of her boyfriends disappeared.”

“Do you understand that if I’d known about you, I would have been a part of your life?”

Izzy blinked at this, trying not to tear up.

“You mean you would have married my mom?” she said, once she could speak again.

“I don’t know about that. Your mom and I were young and fought a lot when we were together. I’m not sure how happy any of us would have been if we’d stayed together. But I definitely would have wanted to be a father to you.”

“From Amsterdam?”

“No, I mean, I guess I would have moved closer—”

“You
guess?
”

He sighed. “I can’t say what would have happened, but I’m here now, okay?”

“For the moment.”

She placed a piece of bread on top of her sandwich, but she no longer had an appetite. She thought about what her dad had said about leaving Promise, about returning her to Nina and her perfectly stylish house in San Francisco….

“That’s not what I meant.”

Izzy picked up a stray bean sprout from the table and pretended to be interested in it twirling it between her fingertips. Under the table, Lulu was hovering near her feet, waiting for her to drop something interesting. Sprouts didn’t count as interesting to the Chihuahua.

But Izzy was afraid to let Marcus speak to her. She didn’t want to make him say something she didn’t want to hear.

He bent down and came up with Lulu in one arm. He placed the dog on the table, amid all their sandwich fixings.

“Shh, don’t tell Ginger.”

“That’s gross. Her feet are dirty.”

“Oh, right,” he said, and scooped up the dog again, placing her on his lap. “Lulu, don’t you know to wash your paws before you come to the table?”

He picked up his napkin and wiped the dog’s front paws with it. Then he put her paws on the edge of the table as if she was waiting to eat.

“She doesn’t like vegetables much,” Izzy said.

“Oh? You haven’t trained her to be a vegetarian, too?”

Izzy rolled her eyes. “She’s a
carnivore.
”

Marcus raised one eyebrow. “Are you sure? She doesn’t look like she falls into the same category as a wolf or a lion.”

“I think Chihuahuas were bred to hunt, like, rats and mice and stuff.”

“Oh. I see. And you’re not opposed to that, as a vegetarian?”

He was teasing her again, and she was kind of relieved to have them talking about something not so serious.

“I’m not going to make my dog be a vegetarian, okay? That’s dumb.”

He tried unsuccessfully to get Lulu to eat a piece of lettuce. But she went for the slice of avocado he offered.

Marcus looked up at Izzy. “I only meant earlier that I wish I’d known you as a kid. I wish I could have watched you grow up to be the kid you are today. I’m sorry I missed all that.”

Izzy took a bite of her sandwich, because she didn’t know what to say. And she kept her eyes on her plate, because she was afraid if she looked at her dad, she’d start bawling like a baby.

What he’d said… It felt kind of like something she’d been waiting her whole life to hear, and she didn’t want to ruin the feeling by saying the wrong thing.