Trouble Won't Wait (18 page)

Rachel and I are cutting the treats and wrapping them in red and green plastic wrap when Ben and Mike disappear.

In a short time, Ben yells, “No! You can’t make her do that! Just leave her alone. You ruined it. This is your fault!”

Mike’s low voice rumbles, but I can’t make out what he’s saying, then Ben starts shouting again. “You don’t have
any
right. You’re not telling me what to do. I
hate
you!” Ben runs downstairs, and I rinse my hands. Time to go find out what the problem is.

On my way to ask Mike what’s up, I hear Rachel yelling down the stairs at Ben, “You ruin everything, you know that? Why do you hafta be such a jerk to him?”

From downstairs, “Shut up, little baby! You don’t know anything about anything. Just shut up and go play with your
dolls
.”

I find Mike glaring out our bedroom window. “What happened?” I’m calm and nonjudgmental. We’ve always presented a united front when it came to disciplining the kids. When we disagree, it’s behind closed doors, and they usually don’t know it happened at all. I think we’ve done a great job working as a team.

“I planned a trip, and he’s throwing a fit about it.” Mike still hasn’t turned to face me.

“What kind of trip?” Tremors of suspicion shake my calm.

“Snowmobiling up to the cabin for the week.”

“A week? Are you insane?” Now I’m just mad. Like I’m snowmobiling to the middle of nowhere with him!

Turning to face me, Mike puts his hands out, palms up.
Beseeching
. That’s the word for his posture. “So we could get away and put our family back together.”

I shove the bedroom door closed so we have more privacy. “This family is
not
getting put back together, Michael. We’ve got a Humpty Dumpty family. Remember, ‘All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men?’”

“You could at least try. I love you Mandy. I know you still love me. You told me so. Please give it a shot. You owe me that much, after thirteen years.”

I’m still trying to get my head around how we ended up back at the “I love you” scene, when my head snaps up at this crack about what I owe him. “
Owe you
? All debts are off when your dick enters some other woman, Michael. Null and void. All debts are
off
! Got it?”

“How ’bout just five days?”

“What, and miss our last session with Baldwin? Not for the world!”

“Sunday and Monday? Please, Mandy, I need you in my life so much. Maybe it’s this house. Could you forget about it if we moved? I’ll buy you any house you want, baby. Please.”

This guy just doesn’t get it. I back away, holding my fingers in a cross, like he’s a vampire.

“What are you doing?”

“Warding off the stupid, so I don’t catch it from you. You wanta talk to Ben, or should I?”

“I’ll ground him if he talks to me that way again.”

I sigh. “He shouldn’t talk that way, but he’s trying to protect me. He knows what you did, Michael. Wouldn’t you hate your dad for that, too?”

He sits on the bed and holds his head in his hands, nodding. “Just one night?” he asks.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Leaving the room, I jerk the door shut behind me.

I manage to convince Ben he still has to respect his dad and accept that he’s only human. We all make mistakes. Yadda, yadda. All the while, I’m thinking what a load of BS I’m feeding my own son.

Ben apologizes to his dad, though by his posture I can tell he’s still angry. Then he apologizes to Rachel, and invites her to a game on Playstation. We’re all still standing, if a little shaken after the minor quake today. How rough will the next one be?

* * * *

I’m in bed, waiting for Adam to answer his phone. It’s going to voice mail. That’s never happened before. Not to me, anyway.

I dial again and he answers, out of breath. “Sorry, I was trying to catch Rascal. He went in the garage earlier and I didn’t want him trapped out there all night.” He catches his breath then, “Hi, baby.”

I don’t like him calling me
baby
, but I won’t say anything. Maybe later.

“Hi, yourself.” I can hear Rascal meowing and then Adam yelping at him to get off. “Do you wish I never got you the cat now?”

“No, not yet. How’s your night?”

I tell him what Mike tried to plan. “He wanted the kids to help him pack and trick me out of here, but Ben pitched an enormous fit and stopped him in his tracks.”

“Ben sounds like my kinda guy.”

“You guys will get along great. Tell me something about you, like where you went to college.”

He balks at this, and I remind him I can easily find this out on the internet. At last, he fesses up to Harvard. Good grief, he must have been an incredible student to get a scholarship there!

He asks, “Did you call Art at the publishing house?”

“Not yet. Are you proud of me for stopping Mike in his tracks on the snowmobile trip?”

“Yeah. Do you like that kind of thing? Snowmobiling, camping?”

“I like most anything, with the right person. But yeah, we’ve had some fun times up there in the winter. You?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

I can hear him scribbling on paper.

“What are you doing?”

“Making notes for, uh, work.”

“You look good in a suit.”

Whatever he’s doing, tapping the keyboard of his laptop, he’s obviously busy, because he’s not even replying.

After what feels like minutes, I give up. “Okay, I’m gonna turn in now. Goodnight.”

I get a distracted “’Night” for an answer. It’s odd for him to be so preoccupied when we’re talking. Oh well, he must have a reason.

I’ve all but hit the End button when I hear him yell, “Wait!”

“What?”

“Don’t go, I’m sorry. I just had to finish that. You liked my suit?” His voice is eager now, all ready to talk.

I smile because my compliment finally registered. “The suit’s nice, but mostly I like
you
in it.”

“I’ll wear it anytime, if I can have lunch with you. Or dinner, or breakfast in bed…”

“Speaking of bed…” I don the phone sex voice.

“I don’t think we’ll do that tonight. It’s drivin’ you crazy, since you won’t participate.”

“I
like
doing that with you.”

“It’s okay. I’ll wait ’til next week now.”

“I guess after two years, a week is nothing, huh? Why has it been that long?”

He’s silent at the other end.

“Adam?”

Still silent.

“Never mind, I didn’t mean to pry. Are you still there?”

A very rough, “Yeah.” Something has him all choked up. Some chick must have broken his heart but good. Was it Laura?

I’m dying to ask, but won’t risk upsetting him again. Instead, I’ll try to cheer him. “Hey, you know the definition of a transvestite? A man who likes to eat, drink, and be Mary.” I hear him chuckle, followed by a very small sniff I’m sure he didn’t intend me to hear. “Ben told me that earlier. You know where the quietest place in the world is? The complaint department of a parachute packing plant.”

“Ready to go to sleep, Leno?”

“Yeah. Sorry I upset you.”

“It’s all right. Goodnight, Sloane.”

“’Night, Ferris.”

Chapter 11

Last day of school until the new year. When my kids return to school, their parents won’t have the same emergency contact numbers. This is what goes through my head after getting Rachel to school with all the treats and gifts for her class party.

Today I’m taking Aunt Clara to lunch. I finagled the date with her by promising to send Ben, Jake and Rachel over tomorrow to help her build a stage set for some talent contest on New Year’s Eve. The kids adore her, so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Aunt Clara loves Subway. The sheer novelty of having such a selection of toppings is mind-boggling to a person who lived through the Great Depression and spent the first thirty years of her life without a refrigerator. It’s only eleven AM when we walk through the front door of the restaurant. We lunch early for two reasons: because the lady is up before the roosters–ready for lunch by about ten thirty–and because she’ll take somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-five minutes to have her sandwich built, and all employees on site will be involved before she’s done. Since I always bring her before the lunch rush, she doesn’t understand that only one person usually builds each sub.

Having sent the sandwich back down the prep table countless times to add vegetables and cheeses she forgot, Clara finally decides her bread is satisfactorily loaded. She has her footlong cut in fourths, which I know she’ll finish off by tomorrow morning.

After I’ve filled both our drinks and I’m sitting across from her unwrapping my sandwich, she announces, “You look happier than a robin in a wormpatch. You’re not takin’ visits from the one-eyed snake, are ya?”

“
No!
” I laugh. “Eat your sandwich.” I knew she’d be able to tell something was up.

She eats few dainty bites of her sub. “Spit it out, child. Did ya find a cure for saggin’ breasts? Cut me in for half, and mum’s the word.”

“Aunt Clara, do you think it’s possible to fall in love with a man at the same time that another one is breaking your heart?”

“’Course,” she answers, like I’m silly. “If the dog’s runnin’ out the back door, company can still come in the front, can’t they?” That’s all she has to say, so she starts crunching her Cheetos.

“And would you think it’s wrong to let that happen, if you’re still married?”

“We can’t help who we love, child. Same as we can’t choose our family.” More romantic than I’d have expected. And…wow.

This truth resonates to the core of my beliefs, leaving my spirit humming with joy. I’m not the bad person I’ve been fearing I am.

“If the Lord sent somebody to you already, He must’ve had his reasons.” Wow again–she seldom talks about God, either.

“I love you, Aunt Clara.” And I do. The way she words things always puts life in perspective.

She bats that away. “Eat, child, before the north wind blows you away.”

I’m biting into my sandwich when a group of guys enters, talking and laughing. One of them is Adam, wearing a black GasKo baseball cap. As if he can hear my thundering heart, he turns and looks right at me. Maybe he saw the Durango outside and knew I was here. He winks, and I feel my smile growing wider than my sandwich is long.

Aunt Clara has noticed my love-struck look, and turns to take in Adam, who is now ignoring the conversation around him. “Good choice, Amanda. That one even gets the blood pumpin’ through plumbin’ as old as mine.”

Adam has a question in his eyes, and I answer it by waving him over. He nods and gets in line for his sandwich.

“You won’t mind if he eats with us?” Well that was rude of me. I guess I should have asked her before, instead of letting my hormones usurp my manners.

“Not as long as I get to sit by him!”

I laugh, and Clara tells me all about the talent contest at the senior center. She’s planning to play
Auld Lang Syne
on a duck-call.

I mumble how I think it will be great, and she cackles. “I’m just pullin’ your leg, and you fell for it cause your head’s so high in the clouds right now, you don’t know if your feet are in Colorada”–Our state ends with an ‘ah’ sound to all the old-timers–“or in Kintucky.”

She couldn’t be more right.

Adam comes over, and I indicate with a tip of my head for him to sit by Aunt Clara.

“Adam, this is Aunt Clara. Sorry, this is Clara. Clara, Adam.”

They shake hands. Then he kisses her knuckles, which she loves, but she acts like he’s silly.

Adam winks at me and tells Clara, “Mandy never told me she had an aunt who was prettier than she is. Must be genetic.”

Clara gets a good laugh in before she tells him, “You’re just full o’ monkey shine. I’m not Amanda’s aunt, I’m Michael’s.”

Adam’s eyes get big.

Better explain. “I grew up near Aunt Clara, so she’s more mine than his.”

Still, he remains sitting a little straighter than normal.

The group of guys he came in with sits at the table behind me, coughing loudly and saying behind their hands what a rude cuss that Mr. Kraft is, not introducing them to us.

Adam shakes his head. “Guys, this is Mandy, and Clara. Mandy and Clara, these are some of the boneheads I work with. Rick, Justin and Dave.”

While they unwrap sandwiches, they quietly argue about how he knows me, and one of them sounds disappointed I’m wearing a wedding ring.

Not for long, amigo.

That song from the Christmas party,
You Look So Good in Love
, comes on the dining room speakers. I’ve always loved this song, but it reminds me of being in Mike’s arms, and how much I wanted to be there that night. What a shitty time to be thinking of him and my broken marriage! I excuse myself to use the restroom while Adam flirts with Aunt Clara, but I feel her beady eyes on me until I get around the corner. I manage to compose myself before actual tears happen, dawdling long enough for that song to be over.