Turnabout's Fair Play (18 page)

Jamie set down the last corner of sandwich and reached for his glass, but regret and resentment clogged his throat.

“Your father was a good man. But you don’t remember what it was like to live with him as well as I do. He was a hard man to please, and he was almost never pleased with you. Do you realize that you start stammering again whenever you talk about him?” Mom’s frown eased a bit. “Your grandmother warned me when I married your father that he had developed some strange notions of a man’s place and a woman’s place. Maureen said he hadn’t been like that before he went to Vietnam, and that’s not how he was raised. But Jamie, your father was wrong. He was wrong to pressure you to change; he was wrong not to accept who you were and let you do the things that interested you instead of what interested him.”

She pressed her lips together for a moment, and her eyes turned glassy with unshed tears. “I bought you the knights- and castle-modeling kit you wanted for your birthday. Your father refused to let me give it to you, and he returned it to the store and came home with the workout set.”

Jamie breathed slowly through his nose and tightened the muscles in his face, swallowing hard and blinking against the tears burning his eyes. “Why d–didn’t you ever t–tell me?”

“Because the last thing I ever said to your father was that I wanted a divorce.” Mom’s chin quivered, and she wiped her nose with her napkin. “While you were in the living room with Danny and your other friends playing, I was in the kitchen telling my husband that I thought he was a horrible father and I wanted out—and I wanted to take you with me. And fifteen minutes later, he was dead.”

Turning toward the window, Jamie held his breath against the remorse trying to erupt. “I always thought it was my fault. Because I never lived up to his expectations. Because he saw in my face how disappointed I was with that last gift.” He sniffled, let out his breath, and turned to face his mother. “And I knew you blamed me for killing him, and that’s why you left.”

They really shouldn’t be doing this in public. Mom’s face twisted up in her effort to keep from crying. “No, Jamie. No. I never blamed you. I blamed myself. And every time I saw you, it was a reminder of what I’d done, what I’d said. I took your father away from you. And the way you acted toward me, as if you couldn’t stand to look at me, I thought you knew. I thought you blamed me for your father’s death. And I couldn’t ruin a boy’s memory of his father like that. So I left. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Jaw jutted forward and teeth clenched, Jamie reached across the table and took his mom’s hands in his. He blinked, and two tears escaped and tracked down his cheeks. “We should have had this conversation a long time ago.”

Mom chuckled through her sniffles. “We should have. I’m sorry. For everything.”

“I’m sorry, too.” He lifted her left hand and kissed the back of it, then sat back and wiped his eyes by rubbing them against the short sleeve of his T-shirt.

Mom pulled a compact out of her purse and dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her napkin. “So …” She gave her head a little shake and dialed up her megawatt smile. “As I was saying, what do you think you’re going to do now?”

“I’m thinking about…you know how much I’ve always enjoyed going to the senior center with Cookie and helping out with the old folks?” He picked up his spoon and hovered it over the soup cup.

“Yes—you were always very good with both older people and little kids.”

“I’m thinking I might want to do something with that. I’m thinking…about maybe going back to school for a nursing degree.” Stirring the soup, he watched his mother’s face for a reaction.

Her response was to smile even more broadly. “I think that would be wonderful. I’ve always seen you as someone in a more helping-oriented job.”

Relieved, he put the spoon down and dipped the sandwich into the soup. “You don’t think it’s not manly enough?” He waggled his eyebrows to cover his self-consciousness.

“Sweetheart, following where God leads is the manliest thing you can ever do. Is this what you’ve been praying about? Nursing school?”

Shrugging, he took a bite and dunked the last remaining crust of bread in the little puddle in the bottom of the soup cup. “I guess so. Not specifically. I’ve just been sort of praying for God to show me what to do, and I keep thinking about nursing. Did you know Danny went back to school two years after we graduated from college and is a nurse now?”

“I know. He and Chae send us a Christmas card every year, and I occasionally exchange e-mails with him. But I didn’t think you two had talked in a while.” Mom picked up the receipt from the table. “Ready to go?”

He downed the last of his juice and slid out of the booth seat. “Ready.” He followed her to the cashier stand and waited while she paid. After so many years on his own, it felt weird to let his mother pick up his lunch tab. But after a few meals out since arriving, he’d learned better than to argue.

“I guess you’ve talked about all this with Danny?”

Jamie held the door open for her, pulling his sunglasses down from the top of his head against the white-hot glare of the afternoon sun. “Some of it.”

“You have the perfect opportunity to talk to someone who’s made that choice. See if you can set up a time to shadow Danny at work. See if he’ll introduce you to some of his teachers so you can talk to them.”

Since she used the remote to unlock the doors of her luxury SUV, Jamie opened her door for her. “I’ll do that.”

Once she was in, he went around and climbed up into the passenger’s seat.

“You know, there’s something we haven’t talked about at all since you’ve been here. And you’re leaving tomorrow, so I’m not going to get another opportunity to ask.” The vehicle beeped and lurched when Mom stomped the brake to keep from backing up into the car parked behind her.

Jamie released the overhead safety handle and finished fastening his seat belt as she put the SUV in D
RIVE
and headed out onto South State Street. “What’s that?”

“Are you seeing anyone? Girlfriend? Possible girlfriend?” Tongue stuck between her teeth, she grinned at him. “A mother needs to know, dear.”

An image of Flannery—not in the stunning black dress at the reception but in the sweater and jeans at the airport—popped into his mind.

“You’re taking way too long to answer. There is someone, isn’t there?”

“I…don’t know. There’s a woman I like—but every time I see her, I act like the biggest idiot in the world. I can’t think straight when I’m around her. That hasn’t happened to me since high school.” Propping his elbow on the windowsill, he stared at the mountains in the distance.

“But you like her? You think she might be girlfriend material?”

He groaned. “I don’t know. She’s beautiful and smart. Tall. Blond …”

“What does she do?”

“She’s an editor for a book publisher in Nashville. She’s the one I was supposed to be with at the meeting on Thursday morning that got me kicked out of my job early.” He leaned his head against the window. “I saw her at the airport that afternoon. It was kind of strange.”

“Strange how?” Mom looked at him as she pulled to a stop at a light.

“She approached me. Asked to join me at the coffee shop. Always before, she’s tried to avoid me—and I don’t blame her. I can’t seem to control what comes out of my mouth whenever she’s in front of me. But we had a real conversation. And I didn’t say anything stupid…until she asked what I’d been doing on the computer and I told her the truth.”

Mom whipped her head around so fast her hair slapped against the seat’s headrest. “What
were
you doing on the computer?”

He laughed at her aghast expression. “Nothing bad. I’d been about to log on to one of my King Arthur websites and read some fan fiction. That’s what I told her. I had to explain what it was, and I think it freaked her out a little bit.”

“Oh…well.” She turned her attention back to the road. “What did she say to that?”

“Nothing—they called her flight for boarding, and she left. But I couldn’t misread the expression on her face. I might as well have had
dork
tattooed across my forehead.”

Mom reached across and tweaked his ear. “But you’re such a cute dork. Maybe she’s seeing the potential there.”

He playfully swatted her hand away. “Right.”

For the next few minutes, he let her concentrate on merging the giant vehicle into the quick-moving and heavy traffic on the interstate as she took them back toward the fabulous house in the foothills they’d recently finished building. Though he was slightly envious of its expansive luxury, his joy at seeing his mother so well taken care of far outweighed any jealousy he could feel.

“Jamie?”

“Yeah?”

“You know I’ll support you in anything you want to do, right?”

Turning slightly in the seat, he studied her profile. Still a beautiful woman after all these years and everything she’d been through. “I know, Mom.”

“And Don will, too. In fact”—she took a deep breath, glanced at him, and then returned her gaze to the road—“he asked me to tell you that if you want to move out here, he will make a job opening for you, and you can stay with us until you’re ready to move on.”

That catch in his throat came back. How had he never realized how fantastic his mom and stepdad—no, his
parents
—were?

“Work for a chain of high-end hair salons or go to nursing school? Hmm …” He tapped his index finger against his chin. But he couldn’t joke away her offer. “Thanks, Mom. And I’ll talk to Don when he gets home this evening. I’m glad to know I have a safety net if I need it.”

But now figuring out if nursing school was the right direction or if he should pursue something else became even more important. Because with as much as he’d come to appreciate his immediate family over the past week, he couldn’t imagine leaving Nashville.

Beauty parlors or nursing school. He could almost hear his father turning over in his grave.

Chapter 13

T
hat’s the plaza in Old Mesilla. At Christmastime they line all the buildings and sidewalks and the gazebo there in the middle with luminarias. That was one of the first dates Bobby and I had—we met at La Posta for dinner and then walked through the plaza after they’d lit all the candles. Obviously it looks a lot different in broad daylight in summer, but …” Zarah flipped to the next picture on the tablet computer she’d bought for Bobby as a wedding gift.

Flannery had a feeling that if Bobby ever wanted to use the device, he was going to have to buy Zarah one of her own. If she hadn’t known she’d have a ton of work to do while in Chicago, she would have left her laptop at home and taken only her tablet with her. As it turned out, having both devices with her came in handy, as the tablet was a lot easier to carry around the warehouses and printing press areas of the vendors she’d visited—as well as being an unobtrusive way to take notes during the fifteen-minute appointments she’d had with wannabe authors for each of the three days she’d been at the conference. A few of the writers’ pitches had intrigued her. She needed to remember to let Brittany know that there might be some manuscripts coming in that they’d need one of their readers to take.

She pulled out her phone—under the table—and sent a quick message to her assistant to get on that tomorrow. Then, stifling a yawn, she holstered the phone and leaned in toward Caylor to look at the pictures of the resort where Zarah and Bobby had spent the last part of their honeymoon.

“I know—this is more interesting to me than to you.” Anyone else would have said it in a sarcastic tone. Not Zarah. She actually meant it.

Guilt plagued Flannery. “I’m so sorry. I love the pictures—it’s making me rethink my decision not to go to teach at the writers’ conference at Glorieta this fall. I’m not bored—I just didn’t have a chance to get the nap I’d hoped for this morning, especially after never going to bed last night.”

“Big party at the conference?” Caylor’s blue-green eyes glimmered with the knowledge of having attended many writers’ conferences herself.

“No, just hanging out with a few of my authors and some other editors and agents. You know how it is…once we get to talking, it’s hard to stop. Especially when we all think we’ll be able to catch up on sleep the next day.” She yawned again, clapping both hands over her mouth. “Sorry—I’m going to get another Monkey Mocha. Don’t look at any of the rest of the pictures without me.”

She wended through the closely spaced tables—each packed with the twenty- and thirtysomethings who called the 12 South area of Nashville home and treated the Frothy Monkey coffeehouse like their living room—and approached the counter. The hippy-looking guy staring at the menu board didn’t seem to be making up his mind anytime soon, so Flannery ducked in front of him.

A few minutes later, stifling another yawn, she sipped the cocoa-and-banana-flavored, espresso-heavy drink and made her way back to the table.

It didn’t take long for Zarah to get through the rest of the pictures—of Albuquerque and Santa Fe and the mountains where they’d gone hiking. And Bobby seemed to have had no qualms about asking others to take pictures of them, as at least half of the photos featured both of them.