Unnatural Calamities (2 page)

Silence.

“Well?”

Silence. Was Rachel finally turning into a sulky teenager? Janey had been waiting for this moment for years. She held her breath.

Silence.

“Rachel Carmody. I am
talking
to you.”

“Oh, whoops. Hi. Sorry, I put the phone down for a second ’cause Mr. Dunham was talking to me. He said he’ll give me a ride home. We’ll be leaving in about five minutes. Will that be okay?”

Janey sighed with relief. “Yes. Great. See you soon.”

But really, on the other hand, what was America’s youth coming to? Fourteen years old and her niece barely managed a decent whine, much less all-out rebellion. Janey and her sister, Penny, had turned into teenagers soon after they hit double digits. Ten-year-olds with attitude. Twenty years later, Penny still had the ’tude.

Janey chopped up an onion and dumped it into a pan. Of course, Rachel’s clean, wholesome life was probably her form of rebellion. Poor Rachel had to grow up fast with Penny as a mother.

Janey herself had only faced the entire grown-up scene when Rachel needed her, usually on weekends when Rachel stayed in her apartment while Penny partied. Then, after Penny was busted last spring, Janey faced even bigger changes. Like moving to this stultifyingly dull, way-too-wealthy suburb of Penny’s.

No, no, Janey had to give Penny credit for renting the semi-converted apartment over the garage. Even self-absorbed, spacey Penny must have figured out West Farmbrook was the best way to get her daughter the education she deserved. Public schools in West Farmbrook were more hoity toity than private schools in the real world.

But God almighty, let Janey count the ways she hated West Farmbrook as a place to live. She counted as she dismembered the green pepper.

Thump
. One.
Thump
. The thin, chic mothers who stood in closed little circles at the one and only PTA meeting she’d gone to, and gave her the weirdest looks.

Two.
Thump, thump, thump.
The tennis club.

Three.
Thump, thump.
She grabbed another pepper and continued her list. The lack of any kind of life outside the PTA, the soccer team, the lacrosse team and the swim team.

Four.
Thump, thump.
The commute to reach any kind of life other than the PTA, soccer, etc. A half-hour drive, no buses, of course, to any of Janey’s friends and her various jobs and even a decent movie in the center of the city. No sidewalks.
Thump, thump.

She tossed the peppers into the pan and began to clean up. Libra-girl time—rants had to be followed by a counter-balancing “the place could be worse” viewpoint.

The great schools.
Right, did that already.
And at least Margaret Hamilton, a talkative stay-at-home parent of another nerdy girl, was friendly. She provided some companionship and gossip and even better, had an older daughter, a college student, who loved to babysit on the nights Janey worked.

A car door slammed. Then another car door. Oh damn—no,
darn
and blast the child, she was not alone.

Janey rubbed her hands on the stainless steel sink. Someone had told her that got rid of the stench of garlic. She didn’t exactly feel like a toad the few times she met up with the fabulous Cynthia, but she didn’t feel she came across as the right kind of grown-up. The slight narrowing of the well-groomed Cynthia’s blue eyes made Janey wish she had better posture or wore designer clothing or didn’t cut her own hair. Rachel had said that Cynthia’s mother had been a model or something. And Cynthia’s father sounded even worse.

“He has buckets of money and is a mover and shaker of massive proportions,” Rachel had solemnly told her.

“Sounds like a sumo wrestler.” Janey had snickered, which had somehow offended Rachel.

Janey had deftly changed the subject of the two near-perfect Dunham households by asking, “So what do you guess a dance called The Mover and Shaker should look like?”

The two of them had ended up boogeying, moving and shaking, around the tiny kitchen. Give Rachel a chance to sing or dance and she tended to forget everything else.

The door flew open. Rachel and Cynthia thumped into the small apartment shrieking with laughter, as usual. They skittered down the hall to Rachel’s room.

“Hey, you puny, lily-livered, young rapscallion, how many times do I have to tell you to close the door?” Janey called after Rachel. She went to shove the door shut.

“Excuse me?”

The man she’d almost slammed the door on smiled. Perhaps the most gorgeous eyes she’d ever beheld stared down into hers. Deep-set brown eyes. Heavy lidded, with the hint of laugh lines at their corners to add character.

“Is that puny, lily-livered thing a line from a play?” he asked.

Her examination shifted to the smiling mouth again. The rest of his face had character too. His body was nothing to sneeze at either. Too bad he appeared to be fairly prosperous, unlike the men she’d had the instant hots for. He wore a gray suit and burgundy tie instead of the usual greasy jeans her hormones sang out for.

“Um. Well. It’s a thing. An insult thing. A Shakespeare insult page on the net. The ah, Internet. We. Um. So.” She held out her hand and smiled brightly. “You must be Mr…ah.”
Fabulous? Mover and shaker?
She felt fairly moved, and not just because he’d scared the bejeezus out of her. Despite the tie, he was not bad. No, indeed.

She could almost hear Penny’s whisper. “It’s a TD&H, hon. Go ferrit.” Tall, dark and handsome. Except in Penny and Janey’s past men, the “h” stood for hellish, horny, heavy-metal, Harley or ham-handed. Penny still liked bad boys. Janey had given them up years ago, about the same time she stopped smoking and a few years after she stopped drinking too much.

The TD&H shook her hand. “Toph Dunham. Cynthia’s father.”

“I’m Janey Carmody. Nice to meet you. But have we met?” She was certain she’d seen him before. Hard to imagine she’d forget Mr. Dunham.

“Perhaps the first day of swim practice about a month ago? That’s the one time I gave Cynthia a lift this year.”

“Ah. I slept through it. I usually do.” She made a face. “Not my favorite time of day.”

She could not stare at him any longer without giving the impression she was brain damaged, but she didn’t know where else to look.

Uh oh. Maybe at her burning dinner. She ran to the stove.

He sniffed and gave a wide, bright smile. “Smells delicious.”

“Scorched,” she said, staring gloomily at the veggies. “I’ll tell Rachel it’s Cajun-blackened tofu.”

“Well,” he said, too loud and hearty. “I hate to lure you away from your feast, but how about I spring for a pizza? I mean, we could all go out.”

Janey hesitated. “But it’s a school night.”

“Yes, true. But the kids must eat. Come on. What do you say?”

Mr. Mover sounded like some kind of cheerleader.

Unfortunately it was a small apartment, so the girls had heard his jovial invitation. The veggies went into the fridge. She’d eat them for lunch for the next couple of days.

“I’m going with Rachel,” Cynthia informed her dad as they all gathered by Janey’s car to start the which-car-do-we-take negotiations.

Instead of answering, he shifted toward Janey and took a deep inhalation. Was he enjoying the night air or heaving a heavy sigh of distress? Janey felt a stab of indignation—going out for pizza had not been her idea.

“Okay,” he said at last, but the girls had already packed into Janey’s car.

Since the front seat was packed with empty clean containers for Beth, Mr Dunham would have to take his own car. They agreed to meet at the restaurant he picked, a much more upscale pizza place than Janey had in mind. She had coupons to Pizza Hut, not La Bella Luna Restaurante.

“Janey hates bad pizza. That’s why she always makes her own,” said Rachel to Cynthia, as they picked up the oversized, leather-covered menus and waited for Mr. Dunham. He’d had to return a couple of calls and would be with them soon. Maybe that was his plan. Or maybe he was tired of the girls and wanted to dump them on Janey for a while.

Cynthia giggled. “I can’t believe your mother lets you call her by her first name.”

Just as Janey opened her mouth to explain, Rachel turned to her, her eyes wide with a panicked, pleading look.

Uh oh. What?

“Well. Ah. Rachel,” she said in a low voice.

“Yes?”

“May I speak to you in private for a moment? Cynthia, I see your father coming in the door. If you will excuse us?”

She waved to Mr. Dunham, who was pulling open the heavy glass front door. He stopped to stare after her as she walked Rachel to the ladies room.

Janey waited, her back against the edge of a sink, while a middle-aged lady washed her hands and dried them under the noisy hot air for what seemed like a half hour.

The lady left, and Janey started. “What the hel—heck is going on? Why did you tell Cynthia I am your mother?”

Rachel scraped at the pale green nail polish on her thumb and didn’t meet Janey’s eyes. “It’s just that it’s so embarrassing. About Penny and all.”

Janey counted to ten. And tried to remember what it was like to be a teenager again. No, not the same at all. When she was that age she would have been delighted to tell anyone that she had a mother in prison. In fact, she would have been glad to announce her mother was in prison even though Millie, that solid citizen, had never so much as gotten a speeding ticket.

Janey and Penny had loved to tell lies. It was their favorite hobby back then. Right up there with dressing like cheap sluts.

“Sweetie, I know it’s hard,” she said at last. “But Penny will be released. Probably sooner rather than later. And how will you explain that? Really, you don’t have to say your mom’s in prison.”

At the sight of her niece’s white, sad face, she growled baby Rachel’s old favorite cowpoke imitation. “Lissen, honey, you don’t have to say nuthin’. None o’ they derned business. If you need ta lie, say something like she’s a traveling saleslady. Or shooting a film in Istanbul. It’ll make your life much easier.”

Rachel bit at her lower lip. “But you won’t tell Cynthia or her dad, will you? Please? Promise?”

“I promise I won’t tell if you promise you will.”

At last Rachel nodded and whispered, “Deal. But later, okay? Not tonight? Sometime later? I’ll tell Cynthia on my own. Really, I promise.”

Janey stroked her niece’s curly hair. Confident Rachel, who so rarely showed insecurity.

“Don’t get me wrong, sweetie. I’d love to be your mom. You are the best thing in my life, and I consider it a privilege to be your aunt. But it’s too complicated when you get started on these big lies. Believe me, I know.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “But you promise.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.”

“Everything all right?” Mr. Cheerleader Dunham looked up as they walked back to the table.

“Yes.” Rachel turned red and stared at her shoes.

Mr. Dunham frowned, an impressive scowl with those dark eyebrows of his. He directed his glare at Janey. “Is Rachel okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” Janey smiled. “No problem.”

“She’s a good kid,” Mr. Suddenly Severe Dunham said.

“Of course,” Janey agreed.

He stared at her for another long moment, the brows still knit together in what had to be disgust. Did he think she’d dragged Rachel into the bathroom for a beating?

“I’m fine, really,” said Rachel quickly. She even added a convincing smile.

But the Wrath of Dunham was aimed at Janey. Maybe the man had noticed Janey’s open-mouthed admiration of him at her apartment. And he was making it very clear that he was not interested. Fine with her. She didn’t care if some overly fabulous suburban dad didn’t like her.

At least she’d have an interesting story to tell Margaret the accountant as they waited around for the next practice to end. Maybe Margaret, a lifelong native of West Farmbrook, could interpret the strange habits of the indigenous male. Invite a woman out and then act like she’s pond scum. Perhaps it was a pre-courting ritual or test—see how the female reacts to mixed messages.

It almost made Janey miss the straightforward men she met in her former life, like the guy in the biker bar who’d strolled up to her and said, “Hey, you’re kinda cute. Wanna screw?”

Direct, at any rate. Unlike this Dunham who watched her continuously, but with something like disapproval.

They shared a large pizza and drank cola.

Everyone exclaimed the food was delicious, though Janey privately thought the crust not quite chewy enough and the sauce a bit dull. Nice mix of cheeses, though. If she ran the show, she’d make sure they had a good supply of real basil. None of this dried nonsense. Easy enough to grow it and freeze it in sheets.

Beth had screwed up Janey’s old recipe for cheesy basil
en croute
and customers had stopped requesting it. But Janey could resurrect it once she got started and…

Mr. Dunham was staring at her again. At least now he had a neutral expression, no more thunderous dark brow.

“Do you do that with all of your food?” he asked.

A disemboweled slice of pizza lay in pieces all over Janey’s plate.

“Just to taste what’s going on,” she explained. “Easiest way to figure out ingredients.”

“Janey is the best cook ever,” said Rachel proudly. “She wants to be a caterer.”

Mr. Dunham smiled, and then ruined the gorgeous view by stating the obvious. “It’s very hard work.”

“I know.” Janey poked at the cheese again. Not the best mozzarella, but not the worst either. “I’ve worked in the food industry for years.”

“And your insurance rates would be sky high.”

She stabbed the cheese with a fork and ate a piece. Why did he say “your” in such a fruity tone?

Aha! There was a trace of feta in this mix; she knew it. Not a bad combination with the olives. She’d add more feta, though.

“I’ll tell you what,” the Dunham was saying. “I might be able to help you. No promises.”

Figures a man that gorgeous would be a salesman. She gave him a skeptical smile. “You sell insurance, right?”

“No, I invest in businesses.”

She leaned back in her chair and stared at him. “You are kidding me. You’re a whatsamahoosey? An adventure whatsit?”