Waiting On You

“You’ll find something. You always do.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Ma.”

Her mother wandered into the bathroom. “Oh, Collie, come in here, sweetheart.”

The master bathroom was vast—tiled floor, walled-in shower area and a huge, triangular tub, big enough for Colleen and Tom Hardy and his muscles.

“Uh-oh,” Mom said. Her face flushed bright red, she began flapping her shirt again. “Oh, dear! Oh, man! I think I might be having another hot flash!”

“Really? You hide it so well.” Mom had always been the type to detail her physical woes. “Bleeding like a stuck pig” had been popular back in the good old period days. “Ovaries the size of grapefruits” was another. “That Chinese food went through me like a knife.” One of the many ways Mom was so much fun.

Mom continued flapping, then climbed in the bathtub. “This porcelain feels like ice. Thank God, too.” She lay there, red-faced and panting, and Colleen waited, used to her mother’s menopausal adventures by now. After a minute, Jeanette lifted her head, her hair damp with sweat, and surveyed the tub. “So how many jets does this thing have?” she said speculatively.

“Icky, Mom.” Quite a few, though. Handy, in case marriage to Tom Hardy didn’t work out.

“Why? Just because it feels like tumbleweeds are blowing through my—”

“Hail Mary, full of grace,” Colleen began. “The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou who can make my mother stop talking, and blessed—”

Her mother gave her a martyred look. “You know, Colleen, just because I’m suffering through menopause, and just because your father left me for That Whore doesn’t mean I don’t have certain urges.”

“Mom! Come on.”

“What? Am I not a human all of a sudden? Not allowed to be lonely? Hey, did you know that John Holland got married a couple weeks ago?”

Another maternal habit: announcing facts known by everyone as if it was big news. Of course she knew. She was the best friend of the man’s daughter, and if there was a more beloved man than Faith’s dad, Colleen didn’t know him. She herself wouldn’t have minded being the second Mrs. Holland. Well, not really. But it had always been fun to flirt with him anyway.

“He’s been widowed for twenty years,” Mom said.

“Ma, I know. I grew up with Faith, remember?”

“Of course I remember. You girls were at our house half the time. The point is, both he and Mrs. Johnson are older than I am.”

“True. Want to see the other bedrooms now?” Colleen asked. So far, the house had given her no reason to reject it. But the tingle was fading. This bathroom was possibly too large. It always seemed to her that when she found the right house, she’d know. Instantly.

Just as she’d known with Lucas the day he walked into her English class.

And look where that had gotten her.

Her phone buzzed with a text. From Bryce, no less. Think Jessica Dunn is a good match 4 me?

Oh, crap. First of all, Jessica Dunn would never go for a guy like Bryce; Jess had a very appealing edginess to her, and Bryce was as complicated as a chocolate chip cookie. Secondly, there was Paulie!

Not really, she typed back. Hang in there. I’m working on someone for you. She’s special.

Pretty? appeared almost immediately.

Sigh. Paulie could not be described as pretty. Striking.

Awesome, came the reply. C u soon!

“I’m gonna lay here for another minute,” Mom said. “But, Colleen, I was thinking. It doesn’t seem like your father is going to come to his senses any time soon. I thought That Whore was a midlife crisis, just a little fling—”

“They’ve been together for ten years, Mom.”

“And even after that child, I thought he’d come back to me.”

“Savannah, Mom. Say what you want about Gail the Tail, but be nice about Savannah. She’s my sister.”

“Your half sister.” Mom sat up, grabbed one of the attractively rolled facecloths and ran some water on it, then held it against her chest. “Anyway, John Holland has adult grandchildren, he’s in his sixties, but he found someone. I’m only fifty-four, and what do I have? Nothing. No grandchildren, not even a daughter-or son-in-law, and nothing on the horizon, either. What’s wrong with you and Connor?”

A familiar refrain. “What’s wrong with you, Mom? Why haven’t you given me a nice stepfather? I wouldn’t say no to Mariano Rivera, for example. Or George Clooney. Actually, I’d marry both of them myself, so take them off the list. Sean Connery, he’d do. Or Ed Harris. Why haven’t you married Sean Connery or Ed Harris, Mom?”

“Your father married That Whore. John Holland married Mrs. Johnson. Cathy Moore turned gay and married Louise. And here I am, sitting in a tub having a hot flash. On the tenth anniversary of your father leaving me, no less.”

“Well, you can get out of the tub, Ma.”

“Wait till you hit menopause. I’ll have no sympathy for you.” Mom sighed. “I’m tired of things being the same. I want a life. I want to get laid.”

Hail Mary, full of grace—

“Barb McIntosh said you told her you could fix up anyone. Does that include me, or don’t I count?”

Colleen’s head whipped around from where she was examining the showerhead.

In all the years since the divorce, Mom had not gone out once. Not once. “Really? You really want to date?”

“Yes. Why shouldn’t I? Your father has That Whore, and if John Holland can find someone, I probably could, too. I’m not disgusting, am I?” Her mother climbed out of the tub and scooped her hair off her neck in a regal move, one that Colleen had copied as a kid.

Danger, she heard Connor’s voice say in her head. He definitely was the logical twin. And yes, fixing up Mom could be the emotional equivalent of waterboarding.

Then again, Mom had waited years for Dad to come back to her. Denial, then bitterness as an Olympic sport. Maybe what she needed to get over Dad was another man. Certainly, Colleen had always thought so.

“And if I meet someone, maybe your father will get jealous and finally get his head out of his ass.”

Crud. Using people to make other people jealous...that never worked very well. “Mom, if you want to date, maybe find someone, I think that’d be great. But Dad’s not coming back.”

“You never know. So? Will you help me? I need to set up an online profile.”

Faith had done the same thing with her father last fall. It hadn’t been a particularly good experience, though all’s well that ends well. Also, Faith herself was sweet and naive.

Colleen was not.

If there was one thing she knew, it was men and how they thought.

“Oh!” Mom exclaimed, grasping Colleen’s arm. “And guess what else I heard? Guess! Guess!”

“The sound of a butterfly’s wings,” Colleen said.

“No. Guess again.”

“What, Mom?”

Mom let go of her arm, fluffed her hair and gave Colleen a triumphant look. “I heard Lucas Campbell is back in town.”

“I know.”

“Surprise! Isn’t it great?”

“He’s back because Joe Campbell isn’t long for the world, so I’d have to say no.”

“It is! It’s great because—”

“Don’t, Mom.”

“Because you never got over him.” Mom fixed her with a triumphant look.

“That’s debatable.” Granted, a debate she’d probably lose, but still. “Also, Mom, he’s married.”

“No. He’s divorced.”

Colleen blinked.

“Aha! I knew you didn’t know that!” Mom crowed.

“Are you two done up there?” Carol called from downstairs. “I have other people here who might actually buy this place, you know.”

“We’ll be right down. She doesn’t love it,” Mom yelled. Colleen barely heard.

Divorced?

No, he hadn’t mentioned that the other night. Questions surged into her head. Why? For how long? Was he heartbroken? Bitter? Had he cheated? Had she? Was he seeing someone?

Get a grip, she told herself. He broke your heart. He fell in love with someone else, and he left you. Just. Like. Dad.

“Colleen?” Mom asked. “You’re not really interested in this house, are you?”

“It’s almost perfect,” she said, clearing her throat. “But there’s not enough shade in the front.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

A WEEK BACK in Manningsport, and Lucas had spoken to an attorney, who told him that a divorce for Uncle Joe was going to be just about impossible. Lucas wasn’t giving up on that just yet. New York divorce law was a tangled, Puritanical web, but maybe there was a loophole somewhere. Then there were Joe’s finances; he wanted whatever assets he had to go to Bryce. What exactly those assets were remained to be seen, because Didi kept a tight fist around the family funds.

In the meantime, Lucas found a short-term, furnished rental in a pretty building on the green, roughly two hundred feet from O’Rourke’s front door. He’d been avoiding the pub, not wanting Colleen’s panties to get into a twist (though thinking about her panties wasn’t the worst way to spend time).

Today, however, he was stopping by the Manningsport Animal Shelter to see Bryce, and hopefully get his cousin to commit to a plan of action for a future that included more than playing video games in his mom’s basement. Bryce loved animals; maybe Lucas could convince him to go to school to become a veterinary assistant or the like.

The shelter was a gray building on the outskirts of town, and Bryce’s Dodge Ram pickup truck was parked outside, along with a cute little Porsche and a mountain bike with a wicker basket on the handlebars. Lucas went inside. There was no one in the waiting room, but he heard voices coming from behind a closed door. Some female murmuring, then Bryce speaking more clearly.

“Let’s use a little lubricant, don’t you think, baby? Don’t be scared. I’ll just ease my finger in like that and squeeze, nice and gentle.”

Lucas froze.

“Doesn’t that feel good, sweetheart?” Bryce went on.

A moaning sound came in response.

What the hell? Was Bryce having sex in an animal shelter?

“Bryce? It’s Lucas.”

There was a scrambling sound from inside, and then the door opened, and there was Colleen, her hair tumbled, cheeks pink.

A white-hot knife of jealousy slid between Lucas’s ribs, and for a second, he couldn’t see straight.

“Hey,” she said calmly, though her eyes widened a bit.

“Colleen.”

She raised an eyebrow at his tone, then looked behind her. “Your cousin’s here, Bryce,” she said.

“Hey, Lucas!” Bryce called. “I’m covered in slime. Be out in a second.”

Colleen came into the waiting room, closing the door behind her. “We meet again. How are you, Spaniard?”

It was her old nickname for him...she had often said he looked like a Spanish pirate.

“I’m fine,” he said tightly. “What exactly were you doing in there?”

She cocked an eyebrow, then grinned. “Sounded like sexy time, didn’t it? But no. Just Bryce expressing the anal glands of a very cute little dog.”

“I—okay, I’m speechless.”

“I know. There’s just no good comeback for that.”

“Is life so quiet here that this is what passes for fun?”

“Don’t sell it short. Want to watch? He’s really good.” She grinned, and Lucas felt a responding smile start in his chest.

“So your dog required some, um, special treatment?” he asked.

“No, that would take the New York Giants and a very, very brave vet. It’s Mrs. Tuggles, one of Paulie’s recent acquisitions. Rufus over there is my baby.” She pointed, and Lucas glanced over to where a gray, cow-sized dog lay on its side as if dead.

“Are you a good boy, Rufus?” Colleen asked.

The dog’s tail thumped twice in confirmation.

“So these anal glands,” Lucas said. “Your way of getting Paulie and Bryce together?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“How romantic.”

“Hey. It’s working. You see, Lucas, a lot of men don’t appreciate what’s right in front of them, so they have to be shown. In twelve-foot neon letters. With arrows pointing to it.” She paused to let that sink in, lest he miss the innuendo (whatever it was). “Also, Mrs. Tuggles was blocked and kept scooching her butt across Paulie’s rug. You get the picture.”

The exam room door opened again, and there was Paulie, holding Mrs. Tuggles, a rotund little dog that looked extremely satisfied at the moment, her wide mouth grinning, tongue lolling. The dog yawned and closed her eyes.

“Looks like she could use a cigarette,” Colleen said. “Bryce, what did you do to her?”

“I aim to please,” Bryce said, drying his hands on the paper towel. “Hey, Lucas! You know Paulie, right? We went to high school with her senior year.”

“Nice to see you again,” Paulie said.

“Good to see you, too, Paulie,” he said with a smile. Her face grew pink...then red...then blotchy. That was some blush.

“Mrs. Tuggles, say hi to Lucas,” Bryce said. He bent down to kiss Mrs. Tuggles’s head, bringing his own head in the vicinity of Paulie’s chest. Her face went into the purple zone, and the dog licked Bryce’s face with exuberant gratitude and slobber. Kind of disgusting.

“You got a minute, Bryce?” he asked when the dog was done frenching his cousin.

“Totally. Girls, it was great seeing you both,” Bryce said. “All three of you, that is.” He scratched the pug on the head.

“Oh, yes...uh, I mean, yeah. You, too,” Paulie said. She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “Colleen, thank you for coming with me.” Her voice was loud and expressionless. “I was so concerned about poor Mrs. Tuggles, and it was good to have a friend.” She took a shaky breath. “Bryce, you were so wonderful. Let me buy you a beer some night.” Her face went nuclear.

Lucas would bet a hundred bucks Colleen had given her those lines.

“Sure. That’d be great,” Bryce said, completely oblivious. Paulie’s eyelids fluttered, and she took an unsteady step backward, looking as if she was about to faint.

Colleen gave her a little push forward and picked up a bike helmet from one of the chairs. “See you around, boys. Paulie, I’ll walk you out. Come on, Rufie!”

The women and their animals left, and Bryce stretched his arms over his head. “I think Colleen might have a thing for me,” he said.

There was that flash of jealousy again. “I’m pretty sure that’s not it,” Lucas said.

“You never know. She and I—” He glanced at Lucas as if just now remembering that Colleen had once been with Lucas. “Uh...nothing. We hit it off. As friends, you know? At the bar, just shooting the shit. Friends. You’re right, there’s nothing there.” He cracked his knuckles. “What can I do for you, bro? You want a dog? Or a cat? My mom won’t let me have one, which is probably why I work here, you know?”

“I can’t have a pet, Bryce,” Lucas said. “I’m only in town for a while.”

“Right, right. Or you could move back.”

“Not gonna happen, pal.”

“Right. South Side forever.”

Lucas smiled. “I figured you could show me around, since you said you spend a lot of time here.”

“Sure! Come on back.”

Another door led to the kennels. The usual suspects—pit bull here, Rottweiler there, with a couple of older-looking dogs. Bryce had a kind word for all of them, even the snarling black mutt in the last kennel. Then on to the cat room, where there were far too many felines of varying colors and sizes.

Bryce picked up a kitten. “Who’s beautiful, huh? Who’s so pretty? You are, sweetie!” The kitten batted Bryce on the nose and mewed.

Lucas had never had a pet. He could get one, he guessed; he just wasn’t home a lot. Maybe now that he was leaving Forbes, he’d get a dog who could ride in his truck to job sites and lie at his feet at night. It’d be nice to have some company.

Well. He’d wait to get back to Chicago. There were plenty of animals waiting to be adopted in the city, he was sure.

“You ever think about becoming a vet tech, Bryce?” he asked. “You’re really good with animals.”

“Thanks! But not really, no. You need school for that.”

“So? You could do it part-time, I bet.”

“Well, whatever. Even so, the shelter can’t afford to pay anyone. We’re all volunteers, and Dr. Metcalf comes in when we need real stuff done.”

“Could you work for Dr. Metcalf?”

Bryce shrugged. “He has this hot chick who works for him. She volunteers here, too. We hooked up once or twice.” He scratched his head. “Maybe I should give her a call. I’m thinking about having kids.”

Wow. “Yeah, you’d be a great dad,” he said (and hoped). “But you need a job first. And possibly a place of your own, so you don’t have to raise a kid in your mother’s basement.”

“True enough. You wanna get a beer? I think O’Rourke’s is open.”

“It’s eleven-thirty, Bryce.”

“Yeah, so they’re definitely open. Oh, I get it. You don’t want to see Colleen.”

Lucas gave his cousin a look. “I have no problem seeing Colleen.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t.”

“Must bring up memories, though, right? Because you two were pretty hot and heavy.”

“That was a long time ago. Anyway, about you getting a job, Bryce—”

“Shit! I forgot. I’m supposed to have lunch with my mom. I gotta run.” Just then, the front door opened, and a very pretty woman came in. “Hey, Ange! Right on time.”

“Hi, Bryce,” she purred, sparing Lucas a glance (and giving him a gratifying double take). “Your brother?”

“Cousin. Lucas, this is Angie...Angie, uh...”

“Beekman.”

“Right! Ange, I gotta fly, but listen. You wanna grab a drink sometime?”

Lucas couldn’t help feeling a flicker of sympathy for Paulie.

“Sure,” she said with a coy smile. “See you around, boys.”

Lucas scrubbed a hand through his hair as Bryce tore out of the parking lot a few seconds later, going too fast, as usual.

* * *

WHEN LUCAS WAS fifteen, his cousin saved his life.

“Remember when I saved you?” Bryce would say from time to time. And Lucas would have to say of course he remembered, and yes, it sure was lucky Bryce had been there, and absolutely, they were as close as brothers, and yep, they did look alike, since they both looked like their fathers—and Dan and Joe could’ve passed for twins.

It wasn’t that Lucas disliked Bryce. No one did. Bryce Campbell, the adored only child of Lucas’s aunt and uncle, was unendingly cheerful, up for anything and had an intense case of hero worship. He kept a respectful distance from Lucas’s sister, Stephanie, who was six years older and called him only “kid.” But he stuck to Lucas like a tick.

About three times a year, Joe, Didi and Bryce would visit them (they, in return, were never invited to the wealthy suburb to the north of Chicago where Bryce and his family lived). And every time, Bryce would be glued to Lucas’s side, wide-eyed with wonder at anything Lucas had or did—his tiny bedroom on the third floor of the two-family house they lived in, his second-hand bike, the stunts he could do on it. Lucas was a White Sox fan, obviously, being from the South Side; Bryce traded in his Cubs shirt to match Lucas’s, which nearly got him stoned by his peers. Lucas would clear the crowded table after dinner because he was the kind of kid who did chores; Bryce decided that nothing was more fun and exotic than washing dishes by hand. And the thing was, he meant it.

Bryce couldn’t get over the fact that Lucas was not only allowed to have a knife, but was allowed to use it as well, and viewed whittling as damn near miraculous. He peppered Lucas with questions about his late mother, who’d died of ALS when Lucas was six. Did he miss her? What had it been like to have a Puerto Rican mother? Did they ever see her ghost? It never occurred to Bryce that the subject might be a sensitive one.

Lucas liked his cousin. But Bryce could be tiring, like a puppy who just wanted to bring you a stick. At first, it’s really cute. Aw, hey, a stick! Go get it, boy! But by the tenth time, when the puppy’s enthusiasm hasn’t been touched but yours is getting tired, you wish the dog would take a nap. By the twentieth time he brings you the stick, your arm aches. And by the fiftieth, you really wondered what you were thinking when you decided to get a dog.

It was always something of a relief to see Bryce get reluctantly bundled off into the car with his parents. “My God, that woman is evil,” Dad would say of his brother’s wife, tousling Lucas’s hair. Though it was clear Aunt Didi barely tolerated her husband’s family, she never let them visit without her, even if she did brush off a chair before sitting on it. “But your cousin, he’s a pretty great kid, isn’t he?”

And Lucas would agree that yes, Bryce was really nice. Which he was.

Joe Campbell was the brother who’d made good; Dan never made it out of the careworn neighborhood where they’d grown up. Joe got into college, which was near-miraculous from the sound of it, whereas Dan became a mechanic, married the girl next door and moved into an apartment around the corner from where the brothers grew up.

It was clear that Joe viewed their childhood as far more idyllic than Lucas’s dad did. Even when he was little, Lucas understood that, felt his father’s edge when Uncle Joe would wax poetic about riding their bikes in the empty lot or leaving pennies out on the rail for the train to flatten. After all, Joe and his family got to leave at the end of the day.

When Steph was nineteen, she moved in with her boyfriend and had a baby girl. Another thing Bryce couldn’t get over—how cool was it that Lucas was an uncle! How he wished he had a sister, too, so he could be an uncle! “Bryce, angel, a baby’s not always a good thing,” Aunt Didi said.

“This baby is,” Lucas said, giving his aunt a dirty look. Mercedes was cute and smelled nice, most of the time, and Steph was a good mom.

Didi didn’t blink. “Well, we’ll see how things turn out, won’t we?” she murmured. “Not all of us are thrilled that our tax dollars pay for Stephanie’s lifestyle.” And though he wasn’t 100 percent sure what she meant by that, Lucas knew that it was a put-down just the same.

Visits from Joe and Bryce and Didi were rare, he didn’t have to think about it much. Would it be nice to take a vacation in Turks and Caicos, wherever that was? Probably. Would it be fun to have a flat-screen TV in your room? Sure. But Lucas wouldn’t trade places, that was for sure. Home always seemed a little nicer after those visits. Careworn instead of shabby, washed in the light of relief that they had each other, at least.

Until Dad was arrested.

Things Lucas Didn’t Know About His Father:

1 He’d been arrested at age eighteen for grand theft auto (a Camaro left with the keys in it, so really, who could resist? Certainly not an eighteen-year-old American male from the wrong side of the tracks).

2 He’d been arrested at age twenty-one for breaking and entering and vandalism (Mrs. Ortega’s place, where he and his buddy sat in the living room, watched Cinemax, drinking her schnapps).

3 He was $95,700 in debt, thanks to Mom’s medical care during her unsuccessful battle with ALS.

4 He was a drug dealer.

Lucas was fifteen at the time of the bust. The cops showed up, flashed a warrant and searched the house while Lucas made frantic phone calls to the garage. It was too late; the police found several small bags of crystal meth in a shoe box in the back of Dad’s closet.

Seemed like Dad had become a minor dealer in an organization run by one of his old high school friends. It was the only way he’d found to stop the creditors from taking the house after Mom died; he already worked eighty hours a week at the garage. Because of Dan’s “criminal past,” the judge sentenced him to sixteen years.

“I’m sorry, son,” Dan said to Lucas as the bailiff handcuffed him. Lucas hugged his father and tried not to cry. His father, who looked a decade older than he had that morning, didn’t need to see that. Besides, they’d appeal, the public defender said. This wasn’t forever.

Lucas wanted to stay with his sister, but Steph had tearfully turned him down. She and Rich lived in a tiny apartment, and she was pregnant again, this time with twins. Though Lucas swore he’d help, he could sleep on the couch, Mercedes loved him, he could babysit and everything, Steph said he’d be better off with Uncle Joe.