Playing For Keeps

Tori regarded her warily over the rim of her glass, then nodded. “Thanks.”

“How are you feeling?”

That got another should-I-trust-her? glance. “Fine, I guess.” She sat at the dining table, twisting the glass around and around with the fingers of her right hand. “I just had no idea I’d be so tired all the time. It’s like if I sit still for more than five minutes, I pass out. Work’s been a real bear. And I can hardly get any studying done.”

Jo leaned back against the counter next to the stove. “It’ll pass. The tiredness. Until the last month, which makes up for the previous eight.”

The grimace tightened. “Gee, thanks.”

Joanna smiled. “It’ll be worth it, though. Trust me—”

“You’re being nice to me because Bobby told you to, aren’t you?”

Of the many, many things Joanna could have said, the truth won out. “No. Even though he did. But I’m only telling you so you know he cares about you enough to make an idiot of himself.”

The corners of Tori’s mouth turned up before she took another sip of juice. “He can be sorta clueless sometimes, I guess.”

Oh, honey, I could tell you stories….

“You know we’re getting married, right?”

“Yes,” Joanna said, biting her tongue to keep from mentioning that Bobby had a habit of marrying the girls he got pregnant.

“Does that…does that bother you?”

“That he’s going to marry you? No. Am I concerned about his taking on more responsibility? I won’t lie and say I’m not.”

“You mean, that this baby might divert his attention from his other kids.”

Joanna shrugged, then said, since she couldn’t stand Tori’s suddenly stricken expression, “I swear, I do not have a problem with Bobby’s starting a new family. Not in theory, anyway. But it’s not going to be easy, his trying to juggle all of this—”

“He’s not stupid, you know.”

Ah, but Tori’s defense was admirable. Naive, but admirable. “Never said he was. And I honestly think, most of the time, he wants to do his best. I’m just not sure he’s ever figured out how.” She hesitated, then gently added, “All I’m saying is, be prepared to take on the bulk of the load for keeping things going. Because Bobby is one of those men who just can’t.”

“Then you really don’t love him anymore?”

Merciful heavens. Joanna didn’t know they made them this insecure.

“Let’s put it this way,” she said. “We had this big dog once, when I was a kid. In many ways, Dozer was a great dog, friendly and lovable and cuddly, but we finally had to get rid of him because no matter what we did, we couldn’t housebreak him, or stop him from jumping up on people. But he went to a good home, and even though I’ll always think of him fondly, no way did I want to live with him again.”

Tori frowned.

“But hey,” Joanna said, “we heard the people we gave him to worked wonders.”

The young woman seemed to consider this for a bit, then extended her left hand. “Did you see my engagement ring? I just got it last night.”

Her stomach jolting, Joanna leaned forward to dutifully admire the solitaire. It wasn’t a huge ring, maybe a half carat. But even a half carat—set in platinum, no less—wasn’t cheap, a knowledge gleaned from years of drooling over display cases. And in its facets, her new roof shimmered like a mirage.

“It’s lovely,” she said.

Smiling, even.

Joanna had been slamming things around in the kitchen for a good five minutes when her mother and Karleen came in, just in time to see her kick shut the oven door.

“She’s wearing her Kill Bobby face,” Karleen said to Glynnie, who nodded and said, “Things not going well, dear?”

It suddenly hit Joanna how much she’d really like, just once, to unburden herself to her mother. But she didn’t dare. So with a “Later” glance at Karleen, she said, “Nothing that won’t pass. Bad time of the month, is all.”

“Sweetie, I hate to tell you this,” Glynnie said, sliding up onto a stool on the other side of the breakfast bar, “but you’ve been having a bad time of the month for three years.”

“I have not!”

Karleen raised one hand. “Uh, yeah. You have.”

Joanna lifted her eyes heavenward. “Just one person on my side, God. Is that too much to ask?”

“But we are on your side!” Karleen said, then looked at Glynnie. “Aren’t we?”

“Of course we are,” Glynnie said as Joanna tromped across the kitchen and yanked open the refrigerator door, hauling out tubs of potato salad and coleslaw. “But then, maybe if you’d stop pretending things are always okay when they obviously aren’t…”

“Everything’s fine, Mom.”

“Tell that to the innocent appliance you just kicked. Here I am, giving you an opening to tell me what the problem is, but you clam up…”

“Oh, goody,” Karleen said, climbing up onto the bar stool next to Glynnie’s and snatching a carrot stick off the veggie tray in front of her, stopping just short of cramming it into her mouth when she realized both women were staring at her. “This brings back so many memories, when Mama and I used to fight. It just hasn’t been the same since she died. And besides,” she added when Joanna gave her the don’t-you-have-someplace-else-to-be? look, “if you tell Glynnie now, you won’t have to tell me later.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Uh-huh,” Karleen said. “And that little bauble twinkling on Tori’s left hand has nothing to do with your foul mood, I don’t suppose.”

Understanding dawned in Glynnie’s eyes. “Bobby gave Toni—”

“Tori,” Karleen said.

“—an engagement ring?” Joanna glared at Karleen as her mother added, “Well, I suppose that’s to be expected, if they’re engaged. Or am I missing something here?”

“My guess is,” Karleen said, carefully selecting a celery stick, “that our Joanna’s prickly mood has something to do with Bobby’s not having given Jo—”

“Karleen, that’s okay—”

“—his half of the roof repair money. What’d I say?” she finished as Joanna shut her eyes.

Glynnie looked at Joanna. “Why didn’t you tell me you needed help with the house?”

“Karleen?” Joanna said.

“Yeah?”

“You just reached the last stop on Memory Lane.”

Karleen’s eyes bounced between Jo and her mother, then her mouth fell open in a little O. “Gotcha.” She grabbed a piece of broccoli for the road and click-clacked out of the kitchen. Joanna turned back to her mother. “Because I don’t need help, with the house or anything else.”

“But you just said—”

“Mom? This is between Bobby and me. We’ll work it out.”

Her carefully penciled brows drawn together, Glynnie reached over and selected her own celery stick, swiping it through the bowl of onion dip in the center of the dish. “What about the money you just got from that sale you made the other day?” she said, crunching.

Thinking about that sale led to thinking about Dale—again—which led to Joanna’s wondering when everything had gotten so damned complicated. Okay, more complicated. In her next life, she was coming back as a sponge.

“It’s already earmarked,” Joanna said.

“You want me to do my lawyer thing?”

“I want you to stay out of it.”

“And watch the house crumble down around your head?”

“See, this is why I don’t tell you stuff. Because you hear I’m having a problem and you immediately want to jump in and fix things for me.”

“That’s what parents do, Jo. Which I would think you would understand, now that you’re a mother yourself.”

“My oldest is eleven, Mom. Not thirty-two.”

“Since when is there a statute of limitations helping your kids?”

Joanna sighed. “That’s not the point. Not completely, anyway. I appreciate your offer, I really do. But if I accept it, Bobby’s off the hook.”

“And maybe it’s time you let him.”

“What?”

“I’m serious. Maybe it’s time to just chalk it all up to…experience and move on. Why beat your head against the wall?”

Momentarily forgetting who she was talking to, Joanna opened her mouth to defend herself, pointless though the gesture may have been since her mother kept going.

“And why do you think I don’t know what’s been going on? You may not say much, but I didn’t get where I am today without knowing how to read between the lines. We’ve got the money, why not let us help?”

“Because I don’t need—”

“Oh, Joanna—would you get over yourself? You’re driving a ten-year-old car, you haven’t bought any new clothes in a dog’s age and now your roof is about to cave in. I mean, those Santas you make are wonderful, honey, they really are, but you clearly can’t support yourself and the kids on what you make off of them. I just don’t get why you’re being so stubborn about this.”

Joanna’s stomach knotted. No, Glynnie didn’t get it, didn’t have an inkling how much baggage came attached to those offers of help. She could understand her mother’s disappointment in some of her choices over the past twelve years. But what she couldn’t deal with was the pity, that poor dear Joanna would probably never amount to much, that she was her parents’ cross to bear, they’d probably always have to support her so they might as well be cheerful about it.

“Mom,” she finally said, reaching across the counter and taking her mother’s hand in hers. “I like my old car. I’m perfectly happy with my wardrobe—”

Okay, so that part was a lie, but it wasn’t as if she had anyplace to wear fancy clothes, anyway, right?

“—and as soon as Bobby comes through, the new roof is a done deal. And I’m doing fine, financially. Well enough for me, anyway. Not everyone has to be wealthy to be happy, you know. So thanks for the offer, but no—”

Outside, male voices—one baritone, one tenor—rose in a fevered and not exactly pleasant duet. Dulcy pushed back the patio door and stood there, slumped against the opening, reeking of preadolescent disgust. “They’re at it again,” she said on a pained sigh.

After twelve years, one thing hadn’t changed: Bobby and her father still couldn’t agree on how hot the grill should be.

“I’ll be right out,” Jo said, thinking if Dale Mc-Connaughy had a lick of sense, he’d stay as far away from this family as possible.

In the past forty-five minutes Dale had changed his mind no less than ten times about coming. But somehow, here he was, standing under the portal in a more or less new pair of jeans and the first clean long-sleeved shirt he’d come across, a whole new bunch of cats giving him the once-over as he contemplated the ubiquitous chile ristra hanging by the front door and inhaled the luscious tang of seared beef wafting from the back, and then Bobby Alvarez opened the door and it was too late to turn back. From behind the house, somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred kids were yelling their heads off.

“Hey, man—glad you could make it.” With the kind of grin that immediately made Dale suspicious, the other man stood aside to let Dale in. A couple of the cats darted inside, but the rest seemed content to stay out. “Party’s out back,” he said, leading Dale past the softly lit living room filled with mismatched overstuffed furniture, the scuffed wooden floor partially hidden under worn Oriental rugs. Looking forlorn, the dog lay on the sofa with his chin propped on the arm, thumping his tail in a halfhearted greeting when Dale passed.

“What’s wrong with him?” Dale asked.

“The dog? He’s ticked because he can’t go outside. Last time we had a cookout, he helped himself to most of the main course.” When they reached the eat-in kitchen, a spacious, cluttered space divided from the family room by a tiled breakfast bar, Alvarez said, “Something to drink? Tea? Soda? A beer?”

“A Coke if you’ve got it.”

Curiosity flickered briefly across the man’s features, but all he said was, “Sure thing.”

Dale stood at the end of the bar, taking in the cobalt-blue and yellow Mexican tiles along the backsplash, the hanging baskets filled with potatoes and onions, the side-by-side refrigerator all but buried in bright drawings of toothy dinosaurs and construction vehicles, of photocopied directions and lists and notices overlapping each other in no apparent order, all precariously clinging to the dark brown surface by means of an array of magnets ranging from cats to boots to miniature frames with photos inside, to ads for Pizza Hut and various household repair services. The disarray of people who were busy, Dale thought, not lazy.

Of people with lives.

Everything fluttered when Bobby opened the refrigerator, but miraculously stayed in place. Joanna’s ex handed Dale a Coke, then uncapped a Coors bottle, taking a swig from it before noticing the bag in Dale’s hand. “What’s that?”

“Oh, right. Some stuff I had lying around. For the boys.” He dug the Captain Underpants books, whoopee cushion, and baseball glove out of the bag. “I brought another glove, too, in case they might want to play later.”

Alvarez looked dumbstruck as he picked up the glove. “Damn—you even signed it? The boys’ll be beside themselves. And this…” With a huge grin he snatched the deflated whoopee cushion off the bar and blew it up, then squeezed it, letting out a bark of laughter when it blatted. “I haven’t seen one of these in ages!”

“Give it to me, lemme show you something.” Bobby handed back the cushion; Dale blew it up, then pressed it this one certain way so the fpfpfpfp ended on a long squeal….

A girl about twelve or so came into the kitchen, let out a disgusted, “Dad, jeez!” then breezed out again, a bag of chips in her hand.

When they finished laughing their butts off, Bobby said, “That was my daughter, Dulcy. She gets her sense of humor from her mother.” He chuckled a couple more times, then said, “I honestly didn’t think you’d come back.”

Yeah, well, Dale still wasn’t sure about that, although he supposed he could duck out pretty much anytime he wanted to. And do what? Go back to his empty condo and watch ESPN? Go bar hopping?

God knew, he’d done his fair share of carousing, if for no other reason than to keep from being alone. From thinking about things there was no sense in thinking about. But lately…

His tastes had changed, was all. Still, why had he shown up here tonight?

Maybe he didn’t want to answer that one, he thought as Bobby led him out back, introducing him to Joanna’s parents—her father, a tall, lanky man with a shock of silver hair and major eyebrows, looked vaguely familiar for some reason—and Bobby’s fiancée, a pretty gal with long brown hair and enormous blue eyes who looked like she felt even more out of place than Dale did.

Then he caught sight of Joanna over on the far side of the patio, nearly blotted out by a swarm of little kids as she fussed with things on a long table covered in a fluttering checkered tablecloth, and he heard her laugh at something one of the kids said, and he remembered damn well why he’d accepted the invitation, even as it became crystal clear why he should have turned it down. Especially when she looked up, just for a second, and a flush washed over her cheeks when their eyes met.

Huh.

He also thought about going over and saying hi or something, but everybody’s eyes were on him so he settled for lifting his Coke in a greeting and she nodded and mumbled something about being glad he could make it, then disappeared around the side of the house.

The boys discovered him right about then, dragging him away from the under-ten herd to see the rabbits they kept in a hutch at the far end of the yard, next to the empty stable. Two or three cats started to follow them, but their hearts really weren’t in it. From beside the gas grill off to the side of the patio, Bobby yelled something to them about not being pests, but Dale waved away their father’s concern. Besides, it was a relief having an excuse to get away from the adults, who he got the feeling were all looking to him for something.

“The bigger one’s mine,” the one with the dark, straight hair—Matt—said, and then went on about how they were both girls so they couldn’t have babies together and what-all they fed them and how their father had bought the rabbits for them at the fair and that Mom had been kinda mad and how she’d told their father that if they didn’t take care of the rabbits, she was packing them right up and taking them to his house. And all the while, the other boy, Ryder, had just stood there quietly, stroking his bunny, a black-and-white lop-eared, not saying anything. Now, unlike a lot of adults, Dale generally got off on rambunctious kids. But the quiet ones always stole a piece of his heart.

So he squatted by the cage and said to Ryder, “What’s her name?”

“Emily,” Matt said with a snort.

Dale looked over at Matt and said quietly, “Any reason why your brother can’t answer his own questions?” The kid looked taken aback, but then he shook his head and Dale said, “That’s what I thought,” and turned again to Ryder.

“Emily’s a real pretty name. What made you pick it?”

“She was my best friend in first grade.” Eyes exactly like his mother’s, just as intelligent but without the sass, met Dale’s. “But she moved away.”

Matt tapped Dale on the shoulder. “Hey, Mr….Mc…”

“Let’s just go with Dale.”

“Mr. Dale…I’ve read more Caldecott books than anybody in my class.”

Now, Dale didn’t have a clue what the heck a Caldecott book was, but he did know that one kid’s boasting about his accomplishments around another kid, especially a sibling, was usually sufficient to provoke a rise to the challenge. But Ryder just stood there, petting his bunny, like he hadn’t heard. But not like he didn’t care. Like he was trying to pretend he didn’t.

Luckily, though, before he had to figure out how to handle things, Joanna called for the kids, telling them they were about to eat soon, to come get cleaned up. The kids took off. Dale straightened, watching Joanna watch her sons as they ran toward her, the intensity of her gaze binding them to her as surely as if they’d been attached by a string. She touched each of them in turn when they reached her, her attention lingering a second or two longer on Ryder, who must’ve started talking about him, if the curious look on her face when she looked in Dale’s direction was any indication.

Like dead leaves disturbed by a sudden breeze, old, dried-up feelings rustled inside him, leaving him feeling unsettled.

The boys went on in; Joanna stayed outside, waiting.

“You’ve made a big hit,” she said, her arms now crossed. The pencil had been banished from her hair; instead, all those curls fought against a skinny gold headband that looked to be rapidly losing the battle. She’d put on some lipstick, too, a natural color that glistened softly on her mouth.

“They’re good kids,” Dale said. Except, when she nodded, he saw worry etched in the lines around her mouth, between her brows. “But then,” he said, “that’s probably because they’ve got a good mama.”

Her mouth twitched. “And how would you know that?”

“Just a hunch. From what I saw just now. The way they went running off, soon as you called them. Like they wanted to go to you, not like they were afraid of what you might do to ’em if they didn’t.”

Joanna laughed. “Damn. There goes my reputation.”

But there was a heaviness to her voice that disturbed something inside him, enough to make him do something stupid and to ask if everything was okay with Ryder.

She flinched slightly, and he could tell she was about to say, “Of course,” or some such, except a tear slipped out. Her arms tightened, like she wanted to wipe it away but to do so would only acknowledge its presence. “It’s…none of your concern,” she said softly, not in a way meant to make him feel he was butting in, but because she simply didn’t wish him to worry himself. And Dale didn’t wish to embarrass her by pressing the issue, especially since he wasn’t all that sure himself of the motives behind his inquiry.

“You have kids of your own?” she asked, catching him off guard. Although it shouldn’t have. Women like Joanna just naturally wondered about things like this.

“Hell, no.”

Her head tilted slightly. “You sound like you’d rather eat slugs.”

“No,” he said with a smile he really didn’t feel. “I just don’t think I’d be much good at it. Not for the long haul,” he added when she frowned at him.

“And you’re basing this on…?”

“Gut instinct? The fact that, for all the kids I’ve seen and been around, I’ve never felt like I was missing out by not having any of my own?”

“But I was watching you with the boys—”

He held up one hand to cut her off at the pass. “Likin’ kids and wantin’ to deal with ’em on a full-time basis are two different things. I mean, look at you, all tied up about your boy. I have enough trouble worrying about how to take care of myself, let alone trying to figure out how to make anybody else happy.”

She looked at him oddly. “You don’t strike me as the selfish type.”

“That’s because you don’t know me,” he said, then thought, Oh, yeah, that’s a great way to get the woman into your bed. Then he said, “And you don’t strike me as the kind of woman who would judge somebody else by her own standards. Not everybody’s cut out to be a parent…”

Shards of memories he thought he’d swept out years ago pricked at him, deep inside. He realized she was giving him one of those damned compassionate looks that gave him the willies.

“You’re absolutely right,” she said quietly. “Raising kids is hard, and messy, and usually thankless, and it’s easy enough to lose sight of the joy of parenthood when you did want your kids. But just for the record? I’ll gladly deal with being ‘tied up’ about my babies, as you put it, for the chance to see the world through their eyes on a daily basis. In fact, I’d have another one in a minute if I—” Her mouth clamped shut, then stretched into a tired smile. “Well. You might as well go mingle. Food’ll be ready in a sec.” Then she disappeared inside the house, hugging her burdens to herself like she was afraid of the mess they’d make if she dropped them.

When Dale looked up, he realized that Bobby Alvarez had been watching them. Not that Dale cared, not really, but antagonizing husbands, ex or otherwise, was not something he cared to do on a regular basis. So you could’ve knocked him over with a feather when Alvarez suddenly grinned at him, nodding in a way that Dale could have sworn was meant to be encouraging.

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