Andrew winked at me. “You never know. Maybe I like playing with your mom. Maybe she’s got moves you don’t know about.” I smirked, and he cleared his throat. “On the court.”
Wagner looked at me like I was a hairball on the carpet and said, “Yeah, right. Good luck, dude.” He took off running toward Johnny.
“Hey, guys, the old lady and I are going into my office to strategize a little bit.”
They were already ignoring us. Andrew pulled me into the tiny house that served as his pro shop, and I could feel the chill bumps on my arms as they hit the air-conditioning. “Holy hell,” he said, kissing me. “They might beat us because all I can think about is those legs in that skirt.”
I smiled. “This was not my idea, just so you know.”
He laughed and kissed my neck.
“You’re so cute with the boys,” I said. “Thanks for that. They need good role models.”
Andrew looked at me and said, “I think I love you.” Then his eyes got wide, and he put his hand over his mouth. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
I stood stock-still as if maybe if I didn’t move we could erase what had just happened.
Andrew filled the silence. “But I think I do. And I just can’t stop.”
The energy in the room changed in that instant, as I felt all the color drain from my face. My heart was racing as I turned and said, “Let’s go play now, okay?” and flew out the door.
It had only been a couple of months. It was too soon. Too soon with Andrew. Too soon for someone else to tell me he loved me. Too soon for me to admit that he was more than a summer fling.
“All right, amateurs.” Andrew pointed his racket at me. “I have the weakest player, and I’m going to play left-handed. I’m still going to destroy you!”
Wagner laughed. “Oh yeah? We’ll see about that.”
“And you know what?” Andrew said. “Forget the spin. You choose whether you want to serve or receive, give you even more of an advantage.”
“Serve!” Wagner and Johnny said simultaneously.
They met in the middle of the court. Wagner was so happy.
“Which side you want?” Andrew asked me.
“I don’t know, lefty. Which is best for you?”
He tried not to grin, but he did, just a little, and, oh my gosh, I wanted to wrap him up and kiss him all over right then and there. I motioned with my finger for him to come closer.
“I’m sorry, Gray,” he said. “I really am. I know I shouldn’t have said that, so let’s not let it make things weird.”
I nodded, and I thought about how Andrew had been so supportive on those nights away from Wagner when I’d been so sad, how he always said and did exactly the right thing. “Look. What I’ve always said about us being a summer fling and all that, that still stands.”
“I know.”
“So don’t take this the wrong way.” My face hardened, and I could see his fall. “But I think I might love you a little too.”
He grinned, pointed his racket at me, and, backing toward his side, said, “I knew it, Gray Howard. I knew it was only a matter of time.”
Even in that happy moment, it made me sad to realize that I knew it too. He was adorable. But this wasn’t going anywhere. It was only a matter of time.
diana: north
I couldn’t figure out why I was trying to keep Frank out of the picture, why I’d told him I had to go to Gray’s that morning when I knew she wasn’t expecting me. It was like I woke up and everything I had dreamed of over the past twenty years had happened. It was exactly like I’d imagined it. Magical. Perfect. Hot. In a lot of ways, it was like no time had passed at all. Well, I mean, my boobs were a hell of a lot lower and my ass was kind of jiggly, but otherwise everything was the same.
As I was cleaning out the blender, I was mulling over what had me so panicked. All I’d thought about forever was him. I hated saying it even to myself, but Frank was the whole reason I never got married. Well, plus the fact that I had managed to attract every loser on the East Coast. I sprayed off the counter and took a real deep breath. It was time to go back. It was time to get that happiness I’d dreamed about all this time.
Frank was just sitting there at that cute kitchen table, and when I walked in, before I’d even got in the door good, he said, “Diana, we’ve spent too many years apart to play around like this now. I want our life together to start now. I want us to get to know each other again.”
I wanted it too, but something in me needed just a little time to get my bearings, like I’d been thrust out in the middle of the ocean and was trying to figure which way was north. I went over to make the bed and began tidying up before I turned to look at him. “But what if you don’t like the ‘old’ me?”
He smiled. “I don’t see anyone old in this room.”
I was spraying off the already clean countertops when Frank pulled me to him, the bottle and paper towels trapped between us. He kissed me, and, oh my Lord, how I had prayed for that kiss, how I had longed for it, pined for it, wished up and down for it to be mine again. I dropped that bottle to the floor and wrapped myself all around him. Frank hoisted me onto the counter, and I couldn’t help but feel like we were making up for lost time.
“Hey,” he whispered, “do we need to worry about, you know, protection?”
I shook my head, thinking that if he was worried about me getting pregnant today, maybe he should’ve thought about it a little bit last night too. “No,” I said. “I can’t get pregnant.”
I was so caught up in the moment that I only thought about it for a second. That day Robin had sped down the road with me half hallucinating in the passenger seat, my fever was so high. I don’t even really remember much, just that IV in my arm and finally starting to sweat the fever away and that doctor saying that I’d got some kind of infection, and I wouldn’t ever have any kids of my own. It had messed me up, sure. But, way deep down, I’d felt kind of relieved. I mean, my momma, she’d left all us kids to fend for ourselves, just left us like the garbage on the back porch. At least I’d never be that kind of momma.
I felt my hands unbuttoning his pants as if by memory, and, somehow, now that Frank was here, now that Frank was back, none of that mattered anymore. I wanted to be cautious. I wanted to take it slow. I wanted not to make a mistake. But I had spent years waiting for this man.
What seemed like hours later, I was kissing Frank good-bye at the bottom of the steps. “Diana, please,” he said, “I know you. Don’t go back up there and get all in your own head and decide you’re not sure. This is right. This is us. This is it. Just be sure, okay?”
I smiled. “Okay, Frank. I have to take a breath to think about it all. I can’t just rush into it again. I got my heart broke real bad last time.”
He kissed me and rubbed his thumb across my cheek. “But last time I didn’t know, Di. Last time we were kids. Last time we were making all our mistakes. I’m done with mistakes. I only want to make it right with us.”
Butterflies and sighs. I didn’t think of myself as one of those sappy women, but, damn. When a man talks to you like that, it’s hard not to feel kind of sucked in. He opened the door and walked outside.
I heard Gray’s voice say, “Oh, hi.”
I walked out real quick to introduce them, but Frank was already shaking her hand. “I’m a friend of Diana’s.”
She winked at me and said, “I’m a friend of Diana’s too. Nice to meet you.”
“I’ll call you later, Di,” he said as he walked to his car.
Gray and I stood in the driveway looking at each other, but as soon as the ignition cranked, she said, “Oh my gosh. Are you kidding me? Who is that?”
“That,” I said, “is the one who got away.”
“Only now he’s come back.”
I nodded.
“So why are you not driving off into the sunset with him?”
I just shrugged—but when I really examined my reasons, I had to admit that it ha
d more than a little something to do with her.
CHAPTER 12
gray: pamphlets
The orange juice always gets lost in our fridge. I don’t know why, but it’s never up front when I need it. I was wondering how that could be, if it was a phenomenon like socks being eaten by the dryer, when I heard a tap at the back door. Ugh, I thought. Whoever it was could clearly see me through the glass door, so it wasn’t like I could pretend I wasn’t home.
I closed my eyes and crossed my fingers it was Marcy, even though I knew she wouldn’t have knocked. Totally embarrassed that I was still in my bathrobe at, as the microwave informed me, 11:03 a.m., I turned slowly.
I felt my eyes widen in surprise at my visitor. It was a bit like looking in a mirror. Blond hair. Mole by her left eye. But that was where the similarities ended. I pinned on my most enthusiastic smile and opened the door. “Quinn! What on earth are you doing here?”
As she gave my attire a once-over, I leaned in to hug her. My sister. Formerly the most fun person I had ever known.
“Are you sick?” she asked, mock concern on her face.
“No.” I tried to smile through gritted teeth. “Why would you say that?”
“Just wondering why you’re still in your bathrobe at eleven in the morning.” She forced a laugh. “I was in the neighborhood volunteering for the breakfast shift at the soup kitchen and thought I’d pop in.”
I wanted to strangle her already. Instead of explaining myself, I said, “Oh, wow. That’s so nice.”
She looked around. “Where’s Wagner?”
I rolled my eyes. “Brooke’s family beach trip.”
She pursed her lips. “So you obviously haven’t thought any more about my advice from last time I saw you.”
I evaded her question. “So, what brings you here?” Quinn lived in Charleston. “I wish I’d known you were visiting. We could have made plans.”
But I was glad I hadn’t known she was visiting, and I didn’t want to make any plans. She brushed past me into the living room, setting herself pertly on the couch. I followed, rolling my eyes. She reached into her sensible black leather purse, and I remembered a time when my sister would have been carrying something neon, or maybe her glittery clutch because she was still out from the night before.
“I brought you some pamphlets,” she said.
“Okay…” I felt like I was walking into a trap.
“On God’s plan for marriage and how to save it from divorce.”
And there it was. “Quinn, look. I’ve told you like a hundred times. I can’t save my marriage. Greg didn’t say, ‘Hey, Gray, I cheated on you. I love you. Please forgive me.’ ” She stared at me blankly as I continued, “He said, ‘I’ve found someone else. I’m leaving you.’ There’s no coming back from that. He’s engaged to another woman. My marriage is over.”
“Well, Pastor Elijah says—”
“I don’t give two shits what Pastor Elijah says,” I cut her off. “I’m tired of this same conversation. I’m getting divorced. You can accept that or not, but don’t come into my house and tell me how to live my life.”
She looked shocked, as though the f-word hadn’t been the mainstay of her vocabulary two years ago. “You know what the Bible says about…” She paused and looked around and then whispered dramatically, “…divorce.”
I laughed ironically. “Yeah, Quinn. I got it. You’ve highlighted all the passages for me—”
At that moment, I heard, “Sorry I fell asleep, babe. You really know how to tucker a guy out.”
It was like trying to stop a moving train. I couldn’t see him; he couldn’t see me. And his voice traveled. Before I could say anything, he was in the room. In his boxers. With those abs. And that tousled hair.
My sister looked at me as if I were the devil as Andrew said, “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you had company.”
A moment later, I heard the back door open and Diana’s voice saying, “Hi, Gray, I’m back. Hey, where is everybody?”
That’s when my sister huffed, “I don’t want to have to spend eternity without you, but I’m not sure Jesus himself can save your soul.”
She picked up her bag and stormed out, brushing past Diana as I called, “Hey, Quinn, remember when you could do more blow than an entire fraternity house?” Then more loudly, “Oh, wait, remember when I was breastfeeding Wagner and had to leave in the middle of the night to bail you out of jail?” My “TWICE!” coincided with her door slam.
It might have been the first time that both Andrew and Diana had been rendered totally speechless. I sighed heavily, and Diana, who knew all about my sister and our past, hugged me. I wished she wouldn’t have because it made me want to cry. Fighting with your husband is awful. But your sister? That’s your flesh and blood, the person who has known you longer and better than anyone. I mean, it goes without saying that sisters fight. But this wasn’t an argument, one of those we’re-sisters-so-we’ll-be-over-it-in-an-hour types of things. This was do or die.
“Ironically,” I said, “the biggest fights Greg and I ever had were over her.”
“Who was that?” Andrew said, sitting beside me where I had flopped down on the couch. I put my legs in his lap as Diana whispered to him, “Do you ever wear clothes?”
I actually smiled when he replied, “Don’t act like you want me to.” Then he squeezed my calf and said, “No, babe. For real?”
“That lovely creature is my sister. She was the wildest, craziest, most out-of-control person you’ve ever met. A little over the edge, but so fun and so vivacious.”
Andrew grimaced. “So what happened?”
“Pastor Elijah.” I rolled my eyes. “Do you think there’s even a chance that’s his real name?”
Quinn had met Pastor Elijah right after our mother’s diagnosis. I don’t know what took her to church; I guess a last-ditch attempt to pray that “terminal” out of Mom. But he had been utterly charmed by her, like the many, many men before him. And maybe he was looking for a soul to save, I don’t know. My parents were so relieved. Their baby girl was finally growing up. She was finally making the right choices. She fell in love with him so hard and so fast, and, before you knew it, she had traded binge drinking for Bible study and sleeping with every man up and down the Crystal Coast for monogamy. We were all thrilled—at first.
I contented myself with knowing that my mom died thinking Quinn had found Jesus and the love of her life. But assuming she’s looking down, she couldn’t be happy that I was letting my sister carry on with this lunatic. And she’d just left me here to deal with it on my own.
“Trust me,” I said. “No one is happier than I am that she found Jesus. But it’s, like, in a weird way, you know?”
“What do you mean?” Diana asked.
“Like in a cultish, we-need-to-rescue-her-and-put-her-in-the-witness-protection-program sort of way.” I stood up and started pacing. “I mean, she’s just so damn judgmental all of a sudden. It’s unbelievable. After all the times I picked her up at a stranger’s house, all the nights I stayed up holding her hair… Like, I get that she has changed, and I’m so glad. But how do you forget so quickly that you weren’t always perfect either?”
“Ohhhh,” Andrew said. “So what you’re saying is the nearly naked twenty-six-year-old emerging from your bedroom did not impress her?”
I smiled.
“But you know,” he said, “I’m going to be twenty-seven soon. Do you think that would help?”
Diana gagged. “Little boy, go put some clothes on.”
Andrew smiled that charming smile at her and said, “Yes, ma’am,” and got up and wandered back to the bedroom.
Then Diana took my hand and sat us both down on the couch. “Look, honey, losing your momma, it’s tough. I know. You won’t ever get over that.”
She paused. I knew I should feel grateful that I got to have my mom all the years I did, that she was there at the beginning of my marriage, that she helped me with Wagner when he was a baby. That she got to go to b
aseball games and grandparents’ day and the school play.
Diana said, “Everybody handles loss in a different way. And it looks like maybe your sister’s transformation was her response.” She nodded toward the bedroom and said in a low voice, “I don’t want to say it, but do you think that maybe Andrew is yours?”
If Diana had been my mom, I would have yelled at her then. I know I would have. I would’ve said, “You have no idea what I’m going through. He makes me happy, and I deserve a little bit of happy right now!”
I would have walked off and slammed the door, knowing she was right the whole time but not wanting to admit it. But Diana wasn’t my mom. She probably wasn’t going to take that kind of attitude from me, and, well, I needed her. So I just shrugged.
She wrapped her arms around me, and I rested my head on her shoulder.
“I’ve got this divorce hell going on, and my sister is a total wacko, and… I just don’t even know who I am anymore.”
She stroked my hair. “Honey, I’ve felt lost a lot of times in my life, but do you know what I’ve learned?”
I sat up and wiped my eyes.
“You are always who you are. No matter what is going on around you. Your sister is crazy, and your mom is gone, and Greg is a nightmare, but you are still you, Gray. I swear that you are.”
I wanted to feel as sure as she did, but I just didn’t know. I was too sad and too overwhelmed to acknowledge her advice. “I’ve already lost my mom. Now I’ve lost my sister too.”
“I wasn’t anybody’s momma,” Diana said, “but I am somebody’s sister. And I have a feeling that when your blood and your love run thick and deep, you can’t ever really lose them. It sucks that she isn’t here for you when you need her. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t still be there for her when this all blows up.”
“You would have been such a good mom,” I said. “The way you love on everybody, and all your good advice. And you make the best lemonade pie in the world.”
Feels Like Falling Page 17