by Cora Brent
The salt was on the table and I shook it over my sandwich a few times before taking a seat. It was an effort to keep my voice even. “Hey Jack, I know you probably have a lot to do at the shop today so if you want me to take Claudia to the airport later I’ll be around.”
Jack folded his paper and set it down carefully on the table. He was scowling.
“She’s gone already,” Anya explained, glancing over at Jack. “She was up before dawn this morning and called the airline about getting an earlier flight. She asked Rocco to take her to the airport.”
MOTHERFUCKING COCKSUCKING GODDAMMIT!!!
I took a bite, chewed and swallowed. “All right, that’s cool. Just thought I’d offer.” I took my plate to the sink and started for the front door. “Thanks for the breakfast. Think I’ll go for a run.”
Anya stood up. “You’re not wearing any shoes.”
“Yeah, well,” I stammered, noticing that Jack had swiveled slowly around in his chair to stare at me.
I wasn’t too comfortable jogging around barefoot with my junk hanging loose so as soon as I was around the corner I sat down on the nearest curb. My head was a riot of obscenities and I felt like screaming.
Claudia was gone. It would be tough to set things right with her now. I could wrestle her number from Rocco, make an awkward call once she was back in Phoenix, but that might make it even worse. She’d obviously gone to great pains to take off early in order to avoid me. After all, I’d let her believe that to me she was nothing more than a convenient piece of ass. Whether she saw through my lie was a mystery. She didn’t want to hear anything else I had to say.
All that was left now was to try to get over her. I knew a lot of girls. I would get to know even more. Someday I was bound to find one who got my attention the way Claudia Giordano did.
I wondered how long it would take.
PART TWO: DECEMBER 2010
~~~~~~~~~~
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
JACK
His body reacted to the sound of the baby’s cry before his mind caught up. He was already on his feet and wincing over how freaking cold the stupid floor was when his brain awoke and ordered him to go tend to his daughter.
Anya stirred and slowly sat up in bed as Jack pulled a thick gray sweatshirt over his head. “You got her?” she asked in an exhausted voice.
Jack kissed the top of his wife’s head. “I got her,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”
Allison was standing indignantly in her crib, clutching the sides with her determined little hands while her lower lip jutted out in complaint. She smiled when she saw him, gurgling some kind of happy baby speak as Jack reached into the crib and picked her up.
“There’s my girl,” he murmured, and settled her warm body on his shoulder. Allie let out a tiny sigh and wrapped her arms around his neck as Jack’s heart swelled. Nine months ago today his baby daughter had been placed, squalling and red-faced, in his arms. He promised himself that this time he wouldn’t forget a thing. It was a promise he reminded himself of every day.
“So what’s all the fuss this morning, princess?” he asked as Allie drooled into his neck. He patted her back and pulled the curtains from the window. This had been Claudia’s room and after that, Papa’s. The walls had been repainted a sunny yellow following Papa’s death last summer. Papa had been fond of dozing off in the rickety backyard hammock that Carmine had installed eons ago. The one afternoon he slipped away and never came back. He’d lived a long life and was lucky to find a peaceful death. Jack was grateful for that at least.
Jack set Allie down on the changing table and quickly replaced her wet diaper with a clean one. He grabbed a blanket from the crib and wrapped it around her. The oil burner groaned to life as he carried his daughter to the kitchen. It was cold. The forecast predicted possible snow and Jack hoped it was accurate. Even though she would never remember it, Allie should have snow in celebration of her first Christmas. It would be magical, perfect. That’s what Jack wanted for his little girl. He would demand it from the universe every hour of every day.
He grabbed a bottle of Anya’s carefully pumped breast milk from the fridge and Allie snatched at it eagerly as he set her down in the high chair. He switched on the coffee pot, figuring he needed about a gallon of caffeine before he did anything more challenging.
“I’m getting a kick out of seeing you up with the sun,” Claudia said as she shuffled into the kitchen. Jack hadn’t heard a sound from her, hadn’t known she was awake.
“Yeah, well,” he answered lamely, “you do what you gotta do.”
She gave him a faint smile and sat down, shivering. “You feel like sharing some of that caffeine?”
“What’s mine is yours, kid.”
He watched as Claudia pulled her chair beside her baby sister. Allie removed the bottle from her mouth and threw it in Claudia’s direction.
“What’s up with that?” Claudia laughed as she retrieved the bottle. “You don’t like me?”
“It’s a test,” Jack explained, staring at the rare sight of his two daughters together. “She throws the bottle and waits for you to pick it up. She’s seeing if she can get you to do what she wants.”
Claudia held the bottle in front of Allie’s reaching hands. “So do I pass, little one?”
Allie let out a squeal and snatched the bottle.
“I think you passed,” said Jack.
Claudia looked at him. She’d cut her hair. It rested right at her shoulders in soft waves. She hadn’t been home since his wedding last summer.
“You playing Santa Claus this year?” she asked.
The question caught him off guard. “I would if I had a suit. Should have thought of it sooner.”
“I remember the last time you did that. I think I was about six. Your beard was crooked and you forgot to take off your St. Christopher medal so I knew it was you.”
Jack poured coffee into a snowman mug and handed it to her. “And all these years I thought I had you fooled.”
“No. But it made me happy anyway.” She took a sip of coffee, then set the mug down and reached out to gently touch her sister’s cheek.
Jack remembered that Christmas. He’d borrowed the suit from a cop buddy of his and he’d been drunk when he put it on. He busted through the front door and startled the whole damn lot of them just as his mother was setting Christmas Eve dinner on the table. Claudia had sat primly on his knee and declared that she wanted a blue bicycle with glitter streamers. Somewhere in his fuzzy brain he grew alarmed as he recalled that he’d already bought a set of these ugly little dolls with interchangeable clothing. Yet as he listened to her he suddenly remembered that she’d mentioned wanting a bike. She’d mentioned it a lot.
“Don’t you want some dolls instead?” he’d asked hopefully, knowing it was certainly too late to get her anything else at that point.
“No,” she answered, scowling at him. “I never play with dolls.”
Jack vaguely remembered that after removing Claudia from his knee and tossing the Santa suit in the garage, he’d gone out that night, visiting one of the women he kept dangling on a string for such times. Then somehow his keys went missing and he wound up pounding on the front door at two am. The clearest memory of that holiday was standing in this very kitchen being yelled at by his own father in the wee hours of Christmas morning. Claudia had been roused by the noise and wandered into the room in confusion, rubbing her eyes.
“I was looking for you,” she told him in a small, hurt voice. “Where did you go?”
He had no answer to give her and Carmine threw him one last irritated look before ushering the little girl back to her room. Jack had stood there in the cold darkness for a while and then headed to bed because he was still half drunk and there was nothing he could fucking do about his utter failure as a father at two am on Christmas morning.
Allie’s sweet giggle jarred him out of the past and he watched Claudia tickle her under the chin. He’d thought for sure Claudia would visit sooner after t
he birth of her baby sister. He even offered repeatedly to pay for the plane ticket but it seemed something always came up. Claudia was going to school, pursuing an MBA, plus she was working at a car rental place to pay the bills. She was busy. That’s what she always said anyway.
But she was here now. When she’d walked through the door yesterday Anya had immediately handed her the squirming Allison. Claudia had seemed perplexed for a few seconds, awkwardly holding the baby and glancing around for help. Then Allie had smiled at her, a precious grin complete with two teeth and a copious amount of drool. Claudia’s face had instantly melted into enchantment.
Jack warmed up a small amount of Allie’s cereal and mixed it with a jar of applesauce. He was very conscious of Claudia’s eyes on him as he sat down and started feeding the baby. Maybe she was trying to gauge whether he’d ever done the same for her. He must have. Once or twice anyway. But he couldn’t remember it.
A sudden shadow fell across the window and Claudia gasped in surprise. Jack was expecting to see one of his own dumbass brothers standing there making goofy faces because they were always doing shit like that. Instead he saw Anya’s brother with a backpack slung over one shoulder. He grinned mischievously and rapped on the glass.
“Oh my god,” exclaimed Claudia, sounding either shocked or horrified or both.
“Relax, it’s just Easton,” said Jack, moving over to the door to let him inside.
“You said he wasn’t coming for Christmas,” she said sharply and Jack didn’t have time to answer her before his brother-in-law surged into the kitchen, bringing a mighty whoosh of chilled air.
“Man, it’s bone cold out there,” Easton complained as he dropped his backpack on the floor and crossed his arms over his chest. It couldn’t have been more than fifteen degrees out, less than that with the wind chill, but Easton was only wearing a zipped sweatshirt over his jeans.
“It helps if you dress for the weather. What happened, you lose all your jackets?” Jack asked as he offered him a hearty back slap before sitting down again.
“I don’t need a jacket in Florida. It’s beach weather in Ft. Lauderdale right now.”
“Why didn’t you tell your sister you were on your way? We would have picked you up from the airport.”
Easton made a silly face at Allie and the baby giggled.
“I walked,” he said.
Jack snorted. “From LaGuardia Airport?”
“From Fort Lauderdale.”
“Must have taken a few days.”
Easton hunkered down next to the high chair. He took the bowl of Allie’s cereal and sniffed. “Can I have some of this? I’m fucking starving. Buddy of mine was driving up for the holidays so I tagged along.”
Jack sat back in his chair and watched Easton make an ass out of himself trying to make his little niece smile again. “Why didn’t you say nothin’? We would have helped you with the cost of a plane ticket. At Thanksgiving you made it sound like you wanted to stay down there and work on your pitching before training starts in a few months.”
Easton stood up and shrugged. “Got kind of lonely. And I wanted to surprise my sister. Where’s she at? It’s almost eight and Anya hardly ever sleeps past dawn.” The kitchen was really small but somehow Easton seemed to have missed seeing Claudia until that moment. Maybe it was because she had shrunk into her chair like she was hoping it would swallow her. Jack could swear they both stopped breathing as they stared at each other.
Claudia recovered first. She cleared her throat. “Hi, Easton.”
“Hey,” he answered, nodding at her coolly. “Wasn’t expecting you to be here.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“I visit a lot,” Easton shrugged. ‘And you don’t,’ seemed to be the implied retort.
Jack didn’t know what the hell was up with the two of them. They regarded each other warily, almost with a palpable air of dislike. Whatever it was he hoped they got over it real goddamn quick.
“EAST!” Anya squealed as she rushed into the kitchen. Easton enveloped her in a fierce hug and lifted her from the ground briefly. When he put her down she was wiping a few tears away and Jack softened, understanding that to Anya there was no better Christmas present than a visit from her beloved little brother.
“Got a lot of shit being stored in the garage these days,” Jack explained, “and Claudia’s staying in the upstairs bedroom. Hope you’re good with the couch.”
“The couch sounds fanfuckingtastic,” yawned Easton as he grabbed his backpack off the floor. “Listen, I stink like the entire eastern seaboard so I’m gonna jump in the shower, okay?”
“I’ll have breakfast ready when you get out,” said Anya happily as she picked Allie up out of her high chair. Her eyes were shining as she set the baby against her hip and started bustling around in search of pots and pans.
Whatever mystery was behind the strange exchange between Easton and Claudia would have to be pushed aside. Anya had once commented that she thought there was some kind of attraction between them but that didn’t appear likely to Jack, at least not now.
Claudia was standing awkwardly beside the table. “You need any help?” she asked and Anya turned around, looking a little surprised.
“Yeah,” she said and started to hand Allison over. “Can you entertain the princess while I get the food going?”
Jack watched Claudia as she settled back into her chair with her baby sister in her lap. Jack had always thought of Claudia as stubborn and tough, immune to the tender things that interested most women. He figured that was at least partly his fault. But Claudia had a subdued, gentle air about her as she stirred the baby food in the bowl and carefully brought the spoon to Allie’s open mouth. Anya hummed to herself as she rapidly stirred egg yolks with a fork and Claudia exclaimed over Allie’s strong appetite. Jack was struck by the fact that everything he loved most in the world was right here in this room. If there was ever a moment that he wished to freeze and hold beside his heart forever, this was it. This was absolutely it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CLAUDIA
I have never handled surprises gracefully and Easton had presented one hell of a bombshell. Jack had told me Easton wouldn’t be here for Christmas. He’d told me that before I even decided to make the trip myself. As I was booking my own plane ticket I was sure Easton’s guaranteed absence had nothing to do with my plans.
Of course that was a lie. In fact, I was the worst kind of coward.
A year and a half is not a really long time, unless it’s thick with guilt and angry silence. Whatever news I’d learned about Easton I’d received in incomplete snippets from Jack and Rocco. I never asked for details. He’d torn up every pitching record in sight during his freshman year. Detroit had grabbed him during the recent MLB draft. He was training down in Florida and was slated to start in the minor leagues this spring. I had every reason to believe he’d never told anyone about our wild times last summer and I was grateful. He didn’t really owe me that consideration. After all, I’d skulked away like a gutless bandit and caught the first plane to Arizona without looking back, without even saying goodbye.
Easton flung open the bathroom door and caught me in a daydream as I lingered in the hallway. I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular; only the taste of his tongue and the feel of his hands.
“You waiting for the bathroom?” he asked, running a comb through his wet hair without looking at me.
“Yeah,” I answered because the hallway was no place to talk about sex and regrets.
“All yours,” he said curtly and then squeezed by without touching me at all, quite a feat since the hallway was really very narrow. He hadn’t been pleased to see me sitting there in the kitchen when he came through the door. I knew that much.
Jack had taken the baby from me while Anya cooked breakfast. He carried Allison away while she wrapped her chubby arms around his neck and drooled. I felt a small internal pang as I watched the two of them. It wasn’t jealousy. Who could po
ssibly be jealous of a baby? It was something though.
I leaned against the wall, which happened to adjoin the kitchen. I heard Easton join his sister in there and pull a chair out. She asked him a lot of bright questions and he answered them cheerfully. He’d traveled by car all the way here with a friend, a shortstop who had some family up in the Catskills. He would be in town for two days, until his buddy swung through to pick him up for the long drive down south.
“Where did Claudia go?” Anya asked.
“She’s in the shitter.”
“Go ask her if she wants some eggs.”
“I’m not gonna go pound on the door while she’s sitting on the toilet. If she’s hungry she knows where the food is.”
“I’ll make some extra, in case she wants any.”
Easton’s voice was scornful. “It’s Claudia. She’ll never tell you what the hell she wants.”
It sounded like Anya set a heavy pot down on the stove. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“East, I don’t know what she did to piss you off, but try to get over it, okay? We’re all here together and it’s Allie’s first Christmas.”
“I’m already over it,” Easton replied grumpily.
I was so intent on eavesdropping I didn’t even notice Jack’s appearance.
“What are you doing?” he asked. He’d dressed Allie in several layers of clothes because the house was so cold. I recognized a thick purple sweater I’d sent her in November.
“Nothing,” I said, straightening and trying to look casual.
“Looked like you were hugging the wall.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Okay.” My father shrugged. “I gotta make a call about the heating oil. Don’t want to run out on Christmas. It’s freezing enough in here as it is.”