by Jo Goodman
“Oh, yeah. Great idea, that basket.” Lousy place to put it. She came back with his cup of coffee.
“You’re hovering again.” He put down his pencil and held out his hand. His fingers made a curling motion, inviting her in.
Thea hesitated, her eyes darting from Mitch’s extended hand to the cluttered landscape of his office. It was difficult to take in the totality of the disorder. In addition to the drafting board, there was also a desk, the wide expanse of its surface barely visible because of a cityscape of towers built from sketchbooks, magazines, CDs, books, newspapers, and old calendars. One tower had been shifted from its foundation to make room for the cussing jar. Now the uppermost part of it leaned precariously over the edge of the desk, defying gravity and making Thea want to hold her breath in anticipation of its collapse.
Following her gaze, he grinned. “Not quite what you’re used to.”
She couldn’t disagree. Stepping up to his drafting table, Thea handed him his coffee, carefully avoiding the light-board. “You must have hated my office.”
Mitch shrugged. “Let’s just say it wouldn’t work for me. Go on, look around. I don’t mind. It’s all right to touch, but don’t move anything. I won’t be able to find it again.”
Expecting to see humor pulling at the corners of his mouth, Thea shot him a skeptical sideways glance. He was perfectly serious. She could have told him she had no intention of touching anything. That’s how the spider caught the fly. Thea made a point of keeping her hands at her sides as she wandered around the Federally unrecognized disaster area.
Mitch’s studio had been created from an existing utility room which had been expanded several feet so that it jutted at a right angle into the backyard. Now he had what was essentially a sunporch as his workroom. There was plenty of natural light coming in from two skylights and a pair of sliding glass doors. In theory the doors led to the flagstone patio. The reality was they couldn’t be reached because of the array of equipment spread out on a long table in front of them. Cords from the computer, copier/printer/scanner/fax, ethernet, and phone had been gathered up into ribbed plastic pipes in an attempt to confine the technoweb, but Mitch had never gotten around to doing the same with the thirty-two-inch TV, DVR, DVD, iPod dock, CD player, and stereo receiver that crowded what remained of the available surface area. The cords to all that equipment dangled over the edge of the table like a waterfall of black snakes. Ugh.
At her sides, Thea’s fingers twitched. She moved on before she began untangling the mess. Still, her hand trailed over the back of the Aeron chair that was positioned near the table but not quite under it. She gave it a light push so it rolled into a less obtrusive space.
Watching her, Mitch smiled. He supposed he would be able to find the chair again. “You didn’t want coffee?” he asked.
Thea didn’t look at him. She was studying the stiff brown contents of a terra cotta container. “I don’t drink it as a rule,” she said.
It figured that she had rules. “Can I get you something else? Orange juice? Tea?”
“I’m fine,” she said absently. Thea lost the battle with herself and picked up the pot. She could feel moisture through the clay and the saucer was damp. He actually watered this thing. “What is this?”
Mitch leaned against the back of his stool and asked cautiously, “What do you think it is?”
Now she did look at him, one brow lifted in a perfect arch. “Dead.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Shaking her head, she set it back in the saucer. “You can stop watering it. How long has it looked like that?”
Mitch considered the question. “Well, my mother gave it to me when this addition was finished. Sort of an office-warming present. I guess that was three, three and a half years ago. It looked like that about two months later. You do the math.” He paused. “You’re sure there’s nothing I can do? Feed it maybe? Turn it?”
“Bury it,” she said flatly. “And the next plant someone is foolish enough to give you, keep out of the direct sunlight, or at least move it around. You burned this one.”
“Ouch.”
Thea hid her smile and moved to one corner of the studio where Mitch had what looked like a sculpture in the making. On closer inspection she recognized old computer monitors, keyboards, cables, motherboards, hard drives, cell phones, and mice, all of them glued together in what was actually a pleasing-to-the-eye arrangement. “You don’t like to throw anything away?”
“Those are artifacts.”
It was an interesting view of junk. She held up her hands, surrendering before he could expand his defense. “It’s your place. I prefer to visit the Smithsonian. Do you have a name for this piece?”
“Meltdown.”
She nodded approvingly, then felt herself seized by hesitation, wondering where to go from here. “May I see what you’re doing?”
“Sure.” He lifted the long aluminum clip that held his paper in place and tilted the drawing in Thea’s direction as she approached. “It’s a work in progress. I’m just in the pencil sketching phase. Still playing with the idea.”
The idea was to show the president proposing deep tax cuts with one hand and stuffing money into the pockets of wealthy supporters with the other. The wealthy supporters were fat cats. Literally. “It makes your position clear.”
Mitch cocked his head to one side and studied the drawing. “That’s the problem; it’s not really my position. It’s my take on what I think the reactivity to the cuts is all about. I’m actually pretty neutral about it.” He slid the sketch back into place. “I need to take a break. When I’m having this much trouble with the man’s ears, it’s time to leave it alone.” He set his pencil in the tray and slid off his stool. He had a sense that Thea was trying very hard to stay her ground when he came to his feet inches from her. “Come on. You’ve seen enough of the inner sanctum to be rightly concerned about my mental health. Let’s go in the kitchen and I’ll make you some breakfast. I want to hear about your evening with the kids.”
“I really have to be going,” Thea said quickly, pivoting to follow Mitch’s progress to the door. “I didn’t expect to sleep in ... that is, I didn’t expect to sleep at all.”
Mitch had already cleared the doorway, but he backed up enough to put his head and shoulders into view. “I’m kind of interested in that part,” he said, and disappeared again. He called back from near the stove. “You get a good night’s rest?”
Thea pressed the narrow bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, closing her eyes briefly. “I slept fine,” she said.
“What? You’ll have to come in here. I can’t hear you.”
Try as she might, Thea just couldn’t work herself up to the level of annoyance she thought it would take to fight him. She walked into the kitchen. “I said I slept fine.”
“Great.” Mitch’s voice came from the bowels of the refrigerator. He held up a carton of orange juice over the edge of the open door. “One of the kids put this back empty. My mom lives to hear stuff like that. But I have oranges. You want to make some fresh-squeezed?”
“Why not?” Thea’s humor came to the forefront. “I could use the workout.”
Chuckling, Mitch pitched the carton over his shoulder. His blind toss still made a clean landing in the sink. He straightened, arms filled with about a half-dozen oranges, and stepped back from the fridge. He used the toe of his bare foot to shut the door. “I don’t have one of those little droid juicers,” he said, dropping the oranges on the countertop, then scrambling to keep them from rolling to the floor. “You’ll have to use this.” From the cupboard above the toaster, Mitch pulled out an old-fashioned glass juicer. This one required more in the way of manual labor than the one-armed mechanical variety. “You know how to use it?”
“I’ll figure it out,” she said dryly.
He pulled out a cutting board, laid a knife on top of it, then retrieved two tumblers out of the glassware cupboard. “All yours.”
Thea regarded
him suspiciously. “Before I start whitewashing the fence, Tom, what exactly will you be doing?”
Mitch’s grin was appreciative. “I’ll be making French toast.” He saw her eyes narrow another fraction. “Thea Wyndham, you’re a cynic. This is the same honest-to-God, bread-in-the-batter, cinnamon-and-sugar French toast I made for the heathens this morning.” He opened the refrigerator door again and pulled out a covered glass bowl. “I saved the extra to entice you.”
He could have probably had her with a toaster waffle, but it was nice that he wanted to tempt her. To hide the absurd surge of pleasure she felt, Thea went to the sink and began washing her hands. For the next twenty minutes they moved around the kitchen, and around each other, with ease. Thea sliced, squeezed, and poured the orange juice, and then cleared the table and reset it for the two of them. Mitch stood at the stove and with an economy of motion that spoke of his familiarity with the task, soaked thick slices of real French bread in the batter, and then tossed them, dripping, onto the hot griddle. While they fried, he heated syrup in the microwave and sliced a kiwi. When the bread was done, he used a sifter to sprinkle powdered sugar on each slice, and finally placed them on plates he had warmed in the oven.
“You sure you don’t want some coffee?” Mitch asked as he poured himself another cup. He added cream from the carton. “Or I can put the kettle on for tea.”
“OJ’s fine.”
“I can get you water. It’s safe.” Like many of the residents of Connaugh Creek, he had a water cooler in his kitchen. The town’s place at the epicenter of thousands of acres of farmland, and the creek’s meandering through the bucolic landscape, had a downside. Chemical fertilizers for crops and cattle had left the creek the polluted source of every home’s tap water. It was all right for bathing and washing clothes, but there were regular warnings about dangerously high nitrate levels that left the residents with little choice but to purchase their drinking water. “Or you can get your own,” he said, setting his mug down and pulling out the chair at the head of the table.
“Yes.” Her mouth curved in a slim smile. “I can do that.”
Mitch sat down and regarded her for a few moments before he picked up his fork. “So,” he said, “why did you never say yes?”
Thea’s hand froze halfway to her mouth. Syrup dripped from the triangle of French toast on the end of her fork. Was he really asking why she’d never gone a date with him? “Pardon?”
Mitch considered her response for a lot longer than she considered his question. “Never mind,” he said finally. “Go on. Eat. If you know the answer, I don’t think you’re prepared to tell me.”
“Perhaps if I knew what you were talking about.” She finished raising the forkful of food to her mouth. With the first bite she closed her eyes and made a little sound of pleasure as her taste buds celebrated. “I think this must be ambrosia. I have a very happy mouth right now.”
Mitch’s lips twitched. “Happy, huh?”
Thea saw she had amused him and was oddly pleased by that. “Ecstatic, really.”
Chuckling, Mitch cut a corner from his own bread and popped it in his mouth. “Not bad.”
She ignored his modest comment and applied herself to her own plate. Every bite melted on her tongue. She hadn’t known breakfast could be such a sybaritic pleasure.
Mitch observed her over the rim of his coffee cup. He would have agreed right there on the spot to make her French toast for a lifetime just to watch her eat it. And if she let him taste that dollop of syrup clinging to her bottom lip with his own tongue, he’d have a happy mouth himself. “Tell me how it went with the kids,” he said. “Was the movie okay?”
“Surprisingly good, actually.” Her eyes met his. “Both things, I mean. How the evening went and the movie. Didn’t they fill you in this morning?”
“I got a frame-by-frame account of the movie, a soup to nuts version of their dinner at the restaurant, and a highly edited story of the rest of the night. I admit to being suspicious.”
Thea set down her fork and took a sip of orange juice. Her gaze shifted to the front door as she considered all that had happened once they arrived home. “Oh!” She straightened in her chair, frowning as she thought back and realized what she hadn’t done. She started to get up. “I forgot to lock the door after we came in.”
“It’s all right. I got it.”
It took a moment for Mitch’s words to penetrate. Even when they did, Thea was slow to relax. “I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes returning to his as she sat again. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“Thea, it’s all right. This is Connaugh Creek. It’s not exactly a high crime area. I took care of it.”
“But I—”
He reached across the corner of the table and laid his fingers lightly on her wrist. “It’s all right,” he repeated.
She was startled by the warmth of his hand. He’d been holding his coffee mug between his palms and she thought that must account for it. Thea did not want to consider the possibility that the heat in this contact was only in her mind. With her free hand she reached in her jeans pocket and found the key he’d given her. She pushed it toward his plate. “Here,” she said. “You don’t want me to drive away with this.”
Mitch didn’t comment on that. He left the key where it was but removed his hand from Thea’s wrist. “I found the cussing jar by the door,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “What was it that did you in? Snagged zippers in the parkas or Gordian knots in the sneakers?”
“The knots,” she admitted. She felt herself being able to take a full breath now that her chest was less tight, but nothing had changed the deep, abiding tension twisting her stomach. He shouldn’t have trusted her with the children, she thought, not when she couldn’t remember to do something as fundamental for their safety as locking the front door. Her mind started to spin again as she considered other possibilities. What else had she forgotten to do?
“Thea?”
The sound of her name only garnered her partial attention. “Hmmm?”
“You’re drifting.” He tapped the stem of her fork so that it jangled against her plate. “And your ambrosia is getting cold.”
She looked down at her meal, surprised to find so much of it remaining. There was a fine tremor in her hand when she picked up her fork. “I didn’t make them bathe,” she said.
“I told you to forget about baths. That was all taken care of this morning.”
Thea worried the inside of her lip as she nodded. “I didn’t hear them get up.”
“They’re sneaky. It’s a kid thing.” He tucked into his own breakfast again. “Besides, they found me and took a great deal of delight in making sure I knew they were awake.”
“You slept down here?”
“No. In Emilie’s room.” He didn’t miss the faint lift of one corner of her mouth and the frank surprise in her eyes. “I know,” he said. “All that pink. Now I understand how Ken feels when he sleeps over at Barbie’s.”
“Emasculated, you mean?”
Mitch gave a bark of laughter. “Yeah, I worried about that. I’ve seen Ken nekkid. It’s kind of scary, especially if you have a sister who says the same thing can happen to you.”
Thea’s smile widened. She felt a crumb on her lip and caught it with the tip of her tongue. That small action seemed to arrest Mitch’s gaze. Thea quickly tore the napkin from her lap and applied it to her mouth in a self-conscious manner. She imagined her lips smeared with butter, powdered sugar, and syrup and hoped she didn’t have little black kiwi seeds between her teeth. From behind her napkin, she asked, “What time did you get back?”
“Gina dropped me off a little after eleven,” he said. “I wanted to explain about that. I meant to—”
Thea put her napkin down and held up one hand. “You don’t have to explain yourself—”
Mitch cut in. “I know I don’t. I want to.” When she merely regarded him politely, Mitch sighed. “You must have wondered what happened to us.”
“I figured
I knew,” she said. There was no accusation in her voice. “Gina told me that you and she had not had any time alone. The children, though, were worried.”
“They were?”
“I suppose that’s why their account of last night was abbreviated. They got rather fractious as the evening wore on and you didn’t appear.” Thea could see he was genuinely surprised by this. “Didn’t you suspect they might get anxious about whether you were coming back?”
“Not coming back?” His brows lifted. “How could they think—” Mitch stopped himself. He removed his glasses and set them on the table, then rubbed the area at his left temple while he stared at his plate. “Jesus,” he said softly. “I never thought they wouldn’t know I was coming back.”
“When you consider it from their perspective ... their recent experience ...” Thea’s voice trailed off. She laid her hand over his forearm, mirroring the comforting gesture he had extended earlier to her.
“Jesus,” he said again.
Thea watched him slip his arm out from under her touch and stand. He was like a sleepwalker as he left the table and disappeared into his studio. When he reappeared he was holding the cussing jar. Still without expression, he placed it on the counter and dug in his pocket for some change. He came out with a couple of bills and stuffed them in the container, establishing credit for what was coming next.
His voice was hardly more than a whisper. “Fuck me.” He leaned back against the counter, shaking his head slowly. “Why didn’t I anticipate that? I drove Gina a little crazy worrying about them, and here I was worrying about all the wrong things.”
“Well, that’s easy enough to understand,” she said. “You were entrusting them to me.”
His glance was sharp and unamused. “Stop it. You left a door open. Big deal. I left them afraid.”
“Hey,” she said quietly. “You didn’t leave them alone. We muddled through, Mitch. There were tears, but we had plenty of tissues to go around and superhero bandages for the really big wounds.” Thea saw that puzzlement had slightly softened his expression and she explained the events of the early part of the evening to him. “After that was over, we played a board game for too long, ate too much junk, and ended up with some unsportsmanlike conduct that needed a referee. I phoned Joel for a personal time-out after we finished cleaning up the mess and the kids went up to bed. Someone called a cuddle and we fell asleep in the middle of it.”