A Place Called Home

by Jo Goodman

  She was an addict, she told him, and though her explanation was not so different from the one she had given him before she went into rehab, she believed he finally understood what it meant. At least he nodded at all the right times.

  George Wyndham wasn’t changed by what he heard. Thea hadn’t expected that he would be. She had put it all before him, without blame or censure, and she was the one who came to view life through a different lens.

  When she came to the end, he simply sat there. His features gave so little away that Thea couldn’t have said if he was stunned or simply being stoic. His very stillness caused her to take a step toward him.

  “Daddy?”

  He had looked up at her then, regarding her with something that passed for a smile on his face. “You’re very forthright, aren’t you, dear?”

  “I suppose I am.” It surprised her a bit, this admission. It was not how she would have characterized herself. “Yes,” she said with more assurance this time. It was like taking that first step in a new shoe and finding you liked the fit. “I am.”

  “Good. It will serve you well.” He paused, halfway to his feet, brought up short by another thought. “But you’re not a lesbian?”

  Thea burst out laughing. “No, Daddy, I’m not a lesbian.”

  George Wyndham nodded once, straightening. “It wouldn’t matter to me,” he said rather gruffly. “But your mother would certainly drown in her Scotch.”

  Thea sank into the chair behind her desk, slipped off her black-and-white Ferragamo heels, and put her feet up. She pulled the phone toward her, fit the earbud in place, and then began returning calls. Between the ones relating to business, she tried Mitch. She finally got him on her third attempt.

  “How’d it go?” he asked right off the bat.

  “Great. Wonderful. Not a single glitch. Oh, and my father’s relieved I’m not a lesbian, although he says it wouldn’t matter if I was.” She smiled to herself as silence filled the airway. “Kind of tough to know what to say to that, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve got a picture going in my head now that’s going to be hard to shake.”

  Thea rolled her eyes. “You’re such a guy.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I just finished setting up a meeting with Carver Chemical. I’m flying to New York next week.” She glanced at the calendar on her laptop. “Thursday afternoon. I’ll be back Friday night.”

  “You’re going alone?”

  “I’m taking half the Blues with me. Hank might go. He’s pumped for this.”

  “Are you going to drive up this evening? Case and Grant have a ball game.”

  Thea’s disappointment was real. “I can’t, Mitch. I still have to pick up the Volvo and I invited my mother and dad out to dinner. It’s going to be late before I can leave the office anyway.” She leaned forward and began scrolling through her calendar. “Tell me when the next game is.”

  “Thursday, a week from now, but you’ll be in New York. There’s nothing after that until the All Stars on the Fourth of July. That’s the season finish.”

  Thea entered the information. “What time does the game start?”

  “Five-thirty. But Thea, you don’t—”

  “I’ll think of something,” she interrupted. “Now, tell me about the cartoon you’re working on.” That was when Thea leaned back, closed her eyes, and let herself be lulled by the sound of Mitch’s sexy, sandpaper voice.

  Emilie tugged on the back of Mitch’s T-shirt hard enough to choke off his batter-batter-batter-swinnng cry.

  “Whoa! Em. What is it?” He pulled his shirt back in place and glanced at her. She was pointing to the entrance to the field, her mouth parted and her eyes wide. When he followed the direction of her finger, he saw what had rendered her speechless. His own jaw went a little slack.

  It wasn’t every day a woman in a Chanel suit and a ball cap wriggled her way through the crowd at the concession stand and came away carrying three footlongs with everything and a cardboard holder of drinks.

  Mitch watched Thea’s parents each relieve her of a hot dog and then follow her past the dugout and toward him and Emilie in the bleachers. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Although he said it under his breath, and with a certain amount of reverence, he caught Emilie’s look and knew she wasn’t fooled. “I’ll pay later,” he said, hopping down. Dust puffed around his Nikes as he hit the ground.

  “Surprise,” Thea said, handing him the drink holder but keeping a good grip on her footlong. “What’s the score?”

  Mitch found his voice. “Two - zip. Bottom of the first. We’ve already been to bat. The twins are in the outfield. You made good time.”

  “Nice sports update. You do the weather?”

  He ignored that and held out his free hand to Thea’s father. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.” Translation: Not in this lifetime. Mitch nodded to Patricia Wyndham who was holding her hot dog in two hands and looking as if she had no idea what to do with it. “May I help you to your seats? It’s pretty crowded today. The Squirts and Little Rotary always draw a lot of spectators. We’re up on top.”

  Thea had more difficulty than her parents. After all, they had just come back from walking the craggy moors of Scotland, while she was wearing a narrow Chanel skirt that did okay on the gentle incline of her office treadmill, but couldn’t be wrestled into modest coverage while climbing the bleachers. From where Mitch stood behind her, it was a great view.

  Patricia Wyndham waited for her husband to spread a handkerchief on the rough wooden seat before she sat down. It was a tight squeeze between Emilie and George. “I don’t know why we couldn’t have gone to a real ball game,” she said. “Doesn’t the agency still have a box?”

  “This is a real ball game,” Emilie told her matter-of-factly. “You have a hot dog, don’t you?”

  Patricia blinked. “I was speaking to my husband.”

  Emilie shrugged. “I know.”

  Mitch tried to catch Emilie’s eye but she deliberately ignored him. Thea tapped Mitch’s knee and shook her head. “I don’t want her to be rude,” he whispered.

  Thea cocked an eyebrow at him. “My mother’s the one being rude. Let them work it out.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw her father was actually smiling.

  There was no time to appreciate the moment. The batter hit a ground ball, which took a bad bounce past the shortstop and the second baseman, both of whom were watching the sky for UFOs anyway. Case, sharing center field with his brother, remembered to run for the ball but overshot his mark and went flying chin first into the grass. Grant managed to dig his uniform out of his behind just in time to get his glove back on. The ball was now just lying there. He picked it up but didn’t appear to be entirely certain what to do with it.

  Thea jumped to her feet and began yelling directions to him along with every other parent in the crowd. “Second base! Throw it to second!”

  Emilie shot up and hopped onto her seat. Unencumbered by a hot dog, she waved her arms madly. “Second, Grant! Second base! Hurry!” She reached down and pulled on Patricia Wyndham’s arm. “Come on! You’re missing it! This is the good part!”

  The footlong wobbled in Patricia’s hands but she gamely got to her feet. She was witness to Grant overthrowing second base and being a hero anyway because the runner was already on his way to third. The third baseman snagged the ball and there was some dashing back and forth before a tag was made. “It does seem like the good part,” she said dryly, sitting down again. “I believe you missed it, dear.”

  “No, I didn’t,” George said.

  Patricia followed the direction of his glance. Thea was still on her feet, arms raised, dancing in place and cheering at the top of her lungs. The ball cap had been refitted backward and the Chanel suit had dust on the jacket and skirt and a splinter in the hem. A dollop of ketchup and relish spotted the left sleeve. Her face was flushed. Strands of hair fluttered at odd angles on either side of the cap. Her eyes were almost feverishly bright.

&
nbsp; She looked radiant.

  Patricia Wyndham felt a pang of jealousy, not merely for Thea’s vitality, but the expression of it. This is what she fought to control in herself and later, tried to contain in her daughter. What had made her think she could curb that wildness in Thea when it had always been so difficult for her?

  Blood would tell. It invariably did, didn’t it?

  Patricia passed her footlong to a surprised Emilie and reached past her husband to tug on Thea’s skirt. “You’re making a spectacle of yourself,” she whispered with some urgency.

  Thea looked down at her mother. “I know. Isn’t it wonderful?” She grinned fulsomely. “Here, have my hot dog.”

  Mitch leaned backward on the bleacher so he could look around Thea’s taut backside and long legs. “You look like you could use a drink, Mrs. Wyndham.”

  With a devilish little smile, he handed her a Coke.

  “Gina found a house she wants me to look at,” Mitch told Thea as soon as Emilie handed him the phone. He was the last one to talk to her. The twins had already apprised her of their win on the field and what flavor of ice cream they’d had at the subsequent celebration. Emilie’s conversation went the distance, covering her current favorite pop star, her hair, her best friend Nicole, and what she should do about Joseph Allen, the boy who was torturing her with bugs in homeroom. “I’m going to check out the house tomorrow,” Mitch said. “Gina says I’ll like it.”

  Thea was silent.

  “Thea? Are you still there?”

  “I’m here.” The slight squeezing around her heart eased enough for her to push out those words. “That’s great.” What had she thought? That he would invite her to look at it with him? Yeah. That’s exactly what she’d thought. “Where is it?”

  “Can’t tell you. Gina wouldn’t say. She’s been secretive about it.”

  “Gina? Secretive? That doesn’t sound right.”

  “That’s what I thought. She’s been ... oh, I don’t know ... kind of weird lately.”

  “Weird.”

  “Don’t ask me to explain it better than that. She’s just been different.”

  “You’ve seen a lot of her?” Thea winced. Only one day out of town and she was sounding possessive. “I mean, I guess you’ve seen a lot of her. About the house and everything.”

  Mitch did not try to keep the smile out of his voice. “Sure. About the house ... and everything.” He thought he heard Thea’s muffled groan. “Are you okay?”

  She uncovered the receiver. “Fine.” She cleared her throat. “Fine.”

  “Did you get the flowers?”

  Thea looked over at the extravagant bouquet on her hotel room bureau. “They were waiting for me. Thank you.”

  “They’re from the kids, too.”

  “I know. I thanked them.”

  Mitch hesitated when she didn’t say anything else. “Was there a box?”

  Thea’s eyes fell on the open box at the foot of her bed. Tissue paper blossomed from it. The lid was lying on the carpet next to the pair of Stella McCartney black mesh pumps she’d bought especially for this trip and presentation. “What kind of box?” she asked, leaning back against the headboard. She looked down the length of her bare legs to the canvas sneakers her feet were favoring at the moment.

  “I don’t know. A box. Twelve by six by four. About like that.”

  “Hmmm. Let me look around.”

  Something about her perfectly executed nonchalance made Mitch suspicious. “Thea?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re wearing them, aren’t you?”

  “Uh-huh.” There was a catch in her voice. She whispered, “They’re perfect.” Every inch of canvas was covered with artwork. Her left shoe sported caricatures of Mitch, Emilie, and the twins, rendered in Mitch’s bold style, while her right shoe was a neon bright kaleidescope of color compliments of the kids and Crayola. “Just perfect.”

  Mitch figured he was going to have trouble sleeping no matter what, so he asked, “You wearing anything else?”

  She fingered the thick terry sleeve of the standard-issue hotel robe. “Nope. Not a stitch.”

  “Awww, that’s not right.”

  Thea smiled. “You know what else?”

  “What?”

  “I’m not alone.” She heard him suck in his breath. Before he could speak, she said, “I’m with Danielle, my dark-haired bonne amie from boarding school.”

  “You didn’t go to boarding school.”

  Thea’s mouth puckered to one side. “Work with me here.”

  “I’d rather work with you here.”

  She chuckled. “The kids aren’t still standing around, are they?”

  “They’re getting ready for bed.”

  “Good.” Thea plumped the pillow at the small of her back. “Thank you for the shoes, Mitch. They’re ... unexpected.”

  “They’re lucky shoes.”

  “Yeah? How do you know?”

  “Tap your heels together three times and repeat, ‘Shine and Shield is the power I wield.’”

  “You just made that up.”

  “Not bad, huh?”

  “It’s awful.”

  He laughed. “Knock ’em dead tomorrow.”

  Thea closed her eyes and massaged the bridge of her nose. “God, Mitch, I need to think about something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Something besides ‘Shine and Shield is the power I wield.’”

  “It sounds catchier the more I hear it.” This time there was no mistaking her groan. He grinned. “Good night, Thea. Get some rest. Oh, and there’s one more thing ...”

  “Hmmm?”

  “I love you.” Fairly certain he’d given her something else to think about, Mitch hung up.

  Thea arrived home late Friday night, more tired than triumphant. She had tried to call Mitch a half dozen times and kept getting the answering machine at home and voice mail on his cell. There was no message that she wanted to leave so she didn’t try texting. At first she was disappointed that she couldn’t talk to him, but she reasoned that it would be better to tell him in person. And there was still the matter of his sign-off the night before. If he was going to say something like that again, she wanted to see his face when he said it.

  The cab slowed as it neared her driveway. “Looks like someone’s waiting for you,” the driver said.

  Thea leaned forward in her seat and peered through the windshield. The light was on in the interior of the SUV. Thea couldn’t see the driver but she recognized the vehicle.

  The cab pulled into the driveway. “You know who it is?”

  “Yes, it’s all right. I’ll be fine.” Thea paid the driver and got out, pulling her overnight case and boxed flowers with her. She shut the door with her hip and waved the cab off. The door of the SUV opened before she reached it.

  Gina Sommers stepped down. She pushed the door closed.

  “Regina,” Thea said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you.”

  “That’s the obvious answer.” She looked Gina over. The landscape lighting created small glowing pools near their feet. Gina was casually dressed: sneakers, socks, khaki shorts, and a sleeveless shirt of indeterminable color. Her dark hair had been hurriedly scraped back from her face with two metallic clips. The severity of the style highlighted her drawn features. Thea almost dropped her flowers. “What’s happened?” she demanded. “Is it Mitch? The children?”

  Gina shook her head quickly. “No. Oh, no. I’m sorry. I should have realized you’d think ... no, it’s nothing like that. They’re ... they’re fine. I’m the ... I’m the one that ...” Gina glanced over her shoulder toward Thea’s front door. “Can we go inside? I know I’m imposing ... I just ...”

  Thea had heard enough. She thrust her flowers into Gina’s arms. “This way. Just let me unload my case at the door and then we’ll talk.” Thea started up the walk. “Have you been waiting long?”

  “About an hour.”

&nbs
p; “How did you know how to find me?”

  “Mitch.” Gina paused while Thea searched for her keys. “He told me you were out of town but that you expected to get back tonight. I did some sleuthing and found you’d already checked out of your hotel. There were only a couple of flights you could have come in on so I came by.”

  Thea pushed open the door and gestured Gina to step inside first. “Light’s on the right.”

  Gina flipped the switch and flooded the foyer with light from the chandelier. “I’m sorry about it being so late,” she said. “But I ...”

  “Kitchen’s straight ahead,” Thea told her, heading for the stairs. “Put the kettle on for tea. Here, give me the flowers back.”

  Gina pressed the box into Thea’s arms. “I really appreciate this, Thea. I didn’t know who else I could ...”

  Thea turned away from the newel post as Gina’s voice trailed off again. It wasn’t entirely the lighting that made the younger woman’s complexion sallow. “Go on,” she said gently. “Give me a minute. I want to put these in a vase.” What she really wanted was a moment to collect herself and an opportunity to try Mitch again. It occurred to Thea that perhaps he knew something more about Gina’s strange behavior than he had let on. Mounting the stairs, she tried not to leap to conclusions of exactly what that might be.

  The teakettle was whistling shrilly by the time Thea entered the kitchen. Gina was sitting at the table, her back to the stove, apparently oblivious to the sound. She didn’t stir until Thea was pulling mugs out of the cupboard.

  “Oh,” Gina said softly, surprised. She twisted in her chair. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I noticed. You were thinking hard.”

  “No. Hardly thinking.”