by Cheri Allan
OH GOD! Oh God! Oh God! How did she get into these things?
Beth trailed after Valerie, her velvet flats scuffing on the hardwood floors of Jenny’s house, the nylons in her bra growing sweaty and itchy against her skin. She dared not scratch, could barely breathe, as she tried to blend into the white-on-white color scheme of the Whitmeyer’s newly-renovated kitchen.
The room smelled of cinnamon and apples like a Yankee Candle store, wholesome and welcoming except for the cold sweat dripping down between Beth’s shoulder-blades as she waited for the others to do whatever it was they were going to do. She hung back by the door, while Valerie playfully positioned the participants—boy, girl, boy, girl—in a circle on the floor.
Beth grew a little light-headed from holding the air in her lungs and then it came out in a surprised whoosh as she noticed the lone figure standing in the far side of the room.
Ohmigod. Carter McIntyre.
He rested one shoulder against the refrigerator, a slight smirk on his features as he took a sip of soda from a can. At least, Beth thought it was soda. It was hard to tell now that Valerie had dimmed the overhead lights. Rain pounded outside, a steady drumbeat matching the pounding of blood in Beth’s ears as she watched Carter. He had on that vintage motorcycle jacket he always wore, the one that creaked a little as he moved. He took another drink from the can, raised his head and caught her staring.
Beth felt a warm flush heat her cheeks, but she didn’t look away. Couldn’t have even if she tried. She smiled tentatively.
He winked at her.
Her smile froze on her face as she tried to figure out whether he was teasing her or flirting. It was so hard to tell. When he smiled and joked during their tutoring sessions, did it mean he liked her, or was he just taking pity on her?
She was sure her emotions were plastered over her face—the fawning attraction, the nervous self-doubt—and she wished she were bold and sexy and confident like the girls leaning into the guys on the floor, running their fingertips over the boys’ arms in casual flirtation, laughing gaily, throats lifted up in invitation for who knew what.
Beth glanced across the room again. Carter’s lips hitched up a little on one side and he took another drink. He looked away.
She swallowed, her cautious smile fading altogether as Valerie spied Carter loitering outside their little group. “Carter! No voyeurs! You have to play.”
He took another sip. “I’m an odd man out.” He gestured to the group on the floor. “I’d throw off your numbers.”
“Oh, I’m sure we can find—Beth! Stop hiding in the corner!”
Beth pushed away from the wall. “I wasn’t hiding,” she lied. “And if Carter doesn’t want to—”
“Nonsense!” Valerie popped up to grab Carter’s arm playfully. “Carter’s always up for a good time. Aren’t you?”
Beth swallowed, her gut twisting as she knelt on the floor. The couple next to her shuffled aside to make room. She bit her lip, her gaze bouncing off of Carter’s, Chip’s, Jenny’s.
Dan O’Connell, varsity everything, most popular boy in the junior class, stared at her chest for a long moment and then slowly met her eyes.
Beth flushed and looked away.
“Okay. We all know the rules.” Valerie said as she spun the wine bottle on the floor with her index finger, expertly twirling it in a slow hypnotic circle. “Ladies first. Once the bottle has chosen, the lucky lady waits in the pantry for her seven minutes of heaven. Boys, no excessive licking or groping.”
“Define ‘excessive,’” Dan drawled as he ran a finger down Valerie’s arm.
Valerie swatted his hand, and he let it fall to her thigh. Squeezed. “Oh,” she said, “and most important—no kissing and telling. Half the fun is guessing who you’re with.” She batted her eyes at Dan and licked her hot pink lips until they glistened. “Shall we begin?”
Beth watched the bottle spin round and round, the rhythmic sound of it scraping against the floor causing her to clench her fingernails into her palms. She dared not look at anyone, particularly anyone male for fear they’d know she was thinking about being in the pantry with them. Which she was, of course.
The bottle began to slow, growing uneven and wobbly. Then it stopped.
It pointed to her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
____________________
LIZ SWIPED THE LAST STROKE of mis-tint paint onto the front door and sighed. Much as she tried to make herself like it, it looked about as pleasant as old, dried-up mustard. Oh, well. She’d call it a base coat and buy something more attractive later if she had time.
She cleaned up her painting supplies and decided she’d better return her mom’s calls. All four of them. After Grant’s bombshell the day before, Liz hadn’t felt like talking to anyone, but if she put it off too long her mom would probably send out carrier pigeons.
“How is Dad today?” Liz asked.
“Oh, as good as can be expected,” her mom replied. “The man sharing his room, though, is in terrible shape. All these tubes and what-not! He was giving the nurses such a hard time about the lunch today, too. It’s hospital food, I said to your father! Nobody expects it to taste good. But, no, the mashed potatoes were pasty, he said. What other texture would they be? Wait… are you on a landline?”
“Yes,” Liz lied.
“Call the phone company, then, and have them check it. It’s sounding staticky.”
“Maybe a storm is brewing. That can do that sometimes.”
“I didn’t see anything on the Weather Channel.”
“We might be in a radar blind-spot. Those exist. Anyway, about Dad…”
“Oh, he’s doing as well as expected.”
Liz waited for her mom to elaborate. She didn’t. At least they’d established he was alive.
“So,” Liz said, “Valerie Stinson stopped by yesterday.”
“Oh, good! She said she’d list the house ASAP, you know. Such a nice girl. Married that Dan O’Connell, I think, right out of high school. Remember him? His mother had that dead tooth from that skateboarding accident? If you ask me, she should have known better at her age. Or maybe they’ve divorced. Makes no difference, because she’s a hard worker, isn’t she? She’s really made something of herself. You’ve got to admire that.”
Liz stared at the phone for a moment before putting it back to her ear. Were they still talking about Valerie? What about Liz? Hadn’t she paid her way through college? Scraped by on ramen noodles and financial aid and strung-together work-study jobs? Where was her pat on the back?
“Yeah, Valerie’s something all right,” she said.
“I’ll say so. Her mother had bunions, you know. Horrible. They stuck out like nobody’s business. No surprise there. Comes from all that standing. But, she had those kids to support, so there was no getting around it.” Her mom tsk tsked and Liz frowned, completely confused. She’d never heard a word about Valerie’s upbringing except about how her dad was some big venture capitalist in New York or San Francisco or something, and every Christmas he used to send a giant FedEx box with video games and designer jeans for everyone.
It had sounded better then than it did now.
“You know, your dad will be so glad to finally have that patio done. What with his hip bothering him last fall—and the rain we had!—he wasn’t able to get to any of the painting or odd jobs he’d wanted to get done before we left.”
“I know,” Liz said. “I’ll do what I can.” She sank into a chair at the kitchen table and looked around, her conversation with Valerie from the day before replaying in her mind. The run-down, weary state of affairs around the place made her think of how her father used to look at the end of a long shift, sitting in his recliner and watching the news.
Maybe the house had been weighing them down more than Liz ever realized. It was probably good for them to let go of all the maintenance and worry and cash-out while they could still enjoy life.
Life hadn’t always seemed hard, but maybe she’d been too yo
ung to recognize the undercurrent of financial worry that seemed to dog her parents in later years. By her early teens, it was a constant refrain. “You have to apply yourself, John, or you’ll end up in some dead-end job with nowhere to go but the grave!” Or, “If you’re going to knock yourself up, Patricia, you’d better hope the father intends to support you, because they’re cutting back your father’s shifts again, and we won’t be able to help.”
“…it had a layer of mildew so thick you could peel it off,” her mother was saying. Liz had no idea what her mom was talking about, because she’d stopped listening after her mom’s neighbor pulled a rat out of her sink drain. Or maybe it had been a hair clog as big as a rat.
Liz sighed. She knew her parents were right to sell the house, but it depressed her to see it emptied of memories. Everything looked care worn and sad, as if the façade of their lives had been stripped away leaving them standing around in nothing but old, dingy underwear for all to see.
The cookie jar that had graced the counter for decades? Gone. The photo display of their childhoods that had lined the stairwell? Nothing but countless nail holes to fill and repaint.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were planning to sell?” Liz cut in.
Her mother stopped. “It never came up.”
“Never came up? That’s the kind of thing, Mom, that doesn’t come up in everyday conversation. Things like ‘we’re planning to sell the house’ and ‘your dad’s having surgery’ are the headlines you have to bring up to have a conversation about them.”
“We’re talking about it now.”
“That’s not the point.” Liz stared morosely out the back slider and tried to remember what her point had been. Ever since she could remember her family had been horrible at communication. Like the time she’d been at college and nobody had thought to call and tell her Grandpa had died—for a full week. She’d only found out when Trish called to ask if she could borrow a black dress from Liz’s closet because, I’ve still got that baby fat and can’t fit in any of my own.
“Maybe my point is I might have wanted to be informed that the house I grew up in, the one Dad gutted and re-built with his own hands, was being put up for sale. Maybe I might have wanted the chance to see it one last time before you handed the keys over to some stranger.”
“You’re upset.”
“I’m not upset! I’m just... stunned.” Okay, maybe a little upset. “Why now? Why all of a sudden?”
“We’ve been talking of selling for years. You just haven’t been around to hear.”
Liz didn’t reply. Was it true? In escaping all that had been less than comfortable during her teenage years—the unfulfilled crushes, the awkward social maneuverings, the time they had to send her brother away to juvie after he blew up the Dickenson’s boathouse with an illegal stash of fireworks—had she turned her back on the good memories, too? Maybe she had walked away without a backwards glance. Still.
“I can’t believe you got rid of Cookie Rooster,” she sulked.
“Oh, stop. He’s in the corner cupboard. I was going to give him to you last Christmas, but with all the hubbub with the new baby and those storms that kept you in Chicago, I forgot.”
Truthfully, she’d been glad of the storms. It meant she didn’t have to come up with a less credible excuse. Work had been busy, and she and Grant had been spending more and more time together.
“Listen,” her mother said, cutting into her thoughts. “I’ve got to run. The orthopedist just came in.”
Liz mumbled a goodbye, hung up and looked around at the counters with their faded, worn laminate and metal trim and dull, brown cabinets, functional and well-built, but no more attractive than when they’d been installed decades ago.
The funny thing was, ever since all those “Leave It To Beaver” re-runs she used to watch with her dad, she’d always envisioned herself as an adult in this very kitchen—a modern-day June Cleaver wearing a cheery apron in her bright, retro-inspired domain, the scent of cookies filling the air.
Of course, her fantasy self had a husband with dark hair and green eyes. She would coolly handle running the kitchen, their household, and their two point two children—one boy, one girl plus a twinkle in her eye—as she juggled a satisfying professional career, respected and admired for her keen intellect.
Liz sighed and went to rinse her glass. That was a girl’s fantasy of what adulthood would bring. Yes, she’d matured and grown more self-confidant, working hard to achieve financial security and a weight she wasn’t embarrassed to fudge on her driver’s license. But what did she have to show for it other than a healthy nest-egg for which she had no specific plans whatsoever?
Maybe Trish had been right after all.
Liz pushed aside the tired, faded café curtain over the sink and stared at the old orchard just beginning to brighten with small green leaves. The blossoms were mostly gone by now, their pale pink and white petals carpeting the ground.
She let the curtain drop back into place.
It wasn’t that she actually thought she’d grow up to live the June Cleaver fantasy. It wasn’t even that she believed the husband or the house or even the cookies would make her magically happy. The hard part about coming home, she realized, was that if it were so easy to up and take time off, if she were that quick to say ‘yes, I’ll come home,’ then maybe the career, the relationships, the life she’d built elsewhere over the past decade weren’t making her blissfully happy either.
She sighed again. Wonderful. She wasn’t even thirty yet and she was having a mid-life crisis.
Liz swallowed and turned toward the room. It looked empty and dully sterile without the odds and ends of life to populate it. While she sent up a silent cheer that the hideous, harvest gold bicentennial canister set was nowhere in sight, it seemed like the home she’d thought she’d see one last time was already gone.
Bending low, Liz pulled Cookie Rooster out of the corner cupboard and placed him on the counter. His bright red and yellow plumage and portly belly never failed to cheer her.
Maybe because she’d spent so many days as a teenager baking chocolate chip cookies. She’d often hid in the kitchen, come to think of it. Cooking and imaging a rosy, idyllic future.
Liz ran her hand over Cookie Rooster. She hardly recognized herself since coming home. She’d gone from a Liz who ate quinoa and had an almost-fiancé to a Liz who ate swiss cake rolls and accepted dates with men who she’d fantasized about way more than she’d ever admit to.
It was enough to give anyone an identity crisis.
She repositioned Cookie Rooster to best advantage and made a mental note to add chocolate chips to her grocery list. And quinoa. Just in case.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
____________________
THE OCCASIONAL SOFT GRUNTS drew his attention first. That and the denim cut-offs hugging Liz’s hips as she attempted to clean the ceiling above the stove from the top of a stepladder. Carter tapped on the slider window with his knuckle and waved. Liz bobbled her sponge and stepped down to retrieve it, giving him a pleasant, albeit brief, view of her backside. She slid the door open.
“Carter! What are you doing here?” She smoothed her hair behind her ear, the faded Bates T-shirt she’d worn that first day pulling snug over her curves as she stepped back for him to enter.
“I ordered the wrong retaining wall blocks for another job, so I have some unplanned free time. Anyway, I know you said you’d take care of it, but it was such a nice afternoon, I thought I’d come help rip out the deck. I see someone beat me to it.” He stepped into the kitchen from a cement block someone had set as a temporary step outside the door.
“I tore it out yesterday. You said you wanted to get started Monday, and I only have a couple of weeks before I’ve got to get back myself.”
“You tore it out?”
“And I’ve got the muscle aches to prove it. It felt good to get rid of it though. It never suited the house.”
Liz’s tongue flicked over her bottom lip, a
nd Carter’s focus zeroed in on that one glistening spot. Her mouth looked soft, wide and full. He thought about how it’d feel under his.
“I could give you a back rub,” he offered.
“A back rub?” She gave a short, nervous laugh. “That sounds like some bad pickup line from college.”
She fiddled with the sponge, her breasts rising and falling beneath the thin fabric of her shirt. Carter wasn’t entirely sure she was wearing a bra. The uncertainty spiked his pulse a notch. To hell with Grams and her admonitions. Maybe he just enjoyed women. Did everything in life have to be serious?
“That would presume I was trying to pick you up.” He smiled.
“Of course you weren’t.” She turned abruptly to her bucket, dipping the sponge again. “Idiot,” she mumbled.
“Did you just call me an idiot?”
“No!” She whirled, water splattering the floor. “No. I was... talking to myself.” Pink tinged her cheeks.
“You do that often?” He stepped over and took the sponge from her fingers, set it on the stove. He was so close now he could see the light freckles on the bridge of her nose. Somehow they were both endearing and strangely erotic. Liz was always girl next door appealing, but now... ten years later... she was a knock-out. Why had he never asked her out?
Probably because the girl he remembered hadn’t glanced up from her college applications long enough to notice he’d had more interest in her than just passing trig.
“Not usually. No,” she said.
“I get the feeling you don’t think I’d be serious about giving you a pickup line.”
“You wouldn’t.” He watched her swallow. “Would you?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I’m leaving in two weeks,” she said, her eyes staring at his mouth.
“So, that just means I’d need to make it a really good pickup line. So we don’t waste time. Right?”
Her eyes met his, wide, luminous, the soft hazel turning a shade of something that reminded him of skittish woodland creatures. “You’re teasing me,” she whispered, a mixture of wariness and anticipation warring on her features.