by Dorien Kelly
“Well, he’s not asking for you,” John replied. “He’s asking for Kevin.”
“Sorry, I’m all that’s available.”
“Almost all,” Courtney said.
John looked at the two of them, then nodded. “I guess you’ll have to do.”
Nice.
In just a few moments, they were down a quiet corridor and to the backstage area, and then the packed dressing room. Pilgrims, Native Americans and children dressed as woodland creatures were everywhere. Lisa didn’t see Jamie, though.
“Where is…” She trailed off when she saw a very dear and familiar little boy standing behind a barricade of three folding chairs against a wall.
“He closed himself in when we told him it was time to line up,” John said.
Lisa hurried over to her son, who was one pale pilgrim, indeed. She could tell that he’d been crying, and now he was doing his best to pretend that no one was around him.
“What’s up, sweetie?” she asked. “Are you feeling okay?”
She hoped he wasn’t about to have another holiday ruined by the flu.
“I’m not going,” he said in a tight voice. “Don’t wanna be a pilgrim.”
Ah, stage fright. She remembered it well.
“I know it looks scary with all the people out there,” she said. “Just look at your friends with you on the stage and—”
Jamie wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Want Kevin.”
“Honey, you know Kevin had to leave.”
He started sniffling again. “Want Kev-iiiin! He’s my daddy!”
At the sound of his heartache, Lisa wanted to cry, too. “Honey, he’s your friend, but you know he’s not your daddy, right?”
“He helped with the daddies. Those daddies are here. Won’t go without my daddy.”
“Jamie—”
She wasn’t quite sure what she’d been about to say, but Courtney’s steadying hand on her shoulder had silenced her. There was nothing she could say, except she’d screwed up and stolen her son’s chosen measure of security.
“He’s my Thanksgiving daddy. Not going.” Jamie sat cross-legged behind his wall of chairs. “Can’t make me.”
Lisa supposed she could, though it didn’t seem the best idea. Not that she’d been exactly in top form when it came to bright ideas lately.
“Let me,” Courtney said softly enough that it wouldn’t carry.
“Might as well,” Lisa said. “I’m striking out.”
Courtney sat on one of the chairs in front of Jamie.
“You know what’s in this big purse of mine?” she asked him, patting the enormous red bag.
“Not Kevin,” he said flatly, and Courtney laughed.
“No, my brother wouldn’t fit in there, would he?”
Jamie shook his head.
“But a movie camera does. Kevin wished he could be here, but he promised our daddy that he’d go to Arizona to see him. He didn’t forget about you, though. He’d never do that. He asked me to make a movie of your show so he could see it right away.”
Jamie sat up. “He did?”
Courtney nodded. “Yes, and he’d be very sad if he watched the movie and couldn’t find you in it. You don’t want that, do you?”
“No,” he tentatively replied.
“Then how about you go out there and let me make a really good movie to send to Kevin?”
Jamie stood, and Lisa released the breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding.
“Kay,” he said. “But it’s no fair. Want Kevin.”
With either of those points Lisa couldn’t argue.
BY THE TIME JAMIE WAS settled in line with the other students, the audience had already taken their seats. Lisa spotted Suz standing and looking toward the back of the room. She waved and pointed to two seats she’d apparently saved. Lisa and Courtney made it down to the rest of the group just as the curtain rose.
“Wow,” Courtney murmured. “Talk about not being able to see the forest for the trees. Kevin and Jamie’s group made all of those?”
Lisa nodded. “Every last one.”
“Pity he couldn’t be here to see them,” her mother leaned across Suz to comment.
Lisa watched out of the corner of her eye as her dad simultaneously drew her mom back and gave her a comforting pat. Lisa could have used one of those. She’d felt dreadful all day, as though she was on the brink of something even bigger and unhappier than the emotions that had washed over her in the shower this morning. She’d pushed away the feeling while at work and when getting Jamie ready. Now, though, as the lights dimmed and the sound of a single, plaintive flute drifted over the audience, she could hold it back no longer.
She sat back in her seat and tried to focus on the children dressed as deer weaving between the trees more or less in time to the music. She couldn’t seem to move her attention from those trees, though. Those solid, totally upright and eminently trustworthy trees. Okay, so she wasn’t thinking so much of the trees as she was of their creator.
He’d been in front of her all these years, and yet she had never seen the truth of him. Now she could see him so very clearly—his rock-steady patience, his way of bringing out the best in everyone, even four-year-olds building trees—but he no longer wanted to see her. She’d been so lost in her own insecurities, so wrapped up in the ghost of a relationship that no longer existed, that she’d pushed away the one man who’d wanted to help her find her way home.
James had been gone for years, and still she’d been using him as an excuse to fend off intimacy. This had been her issue, not James’s, God rest him, and definitely not Kevin’s. Oh, she’d tried mightily to force Kevin into the role of James, but deep inside she’d known that he was different. And she’d begun to learn that she was no longer the same overwhelmed and lonely girl she’d once been. If she’d trusted herself—trusted Kevin—life would have been amazing.
Lisa glanced up at the stage through a sheen of tears that made her vision waver and dance. Little Native Americans and pilgrims had joined in the slow dance. She spotted Jamie, who looked serious and proud, chin held high. The children wove around each other, far more adept at finding the proper pathway than she’d ever been.
Now she saw it: the forest, the trees, what she wanted, and how she’d never again push away a man in order to avoid having him turn away all on his own.
A hand settled over hers, where she’d been gripping the armrest of the auditorium chair.
“It will be okay,” Courtney whispered.
And it would.
But it never would be amazing again.
Chapter Fifteen
“Okay, I’m here,” Courtney announced early Thanksgiving morning as she entered Shortbread Cottage’s kitchen. “Give me a job, but make it simple. Kids I can handle, but I stink as a cook. The relish tray, maybe. I can open pickle jars with the best of ’em.”
From her post at the prep counter, Lisa smiled at her friend’s boundless enthusiasm—and honesty. Today wouldn’t be the stuff of lifelong memories, but it would be survivable, thanks to friends and family.
“Go for it,” she said to Courtney. “And one word of advice—keep out of my mom’s way. She has a spreadsheet three pages long, both color-coded and cross-indexed with a seating chart. Suz is trying to keep her cut off from the rest of us, but you know Mom…”
“I sure do,” Courtney said with a laugh.
Jamie came running from the living room into the kitchen. “Miss Courtney! Miss Courtney!” He flung himself at his babysitter, who bent down to accept his hug. “Did you bring Kevin? Did you?”
Despite the arrow to her heart, Lisa kept a pleasant expression on her face.
“No, Jamie,” Courtney said. “Kevin’s still with our mom and dad. But I’m here, and we’ll think up something fun to do. Promise!”
Jamie gave Courtney a highly skeptical look. Lisa would have laughed if she didn’t ache so much. It was bad enough that she’d hurt herself, but to hurt her son was exponenti
ally worse.
“I’m gonna go color,” Jamie announced grumpily, and left the kitchen for the private part of their home.
Lisa sighed. “I’m sorry. Every time he asks, I tell him that Kevin’s gone for the winter, but hope springs eternal and all that.”
“It’s okay. I’ve been slighted by more men than young Master Jamie. So how are you doing?”
Lisa looked down at the onion she was chopping. “Other than yet another freakish crying jag, I’m holding my own.”
“That’s a start, I guess. You know Kevin’s—”
Lisa shook her head. “Could we save that topic for another day? I’ve had enough of crying.”
“Says the woman chopping the onions,” Courtney replied. “But I won’t bring him up until you want me to.”
Lisa chopped harder, and Courtney took the hint.
“Okay, no Kevin talk. So how many people are we expecting?” she asked.
“The final tally is twenty-five,” announced Lisa’s mother, who had just entered the kitchen from the café. “Of course there are those who don’t quite get around to delivering an RSVP, so we’re setting for thirty. I’ve brought the silver from home. Courtney, you may give it a final polish before we set the tables.”
Courtney opened her mouth and then closed it, rather like a fish gasping for air. Lisa decided to rescue her.
“Sorry, Mom. I’ve already put Court on pickle duty. And I’m willing to bet the silver’s plenty shiny without another polish.”
“Pickle duty,” her mother muttered, then marched from the room.
“You’ll find the pickles and olives in the pantry cupboard, and the relish trays right here to my left,” Lisa directed. “And I’d advise you to take your time opening those jars. We have five hours until dinner, and much heirloom silver awaits.”
“I’ll make each pickle count,” Courtney promised.
They worked in silence for a few minutes. But as each second passed, the temptation to speak of Kevin grew stronger. If she said his name, he’d no longer be the elephant in the middle of the kitchen.
“So what does your family do for Thanksgiving down there in Arizona?” Lisa asked.
Courtney glanced over at her. “Thought you didn’t want to talk about Kevin.”
“This isn’t about Kevin, specifically,” she hedged. “I’m just making small talk.”
Which was hooey. She just wanted to feel some connection to the man she missed so deeply.
“Okay,” Courtney said in a dangerously perky tone. “Well, when we have Thanksgiving down in Carefree, Kevin gets up early to golf eighteen holes with Dad. And then after that, Kevin comes back and sets up the turkey fryer in the driveway. Scott and Kevin like fried turkey, but the rest of us like the traditional overroasted bird, so we cook two. We eat dinner around three, and then Scott, Mike, Dad and Kevin watch football while Mom and I start planning our Christmas shopping route for the next day. Kevin isn’t much for television, so he usually ends up challenging Mike to a game of horse at the basketball court down the road. How’s that? Enough Decker family trivia?”
Lisa chopped her onions harder, not caring if she’d gone from chop to mince to totally pulverized and useless in their texture. Anything to hide the tears.
Courtney sighed and set down the jar of gherkins she’d been doling into the three relish trays. She walked to Lisa, hand extended.
“Want to give me the knife before you work your way through the countertop?” she asked.
Defeated, Lisa set the knife aside.
“Is it okay if I hug you?”
Lisa nodded. “I think it might be mandatory.”
As Courtney wrapped her in her arms for a tough-love hug, Lisa tried to back off on the tears.
“Here’s a novel thought,” Courtney said after they’d stepped out of their embrace. “If you miss him, call him.”
“But he hasn’t called me.”
Her friend rolled her eyes. “And so? What are you, fourteen? If he doesn’t call, you can’t pick up the phone?”
“I don’t know what I’d say to him.”
“What do you want to say to him?”
“That I love him. That I’m sorry I freaked out on him. That I’ll do my best not to treat him like Satan’s spawn ever again.” She shrugged, feeling kind of embarrassed that she’d just admitted her lunacy to Kevin’s sister. “All of that…or Happy Thanksgiving.”
Courtney smiled. “I’m sure both messages would be welcome, but one a little more than the other.”
“Yeah, well, it’s easier to say it to you than to him.”
“But the payoff is better if you say it to him.”
“Or worse. Way worse. What if he doesn’t care anymore? What if he’s had enough and just wants some girl who’s never had a baby, never been married…never been quite so messed up?”
Courtney shook her head. “What, and miss all the excitement?”
“Not funny,” Lisa said.
“I know. Seriously, Lisa, when he started acting all proprietary about you, I thought maybe he was seeing you as some sort of wounded bird he could take care of. He’s great at that…taking care of others. I think it helps him not focus on the stuff in his life that’s not quite together. But whatever. I’m no one to talk. Anyway, I started watching you two, and I realized that he loves you. Really, totally loves you. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been acting so quiet and weird before he and Scott left.”
“I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt him.”
“Wrong audience. Tell him.”
Lisa looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. “It’s too early, just after seven down there. He’ll—”
“Maybe he’ll be out golfing with my dad, and pick up your message later. Then you don’t have the pressure of talking to him right this second. Call him.”
She looked at her friend, thought of her son, and listened to her mother’s laughter coming from the café. All of this would still be here even if Kevin told her there was no going back. If she’d lost him, she had, and she would survive. But if she hadn’t lost him, and she could grab this last ingredient for happiness…
“Take over the onions,” she said to Courtney. “I’ve got some explaining to do.”
KEVIN LOOKED AT HIS ringing cell phone, where it sat plugged into the charger on the console of his truck. He could answer it, or he could just keep on driving and asking himself why he was where he was, and what he thought it would gain him. He could be golfing with Pop, but no. He could be having coffee with Mom, but no. Instead, here he was…in his damn truck again.
Scott had already called twice this morning with turkey fryer prep questions, and Kevin would bet that this was him with yet another detail to be picked apart. Who’d have thought that Scott was such a detail guy, after all?
And who else would be calling him? Kevin wondered. He’d managed to annoy both his mom and dad within hours of arriving in Carefree. He supposed it could have something to do with his pretty testy mood. The farther he’d gotten from Davenport, the more restless he’d become.
Without taking his dry and sleep-deprived eyes from the road, Kevin flipped open the phone and said, “Put whatever herbs you want under the skin. Use whatever brand of oil you like. But the bottom line is that you just stick the dead bird in the fryer and cook the hell out of it, okay?”
“I…ah…Okay, then,” said a female voice.
Kevin’s heart rolled over. “Lisa?”
“Um, yes?”
Even though he was in a quiet residential area, he looked to his right, hit his turn signal, and pulled to the side of the road. Driving while talking was dangerous enough. Driving while talking to Lisa, even more so, when all he wanted was to hear her voice and know that even if he wasn’t with her, she was okay.
“You still there?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Sorry about the weird greeting. I thought you were Scott.”
“I see.” She drew in an audible breath, and Kevin wished he could make this
easier for her. “How’s…how’s Thanksgiving going for you?”
“Interesting,” he replied. Even more so by the second.
“Well, I guess interesting can be good.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “How’s your Thanksgiving shaping up?”
“Nice, I think. Your sister is here, helping me get ready. My mom, too. But that’s not why I called…”
He didn’t think that a current events report had been, but he also didn’t want to set his hopes too high.
“I called to say I’m sorry,” she said. “I made a mess of things. I should have had faith in you…in us.”
He closed his eyes as relief washed over him. “We both made a mess of things.”
He’d been an idiot to take off to Arizona simply because she’d stepped on his pride. His patience, the one thing he usually had in surplus, had deserted him. With distance came perspective, though. He knew now that she’d been scared that night. He should have just let it be, but he’d pushed her. Now here he was, and there she was…
One short block away.
“Look,” Lisa said. “I appreciate your saying that, but you were right. I was stuck in some sort of endless loop that replayed all the things James ever said that were wrong about me, and none of the things I knew were right.”
He had to kiss her…now.
Kevin turned off his truck and pulled his keys from the ignition. After he’d exited, he closed the door as quietly as he could. Apparently not quietly enough, because she asked, “What was that?”
He winced. “Sorry, I’m just banging around in Pop’s garage. Scott’s at the market picking up some things for the turkey that I forgot yesterday, and I’m trying to get the fryer set up.”
“Oh, okay. It sounded like a car door or something dropping.”
“The fryer stand,” he said. All in all, he was pleased with his fabrication on the fly.
“So long as you’re okay.”
“Doing great,” he said as he strolled past, first, Amanda’s BMW and then his sister’s day care van.
“Maybe I should call you back,” Lisa said. “You sound pretty busy.”
“No,” he replied, but the word came out more harshly than he’d intended.