Rebecca stood aside. “This is Rob.”
Rob glanced at Rebecca as she nodded. Her eyes practically said, be nice, and shake hands. Rob put his arm out, and the wimpy Bob looked at it, frowning, before feebly shaking his hand.
“Kayla and Bob’s son are good friends,” Rebecca said finally.
“Mommy, pwease can’t we go eat? Wob an’ I are hungwy, aren’t we, Wob?”
Rob pressed his lips together. “Yeah, we’re hungry.”
He put his hand to Rebecca’s back and pushed her forward, while Bob watched them leave. Once they all got their plates of the soupy-looking spaghetti and soggy bread, they sat down where they had a decent view of the stage.
Rob leaned in. “Was Bob the one-time date?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“He was mooning over you.”
“He was not. He’s very polite.”
“He’s a wuss, Rebecca. He probably couldn’t have even found your…”
“We are in the middle of school!” she hissed before he could finish.
He flashed a grin. “I was going to say your house.”
“You were not,” she enunciated slowly before finally grinning. “And he’s not a wuss.”
“His name is Bob, and he wears a cardigan. Yeah, he is. His hands are softer than yours.”
“Well, I’m sure you shocked him. And why does the name Rob sound so much more manly than Bob? Same name, different nicknames.”
“Hell no. Rob is cool sounding. Besides, my name is not Robert.”
She glanced up. “It isn’t?”
“Nah.”
“Then what is it?”
“Joelle never told you?”
“No.”
He glanced down. “Okay, but you have to promise to never print it.”
“Well, I have to use your name, Rob. I assumed it was Robert.
“You assumed wrong. My parents had quite the sense of humor. They named me Robin.”
“Robin Williams,” she said out loud, until her eyes grew big and she finally got it. “Robin Williams? No way, you’re kidding me?”
“No. And that’s why my name is Rob. Only Rob. Just Rob. Always.”
She tried to stifle her laugh, but failed.
“You know, ol’ Bob’s eyes just about popped out of his head when he saw my arms.”
She nodded. “I noticed.”
“We’re being looked at now, you know. And wondered about. Who’s that guy eating with you and your girls.”
“I know. I’m PTA secretary, so I’m around for a lot of things, and I’m pretty well known here.”
“I can’t imagine I’ll improve your reputation.”
Before she could answer, the lights dimmed, and the stage lit up, spotlighting a woman who was ready to announce the program. The talent show was beginning, it seemed. There was a long line of kids, ranging everywhere from beginning music players, to readers of poems, to joke tellers, and even a few song and dance numbers. There was hardly any real talent, but it was so cute to see how hard each kid tried, especially the youngest ones. Karlee crawled on Rob’s lap after awhile. He sat on the hard, uncomfortable bench of the cafeteria table with the little girl in his lap. Rebecca was next to him, and turned his way and smiled whenever she felt his eyes on her. His eyes made it seem as if they were having a conversation without speaking.
What Rob found the hardest to swallow was that he didn’t feel miserable. He didn’t know these kids, or recognize their families. His own parents never attended a single school conference, let alone, an after school event. So why would he think it could be so fun?
He also noticed the curious onlookers whose eyes were cast in their direction. They wanted to know who the hell Rebecca was sitting with.
Finally, Kathy and Kayla’s names were announced, and Rob’s heart beat faster as they came on stage. He was surprised at the sudden wave of anxiety. He felt even worried for them, and his guts knotted up while hoping they’d do well. Is that how a parent feels? Rebecca looked tense suddenly too. But worse, Kayla seemed like she was about to puke. She stared wide-eyed at the audience, while Kathy kept smiling. The song, “Over the Rainbow” started, and Kathy started to sing, but Kayla stood there, still frozen. Kathy sang one verse before she finally faded out, looking confused and embarrassed.
Rob watched them on stage, floundering and in agony, and his own heart started racing. This wasn’t good. He glanced around until he spotted the man who did a Western song with his daughter, standing at the left of the stage with a guitar. Without another thought, Rob got up, startling Rebecca, when he put Karlee in his seat. He jogged towards the stage, and leapt on it with a graceful jump. He went to the Western song dad and asked to borrow his guitar. The man let him, looking as surprised by Rob’s sudden appearance as he was by Rob’s request. By then, Rob was the focus of everyone’s eyes in the audience. He was being stared at, and whispers could be heard. Kathy and Kayla were looking at him also, confused and hopeful, as if silently begging him to do something. Kayla seemed too scared to even rush off the stage.
He took the guitar and the stool the Western dad used and dragged them towards the girls. By now, the audience was shuffling and shifting in their seats. He smiled at the girls reassuringly, and leaned in to them. “I’m going to play and sing with you. Look at me, Kayla, and sing the words to me. Okay? Can you do that?”
She nodded as if she were made of wax. Rob hoped his plan worked.
He played the guitar starting with the simple chords of the song. It came out soft and sweet, right at the point where Kathy started last time. Then Rob and she started singing. He sang softly, and much more quietly than Kathy, so as not to drown her out. Kayla was watching him as her eyes grew big. He smiled and nodded. Finally, she opened her mouth and started to sing too, at first shyly and so quiet that only he could hear her. Then, she approached the microphone and began to sing just to him, until finally, she sang to the audience. The girls harmonized with gusto when they got to the last few lines.
When the final notes were strummed from the guitar, the audience started clapping, even whistling. They finished their routine, despite their awful start. Kathy took Rob’s hand and made him bow with her and Kayla. Then, suddenly, Kayla turned and rushed against him, hugging him with a fierceness that made Rob step back to keep his balance. Her arms went around his back and her face pushed into his chest as her tears got his shirt all wet. Kayla’s small shoulders shook and he patted her. Then he looked towards the audience and Rebecca, who appeared totally helpless. He finally leaned down and picked Kayla up, carrying her off the stage with him. The clapping got louder.
Offstage, they descended the stairs and went into the hallway lined with lockers. He finally put Kayla down, who was still crying. Rebecca came flying through the shut doors with Karlee right behind her.
“Kayla, what is it? You did great! It’s okay. Really. It was wonderful. You sounded so pretty.”
Kayla fell into her mother’s embrace, still crying hysterically. Rob met Rebecca’s eyes, fearing he’d overstepped again and embarrassed Kayla even worse than she was, frozen with stage fright. But then again, he remembered that she ran up to him and hugged him for all to see.
Kathy was standing back and slipped her hand into Rob’s, watching her sister. Karlee put her hand into his other hand.
Kayla was shaking her head. “I just… you didn’t have to do that, Rob.”
He shrugged. “I can play music and it just seemed like you needed a little help with it. I’m sorry for barging in.”
“No. That’s just it. You didn’t have to do that. You didn’t have to help me, and you did. You came up there and everything! And my dad? He wouldn’t…”
Even come. Kayla’s unsaid words hung between them. “I asked Daddy to come last week and he said he just couldn’t, not right now.”
Kayla burst into tears against her mother again. Holding her shirt, Rob never saw a kid cry like that before. He had no idea how helpless it made a ma
n feel. How useless. He suddenly understood Rebecca calling him to come see Karlee on her birthday. He got it now; clearly, he’d do just about anything to make these girls feel better, or cheer them up. He’d do anything. Slay any dragon. Kill anyone who tried to hurt them. Suddenly, he realized, however wrong and however hopeless, he loved these girls. All of them, even Kayla. He couldn’t stand when they were hurting. They were hurting for a man he’d never met. A man who, if he were here, meant Rob wouldn’t be. Still, he couldn’t stand that they were hurting so much.
“Why didn’t you tell me this?” Rebecca asked.
“You’ve been so h-happy since Rob’s been around. I didn’t want to spoil it for you. It’s just, I’m not. I miss Daddy. I miss him so much. And I don’t understand why he doesn’t miss me that much.”
The tears streamed over Rebecca’s face and Kathy’s. Karlee was quiet. She came to her mom’s leg and grabbed on. Kathy pulled on Rob’s hand and tugged him towards them. Rob finally wrapped the whole bundle of crying girls up in his arms. Rob and Rebecca’s eyes locked just then, saying a lot more than any words.
Rob didn’t know how Doug Randall could leave them. Any of them. He didn’t understand how Doug couldn’t work his life out closer, so he could still see his children. Rob knew he should hate Doug, since he was to these girls what Rob could never be: their father. And Doug would always be the father of Rebecca’s children, no matter how much time she spent with Rob. There was no changing that. Rob barely made up for a sliver of Doug’s absence.
Finally, they broke apart when Kayla’s crying diminished. “You were really great out there. How could you play the guitar without any music? We’ve never even practiced before.”
He squatted down so he was eye level with Kayla and looked into her tear-filled eyes. “I used to play in a band, and we practiced a lot. I can play lots of songs from memory.”
“And you sang too. Real good.”
Rob nodded. “Yes, I can sing pretty well too. So do you.”
“Not like you do. I’m sorry. I haven’t been very nice to you. But maybe you’re not so bad.”
He smiled. “Maybe I’m not. But you don’t have to think so.”
“You were nice to me even after how I’ve been to you.”
“Ah, sweetie girl. You’re just a kid who misses her dad. I get that. It’s okay. You don’t have to like me.”
“But maybe I do.”
He smiled. She captured his heart with that comment. “Maybe I’d like that.”
Rebecca put her hands on Kayla’s shoulders. “You need to tell me when you feel like this.”
“I’m tired of feeling like this.”
“We all are, baby, we all are,” Rebecca said with her gaze on Rob. Finally, she mouthed, “Thank you.”
For what Rob almost asked? For her girls? For tonight? For him being there? For Doug being gone?
“You’re welcome,” he mouthed back. He loved this ready-made family that wasn’t his, and his heart squeezed in physical pain at the thought of losing any of them. The pain he felt was far deeper than when he lost Joelle and Zenith.
Chapter Twenty
When Rebecca walked into the PTA meeting the following night, the classroom became silent. She glanced around, and knew it wasn’t her imagination. No, the room went completely silent. Rob. They were all wondering about Rob, and the performance, and how quickly she and her family just disappeared after that. They were also wondering about Doug, and where he was.
So was Rebecca. She wondered where her family was going and what they were becoming. And where Rob fit in, and how much more her girls could take. She suspected Kayla was holding a lot of emotional stuff in, and feared she might break down at one point, but never expected it to be with Rob, and all because Rob did such a nice thing for Kayla, a fatherly gesture. Something Doug should have been there to do.
Rebecca’s heart nearly stopped when she thought about it. He saved them, not only from humiliation at school, but also in a way they’d always remember: he stood up for them. He had their backs and helped them when they needed it the most. He became something special. He was steady, capable, reliable, and someone you could always count on for trying to make you happy. She realized in that moment when he saved her girls, that she and everyone else underestimated Rob. No one gave Rob any credit for the true man he was. The kind of man who could do what he did last night, even for another man’s children.
“Rebecca? Who was that man last night?” Leave it to Judy Hammond to come right out and ask her about Rob.
“That was Rob, Judy.” Rebecca almost added my lover, just to see their reactions.
“He was amazing with the guitar and save.”
“Yes, he used to have a band.”
“A band?” Bob said from her other side, his voice intimating that it also explained the tattoos.
“Where’s Doug?”
“You know where Doug is.” Rebecca suddenly stood up. “You’ll have to excuse me, I can’t stay for tonight’s meeting.”
Turning, she left. She hated PTA meetings, and only participated because she felt she should. Walking through the empty school parking lot, she just wanted to be with Rob. Not in a room that suffocated her with judgmental opinions of what was prim and proper, or how things and people should be. She unlocked the mini-van that she now hated and sat there. She hated the van with a passion that was almost proportional to her anger at Doug. She and Doug bought it right after Karlee was born because Doug insisted they needed the extra room. They needed a mini-van, but she didn’t. She would rather drive a large SUV, and might actually do just that. The hell with it. Why not? Her brother was rich, and would spot her the difference in payments.
She dialed Rob’s number from her cell. He answered after two rings.
“I thought it was PTA night.”
“I walked out. I hate those meetings. I hate this van. I hate how I dress.”
Rob was silent on the other end. “Because of me? Were they asking questions about me?”
“Yeah, but that’s not why I left. I left because I realized half my life doesn’t belong to me.”
“The half that goes to PTA meetings? Come on, Rebecca, that is you. For the welfare of your girls.”
“I want to see you. I want to be with you right now.”
“It’s too far and you know it. The girls need you at home. Where are they?”
“With a neighbor. She sits on PTA nights.”
“Rebecca, go home. I’ll come up tomorrow.”
“No. We’ll come down tomorrow. I want to get out of my house. I mean, Doug’s house.”
He was quiet. “Okay. You sure you want to bring your children here?”
“I’m sure. I’m also shopping for a new car tomorrow.”
“Are you okay?”
“I am. I’m really okay. I’m better than I’ve been in years. By the way, the book is almost done! I mean, like it’s only a few chapters from being done. I sent off some proposals to editors.”
“You did?”
“I did. And I mean for it to get published. Just warning you. It’s really good, even better than I ever hoped. It’s definitely going to be published.”
“And when it comes out, and your PTA friends discover what I’m really like, will you still be so sure?”
“I haven’t been so sure about myself or my life in years. And that includes you. I’m so tired of being... I don’t know… the too-nice version of myself. I like the person I am with you. You’ve brought it out of me from the start. I’m done being the doormat. Or Doug’s poor, abandoned, pathetic wife! I’m done with being the PTA’s ‘go to girl,’ and done with this stupid mini-van.”
“I was beginning to like the van.”
She laughed. He always made her laugh and feel better. He made her feel alive, worthy and right. He made the rest her life fall into perspective and helped her prioritize her feelings.
“We’ll be down tomorrow.”
“Hey, were you serious about wanting to talk
to Spencer for your book?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I’ll ask him and Erica to come over tomorrow for dinner. You can talk to him then.”
“Are you sure he will? He doesn’t strike me as the chatty type.”
Rob chuckled. “He’ll talk if I tell him to. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Rebecca hung up and thought that’s what so confused, surprised, puzzled, and thrilled her. Rob was always there for her. Even from the very start. He continued to become a more integral part of her life. He unwittingly took care of her, and yet, he didn’t. He trusted her abilities as woman and a person and let her be, except when he tried to help her. He hated her book, but believed in her success as a writer, so he helped her with it. He cared that it was important to her, enough so that he called his friend to help her. He cared enough for her now that she was pretty sure he’d do almost anything she asked of him.
****
It might have been wrong to take her children to Rob’s house. Psychobabble probably advises not involving children in one’s dating life. But screw that. She already followed too many rules in her life and that philosophy didn’t get her anything she ever wanted.
Pulling into Rob’s driveway in her new Suburban, all white with black, tinted windows, huge tires and silver chrome, Rob came out and whistled at her new wheels.
“You were serious?”
“I was. The van is gone.”
The girls squealed and jumped over the seats in excitement. They had no idea this was the first sign of their once timid and dowdy mom emerging from her cocoon. Tired of being such a cliché, she intended to do things more often her way, even if it clashed with how things ought to be done. Proof in point: Rob Williams.
He took them inside, and the girls ran all around, excited to see where Rob lived. He previously cleaned it up, which Rebecca detected by the fresh vacuum marks in the carpet. When she pointed it out, he shrugged, ducking his head from her gaze.
Rob showed the girls the spare rooms, which Rebecca saw too, since she’d never been through the entire house before. There was a real master bedroom, which now housed Rob’s musical instruments and equipment. She instantly realized this must have been the room Rob shared with Joelle, which Spencer took after Joelle left. She glanced at Rob. Did he still picture Joelle whenever he came in here? Or himself, five years younger, and in a much different life?
Zenith Fulfilled (Zenith Trilogy, #3) Page 25