Claire Knows Best

by Tracey Bateman

No, Mom. For the tenth time, no one was hurt.” Except now my head hurts from incessantly slapping it with my palm for the last five minutes. What in the world induced me to give her a call? I’ve refrained from telling her about the house until now because I knew she’d freak out and ask a bunch of questions that I have no answer for.

  “I think I’d better come stay with you for a while until you sort this out.”

  Hasn’t she been listening? “I don’t even have a house for you to stay with me in.”

  “Where are you living? Not with Greg, I hope.”

  “Of course not.” I almost tell her that I’d thought about it, but decide there’s no sense in opening a can of worms. “The kids are at Rick and Darcy’s, I’m staying with Greg’s mom.”

  “How long until you get back into your own house?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m working on getting some estimates for now. The guys are coming tomorrow to get the tree out of the house.”

  Okay, saying that just doesn’t seem right.

  “I just wish I were there to help out.”

  “Now, Mom. Remember, you moved to Texas so you could live your own life. The way you want. You have to stop feeling guilty.”

  “I know. I just miss you and those kids so much.”

  “We’ll get you here for a good long visit as soon as I’m back in my house. Okay?” I search for a topic to divert her attention to my situation. “Hey, how’s Bob?”

  Mom’s shaky sigh reaches my ears, causing a frown and raising my concerns. “Mom? What’s wrong?”

  “Bob and I broke up last night.”

  Now, I was never big on my mom seeing the Texas Cowboy college president in the first place, but how dare he break my mom’s heart? Loser.

  “What happened?”

  “It was just one of those things. He wanted to marry me and I wasn’t ready to take that step.”

  Stunned déjà vu kicks me in the teeth. For years I’ve been fighting gravity, gray hair, and annoying mom-type sayings like “As long as you live in my house, young lady, you’ll do as I say,” so people can’t compare me to her. Only, as I think back to Greg’s proposal in light of her own reason for breaking up with Bob, I realize something: I really am becoming my mother. There’s just no escaping the inevitable. No matter how hard we fight it, girls grow up to be their mothers. Someone just shoot me and put me out of my misery, will ya?

  I’m telling you, Linda. I think I’m being punished for some unconfessed sin I committed in my youth,” I say an hour later, sitting in Churchill’s, a local coffee shop, with my best friend and pouring out the details of my sad, storm-ravaged story.

  Linda looks like Ginger from Gilligan’s Island, only without the sleazy Marilyn Monroe imitation. With red hair and luminous green eyes, my friend has “romance heroine” written all over her. I usually eat light when I’m with her so I don’t feel so bad about myself, but today I forego the “skinny” and go straight for the creamy, whole-milk mocha latte with sugar and whipped cream. I add to my calorie/fat-laden binge an apple turnover. Total comfort food, but I don’t care. After all, if anyone needs comforting, it’s me.

  Linda chuckles at my theory of God-correction. “More likely the tornado just hit the wrong house. It was probably headed for John Wells. Isn’t he an atheist?” She’s talking with her mouth full and still looks classy. I hate my life. She swallows down her bite with a mouthful of chai tea. Then she gives me a quirky smile. “Seems like if God was going to teach anyone a lesson it’d be him. Know what I mean?”

  In spite of myself, I can’t help but find the humor. I give a sideways grin. “Yeah. That’s probably it. Lack of communication between heaven and the natural disaster. I wonder who I contact to file a complaint.”

  My new neighbor—in the English-cottage-looking house to the right of my house—moved in during a late February storm that dumped six inches of snow on us and knocked out the power for twelve hours. (I should have seen it coming then.) Every house on the block participated in helping the seventy-year-old bachelor move in. Being that he’s elderly and single, we naturally assumed he was a widower, but no. He’s recently retired from the stage, where he’s worked in New York, London, Paris. He decided to move here to be closer to his daughter—who he unashamedly revealed was the product of an illicit affair during his forties. And I get the feeling from his man-of-the-world attitude that “illicit affair” is John’s middle name.

  He made no apologies for his life or his beliefs. And after we had him all moved in he thanked us for the help, then informed us that he is staunchly atheist, but will respect our antiquated, outdated, and downright ignorant beliefs if we will please not inundate him with our proselytizing efforts. That’s how he said it, too. (Except for “ignorant.” That was only implied.)

  He’s pleasant enough. But how much better it would be if he weren’t headed for hell. You know?

  “Hey, speak of the atheist,” Linda says, all hush-hush as the bell above the door dings.

  I look up at the same time John Wells sees me. He strides my way.

  Knowing I will now have to be a good example, I nix my sullen, God-blaming attitude and force a smile. “Hello, Mr. Wells.”

  “My dear girl. I couldn’t help but notice the tree on your house.” Okay, if anyone else had said those particular words, I’d have thought they were making fun of my predicament, but John is so cool, he could recite “Little Miss Muffet” and get a standing ovation and cries for an encore. His expression is one of genuine concern and I warm to the sympathy.

  “Yeah. I guess you can’t predict the weather.”

  He lifts the ticket from our table. “I insist upon treating you both.”

  I’m about to turn him down, but Linda speaks up first. “Thanks! That’s so sweet of you.” She beams and blushes a little like a giggling girl. Hello? Remember your newly re-vowed husband, Mark?

  “My pleasure.” His gray moustache twitches as he passes along a distinguished, white-toothed smile and heads off to find a seat.

  “Do you suppose those are his own teeth?” I ask.

  “They don’t look fake,” Linda says and I swear she’s watching the old geezer saunter, all full of himself, to his seat. “Don’t you think he sort of looks like Sean Connery?”

  I take a quick glance at him. “Not really. I think it’s the hat. And the fact that he walks straight and sure, which is unusual for a man his age.”

  “Too bad he’s not a Christian. Greg’s mom is single, isn’t she?”

  Having recently renewed her wedding vows, Linda is oh-so-in-love (barring the occasional ogling of attractive older men).

  “I’m not fixing up my boyfriend’s mom with my atheist neighbor.”

  “I know. I said if he were a Christian.”

  A buxom blonde enters the coffee shop and we watch wordlessly as she heads over to Mr. Wells’s table. He stands, kisses her cheek, and holds her chair for her.

  “Looks like she’s not his type anyway.”

  “Guess not,” Linda says, sounding a little offended for older women everywhere. She grabs her purse. “I have to be going. Listen, if your contractor doesn’t work out, let me know. My brother, Van, is starting up his own business. He works cheap for now while he’s building up a résumé. He’s got a couple of pretty good references.” She fishes into the purse and draws out a business card.

  Not that I’d let business and friendship mix, but I take the card anyway. “Okay. I’ll keep him in mind.”

  My eyes land on another business card that has fallen from her purse and onto the table. I pick up the champagne-colored card, and in true, nosy-best-friend fashion, turn it over and read it: “Emma Carrington, Life Coach. One free thirty-minute telephone session.”

  “What’s this?”

  Her face has suddenly gone scarlet. “I took it last year when I thought Mark and I were getting a divorce.”

  “Did you ever call her?”

  She shakes her head. “I met you instead. Talking it over with you helpe
d. And then I found out Mark wanted to re-marry me.”

  I rack my brain trying to remember how helpful I could have been, jaded as I was over my own bad divorce. I give a mental shrug and offer her the card.

  “Throw it away,” she says. “I don’t need it anymore.”

  With a wink, she turns and sashays out of the coffee shop. I turn the card over a couple of times, then drop it into my purse just as the server appears to take away Linda’s dishes.

  “I’ll be staying to do some work,” I say. “Could you bring me a cup of regular coffee and just keep it coming?”

  Thankfully, she’s the pleasant sort. She smiles and agrees. I pull out Rick’s laptop and plug in my headphones and jump drive. I have no desire to work on this proposal for a new romance novel. But now more than ever I know I have to keep the checks rolling in.

  Ignoring the angst on the inside of me, I set to work on a synopsis. It’s pretty basic. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy loses girl. Girl has crisis. Boy wins girl back. Boy and girl live happily ever after. Yada yada. Oh, and boy and girl are Christians.

  Three hours later, feeling more depressed than ever, I stand up to leave. But when I gather my things and head for the door, I notice a crowd has gathered. I stop short as that once-familiar anxiety shoots through my stomach. My head begins to swarm and my heart picks up speed like a mustang on the open highway. I drop back into my chair, knowing there’s no way I’m wading through that group. Tears well up. I thought I was done with anxiety attacks for good. God! Where are you?

  “Miss Everett?” I turn to the sound of John Wells’s voice. “May I be of assistance?”

  “John,” I gasp, fighting for air. “I think I’m having a panic attack.”

  “It’s all right, my dear. Try to take slow breaths. I’ll be right back.”

  He strides across the room and returns with a paper bag. “Breathe into this.” He strokes my wrists as I do as I’m told. Within just a few minutes, my pulse slows.

  “Thank you.” I take a glass of water from the server.

  “Anxiety attacks. How familiar I am with them,” John says. “I’ve had my share. Trust me.”

  I’m losing it and he wants to take a trip down memory lane? Besides, I’m not buying it from Mr. Calm-cool-and-collected. “You’ve never had an anxiety attack,” I accuse. “You know you’re just trying to make me feel better.”

  He smiles with affectionate tolerance and presses his hand to his chest. “I vow to you that I wouldn’t lie to a lady.”

  I snort. “Give me a break. A man does not reach senior citizen status as a bachelor without having perfected the art of lying to ladies.”

  A nod of acknowledgment answers my observation. “All right. Because I feel I can trust you, I will admit to exaggerating a time or two, when I had no choice. But in this case, I give you my word that I too have suffered with panic attacks. Talent isn’t a guarantee against a case of nerves. Thirty minutes before curtain and for the first ten minutes into any performance I had to fight panic.”

  I give him a lopsided grin. “You don’t seem the type to give in to nerves. You’re way too suave and debonair.” (I say this last with a swanky French accent.)

  “Ah, how little you know me.” With a wink, he stands and extends his hand to me. “Let me walk you out.”

  “Thank you.”

  We are at my van before it occurs to me to wonder why he has just spent three hours in a coffee shop. I resort to backdoor prying. “I hope I didn’t interrupt your lunch date.”

  His faded blue eyes twinkle with merriment. “Curious, are you?”

  Heat spreads across my cheeks. I nod. “A little. Sorry.”

  “Not at all.” He opens my door for me as one would expect from a man like John Wells. “Mrs. Jensen would like to pursue acting as a profession and considering that I have been looking into opening a coaching studio in my attic, I agreed to an appointment with her.”

  “A three-hour appointment?” What a nosy girl I am! Like Jessica Fletcher. I’m sleuthing.

  He chuckles. “She’s very enthusiastic about her prospects.”

  I just bet she is.

  “Thanks for coming to the rescue, John. If I didn’t know better I’d think you were an angel unaware.”

  He lifts my hand and his moustache tickles the soft skin on the inside of my wrist as he presses a kiss there. “But you do know better and are fully aware that I am no angel. Nor do I believe in such things.”

  “You’re nothing but a flirt, John Wells. And I’m half your age.”

  He chuckles. “At least.”

  I drive away with a thought: Wouldn’t it be incredible if God used me to lead an atheist to Jesus?

  6

  I sit cross-legged and stare at the card laying on the comforter in front of me. Emma Carrington, Life Coach. Should I or shouldn’t I? It’s just so obvious that I need help. Or at least someone I can talk to who might have some sage advice to offer. I glance at the clock. Greg will be here in about an hour to pick me up for dinner at Rick and Darcy’s. I showered and dressed early just in case I had the guts to go through with the call.

  Now I’m getting cold feet. But I really should call. I think I should. The anxiety attacks alone… Mom, Greg, I don’t know. What’s it going to hurt just to give it one shot? The first consultation is free. Right?

  Okay, I’ve talked myself into it. Without further hesitation, I dial the number. My heart pounds as I wait for her to pick up.

  “Hello, this is Emma Carrington.”

  I gather a long breath and am about to respond when I hear “I’m so sorry I missed your call.” Her recorded voice is soft, gentle, relaxing. As, I suppose, it should be. “I sincerely wish to speak with you. Please leave your name and phone number and I will call you at the earliest opportunity.”

  I blow out my breath. Doggone. I figure there’s no way she’s ever going to call me back. But for some reason—

  desperation?—I leave my name and number anyway.

  Now I still have an hour to kill. Make that fifty-five minutes. I pad over to the window seat. The moon shining off the duck pond brings tears to my eyes. I lean my head against the window, not sure just why the picture brings on such melancholy. Probably PMS. But I let the tears fall anyway. Wouldn’t the kids love this view?

  The phone rings a moment later when I’m in the middle of a really great cry. At first glance, I don’t recognize the caller-ID number. Still, I snatch it up and a Kleenex at the same time. “Hang on,” I say, and set the phone down long enough to blow my nose. Then I pick the phone back up. “This is Claire.”

  “Hello. Emma Carrington, returning your call.”

  She sounds a bit put out, this woman who is supposed to be dedicated to helping people. My defenses alerted, I sniff. I suppose she’d have preferred I let my nose run?

  Politeness dictates I stuff my irritation and force a pleasant conversation long enough to blow this Emma person off and go back to my window seat and uncontrollable sobbing. “Thank you for calling, Emma.” Only Emma sounds more like Emba because of my stuffy nose. “I really don’t need to talk.”

  “May I ask what has changed in the past ten minutes since you called my number?” Her tone is even. Practiced steadiness? No way am I getting sucked into a conversation with a woman who can’t even be patient long enough for me to blow my nose.

  “Oh, I shouldn’t have called in the first place. I was just feeling a bit overwhelmed.”

  “And now you’re not?”

  “Well, I…” I sigh. “I suppose I still am.”

  “Claire. You have one free session. How about giving me a chance to help you?” Her voice is pleasant, seems to be genuinely interested. I suppose it’s not going to hurt anything to just share.

  Thirty minutes later, Emma has my credit card number and I have a commitment to one thirty-minute session per week for the next twelve weeks. Funny thing, ten minutes into our conversation I started feeling better. Maybe this is going to help af
ter all.

  Dinner at Darcy’s table is one of those affairs. I’d have to describe the entire experience as overcompensation. To explain: Darcy was raised on the wrong side of the tracks by a mother who conceived and bore her out of wedlock—the product of an affair with a married man. They both paid for it socially during Darcy’s growing-up years.

  But those beginnings motivated her to make something better of her life. She took etiquette classes, decorating classes, any kind of class that might help her better fit into Rick’s social lifestyle. The lifestyle I resented every single day we were married. But Darcy is happy with it. She’s happy hanging on his arm and gracing his home with style and class. It suits her. It definitely did not suit me.

  Now as I sit at her gorgeous dining room table with my children, Rick and Darcy, of course, and Greg and Sadie, I wonder who these children are. They are dressed appropriately, neat, clean, and using the proper silverware. They are polite and are displaying exemplary table manners. I’m baffled.

  “So, Claire,” Rick says as he passes a platter of roast tenderloin to the left. “What did you find out today from the contractor?”

  I fill them in on the details. Tree-removal guy coming in the morning. Should only take one day. Contractor guy will be coming back the following day to give an estimate and will hopefully begin the actual work on the rooms and roof soon thereafter.

  “I’ve never heard of Milton Travis,” Rick says. “Did you check him out?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Rick. He had an excellent referral.”

  I ignore the way his eyes cloud at my flippant response. Even five years after our divorce, I still can’t help but push his buttons. In my defense, though, he knows I’m going to do it, so why does he set himself up by asking annoying questions?

  “Who gave him a referral?” he asks.

  I grin at Greg and jab my thumb in his direction.

  Greg grins back. “Milt’s cousins with the janitor at the school. He’s been in business around here for a lot of years.”

  “I see.” Rick’s frowning that I-don’t-know-if-this-is-such-a-good-idea frown that I know all too well, and quite frankly, I want to slug him. It’s none of his business who I get to fix my house. He doesn’t pay the mortgage. Not one penny of child support has ever gone to support me. I worked three jobs to make sure I could take care of myself. His child-support money was split between four bank accounts: Ari, Tommy, Shawn, and Jake. Not to be a martyr or anything, but blood, sweat, and tears keep my head above water. Not my ex-husband. I’m just about to remind him of these facts when Greg speaks up. “I didn’t really check him out, so maybe we should do that.”