by Maggie Wells
They’d had their fun. Grace got her foot in the door with the It Is Rocket Science program. Jake got laid. And for a little while, she had Jake Dalton. The guy she daydreamed about for nearly half her life. They should all be happy.
Instead, she felt crushed.
“Mom?”
She jumped and a shower of popcorn rained onto the carpet. “Oh. Hey.” Darla righted the bowl before she dumped the rest and flashed a quick smile over her shoulder. “I thought you’d gone to bed.”
Gracie slid into her usual spot. “I was working on some of the stuff Dr. Jake gave me for my report.”
Sitting up a little straighter, she stroked her daughter’s hair. The curls might not be as silky as they were when she was a toddler, but Darla found touching Grace irresistible. There’d never come a day when she wouldn’t marvel at this unexpected miracle in her life. “How’s the project looking? You got this one sewn up?”
Her baby curled up on the cushion like a kitten, a sly smile curving her lips. She looked like the proverbial cat who’d scored the dish of cream. “Yep.”
Darla laughed and gave Gracie’s pajama-clad bottom a playful swat. “That’s mama’s modest girl.” Setting the popcorn on the floor, she patted her leg in invitation. Without a word, Grace uncurled and rested her head in Darla’s lap.
The two of them lay quiet for a moment. On the screen a couple argued over which hideous fixture they should use to light the room they’d redecorated with an excess of cotton batting and palm fronds. On the Kennet sofa, someone heaved a heavy sigh, but Darla wasn’t exactly sure which one of them was the culprit. She twined her fingers in Gracie’s hair. “You okay?”
“Did you guys break up?”
The question struck with the force of a baseball bat to the knees. How was she supposed to answer? A simple yes or no would validate the terminology. Saying they were never really together would open up a whole other avenue of inquiry. One she wasn’t the least bit interested in negotiating. Not now. Not when she was feeling so confused about everything.
So she went with the old parenting standby: the bald-faced lie.
“Jake and I are okay with each other.”
Neither of them spoke as the quasi-decorators on the screen went toe-to-toe over swipes of different colored paints they slapped onto a wall like talentless graffiti artists.
“He didn’t seem okay,” Grace said at last.
Darla’s hand stilled, but she kept her gaze locked on the television. “What do you mean?”
Inhaling deeply, Gracie flipped onto her back and stared directly up at her. “He didn’t ask a single question about you.”
A giant fist closed around Darla’s heart. She forced a laugh, but it sounded hollow to her own ears. “Well, honey, why would he ask about me? He was taking you out to look through his super scope. It had nothing to do with me.”
“He always asks about you.” Grace’s mouth thinned. “We’re done with the project.”
Pushing down the knot of pain lodged in her chest, Darla focused all of her energy on keeping her smile in place. “Are you happy with how it turned out?”
Her daughter waited a beat too long to answer, making it clear she wasn’t fooled by one bit of Darla’s act. “It’s fine.”
“Fine?” Darla scoffed. “I practically sold my soul to get you your very own rocket scientist. If that doesn’t get you into Space Camp, well, we’ll have to go back to the whole sell-an-internal-organ-on-the-Internet plan, and I haven’t sharpened my manicure scissors lately.”
“Mom—”
“Maybe I can slip Mr. Dalton a piece of pie the next time he comes in for lunch.”
“I’m trying to—”
She held up a hand and wrinkled her nose. “Don’t make me suck up to Brian. I still remember the day he gave a thirty-minute presentation on tadpoles. I swear, we went in fifth graders but came out with our driver’s licenses.”
“Mom!”
Darla jerked, startled into silence by her quiet child’s commanding bark. She blinked, then sat back, putting some distance between them before murmuring a wary, “Yes?”
“Are you sad?”
The question struck like a punch in the nose.
Darla fought the urge to cover her face as tears filled her eyes. But Gracie wasn’t a little girl anymore. She understood the dynamics between boys and girls as well as any teenager. Until that moment, Darla hadn’t thought. A lump lodged in her throat as she found herself wondering if her daughter had any first-hand experience with heartache. Had some boy trampled her tender feelings? Was it possible Grace knew exactly how it felt to be crushed by a crush and hadn’t felt she could to talk to her about it?
Something inside of her crumpled as the thought took hold. A tear broke over the edge of her lashes and streaked down her cheek before she could catch it. She lifted a hand to swipe it away, but at the last moment, curled her fingers into her palm. It was time to stop shielding Grace from her life and start letting her daughter witness some of the harder parts of being the grown up.
“Yeah, baby. I’m a little sad.” With a wobbly smile, she knuckled the rogue tear away before it could drop from her jaw. “But being sad is okay. I’ll be okay.”
“I think Dr. Jake’s sad, too.”
Darla smoothed Grace’s hair back from her forehead, appreciating her daughter’s tenacity nearly as much as her total lack of subtlety. “Sweets, you know Jake and I...” She stopped, completely stumped as to where the thought was supposed to go. “We were never a real thing. I mean, we like each other. We’re friends.”
“Are you?”
“Always,” Darla answered without hesitation, hoping one day, the fib might turn out to be the truth. “We’re friends, and we liked hanging out together, but we were never going to be….” Her heart slid up into her throat, choking off her words. “We have such different lives,” she finished in a whisper.
Grace’s forehead puckered. “Not that different. You both went to the same school. You know all the same people. You both think I’m the coolest girl in the world,” she added with a weak attempt at a smile.
“True. So true.” Darla ran her fingers down the curve of her baby’s peaches and cream cheek. “But I think you know it takes more to make a relationship work.”
“Is it because of my dad?”
“Your dad?”
Grace shrugged. “I know you say you’re okay with him not being around, but maybe you still have feelings—”
“Grace, baby, there are lots of really complicated reasons your dad and I never ended up together, but I promise you, I’m not carrying a torch for him.”
Her daughter’s face creased in consternation. “I never got that expression. It always makes me wonder if the Statue of Liberty is all wrecked over some guy.”
Darla laughed, tickled by the twists and turns her brilliant baby’s mind took. “My money’s on Michelangelo’s David. I hear all the girl statues are hot for him.”
“I’d pick The Thinker,” Grace said after a moment’s consideration.
Schooling her features into a puzzled frown, Darla gave her head a shake. “I’m shocked. You and the nerdy guy?” She pursed her lips. “I have to admit, I’ve always wanted to go to the Lincoln Memorial and climb into old Abe’s lap.”
“Ew!” Grace leaped up with an agility Darla envied. “That’s gross, Mom.”
“Not like that.” Darla chuckled at her daughter’s horrified expression. “I just think it would be cool. I’d sit there and Abe and I could talk and talk.” She grinned as Gracie rolled to her feet, tugging her pajama top down and sneering her disgust. “Four score and seven years? Really, Abe? You couldn’t say, ‘Hey, about eighty years ago, the guys who sketched this whole thing out—’”
“It’s eighty-seven years,” Grace corrected.
Darla grinned up at her as she retrieved the bowl from the floor. “Maybe you’d like to hang with my friend, Abe, too. Those knees of his are
huge. I’m sure there’s room for both of us.”
“Goodnight, Mom,” Grace called over her shoulder as she scurried away.
Her smile faded when she heard the bedroom door click shut. Staring down at the neglected popcorn, she let her eyes drift shut as she drew a long, deep breath. Of all the men she’d known on any kind of intimate level, Gracie’s dad ranked somewhere near the bottom of the list of her emotional entanglements. But no woman wanted to tell her child she was the product of nothing more than a potent combination of stupidity and audacity.
Same as she wasn’t ready to admit to Gracie, or to anyone, but she might, just might, have a broken heart. Not until she could come up with even the first idea of how she might fix it.
****
“I need a brisket plate, two half-slab baskets, and a chicken dinner.” Zelda Jo tossed her empty tray onto the counter, narrowly missing the orders Darla was checking against her ticket. Without missing a beat, the older woman plucked plastic tumblers from the stack beside the drink fountain and began filling them with ice. “So you gonna tell me why John-John parked his tight little be-hind in my section and not yours, Daryl Hannah?”
Closing her eyes, Darla exhaled in a whoosh and tried to count to ten. She got as far as three before she snapped. “Don’t you have any magazines printed after nineteen-eighty-five? I mean, they’ve done two Charlie’s Angels reboots since you settled on that hairstyle. Maybe you should try for the Cameron Diaz look rather than whatshername Fawcett.”
Both Bubba and Zelda stopped what they were doing and stared at her in disbelief. Finally, Zelda Jo curled the cup she held protectively into her chest. “Farrah,” she said with uncharacteristic stiffness. “And the poor woman has passed away, so I’d think twice before you go speakin’ ill of the dead again.”
Darla expelled her breath in a gush and let her head fall forward, her chin almost touching her sternum. There was no way in heaven or hell she’d get out of this kitchen without an apology, a complete retraction, and a side of groveling. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to speak ill of her—”
“No, only of me.” Ice leaped from the cup as Zelda Jo slammed it down on the counter and turned to face her. “You’ve been jealous of me since the day you stepped foot in this place,” she accused.
“Now, ladies—” Bubba tried.
Darla had to give him credit. But this was an old refrain played each and every time she and Zelda failed to see eye-to-eye. His signature on their paychecks was no match for two palms held up to halt his intervention.
“I’m not jealous of you, Zelda Jo,” Darla said with exaggerated patience. “I don’t want your hair or your clothes or your man—no offense, Bubba,” she said quickly.
“None taken,” he replied, sighing as he turned back to the order slips arrayed in front of him.
“I’m not sad and lonely because I had a baby and no man wants me,” Darla continued before Zelda Jo could slip a word in edgewise. “As a matter of fact, your precious John-John does want me, but I don’t want him.”
Both of Zelda Jo’s brows shot skyward. “Are you sure, little miss hoity-toity?”
No, she wasn’t sure. But there was no way she’d admit as much. Not when she was facing another Friday night without him. Another night alone.
“Jake and I are friends. That’s all.”
One brow sank, but the other remained true to Zelda Jo’s skepticism. “So you don’t mind he’s out there sharing a booth in my section with a girl who doesn’t look a whole lot older than Gracie?”
“He’s what?” Fight forgotten in the face of more pressing issues, they moved in unison toward the entrance to the kitchen area. Darla slipped under the taller woman’s arm and the two of them peered around the corner at the exact same time. “Where?”
“Number four,” Zelda whispered back. “I’d hoped she’d ask for a beer so I could card her, but she didn’t.”
“We don’t serve beer,” Darla murmured as she zoomed in on the table in question.
“Well, it was that or cigarettes, and we don’t sell those, either.” She paused for a moment then straightened. “Did I tell you they tried to card me for cigarettes down at the Citgo?”
“Focus.” Darla hissed the word from between clenched teeth, and Zelda Jo instantly leaned in again. “I can’t get a good look at her.”
“Your friendly Dr. Dalton sure is lookin’ good.”
“Zelda Jo.” Whipping a mom move out of her bag of tricks, Darla reached back and gave her companion a quick pinch without even looking. “Is she really young?”
The hair on the back of her head stirred as Zelda gave up her hyperbole. “Okay, not Gracie-young, but young. Maybe twenty or so?”
“Twenty?” In the blink of an eye, Darla became all too aware of her own thirty-something status. She ran the pad of her finger over the fine spray of wrinkles reaching for her temple and winced. “Jake’s older than I am. What would he be doing with a girl younger than me?”
Zelda Jo snorted as she straightened. “The same thing they all want to do with girls that young.”
Darla swallowed hard and leaned back into the safety of the steamy kitchen. Pressing her hand to her chest, she breathed slow and deep, trying to ease the ache caused by the bruising throb of her heart.
Before she could collect her thoughts, Zelda Jo loaded her orders onto a tray and shoved it at her. “Take this. And take the long way around coming back. You’ll see what I mean.”
She looked the woman—best friend and fiercest enemy—straight in the eye for the first time since she uttered her hairdo heresy. “I’m not sure I want to.”
Zelda Jo planted her hand on one hip and cocked it. “Sugar, you are the only person in all of south Alabama who was buying the line you were sellin’ about you and Junior being nothing more than friends. That girl out there hasn’t even lost her baby teeth yet. You go out there and show her how the big girls play.”
Not seeing any better alternative, Darla grasped the tray in both hands, pivoted on her heel, and rolled her shoulders back in preparation for battle. Behind her, Bubba murmured something under his breath about having a thing for Farrah Fawcett and her red bathing suit, but she couldn’t think too hard about Zelda Jo in a flaming one-piece. Not when Jake was right out there. On her turf. With someone else.
When they embarked on their affair, they’d agreed on two major points. No strings, and no messy stuff afterward. Fun and sex and friendship for as long as they were both enjoying themselves. The thought that Jake might tire of their arrangement never occurred to her. Sure, she’d assumed he’d be more than happy to take all the complication-free sex he could get for as long as he could get some, but Jake didn’t strike her as the type to go from girl to girl. She should have known better. Jake had never been a predictable guy.
Two weeks of silence.
God. Was there anything quieter than a phone that refused to ring? She took the damn thing to bed with her, telling herself she kept her cell close at hand just in case. In case of what, she didn’t know. Jake, Connie, and Grace were the only ones who ever called her on it. Connie went to bed promptly at nine every night, claiming she was unable to break herself of the habit of rising early. Grace was fast asleep on the other side of the wall.
And Jake wasn’t calling her anymore.
Lord, she missed those late night calls and texts. So much so, she gave up staring at the ceiling night after night in favor of re-reading their brief exchanges. He never said anything overtly romantic or sexy, but there was a different kind of intimacy to them.
How was your day?
Is your shoulder feeling better?
Can I pick you up at seven instead of seven-thirty?
The last one never failed to make her smile. She’d started grilling him about his motives the minute they were alone in the car together. As usual, Jake took it all in stride. And in the end, the only answer he gave her was a pat on her knee and a quiet, “I couldn’t wait to see y
ou.”
Lifting the heavy tray unto her shoulder, she set her jaw and stepped out of the safety of the kitchen. The Pit was crowded—lunchtimes always were—but not packed. A quick scan confirmed she had two vacant tables in her section. The knowledge that he’d chosen Zelda Jo’s section on purpose settled in her stomach like lead weight.
With a brittle-feeling smile plastered on her face, she doled out plates and baskets at the appropriate table. Years of practice made running her tables on autopilot a breeze. She traded quips with a couple of her regular customers, noted which cups needed refilling, jotted an addition to an order on her pad, and scanned her other tables for signs of distress as she moved through the packed room. Drawing on a reserve of strength she probably hadn’t tapped since Grace was an infant, she kept her mind focused on the business at hand, not allowing herself to even peek in Jake’s direction until she was certain she had a handle on everything. Particularly her emotions.
But nothing could prepare her for the sight of him. His hair was too long again and as rumpled as ever. He wore dress pants and a button-down shirt, but the collar and his sleeves were flipped back from his wrists. The sight of the silky dark hair covering muscled forearms nearly stopped her dead in her tracks. As if sensing her stare, he turned toward her. The light from the faux-tiffany lamp over the table bounced off the lenses of his glasses, obscuring his eyes, but she didn’t need to see them to feel them.
His lunch date said something and he started as if she’d hit him with a pair of jumper cables. Then he laughed at whatever the other woman said, and the sound pierced Darla’s heart.
His date was pretty. Beautiful, really. Zelda hadn’t lied. The girl was young. ‘Look twice’ young. And perfect. Despite her age, or lack of it, the woman was meticulously turned out. Her sunshine-colored hair looked to be professionally streaked, the purse at her side probably cost more than two months’ rent, and her beringed hands were tipped with a full set of acrylic nails.