by Nora Roberts
Of course, they’d never weathered one of Mama’s panic attacks, or watched her struggle just to find the courage to step out on that veranda. They hadn’t seen her weep with gratitude when her future daughter-in-law asked if she and Carter could have the wedding at the house.
God bless Josie, Phoebe thought. And hell, God bless the Internet while she was at it. If her mother couldn’t go out into the world, at least the world could come to her through her computer.
“Hey, sweetie pie.” Essie’s fingers stilled as she spotted Phoebe. “You need something?”
“No. No, I was just poking in to let you know I’m going up to work out, then I’m going to get ready to go out.”
Essie’s dimples deepened with her smile. “With Duncan.”
“To a barbecue at one of his friend’s.”
“You have a good time, and don’t forget the flowers you put in the spare fridge now.”
“I won’t.”
“And wear the green sundress,” Essie called out as Phoebe turned. “Show off those nice shoulders. God knows you work hard enough on them.”
Phoebe glanced back. “Should I wear more blush, too, so I can catch me a husband?”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing. I’ll check back with you before I go.”
She escaped to her little gym, and a solid sweaty hour.
Later in the shower, she wondered if she’d been using exercise over the past months as a substitute for sex. She’d definitely kicked it up a few notches in the past six months.
Eight months, she corrected, rinsing shampoo out of her hair. Or was it ten?
Well,Jesus, had it actually been a year since she’d had sex? Shoving at her dripping hair, she began to obsessively backtrack and count.
Ava’s son’s friend’s neighbor Wilson—Ava had arranged the date, pushed for it until Phoebe caved. He’d turned out to be very nice, Phoebe remembered. Kind of sweet with his shy smile and little goatee. He liked country music and football, and had been on the tail end of a divorce.
They’d enjoyed each other’s company enough to date a few times, and she’d slept with him twice. It had been, she recalled, nice. The same way he’d been nice.
And then he’d reconciled with his wife. That was nice, too, really. She’d heard they’d had a baby since…
Wait a minute, wait one damn minute. She snapped off the shower, grabbed a towel. Wrapping it around her, she put the congenial, wish-you-all-the-best breakup with the very nice Wilson into the context of time, of season, of date.
Shortly after New Year’s, she remembered. She’d slept with him on New Year’s Eve, then again a few nights later. New Year’s oflast year, she realized with a jolt.
“My God! I haven’t had sex in fifteen months.” She stepped over to the mirror, wiped the fog away so she could stare at her own face. “I’m thirty-three years old and I haven’t had sex in fifteen months. What’s wrong with me?”
She pressed a hand on her belly. What if everything was rusted in there? It didn’t matter if she knew better, intellectually, it was still a horrible and scary thought.
And what if she had sex with Duncan, and it was so good she started skipping the workouts (which surely were a substitute for sex)? She’d get out of shape, become flabby and lazy.
Then he probably wouldn’t be attracted to her anymore. Hadn’t he commented on her body? Hadn’t he? So when her body went soft and flabby, he wouldn’t want to have sex with her, which would send her back to Pilates with a vengeance.
It would cycle over and over, until she died with rusted plumbing and six-pack abs.
Jesus, she needed therapy.
Amused at herself, she wrapped her hair in a towel before she deliberately reached for her best, special-occasion-only body cream. Cycle or not, it was time to break the fifteen-month deadlock.
Not just with anyone, she reminded herself. She wasn’t a slut—all too obviously. She avoided giving or receiving any signals from other cops, from criminalists, from prosecutors. Date or sleep with someone associated with the job, everyone on the job knew about it. That severely limited the field of play for her.
And it was true she’d been the one to make the first move toward bed with nice Wilson. But she’d liked him, enjoyed going out with him. Besides, before that New Year’s Eve she hadn’t been with a manfor…
No, no, no. She wasn’t going to count back again and make herself crazy.
She was picky, that’s all—and good for her, right? She was picky about whom she dated, and a whole lot pickier about whom she slept with. She had pride, she had her values, and most important, she had a daughter to consider.
Yet here she was obsessing about sex while getting ready for a simple Sunday barbecue. Pitiful.
She took another long, searching look at herself in the mirror. Pitiful or not, she was going to use a little extra blush. And wear the damn green dress.
She took longer than usual to put herself together. Not as long as it took Carly, the Fashion Princess, to primp for a backyard picnic, but longer than her usual routine. Her first reward for the effort was the beaming smile her mother sent her when Phoebe stopped by Essie’s sitting room.
Essie had switched from chat room to sketching, but stopped when Phoebe did a flourishing turn in the doorway. “Well?”
“Oh, Phoebe, you look a picture!”
“Not too much?”
“Honey, it’s a simple dress, and just perfect for a Sunday barbecue. It’s how it looks on you that snaps. You look all fresh and sexy at the same time.”
“Exactly the combination I was shooting for. Duncan’s going to be here in a few minutes, I expect. I’m going down to get those flowers. Anything you need before I leave?”
“Not a thing. You have a good time, now.”
“I will. I’ll be back before Carly’s bedtime, but—”
“If you’re not, I think Ava and I know how to tuck her up. I don’t want you watching the clock.”
She wouldn’t, Phoebe promised herself. She’d just let it all unfold at its own time and pace. She’d enjoy herself, and enjoy knowing she looked fresh and sexy in a green sundress that showed off her arms and back. She’d worked hard enough on them.
She went down, and out to the summer kitchen. In Cousin Bess’s day it had been used routinely. For the lavish parties she enjoyed throwing, for canning, for preparation of simple meals on hot nights. They used it more sporadically now, but the second refrigerator was handy for storing extra cold drinks. Phoebe took out the butter-yellow daisies she’d picked up as a hostess gift.
It was going to be a pretty evening, she decided, and turned to admire the flowers of the courtyard Ava had labored over.
“Well, my God!” She stared, openmouthed, at the dead rat at the bottom of the steps.
She had to bury revulsion to step down for a closer look. No doubt it was dead, but it didn’t look mauled, as she’d expected. As she imagined it would if some cat had caught it, then gotten bored enough to dump it in the courtyard like some nasty neighbor’s gift.
If she’d had to guess at cause of death, she’d have voted for the sharp spring of a trap, right across the neck. The idea made her shudder as she stepped back again.
Some kids, she thought, playing a particularly unpleasant prank, tossing a dead rat over the wall.
She went back inside, dug up a shoe box, got the broom. And, stomach rolling with disgust, managed to sweep and nudge the corpse inside. She wasn’t ashamed to look away with her eyes half-closed as she put on the lid, or to hold the box at arm’s length to carry it to the trash can.
Shuddering, shuddering, she backpedaled from the trash can, then turned to dash inside. She scrubbed her hands like a surgeon before an operation, all the while telling herself not to be an idiot. She hadn’t touched the awful thing.
She had herself nearly settled down when the doorbell rang. The quick, appreciative grin on Duncan’s face did the rest of the job.
“Hello, gorgeous.”
“He
llo back.”
“Those for me?”
She tucked the flowers in the crook of her arm as she closed the door behind her. “They certainly are not. They’re for our hostess. Or host. You never said which it was.”
“Hostess. How’s that shoulder?”
“It’s coming right along, thank you.” She sent him a knowing look. “I’m about ready to start arm wrestling again.”
“I knew this guy when I was tending bar. Russian guy, arms looked like toothpicks. Nobody could take him down. I don’t think he ever paid for a drink.” He opened the car door for her. “You smell great, by the way.”
“I really do.” She laughed, slid in. When he got in, she shifted toward him. “Now tell me about this friend of yours who’s going to be feeding me.”
“Best person I know. She’s great. You’ll like her. Actually, she’s the mother of my best friend, who also happens to be my lawyer.”
“You’re best friends with your lawyer? That’s refreshing.”
“I met Phin when I was driving a cab. Nobody hails a cab in Savannah, which you’d know since you live here. It was just one of those things. I was heading back to the line at the Hilton, just dropped off a fare. Raining cats that day. He spotted me, I spotted him. He waved me down. Heading to the courthouse, big hurry. Later, I found out he was this struggling young associate, and they’d called him to bring some papers down. Anyway, I get him there, and he pulls out his wallet. Which is empty.”
“Uh-oh.”
“He’s mortified. Sometimes fares try to scam you that way, pull some sob story, whatever. But I’ve got a good gauge and this guy is seriously embarrassed. He’s apologizing all over himself, scribbling down my name and the cab number from the license, swearing on his mother’s life he’s going to come down to the cab company with the fare and a big tip. Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“A likely story,” Phoebe commented, enjoying herself.
“I spring him, figure I’ll never see him again. No way is this guy going to haul down to the cab company over an eight-dollar fare.”
“But?”
“Yeah, but. I’m clocking out that night, and he comes in. Gives me twenty. First, I’m floored he’d bother to come in, and second, twenty for an eight-dollar run’s over the top. And I tell him, dude, ten’s enough, thanks. But he won’t back off the twenty. So I say fine, let’s go have a couple of beers on the other ten. And we did.”
“And you’ve been friends ever since.”
“Yeah.”
“I’d say that story shows a bit of what you’re both made of.” She glanced around as he began to drive through the pretty, residential streets of Midtown. “I grew up down this way—well, started growing up down this way. We had a nice little house on the other side of Columbus Drive.”
“Good memories or bad?”
“Oh, both. But I’ve always liked the area, the mix of styles in the houses, kids everywhere.”
He pulled into the already crowded drive of a lovely craftsman-style home, with its big front yard tidily mowed and edged with flower beds. “Me, too,” he said.
He came around the car to take her hand. She heard the shouts and shrieks of children, the motorized thunder of a lawn mower. She smelled peonies, and meat cooking on someone’s backyard grill.
She’d grown up like this, she thought, for the first little while. Then everything, everything had changed.
The screen door opened with a happy slam. The woman who stepped out onto the big front porch was hugely pregnant, with skin the color of semisweet chocolate and hair in a glossy profusion of dreads.
A boy dashed out behind her, scabs riding both knees. “Dunc, Dunc, Dunc!” He shouted it as he streaked like a little bullet down the walk. “Catch!” And flew.
Obviously an old hand at the game, Duncan caught the boy in midair, then flipped him upside down. “The strange creature you see below is Ellis.”
“How do you do, Ellis?”
“Hi! Do it again, Dunc.”
“Ellis Tyler, you let Duncan get in the house before you start jumping all over him.”
The boy might’ve been upside down, but he managed a dramatic eye-roll. “Yes’m.” When Duncan flipped him to his feet, he grinned. “We got cherry pie. Come on in, Dunc. Come on! You can come, too, ma’am.” With that he made his dash back into the house.
“My son likes to be the welcoming committee. You must be Phoebe. I’m Celia. I hope you came hungry.” She tipped her face up for Duncan’s kiss. “I know you did.”
“How many cherry pies?” Duncan asked.
“Just you wait. Duncan’s here!” she shouted as she scooted them inside.
There was an army of them, Phoebe realized, in all shapes and sizes. Babies, toddlers, gangly teens, and an ancient old man they called Uncle Walter, men, women, and all the noise that went with them.
Most were congregated in the backyard, sprawled in chairs, on the grass, chasing kids, pushing them on the bright red swing set. A couple of men stood by the grill, watching it smoke with all the pleasure and delight they might have shown were it a centerfold.
By Phoebe’s estimate five generations were represented here, but the center of power, the magnetic north, was obviously the woman who stood supervising as younger family members hauled two picnic tables together to form one long space.
She was comfortably round in the way that made Phoebe imagine every child would want to crawl into her lap, would want to rest their head on her breast for comfort. Her handsome face with its deep-set eyes, strong nose and mouth, was capped off by a puffball of ebony curls.
Both hands fisted on her generous hips, and when a big yellow dog streaked by after the blur of a gray-striped cat, she threw back her head and laughed so her whole body shook with it.
Then she turned toward the ancient old man, her hands moving. It took Phoebe a moment to realize she wasn’t merely gesturing but signing. The old man wheezed out a laugh, signed back.
Duncan’s arm draped around Phoebe’s shoulder, and when she glanced up to smile at him, she saw he was looking over at the laughing woman. On his face, deep in those soft blue eyes of his, was absolute and unconditional love.
It struck her suddenly, and with a little curl of terror, that this was amoment. Not just a backyard barbecue.
She had to fight the urge to streak away like the cat when Duncan led her forward. “Ma Bee.”
Bee took hold of him first, her big arms going around him, pulling him into a hard, full hug. When she pulled him back, she patted his face with both hands. “You’re still skinny, and you’re still white.”
“You’re still the love of my life.”
She gave that full-body laugh, but her eyes were tender on his face. Then they shifted, turning speculative, to Phoebe.
“Ma Bee, this is Phoebe Mac Namara. Phoebe, Beatrice Hector.”
“It’s wonderful to meet you, Mrs. Hector. Thank you for having me today.”
“Somebody’s ma raised her right.” She winked at Duncan. “You’re welcome here,” she told Phoebe. “You brought me daisies? I’ve got a fondness for daisies, thank you.” She took them, cradled them. “They’ve got such happy faces. Tisha? You take these daisies in for me, and get that blue glass vase Arnette gave me last Mother’s Day. It’s in the right-side cupboard under the big server. That blue vase is just what these daisies want.”
Bee made introductions as one of the teenage girls came over for the flowers. Phoebe got a polite if measuring look—Duncan a wistful one.
“Uncle Walter here’s been deaf since he got hurt in the Korean War,” Bee explained, and signed Phoebe’s name for him. And snickered when he signed back. “Says you’re prettier than the last one this skinny white boy brought by.”
With a smile, Phoebe gave the sign for thanks. “It’s one of the few I know,” she said as Bee pursed her lips. “Hello, goodbye, thanks.”
“You decide you need to converse with him, he can read lips if you talk straight to him, and slow. Mostly, he’s
going to sleep anyway. And this here’s my daughter-in-law, my second boy Phin’s wife. Loo—”
“I know you,” Phoebe and Loo said together.
“Lieutenant Mac Namara.”
“Louise Hector, for the defense. Small world.”
“Seems like, and previously we’ve been on opposite sides of it. Welcome to Ma’s.”
“Since you’re acquainted, you get Phoebe what she drinks, and introduce her ’round the rest of the way.” Bee lifted her chin toward the picnic tables. “We’ve got to get food out on the tables here.”
Excellent, Phoebe thought, busywork. Just the thing to ease herself into the social. “Is there something I can do to help?”
“Guests don’t haul out the dishes. That’s for family. Duncan, we need some more chairs.”
“Yes, ma’am. Get you ladies a drink first?”
“We’ll take care of it,” Loo told him, and led Phoebe away. “What do you drink?”
All right, alcohol, another way to ease into the social. “What’s handy?”
Phoebe ended up with a plastic cup of chilled chardonnay, and so many names in her head she tried to alphabetize them to keep them straight.
“I didn’t put the Phoebe Duncan talked about together with the lieutenant from the Hostage and Crisis Unit.” Loo glanced over as they crossed the lawn edged with cheery flower beds and chunky shrubs. “I’m sorry to hear you were hurt a couple weeks ago.”
“I’m doing fine now.”
“Well, you look fine. Love the dress. Let me introduce you to the grill masters. Phoebe Mac Namara, my brother-in-law Zachary, and my husband, Phineas. Phoebe’s a cop, so watch yourselves.”
“Off duty.” Phoebe lifted the wine cup as she shifted to avoid the smoke billowing from the grill.
“Can you fix speeding tickets?” Zachary asked, and had Phin punching him in the arm.
“Pay him no mind.”
“I’m not kidding. Tisha’s had two since the first of the year.” Zachary sent Phoebe a wide grin. “After you eat my chicken, we’ll talk about it. You’ll be softened up.”
“Your chicken?”
“Boy, you couldn’t boil the egg this chicken started out as. That right, Loo?”