“I think you’re nicer than you let on,” I mused. “I think the people who think you’re a pill are wrong.”
He quirked his lip. “Did you used to be one of those people?”
“Maybe.”
“You’ve changed your mind?”
“Pretty much.” I got up and planted myself on his lap, my weight on his left leg. “I would say, I’m at ninety, ninety-five percent.”
Davis kissed my neck. “I like to do things all out. I don’t go for ninety percent.” He kissed me deeply on the lips, bending me back, holding me steady with his arm.
He was well on his way to a perfect score.
Lindy and I went shopping for the new baby the next day. Sam was totally paying me back for all this. “Where are they bringing her home to?” she asked, flipping through a stack of onesies. “That nasty trailer in the woods that you told me about? Or did Sam find another place to live?”
“Well…” I hesitated.
“No. Katie, please tell me no.” She stopped pushing the cart and stared at me. “Tell me that you didn’t invite them to stay with you.”
“Ok, just let me explain. Before they move in together to their own, permanent place, they’re getting married.” Corinna was insistent. “Sam is applying for the license right now, and it takes a few days to get it. In the meantime, he’s going to find an apartment and get the baby’s room ready.”
“In the meantime, they’re living with you and you’re getting the baby stuff,” she corrected me. “Seriously, Katie?”
“You sound like Davis.”
We considered the different varieties of baby wipes and I put a huge box in the cart. “Davis doesn’t approve of this plan, either?” Lindy asked.
“Not entirely.” Not at all.
“Maybe you could stay with him while they’re at your house,” she suggested, and made kissy noises.
“I’m not sleeping with him,” I stated flatly.
She stared at me. “Why the hell not? If I were in your shoes, I would be all over that!” She whistled. “Just the thought of those undies I found…”
“Lindy! You’re talking about my…whatever he is. How would you feel if I started talking about Logan’s, uh, equipment?”
“I think you and I have already traversed that territory several times,” she answered.
It was true. She had no shortage of things to say about Logan’s lack of shortage.
“Seriously, why not?” Lindy asked me. “Is this a ‘not ever’ or just a ‘not yet?’”
I thought. “I’m not rushing, and he isn’t, either. There’s no reason to hurry into anything, mess it up.”
“Except you must be dying.”
“I’m dying,” I admitted. “Every time he kisses me, I want to rip his clothes off. I want to take his hands and put them…” I looked at Lindy, who was listening avidly.
“Keep going! You know how horny I’ve been.”
I shook my head. “Nope, you’ll have to use your imagination.”
“Oh, I totally will,” she assured me. “I’m kind of a pervert like that.”
“I don’t want to know. We need to hurry. They’re coming home from the hospital today and we need a car seat.”
The baby was the tiniest, sweetest thing I’d ever seen. Corinna’s beauty genes seemed to have carried the day with her. “Little Ida,” I cooed, taking her out of the newly installed car seat to hold her while Sam carried in a huge load of gear to dump on my living room floor. I had put my art supplies into temporary storage in the basement, but having three extra people in the house was still going to be a squeeze.
“Thank you, Katie,” Corinna told me, settling in the chair I had dragged up the basement stairs so we had somewhere to sit. “I thought it would be so difficult to go back to my rental after my roommates told me that they had changed the locks and wouldn’t allow us in.”
I turned to stare at her. “Yes, that would have been hard to go there with Ida.” I carefully placed the baby in her arms.
“Sam said he found a very nice apartment,” she continued, opening her top to feed Ida. My grandma had suggested that, and so far, my constant use of the nickname had seemed to make it stick. “Just as soon as we have the security deposit, we’ll move in.”
“What?” I turned to look at Sam. “What is she talking about? I thought you could move in after you got married. This weekend.”
He fidgeted. “After my paycheck next week.”
I had my limits. I was not loaning him any money, not when he already owed me for the baby gear I’d bought. I barely prevented myself from asking where all his money from the last paycheck had gone, but he commented on it anyway.
“Dotty is angry,” Sam said, as if that explained everything about his lack of funds. I just threw up my hands and went to get a glass of water for Corinna.
Sam followed me. “We won’t be here for more than a week. Maybe two.”
I just stared at him. “That wasn’t the deal.”
He definitely wasn’t good at asking for favors. Sam was much more at home making snide comments or sex jokes. He was staring at his feet and shuffling them. “I know that wasn’t the deal, but can you help me out? Can you help the baby out?”
I looked past him into the living room, where Corinna was gently stroking Ida’s cheek while the baby suckled. They looked like a painting. I couldn’t make a new mother and baby live in a trailer without running water. I thought about it.
“Yes, ok,” I heard myself saying. “But two weeks, tops. Do you promise?”
“I swear, scout’s honor.”
“You were never a scout,” I said.
“No, but I did steal their lunch money,” Sam told me.
Sweet Jesus.
“I can help around the house,” he continued. “You don’t know how handy I am. It looks like you have a lot of repairs to catch up on.” His tone was wheedling.
This was a nice way of saying that the place was a dump, which, granted, it was a little. I kept it neat and orderly but I had to admit that it was stuck in a time warp for sure.
“We can save on gas, going to rehearsals together. And I won’t be late, because you’re such a tight-ass…I mean, because you’re so timely. I really admire that.”
I held up my hand. “Please, stop before I vomit. I’m not going to kick Corinna and Ida out.” I paused. “Notice I didn’t say your name. If you’re drinking, or carousing, or fighting, you’re out of here. I’ll either toss you out myself or have Davis do it.”
Sam swallowed. “Deal. I’ve been meaning to cut back on my drinking, anyway,” he blustered.
“And there’s no smoking. Inside around the baby, or outside so you drop your nasty butts everywhere. Got it?”
He swore vociferously. “God damn it, Katie. Fine, no smoking. You better buy me the patch, then.”
“Buy it yourself, Daddy,” I responded.
Chapter 14
September moved into October. Sam and his family didn’t move out.
“Do not say it. I don’t want to hear the words ‘I told you so’ come from your mouth,” I told Davis. “Just let me vent for a while and try to keep it in.”
We were walking on a paved trail near his house. As his knee improved, his list of allowed activities grew longer. Football was still out, of course, but driving himself in his car was probably getting closer. Davis had to be really looking forward to that happening, but I wasn’t. Not at all.
“Sam does a lot around the house. He fixed all the cabinet drawers in the kitchen. He got the fireplace to work.” And filled the house with smoke temporarily, but still. “He made all the faucets stop dripping, he cleared out the gutters. Really, he’s been a huge help.”
“Uh huh.”
I tried to hold it in, but it was useless. “I’m going crazy!” I exploded. “I don’t have a moment, not one minute, by myself in my house. Everything is a mess. I can barely walk from room to room, there’s so much stuff. Sam and Corinna are always talking! Talk, talk
, talk. Which may sound ironic, coming from me, but I find it very annoying! Do you?”
“I don’t mind talking.”
Well, that was lucky for both of us. “They have to get out of my house!” I said. “But they can’t, because of a million problems they can’t seem to solve. And I am really, really trying not to jump in and do it myself. I’m really trying, ok? But, sweet Jesus, they have to go!”
Davis didn’t say it. He just looked at me.
“I know!” I said. “I totally know. I never, ever should have let them move in. There were a million warning bells, which I just decided to ignore.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Well, I knew that Sam is an idiot, and has never been responsible with money or anything else in his life ever, as far as I can tell. The fact that he has lived in six different places since I’ve known him and makes important decisions based on his horoscope in the newspaper should have clued me in to his, um, volatility. I had known Corinna for all of five minutes when I realized that she wouldn’t be any good at reeling him in, not at all. She appears to be living in some kind of alternate reality in which Sam has all this totally under control and everything is sunbeams and roses and pixie dust. I mean, I kind of understand, because I still think it will work out…” I glanced up at Davis to see if it looked like he agreed. He did not. “Ok, go ahead and say it.”
“You should come stay with me.”
That hadn’t been what I was expecting. “What? Really?
“I know it’s driving you crazy that you haven’t been able to paint.”
No, I hadn’t been able to paint and that had definitely been hard for me—it was my outlet. But it was the unrelenting, all-night crying of Ida, who appeared to have colic, combined with early mornings at Davis’ house that were the real zinger. I had been taking naps in the various waiting rooms while Davis did his PT or got his treatments. I was exhausted.
“I have a room you can use as a studio,” Davis continued. “Lots of light.”
“Really?” I said again.
“And it’s quiet.”
I sighed. “It sounds like heaven.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, my own little piece of heaven. What do you think?”
I swallowed. “I’m not trying to be ungrateful, and this is going to sound weird, but I haven’t actually left my house in a while to stay somewhere else. Like, when you had your surgery and I spent the night, it was the first time I hadn’t slept in my own bed in a long time. Three years.”
“Why?”
“It was just hard to leave.” And it was hard to explain why, since I hadn’t really examined my motivations.
“What about vacations? Didn’t you go anywhere? You told me you wanted to go to Hawaii.”
“My grandfather wanted us to go. Yeah, I wanted to go, too.” I thought. “I’ve been a little afraid. There was a lot going on for a while, you know? I kind of wanted to hunker down. To stay with what was familiar. For a while,” I gulped, “for a while, I had a hard time leaving the house.”
“You always seem so up,” Davis said. “Even after my appointments when you wake up in all those lobbies and waiting rooms, you’re perky. Even when Trish bawled you out, you bounced right back.”
“Well, everyone has their moments,” I told him. “I’ve definitely had mine.”
Davis didn’t answer. But he reached down, and then we held hands as we walked.
“Here,” he said, when we got back to the house. The door to the locked room, the one that had fascinated Lindy, was wide open to a sunny, open space with walls of windows overlooking the lake. I walked in behind Davis and looked around. It was as dusty as the rest of the house had been before Lindy and I got after it (now it was maintained by the cleaning service that Davis had hired), and it was practically empty of furniture. Only one kind of ratty chair sat in the corner.
“Would this work?” he asked me.
“Are you kidding? It’s huge, and bright, and empty. Plus the views…” I gestured at Lake Michigan. “Well, it’s my favorite view!”
“All right. It’s settled.” Davis turned to leave.
“Hang on! I can’t just—it’s kind of a big deal, me moving here. I mean, not moving, just coming to stay temporarily.”
“Then it’s not a big deal,” he pointed out. “There’s no shortage of space. I have five bedrooms in this house and I only use one.”
“And I could use another.”
He didn’t answer. He just looked at me, and I felt the heat rise up my face.
“What did you use this room for? Why did you keep it locked?” I asked, to cover my extreme embarrassment.
“You tried the door?”
“I was cleaning the whole house,” I explained. “I just thought you kept memorabilia in here.”
“No, that’s all in the basement.” Davis walked to the windows and looked out at the blowing leaves. “This room is pretty dirty. Was the whole house this bad?”
“You lived like Pigpen in Charlie Brown,” I said honestly. “I was a little surprised that files weren’t buzzing around you.”
“Yeah,” he said, still looking out over the water. “I guess I wasn’t that happy, either.”
“Maybe a little lonely,” I suggested, walking to him. I put my arms around his waist and rested my cheek against his broad back.
His hands moved to clasp mine. “Maybe.”
“I think this would make a perfect studio if you don’t mind me crashing here. Until I can get Sam et al. out of my house.”
“It was a good place to learn guitar.”
I scooted around to his front, still holding on to him. “Is that what you used it for?”
“I was trying to teach myself. I watch videos, tutorials.”
“That’s what you do on your phone all the time?” I asked.
He frowned. “I can’t get it.”
That made me laugh. I assumed he hadn’t ever had a lot of struggle learning things before. “It’s hard to play an instrument. You should take lessons.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Maybe you’re full of it,” I suggested.
I felt his chest rumble with his laugh. “Maybe.”
“You should bring your guitar back in here. You could play while I paint,” I suggested.
“That wouldn’t bother you?”
“If a crying baby at two AM hasn’t driven me over the edge, I don’t think you learning guitar will. But we should clean first. You and I. Cleaning together.”
“I got the emphasis there,” he told me.
“Good. Then we can go tell Sam and Corinna that I won’t be there for the midnight feeding anymore.”
“You were doing that? Sucker.” But he kissed my head after he said it.
“I know,” I sighed into his t-shirt. “I know.”
Sam was relieved, I learned later at practice, that I had decided to move out. “It’ll be nice having the place to ourselves,” he said as we walked together to the studio.
I stopped dead, then hit him in the arm as hard as I could.
“Ow!” He rubbed it and scowled at me.
“It’s my house, you ass! You’re living in my house!”
“Yeah, I know,” he mumbled. “I kind of fucked some of this up.”
“Some of this.”
“A few things,” he admitted begrudgingly. “I could have broken up with Dotty first so she didn’t get so pissed that she sued me for support. And so she didn’t burn all my stuff.”
“And?”
“And I could have looked for a place to live before the baby was born.”
“Rather than waiting until the day after, when you had nothing, not even diapers or a car seat to bring her home,” I put in.
“Sure, sure. Anything else?”
“I think that’s enough for today. You know, I think you’re a good dad. You’re awesome with Ida and you’re great to Corinna, too. She’s crazy about you and you did a good thing marrying her. I had my doubts about her hitching her w
agon to you, but you’re proving me wrong.” Their wedding had been a short ceremony, and it would have been sweet, too, except that Ida had screamed her head off the entire time.
“Aw, shucks, Nutty. You’re enough to turn a hunter’s head.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll probably have more to criticize later.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Sam agreed.
While we were practicing, a glimmer of an idea sparked in my mind. I was already planning to give Lindy a baby shower when it got closer to her due date. Why couldn’t I give Sam and Corinna one now? Lord knew they needed things for the baby and things for their household, especially since Dotty burned all of Sam’s belongings. It would be a shameless gift grab, but they weren’t in the position to be overly genteel. Gentility had never really been Sam’s domain, anyway. We could invite the Dames, players from the team, really as many people as possible. Maybe someone could subtly hint that the happy couple needed money so cash gifts were always appreciated. Crass city, but it would really help them out. We could…
We. I was thinking of we, as in, us throwing the shower. Me and Davis. I missed a step.
“Watch it,” Sam hissed, and I discretely stuck out my tongue at him when Trish wasn’t watching.
That was a situation that I felt was about to explode. The Dames, cowed for years, were getting restless under the iron fist of their long-time choreographer. There were actually whispers of revolt in the locker room! Trish herself looked about an eyelash away from blowing a gasket at all times. She was wavering between scary-nice Trish and scary-mean Trish and the mixture was somehow worse than a straight shot of either. We never knew who was going to turn up. She was using breathing techniques, taking “timeouts,” and using “I” statements all the time (“I feel like you’re dancing that poorly on purpose to spite me and to ruin our squad, Denise,”) so I was thinking she had either been forced into therapy or anger management.
I went home after practice, said a quick hello to Corinna and the baby, and shut myself in my room. This was one of the major issues I had: I always felt like I was intruding. They were a young family—well, Corinna and Ida were young—and they were trying to figure things out for themselves. I felt like I was getting in the way of their bonding or something. Which then made me mad, because as I had said to Sam, it was my house. So I went to my room and plopped on my bed, and thought about how it would be at Davis’ house. I shivered, not from the cold.
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