My Heart Can't Tell You No

  “Get off her,” Jackie scolded as he stood up with the papers and notebooks in hand. “She’s sick.”

  “You sick, Mommy?” Robby ran to the front of her.

  “No. Not really. It’s just the heat, that’s all.” She took the papers Jackie offered. “Thanks, Sailor. What would I ever do without you?”

  “Looks like you better sit down before you fall down.” Tom called from the kitchen.

  “Not out there. That smell of gas would have me vomiting in no time.” She made her way to the sofa, reclining on its firmness and feeling the ecstacy of kicking off her shoes. “Where are Felicia and Oliver? I expected them to be here. Didn’t Joe work today?”

  “Yeah. I just sent Ollie up home for one of Dad’s wrenches. Felicia’s in the bathroom washing her face—again.”

  “Mommy, do you want the television on?” Robby asked as he stood near the end of the couch.

  “No, you go ahead and get on what you want to watch.”

  “Here, Mommy, rest on this.” He picked up a throw pillow and held it next to her until she lifted her head and he tucked it beneath her.

  “Thank you, doctor.” She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him close. “But I bet a kiss and hug would work better than a pillow.”

  He instantly obliged before leaving to join his brother and uncle again. It didn’t take long for Maddie to fall under sleep’s spell, considering the rest she had the two nights that Joe had been staying at his own home. It was a light, pleasant drowse that only rarely allowed the sounds of boys’ laughter to creep in to her, but it wasn’t the noise that finally opened her eyes. The first sight of the beautiful face in front of her brought a small smile to her lips. The child had green eyes and red hair pulled back around an angelic face in a style very similar to her own. Then she recognized the little girl who had been to her store a few weeks before. She thought she was still sleeping—the dream bringing the girl here, to her home. Blinking twice, she slowly focused on the girl, who stood at the end of the couch watching her.

  “Hello,” Maddie stupidly got out.

  “Hello, Mrs. Green.” She moved until she was sitting on the edge of the chair at the end of the couch. “Are you ill?”

  “No, no, just tired—and hot.” Maddie slowly sat up, glancing over at the child as she rubbed the back of her neck. “So—Phylis—you must be Joe’s daughter, Felicia.”

  “I am,” she said flatly. “My name isn’t Phylis.”

  “I sort of gathered that. Did your father like his gift?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t ask him.”

  The girl’s uninterested tone was making Maddie believe the girl’s presence there was forced, yet there seemed to be a curiosity in her that Maddie couldn’t pinpoint.

  “Does it go with his bedroom?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Maddie said, looking at her watch and noticing it was almost time for Joe to come home. She had only been asleep for a few minutes. “Robby? Jackie? Anything special for supper tonight?”

  “Ollie says his dad’s having a bar-b-que. He asked us to go down and eat with them,” Jackie spoke up.

  “You want to go down there and eat?” Maddie asked in shock as she stood up and turned toward the three boys sitting around the table watching Tom put the finishing touches on the carburetor.

  “Ollie’s going to teach me to play baseball. Or at least teach me better. Can I go down?”

  “Yes, you may go down.” Maddie wasn’t quite sure she could believe what she was hearing. She went to the kitchen and took a better look at the boy inviting her sons for dinner. “If Joe agrees to it.”

  One look at the blond boy’s hands revealed he had been eagerly helping Tom fix the carburetor. Jackie’s were just as grimy. But Robby’s had only a few smudges. Judging by the glances Tom was giving her youngest son, only Tom’s quickness of hand had prevented Robby from getting into the middle of his work.

  Ollie was a beautiful specimen of boyhood, blond, tanned, with blue eyes that in a few years would be driving the girls wild—if they weren’t already.

  “Will you be joining us too, Mrs. Green?” The expressionless voice turned Maddie to look at Felicia. She was such a pretty girl, why did she seem so cold and glum?

  “No thank you, Felicia. If Joe wants the boys down at your place, they may go, but I think I’m in for a cool shower, then a walk up to check on my mother.”

  “Very well.” The stiffness of Felicia’s words jolted Maddie, but the noise coming from the front door quickly made her forget about any misgivings she might have felt.

  The sight of the man coming through the door wearing a damp T-shirt and sunglasses with a day’s growth of stubble and a cigarette clenched in his mouth warmed her. As he removed the glasses, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness of the house before they scanned the room, not stopping until they reached Maddie. She watched his features relax when he saw her.

  “We were just talking about you,” she told him as he walked toward her, stopping to stand only a few inches away.

  “Yeah? What about?”

  “Are we having a bar-b-que?” Ollie asked, his eyes still very much on Tom’s hands.

  “Yeah, if ya want.” He looked at his son.

  “Can Jackie and Robby come down and eat with us?” Ollie asked.

  “You want them to come down?” Joe asked Maddie.

  “I guess the deal is that you feed my kids and I take a nice cool shower then go up to Mom’s.” She blushed slightly under his gaze, making her brother roll his eyes.

  “Jeez,” Tom mumbled as he continued with his work; then, under his breath, he added, “Take it to the bedroom.”

  “What?” Ollie asked as he looked up at him, not catching what his new hero had said.

  “Nothing. He didn’t say anything,” Maddie spoke up, reaching out of the child’s view to pinch her brother’s arm. “Do you mind taking them down with you?”

  “No, I don’t mind.” Joe moved to put out the cigarette in the ashtray on the table. “Are you guys ready to go?”

  “No. Tom’s not done here. You go down with Felicia. We’ll be down later,” said Ollie.

  Felicia silently walked to the door, already on her way out by the time Joe finally turned away from his oldest son. Robby was off his chair in an instant, running up to Joe and grabbing his hand as he started pulling him across the living room toward the door.

  “I’ll go down with you.”

  Joe smiled at the youngster then bent to pick him up, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I thought I could count on you.”

  “Robert, you be good,” Maddie warned him as she walked them to the door.

  “He’s always good,” Joe told her, bending to kiss her also, but what was intended to be only a short peck on the lips lingered until he had her nerve endings tingling as usual.

  “Hey! I’m getting crunched!” Robby finally complained.

  “You sure you don’t want to come down?” he asked quietly with a soft smile that moved her to indecision.

  “I’m not sure.” She glanced back to the kitchen, seeing that both of their sons were too involved in their work to have noticed their kiss.

  “All right,” he sighed, then opened the door and started out. “See that he comes down; that he doesn’t stay while Tom puts it back on the car yet.”

  The shower revived Maddie immensely, and, by the time she came out, both boys and Tom were gone. She changed into a pair of cut-off denims and a shirt that had been John’s before his wife said it was too old and he had reluctantly passed it down to his baby sister. The sneakers she pulled on were smokey gray from heavy use, but that was what made them so special. They were comfortable. As she left her house she stopped at various rose bushes planted around her home and her mother’s; more her mother’s choice than hers. Sarah Baker had planted at least one rose bush each year for as long as Maddie could remember, but since her early retirement she had been adding several new
bushes each year. Jack didn’t hesitate to take care of them for her. Finally running out of nice spots at their own home they offered to plant them as shrubbery at the corners of Maddie’s house. Maddie didn’t mind. They were pretty, and, as long as her mother was still alive to take pleasure in them, it more than made up for her own lack of interest in the flowers.

  By the time she entered her mother’s kitchen she had a fragrant bouquet of blooming roses and a few buds. Her mother’s expression was one of pure delight, before masking it as she took the flowers, saying: “Now what did ya have to go and pick off all my roses for?”

  “Just to irritate you, Mom. Anyway, most of them are from down at my place. There’s enough. This one bouquet won’t hurt.” She sat and watched as her mother filled a clear glass vase with water before rearranging the flowers and putting them on display. “Are the boys down at Joe’s already?”

  “Your boys are. Mine are down there too. I think they’re helping him make the food.” Sarah told her as she centered the bouquet on the table.

  “I hope that means Beth is down too. I don’t know if they can survive a meal those three had a hand in.”

  “Nope. Beth is at her house. They’re on their own down there.” She sat across the table from Maddie. “There’s a fresh pot of coffee.”

  “Where’s Dad?” Maddie poured herself a cup. “He down there too?”

  “No. He was up late last night working on the new water heater. He’s catching up on some sleep.”

  “I didn’t know your water heater went out.”

  “Mm-hmm. Yesterday afternoon. But it’s replaced now.”

  “How long have they been down there?” Maddie nodded down the road toward Joe’s.

  “About an hour now.”

  Maddie moved to the window and glanced out to see Joe, Tom and John coming from inside John’s home. Tom and Joe were carrying a tray of food and John was carrying his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Jenna.

  “Well, so much for the bar-b-que. Looks like they sneaked the food up to Beth’s microwave. Most of it anyway,” Maddie told her mother.

  “Probably made Beth cook it too,” Sarah laughed as she moved to join Maddie at the window. “I wonder if they left any food there for her or if they’re taking it all down with them.”

  “Wanna go find out?”

  It took nearly five minutes for Maddie and Sarah to walk the short distance to Beth’s. After finding that the three unchivalrous men had left her nothing to eat, it took another five minutes for the three women to reach Joe’s, but, instead of going to the backyard to join the men, they went into the kitchen where they could watch them unobserved.

  “Your son looks like he climbed inside that hamburger and rolled around in the ketchup.” Beth pointed out Robby who had red stains covering his chest and hands.

  “Don’t look now, but your daughter’s following suit with the mustard,” Maddie smiled.

  “That’s it, honey,” Beth cooed dryly. “Go over and give Daddy a great big hug.”

  They all watched her daughter and John’s reaction as he found mustard smeared over his bare chest and the back of his hair, but it was Robby who almost sent Maddie out the door before Sarah stopped her.

  “Let him go. It’s the guys’ night out, remember?”

  Maddie watched, biting her tongue as her youngest son picked up the plastic ketchup bottle, and, after making sure none of the other men were watching, pointed it at Jackie and gave a hard squeeze. Jackie was on his feet in an instant, his hand going to the side of his head where the long red streak began in his hair and ended near his shorts. Next to Jackie, Ollie’s mouth dropped open in amazement, but, after a moment, his laughter burst out.

  “Funny huh?” Jackie grabbed the plastic mustard bottle and sprayed the blond boy with yellow stain.

  Ollie’s laughter stopped suddenly, looking down in disbelief at the white shorts he was wearing; his hand moved over his chest and smeared the sticky wetness. His laughter sounded again as he reached for the bowl of relish, using the spoon to fling it at the two boys who were spraying him; their combined coloring hitting him and making a sickening orange.

  “Look at them! They’re just sitting there eating and letting them do it!” said Maddie.

  “That’s because they figure they’re gonna send the laundry up to us,” Beth told her. “Boy, are they gonna be surprised.”

  Felicia, on the other hand, jumped back from the table when the first spoonful of relish came close and stood watching the boys with wide eyes. When Ollie ran out of relish, he reached for the closest thing he could find, but Joe’s hand got there first, quickly yanking it away.

  “No. Not the onions,” he told the boy, not noticing that his own jerky movement had knocked the onions out of the bowl to land on John. “They’ll burn the eyes. Get another bottle of ketchup.”

  Sarah leaned against the sink, her laughter erupting from her at the sight of her oldest son’s expression when the onions splattered across his chest. Joe wasn’t as quick to notice.

  “Ya dumb son-of-a-bitch! What do ya think yer doin’?” John stared at Joe until Joe’s smile started to spread across his face, then it was too much. He picked up his hamburger and threw it at Joe’s head. When Joe tried to retaliate with a baked potato John held his daughter in front of him. “Not with the kid! Not with the kid!”

  “Felicia! Get the kid!” Joe ordered.

  Felicia didn’t hesitate, grabbing the little girl and walking quickly toward the back door of the house, letting the food battle continue. As she hurried inside she came to an abrupt halt when she saw the three women, then handed Beth her daughter and went back to the door where she watched the action from a safe distance.

  Maddie was having trouble keeping track of the separate battles, until John and Joe ran out of extra food and grabbed the condiments from the children. Having nothing to continue their battle with, the boys started picking up the ruins that were spread on the ground.

  “Isn’t anyone going to stop them?” asked Felicia.

  “No, not me. You want to go out and stop it?” Maddie asked her mother.

  “Nope, not me.”

  “Why should we stop it?” Beth asked. “Tom’s right out there in the middle of it, and he isn’t trying to stop it. He just dodges the food while he keeps eating.”

  “Uh-oh.” Maddie watched her youngest brother’s reaction as John misfired and gushed mustard into the middle of Tom’s dish.

  Tom slowly looked up at the men who were racing about the table and the children who were equally involved in their own game. He watched them a moment, then, just as slowly, rose from the table and moved toward the side of the house, out of the women’s view.

  “You jerks like to play?” Tom muttered very loudly.

  “Now he’ll stop them,” said Sarah.

  She no sooner had the words out than a flow of water spread across the lawn, wetting all five of the pranksters and bringing sharp gasps at the coldness from most of them. Feet were scurrying in different directions. John tripped over Jackie as he tried to escape, sending them both onto the wet grass, and a squashed potato sent Joe into a slide close by. Ollie ran for the screen door that Felicia was quick to lock while Robby stood jumping up and down in a growing puddle.

  “You’re not coming in here,” Felicia scolded her brother.

  “You had enough? Are you cooled off now?” Tom turned off the hose and started back to his seat. “Ruin my dinner? Can’t just sit and mind my own damn business.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Maddie as she watched the look Joe and John gave one another before they got to their feet and started running after Tom.

  “Jesus—what are they going to do now?” asked Sarah.

  The men were almost to Tom by the time he heard their approach and glanced over his shoulder. His feet went into action, but he got caught in his own trap as he slipped on the wet grass, sending him down close to Jackie and Robby. Joe and John came down on top of him, holding him against the g
round as they scooped up handfuls of squashed baked potato and macaroni salad. Tom’s squirming was giving the older men a challenge as they pulled out the back of his swim trunks and threw the food down his pants. He was like a bull being released from its stall when they rolled off of him, but his movements stopped instantly when he realized what they had done—the more he moved—the less he liked it.

  “Ah you . . . .” Tom breathed as he got to his feet and gingerly started toward the house.

  “Ah-ah-ah!” Joe laughed. “Not in front of the children.”

  “Man! Tom, you’re getting awful twisted! Stuffing potatoes in your shorts,” said John as he and Joe got to their feet and started toward the house behind him.

  “Pathetic,” Joe remarked snidely. “The fetishes some people have.”

  “And just where do you three think you’re going?” Sarah stood at the door behind Felicia.

  “Mom!” John started chuckling. “Uh-oh. Now we’re in for it. Mom caught us.”

  “Us—hell! They started it, Mom!” Tom told her.

  “I didn’t start anything!” John told her. “Old coordinated Joe over there started it!”

  “I don’t care who started it! You three are worse than the kids!” she scolded them, then looked back to Tom. “And just what are you doing with potatoes in your underwear?”

  “We told ya a long time ago, Mom,” Joe spoke up sincerely. “That boy’s a little strange.”

  “Yeah? And just who had their hands shoved down another guy’s pants?” Tom asked. “Ya sure as hell didn’t see me with my hands in your pants.”

  “Well, Tom, I never knew you cared enough,” answered Joe, bringing a chuckle from John again.

  “Well you can just sit out in the sun awhile and think about it,” Sarah told them.

  “Think about what? Sticking my hand down Joe’s pants?” Tom asked with raised brows, prompting Sarah to start to close the door, stopping when she heard Tom’s anguished plea. “Mom! Please! You don’t know what its like having food in your shorts! You have no idea what its like having stuff hanging off your . . . .” He stopped himself when he glanced in at Felicia. “Mom! Please!”