“You’re a skater, too, then,” said Rachel, as we shook hands and James fished in his wallet to pay. She gestured toward the figure skates I was toting. “This is going to be very embarrassing for me, I think.”
“I’ve skated since I was in elementary school,” I answered, “But it looks like James knows what he’s doing, so you can hang on to him.” Turning to him I added, “Was hockey another activity you had to hide from your high school friends and enemies?”
With such a pointed reminder of the last time we’d had a friendly conversation, James had the grace to look abashed. It seemed to help him decide something because he suddenly looked me square in the face. “So, hey, does this mean I finally get to meet this mysterious husband of yours? Trent? Or was it Troy? Is he here? We can make this a double date.”
In the split-second I hesitated, Nadina’s jaw dropped and she blurted, “Dude! Way insensitive. Her husband’s dead, remember?”
James, of course, remembered no such thing, it having never been told him in any way, shape or form, and his eyes flashed to my face to see if Nadina and I were perpetrating an elaborate, if tasteless, joke. I felt myself go red, and that, combined with my mortified expression, was enough to tell him the truth. “Good Lord! Cass, what happened? I just saw you last week—” He apparently thought tragedy had struck in the interim—not an irrational conclusion, except that I was standing at a festive skating rink, skates in hand and, up to that moment, a smile on my face.
Had I not been so uncomfortable with having to explain myself, I might have laughed—it was so farcical: Nadina the oversize, affronted elf, James struck by lightning, and poor Rachel looking from one to the other of us, bewildered. “Nadina, he didn’t know,” I managed at last. “Umm…it was pretty sudden—Troy’s death—but it happened almost a year-and-a-half ago. He had an enlarged heart and died in a car accident.”
“Along with their daughter,” put in Nadina breathlessly, now looking quite ready to forgive James and get into the spirit of the exciting revelation. I frowned at her. It was too much tragedy to throw at someone unawares. Nadina scowled right back at me. “If you don’t come clean now, Cass, you’ll just have to do it later, and it’ll be even weirder next time.” True enough.
“I’m sorry,” I began. “I haven’t figured out a graceful way of telling people I meet—I can’t go around announcing that he’s dead whenever his name comes up.”
“Cass, please don’t feel you have to apologize!” James interrupted, putting a hand on my arm to stop me. “I’m so sorry…”
“It’s her ring,” said Nadina matter-of-factly. “If she didn’t still wear her wedding ring, she wouldn’t have to explain anything to anybody.”
“Men don’t notice wedding rings,” I hissed defensively. I turned on James. “Did you notice I wear a wedding ring?”
“No, but is that a trick question?” His gray eyes smiled ruefully. “I thought you were married because when I first met you, you mentioned your husband, and naturally I assumed he was alive.”
“See?” I told Nadina. “It has nothing to do with wearing a ring.” She raised her eyebrows, unconvinced, but had to turn away to help some new people at the cash register.
Rachel’s pitying expression was beginning to be tinged with impatience, and I felt guilty about my miscommunication hijacking her date. “Here you guys, go skate,” I urged. “Please.” Rachel grimaced at me apologetically and then tugged on James’ arm.
He was still watching me thoughtfully. “Are you going to skate, Cass?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I brought my skates just in case. Mainly I came down here to hang out with Nadina and catch up. Please, go enjoy yourselves.” Please! To my relief, he nodded, and they headed toward the skate rental counter. My own skates felt suddenly too heavy, and I thumped them down by Nadina’s macchiato. “Well, that was awkward,” I said to her, when she finished with the customers. “I’ll be so glad when I’ve been widowed thirty years. By then I’ll have more company, and people won’t think I’m such a freak.”
“They wouldn’t think you’re such a freak if you would just take off your wedding ring and admit you’re not married.”
I glared at her. “Maybe. Probably. Can we just drop the subject and go back to your Petco problem?” She sighed gustily but nodded and patted the stool next to her.
We spent the next fifteen minutes role-playing what she could say to Blaise, going over her apology and possible answers to objections, until Nadina knew the gist and could say it in a reasonably polite tone. During these discussions, my eyes wandered frequently to James and Rachel: he helped her lace up her skates, guided her by her mittened hands slowly around the rink while she squealed and slipped, and when she rested against the side he made a few high-speed circuits before doing a dramatic hockey stop next to her and spraying her with snow. Rachel laughed and pelted him with a chunk of it.
Nadina was nothing if not observant—it must be all her dog-whispering prowess. “Think he likes her?”
“Well, he asked her out, didn’t he?” I said mildly.
“That might just be because she’s shorter than he is.”
I laughed. “You sound like my roommate Joanie, who is a towering 5’10” like you. He doesn’t seem worried by his height like you and Joanie seem to be. Besides, Rachel is cute in her own right.”
“Yeah, if baby bunny is your type.”
I tried unsuccessfully not to giggle. “All right, girlie, I think my work is done here. You call your manager and let me know how it goes. Today or tomorrow, okay, before you forget what we’ve practiced.”
When I was halfway down the ramp exit, I heard James calling me. Vaulting neatly over the half-wall surrounding the ice, he clumped across the rubber-padded floor. “Will you be coming in to the office this week?”
Seeing as he didn’t seem to hate me anymore, I nodded tentatively. “I’m sure I will. I like it there.”
He hesitated another moment. “Hey, Cass, I’m sorry again about your husband and about this whole weird situation where we had to dredge it up in public and all.”
“James, really!” I groaned. “It’s not your fault how it all came out or didn’t come out until now. It’s just sort of ridiculous and embarrassing, and I still haven’t figured out how to go about telling people. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, for heaven’s sake.” I fiddled with the blade guards on my skates, but when he didn’t respond, I ventured a glance and found him studying me with an unreadable expression.
“Can I call you later to talk?” he asked.
My voice took on an admittedly whiny note. “Oh, do we have to? I actually don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m sorry I let you think Troy was alive, and I’m sorry he’s dead, and I really don’t want to hash it out again.”
“No, no. I meant talk about some other things.”
“Oh. Oops.” I blushed. “Sorry to snap at you.”
He grinned. “I forgive you. I’ll give you a call later.” He backed up, waving at me. It occurred to me that James didn’t have my phone number—there had never been any reason to call me before, and email had always done the trick—but I really didn’t want to walk over there at this point. If it was that urgent, he would just have to figure it out.
• • •
All was quiet at the Palace. Joanie and Phyl were off at some Chaff-sponsored event, and who knew where Daniel was. It was a relief after the constant togetherness of the last few days to come home to just one Labradoodle. Benny launched out of his crate and tore around the downstairs twice before lapping up some water and whining to go outside. When he was taken care of, I flipped on the gas fireplace and curled up with some tea and a novel, but after reading and re-reading the same page a few times I gave up and shut my eyes.
A knock at the door, followed by Benny’s mad barking, woke me up. It had gotten dark outside, and I struggled up from the armchair confusedly, fumbling to turn on as many lights as I could. When I managed to get Benny to lie down on his bed
and stay, I pulled the door open, and to my dazed astonishment, James stood there. He was minus the hockey skates and Rachel, but wearing the same moss-colored Shetland sweater and uncertain expression. “Cass, hi—yeah—I didn’t know if anyone was home.”
“What are you doing here? How did you know where I live?”
He ducked his head rather sheepishly and gave me a lopsided grin. “You’re going to think I’m some kind of stalker, but I realized I didn’t have your phone number, so I ran by the office and got your address off your W-4.”
“That is creepy,” I said, but smiled back at him. “What was so doggone urgent that you couldn’t just shoot me an email?” I stood aside to let him in and pointed toward the living room. “You’ve been acting weird lately, and I’ve convinced myself that you’re going to fire me.”
James laughed shortly and threw himself down in Daniel’s favorite armchair. “Oh, you thought I was behaving oddly?”
“To say the least!” I answered. “One minute you’re talking to me like a normal human being and then suddenly you’re avoiding me like the plague. At the mentors’ meeting, at Free Universe. I figured you needed to can me, but you were trying to work up to it.”
He ran his hands through his curling hair, his gray eyes still not looking straight at me. “I didn’t know you’d notice, much less put such an interpretation on it—”
“For Pete’s sake, James,” I interrupted impatiently, “Stop being so mysterious. What is it?”
Rocketing up abruptly and causing Benny to whine a little anxiously, James started pacing in front of the fireplace. After a few moments of this, I started to have the same urge to whine as Benny. What on earth was the matter? As if he’d heard my thoughts, James forced himself to stop moving, and I joked feebly, “I feel like you have some momentous announcement—let me guess—you’re my father?”
Not even acknowledging my attempt to lighten the mood, he sat back down again. “Cass, would you go out with me?”
“What?”
“Would you—would you consider going out with me?”
“Out where?” I asked idiotically.
“Out on a date,” he said patiently. “I’ve been making an ass of myself because, that day when we were having coffee with Riley and Kyle, I was sitting there enjoying myself, and then I realized the reason I was enjoying myself was that I was with you, and that I found you really attractive. I thought you were married, of course, so I’ve been trying to avoid you ever since, until I could think and behave properly.”
Had I not already been sitting on the sofa, I think I might have collapsed onto it. “Oh,” I said limply.
“And I know this is tacky,” he continued hurriedly. “The second I hear you’re not married I rush over here to ask you out. Poor Rachel—I couldn’t get rid of her fast enough,” he added, with a rueful chuckle.
Two urges were warring within me: one that told me to run screaming from the room because I didn’t want to date anyone, and James was too young and too innocent and worked with me besides; and the other that told me it had been almost eighteen months, and if I was honest with myself I would admit that I liked him very much and found him attractive as well. I cleared my throat. “James—I haven’t been dating because it’s only been a year and some-odd months since I lost Troy and—and my daughter Min.”
He sat down next to me, wincing. “I’m sorry. I know. This is bad timing on my part. It’s just that I’ve been telling myself for days not to think about you, and so when Nadina spilled the beans this afternoon and I realized it was okay to think about you, it felt like it couldn’t wait.”
“Besides all that, I don’t think it’s a good idea to date someone you work with,” I argued reluctantly.
He grinned at me. “Would it help if I fired you after all?” He must have been able to see from my face that I was wavering. “Okay, I’m rushing this. Just don’t rule it out, Cass. Tell me we can spend a little time together, outside of the office and mentor training meetings, so you can figure out what you want.”
“You could…come to our open house this Thursday evening,” I suggested. “My housemates and I have an open house every Thursday night. That would be some low-pressure time together, sort of.”
“Open house,” James repeated thoughtfully, “they must be pretty common at this church because my friend Roy is always going to his girlfriend’s open house.”
Comprehension dawned on me, as I remembered vaguely that Roy and James knew each other somehow. “That’s Joanie! His girlfriend is Joanie, and she’s one of my housemates.”
James stared at me. “Are you telling me I could have found out months ago that you were single? Roy’s invited me a couple times, but I hate being a third wheel, and I barely know Joanie from YAF. He sure never mentioned who her housemates were, or I certainly would have come.”
“Well, come now, at any rate,” I urged. “And even if you’d known months ago that I was widowed, I really wouldn’t have been ready even to hang out with you, back then.”
He got to his feet again, stuffing his hands in his pockets and grinning at me cheerfully. “It’s a deal. I’ll be here Thursday after work. It’s a long time to wait, though. You’ll be sure and pop by the office before then, right? Or come with Joanie to YAF on Wednesday night?”
“That’ll be the day,” I scoffed, following him to the door. “Besides, Joanie would kill me if I came after you asked, since she asks me every week. I’ll see you Thursday for sure, and maybe earlier—I promised Riley I’d save him a piece of pie.”
Chapter 21: Prince Charming at the Palace
Thursday afternoon before our open house I spent window shopping with Raquel, leaving myself plenty of time to get home. But the 5:15 p.m. bus was MIA, making the 5:30 too crowded to squeeze onto, and the 5:45 broke down with me on it. By the time the replacement bus came along, everyone was grumpy and frazzled, including me. For someone who was not dating, I felt suspiciously upset because I wouldn’t have any time to primp. Fortunately, the walk from the bus stop gave me time to regroup and talk some sense into myself. This was not a date. It was hanging out. And given my mixed feelings and James’ own flightiness in relationships, this might be the first and last thing we did together.
Halfway up the hill I could distinguish several people standing in our driveway, and after another minute I recognized them as Daniel, Kelly and James. For some reason Daniel’s posture looked tense, but James appeared completely at ease, hands in his pants pockets, rocking on the balls of his feet. Kelly must have said something because they all three turned to look at me. James waved gaily, and I felt my heartbeat speed. Ridiculous.
“Cass!” he exclaimed, coming to meet me. “Check this out. I have a little surprise for you.” He caught my arm to stop me and pulled his MP3 player from his pocket.
“You made me a mix tape?” I teased.
“Are you kidding? We haven’t even gone out yet, much less broken up.” He grinned at me, unwinding the earbuds from the player. “Ready?” I nodded, and he pressed the play button. I heard a swell of music and then my own voice: “Who gives you leave to enter here? Only he who wields the Shadow Blade can challenge me…”
I gasped and put a hand to my mouth. “James, it sounds incredible! Murray did a great job!” Incredulously, I listened to my monologue unroll, hitch-free, and found myself smiling hugely. 99% of all gamers would probably skip the hokey speech, but for the 1% who would listen, there I was!
“‘It’ sounds incredible? You mean you sound incredible,” he said warmly, enjoying my enjoyment. “I knew I was hearing the voice of our Snow Goddess the first time you opened your mouth and lied to me about having a husband.” I shrieked in mock outrage and punched his arm, but he only laughed. “And check out the next track.”
I hushed up in time to hear Kyle’s characteristic rasp: “Energy points low. Death awaits.”
“James, this is great—has Kyle heard it yet?”
He pulled on the earbuds and rewound them. “I’
m seeing him tomorrow. He’ll hear it then. And I’ll have you both in again when we’ve tied it to the animation. I got here early to give you the preview.”
“Oh, no!” I said. “I’m ordinarily here all afternoon, but I was downtown with my mother-in-law today, and the buses were having issues. Wouldn’t Joanie let you in?”
“Didn’t even get a chance to ask, since Daniel and Kelly were just pulling up.” He inclined his head back toward the driveway, and I noticed with some surprise that Daniel was still there, now leaning against his Corvette. Kelly was rubbing one of his arms, but he wasn’t paying the least attention and seemed, in fact, to be watching James and me. No, watching wasn’t the right word—Daniel was glaring.
“Did you get in an argument?” I whispered as we approached.
“Not that I know of,” said James.
I said hello to the lithe and gorgeous Kelly of the unnaturally red hair, but it had been hard for us to make eye contact ever since I’d seen her almost as naked as the day she was born in the Lean-To. As for Daniel, I would merely have nodded in his direction, except his steely blue eyes seemed intent on catching mine. What was eating him? I would have to quiz James later, but now was not the time, since he and Kelly were following us closely into the house.
It was one of the fuller open houses we’d had in a while: Roy was there along with the persistent Wayne, some of Phyl’s friends, James, and Kelly. Joanie mostly had things under control, but she had me string snow peas. After all the rounds of introductions, James pulled up the stool next to mine and started helping me, Joanie goggling her eyes at me behind his back. I pursed my lips at her.
“How was your day?” James murmured, under all the general conversation. “Do you still see your mother-in-law a lot?”
Mourning Becomes Cassandra Page 21