by Robyn Carr
“There wasn’t much of a story, no quotes or anything.”
“That’s a relief. They didn’t make anything up.”
“Any particular reason you didn’t tell me that Flo wasn’t some crotchety old bat?”
“Is that what you thought?” she asked with a laugh. “Well, don’t worry, I won’t tell her. No, Flo is everything every woman dreams of being. Intelligent. Sophisticated. Independent. Beautiful. Rich. Successful.” And a few other things, she thought, like belligerent, possessive, domineering.
“How old is she?”
“Oh, about forty. Maybe forty-one.”
“Jeez. I had no idea. I was expecting this little old lady, like from Arsenic and Old Lace, just a rich old biddy who couldn’t understand true love because her libido had dried up.”
Chris laughed again.
“How was it? The reunion?”
“There were three things we had to get out of the way—first, how ashamed and sorry I am for having sued her, abandoned her and worried her half to death. Second, this business about my ex-husband and that stupid book. And finally, how I’m not getting on a plane with her this afternoon. Then we had a lot of fun reminiscing. I’ve missed her so much. We had such fun together when I was growing up. My mom would say that she had married Randolph and Flo. We were a famous foursome. And Flo was always there, spoiling me, pumping me up, taking my side. Auntie Flo,” she said sentimentally, shaking her head. There had been affection, such hilarity, such joy in their relationship—so much lost since the death of her parents and the lawsuit. Chris longed to have it back. “My best friend while I was growing up. She’s more like an older sister than an aunt.”
“So. Not this afternoon, huh?”
She kissed him, quick and cute, on the lips. She wrinkled her nose. “You stink. Awful. Smoke?”
“And a bunch of other things. I would have showered at the station, but we had a shift relief in the middle of a fire.”
“What other things?”
“God knows. Sweat. Mud. Good old Jim ought to take an emesis basin into a fire with him, for starters.”
“A what?”
“You know, that curved little pan they give you in the hospital when you have to throw up. It’s amazing—everything hits your turnouts, but you still come away smelling like all of it. Jim shot me with the hose to clean me off, but I still need a scrub, huh?”
“Oooo. I guess I thought only the victims threw up.”
“Bet you also thought only the victims swallowed a lot of smoke, huh? I’ll take a quick shower.”
“Were they bad fires?”
“One was at a paint store. Those are almost the worst—chemicals and all. That one will be on the news—horrible mess. It took hours in the middle of the night, but it was just about over by the time I left. The other two were pretty good fires.”
“Good fires?”
“Manageable fires, no injuries, easily contained.”
“Do you like fires?”
“I like to put water on fires.”
She watched while he stripped off his shirt and pants, heading for the shower in only his briefs. She remembered the young fireman in the photo she had found, the leaner, trimmer man. But though he was thicker now, he was firm and graceful. He walked with such purpose, even without clothes on.
“Mike, have you ever gotten hurt in a fire?”
He shrugged. “Not bad.”
“This is really dangerous, what you do. You could be killed.”
“Don’t overthink it. I know what I’m doing or I wouldn’t do it.” He yanked down the briefs.
“Overthink it? What about firefighters’ families? What must they go through every time they hear the siren? What if you—”
He stood in the bathroom doorway, hands on his hips, not in the least distracted by his nudity. “Chrissie, being born is dangerous. Joanie and Shelly were driving to the grocery store. If you’re going to worry for a living, worry about something you can control, for Pete’s sake. I’m going to shower. I can’t even stand the way I smell.”
While the shower ran, she thought about those two things. One, he could get killed in a fire. Two, if she were paid for worrying, she’d be a millionaire.
“Tell me about Aunt Flo,” he said, standing in the bathroom doorway with a towel wrapped around his lower body, using another to dry his hair.
“I invited her to dinner. Is that okay?”
“Here?”
“Would you rather not?”
“No, it’s okay. But—”
“She is not going to relax until she looks you over, Mike. She simply can’t believe I’m planning to stay here for a while. And I thought we’d all be a lot more comfortable here than in a restaurant or something. I’m cooking.”
“I’m getting into bed,” he said, moving to close the bedroom door and then tossing the towel to the floor. “When did you tell her you’d go back to Chicago?”
“I didn’t say when.”
“What did you say?”
“Want to know how I sold you, huh? Well, I told her you were this big, handsome brute who—”
“Actually,” he said, pulling back the covers to climb in beside her, “I want to know how you sold her on not dragging you off to Chicago.”
“I said we were getting healthy here,” she replied, her voice soft, her words serious. “All four of us. Is that true?”
He thought about it for a minute. “Yeah, I think that’s true. Yeah, that’s okay.” He pulled up the covers. His eyes looked bright, but dark circles hung under them. Fires. His eyes, scorched but excited, tired but revved up. She wondered how long a man could do this work before it took its toll. “But you never told her that you love me.”
“She thinks I’m crazy as it is.”
“Well, in that case, I hope this is a long illness,” he said.
“How long do you think you’d like it to be, Mike?”
“Oh, thirty, forty years. I want to keep you.”
“Forever?”
“If I can.”
“I can’t make that kind of commitment. You know that. It’s way too soon.”
“Well, it’s an open invitation.”
“How can you do that—ask us to stay here permanently? You mean, you want to marry us after knowing us such a short time?”
“Are you going to hold that against me?”
“No. But I’m not rushing into anything.”
“Just so you’re not rushing out of anything.”
“You haven’t even met my family. My ‘family’ will blow in here at about six-thirty tonight with twenty-two servants carrying her train and polishing her crown. I think the term formidable woman was invented to describe Flo. Then you might add some conditions to this not-very-romantic proposal.”
His hands went under her T-shirt, which was his T-shirt, and he squirmed closer. “You want romance, Chrissie? I’ll give you romance.”
“Mike, why would you bring up marriage so soon? Really, why?”
“It’s what I want. I think it’s what you want. I think you want to be a real family. I want to take care of you.”
“If I wanted taking care of, I could call the Red Lion. Flo would be thrilled.”
He squeezed her breasts and moved against her thigh. “Oh?”
“That’s not enough, wanting to take care of someone.”
He shrugged. “We can think about it for a long time, or a short time. But, Chrissie, life is short. You just never know how short. And I love you. I haven’t loved anyone like this in a long, long time.”
“What if you don’t feel that way in another month?”
“Look, if you’re not sure how you feel, that’s one thing. You had a hard time of it, I know, so take your time and decide how you feel, okay? But I know how I feel, and I know that this kind of feeling doesn’t come and go that fast. They trip around a little from time to time—every marriage on record has ups and downs. But love is love, and I’d rather live it than give it lip service.”
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“And you didn’t feel this way about the other women you’ve been with?”
“Nope. I wanted to, but I didn’t. Boy, when it hits you, it about knocks you over.” He smiled. It was a feeling he liked.
“I’m afraid of being in love,” she whispered.
“Really? Afraid of being in love? Or afraid of loving someone who’s going to hurt you?”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Depends,” he said, shrugging, his eyes getting that tired, drained look. He was going to nod off. “Are you afraid of me?”
“You know I’m not.”
“Then it’s not the same thing.” He put his head on her shoulder, holding her close, snuggling up tight.
“Actually,” she said almost to herself, “what I’m really afraid of is depending on someone too much. Really needing, counting on, someone. Giving in so totally. Because the next stage seems to be taking it all for granted, expecting it will stay safe and satisfying forever until the only thing about yourself you’re sure of is who you are in relation to the person you feel you belong to. Whether he’s a great guy or a jerk, it could—whoosh—disappear, leaving you suddenly on your own. Do you know what I’m talking about, Mike? Mike?”
He had fallen asleep.
“Marriage!” Flo said, in a combination of shock and distrust. Chris sat in the beautician’s chair, Florence stood behind. The kids were with a sitter, a bonded sitter at the hotel. “Are you even close to seeing how ridiculous this is becoming? Marriage! Layer it,” she instructed, pointing a long, polished fingernail at the back of Chris’s head. “But leave some of the length. No bangs. Brush it back, so.”
“I can tell her how to cut my hair, Florence.”
“Tell her then,” Flo said, hands on hips.
“Well, I’d like you to cut it shorter around the top and take only about an inch off the length so that it still touches my shoulders, and—”
Flo smiled. “That’s what I thought.”
“I wish you wouldn’t tell me what I want to do all the time.” Especially when you’re right, she almost added.
“Marriage, huh? He suggested marriage this soon? You certainly didn’t accept?”
“Not because I wasn’t tempted.”
“Chris, you’re going to have to be sensible at some point in your life, and now would be a good time. A little shorter on top, here,” she instructed the stylist. “You’re on the rebound, you can’t enter into another marriage.”
“Rebound? I’ve been alone for nearly four years!”
“Yes, but you haven’t really recovered from that yet. In fact, you don’t know for sure if you’re divorced, widowed or still married.” The stylist stopped, eyes widening. Flo dismissed her curiosity with a hard stare. The comb moved again. “There,” Flo told the technician, “that looks good. Real good.”
They shopped for clothes and accessories. Makeup, nail polish, files, perfume, bath oils, shampoos and rinses. Chris turned before a full-length mirror in the department store. She looked very different in tailored dress slacks, a loose angora sweater, heels and hose, makeup, a sculptured hairstyle and even a necklace. A thick, curving gold collar. Very chic.
“I’m not on the rebound. I’ve been on my own for four years. I haven’t had any kind of serious relationship, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t meet and know men. I’ve worked several different jobs in the past few years. I even had a couple of dates. And Mike hasn’t met anyone he wanted to marry, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know women. You’ve got this all wrong.”
“What kind of a guy offers his house for the night because a woman is burned out, and then, lickety-split, asks her to marry him?”
“Oh, you’re right, only a real pervert would do a thing like that!”
“What if this has something to do with your money?”
“I don’t have any money, Flo.”
“I have money. And what’s mine is yours.”
“No, it’s not, Flo. We aren’t the same person, remember? All my money, which was Daddy’s money, hit the trail.”
They walked between the shops in the downtown Sacramento open mall. As they were passing a window, arms laden with shopping bags, Flo drew Chris up short. “Look,” she said, standing behind Chris and taking her parcels, giving her a full view of herself. “Do you feel any different? You look great.”
Chris looked at herself in the shop window. She fingered the necklace that cuffed her neck—not solid gold, but a very nice piece of jewelry nonetheless. Classy, like Flo. “Yes, Flo,” she said, meeting her aunt’s eyes in the glass. “I feel different. I look more like your version of me than mine. And your version looks better.” She turned around, staring into her aunt’s eyes. “I don’t quite know what to make of that.”
“Why don’t you simply enjoy it?”
But Chris had had plenty of time to think about what she needed to be happy, and it wasn’t fancy clothes. She needed family. She needed to be connected to people she loved, people who cared for her and counted on her. She also liked to sit behind a computer and imagine. She imagined best in a sweat suit or jeans or a man’s T-shirt. Grubbies. It might be nice, she thought, to dress up after a grueling day at the keys, but it wasn’t necessary in order to become whom she was becoming. What she needed a lot more than a nice pair of slacks and a necklace was someone to talk to about the book she was working on—and for that it didn’t matter what she was wearing.
Who wouldn’t enjoy nice things? Oh, boy, there it was again. It was difficult to maintain an idea of what you could do on your own when you were being taken care of. That she would enjoy nice things so much more if she could get them for herself and also give them was difficult for people like Flo to understand. And there was no way to refuse Flo’s generosity, for Flo spending on Chris was part of their history. But it was already starting to feel loaded. She kept waiting to hear the bait line: “After all I’ve done…”
You suffer too much, Chrissie, he had said. It’s almost like you want to. No, that wasn’t it. Chris hated to suffer. She wanted balance. Give-and-take. Take and give.
“Why haven’t you ever married, Flo?” she asked.
“I never saw the need.”
“Need? Is that what marriage is? Something you need?”
“You tell me. You’re obviously thinking about doing it for the second time.”
“I’m not really ready to make any long-term commitments; I only said I was tempted. And Steve…I mean, Fred…doesn’t count. I was a victim of temporary insanity.”
“Nothing counts more than Steve, or Fred, or whoever the heck he was, because you should have learned something from that—something about how impetuous you are when it comes to this kind of emotion. Lord, running back into a thunderstorm again before you’re even dried off.”
“I think you mean jumping from the frying pan into the fire,” Chris supplied, laughing. “Almost literally. Don’t worry, Florence. I learned far more than I bargained for.” What she did not add was that she was finally unlearning some of the suspicion, distrust and paranoia Steve had left her with.
“In fact, I know a lot of women who marry regularly. And dreadfully. Like a bad habit. I don’t know what moved you to marry the first one any more than this second one, whom you’ve known for less than—”
“Don’t change the subject, Flo. We both know you have a low opinion of my choices. I want to know about you. Do you have any kind of personal life these days? You look like success personified—wealth, beauty, intelligence, et cetera. I met some of the men you dated, or rather ‘attended functions with,’ but that was years ago. What’s the deal, Flo? Are you a lesbian?”
Flo gasped and stopped walking. “Christine!”
It made Chris laugh to have shocked her aunt, but this was more of their history. Chris would be daring and in need of discipline, and Flo would be sensible and ready to give it. Big and little girl. Teacher and student. Yet as much as Chris admired Flo’s composure, her command, her savoir f
aire, Chris neither envied nor wished to become Flo.
“Are you lonely?” she asked her aunt.
“No,” she said. “Certainly not. I’ve missed you.”
“But when you’re not either fighting me in court or hunting for me, what is your life like?”
“You may wish to remember, dear, that my older brother died and left me a horrendous business when I was only thirty-four. The next several years were a tad busy with very demanding work and trying to figure out what to do about you.”
“It might have been better for you if you’d written me off as a loss.”
“Ha! The only family I have—a young woman who is in perpetual trouble, my brother’s child, once my dearest friend. Why would I write you off? I knew we’d be together again someday.”
“But who do you spend Christmas with?”
“Usually with friends.”
“Ah. Do you have a lover?”
“Chris, believe me, if I thought it were any of your business, I would—”
“Come on, Flo, you know all my dirt. Come on, what do you do when you snake out of all that eelskin? Do you have anyone special and dear? Has your whole personal life been on hold so you could manage Palmercraft and Palmer House and the Perils of Pauline?”
Flo sighed. “I have the same friends I’ve always had. I’ve been seeing the same man for years. Literally years. We’re both very busy, but we do quite a lot together. We’re very good friends. We travel together sometimes.”
“Who?” Kate said.
“Kenneth Waite.”
“Kenneth Waite? Isn’t he the president of some big advertising agency? What is it? Multimega—”
“He’s the owner now. Waite Commercial Resources, Inc.”
“How long?”
“Oh, I think he’s been the owner for—”
“No.” She laughed. “How long have you been seeing him?”
“Forever. I don’t know. Fifteen years.”
“But isn’t he married? Wasn’t his wife a friend of Mother’s? Wait a minute….”
“As I said,” Flo went on, “we are two busy people with a great many commitments. There’s not a lot of room in either of our lives for romance. There never has been, although Ken has been divorced for years—seven or eight, I think. We’re simply very good friends.”