by Robyn Carr
“You were having an affair with a married man!”
“His marriage left a good deal of room for that. And my responsibilities have never left room for much more.”
“How well organized, Florence,” Chris said, shaking her head. “Are you going to get married? Ever?”
“It doesn’t seem necessary, even since Ken has been divorced. We’re pretty independent people.”
“It sounds so distant. So…uninvolved.”
“Not everyone has an overactive libido.”
“Come on, don’t make any cracks about my poor old neglected sex drive. Stever might have awakened it, but he certainly left it in a coma. I couldn’t even fathom an interest in sex for years. Have you any idea what it’s like to be absolutely insane with passion and then find out the lousy creep probably didn’t even like you? Talk about impotence! Or frigidity, or whatever. It comes as a real blow. Here you are, willing to do anything short of crawling through cut glass for one more kiss, only to learn he was just using you. Honestly, I bet Steve, or whoever, didn’t even like me. Whew.”
“Well, I tried to tell you, but you—”
“But what about you?” she asked as they reached Flo’s rented Cadillac. Chris leaned on the roof, looking across at Flo. “What’s your excuse? How come you never fell in love? Dumb, embarrassing love?”
Flo tossed her bags into the backseat and put her elbows on top of the car. She rested her chin on her forearms and looked at Chris. “What is it, huh? What do they offer you that I don’t understand? No kidding, what does this big, dumb fireman have that has made you gunky with devotion? A schwanz as long as a fire hose?”
Chris erupted with laughter, covering her mouth.
“This big?” Flo asked, putting up her hands, indicating something of inhuman proportions. “Or is it their vulnerability, the things they need from you? Old Stever needed a few bucks, and this guy needs to play house for a while. Or is it really just some primitive man-woman thing, some bonding that I didn’t get the gene for? Come on, tell old Aunt Flo, you little slut.”
How she loved her! There weren’t many people who knew this Flo. The people who read the society pages expected a Princess Diana sort. But Flo operated a huge furniture business. That meant she could speak many languages; she could communicate as well with the governor’s wife as with an upholsterer with an eighth-grade education. She was tough, slick, sassy. No way Mike was ready for this dame.
“Regardless of how utterly stupid I was to have married Steve,” Chris said, “it’s important to remember that it was a simple mistake. It’s important to remember that I was young, vulnerable, and he wasn’t just a bad choice—he was a criminal. Mike is a decent man.
“It’s risk,” Chris said. “Not the kind of risk you take to sneak to a hotel behind your husband’s back, or the kind of risk required to put your money in his account, for that matter. It’s the risk of your emotional self. It’s exposing yourself to a person who will accept you as you are, embrace you as you are. It is the risk, Flo, of being naked in an emotional way, and betting that you won’t get cold.” She was quiet for a second. “I feel nice and warm,” she said softly, “all the time now.”
After meeting her aunt’s eyes over the roof of the car, Chris opened the door and slid into the passenger side. Flo stayed above for a few moments before getting into the driver’s seat.
“Christine,” Flo began seriously, “would it not be just as good to buy a nice, thick parka? Mink, perhaps?”
Mike had napped and then gone to his folks’ house. When he walked into the kitchen through the garage door, Chris was stirring something at the stove. He looked her over and smiled. “Wow. You look different. Gorgeous.”
She turned her lips toward him for a kiss. “I let Florence have me ‘done.’”
“She didn’t change anything on the inside, did she? When’s she coming?”
“Anytime now. And, Mike, listen…Oh, forget it, there’s no point in trying to prepare you. Just try to roll with it, okay?”
He took a beer from the refrigerator and walked into the dining room. He looked at the table. “What’s this?”
She followed him. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said. He lifted a new plate. “Flo gave me a bunch of money after she shopped me to death and told me to get something I wanted, something frivolous. It’s no big deal for Flo, and it made her feel good to give me the money. And this was how I wanted to spend it. On you, sort of.”
His table wore a new linen tablecloth. New ceramic plates in lavender, royal blue and beige sat between new flatware and linen napkins in china rings. There was a new lavender vase filled with fresh flowers. Wineglasses. Mike felt funny inside, a little dizzy maybe. New dishes—because she was staying and wanted a nicer set? Or was his slightly imperfect, chipped set of ironstone too flawed for this event? But he said, “Looks nice.”
The kids called his name and ran to him, and his dizziness went away. He picked them up, both of them, and went into the living room where they had things to show him—toys, books and gadgets. He was relieved to see that they wore the clothes he had bought them. Cheeks wandered over, tail wagging, and nudged him for a scratch. I got to him, Mike thought. If I can impress this mutt, I can handle Flo. Can’t I?
And the doorbell rang. He remembered something. He remembered Joanie’s dad saying hello but looking at him with that if-you-touch-my-daughter-I’ll-kill-you look. Mike had been a mere boy. He had gulped down his nerves. He wanted to kick Cheeks in the ribs for not growling at Florence.
“So, this is the fireman,” Flo said, smiling very beautifully. “Well, there’s hardly anything I can do to repay you for saving my family.”
Yes, you can. Leave. Go away and turn into a surly old woman. I’m good with cranky old ladies. They love me. “Just doing my job,” he said, taking the proffered hand.
“And thank God you were,” she added, gliding past him into the living room. She had packages. She probably didn’t go anywhere without presents. She was dressed casually—gray wool fitted slacks, a fuzzy red sweater, gray pumps out of some kind of skin and a rich leather blazer. Rings and things. She smelled heavenly, expensive. But she did crouch to receive the children. “There are my angels. I have presents. It must be your birthdays.”
“It isn’t our birthdays.” Carrie giggled, reaching for a bag. “And you know it isn’t our birthdays.”
“Is it Christmas?” Flo asked.
“No.” They laughed.
“Then somebody must love you. No, no, you have to give a kiss and hug first.”
Mike ached. He wanted to be happy for them, for them all. What was wrong with him? Where was his heart, his convictions about family? Where, for gosh sakes, was his courage?
“Here you are,” Chris said, coming from the kitchen. “And you’ve met Mike?”
Chris kissed the cheek Flo turned toward her. They looked alike, suddenly. None of their features, for Chris was small and fair, while Flo was big and bronze. It was their style. Chris, in expensive clothes and pumps, was very different than she had been in a T-shirt and jeans, hair pulled back, no makeup. She was now more like her rich aunt.
The kids were being fed something simple in the kitchen, after which they would be excused to play or watch television, while the adults sat at the newly appointed dining-room table. Mike sat with the kids while they ate, playing with them, talking to them, watching Flo and Chris in the kitchen together. They were like his sisters and sisters-in-law when they got together around the pots. They lifted lids, gossiped, laughed, helped each other—like good friends, like family. Flo and Chris recited a litany of names he had never heard before—old family acquaintances, friends from high school and college. They were still catching up. But he felt like an outsider, something he had never felt when the women in his family played this companionable game around the food.
For the first time he wondered if he should have gotten himself into this. He was scared of this woman. He was afraid he was going to lose Chris and
Carrie and Kyle….
“Wine?” Chris asked him when they were all seated.
“Sure. Thanks.”
“Well, Mike, Chris tells me you had a dangerous fire last night. No one was hurt, I hope.”
“No, no injuries.”
“But it must be very dangerous, this work.”
“We’re trained for it,” he said. He saw that he wasn’t helping. Here she was, trying, and he was so suspicious, he was going to hurt his own case. You couldn’t come between family. Chris had tried to blend into his; until now he hadn’t known how hard she might have had to try.
He had to concentrate not to shovel food into his mouth too fast. Firefighters know the minute they sit down to a meal, the alarm will sound. He was going to try to be more refined. He would eat like an accountant. “Fire is dangerous and unpredictable, but our training, which is ongoing, prepares us to make intelligent decisions. We don’t take risks foolishly is what I’m saying. But still, there are times…”
“Like in saving people, I suppose. Rushing into a burning building to rescue someone. Don’t you ever stand there, looking at the fire, and think ‘Wait a minute, here’?”
“That’s the thing we don’t do, as a matter of fact. Number-one priority is protecting life. Number-two is saving the structure. But we don’t go in looking for people unless there’s a reason to believe someone needs to be pulled out. Usually the person who calls in the alarm informs us on the scene.”
“And you wear gear? Like oxygen masks?”
“Air packs,” he said, “if there’s time.”
“And if there isn’t time?”
“Look, that’s the job.” He shrugged. “Time is the only advantage there is, and we don’t waste it thinking things over a lot. Firefighters don’t rush into a wall of flame because it’s fun. We all have our jobs at the fire, we take informed risks. We’ve been trained to recognize possible and impossible situations. We only get into trouble when something unforeseen happens—part of the structure collapses, or an on-site explosion occurs. That’s the danger.”
“So,” Flo said, lifting her fork, “you pretty much rush into things, huh?”
Chris gulped. “Mike’s been a firefighter for twelve years,” she said. “He’s very experienced.” She took another sip of wine. “More wine?” she asked. They shook their heads.
“It’s always an informed decision. Rapid but experienced.”
“Have you ever been wrong?”
Mike stared at Flo for a long moment, using his heavy, brooding brows in that frightening look of his. But Flo met his eyes as if to say she was every bit as tough as he was. Tougher. This lady had played ball in the major leagues.
Chris drained her glass and refilled it.
“Everyone has been wrong, made mistakes. But if you fold your hand after your first mistake, you fail to learn anything, how to do it right the next time.”
“You should meet Mike’s family, his brothers and sisters,” Chris attempted. “They—”
“So,” Flo continued, ignoring Chris, “tell me, Mike, does this job require…um…a college education?”
Mike’s cheeks took on a stain. “No,” he said. “At least half of the firefighters in our company have degrees, but I don’t.”
“And if you had some disability? If you couldn’t fight fires anymore?”
His mouth became grim. “I’m sure I’d manage.”
“Really, Flo…” Chris said.
“Hmm,” hummed Flo. “I suppose it must be the big-city firefighters who have the most precarious careers. Out here in the suburbs, it can’t be as bad.”
“Not as many bells as in, say, Chicago. But—”
“But this matter of doing dangerous work and the disability situation must be a major factor when you consider, for example, taking on a family.”
“That would certainly be a consideration, Flo,” he said evenly. “But usually not the first one.”
Flo leaned an elbow on the table. “And what would the first consideration be?”
“Whether or not I could stand to be under the same roof with the other person, I guess.”
Chris could tell he was trying, answering Flo’s most prying, unreasonable questions with patience and honesty as if this were his steady girl’s father. She wanted to tell Mike that he didn’t have to prove anything to Flo. She wanted Flo to shut up, to let Mike off the hook. But it was bedtime for Carrie and Kyle, so she excused herself to take them upstairs and tuck them in, reluctantly leaving Mike and Flo at the dining-room table.
She heard snatches of their conversation: intelligent decisions…danger is danger…. There are challenges that won’t get you killed….
She returned to the table to find it was Mike’s turn. He had been trying, but now he was getting mad. He asked about furniture.
“The Palmers began selling furniture more than forty years ago. We started manufacturing a specialized line of indoor/outdoor furniture only twenty years ago—Palmercraft. It’s been very successful.”
“That’s what I hear. Lots of money. That must make life pretty easy.”
Chris grimaced. “My grandfather didn’t have much when he started. He built the business from his garage and—”
“I don’t dislike success, if that’s what you mean. But it is hard work. Chris herself has a vested interest in the business.”
“Oh? She never mentioned that.”
“Because I don’t!” Chris said, but she might as well have told Cheeks. These two were not listening to her.
“Well, you already know that business about the will, but there’s more to it than that. The will was written before Chris was of age, and it provided for her. The family business was given to me because it was understood that I would always take care of Chris’s needs should anything happen to her parents.”
“Take care of her needs,” he repeated. “Her needs before she became an adult, I trust.”
“My thinking is that the furniture company is half hers.”
“Really? I suppose she’d have to go to Chicago for that.”
“Chicago is her home, of course.”
“Oh. I thought her home burned down.”
“More wine?” Chris asked in frustration. They ignored her. She filled her own glass and stared into it.
She wanted to stop them. Flo knew Chris was not interested in the furniture business. Flo would happily take care of Chris forever; in fact, if Chris showed up at the factory one morning to take an executive position, her aunt would probably give her a title, plenty of money, and have her emptying wastebaskets to keep her out of trouble. Flo controlled everything. But it was moot; Chris would never even consider it. After all, she had run through almost four million dollars indulging a naive passion for a thief. She didn’t want to be responsible for any more family money. The only money she wanted was money that belonged to her.
If these two stubborn people would stop sparring over her for a few minutes, she could probably explain her position better than either of them could. She would return to Chicago at some point soon—maybe not permanently; time would tell—but she did want the kids to see where she had grown up, and she wanted to reacquaint herself with some of her past. But she didn’t want to move in with Aunt Flo and have her life managed. She also didn’t want to live with Mike if he was going to insist on telling her what her priorities should be. What she wanted was simply their love, as they had hers, while she reconstructed a life that belonged to her. You couldn’t share your life with anyone unless you had one of your own.
“There is a lot of unfinished business in Chicago that—”
“—could probably be handled by a good accountant,” Mike interrupted.
“There’s nothing wrong with a lucrative business, but I was talking about home, family—”
“Home is where the heart is.”
Chris refilled her glass as their conversation grew more competitive. Thank God for the wine.
“I think you’re suggesting, Mike, that Chris ignor
e who she is and where she came from to stay here with you, when you hardly know her and can hardly provide for her in the manner she is accustomed to.”
“Oh, that manner—a crummy little firetrap in a rotten neighborhood, struggling to make ends meet because she’s too proud or too scared to call her rich aunt? I can probably compete with that lifestyle. Yeah, I’m suggesting—”
“Stop it,” Chris said, but she slurred it. They looked at her as if she had just arrived on the scene. Their images swirled before her eyes, but she got up from her chair with as much dignity as was possible, given the fact that she was completely sloshed. “When I make up my mind what I want, I’m sure the two of you will let me know.”
She walked a crooked line from the dining room. “I’m going to bed. I accidentally got drunk trying to ignore the two of you. G’night.”
Chapter 10
When Chris awoke she had the headache she deserved. On the bedside table was a note under a bottle of aspirin. The fireman had gone off to fight fires. The note said, “I’m sorry. I had no right. Love, M.”
After two aspirin and two cups of coffee she called Flo. “Shame on you,” she said to her aunt.
“Chris, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize we were talking about you as if you weren’t even there.”
“Yes, and it was awfully familiar. I felt like I was in the middle of a custody battle. I’m not going to do this with the two of you. I’m furious.”
“Come and have breakfast with me. I want to work this out.”
“Well, as long as you’re ashamed and sorry, let me dress the kids. Give me an hour.”
“An hour?”
“I have a headache.”
“I can imagine.”
No, you can’t, she wanted to say. She didn’t know how she had managed to delude herself that there was any possible way Mike and Flo would hit it off. It wasn’t that they were so terribly different—in fact, they had much in common. But in their strength, possessiveness and competitiveness, each seemed to have what the other wanted. Her.