White Picket Fences

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Randi pulled him over beside an orange tree at the edge of the yard. “What happened back there?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” And when her face stiffened, he added, “I thought I saw someone I knew.” He set his untouched wineglass on a tray of dirty dishes.

  Lori and Billy joined them shortly after that, and when Billy asked Zack for a rematch at the Ping-Pong table, Zack agreed immediately. His game wasn’t quite on, he seemed distracted, but he still played hard, laughed with the rest of them and appeared to be feeling healthy, if nothing else.

  Though the knot in her stomach wasn’t completely gone, Randi started to relax. She’d been terrified for a minute there, thinking he might be having a heart attack.

  She might not believe in forever, but she wasn’t ready to lose Zack yet.

  Randi didn’t see Barbara again until after dinner. It was so odd that Barbara hadn’t sought her out. Hadn’t been anywhere around. What with Zack’s behavior earlier, the night was taking on a surreal, unpredictable quality.

  Surely Barbara wasn’t feeling awkward because of the recent change in her circumstances. She knew that Randi had never, for one second, thought any less of her because of her sexual preferences.

  Not wanting to miss the chance to talk to her, afraid Barbara might be getting ready to leave soon, Randi grabbed Zack’s hand and hurried over.

  “Hey, friend, you avoiding me tonight?” Randi asked, tapping Barbara on the shoulder. She’d been joking—until Barbara turned around, and Randi saw the most unusual combination of emotions running across her face.

  Randi hardly noticed Barbara’s companion, other than to absentmindedly register that the woman was beautiful. She hardly noticed Zack beside her, frozen again. Her gaze was locked with Barbara’s as she tried to read the things her friend’s eyes were telling her.

  Barbara was sorry. And embarrassed. And…afraid?

  Nothing made any sense.

  Until Zack opened his mouth.

  “Hello, Dawn.”

  The blood drained from Randi’s face as understanding almost knocked her off her feet. This was what Zack had seen earlier. His ex-wife and her new lover.

  And the new lover was none other than Randi’s friend Barbara.

  “Zack.” The woman’s voice trembled.

  Randi’s eyes flew to her, this woman who’d landed Zack with a world of insecurities, taking in her perfect features, her perfect body, the pain and longing on her face.

  She still cares about Zack.

  White-hot jealousy seared Randi, leaving her weak. And hating herself. She’d never wasted time on jealousy in her life. She’d learned early on to combat the destructive emotion that ruined so many young athletes.

  Besides, it was obvious by the way Dawn stood so close to Barbara, as though absorbing strength through shared body heat, where her loyalties lay. Experiencing a chaos of emotions, Randi started to feel sorry for Dawn. The woman had had to make some hard choices. And it was also obvious that while she wasn’t in love with Zack, he still meant a lot to her. She must have valued the friendship she’d lost.

  Randi stared from one to the other, all of them standing there without speaking.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met.” Barbara broke the excruciating silence, extending her hand to Zack.

  “Oh, sorry. Zack, this is my friend Barbara Sharp,” Randi said, as though it was her responsibility to introduce Zack to his ex-wife’s lover. “Barbara, my…date, Zack Foster.” She stumbled over the words.

  She was afraid Zack was going to ignore Barbara’s hand. As it was, he left it hanging there far too long to be polite, but eventually he shook it lightly. He barely looked at Barbara. And after an initial glance, didn’t seem to see Dawn, either.

  His ex-wife stood there silently, clearly stricken.

  The muscles in Zack’s jaw were twitching. That was the only detectable movement in his entire body.

  “Well, we were just getting ready to leave,” Barbara said.

  Dawn nodded and turned away.

  “Uh, yes,” Randi said, trying to think quickly. There had to be something she should be doing, something to make these moments less traumatic, to lessen their effects.

  There were no bad guys here. Just a lot of hurt feelings.

  “I’d, uh, like to get together with you some time in the next week,” she blurted as Barbara gave her one last apologetic glance.

  For more than a talk about scholarships.

  “I’d like that,” Barbara said softly. “Call me tomorrow, okay?”

  Randi nodded, aware of Zack, unmoving beside her, wishing there was more she could say.

  “Gotta go,” Barbara whispered. She followed Dawn, who by that point was crying and hurrying out the Millers’ front door.

  There’d been tears in Barbara’s eyes, too.

  Randi couldn’t remember ever seeing her friend cry.

  “I’M SORRY,” Randi said.

  Zack’s soul flooded with remorse. “You have nothing to be sorry about,” he muttered, reaching for her hand across the Explorer’s console.

  They’d been on the road for more than fifteen minutes and these were the first words either had spoken.

  “I took you there.”

  “You had no way of knowing.”

  “Are you angry?”

  He glanced at her. Could see her face by the lights of an oncoming car. Her beautiful brown eyes, filled with compassion, eased the horrible emptiness inside him.

  “I don’t honestly know how I feel.”

  She nodded slowly, only her silhouette visible in the returning darkness of the car. Zack welcomed the anonymity.

  “But I’m not angry,” he added slowly. “It was just such a shock, seeing her. Seeing them.”

  Somehow it all seemed so much less real when he’d never actually met the woman Dawn was living with. He couldn’t erase the image of the two of them standing together; they’d never touched and yet he’d sensed their oneness as clearly as if they’d been making out right there on the floor.

  The intimacy of their relationship had been evident in their constant awareness of each other, but it had been far more than that. Which was what had really gotten to him. He knew Dawn better than just about anyone else did, and there had been no doubt tonight that she was truly, fully, in love with her companion.

  “She’s nothing like I expected.”

  “Barbara?”

  “Yeah.”

  Okay, maybe he was a bit angry. Just hearing the woman’s name made him burn.

  Yet, when he pictured her standing there, a rather small woman, somewhat defenseless and very human, he couldn’t hate her. Or blame her.

  “You expected a butch, masculine-looking woman, huh?” Randi chanced.

  “I guess. But it wasn’t just that. I somehow pictured her as hard, unfeeling.”

  “Barbara’s one of the most sensitive women I know. She even battles with social anxiety.”

  That didn’t fit his image of the worldly pushy woman who’d most certainly strong-armed his wife into thinking she was a lesbian—or so he’d believed.

  The woman he’d met tonight didn’t seem capable of strong-arming anyone into anything.

  They rode in silence for a while, Zack’s mind awash with conflicting ideas, illogical thoughts. Where in hell did a man put something like this? Nothing in his life had prepared him for a lesbian wife. Ex-wife.

  “Are you still coming in?” Randi asked softly when he pulled to a stop outside her house.

  They’d been planning to spend the weekend at her place. His stuff was already there. His Rollerblades, with newly sprayed wheels, were beside hers just inside the front door.

  “I’d like to,” he said, turning off the engine.

  “I’d like you to.”

  He was relieved to hear the words. Which made no more sense than anything else that had happened in the last couple of hours. All he knew for sure was that Randi was a good thing in his life. That she centered him. That, with her he
lp, he could somehow work through this confusion.

  He’d planned on making love to her. Taking a bath with her. Having a middle-of-the-night snack—and then making love again.

  Now all he wanted was to lie down beside her, hold her in his arms and find some release in sleep.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  HE REMEMBERED SOMETHING just as he was drifting off.

  “You said you’d call her tomorrow,” he murmured in the darkness of Randi’s bedroom. She was lying, spoon-fashion, in front of him, clad only in a loose tank top and panties.

  “Mm-hm,” she replied sleepily. “We’re getting together next week.”

  Zack told himself it didn’t matter. He waited a couple of seconds, giving the tension a chance to leave his body.

  “I really wish you wouldn’t.”

  Reaching up, Randi switched on the lamp beside her bed, though she kept it to its lowest setting, bathing the room in a soft glow. She turned over, perched on her elbow, and looked at him. “Why ever not?”

  The reasons were obvious to him, but she seemed truly perplexed.

  “I’d rather not have the two of you talking about Dawn and me.”

  That hadn’t come out exactly as he’d meant. Randi was silent, waiting for him to do better.

  “Just doesn’t sit right with me to have two women talking about their current lovers—who happen to be ex-lovers themselves.”

  She didn’t look as if she understood. And, judging by the defensive angle of her chin, the shadows in her eyes, she wasn’t pleased.

  “Just for the record,” she said slowly, “while of course we’d have to mention this evening and may even try to figure out how to ease some hurts, talking about you and your ex-wife is not the reason for our meeting.”

  He didn’t like her tone of voice. Mostly because he knew he deserved it.

  “What is the purpose of the meeting?” he asked, turning to Randi as he asked the question. She was his ticket to behaving like the decent honorable man he knew himself to be. For some reason, connecting with her made him feel good.

  She sat up in bed, leaning against the headboard, pulling a pillow to her chest and cradling it in her arms.

  “In the first place,” she said carefully, “we’re friends. We’ve been friends since we were kids. Friends get together. Have lunch. Talk. Catch up on all the news since the last time they saw each other.”

  Her tone left no room for debate. Zack sat up, too. He’d left his briefs on, but he wouldn’t care at that moment if he’d been sitting there stark naked. He couldn’t back down on this one.

  She’d understand. He just had to find the right words.

  “Barbara’s been out of town for several weeks,” Randi continued before he found them. “And I was busy with the start of the semester before that. Which means we haven’t seen each other since I was in Phoenix the week before school started, helping her with her swing. We have a lot to catch up on.”

  The mere thought of some of the things they had to catch up on twisted his insides. Didn’t women talk about their lovers, first and foremost? He couldn’t bear the idea of Randi hearing about his ex-wife being with a woman. That woman.

  She’d understand. He just had to find the right words.

  “You said ‘in the first place’ as though there’s a second place,” he said, buying himself some time.

  “There is. I have some business to discuss with her.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What kind of business?”

  Hugging her pillow tighter, Randi lifted her eyes to his, then looked away. “I’m really not at liberty to say.”

  He was losing her. He could feel it. Think, man. Find the words.

  “Could you at least explain why you aren’t at liberty to say?” he asked quietly.

  She met his gaze again, her eyes holding his for a long moment.

  “Please, Randi.” He’d wronged her. He knew that. Drawn a line where there shouldn’t be one.

  “My question comes only from an attempt to understand, to step out of my own battered shoes and into yours. I just want to know what you’re feeling.”

  She continued to assess him silently.

  “A year ago,” he said, “my wife comes to me and tells me she’s leaving me for a woman. And now tonight, just a week after I decide to try again, my lover tells me she has business with this same woman. I can’t help but find that not…good news.”

  “I shouldn’t say anything, because I haven’t spoken to Barbara yet and it would almost force her to say yes if word got out, but I’m intending to ask her for the money to fund Susan Farley’s scholarship.”

  His lover was going to his ex-wife’s lover for money.

  Zack was man enough to admit being bothered by that. A lot.

  “I’ll fund the scholarship.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll write you a check in the morning.”

  “No!” she said, her brows drawn in confusion.

  “You can’t just write me a check….”

  “Then I’ll follow whatever procedures are necessary. You don’t have to ask Barbara Sharp for the money.”

  “Where are you going to get that many thousands of dollars?”

  He had that much and more if he tapped into the certificates of deposit that were his half of the liquidation of his and Dawn’s assets. The CDs that were sitting, untouched, in a safe-deposit box in Phoenix.

  “I make good money,” he said now. “And I have very little to spend it on. Especially here in Shelter Valley.” And then, needing to be completely open with Randi, he told her the rest of it. The air-conditioned storage garage in Phoenix, the safe-deposit box, the money-market account into which his half of the remaining liquid cash had been deposited.

  “Dawn and I both made excellent money,” he told her. “We had no family to support and no time to travel. And we made some good investments.”

  Randi looked as if she’d had too many surprises that night for another one to sink in.

  “Why would you want to do this?” she asked him slowly. Finding out he could afford it didn’t seem to matter to her. Zack admired her for that.

  And he knew that this answer was all-important.

  “Because I care about you and I want to help you.” It was the truth.

  But not all of it.

  She was well aware of that; he could tell by the way the expression left her face.

  “Then why didn’t you offer earlier?”

  She had him. He should have seen it coming.

  Would have seen it if he’d been thinking with more than half a brain.

  “I’ve mentioned it a couple of times,” she added.

  There wasn’t a damn thing he could say. She was right.

  “You didn’t want to help me out last week, but this week you do?” she continued.

  “I thought you already had another source lined up.”

  “I do.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Be honest with me, Zack. You made the offer just so it won’t be Barbara Sharp’s money I’m using. If it was anyone else, you wouldn’t care.”

  “Yes. That’s true.” He met her eyes without faltering. “I made the offer because it was Barbara.”

  “Why?” Her voice begged for understanding.

  “It’s a business deal, pure and simple. What could possibly be threatening about that?”

  Nothing. But it was. Illogical, but very real all the same.

  “Getting the money from Barbara is a good business move, Zack,” she explained, her eyes asking him to understand.

  He was trying. It just wasn’t getting past the lead feeling in his gut.

  “She’d be a successful female athlete supporting female athletes. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re the poor stepsister in the sports world. Anytime we can show one of our own successful enough in her sport to be able to dish out loads of cash, we’re doing us all good. People take notice of money. And where there’s money, attention follows.”

 
It all made sense. And if she’d been talking about any other woman…

  “It would also help Barbara’s image, which is something she’s working on pretty hard at the moment,” Randi continued.

  Zack backed up a mental step or two. He didn’t want to know about Barbara’s problems. Her personal goals. He didn’t want to get that close to the woman who’d stolen his wife.

  “Barbara has always had problems with social anxiety, and as she’s gained fame—and fans—over the years, she’s pulled more and more into herself. The press isn’t kind to her about it. They call her a snob, someone who puts herself above the rest of the world, when that’s not the case at all. She’s a warm caring woman who has panic attacks when people crowd her.”

  “Why does she care about her image?” Zack asked, having a hard time being sympathetic.

  “You’ve said she’s financially set, she’s at the top of her field, so what does it matter what the press says?”

  “It doesn’t,” Randi acknowledged. “And if it were me, that would be the end of it. But it bothers Barbara no end. She reads something like that and gets depressed for a week. On the other hand, good press lifts her up, and providing the means for a young girl to get a decent education and to pursue her athletic career, would bring Barbara a lot of good press.”

  “Which would be why she’d agree to do it,” Zack said, somewhat mollified in his dislike of the woman. She was self-serving, not altruistic.

  “No, it would not.” The words were spoken slowly and very clearly, though he knew Randi was trying to be patient with him. He could hear it in her tone of voice, see it in the expression on her face.

  “I’m going to offer her the opportunity for good press. You know, have the university send out a release, and so on. I expect, though—” she shook her head “—that she’ll make me leave her name out of it altogether. She’ll probably want us to say only that it came from an LPGA golfer. It’ll help the women’s athletics cause, but not her own.”

  Which meant Zack couldn’t find any valid reason to detest the woman—other than the fact that she’d broken up his marriage.