by Laura Abbot
“I know, Dad.”
“But let’s not talk about that.” It was as if he’d realized that a reference to the manner of her mother’s death might not be timely. “When’s this little fella comin’?”
She laughed. “You and Grant. The ‘little fella’ could be a girl, you know. And she’s arriving in late spring.”
“You tell that husband of yours, I’m proud of him. He’s done good work.”
Pam looked up at Grant, beaming down at her as if he really had done the “good work.” She couldn’t let those warm blue eyes get to her. He was her friend. Period.
“What about the boy? How’s he takin’ the news?”
“Er, I’m not sure.”
“Kinda shoves him out of the showring, huh?”
“You could put it that way.”
“Honey, why don’t you put him on? Lemme talk to him.”
What could it hurt? “I’ll go get him.”
To Pam’s surprise, Andy seemed eager to talk to her father and quickly picked up the extension in his room. However, he looked pointedly at her, not acknowledging her dad until she edged from the room. Only then did she hear him say, “Hey, Gramps. Whaddya know?”
Grant waited for her at the foot of the stairs. He grinned. “Well?”
“Daddy thinks you’re quite a man,” she said wryly.
His grin faded. The look in his eyes sent shivers from the nape of her neck to the tips of her toes. “I wish I had been.”
She stared at him, speechless. It wasn’t fair of him to have said that. He was being polite. Gallant.
She couldn’t dare hope. “But you weren’t,” she said firmly.
“I know,” he said, before turning and disappearing into the living room.
She couldn’t move. Not until she heard the voice of the Monday Night Football play-by-play announcer. Not until she put the pieces of her heart back together.
TUESDAY THE WORD WAS OUT at Keystone. Grant had talked with Ralph Hagood and the athletic director and, of course, after Connie had told some of her friends, the news had gone forth from the teachers’ lounge with the immediacy of a town crier. Students burst into her classroom, eyes alight, voices crescendoing. “Awesome, Ms. Carver, er, Ms. G.!” “A bay-bee, ooh, that’s so cool.” Then to her utter astonishment, one of the boys asked if he could touch her stomach. “Does it hurt?” another asked. She felt laughter bubbling inside of her. She was going to provide a one-woman sex-education-and-parenting course.
“Seats, everyone. After your test, I promise I’ll answer all your questions.” Catching some of their mischievous looks, she amended her statement. “Or at least most of them.”
After she had finally settled the students and distributed the exams, she walked around the room, monitoring their work, filled once more with the pleasure she took in working with young people.
Today she owed this pleasure to Grant. Without him, she’d be pounding the pavement looking for a job.
DURING HER PLANNING PERIOD, she decided to look over the journals her sophomores had turned in that day. She couldn’t let her grading pile up, not with rehearsals starting the following week.
In the room next door, laughter erupted, and from outside she could faintly hear the middle school gym class counting cadences. With a pleased grin, she acknowledged the fact she wasn’t even tired. Then counting back, she realized she hadn’t had morning sickness in over a week.
Turning again to the journals, she read several more before picking up Andy’s. Her heart sank. His first entry since he’d learned about the baby. This one even had a title—“The Lost Dogie.” She rested her chin on her fist and began to read.
The lost dogie. That’s me. Gramps called me that since he figures I’m kinda displaced. Well, he’s right. I know it’s not your fault, but my mother’s halfway around the world and now my dad’s all excited about this baby. It’s not like I’m jealous, exactly. I mean, there’s no baby yet, right? So what’s to be jealous of? Anyway, you’d have to be some kind of heartless jerk to be jealous of a baby. I like your father. He helped me last night. Said I had a chance to be like a role model. But I don’t know if I buy something else he said. That I’d always have a special place with my dad, being his first kid and all. But let’s face it. Teenagers aren’t exactly cute. Babies are.
P.S. I’m really glad you’re okay. It’s not like I want anything bad to happen. I hope you understand that.
Pam set down Andy’s journal and stared out the window. Did Grant have any idea how much the boy loved him?
CHAPTER TEN
ALTHOUGH ANDY HADN’T exactly jumped for joy about helping with the play, Pam noticed his attitude improved when Angela showed sudden interest in assisting him with props. By mid-November, the weeks had fallen into a comfortable routine. When she and Andy arrived home after rehearsal, he would go for a bike ride, giving her time to straighten the house, work on lesson plans, do laundry—all in peace. If you didn’t count Sebastian and Viola, who vied for her undivided attention.
She was relieved, too, that football season was over and basketball was in full swing, helping to keep her arrangement with Grant more businesslike. He was gone more and more, and when he was home, he was busy. That left little time for conversation—or temptation. Since she was usually in bed long before he was, their paths rarely crossed. What little spare time he did have, she encouraged him to spend with Andy.
It was best that way, because she’d come to an irrevocable decision—she couldn’t lull herself into depending on a husband, especially a short-term one. Especially one as attractive and appealing as Grant.
This particular afternoon, Pam had popped a roast into the oven and stood at the sink peeling potatoes and carrots, noting the lengthening shadows out the kitchen window. The trees were nearly bare of leaves and a cold northwest wind whistled around the corners of the house. The days were growing shorter and shorter as winter crept closer. Had Andy worn his jacket on his bike ride? She chuckled to herself. He’d be indignant if he guessed what a mother hen she was.
He and Grant seemed to have arrived at some kind of unspoken truce—they still went for Andy’s driving lessons, but so far as Pam could tell, they weren’t really communicating. It was nuts for Grant to protect Shelley at the expense of his son’s understanding of the past. But then again, Pam wasn’t the parent. Surely there was a way Grant could talk to Andy without putting down his mother.
Pam set down the vegetable parer and massaged the base of her neck. This was one of those evenings she’d love to be curled up in her flannel pajamas on the sofa of her condo, soft show tunes on the sound system, a pot of tea by her side, a cozy gas-log fire in the fire-place. Instead, she needed to finish dinner, clean both bathrooms and work on a staggering stack of college recommendation forms.
Today’s confrontation with Beau Jasper hadn’t helped her frame of mind. He’d barely passed her midterm exam, then his grades had gone abruptly downhill. He was a talented athlete with Division I college scouts on his trail, but arrogant beyond belief. Irritation welled up again as she pictured his insolent, oh-so-charming smile when he stood at her desk after school. “C’mon, Ms. C., we both know you’re not gonna flunk me.”
“Not if you turn in passing work.”
“What’s the matter with my work?”
She’d clenched her fists in the folds of her skirt, silently wondering if he was deliberately playing dumb or if he could really be so clueless. She’d taken out his latest paper and attempted to go over it with him, but he was far more attentive to his watch than to the intricacies of syntax. “I’m gonna be late to practice.”
“Read my lips, Beau,” she’d finally said. “No passing English, no playing basketball. Is that clear enough for you?”
She rarely descended to sarcasm, but he’d tried her patience once too often. The boy actually felt entitled to a passing grade based on his stature as an athlete. She’d tried talking to his mother, whose grip on reality, alas, was obscured by blind adoratio
n of her son. He had no father.
Picking up the parer, Pam plucked the eyes out of a potato with irritated little thrusts. How would Beau ever learn responsibility for his actions? She’d like to have been able to motivate him herself. Now she’d have to use the last resort. Appealing to his coach to apply pressure.
It didn’t help that his coach was Grant.
GRANT CROUCHED on the sideline, every muscle tensed, willing Chip Kennedy’s free throw into the basket. This was the first home game of the season, and the Knights needed a lead going into halftime. His body uncoiled to a standing position when Chip’s shot whooshed through the hoop. Now for the second attempt. He scanned the floor. Beau Jasper was on the line between the defenders, and Cale Moore, the point guard, stood poised at half court. When the shot hit the rim, Jasper, arms extended, grabbed the rebound and rifled it to Moore, who hit a three-pointer. Grant exhaled, barely conscious of the explosion of sound from the Keystone stands. A four-point advantage. Not much, but something to work with.
Walking, head down, to the locker room, he reviewed the remarks he needed to make. This was a team that could go all the way. But they had to do it game by game. He worried about their weakness from long-range and about Jasper’s hotdogging. Winning consistently required a team effort. Jasper had all the skills, but he resisted coaching. Unfortunately, some of the other players relied on him when they should have been perfecting their own abilities.
Bottom line, though, they needed Jasper. Somehow he’d managed to stay eligible throughout the football season, but offhand remarks Grant had overheard the kid make at practice suggested he already had a terminal case of senioritis.
The familiar locker-room odors of rank bodies and liniment focused him. Several players sat with towels over their heads, and one emerged from the can. Beau Jasper stood front and center adjusting his jockstrap, a smug smile on his face. “I did good, huh, coach? Thirteen points.”
Grant ground his teeth, for a fleeting moment imagining Pam correcting the self-absorbed kid’s grammar. “Give your teammates some credit. Remember the game’s only half over and the other team is good.”
“Those pansies? We’ll whip their asses. You watch.”
“I hope so,” Grant said dryly. “Meanwhile, gather ’round, men.”
Grant outlined the strategy for the second half, then gave a short pep talk. Walking back out onto the court, he briefly searched the crowd. His wife, looking gorgeous in a new magenta maternity top, sat with Darla Liddy and her month-old baby boy. When Pam spotted him, she gave a broad smile and a thumbs-up. His heart thumped. One look and he was lost. With effort, he forced his concentration back to the game. Basketball could be all-consuming. Which was good, he told himself. So long as he was eating, breathing, sleeping basketball, he wouldn’t be lured into thinking long-term about Pam. The one “game” he couldn’t bear to think of losing.
PAM COULDN’T FIGURE Andy out. He bared his soul to her in his journals, but in person, he was deferential, though guarded. It wasn’t unusual for students to feel safer sharing their feelings in writing, especially when she guaranteed them confidentiality. Sometimes she’d catch glimpses of him walking through the hall, holding hands with Angela, or loitering by his locker with Chip and think maybe he was beginning to fit in at Keystone. But at home, he preferred to be by himself, communicating primarily in monosyllabic teen-speak.
About once a week he perfunctorily asked her how the baby was. Her other students showed more interest and enthusiasm than he did. They’d even put a file box on her desk so they could all submit possible names for the baby. So far her favorite was Byron Milton Chaucer Gilbert.
But the other students didn’t feel in danger of losing their fathers’ affection. Andy did.
She looked again at his latest journal entry. Something needed to happen. Soon.
My mother calls me once a week. She wants to know all this stuff like how am I doing. I tell her, “Fine.” Like she’d really understand about you or Dad or Angie. Usually she just tells me what she and Harry are doing. Her big “woo” is this new game she’s playing. Maw-jong, or something like that.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said about Dad buying the airplane ticket for me to spend the summer with him. It must’ve been that time Mom sent me to this dorky camp in North Carolina. So I’ve been kinda wondering if there’s more stuff she hasn’t told me. Like maybe there were other times that he wanted me to come that I didn’t even know about.
But probably not. It’s maybe just me wishing he’d really cared. Well, I know you won’t tell him. ’Cuz maybe I’m wrong. Probably I am.
Pam set down his notebook, carefully closing the cover. She’d promised to keep his confidences. But these two men needed to talk.
Much as she longed to, it wasn’t her place to fix their relationship. That was up to Grant and Andy.
Whenever. However.
“I THINK MAYBE I’m taking advantage of you.” Grant had just come in from a cross-town game, had helped himself to a bowl of chili warming on the stove and now straddled a chair at the kitchen table opposite her.
“Who me?” Pam adopted a puckish grin. “The housekeeper?”
“That’s probably exactly how you feel.” He paused, a spoonful of chili halfway to his lips.
“In case you’ve forgotten, Coach Gilbert, that’s precisely what I signed on for. I suspect I’m not so different from a lot of actual wives.”
“You’re different, all right,” he said before shoveling the chili into his mouth.
She leaned forward as if to urge him to tell her how she was different. But when he looked up again, there was no hint of flirtation. She must have imagined the nuance. “I appreciate the attention you’re giving Andy. I’m sorry I can’t be more help.”
“Are you?” She hadn’t meant to be confrontational, but his apology was too smooth, too pat.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
Logic told her he was tired, stressed from a game the team had barely won in overtime, but emotion overtook her. “I think you’re content to let me handle Andy. It’s simpler. You can go on deluding yourself that he resents you because you’ve been, in your own words, a lousy father. For you, that may be easier than actually leveling with him. Or, heaven forbid, getting involved. Shelley is hardly mother-of-the-year material, yet you’ve let her get away with outright lies and manipulation. What’s the matter? Are you afraid to let Andy know his mother isn’t perfect? Or how much you’ve missed him? How much you care?”
She felt herself gaining a potentially fatal head of steam, but she couldn’t stop now. “What have you got to lose? Andy already thinks you don’t care. That he can’t measure up. But that doesn’t stop him from hoping. So what’s stopping you, Coach? Guilt? Fear of emotional attachment? What?”
She rose from her seat at the table. “Whatever it is, you need to get over it. If you want to claim your son, that is.” She stared down at him. “Meanwhile, offering my services as the housekeeper is the least I can do.”
He stirred his chili, head bent over his bowl. For some reason, studying the few silver strands gilding his head, she wanted to run her fingers through his hair, take back all the harsh judgments, comfort him. Then he looked at her as if she was some stranger he thought he ought to recognize. “Are you finished?”
“Quite.”
“Good.” Without another word, he opened the box of saltines, extracted one and began chewing.
She waited, hoping for some reaction. When none came, she said as levelly as she could, “Help yourself to the cobbler for dessert. Good night.”
She fled to the den, aware that she had just risked a great deal. And lost.
Sebastian joined her on the daybed. She lay awake for a long time, stroking him and wondering how she was going to handle her strong, unhousekeeperlike attraction to this man who seemed so afraid to love.
OVER THE N
EXT FEW DAYS Grant couldn’t stop thinking about Pam’s outburst. He’d never regarded himself as a coward, or, worse yet, a victim. What was it she could see about Andy that he couldn’t? Was she right? Had he harbored some misplaced notion of gallantry where Shelley was concerned? He’d figured, since Andy had to live with her, it would be easier if he didn’t make too many waves. But was that rationalization? A throw-back to his own childhood? Had he abdicated his responsibility?
The thought sickened him.
Nor did he feel very good about the accusation in Pam’s eyes.
His aloof son with gangly legs and a suddenly deepening voice was a stranger to him. What had happened to the happy toddler with the Nerf ball? To his own dreams of creating the close-knit family he’d never had as a youngster?
On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, Grant happened to answer the phone when Shelley called. “How’s your housekeeper working out?”
She was up to her usual tricks. She knew darn well he and Pam were married. “My wife, you mean?”
“Whatever. May I please speak to my son?”
My son. He grimaced. She’d like it that way, wouldn’t she? But the more he thought about it, the last thing Andy needed was additional exposure to her itinerant lifestyle or her self-serving personality. No wonder the kid didn’t say much. He’d probably long ago learned silence kept him out of trouble. Man, could Grant relate. He remembered all too well. You didn’t talk to the colonel—you listened. “I’ll tell him you’re on the line.”
After summoning Andy, he found himself pacing the living room, angry yet impotent. Pam was right. He’d been far too passive where his son was concerned and he intended for that to end. Today.
ANDY COULDN’T BELIEVE IT. He and his dad stood in the lot looking at used cars. Maybe after he turned sixteen he’d actually have wheels! When he’d gotten off the phone with his mother, his dad had told him to grab a jacket and come along on an errand. He hadn’t wanted to—until he found out where they were going. Sunday afternoons were good for looking ’cause you didn’t have to deal with those greasy salesmen with their fake smiles and “hot” deals.