by Linda Seed
“That’s what he said. He said, ‘we’ll see what happens.’ But I already know what’s going to happen. I’m going to end up with my panties hanging off a lampshade and my heart broken into a million damned pieces.”
“That’s not fair.” Sofia gave her a stern look that reminded Bianca so much of their mother that she almost cried.
“How is it not fair?”
“It’s not fair because you don’t know that he’s going to break your heart. You’re just afraid he will. He’s paying for something he hasn’t even done yet, just because you’re scared.”
“Sofia …”
“You can’t be practical all the time,” Sofia said. “You can’t be the rational one, the careful one, the smart one all the damned time! Do something stupid for once. Go get laid!”
“So you agree that it would be stupid,” Bianca said.
Sofia threw up her hands in defeat. “I give up.”
Bianca didn’t blame her. She’d have given up, too.
“It’s eight o’clock. I’m opening the doors,” Sofia said.
“Thank God,” Bianca muttered.
TJ was eagerly anticipating his date with Bianca, not just because he wanted to sleep with her—although he really, really did—but also because he was having a rough time, and he needed something good to look forward to.
Owen had started medication to take the excess copper out of his system, and the drugs were making him feel even crappier than he had before he’d been diagnosed. Nothing to do for it but power through, but how did you tell that to a twelve-year-old who just wanted to go to school and hang out with his friends and feel normal for a change?
TJ was worried about that, and he also was worried about the amount of work time he was losing taking Owen to doctor’s appointments. Again, nothing to do for it but power through. But his checking account didn’t care why the money was slowing down. It only knew it was.
Added to all of this was Penny. She was worried about Owen, so she’d been having him stay with her on weekends more often. They’d been meeting halfway between Cambria and San Jose to get him up there, and TJ was having to drive an hour and a half each way on Friday and Sunday afternoons.
Six hours of driving on the weekends was cutting into time he would otherwise be using to catch up on his work. He had a backlog of clients waiting for him to complete their projects, and he’d had to keep calling people to push back the dates. That was bad business. He’d prioritized anyone who had an actual electrical problem, as opposed to those who wanted to upgrade or change something that worked. And he’d been doing a hell of a lot of apologizing for the delays. Thankfully, most people had been understanding, but if he didn’t get caught up, some of them would start pulling their business and going with someone else.
And then there was the fact that all of Owen’s time with Penny meant that TJ had to see his ex much more often than he was comfortable with. TJ and Penny had reached the point where they could consistently be civil with each other, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed the reminder of how he’d failed to keep his family together.
All of that combined meant that TJ really needed to have some fun. Sex would be great, too. He hoped that might happen on his date with Bianca, but even if it didn’t, he would enjoy the hell out of the chance to have a nice night out, thinking about something other than his problems.
The last thing he was going to do, though, was let his mother know how much he was looking forward to seeing Bianca. He had enough to think about right now without maternal pressure regarding his love life.
That was why, during a visit to his parents’ place on the Thursday night before his date, he downplayed the whole thing.
They’d just finished dinner—in truth, one of the top reasons he’d come in the first place was so he wouldn’t have to cook—and he and his mom were sitting at the kitchen table with mugs of coffee, a plate of cookies set in front of him. Owen was in the living room watching a movie, and TJ’s dad was out in his garage tinkering with his latest woodworking project.
They’d already covered the topic of Owen’s health, Penny’s mother, and TJ’s work when Lily brought up Bianca.
“So. Did I ever mention that my friend Donna lives next door to those Russo girls?” Lily studiously avoided making eye contact with her son.
“Yeah, I think you said something about that.” He wasn’t sure whether she had or not, but if she had and he didn’t remember, she’d lecture him on how he didn’t pay attention to her. It was easier to agree.
“Well, Donna thought she saw you over there the other night.” Lilly stirred her coffee and carefully set the spoon on a porcelain saucer.
“Oh, yeah?” TJ remained noncommittal, but he could see where this was going, and he steeled himself.
“Mm hmm.” Lily pressed her lips together until they formed a tight line. “It seems she thought the two of you were having intercourse in your truck.”
TJ nearly choked on his coffee, not because of what his mother had said, but because of the way she’d said it. No son wanted to hear his mom say the word intercourse, not even if she was talking about the town in Pennsylvania.
“Mom!”
“Well, Troy, that’s what she said. I’m not telling you how to conduct your love life, goodness knows, but I would think you could at least wait until you’re behind closed doors.”
“We were not having”—he could barely say it—“intercourse. We were kissing. That’s all.”
“I see.”
“And your friend Donna should mind her own business.” TJ’s face was hot, and he thought he must be blushing. He’d have thought he was beyond such a thing as blushing, but apparently not. “Bianca and I are seeing each other, but we haven’t slept together yet. And I don’t know why I’m even telling you this.”
Lily seemed unsure about how to proceed. She clearly had something on her mind, and it probably had to do with sex, because why else would she be so hesitant to talk to her own son?
“Mom, what?” TJ said.
“Well … honey, do you really think it’s smart to be going around with this woman, when you and Penny might still—”
“Mom. Penny and I are not going to get back together. I know you think we will, but … Well, the problems went pretty deep. The marriage just didn’t work.”
She looked at him as though he simply didn’t understand the truth of the situation—which, in her view, was that he and Penny had just hit a pothole in the road to true love. Surely they would find some way to drive around it and continue on their journey together. She’d expressed this to him more than once, and he couldn’t seem to make her see the reality.
“But, Troy, are you sure there isn’t some way—”
“I’m sure,” he told her firmly. “We both need to move on.”
“Well.” She scowled. “If you really must move on, please don’t do it in front of Donna’s house. I have to be able to face her at the Historical Society meetings.”
TJ hadn’t slept with anyone since his divorce, but it was more than that. He also hadn’t slept with anyone before his marriage. In his entire life there had only been Penny, and that made his upcoming date with Bianca more fraught with possibilities—both good and bad—than it otherwise would have been.
Bianca was an attractive, accomplished single woman in her thirties. Even if she’d had a fairly sedate, conservative love life, she’d probably dated—and even slept with—any number of people. It offended his sense of manhood that he was so relatively inexperienced, and that as a result, she might find him … lacking.
Sure, he’d had sex hundreds of times—maybe thousands, who was counting?—but all of those times had been with Penny. He knew what Penny did and didn’t like, what Penny’s little noises meant, what Penny was trying to communicate with a look, a touch.
He didn’t know if any of that information was transferable to a woman who wasn’t Penny. What if Bianca’s wants and needs were entirely different? What if TJ got into the game and c
ouldn’t read the signals?
“Damn it, get out of your head,” he told himself the day after his visit to his mother, while he was in his truck on the way to a job. “Get out of your damned head.”
If he thought too much about it, he was going to psyche himself out before Saturday night even came. He was going to head into the thing with no confidence—probably not something most women found attractive.
So, that was one thing. Then there was the fact that Bianca was a doctor, and TJ was just a tradesman. Better not to think about that one too much, especially when combined with his relative lack of sexual experience.…
“Hey. You gonna get out of the car and get to work, or what?”
TJ had arrived at the job site, and the general contractor who’d hired him was standing at the open window of TJ’s truck, looking at him as though TJ had lost his mind. Which wasn’t too far from the truth.
How long had he been sitting here, just marinating in his thoughts?
He couldn’t tell Mark that he was ruminating over his lack of prowess as a man, so instead, he said, “Yeah, yeah. Kiss my ass.” It was what men did to restore male equilibrium at moments such as this.
Mark gave the roof of the truck a friendly pat. “I’m glad you’re here. Looks like the previous owner tried to wire the place himself. I’m surprised the whole house hasn’t blown up.”
TJ didn’t have a lot of friends—he’d been so involved with getting settled in Cambria and adjusting to life as a single father that he hadn’t had time for it. But now, he kind of wished he had friends he could discuss his woman problems with. Since he didn’t, he stopped by to see his dad after work.
Frank Davenport made an odd match with Lily. While she was gregarious and had a tendency to try to control her son’s life, Frank mostly kept his thoughts to himself. That made him a good listener, and it also made him unlikely to share whatever TJ said to him with Lily.
Frank was out in his garage workshop when TJ drove up to the house just after five o’clock. Owen had taken the bus home, and TJ had checked on him—the kid was nicely settled in with a snack and a video game, feeling pretty good today for a change.
“Hey, Dad.” TJ strolled up the driveway and into the garage, where his father was sanding a piece of driftwood he’d salvaged from Moonstone Beach. Frank made various items out of driftwood that he sold to tourists: tables, wall ornaments, garden benches. Right now, he was making what looked to be a birdhouse.
“Son,” Frank said in greeting. The man liked to say whatever he had to say in as few words as possible. TJ admired it.
TJ watched while Frank worked the driftwood, smoothing the rough edges until the wood was supple, its curves sensual.
Which made TJ think of Bianca again.
“You here to see your mother?” Frank asked. It was a reasonable question; most often, TJ was here to see Lily, often because Lily herself had called him to lay on the guilt about him not visiting often enough.
“Nah. I was just passing by, and I thought I’d stop and say hi.”
“Passing by?” Frank eyed the piece of wood in his hand, running his fingers over the patch he’d been sanding. “I thought you were working across town.”
“I, uh … I had an errand.”
“What kind of errand?”
It was just like TJ’s dad to get curious the one time TJ was lying to him. “I forgot. Listen … I guess Mom probably told you I’m seeing Bianca Russo. You remember Bianca? From when I was in high school?”
“Yep.” He grabbed his sandpaper and went at the spot on the driftwood again.
“Well … I thought I might take her to the Sea Chest. You and Mom been there lately? How is it?” TJ had no intention of taking Bianca to the Sea Chest—it was a fine restaurant, but he had other plans. Still, he had to launch into the conversation somehow, and he wasn’t about to lead with, Hey, Dad, I’ve only slept with one woman in my entire life, and I’m scared shitless. Any words of advice?
Frank’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t look up from his work. “Well, it’s seafood, son. I suppose one scallop’s as good as another.”
TJ doubted that was true, but in any case, it didn’t matter. He didn’t want to talk about scallops.
“Or … I thought maybe I might make her dinner at my place.”
Frank let out a grunt of acknowledgment. At only sixty-seven, the man looked nearly as weathered as the wood he worked with: bald head, deep lines on his face from hours spent in the Cambria sunshine, hands callused and rough from the work.
“It’s not that I don’t want to take her out,” TJ went on. “It’s just … we’ve seen each other a couple of times already, and it seems like it might be nice to … you know. Have some alone time. Owen will be with Penny, so …”
Scritch-scritch-scritch as Frank sanded the wood. “You got something on your mind, you might want to come out with it. Neither one of us is getting any younger.”
“Right.” TJ shifted from one foot to the other and leaned his butt against a metal worktable. “It’s just … I married Penny pretty young, and this is the first time I’m seeing someone since the split, and … Ah, hell. I don’t know what I’m even talking about.”
For the first time, Frank put down the piece of wood and focused on his son. “Troy, are you asking me for advice about sex?” He scratched his bald head. “Because, I have to tell you, I don’t know if I’m the man for the job.”
Of course he wasn’t. TJ didn’t know what the hell he’d been thinking. He blew out a puff of air, embarrassed.
“Right. Look, I can see you’re busy. And I’ve got to go home and make dinner for Owen. Tell Mom I said hi.” TJ pushed off from the table and headed toward his car.
“Troy?”
TJ turned back and looked at his father. “Yeah?”
“Well … I don’t want to let you down, is all.” Frank ran a hand over his head, where the hair had once been.
“That’s okay. Really.”
“I had a little experience before your mother.” Frank winced, as though the fact of that—or the act of admitting it to his son—was highly distasteful.
“Dad—”
“I figure you can’t go wrong just talking to the woman,” Frank went on. “You might not know what she wants, but she does.”
It was a surprisingly sensitive comment coming from a man who expected his dinner on the table at six sharp and who had mostly dismissed child-raising as “women’s work.” TJ blinked in surprise.
“Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”
“Well.” Frank turned back toward his project.
“Dad?”
“Mmm?”
“Maybe … don’t tell Mom we had this conversation.”
Frank looked at his son as though TJ had suddenly grown a hand out of the top of his head. “What would I do that for? You think I haven’t learned a thing in almost forty years of marriage?” Frank scoffed and picked up the piece of wood.
Considering his father’s advice, TJ thought that Frank had, indeed, learned a few things in that time. Most of them good.
23
On Friday night after work, TJ drove Owen halfway to San Jose to meet Penny. They made the exchange at a Starbucks in King City.
They made some small talk about Owen and school and how he’d been feeling, then they discussed the logistics of how and when he’d be coming home. Then TJ gave Owen a manly slap on the back and wished him a good weekend.
TJ thought he was going to get away from Penny without any unpleasantness, but those hopes withered and died when Penny sent Owen out to her car, saying she wanted to chat with TJ for a minute.
“Parent things,” she told Owen.
Once the boy was in the car and out of earshot, Penny faced TJ, the friendly look that had been on her face for Owen’s benefit now replaced by a hard scowl.
“Are you seeing that woman this weekend?” she demanded.
“Penny—”
“Are you? I deserve to know what’s going on in my son’s hous
e.”
TJ crossed his arms over his chest. “No, you don’t—not when he isn’t in it. What I do when he’s with you is my own business.”
“If there’s someone in your life, I deserve to know. Especially if it’s affecting Owen’s medical care. I swear to God, TJ—”
“It’s not affecting his medical care. And right now, you don’t deserve to know. If, at some point, things get serious and she’s going to be a part of Owen’s life, I’ll tell you. Until then, keep your nose out of it.”
“So it’s not serious?” Penny’s eyes were getting red and moist, and TJ only wanted to get out of there without answering the question. Was it serious? For all practical purposes, no. Things with Bianca hadn’t gone very far, and they’d never had a discussion of what they might or might not mean to each other. But even as his head was saying, no, it’s not serious, his heart was saying, it’s serious as hell. He didn’t know which part of himself to listen to, so he didn’t have an answer—even if he’d wanted to give one, which he didn’t.
“How’s your mom?” he asked, partly to change the subject and partly because he knew he should have asked it already and was embarrassed that he hadn’t.
Penny wiped a stray tear from her cheek. “It’s Wilson’s. They’ve confirmed it.”
“So that’s good, right?”
Penny shrugged and looked off toward the far hills to the east. “I guess.”
“But?”
“But it’s too far along. She needs a transplant—she won’t get better without one. If they’d figured this out earlier, if they hadn’t just assumed it was her fault …”
“Pen, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” She shrugged—a gesture of hopelessness, of futility.
“We got it early enough with Owen, though. Penny? Owen’s going to be okay.”
“Yeah.”