Twice Blessed

by J J DiBenedetto

  He heard a giggle from the back of the store, and he had to fight not to laugh himself. “No, I don’t think it will be. Please, go ahead and order it. Do I pay you now?”

  He didn’t; Allison refused to take payment in advance. “What if they can’t send it for whatever reason?”

  “Then you’d give me a refund, I guess. But what if you do a special order and then the person doesn’t want it? You’re stuck with the book, then.”

  She laughed. “Nobody’s ever ‘stuck’ with a book. If the person who ordered it changed their mind, somebody else would want it. Anyway, the customers like it better, and it’s something that makes me different than the big chain stores. I have to do whatever I can to keep people coming in.”

  That was true. He imagined this was a very tough business to be in. “Well, it certainly seems like you’re doing a good job.” He hoped she actually was doing as well as she appeared to be. Even if she didn’t have a charming daughter and a ridiculously alluring smile, he’d still root for her over the big chain stores just on principle.

  But the smile definitely didn’t hurt.

  MR. JENSEN – MIKE! – was playing his part well. She could almost believe he really was interested in her. But despite thinking about it all last night and most of today, she still wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She didn’t know if she was ready – if she’d ever be ready – to date again. And of course there was Lucy to think about.

  Even though the matchmaking plan was all her daughter’s idea, Allison didn’t think Lucy really knew what it would mean for her mother to start dating, let alone actually fall in love with someone. Allison didn’t honestly know, either.

  Lucy would have to come first, if she did “put herself out there” as Aunt Jessie put it. Any man she dated would need to understand that. Mike was a schoolteacher, so presumably he was comfortable around children. And Lucy clearly liked him, so that was a point in his favor.

  “Lucy, tell me more about your teacher.”

  Her daughter put down her spoon and looked up from her mashed potatoes. “You mean Mr. Jensen?” There was a self-satisfied gleam in Lucy’s eye as she said it.

  “Yes, I mean Mr. Jensen.”

  “He’s not married, and he lives next door to Bailey, and he drives a black Toyota car that cost $37,000.” Allison just stared at her daughter, too stunned at that last point to speak for a moment. It wasn’t the amount of money, but the fact that her daughter knew it. Lucy picked up on that and shrugged. “I heard Ms. Matthews and Ms. Costello talking about him, and that’s how much Ms. Costello said his car cost.”

  Well, that made sense. Of course the single women at the school would pay close attention to little details like that about a young, handsome single man who worked with them. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop on your teachers, Lucy. Or on anyone else.”

  “I wasn’t, Mom!” Lucy looked mortally wounded at that. “They were by the door out to the playground when we went out for recess last Friday, and you met Ms. Costello, she talks really loud.”

  That was true. And probably even more so when the subject was an eligible man who had $37,000 to spend on a new car. Allison wondered how Ms. Costello knew the cost of Mike’s car so precisely, though. Obviously you could find car prices on the internet with no problem, but you’d have to know not just the make and model but the year and what kind of features and extras. Had Mike’s co-worker gone out to the parking lot and made an in-depth study of his car, maybe even taken photos so she could calculate how much it – and by extension, Mike himself – was worth?

  That seemed excessive. Was that what dating was like these days? If so, Allison didn’t think she’d be very good at it.

  Chapter 6

  The book of photos from the moon had been a big hit, not only with the fourth graders, but with all Mike’s other students. It even managed to hold the attention of the first graders for nearly the whole class, which was impressive on a Friday afternoon when they were usually already out the door in spirit before class even started.

  The bell rang, and all the six and seven year olds ran out of the room. No doubt they were all excited about whatever fun things they were going to do over the weekend – birthday parties, badgering their parents to do some early Christmas shopping, or heaven only knew what else. When he’d been that age, he looked forward to going over to his uncle’s house for the weekend. Uncle Dan had a swimming pool, and it was heated so it could be used – well, not quite year-round, but well into the fall.

  What he was looking forward to right now was another trip to The Last Page, this time to actually browse for a while. And chat with Allison, too, but mainly to look at books. At least, he tried to convince himself that was why he wanted to go there.

  But when he got there, just as he had his hand on the door, he saw something he didn’t expect. Allison was there, not behind the counter but in front of it. She was standing next to – right next to, not even six inches away – a young man. And now she was hugging him. Embracing him, with a bright smile on her face. Brighter than the one she’d given him yesterday, even.

  Despite the way she’d smiled at him yesterday, despite the fact that – he assumed – she wore that dress yesterday because she knew he would be stopping by – she’d never actually said she wasn’t seeing anyone.

  Her daughter didn’t think she was, otherwise Lucy wouldn’t be playing matchmaker for her, but it was always possible that Allison was dating this guy – whoever he was – without telling her daughter about it. Single parents did that, didn’t they? Why tell your child about someone until you knew things were serious, right?

  Whatever was going on, it was something he didn’t want to intrude on, so he crossed Kansas Ave. and headed into the library instead. If he wanted to browse books, he could do it there, without having to watch Allison smile that smile at someone else.

  He ended up spending three hours there, getting almost halfway through an old science fiction novel he’d always meant to read but had never gotten around to. He checked the book out, and on his way out he took a closer look at something he’d seen all over town the past few weeks – a flyer for the upcoming Harvest Festival.

  He knew it was a big deal – for one thing, the school had been working on a float for the big parade on Saturday for the last month. When the principal had asked for volunteers, he would have offered to help, but Joyce Matthews and Betty Costello were heading up the float committee, and he didn’t relish the idea of spending his nights and weekends being fought over by the two of them.

  Mike hadn’t realized just how big a deal the festival was, though. It would run all weekend, with activities straight through. Including a Harvest Ball, which made him think – probably wrongly – of one of those formal dances right out of Jane Austen. He supposed it didn’t matter; he had no one to go with anyway, and he’d gone dateless to enough dances back in high school to last a lifetime. He could still enjoy everything else – the games, the food, the cool, crisp weather – even if he skipped the dance.

  He walked past the bookstore again on his way back to his car, and Allison was still with that man, whoever he was. Except, now, she had an arm around him. Well, that answered that.

  “I STILL CAN’T GET OVER it, Tyler! The last time I saw you, you were - you know what, I don’t even remember. It was all a blur.” The last time she’d seen Tyler was a couple of days after Lucy was born; her cousin had managed to get a two day pass to visit and see the baby before his unit went off to – she couldn’t even remember where he’d been deployed to.

  “You were kind of out of it, Allie.” The army had done him good; Tyler had been a scrawny kid, probably not even a hundred pounds soaking wet, when he’d enlisted right after graduating high school. Now, though, he looked healthy and strong. And handsome; he’d be quite the catch for whatever young woman was lucky enough to catch his eye.

  “I guess I was,” she said. “You’ll find out for yourself one of these days, if you ever settle down with someone and start
a family of your own.” She saw the beginnings of a frown, but she kept on the topic anyway. “Not everybody’s as unlucky as your parents.” Or herself, for that matter. “Look at my parents. Almost forty years of marriage and still going strong. You could have that, too.”

  She knew what he was going to say next, and he didn’t disappoint. “You could, too. And Lucy could have a father again. Are there any candidates on the horizon?”

  That was a good question. “I’m not sure. Lucy thinks so.” Her cousin gave her a blank look. “She’s been playing matchmaker. She wants to set me up with one of her teachers.”

  “And?”

  “And – I have no idea. He seems like a great guy, and Lucy loves him, but I haven’t really thought about dating since - well, you know.” That wasn’t true; she’d thought a lot about dating in the past two days. “I think I like him, as much as I can for not really knowing him that well, I mean. But it’s a pretty big deal, bringing a man around. I have to think about Lucy.”

  Tyler laughed. “Sounds like she’s already given you her opinion.”

  That was true. “Yeah, but she doesn’t really know what it would be like if I started going out with him. Neither do I, for that matter.”

  Now her cousin gave her a serious – or was it mock-serious? – look. “It’s like jump training. You’re scared, you have no idea what it’s going to be like the first time, the parachute might not open and you’ll plummet to your death, but you have to do it anyway. So you just close your eyes and jump.”

  “You jumped out of a plane?”

  Tyler shook his head. “Don’t change the subject, Allie.”

  “I’m not! I just had no idea you did that! It kind of freaks me out just talking about it.” Who in their right mind would voluntarily jump out of a perfectly good airplane? Well, it was the Army, so it wasn’t really voluntarily, but still. “But I guess you’re right. Maybe I do just have to jump.”

  And right then, out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw Mike, on the sidewalk outside, walking past the shop. He’d come by the last two days, and she’d expected him to show up again today, but apparently not.

  “Allie? You still there?” Tyler was waving a hand in front of her face.

  “Sorry, I was just lost in thought for a second. I guess you just have that effect on me.” She didn’t want to admit to him – or herself – that it was actually Mike who had that effect on her. Which was all the more reason to follow his advice and take the plunge and see what happened.

  Chapter 7

  Mike spent most of the weekend in his apartment. There was homework and tests to grade, the Thomas Edison book to finish reading, and a bookstore owner to avoid.

  Outside his window, he could hear the sounds of construction – one of the floats for the harvest festival parade was being constructed in the parking lot behind his building. At first, the noise was a distraction, but after a few hours, he’d gotten used to the hammering, sawing and occasional swearing when someone hit their hand instead of a nail with one of those hammers.

  Saturday night, he’d found it difficult to sleep without all the noise, and he awoke Sunday in a grumpy mood. Somehow, he manage to avoid taking his mood out on Bailey Evans when he passed her in the hallway on the way to throw out his trash. It wasn’t fair to be annoyed at the girl, even if she had a part in the matchmaking plot that was contributing to his bad mood. She was only helping out her friend, and Lucy was only trying to help her mother. How could a pair of nine-year-olds understand anything about the minefield that was the world of adult dating?

  He finally left the building Sunday evening, forced out by the lack of anything edible in the refrigerator. At the grocery store, he ran – literally – into one of his youngest students.

  “Logan, I didn’t see you there.” Logan Brewer was in his first grade class; a sandy-haired boy with a big grin on his face. He was usually grinning, it was true, but Mike guessed this particular grin was due to the fact that they were in the ice cream aisle. “Where’s your mother?”

  “Mom’s looking at the vegetables.” The boy’s grin disappeared at that word. “She said I could go ahead and look for what ice cream I wanted tonight.” Mike thought that he would have run on ahead regardless of what his mother said if there was ice cream involved; Mike himself had been like that as a kid.

  “What are you thinking?”

  Now Logan lapsed into thought. Clearly this was a momentous decision. “Um – I like chocolate, but I like strawberry, too. And cookie and cream flavor. I don’t know which one to pick.”

  That was a tough choice; Mike could happily eat any of those flavors himself. But maybe this called for thinking outside the box. “You know what, I’ve got a better idea. Look at that one.” He pointed towards a carton of Banana Split. “That’s got chocolate, and vanilla, and bananas and strawberries mixed in, and little bits of fudge. Everything good in one package.”

  He had sold himself as well as his student; he deserved a treat after that whole business with Allison anyway, so he put a container of Banana Split ice cream into his cart, then he waited with Logan until the boy’s mother showed up.

  “Mr. Jensen was helping me pick out the ice cream, Mom.”

  “Guilty as charged, Ms. Rampton-Brewer.”

  She sighed. “Teresa, please. And thanks for keeping an eye on Logan. He does like to run around.”

  Mike waved away her thanks. “It’s no problem. Besides, he helped me make up my mind, too. Now I’m all set for the week.”

  Teresa looked down at his cart. Besides the ice cream he’d just put there, there were three boxes of mac and cheese mix, two cans of baked beans, a frozen pizza and a bag of apples, his sole concession to healthy eating. “Yeah, that looks like what he’d buy if I let him make the whole grocery list,” she said with a laugh. She looked like she was going to say something more, but she must have thought better of it. Probably it would have been a comment on how he ate like a bachelor. He appreciated that she didn’t say it, even though he really couldn’t argue the point.

  “Well, I should get home,” Mike said. “Thanks again, Logan. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”

  It occurred to Mike that Teresa Rampton-Brewer had something in common with Allison Miller. They were both single mothers. In Teresa’s case, he knew from gossip in the teacher’s lounge that there’d been a divorce just a few months ago. But he didn’t know Allison’s story, other than that it must not have been recent. None of his fellow teachers had said anything about where Allison’s husband was, and he didn’t know her well enough yet – and probably never would now – to ask.

  Why couldn’t he stop thinking about her, even after he’d seen with his own eyes that she wasn’t single, wasn’t available, wasn’t someone he would ever have the chance to even go on a first date with?

  ALLISON HATED LEAVING the grocery shopping for Sunday night, but sometimes it was unavoidable. There had been church, of course, and an hour of Sunday School for Lucy, followed by another hour for her Brownies troop. After that, Allison had spent most of the afternoon working on plans for the bookstore’s booth at the festival next weekend. So now it was six o’clock, and the pantry was empty, so she and Lucy were here at the supermarket.

  They weren’t alone. “Mom! I saw Mr. Jensen! He’s over by the ice cream!”

  He hadn’t come by the store yesterday, which surprised her. But when she peeked down the ice cream aisle, she saw why he hadn’t come by. Because he clearly had someone else to spend his time with. There he was, bold as anything, in deep conversation with Teresa Rampton-Brewer. Newly single Teresa Rampton-Brewer, which Allison only knew because Teresa had come into The Last Page a few months ago and spent over a hundred dollars on books about helping your kids cope with a divorce.

  So Mike didn’t have a problem with dating a single mother; he just had a problem with dating her.

  That was absurd, of course. He hadn’t asked her out, or done anything to suggest that he might. Neither had she; if a
nything, she’d actively discouraged him with that note explaining Lucy’s matchmaking scheme.

  And yet, he had those ridiculously blue eyes, and he was smart, and great with kids if Lucy’s feelings towards him were anything to go by, and he had come by the store two days in a row, and she had worn that dress – the one that had been in the closet for years, the one she’d last worn six months before the accident as a matter of fact. And he’d noticed, she was sure of that.

  But she’d been wrong about all of it, because there he was, making conversation with Teresa and her son, instead of with her and Lucy.

  “I see him, honey. But you know what, we don’t need any ice cream this week, and I promised grandma and grandpa we’d Facetime with them at seven o’clock tonight, so let’s just pay for everything and get home.”

  She had promised her parents a nice long Facetime call with her, and far more importantly, Lucy, that was true. But it was also true that her parents could wait a few minutes, if she wanted to stop and talk with Mike.

  She didn’t. What was there to say, anyway?

  Chapter 8

  On Monday, the kids in all Mike’s classes were more restless than usual. He assumed it would be like this all week, with everyone looking forward to the Harvest Festival. Next week would be even worse; it was almost impossible to teach anything during Thanksgiving week.

  One student in his fourth grade class was hanging on his every word, though. And after class, Lucy Miller came up to him rather than following her classmates out of the room.

  “We saw you at the grocery store yesterday,” she told him. “Mom wanted to say hi to you, but we had to get home so we wouldn’t be late to call grandma and grandpa. We do Facetime with them every Sunday night.”

  “That’s sweet,” he said. He would have loved to do Facetime chats with his parents, but they had not evolved past ten-year-old flip phones, despite his repeated offers to buy them something newer. “Where do they live?”