Читать книгу The Debutante's Second Chance - Liz Flaherty - Страница 9

Window Over the Sink, Taft Tribune: Don’t you just hate moving? On Susan’s personal list of favorites, it’s right up there with root canal and cleaning the mold out of the refrigerator. But there’s an upside to it. When you’re actually living in your new home, sleeping in your own bed, and spilling grape juice on your own new carpet, you get a different feeling from any other. You feel at home—there’s nothing any better than that. Sometimes, moving is a second, third, or last chance at a brave, wonderful new life.

Landy helped Micah move into the St. John house. She pushed furniture around after it was delivered, hung towels in the bathrooms and prepared supper for him and his father three nights running. She and Jessie stood on stepladders and measured for window treatments, then put the airy curtains up when they arrived.

On his first night in the house, Micah gave an impromptu dinner party and Eli, Jessie, Landy and Nancy Burnside came. They laughed, told stories, ate pizza and drank beer. When everyone went home, Micah kissed Nancy and Jessie on the cheek. Landy brought up the rear, and he didn’t kiss her at all, just gave her a long look. After that night, he hardly saw her at all.

She waved to him across the produce aisle at the grocery store, but by the time he carried his purchases through the checkout, her aged black Chevy was pulling out of the parking lot. He saw her on the River Walk most evenings at dusk, walking as fast as her hitching gait allowed. She and Eli were in and out of each other’s houses, too. Sometimes one of Eli’s numerous and sundry children accompanied her trek around the thumb, and the lapping river water would transmit the sound of her laughter to Micah as he sat on his back porch.

“I always liked that little girl,” his father said one evening, and Micah looked up to see the setting sun embracing Landy, turning her hair the color of orange marmalade and making his heart ache in a place he hadn’t known was there.

He thought then about asking her to go to dinner with him, maybe crossing the big bridge into Cincinnati to see a play, but later that night he saw Eli slip through the darkness to her house.

It was a good match—Eli and Landy. Micah told himself that, but then he sat silent and morose on the porch until he saw Eli go home.

The “Window Over the Sink” columns arrived in the mail every Friday, and he printed them in Saturday’s Trib. People liked them. “Been there, done that, bought the damn T-shirt,” they told him.

Plans for the newspaper were working out, coming together faster than he’d thought possible. Advertising and subscriptions were both on an upswing. The town clergymen took turns writing a short, inspirational piece every week. Mrs. Burnside did a rambling twenty inches or so on who was doing what. It was corny, she admitted, writing down when so-and-so’s daughter from Ithaca, New York, visited with her two young sons and spoiled cocker spaniel, but people liked reading it and she had a good time compiling it. Micah liked her writing—and her—so well he offered her the receptionist’s job and she took it, managing his newspaper office as efficiently as she had geometry class. Her coffee was good, too; his entire staff had threatened mutiny when, being the first one in the office one Monday morning, he made the coffee.

“This stuff,” said Joe Carter mildly, “gives sludge a bad name.” So Nancy made the coffee.

“Window Over the Sink” was the most popular of the columns, drawing the most reader comment. Everyone had his own idea of who Susan was, ranging from Jenny from the café to Micah’s father—an idea that horrified Ethan. Micah had even looked at the back of one of the newspaper’s checks that had been issued to Susan Billings, to see if her signature looked familiar. But the check was stamped with For Deposit Only and had been cashed without question at a local bank.

Micah considered for a while that the writer might be Landy. In the end, he didn’t think so, because she had no children and her high-school heartthrob was dead. Susan wrote with a lightness of spirit that had left Landy one night on the stairs of her grandmother’s house.

He didn’t really know what Landy did, though. She worked at the realty sometimes, but not often. She substitute-taught everything from kindergarten to senior English and occasionally waited tables during the lunch rush Down at Jenny’s. She volunteered everywhere, clerking for the blood drive, reading aloud at Wee Care Preschool, and delivering Meals on Wheels.

He saw her in church, in the same pew as Jessie Titus Browning with Jessie’s three children lined up between them. Sometimes, Landy wasn’t at the service, and he wondered where she was until one Sunday he went to the basement restroom and found her presiding over the nursery.

When he caught sight of her that Sunday, Micah stood in the door of the big room that housed the nursery, not noticing the cribs, the changing table or the miniature table and chairs. Not even really seeing the six or seven preschoolers milling around the room.

He saw only Landy, standing with a baby on her hip. She swayed gently, crooning into the ear of the sobbing infant. Watching her, he remembered something his father had said once. “Equal rights or no, there’s nothing in the world any prettier than a woman with a baby in her arms.”

Pop had been right.

The woman looked up and saw him then, and smiled. “Good morning,” she said. “Here.”

Before he knew what was happening, she had plunked the weeping baby in his arms and was rummaging in a cupboard. “These kids are starving to death. They know they get treats down here, and Colby—he’s the one you’re holding—has kept me so busy I’m behind.”

“Okay.” Micah looked down at the wizened little face of the baby. “I’ll try not to drop you if you’ll quit crying, how does that sound?”

He stepped carefully between the toys that littered the carpeted floor and sat in a rocking chair, propping Colby up on his shoulder the way he’d seen countless women do. It couldn’t be that hard, could it? The baby smelled good, and Micah breathed deep.

Landy handed out disgusting-looking fruit things to the children and began pouring juice out of a can into paper cups. “Sing to him,” she suggested over her shoulder. “He likes it.”

“You think so, huh,” he grunted, but when Colby’s whimpers became sobs again, he began to sing “Yellow Submarine” in a low voice.

Pretty soon, Colby stopped crying, and by the time Micah had finished “Hey, Jude” and was halfway through “A Hard Day’s Night,” the other children were quiet, too. They sat cross-legged on the floor and listened.

“That’s classical music, my dad says,” commented Lindsey, Eli’s youngest. “My brother Max says it’s just old.”

The snort of laughter from the woman leaning against a changing table made Micah glad he’d come down the stairs, even though his hand was asleep and Colby’s diaper had sprung a definite leak.

“Would you have dinner with me tonight?” he asked, not caring that all the children heard him and Lindsey was probably going to report to her father that his friend Micah was asking Landy for a date.

Landy started, and her cheeks turned pink, but she was smiling again when she answered. “Sure, if you’ll sing ‘Twist and Shout.’ I always liked that.”

“It’s a date, Jess. What in the hell am I doing going on a date?” Clad in white cotton underwear, Landy paced between her closet and dressing table, so distracted that she didn’t even think about her leg.

“Driving yourself crazy, I’d say,” said Jessie, “and it’s about time.”

“He just looked so sweet, holding Colby and singing, I couldn’t say no. But Blake used to be sweet, too, and if I’d said no more often, he’d probably still be alive.”

“Landy—”

“It’s true. Don’t try and tell me it’s not.” Landy reached for the cup of tea that sat cooling on a table.

“Okay, I won’t. But maybe if I’d told somebody the first time he ever hit you—after you smiled at Micah and told him good game—Blake would still be alive. Maybe if his parents hadn’t blinded themselves to his violence, he’d still be alive. Maybe if the steps in your grandma’s house hadn’t been so steep, there wouldn’t have been time for the gun to go off and he’d still be alive.” Jessie’s normally soft brown eyes snapped. “You going to live the rest of your life on maybes?”

Landy got up, going back to her closet. “Maybe,” she said over her shoulder, and laughed when Jessie raised one finger in a universal gesture.

“Wear a dress.” Jessie poured more tea.

“Oh, Jess, I don’t think so.” Landy looked down at the scars left by the surgeries on her leg. “This doesn’t look too pretty.”

Their eyes met in the mirror. “You’re right. You’ve been hiding from who you are ever since Blake died,” said Jessie. “Why stop now?”

Stung, Landy reached far into the closet and withdrew a hanger.

It looked like a basic “little black dress” until the wearer moved and hints of plum shimmered in its depths. Darts and seams made it fit as though it had been tailored for her, even though she’d bought it off the clearance rack at the boutique beside Down at Jenny’s. She’d never worn it, but sometimes she would come into her room and try it on. She’d turn this way and that before the long mirror and imagine herself unscarred and free.

Maybe, just for tonight, that’s what she could be.

She slid her feet into strappy black cloth heels and fastened silver hoops in her ears, a silver chain around her throat that nestled inside the scooped neckline of the dress, and a row of delicate bracelets that slipped up and down her arm and captured light when they moved.

“You look wonderful,” said Jessie, her voice soft.

Landy looked into the mirror again, almost afraid there would be no reflection there because the Landy Wisdom who wore clothes like this no longer existed.

“It’s really me,” she said, swallowing sudden, ridiculous tears.

By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, she knew the heels were a mistake. She already had one off when the doorbell rang, and she limped to answer, standing with her stockinged foot tucked behind her other leg.

“Hi,” she said.

“Wow,” he said.

She tugged her shoe back on. If she regretted it, so be it. “We should go,” she said. “I’ll turn back into a frump when the eleven o’clock news comes on.”

“Never in a million years.” He looked up at where Jessie stood on the stairs. “She have a curfew, Jess?”

She grinned at him. “Before daylight or else park in the garage. We don’t want the neighbors talking.”

“Eli would be parked on the porch waiting.” Landy lifted a black cashmere stole from the newel post. “He runs the neighborhood watch,” she explained to Micah.

“Is that all it is?”

“What else?” she asked, puzzled, but he was opening the door for her. “Later, Jess.”

“I thought we’d go to the Overlook. It’s warm enough to eat on the porch. That okay with you?” Micah seated her in the passenger side of his Blazer—giving her a boost when her skirt was too narrow for her to negotiate the step up—and pulled the seat belt up for her to fasten.

“It’s my favorite place,” she said, when he’d climbed in beside her. “I like your Blazer.”

“My dad wanted me to bring his nice, conservative Buick. He said it was a much better choice for taking a lady out to dinner.”

She adopted a haughty air. “That’s all right. We debutantes are quite tolerant.”

They were seated at a table beside the windows that looked out over the Ohio when Micah said, “I was crazy about you, you know.”

Her eyes widened. “You didn’t even like me.”

“It made me mad that you couldn’t see what a jerk Trent was, and I knew I’d never have enough money or prestige to ask you out, regardless of him.”

“Oh, my goodness, no. You weren’t even good enough to kiss my ring in those days.” Anger and disappointment made her voice wobble, which made her even angrier. “Take a look at me, all right?” She gestured toward her body with open palms. “I have wrinkles and scars and a gimpy leg. Most of my grandmother’s money paid for a lawsuit after I killed my husband. Here’s your debutante, Micah.”

Fury gave flash to her quiet prettiness, and Micah enjoyed her anger even as he did a little internal squirming because he was almost certain it was justified.

“You’re right,” he said. He picked up the wine bottle that sat between them and poured more into both their glasses. “I’m sorry. Coming back to Taft seems to have brought out the angry young pain in the ass in me.”

She laughed, as he’d hoped she would. “I’m sorry for blowing up, too,” she said. “Shall we start over?” She extended her hand. “I’m Landy Wisdom.”

He took her hand and raised it to his lips. “Micah Walker,” he said. “Very happy to make your acquaintance. Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

She beamed at him, her eyes tilting, and he felt his heart do a flip-flop.

Over the main course, he asked, “Do you think Nancy Burnside has designs on my father?”

Landy dropped her fork. “Designs? Mrs. Burnside? I’m not sure, but I think that borders on blasphemy. She’s a geometry teacher. Isn’t that like a nun?”

“She was a geometry teacher,” he corrected. “She drank beer at my housewarming party. That’s not nunlike.”

“She was just being polite,” she scoffed. “Good grief, she’s been widowed forever.”

He took a sip of wine, looking at her over the glass. “I think it would be great, starting over in your sixties.”

“It doesn’t bother you, thinking of your father being with someone besides your mother?”

“No. At least not as much as the idea of him being alone the rest of his life bothers me.”

“Jessie and Eli and you and I are all alone,” she said. “Not everyone’s meant to walk two by two.”

“No, but my father is. There are holes in his life that definitely can’t be filled by a thirty-eight-year-old single son who makes bad coffee.”

There were holes in her life, too. Great empty gaps where self-confidence and two good legs used to be. Not to mention waking in the middle of the night with longing singing through her veins and making her heart pound painfully hard. Though she hadn’t always enjoyed sex with Blake, she missed the kissing, cuddling and full body contact that came before it, the illusion of closeness that came after.

She looked across the table at Micah and acknowledged the attraction she’d felt since first seeing him again in the church basement. She was honest enough to admit that the attraction went back as far as Taft High School, when she’d smiled at Micah even knowing Blake would be angry.

She would like, she knew, to kiss and cuddle with Micah, to sleep in his arms and wake beside him. She’d like to cook his breakfast wearing nothing but his shirt, the way they always did in movies. It would do an admirable job of filling some of the holes of being alone.

But, between the cuddling and breakfast came the act itself, the physical invasion that meant she was being overpowered. Micah would expect that, but she would never be overpowered again.

After dinner, they sauntered through the gardens of the Overlook. Landy’s leg was killing her, and her limp became more pronounced despite her best efforts.

“You’re hurting, aren’t you?” he said suddenly, and seated her on a path-side bench before she knew what was happening. He knelt before her, lifting her foot to his thigh and slipping off her shoe. “Why didn’t you say something? Here.” He handed the shoe to her and straightened, lifting her into his arms and moving toward the parking lot.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, holding herself away from him, hoping to stave off the warmth that emanated from his body along with the fresh scent of soap. “It just does that sometimes.”

“Ms. Wisdom.” He stopped walking and scowled down into her face. Reflections from the muted lights that lined the path danced in his eyes. “I am trying my best to use the manners my mama taught me. The least you can do is go along with it and maybe, just maybe, I won’t drop you.”

“Oh.” She relaxed in spite of herself, allowing the warmth to flow over and through her. “Your mama would be proud,” she said, as they approached the Blazer.

“I hope so.” He opened the car door, propped his foot on the inside running board so that her backside rested on his thigh, lowered his head and kissed her.

Oh, yes, was all she had time to think before her senses took over. This wasn’t passion as she knew it. There was no demand in the heat of his lips. His eyes had been clear and bright before they closed, not fogged by alcohol or some other mind-altering drug. Although his arms tightened as the kiss deepened, no hand pushed against her breast or thrust beneath the skirt of her dress. When his tongue sought entry into her mouth, she denied it, but he didn’t end the kiss in fury or disgust. He raised his head, smiled at her and lowered it again.

This time, when his tongue slid across the seam of her lips, she opened them. The age-old dance was slow and warm and tasted sweetly of wine and coffee and something else. She felt a sensation between her thighs that she hadn’t felt in—oh, so very long. Her breasts were sensitized, the soft cloth that covered them feeling scratchy even though it wasn’t.

“That wasn’t part of what my mama taught me,” he said when the kiss ended.