Husband in Training Page 11

  Jenny sat on the bed and leaned over her daughter. "So. You've heard all about my date. Tell me how the plans are going for yours."

  Polly rolled her eyes. "Mo-ther. It is not a date. It's a party. Mellie and I are going to a party."

  "A boy-girl party, right?"

  "Oh, please. Boy-girl? You make it sound totally grotesque."

  "Oh, my. So sorry. What will you wear?"

  "It's casual, Mom. Jeans. A T-shirt. Really. It's just no big deal." She rolled to her stomach, put her head on her arms and spoke to the bedspread. "Mellie's dad said he'd come and pick me up about lunchtime tomorrow."

  Jenny grinned. "So that you and Amelia can take all afternoon getting ready?"

  Another groan. "Honestly. I just want to go to her house a little early. All right?"

  "Sure. And I'll pick you up about eleven Sunday. How's that?"

  "Mom. We might want to sleep in late, you know?"

  "Eleven o'clock is quite late enough."

  Polly rolled to her back again and wrinkled her nose at Jenny. "Oh, all right. Eleven. If you just have to."

  "I do. I just have to. And now, if you don't mind, I'd like to get a little sleep myself."

  Polly sat up. "You mean like, get lost?"

  "I mean like, good night."

  With more groaning, Polly dragged herself to her feet and trudged out the door.

  The cemetery where Andy was buried had no fence around it. It did have sloping, thick lawns, a narrow creek with a little redwood bridge arching over it and plenty of trees—oaks and maples; weeping willows, too. Most of the trees were beginning to leaf out now. But the grounds still seemed pretty bare, especially at night, with everything dark and deserted-looking.

  Nick parked his car in the lot by the funeral chapel and then walked along a pebbled path, across the redwood bridge to Andy's grave.

  When he got there, he did what he always did.

  First, he read the gravestone—a nice gray-spotted black marble one that he and Jen had bought together. With the moon shining down, Nick could make out the words on it. But it didn't really matter if he could actually see them.

  He knew them by heart. They read, Andrew Jonas Brown, with the dates below the name. At the bottom, in Roman-looking script, it said: Husband Father Son Friend.

  Nick really loved that. Husband, father, son—and friend. Andy had been all those things. And he'd been damn good at all of them, too.

  Nick backed up, until he could sit on the little stone bench a couple of yards away from the foot of the grave. He shot a quick glance around—just to be sure no one else had decided to wander the pebbled paths on Friday night.

  Reassured he was alone, he asked the gravestone, "Well, bud, how you been?"

  He stopped, listened. He often felt that Andy talked to him when he came here. It was corny and maybe a little bit spooky. But what the hell? His conversations with Andy were his own business. Nobody else had to know.

  He came here once a month or so on average. The last time had been only two weeks ago. The night that Sasha had dumped him, the fourth anniversary of Andy's death. He'd come here and he'd talked to Andy. He really had felt as if he'd heard Andy's voice that night.

  Go on over to our house, the voice had seemed to say. Talk to Jenny. She'll help you.

  He'd hedged, "Hey, bud. It's pretty damn late. I shouldn't be bothering your wife at this hour."

  The time doesn't matter, Andy said in a whisper that was probably only the wind. Doesn't matter at all. Go to Jenny.

  So he'd gone.

  The idea that Jenny might help him be a better man had come later, while he was telling her about Sasha and the kind of woman Sasha was.

  Or at least, the kind of woman he had made himself believe that Sasha was.

  The night breeze blew a dead leaf across the grass in front of Nick. He watched the leaf tumble on by. Then he heard rustling. He looked up and saw a bird take flight from a spindly-looking tree a few feet away. The bird swooped down and perched on Andy's gravestone. It folded its wings, tipped its head to the side and looked right at Nick.

  A robin. Nick could clearly see the orange breast. Strange. He didn't think robins came out at night as a rule.

  But there it was. Definitely a robin, peering at Nick through its little beady eye. Finally, without making a sound, it took off. Nick watched until it disappeared from sight. Then he looked at the gravestone again.

  Hey Nick, Andy would say if he were here right now. I'm doing okay. How 'bout you?

  Nick let out a long breath. "Not so good. Not really."

  What's got you down?

  "Well I'm kind of at loose ends, you know? I figured out tonight that I don't love Sasha." Another leaf blew by. Nick reached out, snatched it from the air as the wind lifted it off the walk. "But I guess you already knew that, didn't you?" He let the leaf go. It dropped to the grass, quivered there for a moment, then went still as the breeze died down. "Hell. I probably knew it myself. Just didn't want to see it. I realized I'm ready. For more than a few laughs and good sex. I decided Sasha should be ready, too." He laughed, at the night and the silent gravestone, at his own idiocy. "Right. I know. You don't have to say it. I never was the brightest guy around."

  Nick bent and captured the leaf once more. He crumpled it in his fist and then brushed the dry leaf crumbs from his palm. "I think your wife's stepping out on you."

  The breeze rose up again. Pretty hard to step out on a dead man, Nick.

  Nick flinched. "You know, it gets me down when you call yourself a dead man."

  It's only the truth.

  "Damn it. I know." Nick sat forward, and braced his forearms on his knees. He looked at Andy's gravestone long and hard. And then he really started talking.

  He told Andy all of it—everything that had happened since the last time he'd come here. About how he'd begged Jen to help him out and she had refused. But Polly had stepped in.

  "So I've been getting training. Sensitivity training. Believe it. It's true. I'm getting in touch with my feminine side. Or so your daughter tells me. And I've got a cat. Can you feature that? Me with a damn cat. Polly named her Daisy. You know I would have chosen something else, if I'd had a choice. But those women. They ganged up on me. You know how they are."

  He went on, told all of it. About the love letter that Polly had tried to write for him. About how Jen had kicked him out. About spotting Sasha in the Nine-Seventeen Club. About driving to Jen's and seeing her with that strange guy.

  When he'd told it all, he waited a while.

  But it didn't seem to him that Andy said anything.

  The wind got a little stronger, got a bite to it. Nick turned up the collar of his leather jacket and hunched down a little, trying to get warm.

  But it was no good. It kept getting colder and his dead friend had nothing to say.

  Nick got up, stuck his hands into his pockets and walked back across the redwood bridge to his car.

  At his house, the fuzz ball was waiting just inside the door. She meowed in greeting and rubbed herself around his ankles. He scooped her up and listened to her motor going.

  "Glad to see me, are ya? It's good to know that somebody is."

  He carried her on into the master suite, where he set her down on the floor and headed for a hot shower. When he came back into the bedroom, he found her curled up on the king-size bed. She lifted her head, stared at him and yawned. Nick climbed in under the big comforter. He heard the sound of purring in his dreams.

  When Nick woke up the next morning, he knew he wouldn't last till Monday. He wanted things worked out with Jen. She really was an important friend to him. Probably his best friend, in the last few years since Andy was gone.

  Friends—best friends especially—shouldn't be mad at each other.

  He went to his office for a couple of hours in the morning, to catch up on a few things he'd been putting off. By noon, he was back at his house. He fed the fuzz ball and then he picked up the phone and dialed Jen's number.r />
  She answered on the second ring. "Hello?"

  He gulped, then very quietly put the phone back down.

  A total jerk-wad thing to do. To call someone and hang up when they answered. He didn't know what was wrong with him. He never did things like that.

  But then, he never did things like parking under the shadow of an oak tree down the street from someone's house at ten-thirty at night, either. Parking and just sitting there, in the dark, watching that someone come home from a date—or something that looked a damn lot like a date.

  He picked up the phone again. And put it down.

  No. Calling wouldn't do it. He had to see her face-to-face.

  "Rreow?"

  Daisy was sitting a few feet away, looking at him expectantly.

  "What? You wanna go, too?"

  "Rreow."

  It occurred to him that showing up with the cat in his arms might just make him look more appealing. More sensitive. More the type of guy that Jen would let in her house on a Saturday, even though she'd told him not to show up till Monday.

  "All right, you can come."

  The cat seemed to smile.

  Who said he wasn't sensitive? He talked to cats. He talked to dead people. How the hell could a guy get more sensitive than that?

  The smoke alarm lay on the kitchen table. Jenny stood over it, holding a 9-volt battery in one hand and the connecting wires in the other, wondering why the darn connectors wouldn't fit over the little knobs at the end of the battery, wishing Nick were there to snap the thing together, stick the battery right into its slot and put the whole thing back on the wall with a minimum of effort and thought.

  It wasn't that she couldn't put a new battery in a smoke alarm. It was only that it should have been so simple. She felt like an idiot, because she couldn't even seem to match up the terminals correctly.

  She brought the battery closer, peered at the tiny plus and minus at the bases of the little knobs that were supposed to hook up to the whatchamacallits on the end of the alarm wires. Yes. She had it right. She did.

  But still, the thing wouldn't snap together.

  She set the battery on the table and glared at it.

  And thought of Nick again.

  Wondered what he was doing now. Wondered if he was mad at her, because she'd made such an issue over that letter, if he was thinking bad thoughts about her since she'd told him to stay out of her sight for three days. Wondered, on the other hand, if he'd put her from his mind the minute he walked out her door. If he hadn't given her a thought in the past thirty-nine hours and forty-two minutes.

  She didn't know which alternative bothered her more.

  Actually, this morning she'd really wanted to call him. She'd woken up and looked out the window and seen that it would be a sunny day, that there was a robin on the lawn, which always seemed to her a sign that the day would be good. Right then, she'd thought, This is ridiculous, this whole thing. I've treated Nick badly and I should have apologized right away. I shouldn't be putting it off till Monday. That's a cowardly thing to do.

  She had gone so far as to pick up the phone. But then she'd put it down without dialing.

  Coward. That's what she was.

  In fact, when the phone had rung about twenty minutes ago, her heart had started hammering away, boom-boom-boom, in her chest. She'd been absolutely certain it was going to be Nick.

  But whoever it was had hung up without speaking.

  Her heart had settled down and she'd felt silly and just slightly depressed.

  Jenny picked up the battery again, and scowled at the little knobs on the end of it. Yes, she did feel a little depressed. A little like a failure at life, somehow. A woman who picked fights with her dearest friend. A woman who couldn't even get the doohickeys on a smoke alarm to hook up to the battery watchamacallits.

  The doorbell rang.

  There went her heart again, boom-boom-boom-boom.

  She set down the battery, ran a nervous hand back over her hair and checked to make sure her camp shirt was tucked neatly into her jeans.

  When she pulled open the door, there he was, holding Daisy in his big arms, looking sheepish and sweet—as if he thought he was the one who should apologize for Thursday night.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I was a jerk."

  Over the throbbing of her heart, she insisted, "No. I overreacted. Oh, Nick. I'm sorry, too."

  They stared at each other.

  All she could think was how good it was to see him.

  And all Nick could think was that if he didn't have the fuzz ball purring away in his arms, he could reach for her. He could pull her close and—

  By God. He wanted to kiss her.

  And not just a good-friends peck on the cheek.

  Oh, no. He wanted to put his mouth right on her mouth. To run his tongue along the little seam where her lips met, until she gave in and opened for him.

  He wanted to feel her sigh into his mouth.

  He wanted…

  Jen.

  That was it. He wanted Jen.

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  « ^ »

  Like a bright light bursting on in a darkened room, the realization hit him.

  He wanted Jen. He'd wanted Jen for a while now. And not let himself see it. He'd wanted her since … before he'd met Sasha.

  And that had been the whole point of Sasha, hadn't it, really?

  To distract him from having to admit to himself that he wanted Jen.

  Because Jen was Andy's girl. And no guy worth anything made a move on his best friend's wife.

  I'm dead, Nick. Deal with it, that's what Andy would say.

  And Nick realized he could deal with it. He wanted to deal with it, was ready to deal with it. But Jen. Could she?

  Jen reached out and petted Daisy. In the process, the side of her hand brushed his chest. He felt the light touch all through him. The little cat purred even louder.

  "I suppose you want to come in," she said, kind of playfully.

  He could do playful. He teased back, "That was pretty much my goal, here. You wouldn't want to be the kind of woman who'd keep a man from reaching his goal, would you?"

  "No, of course not. I would never want that." She was smiling, her mouth all soft and her eyes kind of wide and tender-looking. Her breathing seemed a little shallow, a little fast.

  Like she was more than just glad to see him.

  Like finding him on her doorstep had made her day.

  "Well, come on in, then," she said at last. She stepped out of the way and he went through the door, then followed behind her into the kitchen. He leaned against the counter there, petting the purring kitten, as she disappeared into the garage, returning a moment later with the litter box and the two cat bowls—one for water and one for food.

  "You went off without these the other night," she said, as she put the cat box in the corner.

  "Yeah, I didn't remember them till I was halfway to my house. Had to find a pet store. It wasn't easy, that time of night."

  She picked up one of the bowls and filled it with water, sending him another guilty glance in the process. "Sorry." She set the water bowl on the floor and rose to her feet again.

  "You're forgiven." He put Daisy down.

  The cat trotted right over and began lapping up a drink of water. Jen stood above her, with her arms wrapped around herself, watching the kitten. Since she wasn't looking his way, Nick let himself stare at her, at the way her pale hair fell along her soft cheek. At the little half smile on her pretty mouth.

  He jerked his eyes away the moment she looked up at him. "Uh, where's Polly?" he asked.

  "Amelia's father picked her up about a half an hour ago."

  He dared to look at her again. She was smoothing her hair, guiding it away from her cheek and behind an ear.

  "That's right," he said, sounding offhand and casual, though he felt anything but. "Didn't you tell me she was staying overnight?"

  Jenny laughed. "That's right. And there's the
party. Did I mention the party?"

  "I think so."

  "Polly's first boy-girl party. Can you believe it?"

  Polly's gone for the day, he kept thinking. Except for the fuzz ball, Jen and I are alone.

  In spite of the way his blood was suddenly roaring through his veins, he managed to keep up the chitchat. "I'd swear I saw her in diapers only yesterday."

  Jen nodded and her eyes went tender. "You're right. She was a baby just yesterday. I'm sure of it, too."

  They looked at each other, remembering. Or at least, Jen was probably remembering. Nick had other concerns: like how to stretch out his visit.

  Then Jen said, "Listen. Have you had lunch? I was just about to make a sandwich."

  "Lunch. Yeah. Sounds great." And good for an hour, at the very least.

  She turned to the sink, flipped the faucet on and started washing her hands.

  He suggested, "You got any of that smoked turkey?"

  "—with lettuce and tomatoes."

  He grinned. "And don't forget the ketchup."

  She pretended to shudder. "Ugh. Ketchup." She always teased him about the ketchup.

  And he always said, "Hey. I love ketchup. Lay it on good and thick."

  She dried her hands, went to the fridge and pulled it open. Then she just stood there, staring at the inside of the refrigerator door, where three shelves held jars of pickles and mustard and green olives and jam—as well as a big plastic bottle full of the ketchup he loved.

  "Andrew loved mayonnaise," she said, out of nowhere. She looked so sad, standing there, looking at all those bottles and jars. Sad and lost.

  Nick experienced four distinct urges at once: to reach out, gather her close and offer her comfort. To grab her and shake her and shout, Andy's dead! To turn around and walk out of there and never come back. And to turn around and walk out of there and come back on Monday—when Polly would be there and Jen would be safe from the things he was probably going to try to do to her today.

  He gratified none of those urges, only said gently, "Yeah, he did. He was nuts for the stuff."

  "I don't keep mayonnaise in my house anymore." She said that defiantly, lifting her chin at him.