Husband in Training Page 16

  She swallowed. "Yes. I know."

  "So are you ever gonna call me, Jen?"

  She started to answer, though she had no idea what words would come out. He stopped them—whatever they were—with a finger to her lips. "Tell you what. Don't call me. Not as a friend, okay?" He bent close, brushed a kiss across her mouth. Her body yearned toward him of its own accord. But he took her by the shoulders, refused to let her cling. "Don't call me at all. Not unless you're calling as a woman to a man."

  * * *

  Chapter 16

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  Jenny plodded grimly through the rest of that Sunday. Polly stayed in her room. Jenny constantly resisted the urge to go to her. She hated to admit it, but Nick had been right: Polly misbehaved too often and Jenny allowed her to get away with it. The time had finally come for Jenny to step back a little, to allow her daughter to suffer the consequences of her actions without moving right in to work things out. A day in her room was not going to kill Polly. And she just might do a little thinking about the dangerous choice she'd made at that party.

  Yes, letting her stew a while was the best thing.

  Unfortunately the process drove Jenny crazy.

  She took two more aspirin, which finally banished her headache, and she tried to keep busy. She worked outside in the yard for a while, hacking at the ivy that constantly threatened to take over everything—and trying not to get upset about the deep gouges on the front lawn. They would grow over, she told herself. And maybe, next week, she'd get a few bags of soil and fill them in a little. New grass would grow over the gaps. By summer, no one would even know they'd been there. Of course, the mulberry tree would always bear the scars of its encounter with the back of her car.

  Which reminded her. She had to deal with her car tomorrow.

  So many things to deal with. The ivy, the lawn. Her car. Polly. The loss of Nick…

  But better not to dwell on that right now.

  It was after two when she went back inside. Polly's door, at the end of the hall, remained shut. Jenny forced herself not to go near it. She went into her own room and took a long, hot shower.

  As she soaped and rinsed her body, unbidden memories rose up—of Nick's hands caressing her, of the two of them, pressed so close together on his big bed.

  Hot sex.

  Well, she had wondered what it would be like with Nick. Now she knew.

  And she feared she would never be able to forget.

  Baking, she decided when her shower was done. Time to bake a few brownies. She whipped up two batches, much more than she and Polly would ever eat. But the delicious smell they made filled the house. Jenny loved that smell. It soothed her. Besides, she could take some to share at school. She'd leave them on the big table in the teachers' lounge first thing tomorrow morning and they would be gone by noon.

  As she worked, she kept expecting to hear Polly's bedroom door slam. But the sound never came.

  A physical ache, Jenny thought. That was what it felt like—her longing to make things right with her child. But she knew she couldn't make things right on her own. She had to have help. From Polly—who still refused to come out of her room. Polly, who should be stomping up and down the hall, banging doors, leaving her books and her papers strewn all over the table, so that Jenny would have to remind her to put them away…

  It occurred to Jenny as she cut up the brownies and arranged them on twin platters, as she carefully covered them with plastic wrap, that she'd never felt so lonely since those first few months after Andrew had died.

  In an effort to allay that loneliness, she called her mother and told her what had happened with Polly, carefully skirting the question of where she herself had been when the Gordons called. Kirsten listened and sympathized and reminded her that kids did make mistakes. Kirsten said that Jenny was wise, to let Polly alone for a while, to let her ponder the seriousness of what she had done.

  Jenny felt a little better when she hung up the phone.

  But not that much better.

  She cooked a nice dinner: pork chops in mushroom sauce, with rice and salad and green beans. She ate her share alone, then put the rest in the fridge, thinking that if Polly came out, she could heat it up for her.

  But Polly didn't come out.

  Bedtime brought a sigh of relief. At least the bleak day was over. But then Jenny couldn't sleep.

  At midnight, she pulled on her robe and went out to the kitchen, where she made cocoa the old-fashioned way, on the stove, in the double-boiler. She carried a mug of it into the spare room and sat down at her desk. She had a few papers she could correct, some lesson plans to go over.

  But she didn't get them out. Instead she just sat there, with the chocolate-scented steam drifting up from her cup, wondering how her life could have become such a total disaster in the space of twenty-four hours.

  "Mom. You made cocoa."

  The small, sheepish voice came from the doorway behind her.

  Jenny sat very still as tears filled her eyes. Cocoa had done it, she thought, at the same time admitting that she'd made the hot chocolate as something of a lure, just like the brownies earlier, a message in scent to her child: Here's chocolate. I love you. Jenny blinked, swallowed the tears, thinking that for once, Polly had actually managed to leave her room without slamming the door.

  She turned to face her daughter, who had puffy eyes and rumpled hair and was still wearing her jeans and her wrinkled T-shirt.

  "Could I have a cup?"

  "Yes, you could."

  Polly shifted from one stocking foot to the other. "Oh, Mom…"

  Jenny stood and held out her arms. Eighty-five pounds of contrite adolescent came flying at her. Polly landed, hard, against her chest.

  "Oh, Mom. Mom…" Polly pressed herself close and burst into sobs. "I'm just a nothing. I know it. What I did was wrong. I know it was wrong. But … I didn't know what else to do. I guess I should have called Mellie's parents, or something. But that seemed so disloyal. So I … got in the car with them…"

  Jenny stroked Polly's tangled brown hair. "Shh. Don't cry, now. You are not a nothing and you don't have to cry—"

  "But I am. I am. The kids at school call me the Beanpole With a Brain. And Brace Face. And Jaws—"

  "Oh, honey—"

  "I'm just ugly, Mom. I know it. Sometimes I think … I'm getting breasts. But I'm not. I'm just kidding myself. I'm skinny and I'm ugly and no boy is ever going to like me—"

  "That's not true—"

  "It is—"

  "Oh, honey—"

  Polly pulled back and swiped at her red, runny nose. "Oh, Mom. I've been thinking. Just sitting there, all day and all night in my room, thinking. That I've been trying to help Mellie and Nick because I can't help myself. Because I'm just hopeless. And being hopeless makes me mean. So I'm a mean, ugly, brainy, skinny person—with braces. That's what I am."

  Jenny put her hands on Polly's thin shoulders. She looked into those streaming green eyes and wanted to say a hundred things at once: I was skinny, too, when I was your age. And I got breasts, eventually. You will, too. Wait and see. And you are not mean. And I will kill every child who ever said a cruel word to you.

  But Jenny said none of those things. She thought of her own mother, a few nights ago. Sitting there with her decaf, listening. Not saying all the true things she could have said that Jenny already knew. Just showing Jenny her love with attention, with understanding. With the touch of her hand across the tabletop.

  Polly sniffled and swiped at her nose again.

  Jenny went to her desk and got a tissue from the box there. She gave it to Polly.

  "Thanks." Polly blew her nose and dabbed at her eyes.

  "Let's get you some cocoa."

  "Okay."

  They sat at the dining-room table together, their cups of hot chocolate in front of them. Polly said she did know that her braces would come off in a year or so. That she would eventually grow breasts.

  "But it's not so easy, waiting, you know? Not
so easy looking in the mirror every day and seeing a skinny geek with a mouthful of metal."

  Jenny just could not let that one pass. "You are not a geek."

  "Mom. Geek is just another word for smart person. I am a very smart person. So, the fact is, I am a geek. I will always be a geek—barring brain damage. Even when I get rid of all the metal, even if I end up a gorgeous 36C. That's my dream, actually. To be gorgeous someday. To be a gorgeous geek and a poet."

  She agreed that she'd stay away from Amelia for a while. "And I'll stop trying to help people with their love lives. I guess I didn't do such a hot job with that, anyway. It turned out I was helping Mellie get together with a delinquent. And look at Nick. Is he back together with Sasha? Not. He won't even call her. I mean, what's the point of being in love with someone, when you won't even try to get them to talk to you?"

  Jenny sipped her cocoa, thinking that she was going to have to say something to Polly, about Nick. She wouldn't go into particulars, of course, but she did need to explain the situation in a general way.

  Not right now, though. The whole thing was just too fresh right now.

  Polly had come to more conclusions, during the long hours in her room. "And I'm willing to be grounded. I deserve to be grounded, I know that. I do. For … a month?"

  "A month will be acceptable."

  That brought a deep sigh. "Okay. But can I still do my tutoring on Thursdays? Those kids really need my help, you know?"

  "You may do your tutoring."

  "Thanks. And I also think Nick was right in the terrible things he said to me. I mean, whatever you were doing last night that made it so you weren't here when the Gordons called, that's your business. Because, you know, I think it would be good for you, if you got a life."

  "Honey," Jenny said gently. "I do have a life."

  "I know. But a love life. You're not that old, Mom. And you're pretty good-looking."

  "Why, thank you."

  "Don't thank me. It gives me hope, is what it does. Because you're my mother. I've got your genes. Maybe someday, I'll be good-looking, too."

  "You will. I promise you."

  Polly scrunched up her nose. "That's the kind of promise only a person's mother would make."

  "Believe it."

  "I'm trying. But everybody says I resemble Dad more than you. And he wouldn't have looked so gorgeous, as a girl."

  "He was a very handsome man, your father."

  "Yeah, I know. But I don't want to be handsome."

  "You will be gorgeous."

  "Stop it, Mom. Next you'll be telling me I'm already gorgeous. And then I won't be able to believe anything you say." Polly grinned then, showing metal—a very good sign.

  In the morning, both Jenny and Polly woke late. They rushed around the house, Polly hurrying to make the bus, Jenny packing lunches and gulping down cold cereal between calls to a fellow teacher, who would give her ride, and to Triple-A, which would send a tow truck for her damaged car, and to her mechanic, who promised to bring over a rental car and leave it in the driveway sometime that afternoon.

  When everything was arranged, Jenny went out and managed to get the car out onto the curb, where the tow truck driver would have no difficulty finding it. She put the key under the back seat mat, as she'd told the people at Triple-A she would do.

  When she came back in, Polly demanded, "What did you do to the car, Mom? Really?"

  And Jenny explained about the red wagon in the driveway and how she'd swerved to avoid it and ended up barreling across the lawn, into the mulberry tree.

  "Because you were upset, about me, huh?" Polly looked sweetly remorseful.

  Jenny thought, And eaten up with guilt because I wasn't here the night before. But all she said was, "I should have been more careful."

  Polly gave her a big hug, then grabbed her pack and her sack lunch and ran out to catch the bus, slamming the door good and hard behind her.

  At school that day, Jenny came into the teachers' lounge at lunchtime and found Roger eating the last of the brownies she had set on the table in the morning. He jumped when he saw her, as if she'd caught him stealing. But then he composed himself. "These are great, Jenny."

  "Thanks." She smiled at him, thinking for about the hundredth time what a nice man he was, and admitting to herself that she wouldn't be going out with him again.

  Roger started backing away from her. "Uh, gotta go. Gotta get back to my classroom, you know?"

  She watched him go out the door, wondering vaguely if he was all right, but mostly thinking of Nick, of how she didn't want to go out with anyone except Nick. And going out with Nick was too dangerous, because it made her want to take certain chances she hadn't taken since she'd given her heart to Andrew Brown, at the age of sixteen. Certain chances she knew both her mother and her daughter believed she ought to take again. Chances she herself understood she probably should take again.

  But she wouldn't. She just couldn't.

  And maybe, in the end, she could have Nick's friendship back. She couldn't help hoping that they'd both get over this whole thing. They'd put all this craziness behind them and go back to the way things used to be.

  Yes, that was sure to happen. No matter what Nick had said on Sunday, he would get over her eventually. And she would get over him. All they needed was a little time…

  On Wednesday night, during dinner, Polly asked, "Mom, do you think Nick's still mad at me?"

  Jenny's pulse started pounding at the mention of Nick's name. She carefully swallowed before protesting, "Oh, no. Honey, I'm sure he's not."

  "Well, has he called? Has he asked about me?"

  "Uh, no. He hasn't called."

  Polly speared a bite of roast chicken, brought it to her mouth, then set her fork down on her plate. "Well, Mom. I know I'm not supposed to help him out anymore with his love life, so I understand why he didn't show up Monday. But it's strange he hasn't even called. I mean, we've been friends since I was born. The only thing I can figure out is that he must be mad at me."

  This is the time, Jenny thought miserably. I'm going to have to tell her something about Nick. But all she said was, "No. Really. I'm sure he's not mad at you."

  "Well then, even though I'm not supposed to use the phone—could I, this one time, to call him?"

  "Oh, no, don't do that!" The words just popped out of her mouth, anxious and frantic and not at all what she should have said.

  Polly frowned. "Mom. This is a special situation. You know it is."

  Jenny set her own fork down. What was the matter with her? Polly had her own relationship with Nick. A very important, very special relationship. The last thing Jenny wanted was to come between them.

  "Mom?" Polly tried again, "Come on."

  Jenny closed her eyes, took in a breath and let it out in a quick burst as she faced her daughter once more. "I'm sorry I said that. Of course you should call him."

  "Mom." Polly looked at her suspiciously. "What is going on?"

  Jenny blew out another gusty breath. "Oh, Lord."

  Polly shoved her plate aside and leaned both elbows on the table. "You can tell me. I can handle it—whatever it is."

  "Well, honey…" She lost her nerve. But Polly was looking at her, worry pinching her face. Jenny made herself say it. "Nick has decided that he needs a little time away from me."

  Polly blinked. "From you?"

  "Yes."

  "But why? What did you do to him?"

  "Um, well." Jenny pushed her own plate away. "That's a good question."

  "So answer it."

  "I'm trying."

  They sat in silence for a moment, each staring at her unfinished meal. Jenny found she admired her daughter's patience. It was a quality she'd never seen Polly exhibit before. Finally she said, "You see, Polly. Nick wants—well, he wants more than friendship from me."

  Polly's mouth dropped open. The sight would have been comical if Jenny had been in a laughing mood. "Wait a minute. You mean he wants to be your boyfriend?"

  "
Uh, yes. That's exactly what I mean."

  "But what about Sasha?"

  "Sasha didn't turn out to be as important as Nick thought she was."

  Polly gasped, then. "Wait a minute. You were with Nick, weren't you? Last Saturday night?"

  The best Jenny could do right then was nod.

  Polly's eyes looked too big for her face. "Well. Did you … have a good time?"

  "I … yes. I had a good time." A total understatement, but appropriate, Jenny thought, given the circumstances. She certainly had no intention of telling her thirteen-year-old daughter the steamy details of her torrid night with Nick.

  Polly was shaking her head. "Poor Nick."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Well, Mom. We all know how you are."

  "We do?"

  Polly nodded. "You're afraid. Because we lost Dad. You won't get past the friend thing."

  "The friend thing."

  "Mom. You know what I'm talking about."

  Jenny did. Too well. With some shame, she found herself wishing her daughter wasn't quite so bright.

  "You've broken Nick's heart, haven't you?"

  Jenny looked at her half-eaten dinner, since she didn't have the nerve to face Polly's accusing eyes. "I wouldn't put it that strongly."

  "That's why he hasn't called. He's staying away from you, because you won't love him back."

  Jenny did look up then. "Wait a minute. I did not say that word. Love was not mentioned."

  "Love doesn't have to be mentioned, Mother."

  "Polly. I don't like your tone."

  Polly pushed back her chair and stood. "I'm calling him."

  The word no rose to Jenny's lips again. She held it back and looked pointedly up at her daughter. "Don't try any more matchmaking. I warn you."

  Polly held her head high. "You don't have to worry. I've learned my lesson about that."

  "I sincerely hope so."

  "But I won't stop being Nick's friend just because you're afraid to love him."

  Jenny spoke more gently then. "Of course you won't."