Трейси Вульф – A Marriage-Minded Man / From Friend to Father: A Marriage-Minded Man / From Friend to Father (страница 9)
At the sound of the chair opposite dragging across the tiled floor, she peered over at Flo, whose heavy-handed makeup was not holding up well in the daylight. Something about the glittery eyeshadow.
“Okay,” Flo said, “I was gonna keep my mouth shut—don’ you roll your eyes at me, young lady—but firs’ you get a call from Eli Garrett, an’ now you come out here dressed like Miss Hot Shot Real Estate Lady when you haven’t been to work in a month—”
“The two are not related.” She didn’t think.
“Maybe not. But somethin’ is going on with you. An’ I’m not leaving this house until I find out what. You can start by telling me where you really were las’ night.”
Tess looked around. “Where’re the kids?”
“Out back, playing. Micky’s keeping an eye on the baby. An’ don’ change the subject.”
“Hard to do when I don’t even know what the subject is.”
Leaning back, Flo crossed her arms across her breasts, such as they were. “I got one word for you…
“What makes you think—?” Her aunt laughed. “Glad you think this is funny.” Suddenly starving, Tess got up to pour herself a cup of coffee before wrenching open a large metal tin on the counter filled with Little Debbie treats. She tried to remember how long ago she’d bought the chocolate-coated donuts. Couldn’t. From outside, she heard Julia’s belly laugh; ripping the cellophane off the donuts, she walked to the window over the sink, then twitched back the curtain. Her babies were playing tag, an obviously still bummed Miguel letting Julia tackle him to the ground.
An entire stale, tasteless donut stuffed in her mouth, Tess’s eyes smarted as she decided she was oddly grateful that the kids were as young as they were, that maybe their parents’ divorce wouldn’t scar them for life. But you know, considering the long stretches when they didn’t see Enrique before, how much could his absence—his deliberate uninvolve-ment—affect them now?
Guilt, justifier of all things.
Three of the four donuts devoured, she grabbed her coffee and returned to the table, realigning the crooked salt and pepper shakers before cramming in the last doughnut. “Do I act like I think I’m perfect?” she asked with a full mouth.
“Where did that come from?”
“Something Thea said.”
Underneath a head of stiff, black curls, Flo’s brow crinkled. “I don’ know about perfect, but…when you were real little, you’d go outside and play, bring half the dirt back inside with you. Pull out all your toys an’ leave them all over creation. You know, like a normal kid?” Her mouth thinned. “Then your father walked out, an’ everything changed. Suddenly, you couldn’t stand messes. Wouldn’t let yourself get dirty, never left a toy out of place. Your mother told me how you’d come home from school an’ go straight to your room to make sure everything was exactly the way you left it. How you’d jump up from the dinner table to be the first to clear the dishes.”
“So I became more orderly. What’s wrong with that?”
Her aunt shrugged. “Nothing. On the surface. Only it was like after your father left, a switch flipped inside your brain, you know? An’ suddenly it became all about control. About you having control over your universe. An’ every time something threatened that control…” Her aunt shrugged again. “You got worse.”
Tess stood to rinse out her coffee mug, setting it in exactly the same spot in the drainer she did every morning. Oh, God. But…Frowning, she looked at her aunt over her shoulder. “There was more to it, though, wasn’t there? It was about me trying to please Mama.”
Flo raised her coffee cup to her in salute.
Drying her hands on a dish towel, Tess returned to the table, sinking back into her chair with a sigh. “And after Ricky went into the service…all those months of feeling like my heart was in my throat…” Her eyes watered. “It was the only way I could keep from losing my mind.”
“I know,
Tess’s eyes shot to her aunt’s. “What makes you say that?”
“When was the last time we actually
Tess’s mouth flattened. “I’m not exactly proud of myself.”
“One lapse don’ make you a bad person, Tess.” Her lipsticked mouth quirked up. “An’ not to put too fine a point on it…but if you ask me, you were way overdue.” At Tess’s slightly hysterical laugh, Flo added, “You’re a young woman still. An’ a divorce isn’t a death sentence.”
“It’s only been a year—”
“You don’ really expect me to believe that, do you?”
Tess bounced up out of her chair again and returned to the sink, her hand knotting atop the cold porcelain as she watched the kids through the window. It was true, she rarely talked about her feelings, to her aunt or anybody. But after last night…“Having a man around…it’s just too confusing, trying to figure out who I’m supposed to be. And anyway, then they leave, or change their mind—or change, period—and then what?”
Flo came up to pull Tess close, as always the mother Tess’s own mother had never really been. “You know, baby doll, you don’ have to be strong all the time.”
“What choice do I have?” she said, gesturing lamely toward the window, her babies. “It’s not like their dad’s exactly picking up the slack.”
“What about Eli?”
Tess frowned into her aunt’s concerned eyes. “What about him?”
“Does he like kids?”
“Oh, geez,” Tess said on an airless laugh. “Eli as…as…omigod, I can’t even find the words. No, no, no…” Her hands lifted, she walked back to the coffeemaker and poured herself another cup. “
“Why not?”
“You’re not serious? Flo, you’ve heard the stories, same as I have—”
“So maybe you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”
The mug almost to her mouth, Tess lowered it, nonplussed. This from the Gossip Queen of Tierra Rosa. “Yeah, well,” Tess said, “not only do I have firsthand experience—”
“Sixteen doesn’t count.”
“—but corroborative evidence abounds,” she continued, ignoring her aunt, “to back up my theory.” Never mind his parting words—that he had changed—gonging in her head. “Eli and me…ain’t gonna happen. End of discussion.”
After a moment, her aunt returned to the table to retrieve her own mug. “So. You going into work?”
“No,” Tess sighed out. “Not sure I’m ready yet. Besides, it
“So?” Flo said, clicking back to the sink to rinse it out. “Give your brain something to do besides chew the past to bits. Find an outlet for all that excess energy. Not unless you wanna have another one of those
“I won’t—”
“I’m off until Monday, I’ll watch the kids since I know Carmen doesn’t sit for you on the weekends—”
“I’m not going into work today! It was a mistake, okay?”
“Tell that to the boots and skirt,” her aunt said, nodding at Tess’s outfit, and Tess thought,
“I know you needed some downtime after…after you signed the papers,” Flo said gently. “But you gotta be goin’ nuts by now, not working. So go into the office for a couple hours. Jus’ to take your mind off…everything.”
She could fight her, she supposed. Say,
“You sure Winnie and Aidan don’t need you?”
“I’m the housekeeper, not their slave. An’ he’s busy workin’ on one of those big paintings for that show in New York, anyway. He won’t even miss me. So
So Tess hugged her aunt, grabbed a leather jacket from the coat closet and her purse from the counter, kissed her children—who’d tumbled back into the house, panting and looking for juice—bye-bye and told them she’d see them in a little while, to be good for Auntie Flo. Julia just waved and resumed her juice quest—little twerp—but Miguel gave her a look of such longing it nearly ripped her heart out.
“I’ll be back soon,” she said, leaning over to cup his cheek. “We’ll make cookies, okay?”
“’Kay,” he said, smiling a little.
And that, Tess mused as she eased herself behind the wheel of her slightly dented and dinged white SUV, just cried out for a serious caffeine and sugar injection, one Flo’s wussy coffee and a pack of stale Little Debbies couldn’t even begin to address.
Fortunately, Tess knew just where to get her fix.
Chapter Four
She jerked the SUV into Ortega’s tiny parking lot, realizing it’d been months since she and her girlfriends—Thea, her stepdaughter Rachel and relative newcomer Winnie Black, married to Flo’s landscape-artist employer—had gotten together for their Wednesday afternoon gabfests, scarfing down churros and nachos or whatever Evangelista had left over after the lunch rush. After Tess’s divorce, they’d tried to hold it together, but a bumper crop of new babies put paid to that idea. Not until Tess set foot inside the chile-, grease-and coffee-scented restaurant, though, did she realize how much her sanity had depended on those get-togethers. Maybe if they’d kept them going, last night wouldn’t’ve happened—