A Chance of a Lifetime (13 page)

“We should call the police,” he said before the magic invitation could come out of someone's mouth. They all turned to face him, Diez's expression dark and belligerent. The only one Calvin expected any sort of support from was Bennie; after all, she worked in the real world; she knew a person couldn't just take kids in off the street and into his home, couldn't take them at their word.

But she wasn't leaning his way at all. She sat, legs crossed, her attention shifting from one adult to the other, finally resting on Mama. The old lady smiled and nodded. For whatever reason, that famous instinct of hers had deemed the kid worthy—and trustworthy—and Bennie and the others would follow her lead.

Are you crazy?
he wanted to ask, but he knew better. Nine or twenty-nine—even when he was forty-nine, for that matter—that was just something he couldn't get away with saying to his parents.

Damn it, he'd chosen to stay in quarters rather than move back into his parents' house for a lot of reasons, but none of them mattered now. As long as his parents' misguided gratitude welcomed a punk stranger into their home, Calvin would be staying there, too.

B
enita was saying her good-byes so she could go home and study when Calvin came in from the kitchen, stalked to the sofa, and stuck out his hand. “Keys,” he said flatly.

“Oh, son, you're not leaving, are you?” Elizabeth asked as Diez dug in his jeans pocket. Concern softened her voice and her eyes.

“I'm just going to pick up some stuff from home. I'll be back.”

He wasn't happy about the situation, and Bennie couldn't totally blame him. But Mama could learn more about a person in less time than anyone else Bennie knew, and that little nod of hers had meant she trusted Diez. If Mama had invited him into
their
house, Bennie would have trusted him, too…but she still would have kept an eye on him.

Calvin followed her out the door, and together they descended the stairs. “Interesting kid,” she remarked. “How'd you meet him again?”

His answer was a scowl. Okay, still not talking about that. “That stuff you're picking up from home wouldn't happen to be a uniform, boots, whatever you need to spend the night?”

“You think I'd leave them alone with him?”

“No.” She grinned. “Wow, it'll be like having the kid brother you never wanted.”

His grunt wasn't amused.

As they approached the two cars at the end of the driveway, she said, “I can drive you over to the fort if you want. You know, if maybe you didn't want anyone to see you in that heap. I'm surprised that when you park it, someone doesn't come along and haul it off for junk. It's so rusted, though, it probably doesn't even have any scrap metal value.”

He dragged his fingers over his head. “I think you have car envy. You're driving a nothing-special little kid car like a million other people in this country, while my vehicle is unique.”

“That's one way of putting it,” she said with a choking laugh. “The others that come to mind are junk heap, POS Ford, hoopty-mobile, rattletrap, and my favorite, possible health hazard. You up on your tetanus shots?”

They stopped between the cars, and Bennie hesitantly reached out. The tips of her fingers brushed his forearm just for an instant before he turned toward his car. “Give the kid the benefit of the doubt, Calvin,” she said, the brush-off so sudden that her hand just hung there in midair before she had the sense to lower it again, skin tingling. “He did return your belongings. Maybe he just wanted to do the right thing. Maybe you made that big of an impression on him. But the boy can obviously use some friends.”

He gave her a dry look, as if the last thing in the world he wanted was a new friend. But the look reminded her that Diez wasn't the only one who could use friends.

“I guess I'll see you later,” she said, climbing into her car. Elizabeth had invited her and Mama for supper, too, so by six o'clock she would be back over here.

He substituted a scowl for a good-bye and didn't seem to notice her wave as she drove off. It seemed silly, on a nice day like this, to drive the short distance between their houses, but she was in her prettiest heels, and no matter how many women lived their lives in killer heels, she accepted that, for her, at least, heels were
not
made for walking.

After changing into jeans and a sweater, she spread out on the couch with her tablet, her laptop, her textbook, and a bottle of water. She actually made a stab at studying, too, but the house was so quiet, and she had questions. Never a good combination.

She had been living here with Mama about a week when she began questioning Mama about the school she would go to, the kids in the neighborhood, why her mother had left, why her father had to die, and about a dozen other subjects. Mama had laughed and said,
Girl, you are curious.

Mom said nosy,
Bennie had responded,
and she said I get it from you.

Better than anything you got from her,
Mama had murmured under her breath. It was the only time she'd ever said anything against Bennie's mother.

What Bennie had gotten from Lilly Pickering was flecks of gold in her brown eyes, curls that had driven her to spend countless hours with flatirons, a great laugh, and a small empty place in her heart that could stay silent and ignored for months and then suddenly throb.
Why why why? She had a right to leave Daddy if she didn't love him anymore, but why did she leave me? I wasn't part of their arguments; I wasn't the one who made her scream and throw things and stomp out in anger. She was my mother. She was supposed to love me more than life itself, and instead she walked away and never looked back.

Bennie rubbed her fingertips lightly over her chest as if it might soothe her heart. The inescapable conclusion was that Lilly had never loved Bennie the way a mother should have. Thank God Bennie had had Daddy and, when he was gone, Mama.

Who did Diez Cooper have?

Unable to focus even a few minutes on microbiology, finally she laid the material aside, snagged a photo album from the bottom shelf of the coffee table in front of her, and lifted it onto her lap. The book was one of two dozen Mama had filled with snapshots meticulously dated and identified in her spidery writing before filing in chronological order. She was in the process of scanning them into the computer, typing the information, and uploading it all to the cloud, so the whole family could view them. Bennie couldn't imagine looking at them any other way than in the musty albums.

This album covered the year Bennie was nine. The year her father died, when she'd come to live in Tallgrass. She had cried a lot that first year, but truthfully most of her memories were good ones, thanks to the boys who'd taken her into their tight-knit friendship and given her a place to belong. To be happy.

She turned the pages slowly, admiring pictures of Montie Pickering, tall and always grinning. It had broken his heart when Lilly left—as much for Bennie's sake as his own—but he'd met a new woman just months before the accident that killed him. He'd been serious about her, because for the first time with all his dates, he'd made plans for Bennie to meet her. Her name was Shel, and Bennie's first meeting with her had taken place in the ER, where they'd cried over his body in each other's arms. Shel had stayed with her until Uncle Roland made the drive to Norman, until Mama and Aunt Cheryl had come.

Roland and Cheryl had emptied out the apartment, arranged the transfer of Montie's body to Tallgrass for burial, had taken care of all the details involved in leaving a place for good. Mama had taken care of Bennie. Both her aunt and her uncle had offered to take Bennie into their homes, but Mama had refused them. Her heart was breaking; her grandbaby's heart was breaking; and by the grace of God, they would break and then heal together.

Bennie swiped a tear from her eye and smiled at the photo of her and Mama, Cheryl and Roland and his wife, Zena, then at the one opposite: J'Myel and Calvin. If she hadn't come to Tallgrass, she may have never met the boys, and she certainly wouldn't have become best friends with them. She wouldn't have fallen in love with J'Myel, and she wouldn't be seeing Calvin again after so long.

 Things worked out the way they were supposed to, according to Mama. Sometimes it was a happy thought that comforted Bennie—that she'd been destined to be Mama's granddaughter, Daddy's daughter. That fate had meant her to live in Tallgrass, to meet the two boys, to have a childhood as nearly idyllic as possible.

Sometimes the thought left her feeling blue: that her father had died so young, that J'Myel had died even younger, that Bennie's heart had taken such a beating.

She didn't know how long she sat there, lost in memories. She returned the photo album to its shelf and her attention to her studies. At five, Mama gave her a reprieve by dutifully calling to remind her about dinner. Assuring her that she wouldn't be one second late, Bennie set aside her books. After careful consideration, she dressed in a white open-necked shirt, khaki trousers, and magic black shoes that were comfortable
and
sexy. She made sure her curls weren't flat or lopsided or tangled, freshly applied her cologne, touched up her makeup, and changed earrings twice before realizing she was primping. Decisively she walked away from the mirror.

She couldn't resist glancing over her shoulder to see if her butt looked as good in these pants as she'd remembered. Indeed, it did.

Her knock at the Sweet door was opened by Justice. Though he smiled at her as heartily as he always did, there were a few stress lines on his face. Bennie hugged him, as she always did, and said, “I see by the presence of the junker that Calvin is back.”

“Yes. He came in, threw a bag down at the foot of the steps, and has been sitting in the corner growling from time to time at the boy. Not much of a gratitude attitude, but maybe he needs some time to get to that point.”

Having a gratitude attitude was one of their pastor's favorite teachings: If you're grateful for what you get, then you'll get more of it. One good deed begets another, and so forth. Bennie could see where Calvin definitely needed an attitude adjustment, but she would love to know how gratitude and Diez fit together.

Hearing Mama's and Elizabeth's voices in the kitchen, Bennie hung her jacket in the closet, then walked to the double-wide living room doorway to see which corner Calvin had banished himself to. He was in the one most distant from the door, sitting loosely in a dining chair, wall to his back, giving off restlessness and edginess in waves. His attention was primarily on the sofa, where Emmeline and Diez sat facing each other from opposite ends, cards in their hands.

“Ah, Miss Emmeline, you roped someone into playing hearts with you,” Bennie said, moving farther into the room. The old lady didn't spare her a glance, but Diez looked up and grinned with an approving look.

“This isn't hearts,” Emmeline said, studying her cards. “It's Texas Hold 'Em. You know, poker.”

Bennie feigned scandal. “Diez, you're teaching Calvin's seventy-six-year-old gran to play poker?”

He grinned again. “No, dude. She's teaching me.”

A growl came from Calvin's corner.

“Miss Emmeline, where did you learn to play poker?” Bennie half expected to hear
from Elizabeth's daddy, God rest his soul.

Instead she got a wicked smile. “Maudene taught me. She learned on the Internet. It's full of wondrous things. I'd get my own computer to check it all out, but she says she's still got about two million things to show me, and that's not even counting Pinterest.”

“Remind me to have a talk with Mama about online gambling.” Bennie wandered over to the corner where Calvin sat. This close to him, she could feel the tension in the air and wondered how he kept from giving himself high blood pressure, migraines, and a stroke. He'd been so laid back when they were kids that teachers had joked about having to wake him up during lectures, but he'd always known exactly what they'd been saying.

Now he reminded her of a rock tossed into a pond: landing with a splash, sending out tiny disturbances into infinity, except
he
was the rock and the ever-widening disquiet was his life. What had thrown him in? she wondered sadly. And what could help him find peace?

Two-a-days for Joe's team meant he mostly stood on the sidelines, gave advice, and reviewed each player's performance. Two-a-days in his personal life meant he was pretty much guaranteed to see Lucy twice a day, for their morning and evening walks. It was a hell of a good way to start and end the day. Kind of like waking up beside her, then going to bed next to her eighteen hours later.

Well, not really, not when the beds they were sleeping in were in different houses, and if they were sharing a bed, they would be doing so much more than sleeping. Maybe someday…

As he let himself into her house Sunday evening, he imagined the names his brothers would call him if they knew what a geek this thing with Lucy had turned him into. He had three of them, and two sisters, all older and stronger than him. Joey and Bella Cadore were tall, blond, and a force of nature, and they'd produced six versions of themselves, with Joe being the runt, Lucy liked to say. His brothers liked to say the exceptional Cadore genes were running low by pregnancy number six, explaining why Joe was mostly just average.

Norton met him at the door, then immediately led him to the couch, where Sebastian was stretching his tiny little claws. Joe was Norton's staunchest defender, but even he had to admit the dog had gone a little daft over the kitten. “You'll never have pups of your own,” Joe remarked, scratching behind the dog's ears, “but your paternal instincts are as good as anyone's.”

“Or maternal instincts.” Lucy came down the hall from the bedroom, moving as if she'd undertaken the teenage-boy helmets-and-pads two-a-days this weekend. He wouldn't make fun of her. He was a lot more active, and all those hours in the kitchen Saturday had brought out a few pains in him.

“You wanna skip the walk?” He was tough when needed, but missing one workout wasn't going to hurt her. Besides, he was sure they'd burned plenty of extra calories on Saturday, even given that he'd tasted one of everything she'd made.

Using a band wrapped around her wrist, Lucy pulled her hair back into a ponytail and secured it. “No, I think moving will actually make me feel better.”

“Who knew cooking was so hard on the body?” he teased, earning himself one of her chastising looks.

“Every mother and wife who has to do it every evening after a full day at the job while taking care of the house and the kids,” she said dryly.

She sat down at the kitchen table to put her shoes on, and he leaned against the back of the couch to watch. She was wearing a T-shirt for a 5K sponsored by the post hospital; her margarita girls had walked with her, and he'd run with his team. The shirt was a little too big, but not in the swallow-her-whole way she used to hide her body. As for her bottom half, there was nothing too big there. She wore yoga pants that clung to her curves and ended mid-calf, which emphasized the remarkable change in her calf muscles since taking up walking with him last May. The first day she'd put them on, a week or so ago, she'd caught his wide-eyed look and asked, “Too much?”