Easily Amused (19 page)

When I got to the end of the hallway, almost to the staircase leading to the walk-up attic, I heard his voice. “Up here.”

I bounded up the attic stairs to see Hubert sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room. He was dressed now, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, surrounded by piles of papers and suitcases and boxes. A book was open on his lap. He looked up to greet me. “Hi.”

“Are you OK? I heard a big crash.”

“Oh yeah.” He reached back and patted a steamer trunk behind him. “I was moving it from under the eaves, and it slipped out of my hands.”

“So what are you doing up here?” I sat down on the floor across from him. The air had a thick, dusty smell that made me wish I could lift up the roof and let it all out.

“I told you I’d clean out your house, remember?” he said. “I decided to work on the attic before it got too hot. Once summer hits, it’ll be unbearable up here.”

It was almost unbearable now. I’d been up here ten seconds and already felt like taking a shower. “I thought maybe you were avoiding me.”

“I wouldn’t avoid you,” he said, sounding surprised. “Why would you think that?”

He wasn’t going to make this easy. “Because I pushed you away in the kitchen before. You looked really mad. I want to apologize—I just didn’t want Mindy and Ryan to get the wrong idea. I’m so sorry.”

“You’re sorry you pushed me away, or you’re sorry you kissed me?”

“Both, really. I’m not sure what happened. Something came over me.”

“Not sure what happened. Something came over you.”

Was there an echo in the room? “I don’t know what else to say, but I’m really sorry and—”

“If you don’t mind, Lola,” he said, shutting the book, “I really don’t want to talk about it anymore. You’ve made your position abundantly clear.”

“OK.” I was willing to let it go at that, even though he still seemed upset. From the tone of his voice, you’d think
I
was the one who started this thing. It occurred to me to remind him that until recently he’d been mourning the loss of Kelly. And now he’d moved on to me? He couldn’t really think I could be his transition person. I was a good friend, but there were limits. “So how’s it going?” I asked, changing the subject. “Have you found anything good?”

He smiled, and in an instant he became the old Hubert, my friend. “Nothing you can take to
Antiques Roadshow,
but there is a lot of interesting stuff here—photo albums and scrapbooks and stuff like that. My biggest find so far was your aunt’s diaries. Did you know about them?”

I shook my head. I barely knew she had an
attic
, much less what was in it. The woman was almost a stranger to me. I would have been able to pick her out of an old persons’ lineup, but that was about it.

“Oh, and her old record player still works. I tried it a few minutes ago.” Hubert became more animated as he talked about his attic project. Unbeknownst to me, he’d been working on the attic every day after school, before I came home from the office. “That pile over there,” he said, motioning to the far side of the room, “is junk. Old blankets and moth-eaten clothes, melted Christmas ornaments, rusted tools. You can look through it, but I don’t think you’ll want any of it.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“I’m almost done opening the boxes and suitcases. The diaries look really fascinating. You’ll want to read those.”

I almost said, “Don’t be too sure,” but he looked so earnest I just smiled in agreement.

“You know,” he said, looking around, “this is a great space. It would be a really cool kids’ play area.”

“Yeah, if you really didn’t like the kids.”

“It would have to be converted, of course. Insulated and finished off. But imagine how much fun kids could have in a big open area like this.” His eyes shone. “You could put a dormer on one side to give it more light and headroom. It would be awesome.”

I looked around but couldn’t imagine the attic any other way than its current state. I’d always had trouble visualizing change. “That’s a possibility, I guess.” The air around me swirled with dust motes. I could only imagine how many of them we were inhaling. “Are you ready to take a break, Hubert? It’s awfully hot up here. Maybe get something to eat?”

“No, I’m giving my stomach a rest. I just want to get through a few more piles, and then I’ll call it a day. If you want to leave, just go ahead.”

I hesitated. How rude would it be for me to flee to the comfort of downstairs, leaving my sick friend to sort through my crap? “I hate to leave you here.”

“Nah, I don’t mind.” He waved a hand toward the stairs. “Get outta here. Just don’t forget to take the diaries.” He picked up a stack of leather-bound books from near his left foot and held them out as if giving me a gift. “They’ll give you some interesting bedtime reading.”

I took the pile from his hands. Almost reflexively, I wiped at the dust on the top copy with my hand. Great, now I had a grimy hand and a stack of dusty books.

“You’ll probably want to wipe the covers with a damp cloth,” he said, amused. “And maybe air out the pages.”

“Thanks, good advice.” What I probably wanted was to store them in the attic for posterity. But to admit that would be ungrateful. Hubert had gone to a lot of trouble for me. The least I could do was pretend to be interested in his find. “I appreciate you doing this for me, you know. It’s a dirty job.”

“Ach.” He brushed away the compliment. “Glad to do it. Now shoo, so I can get some work done.”

H
ubert left with Ben Cho the next morning to make sandwiches for distribution, whatever that meant. I was invited as well but begged off saying I’d brought work home from the office. In truth, I just wanted some alone time to check my e-mail and mindlessly surf the Net.

The phone rang before I even had a chance to fire up my computer, but when I saw Piper’s name on the caller ID, I decided my plans could wait.

“Hey,” she said when I answered, “sorry I missed your call last night. Mike and I finally got an evening to ourselves.”

I lay down on the couch and dangled my legs over the end. A conversation with Piper deserved comfort. I listened politely while she rambled on about her past problems with babysitters. She’d tried various teenagers, but even the best of them were a disappointment. “Remember when we used to babysit?” she said. “We really worked. We gave the kids baths and picked up their toys. One mom even used to leave laundry for me to fold after the kids went to bed. And I didn’t think anything of it—just did it. But nowadays teenagers don’t do squat. They talk on the phone the whole time and have their friends over. Mike and I stopped going out because I could never find a decent sitter.” She was ecstatic now, she said, because she finally found someone she trusted. “And Brandon took to her like you wouldn’t believe. I’m telling you, Mrs. Olson is the answer to my prayers.”

“That might make a good article for the magazine,” I said, thinking aloud. “The difficulty of getting good babysitters. We could tell a few horror stories and profile a few who are outstanding.”

“Believe me, I could tell you stories.”

I didn’t point out that she already had.

“One girl helped herself to some ice cream, which would have been OK, except she didn’t put the carton back in the freezer, so when I came home there was this melted mess all over the counter.”

“Yuck.”

“And even worse, she never put Brandon to bed. He fell asleep on the floor, and she just left him there. When I tried to move him, he woke up all out of sorts, and I couldn’t get him back to sleep until four in the morning. He cried for hours.”

I’d heard Brandon’s out-of-sorts cry. It was nothing you’d want to hear if you could help it. “That’s terrible.”

“Now that we have Mrs. Olson, we can start going out again. Hey, maybe we can double with you and Ryan sometime.”

“And then afterwards,” I said, “Ryan and I can go to his house and have sex.”

“What?”

By the tone of her voice I surmised that the idea of me having sex was both surprising and amusing. I told her about my conversation with Ryan and his suggestion that being intimate would make us a more convincing engaged couple.

“He
said
that?”

“He actually expected me to believe that people would be able to tell if we’d had sex or not.”

“Well that part’s true,” Piper said. “I can always tell if a dating couple has had sex.”

“You can
not
.”

“Yes, I can. There’s just something there. If you’re looking for it, you’ll see it. In fact, my grandma picked up on it after Mike and I did it. We came to a family picnic when we hadn’t seen her in a while. She came up to me all sly and said, ‘So I see you and Mike are serious now,’ and gave me this wink. I was mortified that Grandma knew.”

“Maybe she wasn’t referring to sex. Maybe it was just because you were still together.”

“No, trust me, she knew. It was like she could smell it on us.”

Ewwww. So people really could tell? Were there sex clues that everyone in the world knew about, except me? “So you’re saying that if I don’t have sex with Ryan, people will know?”

“Not everybody. Some people aren’t that perceptive. And other people will think you’re a good girl waiting for the wedding night, like Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey.”

Yeah, that worked out well for them. “But don’t you think it was kind of…” I searched for the right word, “sleazy of him to bring it up that way? To say, ‘You must have sex with me, or no one will believe we’re engaged.’”

“He phrased it like that?”

I really had her attention now. “Well, no,” I admitted. “It was more of a suggestion. And he did say he didn’t want to pressure me and it was completely up to me—he’d be my fiancé regardless. But still, I definitely got the impression he was looking to get me in bed.”

“Duh,” she said. “He’s a guy. They work every angle. That’s what they do. At least give him points for coming up with something creative. It’s better than most lines I’ve heard.”

“I guess.”

“And it’s really kind of a win-win situation all around. If you don’t sleep with him, you still have a great date to take to your sister’s wedding. If you do sleep with him, you have great sex and still have a great date for your sister’s wedding.”

“Assuming the sex is great.” I had my doubts. I hadn’t done so well in the kissing department with Ryan. I could only imagine how awkward I’d feel naked in bed with the man.

“Oh, it would be,” Piper said assuredly. “He’s so sexy,
I
felt a little flushed just talking to him. I can only imagine what it would be like to be right up against that body. He’s like a Greek god or something.”

“So are you saying that if you were me, you’d absolutely have sex with him?”

“I’m saying I wouldn’t fault you if you did. But it’s really your call.”

“You’re no help,” I grumbled.

“Just follow your heart.”

“My heart doesn’t know squat.”

“OK then, follow your gut.”

“My gut is equally stupid.”

Piper laughed. “You’ll figure out which part of your anatomy to follow.” In the background I heard Mike’s voice, his tone serious and low. I knew from past experience this signaled the end of our conversation. I was right. “Lola, I hate to cut you short, but Mike has to take the van to Home Depot, and I need to take the car seat out. I’ll call you later in the week.”

T
he next few days Hubert worked diligently in the attic during his free time. By the time Wednesday rolled around, we had an impressive number of Hefty bags piled for pickup. Garbage night on King Street was an event. Up and down the block the perfect line of the curb was interrupted by bags and cans and blue recycling bins. As usual, Ryan’s house was the only one without trash, but since he’d phoned on Sunday to tell me he was called out of town for a few days, it was less of a mystery than the rest of the neighborhood had suggested.

Hubert and I took down the last load and were arranging the garbage bags in a row when Ben Cho came down his driveway hauling a metal can with a dented cover. “Whoa, you have a mother lode of crap,” he said. “You’re not moving, are you?”

“Just getting rid of stuff,” I said. “Hubert’s cleaning out my attic.”

Ben nodded. “Good man, Hubert. We still on for Friday night?”

“It’s a plan.”

“See you then.” Ben slammed a fist on the lid to force it into place, and then he gave a quick wave and headed back toward his house.

“What’s Friday night?” I asked as we headed up the driveway.

“Racquetball at his club,” Hubert said. “He has guest passes.”

“I didn’t know you played racquetball.”

“I do now.” His voice was cheerful. He seemed to be in a better mood lately—he hadn’t mentioned Kelly since the night he was sick, and our friendship was back on track. He did say once that he really should start apartment hunting, but I told him not to worry about it.

“That’s good of you, Lola,” he replied, clearing the dinner dishes that night. “But I don’t want to get in the way here.”

“You’re not in the way.” I gave him an exuberant hug—he’d cooked shrimp scampi that night. It was to die for. “Stay as long as you like.” The grateful look on his face spoke volumes.

On Friday when Ryan stopped in at my office, I was surprised to see him since I’d been watching his house unsuccessfully for signs of his return. His indoor lights were set on a timer that turned them on promptly at seven in the evening and shut them off twelve hours later. The lamppost in his front yard was dark-activated, switching on at dusk. A lawn service came by on Wednesday and mowed and trimmed his yard. To the casual observer the house looked occupied, but I knew better.

When he came through the office door, I was the only one in the room. Mrs. Kinkaid and Drew were out to lunch, and I’d just finished eating at my desk. He walked in like he belonged there, giving me only a second to scoop up my empty yogurt container and apple core and sweep them overboard to the wastebasket next to my desk. Luckily I’d disregarded tradition and eaten my dessert, Hubert’s homemade oatmeal cookies, first.

“Hello there.” He smiled as he strode across the room. Everything about him, from his voice to the crisp cut of his tailored shirt, made being in his presence a joy. “All alone today?”

“For now,” I said, beaming back at him. “The others are out to lunch.” I got up from my desk, and he came and took both my hands, like in a movie. I half wished my coworkers had been there—Mrs. Kinkaid would have approved, even if Drew didn’t. “What brings you here?”

“You, of course,” he said, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. “I just got back in town, came straight from the airport, in fact. I was hoping I’d get to you before you’d made plans for the weekend.” His aftershave smelled great, like the barbershop my dad went to when I was a child.

“No plans.” I detected a flash of an expression on his face, a knowing look, as if he’d been sure I wouldn’t have anything else going on, and I regretted being so available. It made me sound a little pitiful. “At least, nothing I can’t rearrange.” On second thought, I remembered smugly, I did have plans for Saturday. “Except I do need to go shopping with my sister and her maid of honor tomorrow afternoon. Can you believe we’re getting the dresses only a week before the wedding? We’re buying them off the rack. Well, actually,” I amended, “they were already picked out and are being held. I just need to go with them and try mine on and buy it. I told Mindy to just go ahead and pick it up, I’d reimburse her, but she was adamant that we have this little outing. She can be like that.” Too much information, I knew, but it all seemed to spill out of me. Ryan didn’t seem bored, however. From the look on his face, he found me fascinating.

“You’ll have to let me know what color your dress is so we can coordinate colors,” he said. “With my tie at least.”

Oh, like prom couples. What a cute idea.

“So Saturday during the day won’t work,” Ryan said. “What about today?”

“I could definitely do something today. In fact, I was planning on cutting the day short and leaving in about an hour anyway.” This was absolutely not true, but it was amazing how smoothly the lie rolled off my tongue. I could see how lying could become habit-forming.

“Perfect. I’ll just run home and unpack, then jump in the shower.” He paused, giving me a chance to think of him sudsing up under a pulsating showerhead. “We can meet at say—” He paused to look at his watch. “One thirty?”

“Works for me.” I felt my spirits lift.

“Your place or mine?”

I overlooked the teasing subtext behind the question. “You can pick me up at my house whenever you’re ready.”

He gave me a quick hug before leaving, a completely appropriate embrace for the workplace.

After he was gone, I jotted down a note explaining about my need to leave due to a sudden splitting headache, and I taped it to Mrs. Kinkaid’s monitor. Without me around there was zero chance any work would get done the rest of the afternoon. Probably both of them would decide to follow my example and leave early, but I couldn’t be worried about that. Ryan was back. He’d driven straight from the airport to find me. Me, and no one else but me. His touch felt fine, and our conversation was easy. He fit the definition of a perfect gentleman, from his polite behavior to his pressed trousers and polished shoes. All my concerns about his hidden sexual agenda faded away.

At home I got ready quickly, slipping on some capri pants with a tank top and a little jacket. For footwear I chose a new pair of sandals, a slip-on type with a kitten heel. Checking myself out in the mirror, I gave myself a passing grade for smart casual attire. If Ryan showed up more dressed up, I could always switch to pants or a skirt and keep the rest of the outfit intact.

I wrote a note for Hubert: “Went out with Ryan! Have fun playing racquetball. See you later. Love, Lola.” I put it in the middle of the kitchen table and anchored it with a vase full of red tulips Hubert had picked up at the grocery store. He’d bought them three days earlier, and they were still holding up well.

With time to spare, I grabbed my purse and sunglasses and headed out the door. I had told Ryan to come to my house, but I was too impatient to wait. When I got to the curb, I saw him leaving his house. We were perfectly in sync.

As usual, he looked overjoyed to see me. When I reached his car, which was parked at the curb, he said, “Oh great, you’re ready. I do like a girl who’s on time.”

And I was that girl. Always on time. Ask anyone.

He went on. “Are you hungry? Because if you are, we can get something to eat. Otherwise, I thought it would be fun to drive to Milwaukee. There’s a kite-flying event at the lakefront all weekend, and it starts today. Seeing so many kites in flight is incredible, but I’m not trying to influence you. Whatever you decide is fine with me—I could go either way.”

“The kites,” I said without hesitating. Hubert’s oatmeal cookies had staying power. “Unless you’re hungry?”

“God no,” he said. “Not at all.”

Less than an hour later, we were near the shores of scenic Lake Michigan, a lake so vast that it could pass for the ocean. If you could ignore the stench of the dead alewives, it was a gorgeous sight with sun, sand, and a throng of people out and about. Half the city had called in sick, judging by the number of bicyclists and people rollerblading on the path near the lake.

Ryan pulled into a parking space just recently vacated by an Audi, and we headed toward the beach, where several kites were already aloft. Some of the box kites were the size of my refrigerator; others had a wingspan rivaling a great blue heron. “They’re beautiful. I had no idea they’d be so big,” I said without thinking. Shoot. I had resolved not to let my ignorance show around Ryan, and here I’d slipped already.

“These folks take their kite flying very seriously,” he said, taking my hand as we reached the sandy area. “Hey! We should do this sometime. We could go to the kite store and pick out something special, then make a whole day of it.”

A day outdoors didn’t really sound like my kind of thing, since outdoors is where the bugs and wind and glare are kept, but I wouldn’t turn down a chance to spend a whole day with Ryan. “Sounds great.”

He leaned over and said, “We’ll bring a picnic lunch. Maybe some champagne and strawberries.”

Now the man was talking some sense. “I’d love that.” He smiled at me, his teeth stark white in the sunlight, and then he pulled my hand up to his lips and kissed my palm. “What was that for?” I asked.

“Just because.”

We watched the kites for a while, admiring the way they swayed and bobbed in the wind. Ryan was right—these people did take their kites very seriously. They worked in teams—yelling directions, concentrating fiercely as they let out more line, and whooping with joy when the kites found their place in the sky. “The kites remind me of Japanese dancers,” Ryan said.

Huh? I didn’t see it myself. Did he mean the movement or the colors or what? Certainly he couldn’t mean it literally—dancers, Japanese or otherwise, were people and grounded, whereas these were geometric structures swaying in the wind. But I didn’t want to appear completely clueless, so I said, “Yes, just so graceful.”

We watched for what must have been twenty minutes or so, but it seemed like hours. The spike heels of my sandals sank into the sand, forcing me to balance uncomfortably on the pads of my feet. Looking upward was tiresome—the harsh sunlight required me to shade my eyes. Plus my neck hurt. And pretending to be fascinated was exhausting. The kites seemed more like something to do as a drive-by—
Look, kites!
—than something necessitating an excursion. “Too bad there’s no place to sit down,” I said, hoping Ryan would take the hint.

He gave me a concerned look. “Do you want to walk along the shoreline? It might be interesting seeing the kites from a distance.”

Yeah, like from the car as we drove away. I hesitated, not wanting to seem difficult, but wondering how I could maneuver this. “I don’t think my shoes are ideal for sand,” I said, lifting a leg to show him. “I keep sinking.” Already I could feel the straps of my sandals digging into the backs of my heels. The reviews on Zappos.com gave this pair high ratings for comfort. I wasn’t feeling it.

Ryan held a hand to his chin in thought. “Why don’t you take off your shoes then? I’ll take mine off too. That way we can walk in the water.” He grinned as if he’d suggested something naughty.

I agreed to his plan because it sounded good in theory. Didn’t the classic romance scene of every movie take place on the beach? There was even an expression I’d heard people use in casual conversation—“It was no walk on the beach, I can tell you that much.” Meaning, of course, that a walk on the beach was a fabulous thing and whatever they were describing was the complete opposite. So who was I to turn down the opportunity to try something so wonderful?

Ryan had the balancing skills of a flamingo. He stepped out of his shoes and peeled off his socks, making it look effortless. I, on the other hand, had to lean against him while fumbling with my buckles. Bending over made the straps tighten, increasing the difficulty. At home I usually sat on my couch, hoisted my foot up to the opposite knee, and took my sandals off while watching TV. Easy. Here it seemed an impossible feat.

“Having trouble?” Ryan asked.

“A little bit.” A little bit of an understatement, that is. “The buckles aren’t cooperating.”

“Let me do it.”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t want you to have to—”

“Nonsense.” He knelt down on one knee and deftly worked each strap through its opening. His back blocked my view of my feet, but I felt the snap of release when each one came undone. He stood up, looking pleased with himself. “Better?”

“Much better.” I slipped my feet out of the sandals and picked them up, letting them dangle from my curved fingers. “Should we leave the shoes here?” Carrying them seemed awkward. Movie couples never carried their footwear.

He looked around and frowned. “I wouldn’t want to do that. Some kids might come along and think it’s funny to take them.” He picked up his shoes and held them out to me—a pair of brown loafers with dark stitching on the seams. “These are Berluti. I’d hate to lose them.”

“Good point. I’d hate to lose mine too. I just got them recently. From Zappos.” Oh, Lola, why don’t you ever learn to shut up?

“I’m not familiar with Zappos.” Ryan said it like it was a foreign word. “But they seem very nice. Shall we go?” He reached over, and I slipped my hand into his. I noticed that he cradled his shoes with his outside arm, like carrying a football. “This is a great way to spend an afternoon, huh?” he said as we walked.