Chapter Seven
“Hi.”
“Hey there”
“Are you sleeping?”
“I was.” Mads chuckled in her Colombia roast voice. A mighty yawn crackled down the phone wires. “So, what’s going on?”
“Nothing much.” Lucy squirmed a little. It was only a slight evasion of the truth.
“Nothing much at seven-thirty in the morning, hmm?”
“Well, it’s nine-thirty here.”
“Quit stalling.”
“Okay.” Lucy took a deep breath and shifted the phone to her other ear. Outside her window, the little blond girl over the road was busy walking a scraggly looking mongrel on the end of one of those expanding leashes. The dog had the leash at full extend and went for broke. “I delivered my first amends.”
“You’re a superstar.” It always sounded so much better in that voice and Lucy preened. “Which one?”
Some of the gilt came off her cookie. “Mr. Martin.”
“The man whose shop you egged?”
“That’s the one. Only, I broke the window as well.”
“How did he take it?”
“He was nice.” Lucy watched the raddled fur ball drag his owner around the corner. “He barely remembered, but he was nice.”
“Good.”
A deep silence followed. Lucy wanted to fill it with inane chatter. Instead she watched the little girl’s vanilla braid disappear out of sight.
“And?” Mads sounded more alert, as if she’d shaken off the last vestiges of sleep and Lucy knew her moment of reprieve was over. “Have you seen him?”
“Uh-huh.” Lucy pulled a face she knew her sponsor would not be able to see, but it made her feel a bit better. “Ah, jeez, Mads, I screwed up so badly.”
“Tell me.”
“I doored him.”
“You what?” Madeline’s voice came fully awake.
“Remember last time we spoke?”
“Vaguely, I haven’t mainlined my caffeine yet.”
“You and me talking, me cowering in the car, you kicking my butt to get out of the car.”
“Would we call it butt-kicking?”
“We most certainly would. Anyway, butt-kicking worked and I stepped out of the car.”
“Ah.” The fog cleared for Mads. “Horrible screaming coming from person lying in the snow.” Mads went silent for a long moment and Lucy waited for her to do the math. Mads did not disappoint. “Tell me you’re shitting me?”
“I wish I could.”
“What was he doing out there?”
“He was riding his bike.”
“What kind of idiot rides a bike in a snowstorm?”
“That’s what I said.”
“To Richard?”
Lucy debated whether lying to one’s sponsor was really that counterproductive. “Not in so many words,” she managed in a small voice.
From downstairs drifted the faint sounds of her mother rattling around in the kitchen. A quick glance at her watch confirmed it was getting close to second teatime. Carl Flint liked his second tea at ten, which meant his wife would make it so. The familiar tightening of rebellion grabbed onto Lucy’s gut and she took a deep breath.
On the other side of the phone, Mads grew serious again. “Make the amends, Lucy. You have to do this now.”
“I know,” she replied into the building silence. “I will get to it, but this is . . . harder than I thought it would be.”
“I know, babe.” And the instant understanding wrapped around her like a comfort blanket. “But you can do this.” A warm, loving silence stretched between them. “You have to do this, to move on with your life.”
“I know.” The fight bled out of Lucy and she reached for the small, hovering peace fairy dancing just outside of her grasp. The fairy allowed herself to be caught and Lucy took another, healing breath. “And I will speak to Richard. I was kind of working my way up to him.”
That earned her another one of those dark roast chuckles that made Lucy smile automatically.
“I saw Brooke Taylor as well,” Lucy added.
“Remind me?”
“Sixteenth birthday party, me getting naked and jumping into the pool and everyone following. Brooke in a pretty pink dress crying as her party dissolves into a wet T-shirt competition.”
“Hmm.”
“And I stole her boyfriend.”
“Of course you did.”
“Hey!”
“Hey yourself. Was he worth it?”
“Hell, no.”
And Lucy got another chuckle and this time she joined in. “The only one who was ever really worth it was Richard.”
“I don’t like that tone, girlfriend.”
“What tone?”
Mads ignored her token protest. “You are not there to make things worse or repeat old mistakes.”
“I know that.”
“Good. Now get it done and come home.”
“I will.”
“Soon.”
“Soon,” Lucy lied, crossing her fingers.
“You’re lying,” came that voice. Shit, Mads could be scarier than God sometimes.
“Okay, I’m lying, but only a little bit.” Lucy squirmed again. “And I will get to it.”
“And then come home.”
“Yup.”
Home, Lucy thought as she hung up. Now that was an interesting concept.
He knew it was from her before he even bent to retrieve the parcel on his doorstep. It had been a truly miserable day. The Willow Park jungle drums had worked with their usual, ruthless efficiency.
With few exceptions, almost every one of his patients had been happy to share the glad tidings. Lucy Flint was back in town.
It was a relief to pack up for the day and come home. Until he saw the parcel sitting on his doorstep, right in front of the door and tied up with a big, red bow.
He ignored the uneven thud of his heart as he bent to pick it up. It was a brand new helmet, complete with reflector stripes. With it was a small horn siren. And despite his shitty day and the even shittier fact that Lucy Flint was back, Richard smiled. She always could make him smile. The wave of nostalgia totally broadsided him.
This was how she operated and this was what she did. She ripped his world upside down and inside out and then made him laugh, despite it all. It was those eyes, lurking beneath his awareness all the time, all green and sparkly and peering at him through the veil of her hair. Laughing up at him, drawing him closer, sucking him into her world. Richard shook his head in irritation.
He was a thirty-two-year-old man and not some testosterone-driven boy seized by his first major crush. She was not going to do this to him again, because he wouldn’t allow it. He dropped the gift into the snow by the side of the door. If it was still there in the morning, he would return it with a polite note.
Knowing Lucy, she would be watching, wrapped up in the delight of her little plan. Her eyes crinkling in the corners and her wide mouth split in a goofy grin. He shut his door and removed his coat. Been there, done that and bought the entire shipment of T-shirts.
With a soft curse, he ripped open the door and snatched up the helmet. She’d even gotten the size right. That was Lucy for you. She could drive you absolutely fucking crazy and then turn around and do something so sweet and thoughtful it almost swept the pain away—until the next time.
And of course, his pisser of a day would not be complete without a visit from his mother. And Richard knew from the moment he saw her marching toward the front porch, Donna had heard the news.
“Hello, darling.” She gave him that special smile he’d been getting since she fetched him after his first day of kindergarten. Donna was not a beautiful woman, but it was easy to forget that in the charming symmetry of her neat, delicate features. Her eyes were the same as those he saw in the mirror, the sort of clear, impenetrable blue that was not merely a shade of green in disguise.
Her skin was flawless and her bone structure good, if a little too definite for feminine beauty. But it was her smile that drew people to Donna. It appeared as suddenly as the sun through the clouds and was as welcome. She turned that celestial grin on him now, but Richard wasn’t fooled.
“You’ve heard.” He folded his arms over his chest and planted himself in the middle of the Oriental rug Ashley had insisted would give the entrance hall a “pop” of color. Whatever that meant. Beige was good enough for him; it went with the wood and the walls.
“What, darling?”
“Are we really going to do this tonight?” Richard wasn’t buying the vague thing for a second. Donna was her most penetrating and deadly like this. His mother looked up at him, her smile at half wattage, but just as charming. “I’ve had a living shit of a day, I’m tired and I’m hungry and I don’t feel like playing games.”
“You never did feel like playing games, Richard.” She used the mother voice that took all the starch out of his shorts and made him want to squirm. “Even as a little boy. You were always so serious.” She amped up on the friendly and waved a shopping bag at him. “And I brought dinner with me.”
“What is it?” Richard eyed the bag warily; man enough to know the way to his heart and not too proud to go with it.
“Spaghetti and meatballs.” She had him and her eyes told him so.
“Your spaghetti and meatballs?” He would at least go down swinging.
“Richard Hunter,” she said, taking a menacing step forward. “Have I ever, ever fed you store-bought spaghetti and meatballs?”
“Non, maman, je m’excuse.”
The French got her every time and she melted like a snowball in front of him. Richard could reach out and touch the glory now.
“Verse-moi un verre de vin, espèce d’enfant ingrat.”
Yes, indeed, her ungrateful child would pour her a glass of wine. The prospect of a good feed always made Donna’s boys more malleable.
“So, tell me?” Donna settled on the opposite side of his kitchen table.
More of those “pops” of color in the bright, green flower things on the seats. He didn’t get it. He really hated those cushions, he realized, as he watched Donna get comfortable. He didn’t like flowers and he especially didn’t like flowers that looked like they should be painted on the side of a sixties passion wagon.
Stripes. He dug into his dinner with relish. What he needed in this room was something manly, like stripes. And not in that girly green color either. Blue. Blue stripes. When Ashley came back, he would speak to her about it. Make her see that stripes were a much better option. That settled, he risked looking over the edge of his wineglass at his mother.
Donna looked at him, her eyes unfathomable but full of love, and Richard sighed. Her love wound around him like a spider’s web and he knew she would outpossum him.
He tried for nonchalant. “She’s back.”
Donna, however, had the advantage of having handled him since the day his ass was cracked and she sat perfectly still and waited.
“Aw, jeez, Ma. What do you want me to tell you? Lucy Flint is back.”
“I want you to tell me how you feel, Richard.” Donna took a hefty sip of her wine.
“I am a guy,” he barked at her. “We don’t have feelings. We have urges.”
“
Richard, tu me tapes sur les nerf, fais pas le niaiseux et dis-moi ce que tu penses de tous ça.
” It all came out in a torrent and he knew he was beat. She was not going to back down and Donna could turn this into the War of 1812 if she chose to.
“All right.” He threw up his hands in disgust. His fork clattered noisily against the side of the bowl. “She’s back and she’s as beautiful as ever. No.” He slashed his hand decisively through the air. “She’s even more beautiful. Leave it to Lucy not to get fat or dumpy looking. She’s smoking hot and just as deadly.”
“And you feel?”
“FREAKED OUT.”
Donna looked at him for a long moment, her face inscrutable. And then she just smiled. His mother did a dumb little Mona Lisa thing with her mouth and went back to eating her dinner.
“What?” he demanded as he retrieved his own cutlery.
“Nothing,” Donna said, shrugging innocently. Richard glared back at her until she started spilling again. “I thought that’s how you would be feeling and I asked. No big deal.”
“You’re weird, Ma.” Richard gave her the benefit of his professional, medical opinion.
“You may be right,” his mother said, grinning back at him.
There was a lot he wanted to say, but none of it would sort itself into coherent utterances. So, he fulminated in silence for a while. Eating didn’t interrupt his fuming and he carried on with his dinner.
Donna had always been the perfect mother for three healthy, active boys. When you fell down, she picked you up without all that fussing and fluttering. If you were bleeding, you got a Band-Aid; if it was worse you got a trip to the emergency room. All of it handled in the same calm, no-nonsense manner that left a boy feeling like he was in capable hands.
She was still that woman, but his mother had changed in so many other ways. Insisting on grubbing around in his feelings and demanding that he talk about them. Jeez! She had his brother Josh for that with his designer duds and monthly manicures.
There had been no “feeling” talk when his dad was alive. This had all started after Des’s death, when Donna had gone into bereavement counseling over the loss of her husband. Bereavement counseling. And out of it she’d come, not even wearing the same clothes.
Case in point. Richard examined the ankle-length red skirt and greenish sweater his mother wore. They should have looked ridiculous. Donna should have looked like Santa’s oldest little helper. But she looked . . . Richard shrugged, she looked nice, attractive even, but she didn’t look like the mother he knew.
The jeans were gone along with the Gap sweatshirts, de rigueur for all good soccer moms. They’d been replaced by chunky bits of ethnic jewelry that jangled and crashed when she moved. Donna herself was different, more assertive and more definite in her opinions. It made him feel like he’d lost his mom and she’d been replaced by her upgrade. Richard had liked the prototype fine.