On Any Given Sundae (9 page)

He glanced at his still-seated family
members, and he saw how Camilla tilted her little head in thought.
And Maria-Louisa squinted at him. And Tony, never one to hold back,
rolled his eyes and pressed his knuckles to his own lips.

“Have a terrific night, you two,” Tony called
after them as they walked out the door. Although, Rob could tell
his little brother expected the remainder of the evening to be just
the opposite.

***

Elizabeth massaged her temples and took full,
body-cleansing breaths in Rob’s car.

“Thanks for springing us early,” he said a
few blocks down the road, “but what happened back there?”

“N-Nothing.” What could she tell him? That
having him caress her hand the way he did at the table was
torturous and hurtful since he didn’t mean it? That his
preposterous fib about her being envied by girls like Tara was even
more so?

The tips of his ears turned an attractive
shade of pink, but Rob’s temper seemed to run several degrees
hotter. “Nothing? You practically sprinted out of my mother’s
house. We may be playing a charade in there, but be straight with
me here.”

“B-Be straight with
y-y-you?
” She
clasped her fingers together and shook them in front of her,
imagining she had them around his neck. “Rob, you’ve d-done nothing
but lie to me since you came into town.”

“What? I didn’t—” He swerved the car over to
the side of the road and parked it.

Oh, goody. This was becoming a nifty nightly
ritual.

“Okay, now you listen up, Elizabeth Daniels.
The only thing I lied about was telling my family we were a couple.
With Tony and Maria-Louisa guessing the truth, the only person I’m
lying to—and asking you to lie to—is my Mama. And yes, yes, I know
that’s still scummy of me, but I have my reasons, and I already
told those to you. I haven’t lied to you about a thing since
then.”

“We’re also lying to the k-kids.”

He shrugged. “But they don’t really
care.”

“They do. Camilla does especially.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “That’s why
you’re mad? Because of them?”

It was partly the truth, but she didn’t
clarify, which also made it partly a lie as well. Still, she wasn’t
going to explain that if he touched her again she might have to
choke him to make him stop. Every cell inside her body went haywire
with desire for him when their fingers joined together. And looking
into her eyes, so sincerely it seemed, for those few nanoseconds
before she realized he was just acting…that almost did her in at
the Gabinarri house.

“Huh. You really like kids, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said.

“How much do you like them?” he asked, his
voice laced with suspicion. “When you get married, how many
children do you want to have?”

Well, there was no denying it. She wanted
what she wanted.
“If
I get married, I w-want four.”

“
Four!
For real?”

She nodded, shrugged and turned to look out
the window.

“Jeez,” he said. “What is it with you
women?”

She figured this was a rhetorical question he
didn’t expect her to answer. She was wrong.

“Elizabeth?”

“What?”

“Explain this to me. Why on earth would you
want a brood of little rug rats tearing up your house? They make
messes everywhere. They ask a gazillion questions. They fight and
bicker with each other until you’re crazed with wanting to get away
from them. Granted, they’re cute and all, especially when they’re
asleep, but that’s hardly a reason to have so many of them living
with you.”

She thought about her mom—the delightful
messes they made together in the kitchen when she was little, the
long walks they took while asking questions about each other’s day,
the warmth and closeness they’d always shared. Motherhood was such
a special relationship. A gift to treasure. Then, knowing she’d
sound like a Hallmark card but not caring, she said, “Because
p-parenting is about real and true love.”

This comment seemed to halt his wagging
tongue.

“So what’s wrong with getting a dog or a cat
or a pet alligator?” he said finally. “You could fall in love with
a baby black widow. I’ve seen it happen. This guy in my college
dorm treated his like royalty. He named her ‘Legs’ and he kept her
in a golden—”

“Rob.”

“What?”

“That’s not the same thing. At all.”

He sighed. “I guess not. I just—well, it’s
hard for me to imagine I’d ever feel ready. That I’d ever know I
could handle the problems that’d come up. My mother—she’s amazing.
She knew when we were really sick and when we were faking. She
helped us with our schoolwork even though English was her second
language. When Dad died, she kept the family together, despite her
own sorrow. I mean, she must’ve just wanted to crawl into bed and
hide in her room for three months, but she didn’t. She worked. She
made our meals. She let us be sad or angry or whatever we felt.” He
gave her a serious look. “I wouldn’t be able to pull off something
like that.”

Elizabeth remembered when Rob’s dad had died,
just before their senior year in high school. She hadn’t imagined
he’d been so haunted by it, though. That it would have affected his
decision whether or not to be a father. Then again, the deaths of
her parents had affected her as profoundly—only in the opposite
direction.

“You’d b-be able to do it. No matter what, I
think everyone has fears about being a parent.”

“Maybe,” he said.

“Tony must’ve had worries when he became a
dad. Did you talk to him about it?”

An odd look came over his face. “Umm, not
recently. Look, we’ve got some time before I have to be back at the
shop. If you’re able to stay away from your computer for another
half hour, I could buy you some coffee or something. What do you
say?”

What could she say?

“O-Okay.”

“Great. Let’s get out of here.”

A few minutes later they were seated at
Karen’s Koffee Shoppe on First and Central. She’d gotten a handful
of cappuccinos here over the years, but she’d never ordered and sat
in a booth. Least of all with a guy. She always took everything to
go. And this…this…
outing
, or whatever it was with Rob, felt
suspiciously like a date.

Too bizarre for words. Though most things
were.

“So, where do you usually hang out on
Saturday nights when you aren’t surviving stressful family dinners
with old high school friends?” Rob said.

Stressful dinners, she wouldn’t argue, but
old high school
friends?
Is that what he thought they
were?

But she didn’t say that. She said, “Gretchen,
Nick, Jacques and I get t-together sometimes. We have Treat
Swaps.”

“Treat Swaps? What’s that?”

“We each bring something we m-made to share.
Tortes, crepes, chocolate, pastries…anything good…and we taste
test.”

“Mmm. That sounds fun.” He licked his lips
and she felt her attraction to him rise from her belly, still
churning with suppressed anxiety, to her own lips, which trembled
strangely but, she hoped, unnoticeably.

“It is,” she said. And, then, to her own
astonishment, she added, “M-Maybe you can join us sometime.”

His eyes lit up like a little kid being
handed his first triple-decker ice cream sundae. “Thanks,
Elizabeth. That’d be great. Just let me know when you’re going to
do it again. I can’t promise to make anything fancy like you guys
do, but I’ll bring along something for everyone, too.”

She nodded and took a long sip of her
cappuccino.
He’s only here for a few weeks
, she reminded
herself.
Don’t think you can adopt him into your little group.
Don’t think he’ll become your new best friend. Don’t think someone
like Rob Gabinarri will stay around for a second longer than he has
to.

But it was hard to deny that niggling little
hope, that unruly wish that she’d get the answer wrong for
once.

They got on the subject of kids again, a
topic Rob couldn’t seem to move away from.

“So why, if you like children so much, didn’t
you become a teacher or something? You seem really at ease when
you’re around Tony’s kids, and they listen to you,” he said.

At this she had to laugh. “Don’t you realize
how much t-talking is involved in teaching? I’d freeze.”

He squinted at her as if trying to figure out
a Great Mystery of the Universe. “I’ve heard you with them, though.
Your speech is really smooth.” Then he paused as if weighing his
words. “You don’t stutter then, Elizabeth.”

Well, at least he was able to openly
acknowledge her disability. Two points for him and a big brownie
with chocolate chips on top. At least he wasn’t one of awful people
who pretended to ignore her stuttering while looking like they were
going to crawl out of their skin with impatience. Or, even worse,
one of those people who spoke
louder
when they talked to
her.

“I’m c-comfortable with the kids. I don’t
feel the kind of pressure from th-them that I do with adults.
Unfortunately, teaching is not just doing art projects with
seven-year-olds and a bunch of Popsicle sticks. There are the
parents and the staff members and the administrators.” She took a
breath after her long explanation. “Writing lets me p-put
everything on paper first. Even most of my communication with m-my
editor is done through e-mail. That works best for me.”

“Okay, fair enough. But I’ve also heard you
talking to Gretchen, Nick and Jacques. You barely ever stumble with
them.”

She squeezed her lips shut. How to explain
this? If she said that they were her friends and that’s why she
could speak freely in their presence, would he be offended? He
seemed to think of the two of them as friends, too and, yet, she
was anything but at ease with him.

“I’ve known them a long time,” she said.

“You’ve known me a longer time.” He raised
his eyebrows at her in challenge, but the smile on his lips told
her he was still in good humor. “What’s the difference?”

She took another sip of cappuccino to buy a
few seconds. “Did y-you ever run into someone after a f-few years
had gone by and, when the two of you started talking, it was l-like
those years disappeared? You felt the same feelings you felt before
just by being around that person?”

He grinned. “You mean the way I feel like I’m
ten again whenever I’m back at Mama’s house?”

“Kind of. Yes.”

“Well, sure. Certain people pull you back
into the context of whatever time period you shared. When I get
together with my college roommates, it’s like we’re twenty-year-old
slackers again, just interested in playing football in the
courtyard and watching action flicks on TV and drinking beer at a
sports bar.”

She nodded and watched his handsome face as
realization slowly dawned.

“You mean, being with me puts you back into
high school mode? Makes you feel like you’re there again?”

“Now you’re on it, Detective Holmes,” she
said.

He crossed his arms, shooting a faux-scowl in
her direction. “Did that snide, stutter-free comment really come
from
you
, the reputedly
oh-so-sweet-and-not-very-communicative Miss Lizzy Daniels?”

A giggle escaped her lips without permission.
“Elizabeth,” she told him.

He laughed then gulped down some of his own
coffee. After a few moments he said, “Was it that bad for you back
then? I always kind of thought
not
being in the spotlight
would’ve been a little easier. But what do I know.”

It had been bad but, no, she didn’t plan on
telling him that. He didn’t need to know about the nasty
“observations” popular girls like Tara made about her or the unkind
remarks sports-hero guys like Lance said to other, similar,
sports-hero guys. Guys like Rob. If he didn’t remember it for
himself, she sure as heck wasn’t about to remind him.

“Y-You didn’t like being adored by the
masses?” she asked instead. “You didn’t want everyone drooling over
your opinion of just about anything or…or driving out in droves to
watch your Midas touch on the football field?”

He fingered his stirring stick and flicked a
few coffee droplets on the napkin in front of him. “I’d have traded
it for something else in a heartbeat.”

“What kind of ‘something else,’ Rob? There
weren’t that many choices for cliques. And, c’mon. You c-can’t
expect me to believe you wished you’d been unpopular.”

He looked up at her, his dark eyes intense.
“Okay, maybe not ‘unpopular’ but I sure could’ve lived without that
Golden Boy crap. That was a lot of pressure to live with. People
projecting their wishes on you all the time. No one taking you
seriously in any area but sports. Feeling like every single move
you made was being watched and recorded by somebody who wanted
something from you, but you were never sure what it was. God, I
hated that.”

None of his characteristic good humor
remained. He was in full glowering form. But, for the first time,
it occurred to her that maybe they both craved the same thing: To
be seen as they were now, not as they once had been.

“I guess neither of us felt too happy w-with
our lot in life back then,” she admitted.

“Ain’t that the truth.” He squinted at her.
“So, why did you stay? Why not ditch Wilmington Bay the minute you
could blow town?”

“Like you did?”

He nodded.

Why
did
she stay? “I guess there are a
few reasons. Living here is ‘the devil I know,’ so to speak. I
don’t spend much time out and about the town, but when I do, I know
my way around. My only living relative is Uncle Siegfried, and he’s
here. My three best friends are here, too. I wouldn’t want to start
all over in a new place. Plus, Wilmington Bay has some g-great
memories for me also, especially of times I’d spent with my
parents.”