Promise Me A Rainbow (12 page)

“Hey, it’s got nothing to do with you. I think maybe I . . .”

“Joe?”

He looked around at the sound of his name. Fritz stood on the other side of the potted evergreens at the end of the bench, looking worriedly from one adult to the other.

“I found a friend of yours,” Joe said to her. “Aren’t you going to say hello?”

She bit her lower lip. “Hello, Ms. Holben,” she said, her voice unsure and wavering.

Catherine smiled and held out her hand. “Catherine,” she said, reminding her. “You were going to call me Catherine.”

“Catherine,” Fritz repeated. She gave an almost smile that to Catherine was very reminiscent of her father’s.

“Come sit down beside me. I’m glad I ran into you. I want to ask you something.”

“What,” Fritz said, relieved that there was no sign of ill will between Catherine Holben and her father. She took Catherine’s hand and sat down on the bench between them.

“I haven’t decided where to put the gnomes yet. I was wondering what you think.”

“On the little table next to the couch,” Fritz said without hesitation, because that was where she imagined the gnomes to be when she thought about Ms. Holben’s—Catherine’s—apartment. She tried to picture them every night just before she fell asleep—the couch, the afghan with the pink flowers on it, and Daisy and Eric sitting close by on the little table. She glanced at Joe. He didn’t seem to be minding this at all.

“You know, I think you’re right. Almost anybody who comes to visit sits there and, when they do, they can see the gnomes up close.”

“Joe said I could come visit,” Fritz said, hoping as she said it that he hadn’t changed his mind. He had been awfully quiet lately, as he was when he was thinking about Lisa. But she wasn’t quite sure if that was what he was doing. She didn’t think it was the business. D’Amaro Brothers had just gotten the job of building a new condo on the oceanfront at the far end of Wrightsville Beach. Things were looking up, he’d said. They were even going to have their big Labor Day cook out next Saturday—even if it was a few weeks late. She looked at him now. He was looking at Catherine but in a nice way, like he wasn’t mad at all.

“I hope I can,” she added, in case Joe wasn’t paying attention.

“I hope you can, too,” Catherine said.

“Okay, Joe?” she asked him.

“Okay,” he responded.

“I spent the money you gave me,” she decided to tell him.

“On gummy bears, right?”

She grinned. “Yeah,” she confessed, and he ruffled her hair.

“When she comes to visit, Ms. Holben,” he said to Catherine, “hide your gummy bears.”

When
, Fritz thought. He said when, not if. That sounded pretty firm to her. She smiled happily to herself. Joe wasn’t mad at Catherine anymore, and Catherine wasn’t mad, either—and here she was sitting with both of them. It was nice. She looked at Catherine’s hands. Catherine still had fingernails like a mother’s when she wanted to look special—short with clear nail polish.

Joe’s hands were always hurt and banged up. He
always
had scraped knuckles, just like Fritz always had skinned knees. Occupational hazards, he’d told her once. His from being a builder and hers from being a kid.

“Where’s Della?” Joe asked, and Fritz frowned. That was a question she hated being asked, particularly now, because Joe wouldn’t like the answer.

“Fritz,” Joe prompted when she didn’t say anything.

“You know Della,” she said with a little shrug, hoping that would take care of it. She glanced at Catherine.

“Yes, I know Della,” Joe said. “That’s why I’m asking. Where is she?”

Fritz sighed. There was just no way out of it.

“Getting interviewed.”

“Getting interviewed
where
?”

“At the pub.”

“She’s not old enough to work at the pub!”

“You know Della,” Fritz repeated philosophically.

Joe stood up. “Excuse me,” he said to Catherine. “Fritz, you stay here with Ms. Holben.”

That suited Fritz. Anything was better than having to go along to get Della out of a bar.

“Would you like a gummy bear?” she asked Catherine. She was used to having Della do exactly what would make Joe mad, and she decided not to worry about it.

“Can you spare one?”

“I can spare one.”

“Then I’d like one. You pick it out.”

Fritz picked a yellow one, her personal favorite. She liked Ms. Holben—Catherine—more and more. She couldn’t help but like somebody who wouldn’t take her last gummy bear. A mother would do that—not take the last one. Catherine really was just like a mother.

“Thank you,” Catherine said as she popped it into her mouth.

“You’re welcome. Here comes Joe.”

“That didn’t take long,” Catherine said.

“Joe doesn’t mess around,” Fritz said, and Catherine laughed.

“No, I don’t believe he does.”

“Della could get a job in the baby-clothes store, but they don’t give tips,” Fritz said as her father approached with Della in tow.

Catherine saw immediately that this daughter was quite beautiful, strikingly so in spite of the petulance she took no pains to hide. She was blond and blue-eyed, her hair pulled into a huge clasp on the side of her head and cascading over one ear to her shoulder. She had long, spiky bangs and meticulously made-up eyes in shades of gray and pink and purple that made her look older than she probably was. Catherine could tell immediately that Della D’Amaro was one of the lucky ones among her peers. She obviously had the knack of picking the right clothes, the right hairstyle, the right “look” to belong, an accomplishment that escaped some girls her age no matter how hard they tried.

“Daddy, you embarrassed me!” she said as they approached.

“I embarrassed you? I didn’t say a word!”

“Yes, but you would have!”

“You’re damn right I would have. Della you know good and well I’m not going to let you go to work in a bar. And you can’t go around not telling people how old you are. That man could have lost his liquor license. We’ll talk about this later. Now I’d like you to settle down and meet Ms. Holben.”

“Daddy, I just wanted to find out about it!”

“Excuse us, Ms. Holben. We don’t always air our disagreements in public like this.”

“Who is she?” Della said rudely.

“I’m a friend of Fritz’s,” Catherine said, cutting in ahead of Joe D’Amaro’s sharp reply. “Catherine Holben. And I have to be going. Fritz, thank you for the gummy bear. Call me when you want to come and visit.”

“I will,” Fritz said, holding on to Catherine’s hand for a moment. Then she let go so Catherine could pick up her things.

“Ms. Holben,” Joe said abruptly. “We’re having the annual D’Amaro Brothers’ Labor Day cookout next Saturday. I was wondering if you’d like to come?”

“It isn’t Labor Day,” Catherine said, because he’d caught her completely off-guard, the fact that she hadn’t considered the possibility that he might extend a social invitation compounded by the fact that since her divorce she almost never went out.

“We never let a thing like that bother us. We have the cookout on Labor Day if we’ve got the money. If we don’t, we have it when we do. One year it was January. We nearly froze our butts off. What do you say?”

The refusal was already on her lips, but Fritz caught her by the hand again.

“Please, Catherine!”

Catherine looked into Joe D’Amaro’s eyes. His gaze held hers, then shifted ever so slightly to Fritz, who was still clinging to her hand.

Catherine understood him as if he’d spoken aloud.

“You said I couldn’t invite
my
friends, Daddy,” Della said at his elbow.

“There’ll be enough to go around, Della. I’m sure Fritz can keep Catherine from eating more than her share. So can you work us in? You already know Fritz and me. And Mrs. Wheeler from The Purple Box will be there. You won’t be totally surrounded by strangers.”

“All right. That will be fine,” Catherine said. “I’ll need the address.”

“No, Fritz and I will come and get you so you don’t have to take the bus. I’ll call you later and let you know when.”

“Oh . . . well, I’ll see you next Saturday, then.” She was growing more and more flustered by this sudden invitation, and she abruptly turned and walked away, giving one last wave to Fritz before she went inside to the wooden stairway that led to Front Street. But when she looked back at Fritz, she walked directly into a gangly teenage boy.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” she said, laughing. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “You know my little sister? The one down there with her hand flopping on the end of her arm?”

“Fritz. Yes. You must be Charlie.” She would have guessed that anyway, he looked so much like Joe D’Amaro.

“In person.”

He paused, both hands raised, listening intently.

“What?” Catherine said, mystified.

“I’m waiting to see if you say it.”

“Say what?”

“You
didn’t
. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! Thank you, rare individual, who doesn’t say, ‘Charlie, you look just like your old man!’”

“Well, I figured you already knew that,” Catherine said, teasing him.

“Exactly.”

“Got to go. I’ll miss my bus,” she said, hurrying toward the stairs. “Nice meeting you,” she called over her shoulder.

Joe D’Amaro watched his son talking to Catherine Holben. He began to walk in that direction, but by the time he got there, she was already gone.

“Who
is
that?” Charlie asked him.

“Catherine Holben. She bought the gnomes. Just what are you looking at?” he asked, because Charlie was standing transfixed, staring in the direction Catherine had just gone.

“Catherine Holben. Man, she does a lot for the back pockets on a pair of jeans.” He gave Joe a sheepish grin and punched him in the upper arm. “Or are you getting too old to notice those things, Pop?”

“Get out of here,” Joe said, unable to keep from smiling at Charlie’s teasing. He had a good son here—absentminded and irrepressible but good nevertheless. “And don’t call me Pop!”

Charlie’s grin broadened. “Right, Pop.”

He loped off to join his sisters, and Joe gave one last look at Catherine going up the stairs.

I noticed
, he thought.

She was nothing like Lisa, and until a few minutes ago he would have sworn that the only reason he’d asked her to come to the Labor Day cookout was because of Fritz, because he knew she liked Catherine Holben and because Fritz thought he’d been rude to her. He
had
been rude to her, and he regretted it. For days he’d been thinking about calling her or going by where she worked. But then, there she was, sitting in the sunlight. And she’d looked at him with those calm eyes of hers and made him feel as if he could tell her anything and she’d listen.

But he didn’t want to tell her anything. He didn’t want to think anything. He didn’t want to notice anything. Not the back pockets on her jeans, or the gentle way she had with Fritz, or her soft woman’s voice and her soft woman’s smell that still buzzed around in his head.

Jesus! He shouldn’t have invited her. Michael was going to think he had something going on with her, and he’d have
that
to put up with—Michael and his questions. And he couldn’t take the invitation back. Not with Fritz already on cloud nine. Charlie bombarded him with a description of some new software he wanted for his computer. Della ignored him. And Fritz—Fritz took him joyfully by the hand.