Queen Bee Goes Home Again (35 page)

“Mercy,” Miss Mamie exclaimed. “Please tell me those are from Connor.”

“I wish,” I said, reclaiming my seat. “Unfortunately, they're from Phil.”

“Well, shoot,” Miss Mamie spat out, the exclamation as close to cussing as she went.

Discreet as always, Carla quietly left us, giving Tommy's shoulder a squeeze as she passed behind him.

“I need advice,” I told Miss Mamie, then looked to my brother. “From you, too.”

“Mama, pack our bags for heaven,” Tommy responded in his best televangelist imitation. “The end is nigh. Lin just asked for my advice.”

I gave him a good-natured shove on the arm, then sobered. “What should I do here? I want to do the right thing, but God's not telling me what I need to know. Past experience tells me Phil's up to no good. And as for his conversion, he never once mentioned Jesus.” Then I turned against myself. “But what if he's really accepted Christ?” This was giving me a headache. “What if he really has changed? Do I owe him another chance?”

“Do you
want
to give him another chance?” Miss Mamie asked.

I shook my head in denial. “What I
want
is Connor, but maybe that's just lust talking.
Lust,
at my age.” I shook my head. “Intellectually, I want to do what's best for Connor, but humanly … things don't feel complete without him anymore.”

Tommy and Miss Mamie exchanged pregnant glances that said, “Uh-oh.”

Uh-oh was right.

“We have a slogan in the program,” Tommy said. “When you don't know what you should do, don't just do something; stand there.”

We all knew how terrible I was at waiting.

Miss Mamie nodded. “I think Tommy's right, honey. There's a lot you don't know about either of those men. What harm could it do to wait and see what happens?” She didn't leave time for me to answer, just forged on with, “Focus on your own life. Thank God for taking care of this, then study, study, study.” She lifted her chin with pride. “Don't give either of them power over you. Just put them out of your mind. And every time they come back, put them out again.”

“Easy to say,” I groaned out. “Hard to do.” Anger rose like bile inside me. “I'm so furious with Phil for messing up everything with Connor. And even more furious with Connor for letting him.”

“So use my punching bag in the garage.” Tommy pointed to where my biceps used to be. “Those arms will tighten right up.”

“My luck,” I retorted, “I'd dislocate my shoulder on the first punch.”

Tommy gave my back a consoling pat. “You can get through this. Let go and let God.”

Normally, I love platitudes, but this time, I bristled. “That's what I've been doing, and it hasn't worked.”

“Yet,” Tommy said in a superior tone.

I sighed heavily. “I do not need this drama. I need to focus, so I can study.”

“That's what I'm talkin' about,” he said.

I peered at my brother. “What do your instincts tell you about Phil and Connor? I really want to know.”

He looked away, then up. “Well, AA is all about second chances, so I wouldn't say Phil
can't
change. But I question why he would want to get you back after what he did, much less why he's pressing you so hard. You didn't get any alimony, so that's not it.”

He left you destitute,
my stubborn self reminded me.
You'd be a fool to buy into his act.

Then Connor's voice asked again,
What if he's telling the truth?

Tommy regarded me with sympathy. “I'd just say be careful and keep your eyes wide open with Phil.”

“And Connor?” I asked.

“My impression is that he's a really good guy, but I'm disappointed that all Phil had to do was hurl a couple of Bible verses at him to get Connor to let you go. Who knows?” He stared off toward Connor's house. “Maybe he's not what he seems. People don't get divorced for no reason.”

“He told me about that,” I defended. “He said his wife and family always ended up with the short end of the stick, that he paid more attention to his ministry than his marriage, so she finally had enough and left him for a man who appreciated her. Connor blamed himself completely, said that was why he gave up his megachurch and took a smaller one here.”

“And promptly shot himself in the foot by falling for
you,
” Tommy said. “You've gotta wonder what's with that.”

I bristled. “Is it so incredible that a man like Connor might be in love with me?”

Tommy colored. “Heck, no. It's just, well, we both know you're nobody's idea of a Baptist minister's wife.”

I agreed with him, but hearing him say it hurt my feelings. “How would you know? You haven't darkened the doors of a church for seven years, much less First Baptist.”

Tommy's eyes narrowed as his mouth flattened into a straight line. “Watch out, Sissie-ma-noo-noo. Judge not, lest ye be judged.”

He had a point.

Miss Mamie said nothing, but her expression matched Tommy's.

I fought down the urge to defend myself and said, “Sorry. You're right.”

“Mama, pack our bags!” he said for the second time. “The end is upon us! Lin just said I was right.”

“Enough, already.”

What I'd
really
lost in my divorce were my illusions about Phil. That had broken my heart, but he'd never asked me to imagine him as more than he was. “I imagined Phil as a better man. He didn't ask me to. I just did, all by myself.”

I wiped a contradictory tear from my eye. “When I finally understood that the man I loved never had existed, I was able to let go. Who he is now, I couldn't tell you. But I definitely don't want him back.”

My Granny Beth's long-ago words echoed in my brain:
There's no such thing as Prince Charming. All the men out there are frogs. Just pick the very best frog you can find.

Even after she'd warned me repeatedly, I'd still eloped with Phil, then spent the next thirty years trying to be the perfect Christian corporate wife for the prince I'd dreamed up, despite all evidence to the contrary.

You'd think I would have learned my lesson. Yet there I sat, convinced that
Connor
was a prince.

The trouble was, as frogs go, Connor definitely seemed to be the best one in the pond. Why did he have to turn out to be a wuss?

Tommy was right. I could wait to see how things shook out.

Thank goodness for school. At least I was starting something new.

Thinking of school, I couldn't stifle a chuckle.

“What's so funny?” Tommy asked with a smile.

“Me, a college freshman.”

He grinned. “Smokin', and I don't mean cigarettes.”

“Oh, right,” I challenged.

“What?” he asked. “I know this Phil thing threw Connor for a loop, but he still wants you. And so does Phil the fish.” An apt allusion: my ex was definitely slimy. “I call that hot, missy.”

My heart lightened. “The only thing hot about me is those ThermaCare patches I put on my knees at night.”

With that, I got up and gave them each a hug. “Thanks for listening. I'm going to the apartment to study.”

“We won't bother you,” Mama said.

“Thanks.”

Me, a college freshman, with two men competing for my attention.

I laughed about that all the way to my apartment. Never mind the note of hysteria that shaded it. A laugh is a laugh is a laugh, and I needed one.

I started my homework and didn't even come up for air till my stomach demanded food. After eating, I worked till my eyes wouldn't stay open, then crawled into bed at one-thirty in the morning. I set the alarm, closed my eyes, and three seconds later (actually, five hours), the alarm sounded for ten minutes before I swam up to consciousness.

Thank heaven for coffee, that's all I can say. And Miss Mamie's breakfasts.

 

Fifty-three

Two weeks after Connor had left me hanging, my cell phone finally rang at nine on Tuesday evening and showed his number. Heart pounding, I grabbed the phone and raced to the little window in the apartment's front door, peering through the hedge at his house. “Hello?”

My first word sounded breathless, because it was. I suddenly missed him so much—or the man I hoped he was—that I could barely speak.

“Lin?” His tone was grave.

Fear caused my heart to shrink. “Connor?” All my hopes resonated in his name.

A long pause followed.

“I wish I knew what to tell you,” he finally said. “I've prayed and prayed, but I'm still not getting any answers. So I've focused on the Lord's work, and there's a lot of work to be done with my congregation. But I still can't get you out of my mind, or my heart.”

Yes! Thank You, Lord!

“It's the same with me,” I confessed. When he didn't respond, I hastily filled the silence with, “I started school. I'm taking seven courses on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Makes for long days and lots of studying.” Still no response. “Daddy always wanted me to finish school.”

I caught myself. “There I go again,” I blurted out, “referring to Daddy in the past tense, when he's still very much present in body, if not in mind.”

“Don't beat yourself up about that,” Connor said in a softer tone. “The father you knew
is
gone.”

“No he's not,” I countered. “He's magnified times ten; the bad parts, anyway.”

“But that's not the man he was,” Connor comforted. “We're all a mixture of good and bad, of sinner and saint. Your father just can't control the balance anymore. It's his dementia, not him.”

I knew that, but it didn't help when I had to deal, week in and week out, with the consequences of Daddy's paranoia.

Then a huge pulse of grief shifted my heart back to Connor. “I can't stop thinking about you,” I said, knowing I shouldn't. “Missing you.”

“I miss you, too,” he said, then clearly regretted it. “I'm sorry I said that. I don't want to lead you on. I didn't mean—”

“It's okay,” I lied, anything but okay.

He changed the subject. “Have you heard from your ex?”

That. Ouch.

“He sends tulips every day, and he's called a few times from a blocked number. Then, out of the blue, he shows up to take me out to dinner and some plays, but I still don't trust him.”

Connor took the bull by the horns. “Lin, why did you marry him?”

I sighed. “At the time, I thought it was love. I waited on him hand and foot, made sure he got everything he wanted at home. But after the divorce, I went into counseling and realized that Phil was my way of escaping my parents and Mimosa Branch. He was steady. Respectable. Sexy. At least, that's what I thought then. I had nobody to compare him to.”

I paused, waiting for Connor to laugh, but he didn't. “He had a good job and great prospects, and I wanted respectability, anonymity, and a house in Buckhead.”

Still, Connor didn't respond.

My reasons probably sounded too mercenary for a man like him.

But I went on, unable to bear the silence between us. “Looking back, I feel sorry for him. Ours was no love match. No wonder he dumped me for someone else.”

Connor's next question was gingerly stated. “Did you ever love him?”

I searched my soul about those long-gone years. “I took care of him. Tried to be the perfect Christian wife. The perfect corporate wife.”

Perfection. Was I fantasizing about Connor with that same expectation?

“We were a partnership, more than a marriage,” I admitted. “But I don't think I even knew what love really was. Not what it should be between a man and a woman.”

“Do you now?” he asked quietly.

I weighed my response, then opted for honesty. “Unfortunately, I think I do.”

Connor groaned.

“Enough for me to want the best for you,” I went on, “even if it means I can't have you.”

Liar, liar, pants on fire!
my Puritan blared with the finger of judgment pointed in my direction.

I can be noble,
I argued back.

My sensible self joined the conversation with,
Martyr, martyr, martyr!

Rats. Would all my parts
please
just shut up?

Above the clamor, I heard my voice ask Connor, “Why did you marry your wife?”

I sensed his surprise in the long pause that followed. Then he admitted, “Because it was time for me to take a wife, and there was a huge physical attraction between us.”

Just like the one we felt for each other now?

Connor inhaled slowly, then let it out. “She was a wonderful, devout Christian woman, and she wanted to marry me.” He let out a brief, dry chuckle. “I don't even remember asking her. She probably gave me an ultimatum. I was so wrapped up in seminary, I couldn't tell you.” Another pregnant pause. “First school, then my doctorate, then the girls and my first churches. I didn't realize I was taking my family for granted, but I did. I failed miserably as a husband and a father, blinded by my pride about my work.”

He paused again. To collect himself?

“I blew it again and again for years,” he confessed, “like the tap of a chisel on alabaster. I took Helen for granted, chiseling away at her heart till there was nothing soft left. No wonder she left me for someone who paid attention to her and made her feel loved.”

Had he really learned his lesson, or was he unconsciously repeating what he'd done before, but with me, a very different woman, telling himself everything would work this time?

Was that why he didn't stand up for me? Or was it because I was so inappropriate, forbidden fruit?

I sighed heavily, barely escaping the tidal wave of
what ifs
that slammed down on me.