Reunion in October (The Calendar Girls Book 2) (9 page)

Just get through the next two hours, say thank you and goodnight.
No
kiss. Easy.

I was an E.R. doc, for God’s sake, used to keeping a calm head in pressure circumstances. Surviving a dinner should be a piece of cake, no pun intended.

“Sorry about that,” Josh said as he took his seat across from me. “Kerri’s good friends with my baby sister. She’s a cute kid. Her uncle is the sous chef here.”

“I think she has a crush on you.” I pointed out the obvious, keeping my tone bland.

To his credit, he didn’t try to deny it. He simply shrugged and offered a self-deprecating smile. “Yeah, I know. Me, the kid who sits behind her in trigonometry, and the lead singer of that lame boy band with the goofy haircuts. But it doesn’t matter. By this time next year, she’ll have moved on to the latest teen movie or television star. The kid from trig class, the lead singer, and I will all be tucked into her hall of shame, only to be mentioned in nostalgic moments and followed by loud squeals of ‘Ewwww! I can’t believe I liked
him
.’”

Placing my napkin on my lap, I laughed at his high-pitched imitation of a girl’s embarrassed shriek. “Oh, I don’t know about that. Nearly twenty years later, I still have a crush on Mark-Paul Gosselaar.”

He reached across the table and clasped my hand. “And I still have a crush on you. But we’re exceptions to the rule, I think.”

Heat flooded my face, and my E.R. persona wilted. Luckily, a busboy appeared with two glasses of ice water. I seized the opportunity to unhook myself from Josh’s warm hold. Once I was free, I sipped the cold beverage until my emotions refroze.

Josh let his hand rest on the table, I guess in case I decided to reestablish contact once I’d drained the local reservoir. “You managed to catch some Zs this afternoon?”

I nodded and swallowed, placing the empty glass beside my bread plate. “Yes, thanks. I know you sent the workmen home early, and I hope you don’t get into trouble for that.”

“Hey, I’m the boss. I don’t get into trouble.” He waved in dismissal, then took my hand again and kissed my fingertips. “Besides, it was the least I could do for my lady.”

Whoa. Now I was his lady? How soon before I became his “
old
lady”?  Time to get this night back on solid ground.  I pulled away and held up my hand like a traffic cop. “Josh, stop.”

His face reflected boyish innocence. “What? What’d I say?”

“Don’t call me your lady. I’m not your lady. Or your girlfriend, for that matter.”

“Take it easy, Frannie. I was just having fun—”

“Francesca,” I corrected automatically.

His gaze leveled on me, and his eyes narrowed to slits. “Oh, right. Francesca, the ice princess. What happened to the fun-loving woman who danced away half the night with me at Promises, Promises? Mikey-Boy’s come back to town so you don’t need to slum with the local guy anymore?”

“That’s not fair.” If he meant to make me squirm with the reminder about Michael, he succeeded, but not enough to make me pursue the change in topic. “Josh, don’t go there. Look, I’m sorry. But we’re not a couple, and we never will be. Don’t get me wrong. I like you.”

He leaned back in his chair, setting distance between us. “You
like
me,” he repeated, his tone filled with wonder and his eyes staring at the recessed lighting in the ceiling. “Wow.” Sarcasm barbed the single syllable.             

On a sigh, I tossed my napkin onto the table and got to my feet. “Maybe I should go. This was a mistake.”

His hand landed on my wrist—light but insistent. “No, it wasn’t. Please. Sit. Let’s try again.”

I stood taller and removed his hand. “I don’t see the point. Face it, Josh. You and I are just too different. And I’m too old for you.”

Jaw slack, he blinked a half dozen times. “You’re thirty-four, for God’s sake.”

“And you’re twenty-eight,” I retorted under my breath.

“So?” He gestured to my chair again. Clearly, he had no intention of giving up the argument based on simple math. I allowed myself to return to my seat. Once I sat again, he leaned forward to whisper, “Is that what’s got you so riled up? My age?”

“That’s only part of it,” I admitted.

“What else? Tell me all of it so we can clear the air between us.” I didn’t reply. I didn’t have to. His lips twisted into a smirk. “Wait. I get it. You’re afraid I’m still in my ‘party ‘til I drop’ phase. That’s why my age bothers you. You think I spend every night at dance clubs and every day scaling rooftops to catch a pretty girl’s attention.”

My forehead pleated in doubt lines. “Don’t you?”

“Only for you, princess.” He wagged his dark brows at me.

“That’s it.” I shot to my feet again. “This was definitely a mistake.”

“No, it’s not.” He grabbed both my hands, clutched my fingers as if he were drowning. “Don’t you get it? Sure, I go overboard where you’re concerned. I admit that. Do you know why? I do it to make you smile, Frannie.”

“Huh?” Okay, he would have to explain himself because I couldn’t leave with that ridiculous statement ringing in my head.

“You have a great smile, but it’s like seeing Bigfoot. No one believes me when I try to tell them. You almost never smile. Even as a teenager, you never looked happy. And I understand why. You lost your dad when you were…what? Thirteen? You grew up too fast. And nowadays, you’ve got a major league serious job, a monastic social life, and a mother who relies on you to be more like her husband than her daughter. Hell, you were this close to marrying the wrong man because your mom had you convinced he was perfect for you.”

“That’s not true,” I murmured, with no attempt to make the denial emphatic.

“Yeah, it is. The right man would never have expected you to pick up and leave Snug Harbor because the right man would understand that you would
never
leave your family. But that’s beside the point. It’s what you’ve become since Mikey-boy left that drives me crazy. When you’re not working at the hospital, you’re either cloistered at home, or mowing your mother’s lawn. You’re fricking Cinderella, always putting someone else’s needs above your own. Now I’m no prince, and I don’t have a ball to take you to, but I want to make you smile because you deserve somebody in your life who makes you happy.”

My knees weakened, and I sank back into my seat, too stunned to move, barely able to see through the tears welling in my eyes. I couldn’t help myself. No one had ever said anything so…
sweet
…to me.

“And I’ll tell you something else,” he continued, pointing his salad fork at me like an exclamation mark. “Mikey-boy will never make you happy. Whether you live here or in Oshkosh—”

“Oregon,” I corrected.

He grimaced. “Like it matters, which is my point. No matter where you live with him, he’ll fold you into his one-size-fits-all box, and that’s where you’ll stay. You’ll be stuck in Stepford-Wife-mode with a closet full of beige suits and practical shoes.”

I shook my head. “You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do. And so do you. Or you would’ve taken him back the minute he reappeared in Snug Harbor, instead of coming out with me tonight.”

“What happened between Michael and me is—”

“None of my business, I know. But, see, the thing is, Mikey doesn’t know who you are. You aren’t Cinderella or Snow White or Florence Nightingale, and no one has the right to squeeze you into some cramped box.”

I cocked my head, my lips twitching in a half-smile. “Oh? Then, who am I, Josh?”

“You’re Frannie. Francesca Florentino, M.D., the woman with the elusive million dollar smile who never gets to have any fun.” His fingers, roughened from his work with wood and power tools, curled around my hand, intimate and nurturing. “And you deserve a boatload of fun. So tell me, Frannie. What would make you smile?”

“You could try an exotic dance to a Barry White tune.”

“Really?” Josh’s eyes widened. “Any particular Barry White tune?”

Omigod, had I said that out loud? Chalk it up to the fact he’d totally disarmed me with his speech. But now, I had to do some serious backpedaling. Or play it off as a joke. I feigned deep thought before replying, “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe ‘You’re the First, the Last, My Everything.’ That one has a great instrumental groove, perfect for gyrating.”

“Gyrating.” His cheeks flushed red, and he grabbed his water glass to gulp half the liquid.

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. He looked so…
nonplussed
by what I’d said. I laughed until the sentimental tears I’d amassed rolled down my cheeks.

“Quick,” he called out to the other nearby diners. “Someone get a picture for the tabloids. She not only smiles, she can laugh.”

Chapter 7

Francesca

The next morning, I played my voicemail and heard the message I expected but dreaded every October.

“Francesca? It’s your mother. The leaves are killing my lawn. When are you coming over to rake? Tomorrow after church would be perfect, if you can make time for me.”

If I could make time for her? She made it sound like I hadn’t seen or spoken to her in months, when, in reality, I’d visited her last week.
Before
life as I knew it had grown into a tornado. Guilt card or no, I owed her a conversation or two. Her request had simply amped up my planned phone call to a face-to-face confrontation.

After Josh’s impassioned speech last night, I realized he had an excellent point. Oh, not about my smile, but about my mom and the rest of my family and how they saw me. When I was thirteen, my dad passed away suddenly from a brain aneurysm. Mom fell apart before we even reached the hospital. As the oldest of the six kids, I took over responsibility for the family. More than twenty years later, I still did, which was why I was the only one Mom called to mow the lawn, take her to doctors’ appointments, or power wash the aluminum siding. The time had come to lay down the law. All of my siblings were adults now, living within a forty minute or less drive, and every one of them was fully capable of helping out Mom with the same tasks that were piled on me on a regular basis.

Seriously, why couldn’t Tony rake leaves? If Mom scheduled her doctors’ appointments around Claudia’s work schedule instead of mine, my youngest sister could easily take over those errands. And Frankie could definitely peel himself away from hours of Sunday afternoon football on television to power wash the house.

After two cups of tea and a kickboxing workout in my gym, I was primed and ready to lay out all my grievances for my mother—calmly and rationally. Except traffic had a different idea. Pumpkin people. I forgot about the pumpkin people.

From May through September the main arteries in and out of our town crammed with summer tourists, looking for sun and sea adventures. In October, our one-lane roads were still jam-packed, this time with families seeking the perfect pumpkin and cornstalks for Halloween decorating, as well as picking apples for baking. The locals called this particular breed of tourists,
pumpkin people
. They came with their kids and their pets, with wagons or wheelbarrows to take advantage of the fall vegetable crop and “all you can carry” deals. And while they were a staple to the local economy, particularly for the farms in and around our area, they were also a bit of a nuisance when it came to traffic tie-ups. Weekends were especially crazy, and this Sunday afternoon was no exception.

By the time I finally got to Mom’s house, I’d lost calm and rational somewhere between Main Street and Seaside Avenue. My frustration eased up when I pulled into Mom’s driveway and noticed someone had already stolen my first argument. Not a leaf or twig remained on her front lawn. I wondered which one of my siblings finally woke up from the selfish coma. Okay, so one hot button topic had cooled off. I still had plenty of ammunition in my arsenal.

I strode inside through the back door, which led to the kitchen. Despite my demands to the contrary, Mom never locked it. After all, only family used the back door. In Mom Land, burglars wouldn’t dream of going around to the side of the house. This afternoon, the kitchen, her usual haunt, was empty. “Mom? Where are you?”

“Who is it?” she called from somewhere down the hall.

“It’s Francesca.”

“Ooh, one minute, honey. I’m in the bedroom. I’ll be right out. There’s coffee if you want. Help yourself.”

Pass. Mom’s coffee could blast away IronMan’s stomach lining. Besides, I was jazzed enough. I sat in my usual seat in the dinette and waited. Almost nothing had changed in this room over the last twenty years. The same patterned wallpaper—yellow and brown country images of roosters and coffee grinders—decorated the walls. The same wrought iron coffeepot-shaped clock kept time. The appliances had been updated from hideous avocado to basic white about fifteen years ago, and they were the newest items in the room. The entire house was basically the same, lost in a time warp since Daddy passed away.

When I was in twelfth grade, I was assigned to read
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens, and I focused my follow-up essay on a comparison between Miss Havisham and my mother. The paper I’d written, tongue-in-cheek, resulted in a meeting with my guidance counselor. Even now, I winced at the memory of Mrs. Goodwin’s beady eyes peering at me while she asked a bunch of weird questions about the stability and cleanliness of our household.

“Francesca!” Mom’s happy greeting blew away the images of long ago school days. “What a nice surprise!”

“What surprise? You called and asked me to come over and rake your leaves today.” I studied my mom with a medical eye, wondering if maybe she was beginning to exhibit brain malfunctions. Her figure, though a little more ample since menopause, curved in the right places. She didn’t look malnourished or confused.

In fact, she still looked sharp as tigers’ claws, her eyes clear and bright, a sly smile on her barely-lined face. “You’re just full of secrets, aren’t you?”

“What secrets? What are you talking about?”

“Your new man.”

“My new…?” I couldn’t finish the statement. Maybe Mom wasn’t confused, but I was swimming in a tide pool of questions. What new man was she talking about? Michael?