The Touch of a Woman (21 page)

Why on earth was Allison at her apartment? More importantly, why had she shown up without—

“Oh, crap! I forgot to turn my phone back on after the ballet.” Her hands shook as she checked it. Nine missed calls and four voice mails, which she listened to in succession. “I have to go.”

“What is it? Why is she there?”

“She’s there because I didn’t answer my phone,” Ellis said testily, immediately feeling guilty for snapping at Summer. Of all the nights for Allison to need her, why had she chosen the one night she wasn’t there? “Sorry. Apparently she got worried this morning because I still wasn’t picking up. She needs to talk to me about something important.”

She made a quick detour into the shower to wash away the smell of a night of sex. A longstanding habit, one that actually didn’t feel so pressing after sex with another woman, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

“What am I going to tell my daughter about being out all night?”

Summer fell across the bed to watch her get dressed. “I take it the truth is off the table.”

“I’m not ready to talk about this yet. At least not with her. Or Jonathan. They both have too much on their plates with school.”

“But you’ll talk with Jeremy?”

Ellis tugged her skinny jeans over last night’s panties and squatted to stretch them out. “I already did. Before Christmas.”

“Now there’s a story I want to hear.”

“It’s going to have to wait.” She set her dress heels and slip on the bedside chair with her dress. “I’ll get these later. Wish me luck.”

Summer walked her to the door and stood on her tiptoes to plant a quick kiss. “You could always say we got home from the ballet last night and your neighbors were having a loud party.”

It was an excellent lie, one she practiced to herself on the short walk to her apartment.

The alternative was to grow a spine and tell the truth. Why not? One of her sons was on board, albeit a bit skeptical. Allison was a chip off the old block, an enlightened liberal who let people be who they were. She’d be able to see how good Summer was for her.

Or maybe she should just let her kids figure it out on their own. It wasn’t as if they were entitled to know everything about her personal life. What person their age wanted to know about their mother’s sexual proclivities anyway?

She pushed open her front door to a sight Summer must have found frightening—the TV was on, as were the lights in the kitchen. Had she walked in on this without warning, she’d have thought someone had broken in.

“Hello?”

The only answer was the sound of a toilet flushing from the master bath.

“Who’s here?”

The bathroom door opened. “Mom?” Allison emerged, her wet hair having soaked the shoulders of her T-shirt.

“Allison. What are you doing here?”

“Where have you been? I was calling you all night.”

“So I just heard.” She held up her phone. “I went to the ballet last night. I forgot to turn my phone back on. Is everything all right? Did something happen? How did you even get here?”

“Jeremy picked me up at the dorm about an hour ago. By the way, I’m staying the night. I need some time away from my roommate. She’s on my last nerve. Thank God she’s leaving next quarter for an internship. Let’s just hope I don’t get somebody worse.” As she talked, she squeezed her hair with a towel and padded barefoot into the kitchen.

“Of course you can stay.” And of course she’d have to make a quick call to Summer telling her their weekend plans—to lie around naked and discover ways to please one another—were off.

“So where have you been? Jeremy knocked on your door at seven o’clock this morning and you were gone already.” Allison suddenly whipped around, her eyes wide.
“Oh, my God! Did you have a date? You spent the night with somebody! No, wait. I don’t want to know. That’s too weird. Don’t tell me.”

Faced with a moment of truth or deflection, Ellis felt the courage drain from her body. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I can explain myself without being weird. It so happens we got home last night and my neighbors were having a wild party. Cars everywhere, music blaring. I could feel their bass through the wall.” Because a decent lie had to be believable. “Summer suggested I stay over at her place. That struck me as a good idea, considering. I’d never have gotten any sleep over here.”

“Ugh, it sounds almost as bad as the dorm.” Allison didn’t seem to care that she’d spent the night at Summer’s. Why should she? Would it even occur to her that staying all night with a lesbian was out of the ordinary? She seemed far more focused on getting the precise amount of almond butter spread to all four corners of a vegan cracker. “I need to talk to you about something. It’s important.”

“Obviously.” Ellis felt conspicuous wearing a dress shirt with jeans…and loafers without socks. It was unthinkable that her daughter wouldn’t notice so many pieces out of place. “But hold that thought. I need to use the bathroom.”

“It’s kind of a mess in there,” Allison called behind her.

A mammoth understatement. The floor was strewn with towels and Allison’s clothes, her toiletries spread across the vanity top. For the first time Ellis could remember, she bristled at feeling her privacy invaded. She had a guest room with a full bath. So what if Allison liked her walk-in shower better?

Summer answered on the first ring.

“We have to cancel everything until tomorrow afternoon. Allison’s staying the night.” She went on to explain how her daughter was escaping an annoying roommate. “I’m sorry. She needs to talk about something. Oh, and I used your party excuse, so be sure you back me up.”

Evading her daughter made her uneasy. She’d always tried to be the kind of mother her children could talk to. Though she’d tried to spare them from things that hurt—their cousin who did drugs, the teacher who thought Jeremy needed counseling to overcome his sexuality—it wasn’t in her to hide important facets of her life.

With a toilet flush and a spray of the faucet, she disguised her real reason for retreating to the bathroom. When she emerged, Allison was sitting on a barstool with her hands folded.

“So what is this very important thing you need to talk about?” She set up her coffeepot to brew a cup, then began wiping the counter of her daughter’s crumbs.

Allison finished chewing her culinary masterpiece and tossed her napkin in the general direction of the trashcan. “I need a car.”

Ka-ching!

“Oh, honey.” This was bad, bad news for her bank account. Another obligation in addition to three more years of tuition. What’s more, she couldn’t buy her daughter a cheap clunker after Bruce had lavished their sons with a pair of fancy sport sedans on the day they graduated high school. The fact that the family money was now tied up and possibly gone was irrelevant to her sense of fairness.

“Please don’t say no yet, Mom. Let me tell you why I need it.” Her first reason—so she could get a part-time job and drive to work—was nearly a deal breaker.

“Allison, there will be plenty of time in your life for work. Right now I want you to focus on your studies.” She wasn’t going to have another child get sidetracked and drop out of college.

“But what about a summer job? You don’t want me lying around on your couch for three months watching stupid stuff on TV.”

She shuddered to think of her daughter living with her during the summer break. They’d barely survived the week at Christmas. Three months in this tiny space would have them at each other’s throats.

“Jeremy thinks it’s a good idea. He hates it when I ask you for money.”

“This isn’t your brother’s concern.” She recalled the conversation she’d overheard on the night she moved in. “Jeremy didn’t stay in college long enough to know what it’s like when you really have to apply yourself. You’re only a freshman. Trust me, it gets harder every year. If you don’t believe me, ask Jonathan.”

Allison scowled at the mention of her other brother. “I’m not like Jon. All he cares about is brown-nosing his professors so he can get into law school. I want to have a life too.”

“I wish you wouldn’t be so hard on him.”

“And I wish you wouldn’t throw him in my face all the time. He does that enough by himself.”

They weren’t quite shouting, but they were loud enough for Ellis to worry about the thin walls. She poured her coffee and stirred in the cream while willing herself to calm down.

“I don’t mean for it to feel like I’m throwing Jonathan in your face, honey. But there’s no need for you to criticize him the way you do. You’re a better person than that. Can he be a little self-absorbed? Yes, but just because he has different views and priorities doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve your respect.”

Jonathan had flat out told her he didn’t care how Allison and Jeremy treated him. He was happy to avoid them, but she wasn’t going to let that happen. They were a family, and after all they’d been through together, she couldn’t allow them to drift apart.

“I respect him…and I love him because he’s my brother.” Her tone was sufficiently contrite. She’d always responded best to appeals to her better nature. “But forget Jon, okay? Let’s get back to my reasons for needing a car. I have to move off campus next year. The dorms are mostly for freshmen.”

“You said you’d find an apartment on the bus route.”

“Fine, I’ll ride the bus to class, but come on. I’ll have to go grocery shopping too. That’s a hassle on the bus, and I can’t expect my roommates to drive me around all the time. Besides, it gets dark at five o’clock in the wintertime. You wouldn’t want me waiting at some bus stop after dark, would you?”

Ellis knew if she pushed back hard enough, Allison would relent. All three of her kids were well aware of her precarious financial situation, but she’d promised herself never to let her daughter feel shortchanged just because she had the bad luck to be born third. It didn’t matter if the money wasn’t there. She’d have to find it.

“I promise I will buy you a car this summer.” She could take out a loan or trade in her own luxury SUV for two lesser models. “Now that we have that settled, I need you to clean up your mess in my bathroom. And in the future, please use the guest bath.”

“Aye-aye, captain.” She even added a salute as she walked past her on her way down the hall. When she reached the bathroom, she shouted, “So you stayed the night with Summer? Bet that was weird.”

She pretended not to hear.

There was one positive thing to say for the day—it wasn’t quite as bad as Christmas. Allison and Jeremy appeared to get along reasonably well, so there wasn’t any squabbling. Bruno was polite as always. But Ellis clearly looked nervous about the whole affair. Not today’s affair, apparently—the one they’d started two nights ago.

Summer still felt out of place among the Rowanburys. The strangest part was knowing Jeremy was aware she was seeing his mother, but sworn to secrecy. Since he’d surely told Bruno, that left Allison as the only one in the dark. It felt deceitful, and she hoped Ellis would talk to her soon.

According to Ellis, her invitation to join the family today had been Jeremy’s idea, ostensibly to thank her for taking their mother in during the wild party that hadn’t actually happened. At least that’s what they’d told Allison. In truth, he’d suggested it so they’d all have the chance to get to know each other better.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon. Summer knew she’d need to build her own bond with the whole family if she and Ellis were going to have something meaningful. At least Jonathan wasn’t there to put everyone on edge.

“I know! Let’s play Spoons,” Allison said. She raced to the kitchen and collected four spoons from the drawer.

“Where are the cards, Mom?” Jeremy asked.

“Where did we leave them at Christmas?” Ellis fished around in a kitchen drawer. “Here we go.”

It was uncanny to Summer how quickly everyone brightened. Clearly this was a game they played often.

“I’m not sure I know what Spoons is,” she said.

Bruno fetched a side chair from the bedroom and added it to the circular dining table. “Just the bloodiest game ever invented. At least the way these guys play.”

The object, it seemed, was to pass the cards around the table one at a time until someone collected four of a kind. That person grabbed a spoon from the center of the table, after which the other four players had to race for one of the three remaining spoons. Whoever failed to get one got an S, then a P, and so on until they spelled out the whole word. Then they took away a chair and a spoon. The game was played until only one remained.

“I’m afraid to ask what makes this so bloody.”

“Watch those two,” Jeremy warned, indicating his mother and sister. “Their fingernails can kill.”

By the time they’d finished the third hand, Summer’s knuckle had been gouged by none other than Ellis. It was indeed a raucous game, hilarious at times. Much better than watching TV, and an easy way to get to know the various personalities without having to make strained conversation.

“I wonder what your noisy neighbors are thinking now, Mom,” Allison said. “I bet they won’t have any more loud parties. Or maybe they’ll think it’s okay because you make a lot of noise too. Good thing Summer has a spare room for you.”

Summer looked over her cards at Ellis, whose face had turned red. “I know what you’re up to, Allison. Stop your chattering and quit trying to distract everybody.”

She drew the Queen of Clubs to complete her set and surreptitiously removed a spoon, all the while passing cards on as if she were still playing. It was several seconds before anyone noticed one of the spoons was missing. Then the rush was on. The last one flew off the table, resulting in Ellis and Bruno diving on the floor.

“That was sneaky,” Allison wailed.

“Who cares? I’m bleeding.”

* * *

Ellis huddled next to Jeremy and Bruno on the couch so she could keep her voice low. Allison was in the guest bedroom packing her things to return to campus.

“It was fun, don’t you think?”

“I like her,” Bruno declared. He and Summer had hit it off, joking throughout the afternoon and bonding over their status as state employees.