Family Blessings (38 page)

He modeled his clothes--they fit--and kept on the wrinkled new shirt with his police trousers while they cleaned up the living room and ate a ham dinner, and tried Joey's new video game, and got a portion of the frame of a jigsaw puzzle put together.

Finally, when he was getting ready to go home, he found a moment alone with Lee.

"I found the bracelet," he told her. "But it's too much."

"It's what I feel. Are you wearing it?"

He extended his wrist, proving that he'd had no intention of giving it up, too much or not. "Thank you, Lee. I really love it."

She touched the links with one finger. "So do I."

"And the heart."

She kissed his wrist where the warm gold chain crossed it.

"I wish you could stay."

"So do I. Are you going over to Sylvia's later on?"

"I'm not sure. It's awfully nice, just lolling around here."

"If I drive by, I'll give a honk. Well, I'd better say goodbye to the others."

Lloyd and Joey were in the living room playing the video game.

They paused to say goodbye. Janice was in her bedroom trying on clothes.

He knocked on her door and she came into the hall wearing a sweater with tags hanging from its wrist.

"Gotta go," he said. "Thanks for the best Christmas of my life."

"Thank you, too." She caught him around the neck with one arm and held him for only a moment. "And don't forget--call me if you want company at the Timberwolves."

He patted her back and they parted.

Lee saw him out. When he stood on the step and she held the door open behind him, he turned back and said, "I change shifts in three days, back to day shift, plus I have the whole New Year's weekend off. I want to take you out on New Year's Eve, so think up some excuse.

Better yet, tell them the truth."

He left her with that challenge. She closed the door already beginning to scour her mind for explanations.

Chapter 14.

Two days after Christmas, Lee received a beautiful greeting card from Christopher. In it he'd written: Dear Lee, Although I tried to tell you on Christmas Eve just how much it meant to me to be with you and your family for the holiday, I don't think I did a very good job. Your family is all that mine isn't, and being with you has been an education as well as a pleasure. If there were more families like yours, guys in my line of work would be put out of business. Being with you personally has come to be the best part of my life right now. You're a great lady, a special person, and a wonderful friend. Thanks a lot for everything you do for me, and especially for the Christmas gifts.

The shirt and sweater are just what I like, but the bracelet-wow! I sure wasn't expecting that. I wear it every day and think of you when I put it on and when I see it there on my wrist. I'll never forget this Christmas as long as I live, and I have a feeling the same will be true about New Year's Eve. I just can't wait.

Love, Christopher It had been years since she'd received an affectionate greeting card from a man. Reading his words she felt romantic again, vibrant, eager-- all the entirely feminine reactions of the wooed woman. It struck her as unusual that a man without a mother's positive influence would write a note such as this. He, too, was special to have done so. She reread the note time and again, sitting at home in the kitchen where they'd first kissed, thinking how unexpected was the advent of this young man into her personal life when she had not been looking for anyone to fill a gap. Indeed, she hadn't known the gap existed, now here he was, putting anticipation in her life, excitement in her days and a flurry in her widow's heart, which had been content to go unflurried for so many years.

How bizarre and unexpected to end up kneeling beside a man-especially one of Christopher's age--on a sofa on Christmas Eve and hearing that he loved her, telling him she loved him. Yet it was absolutely true.

She loved him. What was to come of it, she had no idea, but the change it had wrought in her life felt so incredibly glorious she would go on gifting herself with his presence and enjoying each moment they spent together.

He called as she was sitting there reading his card for the fifth time.

His voice had the power to turn her radiant within. He could say, simply, "Hi," as he did now, and in her breast happiness flowered, filled her with a wondrous sense of well-being, a benefaction that flowed on long after the conversation ended.

"I was reading your card," she told him, ". . . again."

"I meant every word in it."

"I loved every word in it. It's been years since I got a card like that from a man."

"You say that often--it's been years."

"Well, it has been. Do you mind?"

"No. Actually, it's sort of a thrill when I hear it. I like being the one bringing you back to life."

"You certainly are doing that."

"So how about dancing? Has it been years since you've done that, too?"

"Actually, it has been."

"Want to give it a whirl on New Year's Eve?"

"Yes!" she said, excited. "Oh, yes! I haven't bought a dancing dress in years!" He laughed. She laughed. "I said it again, didn't I?"

"A bunch of the guys from the department have reserved a block of tables at the Bel Ray ballroom. High Noon is playing."

"Who's High Noon?"

"The best country band around." She gave a moment's thought to his invitation. "The department guys, huh?"

"You ready to face them as my date?"

"What do you think they'll say?"

"They'll tease me, but not when you're around."

"Well, if you can take it, I can take it. "Passable. How about you?"

"I've got rhythm, but I'll probably be a little rusty."

"Want to o out to dinner first?"

Are you a good dancer?"

"Dinner too? Christopher, you'll spoil me."

"I'd love to. How about if I pick you up at seven?"

"Fine." After a pause, she said, "Christopher, I'm so excited. I haven't been out on New Year's Eve since 1983."

"We'll make it a night you'll never forget."

She said to Janice and Joey, "Do either one of you object to Christopher taking me out on New Year's Eve?"

Joey said, "Not as long as you give me money to order a pizza.

Janice's expression drooped. "Oh, shoot! If I'd known, I wouldn't have made plans with Nolan and Jane."

Lee gazed at her daughter feeling somewhat miffed. Was she so old and decrepit that it was inconceivable Christopher might want to take her out without her children? Unbelievably, Janice failed to realize this was a real date. If it was a case of hiding in plain sight, so be it.

Lee wasn't going to elucidate.

"The police department guys have reserved a bunch of tables at the Bel Ray ballroom and we're going out there."

"Dancing?" Janice exclaimed.

"Yes, dancing. Is there anything wrong with that?"

"Well, no, but . . . gosh, Mom, it's been a while, hasn't it?"

"Yes it has, and I'm pretty excited. What are you doing that night" "Going to a party at one of the girls' houses I worked with at The Gap last summer. She said I could bring anybody I want so I asked Nolan and Jane if they wanted to come along."

"What about you, Joey?"

"Could I have Denny stay overnight?"

"If it's okay with Denny's mom, and if she knows I won't be here till later. And no girls."

"No girls. Sandy is skiing in Colorado with her family, but will you pay for pizzas?"

"I'll pay for pizzas."

"All right!" He socked the air. "We can play video games all night!"

Lee bought a new dress. It was fun-loving, flouncy and had a two-tiered skirt in solid red. She bought red pumps to match, and real silk panty hose, then hung multicolored earrings on her ears and a glob of matching color above her sweetheart neckline.

Christopher came to pick her up dressed in jeans, sport coat, string tie and cowboy boots. He escorted her out after complimenting her looks holding her coat, opening the door and in general acting as attentive as any normal young swam who comes a-courting.

When they'd left and Janice was still standing in the front hall with her saliva glands pumping, Joey said, "I think he likes Mom."

"Well, of course he likes Mom. Everybody likes Mom."

"But, I mean, I think they're going steady or something."

"Going steady! Oh, Joey, for heaven's sake, Mom is forty-five years old and Christopher's only thirty! He's just being nice to her because Greg is dead and he knows she'd be lonesome otherwise."

"Open your eyes, nipple-head! Look at how she was dressed! She didn't look like any old lady to me."

Janice rolled her eyes and headed back to the bathroom to finish combing her hair. Fourteen-year-old brothers could be so dense!

Janice was partially right. Christopher was being nice to Lee.

Four blocks away, he had pulled his Explorer to the side of the street and was kissing her masterfully enough to suck off half the new lipstick she'd just b applied. His left hand was inside her coat, caressing her breast, and his . tongue was inside her mouth. When the kiss finally ended he said with his forehead against hers, "Are you sure you want to go dancing?"

"Yes," she answered, smiling. "First."

They ate at Finnegan's--lightly, because they talked and laughed and ,i- flirted so much that when the waiter came to claim their plates for the third time, they let him take them even though the food wasn't gone yet.

Christopher said, "Good God, you look pretty."

Lee said, "Good God, you look handsome."

"Is the dress new?"

"Everything's new. Me too, I think."

"You're going to be, before this night's over." He was holding her hands across the table, adoring her with his eyes. "I've got something for you." He released one hand, took a paper from his pocket and handed it to her. It was a green sheet, folded like a business letter.

She opened it and read across the top "Luflcin Medical Laboratories."

Lower down the page a single item jumped out at her: HIV negative.

Color leaped to her face. All within her seemed to surge to the sexual parts of her body. She gaped at him over the paper.

"Christopher . . . my God, you did it!"

"It seemed the wisest thing to do in today's world. But I don't want you to feel pressured because I did. The choice is still up to you."

She pressed a palm to her right cheek, then her left. "Mercy, am I blushing?"

"Yes, you are, and it's quite becoming."

"I can't believe you actually did it!"

"Why? I told you I would."

"But . . . but that was just . . . just speculation."

"Was it?"

She let her eyes be held by his. Her tone softened. "No, I guess it wasn't And after a pause, "I didn't do anything like that though. Do you want me to?"

"Not if you and Bill were monogamous, and I think you were."

"Yes, we were."

"And there's been nobody else since, so I was the only one in question.

Now that question is answered."

She took both his hands again. "That's quite an act of faith, Mr. Lallek."

He looked down at her knuckles while rubbing them with his thumbs.

"That's what good relationships are built on, and I want ours to be the best."

She studied him with a loving expression in her eyes, then asked softly, "Would you mind very much if I got up, right here in the middle of this restaurant, and came over there and kissed you?"

He let a grin spread up one corner of his mouth . . . slowly.

"You wouldn't sling your leg over my chair like you did that other time, would you?"

She grinned back, picturing herself in the red dress and high heels sitting astride him in this fancy restaurant with its candlelight and real linen. "I'll try to control myself."

He pulled on her hand and she got up to do as promised, surprising herself and him with her lack of compunction, even though they weren't sitting precisely in the middle of the restaurant, and even though the waiter wasn't anywhere in sight, and even though neither of them saw anyone they knew among the clientele.

She held his face in her two rough hands and put her mouth on his for only the briefest second. When their lips parted she kept her face close and whispered, "Do we really have to go dancing?"

And made him smile.

He could do the Texas two-step!

She watched the couples circling the floor counterclockwise, and balked as he tugged on her hand.

"But I can't do that!"

"How do you know?"

"Christopher, I'll embarrass you."

"Never. Come on, give it a try. We'll go out in the middle where we'll be out of traffic and I'll teach you a move or two."

She relented and let herself be taught, noting that there were others out there in the middle of the floor struggling through basic steps, too. Christopher told her, "They give lessons here a couple nights a week before the band starts playing, so there are always beginners."

I As she'd told him, she did have rhythm, and it turned out to be less diffiCult than she'd imagined. Soon she was swinging under his arm, he was dipping under hers, and they were performing basic moves--the promenade and the wrap--quite smoothly as they circled the floor.

"I wouldn't have taken you for a dancer," she said while the shh-shhsbb of cowboy boots sandpapered the floor all around them.

"The last girl I dated--the one who moved to Texas--wanted me to learn.

She and I took lessons together."

"I should thank her. This is fun."

"Ready to try something new?"

- "Is it hard?"

"Naw, you can handle it. Now, get ready, I'm going to take you Around the World."

" He lifted his hands and led her around his body in a full circle, spinning her round and round.

She laughed breathlessly as she faced him again and resumed the basic step.

"I did it!"

His smile was uncomplicated, pleased, and filled her with happiness.

' At the tables reserved for police department personnel there were a lot of celebrating cops and wives, who were designated drivers. The mood was gay, at times raucous. Much to Lee's surprise, she was accepted as Christopher's date with none of the double-takes she'd expected. Pete Ostrinski asked her to dance and she followed him quite smoothly. Toni Mansetti inquired how her son was doing. The wife of Sergeant Anderson told her a ribald joke about panty hose that created a new round of laughter from all the other women who'd already heard it, and started them all casting dubious glances at their ankles, which played off the punch line and signaled more laughter. Christopher attempted to teach her an advanced move called the whip, but they got tangled up time after time and ended up laughing so much they gave up and decided they'd save it for next time.