Just Like Heaven (16 page)

“So did I.” Kate opened a drawer and withdrew two freshly pressed linen napkins the color of summer sunshine. “She’s off having lunch with two of her cronies.”

“And your daughter?”

She turned away from him slightly as she reached for the tray leaning against the counter. “She went back to work yesterday.”

“So it’s just us.”

“Yes,” she said, “it’s just us.”

“Good.” Great time for his internal censor to take a hike. She either hadn’t heard him or was kind enough to pretend she hadn’t. He needed all the help he could get to keep from saying something so ridiculous he would have to leave the state six weeks early just to save face.

“I read Maeve the riot act. I was afraid you’d think—” She swallowed the rest of her sentence. “Believe it or not, I used to be an intelligent, sophisticated woman.” She pointed to herself with a broad, almost comical sweep of her hand. “This really isn’t me.”

“I rehearsed a speech on the drive up here.”

“You did not!”

“I was practicing it in the florist shop. The clerk thought I was a head case.”

“Isn’t this ridiculous?” she said, pouring them each a glass of whatever it was in that icy pitcher. “We’re acting like we just met. We’re old friends.”

“Eight days and counting.” He took the glass from her. “Peach iced tea?”

“Don’t tell me: you lived above a tea shop when you were in college.”

“I saw the empty cans of peach nectar.”

“I wish it were champagne,” she said, “but alcohol is off-limits to me right now. Actually, if you’d like champagne we have a split in the fridge that I’d be happy to open for you.”

“Alcohol is off-limits to me too,” he said. “And not just right now.”

She nodded, but she didn’t ask questions and this wasn’t the time to volunteer his life story. She poured them each a goblet of peach iced tea.

“Cent’anni,”
he said. “One hundred years.”

“Cent’anni,”
she said, and then he watched, amazed, as she burst into tears.

He put down his glass and rounded the counter to where she stood sobbing into a yellow napkin. “Was it something I said?”

She shook her head and struggled to pull herself together. “Don’t pay any attention to me.”

As if that were possible.

She managed a rueful smile. “I know it’s hard to believe, but the real me only cries at christenings.”

He handed her a fresh napkin, which she accepted gratefully. “Nothing you can do except ride it out. It’s part of the process.”

“Well, I’m not too crazy about the process. I’m known as a hardheaded businesswoman. I have my reputation to consider.”

“Businesswomen don’t cry?”

“Not in the dairy aisle at ShopRite they don’t. I made a holy show of myself yesterday over a display of low-fat cottage cheese. I’m going to have to change markets if this keeps up.”

She said it with a self-mocking laugh in her voice that was as telling as it was endearing.

“Are you usually this hard on yourself?”

“You have a degree in psychology as well as theology?”

“Just an observation.”

“It’s absolutely gorgeous outside,” she said, gesturing toward the French doors. “How would you feel about eating on the patio?”

Which pretty much answered his question.

 
Kate didn’t know what she would have done if he hadn’t agreed to lunch on the patio. All she did know was that the room had grown too small for the emotions swirling about like mini-twisters. If they stayed in that room much longer, anything could happen.

He saw her too clearly. Most people thought she sailed through life on a wave of self-confidence, but he knew otherwise.

He was one of those rare men who pitched in without waiting to be asked. He carried plates and platters and pitchers and set them up on the table while she started the coffee, dug up the dessert dishes, and sneaked into the bathroom to check her hair and makeup.

Finally they were seated opposite each other at her glass-topped table. The sun was warm for early spring and the skies were deep blue and cloudless. Even nature was on their side.

“Springtime in New Jersey,” she said with a theatrical sigh. “It doesn’t get much better than this.”

“You’re right.” His gaze roved the expanse of garden and lawn stretched out before them. “And I thought nobody did it better than we did in New Hampshire.”

“You’re from New Hampshire originally?” So that explained the vaguely Yankee accent she had detected.

“Born and raised so far north we were honorary Canadians.”

She laughed. “I used to spend time around Laconia. It’s one of my favorite places in the world.”

“Vermont gets all the hype,” he said, “but we deliver the goods.”

“ ‘Live free or die.’ ” She quoted the state motto. “It’s pretty hard to beat that sentiment.” She gestured toward their lunch. “New Jersey’s bounty. Enjoy!”

He hesitated for a fraction of a second, just long enough for her to notice, before he picked up his fork.

“Is something wrong?” she asked. “Do you need salt?”

“Everything’s fine.”

Then it dawned on her. “Did you want to say grace?”

His smile was easy and unembarrassed. “I just did but if you’d like to join me, I’d be happy to say it again.”

“That’s okay,” she said, reaching for her glass of iced tea. “I’m fine.”

He nodded and speared a piece of chicken with his fork.

“What I mean is, I don’t usually say grace.”

He popped the piece of chicken into his mouth. “No problem.”

“I don’t have anything against saying grace,” she went on, “it’s just that it isn’t part of my routine.”

“You don’t owe me an explanation, Kate. It’s fine.”

She put her cards and her glass of iced tea down on the table. “I haven’t been to church since nineteen ninety-three and the last time I said grace I was wearing a St. Aloysius uniform and studying for the SATs.” What on earth was wrong with her? Talk about too much information.

“Roman Catholic?”

“Yes, and the word
lapsed
doesn’t begin to describe it.”

“I’m not wearing the collar today,” he said. “I’m not here to judge you.”

She fiddled with her dessert spoon. “I don’t even know why I told you all of this. It just popped out when I realized you were saying grace.”

“Religion is a touchy issue in our society. Most of us would rather talk about our sex lives than our religious beliefs.”

He smiled and her discomfort melted away.

“I thought money was the touchy issue in our society,” she said, reaching again for her iced tea.

He shook his head and speared some bok choy. “Believe me, religion has it beat. We’re becoming a largely secular society and that puts people of faith on the other side of a cultural divide.”

“Separation of church and state,” she reminded him. “That’s a good thing.”

“Agreed, but that isn’t what I’m talking about. Religion makes a lot of people uneasy.” He gestured toward himself. “That’s why I’m not wearing my collar today.”

“Because it would have made me uncomfortable? I don’t think it’s possible to be more uncomfortable than I am right now.”

“Then let’s change the subject.” He leaned across the table. “So who did you vote for in the last election?”

And just like that the tension between them vanished and they were back where they had been a few minutes ago: a man and a woman sharing lunch and laughter beneath a glorious New Jersey sky.

“You’re a great cook,” he said as he polished off the salad. “This is world-class.”

“Thanks, but I can’t take credit for any of it. Maeve put it all together for us. She’s been very solicitous since my heart attack.”

“Mothers are like that.”

She laughed. “Not my mother. Maeve had her own theories on parenting and they didn’t exactly follow the Donna Reed paradigm.”

“She’s a fascinating woman.” He met her eyes. “I’ve read her books.”

“You have not!” Maeve wrote about love and sex and romance, occasionally in graphic terms.

“She’s good,” he said. “She’s honest and she’s helpful. What’s not to like?”

“ ‘What’s not to like?’ ” She started to laugh. “Are you sure you weren’t born here?”

“Positive.” He drained his iced tea, then poured them each some more from the pitcher. “So what
was
she like as a mother?”

“Loving,” she said, pushing her sesame chicken from one side of the plate to the other. “Caught up in her own dramas much of the time.” She met his eyes. “Maeve is one of those women who fall in love easily and often. Unfortunately she’s also one of those women who believe in marriage, which meant I had a lot of stepfathers.”

“That must have been hard for you.”

“It wasn’t easy,” she admitted, “but she had good taste in men. They were all extremely nice guys. I just wish we’d let one of them stick around long enough to unpack.”

“So you moved around a lot.”

“No, she made them move around a lot.”

They locked eyes and burst into loud, raucous laughter that seemed to come from nowhere.

“Is your father still alive?” he asked as he helped her carry their empty plates into the kitchen. “I have this mental picture of an academic type with leather patches on the elbows of his tweed sport coat.”

“You’re close. He was the son of a famous senator from Rhode Island. They split up before I was born.” She opened the door to the dishwasher and started loading plates inside. “He died when I was twenty-six.”

He handed her the knives and forks. “I’m sorry.”

“It would have been nice to have a chance to get to know him but—” She shrugged and closed the dishwasher door. “Your family is what it is and there’s nothing you can do about it.” She handed him the dessert plates, the bakery box, and the icy serving bowl piled high with mango sorbet. “How about you? Any senators hiding in your closet?”

He waited while she put the coffeepot, two cups and saucers, and a pitcher of milk on a tray. “No senators,” he said, “but we do have a couple of Episcopal priests lurking in there.”

“So you went into the family business.” She led the way back out to the patio. The warm sun felt like an embrace.

“I never thought of it that way, but I guess I did.”

“You never thought of it that way?” She arranged everything on the glass-topped table and leaned the empty tray against the house. “Most families don’t have multiple clergy members gathering around the Thanksgiving Day dinner table.”

“My parents were dairy farmers who only went to church for christenings, funerals, and the occasional wedding. They weren’t exactly thrilled when I said I was going into the seminary.”

“When I was little, the nuns talked a lot about hearing the call. I remember walking to school and praying God wouldn’t tap me on the shoulder and tell me I had to join the convent.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“I know that now,” she said as she poured him a cup of coffee, “but when you’re seven years old, anything seems possible.”

“So are you asking me if God tapped me on the shoulder and gave me a one-way ticket to the seminary?”

“Yes,” she said, sliding his cup and saucer toward him. “That’s exactly what I’m asking.” Why pull her punches? The odds were pretty good that they would never see each other again. They could afford to be honest.

“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know that I would be a priest.”

“No offense, but you don’t exactly seem like your average holy man. You were wearing a Grateful Dead T-shirt the day we met. You drive a truly awful powder blue car. And, to be completely frank here, I don’t think I’ve heard you say anything holy or spiritual yet.”

“Maybe you haven’t been listening.”

“Every time I think I have you figured out, you say something like that and I have to start from scratch.”

He served her a small crystal bowl of mango sorbet and slid it toward her. “You’ve been trying to figure me out?”

“You’re very mysterious,” she said. “A New Hampshire priest churchless in central New Jersey. I Googled you but couldn’t find out a single thing.”

She offered him the sumptuous double-chocolate brownies Maeve had brought back from the bakery. He took two. She liked a man who liked chocolate.

“I Googled you too,” he said. “There were fifty-two mentions of Kate French and/or French Kiss last year alone.”

She smiled and took a spoonful of sorbet. “We had a good year.”

“Now I see how those documents figure into the equation.”

“The eighteenth century, mainly the Colonial through Revolutionary War period, is my specialty,” she said. “Clothes, household items, ephemera. Unfortunately the good stuff is getting harder to find around here. I had to go all the way to England for the documents you saved for me.” She had a new appointment with Professor Armitage set up in two weeks.

He flashed her a surprisingly wicked grin. “Did the ghost of George Washington tap you on the shoulder and say, ‘Thou shalt deal in antiques’?”

She threatened him with a spoonful of mango sorbet. “The senator’s son left me some money when he died. His second family contested the will but his and Maeve’s marriage had been legal and binding and I was among his legitimate issue.” She popped the sorbet into her mouth, savored the smooth sweetness, then swallowed. “I bought this carriage house and then I bought a half-interest in the antiques shop where I’d been working. Two years later I bought out the owner.”

“What about Gwynn’s father?”

“Ed and I married in high school.” She met his eyes. “Yes, for the reason you think. We loved each other as friends but we were never in love the way a married couple should be. We divorced when Gwynn was ten years old. He remarried a few months later and is very happy living in Pennsylvania with Marie and their kids.”

“You never married again?”