Love, Suburban Style (22 page)

Katie, however, seems to have taken a giant leap and landed cleanly on Meg’s side of the hedge. She chatters nonstop as they eat their pancakes, telling Meg all about her trip to the Catskills, and her friends and her hobbies, and the new clothes she wants to buy for school’s start next week.

“My dad said he’ll take me to get some new outfits, but he still hasn’t. He hates to shop,” Katie says, flashing an accusing look at Sam, who shrugs.

“What can I say? I’m a guy. Assembling new outfits isn’t my all-time favorite pastime, but I promise I’ll take you this weekend, okay?” Sam sips his coffee moodily.

“Yeah, but Ben will have to come and you’ll both be bored and I’ll have to rush and nobody will be able to come into the dressing room to tell me what looks good on me and what doesn’t.”

That does it.

Meg takes the bait. She can’t help it. She feels sorry for Sam’s motherless daughter.

“Katie, why don’t you come shopping Saturday with me and Cosette?”

Instant delight. “Can I really?”

“Sure. I’d be happy to help you pick out some clothes.”

“That’s not necessary,” Sam says stiffly.

Startled, Meg looks at him and finds that he’s shifted his gaze to her at last.

“I can take her shopping,” he informs her.

“But you hate it, Dad.”

“No, I don’t.”

Meg doesn’t believe that any more than Katie does.

“Dad, come on,” she protests, “who are you trying to kid? You hate shopping for clothes. You say it all the time. Meg loves it. Right, Meg?”

Torn, she says, “Well, I wouldn’t say I
love
it, but…”

“You certainly don’t have to take my daughter for her school clothes.”

“I know, but I don’t mind at all. I’m going anyway.”

“See, Dad?”

Sam looks dubiously at Meg, who shrugs.

“I really was planning on taking Cosette shopping Saturday afternoon.”

“We have soccer practice.”

“I know, but it’s supposed to rain.” He’s the one who told her that—a tropical storm blowing through to break the heat wave. “Do you have practice in the rain?”

“Not if it’s torrential,” Sam concedes.

“Well, if it’s not, we’ll still go shopping after practice. Cosette wore a uniform to her old school in the city, so she needs a new wardrobe for September.”

She can’t help but notice that her daughter doesn’t even glance over at the mention of her name. Sitting there across the table, she and Ben are lost in each other’s eyes.

Meg can’t decide if their newfound romance is sickening or cute or alarming.

A bit of all three, really.

“Dad, you have to let me go shopping with Meg and Cosette. Please.”

Meg turns back to see Katie fixing her father with an imploring gaze to match her tone.

This isn’t just about shopping, though. There’s something more going on here. She can see it in Katie’s eyes, and in Sam’s expression.

She wisely keeps her mouth shut, refusing to engage in the father-daughter power struggle, having endured her share of similar battles with Cosette.

“Dad, I never get to do girl things,” Katie goes on. “All my friends have moms and sisters to shop with, and I don’t have that.”

The pain and vexation in Sam’s eyes is blatant. “I can’t give you a mom and a sister, Katie.”

Katie is oblivious, turning the knife deeper. “I know you can’t, but you can let me go with Meg and Cosette, and that will be the next best thing. Please, Dad?
Pleaseplease-please?
”

“It really is okay, Sam,” Meg says, and wishes that she hadn’t.

He turns to her with thinly veiled animosity. “It really isn’t okay, Meg.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I like to take her shopping for her school clothes.”

She doesn’t believe that for a second.

“I take her every year. I get her whatever she needs. And then I take her to eat at the Cheesecake Factory. Her and Ben. We do that every Labor Day weekend, the three of us. It’s a family tradition.”

“You never said that,” Katie tells him, and has the grace to look slightly remorseful. “I didn’t know it was a tradition.”

“We do it every year. Of course it’s a tradition.”

“But you act like you hate it.”

“Well, I don’t.”

But he does. Meg can tell. And she knows why.

It’s because his wife isn’t there to share it with them, the way she should be.

She knows, because there are certain rituals that make her acutely aware that Cosette should have a father. Soccer games on Saturdays in the city, when the other dads would cheer their daughters on. And Christmas morning, with toys that require a toolbox and infinite patience to put together. And the action and horror films Cosette loves to go see—unless, of course, her father is in them. Meg goes, but she prefers romantic comedies.

Meg does a lot of things she would relegate to a dad, if Cosette had a real one.

Just as it’s obvious Sam does a lot of things that would have been Katie’s mom’s territory.

I can’t step into that role,
Meg tells herself. As simple as it would be in theory for her to take Katie along with her, it would be terribly complicated in other ways.

Yes, that would have huge implications on the dynamic between herself and Katie, between Katie and Sam, between Sam and herself.

Things are rapidly becoming complex enough, judging by the way Cosette and Ben are looking at each other.

“Please, Dad?” Katie persists. “Please let me go with Meg, just this once?”

“No,” he says firmly.

“But—”

“Katie,” Meg cuts in, and feels Sam’s wary gaze immediately on her. “You need to listen to your dad. You don’t want to break a family tradition, do you?”

“No,” she says in a small, disappointed voice. “I guess I don’t.”

She halfheartedly cuts off a piece of pancake with the edge of her fork and thrusts it into her mouth, chewing glumly.

Meg sneaks a peek at Sam.

Their eyes crash into each other, and her heart skips a beat. There’s a whole new layer now to what she was feeling for him before. The attraction isn’t just physical anymore. It’s emotional.

There was a time, not so long ago, when Meg would have found that to be reason enough to stay.

But not anymore.

Now, it’s reason enough to walk away.

She pushes back her chair.

“Come on, Cosette,” she says, and for the first time her daughter tears herself away from Ben’s eyes, looking startled.

“What?”

“It’s time to go home.”

Cosette is about to protest, but seeing the look on her mother’s face, she mercifully doesn’t.

“Thank you for everything, Sam,” Meg says, as they step out into the muggy August morning.

“You’re welcome. Good luck.”

It must be ninety degrees out, Meg notes, hearing him close his front door firmly as she and Cosette make their way toward home, but as far as she’s concerned, the heat wave—hers and Sam’s—has already broken.

Chapter
12

M
eg wakes up Saturday morning to see rain pouring down the bedroom windowpane.

She climbs off the mattress that was delivered yesterday afternoon—still no bed frame, but this is luxury compared to the hard floor—and looks out. What a dismal day.

She reaches over to turn on a lamp to dispel the gloom, then waits for it to flicker out again. That happened a few times yesterday, in various rooms in the house.

Either the ghost has been up to new tricks, or there’s a problem with the wiring.

Meg decided to go with the wiring.

This time, the light stays on. Good.

She’s determined not to experience another haunting episode like the one that sent her straight into Sam Rooney’s arms the other night.

To her relief, there have been no further incidents.

After what happened, she expected Cosette to put up a fuss about staying here, but she hasn’t. In fact, she’s been almost docile the last day or so. She was particularly happy to get her computer set up on a makeshift desk in her room, and has been spending her spare time in there, apparently surfing the Net and reading. She said she wants to get caught up on the summer book list she picked up from the library back in New York in June. She spent a lot of time there these last few months, with little else to do.

Meg was thinking she might be bored enough at this point that she won’t complain about going to soccer practice today, but there’s absolutely no way in hell that she’s going to have it in this weather anyway.

She says as much—without the “in hell” part—when she pads barefoot into the kitchen to find her daughter standing by the counter wearing jeans and a T-shirt. The shirt is black, but the jeans are not. It’s an old, faded pair Cosette hasn’t worn in at least a year.

Meg bites back a comment about the attire, knowing better than to call attention to her daughter’s welcome addition of color, even if it is just denim.

“Yeah, I already know, practice is canceled.” Cosette peers into the toaster, waiting for it to pop.

“Officially?”

Cosette nods.

“How do you know that?”

“Sam told me.”

Meg’s heart skids into a brick wall at the mention of his name.

She’s successfully avoided hearing and saying it, not to mention seeing him, since she left his house after the pancake breakfast.

“When did you see Sam?” she asks, trying to sound casual.

“He was up walking the dog when I went for a run with Ben this morning,” Cosette says, just as casually.

Meg’s jaw drops at this bombshell.

The “run” part is surprising enough. Cosette hasn’t shown any interest in athletic pursuits in ages.

But… Ben?

That’s the real shocker.

As far as she knew, Cosette hasn’t had any more contact with Ben than she herself has with Sam. She half expected to see Cosette mooning around, looking for him. When it didn’t happen, she chalked up both her daughter’s romantic interlude and her own as getting caught up in the heat of the moment. When the moment was over, so was the heat—or so she believed.

So much for Meg’s intuitive skills.

“I didn’t know you went for a run with Ben,” she says as the toast pops up.

“How would you?”

“I’d know if you told me. I guess you didn’t want me to know.”

“I guess I didn’t. Ow!” Cosette burns her fingers. “Where are those wooden toaster tongs?”

“Wherever the alarm clock, the raincoats, and my Tony Award are.”

“You mean still lost in some box somewhere?”

Meg nods. “And we’re going to need that stuff.”

“The Tony Award?”

“Especially that,” she says ruefully.

Olympia and Sophie are coming here on Monday afternoon for Sophie’s first voice lesson, and Meg really wants to have the Tony sitting out on the mantel when they get here.

Normally, she doesn’t flaunt it, and she frowns upon her fellow award-winners who make a big deal out of it. She hates that she feels as though she has something to prove, but she does with Olympia Flickinger.

When the woman called yesterday to regally announce that she and Brad had agreed to allow Meg to give Sophie a trial lesson, Meg wanted to say, “Don’t do me any favors.”

She managed instead to say graciously, “I’m so glad. I’ll look forward to working with her.”

She desperately needs the money. The handyman she found in the PennySaver will be charging her a fortune, but at least he’s available to come next weekend, which is late, but better than not at all. The first six handymen she called weren’t free until mid-to-late September.

Apparently, the home improvement industry is thriving in northern Westchester County. Surprise, surprise.

Anyway, Meg figures it can’t hurt to display her coveted Tony and show Olympia Flickinger that she’s more than qualified to teach voice to a thirteen-year-old aspiring diva. Especially at the astronomical rate she’s charging.

When Olympia—after proving herself to be the most high maintenance potential client imaginable—asked about Meg’s hourly rate, she more than doubled the one the handyman had just quoted, hoping to scare her off.

Alas, Olympia didn’t bat an eye, and even offered to pay for the first session in advance, to secure a spot. An hour after she left, two of her friends called to inquire about Meg taking on their children. So things are looking promising.

But if somehow the voice lessons don’t bring in enough cash, I can always become a handyman,
she decides. That, or learn a trade. Plumbers and electricians are also in high demand around here. She can’t get anyone to come take a look at the leaky pipes or faulty electrical outlets until after the weekend.

“So should we go shopping today?” she asks Cosette.

“Definitely,” is the swift reply, catching her off guard. “Let’s go to the mall down in White Plains.”

“Great.” Meg smiles.

Just the two of them, mother and daughter, shopping for back-to-school clothes together.

That’ll help take her mind off Sam.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Sam tells Ben across the breakfast table, thinking a trip to the mall will at least get him out of here and help to take his mind off Meg.

He can’t help but think about her every time he sees her house. Or the couch where he made love to her. Or his bed, where she slept. Or a bottle of beer, or a remote control, or any number of ordinary household items that now remind him of her.

“And afterward, we’ll go to Cheesecake Factory, right, Dad?” Katie pipes up around a mouthful of Cap’n Crunch.

“Of course. It’s a tradition.” He smiles weakly.

Maybe he shouldn’t have made such a fuss about her going with Meg instead of him. He couldn’t help but feel a little ridiculous about it afterward.

He’s pretty sure nobody—least of all Meg—bought his story about enjoying those yearly back-to-school shopping trips with Katie.

The truth is, he dreads them.

Not just because it’s no fun to sit, bored, in the department store man-chairs while his daughter spends hours in dressing rooms.

It isn’t fun.

But shopping for clothes for their daughter without Sheryl is a torturous reminder of what Katie is missing. He has to watch other moms and daughters parade past in pairs and threesomes, sometimes laughing and chatting, sometimes arguing, but always together.