Love, Suburban Style (34 page)

“Actually, I just moved back.”

“It must be strange for you to be here.”

“In town, or in the house?

“Both.”

“It is,” she admits. “Especially in the house.”

“The Flickingers are making a lot of changes,” Jenny tells her. “Right now, they’re redoing the kitchen. Olympia said the whole thing will be gutted later this week. She wanted to get the party out of the way before the dust starts flying.”

As if summoned by the mention of her name, Olympia appears. “Oh, good, you’ve met. I was planning to introduce you. You’ve both got something in common now that Meryl is the lead in Meg’s show.”

“It’s not
my
show,” Meg protests, wondering what Meryl has to do with this.

“I thought you were the casting director.”

“No…” Awkward pause. “I’m just helping Bill Dreyfus.”

So go ahead and blame him for not casting Sophie in the lead, Olympia.

Not that Meg would have done that, had she been given the option.

“Anyway,” Olympia goes on, “Jenny’s daughter is playing Norma Desmond, so you’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

Somebody calls Olympia from across the room, and she swoops away as quickly as she showed up.

“So you and Meryl are related? Actually, I should have picked up on that,” Meg comments. “She looks a lot like you.”

“She’s my daughter. I kept my maiden name; that’s why you didn’t figure it out. Meryl’s is Goldman, like my husband’s. And I know you said you weren’t the one who cast her, but Gary and I are so grateful to whoever made that choice. She’s always been shy, and we’re hoping this will help bring her out of her shell.”

“I’m sure it will. And there’s a great bunch of kids in the show.”

“Oh, believe me, I’ve heard all about it. Meryl has had such a crush for the past few years on the boy playing Joe.”

“Ben Rooney?”

“Right. She’s always said he doesn’t know she’s alive, but I told her that he will now.” Jenny smiles.

Meg’s heart sinks. In part because she knows how Meryl feels, infatuated with someone oblivious to her existence. That was her, with Sam, back in high school.

Even more disturbing is the realization that Meryl is hoping to win the heart of Cosette’s boyfriend… and that Cosette is playing the “other woman” to Meryl’s Norma in the show.

Talk about a love triangle.

She has a feeling the onstage drama of
Sunset Boulevard
might just be rivaled by backstage drama.

Sam is still sitting on the front porch, alone in the dark, when he sees Meg’s car pull into her driveway long after his son—with Rover—and her daughter have retreated into their respective homes.

He hears her turn off the engine, open the car door, close it. Then he hears her footsteps crossing the gravel drive toward the door.

You can let her go inside, or you can talk to her.

And you’ve got two seconds to decide.

He stands abruptly and crosses the porch to lean over the railing. “Meg?”

Decision made.

It’s what a responsible parent would do. Set aside his own reservations to put his son’s well-being first.

The footsteps stop. He can see her standing there in the shadows beneath a tall maple, poised, her back to him.

Then she turns. “Hi, Sam.”

He wishes he could see her face.

You can… if you go closer.

He finds himself leaving his porch, crossing his yard, then hers.

Arriving a few feet in front of her, he can see her face—but he still can’t tell how she’s feeling. Her expression betrays no emotion… no apparent interest, whatsoever, in him.

“I wanted to talk to you for a second,” he says uncomfortably, wishing he hadn’t started this after all.

She nods. Waits.

“I just wondered what you thought about Ben and Cosette spending so much time together… whether she’s said anything to you about it.”

Meg shakes her head. “Just that they’re friends.”

“That’s what Ben says, too. But I think they’re more than that. Actually, I
know
they are.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw them earlier. Kissing.”

“Where?” she sounds concerned.

“Right out in the open, actually. Which is probably a good thing. Right?”

“I guess so. They’re just… young.”

“Not that young. They’re juniors in high school. Ben will be sixteen in a few weeks. At that age, I was… well, kissing girls. And more.”

She visibly stiffens, and he instantly regrets having said that. She doesn’t need to know the details of his teenaged love life. Especially since she wasn’t a part of it—and admitted that she wanted to be.

“It’s not the kissing I’m worried about,” she tells him. “It’s the ‘and more’ part.”

“Have you had a talk with Cosette?”

“You mean, ‘the’ talk? The general one about the birds and the bees? Of course, a long time ago.”

“Me, too, with Ben, but…” He takes a deep breath and a step closer. “Look, Meg, I’m sorry about getting upset with you about Katie that night. It was just hard for me to swallow that my kids might be willing to open up to someone other than me. But obviously, I haven’t nailed this single dad thing even after all these years. I know they keep things from me. So I shouldn’t be surprised that Ben isn’t telling me he has a girlfriend.”

“Cosette isn’t telling me she has a boyfriend, either. And I don’t think it’s necessarily because I haven’t nailed the single mom thing… which has been the way things are in our family since she was born. So you’d think I’d have it down by now.” She gives a rueful laugh. “Anyway, did you tell your parents everything when you were their age? Or much of anything, even?”

“No,” he admits, “not the important stuff.”

“Neither did I.”

“At this point, I wish you’d tell me that Ben had confided in you the way Katie did.”

“Sorry. He hasn’t. I don’t suppose Cosette…?”

“Nope. They’re in their own little world.”

“I just don’t want them in it over their heads. But every time I try to talk to Cosette about what’s going on with Ben, she shuts down. I suppose I could give her less freedom…”

“I could do the same with Ben, but he doesn’t have that much. Not compared to his friends.”

“She doesn’t, either. She’ll be the first to tell you that.”

There’s a pause.

Sam can hear crickets, and the distant sound of cars on the main road, and Meg’s quiet breathing, and his own.

Oh, Lord, I’m still crazy about her.

If she would just give me some sign that she’s open to me… anything at all… I’d cross that line again. I’d take a chance and to hell with worrying about the future fallout.

He studies her face. Her expression remains guarded.

“So what do you think we should do, Sam?”

About the kids.

That’s what she’s asking,
he reminds himself.

“I guess we should just keep an eye on them and make sure they’re not alone together very much.”

“That’s a good idea,” she agrees. “I mean, if you’re never really alone together, you can’t get carried away and do something you might regret.”

“Right.”

That’s true for adults as well as teenagers.

As long as Sam continues to keep his distance from Meg, he won’t be tempted to cross that line.

“Well… I guess that’s it, then,” Meg says with a shrug. “Right?”

“Right,” Sam says again. “That’s all we can do.”

“Okay. Good night, then.”

“Good night.”

He forces himself to turn back toward his house, as she heads toward hers.

Don’t let her walk away.

Don’t let her go inside.

Don’t let this opportunity pass without at least trying to—

He turns back impulsively, not certain what he’s going to say or do, only knowing he doesn’t want to let go yet.

He’s just in time to see her porch lights go dark abruptly.

Too late.

She’s already inside.

Oh, well.

It was a bad idea anyway.

What the heck?

Unexpectedly plunged into blackness just as she was about to descend the porch steps again to go after Sam—without even knowing why, or what she would even say—Meg goes still, wondering what happened.

Silence.

Then, next door, she hears the distant sound of Sam’s front door opening and closing. He’s in for the night. Too late to stop him.

Meg frowns and looks up at the darkened fixtures.

The electrician assured her that there had never been a problem with shorts in the wiring.

“It must have been your lightbulbs,” he told her when she asked how the lights could always be going on and off.

She doubted it then…

And she doubts it now.

Because she knows what she saw the other night in her room.

There’s a ghost in the house, and she’s responsible for the strange things that have happened around here since Meg moved in. Including the lights going out just now, stopping her from calling out to Sam.

She looks around, half-expecting to see the figure of a woman, but she’s alone out here in the dark.

“Why did you do that?” she whispers, and waits for a disembodied voice to answer her question.

Because it isn’t time yet.

The answer drifts into her head as if of its own accord, propelled not by her own thought process, but by some other force.

What do you mean, it isn’t time yet?
she asks silently in return.
Time for what?

Time for you and Sam. When it’s time, you’ll know.

“Oh my God… what am I doing?” Suddenly coming to her senses, Meg fumbles in her bag for her keys, needing to get inside, away from…

Well, from the voice in her head.

This is what happens to crazy people. They hear voices. They talk to themselves.

“Great. So now I’m crazy,” she mutters, unlocking the front door.

Right. She must be anyway, if she’s thinking she and Sam have any kind of chance together, now, or ever.

When it’s time, you’ll know…

What kind of absurdity is that?

Wishful thinking. That’s what it is.

Who knows? Maybe the ghost’s existence is wishful thinking, too.

Maybe she really didn’t see what she thought she saw that night in her room. She was tired, it was late…

Her mind was playing tricks on her.

It is now, too.

But you need to get a grip.

You almost did something you would have regretted.

So it doesn’t matter why the lights went out when they did.

What matters is that it happened… and that it stopped her from making a fool out of herself.

Just like years ago, when she wrote that heartfelt love letter to Sam on a whim. She’d have sent it if it hadn’t fallen down the crack between the kitchen cupboards.

Thank God she didn’t send it.

By now, it must be in the Dumpster she saw parked on the Flickingers’ driveway, part of the construction rubble.

Just as well.

The letter was a bad idea back then, and going after Sam was a bad idea now.

No, she isn’t over him yet.

Yes, she still has butterflies in her stomach whenever she locks eyes with him.

But maybe they aren’t butterflies after all.

Maybe they’re bumblebees buzzing around in there, waiting to pierce her heart with a thousand stingers.

All I have to do is remember that whenever I look at Sam, and I’ll be okay.

Chapter
18

W
ith twenty-four hours until opening night and Bill Dreyfus hung up in a late staff meeting, Meg claps her hands loudly to get the attention of the cast. Clad in their Old-Hollywood-era costumes, they had predictably dissolved into chatter when she paused to resolve a lighting problem with the stage crew.

“All right, guys, we’ve got it under control now.” She strides across the auditorium. “So let’s take that last scene again from the top. Max, Norma, Joe. The rest of you, find seats and quiet down.”

Meryl Goodman, Ben Rooney, and Evan Stein, the senior playing Max, take their places onstage. This is an emotional scene, the one that leads up to Norma Desmond’s desperate New Year’s suicide attempt after Joe rejects her. There’s a romantic song and dance—expertly choreographed by Meg herself—before Norma reveals her feelings for Joe, then kisses him passionately.

The kiss has been a problem from the start. Meryl, who gives a stellar performance throughout the show, has a predictable lapse whenever it’s time for the romantic clinch boldly initiated by Norma.

That kiss has been awkward every time, as opposed to Ben’s passionate scene with Cosette in Act Two. Watching her daughter kiss Ben’s son was strange for Meg at first, but gradually, theatrical magic took over. Now when they perform that scene they aren’t high school sweethearts Cosette and Ben. They’re star-crossed lovers Betty and Joe.

She only wishes Meryl and Ben could be as convincing as Norma and Joe.

It isn’t just Meryl who’s holding back self-consciously—poor thing, nursing a secret crush on her costar.

Ben is holding back, too.

And Meg knows why. Because Cosette is watching him like a hawk from the wings.

No boyfriend wants to share a passionate kiss with somebody else as his girlfriend looks on.

But what is she supposed to do about it?

You’d better do something. This is dress rehearsal. It’s your last chance to fix this problem.

Onstage, the action has begun.

Meg glances over at Cosette, who’s wearing a full-skirted yellow vintage dress and pumps. She’s intently watching the actors.

“Cosette,” she calls quietly, seized by sudden inspiration, “can you come here for a minute?”

Her daughter approaches expectantly as Meg wildly tries to come up with a plan.

“I need you to do me a favor,” she whispers. “Can you please go out to my car and bring me the box on the backseat?”

“What box?” asks Cosette, grudgingly accepting the car keys Meg hands her. She’s less prone to protest commands from Meg the Assistant Director than from Meg the Mom.

“The box that has the, uh, rest of the props for the next scene.”