More Than Friends (22 page)

His father's indignation snapped a tiny thread of control in J.D. Recklessly he turned and said, "Will you get off my back?"

"Excuse me?"

"What Sam said last night was true. My family is going through a crisis. Your interference makes things worse."

"I'm responsible for the only stable things in your life!"

"Does that include Teke?" J.D. burst out. "Because I have to tell you, there are times when I wonder whether the main reason I married her was because you were so against it. Interesting thought, huh?" He left the office savoring the fact of John Stewart's mouth open but silent.

nine

ANNIE HAD ANOTHER DIFFICULT NIGHT. SHE

had actually started out in bed, confident that Sam wouldn't risk touching her, but the sound of his breathing, the shift of his body, even his scent, stirred the upset she felt. So she took haven in her office, dozing off in the wee hours, only to come awake at seven with Sam hunkered beside her.

"You should have come back to bed," he said. "You need more sleep than you're getting."

She wondered how long he had been there. He was wearing nothing but shorts, and with his hair mussed and his jaw stubbly around his mustache, she guessed he had come straight from bed. She wished she looked half as good as he did. But she was sure that her hair was sticking out every which way, that she had marks on her cheek from where she'd been lying on her shawl, that the vile taste in her mouth was visible on her lips.

"I'm fine," she murmured, pushing herself up.

"You have shadows under your eyes. And you've lost weight." Wrapping the shawl around her nightgown, she made for the door.

"Thanks."

"I worry about you, Annie." He followed her down the stairs. Too little, too late, she thought crossly. "Well, don't."

"Keep this up, and you'll collapse in the middle of a class."

"If that happens, my friends will be there to help me. I'm not totally alone, or helpless." She closed the bathroom door in his face and pushed in the button to lock it. Then she turned on the water and felt foolish, on top of ugly.

By the time she reached the kitchen, Jon and Zoe were on their way out of the door. "The fall formal is in two weeks," Jon reminded her. "You wanted me to buy a tux this year. Can we go soon?"

"This weekend," Annie promised, putting a cheek up for his kiss. "And college applications. Let's look them over so you can start thinking about the essays."

Zoe nudged him out and gave Annie a hug. "I need a haircut, Mom."

"Didn't you just have one?"

"It doesn't look right." She tugged at the chin length blond waves that were so much like Annie's. "You said we could try someone new, but I don't know who. Will you ask Susan Duffy?"

Susan Duffy was the secretary in Annie's department. She had spectacular hair. Zoe oooed and ahhed each time she saw her.

"I'll ask," Annie said, though she knew Susan had the kind of hair that would look great regardless of who did it.

"Thanks," Zoe said, and kissed Annie's cheek. "Jon will run me in to see Michael after practice, so you won't have to see Teke. We'll be home in time for dinner, okay?"

Annie nodded. She would risk seeing Teke anyway, because she wanted to see Michael, but being able to do it earlier in the afternoon would ease the rush later.

She watched Jon back out of the driveway and waved when he drove off. Tux. Haircut. College applications. A trip into Boston to see Michael. Dinner. Two classes today, two hours' worth of student conferences, another several in preparation for tomorrow's classes--and damn, she'd forgotten, a department meeting at six, which meant that dinner would have to be on the stove, ready to be dished out before she left the house at five forty-five.

A week before, Teke might have helped with the tux and the haircut and the dinner, and there wouldn't have been any trip into Boston to see Michael. Without her as a backup, Annie's life was hectic. Yet as she stood at the side door staring at the empty driveway, all she could think about was that her children were growing more independent and would soon be gone, which would leave her either alone with Sam or alone with herself. Neither thought buoyed her spirits. Those spirits sank even lower when she inadvertently rear-ended the car stopped in front of her at a traffic light. The car was a silver BMW

not unlike Sam's black one. There was no damage, but that was ascertained only after the driver of the other car bent his nattily suited, well-built, thirtyish-looking self over the front of the BMW

and studied it with a cares sive eye that cooled the instant he looked at Annie.

"You lucked out, lady. I'd have your eyes checked if I were you. If you couldn't see me stopped there, you have a problem." He climbed back in his car and drove off before Annie could come up with a clever answer. But then, cleverness had never been her thing. She envied people who were fast on their

feet. She especially envied women who were like that. They had an edge on the others. They were tougher. They got what they wanted. Determined to toughen up herself, she went into her first class with a chip on her shoulder. It was an advanced seminar on the works of Jane Austen and consisted of twenty students, most of whom were either seniors or graduate students. If their participation in the discussion was telling, few had done the assignment, which was to consider the relevancy of Mansfield Park to Austen's own life.

"Am I in the wrong class?" Annie asked, looking around the room puzzledly. "Was there some kind of campus celebration last night that kept you all from giving Jane Austen even the smallest amount of thought?" She looked at her notes, then at the class. "I could lecture you as though you were freshmen, but I would have thought you'd moved beyond that." She wore her disappointment on her face, but most eyes in the room were downcast, depriving her of even that small satisfaction. She took a breath. "Okay, let's make it a paper. For tomorrow, I want five pages on Mansfield Park vis-a-vis Jane Austen's life and times." Ignoring the ensuing murmurs, she gathered her notes and left the room.

But that was only the start. By noon she was beginning to wish she had stayed home. The first of her conferences was late, throwing off all the others, and when she finally sat down to work at her computer, it died. She was in the process of discovering that the entire building had lost electricity, when the fire alarm sounded, a false alarm, no doubt tied in with the electrical problem, but enough to send her outside with the others. And there they waited, while precious minutes ticked by.

She studied Natalie Holstrom, whose specialty was wartime literature, and Monica Pepper, whose

newly released book on young American writers had been critically acclaimed. Both women were bright, aggressive, and attractive. Both were younger than Annie. Both had, on occasion, shown up with men just Sam's age.

After an hour Annie gave up the wait and drove into Boston. She had to take a detour when her normal exit off Storrow Drive was closed for repairs. That set her back another ten minutes. Then the garage she normally parked in was full, so she went to the next and wound her way up six floors until she finally found a space. She got lost trying to find Michael's new room and reached it only to discover that he was sound asleep.

Teke had gone home for a few hours, the nurse told her. While she waited, J.D. stopped by, but being with him was awkward. She didn't want to talk about Teke, didn't want to talk about Sam, didn't want to think, much less talk about what kind of interaction the two families would have in the future. So she wrote Michael a note, which she set on his bed tray, then retrieved her car and returned to school. The electricity was back on, but rumor to the contrary must have spread through the campus, because her Romantic poetry seminar was sparsely attended. There was nothing more depressing to Annie than a sparsely attended seminar. She wanted to be so admired that students would die before they would miss one of her classes.

The minute this one was done, she raced back to her car, drove to the supermarket, and raced home, only to find that she had forgotten to buy lasagna noodles. She raced back to the market and was in the process of racing home again when a local commuter train stalled on the tracks. Again it was a situation of expecting things to be cleared any minute and opting to wait, rather than take an alternative route that would add fifteen minutes to the drive home.

It was twenty minutes before the train was moved, and by that time Annie was in a sweat. So she finished the race home and prepared a fresh salad and the lasagna, which she barely had time to put into the oven before she was off on the trip back to school.

Even then she arrived late. Fifteen pairs of eyes turned to her when she walked into the room. Fifteen pairs of eyes followed her to the only free chair, which as fate would have it was directly beside the department head. Charles Honnemann was an older man, kind enough, traditional enough--and it wasn't that she minded sitting next to him, just that she wasn't of a mind to sit where everyone was looking. Annie was a teenager again, feeling self-conscious and downright odd. She was sure that she looked a wreck. Her blouse bunched at the waistline of her skirt, her stockings were snagged from a close encounter with a stack of dog food bags at the supermarket. She hadn't had time to comb her hair or gloss her lips, her hands were shaky, and beads of sweat kept popping out on her nose. And she had shadows under her eyes. And she had lost weight. And her husband had thought so little of her charms that he had taken comfort from her best friend, who had long dark hair, full breasts, and a sultry laugh. She barely heard what was said at the meeting. The instant it was done she made a beeline for her office, where, shielded by the dark, she collapsed onto the side chair, put her head in her hands, and took great gulps of air.

She heard something at the door, then footsteps

leaving. Lacking the strength to either call out or haul herself from the chair and close the door, she stayed where she was. She wasn't frightened. Campus security was tight. Chances were slim that a robber or rapist would have gotten into the building, or someone intent on taking hostages and making demands, though that thought captured her imagination. She wouldn't have minded being locked in a room for three days, unable to run anywhere or do anything or think about anything but the one issue of survival. That would certainly put other things into perspective.

"Here," came a gentle voice. It was Jason Faust, urging a plastic cup into her hand. "Wine. Drink up." When she hesitated, he nudged her hand. "Go on. It's all right."

She took a sip of the wine. When it went down just the right way, she took a more healthy swallow. Then she let her head rest against the back of the chair. "What a horrible, horrible day."

"I guessed that when I saw you hurrying down the hall. You looked beat."

"I am beat. And old and ugly and unpopular," she said without thinking. When she did, she took another good drink of wine. "Are there ever times when you feel that there's a conspiracy against you?

When you feel that the world is one big, happy cholla ball that pricks you every time you try to catch hold?"

Jason chuckled. "Where did that analogy come from?"

"A desert tour during a family trip to Arizona two years ago." It had been a Popewell trip, now a collector's item.

"Ahhh. Yeah, I know what you mean."

"Everything has gone wrong today."

"I heard about the Austen seminar."

"Mmmm. I shot myself in the foot with that little flare of temper. Who's going to have to read through those five-page papers? Me! As though I don't already have enough to do."

"I'll do it."

"As though you don't already have enough to do."

"I'd be glad to help you, Annie. I'd be honored." She sighed. He was a kind boy. More than a boy. An adult. And a big help, if not physically, then emotionally. She wondered whether he had a girlfriend. "You're sweet, for a filthy-rich guy."

"Ahhh, money. "The sixth sense which enables you to enjoy the other five.""

W. Somerset Maugham. She knew the quote. "Is it?"

"Sure. It lets me do things like keeping vintage wine stashed in my desk."

"Not just vintage wine, I'd wager." She remembered when he had offered her a smoke. She didn't want to think of what else he kept in his stash. Yes, she was straight. She was also the older generation.

"Does it bother you?" he asked.

"What you keep in your desk is your affair."

"Does it bother you that I have money? It bothers some of the others in the department. They don't take me seriously."

Annie was feeling the first effects of the wine, a warming on her cheeks and in her stomach. It helped to soften the echo, older generation ... older generation ... older generation. "If they don't it's only because they haven't had a chance to work with you like I have. You can hold your own with any one of them."

"Not yet," Jason said, "but thank you. Your opinion is the one I value. You're the cream of the department."

The cream of the department. How nice that

sounded. She wished she did feel like cream, all sweet and silky and smooth. "I wonder sometimes," she mused sadly. "I try--Lord, I try--but I seem to be botching things up lately." She drained the plastic cup. "It was the women's movement that did it, told us we could be everything, but we can't. We can't be mothers and wives at the same time that we're professors. It just doesn't work. Someone always gets gypped."

"Who's getting gypped in your case?"

"My kids. I'm not always around when they want me." She knew she should head home to them now, but she couldn't muster the energy to move. This was the most relaxed she had been all day. The darkness helped. And the wine. "My husband, too."

"How does he get gypped?"

"He wants me, and I'm not there."

"Does he come looking for you?"

"Sometimes. But he's busy, too."

Jason sighed. "If you were mine, I'd court you forever and love every minute."

"You'd get bored before long," she said, and took another swift drink. The wine was down her throat before she wondered when he had refilled her cup, but she didn't ask or complain. Feeling lightheaded wasn't all bad.