One More Time (30 page)

Or she would have been convinced of it once upon a time.

But right now, Matt almost certainly had someone else’s tongue wrapped around his tonsils.

If that wasn’t something to take the bounce out of Leslie’s step, she didn’t know what was.

L
eslie shouldered her way through the front door, feeling as if she’d dragged her butt all the way home. Two dogs barked and bounced toward her, giving her a momentary sense that she’d entered the wrong house.

“Champagne and Caviar,” Annette scolded. “Sit down and let Mom come in.” The dogs sat, though their tails still thumped on the floor.

“This is definitely the wrong house,” Leslie muttered. “There are no cheerful teenagers at my place.”

Annette playfully stuck out her tongue.

“Are you sure they don’t need to go outside?” Leslie asked, eying the dogs uncertainly.

“I just walked them to the school and back. They’re fine.”

Leslie blinked, trying to connect the notion of exercise and her daughter together and failing completely. “You’re pretty happy tonight,” she said as she put down her purse. She dropped her voice. “Isn’t
she
here?”

Annette waved this off. “Dad called!” she said with a glee that revealed how much she’d been worried about what was happening. “And I talked to him for ages. It was great.”

Leslie didn’t share her daughter’s exhilaration. There was no doubt that the person she most wanted to talk to had called when she wasn’t home.

Yippee. It would take a much more stupid person than Leslie to not see that it had been a deliberate choice.

“That’s nice,” she said, without slowing her steps. If they were going to eat something homemade tonight, she needed to change and get to it. She wasn’t going to so much as glance at that empty kitchen for the moment.

Champagne stretched up and sniffled Leslie’s purse, probably checking for snacks. Caviar stayed put and watched.

Annette trailed behind Leslie as she climbed the stairs, doing that annoying observant-teenager thing which was mercifully rare. “So, aren’t you glad?”

“Sure. I’m glad you had a chance to talk to him.” Leslie reached her bedroom and peeled off her cardigan, kicked off her shoes.

“You seem to lack enthusiasm,” Annette said, echoing a comment that had been made on one of her report cards years before and which had haunted her ever since. She and Matt had made a joke of it, though her tone wasn’t humorous today.

“I’m thinking about what to make for dinner.”

“He didn’t say when he was coming home.” Annette slouched in the doorway, her gaze fixed on Leslie.

“Maybe he’s not sure yet of his plans.”

The silence stretched between them, pulled like an elastic to nine times its natural length. Leslie expected something to snap and she hoped it wouldn’t be her. She rummaged around, found a sweatshirt and jeans, and changed clothes, tried to act as if she hadn’t had one heck of a fight with Matt this very morning. Annette lingered, as she never did, and Leslie felt her daughter’s gaze like a ton of bricks on her back.

“You don’t know whether he’s coming back, do you?”

There would be no lies here. Leslie pivoted to face her daughter and took a deep breath. “No. I don’t.”

“Do you know why he left?”

“I have an idea, but only he knows for sure.”

Annette shook her head. “No, I think you do know and I think you’re not trying hard enough.”

“Excuse me?”

The dogs climbed the stairs and stood beside Annette, their ears folded back and their eyes wide. Leslie would have sworn that they understood what was being said.

They certainly understood that Annette was upset. Caviar sat, leaning against Annette’s leg and Champagne nuzzled her hand as if to reassure her. Annette probably didn’t realize that her hand had fallen onto the top of the dog’s head, or that her fingers had knotted in its fur—hair!—because her voice rose. “You always fix everything: why aren’t you fixing this? Don’t you love Dad anymore?”

“Of course, I do!”

“Then why doesn’t he love you?”

That would be the prizewinning question. Leslie was momentarily at a loss for words. “You don’t know that...”

“Why else would he leave?” Annette lifted her chin in challenge. “I think you need to make him love you again, like you did the first time.” She folded her arms across her chest and tears shone in her eyes. “I think you need to show him that you care.”

“But I do care...”

“How would he know? How would I know?”

“Annette!”

She bolted before Leslie could reach her, retreating to her room with the dogs fast behind her and slamming the door. Her stereo was abruptly turned up, making it impossible to talk to her through the door.

Leslie heaved a sigh and decided not to even try.

“Or maybe,” Beverly said at sudden proximity, “you need to stop doing whatever you’ve been doing that made him forget that he loves you.” She closed the door of the spare room behind her with care, making Leslie aware that her mother-in-law must have overheard the entire exchange.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That once any of my kids decide that someone is for them, it’s not an easy feat to change their minds.” Beverly shrugged. “In fact, it’s not easy to change their minds about much of anything. They’re all as stubborn as mules.” She sighed. “They must have gotten that from Robert.” Beverly passed Leslie, trailing her fingertips across the younger woman’s shoulders. “Fight for what you want,” she murmured. “Win him all over again.”

But that was the kicker, Leslie realized. “But I never fought for him in the first place,” she said, thinking aloud. She turned to meet Beverly’s gaze. “I never chased him. I never changed anything or tried to tempt him. He courted me, with that persistence you’re talking about. I just was who I am.”

Beverly smiled sadly. “But who are you, Leslie Coxwell? Are you the same person as you were, or did you lose yourself somewhere along the way?”

* * *

Matt called Belmont when he knew Annette would be home from school but Leslie would still be coming home from work. He sensed Annette’s uncertainty and had a long talk with her about minor matters. They’d done that when she got home from school for years now, usually in front of the television and some old science fiction show. It was different to do it on the telephone and he was aware of the miles between them, as well as the fact that he couldn’t read her thoughts in her changing expression.

He hung up the phone thoughtfully.

The cooked shrimp appetizer was chilling as was the wine, the catfish had been rubbed with spice and were ready to grill. There was nothing else Matt could do in the kitchen, so he strolled into the dining room and turned around the first of Sharan’s canvases.

It was painted white, over-painted as she used to do when she was going to reuse a canvas after some idea hadn’t worked out as she’d anticipated.

Intrigued, he turned the next one over, only to find it the same.

In minutes, he’d turned every canvas—and roused an army of dust molecules—only to discover that she didn’t have a single painting left.

The largest canvas looked as if it might have once been ‘Pandora’s Redemption’, the painting that had hung in that show all those years ago. He was standing, sipping his drink, considering the import of all of this, when Sharan lunged through the front door.

“Hey, what’s for d—” She stopped cold and dropped her bag, the screen door slamming behind her. A flush rose from her throat and stained her cheeks. “You had no right!” she said, moving to turn the closest canvas around again.

Matt stayed her with a fingertip. “I wanted to see your work.”

“There is none.”

“There must have been some. It’s been almost twenty years.”

Sharan shook her head. “There was none that was any good.” She lifted her chin and left the dining room, her shoulders stiff. “What are you making tonight? Oh, catfish. I love catfish...”

“Sharan, why did you paint over your canvases?”

“I told you. Because they were no good.”

“So, why didn’t you just try to do better? Once upon a time, you wouldn’t have given up so easily on something you loved.”

She spun to face him and flung out her hands. “Who died and made you the Grand Inquisitor? I don’t owe you any answers, not anymore, and if you think you’re going to stay here and pester me about stuff that isn’t any of your business, you’ve got another think coming...”

“It is my business, because you’re my friend.” Matt put down his drink and caught her shoulders in his hands, forcing her to look at him. “And you’re unhappy. I’d like to help fix that.”

Sharan regarded him ruefully. “And let me guess: it won’t be with wild sex on the kitchen counter?”

Matt smiled and shook his head.

She sighed and looked away, then she leaned her forehead on his shoulder. She seemed to draw strength from that fleeting touch, because she straightened. “Okay, here’s the deal. I’ll talk to you about my painting if and when I feel like it, and you can talk to me about your book. You can cook, because I don’t much, but you won’t try to change me and you won’t judge me.”

“Deal.”

“No, there’s more. I do, however, reserve the right to try to change you and/or your mind. I’m not someone who’s shy about what she wants. You should know that by now.”

“I do. That’s why the canvases surprise me...” Matt turned to gesture to the dining room, but Sharan caught his arm.

“I want more than dinner and talk from you. Understood?”

Matt was sure that he understood more than Sharan thought he did. He saw that she was lonely, that she wanted him, that her desire was as much due to romantic notions of the past and proximity as anything else. He saw that she had learned to use sex to get what she wanted, to use it more effectively than she had when she was younger, and that she meant to try to use it now. She knew him well enough to know that if they had sex, he’d feel an obligation to her and their potential future.

And he saw that she wasn’t his future; that she was his past. But maybe the past they shared could help him to get her painting again, to start her own healing.

“I’m still sorting out who I am and what I want,” he reminded her gently. “I wouldn’t stay if I didn’t think I could help you.”

“Are you sorry you came here?”

“No,” he said. “It’s good to see you again.”

Although that was true, Matt couldn’t summon as much enthusiasm as he knew she wanted to hear. A cloud touched her gaze and she turned away. “Well, then let’s eat. The fish look good.”

Matt knew she was stung, just as he knew there was nothing he could do to reassure her that might give her false expectations.

So, he cooked the fish.

And after dinner, he went for a long walk alone.

The house was empty when he came home, and he wasn’t surprised. Nor was he surprised by the rhythmic sounds he overheard in the wee hours of the night.

He got himself a drink, returned to bed. He rolled to his back and considered the ceiling, and without intending to do so, found himself wondering what Leslie was doing.

* * *

It was late when Leslie closed her bedroom door and leaned her back against it. She was deliberately late, because she deliberately had tried to ensure her own exhaustion. The kitchen was cleaner than it had ever been, but she was so wide awake that she might never sleep.

She stared at the ceiling, doing the Matthew of Paris inventory of her day so far. She’d once done this to amuse her own Matt, and that thought only made her more painfully aware of his absence.

• Item the first: she’d cooked dinner tonight for the first time in decades. It hadn’t been fabulous: just roasted chicken breasts and rice and steamed vegetables, but it hadn’t been instant food either.

• Item the second: no one had died.

• Item the third: no one had insisted upon ordering pizza instead of eating what was put in front of them.

That had to be a triumph of some kind.

Too bad she didn’t feel very victorious.

She got into bed, knowing that if she did sleep, she’d probably have her stupid dream.

It showed up, right on cue.

Runt dunt dada dadala dunt da.

Leslie fights against the dream, knowing this battle is lost. She’s in the big top, standing before the tightrope, dressed in her tutu and pink shoes. Her father is behind her, urging her on.

It’s the same as it always is.

She feels the cable under her shoes, feels her shock and dismay as her father gives her a box. (She’s a bit annoyed to find herself still expecting a pink parasol.) He gives her another and another, an astonishing and now familiar litany of titles emblazoned on their sides.

She takes a step, the one that is manageable, and he encourages her.

She takes another step, her heart in her throat and her foot slips. She tries to regain her balance, but over-corrects and the first box starts to fall. Leslie snatches for it, that little gold foil-wrapped box. She grabs it out of the air, feels a moment of triumph, before she tumbles from the wire.

The crowd gasps as one and Leslie catches her breath. The other boxes tumble from her arms, falling into the abyss far far below. She hears her father mutter in disappointment and fears that she will be consumed by the fires, too.

If the fall doesn’t kill her first.

But suddenly, she drifts aloft. She clutches the little gold box, her terror receding as she moves horizontally over the crowd.

Instead of falling down.

The abyss fades from view and is replaced by the floor of the big top, the stands filled with the audience, the clowns standing on the perimeter, the children waving their pink candy floss in excitement.

Leslie doesn’t fall. She can’t make sense of this. There’s no safety harness attached to her back, but she’s flying like Peter Pan. The crowd look up at her in wonder, their eyes round and their mouths open. Leslie sails over them. She swoops, she dips, she does a loop-de-loop just by thinking about it.

She’s flying!

She laughs as she soars and the crowd begins to cheer. She flies over their heads time and again, faster and slower, then finally lands as delicately as a butterfly in the middle of the tent. The roar of applause is almost deafening and she looks down at the box she still holds fast. She’s pretty sure it’s the box that’s labeled ‘
Success’
but as she turns it, the writing melts, the letters changing to form a different word.