Starting From Scratch (15 page)

“About that drink,” I plunged in, surprised to hear my

own voice.

“Yeah, about that.”  e relief that flitted across her

face when she looked back up was all I needed to push

forward.

“When will you be thirsty?”

She smiled and my gaze traveled to her glossy lips.

Honestly, how was it possible for her lips to be that shiny

all the time? “What about Friday? I think I’ll be thirsty by

then. Max is spending the night with my parents.”

“Ah, so no curfew for you.”

“at’s right. I can stay out as late as I want.”

“Me, too. As long as I show up for the game on

Saturday morning, I’m good.” Belatedly, I realized how

presumptuous that sounded and hot color flooded my face.

“I mean…I didn’t mean…um. Ugh.” I squeezed my eyes

shut.

ankfully, Elena laughed. Loudly, the shotgun sound

of it nearly making me jump.

“Do you know that little Italian restaurant on Main?

e new one?”

122

Starting From Scratch

“at little bistro?” At her nod, I continued. “Want to

meet there at 6:30?”

“I’d love to.”

Much as I cringed when Josh appeared, it was good

timing. Otherwise, Elena and I might have continued to

stand there and stare at one another. Which wouldn’t have

been a problem if neither of us had jobs to get back to.

“Hi there. Josh Bacon,” he said as he stuck his hand

out to Elena. “Old friend of Avery and longtime bank

customer.”

Elena was charmed; Josh had that effect on people.

She shook his hand. “Elena Walker,
new
friend of Avery

and manager of said bank.  anks for your business.

Speaking of which…” She jerked a thumb over her

shoulder. “I’d better get back to it.”

“Me, too,” I said.

“It was nice to meet you, Josh,” she said as she backed

towards the door. Meeting my eyes, one corner of her

mouth lifted slightly. “Avery, I’ll see you on Friday.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

Exactly four beats went by before Josh turned to me

and said, “She’ll see you on Friday?”

“As a matter of fact, she will.” We headed back to his

car just as fat drops of rain began to fall in sporadic

spatters.

123

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Maddie was overdoing it and she knew it. I threw J.T.

a questioning look where she sat on a bench watching, and

she returned it with a subtle shrug that said, “You know

how she is.”

It was Wednesday night’s practice and I thanked our

lucky stars that J.T. had Wednesdays off and that we were

only coaching a bunch of six-year-olds. God forbid they’d

been high schoolers or the Varsity softball team; we’d have

been carrying Maddie off the field on a stretcher.

Despite the pain so obviously etched across her

features as she hobbled around, she was gentle and patient

with the kids, as always. I tried to help as much as I could,

while at the same time sort of staying out of her way and

attempting a quiet fade into the background. e kids were

used to me, so having me disappear completely didn’t seem

to be the best path to take. But it was, after all, Maddie’s

team to coach. I’d done my favor for her and my tenure as

the boss was just about up.

I tried not to seem too giddy about that.

Max was up next during batting practice, and as I had

done all week, I glanced into the stands to see if perhaps

Elena had come by to watch. My reward for such foolish

wishing was to catch the eye of Cindy, who looked directly

at me and winked. e facts weren’t lost on me…the fact

Georgia Beers

that Elena could wink at me and turn my knees to jelly, as

well as the fact that Cindy could wink at me and make my

skin crawl like I was covered with tiny ants. I suppressed a

shudder, gave a wan smile, and turned back to practice.

is was the first practice Cindy had attended in quite a

while and poor little Max fell right back into his usual

pattern. He hit the ball, then immediately whipped his

head around to see if his mom was watching. She, of

course, was preoccupied with a conversation she was

having with another parent in the bleachers.

I had to turn away from the dejected expression on

Max’s face as he waited for Maddie to set up his next ball.

at poor kid will never give up,
I thought.
He will spend the

rest of his life trying to get his mother to notice him.
My heart

broke for him; I knew just exactly how futile such a thing

could be.

Why have children at all?

It was a question I’d wrestled with for the thirty years

since my mother had taken off without me, a question I

often wanted to ask her myself. I
did
understand that

sometimes there were extenuating circumstances to

situations in life and judging somebody without knowing

all the facts was never a good idea, but honestly, why have

children at all if you were going to pay such little time and

attention? It wasn’t like Cindy could have accidentally

gotten Elena pregnant and oops, now she was stuck with a

child she didn’t really want. And right there I had to stop

thinking, shake my head vigorously, and scrub my brain

free of any inadvertent images of Cindy in bed with Elena.

She knew a baby was coming. She’d planned on it, had to

go through very specific channels.

126

Starting From Scratch

I shook my head as I watched Max’s eyes droop ever

so slightly while he tried to be a tough guy. I just didn’t

understand.

“Okay, why don’t you take half the kids over there and

work on ball-handling and the rest of us will go over this

way and have a little quiz about the rules of the game.”

Maddie’s voice blessedly pulled me away from my swirling

thoughts and I was happy to do her bidding.

Practice didn’t last much longer after that. As usual,

the kids’ attention started to wander. We set them free and

watched them flutter back to their parents like wild

butterflies.

J.T. and I packed up equipment after insisting that

Maddie sit the hell down for five minutes and give her

knee a break. Her face was pale and her bottom lip had

taken up what seemed like permanent residence between

her teeth. She was going to end up home on the couch

with pain medication and an ice pack; I was sure of it and

so was she. But I wisely kept my mouth shut, knowing

she’d snap my head off if I dared mutter an “I told you so.”

“I’ll get the rest of this,” I said, waving J.T. away. “Take

her home.” As she grabbed Maddie’s elbow and helped her

stand, Cindy approached with a smile.

“Hi there,” she said, her perfect white teeth on display.

I hadn’t told Maddie about the pass Cindy made at

me, so she immediately went into Coach Mode and stuck

out her hand to shake Cindy’s, pulling Cindy’s eyes from

me to her.

“Hi yourself. Maddie Carlisle, coach. I don’t believe

we’ve met.”

127

Georgia Beers

For a split second, Cindy looked utterly confused as

she took Maddie’s hand and gave it a squeeze, introducing

herself.

“I was just subbing for Maddie,” I explained. “While

she had surgery.” With my eyes, I gestured to Maddie’s

bandaged knee. “is is actually her team.”

“I see,” Cindy said, nodding. e wheels cranking in

her head were almost visible as she tried to decide her next

move. To ask me out would be to out me, and she was

obviously trying to weigh the pros and cons of doing so.

“Which one is yours?” Maddie asked. By the smile on

her face, you’d never know her knee was killing her. She

was all business.

“I’m sorry?”

“Which kid is yours?”

“Oh. Um, Max. Max is mine.” Cindy looked around

quickly. Apparently, she didn’t know exactly where he was.

When her gaze landed on him chatting with Gabriel near

the bleachers, she tried unsuccessfully to hide her relief.

“He’s a sweetheart,” Maddie said. “And a good little

ball player. He has a lot of potential. Don’t you think so,

Avery?”

“Absolutely. He’s great.” I slid the bases into their sack

and busied myself with the rest of our stuff, trying to fade

back and let Maddie handle Cindy. I could still feel her

eyes on me, but after another minute of meaningless small

talk, she took her leave and headed toward the parking lot,

Max jogging along quickly behind her like he was worried

she might forget him.

“Damn,” J.T. muttered when Cindy was safely out of

earshot.

“What?” I looked up at her.

128

Starting From Scratch

“She was
so
checking you out.”

I gave a snort and went back to what I was doing.

“Like she wanted to eat you for dinner,” Maddie

chimed in.

I wasn’t sure why I didn’t fill them in on my previous

experience with Cindy Johnson, but I suspected it was

because I didn’t want to get into any details about Elena. If

I talked about Cindy’s sexuality, then Max’s other mom

might come up and I just wanted to keep her all to myself

for a while, selfish as that was.
And
, there was no way I

wanted Cindy to know I was ridiculously interested in her

ex.
Plus
, I didn’t want Maddie to know I’d technically

found Elena on Lesbian Link dot com. She’d find that far

too satisfying and would never let me live it down. I

couldn’t have that. So I just shrugged it off.

At that moment, as I put tee-ball equipment away, I

almost laughed out loud at the web I was weaving. I didn’t

want Cindy to know about Elena. I didn’t want J.T. and

Maddie to know about Cindy
or
Elena. I didn’t want Elena

to know about Cindy. And I certainly didn’t want Max to

know about
any
of it. is was the stuff of movie comedies,

where somebody inevitably gets bitten right in the ass.

Gee, I wonder who that’ll be.

I had to admit to myself, though, that I was

grudgingly impressed Cindy had showed a little bit of

decorum by not being her previously aggressive self. Maybe

I’d misjudged her a little bit? en, of course, the thought

of her and Elena
in flagrante delicto
made my stomach

clench and I went immediately back to disliking her.

129

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

By the time I’d finally been tired enough to go to bed

on  ursday night (after baking a lemon bundt cake, an

apple crisp, and double-chocolate brownies), I had

viciously cursed all manner of gods, clocks, watches,

hourglasses, sundials, time zones, and anything else I could

think of that may have conspired to make the week drag by

as slowly as was conceivably possible. But when I woke up,

it was with an enormous smile on my face and a giddy

sense of anticipation.

It was Friday.

Knowing I didn’t have to agonize over what to wear

until later that night was a relief. I put on my Casual

Friday attire for work consisting of my favorite pair of

Levi’s and a V-neck summer-weight sweater in royal blue,

and I practically skipped to the office, baked goods in tow.

I’d become pretty good at driving by Elena’s and Max’s

house without gawking like a weirdo, but today I allowed

myself the treat of glancing in that direction. It was

starting to look lived in, flower pots filled with red

geraniums standing on either side of the front stoop like

sentries and a colorful flag featuring a pair of bluebirds

flapping gently next to the front doorway. Elena had a nice

touch, I thought as I turned my car out onto Elmwood and

drove to work.

Georgia Beers

I was in such a good mood, I didn’t even bother to

cuss out the guy who cut me off so he could turn in front

of me at the Twelve Corners in Brighton. I waved and

smiled instead, which I think might have freaked him out

more than if I’d flipped him the bird.

“I knew it!” Josh hooted with glee a few minutes later.

We’d pulled into the parking lot at T. Harrison Jones &

Associates at almost exactly the same time, as happened

bizarrely often. I’d called him over to help me with all my

foil-wrapped goodies, surprisingly not bothered by the

smug look on his face that said,
I so have you pegged
. “I

knew you’d be nervous about your date and you’d bake your

ass off last night. Did you get any sleep at all?” He didn’t

wait until we got inside, but dove right into the plate of

brownies.

“Not much,” I admitted. Every time I’d tossed or

turned, my brain kicked into overdrive, beating me

senseless with thoughts about what I would wear, what I

would say, what I would drink, to the point of utter

ridiculousness. I couldn’t recall ever being so nervous about

a date before and the fact freaked me out a bit.

It didn’t make me any less excited, though.

With a sigh, I recalled my restless night.