A Minute to Smile (3 page)

Annoyed, Piwacket jumped up to Alexander’s desk, batting halfheartedly at pens and paperclips to watch them drop to the floor. Turning a page in his book with studious quiet, Alexander nonetheless smiled.

Next the scruffy animal leaped with surprising grace for his outrageous size to the lamp table. For a moment, he sat there, tail flicking, then reached out a paw and stuck it into the cognac, toppling the glass in the process. Alexander caught it before much was spilled, then shooed the tom off the table. “I thought we settled this,” Alexander said with annoyance, dropping a paper napkin on the mess. “It’s bad enough you don’t purr, that you kill birds and leave me their heads, that you snore and knock things over, but you’re also an alcoholic!”

Piwacket blinked, licking his whiskers. His yellow gaze was focused intently upon the cognac-soaked napkin. Alexander almost threw it into the dustbin near the desk, then thought better of it. He’d be picking up little scraps of paper in the morning, and Piwacket would have a bellyache from devouring the napkin.

“Come on,” he told the animal his wife had rescued—against Piwacket’s protests—from an alley behind a Denver hospital. “I’ll get you some food.” Not that Pi would eat it. A single bag of commercial food lasted several months and in spite of that, the animal was grossly overweight. He fed himself on birds and snakes and squirrels when he was lucky enough, but would be content with spiders, beetles and garbage pickings if times were lean.

But the evening sprinkle of food in Piwacket’s plastic dish was also part of Alexander’s meticulously ordered life. As he bent over the dish, smelling a fresh night wind blow through the open back door, he wondered how much longer he would cling to the web of routines. It seemed he’d been noticing them all day, since the lovely Esther had made her comment.

As he’d stood in the doorway of her sweet-smelling shop, with sunshine streaming in to dance in her hair, he’d found her perceptiveness amusing and interesting. After a day of observation, however, he wondered if he’d grown too entrenched—if his life had any meaning beyond his habits and schedule.

Until his wife’s death four years before, he’d felt no need of regular timetables except those relating to his classes and that sort of thing. After Susan’s death from leukemia, he’d found himself unexpectedly unable to cope with even the smallest chores without planning them in advance. All meaning had been stolen from his life, and into the void, he placed routines. They had lent at least an appearance of order to the endless days.

Looking out the door to the glittering, starry sky, he shook his head. Even Susan would protest this long recovery. She, perhaps, above all.

So instead of ascending the stairs for a shower as was his habit, he wandered into the living room and flipped on the television, clicking through channels until he found the late show. Once he’d enjoyed watching old movies. How long since he’d indulged the pleasure?

He poured a second cognac in further defiance of habit and settled in.

Unfortunately he tuned into a tragic romance made in the thirties. As he watched, trying to stick to his resolve to break his mindless routines, he thought of Esther and his instant, heady attraction to her. There was a sense of vibrant sensuality about her, a zest and verve that drew him like nothing else could have.

Susan, too, had possessed that quality. Even his mother, Juliette, had been an extraordinarily vibrant woman.

And both had died young.

For a moment, he was reminded of the dark, soul-devouring despair he had known after Susan’s death. Each moment of each day had been an ordeal to somehow overcome.

Vitality was no guarantee of protection against life’s capriciousness, he thought, and turned off the television. Better empty routines than the bleak despair.

* * *

Sunday mornings when the boys were home were Esther’s favorite. The store was closed and there was time for a big, leisurely breakfast.

This morning, Daniel sprawled on the living-room couch, watching cartoons. Jeremy played in the dining room, wearing Superman pajamas complete with cape and a foreign legion hat. In the kitchen, Esther listened to U2 on a cassette player and danced as she made French toast. Heaven, she thought, flipping the toast in time to the music.

The phone rang and Esther cheerfully answered it, tucking the phone between her shoulder and chin.

“Hi,” said Abe. “Are you making waffles?”

“No. Sausage, orange juice and French toast. You want to come? I’ll throw in some scrambled eggs and cheese just for you.”

Abe groaned. “Thanks, but it sounds like a zoo over there. I’m not up to it this morning.”

“It is,” Esther replied, unoffended by the running joke. “What’s up?”

“I just wanted to find out if you were going to teach the class.”

After Alexander’s departure a few days before, the shop had been swamped with customers and Abe had left with a single wave of his hand. “Yes,” she said. “As you knew full well I would.”

“Good.”

“You aren’t matchmaking by any chance, are you?”

“Esther, please.” His voice was thick with disdain. “That’s hardly my style.”

“Mmm,” she said skeptically. “Not officially.” She turned the toast in the pan, satisfied at the golden finish. “But when I told you about the man in the dojo, you must have known who I was talking about.”

“Yeah, I figured it was him. It didn’t seem important.”

Esther twisted her mouth, sure he was matchmaking now. “Sure, sure. What do you know about him?”

“Not much, really. He’s been teaching me tai chi and we talk sometimes.” Abe coughed uncomfortably. “He’s a widower.”

Her heart plummeted. There was the tragedy she had seen in his eyes. “Recent?”

“No. At least a few years.”

Esther thought of his leonine grace and power at the dojo. “I’m intrigued,” she admitted out of long habit. It was impossible for her to hide anything much from Abe.

“I thought you would be,” he said and laughed. “Bye, Esther.” He hung up without giving her a chance to say anything in return.

“Brat,” she muttered, glaring at the phone. But as usual, Abe had accurately pegged her. Alexander Stone was the first man in ages to have caught her eye. There was something about him...

A wounded lion, she thought with a sigh. Damn Abe. He knew the last thing in the world she needed was another man with scars on his soul.

After breakfast, Daniel suggested a “city hike.” They packed a lunch in a backpack and set off, walking the city blocks to view newly blooming flowers.

The neighborhood was one in which people took their exercise in the open air, against the backdrop of the Flatirons and the incredible blue of the Colorado sky. As they strolled, an older couple in neat sweat suits walked by, and a runner with earphones attached to his head dashed intently by them.

Daniel walked next to his mother, sometimes holding her hand. Jeremy played raven, running ahead of them with his arms outstretched as wings, cawing every so often. Several times, a real raven answered him.

Daniel watched. “Why is he so noisy, Mommy?”

“I don’t know, honey. It drives you crazy, doesn’t it?”

“Sometimes.” He looked at her with enormous blue eyes. “But you know what I think?”

“What?”

“He’s really going to be good at gym when he goes to school next year.”

Esther grinned. “You’re probably right.”

“Maybe he can help me.”

“Are you still having trouble?”

He shrugged. “I can’t throw things very well or catch them, either. It seems like I figure it out, and then, it just doesn’t work the way I want it to.”

“Everybody is good at different things.” She leaned toward him and in a confidential tone said, “I was terrible at gym.”

Daniel brightened. “You were?”

“The worst.”

He took her hand. “If you had a hundred people and only five of them were good at gym, that would be five percent.”

She looked at him. “Have you been studying percentages?” First grade seemed a bit early for that.

“No,” he said with a shrug. “I just read about them the other day.”

“I’m impressed.”

It would be impossible for a woman to have two more disparate children than she. Daniel was her little thinker, a child who’d memorized long books at two and added simple numbers by three. At four, he started reading and subtracting. And yet, it was never enough to satisfy him. Each new thing led him to something else. Already his room was littered with Encyclopedia Brown books and magazines about computer games and a huge text on simple science experiments. He was cautious, meticulous and prone to horrid rages of frustration.

Gifted
, his teachers said.

“Hey, Mommy,” he said. “What’s in the back of Rafael underwear?”

“What?”

“The
sais
.” He burst out laughing.

Esther laughed, too—he was, after all, only six years old. “Where’d you get that?”

“I made it up. What’s Donatello’s favorite sport?”

“What?”

“Bo-ling.”

“You’re good at this. Are there more?”

“No, I haven’t thought of anymore yet.”

She nodded, and called to Jeremy, who had wandered a little too far ahead. When they got to the park, she settled on a blanket near the slides and swings. The children climbed over the playground while Esther read a book. After lunch, they headed back home, walking past the small shops and boutiques that lined the edges of the campus.

“Can we get an ice-cream cone?” Jeremy asked, pointing toward a man with a cart under an umbrella.

Just beyond was the dojo, and Esther realized with an embarrassed little shock that she’d deliberately led the children in this direction in hopes of seeing the attractive Alexander. And as if fate were punishing her for her cheekiness, who should emerge from said dojo but the man himself.

He caught sight of them and waved. To cover her embarrassment, Esther agreed to ice cream for the boys and paid for it, watching Alexander approach from the corner of her eye.

Daniel tugged her ann. “Mommy,” he said urgently. “That’s the man from karate. You should see him do stuff. He’s better than
sensei
.”

“Is he?” Esther smiled. “I’m going to be working with him this summer. Maybe he’d show you some things if you asked.”

A single look from those dark blue eyes expressed it all—wonder, delight, excitement, hope. Daniel glanced back toward Alexander and Esther watched something else replace the radiance—wariness.

She felt the same odd mix of emotions reflected within her own heart. Alexander’s curls were tousled, falling rakishly over his broad forehead, and he walked toward them with the easy grace of an athletic, fit man. He wore jeans and a crisp, cream-colored shirt, unbuttoned at the neck and rolled casually below his elbows. The simple combination was elegant on his lean body, and Esther found herself eyeing the triangle of golden flesh visible at the edge of his shirt. A distinct quiver shook her. No man should look that good,
that
artlessly. It wasn’t fair.

“Hello,” he said, joining them.

Again Esther was struck with the richness of his deep voice. “Hi.”

He ordered a cone for himself and paid for it. “Are you headed home or away?” he asked.

“Home. We’ve been to the park.”

“I’ll walk with you, then.” He looked down at her and in his eyes, which were a very deep navy this afternoon, was a twinkle. “Unless you mind?”

Terrific, Esther thought. She’d been caught lasciviously eyeing his body once too often. “I don’t mind.”

Daniel tugged Esther’s hand gently in reminder. “Alexander, I’d like to introduce my children. Boys, this is Mr. Stone.” She gave him a quizzical glance. “Or is it Dr. Stone?”

“Actually, if you don’t mind, I’d prefer Alexander.”

“Okay. Boys, this is Alexander Stone. This is Daniel.”

Daniel proffered a hand with the bearing and manners of a prep-school trainee. “Hello.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Daniel,” Alexander said, taking the boy’s hand with the solemnity Daniel seemed to expect. Esther gave him a grateful smile.

Jeremy was cawing in a circle. “The raven there is Jeremy,” Esther said, tongue in cheek.

Noticing the grown-ups’ attention had shifted toward him, Jeremy giggled, dancing even more wildly.

“Jeremy,” said Daniel, “is never,
ever
still or quiet.”

“I see.”

Introductions completed, Esther nibbled her ice cream and started walking. Alexander and the boys walked along with her, all of them attacking their cones. A group of summer tourists, sunburned and winded in the high altitude, passed. One woman smiled at Esther, and she realized they probably looked like a family. Again her thoughts embarrassed her and she cast around for something to say. “How long have you been studying martial arts?” she asked.

“A long, long time.” He glanced at her. “I was one of those skinny children who need all the help they can get. My mother thought it would be good for me to learn.”

“It must have done the trick,” Esther commented. “I find it hard to imagine you as a ninety-eight-pound weakling.”

“Thank you.” He gave her a devilish smile, then caught a dollop of chocolate ice cream just before it fell.

Esther glanced away, but couldn’t entirely shut out the sense of his lean, taut body walking alongside hers. “Which discipline do you practice?”

“Several, actually. Mr. Kobayashi is tutoring me in
Shotokan
at the moment, while I’m sharing my knowledge of tai chi and
hsing-i
.”

“Isn’t that sort of unusual, to practice more than one discipline?”

“No, not really. We all choose a particular form that suits us, I think. But there are things to be learned from others.” He looked at Daniel. “How long have you been studying with
sensei?
”

Shyly, Daniel shrugged. “Not very long.” He raised his enormous robin’s-egg eyes to the man beside him. “It takes a long time to be as good as you are, doesn’t it?”

“Well, what you’ve seen me doing is not the same as what you do with Mr. Kobayashi. It’s easier, I think.” He touched his shoulder. “Would you like me to teach you a few things the next time you’re there?”