More Than Friends (28 page)

"And who's given him a perfect opening? If you didn't want him to have it, you shouldn't have moved out of the house. Either she's yours or she

isn't. Either you stake a claim or you pull it up and move on."

"Have you done that with Annie, staked a claim?"

"She knows I'm not leaving," Sam said, though it suddenly sounded like a pretty passive claim staking. Words he had used earlier that morning--"reparation" and "restitution"--came to mind.

"Has she forgiven you?"

"I'm working on it." Hard enough? He wondered. He was still giving her time to come around on her own, and in the meanwhile he was trying to be home more. Since Dunn v. Hanover he had been bombarded with calls from victims seeking representation but was farming out many of those cases to other lawyers. He had even let ongoing work slide to allow more time for Annie, yet it struck him that he could be more aggressive about winning her back. "At least there isn't another man in the picture," he reasoned aloud. "You can be sure I'd be doing more if there were." He refocused on J.D. "So don't complain about Piper. You left. That's abandonment. Teke is fair game."

"She's still married to me"--he wiped his mouth with a napkin and tossed down the linen--"but Christ, he can have her. What I don't like is his being around my son."

"Michael needs someone," Sam said. The thought broke him up, as always. "He won't look at me, and you're not around."

"I visit the center."

"Does he know you moved out of the house?"

"I haven't mentioned it. I assume one of the girls has told him. Jana says she wants to move in with me. God only knows what Leigh says. She's never home when I'm talking with Jana. She's always with Jon."

"They're inseparable."

"That's nothing new."

"Well, it's worse than ever," Sam remarked. Jon and Leigh had banded together in the crisis and become a unit to the exclusion, it seemed, of everyone else in both their families. Annie might benefit from having him around more. So might Zoe.

"So talk to Jon," J.D. said.

"Lotta good that'll do. He isn't of a mind to listen to anything I say. He thinks I'm a two-faced liar. You'd have better luck talking with Leigh."

J.D. grunted. "Leigh and I aren't confidantes." Sam thought of his own daughter. His relationship had had its confidante moments back in the days when she used to talk with him. Now she wouldn't. "What a mess," he muttered.

"Yeah. Well."

Turning sideways, Sam dropped his elbows to his knees. His hands hung limply between them. "Okay." He took a breath. "No point in rehashing. Let's talk about the ski house. By the end of the month the mountain'll open. How do you want to handle it?" J.D. frowned. "Hell, I don't know how to handle it. How does Teke want to handle it?"

"I haven't asked. She'll only defer to you. Your moving out of the house has hit her hardest. It makes things very real." J.D. tipped back in his seat. "What if she's pregnant?" Sam was startled. "By me?"

"Did you use something? Of course not, and she wouldn't have run upstairs for her diaphragm."

Sam clamped a hand on his arm, bringing J.D. and his chair forward with a thud. "She is not pregnant."

"But what if she were?" J.D. asked in what Sam could have sworn was amusement. "That'd throw an interesting wrench in the works."

"She's not pregnant," Sam repeated, but he was suddenly sweating. He hadn't considered pregnancy. He should have. But he hadn't.

"What about AIDS?" J.D. asked. "Have you thought about that?"

"No," Sam stated, angry now, "but if that proves to be a problem, it won't be Teke who's at fault, it'll be you." The thought made him sick. Having had just about enough of John David for the moment, he rose. "While I'm thinking about that, you can think about the ski house and about Sutlers Island. If you're divorcing us, we'd better negotiate a separation agreement. But I'm warning you, I'll fight for my fair share. I'll take the blame for what I did with Teke and for what subsequently happened to Michael, but that's it. It's gone far enough. You want to move out, fine. You want to divorce Teke, fine. You want to convince yourself that you're too good for the rest of us and shouldn't dirty your hands any longer, fine. But we've given you a goddamned good twenty years. Leave us, and you'll go right down the tubes."

"I don't believe that."

"Believe what you want. Without us, you'll be another John Stewart in no time. That what you want?" Disgusted with himself, with J.D." with the whole unhappy situation, he stalked off.

Teke was at the rehabilitation center working with Michael and his therapist when a nurse tracked her down. "You have a phone call, Mrs. Maxwell. He says it's urgent."

"Must be your dad," Teke said. Hiding a rise of nervousness, she gave Michael's shoulder a squeeze. "I'll be right back." The nurse waited until she was in the hall to

scold, "It isn't your husband. It's Sam Pope. I explained that you were busy and that I didn't have the time to hunt around for you, but he was insistent."

Teke grew frightened. She imagined a dozen urgent messages Sam might deliver, none of them happy. Her heart was pounding by the time she reached the phone. "What happened, Sam? Is it Jana, or Leigh?"

"No, no. They're fine."

"Annie?"

"She's okay. Teke, are you pregnant?"

Teke's mind drew a momentary blank. "Excuse me?"

"Lots of women conceive in their forties. If you did, you should have already missed a period."

Pregnant? From their one, aborted, ill-fated time together? She made a high, slightly hysterical sound and said a small, silent prayer that none of those other urgent things had come to pass. "I didn't miss. I'm not pregnant."

Sam sighed in obvious relief. "Thank God. There could be a helluva lot of worse things than our producing a child, but under the circumstances I can't think of many. Sorry, Teke. I didn't mean to scare you, but J.D. put that bug in my ear, and it was buzzing so loud I couldn't hear a damn thing."

"That's an Annie analogy," Teke said with a fond smile. She missed Annie. She couldn't begin to think of what Annie would have felt if she had become pregnant with Sam's child.

"How's Michael?" Sam asked more calmly.

"Cranky. But more for me than for anyone else. I wonder if he'll ever forgive me."

"I'll talk with him about that."

"It won't be easy. You're pretty high on his shit list, too." Thank God she wasn't pregnant! That

would have been a disaster where Michael was concerned.

"I can try. You just keep up all you're doing. Sooner or later he'll realize how much you love him."

She was counting on that. At times it was all that kept her going.

"Hang in there, Teke. If you need anything at home, just yell." She really did love Sam, for just that kind of care. "Annie may not like that."

"Annie feels as badly as I do that J.D. moved out and left you alone. She made me promise to stay in town late tonight so that she could invite your girls over for dinner without my presence spoiling things."

"Oh, Sam."

"I can live with it. So you'll stay later with Michael?"

"Uh-huh." It was one immediate problem solved. She was grateful for every little bit of help. "Please thank Annie for me."

"I will. Take care, Teke."

Annie had finished a meeting with a student and was returning several books to the bookshelf when Sam arrived at her office. At the sound of a noise at the door, she turned with a start. Her first response was pleasure, but it was quickly tempered.

"Sam. I didn't expect you." She glanced at her watch. "Didn't you say that you had a lunch meeting?" Of late he had started giving her a rundown on his schedule before he left the house in the morning. "In case you need to reach me," was the excuse he offered. She suspected it was his way of saying "I have nothing to hide."

"I canceled it," he said now. "It hit me that I hadn't been out here in a while, and that in another few weeks you'll be tied up with exams, and that since I won't be home for dinner, I really wanted to take you to lunch. How about it?"

She shot another look at her watch, then one at a small paper sack that rested on the file cabinet. "I was planning to have a sandwich here while I work. I have a class at one-thirty."

"Just to the coffee shop. I'll have you back in time." She would have gone with the old Sam in a minute, but the new Sam had slept with her best friend. She was still feeling the hurt of it.

"Please, Annie? It's time, don't you think?"

He was right, she supposed. She couldn't avoid him forever--even if she wanted to--which she didn't.

Without looking at him, she took her purse from the bottom drawer of the file cabinet. He had her coat waiting when she straightened. The coffee shop was the most intimate of the eating places on campus. It was shabby in the way of an old and adored pair of shoes. It was also, just then, crowded and loud. After two minutes of standing in line waiting to order, Sam was scowling. "This place is a pit. Maybe we should go somewhere else."

But she was comfortable on her turf. "Be patient. We're moving."

"I wanted to take you somewhere nice. Why did I suggest this?"

"Because I said I didn't have much time and this is the closest. It's fine," she assured him. It was functional, atmospheric in a campy college way, and not romantic in the least.

"I wanted a place that was sparkling white, with fresh flowers on the table and waiters with gloves

and empty tables all around us so that no one would be embarrassed when I started whispering sweet nothings in your ear." She shot him a quelling look. She didn't want him saying things like that.

"Another time," he murmured as they moved forward.

"What'll it be, Dr. Pope?" the young man behind the counter asked. Annie ordered tuna salad and tea. Sam ordered a double

bacon-cheeseburger with fries and a Coke.

"That still gives me a little jolt," he said, leaning down to her ear while they waited for the burger to cook.

"What does?"

""Dr. Pope." I don't hear it often enough to get used to it. It sounds so formal. My first thought is to ask who in the hell Dr. Pope is, then I realize it's you. It makes me proud."

She blushed, but she said nothing as she watched the young man behind the counter scoop tuna salad onto a bed of shredded lettuce.

"You make me proud," he said, still by her ear. "You're the most normal-looking person here."

Easy enough to be, she mused with a glance around at the motley assortment of collegians. She could have said the same for Sam. She could have said he was the most handsome person there. Or the most sexy. "Some of these not-so-normal people are geniuses."

"I'll take normalcy over genius any day." He grunted. "I'd take normalcy over most anything right now."

She thought of recent events and nodded, then shook her head when the man behind the counter asked if she wanted chips.

Sam turned sideways so that he was facing her. "I

talked with J.D. this morning. He really thinks this is it for his marriage."

Her heart fell. "So quickly? So finally? No second thoughts? No counseling?"

"Can you see J.D. in counseling?"

She thought about it for half a second. "You're right. He'd never do it. But, boy, a therapist would have a time with him. Forget his relationship with Teke or with us. The dynamics between him and his father could fill five years' worth of sessions."

"I think he knows that," Sam said, and reached for her tuna salad plate before she could. He beat her to her tea, too. When his lunch had joined the rest on the tray, she led him to the only free table. It was smack in the midst of the fray. Which was fine, she mused. There was safety in visibility. Sam couldn't try anything, and she couldn't succumb.

He didn't start to eat immediately. Folding his arms on the edge of the table, he watched her until, feeling self-conscious, she begged him to stop.

"I can't help it," he said. "You are not only the most normal-looking person here, you are also the prettiest. I love you, Annie." She rolled her eyes.

"I do."

"I'm sure."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that I believe you."

"But?"

"But you have a funny way of showing it sometimes."

"One time, fast falling into the past."

She picked at her tuna. "If only. The repercussions keep coming. Poor Teke."

"You're not angry with her anymore?"

"Sure I am. But she and I have been best friends for so long that I'd have to be inhuman not to sympathize. Her husband just left her. She must be feeling deserted." Annie would have been devastated if Sam left her.

"How much of a comfort do you think Grady Piper is?"

"Some. Then again, one part of her is furious he's here at all. He hurt her badly when he sent her away."

"J.D. is convinced they'll be sleeping together before long. Do you think so?"

"I think she may be too angry for that. Or too frightened."

"Frightened?"

"Of involvement with Grady again. It was disastrous once. Besides," Annie added, looking him in the eye, "she slept with you, and look what happened. Instant pain, incredible sorrow, prolonged heartache. The thought of going to bed with any man may terrify her." Sam returned her gaze without a blink, but as he did, his eyes grew smoky. Annie knew that look. It said he was picturing her in bed. As flattering as it was, it wasn't what she wanted just then.

"Please, Sam," she whispered.

He straightened, cleared his throat, shifted on his seat in a way that confirmed he had been growing aroused. With a determined look, he bit into his cheeseburger.

"Besides," she went on, "one of the most basic things Teke and I had in common was coming from dysfunctional families. Getting married and having kids was high priority for both of us, but for Teke even more so than me. I had dreams of teaching. She never had dreams of being anything but a wife and a mother. Whether it was an illusion or not, she thought she had an anchor in J.D. I think she'll cling to her marriage until it dissolves in her hands."

"I hope not."

"Why not?"