Second Time Around (21 page)

Harry pulled her under his arm. “I’m the one who invited her to come with us. She’s been there ever since. Jesus got a good one when He captured your mother’s heart.”

Captured her heart?

Her mother’s voice softened. “While I was going through the divorce, I realized I needed something more than myself to get through the hard times. You should know that being kicked out of your life was the worst time in
my
life, Nessa.” She turned to her friends. “Yardley has been telling her
I
was the one who left
them!
”

Harry shook his head vehemently. “No sirree, little lady. Dorian was the hurt one. Your father didn’t think she was good enough for his climb up the ladder to be one of Atlanta’s elite. He called her an embarrassment because she’d gained a social conscience that looked beyond the establishment. Plus, she was just a lowly teacher.”

Her mother shrugged. “And I
did
refuse to wear that awful orange knit dress to a fancy dinner.” She made a clutching motion at her bosom. “It was pulled together right here with a yellow daisy pin. Awful. Just awful. Not me at all.”

Harry laughed and stepped aside, showcasing her current caftan made from scarves. “So speaks Miss Couturiere 1976.”

“Oh pooh. The clothes were just part of it,” Mother said. “Though Yardley and I started out on the same page when we were married, he was blind to the changes in the world, the things that
needed
changing. All he cared about was his stupid bank. I became an activist and he didn’t like it. He wanted me to turn back into something I wasn’t anymore, something I could never be again.” She found Vanessa’s eyes. “And when I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—he dumped me. After twenty years of marriage, he dumped me like an old shirt in the giveaway pile. And then, as the cherry on the cake, he took you away from me—physically, mentally, and emotionally.”

Vanessa’s throat was dry. What could she say? “I didn’t know.”

Her mother nodded and squeezed her arm. “Enough of this. Let me grab the fondue and Fresca, and we’ll get down to some serious card playing. Harry and me against you and Lewis.”

As she moved to the kitchen Lewis leaned close. “Let’s kick some butt.”

He didn’t sound like any churchgoing man Vanessa had ever met—which, all things considered, was a good thing.

Vanessa screamed. Then she high-fived Lewis over the table.

“We are the champions!” Lewis jumped out of his chair and did a
Rocky
victory dance. Then he came around the table and pulled Vanessa up to join him. She wasn’t used to such exuberance, but gave it a shot.

Lewis clapped. “All right, Vanessa! Get down!”

She stopped her dance and felt herself redden. But it was a good blush. She liked Lewis’s approval. In fact, she liked everything about him. Of course, what wasn’t to like? He was charming, funny, intelligent, and had a smile that could melt a brick. And eyes… When he looked at her, she was torn between wanting to look right back and be drawn into a wonderfully soft place, or look away in case he saw too much of who she really was.

Harry tossed his cards into the center pile. “That should have been our victory dance, Dorian. I shouldn’t have played that jack. I should’ve played the queen.”

“Yup,” said Mother. “I hereby declare it all your fault.”

Vanessa laughed and loved the
real
feeling it gave her. As if tonight she’d finally awakened from a long bout of sleepwalking.

“Who wants tea?”

“I’ll help,” Harry said.

“I’m going to the little boys’ room,” Lewis said.

Vanessa was left alone in her mother’s dining room. It was as different from the dining room in the Pruitt home as Frankie’s Cafe was to Tavern on the Green. And though the lack of wealth had initially hit her as a negative, after spending time within its four walls it seemed an attribute. There was no china cabinet displaying silver and crystal, no twelve intricately carved chairs sitting on a hand-tied oriental rug. None of those lovely things that screamed status but somehow seemed hard to grasp. Even when a crystal goblet was in Vanessa’s hand, it was as if there was a distance between object and holder.

Here, in her mother’s dining room, stood a round oak table with a piece of the veneer missing on the side and four straight-lined chairs with yellow polka-dotted cushions. Instead of a buffet or cabinet, there was a bookshelf stuffed with books. Vanessa let her fingers walk across the covers. Shakespeare, John Jakes, Jane Austen, C. S. Lewis, Tolkien, Solzhenitsyn. She remembered her mother reading books to her at bedtime. Vanessa couldn’t say she’d read many since. She didn’t have time.

She shook her head at the lie. She had time; she chose not to read. Why was that?

She looked at the avocado-colored fondue pot on the table and gathered up the crumpled napkins and plates. Her father never would allow such fare. Vanessa had become an expert at setting a proper table: a brocade tablecloth complete with a padded liner to protect the tabletop, cloth napkins, china on gold chargers, Grandmother Pruitt’s sterling flatware, water goblets, wine glasses, and bread-and-butter plates. Luckily—after one disastrous dinner when Vanessa had burned the cordon bleu—her father began to hire in a cook. Vanessa was left to the hostess duties, which entailed looking pretty, offering second helpings, and being the foil for her father’s conversation. She was an expert at nodding and smiling.

Quite a contrast to tonight: clinking fondue forks together to commemorate the beginning of the card game, catching the drips of cheese with their fingers, drinking Fresca from the bottle, and Harry pointing a fork at her mother, saying,
“En garde!”
and making her mother laugh.

Her mother’s laughter was another surprise. Each time Vanessa heard it, her mind zoomed back to other times, old times, when Dorian Pruitt and daughter used to play Go Fish or swing in the park.
“Higher, Mommy, higher!”

When had “Mommy” changed to “Mother”?

At the question, the image of her father’s face intruded. A stern face. A proper face with his eyebrows drooped toward a center point marked by a deep vertical line. Eyes that could change from disapproving to plaintive in a single moment.

Vanessa couldn’t remember when the laughter had started to fade, but snippets of harsh words and slammed doors populated the time between Go Fish and her mother’s going away.

Being sent away.

She clutched the napkins to her chest. A huge lie. How many other lies had she clung to as truth? Daddy’s version of truth?

She noticed a cross-stitched sampler on the wall:
Bless This House.

She nodded and gathered some plates for the kitchen.

Amen to that.

Saying good-bye at the door, Lewis kissed Vanessa’s cheek. “Why don’t you come to church with your mother on Sunday? We’ll save you a place. It starts at ten-thirty.”

She imagined herself sitting next to him in a pew, his hand straying to the space between them, taking hold of hers… It was a pleasant image. But a bold one considering the white-black thing. “I’ll think about it.”

“’Night then.” He left with a wave and one more killer smile. When Vanessa turned around to make her own goodbyes to her mother, she found her in Harry’s arms. Kissing.

When Mother opened her eyes and saw Vanessa looking, she blushed and pushed him away. “See you tomorrow, Harry.”

He kissed her once more on the cheek and pointed a finger at Vanessa. “You come back soon. We demand a rematch.”

She nodded, but her mind was not on cards. She hung back so he would leave first. Her mother stood by the opened door, waiting for her to go, but Vanessa closed it.

“You’re
seeing
him?”

“Harry?”

“Yes, Harry. The man who had you lip-to-lip.”

She smiled. “He’s a great kisser.”

“Mother!”

She put her hands on her hips. “Why are you objecting? I thought you liked him.”

“I do. But I didn’t know he was your… what is he to you?”

Her grin was like a schoolgirl’s. “Actually, dear daughter, he’s my fiancé. We’re getting married July Fourth. We figured it was a good way to celebrate the Bicentennial. The country doesn’t know it, but all the fireworks will be for us.”

“But… but Daddy didn’t remarry!” Lame. Very lame.

Her mother placed both hands on Vanessa’s shoulders, looking her straight in the eyes. “Your father and I have been divorced nearly five years. I am way beyond the age of consent. And in spite of what you may think, I’m a relatively young woman. Do you actually want me to be alone for the rest of my life?”

Vanessa knew her feelings were petty, but they came out anyway. “Daddy doesn’t even have a girlfriend.”

At this, Mother dropped her arms, gave a bitter laugh, and led Vanessa to the couch. “I really don’t like taking on the position of bubble-burster, but here goes another one.” She fueled herself with a deep breath. “Your father has always had girlfriends, even when it wasn’t proper for him to have girlfriends—if you get my drift.”

Vanessa scanned her memories for evidence. “I’ve never seen—”

“He’s always been discreet, I will give him that.”

“But if he had,
has
girlfriends… now that he’s single, why doesn’t he bring them around?”

“Ask him. I stopped trying to figure out the psyche of Yardley Pruitt a long time ago.”

Vanessa’s mind zeroed in on a cruise her father had taken last year. She’d asked to go along, but he’d told her she couldn’t, telling her it was a business trip.

Mother stroked Vanessa’s hair. “It’s late. You’ve had a lot sprung on you the last two days. Why don’t you stay here tonight?” She patted the couch cushion.

Why not?

Vanessa let her mother take care of her.

Dawson—1987

Lane grabbed a lukewarm Pop-Tart along with her jacket and hugged Grandma Nellie from behind. “Am I forgiven?”

Grandma patted her arm. “It’s your life, chickie. Far be it for me to tell you how to live it.”

Lane’s mother laughed. “Far be it.” She poured a cup of coffee before heading off for her shift at the soybean plant. The pungent smell of the processed beans was always present—on her person and in the town.

“Maybe I should just keep quiet. Is that what you all want?”

Lane whispered in Grandma’s ear, “Never.” She kissed her cheek and gathered her things for school. She purposely didn’t tell them she was trying out for the school play today. Let it be a surprise when she told them she was Juliet.

Toby honked out front. “I’ll be late coming home. I have something after—” Her backpack was upstairs. “Oops. Forgot something.”

She ran and got it, but as she was on the landing coming back down she heard her mother say, “…seems to have recovered well.”

“It’ll hit her,” Grandma said. “One of these days she’ll realize she passed up the chance of a lifetime, and we’ll have to scrape her up off the floor.”

The air went out of her. But then Toby honked a second time.

She ran to him.