The Daddy Dance (9 page)

When she’d finished her schedule, though, she leaned against the counter. Her fingers rose to her lips, starting them tingling all over again. Maybe she’d been too optimistic when she wrote up that list. Seven days wasn’t a lot, not to complete everything that needed to be done, and to keep an eye on Jenny, too. Maybe she should plan on staying in Eden Falls a little longer. Ten days. Two weeks. There was no telling
what
might happen in two full weeks.

She laughed at herself as she tore up her list. The renovation would take as long as it took.

And she had to admit—that wasn’t a terrible thing. No, it most definitely was not a terrible thing to spend some more time with Rye Harmon. She shook her head and thought about how Haley would tease her when Kat explained why she was staying in Eden Falls a little longer than she had planned at first.

Chapter Four

K
at ushered Susan to the kitchen table, telling her mother to sit down and relax. “You don’t need to wait on me like I’m a houseguest,” Kat insisted. “I can put the teakettle on to boil.”

Still, Susan fussed. “I just want you to rest that foot. You need it to heal, if you’re going to get back to New York. Does it still hurt a lot?”

Kat shrugged. She didn’t pay a lot of attention to pain. It was all part of her job. She took down two teacups and matching saucers, enjoying the look of the old-fashioned china that had once belonged to her grandmother. “Don’t worry about me,” she chided Susan. “You have enough on your plate.”

“Your father looks so much better. I cannot tell you how much it means, that he’s finally able to get a full night’s sleep. Jenny is a sweetheart—she’s so excited to be reading a book to her Pop-pop right now. But she is a
busy
child.”

Busy
was one word for her. Spoiled rotten was another. Kat was tired of playing policewoman, constantly telling her niece what to do and what not to do. Just the night before, Kat had caught herself complaining to Haley, saying that Jenny had been raised by wolves. Okay, that was an exaggeration. But not much of one.

But then, just when Kat thought that she had exhausted her last dram of patience with her niece, she was forced to realize that Jenny was just a little girl—a very little girl, who was working through one of the greatest challenges of her short life. Only that morning, after finishing her bowl of corn flakes, Jenny had looked up with such transparent sorrow in her eyes that Kat’s heart had almost broken. “When is my mommy coming home?” Jenny had asked.

For once, her lower lip wasn’t trembling because she wanted sugary cereal for breakfast, or a plate full of syrupy carbs, or some other disaster for her growing body. Instead, she was trying very hard to be stoic.

Kat had pushed down her own emotions, all of her anger and frustration with Rachel. “Soon,” she’d said. “I hope she’ll be home soon.” She’d given Jenny a brisk hug and then sent her toward the toy chest, telling the child that she needed to collect all the scattered crayons at the bottom of the container, returning them to a plastic bucket neatly labeled for the purpose.

Hard work. That was what had carried Kat through the loneliness and confusion of being on her own in New York. That was the only prescription that she could offer Jenny now.

Standing in Susan’s kitchen, Kat rescued the teakettle just before it shrieked. She filled the pot and ferried it over to the table before turning to snatch up a plate of gingersnaps. Somehow, though, her booted foot slipped on the worn linoleum. She caught her balance at the last possible second, but the china plate shattered on the floor.

“Oh, no!” she cried. “I am so sorry! I don’t know how I could be so clumsy.”

Susan rose from her chair.

“No,” Kat cried. “You’re only wearing your house shoes! I don’t want you to cut your feet. Just sit down.” She limped over to the laundry room, quickly procuring a dustpan and broom. Berating herself the entire time, she brushed up the debris, consigning shattered china and dirty cookies to the trash. “Mama, I am so sorry. I can’t believe I did that. Here I am, trying to help, and I just make everything worse!”

“Nonsense,” Susan said. “It was an accident. Nothing to get so flustered about. Now, sit down, dear, and pour yourself a cup of tea.”

Kat complied, strangely soothed by her mother’s calm. Susan pushed forward the sugar bowl, but Kat merely shook her head. She hadn’t added sugar to her tea since she was younger than Jenny was now.

“Mama, I’ll go online. I can find a plate to replace that one—there are websites to help people locate old china patterns.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“But it belonged to your mother!”

“And she’d be very upset to see you so concerned about breaking it. Please, Kat. Not another word.”

Still not satisfied that she’d made appropriate amends, Kat fiddled with her teacup. She avoided her mother’s eagle eye as she turned the saucer so that the floral pattern matched the cup precisely.

“I worry about you,” Susan said, after Kat had finally taken a sip.

“That’s the last thing I want, Mama! I’m here so that you don’t have to worry. That’s the whole idea!”

“And you’re doing wonders, keeping an eye on Jenny and getting everything ready for the first summer classes at the studio.”

Kat felt guilty about that. She still hadn’t told her mother about the condition of the studio, about the utter lack of students for the spring session. Four times in the past week, she’d started to broach the matter of the bank account, of the money that Rachel had not accounted for during the winter term. Each time, though, Kat had chickened out, dreading the moment when she destroyed her mother’s fragile peace of mind. Kat’s cowardice was certain to catch up with her. There couldn’t be much more time before Susan’s life got back to normal, before she found the wherewithal to check her financial statements. Who knew? She might even stop by the columned bank building on Water Street, learn about the disaster firsthand. In public.

And that disaster would be made much worse, because Kat was involved. Kat, whom Susan expected to run things smoothly. Kat, who had never been irresponsible like Rachel. Every day that Kat remained silent was a horrible, festering lie.

She steeled herself to make the admission. After all, if she said something today, then she might still be able to help Susan to recover. Kat could stay on another week or so, help sort out the finances with the help of a sympathetic—or, at the very least, a professional—banker.

She took a deep breath, but Susan spoke before Kat could confess. “Sweetheart, it’s
you
that I worry about. I wish that you could learn to relax a little. To sit back and enjoy life.” Susan shook her head, running her finger along the edge of her saucer. “You’ve always been such a grown-up, even when you were a very little girl. I could leave a slice of pie on the kitchen table, right between you and Rachel, and I always knew that
you
would have the self-restraint to eat your vegetables first.” Susan smiled fondly, as if she could still see her twins sitting at her dining room table. “Sometimes, I wish that you still played Magic Zoo.”

“Magic Zoo?”

“Don’t you remember? It was a game that you invented, to entertain Rachel when she was recovering from that broken arm, the summer when you were six years old. The two of you and your cousin Amanda played it every single day!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you do! You had all sorts of elaborate rules. Each of you girls chose an animal, and then you drew crayons out of a bucket. Each color crayon corresponded to a different magical food. The foods gave you special powers—you could be a flying horse, or a talking elephant, things like that. The three of you played it for hours on end.”

Kat blinked. She had absolutely no recollection of such make-believe games. She couldn’t imagine spending “hours on end” with Rachel—not without descending into screaming matches. Maybe Amanda had been a full-time referee?

Susan sighed. “I guess I’m just saying that sometimes you need to be more of a kid. Don’t worry as much. Take whatever happens and just roll with it. Forget that you’re an adult, for just a little while.”

“Like Rachel does, every day.” Kat said the words before she could stop herself, but even she was surprised by how bitter they sounded.

Susan’s face grew even more serious. “Yes. If I were queen of the universe, I would give Rachel some of your maturity. And I would give you a little of her…what’s that phrase? The French one? Joie de vivre?”

“I don’t think it’s joie de vivre to stay away from home when your own parents, your own
daughter,
need you. When was the last time you heard from Rachel? Do you have any idea when she’s planning on coming home?”

“A postcard arrived just yesterday. It had a picture of the Eiffel Tower, but not the real one. She was in Las Vegas. At least that’s where the postmark was from.”

A postcard, sent what? Three or four days ago? Rachel had to know the phone number here at the house, the one that hadn’t changed since they were children. She could have managed to call home, at least once. Responded to the text messages that Kat had sent. She obviously didn’t want to be found. She wasn’t ready to face up to her adult responsibilities.

Kat fought to keep her voice even. “I’m sure she’s very happy there.”

“Don’t judge your sister,” Susan said. “She’s never had a skill like yours. She’s never known what it means to succeed.”

Kat bit back an acid response. Rachel had been given every opportunity Kat had; she had enjoyed the exact same chances in life. Even now, she could come back to Eden Falls, raise her daughter, do the right thing. She could help her parents and prove she was a responsible adult. But she’d rather play in Vegas, drawing out her childhood for countless more years.

Susan sighed. “I sometimes think being twins messed everything up for you girls. Each of you was supposed to get a mixture of responsibility and fun. Of adulthood and childhood. Instead, all the grown-up qualities ended up with you and all the rest…” She let her words drift for a moment, and when she continued she softened her words with a smile. “I want you to have fun, Kat. Go stomping in mud puddles for a change. Somersault down a hill. Don’t always think about what something means for your future, for your career.”

“Mama, I
need
to worry about my career. I’m a dancer. I don’t have much longer to prove myself to the company director.”

Susan shook her head. “Sometimes I wonder if we did the right thing, sending you to New York.”

“How can you say that?” Kat’s voice was etched with horror. She couldn’t imagine what her life would have been like without New York. Without dancing.

“Don’t look so shocked,” Susan murmured. “Your father and I are very proud of you. But sometimes I worry that we took too much away from you by pushing you so hard. You had to grow up so young. You never got a chance to play, to make mistakes. You never even went to your senior prom. We just wanted you to be happy.”

“I
was
happy,” Kat said. As if to convince herself of the truth behind her words, she went on. “I
am
happy, Mama. The day I stop being happy dancing is the day I’ll leave the company. I promise.” Susan still looked doubtful. As if to finish the conversation, once and for all, Kat leaned over and gave her mother a hug. “I love you, Mama. You and Daddy, too. And I love everything that you’ve let me become. Now, can I freshen up your cup of tea?”

She pretended not to see the proud tears glinting in Susan’s eyes.

A couple of hours later, after a lunch of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, Kat could see that her father was tiring. “Come on,” she said to Jenny. “Let’s go down to the park. Run off some of your energy.”

Susan smiled gratefully as she saw them out the door. “Are you sure you’re all right walking there?”

“It’s only two blocks,” Kat assured her. “That’s why they call this a walking boot.” She made a point of keeping her gait even as they made their way down the street.

When they arrived at the park, it seemed as if half of Eden Falls was taking advantage of yet another unseasonably warm April day. Children screamed with delight on the swings, and a pileup of toddlers blocked the bottom of the slide. A group of teenagers sat beneath a cluster of cherry trees, staring up into the cotton candy blossoms, carrying on a passionate discussion about something.

“What’s that?” Jenny said, pointing toward a baseball diamond.

Kat narrowed her eyes against the brilliant sunshine. “A T-ball game.”

“I love T-ball!” Jenny bounced on her toes, showing more enthusiasm than she had since Kat had come to town. “Can I play? Please? Please?”

“Let’s go see.” Kat started across the park, watching Jenny as the child raced ahead. Halfway to the playing field, Kat heard the coach call out, “Good job, Jake! Run! Run to first base!”

Kat knew that voice. She’d listened to it at the dance studio, smiled as it interrupted her organizing class records. She’d imagined it, in her dreams, ever since it had teased her in Rachel’s kitchen. She met Rye’s gaze as Jenny circled back to clutch at her hand.

“Hey,” he said, nodding to include both of them. “Kat. Jenny.”

“Hello, Mr. Harmon.”

Kat smiled at her niece’s polite greeting, and she remembered to model her own good behavior. “Mr. Harmon, Jenny was wondering if she could play T-ball with you.”

“Absolutely.” Rye gestured toward the outfield. “Go out there, between first and second base. You can play right field for us.” Jenny trotted out, beaming as if her most secret wish had been granted.

“Thanks,” Kat said, less formal now that none of the kids was paying attention. Her heart was skittering in her chest. It had been, what? Two days since she'd seen Rye? Two days since he had completed fixing the plumbing at the studio, and torn out all the rotten ceiling tiles and the damaged flooring. Two days since he had driven off, with the pair of silent cousins he had brought along to help. Or to serve as chaperones.

As if by agreement, Rye and Kat had made sure they did not spend a minute alone together. Not after that searing kiss they’d shared. Not after Kat had reminded herself that she had no time for an Eden Falls relationship.