Walk on Water (11 page)

I decided to buy one bottle of merlot and one bottle of chardonnay, and humming the Billy Joel song,
Scenes from an Italian Restaurant
I carried my selections to the check-out counter. Luke’s house wouldn’t be an
old familiar place,
not to me anyway, but I had
lost weight
and was looking pretty
good after so much time,
even though we had never been a
Brenda and Eddie.
Had Christina been
lazy
like in the song? Mommy thought she was and Mrs. Sterling had confessed to her doubts. But then nobody ever
counted on the tears,
only
the sweet romantic teenage nights.

“Excellent choices,” the clerk, an older man with a thick gray beard, told me as he rang up the wine.

I handed him my credit card. If Stephanie-the-teacher, was there tonight there would be plenty of wine, and I would get my airline mileage points too.

“Thanks,” I said to the clerk. “It’s hard to know what to buy sometimes.”

“I always tell customers, ‘Buy what
you
like. Trust your judgment.’”

While I signed the receipt, the clerk bagged the bottles of wine.

“You make it sound simple,” I said, putting down the pen.

The clerk smiled.

“Oh you’d be surprised how hard that is to do,” he replied. “To trust your judgment and have what you like. I guess people aren’t programmed that way.”

“Maybe not,” I agreed.

“You have a nice evening.”

It wasn’t the afternoon yet but naturally the clerk would think I was buying wine for tonight.

“Thanks,” I said leaving the store, holding the wine to my chest like it was a prize.

A bottle of red, a bottle of white

Whatever kind of mood you’re in tonight

I’ll meet you anytime you want

In our Italian Restaurant.

Around four-thirty that afternoon I drove to Luke’s house, equipped with both a printed computer-generated map with directions and the voice-commands of my portable GPS. It was absolutely overkill but I was anxious about getting lost. I didn’t get to this side of town very often, and I didn’t want to be late. I imagined myself calling his house and getting Stephanie-the-teacher, who would giggle as she gave me directions. “Now where are you?” she would ask. “Can you tell me what you see?” Oh no, that was not happening to me tonight. I would find my own way my own way and be perfectly on time, which meant arriving about eight minutes passed five o’clock since Luke had said that I should come at five.

That seemed a little early for dinner to me. We were middle-aged but we weren’t senior citizens meeting at Denny’s for their
early-bird special
. Maybe Luke was just being mindful of my church day tomorrow and intending to have me home by ten p.m. which was thoughtful of him. Unless he was just getting rid of me early so that he and Stephanie-the-teacher could be alone.

With my mood swinging wildly, and in all directions, about the only thing calm about me was my driving, as I made a right turn onto Luke’s street. He lived in a nice subdivision of large brick homes built ranch-style, with multiple-car garages, neatly trimmed hedges, and well-manicured lawns that softly sloped down to clean, wide sidewalks. “Okay, Mommy,” I said out loud. “This settles the destitute question.”

Before I could read the house number, the ramp attached to the front of the house identified it as being Luke’s, and I turned into the driveway. Mine was the only car parked out front, or was it merely the first? Luke had a two-car garage. Stephanie-the-teacher’s car could be inside. I shut off the engine and took a deep breath. Walking around to the passenger side of my car to get the two bottles of wine, I noticed how clean the driveway was, and somebody had been skilled with the edger. I paused for one last check of my reflection in the passenger door window. I was wearing a frilly red blouse and dark-wash jeans. Silver dangling earrings jingled softly in my ears when I moved my head. Casually feminine, that was the look I was going for, and I had accomplished it, smelling faintly of
Juniper Breeze
.

Carrying the wine in a red gift bag, recycled from Christmas, I walked to the door, passing by the ramp. “And the best part,” Luke had said about moving back to Dallas, “Is the flat terrain.” For the rest of his life, Luke, whom we had always believed capable of walking on water, must be mindful of that, the physical environment, the lay of the land, the
terrain
. I mounted the two steps to the front porch and rang the doorbell and realized that the peephole must be useless to him. It really was a different world.

Regardless of who opened the door I would behave flawlessly. Luke opened the door.

“Fashionably late, I see,” he said with a good-natured grin.

“I’m within the fifteen minute rule,” I replied, impossibly happy to see him as always. “And I come bearing gifts,” I added offering him the wine.

He frowned.

“I told you you didn’t need to bring anything,” he said taking the bag onto his lap.

“I know,” I replied flippantly. “But I don’t always do what you say.”

“Well come in anyway.”

I did and he closed the door behind me. The melodious sounds of a tenor sax floated around us. Luke was wearing an apron that said “Kiss the Cook” so I did that too, quickly, dryly, but on the lips nonetheless. If Stephanie-the-teacher was here already then she might as well know it was like this between us. We were like family.

The house had a nice foyer with warm taupe walls and dark stone floor tiles.

“
Two
bottles of wine, Rachel,” Luke said when he looked into the bag. “Planning on getting me drunk so you can take advantage of me?”

Was that what it would take I thought for a sad instant before brushing it off and feigning outrage.

“I beg your pardon, sir!” I exclaimed.

Now Luke was grinning again.

“I have better charms than that,” I added haughtily.

“I know,” he replied.

Suddenly my face burned, and Luke laughed out loud.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll give you the tour.”

The house was one-story but large. Mommy’s house would fit inside of it, and my condo was no bigger than one wing of it. It was really too much house for one person but such was the American way, and besides each room actually had a purpose. There were three bedrooms, one of which was part of a master suite. Luke had a separate study that was outfitted with two computers, three monitors, a laser jet printer and a fax machine, not to mention loads of books all stored on the lower shelves of solid wood bookcases. There was also a large table-style executive desk. And no particle board/fiberboard/engineered wood anywhere. Mrs. Sterling would never have allowed it, and I imagined that she had helped Luke set up housekeeping, once he had returned to Texas a single man.

Nevertheless it was a
bachelor’s pad
to a certain extent, so also minus the bric-a-brac, minus the drapes, and minus the carpeting. Most of the floors were either tiled or hardwood. The few area rugs were relegated to the two bedrooms Luke’s kids used when they came to visit. “My cleaning lady loves the no vacuuming,” he said about the lack of carpeting. “And I can’t say that I miss it.” Everywhere the house had been adapted, “To fit a four-foot perspective,” Luke explained on the tour. By the sixth grade he had already been 5’10”. By college he had stood 6’3”. Were you still considered tall even though you couldn’t stand?

The family room was a great room off the kitchen, with a modern fireplace and a wall-mounted flat screen TV. An L-shaped black leather sectional sofa dominated the center of the room. Dark mahogany built-in bookshelves lined one wall, and again the top shelves were empty. In one corner of the great room was a set of fitness equipment for strength and cardiovascular training, including a large machine designed to enable Luke to stand. There was also a formal dining room and a formal living room, both of which were minimally furnished and probably minimally used. Outside there was a covered back patio and an exposed wooden deck. Percentage-wise, my little condo probably had more furniture, more stuff. Was it because women were nesters? Or was it because if everywhere you went you had to bring your own chair with you, you didn’t have much need for furniture?

In the kitchen the walls were set-off by tiled backsplashes in a slate-gray color that also complemented the dark granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances. I wondered if this was an indication of Mrs. Sterling’s tastes too—the original one, the one Luke had been forced to come home to.

There was little artwork on his walls, and what was there was abstract. There were lots of photographs, however, mostly of Luke’s children, taken at various ages in an assortment of poses and settings. The photos were artistic, both in color and black and white. In a few of them Luke was also in the scene, usually standing, but in one that looked to be a picture of his oldest son’s graduation the wheelchair was present. Luke didn’t comment on the photographs as we toured the house, but I noticed each one of them, and especially the ones that also included Christina. Christina very pregnant with a toddler leaning on her knee. Christina holding an infant. Christina at a ski resort somewhere, standing next to Luke, his arm around her, and their four children looking joyful in the sunshine. Family photos were like history books. They kept the record. Christina was after all the mother of Luke’s children, and entitled to a permanent place in his life. I, on the other hand, was more like a fluke in the first place, a happenstance, back again only because I had taken a late lunch to catch a good sale on bath wash.

“Your pictures are nice,” I eventually said magnanimously, pausing in front of one of the pictures where the kids were sitting on what looked to be a park bench. In this particular photograph the oldest girl looked like a young Betty Sterling. She could be a model too.

“Thanks,” replied Luke. “I took most of them myself.”

“Really? They look so professional. Like art.”

“I got better with practice.”

Years of it, or so it seemed, and all after I had been out of his life. The only photograph we shared was the wedding party picture, with me on the fringes, ranked last in descending order among the bridesmaids. Seeing all the photographs now was kind of like watching a movie of Luke’s life during the years when I had been absent from it. I knew that I should be glad for him for his fabulous trend line, and the happiness that he had known, and I tried to be. In the park picture the children were older. The oldest boy already looked like a man. I wanted to ask when the picture had been taken but Luke had rolled away.

I caught up with him in the great room where he was adjusting the volume of the music.

“Bose?” I asked.

“And iPod,” Luke replied.

“High-tech, of course.”

“Pretty amazing, isn’t it?” He turned and headed towards the kitchen. “Remember how big the speakers used to be?”

The music was all around us coming from tiny speakers discreetly mounted in the ceiling corners of the great room.

“And how they used to crack and pop,” I said following him. “Something smells good,” I added inhaling deeply.

“Herb-roasted red potatoes,” Luke supplied.

“Sounds delish.”

“Grilled salmon, sautéed spinach,” he listed, washing his hands at the kitchen sink that was open below to allow him to roll his chair under it. “And fruit custard.”

“Wow. You’re cooking all of that?” I said.

“Hardly a gourmet meal,” he replied laughing lightly.

He checked on the potatoes in the oven and then went to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of white wine. It was a pinot gris. My wine selections remained in the gift bag on the counter.

“Open the wine while I finish up the appetizer,” said Luke.

“Appetizer too?” I remarked. “Very cool. Martha Stewart would be pleased but then Betty Sterling
is
your mother.”

“Don’t you cook at home much, Rachel?”

The
Cool-Hand Luke
of college had been completely domesticated, I thought as I filled our glasses.

“Not as much as I should,” I admitted. “They say home-cooking is better for you.”

“They drill it in your head in rehab,” Luke said. “We had to prepare family meals together. The tasks were assigned based on ability.”

He had placed a wooden cutting board on his lap and was layering slices of mozzarella cheese, tomato, and fresh basil on small thin slices of Italian bread.

“Cooking as a team sport,” I said.

“Something like that,” he replied as he arranged the tiny open-faced sandwiches on a china plate. “But it taught us to be independent, and how to ask for and accept help.”

As Luke drizzled a little olive oil over the canapés, I remembered the trophies he had won from his intramural sports when he was in college. He set plate of hors d’oeuvres on the breakfast bar. He had been such a competitor back then but a team player too. Perhaps it had served him well.

“It must have been hard at first,” I ventured as I admired how easily Luke moved around the kitchen.

Returning to the refrigerator, he took out the salmon steaks. There were only two. I wouldn’t have to share him tonight.

“Like most things,” he agreed with me, and then smiled puckishly. “
At first
.”

“Whatever, Luke,” I chuckled.

He peeped into the oven at the potatoes again.

“I’ll put the fish on the grill in about fifteen minutes,” he said.

“You’re going to grill outside, on the deck?” I asked a little amazed.

“Yes. It’s good that way.”

I was beaming now.

“What’s with the goofy grin?” Luke wanted to know.

“The last time you cooked for me you grilled burgers on the deck of your apartment,” I told him.

“I suppose you can tell me what I was wearing too,” Luke teased, parking his chair by the breakfast bar.

I perched myself on one of the bar stools.

“Those ugly gray sweat pants you used to wear,” I replied. “With all the holes and an ancient orange t-shirt that said University of Texas.”

“Lucky guess,” he laughed. “But I can’t remember anyway.”