Home to Harmony

“Why not? It’ll get the principal off your back.”

“More roughage is not going to help us here. We’ll have to find someone in Preston.” Which meant a two-hour round-trip.

“Come on. He said he’d hypnotize me next time.” David was clearly loving this. Christine shook her head. Now what?

“NOT THAT PLATTER, the swirled glaze one,” Aurora ordered Christine, whose only wish was to keep the couscous as moist as her own skin in this boiling-hot kitchen.

She and Marcus had kitchen duty, instructed by Bogie and Aurora, who were supposedly resting, though Bogie had been up and down seasoning things and Aurora had been barking commands.

“If you’d keep the trays in the same place, it would be easier,” Christine said, forcing herself not to snap at her mother. She was dying to say, Go lie down, for Pete’s sake.

“Here you go.” Marcus handed Christine the tray. It was one of her mother’s surreal creations in green, blue and turquoise. “And the serving utensil and leftover pita she’s about to tell you about.” He winked. “Saving you time.”

“Thanks,” she said, vividly aware of how close he stood.

After a week of seeing Marcus, mostly at meals, Christine could no longer deny how attracted she was. Whenever he was near, she felt a low electric hum start up inside. It was delicious. She wasn’t going to do anything about it, it was just…fun.

She rarely dated, but when she did she kept it casual and mostly physical. She had David and engrossing work, of course. Plus she’d been burned the few times she’d gotten serious by charmers who let her down—like David’s father, Skip—or pursued her relentlessly until she fell for them, then disappeared or went cold on her.

Not good. Her judgment when it came to relationships plain reeked. Short-term hookups were fine for now. Maybe some day, when she got smarter, less emotional or developed better mating instincts, she’d go for more, the whole picket-fence deal.

Marcus felt the attraction, too, she could tell. It was thrilling to get a man as restrained as Marcus all charged up. She liked making him laugh, too. And talking to him. She realized she didn’t spend much relaxed social time with men, so this was a nice change.

It was all good fun. She enjoyed the tease and retreat and he seemed to, too. She had too much on her hands with David, her mother and her work to even think about sex. Well, she could think about it. But that was it.

Marcus seemed equally reluctant, pulling back from any accidental contact, when they brushed hips in the entry to the dining room or tangled fingers over the dishes they washed.

Marcus had the goulash pot in both hands and gestured for her to pass in front of him. She did, then glanced over her shoulder to catch him watching her backside.

She got that roller-coaster dip in her stomach. “Watch your step,” she said, nodding at the bump in the floorboard, but she was grinning and he cleared his throat.

This was such a kick.

At the entrance to the dining room, Christine paused to admire the rough-wood table holding the ceramic plates in her mother’s singular style, the pewter flatware and Mason jar water glasses. Bogie had let David choose the cuttings for the bouquet of fragrant herbs, river bamboo and exotic amaryllis in the center of the table. There were ten people at the table tonight.

Aurora and Bogie emerged with the salad and bread and Christine handed the couscous to the wife of the hiking couple, Lisa Manwell, who loaded up, then passed to Carl, a scary guy with the smeared ink of a prison tattoo. Aurora said he was a teddy bear and Bogie declared him a wizard of a mechanic who kept the school bus purring. If he didn’t murder them all in their sleep, Christine would be grateful.

The good karma here is too strong for anything negative, Aurora had told her. Lord. No wonder her mother liked Dr. Mike.

“Enjoy the bounty of the earth through our hands,” Aurora said, head down. “May we all find here what we need.”

Carl mumbled an amen. Silently, Christine put in her own request: Please bring David back. Make us a family again.

The commune food was grainy and dense, made with whole grains, lentils and beans, with Middle Eastern spices, fresh and healthy and there was always plenty. It had taken Christine forever to get the dirt off the tender lettuce and celery Marcus had picked for the salad that afternoon.

“So you’re in high school?” The question for David came from Gretchen, across the table, a pretty twenty-something poet on retreat. Beside her were two college students, Mitch and Louis, researching sustainable living for a college project.

“I’ll be a junior,” David answered, his face aflame, “but school’s bullshit.”

“David!” Christine said, embarrassed by the swear word. The Manwells exchanged disapproving glances.

“Creativity can suffer in school, for sure,” Gretchen said.

“That’s what my girlfriend says. She writes poetry. Also political pieces. She’s really good.”

Christine’s heart clutched at his wistful tone and love-sick look. A week hadn’t eased his feelings for Brigitte at all.

“Do you drive?” Gretchen asked him.

“Not yet.” He glared at Christine. Learning to drive had been a sore subject. She’d said no permit without a B average.

“Hell, you can learn while you’re here,” Aurora said.

“He doesn’t have a permit,” Christine said.

“Who cares?”

“I care. It’s illegal.”

“We rarely see a deputy, so who’d write the ticket?” Aurora waved away the issue like a gnat over her plate.

“Aurora…”

“I might as well learn. I’ve got nothing else to do.”

“Now isn’t the time to talk about this,” she said quietly. “It’s never the time with you,” David blurted. He’d been in a bad mood since his call to Brigitte. He looked around, clearly aware of how rude he’d sounded, jerked to his feet, knocking off his knife and loudly scraping his chair before he stomped away.

“Teenagers,” Christine finally said into the awkward silence. Heads nodded. Forks clicked, water glasses clinked.

“Kids are so out of control these days,” Lisa Manwell said. “It’s shameful. My sister’s teens rule the house.”

Christine bit her tongue to keep from suggesting Lisa try a stroll in her sister’s Free Spirits before she criticized her.

“Since Socrates, adults have thought kids ran wild and parents were lax,” Aurora said, winking at Christine. “That’s how you know you’re old, when you start saying, kids today….”

Lisa sniffed at the insult.

“David’s a good kid,” Aurora said.

“Thank you.” Christine was touched by her mother’s kindness. Aurora really was trying to do what they’d agreed—support Christine’s parenting of David.

“He’s at loose ends out here in the country,” she said. “So let him drive, Crystal. Where’s the harm?”

Lord. So much for Aurora’s good intentions. “How about if I get the dessert?” Christine said, happy to escape to the kitchen. Marcus stood and began gathering plates.

Taking a knife from the cupboard to slice the cinnamon carrot bread, she noticed the phone was missing its handset. The cord stretched around the corner into her office alcove.

David sat on the floor there, knees up, back to her, his voice low and fervent. “I’ve got to see you. I’m so alone here. Christine’s such a…she’s so… Exactly. Controlling. I hate her.”