Playing For Keeps

Thinking about that sale led to thinking about Dale—again—which led to Joanna’s wondering when everything had gotten so damned complicated. Okay, more complicated. In her next life, she was coming back as a sponge.

“It’s already earmarked,” Joanna said.

“You want me to do my lawyer thing?”

“I want you to stay out of it.”

“And watch the house crumble down around your head?”

“See, this is why I don’t tell you stuff. Because you hear I’m having a problem and you immediately want to jump in and fix things for me.”

“That’s what parents do, Jo. Which I would think you would understand, now that you’re a mother yourself.”

“My oldest is eleven, Mom. Not thirty-two.”

“Since when is there a statute of limitations helping your kids?”

Joanna sighed. “That’s not the point. Not completely, anyway. I appreciate your offer, I really do. But if I accept it, Bobby’s off the hook.”

“And maybe it’s time you let him.”

“What?”

“I’m serious. Maybe it’s time to just chalk it all up to…experience and move on. Why beat your head against the wall?”

Momentarily forgetting who she was talking to, Joanna opened her mouth to defend herself, pointless though the gesture may have been since her mother kept going.

“And why do you think I don’t know what’s been going on? You may not say much, but I didn’t get where I am today without knowing how to read between the lines. We’ve got the money, why not let us help?”

“Because I don’t need—”

“Oh, Joanna—would you get over yourself? You’re driving a ten-year-old car, you haven’t bought any new clothes in a dog’s age and now your roof is about to cave in. I mean, those Santas you make are wonderful, honey, they really are, but you clearly can’t support yourself and the kids on what you make off of them. I just don’t get why you’re being so stubborn about this.”

Joanna’s stomach knotted. No, Glynnie didn’t get it, didn’t have an inkling how much baggage came attached to those offers of help. She could understand her mother’s disappointment in some of her choices over the past twelve years. But what she couldn’t deal with was the pity, that poor dear Joanna would probably never amount to much, that she was her parents’ cross to bear, they’d probably always have to support her so they might as well be cheerful about it.

“Mom,” she finally said, reaching across the counter and taking her mother’s hand in hers. “I like my old car. I’m perfectly happy with my wardrobe—”

Okay, so that part was a lie, but it wasn’t as if she had anyplace to wear fancy clothes, anyway, right?

“—and as soon as Bobby comes through, the new roof is a done deal. And I’m doing fine, financially. Well enough for me, anyway. Not everyone has to be wealthy to be happy, you know. So thanks for the offer, but no—”

Outside, male voices—one baritone, one tenor—rose in a fevered and not exactly pleasant duet. Dulcy pushed back the patio door and stood there, slumped against the opening, reeking of preadolescent disgust. “They’re at it again,” she said on a pained sigh.

After twelve years, one thing hadn’t changed: Bobby and her father still couldn’t agree on how hot the grill should be.

“I’ll be right out,” Jo said, thinking if Dale Mc-Connaughy had a lick of sense, he’d stay as far away from this family as possible.

In the past forty-five minutes Dale had changed his mind no less than ten times about coming. But somehow, here he was, standing under the portal in a more or less new pair of jeans and the first clean long-sleeved shirt he’d come across, a whole new bunch of cats giving him the once-over as he contemplated the ubiquitous chile ristra hanging by the front door and inhaled the luscious tang of seared beef wafting from the back, and then Bobby Alvarez opened the door and it was too late to turn back. From behind the house, somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred kids were yelling their heads off.

“Hey, man—glad you could make it.” With the kind of grin that immediately made Dale suspicious, the other man stood aside to let Dale in. A couple of the cats darted inside, but the rest seemed content to stay out. “Party’s out back,” he said, leading Dale past the softly lit living room filled with mismatched overstuffed furniture, the scuffed wooden floor partially hidden under worn Oriental rugs. Looking forlorn, the dog lay on the sofa with his chin propped on the arm, thumping his tail in a halfhearted greeting when Dale passed.

“What’s wrong with him?” Dale asked.

“The dog? He’s ticked because he can’t go outside. Last time we had a cookout, he helped himself to most of the main course.” When they reached the eat-in kitchen, a spacious, cluttered space divided from the family room by a tiled breakfast bar, Alvarez said, “Something to drink? Tea? Soda? A beer?”

“A Coke if you’ve got it.”

Curiosity flickered briefly across the man’s features, but all he said was, “Sure thing.”

Dale stood at the end of the bar, taking in the cobalt-blue and yellow Mexican tiles along the backsplash, the hanging baskets filled with potatoes and onions, the side-by-side refrigerator all but buried in bright drawings of toothy dinosaurs and construction vehicles, of photocopied directions and lists and notices overlapping each other in no apparent order, all precariously clinging to the dark brown surface by means of an array of magnets ranging from cats to boots to miniature frames with photos inside, to ads for Pizza Hut and various household repair services. The disarray of people who were busy, Dale thought, not lazy.

Of people with lives.

Everything fluttered when Bobby opened the refrigerator, but miraculously stayed in place. Joanna’s ex handed Dale a Coke, then uncapped a Coors bottle, taking a swig from it before noticing the bag in Dale’s hand. “What’s that?”

“Oh, right. Some stuff I had lying around. For the boys.” He dug the Captain Underpants books, whoopee cushion, and baseball glove out of the bag. “I brought another glove, too, in case they might want to play later.”

Alvarez looked dumbstruck as he picked up the glove. “Damn—you even signed it? The boys’ll be beside themselves. And this…” With a huge grin he snatched the deflated whoopee cushion off the bar and blew it up, then squeezed it, letting out a bark of laughter when it blatted. “I haven’t seen one of these in ages!”

“Give it to me, lemme show you something.” Bobby handed back the cushion; Dale blew it up, then pressed it this one certain way so the fpfpfpfp ended on a long squeal….

A girl about twelve or so came into the kitchen, let out a disgusted, “Dad, jeez!” then breezed out again, a bag of chips in her hand.

When they finished laughing their butts off, Bobby said, “That was my daughter, Dulcy. She gets her sense of humor from her mother.” He chuckled a couple more times, then said, “I honestly didn’t think you’d come back.”

Yeah, well, Dale still wasn’t sure about that, although he supposed he could duck out pretty much anytime he wanted to. And do what? Go back to his empty condo and watch ESPN? Go bar hopping?

God knew, he’d done his fair share of carousing, if for no other reason than to keep from being alone. From thinking about things there was no sense in thinking about. But lately…

His tastes had changed, was all. Still, why had he shown up here tonight?

Maybe he didn’t want to answer that one, he thought as Bobby led him out back, introducing him to Joanna’s parents—her father, a tall, lanky man with a shock of silver hair and major eyebrows, looked vaguely familiar for some reason—and Bobby’s fiancée, a pretty gal with long brown hair and enormous blue eyes who looked like she felt even more out of place than Dale did.

Then he caught sight of Joanna over on the far side of the patio, nearly blotted out by a swarm of little kids as she fussed with things on a long table covered in a fluttering checkered tablecloth, and he heard her laugh at something one of the kids said, and he remembered damn well why he’d accepted the invitation, even as it became crystal clear why he should have turned it down. Especially when she looked up, just for a second, and a flush washed over her cheeks when their eyes met.

Huh.

He also thought about going over and saying hi or something, but everybody’s eyes were on him so he settled for lifting his Coke in a greeting and she nodded and mumbled something about being glad he could make it, then disappeared around the side of the house.

The boys discovered him right about then, dragging him away from the under-ten herd to see the rabbits they kept in a hutch at the far end of the yard, next to the empty stable. Two or three cats started to follow them, but their hearts really weren’t in it. From beside the gas grill off to the side of the patio, Bobby yelled something to them about not being pests, but Dale waved away their father’s concern. Besides, it was a relief having an excuse to get away from the adults, who he got the feeling were all looking to him for something.

“The bigger one’s mine,” the one with the dark, straight hair—Matt—said, and then went on about how they were both girls so they couldn’t have babies together and what-all they fed them and how their father had bought the rabbits for them at the fair and that Mom had been kinda mad and how she’d told their father that if they didn’t take care of the rabbits, she was packing them right up and taking them to his house. And all the while, the other boy, Ryder, had just stood there quietly, stroking his bunny, a black-and-white lop-eared, not saying anything. Now, unlike a lot of adults, Dale generally got off on rambunctious kids. But the quiet ones always stole a piece of his heart.

So he squatted by the cage and said to Ryder, “What’s her name?”

“Emily,” Matt said with a snort.

Dale looked over at Matt and said quietly, “Any reason why your brother can’t answer his own questions?” The kid looked taken aback, but then he shook his head and Dale said, “That’s what I thought,” and turned again to Ryder.