Childless: A Novel (15 page)

Matthew spun
the cap back onto a newly opened bottle of mouthwash while swishing the sting from cheek to cheek. He counted seconds toward the recommended sixty, but gave up at the halfway point. “Blah,” he complained, spewing the clear liquid into the sink, wishing he had bought the mild, minty variety. But today was too important to take any chances. The stronger the better.

He ran a still-tingling tongue across his teeth while admiring the man staring back from the bathroom mirror.

Trimmed hair?
Check
.

Clean shave?
Check
.

Ironed shirt?
Check
.

Fresh cologne?
Check
.

Fresh breath?
Double check
!

Matthew wondered whether Maria Davidson was standing in front of her own bathroom mirror nervously anticipating their reunion.
Unlikely
, he guessed. She had probably suggested ten o’clock coffee because she could squeeze in a quick, cordial hello and be done with it. Maria had always been kind, even to the unpopular boys. Today’s meeting was, for him, a shot at happiness. For her, he feared it was an act of charity.

He felt the abrupt jolt of three firm raps on the door.

“Matthew?” The slightly muffled voice sounded young and familiar. Isabelle?

“It’s Mr. Adams!” came the faint sound of Marissa Gale correcting her daughter.

Matthew pulled the door open. He was greeted by two six-year-old faces, the first smiling boldly and the second dodging the scene.

“Hello there, Miss Gale,” Matthew said.

She giggled while extending her hand for a proper greeting. “Hello, Mr. Adams. I told Peter you were probably in the bathroom.”

“Hi, buddy,” Matthew said to the pair of eyes peering around a protective corner. The boy then darted across the hall toward Reverend Grandpa’s bedroom. The door quickly opened and closed to swallow his escape.

“My mother asked us to let you know we’re here,” Isabelle explained. “She said to say sorry for being late.”

“Did she?”

“Yeah. It was Peter’s fault.”

“Isabelle,” came another distant correction.

“OK. It was my fault too. We were playing Battleship and I only had one more ship to sink.”

“I can understand that,” Matthew said, glancing at the time. Thirteen past nine. “No worries. I wasn’t going to leave for another few minutes anyway.”

Isabelle surprised Matthew by grabbing his hand and leading him into the kitchen, where Marissa was unloading the dishwasher.

“You don’t need to do that,” Matthew protested. “I was going to—”

“Don’t be silly,” Marissa interrupted him. “From the looks of the place you’ve been keeping busy enough. This is your day off. Go and enjoy yourself. You deserve it.”

She seemed overly grateful.

“You don’t mind?” he asked, still feeling bad about requesting time off so soon after accepting the job.

“Are you kidding?” she said. “I half expected your message to say you wanted to quit. Wouldn’t surprise me after two full days with Dad.” She laughed nervously.

A brief silence.

“You won’t, will you?” she asked timidly.

“Won’t what?”

“Quit.” She seemed a bit pale. “I mean, you’ll give me a chance to find someone else if he gets to be too much to handle, right?”

He recognized the anxiety in Marissa’s eyes. Matthew had felt it often the year his own mother crossed a fuzzy line from parent to dependent. He recalled a vague, persistent panic over a reality he hadn’t been ready to accept.

She’s getting worse, not better.

How much of my life will her illness put on hold? And what will it cost?

I’m not so sure I’m cut out for this.

Is anyone?

“Don’t worry about it,” Matthew reassured her. “Your dad’s not so bad.”

Marissa seemed relieved by the upbeat evaluation, honest or not.

“I think he might be a bit depressed, though,” Matthew continued. “Stays in his room most of the time. I only see him when he rings the bell to let me know he needs help.”

“Does he?” she asked.

“Ring the bell?”

“Yes. I mean, no. I mean, does he need very much help?”

“Only a few times a day. Otherwise I just bring his food and change his oxygen tank when it gets low. You know, like you showed me.”

She nodded distantly.

“I mainly help him maneuver his legs when he wants to use the walker to get to the bathroom. He doesn’t let me go in with him, so I assume he does fine on that front.”

Marissa seemed reassured. “Good.”

A brief pause.

“Good,” she said again. “Well, I appreciate all you’ve done.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said, feeling his empty pockets. “Oops. Forgot my tablet.” He took a step toward the doorway. But he noticed Marissa positioning herself on the kitchen counter stool looking intent, as if she wanted to say more.

He waited. “Everything OK?” he asked.

She nibbled one side of her lower lip. “Fine. I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“It’s nothing. I don’t want to make you late.”

The comment reminded him of the time. “OK,” he said, starting toward the bedroom.

“It’s just,” she began, pausing his advance. “I worry. I wonder how long this is going to work. You know, a live-in arrangement.”

The comment unsettled Matthew. He had just moved in. Just started this job.

“I know you don’t mind him right now,” she said. “But it’s still the honeymoon period.”

Matthew failed to connect any dots between the prior seventy-two hours and his images of a honeymoon.

“He always behaves at first. Even seems docile. He creates a false sense of security. Then, out of the blue, he goes in for the kill.”

“The kill?” Matthew repeated nervously.

Marissa chuckled at Matthew’s expression. “Sorry, bad choice of words. I mean he climbs onto his religious high horse. He’ll start preaching at you soon. If he hasn’t already.”

Matthew shook his head. “Nothing yet. But I wouldn’t sweat that. I’m kind of a spiritually oriented person myself. I’ve taken a few religion classes and plan to take more when I get back to school. Who knows, we might hit it off on that front.”

“I doubt it.” Marissa placed both hands, palms open, onto the counter. “But we can hope,” she said in rebuke of her own pessimism.

Matthew sensed something else might be bothering Marissa. He waited a moment longer. Nothing came. “OK, then. I’ll just go grab my tablet.”

He moved swiftly down the hallway toward his open bedroom door, passing Isabelle en route. Her eyes were glued to some educational television program.

He searched the usual places, dresser top and side table. Nothing. Then he remembered. Reverend Grandpa had asked to borrow his screen to read the day’s news.

While approaching the main bedroom Matthew heard a child’s voice.
Peter
? He waited before knocking, pressing one ear against the closed door.

“And then the lady gave me this!” the boy said in a hushed tone, presumably raising some mysterious prize.

Isabelle was wrong. It seemed Peter could speak after all.

“My goodness!” came Reverend Grandpa’s enthused voice. “Let me take a look at that.”

Momentary silence.

“Looks like the genuine article,” the old man continued. “Twenty dollars is a boatload of dough. What are you gonna do with it?”

“Hide it with the rest,” Peter whispered. “I’m not telling Mommy about it. She said we’re running out of money. But she doesn’t know about my secret supply.”

Matthew heard subdued laughter, an intimate moment between conspiratorial masterminds. He pulled his ear away from the door and positioned his knuckles to knock, an intention halted when he heard Peter continue.

“I don’t want you to go away, Reverend Grandpa. I want you to live at our house.”

A brief gasp suggested the old man had been caught by surprise.

“Don’t worry, Pete,” Reverend Grandpa forced out after a hard swallow. “Your mommy and I discussed the money already. I’m gonna live right here, real close, for at least six months.”

Six months
? Is that what Marissa hadn’t been able to say? The job ended in six months?

“Why not longer?” Peter was asking. “Why not always?”

“It’s difficult to explain,” the elder admitted. “But like I said, don’t you worry about that right now. I need to stick around long enough to train my favorite apprentice, don’t I?”

Another silence. Peter nodding?

“You still plan to take my place in the pulpit, don’t you, buddy?”

Matthew chuckled at the thought of a boy who never spoke becoming a preacher. Or rather, a boy who spoke only to his grandfather.

Three gentle knocks on the door silenced the conversation within.

“What do you want?” came an unwelcoming bark.

Matthew hesitantly pushed the door open. “Excuse me Hugh…er…I mean, Reverend. Do you still have my tablet?”

“On the bed,” came the terse reply, the old man’s index finger pointing.

The smaller mastermind was crouched near the bedpost, glowering with a look of disgust. Highly classified conversations should not be interrupted by such small concerns.

“Thanks,” Matthew said apologetically, scooting out of the room.

He closed the door, then paused to listen. He smiled, anticipating more clandestine scheming. Then he remembered the time. Less than thirty minutes before his rendezvous with Maria Davidson. And nothing, not wild horses or the top-secret chatter of a mute child, could make him late.

She looked incredible.

Matthew had pulled into the parking lot a few minutes early, so he should have been the one sitting at a table watching for a semi-familiar face. But he instead parked his car twenty yards from the entry and slumped down in the seat to peer over the steering column until he spotted his, what? Date? Not really. Maria had only agreed to catch up with a guy from high school whom she would have described as an old acquaintance at best.

But she agreed to meet
, he reassured himself.
And she actually came. So far, so good
.

He drank in one last look before approaching the entrance. She probably hadn’t noticed his gaze, his face obscured by the words
Enchanted Coffee
stenciled on the glass. Maria only looked up from her tablet whenever the stir of the opening door prompted a brief glance. No extending neck. No hope-filled eyes. No pumping her ankle like a woman wondering if that special someone will arrive. Maria Davidson was, unlike Matthew, at ease.

Why wouldn’t she be? The years had been very kind. Her face retained the frisky allure that had ensnared every fifteen-year-old boy during ninth grade. She wore a white sleeveless blouse and mid-length blue skirt that lay gently over her crossed legs. The tip of her foot peered out from the thin cotton edge as if offering his eyes the tiniest hint of those familiar, feminine limbs. Matthew had been admiring Maria’s playfully provocative pictures for years, her online images searing themselves into his imagination. But now, moments away from their first real encounter since high school graduation, all he could think about was the trickle of nervous perspiration threatening to stain his new shirt.

Get out of the heat, you idiot
, he chided himself.
Just go in and say hello
.

So he did.

“Maria?” he said, pretending only vague recognition.

After a slight hesitation she lifted an eyebrow of recognition, then stood to offer a cordial embrace. “Matt Adams,” she said with a perky voice that matched the fragrance of her perfume. “How’ve you been?”

How to answer?
I’m flat broke. My mom’s dead. And I quit college to take a job changing an old debit’s oxygen. You
?

“Never better,” he lied. “Let me take a look at you.”

She turned to her side and lifted one leg while touching an index finger to her cheek like Betty Boop. He laughed at the same pose she’d used to flirt with boys back in high school. This was the first time the gesture had been intended for him.

“You look wonderful.”

“You too,” she said, reaching toward his neck.

He felt a flush of embarrassment as he realized she was fixing his right collar. “Thanks,” he said sheepishly.

“Same old Matthew.” She smiled while patting his shoulder like a puppy’s head.

His heart sank. The last thing Matthew wanted was for Maria to recall the awkward boy who’d had no business inviting her to the senior prom. He wanted her to see him as a new man. A successful man. Possibly even an attractive man.

“Can I get you something?” she asked, beating him to the punch.

“My treat,” he insisted.

“OK, Mr. Big Spender!” she teased.

It took him a moment to react, wondering whether to make light or take offense. Her good-natured pat on his chest told him to play along.

“You know it,” he chuckled. “Just got a bump in my allowance!”

She offered a polite but seemingly sincere laugh that boosted his confidence.

“I might even let you order a large,” he said with a wink.

They spent the next few minutes dancing between questions about their ancient past and the sexually charged teasing they had started online. But much of it felt forced and out of place. That’s when she eased the conversation toward Matthew’s recent history.

“What sort of business are you in?”

He felt an immediate panic. He hadn’t practiced how to answer questions about the supposed business that had brought him into town. He tried forcing his mind to offer options, but it refused to cooperate.

“You first,” he said with relief. “Tell me what you do.”

She appeared embarrassed by the question.

“I’m sorry,” he added quickly. “I shouldn’t make assumptions in this economy. So many people out of work.”

“No, it’s fine. I have a job, most days anyway.”

He waited.

“Guess,” Maria said with a gleam. “What do you think I do? No. Wait. What do you think I
should
do? That’s more fun.”

Matthew hesitated. Then he grinned. “Is this a game?”

A mischievous smile.

“OK,” he began. “What should a woman with your charm and beauty do for a living?”

The mug paused in front of her lips as if she anticipated playful flirting or the perfect compliment.

He felt another panic. What did she hope to hear? Should he say something naughty, like lingerie model, or flattering, like teacher?

“A truck driver?” He chose funny.

Maria slapped his leg playfully.

“No?” he continued. “OK, give me another shot.”

She lifted the mug back to her lips before lowering it again. “I style and color hair.”

It fit. “Really?”

She nodded timidly.

“I bet you’re really good at it,” he said, refilling her sail with air.

“I am, actually,” she confirmed. “But I’m looking for something better.”

“Why?” he asked. “I mean, don’t you like what you do?”

She seemed pleased by the question. “I do, actually. But unemployed people don’t spend money on beauty. And those who do don’t tip like they did before the crash.”

Matthew understood. He had noticed a gradual shift in the appearance of middle-aged women, those who would have been salon regulars in better days.

A brief hush reminded Matthew that he still needed to answer Maria’s question. He felt a bit less anxious knowing she had been self-conscious about her own career. Might he risk telling the truth?

“My turn,” she said, filling the silence.

“OK,” he said eagerly, realizing she intended to make the quiz multiple-choice. “What do you think I do?”

She uncrossed her legs and scooted to the edge of her chair. She began peering deeply into his face like a movie director deciding which angle to use for his close-up shot. Matthew waited as she pretended to gather clues from his blank stare.

“I’ve got it,” she finally announced.

“Oh really,” he said skeptically. “Just like that?”

“You’re in the pharmaceutical industry.”

He liked the option. He had managed so many of his mom’s prescriptions that he could probably bluff without too much trouble.

“Close,” he said. “But not quite.”

She offered an irresistible but fleeting pout. “Don’t tell me,” she said, placing her index finger over his lips, her face contorted in concentration. “You drive a truck for a pharmaceutical company.”

She laughed at her own effort to even the score, then pulled away from Matthew’s finger as he tried to poke his revenge.

Another quiet moment as he thought about how much more impressive driving a truck would be than his real job.

“I don’t want to bore you with the details”—a picture of Reverend Grandpa’s wheelchair and oxygen tank invaded Matthew’s mind—“but I work with medical equipment.”

“Oh,” she said with a hint of surprise.

He recalled the leg braces. “Mostly new mobility technologies.”

He sensed intimidation in her rising brow.

“Sounds more impressive than it is, actually,” he added. “But it pays the bills.”

To his relief, she didn’t ask any specific questions about his alleged field, allowing Matthew to imply and evade rather than outright lie. By the time he managed to change the subject Maria probably imagined him as a modestly successful businessman making a profit selling his wares to hospitals and senior-care facilities. Good enough, he thought.

Matthew noticed the sound of smooth jazz above the silence as they sipped their drinks.

“I guess Julia does pretty well,” he said to keep the conversation alive. “I’ve read a few of her columns. My favorite is the one called
Free to Thrive
.”

She nodded evasively. Was she trying to recall the specific column or ignore her big sister’s ubiquitous presence? It must be odd for a hairstylist, living in the shadow of her sister’s journalism career. He quickly tried to think of another subject.

Maria did it for him. “This is my son Jared,” she said, sliding a small tablet toward Matthew’s side of the table.

“Wow,” he said with genuine surprise. “I didn’t know you had a kid.”

She had never mentioned a child in any of her online posts. But then, why would she? Secret admirers want airbrushed girls, not diaper-changing moms.

Matthew recalled a column written by Maria’s sister that seemed down on kids, so he’d assumed Maria felt the same. Apparently he’d assumed wrong.

“Looks like a great kid,” he said. The look on Maria’s face told Matthew this was the moment when other men had backed away. He shifted his eyes toward the boy’s face. “How old?”

“Twelve, going on twenty,” she said with a concise laugh.

He wondered about the rest of the story. The father? The circumstances? He decided not to pry.

“Would you like to meet him?”

“Really?” he erupted, realizing she had just said yes to a second date.

“Sure. If you want.”

“I’d love to,” he said in stunned delight. It had never occurred to Matthew that the Maria Davidson of his fantasy world might have real-world needs. Perhaps she longed for a man who admired her for being a mom. A man who might even like her kid.

She smiled broadly. “Great. When will you be back in town?”

He bobbled the question in his mind. Then he remembered. He had implied he was in town on business. She had no idea that he lived right up the road.

“Actually, I’ll be here for a while…” He paused while reaching for more. “I have sort of a big deal in the works that needs a lot of my attention.”

“Go big or go home,” she said farcically, pretending a masculine voice.

“Excuse me?” he asked with confusion.

“Go big or go home,” she repeated. “It’s something one of my clients says all the time.”

“What’s it mean?” he asked.

“I guess it means don’t waste time chasing little opportunities,” she explained. “I thought of it when you said big deal.”

The look in her eyes told Matthew that Maria found the idea of pursuing big deals rather than small matters attractive in a man. Attractive in Matthew. Or rather, in the Matthew he had let form in her mind.

Twenty minutes later Matthew sat in his car unable to wipe an ecstatic grin from his face. His reunion with Maria Davidson had gone better than he could have hoped. And a second date was already on the calendar!

“Go big or go home,” he repeated to himself, a new life slogan for a new Matthew Adams. Or at least a Matthew determined to become worthy of the kiss Maria had planted on his cheek before they parted.

He touched his fingers to the spot and savored the lingering hint of her perky scent.

“Go big or go home,” he whispered while starting the engine. Peering into the rearview mirror he saw his own face frowning back at him.

Who are you kidding
? it said accusingly.
You’re not going big at all. In fact, you’re dithering away time on a small opportunity. Changing oxygen tanks for Reverend
Grandpa might earn enough extra to pay down part of your school loan, but it will never position you to seriously impress Maria or any other potential lover
.

Only his inheritance money would do that.

“I will go big!” Matthew shouted at his withering confidence while cutting off the engine. He opened the glove compartment to retrieve a pad of paper and a pen before walking back into the coffee shop. He sat down at the same table he and Maria had just left and began writing a letter.

Matthew reread the note. It lacked urgency.

Bigger!

He took a second sheet of paper to rewrite the note, this time with a revised ending.