Cupid's Christmas (8 page)

Mellowed or not, I think Eleanor is still going to be pretty peeved when she finds out I haven’t told Lindsay yet.

Maybe if Eleanor is here it will be a bit easier. Oh don’t get me wrong, Lindsay can be extremely reactionary, but she’s not the kind of girl to make a big stink in front of someone, especially someone she knows I’m fond of. 

Yep, that’s what I’ll do. When Eleanor gets here tomorrow morning, I’ll introduce her as a real close friend. After they’ve spent some time together, Lindsay will come to see what a wonderful person Eleanor is. Once that happens, our marriage won’t be a problem. At least I don’t think it will be.

Cupid…Rude Awakening

P
rocrastination…it’s a human trait and one that all too often leads to disaster as you will soon see. The ideal answer would be to go ahead and give Lindsay the perfect match I have for her, but the truth is she’s not ready.  Her brain has accepted that Phillip was a bad apple, but her heart is still longing for the scoundrel. It’s a common condition we call romance-restricted, but when it’s combined with misappropriated affection, we’re talking about a ticking love bomb.

Right now, not even I could give this girl a love that would last. The only thing I can do is increase her distraction. Lindsay never wants something that comes easy, so I’ll pique her interest by teasing her with pictures and promises. Eventually she’ll go for it, humans always do. Just tell a human there’s something they can’t have and bingo—biting into that forbidden fruit becomes an obsession.

T
he sound of muffled voices woke Lindsay. It wasn’t the far away voice of last night. It was the sound of people talking, words going back and forth with short pauses in between. Thinking her father most likely had the television on, she closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep. Sleep didn’t come. The window shade that had been hanging there for over fifteen years had suddenly become too narrow and it left room for a strip of sunlight to slide through. The beam of light landed smack across Lindsay’s eyes. She could see it with her eyelids closed and when she turned her face to the wall, it was worse. The light bounced off the mirror and magnified itself.

She blinked open her right eye and checked the clock—almost ten, time to get up anyway. Lindsay shrugged on the robe she’d left hanging on the back of the door when she went off to college and started for the stairs. Before she set foot on the first step, she heard them. It wasn’t the television. It was a woman talking with her father.

“Not yet,” he was saying, “Not yet.”

Lindsay couldn’t make out precisely what the woman said in response, but it was something about someone named Ray. She listened with both ears, but the words were fuzzy, and the most she could get were bits and pieces. It had to be one of the neighbors, she reasoned, who else could it be? She stood there for a minute and when the voices stopped, she continued down the stairs. When the living room came into view she saw her father and a light-haired woman locked in an embrace.

“Well, excuse me!” Lindsay snapped.

The couple quickly stepped back from one another, and John turned to look up at his daughter. “I didn’t realize you were awake,” he stammered.

“Obviously!”

“Don’t misunderstand—”

“Misunderstand? What is there to misunderstand?”

“Lindsay, give me a moment and I’ll—”

The woman standing next to him tugged on his arm. “John,” she said, “I think it would be better if I leave.”

“No Eleanor,” John answered, “Stay. I think it would be better if we—”

Eleanor looked at the anger spread across Lindsay’s face then shook her head. “You need some alone time to talk to your daughter.” Her answer was more sympathetic than chastising.  

Lindsay just stood there glaring at the woman, balled up hands on her hips, and an expression as flat and hard as the bottom of a cast iron skillet.

John bent and kissed Eleanor’s cheek then she slipped quietly out the door.

The lock hadn’t clicked shut before Lindsay angrily asked, “Dad, do you want to explain what that was all about?”

“Yes,” John answered. “But we need to sit down, and talk about it calmly.”

“Oh yeah, like this is something we can talk about calmly…” Lindsay groused as she dropped onto the sofa.

John ignored the comment and sat alongside her. “Eleanor and I have known each other for a long time,” he began, but he could no longer use the words he’d rehearsed. He could no longer say they were simply good friends. What Lindsay saw left no doubt as to the nature of their relationship. “After some thirty years, I ran into Eleanor last year and we started dating.”

“You ran into her? Ran into her like in a pick-up bar?”

“No, Eleanor’s not that kind of woman. We were both shopping on Main Street and when we spotted each other—”

“So you’re saying this is a
thing
with you two?”

“It’s not a
thing
. Eleanor is someone I care for very much.”

“Care for very much—exactly what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I love her,” John answered. He had hoped this discussion could be handled differently, but as it was, he simply said what he had to say. “We’re planning to get married.”

“You’re kidding?” Lindsay gasped. “Please, tell me you’re kidding…”

“No I’m not,” John said. “I had hoped to tell you sooner but we haven’t had the opportunity, and last night—”

“You said you’ve been seeing her for a year, in that whole year you couldn’t find one single opportunity to give me a call and say—by the way Lindsay, I’m seeing someone and we’re thinking of getting married?”

“I was waiting until we could sit down together and talk about—”

“Oh, you mean like now?”

“No, I don’t mean like now.” When he spoke those words the patience he’d been exhibiting was gone, his voice no longer left the gateway open for argument. “I was going to tell you last night, but you never gave me a chance.”

“Why not before? Why didn’t you tell me before last night?”

“Because you haven’t been home—you’ve been too busy to spend any time with me for almost two years.”

“So you let me decide to give up everything and move back here, and then you spring this on me?”

“I didn’t plan it this way. I thought while you were here for a Labor Day visit—”

“Visit? I gave up everything and moved back here because I thought you were lonely, because I thought you needed me…”

“Be honest Lindsay, the reason you came home is because you were unhappy in New York and that’s fine, but don’t start telling yourself it was because I was lonely.”

When she began to cry, John wrapped his arms around her. “Eleanor’s a good woman. She’s someone who can make both of our lives fuller and richer. Please Lindsay, at least give her a chance.”

There was no answer, Lindsay just leaned her head into John’s chest and sobbed softly.

After a long while she mumbled, “I’ll try,” then retreated to her room. The words didn’t come from her heart they were simply what she felt obligated to say.

Lindsay closed the door to her room, threw herself on the bed and cried. “How could he?” she moaned. “How could he do this to me? To Mom?” It was well over an hour before she crawled from the bed and went to take a shower.

That evening the three of them came together for dinner. A smiling John sat at the head of the table, Lindsay on one side and Eleanor on the other. Lindsay stared across the table with a glare that had bits of ice sprinkled through it. Eleanor focused her eyes on her plate, twirling strands of spaghetti so slowly that at times she seemed to come to a standstill.

“It’s wonderful to have my two special girls here together,” John said.

Lindsay moved her icy glare over to him.

Eleanor lifted her eyes for a moment, smiled at Lindsay then refocused herself on a meatball. “Well, it’s wonderful for me to be here,” she said. “I’ve heard so much about you Lindsay, and I’ve been looking forward to—”

“I hadn’t heard a thing about you,” Lindsay interrupted.

“Lindsay,” John said, not angrily, but with an easily understood intonation.

Softening her glare, Lindsay said, “Yeah, it’s nice.”

After that most of the chatter was either between John and Lindsay or John and Eleanor, never between Eleanor and Lindsay.

A
s you can see this is not going well and it didn’t get any better on Saturday when Lindsay woke to the sound of pots and pans clanging in the kitchen. She surmised it was Eleanor and the thought slammed into her like an angry fist. Lindsay pulled on a robe and tromped downstairs. Sure enough, there was Eleanor, scurrying about the kitchen like a woman who had lived there all her life. She was wearing an all too familiar apron and seemed to know the precise location of every condiment, dish, pot or pan.

“Good morning, honey,” Eleanor said with a smile.

“Lindsay,” Lindsay corrected, “I don’t like to be called anything but Lindsay.”

“Okay then, Lindsay it is. I’ve got some sausage and pancakes ready—”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You ought to eat a hearty breakfast, since you’ll be skipping lunch.”

“And, exactly why will I be skipping lunch?” A crust of bitterness curled the edge of Lindsay’s words.

“I’ve got tickets for you and your Dad to go to the Phillies game,” Eleanor answered. “It will be close to dinnertime when you get back. So I figured we could have dinner about—”

“Dad and me? Just the two of us?”

“Uh-huh,” Eleanor nodded, “I’ve got a garden club meeting today.”

Lindsay walked across the kitchen and pulled a plate from the cupboard. “Maybe I had better eat something,” she said. Although far from friendly, her words no longer had those razor-sharp barbs poking at the air.

She ate five pancakes and three sausages then hurried upstairs to get dressed.

Eleanor picked up the empty plate and turned to the sink with a self-satisfied smile.

Cupid…Limping toward Labor Day

L
indsay is already cooking up schemes to end her father’s relationship. You know it, I know it, and apparently so does Eleanor. Although the air conditioner in Eleanor’s car has been broken for well over a month, she drove to Philadelphia on an afternoon with record heat to get those tickets. Instead of telling John how persnickety the girl has been acting, she smiled and waved goodbye as they pulled out of the driveway. Eleanor is bending over backward trying to make friends with Lindsay, but Lindsay is having no part of it. As far as she’s concerned, Eleanor is just trying to squeeze herself into the shoes Bethany wore.

I’ve looked at the future and things do not look good for Eleanor and John, which saddens me. But bear in mind, the future I see is based on things as they now stand. If something in the present changes it can change the future. That said, there’s only so much I can do. If I had the power Life Management has…well then, we’d be talking about another story.

T
he car had barely turned the corner when Lindsay looked across at her father and said, “I’m glad it’s just the two of us.”