Disguised Blessing (18 page)

“I’m so proud of you,” Catherine said.

“Because I feel sorry for Ray?”

“Because you care.”

“Well, I guess if we’re going to get all sloppy and sentimental tonight I suppose I should go ahead and tell you how much I love you and how glad I am that you’re my mother.”

“Thank you—that’s nice to hear.” She would tuck Lynda’s words away and keep them to savor
during the weeks ahead. School was less than a month away and Catherine had a feeling Ray wouldn’t be the only one who needed unconditional and non-judgmental support. When Lynda needed to vent, Catherine had no doubt who she would vent to.

She stood and held out her hand. “Come on. It’s time for one of my incredible backrubs.”

Lynda followed Catherine upstairs. “I forgot to tell you that Grandma called. She wanted to know if we’d made plans for your birthday.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That I wasn’t sure, but you might have a date.”

“What?”

“Well, I thought you might let it slip that it was coming up and Rick would ask you to go to dinner with him. I checked his calendar and he has the day off.”

Catherine stopped on the landing, turned, and glared at Lynda. “Did you listen to one thing I said about this matchmaking of yours? Rick and I are friends. That’s it. End of story. If you keep trying to make something out of it that it’s not, you’re going to ruin the friendship.
And that would make me very unhappy.”

“Wow, chill out, Mom. I’ll call Grandma tomorrow and tell her we’ll be there for dinner.”

Catherine started up the stairs again, then turned to face Lynda. “How many are you going to tell her to expect?” she asked suspiciously.

“Uh…two?”

“You know that new CD player you wanted me to look at?”

“Yeah?”

“Think about it before you change your mind and decide to invite Rick without telling me first.”

“Blackmail? My own mom? I can’t believe it.”

“Believe it.”

“Can I invite Brian?”

“I’d rather you didn’t. I don’t want to make a big deal out of this and you know Grandma would if we started inviting a whole bunch of people.”

“Brian isn’t a bunch. He’s one person.”

“All right.” Catherine didn’t mind Brian being there but knew if she made Lynda fight to invite him, she would back off inviting Rick. “But tell him he’s not allowed to bring a present.”

“You can’t go to a birthday party and not bring a present. How about if we go in on something together?”

“You’re pushing.”

Lynda held her hands up in surrender. “That’s it. I promise.”

“Nothing over fifty dollars.” She’d decided the lavish presents had to stop. Along with club dues and fresh flowers that didn’t come from her own garden.

“You’re kidding.” When she didn’t get the response she expected, she added, “Aren’t you?”

“Consider it a challenge.”

“But I already picked something out.”

“What?”

She hesitated. “A St. John sweater I found when I was at Nordstrom trying on dresses with Dad for the wedding.”

She loved St. John knits. And Lynda had a perfect eye for what looked good on her. But the last thing she needed was a fifteen-hundred-dollar charge on her credit card for another sweater to add to her collection when she had to sell stock to make the house payment. “It sounds lovely, but I think the fifty-dollar present would be a lot more fun. And fun is important when you’re turning thirty-nine.”

“You want me to get you a joke gift? I thought you hated that kind of thing.”

Catherine knew it was going to be hard to make the changes she had to make to keep them afloat financially, she just hadn’t realized how hard. Lynda had never wanted for anything. There had never been a reason not to give her what she asked for or needed. She didn’t just expect a car for her sixteenth birthday, she believed she would be given the car of her choice.

“How about getting me…” Catherine couldn’t even come up with anything to suggest. The thought stunned her. It seemed they both had a long way to go.

“Never mind. Brian and I will figure it out.” She motioned for Catherine to move upstairs. “I want to talk to you about something else anyway. What do you think about Ray staying here instead of going to Kansas?”

“What do you mean by ‘here’?” Catherine asked carefully.

“I’ll tell you about it while you’re rubbing my back.” She grinned. “Brian’s going to call when he gets home.”

“Oh, now I understand the sudden rush.”

“What can I say? I’m in love.”

Catherine blinked in surprise. “Well—congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“When did this revelation take place?”

“It’s been creeping up on me for a long time and tonight I figured I might as well give in.” Responding to the look Catherine gave her, Lynda blushed and quickly added, “I don’t mean give in like in
give in.
That’s a long way off yet.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Come on.” Lynda put her hands on Catherine’s shoulders to turn her around. “Let’s go.”

Catherine found she was suddenly as anxious as Lynda to get through the massage and be alone. She had some thinking to do. Lynda in love? She’d known the day would come. She just hadn’t known it would make her feel left behind.

Could her life get any more complicated?

“
Y
OU MIGHT AS WELL LIE ABOUT HOW OLD YOU
are.” Phyllis stuck the last candle in Catherine’s birthday cake and stood back to study the symmetry. “Pick an age you really like. No one believes you when you tell them you’re thirty-nine, anyway. It’s a terrible age. One of those in-between things. You spend the entire year knowing it’s the last one in your thirties and that old age begins in just a few months.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Catherine said. “I can always count on you to cheer me up when I’m down.”

Phyllis stopped fiddling with the cake long enough to look at Catherine. “I didn’t know you were feeling down. Is there something you haven’t told me about?”

“I wasn’t serious.”

“Sounded pretty serious to me. Is Lynda having problems again?”

“Lynda’s fine. Actually, there are times when I think she’s almost doing too well. When she and
Brian went to the Lilith concert she wore a short-sleeved linen shirt and never said a word about anyone noticing her pressure garments. It’s as if she’s become oblivious to people staring at her with a questioning look in their eyes.”

“Maybe they aren’t anymore.”

“Oh, it still happens. Every time we go out. I think I’ve finally convinced her that it’s not rudeness so much as curiosity.”

“Well, then maybe she’s become more accepting of that.”

“She hasn’t gone through any of the stages they talk about in the support group. Or if she has, they’ve been so minor I haven’t recognized them.”

Phyllis ran her finger over the frosting knife and popped the chocolate-coated digit in her mouth. “I seem to remember she had a number of incidents in the hospital when she was less than cooperative. And she was a real handful that week she came home. Couldn’t those have been stages?”

“I don’t count them.” Catherine took the sponge from the back of the sink and began wiping the counter. She loved working in her mother’s kitchen. There was a warmth here that was missing in hers, and she’d never been able to understand why. She was sure part of it was knowing that if she opened the pantry door she’d find a stair step of pencil marks with her and Gene’s names attached, but her feelings ran deeper than tradition. Because she hadn’t looked in a while, she opened the door to see that they were, indeed, still there. The marks followed hers and Gene’s growth from the time they
were old enough to stand up by themselves until they left for college. She closed the door and looked at the woman who loved her without question, half of the pair who had built the foundation for a childhood full of good memories. There was more, but she couldn’t put a name to it, things she only felt, things that made her feel special.

“There has to be a reason you’re worried about Lynda.”

“I guess I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. At first I thought she was doing as well as she is because she comes from a good background and has always had lots of love and support. Then I looked around at the other parents in the group and realized I was being the worst kind of snob. Lynda isn’t loved any more or any better than the other kids. Money and position have nothing to do with how much someone cares.”

Catherine rinsed the sponge and put it away. “Did I tell you she’s even decided to go to the firefighters’ burn camp at Lake Tahoe after all?” This was Lynda’s one chance to attend the camp; the cutoff for participants was sixteen. The parents in the support group insisted the interaction with the other seventy-five burn survivors at camp was the best medicine their children received every year. Catherine had done everything short of ordering Lynda to go, with no success.

“Now that does surprise me. When did this happen?”

“She just came out with it the other night when I was massaging her back. I think Brian might have
had a part in it—both the not wanting to go and then changing her mind. Turns out he’s going to be tied up with football that week and they wouldn’t be able to see much of each other anyway.”

“When does she go?”

“In two weeks.”

“And she’s going to be gone for a week?”

“Sunday to Saturday.”

“Want to do something fun?”

“Like?”

“We could drive up the coast, eat seafood until we get sick, and then meander home through the Napa Valley.”

She couldn’t believe how tempting getting away sounded, even if only for a couple of days. “I can’t. What if something happened at camp and they couldn’t reach me?”

“Ever hear of a cell phone?” Phyllis moved the cake to the opposite counter and checked the roast in the oven. “Come on, Catherine. It’ll be good for you to breathe some ocean air. And you couldn’t ask for better company.”

“True.” Catherine put her arm around her mother’s shoulders and gave her a hug.

“Well?”

“I think my time would be better spent job hunting.”

“What? You’re going back to work? When did this come about?”

“Lynda’s therapy is just about over, so she won’t need me to drive her to the hospital three times a week anymore. And she’s going to be back in school
in another month, so we’d have to adapt her massages to her new schedule anyway.” If her mother found out job hunting was a necessity, not an outlet for boredom, she’d jump in with advice and help, neither of which Catherine wanted right then. “Even if it’s only part-time, I want to get back to doing something productive with my life. Which is one of the reasons I told Karol I would cochair the rummage sale with her.”

“Did you talk to Rick about it?”

Catherine shook her head in wonder. Even her mother had succumbed to the Rick mystique, believing him to• be all-knowing, all-caring, all-powerful. “No, I haven’t. Believe it or not, there are some decisions I still make all by myself. Besides, we already take more of his time than we should and I don’t know why he would care whether I get a job or what I do in my spare time.”

“I don’t think he sees it that way.”

“Mother—you hardly know the man. What makes you think—”

“I do too know him.”

“How?”

“I met him at the hospital. Several times. And you and Lynda never stop talking about him.”

Catherine’s eyes widened in surprise. “I hardly ever talk about him.”

Now it was Phyllis’s turn to look surprised. “You should stop and listen to yourself sometime. You talk about Rick almost as much as you do Lynda.”

“I may mention him once or twice in the context of the conversation, but—”

Lynda came into the room. “Mention who?”

“No one,” Catherine said.

“Rick Sawyer,” Phyllis said at the same time.

Lynda brightened. “Is Rick coming? I thought you told me that I couldn’t invite him.”

“No,” Catherine said. “Rick is not coming.”

“Then why were you talking about him?”

Phyllis focused on Catherine. “Why didn’t you want to invite him? Is something wrong? Did you two have a fight?”

Catherine looked from her mother to her daughter and then back again. “No, we did not have a fight—and I do not talk about him all the time.” She shifted her gaze back to Lynda. “Yes, I did tell you that I didn’t want to invite him and that I will take phone privileges away from you for the rest of your life if you ever even think about trying to fix us up again.”

“Oh…now I understand what’s going on,” Phyllis said. “You and Rick are—”

Catherine felt the ground slipping away beneath her. “Rick and I are
friends.”

Lynda held her hands up and began backing out of the room. “I can see I’m not needed here. I’m going to go outside and wait for Brian. If you should decide I’m worthy company after all, you know where to find me.”

“I’m sorry,” Catherine said. “You don’t have to go.”

“While you’re out there, would you check the mail?” Phyllis said. “Gene said he sent a package a couple of weeks ago and it hasn’t arrived yet.” She
opened a drawer and tossed Lynda a stuffed toy lion with a key attached.

When Lynda was gone, Phyllis turned to Catherine, a mischievous smile lighting her eyes. “Okay, now tell me what’s going on with you and Rick.”

Catherine sighed. She could either tell Phyllis outright or put up with a dozen circuitous questions that would get it out of her eventually anyway. “Lynda’s been trying to play matchmaker, and I can’t seem to convince her that it’s a bad idea.”

Phyllis was quiet for several seconds. “I don’t know. Seems like a pretty good idea to me.”

“Oh, Mother, please—not you, too.”

“All right. Tell me what you think is so wrong with dating Rick Sawyer.”

Catherine had purposely avoided this conversation because she knew her position wasn’t one her mother would understand. That didn’t make it any less valid, just harder to defend. “It isn’t Rick, it’s me. I’ve given this a lot of thought, so I want you to promise me you won’t start reasoning with me or try to get me to change my mind.”

“I can’t promise something like that until I know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m through with men. With dating. With all of it. It’s pretty obvious from the choices I’ve made in the past that I can’t tell a good man from a rotten one, and I’m not willing to go through that kind of pain again.”

“Did you tell Lynda this?”

“How could I? It just so happens one of those rotten men I’m talking about is her father.”

“Rick is nothing like Jack.”

“That’s what I thought about Tom, too. I didn’t go into that relationship blindly. Or at least I thought I didn’t. I looked for someone who believed what I did, who liked the same kinds of things I did, who had the same goals and dreams and ambitions, and you can see what happened. I couldn’t have wound up with anyone worse if I’d thrown a dart at the telephone book.”

She pulled out a chair from the kitchen table, sat down, and started folding napkins. “I don’t know. Maybe someday I’ll have enough confidence in myself that I’ll be willing to get involved with someone again, but first I need time to get over what I almost did with Tom.”

Phyllis sat next to Catherine and picked up one of the napkins. “Tom fooled us all. He’s charming and thoughtful and as phony as the smiles on the faces of the losers at the Academy Awards.”

“The only answer I can come up with is that I was so caught up in the idea of not being alone anymore that I refused to see anything bad about him. Now I can see it all. Especially the way he listened to my dreams and turned them into his promises. He was so good, Mom. When he talked me into quitting my job, I didn’t hesitate for a second. Here was someone who wanted to take care of me in every way possible. How could I not see how dependent that would make me? Tell me, how dumb is that?”

“Well, I can see you’ve got a ways to go before you stop beating yourself up and hit your emotional
bottom. I’m just afraid that when you do and you’re ready to start climbing out of that hole, Rick’s going to be long gone. What a shame he came into your life when you can’t appreciate him.”

“It doesn’t matter when Rick came into my life, we would be wrong for each other.” The instant it was out she knew she’d made a mistake. Instead of letting the subject die, she’d added fuel.

“Why is that?”

“We have nothing in common.” Nothing that counted anyway. Family trees studded with fruits and nuts made for good conversation, but did little to build a foundation for a long-term relationship. “We come from different social backgrounds.” She wasn’t explaining it very well. “If you invited his friends and my friends to a party, they would have nothing to say to each other. I know it sounds petty, but in the long run, things like that matter.”

“You may not have friends in common, but you have Lynda. That’s a lot more than you could say for Tom.”

“Lynda is his job, Mom. As soon as his year with her is up he’ll move on to someone new.”

“Well,” she said, and sighed. “At least you’ve considered your options.”

A stray thought hit Catherine and she laughed unexpectedly. “Can you imagine how horrified Rick would be if he could hear us dissecting him this way?”

“Poor guy, we’ve all but put him in a box and tied it up with a bow.” Phyllis stood and gave Catherine a meaningful look. “It would have been nice if you
had at least looked inside before you stamped it ‘return to sender’.”

“We’re friends.” It was turning into a mantra. “As a matter of fact, I consider Rick one of the best friends I have right now.” When she thought about it, she was a little hurt by how most of her long-time friends had drifted away that summer. A couple of them still called, but it had been weeks since she’d received any of the invitations to dinners or parties that she’d told Tom were her prerogative. If not for Karol, she would have felt completely forgotten. “He even laughs at my jokes. And the last time—” She frowned, brought up short by what she was about to say. What would her mother think if she told her that the last time she was with Rick, she’d been struck by how much her father would have liked him.

“Yes?”

The front door opened. “Brian must be here,” Catherine said when she heard voices. “We can talk about this later.”

“You think I’m going to forget, but I’m not,” Phyllis said.

Catherine smiled. She had no doubt her mother would remember, but it was more likely to be in the middle of the night when Catherine was safely home in bed.