Dream of You (15 page)

             
Delta was sitting beside her and she leaned closer, a manicured hand landing on Jo’s elbow. The soft, gardenia and vanilla smell of her perfume was an assault on all Jo’s senses. “I said, are you feeling okay?”

             
She swallowed against the hard knot of bile building in the back of her throat. “Fine.”

             
The four of them were sharing a single lane and the guys were heckling each other as they bowled. “Did you see that?” Tam crowed after he rolled yet another strike. “I’m kicking your
ass
, Walker.”

             
“For the first and only time,” Mike shot back. “And that’s only ‘cause you’re using a chick ball.”

             
“That’s the manliest ball here.”

             
“It’s pink.”

             
“It’s very light red.”

             
“Stop talking about balls,” Delta said as she got to her feet. “It’s my turn, anyway.”

             
Jo stared at her black and green bowling shoes.
Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale
. Delta’s perfume faded, thankfully, only to be replaced by Tam’s cologne as he plopped down next to her. She groaned. Barfing was imminent.

             
She wasn’t sure she’d ever not wanted Tam to touch her, but when his hand landed on her back, she wanted to move away from the contact. Every inch of her skin seemed connected to her churning stomach; each touch pushing at the base of her esophagus. “You okay?” he asked. “You’re kinda quiet tonight.”

             
“Uh-huh.” She took a deep breath. “I’m - ”

             
Going to puke
.

             
Jo bolted up out of her chair and did not walk, but jogged along the star-patterned carpet, dodging kids and bowlers and abandoned shoes, to the restroom. She managed to lock herself in a stall before she lost what remained of her dinner, the wet, toilet paper-strewn bathroom floor and musty stink of the place hastening the process. After, she flushed the toilet and waited for her body to stop quivering, but it didn’t. Her hands shook so badly she fumbled the door latch. Her skin was clammy and damp with sweat, prickled with goose bumps.

             
Delta was waiting for her, leaning back against the sinks, a damp paper towel in her hand. She was as casual as Jo had ever seen her: jeans and a loose white poplin shirt, red and white bowling shoes. And she wore a frown that suggested she didn’t expect to be argued with.

             
“You need to go home.”

             
Jo sagged against the stall door. “Yeah. I know I’m ruining everyone’s evening and - ”

             
“No.” Delta shook her head, dark hair rustling against her shirt front. “You feel awful, and Tam needs to take you home so you can at least throw up in your own home instead of…” She wrinkled her nose as she glanced around the dank, smelly bathroom. “
This
.”

             
Jo felt denial swelling, or at least she thought she did. It turned out to be a gag. “I do feel awful,” she said, hearing unwanted tears in her voice.

             
“Come here,” Delta urged, and guided her up to the counter with a hand on her shoulder. “Here.” The damp towel was pressed to Jo’s forehead. “Hold this. That’ll help.”

             
Jo complied, never so thankful to have the princess on hand.

             
“Why haven’t you told Tam? He can’t like bowling
that
much.”

             
“He’s freaked out about the baby,” she admitted with a sigh. “I didn’t want my morning sickness to be a big deal. I didn’t want to stress him more.”

             
Delta clicked a disapproving sound against the inside of her cheek. “
You
can’t stop vomiting and you’re worried about
his
stress? Jo, no offense to you” - which meant she was about to be offensive - “but your husband is an idiot.”

             
Jo wanted to bristle up and defend him, but she didn’t have the energy.

             
“Of course,” Delta went on, “I knew that when he turned my wedding upside down.” Clearly, that grudge was still being upheld. She sighed. “But he loves you. He
married
you. And ‘in sickness and in health’ goes both ways. He has to step up and take care of you when you need him.”

             
Jo flipped her paper towel over so the cool side was against her forehead. Water squeezed out and rolled down her temples. She closed her eyes against a fresh wave of nausea. “Tam is the one who needs taking care of, he - ” She had to stop to choke down the urge to gag.

             
Delta’s slim, graceful arm dropped across her shoulders. “I get it,” she said as if she were speaking to a child. “You’re his parents, his sister, his friend – am I right?”

             
Jo nodded miserably.

             
“You can’t be everything for him, Jo. I get he’s had it rough, but you’re his wife first and foremost, and it’s time he acted like a husband.”

             
It was a truth she wouldn’t have acknowledged had she not been shivering in her own skin. But a truth nonetheless: she was the caretaker in their relationship

             
“You’re being really supportive.”

             
“We’re sisters.”

             
Jo lowered the towel and managed to lift her brows in question.

             
Delta shrugged. “Well, we
are
.”

**

              Sometimes, Tam was reminded that Delta Brooks Walker was not just Mike’s wife and Jo’s sister-in-law, but that she was
his
sister-in-law too. Through Mike and Jo, he’d somehow become
related
to her. He didn’t
dis
like her, but he didn’t like her either. He had the sense the feeling was mutual, because their avoidance of one another was usually two-sided. So it was a shock when Delta came back from the restroom with her arm around Jo’s shoulders and told him, in no uncertain terms, that he was to take his morning sickness-afflicted wife home right that minute.

             
He didn’t take orders from Delta, but Jo’s face had been chalk white, so home they’d gone, and now he was sitting on the floor of the upstairs hall bathroom, Jo stretched out at his feet.

             
She was on her side, face pressed to the cold tiles, both her little hands clenched over her stomach, eyes squeezed shut. Her arms were covered in goose bumps, but her forehead, when he reached to brush her hair back, was clammy with perspiration.

             
It scared him. He knew what was wrong, knew it was the baby, but seeing her like this frightened him on a basic, closely-closeted level. Already, just in the weeks that she’d been pregnant, he’d seen more vulnerability in her than he had in their whole history together.

             
“Joey,” he said softly, “do you want me to take you to bed?”

             
“No,” was her shallow, whispered answer.

             
“Do you want me to bring you your pajamas?”

             
“No.”

             
“You can’t sleep on the floor.”

             
She didn’t respond; instead curled in on herself even more.

             
Through all the long years that she’d been sick, through the rounds and rounds of chemo, Tam’s mother had spent more nights than he cared to remember on the bathroom floor. Sometimes she’d let him carry her to bed. Most of the time, she’d locked the door against him and he’d listened to her retch through the walls.

             
Jo had tried her feeble best to push him away tonight and her protests had pulled all sorts of trap doors and levers in his mind; had brought up old traumas and memories he wished he could get rid of. He knew it was his own fault – he’d freaked about the baby – and he guessed this was just punishment.

             
“Stay here,” he said, rolling his eyes, and got to his feet. He went down the hall to their room and dug her favorite sweatpants and one of his own threadbare, holey underarm t-shirts out of the closet. When he returned, he set them beside her head on the floor. “Put these on. I’ll be back.”

             
Downstairs, Beth was coming up from the basement with the clean laundry. She’d told him before that Jo was his to deal with in this situation, but she’d had that hungry-mother eye, uncertain as to someone else’s ability to take care of her sick baby. “How’s she doing?” she asked as Tam went to the fridge.

             
“She’s puked up everything she ever ate and then some,” he said as he rummaged among the condiments on the top shelf for a can of Sprite. “I’m hoping I can get her to keep some of this down” - he came out with his prize and shut the door - “and get her to sleep.”

             
Beth was smiling at him.

             
“What?”

             
“You sound like a parent,” she said with a satisfied little nod and left him standing there, raking a hand through his hair.

             
Huh
.

             
The click of a key in the back door signaled Jordan’s arrival and Tam checked the time on the microwave. If it was ten after eleven and he was home for the night, his rendezvous with Janet Jennings hadn’t gone as planned.

             
But Jordan was wearing an almost imperceptible scrap of a smile as he closed the door behind him, the keys rattling in his hands looking like a gesture of mindless good humor.

             
“You’re back early,” Tam said, lingering at the breakfast bar a moment.

             
“Got work in the morning.”

             
“How was Janet?”

             
Jordan shrugged. “Alright, I guess.” He sat down at the table to unlace his shoes, still wearing his almost-smile.

             
Tam studied him: no mussed hair, no half-buckled belt, no stink of too much perfume. “You didn’t see her, did you?”

             
“Nope.”

             
“Jordie,” Tam said, his own smile threatening. “Who
did
you see?”

             
Silence. And sneaker unlacing.

             
Tam pulled a glass down out of the upper cabinets, popped the tab on the Sprite and poured it in; found a red and white bendy straw in the drawer under the microwave.  “Jordie,” he pressed in an intentionally obnoxious, sing-song voice. “You wouldn’t have been with your student, would you?”

             
Jordan shared his little sister’s nervous tic: he chewed on his lower lip. Busted.

             
“Dude,” Tam said. “You were?”

             
He got to his feet too quickly, his knuckles white where he gripped his shoes by the heels. He had a killer poker face, but wasn’t wearing it now, sea foam eyes shifting around the room. “What if I was?” he challenged.

             
Tam had never seen the guy this worked up and defensive over a girl – at least, not since his high school sweetheart had demolished his ability to care about women. Jaded, call-for-a-good-time Jordan didn’t bow up about his evening activities. “Chill,” he said with a chuckle. “I don’t care. I said my piece about you getting your ass fired.” More lip chewing. A self-conscious rake of his hand through his curly mop of hair. Tam’s smile stretched. “Holy shit.”

             
“What?”

             
“You like her, don’t you?”

             
He shrugged. “You’ve seen her. She’s hot.”

             
“No, no, no. You
like
her.”

             
The defiance lasted a half a second longer, then Jordan dropped back down into his chair and wiped a hand down his face. “I’m so getting fired.” He looked miserable in a way Tam could sympathize with. It was a good kind of misery: the kind you didn’t want to stop.

             
“She’s not gonna squeal on you, is she?”

             
“No,” Jordan said without hesitation. “She’s got this roommate, though…I don’t know about her.”

             
“Pink-haired chick?”

             
“Yeah.”

             
Tam picked up his glass and began backing toward the door. “Is it worth it?” he asked.