Heart-strong (4 page)

“He’s just not Jim. I think I’m hooked on him.” She swirled
her cocoa and stared in the mug as if brewing a witch’s spell.

* * *

The outing to the movie was fine, well, if Jim admitted the
truth, a little boring. The plot was predictable; the happy ending, inevitable;
the actors, unblemished and gorgeous. As for his date, a cloud of indecision
surrounded his view of her. Not that Donna wasn’t interesting and quick. But
she was predictable, too. Whereas Rachel always did and thought the unexpected.
She kept him on his toes.

Jim thought together Rachel and Donna would have made a
perfect woman. He asked himself what could be wrong with dating two women
simultaneously. Nothing inherent, surely, as long as he wasn’t sleeping with
both, didn’t lie to them or try to pretend he was more serious than he really
was. And he missed seeing Scott and his hero-worshipful attitude, kicking a
ball around with him, the elementary male camaraderie. Poor kid. It was so
obvious his father, whoever the guy might be, wasted no attention on him.

He picked up the phone. Rachel’s reserved response was to be
expected after his absence of several weeks, but when he included Scott in his
plans, she capitulated. They wound up at a Denver Nuggets game. Rachel seemed to
know as much about that sport as she did soccer, but that put no crimp in her
enthusiasm.

“Go, go, all the way,” she screamed as a player ran the
wrong direction

“Moooommmm,” Scott moaned. “He’s screwing the game up.’

Rachel drew herself up and scrambled for a reasonable
perspective. “At least he’s trying his best. That’s what’s important, right?”

“No. Trying to win is what’s important,” said Scott.

Jim chuckled. “You tell her, champ.”

Rachel shot him a look from the corner of her eye that
questioned his opinion, if not his basic worth, then refocused on the court.
“Scott got most improved player on his team.”

“You did? I’m not surprised.”

“Yeah. It was pretty cool. But I wished you’d been there,”
said Scott. “I got better because you practiced with me.”

Before the silence among the trio could swell into
embarrassment, Jim said, “I wish I could have been there, too. It just didn’t
work out. But I’m sure everyone clapped, right?”

“Yeah. I wanted to say thanks to you, but they didn’t give
me any time for a speech.”

“Thanks, anyway,” Jim said as he squeezed Scott around the
shoulder. When Rachel beamed at him, she looked as if she was lit from within.
Jim felt a surge of pride not only about Scott’s progress, but also for
bringing such pleasure to his mother.

* * *

Rachel’s next date with Ryan Duffy started as a
near-disaster, but ended with hysterical laughter, so loud the neighbor in the
next apartment pounded on the wall. Rachel had bravely had invited him over for
dinner, explaining to Sharon and Scott that from the hints he’d dropped, Ryan
seemed hungry for a homemade meal.

“But, Mom, you’re a terrible cook,” her completely candid
son said. “Aunt Sharon does all the cooking around here.”

“I can do some dishes fine. Meatball Stroganoff, chili.”

“I vote for chili,” Scott said.

Sharon agreed with him. “Less chance of you screwing it up.
And you can let it simmer to serve it at any time.”

Friday arrived, and Rachel prepared for her culinary feat
with the same feelings that a knight readied for battle—equal parts of
excitement and terror. Cans of chili beans and tomatoes seemed to have lives of
their own, threatening to tumble when she stacked them. Her hands shook as she
chopped onions, celery tops, cilantro and garlic. When she heated oil to begin
frying the hamburger, the pan sent billows of smoke upward.

Scott was little help. Once he set the table, returning
several times to insure the silverware settings were complete and each person
had a napkin, he hung around the kitchen to announce the passing of time in
five minute increments. “Coach will be here in fifty-five minutes...Coach will
be here in fifty minutes.” Rachel finally sent him to watch television,
normally prohibited after school through dinner.

When Sharon returned from work, she found Rachel, face
tear-streaked from chopping onions, hair spiraling out of control, splotches of
beans and tomatoes dotting her apron, ready to throw in the towel literally.
“I’m never going to make it,” she wailed. “The kitchen’s a mess, and the
chili’s barely started bubbling.”

Sharon took the wooden spoon from Rachel’s hand and stirred
the pot as she said, “No one’s eating in the kitchen. It’s all right if it’s a
mess. And the chili’s doing fine. Now go get ready.”

“Thank goodness you’ve got the calm of a clam. What would I
do without you?” Rachel dashed into her room to dress for the evening.

But chaos was only the beginning. After Rachel finished
makeup and hair, she returned to the kitchen to toss a salad. Except every leaf
of lettuce was limp and brown. Substitute, substitute? An assortment of raw
vegetables, at the sight of which Scott moaned and groaned. Delicacies like
broccoli, carrots, and cucumbers brought forth an automatic gag reflex in him.

“I’m sure Ryan won’t respond like Scott,” Sharon said as she
took the vegetable tray to the dining table.”

“How do we know? And what about chili? Lots of people are
sensitive to spices. Some respond violently to beans.”

“And some don’t like meat. Or eggs. Or white bread. He
didn’t say anything about food restrictions, did he?”

“No. What’s that?” asked Rachel as Scott’s voice drifted
into the kitchen.

“Mom, Mom. There’s a problem in the bathroom.”

It could only be the toilet backing up, as it did
periodically from some quirk between their apartment and the one upstairs.
Rachel dashed into the bathroom to find Scott, trained in emergency response,
holding up the bulb in the tank to prevent an overflow. After wielding the
plumber’s helper with hard-earned skill, she checked the living room for
last-minute messes. Good thing she did, for Scott had left several shoeboxes of
Legos poured out on the floor, one of which she stumbled over, wrenching her
ankle.

Ryan would be here in a few minutes. Time to open the wine. But
not for the routine to go smoothly, for Rachel knocked the open bottle of
Chianti over as she reached for glasses, spewing dark ruby liquid on the
counter, staining a tea towel and Rachel’s apron, and pooling on the floor.
Then, sure enough, the doorbell rang before she finished sponging the mess.

“I’ll get it,” yelled Scott as he stampeded to the entry.

Quickly rinsing her hands and removing her apron, Rachel
followed, giving Ryan a quick peck on the cheek that ranked somewhere between a
casual ‘hello’ and a schmaltzy greeting. Amid chit-chat about the weather and
the upcoming Christmas holiday, she ushered him into the living room, urged him
to the couch next to Scott, and offered a glass of wine. Sharon, who had tried
to duck out of the dinner in the interest of Rachel’s budding romance, appeared
at last and rescued the conversation, which had dwindled to reminiscences about
holiday window decorations in days gone by.

Just as introductions were being made, a high-pitched siren
broke in, vibrating through the entire apartment.

“What the—?” gasped Rachel.

“The smoke alarm,” Scott announced. “A fire.”

His pronouncement was premature only by seconds, as a black
cloud crept at ceiling level from the kitchen into the living room.

“Dinner!” Sharon and Rachel cried simultaneously as they ran
from the room.

A short time later, someone switched the alarm off. Rachel
returned to the living room, her face a study in humiliation, and flicked on
the ceiling fan. “The chili burned. Fortunately only on the very bottom.
Sharon’s going to rescue the meal. Unlike me, who invited you here under false
pretenses, she’s a great cook. I’ve taken loads of cooking classes at the
community center, but I’m still a bomb.”

Sharon stuck her head around the kitchen door frame. “Don’t believe
her. She’s certainly adequate. This was a perfect storm of kitchen disasters.”

“Yeah,” piped up Scott. “And part of it was Mom trying to
cook for company.”

This was when the adults broke into suppressed chuckles,
then laughter, which quickly became so loud it reverberated throughout the
apartment. As everyone took a place at the table, still chortling, Rachel
thought, “Nothing like a shared laugh to make us all comfortable.”

Jim considered long and hard who to invite to the Center for
Dispute Resolution’s holiday party. No question about attending, this crucial
event could make or break his career at the organization since those
hard-to-define people skills were part of the package upon which evaluations
for promotion were made. He discussed the matter with his mother in Iowa by
phone, more because she had very little to talk about than that he actually
wanted her opinion.

“Rachel would be fun to take,” he said, “but she can’t
control her tongue. She might be a trifle indiscrete and repeat a comment I’ve
made about the boss.”

The huge sigh from the other end of the phone line was a
distinguishing attribute of his mother’s pronouncements. “Jim, Jim, Jim, how
often have I warned you about that? Never reveal your opinion about someone at
work. Whether good or bad, it can rebound to your detriment.”

“Yes, Mom,” he said, wondering how long his mother was going
to favor her adult son with lectures. He should have known better than to bring
the subject up, but to find topics of conversation was a real challenge since
she had no interests outside her home and family and was having trouble getting
around. She’d broken her hip slipping on a banana peel in the traditional
fashion when preparing garbage for her compost pile. “Anyway, I’ll probably take
Donna.”

“She’s the blonde, right? The computer programmer? You can’t
go wrong with a professional woman. Sounds perfect to me.”

As Jim ended the discussion and began to dial Donna’s
number, he felt a twinge of indignation. Just because Rachel was a little
hurly-burly didn’t mean she wasn’t thoroughly professional in her approach to
her job and motherhood. Still, Donna would fit in better with his co-workers.
He could see her now, wearing a sleek cocktail dress and stilettos. He’d be the
envy of all the men, even if she looked more like a store mannequin than a
living, breathing woman.

* * *

As for Rachel, she, too, was attending a holiday
party—Ryan’s. The high school where he taught always had a teacher appreciation
event, and this one featured a quartet of the staff who functioned as a
soft-rock group after hours, as well as the principal’s baked brie and pastry
appetizer, shrimp and cocktail dip, and assorted cookies. Rachel hoped the
cookies would be homemade, although she knew this was unlikely given the busy
lives of most adults. Homemade always tasted better.

Dallying over her hair style, if a swathe of curls confined
by a clippie could be labeled such, Rachel entered the living room, mentally
blessing Sharon for serving as hostess for Ryan. They appeared to be getting
along swimmingly, for Sharon was laughing her head off while Ryan bent forward
to finish telling an anecdote.

“And that’s when the gym teacher swore he’d never inspect
the lockers again,” said Ryan. “But the district absolutely requires it. No
escape.” Finally he looked toward Rachel. “Oh, hi, Rachel. Ready?”

“Yes.” Rachel drew on her jacket and preceded Ryan to the
door. Something made her look back toward the living room where she saw Sharon
staring after them. Her sister raised one hand and wriggled her fingers in
farewell just the tiniest bit.

It was while they were going through the buffet line that
Rachel realized something was wrong with this picture. Wasn’t the setting—the
walls bore homemade decorations crafted with care, a pine tree in the corner
blinked its lights appropriately. Wasn’t the food—the spread was hearty and
huge. Wasn’t the music—the amateur quartet knew its repertoire and hit all the
notes correctly. That left—the company.

Was she crazy? Rachel had spent a pleasant quarter-hour
discussing her son with one of Ryan’s co-workers, avoiding overt bragging but
managing to work in mention of his recent soccer trophy. She’d danced a raucous
time or two with Ryan as the entire crowd attempted country line dances. Their
culinary voyage got off to a great start, but as they sat to consume the
delicacies, conversation lagged. Rachel managed to raise a reaction in Ryan
when she mentioned how much better Sharon’s brownies were than the ones someone
had brought to the party, and Ryan had enthusiastically agreed, mentioning
several meals Sharon had prepared for everyone. But then the discussion petered
out. After running through a mental list of topics and rejecting them
(sports—no, she didn’t know enough; films—no, hadn’t seen many; weather—no, too
boring), she pleaded a headache and asked Ryan to take her home early.

In the customary post-date analysis, Rachel wailed. “What’s
wrong? He’s such a nice guy. Why can’t I feel about him the way I feel about
Jim?”

Sharon didn’t respond. She sat fiddling with the spoon in
her mug of hot chocolate. She looked up only when Rachel continued.

“I can’t stop thinking about Jim. He and I get along so
well. I hate that I see him just every few weeks.”

Sharon licked her spoon and reinserted it in the mug. “Maybe
you’re in love with him. Maybe you need to go for broke and see what happens.”

“I don’t know if I trust him enough.”

“The only way you’ll find out is to take a risk. But be fair
to Ryan. If nothing’s going to come of that relationship, let him down easy.”

“Hmmm. I think you’re right. That’s just what I’ll do.”

* * *

While the holiday party wasn’t a total waste, it certainly
didn’t approach the heights of pleasure Jim had hoped for. Donna was skilled at
small talk, didn’t consume too much alcohol or get tipsy, and impressed the
office techie with her knowledge of computers. On the other hand, her dress and
demeanor were so close to perfection, Jim hesitated to touch her. With her wasp
waist and fully formed torso, topped by flawless blonde updo, she resembled
nothing so much as a live Barbie doll. And she felt like one, too, when he
kissed her at her exquisitely decorated front door, complete with twinkling
lights and geometrically perfect, if artificial, wreath.