Hold on My Heart (9 page)

Ginny snatched her hand away. “Then you don’t need fat old me waddling down the aisle and distracting anyone.”

“Girls, stop bickering.” Libby’s mother’s tone was on autopilot. Either she was stewing about the pie comment, or she was still too emotionally numb that her youngest daughter was marrying a tattooed jousting instructor.

“Well, technically there won’t be an aisle since we’re getting married at the Renaissance banquet hall,” Marti said.

“Where is she getting married?” Nana poked Libby’s mother with an arthritic finger.

“We told you this already, Nana,” Libby said calmly, hoping to keep her mother from breaking off Nana’s skinny little hand. “Marti’s wedding ceremony is going to be at the Renaissance banquet hall where she met her fiancé. Remember?”

“Oh, yes.” Nana nodded. “I do remember that. Stupidest idea I ever heard.”

“I’m right next to you, Nana. I can hear you.” Marti pouted again.

“Ladies, perhaps we should focus on the bride today,” said the salesclerk abruptly. A sheen of perspiration shone across her forehead. A room full of hostile Hamilton women was bound to have that effect on even the most experienced of bridal professionals. “Let’s have her try on a few gowns, shall we?”

“Excellent idea,” Libby said with relief. She wanted to get out of this circus tent and back into her own clothes. “Ginny, will you come help me in the dressing room?”

“Gladly.” Ginny hoisted herself from the seat with a little effort and followed Libby down the narrow hall, muttering all the way. “Does she seriously think I don’t want to be in her wedding because I’ll be too fat?”

“Shh,” Libby whispered back. “She doesn’t mean it. You know how Marti is.”

“Yes, I do. She’s spoiled, and she wants everything all her own way.”

Libby bit her tongue. There was no point in reminding Ginny she’d been exactly the same way over
her
wedding. “Just get me out of this thing, will you?”

Ginny shook her head as she worked at the laces. “Good Lord, this thing is a monstrosity. Oh, hey, I keep forgetting to ask. Can you help me at the high school for a couple of nights? The talent show is next weekend and I’m in charge, but I need some extra adults. It’s like herding cats with these kids. Nobody is ever where they are supposed to be.”

That was another downside of not having a job. Or a life. Everyone was always asking for favors. In the past week, Libby had taken Nana to the garden store for a new gnome, helped Marti try to wash her car without putting her hand through all the rust spots, and stapled two hundred exam packets for her mother.

Then, of course, there was the ice-cream parlor. She’d been there nearly every day, pulling old nails from pieces of wood that Tom and her dad wanted to reuse, scraping toxic lead-based paint from the exterior that was sure to give her a raging case of lung cancer, scrubbing twenty years of grime from the windows, and even crawling under the front step, through an enormous spiderweb, to reach a valve because she was the only one small enough to get under there.

She didn’t have to be at the ice-cream parlor, of course. There were plenty of ways she could help from a distance. But being around brawny Tom Murphy was fun. He still wasn’t much of a talker, of course, but he wasn’t as evasive as he’d been at first, either. Every day she peppered him with questions just to see his reaction. Teasing him until he either got annoyed or started to laugh was Libby’s favorite new hobby.

“Well, that’s one rehearsal behind us. Five more to go.” Libby brushed her hands together as she and Ginny stood near the back of the Monroe High School auditorium. “And that wasn’t nearly as painful as I expected it to be. These kids are more talented than we were in high school.”

“Speak for yourself. I was incredibly talented in high school.” Ginny stretched, pressing both hands against her lower back. “Thank you so much for helping me out. I’m usually the one running between the dressing room and the stage, but I just can’t keep up right now. And I can’t let these students see my weakness. They can smell fear.”

Libby laughed. “They seem like a pretty decent group.”

“Most of them are very sweet,” Ginny agreed and lowered her voice. “But I need to keep them a little bit afraid of me.”

“I hope that’s not your parenting philosophy, too.” Libby picked up her bag and started walking toward the exit with her sister.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ginny stopped and stared at her.

“Uh, nothing. It was a joke.”

Ginny knotted the handle of her purse. “It wasn’t funny. You do think I’ll be an okay mother, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. I was kidding.” Libby put an arm around her shoulders and nudged her hormonally hypersensitive sister toward the doors again. “You’ll be a wonderful mother.”

“Really? Do you think so? Because I always thought Mom and Dad were pretty good parents, but then I look at Marti, and I realize it’s all a crapshoot.”

Libby burst out laughing. “There’s nothing wrong with Marti. She’s just a dreamer, like Dad.”

“But what if this baby is a dreamer? I can’t handle that. I’m too shallow. What if I’m horrible to her because she wants to get a nose ring someday? Or grows up to be a rodeo clown? What if she hates golf? Ben and I love to golf.”

Libby’s laughter paused at the serious tone in Ginny’s voice, and then erupted again. “Ginny, that’s ridiculous. You’ll love her no matter what. And you’ll be a fabulous mother, just like you’re a fabulous teacher and a fabulous wife.”

Ginny stared at her. “Wow. I must be really pathetic. You have never been this nice to me.”

Libby nudged her toward the door again. “You are completely pathetic and I am loving it. This is the first time in my life I’ve been skinnier than you are. Now let’s get you home so you can put up those puffy cankles.”

“Are they puffy? I can’t see them.”

They walked out the back door of the auditorium into the evening light, and Libby spotted a lone girl sitting on a nearby bench, her blond hair blowing in the breeze.

Ginny walked over to her. “Hi there. Isn’t your ride picking you up in the front? That’s where everyone else is.”

“I told him to come to the back. He should be here soon.”

Libby saw the indecision slide across Ginny’s face. She couldn’t leave with a student waiting.

“You go on, Ginny,” Libby said. “I’ll wait here until everybody’s picked up.”

“Thanks. I’d appreciate that. My feet are killing me. I’ll see you both tomorrow then.” Ginny waved and duck-walked toward the teachers’ parking lot.

Libby sat down on the bench next to the girl and smiled at her. The sun was just dipping below the horizon, scattering shadows in every direction.

“You play the piano, right?” she asked the girl, trying to recall her name.

The blond nodded. “Yeah.”

“I loved your song. You have a beautiful voice.”

The girl blushed and twisted a lock of her hair. Something about her seemed vaguely familiar, but then again, half the girls in the talent show had blond hair and blue eyes. It was hard to tell them all apart.

“Thanks. Are you Mrs. Garner’s sister?” she asked Libby.

“I am. And Mrs. Hamilton’s daughter.”

The girl nodded again, her hair swishing in front of her face. “I had Mrs. Hamilton for social studies. She’s nice. Are you a teacher, too?”

Libby chuckled. “No, I’m the black sheep of my family. Even my dad is a teacher, but I didn’t get the gene.”

The blond smiled. “Oh, that’s right. Your dad is Hot Air Hamilton, right? The balloon guy who crashed in the football field?” Then another furious blush stole over her cheeks. “Oh, my God. I’m sorry. That was rude.”

Libby’s laughter bubbled over. “I haven’t heard him called that in a while. He’ll be so glad to know that story hasn’t died down.”

“Everybody knows that story. I wasn’t there when that happened, but I heard all about it.” The girl tapped her feet against the ground, suddenly seeming shy. “Was that sort of, like, embarrassing for you guys?”

“I was living in Chicago at the time, but it was a little hard on my mom and sisters. I think they got teased more than my dad did. And quite frankly, he does that kind of stuff all the time. It’s just not usually so public.”

The girl nodded and looked down at her fingernails. “God, dads can be so humiliating.”

“It’s part of their job, I think. Being weird and trying to embarrass us.” Libby nodded.

“My dad is completely weird. And he drives so slow it makes me crazy. That’s why he’s always late.”

Libby smiled. “Mine goes around the house adjusting everybody’s lighting, and then he leaves the room. It’s like ‘If I wanted that lamp on, I’d have turned it on.’ It’s maddening. Does your dad do that?”

The girl shrugged. “I don’t know. I live with my grandparents, so I’m not sure what he does. I just know he sucks at driving.”

A muffler sounded in the distance, and the girl sighed. “Oh, that’s him. Thanks for waiting with me.”

She hopped up and hurried off, and Libby watched in quiet surprise as a familiar old blue truck came to a stop in front of the steps, and Tom Murphy stared at Libby from behind the steering wheel.

M
ornings were usually the toughest part of Tom’s day. That moment when he first woke up and in the haze of sleep, forgot, and reached for Connie. For a while he’d tried sleeping on her side of the bed, but that just made his heart ache, and so he’d moved back to his own side where it felt like he had no heart at all.

But this morning was different. Today he woke to a pounding thunder in his chest and the remnants of a dream, a most unimaginably explicit dream about cupcakes, and frosting,…

… and Libby.

He pushed the covers off and let the air cool his skin.

Last night she’d been sitting next to Rachel outside the high school. He wasn’t sure why, and his daughter said only that she was there helping one of the teachers. Now, for the first time in weeks, Tom didn’t want to go to work. Libby’s interrogations about his life and interests were persistent enough. Now that she’d seen him with Rachel, she’d have a whole new line of questioning ready to aim and fire.

She was tangling up his emotions like an old rope. He didn’t need this new knot. He found himself thinking of her during the times he’d normally thought of Connie, and it felt like betrayal.

He kicked off the remaining covers and got out of bed. A cold shower and some hot coffee would set him to rights. He and Peter were
scheduled to work on the flooring today. Tom would just focus on that and keep his interactions with Libby to a minimum. That was the plan.

But his plan got shot to hell an hour later when he walked into the ice-cream parlor and the first thing he saw was Libby’s perky little ass, way up high on a six-foot ladder.

His heart plummeted to his gut. She was on the top. The very top, and leaning forward against the window frame.

“Goddamn it, Libby!” His work bag thumped against the floor as he crossed the room fast. He grabbed the ladder to steady it with one hand and reached up with the other to clasp her calf. He wasn’t too agitated to notice the shape and feel of her leg in his hand. But he
was
too agitated to appreciate it. “What the hell are you doing?”

She looked down at him. “It’s a little early in the morning to start swearing at me, isn’t it?”

“Don’t you know better than to stand on the very top of a ladder?” His lungs felt overexpanded, pressing against the wall of his chest.

“I couldn’t reach from any lower.” She leaned forward even farther, a fraction of an inch from falling. His lungs collapsed then, and that felt even worse. The ladder creaked and swayed as she hooked a metal end to the window frame and let a tape measure fall to the ground, the yellow strip sliding along the side.

It hit the floor with a resounding
clunk
. She stared at it for a second, and then laughed. “I guess it’s good you showed up, though, because I can’t read the measuring tape from up here. Bend down and tell me what that says.”

His grip tightened on her leg, and he worked to keep his voice level. “Libby, climb down from there, and I’ll show you how to measure something without risking a broken neck.”