Just The Way You Are (23 page)

"Good. I was afraid she was worrying about me and blaming herself." Sam got to his feet. "Whoa," he said, steadying himself with a hand on Alli's shoulder. She slipped her arm around his waist.

"Okay?" she asked.

"Just got to get my land legs."

"Lean on me."

He glanced down at her with a grateful smile. "Thanks for getting me here so fast."

"Just don't dare to criticize my driving again, or I'll have to remind you that I saved your life."

"Deal," he said with a warm, tender look that stole her breath right out of her chest.

He turned his head as Tessa cleared her throat.

"I'm glad you're all right, Sam," Tessa said.

"Thanks."

"Uh, folks, if we're done here, I think we've got some oysters baking out in the car," Jimmy interrupted.

"Where do you want me to take you, Sam—to our house or to your parents' house or…" Alli suddenly felt like a fool. Where did Sam belong anyway?

"I'll go to my parents' house," he said quietly. "I think I better pass on the shucking until my eyes are completely open. I might chop off my finger."

"And the last thing we need is another trip to the hospital," Alli said lightly.

"Daddy," Megan said, running over to join them. She threw her arms around Sam's waist. "Are you okay?"

"Better than okay, honey bun."

"Your eyes are all weird."

"They'll get better. You ready to go home?" Megan nodded and they all headed for the parking lot.

"I have an idea," Jimmy said as Alli opened the car door for Sam to get in.

"Uh-oh," Tessa replied.

"It's a good one," he said.

"I'll bet. What is it?"

"Sam lives right next door to your grandmother's house, right?"

"Right," Tessa said warily.

"He could probably use some company and someone to make sure he doesn't suddenly collapse or anything. So I'm volunteering."

"Jimmy, we have hundreds of oysters to shuck, remember?"

"Correction, you and Alli have hundreds of oysters to shuck. As I recall, you said your grandmother specifically asked that you two do it together. So why don't I keep an eye on Sam, and Megan and I can play some games while you two girls open up some oysters and make us some stew?"

"No," Tessa said.

"Absolutely not," Alli interjected, hating the idea as much as Tessa. "We're not doing this alone."

"You won't be alone. You'll be together," Jimmy said brightly. "What do you think, Megan? Want to play some games with me?"

"Okay," Megan replied.

"Sam?" Jimmy asked. "What do you think?"

"I think that's the best idea I've heard in weeks." Sam smiled over at Alli. "Just call us when dinner is ready."

* * *

Just call us when dinner is ready.
The idiots, the jerks. Alli searched her mind for more appropriate adjectives, but she was too tired. The last thing she wanted was to spend time alone with Tessa. What on earth would they talk about?

"I can't believe they talked us into this," Tessa said, dumping a bag of oysters on their grandmother's kitchen table thirty minutes later.

"I can't either," Alli murmured, although it struck her that for the first time in a long time she and Tessa were actually in agreement. "Do you want to start shucking or get the stew going?"

Tessa looked at her like she was crazy. "Do you actually think I remember how to make oyster stew? If I ever knew?"

"Of course you knew. We made it with Grams all the time."

"I didn't, that was you."

"You
were there, too."

"No, I dropped in for a while and left as soon as you and Grams got distracted. You never even noticed I was gone."

How could that be? Alli always noticed Tessa. Tessa took up lots of physical and emotional space. But come to think of it, she didn't recall Tessa being involved in the kitchen much. Then again, Tessa usually had a date—with Sam. Alli took a deep breath. She had to get through this; she couldn't start thinking about Sam and Tessa. It would only drive her crazy.

They were adults now. They could do this. They could be civilized and polite to each other.

Alli picked up the shucking knife and handed it over to Tessa. "Guess you're in charge of shucking the oysters, then."

"Thanks," Tessa said with a sigh, sitting down at the table. She stared at the heap in front of her with an air of hopelessness. "We're never going to find a pearl."

"Think positively," Alli instructed as she pulled a large pot out of the cupboard and set it on the stove.

"If any of us were thinking at all, we would have told Grams this was a ridiculous idea."

"And have her worrying about the necklace instead of getting well? I don't think so."

Alli opened the cupboard and began pulling out ingredients she would need for the stew. She'd picked up a few things at the store on the way in, but knew she could rely on Grams to have the staples on hand. It felt so familiar to be working in her grandmother's kitchen, but it also felt strange, because Grams was usually in the room with her. In fact, she kept thinking her grandmother would walk in at any second and give her some last-minute instruction. The thought was so strong, Alli couldn't stop herself from looking toward the doorway, but it was empty. The house was empty, waiting for its owner to return.

"She's not here," Tessa said, catching her gaze. "I've been looking for her since I got here."

Alli didn't feel comfortable with the eye contact so she looked away. For a long while the only sounds in the kitchen came from the clatter of the knife against the oyster shells and the sizzle of scallions sautéing in the pot.

"My hands hurt already," Tessa complained a while later.

"I guess you don't work much with your hands, do you?"

"Sometimes I model them."

"Really? People pay money to take pictures of your hands?"

"Of course they do, a lot of money," Tessa said, setting down the knife. She got to her feet and stretched. "I'm taking a break."

"Fine, you go rest, and I'll do it," Alli said in disgust.

"I said I was taking a break. I didn't say I was quitting."

Tessa walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of mineral water she had obviously stocked earlier in the week—since Grams had never been partial to bubble water, as she called it. "I've never thought cooking was much fun."

"Do you only do things that are fun?"

"That's me. Fun and games. What about you, Alli? What do you do for fun? Oh, I forgot, you steal other people's boyfriends."

Alli set down the knife she was using to chop scallions just so she wouldn't be tempted to throw it at her sister. "You want to talk about it?"

"I didn't say I wanted to talk about it."

"Well, you brought it up, so let's talk about it."

"I just have one question. How do you look at yourself in the mirror every day?"

"I'm not as attached to my mirror as you are."

Tessa set the bottle of water down on the counter, her blue eyes blazing. "How dare you presume to know anything about me?"

"Likewise, and I sleep just fine, because no matter what I did to Sam, I didn't break his heart. You did that before he ever came to me."

Tessa's jaw dropped open. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about that Christmas. He was going to ask you to marry him. He actually thought you might say yes."

"I would have said yes, and how do you know about that?"

"Sam told me."

"He wouldn't have."

"Well, he did. He told me that night before he got drunk so he wouldn't have to think about what you were doing with your modeling friends in Aspen."

"I certainly wasn't doing what you were doing with my boyfriend. And you were my sister, Alli. I knew you were capable of a lot of things, but I didn't think stabbing me in the back was one of them."

"How could I stab you anywhere but the back? You always had your back to me. I was forever chasing after you, because once we moved here, once you and Sam became bosom buddies, you didn't have time for me. I wasn't anyone to you. So forgive me if my sisterly instincts didn't kick in that night."

Alli felt the anger and bitterness of a lifetime rage within her. Her throat tightened so much she wasn't sure she could breathe. In fact, she had to hang on to the counter to stop herself from falling or, worse yet, flying after Tessa the way she'd done when she was a little girl.

"You never had any sisterly instincts," Tessa said bitterly. "You were a conniving little sneak, listening to my conversations, taking my clothes, wearing my jewelry."

"And you were a bitch," Alli burst out, no longer able to contain the anger within her. She wanted to hit someone or something. Her fingers reached for a weapon and closed around the pile of scallions she was about to toss into the stew. Oh, what the hell, she thought as she threw them at Tessa's face.

Tessa shrieked and grabbed the nearest thing to her. It was the bag of flour. Before Alli could move, Tessa had dumped it over Alli's head. Alli sputtered and choked as the floury air surrounded her. Her eyes lit on the pile of oyster meat waiting in a bowl. She grabbed it and threw the contents at Tessa. Some of the meat splashed on the floor, and when Tessa tried to run, she slipped on the wet, floury tile. As she went down, she grabbed Alli's arm and pulled her down along with her.

Another second and they were rolling around between the counters and the kitchen island, tossing handfuls of flour and oyster meat at each other, until they were both covered from head to toe in the squishy, smelly mixture. Searching for new ammunition, Alli reached into the bag of oysters on the floor and started throwing those at Tessa.

Tessa ducked as the oyster shells clattered against the cupboards and the floor. Any that fell nearby, she tossed back in Alli's direction.

"I hate you," Tessa yelled.

"I hate you, too," Alli screamed back, dodging as one hard shell came close to her face. "You were the worst sister in the world."

"No, you were the worst," Tessa said as she tried to stand up but slipped on the floor and landed hard on her right hip.

Alli gasped at Tessa's sudden cry of pain. "Oh, my God. Are you all right?" She went down on her knees in front of Tessa. "Did you break something?"

"I should break you," Tessa retorted, then her shoulders started to shake.

"What?" Alli suddenly realized her sister was laughing. Laughing! She tried to drum the anger back up again but as she stared into Tessa's flour-covered face, Alli, too, was struck by the ridiculousness of the situation.

"You
look awful," Tessa said, pointing a finger at her as she collapsed in laughter.

"And you've never looked better," Alli replied as a laugh snuck past her own lips. "If your fans could see you now."

"I'd probably be out of a job." Tessa wiped a chunk of flour away from her eyes. "Ick. Do you remember that food fight we had with Dad? Mom was at the PTA meeting, and Dad made that spaghetti—"

"Which was awful," Alli finished.

"And he threw the noodle at the wall, and it stuck," Tessa said with a giggle.

"And then you threw a noodle at him, and it stuck to his forehead."

"We had so much fun that night." Tessa's laughter faded away.

"We did have fun." Alli felt strangely empty, as if her body had suddenly deflated.

"Not just that night," Tessa said.

"Not just that night," Alli agreed. She hesitated, then plunged ahead, knowing that what she had to say was long overdue. "I'm sorry, Tessa, sorry for seducing Sam. I know you won't believe me, but I regretted it almost instantly. I didn't just do it to hurt you, I did it because I loved Sam. And I thought it might be my only chance to have him. When you were around, he didn't look at anyone else. And I was crazy about him. I couldn't think straight."

"I thought it was just a crush, something you'd grow out of given enough time."

Alli looked her in the eye. "If I could take it back, I would, and not just because of how I hurt you, but because of how I hurt Sam. It wasn't fair to him. And it isn't even fair to Megan, because now she has two parents who don't belong together." Alli took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "I've made a lot of mistakes. Saying sorry doesn't make them go away, but it's all I have to offer."

"I've made a few mistakes, too," Tessa said after a moment. "I shouldn't have stayed away so long. I missed time with Grams. And I don't even know my niece, who seems to be a wonderful little girl, in spite of all of us." Tessa leaned back against the counter. "I missed you, too, Alli. When it rained last night, I remembered how we clung to each other the night Mom and Dad died, and it hurt to know that we'd never be that close again."

Alli bit down on her lip as she struggled not to cry. She couldn't believe that Tessa had missed her at all. But why would she say it if it wasn't true?

"I miss the way we used to talk when the lights were out," Alli said after a moment. "I miss the way you used to play the flashlight on the ceiling, putting your fingers over it in weird ways to scare me."

"I don't remember that," Tessa teased, her eyes somewhat misty.

"Most of all I miss having you there to share a memory," Alli continued. "Because not even Grams was with us in the beginning. I lost my childhood when I lost you, because I couldn't talk about it to anyone who would understand."

"I couldn't either. And I wanted to," Tessa said, her mouth trembling.

Alli felt a tear slide down her cheek. "I did love you, Tessa. And I wish—I wish I hadn't hurt you so bad."

Tessa sniffed. "You're trying to make me cry. But I'm not going to cry."

"I've cried lots of times." Alli wiped another tear off her cheek. "When Megan was born, I remember waking up in the middle of the night in the hospital room, and I was all alone. Sam had gone home and Megan was in the nursery, and I looked out the window and I saw this incredible star winking at me, and I remembered all those times we looked at the sky with Grams, counting the stars, trying to decide which one was sending us a kiss from Mom and Dad. And I turned to look at you—but you weren't there."

Alli shook her head as the tears overwhelmed her. "You weren't there. You were my only sister, and I had a new baby, and I wanted you to see her, see how pretty she was, but you weren't there. And I missed you." Alli's voice caught, and she couldn't go on, especially when she saw that Tessa was crying.