Picture Perfect (10 page)

“A little. But that sure was fun.” His voice was full of awe. “I think Duffy is more tired than I am. What are you cooking for dinner, Aunt Lorrie?”

“Hamburgers, baked beans, and cupcakes for dessert. How does that sound?” Lorrie asked, looking down at the little boy.

“Great. I love hamburgers with lots and lots of ketchup.”

“Climb up then, and let's head for camp,” Lorrie said as she unlocked the RV. “Next stop, Wild Adventure!”

“Duffy and me, we'll sit here at the table, okay?”

Lorrie belted him in then headed for the driver's seat. She followed the yellow exit arrows through the parking lot and, just before pulling out onto the highway, turned to check on Davey. He was sitting up, sound asleep, Duffy lying across his lap. She hoped she hadn't overdone it. That brace was pretty heavy to lug around. Poor little guy. He was exhausted. She wondered if maybe she shouldn't have left sooner.

Lorrie shook away the bad thoughts and concentrated on the fun they'd had. She was acting like a mother hen, overprotective of her chick. It was just that she was so crazy about him she wanted to do everything right. She would hate to see Sara's wrath if something went wrong.

She turned off the highway into the campground and followed the signs to the office. The place looked pretty deserted and she wondered if maybe she shouldn't find another campground, somewhere more of a year-round variety. On the other hand, the lack of people meant that she and Davey would have more of an opportunity to spend time together, without distractions.

“We're here,” she called behind her as she turned the key in the ignition. In an instant, Davey went from being sound asleep to wide awake. Before Lorrie could get out of the driver's seat, he had his seat belt unbuckled. “You wait here while I get us signed in and find out where our campsite is. Did you ever see such glorious colors?” she asked as she craned her neck to look at the giant trees with their spirals of autumn leaves.

A few minutes later, Lorrie climbed back into the RV with a map and a card to hang from the rearview mirror. “I took a site at the far side of the pond.” The manager had told her she would be near an elderly couple from Massachusetts with an Air Stream trailer, and a New Jersey couple with a pop-up trailer.

The RV slid into a deep rut and bounced out. Davey struggled to hang onto Duffy. “Aunt Lorrie, I have to go to the bathroom.”

Lorrie grinned. “Hang on till we're parked, Davey. I don't want you walking around in the motor home while I'm driving.”

“I can't wait to get out and see everything. Right, Duffy?” Exactly on cue, the terrier woofed.

Lorrie passed a garishly decorated pickup truck with a pop-up trailer parked in a grove of trees and knew she was heading in the right direction. “Our site must be just around the bend and to the right,” she said, more for her own benefit than Davey's.

Davey turned to look out the long side window. He rubbed at his eyes and stared at the pickup. It looked like the one he'd seen on the turnpike. His thoughts were diverted when Lorrie deftly maneuvered the RV into the assigned slot. As soon as they stopped, he unbuckled his seat belt and headed for the bathroom.

Stepping down out of the RV, Lorrie stretched luxuriously. Davey joined her seconds later, zipping his jeans. “Is it okay if Duffy and I take a walk?”

Tousling his blond head, Lorrie was once again taken with her nephew's grammar. Sara's influence, no doubt. Most of the kids who came into Lorrie's office would have said, “Duffy and me.” “Sure,” she said, “but first let's set down the rules. Look at your watch. The big hand should be on the nine and the little hand almost on the five. What time is that?”

“It's fifteen minutes before five o'clock,” Davey said proudly.

“Right. Now, when the big hand is on the three, I want you back here. And you must stay within earshot. Do you know what that means?”

“That means you have to hear me if I call, or I have to hear you. Right?”

“Right again. Now, Davey, what time do you have to be back here?” she questioned, just to make sure he understood.

“Fifteen minutes after five,” he said.

“Don't let Duffy wander off, and if she does, call her, don't chase after her or you could end up getting lost.”

“Aw, you shouldn't worry, Aunt Lorrie, Mr. Sanders gave me a real Boy Scout flashlight and money for a phone call. See!” He rummaged in his jeans pocket for his two gifts.

“And I'm impressed.” Not for the world would she tell Davey there were no phones attached to the trees. And as far as the little penlight went, he'd be lucky if he could see his hand in the dark with it. “I think you can make it. Remember, big hand on the three.”

He started to leave then winced.

“What's the matter?” Lorrie asked, concern drawing her brows together as she noticed the pained expression on the little boy's face.

“It's . . . my leg brace—I must have it strapped too tight or something. Dad knows how to fix it.” A shadow slipped over Davey's face, and Lorrie knew he was suddenly anxious about being separated from his parents for the first time.

“Let's have a look. Maybe I can help.”

Davey lifted his pant leg. Hunkering down to inspect the brace, Lorrie grimaced when she saw how the leather straps were cutting into the fragile flesh of his calf. “No wonder. Your sock slipped down. How long has this been irritating you, Davey?” From the abrasion on his leg and the look on his face, Lorrie knew it must have been bothering him for some time. “Oh honey, this was hurting you at the zoo, wasn't it? And you didn't say anything. Why?”

“Mom and Dad told me not to cause any trouble.”

“Davey, you're the best kind of trouble I could ever have. I love you, don't you know that? There's no way you could be any trouble to me. Now, sit up here on the step so I can fix that brace. I'll pull up your sock and loosen the strap a notch.” As she worked, Lorrie noticed the new shoes that had never had an opportunity to get dirty. It wasn't fair, she told herself. Davey was too overprotected, too housebound. Instinct told her it wasn't the hemophilia that made Andrew and Sara restrict Davey to the house. A child who played in his room all day was a lot less trouble than one who was in and out, bringing in dirt onto Sara's spotlessly clean carpet.

“How's that?”

Davey tested the brace and smiled. “Way better. Do you like my new shoes? Mom says I can't wear them all the time. Is that because Reeboks are special?”

Lorrie thought a moment. “Well yes, Davey, in a way they are. They're for playing and running. You should consider yourself very lucky. Some children who wear a leg brace must wear heavy, high-top shoes. But your brace is only to give strength to your leg. See how it's made? This strap slips under your foot so you can wear it with any shoe.”

Davey nodded. “I saw a boy in the doctor's office and his braces went over his knees. He had to push these clamps so he could sit down. But I don't know why he had to wear those braces. And I don't know why I have to wear mine.”

“Didn't the doctor tell you that it's only for a short time? When you were a very little boy, before you started your shots, you injured your knee and it bled. You don't have to worry about that anymore—the bleeding, I mean. The brace keeps your shin bone in line with your knee joint.” She ran her fingers down the length of Davey's leg to show him what she meant.

“Oh,” the boy murmured, pondering her explanation. “But I can walk real good, and I can run.” Suddenly he wrapped his arms around Lorrie's neck, giving her a tight hug. “I love you, Aunt Lorrie. You're a foxy lady.”

“And just where did you hear that term, young man?”

“In the Junior CB Club. But don't tell Mom what I said. She doesn't like it when I learn new words.”

“I promise. It's our secret. I'm your secret foxy lady.”

“Hey, Aunt Lorrie, that could be your handle on the CB. I'm Panda Bear and you're Foxy Lady!” Delighted with himself, Davey trotted off, Duffy at his heels.

Lorrie watched them go. There was a slight unevenness to Davey's step because of the brace, and his red nylon windbreaker blended with the autumn colors in the woods. Her eyes focused on the blond head and she wanted to reach out and touch him again. Duffy's short legs stirred the thick layer of leaves on the ground as she followed her master. With the same sense of loss that she always felt whenever she parted from the little boy, Lorrie turned to go into the motor home and begin dinner.

She was stirring some brown sugar into the beans when a mental picture of Stuart Sanders came to mind. It had been a long time since she'd felt an attraction toward a man, and never a man like Stuart Sanders—big, tall, a rugged sort of guy. She supposed he had to be rugged to be an FBI agent, chasing after all those criminals.

“Too much TV,” she said aloud, then laughed at herself. Too much TV was right. After a long day at work, all she wanted to do was sit down in front of the TV and be entertained. The hospital shows were always good for a few laughs. The truth of it was, the long hours were of her own doing. A workaholic, her peers called her. The last time she'd had a date was . . . She was horrified to realize she couldn't remember her last date.

Prior to Davey's birth she'd dated a lot, and had thoughts of marriage and a family. But once Davey had been diagnosed as a hemophiliac, things had changed. She had changed. A family was no longer an option, at least not until medical science gave prospective parents the option of choosing the sex of their children. Until then, she would remain childless. But she needn't have given up men, she realized. It had just happened. She wasn't sure exactly why.

Now Stuart Sanders had reignited a fire within her, a fire she'd thought was dead. And if she wasn't missing her guess, he was equally attracted to her. She hoped she wasn't missing her guess. It would be nice to get to know him better.

“Stuart.” She tested his name on her tongue. It had a nice sound. “Stuart Sanders.”

 

Davey and Duffy kicked their way through the fallen leaves until they reached the pond. The water was still and a deep, mossy green, and the red and orange of the sunset broke through the surrounding trees to create a golden path on the pond's surface.

“I saw this on TV, Duff,” Davey said. “Now watch. You pick up a stone and skip it across the water.” Duffy sat patiently on her haunches, watching pebble after pebble hit the water with a splash, then sink.

“Guess it's another ‘almost,' Duff. I can
almost
do it, can't I?” Losing interest, Davey picked up a twig and poked at the dry pine needles and soft leaves. He was surprised to see the snowy shoelaces on his new shoes were now a dirty brown. He laughed delightedly; now they looked used, like Aunt Lorrie's.

Pushing back the sleeve of his windbreaker, Davey took note of his watch. The big hand was on the one. He had two more numbers to go. “C'mon, Duff, let's see what's over on the other side of the pond.”

 

John and Sophie Koval stood outside their silver trailer, watching the newcomers' motor home bump down the road. Sophie wiped her hands on her apron, relieved that there were going to be other campers besides themselves and those . . . those hippies! Camping certainly wasn't turning out to be the lark that John and the brochures had promised. “Meet new friends, see the country, get back to nature.” The “new friends” had turned out to be large families who couldn't afford to get away from home any other way, and instead of the nice, sociable bridge games to liven the evenings that Sophie had envisioned, she'd had to endure the sounds of children squabbling, their parents yelling at them, and the sight of endless lines of laundry hanging between the trees. The smell of that disinfectant they used got everywhere, even into the dirt. In every campsite it was the same, and now even the shiny new inside of their trailer smelled of it. At night it filled her nose and seemed to parch her throat. Whoever it was who said there was no place like home must have gone camping.

Now that summer was over and the northeastern states were well into fall, John and Sophie felt lonely and apart from everyone and everything. Most of the campgrounds were desolate, like this one, stopping places only. They would rest overnight then, in the dew-heavy mornings, they would break camp and ride on, sometimes for hours at a time, pushing the speedometer and the clock to arrive at their next destination before dark. As the days grew shorter, camping was becoming more of an ordeal, just like the very thing John had promised they would leave behind.

Sophie longed for the ease and comfort of her home back in Massachusetts, where she could spend the afternoons watching her soap operas on TV instead of growing stiff from long hours in the car, watching for obscure turnoffs to their next destination. John's retirement was becoming a trial and a punishment.

“Why couldn't we have gotten one of those nice buses, John? Then I could stay right in the back and prepare lunch or dinner and still be able to talk to you.”

“Watch your soap operas, you mean. I've already told you, Sophie, those things guzzle gas. We've got to watch our pennies now. Social Security doesn't bring much and you know it.” He watched her from behind his wire-rimmed glasses. The annoyance that he felt whenever she complained about their new lifestyle made him chomp down on his pipe. For over thirty years he'd made a nice home for her, given her an easy life, while he went to work every day at the mill and dreamed of the day he could retire. He'd given up most of his dreams and all of his energies for Sophie's comfort, and he wasn't going to let her make him feel guilty now.

“They looked like nice people, didn't you think?” she asked, changing the subject, almost able to read his mind after all those years. “Maybe we could go over and meet them later.”