Seasons of the Fool (18 page)

And if that were so, then she was off the hook for all of her lousy choices – and so was Dave, for his. They had both simply done what they thought was best.

Was it false hope? Maybe. But both her gut and her heart told her she was right.

At last, she smiled at the two miserable women before her. “What makes you think this is all about you?” she asked.

Ms. Thea cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Julia said, and stopped. “I’m sorry, but the only way I can think about it is as if I were writing a story. It’s an occupational hazard.” She grinned self-consciously. “So let’s say God, or The All, or Fate or whatever, did need for Dave and me to be together. But it also needed to take care of Lance. Right? So it told you two to bring us together, while it shook the web elsewhere to keep us apart until the time was right.” She looked down at the envelope in her hand. “Why else would Grandma have sent this to such an old address?”

“But your parents,” Ms. Elsie said.

“And all the people Lance bilked out of their life savings,” Julia said. “And the damage Nina’s done to Ritchie and Randi that they’ll have to sort out as they get older.” She shook her head. “I know. It’s not a perfect theory. A lot of harm has come from this. But I’m not inclined to blame anyone. We’re all just doing the best we can.” She rolled her eyes. “Even Lance. There are a boatload of reasons why he is the way he is, starting with his sick relationship with his mother. I could write a master’s thesis on
that
family dynamic.” She stopped. “Or a novel.” A mischievous grin spread across her face. “I could, couldn’t I?”

“Please don’t do anything you might later regret, dear,” Ms. Thea said.

“Oh, I don’t have to write it for real,” Julia said. “But Lance doesn’t need to know that, does he?”

~

A few days later, Julia was hard at work in her bedroom, stripping the pink floral wallpaper, when her phone rang. She stepped off the ladder and wiped sweat from her forehead while she dug in her jeans pocket for her phone.

“Hello, Lance,” she said.

“Well, well, well,” he said. “You’re sounding awfully cheerful, Jules.”

She refused to rise to his bait. “What’s on your mind?”

“I just wondered whether you’d had a chance to think over what we discussed the other day.”

Her lips curled into a smile. “Have I told you about the book I’m working on?”

The seeming non sequitur made him stop for a second. Then he said, “Do I care?”

“You might. It’s about a little boy who loves his mother so much that he allows her to sexually abuse him.” She paused for his reaction; hearing none, she kept going. “And when he finally refuses her, and she cuts him out of her generous will, he vows to get rich on his own – by any means necessary.”

“You bitch,” he hissed. “You can’t do this to me.”

“Can’t I?” she said. “I can do anything I want, including write a book about your sick family history. Or bring it all up on the witness stand. Or both.”

“I’ll fuck you up if you do this,” he snarled.

“How?” She laughed at him. “You can’t stop me from publishing this book unless you kill me, and I’m pretty sure you won’t stoop to that. Because if you were willing to go as far as murder, dear old Mom would be dead by now.”

“Julia!”

When she heard the note of pleading in his voice, she knew she had won. “Leave Dave and his family alone,” she said harshly. “Leave them out of this, and I won’t publish this book while your trial is underway.”

“You won’t publish it
ever
,” he said, in a final, desperate grab for victory over her. “Or I’ll make sure the whole world knows about you and Dave.”

“You’re joking, right?” she said. “This book is my insurance that you’ll leave me alone after all of this is over. We’re divorced, Lance, in case you hadn’t noticed. I don’t have to make you happy any more.”

He hung up in her ear.

Humming to herself, she went back to stripping wallpaper.

~~~~

~~~~

It was the kind of hot and sticky August day that made Julia wish her grandparents had installed air conditioning. Her grandmother had had a system for combatting the heat: she would rise with the sun and close the windows while the house was still full of cool nighttime air. The ancient trees kept the sun off the roof, for the most part; that prevented the interior from heating up until the worst of the day’s heat was past. Then her grandmother would reopen the windows, and the cycle would begin again.

But Julia had always hated how stuffy the house got. And without a reason to rise with the sun, she always seemed to sleep too late, until the warm air made it too sticky to sleep. So while fantasizing about installing central air, she was making do with fans in every window, and escaping to the beach for a midday swim.

She had finished her blissful dip in the lake and had stretched out on her towel to dry off. The lake water was cool, even in August, and the hot sun felt good on her body. In a few moments, the breeze had begun to lull her to sleep.

As she dozed, she became aware that the noise level nearby had shot up. But it was only when a young voice cried out, “Julia!” that she realized she knew the people responsible for all the racket.

She propped herself up on her elbows just in time to see Ritchie plop down on the sand next to her. “Hey there,” she said, grinning. “How’ve you been?”

“Good,” he said.

“Is your dad here, too?” she asked, shading her eyes with one hand as she scanned the beach.

“Yes, and Randi, too,” he said. “Mommy didn’t want to come.”

Julia blinked. “She’s here in Michiana with you?”

“Yeah.” He scooped up some sand and let it trail through his fingers.

She eyed him curiously. “She must be feeling better, then. That’s good news, huh?”

Ritchie shrugged. “I guess.” He turned and waved. “Hey, Dad!”

“I see you, buddy,” Dave said, as he and Randi approached from the stairs. He threw Julia an apologetic look. “Sorry if he’s bothering you.”

She sat up. “Of course not. Ritchie’s never a bother.” She grinned again at the boy, and got an answering grin.

“Dad! I want to sit next to Julia!” he said.

Dave raised his eyebrows at her in a silent question, and she gestured a welcome with one arm. He smiled and said to Ritchie, “Help me stretch out the blanket.”

“Hey, Randi,” Julia said.

“Hi,” the girl responded, her eyes on the lake. “Can I go in, Dad?”

“Give us a hand here first,” he said. Ritchie was struggling; one corner of the blanket kept getting away from him and flapping in the breeze. Randi rolled her eyes and grabbed the errant corner. When the blanket was down, she kicked off her flip-flops and ran for the waves, with Ritchie tearing along behind her.

“Keep an eye on him!” Dave called out. Randi waved without turning around.

“That’s impressive,” Julia said. “I didn’t even need to see her roll her eyes that time.”

He shook his head and took a seat on the blanket. “She’s getting quite the attitude.”

“Girls do get them at her age,” she said.

“You never had one.”

She laughed. “Oh, come on. I had an attitude that wouldn’t quit.”

He smiled, watching her. “How’ve you been, Jule?”

“Fine,” she said. “Busy. Writing and editing, and working on the cottage. You know.” In truth, she had been trying to stay away from Dave and his family. Despite her leverage over Lance, she didn’t want to give her ex-husband any further ammunition to use against her – or against Dave.

“The kids miss you,” he said, brushing sand off the blanket. “Actually, so do I.”

She gave him what she hoped was a friendly smile. “I miss you guys, too.” She looked away, toward the lake. “So Nina’s home?”

“Yeah.”

She looked at him sidelong. “You don’t sound any happier about it than Ritchie did.”

“He told you, huh?” Dave focused on the lake. “Yeah, she’s been home for almost a month.”

She wasn’t sure how to phrase the next question, finally settling on, “Are things better?”

He sidestepped the question. Instead, he said, “I’ve put in for a year-long sabbatical. I have an idea for a book about the history of the Great Lakes, and I need to publish more if I hope to gain tenure anyway. Seemed like a good time to do it.”

“Good for you,” she said. “The break from teaching should help with a lot of things.”

He nodded as he scanned the beach – looking for the kids, she presumed. “That’s what I’m hoping for.” He focused on her again. “Listen. I’ll need an editor. Would you have time to help me?”

“Of course,” she said instantly. “Just copy editing and fact checking, or developmental work, too?”

“The whole ball of wax,” he said. “I need somebody to bounce my ideas off of.”

“Okay,” she said with an arch smile, “but it’s gonna cost you.”

“I can handle it,” he said, his voice suddenly husky. Something told her he was talking about more than just editing his book.

“Dad!” Ritchie said, nearly plowing into them.

“Careful, buddy,” Dave said. “You’re kicking sand all over us.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Dad! Can we sleep over at Julia’s tonight?”

“What?”

“I want to sleep in her loft,” Ritchie said.

“You’d melt,” she told him, laughing. “The loft is way too hot to sleep in right now.”

“But you guys did it,” Ritchie argued.

She flashed on a memory of her and Dave, making love for the first time in the stifling loft while her grandparents were at the mall. Involuntarily, she glanced at Dave. He was looking at her, too, and turning the same shade of red that she was sure she was. “Um,” she said to Ritchie, who was giving them a puzzled look. “Let’s talk about it later.”

He pouted.

“Later, Ritchie,” his dad said.

“Oh, fine,” he said with a sigh of frustration, and ran back to the lake.

Dave gave her an embarrassed grin. “He didn’t know what he was saying.”

“Obviously,” she said.

He was still looking at her, his grin fading. “You look great.”

“So do you.” To her, anyway. His eyes still looked too tired, and she was pretty sure he would regret not putting sunscreen on the top of his head. But in the way he held his shoulders, the tilt of his head, even the line of ginger hair down the middle of his belly, she saw the boy she had lain with in her grandparents’ loft. The one she had fallen in love with. The one, God help her, she ached to lie with again.

She couldn’t think about that right now. She couldn’t afford the feelings those memories were stirring up – not now, with Nina back in Dave’s life, and maybe not ever. Abruptly, she got to her feet. “I should go home.”

“Jule.” He took her hand. “Please stay. I’ll be….”

“It’s not you, Dave. It’s me.” She squeezed his hand and let it go. “All I can think of is holding you.”

He took a deep breath and let it out. “You should say goodbye to the kids, at least.”

“Yeah. You’re right. I will.” She started toward the water, not really knowing where she was going. She only knew that she needed to put some distance between herself and Dave, or there would be no going back.

~

He watched her go and cursed his luck for what must have been the ten millionth time.

She was so beautiful. In his eyes, time hadn’t touched her at all. She had swapped her youthful bikini for a more modest one-piece suit, but her legs still went on forever. Her dark brown hair swayed against her back as she made her way down to the water’s edge.

He picked up a rock from the sand and threw it, hard, toward a stand of beach grass.

Nina was home because the doctors said they couldn’t do anything more for her. Her condition was stable, they said, which meant that as long as she continued to take her pills, she could function pretty well. But he felt as if he and the kids were balanced on a knife edge – one they were far too familiar with. All four of them knew it was only a matter of time before Nina decided she couldn’t stand the way the medication made her feel, and quit taking it again.

An outside observer might have interpreted her decision to come with them to Michiana as progress. But Dave knew better. He knew she was checking up on him.

One night the week before, at dinner, Ritchie had inadvertently said something about Julia staying in his room next time. Nina’s eyebrows had lowered. “Next time?” she had asked, looking significantly at Dave.

“She was in town to see her lawyer,” Dave explained, as if he were simply doing a favor for an old friend. “He was prepping her for testifying in Lance’s trial. It took all day, and it was pretty wrenching for her. I offered to let her stay here that night.”

“Where did she sleep?” Nina asked, still glaring.

He couldn’t stand it any longer. “In a sleeping bag on Randi’s floor,” he told her, biting off each word. “And we all drove her home the next day.”

“And where is ‘home’?”

“Michiana,” Dave said. “She’s been living at her grandmother’s old cottage since her divorce was final.”

He had thought she knew, but maybe that bit of news had gotten lost in one drug-induced fog or another. In any case, when he proposed a weekend at the lake to the kids, Nina had declared that she would come along.

“It will be fun,” she’d said. “I haven’t been out there in ever so long. We can go swimming and hiking and have a picnic. Won’t that be fun, kids?”

“Sure, Mom,” Randi had said without enthusiasm. “It’ll be great.”

Dave knew what she was thinking: the cottage was their one retreat from Nina – the one place they could go that wasn’t tainted with her craziness. And now she was going to invade their safe space and ruin it.

Nina had begged off on swimming – something about one of her medications making her hyper-sensitive to sunlight. The kids exuded relief at her words. He, too, had been glad, but had tried to keep his reaction under wraps. But when he spotted Julia lying in her swimsuit on the beach, he was beyond grateful to whatever doctor had given his wife that prescription.

Julia was coming back toward him now, chatting with his son, who clung to her hand. He understood the feeling perfectly. “I’ll see you soon,” he heard her say. Ritchie threw his arms around her waist; she hugged him back and planted a kiss on top of his head.

“Bye!” his son called as he raced off, back down to the water.

Julia looked at him, her gaze warm. “He’s so much like you were at that age,” she said, bending over to pick up her things.

To distract himself from the view she was inadvertently giving him, he asked, “How’s the trial going?” He’d been reading the news reports, but he wanted to hear it from her.

She straightened, towel in hand. “I’m scheduled to testify on Monday. Andy told me to plan to be there all day. I’m the prosecution’s final witness, and Lance’s lawyer agreed to put me first on his list. Apparently Lance doesn’t want me around any longer than necessary.”

He had never seen that smile on her face before. It looked almost malicious. “Any particular reason?” he asked.

She began shaking out her towel, positioning herself so that the sand wouldn’t blow back on either of them. “I told him about a book I was working on. He’s not anxious to read it.”

Confused, Dave thought at first she meant his Great Lakes history book. Then he realized she meant something else. “Oh? What’s it about?”

“It’s about a man who ripped off a bunch of rich people, and why.” The malicious smile was back. “It’s based on a true story.”

His jaw dropped. “You’re not actually going to publish it, are you?”

“Can you keep a secret?” At his nod, she said, “I haven’t actually written it. But the threat is keeping Lance from pestering me about what I’m going to say about him on the stand.”

“He called you?”

“He showed up at my door.” She shook her head over his brazenness. “I told him to get out.”

“Good for you.” He wished he had been there to help her. He would have taken pleasure in kicking Lance’s ass all the way back to Chicago.

“Thanks,” she said, as she folded her towel and picked up her flip-flops. “I’ll be glad when Monday is over.”

“I bet.”

“I feel like this trial has been a threat hanging over my head since…well, since forever, basically. Once Monday’s over, I’ll truly be free.” She glanced at him. “I’ll see you later.”

Without transition, he found himself on his feet with his arms around her. “Let me know if you need me,” he whispered in her ear.

“I will.” She pulled away and looked at him, searching his face as if she wanted to memorize it. Then she was gone.

He dropped back down on the blanket and cursed his luck for the ten-million-and-first time.

~

Julia walked home in a daze, still feeling Dave’s arms around her.

“Julia!” someone called as she rounded the corner of her street.

Coming out of her reverie, she sought the person who had called her name, and felt the color drain from her face. “Hi, Nina,” she said as Dave’s wife approached her.