Shelter Me (40 page)

J
ANIE WAS STILL SITTING
in the kitchen absorbing the aftershocks of her own tirade, when Uncle Charlie pulled up. A car door opened, then slammed. The Ford Tempo grumbled out of the driveway. In a few minutes, Dylan came down. He drifted slowly, sleepily into her lap, rubbing Nubby’s ear across his lips. “Merry day after Christmas,” she whispered to him.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Did you have fun yesterday?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Not yet.”

She breathed in his cozy smell: baby shampoo and slept-in sheets and boy. She rocked him for a few minutes and he snuggled deeper into her lap.

“Dylan?”

“Mmm.”

“I really love Tug.”

“Me, too.”

“I want him to spend a lot of time with us.”

“Me, too,” said Dylan. “Can he come over today?”

“I think he can. I’ll call and see.”

N
EW
Y
EAR’S
,” T
UG SAID
to her that night after the kids were in bed. They were sitting on the blue leather couch, nested against each other.

“Cormac’s wedding,” she answered. “Dylan is the ring bearer—he keeps calling it ‘ringmaster,’ which kind of fits. The wedding party’s so big it’s like a circus act.”

“And you’re in it.”

“Yeah, bridesmaid number 247. There’s no way I can get out of it.”

“I like weddings,” he said.

“Too bad my dress wouldn’t fit you, you could take my place.”

“You don’t like weddings?”

She thought about this for a moment. “No, I do. I’ve just been dreading this one for so long…I guess I need to tune up my attitude. Going alone isn’t exactly…” She looked at Tug.

“Love to,” he said. “Thanks for asking.”

“God, I’m stupid.”

He gave her a squeeze. “Call him.”

“Barb will freak. Cormac told me the seating arrangements alone made her cry three times.”

“I’ll sit at the bar. Call him.”

“You seem pretty sure he’ll say yes.”

“Janie, the guy would give up a kidney for you. Plus, he likes me.”

Janie smiled, intrigued. “Oh?”

He shrugged. “Thanksgiving. He kind of gave me the thumbs-up. Not in so many words, but you know…”

Janie went into the kitchen to place the call.

“Merry day after Christmas,” Cormac said.

“You, too,” she said. “How’s the countdown going?”

“Barb’s been having a glass of wine with dinner. It helps. Wish she started at breakfast.”

“Cormac, I need a favor…”

“You want to bring Tug to the wedding.”

“Yeah, how’d you…?”

“Your mother’s staying at my parents’. Cat’s out of the bag about your little overnight.”

“Oh.” Janie felt a little queasy.

“Chickie, come on. Everyone loves Tug. A guy brings lumpy pudding to Thanksgiving dinner, how could you not? I practically invited him to the wedding myself,” Cormac chuckled. Despite the pressure of the wedding, he seemed happy, she realized. Content in a way that he hadn’t before. “And don’t worry about my parents,” he said. “They just feel a little sorry for her.”

“Why?”

“Oh, you know. Aunt Noreen. The sensitive one.”

M
IKE ARRIVED ON THE
twenty-ninth, as planned, with Alicia. When their rental car pulled into the driveway Janie watched them for a moment from the kitchen window. They removed suitcases and packages from the trunk as if the other person weren’t there. Alicia was small and pointy, like the herons that nested by Lake Pequot. She had straight brown hair and was dressed mostly in black: turtleneck sweater, dark pants, long-toed black boots. Mike was in jeans and a gray fleece V-neck over a white T-shirt. His mess of black hair curled onto his shoulders.
Same
, thought
Janie, who’d been expecting something different. A new Mike to go with a new, real relationship, maybe.

“Hey,” he said, when Janie met them at the front door. “Nice porch.” He put his bags down and went back out to study it further. Alicia remained just inside the living room. She stared at the couch. At least Janie thought she was staring at the couch. Alicia’s gray eyes didn’t seem to be looking in the same direction at once.

“I’m Janie.”

“Alicia.” She hadn’t put the bags down yet.

“Nice to meet you. I can take those.”

“It’s okay.” Alicia continued to hold onto the bags as if they were ballast and she might levitate uncontrollably if she were to let them go.

Mike came back in from the porch. “That’s really something.”

“Yeah,” said Janie. “My friend Tug built it. You’ll meet him later.”

“Okay,” said Mike. He looked around. “New couch.”

She nodded. “I thought I’d put you two up in my room, and I could stay in the back bedroom down here.”

Mike’s brow furrowed. “Where’s Mum?”

“She’s staying at Uncle Charlie’s. We’re not really getting along so well at the moment.” She knew he wouldn’t think to ask why.

“Well, I’d rather stay down here,” he said, and started to move across the living room.

“Mike,” Janie said. “There’s more room up there. For you and Alicia.”

“We don’t need more room,” he said.

“There’s only a twin bed in the back bedroom.” Janie hoped she wasn’t embarrassing Alicia, but the obvious wasn’t always so obvious to Mike.

He looked at Alicia, who nodded. “It’s enough,” he said, and they went to put their bags away.

“Where’s Dylan?” Mike asked when he returned without Alicia. He sat down on the couch, ran his hand back and forth over
a pillow, watched how the light changed the color depending on how he brushed the nap of the suede.

“Tug took the kids over to the Confectionary while I was doing some house cleaning. He should be back any minute.”

“Who’s Tug?”

“The guy who built the porch.” Janie sank down onto the couch next to him. “Listen,” she said. “Tug’s pretty important to me.” Mike looked up from the couch pillow. “We’re seeing each other,” said Janie.

“You’re dating?”

“Yeah, I know it’s a little shocking. I was pretty surprised myself, to tell you the truth. But we got to know each other while he was building the porch, and he’s a really good guy.”

Mike went back to brushing his hand across the cushion. “What did Mum say?”

Janie squinted. “She wasn’t too happy about it. That’s why she went to Uncle Charlie’s.”

“What about Cormac?”

“He likes Tug. He thinks it’s a good thing.”

There was a low sound from the back bedroom, a tiny cough, as if a bird were clearing its throat. Mike looked up, listened for a moment. “Alicia’s shy,” he said. “I think she might be worried you won’t like her.”

This was new—Mike didn’t generally anticipate and interpret other people’s feelings. “I’m sure I will once I get to know her,” said Janie. “You two seem pretty close.”

“Yeah.” A slow smile spread across his face. He glanced at Janie, then away. “She gets me.”

The air caught in Janie’s chest for a moment, and she felt a twinge of emotion pressing behind her eyes. Very few people got Mike. Janie herself didn’t always fully understand him. The miracle and surprise of being “gotten” by someone was fresh in her experience. She put her hand on his shoulder, gave it a little shake. “Way to go,” she whispered.

He nodded, satisfied.

O
N THE NIGHT OF
the rehearsal dinner, a certain frenzy blew through the house as Janie tried to get herself and the children appropriately attired. Alicia flicked in and out of the bathroom, and by her silent, panic-faced wardrobe changes, Janie had assessed her to be generally anxious and rather wealthy.

It had been so long since Janie had worn a serious dress and the requisite accessories, she felt at a loss to decide what looked good on her anymore. She found herself asking Dylan, the only member of the household who was available for comment. His opinions, however, tended to run to bright colors and big jewelry, neither of which Janie was sure she could pull off. He sat bouncing on her bed in his little button-down shirt and tie, as she pulled out one outfit after another. Carly climbed off and on the bed, the skirt of her green velour dress slipping up over her tights-covered diaper.

“The purple one!” yelled Dylan, as if he were a game show contestant. “I pick the purple one!”

The dress isn’t actually purple,
Janie thought, humoring herself,
it’s more of an eggplant color.
It was a little more fitted than she felt entirely comfortable with, but it was pretty, and she seemed to remember there was some good silver jewelry that would work.

She was finally dressed and ready just as Tug arrived with his niece Sophie, who had been hired to come with them and play with Carly during the rehearsal at the church. Janie would bring her back to the house to babysit the kids while she went to the dinner afterward.

Tug gave Janie one of his soaking-you-up-like-a-man-sized-sponge looks, and the tension in her neck and shoulders released. She slipped over to him and adjusted his tie. “You look so…” She couldn’t think of the word. He was handsome to her even in his sawdust-covered work clothes. The formal attire only offered a different view of her attraction to him.

“I am not leaving tonight,” he whispered in her ear. “Everyone’s just going to have to deal with it. You included.”

T
HE REHEARSAL AT
O
UR
Lady, Comforter of the Afflicted Church went smoothly. Barb’s uncle, a Jesuit priest with a passion for liturgical dance, was to preside at the wedding, and he conducted the run-through as if it were an old standard song that required a little extra in the way of choreography. He asked the flower girls, four-year-old twins who were sticky from the lollipops they’d been bribed with, to skip on their tiptoes as they strew their petals. Dylan was supposed to balance the black velvet pillow on one hand and hold the other arm out “inviting the congregation to view the sacred symbols of nuptial consecration.” Dylan squinted, confused, at Janie. “Just smile a lot,” she whispered.

Janie and Tug stood together watching the show. She leaned toward him to whisper something about Father Guys-and-Dolls, and his arm slipped easily around her waist. She caught a movement from the corner of her eye and saw Father Jake standing in the sacristy doorway behind the altar. He was half in shadow, his black clothing blending in with the darkened room behind him. But she knew he was watching, taking in the man beside her with his hand resting with such familiarity on her hip. Tug’s head turned to follow her gaze. The priest closed the door behind him and went out the side door to the rectory.

W
HEN THE CURTAIN FELL
on the rehearsal at the church, Janie and Tug stopped home to drop off Sophie and the children. Dylan had been shy with Sophie at first, promising Janie he would not “do any trouble” if he were allowed to attend the dinner. But by the end of the rehearsal, he was sick of his tie and button-down shirt, and Sophie had won him over with the physicality of her confidence. Dylan and Janie watched with startled fascination as Sophie stood at the back of the church and threw a happily shrieking Carly into the air over and over. She arm-wrestled Dylan in one of the pews and let him win, but just barely. Back at the house, Sophie was chasing them up the stairs on her hands and knees as Janie called good-bye.

The rehearsal dinner was held at Bradford Country Squire Restaurant, a long brown building with tiny-paned windows and a wood-shingled roof, built in the 1970s to resemble an upscale Colonial home. It was chosen by Barb’s parents because they considered it to be the classiest restaurant in Pelham. The food was distinctly unmemorable, but jackets were required. The effect was reduced somewhat by its shared parking lot with the Pelham Ball Field.

“After dinner we’ll have batting practice,” Janie joked. Tug’s face remained blank. “What?” she asked.

“Your mother,” he said, and Janie immediately regretted giving him such a detailed account of their quarrel. She had perhaps gotten a little too comfortable telling him everything, forgetting that items involving him directly required a certain amount of discretion.
Relationship 101,
she thought.
I’m rusty.

Though they had been invited to come to the church, Noreen and Aunt Jude had opted to meet the wedding party at the restaurant. They were standing in the hallway outside the banquet room, waiting for everyone to arrive. Janie saw Aunt Jude lean near her mother to say something as they approached. Noreen stepped away from her and began to look for something—
or nothing,
Janie thought—in her purse. Disgusted, Janie had every intention of walking right past her mother and finding the waitress to order a drink.

“Mrs. Dwyer,” she heard Tug say, his voice friendly without being obsequious. “Tug Malinowski. We met at Dylan’s birthday party.”

“Yes,” said Noreen, allowing him to shake her hand.

“It’s nice to see you again.”

Noreen nodded, looked away. “You did a fine job on that porch,” she said. “My son-in-law would be very happy with it.”

“I’m glad you think so,” said Tug, waiting a moment to catch her eye. “That was my goal.” He turned to Aunt Jude and kissed her on the cheek. “Jude, how are you?”

“Oh, Tug, dear. I’m just fine. It’s so exciting, don’t you think? A wedding? And Cormac seems happier than…than…” She looked past his shoulder, distracted. “Michael!”

“Hi, Aunt Jude,” muttered Mike. He delivered a quick, stilted hug, then another for his mother. “Mum, this is Alicia.”

Alicia reached her trembling fingers forward and shook each of their hands with a small, sharp jerk, startling Noreen.

It’s a tough day to be sensitive,
thought Janie, as she and Tug slipped away toward the banquet room.

A
FTERWARD
, T
UG DROVE
S
OPHIE
home. Janie sat at the kitchen table and waited for him to return. Mike and Alicia went immediately into the back bedroom. Then Janie heard a tinkling sound, like a small bell ringing from far away, and wondered what it could be. It faded but did not stop entirely. Mike came into the kitchen, put a little water in the teakettle, and set it on the burner.

“Is someone crying?” Janie asked.

“Alicia,” he answered. “She just needs to, sometimes.”

Janie nodded. “I know how that goes.”

Mike looked at her for a second, uncomprehending. “Do you have any lemon?”

When he’d left with the cup of hot water and wedge of lemon for Alicia, Janie sat in the silent kitchen, at the table Robby had assembled from a kit. She glanced up at the framed photo that Barb had taken of her and the kids giggling together at Dylan’s birthday party. She waited for Tug. The crying stopped in the back bedroom, and then she heard a short, low burst of laughter from Mike.

One surprise after another,
she thought.

W
HEN THE FRONT DOOR
opened, Janie expected that Tug would want to go up to the bedroom right away. She expected a little romance. But he poured himself a glass of water and sat at the table.