Sizzling (8 page)

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"HI," LORI CALLED as she walked into her house after
her shift.
"Hey, you," Madeline said from the living
room. "How was your day?"
"Not one I want to
repeat." Lori shrugged out of her coat as she crossed to the
kitchen. Once there she dropped her coat on a chair, her purse on the
kitchen table and opened the refrigerator. She always kept a bottle
of Chardonnay on hand for emergencies and this certainly counted as a
time of need.
"That bad?" Madeline asked as Lori dug
in a drawer for a corkscrew.
"In some ways good. In
others, worse."
The cork popped out. Madeline collected a
single glass and held it out. Lori took it and poured. Seconds later
she swallowed a mouthful of the tart, fruity wine and sighed.
"Not
better yet, but soon," she breathed. "So how was your
day?"
"Fine. Quiet. I had lunch with Julie. Do you
remember her? She was my roommate in college and one of my
bridesmaids."
There had been eight and honestly, Lori
hadn't bothered to learn their names.
"Uh-huh," she
lied. "I'm glad you got out. You can't hang out here all the
time."
Madeline tucked her auburn hair behind her ear and
smiled. "I like hanging out here."
Her sister didn't
fit the stereotype of the frail soon-to-be dead. She was a little
pale and too thin, but that only added to her ethereal beauty.
Madeline had been born beautiful and had never gone through anything
resembling an awkward stage. It was one of life's sassy attempts at
humor.
Madeline ignored the bottle of wine— with her
liver failing, she couldn't drink. Not that she'd ever been very
interested. Until recently, her sister hadn't had to deal with very
many upsets or disappointments. Lori supposed that getting a death
sentence put other irritations in perspective.
"What
happened?" her sister asked. "Gloria making you
crazy?"
"Not so much. I think we had a breakthrough
today."
"Really? How did that happen?"
Lori
explained about snapping and how Gloria had burst into tears and
admitted to being lonely.
"She's fully capable of
changing," Lori said. "The question is, will
she?"
Madeline tilted her head. "I know you, Lori.
That kind of moment with an elderly patient doesn't send you to the
wine bottle. It was something else. Something I'm going to guess is
related to a certain ex-baseball player."
Lori groaned.
"Gloria lost it with me and I lost it with him. He was going on
and on about how his agent screwed up and how horrible everything
is."
Her sister raised her eyebrows. "I'm going to
guess you weren't as supportive as he'd been hoping."
"Not
exactly." She took another drink of the wine. "I didn't
mention this before because I didn't want you to think…"
Lori
paused. There was no way she could fool her sister. Madeline knew her
too well.
"I was talking to Sandy a couple of days ago.
Somehow it came up that Reid had slept with both her and Kristie
during their interviews." Her anger erupted again. "Can you
believe it? Right there in his office at that stupid sports bar. It's
disgusting. He was supposed to be finding appropriate health care,
not screwing the staff. Does he actually have a brain, or is that a
myth? Are all men like that? Is he what they aspire to? Because I
think he's a nightmare on so many levels."
Madeline's
green eyes were steady. "You're upset that he slept with them
and not you."
"I am not. Never! I wouldn't sleep
with him if…" She swallowed, then nodded slowly. "More
than upset. Humiliated. I'm not like them. I'll never be like them.
Guys like Reid don't even see women like me, which is fine. I don't
want a man like him."
"But you do," her sister
said softly. "You want exactly him."
Lori scowled.
"I'm working on the problem. I'll get over him."
"Maybe
you shouldn't try to."
"Oh, please. He would never
be interested in me and I can't accept who he is on the inside. He's
like cotton candy. Dunk him in water and he dissolves."
"But
you like him."
"No. I don't like him. I despise him.
I just have a powerful chemical reaction to him. It doesn't mean
anything."
"Sure it does. You've never reacted to a
guy this way."
"And I won't ever again." It
wouldn't work. He was everything she hated in men and she was
invisible to him. Oh, yeah, that was a recipe for happiness and
love.
She drew in a breath. "I told him off. It didn't go
well."
"He'll recover. Besides…"
Madeline pushed off the counter and smiled. "Men are inherently
stupid about women. You can use that to your advantage."
Lori
stared at her amazingly beautiful sister and knew that dozens of men
had been stupid about Madeline, but they'd managed to keep their
heads around her.
"I'll figure out a way to manage this,"
Lori said. "A way to get over him."
"I still
wish you'd try to make things work. You deserve a fling and Reid
sounds like perfect fling material."
Lori supposed it was
really sweet of her sister to think that the choice was actually
hers, but before she could say anything, there was a knock at the
back door.
"Oh, good," Madeline said, walking toward
the rear of the kitchen. "She's here."
Lori got a
knot in her stomach. "What did you do?"
Just then
the back door opened and their mother walked in. She smiled at both
women and held up two large bags.
"I brought Chinese,"
Evie Johnston said. "You'll have leftovers for days."
"Great,
Mom," Madeline said as she put the bags on the counter, then
hugged and kissed her mother. "It smells heavenly. I'm
starved."
"Good. I don't think you've been eating
enough."
Evie stepped free of Madeline and smiled at
Lori. "How are you?"
"Good."
Lori
smiled tightly as she battled both annoyance and the sense of being
the odd one out. It didn't matter that this was her house and these
people were her family. Whenever she was around her mother and
sister, she no longer belonged.
Evie faced Madeline. "You
look good. Are you getting plenty of rest? You're doing what the
doctor says?"
Madeline laughed. "I'm fine, Mom. I
feel terrific. Lori keeps me in line."
"She should.
She's a nurse, you listen to her as well. Lori, you need to take
better care of your sister."
Lori ignored the criticism
and began sorting through the boxes of takeout. She was used to her
mother thinking she didn't measure up. Years ago, when she, Lori, had
announced that she was going to be a nurse, her mother's semisober
response had been, "You'll never pass the tests to be an R.N.
and you won't enjoy emptying bedpans for a living. Try beauty
school."
Madeline and her mother continued talking. Lori
set the kitchen table and put the food in the center.
She
would be the first one to admit Evie's life hadn't been easy. She'd
married young, gotten pregnant fairly quickly and had lost her
husband to another woman before Lori, her second and unwanted child,
had been born.
Evie had lived her whole life in a double-wide
trailer, taking whatever jobs she could hang on to between drinking
binges. The only bright spot in her otherwise grim existence had been
to have one perfect daughter.
Madeline had been pretty from
birth, an early talker and walker. She'd been popular, friendly,
charming and open to the world. Lori had been none of those things
and her mother had never forgiven her for it.
Evie carried
plates to the table. "Lori, you shouldn't drink wine. You know
it's bad for you. Plus Madeline can't have any and it makes her feel
uncomfortable to see it."
Madeline grabbed Lori's
wineglass and set it by her place. "Mom, I'm fine with it. Lori
works hard. If she wants a glass of wine at the end of the day, she
should have it."
"It's not right," Evie said,
then pressed her lips together.
Lori wasn't sure if her
mother's concern was really for Madeline or herself. Evie had been
sober for nearly seven years.
"I'll put it away,"
Lori said as she shoved the cork in the bottle, stuck the bottle back
in the refrigerator. "I wouldn't have opened it if I'd known you
were coming over."
Evie looked at her. "I'm fine.
Being around alcohol doesn't bother me."
"Then why
do you always mention it?" Lori asked.
"Alcohol
isn't good for you."
"You already said that. I
hardly think an occasional glass of wine means I have a
problem."
"That's how it starts."
Lori
swirled her glass. "You would know."
"Yes, I
would," Evie told her. "I know you think I'm critical, but
I'm just trying to help."
By telling her everything she
did wrong? But Lori didn't say that. Instead she dumped her wine down
the sink.
"I'll get the iced tea," Madeline said. "I
made a fresh pitcher earlier today. Doesn't that sound
refreshing?"
It was all Lori could do to keep from
running screaming into the night. Her sister desperately wanted peace
in the family and while Lori really wanted to respect her wishes,
there was too much history between her and Evie.
"Lori
was just telling me about her day," Madeline said as they all
sat down. "She's doing home health care for a real difficult old
lady and today they had a run-in."
Evie turned to Lori.
"What happened?"
Lori briefly recounted some of
Gloria's more outrageous behavior and the confrontation earlier that
afternoon.
"I think she's really going to work on
changing. I hope so. Her family keeps trying and she keeps shutting
them out. What a sad way for her to live."
Her mother
continued to stare at her. "You're telling her if she changes
she gets a second chance?"
Lori instantly saw the
dangerous direction of the conversation, but didn't know how to
change the subject. "Something like that."
"I
didn't think you believed in second chances," Evie said. "Or
that people can change."

CHAPTER
SEVEN

REID FOUND HIMSELF more restless than he would have liked. It
was his damn conversation with Lori and all the things she'd said to
him. While most of her ranting had been crap, a few of her choice
phrases had hit home.
Admittedly it had been a poor showing of
judgment to sleep with Sandy and Kristie during their interviews. But
they'd both come on to him. They'd been eager, he hadn't been busy,
nobody was married, so what was the problem? It wasn't as if they'd
been bad choices to look after his grandmother.
But no matter
how he twisted the argument around and made himself out to be the
good guy, the whole situation was a little…tacky.
He
was, he conceded, officially, a shitty member of the human race.
He
went downstairs to the one person guaranteed to add to his guilt—
his grandmother. He found Gloria admiring a modest diamond ring on
Sandy's left hand.
"Hi," he said as he walked into
the room. "What's up?"
"I'm engaged,"
Sandy said as she turned toward him and beamed. "Remember that
guy I told you I was seeing? He proposed. This morning. It was so
romantic."
"Congratulations," he said.
"Have
you started planning the wedding?" his grandmother asked.
"Not
technically," Sandy said with a grin. "But in my mind?
Sure. Now I just have to convince Steve that running off to Las Vegas
is romantic. There's a little chapel there that is so pretty. We
could stay at the Bellagio. I've always wanted to stay at a fancy
hotel like that."
"Then that's what you should do,"
Gloria told her as she patted Sandy's hand. "A girl only gets
married once. Or twice."
Sandy laughed. "Good
point."
"Obviously this happy news could change your
desire to stay here. While I would really like you to continue
through my convalescence, I'll understand if that doesn't work
out."
Sandy shook her head. "Are you kidding? I love
my job. Of course I'm staying. I love the hours and the pay is going
to mean I can afford the Bellagio."
Sandy laughed and
Gloria joined in. Reid stared at them, not sure what was going on.
His grandmother would never approve of getting married in Las Vegas
and she hated people who left before the job was done. He thought
about all the science fiction movies he secretly watched and wondered
if the old broad had been taken over by a pod or some kind of
parasite.
Sandy chatted a little more about how wonderful
Steve was, then excused herself. When Reid was alone with his
grandmother, he moved close and stared at her.
"Did they
change your meds?" he asked bluntly. "Are you stoned?"
A
little of the woman he knew returned as she narrowed her gaze.
"Nothing has changed about my routine. I'm completely fine and
healing very well."
Uh-huh. "You were nice. That
doesn't happen very often." Or ever.
"You're hardly
around enough to know what I do." Gloria dropped her gaze to the
blankets on her bed and began smoothing them. "I've decided to
make some changes in my life."
He had no idea what to say
to that. "Changes like…?"
"I'm going to
be more pleasant. Easier to get along with. Less critical. It would
be nice if you noticed."
He'd been hit by a lot of
baseballs in his career, but only two had nailed him in the head.
This felt a lot like that.
"Nice, as in nice?" he
asked.
She returned her attention to him. "Perhaps you
could pretend the concept isn't completely foreign. Speaking of
changing, it's something you need to take on, as well. Your current
circumstances are inexcusable. You've brought shame to the family
name and humiliated yourself. Honestly, Reid, what were you thinking,
not giving your best while sleeping with a reporter? I would think,
given all your experience, you would know what you were
doing."
Until that moment, he'd never understood the idea
of wanting the earth to open up and swallow him whole. But he did
now.
His own grandmother was scolding him for not being better
in bed? Did it get any worse than that?
"I'm not having
this conversation with you," he said firmly.
"And
yet here we are. Talking." Gloria drew in a breath. "I
suspect all the accusations about disappointing children aren't your
fault. You have many flaws but being cruel isn't one of
them."
"Don't flatter me now," he muttered. "I
won't know how to take it."
"I don't plan to flatter
you. I plan to give you a few hard truths. How did the problem with
the children happen?"
He pulled up a chair and sat next
to her bed. "I don't know. I stay out of that sort of thing. My
manager, Seth, handles all of that kind of stuff, along with booking
endorsements and appearances. My accountant, Zeke, takes care of the
money. He writes checks when Seth tells him to. I don't know the
details of their day-to-day operation."
"That's your
first mistake," his grandmother told him. "It was one thing
when you were busy playing baseball, but now you don't have an
excuse. What else do you have to do with your time?"
Ouch.
"I work at the sports bar."
"Based on how much
time you've spent around here lately, I would say that job isn't a
big priority." She sighed. "Reid, you've always had it
easy. You're smart, handsome and your fastball was just as powerful
in the ninth inning as in the first."
Pod person, he
thought as he stared at her. Definitely a pod person.
"How
do you know that?" he asked.
"I would, on occasion,
watch you play. And I learned about the game. It's sports, Reid. It
wasn't difficult to pick up a few basics."
"You
never told me."
"I didn't think it mattered."
He
reached out his arm and lightly touched the back of her hand. "It
would have mattered a whole lot. It still does."
They
stared at each other. For the first time in his life, he realized his
grandmother had cared about him. It was good to know. A little scary,
but good.
She broke contact first. "This Seth fellow. He
sounds like a complete idiot. It's one thing to handle your fan mail
and requests for appearances, but it's another to screw it up
completely. What do you know about Zeke?"
"That he's
been in the business twenty years and that he's totally honest. He
won't even let his clients give him Christmas presents. We're allowed
to send a food basket to the office for the entire staff, but nothing
else. No kickbacks, no perks. Not even tickets to the game."
"Good.
Fire Seth and put Zeke in charge. You aren't going to be making any
public appearances for a while. Should the need arise, I have the
names of a couple of media people who know what they're doing and
they're not idiots."
"You're trying to run my life,"
he said, not actually annoyed by her suggestions. He knew he had to
fire Seth— he'd just been putting off the inevitable. But he
was surprised she was taking an interest.
"You can do
this," she told him. "Take responsibility. We'll change
together."
"This isn't a conversation I ever thought
we'd be having," he admitted.
Gloria smiled. "Surprise."