Sleeping With the Enemy (19 page)

Near the end of the second half, she saw
Torey Spaulding sitting in the bleachers opposite them.  She was with a woman who could have only been her sister; they shared the same hair color, the same features, the same weary, downtrodden look.  Between them, they had four children running around the sidelines, none of whom looked to be ill.  Disappointment clogged Rose’s throat.  She’d thought they were building trust, and she didn’t want to believe that Torey had lied to her.

If Torey saw her, she never acknowledged it.  When the final buzzer went off, signaling an end to the mass slaughter being perpetrated by the home team, the woman gathered up her kids, zipped up their jackets, and joined the crowd edging toward the parking lot.

Rose was so quiet on the way home that Jesse asked her what was wrong.  “I don’t know,” she said.  “I just saw a client who canceled an appointment today because her kids had the flu.  Except that tonight, they seemed to be in the bloom of good health.”

“On the other hand,” he said, his eyes focused on the road in front of him, “they could just be spreading flu germs around to half the state.”

“I suppose.”

“Stop worrying, Rose.”

“I’m not worrying.”

But it wasn’t the truth.  Not really.  That night, long after Jesse’s breathing had gone deep and even, she lay awake, thinking about Torey Spaulding and wondering why the woman had found it necessary to lie.

***

Jesse beat the school bus home by five minutes.  He was heating water for coffee when Devon breezed in and tossed her book bag on the kitchen table.  “Thanks for nothing,” she said, and opened the refrigerator.

Her hair had begun to grow back, and last week, she’d dyed the rest of it to match her dark roots.  It was a small start, but it was a start.  Jesse was smart enough to know that unless he wanted their tenuous relationship to come crashing down on his head, he’d best remain silent on the topic.  He spooned instant coffee into his cup and said in a measured tone, “Problems?”

“That girl,” Devon said, spooning yogurt from a container, “is a freaking nut case.”

He dropped his spoon in the sink.  “Amanda?”

“Who else? Suddenly, we’re like best friends.” Devon waved the yogurt for emphasis.  “She follows me around like a puppy dog.  Sits with me at lunch.  I stop at my locker, I turn around and there she is, standing behind me.  It’s creepy.”

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to set you up like that.”

“And this afternoon,” Devon fumed, “really cut it.  She sat next to me on the bus and told me she’d hold a seat for me in the morning.”

Jesse leaned against the counter and took a sip of coffee.  “I don’t think she has many friends.”

“Well, is it any wonder? She’d suck the life out of anybody who dared to get near.”

“Maybe I should find her another tutor.  You don’t have to do it if she’s making you this crazy.”

Devon pulled out a chair and sat at the table.  “It’s not that I mind helping her.  She’s kind of pathetic, you know? And she sure needs the help.  But she’s stomping all over my privacy.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

Devon shrugged and swallowed a spoonful of yogurt.  “The bus was the last straw.  I thought maybe, if you didn’t mind—” She looked up at him, suddenly very young beneath all that black eye makeup.  “I thought I could ride to school with you for a while.”

“You could always ride with the boys.” A few weeks ago, he’d bought Mikey a secondhand pickup, in which both boys now rode to school in Late-20th-Century-Male-Adolescent style, complete with rumbling tailpipe and mismatched tires.

“Please.  I’d like to get there alive.  And without having to push.”

“Sure.  You can ride with me.”

“For real?” She was trying hard to cultivate a blasé look, but he could see the pleasure peeking through.  “Cool.  Well, I have homework.  See ya.”  She shouldered her book bag and traipsed off up the stairs.

Dusk descended early on these winter afternoons.  Jesse spent an hour grading papers before the sun went down behind Nathan Dailey’s weathered dairy barn.  It was four-thirty, almost time for Rose to come home, and his stomach was growling.  He shut down the computer and wandered out to the kitchen to start supper.  Flipped on the light switch, started toward the refrigerator, and stopped short.

A three-foot-long iguana was perched on top of his refrigerator.

The iguana blinked and extended its tongue.  “Nice lizard,” he said, taking a single step backward.  The iguana raised its head and hissed at him.  “Believe me,” he told the creature, “I feel the same way.” Backing away one step at a time, he stopped in the doorway to the living room.  Still keeping one wary eye on the beast, he turned his head in the direction of the stairs.  “Luke?” he shouted.

Luke didn’t answer.  The second time, he put more force behind it. 
“Luke!”

The noise coming from upstairs abruptly ceased, and Luke thumped to his bedroom door and popped his head out.  “Yeah?” he said.

“Could you come down here a minute?”

Luke thudded down the stairs with a puzzled expression on his face.  “In the kitchen,” Jesse said.  “On top of the refrigerator.”

“Iggy! Oh, wow, you found him! Oh, man, have I been worried about you!”

From a safe distance, Jesse witnessed the touching reunion between boy and his faithful reptile.  “He’s probably hungry,” he said.  “Maybe you should take him upstairs and feed him.”

“Yeah, that’s right.  Come on, Ig, let’s get you back in your cage.  Did you freeze, boy? I bet you really missed your heat lamp.” As Luke hobbled upstairs, the iguana cradled lovingly in his arms, he shouted, “Mikey! Devon! Jesse found Iggy!”

By the time Rose got home, his palms had finally stopped sweating.  “Hi,” she said, taking off her coat.  “Geez, does that smell good.  What is it?”

“Meat loaf.  My special recipe.  Call the kids down, it’s almost ready.”

The atmosphere around the supper table was very different from that of a few nights earlier.  Almost festive, in fact.  Luke recounted to his mother the story of Iggy’s miraculous return.  “You should have seen Jesse,” he said.  “He was afraid to go near him.”

The kids were all grinning.  “Don’t pick on Jesse,” Rose said, but it was obvious that she was having as much fun with this as they were.

“I’m not picking on him,” Luke said.  “I think he was brave to face his fear.  A lesser man would have run away.”

“And leave that creature loose in my house?” Jesse said.  “I don’t think so.”

“Of course not,” Devon said.  “He might sharpen his claws on the couch.”

“Or forget where the litter box is,” Mikey said.

“I think we should award Jesse a medal for bravery,” Devon said.  “Just like the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz.”

All three of the kids hooted, and Rose snickered.  “You guys are cruel,” Jesse said as he calmly buttered a slice of bread.  “Cruel beyond belief.”

But as he gazed around at their faces, he realized something.  For the first time, they were interacting as a family.  Nobody was missing, nobody was sulking, nobody was pushing anybody else away.  This motley little band of individuals was beginning to knit together into a cohesive whole.  He met Rose’s eyes across the table.  She gave him a smile packed with surprising warmth, and he knew she’d been thinking the same thing he was.

Later that night, while he graded papers on his side of the bed, Rose reclined on a stack of pillows beside him, reading his unfinished manuscript.  He’d been surprised when she asked to read it.  Normally, nobody but the publishing people saw his books until they were bound and printed and on the bookstore shelves.  But he desperately wanted to know what she thought of it, desperately wanted to share it with her in its gestation.  It had come from inside him, and he wanted her to understand who he really was.

Jesse took off his reading glasses, lay them on the night stand, and stacked the student papers in a neat pile beside the bed.  He plumped up his pillow and lay on his side, watching Rose read, her knees drawn up high, her coppery hair spread across the pink-flowered pillowcase.  She had an incredibly expressive face, her emotions clearly readable as they danced across it.  “So,” he said.  “What do you think?”

She closed the manuscript and let out a long, satisfied sigh.  “It’s great stuff.  I just can’t get enough of that sexy Dallas Quinn.  That man is to die for.”

Dallas Quinn
.  His alter ego, the man who had turned the name of Michael Starbird into a household word.  Fearless, tough, and independent, Quinn had starred in thirteen novels, and had become something of a cultural icon.  He was a man who knew what he wanted, a man who went after it with guts and single-minded determination.  The street-smart Dallas Quinn was everything that Jesse Lindstrom was not.   

Was that the kind of man that Rose preferred? The aggressive, demanding, caveman type? A hard knot formed in the pit of his belly.  Lifting a long red curl off the pillow and toying with it, he changed the subject.  “I think Devon’s starting to like me.”

Rose set aside the manuscript and tugged up the bedcovers.  “How can you tell?”

“Today,” he said, turning to face her, “she asked if she could ride back and forth to school with me.”

Her eyebrows arched.  “Well.  It must be nice to be so high on her list.  She barely speaks to me.”

“She’s one sharp cookie, that daughter of yours.”

“A little too sharp, if you ask me.” She rolled away from him, plumped her pillow, and turned off the bedside lamp.  “Goodnight.”

With a sigh, he adjusted his own pillow and pulled up the blanket.  “Goodnight.”

***

“All-righty.” Doctor Deborah Levasseur turned away the head of the gooseneck lamp and shut it off.  “Everything looks good down here.” She pulled off her rubber gloves, tossed them in the trash, and helped Rose to remove her feet from the stirrups.  “The baby’s growing right on schedule, your weight gain is right on target, blood pressure’s a little high, but that’s not anything to be alarmed about.  Any complaints? Any cramping or bleeding? Morning sickness? Dizziness? Irritability?”

“Nothing.  I’m way past the stage where I could bite the heads off chickens.”

“How’s your appetite?”

Rose sat up and demurely folded the paper gown around her hips.  “Gargantuan.  All I do is eat.  If I keep this up, I’ll be big as a house by the time I deliver.”

The doctor listened, nodding solemnly.  “As long as you don’t gain too much weight, we won’t worry about it.  My motto is
don’t fix what isn’t broken
.” She glanced at the clipboard in her hand, skimmed down through the chart.  “You don’t smoke?”

“I quit five years ago.”

“Drink?” She glanced up through wire-rimmed glasses.

“Not since I got pregnant.”

“Good.  How’s your stress level?”

“I have a full-time job, a new husband, three teenagers, a sheep dog and an iguana.  You tell me.”

The doctor smiled.  “How’s your sex life?”

Rose raised an eyebrow.  “Pardon me?”

“Sometimes pregnancy can adversely affect a couple’s relationship.  Any problems there?”

Rose flushed.  “No,” she said.  “No problems.”

“What kind of plans have you made for the delivery?”

She adjusted the paper gown around her knees.  “What do you mean?”

“Is your husband going to be in the delivery room with you?”

She paused, completely stumped.  It wasn’t something they’d ever discussed.  With both of her other kids, Eddie had signed her into the hospital and then killed time playing poker with his buddies until the ordeal was over.  The way he acted afterward, you would have thought he’d been the one sweating and screaming.

But this was different.  Would Jesse want to be there? Would she want him to? Would he be willing to go through weeks of Lamaze classes with a bunch of couples half their age? “I have no idea,” she said honestly.  “I’ll have to talk it over with my husband.”

“You still have plenty of time to make up your minds.  But you should be thinking about it.”

She didn’t want to be thinking about it.  As a matter of fact, it was the last thing she wanted to think about.  She had more immediate concerns, such as the fact that Torey Spaulding had missed her appointment this morning.  Hadn’t shown, hadn’t called.  Rose had waited a half-hour before trying her number, only to get a recorded message saying the number she’d dialed was no longer in service.  At that point, tail tucked firmly between her legs, she’d been forced to call Geneva Spencer.  “Sorry,” Spencer said, “but around here, after two strikes, you’re out.  Your friend Torey will have to look elsewhere for work.”

She’d been mad enough then to take Torey over her knee and whale the tar out of her.  Instead, she’d taken her cup of coffee to Jim’s office and spilled her tale of woe.  “Her phone’s been disconnected.  What do you suppose that means?”

Jim leaned back in his chair, shoved aside the rubble on his desktop with one booted foot, and propped both feet on the spot he’d cleared.  “Happens all the time,” he said.  “This month they have a phone, next month it’s gone.  Prob’ly means nothing except she didn’t pay the phone company for a couple of months.”

“Let me tell you something.  Living in this godforsaken wilderness, no matter how poor I was, keeping my telephone service would be damn high on my priority list.”

“You’re a city girl.  Why, back where I come from, there’s folks haven’t ever seen a telephone, let alone used one.  They get along just fine.”

She snorted.  “This place is the far end of the earth.  There isn’t even a freaking taxi between here and Lewiston! How do people survive, cut off from the world that way?”

“Cultural differences,” he said cheerfully.

“Culture, my ass,” she said, and he grinned as she left his office.

She’d just returned from her appointment with the obstetrician when Mary Lumley stopped at her office doorway.  “FYI,” she said, “rumor has it that Torey Spaulding was seen at the IGA last night, sporting one hell of a shiner.”

“Oh, shit.”

“It’s not the first time, and it probably won’t be the last.  Somebody ought to string that man up by the pecker, but it’ll never happen.  Torey used to be a cute little thing.  Went to school with my oldest daughter.  Why she ever took up with Bud Spaulding, I’ll never know.”