Slow Moon Rising (19 page)

I pushed my backside out. Nothing curvy there either. Not even close. I turned to face the mirror, extended my arms wide. I wore a baby pink cotton gown with little girl lace across the bodice. I wondered what Bunni wore to bed at night. Probably some little number, some little lacy teddy, if she wore anything at all. Something I could never bring myself to wear, not even in my younger days.

I frowned at my image. I'd had no trouble whatsoever wearing a skimpy bikini when I was sixteen and trying to impress Steven. Why, then, had I become such a . . . a prude in the privacy of my bedroom
?

No. I wasn't a prude. I just liked what I liked. And I liked to sleep comfortable. Was there anything wrong with that? I didn't like enhanced body parts. God had made me just the way I was.

I flipped off the bathroom light, walked into the bedroom and over to my side of the bed. As quietly as possible, I pulled the cover back, sat, lay down, and pulled the sheet and comforter back over me in one movement. A full minute must have passed before I realized I was holding my breath.

I exhaled slowly. Closed my eyes. Forced my shoulders and back to relax into the soft tufts of the mattress.

“Hey,” Charlie said from the other side of the bed.

I opened my eyes, stared at the ceiling. “Hey,” I said back.

“You ready to listen now?”

“What is there to say, Charlie?”

Charlie rolled over to face me. With a single movement his arm reached across the distance between us, caught my waist, and pulled me to him as though I were a rag doll.

“Charlie . . .”

“Listen,” he whispered in my ear.

His voice told me his teeth were gritted together. He was as determined to speak as he was that I would hear.

I pushed against him to put distance between us but didn't return to my side of the bed. “I'm listening.”

“You're going to feel foolish.”

I turned my eyes toward him. “Am I?”

“Do you know what Bunni does for a living?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

He moved closer. Propped his elbow on the mattress, his head in his hand. I could smell soap and cologne. Toothpaste and mouthwash.

“She works in a bar. As a bartender.” I heard the holier-than-thou tone in my voice and inwardly cringed.

“That's right. Two kids. An ex-husband who plays ‘hit and miss' with his child support payments. She's busting her behind to keep her head above water six nights a week while her mother watches her sons. In fact, she was leaving the game, leaving the joy of watching her son play, so she could get to work on time.”

I raised myself onto my elbows. “Charlie, I appreciate all that, but it doesn't account for her hands on your body and your lips on her mouth.”

His right hand crept toward me; he laid it flat against my stomach. “You aren't listening, Boo. You're talking.”

“I am too listening.”

“She came to see me a couple of days ago.”

“Where?”

“At work.”

“What?”

“She came to ask me for a job.”

“A job?” I sat up fully. Charlie's hand was left resting on my thighs.

“Mmmhmm.” He looked up at me. “She needs the extra work. The economy being what it is, her tips are down. She's willing to work day and night. I told her I'd have to talk to Dad first, which I did, and then I called her earlier today and offered her a job. That's it. That's why she . . . she kissed me. It was just a show of appreciation.”

I took a minute to think it through. The way she'd approached him. How she'd turned her face up to his. Put her hands on him as though she were comfortable with the intimacy of it. “Charlie,” I said slowly, “she shouldn't be touching you the way she did. I'm
not
comfortable with that.
Surely you can understand . . . you wouldn't want another man touching
me
like that.”

His finger drew lazy circles on my leg. Tickling. Enticing me to see this from his perspective. “I know. And you're right about not wanting another man to touch you. Just so you know, I'm not comfortable with what Bunni did either. I didn't really want to . . . to kiss her. She walked up, touched me the way she did, and said, ‘I'm so thrilled I could kiss you.' I know I should have stepped back. I should have said something to discourage her. She just caught me off guard is all.”

“Charlie . . .”

“I love you, Boo. You know that. And I'm sorry for blowing up at you earlier. I'd had a pretty bad day—one of my best guys quit on me, just up and quit. Dad was being difficult—and that just kind of topped it all off. All I wanted was to come to the game, sit next to my wife, watch my son play, and then take in dinner somewhere with my family. I'm sorry.”

I slid downward until my body was snuggled up against his, drawing my nightgown into a bunch around my hips. As he wrapped his arms around me, I kissed his jaw. “I really,
really
don't like the idea of her working for you.” I nibbled at his ear. “But I do feel silly, and I appreciate your being thoughtful enough to give her a job.”

“You're killing me here.”

“Good,” I teased.

“If it's any consolation, she's working on one of the landscape teams. I'll hardly see her.” His embrace grew more intense.

“You're a good man, Charlie Brown,” I whispered. “Now
why don't you go over there and close our bedroom door like a good boy.”

I was able to live in the fantasy of my hope for another month. Weeks of things being just fine. And when I didn't see Bunni at practice or at the games, I refused to allow myself to even think about the fact that she was working—somewhere—for my husband.

For him.

Not
with
him.

And then Heather called. Said she needed to see me. That we needed to talk.

“This isn't about Anise, is it? Because, Heather, I'm really tired of the way you treat her. Especially after she gave you a job last year so you could get yourself out of hot water.”

“Ugh. No. This isn't about Anise.”

I sat cross-legged on my bed. It was early on a Saturday morning. The boys were still asleep, a load of clothes was going in the washer, and Charlie had gone to work. An extra job he'd hoped to get one of his brothers—all the Tucker boys worked for their parents' landscape and design firm—to take but had been unsuccessful.

I smiled, remembering our earlier conversation. He'd said, “Then again, it's an extra paycheck in our account. What's say we take the extra money and take the boys on a Disney cruise?”

I'd inhaled so fast I'd nearly swallowed my tongue.

“Yes!”

Even now, listening to my sister, it was at the forefront of my mind. A four-night cruise with “my boys.”

“So, what do you say? Meet me for brunch?”

“Ah . . . no. I can't. Charlie is at work and the boys are in bed.”

“Then I'll come over.”

I glanced around the bedroom. My eyes rested on one of the 16-by-20 black and whites of Chase and Cody my mother had taken not too long after Cody's birth and shortly before her death. “Well, sure. I guess. I can make coffee.”

“That's fine.”

I went downstairs, prepared the coffee, then went to the front of the house to wait for Heather's car to come into the driveway. When it did, I opened the door and watched her walk toward the house, sundress swishing around her. I ushered her into the kitchen and poured us two mugs of steaming coffee.

Heather looked resplendent sitting at the breakfast nook table with the sun spilling through the bay windows. Her hair has always been more white than blonde. Bombshells from the forties and fifties would have given their next MGM paycheck to have had hair like hers.

Not that she appreciated it. My hair is more dirty blonde than blonde. Somewhere between her twelfth and thirteenth year, Jayme-Leigh's turned to copper and Ami's had always been light brown. But Heather's . . . she was born a towhead and, from the looks of it, she'd die a towhead. A not-to-be-tamed, curly-headed towhead.

I joined her with the cream and sugar and two spoons.

She prepared her coffee. I did the same. She took a sip, swallowed hard, and then ran her right index finger around the rim of the mug.

“So what's going on, Heather?”

She wrapped her fingers around the mug, ran them over the top, and then back to the sides. “I'm just going to say this.”

For a brief moment, I thought I could smell alcohol on her breath. It seemed to me I'd been able to do that more and more lately. Then again, it could have been some strong mouthwash. “Seems serious. Is it something with Andre?”

“No. Not Andre.”

“The kids?”

“No.”

I waited. When she said nothing, I added, “Dad?”

“No.” She took a deep breath. “Charlie is having an affair with Bunni Berno.” The eight words were spoken as one.

I started to laugh. “No, he's not.”

She reached across the table, placed her hand on my arm. Locked her eyes with mine. “Yes. He is. And I'm furious with myself. I should have listened to you when you tried to tell me. I should have paid more attention to your needs rather than my own. I should have—”

“No, Heather! Listen. He wasn't having an affair then either. I was mistaken. He just went to hang out with some of the boys after work. He explained it to me.”

“Kim, no. I swear to you, I'm telling you the truth.”

I slammed my hands against the table. “It's not true!”

“I'm awful to come and tell you this, but I'd be even more awful if I didn't. You're my sister. I love you. But Charlie . . . Charlie is making a fool of you. Of this marriage.”

I balled my hands into fists. Shook them at her. “
How
do you know this?”

She closed her eyes, opened them. Pushed her mug of nearly
untouched coffee away. “Bunni is a friend of a friend. Well, sort of a friend. Someone I know. And she's talking.”

“Bunni or the . . . friend?”

“Bunni. To the woman I know. The woman I know doesn't know you and I are sisters and she . . . she thinks this is pretty . . . well, wonderful that
her
friend got such a catch.”

My insides quaked. I felt cold on the inside, but my skin broke out in a sweat. Charlie. With Bunni. He'd lied . . . lied a month ago. Had he lied last year as well?

“What . . . what else do you know?” I ran my fingers through my hair, rested my forehead against the pad of the palm.

“Boo, I'm sorry.”

I jerked my head up. Tears spilled down my cheeks. “What. Else. Do you know?”

“He's with her now. My friend—you don't know her—”

“You've said that.”

“Oh. Well, she told me they've been hanging out after work. And they've been planning this . . . um . . . day. Together. For a while.”

“Did she say where they were going to be?”

“The Peabody.”

“On I Drive?”

She squirmed. “I'm not sure there's another one.”

I left the table, rummaged around in the pantry for the Yellow Pages I never used anymore but could never bring myself to throw away, brought it back to the table, and dropped it on the glass top. I jerked it open, flipped the thin, mustard-colored pages until I found the number for the Peabody.

“What are you going to do?” Heather asked.

“I'm going to call.”

She stood. Put her hand on mine. “Kim, wait. Think this through.”

I brought my eyes to hers. “You're right. That's too easy, and it probably wouldn't work.”

I left the room, ran up the stairs—careful to walk quietly past the boys' bedrooms—and into mine, where I'd left my cell phone lying on the bed. Heather was right behind me. “What are you going to do?” Heather asked again, keeping her voice quiet.

“Close the door.”

She did. “What are you going to do?” She was beginning to sound like a parrot.

“I'm calling him from my cell phone.”

“Where? At the hotel?”

“No, on
his
cell phone.”

Heather sat on the bed while I stood next to my side. I dialed the familiar number, waited through four . . . five . . . six rings.

“You don't really think he's going to answer, do you?” she asked.

But he did. Before the seventh ring. “Hey, babe.”

He sounded breathless. But that could have been my imagination. “Hey,” I said back. I took in a deep breath. Forced myself to remain calm. Still, my insides shook. “I don't mean to bother you. I know you're busy.” I wrapped my free arm around myself.

He laughed. A chuckle. I think it was a chuckle. “That's okay. You caught me at a good time.”

I had? “I did?”

Heather drew herself up to her knees. Tucked the sundress under her legs. Sat back on her feet.

“Yeah,” he said. “I just took a break. Sitting in the car, drinking some water.”

I pictured him sitting behind the wheel of his SUV, sweaty water bottle in his hand, tipping it back to swallow one swig in succession of another. And another. Maybe Heather was wrong.

“Kim?”

“Oh. Yeah. I just wanted to say that I love you. I can't wait to take that cruise with the boys.”