Stepping Up To Love (Lakeside Porches 1) (13 page)

Manda gave him a searching look.

“I can’t tell you any more than that, and I’m sorry it’s not more reassuring,” he closed the discussion. “Where are you heading? Want company?”

“I’d love company. I’m glad you’re rested and relaxed this morning.”

“An improvement over yesterday. I apologize again. I appreciate your willingness to forgive me.”

Manda shrugged. “You know, I was thinking how freaked out I was by the lightning, and it kind of seemed like you were having a hard time just like that.”

“Lakeshore?”

She nodded.

Joel put his hands in his pockets as they walked. He wanted to talk with Manda about some of the topics Phil had identified last night, but he wasn’t sure if he had the courage.

Their route covered half a mile of residential streets to the lakefront park and a mile of gravel path along the lakeshore to a big public parking lot. One more mile of gravel path stretched beyond the parking lot, along the shore, but Joel knew from experience it was soggy with slush and mud.

He gathered courage as they walked and talked. Finally, Joel slowed his steps. “Do you know the term PTSD?”

“I’ve heard it at least a dozen times lately from everybody—my therapist, people in AA, and even Tony. I guess I have it, but they suggested I focus on the alcoholism for now. I’m mostly confused about what PTSD is.”

“Post-traumatic stress disorder is a response some people have to a traumatic or life-threatening situation, whether it’s a big one-time event or a series of threatening encounters or a chronic living situation like growing up in the middle of gang wars. You and I have both experienced trauma in one of those ways.

“The way I understand it, one of the symptoms is reliving the situation when something triggers a reminder. For me, dealing with fire triggers it, which I didn’t fully understand until you pointed it out to me.”

Manda’s eyes were wide. “You were feeling like I do sometimes; powerless, anxious, maybe angry, too?”

“Exactly. Lightning is a trigger for you, maybe for the ordeal at Kristof’s, but I think you said you’ve always been afraid of it. I’m not trying to pry.”

“That’s okay. With two alcoholic parents, our house could get pretty violent. It seems like the noise of the thunder should be the trigger, but lightning is what does it.”

“Your dad was the violent one?”

Manda nodded.

“I’m sorry you went through that.”

She shrugged. “I know I picked up attitudes and behaviors watching my mother, who just stayed in the marriage and took the abuse and drank right along with him. It probably sounds familiar.”

Joel face creased in a smile. “Like you did with Kristof.”

“Got it in one.”

“Manda, can I ask how your parents died?”

“Drunk driving accident. Lyssa was a senior in high school, and I was a junior. Our parents went out to a movie, stopped afterwards ‘for a couple’ and never made it home. When they still weren’t home in the morning, Lyssa and I called the hospitals and finally the police. They searched for a day before they found the car. The sheriff told us the car had gone off the road for no reason—no sign of braking or hazards—just went off the road and dropped through the trees into a ravine. They both died right away, and I’m grateful for that.”

Joel put his arm across her shoulders.

She gave him a smile. “And I like feeling your arm around me.”

He gave her a squeeze and let go. He really shouldn’t do that in public. Yet.

“I don’t think it would freak me out if you told me about your fire, but I understand if you don’t want to.”

Joel’s heart pounded. He took a deep breath. “Actually it might freak me out.” He laughed at himself. “I do want to tell you.” He felt Phil urging him on.

When he was quiet a while longer, Manda told him, “I’m a pretty good listener.”

“I know that.” He reached for her hand and gave it a quick squeeze. “My sister Christie was killed in a crash. I was thirteen; she was sixteen.”

“That’s horrible, Joel. I’m so sorry.”

“She was great. I am grateful we were always friends.” He took another deep breath and hoped he could tell her the rest.

Manda was quiet, listening.

“It was an accident in a heavy snowstorm. Our SUV flipped and rolled. I was thrown clear of the wreckage; no one knows how. Christie was trapped. She was conscious, calling out for help—even before the fire started—and I couldn’t do anything. Both my legs were broken. I kept yelling to her that I loved her and it would be all right, but it wasn’t all right. A fire started. She screamed, and it just killed me to be so powerless.

“When the whole car exploded, I knew it was finally over for her.” His heart was racing, and he felt tears fall from his eyes.

“Joel, I don’t know what to say. How horrible.”

He choked on a sob and, when he felt Manda’s arms come around him, he buried his face in her hair. He let her hold him and listened to her soothing voice.

“You’re okay. All of that happened a long time ago.”

Manda’s hands stroked his back, and he felt himself growing calmer. The trembling stopped at last. His head ached but no longer throbbed. He loosened his hold on her and wondered if he dared look her in the eye.

Manda’s hand brushed across his shoulder and came to rest on his cheek. The palm of her hand was soft and cool.

“I’m glad you told me, Joel. I understand better why you were so freaked yesterday.”

Joel took a steadying breath. “I will hopefully be able to see it coming if I get freaked about fire again, instead of taking it out on you or someone else.”

“I’m sure you hated that, when you realized the impact on me. And I’m fine now. We’re fine, Joel.”

“Even with a lot of therapy, this is one thing that has never gotten better,” he told her. “I guess there are some things you just never get over.”

“Right now the Kristof nightmare seems like a minor detail compared with losing your sister that way, but I hope I get over it.”

“You will.” Joel felt his whole body shudder in the aftermath of his adrenaline rush.

Manda put her arms around his waist and pressed her cool cheek against his until he stopped shaking. “I can’t imagine how you survived that mentally,” she whispered.

“I need to leave that chapter for another time,” he decided. “But the end point is—and this is probably no surprise to you—it eventually led me to AA.”

Manda loosened her arms and smiled at him. “I wondered about that.”

They walked silently, arms brushing, and finally turned and started back the way they came. “I’ve been avoiding your meetings just to give you space, but I wanted you to know.”

“Would you mind if I showed up at a meeting you’re at?”

“I don’t think so. I know you like that women’s meeting on Fridays, but there’s also a good meeting in town Fridays at seven.”

“What other meetings do you go to? Or is that it?”

“I’m an Early Riser.”

Manda waited a beat and then chuckled, “Is that the name of a meeting?”

He laughed. “Sorry, yes. Seven o’clock every morning, 365 days a year, at the bagel place downtown. There’s a back room, and about twenty of us show up most mornings.”

She checked her watch. “You would normally be there now.” She teased, “Let me guess—black coffee, whole-grain bagel dry.”

“Close. Sesame seed or sun-dried tomato. Occasionally yogurt with fresh fruit instead of the bagel.” He pointed to a little coffee shop across from the park. “I am suddenly craving coffee.”

“Sounds good to me.”

In the afternoon, Joel delivered on his promised trip to the attic to scrounge window treatments for Manda’s apartment. “You’d have liked my grandmother. This is her stash we’re raiding.”

“Your father’s mother or your mother’s mother?”

“Mother’s. She was Irish. O’Donohue by birth, from the old country, and it was said she was fey.”

Manda grinned. “I haven’t heard that term in years. It means she could see the future?”

Joel nodded. “I figured a Doughty might know what it meant.”

“And what did she read in your tea leaves?” Manda teased.

“She said I would kiss many women before I found the one.”

“Oh, I totally believe that.”

Joel reached around her to unlock the attic door.

Manda stepped through the doorway ahead of him. “Un—” she started to say and paused to run her hands across the bolts of fabric piled on shelves. “—believable,” she finished. “It’s like an upholstery shop.”

Joel laughed. “Grandmother Bridey was a fanatic decorator.”

“This fabric! I already see three bolts that are perfect for the studio.”

“How do you know about this stuff?” Joel wondered.

“My mother was really good with a sewing machine. She made all our clothes and curtains and slipcovers and yada yada. She taught us a lot. I wonder if there are supplies up here, too? It would be really easy to make Roman shades.”

Joel pointed diagonally across the space. “Check by the dormer where the sun’s coming in.”

Manda picked her way through tables, lamps, lamp shades, pillow forms, braids and trims, tassels, ottomans, and foot stools. “What did your grandmother do? Was she actually a decorator?”

“No way. She just loved changing the way things looked every couple of years. She had great taste, and my grandfather indulged her. She knew a very talented seamstress and decorator. In fact, her decorator’s daughter is the person I use for my place and for the other apartments when anything needs to be done.”

“Did your decorator set up my studio?”

Joel nodded. “So I’m not surprised you’re seeing things that will coordinate. I don’t pretend to know anything about this stuff.”

“I doubt that. You have very good taste.”

“I completely depend on people who know what they’re doing,” he confessed.

“For clothes and everything?”

“For clothes and everything. I did not inherit my grandmother’s fine taste. I’m a basic blue jeans kind of guy when I have a choice.”

Manda wondered aloud, “Then why do you have the kind of day job where you need to wear cashmere jackets and fine tailored suits?”

Joel looked across the space at her wide eyes and open face. She really didn’t know, he realized. “We’ll talk about that soon,” he promised. Manda scrunched her face in puzzlement. “I know that sounds cryptic. It’s kind of a long story,” he added as she shrugged and smiled.

They went in different directions—Joel to check for leaks from the storm, Manda to explore. The silence was broken only by Manda’s exclamations and the clinks and bumps as boxes, rods, and brackets yielded to her probing. “Yahoo!”

Manda dropped two oblong boxes on the floor and pulled a scrap of paper from her pocket. She compared her measurements with those on the packages. “Yes!”

“What’s all this?”

“I measured my four windows. These two kits will work. I need two more just like them. Can you help me look?” She pointed to the numbers on the boxes that identified the winning combination. “If I can find them, it will be a snap to make shades. Everything I need is in the kit, except the fabric.”

Joel dug through boxes and found one.

Manda found another. “Yes!” she cheered. “High five!”

She reached across the intervening boxes to meet Joel’s raised hand.

“Let’s check out fabric.” She stood up and gasped.

“What?”

She pointed. “A sewing machine. Does it work?”

“Where?” Sure enough, there was a spool of thread standing on top of a shiny black old-fashioned sewing machine. “I never noticed that.”

“It’s an old Singer Featherweight,” Manda marveled.

“Is that good?”

“They are indestructible. Can we try it out up here?”

Joel found an outlet and lugged the machine to it.

Manda folded onto her knees, fed in a scrap of fabric and worked the foot pedal with her other hand. The fabric fed through with no hesitation. The stitches were even and straight.

“Joel, it’s perfect. May I use it for a while?”

“You can have it.”

“That’s not necessary, but I’d love to use it to make the shades.”

“It has been gathering dust in this attic for more than a decade. I think.” There was no actual dust on it. “You found it. It’s yours.”

“Joel, really, I can’t just take it. But will you help me move it down to my place for now?”

“Sure. Where will you set it up?”

“Good point. Maybe there’s a little table.” She looked around her from her spot on the floor. Seeing none, she stood up and searched the perimeter of the attic.

Joel waded into the jumble of furniture, lamps, and lampshades in the middle.

“What about this?” he called to her.

He had uncovered what looked like the original stand for the sewing machine.

“You’re brilliant. It will fit just inside my door, won’t it? There’s a little straight chair there right now that I can use with it. You really don’t mind?”

“Mind?” Joel came up to her and touched her cheek.

Manda’s eyes sparkled with joy.

Everything else shifted into soft focus for Joel.

Without a moment’s thought, his mouth was on hers, and her lips parted. The kiss deepened.

Manda’s hands traveled across his shoulders and up to his silky hair. She guided his mouth to her ear, her neck, her throat.