The Perfect Family (2 page)

Grasping Jamie’s hand, she gave it a squeeze. “Didn’t leave anybody special behind, honey?”

“You’ll be the first to know.” He dug into the backpack under Maggie’s chair and drew out a slim book. “Wanna run my lines?”

She couldn’t help but smile at the child of her heart. His stunning baritone and acting talent had scored him the lead roles in all the high school plays since his freshman year. Nothing made her happier than to hear her son belt out one of his solos. Mike and Brian went to every performance, every year to cheer Jamie on.

“I’d love to run lines with you.”

“Let’s start with scene two. Where they get to Brigadoon. You play Jeff.” His dark eyes narrowed on the script. “Man, is this plot lame. An imaginary city. Falling in love in one day.”

“But you enjoy playing Tom, don’t you?”

Emotion flitted across Jamie’s face—sadness, maybe? Periodically, she caught a glimpse of that look, but every time she asked him about it, he told her he was just being thoughtful. Though she believed intellectually it was better not to push him to reveal what he wasn’t ready to talk about, as a mother, staying silent was hard. “Yeah, sure I do.”

“Jame?”

His expression lightened. “Come on, let’s do this. I’ll even sing ‘Almost Like Being in Love’ for you.”

They read lines for a half hour before Jamie said, “I’m good. I’ll be off book easy when school starts again.” He leaped out of the chair and grabbed her hand. “Come on, Mama, let’s go ride some groovy waves,” he joked.

Maggie wasn’t crazy about waves, but the guys always tried to coax her into them. “Can’t, I have to study.” She nodded to the chair.

He frowned at the book,
Gender Issues In Society
. “What’s this for?”

Maggie worked at Rochester Community College as a psychology professor. She’d taught there for twenty-two years and loved her job. “It’s part of Psychology 102. We’ve added a unit on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

“I didn’t know you were teaching that stuff.” His tone was odd.

“Don’t think it’s interesting?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Maybe to some kids. I’m all for live and let live.”

“I believe that, too. But—”

With a man’s strength, he tugged her up and started to drag her away. “No school talk, Mom.” He held her hand all the way to the shore, where the sun was so searing it hurt to look at the water.

Gretta and Amber were waist deep in the ocean when she and Jamie joined them. A wave whooshed up, knocking Maggie back. She was five-four and solidly built, but she fell down and sucked in a mouthful of salt water. She surfaced, coughing. “Yuck.”

“Gotta plant your feet, Mom,” Jamie yelled around cupped hands, just before another wave hit.

This time she came up sputtering, with hair in her eyes and seaweed tangled around her ankles. “Now you tell me.”

Fifteen minutes later, Maggie begged off and she and Gretta trudged out of the Caribbean. Amber and Jamie jogged to the shore, retrieved the Styrofoam boards they’d left there, and dove back into the ocean. The two women detoured to the swim up bar and settled in pool lounges. As the water lapped around them, they clinked glasses and knocked miniature umbrellas askew. Gretta’s blue eyes, framed by auburn hair, twinkled like jewels. “Merry Christmas, Mag.”

“To you, too.”

Maggie smiled over at the woman who’d been her best friend since they met at the college where they both taught. Maggie was the newbie in the psychology department and Gretta was a rookie in graphic arts. After a few years, Gretta quit teaching to start her own business. She ran a thriving art gallery in Rochester where she exhibited and sold her own work, as well as that of other local artists. They’d been as close as sisters for twenty-plus years and Maggie often mused if she could talk to Gretta for a half hour every day, she’d stay sane.

“This trip was a great idea, Gretts.”

“Glad you came?”

“Yeah, even if my mother started World War Three over it.”

“Gertrude Lorenzo is spending Christmas with her son Jimmy in Connecticut. And you did your duty by entertaining mom, sis, and baby brother at your house last week for a holiday. So no more bad thoughts.”

If only it were that easy. Maggie was raised in a dysfunctional family, though the term hadn’t been coined when she was growing up. Living with a chronically depressed mother and a never-at-home father with a gambling problem, all the Lorenzo children suffered from their parents’ stern outlook and exaggerated self-absorption. That view had driven them so far as to disown their oldest child Caroline when she was eighteen and Maggie eight.

“Mags?”

“You’re right. We’re in paradise and I’m going to enjoy it.”

The midday sun beat down, and as they sipped icy rum-rich piña coladas and caught a glimpse of their kids frolicking in the water, Maggie banished thoughts of her difficult upbringing, of the sister she’d lost, and concentrated on the much more pleasant here and now.

*

“Oh, God, that feels good.” Mike lay face down on a padded chaise while Maggie rubbed sunscreen on his back. As they were under a canvas awning that shielded them from the sun on the beach, she was also giving him a massage. Strong fingers dug into tight muscles, making him moan.

“I told you we didn’t need to pay eighty bucks for an appointment with the salon masseuse.” She leaned in closer and he could smell the salt and sea air on her skin. “I can finish the job up in the room, if you like.”

“I’d like.”

When she was done and moved to the other chaise, Mike stayed where he was, relishing the warm afternoon breeze drifting over his body. Maggie had worried about the expense of this trip, but he’d been determined to find the money in their budget. They didn’t make as much as the Chandlers, and had college tuition looming, but as two full-time working spouses, he and Maggie could afford the break. And she and Gretta were right. This was probably one of the last vacations their two families would take together. The thought made Mike’s heart knock hard inside his chest.

He heard the boys come up to them.

His older son said, “Man, we’re wiped. We’re going up to the room to crash.”

“Speak for yourself, Mr. Jock. I’m ready to rock,” Jamie put in.

Mike chuckled. He could picture his kids playfully socking each other in the arm, like he and his three brothers used to do. Contrary to Maggie, Mike had grown up a happy kid and adored his mother, father, and siblings. “Be sure to be ready by six for church.”

“Church? Aw, come on, Dad, this is vacation.” Brian’s voice held a whiny edge.

“All the more reason to thank God for what we have.”

A long pause, then Jamie said, “God wouldn’t care if we missed once, Dad.”

“I’d care.”

Dead quiet.

He opened an eye to see the boys had gone still and Maggie was sitting in the chair, her shoulders stiff, her head angled, which was her signal that she was unhappy. Rolling over, he sat up and straddled the lounger. “What?”

The guys glanced at their mother. He hated when they did that, waited for her to intervene with him.

“I guess I agree with them. I think we could forgo Mass down here.”

“Well, I’m on the other side of this issue, so how do we decide?”

“Three against one?” Jamie joked.

“I got a more powerful force with me, Jame.”

Maggie sank back in her chair and sighed. Her hair was up in a knot on her head and bangs accented eyes that were now filled with a familiar resentment. But she said, “All right, if it’s that important to you, I’ll go.”

He cocked a brow at the boys. They tried to let Brian and Jamie make their own decisions, but Mike encouraged them—Maggie called it pressure—to stay involved in the Catholic Church. His pastor, Father Pete, told him he was doing the right thing.

“I’ll go, too.” This from Brian.

“If I have to.” Jamie’s answer held a trace of bitterness, which Mike had come to expect in matters concerning the church.

“Then it’s settled. Go sleep now. We’ll wake you up in time to dress.”

The boys headed to the hotel and Mike turned to his wife. Now her expression was inscrutable. “Thanks for backing me on this.”

“I don’t want to spoil our trip, Mike. But at some point, we need to talk about
this
.”

“You’re moving away from the Catholic Church.” He’d found out inadvertently that one Sunday when he was away on business she’d attended a Unitarian church in downtown Rochester. They’d had a major fight about it, and the issue was still unresolved.

“So is Jamie.”

“Because of
you
.”

“No, because his rational thinking and liberal beliefs are in stark contrast to your church.”

“It breaks my heart, Mag. I’ve been praying about it.” He took her hand in his. It was soft, small, supple, like the rest of her. He loved every inch of this woman, even her faults. “But let’s wait till we get home to hash this out.” He ran his fingers over hers. “The guys are right about one thing. There’s plenty of time for a nap before Mass.”

She smiled like she had when they first met at SUNY Geneseo. She’d been running around the track and lost her footing. He’d come up behind her and saved her from falling. She joked that he’d continued that role all their lives together. They’d married as soon as they graduated, then moved back to Sherwood, a small town on the west side of Rochester, New York, where Mike had grown up, near his mother and father, her sister, and two hours away from her parents.

“Okay. Let’s go up to the room and finish that massage.”

“Music to my ears.” He winked at her. “We were
so
right to get the boys their own rooms.”

With a surge of energy, Mike bounded off the chaise and grabbed their towels and bag. He tugged Maggie up and she nestled into his chest. They made their way to the room, their differences forgotten in the warm glow of the Caribbean sun and anticipation of sexual closeness.

*

The inside of the Mexican cantina could have been a Warner Brothers movie set. Jamie expected to see Brad Pitt saunter through the swinging doors and shuffle across the sawdust floors. The three-piece band played some Mexican sonatas, and the smell of free-flowing booze and cheap beer permeated the air. The place was packed with mostly people his own age and of varying ethnic backgrounds, but there were a lot of
gringos
here. Apparently, this bar was the hot spot for kids vacationing in Cancun. Amber sat at the table with him, her third shot of tequila in front of her. Brian had downed a shitload of those and had moved on to a pitcher of beer. As always, Jamie was the designated driver of the van their families had rented.

Amber motioned to Bri, who was dancing with a little Mexican beauty. “Heather isn’t gonna like that.”

Stretching his legs in front of him, Jamie shook his head. “I don’t get him. He mooned over her for two days, and now he’s drooling over some other hottie.”

“It’s the male gene, buddy.” Amber, who was twenty-one, treated him and Brian like brothers because they’d been raised together. “Except for you. You been pretty tight with Julianne for years.”

He sipped his Coke. “We’re good friends.”

“No romance in your life?”

“Maybe.” He hated everybody drilling him about not dating. Hell, a lot of the kids he hung out with, from the play especially, hadn’t hooked up with anybody either. “I don’t kiss and tell,” he said playfully.

“Hmm.” Amber scanned the bar and Jamie watched her. Talk about a hottie. Her curly brown hair, currently with red highlights, framed a flawless face with slate blue eyes. “Hey, Jame, that
chica
’s eying you.”

“Where?”

“By the wall. The one in the pink skirt.”

The girl in question smiled at him. He smiled back. Her looks were classic—chiseled facial features, waist-length, midnight-colored hair—and Jamie could appreciate the package in a detached sort of way. She headed over when she caught him checking her out. He pasted on a grin.

“¿Usted desea bailar?”
she asked. He didn’t need Amber—who was majoring in Spanish—to translate for him.

“Sí, señorita.”

Jamie took her hand, escorted her to the floor and began to dance which, contrary to most guys, he was good at. The music relaxed him and soon he forgot that this was just another one of his performances.

*

The Cancun airport was jam packed when they arrived Tuesday morning for the early flight home. Announcements over the PA system and the excited buzz of travelers filled the open space. Gretta’s family had gone ahead of them in line. Maggie, Mike and the boys had shown their IDs and answered the standard questions. Then the computer at their counter had frozen and the guys went to sit while Maggie and Mike waited for the boarding passes and baggage claims to print out.

Sliding an arm around her, Mike tugged her close. His dark blond hair had been bleached by the sun, and his tan made his blue eyes stand out. “The vacation was great, wasn’t it?”

She nosed into him, inhaling the familiar scent of his aftershave. Though there had been blips in the past week, she felt really close to him now. “It was nice having some alone time, too.”