The Red Hat Society's Acting Their Age (21 page)

“I kissed somebody.” Rachel blinked down at her hands. “I suck at it.”

The women fell silent. Finally Mia said, “Everyone does the first time, Rach.”

“I remember when Roy and I first kissed.” Aggie sounded wistful. “We were in the swing on my parents’ front porch. I was scared to death and stiff as beef jerky. I think Roy was nervous, too. He pressed his mouth against mine so hard, I leaned my head way back and the swing tipped until we almost fell over.”

After the laughter died down, Leanne had Rachel step back, sized up the halter on her then said, “Please tell me Roy wasn’t your first kiss, Aggie.”

“No, he was my second. And my last.”

Leanne looked as shocked as she might’ve if Aggie had just admitted to an affair. “That’s like buying shoes after trying on only two pairs in a whole store full of Jimmy Choos.”

“I think you should be real worried, Aggie,” Mia said. “Especially since the marriage has only lasted, what . . . forty-seven years?” She glanced at Rachel. The girl watched them, her attention shifting from one woman to the other. “You’re sure quiet.”

“I
so
can’t picture y’all young.”

Mia laughed. “Believe it or not, I once wore a halter top that looked a lot like that.”

Rachel turned to the mirror over the dresser and studied her reflection. “I
totally
love this material you picked out, Leanne.”

“It looks good on you, Packrat.” Leanne glanced at the other two women. “Rachel laid out the pattern and cut the fabric herself. Didn’t she do a good job?”

They agreed, and Rachel looked proud of herself.

Mia swung her feet over the side of the bed. “I have an idea. Meet me in the living room, girls. I’ll be right back.”

In the upstairs attic, Mia searched the shelves for the old movie projector and screen she’d inherited from her parents. While she did, she thought of Cade and their evening together. She could’ve told Leanne that he was a natural when it came to kissing. That he kissed like a man who’d had plenty of experience at it. Yet at the same time, he made her feel as if, out of all the kisses he’d ever had, hers was the only one that mattered.

Mia thought of her own first kiss and smiled. In all the best ways, Cade’s kiss had been like that one. The feelings he stirred in Mia both frightened and thrilled her. Made her think maybe, just maybe, she might recapture the joy in her life that had all but disappeared after losing both Christy and Dan. For far too long, she had not been able to recall how spontaneity felt. Letting go. The anticipation of good things ahead. Tonight, Cade had brought that all back to her.

She finally located the projector and screen and, twenty minutes later, had everything set up in the living room downstairs. Digging through a box of film reels in round metal canisters, she found one labeled “1972.”

Several minutes passed before she figured out how to thread the film through the projector. Mia wasn’t sure she’d ever operated the thing by herself. In the early years of her marriage, before video cameras came into being and the projector was packed away to gather dust, Dan took charge of their old home movie viewings.

Aggie flicked off the lights then headed for the couch.

Mia hit the projector switch. The machine
click-click-clicked
like fingernails on a computer keyboard as the reels began turning and static filled the screen. She settled at the opposite end of the couch from Leanne, with Aggie between them. Rachel sprawled on the floor at their feet.

The static gave way to a jerky off-color image, then it was senior year all over again. Young men and women in caps and gowns filled the high school gymnasium. A girl with straight, dark hair to the center of her back walked across stage, accepted a diploma from a middle-aged man, then turned and smiled into the camera.

“Is that you, Mia?” Disbelief rang in Rachel’s voice.

“Lord, what a sweet face.” Aggie shook her head.

Mia laughed. “Underneath that gown, I wore a mini skirt that barely covered my butt.”

Rachel sat up straighter. “You’re, like, really pretty.” She glanced back at Mia, studied her, as if trying to find the girl on the screen.

“I was almost eighteen.”

The scene shifted, the screen went black a second then flickered bright again. The picture panned wide to encompass the entire gym. A hundred or so black caps soared toward the ceiling like ravens in flight.

Another shift. The picture narrowed in, focusing on specific faces.

“Oh, look . . . is that Cade on the left?” Mia pointed, but the camera moved. “Shoot. He’s gone now.”

Leanne sat forward. “Look at Eddie. He’s so handsome it hurts.” Mia heard a hitch in her friend’s voice before Leanne laughed and added, “And he’s grinning like a fool.”

A bleached blonde girl ran up to Eddie. The two hugged before she turned to the camera and waved.

Laughter erupted in Mia’s living room. “Leanne, look at you!” Aggie and Mia shrieked at the same time.

Rachel giggled. “Oh, man. It looks like black widow spiders are attacking your eyeballs.”

“Those are false eyelashes, goofball. They were
the thing
, for your information.” Leanne burst out laughing, too. “Why didn’t somebody tell me how horrible they looked?”

Aggie wiped away tears of laughter. “You think you would’ve listened? More than half the girls in school had spider eyes, too.”

“Your hair’s almost the same color mine was before we covered the blonde,” Rachel murmured, turning to Leanne. “I sort of look like you did in high school, don’t I? You could be my mother.”

When Leanne locked eyes with Rachel, Mia saw her friend’s startled, yet pleased, expression. “Maybe we look a little alike, Packrat,” Leanne said softly. “But you’re a lot prettier than I was.”

The scene moved outside the building to the courtyard. Mia recalled that warm Saturday afternoon in May. Watching the captured memory, she almost felt the heat of the sunshine on her face, the charge of anticipation in the air. She almost smelled the rosebushes that had lined the courtyard flowerbeds, and heard the excited chatter of young voices.

“Oh . . .” Aggie pointed at the screen. “There’s Jimmy. And Roy.”

Aggie’s husband looked robust, healthy, and as full of bluster as ever. He sauntered up beside his son and slapped Jimmy on the back.

“He’s so thin,” Mia murmured.

“And look at all that hair,” Leanne added.

Suddenly, Aggie appeared on screen. Tiny, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, she joined her family.

“Oh, my heavens,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest. “Look at that beehive.”

Overcome by a sudden swell of tenderness, Mia squeezed Aggie’s arm. “You’re gorgeous. How old were you? Thirty-four?”

Aggie nodded. “Something like that.”

On the screen, Leanne and Eddie joined the Cobbs. Leanne waved at someone beyond the camera, motioned them over. Seconds later, Mia and her mother entered the group. Mia recalled that her father held the camera.

She remembered, too, that her friendship with Leanne had taken root that year. The accident had occurred the summer before, and Leanne didn’t spend much time with her old crowd anymore.

The group on screen smiled, waved and laughed, their arms around one another’s shoulders.

Watching from the couch, Mia’s breath caught when young Leanne and Eddie exchanged a lingering glance. It was quick and subtle, but filled with such tender sadness her heart ached. All those years before, she’d noticed that look between them, too. And understood. So had Aggie.

In 1972, standing in the high school courtyard, seventeen-year-old Mia took hold of Leanne’s hand while Aggie placed a palm on her shoulder. The three of them connected, just like now.

On the couch, they touched again, linked hands and hearts. Mia glanced at the women beside her, their faces older, their souls wiser. They didn’t speak; words weren’t necessary.

Maybe, over time, they had begun to take their friendship for granted. But the connection that started in another time had never broken.

Leanne dressed for bed that night with a change of heart about the situation with Eddie. No, he shouldn’t have followed her. Yes, she was irritated that he had. But watching the old graduation movie had reminded her of more than the fact that she’d worn too much makeup in high school. She remembered what was most important to her. Her friendships.

And her husband.

More than once, she and Eddie had been to hell and back, side by side. Even when at odds, they’d survived every time because they’d at least
tried
to stay honest with one another. Sometimes they had to set each other straight, but not like this. The battle of wills between them now was silly and senseless. Maybe Mia was justified in not trusting Cade with the truth about Rachel, but Leanne couldn’t justify deceiving her husband. Not anymore. Not about anything. She owed it to Eddie to give him the benefit of the doubt. To trust that he would not try to overrun their decisions.

She loved Mia and Aggie, the strength she drew from them, the richness they added to her life. She wished she could uphold her promise to them about the secret without betraying her husband, but she couldn’t. They would have to understand. They had to allow Eddie into their circle. Leanne should have insisted on that from the start.

She wouldn’t deceive Eddie another day. About Rachel . . . or about her need to bring a child into their home. It was a need she’d always possessed, but had put aside due to an insecure fear that she wouldn’t be a fit mother. Her realization at Christmas that she and Eddie would grow old alone had brought the need back. Then Rachel showed up, and it grew even stronger.

Stretching and yawning, she climbed into one of the twin beds in the room that had once belonged to Mia’s two sons.

In the matching bed across the way, Aggie tossed and turned.

“Goodnight, Ag.”

“’Night, sugar. You ever reach that Oberman woman?”

“No. She’s either out of town or she doesn’t want to talk to us. Mia and I together must’ve left at least ten messages on her machine. She’s starting to feel like a lost cause.”

Aggie sighed. “What now? You have any more ideas on what we can do to save that poor girl?”

“I’m working on it, Aggie. Don’t give up yet.” Leanne switched off the lamp on the table between the beds.

“Leanne?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry we laughed at you in that film. I think you were pretty in high school.”

Leanne smiled into the darkness. “Pretty what, Ag?”

“Pretty wonderful. I may not have given birth to you, but you’re my daughter. You know that, don’t you?”

“I know,” Leanne answered, touched and thankful. “And you’re like a mother to me.”

Knowing what she had to do tomorrow, Leanne closed her eyes. As she succumbed to sleep, Rachel’s words drifted like a velvet whisper through her mind.

”You could be my mother
. . .
”

Chapter 16

W
hen Leanne awoke the next morning, Aggie’s bed was made, the spread smoothed and tucked, the pillow plumped and in the sham.

Leanne looked at the clock. Eight forty-five
A.M.
She had not heard Mia and Aggie leave for the coffee shop. She guessed Rachel still slept, since the house was quiet.

Padding barefoot across the hall, she peeked into Christy’s room. As expected, Rachel’s eyes were shut, her breathing soft and even in the sun-dappled room.

Leanne tucked the blanket around her and smiled. If she didn’t know better, she’d think the kid was an angel.

Hope swept through Leanne. Maybe it would be possible to have her and Eddie’s foster parenting credentials reinstated without repeating the long process of approval. That could take months. She didn’t want to wait so long. Already, she cared too much for Rachel to give her up.

But how should she broach the issue with Eddie? Just telling him that she’d been helping Mia hide Rachel would be difficult enough. Would he balk at the idea of parenting a teenager? Even if she explained how much Rachel meant to her? Twenty years ago, they’d talked about fostering a baby, not an older child.

She wished there was more time to talk to the proper authorities and find out the possibility of reinstatement before she brought up the subject. But time was running out. Today was the day she had to come clean with Eddie.

After a final look at the tiny girl snuggled beneath the blankets, Leanne turned away from the bed. She decided to go out front for the paper and start the coffee before waking Rachel.

Before she stepped from the room, she spotted the pink suede boots on the floor beside the closet door. She’d admired those spiked heel, pointy-toed beauties in Jesse’s display window more times than she could count. Leanne tiptoed over, picked them up and fell in love.

Taking the boots with her, Leanne headed for the kitchen where she sat and slipped them on. They didn’t exactly go with the black “Property of Muddy Creek Cowboys” jersey she had worn to bed, which had belonged to one of Mia’s boys. Still, Leanne was crazy about them.

Humming an off-key rendition of “These Boots Are Made For Walking,” Leanne strutted to the front door and unlocked it. She poked her head out. The newspaper boy had actually managed to land the paper close to the porch. She’d have to tell Eddie to give the kid a raise. The plastic-covered morning edition lay just three or four steps down the walkway.

Leanne scanned the neighborhood left to right. No neighbors in sight. Not even nosy Buck Miller from next door. Shivering, she stepped out, ventured another step, then another. Crisp morning air raised goose bumps on her bare arms and legs. The snow, a constant presence on the ground since before Christmas, lay in patches now, adorning the shadiest yards like shrinking meringue on a pie.

Stooping, Leanne grabbed the paper. When she stood again, she noticed the bushes rustle in front of the house across the street. She paused and frowned. Someone hid in the narrow space between the Thurmans’ two tall evergreens.

Pretending not to notice, Leanne turned and walked back to Mia’s porch. At the front door, she swung around in time to see Eddie step from the Thurmans’ bushes and into their yard, a camera in his hand.