Things Remembered (2 page)

“Enough,” Karla said. “If you wanted my attention, you've got it.”

“I'm sorry. It's just that this is so hard. You tried to hide it, but I know what you were hoping for when you asked Jim to take over for you while you're gone.”

“For cryin' out loud, Heather, would you please stop beating around the bush and tell me what's going on? Whatever it is, it can't be as bad as I'm imagining.”

Still Heather hesitated, her lips moving as if practicing what she would say, but no words coming out. Finally, in a monotone rush, she blurted, “Jim isn't running the shop by himself.”

The statement was so far from what she'd anticipated, at first Karla didn't know how to respond. “You mean he's hired more help?” But that didn't make sense—she'd only been gone three days, and it was the off season in Solvang. October was the month she set aside to catch up on the paperwork she'd let slide during the tourist rush of summer. There was hardly enough work for the two women she had working part-time.

“He brought a woman with him.”

Karla was sure she'd heard Heather wrong. “What do you mean
with
him?”

“I don't know for sure, but my guess would be that he had her hiding out at one of the motels while you were still there, then moved her in as soon as you left.”

“Moved her in?” she repeated inanely. “Are you saying Jim has someone—a woman—living with him? At my house?”

Heather nodded. “The story he's telling is that she decided she couldn't be without him for a whole month so she quit her job in Los Angeles and showed up on his, uh,
your
doorstep this morning. He didn't want you to hear about it from someone else, so he called to tell you himself. Only you weren't here, so he told me. Of course, if he'd really wanted to tell you himself he would have waited until tonight to call.”

She was such a fool. Hanging on for two and a half years believing Jim would wake up one morning and realize he couldn't live without her. Asking him to take care of the shop had been a stupid, desperate ploy to bring him back into her life. Her only sanctuary from the embarrassment was that she hadn't told anyone, not even Heather, how she felt.

“I don't see what difference it makes whether he has someone with him or not.” Karla almost choked on the words. “I hired him to take care of the shop. That's all I have any right to expect.”

“He's got her in your
house
, Karla. They're sleeping in your
bed.”

“Thanks for pointing that out. I doubt I could have figured it out for myself.”

“She didn't just show up, they had this planned all along.”

“You've said that twice now. What's your point?” All her life she'd used anger to hide pain. It seemed so obvious to Karla, but no one had ever made the connection. Everyone, her sisters included, simply believed her short-tempered and humorless. “If you're right, and I'm not saying you aren't, what do you suggest I do about it?”

“Throw him out. Make him find someplace else to stay.”

“And what if he says it would be a pain in the ass for him to have to find another place and that if I insist he move out, he'll pack up and go back to Los Angeles? What would I do then, Heather?”

“There has to be someone else you could get to run the shop. It's only a month.”

It was useless to try to explain. In her entire twenty-nine years, Heather had never had to face a crisis alone. There had always been someone ready to help with any difficulty encountered. From the moment she'd let out her first scream in the delivery room she'd attracted problem-solvers the way a full moon attracted crazies. Heather couldn't conceive of how hard it would be to find someone reliable to run the shop for “only a month.”

“I don't have the time to find someone else. It's not as if Anna is going to wait around while I get my life in order. If I'm going to do this, I have to do it now.” Finally, a point Heather couldn't argue.

“You could put a sign on the window saying you're taking a well-deserved vacation and will be back before Thanksgiving—four weeks isn't that long. I'll bet most of the people around there wouldn't even know you were gone.”

“What if you're wrong? Then what? Are you going to come down and haul my regular customers out of the other coffee shops they've switched to and back into mine? People are creatures of habit, Heather. Four weeks is a long time.”

“You don't have to get nasty. I'm just trying to help.”

Heather's world revolved around Bill and their two children. She'd gone straight from college to marriage, her work experience outside the home limited to the part-time jobs she'd taken for spending money. Karla softened her tone and tried to explain. “I've worked hard to build a base of repeat business. I can't take a chance that I might lose it and have to start all over again.”

“No one switches loyalties that fast. Once they see you're open again, they'll come back.”

Heather didn't have a clue what Karla was up against in her business, and there was no way to make her understand. She gave up and moved on. “You may be right, but it doesn't matter. As long as Jim doesn't try to charge me for her time, I don't give a damn who he brings in to work with him.”

“Yeah, right. And you don't give a damn that he's screwing her brains out in your bed either. That's assuming she has any brains, which I doubt, or she wouldn't have gotten hooked up with Jim in the first place.”

“The way I did?”

“You know that's not what I meant.”

“It's past history. He can do whatever he wants in my bed. I've—”

“That's not the way you felt three years ago.”

“Please—don't hold back,” Karla snapped. “Let me know what you really think.” If Heather hadn't shown up for an unexpected visit the day Karla and Jim split for good and he moved out, Karla would never have told her about his affairs. She would have said something about irreconcilable differences and left it at that. But she'd been vulnerable that day and had needed someone to talk to. She'd told Heather everything, knowing it was a mistake the minute the words were out of her mouth.

Karla hadn't wanted or needed her friends and family to take sides after the divorce. She'd never believed any marriage survived or failed on the actions of one partner alone, and she refused to accept what appeared to be the obvious and easy answer when it came to Jim's infidelities. Jim was bright, and caring, and had been unfailingly loving and considerate with her. He'd worked as hard at making the coffee shop a success as she had. Only, as she'd discovered three years into the marriage, when he'd taken off in the afternoons to attend community affairs, there had been no community, only an affair.

What she'd never shared with Heather were her personal doubts. Maybe if she'd tried harder to please Jim, had been more adventuresome in the bedroom during the marriage, he wouldn't have looked elsewhere to fulfill his needs. But when she came home and discovered him in their bed with another woman, there was no turning back.

“As I was about to say,” Karla went on. “I've been thinking about trading my king-size bed in for a double anyway. It would give me more room, and the sheets are cheaper. Jim bringing his girlfriend just gave me the push I needed.”

“When you end up with lemons, make lemonade, huh?” Heather said.

“If you want to look at it that way.”

“Do me one favor.”

“What now?”

“Deduct the cost of the new bed from his final paycheck.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief at the suggestion.

Karla would have laughed but was afraid if she let one emotion go another would follow. Reason should have dulled the disappointment or at least numbed the pain, but she'd allowed the hope that she and Jim could work things out between them to ride too high too long for it to be brought down so easily. “I think I could manage that. Thanks for the idea.”

Heather took the salad out of the refrigerator. “I'm sorry, Karla. I know you don't want to hear any more, but I can't believe you're going to let him get away with this without fighting back.”

“Why should I care who he's living with? I'm over him. I have been for a long time now.” Finally she sounded convincing, even to herself. Maybe Heather would let it go if she added just a little more. “I admit it would have been nice if he'd been more up-front about the whole thing, but then that's not Jim's style. It never has been.”

They seemed to be the words Heather needed to hear. “You know, Jim doing this could be a blessing in disguise. Maybe all you needed was for him to do one more really shitty thing to prove he was never going to change. Now you can really get on with your life instead of simply going through the motions and telling everyone you are.”

“Tell you what—I'll get on with my life if you get on another subject.” Karla took the salad bowl and headed for the dining room.

“I didn't say that to hurt your feelings. You know as well as I do—”

The front door opened. “We're home,” Bill called out.

“We got ice cream,” Jamie shouted as he tore through the living room. “And cookies.”

“I hope you got the salad dressing, too,” Heather said, reaching for the brown bag Jamie held aloft.

Bill came in with the three-year-old, Jason, tucked under his arm. “It smells great in here.” He gave Heather a quick kiss, smiled at Karla, and lowered Jason to the ground. He instantly attached himself to Heather's legs. “Daddy let us ride the horsey. Two times. I got to go all by myself because Jamie was being mean.”

Thankful for the distraction and for having the focus shifted to something other than herself, Karla busied herself filling glasses with water and milk and putting hot pads on the table for the lasagna.

Chapter

2

D
inner was lively and full of childhood chatter as both Jamie and Jason fought for their parents' and Karla's attention. When a lull finally appeared, Bill took advantage of it to ask Karla, “How did the car buying go?”

At the last minute, Karla had made an inconvenient detour to L.A. in response to Grace's impassioned plea for help. It seemed that it had suddenly become critically necessary for their little sister to have a new car, at least a new used one from Car Max. There was no way she could wait until Karla came home and no way she could ever make the purchase without her oldest sister's expertise.

“Fine,” Karla said. She was still feeling put-upon by Grace but past the point of needing to vent.

Bill grabbed a piece of lasagna noodle as it left Jason's fork and headed for the floor. He put it on the corner of his plate without missing a beat in the conversation. “What kind did she get?”

“A BMW.” The sporty one Karla would have liked to have for herself but couldn't fit into her budget.

Pausing midbite, Heather said, “Wait a minute. I thought she said she needed you with her to negotiate the deal. Aren't those the cars they sell at a set price?”

Karla nodded, knowing what was coming, wishing she could head it off, feeling as foolish as she always did when Grace managed to manipulate her into doing something she knew better than to do.

“Don't tell me she talked you into buying it for her.” Anger created twin red circles on Heather's cheeks like some 1920s makeup artist gone crazy with rouge.

“There's no way I would let her do that.”

“Then what?”

Reluctantly, Karla admitted, “I cosigned the loan.”

Bill put his napkin on the table and sat back in his chair but didn't say anything. He didn't have to, his actions said enough.

Heather took a drink of water and sat for several seconds with her jaw clamped tight. It appeared that she, too, was going to let the news go without comment. Then it was as if the frustration had nowhere to go but out. “God damn it, Karla—” She glanced at Bill and then the kids. “I'm sorry,” she said to Jamie, “I shouldn't say words like that. No one should. Not ever.”

She wasn't so distracted by the swearing she didn't finish. She glared at Karla. “Grace is never going to grow up if you don't stop dancing to her tune. You either back off and let her learn to depend on herself or she's going to turn into an emotional cripple.”

“All I did was cosign. She made her own down payment.” Minus the thousand dollars her trade-in didn't cover, which Karla had insisted was a loan, not the early Christmas/birthday present Grace had suggested.

“Which means if she stops making payments you either make them for her or lose your own credit rating,” Heather said.

“That's not going to happen.”

“Did she say why she needed a luxury car when all the rest of us get by with practical?”

Karla knew the answer wouldn't satisfy Heather, but gave it anyway. “She needed something she could count on to get her to auditions and to make her look successful.”