Triple Love Score (30 page)

“Not any girl, Maria Rosa: my fiancée, Miranda.”

“No, you didn’t propose without me meeting her first? You couldn’t have.”

“I had to; I couldn’t let her get away.” Scott wrapped an arm around Miranda and pulled her in close to him. “And my mother picked her out for me when she was a baby. I had no choice. You have to do what your mother wants.”

“Smart boy. Lucky girl. Table by the window?”

The grandmother led them to a two-top next to the window that looked out on the main street. She didn’t give them menus. Instead she turned and tottered back to the swinging door that led to the kitchen; she shouted, “Antonio,” as she pushed through the door.

“Maria Rosa took a liking to me when we first moved back here. I wasn’t very good at cooking, so Lynn and I ate out a lot.”

“She seems lovely.”

“She is. And her meatballs are to die for.”

Antonio appeared from the kitchen with two glasses of water balanced in one hand and two plates of salad on the other. “Nice to meet you, Miranda,” he said as if they had already been introduced.

“Things are a little casual here. And Maria Rosa won’t let me order. After a month of coming here, she told me that you don’t order from your grandmother’s kitchen.”

“Do things like this just happen to you? Are you naturally charmed?”

“Maybe I’m charming? What do you think? Randa, am I charming?”

“I’m not sure.” She reached across the table to pick up his hand. “Captivating maybe. Enchanting? I know I’m smitten.”

“Smitten, eh? I could like that. Wish I could talk you out of leaving. What would it take to get you to just stay?” He picked up his fork without letting go of her hand.

“Scott,” she said. “I thought we were supposed to be celebrating.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry. Well, no, I’m not sorry.”

“Well, I’m sorry this bothers you, but that doesn’t change anything. The rest of my life didn’t stop just because of this.” She held up her hand; the ring glimmered in the candlelight.

“I’m not asking for your life to stop. Maybe just pause for a minute. I just thought we would have more time—weekends at least. Something. But tomorrow you’re gone. Did you see that schedule? You don’t even have a day off between stops because of that blackmail.”

“It’s not blackmail; it’s an agreement. I signed.”

“I wish you could unsign.”

“If I unsign, how would I support myself?”

“What if I could prove to you that it would be fine? What if we went back to my place and ran the numbers? Treat it like a merger.”

“A merger?”

“You know what I mean—I could call on all of that management consultant legal mumbo jumbo and do the numbers, make up the deal sheet? If I can prove it with the deal sheet, would you stay?”

“But this isn’t about just the numbers, Scott. It’s about my book. It was in the New York Times; they talked about it on Good Morning America. I’m scheduled for Ellen.”

“So do Ellen—what does Ellen have to do with the Wake-forest Community Center or the El Paso Texas Book Shoppe? Or some alumni tea in East Someplace I haven’t heard of? Will you just hear me out? Can we just try and see what it would take on paper to make this happen?”

He looked up at her so desperately, she found herself nodding in agreement. She would look at the numbers, maybe it could all be okay. Maybe he was right about El Paso and the alumni tea. Maybe they could all go to California together.

“She tried to wait up for you guys, but I finally convinced her to wait in bed. I checked after five minutes, and she was out,” Kendra said.

“Thank you for watching her,” Scott said. “Same time next week?”

“Yup. And congratulations on the engagement. Lynn told me all about it. It’s wicked cool that you’ve known each other like forever. See you next week.”

Kendra let herself out, leaving Scott and Miranda standing in the main room just looking at each other. Miranda looked around. Lynn’s coloring book rested on the coffee table in front of the monstrous white leather couch. The tangle of wires around the entertainment center. The absence of art on the walls. It took her breath away to think about what the next few months would bring. How would his house and her apartment become theirs? She never imagined her life looking this way. Becoming someone’s wife? Someone’s mother? At the same time. She turned to him and said, “Scott—”

He raised a finger to his lips and pointed up the stairs. “Come with me,” he whispered.

The door to Lynn’s room was cracked open a little. He nudged it open a tiny bit more with his toe, just enough so that they could watch her sleep. The glow of her night-light cast a halo around her head. The diary Miranda gave to her lay open on the pink comforter next to her. They stood there, holding their own breath, watching her breathe.

He leaned slowly forward and pulled the door shut, before tugging Miranda gently into the room across the hallway.

“When she was little, I would get this weird panic in the middle of the night, and I would have to just go and watch to make sure she was still breathing. Now I think I do it out of habit. Go ahead, make fun of me.”

“I can see the appeal of it,” Miranda said. The word sculpture formed in her head without even thinking about it: Sleeping, Pretty, Young, Girl, Love.

“Well, I see the appeal in you,” he said. “Let’s try to work this out. I don’t want you to go. But first I need numbers.”

“I don’t want to leave either—but it’s not about leaving you, Scott. It’s about this opportunity and keeping my job and paying my student loans.

“You don’t have go right now; you could call Ambrose and have him reschedule the whole thing.”

“Scott, please—how about you work on those numbers first then we’ll talk?”

She downloaded all of her bank statements, printing them off from his ancient desktop computer in the living room. Then she found her student loan statement online. And her credit card bill. And the car payment.

“Stanton didn’t pay for graduate school?” he asked.

“Frankly he didn’t much like the idea of a poetry degree. Frivolous, he said. Tough love. He finished up the lecture saying a good parent wouldn’t let you waste your life and talents on nursery rhymes.”

“Oh,” Scott said. “That’s harsh.”

“You know, I didn’t mind. I wanted to be my own person for once and not tied to his bank account and lectures.”

“I felt that way with Lynn. I didn’t want to rely on my parents to rescue me. All of a sudden I felt like I had to do it on my own. But, wow, look at those numbers. School cost that much?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I told you I needed to work.”

“Yeah,” he said, opening another spreadsheet on his laptop.

None of the numbers supported his plan. The column of bills never matched the single number in the earning column.

“Ambrose said I could make money on Blocked Poet,” Miranda said.

“Yeah. Could. And for how long?”

“And going on the tour is how I can make that money.”

“It’s like a weird maze,” Scott said. “We have to stay in it to get out of it.”

She leaned over his shoulder. It felt so good to be that close to him. She kissed his ear. Then a number on the screen caught her eye. Four hundred dollars in an unmarked column.

“Wait,” she said, pointing it out on the computer screen. “I think you have an extra number there.”

“Really?” he said. He kissed her quickly on the cheek, then looked at the column. “Oh,” he said, his voice deflated. “That’s not a mistake. Well, it is, but not one that I can correct.”

“What’s it for? That would cover the student loans and your car payment. With some left over.”

“Cassadee,” he said.

“A month?” she asked.

“I told you, she demands money. I try not to pay, but when I push it too far she dangles the whole paternity test and mentions the paperwork I want her to sign. See here.” He clicked open his email.

“Pay or say goodbye,” read the body of the first email.

“Do you think they would let you keep a child from its mother? Especially with your own past out here—remember, I know all the charges,” read another.

“I’ll sign nothing except for the back of a check,” read a third.

He moved to click on another.

“No, that’s okay,” Miranda said. “I’ve seen enough. How could she even say those things?”

“I told you Randa; she isn’t right. She doesn’t care about anything except for herself and her next score. Me, Lynn, we’re just a means to an end with her.”

“I just don’t understand.”

“It took me a long time, too. I just didn’t think people could really be like that. We weren’t raised that way, and I don’t want Lynn to be either. So I pay. And keep paying. And while it pained me to do it before, seeing how much more it costs us kills me. I want to be able to beg you to quit your job and move here. Right now. But I can’t. Maybe if I took on some tutoring after school,” he said. “I’d have to give up coaching the soccer team, but maybe, I could. And I could go call my father, go back.”

She put her hand over his. “Please, stop. It’s only fortytwo days; this isn’t forever.”

“And what are we going to do after you get back? Fortytwo days doesn’t change the distance between your job and my job.”

“But I am out for the term; they cancelled all of my classes. I wouldn’t have to be back until June for the summer term. That gives us a lot of time to think about this. Figure it out. Come on, Scott, please try to just be happy for me. It’s only a trip. Six weeks. Not even two months.”

“Randa, I left you once, and I thought it was going to be for a week, and it turned out to be six years. I don’t want something to change along the way and ruin this.”

“Do you really think that is even possible?”

He closed the laptop screen and stood up. “Actually, I don’t want to think about it at all,” he said. “How about we go upstairs instead?”

“Hold up—what happened to waiting?” Miranda asked.

“That doesn’t mean we have to wait for everything,” he said.

I
N HINDSIGHT, they probably should have pulled on some clothes before going to sleep. Luckily, they were quick with the sheets and blankets as Lynn bolted into their room seconds after Scott’s alarm clock chirruped with sounds of a sportscaster discussing the Giants’ dismal possibilities in the playoffs. And Scott was even quicker with the redirection. “Lynn,” he chimed. “Quick, go see if we have pancake mix. We could have a special breakfast for Miranda’s going away party.”

She spun before she could even approach the bed and fully take in their bare shoulders let alone climb up and jostle any strategically placed blankets. The minute they heard her footsteps scamper down the stairs, they began pulling on their clothes.

“Wait,” Scott said. He opened a drawer and pulled out a tee shirt and some sweat pants. “Put this on. I don’t think you should go down in last night’s clothes. We need to make this seem above board. You know, like proper.”

“Proper? Like you only have sleepovers after you’re engaged?”

“Exactly like that. Or how about you only have sleepovers with romantic partners after your father is dead? How about that? What could we say to convey that message?”

“Wow, now you are channeling Stanton to a tee, huh?”

“I learned from the best.”

“After what I’ve been finding out, I am not sure it is the best. Unless you’re into that whole ‘father knows best and manipulates everything’ routine.”

“Don’t be so hard on him,” Scott said. “It’s not easy being a dad.”

Lynn’s only concern was why she couldn’t skip school to take Miranda to the airport.

“Sorry, girlie, you can’t miss school today. We only just got back from break, and it looks bad if I let you stay home.”

“But you aren’t going to be at school,” Lynn protested.

“Miranda and I will drop you off together, and then I will take her to the airport, and then I’ll be back to teach.”

“Can I show her my classroom?” Lynn asked.

“Sure,” Scott said.

“Can I show her your classroom?” Lynn asked.

“Sure,” Scott said.

“Can I—” Lynn started.

“Eat your pancakes? Sure you can. Finish up. Then go get dressed.”

“Can I use the shower?” Miranda asked.

“Sure. Let me just come up and show you something first.”

Scott waited while she got her things from her suitcase and followed her to the bathroom. He closed the door behind them and then loudly announced. “I’m just going to brush my teeth while you get a shower.”

“Okay,” she answered back just as loudly.

He giggled and pointed at the door. Miranda shrugged and turned on the shower. She slipped out of her clothes while he watched before following her into the shower.

“Brushing your teeth, huh?” She turned her back to him letting the water from the shower soak her hair.

“Allow me,” he whispered. He took her shampoo bottle from her hand. She listened to the pop of the lid and air escaping the bottle as he measured the right amount. When he placed his hands in her hair, she shuddered. He massaged her scalp deftly.

Then he rinsed it out and took up a wide-toothed comb from the shower ledge and the bottle of conditioner. Like a salon expert, he combed the conditioner through her hair lifting it in sections to both rinse it and keep it tangle free.