Turning Thirty-Twelve (23 page)

“Pretty,” I said, standing on tiptoes to kiss him. “Thank you. You’ll get your present later,” I added with a naughty smile.

He wolf-whistled and Jellybean echoed the tune. “That sounds promising.”

“It is. Let’s just say it involves red silk and lots of strategically placed lace.”

My husband had turned me into a sex maniac who liked to browse the lingerie section of every store to try to find something I figured he’d like. Perimenopause was now being very, very kind to me.

He whistled again—drawing another song from our bird—and gave me a long, promising kiss. I grabbed his heavenly butt and gave it a squeeze. As I went back to the stove to stir the fettuccini, the phone rang.

“I’ll get it.” Mark kicked off his shoes and headed toward the cordless.

I listened to his side of the conversation and finally realized he was talking to Kat. He was trying to figure out why she was heading home in the middle of the week, but from the tone of his voice and his insistent groans, he was rapidly getting frustrated with her.

Kathy had been home the weekend before, but she’d been sullen and moody, staying in her bedroom rather than coming out to spend time with the family. Nate hadn’t come home at all.

There was trouble brewing.

Mark hung up the phone. “Kat’s on her way home. Something’s up, but she won’t tell me what. She’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I don’t know. She sounded upset.”

“Teenage girls
always
sound upset.”

“We do not,” Carly said with a laugh as she came into the kitchen. “Can I go to Faith’s house? We’ve got a project due in history, and her mom said she’d get us dinner.”

“I was making dinner for us,” I said, stirring the Alfredo sauce.

“And it actually smells good this time,” she said before she must have realized how it sounded. “Sorry, Jackie.”

I gave her a lopsided smile. “It’s fine. Cooking isn’t my thing, but this stuff is idiot-proof. All I have to do is heat it up.”

Mark snorted a laugh.

I shot him an angry glare. “You’re never going to let me live Thanksgiving down, are you?”

“I was thinking about the pot roast last week.”

“That was the crock pot’s fault, not mine. And it’s rude to bring it back up again.”

“How about the lasagna you fried on Sunday?” Carly piped in.

“Watch it, kid. You’re going to fail biology.”

She grinned at me and flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. “Can I go?”

“Fine,” I said. Then I wonder if I’d overstepped my bounds.

In the weeks we’d all been living together, Carly seemed more and more like one of my own. I was beginning to treat her that way. I’d been signing field trip slips, handing out lunch money, and teaching her to drive. But I didn’t have the right to grant permission when her father was standing right there.

I sheepishly glanced over at Mark. “Sorry.”

“Why? You haven’t burned anything.” He paused, and I was sure it was for effect, so I waited for the other shoe to drop. “Yet.”

I swatted at his arm. “I meant about answering Carly. That’s her father’s job.”

“No. That’s her
parent’s
job, and since you’re her stepmother—”

I scrunched up my face to show him my distaste. “I hate that word. Makes me sound like the evil stepmother in
Cinderella
.” Then I processed what he’d said. “You don’t mind? I guess I’m used to bossing her around at school.”

Carly laughed at that. “She’s really mean at school. The kids in the hall are afraid of her.”

“
I’m
afraid of her,” Mark said before he leaned over and brushed a quick kiss on my mouth.

Kat came stomping in from the garage with tears streaming down her cheeks. I realized she must have called using her cell phone while on route. Mark went over to greet her, and she threw herself into his arms before she began to wail.

The drama queen was home.

Carly’s gaze caught mine, and we both rolled our eyes.

Stroking the back of her head, Mark gave me a pathetic glance that told me the male in him had no idea how to deal with the hysterical teenage girl clinging to him. I took pity on his predicament.

“Kathy,” I said, rubbing circles between her shoulder blades. “What’s wrong?”

“Your son!” she shouted, pulling away from Mark and throwing her purse on the kitchen counter. “Your stupid son is what’s wrong!”

Mark rolled his eyes. “Lover’s quarrel.” He took a couple of steps toward the family room.

I figured he’d make a run for it and force Kathy and me to sort this out without his help. He wasn’t getting away that easily. “You coward. Get back here.” Turning to Kat, I asked, “What happened?”

“He... he...” She hiccoughed a couple of times and wiped away some tears. “Nate’s an asshole.”

Mark nodded.

I thought about throwing something at him.

“Why’s Nate an asshole?” I asked. I didn’t really want the details, but Kathy was just as stubborn as her father. This wasn’t going away until we talked it out. My defenses were already up and I wanted to blame Kat, not Nate.

These family dynamics were still more than a little odd.

The door from the garage opened again. I wasn’t surprised in the least to see my youngest come charging inside. At least he was here to defend himself.

“I knew it! I knew you’d run home to your daddy!” Nate snarled, his temper was in full flight. Nate didn’t lose it often, but when he did, he could be every bit as loud as his mother.

God help us all.

Kathy shot him a scowl that might have brought a lesser man to his knees. Nate, on the other hand, didn’t seem fazed in the least. I tried not to let my pride in him shine through.

I glanced out the window to see both of their cars in the driveway. “If you two were going to come all the way from Bloomington to argue, you could’ve at least carpooled. We can’t afford your gas bills.”

At least my husband smiled.

“I don’t want him here!” Kat screeched, pointing at Nate. “Make him leave, Daddy!”

“This is my house too.” Nate kicked off his shoes and threw his coat over Mark’s.

“No, it’s not. It’s my dad’s house.” Kat heaved her own doffed jacket at the poor overloaded coat tree that appeared to be on the verge of collapse.

They started to squabble like the Hatfields and McCoys, and I was just about to intervene when I caught the whiff of something burning. “Shit.” I headed back to find my Alfredo sauce turning a wonderful shade of brown.

“I hate to miss the show, but I’m going to Faith’s house,” Carly announced. She dug into the coats—several of which tumbled to the floor—until she retrieved her letter jacket. She made a hasty retreat as I envied her escape.

Racing around the kitchen to try to prevent yet another smoke alarm incident, I poured the ruined sauce down the garbage disposal. The fettuccini had boiled down to a big lump of dough because I hadn’t been there to stir it. The whole time I worked on clean up, Mark sat at the kitchen island and listened to Nate and Kat squabble.

“You’re irresponsible,” Kat scolded. “You always expect me to clean up your messes.” She turned toward us. “He’s lazy! He’s...he’s...
immature!
”

“Well, you’re a freakin’ basket case,” Nate countered. “Always moody, bitching about everything.” He decided to expand his audience as well, turning to shout at Mark and me. “She cries every five minutes! How am I supposed to deal with that?”

Kathy whipped around to face Nate again, who turned and glared right back at her. “You never think about me,” she bellowed, “or about
us
. You just take and take and take.” She wagged her index finger at him.

“Yeah? Well...well... You know what you are? You’re a...a...
succubus!
” Nate put his hands on his hips and scowled down at her like Mark had a habit of doing with me whenever we had a disagreement.

I figured the height difference always gave the guy a strategic advantage. The posture was intimidating. The only trump card in a woman’s hand was weeping. Most men couldn’t stand tears.

Mark walked over to stand next to me. “A succubus?” he whispered.

“A woman who sleeps with a guy and then drains his life force,” I explained as I watched the last of the ruined dinner disappear down the garbage disposal. I wondered if I could’ve burned anything—even a tossed salad. “I think he’s taking a literature class this semester. Must’ve broadened his horizons.”

“Ah.” He stared back at the kids who were still bickering. “Think we should get involved?”

“The last thing we need to do is get between them. Which side would you take? I mean if you go with Kat, you’ll piss off Nate, which pisses me off.” He smiled and tweaked my nose, knowing I was only kidding. “You side with the other Y chromosome, your daughter hates you. No win situation, detective.” I put the last of the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, shut it, and hit the button to start it. “So what do we do?” I asked.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m calling for pizza.”

***

I knocked on Kathy’s door with the back of my knuckles.

The things she had shouted at my son had struck a familiar raw nerve, and I wanted a chance to talk to her privately. Nursing a frightening theory, I decided to go on a fishing expedition as I tried to ignore the knots that were rapidly forming in my gut.

“It better not be Nate,” Kat shouted through the door.

“It’s Jackie. May I come in?”

A few long seconds passed. “Fine. Whatever.”

The room was dark except for the glow of the computer monitor. The speakers were blaring Alanis Morrisette’s “You Oughta Know” loud enough I was sure Kathy meant for Nate to hear it. It was the ultimate go-fuck-yourself song. I’d played it at least a million times during my divorce.

I walked across the room to turn the volume down.

Kat had thrown herself across the bed and was hugging a teddy bear as she stared at the ceiling. She looked so damned young.

“Is there anything I can do?” I asked, glancing down at her.

She’d obviously been crying. Her eyes were red and swollen as she sniffled every couple of seconds.

“I don’t want to get in between you and Nate,” I added, “but maybe someone with a cooler head can help.”

She scoffed and hugged the teddy bear a little tighter. “No one can help me.”

I remembered a time I felt exactly like that.

Shit.

I sat down on the foot of the bed. “I know it seems that way, but I’d like to try.”

A tear worked its way from the corner of her eye, tracing a path across her temple to fall on the comforter. “You can’t help. No one can.”

Alarms started blaring in my head, and for once they weren’t coming from smoke detectors. No, this time the alarms were triggered by a frightening case of
déjà vu
. It was not just my own history repeating itself, but the history of dozens of girls I’d been teaching over the years.

The helplessness in her voice, the utter despair, the lashing out at everyone might be normal for most teenage girls, but they weren’t for Kathy. She was quiet, strong, and never prone to flights of melancholy. She might have liked her moment of high drama every now and then, but this response just wasn’t her.

Something was definitely wrong, and in the pit of my stomach, I instinctively knew exactly what it was.

“Have you taken a test yet?” I finally asked, holding my breath and hoping I was entirely wrong.

She didn’t even flinch. “Yeah. It had a big blue plus sign. How about that?”

God damn it anyway
.

“Oh, Kat.” I reached for her hand. She didn’t pull away. Another tear leaked out.

The first response I considered was to blister her ears with a nasty lecture, but what good would that do? The horse had already run out of the barn—closing the door now would be futile.

My second considered response was to give her a sound shake. The only thing that would solve was venting my considerable frustration.

I decided on a course of action. It would have to be one baby step at a time. “Okay. So you’re pregnant. What are we going to do about it?”

Kathy sat up and threw the stuffed animal aside. “You’ll tell Nate, won’t you? And Daddy. Oh, my God. You’ll tell Daddy.” She flopped onto her stomach and began to sob into her pillow.

I instantly shook my head, even though I knew she couldn’t see me. I reached out and rubbed her back. “No, I won’t.”

I had no idea where I’d found the calm, but I knew it was exactly what she needed right now. She needed another woman, not a couple of men who would either turn entirely catatonic or blow their tops. There would be plenty of time to tell them later and face the apocalypse. Kat needed her mother.

I would have to suffice. “We won’t tell either of them until you’re ready.”

Rolling to her side, she looked up at me. “Really?” She sniffed back a few tears. “You won’t tell them? Promise me you won’t.
Swear
you won’t.”

“I promise I won’t tell Nate or your father. Not yet. But we’ll have to tell them sometime.”

She nodded. “I know, but... I can’t. I just can’t. Not yet.”

“Right now, we need to think about what you want to do.”

I was on autopilot. The teacher in me had listened to many a girl cry on my shoulder about her lack of options in an unplanned pregnancy. But there
were
options. The poor girls just needed to get past the initial hysteria and weigh their choices carefully before they made up their minds. I owed Kat no less consideration. I had to divorce myself from my personal involvement in this situation.

Divorce
. A funny choice of word because that’s exactly what I was setting myself up for.

My mind started screaming at me.
Mark will hate you. Nate will hate you too.

But Kat needed me now—she had no one else to turn to. Mark and Nate would just have to get over it. Neither of them had ever been a frightened nineteen-year-old girl who was pregnant and felt as if her future had instantly ended with a positive test. I had been. I’d lived the anger and the fear and the humiliation. I promised myself I’d smooth it over with Mark and Nate later.