Unlikely Praise (17 page)

Jess stood on his deck with Rachel perched on her hip. “Sorry I’m late. I looked at your address wrong and went to 1030 instead of 1300. I knew something wasn’t right when I didn’t see your truck, but I figured it out.”

“No problem,” he said and held the door. “C’mon in.”

She stepped inside and let an overstuffed diaper bag drop to the floor.

“Thanks for bringing her over,” he said. “I’m working on the truck, and I ordered a car seat online.”

“It’ll all come together,” she said in a way Shade knew was meant to calm herself, as much as to encourage him.

Bobby sat along the road out front in his bright white Ford F-150 King Ranch pick-up. He and Shade exchanged obligatory nods.

Shade closed the door. Nice truck. He’d give him that.

“Does he want to come in?”

“No, it’s OK.” She planted tiny kisses all over the baby’s face before she pressed her into his arms. “Oh, wow,” she said when she spotted the rocker. “This is great.” She smoothed her hand across the pillows. “I can see your mom’s been busy.”

“She’s been busy, all right. Can’t seem to avoid how
busy
she’s been since she found out Rachel was coming over.”

She laughed. “That reminds me. She made Rachel a quilt. It’s in the truck if you want to spread it on the floor for when you put her down.”

“Don’t need it.”

“No offense, Shade, but you shouldn’t put her directly on the floor. I don’t think anyone’s house is clean enough for that.”

“No, I mean I don’t need it because I bought one of these.” He pulled the neatly folded portable crib-playpen combination from beside the couch. “One of my clients has one and I asked her about it.”

“Good call,” Jess agreed. “Have you had it all set up yet?”

Only about sixteen times.

“Yeah, I had a practice run. Can you believe these things? They have electronics.”

She returned to the diaper bag and knelt beside it. “Makes you wonder what our parents did. I’m pretty sure my family’s hand-me-down crib had bars far enough apart to strangle me.”

“I was lucky,” he countered. “My cousins chewed all the lead-based paint off my toys before I got them.”

“OK, let me explain what’s in here.”

He eyed the bulging bag. “Your explanation could take longer than our visit. Better tell Bobby to turn off the truck.”

She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Oh, hush. There’s a reason for everything in this bag.”

“Is that reason a seven-day cruise?”

“Do you want my help?” She tugged at the zipper. “Or would you rather I left and let you figure it all out on your own?”

“Sorry. Continue.”

He held Rachel against his chest with one arm wrapped around her and her legs dangling. He pressed his cheek against her soft head and inhaled. It was true. Babies
did
smell good. At least right now, anyway.

White-blond tufts of angel hair tickled his face as she moved about in his arms, and thin little fingers flexed and clutched the air as she waved her hands.

Jess explained her way through two bottles, several extra clothes, a stack of diapers, wipes, blankets, a two page instruction and emergency contact list, and a series of squeaky and rattling toys.

He tried to listen, really he did, but there was only so much he could absorb about the last time she ate, napped, or had a diaper change. Did it matter anyway? It was pretty obvious if she got hungry he should feed her and if she needed a new diaper he would put one on her.

Then Rachel whimpered.

“Oh, here.” Jess gave him a plastic ring of giant, primary-colored keys and shifted the bundle in his arms. “Put her over here on your hip,” she instructed. “I think it makes her feel more secure.”

Shade placed the toy in her tiny palm. She grasped it and pulled it to her mouth.

“That’s the way.” Jess stepped back, straightened her blue shirt, and smoothed her faded jeans. Then she didn’t make another move.

A slide show of emotion crossed her face in a continuous loop. Worry, fear, longing, calm. Worry, fear, longing, calm.

“We’ll be fine, Jess.”

“I know,” she choked. “It’s just a weird, emotional day.”

“They don’t come much weirder,” he agreed, “but everything’s OK. I’m not going to let anything happen to her.”

Her eyes shimmered. “I know that.”

He pulled open the door. “Go ahead. Get some dinner, see a movie, or camp out on my front yard for four hours, but go. I got this.”

She stood straight and let out a deep breath. “Call me if you need anything.”

“Go. Bobby’s gonna come lookin’ for you in a minute and no one wants that.”

“Be sweet. Bobby’s been great about this.”

Yeah, whatever. He closed the door as soon as she stepped outside. He didn’t need to hear what a great guy Bobby was.

He dragged the diaper bag toward the rocker. “Your mommy and grandma don’t think I can do this,” he whispered into her shell-pink ear. “But I got news for them. I have access to the Internet and I know how to use it.”

He pulled out a small blanket and laid it across his lap as he sat down. He felt for her toes through the footies of her strawberry-embroidered, white cotton sleeper, and inspected each fingernail and eyelash.

Absolute perfection.

Despite the excessively ruffled cushions, they settled into a comfortable rocking pattern. Rachel had not yet made one cry of protest or shed a tear, but it took only seven minutes to make one unmistakable discovery.

Someone needed a fresh diaper.

****

On Saturday evening, Candi approached the church and flipped on her turn signal. Shade arrived at the same time from the other direction in Max’s Cavalier. With no one behind her, she paused and motioned for him to turn. He declined and waved her on. She hesitated until traffic appeared in her rear view mirror.

“Oh, fine,” she grumped to herself. “Just trying to be nice.”

He pulled in right behind her. Together they traveled across the empty lot and found side-by-side spots near the blossoming butterfly bush at the front entrance. They simultaneously killed their engines, got out, and closed their doors. It was like synchronized swimming only in cars and without the sequined headgear.

They gazed at each other across her roof.

“Thanks for coming,” he said.

She leaned in the window and pulled out a lightweight lavender sweater. “I shouldn’t be here,” she said as she tugged it over her darker purple French tee and felt for the small pearl buttons. “Rocky accepted the date. He should have come.”

“I said I was sorry for all that.”

She grabbed her purse and locked her car. “You’re right. Besides, this way everyone knows we’re out together. They can’t gossip and speculate if all the information’s out on the table.”

He opened the passenger side door for her. “That’s the spirit.”

“You didn’t have to borrow Max’s car. Your truck isn’t that bad.”

“Had to.”

“Oh. Sorry. Did the mighty Del Rio Destroyer pass on to the great junkyard in the sky?”

“No. A friend of Max’s dad has had it for a couple days. He specializes in older trucks so he can patch it up until I can get something newer. I get it back in the morning.”

“That’s nice.” She started to get in the car. He stopped her.

“Wait a sec.” He pulled a brown Fedora off the front seat. “Forgot about that.”

“That’s not your fishing Fedora.”

“Nope. This is another one from my collection.”

“Is it your grandfather’s, too?”

“No, I got this one from a vintage clothing store in the Heights. Max wanted to borrow it.” He tapped the hat on his head and reached in the back seat for a matching brown leather vest. He slipped it on over his seventies-era brown-and-gold plaid, pearl-snap shirt. “What do you think?”

She thought the shirt did remarkable things for his eyes.

She thought he sure knew how to wear a hat.

But that vest? Yikes.

“C’mon,” he repeated. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking this outing is over if you own the leather pants to match that vest.”

He pulled off the hat and pressed it against his chest. “
Ouch
. I can’t get a break with you.” He tossed the items into the back seat. “Max might have better luck.”

She got in and fastened her seatbelt and tried to avoid his gaze. A burst of warmth settled on her face and she couldn’t shake her stupid grin—a clear indication her Anti-Ex-Dead-Lizard-Charm-Shield was wearing thin. Yikes, again. She grabbed the door handle and contemplated an escape, but what did she think she was going to do? Hop in her car and drive away while citing weakened ex-Dead Lizard immunity as an excuse?

Shade closed his door and glanced at her. “What’d I do now?”

“Nothing,” she blurted. “I was thinking about the hat and vest. Do you collect antiques in general, or is it just the old clothes you like?”

“I like old tools and music stuff, but you won’t find me at a high-end antique store on Westheimer, if that’s what you mean.” He tapped on the steering wheel. “I’m more of a flea market kind of guy.”

“And the clothes?”

“I got started on the vintage clothing thing because my grandma never throws anything away. I found my dad and uncle’s entire wardrobe from the seventies in her shed, and then she gave me all my grandfather’s stuff when he died.”

A pang of sadness gripped Candi’s heart. She didn’t even have her mother’s wedding dress. There wasn’t one. Like everything else her father did, her parents’ romance was of the whirlwind
persuasion. The marriage started with a courthouse ceremony and a bundle of flowers from the grocery store. There was only one picture.

“Like this shirt,” he continued, and smoothed his hand across the sleeve. “Pure seventies. It was my dad’s. Don’t even want to think about the wardrobe malfunction that would occur if he tried to connect the snaps across his belly today.”

Candi snorted and couldn’t control the burst of laughter that followed. “Thank you
so
much for sharing that image. If I ever meet your dad, you know that picture will be the first thing that pops in my head.”

“Oh, you’ll meet my dad,” he assured her and turned the key. “
And
my mom. And I’ll be sure to tell them exactly why you’re laughing when you do.”

She met his gaze as her smile faded. His declaration of certainty she would someday meet his parents should have led to an awkward moment. It should have hit her like “The Darlin’ Incident”
had when he’d flirtatiously called her by that endearment on the morning they went fishing. This time she found neither the desire, nor the energy to combat his rock star charisma. This time she just looked at him like some goofy groupie. No...outside of her total disarmament, there was nothing awkward about this at all.

When she was finally able to look away, she fumbled in her purse for a lipstick.

He put the car in reverse. “Where are we going?”

Her ploy to look uninterested was pathetic at best. “What?”

“I asked where we were going. You said no to a movie and to the Astros game, and you wouldn’t let me take you to a real restaurant for dinner, so where are we going?”

“Oh. Get on Interstate 45 and go north, please. We’re going to a concert.”

“Great. Who’s playing?”

“Not sure. There’s a historic church out in the country past Huntsville. One day the pastor decided to build a big metal barn on the property and invite local Christian bands to come out and play. Over time it grew, and now, every three months, high school and college kids come from miles around to eat free tacos from the bottomless taco bar and listen to music. That pastor is a genius. His vision to turn an old country church with only fifty people every Sunday into a hub for the youth is an evangelistic masterpiece.”

“Do you go regularly?”

“I try to get out there a couple times a year. It’s a great place to get new ideas for music and connect with musicians.” She set her purse on the floor. “Do you mind going? Or would you rather find something else to do?”

“You had me at bottomless taco bar.”

Candi laughed. “Have at it.”

Strip centers and fast food restaurants flew by as they got on the freeway and headed north. The classics station pulsed with music from the eighties under their safe and casual conversation, but Candi contemplated how to ask the more serious questions that had crossed her mind. She made several sideways glances his way. Steady and smooth as he drove, he concentrated on the road and met her furtive gaze from time to time as if to check on her.

She turned in her seat. “Can I ask you something?”

He turned off the radio. “Sounds serious.”

“Not serious, really, but personal. About the stuff we talked about the other night. If you don’t want me to ask, I won—”

“Ask me anything.”

“OK. You said you gave up alcohol after the accident, but isn’t that what they call being “scared sober”? Like people who get arrested for DUI or drug possession and only stay clean long enough for their case to get through the legal system. They claim they’re all better as they go through court-ordered rehab only to revert to their old habits as soon as they’re free.”

He changed lanes and chewed his bottom lip as if formulating a response.

She replayed her comments in her head and realized how offensive her words sounded.

“Let me start over,” she said. “I didn’t mean to insult you. I’m not trying to compare you to a drug addict or accuse you of working the system. I know you’re serious about your recovery and you weren’t arrested or—”

“An addict is an addict. I know what you meant, and I see people like that all the time in my meetings. Mothers who’ve had their children taken away and get well long enough to get them back and then they’re messed up again, guys who go to jail, like you said, and stay sober until they get a plea bargain.” He shifted in his seat and moved his hands to a classic ten-and-two-o’clock position on the steering wheel. “I
was
a little scared sober. Waking up in that condition and losing Pete
did
scare me.”

“I guess what I’m asking is—and I know this sounds awful—but when you’re in that position and sobriety is forced upon you because of a horrible event, how much of it is your own decision? I mean, how can you say you chose to be sober when the choice was made for you?”