Chapter 10 #2
“Liana! What’s going on with you and Travis North?”
“How did you meet North?”
“Is there any truth to rumors of an engagement?”
Where do they get this stuff? Liana made her way across the lawn to talk to them for a minute. Travis’s three big men held them back as fast-action cameras clicked and flash bulbs burst.
“Did you know he gave up a chance to play in the NFL?”
“What do you have to say about the pictures on the Internet?”
That stopped her cold. “What pictures?”
“You and Travis North,” one of them replied with a dirty grin.
Liana turned on her heel and went into the house while they renewed their efforts to get her to talk to them.
Inside she went straight to her mother’s bedroom.
Liana had bought her mother a laptop and taught her how to use it so they could send each other e-mails when Liana was overseas.
She opened the browser and called up one of the more salacious entertainment Web sites.
“Liana’s New Lover Once Spurned the NFL,” the headline said.
“Oh my God,” she moaned as she watched time-progression photos of Travis taking her hands and leading her inside the night before.
Since Travis’s apartment was the highest place in town, the photos must have been taken from an airplane.
Liana’s mind raced as she watched the clip again.
I didn’t even hear an airplane. I was too wrapped up in him to hear anything.
The site included a link to coverage of Travis turning down the offer from the Arizona Cardinals.
Liana clicked on the story and read it. The photo that accompanied it was of a much younger Travis.
Another headline caught her eye: “North Supports Brother with Downs.”
Liana’s eyes filled when she opened the link to find a Special Olympics photo of Travis running alongside a boy who would have looked just like him except for the telltale Down Syndrome features.
Putting her head down on the desk, she was filled with dismay at the invasion of his privacy that she had caused.
Liana closed the browser and was startled to find numerous documents on the computer’s desktop.
Curious, she opened one of them. “Sociology 302, Agnes McDermott.” Another said, “History 412.” A third was labeled, “Creative Writing 400.” She was so surprised by what she’d discovered that she didn’t hear her mother come home.
“Honey?” Agnes said from the doorway.
Liana turned to her. “Were you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what, dear?” Agnes asked as she sat on the bed to take off her shoes.
“That you’re going to college.”
Agnes froze.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Mom?” Liana cried, getting up from the desk. “Why would you keep something like that from me?”
Agnes grimaced. “I never meant to keep it from you. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to do it, and I thought, why tell Liana if it’s just going to be a class or two? Then one class led to another, and before I knew it I was halfway done. By then it felt like a sin of omission.”
“I’ve been thinking you have Alzheimer’s!”
Agnes stared at her, incredulous. “Alzheimer’s? Why in the world would you think that?”
“Because! You’ve been so scatterbrained! We’ve been terribly worried about you—me, Aunt Edith, Enid, Uncle Charlie. And all this time you were in college!” Suddenly, Liana was so swamped with relief she began to laugh as she flopped down next to her mother on the bed.
“I knew you’d think it was ridiculous,” Agnes said in a small voice.
“What?” Liana gasped. “Ridiculous? I’m so proud of you I could bust! So very, very proud.”
“Really?”
Liana clutched her mother’s hand. “Really. When do you graduate?”
“Next May with a degree in sociology. I’m sorry to have been scatterbrained, but it’s taken all my energy to keep up with my classes.”
“Is this why you left the wedding early?”
Agnes grinned sheepishly. “I had a mid-term the next day. That’s where I was Monday morning when I said I had an errand to run. I was so mad when I had to take a summer class to graduate on time because I knew it would coincide with your visit.”
Looping an arm around her mother’s shoulders, Liana leaned her head against her mother’s. “This is such a huge relief. I can’t tell you how worried I’ve been.”
“I’m sorry, honey. I should’ve told you, but the whole thing felt so silly at my age. Who goes to college at sixty?”
“It’s not silly,” Liana insisted. “It’s amazing. Was it something you always wanted to do?”
“Not really. But after Dad died, I needed something to fill my time, so I started taking a class here and there. That’s when I got the bug to go all the way.”
“I’m so impressed,” Liana said, suddenly remembering the reporters outside and what she had learned about Travis on the Internet.
“What’s wrong, honey? Is it Travis?”
“No,” Liana said. “Travis is amazing.”
Agnes returned Liana’s smile with one of her own. “Then it must be the reporters decorating my lawn.”
“I’m so sick of them! They follow me everywhere I go.
They even took pictures of Travis and me on his patio last night, and the photos are on the Internet today.
They reported all kinds of personal things about him, too.
I just feel so . . . violated. I can’t even imagine how he’s going to feel. I can’t take it anymore!”
Agnes gathered her daughter into her arms. “I’m sorry you have to deal with that, but it comes with the life you’ve chosen, honey. You can’t have one part of it and not the other.”
“I know,” Liana said, dejected. “They’ve never found me here before, and I just wanted two weeks off from it. Is that too much to ask?”
“Of course not, but since that’s not going to happen, you have to work around it.”
Liana raised her head off her mother’s shoulder. “What do you mean?”
“Instead of going out and borrowing trouble, why don’t we have lunch here and give each other manicures? What do you say?”
“As long as we get to spend some time together, I don’t care what we do. You don’t have to study do you?”
Agnes chuckled. “Later.”
“Travis wants us to meet him at the club for dinner at seven. Can you do that?”
“Sure,” Agnes said as she got up and slid into sandals.
“Mom? Can I ask you something else?”
“Of course.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
Again Agnes froze.
Liana’s eyes widened with surprise. “You do!”
“Liana—”
“I can’t believe you’ve kept all this from me!”
“I didn’t think you’d approve. Of the second thing, that is.”
“Why would you feel like you needed my approval?”
“Because you’re my daughter and the most important person in the world to me. What you think of me matters. You were so close to your dad and so devastated by his death. I didn’t think you’d want to see me with someone else.”
“I want you to be happy,” Liana said with her hands on her mother’s shoulders. “If going to college and dating makes you happy, I’d never stand in the way of that.”
“I’m sorry, honey. I should’ve told you.”
“Who is he? The man you’re seeing?”
“His name is David,” Agnes said shyly as she went into the kitchen to start lunch. “David Leary.”
Liana followed her. “And how did you meet this David Leary?”
Agnes’s cheeks turned red with embarrassment.
Liana laughed. “Now I know where I get my blush.” She felt her own cheeks grow warm when she thought of how much Travis enjoyed making her blush.
“He was my freshman composition teacher.”
“Mother!”
“We didn’t go out until after the semester was over,” Agnes clarified. She hesitated before she added, “There’s one other thing you should probably know.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s, um, younger than me.”
“Define younger.”
“He’s fifty-five.”
“That’s only eight years, Mom, which is not exactly a scandal. But if he was your freshman composition teacher, then you’ve been going out with him for a while.”
Agnes’s cheeks lit up again. “Three years.”
“And no one knows? Not Aunt Edith? Not Enid?”
Agnes shook her head. “I wouldn’t have told them and not you, honey.”
“But how did you keep this from everyone?”
“We go out of town when we go out. And he has a weekend place in Vermont. We spend a lot of time up there.”
Incredulous, Liana asked, “When can I meet him?”
“Oh well . . . ah . . . I don’t know.”
“Invite him to dinner tonight,” Liana said, stealing a pickle from the jar her mother opened.
“I can’t do that! Travis didn’t invite him.”
“Travis won’t care.” She reached for the portable phone and handed it to her mother. “Here’s what you say: Hello, David? It’s me, Agnes. We’re busted. So please come to dinner tonight with my daughter and me.”
“And the very handsome Travis North,” Agnes added.
Liana smiled. “Now you’re getting into the spirit of things.”
Shaking her head at Liana, Agnes dialed the phone. “Hi,” she said when David answered. Her face turned beet red again. “We’re busted.”
Liana laughed, and the reporters on the lawn were forgotten.