Chapter Twenty-Two
Twenty-Two
Flo got me a front-row seat to the school play.
“You’re seriously not going to want to miss this,” she’d promised me.
“I thought you said you didn’t have any lines?”
“I don’t,” she said, with another one of those classic eye rolls. “You know I don’t. What dog talks and sings?”
“Goofy.”
“Well, I’m the Pluto kind of dog, not the Goofy kind of dog.”
It was the first week of December and the icy coastal towns were festooned with lights.
We hadn’t had snow yet but there was plenty of ice and frost, which made driving a little alarming.
I was glad when Jake offered to drive me to the play.
He kissed me thoroughly when I slid into his pickup truck next to him.
“I like your Christmas display, by the way,” I teased him, as we turned the corner onto Beach Road. He had a big plastic lobster on his balcony facing the road. It was lit up and he’d put a Santa hat on it.
“Thanks. And where are your lights?”
“I haven’t untangled them yet.”
He groaned. “Please don’t tell me you’re using Mom’s old lights.”
“Sure I am. I’m not made of money.”
We’d skated around the topic of his mom the past couple of weeks.
I tried not to ask too many questions, and he tried not to shut down and stonewall me.
Mostly we avoided the topic. He seemed content to come help fix up the house, so long as he didn’t have to drag up the past, so I let it lie.
I figured he’d tell me when he was ready.
Our “dating,” if that’s what it was, seemed very slow moving.
Since Flo had come home, he came for dinner a couple of times a week, and he was around doing jobs on the house as much as ever.
There were a lot of stolen kisses, pressed up against walls behind doors, out of Flo’s line of vision.
And there were a lot of wandering hands and a lot of lusty looks. But not much else. Because Flo.
I’d only dated a few men in the past five years or so, and she’d hated it every single time. I was in no hurry to walk into that mess again, at least not before I’d enjoyed myself a little more. And I was pent up enough to jump Jake right here in the pickup. Except we had to get to the play.
“Have you ever seen the film version of Annie?” I asked him, as I played with the hair at the nape of his neck.
“Sure I have. I told you, I have a sister and a bunch of nieces.”
“Flo and I watched it for our movie night last week. I’d never seen it.”
He gave me an appalled look. “Didn’t you have a childhood?”
I swallowed and forced a smile. I hadn’t really had a childhood, I thought numbly.
I’d had an old TV tuned to the broadcast channels and a lot of reruns.
I’d seen the old movies that ran all the time—The Sound of Music, Grease, Jaws, and It’s a Wonderful Life at Christmastime—but not much else.
Tina had taken me to the movies a couple of times to see Disney films but she’d always fallen asleep.
I guessed my childhood would seem alien to Jake.
I kept quiet, not wanting him to look at me like I was from Mars.
He gave me a sideways look.
“If Flo’s the dog, she doesn’t get to do much,” I said, swerving away from my childhood and back to the present. “Lainey will be on stage a lot, though.”
“She sure will,” he said dryly. “Which is precisely why my sister bought tickets for every member of the family.”
I swallowed. I’d been nervous about meeting his sister, but it hadn’t occurred to me I’d have to meet more family than that. “Wait,” I said as something occurred to me. “Every member of the family?”
“Well, not Mom obviously,” he said quickly.
“No, but…” I cleared my throat. “Marly?” My voice wavered. For some reason, Marly was a larger-than-life figure in my imagination, even though I now knew she hadn’t been the one to fill my treasure house with culch.
Jake reached over and squeezed my knee. “Yes, Marly.” He glanced at me. “Sorry, I should have told you. I didn’t think…”
“No, I mean, why should you? Uh. Does she, um… know about me?”
“About you? Or about you and me?”
I wasn’t sure how much there was to know about him and me, since we weren’t actually a couple yet. We were just kissing like horny teenagers and hiding it from my kid.
“Ah, both, I guess,” I said weakly.
“Yes, she knows about you, that you’re living in the house. No, she doesn’t know about you and me. Nor does my sister.” He cleared his throat. “If you want me to tell them, I can…”
But what would he tell them?
“Uh, no. I mean, we said we’d take it slow.”
“Emotionally slow,” he reminded me with a half-smile, although we’d slowed down on pretty much everything since Flo came home.
“I don’t think we should tell anyone until Flo knows…”
“Fair.” He removed his hand from my knee. And he must have caught the hurt look on my face, because he said, “Just ’cause of the ice. There’s enough black ice that I need to keep both hands on the wheel. If it weren’t for the ice, I’d never take my hand off you.”
I flushed. It was impossible, wanting him this much and not being able to have him. The thought of sitting near him in the dark while we watched the play gave me goosebumps. I hoped our seats were on opposite sides of the room.
The school was brightly lit, and a stream of cars was rolling into the parking lot. My heart was skittering like a scared rabbit as Jake slid into a space in a dark corner. I was charged with nerves at the thought of seeing Marly. His grandmother. Pixie stick herself.
Jake checked his watch. “Want to kill five minutes before we have to go in? I can take your mind off things.”
I did, but it was a mistake. By the time he’d kissed me senseless and run his hands all over me, I was electric with lust. And so was he.
“I’ll meet you after to take you home,” he said, kissing me on the tip of my nose. “You go in. I might wait here for a minute. I’m not decent for company yet,” he added wryly, pulling his jacket over his lap.
“I think you’re more than decent,” I teased him.
“Get out of here, woman, or we’re not getting into the play at all, and you’ll hate me when you miss your kid playing the dog.”
I laughed and dropped down from the high pickup.
“Watch out for black ice on the paths,” he called after me as I closed the door.
I did watch out, having learned my lesson the hard way a week ago.
I still had the bruise on my ass from that one.
I picked my way carefully to the theater, fishing my little paper ticket out of my pocket.
The place seemed packed to the rafters. An instrumental version of “Tomorrow” was looping on repeat over the PA as I navigated the crowd to my seat, which was smack bang in the middle of the front row.
I guess Flo really didn’t want me to miss her performance.
I couldn’t help but turn in my seat and scan the crowd, looking for Jake so I could get a glimpse of his family. And Marly. But I couldn’t see him. And then the school principal was on stage, doing a housekeeping speech, and I had to keep my eyes front.
The overture started. There was no school orchestra; the music was provided by a young teacher on an upright piano. He played with enormous energy but not much finesse.
My phone buzzed. It was Suni. Don’t forget to take photos! They hadn’t been able to drive up for the play because Alison’s ex had reared his head again and they were busy keeping her calm and safe.
I won’t, I promised.
My phone buzzed again. It was a photo of the back of my head.
Surreptitiously I turned to find Jake two rows behind me.
He winked at me. I tried to steal a look at who he was with, but it was dark and there were people in front of them.
Jake pointed at the stage, and I whipped back around just in time for the curtain to rise.
And, oh my God, was I glad I was in the front row.
Mostly so Jake and his family couldn’t see my face.
Because Lainey Mullins couldn’t sing. And I don’t mean she dropped a note or was pitchy.
She really couldn’t sing. She came out in her Ronald McDonald wig, full of confidence like one of those train wrecks in the America’s Got Talent auditions, and belted her little lungs out, only rarely hitting the right note.
Who on earth had cast her? And who had let her continue after rehearsals?
It was mortifying to watch. The whole auditorium braced every time she opened her mouth.
You could feel the tension in the room. There were a few nervous titters and some kids whispering and giggling, but you had to give it to Lainey, she was all in up there.
Flo was in a big shaggy brown dog suit with a giant headpiece. You couldn’t even tell it was her as she mugged about. I snapped some photos for Suni, catching Flo in some adorable gamboling… If it was Flo. How would I even know?
The performance was painfully long. By the time they got to the final medley I was grinding my teeth.
As Lainey and the tall boy playing Daddy Warbucks threw their hands out to receive applause there was a long moment of silence.
Then Flo started pounding her fluffy paws together.
I heard a muffled “Bravo!” come from under her dog head.
Taking the hint, a smattering of applause rose from the audience and then people got into the spirit of supporting their children and there were cheers and an attempt at a standing ovation.
Lainey Mullins was beaming from ear to ear. And so was Flo when she pulled off her dog’s head and her braids came tumbling down. She was flushed and sweaty, and very, very happy.
“I told you I was playing the long game,” she whispered when she skipped out from backstage and I swept her off her feet into a hug.
I laughed. “Oh Flo, you’re evil.”
“No, I just figured I’d let her do my work for me.” She grabbed my cheeks with both hands. “Wasn’t she awful?” she whispered.
“Well, you were a great dog. I got some photos to send to your dad and Suni and Wayne.”