“You don’t think before your tongue moves,” she said, pointing a finger at me.
I said, “Pile it on, bitches. You can’t touch this,” and if I could point, I would have pointed to me. But they knew what I meant and Luke said some very mean things to a guy in a chair, which, in hindsight, totally makes me laugh.
The thing that really chaps them is that they know I’m right. Just like I knew Sam was hot for Libby, I know that this is going to work. It’s going to be the best fundraiser ever. And when you see my van flying by with some killer flames and twenty-inch chrome wheels, you can wave and say, there goes a genius.
TWENTY-THREE
Libby was happy, in a way she had not been in a very long time. Jubilant. Buoyant. A walking, talking Alka-Seltzer, bubbling and fizzing with happiness. Funny how these things went, how you could believe you were relatively happy, that you were doing okay, but then something would change, and suddenly, real happiness was sliding over you in big, gelatinous waves, oozing into all the corners of your life.
That was how it went for Libby. With Sam, she was happier than she’d been in weeks, months, maybe even years. He was attentive and caring and funny and strong and . . . well, she could go on, but the point was, Libby felt as if she had at last reentered her life, had opened the door and walked through to the big wide world out there instead of hiding in the shadows of the past. Since Sam and she had come together, Libby could feel herself changing. She could feel it in her bones, could feel the layers of disappointment sloughing off of her, being replaced by fresh new hopes and dreams.
She still had her problems—her bank account was whimpering, and she hadn’t had time to focus on her plan to drum up more events. She missed Alice and Max like she would miss an arm, thought of them all the time, debated calling them, tried not to think about them. That was hard, and some days, impossible. Admittedly, Libby was still finding reasons to go into Pine River just about the time school was letting out, and from a distance, would watch Alice skipping out with her best friend, Sasha. Or see Max with a soccer ball kicking and dipping his way to the field for afterschool practice.
Libby had come to accept that if she could just see them, if even at a distance, and know they were okay, she could live with not holding them. And it didn’t hurt that in the back of her mind, she believed that in working on the committee for Leo, she might see the kids. It stood to reason that if Gwen was heading the committee meetings, there would be times when she would either have Alice and Max in tow, or perhaps the babysitter would drop them off. And Libby would see them.
Just see them. Not wave at them, not carry on conversations with them. Just see them and know they were happy and whole.
It was a small hope, a secret hope, but it helped Libby cope with the reality of her relationship with the children she loved.
In the meantime, she was thankfully and exceptionally busy in her new relationship with Sam and putting the finishing touches on Austin and Gary’s ceremony.
She was amazed at how happy Sam made her. It all seemed so easy for him, too. It was in the little things—the way he looked at her as if he longed for her, even though she was standing right before him. Or how his smile was full of fondness, or how he laughed at her jokes, even the bad ones. It was in the way he didn’t seem to mind that she liked to talk about things—anything and everything.
What perhaps meant the most to Libby besides Sam’s affection for her was that she didn’t sense any judgment from Sam. She didn’t sense anything from him but interest in who she was and in what they could become together. That made her happy. They were good together.
Libby tried not to compare Sam to Ryan, but she couldn’t help it. At the end of every day, Ryan had been more concerned if Libby was listening to him than with anything she had to say about herself. Nor did Libby recall ever feeling as if Ryan understood her completely. At the same time, she’d assumed that it was male-female discord every other couple experienced at one time or another.
She didn’t feel that discord with Sam.
Dr. Huber had subtly pointed this out to her once. “Don’t you think,” she asked, “that a relationship should be a give and take of the good, the bad, the mundane, and the exciting for both parties? Doesn’t that create balance in a relationship?”
Libby had never given that notion much thought. She knew that Ryan had so much on his plate—an ex-wife to deal with, a propane business that was suffering from the economy like everything else—and while those words sounded good, Libby thought that Dr. Huber was a little blind to the realities of working-class people.
But Dr. Huber had been right, and Libby had been shown once again how she had lived with blinders.