Back To U

chapter Fifteen

Savory first. Sweet follows.





The plate reminded her of the homecoming bonfire where the wood latticed up like a spiky teepee. The chicken medallions, and they were called medallions, sat atop a pile of matchstick vegetables. She wasn't entirely sure what vegetables were there. They spanned every color from white to purple with oranges, reds, and even a blue in between. They might have been anything, their vegetableness lost in the process. There was no thin imperfect skin of a beet or starchy comfort of potato to remind her of their origins, just toothpicks of color to hold circles of chicken. She didn't know how anyone made poultry that round either. Oval she could believe but silver dollar circles? Surely that constituted an unnatural act against a bird.

"Amazing." Ty breathed in the steamy huckleberry sauce that drizzled the chicken bonfire.

She breathed in, inspired by the really amazing way he said amazing as if the second a had more power than in the American version. It did smell good. Not vegetable good, or even chicken good since there wasn't enough left of either to give off their real essence, but the sauce had a kick. There was the dark berry and something alcohol and maybe cayenne. Wow, that would have obliterated anything beneath it, so maybe it didn't matter if she could taste chickens or vegetables anyway.

She raised her glass of something Australian, another appealing import, and toasted, "To a non beef entre."

Ty clinked his glass with hers. "To Gwen telling her story."

She felt discomfort and pleasure in equal measure. A younger, but not crazy younger no matter what Max said, handsome, crazy handsome man wanted to know about her. Maybe Max was right, and Ty didn’t think of her entirely as a fellow student. Maybe the one kiss in the doorway wasn’t some glitch after all. She felt a little fizz of confidence.

He smiled, the encouraging kind that would make a vulnerable woman give up her social security number. "Tell me all the interesting parts."

There was her first time at Belmar, which was interesting in the completely stupid and fairly tragic way of youth. Then she’d had twenty years of stable that wouldn’t register on anyone’s interesting scale. And interesting part number two? Mid-life, where things didn’t reach fruition, they fell apart.

But she could only tell Ty about the steady years of raising Missy, taking care of Steve and the house. There was also the cooking of all the chickens and vegetables in adventurous meals like... "I prepared a chicken noodle soup that made the sick well."

"I thought that was an old wives’ tale."

"So is this."





Dessert definitely tasted like it was low fat. There wasn't a good mouth feel, and she'd learned mouth feel from Deb's lecture on the tongue, and why humans loved and would always love fat. But the pomegranate molasses, again with the drizzling, had a certain charm. This time the artsy squiggles lay on top of tropical fruits and toasted pine nuts. The fruit was chopped into tiny triangles, but she might just pick up a bottle of the molasses and put it on something really worthy, like ice cream.

Ty’s eyebrows looked permanently knitted together. "So, you ended up accidentally in the program?"

"Pretty much."

"Wow." He shook his head.

She didn’t think it was worthy of a wow. Did he think it was that big of a stretch that she could cook professionally? To be fair, she did. And when she’d told him about needing something to fill her days beside one psychology class, it did sound like her enrollment had just happened, like lightning or shingles.

He leaned closer, his voice strong. "I've just always wanted this. This is it for me. Everything."

"Everything?" Short of raising Missy to adulthood, what could she ever say that about?

"I worked in half a dozen kitchens, moved around hoping that would help. Seattle, Boston, Chicago. But I couldn't ever move up. I’d have a little movement, but still in the same tier of kitchen staff, the bottom. School’s always been hard for me, but I see you take the written tests, and you do so well on them, like you’re a good student. I knew that to get where I wanted to I'd need a good program. More and more restaurants want that diploma so they can advertise the head chef is a graduate of some place impressive."

"The program’s too new to have any kind of reputation, isn't it?"

"Chef Gaspard." Ty said Nicola’s name like Gwen might say Brad Pitt or gorgonzola or buy one get one free. "She couldn’t be more connected. She’s culinary royalty."

As far as she could tell the woman was only a royal pain in the ass. "The Princess Di of duck livers."

"Yeah, she really is."

The woman was ruining her evening, and this time she hadn’t even lived with Gwen’s date. "Enough about culinary ambitions. Let’s talk about something besides food."

Ty laughed. "Okay, you first."

"Oh, well..." what did she have to talk about? Was there anything after husband, daughter, chicken, Nicola?

"And," Ty pointed at her, "no hobbies. They'll involve the kitchen, won't they?"

She smiled, busted. But was her life really just one note? Surely she could do small talk. "My favorite color is blue."

"Everybody's favorite color is blue."

"Not everybody's. Men are biologically predisposed to red." She held up a hand. "You don’t want to know."

"Okaaay." He looked around the room. "Something about men. Reveal to me what women really think."

"Oh, that won't take long."

"Maybe it’s easy. Maybe men overcomplicate things."

She laughed. "You are quite funny, Ty, handsome and funny. How are you single and wasting your evening with me?"

"I’m here because there's nowhere else I want to be."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "That's what men think women are hoping for, isn't it?"

"What?"

"That we're fish and in need of a good line from a fisherman?"

"Should I write this down? I’m not much of a note taker, but I think I can remember chocolate and flowers."

"Chocolate’s easy." She thought of the Belgian bar in her dorm room. "Too easy. And flowers, yes, but not the way men think it will work. It's not about the flowers."

"Of course not. It's the effort, the work, time, money."

She thought of Max, still so confident with the chocolate at her door. No. It was never the object. "It's the vulnerability."

"Sensitive men love flowers?"

It may be harder to explain than she thought. A woman would have gotten it with the word vulnerability. "Okay, on Valentine's Day you know how everywhere you look there are men with flowers in their hands? They pick the bouquets up even at the grocery store. You see them walking down the sidewalk. A man with a bunch of flowers is vulnerable. It's why you propose on your knees. A man who is asking, who has put himself out there and can be shot down so easily... that's what gets us."





Gwen stood beside Ty, the elevator lights blinking them up floor by floor. She felt him lean a little closer, his arm near hers. "Is a man walking a woman to her door also vulnerable?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

"Does the man live two doors down from the woman?"

"Maybe."

"Well, down the hall is less vulnerable than, say, walking six miles uphill in the snow. And there’s the other element..." She smiled at their blurry reflection in the metal doors. She’d had fun. Ty was just enough of a flirt for it to be encouraging and enough of a friend for it to be comfortable. It was as if the weight on a twenty-something guy’s shoulders was so light, it was a joy to just breathe near him.

"What other element?"

"Intention. The offer to walk me to my door could be old time chivalry like a black and white movie hero who trudges uphill in the snow because he’s concerned about Greta Garbo’s safety."

"With flowers."

Gwen laughed. "With flowers. Or it could be the good-guy quality of a Tom Hanks pleading his case with Meg Ryan. Or, it could be the complete opposite of vulnerability."

"Like?"

"Like Dan Akroyd on Saturday Night Live knocking on Gilda Radner's door. Pizza delivery. But when she opens it, he’s dressed in a shark suit."

Ty looked confused, and she reminded herself that age differences were differences. "Humor me and pretend that you were capable of watching TV at least by the eighties."

"I’ve seen I Love Lucy."

"Wrong decade."

"What's a couple of years one way or the other?" He closed the gap between them and kissed her, and she felt the wall of the elevator at the back of her head and didn't even know why she'd stepped back.

When he touched his lips to hers, she really wondered why she'd stepped back. They were warm and moved slowly, like he kissed with an Australian accent. She’d missed that the quick first time. She felt his hands circle her waist, pull her closer but not too close. Nice. Very nice. Her back arched involuntarily, but she straightened to a more appropriate pelvic distance, and the elevator dinged just like it had the first time, another angel getting his wings. She pulled back and saw that the doors had opened.

Mranda may have registered surprise when she’d first spotted them in a clinch, but by the time Gwen saw her, the look was narrow-eyed hatred. Gwen had always assumed female jealousy rates were over-inflated, and cat fights were nothing but urban legends. But for a second, she felt a fight or flight response to Mranda’s murderous face.

It was the smile that really scared her. Mranda's lips, still tight, spread in the kind of grin generally reserved for deranged supervillians. Ty missed it, reaching to keep the elevator door open, and then Mranda turned towards Gwen’s room. The door was open, and she hoped the scary smiler hadn’t been giving Missy a hard time.

"No, leave the pen. That’s university property."

Gwen headed closer, vaguely aware of Ty behind her, and a pair of boxes slid over her door jamb and stopped at Mranda’s feet. Gwen saw her cookbooks and Psych. notes dumped on top.

Mranda kicked the boxes toward her. "Gwen Melissa, this room isn’t yours at all, is it? It’s Melissa Gwen’s." Mranda flipped her hand over, the French manicured nails giving way to palm. "The university doesn’t allow squatters."

Gwen took a deep breath. If Napoleon had been a cheerleader… "I’ve paid for this room." She reached the door as Steve emerged.

He faced her, the bland camel v-neck sweater and button down shirt at odds with the pissy face. "I paid for the room, technically. For Missy. From Missy’s college fund. I’m the fund’s guardian. Did you forget that, Gwen?"

Forget that? She opened her mouth to assure him she’d never known that, but Mranda, with great energy, stepped between her and Steve and encouraged a very quiet Ty to join them. "I don’t believe you’ve met Gwen’s husband, Steve."

Steve stuck out his hand and smiled, and Gwen knew that face. Even in a crisis, the man was a breath away from asking Ty about his insurance needs.

She put her hands out flat in front of her to both calm herself down and be in a better position to crank them around Mranda’s neck. "Let’s stop this right now. I signed divorce papers. I helped save money for the college account, and I can spend some of it. I’m enrolled here."

Steve made a small noise, but she stopped him with a glare. He shrugged as if in defeat, but the self-satisfied look on his face made her heart kick up its beat.

She didn't want to hear his answer, but she had to ask anyway. "What have you done, Steve?"

He gave her a half smile. "Nothing any good parent wouldn’t do. You're not thinking very clearly, Gwen, so I took care of things. I enrolled Missy in an independent study voice class and someone needed to straighten out this housing confusion."

"My housing and tuition are paid this semester. A semester Missy chose not to attend."

Steve shrugged. "She’s here now. We’ve decided it’s the right thing to do."

Mranda patted his arm. "It is." She turned to Gwen, "It’s against dorm policy to--"

"Don’t." Gwen jabbed a finger near Mranda’s sternum. Maybe she could break it or deflate her breasts or both.

Mranda’s mouth opened to protest, but Gwen just stepped closer. "I’ve got twenty years and twenty pounds on you, little girl, and I will use both."

Steve shook his head as if it was all very sad and picked up the two boxes that held everything that was officially hers in the room. "Let’s go home and sort this out." He eyed Ty, "Privately."

Gwen grabbed for the boxes, too heavy to hold, she realized, as they thudded to the floor. She picked up the top one and kicked the bottom one towards the elevator, pushing it with alternating feet. "Let’s go to Hell, and you can sort out your conscience. Privately."

Mranda, with a voice sweet as anything, made a hmmm sound. "I can see why you divorced her."

Gwen pivoted and stomped one foot down, making Mranda jump back. It was the tiniest bit satisfying, but playing chicken in the hallway with a co-ed might not be the best way to show Steve she had it together.

She continued on to the elevator, set the box down on top of the kicked one, and straightened with a fake dignity no one would buy. Pushing the button for the lobby, she ignored the tool and his blonde minion, but nodded at Ty. "Thank you for the chicken."

Ty waved as if he didn’t know what other response was appropriate, and the doors closed them out and her in, sealing a day that only got worse when she realized she had to go live with her mother. And her mother lived with Max.





There were times in a man’s life when he had to stand up and be counted, when he needed to speak his truth and risk censure or criticism, even if his life would forever be altered by the ripple of change. He held the three die, felt them roll around in his cupped palm, and shook out a two, six, and three. He looked up from the losing shake to see Gwen walk into his living room. This was not one of those times.

He sighed, "I didn’t hear the door," and stood in delayed greeting as he felt the wall to wall silence of eleven women watching them, waiting to be entertained.

He could see that Gwen was studying the gathering, watched her take in the three card tables and the couch jammed against the far wall. She returned her mother’s little wave then her eyes came to rest on his chest. He wished he’d remembered the shirt. He wanted to cross his arms over his chest, man-like, but it was too late.

Gwen mouthed the words like a first grader trying to make sense of language. "Bunco Babe."

He resisted the urge to scratch himself or belch or spit on the carpet. That would be macho. Gross but macho. Not that a real man needed to defend himself in his own home. He pointed around the room. Surely she could see it was how it was done since they all wore Bunco Babe T-shirts. It was… "The shirt is like a uniform."

She looked like she was trying to keep it together but not succeeding very well. "Sure, basketball requires shorts. Bunco…" She tipped her head closer, and he could smell, or imagine he could smell, vanilla. "A bedazzled t-shirt?"

"Your mother loaned me this."

"Well, okay then. The blingy babe shirt is a loaner."

And couldn’t she just judge? She was still wearing her date outfit, the skirt, the boots, and God knew what kind of underwear. She might not be wearing any at…

He had to sit down and slow his breathing. The only good news was her clothes weren’t wrinkled. He wouldn’t have left her looking that tidy. If she’d sent his head against the headboard, she’d be as disheveled as hell. And she wouldn’t have been putting her clothes back on any time soon either. Crocodile Junior had struck out.

He felt better. Already regaining his footing, he turned to Ellen. "I don’t think we invited Gwen to Bunco night did we, Ellen?"

"Well, she hasn’t been around for a while. And she was out with that Australian boy…"

"I’m right here, Mom. And he’s not a boy. He’s a man."

Max slapped his hands on the table and the die jumped. He shook his head in apology, smiled again. "Let’s get back to the round. We’re on fives, right?"

The women watched Gwen. Ten women she’d never seen before in her life were waiting for her to say something about a guy, who, referred to as a boy could be sixteen. Her first almost real date in twenty years, and she needed to defend herself to strangers.

She’d thought coming to see Max would be awkward. Max and a Bunco party were off the charts, but what were her options? "I’m Gwen, Ellen’s daughter, and, just so you know, Ty is almost thirty and not Australian although he lived there during elementary school."

The women stared and no one introduced themselves. She thought she heard one say something about the chocolate bar and Belgium adjoining France but not being French.

"Where," Gwen tried another smile, "did you all come from?"

Her mother straightened her pad and pencil, impatient, no doubt, to get back to play. And probably mad for being ignored for two weeks. Rightly so, although hadn’t Missy ignored her mother a lot longer?

"I called a local church because Max had never played Bunco. And I miss my weekly play back home."

"A church sent over Bunco players?"

"I’m a shut-in."

Gwen raised an eyebrow.

"I’m convalescing."

"But isn’t Bunco kind of a…"

Everyone stared at her, waiting.

"You know, a dice game? Gambling."

"Based strictly on chance."

"Oh, right. That’s better because…"

Max could see the church women turning on Gwen. They’d taken his side after he’d returned minus the chocolate, and they’d appreciated his opening his home. One had suggested he date her daughter, and another told him his Bunco play had more power and skill than her husband’s. He’d watch that one. But Gwen was twisting in the wind, making the suggestion that these women were committing an original sin. It fell below idols and coveting neighbor’s oxen, but it was a pretty big one all the same.

He pushed back from the table. "I think my puffs are ready. Let’s take a break, ladies." He took Gwen’s arm and pulled her towards the kitchen.

She hissed at him. "You're a cream puff."

"Shrimp puff. Savory first. Sweet follows."

Gwen tipped her head toward the living room where the din rose from everyone talking at once. "I’ll just bet."

Max pulled a tray out of the warm oven. "Oh, you saw Dolores give me the eye, did you?"

"No."

"High table. Her back’s to the fireplace."

"Redhead."

Max grinned. "Yeah."

"I didn’t notice."

"I play Bunco with more power and skill than her husband does."

Gwen’s mouth thinned in that way it did when something annoyed her, and she didn’t want anyone to know it. He wanted to kiss her right on the dimpled corner of it. Then he wanted to dig at her about her stupid date with dingo got my baby boy.

She sighed. "Will you please..."

He stopped plating the puffs long enough to see Gwen point to his shirt.

"Honestly, I can’t talk to you when you twinkle."

He looked down. The BABE really gave off some heat with the overhead kitchen lights. He reached for the hem and started to pull it up. He’d gotten it half-way off, glad for the millionth time he’d never stopped doing crunches, when Gwen grabbed his arm and yanked it down.

Giving in to impulse, he gave her a quick kiss on the corner of her irritated mouth. "It would hurt Ellen’s feelings if I took it off anyway. And probably further inflame the unwanted advances of Dolores."

He turned his attention back to the appetizer and added a garnish of flat leaf Italian parsley to the plate.

"When did you get to be such a girl?"

"I am a renaissance man." He put his hand up. "And I’m not even talking to you if you’re going to resort to gender biased assumptions." He lifted his chin and picked up the plate. "My puffs are getting cold."

She started to smile, and he could see it loosening at the corners where her dimple deepened and he’d gotten away with a kiss. He wanted to get away with more, starting with making her smile. "Go ahead, take your best shot. With all this sexual harassment, I’m very vulnerable right now."

She laughed, a short burst but with energy. "You haven’t let your puffs cool since you hit puberty."

He put his free hand to his chest, and BABE winked out between his fingers, and she laughed again, a little looser he was glad to hear. And, god, she was beautiful, never more so than when she let herself relax. "I don’t know why you’re here, Gwen, but even though I’m caught bedazzled, I’m glad you are."

Her smile left, and he saw the worry in her seriousness.

"Is Missy okay?"

She nodded.

"What’s wrong?"

A round of laughter from the living room startled her, and he cursed the house full of women on the one night Gwen had willingly come to see him. And he could tell that it was him, not Ellen, she’d come to talk to. He looked at the plate. "I’m gonna take this out and buy us a couple of minutes. They eat like piranhas."

He left the kitchen and set the plate down in front of Ellen, who couldn’t get up easily and might get nothing if she didn’t have the first shot, then he got out of the way as the others descended, and headed back in the kitchen.

Gwen moved around like she was trying to out-pace whatever troubled her. "Steve showed up tonight."

"On your date?"

"It wasn’t a…" she seemed to reconsider it.

He knew it. The crikey bastard had made a move on her. He could see it on her face. The little prick had tried to get his Aussie hands on her. Damn, he hated it when he was right.

"Not on my..." she hesitated, "date. When I got back to my room, Steve and Mranda were there. God, I hate that girl. I know she’s young, and I should feel something more mom-like for her. She’s just a year older than Missy. But she’s such a bitch."

He stopped himself from smiling. He’d never heard her call anyone anything harsher than a stinker. Suggesting that he was a girl was as hard-core name calling as she used to get. "So, what were the tool and the bitch up to?"

"Moving me out."

"Of your room?"

Gwen nodded.

"They can’t."

"Did."

He had an instant picture of Gwen’s car parked at his curb, loaded up with her things and leaving town. The leaving town part was not going to work for him. "You can’t go."

He hoped she didn’t notice he’d just told her what to do, but there were things to figure out, things between them that hadn’t gone away in twenty years, even if they’d both learned to live with that. He had things to say he hoped she'd listen to, and while he might not know what he was going to do about her, maybe he'd never known, he had to see her more, and she needed to be around, be near, for that.

"I still have two weeks left in the semester. I can’t go."

He took a breath and realized his heart rate needed to come back to normal.

"I’m..." she cleared her throat. "So tonight, I, uh..."

She was there, right in his kitchen, and she needed a place to stay. His place. Alone.

The dull roar of eleven women chatting in his living room penetrated his brain, and shit, her mother was staying even after he kicked the other ten out. He moved closer to Gwen. It was still an opportunity he was going to take advantage of any way he could. They could figure some things out, like what the hell was going on, had always been going on between them, and whether or not untying both of her pajama ties would satisfy him or make him want her for another twenty years.

Gwen seemed to sense the danger. He saw her head come up like a gazelle. Yeah, he was at a distinct advantage. He’d caught her at the watering hole, and he’d maneuver her right into the sink.

He stepped forward, and she stepped back, so he did it again. Was there any dance better than a man pursuing a woman? "You’re homeless." He shook his head, tried not to laugh when she backed into the edge of the sink and let out a little hmmpf of air. "That is very, very sad."

Putting his hands on either side of her hips, he fought the impulse to reach for her waist and pull her to him. "What..." he leaned closer, his head aiming to the left of hers so his mouth rested near her ear, "will you do?"

He felt her stiffen, recovering at the watering hole and choosing fight over flight. He could stop that. He pulled back enough to face her nose to nose. "I wouldn’t."

Her eyebrows joined at the strained center between her eyes. "What?"

He shrugged, used it as an opportunity to pin her closer to the sink. "Get all feisty with the person you need a favor from." He watched her. God, she was so much fun and ready to rip into him and let him know exactly what she thought. He gave her a quick grin. "So, you’ll stay here. No problem." That took her by surprise. He could feel her wobble as if she’d expected him to pull, and he’d let go.

"That’s it? I can stay here until the end of the semester? No problem? No strings attached?"

"Strings attached is such an ungenerous expression. Think of it as I help you out, and you--"

"Scratch your back?" She slapped at his chest.

He was reminded of his BUNCO BABE glitter but refused to give up the upper hand. With a woman like Gwen, a man didn’t have the upper hand very often. It was one of the best things about her. "I’m doing this out of the goodness of my heart, and if, by any chance, you are moved out of the goodness of your heart..."

"You think you can seduce me if I stay here."

He shook his head. "Gwen, really." He smiled, pressed her a little more against the sink. "I know whether I want to or not, you’re going to send me against the headboard. Just give fair warning. I’ll need to tighten up the screws."

Her cheeks were red, and he watched her fight the impulse to tell him off. Anger he liked. It was only indifference from Gwen that killed him. He’d learned that over and over for the past twenty years.

She started to wiggle away, and he didn’t let up but moved his right hand from the sink’s edge so she could squeeze by. It caused more contact between them than she knew. Damn. It would be a challenge having her sleep there and not with him. The quicker that was fixed, the better. He’d just have to make sure she didn’t share the guest room with Ellen. A daytime chaperone was challenge enough. He loved a challenge, but success had to be possible.

Dolores looked into the kitchen, her red hair stark against the plain wall. "We can’t play without you, Max."

He gave her his best smile, felt Gwen prickle next to him. There was a lot to be said about jealously, however misguided. He liked to think it stood as a marker of what someone really wanted. He’d think that and get through the rest of Bunco night.





"I don’t see why I can’t sleep with you, Mom."

"Oh my ankle, Gwennie. Any movement at all causes me such pain."

Max stood in the doorway to the guest bedroom he'd taken over when her mom had moved in. He lounged really, in Belmar sweats and a gray t-shirt, and looked at Ellen with such affection that Gwen wondered if her traitor mother was making her a sitting duck.

The evidence was there. She eyed the pillow and comforter set up tidily on the couch, and Max in the bedroom doorway three feet away. Just a couple of steps, and she’d be in danger. There was the danger of complicating her life more, the danger of waking up with his teeth on a p.j. tie, and worst of all, the danger of losing her head and forgetting he was still attached to a woman who could kick her out of her education. She’d already lost her first chance at school. Nobody got a third.

"This is fine." She forced herself to smile at her mom and Max. Never let them see you sweat. Wasn’t that the motto of those in control? She may not have much say over anything, but she could handle this turn of events. "Well," she gave Max and her mother a little wave. "Goodnight."

Ellen made a hmmm sound like she was so very happy to be there. "Don’t let the bed bugs bite." She crutched her way down the hall.

Gwen turned to Max, daring him with her hands on her hips, to say anything. But it wasn’t the saying of anything that moved between them. It was longing, crazy, intense longing like she’d had once at eighteen and thought she’d never have again. She felt it, but if he did, he didn’t say, just tipped his head and went into the bedroom, leaving the door open in an invitation she had no intention of accepting. She’d sleep with her clothes on and one eye open. She’d keep on guard all night and hope she didn’t fail to keep an eye on herself as well.