chapter Six
After what felt like an eternity, Peter finally turned around. She hadn’t spent the time to look anywhere else than at his eyes, in the kitchen. And that had felt more like a tractor beam she couldn’t disengage from than anything she actually wanted to be a part of. Claudia hadn’t seen any pictures of him in years. May knew better than to bring them out. Or bring him up, for that matter. He was the tabooest of subjects.
So she still had a picture of him in her head as an eighteen-year-old with bronzed skin, dark hair, and perfect smile that could turn her knees to jelly across the cafeteria table.
And there wasn’t much different about him now. He’d filled out a little, had more of a man’s body, but the smile was still there, the bronzed skin was still kissed by the sun, and the dark hair didn’t contain a single strand of gray. Thank God she’d gotten her hair dyed last week and her knees were rock solid.
“Claudia.”
And his voice was still as sinful as ever. It slid over her skin and down her throat. Damn it. Nate. She’d think about Nate and forget the smile. But she couldn’t even pull up a decent picture of Nate in her mind now. She was surprised she’d remembered his name. Her knees would not turn to jelly now if they knew what was good for them. Finally an image popped into her mind, the one with Nate and his shirt halfway up that scrumptious belly the other day. The forced smile on her face relaxed a half inch.
And then they did the awkward dance—Do you give a hug? Kiss the air next to his cheek? Shake hands? Keep ten feet between you? God, this was killing her.
She settled on a hybrid—the one-armed hug. But Peter was attempting the very same thing and ended up getting a handful of her boob.
She jumped back faster than she thought she could possibly move and blushed to the roots of her hair.
He, on the other hand, smirked and looked just like the old Peter, sure he could get everything in the world handed to him on the platter without any work or investment in anything other than himself.
“Well, it was nice seeing you.” She started to walk away and realized she couldn’t go any farther than the kitchen. The joke was on her. She couldn’t duck out of lunch before lunch even happened, couldn’t leave May in the lurch. So she’d have to buck it up.
“Zoe, could I see you in the kitchen?” If she had to be in the house, she’d make sure it wasn’t right near him. Certainly something must need to be done before they all sat down at the table and acted like one big happy family.
“Right behind you.”
Taking careful steps back across the living room, which seemed to have grown even larger, she heard May talking in a low voice to Peter and then a solid thwack when she smacked him in the back of the head. Claudia barely contained a snicker and wondered when the hell her life had become this insane weirdness.
“Well, that went well, don’t you think?” Zoe yanked open the refrigerator, dove inside and came up triumphant. She tore into a crisp carrot like she was taking off someone’s head.
“Yeah, that wasn’t uncomfortable at all. And you were a real big help. Thanks.” Claudia searched without any luck for something, anything, to do. “You could have at least said hello.”
After slamming the refrigerator door with more force than necessary, Zoe gave Claudia a hard look with glittering eyes. “If you really thought I was going to say hi to that man and give him a hug, you are completely off your rocker. I barely could promise May I’d be civil. Hugs were so not on the list.”
Claudia couldn’t help it. All the tension, all the stress, all the anticipation of the first time she talked to Peter again after so many years came bubbling out in near-hysterical laughter. She gripped the counter as the sound came rolling out in waves. She accepted the paper towel Zoe gave her and mopped at her eyes, no longer sure if she was laughing or crying.
For her part, Zoe came over and wrapped an arm around Claudia’s shoulders. “I know it was hard for you, but I think you did a wonderful job and had a lot of class. You knocked him for a loop.”
“I’ll say.” May’s voice made Claudia jump back from the comfort of Zoe’s arms.
Feeling guilty when she shouldn’t, Claudia wrung her hands in front of her. “I...um...just thought there might be something I could do to get things ready for the lunch. Thought I’d come check out the kitchen and see what I could do to help.” But when Claudia looked around the spotless kitchen with its blindingly white appliances and fancy café curtains done in red and white, she knew there was nothing here for her but shelter.
“You’ll say what?” Zoe’s chin took on the belligerent set she used to wear when their mother told her curfew was at ten, no exceptions.
May took her time staring at the two of them, and Claudia saw the storm brewing in her eyes. This could go from bad to worse in two seconds flat if she didn’t step in and play peacekeeper. “Hi, May, thanks for not making that awkward.”
Obviously it was the wrong thing to say, because May’s normally warm brown eyes took on the temperature of rock-hard chocolate ice cream. “I didn’t have to make it awkward. But I think someone else was doing a damn fine job of turning that around.” She threw a stack of napkins onto the big butcher block island and stomped around the kitchen to the refrigerator. She yanked it open, much like Zoe had, and attacked another poor carrot, again much like Zoe. Two years younger than Claudia and one older than Zoe, May had always been the bridge over the gap in the sisters’ ages when they were younger. This had to be hard for her, too.
“I’m sorry, May. I didn’t mean to sound flippant. I didn’t know what it was going to be like to be in the same room as Peter again after all this time. I was simply saying that I was glad it didn’t involve yelling or crying. That’s all.”
“I’m sure it would have been different if left up to this one.” She hooked a thumb at Zoe and decapitated the poor carrot with her teeth.
Zoe visibly bristled. Claudia could almost see the hair standing up on the back of her neck like some cat being confronted by a dog. Not that Claudia would share that image with anyone outside her own mind. It didn’t flatter either one of them.
“Down, Zoe. I can handle this myself.” Claudia walked around to the other side of the island and gently took the carrot out of May’s hand. She didn’t want this to escalate to a point where none of them could be comfortable around each other. Especially since they all worked together. They’d had their tiffs before, but nothing like the potential this had to become an all-out war.
She walked May over to where Zoe stood rigid and made them face her, next to each other. “I’m going to say this once, and then I don’t think I ever want to say it again. I want both of you to know that I love you. And I love my son. And I love our store and the beautiful work we do together. Up until this point, we haven’t ever discussed Peter or even let him into a conversation peripherally because I think we all knew what a disaster it could be.”
“But...”
Claudia held up a hand to stop whatever Zoe was about to say. She held Zoe’s right hand and May’s left. “Peter gave me something precious. It might not have ever worked out between us. We may have hated each other if he’d stayed around long enough to see Justin take his first steps. But that doesn’t negate the fact that we were a couple and we were both in the car the night Justin was conceived.”
“He’s only back for a few weeks.” May squeezed her hand.
“I understand that, May, and I know you want this visit to go nicely so he’ll come back again, but you can’t discount the fact that he hasn’t even tried to see Justin since he was born, and that he left me to fend for myself almost from the moment the stick turned blue.”
“I never have.” May tried to pull her hand away, but Claudia wouldn’t let her.
“I’m not saying you have, but it’s a fact. I made out for myself just fine, but it might not be all roses and icing while he’s here. I don’t want it to rip us apart, that’s all I’m saying.”
“It’s not going to rip us apart. How could you think that?”
“We’re already having problems, right now, and we’re barely ten minutes into this occasion. You don’t think that’s a big deal?” May’s attitude baffled Claudia. She had been there in the delivery room. Maybe she hadn’t seen all the tears that had fallen in the dark of her room like Zoe had. And she had missed two years of cranky toddler Justin while she went to design school. But that didn’t mean she didn’t know how hard this was for her.
“We could just avoid the subject while he’s here,” Zoe said, shrugging.
Claudia was ready to say that was an option, just to keep the status quo, when May cut in.
“No, I think it would be better if we brought it out into the open.” She seemed to pluck up her courage and looked first Claudia in the eyes and then Zoe. “Girls’ night at your apartment tonight, and we’ll sort it out. In the meantime, you did a great job out there, and as far as I know, Peter has no intention of doing anything but staying for a few weeks, at the most. I don’t even know if he had plans to see Justin while he was here.” Something about that seemed to strike her wrong, but she shook it off, saying, “We’ll talk about it later, but if you could just hang out in the same room with him without anything going wrong right now, I’d really appreciate it. I know I already pulled the friendship card to get you here. I don’t think I have another one to throw on the table.”
“Babe, you don’t need to throw another card on the table,” Claudia said, hooking an arm over May’s shoulder. “This is awkward and difficult for all of us, for different reasons. But we’ll get through it.” She let go to grab a handful of plastic silverware. “We’ll enjoy lunch and figure it all out later. It’s not a problem and not nearly as tough as I thought it would be. I can handle it. Don’t I always?”
So they went out into the dining room, where everyone had gathered at the buffet on the long oak table Nate had made for May when she and Brad married three years ago. Just the reminder of him and her failed attempts at seducing him made her feel better, for some reason. She was moving on. She was moving forward with something she wanted, and no one, not even the reemergence of an old lover and the father of her child, was going to make her forget that she did have purpose and she did have goals that didn’t include him.
Lunch got underway. Justin was called up from the basement and sat next to her in the living room. Since May had so many people there, with her parents and Claudia’s parents, her, Justin, and Zoe, everyone pretty much just spread out through the main floor of the house. Thankfully, she didn’t see Peter at all. But she was still waiting for Justin to start asking where he was. She’d finally screwed up her courage just this morning to tell her boy that Peter would be there. At first she’d thought he would be full of questions after he’d walked away the first time, but he’d surprised her by coming back to the living room and talking about the batting cages and some homework that still needed to be done tonight. Then her parents had shown up, and that had been the end of that.
She wasn’t going to bring it up while they ate, with Zoe sitting on the living room floor in front of them like a guard dog, but she also knew it would come at some point. She’d be happy if only they could get through this. However, she wasn’t holding her breath.
Sure enough, the other shoe dropped just as she put a particularly sour pickle between her lips.
“So, Mom, that guy in there, he was my sperm donor, huh?” Justin shoved some chips in his mouth and settled back into the couch.
He sounded so nonchalant, she almost choked on the pickle. That wouldn’t be a very nice picture, so she made an effort to finish chewing and swallow. She shot a look at Zoe. There was only one person who called Peter a sperm donor out loud, and she was staring at her.
Zoe did everything but whistle and rock back and forth on her heels in a picture of total innocence.
Claudia cleared her throat. “Let’s not use that term, okay?”
“You mean ‘sperm donor’?” he asked loudly. Loudly enough to have several heads in the next room turn to see what was going on.
Claudia inanely laughed and shook her head as if to say “Kids! What are you going to do?” but inside she was ready to throttle him. “Yes, that is the word I’m talking about, and I don’t want to hear it again.”
“Aunt Zoe says it.”
Claudia mentally rolled her eyes and set her foot down on the edge of Zoe’s pants when she tried to get up and walk out. “You are not going anywhere.”
Zoe at least had the grace to look sheepish. “Yes, ma’am.”
Claudia focused all her attention on Justin again and formed the words in her head to make him understand. “We won’t call him that because it could hurt his feelings.” Now it was Zoe’s turn to roll her eyes. Claudia saw it peripherally and let it pass. She didn’t know why she was worrying about Peter’s feelings either, but it was built into who she was. What happened was in the past, and she wasn’t going to drag it all up and examine it because of one lousy lunch.
“So what should I call him?” Justin popped another chip into his mouth, but this time it was feigned nonchalance.
She could almost feel him vibrating next to her. She’d tried over the years to understand what it must feel like to have one of the two people who should love you absolutely without reserve walk out, but all she could do was follow Justin’s lead. Sure, it had hurt that Peter left her in the lurch with a child on the way, but that was more pride than any love. She hadn’t had any deep feelings for him in years. “I don’t know, to be honest. I would think ‘Peter’ would be fine. Did you want to talk to him? He’s in the family room, I think.”
Justin crunched his chips and darted his gaze everywhere but at her. Was he thinking he’d be betraying her if he went and talked to Peter? Was he nervous that Peter might not like him? This whole idea was feeling worse and worse as the moments dragged on. But then Justin surprised her. “Yeah, I think I should go talk to him, so he can see that I’m okay and that you did a great job raising me even if he couldn’t be here to help out.”
She had a fantastic kid. “Okay, we can go find him.”
Claudia ignored Zoe’s pointed stare and fake cough as she left her plate on the coffee table and took Justin’s hand. He must have been almost as nervous as she was, since his hand was sweaty and he actually let her hold it. He hadn’t wanted to hold her hand since he was six. “It’s going to be fine, hon.”
“Oh, I know,” he said, his voice much more confident than the sweat on his hand revealed. “I just hope I like him.”
That was a perfect attitude to take into this encounter. She wished her mind wasn’t running to “I hope he doesn’t think I’m a fat cow.”
****
Claudia stood back from the scene unfolding before her and let her son do the talking, but she was there right behind him if he needed her. So far, she hadn’t had to say a thing, even though Peter kept flicking glances at her.
Justin hovered on the arm of the big chair Peter sat in. As he explained the intricacies of his latest video game and the way Nate didn’t always let him win, since it was good for his character, Justin kept his arms crossed over his chest. But it was less a protective gesture and more a pride in himself and relaxation. He’d jumped into the conversation with Peter as if they were old friends and Justin had every right to his undivided attention.
Fortunately, Peter hadn’t been talking to anyone at the time, so Claudia didn’t have to deal with Justin being rude and butting in once he got his mind set on something.
“So anyway, there’s this level on Spiderman that you have to swing left and right and not miss a single thing while picking up clues. I scored on it, and it was so cool. I can’t wait to get to the next level.”
Peter hadn’t said much yet, but Justin hadn’t exactly given him a chance. He looked a little bewildered, though he was at least paying attention. “How many levels are you talking?”
“Probably about twenty or more, I think. I didn’t look at the back of the package yet, or even get cheat codes off the Internet, since we’re trying to beat it on our own.” Justin shrugged. “So anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I think it’s great meeting you, and thanks for being with my mom to make me.”
Claudia felt her breath back up in her throat. The expression on her face most likely closely mirrored the dawning look of horror on Peter’s face.
And Justin went on. “She hasn’t really explained the whole baby thing to me yet, so I’m not sure what all was involved, but I hope it was fun, since I’m fun.”
Open up, floor, and swallow her whole. Yet she still couldn’t get her mouth to do anything but open and close.
“If you’ve ever been worried that Mom wasn’t going to do a good job with me, you can stop now. She’s the best in the world, even if she won’t let me call you a sperm donor, and I think it’s cool to finally meet you. I mean, how many people get to go back to school tomorrow and say, ‘Hey, I finally got to meet my dad and he was pretty cool’? Ought ta be fun. I’m going to go get some more soda, Mom. I’ll see you later, Peter. I want to tell Grandpa about this awesome basket I made at church this morning. Have fun, and it was nice meeting you.” Justin trotted off toward the kitchen.
Peter gave a vague wave of his hand before shaking his head and looking at Claudia. She swallowed nervously, still not sure what to say, if she should apologize or if she should just ride the wave. Although that had gone a whole lot better than she had thought possible.
It could have been worse, anyway.
“Wow.” Peter wiped his fingers across the top of his mouth. It was a nervous gesture from years ago, and it tugged at her a little.
“Yeah, he’s, um, something else, huh?” Claudia remained standing even though it made her feel awkward to tower over him in her three-inch heels. After the flats had gone into the fire the moment she got home from her date with Eddie, she’d worn only heels. They gave her a height advantage right now, but it seemed silly to force it—until he stood up and took her hand, leaving her at his eye level.
“He is something, Claudia. You did a good job.”
Well, that wasn’t quite the response she’d been prepared for. And now what did she say since the verbal ball was back in her court? “Um, thank you.” So weak, but she couldn’t think of anything else on such short notice. She couldn’t even dredge up all the old feelings of abandonment to blast him with.
“Well, I think Brad’s waving me over, so I’ll be going.”
He ducked out before she could say anything else, and it was a letdown to not have said anything but, “Um, thanks.” She looked around the room but couldn’t find Justin, and she didn’t want to face Zoe just yet. She could go talk to her parents. She hadn’t seen them since the buffet line. When she looked around for them, though, they seemed to be in a pretty intense conversation with their heads close together. Maybe not.
May’s smiling face greeted her when she walked back into the dining room with the intention of maybe grabbing more potato salad, the great equalizer of confusion. She wished it was a chocolate cake. Maybe that would come later. She hadn’t been able to make herself bake a cake for this supposed celebration, but she would when it was all said and done.
“How are you doing?” May asked.
Claudia had stuffed some potato salad in her mouth and chewed for a while before swallowing. It gave her a chance to be as diplomatic as possible. “Fine. Everything was great. When does your dad want to start things?”
“Hopefully soon. Things are going well...so far. I don’t want it to explode from prolonged exposure.” May stared down at her clasped hands.
Claudia laughed and covered those hands with her own. “I can’t say I would have asked for this, but it actually did turn out okay. Peter and I had our first adult conversation in years, and it went fine. He even met Justin and was impressed with him. He complimented me on raising a good kid.” And hadn’t that been strange?
May grabbed Claudia’s hands and beamed at her. “Oh, that’s wonderful. I’m so happy things worked out so well.”
“I don’t know if I’d say they worked out well, but they worked out.” May’s smile slipped, and Claudia wanted to take the qualifier back. What did it matter if May wanted everyone to act like a big happy family? Would it kill Claudia to let her have her delusions for one afternoon?
May held up a hand before Claudia could get word one out. “No, you’re right. I was hoping for too much too soon. Sorry about that.”
“It’s okay, May. I know this is hard for you, harder since he seems to want to be a part of your family again. I just don’t think I can let him be part of our family.” She’d never been less than honest with May—except for that terrible period where May had worn green eye shadow with green eyeliner. But that was minor compared to this conversation. She had to be honest here. This wasn’t merely a fashion faux pas. “If he wants to be involved with Justin, we’d have to talk about that a lot before it happened. But he didn’t seem to want anything more than what Justin gave him, which was a little conversation and some insight into what a great kid he is.”
“That’s good. I’m glad, then. Do you know where he went? I wanted to make a little announcement.”
May lowered her eyelashes, and Claudia knew something was up. She hoped it didn’t have anything to do with her and Peter. “He went off with Brad, somewhere in the back of the house. They could be grunting over tools, for all I know.” She did not want to offer to go find them. She’d done her good deed for the day by staying in this house with Peter and eating lunch despite his presence. She didn’t need to go any further.
May wandered off with a slight smile on her face. Something was definitely up.
Ten minutes later Claudia waited in the family room with everyone else to find out what that secret smile had been about.
“We have an announcement to make,” Brad said, banging a plastic spoon against his plastic cup.
“That’s not very effective,” Peter said from the other side of the room.
Claudia’s gaze was drawn to him against her will. He was still a very good-looking man. He also had a magnetism that couldn’t be ignored, even if he had always been used to getting his way.
The conversation continued around them with all the adults jabbering away. Claudia put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. That stopped everyone in their conversational tracks. She smiled and waved a hand at May, grateful that, despite the magnetism, she felt nothing at all for Peter.
“Thanks, Claudia. I forgot you could do that.”
“No prob, May. I don’t get to use it often anymore.”
The small crowd laughed as Justin mumbled, “Yeah, right,” loud enough for everyone to hear.
Brad took the floor again and raised his plastic cup. “I’d like to thank all of you for coming. Today is a special day for more reasons than you know. Tell them, May.”
Eyes shining bright and hands clasped over her abdomen, May said, “We’re having a baby.”
Brad grabbed her up as if she weighed nothing and twirled her around while she laughed like a loon. Everyone crowded in to tell the soon-to-be parents how exciting this was. Claudia hung back for a moment so Brad’s parents could get to her first. And then May’s father rose from his chair to hug her. Claudia looked away for a moment, knowing that she might not make it through seeing such happiness when her own expecting news had been met only with anger almost eleven years ago. While this wouldn’t be Roger’s first grandchild, it would be the first to be a happy blessing from day one. As much as Roger now loved Justin, it wasn’t going to be the same situation. Everyone had been hoping May would get pregnant soon. And now she was.
Brad finally put May down when she threatened to throw up on him. Justin was yelling that this was fantastic because now they could all ruffle someone else’s hair, since there would be a new baby in the family. Zoe said something about not needing a dog now, and Claudia’s gaze caught on Peter’s.
That’s how it should have happened for her, too, all those years ago. Pregnancy was a wonderful thing. Bringing another life into the world was fantastic. But at eighteen and barely out of high school, she had known it wasn’t quite what her parents hoped for her. And then Peter turned away from her and continued to make his plans for college as if nothing earth-shattering had happened. She looked down at her shoes and swallowed back unexpected tears. She was so happy for May and Brad. They’d been trying for the last three years for a baby. No way was she going to ruin this for them by wishing anyone would have been this excited for her when she got pregnant.
Something drew her gaze back to Peter at that moment, and it was as if eleven years evaporated and left them able to read each other’s minds again, finish each other’s sentences. And if she wasn’t mistaken, he was regretting it, too.