The One That I Want (2 page)

No one at the camp would have parents present. And though there were many kids, like Yvette’s daughters, who had both parents still living in the same house, at least 65% of the children attending Camp Willowgreen this summer came from one-parent families, primarily because of death or divorce.

“Hey, what do you want for dessert?” I said enthusiastically. “We’ve got chocolate ice cream or those sugar cookies with sprinkles that you like or—”

“I’m not hungry now, Mommy.”

“Not even for ice cream? Not even for cookies?”

She
never
used to turn down either treat, no matter how big the meal preceding it. And tonight she’d had only one cup of soup and three-fourths of her sandwich.

“Maybe later,” she said, unable to disguise her apathy. “I’m gonna read.” She meandered away. No bounce in her step. No spirit in her expression. Nothing.

Somehow I had to find a way to get her excited about life again. Even if I couldn’t quite manage the same for myself.

Maybe Shar was right. Maybe, for Analise’s sake, I needed to try harder. Set a better example of someone who still honored Adam’s memory but was capable of moving on.

Even as impossible as that was to imagine.

Chapter Two

Friday night, Shar was waiting for me at the entrance to The Lounge, arms crossed and tapping her long tapered fingers impatiently against her supremely toned biceps. She was a Pilates regular and had gotten tons of fitness tips from her brother Chance.

“What?” I said. “It’s only 7:07. I’m not that late.”

She waggled her brows at me. “You’ve missed seven minutes of fun already, and at least half of the club members have downed their first glass of merlot by now.”

“Lushes,” I joked.

My best friend chuckled. “You’re going to love ’em. C’mon. I’ll introduce you all around.”

Inside the wine bar, it was dimly lit but pleasant. There were long tables, perfect for large parties, if not exactly conducive to intimate conversation.

The windows were open and without screens, like a café in Europe, so the warm summer breeze blew through the place and the laughing, chattering voices on the sidewalk outside filtered in without obstruction. It reminded me of the week-long trip to southern France that Adam took me on. A very belated honeymoon (five years late, to be exact) because we’d been so broke when we first got married. And, well, because I’d gotten pregnant with Analise just before the wedding, too.

I felt a sudden, sharp pang of loss at the memory.

Oh, Adam. Why did you have to drive so fast that early December night? Why couldn’t you have worn a seatbelt like you’d always advised your patients at the clinic? Why…? There were still so many whys.

I couldn’t keep straight the names of all of the Quest group members—there were more than a dozen of them—but they seemed nice enough, and Shar was right about my liking them. A few were inquisitive and asked me some personal questions, but they were still tactful and avoided inquiries about why I was currently single.

My guess was that Shar had already filled them in on the situation, no doubt issuing a direct command like, “Don’t ask Julia about her husband’s fatal accident.” Mirabelle Harbor, despite being a suburb of a metropolis like Chicago, was as gossipy as one of those quaint small towns featured on every other nighttime TV dramedy. Even those residents who hadn’t personally known the late Dr. Adam T. Crane would likely have heard something about that icy collision.

I had to admit, though, I was always a little surprised when I met people in town who
didn’t
know Adam. He’d been so social, so talkative. How could anyone have missed out on meeting him? After all, he’d been at the center of my universe.

A younger woman named Vicky Bernier swigged half her glass of merlot and asked me about my job.

“I’m an English teacher at Mirabelle Harbor Junior High,” I told her.

“Oh! Like Shar,” the woman said, smiling warmly.

“Yes. That’s where we met.”

“I’m a teacher in town, too,” replied Vicky. “High school French.”

We talked about our two different schools for a while, since the K - 8 district was separate from the 9 - 12 one. Eventually, the topic rolled around to the universities we’d attended.

“I did my teacher training at Franklin College in the city,” Vicky told me.

“Me, too! Small world,” I said, and we launched into a long discussion about their secondary education program.

“So, will you be going to the reunion in July?” Vicky asked.

Something tugged at the edges of my mind. A letter I’d gotten from the university last month. I’d opened it only far enough to see that it had been addressed generally, to the “Graduate of the Franklin College School of Education.” I figured it was another plea for alumni donations, and I’d set it aside for later. Then, of course, I’d forgotten about it. Until now.

“Was that the letter we got in the mail a few weeks ago?”

Vicky nodded.

I grimaced. “It’s probably too late to attend. I’m sure I missed the RSVP deadline.”

The other teacher regarded me thoughtfully and thumbed through a few screens on her iPhone. “Nope,” she said brightly. “The RSVP deadline isn’t until Tuesday.” She flashed her phone calendar at me and grinned. “Register for it this weekend, and we can go together, if you’d like. It’ll be more fun that way, don’t you think?”

Her enthusiasm and warmth was infectious, and I found myself not only agreeing but, surprisingly, feeling a burst of happiness at the idea. There was a different energy here with this crowd than with most of my teaching colleagues (Shar excepted). I liked being seen in a new light, not as “poor Julia Meriwether Crane, whose husband crashed his car and died on impact.” I liked that I’d just made a new friend, too.

Of course, I couldn’t think about teacher training and my Franklin College days without thinking of Ben Saintsbury. I’d only dated a handful of guys as an undergrad, but my longest and most intense relationship had been with Ben. And it had ended badly. Like “Agony of Defeat” badly.

I cringed remembering. I wondered if he’d be there and, if so, how he’d react to seeing me again. Or how I’d react to seeing
him
.

But I decided not to think about it. Ben’s potential presence aside, the reunion was scheduled for Saturday, July tenth—the first weekend after I had to take Analise to camp. I needed to plan activities for myself during her month away or I’d go batshit crazy.

The group’s conversation turned to other things. A few of the guys brought up baseball, a topic that had many fervent fans, male and female alike. I listened, smiled a lot, and worked on finishing my one glass of merlot (it wasn’t bad), as the discussion wove through other Chicagoland sports teams, sites to take in while down in the city, the horrors of home appliance breakdowns, and the best/worst of the summer movie flicks.

“Oh!” a well-dressed woman sitting near Shar exclaimed. I studied her casual but perfectly coordinated outfit and her gentle features, and found myself wishing I could project the kind of self-possessed, confident air she gave off. “That reminds me—”

“Billy?” a clear voice called from across the room, interrupting the lady and effectively halting conversation at half the tables in the wine bar. “Bill Dennon?”

“Hey, Kris!” the slightly balding Cubs fan across the table from me called back. “So good to see you, man. Heard you were back in town.”

The guy was walking in from behind me, so I felt it would be rude to turn and look. It wasn’t until Bill announced to the group, “Everyone, meet my old traveling soccer buddy, Kristopher Karlsen,” that my head snapped around to stare.

Oh, hell, no!

It couldn’t be. Not the same Kristopher Karlsen from high school. Not the hot, athletic senior who’d crushed my teenage heart when he graduated a year before I did and, immediately, broke up with me. Not—

“Who’re you calling ‘old,’ Billy?” the man striding up to us said with a laugh. He and Bill shook hands.

Yep.

The
very same
Kristopher Karlsen.

My first outing with the Quest group and
this
was what I got, huh? Some kind of crazy walk down memory lane, just when I most desperately wanted to move forward… I felt a bubble of near-hysterical laughter rise up in my throat.

Kristopher waved in a friendly but somewhat unseeing way at the cluster of individuals in front of him. Not really focusing, I could tell, on any of our faces. His attention was on Bill and reminiscing about their old sports friends from the surrounding suburbs and a handful of their regional soccer tournaments, which was fine by me. It gave me a chance to study him.

Blue jeans. A perfect fit.

A Polo shirt and expensive leather loafers that contradicted his attempt at casualness. He was too studiously relaxed to be genuinely so.

His brown hair was shaved close, a militaristic buzz cut, so different from the longish look he’d favored during our high-school years.

Muscles that were weight-lifter toned. Not huge, but larger than I recalled.

His dark eyes—complete with those long, black eyelashes—fit my memory of him exactly, though.

It wasn’t until Bill invited him to sit down with us that Kristopher’s gaze locked on mine. He pulled up a chair directly across the table from me, those dark eyes never leaving my face.

“Jules?” he mouthed.

I nodded.

He scanned my eyes, my lips, my chest, then returned to my eyes again and broke into a warm smile. “What group is this, Billy?” he asked his friend. “Work colleagues?”

“Singles’ group,” Bill supplied.

Kristopher stared at me in shock. “Really?
You?
”

Half the table was now looking at us with speculation, but Shar was the first to speak. “How do you two know each other?” she asked.

“High school,” Kristopher and I said together.

An amused smile played at the corners of Shar’s mouth. “Did you two date or something?”

“Not seriously,” I said.

“Oh, yes!” Kristopher said at the same time.

Shar’s smile broadened. “I don’t think I’ve heard this story,” she told Kristopher then thumbed in my direction. “Julia and I only met about five years ago.”

Kristopher beamed one of his gorgeous twinkly grins at my friend and then at me. “Julia and I dated for
months
. But then, well, I graduated, and she never wrote to me or anything. Forgot about me the second I left town.” He gave a pitiable shrug.

“What?” I cried. “You broke up with
me
. You said you needed to ‘focus on your sports.’ That you had ‘no time for girlfriends’ when you had your ‘true loves’—soccer and football.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t say that.”

“You did!”

“No.”

I crossed my arms, livid.
“Yes.”

“Really?” He squinted at me. “Was I that dumb?”

He caught me off guard and, in spite of myself, I laughed. He laughed, too, and my indignation, along with about nineteen years of residual resentment, melted away in the span of just a few heartbeats. “Yep.” I nodded.

He covered his face with his palms then peeked through his fingers at me. “What’s the statute of limitations on stupid high-school jock behavior?”

I pondered. “Um…two decades?”

Kristopher feigned wiping his brow. “Whew. Got it in just under the wire. I probably owe you lunch or at least coffee and a muffin. Something to make up for being a dick when I was eighteen. How ’bout next week, if you’ve got a little time?”

Wow, that was skillfully done.
So. Smoooooth
. I was impressed. I’d had no intention of agreeing to a date with anyone, and yet…

Well, this was different. Kristopher was an old friend. It wasn’t really a romantic type of engagement.

With the exception of Shar and Bill, the others had gone back to their conversations so, thankfully, I didn’t have too many people witnessing my fumbles with setting up a (sort-of) date for the first time in twelve years. It was awkward, but I agreed to coffee and gave Kristopher my phone number, which he dutifully punched into his cell so we could arrange a time and day to meet later.

Shar nudged me when he wasn’t looking and whispered, “See? Not so hard, is it?”

I made a face at her and shrugged.

Finally, the party was beginning to break up. I was mentally congratulating myself on making it through the evening when the very sweet, well-dressed woman—Elsie was her name—wolf whistled. “Wait, people!”

Everyone halted.

“I’ve been wanting to tell you this good news all night.” She paused for effect. “You know my friend Rosemary, the one who works at the Knightsbridge Theater in the city, right?”

Most of the group nodded, seeming to have met Elsie’s friend or, at least, heard about her.

“There’s a dress rehearsal for their upcoming summer production, ‘The Bachelor Pad,’ this Thursday at six-thirty in the evening, in advance of next Friday’s Opening Night,” Elsie said. “And Rosemary reserved a block of seats for us.”

Despite the noise in the wine bar, an audible spike in sound came on the heels of those words, and a couple of the women actually squealed.