Things Remembered (19 page)

“This place being . . .”

“The Rooster House. It's in the old part of Fair Oaks, across the street from the park.”

“Sounds nice.” The windshield wipers thumped in quiet rhythm as they moved across the window, clearing the mist that had followed an earlier downpour. The second storm of the season had moved in the night before, dumping twelve inches of snow in the Sierras with the promise of more. The local news was filled with reporters calling in their satellite stories of snow falling at Blue Canyon, interviewing ski resort workers about the possibility of the lifts being open for Thanksgiving weekend, and skycam shots of Lake Tahoe and Truckee.

“You sound a little down. Are you all right?”

“I'm fine.” Karla gave him a smile to reassure him, but couldn't pull it off. “No I'm not. Anna and I went to the lawyer this afternoon. It was hard seeing her try to divide the little she has left into three equal parts.” She put her head back and stared at the ceiling. “She's never owned anything of value, nothing that anyone would want. At least that's what I thought until I came up here to help her parcel everything out. Now I know what she has is priceless. There are linens that her mother and grandmother made that she's put in a cupboard and stacked in three neat little piles for me and Heather and Grace. She saved the strangest things. I found a cardboard box that used to hold marshmallows. . . . Did you know marshmallows came in boxes?”

“In my lifetime?”

“I have no idea whose lifetime it was.” She turned her head to the side to look at him. She desperately needed someone to talk to about what she was going through, someone who could listen without judging and without feeling the need to find answers where there weren't any. She would be taking a chance if she tried to make Mark that person. They were barely past the polite-conversation stage in their relationship. In their dance of getting to know each other, his hand was still at the small of her back, hers was on his shoulder. Still, she plunged ahead. “What am I going to do with all that stuff?”

“Throw it away after she's gone?”

The question almost sounded like a test. “I couldn't. She saved what she did thinking she would pass them on to her daughter. They would have meant something to my mother because they came from memories she shared with Anna, but most of what Anna has is meaningless to me. She showed me an old black hat with a pearl stickpin the other day. She said it was the hat her mother wore to her father's funeral. I never met my great-grandparents. The hat is a curiosity to me, not what Anna wants it to be.”

“She didn't save anything that belonged to your mother?”

“A couple of things from when she was a little girl. My mother was eighteen when she and my father got married. She took most of what she had then with her when she left.”

“I suppose a lot of the stuff that would have been important to you and your sisters got lost when she died.”

“My father's family has never been caught up in sentimentality. After the funeral they came in and took what they thought they could use and sold the rest. No one thought to save anything for us.” She sat up straight again and mentally shook herself. “I don't know why I'm telling you all this. You must be bored out of your mind.”

Instead of answering her right away, Mark slowed and waited for the traffic to clear then changed into the right lane. As soon as he found a parking lot he turned in and shut off the engine. “Would you be disappointed if we saved The Rooster House for another night? I know a great omelet place—that is if you don't mind something a little more casual and don't object to having breakfast for dinner.”

She must not have been as successful at hiding her neediness as she'd thought. They hadn't known each other long enough for him to pick up on the fact she didn't want to be around a lot of other people. “I'll go anywhere I don't have to cook.”

“What if I told you that you might have to help with the dishes?”

“Forget your wallet?”

“Don't need it. I was thinking we could have dinner at my place. You happen to be in the presence of a man who went grocery shopping today. For the first time in weeks I can put together an omelet that has something in it besides eggs and cheese. I'm afraid if child welfare ever finds out the weird way Cindy and I eat sometimes, they'll start a file on us.”

“I love omelets. But wouldn't pizza or hamburgers be more to Cindy's liking?” When he gave her a puzzled look she added, “I assume she'll be eating with us.”

“She's gone for the weekend. Linda went to see her mom and took Cindy with her.” He waited for her to say something and when she didn't, added, “Is that a problem?”

She didn't know him well enough to know if it was a problem or not. Some men regarded being alone with them at their house or apartment as tacit agreement for sex. She wasn't good at game playing and didn't know how to broach the subject except to deal with it straight on. “It's just omelets, right? We're not going to let anything happen that would complicate things between us. That's the last thing I need right now.”

“Then it's not going to happen.” He dug his cell out of his pocket. But before hitting any numbers, he said, “We still have time to make it to the restaurant if you'd prefer. It's an experience not to be missed.”

“I believe you. But I think I'd rather save it for another time.” Realizing the statement made it sound as if she assumed there would be another time, she quickly added, “Not that I think there will be another time, mind you.” That sounded even worse, as if she were fishing for a commitment the way people did compliments. “What I meant to say is that I appreciate that you wanted to take me to a wonderful restaurant, but—”

“You'd just as soon not be around a lot of people tonight.”

“Yes. Thank you for understanding. And for helping me take my foot out of my mouth.”

He looked at her for a long time before he said, “I feel the same way, you know. This isn't so much a date for me as a progression of our relationship.” He paused.

She waited for the self-conscious panic that invariably came with finding out someone was interested in her. Instead there was a sense of anticipation nudged by excitement. “And just what is it that you're feeling?”

He grinned. “It sounds clichéd, but I have this sense that we're like connecting pieces to a puzzle. I have no idea what it means yet, but I'm looking forward to finding out.”

She took the safest path and decided she and Mark were destined to become really good friends. “Me, too.”

Mark canceled the reservation, and they headed back to Rocklin.

Karla wasn't sure what she'd expected Mark's home to look like but was pleasantly surprised when they pulled up to a small, brick ranch-style house on a large lot in Loomis, not more than three miles from Anna's. They were greeted at the door by two cats and the ugliest dog Karla had ever seen.

“What kind of dog is that?” she asked Mark as he hung up her coat.

“Loving.” He bent, ran his hand over the dog's head, and scratched its ears. “Aren't you, fella?” The dog's tail wagged in agreement. “The people who owned him were moving to an apartment that didn't allow pets, so they brought him to the clinic to be put down. I talked them into letting me try to find him another home.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Three years.”

“Does he have a name?”

“Old Blue Eye.” Mark turned the dog's head for her to see the dog's eyes. One was blue, the other brown. “I call him Blue for short.”

“And the cats?”

“Strays dumped by stupid people who think they're doing the animal a favor. We get them out here all the time. Mostly they wind up eaten by coyotes or hit by cars, but their lives are pure hell before that happens.” As if realizing he'd answered more than she'd asked, he added, “Sorry, it's a sore spot with me.”

Mark walked over to the fireplace and flipped a switch. Flame instantly leaped over logs carefully stacked behind glass. When a fan came on minutes later she realized she was standing in front of a gas furnace made to look like a fireplace. Form, function, and environmentally sound, an interesting statement for the man as well as the appliance. “Does it put out much heat?”

“The only room it doesn't reach is my bedroom.”

She looked around. The room was done in browns and greens and yellows. An overstuffed sofa sat against one wall; bookshelves filled with books and mementos framed the fireplace. There was a small table under the window with a chair on either side. Two watercolors hung behind the sofa, both original and both more evocative than literal in the interpretation of their nature scenes. The floor was oak, worn to a scuffed and polished patina and half-covered with an Oriental carpet in burgundy, blue, and rose.

“Nice,” Karla said. “Did Linda do the decorating?”

“Linda has never lived in this house.”

“You did this yourself?”

“Now why would you say that in that tone of voice?” He motioned for her to sit on the sofa.

“Not for the reason you're undoubtedly thinking. I've been working on furnishing my house for years, and it's still not finished.” The sofa felt like it was filled with feathers. She had the urge to kick off her shoes and curl up in the corner. “I never seem to find the time to look for things, let alone coordinate them, and I don't have a five-year-old taking up my free time.”

“The trick is to buy the furniture from someone who'll do all that stuff for you.” The dog left Mark to lie down by the fire. “Would you like a glass of wine before I start dinner?”

“If you have some cheese and crackers to go with it, I'd be willing to skip dinner. I'm not very hungry tonight.”

“I think I can manage that.”

“Do you want some help?”

“Your job is to entertain Francis.” He pointed to the blue tabby. “He hasn't had a lap to sit in for a couple of days.”

Karla patted her lap. “Looks like it's just you and me, Francis.” As if they were old friends, the cat jumped up and settled in. Karla ran her hand over the soft fur and felt a powerful sense of having done so before. But it was another cat, another time. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Nothing. She was used to the feeling. Her life was a series of free-floating thoughts and ideas and sensations; the smell of cinnamon made her happy, discarded shoes made her sad. The real reason she'd left her therapist was that he'd started adding obscure meaning to her triggers, telling her they represented repressed sexual fantasies.

She knew what they represented. They were the memories of a child not observant enough to give meaning to action but aware enough to capture the feeling and hold it for the waiting adult. Hummingbirds held special meaning, as did putting her head back and letting snowflakes fall on her face. Her heart filled her throat when she saw a little girl sitting on her father's shoulders. In her mind's eye she knew exactly what the world looked like from that lofty position. Whenever she ate fast food she was compelled to fold the empty straw wrapper into accordion pleats; she felt a terrible longing when she passed a moving van on the highway.

“I can see you really had to work to get him on your lap.” Mark set a tray filled with three kinds of cheese, red and green grapes, and an assortment of crackers on the coffee table. Francis looked up and sniffed the air, decided there was nothing worth losing his lap over, and stayed where he was.

“I've thought about getting a cat,” Karla said, “but I'm home so little it would be alone most of the time and that doesn't seem fair.”

“Maybe you should start staying home more.” He poured a glass of wine and handed it to her.

“I have no reason to stay home.” For once she didn't care if someone knew she was lonely. Despite the exchange in the car earlier, her gut instinct told her that Mark was a finite friend—someone to talk to and enjoy and leave. That meant she could tell him things she couldn't tell a steady friend, about all the hurt and emptiness and longing that she carried around as compulsively and comfortably as her purse. Mark would listen, maybe even sympathize, and be glad when she and her troubles returned to Solvang.

“If our generation has a tag, I think it has to be that we bought into the lie that you can't be truly free unless you're single.” He sat facing her, his arm across the back of the sofa. “All those people roaming the bars on Friday and Saturday nights are looking for the kick they think comes with the freedom. The only people who end the night happy are the bartenders.”

Karla worked her fingers into Francis's fur as she moved her hand down his spine. “I tried that scene for a while. God, it was so depressing. All those desperate smiles and shopworn lines.”

“What about the coffee business? I would think it was a great place to meet people.”

“It is a great place to meet people—joggers, retired couples, tourists. They're one of the reasons I love what I do.”

“And the other reasons?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said
one
of the reasons.”

“Oh, I like being my own boss, knowing that I succeed or fail on my own initiative.” She thought about what she'd said. “That's not right. It's more than initiative. If that was all it took, no small business would ever fail. There's a lot of luck and timing involved, too. Jim and I started the shop before the chains expanded. Now it seems they're in every other strip mall. To stay in business I paid attention to what they were offering and matched them latte for latte and upped them personal service.”

“Smart.”

“The coffee shop is more than a business to me, it's my passion, my . . . family.” A chill crawled up her spine. She'd almost said child. How sick was that?

“You must be anxious to get back.”