Things Remembered (24 page)

“You just found your answer, Mark. No relationship can survive with two stubborn people. One of them has to be willing to give a little.”

“Okay, you're elected. When you get home, figure out when you can clear your schedule for a couple of days and I'll do what I can to clear mine. We'll go somewhere and see if there's any reason to think we might have a chance. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but there's no way I'm letting go until I know for sure.”

No man had ever pursued her this way, and it made her more suspicious than pleased. She had no doubt it happened to Grace all the time, but then all anyone had to do was look at Grace to understand why men would be falling all over themselves to go out with her. With Heather and Bill, even with a smashed car between them, the attraction had been instant and mutual.

She and Jim had eased into their relationship so slowly that getting married had seemed the next logical step rather than a romantic conclusion to an almost nonexistent courtship.

Mark could break her heart as easily as he flattered her now and never know it had happened. He was attracted to her veneer of strength, believing her capable of taking chances with her emotions. And why not? With Anna, she'd handled what to others would be a crushing experience and done it with little outward effect. She'd let him in for a little while the other night, but he didn't really know what was going on inside her, what she kept hidden from everyone, what she even tried to keep from herself.

Continuing the argument was fruitless. She'd let him call and then find reasons she couldn't see him until he gave up and stopped trying. “I'll send you my number.”

“Don't bother, I'll get it from Anna.”

God, how she wished he were as sincere as he sounded. “I should get back. There are a couple of empty cavities in our turkey that need filling, and I'm in charge of the operation.” She didn't wait for an answer before starting back to the house.

Mark took her hand and turned her toward him. “Give me one more minute.”

“All right, but then I've really got to get back.”

“Promise you'll at least think about what I said.”

“What good would it do? Your life is here, mine is in Solvang.” She could see that she hadn't convinced him. “Let's say we did pursue this and it started to get serious. What then?”

He didn't answer.

“See?” she said softly.

“Just because I don't have a ready answer doesn't mean there isn't one.” He smiled. “Now shut up and kiss me good-bye. You've got a turkey waiting, and I told Susan I'd baby-sit Bobby while she and Allen did the cooking.”

What the hell—it was a kiss, not a commitment. She put her arms around his neck, fit her hips into his, and tilted her chin up to give him a kiss, intending it to be one they'd both remember.

But he refused to yield the lead and hesitated a moment when she came forward, looking deeply into her eyes. Slowly, with calm deliberation, he covered her mouth with his, coaxing hers open, touching her lips and then her teeth and finally her tongue with his own.

Involuntarily, she let out a low moan and drew closer still, her arms around his neck. She'd read about a kiss leaving a person shaken, but never experienced the effect. Now she was left wondering if her legs would hold her when she let go, if she could let go at all.

“I'll see you in Solvang,” he said, his voice low and determined.

She could only nod.

“Wow . . .” Grace said softly. “Would you look at that. Big sister's found herself a man who knows how to turn her on.”

“We shouldn't be watching this,” Heather said, frustrated that her belly kept her from getting closer to the window.

“I'll leave when you do.”

“She'll kill us if she finds out.”

“Me maybe, but not you.” She fingered the curtain open a fraction of an inch farther. “What exactly do we know about this guy?”

Heather searched her memory for something she might have forgotten. She and Susan had talked about a dozen things that day on the phone. At the time Mark had been a footnote to a conversation about Karla visiting the day-care center. “He likes kids and animals.”

“He has a little girl and is a vet—what a surprise,” Grace said sarcastically.

Heather ignored her. “His ex-wife is a singer for a rock band, and—”

“Now
that's
interesting. Which band?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, what's her name?”

“I don't know that either.”

“You're useless. Go call Susan and tell her we want to know everything she knows about this guy.”

“Right now?” Heather asked. “She's probably up to her armpits stuffing her own turkey.”

“We only have today to work on Karla—we need facts. We have to know whether we should be encouraging her or discouraging her about this guy.”

“You know it's really none of our business who she goes out with.”

“The hell it isn't. You want her hooked up with another Jim?”

“She's not going to listen to us.” Heather didn't know whether she was more afraid of Grace's fury or Karla's.

“Give me the number, I'll call myself.”

“Wait . . . they're coming back.” Heather dropped her corner of the curtain and stepped away from the window.

“Do you think she saw us?” Grace said, hurriedly picking up a spoon and giving the onion and celery mixture on the stove a quick stir.

“I don't know.” Heather glanced at Grace and was hit with how ludicrous they looked in their effort to appear normal. “We're acting just like we did on Karla's prom night.”

Grace laughed. “Yeah, but this was a whole lot better. I could feel that kiss all the way in here.”

Heather felt the goose bumps on her arms. “Me, too. Bill's in for a real surprise tonight.”

“Shhh, here she comes.”

The warning struck Heather as funny, making it seem even more like the nights they used to spy on Karla. She tried to keep from laughing, but the effort only fueled the need. She grabbed a dishtowel and put it over her mouth.

“Stop that,” Grace hissed and turned so that she couldn't see Heather.

“I'm trying,” Heather barely managed to get out before she broke down again, muffling her laughter in the towel. Grace clamped her hand over her mouth but it didn't help.

She and Heather managed to regain control by the time Karla saw Mark and Cindy off and returned to the kitchen.

Karla went back to work as if Mark had been an ordinary deliveryman, not worth mentioning. She dumped the crumbled cornbread into the bowl with the bread cubes, added chicken broth, and then the onion-and-celery mixture. The silence became impossible to ignore. A wooden spoon in one hand, the other on her hip, she looked from Heather to Grace and back again. “Whatever you're thinking, keep it to yourselves.”

Grace put her hand to her chest, a wronged expression on her face. “I can't imagine what you mean.”

Heather bit her lip, her eyes filled with laughter.

“Don't start with me,” Karla warned.

Heather and Grace looked at each other. They exchanged a spontaneous high five. “It's true,” Grace called out.

“Karla's got a boyfriend,” Heather said in a singsong voice.

For an instant Karla was furious that they'd been watching her, and then she could think of nothing but getting even. Feigning a headache, she took two aspirin out of the bottle in the cupboard, picked up a glass, filled it with water, then with swiftness and accuracy, dumped half over Grace's head and tossed the rest at Heather. “I've wanted to do that for years—ever since the first time I saw you two spying on me.”

Heather started to reach for a towel, but at the last second grabbed Karla in a bear hug, making sure she got as much water on her as possible. Grace joined in and hugged Karla from behind. She felt like the cream filling in a soggy cookie.

“What's going on in here?” Bill asked. “Are you three okay?”

Karla looked at Heather as she put her hand over Grace's on her shoulder. “We're better than we've been in a long, long time.”

Jamie and Jason hopped up from the table and headed for the kitchen to see what was going on. Anna stayed where she was, holding a paper napkin ring closed as she waited for the glue to dry. She didn't have to see what was happening—she knew. Given the circumstance and opportunity, Marie's girls had found each other again. She couldn't have asked for a better Thanksgiving.

“My work is about over, Marie,” she said softly. “It's time you and your grandmother got started on that peanut butter fudge.”

Chapter

18

O
h, and remember the time Grandma left her purse on top of the car and it didn't fall off until we got on the freeway?” Heather passed the bowl of mashed potatoes to Bill.

“And the highway patrol guy had to put out flares and stop traffic to get it back?” Grace added. “He wasn't too happy about it, either.”

Anna chuckled. “Well, the way you girls were carrying on, who could blame him?”

Another memory Karla didn't share, a tie that bound Heather and Grace and Anna that she had missed when she left for school and only returned for short visits. While she was gone, she'd imagined herself missed; instead they'd built a family unit without her.

Heather reached for Anna's hand and gave it a gentle, loving squeeze, the gesture as natural and comfortable as if it were one of her children. There were no barriers to break down with Anna for Heather or Grace, no longing for another mother. That burden was Karla's.

And Anna's,
Karla suddenly realized with startling clarity. Finally, everything that Anna had been trying to tell her the past five weeks made sense. She and Anna shared a bond that Anna had with no one else. The hurt, the longing, the loneliness for a woman gone almost a quarter of a century were theirs alone.

And when Anna was gone, it would be Karla's. There would be no one left to remember the woman with the magical laugh and loving arms. No one who knew that Marie had once had a crush on Ricky Nelson and that she'd stuffed socks in her bra in eighth grade. Only Karla had seen her mother eat the carrots left out for the reindeer as she danced with her father on Christmas Eve, and only Karla truly remembered the mother who had made them matching dresses and sung lullabies to daughters who could no longer recall the sound of her voice.

“Karla? Are you crying?” Heather asked.

“What?” She wiped her hands across her cheeks. “No, I was just thinking how Grandma used to burn the popcorn every time we went to the drive-in movie.”

“I did not,” Anna protested.

“Yes, you did,” Grace said.

“It must not have been burned too badly. You all ate it.”

“I'm ready for dessert,” Bill announced, leaning back and rubbing his stomach.

An anticipation she hadn't expected came over Karla at the thought of having the focus on her pies. She glanced at Anna and saw that she understood. Karla started to get up.

“I made a surprise,” Heather announced, standing up first. “Well, I made one and found one.”

With fanfare suitable for a birthday party, Heather brought in the applesauce cake she'd made and put it in front of Anna. Bill followed with the stollen.

“My goodness, all of this for me?”

“Better tell her you remember the stollen the two of you had in San Francisco, or you're going to break her heart,” Bill said.

“Of course I remember. It was at Christmas, a little bakery we found off Union Square.”

Heather beamed. “I have to admit, the cake was as much for me as you. I was digging through a bunch of your old recipes and happened across it a couple of weeks ago.”

Karla looked at the ring cake with only a sprinkle of powdered sugar for icing and knew exactly what it would taste like. It had been her mother's favorite cake, one she rarely made because her father didn't like nuts or raisins. “That was Mom's favorite cake, too.”

Anna smiled. “Yes, it was. She asked for it every birthday. I gave her the recipe, but she swore that hers never tasted as good as mine.”

“I didn't know that,” Heather said, as if she'd been left out of a secret.

“So what?” Grace said impatiently. “What possible difference does it make who loved what as long as someone is still making the cake? Now are you going to sit around talking about it all evening or are you going to cut the damn thing and let us find out for ourselves what's so wonderful?”

Anna took the knife from Heather, cut a piece of cake, and passed it to Grace. “Don't keep us waiting. We all want to know if you've inherited the Olsen women's gene for applesauce cake.”

Grace took a bite. “It's okay, but I'd really prefer a piece of that pumpkin pie Karla has been guarding since I got here.”