Brenda Novak - When Snow Falls

“He didn’t, but he talked about how much work it is to get ready for such a long trip, as if he was expecting me to be busy.”

“Anyone would expect that,” Cheyenne concurred, but she wasn’t convinced that two people who were really excited about each other would put off getting together just because of packing, especially when Eve had had all day.

Still, she had to admit there were a lot of reasons Joe could’ve decided not to ask Eve out. Maybe he had to work.

As Cheyenne put the shorts in the suitcase and began folding items Eve had yet to gather up. Eve stood and embraced her. “I’m going to miss you. You’ll be okay while I’m gone, won’t you? I hate that I’m leaving you in the lurch.”

“You’re not leaving me in the lurch. We’ve both known this was coming for months and months.”

“True, but…”

Cheyenne collected the dress she’d lent Eve. “Stop worrying. I’ll be fine.” Part of her felt she’d be better off. She couldn’t handle what was happening between Eve and Joe while she felt so vulnerable because of her mother and sister. Two weeks of not having to pretend would give her a chance to get her feet underneath her again. “I’m happy for you. You deserve a vacation.”

“You deserve one, too.”

“I’ll take one someday.”

“We’ll track down your birth certificate and go to Europe together,” Eve promised.

“That’d be fun.” She draped the dress over one arm so she could fish her keys from the side pocket of her big bag. “I should head home. Presley has a date tonight.”

Eve frowned. “Why does she get to go out while you take care of Anita? You’re always stuck at home.”

“Someone offered to take Presley to a movie.” She wiggled her eyebrows for comedic effect. “I can’t say the same.”

“I can guarantee it’s no one she should be with,” Eve said.

That was probably true. But Cheyenne couldn’t tell her sister whom to date. It was hard enough encouraging her to stay clean and sober, not to mention employed. “Have a wonderful time,” she said, and took the gift she’d bought Eve out of the main compartment of her purse.

“What’s this?”

“A send-off.”

“Oh, my gosh! How sweet! Can I open it?”

“Of course. But don’t be fooled by the fancy wrapping. It’s just self-tanner,” she said with a laugh. “You’ll need it if you plan on wearing that bikini.”

“Sad but true.” Eve gave Cheyenne another brief hug. “Thank you. As usual, you’ve come up with the perfect gift.”

Cheyenne was almost out of the bedroom when Eve called her back. “Chey?”

“Hmm?” she said, turning.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you. You realize that, don’t you?”

For the first time in several days, Cheyenne felt good, or at least better. This was Eve. She could give up the man she loved for Eve, couldn’t she?

Of course. She’d do anything....

“I know.” With a smile and a wave she went home, telling herself that Joe was just one guy among many. Someday she’d find someone else who made her feel the way he did. She had to. Because she couldn’t, wouldn’t, put him before her best friend.

6

“How’d it go last night?”

Joe looked up from the basketball game he’d been watching since he got home from work. His father had asked him about his date with Eve Harmon twice already—earlier today, when they were at the station. Joe had brushed aside the subject both times and didn’t have much to add now. “Fine.”

“That’s all you’ve got to say? It was fine?”

He returned his attention to the TV. “What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know… A little excitement maybe? Eve seems like a nice girl.”

She was a nice girl. Joe couldn’t argue with that.

“Do you think you’ll go out with her again?” A cabinet banged shut as Martin started dinner. When they were home together, they took turns doing the cooking. They had a few part-time employees at Whiskey Creek Gas-N-Go who helped out on nights and weekends. Since the station opened at six and closed at midnight seven days a week, they couldn’t man it every hour.

“Joe?” his father prompted when he didn’t answer.

Apparently, Martin wasn’t going to let this go. Using the remote, Joe lowered the volume on the Kings and Lakers. “I don’t think so. Why?”

“Why not?” his father countered.

“You know how I feel about getting involved with someone from Whiskey Creek. I made that mistake when I got married.” He ran into Suzie’s family all over town—her parents, aunts, uncles, cousins. These people, whom he’d once loved as much as his own relatives, no longer spoke to him. They blamed him for the divorce and God knew what else, even though it was Suzie who’d cheated, Suzie who’d tried to pass off another man’s child as one of his.

Sometimes he wished he could tell the Petrovicks what Suzie had been like as a wife. He wanted to see the shock on their faces, especially her stodgy old father’s.

But he’d never say a word. Not even to Gail or Martin. He’d destroyed the results of the DNA test as soon as he received them in the mail. He’d never told Suzie that he knew. Summer meant as much to him as Josephine. If the truth got out, he stood to lose far more than he already had.

The lid to the trash can closed with a thump. “Then why’d you go out with her in the first place?”

Because she’d taken him off guard when she called and he hadn’t wanted to embarrass her. And, ideals or no, he needed some kind of diversion. Lately, he’d been so damn lonely, so dissatisfied. That didn’t exactly put him in a strength position when it came to turning down invitations.

“It was just dinner, Dad, not a date.” Eve had talked too much and tried too hard, and then she’d nearly tackled him at the door as he tried to leave. But he’d known he wasn’t interested in her when he said yes. That made the discomfort his fault.

“Right,” Martin said with a skeptical cackle.

Swallowing a frustrated sigh—he really didn’t want to be grilled about this—Joe turned up the volume. “It’s true. You’re making too big a deal out of it.”

His father raised his voice to compete with the sudden roar of the Laker fans. “You’re saying she just wants to be friends.”

He slouched lower so he could lean his head against the back of the couch. “Yeah.”

“That’s why she stops by to get gas almost every single day and spends fifteen minutes hanging around the minimart hoping to run into you.”

The frequency of Eve’s trips had given her away. Joe had guessed, long before she’d asked him out. She’d been hinting that she liked him for the past several months. But he couldn’t see himself in a romantic relationship with her, couldn’t see her as anything other than the chubby little girl with pigtails who’d played Barbies with Gail. “Give it a rest, okay?” he grumbled.

“You got to date somebody.”

“Who says?” Finally goaded into dealing with this, he hit the mute button. “You don’t date. You’ve lived without a partner for years.”

“Because I had you and Gail to worry about, and now I’m too old and ornery to get along with anyone.”

He hadn’t brought a woman home since Linda left him for her high school sweetheart. Joe had been thirteen when his mother walked out, Gail eight. They’d hardly seen her since. She was still with the same man and by all indications happy, but she wasn’t one who liked to look back.

“You don’t want to be alone for the rest of your life,” Martin said.

“How can you be so sure?” The first few years after his divorce, being alone hadn’t been so bad. It beat the hell out of trying to live with someone as high-strung and volatile as Suzie. He never wanted to go through any of that again. The fighting. The shock of some of the things she said. The betrayal he’d felt when he’d learned about her affair with their next-door neighbor. The sickness that had swamped him when he found out she’d brought the man he’d considered a friend, the man he’d been barbecuing burgers for on Saturdays, into his bed. The sense of failure that’d dragged him down when she finally kicked him out because he was only staying for the sake of the girls. The loss of no longer waking up in the same house as his children. It had been hell.