Janice Johnson - The New Man

Her cheeks did turn pink. “Why, thank you.”

He cleared his throat. “Your household seems unusual. Do all those people live there?”

She laughed, her gaze still shy, her cheeks flushed. “I didn’t tell you, did I?”

“Tell me?”

“I only rent a room from Kathleen. It’s actually her house. And, yes, we all live there, except for Raoul, Emma’s boyfriend. He was the one studying in the living room.”

Alec nodded.

She explained that Kathleen had bought the house after her divorce and, to help pay the mortgage, had taken in two housemates, herself and Jo Dubray.

“She was the friend who took care of the booth while I went to lunch that day,” Helen explained. “Kathleen got married, and Logan moved in.” She laughed again at his expression. “He sold his house, which was smaller, and moved his workshop—he’s a cabinetmaker—into the basement, which we weren’t using anyway. He and Kathleen insisted that they wanted Ginny and me to stay. But I’m looking for a place to rent now. Kathleen and Logan have been great, and Ginny loves Emma, but…” She hesitated.

“You want a home of your own.”

She nodded. “Exactly. And also I suppose I want to prove to myself that I can take care of us. That’s probably silly, considering how easy I have it. Do you know how nice it is not to have to make dinner every single night, for example? Right now, we rotate, Logan, Kathleen, Emma and I. So I only cook once or twice a week. That’s pure luxury!”

“So it would be,” he said, amused. And—face it—a little jealous. Linda had loved to cook, so he’d been spoiled. Coming in the door after work every day to the smell of dinner in the oven, the kids running to meet him, his wife smiling and waiting for him to hug them and kiss her.

In one day, that had changed. He’d arrived home only to have Lily put her finger to her mouth and say, “Mommy’s napping ’cuz she’s tired. So we’re supposed to be specially quiet.” But even before that first warning, he had sometimes felt so lucky it scared him. He and his family had stepped from the canvas of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Amid the grief and shock of Linda’s death, putting dinner on the table every night had become an onerous chore. The kids helped as much as they could, but he still had to do the planning, the shopping, and about seventy-five percent of the cooking.

“Maybe you don’t want to move out,” he said, only half kidding. “Do you know what I’d give to have someone else make dinner some nights?”

“But would you give up having privacy? I do have my own bedroom, but sometimes I’d like to watch what I want on TV, or pig out on ice cream in the kitchen without having to share, or cry without having to explain. Or wander around without a bathrobe, or hear about Ginny’s day at school without at least a couple of other people commenting, too, or contradicting me if I’m trying to be stern.” She let out a gusty sigh. “And, oh, I feel so petty and ungrateful even saying that!”

Alec found there was so much he wanted to know about her, he ate without tasting his dinner, and didn’t notice when the waitress cleared their table. The one subject he avoided was her marriage and her husband’s death. He wanted to hear about her husband—eventually. But not tonight.

And he didn’t want to talk about Linda yet, either.

So he heard about Helen’s parents, her dad a mechanic, her mother a nurse, devoted to their only child, and told her in turn about his own upbringing with well-educated, financially successful parents who didn’t have much time for their two offspring.

They each talked a little about their children, and about grandparents and pets and co-workers. Two, then three hours flowed by. Entranced by her every expression, the purse of her lips or brief thoughtful frown or amusement that quivered at the corners of her mouth, he scarcely took his eyes from Helen’s face the entire evening.

He was startled when she suddenly gave a cry and said, “Oh, it’s ten o’clock! How did it get to be so late?”

“That’s not exactly the wee hours,” he teased.

She made a face at him. “No, but I have to work in the morning, believe it or not. Some of us don’t rest on Sundays.”

Alec was surprised himself to realize how reluctant he was for the evening to end. They’d hardly scratched the surface of each other’s lives!

Glancing at the check, he tossed bills on the table and stood. “Then we’d better get you home.”

Night had fallen now. The walk back to the car felt curiously intimate, only the two of them on the dark sidewalk. In the car he was even more conscious of being alone with her. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so eager and awkward and nervous.

How would she feel about him kissing her? He hadn’t dated much; she hadn’t at all, apparently. Maybe she’d thought this was just a friendly dinner. Had he imagined the sparkle in her eyes or the warmth of her smile or the way she’d looked at him when she said, “I can’t believe you were ever a geek.” Maybe her apparent fascination with his life had been mere politeness.

She was quiet during the drive, responding with only a few words to his comments or questions. In the light of a streetlamp he saw that her fingers were knotted on her lap and she sat with her knees primly together and her back very straight.

Was she nervous, too?

Scowling ahead, he couldn’t decide if he was glad or sorry. He hated the idea that he scared her. But if she wasn’t nervous at all, then that would mean she didn’t feel the anticipation he did.

He pulled in right in front of her driveway, then turned off the engine. In the sudden silence, Helen gave him the look of a wild creature, cornered.

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