Janice Johnson - Taking a Chance

Everyone’s patience was eroding by the time they made it through the bathroom door and eased the tub to the raw plywood floor.

“I’m glad you were here.” Jo rubbed her shoulder. “We’d never have made it.”

“Tubs are heavy. I assumed you were having it delivered and carried up.”

“No, we’re the original do-it-yourselfers,” she said lightly.

His sister had fetched a knife to slice open the cardboard and cut off the wrappings. With more swearing, they heaved the white porcelain tub into place.

“Fixtures?” Ryan asked.

Kathleen produced the faucet, shower head and drain. “You could come back tomorrow,” she said tentatively.

“Nah, I’d rather finish.”

“Do you mind if I watch?” Jo asked.

“Not at all.” He gestured to the floor “Have a seat.”

She grinned at him and settled herself comfortably.

Downstairs, Ryan heard the front door open and close. He cocked his head, but caught no more than the murmur of voices.

“I hope that’s Emma.”

“She scares me,” Jo said unexpectedly. “I keep waiting for her to…”

He glanced at her. “Collapse?”

“Something like that. She’s so…frail.”

“Starving yourself can damage your heart and other internal organs. Her head knows that, but then she tries to eat, and that’s what scares her.”

A job as easy as installing a faucet required no thought. Wrench in hand, he automatically juggled tiny seals and baskets and sleeves.

Jo was watching him, but who knew how much she was taking in. Her forehead was creased. “It scares her more than the idea of dying?”

“Apparently.” He applied a bead of sealant.

“Does it have to do with the divorce?” Jo still sounded unusually hesitant.

He guessed she was used to forging ahead and found it unnatural to tiptoe. But she had the sense to know an issue like this was a minefield, waiting to blow up around her.

“The divorce had to do with Emma’s problems,” he corrected, looking for a wrench that he’d set down. It was just out of his reach, but Jo picked it up and laid it in his hand. Ryan continued, “Ian didn’t think she looked that bad. He didn’t want to be bothered with counseling. All she had to do was eat, he declared. He lost his temper one night and started shoving food down her throat. She was screaming and sobbing and almost choked to death. I guess Kathleen was beating at him, trying to get him off Emma.” He clenched his jaw. “Hell of a scene.”

“Poor Emma,” Jo said somberly.

“Kathleen said counseling or else. He chose ‘or else.’”

Her big brown eyes were pretty. They were a deep, near-black color, like espresso, surrounded by long, thick lashes.

“Thank you for telling me all this,” she said carefully. “I didn’t like to ask.”

“I figured.” He would have felt the same.

“She loves you.”

“She likes me.” He rotated his shoulders as he worked. “There’s nothing emotionally loaded about our relationship. I pretend she doesn’t have any problems. She thinks I’m fun.”

A smile flickered at the corners of Jo’s mouth. “Are you?”

Was he imagining things, or was she flirting with him? “Damn straight.” He grinned at her. “That’s me. A laugh a minute.”

Her smile went solemn again. “Your hummingbird seems to think so.”

“I like kids.” And missed his own with an ache that went bone-deep. Calls were no substitute for hugs and laughs and the chance to toss a football or lounge on the living room floor watching the expressions on his kids’ faces as much as the movies playing. Before he and Wendy had had children, he’d never imagined loving someone so much that he could do nothing for hours but drink in the sight of her face—his face, when Tyler came along after Melissa.

Jo shoved back her hair and said, “I’ve never been around them much.”

“Yeah? Well, here’s your big chance. Although Hummingbird is not standard issue.”

“I assumed that.”

Ryan groaned and got to his feet. “What say we turn on the water and see if it flows?”

“But what about…” She gestured at the pipes protruding from the wall where the vanity and sink would go.

“I’ve installed shutoffs for the toilet and sink.”

“Oh.” Her expression was longing. “You mean, I could take a bath tonight?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“You’re a miracle worker!”

He basked in the radiance of her smile. Who wouldn’t enjoy a moment of pretending he was a hero?

Outside the bathroom, he discovered that Emma was indeed home, although closeted in her bedroom. He knocked and invited her to the ceremonial turning-on-of-the-water.

She climbed from the bed with the care of a brittle seventy-year-old. “Cool!” Her tone turned scathing. “And Mom said…” She stopped, bit her lip.

“Mom said what?”

Her face turned mulish. “Nothing.”

Mom had insulted him, he diagnosed, and Emma had realized belatedly that she might hurt him if she echoed Kathleen’s remarks. Appreciating his niece’s sensitivity, he didn’t push.

Water ran into the tub on command, a cascade that began dirty but turned clear quickly. He flipped the lever to test the shower, but ran it for only an instant so as not to get the wallboard wet.

“Ladies,” he pronounced to a full house, with even Ginny looking with apparent awe around her mother’s hip, “you have the power to get clean.”

“Dinner’s ready,” Kathleen announced.

Ryan took a minute to organize the rest of his tools and sweep bits of piping up. He liked a neat work site.

Jo found the bar of soap and they took turns washing their hands in the tub. Presumably by chance, he and she were the last, Emma having headed down the stairs as he was drying his hands.

“You were great today,” she said, her glance unexpectedly shy.

“You were, too.” He barely hesitated. “Kathleen implied that you were single. Is there any chance I could take you out to dinner sometime?”

She looked surprised. “Me?” Then she flushed. “I mean, I didn’t realize…” Finally she took a deep breath. “I thought maybe… But I’m not that…”

“Yeah, you are.” He let her see his appreciation as he admired the effect of pink staining her cheeks. “And I am.”

“Oh.” She gnawed on her lip, without any apparent awareness of how tempting that was. “Then, um… Yes.” She squared her shoulders and gave a little nod. “Yes, I’d like to have dinner with you.”

His triumph was disproportionate to the occasion, but his tone was easy. “Good. How about Monday night?”

“I can’t be out late,” she warned, “but…sure.”

He handed her the towel. “Then, what say we go have dinner now, in the romantic setting of my sister’s kitchen?”

JO STRETCHED and flipped shut her textbook, then the binder she’d had open beside it on the long, folding table she used to work. Her laptop was unopened, her printer silent. She didn’t need it for her cataloging class.

She had never been interested in cataloging, already knew her Dewey decimal numbers well enough to walk to almost any subject on the shelf in a public library, and had no interest in working in an academic library, which meant she’d forget the Library of Congress classifications as soon as the semester ended and she passed the final. But the course was required, so she was taking it.

She didn’t mind that it was time to change for her date with Ryan. Casual, he’d said, maybe pizza, but she had been grouting tile earlier, so she was dressed appropriately in a frayed sweatshirt and jeans.

Jo had worked a good ten hours Sunday, surprised that her best helper had turned out to be Helen. Helen was the one who’d told her what she knew about Ryan’s divorce.