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“Hi,” they both responded.
“How’s the pregnancy going?” Alix’s voice was matter-of-fact; she seemed to consider this a perfectly normal question.
Carol saw that Lydia looked over at them warily. No one else had dared ask Carol about her condition. “So far, so good,” she said. “I’m still peeing blue.”
“What?” Alix raised her head.
“The test that tells me I’m registering as positive for a pregnancy,” Carol explained. With the fertilized embryo implanted in her womb, it wasn’t getting pregnant that was difficult, it was staying pregnant. Twice now she’d lost the baby before the third week. Holding on to the pregnancy this long meant there was hope, but no part of the process was certain. The first three months were the riskiest in any pregnancy. In her online support group, Carol had recently heard from one friend who’d been pregnant for two and a half months only to miscarry. It had been heartbreaking, and every member had felt Susan’s loss deeply.
The door opened again and Jacqueline came into the shop, bracelets jangling. She wore a tailored pantsuit Carol considered far too formal for the occasion and carried not only her Gucci purse but a leather tote in which she kept her knitting. The woman did like to make an entrance. It was as if she expected everyone to notice she’d arrived and react accordingly. Actually Carol didn’t mind. She’d grown to like all the women in her knitting group.
She and Jacqueline were onto new projects now. The only one who hadn’t finished the baby blanket was Alix, and Carol suspected it was because she couldn’t afford to buy more yarn.
“I’m starting a new sweater,” Carol said, still leafing through patterns.
“What about the other one?” She knew Alix had especially liked the gray cashmere.
“I’m tired of it.” She glanced at Lydia and shared a conspiratorial smile with her. “Do you want the yarn?”
Alix’s eyes lit up. “You don’t want it?”
“Not really.”
“What about the pattern? Do you need that?”
“Not particularly.”
“Great!” Alix shoved her knitting into the plastic bag and nearly rubbed her hands in glee. “I’m almost done with the blanket, and I’d like to knit that sweater for a … friend.”
“Who?” Leave it to Jacqueline to ask.
“A friend, like I said,” Alix muttered defiantly.
“Don’t get high and mighty with me,” Jacqueline snapped. “I was just interested, that’s all.”
Jacqueline expressing interest in Alix? A few weeks ago that would’ve been unimaginable. The change in attitude between them was dramatic and had begun with the near-mugging in the alley. They still sniped at each other but that seemed more out of habit than conviction.
“I didn’t know you had a male friend,” Lydia said, smiling at Alix.
“I don’t,” Alix said quickly, too quickly to be convincing.
“Then who’s the sweater for?”
“Like I said, a friend.”
“Sure,” Jacqueline murmured, grinning. She winked at Alix, whose cheeks immediately blossomed a fetching shade of pink.
“If you must know, it’s a guy I met at the video store,” Alix said irritably. Still, Carol had the feeling that Alix wanted to tell them….
“Does he like you?” Jacqueline asked.
Alix shrugged. “He did when we were in sixth grade—but, well, he’s a preacher and I don’t exactly see the two of us sailing off into the sunset, if you catch my drift.”
“Why not?” Lydia asked. “Preachers have lives, too, you know.”
Alix lowered her head and concentrated on her knitting. “He’s a good kisser,” she said in a soft voice.
Predictably, that piqued the group’s interest, and a lively discussion broke out.
“Reese was quite a kisser in his day,” Jacqueline volunteered. “I remember the first time he kissed me. Every cell in my body sprang to life.”
Carol smiled at the dreamy look on Jacqueline’s face. “I thought I’d died and gone to heaven the first time Doug kissed me,” she recalled. She noticed that Lydia was doing busy work around the shop, straightening patterns that were already straight. “What about you, Lydia?” Carol asked.
Lydia jerked around, almost as if she resented being included in the conversation. Then she sighed. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything more than a … kiss. It was always pleasant, but nothing earth-shattering happened afterward.”
“It will one day,” Jacqueline assured her.
“Don’t you think you’re placing a lot of importance on a simple kiss?” Lydia asked. “Good grief, we’ve all been kissed, and while it’s very nice most of the time, it’s not that big a deal.”
Jacqueline motioned toward Alix. “Was it a big deal for you when this preacher kissed you?”
Carol could tell Alix was uncomfortable with the question. The girl tossed her head in a nonchalant movement. “Yeah, I guess, but I don’t think about it, you know?” She looked around, and her expression said she’d thought of little else.
For a moment the room was silent as each woman concentrated on her individual task. Carol wasn’t sure what Jacqueline was working on these days. She’d started knitting scarves using an ultra-expensive yarn and then moved on to felting hats and purses. It was hard to keep up with Jacqueline’s current projects because she leaped from one to another and seemed to have several in progress at a time. Carol suspected she’d become one of Lydia’s best customers.
“Didn’t I see you come out of The Pour House last Friday?” Alix suddenly asked Lydia. “With that UPS driver.”
“Me?” Lydia’s cheeks flamed and she raised her hand to her chest. “Yes … I was meeting Brad Goetz for a drink.”
Alix let out a low whistle of approval. “He’s hot stuff.”
Lydia seemed to find something that needed attention in her display of knitting books. “We’re going to dinner later in the week.”
“Do I sense a romance developing?” Jacqueline asked in a friendly tone.
“That would be nice,” Carol said. She was amused at how shy Lydia was about men. Brad was the first one she’d mentioned. And this young preacher of Alix’s … Carol felt touched that the girl had confided in them.
“Would you like to come up to the condo to get the yarn one day next week?” Carol asked impulsively.
Alix nodded. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“Not at all. Or I can bring it to class, if you’d prefer.”
“I can stop by your place.”
Carol had the feeling the girl didn’t get many such invitations. “Why don’t you come for lunch on Monday? Does that work for you?”
“Yeah, sure.” Despite her indifferent-sounding response, Alix couldn’t hide her eagerness to accept.
Carol looked around at the others with an affectionate smile. There was Alix, of course, whose defensiveness had diminished so noticeably. And Jacqueline, who no longer tried to impress them with her social connections. Lydia had become less reserved, and her warmth and wit were more in evidence every week.
Odd how these things went, Carol mused as she continued to leaf through the pattern book. A group of mismatched personalities, four women with nothing in common, had come together and over the course of a few months, they’d become real friends.
29
CHAPTER
JACQUELINE DONOVAN
Monday morning following her hair appointment, Jacqueline returned to the house to find that a local florist had delivered a dozen red roses. Martha, the housekeeper, had placed them in the center of the formal living room on a round coffee table.
“Who sent the roses?” she asked, stunned to find them.
Martha shook her head. “I didn’t read the card.”
Jacqueline walked into the living room and examined the red buds, gently taking one in her hand. The roses were perfect, still dewy and just ready to open. Their scent was so lovely, Jacqueline thought they must be antique roses. If so, they would’ve cost a fortune. She couldn’t imagine who’d be sending her roses or why.
She reached for the card but didn’t open the small envelope, wanting to linger over the suspense. It wasn’t her birthday or her wedding anniversary. Her husband had never had much of a memory for such events, anyway. In fact, Reese hadn’t sent her flowers in years. Paul was too much like his father to think of doing such a thing, especially when there was no obvious reason for it.
Unable to guess, she finally tore open the envelope, withdrew the card and read it.
Reese.
Her husband! There was no explanation, no message. Confused, Jacqueline sat down on the sofa, still holding the card. She found Martha staring at her, making no attempt to disguise her curiosity.
“Well?” the housekeeper asked.
“They’re from Reese.”
Martha beamed her a broad smile. “I thought so.”
Despite herself, Jacqueline smiled, too. Maybe her housekeeper knew more about her life than she did.
“Would you like me to start dinner for you this evening?” Martha asked as she turned toward the kitchen.
Jacqueline shook her head. “No, I believe I’ll cook tonight, Martha.”
The housekeeper didn’t so much as blink, but Jacqueline could tell she was surprised. Jacqueline rarely ventured into the kitchen, and hadn’t made a complete meal in years. Early in their marriage she’d found a chicken curry dish that Reese had particularly enjoyed. She’d torn the recipe out of a magazine. Jacqueline thought she knew where it was, although it’d been quite a while since she’d gone to the effort of preparing it.
“Martha, do we have any curry spices in the house?”
“I think so. Let me look for you.”
“Is there chicken in the freezer?”
“Should be.”
Jacqueline was only half listening. She moved past the housekeeper and into the kitchen, opening a bottom drawer where she kept her cookbooks. “Do you remember a recipe I had years ago for chicken curry?”
Martha frowned. “Can’t say I do. Are you going to be making a mess in my kitchen?”
Jacqueline smiled, biting back a retort that would have reminded the other woman whose kitchen this really was. “Don’t worry,” she assured Martha. “You’ll get it back in the morning.”
Martha nodded, but she still looked concerned.
After paging through six cookbooks, Jacqueline found the recipe in the back of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, together with a number of other loose recipes she’d collected over the years. Sitting down at the table, she wrote out a grocery list.
By the time Reese walked into the house at six o’clock, the kitchen was redolent with the scent of coconut milk, chicken, curry and yogurt.
“What’s this?” Reese asked, loosening his tie.
Jacqueline hadn’t heard him come in and whirled around, a wooden spoon in her hand. “Dinner,” she announced cheerfully.
Forgetting herself, she walked over and kissed his cheek. “The roses are beautiful. Thank you.”
Reese’s eyes widened just a little. “I figured I owed you an apology,” he murmured. “I came down on you pretty hard about parking in the alley. I shouldn’t have said the things I did.”
“You were worried about me. It’s a case of me running over the mailbox with the tractor.”
He frowned. “What?”
Jacqueline laughed and quickly retold Tammie Lee’s story. “That’s why her daddy hollered at her mama,” she concluded. “Twice.”
Reese chuckled and then to Jacqueline’s amazement, he kissed her. She was sure he only meant to brush her lips with his, but when their mouths met, something wonderful and exciting took hold of them both.
The wooden spoon clattered to the floor and Jacqueline slid her arms around her husband’s neck. Reese’s mouth was on hers, as avid as if they were new lovers.
Jacqueline lost all sense of time and didn’t know how long they remained locked in each other’s arms. When they broke apart they both seemed at a loss as to what to say or do next. This was by far their most passionate kiss in years.
What astonished her most was the zeal with which she’d responded to his kiss. She’d assumed that after years of celibacy, the sexual part of her nature had atrophied. It was a shock to realize just how alive—how sexual—she was capable of feeling.
“I’d better shower,” Reese said as he backed away from her. He seemed to be in a state of shock himself.
Jacqueline didn’t trust her voice enough to speak, so she merely nodded. Leaning heavily against the kitchen counter, she closed her eyes.
“Wow,” she whispered to the empty room. Now that was something! Once she’d stopped trembling, she retrieved two dinner plates and set them on the dining room table.
When Reese returned from the shower, his hair damp, he’d donned slacks and a golf shirt. Jacqueline had just finished lighting the candles, pleased with her efforts. She could be domestic when called upon and today she’d rediscovered how much she actually enjoyed it.
“Can I do anything?” he asked.
She glanced at him over her shoulder. It was ridiculous to feel shy with her own husband of more than thirty years. She would never have expected this, but she felt as if that kiss was the first one they’d ever shared—as if their intimacy was completely unfamiliar. “Would you pour the wine?”
“Sure.” He opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of chilled chardonnay, which he uncorked. After he’d poured them each a glass, he turned on the CD player.
Singing along to the soundtrack of Les Misérables, Jacqueline mounded rice on their plates and ladled on generous servings of curry. She carried the plates to the table, where Reese was waiting for her. He stood behind her chair and pulled it out, a courtesy he hadn’t bothered with in years.
“It’s a long time since you made me chicken curry,” he said when he was seated across from her. “It smells delicious—thank you.” He reached for his wineglass and raised it. “Shall I propose a toast?”
