The Dream Comes True Page 14

  “Cute place,” Lee said with a cursory sweep.

  Nina thought so. She had wandered around herself, for the first time, just before Lee had arrived. There were two bedrooms in addition to the one she was in, a large kitchen, a living room, and a dining room that had been converted into the den in which they sat. Nothing was “decorated,” yet everything had a lived-in look that gave a feeling of warmth. She liked that far more than she was willing to admit to Lee. So she said simply, “It’s clean and functional. Nothing fancy. Definitely a man’s place.”

  Lee nodded. She looked vaguely at the walls, then the floor, then at Nina. “So. How are you feeling?”

  Nina couldn’t miss the awkwardness in her friend. Unsure as to its cause, she went along with the game. “Better today. I was beginning to wonder when I’d revive. It seems like forever since I’ve been at work.”

  “It’s only been a week. You still look peaked.”

  Nina didn’t like the sound of that. Lee was usually more complimentary than not, certainly more encouraging. Something was odd. “My coloring will pick up. I may go out into the backyard later.” John would never allow that, but she rather liked the idea. “So,” she said, affecting her business tone of voice, “tell me what’s happening at the office. Did you have any luck with the Donaldsons?”

  Lee opened her briefcase. “Uh-huh. They’re interested in buying.”

  “They are? That’s great!”

  Lee didn’t seem terribly excited. As she busied herself looking through a pile of papers, she said, “Uh-huh. They’ll be coming back with a bid later this afternoon. Four o’clock, I think it is.”

  “Terrific. It’s been a long time that they’ve been looking. I’m thrilled we were finally able to please them.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Thanks, Lee. I really appreciate all you’ve done.” The fact was that, at Nina’s insistence, Lee would get the full commission, so it wasn’t work done for free. Still Nina was grateful. By ably taking over for her, Lee was keeping her professional reputation intact. “I know how much work you’ve put in, not only in this case, but with all of the others this past week. You’ve been a good friend.”

  Eyes still inside her briefcase, Lee shrugged. “I have plenty of time. It’s nice to be able to fill it.”

  That sounded odd, not like the Lee Nina knew at all. Lee wasn’t one to fill every minute, the way Nina did. Though she always helped Nina out when asked, she didn’t actively look for work. She had always preferred a slower pace.

  Nina’s mind took off in all sorts of different directions until she caught herself and asked outright, “What’s wrong, Lee?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Something is. You don’t sound like you.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not.”

  Retrieving her hands from the briefcase and dropping them into her lap, Lee hung her head. “You’re right.” Timidly she looked up, her eyes filled with tears. “Tom’s moving. He’s getting rid of his place here and moving to Chicago. He says it’s an official transfer, but I think he’s taking a whole new job. And he’s not taking me. It’s over, he says. It was nice, but it’s over.” Pulling a tissue from her sleeve, she pressed it to her nose. “You were right, Nina. You had him pegged.”

  Heart aching, Nina reached for her arm. “Oh, Lee…”

  Sniffling around the tissue, Lee said, “You were right. You knew. And you tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen. I thought this was it. I really did. I refused to see the truth about those long weekends away. You were that much more realistic than me.”

  “I just didn’t want you hurt.”

  “You saw it coming.”

  “I’m jaded, but that’s not always so good.”

  “It sure has worked for you. You’re not dangling at the end of Tom Brody’s line. He’s a rat. All men are rats.”

  “Not all,” Nina said. She was thinking of John, of how giving and undemanding he had been. She was lucky. Strangely so. “You’ll find someone else, Lee. Someone better.” She squeezed Lee’s hand and continued to hold it while Lee cried for a minute longer. “Now that you’re free and looking around, you’ll see possibilities where there didn’t seem to be any before.” Unexpected things happen. Nina knew. Not that she was looking for a man to marry, the way Lee was. “You’ll do fine.”

  “But I’ll miss him.”

  “I know. But you’ll keep busy. I have plenty for you to do, if you want it.”

  After a bit, Lee stopped sniffling. “I want it,” she said with resignation.

  “Good,” Nina said gently. “Let’s talk about Crosslyn Rise.”

  For the next few minutes, they did just that. Determined to take Lee’s mind off Tom, Nina gave her a long list of calls to make regarding a planned launch for the next-to-last week in July. She had calls to make herself, though she didn’t rush to make them the minute Lee left. Instead, indulging herself in the tiredness she felt, she turned the stereo on low to a classical station, stretched out on the sofa with her head on the soft leather cushion and took a nap.

  The slam of a door woke her. She opened her eyes to see J.J. dash through the room, followed at a more sedate pace by John, who stopped the instant he saw her. “Who let you out?”

  “Me.” She punched up the cocoa-colored cushion under her head, but made no move to rise. From her vantage point, John was looking tall, dark and handsome. She was in no rush to change the view. “It got a little claustrophobic in the bedroom, and Lee was stopping by, so I figured I’d entertain her in style. How did everything go this morning?”

  “Fine.” With a slowness that came across as caution, he asked, “How did it go with Lee?”

  “Really good. I gave her lots of work to do. There’s not a whole lot left for me.”

  Seeming satisfied with that, he slipped into a chair and stretched out his legs. He was wearing shorts. Nina liked his legs. They were well formed, snugly muscled and just hairy enough.

  “Did you tell her about the change in dates for the open house?” he asked.

  She dragged her eyes up. “Uh-huh.”

  “Any problem?”

  “No. She’ll go along with whatever I say. My worry is more with the consortium. I feel like I’m letting them down.”

  “You’ve been sick. They would never hold that against you.”

  “But I’ve been telling them that the Rise would be on the market as of the Fourth.”

  “So you’ll tell them differently now.”

  “I hate to lose those few weeks of potential selling.”

  “Will it really make a difference in the long run?”

  “I suppose not,” she conceded, then shifted her gaze to J.J. when he returned to the room. As though he’d plum run out of steam, he was walking slowly, had his thumb in his mouth and was carrying a battered teddy bear. There was something so forlorn looking about him that Nina couldn’t resist holding out an arm. Without the slightest hesitation, he went to her.

  Drawing him in by the waist, she said, “That’s a sad-looking teddy.” She fingered the bear’s worn nose.

  “Not sad,” John informed her. “Well loved. His mother gave him that teddy not long before she died.”

  Nina sucked in a breath. “Does he know?”

  “That it was from her? Probably not. But it’s special to him. He doesn’t love any of his other animals the way he does this one.”

  Feeling a deep ache for the little boy who would never know his mother, Nina tightened her arm around his waist. He kept up his sucking without complaint.

  “What happened, John?” she asked softly. She alternately touched the bear, then the small warm fingers clutching its neck. When silence continued to come from John’s direction, she raised her eyes to his. “Tell me about her.”

  Sitting back in the chair, he crossed an ankle over his knee. Though the pose was relaxed and his voice slow, it lacked the ease that would have normally been there. “We met in Minneapolis. I had a store there, p
retty much like the one I have here. Jenna was a market analyst who had just been transferred out from New York.”

  He rubbed his ankle with the pad of his thumb. After a long minute, he went on. “She wasn’t thrilled about the move. Even though she was high up in the office bureaucracy, she felt it was a step down. But the money was good, and she figured that if she was patient, she’d move even higher, and then, if she wanted, she could move out again, preferably back to New York. From the beginning, I knew that was what she wanted, but somehow, when we started seeing each other and then got closer, it didn’t seem real.”

  Breaking away from Nina, J.J. crossed to the television and turned it on. With the sudden blare of sound, John jumped up, tapped the boy on the shoulder and motioned him to turn it down, which he did. John turned it even lower, then turned off the stereo, leaving little to interfere with their talk.

  Nina was just noticing that the program was Sesame Street and that an interpreter was signing in a corner of the screen, when J.J. returned to her side. Thumb back in his mouth, arm around his teddy, he climbed onto the sofa to sit in the curve of her body.

  John was quickly alert. “Is he hurting you?”

  “Of course not.” She ran a hand down the back of J.J.’s head, over thick, silky hair. “He’s so little.”

  “But your stomach—”

  “Is fine. He seems tired.”

  “He’ll take a nap after lunch.”

  Nina nodded and looked at John expectantly. Apparently satisfied that she was comfortable, he returned to the chair. This time, his legs remained sprawled.

  “I’m listening,” she prompted.

  Though his eyes settled on her, she was sure he was seeing another woman in her place. “I thought maybe she’d change. Even when I convinced her to have the baby, I thought she’d change. I thought for sure she’d take a look at the little kid who was her own flesh and blood, and melt.”

  Nina didn’t know how Jenna hadn’t. The little kid who was her flesh and blood was a heart stopper. “Did she have a problem right from the start?”

  John nodded. “She resented him. He wasn’t any bigger than a peanut and he didn’t say a word, but he made her feel guilty about the time she spent working. Unfortunately, her work meant everything to her.” He frowned down at his hands. “When we found out about the ears and the eyes, she couldn’t take it. Just couldn’t take it. It was like he had been declared a troublemaker, so she washed her hands of everything to do with him. She started working longer hours, started taking overnight trips whenever she could. She always brought him things—little cars, balloons, teddy bears—but she figured that the less she had to see him, the better.”

  “What about you? Didn’t she want to see you?”

  The bleakness of his expression said it all. Still he added, “By that time, there wasn’t much left between us.”

  The quiet sounds from the television filled the ensuing silence. Like a puppy snuggling in, J.J. turned sideways to lay his head on Nina’s thigh. She ran a hand back and forth on his warm little shoulder, but her eyes were on John. Needing to know, she asked softly, “How did she die?”

  He looked off toward the window. “She was driving home very late one night after a three-day symposium, fell asleep at the wheel and hit a tree. Death was instantaneous. No other cars were involved.”

  Without conscious effort, Nina drew her legs up, tucking J.J. closer to her. “Tragic,” she whispered, and felt a private chill. Many a time she had returned late at night from exhausting multiday seminars. More than once, she had stopped for coffee or rolled down the window to stay awake.

  John stared broodingly at the floor. “It was a waste. Our marriage wasn’t any good, so we’d probably have gotten divorced, but that’s the least of it. She had potential. I hated what she did—hated the way she did it with such single-mindedness—but she was good at it. A lousy mother, but good at her work.”

  The grudging respect was clear in his voice. In turn, Nina respected him for it. Given the way Jenna had left him and his child, he could have easily been filled with scorn.

  “You must have loved her once.”

  He thought about that for a while. “I did, in a dreamlike kind of way. She was like a butterfly, beautiful but elusive.”

  “Do you miss her?”

  He shook his head, and as though the bubble of the dream had burst all over again, his voice leveled. “Like I said, we’d have ended up divorced if she hadn’t wrapped herself around that tree. She wasn’t an easy person to live with. She was always on, always thinking work. She was always wondering who else in the office was doing what and getting where, and how it would affect her. Her mind was always working on ways she could get ahead. Work was her be-all and end-all, her raison d’être. As time went on, it only got worse.”

  “I’m not that bad,” Nina said with feeling, then caught herself, realizing what she’d done. Defensively she said, “You compare us. I know you do.”

  His eyes held hers steadily. “Do you wonder why?”

  In an attempt to be fair, she shrugged. “I can see some similarities. She worked a lot, I work a lot. She was trying to get ahead, so am I. But I’d never have done what she did. I’d never have turned my back on a child. Or a husband. There are responsibilities involved when you marry and have kids. You shouldn’t do either, if you want to work.”

  “It’s all or nothing, then?” John shot back with startling speed. “Either you marry and have kids, or you work? No middle ground?”

  “Sometimes no, sometimes yes. It depends on where you are in life. I’m at the work stage. I’m not saying that I’ll never get married and have kids, just that I wouldn’t take on either of those now.”

  “You couldn’t compromise? You couldn’t make time for all of it?”

  “There are only so many hours in a day, and you’re the one who’s been telling me I work too much. Where would I find the time to give to a husband or kids?”

  He remained quiet.

  “Where?” she demanded. If he was putting her on the spot, she could do the same to him.

  “You make time for what you want,” he stated in a voice that was deafeningly clear. “You give a little here, give a little there. It may mean that one thing or another takes longer to achieve, but it all comes out in the wash.”

  “‘One thing or another,’” Nina echoed. “You mean work. If a woman is willing to sacrifice her career, she can have the husband and kids.”

  “She doesn’t have to sacrifice the career,” he insisted, “just defer the ultimate gratification. And that doesn’t mean there isn’t gratification along the way, simply that the achievements may not be as high until the kids are grown and out of the house.”

  “She’s an old lady by then.”

  “No way.” He sat back and linked his fingers, seeming more relaxed, as though confident he had the argument won. “Take that woman. She had kids in her mid-twenties. They’re out on their own by the time she’s fifty. Fifty is not old.”

  “It’s too old to start building a career.”

  “She’s not starting. She started years ago. She may have taken a leave when the kids were babies, but after that she worked part-time, maybe full-time as the kids got older. Okay, so she didn’t go running off on business trips, or push past a forty-hour week, and maybe that held her back a little. But look what she has. She has a solid career. She has a solid marriage. She has kids who probably give her more satisfaction than anything she does at work. And she’s only fifty.”

  With barely a breath, he raised a hand and went on. “Then again, take the woman who put her career before everything else. She got out of school, entered the marketplace and worked her tail off. She started climbing the ladder of success, and the drive became self-perpetuating. The higher she climbed, the higher she wanted to be. The more money she earned, the more she needed. There was always something more, always something more.”

  “Her being a woman didn’t help,” Nina put in. “A woman has t
o work twice as hard.”

  To her surprise, John agreed. “You’re right. And that made her all the more determined to make it. So she put off thoughts of getting married, since she didn’t have time for that. And she put off having kids, because she didn’t have time for that. Then she reaches her mid-forties, when theoretically she should be up there on the threshold of the president’s office, only there are suddenly four other candidates vying for the job and one of them is the new son-in-law of the chairman of the board. So she misses out. And then what does she have?” He raised a finger. “She doesn’t have the corner office.” Then another. “She doesn’t have a husband.” Then a third. “And her childbearing years are gone.” He dropped his hand to his lap. “Do you think she’s happy?”

  His eloquence left Nina momentarily speechless.

  “She’s alone, Nina,” he said more quietly. “She’s alone, and she’s getting older, and she’s beginning to wonder what she’ll do with herself if she ever has to retire. Happy? My guess is she’s scared to death.”

  Tearing her eyes from his, Nina looked down at the floor. Aloneness was something that had flashed through her mind more than once when she’d been in the hospital. Different people had dropped by to visit, but John had been a constant in her life. Without him, she would have felt very much alone.

  She wondered what, if anything, her mother felt sitting in that nursing home day after day. The doctors had said that she didn’t know who or where she was, or who came and went, but Nina had always had a niggling fear in the back of her mind that maybe it wasn’t so. Over the years, she had successfully kept the fear hidden in a dark corner of her mind. She was a lousy daughter.

  Feeling suddenly very much an imposter in a haven she didn’t deserve, she looked at John. “Why am I here?”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “From the beginning, I reminded you of Jenna. I’m everything you had once and couldn’t stand. I’m a repeat of a mistake. So what am I doing here, interfering with your life?”

  “You’re here because I want you here.”