Four

Riverdance. . .at the Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis. She’d waited a long time for this.

April stood in front of her full-length mirror as she blow-dried her hair. On the back of the closet door hung the black dress with white polka dots she’d be wearing tonight. For once, she and Yvonne had agreed on a point of fashion—they were both wearing black and white.

Anticipation of Friday had carried her through a difficult week. She’d gone to the memorial service for Dave Martin on Thursday. She’d never met the boy, but neither had many of the twelve hundred people who had packed the high school auditorium and overflowed onto the football field. The senior class, Caitlyn’s class, had filled row after row of folding chairs in the same space they would occupy at graduation just two weeks from now. Sitting in the bleachers, just as she had for so many basketball games, April had tried not to let her thoughts center on her own grief, but it had been an impossible task. In the third row, right behind Dave Martin’s family, a single chair sat empty. Caitlyn’s two best friends sat on either side.

As of Tuesday, Brock was in stable condition. April had gone to see him after he’d been moved from intensive care. When she’d held her hand out to him, he’d gripped it weakly and smiled through the tears that dampened his pillow. “Caitlyn’s whipping Dave at one-on-one up there,” he’d said. Through her own tears, April had agreed.

God has a way of taking our tarnished dreams and turning them into something beautiful. She didn’t even know where that phrase had come from, but it was becoming a daily chant. She plugged in her curling iron and picked up her digital recorder.

“When Caitlyn and I ordered our tickets for Riverdance, we both knew there was a good chance I’d be going without her, but maybe the pretending gave her a few more days, or maybe it just gave her a little more to smile about in the”—the phone rang—“time she had left.”

Snapping off the recorder, she lunged across the bed for the phone. “Hello.”

“You know I didn’t mean that remark.”

Almost two weeks had passed since the “My daughter, the next Oprah” comment. April tucked the phone against her shoulder and picked a black bracelet from the jumble of jewelry on her dresser. This wasn’t the time for confrontation. Nothing was going to undo the delicious anticipation of a night at the Orpheum. “How are you, Mom?”

“It’s been a hard week.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Do you know what it’s like when your only living daughter doesn’t come to see you? Do you know what it’s like when your ex-husband calls you out of the blue just to say you were a lousy wife?”

“Dad called?” Sickeningly familiar tension squeezed her abdominal muscles.

“Over a week ago. Not that you care.”

Another too-familiar sensation took over. Her pulse picked up speed, and her ribs wouldn’t expand enough to take in air. “Mom, I’ll call you tomorrow. I have to go.”

“You’re getting ready, aren’t you? You’re going anyway, even without Caitlyn.”

Fingers choking the receiver, April sank onto the bed. “Yes. I’m going anyway. I’ll call you tomorrow.” She hit the button that disconnected her from her mother.

Her hair was only partially curled when the phone rang again. The hoarse voice on the other end was only barely recognizable.

“Yvonne? What’s wrong? Are you crying?”

“No.” A coughing spell crackled through the receiver. “I’m sick.”

“What? You were fine this morning!” April glanced at the clock, ashamed that her thoughts were totally selfish.

“I know. It came on so suddenly.”

Sure of the answer, she asked, anyway. “Do you feel good enough to go?”

“No. I’m so sorry. But I found someone else to go with you.”

April flopped onto the bed, facedown, talking into the spread. “I don’t want to go with anyone else.”

“I know, but you can’t not go, and it would be no fun at all to go alone. Be ready at four, just like we planned. I made five o’clock reservations at JP’s for dinner.”

“With who?”

Another coughing fit erupted in her ear. She waited as Yvonne wheezed, sputtered, and gasped. “I think I’m going to throw u—” The line went dead.

❧

She gave Yvonne enough time to do what she had to do in the bathroom and then walked across the hall. With a warning knock, she turned the door handle. It didn’t budge. That was weird. Since theirs were the only two apartments and the door at the bottom of the stairs had a dead bolt, they rarely locked their doors. “Yvonne? You okay?”

Seconds passed, and then a weak voice said, “I’ll be fine. Just the flu. I don’t want you getting it.”

“Can I bring you anything? I’ve got a can of chicken soup I can heat up.”

“No. No foo—” The muffled sound of the bathroom door slamming covered her words.

By three thirty, April had worn a path in the berber carpeting between her bedroom and her front door. Dressed in the polka-dot dress and Yvonne’s sling-back black shoes, she paced the living room, talking out loud to the two fish in separate bowls on a table beneath her front window. “She can’t leave me hanging like this. Willy, you wouldn’t do that to Splash, would you? Of course not, and you guys hate each other.” Once more, she walked across the hall, heels clacking on the old wood floor. “Hey, I know you feel like death warmed over, but you have to at least tell me who I’m going with.”

She waited, wondering if she could possibly have been heard over the sound of the movie on the other side of the door. She recognized the dialogue and Matthew McConaughey’s voice. Yvonne was watching The Wedding Planner. Finally, the door opened, but only a few inches. Yvonne’s pale face appeared in the crack above the brass door chain. “It’s a date. Unlock the downstairs door and have fun.” The door slammed in April’s face.

❧

This was not good. This was worse than not good. While Yvonne was engaged to one of the most charming men April had ever met, her taste in guy friends was not so great.

Halfway across the hall, a horrifying thought hit like a cherry bomb going off in her head. She wouldn’t dare. . . . “Yvonne!” Backtracking, she pounded on the door. “Tell me you wouldn’t set me up with Seth Bachelor!”

A weak laugh came from behind the door. “Huh. . .why didn’t I think of that? You’re so paranoid! It’s Friday. Seth does the six o’clock news.”

April’s fist unclenched and slid along the door as an exaggerated sigh poured out of her.

But her relief was fleeting. Yvonne’s New Year’s Eve party came to mind in high-def. At least twenty of Yvonne’s friends from the Cities had crowded into the tiny apartment April was now locked out of. True, she probably shouldn’t have gone in the first place. It was just six weeks after Caitlyn died, and she wasn’t up for a party. So maybe, just like last Saturday, her mood had colored her opinions. But still. . .her frame of mind hadn’t influenced the main topics of discussion that night. Was brown really the new black? Did one really need live plants in each room to get the right flow of positive energy?

April unlocked the downstairs door, tromped back up to her apartment, shut her door with a controlled click, and proceeded to stomp her feet like a two-year-old. In the midst of her tantrum, her gaze landed on the black purse that concealed her digital recorder. She’d planned to record her impressions of Riverdance for tomorrow’s show, but why not start now? Surely someday, she’d want to do a segment on blind dates gone wrong. Slipping the strap of her purse over her shoulder, she dug out her hands-free microphone, hooked the recorder at her neckline, and began to talk as she paced.

“My best friend feels sorry for me. She’s never voiced that sentiment, of course, but I can tell. Case in point. . .when she suddenly came down with the flu today—today when we have tickets for Riverdance at the Orpheum—she set me up on a blind date with one of her friends. I’ve been looking forward to this day for months, and now, frankly, I’m scared stiff. I’ve met her guy friends. Please, no offense to any of you, but you’re not my type. I love Yvonne dearly, but her criteria for friend picking are way different than mine.

“So what are my criteria? In my wildest fantasy, what kind of man would stand on the other side of that door when—” There was a rap on the door.

Wiping sweaty hands on her polka dots, April inhaled and opened the door.

“Ooh! Don’t you look stunning!”

It wasn’t her date. It was her aunt.

“Midge. How nice.” April opened the door wider, expecting a lightning bolt at any moment. “Nice” had been a slight exaggeration.

“Just got back from the Cities. Your mom wants a picture.” Aunt Midge—all sixty-one round, overenergized inches of her—bubbled into the room. “Ooh. . .where did you get this?” She fingered the hem of April’s dress, then, moving faster than her roundness should have allowed, she pulled at the neck and read the tag. “Ann Taylor. Wow. Expensive. But you deserve it, sweetie, and you’ve got the figure for it. Is Yvonne ready?”

“Did Mom actually say she wanted a picture?”

“Oh, you know. . . .”

“Yeah. How was she today?” No point in letting on she’d just talked to her and knew exactly how she was.

“A little better, I think.” Aunt Midge unzipped the jacket of her three-shades-of-pink sweat suit. “We took a walk today, stopped for pie. . .and she actually ate some.”

In the weeks since her mother had moved to Minneapolis to “get away from the memories,” Midge’s answer had never changed. A little better, I think. How many times had she heard it? April hadn’t seen any improvement in her mother’s clinical depression, in spite of a change in her medication and a new counselor. Leave it to Midge to find something positive.

Midge’s cup was not just half full; it was eternally spilling over. But, as irritating as her effervescence could be at times, it was Midge’s optimism that had stabilized her mother’s downward spiral after Caitlyn’s death, something April had been powerless to do on her own. Midge was one of those characters of whom people said, “You just gotta love her.”

April managed a bit of a smile. “A daily dose of pie might do her more good than Paxil.”

“It might at that. Is Yvonne ready?”

April sank onto the couch and lifted Snow Bear onto her lap. Her makeup kept her from burying her head in the long fur. Instead, she simply clutched him and groaned. “Yvonne’s not going.”

“What?” Midge dropped onto the cushion next to her. “You’re not going alone, are you?” Her pink nails began making circles on April’s back.

“I wish.” She repeated the groan. “Yvonne set me up with one of her GQ friends.”

The nails stopped circling. Midge’s round face lit into a grin. “A date?”

“A blind date.”

“How exciting! Do you know anything about him?”

“Not a thing. But I’ve met her friends. They’re. . .plastic. All polished and trendy and probably manicured.”

Midge pressed her hands together in a prayer pose. “But she wouldn’t set you up with a non-Christian.”

“No, she wouldn’t. But believers in Jesus come in many shapes and sizes. Red and yellow, black and white, real and plastic or uptight. . .you remember, you taught me the song.”

Midge laughed then stood. She had a knack for never responding to sarcasm. “Well, stand up and let me get a picture. I’m not going to hang around and spoil Mr. Wonderful’s first impression. I’ll just lurk in the parking lot.”

With a camera flash, a hug, and a giggle, she was gone.

In the silence, April found herself almost wishing Midge had stayed. She turned the recorder back on and finally remembered where she’d left off—her criteria for “Mr. Wonderful.”

“I want comfy. I want a guy who enjoys the little things in life, like making a pizza and doing dishes together, or walking barefoot down by the river. I want a guy who doesn’t try too hard to impress me. He listens to me and laughs with me instead of bringing me jewelry or flowers or—” There was a rap at the door.

April wiped her damp palms on the skirt of her polka-dot dress, took a deep breath, opened the door. . .and gasped.

Dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and black tie was Seth Bachelor. . .holding a mass of flowers. . .and a box of garbage bags.