Sunday morning wasn’t working out so well for me. To begin with, my stomach and lower back were wracked with pain and I had to pee approximately every three seconds. Apparently, along with bragging rights and a hundred bucks, the winner of Skye’s contest also got a bladder infection, no extra charge.
Leah showed up at nine sharp, and when I answered the door, still decked out in my pajamas, I surmised that I wasn’t the only one having issues today. One look at the gray clouds rumbling outside, Leah’s harried expression and the howling baby, and I could see that this woman had had it.
“Ah, the luxury of sleeping till nine.” She nodded at my rumpled blue boxers and white tank top and jostled Rachel on her hip. “Rach, sweetie, relax.”
Rachel responded by upping the decibel level.
I watched with dismay as the baby’s face turned crimson. “You look like you could use a cup of coffee.”
“I could use a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart. But I have to take this little diva to a doctor’s appointment in Minneapolis. I really appreciate your helping me with Eli.”
I rubbed my eyes, trying to reconcile the sun-soaked remnants of my dream with the sticky, suffocating summer storm pounding the stair landing.
“Um, Mama?” piped up a small voice from the steps. “I’m Rex, Mama, not Eli.”
Leah rolled her eyes. “You have no idea how much I appreciate this, Faith. Honestly. Okay, Rex, you’re going to stay with Faith this morning.”
Rex, wearing a little yellow raincoat, peeked around the doorjamb. He grinned at me. I grinned back.
“Okay, then.” She leaned down to kiss his cheek and the baby stopped crying for a minute to observe. “Be good. Faith, you are a lifesaver. If you have any problems at all, Stan’s at the bakery. Meet you back here at three?”
“Take your time.” I waved her away, relishing my new identity as lifesaver.
Rex and I decided to go down to Main Street and hit the shops. After we checked out the goldfish tank at the pet store, he reached up and wrapped one of his chubby white hands around mine.
“Faith?”
“What’s up?”
He regarded me with wounded eyes. “Why doesn’t anybody call me Rex? Why do they keep saying Eli? I changed it. I changed my name.”
I managed not to smile. “I know you did, honey. But sometimes people don’t understand that the name your mom and dad gave you isn’t the name you’d give yourself.”
He scowled. “When I tell grown-ups that my name is Rex, they laugh.”
“I guess they think it’s cute, and that’s why they laugh.”
He yanked at the hood of his yellow slicker. “I don’t wanna be cute. I wanna be Rex.”
“Well, when you turn eighteen, you can go to court and get your name changed to whatever you want.” Leah was going to love me for this one.
“Really?” He perked up. “Is that what you did?”
I squeezed his hand. “Oh, no. Faith is what my parents named me.”
Rex tugged me over to the curb and peered into the drainage grate as rainwater swirled down dark beneath the street. “Well, what name would you pick? If you picked your own?”
“Hmm. Maybe Natalia.” A femme fatale name, very new-money and black lace.
“Natalia?” He wrinkled his nose. “Okay. You be Natalia today, and I will be Rex.”
Natalia came back to bite me in the ass less than twenty minutes later.
I lost Rex at noon, in Thompson’s Dry Goods store. The kid disappeared in the blink of an eye. He was dancing down the aisle, pointing and winking at himself in the mirrored wall like a kindergarten production of Saturday Night Fever. He brushed against a display of folded towels, two fell down, I knelt to pick them up, and that was it. He was gone. I scanned the milling crowd for a bright yellow jacket or a ruffle of thick black hair but found nothing.
My mouth dried out as my palms started to sweat. The horrors of L.A. newscasts flashed through my mind.
“Eli?” I called. No response.
Then I remembered who I was dealing with. “Rex?”
“Natalia!” Air rushed back into my lungs as I heard the chipper cry behind me. I whipped around.
“Oh, thank God. I didn’t know where you—” I broke off as Rex rounded the corner, hand in hand with Patrick Flynn.
“I found him boogying down in the housewares section. This kid’s the next Ricky Martin.” Flynn looked amused and surprisingly comfortable shepherding Rex along next to him. “Natalia.”
My cheeks caught fire. “Yes. Well, see, we were just—”
“Picking alternate names. I heard. Rex and I go way back, don’t we, buddy?”
Rex beamed up at him. “Yep. Flynn coached my T-Ball team once.”
I picked my jaw up off the floor. “You did?”
Flynn shrugged. “Yeah.” He turned to Rex. “So do I get to pick a name, too?”
The child was aghast. “No. You gotta stay Flynn.” He reached out and recaptured my hand so all three of us were linked, like a happy little family. Except none of us were related and two of us were barely on speaking terms.
“But you can still be Natalia,” Rex informed me.
“Thanks.” I tried to think of a way to get us out of here quickly and diplomatically. This little hand-holding chain was supremely awkward, and I just wasn’t up for Flynn’s editorial on my negligent childcare.
Rex tugged on my hand. “I’m hungry. Let’s go to Cherry’s!” He pointed at the small white clapboard cafe across the street. “And eat coffee cake for lunch.”
I shrugged. “Okay.”
“Coffee cake! Oh boy!” He hopped up and down, gripping our hands tighter as he lifted his feet and swung between us. “And Flynn can come, too!”
“I don’t think Flynn has time for lunch right now. He’s, uh…” I turned to Flynn, who seemed to be conducting a close inspection of a pile of scarves in front of us. “What are you doing here today?”
“Working.” He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “Talking to some people. I’m trying to organize an event. You’ll see.”
“And the dry goods store is critical to your plan?”
“New dishtowels.” He refused to look at me.
“I see.” I tried to turn this conversation around. Somewhere under this stony façade was the man who’d undressed me with his eyes in the office last night. “Well, it’s nice of you to spend your Sunday helping us out.”
“Not really.” He rocked back on his heels. “I’m just trying to bail out my investment.”
I gave up. “Okay, then. Nice talking to you. Rex and I are off to lunch now.” Swamped with a sudden wave of abdominal agony, I closed my eyes.
Rex stuck out his bottom lip. “Flynn’s not coming?”
“Look, maybe we should just head home,” I said.
The little boy’s world was crumbling before his eyes.
“After we get a piece of coffee cake to go.” I winced again, pressing both hands to my stomach. “I’m not feeling all that well.”
Flynn abandoned the scarves and got all up in my face. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.
“Nothing.”
“What’s wrong?” He met my gaze.
“You don’t want to know,” I assured him. “Let’s just say it’s a long story and it ends with me going to the gynecologist.”
He nodded and dropped it. Minnesota men, as a rule, do not relish the gory details of Female Trouble.
“Flynn’s leaving? This is awful,” Rex wailed, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his raincoat.
Flynn knelt down. “Sorry kid, I have to do some work. But I’ll walk you to the car. And you’ll have to eat something besides coffee cake for lunch okay? Like lima beans and gruel.”
Rex laughed. “I like gruel. So there.”
We dashed through the rain toward my car, which was parked a block away across the street.
Things were looking up, I decided. Yes, there had been a few glitches today, yesterday, and well, ever since I got the phone call in Florence…but look where we were now. He was walking me to my car, and he didn’t even have a gun to his head. Next thing you know, he’d be kissing my feet and speaking to me in complete sentences.
Flynn grabbed Rex’s wrist with one hand as we crossed the street. He placed his other hand on the small of my back to guide me through traffic.
I glanced at his face as we stepped off the curb, but he seemed completely oblivious, his eyes focused on the passing cars. I wasn’t even sure if he was aware that he was touching me.
If only my abdomen weren’t a writhing mass of white-hot pain, I might have been turned on.
We reached my car safely, and none too soon. The heavy gray sky rumbled with thunder and within seconds, all three of us were drenched in warm rain. I buckled Rex into the car seat Leah had supplied and turned to thank Flynn.
And that’s when I noticed the look in his eyes. Somewhere on the way across the street, his attitude had changed. He wasn’t looking through me anymore. He wasn’t looking past me. He was looking at me. With an intensity that startled me.
I wrapped my fingers around the sleeves of my windbreaker. “Well, thanks for walking us to the car.”
He held my gaze for a long moment. We were motionless and bright against the gray pavement and the dull windy sky. Then he leaned over and kissed my cheek. His mouth barely brushed my face, but for the space of a breath, rooted to the pavement and connected to this man, I knew where I was. I was scared, I was confused, but I was home.
Then I opened my eyes and rushed back to reality. And the reality was, Flynn didn’t seem at all fazed by what had just happened. He simply turned away and headed back across the parking lot with quick, measured strides.
“So long,” he called over his shoulder.
A glance into the car confirmed that Rex, k.o.’ed by the one-two punch of no nap-time and too much excitement, was already asleep in the car seat. I started after Flynn. “Hey!”
He stopped, then slowly turned around. Torrents of rain pounded down between us, but I could see that the distant detachment had returned to his eyes.
“Wait…” I turned my palms up toward the sky and all the wind and rain rampaging between us. “What was that?”
“What was what?” he asked.
“You just kissed me,” I pointed out.
He shrugged. “That wasn’t a kiss.”
I shook my head. “We call that a kiss where I come from.”
He smiled tightly. “We come from the same place.”
“Okay, that is not my point.” I tipped my head back, letting the rain splash onto my cheeks. “What are we doing here?”
“Why are we having this conversation in the pouring rain?”
“I don’t know.” I searched at the sky, hoping that a divine message would appear. Something along the lines of Thou shalt not bear wrath against thy high school sweetheart. “I don’t know why we’re having it at all, because nothing I say will make any difference. Apparently, you’re going to be angry and refuse to talk about anything until I beg to play by your rules. But I don’t know what those rules are. I don’t. I hate to think that that look in your eyes is because of me, but I can’t keep doing this. I’m through with this bait-and-switch bullshit. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I headed back to my car.
His voice sliced through the rain. “Don’t walk away from me, Faith.”
I kept walking.
“You’re just going to take off?” he called. “Exit stage left, once again?”
I stopped, one foot in a puddle. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. The minute things get tough, you turn tail and head for the hills. That’s your solution to everything. You just run away.”
I kept my voice even. “I suppose cowardice runs in the family.”
“I didn’t say you were a coward.” His voice was softer now. “I didn’t spend half my life in love with a coward, Faith.”
And there it was again. Snap, crackle, pop.
He caught my hand in his. “And by the way, when have you ever played by my rules?”
I shivered as the rain trickled down my neck. He slipped our intertwined hands into my jacket pocket.
I took a deep breath. “I know you’re still angry with me for leaving you when you asked me to get married.”
He exhaled slowly, then nodded. “Yeah.”
“And in a lot of ways, I’m still angry with you for pushing me away when I needed you the most. But we can’t change any of that. And I’m not going to keep apologizing every time I see you. I’m not a masochist. So what now?”
“I don’t know,” he said. I considered this a great leap forward from the fever-pitch litany of “I don’t want to talk about it.” He stared at the ground. “I don’t want to keep having this same fight over and over again.”
“Neither do I. But what do you want?”
“I don’t know,” he repeated.
A royal blue Miata barreled around the corner, skidding to a stop just inches from my knees. Flynn yanked me back toward my car, and I stumbled into his chest. There was an awkward, mutual disentangling of fingers as Sally slammed out of the Mazda.
“What is that look for?” she snapped at me. “I’m not the one standing around in the middle of the street.”
“I could have been a five-year-old,” I pointed out, glancing at Rex’s sleeping form through the window. “A run-over five-year-old.”
“Yeah, and I’d tell your mother not to let you play in traffic.” She clearly wanted to add “bitch” to the end of this sentence, but restrained herself for Flynn’s sake. She recalibrated her mood to “sweetness and light” and purred, “Hi, Patrick.”
Sally had shattered the moment I’d just shared with Flynn, and now that it was over, I was terrified by how close I’d wanted to be to him, how willing to ignore the consequences.
My eyes darted back to the VW and the sleeping child inside.
I brushed past Flynn and opened the driver’s side door, then slid in behind the wheel, trying to fasten my seat belt with trembling hands. “I have to go. To the doctor.”
I fumbled with the keys and glanced at the side mirror. Sally was wagging her finger and yammering away at Flynn, who was staring at the car. As I backed out of the parking space, I met his eyes.
Then I drove all the way to Skye’s apartment, and I didn’t check the rearview mirror once.