“You live on a beach and don’t swim?”
He shook his head again. “I don’t live here. My mom works for Mrs. Banks. Since I come with her to work every day, I’m going to go to school here in town but we live... We live a few miles away.”
“And you don’t swim,” Blake said again.
Charlie shook his head. “That never came up before.”
Blake laughed. He understood that completely. “So, what’s up with Mrs. Banks?”
“ALS. She’s doing good. She’s not end stage,” Charlie said, as if he understood such things. “She still walks a little bit but never alone and my mom is optimistic. But she needs a nurse and it’s not my mom’s first ALS patient. I’m really sorry she has ALS but I think I’m going to like the school... Well, for as long as my mom works for Mrs. Banks.”
“Hopefully a long time,” Blake said.
“Yeah, for her sake, for sure. So what made it a good race? You got beat.”
“Gimme a break, will you? I came in second—that’s a damn good show. Like you said, McGill beats me regularly. This time, though, he announced his retirement.” Blake made a face. “Gonna really miss that guy.” Then he laughed. “Seriously, I had good times. I was close to my personal-best swimming and, in case you haven’t figured it out, that’s not my easiest sport. But I run like the wind.”
Charlie just grinned at him.
“I guess I better come next door and introduce myself to Mrs. Banks, huh? After I clean up, of course. What’s her schedule like?”
“After her nap, right before dinner, everyone is usually around. And she’s downright perky.”
“Everyone?” Blake asked.
“Well, Mrs. Banks’s daughter, Grace, and her husband, Troy, are there. And there’s Mikhail. He’s been hanging around ever since he found out Winnie has ALS. Mikhail used to be Grace’s coach. For, like, years. She’s a champion athlete, too. So you’re not the only one.”
“Is that so?” Blake asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Figure-skating gold medalist,” Charlie said. “A while ago, though. She retired.”
Blake frowned. The name “Grace” didn’t sound familiar at all.
“I guess she used to be called Izzy when she was skating.”
“Oh, Jesus, Izzy Banks?” he asked. “You’re kidding, right?”
“And her mother—Winnie Banks,” Charlie said. “Grace is like a second-generation champion.”
Now, what were the odds? Blake asked himself. Winnie and Izzy were famous mother/daughter skating icons. Winnie Banks had quit skating to marry her coach and they’d produced one of the best known women’s figure-skating champions in the world. “Unreal. What’s she doing now?”
“Well, she owns the flower shop and she’s having a baby,” Charlie said. “Troy is a high school teacher. And in that house there,” he said, pointing to the house between Winnie’s and Cooper’s, “Spencer and Devon live there. Spencer and Cooper have a son together.”
Blake’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that so? Two men?”
Charlie laughed. “Not like that. One of them is the dad and one is the stepdad or something like that. I can’t figure out which is which, but Austin’s mom died a couple of years ago. Now Spencer is married to Devon, and Cooper is married to Sarah. And Austin has two bedrooms.”
After all the house and community shopping Blake had done he’d managed to somehow land in a neighborhood where kids had moms, stepmoms, dads and stepdads, missing moms and so on. Where he grew up in Baltimore it was like that, but usually someone in the family was in jail and there sure weren’t any three-story houses on the beach or champion athletes hanging around. Just gang members, drug dealers, prostitutes and pimps. There were missing parents, dead parents and foster parents, kids raised by aunts, grandmothers and neighbors. Families of every creative invention, now that he thought of it. Back when he was a kid, you practically needed a chart to figure out who belonged with whom. He was always a little surprised when folks who could pay the rent had similar family trees.
No beach houses where he grew up, no, sir. He was raised to the age of thirteen in an urban tenement slum in a city that got so freaking cold in the winter he hung out with vagrants who built fires in trash cans under the tracks and bridges. From thirteen to sixteen he bounced around a lot while his mother tried to get her life together, but at least he went to school regularly. That turned out to be critical. An education was the thing that ultimately got him out of a neighborhood where a lot of young men and women lost track of their lives.
“What do you do on that computer besides research your neighbors?” Blake asked Charlie.
“I look up everything. Anything I can get for you?” he asked. And then he grinned the cutest grin.
Blake had a real soft spot for kids. All kids. But he didn’t worry too much about this type, the kind of kid who grew up in places like brand-new, pricey, three-story beach houses with famous retired athletes. He was more concerned about the kids who had tough, deprived childhoods. He’d been working on a project for the past several years meant to serve kids in need and he was nearly ready to unveil it as soon as he had a couple more corporate sponsors on board.
He liked Charlie right away. He felt privileged that he’d be seeing him around. “There is something you can do for me. I have to get on the bike and do at least fifty miles. Then home and clean up.” He looked at his watch. “Any time after one o’clock that your mother thinks is okay to come over and meet my neighbors, could you let me know?”
“Could be closer to dinnertime if you want to meet them all. Troy has been helping Grace at the shop.”
“I don’t want to impose on dinner—just a quick hello. I’m home the rest of the day,” Blake assured him.
* * *
It was not strictly required that Lin Su wear some kind of nurse’s uniform, but she wore clean scrubs every day just the same. For one thing, they were easy to move around in and her job sometimes found her on her hands and knees digging around beneath the bathroom sink or wiping up a kitchen floor. For another thing, scrubs were easily maintained and, if need be, replaced. And importantly, they identified her—even the UPS man at the door knew she was either on the job as a medic or worked somewhere nearby as medical personnel and was dressed in her work clothes.
As a home health care nurse, she could wear civilian clothes while tending patients like Winnie Banks, those who needed assistance and yet were not desperately ill. But when she tended patients in the end stages of diseases, which tended to be incredibly messy, her civilian clothes needed to be spared. After all, they were few and carefully chosen.
So it was all logical, her use of scrubs on the job. And when she opened the door to a very attractive man, they proved effective.
“So, you’re the nurse,” the man said. “Charlie said I could brave a visit, just to introduce myself and say hello. I’m Blake Smiley. Your neighbor.”
“Hello,” she said, more wide-eyed than she liked. He was just so damn handsome, it threw her. She’d caught glimpses of him when he was on the beach or on his deck next door, but up close he was shockingly beautiful. She was speechless.
“You are Lin Su. I asked Charlie, you see.”
“Ah! Yes, I’m Lin Su Simmons. Please. Come in.”
“Is it a convenient time to say hello to Mrs. Banks?”
“Come in! Come in!” Winnie called from the dining room table.
Lin Su stepped aside so that Blake could enter.
Winnie was sitting with Charlie at the dining table, both of them with their laptops open. Winnie closed hers and held out a hand toward him. “And how do you do, Mr. Smiley! Charlie told me you might be stopping by.”
“It’s a pleasure, Mrs. Banks,” he said, taking her hand.
“Will you sit for a moment?” she asked. “And no
w that the formal introductions are dispensed with, can we proceed as Winnie and Blake?”
“Nothing would please me more.”
“Charlie,” she said. “Fetch Mikhail from the deck.” Then she turned to Blake. “Very nice of you to make the effort to visit. It’s not easy for me to get around, as I’m sure Charlie told you.”
“He told me,” Blake said. “I’m so sorry to hear it. Lou Gehrig’s disease, how bloody awful for you. You look positively wonderful. How are you feeling?”
“Until I try to pick up a glass or stand, I feel just fine,” she said, adding a small head shake. “Speaking of glass, what can we get you?”
“Nothing at all, Mrs.... Winnie. I just wanted to meet you. I was shocked to hear two famous athletes were living next door.”
“Yes, but we’re not competing anymore,” Winnie said. “What in the world are you doing here in Thunder Point?”
“I’m still training, but I fell in love with the quiet of the place.” He glanced around. “If you can find a way to move this house to Boulder you can get three million for it.”
“I can’t believe the price was what attracted you,” she said.
“The town did, as a matter of fact. The size, the simplicity, the building around the bay. That’s a great place for me to swim. The hills and lowlands are great bike and running trails. The air is perfect.”
“What’s your next event?” Winnie asked.
“Tahoe,” Charlie answered for him, sitting down again.
“He seems to know as much about me as I do,” Blake said. He stood and extended a hand toward the short Russian coach who had come in from the deck. “How do you do, sir. I’m your neighbor, Blake.”
“An honor,” Mikhail said.
When everyone sat down to visit, Lin Su drifted off to the master bedroom. This was the time of day she put it right for later when Winnie would settle in for the night.
After a nap and a little refreshing, Winnie would spend some time in the living room or on the deck, have dinner with whoever happened to be around—sometimes the entire family, sometimes just Lin Su, Charlie and Mikhail. If Winnie’s daughter, Grace, wanted to help her settle in for the evening, Lin Su and Charlie would go home. Most nights Lin Su would stay for the evening ritual and then take herself and her son home.
Her present home wasn’t exactly a welcoming place. Lin Su and Charlie were renting a small fifth wheel that had been left behind at a rather scurvy trailer park, but it was completely adequate and she had gotten it antiseptic clean. This job with Winnie, while demanding, was also accommodating and paid well. Lin Su was working on a solution to that fifth wheel, but it had been all she could afford at the time—she’d been laid off from the hospital and bills had accrued while she was between jobs. There were also old loans like tuition, moving, some medical expenses that hadn’t been covered by employers. She finally had some savings but she didn’t dare touch it. She was very cautious and the most important thing in the world to her was that Charlie get a good education.
It was all working out, for now. It was Winnie, in fact, who had suggested Charlie come to work with her every day and therefore attend school in Thunder Point. Winnie’s son-in-law, Troy Headly, taught history there and Winnie’s next-door neighbor, Spencer Lawson, was the athletic director and football coach. She wouldn’t have to worry about Charlie being picked on by bigger, tougher kids, and for that she was so grateful.
She drew back the comforter and smoothed out the sheets—six hundred thread count—fluffed the pillows and made it inviting. She shook out and refolded the throw that Mikhail used when he slept in the big leather chair at Winnie’s bedside. He thought no one knew. That made her smile. Mikhail was so devoted, but he disappeared before Lin Su arrived in the morning so no one would know he was that protective. Lin Su dusted the room, removing the water glass from the bedside table, tidied the books and magazines Winnie kept nearby. The bathroom just needed a lick and a promise plus fresh towels and facecloths. Tomorrow she would change the sheets and wash some linens. She would love to sleep in such fine bedding but she wouldn’t trade places with Winnie for the moon.
By the time she returned to the kitchen and dining room, Grace and Troy had come home and there was a great deal of chatter. They had brought dinner from Carrie’s deli and Grace was putting out place mats.
“Please, won’t you stay?” Grace asked Blake. “I can assure you it’s healthy and nutritious. Carrie is very particular.”
But to the disappointment of all, Blake declined the invitation, heading home for some concoction of kale, squash, beef, chicken, quinoa, oil and... Lin Su might not have caught all the ingredients, but he was in training—there was another race in a month.
“Sounds delicious,” Grace said doubtfully.
“Sounds excruciating,” Winnie said, making everyone laugh.
Blake laughed with them. “After the next two races I’ll have a little downtime. I’ll exercise and eat well but the strict training and diet regimen is relaxed a little bit. I’ll eat and drink like a regular person,” he said with a grin.
“Well, when you’re done with the next race, I’m buying,” Troy said, lifting his beer in Blake’s direction.
Two
The size of the Banks household had grown, if only slightly. Now there was a cleaning crew headed by a woman named Shauna Price. There were three women who swooped in twice a week and applied a devoted two hours to cleaning the house, top to bottom. They were friendly without having much to say, charged a lot, carried their own supplies with them and vanished without saying goodbye. Once a week Shauna dutifully asked Lin Su if everything was all right. She didn’t ask Winnie; Lin Su believed Winnie terrified her.
Three mornings a week from 10:00 to 10:45 a.m. Curtis Rhinehold appeared—the physical therapist. He put Winnie through a series of exercises meant to keep up her strength and balance, though whether it did any good was questionable. In his absence, Lin Su continued the exercises because it couldn’t hurt anything and maybe it would give her a little more time and function. Winnie grumbled and complained, though Lin Su was confident if she weren’t getting this attention her complaining might be worse.
The end of summer was pleasant; the weather was warm and dry. Lin Su was warned it was leading into a cold and wet and often windy winter on the bay. Charlie enjoyed his new Thunder Point friends and anticipated the start of school very hopefully. His buddy Frank Downy, an MIT sophomore who shared Charlie’s passion for online research, had headed back east to college in mid-August. Cooper’s young brother-in-law, Landon, had gone back to the University of Oregon to begin football practice at about the same time. With Thunder Point High School starting a new year, Spencer was knee-deep into his own football practice with his team, moaning and groaning about those young men taking a toll on his back and knees. Troy was busy preparing for classes when he wasn’t helping Grace in the flower shop or helping around the house. Charlie wasn’t bored for a second. He had Winnie and Mikhail and was very independent.
And now he had a new friend—the triathlete next door. Charlie saw Blake every day, sometimes just talking on the beach, sometimes hitting the volleyball around or working on his bicycle. One afternoon Lin Su saw Charlie hosing Blake’s deck while Blake scrubbed it with the bristle broom. On another warm and sunny afternoon Charlie took Blake for a hike along the ridge to show him the lookout where he’d see the migrating whales in another month or so.
Lin Su was happy Charlie had a friend, and a good male role model never hurt, but she’d rather Charlie be enamored of Troy or Spencer or even Cooper—nice, stable, married men. It would be a mistake for Charlie to think a man like Blake would take a place of permanence in his life. He was a little too free and easy for Lin Su’s tastes. And their situation—the job and the location—was temporary. With any luck it would stick for a while, but eventually they would have t
o move on.
They always had to move on.
For now, the job caring for Winnie Banks was ideal. Lin Su put in a lot of hours, but had long breaks during the day while Winnie napped or didn’t need her. And while she would try to play the role of employee and caregiver, always available but at a polite distance and not a member of the family or town, the family and town wouldn’t allow it. She’d been with Winnie since June and they were growing close. Winnie was even closer to Charlie; they’d become thicker than thieves. Lin Su and Charlie were drawn in and embraced; they dined together, visited, gossiped, even played games together.
Lin Su was trying to remember her place.
“I don’t want an agency nurse’s aide,” Winnie said. “Think about this. You take care of my bedding, help me bathe, escort me to the bathroom, help me dress—we are intimate, you and me. If you couldn’t fit in with this odd crew I now call family—a daughter, a teacher, an old coach—I would have to look for someone else. I’m afraid you’re stuck with us.”
Three women Lin Su’s approximate age who were good friends and bonded in many ways were also all showing very nice baby bumps by mid-August. Grace, Iris and Peyton. Iris Sileski was the high school guidance counselor and had sold Grace the flower shop—they’d been friends since the day Grace arrived in Thunder Point a couple of years before. Peyton Grant, the town physician’s assistant who had conveniently wed the physician, made regular visits to check on Winnie’s health as did her husband, Scott. It was only natural, then, that there would be small and regular gatherings of those three—sometimes at the end of the day, sometimes for lunch, sometimes morning coffee, sometimes dinner. They were all due to give birth just before Christmas.
When they gathered in or near Winnie’s house, if Lin Su wasn’t busy, they pressed her to join them. Winnie very much enjoyed having them around, and with Lin Su’s or Grace’s help, Winnie could even join them if they met at Cooper’s bar or in town at the restaurant. Winnie even enjoyed brief trips to the diner, something that made her daughter howl with laughter, accusing that it must have been Winnie’s first diner experience ever.