“You do, don’t you. You know, people at the race who knew of you asked if Charlie was in any of your programs. What programs? Your foundation isn’t operational yet, is it?”
He shook his head and went to the kitchen to get them tea. “I’ve sponsored a few training programs for talented but underprivileged kids. Our program isn’t up but we already have foundation seed money and give some of it away while we’re working and planning. We find them or they find us out of schools, boys’ and girls’ clubs, neighborhood rec centers, that sort of thing. If the Smiley team sponsors them, they get the equipment and coaching they need to help them on the road to better things, maybe a scholarship. If we can’t get ’em early, they might miss the opportunity, and by the time they’re twelve or thirteen they’re on another course, not always the best course.”
“Too bad you can’t do the same for academic talent,” she said.
“We’re working on that. We talk a lot about the whole-kid campaign. They need the whole banana—emotional support, environmental and nutritional support, athletic, academic. The need is too big to imagine but I’m fool enough to imagine it.”
I think he’s either a fabulous con artist or a genuinely kind man. God knows he can’t get money for his cause out of me! she thought.
“Come and sit in here.” He picked up a tray with mugs of hot tea and carried it to the living room in front of the fire. “Charlie’s thriving,” he said.
“Working out is the best idea anyone has suggested.”
“It’s more than his workouts. I think he likes it here. He likes his school.”
“He likes his friends, and not just his fellow students. Friends he’s made through my job working for Winnie have been perfect for him, and of course that includes you.”
“I got a kick out of him the first day I met him.”
“Did you see him as an underprivileged kid?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not at all. He was a brilliant kid with a laptop.”
“But then you saw our trailer park and the mess we were in...”
He shook his head again. “It wasn’t that bad, Lin Su. I hope this doesn’t sound condescending but it wasn’t anything to feel ashamed of. You could’ve run into those problems in an upper-class neighborhood—break-ins, bullying, drug abuse, et cetera. The last place I lived, I rented a town house. Nice place, gated community. A lot of the kids drove late-model sports cars or flashy trucks to school. Cortega High School—the local police called it Cocaine High. The kids were overindulged, spoiled, disrespectful vandals. You can only solve so many problems with money.”
“I put too much importance on money sometimes,” she said. “I could have afforded something a little better, but...”
He reached for her hand and held it. “It was sturdy, warm, had hot water, a working stove and a door that locked. Not a bad little place, just some bad neighbors. A lot of people would be grateful for that little trailer.”
“You?”
“Oh, I would’ve been thrilled with it when I was a kid. My mother and I were in so many rotten flats, shared apartments, tenements... We moved all the time. We even spent time in shelters.”
“Where is your mother now?” she asked.
“Died when I was sixteen.”
“Can you talk about her?” she asked.
“She’s not easy to understand,” he said.
“Neither is my mother. Either of my mothers. Tell me about yours?”
He sipped some of his tea as he thought. “She was so pretty. I sometimes wonder if she really was or if that was a little boy’s image. She was pale and blonde and small. When I was little, under five, she was looking for the right man and went through a bunch of ’em. And then she found something that was more satisfying to her than a man. Drugs. She worked as a waitress in an all-night diner but that wasn’t enough money to keep us as long as she had a habit so she also cleaned office buildings when she could get the work. I’m not sure when the habit started—seemed like we lived with it forever. And I don’t know if you’ll understand this because I don’t understand it—she was an irresponsible mother but she was also devoted. She was whacked-out half the time but I never doubted she loved me. She adored me. She cried a lot because she was such a bad mother.
“By the time I was seven or eight, I was running in the streets. Half the time I got meals at neighbors’ houses or scrounged. I didn’t go to school regularly, I didn’t have discipline or a curfew or boundaries and I’m pretty sure my mother was dealing out of that diner. She might’ve been selling herself, too, but not around me. Social services took custody of me twice and she worked hard to clean up and get me back both times. But when I was thirteen she’d played all her cards. They took me to foster care again and she was too far gone to make it back. I took the bus to see her on the other side of town a few times, to bring her a can of soup or a sweater, and I saw I was losing her day by day. And a couple of years later she was dead. They said it was an overdose but it was more than that—her body must’ve given out. She was on a downward spiral my whole life.”
“Your father?” she asked hesitantly.
“Never knew one, never heard a name.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Thanks, but please don’t feel sorry for me. It was a rough, poor neighborhood and I wasn’t the only kid with those kinds of problems. I was one of the few to get out, however. And it was a genuine miracle. I was in a good foster home and went to a decent school, and even though I was pure trouble, they worked with me, caught me up on the lessons, took extra time with me, introduced me to track. I could’ve been placed in any other home and gone all the way down to the place my mother lived and died, but I got a second chance because someone gambled on me. I was too mean to care and too angry to appreciate the chance and I fought back hard, but they hung in there with me. I was lucky. Plus, I might’ve been poor and neglected, but I wasn’t unloved or abused or molested, so I had a fighting chance. My foster mother suggested I had a chance to make my mother proud of me. She also made sure I was in counseling with a group of kids more like me. Worked like a charm.”
“Is this a story you’ve told a lot?” she asked.
“It’s a story I’m used to now.”
“You tell it in your speeches?” she asked.
“About my life, yes. About my mother? Not too much. Telling it to myself was the hard part. I think it was ten years ago or so that I had to figure out what was driving me, what was scaring me and costing me sleep, what extra weight I was carrying. And I didn’t do that because I’m sensitive or insightful. I did it because I was angry, screwed up, wanted to win races, and it was like I was just ten pounds too heavy. I got into yoga, started reading more about spiritual freedom, started listening to...” He stopped and laughed. “TED Talks. Not exactly, but stuff like that. As an experiment I just blurted out the unvarnished truth about myself, my roots, and no one died.”
He reached for her hand and held it.
“No, I don’t talk about her a lot. Only when it’s appropriate. It’s heavy. I assume you really wanted to know.”
She nodded.
“I hope your experience was a lot easier.”
She nodded, but she pulled back her hand. Of course her experience was easier! “I was adopted by a white American family. Irish Catholic, as a matter of fact. They were well-to-do. I went to private schools, traveled a lot with my family and classmates. I lived a pretty charmed life.”
“Something happened somewhere along the way,” he said.
“Why would you say that?” she asked, picking up her mug of tea.
“I don’t know,” he said. “There’s grit in you. You’re a survivor, I can see that. It’s how I connect with people. I thought we’d have more in common.”
“I think we have some things in common,” she admitted. “Since I found myself a
young single mother, I’ve gotten tougher.”
“No help from those well-to-do Irish Catholic parents?”
She laughed a little ruefully and shook her head. “They were mortified. Furious. Disappointed. I was an honor student. I’d been accepted to Harvard. They’d poured a fortune into my education. They expected better. And...well, they weren’t going to help me. Us. I wanted to have my baby and asked for their support and they were adamant—there would be no single mother and fatherless baby in their house. So I left. I made it on my own.”
“And Charlie’s father?”
“He also wasn’t much help, but then he wrecked on a motorcycle in the rain and was completely lost to us so I’ll never know if he would have eventually been supportive. Please, I try to paint a more positive picture for Charlie. A person shouldn’t grow up thinking the worst of their... Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...”
“I understand what you meant,” he said. “But haven’t you tried contacting them? Would they have changed their minds once they met Charlie?”
“Leaving was very hard,” she said. “It took me quite a while, in fact. In the end I might’ve done it as much out of spite. Anger. Determined never again to be a part of their grand plan.”
The cute little Asian baby, gifted and naturally hard-working, destined for great things... They had two biological daughters who hadn’t impressed them, one in the Peace Corps and one majoring in marriage. Lin Su was to be their great achievement. At the very least a physician, at best a great scientist or neurosurgeon. They would proudly take credit for her.
“Adopted,” he said.
“I was a happy child,” she said, almost defensively. “Until I became a mother, I didn’t have problems at home.” See, I’m not really like you.
He didn’t speak for a while. He took another sip of tea. “I figured out something about myself—that I had issues. Not conscious ones. For one, I was afraid of being abandoned. And it wasn’t an idle fear—I had been abandoned over and over. For a long time it kept me from healthy relationships with women—I thought they’d eventually leave me. I poured myself into my sport.”
“Even your coach?”
He laughed uncomfortably. “She was the exception as a matter of fact. I was in a relationship with Gretchen for a while. After working closely together, we got involved, and by that time I’d resolved some of my issues and wanted a more committed relationship. But she didn’t. She’s very independent, married to her work, isn’t interested in a family, doesn’t want to be tied down, doesn’t need anyone. Just what I deserved, I guess. I walked away from perfectly great women before even giving them a chance because I was screwed up. Then I chose one who wouldn’t commit.”
“I think maybe she’s reconsidering,” Lin Su said.
“Well, I’m not, and I made that clear. It would never work, anyway. We’re really not very alike.”
“You’re everything alike!” she said.
“Doing the same kind of work isn’t enough to make a successful relationship. There has to be a lot more than that.”
“Well, you’ll find the right person,” she said, sipping her tea, which had become cool.
“I think I have,” he said. “I could be wrong, but I think we have a lot of the same stuff. Even if we come from very different backgrounds, our priorities are similar.”
“That’s crazy,” she said. “Charlie is my priority. Charlie, Winnie, my home life, family life, my work.”
He smiled. “Oh, you’re right—nothing in common there.”
“I don’t know what you’re looking for, but I bet I’m not it,” Lin Su said. “I haven’t even been on a date in over fourteen years. Well, not really...”
“Not really?”
She shrugged. “I was in a friend’s wedding and I had a partner for that, but it was nothing.”
“You’re it,” he said. “I can tell.”
“There’s this saying about men and settling down—the most available woman when they’re the most ready. They don’t even think about it.”
“I’ve thought about it.”
“I haven’t!”
“All right. I understand completely. You think about it. In the meantime, let’s go out to dinner one of these nights.”
“I don’t know... I don’t think that’s a great idea. I don’t want Charlie thinking...”
“That we’re having a date? Trust me, he’d be dating if he could.”
Lin Su’s phone vibrated in her pocket and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She stood to take it out of her pocket and read the text. She texted back. “Winnie is awake. Time for me to go.”
He stood, as well. “We’ll just think about that date for a while, then. But not too long. I think we need it.”
“We’ll see,” she said, not looking at him. Out of sheer habit, she picked up the tray of mugs to carry to the kitchen.
“Leave that,” he said. “Don’t clean up after me. I’ll get it.”
She left it. Straightening, she went to the door and slipped on her clogs. She grabbed her jacket off the peg. He took it from her hands and put it around her shoulders. Hanging on to it, he pulled her toward him. She looked up at him. He moved toward her mouth slowly, giving her time to shriek or shove him away or kick him in the shins.
She didn’t. Instead, when his lips touched hers, so softly, she let out her breath as if she’d been holding it for hours. Her eyes closed. And. Oh. God. He barely kissed her and yet she could feel it zing through her like a current. Her heart nearly exploded out of her chest and her knees melted. But he was holding her up; he was so strong and sure of himself. She felt herself lean into him, her small hands on his waist. His kiss became stronger, more powerful, deftly parting her lips just a little bit, his tongue on the seam of her lips, then inside her mouth.
Oh, damn, this is going to really mess me up, she thought in near despair.
She wanted this. She had wanted this for years. She had so wanted to be held, to be loved, to not be lonely, to have ballast in her life, to have someone who really cared. The wanting made her weak and his arms went around her, holding her. For years she had dreamed of loving a wonderful man. She’d dreamed of him.
He didn’t take too much of her. He slowly eased his lips away, giving her a parting lick on her upper lip. Then he kissed her cheek, her eyes and her forehead.
“I wish Winnie hadn’t called yet,” he said. “But you’d better go see what she needs.”
“Uh-huh,” she said.
“We’ll talk about that date.”
“Uh-huh.” And she turned away. He opened the door for her and she pulled the jacket up, over her head, walking briskly to the house next door.
* * *
Blake went back into his living room. He left the tray of mugs on the coffee table but pushed it aside while he sat in front of the fire. He kicked off his shoes and put his feet up. He settled back to relax, a long way from satisfaction. Kissing her had only made him want more. Much more. As soon as possible. And he’d better meditate on that because even though it was evident Lin Su had similar longings, she wasn’t ready to act on them. She was a long way from trusting him.
Blake had a great deal of respect for nature, for human instinct, not that he understood it at all. He was thirty-seven and had always been drawn to tall, athletic women. They were usually blonde, which was unsurprising since his mother had been blonde. But the moment he saw Lin Su he’d been fiercely attracted to her. She was small, soft, dark, bred of another culture. She was the most stubborn woman he’d ever known. She was going to resist him no matter how right it felt to her.
She had responded to him; she wouldn’t be able to deny it. It was probably nothing more complicated than fear. After all, she’d been without a man in her life. In fact, though he knew nothing about Charlie’s father, he knew he hadn’
t done much to protect and care for the little family he’d made. He’d let her down. She would naturally be afraid of being let down again. Who wouldn’t?
She couldn’t open up to him, but that was all right. Someday she would explain things to him, things he already knew. You don’t have an ideal childhood in an upscale family only for them to cast you out for something like an accidental pregnancy. There had been much about her years with that adoptive family that had been lacking; he’d bet his right leg on it.
She would be worth the wait. He would have to be more reassuring than he’d ever been before so that she knew she was safe with him, that Charlie would be safe.
Meanwhile, he headed for the gym. The treadmill would help him get through the frustration he was feeling.
Fifteen
Grace was standing at the counter, adding up her list of floral orders, when the shop door opened and Ronaldo walked in. He stopped just inside the door and they smiled at each other.
“When you didn’t respond to my email, I thought maybe you’d had a change of heart,” Grace said. “Or even found something else.”
“I wanted to look you straight in the eye and thank you for taking a chance on me.”
“I’m assuming you’re going to be wearing the nice personality.”
“Absolutely. Can I just apologize again?”
“Unnecessary, Ronaldo. And do you understand my plan?” she asked.
“I believe I do, but why don’t you just give it to me from the top in case I misunderstood anything.”
“Sure. Although I advertised for a manager, I’m offering you a job as a shop employee on a trial basis. Let’s say a month. You will probably find yourself taking on manager’s duties as well as clerk and shop chores, but I’m not ready to commit to full-time manager with benefits until I’m sure we’re compatible.”
“I understand. Because I was a little pissy at our first meeting...”
“A little?” she asked. “I thought someone peed in your diaper!”
“I’ve been told I have a moody side,” he said contritely. “When I’m stressed, that is. But I promise you, it is something I can control.”