Never Too Late

  “Ugh. What I can’t figure out is—why would a handsome young man his age be interested in someone like me?”

  “Is this a trick question?” Maggie asked. Silence again. “God, I hate that you don’t know things about yourself. Important things. You’re attractive. No, you’re beautiful. You’re fun, you’re sincere. You’re ridiculously tidy, patient and wise.”

  “Tidy, patient and wise?” she asked, laughing suddenly. “Yeah, I’m sure this good-looking young buck has been searching high and low for a woman who’s tidy! Besides, I’m not wise—I’ve made some of the dumbest choices for a woman my age.” She thought for a second and said, “I am tidy, though.”

  “He probably just liked your face and body—the rest will come. Tell me about him. What’s he like?”

  “He’s nice,” she said. “Very conscientious. It seems that he got his girlfriend pregnant when he was just a kid—eighteen years old. And rather than go along with an adoption, he fought for custody. He’s raising his ten-year-old daughter with the help of his mother. How many guys do that?”

  “This the first time you’ve heard from him since the accident?”

  “I didn’t tell you? He came to the hospital right before I was discharged. He brought flowers. Then he called me. He’s called me a few times. But I thought he was interested in my recovery. I thought he felt bonded to me because he saw the crash, then saw my wrecked body. I guess I thought that it was natural for someone like him to want to see how everything turned out.”

  “Clare, you’re hopeless.”

  “Well, how was I to know?”

  “Do you like him?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, sure, I like him fine. I never thought of him in that…that way.”

  “And handsome?”

  “Oh Maggie, he’s the kind of handsome that would knock you out of your shoes. He has a dimpled smile that can make you wet yourself.”

  “Jesus, Clare…”

  “What?”

  “What a lousy time to have a cracked pelvis!”

  “This is simply ridiculous,” Clare said, matter-of-fact.

  “Aw, have some fun. How many times does something like this come along?”

  “I’ll think about fun later—when I have my life straight.”

  “You are such a drag,” Maggie laughed. “I’d have been all over that. Even with a crack in my pelvis!”

  Clare welcomed the distraction of settling into her old house, sans Roger. He’d found an apartment in a luxury complex complete with pools and gym where he could no doubt meet many lovely single women. By mid-June, Clare had moved home. Well, it wasn’t as though she moved. She merely walked into the house. Jason, George, Sarah and her brother-in-law toted all their things.

  To her great relief, the house seemed to welcome her. But then she didn’t go upstairs to the scene of the crime. She stayed downstairs and if there was anything she needed, Jason fetched it.

  Summer in Breckenridge was glorious. The flowers were full, the fields were green and there was still a little snow on the highest peaks. The haze of pain had lifted and Clare could appreciate the beauty of her town, her mountains. Ordinarily she would have taken care of the yard and garden, but she was forced to hire a landscaping service. So when they were there she pestered them, making sure everything was done to her satisfaction. It was such a relief to be outdoors again after that long, wet and painful spring.

  Roger called all the time, sweet depression dripping from his voice. He surprised her by stopping by a couple of times, but while she was civil, she wouldn’t let him stay long. She didn’t want him to get too comfortable. He was filled with offers of help, begging to see her more often if only to be sure she was getting better. Something about seeing her limp a little must have worked on his conscience. He sent her generous checks very regularly, something she’d had to ask him for during past separations. And flowers—she hated when he sent her flowers! She could almost smell him, he was getting so close. So, she had the locks changed.

  By the end of July she was hardly ever using the crutches, though she still had occasional pain. She could manage the stairs and the laundry, though she couldn’t carry things up and down. There was a little complication with transportation—she didn’t have a car anymore, and her little secret was that if she did have a car, she’d be terrified to drive it. But there were plenty of people from her dad to her sisters who would happily take her wherever she wanted or needed to go. She was still seeing the physical terrorist twice a week.

  She had Jason bring her the paperwork stowed in her upstairs desk, including her records of all the schools in Breckenridge—not so very many, where she had done substitute teaching. She spruced up her résumé and got started.

  Clare hadn’t held a full-time teaching job since before Jason was born, only filling in from time to time. And you don’t need the greatest teaching skills to do that. In fact the only real requirement is a whip and a chair; the little heathens gave the sub their absolute worst. She had faced each one of those days with anxiety and dread, but knew the wisdom of keeping her hand in. Not to mention a little money now and then that was entirely her own.

  The nice thing about having kept her face in the school district of a small town, was she was known and liked. There were two job offers almost immediately. Both were in the English department, one in middle school—eighth grade, and the other high school, though she had been hoping for younger kids. She was tempted to take the middle-school job just to avoid running into Pete Rayburn who taught and coached at Centennial High, but Jason had turned fifteen over the summer and was starting high school in the fall, so running into Pete was going to happen, no matter what she did.

  And…she had made that promise to herself, that she was going to seek Pete out and see if she could mend those embarrassing fences. After all, it had been nineteen long years. And they were grown-ups now.

  She took the fifteen-year-olds and thought of all the advantages of being in school with her son every day.

  “Aw, man, I’m gonna want to die!”

  Jason did not.

  In August Clare went up those stairs and looked into the master bedroom. She had always loved that room, but now all she saw was a blond stranger bouncing atop her unfaithful husband. So she called the consignment shop to come and take the furniture away and then called a local decorator. Ordinarily she would have done all the work herself. Growing up the daughter of a hardware store owner had many advantages and she was a master at everything from wallpaper and paint, to crown molding. But even if she felt one hundred percent most days, she knew the logic of not pushing her luck.

  Just a couple of weeks later when she went back into the bedroom everything was changed, from the sheets to the window treatments. It was entirely new, without a trace of Roger’s infidelities.

  She gathered materials from her new employer and set about the task of preparing lesson plans for the year ahead, and as she did so she began to fantasize about doing any other kind of job than teaching. Why hadn’t she become an architect? A nurse? Been a business major? How could she face one hundred and twenty fifteen-year-olds a day? One hundred and twenty Jasons and Jasonettes?

  But surely they would be more tame if she was the regular teacher and not the sub….

  She had all but forgotten about her flirty younger man. From his few calls over summer, he was all cooled down. She reminded him a couple of times about how sore her pelvis was and he moved back into his assigned slot as the local cop who was only concerned about how she was feeling, how her recovery was going. She did have one small handicap—she happened to enjoy talking to him.

  And when he called she found herself eager to regale him with tales of her hectic days; of redecorating, job interviewing, shopping for work clothes, getting Jason ready for school, sidestepping Roger and working on study plans for her new job. She hadn’t seen him all summer, since the day last June when he showed up with coffee. Five months had passed since the accident and she was nearly back
on her feet. Only a little annoying soreness remained—she was ready to go back to work and get on with her life. Then one day Sam called and said, “You know, it’s been weeks since I’ve seen you, and I bet you’re just about fully recovered.”

  “I just about am,” she said, surprisingly glad to hear his voice. “Feeling really great, as a matter of fact. Have you had a good summer?”

  “I stay pretty busy when Molly’s out of school—and we had a nice long vacation in July. Got a cabin on the North Shore of the lake and really relaxed.”

  “Your mom went along?” she asked.

  “Sure,” he said.

  Clare surprised herself by thinking, then he wouldn’t have taken a woman along. But she banished the thought as a ridiculous regression into dangerous fantasies. “It must have been fun,” she said. And then the doorbell rang and she said, “Damn it. Can you hold on one second? Someone’s at the door.” Carrying the phone with her, she opened it and there he stood, not in uniform this time but in jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt that happened to show off his tanned and muscled arms. She gulped at his physique and kept herself from sighing at his hard good looks. “This is a cute trick you have,” she said, clicking off her phone.

  “I know,” he said, treating her to that incredible smile.

  “So, besides being very funny, what are you doing here?”

  “On a mission,” he said with a shrug. “Got a few minutes?”

  “Actually, I’m right in the middle of…of…”

  “Come on, I’m not going to kidnap you. Or maybe I should. You probably couldn’t put up much of a fight.” He dangled car keys in front of her. “I bought a new car. Wanna see?”

  “Sure,” she said amiably. How typical of a young guy, she thought. Car proud. There in her drive sat a Lexus SUV, a lovely deep blue color. “Wow,” she said. “Breckenridge is paying cops pretty well these days.”

  “We get by. How about a spin?”

  “Well, just a short one. I really am in the middle of something.” But she was in the middle of absolutely nothing and Jason was out running around with his friends. She moved toward the passenger door and he said, “Clare.”

  She turned. “Hmm?”

  He dangled the keys. “You drive.”

  “Oh! Oh, no, I couldn’t! It’s your brand-new car.”

  “I’d like to see how it feels in the passenger seat.”

  Her heart began to pound and her palms started to sweat. “No, really. I can’t. I don’t think I’m up to it.”

  He met her by the passenger door, slipped an arm around her waist and led her firmly to the other side of the car. “You haven’t been on this horse in a while, Clare. I haven’t missed that in all your running around, you’ve always had someone driving you. You start work pretty soon and you’re putting this off. If you’re scared, let’s get it over with.”

  She tried to wiggle free, but he held her waist. “I can’t,” she said weakly. “I’m not ready.”

  “You’ll never get ready this way,” he said. He opened the door and that new-car smell of polish and leather wafted out. “Take your time, but get in. Let’s just do it. It’ll be fine.”

  “It’s been so long.”

  “I know. I don’t think you should make it any longer.”

  “Really…” she attempted, pleadingly.

  “Just around the block then,” he said. “But it’s time. You need a car and you have to drive.”

  Reluctantly, she slid in. Her dad had tried something like this a few weeks ago, but he’d let her off easy. Maggie had talked about it, her driving again, but talk she could handle. She swore to Maggie she wasn’t phobic about it—she just wanted to pick out a nice car when her insurance settlement from the accident came in, and that would be that. But the truth was that Clare didn’t need to wait to buy a car. She had plenty of money—both savings from her life with Roger along with the stipends he sent, not to mention her future salary from the teaching position. She could qualify for a car loan, no problem.

  She sat behind the wheel while Sam got in the other side. She placed her hands on the steering wheel, massaging the leather cover. He waited a moment, then when she didn’t move he reached across her and fastened her seat belt. “How’s it feel?”

  “It’s very nice,” she said. “I’d like to just sit here for a while.”

  He gave that about ten seconds, then he turned the key and started the engine. “Very uncomplicated car, Clare. Just put it in reverse, back out and take her around the block. You can do it. Simple.”

  “I can do that,” she said. And in her head she said, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it. I’d just rather not.

  One thing she knew for sure—this was going to have to happen sometime, and for whatever reason she was glad it was happening with Sam and not George or Maggie or even, God forbid, Roger. So she put the car in reverse and with her foot on the brake, adjusted the rearview mirror. She went slowly down the drive, changed gears and headed down the street. She signaled at the corner, made a right turn, signaled at the next corner for another right, and repeated the process a third time. She licked her lips, swallowed several times and gripped the wheel hard, so that it wouldn’t fly away.

  “How’s that feel?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Are you supposed to sweat this much?”

  “Well, I do. But I think it has something to do with the payments.” He chuckled.

  She stole a quick glance at him and then got her eyes back on the road. He was smiling at her. Joking around with her.

  Her house came into view. “Go around again,” he commanded.

  “Really, once is—”

  “Clare! You have to get it up to fifteen miles an hour before we quit! Now drive!”

  She eased down on the accelerator with caution and brought the speed up. “Jeez. All you have to do is ask.”

  After four trips around the block, her pulse began to slow. She wiped her hands on her jeans several times and then, miraculously, didn’t have to anymore. Then Sam told her to take a left and another and that put them out on a nonresidential street and while she felt a little nervous, it wasn’t too bad. “You have to do the speed limit if there are no traffic restrictions,” he told her, sounding like such a cop. She sped up and navigated the road. She stopped at a light and when it turned green she looked both ways before proceeding. She drove as he directed and it began to come back to her, how she’d zipped around this little town with such confidence before. Not just the town but the country roads that wound around the luscious green farms and cattle ranches. But that was nothing—she’d been up the winding mountain roads and passes in the dead of winter to ski at Tahoe, and at night to have dinner at a wonderful small restaurant at eighty-five hundred feet at the top of Lander’s Pass. And over the mountains and down the other side, all the way across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco.

  Sam had stopped directing her and she was on her own. He popped in a CD and music wafted through the car on its wonderful sound system. She opened the window and felt the wind blowing her hair. She went through town, past her father’s store and out into the country. She got on the highway and headed south right along with all the Tahoe tourists. Then she got off the highway and took the country roads back toward Breckenridge.

  “Pull over at that field,” he told her. “Please.”

  It never occurred to her to ask why; she did as she was told.

  “Turn off the engine,” he said, unsnapping his seat belt and getting out.

  She was slow to respond, wondering just what he had in mind. He probably had to pee, she thought. Men—the world is their bathroom. There was nothing out here but a couple of big, old trees, a falling-apart structure that was once a barn, field upon field of what looked to be soybeans, and cattle grazing in the distance. Not terribly far away a tractor trundled along.

  Sam just stood under the tree and looked westward toward the mountains. A breeze flapped at his shirt and he pushed his hands into his pockets.

 
She got out and joined him. “What are we doing?” she asked.

  He nodded toward the Sierras. “There’s going to be snow up there in a couple of months. You going to be able to ski this year?”

  You don’t ask someone from Breckenridge or anywhere around Reno and Tahoe if they skied, because almost anyone who lived right beneath this gorgeous mountain range was born on skis. Her entire family had skied together, though George didn’t go anymore. And Jason was a snowboarding pig who fancied himself an extreme snowboarder—something that challenged her sanity. “God, I hope so,” she answered. “We grew up on skis. That’s one of the things our family loves doing together.”

  “I do some part-time ski patrol,” he said, not breaking his gaze from the mountains. “Molly is very grateful,” he added with a laugh. “Free lift tickets.” Finally he looked at her. He smiled that bright dimpled smile and said, “Nice driving.”

  One muscle in her stomach that had been tight since the accident finally relaxed. She had done it—the crazed fear was behind her. Oh, she might experience a tingling nerve or two, but it no longer seemed like something she couldn’t push through. So she said, “Thank you, Sam. Whew. I might’ve put that off forever.”

  She noticed, not for the first time, that he had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. And they bored into hers with heat and power. The smile was still there on his lips but without that flash of bright white teeth. He took one hand out of his pocket and reached toward her, threading his hand around the back of her neck under her hair. She was very still, not quite sure what he was going to do. Maybe just hold her there? But she couldn’t deny that his large hand felt good, and for Clare, feelings like this were long ago and far away.

  Then he pulled her to him and those eyes gently closed as he pressed his mouth against hers. But her eyes flew open and she held her breath. It was a soft kiss but demanded a little something, like a response. She was in shock. But why should she be when she’d suspected for a long time that his ultimate interest in her was romantic? Suspected? Hell, she’d known! She just couldn’t figure out why.

  He began to move against her mouth, giving her an idea that a deeper kiss was entirely possible, but certainly not more meaningful. Then he let go and looked into her wide startled eyes and said, “For God’s sake, close your eyes, breathe and kiss me. It wouldn’t kill you.”