Still Joanna lingered, looking for an excuse to stay and chat. “I was placed third in the school spelling bee when I was your age.”
Kristen glanced speculatively toward her friend. “That’s great, Mom.”
Warming to her subject, Joanna hurried to add, “I could outspell every boy in the class.”
Kristen closed her textbook. “Mrs. Andrews, our new teacher, said the school wasn’t going to have a spelling bee this year.”
Joanna walked into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. “That’s too bad, because I know you’d do well.”
“I only got a B in spelling, Mom. I’m okay, but it’s not my best subject.”
A short uneasy silence followed while both girls studied Joanna, as though waiting for her to either leave or make a formal announcement.
“I thought we’d pop popcorn later,” Joanna said, flashing a cheerful smile.
“Good.” Kristen nodded and her gaze fell pointedly to her textbook. This was followed by another long moment of silence.
“Mom, I thought you said you wanted us to do our homework.”
“I do.”
“Well, we can’t very well do it with you sitting here watching us.”
“Oh.” Joanna leaped off the bed. “Sorry.”
“That’s all right.”
“Let me know when you’re done.”
“Why?” Kristen asked, looking perplexed.
Joanna shrugged. “I…I thought we might all sit around and chat. Girl talk, that sort of thing.” Without being obvious about it, she’d hoped to offer Nicole maternal advice and some much needed affection. The thought of the little girl’s father and what he was doing that very evening was so distasteful that Joanna had to force herself not to frown.
“Mom, Nicole and I are going to practise our song once we’ve finished our homework. Remember?”
“Oh, right. I forgot.” Sheepishly, she started to walk away.
“I really appreciate your sewing my costume, Mrs. Parsons,” Nicole added.
“It’s no trouble, Nicole. I’m happy to do it.”
“Speaking of the costumes,” Kristen muttered, “didn’t you say something about wanting to finish them before the weekend?”
“I did?” The look Kristen gave her suggested she must have. “Oh, right, now I remember.”
The girls, especially her daughter, seemed relieved when Joanna left the bedroom. This wasn’t going well. She’d planned on spending extra time with them, but it was clear they weren’t keen on having her around. Taking a deep breath, Joanna headed for the living room, feeling a little piqued. Her ego should be strong enough to handle rejection from two eleven-year-old girls.
She settled in the kitchen and brought out her sewing machine again. The red costumes for the talent show were nearly finished. She ran her hand over the polished cotton and let her thoughts wander. She and Kristen had lived in the house only since September. For the six years following the divorce, Joanna had been forced to raise her daughter in a small apartment. Becoming a home owner had been a major step for her and she was proud of the time and care that had gone into choosing their small one-storey house. It had required some repairs, but nothing major, and the sense of accomplishment she’d experienced when she signed her name to the mortgage papers had been well worth the years of scrimping. The house had only two bedrooms, but there was plenty of space in the backyard for a garden, something Joanna had insisted on. She thought that anyone studying her might be amused. On the one hand, she was a woman with basic traditional values, and on the other, a goal-setting businesswoman struggling to succeed in a male-dominated field. Her boss would have found it difficult to understand that the woman who’d set her sights on the position of senior loan officer liked the feel of wet dirt under her fingernails. And he would have been surprised to learn that she could take a simple piece of bright red cotton and turn it into a dazzling costume for a talent show.
An hour later, when Joanna was watching television and finishing up the hand stitching on the costumes, Kristen and Nicole rushed into the living room, looking pleased about something.
“You girls ready for popcorn?”
“Not me,” Nicole said, placing her hands over her stomach. “I’m still full from dinner.”
Joanna nodded. The girl obviously wasn’t accustomed to eating nutritionally balanced meals.
“We want to do our song for you.”
“Great.” Joanna scooted close to the edge of the sofa, eagerly awaiting their performance. Kristen plugged in her ghetto blaster and snapped in the cassette, then hurried to her friend’s side, striking a pose until the music started.
“I can tell already that you’re going to be great,” Joanna said, clapping her hands to the lively beat.
She was right. The two did astonishingly well, and when they’d finished Joanna applauded loudly.
“We did okay?”
“You were fabulous.”
Kristen and Nicole positively glowed.
When they returned to Kristen’s bedroom, Joanna followed them. Kristen turned around and seemed surprised to find her mother there.
“Mom,” she hissed between clenched teeth, “what’s with you tonight? You haven’t been yourself since Nicole arrived.”
“I haven’t?”
“You keep following us around.”
“I do?”
“Really, Mom, we like you and everything, but Nicole and I want to talk about boys and stuff, and we can’t very well do that with you here.”
“Oh, Mrs. Parsons, I forgot to tell you,” Nicole inserted, obviously unaware of the whispered conversation going on between Kristen and her mother. “I told my dad about you making my costume for the talent show, and he said he wants to pay you for your time and expenses.”
“You told your dad?” Kristen asked, and whirled around to face her friend. “I thought you weren’t going to because he’d feel guilty. Oh, I get it! That’s how you got him to let you spend the night. Great idea!”
Joanna frowned. “What exactly does that mean?”
The two girls exchanged meaningful glances and Nicole looked distinctly uncomfortable.
“What does what mean?” Kristen repeated the question in a slightly elevated voice Joanna recognized immediately. Her daughter was up to one of her schemes again.
Nicole stepped in front of her friend. “It’s my fault, Mrs. Parsons. I wanted to spend the night here instead of with Mrs. Wagner, so I told Dad that Kristen had invited me.”
“Mom, you’ve got to understand. Mrs. Wagner won’t let Nicole watch anything but educational television, and you know there are special shows we like to watch.”
“That’s not the part I mean,” Joanna said, dismissing their rushed explanation. “I want to know what you meant by not telling Mr. Lund about the talent show because he’d feel guilty.”
“Oh…that part.” The two girls glanced at each other, as though silently deciding which one would do the explaining.
Nicole raised her gaze to Joanna and sighed, her thin shoulders moving up and down expressively. “My dad won’t be able to attend the talent show because he’s got a business meeting in Seattle, and I knew he’d feel terrible about it. He really likes it when I do things like the show. It gives him something to tell my grandparents about, like I was going to be the next Madonna or something.”
“He has to travel a lot to business meetings,” Kristen added quickly.
“Business meetings?”
“Like tonight,” Kristen went on to explain.
“Dad has to fly someplace with Mr. Becky. He owns half the company and Dad owns the other half. He said it had to do with getting a big order, but I never listen to stuff like that, although Dad likes to explain every little detail so I’ll know where he’s at and what he’s doing.”
Joanna felt a numbing sensation creeping slowly up her spine. “Your dad owns half a company?”
“Spokane Aluminum is the reason we moved here from West Virginia.”
br /> “Spokane Aluminum?” Joanna’s voice rose half an octave. “Your dad owns half of Spokane Aluminum?” The company was one of the largest employers in the Northwest. A shockingly large percentage of their state’s economy was directly or indirectly tied to this company. A sick feeling settled in Joanna’s stomach. Not only was Nicole’s father wealthy, he was socially prominent, and all the while she’d been thinking…Oh, dear heavens. “So your father’s out of town tonight?” she asked, feeling the warmth invade her face.
“You knew that, Mom.” Kristen gave her mother another one of those searching gazes that suggested Joanna might be losing her memory—due to advanced age, no doubt.
“I…I thought—” Abruptly she bit off what she’d been about to say. When Kristen had said something about Tanner being with Becky, she’d assumed it was a woman. But of course it was John Becky, whose name was familiar to everyone in that part of the country. Joanna remembered reading in the Review that Becky had taken on a partner, but she hadn’t made the connection. Perhaps she’d misjudged Tanner Lund, she reluctantly conceded. Perhaps she’d been a bit too eager to view him in a bad light.
“Before we came to Spokane,” Nicole was saying now, “Dad and I had a long talk about the changes the move would make in our lives. We made a list of the good things and a list of the bad things, and then we talked about them. One bad thing was that Dad would be gone a lot, until he can hire another manager. He doesn’t feel good about leaving me with strangers, and we didn’t know a single person in Spokane other than Mr. Becky and his wife, but they’re real old—over forty, anyway. He even went and interviewed Mrs. Wagner before I spent the night there the first time.”
The opinion Joanna had formed of Tanner Lund was crumbling at her feet. Evidently he wasn’t the irresponsible parent she’d assumed.
“Nicole told me you met her dad in the grocery store when you bought the mix for the cupcakes.” Kristen shook her head as if to say she was thoroughly disgusted with her mother for not taking her advice that night and curling her hair before she showed her face in public.
“I told my dad you don’t dress that way all the time,” Nicole added, then shifted her gaze to the other side of the room. “But I don’t think he believed me until he dropped me off tonight.”
Joanna began to edge her way toward the bedroom door. “Your father and I seem to have started off on the wrong foot,” she said weakly.
Nicole bit her lower lip. “I know. He wasn’t real keen on me spending the night here, but I talked him into it.”
“Mom?” Kristen asked, frowning. “What did you say to Mr. Lund when you met him at the store?”
“Nothing,” she answered, taking a few more retreating steps.
“She asked my dad what I was doing up so late on a school night, and he told me later that he didn’t like her attitude,” Nicole explained. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you that I’m normally in bed by nine-thirty, but that night was special because Dad had just come home from one of his trips. His plane was late and I didn’t remember to tell him about the party stuff until after we got home from Mrs. Wagner’s.”
“I see,” Joanna murmured, and swallowed uncomfortably.
“You’ll get a chance to settle things with Mr. Lund when he picks up Nicole tomorrow night,” Kristen stated, and it was obvious that she wanted her mother to make an effort to get along with her best friend’s father.
“Right,” Joanna muttered, dreading the confrontation. She never had been particularly fond of eating crow.
Four
Joanna was breading pork chops the following evening when Kristen barrelled into the kitchen, leaving the door swinging in her wake. “Mr. Lund’s here to pick up Nicole. I think you should invite him and Nicole to stay for dinner…and explain about, you know, the other night.”
Oh, sure, Joanna mused. She often invited company owners and acting presidents over for an evening meal. Pork chops and mashed potatoes weren’t likely to impress someone like Tanner Lund.
Before Kristen could launch into an argument, Joanna shook her head and offered the first excuse that came to mind. “There aren’t enough pork chops to ask him tonight. Besides, Mr. Lund is probably tired from his trip and anxious to get home.”
“I bet he’s hungry, too,” Kristen pressed. “And Nicole thinks you’re a fabulous cook, and—”
A sharp look from her mother cut her off. “Another night, Kristen!”
Joanna brushed the bread crumbs off her fingertips and untied her apron. Inhaling deeply, she paused long enough to run a hand through her hair and check her reflection in the window above the sink. No one was going to mistake her for Miss America, but her appearance was passable. Okay, it was time to hold her head high, spit the feathers out of her mouth and get ready to down some crow.
Joanna forced a welcoming smile onto her lips as she stepped into the living room. Tanner stood awkwardly just inside the front door, as though prepared to beat a hasty retreat if necessary. “How was your trip?” she ventured, straining to make the question sound cheerful.
“Fine. Thank you.” His expression didn’t change.
“Do you have time for a cup of coffee?” she asked next, doing her best to disguise her unease. She wondered quickly if she’d unpacked her china cups yet. After their shaky beginning, Joanna wasn’t quite sure if she could undo the damage. But standing in the entryway wouldn’t work. She needed to sit down for this.
He eyed her suspiciously. Joanna wasn’t sure she should even try to explain things. In time he’d learn she wasn’t a candidate for the loony bin—just as she’d stumbled over the fact that he wasn’t a terrible father. Trying to tell him that she was an upstanding member of the community after he’d seen her dressed in a wool coat draped over pajamas, giving him looks that suggested he be reported to Children’s Protective Services, wasn’t exactly a task she relished.
Tanner glanced at his wristwatch and shook his head. “I haven’t got time to visit tonight. Thanks for the invitation, though.”
Joanna almost sighed aloud with relief.
“Did Nicole behave herself?”
Joanna nodded. “She wasn’t the least bit of trouble. Nicole’s a great kid.”
A smile cracked the tight edges of his mouth. “Good.”
Kristen and Nicole burst into the room. “Is Mr. Lund going to stay, Mom?”
“He can’t tonight…”
“Another time…”
They spoke simultaneously, with an equal lack of enthusiasm.
“Oh.” The girls looked at each other and frowned, their disappointment noticeable.
“Have you packed everything, Nicole?” Tanner asked, not hiding his eagerness to leave.
The eleven-year-old nodded reluctantly. “I think so.”
“Don’t you think you should check my room one more time?” Kristen suggested, grabbing her friend’s hand and leading her back toward the hallway.
“Oh, right. I suppose I should.” The two disappeared before either Joanna or Tanner could call them back.
The silence between them hummed so loudly Joanna swore she could have waltzed to it. But since the opportunity had presented itself, she decided to get the unpleasant task of explaining her behavior out of the way while she still had her nerve.
“I think I owe you an apology,” she murmured, her face flushing.
“An apology?”
“I thought…you know…The night we met, I assumed you were an irresponsible parent because Nicole was up so late. She’s now told me that you’d just returned from a trip.”
“Yes, well, I admit I did feel the sting of your disapproval.”
This wasn’t easy. Joanna swallowed uncomfortably and laced her fingers together forcing herself to meet his eyes. “Nicole explained that your flight was delayed and she forgot to mention the party supplies when you picked her up at the baby-sitter’s. She said she didn’t remember until you got all the way home.”
Tanner’s mouth relaxed a bit more. “Since we’
re both being truthful here, I’ll admit that I wasn’t overly impressed with you that night, either.”
Joanna dropped her gaze. “I can imagine. I hope you realise I don’t usually dress like that.”
“I gathered as much when I dropped Nicole off yesterday afternoon.”
They both paused to share a brief smile and Joanna instantly felt better. It hadn’t been easy to blurt all this out, but she was relieved that they’d finally cleared the air.
“Since Kristen and Nicole are such good friends, I thought, well, that I should set things right between us. From everything Nicole’s said, you’re doing an excellent job of parenting.”
“From everything she’s told me, the same must be true of you.”
“Believe me, it isn’t easy raising a preteen daughter,” Joanna announced. She rubbed her palms together a couple of times, searching for something brilliant to add.
Tanner shook his head. “Isn’t that the truth?”
They laughed then, and because they were still awkward with each other the sound was rusty.
“Now that you mention it, maybe I could spare a few minutes for a cup of coffee.”
“Sure.” Joanna led the way into the kitchen. While Tanner sat down at the table, she filled a mug from the pot keeping warm on the plate of the automatic coffee maker and placed it carefully in front of him. Now that she knew him a bit better, she realised he’d prefer that to a dainty china cup. “How do you take it?”
“Just black, thanks.”
She pulled out the chair across the table from him, still feeling a little ill at ease. Her mind was whirling. She didn’t want to give Tanner a second wrong impression now that she’d managed to correct the first one. Her worry was that he might interpret her friendliness as a sign of romantic interest, which it wasn’t. Building a new relationship was low on her priority list. Besides, they simply weren’t on the same economic level. She worked for a savings-and-loan institution and he was half owner of the largest employer in the area. The last thing she wanted was for Tanner to think of her as a gold digger.
Joanna’s thoughts were tumbling over themselves as she struggled to find a diplomatic way of telling him all this without sounding like some kind of man hater. And without sounding presumptuous.