Mending Fences Page 7

  “Uh-oh,” she said, observing the pie. “What’s wrong?”

  “It has just dawned on me that I am obsolete,” Marcie told her, taking another bite of pie.

  Emily frowned at the comment. “By whose assessment?” she asked as she poured herself a cup of coffee from the fresh pot Marcie had brewed a few minutes earlier.

  “Mine.”

  “Okay, let me get this straight. You’re a wife, a mother, an active volunteer in the school and yet somehow you’ve decided you don’t matter?”

  “Pretty much,” Marcie said, shoving the remaining three-quarters of the pie across the table. “Help yourself.”

  “I don’t think so, because obviously some ingredient in that pie has addled your brain.”

  “No, hear me out,” Marcie told her. “Ken’s completely consumed with work and he doesn’t even need me to entertain his clients anymore. Evan’s either playing football, practicing football or chasing girls. He manages to find sufficient time in there to keep his grades up, but the only things he needs me for are laundry and the occasional infusion of cash.”

  Emily nodded. “Okay, I do recognize those symptoms. Josh is almost as bad, though he does expect me to get breakfast on the table for him and to keep the refrigerator stocked with milk and the cupboard filled with bread and peanut butter. Under duress, he will actually hold a conversation with me that consists of more than monosyllables and grunts.”

  Marcie gestured with her fork. “See, I told you. You’re only marginally better off than I am. The big difference is that Dani still needs you and you have your job.”

  “Well, I’m sure Caitlyn still needs you. She’s fourteen, even younger than Dani.”

  “In Caitlyn’s case, she’s fourteen going on thirty. She’s convinced I know absolutely nothing of value. I suspect she talks to you more than she does to me.”

  Emily flushed.

  “See, I knew it!” Marcie said.

  “Well, Dani probably talks to you more than she does to me,” Emily countered. “That’s typical. It hardly means you’re obsolete.”

  “Well, what am I supposed to do with my time? It’s not as if they’re looking for room-mothers for the seniors, or even for the eighth-graders. I offered to chaperon a field trip the other day and Caitlyn pitched a fit. She said she would be totally humiliated if I did that.”

  “And you interpreted that to mean what?” Emily asked. “That she was rejecting you? Embarrassed by you?”

  “Both of those,” Marcie said.

  “She’s just struggling to find her independence,” Emily corrected. “It has nothing to do with you, so don’t take it personally. Trust me, at that age none of the kids want their parents to chaperon anything, which is why teachers end up doing it.”

  Marcie knew she was probably right. Emily had a lot more experience dealing with teenage angst than she did. That still didn’t give her a clue about what she was supposed to do with all this time she suddenly had on her hands.

  “Okay, I’ll concede that I’m probably overreacting,” she said finally. “But I honestly have no idea what to do to fill my days.”

  “Get a job,” Emily suggested.

  “Please,” Marcie scoffed. “Doing what?”

  “Anything you want to do. Get a real estate license. Take classes and get licensed as an interior designer. You’d be great at that. Open a catering business or a bakery. There are probably a thousand things you could do. You just have to choose something that excites you.”

  “Other than a few years working retail when we were first married and the two whole weeks I worked for Ken, I don’t exactly have a stellar résumé.”

  “Which is why opening something of your own would be ideal,” Emily said enthusiastically. “Ken’s business is on a solid footing now, isn’t it? You could afford to take a risk.”

  “I suppose,” Marcie said, but with little conviction. She’d never been much of a risk taker. She’d liked being a housewife and mom. It had been challenging and rewarding. Any other work sounded like drudgery.

  Still, Emily wasn’t letting up. “Talk to Ken,” she prodded. “See what he says.”

  “I know what he’ll say. He’ll tell me I already have a job running this house. The possibility that he might have to remember to take out the trash or call the plumber would horrify him.”

  “He’d want you to be happy, though, wouldn’t he?”

  “Of course,” Marcie said a little too quickly, then added candidly, “as long as it doesn’t inconvenience him.” She met Emily’s gaze. “The thing of it is, I already know what makes me happy. I just don’t see any way to get it back again without getting pregnant and having another child.”

  Emily stared at her as if she’d suddenly grown two heads. “You wouldn’t!”

  “Believe me, I’ve considered it,” Marcie said. She jabbed her fork into the pie and stuffed another bite in her mouth.

  Emily studied her worriedly, then grabbed the remainder of the pie and dumped it in the sink.

  “What are you doing?” Marcie cried out, appalled.

  “Getting rid of this before you kill yourself with an overdose of sugar,” she said as she turned on the garbage disposal.

  Apparently satisfied that she’d rid Marcie of temptation, Emily faced her with a stern expression. “Tomorrow morning I expect you to get out of this house and volunteer for something.”

  Marcie stared at her blankly. “What?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Anything that will make you feel useful and get you out of this mood. And tell your kids they’re having dinner at home tomorrow night and at least three nights a week from now on.”

  “They’ll hate it.”

  “They’ll deal. Tell Evan he needs good nutrition at least that often to keep his body in shape for football and tell Caitlyn she’s expected to be here because you say so. Be tough. Tell them neither one of them gets a dime for spending money if they don’t follow house rules. That ought to whip them right into shape.”

  Marcie bit back a grin, her mood lifting ever so slightly.

  “I can do that.”

  “Of course, you can. I’ll be back tomorrow for a full report. The kids might be growing up, but there’s no reason you need to let them go one second sooner than you absolutely have to. They still need to know that their mom and dad are in charge.” She gave Marcie a curious look. “Think Ken will back you up?”

  “He will if he expects to have sex anytime in the next twenty years,” Marcie said, then chuckled. “God, I feel better already.”

  “Then my work here is done,” Emily said, giving her a hug. “Call if you need backup.”

  “Just knowing I have it should do the trick,” Marcie told her.

  Maybe she wasn’t quite obsolete, after all.

  Dani couldn’t recall a time when she hadn’t been in and out of the Carter house as if it were her own. Caitlyn was her very best friend. They shared all their secrets, excluding the fact that Dani had a crush on Caitlyn’s big brother. It was something she would never in a million years have told her mom or her own brother. And it had seemed totally weird to tell Caitlyn.

  She wasn’t entirely sure when she’d first looked at Evan and realized what a hunk he was. For a long time, he’d been like a brother, in other words a nuisance most of the time. Then one day she’d seen him with a bunch of girls at school and taken a good long look at him. He was hot! His body had filled out with muscle. He had the most amazing brown eyes, like chocolate, she thought dreamily. They were such a contrast to his blond hair, that turned really, really pale after he’d been outside in the sun for days on end. She didn’t care that much about football, which was his passion, but she knew enough to know he was good. Really good. She’d clipped half-a-dozen articles from the local paper about what a hot college prospect he was. She kept them in an old jewelry box under her bed, so no one in her family would see them.

  After she’d pretty much been hit by some bolt of lightning, she couldn’t stop thinking about h
im. She started getting these fluttery sensations in the pit of her stomach whenever he was around. She started doing dumb stuff, hoping he’d notice her, wearing the skimpiest bikini her mom would let her get away with, doing cannonballs in the pool, hanging out at football practice or at the Carters’ even more than usual. Evan could usually be found in the den watching movies once his homework was done. More than once she’d convinced Caitlyn to join him and hang out.

  Unfortunately, Caitlyn had picked up on Dani’s interest, not Evan. The other day she’d called Dani on it.

  “Do you have a thing for my brother?” she asked when they’d been in the Carters’ pool for hours and Josh and Evan had gone inside to grab snacks for all four of them.

  “Quiet,” Dani said, mortified. “Do you want Evan to hear you?”

  “Sorry, but you were acting all goofy. You’ve been doing that a lot lately when Evan’s around.”

  “Well, you have to admit your brother’s pretty cool. Why wouldn’t I notice him?”

  “You and every other girl,” Caitlyn said. “He must get, like, a hundred calls a night on his cell phone. I don’t get it myself. He’s a pain.”

  “That’s just because he’s your brother. He’s cute and he’s smart.”

  “And older than you. You’re wasting your time getting hung up on him. He thinks of you like a kid sister, same as me.”

  Dani couldn’t deny it, but she still harbored hope that one day he’d wake up and notice her. After all she was underfoot all the time. Just last week he’d taken her and Caitlyn to the movies and decided at the last minute to see it with them. He’d even bought them drinks and popcorn. It had felt almost like a date. She’d put the movie stub into her treasure box with the clippings.

  Afterward, though, Josh had gotten all weird when he’d heard about it. He’d come charging home and confronted her.

  “I hope you’re not thinking about hanging out with Evan,” he said heatedly. “If you are, forget about it.”

  “What difference does it make to you?” she demanded. “You’re not my keeper.”

  “No, but I am your big brother. It’s my job to look out for you. Evan’s too old for you.”

  “He’s eighteen,” Dani retorted. “Same as you.”

  “And you’re sixteen.”

  “I’m old enough to date.”

  “Not Evan,” Josh repeated, his expression grim. “I mean it, Dani. Stay away from him. He’s trouble.”

  She had no idea what he meant. The two of them hung out all the time. “That’s not a very nice thing to say,” she said. “He’s supposed to be your best friend.”

  “It’s one thing to hang out with a guy. It’s another thing to let him spend time with your sister. Take my word for it, okay? Evan’s too experienced for you. Forget about him.”

  “No, it is not okay,” Dani said stubbornly. “I’ll hang out with any guy I want to.”

  Josh flushed. “If you don’t listen to me, I’ll talk to Mom. She’ll make you listen. Are we clear?”

  Since having her mom find out that she was crazy about Evan was the last thing Dani wanted, she promised Josh she’d steer clear of him. He didn’t need to know that she’d kept her fingers crossed behind her back when she said it.

  Now Caitlyn gave her the same dismayed look that Josh had given her.

  “Forget about him, Dani,” she said with surprising urgency. “He’s not good enough for you.”

  Dani regarded her with a puzzled expression. “How can you say something like that about your own brother?”

  “Because I know him better than you do,” Caitlyn said. “He’s not always this nice guy, superjock, the way he pretends to be around your house.”

  “You’re just saying that because he thinks you’re a pest,” Dani accused.

  “No,” Caitlyn said emphatically. “Besides, it would be weird if you were dating my brother. Find some other guy to date and forget about Evan. Please.”

  But of course, all those warnings accomplished was to make Evan more intriguing than ever. And luckily, because Evan and her brother still hung out together almost every day, there were plenty of opportunities for Dani to spend some time with him and find out for herself if he was the terrific guy she thought he was. Getting time alone with him was trickier, but one of these days she’d accomplish that, too.

  It was the final football game of the season and the last of Evan’s high school career. Everyone at school was speculating that he’d have offers from the University of Miami, Florida and Florida State, but the coach had predicted he’d also be sought after by some top-notch out-of-state schools.

  “Are you going to the game tonight?” Paula asked Emily that afternoon.

  “Of course. I’d probably go anyway, but the fact that it’s Evan’s last game means that the Carters are making a big deal out of it. They’re having a party for the team afterward at their house. Marcie’s in her element. She’s been planning it for weeks. She went over the menu with Evan so many times, he finally told her to just order pizza, because she was making him nuts.”

  Paula winced. “How’d she take that?”

  “Oh, she brushed it off, and just made the next five versions of the menu on her own with a little input from Josh. He came home scratching his head one day and asked me what the hell pâté is. When I told him, he made a gagging sound and told me to call Marcie and tell her absolutely not, no way was she to serve anything that disgusting, to stick to chips and dip. I think she’s concluded that both our sons have no class whatsoever.”

  Paula laughed. “It ought to be an interesting party.”

  “I’m just glad that Marcie found a good excuse to throw one. She was really down there for a while, thinking that no one needed her anymore.”

  “Doesn’t she get how much everyone counts on her, me included?” Paula said. “I will never forget how good she was to me when I was going through all those chemo and radiation treatments. And it wasn’t even that we were best friends, the way the two of you are. She just saw something she could do and she did it.”

  “Well, if you ask me, one reason Marcie doesn’t value her own worth nearly enough is because of Ken,” Emily said, breaking the vow of silence she’d always taken on the subject of Marcie’s husband. Maybe it was because she’d overheard him snapping at her over nothing last night while she and Marcie had been on the phone. Her patience with his behavior had worn thin through the years and suddenly she couldn’t keep her low opinion to herself a second longer.

  “How so?” Paula asked.

  “He’s always dismissed what she does as if it were of no consequence,” Emily explained. “But I know he’d be the first to blow a gasket if she stopped doing it.”

  Paula gave her an odd look. “You don’t like him much, do you?”

  Emily hesitated, then shook her head. “No, mainly because of how he treats Marcie. She’s this wonderful, totally devoted wife and he demeans her every chance he gets. It’s taken everything in me over the years to bite my tongue and not call him on it.”

  “Obviously he must have some good qualities for a woman like Marcie to stay with him all this time,” Paula suggested.

  “I suppose,” Emily said, not even trying to hide her doubts.

  One of the best things about her divorce was that for the past two years she’d hardly spent any time around Ken. Without Derek in the picture, Ken saw no need to waste his time trying to impress some high school teacher and they’d all but stopped doing things together as families. Tonight she was going to have to put aside her distaste and tolerate him, but with any luck she could escape from the Carters’ after an hour or so. The party was really for the kids, anyway, and her presence there—as Josh’s mom and a teacher from their school—would be a damper. She figured it was the perfect excuse to sneak away the second she’d had her fill of Ken’s bluster and ego.

  Emily had done her best to steer clear of Ken all evening. To his son’s embarrassment, he was busy boasting about Evan’s game-winning touchdow
n in an increasingly boisterous way. Evan had repeatedly begged him to stop, but Ken had had a few drinks and was past listening.

  Emily had retreated to the kitchen, planning to tell Marcie she was going home, when she overheard crying coming from the downstairs bathroom. Her instincts as a mom had her moving in that direction. She tapped on the door.

  “It’s Mrs. Dobbs. Is everything okay?”

  Her question was met with a loud sniff, but no response.

  “If there’s anything I can do to help, I will,” she said. “Please talk to me.”

  “Go away,” a girl murmured, her voice too thick with tears for Emily to be able to recognize it. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “I can listen,” she said.

  “Just go away,” the girl pleaded. “I’ll be okay.”

  Emily finally retreated and went in search of Dani. She found her by the pool, her adoring gaze locked on Evan. She shook her head. She’d figured that sooner or later Dani was going to develop a crush on their neighbor. Thank goodness it hadn’t happened till he was almost ready to leave for college. She was doubly thankful that Evan seemed to be oblivious to Dani’s infatuation. Though Evan had always been polite to her and was well liked in school, for some reason she didn’t think he’d be a good match for her daughter. She’d never been able to put her finger on why, other than those rare instances when she’d heard him being disrespectful to his mother. He’d sounded a little too much like his dad. Fortunately, he’d shelved the attitude at home and was always on his best behavior at school. Apparently he was wise enough to understand that teacher evaluations and good grades might be as important as athletic prowess when it came time for him to get into college. He made it a point to turn on the charm for most adults, in fact.

  When Emily finally located Dani, she pulled her aside. “I need to speak to you for a second.”

  Dani tore her attention away from Evan and followed Emily through the hedge to their backyard. “What’s going on?”