Comfort and Joy Read online

  Robin laughed. “We grown-ups do the best we can. Now get moving!” Philip scampered up the stairs.

  “I guess I should be leaving,” Jesse said, lifting his jacket from the chair where he’d left it. “I didn’t mean to impose myself on you for half the evening—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It was my pleasure. Philip’s pleasure, too. Anybody who can distract his mother for a few hours so he can watch blood and gore on television is a hero, in his scheme of things.”

  Jesse turned to the front door, then hesitated and spun back to Robin. “I’d like to see you again,” he said.

  She remembered the way he’d looked a few hours ago at the store, when he’d asked if he could meet Philip—bashful, earnest, vaguely unsure of himself. He didn’t seem at all unsure of himself now. His gaze pored over her face, and the hand that had reached for the doorknob instead alighted on her shoulder.

  “You’re always welcome for dinner,” she assured him.

  “That wasn’t what I had in mind.”

  A date. He was asking her for a date. Her first date in over a decade, the first time in thirteen years that she was faced with the possibility of a date with a man other than Ray. She tried to recollect the apprehension she’d felt when she had first seen Jesse at the school—that he was too handsome, too debonair, too much for her to handle on her first social outing in eons. But that was before she’d gotten to know him, before he’d exposed his soul to her—if atheists were allowed to have souls.

  Whether or not they were allowed, she knew that Jesse had one. And her reply came easily: “I’d like to see you again, too.”

  “What night’s good for you?”

  “Friday?” she suggested. “The store’s open late, but I won’t have to be there past six.”

  “Friday,” Jesse confirmed. “I’ll be here at seven. Get a babysitter.” Then, so swiftly Robin couldn’t prepare herself for it, he bowed and kissed her. It was a light, friendly kiss, landing half on her lips and half on her cheek, but it was tantalizing in its promise.

  Too handsome, perhaps. Too risky. But as she watched Jesse open the door and stride down the front walk to his car, she knew intuitively that she was right to trust him.

  ***

  SHE DID HER BEST to conceal her nervousness at work on Friday. The only three people, other than Jesse and herself, who knew about the date were Mrs. O’Leary, who agreed to babysit for Philip, Philip himself, and Joanna. Joanna was beside herself with delight. “That gorgeous guy from Open School Night? I knew it, Robin, I told you I saw him approach you. I could tell he was interested.”

  Joanna’s excitement about Robin’s date only fed her own anxiety. She could trust Jesse, but could she trust herself? Not that she was worried about losing control around him, hurling herself at him and engaging in irresponsible orgiastic pleasures, but rather, could she trust herself not to botch things? What if she dressed wrong? What if she spilled her soup? What if she accidentally smudged her mascara, or tripped on a step and wound up sprawled across a parking lot with her skirt around her waist? What if, when she got home from work today, she discovered a pimple on the tip of her nose?

  Had dating been this fraught with tension when she’d been a teenager? She supposed that it had been, but she’d been younger and more resilient in her youth. Everybody had pimples back then.

  “Relax,” Mrs. O’Leary ordered her when she finally arrived home, ten minutes later than she’d hoped because one of the sales clerks had returned late from her supper break and because a sleety rain was falling, slowing the rush-hour traffic to a crawl. “Everything’s going to go fine. He’s a good-looking man. If he were thirty years older, I’d ask him out myself. Now go upstairs and get dressed. Philip and I will go ahead and have dinner.”

  Robin raced upstairs, took the quickest shower since indoor plumbing was invented, and then pawed through her closet in search of a suitable outfit. She put on her gray wool dress, decided that it made her look pale and flat-chested, and traded it for a bright red sweater and skirt ensemble. That looked too Christmas-y, and she pulled it off and put on the gray dress again. Then she darted into the bathroom, fixed her make-up, brushed her hair back, brushed it up, brushed it down, and exhumed her curling iron from the back of the linen closet. She curled the droopy ends of her hair, hurried back to her bedroom to slip on her shoes and grab her purse, and discovered in the mirror above her dresser that the curling iron hadn’t done its job. Her hair appeared just as limp and lackluster as usual.

  Relax. Kate O’Leary’s command echoed inside Robin’s skull. This wasn’t the high school prom, and if Jesse didn’t already like her, he wouldn’t have asked her out. If he didn’t like her, he wouldn’t have kissed her.

  Closing her eyes, she relived in her mind that brief, glancing kiss. She recalled the whisper-soft pressure of his lips on hers, the subtle flavor of him, his musky scent. Of course he liked her, and everything was going to go perfectly. Confidence washed through her, and she was smiling when she went downstairs to keep Kate and Philip company while they devoured the chicken Kate had broiled for their supper.

  By a quarter after seven, they were done eating and the kitchen was clean. That Jesse was fifteen minutes late wasn’t unforgivable, Robin tried to convince herself. She joined Kate and Philip in the den, where Philip wolfed down an apple and three cookies and grilled Robin interminably about the stories presented on the network newscast. Where exactly was Nicaragua, he wanted to know. Had Daddy ever worked there? Which of the candidates did Robin support in the upcoming election? How was the deficit different from the national debt?

  Robin answered all of Philip’s questions as calmly as she could. She didn’t want him to know how conscious she was of the ticking of the clock, the passing of the minutes. But soon it was seven-thirty, and then it was a quarter to eight, and Jesse didn’t come.

  Her first date, and she’d been stood up. So this was the way atheists viewed their obligations, she fumed irrationally. Oh, Jesse might be noble when it came to his poor clients, but when it came to Robin, a woman he’d invited out for dinner, a divorcée who believed, just a little bit, in Santa Claus...

  At nine o’clock, she tucked Philip into bed. Then she changed out of her dress and into her sweatshirt and jeans. She told Kate to go home, but Kate insisted on staying a little longer. Obviously, she felt that Robin shouldn’t be left alone when she was in such a foul mood.

  After washing off her make-up, Robin stormed to the kitchen and helped herself to a leftover drumstick. Once she’d nibbled it to the bone, she again requested that Kate go home. Sighing, shaking her head and mumbling about the disproportionate number of men who were cads, lice, and assorted other vermin, Kate pulled her coat from the closet and slipped it on.

  And then the phone rang.

  Chapter Four

  “I’M SORRY,” said Jesse.

  Just those two words, delivered in a tired monotone, as if they’d dropped off his lips rather than risen from his heart. He had ruined Robin’s evening, skewered her ego, and all he could say was, “I’m sorry.”

  An inane memory visited her, of Philip when he was about three years old. Whenever he did something naughty back then, she used to send him to sit in a corner of his bedroom, where he had to remain until he said he was sorry. It didn’t take him long to figure out that the sooner he said he was sorry, the sooner he’d be released from his sentence. So when she’d confine him to the corner, he would jam his little nose against the wall and, within a second, holler, “I’m sorry!” and then romp out of the corner to resume playing. As if all he had to do was verbalize those two words, and his transgression, no matter how severe, would be overlooked.

  Did Jesse actually believe that uttering “I’m sorry” was enough to win him Robin’s instant forgiveness? Her first date in years. Her first date as a divorcée. Did he have any idea how excited she’d been, how nervous? And all he could say, in a bored, dull voice, was, “I’m sorry.”

  The way she was
feeling, she’d like to send Jesse to the corner for a few years. Maybe a few centuries.

  “Robin? Are you there?” he asked as her silence extended beyond a minute.

  “Yes.” She stared at the yellow kitchen curtains, hoping that their daffodil color would soothe her bruised, bristling nerves and keep her from letting Jesse know how hurt and angry she was.

  “I’m sorry about our date,” he said. “I’m calling from Yale-New Haven Hospital. I was in an auto accident on my way home from work this evening.”

  A thick wave of guilt nearly knocked Robin off her feet. An accident! She’d thought he had stood her up, forgotten her, had a more interesting plan for the evening dropped into his lap…and instead, he was in the hospital. If ever a man had a valid excuse to break a date... “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Then why are you in the hospital?”

  He emitted a short, humorless laugh. “I’m a lawyer, Robin. I know enough to plan ahead, in case there’s a law suit. I feel all right now, but if I wake up six months from now and find myself paralyzed, I want it on record that I sought immediate medical attention.”

  “Jesse—”

  “I’m fine, Robin,” he insisted. “Really. I only wish I could say the same for my car.” When she didn’t speak, he added, “The doctors checked me out, head to toe. They said I’m okay. They’re releasing me.”

  “Maybe you should spend the night there,” she suggested, dubious. “For observation or something.”

  “There’s nothing to observe. They told me to go home.”

  “Let me come and get you,” she offered.

  “No, that’s all right. I think the cop who brought me here can give me a lift. I don’t want you driving when the roads are so bad.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Robin argued. A little sleet was no big deal to someone who’d viewed nine New England winters through her windshield.

  On the other hand, someone who hailed from Los Angeles, as Jesse had, probably thought ice was something that came out of the freezer compartments of refrigerators, never out of the sky. Immigrants like him ought to be forced to take special driving courses the minute they arrived in New England, to learn how to drive in sleet, snow and slush. “I’ll be at the hospital as soon as I can,” she told him. “Where are you, in the emergency room?”

  “That’s right—but really, you don’t have to—”

  “Stay put,” she ordered him. “I’ll be right there.” Before he could argue with her, she hung up.

  Turning, she found Kate O’Leary unbuttoning her coat in the doorway. “No problem,” Kate assured her, evidently having heard enough of the conversation to recognize that Robin needed her babysitting services for a while longer. Her round, generous face registered dismay. “Is he hurt?”

  Robin shook her head. “According to him, not as badly as his car. I don’t know how long I’ll be, but—”

  Kate shooed her out of the kitchen with an impatient wave of her hands. “Go and take care of him. And don’t you ever let him know I referred to him as vermin.”

  Robin donned her parka, grabbed her purse and keys, and hurried through the mud room to the garage. In the hours since she’d left Woodleigh’s, the temperature had risen a few degrees; she felt the difference as soon as she slid open the garage door. The sleet had transformed into fat drops of rain. The roads would be messy, but nothing she couldn’t handle.

  She was no longer anxious. Jesse had insisted that he was all right, and she believed him. Certainly no physician facing a malpractice lawsuit would release a patient if there were the slimmest chance that he might not be in good shape.

  It took her twenty minutes to reach the hospital. She found a parking space not far from the emergency entrance, locked the car and went inside. The waiting area was well-lit and crowded, an assortment of people occupying the vinyl chairs and hovering around the nurses’ station. One dingy-looking elderly man appeared to be drunk; he swayed and mumbled to himself. A few family groups huddled here and there, some with sick-looking children. A uniformed police officer was conferring with one of the nurses at a desk.

  Jesse sat alone near an end table covered with out-of-date magazines, a trench coat and a leather briefcase lying on the chair next to his. He had on a dark blue business suit, his tie gone and the collar button of his white shirt unfastened. His hair was rumpled, his jacket creased. Robin was unable to see his face because he was hunched over, reading an official-looking form. “Jesse,” she said, approaching him.

  He peered up and smiled hesitantly at her. A large purple welt marked his cheekbone below his left eye, and his lower lip looked puffy. The front of his shirt bore a splotch of dried blood.

  “What’s that from?” she asked, pointing at the blood stain.

  He glanced down, then lifted his face to hers again. “My lip,” he said quietly. “I bit it.”

  She sighed, feeling the last of her tension ebb away. As composed as she’d felt during the drive to the hospital, she’d had to see him with her own eyes to make certain that he was truly safe and sound. One bruised cheek, one bitten lip. He hadn’t lied; he was all right.

  “I’m so sorry,” she murmured, closing the distance between them.

  He shrugged and reached for his briefcase. His actions were slow and deliberate, Robin noticed, and his left wrist was taped.

  “Your arm?” she asked, requiring a full inventory of his injuries, no matter how minor they were.

  “A slight sprain,” he told her as he slid the papers into the briefcase and snapped it shut. Then he stood and slipped on his coat, moving woodenly. “From fighting the steering wheel. They x-rayed it. Nothing was broken. Seriously.”

  Her gaze roamed down his body, searching for further signs of damage. If he was bloodied or bandaged anywhere else, she found no evidence of it. Still, his stride lacked its usual grace. His limber legs carried him cautiously to her side, reminding her of the stiff way her mother sometimes moved when her arthritis acted up. “Are you sure you’re free to leave?” Robin asked.

  “Yes. And I’d love to. This place is beginning to get to me.”

  Nodding, Robin accompanied him outdoors. The pounding rain pasted her hair to her cheeks, and she thought wryly of her wasted effort with the curling iron earlier that evening. She also thought of her concern about her outfit, her exertion with her seldom used make-up applicators, her attempt to appear ravishingly beautiful for Jesse. Instead, here she was in her faded jeans, her “University of Wisconsin” sweatshirt, her loafers and parka, saturated and bedraggled.

  Yet the way that Jesse gazed at her, the way his eyes glowed with gratitude and relief, made her feel as if she did look ravishingly beautiful.

  She unlocked the passenger door of her station wagon, and Jesse gingerly lowered himself onto the seat, balancing the briefcase on the floor between his knees. She dashed around the car to the driver’s side and climbed in, shaking the excess rainwater out of her hair and wiping her hands dry on her jeans.

  Jesse watched her for a moment as she started the engine and steered out of the parking lot. Then he turned to stare out the window. Robin respected his silence until they merged with the traffic on the turnpike. “Where did it happen?” she asked.

  “On Brushy Pine Road,” he answered, still facing forward. He sounded incredibly weary. “The vast majority of automobile accidents occur within ten minutes of home, isn’t that right?”

  She wasn’t about to discuss statistical probabilities with him. “What happened? Did you forget to put snow tires on your car?”

  “It wasn’t my fault.”

  She smiled gently. “I’m not blaming you, Jesse. This is your first winter in Connecticut, isn’t it?”

  “Just because I’m from Los Angeles doesn’t mean I’ve never driven in bad weather before.” He sank into the seat, rolling his head back to the headrest and closing his eyes. “Some asshole was tailgating me,” he told her. “When I slowed down at a curve, he rea
r-ended me, and that put me into a spin. If it weren’t for a strategically placed electrical pole, I’d probably still be spinning. The road was awfully slick.”

  A rear-end collision, a spin, a crash into an electrical pole. Robin shuddered. “It’s a miracle you weren’t hurt worse.”

  His eyes still closed, he issued a dry laugh. “I wasn’t saved by a miracle,” he disputed her. “I was saved by a seatbelt and an airbag.”

  Of course. Atheists didn’t believe in miracles. “How’s the other driver?” she asked.

  Another bitter laugh escaped him. “The poor guy—his bumper was dented.”

  She accepted his sarcasm without question. Wasn’t that always the way it went—the person responsible was the person to suffer the least. “It must have been scary,” she murmured. She’d never been in an accident herself; she could only imagine how dreadful the experience must have been.

  “It was,” Jesse said.

  “I’m so sorry.” She reached across the seat to squeeze his hand.

  Still leaning against the headrest, he turned to her and opened his eyes. Her attention was glued to the road ahead, but she could feel the intensity of his gaze as it coursed over her. “So am I,” he admitted. “This wasn’t the night I had planned for us.”

  “What I mean—” she surrendered to a strong compulsion to confess “—is, I’m sorry that I was mad at you for standing me up. There you were, going through this terrible thing, and—”

  “You were entitled to be angry,” he excused her. “You didn’t know.”

  “Where’s your car now?” she asked, coasting onto the exit ramp in Belleford.

  “It was towed to the service station on the corner,” he said, gesturing with his arm toward the gas station. “They said I could leave it there overnight. The insurance adjuster has to have a look at it before it’s salvaged for scrap metal.”

  Succumbing to curiosity, Robin turned right instead of left, heading for the gas station. “Can I see it?”