CHAPTER THREE
I jogged over to the picnic table under the shade and took a seat. “Okay, guys,” I said, with as much volume as could be gotten out of my exhausted lungs. “We’re going back in a minute.”
“Aw,” Wyatt complained, bouncing the basketball on the grass near the table.
The other ten-year-old in the group, Jess, opened his mouth to add his own opinion, but I silenced him with a held up hand.
“Dinner is in thirty minutes,” I said. “You have to be back in time to get cleaned up for it, or Miss Teresa and Miss Amy will kill me.”
“Yeah, but at least we’d still get to play basketball,” Wyatt grinned, pleased with his ability to be such a smart alec.
I opened my mouth in mock shock. “Gee, thanks, Wyatt. I guess my health doesn’t matter to you at all. And who’s going to play at my funeral? You? Come on buddy, fork over your piggy bank. Let’s go.” I waggled my fingers at him, and a couple of the kids laughed.
“Go play if you want,” I said. “But really, we’re going in just a few minutes.”
All five kids headed back off into the sunlight, sprinting through the playground sandbox to get to the basketball court.
“Geez,” I muttered to myself. Where did they get such energy from? We’d been playing basketball for over an hour, and they were still running around like a litter of puppies, bumping into each other and yelping while lost in their play.
“I know.”
The familiar voice jolted me, sending me up and onto my feet. Still breathing heavily, I spun around to take in Cristiano. With his black suit and perfectly combed hair, he was the exact opposite of sweaty and frazzled me. And of course, he noticed. His eyes quickly swept over my head and across my face, taking me in. I tightly set my teeth, reminding myself that it didn’t matter if I looked like shit in front of him. It didn’t matter if the guy thought I was hot or not. He wasn’t available as a romantic possibility because I wasn’t on the market.
We both stayed where we were, the width of the picnic table separating us and joyful shrieks of kids playing filling the air.
“How are you?” he finally asked.
“Good.” I nodded, then nodded again.
Too much nodding. Stop it, Blaire.
Instead, I just kept nodding.
“And you?” I asked once I’d finally stopped bobble heading it.
He took a step around the table, coming closer to me. “I’ve been well, thank you. May I?”
Realizing he was asking to sit, I turned and stepped to the side. “Yes. Of course.”I waited for him to get settled before taking my own seat a good two or three feet down the bench.
“Thank you for those flowers,” I said. Even though I have a boyfriend.
Afraid of Derek finding the roses, I’d kept them under the sink, opening the cabinet door every hour or so to admire them. Just because they’d been unwelcome didn’t mean I was about to throw them out.
I bit my bottom lip and forced myself to not say anything about what I was thinking.
“You’re welcome,” Cristiano said. “I... questioned sending them. After I placed the order, I realized it was probably too forward of me.”
I peered at him from the corner of my eye. Was he being sincere, or was he just saying what he thought I wanted to hear in an effort to win me over?
Either way, I began to breathe a little easier. “It was awfully forward, yeah, but still... thank you. I haven’t gotten roses in...” I trailed off. I’d never received roses. At least not as a romantic gesture. The last time flowers had come my way had been after my dad’s funeral. The house was full of them for weeks, first filling up the whole bottom floor with their sweet fragrance, then shriveling up and attracting fruit flies. My mom, still lying in bed for most hours of the day, had done nothing about it, so I’d dumped them all in a big trash bag and taken them out to the curb.
I pushed my tongue against my front teeth, remembering the putrid smell coming from the bottom of the trash can as I flung the white bag down into its depths. It was funny how old memories, things you hadn’t thought about in years, could just come back to you like that. One mention of flowers and I was thinking about my dad, who I hadn’t seen in so many years.
Cristiano was talking, and I focused my attention back on him. “You said you have a boyfriend, so I won’t force myself on you. I understand how unwelcome that can be.”
“Ah... yes,” I agreed, exhaling loudly. “It is.”
I looked down at my hand clutching the edge of the bench and then up and over at the basketball court. Surely a few minutes had passed since the kids last ran off. Cristiano arriving made it feel as if it had only been a few seconds, but no, of course that wasn’t right.
“Teresa sent me to bring you guys back,” Cristiano announced. “Dinner is in thirty minutes.”
“Right,” I agreed. Standing, I cupped my hands around my mouth to make a megaphone. “Come on, you guys! Time to go!”
The typical booing issued from the asphalt, but the kids grabbed their ball and came anyway, trudging off the court and onto the grass. One of them ran up to Cristiano and they fist bumped. Cristiano ruffled the boy’s hair, making the kid scramble to get away.
We began our journey back to the house, keeping on the side of the street with the most shade. The kids walked in front of us, joking and shouting, leaving Cristiano and me to bring up the rear. On the narrow sidewalk, I was all too aware of just how close our arms were.
“You like vintage,” Cristiano said after a while. “Is that dress...?”
“From the sixties,” I said, looking down at the light blue smock. “Yeah.”
“You play basketball in that?”
I pointed at my red Toms. “With these I do.”
Cristiano smiled wide, making my heart flip over. “Impressive.”
I shrugged. “I was kind of athletic in high school, I guess. I played a few sports.”
I shut my mouth, aware that I was getting way too comfortable with him. I swallowed hard and looked back at the kids, making sure they stopped to check for traffic before crossing the street.
“I apologize again about the flowers,” he said.
I frantically waved my hand. “It’s fine, really. Don’t worry about it. Honestly, we don’t have to talk about it ever again. We’re good.”
I liked that he sent me roses — maybe loved it, judging by how many times in a day I’d opened that door under the sink, and I felt guilty about that. Needing to change the subject, I searched my mind for a segue.
“Teresa told me you grew up in the orphanage,” I ended up saying.
Cristiano’s face grew tight, and I cringed. Damn it. That had not been the right thing to say.
“I did,” he slowly answered. “I arrived there when I was about four.”
Four years old?
A long moment went by as the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I wanted — needed — to ask more. I steadied my breathing and looked for the best way to move the conversation forward. But I needed to be careful…
“About four…?” I gently pressed, fully aware of the verbal tightrope I was walking.
“There are no records on me before getting there, so no one knows when my exact birthday was. Apparently, I could tell the staff my age, but I didn’t know my birthday.”
“Oh,” I said in a small voice, then shut my mouth. I was desperately curious to know the exact details of his life, but I was afraid I’d made a blunder and brought it up in the wrong way. I needed to be more tactful, more gentle. Instead, I’d just started asking questions, and probably too soon. Cristiano and I barely knew each other, after all.
I exhaled. “Now I think I’ve crossed a line.”
He looked at me curiously.
“I shouldn’t have asked about your life at the orphanage,” I explained, trying to smooth things over. “It’s none of my business.”
He gazed at me steadily as he seemed to think about my words. “You’re curious. It’s all right.” He paused. “I think about it sometimes. I’ve even gone to seek professional help in memory retrieval.”
Now I really couldn’t stop my curiosity. “Memory retrieval? Did that work?”
He sighed. “Somewhat.”
“How does it work?”
“The person I went to see used what some might call hypnosis. I was pretty skeptical about it at first, but someone I knew had it done, and he kept recommending it to me. So, anyway, I went into this room that looked like a therapist’s office. The practitioner had me relax and then she started asking me questions. Taking me back, you would call it.”
“Huh. That’s kind of cool.”
“The idea of it is, yes. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any of the real information I was hoping for. I got a room with a crib in it, but that could have just been my imagination. Who knows? And even if that was a memory of a real event, it’s not like the image of a regular old nursery helps any. The truth of it all is that my first real memory is of the orphanage.” His head ducked down, and he stared at the passing cracks in the sidewalk.
My heart ached just to hear the story, to think of a four-year-old left at an orphanage like that, no clue as to who he was or where his parents were.
“You’ll find them,” I blurted out.
Cristiano’s head snapped up and his amber eyes connected with mine. “What?”
I bit my bottom lip, wishing I could sew it shut. “I just...” Shit, shit, shit. “I have hope that you will.”
His mouth curved up the smallest bit. “I’m glad that you do. I’m sorry to say I’m not as optimistic. I’ve been trying to find them. For too long.” He sighed, and his words took on a new, harder tone. “I don’t think they want to be found.”
“Why do you believe that?”
“Because the woman who dropped me off — presumably my mother — never came back. And I’ve spent years trying to dig up information on her, but there’s nothing.”
“Maybe she didn’t come back when you were a kid because she wanted to protect you.”
His jerked back. “From what?”
“I don’t know,” I said, then thought about out to proceed. “If she kept you up until the point you were four, she probably loved you very much. If she hadn’t wanted you, she would have given you up as a baby. Right?”
“Perhaps... but why not find me as an adult?”
I shrugged. “Maybe she’s afraid. It might be even more complicated than we think it is. It could even be that, at the time, she thought she was doing the right thing... and now she’s not so sure. Maybe she thinks you hate her because of what she did.”
His lips drew into a tight line. “Some days I do.”
The kids crossed the front yard of the orphanage and loped across the porch. The door banged shut behind them. I slowly climbed the steps, not quite willing to go inside.
“Are you having dinner?” I asked Cristiano, turning to look down at him. He’d already settled on one of the steps, his fingers interlaced and his forearms resting on his knees.
“I’m not hungry,” he said to the street.
I looked at the back of his head, regretful over bringing up his past. Slowly, I stepped down a couple steps and settled in next to him. “You know, I’m not either. Plus, I don’t know if I can take the noise in there right now. Mind if I sit out here with you?”
His head cocked, and he looked at me like I was the most interesting thing in all of the city. “That would be nice.”
I pulled my knees in close and watched the road, the minivans and station wagons rumbling down the asphalt and past the chain link fences, the one lone jogger trudging his way up the slight incline.
“What’s your family like?” Cristiano asked, surprising me.
“Well... there’s only really my mom and me. That is if you don’t count my extended family, and I don’t really. They all live so far away now.”
He stared at me, still looking at me like I was a great mystery that needed solving. “Really?”
I nodded. “My dad died when I was fifteen.”
His eyes softened. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” My throat cracked a little bit, and I cleared it. “It was really hard on my mom. It took her a while, but she’s doing pretty good now.”
“Did she get remarried?”
“No. Although I keep hoping she will.”
“She depends on you a lot?”
I thought about that. “I think she tries not to, but she can’t help it. I’m her only kid. I’m kind of all she has left.”
“She’s lucky.”
I didn’t say anything.
“To have you,” he further explained. “Just to have anyone.”
I thought about Cristiano, all by himself with no clue where his family was. I’d never felt lucky before. In fact, if I’d felt anything, it was cheated. For a while, I cursed the world for leaving my mom and me all alone. But at least I had a father for most of my childhood, and at least I still had my mom. Cristiano didn’t even know who his parents were.
“Yeah,” I slowly said. “You’re right... and she’s a great mother.”
“What was your dad like?”
My heart squeezed as a million memories assaulted me at once. “He was awesome. He would always take me out on the weekends, usually fishing. But every once in a while, we’d go camping... he loved camping. It was kind of our special thing.”
“That’s nice,” he murmured.
I nodded, and swallowed hard, forcing the emotion back down.
“Can I ask... what happened?”
“Yeah. It’s all right. The big bad cancer got him.” I cleared my throat. “But at least we had some time. There was, like, six months after he got the diagnosis. He was pretty practical about it all.” I stared at the house across the street. “Now that I think back, I wonder if he was just putting on a brave face. You know, for my mom and me. Back then, though, I believed it. I really thought he was the bravest person in the world.” I shook my head. “I wanted to be like that,” I whispered.
“Maybe you are now.”
I looked at him with interest. “No. I’m not brave like that.”
“Perhaps you just don’t know it. Not everyone who is courageous thinks of themselves in that way. Sometimes people just think they’re doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done, and nothing more, but to others they’re heroes.”
“Hm,” I murmured, giving that idea some thought. “Yeah,” I finally said. “I get what you’re saying.”
I thought about how brave the woman who dropped him off at the orphanage must have been. I imagined her fear and heartbreak. Leaving someone you loved so much, but who you felt would be better off without you. I couldn’t imagine walking away from your child like that. Surely that took as much bravery as anything else in the world?
Another silence followed, but it was more comfortable than the last one. We’d both said enough for a little bit, and it was nice to just sit there and listen to the sounds of the neighborhood. From behind us, in the house, dishes clattered, and children squabbled.
“Sounds like we’re missing big drama over who gets the last pig in a blanket,” I commented.
“Yeah.” Cristiano chuckled. “Darn it. We should have gone in there.”
I laughed with him and looked down at my lap.
“You’re in between jobs,” Cristiano said. “So what did you used to do?”
“Um...” I ran a hand through my hair. Did I tell him? I’d gotten out of the habit of talking about my past life, merely because I saw it as good and behind me. I didn’t hate mentioning it, I just didn’t like being defined by it. Once people found out what I used to do, they invariably saw me in a different light.
Knowing I needed to say something, I just went ahead and blurted it out. “I, uh... I was in the army.”
I swear I literally heard his head whip in my direction. “Really?”
“Yeah.” I looked into his eyes, reading the surprise and admiration there.
“I wouldn’t have guessed.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Because I’m wearing a dress?”
He laughed. “No... because... well, I don’t know really.” His eyes roamed over my face. “I get the feeling you didn’t want to tell me this.”
I gazed back, looking for a good answer. No, I hadn’t wanted to tell him. Already I’d let him know more about me than I intended to. I wasn’t usually so open about my past. With Cristiano, there was an added reason for needing to keep my distance. The air vibrated between us, humming with what I knew was a shared attraction. I needed to be careful around him, needed to watch myself. And I wasn’t doing that. For some reason, I’d let my guard down. I’d already stayed too long, opting to sit outside alone with him and share intimate details of our pasts.
“I need to go,” I said, my voice cracking. “I forgot that I have to be somewhere.”
If he thought the excuse sounded like a lie, he didn’t let on. “All right.”
I stood quickly, and he followed, his hand slipping into his pocket as he did so. My heart clenched, and I don’t know what I expected him to pull out, but it wasn’t a business card.
He handed the rectangular slip of paper over to me. “Give me a call if you like.” His eyes seemed to glow as he gazed at me intently. “Anytime.”
He turned and walked up to the front door. I tore my gaze from him to stare instead at the step he’d vacated, forcing myself to not turn and watch him go.