Too Good to Be True

“Aren’t those accounts password protected and all that?” I asked. (I did read John Grisham, after all.) “Yeah. He used our mother’s name. He never was really smart when it came to PIN numbers and that kind of thing. Always used his birthday or our mom’s name. Anyway, I figured I’d confront him, and we’d find a way to get the money back to where it belonged. We were working in the Ninth Ward, rebuilding neighborhoods, and I figured we’d just slip the money back in.”

“Why didn’t you call the Feds or the police?” I asked.

“Because it was my brother.”

“But he was cheating all those people! And he was using you to do it! God, the Ninth Ward was hardest hit of anyone—”

“I know.” Cal sighed and scrubbed his hand through his hair. “I know, Grace. But…” His voice trailed off. “But he was also the brother who let me sleep in his room for a year after our mom died. The one who showed me how to hit a baseball and taught me to drive. He always said we’d go into business together. I wanted to give him a chance to make things right.” Cal looked at me, his face looking older, and sad. “He was my big brother. I didn’t want him to go to jail.”

Yes. I also knew about putting family before common sense, didn’t I? “So what happened?” I asked more quietly.

“What did he say?” I set my empty plate aside.

“Well, what could he say? He was sorry, he got caught up in it all, everyone else was doing it…But he agreed that we’d just funnel the money back into the projects and make things right.” He paused, remembering.

“Unfortunately for us, the Feds had been watching the company. When I moved the money, I gave them a trail, and they pounced.” He looked down and shook his head.

“Did your brother go to jail, too?” I asked softly.

Cal didn’t look up. “No, Grace. He testified against me.”

I closed my eyes. “Oh, Cal.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you…what did you do?”

Another weary sigh. “My brother had taken steps, you know? My name was all over this, and it was his word against mine. And I was the accountant. Pete said even if he’d wanted to, he wouldn’t have known how to do it, I was the college boy and all that. The prosecutors found him a lot more convincing, I guess. My lawyer said the world wasn’t going to go easy on someone who stole from Katrina victims, so when they offered a plea, I took it.”

Angus jumped onto my lap, and I petted him, thinking. “Why didn’t you ever tell me this before, Cal? I would’ve believed you.”

“Would you?” he asked. “Doesn’t every convict say he’s innocent? That he was set up?”

He had a point. I didn’t answer. “I have no way of proving that I didn’t do exactly what my brother said I did,” he added quietly.

My heart ached in a sudden, sharp tug as I tried to imagine what it would feel like to be turned in by Margaret or Natalie. To be betrayed by one of them. I couldn’t. Yes, of course Nat had fallen for Andrew, but that wasn’t her fault. I never thought so, anyway, and I knew my sister. But to have your own brother send you to jail for his crime …man. No wonder Cal had an edge when it came to discussing his past.

“So you were going to tell me all this? Even without Margs digging around in your records?”

“Yes.”

“Why now? Why not all the other times I asked?”

“Because we started something last night. I thought we did, anyway.” His voice was hard. “So that’s the story.

Now you know.”

We sat in silence for a few more minutes. Angus, weary of being ignored, yarped once and wagged his tail, inviting me to adore him. I petted his fur idly and adjusted his bandana, idly noting that he’d eaten Cal’s omelet while we were talking.

“Cal?” I finally said.

“Yeah.” His voice was flat, his shoulders tight.

“Would you like to have dinner with my family sometime?”

He didn’t move for a second, then practically sprang across the distance between us. His smile lit up the gloom.

“Yes.”

He wrapped his big arms around me and kissed me hard, and Angus nipped him. Then we cleared the dishes and went to his place.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

THE NEXT DAY was Memorial Day, so I didn’t have to crawl out of Cal’s bed at the crack of dawn. Instead, we walked down to Lala’s for pastries and meandered back along the Farmington.

“Do you have plans this afternoon?” Callahan asked, taking a long pull from his coffee.

“What if I did?” I asked, tugging Angus’s leash so he wouldn’t eat or roll on the poor dead mouse at the edge of the path.

“You’d have to cancel them.” He grinned, slipping his arm around my waist.

“Oh, really?”

“Mmm-hmm.” He wiped a little frosting off my chin, then kissed me.

“Okay, then. I’m yours,” I murmured.

“I like the sound of that,” he said, kissing me again, long and slow and sweet, so that my knees wobbled when he let me go. “I’ll pick you up around two, but I have to run now. The appliances are being installed today.”

“You’re almost done with the house, aren’t you?” I asked, a sudden pang hitting my heart.

“Yup,” he answered.

“What happens after that?”

“I have another house to work on, couple towns north. But if you want, I can come back and lie on the roof of this house so you can spy on me. If the new owners don’t mind.”

“I never spied. It was more of a gazing thing.”

He grinned, then glanced at his watch. “Okay, Grace. Gotta run.” He kissed me once more, then went up the path to his house. “Two o’clock, don’t forget.”

I let out some line on Angus’s retractable leash so my puppy could sniff a fern and took a pull of my own coffee.

Then I headed back home to correct papers.

As I sifted through my kids’ essays, I had an uneasy thought. I needed to tell the Manning search committee about Callahan. He was, after all, in my life now, and I should be upfront about that. However it happened, Cal had served time in a federal prison, had covered up a crime, even though his intentions had been honorable.

That wasn’t something I should try to hide. That was also something that would probably tank whatever chance I had at becoming chairman of the history department. Nonprofit institutions tended to frown on embezzling and felons and prison records, especially where impressionable children were concerned.

My shoulders drooped at the thought. Well. I had to do it just the same.

At two o’clock sharp, Cal came up the walk. “You ready, woman?” he called through the screen door as Angus leaped and snarled from the other side.

“I have four papers left to grade. Can you wait half an hour?”

“No. Do it in the car, okay?”

I blinked. “Yes, Master.” He grinned. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll find out when we get there. When do you think this dog will like me?”

“Possibly never,” I said, picking up my dog and kissing his head. “Goodbye, Angus, my darling boy. Be good.

Mommy loves you.”

“Ouch. That’s really…wow. Sad,” Cal said. I punched him in the shoulder. “No hitting, Grace!” he laughed. “You need to get those violent urges looked at. God. I never got beat up in prison, but I move in next to you, and look at me. Hit by sticks, bitten by your dog, my poor truck dented…”

“Such a baby. I’d think prison would’ve toughened you up a bit. Made you a man and all that.”

“It wasn’t that kind of prison.” He smiled and opened his truck door for me. “We did have tennis lessons. No shivving, though. Sorry to disappoint you, honey.”

Honey. I sort of flowed into the truck. Honey. Callahan O’ Shea called me honey.

Ten minutes later, we were on the Interstate, heading west. I took out a paper and started to read.

“Do you like being a teacher?” Callahan asked.

“I do,” I answered immediately. “The kids are fantastic at this age. Of course, I want to kill them half the time, but the other half, I just love them. And they are sort of the point of teaching.”

“Most people don’t love teenagers, do they?” He smiled, then checked the rearview mirror as we merged.

“Well, it’s not the easiest age, no. Little kids, who doesn’t love them, right? But teenagers—they’re just starting to show signs of who they could be. That’s really great to watch. And of course, I love what I teach.”

“The Civil War, right?” Callahan asked.

“I teach all areas of American history, actually, but yes, the Civil War is my specialty.”

“Why do you love it? Kind of a horrible war, wasn’t it?”

“Absolutely,” I answered. “But there was never a war where people cared more about their cause. It’s one thing to fight a foreign country, a culture that you don’t know, cities that you’ve never visited, maybe. But the Civil War …imagine what would drive you to raise troops against your own country, the way Lincoln did. The South was fighting for rights as individual states, but the North was fighting for the future of the nation. It was heartbreaking because it was so personal. It was us. I mean, when you compare Lincoln with someone like—”

I heard my voice rising, becoming that of a television preacher on Sunday morning. “Sorry,” I said, blushing.

Callahan reached over and squeezed my hand, grinning. “I like hearing about it,” he said. “And I like you, Grace.”

“So it’s more than the fact that I was the first woman you saw out of prison,” I said.

“Well, we can’t discount that,” he said somberly. “Imprinting, they call it, right, Teacher?”

I swatted his arm. “Very funny. Now leave me alone. I have papers to grade.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

And grade them I did. Cal drove smoothly, not interrupting, commenting only when I read a snippet out loud. He asked me to check his MapQuest directions once or twice, which I did, quite amiably. It was surprisingly comfortable.

About an hour later, Callahan pulled off the highway. A sign announced that we’d arrived in Easting, New York, population 7512. We drove down a street lined with a pizzeria, hair salon, package store and a restaurant called Vito’s. “So, Mr. O’ Shea, why have you brought me to Easting, New York?” I asked.

“You’ll see it in about a block if these directions are right,” he said, pulling into a parking space on the street.

Then he hopped out and opened my door. I made a mental note to thank Mr. Lawrence the next time I read to him. Callahan O’ Shea had beautiful manners. He took my hand and grinned.

“You look very confident,” I said.

“I am,” he answered, kissing my hand. All the qualms I’d felt about his past and my chances at the chairman job vanished, replaced with a tight band of happiness squeezing my chest. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so light. Maybe, in fact, I’d never felt this good.

Then I saw where Cal was taking me, lurched to a halt and burst into tears.

“Surprise,” he said, sliding his arms around me in a hug.

“Oh, Cal,” I snuffled into his shoulder.

A small movie theater stood just down the block, brick entrance, wide windows, the smell of popcorn already seducing the senses. But it was the marquee that got me. Framed in lightbulbs, black letters against a white background were the following words: Special Anniversary Showing! See It As It Was Meant To Be Seen! And below that, in huge letters…Gone With the Wind.

“Oh, Cal,” I said again, my throat so tight I squeaked.

The teenager behind the counter stared wonderingly at me as I wept, while Cal bought us tickets, popcorn and root beer. The place was mobbed—I wasn’t the only one, apparently, who yearned to see the greatest love story of all time on the big screen.

“How did you find this?” I asked, wiping my eyes once we were seated.

“I Googled it a few weeks ago,” he answered. “You said you’d never seen it before, and it made me wonder if it ever got shown anymore. I was just going to tell you, but then you finally jumped me, so I figured I’d make it a date.”

A few weeks ago. He’d been thinking about me weeks ago. Wow.

“Thank you, Callahan O’ Shea,” I said, leaning in to kiss him. His mouth was soft and hot, and his hand slid behind my neck, and he tasted like popcorn and butter. Warm ripples danced through my stomach until the whitehaired lady sitting behind us accidentally (or purposefully) kicked our seats. Then the lights dimmed, and I found that my heart was racing. Cal grinned, gave my hand a squeeze.

For the next few hours, I fell in love with Scarlett and Rhett all over again, my emotions as tender and raw as when I was fourteen and first read the book. I winced when Scarlett declared her love to Ashley, beamed when Rhett bid for her at the dance, cringed when Melly had her baby, bit a nail as Atlanta burned. By the last line, when Katie Scarlett O’ Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler raised her head, once again determined to get what she wanted, unbowed, unbroken, I was out and out sobbing.

“I guess I should’ve brought some Valium,” Callahan murmured as the credits rolled, handing me a napkin, since I’d run out of tissues when Rhett joined the Confederate troops outside of Atlanta.

“Thank you,” I squeaked. The white-haired lady behind us patted my shoulder as she left.