We Interrupt This Date Read online

  He looked in my direction and then a goofy grin spread across his face. He strode across the room to stand staring down at me.

  Jack had aged well. He’d always been handsome, but with maturity his cheekbones were more pronounced and fine lines around his cobalt blue eyes gave him character. His black hair, worn shorter than when I’d seen him last, was as thick as ever, with a couple of strands of gray showing at the temples.

  “Nic. Thought you’d moved to Texas. Okay if I sit here?” Without waiting for my answer, he pulled out the chair across from me and plunked himself down.

  My middle name is Nicole and the day he found out, I became Nic as far as Jack was concerned.

  I couldn’t stop smiling. I felt a familiar comfort in his presence as if it were a week ago that we’d last seen each other instead of nearly twenty years.

  “Since when did you have to ask to sit at my table?” We’d eaten lunch together at school about a million times.

  “Thought this might be your husband’s chair.”

  “It isn’t.” At the thought of my ex, I clamped my jaw tight and fiddled with the napkin holder, squeezing the metal and pretending it was T. Chandler’s jowly neck. “What in the world made you think I moved to Texas?”

  Emmie appeared with my coffee, and Jack ordered a cup for himself after she finished trying to upsell us on pecan pie. He waited until she went back to the kitchen and said, “I tried calling you once, five or six years ago.”

  “And? You forget how to use a phone?”

  “Your husband answered. He said he took a job in San Antonio and you were out there getting your house ready. I asked for your new address and he was pretty vague, said you’d contact me after you got settled.”

  “What?” I dropped my spoon and it landed in my lap. I’d known T. Chandler was jealous of my family and friends, but telling such a lie was really out of line. I might have to rethink my plans to forgive him. “That’s not true. We never moved out of Mount Pleasant.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Jack shrugged. “Wasn’t anything important, just wanted to say hello.”

  “I wished you’d called Mama instead of that rat, T. Chandler. And you can stop calling him my husband. We divorced last year.”

  “Yeah? Sorry. I guess.” He took his coffee mug from Emmie when she silently reappeared at our table. “Aren’t you wondering why I’m back in Charleston?”

  “Why are you back in Charleston, Jack?”

  “My firm bought up a big contracting outfit here. Lenley Building. It used to be owned by Myron Lenley. You must know him, local family.”

  “If you mean Myron Lenley--the third--he was in school with us until his family shipped him off to Camden Military Academy for an attitude adjustment.” I didn’t add that Mama had once forced me to go to a dance with him.

  “That’s him. Anyway, Lenley inherited the firm and sold out to the outfit I’m with. I was offered the job of running the place and figured, why not? Better pay, and living in Charleston sure beats living in New Jersey as far as I’m concerned. I’m still a southerner at heart, always have been. So I moved back about a month ago.”

  “Welcome back.” I sipped at my coffee. It was dark and hot and the rich scent that had wafted toward me ever since the cup landed on the table didn’t disappoint. “But what about...” I paused, dug deep into my memory banks, and finished my question. “Darlene? I thought she hated the South.”

  He leaned back in his chair and stretched. “It’s Marlene. We divorced about five years ago.”

  “I’m sorry.” Was I? I hadn’t been around her much, but his ex hadn’t made any secret of the fact that she didn’t care for any of Jack’s friends, me especially. I’d thought at the time she was a world class snob. I’d felt like shaking some sense into Jack, but then he and Marlene married suddenly, a month before I met T. Chandler.

  He rolled his shoulders in a shrug. “We were a mismatch from day one and both too green to figure it out. I learned from the whole experience that opposites might attract, but it can be hell trying to stay together. At least we didn’t have any kids to divide up. She’d bought a couple of Persian cats and she retained custody—no argument from me. What about you?”

  “I don’t have any cats,” I said.

  He leaned across the table and tweaked my hair. “How many kids do you have besides your little boy?”

  He knew about Christian. I’d sent a birth announcement and received in return a card with a terse congratulatory note written in a feminine hand and with a twenty dollar bill tucked inside. At the time, I was torn between going up to New Jersey and slapping Marlene silly or calling to give her a piece of my mind. Of course, I’d done neither.

  “Only Christian. My ‘little boy’ started college a few weeks ago.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I could say something trite about time flying, but I won’t; that would make me feel old. Wow. You have a grown kid.”

  “Hey.” I playfully smacked the back of his hand. “I’m not exactly ready for a nursing home.”

  “I can see that.” Amusement showing in the crinkles around his eyes, he let his gaze travel over me with what I hoped was appreciation for my twenty-fivish figure. Okay, I’ll be honest—thirty-ninish figure.

  “Yeah, it’s been all of a month since Christian left for Virginia. And I realized only a few days ago I’m living alone for the first time in my life. No Mama or T. Chandler to run my life. No loud stereo or TV blasting from Christian’s room. No teen-aged boys crowding me out of my own kitchen. I’m almost an empty nester.”

  “You like that? Being an empty nester, I mean.”

  I thought about the question before I answered. “Mostly.” I’d forced myself to spend the first afternoon post-Christian working in my garden. By the end of the day, part of the gloom had lifted, but it wasn’t until the past week that I’d quit listening for Christian’s step in the hallway every afternoon. I was still lonely at times, nothing I couldn’t handle. Like Mama always says, life is full of tradeoffs. “It’s not like he won’t be home for holidays. I’m enjoying the peace and quiet. I like being able to wander the house in my nightclothes if I want to and watch ancient movies without Christian pasting on a look of superiority and telling me I’m an old fogie. He’s sure I could learn so much about modern culture from an evening of football.”

  “Well…” Jack straightened in his chair and rubbed the small of his back. “Ouch. I hurt myself on a construction site a few months ago and I sometimes get a reminder twinge. What were we talking about? You home alone. I’d say you deserve time for yourself.”

  Emmie refilled our coffees, and Jack and I talked on, first going through a round of “remember the time?”

  “All our friends thought we were perfect for each other,” I said.

  “But we found out better.” A twinkle appeared in his eyes. “Remember when I broke up with my girlfriend and you’d just dumped your guy and we tried making out on the couch at my house? Talk about a lack of chemistry--it just was not going to happen between us.” He smiled, then the smile became a chuckle, and then I thought he’d fall out of his seat howling like a coyote.

  I tried to force a laugh of my own, but the attempt died somewhere around my lips. My face flamed at the memory. We’d exchanged a few tentative kisses when his mother sauntered into the room trailed by the new preacher from the Baptist Church. I’d jumped half out of my skin and rolled off the couch onto the floor to land on my butt with a solid thump while Jack said something about me being there to help him with his math homework.

  I’d made an excuse to Mrs. Maxwell and Pastor Green and left. But my recollection of the kiss was that it had every bit as much chemistry as I’d hoped for, enough to put all thoughts of anyone except Jack out of my mind for weeks to come. Jack must have thought so, too, because he’d asked me out a couple of times after that. I’d accepted and then had to cancel at the last minute to babysit my sister and to handle one crisis or another for my mother. We’d gone away to different col
leges not long after. And met our spouses. And lost touch until now.

  We played catch up for another half hour. Jack was in an on again off again relationship with a woman named Kelly who was planning to visit him in Charleston. We gave each other the condensed versions of our divorces and discussed our jobs.

  Jack was an architect. I, on the other hand, had never lived up to my potential. Just ask Mama. But I wasn’t ashamed to tell him about my stint behind a lopsided desk—especially now that I was leaving.

  “You’re not happy with your job,” he said, in response to my telling him how much I hated dealing with nasty customers. “That’s not surprising for someone of your intelligence. Have you found something else?”

  “A friend in real estate has come to my rescue.” Though I’d known both of them for years, somehow Veronica and Jack had never managed to meet. “She’s offered me something I’m pretty excited about.” I didn’t tell him I hadn’t actually had the nerve to take Veronica’s offer until I got fired. The job at Odell’s was bad enough. Getting rejected from that job was its own new form of humiliation.

  “You’re going into real estate?”

  “No, she has a new business starting up and she’s going to make me her manager.”

  “Sounds promising. What’s it involve?”

  Emmie brought yet another refill, though after three coffees my bladder was screaming for relief. I sent it a silent message to hang in there.

  “Ghost tours.” I dumped a packet of sweetener into my cup and watched it float like dust on top of the dark liquid.

  He raised an eyebrow. Lowered it and raised the other one. “Ghost tours, as in looking for spirits in graveyards?”

  “Something like that. You know how it is. In a historic town like Charleston ghost hunting is popular with tourists. But my friend has a great angle, something that should get us a lot of business. She bought an old house that started life as a residence for a man who was rumored to be a pirate. Since its pirate owner days it’s served as a makeshift jail, church, and music school before it ended up as a boarding house, fell on hard times and was finally abandoned. She’s restoring it to its original state and plans to open for regular tours during the day and ghost tours at night. It’ll be finished in another few weeks.

  “According to local legend, the original owner was a larger than life type called—behind his back, I presume--Devilhearted Eli. He still, so people say, clomps the halls exuding ill-will. And he’s just the main character. There are supposed to be other ghosts who make their appearances if they’ve nothing better to do. A former night watchman reported hearing screams, seeing mysterious lights, and smelling perfume, before he finally put in notice.”

  “Any chains rattling in the attic?”

  “Jack Maxwell, are you making fun of me?”

  He put his hand over mine and left it there. “Of course not. And I don’t have to ask if you’re taking the job. You look happier and more content and confident than I’ve ever seen you. Not at all an emotional wreck of a divorcee like I might have expected.”

  “Well, I’m all grown up now and it has been a year, and I’m quite sure I never…” I broke off as I felt a slow blush crawl up my cheeks. An emotional wreck of a divorcee? He was exactly right now that I thought about it. “Okay, up until a couple of days ago, I dragged around feeling angry with myself for marrying the wrong guy and sticking around for years, when it was long past time to get up off my butt, stop punishing myself, and start living again. I’ve even put off finding a new job until I was forced to.”

  I brushed my hair back from my face, raised my chin, and looked directly into his blue, blue eyes. “But I’m not the same girl you used to know. My son is grown, my sister lives clear across the country, and I’ve learned to say no to my mother. From now on it’s my turn to be first in my life without having to sacrifice myself for others.”

  The part about saying no to my mother was an exaggeration. And maybe I’d been forced by circumstances—Odell firing me--to put myself first, but that wouldn’t matter if I were successful at it.

  He looked doubtful, but said politely, “I wish you the best.”

  “I’m going to need your good wishes.” I’d just glanced sideways out the window. A woman who looked an awful lot like my mother was walking by on the opposite side of the street. I squinted, trying to make out more detail, but the shadows on that side were too dark. It couldn’t be Mama—the woman was walking with a man. But seeing the Mama-look-alike was enough to remind me that I had a fight ahead of me. “I haven’t told Mama yet. She has very definite ideas on what are and are not acceptable careers for her daughters. Trust me, ghost tours are not on the list.”

  “I remember your mother. She’s—a lady with strong opinions.” Jack has always been such a gentleman. Calling Mama “a lady with strong opinions” was like calling a lion an animal that might hurt you if you poke it with a sharp stick.

  “I’m calling her tonight before she hears the big news from the gossip network she’s permanently wired into.” I didn’t know how the network operated, but I could bet money Mama would find out about my new job in the next twenty-four hours even if I didn’t tell her. “She’s going to do her utmost to foster a world class guilt trip right through the center of my soul.”

  The ever-attentive Emmie trudged in our direction bearing the coffeepot on a tray, and this time my bladder threatened to create an embarrassing scene if I didn’t behave sensibly. I tried to wave her off, but she didn’t stop.

  “Sure about that pecan pie?” she asked, balancing the tray against her hip. You’d think the girl made a commission on every slice.

  We declined more coffee and the pie and then, after quick trips to our respective restrooms, came back and lingered.

  After the rest of the customers had left and Emmie started putting away ketchup bottles and sending us pointed glances, we paid and headed outside.

  “I’m living in an apartment over the antique shop across the street,” Jack said, waving toward the building. “I bought a house that I have to renovate before I move in. But let me walk you to your car.”

  “It’s okay. I’m parked a few blocks over in front of Nancy’s Yoga Center.”

  “Jack Maxwell is a true gentleman who would not let a lady walk unescorted to her waiting carriage.” He casually took my hand in his. His skin felt warm and rough. A shiver went through me and I realized I couldn’t remember the last time a man had held my hand. Certainly T. Chandler hadn’t. Handholding was not his style.

  We meandered down the sidewalk, past antique and art stores, threading our way between groups of people. It was late September and still tourist season. In fact, it’s always tourist season in Charleston. A gray horse pulling a carriage clopped along the street beside us while the young man at the reins pointed out historic landmarks to the family riding behind him on the wooden seats. I wondered if the job got boring after a week or two of piloting the horse around the same streets every day. I was sure the animal had the route memorized and all the driver had to do was make sure it stopped for red lights and didn’t break into a tourist-jolting gallop.

  Jack paused to study the carriage. “You ever ride in one of those?”

  I started to say no, but all at once a dim memory surfaced. I was five years old and my father had taken me out for ice cream. Afterward he lifted me onto the wooden bench of a carriage pulled by a sleek-coated black horse. When the ride was over, Daddy took me to the front and held me up while I tangled my tiny fingers in the coarse mane and filled my nostrils with pungent horse smell. I asked him if we could take it home, cried when he said we didn’t have room for a horse in my bedroom. But he’d remembered and bought me a Breyer model horse, a bay Arabian with an exquisite head, for my sixth birthday.

  “Yes, a long time ago,” I said, my voice gone soft and my mouth pulling itself into a smile.

  “From your expression, I’d say you enjoyed yourself.”

  “I did.” It was the last time Daddy ever
took me out for ice cream. He’d promised to take me again the week after my birthday, told me to be a good girl and help Mama in the house, and we’d go that evening. I wasn’t a good girl that day. I fussed at Mama because she wouldn’t let me watch cartoons and I didn’t pick up my toys. Being a Daddy’s spoiled little girl, I thought I could talk him into taking me out anyway.

  I never got the chance. He died of a heart attack at work. For years afterward, I blamed myself, as children do. I thought if I’d only done everything I could to help Mama that day, then Daddy would have come home the way he promised.

  “You okay?” Jack asked, pulling me back from the curb to stop me from stepping into the road against the light.

  I swallowed hard and looked up at him, blinking myself back to the present. “I didn’t mean to disappear on you.”

  “Anything you want to talk about?” He looked so concerned and the lump in my throat got so big it threatened to choke me.

  “I’m fine,” I said in a husky voice. It was sweet of him to offer and exactly like the Jack I remembered.

  We reached my minivan, and before I could unlock the door, Jack said, “Nic, let’s not lose touch again.”

  “Good idea.” We exchanged numbers, me writing his down on the back of a Piggly Wiggly receipt. “Maybe when your girlfriend gets here we can go out to dinner or something.”

  Before he could respond, I quickly added, “Of course, I’ll bring my boyfriend along.”

  I couldn’t let him—or his girlfriend—think I was trying to be anything more than a friend or that I was so pathetic I didn’t have anyone. But my boyfriend? Who was I going to enlist to play that part? Herman-don’t-judge, perhaps?

  We stood awkwardly, staring at each other in the dim light cast by a street lamp that needed its bulb replaced. I wondered if Jack could read my mind. Then he leaned forward and brushed a kiss across my cheek.

  “It was great seeing you again, Nic.”

  Our eyes met and I felt a little lurch in my heartbeat when his lips formed that endearing smile I’d noticed the first time I ever saw him. Maybe my heart was trying to tell me something. Maybe my heart was saying I’d been lonely long enough and here was someone I could be with. Except he already had someone. And he didn’t like me that way. And being lonely was no excuse for falling in love.