April & Oliver by Tess Callahan

Author:Tess Callahan [CALLAHAN, TESS]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FIC019000
ISBN: 9780446552073
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2009-06-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter

18

OLIVER PARKS IN FRONT of Bernadette’s apartment building, motor running.

“You were preoccupied today,” Bernadette says, touching his arm.

“It was a weird day, wasn’t it,” he says, shaking his head.

“I mean even before T.J. showed up.”

He looks at her.

“What’s your problem with Quincy?”

He raises his eyebrows, hesitating.

She smiles. “Veiled in Saran Wrap, that’s you.”

He laughs uncertainly.

“Don’t worry. It’s a virtue. Now what about Quincy?”

“Well, what do you see?”

“You’re cold toward him.”

He looks out the driver’s-side window. “I never liked him, even as a kid. I can’t explain it.”

“I didn’t know there was anyone you didn’t like.”

“If I don’t care for someone, I try to keep it to myself, apparently not very well.” He turns to look at her. “What else does the Saran Wrap show?”

“You’re worried about April.”

He sighs. “Aren’t we all?”

“But you, especially.”

He rubs his eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s a spillover from my father. He’s always felt responsible for April and Buddy. Their parents, well, they weren’t bad people, they just never checked in when it came to parenting.”

“Why don’t you give April a call? She’s welcome to stay with me tonight.”

“She’s out with friends, at least she said so.”

“You know, Oliver, I didn’t get the feeling that T.J. was an imminent threat. This may sound strange, but I was impressed by his honesty.”

He looks at her to see if she is serious.

“Well, he’s not self-pitying. You’ve got to give him that.”

“Before Buddy died, she got a protection order against T.J. Whatever he did to prompt that is enough for me. I’m sorry about his childhood, but not that sorry.”

“You’re right, of course,” she says. They stare out the window.

“Oliver, you know you can’t fill the gap her brother left. No one can.”

“Who says I’m trying?”

Bernadette purses her lips, appraising him, working out calculus, he the apparent equation. He looks at her for a long moment. If he were more of a man, he thinks, he would ask her what she was thinking. Instead, he glides his fingers over the silk of her blouse and kisses her. He moves his hand down her waist, hip, calf, then circling her ankle, narrow as a colt’s.

“Sure you don’t want to come upstairs?” She winks.

“Mm,” he says, kissing her again. “Next time. I need to get up early tomorrow to catch up on work.”

“On a Saturday?” she says. “I’m taking a few kids to a petting farm. I was hoping you could join us.”

“Another time,” he says. “You know how I love llamas and goats.”

She smiles with disappointment.

“Tomorrow night,” he says. “I’ll want to hear all about your kids. And the ducks and bunnies, too.”

He watches her skip up the steps to her building. After a moment a light goes on in her apartment. From the third-floor window she waves to him with her scarf. Not her usual enthusiastic wave, he thinks.

He stops at an intersection, the traffic light reflecting bloodily on the hood of the car. He imagines his future with Bernadette: a cedar-shingled Colonial in Connecticut from which he

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