where she was herself, she thought. But then, was that really such a surprise?
She stood and snuffed out the candles she felt foolish now for ever having retrieved from the china cabinet, and replaced them where they always sat, unused. She cleared the table of the colorful pottery dinner plates and crackled cranberry glassware she normally saved for special occasions, returning them, too, to their generally neglected kitchen cupboard. Then she swept the recently ironed tablecloth from the dining-room table and stuffed it back into the drawer where it had lain unused since the last time Rosemary had invited someone over for dinner—Kirby and Angie, four months earlier.
She sighed as she set the kitchen table—for one—with her usual plain white dishes and discount-store glassware on a plastic place mat. She wondered who she thought she’d been kidding, thinking dinner with Willis would be a special occasion. He hadn’t even considered it a big enough deal to call her and tell her he wouldn’t be there when he’d changed his mind.
And she’d actually prepared something. Something that hadn’t come out of a cardboard box or a plastic bag. Something with ingredients, for God’s sake Ingredients she’d had to drive to the grocery store to buy, because who in her right mind actually kept things like garlic and onions and cream of mushroom soup on hand?
Well, come to think of it, probably a lot of people, she realized. People who cooked their food instead of microwaving it, people who cared about the flavor of what they ate, people who spent more than four to six minutes boiling something for dinner. People who didn’t live alone.
She plopped a generous helping of the casserole messily onto her plate, slapped some greens into her salad bowl and splashed some iced tea into her glass. Except for Ska’s crunching, the house was unnervingly quiet, so Rosemary switched on the radio before she sat down. Mellow jazz music filled the kitchen, and a soft breeze rattled the loosely hooked screen door. But it was still too quiet. Funny, she’d never noticed that about her house before.
She’d stashed the leftovers, washed her dishes and placed bowls of food and water on top of the refrigerator for Isosceles—leaving the Little Friskies box up there with the cat, because doubtless he liked to read the nutrition information while he was eating—when she heard the rumble of Willis’s big truck thing outside. Tamping down the irritation that flared, she forced herself to remain cool and collected.
Indifferent. That’s what she wanted him to think she was. That’s what she wished she could actually feel. Totally and completely unaffected by his return to her life. Hey, what did she care whether or not he ate his dinner with her? What difference did it make if he had found something better to do than spend time with her? What did it matter if he thought so little of her that he hadn’t even called her to let her know he wouldn’t be there?
It didn’t matter at all, she reminded herself. None of it mattered. She and Willis had been sworn enemies for half their lives. Had she really expected that to change just because they were older and allegedly more mature now? Just because there was some distance between the past and the present? Just because the two of them had been separated for a long time?
Hadn’t they both reverted immediately to childish behavior the moment they’d encountered each other? she asked herself further. She supposed there were just some things in life that were simply too difficult to be completely overcome. And being constantly belittled and dismissed by someone for years was obviously one of them.
Rosemary knew she and Willis were equally guilty for saying and doing unkind things to each other when they were kids. But hurts like that, when one was so young, cut deep into a person’s spirit, a person’s soul. And she supposed it would take a bigger person than she—or Willis—was to simply put those differences aside and be friends.
Therefore, she knew she had no right to blame him for standing her up. Had the situation been reversed, had she told him she would join him for dinner and then found something—or someone—more interesting to occupy her time, then she probably would have stood him up, too.
So why was she so angry? she wondered. Why did she feel so insulted? Why, dammit, were her feelings so hurt?
The front door opened, so Rosemary didn’t have time to find an answer for those questions. Instead, she put a rush order on her emotions to get ahold of themselves. Willis rounded the kitchen doorway just as she finally settled her pulse rate to a manageable level, and the huge grin that split his face immediately disappeared when he saw her.
For just the briefest of moments, while that smile had been in place, Willis had looked so handsome he’d nearly taken her breath away. She’d never seen him smile like that when they were kids—certainly not at her. Whoever he’d spent his evening with had obviously been someone special. And why on earth did it open up a big, gaping hole inside her to realize that?
She must not have been very successful in hiding her feelings, because he took one look at her face and said, “You were expecting me for dinner, weren’t you?”
She shrugged, hoping the gesture looked nonchalant, when nonchalant was the last thing she felt. “Why would I be expecting you for dinner? Just because you told me you’d be here? That’s no reason, is it?”
She cursed herself for the brittleness of her response, but yes, she had been expecting him. And it hurt that he hadn’t even had enough consideration for her to pick up the phone and tell her he wouldn’t be there, even if such a thing should come as no surprise at all.
“I didn’t tell you for sure that I’d be here,” he reminded her.
She shrugged again, the gesture feeling awkward enough that she knew it was in no way convincing. “Fine. You didn’t tell me for sure. My mistake. I stand corrected.”
“It’s just that I was in town, having a look around, and I ran into Mr. Jamiolkowski, the physics teacher at Central—remember him?” Before Rosemary had a chance to respond, Willis quickly interjected, “Oh, no, of course you don’t. You didn’t take physics, did you? You had to be in the advanced program to enroll.”
She dropped her gaze to the floor. As if she needed to be reminded of that. “No,” she said softly. “I took senior foods, instead. I learned my lesson with chemistry not to take on more than I could handle.”
“Well, anyway,” Willis continued, obviously oblivious to her discomfort, “he and I became fairly close while I was a student—we even corresponded during my first two years at MIT—and it was just so good to see him again that we wound up having dinner together.”
“Fine,” Rosemary repeated.
“He’s working on an amazing project,” Willis went on, “something that’s truly revolutionary. But he’s only able to carry out his research during summer vacation. I don’t know why he bothers to teach high school. He has so much to bring to the scientific community. It’s terrible to see such a brilliant mind wasted like that.”
Rosemary snapped her head back up at Willis’s dismissive tone of voice. “You think teaching kids is a waste of time?” she asked.
His expression was the same as it would have been if she had just asked him to swallow hemlock. “Well, of course it is, when one is clearly more suited to scientific research.”
“Maybe Mr. Jamiolkowski feels he’s more useful as a guide for young minds than he would be locked up in some think tank somewhere.”
Willis shook his head and chuckled. “What an absurd suggestion.”
“Maybe he likes teaching, Willis. Maybe he thinks it’s more important to contribute to the education of kids than it is to work in some sterile laboratory for his own satisfaction, or because eggheads like you think he should. Maybe teaching is what brings him satisfaction. Not scientific research.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Willis told her. “Why would a brilliant man waste his time on something other than research?”
She shook her head in wonder. “Boy, you really don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”