“Oh, I’m sorry.” She blushed a deeper shade of red, picturing him dripping in the hallway wearing just a towel. “I didn’t mean to disappoint you.”
“I’m definitely not disappointed, trust me.” His voice was even warmer now. It made her feel as if she was standing next to a hot stove. “I’m looking forward to dinner. I get two Christmas dinners. I have to be the luckiest man alive.”
“About that…” Erica closed her eyes, twisting the cord around and around.
“Yeah?” He sounded cautious, disappointed already, and she couldn’t do it. She knew it was the right thing to do, to cut ties now, to tell him he was a nice boy, but she just couldn’t lead him on anymore, but he sounded so crushed at the thought of being disinvited to dinner, she couldn’t bear to disinvite him from her life altogether.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay with goose.”
“Goose?”
“Yes, we’re having goose. My father’s a traditionalist. He likes to do Christmas Dickens-style.”
“Oh! Sure.” The buoyancy in his voice returned. “I’d eat moose if I had to, just to sit next to you at the table.”
She laughed. “No moose, thank goodness. Don’t mention it, you’d give my father ideas.”
There was a brief, awkward silence. Erica heard something in the background, the sound of young children laughing, squealing.
“Do you need me to let you go?”
“No.” Clay sighed, sounding annoyed. “Hang on.”
She heard him scolding someone, and then he was back, and the line was quieter. “This is better. I’m in the hall closet. Sorry about the rug rats.”
“The what?”
“Foster kids,” Clay explained. “My parents only had me, and my mother has started fostering kids in the past few years to fill the empty hole in her life she’s anticipating when I fly off to college.”
Erica laughed. “How many of them? It sounds like a zoo.”
“Just two. They’re five and eight. Oh, and there’s a new baby now too. But it’s sleeping.”
“Three?” Erica blinked. “That’s a lot of kids!”
“She only does it for a little while,” Clay explained. “Until they get adopted. It’s little babies most of the time. She gets to cuddle them and then gives them away. And she doesn’t take care of them really. Connie does.”
“Who’s Connie?”
Clay hesitated and then mumbled the word, like he didn’t want her to hear. “My nanny.”
“Your nanny?” Erica exclaimed, grinning. “You still have a nanny?”
“She used to be my nanny,” he protested. “Now she… she just does what my mother tells her. Takes care of the house, the shopping, the cleaning. The dogs. The cats. The foster kids.”
“Dogs, cats
“Oh, just, you know, Grand Canyon size,” Clay replied with a snort. “She says she’s doing her Christian duty. I say she’s getting her baby-fix.”
“I thought you said she works? For the church?”
“My mother? Work?” Clayton barked laughter. “She volunteers. Keeps their records. Gertrude Louise Webber nee Phillips would not stoop to working for a living. She inherited her money. It keeps her supported in the manner to which she’s become accustomed, so she doesn’t have to complain about my father’s low-paying teaching posts.”
“He’s the astronaut, right?”
“Astronomer,” Clay corrected with an indulgent laugh. “He’s on the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. It’s a government job and a pretty big deal, what with Sputnik and the space race and all. They’re going to put a man on the moon before the Russians.”
“No way!” Erica exclaimed. “That’s science fiction talk.”
“It’s not really. Anyway, he flies to Washington because my mother doesn’t want to leave here-she grew up in the house we live in-and he tries to convince her to move every time he comes back, and it goes round and round.”
“Does he approve of the rug rats?”
Clay barked another laugh. “He doesn’t get a say. Besides, he’s gone so much, what does it matter? Let’s change the subject. What did Santa bring you for Christmas?”
“Clothes. Some jewelry. Lots of new records. What did you get?”
“Same. Well, no jewelry.” He laughed. “But clothes and records. My father got me a telescope. Another one. He still thinks I’m going to follow in his footsteps some day.”
“Don’t you want to be an astronaut?” she teased.
“Astronomer. And hell no. But my mother got me a typewriter, so it kind of balanced out.”
“A typewriter!” Erica exclaimed. “I’m jealous.”
“You don’t have one? Aren’t you editor of your school paper?”
She rolled her eyes. “Mary Magdalene’s little rag isn’t much of a paper. Mostly recipes and cleaning tips and advertising dances and church functions.”
“Yeah, well, I think my mother was sick of all the time I spend at St. Casimir’s using their typewriters to write.”
“What do you write?”
“Oh everything.” He sounded rather proud. “I’m in charge of St. Casimir’s school paper, but that’s the least of it. I’ve got two other top-secret projects I’m working on.”
“Top secret?” Erica perked up, her curious kitty nose already twitching at the scent of a mystery. “That sounds interesting.”
“It is. Maybe I’ll tell you about it someday,” he teased. “Hey, I forgot to ask… about last night… er, well, I guess it was really this morning…”
“Yes?”
Clay cleared his throat and asked, “Are you… you know… okay?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “I’m fine.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing you,” he said. She could hear banging and the sound of little kids’ voices.
“Me too,” Erica said, saying the words perfunctorily but finding out they were true. “Sounds like you’ve been found out.”
“Yeah, can I let you go? Sorry…”
“Sure. See you later.”
They said goodbye and hung up and Erica stood staring at the phone, thinking about the reason she’d accepted Clay’s invitation in the first place, and how things had snowballed from there. Her only intention had been to make Father Michael jealous, and she was sure she would accomplish that when Clay showed up for Christmas dinner, but now that she’d actually invited him, she regretted it. Not because she didn’t want to see him, but because she didn’t know which one she looked forward to seeing more-Clay or Father Michael.
That was a problem.
Father Michael and Father Patrick arrived first. Erica was still in her room getting ready when she heard his voice down the hallway and she felt her knees get weak at the sound of his laugh. Solie had opened the door to let them in but her father was close by, greeting them and asking what they wanted to drink. Erica stood looking at herself in the mirror over her dresser, wearing a brand new designer dress, her hair set in soft blond waves, curling prettily around her ears and pink cheeks. She didn’t even have to apply rouge, she was already flushed with excitement. She flattened the collar on her dress, the combination of black silk and pink roses and white lace making her fair complexion stand out like cream, waiting for them to congregate in the living room, waiting to hear her father drop a record on the new stereo he’d bought them for Christmas. She waited to make an entrance, waited for Father Michael to have time to think about her, wonder where she was, maybe even ask.
She clicked down the hallway in her stilettos on the hardwood floor, reminding herself to breathe, to smile and act casual when she saw him, because no one knew, no one could ever know. just how much in love with him she really was.
