When Jane was about to beg off, Donna said, “No excuses. If you say no, I’ll know something’s wrong.”
“Okay, fine. Dinner will be great.” All she had to do was get through it without bursting into tears.
The next day after the last of the kids had cleared out and Jane had done every last bit of paperwork she could find to delay the inevitable, she looked up and spotted Donna in the doorway to her classroom.
“The kids have only been back one day. You can’t possibly have any more papers to grade,” she told Jane.
“No, I suppose not,” Jane said with regret, glancing around just to be sure.
“Then let’s get out of here. It’s a beautiful day, or haven’t you noticed?”
“I noticed.” The damp morning fog had drifted away by noon, leaving behind a sky so blue it made her eyes ache looking at it. It reminded her of the days she’d spent in San Francisco.
“Where do you want to eat?” Donna asked.
“Doesn’t matter. You pick.”
“Emilio’s, then. I’m in the mood for Italian with lots of cheese and garlic.”
“And cholesterol,” Jane teased.
“I lived on little more than trail mix for an entire week,” Donna countered. “Darryl takes his camping seriously. I deserve real food.”
Jane thought of all the excellent meals she’d eaten on her own vacation, every ethnic variety imaginable, each one more delectable than the one before. “Well, not me. I should be dieting for the next month.”
Donna grinned. “Then you went someplace with terrific restaurants. Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Whey they arrived at Emilio’s, Donna led the way into the restaurant and picked a table in the corner. “More privacy back here, so you can tell me all the details.”
Emilio brought them both huge glasses of iced tea, took their orders, then vanished into the kitchen to shout orders at the chef, who also happened to be his wife.
“One of these days she’s going to chase after him with a butcher knife,” Donna observed, just as the debonair Italian came scooting back into the front.
“Maybe she just did,” Jane said, chuckling at his chagrined expression as he retreated to his post at the door.
Her gaze was still on poor Emilio, when Donna asked casually, “How’s Mike?”
Jane’s head jerked around. “Mike? What made you bring him up?”
“That’s where you went, isn’t it? To see Mike in San Francisco?”
“Where would you get a crazy idea like that?”
“Oh, give it up, Janie. You’ve got that wounded look in your eyes again, just the way you did when you two split up last year. I take it it didn’t go well.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Wrong about where you spent spring break or wrong about how it went?”
Jane sighed. “Can’t I have any secrets?”
“Not from me,” Donna said easily. “I’ve been your friend for too many years now. Now, spill it. I want to hear everything. Is Mike spectacularly successful?”
“So it seems,” Jane said with a trace of bitterness.
Donna stared. “Hey, what’s that all about?”
“I’m sorry. I’m pleased for him, really I am. It’s just that it would be so much easier if he hated it, if he wanted to come home again, but he doesn’t. The job is a dream come true. He loves everything about San Francisco.”
“And you don’t, I suppose.”
“It’s a wonderful city. I had a terrific time,” she claimed, but even she could hear that her tone was flat.
“But?”
“This is home.”
“Jane, aren’t you being the teensiest bit stubborn?”
“Ornery as a mule, to hear Mike tell it,” she admitted.
“Well, maybe you should give a little.”
“And do what? Go out there, marry Mike, then discover that I’m so homesick I can’t stand it?”
“Were you homesick this week?” Donna asked.
“Of course not, but it was just a week.” She smiled. “And Mike did keep me very busy.” There was enough innuendo in her voice that no one could have mistaken her meaning, especially not someone as attuned to her as Donna.
“And you still walked away,” Donna said with a shake of her head. She regarded Jane with a genuinely puzzled expression. “Are you crazy or what?”
The pressure of the week in San Francisco, the still-unresolved conflict with the man she loved and now Donna’s unsympathetic reaction were all too much. Jane snapped.
“How can you even ask me that?” she demanded angrily. “You of all people know what it was like in my family. My dad had the world’s worst case of wanderlust. He took off whenever the mood struck him. When he was here, he felt trapped and we all paid for it with his foul moods. When he was gone, it was no better, because then my mom was miserable. I won’t set myself or Mike up for the same kind of anguish.”
“Fine. I see where you’re coming from, but have you ever explained all of that to Mike? Maybe he’s never made the connection.”
“How could he not have made it? He lived next door. He saw it.”
“He was a kid,” Donna argued. “Do you have any idea how oblivious kids can be? You should. You’re a teacher. Besides, unless I miss my guess, you were as tight-lipped then as you are now. You probably never let him know what was going on.” Her gaze was penetrating. “Did you?”
Jane sighed. “Probably not. I would have felt as if I were betraying my dad if I’d talked about it. In those days, I only wanted to please him so he’d stay.”
“Then tell Mike how you felt, why you’re afraid going to San Francisco could turn out the same way. He deserves to know what’s going on in your head. All of it. Right now he probably just thinks that he’s not important enough for you to take a risk that seems perfectly reasonable to him. He’s offered you marriage, right?”
Jane nodded.
“And you turned him down?”
“Yes.”
“Again.”
“Yes.”
“Can’t you see what that must do to his ego?”
“Yes, but—”
“But what?” Donna countered impatiently. “No excuses, Janie. You have
