The Trouble with Joe Read online

  “It’s not always great the first time. I sort of lost it there. I’m sorry.”

  “That wasn’t great.”

  He shuddered and shut his eyes. Then he realized that she had said the words as a question. “I mean, sometimes it’s not,” he said.

  She giggled. It sparkled through him. “Are you asking me if I had an orgasm?”

  “I was trying to be a shade less clinical.”

  “I’ll be a shade less clinical. I saw stars. Is that good enough?”

  “Four or five?”

  “How many was I allowed to see?”

  “A universe.” He turned her so he could see her face. “Did you see a universe?”

  “I saw infinity.” Her cheeks were still wet. “Joe, please don’t tell me it gets better.”

  “I think eventually I get a little more skilled and you get a little less tender.”

  “It was perfect.” Her gaze ran the length of his body and back to his face. “You’re perfect.”

  “I’m in love.” He framed her face. Her hair fell over his fingers like spun silk. “I’ll always love you, Samantha Whitehurst. And I’ll do everything a man can do to make your life easy and joyful.”

  “Joyful?” The expression in her eyes sparked an answer inside him. “I understand joyful, I think. Better than I did a little while ago.”

  He pulled her close. He couldn’t give her joyful again. Not in the next few minutes, anyway. But he could give her all his love and the promise of joy.

  As he held her, every fear he’d ever had that their life might not be perfect fell away.

  * * *

  SAMANTHA STEPPED OUT of the shower and into her robe. Joe still hadn’t come back from the pond despite the fact that twilight trembled in the air. She doubted he would return until it was completely dark and the fireflies could light his way back home. Then he would find another excuse to avoid her, a project he had to work on, a friend to visit, some unfinished detail at the school that he had suddenly remembered.

  She was tired of pretending right along with him. She was tired of a lot of things, of sleepless nights when Joe lay awake and silent beside her, of lovemaking that was increasingly rare and always unsatisfying, of conversations they couldn’t have and feelings they couldn’t share.

  Of living with a stranger.

  As she had predicted it was dark by the time he returned. She had sliced Rose’s leftover turkey for sandwiches and set out two plates with tiny portions of half a dozen salads. Without a word she handed him one when he came into the kitchen.

  “Would you like something to drink?” he asked.

  “Lemonade would be nice.”

  He poured them both a glass and brought it to the kitchen table. It was large enough to seat a substantial family. Once they had sat beside each other. Now he chose a chair across from her. “It’s cooling off.”

  “About time.”

  They ate in silence. Sam finished first and stood to clear her place.

  “You didn’t eat much,” he said.

  “I guess I had too much earlier. I’m not really hungry.”

  “Would you like to go out tonight? There’s a couple of good movies on.”

  She was surprised at the offer. For a moment she felt like a dog who had just been patted on the head. Joe had noticed her, noticed the fact that she wanted to spend the evening with him, noticed it was their wedding anniversary. She started to say yes, but she found herself saying something else.

  “Is that the best you can do?”

  His expression didn’t change, and he didn’t answer.

  “I asked you a question.” She fought to control her tone, but her anger was obvious.

  “No, you made a statement.” He stood and shoved his plate across the table at her. Then he turned to leave.

  She knew she couldn’t let him go without finishing this. “All right, I did. It’s our wedding anniversary. I want to spend it with you. I want to talk, make love, pretend we have a marriage that still works. I don’t want to sit beside you in a movie theater. I can do that by myself.”

  “Maybe we don’t!”

  “Don’t what?” She shoved the plate back at him. It slid off the edge and shattered against the floor.

  “Don’t have a marriage that works! Maybe I have a wife who nags until I’m sick of it! Maybe I don’t want to spend the night listening to more of the same thing!”

  “You don’t want to spend the night listening to me because you’re so caught up in your own self-pity you can’t listen to anybody but yourself!”

  For a moment she was frightened she had gone too far. His face contorted. She had never seen him so angry. Then as she watched he slowly mastered it. But his eyes were as cold as his words when he spoke. “You don’t have to stay, Sam. You want to leave, leave.”

  He left, and she sank back into her chair. She put her head in her hands and shut her eyes, but nothing could wipe away the image of Joe’s face.

  The contrast with other anniversaries was so radical that visions of them danced in front of her eyes. Joe with the deed to the store and the world’s biggest sheepish grin. Joe with theater tickets for a weekend in New York and a bottle of the best champagne Foxcove had to offer. Joe at a mountain cabin in front of a roaring fire.

  The last memory was the most painful, but it was the one she couldn’t push aside now. In a way it was that night that had led them to this one.

  * * *

  THEY HAD BEEN married a year, one passionate, desperately poor, learning-to-accommodate year. They had married immediately after the afternoon in the room above the grocery store. Neither of them had had the presence of mind to think about birth control, and Joe had used potential pregnancy as an excuse to rush the wedding.

  But they hadn’t really needed excuses. When her period had started two days after their five private minutes with the justice of the peace, neither of them had felt cheated. They had married because they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, because they both knew that there would never be anyone else they loved as much and because they could no longer bear even the shortest separation.

  They had spent the remainder of the summer patching up their relationship with Sam’s parents and forging relationships with Joe’s family in North Carolina. At first Sam had been overwhelmed by the Giovanellis. They had no mercy and no restraint. They poured over her like marinara sauce on spaghetti, poking and prodding and making her theirs in the process. But before long she had fallen in love with them. She saw Joe in all his brothers and sisters, and that was all she needed.

  In the fall Sam transferred for her final credits to a small college near the site of Joe’s temporary teaching job in a North Carolina mill town. Since her parents refused to spend even one further dime on her education, she worked in the county library to pay her own tuition. But despite poverty, classes and homework, housework and the arguments of the newly married, she and Joe were blissfully happy. In May, after an internship at a local elementary school, Sam graduated with honors and a certificate to teach in the state of North Carolina.

  On the afternoon of their first wedding anniversary, Joe packed everything they owned into suitcases as Sam watched, perplexed. Then he loaded her along with the cases into their car. Three hours later the secondhand Mazda climbed its first mountain. An hour after that, in the midst of a spectacular sunset, he stopped in front of an old log cabin.

  “It’s beautiful!” Sam threw herself into Joe’s arms as soon as she could make her way around the side of the car. “But how can we afford it?”

  “It’s free for the summer in exchange for doing some fixing up.”

  “But your summer job! You told me you were going to find another job waiting tables so we could save some money.”

  “I lied.”

  She coul
dn’t believe it. As far as she could see there were only trees, mountain laurel and wild azaleas. There were no other houses in sight. “But what about a job for me? I’m no handyman, Joe. I can’t fix a thing.”

  “You get the summer off.”

  “What?”

  “We both do. I’ll enjoy puttering around here fixing plumbing and putting shingles on the roof. But most of the days will be free.” He cut off her protests. “Look, Sam, we deserve this. We’ve both worked too hard this year. We’ll have next to no expenses here, and with my job all sewed up for next year—”

  “What?” She pushed him away so she could see his face better. His last contract had been for only one year, a substitute for a junior high school social studies teacher who had been on sabbatical. The job had been his third one-year stint. Permanent jobs were hard to come by these days. Joe had assured her repeatedly that he would find another job, but to her knowledge the search had been fruitless. “The guy you replaced isn’t coming back, after all?”

  “No, he’s coming back. We’re moving. To a place called Foxcove. It’s about two hours from the coast and an hour from most of my family. I’m the new assistant principal at the high school there.”

  She stared at him. “Assistant principal?”

  “Francis does some contracting for the school board. When he heard the job had come up he thought of me. They were looking for somebody outside their own system who could be tough and still relate to the kids, and since I’ve had a variety of experiences and I’m twelve hours into my Ph.D. I had all the right academic credentials.”

  “But you’ve only had three years’ experience in the classroom.”

  “I charmed their socks off.”

  She threw herself into his arms. “You did all this without telling me?” She beat on his chest.

  “I flew to Foxcove while you were visiting your parents in the spring. I didn’t want to disappoint you. It was such a long shot.”

  She could only think that they had a real home now. They no longer had to live from job to job, wishing and hoping that Joe would find something permanent. Not only did he have a real job, the pay would surely be high enough to live on.

  “What about me?” She leaned back and searched his face. “What about a job for me?” They had agreed from the beginning that Joe would find a job first, then she would start her search in the same geographical area.

  “There’s all kinds of potential there. But I have another idea.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s go in, and I’ll tell you.”

  They carried a load of suitcases inside. The cabin was two-room-tiny, with a loft for sleeping and a fieldstone fireplace that spread halfway across one wall of substantial chestnut logs.

  Joe started toward the loft. “The owner said he’d leave some food to hold us over. I’ll unpack if you’ll rustle up something for dinner.”

  Her curiosity piqued, Sam searched the kitchen alcove cabinets and refrigerator. As she worked she watched Joe moving back and forth from outside, first with luggage, then with logs. By the time she finished, a fire roared in the fireplace to take the chill off the air, and Joe lay on the rag rug in front of it, propped against an old sofa.

  She joined him carrying a platter of cheese and smoked oysters, crackers and fruit. He took it and set it on the stone hearth. He patted the floor between his legs, and she sank against him. “This is heaven. How did you find it?”

  “I just answered an ad. God helps those...”

  “You’re a remarkable man.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  She fed him oysters and cheese heaped on a cracker while she considered. “You’re energetic and committed.” She laughed when he sucked on her fingertip. “And sexy as hell.”

  “You can forget the rest.”

  “I still can’t believe you found such a terrific job.” She stopped and frowned, turning a little so she could see his face. “What’s the catch?”

  “Oh, ye of little faith.”

  “Joe?”

  His smile died. “It’s a small town, and not terribly progressive. It’s a pretty area, rural and unpolluted, but we’ll have to drive a good distance for any kind of culture.”

  “Mayberry?”

  “A good facsimile.”

  “I’ll love it.”

  She thought she saw relief. “Really?”

  “But why didn’t you consult me?”

  “It’s my job to support you, and this was the best way.”

  She had heard different renditions of this speech in the year of their marriage. Sometimes Joe was an old-fashioned man masquerading in a modern man’s body. He washed dishes and clothes and made a mean ravioli, and she knew when they had children he would share the responsibility. But underneath his genuine belief that they were equals was a niggling corollary that he had to be just a little more so.

  “It is not your job to support me,” she said gently. “It’s your job to love me.”

  “I adore you.” He took her into his arms. “And if you hate Foxcove I’ll quit the job immediately. You know I will.”

  She did know it, just as she knew that she wouldn’t hate Foxcove. She would be there with him, and that was all that mattered. “What was that idea you had about my plans for the next year?”

  He turned her in his arms until she was lying on top of him looking into his eyes. “It’s too late to find a teaching job for this fall. Why don’t you have a baby instead?”

  Her eyes widened. “Joe...”

  “We’ve been married a year. I’m twenty-six. I can support a family now. We’ll have insurance, and we can find a house cheap in Foxcove. If you get pregnant right away—and why shouldn’t you?—you’ll be due sometime in late winter. The baby would be nearly six months old when you started teaching...if you did.”

  “If?”

  “You might want to stay home and have another.”

  “Joe...”

  “Would that be so awful? I know you want to teach, and I want you to. But we need to start our family, too.”

  More and more often her thoughts had drifted in the same direction, although she hadn’t discussed that with him. Some urge as old as time had taken hold of her in the past year.

  “A baby...”

  “Our baby.” He framed her face with his hands. “I love you. We’ve got everything anyone could ask for except that. Our child, Sam. A symbol of our love.”

  She thought of Joe’s child growing inside her. A part of Joe to nurture and cherish. A little boy with Joe’s dark eyes, or a little girl with his devastating smile.

  “You know that diaphragm of yours?”

  She smiled dreamily and said nothing.

  “I didn’t pack it,” he finished.

  “You can’t make these decisions by yourself.”

  “Hey, I know that. We can drive back for it. Or we can forget about making love this summer.”

  “Now there’s an idea.” She stretched up to kiss him. “Will you stay with me while I’m in labor?”

  “No one could tear me away.”

  “And in the delivery room?”

  “I’ll be right there rooting for you.”

  “Do you want a boy or a girl?”

  “Right now I just want you.”

  She put her arms around his neck and brought his lips to hers. She imagined that the glow in his eyes was fierce enough, passionately male enough, to impregnate her.

  “I’m yours, Joe. I’ll have a million babies if you promise you’ll always look at me this way.”

  “One will do for now.” She felt his hand on her breast. And when she was undressed and his lips had replaced his hand, she imagined Joe’s child suckling there.

  * * *

  MIDNIGHT HAD COME and gone
before Joe returned home. Sam heard Killer’s muffled roar, then only the chirping of crickets. She lay stiff and silent in the bed, wondering if he would come upstairs or choose to sleep on the couch.

  Minutes later the bedroom door creaked open, and closed with a muffled click. She heard Joe undressing, heard him go into the bathroom, then heard him return. The bed sagged beside her. She lay very still and very alone, but when she had almost given up hope she felt the length of his legs against hers and his arm draped possessively over her breasts.

  She said nothing, and neither did he. She moved a little closer; he pulled her a little closer. Finally, cocooned in his warmth, she shut her eyes and went to sleep.

  Chapter Five

  COREY HASKINS STOPPED only twice on the long hike down Old Scoggins. The first time she jumped to one side and watched as a pack of cars raced down the road. Dust settled over her as they disappeared, fine red dust that tickled her nose and made it hard to breathe.

  The second time she stopped to rest under a tree shading the wide ditch that ran beside the road. She found a cool spot for the milk carton that she had cradled in her arms on the long trudge from town, then she lay on the grass and shut her eyes.

  She knew that the bird nestling inside the carton didn’t look so good. ’Course, he hadn’t looked too good when she’d put him in the carton, either. Even though she’d put grass and stuff on the bottom.

  And a worm, in case he got hungry.

  Mr. Red—that’s what she called him now—might need water. When she got back up maybe she could get him some from the ditch.

  She was thirsty herself. She guessed she hadn’t had anything to drink all morning. There’d been cereal for breakfast, but there hadn’t been milk to go with it. And her mama had yelled at her and made her go outside before she could stick her head under the faucet for a drink. They didn’t have more than a glass or two, and Mama kept those high because a while ago Corey had dropped one.

  She wished there was a fountain here like the one at school. Once Miss Sam had lifted her up so that she could get a drink from the grown-ups’ fountain because the little kids’ fountain wasn’t working. She remembered the way that had felt, Miss Sam’s arms around her and all. She’d felt like a little baby, but it had felt good, too. Miss Sam always smelled nice, and her hands were soft.