The Grand Finale

Chapter Eight

Berry slumped deeper into the couch and furiously zapped stations with the remote control. “Twelve forty-two,” she muttered, glaring at her watch. The ladies were upstairs, asleep. Everyone was asleep but her and Jake. She’d thought it was cute when he’d had a sudden burst of inventive inspiration during supper and gone charging off down the cellar stairs. It had stopped being cute at about eleven-thirty. Now it was downright infuriating. She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself, knowing that she was being unreasonable. For the past two weeks, Jake had given up all his spare time to work in the Pizza Place. He deserved this night to himself. He was a chemist. An inventor. He needed to work at his profession. But why tonight? How could he leave her alone like this after they’d shared such a beautiful afternoon? It was the first time she’d ever really made love with a man, and her world felt tilted. She’d expected his world would be equally tilted.

“It’s tilted, all right,” she said aloud to herself. “Tilted in the opposite direction from mine. He could hardly wait to get away from me.” She gave herself a shot to the forehead with the heel of her hand. “Ugh, men!”

That was a bunch of garbage, she thought. She was letting all her old insecurities come back to haunt her. She shut the television off and crept up the stairs, telling herself that men simply looked at these things differently. They took life in stride. That was the basic difference between men and women. Women were women. And men were thoughtless beasts! Berry wrenched the bedroom door open and closed it with a thunderous slam. She stripped off her clothes and flung herself into bed, covering her head with the pillow. This is just temporary insanity from too much sex, she groaned. I should have started out slowly. And I certainly shouldn’t have done it the same day I made pudding. It overloaded my system. I’ll feel better tomorrow.

Three hours later Berry thrashed side to side in bed. She squinted at her clock and muttered an oath. She punched the pillow and viciously kicked at the confining tangle of sheets. You were supposed to be relaxed after you made love, she fumed. You were supposed to go to sleep with a smile on your face. What was wrong with her? She’d made love all afternoon. Why wasn’t she tired? Why wasn’t she smiling?

Another three hours later Berry half opened one eye and caught Jake tiptoeing around the room, gathering his clothes. “Jake?”

“Sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep,” he whispered.

“What are you doing? Why don’t you come to bed,” she said.

He stood over her with a tie dangling from his hand and a blue shirt thrown over his shoulder. “I can’t. I have to get to school early today. If I could just find my damn shoes…” He looked under the bed and grunted with satisfaction. “Found them.” A quick kiss on the top of her head and he was gone.

Berry stared at the closed door and sighed. She didn’t want to be an alarmist, but this was beginning to feel a heck of a lot like her marriage. She slipped into a pair of jeans and a soft flannel shirt and went in search of breakfast.

Mrs. Fitz was already at the round oak table, sipping tea. “Holy cow, Lingonberry, you look awful.”

Berry got the coffee brewing. She banged a coffee mug onto the kitchen counter and stared at it.

“Looks to me like you got man problems. What’d that Jake Sawyer do now?” Mrs. Fitz asked.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Uh-oh. That don’t sound good.”

Berry propped herself up on the counter while the coffee dripped into the glass pot. “Boy, love really stinks,” Berry said to the coffeepot more than to Mrs. Fitz.

“Yeah,” Mrs. Fitz agreed, “it can be a bummer.”

“Are you in love with Harry?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell at my age. You don’t know whether it’s love or just the prune juice working.”

Berry poured herself a cup of coffee and set a skillet on the stove. “You like French toast?” she asked Mrs. Fitz.

“Who’s making it?”

“I am.”

“Yeah. I like it.”

Berry cracked three eggs into a shallow dish and whipped them with a fork. “Good,” she said, “because I’m going to make a whole loaf of it.”

It was eleven o’clock at night when Berry finally drove down Ellenburg Drive and solemnly stared at the house. Lights blazed from the downstairs windows and Jake’s car was parked in the driveway. He hadn’t shown up for work at the Pizza Place, and he hadn’t called beyond leaving a short message to say he was busy. Berry parked and made her way through the house to the kitchen where Jake was hunkered over the table. His shirttails were out and his shoes were kicked off.

“What’s going on?” Berry asked.

Jake gestured to the stacks of dog-eared notebooks in front of him. “I’ll never catch up. I didn’t know I had to grade these things.”

“Can’t you grade them tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow I have to grade spelling workbooks.” He thumped his finger on a smudged page he’d been reading. “These kids are really something. They’ve actually been paying attention to me. I taught them to add!”

Berry had to smile at the pride and astonishment in his voice. “Can I help?”

“No. This is something I have to do myself.” He pasted a scratch-and-sniff sticker on the book and moved on to another.

Berry cracked her knuckles and sighed. She emptied the bag of groceries and polished off three butterscotch puddings. “I guess I’ll go to bed,” she said in a conversational tone to the kitchen.

Neither Jake nor the kitchen answered her, so she kissed Jake on the top on his head and dragged herself up the stairs. He’s such a good guy, she thought. He’s trying to be a good teacher. Problem was, it felt a lot like Allen trying to be a good doctor. She’d been understanding with Allen, and she wanted to be understanding with Jake. Unfortunately, she needed some acknowledgment that something special had passed between them. She needed reassurance that Jake loved her. And she didn’t want to have to beg for it.

The next morning Mrs. Fitz looked up at Berry from the breakfast table and shook her head. “Boy, I thought you looked bad yesterday, but this beats all. Your eyes look like tomatoes.”

“I had a hard time getting to sleep.”

“Jake didn’t look so hot, either. He left about an hour ago with his hair standing on end and his tie hanging crooked.”

“He say anything about me?”

“Nope. He just kept mumbling about Joey Barnes and how he was going to flunk math if he didn’t learn how to keep his papers neater.”

Berry took a brand-new store-bought apple pie from the refrigerator, added three scoops of vanilla ice cream, sat down across from Mrs. Fitz, and dug in.

“You can always count on an apple pie,” Berry said.

Berry slammed the front door to the Pizza Place behind her. “That does it. Boy, that really does it,” she shouted, throwing her books onto the counter. She waved a piece of paper at Mrs. Fitz. “Do you know what this is? This is what being in love does to you. Makes you stupid. Makes you fail art history tests.” Berry flapped her arms. “I knew this would happen. I just knew it. There’s not enough room in my head to think about both Jake Sawyer and Vincent van Gogh. Ever since Jake Sawyer popped into my life I’ve been neglecting my studies, and now I’m failing,” she wailed. “I’ve worked so hard for my degree. All down the drain for a few moments of savage passion.”

Mrs. Fitz’s eyes opened wide. “Really? Savage passion?”

“Savage passion. The whole nine yards.” Berry chomped on a bread stick. “And I’m crazy in love with him. Absolutely bonkers.” She drew her eyebrows together. “But I’m not going to be. I’m going to fall out of love this instant. I have finals coming up. If I study hard I might be able to pull my grades up.” She wrapped a white apron around her waist and set her textbook on the counter.

Berry removed the towel from her head, shook out her damp blond curls, and rolled her eyes at the crashing, clanking sounds originating from the kitchen. Jake must have come home while she was in the shower. Only Jake could make that much noise in the kitchen. He was probably looking for dinner, doing his bear-foraging-in-the-woods routine. Mrs. Dugan was still on her cruise, Mrs. Fitz and Miss Gaspich were at the Pizza Place with Harry, and Berry had taken a couple hours off to try to relax after grinding her way through three chapters on Renaissance art.

Jake’s voice carried up to her. “I can never find a damn thing in this house,” he muttered. “Nothing’s ever in the same place twice.” Another volley of clattering accompanied by swearing. “Too many women! All I wanted was a pizza, and look at what I got… four women who can’t agree where the frying pan should go.”

All he wanted was a pizza! That had become painfully obvious during the past week. He hadn’t said more than ten words to her since The Momentous Occasion on Sunday. She stepped into a pair of lacy blue panties and tugged at her jeans, silently swearing that she was never going to bed with another man for as long as she lived. She was a flop in the sack, and she had no intention of humiliating herself ever again. She wrenched the jeans over her hips and zipped them halfway. They wouldn’t zip any further. “Damn!” She stood tall and held her breath and pulled. She had them zipped, but she couldn’t button the top button. A soft roll of flesh hung over the waistband. Berry stared at herself in the mirror. She was fat! She tapped her foot. This was all Jake’s fault, the creep. She’d wanted romance, but she’d had to settle for food, and now she was fat. Berry gave up on the button and shrugged into a T-shirt, gaping in disbelief as it stretched taut across full breasts. Hot damn. She had cleavage. She tipped her head back and gave herself a critical look. Who would have thought getting cleavage would be this easy? Turned out all you had to do was get fat.

Jake appeared in the doorway. “Having problems?”

“My pants don’t fit.” She poked at the roll. “I guess this is butterscotch pudding.”

“I hope this isn’t going to ruin your appetite. I made a great dinner for tonight.”

“You made dinner?”

“Actually, I bought it, but I made the money that paid for it.”

Berry followed Jake downstairs and they stopped at the entrance to the dining room and stared in silent horror.

Berry was the first to speak. “There’s a dog on the table.”

“Dammit, I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“You succeeded.” Berry looked at the empty serving bowl. “Is this bowl supposed to be empty?”

“It’s supposed to be filled with beef Bourguignon. That slob of a dog ate my dinner!”

“And this basket?”

“Used to be rolls in there.”

Berry could hardly keep from laughing. The floppy-eared puppy resembled a furry Buddha, sitting in the middle of the table like a centerpiece. It wagged its tail against the white lace tablecloth. Thump, thump, thump.

“Hard to believe this little dog could eat all that food,” Berry said.

“Are you kidding? Look at that stomach. She looks like a beach ball with legs.”

“She ate everything but the peas.”

Jake picked the dog off the table and stroked her glossy black head. “I thought she was secure in the carrier the pet store gave me.”

Berry bent to retrieve a piece of ragged red cardboard. “You mean this box that’s been chewed to shreds.”

“Maybe we should name her Jaws.” He sat her on the floor and watched her scamper in a small circle. The puppy stopped and squatted.

“Maybe we should call her Puddles.”

He ran his hand through his hair. “Oh, man, look at this mess. The only name for her is Calamity Jane.”

“Haven’t you ever had a puppy before?”

“No. Have you?”

“No.”

“It was part of my plan. You know, floppy-eared dogs running around after a pack of kids.”

“Lord, you don’t have a pack of kids stashed away somewhere, do you?”

Jake grinned. “No. The kids come last. They’re the fun part. We get to make the kids.”

“We?”

“Oh, gross! Your dog just threw up on my foot. This never happens in the movies. You ever see a dog throw up on George Clooney’s foot when he’s trying to be romantic?”

Berry looked at Jake suspiciously. “Why are you trying to be romantic?”

“It’s the weekend. I’m finally caught up with my schoolwork, and I thought we could get reacquainted. It’s been really nice of you to be so understanding,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “You can’t imagine what it’s been like for me to have to sit here grading papers until all hours of the morning. Sometimes I just felt like walking away from it all and climbing into bed with you, but I couldn’t do that to those kids.”

Here’s the thing, Berry thought. I’m going to have to work on trust and patience, and he’s going to have to improve his communication skills, or I’m going to end up looking like a blimp.

“Now that I’m caught up, I wanted to do something special for you,” Jake said. “A romantic dinner for two, some very private dancing, and some very passionate lovemaking.”

“Great,” Berry said. “You go upstairs and wash your foot while I take care of this mess.”

When Berry had the floor completely clean, she tucked the puppy under her arm and carried her to a grassy knoll overlooking the little stream. A week ago everything had been bleak and brown, but April rains and unusually warm weather had prompted grass to grow and trees to bud. Berry stretched flat on her stomach and smiled. Calamity Jane bounded down a grassy slope, yelped in fright when she confronted a dandelion, and raced back. Berry hugged the little dog. “Would you like to know a secret?” she whispered. “I’ve always wanted a little black dog with floppy ears.”

The puppy looked like she might explode with happiness. She furiously wagged her tail and rolled on her back. When she spied Jake coming out of the house she rushed up the hill to greet him.

Jake set a cardboard box on the ground and spread a white linen tablecloth next to it. “The alternate plan for the evening is an exotic, romantic picnic.” He placed two crystal goblets on the tablecloth.

Berry skeptically looked at the bottle in his hand. “Champagne?”

“No. I decided to play it safe and go with sparkling apple cider.” He added two sterling silver candlestick holders with lavender tapers, lavender linen napkins, two white-and-gold china plates, and a silver tray stacked with elaborately decorated petits fours. He plunked a foil-wrapped package on each of the Lenox plates. “Peanut butter and jelly,” he explained. “My specialty.”

“Good. I love peanut butter and jelly.”

Jake lit the candles and leaned back on one elbow to watch the sun settle into the trees. Brilliant shades of orange and pink flamed on the horizon and then gave way to gentle night tones of mauve and shady green as the sun sank lower. A soft breeze played over the hillside. The candles flickered and tiny tree frogs sang evening songs along the wooded banks of the creek.

Berry wiggled her bare toes in the grass. “This is better than beef Bourguignon. This is perfect.” She studied Jake and secretly concluded he was the most perfect of all. His feet were bare, his long legs encased in clean faded jeans. A blue denim shirt casually draped over delicious broad shoulders. His eyes seemed smoky in the half light, hiding his thoughts.

Berry hoped her thoughts were just as well hidden. They were a confusing, painful mixture of hope and despair, love and anger, guilt and pride. Last Sunday she’d been so overwhelmed with love that she’d wanted to merge forever, body and soul, with Jake Sawyer. That had been wrong. You can’t give up your identity and your goals in the name of love, she thought. It placed too heavy a burden on the other person. Successful relationships found a balance. That was the hard part, finding the balance.

The little dog curled up on a corner of the tablecloth and instantly fell asleep. Jake and Berry looked at the slumbering ball of fluff and exchanged smiles warm with parental puppy love. He covered her hand with his, and a ripple of excitement rushed through her stomach.

She’d always imagined a good marriage as being comfortable, and a good sexual relationship as being satisfying. Her relationship with Jake Sawyer had a few comfortable moments, but for the most part it was turmoil. And sex was not satisfying. It was exhausting, explosive, ecstatic, overwhelming. Life was hopelessly complicated, she decided. Just when she thought she had something figured out, it turned upside down.

She blinked in surprise when a raindrop splashed on her nose. Another hit her forehead. “This has got to be the rainiest April ever,” Berry said, helping Jake pack the dishes into the cardboard box. “I still haven’t been able to open my apartment windows. The place smells worse than ever.”

“I can’t say I’m sorry. I like having you in my house.” Jake rolled the puppy up in the tablecloth and handed her to Berry. “You take Calamity Jane.”

They got to the house just as the rain turned heavy. Jake emptied the box on the kitchen counter and used the carton as a bed for the puppy. She half opened big brown eyes, made a muffled baby-dog sound, and went back to sleep.

Jake and Berry tiptoed from the kitchen to the living room, relit the candles, and made a fire in the Franklin stove. Jake plugged a dreamy CD into the stereo system. “Dance?”

Berry moved into the circle of his arms and relaxed against his body, noting how nicely they fit together. Memories of more intimate embraces flooded through her. They knew every square inch of each other. The slope of his hip was imprinted on her palm, the planes of his face embedded in her brain, his hard muscled thigh, the pulse point at the base of his neck. She knew every detail. It was nice to know another human being so thoroughly. It was special. Jake was special, and when she was in his arms like this her world was bliss. She cuddled closer and enjoyed the feel of his hands on her back.

The candle flames wavered in pools of molten wax, and the logs in the wood stove settled into glowing embers with a soft hiss. The stereo system automatically clicked off, but Jake continued to hold Berry in his arms.

Berry reluctantly raised her head from his shoulder and cocked an eyebrow as several car doors slammed in the distance, mingling with the muffled sounds of voices.

Jake looked down at Berry with the same puzzled expression. “Were you expecting company?”

The front door lock tumbled and Mrs. Fitz burst into the foyer, followed by Harry Fee, Miss Gaspich, Bill Kozinski, and a pack of senior citizens.

“You’ll never guess!” Mrs. Fitz gestured at Berry and Jake. “Mildred and Bill went and got married tonight! Isn’t that wonderful?” She hugged Mildred and dabbed at her own red-rimmed eyes. “When they came in to the Pizza Place and told me, I called some friends from the Southside Hotel for Ladies. I thought we should have a party for them. You know, a wedding reception.”

Berry’s mouth went dry. Mildred Gaspich and Bill Kozinski married. How long had they known each other? Two weeks?

Jake’s hand was at Berry’s elbow, moving her forward. “That’s wonderful. Congratulations.” He steered Berry toward Mildred and Bill. “Berry and I are very happy for you.”

“Berry don’t look so happy,” Mrs. Fitz said.

“She’s surprised,” Jake explained.

Berry managed a feeble smile. Pull yourself together! she ordered. You’re supposed to be happy for them. She had a lump in her throat the size of a basketball, and blind panic raced helter-skelter through her brain. Mildred was married. How could she have acted so recklessly? Didn’t she know the statistics on divorce? Why would she rush into a relationship that might fail?

Mrs. Fitz looked up at Jake. “Is it all right to have a party? I guess I should have called first, but I got so excited.”

Jake grinned. “Of course it’s all right to have a party. It’s not every day Mildred gets married to my sister’s father-in-law.” Jake turned to the flustered-looking bridegroom. “Have you called Penny and Frank?”

“Who?”

“Your son. His wife. My sister.” Jake rolled his eyes. “Never mind, I’ll call them.”

An elderly woman with orange hair waved a brown paper sack in the air. “I brought my Sinatra collection. Where’s the stereo?”

A case of beer appeared in the foyer. Two stout ladies staggered under a stack of steaming pizza boxes. “Where should we put these?”

Jake winced as the stereo blared Sinatra. “Good thing I don’t have neighbors.” He took Berry’s hand and led her to the phone. “This hasn’t exactly been the evening I’d planned.”

“You’re being a very good sport about it.”

“I’m trying to impress you with my good-humored flexibility. I’m actually screaming inside. I was leading up to a grand finale.” He dialed his sister’s number and made no attempt to keep the laughter from his voice while he explained the occasion and invited them to the party. He turned back to Berry. “About my grand finale…”

Berry blew out a sigh. “I have to tell you, I was really looking forward to it.”

Jake cracked his knuckles. “Me too. I was working myself up to it.”

“You sound nervous.”

“Scared to death. I’ve never done it before.”

Never done it before? She thought they’d done everything. “This doesn’t involve handcuffs, does it? Or leather stuff?”

Mrs. Fitz bustled past them. “We’re out of ice cubes. Isn’t this some party?”

“Yeah,” Jake said, “some party. Wall-to-wall people. Where’d all these people come from? Do we know any of them?”

Berry self-consciously crossed her arms over her newfound cleavage. “Jake, about this grand finale. I’m sort of a traditional person.”

“Damn, now I’ve made you nervous, too.” His eyes traveled around the crowded house. “If only we could find some nice quiet place we could still do it.”

“Well, ah… no sense being hasty about this. Maybe it would be best if we waited.”

“Aha!” His face lit up. “The bathroom. We can do it in the bathroom.”

Eek, Berry thought. What the heck was he going to do to her in the bathroom?

Jake draped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into the powder room adjacent to the kitchen. He locked the door behind him and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Um, maybe you’d better sit down.”

Berry looked at the only possible seat and cracked her knuckles. “Do I have to sit? I mean, couldn’t we start out standing?”

“Sure. I just thought-this is a little awkward.”

Awkward? This wasn’t awkward. It was insane. The man had flipped. She must have flipped, too. Why else would she have followed him in here?

Jake looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure how to begin.”

Oh, boy, this was going to be another disaster. She could feel it coming. Her mother had lived for fifty-two years without ever losing a mitten, much less a car. Her mother had a sane, orderly life that never included exploding cereal, burning apartments, or being locked in the bathroom with a crazy man. How did it happen that someone who’d inherited those sensible Scandinavian genes could be fated to stumble through life in such an absurd fashion?

“Listen, Jake, it isn’t exactly that I have anything against doing it in the bathroom. After all, it was great in the shower, but this is different. This is sort of strange.”

Jake grinned. “You think I brought you in here to ravish your body?”

“Of course not. That’s ridiculous.” She bit her lip. “Well, yes.”

“Honey, that’s so naughty.”

Berry’s cheeks flamed. “What the devil did you bring me in here for?”

“To propose.”

She closed the lid and sat down with a thud. “Maybe I’ll sit down after all.”

Jake took a small blue velvet box from his pocket and assumed the traditional proposal position of kneeling on one knee. “Berry, will you…”

There was a knock at the door.

“Occupied!” Jake shouted. He popped the ring box open, and a huge diamond twinkled at Berry. “I’d like to take more time with this, but someone wants to use the bathroom.” He quickly slipped the ring on her limp finger. “Will you marry me?”

Berry sat absolutely mute, staring at the ring in dazed disbelief. What if she actually married him? Someday her children would ask how she got engaged, and she’d have to tell them it was while she was sitting on the toilet. Her mother got engaged at a church picnic. Her sister got engaged in a fancy restaurant. Lingonberry Knudsen got engaged on the toilet.

Jake patted her hand. “Too excited to speak?”

Berry opened her mouth, but no words emerged. Her mind was a blank. They hadn’t invented words yet that suited this occasion.

“You feel okay? You’re not going to faint, are you?”

Faint? Faint was the last thing she’d do. She was recovering from the shock, and she was damn mad. She was so mad her skin felt clammy and two bright red spots stained her cheeks. She clenched her fists and pressed her lips together.

Jake took a step backward. “Uh-oh, you’re mad.”

“Yes. No.” She threw her hands into the air. “I don’t know what I am!”

“I had a speech prepared, but some senior citizen has to use the facility.”

This was a special moment for Jake, Berry realized. A fragile moment. And she didn’t want to ruin it. She didn’t want to rain on his parade. Problem was she had this anger. It was just there, bubbling inside her.

“I’m having issues,” Berry said.

“Do you love me?”

“Of course I love you.”

Jake wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “Then everything will work out just fine.”

There was another loud rap at the door.

Jake unlocked the door and ushered Berry past a wiry, gray-haired lady. “Sorry we took so long,” he apologized.

“Merciful heavens,” the woman exclaimed in a sharp intake of breath. She looked disapprovingly at Berry and slammed the door.

Mrs. Fitz suddenly appeared, shaking her finger. “I saw the two of you come out of the bathroom together. What the devil were you doing in there?”

Jake held Berry’s hand up to display the ring. “Getting engaged.”

“That’s wonderful!” Mrs. Fitz said, clasping her hands to her chest.

Berry snatched her hand away. “Actually, we were only talking about getting engaged. I don’t think-”

“Listen up, everyone,” Mrs. Fitz shouted. “Berry and Jake got engaged.”

A pretty brunette extended her hand to Berry. “I’m Jake’s sister Penny. I’m so relieved to see Jake’s finally fallen in love. We thought it’d never happen.” Penny grinned at her older brother. “Everyone in the family’s tried to find a girl for Mr. Picky, here, but nothing doing. Jake always said he’d know when the right one came along, and he wasn’t going to settle.”

Jake slid his arm around Berry. “It’s true. I said that.”

Berry looked at the beautiful ring and felt her stomach turn. Was getting engaged supposed to make a person nauseous?