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~Chapter 15~

The Courage To Be New

(originally posted January 18, 2008)

There was a soft knock and Mrs. Foster’s silvery head appeared through the cracked doorway.  “Mr. Frayne?  Your 10:00 interview is here.”

With a mischievous twinkle in his eye, Jim pressed the button on the intercom that connected him to her desk in the outer office and replied into the speaker, “Thank you, Mrs. Foster.  I’ll be right there.”

She rolled her eyes and gave him a motherly admonishing scowl before returning to her desk.

Jim chuckled under his breath as he picked up the resume on the desk in front of him.  Haralda Peslier.  He hoped he wouldn’t massacre her name too badly when he greeted her.  Her credentials were impressive for one so young.  Born in South America.  Grew up in the United States.  College education in England, majoring in languages, minoring in European history.  Summers in France, Italy, and Spain; fluent in all three languages.  She didn’t have a lot of actual teaching experience due to her age, but she’d be a real find for the school if he could convince her to stay in a backwater town like Indian Lake. 

Jim wondered what had made her apply in the first place.  He loved the location of the school, nestled in the Adirondack Mountains, far from the noisy city life, but how could that sound enticing to a sophisticated woman accustomed to world capital culture?

He glanced out the narrow window that flanked his office door.  She was seated just out of his line of sight, but her insanely long legs were hard to miss.  Even under the stockings, he could tell they were deeply tanned.  Was that from summers spent on the Riviera?  Her skirt was of a modest length, just above the knee perhaps, but riding up her thighs as she sat waiting for him.  She had one leg crossed over the other, and she dangled one expensive-looking shoe perilously on the tips of her toes.  A silver anklet glittered as she performed the balancing act.

Jim stood and buttoned his jacket, straightening his tie as he moved towards the door.  He took a deep breath and opened the door, putting on his best headmaster, interviewing smile.  “Ms. Peslier?” he asked, extending his hand as the beautiful woman rose from her chair.  In her heels, she was nearly as tall as he was and she confidently held his green-eyed gaze with orbs as dark as onyxes.  Her nearly waist-length ebony hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail.  Jim wondered fleetingly if Joey Darnell had sent her.  He resisted the temptation to ask if she played cribbage.  Instead, he commented, “I hope I didn’t slaughter the pronunciation too badly.”

“Not bad, for an American,” she said with a slightly nasal twang as she shook his hand firmly.

Jim raised an eyebrow.  “That doesn’t sound like a European accent.”

Her low, husky laugh was arousing.  “Never did pick it up.  I guess I’m just a Yankee at heart.”

Jim ushered her into his office and shut the door.  “Take a seat, please.”

She sat in one of the high-backed leather chairs in front of Jim’s desk, crossing her ankles and reaching down one long-fingered hand to deposit her briefcase beside the chair.

“So, I guess the first question is, what brings a European transplant back to the United States?  And what brings someone with such a worldly lifestyle to our charming little town?”

“That’s two questions, Mr. Frayne,” she said, dark eyes shining.

“That was a test,” he smiled back.

“Did I pass?”

“Yes, I’m ready to hire you as the mathematics teacher now.”

She laughed again and Jim was startled by his reaction to it.  This was not a very professional way to conduct an interview.  He lowered his eyes to her resume, trying to remember the questions he had mentally prepared for her.  Damn, he wished he had written them down.  Thankfully, she rescued him from his momentary amnesia.

“I have family in New York.  I’m recently divorced and coming home seemed the right thing to do.”

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Not at all.”

He asked a few questions about her education, her teaching experience, her future goals, all the while feeling oddly ill at ease.  He found himself looking intently into her dark eyes more than once.  It was a surreal feeling, almost as if he had known her from another life.  “Is Peslier your married name?”

“Yes.  I’ll be changing it back to my maiden name as soon as the divorce is finalized; though I would use it immediately upon accepting this position, so as not to confuse the boys.”

A half-smile crept across Jim’s face.  She was awfully confident she was going to get the job.  He liked that attitude.  ”How did you happen to come across the Winthrop School, Mrs. Peslier?”

She hesitated, then uncrossed her legs and leaned forward.  Jim saw a glimpse of her tanned cleavage from the top of her silk blouse.  “Mr. Frayne, do my qualifications as a language teacher interest you?”

“Yes, of course,” Jim said uncomfortably.  “You are more than qualified, especially for one so young.  I’m just curious as to why someone with such strong credentials would choose a school like mine and a town like this to settle in.”

She leaned back and said, “It may not look like it at the moment, Mr. Frayne, but I happen to be a very outdoorsy person.  As a girl, I pestered my brothers to teach me how to shoot and fish and ride.  And your little school may not be as time-honored as say, Oxford, but it came highly recommended to me.  You have accomplished what you set out to do, at a very young age yourself.  You should be proud.  Your great-uncle would be.”

Jim was startled.  He drew back in his chair and stared at the exotic young woman silently.

She held his gaze unwaveringly, a small smile on her lips.  “You really don’t recognize me?” she drawled.

Jim’s hand went up to his mouth in surprise.  “My god...Hallie Belden.”

“It hasn’t been all that long, has it?  Have I really changed that much in five years?”

Jim thought back to the lanky tomboy that drove her cousin Trixie to irrational tantrums.  Her long black braids, the braces on her teeth, her raggedy cut-off shorts and tank tops hanging loosely on her angular frame.  Yes, she had changed.  Quite a lot.  He suddenly realized he was staring and dropped his eyes back down to her resume.  After he quickly composed himself, he raised his head and eyebrows in a mischievous query.  “Haralda?”

Hallie made a face.  “Yes, now you know my dirty little secret.  My given name is worse than Trixie’s.”

Jim’s impish smile and sparkling eyes said that he fully agreed.

Hallie affected an offended expression.  “This is where you say, ‘No, no, Hallie.  Of course not.  I think it’s a beautiful and unique name.’”

“I cannot tell a lie, Haralda.  It’s an awful name.  Were the Belden men in competition to see who could inflict more torture on their daughter?  Although with older brothers named Capelton and Knutson, I guess you didn’t even have a fighting chance, did you?”

Her blackberry eyes twinkled a little as she smiled tightly back at him, “You’ll keep my secret, won’t you?  The fewer people who know, the better.”

“Are you telling me your cousins don’t know?”

Hallie snorted.  “After seeing how Mart teased Trixie endlessly about her name?  I’d die before telling them!  And I threatened Cap and Knut sufficiently that they never told.  Having children was too important to them.”

Hallie always was one tough customer.  Her current stylish appearance didn’t change that fact.  Jim put on a look of mock fear as he squeaked in a falsetto tone, “I promise to keep your secret, Miss Belden!”

Hallie chuckled amiably.  Jim was unsettled by how much that laugh turned him on.

“Why did you put your given name on the resume anyway?” he asked.

“I wasn’t sure you if knew my married name or not,” Hallie replied, tensing slightly at her shoulders.  “Mart wanted to pass along his recommendation, but I didn’t want to come in here riding on the family name.  I wanted you to hire me based on my qualifications.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way at Winthrop,” Jim responded, his jaw set stubbornly. 

Hallie smiled gently.  “Honorable Jim Frayne.  I should have remembered.”

Jim’s face softened.  “So, do you want the job, Mrs. Peslier?”

She grimaced a little at the name.  “Yes, if you’ll call me Hallie...or Miss Belden at least.”

“Deal.”  Jim rose from his seat and came around the desk, shaking her hand with great formality.

Hallie breathed a sigh of relief.  “Now that that’s done, I guess I need to find a place to live.”

Jim winced.  “Not a lot of options in Indian Lake, I’m afraid.  You might be looking at a commute.”

“Mart told me he lives here at the school?”

“Yes, and I’ve got plans to build some resident cottages as well.  Unfortunately, the funding came through too late and I don’t think the contractors are going to get much done before the snow starts falling.  I’ve got one room left here, but...” He looked skeptical and apologetic all at once, as he leaned back against the corner of the desk.

“I’m not picky, Jim.”

“It’s really small, Hallie.”  He glanced discreetly at her long legs.

“How small?”

Despite the few brief outbursts of that sexy laugh, Jim could tell she was on edge.  She held her body ramrod straight, in a prim and proper manner that seemed worlds away from the Hallie Belden who had invited the Bob-Whites out to the wilds of Idaho to go camping with her and her brothers.  He felt the need to try and make her relax.  “You’ll have to stand in the hallway if you want to turn around.”

Hallie rolled her eyes and chuckled.  That was a small start.

“If you stretch out on the couch, your feet will hang out the window.”  Jim felt like Henny Youngman.  “Except there’s not room for a couch…or a bed.”

“No couch, no bed.  Where am I supposed to sleep, the bathtub?”

“Nope, no bathtub either,” Jim grinned.

“Is this a room, or a janitor’s closet?”

“Well, answer me this.  How do you feel about sweeping the halls between classes?”

They both laughed that time.  It was easier and more relaxing to laugh with her than to be silently focused on how titillating her laugh was.

“Seriously, Hallie, the room is not suitable for anyone bigger than Tom Thumb.  But come with me, I think I have an idea.”  He straightened up and beckoned Hallie to follow him out of the office.

“Mrs. Foster, this is Hallie Belden.  She’ll be starting next week as our languages teacher.  Hallie, this is Mrs. Foster.  She keeps the wheels greased here at Winthrop.”

“Mrs. Foster,” Hallie greeted, extending her hand to the older woman.

“Miss Belden.  Any relation to Mart?”

“He’s my cousin.”

“Well, welcome to Winthrop, Miss Belden.”

“Mrs. Foster, if you’ll start Miss Belden’s paperwork, I’m going to show her the room upstairs where she’ll be staying.”  As Jim turned towards the door, he winked conspiratorially at Hallie.

“She’s not going to stay there?” Mrs. Foster asked, not trying to hide her shock.

Jim turned back to the secretary with a puzzled look on his face.  “Well, yes.  It’s the only room we have available at the moment.  The cottages won’t be ready until sometime next spring.”

“This lovely lady cannot possibly stay in that telephone booth!  She’d have to go outside to change her mind!”

Ooh, good one, Mrs. Foster!  “Well, what would you suggest?”

The kindly matron hesitated for a moment, appraising Hallie.  She was Mart’s cousin and Mart was a stand-up young man.  Plus, Sally Drake loved Mart and the Drakes were the salt of the earth.  Jim obviously liked and respected her too.  “She can stay at my place.”

Hallie looked stunned.  “Mrs. Foster, I couldn’t possibly –“

Briskly, Mrs. Foster continued, “My husband and I have an apartment over our garage.  Our eldest grandson was living there until recently.  It needs some work, but if you want to do it yourself, I’ll take anything you spend out of your rent.  The living room is pretty big.  Bedroom, bathroom, kitchen are small, but serviceable.  It’s a ten-minute drive from the school.  No loud music, no late night parties.”  She hesitated, then added with a motherly smile, “Come over for supper Sundays after church any time you want.”

Hallie just stared for a moment, surprised at the woman’s generosity, until Jim nudged her gently from behind.  “Thank you, Mrs. Foster,” she blurted.  “I accept.”

“Well, now that that’s taken care of, I think I’ll show Hallie around the school,” Jim said with a pleased expression on his face.  It wasn’t often that anyone got the better of Mrs. Foster, even less often that he did.

He escorted Hallie out of the office and gave her the tour of the first floor.  When they had finished, he checked his watch and said, “Mart should be back from his morning classes by now.  Want to have a little fun with me?”  His broad grin and twinkling green eyes were hard to resist.

“Torment my dear cousin?  I’d never pass up a chance at that,” Hallie snickered.

Jim and Hallie proceeded up to the second floor and down to the end of the wing where Mart’s room was.  Jim paused outside his room and motioned to Hallie to stand next to the wall, out of sight, before knocking on the door.

When Mart opened the door, Jim leaned wearily against the doorjamb, so as to further block Mart’s line of sight.  He gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes and sighed, “Hey, Mart.  What’s up?”

“Just got back from school.  You look like you’ve had a day.”

“Yeah,” Jim replied, looking harried.  “I just had the interview from hell.”

“Really?” Mart squeaked.

Hallie put her hand over her mouth to smother a giggle.  She wished she could see Mart’s face just then.

“Yeah.  Her resume said she spoke three languages.  Unfortunately, English wasn’t one of them!”

“She didn’t speak English?”  Mart sounded a little befuddled.

“Oh yeah, sure.  If you don’t mind a twang so thick it would make Huck Finn sound like Prince Charles!”  Jim ignored Hallie’s perfectly manicured nails flicking peevishly against the back of his arm.  “And what’s worse, that twang carried over into her foreign language skills as well.  And I use the word ‘skills’ lightly, mind you.  Nothing like hearing a redneck intoning ‘Parlee voose Fran Say!’  Good grief!”  Jim put a hand to his head for effect, as if he had a migraine just thinking about the interview.

“H-how did she hear about the school?” Mart asked hesitantly.

“Oh, she said one of the staff recommended her, but she didn’t say who.  Trust me, as soon as I find out, they’re gonna get an earful!”  Jim quite enjoyed the way Mart’s face turned noticeably green as he let his red-haired temper flare.

Hallie was trying hard to hold her laughter at bay.  She impulsively reached a hand out and clutched the back of Jim’s jacket to let him know she had almost reached her limits.  But Jim wasn’t quite done with the fair-haired Belden yet.

He leaned forward and hissed at Mart, “I think she was hitting on me too!”

“W-what?”

“Yeah, she kept making these weird eyes at me when she’d say something in French or Italian.  I don’t know my foreign languages very well, but I’m pretty sure ‘Voulez vous couchez avec moi’ is dirty.”

Jim shrugged.  “I suppose if I was set on not hiring her, I could have at least taken her up on that and made my morning worthwhile.”

“What!” Mart yelped.

“Hey, she was hot, Mart.  I mean, she was smokin’!”

Mart looked like he was about ready to explode.  Hallie did.  As her sexy laughter pealed forth, Jim grinned widely and stepped aside so Mart could poke his head into the hallway.  When he saw his cousin, his mouth gaped wide in surprise.  “Hallie!  You Euro trash hussy!”  He pulled her into a huge bear hug.  “What are you doing hitting on this loser?”

“Trying to get a job,” Hallie laughed, kissing Mart on the cheek.

“Hey!” Mart said, wiping his cheek in a boyish manner, the same way he did when Aunt Alicia kissed him.  “I thought you didn’t like the kissy-kissy stuff.”

Hallie waggled her eyebrows up and down.  “That was before I moved to Europe.  Way too many handsome Italians not to take up that custom.”

Mart leaned forward and said in a stage whisper, “If you tried it on Jim, I bet he’d give you a job.”

Jim scowled at him and Hallie laughed dryly.  “Thankfully, it didn’t come to that.  Apparently, I have a spectacular resume and he hired me on the spot.”

Mart smiled and hugged her again.  “That’s awesome, Hallie!  You’re really gonna class up this joint.”

“Gee thanks, Mart,” Jim snorted.  “And to think I was just about to offer to buy you lunch.  I already gave Hallie the tour and I thought I’d take her to Wally’s for lunch.  You and Sally want to join us?”

“Can’t,” Mart answered with a grimace.  “Sally is taking me shopping.”

Jim made a face.  “Sorry about that, man.  What for?”

“She apparently thinks my wardrobe is not suitable for the wedding.”  Mart looked down in mock confusion.  He had on old jeans that were one size too big and a bit raggedy at the cuffs and a faded sweatshirt with the faint remains of more than one food stain.

“Who’s getting married?” Hallie asked quietly.

“Sally’s brother, Shawn.  The wedding isn’t until October, but Sally has convinced herself that I will be impossible to shop for, so she wants a head start.  School starts here next week, so this might be our last chance to get away.  She has promised to buy my lunch though, so I can’t complain…too much.”  He glanced at his watch.  “In fact, I’ve got to beat it if I don’t want to be late picking her up.  How about dinner tonight?  I definitely need to introduce her to my cousin before she finds out some ravishing beauty has been smearing lipstick on my cheek and gets jealous.”

Hallie rolled her eyes at him, but smiled happily at his flattery.  “Same old Mart.  Food and romance.”

“What more doth a man require?” he grinned.  “I’ll call you when we get back, Jim.”

Mart made a quick exit down the hallway towards the stairs, while Jim and Hallie followed at a more leisurely pace.  Jim gave her a brief tour of the gymnasium, stable, and boys’ dorm, then escorted her to his truck and handed her inside.  They headed towards Indian Lake proper, catching up on the family news and remembering summers in Sleepyside.

When they walked in the door at Wally’s, they were greeted enthusiastically by Wally himself, who showed them to a table and handed Hallie a menu before hurrying off to greet another customer.

“You don’t get a menu?” Hallie asked with a smile.

Jim chuckled.  “I get the same thing every time.”

“Wow,” Hallie mumbled, “A town small enough that they know all the neighbors and their ‘usual order’.  That will take some getting used to.”

“Where you grew up in Idaho wasn’t a small town?”

“Well, it wasn’t actually big enough to even be labeled a town,” Hallie replied.  “I mean, no restaurants, hardly any neighbors.  There’s a big difference between knowing everything about your neighbors and not even having any neighbors.  There’s really not much to write home about Idaho, except potatoes and militant activists standing off against the ATF.”

“Well, that’s not the impression I got that summer we came out there,” Jim pointed out.

Hallie waved a hand at him in a scoffing manner.  “Idaho wilderness is totally different.  Anything uncivilized there is fabulous…except the militant activists, of course,” she grinned.

With a shrug, she added, “I’ve just been in Europe too long.  Not the rustic Tuscan countryside either – Paris, Rome, London.  This will just take some getting used to.”

“I’ll bet you’re used to it in nothing flat, Hallie.  It’s very relaxing, and frankly –” Jim paused, not wanting to be too pushy. 

“Yes?” Hallie urged him.

“Frankly, you look like you could stand some relaxing.”  As Hallie narrowed her eyes at him, Jim shrugged and continued, “I work with troubled kids, Hallie.  I think I know when somebody’s putting on an act.”

Ignoring his insinuation, Hallie mumbled, “I can’t believe I’m getting pointers on relaxing from Mr. Stick Up His Butt himself.”  Her black eyes sparked as they held Jim’s steely green gaze for a moment and then they both burst out into laughter.

“Point taken,” Jim conceded.  “But I can tell you from experience that the atmosphere here in Indian Lake will change you for the better.”

“Really?  You’ve been here for how long?  Coming on four years?  You didn’t even loosen your tie when we left the school, Jim.”

Jim groped at his neck self-consciously, then smoothed his tie down neatly into his buttoned jacket.  “I happen to like ties.”

As Hallie lowered her eyes to her menu, Jim distinctly heard her mumble, “Freak.”

He was about to retort when a familiar voice gave him the eerie sensation of deja vu.  “Well hi, stranger.  Haven’t seen you here in awhile.”

“Renee!” Jim gasped, looking up in surprise at the mocha-eyed waitress.  “What are you doing here?”

“Well, my father still owns the place, Jim,” Renee teased, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she glanced over curiously at the striking woman seated with her one-time date.

Jim flushed.  “I mean, I thought you were in Rochester.”

Renee shrugged and lowered her eyes, suddenly very interested in her notepad and pencil.  “I got homesick.  Guess the big city just wasn’t for me, after all.  I got a nursing position at the hospital in Speculator, but I’m still working here for Dad when he needs me.  This weekend will be the last of the summer vacationers, so it’s bound to be busy.”

Hallie thrust out a hand her way.  “Hi, I’m Hallie Belden.”

Jim looked embarrassed.  “I’m sorry.  Hallie, this is Renee Wallace.  Her dad owns Wally’s.  Renee, this is Hallie Belden.  She’ll be teaching at Winthrop this year.”

“Nice to meet you,” Renee said with a warm smile as she shook Hallie’s hand.  “Are you related to Mart Belden?”

“Yes.  He’s my cousin.  Do you know him?”

Jim chuckled.  “Hallie, it’s a restaurant.  They all know Mart here.”

Renee laughed.  “My father is thinking of naming a sandwich after him.”

Hallie groaned.  “I’ve seen Mart make sandwiches.  I shudder to think what would be in it.”  She looked down at her menu.  “What do you recommend?”

“Everything is great here.  Jim always gets the tuna melt...with fries instead of chips if he’s nice to me.”  She winked at the redhead.  He was still unbearably handsome.

“Well, I’ll have the B.L.T.  And chips are fine,” Hallie decided.

“Nonsense.  You get fries too.  Jim will just have to be twice as nice to me.”  She picked up Hallie’s menu, but she was smiling at Jim as she did so.  “Iced tea?”

Jim nodded, his face not quite as red as his hair.

“What about you, Hallie?”

“Diet Coke, please.”

“I’ll be back in a minute with your drinks.”  And with a final smile for them both, she turned and left.

Jim wished he had a menu to hide behind.  He looked down at his napkin and fiddled with his silverware, but he could feel Hallie’s blackberry eyes boring into the top of his head.  Finally, he looked up.  “What?”

“What’s the story?”

“There is no story.  It’s a small town.  People are friendly here.”

“Bull.  Are you going to tell me the story, or should I conjure up some headmaster/naughty nurse scenario?”

Jim shot her a withering glance.  “There really is no story, Hallie.  We went out on one date, back in January.  It didn’t go well.  We’re just friends.”

“All right,” Hallie shrugged.  “But it seems to me that somebody might like to try a second date.”

“I told you, Hallie.  She’s just being friendly; it’s part of her job.”

“I was talking about you, Jim,” Hallie said firmly.

Jim rolled his eyes in annoyance and mumbled under his breath, “How many smart-mouth women do I need trying to run my love life?”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.  Pass the ketchup.”

Hallie picked it up and handed it to him, very interested in what he was planning on doing with it, as no food had yet arrived.  Jim stared at the red squeeze bottle for several seconds until he heard a smothered choking from across the table.  He raised his eyes to see Hallie vainly trying to hold in a laugh.  He grinned wryly and joined her as her deep, throaty laugh filled the diner.
 

*******************************************

Dan was slumped on the couch, Coke can in hand, aimlessly flipping channels, when the front door came swinging quickly towards him.

With her typical burst of energy that would have left a whole squad of cheerleaders envious, Trixie bounded through the door, flung her purse in the direction of the couch, just missing Dan’s head, and went tearing up the steps directly to her left.  “Dan!” she yelled excitedly as she went.

Dan opened his mouth to answer her, then stopped himself and slowly took a swig of Coke instead.  He stared up at the ceiling and listened to her feet racing from the bathroom to the bedroom and then into the spare room they used as a den, calling his name.  In another minute, she was barreling down the stairs, taking the sharp hairpin turn that would lead her to the back of the duplex.  Spotting Dan out of the corner of her eye, she skidded to a stop and turned to him.  Freckled face flushed with exertion, she exclaimed, “There you are!  Didn’t you hear me calling?  Why didn’t you answer me?”

“Yes, I heard you,” Dan said calmly, “but this was more entertaining.”

“Brat,” Trixie chided, flopping down on the couch and falling back into the crook of his arm.

“So, what’s so important that you were racing frantically through the house looking for me?”

“Oh!  I almost forgot.  I got an email from Jim while I was at work.”  Trixie paused dramatically and turned to look at Dan with a gleam in her eyes, “Guess who he just hired at the school?”

Dan crinkled his brow and raised the remote up, tapping it against his temple.  Then his eyes lit up and he shouted, “Your cousin, Hallie!”

“That’s right!  And guess what –?”  Trixie looked into his mischievous eyes.  “How did you know?”

“Mart called me this afternoon.”

“He did?  Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Babe, I haven’t even seen you today until just now.  You left for work this morning before I got home.”

After Trixie had impulsively taken the risk not to sign up for classes that semester, in hopes of being accepted into the U.S. Treasury Department’s program, she had begun working full-time at the law office.  She would begin the 11-week government program in Georgia at the beginning of October and was trying to earn as much extra money as possible before then so that she and Dan would be able to fly back and forth and visit each other during her absence.

“Wait a minute.  Mart called you this afternoon?  What is up with him anyway?”  She flung herself backwards into Dan’s chest indignantly, the curls on the back of her head tickling Dan’s nose.  “First, he doesn’t tell me about Sally until three months after they started dating and now this?  He never kept secrets from me before.  Do you think there’s something wrong with him?”

“Well, that’s certainly up for debate,” Dan snorted.  “But, in case you have forgotten, you’re keeping at least one pretty important little secret from him too.”  He waggled his left hand in front of her face, causing his wedding band to shine in the late afternoon sun.

Trixie grabbed his hand and brought it to her mouth for a kiss.  “This is true.  But he doesn’t know I’m keeping a secret from him, so why is he keeping secrets from me?”

“Well, with Sally, I do believe he met her during your...what did you call it?  Semester from hell?  He called me countless times asking what was wrong with you and why you never returned his phone calls.”

Trixie put her hands over her eyes and groaned, remembering the agony of those few months, and not just with school either.  “Argh!  That period of time that was never to be spoken of again!  All right, I’ll give him that.  But what’s his excuse this time?  Hallie is my cousin too and I’m not having the semester from hell or any other blazing location and –”

Dan gently interrupted her, “I think I can solve that mystery too, Trix.  Why did you come charging home like General Pickett instead of just calling me and telling me?”

“Because my phone is – oh,” Trixie finished, red with embarrassment.

Dan chuckled as he took another swig of his soda and watched Trixie fish the lifeless cell phone out of her purse.

“I’d better go charge it up right now.”  She moved to get off the couch, but Dan hooked a finger into the back belt loop on her slacks and pulled her back, running a trail of kisses up her arm until she turned and brought her lips to his.

“What else?” Dan mumbled against her lips.

“What else, what?” Trixie asked with a contented sigh.

“I said, ‘Your cousin, Hallie.’  You said, ‘That’s right and guess what –’ and then you stopped.  So what else?”

“Oh!” Trixie shouted, pulling back from Dan’s lips.  “Jim wants to know if you and I want to come up there over the holiday weekend for a visit.  Sort of a family welcoming committee for Hallie.  You’re not working this weekend, right?  Do you want to go?”

“Sure, if you want to,” Dan said with a shrug.  “I thought you and Hallie didn’t get along?”

Trixie sniffed, snitching Dan’s Coke and taking a quick swallow before answering.  “That was years ago…kid stuff.  I just wanted to make sure you weren’t going to be uncomfortable before I told Jim yes.”

“Why would I be uncomfortable?” Dan asked, taking a sip from his reclaimed Coke can.

“I don’t know.  Won’t seeing your ex-girlfriend again feel weird?”

Dan nearly spit out his mouthful of Coke.  “My ex- what?”

“She came to Sleepyside three summers in a row to visit.  I thought you two had a thing?”

“Umm…no!  She was cute, but we were just friends.  You can’t very well carry on a relationship from all the way across the country.  Besides, the first – and only – time we kissed, it was like…” he made a face.

“Kissing your sister?”

“Well, I don’t have a point of reference on that, but if that’s what it’s like…” Dan grimaced.

Trixie giggled.  “Neither do I.  Neither does Hallie for that matter.  I guess we’ll have to ask Mart.”

“You and Mart have kissed?  On the lips?  Do I even want to know the circumstances?”

“It was for a school play when we were…eight and nine, I think.  Except that I remember punching him in the stomach when he did it, because I specifically told him cheek only.”

“So why did he kiss you on the lips, then?”

“I don’t know,” Trixie said, rolling her eyes.  “Something about being caught up in the moment of the play.  He’s such a drama queen.”

“Good grief, what have I married into?” Dan mumbled as he tweaked Trixie’s cheek.

“So, if you want to go, I’ll call Jim and let him know.”  Trixie put her phone to her ear, waited a moment, then growled as Dan grinned playfully at her.  “Can I use your phone?”

“Not until you go plug yours in.  You’ve been distracted one too many times on that mission.”

“Can I help it that you are extremely distracting, Danny?”  She kissed him again, running her hands down his muscular arms until their fingers were intertwined.  Finally, she broke away reluctantly.

“Maybe I should be grateful Mart and I seem to have drifted away from that almost-twin thing,” Trixie said as she rose from the couch.  “Maybe he won’t catch on to this colossal secret you and I are carrying around.”

She turned to look at Dan.  They had been married for almost a week now and Trixie still couldn’t get over how completely giddy with happiness she was.  Nor could she get over the delicious way they had decided to keep their impromptu marriage a secret until the formal ceremony scheduled for the following summer.  I guess I love see-cruds even more than Bobby does, she thought with a faraway smile.

Dan looked up into her daydreaming eyes and grinned.  He took her left hand and made a show of carefully inspecting the rings on her finger.

“What are you doing?”

“You seem awfully scatter-brained today, Trix.  I just want to be sure you’re not getting any oxygen cut off or anything.  So, I’m making sure these rings aren’t on too tight; after all, you’ll have to get the wedding band off before we head up to Indian Lake Friday.”

Trixie yanked her hand from his with a giggle.  “You’re a funny man…gan,” she joked.

Dan’s face contorted into an exaggerated voiceless laugh as he slapped his knee in mocking jest.  Trixie merely rolled her eyes and went upstairs to set her cell phone to recharging again.
 

*******************************************

Jim squeezed the brakes lightly as he coasted down the hill towards the Fosters’ house.  He had told Hallie he’d be out biking this morning if she wanted to have breakfast with him, but there were no lights on in the apartment above the garage, so he pedaled on to Wally’s.

When they had returned to Winthrop after lunch the day before, Jim had suggested they wait for Mart and Sally to return from shopping and then all four of them would be able to make short work of moving her belongings into her new place.

Hallie had simply pointed out her small car in the parking lot, the backseat piled with boxes, and said, “That’s all I have, Jim.  I don’t think we’ll need four people for that.”

She had tried to explain it away with mumbled sentences about moving overseas and across the country and not getting sentimental about furniture, but Jim again sensed there was more than she was telling him.  He didn’t press her though, simply insisting she take at least a spare bed from the school to get her started.

Jim dismounted his bike in front of Wally’s and leaned it against the side wall; there was certainly no need to chain lock his bike in this town.  Entering the front door, he saw Renee taking an order near the back of the diner.  She smiled at him as he waved.

As Jim slid into an empty booth, he felt the first vibrations of his cell phone.  Quickly, he picked it up before it could begin ringing.  It was Joey Darnell.

“Good morning, Counselor.  What are you doing up so early?  I thought this was hangover recovery time.”

“Not during the week, jackass.  What kind of lush do you think I am?  I’m on my way to class.”

Jim chuckled.  “So why are you calling me at this hour?”

“Well, I knew you’d be up, and in case you have forgotten, Labor Day is just around the corner.  That means summer is over and you owe me a report.”

Jim groaned and leaned his forehead down into his free hand, squeezing his temples tightly.  “I’ve been really busy the last few weeks, Joey.”

“Busy getting laid?”

“Busy getting ready for the new school year.  Man, have you got your mind in the gutter!”

“Have you forgotten your promise?”

“I don’t recall that that promise said anything about me getting...” he looked discreetly around the small diner from underneath his fingers before whispering, “...laid.  I simply said I’d start looking for a date.”

“And?”

Renee came up to the table, coffee pot in hand.  “You look like you really need this this morning,” she grinned.  “You here for breakfast too?”  As Jim looked up at her, she realized he was on the phone and looked chagrined.  “I’m sorry, Jim.  I didn’t know you were on the phone.”

“Who’s that?” Joey asked.

Jim waved off Renee’s apology with a soft smile and shake of his head.  “Just coffee right now, please.  Let me think about breakfast for a minute.”

She filled his cup and wandered off.

“Who’s that?” Joey repeated.

“The waitress, Joey.  I’m at Wally’s.”

“The waitress?  She sounded pretty.”

“You could tell what she looked like by the sound of her asking me if I wanted coffee?”

“Just trying to make something happen, Jimmy.  Anything!”

Jim felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Hallie smiling somewhat tiredly at him.  She slid into the other side of the booth.  This is not happening to me, Jim groaned inwardly.

Renee came up and handed Hallie a menu and filled her cup with coffee.  “Thank you, Renee.”

Joey heard Hallie’s voice and snapped out, “Renee?  Renee from January?”

Jim pressed the receiver tightly to his ear, hoping Hallie and Renee couldn’t hear Joey as well as she could hear them.  He knew he wasn’t going to be able to get out of this, so he answered shortly, “Yes.”

“She’s in Indian Lake?  And who was that talking to her?  That sounded like a woman too.  Is she sitting near you?  Is she pretty?”

“Joey, I can’t do this right now.  Can I call you back?”

“Fine, but if I don’t get every single detail, I’m going to have to call Mart and sic him on you.”

“Like you even know his phone number.”

“Oh, don’t I?”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Ask one of them out, or I’m calling Mar–” 

Jim snapped the phone shut and dropped it on the table.  “Morning, Hallie.  I was going to stop by, but I didn’t see the lights on.  I figured you were still sleeping.”

Hallie yawned, stirring a creamer into her coffee cup.  “I’ve been up.  I went out walking.  Who was on the phone?”

“Joey Darnell.  You know her?”

“I don’t think so.  Name sounds vaguely familiar.”

“Joanne actually.  Honey and Trixie and I met her and her family that same summer we all met.  They live upstate.   She’s in pre-law at the University of Michigan.”

“Are you and she...?” Hallie asked, eyebrows perked up in interest.

Jim made a face at her.  “She’s like a little sister, Hallie; a very meddlesome little sister.”

“So you are available to ask Renee out, then?”

Why?  Why me?  Jim thought, trying to keep his face stoic in front of Hallie.  As he tried to come up with a suitable retort, he heard the bell over the front door jingling behind him.  Great, it’s probably Rain.  No, wait.  Check that.  Too many animal by-products in here for her liking.  And of course, Sindi Withaness wouldn’t be caught dead in a roadside diner.  That only leaves...

“Morning, Natalie.”

“Hi, Renee.  Does Martha have those donuts ready for the department?”

Shoot me.  Shoot me now, Jim groaned to himself.  The only comfort he had at the moment was that Natalie actually could shoot him...if properly provoked.  Hallie was staring at him, presumably waiting for an answer to her question.  Jim couldn’t remember what the question was.  He stood, hoping Natalie wouldn’t see him and Hallie wouldn’t notice his desire to run screaming from the room.  Speaking rapidly, he told her, “I’m going to go wash my hands.  Tell Renee I’ll have my usual for breakfast.  Stop being an interloper.”

“If you want, I can slip her a note in the hallway before gym class asking her if she likes you, or if she likes you-likes you.”

Jim hastily stalked off to the bathroom, not even bothering to reply as Hallie chuckled under her breath.  She watched him go, admiring the way his biking shorts fit tightly across his muscular frame, then turned back to the table as an odd noise registered in her ear.

Jim’s phone was vibrating across the table towards her.  Curiously, she looked over at the display.  “Joey D.”  She hesitated for a moment, but as the first notes of the ringtone sang out, she made a quick decision, picking up the phone and flipping it open.  “Jim Frayne’s phone.”

“Who is this?” came Joey’s surprised voice.

“Hallie Belden.  Jim just left to use the restroom.”

“Hallie Belden?  Mart and Trixie’s cousin?”

“One and the same,” Hallie drawled.

“Did Jim just ask you out?”

Hallie’s eyes popped wide.  “Did he what?”

“Okay, I don’t really have time for this.  No matter how obsessively Jim is washing his hands right now, he’ll be back too soon for me to explain the whole thing.  Keeping on his ass about this from 600 miles away is not easy.”

“Keeping on his ass about what?”  Hallie was starting to understand how Joey and Trixie and Honey had become friends.  None of them made a lot of sense when they were excited.

“Okay, long story short.  I gave Jim strict orders about six weeks ago to get his head out of his butt and get back into the dating game, preferably with someone who wasn’t a total freak.  I suggested Renee, but he told me she moved to Rochester.  I can’t believe he lied to me!”

“He didn’t,” Hallie interrupted.  “She just moved back.”

Joey didn’t even pause for breath, “Okay, so he should ask her out.  Unless you want to go out with him?  One way or the other, he’s asking one of you out this weekend, or so help me, I’ll –“

“Why are you on my phone?”

Hallie looked up as Jim towered over her for a moment before sliding back into the booth across from her.

“Shit!  That’s Jim, isn’t it?  I gotta go,” Joey mumbled and hung up.

Hallie shrugged.  “It was ringing.  I thought I was sending it to voicemail, but I guess I hit the wrong button.”  She handed the phone back to Jim, trying not to look guilty.

“Who was it?”

“Umm...wrong number.”

Jim was about to open his phone to check the number when Renee came up to take their order.

Saved by the bell, Hallie thought.  Jim got his usual and Hallie asked for the same, too distracted to make an actual decision on breakfast.  Did Joey seriously think Jim was going to ask her out?  They hadn’t seen each other in five years, she was his ex-girlfriend’s cousin, she was recently divorced, and Jim had just hired her to teach at his school.  Sounds like a recipe for disaster, if you ask me, Hallie mused.  And I’m just not up to dealing with any more disasters in my life right now.  She decided she’d better focus on getting Jim to ask Renee out instead.
 

*******************************************

“I really appreciate you helping me out like this, Sally,” Hallie said gratefully as the women stood in her new apartment the next evening, painting the walls.

Her tone was so earnest that it was difficult for Sally not to be taken aback.  She had lived in this small town nearly all her life.  This is what people did for their neighbors; never mind that she was also a co-worker and Mart’s cousin.  “I’m glad to help, Hallie.  You’re family.”  She noted the dark eyes misting over and quickly added, “Besides, if you had Mart helping you, the job would never get done.”

The threatened tears quickly disappeared as Hallie laughed out loud.  “How many times would we have to stop for a snack break?”

“Exactly,” Sally affirmed with a grin, pointing her brush at Hallie for emphasis.

The women worked in companionable silence for several minutes, the soothing strains of Debussy floating through the room from the small CD player on the kitchen counter.  From time to time, Sally snuck a glance over at the tall, exotic-looking woman beside her.  She wondered what made her look so sad.  She certainly was not as Mart had described her.  Mart had called her a spitfire with a smart mouth and a wicked sense of humor.  Sally hadn’t seen that side of her as yet, and even Mart said he had seen only glimpses of the sassy tomboy who used to visit Sleepyside every summer.  She was 20 years old and divorced and she looked like she had lived a hundred lifetimes already.

Sally stepped back to review her work.  “It’s amazing what one coat of paint can do for a place, isn’t it?  It already looks totally different in here.”

Hallie sighed and nodded, her soft smile not quite reaching her eyes.  “I don’t think it’ll need much else, except maybe a carpet cleaning.”

“Just those little touches that make a place a home,” Sally agreed.

Hallie snorted cynically as she looked around the bare living room.  “Yeah, like furniture.”  She bent down to dip her roller back in the paint pan, and missed Sally’s dark blue eyes twinkling slyly at her.

“You know, there is one bad thing about the two of us hanging out together,” Sally said, changing the subject.

Hallie looked over at her with raised eyebrows.

“Hallie. Sally.  Mart’s been amusing himself with that since you arrived.  ‘Sally my gally.  Hallie my pally.’  Nonsense like that.”

Hallie laughed a little under her breath, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face and leaving it tinted slightly Gambol Gold from the wet paint on her fingers.  “Please tell me the poet laureate of Indian Lake isn’t composing sonnets about us.”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call them sonnets.  This morning he referred to us as Heckle and Jeckle.”

“Great.  Which one am I?”

“I don’t know.  Which one had the British accent?”

“I don’t have a British accent.”

“No, but after three years in Europe you can probably do one better than I can.”

The two women grinned at each other, Sally wishing she could find a way to make those black eyes sparkle with happiness to match her pretty smile.

“Have you ever been to Europe?” Hallie asked.

“No,” Sally sighed wistfully.  “Someday.  My great-grandparents met in France during World War I.  I’d love to go see the little chapel where they got married and began their fairy tale life.”  She instantly regretted her blithe comment, seeing how the words made Hallie’s smile slip slowly off her face. 

With a heavy sigh, Hallie picked up her paint pan and took it over to the kitchen sink to rinse it out and clean her roller.  Joining her, Sally dropped her brush into the sink and leaned back against the counter to study her cousin-to-be.  “Hallie, if I ever step over the line, you just say so.  But if you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

Hallie smiled gratefully at her.  She looked like perhaps she might say something, but an awkward, thudding knock at the front door stopped her.  “What on earth?”

She moved to the door and opened it to find Mart and Jim standing on the narrow porch, precariously balancing a large sofa in their arms.  She stood staring at them in wide-eyed surprise until Mart gasped, “For god’s sake woman, move out of the way before I drop it down the stairs!”

Hallie quickly stepped aside and let Mart and Jim carry the overstuffed brown sofa into the living room.

“Don’t put it near the walls!” Sally warned.  “They’re still wet.”

“Where should we put it then?” Jim asked, straining to hold his end up, though not in nearly so exaggerated a manner as Mart was.

Hallie obviously took too long to make her decision, because Mart suddenly dropped his end in the middle of the living room floor with a heavy crash.

“Wonderful, Mart.  Put a hole in her floor, why don’t you?” Sally chastised.

Jim eased his end down and Mart flopped wearily onto the cushions.

“What is this?” Hallie asked hesitantly.

“It’s a sofa,” Mart gasped, earning a smack in the head from his girlfriend.  “An extremely heavy, sleeper sofa.”

“I mean, what is it doing here?”

“It’s for you, dear cousin.  And we have more furniture in the truck too.  Welcome to Indian Lake.”

Jim grinned at her.  “Kitchen table and chairs, coffee table, bedside table, tv stand.  Can’t have you living like a pauper.”

“I can’t accept this,” Hallie protested.

“Are you kidding me?” Mart yelped.  “I didn’t spend my day driving to Albany and lugging all this crap back up here for you, just to have your stubborn pride turn it down.  Who do you think you are?  Jim Frayne?”  This earned him another smack in the head from Sally.

Hallie looked confused.  “Albany?”

“Surprise!”

Hallie’s face lit up as Dan and Trixie came rushing through the front door.  Trixie threw her arms around her taller cousin and hugged her warmly.  Dan came up behind and created a Trixie sandwich as he enveloped Hallie in his own hug.

Hallie hugged them fiercely, trying to keep her happy tears in check.  “What are you two doing here?” she asked as they finally broke away from one another.

“Jim invited us,” Trixie smiled.  “He thought you’d like to have some familiar faces around to welcome you back to New York.”

“Jim?  I was the one who invited you!” Mart insisted, ducking just in time to avoid a third smack from Sally.

“You invited Dan.  Jim invited me.  And yes, we’ll have words about that later, dear twin brother,” Trixie snorted.  Turning back to Hallie, she said firmly, “And you will accept this furniture.  It’s left over from when Dan and I moved to our new place and we’d just give it away anyway.  We’ll be very happy it’s going to good use.”

Hallie grinned mischievously at her cousin.  “Ah, yes.  I understand you and Dan have a little secret to share?”

Trixie had turned to hug Dan in the midst of Hallie’s sentence, which was fortunate for her, because her incredibly bad poker face would have done her in then and there.  Dan looked down at her and grinned.  This was going to be the easiest bet he ever won in his life.  One year?  Trixie wasn’t even going to make it one month with this secret bottled up inside her.

Steeling her eyes at her husband with a tight smile, Trixie turned back to Hallie and asked innocently, “What secret?”

Hallie grabbed her left hand and held it up.  “Please don’t tell me this diamond on your finger is part of some elaborate scheme to pay for Brian’s college education by swooning all over Ben Riker again!”

Trixie blushed happily.  “Oh, that!  That’s not a secret.”  She showed off the ring for Hallie and Sally, as Mart and Jim offered their belated congratulations to Dan.

Sally took careful note of the way Dan and Jim conversed somewhat formally, as if treading on the edge of a cliff they were afraid would break up underneath them, and Trixie’s concerned glance at them.  Hallie wasn’t the only one with issues, and Sally knew she’d have to call upon all of Mrs. Foster’s meddling muses if she wanted to make sure everybody was happy and comfortable this weekend.

“Well, I elect we commemorate the effervescent betrothal and the return of the prodigal kinswoman with a surfeit to mollify my profound esurience,” Mart declared.

“There isn’t enough food on the planet to mollify you, my love,” Sally replied evenly.

Impulsively, Trixie hugged Sally.  “I’m so glad Mart found someone who can translate him for the rest of us!”

As everybody laughed, Jim put in, “Before we eat, we’ve got to get the rest of the furniture up here.  It’s starting to get gloomy outside and I don’t want to be bringing furniture up those stairs in the rain.”

“You guys go do that and we’ll work on dinner,” Trixie ordered.

“Why are we stuck with the furniture?” Mart complained.

“Because that’s man’s work,” Trixie said matter-of-factly.

“If you say that preparing food is woman’s work, I’m going to have to tell them all about your cooking skills, Trix,” Dan teased.

“I already know about her epicurean aptitude,” Mart snorted.  “If it doesn’t involve the phone and a pizza coupon, she can’t handle it.  Apparently, moving away from home has killed any burgeoning culinary skills Moms’ may have previously bestowed upon her.”

“I’ll have you know, I made lasagna for Dan just last week,” Trixie huffed.

“Babe, it was frozen,” Dan reminded her dryly, and Jim covered his amusement by dramatically clearing his throat.

“I still had to cook it, didn’t I?  And I made a salad too.”

Mart hooted loudly.  “A salad?  Tearing up lettuce does not qualify as cooking, little sister.”

Dan snickered, “Even less so when ‘making the salad’ consists of opening the bag and dumping the contents into a serving bowl.”

Trixie stuck her tongue out at Dan as Mart and Jim howled in laughter.

Giving Trixie a wink, Dan added, “In her defense, I can tell you her Belgian waffles are out of this world.”

Trixie blushed.  The last time she had made Belgian waffles, they had spent more time eating strawberries and whipped cream off of each other than off of the waffles.

“Well, I guess Trix is making breakfast tomorrow morning then,” Jim said. 

“Breakfast?” Mart groaned.  “Can we please discuss the more impending repast first?”

Sally noticed that Hallie’s eyes were starting to brighten up during the bantering.  She was very glad Mart and Jim had thought to have this gathering for her this weekend.  Hopefully, she would relax and feel secure surrounded by her friends and family.  Taking charge, she ordered, “Mart, you and Jim and Dan get the rest of the furniture.  Trixie, you and Hallie clean up the painting paraphernalia.  I’ll call Wally’s for a take-out order.”

Everybody leapt into action as Sally firmly but kindly elicited her orders, while her brain continued to churn up further ideas to help smooth the sailing in the Bob-White waters.  Mart had told her so much about the Bob-Whites.  She knew they were a tight-knit group with a lot of back history and strong bonds.  But growing up had brought changes, as life so inevitably does; and those changes had threatened to alter the make-up of those loyal friendships.  Sally came from such a close and loving family that she couldn’t bear for anybody she cared about to suffer any difficulties, even though she knew they were almost impossible to avoid all together.  But if there was anything at all that she could do to make sure the Bob-Whites stayed together, she wouldn’t hesitate to do it.
 

*******************************************

Through Sally’s careful orchestrations, the six friends soon found themselves divided into groups where she felt the most constructive action could be accomplished.  Sally asked Mart to walk with her the few blocks to her place in order to pick up some vague items she said Hallie needed.  Mart tried to protest, as it was just beginning to drizzle outside, but the pointed look in Sally’s blue eyes got her plan across to him and he made no more fuss, but instead waxed poetic about walking in the rain with his beloved. 

Sally softly indicated to Jim and Dan that she thought Hallie might be willing to open up to her female cousin if the men would vacate the premises.  She then turned right around and whispered to Trixie and Hallie that Jim and Dan seemed to need some time to talk and asked them to stay and ready the small apartment for dinner while the two men went to retrieve it.  She further commanded that Jim and Dan pick up some movies at the rental place in town while they were out, giving everyone enough time, she hoped, to solve their issues.

“Well, she’s more subtle than you,” Hallie smirked, as the small apartment emptied out, leaving her and Trixie to begin cleaning up.

“That’s not saying much,” Trixie snorted.

Hallie dug into a cardboard box marked “kitchen” and pulled out some dishes, which she handed to Trixie.  As she dug back in looking for her silverware, she said, “Well, since we’ve acknowledged that your future sister-in-law is the subtle one, I guess I can throw my pretensions out the window.  So, what’s your real secret, cousin of mine?”

Trixie’s heart began racing.  “What do you mean?”

Hallie stared hard at her cousin.  “I know you’ve got a secret up your sleeve, Trix.  I can tell by the look in your eye.”

Blushing, Trixie turned to set each plate in its spot on the table.  Dan was right.  She was never going to be able to hold out until next August.  But at least she had another secret to share to get her through this weekend.  Turning to Hallie she said, “This spring, I applied for the U.S. Treasury’s training program in Georgia.  They called me earlier this week and told me I was accepted.”

“Oh.  My.  God.  Special Agent Belden, taking a bullet for the President of the United States.  Your parents are going to have a coronary, Trix.”

“The Secret Service isn’t just protection.  They also deal with national financial security.  Things like investigating counterfeiting, bank fraud, identification theft, and money laundering.  I’ve had three years of forensics classes and that’ll come in really handy.”

“Does Mart know?”

“Nobody knows yet, except Dan.  It’s my secret, you know,” she said, winking at Hallie and trying to make sure she believed it was the only secret she was carrying around.  “I need a big, dramatic announcement.”

“Oh, lord.  Forget your parents.  Mart and Jim are going to have a coronary.”

“Yeah, times like this I’m actually kind of glad Jim and I aren’t together anymore,” Trixie replied a bit sheepishly.

“I suspect Dan took it a lot better.  He loves living on the edge.”

“Well, he was a little pissed I didn’t tell him right away, and that I’m going to be away for months on end.  But actually pursuing something like this didn’t even faze him.”  She smiled dreamily, once again appreciating her husband’s unconditional support.

Hallie shot a glance over at her and grinned.  “Twitterpated.”

Trixie’s smile grew wider and goofier.  “I can’t help it.  I’m madly in love.”  She bit her lip and gave Hallie a hug.  “I’m sorry.”

Hallie shrugged it off.  “Sometimes things just don’t work out.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Even though that’s what Sally intended when she left us alone?” Trixie grinned.

Hallie chuckled.  “Do you want to talk about you and Jim?” she countered.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Trixie mumbled.  “Things just didn’t work out.  We’re still friends.”

“Ditto.”

And with that, Trixie knew, that just as it wasn’t that simple with her and Jim, it hadn’t been that simple for Hallie and Julian, the handsome young Frenchman she hadn’t even been with long enough to bring home to the United States and introduce to her family.

Trixie also knew her cousin well enough to know that she could be just as stubborn as she could, so she decided not to press the issue for the time being.  Now that she was living so close, there would be plenty of opportunities to browbeat her if necessary.
 

*******************************************

When they got to the end of the block, Jim abruptly pulled his truck over and parked it by the curb.  Hands still tight on the steering wheel, he spoke without turning to his passenger.  “Dan, I just want to tell you again how sorry I am about what happened this spring.”

Dan tried to brush it off, but Jim wouldn’t let him, “No, Dan.  We’ve both been stubborn asses and we need to talk about this.  I was wrong and it hurt you.  It hurt Trixie.  That’s not the way friends should treat each other.  I don’t have any excuses either; at least not any good ones.  Trixie and I had our chance and I’ve been a jerk since the two of you got together.”

“It’s my fault too,” Dan interrupted.  “If we had really talked this out in the beginning, the way Trixie asked us to, maybe none of it would have happened.”  He ran a hand anxiously through his dark hair.  “I don’t know why talking about serious things is so hard for me.” 

You know why.  We both do, Jim thought.  You keep enough crap bottled up, you eventually get to the point where you feel like you’re walking a tightrope and anything that can possibly upset that balance is to be avoided at all costs.  Unleashing the demons definitely upsets the balance.

Aloud he said, “Everybody assumes we have this bond because we’re both orphans or  because we both had such traumatic childhoods compared to theirs or something.  I think they don’t always see how different we truly were…and are,” he added with a small smile.  “Those afternoons we spent in the clubhouse, after the meetings broke up – do you ever get the feeling that the others imagined us spending all this therapeutic time together talking about our pasts?”

Dan grunted.  “Yeah.  I think they might have found it far less eye-opening had they stayed.  I remember quite a few times the two of us just…sat there.”

“Sometimes just sharing space and not talking is more healing than rehashing all the b.s. you’d rather forget,” Jim said.  “I guess I didn’t always know what to say.  My problems seemed so… trivial in comparison to yours.”

Dan looked at him in shock.  “You’re kidding me, right?  After what Jonesy did to you?”

“Yeah.  After what Jonesy did to me, I landed in the lap of luxury, my great-uncle's inheritance, college scholarships, trust funds, my childhood dreams come true –”

“Jim, you went through a whole lifetime of hell in less than two years.  I hardly think my choice to willingly place my life at the mercy of the streets can compare to that.”

“We both went through hell,” Jim said firmly, acknowledging the truth they both knew.  “We may be more different than other people realize, but we’re still friends…we’re still Bob-Whites.  Those quiet times meant a lot to me.  I hope you know that.”

Dan nodded.  “Yeah, to me too.”

“You know,” Jim grinned, “after all we’ve been through in our lives, you wouldn’t think something like girl troubles would be such a trial.  Stuff like that ought to be a walk in the park by comparison.”

“Women make everything hard, Jim,” Dan muttered.  “Haven’t you learned that by now?”

Jim chuckled.  “Twice as hard when the woman in question is Trixie Belden.”

Dan grinned at him, but he knew they were both attempting to avoid the subject at hand, yet again.  He took a deep breath and plunged on, “I know I’m about three years too late, but I really am sorry I didn’t tell you about me and Trixie right off the bat.  I guess I was just scared of losing your friendship.  I thought you were the only one who could come close to understanding the kind of anger and fear and insecurity I was dealing with and if I didn’t have you to talk to…”  His crooked grin was full of irony as he added, “…or sit and not talk to, where would that leave me? 

“I guess by not saying anything, I was just hunkering down in my foxhole and praying the war would pass us by and leave us all unscathed.  And now it’s been three years and I’m still a prisoner of war, because I’d rather live in that foxhole then face up to the real world where I have one less friend in my life.”  He paused and looked down at his hands, which were balled up into tightly clenched fists.  “The Bob-Whites mean so much to me, every one of you.  And every time I think about what I might have done to wreck that, I feel sick inside.”

Jim looked at his friend.  His dark face was hard to read in the gathering gloom, but the emotions in his voice were unmistakable.  Jim empathized with the guilt he heard, the anguish of taking something so right and making it so wrong.  “You didn’t do anything to wreck it, Dan.  We’re still friends.  We always will be.  We’ve shared too much for something like this to ruin it.”

Dan looked over at him gratefully before he went on, his voice low and even.  “I value the six of you like no other friends I’ve ever had, or probably ever will.  I love Uncle Bill.  I love Mr. Maypenny almost like a father.”  He laughed dryly.  “Even Tad, that big, disruptive pain in the rear; he’s like a brother to me.  But you six are like...blood brothers.”

The silence hung heavily between them, but Jim could tell Dan had more to say, so he remained silent.

“Jim, if I thought giving up Trixie would make everything right again, I’d…” Dan stopped.

You’d do it?  Jim thought.  But Dan couldn’t finish his sentence, because he couldn’t make that kind of promise.

Jim looked over at his friend.  His face was so full of love for Trixie that his eyes practically glowed with it.  It was a moment that should have made Jim’s heart sink to his knees, but for some odd reason, this time, it didn’t.  Maybe because he knew exactly what Dan was feeling.  Exactly.

He loves her.  And if our positions were reversed, I’d be saying – and not saying – the same thing.

“Just the fact that you’d even think it means the world to me, Dan,” Jim offered.  “I know you love her.  I know she loves you.  It’s obvious to anyone who knows you.  I won’t lie and say it doesn’t crush me.  But maybe…maybe, it doesn’t crush me completely.  If I lost your friendship, or Trixie’s…”  He hesitated, the mere possibility horrifying him, “…that would crush me completely.”

It really was time to move on and Jim felt a weight finally lifting from his shoulders.  He wasn’t cured, but at last the process was in motion.  He thought about Joey urging him to turn a new leaf and he thought maybe now he had the courage and renewal of spirit to do it, at last.

Dan still looked tense and uncertain, his dark eyes cast downward to his hands, fists unclenched but palms up in a plea for mercy, or answers, or understanding.

Jim thrust his hand out, directly into Dan’s line of sight.  Through hundreds of years the handshake had always been the symbolic male gesture of unity, of truth, of promise.  Jim promised to honor the B.W.G. spirit and his friendship with Dan.  He promised to respect the new paths that life had led them down.