From Friends to Forever Page 3

  “What’s this about, Tony?”

  He slightly smiled. “Beats me. Except…” He clasped her bare arm, smartly moving her through the sea of bodies and out into the yard, heavy with the scent of Aunt Magda’s prized roses.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Over there, in the shade,” he said, nodding toward the huge old oak on the other side of the yard, sheltering a sturdy tree house worn smooth from two generations’ worth of kids. Including the teenage Lili, who’d spent countless hours that summer stargazing through a million quivering leaves and giving her heated imagination its head. Now, as then, heavily flowered rhododendrons, set in a rainbow tangle of pungent marigolds and petunias, smothered the wooden fence, but the circular stone bench girding the old tree was new. She started to sit; Tony dragged her back.

  “Bird poop. Better sit on the grass instead.”

  “And…aren’t there just as many droppings in the grass?”

  “Yeah, but at least you can’t see them. No, wait,” he said, stripping off the unbuttoned, lightweight shirt he wore over his T-shirt and chivalrously spreading it on the ground. “Grass stains are a bitch to get out of white fabric.” When Lili gave him a bemused look, he shrugged, his heart-wrenching attempts at acting normal at such odds with the pain etched in his features. “At my house real men do laundry. And Daphne’s made me a kick-ass expert on grass stains.”

  Her heart beating overtime, Lili kicked off her sandals and folded herself onto the soft cotton shirt. Tony dropped onto the grass beside her, close enough for his scent to spark the achy, bittersweet memory of unrequited longing. “Better?” he asked.

  “Yes. Much. Thank you.” She offered him a slight smile, then squinted back at the house. “I never have been all that comfortable around large groups of people.”

  “Why do you think I rescued you?”

  She paused. “And not yourself?”

  With a soft laugh through his nose, Tony leaned back on his elbows, his hooded gaze aimed toward the house. “Normally I’m up for these clan gatherings, but today…” His jaw clenched, he shook his head before taking a long swallow of beer. “Except no way in hell would anybody let me stray from the herd.”

  “So you decided we could stray together.”

  “Yeah. Just like old times, huh? You and me against the world.”

  “Is that what we were? United against everybody else?”

  His mouth tilted. “Sure felt like it. I was mad as hell about my summer being screwed, you were pissed about your family dumpin’ you off on Magda and Benny—”

  “I was not! Especially since it was far better than the alternative.”

  Tony chuckled, and she smiled. She’d told him back then that, despite her father’s assumption she’d join the act, by the time she was ten it was painfully obvious she had neither the talent nor the enthusiasm for the trapeze. It had taken a bit longer for the family to accept that Lili hated everything about circus life. Tony, however, had understood it immediately.

  “Makin’ you the only kid in the world who wanted to run away from the circus.”

  She shrugged. “But won’t our being out here by ourselves invite…speculation?”

  “Rather deal with that than the nagging. And at least this way they’ll leave us both alone. For the moment, at least.”

  A breeze blew her hair into her mouth; she tugged it out, tucking it behind her ear. “Tired of being the strong one, are you?” she said quietly, not looking at him. This time when he laughed, there wasn’t an ounce of humor in it.

  “You always were one scary female, you know that?”

  “About as scary as a newborn kitten. And you didn’t answer my question.”

  “Not gonna, either,” he said, tilting the can to his mouth again, only then seeming to notice she was empty-handed. “Hey—you want anything…?”

  “No, no…I’m fine. So. Magda says you teach school?”

  “Yeah,” he said, his shoulders relaxing. “High school phys ed. Coach the football team.” He paused. “Not exactly living the dream I had way back when. But then, how many people do?”

  “You don’t sound terribly unhappy about that.”

  “Now? No. Then…” He blew a stream of air through his lips. “That busted leg screwed up any chance I had of even making a college team, let alone a shot at the pros. So I did the next best thing and majored in PE.” His mouth curved. “Smartest move I ever made.” Then he sighed. “Damn, Lil—it’s like no time’s passed at all.”

  Too true, she thought, sternly telling her heart and her hormones and everything else yipping in her ears to be quiet. “I know what you mean.”

  “Even so…something’s changed.”

  “It has been fourteen years.”

  “I’m not talking about the way you look. Although you look good. Maybe still a little on the reserved side, but good—”

  Lili looked down at her dress. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

  “I didn’t say anything was wrong with it, I said you looked good, didn’t I? And you know that’s not what I mean. There’s something different about you. You were quiet, sure, but…why’d you take off like that, when we were talking before?”

  She brought her knees up, tucking her full skirt around her legs before hugging her shins. A burst of laughter went up from the deck; Lili shooed a fly off her arm, then said, “Because I’m not sure what you want from me. It really does seem as if…as if no time’s passed at all. That everything’s exactly the same, even though…” Frowning, she let her eyes touch his again. “Nothing is.”

  Tony’s eyes narrowed slightly before he made a soft, derisive sound through his nose. “I’m not sure what I want from you, either,” he said, and Lili mentally stood aside to let the disappointment shuffle on through, even as she chided herself for the moment’s foolish detour. Even ignoring the fact that they’d only ever been friends—for a single summer a million years ago, at that—Tony was a recent widower. One plagued by heaven knew what other issues. What on earth had she expected? A fairy tale?

  “Are those your other two girls over there?” she said, steering the subject into hopefully safer territory.

  Tony sat up to get a better look at the crowd, briefly bumping her shoulder. “The little curly-headed demon runnin’ around with Rudy’s stepsons?” he said, sagging back. “That’s Daphne. She’s seven, so smart I can barely keep up and gets dirtier faster than any of her boy cousins could even dream of. And the one wearing the Patriots hat and the grump face, hanging next to Stacey? That’s Claire. She’ll be eleven in a couple months.”

  “Oh, my…she’s going to be a knockout, isn’t she?”

  “And I could have happily gone all day without you sayin’ that. Although…she’s been, uh, eating more since her mother died. My mother-in-law keeps making these not-so-subtle comments about Claire’s diet. Like I’m gonna deny the kid the occasional bag of French fries on top of everything else she’s been through?”

  “Of course you’re not,” Lili said, her heart twisting at the obvious conflict behind his words. Not that she was any expert, but she imagined that wanting what was best for your child and wanting to make her happy weren’t always compatible goals. Josie ran across the deck, not watching where she was going; Claire caught the baby as she tripped, giving her a kiss before their aunt scooped the toddler back up into her arms.

  “Claire’s very good with Josie, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah,” Tony said after another moment. “She is. Bossy as hell, though. With all of us. Supposedly that’s normal for the oldest kid. Especially after a loss.”

  “Which I suppose accounts for the frown currently aimed in our direction?”

  “Don’t take it personally. Claire frowns at everybody.” He sighed. “At everything. What I don’t get, though, is how she can be so self-assertive one moment, so insecure the next.”

  Without thinking, Lili laid a hand on Tony’s forearm, solid as iron beneath her fingertips. “It’s early days
yet,” she said softly, and his eyes bounced off hers.

  “That’s what I’m hoping.”

  Suddenly self-conscious, Lili folded her arms around her legs again to wiggle her bare toes in the grass at the edge of the shirt, meeting his oldest daughter’s laser-bright glare from across the yard. “You’re doing a good job with them. I can tell.”

  “Some days I’m not so sure,” he said after a moment. “But nobody can say I’m not tryin’ my best. My kids…they’re my life, you know?”

  “Obviously,” Lili said, thinking, You’ve grown up very nicely indeed, Tony Vaccaro.

  A thought that could make her extraordinarily sad, if she let it.

  “Who’s that?” Claire said, following Stacey to a couple of beat-up lawn chairs on the other side of the deck. “The woman with my dad?”

  Her older cousin glanced over as she dropped into a chair. “That’s Lili.” She reached over her head to twist her long, shiny, dark hair up with a band so the ends all fanned out. On Stacey, it looked totally cool. Claire tried it once and looked like an alien. “Aunt Magda’s niece. She’s visiting for the month, I guess. From Hungary. Wouldja mind handing me a Coke from that ice chest? God, it’s hot out here.”

  Thrilled at being asked to do something for her fourteen-year-old cousin—the rest of her older cousins usually ignored her—Claire plowed one hand through the cold, slippery cubes to get a Coke, casting a quick glance over her shoulder before sliding out one for herself, too. She’d already had one today, Dad would have kittens if he caught her with another. Not to mention Nana, ohmigod. The chest slammed shut, Claire handed Stace her drink, then sat next to her, shifting several times before realizing no matter what she did, she was never gonna look as good as Stace, not with her stupid short legs. Or her dumb lumpy hair which never looked nice no matter what she did with it.

  Being ten sucked. The older kids could do whatever they wanted, practically, and everybody loved the younger ones because they were still cute. What was super sucky, though, was being old enough to know when something was going on, but too young to do anything about it.

  Claire popped the tab off the soda and glared some more at her dad and this Lili person. At least she wasn’t touching him anymore, because that had just been, like, five kinds of wrong. Like she was trying to act like his girlfriend or something—

  “Oh, God,” Stacey said, laughing. “I know exactly what you’re thinking. About your dad and Lili?”

  Claire’s cheeks warmed. “Who said I’m thinking anything?”

  “Yeah, right. It’s, like, so written all over your face. It’s okay, I felt the same way when we first moved to New Hampshire, and Dad and Violet started making eyes at each other?” She skootched down in her chair, her eyes drifting closed. “I was all, Get a room—in my head, I mean—except not really, because that was so not what I wanted to happen.”

  When Stacey didn’t say anything else, Claire squinted over at her. “But it did happen,” she said, wondering if Stacey thought this was supposed to be making Claire feel better. Sweat was beginning to pop out in little drops on her upper lip. Ew. She really wanted to go back inside, but then Stacey might think she was a baby. “Violet and your dad got married.”

  Stacey shrugged, her eyes closed. “I got over it. But anyway, it’s totally different with your dad and Lili.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “First off, my dad said your dad was like seriously in love with your mom. Kids are ridiculous, they break up and two days later they’re with somebody else.” Her eyes still closed, she did the little shuddering thing. “But grownups take forever to get over a broken heart. I mean, yeesh, it took my dad, what? Twelve years? Second, they’re just friends. Or were, apparently.”

  “Were?”

  Stacey opened her eyes to peer at Claire from underneath lashes with about five coats of mascara. “Baba said Lili was here before, like before I was born. So this isn’t any big whoop, it’s just them catching up and stuff. Anyway,” she said, snuggling back into the chair, “Lili’s going back to Hungary at the end of the month. So trust me—you’ve got absolutely nothing to worry about.”

  “You sure?”

  “Claire. They’re, like, almost related. Nothing’s gonna happen, okay?”

  When Stacey closed her eyes again, Claire finally took a sip of her Coke. It burned her throat all the way down, making her choke so hard her eyes watered. Dad looked over, frowning, to make sure she was okay.

  She waved, slipping the soda behind her so he wouldn’t see.

  “Is Claire all right? Should you go check on her?”

  “She’s fine,” Tony said, finishing up his now-warm beer, trying not to react to the genuine concern in Lili’s voice. Even as a kid herself, she’d been great with the younger cousins. Nice strong maternal instinct, there. “She also thinks I didn’t see her drinking her second Coke of the afternoon.”

  “A minor offense, all things considered. And isn’t it diet, anyway?”

  Her accent was much lighter than his aunt’s, usually, except when she got emotional. When she stopped thinking so hard about the words and let her feelings do the talking. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it.

  “Yeah, except the caffeine buzz will keep her awake half the night. Nothin’ worse than a ten-year-old insomniac.” He scratched his head as an icy wave of comprehension surged through him, that he sure as hell wouldn’t sleep tonight, either. Or for God knew how many nights after. “Except a thirty-two-year-old one.”

  Lili curled to pluck at a clump of clover near her polished toes—a light pink that hardly seemed worth the bother. “So. Are you going to make good use of me or not?”

  Tony jerked. “Excuse me?”

  Her eyes slid to his, accompanied by a slight smile. “I’m as good a listener as I ever was. If you’d like to tell me what’s really bothering you…?”

  Tony sucked in a breath, both because she’d caught him off guard and because until that moment he’d had no idea how he’d kill to give this horrible, sick feeling inside him some air. Instead he crushed his beer can and said, “So what have you been up to for the past…what is it again? Fourteen years?” When she didn’t answer, he glanced at her, then turned away again. “I can’t. Not yet.”

  “It hurts that much?”

  “Dammit, Lil—”

  “Sorry,” she whispered, the word as caring as a touch. And almost as devastating to his self-control. Thank God, then, she said, “I have two degrees in linguistics—I’m fluent in five languages now—”

  “Impressive.”

  “Not really. I already spoke them when I started university—the one good thing about all that touring around Europe as a kid—but the grammar needed a bit of tidying up. So I do a lot of freelance translation work. Textbooks, novels, that sort of thing.” She paused. “And I almost got married.”

  “Almost?” Tony said over the totally unexpected jolt to his midsection.

  “Years ago. Right about the time my stepfather left my mother.” She smoothed the dress’s hem over her toes. “For a twenty-two-year-old.”

  “Ouch. When was this?”

  “About five years ago.”

  “Damn, your mother really had it rough, didn’t she? But I don’t follow. What’d one have to do with the other?”

  Lili tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear, a nervous gesture he remembered from before. “Mama was devastated, as you can imagine.” More than you know, Tony thought as she added, “So it was obvious she couldn’t be alone. None of the boys could take her in, since they were all still traveling with the act. So I decided to move out of the flat I’d been sharing with some university chums and back in with her until my wedding, assuming she could come live with Peter—my fiancé—and me in our flat afterward. Except Peter never really got on with my mother. The idea of our all living together, even temporarily…” Her mouth thinned. “He made me choose.”

  “Nice guy.”

  She shrugged, then said, “T
he ironic thing was, Mama and I had actually been estranged for a while before that. And yet when she needed me, I never even thought twice about being there for her. Because that’s what you do, isn’t it? When a parent or child needs you, you’re there. Peter’s not understanding that was a deal breaker.”

  “And what’ve you been doing since then?” When she didn’t reply, Tony felt his eyebrows lift. “Cripes, Lili—you took care of your mother for five years?”

  “Obviously I hadn’t intended things to play out the way they did. Or for her to get sick. But at the beginning…” She frowned, still staring at her toes. “I’m not sure what happened, to tell you the truth. Maybe I had a delayed reaction to my own breakup, or maybe I just enjoyed getting to know my mother again, going shopping and preparing meals together, catching up on movies and books. Talking.”

  Her head propped in her palm, she smiled at him. “We became very good friends, during that time. Much closer than we’d been before. I honestly never felt burdened. Not even when she became ill. If anything, I was simply grateful that I could be there for her. In many ways, especially in the beginning, it felt very…safe.” She sighed. “Although I suppose most people would see it as not being very brave. Which I suppose I’m not,” she added with a shrug. “I mean, here I am, completely free for the first time in years, and what do I do? Come stay with my aunt and uncle for a month. How weird is that?”

  “Okay, you might have a point there,” he said, making her laugh, the sound deeper, richer than before. “But you know something? Screw other people. It’s your life, live it the way you want to. As for you not being brave…” He shook his head. “Goin’ against your family about the circus, being there for your mother, telling your fiancé to basically go take a hike…hell, Lili, you’ve got more guts than probably ninety percent of the people on this planet.”

  “You’re very kind.”

  “Only calling it as I see it. And just for the record, that fiancé of yours was a selfish bastard who didn’t deserve you. Or your mother.”

  A sudden grin lit up her eyes behind her glasses. “Spoken like someone who didn’t know my mother.”