Designs on the Doctor Read online

  Ally laughed. “I didn’t think it did.”

  “I just wanted you to have the information. In case.”

  “Good to know,” she said, playing along and appreciating that he was making light of this so it wasn’t awkward.

  He kissed her again, his lips parted but his tongue keeping a respectful distance. And still it was enough to send her blood rushing through her veins to chip away at her determination.

  But then he stepped back into the doorway to tuck in his shirt and lean against the jamb.

  “So, tomorrow night—the Senior Follies?” he said.

  “That’s my understanding,” Ally confirmed their plans to attend a potluck dinner and some sort of variety show at the senior center.

  She turned to mirror his stance, leaning a shoulder to the wall she’d been up against a moment before. But she couldn’t merely let her arms dangle at her sides the way his were, she had to cross hers over the front of her because she knew her nipples were still making their presence known and poking visibly through the thin knit of her shirts.

  Jake reached over and brushed a strand of hair from her face, letting his palm rest on her cheek for a moment afterward, his eyes looking deeply into hers before he pulled his hand away again.

  “Till then?” he said.

  Did he know she still wanted him enough to reconsider her decision?

  But she stuck to it. With difficulty.

  “Till then,” she said, proud of the strength she managed to put into it.

  He smiled a half smile, as if he knew better anyway, but he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he said, “Okay, but don’t spend tomorrow making rules I’m just gonna have to break.”

  Ally couldn’t help laughing again.

  “Maybe I won’t let you break any more of them,” she challenged his cockiness.

  But he just grinned. A big, broad, knowing grin.

  Then he said a simple good-night, pushed off the doorjamb and disappeared down the stairs.

  Chapter Eleven

  Tuesday evening at the Wilkens Senior Center was an eye-opening experience for Ally. For no particular reason, she’d expected that the potluck dinner and Senior Follies would be a sedate gathering of a few elderly people who would sit slumped in chairs like aged wallflowers, exchanging laments about physical ailments before falling asleep to more oldsters singing choir-type music.

  Instead, to her surprise, the community center was packed with seniors and their friends and family all mingling and chatting happily.

  The meal itself—which was the first portion of the event—was heavy with tuna-noodle casseroles and didn’t thrill either Ally or Jake, but the entire dinner hour was so upbeat that Ally didn’t mind eating very little. And the only complaint from anyone was that government regulations wouldn’t allow them to serve liquor on the premises.

  By the time everyone filed into the larger, gymnasiumlike room where folding chairs were lined up in rows facing a makeshift stage, Ally abandoned the idea that the audience would sleep through any portion of what was to come, and wondered what that might be.

  Nina had to be at a function for one of her children, so Bubby had come with Ally, Estelle and Jake. Once Ally and Jake were seated, Estelle and Bubby left them to go behind the scenes.

  Ally had already seen a change come over her mother when they’d first arrived at the center. Estelle was full of life, greeting everyone effusively, joking with them, even flirting slightly with a few of the older men. When Estelle left to go backstage with Bubby, Ally assumed they were helping with costumes or some other details and was just impressed that her mother was participating at all.

  The show the audience was treated to was more professional than anything Ally had imagined. Singing was definitely the predominant entertainment—by duos, trios and a barbershop quartet—but not a single sour note was to be heard, and rather than choir music, some of the songs were slightly bawdy.

  There was a dramatic reading that bordered on mind-numbingly dull, but the ventriloquist act was well done and funny, and the two comedy routines were both ribald.

  And then the final performance was announced and out came Bubby, Estelle and three of their other walking companions.

  They were dressed in loose-fitting, sequined jumpsuits, they had bright red feather boas draped over their shoulders, and fishnet stockings peeked from below their hems and above the tap shoes they were all wearing.

  “Mother?” Ally muttered in shock just before the fivesome proceeded to do a hilarious dance that was saucy and outrageous and included everything from tap to a mimicry of a striptease that sent the boas out into the crowd.

  When they linked arms and added a touch of the Rockettes, Ally said to Jake, “Can my mother do that?” thinking about the recent fall that still had Estelle’s wrist in a brace.

  “Looks like she can. I think they’re all holding each other up,” he answered, proceeding to add a wolf whistle to the hoots and hollers that the rest of the onlookers were doing to cheer them on.

  Altogether, the dance was campy and over the top and, when it was finished, it was met with a standing ovation and rousing applause that made it the most popular of the acts.

  The chorus line accepted their adoration with a bow—arms still linked, the five ladies bent forward at the waist—and stayed humbly head-lowered for at least thirty seconds. Then they straightened up, broke into gales of laughter themselves, hugging each other and proving no one had enjoyed their dance more than they had.

  And from her position in the midst of the audience, Ally just looked on in amazement.

  “Who was that woman and what did she do with Estelle Rogers?” Ally said to Jake when they were finally alone later that evening.

  Her mother’s exuberance had lasted the remainder of the night—even offstage as Estelle, Bubby and their other friends accepted praise for their performance, and Estelle had been humming on her way to bed after bidding Ally and Jake good-night when they’d arrived home from dropping Bubby off at her apartment.

  That was when Jake had confided that he was starving, Ally had said she was, too, and he’d used his cell phone to place an order for Chinese food to be delivered. They were sitting on the front porch waiting for it.

  “I thought your jaw was going to hit the floor when you saw your mother come out onto that stage tonight,” he said, laughing.

  “Did you know she was going to dance?”

  “Sure. It’s been a hot topic of discussion on our walks. But with the way your mother has been declining, everyone was afraid she wouldn’t be up to it. They were thrilled when she said she was feeling so much better that she thought she could go through with the performance. I guess she didn’t tell you, though.”

  “No, she didn’t,” Ally said. “And if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it.”

  “I had that impression,” he said with a chuckle.

  The heat of the night air would have been stifling if not for the breeze that wafted around them. And besides the cooling effects, it also brought the scent of Jake’s cologne—something Ally liked as much as the smell of the flowers that grew just below the porch.

  He’d said he’d had time to go home before they were due at the senior center, and Ally thought that he’d shaved and changed out of his work clothes because he had on a rust-colored sport shirt with brown twill slacks that didn’t have a wrinkle in them. Once again his sleeves were rolled to his elbows, which made it difficult for Ally not to think about the way she’d run her hand up his forearm and underneath his sleeve the night before. Even more difficult for her not to want to do it again.

  “Didn’t you approve?” he asked her, drawing her back into their conversation.

  “Of the dance? Oh, no, it isn’t that. I just…my mother was like a different person tonight.”

  “She seemed like the same person to me.”

  “That’s the Estelle Rogers you know—is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Well, she isn
’t out doing mock stripteases every day, no. But this is a side of her I know, sure.”

  “It isn’t a side of her I know.”

  Jake had been such a complete gentleman all evening that there hadn’t been any indication of what they’d shared the previous night and it occurred to Ally then that everyone had sides of themselves they could hide at will.

  Or maybe he had decided that he wasn’t going to pursue whatever it was that kept cropping up between them.

  Which should have made Ally happy.

  And yet that possibility didn’t please her at all.

  “I’ve never seen my mother like that,” she said, attempting to keep to the subject and ignore her wandering thoughts. “She wasn’t even that fun-loving or carefree or…I don’t know—girlish, I guess…before my dad died. But tonight…” Ally shook her head. “Really, she was like a different person.”

  Jake leaned close enough to nudge her with his shoulder and whisper, “But fun—like the other night with the margaritas. That’s one of the reasons I like her—you never know when she might cut loose.”

  “So this is your Estelle—someone who cuts loose?” Ally said.

  “You should see her on poker night, but, yeah, that’s all part of my Estelle,” he confirmed. “Not that I haven’t seen the leathery side of her, too, but—”

  “The leathery side of her is usually all I get.”

  “Not tonight,” he pointed out.

  And Ally had to concede that he was right. Tonight, at the senior center, Estelle hadn’t been her usual leathery self with Ally either. Which had only added to Ally’s amazement.

  “Maybe you could look at it this way,” Jake suggested. “When Estelle was raising you, she needed to be the parent to your child. A parent needs to set the limits, enforce the boundaries, and so on. And the child needs to be the child—to test the limits, to step over the boundaries, to get out of line sometimes. Parent and child aren’t supposed to be friends—other people fill those roles for them. But at this stage of your lives, you both have the chance to put that aside and get to know each other in a different way. And maybe become friends.”

  Ally wasn’t sure if that was possible. But rather than say that to Jake she said, “Tonight just made it all the more clear that Mother has really sort of found her niche with Bubby and the rest of her friends, and at the senior center.”

  Jake shrugged. “I haven’t seen any signs that she’s unhappy, that’s for sure. She just can’t do everything on her own anymore and that frustrates her and probably scares and worries her—although of course she would never admit it. But that’s Estelle. Like I’ve said—enough times before that you’re probably sick of hearing it—she just needs some help now.”

  “But what if the help does more harm than good?”

  “You’re still worrying about moving her away from all this,” Jake surmised.

  “More now, after tonight, after seeing for myself what a good time she’s having.” Ally sighed. “Now the decisions I have to make are so much harder.”

  Jake put his arm around her, pulling her to his side. “Maybe a new solution will present itself,” he said.

  Ally turned her head to look at him again, never tiring of the sight of that handsome face.

  “Yeah, right,” she said dubiously. “Because new solutions present themselves all the time.”

  “You never know…”

  A car with the name of a Chinese restaurant pulled up to the curb just then and to Ally’s disappointment, Jake pulled away to go get the food.

  Leaving her with the rear view of him.

  And thoughts that had nothing whatsoever to do with her mother.

  Chapter Twelve

  With sacks of Chinese food in hand, Ally and Jake went around the house to her apartment.

  Ally had gone up soon after they’d arrived home to turn on her fans and open her windows to air the place out. Not because she’d planned on having company—or so she’d told herself—but for the sake of her own comfort when she went to bed later.

  While she was up there she’d also paused long enough to run a brush through her hair and apply a little lip gloss. She was wearing a simple, snug-fitting black knit dress cut in at a sharp angle at the shoulders, and a pair of sandals. But because the sandals hurt, when she and Jake reached the now-cooler apartment, she kicked them off, leaving her feet bare.

  “Let’s skip dishes and just eat out of the cartons,” Jake suggested.

  Ally agreed, so, sitting on the sofa, they shared the food, laughing again over incidents and jokes from the Senior Follies.

  Then they disposed of the food containers and without discussion returned to the sofa. One of Jake’s arms was stretched across the top of the back cushions, Ally’s legs were tucked under her left hip, and despite knowing she shouldn’t be settling in so cozily with him, it was too nice for her to do anything to disturb it.

  “Now tell me about the other side of Ally,” Jake said as they both popped peppermints from the candy dish Ally had on the coffee table.

  “You already know about the daughter side,” she said. “And about the work side—”

  “What about the personal side?” he qualified, like so many other times, seeming to know her train of thought.

  “Ah,” she said. “Well, I’m single—but you know that, too. And beyond that, I work so much there isn’t a lot of time for a personal side.”

  “Come on, look at you—there have to be men all over the place who want you. What am I up against?”

  She’d like it if he were up against her—that was what flashed through her mind. But she certainly didn’t say it. And she tried not to think anymore about it either. Or to be too delighted that he was trying to find out if he had any competition.

  “If there are men all over the place who want me they’re keeping it pretty quiet,” she said, opting for honesty over coyness.

  Jake smiled as if she was being coy anyway. “You’re telling me there’s no one and never has been? That you’ve been the cloistered designer since leaving Chicago? In L.A. of all places?”

  “I have not been the cloistered designer—I didn’t say that. But you didn’t ask if there has ever been anyone.”

  “So there was someone, at some point,” he said as if he’d hammered it out of her. “Were you married?”

  “No, I’ve never been married. But, like you, I was engaged once and we lived together.”

  “Engaged to…”

  “Sean Coffman. We met four years ago, when he was a contractor on a house I was designing interiors for.”

  “Work, work, work—that’s the thread that runs through everything with you, isn’t it?”

  Ally shrugged and took his observation lightly because it was delivered along with a stroke of his palm to the back of her head.

  “Is Sean Coffman the only time you set your sights on the altar?” Jake asked then.

  “Yes,” Ally answered, her voice a tiny bit breathy because even an innocent caress from him did that to her.

  “And how come you didn’t get there?”

  “To the altar? I broke it off. For the opposite reason you ended your relationship with Claudia.” Ally hated thinking about him with anyone else and couldn’t bring herself to say the woman’s name without a hint of a derogatory inflection.

  “You’ve lost me,” Jake said. “What’s the opposite reason?”

  “You broke up with Claudia because she wasn’t close enough to her family.”

  “Actually it was more the kind of person she was in regards to her family.”

  “Well, Sean had too much family. He was one of nine kids. His father had seven siblings, his mother had ten. Sean was the oldest of forty-six cousins—”

  “That would make for big holiday dinners.”

  “Which probably appeals to you,” Ally guessed.

  Jake shrugged. “The more the merrier.”

  Ally shook her head and rolled her eyes.

  “So let me get this straight,”
Jake said. “You dumped the guy because he came from a big family?”

  Ally could tell by Jake’s frown that he disapproved.

  “No, I did not dump him because he came from a big family. I ended the engagement because he couldn’t separate himself from that big family.”

  More of the frown greeted that.

  “Here’s how it was,” Ally explained. “Sean and I met, dated—alone most of the time—and then he asked me to move in with him. But once I did that, everything changed and I started having to live the way Sean lived.”

  “Which meant?”

  “Which meant that I can’t even tell you how many people had keys to our apartment. Every time I turned around there was a cousin or a brother or a sister there—crashing because their own place was being painted or fumigated or whatever, raiding the fridge, watching our TV because theirs was broken, using our washer and dryer, chilling out because they’d had a fight with a parent or a girlfriend or a spouse—”

  “I get the idea.”

  “And it wasn’t only the apartment. If we were going out to dinner or a movie or shopping, it had to be with an entourage of family. He didn’t even propose to me by himself!”

  “He did it in a group?”

  “He’d sworn that we were going to have a night out alone. I was supposed to meet him at a bar for a drink and from there we would have every minute to ourselves. He said he wouldn’t even answer the cell phone that rang constantly with family members’ calls. But when I got to the bar not only weren’t we alone, he’d rented the place out so there wasn’t anyone in it but his family—four grandparents and all. And a bunch of them were holding up a banner that said, Will You Marry Sean, while Sean was on one knee in front of them all with a ring.”

  Jake flinched and laughed at once. “Hard to say no to that.”

  “And it wasn’t that I wanted to say no. Sean was a good guy and I loved him—that was why I said yes to the group proposal. And I liked his family, too—most of them anyway. So I said yes, but after the party I told him that things had to be different, that we had to limit the amount of time with his family and concentrate on just the two of us.”