From his wide experience with women, John knew very well that Mandy telling him, “we’ve got to talk” meant trouble of the first order, not that Mandy showing up out of nowhere looking for a place to stay didn’t mean that there wasn’t trouble anyway. “I suppose we ought to be able to manage that,” he replied as neutrally as possible. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Like I said, no rush,” she smiled, probably reading his mind exactly. “It’s not exactly trouble, it’s, uh, personal.”

That was definitely trouble and he knew it. “Then let’s take our time with it,” he told her. “Trouble has been following me around like a bulldozer chasing a cowdozer for the last few days anyway. Any I can put off will be just fine with me.”

John was still wondering what bomb would drop next when the two of them went back into the kitchen. Sally and Teresa were nowhere to be seen, but the door to the spare bedroom being closed gave him a pretty good idea of what must be going on. In an effort to try to put off more bad news, he asked, “So have you been back to Bradford recently?”

“It’s been a while,” she replied. “I wanted to go back last summer for Dave and Shae’s wedding, but I couldn’t get Joe to come, and he didn’t want me to go by myself.”

“Sounds to me like he was kind of possessive,” he said, realizing he wasn’t going to be able to avoid the subject.

“More than ‘kind of,’” she sighed as they found seats in the living room. “That was part of the problem. I mean, not that I wanted to go catting around or anything, but, well, I didn’t think it was worth getting into a fight over. Did they have a nice wedding?”

“Pretty good, kind of casual,” John said, mentally adding another check mark on the list qualifying Joseph as a real asshole jerk. There were already a few in that column. “Just a little service out at a picnic shelter in the city park. They wouldn’t have wanted to do anything too formal since she was pretty pregnant, although as tall as she is, it was a little hard to tell. Mostly it was like a class reunion where we sat around gossiping about the old days and people who weren’t there.”

“Still, I’m sorry I missed it,” she sighed. “We had some pretty good days with the old crowd back in high school, didn’t we?”

“I like to think so,” he replied. “But I’ll tell you what, we’ve all moved on in the almost fifteen years it’s been since we graduated. You think you couldn’t recognize Sally, well, there are a lot of people who have changed almost beyond recognition.”

“I’ve seen that,” she agreed. “I don’t get back there as often as I would like, especially since Dad moved down here. There just isn’t the reason to go there now except to get together with the old gang, and that doesn’t happen much anymore.”

“Yeah, there’s not a lot of ’88s left in town, although some of them don’t live too far away. Dave and Shae moving back from New York just about doubled the size of the old gang with a Bradford mailing address.”

“I heard from Emily that they had a little girl,” she said. “I’m sort of looking forward to finding out how the girls’ basketball team does in about fifteen years.”

“Yeah,” John grinned, “that might be interesting.” Dave was the tallest guy in the Bradford ’88s, although he hadn’t been much of a basketball player. Shae was well beyond merely tall; at six-foot-eight she had six inches on her husband, and liked to drive her height home to everyone by wearing high heels. She and another ’88, Cindy Dohrman, had been the keys to Bradford winning the state girls’ basketball championship in their class two years running; no other Bradford team in any sport since had won a state championship, even once.

About that time Sally came out of the spare bedroom. “We decided to take the break to get Teresa ready for bed,” she said. “She wants to stay up for a while but I think she’s fading fast.”

“I was sort of thinking that,” John said. “She seems to be a good kid, but having to be helped to do stuff has to be hard on her.”

“She’s picking up some of the tricks,” Sally said. “I worked as a nurse’s aide in several nursing homes, so I learned a few things about how to get along in a wheelchair. I wish it wasn’t her I have to teach them to, though. So did you get the cars moved all right?”

“Yeah, I looked both ways up the street and didn’t see any tow trucks,” John said. “I sure as hell hope Max gave them the message once and for all.”

“What’s this about tow trucks?” Mandy asked as Teresa wheeled her way back into the room.

“Since this is the night for long stories,” John shook his head. “We might as well tell you.” In the next five minutes, both John and Sally filled Mandy in on the fracas with the tow truck operator, and Max staring the guy down that afternoon. “So, anyway,” John summed up, “that’s why there’s a shotgun by the front door. Don’t open it to anyone you don’t know without having it in your hand.”

Mandy had been shaking her head all the way through the story. “John, you sure seem to have strange things happening around you all the time.”

“More often than I want, especially this week,” he shrugged. “Usually my life is pretty quiet, and I like it like that.”

Teresa managed to stay up for another hour or so, and toward the end she was visibly nodding off. “Mom,” she said finally, “I hate to be a party pooper, but I think I’d better go to bed.”

“Sure,” Sally told her. “I’ll help you get into bed if you want.”

“I think so,” the girl replied. “I can do it but it’s easier when I have someone helping me.”

Sally and Teresa departed for the spare bedroom. “Seems to be a nice kid,” Mandy said. “A little on the quiet side, though.”

“Well, she’s still recovering,” John told her. “You see sparks of a typical teenager often enough. I haven’t really had time to get to know her very well, since she’s been out of it a lot, or else I’ve been gone. But I agree, she seems like a pretty good kid in spite of everything, and I’m afraid being stranded in a wheelchair is going to get her down before this hassle is over with.”

“Maybe you ought to think about doing something special for her, like maybe take her to Busch Gardens or something.”

“That’s a possibility,” John agreed. “I hadn’t thought about it, but it still might be a bummer for her since she’d still be stranded in a wheelchair. On the other hand, it might make a good break for her. We can’t really do it right now anyway, at least till we get some of the other hassles straightened out, and besides, right now she might not be up for an all-day expedition.”

A few minutes later Sally came back into the room. “Boy, it didn’t take her long to drop off,” she reported. “I think she was more tired than she would admit to.”

“She looked pretty wasted to me,” Mandy agreed.

“Well, I can understand,” Sally replied. “I really haven’t done anything today, and I’m pretty wasted, too. For the last couple hours I’ve been thinking the hot tub sounded like a good idea.”

“I think I’ve been thinking it more than you have,” John agreed, and turned to his ex-wife. “Sally and I have been having a soak every night, but we’ve agreed to not do it or use the pool when Teresa is awake. I mean, it’s there and she knows it, but we don’t want to rub her nose in the fact that she can’t join us.”

“That’s thoughtful of you, John,” Mandy replied, “and I’ll admit, the idea of a hot tub sounds good to me, as much as I’ve had my butt in a car seat the last few days.”

“Let’s give it a little while, to make sure she’s out of it,” John suggested.

“Oh, she’s out of it,” Sally smiled. “I don’t have any doubt about it. Let’s do it.”

A few minutes later all three of them were in the hot tub. John was amused to note that Mandy had shaved her red pubic hair; when she’d been married to him it had been a pretty good bush. He couldn’t help but wonder whether it had been her idea or Joseph’s, but he decided that was another thing to keep his mouth shut about, at least for now; if it mattered, he knew he’d find out in time.

“You know,” Sally said as she leaned back in the warm water, “there was a time I would have never believed this would happen to me. I mean, being naked in a hot tub with friends.”

“We were talking earlier,” Mandy said. “There have been some changes over the years in all of us. I presume John told you about Denis Riley?”

“Oh, yes,” Sally shook her head. “I mean, I thought I’d changed a lot, but that’s got me beat by a long way.”

“That one takes the prize, all right,” John agreed. “Even Jennlynn can’t match that.”

“She sure didn’t come out like I thought she would,” Sally agreed, “but then, I guess I didn’t, either. Mandy, that time you invited me out to use your pool, I almost shit myself when I realized it was going to be an all-girl skinny-dipping party. John, did you ever hear about that?”

“There were rumors,” John admitted, without wanting to get into details.

“Mandy, you invited me out to use your pool with some friends,” Sally said, a sadness creeping over her. “I had a hell of a time talking my folks into letting me go, and then they only let me go if I wore that old granny thing of a swimsuit. But I just couldn’t handle that. I’m sorry I went running off on you, but I just couldn’t do it, at least back then. My folks would have really given me hell if they’d heard about it.” She let out a sigh. “I wish now I’d done it. I didn’t really have any friends in school, and that might have opened the door a little. But then, after what my folks did to me after we graduated, I’m not sure it would have been worth the effort.”

Sally had given Mandy a brief thumbnail sketch of that part of her life earlier, and John didn’t want to open up that sad story all over again. “It would have been fun to have been up in the trees with a pair of binoculars when that happened,” he said, in an effort to change the subject.

“That’s the sort of thing I would have expected out of you, or half a dozen other guys I could name,” Mandy snorted.

“Only half a dozen?” John smirked. “I can tell you for a fact the guys in our class weren’t that straight.”

“Well, now that you mention it, probably not,” Mandy sighed. “Sally, I’m sorry you got put down over that. I guess I knew you had some problems with your folks but I had no idea it was that bad. Kids can be awful cruel, and I suppose I was as bad as some others.”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” Sally replied sadly. She shook her head. “I’m sorry if I sound down about it. My time in high school wasn’t very happy, but it was a hell of a lot better than what came afterwards. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some good times since I left Seth, but I sure wish things had gone differently, too.”

“I like to think I’d have been a little more understanding if I’d known,” Mandy replied apologetically “but then, I might not have been, either. You always seemed as if you didn’t want to unbend very much, and I don’t know how much of that was you and how much of it was your folks.”

“Oh, I’m sure a lot of it was me,” Sally smiled sarcastically, “but I got a lot of it from my folks before I learned just how hypocritical the shit they were feeding me was.”

Once again John made an effort to change the subject without seeming to do it. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Dave and Shae have sure built a nice place out there.”

“I haven’t seen it,” Mandy said, obviously relieved at the change in subject herself. “Sally, everything has changed out there. After John and I broke up, Dad retired and moved down here. The place was up for sale and sitting empty when it caught fire one night, and it was pretty well burned out before anyone noticed it. I mean, in a way it wasn’t a surprise it caught fire. The house was basically all right but it had been built really half-assed. The plumbing was lousy and the wiring was especially lousy. It sat there as a burned-out shell for years, until Dave and Shae bought it last spring. I hear they’ve built one hell of a house out there.”

“They have,” John agreed. “I’ve seen it. It wasn’t quite ready for them to move in when they got married last summer, but Emily tells me they managed to move before the baby came. A big, airy house, colonial style, with a nice pool and a hot tub. I’ll bet there are going to be some fun pool parties when that kid of theirs gets ten or fifteen years older.”

“I’ve got to get back to Bradford someday and check it out,” Mandy replied, a touch of sadness in her voice, “but that’s just going to make it clear to me that the old days are long gone.” This time she was the one to change the subject. “John, your parents are still in town, right?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think for too much longer,” John agreed. “Dad has been making sounds about hanging it up and moving down here someplace. I wouldn’t blame them if they did. I got tired of Michigan winters a long time ago.”

“I did, too,” Mandy agreed. “John, that’s why you and I moved down here in the first place.”

“Yeah, and for the most part I’m just as glad. I miss being able to see some of my old friends very often, but I like my life the way it is now.”

They sat and talked about old friends and old times in Bradford for quite a while before deciding to hang it up themselves. It had been a long day for John, and he felt tired; the hot tub had relaxed him, but sleep was what he really needed. He had a lot to do the next day. He really needed to go into the office and catch up on some of the work he hadn’t been able to get done during the week.

He was nice enough to let the women run ahead of him. While first Sally, then Mandy used the master bathroom, he went to the linen closet, dug out sheets and a rarely-used spare blanket, and did his best to make up a bed on the couch for Mandy. It was done by the time she came out of the bathroom. “You really are going to make me sleep on the couch, huh?” she said.

“Like I said earlier, you’re not sleeping with me. There are plenty of good reasons for it, too.”

“But John,” she simpered, “I slept with you for years.”

“That was then,” he said, “and a hell of a lot has gone past since those days. You might be my ex-wife, but right at the moment Sally has seniority around here, and not just because of Teresa. You’ll notice that even though we have a shortage of beds, she’s not sleeping with me, and you’re not going to be, either.”

“You’re really going to be a hard ass about it, then?”

“If it was the other way around, would you be inviting me into your bed?”

“Yeah, I guess I would,” she replied. “John, it’s been a long time. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” he replied. “But Mandy, you’re still married, at least technically. I may have slept around a bit over the years, but to the best of my knowledge I’ve never banged another man’s wife. I mean, fair’s fair.”

“We wouldn’t have to have sex,” she protested. “I mean, sharing a bed is not that big a deal.”

“In this case, I think it is, and it’s not only because Sally and Teresa are in the house,” he told her flatly. “It’s too goddamn easy to jump from one to the other, especially in the mood you’re apparently in. Don’t push me on this, Mandy. My house, my rules.”

“Boy, you really are being a wet blanket,” she sighed. “Knowing you, I would have thought you’d have been looking for a little action.”

“It might be fun, but not when I consider the consequences,” he told her. “It’s the same thing with Sally. If I was as horny as you seem to think I always am, you’d still be sleeping on the couch because I’d have her in bed with me. But, I don’t, so get used to it.”

“All right, I guess,” she sighed. “I don’t really want to do it that way and I think you’re missing an opportunity, but if that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get.”

“It’s what I want,” he replied. “Now, I’m tired. I’m going to use the bathroom for a few minutes, and then I’m going to crash. I need the sleep, especially as I have to get up early and make a run to get a new garbage disposal. And then, after that there’s work at the office I have to catch up on because I couldn’t do it earlier in the week.”

A few minutes later John was in bed, alone, with the lights turned out, but sleep wouldn’t come. Good God, he thought, what a day! Especially after everything else that had happened in the last few days. And sleep still wouldn’t come – too much was going through his mind.

What was Mandy doing here, anyway? There were plenty of other places she could be, so why here? She could have gone to her father’s house just as easily! Yeah, so she had a black eye, but so what?

Although he couldn’t put his finger on it, there was something about her story that didn’t quite seem to hold water. Oh, it could easily have been just exactly what she had told him, without wanting to get into the details, but there was the fact that it had taken her a full five days to get to Florida from Washington DC. It could be driven in a day if it was pushed, two tops – there was good road all the way, even if it got a little busy at times. She’d said she’d gotten partway to Las Vegas before deciding to come to Florida, but somehow that didn’t seem to make sense, either.

Well, hell, he thought. It would have been no trick to have shot an extra day in DC, just closing accounts and doing things like that, and that would have accounted for part of it. The rest of it – well, it didn’t have to make sense. This was Mandy, after all.

What he did understand was that she was coming on to him pretty strongly. He had little doubt that if he’d let her sleep with him that she would have been all over him as soon as she could. In a distracted sort of way, that made sense – she’d just had a relationship fall apart, or at least so she said, and maybe she was reaching for the comfort of someone she knew and trusted. She’d said often enough, both tonight and at other times, that she’d made a mistake in leaving him, and he’d often regretted it, too. At least one other time in the past she’d shown up and might have been willing to patch things up, but he’d been married to Lisa at the time, although John had been getting suspicious about things without trying to reveal it. Had she shown up a few weeks later, he might have been a lot more open to picking things up with her again.

Given slightly different circumstances, he might have been willing to consider it now, but having Sally and Teresa present changed the equation a lot. As it was, having Mandy here while the other two were also here made it easy to put off the question.

Maybe the thing to do, he thought, was to let Mandy catch her breath for a few days, unload her car, and then push her to go ahead and get on the road to Las Vegas for her divorce. That would take six weeks, more likely seven by the time driving was figured in. When she made it back, Teresa would be close to getting out of her casts, and by then he figured he ought to have something worked out about a place for the two of them to stay if they really wanted to remain in the area. But he couldn’t believe Sally was going to stay around a minute more than necessary, and in fact he hoped she wouldn’t.

Hell, he liked Sally, at least the Sally he’d been seeing the last few days. She was not at all the person he’d known in high school. Though she could be a bit morose about her past at times, she’d been easy to get along with these last few days, and though he really hadn’t spent much time with Teresa, he was coming to like the kid too. But Sally had a troubled and unknown past, and that seemed to spell trouble to him – trouble for the future, if he were to let things get a little more serious. Like he’d told Mandy, he didn’t think it would be any trick to have Sally in bed with him, even tonight; it was pretty clear that all he had to do was ask.

It wouldn’t work, he thought. Not in the long run, anyway. One thing had been clear to him for a long time, clear back to when Julie left him: he really wasn’t the marrying kind. Oh, there were some advantages to it, like having a regular companion, someone to share his life with. Until things went bad with Mandy, he thought he’d found it, too. Having a family would be nice; he’d often felt like he would like to have one. He and Mandy had even kicked the idea around back before Ven-Churs vanished from the market, and after that things had been just too busy to consider it.

In fact, it was one thing Sally offered over Mandy: a ready-made family, without having to go through the dirty diapers and screaming house apes stages, which he wasn’t sure he could handle anyway. Teresa apparently was a good kid, and if that was what he really wanted, it might be something that could be done, even if he didn’t get around to tying the knot. Maybe it was an option to consider . . . but somehow he didn’t think it would last, and if there was anything he was looking to avoid, it was another heart-wrenching train wreck of a breakup.

It was tempting to consider, he thought as sleep came over him, but in his heart, he couldn’t make himself believe it was a good idea. After all, both women had proven track records at blowing town when things got tough. Just get through this, he thought. Now is not the time.

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