“Mom! I wasn’t done!” he yelled. Katie bounded out to the front porch, remembering eager didn’t work on many fronts with men, but neither did ice-cold and unappreciative. She knelt against a pillar on the steps, smiled at the sight of cute George getting out of his car. He looked damn good with the sunlight highlighting his blond hair and strong build. She then placed her hands in her pockets just to stop them from shaking.
Pointing to the donut bag in his hands, she said, “George. You’re spoiling him again.” She sounded like she’d just sprinted to the corner stop sign and back. “Did you just get here this morning?” She longed to call her friend Ashley and laugh about their favorite topic: how grown women tap into those potent middle school nerves.
“No, I got here yesterday. Just getting settled in my own house and I figured I’d said Sunday, and this is two days early, but I couldn’t wait to see Huck again.” He winked at her.
Katie wondered, He got out yesterday and didn’t call?
George walked across the small, unkempt lawn next to the cracked driveway and held Huck in his arms up high above his head, which made the child giggle. He then smiled warmly at Katie, slid Huck piggyback around his back and asked him, “Can I show you something kind of cool?”
As she watched George hold her son tightly, then grab a little bag from his car and walk away, she noticed his hair had grown a tad over his ears since she’d last seen him four weeks ago. His forty-something years weren’t showing anything but a little gentlemanly elegance. George’s arms shone in the morning light as he held Huck up to a bird feeder in a tree: they were strong and masculine in his navy, tattered polo shirt. She wasn’t one for khakis on a man, but George’s were so old and wrinkled, they looked good. His moccasins pretty much ruined his look, but she’d work on that.
She’d only been with him in Portland on his business trips, and he’d worn suits or jeans and light jackets in the colder Pacific Northwest air, both with freshly dry-cleaned, folded button-down shirts. This look was foreign to her, relaxed and decidedly preppy. They were equals out West: strangers connecting in a Hilton Hotel conference where she’d had solid command of her topics on stage. If anything, she gained a little control by taking him to restaurants she knew on the Willamette River in town. He looked different out on his turf; the ease, the comfort granted him a degree of power and took away some of hers. Perhaps, she figured, that explained the persistent anxiety in her stomach.
And now the man she had flirted with in the surf shop popped into her mind. His arms weren’t this good, not as solid and muscular by a long shot—and she wasn’t one for a lover with a slight build. Still, the man from the shop’s clothes were better, more like people from Hood River, and his jeans fell off his hips in an inviting way. He had a cool style, and she instinctively liked that better than the Brooks Brothers uniform George now had on.
George probably had at least ten years on the handsome guy in the store, forty-three to his thirty-three or so. Or maybe he was thirty-five, she wondered to herself, shielding her eyes to try to see what George and Huck were doing in that tree.
George yelled back at her, holding Huck up to see something hidden. “You know this is a bird feeder from my childhood. Did my mother, Poppy, stop by? My father and I painted it when I was Huck’s age.”
“Didn’t hear anything from her yet, but I’m looking forward to meeting her.”
George walked back to the porch, holding Huck’s hand, and released him to go into the house. “She wants to take you to the Seabrook Club for lunch, which is going to be a little bit of a culture shock for you. She’s going to call you. She likes a late lunch and wanted to see you there, alone.”
“Sounds fine. What does she know about us? Any topics I should avoid?”
“I didn’t tell her anything. She just assumes there’s a woman in the house, and she wants to see her herself. She talks better without me, you’ll see.” He kissed her softly on the lips. “I cannot wait to show you both around. Clamming, tennis, the perfect ear of buttery corn.”
“Of course. I’d love to see her. I’m good with women only.” Katie put her hands on her hips again to stand firm. She was feeling better now. This George was really handsome, and so kind with her child. He seemed genuinely happy to have them living here.
“Nothing’s off-limits with my mother. You’ll like her. She’s kind of irresistible in her own Ayatollah way.”
At the very least, she’d see the inside of that dilapidated country club George had referenced once, which probably looked like this cottage on the inside. She remembered a pink blouse that could be steamed. Did she even bring that here?