Package Deal(81)

“Why are you here, Marcus?” Cecelia’s voice startled him out of his snooze. She stood next to the fence, looking at him.

He sat up straighter and smiled. “I like watching you and Skipper play—with the other dogs. And—I came to talk to you. I was hoping you would talk to me.”

“About what?”

Gotta go slow here. “Well, about Skipper. I miss him. We were becoming friends.”

Cecelia looked at Skipper as he raced with the big Doberman. “He’s a good dog.”

“I miss not coming to see you at your house,” he added.“We used to read together. I miss doing that.”

“You made my mom cry. That’s why—I—I don’t want you coming to our house.” She started to turn away and then looked back at him. “I miss reading with you, too, Marcus,” she said, her voice softer, almost apologetic. “But it’s not right for you to see us anymore—even after what my mom said—”

“Cecelia! It’s time to go home,” Janet called.“Get Skipper. I promised your mom you’d be home by five.”

“What did your mom say, Cece?”Marcus stood up and took a step toward her.

But the child was already halfway across the enclosure as she ran to where Janet was standing with Skipper’s leash.

He went home discouraged, wondering when he would be able to talk to Cecelia again. Three days later, when he returned to the dog park, the child wasn’t there. After dinner, he called Amanda and had to settle for voicemail.A letter.Evie said to write Cecelia a letter. Perhaps now was the time. He wrote the letter slowly, the image of the child in his mind as he put his words on paper. He folded the letter and scrawled her name and address on the envelope. On his way to campus tomorrow, he would call Amanda and mail his letter to Cecelia.

Then he sat down in front of his laptop, determined to immerse himself in the Ernie Pyle manuscript. When he called Amanda, she told him she was trying to decide when to have him over for dinner.

“I want it to be when Cece isn’t tired from soccer practice or getting ready for her scout meetings. I vowed I wouldn’t overschedule her, but I think that’s what’s happened since she got out of her casts. I’m sorry.”

“I understand.” He treasured their brief talks during the day and the few evenings when she had felt free to chat with him. She seemed to look forward to them, too, but he worried as another day went by without an invitation to talk with Cece.Only when he worked on his manuscript, concentrating on what he had been meaning to finish earlier in the summer, was he able to set aside his fears that Amanda might be having second thoughts. The afternoon he finished the manuscript, he made two copies, and stacked one set of pages in a manuscript box with Amanda’s name on it. On his way home from the office, he asked Beatrice to put it on Amanda’s desk. The note inside requested that she tell him what she thought. As a reminder of how he felt about her, he inserted another page with three whimsically-drawn cartoon characters, their arms entwined, like ivy around three different-sized columns.

Early the next week, his office phone rang.

“Marcus Dunbar here,” he replied, barely looking up from a letter of recommendation he was trying to write for one of his senior students.

“Marcus?”

“Amanda!” He closed the lid of his laptop, forgetting to save what he’d been working on.

“I received your draft of those last six chapters.”

He nodded. “Yes?”

“We need to talk about them.”

He grinned and tried to stay calm. “I’m for that.” He glanced at his watch. “Where would you like to meet, my office?”

“I have a better idea.” What was that little shimmer in her voice? A smile?

“What’s that?”

“Your house—it’s quieter there and we’d be less likely to be interrupted.” He heard her sigh.

He grinned. “We could talk over dinner.”

“I’d like that. We haven’t had dinner together in so long.” That shimmer in her voice again.

“Want me to pick you up?”

“Not necessary. How about if I meet you there, around six?” Her voice, that smooth-as-honey voice, was balm to his soul.

“I’ll see you there.” He whirled his chair toward the window then clapped his hands together and tried to concentrate on the letter of recommendation he’d promised to complete. Ten minutes later, he closed his laptop, called his favorite deli, ordered two dinners to go, and stopped at the wine store before picking up the food and heading for home.

When Amanda arrived, she handed him the manuscript copy he had asked her to read and took a seat on the porch swing. “Janet says I have to be home no later than ten. Do you think we—will we be done with our discussion by then?”