“Tucker? You there?” Harvey said. “What were you saying?”
“I’m here. Just lost my balance.” And all sense of reality. “I was saying that I’m not really….”
Through his pain, a vital fact came into his mind: Harvey had better candidates. Two of them. Both more experienced, both from small towns, both married. And politically correct or not, Harvey wanted a married assistant. Being married to a supportive wife was what had gotten Tuck the job offer.
“It’s that I’m not…” Tucker had to say something about being a dedicated single guy, but the specter of the Melissa incident rose in his mind. Would Harvey think he was a player? Women hopping in and out of his bed all the time? He wanted to start out on the right foot. This wasn’t the way.
“…sure about the housing situation,” he heard himself finish, buying time.
“Plenty of rental homes, Tucker. Bring Julie down this weekend and you can find something. I know you see yourself back in Phoenix eventually, but our little town is pretty special. Great place to raise a family, too.”
Every second that passed without Tucker correcting the mistake made things worse, he knew, but Harvey was on a roll. “Around here, neighbors help each other. And get in each other’s business, of course, but that’s two sides of a valuable coin.”
The connection went dead for a second.
“There’s that damnable click,” Harvey said. “This call-waiting business my wife got us into is quite the annoyance. I’d better see who it is. Put the back-to-school faculty potluck on your calendar. In the gym on the first, 6:30 p.m. Looking forward to meeting Julie.”
“Thanks, Harvey, but I—”
“Welcome on board, Tucker.” And he hung up.
Tuck turned off his phone and sat there on the floor, his back against the tile, his butt aching, his eye running with tears. Now what?
“LET ME GET THIS straight,” Tuck’s sister-in-law Anna said to him that evening. “You told the principal you were married?”
“No. He assumed it when Julie answered the phone and told him how excited I was about the job. She was trying to be helpful.”
Tucker had tried to call Harvey back, as soon as he’d gotten off the floor and tracked down the Winfield number, but had only been connected to voice mail. For hours. He wasn’t about to leave an “April fool! I’m not really married” message on the answering machine. In the meantime, he wanted his brother and sister-in-law’s take on what had happened. Plus, he needed a dose of his three-year-old nephews, Steven and Stewart, who never failed to cheer him up.
“We’re buck nek-ked,” Steven chortled, jumping off the ottoman. The boys were fresh from their bath and, in theory, headed for bed.
“Get over here, you slippery seal,” Anna said, lunging at Steven. She held Stewart by one arm. “Grab him, Forest.”
“You’re mine, bucko.” Tuck’s brother Forest scooped up the bath-pink elf who was older than his twin by ten minutes. Tuck loved the hurly-burly at Forest and Anna’s. He loved roughhousing with his nephews, and in a minute, he’d get the privilege of reading them their bedtime story.
With Stewart in a football hold, Anna plopped onto the sofa beside Tuck. “So, why didn’t you correct him?”
“I tried, but he kept talking. I’d fallen on my ass and was in pain with shampoo in my eyes. Hell, he offered me the job because he thought I was married. I was trying to figure out what to say when he had to take a call and hung up.”
“So, call him back,” Anna said, managing to get Stewart’s squirming leg into one side of his pajama bottoms.
“I tried. Voice mail. Now I’ll sound like an idiot. ‘Oh, gee, I forgot I wasn’t married.’”
“Tell him that when you fell, you hit your head and got temporary amnesia, but now you remember that you’re actually a babe hound.”
“I’m no babe hound.”
“What’s the big deal about being married anyway? He better not discriminate against single people. That’s an EEOC violation if I ever heard one.”
“He’s worried that a single guy would be bored in Copper Corners. The assistant before me spent too much time chasing women, I guess. Winfield wants someone who’ll focus on work, not women.”
“How ’bout both? Isn’t that your specialty? Having sex at work. Much more efficient.”
He groaned. He regretted telling Anna and Forest about the Melissa incident more every time Anna brought it up, which was every time he came over, which was often. He loved his sister-in-law, but she was mouthy and opinionated and bossy as hell. His brother worshiped her, though, and that was what mattered.
“I even asked Julie if she’d consider a trip to Vegas…you know, take in a show, do some gambling, swing by a wedding chapel.”
Anna stopped, leaving Stewart covered by his pajama top like a superhero-decorated ghost. “You’re serious about Julie?” She blinked at him, mouth open, visions of wedding plans glowing in her eyes.
“No. I was joking, though it panicked the hell out of her and now we’re pretty much over with.”
Anna sighed. “I knew it. You’ll never settle down.”
“Where’s Stewart? Where can he be?” Stewart’s muffled voice came from beneath his clothes.
Anna tugged downward on her son’s shirt so his head popped out.
“Peekaboo!” he shrieked.
“Peekaboo, sweetie,” she said halfheartedly.
“Sure I will,” Tuck insisted. “When I’m ready.”
“When the moon is blue and my aunt’s an acrobat.”
“When I find the right woman.”
“You wouldn’t know the right woman if she had your name tattooed in a heart on her butt.”
“You said butt, Mommy. Umm.”
“Special occasion,” Anna said.
Forest leaned down to drop his damp cargo next to Anna to be dressed. “Don’t be so hard on him, Anna. Women as great as you don’t grow on trees.” Forest kissed his wife and their eyes met with warmth.
They were good together. They’d married young—nineteen—and Tuck had feared Forest was scrambling to find something stable after their parents’ divorce, but Anna turned out to be perfect for him. In fact, Tucker hoped one day to have the kind of relationship Forest had with his wife—an easy affection, mutual respect and lots of laughter, all built on a bedrock of love.
Except Tucker wanted a woman more like himself than Anna was like Forest. Someone more cooperative, more of a partner, who wouldn’t argue every issue into the ground like Anna did with Forest.
Once he was back in Phoenix and got his career on track at Western Sun, Tucker would look for someone. He’d be ready then.
“So, now what are you going to do?” Anna said to Tuck. “Tell the principal that you got a divorce?”
“Tell him it was a mistake, I guess. But why would I lie like that? I’ll seem creepy, crazy or lame.”
“What you need is a substitute wife,” Forest said, putting the freshly dressed Stewart on his shoulders and galloping around the sofa while Stewart shrieked with laughter.
“Sure. I’ll just call ‘Rent-a-Wife.’”
“You can’t afford that,” Forest said, lowering Stewart onto the sofa and lifting Steven up for his turn. “Hookers