Mending Fences. Sherryl Woods

a thing for my brother?” she asked when they’d been in the Carters’ pool for hours and Josh and Evan had gone inside to grab snacks for all four of them.

      “Quiet,” Dani said, mortified. “Do you want Evan to hear you?”

      “Sorry, but you were acting all goofy. You’ve been doing that a lot lately when Evan’s around.”

      “Well, you have to admit your brother’s pretty cool. Why wouldn’t I notice him?”

      “You and every other girl,” Caitlyn said. “He must get, like, a hundred calls a night on his cell phone. I don’t get it myself. He’s a pain.”

      “That’s just because he’s your brother. He’s cute and he’s smart.”

      “And older than you. You’re wasting your time getting hung up on him. He thinks of you like a kid sister, same as me.”

      Dani couldn’t deny it, but she still harbored hope that one day he’d wake up and notice her. After all she was underfoot all the time. Just last week he’d taken her and Caitlyn to the movies and decided at the last minute to see it with them. He’d even bought them drinks and popcorn. It had felt almost like a date. She’d put the movie stub into her treasure box with the clippings.

      Afterward, though, Josh had gotten all weird when he’d heard about it. He’d come charging home and confronted her.

      “I hope you’re not thinking about hanging out with Evan,” he said heatedly. “If you are, forget about it.”

      “What difference does it make to you?” she demanded. “You’re not my keeper.”

      “No, but I am your big brother. It’s my job to look out for you. Evan’s too old for you.”

      “He’s eighteen,” Dani retorted. “Same as you.”

      “And you’re sixteen.”

      “I’m old enough to date.”

      “Not Evan,” Josh repeated, his expression grim. “I mean it, Dani. Stay away from him. He’s trouble.”

      She had no idea what he meant. The two of them hung out all the time. “That’s not a very nice thing to say,” she said. “He’s supposed to be your best friend.”

      “It’s one thing to hang out with a guy. It’s another thing to let him spend time with your sister. Take my word for it, okay? Evan’s too experienced for you. Forget about him.”

      “No, it is not okay,” Dani said stubbornly. “I’ll hang out with any guy I want to.”

      Josh flushed. “If you don’t listen to me, I’ll talk to Mom. She’ll make you listen. Are we clear?”

      Since having her mom find out that she was crazy about Evan was the last thing Dani wanted, she promised Josh she’d steer clear of him. He didn’t need to know that she’d kept her fingers crossed behind her back when she said it.

      Now Caitlyn gave her the same dismayed look that Josh had given her.

      “Forget about him, Dani,” she said with surprising urgency. “He’s not good enough for you.”

      Dani regarded her with a puzzled expression. “How can you say something like that about your own brother?”

      “Because I know him better than you do,” Caitlyn said. “He’s not always this nice guy, superjock, the way he pretends to be around your house.”

      “You’re just saying that because he thinks you’re a pest,” Dani accused.

      “No,” Caitlyn said emphatically. “Besides, it would be weird if you were dating my brother. Find some other guy to date and forget about Evan. Please.”

      But of course, all those warnings accomplished was to make Evan more intriguing than ever. And luckily, because Evan and her brother still hung out together almost every day, there were plenty of opportunities for Dani to spend some time with him and find out for herself if he was the terrific guy she thought he was. Getting time alone with him was trickier, but one of these days she’d accomplish that, too.

      

      It was the final football game of the season and the last of Evan’s high school career. Everyone at school was speculating that he’d have offers from the University of Miami, Florida and Florida State, but the coach had predicted he’d also be sought after by some top-notch out-of-state schools.

      “Are you going to the game tonight?” Paula asked Emily that afternoon.

      “Of course. I’d probably go anyway, but the fact that it’s Evan’s last game means that the Carters are making a big deal out of it. They’re having a party for the team afterward at their house. Marcie’s in her element. She’s been planning it for weeks. She went over the menu with Evan so many times, he finally told her to just order pizza, because she was making him nuts.”

      Paula winced. “How’d she take that?”

      “Oh, she brushed it off, and just made the next five versions of the menu on her own with a little input from Josh. He came home scratching his head one day and asked me what the hell pâté is. When I told him, he made a gagging sound and told me to call Marcie and tell her absolutely not, no way was she to serve anything that disgusting, to stick to chips and dip. I think she’s concluded that both our sons have no class whatsoever.”

      Paula laughed. “It ought to be an interesting party.”

      “I’m just glad that Marcie found a good excuse to throw one. She was really down there for a while, thinking that no one needed her anymore.”

      “Doesn’t she get how much everyone counts on her, me included?” Paula said. “I will never forget how good she was to me when I was going through all those chemo and radiation treatments. And it wasn’t even that we were best friends, the way the two of you are. She just saw something she could do and she did it.”

      “Well, if you ask me, one reason Marcie doesn’t value her own worth nearly enough is because of Ken,” Emily said, breaking the vow of silence she’d always taken on the subject of Marcie’s husband. Maybe it was because she’d overheard him snapping at her over nothing last night while she and Marcie had been on the phone. Her patience with his behavior had worn thin through the years and suddenly she couldn’t keep her low opinion to herself a second longer.

      “How so?” Paula asked.

      “He’s always dismissed what she does as if it were of no consequence,” Emily explained. “But I know he’d be the first to blow a gasket if she stopped doing it.”

      Paula gave her an odd look. “You don’t like him much, do you?”

      Emily hesitated, then shook her head. “No, mainly because of how he treats Marcie. She’s this wonderful, totally devoted wife and he demeans her every chance he gets. It’s taken everything in me over the years to bite my tongue and not call him on it.”

      “Obviously he must have some good qualities for a woman like Marcie to stay with him all this time,” Paula suggested.

      “I suppose,” Emily said, not even trying to hide her doubts.

      One of the best things about her divorce was that for the past two years she’d hardly spent any time around Ken. Without Derek in the picture, Ken saw no need to waste his time trying to impress some high school teacher and they’d all but stopped doing things together as families. Tonight she was going to have to put aside her distaste and tolerate him, but with any luck she could escape from the Carters’ after an hour or so. The party was really for the kids, anyway, and her presence there—as Josh’s mom and a teacher from their school—would be a damper. She figured it was the perfect excuse to sneak away the second she’d had her fill of Ken’s bluster and ego.

      

      Emily had done her best to steer clear of Ken all evening. To his son’s embarrassment, he was busy