Of course, she’d known he’d married. Local papers had reported on his marriage to Caroline Foster-Duffy, director of the Seattle Art Museum. Georgeanne hoped John was right and that Virgil was happy. She harbored him no ill will.
“Answer me something else?”
“No. I answered your question, it’s my turn to ask you.”
John shook his head. “I told you about DeeDee and my drinking. That’s two skeletons. So you owe me one more.”
“Fine. What?”
“The day you brought the pictures of Lexie to my houseboat, you mentioned being relieved that she didn’t struggle in school. What did you mean?”
She didn’t really want to talk about her dyslexia with John Kowalsky.
“Is it because you think I’m a dumb jock?” He gripped the top rung of the chair and leaned back.
His question surprised her. He looked calm and cool as if her answer didn’t matter one way or the other. She had a feeling it mattered more than he wanted her to know. “I’m sorry I called you dumb. I know what it’s like to be judged for what you do or how you look.” A lot of people suffered from dyslexia, she reminded herself, but knowing that famous people like Cher, Tom Cruise, and Einstein endured it also didn’t make it any easier to reveal herself to a man like John. “My concern for Lexie had nothing to do with you. When I was a child, I struggled in school. The three Rs gave me bit of trouble.”
Except for a slight crease between his brows, he remained expressionless. He said nothing.
“But you should have seen me in ballet and charm school,” she continued, forcing levity into her voice and attempting to coax a smile from him. “While I may have been the worst ballerina to have ever leaped across a stage, I do believe I excelled at charm. In fact, I graduated at the head of my class.”
He shook his head and the crease disappeared from his forehead. “I don’t doubt it for a second.”
Georgeanne laughed and let down her guard a bit. “While other children memorized their multiplication tables, I studied table settings. I know the correct positions for everything, from shrimp forks to finger bowls. I read silver patterns while some girls read Nancy Drew. I had no problem distinguishing between luncheon silver and dinner silver, but words like how and who, and was and saw, gave me fits.”
His eyes narrowed a little. “You’re dyslexic?”
Georgeanne sat up straighten “Yes.” She knew she shouldn’t feel ashamed. Still, she added, “but I’ve learned to cope. People assume that someone who suffers from dyslexia can’t read. That’s not true. We just learn a little differently. I read and write like most people, but math will never be my forte. Being dyslexic doesn’t really bother me now.”
He stared at her for a moment, then said, “But it did as a child.”
“Sure.”
“Were you tested?”
“Yes. In the fourth grade I was tested by some sort of doctor. I don’t really remember.” She scooted back her chair and stood, feeling resentment build inside of her. Resentment toward John for forcing her problem into the open as if it were his business. And she felt the old bitterness toward the doctor who’d turned her young life upside down. “He told my grandmother I had a brain dysfunction, which isn’t altogether a misstatement, but it is a rather harsh term and a blanket diagnosis. In the seventies, everything from dyslexia to mental retardation was considered a brain dysfunction.” She shrugged her shoulders as if none of it really mattered and forced a little laugh. “The doctor said I’d never be real bright. So I grew up feeling a little retarded and a bit lost.”
Slowly John stood and moved his chair out of the way. His eyes got real narrow. “No one ever told that doctor to go fuck himself?”
“Well, I-I-” Georgeanne stuttered, taken back by his anger. “I can’t imagine my grandmother ever using the F word. She was Baptist.”
“Didn’t she take you to another doctor? Have you tested somewhere else? Find a tutor? Any damn thing?”
“No.” She enrolled me in charm school, she thought.
“Why not?”
“She didn’t think there was anything else that could be done. It was the mid-seventies and there wasn’t as much information as there is today. But even today, in the nineties, children are still misdiagnosed sometimes.”
“Well, it shouldn’t happen.” His gaze roamed her face, then returned to her eyes.
He still looked angry, but she couldn’t think of one reason why he should care. This was a side of John she’d never seen. A side filled with what felt like compassion. This man standing in front of her, the man who looked like John, confused her. “I should go to bed now,” she uttered.
He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. “Sweet dreams,” he said, and took a step back.
But Georgeanne didn’t have sweet dreams. She didn’t dream at all for a very long time. She lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling and listening to Lexie’s even breathing beside her. She lay awake, thinking of John’s angry reaction, and her confusion grew.
She thought of his wives, but mostly she thought of Linda. After so many years, he still couldn’t bring himself to talk about her death. Georgeanne wondered what sort of woman inspired such love in a man like John. And she wondered if there was a woman somewhere who could fill Linda’s place in John’s heart.
The more she thought about it, the more she came to realize that she hoped not. Her feelings weren’t very nice, but they were real. She didn’t want John to find happiness with some skinny woman. She wanted him to regret the day he’d dumped her at Sea-Tac. She wanted him to walk around kicking his own behind for the rest of his life. Not that she’d ever get together with him again, because, of course, she wouldn’t even consider it. She just wanted him to suffer. Then maybe when he’d suffered a long time, she’d forgive him for being an insensitive jerk and breaking her heart.
Maybe.
Chapter Thirteen
Georgeanne had a choice between riding a sand bike, driving bumper cars, or inline skating along the Promenade in Seaside. None of the choices thrilled her-in fact, they all sounded like her idea of hell- but since she had to choose or go along with Lexie’s choice of bumper cars, she picked Rollerblading. She hadn’t chosen it because of her ability. The last time she’d tried it, she’d fallen so hard she’d had to blink back the tears stinging her eyes. She’d sat there while little kids zipped past, lights flashing, and her tailbone throbbing so bad it had taken all her strength not to grab her behind with both hands.
Her experience with Rollerblades was so vivid, she’d almost chosen bumper cars and taken her chances with whiplash, but then she’d seen the Promenade. The Prom was a nice expanse of sidewalk stretching along the beach and was bordered on the ocean side with a stone wall about two to three feet high. The benches built into the stone caught her eye immediately, and she’d made her choice.
Now as the ocean breeze picked up the ends of her ponytail, Georgeanne sighed happily. She stretched one arm along the top of the stone bench and crossed one knee over the other; the Rollerblade on her left foot swayed to and fro like the tide of the ocean several hundred feet in the distance. She thought she probably looked a little strange sitting there in her sleeveless white silk blouse that laced up the front, her white and purple gauzy skirt, and her rented Ultra Wheels. But she figured it was better to look weird than get up and fall on her behind.
She was more than content just to sit right where she was and watch John teach Lexie to Rollerblade. At home, Lexie buzzed the neighborhood on her Barbie roller skates, but learning to balance on a row of rubber wheels took practice, and Georgeanne was relieved that there was someone more athletic than herself to help Lexie. She was also a little surprised to discover that instead of feeling deserted, she felt as if she’d been released from hazardous duty.