Someone Like Her by Janice Kay Johnson Page B

made me curious enough to read a biography about him, and she was way more sympathetic to him than he deserved.” She sounded indignant, as though it were his fault his mother had been such a romantic.
    “At least you didn’t have to dress up as him,” Adrian said involuntarily.
    Her eyes widened. “You did?”
    He couldn’t remember ever telling anyone else about the dramas he and Mom had reenacted. With a grimace, he said, “I’m afraid I wore kneesocks and an old plaid skirt of hers. I endured it only because she let me stick a steak knife in the sock. Seems as if I had a plastic sword, too.”
    Lucy giggled. “Oh, dear. That’s a picture.”
    “Not a pretty one.” He should have been embarrassed. Why had he told her? Oddly enough, her laughter let him enjoy the memory.
    “Who else did you act out?”
    “Oh, King Richard the First. White cross cut out of an old pillowcase, pinned on…I don’t know, a red vest of Mom’s, maybe?” He was thinking less about the memories than about Lucy, who listened as if she imagined herself playing out the productions with him and his mother. Her mouth, he thought irrelevantly, was very kissable when it curved like that. Almost at random, he continued, “Let’s see…I was supposed to be Winston Churchill once. I read a speech into a pretend microphone. Paper towel roll, I think. My dad had a hat that looked enough like Churchill’s bowler hats, I guess, to satisfy Mom. I didn’t get what he—I—was saying,except that it was supposed to be noble stuff that would make his countrymen strong in wartime. Churchill wasn’t anywhere near as much fun as Richard going to the Crusades.”
    Once again she chuckled. “History lessons wrapped in fun.”
    “I suppose they were. They seemed like games to me. And I’m not so sure Mom really thought she was teaching me anything. I think we acted out stories for her benefit.”
    “But you enjoyed them, too.”
    “When I was younger. By that last summer, I was starting to get embarrassed. Guys didn’t dress up. I think—” He moved his shoulders uncomfortably.
    Lucy finished for him. “Soon, you would have told her no.”
    He nodded. “I was thinking about that earlier. I felt so protective of her. But what would have happened when I got to be twelve, thirteen, and didn’t want my friends to notice how weird she was?”
    She looked at him with understanding. “So now you feel guilty about something that didn’t happen.”
    “No.” He scowled. “Oh, hell. Maybe. Because I was starting to have stirrings of dissatisfaction. They made me feel disloyal. Then she disappeared, and I never faced any of those decisions. Which made me wonder—” He let out a ragged breath, surprised at the force of long-ago emotions.
    “You thought it might be your fault,” Lucy said softly.
    “Yeah. I suppose…Yeah.” He rubbed a hand over his chin. “Stupid, huh?”
    “Natural, don’t you think? Kids are egocentricenough to believe somewhere inside that everything happens because of them. Did you think your mom had gone away because she sensed that you were ashamed of her? Or did you think your father had gotten rid of her because he didn’t think she was good for you?”
    “I don’t know,” Adrian said slowly. “I just felt guilty. Shocked and lonely and scared, but guilty, too.”
    “And I suppose your father—” she named him as if he were Attila the Hun “—didn’t talk to you about her or what happened.”
    He gave a grunt that masqueraded as a laugh. “Our sole conversation about Mom took about five minutes. After that, he froze me out if I tried to ask about her.”
    “What a…a creep!” She pressed her lips together. “I suppose I shouldn’t say that about your father, but honestly.”
    “She did embarrass him. I knew even then. As far as he was concerned, a problem was solved. Years later, he looked irritated when I mentioned something that happened when we were still a family. ‘Old history,’ he said,