Page 31 of Clara Knows Best

“You dream big, Clara,” he said, leaning back from the steamer. “I like that about you. But I don’t want a cabin.”

Somehow it did not seem like a good time to tell him that she had already gotten permission from Claudia Del Amo for the family to spend the weekend there.

“What are you doing?” she asked, worried.

“I’m sick of the steam. I’m taking a break.”

“Fine. Back to the other chair, then.”

He moved obediently back to the armchair, leaned his head all the way back and closed his eyes.

She patted his face dry and leaned over him to go to work on his blackheads with a pair of Q-tips. “Buying the cabin would be a good compromise, since you don’t want to move here.”

“I don’t think it counts as a compromise if I don’t like a single thing about it.”

“You would like the part where you don’t buy Mom’s practice and move to Romeo, and Mom would like the part where she might actually get to see you a few times a year.” She was concentrating hard on the blackhead removal, but eventually realized that his eyes were open and he was watching her. She felt a little flutter of awareness. “Am I hurting you?”

“No.”

“Good,” she said briskly, straightening. She put a little witch hazel on a cotton ball and dabbed it on his nose.

“That stings.”

“You’ll live.” She took out a hydrating sheet mask and peeled the back of it off. “Close your eyes for a minute.”

She placed the cool gel mask carefully on his face, adjusting it to line up with his eyes and nose and mouth. Then she peeled the paper off, leaving the layer of gel to absorb into his skin.

“Feel good?”

“Cold.”

She didn’t know if he was uncomfortable or just wanted to complain, but she took the chenille throw off the end of her bed and draped it over him. “You know what I expected you to say about the cabin idea?”

“What?”

“That you aren’t going to be here anymore by the weekend. Give me your hand again. I’m going to do some cuticle oil. When are you going back to Austin?”

“I don’t know,” he sighed.

The fatalism in his voice made her smile again. “Don’t you have a ticket?”

“I want to leave Saturday. But do you think she’s going to let me walk out of here while the boys are in town for her birthday? I don’t.”

“The battle of wits and wills,” she recalled.

“That’s right.”

She dabbed a little oil onto his pinkie fingernail and massaged it into the cuticle area. “How much work can you miss?”

“I have three weeks of vacation. She was sure it would only take one.”

“You think it will take all three?”

“I do. In fact, I told them it would,” he admitted, with another big sigh. “Pretty much kissed a promotion good-bye, coincidentally. Terrible timing. But she’s never asked me for anything, remember.”

“Is the promotion a big deal?”

“Been my goal for eight years.”

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