“Not at all. Not even a little bit. I’d rather be doing almost anything else.”
“We can get your new phone tomorrow.”
“Bring me every Easter basket in this building!” he cried, jumping to his feet. “And then stand back, ladies, because you’ll see a basket-stuffing fool.”
“Or just a fool,” Teresa piped up.
“Silence, peon!”
That got Elena and Teresa and the others laughing, and he smiled at their gentle teasing, and that was good; it was always good when people were laughing because their guards went down and no one ever seemed to notice that while they laughed, he was figuring them out.
Delaney left the table and he was about to follow, when …
“She was sleepwalking, wasn’t she?”
“Gah! Jesus, Lillith. How do you do that? Only get noticed when you want to?”
“Mama taught me. She was, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Because she didn’t know what foster home she was in.”
“… Yeah.”
“It’s okay. I was surprised the first time, too. Just say nice things to her and she’ll go back to sleep.”
“Yeah.” It was low, but his options were limited. He already knew that asking Delaney for details was futile. Time to pump a kid. (Argh. Phrasing.) “So I get the feeling she had a rough childhood.”
“Yes.”
“Like your mother.”
“Yes.”
“And Sofia and Teresa and Elena.”
Lillith nodded.
“There’s a bigger picture here, isn’t there? It’s not just about finding your dad.”
She beamed. “I knew you were going to get it. Y’know, eventually. They’ve been saving for the Big Pipe Dream for years. That’s why they need us.”
“Wait, ‘need’? Us? How do—”
“C’mon, Rake and Lillith.” Delaney was standing in the front of the restaurant, beckoning them forward. “And the rest of you lazy bums, too. Back at it.”
“Fanculo questo,” Eleana replied cheerfully.
Exactly. Fanculo questo. Times ten.
Twenty-two
His Stockholm syndrome was coming along nicely. After lunch (still mindful of the toxins swimming in his system, Rake stuck to bruschetta with most of the tomatoes scraped off—so, stale bread), he and Delaney and Lillith got into a plush Peep free-for-all and at one point he was dodging several bright yellow marshmallowy missiles. Her speed was scary, her aim devastating. And Delaney wasn’t bad, either. “Not the face, not the face!”
Elena, Teresa, and Sofia came back to the room to find them whipping small foil-wrapped eggs at one another, and Elena let loose with a burst of Italian that even Rake had trouble following.
Delaney and Lillith stopped at once, a costly mistake. Sorry, ladies, Rake didn’t get that memo! Ha! Ya like that, cutie? And another! Ha! And—
“Ow!” He whined and rubbed his cheek. “You could have put out my eye, you rotten bitch.”
“You’ve got a spare,” Delaney replied with a smug smile.
“Exactly what I was saying to you!” Elena was about five eight, pleasantly round in all the right places, with deep brown hair, latte-colored skin, and loads of freckles from forehead to chin. She told Rake she was in her twenties, but only spiritually. “Stop that! Stop wasting the candy.”
“She’s right,” he replied, humbled. “Wasting is the one thing you never want to do with candy. That and boiling it. I really have only this to say and then we can drop it: Delaney started it. She is responsible for everything.”
“Ah, yes, Rake Tarbell’s go-to excuse for everything: ‘Hey, it wasn’t my fault.’” Which would have been a great point, except she lost the moral high ground when she stuck her tongue out at him.
“The good news is we’re done for the day.” Sofia was so cheerful she could make the return of the plague sound like a positive (“If I’m sick now, I won’t have to worry about being sick later!”), but anyone could make that news sound good.
“Great! We’re done!”
“Baskets are done. Not you, pal. We’ve got other stuff lined up for tomorrow.”
He muttered something under his breath that might have been “Well, fuck.” “Whatever tomorrow’s job is, it won’t be worse than what I’ve already had to deal with. That was not a dare!” he added when Delaney opened her mouth. “Seriously, please don’t set right out to prove I’m full of shit again. Always happy to be selfless and also earn more money for steaks and cherry tomatoes and a phone and eventually money to ransom my way to freedom.”
Delaney smiled, but it wasn’t her usual “Go to hell if you can’t take a joke” smirk. This one was sad, and a little … bitter? “I don’t think I’ve met anyone who has more freedom than you do. Even now.”
Hmmm. Wonder if that’s got anything to do with your “eventful childhood” leading to your “eventful adulthood.” But he let it go. It wasn’t the time (he was hungry and pooped), it wasn’t the place (he didn’t want to get into it in front of the others, especially Lillith), and, again, it wasn’t the place (he was pretty sure he had Peep dust in his hair; he definitely had some on his face).
“Did you tell them?” Lillith asked Delaney.
“We’re going to pick up Rake’s phone tomorrow,” Delaney replied. Poverty was making him paranoid, because that almost sounded like a warning. Certainly the others didn’t hang around long after that.
“Why’d you tell them?” He didn’t mind, but couldn’t help being curious. “And why were they in such a hurry to take off after you did?” He’d barely had time to blink before the three of them were on the other side of the door.
“Oh. They—they’re curious about you is all.”
“I can’t be the only American they’ve worked with.”
“True, but you’re one of a kind, Tarbell.” She shook off whatever odd mood she was in and found another smile, a real one, the pretty one that made him want to kiss her on the nose and collect a giggle. “You want some grub?”
“God, you’re so cute and you sound like some kind of cowboy/city slicker hybrid.” He’d said it without thinking—it certainly wasn’t a criticism; he liked that she had very different moods at very different times. But once it was out of his mouth, he thought about it and realized that sometimes she seemed almost schizophrenic. Big-city sophistication one minute
(“The best sushi I’ve ever had was in Chicago, along with the best pizza and the best pumpkin pie. Isn’t that a weird trifecta of best?”)
and country cowgirl the next.
(“I’m not crazy. If you ever tried milk fresh from the cow, you’d love it. It’s warm and foamy and rich, it’s like drinking dessert. Stop making gagging noises!”)
But when he’d asked about it, he’d gotten the patented Delaney shrug and a casual “I lived all over as a kid.”
Yeah, I’ll bet. Were you happy anywhere as a kid? Or was it all “eventful,” all the time? Where’d you come from? What happened between your birth and watching me pitch my wallet into the lake? And where do the others fit in? Especially Donna?
“Take two ladies to supper?”
“No, but I’ll take you guys. Don’t you make a face at me, Claire Delaney. If you open the door like that, you can’t be mad when I walk through it.”
“Shut up,” she said kindly, and he did. For a while.
Twenty-three
“Hey, there’s good news for you, Delaney.” He passed the paper over. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d read a newspaper made of paper. Some poor sap hadn’t grabbed his change out of the vending machine and so the Cerca News was his because you snooze you lose, sucker! Was this how hunters felt when they bagged a lion or something? Triumphant and a tiny bit ashamed?
“What’s that supposed to mean? Why good news for me?” She took in his startled expression and leaned back, rubbing her eyes. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to snap. I’m tired.”
No doubt. She’d sleepwalked again last n
ight (sleptwalked?). And though it had been a few days, she hadn’t brought up the DNA test again.
To be fair, neither had he. The day they met, he’d been all about reclaiming his life and his money, not even in that order. But then things got weird(er). And now there was Lillith. The truth was, if he found out he wasn’t Lillith’s dad, the adventure was over. Delaney and her family and Lillith would be out of his life. Forever.
Definitely Stockholm syndrome.
Speaking of Lillith, she hadn’t had much to say lately, either. And the man who’d tried to snatch her hadn’t been seen since. Neither had his partner, whom they referred to as “the Other Jerk” for the sake of convenience. It should have been good news. But since there was far more going on than Rake had been told, it just made him uneasy.
To hide this, he insulted his host again. “You spend too much time crunching numbers. You’re always hunched over your laptop. You’re gonna look like the witch when she gave Snow White the apple.”
“It’s what I have to do,” she said shortly. “And I’ve got better posture than you do. One of my foster mothers was a fanatic about that stuff.”
Well. That took the wind out of his sails. Jeez, how many homes was she bounced around in? “Uh, sorry.”
She shrugged it off and squinted at the paper. “What’s the good news for me?”
“Says right here.”
She let out a long-suffering sigh. “Rake, you’ve got a gift, no question. The girls say you speak Italian like a native, which is a good trick for someone who’s never lived here. You’re fluent in French, Spanish, Russian, and German, too, right?”
He blushed at the compliment and groaned in embarrassment, two things he had never done at the same time. “Was there anything I didn’t tell you that night? The time I threw up on the girl I had a crush on in fourth grade? Where I lost my virginity and got pinkeye the same night?”
“In the parking lot of the MGM grand!” Delaney couldn’t even get to the end of the sentence without cracking up.
“Ha! Wrong!” He jabbed a finger at her face in triumph. “That’s where Blake jettisoned his virginity. He wouldn’t go near the Restaurant Guy Savoy parking lot because they only had two Michelin stars.”
That just made her laugh harder. “I’m starting to think you’re on to something with that whole ‘Blake’s the worst’ thing.”
“Right?” Never had he been fonder of someone he hadn’t slept with. The woman was genius-level perceptive! “Anyway, I lost mine to Tammy Terrin in my mom’s walk-in closet.” Vermouth must be avoided at all costs; among other things I reminisce about my twin losing his virginity. Not Freudian or weird AT ALL. “How about you?”
“It’s boring,” she warned.
“Doubt it.”
“I was twenty-two—”
“What?”
“—and it was in a hotel room with an actual bed and everything. Very vanilla. Lights off. Missionary. Wham-bam-etc.”
“Perv! Sickest thing I ever heard.”
“There weren’t any good parking lots around,” she said with a straight face. “So we had to make do with a Days Inn.”
“But Delaney, you’re supercute, I bet lots of boys would have loved to have been your first. Why’d you wait so long?”
Her smile, which had broadened at “supercute,” became fixed, and in an instant, the fun was done. It was as if all the muscles in her face froze at once. “Oh, you know,” she said with a vague gesture. “A few times I almost did, when I was younger. It—it wasn’t exactly my idea, those times. To lose my virginity. I learned how to keep them off me, but—”
“You don’t have to finish,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry to be asking. It’s none of my business.” He realized his hands had locked into fists and made a conscious effort to unclench. Names, I need names, goddammit. Also addresses. Blood types, too, maybe. They’ll all need hospitals.
“There’s nothing to tell—I told you they tried, not that they succeeded.” She actually patted his hand, because they lived in a fucked-up universe where she’d endured a brutal childhood and now was trying to make him feel better. “And to be honest I was kind of scared to lose it—to find out what all the fuss was about. What was it about sex that could make people so completely, dangerously irrational? To take risks they’d never, ever take in their right mind? Something not to be fucked with, no pun intended. So I put it off for a while.”
“Okay. I can see that.” Dangerous and irrational, yes. Of course. But tender and exciting and wonderful and sweet and sweaty and amazing, all those things, too. And it was even better when you were in love with the person, or so he’d been told. “Makes sense.”
“And then I finally met someone nice and we did the deed after his graduation at U of M. And it was … you know.” She smiled. “Fast. Which was fine with me.”
I don’t know where I am.
Oh God. Oh my God. Is that what she was talking about? Trying to walk away from? Is that why she feels trapped? For a long moment Rake thought he was going to faint. No, manly men don’t faint, he’d pass out, he wouldn’t faint and oh fuck, who did it and where could he find them and would Delaney lend him money for a baseball bat? And some body bags?
No one will come in? Unless I let them?
“I’m sorry.” It sounded beyond inadequate. “Delaney, I’m so sorry that you were scared to—that you felt you needed to put it off. But good for you. I mean, it was your choice at the Days Inn, right? You had sex on your terms. That’s— Some people don’t even get that, you know?”
A shrug. He’d never known anyone who could be so eloquent with her shoulders. “It was a long time ago.”
A long time ago? She wasn’t thirty yet.
“Does this go back to that whole eventful childhood thing?”
Her gray gaze was on him, watching his face for—pity? Wondering if he’d crack a joke? God, please, please don’t let her think I would joke about this. “Yeah,” she said eventually. “It was.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I told you that. I mean—I really can’t believe it. You’re an entitled pain in my ass, Tarbell, but you’re sure easy to talk to. It must be the oh my God you’re blushing.”
“I am not!”
“You’re blushing even harder now!” she cried, delighted.
As annoying as that was, it was pretty great that his lack of control over the blood vessels in his face had cheered her up. “Yeah, well,” he mumbled. “It happens sometimes.”
“It’s sooooo cute.”
“Please shut up now.”
“Downright adorable, in fact.”
“I hate you and everything you stand for.”
That made her laugh. “That’s probably true. But getting back to my point—” She gestured at the newspaper. “My point is, I can barely order a meal in Italian.”
“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. You think you’re ordering milk, but you’re actually ordering coffee and milk. Which is why they keep bringing you coffee and milk. Then you force it down and glare through the rest of dinner.”
“That’s because it’s not so much Minnesota Nice as it’s Minnesota Passive-Aggressive. I’ll roll right up on a CEO who changes his mind about a charity pledge, but I’ve never sent a restaurant meal back in my life, and I’ve had some stinkers. And for the last time, whatever is in the paper you want to show me, just tell me already.”
“Here. Right here.” He pointed to the headline below the fold. “That jewelry/handbag shop near the Rialto Bridge. It says they had pledged a donation and then reneged, and then reneged on their reneging.” He thought of what Delaney would do to anyone who promised charity and then didn’t deliver, and shivered. Decapitation, probably. Followed by one hell of a long shouting match. “This is just the kind of thing you hate, right?”
“Yep.” She reached out and touched the paper, looking puzzled. “That made the news?”
“Guess it was a big deal. The owner had made a show of how profits weren’t letting
him keep up his end, called a press conference and everything. So I guess it was big news when he did another one-eighty not even a week later.” He waited, but Delaney just sat there.
Huh. Where was a delighted smile? Not that he’d been trying for one. Just trying to keep Delaney up on current events. With a paper newspaper no less.
“Isn’t it great that they found the money after all?” he prodded.
“Yes, it’s great that they promised money they’d never miss, broke their word, then changed their mind about breaking their word.”
“I know you’ve heard this before—”
“Then don’t, for cripe’s sake.”
“—but anything sounds bad when you say it like that.”
“You can stop reading the newspaper now.”
Much later, when he found out exactly what Delaney was doing to people who renounced their pledges, he thought decapitation would have been kinder.
Twenty-four
At last, at last they were going to pick up his new phone! He’d check on his accounts to see if the snafu had been fixed and, worst case, would call Blake and beg for a wire, maybe thirty or forty grand to tide him over for the rest of the month. Then: shopping. Clothes, a new wallet, more clothes, and dinner with Delaney in the most expensive place in town, and he’d leave the waiter a huge tip, because he was a giver.
“You’ve been a good sport.” Delaney, amused as usual by his antics, was walking very close to him in the narrow alley. Which was just excellent. “And a big help.”
“‘Good’ might be overstating,” Lillith said, then squealed and hopped aside as he poked her. “I said might!”
“I’ve been a whiny bitch,” he corrected Delaney cheerfully, “and a most reluctant helper, and you know it. But I’ve learned to count my blessings, like every character at the end of every TV show ever. Could’ve been worse, you could have worked for the Red Cross. I’d have died of anemia by now.”
“That’s not how the Red Cross works.”
“I know, I was just kidding. I’ve donated before.”
Delaney stumbled on a loose flagstone—nope, she stumbled out of shock. He didn’t mind, because he got to put out an arm to steady her, and after that it was easy to hold her hand. Sort of a “just in case you trip again I can keep you safe” thing. Not that he was into that. Besides, he was using his other hand to hold Lillith’s hand. Because he was all about safety. “You’ve donated blood? Willingly?”
The Love Scam Page 10