Blue Smoke

by Nora Roberts

  “She worried every day. But that’s our Bella.”

  He moved so smoothly over the floor, stayed so focused on her face as he did that Reena was sure there’d been lessons along the way. Dance and charm.

  “Now we can start our lives, make our home, have our family. We’ll have you over for dinner once we’re back from our honeymoon and settled.”

  “I’m there.”

  “I’m a lucky man to have such a beautiful wife, such an enchanting woman. And she cooks.” He laughed and kissed Reena’s cheek. “And now I have another sister.”

  “I have another brother. Una famiglia.”

  “Una famiglia.” He grinned and swept her around the dance floor.

  Later, snuggled in bed with Josh, Reena thought of her sister’s long-awaited day. The grandeur of the ceremony, all the solemn words, the elegant flowers. The initial formality of the reception that had, thankfully, broken down into a boisterous party.

  “Tell me, did my aunt Rosa actually do the Electric Slide?”

  “I can’t remember which one was Rosa, exactly, but yeah, I think. Or maybe it was the Hokey Pokey.”

  “No, it was my second cousins Lena and Maria-Theresa who got that one going. Jeez.”

  “I liked the dancing, especially the tarenbella.”

  “Tarantella,” she corrected, giggling. “You held up, Josh, and it’s not easy. Big points for you.”

  “I had fun, serious fun. Your family’s really cool.”

  “Also big and loud. I think Vince’s family was a little wigged, maybe especially when my uncle Larry grabbed the mike and started belting out ‘That’s Amore.’ ”

  “Sounded good. I like your family better. His are kind of snobby. He’s okay,” Josh said quickly. “And he’s over the moon about your sister. They looked like a movie couple.”

  “Yeah, they did.”

  “And your mom. Is it okay to say your mom’s really beautiful? She just doesn’t look like a mom. My family never did stuff like this, you know, the big events. I liked it.”

  She rolled over, smiled down at him. “Then you’ll come to dinner tomorrow? Mom told me to ask you. You can see what we’re like when we’re not all dressed up.”

  “Sure. Maybe you can stay tonight? My roommate’s not getting back until tomorrow night. We can go out if you want, or just stay here.”

  “I wish I could.” She bent her head to kiss his chest. It was so smooth and warm. “I really do. But I think an overnight’s a little more than my dad could take tonight. He’s going to be feeling blue. On top of it, people were giving him the business about how soon he’d be doing this again for Fran.”

  “You did shove her right at the bouquet when Bella tossed it.”

  “Reflex.” She laughed again, and sat up to shake back her hair. “I want to keep Dad busy tonight. Otherwise he’s going to be thinking about Bella’s wedding night, and that’s iffy territory for him.” She touched his cheek. “I’m glad you had fun today.”

  He sat up, hugged her in a way that warmed her heart. “I always do when I’m with you.”

  She dressed, freshened her makeup. No good going home looking like she’d just rolled out of bed with a guy. At the door she let Josh draw her into several lingering kisses.

  “Maybe, next day off, we could go somewhere,” he suggested. “The beach or something.”

  “I’d like that. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She stepped out, then turned back and pulled him into the doorway for another kiss. “That’ll have to hold me.”

  She all but danced down the stairs and into the warm night.

  Bo drove into the lot as she was putting her key into the ignition.

  He’d dropped Brad and Cammie off at Cammie’s place. It had been a good day, he thought, the kind that promised more. He liked Mandy. It was impossible not to. She was a pain in the ass with the camera, but in a way that made him laugh, or impressed him.

  “I’m going to want to see some of the six million pictures you took today,” he told her as they got out of his car.

  “You couldn’t escape it. I’m nearly as annoying with prints as I am with the lens. This was fun. I’m glad Cam nagged me into it. And saying that just proves I forget to engage brain before tongue.”

  “It’s okay, I got nagged into it, too. I figured if it turned out to be a nightmare I could hold it over Brad for years. I’ll have to find something else to hold over his head. Okay if I call you?”

  “Really okay.” She pulled a scrap of paper out of her pocket. “I already wrote down my number. If you hadn’t asked for it, I was going to plant it on you while I was doing this.”

  She grabbed his shirt in both hands, gave a quick yank and rose onto her toes at the same time. The kiss was hot and promising.

  “Nice.” She rubbed her lips together. “You know, if something works between us, they’re going to hold it over our heads.”

  “Life’s full of risks.” He’d decided the eyebrow ring was sexy. “Maybe I could come in.”

  “Tempting, very tempting. But I think we’d better hold off on that.” She unlocked her door, backed in. “Call me.”

  He put her number in his pocket and was grinning as he walked out to his car.

  Since he had the evening free, and no roommate to blare music, Josh sat down to write. He decided it would be fun to try to build a short story around the wedding.

  He wanted to get some of it down before the impressions—there were so many of them—got jumbled up or started to fade away.

  As much as he would’ve liked having Reena stay the night, he was sort of glad she’d gone home. Having the place to himself meant he could really think. Really work.

  He had most of a quick draft roughed out when the knock on the door interrupted him. With his mind still on the story, he went to answer. When he opened the door, he cocked his head in greeting. “Can I help you?”

  “Yeah, I’m from upstairs. Have you heard—See, there it is again.”

  Instinctively Josh glanced over his shoulder in the direction his visitor pointed. Pain exploded in his head, a red bloom over his eyes.

  The door was shut before he hit the floor.

  Skinny kid. No trouble hauling his stupid ass into the bedroom. The sock full of quarters would leave a mark. Maybe they’d find it later. Leave him on the floor, so it looks like he hit his head falling out of bed.

  Keep it simple, keep it quick. Light the cigarette, wipe it clean, put it between the dumb fuck’s lips. Just in case. Get his prints on the pack, on some matches. Just in case. Now lay the burning cigarette on the bed, lay it on the sheets. Smolder good there. Add a little paper—College Joe’s school papers. Leave the pack of smokes, leave some matches.

  Go find a beer in the kitchen. Might as well have a drink while it starts.

  Nothing like watching a fire being born. Nothing in the world. Power is like a prime drug.

  The smoldering fire. The sneaky fire. Sly and cunning. Building, building, quiet and secret, toward that first flash of flame.

  Gloves on, take the battery out of the smoke detector. People are so careless. Just forget to replace the batteries. Damn shame.

  Kid could come to. Comes to, just smack him again.

  Hope he comes to. Come on, you skinny bastard, come around so I can hit you again.

  Hold it in, hold it down. Watch the smoke—sexy, silent, deadly. Smoke’s what gets them. Dazes them. Paper’s catching, there’s the flame.

  First flame’s the first power. Hear how it speaks, whispers. Watch how it moves, dances.

  Now the sheets. Good start, got a start. Drape the sheet down, over the asshole.

  Beautiful! Look at the colors of it. Gold and red, orange and yellow.

  Here’s how it looks: Lights up in bed, falls asleep. Smoke gets him, he tries to get out of bed, falls, hits his head. Fire takes him while he’s out.

  Bed’s going up. Pretty, isn’t that pretty? A little more paper won’t hurt. Get his shirt caught. That’s the way!

&n
bsp; Keep going, keep going. It takes so damn long. Drink some beer, keep your cool. Who knew a skinny bastard could burn that way? Carpet’s caught now—what you get for buying cheap!

  Toast, that’s what he is. Fucking toast. Smells like roasting pig.

  Better go. Hate to leave, miss the show. It’s so interesting to watch people crackle and melt while the fire eats them.

  But it’s time to say our good-byes to dumbass College Joe. Take it slow, take it easy. Check the hall. Too damn bad you can’t stay and watch, but gotta go. Stroll away, no hurry. Don’t look back. Nice and easy, got no worries.

  Drive away. Keep to the posted limits like any law-abiding son of a bitch.

  He’ll be crisp before they get to him.

  Now that’s entertainment.

  7

  Bo woke with a hangover that rang like cathedral bells. He was face-down on a bed that smelled more like gym socks than sheets, and was just miserable enough to consider staying like that, breathing in the rank, for the rest of his natural life.

  It wasn’t his fault that his downstairs neighbor’s party had been at full blast when he got home from dropping off Mandy. Stopping in had been polite, and an entertaining way to spend the rest of his Saturday night.

  And since he’d only had to walk up the stairs to his own place, he hadn’t seen the harm in drinking a couple of beers.

  But it was his fault, and he was willing to admit it once his head stopped screaming, that he’d hung out until after two in the morning and sucked down a six-pack.

  But it wasn’t completely his fault, because the beer had been there, along with the nachos. And what were you supposed to do when you were eating nachos but wash them down with beer?

  Oceans of beer.

  He had aspirin. Probably. Somewhere. Oh, if only there was a merciful God who would remind him where the hell he’d stashed the bottle of Advil. He’d crawl to it himself, if only he knew where to drag his poor, abused body.

  And why hadn’t he pulled the shades? Why couldn’t that merciful God turn down the sunlight so it wasn’t blasting like a red furnace against his aching eyes?

  Because he’d worshipped the god of beer, that’s why. He’d broken a commandment and worshipped the false and foamy god of beer. And now he was being punished.

  He thought the aspirin, which now took on the weight of his salvation, was most likely in the kitchen. He prayed it was as he covered his eyes with one hand, eased himself out of bed. His moan was heartfelt, and turned into something more like a scream when he tripped over his shoes and fell flat on his face.

  He barely had the strength to whimper, much less swear.

  He made it to his hands and knees, balanced there, prayed there until he got most of his breath back. Never again. He swore it. If he’d had a knife he’d have drawn his own blood and used it to write the vow on the floor. He managed to get to his feet, while his banging head spun and his stomach churned. His last hope was that he wouldn’t puke on his own toes. He’d rather have the pain than the puking.

  Fortunately, his apartment was about the size of a minivan, and the kitchen only a few short steps from the pull-out sofa. Something in the kitchen smelled like dead rat, and wasn’t that just perfect? He ignored the sink full of dishes, the counter junked with boxes of takeout he’d yet to throw away, and fumbled through his cabinets.

  Crap wood, he thought as he always did. Next thing to plastic. Inside were open boxes of Life, Frosted Mini Wheats, Froot Loops and Cheerios. A bag of sour cream and onion potato chips, four boxes of macaroni and cheese, Ring-Dings, assorted cans of soup and a box of raspberry and cheese coffee cake.

  And there, there between Life and Cheerios, was the Advil. Thank you, Jesus.

  Since he’d already tossed the cap after his last hangover, all he had to do was dump three little pills in his clammy hand. He shoved them in his mouth, turned on the faucet and, since there was no room for his head among the dishes, scooped running water into his palm and sucked it in to down the pills.

  He choked when one stuck in his throat, stumbled to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of Gatorade. He drank, leaning weakly against the counter.

  He wove his way through the pile of clothes, the shoes, his stupid keys and whatever else had hit the floor, into the bathroom.

  Bracing his hands on the sink, he gathered his courage. And lifted his head to look at himself in the mirror.

  His hair looked like the dead rat in his kitchen had danced through it overnight. His face was pasty. His eyes were so full of blood he wondered if there was any left in the rest of him.

  “Okay, Goodnight, you stupid son of a bitch, this is it. Your ass is going to straighten up.”

  He turned on the shower, stepped under the stingy piss trickle. And casting his eyes to the ceiling, dragged off his boxers and the single sock he still wore. He leaned forward so the water that dribbled out of the showerhead dribbled on his hair.

  He was getting out of this dump, first chance. Meanwhile he was going to clean it up. It was one thing to save money living in a piece of shit apartment, and another to let it become a freaking cesspool because he didn’t bother to take care of it.

  It was no way to live, and he was tired of himself for settling. Tired of busting his hump all week, then blowing off the steam with too much beer so he suffered on Sunday mornings.

  It was time to make a move.

  It took him an hour to shower, brush the taste of over-partying out of his mouth, then force something into his stomach he hoped would stay there. He pulled on ripped sweats and started shoveling out his living room.

  He made piles of laundry. Who knew he had so many clothes? He stripped the revolting sheets off the bed and considered just burning them. But in the end, his frugal nature had him using them as a sack for the rest of the clothes and towels. From the looks of it, he decided he’d be spending a good chunk of his Sunday in the Laundromat.

  But for now, he pulled out the rattiest of his towels, ripped it into pieces and used one to clear the dust off the crate table. He’d made the piece, damn good work, and look how he was treating it.

  He dug out his spare sheets and one whiff had them going in the laundry pile.

  He hit the kitchen, discovered he actually did have dish detergent and an unopened bottle of Mr. Clean. He loaded bags with trash, found it wasn’t a dead rat stinking up the place but some really ancient sweet-and-sour pork. He dumped detergent in the sink. Dumped more. The dishes looked pretty grungy.

  He stood, legs spread like a gunslinger’s, and washed dishes in an ocean of suds.

  By the time he’d scrubbed counters off so he had a place to pile the dishes once they were clean, he was feeling almost normal.

  Since he was in the groove, he emptied out his refrigerator, scrubbed it down. He opened the stove, found a pizza box containing what might have been, at one time in the dim past, the remains of a Hawaiian pizza.

  “God, you’re a pig.”

  He wondered where he could rent a Hazmat suit before tackling the bathroom.

  Nearly four hours after he’d crawled out of bed, he had two bundles of laundry stuffed in the plastic hamper he’d been using as a catch-all, three Hefty bags of trash and garbage that defied description and a clean apartment.

  It was a righteous man who hauled the trash out to the dumpster.

  Upstairs, he stripped off the sweats, added them to the laundry, then pulled on his cleanest jeans and least offensive T-shirt.

  He gathered the change he’d found in the bed, under the bed, in his single chair and out of various pockets. He put on the sunglasses he thought he’d lost weeks before, grabbed his keys.

  Someone knocked just as he was about to haul up the laundry basket.

  Brad walked in when he opened the door.

  “Hey. I tried to call . . .” He trailed off, gaped. “What the hell! Did I walk into an alternate universe?”

  “Did some housekeeping.”

  “Some? Dude, a human could actually live he
re. You have a chair.”