“It’s so wonderful of your grandmother to let us use your yard for the wedding,” Trixie said. They stood together in the only stretch of flat land behind their two houses, a patch of grass lined by three young redwoods that framed the view of the San Francisco Bay beyond them. The Johnson’s yard was too sloped to allow for any seating during the ceremony, but the Lapinski’s had room for at least thirty folding chairs, if the guests had good balance. The wedding was set for the following Saturday, only six days away. “Liam and Bev got fed up with the big fancy places. Now that she’s expecting a baby, they just wanted to keep it small.”
“Nana always loved Liam,” Jody said. Liam, Trixie’s son, had been an Olympic swimmer and was now an executive at Fite Fitness, the trendy fitness apparel company. His gorgeous blond Adonis looks matched his resume. “She still tells me I missed my chance.”
“Afraid so,” Trixie said, twinkling. “But I saw Simon has moved in to your place. How’s that going?”
Jody turned to her in surprise. “You know the new guy?”
“Not personally. Mark told me WellyNelly’s new lawyer was homeless, so I told him about your place.” Mark was her youngest son.
Jody stifled a groan. She’d fought off Trixie’s efforts to set her up for years. Looks like she was at it again. “Did you?”
“I knew your grandmother was eager to get a tenant before she left for Europe,” Trixie said.
“I don’t know why,” Jody said, frowning up at the top floor. In the two weeks Simon had lived there, he’d been insufferably polite when her grandmother was around, but pointedly rude whenever she wasn’t. The day after tomorrow, when Nana was on her flight to Paris, he’d probably become difficult 24/7. “I told her I could pay for her trip, or at least cover the difference. She charges me way below market for rent. It’s the least I can do.”
“Maybe she’s matchmaking,” Trixie said.
Jody snorted. “Nana? Hardly. She’s always telling me I should stay single. Get a dog if I need love.” She kissed Zeus’s head. “Or a cat if I just want to stroke something.”
“She was very happy with your grandfather, she told me.”
“Sure, but she knows me. I don’t have any patience with romantic bullshit.” Jody covered the dog’s pointy ears. “Excuse my language, Zeus.”
“He’s quite good-looking,” Trixie said. “The lawyer.”
“One reason he’s such a pain in the butt.”
“Then you agree?” Trixie asked.
“I hate to disappoint you, Trixie,” Jody said, setting Zeus in the grass, “but Simon and I go way back. It’s not happening.”
“Really? You’ve met before?”
“Grew up on the same street.” He’d been fun. A nice boy. A good friend.
Then.
Trixie peered at her through a pair of red sunglasses with rainbow peace signs marking each temple. An Oakland A’s baseball cap covered her pixie-cut gray hair. “Shame,” she said after a moment. “Deep down, you probably know each other really well.”
“Exactly,” Jody said. “So, how are you going to handle the parking?” The hilly street was narrow and cramped, with no room for dozens of visiting cars.
“They’re setting up a shuttle system.” Trixie reached out and fluffed Jody’s hair. “You and Simon are invited, of course.”
Jody ignored how she’d paired them up in the invitation. “Oh, no, it’s such a small wedding, you’ll want just your family there.”
“There’s still plenty of room for a couple of neighbors. Promise me you’ll come by for a glass of champagne. Toast the bride and groom.” Trixie smiled.
“We’ll see,” Jody said, uncomfortable about crashing such a small wedding, especially with her mortal enemy in tow.
“It’ll be for good luck.” Trixie smiled. “Yours and Simon’s.”
5
SHE WAS DRIVING HIM INSANE.
No matter what time it was he came home from work, she was there in the front garden, in dirty jeans and an old T-shirt, driving him insane. Waving her round butt where he had to look at it; leaning over, exposing her deep, soft cleavage; making him dream about her.
He couldn’t stop looking at her, and looking at her drove him crazy. He knew she had a job somewhere, but she worked strange hours, always home early, impossible to avoid. Mrs. Lapinski had left for Europe on Monday, three days earlier. Now it was just the two of them. For an entire month.
He pressed the remote for the garage door and rode his bike inside. His commute was downhill in the morning and uphill—extremely uphill—in the evenings. He was short of breath, sweaty, and exhilarated, pleased with his decision to live within biking distance of his new job. Jody, he’d noticed, rode sometimes, too. Mrs. Lapinski had mentioned she was a chemist.
That wasn’t surprising. Smiling, he set his black bike against the garage wall, next to Jody’s silver one, remembering the time she’d shown him the contraband gunpowder she’d made from saltpeter and other stuff in her mom’s gardening shed. The first explosion had been impressive, but the second, with its blinding staccato light and cracking blast, had been awesome.
They’d both been suspended from school for a week. Luckily for both of them, your fifth grade crimes didn’t show up on your permanent record.
“What are you smiling at?” Jody asked, appearing in the doorway to the house.
There she is again.
She punched the wall button for the automatic door, and it moaned as it descended, closing them inside the dim garage. The bright hallway behind her illuminated her silhouette. She was wearing something form-fitting, and for a long moment he stared, transfixed. He’d always liked her curves.
With an effort he tore away his gaze. He was getting tired of planning to avoid her and then failing at it. “I was thinking about gunpowder,” he said, hanging his helmet over the handlebars.
“Thinking about becoming a terrorist?” she asked.
He brushed past her in the doorway, then lingered, meeting her gaze over his shoulder. “Just reminiscing.” He held her eyes. “Fifth grade?”
Her mouth fell open slightly in surprise, then curved into a smile as she shared the memory. Years fell away; the chasm between them narrowed. “That was awesome, wasn’t it?” She chuckled, low and throaty.
He nodded. “It sure was.”
“My mom was furious,” she said, “but my dad was impressed. He sent me off to science camp that summer.”
“I remember,” he said. “We were bored without you.”
“We?”
He’d walked right into that one. If he mentioned Melissa, she’d probably get all bitchy again. “Sure,” he said. “The whole neighborhood.”
Maybe she’d decided to let it slide, because she looked away and closed the door without a word. He readjusted his backpack on his shoulder and glanced toward the kitchen. “What’s for dinner?” Before Mrs. Lapinski had left on her trip, he’d settled on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays for his board. Having skipped lunch, he was starving.
“Dinner?” she asked. The tone of her voice confirmed his worst fears.
“No dinner?”
“What day is it?”
“Thursday,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“What do you mean, am I sure?” he asked, pulling out his phone. Was he wrong?
“All right, all right, don’t cream your shorts.”
“I assure you, my shorts are not creamy.” He’d almost thought they could talk to each other like normal people. “Would you like to see for yourself?” He slipped a thumb under the waistband of his khakis.
She froze, then made a point of staring at his crotch. “Go ahead. Let’s see what you’ve got. You always did like to wave your dick around.”
The urge to drop trou was overwhelming. After a mighty battle, he fought it off. “Never mind.” He turned and strode down the hall to the stairs.
“There you go again,” she said. “Running away.”
Keep going. You do
not want to continue this conversation. He bumped into the banister as he rounded the stairs.
He needed to remember: they couldn’t talk to each other. She was impossible. She’d twist everything he said, everything he did, into a despicable crime.
His rooms smelled stale as he walked in, and he spent a few minutes storming around, throwing open the windows to let in the evening breeze. Only 7:00 p.m. and the temperature outside had already dropped into the low 60s, the low sun hidden by a thick blanket of fog in the west. Earlier that morning, he’d overslept, knocking the bedding to the floor on his rush to the bathroom. He picked up a pillow and stared out at the Golden Gate, clutching it to his chest. The lights from the bridge flashed above the fog.
For a few minutes he stood there, staring, letting the fresh air and impressive view seep into his psyche. His thoughts drifted, as they kept doing since he’d moved into the Lapinski house, to the past.
Would it be any better if he told her he was sorry, that he’d regretted—
No. He wasn’t going to think about it anymore. To drive home the point, he turned and pitched the pillow across the room.
Jody cried out. “Eep!”
He hadn’t seen her in time. The pillow struck her shoulder and fell to the floor. “What are you doing here?” He’d propped the door open for the air but hadn’t expected her to come upstairs, let alone into his bedroom.
Shoulders hunched, she held a tray, one that thankfully had escaped the airborne bedding. “I’ve made you a sandwich. There’s a salad, too.” Her voice was businesslike, but her movements were awkward, nervous. She looked around for a place to set it down, but the room only held a bed, a desk covered with papers, and a bedside table. “I’ll put it on the table in the kitchenette.”
Embarrassed, he watched her walk away. After a moment, he followed her, catching up to her just as she was heading for the door at the stairs. “Hold on,” he said. “Sorry about the pillow. I didn’t know you were there.”
She stopped but only turned around halfway. “I thought you were still mad I forgot it was Thursday.”
It sounded so ridiculous, he almost smiled. “I wasn’t mad about that.”
“I promised my grandmother I wouldn’t be rude,” she said. “I apologize.”
He stared at the soft curve of her cheek under the curtain of her loose hair, thinking that must’ve been hard for her to say. He cleared his throat and said, “Takes two to tango.”
She gave him a quick smile over her shoulder, knocking the breath out of him. If only she always looked at him like that.
“It’s chicken,” she said. “The sandwich.”
“My favorite.”
“I know,” she said, then looked at the floor, her cheeks turning pink.
Well, now. That was interesting. “Will you eat with me?” he asked.
“What?”
“How about it? Have you already eaten?”
“No, but…” She licked her lips.
He looked at the tray. “It’s a huge sandwich. Split it with me.”
Her eyes darted to the tray, then to him. “Really?”
“We can’t keep fighting like children,” he said.
“Funny you put it like that, since we didn’t fight until we grew up.”
Their eyes met. Suddenly, he really, really wanted her to stay. He went over and pulled out one of the two chairs at the tiny bistro table under the window. The neighbor’s house was visible through the rounded branches of a California buckeye. “Please?”
With a shrug, her eyes wary, she walked over and sat down. Oddly nervous, he quickly found a clean plate in the small cupboard over the toaster oven and set it in front of her, then scooped up half of the sandwich and moved it over. “Looks great. Love the bread. Do you make it yourself?”
She snorted as she rearranged the triangle on her plate. “I should say yes, but it’s my grandmother’s. Homemade. I got it out of the freezer.”
He reclaimed his seat and took a bite with mock seriousness. “Thanks for thawing it first. Bet you were tempted not to.”
“Only for a second. I told you, I promised Nana I’d be nice.”
“I wouldn’t tell.”
“Don’t tempt me,” she said.
“I can defend myself. Don’t worry.”
She took a bite. “I’m not worried.”
They ate in silence for a few moments.
“The arugula’s from my garden,” she said. “It’s a little bitter.”
The mouthful got caught in his throat, and their eyes met.
“Like me,” she said. “Is that what you’re thinking?”
He patted his mouth with a sky-blue cloth napkin she’d provided. “I’m thinking this is a delicious sandwich.”
With a half-smile, she put her sandwich down on the plate and looked out the window. “The neighbors’ wedding is Saturday at noon. It might be kind of noisy around here. Just so you know, in case you want to avoid it.”
“I’ve been invited to come by for a piece of cake.” His boss was the best man; the groom, his boss’s brother.
“Champagne, too,” she said. “You were included in an invitation to me.”
“Then I can hardly refuse.”
Her expression was unreadable.
“You don’t want me to go?” he asked.
“I wasn’t sure I was going to go myself,” she said. “I’m not good with crowds.”
“Neither am I. We could go together. Protect each other from the horde.” He caught her eye and smiled. His heart was beating too fast.
“We’ll see. I might be busy.” Her hands fumbled with the plate that held her half of the sandwich. They fell into silence again.
This was the longest they’d been together without insulting each other since they were twelve. The thought crossed his mind that if they were ever going to talk about the past, this might be a good time to do it.
“So,” he asked, pushing the plate away, “why exactly do you hate me?”
6
SHE SWALLOWED THE MOUTHFUL SHE was chewing and stared at him, wishing she’d never sat down. If only she hadn’t forgotten it was Thursday; she could’ve made him a casserole and served it on a tray, no words exchanged. Now she had to sit close enough to see the stubble on his jaw, the flecks of gold in his eyes, the hint of hair under the open collar at his throat.
“You make it sound one-sided,” she said.
“I don’t hate you.”
She forced a laugh. “Right.”
“I don’t.” He looked serious. “One day we were friends, the next you hated my guts.”
“It wasn’t quite like that.” She had a flashback to Melissa vomiting into the floorboards of her Honda Civic on the drive to the hospital. Some sixth sense had led Jody to go by her friend’s house and force the screen door. Afterward she couldn’t explain how she’d known it was an emergency. Because she’d known Melissa’s parents were out of town for the weekend? Because Melissa had been suspiciously cheerful on Friday afternoon, after weeks of lethargy, crying, scary ideas…
“Melissa?” he asked.
“Yes, Melissa.”
His voice lowered. “I’m not comfortable talking about that.”
“She wasn’t comfortable living it.”
“You think I abandoned her,” he said.
“Yeah.” His bleak face made her say it more gently than she might have. “Don’t you?”
“Yes. I think I did.”
“Then…”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Why’d I do it?”
She waited.
“You’re actually going to listen to my explanation?” he asked.
“I’d love to hear it.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, “it’s not a very good excuse. You’ll still feel comfortable hating me later.”
“I’ve never—”
“Her parents asked me to stay away,” he said. “I shouldn’t have listened, but I was scared. Terrified, actually.”
She
sat back in her chair. Melissa’s parents? “What?”
“We weren’t really serious. Me and Melissa. You must’ve known that. I didn’t even refer to the few times we went to the movies or Starbucks as ‘dates’—it was just, you know, going out with a friend.”
“It was definitely serious to her.” But doubt crept into Jody’s thoughts. Melissa hadn’t been entirely in touch with reality back then.
“Which was making me uncomfortable,” he continued, “so I told her I wasn’t ready for a girlfriend—”
“You’d had girlfriends since seventh grade,” Jody said.
“I didn’t want to hurt her. I was seventeen, all right? She was an old friend. She seemed to want more than I did, I told her I couldn’t be that for her.”
Jody ran a hand through her hair. “All right. But later, when she was in the hospital, you couldn’t even—”
“Like I said, her parents told me to get lost. They came to my house, talked to my mom. They were afraid that any contact with me would set off her obsession again. The only way she could recover was if I disappeared.”
Jody sat, stunned. “They let her think you were that heartless?”
“They thought it would be better than thinking I was wonderful.” He gave her a smile that didn’t touch his eyes.
Anger surged through her. She got to her feet, needing to do something, to move. “I can’t believe it.”
“It’s true. You can ask my mother if—”
“No, damn it, I believe you, just can’t believe it, you know? But it is just the sort of overbearing thing they would’ve done. Damn it.” She flushed, angry at Melissa’s parents, at herself, thinking of the years she’d wrongly harbored such bitterness.
She needed time to think. Process.
“I’ve always regretted it,” he said. “I don’t think she tried to kill herself just because she couldn’t have wonderful, perfect me. I’m not that great.” He smiled again, this time with more humor. “As you know.”
Can't Stop Wanting You: (Oakland Hills Short Story 1) Page 2