The Bikini Car Wash

by Pamela Morsi

  Chapter 18

  THE FIRST STOREWIDE cross-training at Guthrie Foods went pretty well, Pete thought. There had been only minimal bellyaching as they started out. There were cashiers who didn’t want to stock. And there were ham-handed meat clerks who just couldn’t get the right buttons on the registers. But Pete presented the exercise as a great adventure for the employees and a way to learn how to appreciate each other. His upbeat attitude continued to be contagious and he thought it had gone very well.

  As he neared nine o’clock, he was eager to pick up Andi and tell her everything that had happened. That had become the best part of his day. He stored up incidents he wanted to share with her. And he listened eagerly to what she had to tell him.

  “I’ve never talked so much in my life,” he’d told her one night as they lay in his bed together in the aftermath of intimacy. “It’s crazy. Minx and I needed to deliberately try to have conversations. The only spontaneous ones we ever had were arguments. But with you, I just never seem to run out of things to say.”

  “Yeah, most of my exes weren’t big on talking either,” she admitted. “But you, heck I practically have to stick a boob in your mouth to shut you up.”

  “Well, okay, I’ll go for that!”

  They laughed and joked and made love and Pete was convinced that he had never had it so good.

  So he was humming happily to himself as he left Guthrie’s and walked out to his car. He loved his job. He loved his life. He loved Andi. He hadn’t told her yet, but he didn’t think it was going to be a big surprise. Maybe it was too soon to say so. If he rushed it, he might scare her off or she might doubt his sincerity. Timing was important. Just like in business or baseball, if your timing was off, well, it might not be fatal, but it could be a lot harder.

  With that on his mind, something seemed strange when he pulled into the car wash. He saw a figure retreating hurriedly into the building. The vehicle under the overhang, an oversize Cadillac SUV, peeled out noisily and barreled down the street. Pete pulled his sedan into the spot just emptied. There was no light on in the building, but he saw shadows of the person who’d just gone inside. Something was wrong.

  He put his car in Park and stepped outside. He knocked on the glass door.

  “Andi?” he called out.

  There was no answer. He grasped the doorknob and it turned. He took one step inside.

  “Andi?” he called out again.

  “She’s not here,” came the answer. The voice was gruff and choked, but still familiar.

  “Cher-L?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s Pete Guthrie,” he said. “What are you doing in here with the light off.”

  He immediately reached for the switch.

  As soon as the light came on, she slid down on the floor behind the desk.

  “No please, I don’t want anyone to see me.”

  Pete ignored that. He walked around the desk to where she was crouched down, hiding her face in her hands.

  He squatted down in front of her. “Cher-L,” he asked quietly. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I’m fine,” she said as she dropped her hands to her lap. But she didn’t look fine. She looked terrible. Her lipstick was smeared along her jaw. And the remains of brilliant black eye makeup had coursed down her cheeks in long black streaks.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why have you been crying?”

  She didn’t deny it. “I just…I just…” The answer trailed off unspoken.

  “Did somebody hurt you? Did one of the customers hurt you?”

  “No! No!” she answered quickly, but then dissolved into tears once more.

  She’d covered herself with some kind of black fringe shawl and she tried rather unsuccessfully to wipe her eyes on it.

  Failing that, she used her forearm, as her right hand continued to be clutched into a tight fist.

  Pete glanced around and spied a box of tissue on the desk and handed it to her.

  She offered a tearful thank-you just above a whisper.

  He remembered her in his office, crying. Then he’d been able to just walk away and let Miss Kepper handle it. He sure wished the old lady was here right now.

  “Do you want me to call Andi?” he asked.

  Cher-L’s eyes went wide with fear. “Oh no, please don’t call her. Please don’t. She’ll fire me for sure. Please, I just can’t get fired today. Please.”

  Tears were coursing down her cheeks again, but she denied them.

  “I’m fine, really I’m fine. Just go. I’m fine.”

  Leaving was exactly what Pete wanted to do. “Well, if you’re sure you’re all right,” he said.

  She nodded rapidly. “I’m okay,” she assured him. “I’ll get myself together and I’ll go home. I’m okay.”

  “Do you want me to give you a ride?”

  “Oh no, absolutely not. You go on. I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She waved him away. “Go. Just go.”

  That was exactly what he wanted to do. He walked out the front door and around his car. Maybe he’d stop by Andi’s house. He really wanted to see Andi. And maybe they’d both come back and make sure Cher-L was okay. But no, Cher-L didn’t want Andi to know anything about this…whatever it was. She said it would get her fired. What could have happened to make her cry and also get her fired?

  He sat down in his car. He had one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the ignition. But he never turned it over. He couldn’t.

  Pete got out of the car and went back into the building. When he opened the door, he could hear her sobbing harder than when he’d left.

  He’d never had a sister and he’d hardly known his ex-wife. But he was sure that if Andi were crying, she’d want a friend to sit beside her.

  So that’s what he did. He slid his back down the wall and sat next to her on the floor. He just sat there. He didn’t try to put an arm around her or pat her hand or touch her in any way. He was pretty sure that Cher-L would be quick to misinterpret such a gesture. Pete just sat there, listening to her. Not asking questions. Not offering comfort. Just making sure she wasn’t alone.

  She quit trying to hold back. She poured out all the wordless sadness and misery and shame that had dogged her since adolescence. And Pete sat silently as she let it go.

  When she was down to sniffs and hiccups, Pete finally spoke.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” she answered.

  “Something,” he disagreed.

  Her whole body trembled with the effort to release the truth she wanted to hold back.

  “The worst thing that has ever happened,” she said. Then after a moment she disputed herself. “The same thing that always happens.”

  Pete took that in with as open a mind as he could manage.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “It was Micky Sveck,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Micky Sveck. The guy who owns The Horny Toad.”

  “Oh, that guy,” Pete said, recalling a short, beefy guy always seen with an expensive suit and a cheap girl.

  “He…he came by here several times and he talked to me about dancing at his club,” Cher-L said. “I was, like, really flattered, because that must have meant that he thought I was really gorgeous and sexy and all that.”

  Pete mentally raised an eyebrow. He’d been to The Horny Toad a few times in his life and it was his considered opinion that gorgeous, sexy, even attractive women were in very short supply. He didn’t say that to Cher-L. He just listened as she continued.

  “So he came by again this afternoon and told me that he wanted to hire me, but I needed to audition. I told him I was closing up at nine and he said he’d come by to pick me up.”

  Cher-L shot a glance at him and then shook her head, as if disgusted with her own naivete. “I thought we’d go to the club and maybe it was like amateur night. I’ve been working up a routine to do on
stage. Then he shows up and says I need to prove I can do a lap dance cause that’s where the money is made. I was just trying to show him that I could be sexy. Then it went too far and I couldn’t seem to figure out how to stop.” She closed her eyes and then as if the memory was too vivid that way, she opened them quickly. She looked over at Pete, pleading for understanding. “I don’t know why I did it. It’s not like I wanted to. I don’t even like him. And he’s ugly and sweaty.”

  She began crying again. This time much more quietly which somehow made the pain deeper.

  “Cher-L, we all make mistakes,” Pete said. “If you asked for a show of hands in this town of who’s slept with somebody they shouldn’t have, maybe the only person without a hand up would be Father Blognick, and I’m not even that sure of him.”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “Maybe a little,” he admitted. “But lots of us have messed up more than once. I guess that makes up for those folks who never do at all.”

  Cher-L shook her head. “Tommy Gilhoolly was a mistake. DeRoy Crandall was a mistake. Micky Sveck, was a lot more.” She held out her hand and opened the fist that she’d held so tightly closed. Inside was a crumpled wad of green paper bearing the image of Andrew Jackson. “He paid me twenty dollars.” Her words were quiet. “That’s what he saw me as, a twenty-dollar whore.”

  She let the bill slip out of her hand and then covered her face as if she couldn’t bear for Pete to look at her.

  How did this happen? he wondered. How could someone so young get so completely off on the wrong foot in the world? Maybe he should never have fired her? he thought.

  Peterson, don’t go there, he warned himself. You didn’t cause this. But maybe you can figure out a way to help her out.

  He gave himself a couple of minutes to work it out in his head. He checked his wallet and retrieved all four twenties that he found there.

  “Cher-L, listen to me,” he said, decisively. “I need you to be proactive about this.”

  “Proactive?”

  “You need to take control,” he clarified. “Tonight Micky had all the control, but you’ve got to change that. And you are the only one who can.”

  He held the four twenties up so she could see them. They varied in age and wrinkles. He threw them on the floor with the one she’d got from Micky and quickly swished them all around so neither of them could tell one from the other. He picked up the stack of bills and handed them to her.

  “Tomorrow morning, I want you to go into the doctor and get yourself checked out,” he said. “This guy could have some disease and if he gave it to you, you need to catch it right away. This money should pay for your doctor’s visit.”

  “You shouldn’t have to give me money,” Cher-L said.

  “I’m not giving you money,” Pete answered. “That’s what Micky did. I’m making an investment in a person, a friend, who I believe in. A friend I have respect for. But, Cher-L, you’re going to have to start having some respect for yourself. Promise me that you’ll take this money and go to the doctor.”

  “I will,” she said.

  “And I promise you that no one will ever hear a word about this from me,” he said. “What I know about you is that you are pretty and funny and flirty. You have a wonderful laugh. And Andi tells me that you’re very competent with the money and the paperwork. And that you’re just as friendly to the old geezers who show up here as the young bucks. Those are good things about you, Cher-L. It’s time to start putting the bad things behind you and start building on what is good.”

  She swallowed hard. “It’s easy for you to say. People like you and Andi just never screw up like I do.”

  He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You don’t count a failed marriage? Mine was a pretty big screwup.”

  She shrugged. “Okay, maybe that,” she admitted. “But Andi is practically perfect. And she’s just so lucky.”

  The younger woman’s tone was surprisingly rife with envy and more than a little resentment.

  “Lucky?” Pete asked rhetorically and then shook his head. “Not so much,” he answered. “She has a father who barely managed to scrape together a living, a sister who is mentally handicapped and needed all the attention in the family, a mom who died too young and now a business that half the community is opposed to. If Andi is ‘practically perfect’, she’s made herself that way by sheer willpower alone.”

  “You like her, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “I do like her,” he said. “And I admire her. She’s smart and creative and not afraid of what other people think of her. I see those same qualities in you, Cher-L. Why do you think I hired you to work for me? It wasn’t because there was no one else. And it certainly wasn’t because you gave the appearance of being just a cookie-cutter employee.”

  Cher-L choked out a laugh. It was the first real evidence of her dark clouds lifting.

  “That was your mistake,” she said. “Cookie cutter is part of the bakery’s job description.”

  A spattering of gravel hit the glass of Andi’s bedroom window. It didn’t wake her. She wasn’t asleep. After the surprise engagement dinner, her mind was racing.

  She’d managed to get through the meal without screaming, throwing anything or stomping out in a huff. All three actions had been distinct possibilities.

  One action that had not been possible was eating dinner. Sitting in the best restaurant in town and she couldn’t even choke down the walnut-and-endive salad she ordered. It looked beautiful and smelled even better, but her stomach was tied up in knots.

  Jelly had no such problem. She cheerfully ate and chatted and celebrated.

  “I’ve never had a brother before and now I have two!”

  Mrs. Joffee’s sons looked as unhappy about that as Andi felt. It was crazy and no amount of wine, prime rib and crème brûlée would make it less so.

  After what seemed like hours of conversational torture, they finally made it back home. Andi held her questions until Jelly headed up to bed, but she could remain silent no longer.

  “I don’t understand this, Pop,” she said. “I don’t understand this at all.”

  She followed her father into the kitchen. He got himself a glass of water from the tap.

  “It’s not really all that complicated,” he told her. “We love each other and we want to get married. Oh, I’m not imagining that everybody in town is going to think it’s the best idea since sliced bread. Father Blognick is sure to give me a few choice words. I don’t know if they’re as gossipy at the synagogue as they are at St. Hyacinth’s, but I suspect Rachel’s rabbi and his congregation may not take it any better. But she and I are clear. It’s not about them. It’s about us.”

  “Am I included in that ‘us’ equation or are the children of your ‘marriage of convenience’ not that important anymore?”

  Pop’s brow furrowed and gave her a look very familiar to her childhood memories of disobedience.

  “Andrea Katrine!” he scolded. “I expect better than that from you.”

  Andi was duly chagrined.

  “Sorry, Pop,” she said. “But I…I feel like my whole life has been turned upside down. I always thought you and Mom had a perfect marriage and now I find out you never loved each other. You were both in love with other people.”

  “I did love your mother and she did love me,” he insisted. “There are different kinds of love. For us it was just different.”

  Andi nodded unconvinced. “The kicker to that, Pop, is that different means inferior.”

  “No, it does not,” he said. “Different is just that, different. Think of you and Jelly.”

  “What about us?”

  “Which one of my daughters do you think I love?” Pop asked. “You, Andi, I’ve urged to flight. Go out, discover the world, find yourself. I’ve cheered on as you left home. I let you build a life in Chicago that had nothing to do with me. And when you threw it away to come home, I gladly welcomed you in. I’ve stood beside you as you’ve made choices and I’ve let you ma
ke them, even when I didn’t agree. That’s all proof that I love you.”

  “I never doubted that you love me, Pop,” Andi said.

  “So what about Jelly?” he asked. “I have kept her at home with me from the very first. There were people who thought she should go away to an institution when she was just a toddler. I wouldn’t let her go. She’s never been out on her own. Never given a chance to make a life away from me. I never let her drive. Never encouraged her to date. When her sheltered workshop closed, I could have allowed her to move into a group home in another city far away, but instead I took her to work with me, made her my assistant on a volunteer job. And that’s proof that I love her.”

  He put both hands on the kitchen table and leaned forward.

  “So let me repeat the question,” he said. “Which of my daughters do I love?”

  Andi just looked at him. There was no need to answer. Of course he loved them both.

  “I loved Rachel, so I had to let her go,” he said.

  He pulled out a kitchen chair and seated himself. Andi followed his lead.

  “I don’t know if you’ve ever had your heart broken,” he said. “As your pop, I really hope not. Because it is awful. The pain was so fresh at first that I couldn’t bear to be in the same town with her. I couldn’t stand by and watch her marry another man. I joined the army as an escape.” He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “Paul and Ella, all they wanted was to get married and live happily ever after. But they loved me. So Ella waited and Paul followed me into the service to keep an eye on me.” He shook his head. “That didn’t work, of course. I got sent to Germany and he went to Vietnam. I can’t tell you the guilt I felt when he was killed. It was partly penance that brought me home to face your mother. I wanted her to revile me, hit me, to tell me how much she hated me for tearing her apart from the man she loved. But that’s not what happened. We shared our grief and we opened our hearts.”

  “You said you married to make the best of it,” Andi pointed out.

  Pop nodded. “We did. Maybe we could have just stayed friends. Maybe our hearts would have healed and we would have both found other people. But I don’t think either of us were ever much into maybes. We enjoyed our life together. We were blessed by you two wonderful girls. I have no regrets. And Ella certainly never expressed any.”