Fools Paradise

by Stevenson, Jennifer

  “Ugh.” The pickle hunkered down in Bobbyjay’s throat and wouldn’t budge.

  “I put the kids in the big front room,” Fran said.

  Bobbyjay saw her eyes lock with Marty Dit’s. Daisy pounded him on the back.

  Marty Dit turned pale. He glared lethally into Fran’s eyes and stammered, “It’s g-got a nice view.”

  “True. Be sure to draw the drapes tonight, Bobbyjay,” Fran said. “And lock your door. Wesley walks in his sleep.”

  “I do not!” Wesley said. He scowled at Bobbyjay, and Bobbyjay remembered that the kid was in love with Daisy.

  “He doesn’t walk in his sleep,” Daisy agreed. “He just said that when Mom caught him pointing his shotgun mic at the neighbors across the lake.”

  “Shush?” Bobbyjay said, swallowing pickle.

  Marty Dit turned that scary-jovial grin on him. “Boy, I hope you won’t hold it against me that I’m running for the Exec Board against Bobby Senior. This time I’m not fooling around. I’ve rented an office and I’m sending out campaign literature and everything. But of course with you two lovebirds mending the fence between the two families, Bobby Senior will understand there’s no hard feelings. Calamari salad?”

  Panicking in the face of all this fake good humor, Bobbyjay said, “Uh, I don’t eat that fishy stuff.”

  “Now that,” Fran said, eyeing his shoulders, “is a real shame.”

  Daisy slapped Bobbyjay’s arm. “Oh, you do too. What about all those fish you and I made. That day you kissed me in the back yard?”

  Wesley choked this time.

  “C’mon,” Daisy said with an innocent air. “I personally guarantee anything you eat in this house.”

  Marty Dit pointed a three-foot-long barbeque fork at him. He turned an emotional shade of purple. “You’ll eat what my granddaughter offers you and like it.”

  Her mother watched Bobbyjay interestedly, and Marty Dit turned his attention to his burger, his face dark.

  Bobbyjay stared at him like a rabbit meeting its first Mack truck. I’m a dead man, he thought. He especially didn’t like the sound of Wesley’s shotgun microphone. Those things could hear through walls.

  “I thought you said your grandfather wouldn’t be here,” he hissed to Daisy while they were carrying dishes into the house.

  “He must have changed his mind,” Daisy whispered back.

  “Jesus. He’s going to kill me.”

  “No he won’t. He knows how important this is to me.”

  “What do you mean, this?” Bobbyjay said, feeling pathetic for fishing.

  “Us. This engagement. Not killing you.” She sent him a warning glance and he noticed her cousin Wesley coming into the kitchen with the leftovers. “I think we’re going to turn in,” she said to Wesley. “Tell Goomba I’ll make pancakes in the morning?”

  “Uh, don’t do that,” Wesley said, looking nervous. “I mean not yet. I think Goomba and Aunt Fran want you to, to bring out some gelato.”

  Daisy rolled her eyes. “All right, I’ll get it. Now can I have some time with my fiancé? Alone?”

  Wesley gave Bobbyjay a final glare and left the kitchen. Bobbyjay heard teenager feet thumping down the porch stairs.

  “Hell,” Daisy said, sticking her head into the freezer. “He’s going to spy on us.”

  “What?” Bobbyjay leaned over her. She started handing him frozen stuff. His fears jostled for control of his mouth. “Daisy, we can’t—what are we going to do? Your mom wants us—I think even your grandfather expects—do you think he’ll be listening, too?”

  “No question,” she said, rummaging in the freezer. Her buns peeped out of the bottom of her skimpy little shorts. Then she put the frozen stuff back. When all he held was two tubs of Italian ice, she shut the freezer door.

  “What are we gonna do, Daze?”

  Her eyes slanted up at him oddly. Her smile wavered. “We’ll just have to punt.”

  To Daisy’s relief, nobody referred again to her and Bobbyjay’s upcoming performance on the king-sized bed of adventure until they retreated from the battle zone around the coffeepot. Daisy found herself tiptoeing ahead of Bobbyjay up the stairs.

  “Kids?” Mom’s voice came from below. Caught. Daisy looked back. Her heart pounded embarrassingly loudly. Bobbyjay’s face was as pink as a peach pit.

  Mom rushed up the stairs after them, dashed into the linen closet, dashed back, and thrust a thick pile of towels into Bobbyjay’s hands. Then she kissed them each on the cheek.

  “Good luck, darlings,” she whispered. “I’ll keep them outside as long as I can.” And she charged downstairs before Daisy could say anything.

  Daisy tiptoed into the guest room, grabbed Bobbyjay by the arm and dragged him in with her. Then she shut and locked the door.

  “Quick,” she said. “Push the dresser against the door.”

  Bobbyjay’s eyes rolled nervously, but he did it.

  There was a candle burning on the dresser, and a fakey odor of pumpkin pie. “Jeez, Mom went all out, didn’t she?” She sat down on the bed. “C’mere.”

  He sat down beside her.

  “Council of war, okay?” she breathed in his ear. He smelled like sweat and hamburger grease.

  “What’s the procedure?” he whispered.

  “We have about three minutes before they all come upstairs and Wesley gets his 007 gear working,” Daisy whispered. She could feel herself trembling. This whole trip had seemed harmless until her mother got into it. Now she was trapped between Mom on one side and Goomba’s and Wesley’s carefully-masked jealous fury on the other. The fear in Bobbyjay’s face made her realize how she was endangering him. Don’t worry, she wanted to say. I’ll protect you.

  “God, Mom’s a menace!” she said to keep her mind off the click! of Goomba’s police .38 misfiring. “She’s, like, determined.”

  “If we don’t do something, she’ll kill me and call off the wedding. And if we do, your grandfather will, like, kill me,” Bobbyjay said, wrapping it up succinctly.

  “So we fake it,” Daisy rushed out.

  “Fake.” He blinked at her.

  Don’t go dumb on me now, Bobbyjay! “You know. Make a little noise like they think they want to hear. And in the morning I’ll lie like crazy to Mom. Tell her you’re Lord Of The Dance, nookywise. She’ll tell Goomba, and he’ll have to give up on killing you because I’ll say I can’t—”

  The stairs creaked as if a herd of hippos was trying to sneak up them.

  “I can’t live without you, Bobbyjay,” Daisy said loudly.

  The creaks stopped outside their door. “You’re everything. If I don’t have you, life isn’t worth living.” She thought she sounded pretty convincing. Bobbyjay’s eyes bulged. He edged away from her on the bed. The bedsprings sproinged nicely.

  The herd of hippos clattered down the hall. A door slammed nearby.

  Bobbyjay leaned close again. “Let’s find that bug,” he whispered.

  She nodded. He was wearing those ripped jeans. She wondered if they still smelled like fish.

  “Shut the drapes?” she said in a carrying voice. While he did that, she slid stealthily to the nightstand and felt under the back edge, where Wesley had bragged about putting a bug when Cousin Tony last used this room.

  Bingo. She gestured to Bobbyjay.

  He came to where she stood and felt near her hand. He nodded. She stepped away, and he lifted the nightstand up and flipped it around so they could see Wesley’s little snooper, like a metal button. Putting his lips by her ear he breathed, “Flush it down the toilet?”

  She almost said yes. Then she realized they couldn’t.

  “Come over here, big boy,” she said aloud, and pulled him to the far side of the room. “We can’t flush it!” she whispered. “Wesley will tell Goomba it didn’t work. And then tomorrow he’ll know I’m lying. Nobody can know this is engagement a fake!”

  “N-no,” Bobbyjay said. In a fog of pain and lust, he remembered dimly what this was all about. Making the
world safe for Mortons. Covering butt for Bobby Junior and the guys, so Bobby Senior would get re-elected.

  “They’ll be in Wesley’s room,” she whispered. Her breath was sweet with Pepsi and hamburger bun.

  “Your grandfather too?” he squeaked.

  Bobbjay’s rebel soul broke loose. Fuck Bobby Senior and all the other Bobbies. Let Marty Dit kill ’em. The way Bobbyjay saw it, somehow they’d got him into this bedroom with Marty Dit’s granddaughter, and the old man listening in the next room, waiting for him to make her scream in sexual ecstasy.

  The thought made him hard. God, I’m an idiot. He tried to focus on why he was here. His rebel soul argued, If Bobby Senior can’t get re-elected after twenty-one years, whose fault is that?

  “Talk!” she whispered urgently. “Say, like, why you love me and stuff. Sexy talk.”

  “I don’t know how to do that!” he blurted out loud.

  She rolled her eyes. He felt majorly stupid.

  “Oh, God, yes, Bobbyjay, touch me there! You’re such a hunk! Do me!” She dragged him to the bed and shoved him so that he fell down, making the springs creak. “You have the hunkiest shoulders!”

  On the other hand, it didn’t totally suck to be here yet.

  She bounced down next to him, pulled her shoe off, and tossed it to the floor.

  She whispered, “I can’t believe they’re listening! That’s so tacky! I bet Goomba would die if I showed that bug to Mom!”

  Bobbyjay pulled off his sneaker. He felt up to faking that much. “What if she’s next door, too?” He let the shoe fall over the side of the bed.

  “Nope. Hear that?” They held their breath together. A clang came from the first floor. “She’s loading the dishwasher.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past her to join the spies,” Bobbyjay said darkly. “She was awful, uh, pushy.”

  “When? What did she say to you?”

  “When I brought my overnight bag up here. She asked if you were a screamer.”

  Daisy’s eyes glittered. “What did you tell her?”

  “What do you think I told her?” he said, bristling.

  “I bet you went Uh, or Guk, or Mmff.”

  “I’m not gonna squeal on you! I wouldn’t.”

  Her look softened. “Not even to my Mom?”

  “I’m engaged to you. Pretend, anyway,” he said hoarsely.

  “Shh-sh!” She put her finger on his lips. She was leaning a lot closer to him than she had to, even for fake noisy sex.

  “C’mon, you first,” he whispered. “Tell ’em why you fell in love with me. Make it convincing,” he added, his heart in his mouth.

  With a swoony look out of the corner of her eye, she threw her head back and wailed, “When your butt hangs out of those ripped-up jeans—I—I get all warm and runny, Bobbyjay!”

  Like a fool, he got harder. She laughed up at him and he flushed.

  “And you’re so sweet when you blush,” she howled wickedly.

  “Great,” he muttered. “Now I’m a doofus.”

  “Well, it’s cute,” she whispered.

  “Blushing is not a guy thing. You’re making me look like a doofus.” He hurled his other shoe against the door with a bang.

  From the other side of the wall, muffled voices sounded. Bobbyjay and Daisy held mouse-still on the bed.

  “We have to keep making loud noises,” she breathed against his ear. “Or else he’ll just keep turning it up so he can hear better, and then it won’t even be safe to whisper.”

  She fell against him, putting her hand on his chest. His breath caught.

  She was doing it on purpose. Touching him. Getting too close. She smelled like sweat and girly soap. Her eyes glittered, and her hand kneaded his pec.

  He leaned toward her and saw her eyes go round. Hah. “Not so sure of yourself all of a sudden?” he said aloud. I’ll teach you to take advantage of me. Leaning toward her, he felt her warmth against his tee-shirt. He blew her hair away from her ear. “Your Mom is gonna want to hear,” he whispered, “from your weaselly cousin—if I’m a five minute fuck.”

  She jerked back at the last word. He raised his eyebrows and tried to shrug innocently while keeping his chest against her shoulder.

  “Sooo—” he whispered, and raised his voice. “Gimme that shoe.” Snake-quick, he reached for her ankle and got the other shoe off her foot. Daisy squealed. The bedsprings creaked. He threw her shoe as hard as he could against the wall between their room and Wesley’s.

  “You big lug! What are you doing?” she cried out loud, and then shrieked when he tickled her socked foot. The bedsprings played a symphony.

  “Bobbyjay! No—agh, stop! You devil!” She twisted under him, grabbing at his flesh in a highly satisfactory manner. “Stop it!”

  A bump from next door made them freeze in position, he with his legs thrown over her body, holding her down, his hands around her ankle and his thumbs on her instep, she lying under him, twisted, with her claws digging into the clenched muscles of his stomach. He raised his finger to his lips. She stared at the locked door.

  The knob turned faintly.

  Bobbyjay thanked Daisy’s foresight for making him shove the dresser against the door.

  He looked back at her face and saw determination in the set of her jaw.

  “Make love to me,” she said loudly. She looked madder and madder, but her voice was throaty. “Do those things that I love, Bobbyjay. Make me scream. Make me beg for it.” Her wounded look turned toward him. “Those jerks,” she whispered. “I’ll make them sorry they ever tried this. Please!” her voice rose. “Take me now! Don’t make me wait!”

  The door of the adjacent bedroom closed again.

  Daisy looked mad enough to cry.

  Bobbyjay swiveled so he could put his hand over hers. “They want the best for you,” he whispered.

  emphasize him being in love with her here—that's why he finally tries to make this charade work, gets into the spirit of pretending lovemaking.”They’re trying to ruin my life,” she said, angry tears in her eyes. “What if I was really engaged to you? What if this was real? With them listening? It wouldn’t be funny at all!” She commanded, “Do me before I burn up!”

  He closed his hand over hers.

  Suddenly it wasn’t hard to imagine that he was really engaged to her, them in a bed and her family eavesdropping in the next room, and she was really crying in his arms, furious and hurt and humiliated. He curved his arm around her head, wishing he could protect her from all the meanness. “Don’t cry, Killer,” he whispered.

  “Tell me,” he called, choking and then swallowing. “Tell me what you want. I want to make you crazy, Daisy.” The rhyme made him laugh. She cracked a smile. “Tell me what turns you on!”

  Her eyes lit up. “You know what I like, my hunky studmuffin!”

  “Tell me. I won’t do it unless you say it out loud.”

  She seemed to be cheering up. Her face glowed. She pouted at the top of her lungs, “You don’t really love me!”

  He almost wrecked it by laughing again. “Do so. You—uh—your eyes are beautiful. I love ’em slanty. And you look hot in those little flimsy shirts. And I love your voice.” He let his mouth run on autopilot while he tuned his ears to any possible faint sound from next door. “I want to drive you to work every day. I want to bring you coffee in bed. I’ve loved you ever since you smiled at me that night.” His mind raced, wondering what it would take to make Marty Dit realize what a scumbucket he was and stop listening. “But you’re not depraved enough for me yet, Daisy. You have to talk dirty to me.”

  “Is that what turns you on?” she whispered. She was breathing fast.

  He made a “gimme-a-break” face and cocked his head at the wall.

  She grinned. “Dirty talk? Ooo, Bobbyjay, I want to be your whore! Make me scream, Bobbyjay! Make me do sick, crazy things to your body!”

  “Not yet, angelina,” he said on an inspiration. That ought to send the old man up the pole. “You first. What part
of your beautiful body do I get to fuck first?” He bounced on the bed for good measure. Sproing, squeak-a squeak-a.

  She grabbed his hips and pulled him over on top of her. Words dried up. All the blood in his head rushed into his undershorts. Together they bounced until the mattress bottomed out and the headboard smacked the wall.

  “Oh, plee-ee-ease, suck my-y to-o-oes, Bo-ob-by-jay!” she squealed.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Marty ripped away the headphones, yanking off Wesley’s headphones at the same time. Angelina. He dared. That punk fucker dared to use Marty’s pet name to her. Was that how he seduced my little one?

  He felt his chest tighten and, when Wesley reached for the knob to turn up the gain, he slapped the boy’s hand away.

  “Give me that,” he whispered over the dreadful sound of the headboard thumping the wall next door. He stood, pressing his hand to his chest.

  Wesley’s eyes widened. “Grampa, are you okay?”

  “Turn it off,” Marty said. “Now. Give it to me.”

  Slowly Wesley disconnected his spy gear and handed it over.

  Marty patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. It wasn’t the boy’s fault. Sick at heart, he stumped out with the spy gear under his arm, closing the door silently behind him.

  He slunk back to the master bedroom in a state of confusion. How could she love that moron, that lowest of the low, the Morton who stooged for the moronic Mortons?

  His chest still hurt. He hoped he wouldn’t have a heart attack.

  Of course she was impressed with his muscles. The kid was almost a hundred percent brawn, with a teaspoonful of self-preservation. I don’t eat that fishy stuff. What an idiot. Marty could have guffawed, only it hurt too much. And when had he started calling her angelina? Not—surely Daisy herself hadn’t asked him to call her that!

  The blood rushed unpleasantly in Marty’s ears. He sat down on the edge of his bed, feeling alone.