Hold Me Close

by Rosalind James

  “Nope. I’m going to say, ‘Sorry it didn’t work out, thanks for trying,’ shake your hand, and keep coming in here and giving you my hard-earned money. It’s a favor, and I know it, but I’m asking it anyway.”

  “Uh-huh. One shift. One trial. And I’m not promising that. I’d have to meet her first. Send her on down here—say Tuesday morning, not too early. Eleven, when we’re slower. And we’ll see.”

  “Well, that’s the deal. I can’t exactly do that. If I tell her I set it up, she may just not do it. She feels the same way about charity you do.”

  “First hopeful thing you’ve said. So what am I supposed to do?”

  “I know she dropped off an application with you, back when. You call her up—borrow your order pad and pen?”

  She handed it over without a word, and he wrote down Kayla’s name and number and said, “Call her up, tell her you were going through the applications because you’ve got an opening—”

  “Which I wouldn’t. If I’m not interested, I toss ‘em.”

  He sighed. “Call it a white lie. And leave my name out of it.”

  She shook her head, put a hand on the table to shove herself out of the chair, and put her order pad back into her pocket. “All right. But only because it’s you. You ever have to get out of the principal business, you’d better head on over to the Ford dealership and ask about a job, because you could sell ice to Eskimos. Don’t know how you do it.”

  “It’s a gift,” he said modestly.

  “It sure is.” She picked up his cup and pie plate. “I’d give you a refill, but I want to go to the fair. Pay up and get out.”

  “Now, see,” he said, “that’s why you need Kayla. She’s got charm.”

  “Grumpy, because people keep wasting my time and talking me into things I don’t want to do. Get out.”

  JOSE CUERVO

  Kayla left The Breakfast Spot at two the following Saturday, feeling as if she were walking on air. The air had turned chilly, as if the calendar changing over to October had signaled the weather gods that it was officially autumn, but she didn’t even feel the cold.

  She didn’t notice Rochelle until the other woman waved a hand in her face. “Earth to Kayla. Hi. How are you?”

  “Oh!” Kayla laughed. “I’m great, actually. Great.”

  “Yep. You look great. Of course, some of that’s my haircut. But it’s more than that, too. So what’s great?”

  “I’ve got a job.” She said it again. “A waitress job. A good job.”

  “Really? Awesome.” Rochelle knew that it was awesome, too, Kayla could tell. That a waitress job could be a big step up. “No more cleaning, huh?”

  “Ah. Zoe told you.”

  “Well, yeah. Luke’s kind of news around here. Grocery shopping with you? Taking you to Sunday dinner with his folks, and to the county fair? Getting involved with your kid? Luke? That’s not just news, that’s a straight-up front-page shocker. You know I had to hear more about that.”

  Kayla laughed, because she was happy, and because Rochelle was so out there, you couldn’t really get upset. “Well, Luke aside—yeah. I’ll still do the cleaning job for a week or so, I guess. I mean, I should give some notice. But I’ll get a couple shifts at The Breakfast Spot, too. Another week, and I’ll be kissing those toilets good-bye.”

  Rochelle made a face. “Thanks for the visual. This calls for a celebration, wouldn’t you say? In fact, I’d say this calls for a margarita or two.”

  “I shouldn’t—” Kayla began.

  “Oh. Eli? Where is he?”

  “At a friend’s. Riding bikes. No, he’s good. It’s just—”

  “Oh, no,” Rochelle said. “My treat.” She went on when Kayla would have protested. “Hey, girl. I know all about being broke and starting over. I’m the queen of being broke and starting over. You’ve been in my place.”

  “Yeah, well,” Kayla admitted, “your place is pretty much a palace compared to mine.”

  “And, see?” Rochelle said cheerfully. “You’re with your people. If your idea of a shopping trip is a tour around the yard sales—here’s your sign. That’s why I don’t get Zoe. Cal has to talk her into Nordstrom. The woman is officially nuts.”

  “No,” Kayla said, “just never been poor, probably. It’s easy not to care if you haven’t been poor.”

  “Yep. She thinks she has, but broke isn’t poor. Poor isn’t knowing that you can’t get a latte. Poor’s hoping you don’t get sick, because if you do, you’ll lose your job, and the landlord isn’t going to cut you any more slack. Poor’s one paycheck away from disaster.”

  Kayla couldn’t even answer that, but she didn’t need to, because Rochelle was already talking again. “So come on. You’re about to move from poor to broke, seems to me, because The Breakfast Spot gets the best tips in town. Let’s celebrate. Señor Fred’s is one short block away, and there’s a bottle of tequila above the bar that’s playing my song. Jose Cuervo, you’re calling my name. I’m ready for a good time, and if you don’t come with me, who knows what kind of stupid decision I’m going to make? So come on. Let’s go.”

  Señor Fred’s, it turned out, was dark and comfortable, with wide booths, stained-glass lampshades, and baskets of fresh chips. And margaritas. Big, slushy, green margaritas with salt around the rims.

  “They talk to you about shifts?” Rochelle asked, turning her glass to get a little more salt. “Probably won’t give you much choice, not when you’re new. What are you doing with Eli?”

  That punctured a hole in Kayla’s balloon, because it was the thing that had been worrying her. She couldn’t even do the baby monitor, not that early in the morning. There was no way Doreen would go for that. And besides, she went to work at seven herself.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I can’t pay much, not until I get ahead a little. And who’s going to want to come over to babysit? The early shift starts at five thirty. And weekends—” She sighed. “I’ll figure something out.” Before somebody calls Health & Welfare, she didn’t say. That was the thought that had her sweating every night now. All Eli had to do was say one wrong thing, to relax enough and answer a question with the truth, for his teacher to find out and be compelled to report it—and that would be it. She’d be in the system, fighting to keep him. And if Alan were looking, she’d be in the system for that, too.

  She pulled herself back before she spiraled all the way down into panic. That wouldn’t help. She had to find an answer, that was all.

  “Nah,” Rochelle said. “That’s easy. You drop him at my place on the way.”

  “Your place?”

  “Sure. Why not? I’m three blocks from here, and three blocks from you, too. I have to be up at six fifteen anyway, because I start work at eight. He takes a nap on the couch if he wants to, has breakfast, heads off to school. Couldn’t be easier. No skin off my nose.”

  “But you can’t want to do that. I can’t—” Kayla took a breath. “I can’t pay. Not yet. Like I said.”

  Rochelle put her blonde head on one side and looked at Kayla out of narrowed blue eyes. “Uh-huh. Like you’re not paying now.”

  Just like that, Kayla was shaking. “I’m—”

  “Yeah. I get it. I told you, I know all about poor. But let me ask you this. You ever live in the country?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “Well, I have. I grew up out in the country, out in Kernville. Wrong side of the tracks, too, down in the hollow. Six kids in a two-bedroom house, a big sack of garbanzo beans and another one of lentils sitting in the back porch, because my dad was a hired man, and those came with the job, and that’s how we ate. I know about your dad hunting because he has to, because that deer’s going to help fill the freezer for the winter. And I know about women helping each other out, because that’s what you do in the country. That’s how you make it. People in the city—they want to measure
everything, make sure they don’t give anything unless they’re going to get exactly that same amount back. Out in the country, you know it doesn’t work that way. It’s all one big circle. You help when you can, and you know that when you need it, somebody will be there for you, too. It might not be the same somebody, and that doesn’t matter, either. What goes around comes around. Good and bad. So you buy a few boxes of cereal and bring Eli on over. I had three little brothers. He’s not going to bother me one bit.”

  Kayla had lost her breath. “O—OK,” she managed to say. “Thanks.”

  “Nah. You get on your feet, and you’ll be reaching that hand out yourself. All part of the deal. Weekends, though—that might be trickier. I’m not going to commit to that. Still hoping to get lucky, one of these days.” She looked at Kayla with speculation. “How about Luke?”

  “Um—Luke?”

  “Yeah. Bet he’d take him. Bet he’d be glad to.”

  “Oh, no. No.”

  “No what? No, he wouldn’t do it, or no, you don’t want to ask him?”

  “No, I won’t ask him, because of course he doesn’t want to do that.”

  “Really.” Rochelle’s X-ray eyes were scrutinizing her again, and she was pulling her phone out of her purse and punching in a number.

  “No.” Kayla lunged across the table at her, and Rochelle put a hand up, switched the phone to her other ear, and spoke even as Kayla was hissing out, “Rochelle. No.”

  “Hey, Luke?” Rochelle said, completely ignoring her. “What are you doing?” She waited a moment. “Uh-huh. Sounds fascinating. Haul that cute butt of yours down here to Señor Fred’s, why don’t you? Kayla and I are having a little chat, and we need your help with a question she’s got. Need somebody to buy us another round, too, and I’d say you’re the man for the job, wouldn’t you?” She listened again, a smile curving her pink-lipsticked mouth. “Uh-huh. Thought so. Get it in gear, though, because your girlfriend’s as gun-shy as they come. You dillydally, and she’s going to be gone.”

  She hung up. “He’s coming. Bet I won’t have to pay for these at all. Which means the next round’s going to be the good stuff.”

  “I can’t do that!” Kayla said.

  “Which thing?”

  “Any of them! And I’m not his girlfriend.”

  “Really? And yet I’d bet money that he’s shoving his wallet in his jeans and climbing into his rig this very second, just so he can hustle on down here and get those great big shoulders up next to you in this booth. He’s not putting his foot to the floor right now to get with me, I’ll tell you that. Or any other woman in this town, and not because they haven’t tried.”

  “Really?” Kayla knew she shouldn’t ask, but she was asking anyway. It must be the margarita. “They’ve tried?”

  “Honey, everybody’s tried. Because he’s movie-star good-looking and damn-straight eligible, like he said. Sweet as pie, sexy as hell, making that good salary, and the land payments, too? You bet they’ve tried. But he’s slippery as a greased pig, never come close to being caught. Not until now. Because you’re not chasing, maybe, and he’s the one looking to do the catching. That’d be my guess, and I’m a pretty good guesser.”

  “What land payments?” Kayla felt as if she were stuck several steps back.

  Rochelle looked at her in surprise. “You don’t know? Well, yeah. That’s why the good house and all. Cal’s got to pay them off—Luke and his sister Theresa. He has to buy the land from them, just like every generation does. You have more than one kid, and only one wants to farm, he has to pay the others off,” she explained when Kayla still looked lost. “A hundred grand or so a year for twenty years, something like that, and they’re, what? Only a couple years into it? Yeah. The boy’s loaded. Between that and that principal’s salary? For here, that’s damn good money.”

  “But he doesn’t seem—” Kayla wasn’t doing a good job of finishing her sentences.

  “Well, you can ask him yourself.” Rochelle was looking out into the restaurant, and Kayla twisted around to see Luke loping toward them, his boot heels ringing against the hardwood floor. And despite all the alarm bells, all the caution, she got the same flutter low in her belly that the sight of him always inspired.

  He paused beside the booth, and yes, he paused on her side of it. She slid over, and Rochelle raised her eyebrows at her and smirked, and Luke sat down beside her and said, “Well, hey, ladies. I must be living right, because I sure did get lucky today. Margaritas and everything.”

  “I was just telling Kayla,” Rochelle said, “that now you’re here, we can go for the good stuff. Since I was clueing her in on your financial prospects.”

  Kayla didn’t miss the hard look Luke shot across the table. “You’re talking money to her?”

  “Well, hell, Luke. I’d think you’d have realized that it’s a selling point by now.”

  “Not with Kayla, it isn’t.” His hand came out to cover hers on the table, and Rochelle didn’t miss that, either. “Could be exactly the opposite, because Kayla can’t be bought, and she doesn’t appreciate anybody trying.”

  “That mean you aren’t going to buy me the Gold Special?” Rochelle asked.

  “Nah, you know it doesn’t,” he said, the startled look on his face replaced by his sweet, slow grin. “You know I’ll buy you whatever you want. Because you got me down here to hang out with my girl.”

  “Uh-huh.” Rochelle was looking meaningfully at Kayla again, and Kayla was pretending she wasn’t, and Luke was still holding her hand.

  The waitress showed up, then, and Luke told her, “Three Gold Specials, please,” and it didn’t seem like there was going to be much debate about that.

  “So what were you doing?” Kayla asked him, feeling a little shy all the same. “When Rochelle called?”

  He grinned again. “Homework for one of my classes. I’ve got this date tomorrow that I’m kinda looking forward to, and I wanted to clear the decks for it.”

  They’d made it the weekend before, during halftime. While they’d been doing the dishes together, before they’d gone back to watch the rest of the game. With Luke sitting beside her on his couch and holding her hand, their feet on the coffee table, while Eli sat in the leather recliner and looked happy about it. She might have dozed off during the second half, because she’d had a hard time getting to sleep the night before, and her head might have ended up on his broad shoulder, too. And when she woke, she just might have found that her head was all the way over on his chest, and his arm was around her. She’d sat up, flustered, and apologized, and he’d smiled down at her and said, “Nah. I like having you there,” and that had flustered her even more.

  “Mm-hm,” Rochelle said now. “So what are you all doing?”

  Kayla looked at her, startled. “About what?”

  That made Rochelle smile some more. “Yeah, he’s distracting, isn’t he?”

  Luke laughed, gave Kayla’s hand another squeeze, then let go of it, and she missed the connection. “It’s pretty exciting, all right. Pretty high-end. We’re going for a bike ride. The two of us and Eli.”

  “And Eli’s friend Cody,” Kayla put in. “If that’s all right. Eli wanted to invite him.”

  “Even better,” Luke said. “Give him some company. Means I get a little more of yours.”

  Rochelle sighed and shook her blonde head. “And here Kayla was, just now, telling me she wasn’t your girlfriend.”

  “That’s because she isn’t. Not until she says she is. That’s our deal, you see. It’s her choice.”

  “Oh, man.” Rochelle sighed. “It really is a tragic loss, you know?”

  “What?” he asked.

  “You, Mr. October.” She looked up as the drinks arrived. “Oh, goody. Seconds.”

  “So what is it you needed my help with?” Luke asked, after he’d taken his first sip. “Besides paying for the drinks, o
f course. What can I do for the two of you?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” Kayla began, but as usual, Rochelle wasn’t letting her.

  “It’s Kayla,” she said. “Got herself a brand-new job down at The Breakfast Spot. Had her first shift today, in fact.”

  “Really?” Luke’s smile was huge and delighted this time. “Well, hey, there, sweetheart. Congratulations.” He touched his salt-edged glass to hers, and she met his eyes, and he really did look happy for her.

  “So we’re celebrating here, huh?” he asked. “When do you ditch the vacuum cleaner?”

  “Another week, I’m thinking.” Sweetheart. It was warming her, and at the same time, a suspicion was growing, one she hadn’t even considered. “Wait. Luke.”

  “Huh?”

  She stared at him, her eyes narrowing. “I’m right, aren’t I?” she asked slowly.

  “Right about what?”

  “You think you’re being convincing, and you’re not. How come I suddenly got that call after all this time? It’s been almost two months since I applied for that job. Now, not only do I have a better job, I’ve got it at the best place in town?”

  “Well, maybe not the best place. I mean, it is a breakfast joint.”

  “One I can work at while Eli’s in school, mostly, and you knew it. So let’s have it. What did you do?” She was deflating a little, some of her triumph diminishing. She’d thought Carla had been impressed by her. She’d sounded impressed. But this was really just a favor to Luke?

  “Now, hang on,” he said in alarm. “All right, maybe I had a talk with Carla. Maybe I asked her to bring you in and check you out. But that’s all I did. She said it was up to her, and I said fine. You ask her. She’ll tell you. She said if she liked you, she’d have you do a shift. One shift, and she’d see. And my guess is, you did your one shift, and she saw. And then she said, that’s a woman I’m hiring, because she’s smart and quick and she works hard.”

  “How would you know? You’ve never seen me waitress.”

  “Nope. I’ve just seen that you’re smart and quick and you work hard. I took a guess about the rest. So am I forgiven?” he asked, and there was no smile now. “I wanted to help. It’s true. But I wasn’t trying to save you. I was trying to help you help yourself. If I did that, and you’re happy about it, I’m happy, too.”