“Whose things are on the coat tree?”
In the front hall. She had forgotten. Darden’s two jackets, his raincoat, and, underneath, his boots, all looking clean and fresh because they were clean and fresh. She had taken them from the garage and aired them and brushed them and put them on the coat tree a week ago so Darden would think they had been there all along, the way he wanted them.
She heard a sizzle.
“Oh Lord,” she gasped. She wheeled around and opened the oven. The meatballs were more than ready. She set them on the stovetop and grabbed a plate and a fork.
“Can I help?”
She shook her head and pointed him into a chair. Seconds later, she set down the piled-high plate.
He ate every last bit of that, plus seconds and thirds— not that he crammed it in. He had manners. When he paused, it was to say how good the food was.
Jenny was content to sit and watch him eat, to smile when he looked at her, to refill his empty plate, and all the while she kept pinching that inner elbow, because she had never had good fortune like this before and she wanted, so wanted it to be real.
“That was the best meal I’ve had in years,” Pete said when he finally pushed back in his chair. He glanced at the pans. “I ate every last meatball. Are you sure I haven’t messed you up for tomorrow?”
“We won’t even miss them,” Jenny said and took his dish to the sink. She soaped it and rinsed it, and was setting it on the rack to drain dry when he called her name. She looked around. He was frowning at the backs of her legs. She swished her dress lower. “What?”
“What are those marks?”
“Oh, nothing. An accident when I was little.” She brightened. “Want to see something?”
“Sure.”
She led him into the hall and up the stairs. They had to pass through her bedroom, but that couldn’t be helped. So she acted normal, like she had men in her bedroom all the time, and it did look that way, what with the big bed and silk sheets that Darden had bought her. Those had just come out of storage, too.
She glanced back at Pete for reassurance. Then she opened the closet door, pushed aside the old quilt that hung in the way, and lowered the attic ladder. From the top, it was a short way over rough planking to the front gable. The window went up easily. Lord knew, she opened it often enough. She sat on the sill and swung her legs out.
“Jenny, what are you doing?” Pete asked from behind her.
She straightened her body and slid.
“My God, Jenny—”
Her bare heels caught the gutter with practiced ease. She inched sideways until she had cleared the gable and reached the open slope of the roof, then went farther to make room for Pete.
“Jenny,” he warned from the window, just as Dan O’Keefe did every time someone saw her on the roof and reported it to him.
She grinned. “Look at this view, will you? Isn’t it wild?”
One long leg came out. A boot heel caught the gutter. “I see fog.”
“Wait. The fog shifts.”
Another leg came out and straightened. He joined her with no effort at all, and propped himself up on his elbows, just like her.
The fog shifted then. “It looks like a little toy town,” he said. “Tell me what’s where.”
She pointed. “The even line of lights is the center of town. Odd little ones are side streets. Over there? That’s the school. And there? The library. And the church steeple.”
“What’s that?” He was pointing off to the east.
“The quarry. A hundred years ago they were cutting granite. When they finished, the big hollow just filled up with water, so the town had a place to swim. Legend says in order for a marriage to be blessed, the proposal has to be made there. Me, all I want is a midnight swim, moon and stars and all. The lights you see are taillights. People park just back of the rim.”
“To swim?”
“Not likely.”
He gave her a knowing grin that made her stomach flutter. “Ah-ha. Lovers. So. Ever been up there yourself?”
“Dozens of times,” she said nonchalantly, like she was popular. Then she thought of the Selena Battles of the town, who really had been there dozens of times. She didn’t want Pete thinking she was like them. So she confessed. “I lied. I was only there a couple of times.” She paused and added a quiet, “To swim. In the daytime.”
He smiled at her then, a big, bright, toothy smile that tugged every heartstring inside her. “I’m glad,” he said.
She loved hearing that. She wanted him to like her in the worst way. And since he smiled when she told the truth, she said, “And I lied about being a caterer. I work for one. I don’t own the business.”
“But you cook.”
“Yes.”
“And serve and clean and do everything else your boss does.”
She nodded.
“So you’re a caterer,” he concluded. “And anyway”— he looked out over the town—“you don’t need to own a business when you own this view.”
“Yes,” she said with a smug smile. “I do own this view.” She had known he would understand. That was why she had brought him up here. She crossed her ankles, took a deep breath, one that stretched her lungs for the first time in ages, and enjoyed the moment. “They say it’s dangerous coming up here. That I could slip. But I’m not afraid. Besides, I’m a somebody here. It’s my view. I can look at it or close my eyes or even turn around. I can do what I want. Up here, I’m the one who decides.”
“Most people call that power,” Pete said.
Jenny said, “I call it freedom.”
“Like being way, way up in the hills above the ranch with firm ground underfoot and unlimited sky and stars and moon. Kind of like your quarry without water. You’d like it there.”
She would. But the freedom would be different if she were there with Pete. Like it was different up here with him now. Less solitary. More complete. The freedom to be and the freedom to enjoy.
“Stay the night,” she whispered. When his eyes found hers, she added a quick, “Just to sleep. You said you were tired. I have the room.”
“I’d be imposing.”
“No.”
“You barely know me.”
“I know enough.”
She slid over him—shocking heaven! the heat and hardness of his body under hers— and eased back into the attic. But he was the one who went down the ladder first, then held the old quilt aside to see her safely back into her room.
She settled him in the spare room and returned to her own. Leaving the door open, she took off the dress that had done such a fine job that evening and carefully hung it up. She put on her nightgown and slipped into bed, imagining him sleeping down the hall.
But the silk sheets grated, so she climbed back out, wide awake now. Her eye landed on the magazine open on the chair. She picked it up and, turning page after page, revisited Jeffrey City, Shoshoni, Casper, and Cheyenne. In time, she closed the magazine and put it on the shelf.
The night was still. Standing in the middle of the floor, she listened for his heartbeat. But her own was too loud, reflecting a clamoring inside. In the past it would have been from fear and distaste, but tonight it was from something new and wondrous.
She drew the nightgown over her head. She touched the pads of her fingers to the shallow between her breasts. Her eyes closed. Her head fell back. She imagined that Pete saw her, that he loved her, and with the imagining came such an inner fullness that she nearly cried.
But she didn’t want to do that. She didn’t want to wake him. So she took out the old quilt he had touched and, still naked, wrapped it around her from top to toe. Then she stretched out on the floor and settled her head on that padded pillow of hope.
Chapter Ten
Jenny woke with pillow lines on her cheek and the knowledge that Pete was gone.
“Well, what did you expect?” she asked the reflection in the mirror through a mouthful of toothpaste froth. “Why would he stay with you when he
can get anyone he wants, and they’re ten times prettier and smarter and cleaner?” She spat into the sink. “You’re lucky he stayed as long as he did!” She rinsed her mouth, then did it a second time, and a third time, because the sick taste of dread was back.
Three days to go. Do something, Jenny. But what?
She scrubbed the already clean bathroom. She scrubbed the already clean kitchen. She emptied the hall closet, shook everything out, then put it all back.
Finally, wearing the pale blue polo shirt, walking shorts, high socks, and sneakers that were Neat Eats’ uniform for casual events, she took the pans of meatball skewers from the fridge and packed them in Miriam’s insulated case. Hiking the case to her shoulder, she set off for town.
The fog was lighter than usual. She hadn’t gone far when Merle Little’s Fairlane sputtered past. She kept her eyes on the side of the road so as not to see the greeting that wasn’t forthcoming, but the Booths’ mongrels greeted her, all right. She was barely abreast of the house when they lit off the porch and hurtled across the grass in full bark. There was no befriending them. She had tried hundreds of times. She imagined that they knew everything about her and, being dogs, were simply less restrained in their dislike than a human would be.
“Oh hush,” she grumbled in passing and looked ahead down the road. The Johnsons’ front gate creaked, and beyond that came a treat. As the fog lifted, she could see the Farinas’ flowers glowing in their yard.
Jenny loved flowers. The best—the best— days were when florists for their catered affairs left discards by the door. Sometimes the blooms were past saving. Other times, when Jenny reached them early enough, she had a bouquet to take home. They turned her kitchen into a place of dreams.
The Farinas’ flowers were beautiful, bed after bed of different colors and shapes and heights that changed by season. Jenny couldn’t say that she loved the spring pinks better than the summer reds and blues or the yellows and purples of fall. There they were now— marigolds and her favorite black-eyed Susans.
She gasped and nearly dropped her bag of food when old man Farina rose straight up from behind the asters. “Think you could do any better?” he challenged. “Well, you couldn’t. Summer’s been so dry everythin’s wilted.” He jabbed a cane her way. “So don’t go lookin’ down your nose at me, little lady. You don’t have one bit of color in that whole yard of yours. It’s a disgrace. Whole thing’s a disgrace.”
Ignoring him, she focused on the birches on the far side of the road and walked on. At least the birches couldn’t talk back. Nor could they make her dreams come true, though Lord knew she had asked. She had written wish after wish on bits of curly birch bark and thrown them into the fire, but not one of her wishes had come true.
Still, she loved birches. On days like this their trunks looked like pearls.
Or leather.
She squinted. A jacket? Boots? Were they there? She searched the dark slots between trees, searched the road.
Nothing.
So who’s gonna save you now, Jenny Clyde?
She didn’t know. Didn’t know. Didn’t know.
She trudged on past Essie Bunch, past television sounds, past lawnmower sounds. A block away from Neat Eats’ kitchen, Dan O’Keefe pulled up. “I just got a call from John Millis. He’ll be Darden’s parole officer. He wanted to know about you.”
Her stomach knotted. Doubling over, she set her pack on the curb, knelt beside it, and fiddled with the zipper. “What about me?”
“He wondered if you worked and, if you did, whether you’d be quitting when Darden gets back.”
“Why would I quit?”
“To help Darden get the business going again. Darden must’ve told them you would.”
She remembered what Dudley Wright had said. “He may not get it going so fast.”
“Then you’ll stay on with Miriam?”
She had to. She didn’t want to work with Darden. She didn’t want to see Darden, hear Darden, smell Darden. She didn’t want to be anywhere near Darden. “I’m asking her for more hours. To keep me busy, y’know?”
It was her next-to-last hope, her last hope being that someone like Pete would take her to a place Darden couldn’t reach. Darden’s return was her punishment. He had endured his, now it was her turn.
Before Dan could start in again, saying things she already knew but couldn’t change, she stood, hoisted the pack, and set off.
*
“Oh, Jenny, I wish I could,” Miriam said when Jenny finally drummed up the nerve to ask. They were forty minutes into the fifty-minute drive home from the luncheon. The rest of the staff— three others— had gone in a separate car. She and Miriam were alone in the van. The ride had been silent up to that point. “But I suppose it’s good you mentioned this. I didn’t know how to raise it myself.”
Jenny didn’t like the way Miriam wasn’t looking at her.
“I’m winding down Neat Eats.”
Jenny figured she must have heard wrong. She held very still, wishing to make the words go away.
“I haven’t booked anything past the end of the month,” Miriam went on. “I’m closing shop.”
The message was the same, but unthinkable. “You can’t close.”
“That’s what I kept telling myself— I’m happy here, I’m getting good jobs, I’m making money— so I gave myself another month, then another month, but I’m at the point where it’s put up or shut up.”
“What is?”
“Y’know my brother, the one with the restaurant in Seattle? He’s been asking me to come out there and be chef for him, and I’ve been telling him I couldn’t leave here, but now he’s going to have to close if he doesn’t do something drastic, and I’m the only drastic thing he has, y’know?”
Jenny didn’t know. All she knew was that she worked for Neat Eats, and if it closed, she’d be out of a job. With Darden coming home.
She felt like she was going to be sick. She swallowed once, then again.
Miriam darted her nervous looks. “No one in town knows yet. I was going to tell you all in another week. That’ll give you time to get new jobs. I know the timing’s bad for you, Jenny, but I don’t see any way around it.”
Jenny scrambled for reasons. “Weren’t my meatballs any good?”
“Your meatballs were great. This has nothing to do with you.”
“It was the mint dish, wasn’t it?” It had slipped right out of her hand.
“The mint dish— the toothpick cup— the creamer filled way past overflowing— you had a bad day today. I think I know why.”
Jenny put the heel of her hand to her stomach. “I’m a little nervous.”
“You shouldn’t be. He’s your father. He wouldn’t lift a hand to you. Besides, it’s not like this’ll be the first time you’ve seen him.”
True. Jenny went to visit him every month. It was a long, hot, sick bus trip that she would have gladly made for the rest of her life if only they would have kept Darden that long.
She turned to Miriam, pleading now. “His coming back won’t change a thing. I’ll be as dependable as ever. I promise. I just need more work.”
“What about him? Can’t he work, too?”
“It’s not the money. It’s keeping busy.” Neat Eats was one of the few good things in her life. “Take more jobs, Miriam. I’ll work harder. You don’t even have to pay me for the extra time.”
Miriam gave a tight laugh. “Jenny, this doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“Then Darden. It has to do with him, doesn’t it? You’re scared of what’ll happen when he gets back. But he won’t hurt you. He’s not a murderer.”
“Jenny.” She said her name with a sigh and eyes glued to the road. “Please. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. You’ll find another job.”
“Where?”
“Why not waitress at the inn over in Tabor?”
Jenny shook her head. A job like that was worlds away from what she did for Miriam. Miriam kept her in the backgro
und mostly, and even when she was actually serving food, it was different. The menu was set. There wasn’t individual ordering. She rarely needed to speak to guests.
But waitressing in a restaurant would mean juggling a million different meals for a million different people who had a million different ways of telling you that you stunk. Waitressing like that meant looking people in the eye. It meant being out there, unprotected.
“There’s no bus to Tabor,” she said.
“Maybe your father would drive you.”
Oh, he would. He would love the intimacy of the car trip coming and going, would love being involved in her life that way. He would also love scaring off any friends she might make, just like before. She would go mad.
Miriam must have sensed her aversion, because she said, “Then try the bakery here in town. Annie’s getting more pregnant by the day. Mark’ll need someone to fill in.”
Jenny gripped the handhold on the door and looked out the window. Mark Atkins wouldn’t hire her, especially not once Darden was back.
“Jenny?” Miriam was darting looks at her arm. “What’s that red mark? You didn’t burn yourself, did you?”
Jenny rubbed the bruise on the inside of her elbow. She couldn’t say that it came from pinching herself. Miriam would think she was crazy. So she said, “I must have caught it on something.”
“Today? While you were working?”
“No. Last night.”
“Phew. I was worried. Job-related injuries are the last thing I need when I’m trying to wrap things up. Employers get sued for the most absurd things nowadays. Not that you’d do that.” She slowed the van as they entered the center of Little Falls, and took her first left. After pulling up under Neat Eats’ awning, she turned to Jenny. “So. Three o’clock tomorrow afternoon? No food. Just you. Wearing what you have on now, but washed. Right?”
*
During the walk home, Jenny tried to relax. She concentrated— left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. She walked evenly— left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. She held herself erect— left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. She pushed her worries from mind, then did it again when they tried to return. She did absolutely everything that the magazine had said would calm her— left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. Still, her stomach felt like Jell-O when she climbed the side stairs and let herself into the house.
Flirting With Pete: A Novel Page 16