Flirting With Pete: A Novel

by Barbara Delinsky

  Jenny watched him run off down the street, taking with him a tiny piece of her heart. The pain of it was sharp and swift, and curbed only by the fiercest of wills. Then, letting herself think only good thoughts, she set off for the store.

  She bought potatoes, carrots, and stew meat. She bought tapioca. She bought Rice Krispies and marshmallows. She splurged and bought ready-made subs for Pete and her to have for lunch. Then she splurged on two more for the fridge. For good measure, she tossed in a bag of pretzels.

  “Looks like you’re having a party,” said Mary McKane as she tallied the bill.

  “Maybe,” Jenny said with a smile, sweeping the bag into her arms.

  Thoughts of following Pete to the ends of the earth kept the smile on her face through most of the walk home. It was only when the house came into sight, still in the distance, down the road, that she felt a qualm.

  She walked faster. The qualm grew. She switched the bag to her other side and started to trot. She was practically running by the time she turned in at the driveway and saw the motorcycle, there, beside the garage— and even then she didn’t feel better until she walked into the kitchen and saw Pete at the stove. She sagged against the wall in relief.

  One look and he knew. “You thought I’d left,” he chided as he relieved her of her bag, “but I won’t. I’ve told you. I’m not leaving without you. Why won’t you believe that?”

  “Because sometimes I still can’t believe you’re real.”

  “Do I look real?”

  “Yes.”

  He put her hand to his heart. “Do I feel real?”

  She felt it pulsing. She nodded.

  “Well?”

  Tell him, Jenny. I can’t. Tell him everything. I can’t risk it. He loves you. But does he love me enough?

  She covered her face with a hand. He pulled it away, drew her against him, and said into the sweaty warmth of her wild red hair, “I made hot chocolate to make up for sleeping through breakfast, but now it’s warm outside. You feel like you could use something cool.”

  “Hot chocolate’s my favorite drink.”

  “I figured that,” he said with the kind of grin that turned her knees to soup and her mind to slush. “You have three big tins of it in the cupboard.”

  “I’ll have some now.”

  “You’re not too hot?”

  She shook her head, sat down at the table, and imagined snow falling outside while she waited for her drink.

  *

  In the first months after the death of Jenny’s mother, Jenny had lived mainly in the kitchen, the spare room upstairs, and the attic. Dan had someone clean the blood from the living room, but she couldn’t bear being there, and as for the bedrooms, they held a horror all their own. It was two full years into Darden’s incarceration before she slept in her own room again, and then, only after she had been ousted from the spare room by a raccoon, and then, only after she had scrubbed the bedroom top to bottom.

  Six years later, she still avoided the living room. The bedroom that her parents had shared was dusted twice a year. She kept the door shut the rest of the time.

  Tuesday afternoon, she opened it wide, dragged in the cartons that had been waiting in the garage, and filled them with armloads of her mother’s things. She didn’t fold anything, didn’t stop to look at anything or reminisce. She closed one full carton and turned to the next, closed that carton when it was full and turned to the next, and all the while she cursed Darden for not wanting to do this himself, for not caring to do it as a way of saying goodbye to his wife.

  He was punishing Jenny, of course. She knew that. He was playing another of his little mind games meant to keep her guilt alive, and it succeeded to a point. Even rushing, even refusing to look at a single blouse, slip, or skirt, even in spite of her long talks with Pete and the resolutions she had made, she felt guilt and pain and regret.

  Then it stopped. Her mind rebelled and shut down. Guilt, pain, regret— she packed them away with the last of her mother’s things, closed the carton, and walked out.

  *

  The tub was filled with lilac-scented bubbles. They rose high above the water in a cumulus field broken only by Jenny’s head and knees. She had her eyes closed until she heard Pete at the door.

  “Hi,” he said.

  She smiled shyly, because he was all man and still so new to her.

  “Doin’ okay?”

  She nodded. “Feeling strange.”

  “Sad about leaving?”

  “A little. Weird, huh?”

  “No. This place has been the whole of your life.” He came to sit on the edge of the tub and found her fingers in the foam. “You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t feel sad.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Five. The stew’s nearly done. So that’s his favorite meal?”

  It was. Stew, and tapioca pudding, and Rice Krispies treats, and beer. “If I hate him, why do I care?”

  “Because you’re kind. This is the first home-cooked meal he’ll have had in more than six years.”

  “I’m not kind. I’m just buttering him up. He’ll be mad when I tell him I’m leaving. It may get ugly.”

  “Ugly I can handle, as long as we’re outta here by midnight. That’s when the bike turns into a pumpkin.”

  She grinned. “Midnight. Okay. I’ll remember.”

  He caught the last word with his mouth and gave it the kind of thorough tasting that had Jenny clutching his shoulder. Pulling back, he started taking off his clothes. By the time he was naked, Jenny had made room for him in the tub. It was another minute before he had her arranged on his lap, no time before he was inside her, and not much more before Jenny felt the crescendo of tiny explosions in her deepest, sweetest heart.

  Previews of coming attractions, she thought and held the image along with a smile through lingering kisses, climbing out, and drying. The smile faded when she pulled on the flowered dress Darden had sent, and was completely gone by the time Pete walked her outside.

  “Won’t you change your mind and let me come?” he asked.

  When she shook her head, she felt the springy shiver of less than half the hair Darden was expecting to find. He wasn’t going to like that at all. “I have to go by myself.”

  “I could drive you. Be your chauffeur.”

  If only, she thought and headed for the garage. “I have to go alone.”

  “But you don’t have a license.”

  “I know how to drive.” She had been starting the Buick and turning it around once a month for the last six-plus years. Sometimes she had even driven it away. Oh, yes, she knew how to drive. Maybe not well. But going into town was forward, and forward was easy.

  “What if someone stops you?”

  “Who would? Anyone who sees me will call the police station, but the chief will be home having dinner and Dan’ll be in town watching for the bus.”

  “Did he tell you that?”

  “No. But I know Dan.”

  And she was glad that he would be there. She didn’t know what Darden would do when he saw her hair.

  Jenny knew he wouldn’t beat her. That wasn’t his style. Rather, he would prey on her weakness, would poke her guilt back to life and prod it until it had swollen to ten times its normal size, until it was so oppressive she couldn’t breathe, until she was willing to do anything, anything to make it shrink.

  If that happened, she might lose her resolve.

  She whirled around and clutched Pete’s shoulders. “You have to be here when we get back, promise me, promise me, Pete?”

  He crossed his heart.

  She might have asked it a dozen times and still not been reassured, not for lack of faith in Pete, but for fear of Darden. But she had to leave. It would not do at all to be late.

  So she climbed into the Buick, turned the key, and pressed its aged engine to life. Moments later, she was weaving down the road and into town.

  Chapter Twenty

  It shouldn’t have been dark at 6:12, but the clo
uds had been gathering over the heat all afternoon and were piled so thick that the lowering sun was lost. What remained was a stifling gloom.

  Jenny heard the bus first, a warning rumble coming from over the rise. She could almost smell the diesel and dirt before they became reality when the bulky vehicle rolled into town. Hissing and whining, the bus pulled in ahead of the Buick. As Jenny watched, its door swung open.

  Nothing happened at first. Jenny stared at that door, stared without blinking while she struggled to breathe. Every imaginable glitch preventing Darden’s return raced through her mind, every imaginable complication that might keep him from walking off that bus had been prayed for. Please, God, let him go somewhere else. She didn’t care where, as long as it wasn’t near her.

  Then he appeared, and her heart twisted. He wore the slacks and sweater she had taken him on her last visit, and carried a small duffel containing his personal effects. He took one step down, then the next, and hit the ground staring at her, looking none too steady and far older than his fifty-seven years. She wondered if he was sick, or if being free had simply shaken him up.

  For sure, she wasn’t being shaken up by freedom. She was embracing it with open arms. All she had to do was survive that stare.

  “Hi, Daddy.” She covered the small distance to where he stood, kissed him on the cheek, and took his bag. “How was the ride?”

  He continued to stare. Behind him, the door unfolded and shut and the bus wheezed off. Even then he didn’t move. He looked stunned.

  “Where’s your hair?” he finally asked in a strangled voice.

  An accident at work, she could say. Burned in the flare of a broken gas range. Close call, she could say. Lucky she escaped with her life, she could say.

  “I cut it,” she said.

  “But I like it long. I want to see it long. I want to feel it long. MaryBeth,” he whined, “what the hell did ya cut it for?”

  She had hurt her arm, she could say. She hadn’t been able to wash or comb long hair, so she had cut it, she could say. Her arm was better now. Thank you.

  “I hated it long,” she said. “I always… did.” Her voice withered at the end, Darden’s glare was that frightening.

  “So that’s my welcome home? That’s what I get for sitting more’n six years in the can? That’s what I get for dreaming night after stinkin’ night of your hair? How could you do that to me, baby? I loved that hair long.”

  The guilt, oh, the guilt. Stay calm. He’s my father. No matter. He can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. He’ll try. You knew he would, but you’re not a child anymore.

  “It’s only hair, Daddy.”

  “You cut it right before I got home, knowing how I felt, knowing I wanted it long. You did it to hurt me.”

  “No.” But she had.

  “Hey, Darden,” said Dan O’Keefe, coming out of the dark, “how’s it going?”

  Darden faced Jenny for a long moment before acknowledging Dan with a curt, “Not bad.”

  Jenny looked hard at Dan, begging him, begging him with a flurry of brainwaves not to say a word about her leaving or, worse, about Pete. She would tell Darden herself when the time was right.

  “So you’re out,” Dan said.

  “Looks that way.”

  “MaryBeth’s done a real good job keeping the house up for you. You ought to be proud of her, doing it alone. I got a call from your parole officer the other day. He says you’re thinking of getting the business going again.”

  Darden shrugged. “I don’t know how much moving there is to do. I don’t know how people’ll feel about hiring an ex-con to do it. Keys in the car, MaryBeth? It’s startin’ to spit.” He walked to the driver’s side of the Buick.

  Dan took the duffel from Jenny and tossed it into the backseat, then closed the door once she slid in. She didn’t have to look at him to hear him think: Call me if there’s a problem, Jenny, call me whenever, and I’ll do what I can.

  But he couldn’t help. With Darden back, no one could.

  Darden gunned the engine, swung a U-turn, and sped back through town. By the time they got home, the sprinkle had turned to a steady rain. He pulled into the garage, climbed out, and caught Jenny’s hand just as she was about to make a run for the house.

  “Come ‘ere, baby,” he said, pulling her close. “Give Daddy a hug.”

  Jenny tried to pretend it was innocent, that it was the kind of hugs fathers gave daughters all the time. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed, and ignored the feel of his mouth on her neck and the way his body curved to fit her, but she couldn’t bear it for more than a second, couldn’t bear it, so she gasped, cried, “Omigod!” and tried to pull away. “The stew’ll burn. I have to go.”

  His arms held. “I need this more than food.”

  “But I worked so hard, Daddy.” She wriggled away one body part at a time. “I knew you’d hate my hair, so I worked hard to make dinner right. Please, don’t make me spoil it, please?”

  He let her go. She forced a smile, but it vanished the second she hit the rain. She raced to the house and, ignoring her wet clothes, busied herself at the stove.

  Pete was in the attic, packing the last of their things. Her mind’s eye saw him there, waiting like they had agreed, letting her talk to Darden one last time. But he was listening, she knew that. He had an ear to the floor in just the spot where the voices from below carried up. He would be down in an instant if Darden tried anything. He would be down, anyway, when it was time.

  She clung to that thought.

  Darden dropped the duffel on the floor. He grabbed the dish towel from the bar on the oven door and mopped rain from his face and neck. Jenny took it from him in exchange for a beer. “Your favorite. Welcome home.”

  He put the bottle to his mouth and tipped back his head. The beer glugged past his Adam’s apple again, and again, and again. By the time he righted his head, the bottle was empty.

  He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a second one. “What a shitty day. First the bus, then your hair, then Dan O’Keefe watching me. I’ve been watched more in the last six years than in all the ones before that taken together.” He slipped an arm around her waist and nuzzled her ear. “The only one I want to be watched by now is you, y’hear, MaryBeth?”

  She tried to take a breath, choked, and began to cough. It was a while before she could stop. She wiped at her nose and her eyes. “I don’t feel so good,” she whispered.

  “That’s ‘cause your dress got wet. Go change. You must have something else that’s nice.”

  Jenny had the dress she had bought at Miss Jane’s. She ran up the stairs to her room, tore off the despicable flowered one, and fumbled wildly in her closet for the other.

  “Pete?” she whispered toward the attic. “Are you there?”

  “God, yes.” He had the hatch up and looked none too pleased. “I don’t like this, Jenny. I’m done up here. I’m coming down.”

  “No.”

  “You can introduce me, we’ll tell him we’re leaving, then we’re gone. He can help himself to the stew.”

  “No! I owe him this. Please. Just dinner.”

  “Who are you talking to, baby?” Darden called.

  She whirled around, clutching Miss Jane’s dress to her chest. “Not talking. Taking breaths. Breaths.”

  He came into the room. “We could lie down a little, you and me.”

  “No, oh no, I’m fine. I want to give you dinner. It’s ready.”

  He reached out and tugged at the dress.

  She knew that hungry look and held tighter to the fabric.

  “Let go, MaryBeth.”

  “Dinner,” she begged.

  “Let me see. Just for a minute.”

  Still she resisted. That was when he said her name in a harder voice, a voice that told her he would have his way if he had to tie her down to do it, that the more she fought, the more exciting she was, that “seeing” would be the least of it if she didn’t give in.

  She releas
ed the dress, bowed her head, and, like old times, sent her mind off to that special place where the pain and the shame couldn’t reach. Only her mind wouldn’t stay there this time. It came right back to the bedroom and Darden with a desperation that made her stomach churn. A scream gathered at the back of her throat and threatened to shatter the night.

  Stay calm. She listened to the rain on the slate roof. Stay calm. The choice is made.

  “I need my dress,” she said.

  He handed it over. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you. I love you, baby. I love to look at you and touch you. Okay, so it’s been a while, but you used to like it.”

  “I never liked it,” she muttered into the folds of the dress. The fabric had barely fallen past her hips when she hurried by Darden and ran down the stairs.

  Her hands shook while stirring the stew and dishing it out. She tried to cheer herself by thinking of Pete, of Wyoming, of freedom, of love. But it was hard with Darden in the room. He had a way of sucking out the good in a place and leaving nothing but bad. Even this dress— so long coveted, so special, the first thing Pete had ever seen her wear— was soiled now. She would never wear it again.

  “Why aren’t you eating?” Darden asked. He was on his third beer and starting to sweat.

  Jenny couldn’t have swallowed food if her life depended on it. “My stomach’s upset. Is the stew okay?”

  “It’s fine. Just fine. You always were a good cook, MaryBeth, a damn sight better one than your ma, I gotta say.”

  “She taught me.”

  “She never made anything like this.”

  “She did. I remember.”

  “And I don’t? Believe you me, I know what that woman could and could not do. She couldn’t cook, she couldn’t think of no one but herself, and she couldn’t fuck worth beans. You can do all those things, baby.”

  Jenny scraped back her chair and went to the stove. She gave the stew a venomous stir, took the whole pot to the table, and refilled Darden’s plate. She pushed the basket of warm rolls closer. Beyond it, she set a dish of still-warm tapioca pudding and several square Rice Krispies treats, ready and waiting.

  From the far end of the table, she said, “I’m leaving, Daddy.”