“Does that mean … yes?” Stella asked timidly.
“Have I ever, ever, been known to say no to you?”
If anything, the sheriff sounded even angrier than he had a moment earlier. Which made the next part all that much more tricky.
“That’s fantastic, Goat, I’m really, really grateful and I just know this is the right thing to do and you’re gonna look back on it and be ever so glad you decided to offer this young man a hand up. There’s just one more, uh, little bit of information I need to share with you.”
She took a deep breath, sure she could feel the flames licking at her face through the phone.
“I’ll be sending him down with BJ Brodersen.”
* * *
“Remember, no cash,” Stella admonished BJ for at least the third time.
“I know, I know,” BJ said wearily. He was being as good a sport as could possibly be expected, Stella figured, given the list of demands she’d given him. “Don’t let ’em have the keys, watch them if they go for potty breaks and make sure they come straight back, no set-down restaurants, and take Luke straight to the sheriff.”
“You’ll probably want to get Todd home right quick, too,” Stella said. “I told Sherilee to expect you around midnight, but knowing her, she’ll be pacing her living room until then. And, uh, maybe don’t tell her about Luke and the sheriff and all.”
BJ nodded gloomily as Stella fretted over the nature and magnitude of the lies she’d been telling. Natalya, when confronted with the plan, had few objections after Stella assured her that the sheriff was not only a close personal friend but had volunteered to take on her son as part of an ongoing effort by the Sawyer County Sheriff’s Department to mentor at-risk teens. She’d told Noelle that she was helping Chip sort out a minor legal matter and that she was sure she’d be back by Monday to celebrate her birthday a little late. That might be putting an unrealistic deadline on her project, but Stella wasn’t sure she could stand to spend a whole lot more time in Smythe, since the longer she dallied there, the further her personal, not to mention romantic, life seemed to be unraveling.
“BJ, look, I don’t even know how to thank you for coming all this way, and taking the boys back, and loaning me the truck and now Jorge’s car, too. I swear I’ll take good care of it and—”
“I keep telling you, Stella, I don’t care about any damn vehicles. I just wish you’d turn yourself around and come on home. I don’t like the idea of you up here with all these shady types.”
Stella had saved what was possibly her best lie for BJ. She felt it worked because, like all good lies, it had a fair amount of truth to it. She told him that Chip was into local loan sharks for far more than he could come up with quickly, and that they were set to iron out a long-term payment plan that Chip, with his newfound fondness for Gamblers Anonymous and his steady income, combined with the encouragement and tough love of a good woman, was sure to be able to satisfy—but that had to be delayed until tomorrow, when said financiers were due to return from a multiday collections route along the western shore of Lake Michigan.
“But I’d love to take you out to dinner next weekend to show my gratitude,” Stella added, figuring that just because Goat was probably now too mad at her for a date, perhaps she shouldn’t be deprived of every opportunity for a little birthday romance.
“Really?” BJ said, brightening. He cupped her elbow with one hand and led her around to the side of the truck that was shielded from the house.
Despite the fact that she hadn’t slept in more than thirty hours, Stella felt her pulse speed up a little, particularly when BJ parked her against the passenger door and came well within her personal space, his face only inches away.
Inside the house, Natalya was helping Luke pack an overnight bag, and Chip was putting together some snacks for Todd, who claimed to be starving despite having eaten a mountain of pancakes and sausage only a few hours earlier. The knowledge that they would all come bursting out the front door at any moment only added to the thrill of being practically lip-locked right in front of anyone who cared to drive by.
“Really,” Stella purred. “I can’t imagine anything I’d rather do. Maybe we can run over to Quail Valley to Bambino’s.”
“I could drive,” BJ murmured, leaning in a little closer.
Then Stella, who’d had the foresight to nibble on a handful of Tic Tacs as the adults were finalizing the plans for the boys and the transportation, took charge and kissed BJ Brodersen first, before he’d worked up all the courage necessary to do the honors himself. She kissed him squarely and decisively and suggestively and even a little startlingly, if his momentary paralysis were any indication, but then he quickly recovered and got into it, but good.
“BJ,” Stella said when they finally came up for air, emboldened by his reaction, “I’m afraid I may have messed up the settings on the driver’s seat. Seein’ as I’m considerably more petite than you.”
“I reckon I’ll manage,” he said huskily and pulled himself away from her with what appeared to be a practically unbearable degree of difficulty just as the boys came jostling noisily down the front walk, Chip and Natalya behind them.
Stella dashed around the truck, fixing an innocent look on her face and smashing Todd into a bear hug. “Not one word,” she hissed in his ear.
“’Bout you makin’ out with Mr. B again or about I know you got a gun and condoms in your purse that you left on the counter?” he whispered back.
Stella shifted her hug a little so that she could reach the tender skin just above his waistband on his side and dug in for a vicious pinch, twisting before releasing him as he started to howl.
“I’ll miss you, too, sugar,” she said. “All my love to your mom.”
Then she offered her hand to Luke, who shook it for the second time in one day, though it seemed to her that this time he did it with just a little more respect.
Chapter Sixteen
After a couple hours’ nap on the living room couch, Stella took a quick shower and changed into the nicest outfit she’d brought, and enjoyed the supper Natalya served, which consisted of a surprisingly tasty bowl of soup made of thick noodles swimming in pickle juice. She chased it down with more of the coffee that seemed to be brewing around the clock, then helped Natalya clean up while Chip got ready for work.
He emerged from the bedroom showered and shaved and dressed in a neat blue uniform with his name stitched over the pocket. He was planning to attend a Gamblers Anonymous meeting before heading for the clinic, where he would presumably tidy up the detritus of all those practice surgeries. Stella worked hard not to think about the specimens she’d seen earlier in the day—and the condition they must now be in, having received a variety of maxillofacial modifications.
Chip had been chatty during dinner, but now he was subdued, despite the tired smile he produced for Natalya as she straightened his collar and tweaked a few wayward strands of his gelled hair. Stella knew Chip had to be at least as worried as she was. She mentally ticked off the list of outstanding problems: drug kingpins intending to wreak vengeance on Luka; a dead husband who inconveniently did not leave a clear path for Chip to marry Natalya before perishing; the threat of a murder being pinned on them despite their relative innocence.
But as she watched Chip checking his appearance in the hall mirror, accepting the neatly packed brown-bag lunch Natalya handed him before kissing her good-bye, Stella realized that her nephew was dealing with one other problem that had escaped her attention: how to support a family—an unorthodox one, perhaps—on a limited income and under the everyday pressures of an indifferent world. He was facing the challenge of being a responsible family man, the kind of man Stella had never suspected would ever emerge from Chip’s reckless, selfish past.
So moving did Stella find that revelation that after Chip left, she stepped into the dirt-packed backyard for a moment of privacy and called her sister.
“Chip’s a nice young man,” she said without preamble.
&nbs
p; “Oh, Stella, we’ve been celebratin’ ever since you called to tell us he ain’t killed. We got Papa over here settin’ under that big fishtail palm out back, and Chester’s gonna grill up some veggie burgers now the doc’s got ’em both on them low sodium diets.”
“Did you talk to Chip?”
“Oh yes, but he was just in an awful hurry, wantin’ to get to his meeting and work and all. I think he might be hopin’ for another promotion.”
“No, I mean yesterday. Did you guys get it all talked through? The whole thing with the ear and all of that?”
“Yes…” There was a pause, and Stella could picture Gracie twisting a lock of hair around her finger like she always did when she was thinking hard. “He apologized a whole bunch of times. He said he knew it was a bad idea and he was just an idiot for tryin’ it but now you and him are figuring out what to do. I got to say, when he told me how hard he was working at that Gamblers Anonymous they got, why, I was just prouder of that boy than I’ve ever been. But Stella … I don’t think he feels like he can talk to his daddy about that yet. Like going to those meetings makes him weak somehow, like he can’t fix things on his own.”
“And let me guess, you didn’t tell Chess either.”
“Well … it’s just, the two of ’em’s men now, y’know? I mean sometimes … I just wonder if it’s too late for them to have a regular-type father-son relationship. Too much water under the bridge, maybe.”
“Gracellen Carol Papadakis,” Stella said, “I’m surprised at you. Aren’t you the woman who got herself hooked up with a two-year-old stepson when you weren’t but a little bitty girl yourself, plucked out of that restaurant you worked in and hauled off to California?”
“Well, yeah, but…”
“And did you ever figure on becoming a mother to that child back then?”
“Well, I’m not his mother, Stella, for one thing—”
“You’re the closest thing to a mom he’s got now, Gracie, and I don’t mean no disrespect to Iola’s memory when I say it. But this is a funny world, sometimes a cruel world, and the strong folks have to step in and pick up where the weak ones leave off.”
She waited for her words to sink in, sending waves of listen-up-honey energy over the phone lines. Suddenly it felt very important for Gracie to believe her, to understand how important she and Chess were to the young man stumbling around Wisconsin trying to carve out a life for himself.
And just as suddenly, a little plan popped into Stella’s mind, causing her to catch her breath. A plan that might just work out for everyone, if they all did their part.
“I guess…” Gracie said slowly. “But if you’d seen those two, last time Chip was home—why, they couldn’t even set in the same room together to watch the game on TV without one of ’em had to start snipin’ at the other.”
“Pfft,” Stella said dismissively. “That ain’t nothing a little hard work won’t fix. Listen, I been estranged from a child before, and I know there was a whole lot of thoughtless things said, and pride held on to and hurt feelings and button pushing, but the minute the two of us decided to try our hardest, why, it’s been put to rights.”
“Well, but you did get shot up a bunch, too,” Gracie pointed out. “That probably softened Noelle up some.”
“What are you sayin’, you want me to come out there and shoot Chess in the ass to get this rolling? ’Cause I will.” Too late Stella clamped her lips shut—her hot temper was not the answer. “Look here, sugar, what-all did Chip tell you about Natalya?”
“Well, a’course, we know he’s serious about her, else why else was he trying to get all that money from us to buy her an engagement ring…”
Stella raised her eyebrows. Not the worst lie in the world—not particularly creative, but then again Chip was just a beginner when it came to strategic thinking.
“You got to let that go,” she suggested. “He never would have done it if he knew you didn’t have the extra cash to throw around.”
“Yeah, we talked about that, too. I told him his daddy and I are sorry we kept it from him, that we were just tryin’ to keep him from worrying. I didn’t have the heart to tell him about Bill and the embezzling and all, or how his daddy can’t sleep at night worrying about how’s he gonna find him a new warehouse manager.”
“Well, now you got him all clued in and such, why don’t you maybe think about if there’s some way Chip could help?”
“Chip … help?” Gracie sounded genuinely puzzled and considerably doubtful.
“Yeah … you know, like maybe he could join the company.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, Stella,” Gracie said quickly. “Papa’s still sayin’ that Chess almost run it into the ground, and I got half a mind to agree with him. I mean he made up for it later, but in those early days before he met me, Chess didn’t do no favors for Must-Be-Nuts.”
“Yeah, but Chess didn’t have the benefit of all that growin’ up that Chip’s got,” Stella said gently. “You took care of that, I ’spect, and now Chip’s got him a good woman and a boy to be responsible for and—”
“A what?”
Gracie’s voice was genuinely puzzled, and Stella came to a screeching halt. Was it possible—had Chip really elected not to discuss Luke with Gracie? Here she was singing the praises of the little family, of Chip’s maturity and work ethic, and she hadn’t even gotten around to talking up Natalya’s motherly and wifely prowess. But if Gracie and Chester Senior and Chess didn’t even know bout the boy, how could they start preparing a room in their hearts for him?
“Well … Natalya has a son. Who will be Chip’s once they’re married.”
“She’s got her a little boy?”
“Uh … yes. That’s what I’m tellin’ you.”
“Oh, Stella, here we just damn go again,” her sister sighed, as though the weight of the entire world had just landed square on her shoulders. “I do love my husband, but if I knew back then what I know now, if God saw fit to give me a little peek at the path ahead of us, I don’t know that I would have taken it on. It’s very hard to become the brand-new parent of a little boy. I mean there’s so many complications. What’s happened to the father? Was Natalya married before?”
Stella couldn’t quite figure how to answer that one—without invoking specters of Russian thugs and dead American entrepreneurs, which surely would not help her build her case. “He’s … out of the picture,” she finally settled on.
“Well, there you go. The boy’s like to be a real handful, with no man in his life. Type of boy who’s gonna get lured into the drugs and the skater crowd and all that bad element when he’s older.”
Ouch. “Oh, now, it’s not as bad as all that,” Stella implored. “Come on, Gracie, where’s your compassion?”
Then she reached all the way back into their past and pulled out the wild card she’d been saving, the dirty punch that Gracie would never expect her to pull.
“What about Sprinkles?”
There was a silence, and Stella could practically sense Gracie pulling away from the phone.
“That was different,” she whispered hoarsely.
But they both knew it wasn’t.
* * *
After hanging up with Gracie, Stella called her favorite secret weapon.
“What’d you do after you got that paper piecing class cleaned up?”
“Aw, you know, the usual,” Chrissy said. Stella could hear Tucker in the background, shrieking over the noise of the television. “Invited the first lady over for a cocktail, had us a side-by-side massage.”
“You have time to look up what I asked you?”
“Yeah, sure, Stella, didn’t take but half an hour. Tucker’n me even had time to get to the park so he could show all the other little guys how it’s done.”
“Oh lordy.” Tucker, now that he was three and a half, had proven to have an alarming talent for climbing—not just the things he was supposed to climb on, like the play structure, but also things that were meant to be left alon
e, like the honeysuckle vine growing up along little brick building that housed the restrooms. On a recent visit to the park, Tucker had scrambled up to the roof and then refused to come down, hollering at all the other little kids to come up and join him. While the other mothers dragged their children away, scowling at Chrissy, she scrambled up after Tucker and talked Lardner-style sense into him, accompanied with a swat on the fanny, before they both came down from the roof and enjoyed a chase around the park.
Tucker was going to be the sort of boy who was a natural leader, fearless and energetic. Boys would continue to flock to him, and mothers would continue to cringe. Unlike Chip, who’d been a sort of specter, a shy and invisible boy, slipping in and out of the crowd unnoticed. Stella felt a tug of sorrow for Gracie’s stepson and resolved not to give up on him.
“So what did you find for me?”
“Well, they weren’t pullin’ your leg on that ManTees thing—dudes really are buying those things up and wearing ’em around under their button-downs. Supposed to take three inches off the waistline.” She made a clucking sound, clearly unimpressed by the idea. “I got to tell you, Stella, the guys I been with? They come in all shapes and sizes and I guess I don’t much mind any of ’em. Only, if I was diggin’ down in a guy’s drawers and come up against all that—all that shiny stretch fabric that wouldn’t budge, gettin’ between me and the good stuff, I think I’d be tempted to trade the guy in for a more confident model.”
“But women wear them—have been for decades. Probably forever.”
A Bad Day for Mercy Page 15