Blame it on Cupid

by Jennifer Greene

  Here he was thinking about stripping her naked, and she was thinking of him as a good dad and good friend.

  Not that he wanted her to think about him in any other way. For Pete’s sake, she was the same as a grenade without the pin. Everything going on next door added up to a headache of migraine proportions. She seemed…too flighty, too young…to suddenly take on parenthood, at least parenthood of a girl as complex as Charlene. It’d be like a poodle trying to mother a baby Rottweiler. Or a fuzzy, fluffy rabbit trying to nurture a porcupine.

  Jack could sympathize. She was in a mess.

  It just wasn’t his mess.

  Yet as he trudged across the yard, he still felt unsettled and…restless. He was used to women coming on to him, thinking he was attractive. It’s not as if he were in his dotage, for God’s sake. He had all his hair. Kept up his build. Women seemed to sense he had exceptional potential between the sheets—which was the total truth. He took major pride in the skills and experience he brought to a lover.

  So it’d been a while since a woman had punched him in the ego teeth.

  What itched him most was that Merry apparently thought she was complimenting him. Good friend? Nice dad? What the hell was that? When she’d kissed him the night before, she’d sure yanked all his testosterone chains…but hell, maybe he hadn’t aroused any of hers and the chemical combustion between them had been all on his side.

  So…fine, he thought. And slammed the door on the way in.

  MERRY LOOKED AT THE GLUM FACE across the breakfast table on Saturday morning. “You sleep okay?”

  “Fine,” Charlie said, head down.

  “You kept saying it went okay in school…but did something happen with that Dougall boy?”

  Charlene shrugged. “He said he was sorry. I’m not sure if he was really sorry or not. I think they made him say something because of, like, implying I was gay. The school always has a cow if somebody does the homophobe thing. But, whatever.”

  Whatever. The universal answer. But the kid’s face still looked clunky-low. “Are you still upset with me about the argument we had about the guns?”

  “No.”

  Merry figured any answer that short was really a yes, but getting more information was like pushing a rock uphill. “I got a call last night,” she mentioned. “June Innes. Do you remember meeting her?”

  Finally, a direct glance. Wary. “Yeah. She was the one who met with me after Dad died. I mean, so did a social worker, but Mrs. Innes was different. It was kind of weird, you know? She said she had the power to say what happened to me. Like that she’d be the one who’d represent me in court.”

  Merry nodded. “I’m not sure I totally understand the whole guardian ad litem role, either, Charl. But you’ve got it right. She’s supposed to be on your side, represent your needs. And she called to say she was coming over Monday, after school. Just to see you.” She would have added more details, but Charlie’s face lit up with alarm.

  “I’m fine. Nobody has to ‘represent’ me. Nobody has to see me. Nothing’s wrong. I don’t want to talk to her. You’re not going to throw me out just because of the trouble in school, are you? I’ve never been in trouble before. Even once. It was just a bad day!”

  Merry felt her heart squeeze tight. “I was never going to throw you out, you silly, whether you’re having bad days or good days. But we can’t stop Mrs. Innes from visiting, Charl. And she really is on your side. I have to admit, though, when she called, I realized we’d been trashing the house. We should probably do straightening up before she gets here.”

  “I can clean house. I know how. You don’t have to.” And then another burst. “I don’t want to go anywhere else but home. I don’t see why she gets to say what happens to me. She doesn’t even know me. You’re not mad at me, are you, Merry? Because I can be quieter. And I can clean good. You’re not going to let her take me away, are you?”

  “No one, but no one, is going to take you away, Charlie.” Merry kept thinking, Poor baby. The crazy brush cut and swagger and guns were just the opposite of the real picture. Under all that was such a vulnerable little girl. “But I am guessing that Mrs. Innes will suggest that you see a counselor.”

  “I don’t need any stupid counselor! Why?”

  “Because it’s so hard to lose someone. Hard to deal with the grieving. People can help you—”

  “Like somebody can bring my dad back?” Charlie rolled her eyes. “I’m not talking to some stranger about my dad. The whole thing’s stupid. It’s something grown-ups want to do to make themselves feel better.”

  Merry said slowly, “You’re right.”

  “I’m trying not to cause trouble. To do anything wrong. I know, I messed up in school this week—”

  Okay. The kid was breaking her heart. She was just so inhibited, so repressed. So tight. So trying to survive something hugely over her head. “Look, Charlie. We have to see Mrs. Innes. We don’t have any choice. It’s a court mandate. But that’s not happening until Monday. A long time away. Let’s work on today.”

  “Yeah, you said. We gotta clean the house. And I said I would.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No,” Merry said firmly, and swept the breakfast dishes to the counter. “I may not know how to do engine parts and guns, kiddo. But I do know how to have fun. Come on.”

  “Come on where?”

  “Out.”

  The poor deprived child had never Rollerbladed before. Never gone into a department store and tried on fancy hats. Never driven down the road singing at the top of her lungs.

  “You’re not normal,” Charlie said.

  “Oh, thank you.”

  That won a smile.

  By then, Merry gave herself credit for winning quite a few smiles—just no outright natural laughter. Charlie went along with her, didn’t argue, didn’t complain about anything. But she just couldn’t seem to really let loose and relax.

  Merry worked harder. The day was only half done. After picking up fast food for lunch, she drove around a while longer, trying to think up fresh ideas at the same time she got a better feeling for the town. It was an old-fashioned New England–looking town, with white spired churches and brick houses and lots of streets named after trees—Oak and Maple, Sassafras and Chestnut. But it was awfully hard to get her bearings when the roads were all so curly, swirling around hills, dipping down into valleys.

  Eventually, Charlie said in awe, “You really couldn’t find your way out of a parking lot, could you?”

  “Hey,” Merry said in an injured tone, but on the inside, she was delighted. It was a real live insult. Surely that meant they were making progress? And just then, as she turned down a street she’d never seen before, she caught the sign for a craft shop.

  “I don’t do crafts,” Charlene insisted.

  “We’re not going to do crafts. We’re going to do painting.”

  “But I don’t paint, either.”

  Neither did Merry, but the idea had sparked a project. Anything would be better than the ghoulish contemporary art in the house, right? So she coaxed Charlene into the store and emerged two hundred bucks poorer—two hundred bucks she couldn’t afford, because she doubted anyone’d believe this was a guardian expense—but they had canvases and brushes and a zillion cans of colorful paint.

  “I don’t get what we’re going to do with all this stuff.”

  “Paint some pictures for the walls.”

  “But I can’t paint. Really.”

  “Sure you can. I know we can paint better than the Green Skeleton Girl.”

  Charlie knew the painting she meant. “But that’s art, Merry. That’s why my dad bought all those pictures. He said they’d be worth a bunch of money some day.”

  “Maybe they will be. And they’d be great. You can consider that ‘found money’ if those ships ever really come in.”

  “Ships?”

  “Never mind. The point is that there’s no reason we can’t store those paintings in a nice, safe c
loset, is there? I mean, if you happened to paint something you liked better and actually wanted to look at every day?”

  By midafternoon, the sky suddenly turned darker than a nightmare. When they pulled in the driveway, a howling wind chased them inside. Merry doubted a Virginia winter storm could rival a serious Minnesota blizzard, but either way, it was a good time to hole up inside.

  Charlie watched warily while Merry set up. Once she draped newspaper all over the kitchen floor, she pushed kitchen chairs together to work as make-shift easels. The chairs weren’t remotely the right height for the big white canvasses, but she couldn’t think of another one. Charlie came through with a couple of old T-shirts to wear over their clothes, while Merry organized the brushes and bowls of paint. Last, she flipped on all the lights against the gloomy afternoon and turned up some music—some nice, loud, hip-gyrating rock and roll. “Okay, let it rip!”

  “Let what rip?”

  Merry showed her, taking a brush dripping with sun-yellow and swathing it across a canvas. “Now, your turn.”

  “What color am I supposed to use?”

  “Any color you love. That’s what we’re going to build. Canvases that are big splashes of colors we love.”

  “That’s all we’re trying to do?”

  “That’s all,” Merry affirmed.

  Charlie gingerly brushed on a streak of khaki green.

  Merry ran over and put a moosh of cherry red on an edge. At Charlie’s shocked look, she said, “Go on. Go put something on mine.”

  “You mean wreck yours?”

  “You won’t be wrecking anything. We’ll just be creating something different than anyone else would create.”

  “In the entire universe,” Charlie agreed dryly. But she went over and dabbed a few spots of orange on Merry’s canvas.

  Merry responded by dipping her entire hand in the sky blue and putting palm prints all over Charlie’s picture. Charlie took off her socks and did feet prints—in dark purple—on hers.

  For the first time, the very first time since Merry got here, she could taste just a wee bit of elation. They were having fun together. They were being together. And if they could just start being together, Merry figured the rest had a prayer of working out. Charlie wasn’t going to recover from her dad’s loss overnight. Merry wasn’t going to turn into a parent overnight.

  But hell’s bells, at last she had a taste of hope.

  The two of them slashed and streaked and stroked until a half dozen canvases were completely dripping in various crazy colors and shapes. At some point Merry realized the two of them were head-to-bare-feet covered in paint as well—but who cared? Finally, though, enough seemed enough. Merry stepped back to give their fancy art a critical eye. “Hot damn. Are we good or are we good?”

  Charlie made the strangest sound. “Hogwash.”

  “Huh? Hogwash? What’s hogwash?”

  “It’s—” Abruptly she made that sound again, as if there was a little choke gurgling at the very back of her throat. Her so-careful expression suddenly seemed to crack.

  Merry stared, disbelieving. It wasn’t just a smile taking over that face. Charlie actually bent over, clearly in response to how god-awful she thought their artwork was—and let out a laugh. A rusty laugh. A little-girl-not-trying-to-be-brave-right-then laugh. In fact, it was a downright boisterous giggle.

  Only then…the lights went out. The lights, the music, the fridge, the furnace, the everything. Whatever cut off the power, the kitchen was abruptly dark as a cellar.

  And that one precious moment of silly joyfulness disappeared faster than smoke.

  GIVEN THE ICE STORM, Jack was just as glad Heather had opted out of a regular Saturday-night date. The original plan had been a movie, then out for drinks, then back to his place. This way, he thought as he finished shaving his chin, they could skip the movie. Just go straight for the main course.

  Not that he presumed they’d be having sex. But they had every other time they’d been together. Heather loved her career, flew all over the world with her job, had no interest in settling down. But when she was in town, she got lonely.

  Jack had always willingly offered her a solution for that, at least on the extremely occasional basis she called. Truthfully, he hadn’t seen her in months and hadn’t exactly planned to—but when he answered a call and heard a woman’s voice, his heart leaped to the too-fast conclusion that it was Merry. Merry’s voice. Merry’s face on the other end of the line. Merry, putting that crazy happy zip in his pulse. And when he realized how insanely and inappropriately he was starting to feel for his worrisome neighbor, he immediately told Heather yes.

  The way Jack saw it, nothing in his life had been normal since Merry moved in next door. So it was time he got back in the saddle. Literally. And if Heather’s acrobat exploits couldn’t get his mind off his next-door neighbor, nothing could.

  He was still upstairs, freshly showered and shaved, trying to choose a shirt from his closet, when he heard the excited knocking downstairs. Heather was either extra-eager or extra-early. Maybe he wasn’t—but with the wild sleet storm building over the last couple hours, he was relieved she was off the icy roads and here safe.

  Swiftly he grabbed a chamois shirt and finished buttoning it as he jogged down the stairs. “Coming,” he yelled as he heard the exuberant knocking again. He only wished he felt the same exuberance. He was trying. Damn it, she was a nice woman. Fun. She was the rare kind of woman who openly admitted a need for sex, for just plain wanting to scratch an itch sometimes without a pile of complications. Nothing wrong with that. No one was getting hurt. It was honest. Real.

  It was just that sometimes he had the oddest feeling that he was lonelier the next morning than if he’d woken up solo.

  Still, he forced a welcoming smile on his face as he crossed the kitchen. He’d never been prone to that kind of crappy introspection before. It was one of the aberrations bugging him since his next door neighbor had moved in. He could shake it. It was just going to take some discipline, some self-control. Some mindless sex.

  He swiftly opened the back door with a humorous, “Good grief, where’s the fire, Heather—?”

  Only to abruptly realize there was no Heather. The two characters on his back porch looked like cartoon caricatures. His heart rate recognized Merry in theory—but reality was that this goofy visitor was wearing no coat, just an oversized T-shirt over her clothes and bare feet in flip-flops—even in the driving sleet—but her clothes weren’t the shocker. Her eyes, her gorgeous dark eyes, were the only thing normal about her. The rest of her was blotched with something. Paint? Yellow, orange, purple, green, red. In her hair, on her face, her fingers, the shirt.

  The fleeting thought blew through his head that this was exactly why he needed sex. With someone. Anyone. Because if his heartbeat could thump like a puppy’s tail at the sight of this woman, he needed help. Soon. Fast.

  Naturally he tore his eyes off her immediately. Her sidekick had to be Charlene—who he should have easily recognized, considering he’d known her for a solid handful of years. But he hadn’t seen her close-up since she’d chopped off and spiked her hair, and she was as drenched in paint as Merry, except that the kid at least had the brains to drape some towels over her shoulders for warmth.

  He could barely phrase a sputter, much less a coherent question. “What on earth—?”

  “Jack, I hate to bother you, but we’re in a terrible mess! I don’t know what happened, but the lights went off. And so did everything else. And—”

  “We lost all power,” Charlene clarified.

  “Which wouldn’t have been so bad except that we were right in the middle of painting. So we couldn’t clean up and we couldn’t touch anything and everything’s still all wet! We were even afraid to put on coats, for fear of ruining our coats and shoes with paint. And I don’t have a clue what’s wrong. Or what I should do—”

  “I told her where the circuit breaker box was,” Charlene interrupted. “But she said she barely k
new the difference between a fuse box and a boom box.”

  “We couldn’t see to go downstairs anyway. I hate to bother you! But I just don’t know what to do. Who to call, or—”

  Jack never got it, why females felt they had to talk nonstop when there was a problem. He did the obvious, grabbed both of them and pulled them in out of the cold. “Okay, you two, one at a time—”

  “Jack, the kitchen is a terrible mess. And we can’t just leave all the wet paint and paint cans open. But—”

  “But when all the power went off so fast, it was too dark to see. I know where Dad kept flashlights. But we’d been painting with our feet. Some. It’s hard to explain. But we couldn’t just walk across the carpets—”

  “Skip all the detail, okay? Where’s the breaker box?”

  “Huh?” Merry said.

  So he redirected the question to Charlene. “In the basement, like I told her. Only it was too dark to see down there without a flashlight, and we had the same problem, not wanting to track paint everywhere we walked—”

  Both females lifted their paint-splotched feet to illustrate. He didn’t need more information. “First off, I’ll go over and figure out what happened—”

  “I’ll come with you,” Merry said immediately.

  The sick, wayward side of his mind murmured, I only wish. How insane was that, to discover sexual potential in the middle of chaos? He told himself to get a grip and keep it. “Neither of you are going anywhere with no coats and no shoes.”

  “We put on slippers. Or flops. We just didn’t want to wreck a real pair of—”

  “I get it, I get it.” Possibly his crazy neighbor’s behavior was infectious, because he found himself making sweeping gestures with his hands, like she did. Anything to communicate above the din. And then he had another thought. “Water-soluble or oil-based?”

  “Huh?”

  Again, he redirected the question to the brains of the pair. “Charlene, what kind of paint?”

  “Water-based.”

  “Well, there’s one relief.” Quick as a flash, he grabbed some towels from the laundry room and dropped them on the floor. “I’m guessing this is going to take me a minute. And you two likely won’t want to stand here with paint drying all over you. Charlene, you’ve been in the house before, so you can show Merry where the showers are, up and down. Just use the dirty towels to keep the paint off the floor, all right? And then Charlene, go in the boys’ rooms and grab a couple of sweatshirts to put on.”