Bad Things

by Tamara Thorne

  Rick nodded. “Dakota told me you were my type. I didn’t believe him.”

  “He told me the same thing about you. I didn’t believe him either.”

  “Want to have dinner with me?” he asked solemnly.

  “Yes,” she replied, her voice controlled and dignified.

  “Want me to shower first?” he inquired even more gravely.

  “That would be very nice.” A giggle got loose, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she said a second later. “This is all so weird.”

  “It is,” he agreed, putting away his tools.

  “So what is that?”

  “It’s a metal sculpture for my garden. With any luck, it’ll look a little like Don Quixote.” He closed the last cabinet. “Did your brother happen to mention I have children?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Just checking. You can see the house while I clean up. I have to take a shower,” he added unnecessarily. Then he blurted, “I have to take several.”

  She laughed. “What?”

  On the way into the house, he explained, then left her with Carmen and Cody while he went upstairs.

  Half an hour later, Audrey drove them to Briarwood, an English pub with sawdust on the floor and a piano player who wore a garter on his sleeve and played Joplin at the correct tempo, something that constituted heaven as far as Rick was concerned. Sitting there drinking pints of Ballards while they waited for their food, he felt as if he were renewing an old friendship, not on a first, blind date that had been engineered with absolutely no subtlety whatsoever.

  “I’ve never been here before,” Rick said.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Love it.” The piano player launched into “The Pineapple Rag.” “This is my favorite kind of music.”

  “Really?” Audrey studied him. “You’re not just saying that, are you? Duane didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “That I’m nuts for this stuff.”

  “Rags?”

  She nodded. “Rags, jazz, pretty much anything written between 1895 and 1925.”

  Dream woman. “No, he didn’t tell me anything except that you were just my type.”

  She smiled. “Sometimes my little brother’s pretty smart.”

  “So,” Rick said, studying her clear green eyes, “I hear you’re an optometrist.”

  “And you’re a journalist. I’ve been reading ‘Consumer Crusader’ for years. Duane said you did a TV show in Vegas.” She waited as the matronly waitress set platters of fish and chips in front of them.

  “You folks care for malt vinegar or lemon?”

  “Lemon,” Rick and Audrey said in unison. This is too good to be true, he thought. Way too good. Something had to go wrong soon.

  “Lots of lemon, tons,” Audrey called after the server. “So are you going to do a new show?”

  “Not unless I need the money.”

  “Are you a writer first and consumer advocate second, or the other way around?” She paused, a piece of fish raised to her lips. “I’m sorry. I’m asking too many questions.”

  “No, it’s fine. I like both, but I guess I lean toward the consumer side. My first year in college, I discovered all those books on subliminal advertising, and it kind of bloomed from there.” He smiled.

  They talked through dinner about things he couldn’t recall later. The time flew by, the ale loosened them up. “So what has your brother told you about me?” he asked over coffee.

  “Not a lot. He told me who you were, which was a kick since I always read your column, and I think I already told you that. He described you as ‘regrettably straight,’ that you had two kids and wanted to get your daughter away from Vegas.”

  “Did he tell you why?”

  “Oh, boy, did he.” She sipped her coffee. “That came out the other night after he had another fight with Lil. He said she’s encouraging your daughter—”

  “Shelly.”

  “Thanks, encouraging Shelly to become a show girl.” She shook her head. “I wish Duane would kick Lil out, once and for all. She treats him like dirt, but the poor guy never could resist a stray.”

  Hearing that gave Rick pause.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I might be one of his strays.”

  She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “No. Lil was a prostitute. Couldn’t get a job. He helped her clean up her act.” She smiled. “As far as you’re concerned, Duane’s a wee bit star-struck.”

  Rick squeezed her hand back, and neither let go. “You’re not,” he said coyly.

  She laughed, a delightfully musical sound. Her hand was on top of his, and she slowly moved her finger over his palm. It drove him nuts. “I guess not,” she agreed.

  “Are you sure Dakota didn’t say anything about me?” he asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Well, did he say anything about my eyes, for instance?”

  She cocked her head. “Your eyes? No, I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said casually. “I just wondered if he’d said anything else. I used eyes as an example . . . a paean to your profession.”

  “He didn’t say a word, Rick, but he should have. You’ve got the most incredible dark blue irises. Are they contacts?”

  “Nope. They’re characteristic of the Piper clan.”

  “Well, they’re gorgeous.” She finished off her coffee. “What’dya say we blow this Popsicle stand?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “How about a yogurt stand? There’s one just down the street. We can walk.”

  A few minutes later, they were strolling along the Via Pecado, downtown Santo Verde’s picturesque main street. White firefly lights twinkled in the limbs of the small trees lining the sidewalks, and warm yellow glowed from the storefronts of the restaurants and businesses still open. They bought chocolate cones at the yogurt stand and continued to stroll. Rick had never willingly walked in town after dark before, but wasn’t too surprised to find that on these civilized streets, there were no greenjacks to torment him.

  She’ll drop you like a hot coal once you tell her you see little green men, so you’d better not talk about eyes anymore, Piper, not if you want to see her again.

  “Is your last name O’Keefe? Dakota mentioned that you used to be married.”

  “See? He did tell you something about me. Yes, it’s O’Keefe. I was young and stupid when I got married. It didn’t last long, and I threw the name out with the husband.” Sidelong, she looked at him. “Did Duane tell you why we broke up?”

  He almost said no, then decided bluntness had worked fine so far. “Yes, he did. Dakota was bragging about his left hook, and I asked him who he hooked. He told me.” He waited, but she said nothing. “He said the man abused you.”

  “That’s a nice way of putting it. He broke my jaw once. My wrist, too. He was a drunk. Lil’s a drunk, too. I wish Duane would learn from my mistakes. He sure lectured me about Ron, so you’d think he’d learn.”

  “How long did you stay with him?”

  “Too long. Five years. Let’s sit.” She indicated a white bench outside Much Ado About Books, a venerable bookstore where Rick had bought all his Batman comics way back when. “I don’t know how much longer I would have stayed if Duane hadn’t grown up and caught him shoving me around.”

  “He abused you the whole time?”

  She nodded, gave him a half smile. “Hard to believe I’d stick around?”

  “Actually, it is. You seem very sure of yourself.”

  “After I left, I lived with Duane for a while. He was pretty screwed up himself; he hadn’t discovered his true calling yet. I also went to a shrink, who told me I had to stop feeling like I deserved to be treated like dirt. Ron always told me I deserved what he dished out, and I took it for truth. My therapist said it was because I had one of those deadly cold daddies who was into bare-butt spanking. She also thought he’d abused me, but I don’t recall. Thos
e are such in things right now, blaming everything on your parents and being sexually abused. I’d prefer to think I got screwed up all on my own.”

  “Adults do screw up their kids, though,” Rick ventured.

  “Sure, of course. But I learned that instead of blaming your problems on other people, you look at them as your responsibility. To overcome them is your challenge. It’s the only way to grow. At least the only way I could. Your yogurt’s melting.”

  Rick looked down and saw that his hand was shrouded in melting chocolate. Absently he wiped it off, then tossed the remains of the cone and the napkin in the trash can across the sidewalk.

  “Good shot.”

  “Go on” he said. “Please.”

  “I’m not boring you?”

  “No! The opposite.” The things she’d said made him want to tell her about Robin; he was bursting to spill his guts. But he didn’t dare. “You were saying?”

  She smiled uncertainly. “Oh, well, I just decided to take responsibility for my own self-destructive tendencies, and I overcame them.” She smiled. “For the most part, anyway. In the process, I went back and got my O.D., took some assertiveness training, and tried to get it together.”

  “From the looks of things, you’ve more than succeeded.”

  She blushed. “Thanks. It’s taken ten years and lots of hard work to get where I am now. I opened my own office last year.” Her nose crinkled as she grinned. “I’m pretty proud of that.”

  “You should be.”

  “My mother used to call me ‘Little Audrey,’ like in the comics?” She made a face. “And my dad called me his calico kitten.”

  “That’s nice,” Rick said, confused.

  “Yes, but I took it to mean I was powerless.”

  “I had a cute little marmalade kitten,” Rick said. “He grew into a big bruiser who takes crap from no one.” He smiled. “Especially me.” He took her hand, and she immediately twined her fingers among his.

  “I like your attitude, Rick.” She turned on the bench to face him. “So what about you? Any brothers or sisters?”

  “A brother,” he said, “Deceased.”

  He used discretion as he talked, describing his twin’s handicap, touching on the greenjacks, mentioning that he was a gullible kid who believed the stories and, hence, was teased by his embittered brother. When he got to the part about his parents’ murder, he only said that it happened. “I was afflicted with Ewebeans after that,” he finished.

  She chuckled. “That sounds like a horrible disease.”

  “It was. Is. You didn’t see her, but Aunt Jade still lives in the house. She keeps poodles, and when they die, she gets them stuffed.”

  “So how’d you turn out so normal?” she asked.

  He laughed, long and genuinely. “Boy, have I got you fooled.”

  “Well, then, I guess I’ll just have to work on figuring you out. You look tired, Rick.”

  He glanced at his watch. It was already past ten. “I don’t want to go home yet,” he said conspiratorially. “Do you?”

  “No. There’s a jazz club a couple miles from here down on the boulevard. They serve gourmet coffee. I’m not up to any more drinking,” she said apologetically.

  “Me either. But jazz sounds fine.”

  On the way to the car he stopped to call home. Carmen answered, said everything was fine, did he have his key, and have fun. He’d had one phone call, a person, sex unknown, named after a state, who wanted Rick to call back.

  They stayed out till midnight, talking like old friends. Then Audrey declared morning would come too soon and she drove him back to his house, pulling all the way up the long driveway and turning the car around in the wide parking area in front of the garage.

  The lawn was crawling with greenjacks, and Rick’s stomach twisted so hard, he thought he was going to vomit, even though he still sat in the passenger seat. You have to walk through them. Do you want this woman to think you’re nuts? Remember, they can’t hurt you.

  “Rick, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he told her. “I, ah, just realized I have work tonight. I need to take five more showers and write my column before noon tomorrow.”

  “Poor guy,” she said from the driver’s seat. “It’s a dirty job you have to do.”

  They laughed, then slowly, slowly, leaned together, eyes locked, lips trembling. Anticipation wove through his body, made it tingle deep in his abdomen and long into his limbs. Hour-long seconds passed, deliciously, then their lips met and it was a first kiss, chaste, gentle, and warm. Exciting.

  After, they pulled back enough to gaze at each other. Audrey’s nostrils were flared and her pupils were so big, they looked perfectly black.

  Rick took this as a good omen. “Can I see you again?”

  “I was afraid you’d never ask,” Audrey murmured.

  They agreed on dinner and a movie for Friday night, then Rick reluctantly got out of the car. She waved and drove away.

  Icky Ricky, dicky Ricky, Ricky, Ricky, play today!

  Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, he thought back. Thomas, Thomas, Audrey, Thomas. By the time one more Audrey slipped between the Thomases, he was at the door without breaking into a run.

  Shelly was in the living room watching an ancient Godzilla movie. “Hot date, Dad?”

  She was still in a good mood. “Dakota’s sister, Audrey. Dakota sent her to see how we’re doing. She’s pretty nice.”

  “Yeah, I bet!” Shelly teased him for another minute, then brought him up-to-date on her new job, which she’d begin tomorrow, the brands of makeup they carried, and all sorts of other things he didn’t actually care about, but loved because it meant he was back in communication with his daughter. He listened attentively, noting that not once did she demand any material gifts. Tomorrow, he decided, he’d call the cable company. One could only do without Southpark for so long.

  Within a half hour she wound down, and together they closed up the house and went upstairs. Still energized from his time with Audrey, Rick managed to install two of the shower heads, one in each upstairs bath, and test them. Stretching luxuriously in his bed, enjoying the warmth and the way it felt against his neck and back, he thought that in the morning he’d switch them for the others, and test those before doing the column. “Life is good,” he told the ceiling.

  Beside him, Quint flattened himself out to soak up every square inch of warmth his body would allow. The cat always seemed to know exactly where the warm spots were, and it occurred to Rick that he’d read somewhere that they could see infrared-heat waves. Cats can see things we can’t. That’s what Dakota had said when he urged Rick to see if Quint could see the jacks. He couldn’t get to sleep because he had Audrey O’Keefe on the brain. Part of it was delightful, part of it wasn’t. If they continued to hit it off, what would she say if he told her about the jacks? That would be the end of it: Nobody wanted to date a psycho.

  “Okay, cat, let’s take a walk.” He rose, slipped a robe on over his shorts and T-shirt, then scooped up the cat, holding it against his chest so it was looking over his shoulder.

  The house waited silently as he walked quietly down the front stairs, then tiptoed across the living room, praying that Jade’s poodles wouldn’t hear him. Without pausing to think twice, he slipped between the draperies and the picture window.

  They were out there in the grass beneath the oak, doing their endless dances. Slowly they became aware of him and turned to watch him as he watched them, a few moving closer to the window.

  Behind him, muffled noises from Jade’s room startled him. He listened a moment, and realized that the old lady was talking in her sleep, giggling and moaning, sounding like she was—how disgusting—making love. The cat growled low in its throat, prompting Rick to scratch its ears to calm it. He waited, but Jade continued to make her obscene sounds. To hell with her.

  Icky Ricky, come play, hey, Ricky.

  The cat didn’t react this time, but its ears were aggressively forward, its attention focused o
n Jade’s folding doors.

  Several greenjacks melted together and oozed up, wraith like, just outside the window. “Okay, kitty,” Rick whispered as he turned the cat toward the window. “Look at this.”

  Two seconds passed before the cat reacted, then Quint’s muscles tensed, its claws sinking into Rick’s arm. Ears back, the cat growled, not low and menacing this time, but the high-pitched panicked sound of a frightened animal. The wraith shifted toward the left, and the cat’s head moved with it.

  Suddenly the cat hissed and tore Rick’s flesh, frantic to get away. “Jesus,” he whispered as he clamped one hand on the front paws, and trapped the back under his arm. He was barely able to keep from yelling as the feline’s hind legs kicked his side through the thick robe.

  “Shhh!” He slipped out of the drapes and moved to the stairs and up, the sounds of Jade’s now loud moaning mixing with the cat’s whining snarl.

  Finally he entered his room, shutting and locking the door before letting the cat free. Quint hissed again, then disappeared beneath the headboard of the bed.

  26

  July 17

  Rick finished his column with an hour to spare, which was fortunate since he hadn’t had time to hook up his fax, so at eleven-fifteen he drove downtown and had it sent from a stationery store.

  After that, not quite ready to return to the house, he cruised through Santo Verde. The older business and residential areas had changed very little, retaining their old-fashioned, moderately well-to-do charm, but the outskirts of town had grown tremendously between the new housing tracts, condos, and businesses. As he passed the mall, he stifled the urge to stop in and see how Shelly was doing—she’d hate that. When she’d come to the study this morning to tell him good-bye—she’d conned Hector into giving her a lift—she’d still been in her newfound good mood, and he hoped it was going to last. If it did, he decided to buy her an inexpensive new car for her birthday next month.