John placed his arm around her waist in an all too proprietary way and Liz stepped out of it. He tugged her closer, but didn’t grip her quite as hard this time.
“You may not be,” he said, “but I am. Shall we go?”
Why not? Why not allow him to walk her home?
It wouldn’t matter to either of them, not really, this physical contact. He was being a gentleman. Nothing to arouse the longing to be part of a pair she automatically blocked from her heart. But it felt good having his strong, secure arm around her.
Sure, why not?
The long day did catch up with her. The sight of the ocean had given her a second wind, but now Liz debated between going straight to bed and joining her grandmother and the kid for supper. The tantalizing aroma and hushed conversation coming from the kitchen decided for her.
She and Carly had been talking between rushes about an idea the kid had come up with and Liz wondered whether the kid had the guts to bring it up to Flo. As she stood in the kitchen doorway, she watched Carly push the meatball around on her plate, her head down as if she were avoiding Flo’s intent stare. Or maybe she was getting up her nerve.
“So, you helped Liz again this afternoon? How was it?”
“Lots of customers. Liz and I took turns taking orders and making them up. More take-out today than yesterday, but the weather was better.”
“Oh, yes,” mused Flo. “Business picks up with better weather. It’s slow as all get out during the winter. Let’s face it, Asbury Park just about dies in the cold. But it’ll start picking up now.”
What the heck. She wanted to hear what was going on.
Liz entered the room and sat with them. She’d changed her clothes, getting rid of the greasy apron and white blouse. At least now she felt cooler and didn’t smell like hamburgers and fries.
“It was hectic for awhile, Grandma,” she observed.
Flo chuckled, a warm, old-lady sound that came from somewhere in the depths of her soul. She put her hand on her knee and gave it a rub. “That’s part of the fun.”
Liz shot her a smile. “Did Carly tell you her idea?”
Flo looked first to Liz, then Carly. “No, is there something going on?”
Liz lifted her hand, indicating that Carly should follow through. Carly held back until Liz prompted her with a small nod.
“It’s nothing, really, Flo. I was just thinking that, with summer coming on, maybe you might want to turn the luncheonette into an ice cream parlor.”
Flo’s eyebrow dipped then cleared. “Oh, so you found the fountain stuff.”
Carly wriggled in her seat, so full of excitement Liz had to laugh. “I was putting a platter on the side, and I heard the counter, you know, on the left side over there, I heard it sounded hollow. So, after the rush, I looked around and saw the hinges. And then I sort of lifted the lid thing and there was all this stainless steel. Liz told me what it was, and I thought it would be great to, well, serve ice cream. Fancy stuff. Ice cream parlors are really hot now. Everybody loves ice cream. And this place could be so cool! All that old-fashioned stuff. A real ice cream parlor.”
Liz checked out her grandmother’s face as she seemed to consider the kid’s proposal. “Nobody much wants ice cream in winter. Summers, yes, I could see opening up the fountain. But not in winter. Not here, anyway.”
Carly’s smile flagged, a little deflated by Flo’s reaction. The kid really had had a good idea. Wanting to show her support, Liz turned to her grandmother and gave her a beseeching look.
“Grandma, Carly thought about that, too.”
Flo eased back her shoulders and inhaled a deep breath. “So, what does she have in mind?”
Liz knew that look. The kid was nearly home free, but not knowing Flo as Liz did, she probably thought the piercing look was a dare to come up with something that hadn’t already been tried. Something stupendous.
“Soup.”
“Soup?”
“Not just open a can, pour it in a pot, but homemade soup. Like the kind the nuns made in a big steamer at the soup kitchen.”
“Nuns?” Flo looked confused. Liz held in a laugh. Carly had already explained this to her earlier though she had to admit this bit of the kid’s past had surprised her.
Carly pressed forward her case. “Nuns. I’ve lived with them and know all sorts of recipes for some really great soup. They taught me everything there is to know about cooking and baking.”
Her enthusiasm overflowed. Carly was a natural saleswoman. Liz watched how she focused on Flo’s reactions, as if trying to get a sense of whether she was reaching her. Her grandmother was a smart lady and an excellent businesswoman, but she might not like any of the ideas Carly had.
“And the two of you want to change the luncheonette into an ice cream parlor in the summer and a soup kitchen in winter? You like this idea, Liz?”
“Not soup kitchen. Soup bar. Very trendy stuff. Big difference,” Carly explained.
Flo settled back in the booth. “I don’t know. The luncheonette isn’t doing too bad.”
Liz stepped in with her two cents. The idea had grabbed her as soon as Carly had put it into words. “It isn’t doing too bad at all, Grandma. It might do better, though. You’d make more money, probably, and with the resurgence of Asbury Park, you’d be in the forefront. You know the town is working on revitalizing the oceanfront. There will be plenty of business while the work is going on, and afterwards. We’re only two blocks from the beach. We have parking and if we have something different to offer customers, we’ll do fine.”
“But what happens when the crowds move up to the beach in all those fancy restaurants and food stands?”
“Then,” added Liz with a tight, emphatic smile, “we retire rich.”
Chapter 8
John came out of the bathroom, cleanshaven and ready to face the day. He’d put on decent slacks and a shirt he’d had to take the cleaning tags off, just to bring her to Mike’s. The kid scooted inside in a blur of teenage speed.
“I’ve been working on your case,” John said as he waited for Carly to finish in the bathroom. Now she seemed to be dragging her feet, and they had an appointment to keep. He looked at his watch, checked the newspaper.
The door hit the side of the wall, carving a divot out of the cracked plaster.
“Did you find my father?”
Panic crossed her face which oddly pleased him.
The kid had on that huge jacket and baggy black pants with the watch cap snugged down over her hair.
“Good morning. And no, I haven’t.” He made sure he sounded pleasant. She turned her shoulder to him. Folding the newspaper after another quick scan of the page, he tossed it into the wastebasket.
“Ah, nothing to say this morning? Well, let’s go downstairs and have a good breakfast, okay? No doughnuts and coffee, but eggs and bacon and toast with those little packets of jelly.”
Still no response.
“Is that all you have to wear?”
She turned on him. “What’s wrong with it? It’s clean. And yeah, it is all I have to wear.”
He gave a quick nod. “We’ll have to get you some clothes after . . . I guess.”
She muttered something under her breath that he didn’t catch and was glad he hadn’t from the look she gave him. Sullen. Oh, crap.
Grabbing his leather jacket from the coat tree, he held the door open for her. “Let’s go downstairs, Carly.”
She looked at him through her eyelashes, her head down, her feet not moving.
In two steps he was in front of her, hands at his side. “Don’t pull this on me, Carly. I’m trying to help you. What I have to do to accomplish that is what has to be done.”
“You came back late. I had all this stuff to tell you and you came back when I was asleep.”
Ah, so there was more to it. “Yeah. I did. I was working. It happens. It happens to me frequently. I go and I come at all hours and I’m not used to reporting to anyone. It’s my job. We have things to do today. Now
, come downstairs so we can get breakfast.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and jutted her chin. “What if I don’t want to?”
“You’ll like what’s going on. I promise.”
Enough cajoling. His father would have just given her a look. He didn’t know how to give a sullen sixteen-year-old a look. Instead, he tugged off her cap.
Carly’s natural blond hair tumbled out.
“Ho-ly Hannah!”
She grabbed at the cap. “What? Give it back.”
He crushed the cap in his hand, his eyes fixed on her. “What . . . oh, that was just hair dye?”
She shivered. “Yeah. This is my real hair color.”
“Uh, it looks . . . nice.” That tore it. The blondes from the picture—it slid into place though he still had no idea which one had given birth to Carly. Another big, fat clue.
“Can I have my hat back now?”
He smiled, gentling now that the initial shock was over. “Nope. You don’t need it.”
Her eyes slitted. “Where are we going?”
He started out the door, turning back to make sure she followed. “You’ll find out.”
When they got downstairs, Liz was leaning over the counter reading the newspaper. If she was surprised by Carly’s change in appearance, she gave no indication whatsoever.
John checked his watch, decided he didn’t want to bother Liz for a real breakfast after all. He’d probably used up all his favors with her after the tape removal incident and he didn’t want to push. And last night, up on the beach road . . . that didn’t count for anything, but she had allowed him to get her home safely. Her actions and reactions to him were atypical, to say the least. A puzzle. He liked puzzles.
While the lady currently occupying his thoughts ignored him, she did, however, smile sweetly at Carly and offer to make her French toast, which the kid declined, snagging a doughnut instead.
“You guys off somewhere special?” she asked Carly.
Carly swallowed a chunk of doughnut before answering. “Some big secret thing. Ask him what we’re doing, ’cause I sure don’t know.”
Liz pulled Carly close and said something directly into her ear. They both laughed and John felt his ears burn. A sure sign they were laughing about him.
Fascinated, he watched the two of them sharing their little private conversation and the thought came to him that they were both good-lookin’ babes. Hmm. Well, maybe the kid was a babe in training, but Liz sharing a secret with her face lit up and that great, mocking smile of hers was definitely a babe.
The kid. Some day she’d be a knockout. A heart-breaker.
Hell, she already was.
He almost felt sorry for the boys at Mary Immaculate.
John had already run through what he was going to say to Carly a thousand times. “Carly, this is Father Mike. He’s found a way to get you back in school to finish out the year at least.”
She’d be happy and excited and he’d be a hero for allowing her to complete her education. And Mike would get to see her and . . . well, whatever happened because of that, he hadn’t a clue, but Mike would see the kid he possibly had fathered. In his own way, by getting her into Mary Immaculate on scholarship and eliminating hurdles, the priest would be doing all he could to help Carly. If it turned out that he was her father, at least he’d know he was doing right by her as much as he could.
And if he wasn’t her father, she’d be in school instead of out on the streets. John would continue to look for her father. Once he found him, Carly could go live with whoever it turned out to be and she’d be out of his hair.
Funny thing was, and he hated to admit it to himself, he’d want to make sure she was happy and doing all right and that whichever son of a bitch claimed her, that bastard did right by her. Sixteen years changed a man. Those bums at the shore house had been all right to hang with on a limited basis, but some of them had been destined to be dirtbags. He knew it back then. Hell, Carly’s very existence was proof of it. No real man would abandon his own child.
“Well, here we are.”
The kid looked out the window at the imposing stone edifice of St. Boniface. Her expression fell. “A church? What’s the big deal? I’ve been in church plenty of times. I’m Catholic, remember? Raised by nuns? All that?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I remember. But this is important. I want you to meet somebody.”
Her eyes lit for a nanosecond, then her lids lowered. “My father?”
He shook his head. “I’m good, but I’m not that good, Kiddo. Nah, Father Mike . . . he’s a good guy. He and I—well, I’ll let him tell you.”
Sweat rolled down the back of his neck. He felt uncomfortable. Best to let Mike handle the situation his own way. They’d already decided to use his priest name, not his birth name. Carly was no fool. She’d memorized the names on that list. She’d know who he was and that would not be good.
Mike met them at the door after sending his housekeeper out shopping for the morning. John watched the priest’s face as, with what had to be practiced care, Mike smiled beatifically at them both, giving nothing, absolutely nothing away. Priest greeting parishioners. Maybe there was an extra quarter inch to the wide smile.
“Father Mike, this is Carly Snow. Carly, this is Father Mike.”
Mike stuck out his hand, grasping Carly’s, then covering it with the other. Mike was a warmhearted type, came from a big Irish-Catholic family with eight siblings and about a million cousins. From personal experience, John knew they were huggers, but Mike did not bring Carly into an embrace.
He ushered them into his office, full of dark wood and pictures of Christ and His bleeding heart, and saints with bald heads and those with pious veils. A stained glass window of the Crucifixion let in dim light behind the priest’s chair. John fought his sudden aversion to it all. It was his job to appear as normal as possible. For all their sakes.
Big Mike sat behind his enormous dark wood desk and bid them sit in two high-backed chairs he’d already set out. Carly, for all her usual noisiness, said nothing while he asked if they’d like coffee or soft drinks.
Tension rolled off her, though. John could feel it and hoped this thing would be over soon. She must be going crazy trying to figure out why she was talking to a priest.
“Well, Carly, this is a pleasure,” Mike began. “John has told me a little about why you’re visiting New Jersey and wondered whether I could get you enrolled in our local high school. I’m glad to say I called in some favors and you can start at Mary Immaculate of the Grotto on Monday.” He smiled that priest smile of his.
Carly half turned to John. “School?”
John tried to gauge her mood. “If you want. It’s not far, there’s a bus that picks up the kids right outside the rectory every day.”
Her lips thinned. “Catholic school costs money.”
Mike offered an explanation. “We can take care of that. John here told me you were enrolled in St. Aloysius before you left Philadelphia. We can always arrange a tuition exchange.”
She shifted uneasily in her chair. “I don’t know.” Looking to John, she lowered one eyebrow. Her eyes reminded him of an animal in a trap, ready to gnaw off its leg to escape.
“Er, Father, I’m kinda dry. I sure could use some of that coffee you offered before.”
“What? Oh, sure. I’ll go get you a cup. Carly?”
She shook her head.
Mike went to get it and as soon as he left the room, Carly leaped up and confronted John. “What’s going on?” Her hands were balled into fists and her face flushed. “How could you do this? If they ask for my transcripts, they’ll know where I am!”
John moved away from the back of the chair. “What difference does that make? You told me you got kicked out of your—out of the convent.”
She swiped at her face with her palm. “Yeah, I got kicked out. But I don’t want anybody to know, to be able to find me . . . not that they would. But how could you do this without asking me?”
He felt her anger, freshened after this morning’s sullenness, and thought he understood. “So, Miss Snow, Mother Superior didn’t exactly give you the list, did she?”
She backed away. “I told you I took it and left right away.”
Even while sitting, his eyes were nearly at the same level as the kid’s. He focused on them, willing her to tell him what else had happened, why she was so upset.
Carly went stone-faced, then tilted her head as if listening for something. “How long does it take to get coffee?”
She didn’t want to talk about this to the priest, he realized. Catholic school—what a burden it placed on the young. He almost chuckled, but that wouldn’t be appreciated, not at this crucial moment. So he asked, “What else do you want to tell me?”
Her chin went down to her chest. The blond hair tumbled forward, obscuring her face. “That money . . . that hundred dollars. It was in my file, in an envelope with my name on it. I took it. I stole it.”
Ah. Now he understood. “So. What, you think Mother Superior has the cops out looking for you?”
She toed at a mark on the carpet. “Maybe.”
He wanted to hug her. He wanted to brush the hair away from her face and tell her everything was all right, but he didn’t. He didn’t dare offer her comfort—he had no right.
“Do you want to finish out the year? Or at least, until I find your father? It would make it easier for transferring. You told me the other day that you liked school. Would it be hard to go to another school for awhile?”
She shook her head. “I guess I would want to finish. But, about the grades and all. Let me write and get them. They’re mine, okay? I have a right to them. I know one of the ladies in the office . . . her daughter is a friend of mine. She’ll send them via e-mail if I ask her. Probably.”
“They’ll need your transcript, that’s for sure.”
She looked at him once again, her blue eyes searching his, as if trying to decide how much she could really trust him. He watched as the doubt shadowed her expression then lifted. The relief he felt was nearly overwhelming.
Glory Days Page 7