Fringe Benefits

by Christine Pope

  She made a harrumphing sound, which usually signaled that I’d won the skirmish but that she would never acknowledge my victory. She settled for making a few pointed comments about how I was missing everything about my sister’s pregnancy and how I should start investigating plane tickets for the holidays and for the actual Blessed Event, and then mercifully ended the call.

  By the time I hung up I felt as if I’d been run over by a steam roller. I poured myself a glass of water from the pitcher Pieter had left for me and wondered if my knee was up to retrieving the leftover plum wine in the fridge.

  Alex called about twenty minutes later, but luckily he wasn’t quite so hysterical.

  “How did it feel?” he asked. “There hasn’t been any tectonic activity to speak of in the Bay Area since I moved here.”

  I reminded myself of how much I actually did love my brother. Trust him to talk to me like a researcher conducting a scientific inquiry instead of someone who just wanted to know that his baby sister hadn’t been squished by a load of bricks. “At first I thought a truck had hit the building, but it went on longer,” I replied, after deciding it wouldn’t do any good to point out that his clinical tone wasn’t exactly reassuring. “And then I felt it under my feet and realized it was an earthquake.”

  “But was it a rolling motion, or a sharp shock?” he persisted.

  “Alex, I thought you were a computer scientist, not a seismologist.”

  A quick laugh. “Yes, but seismology does interest me.”

  I paused for a minute to recall that brief, terrifying moment. “A shock, followed by rolling, I guess. The USGS site says it only lasted 35 seconds, but it felt a lot longer than that.”

  “You looked it up on the USGS site?” Alex sounded almost impressed. Maybe he thought I wasn’t capable of utilizing Internet skills in a crisis. Or maybe he just thought (and rightly…until Pieter mentioned it) that I didn’t even know what the USGS was.

  “Well, actually, Pieter did,” I admitted.

  “Pieter?”

  “My boss.”

  “Ah,” said Alex, which told me nothing.

  “The phones weren’t working, but he thought the Internet might be up, so that’s when he checked the site.”

  A pause. “Mom said he drove you home.”

  Was I imagining things, or did Alex sound faintly disapproving?

  “Well, yes. My knee is pretty messed up. Pieter thought I probably shouldn’t drive.” I wasn’t quite sure what Alex was trying to say. He’d never been the type to pay much attention to anything I was doing, especially where other males were concerned.

  “Is he still there?”

  I didn’t bother to conceal my exasperated sigh. “Yeah, Alex, I’m talking about him with him standing right here. He says hi.”

  “All right.” Alex laughed then, sounding a bit embarrassed. “Sorry, but when Mom started going on and on about this Pieter character and how he’d been so considerate—well, you know how she is. I started adding up the numbers, and they didn’t sound quite right.”

  No, the numbers were anything but right. I didn’t want to admit to Alex, however, that all the discrepancies in that particular sum had come from my part of the equation. Right then I thought I’d rather go through a 7.0 earthquake than admit my infatuation for Pieter Van Rijn to my brother. “He brought me home, made sure I was okay, and then left. He still had the antique store and his own house to check on.”

  “Oh, well—all right.”

  I smiled, even though I knew Alex couldn’t see my expression. “Since when were you the protective older brother? I always thought I’d have to light myself on fire to get your attention.”

  “Since now, I guess. When you were back in Billings you seemed safe enough.”

  “And I still am,” I replied, even though I wasn’t so sure that was the absolute truth.

  He made a noncommittal noise. “Guess I’ll have to take your word for it. But I suppose if you can survive an earthquake with just a bumped knee to show for it, you must be doing okay.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  The phone made an odd little beep, and he said, “That’s my call waiting. You’re fine, though, right?”

  “I’m fine.” Was that a lie? I couldn’t say for sure anymore.

  “All right. ’Bye.” A clicking sound, and then a dial tone reached my ear.

  I pushed the button to turn off the phone and set it down on the couch next to me. Since I didn’t know what else to do, I picked up the remote for the TV and spent the next hour surfing from channel to channel, watching with a certain morbid fascination as the local news stations covered the damage from the earthquake. No deaths so far, but a lot of minor injuries like the one I’d sustained, and more property damage than I expected. The areas closer to the epicenter had been especially hard hit. Houses with fallen chimneys, downed power lines, burst water mains in a few places. Shot after shot of grocery stores and liquor stores, their aisles littered with broken bottles and spilled bags of food.

  By then it was almost two in the afternoon, and my stomach told me it expected to get fed, and soon. An ice cream sandwich could only go so far. I really didn’t want to get up again, since the pain in my knee had finally dulled to a low roar. But the ice pack had turned to a limp, soggy bag of cold water and needed replacing. I should get up, throw a frozen dinner in the microwave, and refresh the ice in the bag Pieter had prepared for me. I was just glad I actually had ice on hand—Leslie and I had a Cosmo party a while back, and we’d only used up about a third of the bag of ice we’d bought for the occasion.

  I’d just set the remote down on the coffee table and swung my legs off the couch when a knock came at the door. My heart skipped a beat—maybe it was Pieter coming back to check on me, even though the logical part of my brain told me he’d been gone barely two hours. And anyway, he’d never said he’d come back to look in on me, just that he would call.

  No, it had to be Leslie, released from durance vile at the plumbing company. Still, I was thrilled to know she’d come home. If she was off the hook for the evening, we could sit and watch the news together and laugh at how the reporters magnified the importance of every broken wine bottle and downed power line.

  I limped to the door, ignoring the stabbing pains in my knee as I did so. My heart wouldn’t stop making those wretched little thumps. It could be Pieter. Just because he hadn’t called—

  The only way to know for sure was to open the door, since whoever had repainted it before I moved in managed to splash a bunch of paint across the peephole. Of course the safety bolt decided this would be a great time to stick. Maybe the quake had knocked it a little off-kilter. I jammed my hip against the door to get the necessary leverage to give the bolt clearance, then threw open the door.

  Not Pieter. Not Leslie.

  Jonah Freeman.

  I didn’t bother with niceties. “What do you want?”

  He didn’t blink. “To see if you’re okay.”

  “You could have called.”

  “And would you have picked up if you’d seen my name on the caller I.D.?”

  Well, he had a point. I shrugged.

  “Anyway, the phones haven’t been completely reliable.” He jammed his hands in the pockets of his cargo pants and asked, “Can I come in?”

  I almost told him no. But then I realized the guy had come here in the aftermath of an earthquake, through streets with signals that weren’t working and a general atmosphere of subdued hysteria. It seemed awfully rude to refuse his request. Still, that didn’t mean I had to be gracious about it.

  “All right.” I stepped out of the way so he could come in.

  “You’re limping.”

  “I bumped my knee. It’s fine. I just need to get more ice.”

  “Let me,” he said, and practically tore the plastic bag I’d been holding out of my hand. “You probably shouldn’t be putting weight on it.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I was only
standing because he’d made me answer the door, but I decided that was unnecessarily petty. Besides, I’d been about to head into the kitchen before he turned up.

  So I sat down and waited while he refilled the freezer bag. He came back to the living room and handed me the ice pack. His expression reminded me of a puppy who’s peed on the rug and isn’t sure whether it’s going to get hit with a rolled-up newspaper.

  I figured it was probably better to stay on neutral ground. “So your house is all right?”

  Jonah looked pathetically relieved. “Yeah—didn’t even lose any CDs off the shelves. Of course, we’re on solid rock up in the hills, and my house is on a flat pad, not cantilevers, so—” He seemed to gather himself and glanced around. “Your place looks like it did okay.”

  “Well, Pieter picked up a few things for me.”

  I’d be lying if I didn’t say it felt awfully good to let that particular revelation slip.

  The words had their intended effect. Jonah scowled. “Pieter?”

  “Yes. He drove me home because he didn’t think my knee could take it. A few things had fallen to the floor here, so he cleaned them up before he left to check on his own house.”

  “He drove you home.”

  I began to wonder if the earthquake had jarred something loose in Jonah’s brain. Was he going to repeat everything I said?

  “Yes,” I replied.

  The frown dug itself a little deeper into his forehead. For a split-second I finally saw the resemblance between him and his father, and it wasn’t pretty. Then he said, “I can’t believe you let yourself get mixed up with him. I thought you were different.”

  I am, but not in the way you think. I fixed what I hoped was an appropriately outraged expression on my face. “I am not mixed up with him. Jesus, if you can’t even recognize a simple act of kindness for what it is, then you’ve got some serious issues.”

  “You really are naïve, aren’t you? Do you have any idea what kind of person Pieter Van Rijn is?”

  “If you’re just going to dig up some ancient history, I’m not interested in hearing it,” I said, my tone frosty enough to keep the ice I held against my knee solid for at least another hour or so.

  He let out a bitter laugh. “Ancient? I’m talking a month ago. Because I’m pretty sure the chick who answered the phones then and took messages from my father about his dumb-ass bar was just like all the rest of them. I’ve known this guy a hell of a lot longer than you have. I know what a revolving door he had in his office. Oh, he was discreet. It’s not as if you’d walk into the place and find him bending one of his secretaries over his desk. But you knew he was fucking them just the same.”

  A wave of anger flared through me. It reminded me of the way my knee had felt a few hours ago—waves of heat radiating out from a furious, white-hot center. I snapped, “Get out. Get the hell out of my house. Now.”

  Jonah showed no signs of moving. “God, Katherine, are you really going to try to defend him?”

  All right, time to try that punch. At the moment I didn’t much care what I did to my knee as long as I could leap up and crack my fist into his jaw. And maybe I’d just smack him upside the head with the ice pack while I was at it.

  A knock at the door interrupted my foray into assault and battery. Great. Wonderful. Fabulous.

  The red haze in my brain retreated enough to tell me that it was probably Leslie at the door. Maybe she could help defuse the situation. At the very least, I could enlist her help in throwing Jonah bodily out of the place. And then we’d show him pictures of her two large brothers and inform him that they’d have no problem kicking his ass into next week if he ever showed up at my place again.

  “Shit,” I muttered, and pushed myself upright. Ignoring Jonah, I went to the door and flung it open. Thank God the cavalry was here.

  Only it wasn’t the cavalry. It was Pieter.

  His presence was so unexpected that for a few seconds I could only stand there and gape up at him, no doubt doing an excellent imitation of the trout my Uncle Bret used to catch in the stream on his property.

  “Pieter, I—”

  The wide mouth thinned a little as he glanced past me to see Jonah standing in the middle of the living room, arms crossed. “Am I interrupting something?”

  “No,” I said at once. “Jonah was just leaving. Weren’t you, Jonah?”

  He uncrossed his arms and planted them on his hips instead, and gave Pieter one of the most evil looks I’d ever seen. “No, I wasn’t.”

  Of course Pieter had to have intercepted that hazel death ray, but he appeared singularly unaffected. He gazed down at me, one eyebrow lifted ever so slightly. He didn’t have to ask.

  “Come on in,” I said, stepping aside so he could enter the apartment. My knee gave one sort of questioning throb, as if asking permission to start hurting again. I told it to get stuffed. I had more important things to deal with.

  The glance he directed at Jonah was mildly curious, but no more. After that one dismissive look, Pieter turned back to me.

  “I thought I would return your car. It is parked on the street outside, but if you would tell me the number of your designated space, I will move it for you.”

  “My car?” The words didn’t want to compute. “But I thought I was supposed to get it tomorrow or Sunday—”

  “You seemed concerned about it. I had Max drive me back to the office to retrieve it. There was a spare set of keys at the office.”

  “What a humanitarian,” Jonah muttered.

  I ignored him. It seemed the easiest route, especially since Pieter had affected not to notice the snotty comment.

  “But how will you get home?” I asked.

  Pieter smiled and shrugged. “A taxi. Simple enough.”

  “That was very thoughtful,” I said distinctly. I wanted Jonah to know that I considered him pretty much the exact opposite of Pieter Van Rijn. “My parking space is R-22. You turn to the left after you pull into the driveway.”

  “Excellent.” Again one of those almost-nods in Jonah’s direction, and then Pieter let himself out and closed the door softly behind him.

  “Oh, that is rich,” Jonah remarked. “All this way, just to bring you your car back? And you still think the guy doesn’t have ulterior motives?”

  I didn’t even stop to think. That whole time I’d still held the ice pack in my left hand. I whirled and lobbed it at Jonah’s head. It connected with an odd crunching noise, and ice splattered in all directions. He let out a shocked noise and clapped a hand to his forehead.

  “What the fuck—”

  “Get out!” I shouted. “Now! If you ever come back here, I’m going to ask my Uncle Bret to send me one of his shotguns so I can blow your ass into next week. So help me God!”

  Jonah still stood in the middle of the living room, fingers pressed against his brow. It was sort of hard to tell in the dim light, but I thought I saw a red spot beginning to form on his forehead.

  “You’re nuts,” he said slowly.

  “No, you are,” I retorted. “Nuts for not walking away after that first date of ours. Nuts for not leaving me alone after I made it really clear I wasn’t interested. You’ve got all the makings of a first-class stalker. You—” I paused, and dredged up the worst Yiddish epithet I could remember—“Jonah Freeman, are a putz.”

  His face contorted. In furious silence he stalked past me to the front door. Then he paused on the doorstep. “You deserve him,” he spat, and slammed the door in my face.

  The second the door shut, the shakes set in. With trembling fingers I set about gathering up as much of the scattered ice as I could. My knee protested, but I ignored it. I didn’t feel up to explaining an exploded ice pack to Pieter.

  Where the hell had that come from? Oh, I knew I wasn’t the meek and placid type, but I’d never resorted to physical violence before. Then again, no one had ever goaded me into it like Jonah Freeman.

  “Asshole,” I muttered. “Stupid, self-centered, patronizing prick.”
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  That felt a little better…at least until the Sunday-school side of myself chided me for calling him self-centered after he’d driven over here just to make sure I was okay. But you know what? He was self-centered. Only a self-centered jerk would think I’d welcome him with open arms after I’d basically told him to stay the hell out of my life. And did he really think I was so helpless I couldn’t survive an earthquake without him holding my hand?

  I tried to ignore the little voice that told me I probably wouldn’t have survived it very well without Pieter Van Rijn’s help. That was totally different, though. I welcomed Pieter’s assistance.

  As if in answer to my frenzied thoughts, a knock came again at the front door. Watch it really be Leslie this time, but of course when I opened the door it was just Pieter returning from parking the car.

  He stepped inside and looked around. “Jonah left?”

  “Um…yes.” I thought it best not to elaborate. At least the apartment didn’t show any signs of my assault by ice pack. “He just wanted to make sure I was okay, but then he got a call and had to go.” It was just a little white lie. Better that than try to explain to Pieter Van Rijn why I had hurled a bag of ice at Jonah’s head.

  “It was quite thoughtful of him,” Pieter said, but for some reason he didn’t sound particularly approving. “Here is the spare set of keys in case you need them.”

  I wondered then why he’d never mentioned that set of spare keys. Had he kept them as a sort of insurance policy in case he needed to repo my car at a moment’s notice? Then I felt ashamed. He’d gone out of his way to take care of me, and I was obsessing over a set of car keys? Maybe he’d kept them on hand in case I locked myself out of the car or something, although you really had to work hard at doing that because of the way the security system was set up.

  “Thank you,” I said. What else could I say?

  A glint of those ice-blue eyes. “De rien.”

  It seemed anti-climactic to stand there and exchange such calm and well-mannered conversation after my explosion with Jonah, but what else was I supposed to do? I couldn’t very well grab Pieter by his shirt front and force him to take me in his arms.