by Maria Geraci
“Off you,” she clarified. “You know, maybe you should think about doing an ‘Officer Bob’ in your spare time. Till you find a job, that is.” She batted her eyelashes at him.
“Right.”
“I’m serious,” she said, pulling his shirt over her head. “When I first saw you, I thought you were the exotic dancer.” She almost said stripper. Pilar would be pleased by her political correctness.
He looked so incredulous, she almost laughed. “I mean, it did seem a little lame, what with the Village People construction outfit and all, but it was working for me.”
He grinned. But it wasn’t a nice grin. “Oh yeah, I remember now. That’s when I caught you peeing in the bushes.”
“Shit. I was hoping you hadn’t seen that.”
“Honey, I’ve seen a lot more of you than that.”
There were a number of provocative responses she could make here, but there was no sense going in that direction. He’d made it pretty clear back at the beach he wasn’t interested in a repeat of the other night.
“Just so you know,” Kitty said, “I don’t normally do that. Pee outdoors, that is. I mean, I never do that.”
“That’s not exactly true, is it?” When she didn’t say anything, he added, “Hey, if it makes you feel better, I’ve done it myself a few times when I’ve had to. Everyone has.”
Somehow, she couldn’t imagine Nick whipping it out and taking a leak outdoors. Except if he was stuck in the woods or something, but Nick wasn’t a camping kind of guy. Now Moose, definitely. She could see Moose relieving himself in the bushes if necessary.
Steve shrugged. “I thought it was funny.”
“Do you mind if we change the subject?” She checked out her reflection in the car window. “Okay. I think this is worse. Now it looks like all I have on is a T-shirt with nothing underneath.”
“It’s still better than before.” He took her hand. “C’mon, we’re wasting time.”
A few suspicious-looking characters lingered near the entrance to the terminal. A man wearing army fatigues staggered dangerously close to her. He was barefoot and had a blond beard that reached the middle of his chest. “Hey,” he slurred. “Show me your tits.” His breath was 100 proof.
Kitty reeled back from the stench. “Mister, I think spring break was over for you a long time ago.”
“I still wanna see your tits,” he said.
“Fuck off,” Steve said to the bum. He tightened his hold on her hand and threw her an “I told you so” look.
Someone had a heavy hand when it came to the thermostat on the air-conditioning. Compared to the muggy humidity outside, the tiny bus terminal was near freezing. Kitty shivered. Steve drew her into his chest and rubbed his hands up and down her arms. It was an automatic thing for him, Kitty supposed, because he wasn’t really paying attention to her. His gaze was focused on the faces of the travelers sitting on the blue iron benches.
A tall, thin kid with scraggly dark hair sauntered out of the men’s room. “That’s Nathan,” Steve said, pulling her forward.
Nathan looked surprised to see them. Kitty thought she detected some relief too. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“Your mom’s worried about you,” Steve said.
“So she sent you to find me?”
“Not exactly. But I told her if I ran into you I’d say hi.”
“Right. You just happen to be at the Panama City bus terminal at the exact same time as me? What kind of an asshole do you take me for?”
Maybe this was a good time for her jump in. “Hi there,” she said extending her hand.
Nathan seemed to notice her for the first time.
Steve placed his hand on the small of her back. “Sorry, I should have introduced you right off. This is Kitty Burke. She was nice enough to drive me here.”
Kitty put out her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Nathan.”
Nathan readjusted his backpack and shook her hand. Kitty noticed his cheeks went a little pink. He turned to Steve. “I’m on my way to Mobile and you can’t stop me. I’m eighteen, so I’m an adult now.”
“Good for you,” Steve said.
“If you’re not planning to stop me, what are you doing here?”
“What’s in Mobile, Nathan?” Kitty asked, trying to deflect the hostility in the air. “School?”
“I’m going to work construction. I have a buddy out there with a job lined up for me.”
“That sounds productive,” Kitty said lamely.
“Nathan has a full scholarship to the University of Florida,” Steve said to Kitty. “But according to his mother, he’s planning to piss it away.”
“You don’t have a college degree and you did just fine,” Nathan shot back.
“That’s because I was a lucky asshole.”
“I don’t blame you for not wanting to go to U of F. I’m an FSU grad myself,” Kitty said.
Nathan looked at her as if she were crazy. “U of F is a great school. It’s pretty hard to get in, you know.”
“So you got a place lined up to stay?” Steve asked.
“I plan to crash with a friend for a couple of days. Then I’m gonna get my own place.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure. I got money in the bank. Four thousand bucks to be exact. It’s what I made working with you over the summers.”
“Maybe you should check your account again.”
Nathan’s nostrils flared. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It means your mom wiped out your account.”
“Bullshit! She can’t do that.”
“It’s a joint account, isn’t it?”
Nathan let his backpack drop to the ground. He paced the small terminal floor, making an agitated circle. After a few loops, he stopped. “I don’t believe you.”
Steve shrugged. “Try your ATM card.”
“Fuck.” Nathan looked like he was on the verge of tears.
A middle-aged black man in a Greyhound uniform stepped inside the terminal. “Bus leaves in five minutes,” he called out.
A young woman sitting on a bench next to the window picked up her purse and exited to the waiting bus, prompting the rest of the half dozen or so travelers to follow her lead.
“It’s up to you,” Steve said. “No one’s stopping you. But I suggest if you want your money back, you talk to your mom. In person.”
The driver looked at Nathan and nodded his head toward the bus. “You coming?”
“I guess not,” Nathan said, shooting Steve a poisonous look. Steve didn’t look too happy either.
Kitty didn’t think she’d like to be in either of their shoes right now.
17
The ride home was torturous. Nathan sat in the back, sulking, while Steve sat next to her staring out the car window. The silence probably shouldn’t have bothered her so much, except that she was still hungry (they never did hit that McDonald’s) and it was more than a thirty-minute drive home. The tension reminded her a little of one of Shea and Pilar’s spats. She didn’t want to try talking Steve out of his mood. She’d already tried that on the ride over. Maybe she’d have better luck with Nathan. Only she had no idea what an eighteen-year-old boy was into. And there was only one sport Kitty knew well enough to talk intelligently about.
“Do you like baseball?” Kitty asked Nathan, not expecting more than a grumble.
He met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “Sure,” he said dubiously.
From that moment on it was cake.
Nathan knew more about baseball than anyone Kitty had ever met. He threw out stats like he was reading them off a computer.
“You’re pretty impressive,” Kitty said.
“So are you.” He flushed at the quick compliment he’d tossed her. “I mean, I’ve never met a girl who knew the difference between a curveball and a knuckleball.”
Kitty smiled. She liked being called a girl. “My mother’s second husband was a big fan. We used to hit all the spring training games we could.”
Nathan edged forward in his seat. “What happened to your real dad?”
“My parents divorced when I was ten. That’s when my mom and I moved from Dallas to Whispering Bay. My dad’s a pilot for American Airlines and a very cool guy.”
“My dad can be cool too, sometimes. He’s remarried and has two kids with his new wife. What about you? Is your dad remarried?”
“Nope. I think he likes being this middle-aged Hugh Hefner kind of guy. A girl in every port, that sort of thing.”
“What about your mom? She still married to the baseball guy?”
“No. It didn’t work out between them. She’s on her third marriage, but she’s happy.”
They were almost on the outskirts of Whispering Bay. Kitty slowed the car down to thirty-five miles an hour.
“So, this is where you live?” Nathan asked.
“Yep. Whispering Bay, Florida. Population five thousand four hundred, give or take one or two.”
“And you moved here from Dallas? Man, you must have wanted to hang yourself.”
Kitty laughed. It reminded her of Josh Bailey’s statement about being dead without a car. She’d forgotten how dramatic everything was for teenagers. “At first I was a little . . . shell-shocked, maybe. But we moved in with my grandmother, who was a very cool lady and knew a lot about baseball. I was lucky. On the first day of school I hooked up with these two girls who are still my best friends to this day.”
“What do people do in this town? Like for fun?”
Kitty thought about it a minute. “There’s the beach, of course. It’s spectacular.”
Nathan nodded, clearly not impressed.
“And, well, there’s great shopping not far away in Destin.”
“Is there a gym?” Nathan asked. “If I have to hang around for a few days, I want to work out.”
Kitty frowned. “Not here in town. I belong to a club in Destin, but it’s kind of a drive.”
“That’s okay, I guess I could just shoot some hoops or something.”
Maybe now wasn’t the time to tell Nathan there weren’t any public basketball courts in Whispering Bay either.
“Okay, so here’s the really important question,” she said. “Yankees or Mets?”
Nathan snorted. “Yankees, duh.”
Kitty shook her head and sighed. “Sorry, I’m a Mets girl all the way.”
Nathan gleefully slapped the back of her seat. “Man! I knew you were too good to be true.”
“Did you play in high school?”
Nathan’s face fell. “I was a pitcher, but I screwed up my wrist last summer.”
“Working construction?” She glanced at Steve, who was now looking on with mute interest. She remembered Nathan saying something about working for Steve. She hoped the answer to her question would be no. But it might explain why the kid seemed a little antagonistic toward him.
“Nah, I screwed it up by slamming my fist into a wall.”
Kitty frowned.
“Steve’s right,” he said grudgingly, “I can be an asshole sometimes.”
This spurred Steve to finally say, “Everyone does something stupid at least once in their life. Some of us more than once.”
Was he referring to his multiple marriages? Or something else?
She rolled her convertible into Gus’s driveway and killed the headlights. It was after eleven and tomorrow was a workday. A faint light shone from somewhere in the back of the house, but otherwise the place was dark.
“Are you sure it’s all right if I stay here?” Nathan asked.
“I’ve already okayed it with Gus,” said Steve.
Nathan slung his backpack over his shoulder. “Will I see you around?” he asked Kitty.
“Probably not, so good luck.”
He looked disappointed, which made her feel oddly pleased. She had liked him too.
Steve waited till Nathan was in the house. “Thanks. I owe you one.”
“We don’t owe each other anything. Remember? Besides, Nathan’s great.” She paused a moment. “Of course, it could never work out between us,” she said. “The Yankees/Mets thing, you know.”
She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw him fight back a smile. “He’s a great kid.”
“How long have you and his mom been divorced?”
“Officially, only a couple of months, but we separated over a year ago.”
“Things just didn’t work out?”
“Something like that.”
“She must be pretty desperate.” At the blank expression on Steve’s face, Kitty clarified, “To take the four thousand dollars from his bank account.”
“I have no idea if she did that or not.”
“You lied to him?”
He shrugged. “Terrie wanted a chance to talk some sense into Nathan. And for once, I agree with her. Thinking that his bank account’s been wiped out seemed like the best bet to keep him here so she can do that.”
“Terrie’s coming here? To Whispering Bay?”
“I don’t keep tabs on my ex, but yeah, from what I could gather, she’s on her way.”
She waited for him to say more. Or to make his exit. But he just sat there.
“Well, it was fun,” Kitty said. “If I don’t see you again, have a good life.”
“You kicking me out of your car?”
“Something like that.”
“You have a bad habit of throwing my words back in my face,” he said.
“Then maybe you should expand your vocabulary a little more.”
He grinned.
Damn. One smile and she was melting into the leather upholstery. She needed to remember how he was capable of doing a one-eighty without so much as blinking.
“Are you busy tomorrow night?”
Kitty froze. Was he asking her out? She’d always hated that opener. It gave all the power to the other person. She could say yes, she was busy, and he could shrug and go on to option two, or she could say no, and it still didn’t mean he was going to ask her out. Maybe she should play it cool and—
“No, I’m not busy.”
“Maybe you’ll let me cook you dinner.”
“You want to cook for me?”
“I’m pretty good at it.” He was pretty good at a lot of things. She tried not to think about those things as she mentally debated her answer.
Her heart began to thump. This was definitely a date. Wasn’t it?
“You really went out on a limb tonight. It’s just my way of saying thanks.”
Okay, so it wasn’t a date. No need to suddenly feel so disappointed. “I thought we agreed we didn’t owe each other anything,” she said.
“That’s only when you think you owe me something. When I think I owe you something, then it’s different.”
She had to laugh at his messed-up, testosterone-laden logic. “What year did you graduate high school?”
“Huh?”
“It seems strange that we’ve . . . you know, and I really don’t know anything about you.”
“Right.” He hesitated a moment before saying, “Technically, I never graduated high school.”
“Oh.”
“I dropped out when I was sixteen, but I got my GED a few years later. If you want to know how old I am, just ask me outright.”
“Okay, how old are you?”
“Thirty-seven.”
“And you work construction, but you’re in between jobs, and you’ve been married three times,” she said, trying not to wince. “Any kids?”
“One stepson. And you’ve met him. Anything else?”
“No, I guess that’s it.”
“All right then.” He went to open the car door.
“Wait. I still have your shirt.”
She started to pull off the shirt but he shook his head. “Keep it. It looks better on you than it does on me. So, we on for dinner or not?”
It was a simple enough question. Why was she having trouble giving him a simple answer? It was just dinner, for God’s sake. To than
k her for giving him a ride tonight.
Did she want to have dinner with Steve Pappas?
She thought about it a minute. Besides being moody and unpredictable, given the way he’d lied to Nathan, he was maybe even a little ruthless too. But tonight had also proven he could be a decent guy. If he didn’t care about Nathan, he wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble to keep him from making a potential life mistake. Gus obviously thought the world of Steve. And Gus was an excellent judge of character. On the other hand, Steve was family, so maybe Gus couldn’t really be impartial where his nephew was concerned.
But then, there was Shea and Pilar’s opinion of Steve. She knew what they would say. They would tell her to say no thanks, and drive off. There was no future with an out-of-work non-plumber with three failed marriages who was only going to be in town temporarily. Plus, there was the fact that he really wasn’t interested in her. After all, she didn’t rock his world, did she? So it really couldn’t be a date. She should just say no . . .
“Sure,” she said. “I’d like to do dinner.”
“Good. I’ll come by around seven.”
She watched as he made his way into the house.
There. That was easy enough. She would have a simple dinner with a casual acquaintance (forget the fact they’d had sex—it was already out of her mind) and they would part on friendly terms. No animosity. No beating herself up over the Thong Incident. And the best part was that there would be no reason to avoid Gus for the rest of her life.
It was the perfect way to end her relationship with Steve Pappas. Her chi was well on its way to getting back in sync.
18
She should have spent the night on the couch at her office. Or at Viola’s. Or at Pilar’s. She should have spent the night anywhere but in her unair-conditioned sweatbox of a house.
She woke up at two in the morning and took a cold shower. At three, she got up and ate half a carton of Rocky Road ice cream. Low fat, that is. At three thirty, she fell asleep but was awakened an hour later by an erotic dream involving a faceless man, the pink feather boa, and what was left of the ice cream. Okay, so maybe it was Steve’s face, but that was only normal considering he was the last man she’d had sex with.
What was wrong with her? She’d read about this phenomenon in women. How they hit their sexual prime in their thirties. Kitty had just never felt so thoroughly primed before.