Pink Jinx

by Sandra Hill

  “I’m thinking about getting a tattoo,” she told him.

  He grinned. “Where? On the butt?”

  “No. That’s too much of a cliché. Maybe the back of my neck.”

  “Ouch!”

  “Angel says I really should do it—throw caution to the wind, be a free spirit.”

  “Figures that Angel would have something to do with this. Just so you don’t get a piercing anywhere near . . . um . . . erotic zones.”

  It was hard to embarrass Grace, even though lots of people tried, her being an ex-nun and all. Then again, he’d heard stories about Grace back in her nun days. Grace had not been a typical nun, by any means. Now, she tilted her head, trying to picture those piercings in erotic zones.

  Everyone knew that Angel Sabato had had his cock pierced. Talk about insanity! But Angel claimed it enhanced sex. Jake couldn’t imagine how, and he didn’t want any graphic explanations.

  “Okay. No piercings,” Grace replied belatedly.

  He and Grace walked into the living room. She sat down on the sofa, and he went to the window. Angel was down there, talking to Trish. Rather, Trish was doing all the talking, gesticulating wildly as she spoke. Probably cutting Jake to pieces while Angel just nodded and patted her on the shoulder occasionally.

  Within minutes, Trish was gunning the motor on her Mazda Miata with its small U-Haul trailer, and squealing out of the parking lot. She would probably come back later to get the rest of her stuff. He hoped. Maybe he hoped. Yep, he hoped.

  Angel came in a few minutes later, shaking his head at Jake. “Man, you are in such deep shit, they oughta name a fertilizer after you.”

  “Tell me about it,” Jake said after he went into the kitchen and came back with a beer for Angel.

  “She’s really hot . . . and nice,” Angel remarked as he settled his butt into the La-Z-Boy and turned the volume up on the NASCAR race.

  “Don’t tell me you were hitting on Jake’s fiancée.” Grace tsk-tsked her disapproval to Angel.

  He just grinned. “She told me she and Jake aren’t engaged anymore.” Then he turned to Jake. “Do you mind if I date her?”

  “Hell, yes!”

  Angel and Grace both smirked at him.

  “Trish and I have hit a rough patch. That doesn’t mean we’re through for good.”

  “Couldn’t you have talked her into sticking around so you could work things out?” Grace asked him.

  He could feel his face flush.

  “Uh-oh!” Angel and Grace said at the same time.

  “I might not be around for the next few weeks,” Jake surprised himself by saying. When had he come to that decision?

  “Uh-oh!” Angel and Grace said again.

  They probably thought he was hooking up with Ronnie again. They’d certainly witnessed it before.

  “This is not about Ronnie.”

  Angel laughed and made a mooing sound.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m suffering from a bit of déjà moo,” Angel explained. “As in, I’ve heard this bullshit before.”

  Jake rolled his eyes and Grace did the same.

  “Dear St. Anthony, come around,” Grace prayed. “Something’s lost and can’t be found. Jake’s sanity.”

  Grace was like a dog with a bone when it came to him and Ronnie. According to Grace, St. Anthony was the patron saint of lost things—a lesson she’d taught them in the past when things had come up missing, like an earring or a poker chip. It was a stretch to ask St. Anthony to find his sanity.

  “I might be going treasure hunting,” he announced before they could ask more questions about Ronnie—or Trish. He should have kept his trap shut because he really hadn’t made a decision. Really. Not.

  “No shit!” Angel exclaimed.

  “What kind of treasure?” Grace asked, equally impressed. “Pirate treasure?”

  He shook his head. “Mafia treasure,” he blurted. His trap must be stuck in yap mode. “I can’t say anymore,” he added. “In fact, I haven’t made any decision. But if I did, I’d be working for a few weeks with my ex-grandfather-in-law, Frank Jinkowsky. He operates a treasure-hunting business.”

  “Wow!” Grace was staring at him as if he’d suddenly turned into Batman and had just driven up in his Batmobile.

  “And here I was planning to talk you and Grace into a cross-country motorcycle trip. It’s either that or let my agent book me for a nude calendar.”

  Jake and Grace gaped at Angel.

  “You know that Playgirl spread I did? Well, apparently, some poster company wants me to do a calendar.” He shrugged, indicating it was no big deal.

  It would be a big deal to me.

  “Can I attend the photo shoot?” Grace stared at Angel in total seriousness, as if trying to picture him without clothes. She was probably kidding, but then, maybe not.

  “Honey, I will give you a private viewing,” Angel told her.

  “Promises, promises.”

  “Back to this road trip . . . ,” Jake prodded Angel.

  “Oh, yeah. I was thinking about a cross-country road trip, with a few stops along the way for poker tournaments. We would end up at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. But, man, that would be tame compared to treasure hunting.”

  Instead of scoffing at the suggestion, Grace said, “That sounds great, but I don’t own a motorcycle.”

  Jake gaped at her, then clicked his mouth shut. “Me neither.” He added a silent prayer of thanks that they’d gotten off the subject of him, Trish, and Ronnie.

  “I rode my bicycle across Ireland one time,” Grace said.

  “Not quite the same thing, Red.” Angel smiled at Grace in an indulgent manner that caused her to stick out her tongue at him. If Jake didn’t know better, he would think they had something going on.

  “Actually, a road trip would be a great way to clear your head about Ronnie and Trish,” Grace offered.

  “Yeah,” Angel agreed. “There’s this shop up in Asbury Park where you two could buy bikes at a discount. Hey, we’re all flush after that last tournament. Are you game?” He looked at Jake and then Grace.

  Hmmm, not a bad idea! Get away from Trish—and Ronnie. Forget treasure hunting. What better way to clear my head than being on the open road? Maybe I’ll get a tattoo, too. “Free at Last!” That’s what it would say. And a piercing . . . but only in my ear.

  Another part of his brain had a different opinion. You’re running away again, just like Ronnie says. Maybe I should stick around this time. See what happens.

  No, no, no! That is the road to disaster.

  So it was that four hours later, the three of them were tooling down the Garden State Parkway on their hogs. The next morning, they were packed and on their way to the West Coast.

  He’d called Trish’s cell phone and left a message saying she could move back into the apartment since he would be gone for several weeks—on a bike trip to Vegas. He didn’t want her to think he was off somewhere with Ronnie, boinking himself into a stupor. She’d called back and left a message on his cell phone: “The gray matter in your head must have turned to sludge. You don’t need to clear your mind. You’ve already lost it.”

  So, now the three of them were on their way, wind in their hair, good vibrations under their asses. Life couldn’t get any better.

  Chapter

  7

  New leaves are sometimes hard to turn. . . .

  After two days in Jinx, Inc.’s, Barnegat warehouse office, Veronica was finally making headway with the paperwork. The actual search would begin the day after tomorrow—if there were no more problems with the boat’s motor.

  It was only nine-thirty, her third day in the office, and thus far she’d organized the files in a rudimentary fashion. She’d paid bills from a dismally small business account, something she needed to discuss with her grandfather, but he was steering clear of her on that subject—and a few others. After the argument they’d had the first day she came back, when he’d been showing her around t
he place, he was probably afraid she’d ask more questions—not just about the business but about his personal finances as well. Thus far, he’d managed to evade explaining the missing bank statements, mortgages, deeds, that kind of thing. She didn’t even know if he outright owned the diving boat, the warehouse, or his home. All she’d seen were general office files and Project Pink data. It was a start, anyhow.

  She’d managed to handle her aversion to salt water and its scent by placing air freshener cones around the office. When she went outside, the saltwater breezes didn’t bother her as much as they used to; even so, she was popping Peptos like peanuts from a quart-size jar she’d bought at Wal-Mart. Forget pink diamonds; she should invest in the company that made pink Pepto.

  Henri Pinot, the man hired to captain the boat, had been forced to drop out at the last minute. It appeared the prostate trouble that Tante Lulu had alluded to was more serious than he’d originally thought. He was scheduled for surgery in Baton Rouge on Friday. Her grandfather had commiserated with Henri and told him not to worry, that there was a treasure-hunting venture he wanted to try in Louisiana in the next few years. Henri should be on his feet again by then. Besides, her grandfather said, he could take over the captaining job himself, which made Veronica reach for the Pepto yet again.

  Aside from Henri, everyone else was here, raring to go. Except Jake. But then he’d never promised Frank, or her, that he would participate. She was better off without Jake here, she told herself, although she could use his help with the ancient computer. Well, it was ten years old, but that was ancient in computer land.

  She decided to put all her concerns aside because, frankly, she was enjoying herself. And that was a surprise. She should have felt out of her comfort zone, but she didn’t. She wasn’t an auditor, but she had a little accounting experience from college. It was a sign of her sorry life that she got satisfaction out of balancing the books, much the same as she used to feel after a successful legal battle. She wondered if Jake felt the same when he won a a poker tournament.

  “Va-va-voom! You are lookin’ hot, hot, hot today, darlin’,” John LeDeux said. Strolling into the office, he laid an ink-toner cartridge on the desk. She’d asked him last night to buy it while in town.

  Her face heated at the young Cajun’s blatant perusal of her body, clad in what was the first stage of a wardrobe makeover. The new Veronica Jinkowsky. When she’d awakened this morning, just past dawn, she had donned tight, low-riding jeans and a midriff-exposing, stretchy black T-shirt that proclaimed, “I GOT STUNG.” She’d put on and taken off the cropped shirt three times this morning before murmuring with self-loathing, “Get a grip, girl.” Not her usual style. At all.

  “What’s with the ‘Stung’ T-shirt?”

  “Jake is a huge Sting fan. He must have given me a dozen Sting—or Police—concert shirts over the years.”

  “Yeech! Sting is an old codger,” John said with a grin, dropping into one of the office chairs in front of the desk. “Now Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails, that’s another story.”

  Sting an old codger? He better not say that around Jake.

  “I do like your jeans, though, chère. Very, very sexy!”

  Give me a break! Actually, she’d had to lie on the floor to get into them this morning. It should be interesting when she had to use the restroom today.

  “And I really like that watch. Where’d you get it? I’d like to buy one for Tante Lulu.”

  Veronica glanced down at the only jewelry she was wearing—a smiley face watch, another gift from Jake. During the painful tail end of their Insanity Marriage, he’d put the gift in her lap with a hug and a whisper in her ear: “You need to smile more, honey.” Wearing the watch now was certainly . . . timely.

  “It was a gift,” was all she replied. Then she laughed and added, “I’m not sure whether these new clothes make me look hot or hilarious. The big question is, Do I look like Martha Stewart trying to be Pamela Anderson, and failing? Don’t answer that. It was a rhetorical question.”

  He grinned. “I like the new you.”

  “I do, too,” Veronica admitted, also with a grin.

  It was silly to place so much importance on apparel, but after the unpleasant confrontation with her grandmother, Veronica had gone immediately to her apartment in downtown Boston and made all the preparations for a one-month absence. Paying bills in advance. Notifying the doorman. Clearing out the fridge. Canceling appointments. She’d wanted to take care of everything right away before she changed her mind, or her grandmother tried to change her mind. It never happened.

  Then, she’d done the silly thing . . . well, silly for her. The drive back to Long Beach Island had been well under way when she’d stopped at the behemoth Woodbridge Mall. If she was leaving her old professional life behind, she’d decided she was going to change her personal life, too. Her grandmother’s remark that Veronica was just like her had cut to the quick. Inside, Veronica was not prissy and boring like her grandmother. At least she didn’t think she was.

  So, a whole new nonboring wardrobe completed her transformation. She hoped. That meant jeans, bright-colored tops, a few daring dresses—and not one single suit. Some cute hair clips. A gold lamé one-piece bathing suit, with black squiggles edging the rounded top and the leg holes, a signature of Daphne, an up-and-coming designer. The suit was cut high on the hips, very conservative in front, but exposed her back all the way to her buttocks. It wasn’t a bikini, but it was racier than anything she’d ever bought before.

  Every purchase she’d made had been decided with one question in mind: “Would my grandmother ever wear this?” If the answer was no, she had tossed it in her bag. She wasn’t going for the bimbo look, but she was definitely avoiding the lawyer-with-a-pole-up-her-butt look, which her grandfather had insinuated was her style during one of their arguments.

  “So, what’re you doin’?” John asked her, jarring her back to the present. She already knew he had time to kill before meeting Adam and Caleb at ten for some practice diving in the bay to test their equipment.

  “Inputting Project Pink data into the computer. Employees, job descriptions, salaries, equipment needed, fixed and variable expenses, assets, liabilities, along with research details about the enterprise. The only thing missing is the exact site location. My grandfather says it has to remain secret.”

  “Oh, yeah! Every salvager knows to protect his numbers.”

  “That’s what Frank says: ‘Trust no one, or else pirates will steal the site.’ I mean, really, pirates? He must be delusional . . . or trying to scare me. More likely he’s been OD’ing on old Errol Flynn movies again.”

  “It’s not as wacky as it sounds. Deep-sea treasure hunters always worry about someone stealing their wreck sites. If even the scent of a new site gets out, boats within a thirty-mile radius would use directional finders to zero in and steal the discovery.”

  “Couldn’t Frank get a government order protecting the wreck from rival treasure seekers?”

  “Hah! That would be like trying to kill a shark with a flyswatter. Nope, Frank is right to be tight-lipped about this.” John stood and ambled over to the wall to study some pictures. “Wow!” he said.

  That had pretty much been her reaction when first entering the office. The grungy walls were a testament to a lifetime of respected work. Awards and thank-yous from many quarters—everything from local historical societies to the Museum of Natural History. From different countries, too—Italy, Greece, Spain, and various parts of the United States. Despite all her grievances about Frank, she had to give him credit for his achievements in a career she had always considered just a step below, well, poker playing.

  “Well, look at that. Jacques Cousteau.” John pointed to one of the many framed photographs, this one a picture of a younger Frank in a diving suit with the famous ocean explorer. “And President Friggin’ Reagan. Oops, ’scuse my language.” Yep, there was Frank in a suit and tie with President Reagan, for heaven’s sake!

  “Who’s
that?” she asked. In this picture, her grandfather stood with another man of similar age, their arms looped over each other’s shoulders, grinning at the camera.

  “That’s Mel Fisher.”

  “And I should know who Mel Fisher is?”

  John laughed. “He’s famous in wreck diving as the guy who discovered the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, a Spanish galleon that sunk off the coast of Florida in the 1600s.”

  Veronica moved on and noticed a framed diploma from Princeton University dated 1953, the same year Frank and her grandmother had presumably married. She’d never seen or heard any reference to their marriage anywhere, not even a wedding picture. How sad!

  “Yo! That is so cool!”

  Veronica looked at the photo John was admiring. Only a young man like John would think it was cool for Frank to be photographed sitting on Mussolini’s gold toilet. She shook her head at his misplaced admiration.

  “And is that really Mel Gibson shaking Frank’s hand in that photo?”

  “Seems to be.”

  “Do you think Mel might have been considering a movie about Frank’s life?”

  Veronica chuckled. Wouldn’t that be the last straw on her grandmother’s back? “I sincerely hope not.”

  After John left, Veronica continued, perusing the wall. She’d had no clue about Frank’s reputation, her opinions probably colored by her grandmother’s hatred of him. Still, she was a grown woman and should have formed her own opinions.

  That didn’t mean she’d suddenly developed a great affection or admiration for Frank. He was still the same ornery old man who’d made her life miserable on more than one occasion. Like their argument last night, when he’d inferred that she had the same judgmental pole up her ass as her grandmother, just because she’d lectured him about not marrying Flossie. So much for a new wardrobe and new image! To Frank, she was the same as always. Okay, in his defense, she’d also thrown in his smoking smelly cigars, his failing to get a real job with retirement benefits or a good IRA, and his never growing up in general.