Diners, Dives & Dead Ends (25 page)

“And you broke into my
apartment and trashed all my possessions.  This game of state the obvious is so
not fun.”

“I.  Did not.  Do.  This.” 
He spoke slowly as he advanced toward me.

“So you ordered Henry to do
it.  It’s still on you.”

“Not true.”

Seemed we were at a
stalemate.  I wasn’t going to get into an argument of ‘did not’ ‘did too.’  “Why
should I believe you?”

Standing in front of me, his
chest touching mine, he gave me a wolfish smile and flashed his teeth,
completely unconcerned I could zap the crap out of him.  “Because if I did it,
Rose, I would take credit for it.”

I blinked.  Of course he
would.  He would rub my nose in it and tell me it was another warning, and
something worse would happen if I didn’t shape up.  Oh my God, I actually believed
him.    

“What about Henry?  He’s
capable of this.”

“Henry wouldn’t take a piss
unless I told him to.”

“Nice imagery.”

“Who else have you ticked
off besides me?”

This could take all night. 
“I have an ex who’s not happy with me.”

Sullivan walked around the
room until he realized there was no place to sit.  “Yes, Kevin Wilkins.  Your
taste in men is terrible.”

“It is beyond creepy that
you know so much about my ex-boyfriend.”  I tossed the stun gun onto my
pallet.  It seemed stupid to keep clutching it.  I wasn’t going to use it on
Sullivan and he knew it.  “And what do you know about my taste in men?”

“You’ve been dating Dane
Harker.”  He made it sound like an accusation.

“That’s none of your
business.  My life is none of your business.”

“Right now, everything you
do is my business.  You’re a wild card.  Unpredictable.  Anyway, Dane Harker is
another mistake.”  He flicked his hand like he was shooing a fly. 

“You don’t know what the
hell you’re talking about.”

He walked toward me,
stopping just six inches away.  “Dane Harker follows the rules.  He likes
things nice and neat.  He plays golf on Saturdays, has Chinese takeout every
Wednesday.  Orders the same thing every time, by the way.”

“He’s nice.”

“He’s boring.”

“Well, Kevin’s not boring. 
Kevin’s not predictable.”

“Kevin is a moron.  He
legally changed his name to Spaz.”

Yeah, okay, there was that. 
Kevin was a moron.  But if Sullivan thought I was going to agree with him, he
was cuckoo in the cabeza.  Wait.  Why was I arguing about my love life with this
crime boss, in the middle of the night no less?

“Why are you here?  To
apologize for wrecking my apartment?”

His lips thinned.  “I told
you.  I didn’t do it.”

I lifted my palms up, my
fingertips brushing his chest.  “Let’s pretend that’s true.”  I echoed his
words from the first night he broke into my apartment.  “You still have Axton.”

“Yes, and I’m keeping him.” 
Clasping my hands in his, he looked around the room.  “You can’t stay here.  If
whoever did this comes back—”

“I can take care of myself,
thank you.”  I tried to pull my hands out of his grasp, but he tightened his
hold on me.  A little shiver zinged through me.  Sullivan was the bad guy.  Not
the guy I should be zinging for.

“Yes, you’ve done an amazing
job so far,” he said, as his thumbs made little circles on my palms.

I glared at him, trying
again to pull away.  This time he let me go.  I clenched my fists against the
tingles.

“You don’t even have a bed
to sleep in, Rose.”  He nodded his head toward my pallet.

I raised a brow.  “And
that’s your concern, why?”

His face, so full of emotion
a moment before, became expressionless.  “You’re right.  It’s not.” 

He slammed the door when he
left.

Ma looked me over.  “Rose,
you don’t look too good.”

What else was new?  I had
dark purple splotches under my eyes and no amount of cheap makeup could hide
them.  “I can’t seem to get enough sleep.” 

Roxy walked out of the
kitchen and tied an apron around her waist.  She wore a short pink and white
dress that looked like a flouncy birthday cake. “I swear, Rose, you look worse
every day.” 

I glared at her and bared my
teeth.  I may have growled. 

“Jeez, just saying.”

“Sullivan came by last
night.  He says he didn’t trash my apartment.”

Ma slapped her hands on the
counter.  “What is wrong with that man?  He’s got a lot of gall, I’ll tell you
that for free.”

“Or maybe he has the hots
for Rose,” Roxy said.  “So, do we believe him?”

I nodded and refilled my
coffee cup.  “Yep.  I do.  But I also believed Dane and Kevin when they denied
it.  I’m too tired to think about it anymore.  All I want is to rescue Axton
and get a good night’s sleep.”

“Come and stay with me,
Rose,” Ma said.  “You can have the spare bedroom.”

Someone vandalized my car
and my apartment.  No way I’d put her in that kind of danger.  “Thanks Ma, but
my futon mattress is coming today.  I’m hoping I can get to bed early tonight,
with no uninvited guests.” 

We got to work and the
morning passed quickly.  Until ten-thirty when my mother walked in the diner.

She was awash in beige. 
Beige coat, beige slacks, beige sweater.  Her hair was perfect, her brown
leather handbag expensive, and her shoes probably cost more than I made in a
month.

“Hello, Rosalyn.”  She
looked around the diner, her lips puckered in contempt.  “Is there somewhere we
can speak privately?”

Ma came out from behind the
counter.  “You must be Rose’s mother.  I can see the resemblance.”

Barbara tilted her lips into
a fake smile.  “Yes.”

“Mom, this is Ma.  Ma this
is my mother, Barbara Strickland.”

Ma wiped her hand on a dish
towel and extended it to my mother.  “Nice to meet you, Barbara.”

My mother had that half
handshake, where she just gave you her fingertips as if she were Queen
Elizabeth greeting the little people.  “It’s nice to meet you.  Ma.”

Roxy finished refilling a
cup of coffee at the table in the far corner.  She walked up to us.  “Hello,”
she said, chomping her gum.

Barbara quickly scanned
Roxy’s blue hair and pink confection of a dress.  “Rosalyn, somewhere private?”

“You can use my office,” Ma
said. 

Ma’s office consisted of a
small desk covered in fake wood and a rolling chair with yellow foam spilling
out of its ripped seat.  Metal shelves filled with cleaning supplies, toilet
paper, and liquid soap in gallon bottles lined the walls. 

“Make yourself at home,” Ma said,
closing the door behind her.

“With every advantage we
gave you, this is where you ended up.”

I was so tired and the
stress of the past several days started catching up with me.  My nerves were
jumpy and jittery from too much coffee and the last thing I needed was my
mother dispensing lectures.

“Why are you here, Mom?”

Her disgusted gaze turned
from the shelves to me.  Too bad the expression on her face never changed.  I
guess I ranked up there with the single ply.

“I have heard from several
sources that you were seen in front of the police station making a spectacle of
yourself.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

She took a deep breath
through her nose.  Good, she was having a hard time with the whole patience
thing, too. 

“What exactly were you doing
with Dane Harker?”

I gave her my wide-eyed,
confused look.  “Making a spectacle of myself?”

“You know,” she said through
thinned lips, “we have put up with your nonsense for a long time.  We’ve had to
defend you to all of our friends.  You work in a diner.  As a waitress.”  She
practically hissed the last word.  “You befriend people like Axton Graystone
and that blue-haired freak out there.”  She pointed toward the dining area. 
“And now I hear that you were getting ‘physical’,” she used air quotes, “with
Dane Harker.

“Well I’m tired of having to
tell people you’re ‘trying to find yourself’.”  She did the air quote thing
again.  “It’s high time you grow up and act like a responsible adult.  Really. 
Groping the man in the middle of the street.  It’s humiliating.”

“I wasn’t groping him,
Mother.  He hugged me.  It wasn’t a big deal.”

She threw back her head. 
“Nothing is a big deal to you.  Drop of out of college, waste your life in this
dump, bring that boy with the big holes in his ears to your cousin’s wedding,
never caring about how mortified your father and I would be.  You still haven’t
apologized to Tatum Hopkins.  She was distraught.   But no, nothing’s ever a
big deal for Rosalyn.”

For years I’d been trying
desperately to keep the peace with my mother for Jacks’ sake.  I wanted to see
Scotty, and I didn’t want to put Jacks in the middle of it, so I sucked up
whatever my mother had dished out, telling myself that between the two of us, I
was the bigger, better person.  But today, I’d had enough.  Jacks was going to
have to make her own decisions, because I had made mine.

“Sorry I’m such an
embarrassment.  But I am a responsible adult, Mom.  I pay my own way because
you cut me off five years ago.  I was barely nineteen and you threw me out like
a sack of trash.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Don’t
be dramatic.”

 “What would you call it? 
All I wanted to do was go to a different college.  Why was that such a terrible
thing?”

“You’ve never appreciated anything
we did for you.  We spent a fortune on that school, but of course, that wasn’t
good enough.”  She stood a little straighter.  “And now you’re paying us back. 
That’s what all this ‘acting out’ is about, isn’t it?  Punishing your father
and me?” 

“You got me.  It’s all about
you.”  I put my hands on my hips.  “You may not like what I do or who my
friends are.  But that is just too damn bad.  If I want to dry hump Dane Harker
in the middle of the Apple Tree Boulevard, that’s none of your business.”  I
had lifted the lid off the pot of my boiling emotions and now they were
bubbling over.

“Guess what?  I don’t care
that you don’t approve of me.  And I could care even less about your snotty
tight-assed friends.  My life is just that.  Mine.  I’ve made it on my own, no
thanks to you.  And I will not have you waltz into my place of employment again
with your little tirades and lectures, treating me like I am a child.  Is that
clear?”

She stared at me through
slitted eyes.  “Crystal.”  She flung open the door and walked out of the
office, her head held high.

“And by the way,” I called
after her, “air quotes are pretentious.”

I sagged against the desk
and gulped down the stale air.  I felt a little dizzy and relieved and sick to
my stomach all at the same time. 

I didn’t know what the
fallout would be, but it wouldn’t be good.  Jacks might have to sneak around to
see me.  As far as my dad went, he just tried to keep my mom happy.  It still stung
that I didn’t have her love and support, but it was time I got over it. 

I walked back into the
dining area.  Ma looked concerned.  Jorge looked curious.  And Roxy looked at
me with mixture of both.

“Your mom was really
pissed,” Roxy said.

“Yeah,” said Jorge, wiping
his hands on his apron.  “She almost knocked me down as she left.  Like she
didn’t even see me.”

“Are you okay, toots?” asked
Ma.

“I am,” I said, nodding.  “I
just got some things off my chest.”

“Do you need anything?”
Jorge asked. 

I smiled and shook my head.

“Okay, I’m going to help Ray
with the kitchen, then.”  He turned and left.

“Start talking,” Roxy said. 
“I want to know every detail.”

Just then my phone vibrated. 
It was Sheila Graystone, so I answered. 

“Rose!  Some guy just towed
my effing car.”

“Why did someone tow your
car?”

“They said they were
repossessing it.  They repossessed my effing car.  How the eff am I supposed to
get home?”

“Um, do you want me to give
you a ride?”

“Yes, I’m at the mall in
front of Jamba Juice.”  She hung up.

I turned to Ma.  “Sheila
needs a ride.  You mind if I go right now?”  I hated to skip out on work, but I
didn’t want to leave Sheila stranded.

Ma patted my head.  “Rose,
honey, you go do what you need to do.”

I drove to the mall, snagged
a parking place near Macy’s, and found Sheila in the food court sitting at a
table between Jamba Juice and Panda Express.