Flirting With Pete: A Novel (21 page)

Ignoring him, she focused on the birches on the far side of the road and walked on. At least the birches couldn’t talk back. Nor could they make her dreams come true, though Lord knew she had asked. She had written wish after wish on bits of curly birch bark and thrown them into the fire, but not one of her wishes had come true.

Still, she loved birches. On days like this their trunks looked like pearls.

Or leather.

She squinted. A jacket? Boots? Were they there? She searched the dark slots between trees, searched the road.

Nothing.

So who’s gonna save you now, Jenny Clyde?

She didn’t know. Didn’t know. Didn’t
know
.

She trudged on past Essie Bunch, past television sounds, past lawnmower sounds. A block away from Neat Eats’ kitchen, Dan O’Keefe pulled up. “I just got a call from John Millis. He’ll be Darden’s parole officer. He wanted to know about you.”

Her stomach knotted. Doubling over, she set her pack on the curb, knelt beside it, and fiddled with the zipper. “What about me?”

“He wondered if you worked and, if you did, whether you’d be quitting when Darden gets back.”

“Why would I quit?”

“To help Darden get the business going again. Darden must’ve told them you would.”

She remembered what Dudley Wright had said. “He may not get it going so fast.”

“Then you’ll stay on with Miriam?”

She had to. She didn’t want to work with Darden. She didn’t want to see Darden, hear Darden, smell Darden. She didn’t want to be anywhere
near
Darden. “I’m asking her for more hours. To keep me busy, y’know?”

It was her next-to-last hope, her last hope being that someone like Pete would take her to a place Darden couldn’t reach. Darden’s return was her punishment. He had endured his, now it was her turn.

Before Dan could start in again, saying things she already knew but couldn’t change, she stood, hoisted the pack, and set off.

“Oh, Jenny, I wish I could,” Miriam said when Jenny finally drummed up the nerve to ask. They were forty minutes into the fifty-minute drive home from the luncheon. The rest of the staff— three others— had gone in a separate car. She and Miriam were alone in the van. The ride had been silent up to that point. “But I suppose it’s good you mentioned this. I didn’t know how to raise it myself.”

Jenny didn’t like the way Miriam wasn’t looking at her.

“I’m winding down Neat Eats.”

Jenny figured she must have heard wrong. She held very still, wishing to make the words go away.

“I haven’t booked anything past the end of the month,” Miriam went on. “I’m closing shop.”

The message was the same, but unthinkable. “You can’t close.”

“That’s what I kept telling myself— I’m happy here, I’m getting good jobs, I’m making money— so I gave myself another month, then another month, but I’m at the point where it’s put up or shut up.”

“What is?”

“Y’know my brother, the one with the restaurant in Seattle? He’s been asking me to come out there and be chef for him, and I’ve been telling him I couldn’t leave here, but now he’s going to have to close if he doesn’t do something drastic, and I’m the only drastic thing he has, y’know?”

Jenny didn’t know. All she knew was that she worked for Neat Eats, and if it closed, she’d be out of a job. With Darden coming home.

She felt like she was going to be sick. She swallowed once, then again.

Miriam darted her nervous looks. “No one in town knows yet. I was going to tell you all in another week. That’ll give you time to get new jobs. I know the timing’s bad for you, Jenny, but I don’t see any way around it.”

Jenny scrambled for reasons. “Weren’t my meatballs any good?”

“Your meatballs were great. This has nothing to do with you.”

“It was the mint dish, wasn’t it?” It had slipped right out of her hand.

“The mint dish— the toothpick cup— the creamer filled way past overflowing— you had a bad day today. I think I know why.”

Jenny put the heel of her hand to her stomach. “I’m a little nervous.”

“You shouldn’t be. He’s your father. He wouldn’t lift a hand to you. Besides, it’s not like this’ll be the first time you’ve seen him.”

True. Jenny went to visit him every month. It was a long, hot, sick bus trip that she would have gladly made for the rest of her life if only they would have kept Darden that long.

She turned to Miriam, pleading now. “His coming back won’t change a thing. I’ll be as dependable as ever. I promise. I just need more work.”

“What about him? Can’t he work, too?”

“It’s not the money. It’s keeping busy.” Neat Eats was one of the few good things in her life. “Take more jobs, Miriam. I’ll work harder. You don’t even have to pay me for the extra time.”

Miriam gave a tight laugh. “Jenny, this doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“Then Darden. It has to do with him, doesn’t it? You’re scared of what’ll happen when he gets back. But he won’t hurt you. He’s not a murderer.”

“Jenny.” She said her name with a sigh and eyes glued to the road. “Please. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. You’ll find another job.”

“Where?”

“Why not waitress at the inn over in Tabor?”

Jenny shook her head. A job like that was worlds away from what she did for Miriam. Miriam kept her in the background mostly, and even when she was actually serving food, it was different. The menu was set. There wasn’t individual ordering. She rarely needed to speak to guests.

But waitressing in a restaurant would mean juggling a million different meals for a million different people who had a million different ways of telling you that you stunk. Waitressing like that meant looking people in the eye. It meant being out there, unprotected.

“There’s no bus to Tabor,” she said.

“Maybe your father would drive you.”

Oh, he would. He would love the intimacy of the car trip coming and going, would love being involved in her life that way. He would also love scaring off any friends she might make, just like before. She would go mad.

Miriam must have sensed her aversion, because she said, “Then try the bakery here in town. Annie’s getting more pregnant by the day. Mark’ll need someone to fill in.”

Jenny gripped the handhold on the door and looked out the window. Mark Atkins wouldn’t hire her, especially not once Darden was back.

“Jenny?” Miriam was darting looks at her arm. “What’s that red mark? You didn’t burn yourself, did you?”

Jenny rubbed the bruise on the inside of her elbow. She couldn’t say that it came from pinching herself. Miriam would think she was crazy. So she said, “I must have caught it on something.”

“Today? While you were working?”

“No. Last night.”

“Phew. I was worried. Job-related injuries are the last thing I need when I’m trying to wrap things up. Employers get sued for the most absurd things nowadays. Not that you’d do that.” She slowed the van as they entered the center of Little Falls, and took her first left. After pulling up under Neat Eats’ awning, she turned to Jenny. “So. Three o’clock tomorrow afternoon? No food. Just you. Wearing what you have on now, but washed. Right?”

During the walk home, Jenny tried to relax. She concentrated— left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. She walked evenly— left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. She held herself erect— left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. She pushed her worries from mind, then did it again when they tried to return. She did absolutely everything that the magazine had said would calm her— left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. Still, her stomach felt like Jell-O when she climbed the side stairs and let herself into the house.

Then she saw the flowers. They stood on the kitchen table in the deep blue springwater bottle she had taken from a trash can at the Bicentennial Bash. There were three black-eyed Susans. She
loved
black-eyed Susans.

She looked around, ran from kitchen to hall to parlor to hall to kitchen, but there was no sign of him.

Then she heard the motorcycle. She ran to the door to see him pull up at the steps, but he didn’t dismount. Only the helmet came off. He looked unsure.

“I keep leaving and coming back, leaving and coming back,” he said. “If I had any sense I’d have been through the next state by now.” He searched her face. “Didn’t get past the next county.”

Ask him why,
Jenny told herself, then changed her mind because she didn’t want him to even think about why he had felt he had to leave.

She needed him to stay.

Ask how he is. Ask how he slept. Ask if he ran into traffic, or when he ate last, or if he’s hungry. Ask him in, for God’s sake.

“I brought you flowers,” he said. “I looked at roses and lilies, but the black-eyed Susans were the best. Maybe it’s the country boy in me.”

They’re beautiful,
she thought but was afraid to say it aloud, afraid to say
anything
aloud lest he vanish again.

He was biting the corner of his mouth. “I keep thinking about you. You’re different from other women I’ve known. That makes you interesting. It started with your hair. I’ve never seen hair like that. Or freckles.”

“They’re awful.”

“They’re beautiful!”

“No.”

“
Yes
. And there’s more. I’ve never met a woman— not since I left home, and that was a lifetime ago— never met a woman who’d take her life in her hands to climb up on a roof for the sheer joy of owning the view.”

“People here think I’m crazy.”

“If being crazy means you think for yourself, I’m all for it. I’ve known a lot of people who do just what’s expected of them, and they’ve been boring as hell. You’re an individual. You look out for yourself, instead of sitting back and needing others to do for you. That’s what I hated most back home.”

Jenny wanted to hear more. “What did you hate most?”

He smiled, shook his head. “You first. Why do you live alone?”

She took a careful breath. “Who would I live with?”

“A husband.”

“There’s no husband.” There never would be as long as Darden lived. He had sworn it. He had sworn that the only thing keeping him alive in prison was the thought of coming home to her. He had said she owed it to him, and maybe he was right. But it was
sick, sick, sick
.

“Where’s your father?”

“Up north.”

“That his truck behind the garage?” She nodded. “His Buick inside the garage?” She nodded again. “Why don’t you drive it?”

“I don’t have my license.”

“Why not?”

“There was lots going on, and I just kind of forgot. But it’s okay. I can walk everywhere in town, and there are buses that go most other places. So what did you hate most at home?”

“How did your mother die?”

She couldn’t answer. “What did you hate most at home?”

He gave in. “People who were leaners.”

“It’s a luxury, leaning. Nice, sometimes.”

“Sometimes, but not all the time. You have to
do
things in life.” He pulled in a breath. “Not that I’m one to talk.”

“Why not?”

“Well, look at me, riding around, halfway between here and there, without the guts to
do
what I have to do.”

“What’s that?”

“Go home.” He gave her a startled smile, teeth white amid all that dark stubble. “Weird. I don’t usually tell people my faults, but you just pull it out of me.”

She got scared. “I don’t mean to. It’s nothing, really. I’ll forget what you said, and you don’t have to say anything more. I wasn’t trying to be nosy, it’s just that you’re here and you’re interesting, too, and it’s been the longest time since anyone’s talked to me like this—”

She stopped short, unable to believe what she’d said. Now he would
know
how pathetic and lonely and desperate she was.

But he was smiling. “Make you a deal?”

She was afraid to hope. “What kind?”

“Another home-cooked meal in exchange for anything your heart desires.”

“I don’t think you should offer that.”

“Why not?”

“I might accept.”

He considered that. He studied the helmet for a while. He climbed off the motorcycle, set the helmet on the seat, and kept his back to her for another minute. Then he turned and came toward her.

She had her hand on the screen. When he reached toward it, her heart leapt into her throat. He touched a knuckle to her palm and brushed it lightly through the wire mesh. Watching the small movement, he said, “The offer stands. There’s nothing you can ask that I don’t have it in me to give, at least today. I can’t tell what’ll be tomorrow or the day after that. I’m not good at long-term promises. You’re the one who ought to be thinking twice. I said that before. My record is lousy. I have a way of disappearing when the going gets rocky. People damn me for that.”

“Then here’s your chance at redemption,” she said, but lost the ability to say anything more when his eyes climbed the screen and caught hers— warm, inviting eyes like she had never seen before, sending heat tumbling down her face to her throat to her chest, caressing her heart for a bit before landing in her belly.

He looked at her mouth. “Dangerous,” he whispered. “Do you know what I want?”

He wanted sex. Sex with a man like Pete would be breathtakingly beautiful.

She opened the screen. He stepped through and stood before her, so tall that she had to look up, so broad that she felt sheltered. She was all hot inside, hot and trembly, just like the magazines said she would feel when the man was right.

He was going to kiss her. She knew it. And she was suddenly scared, afraid that the good feelings would die. But she needed him. He was all she had left. He was her only, only hope of escape.

His mouth touched hers. She stiffened against the smothering, but it didn’t come. No smothering, no sickness, no terror. Just gentleness and lightness and— this was new— wanting more.

But he was bent on whispering— kissing, sucking, nibbling, all in whispers. He didn’t ask a thing in return, which was good. Jenny couldn’t have produced, if her life had depended on it. She was too taken with the newness of what she felt to do a thing but stand there, lock-kneed, with her eyes closed, her head back, her lips parted.