Flirting With Pete: A Novel (40 page)

“No need to convince me,” Dan said. “I’m the one who’s been telling you to leave. I only wish you’d done it sooner— got more of a head start on him.”

Jenny wasn’t worried. “He won’t find me.”

“Well, he’s not allowed to leave the state without permission. That’s a rule of his parole.” He flexed his shoulder, like it was sore. “Of course, he might do it anyway, but if he does, they’ll go after him. Want to give me an idea where you’ll be, so I can alert the authorities if there’s a problem?”

She shook her head. “You’ll be the first one Darden asks.”

“I’d never tell him. You know I’m on your side.” His brows went up. “You think he’ll torture me to make me tell?” He chuckled. “I’m taller and stronger than he is. Besides, I’m the law. He won’t hurt me.”

“People do crazy things when they’re desperate.”

“Darden’s not that crazy.”

“He’s a mean man. You said it yourself. Anyway,” she said with a burst of renewed excitement, “we’ll be riding for a while, Pete and me. It might be weeks before we get to his place.”

“Maybe I ought to meet him, this Pete. Then I could vouch for him if Darden starts yelling that you’ve been taken against your will. Is he around?”

It was eleven-thirty. Pete might be sleeping. Or showering. Or doing his laundry. Jenny had offered to do it for him, but he had refused. He said it was luxury enough having a washer and dryer to use after days on the road, and that he wasn’t having her be his slave. He had even taken the last of
her
things to wash along with his. The last time anyone had washed anything for her, she had been nine.

“Rides a motorcycle?” Dan asked with a teasing grin. “Seems to me there was a time when you wanted one of those yourself. Not too long ago— what was it, three, four years since Nick Farina’s grandson rode one into town? Old Nick was fit to be tied. Hated the sound, hated the looks. You, you’d stop and drool every time you passed. Old Nick hated that, too. He nearly had a heart attack when the grandson considered selling the bike to you. I think Nick would’ve moved rather than see and hear that machine every day. Strange, he hasn’t complained about your Pete’s.”

Jenny smiled. “When you go fast enough, no one sees or hears.”

“I’ve never heard
that,
Jenny Clyde.” Dan studied her in the way he had of telling her he knew a whole lot about a whole lot— and briefly, so briefly, she wanted to hug him for being kinder than most. But she didn’t know how he would take to that, and then the urge passed.

He rubbed his shoulder again, frowning now. “I worry about you. Reverend Putty says you’re lying around in your nightgown all day.”

Jenny’s smile turned coy. “Reverend Putty’s wrong. I only put the nightgown on when he came.” She remained behind the chair only long enough to see that Dan got her drift, then she went to the door. “I have to go. I just wanted to say goodbye. I’m sorry if my leaving’s going to make more work for you.”

“For me?”

“With Darden.”

“I’ll handle Darden.”

She nodded, gave him one last big smile, and was gone.

By the time she reached the school, it was 11:50 and warm. She pulled off her sweatshirt and tied it around her waist, then sat down at the end of the stone wall edging the playground and smiled her way through ten minutes’ worth of the earliest of her childhood memories. No matter that they were part real, part made-up. People needed happy memories, just like they needed adoring grandmothers and aunts.

At twelve sharp, the bell rang. Joey Battle was one of the last children out of the school. He came stumbling down the steps in heated argument with another boy, who gave him a mighty shove and ran off. Joey was scrambling up off the ground, looking murderous and ready to give chase, when he saw Jenny. By the time he was heading her way, the murderous look had mellowed to one of hurt.

She fell into step beside him, lifting his baseball cap up so she could see his eyes. “What was that about?”

“He called me a mutant.”

“Being a mutant isn’t so bad if it means you’re different from
him
. He’s a bully. I could tell.”

“The kids like him more than they like me.”

“They don’t like him. They’re afraid of him.”

“I wish they were afraid of me.”

“No, you don’t. You want them to like you. They will.”

“When?”

“When you start liking them. It’s catching.”

He kicked an acorn out of the way. “Did the kids like you?”

“Some did.”

“Because you liked them?”

“Yes.”

“So why don’t they like you now?”

“Maybe,” she said, “it’s because they’re afraid of me.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

That was one of the reasons, even apart from their looks, why they were friends. She wished she could take him with her, but she couldn’t. She wished she could ease things for him here, but she couldn’t do that either. All she could do was to hope that he would remember her as someone who loved him— surrogate mother, aunt, sister, whatever
he
chose to pretend— and smile at the memory sometimes.

She scratched the top of the cap that hid the short wisps of red hair that were all Selena had left of his curls. Her hand had no sooner lowered when Joey’s fingers found it and slipped inside. Immediately, she felt emotion tugging at her heart.

“How come you’re here?” he asked.

“I have to say goodbye. I’m going away.”

His eyes flew to hers. “Where are you going?”

“To Wyoming.”

“When’ll you be back?” It was almost more of an accusation than a question.

She couldn’t tell him the truth. Feeling a twinge of guilt and more than a little sadness, she said, “Not for a while.”

“When?”

How to explain to a child?

“I don’t want you going away,” he cried.

The tug on her heart grew sharper. “That’s ‘cause we’re pals.”

“Why are you going?”

“I have to.”

“Why?”

“Because I met a man—”

Joey tore his hand from hers and raced off. But her legs were longer than his. She caught up fast.

“That
always
happens,” he cried when she stopped him. “First Mama, now you.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”
Jenny crouched down and held him still. “
No
. It’s not the same with me. But I can’t stay here, Joey. My father’s coming back.”

“So? You said he didn’t kill your mother.”

“He didn’t. But he did other things. Does other things. I can’t stay.”

“Take me with you.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I
can’t
.”

“Why not?”
he yelled.

She pulled him close and held him, just as she would a child of her own, and in that brief instant, she allowed the pain of leaving to wash through her. Her throat tightened. Her eyes filled with tears. She felt more sad than she would have dreamed possible, and suddenly deathly scared.

It was a while before she was able to whisper, “I wish I could explain, but you’re too young, and anyway, I don’t have the words.”

“Is Wyoming far?”

“Yes.”

“Will you ever be back?”

She hesitated, then breathed a quiet, “No.”

“I’ll
never
see you again?”

She held him back so that she could see his face, his freckled, dirt-smudged face now streaked with tears. “You will. Just not here.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

“So how do you know you’ll see me at all?”

Jenny thought of Pete and how he had come along just when she was out of hope, and she felt a sudden conviction. Quietly, she said, “Because I do.”

He seemed to be holding his breath. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. Then smiled. “It’ll be a surprise. You won’t be expecting me, then, boom— there I’ll be. Honest. That’s how it’ll happen.”

“Maybe next year?”

“Maybe.”

“Or when I’m big?”

“Who knows.” She brushed her thumbs over his cheeks to wipe away the tears.

His eyes suddenly lit. “When it happens, will you take me to Chuck E. Cheese?”

She nodded.

“O-
kay,
” he said, grinning. Then he danced away. “I gotta go.”

Jenny watched him run off down the street, taking with him a tiny piece of her heart. The pain of it was sharp and swift, and curbed only by the fiercest of wills. Then, letting herself think only good thoughts, she set off for the store.

She bought potatoes, carrots, and stew meat. She bought tapioca. She bought Rice Krispies and marshmallows. She splurged and bought ready-made subs for Pete and her to have for lunch. Then she splurged on two more for the fridge. For good measure, she tossed in a bag of pretzels.

“Looks like you’re having a party,” said Mary McKane as she tallied the bill.

“Maybe,” Jenny said with a smile, sweeping the bag into her arms.

Thoughts of following Pete to the ends of the earth kept the smile on her face through most of the walk home. It was only when the house came into sight, still in the distance, down the road, that she felt a qualm.

She walked faster. The qualm grew. She switched the bag to her other side and started to trot. She was practically running by the time she turned in at the driveway and saw the motorcycle, there, beside the garage— and even then she didn’t feel better until she walked into the kitchen and saw Pete at the stove. She sagged against the wall in relief.

One look and he knew. “You thought I’d left,” he chided as he relieved her of her bag, “but I won’t. I’ve told you. I’m not leaving without you. Why won’t you believe that?”

“Because sometimes I still can’t believe you’re real.”

“Do I look real?”

“Yes.”

He put her hand to his heart. “Do I feel real?”

She felt it pulsing. She nodded.

“Well?”

Tell him, Jenny.
I can’t.
Tell him everything.
I can’t risk it.
He loves you.
But does he love me enough?

She covered her face with a hand. He pulled it away, drew her against him, and said into the sweaty warmth of her wild red hair, “I made hot chocolate to make up for sleeping through breakfast, but now it’s warm outside. You feel like you could use something cool.”

“Hot chocolate’s my favorite drink.”

“I figured that,” he said with the kind of grin that turned her knees to soup and her mind to slush. “You have three big tins of it in the cupboard.”

“I’ll have some now.”

“You’re not too hot?”

She shook her head, sat down at the table, and imagined snow falling outside while she waited for her drink.

In the first months after the death of Jenny’s mother, Jenny had lived mainly in the kitchen, the spare room upstairs, and the attic. Dan had someone clean the blood from the living room, but she couldn’t bear being there, and as for the bedrooms, they held a horror all their own. It was two full years into Darden’s incarceration before she slept in her own room again, and then, only after she had been ousted from the spare room by a raccoon, and
then,
only after she had scrubbed the bedroom top to bottom.

Six years later, she still avoided the living room. The bedroom that her parents had shared was dusted twice a year. She kept the door shut the rest of the time.

Tuesday afternoon, she opened it wide, dragged in the cartons that had been waiting in the garage, and filled them with armloads of her mother’s things. She didn’t fold anything, didn’t stop to look at anything or reminisce. She closed one full carton and turned to the next, closed that carton when it was full and turned to the next, and all the while she cursed Darden for not wanting to do this himself, for not
caring
to do it as a way of saying goodbye to his wife.

He was punishing Jenny, of course. She knew that. He was playing another of his little mind games meant to keep her guilt alive, and it succeeded to a point. Even rushing, even refusing to look at a single blouse, slip, or skirt, even in spite of her long talks with Pete and the resolutions she had made, she felt guilt and pain and regret.

Then it stopped. Her mind rebelled and shut down. Guilt, pain, regret— she packed them away with the last of her mother’s things, closed the carton, and walked out.

The tub was filled with lilac-scented bubbles. They rose high above the water in a cumulus field broken only by Jenny’s head and knees. She had her eyes closed until she heard Pete at the door.

“Hi,” he said.

She smiled shyly, because he was all man and still so new to her.

“Doin’ okay?”

She nodded. “Feeling strange.”

“Sad about leaving?”

“A little. Weird, huh?”

“No. This place has been the whole of your life.” He came to sit on the edge of the tub and found her fingers in the foam. “You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t feel sad.”

“What time is it?”

“Five. The stew’s nearly done. So that’s his favorite meal?”

It was. Stew, and tapioca pudding, and Rice Krispies treats, and beer. “If I hate him, why do I care?”

“Because you’re kind. This is the first home-cooked meal he’ll have had in more than six years.”

“I’m not kind. I’m just buttering him up. He’ll be mad when I tell him I’m leaving. It may get ugly.”

“Ugly I can handle, as long as we’re outta here by midnight. That’s when the bike turns into a pumpkin.”

She grinned. “Midnight. Okay. I’ll remember.”

He caught the last word with his mouth and gave it the kind of thorough tasting that had Jenny clutching his shoulder. Pulling back, he started taking off his clothes. By the time he was naked, Jenny had made room for him in the tub. It was another minute before he had her arranged on his lap, no time before he was inside her, and not much more before Jenny felt the crescendo of tiny explosions in her deepest, sweetest heart.

Previews of coming attractions,
she thought and held the image along with a smile through lingering kisses, climbing out, and drying. The smile faded when she pulled on the flowered dress Darden had sent, and was completely gone by the time Pete walked her outside.