The Bikini Car Wash (24 page)

“Come, let’s sit,” she said, taking Jelly’s hand before Andi even thought to reach for it.

She took a seat at the end of the table, with Jelly across the corner from her. As Jelly frequently required a little help at restaurants and this one was unfamiliar, Andi knew she needed
to be close. She sat down beside her sister. The Joffee brothers sat opposite them.

Pop returned with two waiters and a couple of bottles of wine.

“I didn’t ask you boys if you want a cocktail,” Pop said. “I’m sure they can make anything here at the bar.”

“A glass of wine is fine,” Dave said. Seth nodded agreement.

“What about you, Andi? Is wine okay?”

“Fine,” she answered, reminding herself that she needed to keep her wits about her.

“I don’t drink wine,” Jelly said. “It stinks funny and it’s really gross if you think like Father Blognick that it is blood. I’ll have a Scotch, neat, the way Jack McCoy drinks it.”

“I don’t think so, Jelly,” Pop said quietly. “Would you fill her wine glass with water, please. So she can toast with us.”

The waiter quickly did as he was bid.

“We’re going to have toast,” Jelly said, sounding disappointed. “I thought we might at least get a hamburger or something.”

“It’s not toast like a breakfast,” Andi assured her, sotto voce. “It’s a toast like…well…like a pep rally or something.”

“A pep rally?” Jelly looked incredulous.

Andi felt exactly that way.

Her father stood. “Rachel and I weren’t exactly sure how to bring this up,” he began.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t,” Andi interrupted. She glanced around quickly, embarrassed for her father and for herself. He was such a nice guy and he always tried to do the right thing, but recruiting the Joffees into her camp was just unnecessary. “This was very nice, Pop, to try to line up
support for me from one of the most influential downtown businesses, but really, it’s not that big a deal. Any support is always appreciated, but I don’t think we to need to…to twist any arms over this. I have a legal right to run my business. I’m going to fight for that right and I believe that’s the end of it.”

“We’re okay with you running the car wash,” Seth told her. “We don’t see any downside with it. And our foot traffic has improved.”

His brother, Dave, agreed. “I think this meeting must be about the property itself.” He turned to Pop. “I heard recently how Hank Guthrie welched on the sale.” Dave then glanced toward his mother at the other end of the table. “Are you now thinking to buy that corner, Mama?”

Mrs. Joffee didn’t immediately answer, but looked over at Walt for a moment. He shrugged and sighed heavily. She stood and walked around the table to stand beside him.

“This is not about you, Andi,” Pop said. He looked over at the young men on the other side of the table. “And it’s not about you, either, or about property.”

“Is it about me?” Jelly asked.

“No,” Pop answered. “Though you are going to be one of the people most affected.”

He glanced down at Mrs. Joffee again and then smiled at her before he cleared his throat.

“Rachel has done me the honor of agreeing to be my wife,” he said. “We’re going to be married.”

There was a moment of completely stunned silence around the table.

“For real?” Jelly asked, loudly and enthusiastically.

Andi was thinking the same thing, but without her sister’s joyous optimism.

“Yes,” Pop answered. “It’s for real.”

“And you’ll be my new mom?” she asked Mrs. Joffee.

“I’ll be your stepmom,” Rachel answered. “Your mother will always be your mother, but I want to love you and be a part of your life.”

“Cool,” Jelly said.

“Hold on, hold on,” Dave said. “This is…this is surprising and…unexpected. We haven’t talked about this at all. Are you two sure you’ve thought this through?”

“Oh, yes,” Pop said. “We’ve thought it through.”

“We’ve thought it through and thought it through and talked it to death,” Rachel added with a light laugh that had Pop joining in.

“How could you have thought it through that much?” Andi asked. “Mom has only been dead for six months.”

“It’s almost ten months,” Pop corrected her. “And we’re going to wait a full year out of respect before we make it official.”

“Oh, well then, if you’re waiting a full year that’s fine,” Andi said, her tone heavily laced with sarcasm. “Grass isn’t even growing atop her grave yet, but you certainly can’t let any grow under your feet.”

She wasn’t the only one who had a problem with their engagement. Seth Joffee’s tone was heavily laden with sarcasm. “Uh, Mama, in case you haven’t noticed, this guy is not Jewish.”

“Yeah,” his brother agreed. “Don’t tell me you’re planning to become a Catholic?”

“We’re each keeping our own religion,” Rachel said. “We
respect each other’s beliefs. And since our children are already grown, there won’t be any sticky decisions about how to raise the kids.”

“This is just too fast,” Andi said. “You hardly even know each other. How long can you two have been seeing each other? A few weeks, a month?”

“And let’s be clear about this for sure, Mr. Wolkowicz,” Dave said. “If you’re thinking that you’ve hit the jackpot with a rich widow, let me assure you that we will insist on a very strict prenup. You won’t take anything from this marriage beyond what you bring into it.”

“Pop’s not like that,” Andi defended. “He doesn’t care about money. He’s just lonely.” She turned her attention back to her father. “Pop, I know you miss Mom. But you can’t just jump right back into marriage with the first woman who makes eyes at you.”

“My mother doesn’t ‘make eyes’ at anyone.”

“Well, I doubt they met over bingo in the recreation hall at St. Hyacinth’s.”

They were all talking at once and the level of discourse got louder and louder.

Suddenly Jelly covered her ears and cut through the noise.

“HAVE YOU PEOPLE GOT A PROBLEM OR SOMETHING?”

There was a moment of stunned silence before Jelly added, “Let Pop and Mrs. Joffee talk. They are the ones who are getting married.”

The obvious logic of her mentally handicapped sister’s words caught them all up short.

“Thank you, Jelly,” Pop said. “Rachel and I will answer all
of your questions, or at least all of them that we think you have any right to know.”

Rachel smiled, appreciating his humor.

“This isn’t some whirlwind courtship,” she said. “We’ve known each other almost our whole lives.”

“And,” Pop added. “We’ve been in love with each other for over forty years.”

“What?” a chorus of three potential stepsiblings asked in horrified unison.

“Rachel and I fell in love in high school,” he said, with a confirming glance toward her. “Our families, our religious communities were completely opposed. We wanted nothing more from life than to just be together. But we allowed our parents to talk us out of it. Believe me when I tell you that we have no intention of allowing our children to do the same.”

Rachel nodded. “When we told our parents, we did it separately. I told mine, Walt told his. They would never even agree to meet each other. So we decided that we’d make our families sit down together before we even spoke a word.”

“It’s important to us that our children approve,” Pop said. “But we want to make it clear, this is our decision and we’ve already made it.”

A stark finality of silence settled around the table. Andi glanced at the two thirtysomething guys across the table from her. Their expressions reflected much of what she was feeling.

“So you two have…have…” Seth was loath to say it, but managed to get it out. “You two have been…uh…
close
all this time?”

“No we have not,” Rachel answered her son, sternly. “We
made our commitments and we honored them. We never tried to see each other, we never even spoke until we were both free.”

“And so you flew from Mom’s funeral straight into her arms,” Andi accused.

“Andrea, there is no need for that tone,” Pop said. “Ella knew all about us. She was there. We were a foursome. Rachel and I and Ella and Paul.”

“Paul?”

“Paul Gillette,” Pop answered. “My best friend and the love of your mother’s life. He was killed in Vietnam in 1969.”

Andi felt as if the bottom had just dropped out of her world and she was suspended in dangerously frightening midair.

“Ella and I were both suffering broken hearts,” Pop said. “It’s what brought us together and we made the best of it.”

“You made the best of it?”

He nodded. “We had a full life with a happy marriage with wonderful children. Neither of us wasted a lot of time wishing it were different.”

“You children can never understand what it was like for us,” Rachel said. Addressing her sons she added, “Your grandparents lost family and friends in the concentration camps in Poland. That I would give up our heritage and marry a Pole was more than they could bear. And I couldn’t bear to hurt them. I grew to love your father, just like my parents said I would. I regret nothing in the past. But I would regret not taking hold of our future.”

“Irv was an honest, decent man,” Pop said. “I don’t need to tell you boys that. Because I loved Rachel, I wanted her to be happy. And I am grateful that she was.” The two shared a smile. “And as for my Ella,” he continued looking at Andi. “I have no doubt she would be happy to see us together at last.”

Andi couldn’t argue. She didn’t know what to argue. She couldn’t claim to know her mother better than Pop did. It had become completely clear to her that she did not know either of her parents at all.

“So, if there are not any more immediate questions…” He let the words hang out there in the silence for a moment. “Pass your mother’s glass down this way, David, I’d like to propose a toast.”

The piece of crystal was handed down the table and she held it daintily by the stem.

Pop raised his toward her. “To my beautiful Rachel, whom I have loved so long. I wish to spend every day of the rest of my life with you.”

She smiled at him, her eyes glowing with admiration. “And to our two families,” she added. “Very soon to be one.”

Jelly cheered and gulped down her water. Pop and Rachel eagerly brought the wine to their lips. The two Joffee brothers drank as well, though a bit reluctantly.

Andi gazed at her glass as if it contained poison, but she did manage to choke down a sip.

Jelly decided it was necessary to convene a grand jury. Since Jack McCoy was not available, she took on the role of prosecutor herself. She lined up all her dolls and stuffed animals in rows, poised for attention. Then she carefully explained the gravity of the situation to Happy Bear, Quaky Duck, Baby Dimples and the rest assembled.

“Andi was mad and Mrs. Joffee’s sons were mad and it was like nobody was happy for them but me,” she explained.

Her words were acknowledged with complete silence in the Jury Room, located on the floor space between her bed and the closet.

“I think it will be great to have Mrs. Joffee as my new mom. My stepmom she calls it. I will never step on her, of course. But that’s something Andi might do.”

Still the jurors were uncommitted.

“I have a picture book I’d like to put into evidence,” Jelly announced.

She opened the creaky, old photo album that had so many photos of her mother in high school. Jelly flipped through until she came to the ones with the prom. She held the book up and pointed out to the assembly one particular photo.

“See this one,” she said. “I thought this girl looked familiar. It’s because she is Mrs. Joffee. And Pop is kissing her. So he must love her. I rest my case.”

THE FIRST STOREWIDE
cross-training at Guthrie Foods went pretty well, Pete thought. There had been only minimal bellyaching as they started out. There were cashiers who didn’t want to stock. And there were ham-handed meat clerks who just couldn’t get the right buttons on the registers. But Pete presented the exercise as a great adventure for the employees and a way to learn how to appreciate each other. His upbeat attitude continued to be contagious and he thought it had gone very well.

As he neared nine o’clock, he was eager to pick up Andi and tell her everything that had happened. That had become the best part of his day. He stored up incidents he wanted to share with her. And he listened eagerly to what she had to tell him.

“I’ve never talked so much in my life,” he’d told her one night as they lay in his bed together in the aftermath of intimacy. “It’s crazy. Minx and I needed to deliberately try to
have conversations. The only spontaneous ones we ever had were arguments. But with you, I just never seem to run out of things to say.”

“Yeah, most of my exes weren’t big on talking either,” she admitted. “But you, heck I practically have to stick a boob in your mouth to shut you up.”

“Well, okay, I’ll go for that!”

They laughed and joked and made love and Pete was convinced that he had never had it so good.

So he was humming happily to himself as he left Guthrie’s and walked out to his car. He loved his job. He loved his life. He loved Andi. He hadn’t told her yet, but he didn’t think it was going to be a big surprise. Maybe it was too soon to say so. If he rushed it, he might scare her off or she might doubt his sincerity. Timing was important. Just like in business or baseball, if your timing was off, well, it might not be fatal, but it could be a lot harder.

With that on his mind, something seemed strange when he pulled into the car wash. He saw a figure retreating hurriedly into the building. The vehicle under the overhang, an oversize Cadillac SUV, peeled out noisily and barreled down the street. Pete pulled his sedan into the spot just emptied. There was no light on in the building, but he saw shadows of the person who’d just gone inside. Something was wrong.

He put his car in Park and stepped outside. He knocked on the glass door.

“Andi?” he called out.

There was no answer. He grasped the doorknob and it turned. He took one step inside.

“Andi?” he called out again.

“She’s not here,” came the answer. The voice was gruff and choked, but still familiar.

“Cher-L?”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s Pete Guthrie,” he said. “What are you doing in here with the light off.”

He immediately reached for the switch.

As soon as the light came on, she slid down on the floor behind the desk.

“No please, I don’t want anyone to see me.”

Pete ignored that. He walked around the desk to where she was crouched down, hiding her face in her hands.

He squatted down in front of her. “Cher-L,” he asked quietly. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she said as she dropped her hands to her lap. But she didn’t look fine. She looked terrible. Her lipstick was smeared along her jaw. And the remains of brilliant black eye makeup had coursed down her cheeks in long black streaks.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why have you been crying?”

She didn’t deny it. “I just…I just…” The answer trailed off unspoken.

“Did somebody hurt you? Did one of the customers hurt you?”

“No! No!” she answered quickly, but then dissolved into tears once more.

She’d covered herself with some kind of black fringe shawl and she tried rather unsuccessfully to wipe her eyes on it.

Failing that, she used her forearm, as her right hand continued to be clutched into a tight fist.

Pete glanced around and spied a box of tissue on the desk and handed it to her.

She offered a tearful thank-you just above a whisper.

He remembered her in his office, crying. Then he’d been able to just walk away and let Miss Kepper handle it. He sure wished the old lady was here right now.

“Do you want me to call Andi?” he asked.

Cher-L’s eyes went wide with fear. “Oh no, please don’t call her. Please don’t. She’ll fire me for sure. Please, I just can’t get fired today. Please.”

Tears were coursing down her cheeks again, but she denied them.

“I’m fine, really I’m fine. Just go. I’m fine.”

Leaving was exactly what Pete wanted to do. “Well, if you’re sure you’re all right,” he said.

She nodded rapidly. “I’m okay,” she assured him. “I’ll get myself together and I’ll go home. I’m okay.”

“Do you want me to give you a ride?”

“Oh no, absolutely not. You go on. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

She waved him away. “Go. Just go.”

That was exactly what he wanted to do. He walked out the front door and around his car. Maybe he’d stop by Andi’s house. He really wanted to see Andi. And maybe they’d both come back and make sure Cher-L was okay. But no, Cher-L didn’t want Andi to know anything about this…whatever it was. She said it would get her fired. What could have happened to make her cry and also get her fired?

He sat down in his car. He had one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the ignition. But he never turned it over. He couldn’t.

Pete got out of the car and went back into the building. When he opened the door, he could hear her sobbing harder than when he’d left.

He’d never had a sister and he’d hardly known his ex-wife. But he was sure that if Andi were crying, she’d want a friend to sit beside her.

So that’s what he did. He slid his back down the wall and sat next to her on the floor. He just sat there. He didn’t try to put an arm around her or pat her hand or touch her in any way. He was pretty sure that Cher-L would be quick to misinterpret such a gesture. Pete just sat there, listening to her. Not asking questions. Not offering comfort. Just making sure she wasn’t alone.

She quit trying to hold back. She poured out all the wordless sadness and misery and shame that had dogged her since adolescence. And Pete sat silently as she let it go.

When she was down to sniffs and hiccups, Pete finally spoke.

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” she answered.

“Something,” he disagreed.

Her whole body trembled with the effort to release the truth she wanted to hold back.

“The worst thing that has ever happened,” she said. Then after a moment she disputed herself. “The same thing that always happens.”

Pete took that in with as open a mind as he could manage.

“Tell me,” he said.

“It was Micky Sveck,” she said.

“Who?”

“Micky Sveck. The guy who owns The Horny Toad.”

“Oh, that guy,” Pete said, recalling a short, beefy guy always seen with an expensive suit and a cheap girl.

“He…he came by here several times and he talked to me about dancing at his club,” Cher-L said. “I was, like, really flattered, because that must have meant that he thought I was really gorgeous and sexy and all that.”

Pete mentally raised an eyebrow. He’d been to The Horny Toad a few times in his life and it was his considered opinion that gorgeous, sexy, even attractive women were in very short supply. He didn’t say that to Cher-L. He just listened as she continued.

“So he came by again this afternoon and told me that he wanted to hire me, but I needed to audition. I told him I was closing up at nine and he said he’d come by to pick me up.”

Cher-L shot a glance at him and then shook her head, as if disgusted with her own naivete. “I thought we’d go to the club and maybe it was like amateur night. I’ve been working up a routine to do on stage. Then he shows up and says I need to prove I can do a lap dance cause that’s where the money is made. I was just trying to show him that I could be sexy. Then it went too far and I couldn’t seem to figure out how to stop.” She closed her eyes and then as if the memory was too vivid that way, she opened them quickly. She looked over at Pete, pleading for understanding. “I don’t know why I did it. It’s not like I wanted to. I don’t even like him. And he’s ugly and sweaty.”

She began crying again. This time much more quietly which somehow made the pain deeper.

“Cher-L, we all make mistakes,” Pete said. “If you asked for a show of hands in this town of who’s slept with somebody they shouldn’t have, maybe the only person without a hand up would be Father Blognick, and I’m not even that sure of him.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Maybe a little,” he admitted. “But lots of us have messed up more than once. I guess that makes up for those folks who never do at all.”

Cher-L shook her head. “Tommy Gilhoolly was a mistake. DeRoy Crandall was a mistake. Micky Sveck, was a lot more.” She held out her hand and opened the fist that she’d held so tightly closed. Inside was a crumpled wad of green paper bearing the image of Andrew Jackson. “He paid me twenty dollars.” Her words were quiet. “That’s what he saw me as, a twenty-dollar whore.”

She let the bill slip out of her hand and then covered her face as if she couldn’t bear for Pete to look at her.

How did this happen? he wondered. How could someone so young get so completely off on the wrong foot in the world? Maybe he should never have fired her? he thought.

Peterson, don’t go there,
he warned himself.
You didn’t cause this. But maybe you can figure out a way to help her out.

He gave himself a couple of minutes to work it out in his head. He checked his wallet and retrieved all four twenties that he found there.

“Cher-L, listen to me,” he said, decisively. “I need you to be proactive about this.”

“Proactive?”

“You need to take control,” he clarified. “Tonight Micky
had all the control, but you’ve got to change that. And you are the only one who can.”

He held the four twenties up so she could see them. They varied in age and wrinkles. He threw them on the floor with the one she’d got from Micky and quickly swished them all around so neither of them could tell one from the other. He picked up the stack of bills and handed them to her.

“Tomorrow morning, I want you to go into the doctor and get yourself checked out,” he said. “This guy could have some disease and if he gave it to you, you need to catch it right away. This money should pay for your doctor’s visit.”

“You shouldn’t have to give me money,” Cher-L said.

“I’m not giving you money,” Pete answered. “That’s what Micky did. I’m making an investment in a person, a friend, who I believe in. A friend I have respect for. But, Cher-L, you’re going to have to start having some respect for yourself. Promise me that you’ll take this money and go to the doctor.”

“I will,” she said.

“And I promise you that no one will ever hear a word about this from me,” he said. “What I know about you is that you are pretty and funny and flirty. You have a wonderful laugh. And Andi tells me that you’re very competent with the money and the paperwork. And that you’re just as friendly to the old geezers who show up here as the young bucks. Those are good things about you, Cher-L. It’s time to start putting the bad things behind you and start building on what is good.”

She swallowed hard. “It’s easy for you to say. People like you and Andi just never screw up like I do.”

He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You don’t count a failed marriage? Mine was a pretty big screwup.”

She shrugged. “Okay, maybe that,” she admitted. “But Andi is practically perfect. And she’s just
so
lucky.”

The younger woman’s tone was surprisingly rife with envy and more than a little resentment.

“Lucky?” Pete asked rhetorically and then shook his head. “Not so much,” he answered. “She has a father who barely managed to scrape together a living, a sister who is mentally handicapped and needed all the attention in the family, a mom who died too young and now a business that half the community is opposed to. If Andi is ‘practically perfect’, she’s made herself that way by sheer willpower alone.”

“You like her, don’t you?”

He nodded. “I do like her,” he said. “And I admire her. She’s smart and creative and not afraid of what other people think of her. I see those same qualities in you, Cher-L. Why do you think I hired you to work for me? It wasn’t because there was no one else. And it certainly wasn’t because you gave the appearance of being just a cookie-cutter employee.”

Cher-L choked out a laugh. It was the first real evidence of her dark clouds lifting.

“That was your mistake,” she said. “Cookie cutter is part of the bakery’s job description.”

A spattering of gravel hit the glass of Andi’s bedroom window. It didn’t wake her. She wasn’t asleep. After the surprise engagement dinner, her mind was racing.

She’d managed to get through the meal without screaming, throwing anything or stomping out in a huff. All three actions had been distinct possibilities.

One action that had not been possible was eating dinner. Sitting in the best restaurant in town and she couldn’t even choke down the walnut-and-endive salad she ordered. It looked beautiful and smelled even better, but her stomach was tied up in knots.

Jelly had no such problem. She cheerfully ate and chatted and celebrated.

“I’ve never had a brother before and now I have two!”

Mrs. Joffee’s sons looked as unhappy about that as Andi felt. It was crazy and no amount of wine, prime rib and crème brûlée would make it less so.

After what seemed like hours of conversational torture, they finally made it back home. Andi held her questions until Jelly headed up to bed, but she could remain silent no longer.

“I don’t understand this, Pop,” she said. “I don’t understand this at all.”

She followed her father into the kitchen. He got himself a glass of water from the tap.

“It’s not really all that complicated,” he told her. “We love each other and we want to get married. Oh, I’m not imagining that everybody in town is going to think it’s the best idea since sliced bread. Father Blognick is sure to give me a few choice words. I don’t know if they’re as gossipy at the synagogue as they are at St. Hyacinth’s, but I suspect Rachel’s rabbi and his congregation may not take it any better. But she and I are clear. It’s not about them. It’s about us.”