The Penalty Box (29 page)

“
How do we
kill her?” Bitsy whispered to Katie.

Lolly, the Fat Fighters's leader, had come to tonight's meeting with two Tam-o-Shanter-clad, felt puppets named McFatty and McSkinny who spoke to each other in Scottish accents about making smart food choices.

“You dinnae want to eat that fish and chips, lass, d'ya ken?”

“Och, I'll have a wee helping of veggies. And a dram of sparklin' mineral water.”

When the puppet talk turned to the caloric hazards of haggis, Denise excused herself to go to the bathroom, never returning. Katie and Bitsy found her waiting for them at their usual booth at Tabitha's. “We could stuff some oat cakes down her throat,” Denise suggested, shaking her head as if to disperse the memory of what they'd endured.

“Death by bagpipes might be an option,” Katie added, fighting to keep her eyes open. Tuck's departure had left her completely exhausted. Time felt bent. The day before, she hadn't known what to do with herself. She was so used to taking Tuck to see Mina on Sunday that the prospect of a day with no plans made her nervous. Eager to escape her mother's crying jags, she'd gone running until her limbs felt liquid, then came home and collapsed into a nap. Bad idea. The nap played havoc with her body clock, and she spent that night tossing and turning. When she finally did fall sleep, she dreamed Snake talked Tuck into getting two crossed hockey sticks tattoed on his forearm. She woke with a start and couldn't fall back asleep.

“Katie, I need to ask you something.” Bitsy's train of thought was derailed by the waitress walking by with a freshly baked chocolate cake. “Yummm.”

“A slice of that is at least six or seven hundred wee calories,” Denise said with a burr, admonishing Bitsy with a light slap to the wrist. “You'd have to spend an entire weekend on the treadmill to work that baby off.”

“I ken, lass,” Bitsy joked back, her eyes glazed with desire.

“Bitsy, dinnae,” Katie warned. “You're only twelve pounds from your goal weight. Remember,” she added in Lolly's voice, “thin tastes better.”

“Than what?” Bitsy asked. The waitress now stood by their table. “The usual for me,” Bitsy told her. “Black coffee and—?” She looked at the other two. “What are we splitting tonight?”

“A slice of apple pie,” Denise announced.

“Oh, good,” said Bitsy as the waitress walked away. “That's got fruit in it. It can't be all bad.”

Katie stifled a yawn. “What did you want to ask me, Bits?” If it wasn't so rude she'd rest her head on the table.

“You know how I'm a member of the youth hockey booster club, right?”

Katie nodded.

“We were trying to think of some ways to raise money apart from the usual car washes and candy drives. And we came up with a brilliant idea: a charity auction. We could auction off dinners at restaurants, quilts, a massage, and,” she lowered her voice, “a date with Paul van Dorn.” Bitsy looked uneasy. “What do you think?”

Katie pushed out her lower lip nonchalantly and shrugged. “Sounds fine.”

“You don't mind sharing him for a night?” Bitsy asked. “It
is
for a good cause.”

Bitsy and Denise knew nothing about her and Paul calling it quits. Now she'd have to tell them. “Paul and I broke up.”

Denise gasped as if she'd just witnessed a shooting. “What
happened?
”

“It wasn't working,” said Katie, surprised at the small stab of pain she felt talking about it.

Bitsy looked skeptical. “It wasn't about staying in Didsbury, was it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn't dump him because he's a townie, did you?”

“No. He dumped me.”

“He did?” Denise squawked with indignation. “That sonofabitch!”

“It's okay,” Katie assured her friends. “The timing was off, you know? And we both have a lot of stuff we need to work out.”

Bitsy frowned. “What soap did you get those lines from?”

“I'm serious,” Katie pleaded in self-defense. She knew the explanation sounded lame, but it was the best she could come up with without going into detail and making her friends feel bad for where they chose to live. It wasn't that she disliked Didsbury. In fact, she had come to regard it affectionately, a place where time standing still was a positive for everyone but her. She was frightened of the compromise she could imagine herself making for love if she and Paul had kept seeing each other. Better that it was over.

“Does Liz know?” Denise asked.

“Not yet. I'm sure she'll find out.” Katie hadn't even thought about Liz.

“Oh, Katie, I'm so sorry,” said Bitsy sympathetically. “I was hoping—” She broke off. “Well, you know.”

“Guess it wasn't meant to be,” said Denise. She winked at Katie. “So can I have his number?”

Bitsy clucked her tongue. “No wonder you look so exhausted. You're in mourning.”

“For Tuck, not for Paul,” Katie quickly pointed out. She filled her friends in on the Tuck situation. Both agreed Tully's Basin was not the most desirable address.

Denise looked uneasy. “Isn't that where that single mother and her three kids were machete'd in their sleep a few years ago?”

Katie stared across the table. “Thanks for sharing, Denise.”

“They were bludgeoned, not machete'd,” Bitsy corrected. She turned to Katie. “Tuck'll be fine. He's got you, he's got hockey, he's got friends, he's got your mom. Who knows? Maybe Mina's really got it together this time.”

Katie wolfed down her portion of pie. “I hope so.”

 

 

Paul knew Mina
was Katie's sister the minute she strolled through the door of the bar. They both had the same delicate features and intelligent, watchful eyes that seemed to absorb everything at a glance. But their main similarity was their attitude: Both carried themselves with aplomb. With Katie, it was learned behavior, even an act. Mina looked like she was born to it.

“Paul?”

He nodded with a friendly smile as this sparrow of a woman approached the bar. “Mina?”

She seemed taken aback. “How did you know who I was?”

“You look like Katie.”

Mina's lips pressed into a hard line. “Hardly. I'm much smaller.”

“In stature. But you have the same eyes and same features.”

Mina ignored this. “I hear you're looking for a waitress?”

“I am. One who's also got experience as a cocktail server. That you?”

Mina laughed, the deep throaty rattle of a lifelong smoker. “Oh, yeah. I worked at Topanga's for years.”

Paul nodded, impressed. Everyone knew Topanga's, a roadhouse right outside Didsbury. As a child, Paul was always enthralled by the fleet of shining choppers lined up outside, and the bizarre ceramic heifer on the roof that symbolized —what? The minute he turned eighteen he made a pilgrimage to the bar. He lasted all of five minutes. Conversation had stopped dead the minute he and his preppie friends in their Oxford shirts and chinos walked through the door. Not wanting to go home with a pool cue through his head, he'd left promptly. If Mina could handle the crowd at Topanga's, working at the Penalty Box would be a piece of cake.

“Why did you leave Topanga's?” Paul asked.

“Rehab,” Mina said with a challenge in her eyes that dared him to judge her.

“And you're clean and sober now?”

“As a whistle.”

“Can you work Friday and Saturday nights?”

“Yup.”

“Any days?”

“As long as it doesn't interfere with my kid's schedule.”

Finally, some common ground. “Tuck's a great kid.”

Mina snorted. “He thinks the sun shines out of
your
ass, that's for sure.”

Paul smiled uncomfortably. If he did hire her, he'd have to make it clear he was her boss, and she really needed to show a little respect.

“Will we see you at some hockey games?”

“Yeah, I guess,” said Mina flatly. “Hey, listen, I'm sorry about that thing yesterday, Tuck bugging you and all.”

“It was fine,” Paul assured her. “Like I said, he's a great kid.” He glanced at the clipboard on the bar. “All right, let me ask you some other stuff before we make it official.” He ran through the gamut of necessary questions: What kind of cash register did you work with before? How would you handle drunk customers? What would you do if another server asked you to give a free drink to a friend? How would you get to work? Mina gave all the right answers, so Paul hired her. That she was good looking was an added bonus—not only to the bar, but to her personally. The more tips she made, the better able she could provide for Tuck. Paul wanted the kid to have as easy a time of it as possible.

Paul tapped his pen against the clipboard. “Any questions?”

“Yeah. What do I have to wear?”

“Jeans are fine. I'll give you a Penalty Box T-shirt when you come in on Thursday to train.”

Mina's mouth twisted into a lascivious smirk. “Nice and tight, I suppose.”

“This is a business, Mina. I want to make money and so do you.”

“Hey, I've got no problem showing off the twins, believe me.”

Paul was no prude, but her bluntness had pink creeping up his neck. “Anything else?” he murmured.

“Yeah. Why'd you dump my sister?”

The question was completely inappropriate, of course, but there was such unexpected protectiveness in Mina's voice he felt compelled to answer.

“I dumped her before she could dump me. I wanted to avoid humiliation.”

“So it was better to humiliate her instead?”

Was she really humiliated? Paul longed to ask. Does she miss me? Does she think it was a big fat mistake? Here was Katie's sister right in front of him; if he wanted, he could ply her with questions and get answers that only she was privy to, perhaps.

“I'm sorry if your sister felt humiliated,” Paul said politely.

“Actually, I have no idea if she did,” Mina admitted. “I'm just assuming. You know Katie—total control freak. Her head must have popped off when you took the reins.” Mina assessed him. “Not that your relationship would have worked, anyway.”

“Oh yeah?” Paul replied with some irritation. “Why's that?”

“Don't take this wrong, okay? But I can't see Katie settling down with—”

“A townie?”

“Well, yeah.” Mina was looking at Paul not as if he were her new employer, but some pitiful specimen. “I mean, why the hell did you come back here? There's
nothing
going on. If I had your kind of money, this is the last place I would've wanted to end up. But that's just me,” she concluded with surprising humility.

“Yes, it is.” Mina and Katie were more alike than Paul initially suspected. Mina was just more brutal in her phrasing.

“Though I think the hockey stuff you do is really nice.” Mina gathered herself up to leave. “Thursday, then?”

“Actually, Tuck has a game tomorrow afternoon, so I'll see you there.”

“Right.”

It bothered Paul that Mina sounded as if she knew nothing about it.

“Well,” she continued, suddenly bashful as she eyed her scuffed Frye boots, “thanks. You know.” She lifted her eyes. “For giving me a chance and everything. A lot of people wouldn't.”

“You're very welcome.”

After she departed, the harshness of her words kept ringing in his head.
This is the last place I would've wanted to end up.
Paul glanced around at the memorabilia-draped walls of his bar. Was this really where he wanted to be?

 

 

“Mom, you have
to stop crying.” Katie prided herself on being compassionate, but even she was growing weary of her mother's tears, sniffles, and heavy sighs. It was like turning on the radio and always hearing the same song. “You're acting like Tuck is dead!”

“He may as well be for all I get to see him.”

“It's been less than a week! I'm sure he and Mina are readjusting to each other. And he's got school. If you want to see him so badly, come with me to his hockey game tomorrow.”

Her mother brightened a bit. “There's an idea.”

“Or call Mina. I'm sure you two could work out a time you could stop over and see how they're getting on.” Of course, that was a bold-faced lie, but Katie was all for fibbing if it helped alleviate her mother's whimpering.

Her mother shook her head vehemently. “I can't go
there.
”

“What do you mean, ‘there'?”

“You know. Tully's Basin.”

“What if someone slashes my tires? Or robs me?”

“Or throws you to the ground and injects you with heroin and you become a hopeless junkie who has to turn tricks to support your habit
and
maintain your costly AARP membership?”

Her mother scowled. “You're not funny, Katie.”

“And you're not rational. I know Tully's Basin can be iffy, so if you want, I'll go with you. Just make sure you
call
first. I don't want Mina squawking that we're checking up on her or that we don't think she can handle things.”

This seemed to appease her mother even as it filled Katie with a mounting sense of panic. She really didn't have time to accompany her mother to Mina's; she was falling further and further behind in the writing of her book. Her brain simply refused to buckle down. Thoughts of organizing material were constantly replaced by thoughts of Paul. Or Tuck. Or even Snake. She'd be damned if she'd ask for an extension, though. She'd lost weight and transformed her life via willpower, and if she had to draw on the same internal resources to meet her deadline, she would. So what if it meant she'd have no life over the summer? Work was her life, anyway.