“Stu wouldn’t shut up about some new grout cleaner. And no, I haven’t seen the schedule, so I don’t know when we’ll do the Donaldson house again. But as soon as I do—”
“Baby, I’m not talking about the house. What I mean is, what’s going on with you?” Mom sits down, curling an arm around my shoulders. “I know you wouldn’t be over an hour late because some moron was talking about cleaner. I know there’s someone. You want to tell me about him?”
Tell Mom about Greg? I can’t do that. And besides, it’s not like we’re…anything, really. He just took me out. And made me dinner. And is a cop. No, I definitely can’t mention him. She’d be furious.
She wouldn’t get the Allison thing either. I know how she feels about people in general, and the whole idea of friends in particular. She thinks people are there to use and nothing more.
“Well, the thing is…the Donaldsons have a son, and I figured any information is good information, right?”
I can’t believe I just said that. She’ll never buy it.
But she does, because she says, “James, right?” She doesn’t even sound surprised. I can’t believe that either. She thinks I would have anything to do with him? He’s everything I can’t stand in guys. He’s someone who charms and lies and then walks away. He’s—
He’s everything I’m supposed to be.
“I saw you together at the party,” she says. “Not that hard to figure out, baby. He’s not the kind of face you forget. How long have you been seeing him?”
“I…um. Not long. And I know you’re probably mad, so I’ll stop—”
“I’m glad,” she says, and I stare at her, stunned. If I was messing around with James she’d be happy?
“Don’t look so surprised, baby. Remember, I did see you two together. And look, I know what happened with—oh, what’s his name?—never mind, it doesn’t matter. It was ages ago. Anyway, I know it was—”
She squeezes my shoulder and I barely, just barely, manage not to flinch. “I know it was hard and I’m glad you’re out there having a little fun now. It’s what you should be doing. It’s what makes life worth living. Plus, I know you’d never do anything stupid. We both know what really matters, and it’s all that silver just waiting for us.”
“But—” I say, and then fall silent because I can’t say what’s next. I can’t say she’s wrong. I can’t say James is nothing to me and always will be. I can’t tell Mom I don’t care about the silver. I can’t say I’m not like her and don’t want to be. I can’t say it because it would hurt her. I can’t say it because it doesn’t matter. Everything’s set and there’s no way out of it now.
21
I don’t normally care what day it is but I know today is Thursday. Why? Because I have the day off. No scrubbing toilets, no vacuuming, no sitting in the car with Shelly pigging up every inch of space and Joan doing her part to keep the cigarette industry in business.
I get up and make eggs and bacon and coffee. Well, sort of. I don’t know if I’d eat the eggs, but the bacon seems to have turned out okay. Mom’s still asleep when I’m done, which is surprising because normally the minute she smells coffee she’s up and asking when it will be ready.
I go to her bedroom. Her door is open and the blinds are up but she’s lying in bed staring at the wall.
“Mom?”
“Hey, baby.” She sounds awful, like there’s a whistling teakettle stuck in her chest.
“You sound awful.”
“I just slept funny. Will you bring me a cup of coffee?”
“How about”—I go into the bathroom, look around until I find the bottle of cough syrup, and then go back out and wave it at her—“some of this?”
“I’m not coughing anymore,” she says, and then does, twice.
“What?” she says when I look at her. “I told you I slept funny. Will you please bring me some coffee? I’ve got to meet Harold in—what time is it?”
I tell her and she hops out of bed, saying, “Coffee, baby, now. I’ve got to get ready.”
She rushes into the bathroom, turns the shower on. I go downstairs and come back up with a mug. She sticks one arm out of the shower for it.
“Thank you,” she says as I wrap her fingers around the mug. “I feel better already. Don’t I sound better? I do. So stop making your worry face and go do something fun.”
“How do you know what face I’m making? You can’t even see me.”
She laughs. “And now I know I’m right. Seriously, baby, go out, have fun. Maybe go see that someone you’ve been—”
Eww. Must stop her now. “Okay, okay, I’ll go out.”
Her laughter follows me into the hall. I go back downstairs and clean up the kitchen. After she’s left to meet Harold, pressing a kiss on my cheek before she heads off to meet her cab, I go into town, end up at the grocery store. I stand in the cough and cold remedy aisle again, looking for something she can take. Or rather, will take.
I skip the cough syrup—that certainly hasn’t done much good—and check out the cold remedies. Most of them say they’ll clear a stuffy head or nose but I don’t see anything about fixing odd noises when you breathe. But maybe that’s “stuffy chest.”
“I’m starting to think this is your second home.”
Greg. I know his voice. Strange but true, and not only that, I’m glad to hear it. I turn and he’s standing a few feet away, smiling at me. He’s wearing his uniform today. His nose is a little sunburned.
My first instinct is to—well, it should be to smile politely and leave. I know this. But my actual first instinct is to smile back. To smile and stay.
“Your mom still not better?”
I know I told him about Mom—and where I live and actually let him in the house and want to talk to him now, and oh crap, let’s just not go there. I just have to stop screwing up around him. “What, now you’re a doctor?”
“Yeah, asking about your mother means I’m a doctor. Have you ever been to a doctor? If I was one, I would have…” He picks a box off the shelf and holds it out toward me. When I take it, he says, “Okay, that’ll be a hundred and eighty bucks.”
“Hilarious.” I put the box back on the shelf.
“Yes, I can see I’ve really cheered you up. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. What are you doing here?” Why am I still talking to him?
“I just finished…” He gestures toward the front of the store.
“What? Guarding a dangerous vegetable shipment?”
He doesn’t say anything, but his face turns a little red.
“Oh, please, tell me you weren’t actually guarding vegetables.” I manage, just barely, not to laugh, but I hear it in my voice.
His face is definitely red.
“You were!” I am laughing now.
“I should have known. The humiliation of my having to come down here and watch over a truck cheers you up. But just so you know, it wasn’t vegetables. It was—” He grins at me. “A cake.”
“A cake?” I start laughing even harder.
“Hey, I’ll have you know it’s a very special cake. It’s for two hundred and fifty people and it’s to celebrate the first town meeting.” He pauses for a second and moves closer. “You want to know what the worst part is?”
“What?”
“They spelled West Hill wrong, made it all one word. When I pointed this out, you know what the bakery guy told me?”
I shake my head.
“‘Oh, I’ll just throw some sprinkles on and no one will notice.’”
We look at each other and both start laughing.
“Sorry,” I say after a moment. “It’s just that—”
“I spent my morning watching over a cake?”
“Yeah.”
He grins at me. “Do you want to go get something to eat? There’s a New York System place just down the road.”
I shouldn’t. But I want to. “New York System?”
“Yeah.”
“You do know this isn’t New Y
ork, don’t you?”
He laughs. “That’s a yes, right?”
“Me pointing out you don’t know what state you live in makes it a ‘yes,’ how?”
“’Cause you’re still here,” he says. “And you’re smiling again.”
I go to lunch with him. He says he would drive but he walked to the grocery store from the police station, and so before I know it he’s in my car. The car Mom and I share. The car I know for a fact she sure doesn’t want any cops to notice, much less ride in.
“This isn’t what I expected,” he says when we get in. “I thought it would be more—well, you.”
“This is me. I’m a very…” I look at the steering wheel, hoping it will contain a clue as to what kind of car this is. I never really notice our cars because we never have them for very long. Great. No words, just a logo. “I’m a very midsize sedan kind of girl.”
He laughs. “I can think of a million words to describe you, Dani, but a midsize sedan kind of girl? Not what springs to mind.”
I look over at him, ready to ask what that means, and stop, the words drying up in my throat. He’s looking at me and smiling and it’s not like I haven’t seen Greg smile or look at me before or anything. It’s just…it’s not even what he said. It’s just the way he said it, like he really could think of a million words to describe me. Like he already knows them by heart.
Wow. I’m feeling—
“Uh, red light,” Greg says, and I slam on the brakes.
Happy. I’m happy.
I’m so screwed.
It’s all I can think about as the light turns green and we drive into the heart of West Hill, and I’m torn between wishing I’d never agreed to go to lunch with him and knowing that I’m really glad that I am. Which isn’t so much being torn, I guess, as it is realizing that, for the first time in ages, I actually want to spend time with a guy.
“There it is,” Greg says, pointing out the window. “My home away from home. I know you’re thinking, “‘Wow, what a glamorous police station. How on earth can I get a tour?’”
I’m in a car with a guy who’s a cop, and we just drove by a police station. The station where he works, and which reminds me all over again of exactly what I’m supposed to be doing—which is avoiding cops—and what I’m doing instead. And how I shouldn’t be doing it.
And yet I am doing it—I am with him, and what’s more, I’m happy I am—and that makes me mad. At him, but mostly at myself.
“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
Okay, I might have overdone it there because Greg looks at me, eyebrows raised. But all he says is, “I know,” and then, quietly, “You’re not easy to figure out. It’s one of the reasons why I like you.”
So SO screwed.
“Here it is,” he says, before I have time to think of a reply—not that I’m sure I could think of anything to say right now—and gestures at a door squeezed into a tiny space between two stores. “And hey, look, there’s a parking space. Now that’s what I call—well, okay. I call it you turning down this street and not stopping.”
“I don’t want the car to get scratched. Or dented.” And I sure don’t want to leave it parked in broad daylight a block from the police station. Or let myself think about the fact that I’m still with him.
“Well, that’s less likely to happen, especially since we’re still driving. Should I just take a nap and have you wake me up when we get there?”
“We’re like two blocks away. Your cake delivery supervising duties tire you out or something?”
“Two and a half blocks. Oh, wait, are you stopping now? Are you sure you want to? Look, there’s a whole other empty block just waiting for you—”
“Don’t tempt me.” I pull the car into a parking space. “So what is this New York thing?”
“New York System,” he says as we get out of the car.
“Yeah, that answers my question.”
“You’ll see,” he says, and grins, bumping his shoulder against mine. I decide not to think about how screwed I am anymore.
Then I find out what New York System means.
A hot dog. It’s a hot dog. We walk into the smallest and oldest-looking restaurant I’ve ever seen and that’s all people are eating. And the place is packed too, standing room only like we’re in a club or something. Greg joins what I’m guessing is the line and I stand behind him watching people eat these things, which appear to be nothing more than small hot dogs covered with chili.
“Okay,” I ask him when we’re almost about to order. “Why do you call chili dogs New York—?”
“Shhh,” he whispers in pretend terror. “Don’t say the c word. You’ll get us thrown out of here.”
I look at him. He’s smiling and his hair is still nothing but pale fuzz and he’s in his uniform (a cop, he’s a cop) and he asks way too many questions and…and I’m still happy to be here.
“Chili,” I whisper back, just to watch him laugh. Which he does, and then says, “Six” to the guy behind the counter.
“Six?” I ask. “Is this your only meal of the day or something?”
“Watch,” he says, and I do, see the guy line up a row of hot dog buns on one arm. He adds the hot dogs next and then, in a strangely graceful way, dumps on mustard, onion, something from a big spice shaker, and then the not-chili. It takes him maybe ten seconds and he doesn’t spill or drop anything.
“Wow.” I look over at Greg, who’s grabbed two sodas, grinning at me as he pretends to linger over the diet ones for a second, and then gets in line to pay.
I look at him and I’m—you know what? I’m tired of worrying, of thinking about what I should do. I’m just going to let things be, just for this one lunch.
“Hey, Dani, I think I see a place to sit,” Greg says. I like the way he says my name, the name I’ve always wanted for the me I’ve never gotten to be.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” I tell him, and watch him smile.
22
Greg finds us a spot in a corner. I’m not sure I’ll be able to eat because the place is still so packed I can’t move my arms—and because I’m not really fond of chili—but it turns out there’s just enough space, and whatever is on the hot dogs doesn’t taste like chili at all. It’s a weird combination of meat sauce and gravy and it’s good. Really good.
“So did that stuff you got for your mom before help at all?” Greg says when he hands me my second hot dog.
“I guess. She’s fine now. Well, sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“She says she’s okay but she doesn’t seem better. You know?”
“She should go to the doctor,” Greg says, and picks up the last hot dog. Not-chili leaks onto his shirt cuff. He sighs. “The downside of the New York System.”
“I haven’t had that problem.”
“I suppose that’s true as long as I don’t look at the floor.”
“Hey!” I kick him lightly in the shin, and then realize I’m flirting. Actual honest-to-God flirting. It’s fun. “And I’ve tried to get her to go to the doctor. She won’t go.”
“There’s a clinic right outside town,” he says. “The doctors there are pretty nice.”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter how nice they are. I don’t remember her ever going to the doctor for anything. But I just…I don’t know what to do.” I bite my lip.
“Hey,” he says, and leans over, brushes his thumb across my mouth. “You’ll figure it out.”
I nod, caught by that simple touch. By how good it feels. Being with him makes the whole world sharper somehow. More real. More everything.
“I should probably go.” I should, I really should. Except I’m not getting up and walking away or even moving.
“Me too.” He isn’t moving either, and we just stare at each other for the longest time. Then someone says, “Hello, waiting to sit down,” and it breaks the tension because we both laugh.
Once we’re outside, though, we both stand on the sidewalk. Out of the corner of my ey
e I can see our reflection in a store window. I can see how close we are. I can see him looking at me, a smile on his face. I smile at his reflection. His smile gets broader.
“What’s so funny?” I ask.
“I—oh hell. Here goes. I was just thinking I’ve never wanted to go back to work less than I do right now and it’s because you’re here and you’re looking at me. Only you aren’t, really. You’re looking at my reflection.”
“I’m looking at you.” I turn, face him. He grins more and in the bright sunshine I see the freckles on his nose, lurking under his sunburn. I see that when his hair grows out it’ll be that strange mix of red and blond and brown again, something that shouldn’t look right on anybody but will on him.
“Dani?” he says quietly, moving closer. He’s going to kiss me, I know it. I am standing here and know it. A cop is going to kiss me. Greg is going to kiss me, and I want him to. I want him to kiss me.
Someone bumps into me then, hard, and I look up to see a middle-aged guy I don’t know…and Mom.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, “I wasn’t watching my step.” Her voice is polite, friendly even, but her eyes—she’s furious. Really and truly furious in a way I’ve only seen her with others. Not with me. Never me.
“It’s okay,” I mumble, and watch her walk off arm in arm with the guy, who must be Harold. She doesn’t turn back but I watch her steer Harold into a store and know she’s hanging around to keep an eye on me, to see what I do next.
“I need to get home,” I tell Greg, and take off before he can say anything. I think he calls out something as I’m crossing the street, but I’m too freaked out to listen.
She saw me. She saw me with Greg. She saw me almost kiss him. I race back to the car and drive home, where I wait and wait and wait some more.
She comes back what feels like a million years later. I’m sitting outside, waiting for her, and I watch her pay the cab driver and tell him very sweetly to have a nice afternoon. She walks toward the house, toward me, still all smiles. She stops when she’s standing at the foot of the steps, and the smile is long gone from her face.