She hung up before I could even ask her what show she meant. The fact I had no idea proved all the more how much had changed since I’d left home. And that was a good thing, I reminded myself as I disconnected the call and set the timer on the oven. The last few months between my decision to take the job in Harrisburg and move out on my own and the day I’d moved had been horrible.
Most mothers and daughters I knew had weathered their share of arguments. Daughters had to grow away from their moms. To go to school. Move out. Become women. I’d become a woman under my mom’s watchful, too-protective eye, and had chafed at it even as I knew I had no choice. When my doctor had declared me seizure-free for more than a year and thus able to drive, instead of getting better, my mom’s concerns had grown worse. I didn’t blame her for them. I understood why she was so nervous. I’d been effectively disabled by the injury to my brain, and there was no cure. Only treatment. Only fingers crossed and prayers said. Only hope.
Even so, it had been unbearable living at home for those few months after I accepted the new job and before I was able to settle on and move into my house. She’d hovered, scolded and worried me nearly to madness. We’d fought harder and longer than we ever had during my adolescence. There’d been more than one night when I went to bed fuming and woke still angry, and I’m sure she felt the same way. She was afraid to let me go, and I was afraid of never being able to stand on my own. Now, here in the house I could only afford because of all the years I’d lived rent-free when my friends had been paying out to landlords, I wanted to call my mom back and tell her how sorry I was for being so snotty every time she’d worried about me.
Instead, I licked cookie dough straight off the spoon and dared salmonella to find me. It tasted extra good for being licked in defiance of everything my mom had ever told me, and because I knew I really shouldn’t eat cookie dough when my pants were already a little too snug. I was a rebel with a spoon.
By the time the cookies finished baking my kitchen smelled gorgeous and my stomach felt a little queasy. I sipped at some ginger ale and laid the cookies out on a pretty plate I’d picked up at the Salvation Army for a dime. It had roses on it and gold around the rim, and I could’ve sold it on eBay for a hundred times what I’d bought it for. It was another example of my thrift-store theory. I’d gone in looking specifically for house-wares to stock my new house and found an entire box of mismatched but complementary plates for ten cents apiece.
I had plenty of plates. I could give this one up. On the other hand, it was pretty enough that anyone who got a plateful of cookies on it might feel compelled to make sure he returned it to me.
I could be so sneaky sometimes.
Chapter 08
“Hi—” The rest of my sentence cut off as Johnny’s door opened and didn’t reveal Johnny.
The older woman stared at me for a long moment, a sour look on her face. When at last she spoke, it was with a shake of her head. “You here for him, I guess.”
“Um, Johnny Dellasandro?”
“That’s who lives here, ain’t?” Her thick Pennsylvania Dutch accent sounded out of place here in the “big city,” though I’d heard it plenty back home. “You’d better come in.”
I stepped over the threshold and wiped my boots carefully on the mat, not wanting to drip dirty snow water on his beautiful floors again. I held my chin and the plate of cookies high. I’d covered them with some festive red plastic wrap I’d bought reduced after Christmas.
The woman looked at them, then at me. “You made these for him?”
“I did. Is he here?”
“He likes chocolate chip cookies.” She smiled then, and it transformed her from grumpy gnome into beaming fairy godmother. “Come on back the hall, wunst. He’s upstairs doing something arty. I’ll get him for you.”
“Thanks.” My stomach in knots, I followed her to the kitchen.
She opened what in my house was a closet, but here turned out to be a set of back stairs, and hollered up them. “Johnny!”
Her voice echoed, but nobody answered. She looked at me, still standing in my buttoned-up coat, plate of cookies in my hands. She shrugged.
“Johnny Dellasandro!”
No answer. She sighed and heaved herself onto the bottom stair, which jutted out at a forty-five-degree angle from the staircase. She put her hand on the door frame and leaned out of sight, then screamed his name so loudly I took a step back.
“That’ll get him,” she said with a nod and a grin, and dusted her hands as though she’d just finished a particularly difficult task. “When he’s working it’s like his ears get filled with cotton.”
“I don’t want to disturb him.” He’d already made a practice of giving me the stink eye. If I took him away from his art, I could only imagine the reaction I’d get.
She flapped her hands. “Pshaw. He’s been working all day long. He needs a break. And some cookies from a pretty girl.”
I smiled. “I don’t want to interrupt, that’s all.”
We both turned at the thud of footsteps on the stairs. I saw his feet first, bare toes. My own toes curled. Then the hem of a pair of faded jeans, hem ragged. Then Johnny stepped onto the last step and paused in the doorway. He looked perplexed.
“Whatchoo shoutin’ fooah?”
Fuck me, I loved that accent.
“You have comp’ny. For mercy’s sake, Johnny, put a shirt on!” The woman sighed and put her hands on her hips, shaking her head.
Not on my account, I thought, trying hard not to stare and not sure exactly where to look if it wasn’t at those delicious nipples. Fuck, his abs were hard, too. He might not be young, but he was still superfit and in better shape than some of the younger dudes I’d been with.
“Hi,” I said, relieved my voice didn’t shake or catch. I couldn’t do anything about the blush, but hoped my cheeks simply looked rosy from the cold and not from embarrassment.
Johnny stared at me. The woman looked from him to me, then back, and sighed. She took the plate of cookies from my hands and held it up to him.
“She brought you cookies, dummkopf. You,” she said to me, “take off your coat and sit yourself.”
Her tone showed she was used to being obeyed, but I waited until he stepped off the stairs and all the way into the kitchen before I sat. I didn’t take off my coat, though. Johnny, casting a glance over his shoulder at me, crossed to another door that did prove to be a closet, where he hooked a hooded sweatshirt off the back and put it on. I mourned a little but was relieved at the same time. I was less distracted that way.
“Now, I’m off, finally. Your dinner’s still in the oven and your groceries are all put away. I left your bills on the desk and your other mail in the basket,” the woman said.
“Thank you, Mrs. Espenshade.”
She flapped her hands again. “It’s what you pay me for, ain’t? Now I’m leaving and I’ll be back on Friday to take care of the cleaning. Don’t forget now.”
“I’ll be here,” Johnny said, looking at me.
“I don’t care if you’re here or not. Maybe you should be away, then I could get more done.” She chortled at that and shook her head again. She patted my shoulder as she passed me. “Don’t let him eat them all by himself.”
“Good night, Mrs. Espenshade,” Johnny called after her, but her only reply was the slamming of the front door.
“Hi,” I said again into the painful silence that followed. “I brought cookies. Chocolate chip. They’re homemade.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re better.” I smiled.
He didn’t. He didn’t open them, either. Nor did he sit. Johnny stood against the counter, arms crossed over his chest.
I was too warm in the kitchen with my coat on, my scarf tucked tight around my throat. I didn’t dare unwind it, though. Mrs. Espenshade might’ve welcomed me in, but Johnny definitely wasn’t.
“I mean, why’d you bring me cookies?”
“To say thank you for helping me out the other day.
For the tea. Because you had crappy prepackaged cookies and I knew I could give you better.” My voice rose a little with each sentence, and I had to bite off my words to keep from sounding too strident.
Something flickered in his gaze, some indiscernible emotion passed over his mostly impassive face. “Okay. I’ll eat them later.”
He was dismissing me yet again. This time felt even worse, because I’d come bearing gifts. Because I’d thought, somehow, it would make a difference. I got up from the table.
“I live right down the street,” I said, too loud. Too bold.
Again, Johnny’s gaze flickered. “Yeah? It’s a nice street. Lots of people live on it.”
My mouth thinned. “I guess they do.”
Silence stretched between us, but it wasn’t quiet. It was full of the beat of my heart, the hitch and shift of my breath. It was strung tight with tension, thrumming like a plucked guitar string. I moved out from behind the table.
“My kitchen has an island,” I said with a lift of my chin that meant nothing to him and everything to me. “I’ll show myself out.”
“I’ll walk you.”
“You really don’t have to. I can find my way.” I spun on my heel and stalked down the hall toward the front door.
Johnny padded after me on bare feet and got there just about the same time I did. It could’ve been because his legs were longer, but I think it was because, despite my insult, I was hanging back in hopes he’d show me some tiny measure of interest. Even a scrap. And realizing this made me so angry I grabbed at the doorknob and yanked, not knowing it was locked. Foiled in my grand exit, I let out a low, angry noise. I turned on him.
“I said I could find my way out.”
Johnny, looking into my eyes, reached around me to unlock the door. My eyes fluttered at his closeness. The brush of his breath on my hair, the heat of his body. I wasn’t too angry to get a little thrill, even though I hated myself for it. I hated more that he could see it on my face, that lust. It didn’t matter if he was used to it. I wasn’t used to it.
“Here,” he said. The lock clicked. He didn’t move away for one interminable second. Then he stepped back, freeing me to move.
“They’re good cookies,” I said flatly. “For whatever that’s worth, which apparently is nothing.”
My voice was hard, and he blinked. “I’m sure they’re great.”
“You’re welcome.” I opened the door.
Cold air rushed in, frigid enough to force the breath from my lungs in a small gasp and bring tears to my eyes. Or maybe it wasn’t the cold air. I drew myself up and forced myself to walk, head high, down his front steps and onto the sidewalk that he’d made sure was heavily salted and ice-free.
When the door didn’t shut behind me, I turned to look back. Johnny stood silhouetted in the doorway, golden in the light spilling out around him. He’d put one hand up high on the door frame, the other on his cocked hip. He had to be cold, what with his feet bare and nothing on beneath his sweatshirt, still mostly unzipped. But he didn’t go inside.
“You know, I thought maybe you didn’t talk to anyone because you were a little shy. Or maybe because you were cautious.”
His head cocked to match his hip. “Oh, yeah?”
I put my hands on my hips. “Yeah. I mean, I know it must be a pain in the ass to have people bugging you when you’re just trying to have a cup of coffee and a muffin.”
“Yeah. That can be a real pain in the ass,” Johnny said slowly.
I narrowed my eyes, wishing I could read his expression. “But you know what?”
“What,” Johnny said, and damned if he didn’t sound amused.
“I don’t think it’s because you’re shy or because too many people bug you, because let’s face it, most people don’t even know who you are anymore. Or they don’t give a damn.”
His shoulders lifted and fell at that—a laugh or a shrug, with his face in shadow I couldn’t tell. “What about you?”
“I know who you are,” I told him.
“Yeah,” Johnny said. “But do you give a damn?”
I turned at that, my fists clenched. Then I turned back and forced myself to say, “Yes. I do.”
“Why?”
I didn’t know why. It was more than the ass, the face, the long-past fame. It wasn’t his art. It wasn’t his house, his money. It wasn’t even his coat or that long scarf I loved.
It was the heat of summer, and it was the taste of him I knew I couldn’t know. It was the feel of his hair in my fingers and his cock up deep inside me, and it was the sound of his voice saying my name when he came.
It was the smell of oranges.
Chapter 09
I made it home before it took me. To my front porch, anyway, my fingers fumbling with the key in the lock. I wasn’t much for praying, but I did mutter under my breath to whatever entity would listen to at least let me get inside before I went dark.
I opened the door.
I went anything but dark.
Brilliant sunlight blinded me. I threw a hand up over my eyes and stumbled on a floor slick with wax, not ice. I breathed in heat, and a cacophony of sounds and smells assaulted me.
The tang of pot and sting of cigarette smoke pushed aside the smell of oranges. I heard laughter and music and the cry of a child. I blinked, rubbing at my eyes.
I’d gone through the looking glass again, this time right into Johnny’s house. The door hung open behind me. Had I even knocked? Nobody had answered. Nobody seemed to even notice I was there.
I closed my eyes to orient myself, but only for a second. Then I shrugged out of my coat as fast as I could, hung it on a coatrack along with my scarf. I fluffed my hair. I checked my clothes—a pair of boot-cut jeans and a button-up blouse. It wouldn’t pass for seventies summer fashion. I had a cami on underneath, though. The voices in the kitchen rose and fell as I stripped out of it quickly, then with a second thought took off my bra and tucked them both into the sleeve of my coat.
It felt strange, going without a bra. My nipples poked at the soft fabric of my camisole. I felt free but self-conscious.
A baby wearing only a saggy diaper and a white onesie came crawling down the hall as fast as he…or she—I couldn’t tell the gender—could and was followed by a laughing woman with long, dark hair that fell to her waist. She wore a one-piece shorts jumper made of terry cloth in bright yellow. My eyes hurt just looking at it. She scooped up the baby and flubbered its belly until the baby screamed with laughter, while I stood, awkward and caught.
“Oh, hey,” she said languidly when she caught sight of me. “Who’re you?”
“Emm.”
“Sandy.” She hitched the baby onto her hip and held out a limp hand for me to shake. “Groovy.”
I wasn’t sure if this was a greeting or a statement on my clothes, or maybe just a philosophical observation. “Um, I’m looking for Johnny.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s cool. He’s in there, back in the kitchen, you know. Unless he owes you money or something.” She had a strange, nasally voice, an accent like his. On her it wasn’t quite as charming.
“Thanks.” I didn’t want to push past her, especially since she was now studying me up and down.
“Whadja say your name was?”
“Emm.”
“Emm.” Sandy looked a little blank for a second. “We never met before, did we?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
She shrugged and hitched the squirming baby higher. The scent of dirty diaper wafted toward me and I took an unconscious step back. Sandy wrinkled her nose.
“Gee, all this kid does is eat, sleep and shit. I guess I’d better give her a bath.” Sandy moved past me and up the stairs, babbling baby talk.
I went to the kitchen with my heart pounding and palms moist. I was already smiling in anticipation when I saw him. He was sitting in the windowsill, tipping beer in a brown bottle to his lips, a cigarette in one hand. He’d held his hair off his face today with a red bandanna folded into a th
ick band.
He was so beautiful it hurt to look at him.
He stopped in midlaugh and jumped off the windowsill when I came into the room. He put his beer down and stuck the cigarette in the throat of the bottle. The room fell silent as everyone turned to look at me. Candy was there, not at the stove this time. And Bellina, along with a bunch of people I didn’t know. Ed fixed me with an intense look, cutting off his own words before turning to face the woman he was talking to. Weird, but I wasn’t paying that much attention to him.
“Johnny,” I said, breathless.
“Emm.” He moved toward me like nobody else was even there.
His hand fit perfectly around the back of my neck. He tasted of beer and smoke when he kissed me, and somehow it wasn’t disgusting but just right. His tongue stroked in and out of me; my knees went weak. I didn’t care that we weren’t alone. I didn’t care that his hand was on my ass, kneading, or that he’d pulled me up close to him.
“Hey,” he said, sounding a little breathless himself when he broke the kiss.
Our faces were very close together. I fell into the depths of his eyes and swam there for a bit as everything stopped and started around us. He smiled. I smiled, too.
“You came back,” he said. “Thought I’d never see you again.”
I had no good answer for that, so I kissed him again. “So, you’re glad to see me?”
“Hell, yes. You ran outta here so fast last time I never got your number.”
“Oh…” I hesitated. Everyone had gone back to their own discussions, not paying attention to us in the doorway. “I don’t really have a number.”
Johnny shrugged. “Oh, yeah, that’s cool. Ours got turned off a while back, too. Paul says he’ll get it turned on next time he gets paid for a gig.”
“If you don’t have a phone,” I whispered into his ear, giddy from this, “how were you going to call me?”
Johnny nuzzled into me. “Phone booth down the street.”
“Ah.” Of course. Phone booths. A little dizzy all at once, I clutched him to keep from swaying. I was reminded of the TV show Life on Mars, about the cop who gets shot and wakes up in the 1970s while his body’s in a coma in present-tense time.