Bad Games (12 page)

“Sweet mother of…” he drooled. He entered the bathroom, stood behind his wife, and wrapped his arms around her waist.

Amy put her eyeliner down and smiled at her husband’s reflection. “You like?” she asked.

“Me
love.
”

“I’m gonna blow my hair out the way you like,” she smiled.

“Mmmmmm…” Patrick leaned in and kissed her neck. “Perhaps we should skip dinner altogether.”

“What, you didn’t get enough last night?”

“I will
never
get enough of you.” He dropped down and sunk his teeth into her butt.

She let out a yelp, giggled, turned and punched him in the chest. “Get out of here, I need to get ready.”

As Patrick turned to leave, Carrie and Caleb appeared at the bathroom door. Caleb was holding two flat rocks. He went to hand them to his father but Carrie pushed him aside.

“I can’t find Oscar,” she said.

“Carrie, please don’t push your brother like that,” Patrick said.

Caleb attempted a return shove but Carrie shrugged him off as though he wasn’t there. Her eyes stayed fixed on her father. “He’s been gone since we went fishing. I keep calling for him…”

Probably off somewhere, barfing up the finger he ate this afternoon,
Patrick thought.

Amy, who had gone back to attending to her face in the mirror said, “He’ll come back when he’s hungry, honey. You and your brother need to get ready to go to the Mitchell’s.”

Carrie looked down at her attire—a faded Hannah Montana T-shirt and a pair of dirty jeans—then back up at her mother with an odd look. “I
am
ready.”

Amy kept one eye on the mirror while the other stole a quick glance at her daughter. “Wouldn’t you rather wear something nicer for the Mitchells?”

Carrie looked at her clothes again. “No.”

Patrick stepped out of the bathroom (giving his wife a subtle pat on the bottom as he passed), and approached his son. “Whatcha got there, bud? More rocks for skipping?”

Caleb nodded eagerly and handed them to his father.

“Whoa, take a look at
these
beauties.”

Caleb beamed.

“Come on,” Patrick said. “Let’s go out to the lake and skip them before your mom and I take you over to the Mitchell’s.”

Father and son raced outside. Amy put the eyeliner down and tilted her torso out the bathroom door. “
Don’t get dirty!
”

The silver Highlander glided along the main road, north of Crescent Lake. As promised, Amy had blown her hair out in the style Patrick liked so much, and he found it damn difficult to concentrate on the wheel.

“Edible, baby,” he said, stealing his umpteenth glance. “You are looking absolutely
edible
.”

She leaned over and kissed his cheek while he looked out onto the road. “You’re not lookin’ too bad yourself there, sexy.” She ran her fingers down the buttons of his collared shirt.

Patrick’s white button-down was covered with a jet-black sport coat that accentuated his broad shoulders. His top two buttons were undone (a tie was simply out of the question for Patrick Lambert), and his slacks and polished shoes were the exact color of his sport coat. Even his hair, which usually had the uncanny ability to face all four directions of the globe, was gelled and parted in a neat, trendy fashion, making him look the equal of his wife’s thirty-three years instead of his own thirty-eight.

“I’m thinking we might stand out once we get to the restaurant, we look so good,” Amy added.

“We’d stand out
anywhere
we went, hotness,” he said. “However, both Norm and Lorraine insisted this place was pretty snazzy. Of course that won’t change anything. We’ll still be the sexiest couple there.”

She smirked, kissed his cheek again, then sat back in her seat. “How far?”

“Twenty minutes, give or take. It shouldn’t be too bad. It’s more than likely we’ll be back before the kids are,” he said.

Amy instantly leaned back over and squeezed her husband’s shoulder, excited. “Ooh, then you know what we should do? We should take a moon-lit stroll around the lake as soon as we get back.”

“In these clothes? They’d get filthy,” he said.

“Since when do you care about something like that?”

“Thought I’d try and earn some points.”

“Nice try. We can stop by the cabin first and change.”

Patrick put a hand over his mouth and gasped. “You mean…get
naked
?”

Amy shook her head. “My poor horny husband—so desperately guided by his rampant hormones.”

“I know all about hormones, you know,” he said.

“Stop.”

“I even know how they’re made.”

“
Stop.
”

“Do you know how to make a hormone, honey?”

She took her hand off his shoulder and sat back in her seat. “You’ve told me this one a million times.”

“
You refuse to pay her.
” Patrick grinned at his wife like a schoolboy, always pleased with himself after delivering one of the classics.

Amy turned away, but smirked out her passenger window. She loved every inch of him.

Carrie wanted chicken fingers. Caleb wanted a cheeseburger. Lorraine and Norman would eat anything put in front of them if it meant appeasing the Babysitting Gods and keeping the children happy. So the primary goal was as straightforward as straightforward gets: locate a restaurant that serves both chicken fingers and cheeseburgers.

“I think Charlie’s will have chicken fingers and burgers,” Norman said.

Lorraine nodded. “I’d bet on it.”

Norman clapped his hands together. “Alright then. Charlie’s it is.”

“Who’s Charlie?” Caleb asked.

Carrie turned to her brother. “He’s the one who makes our food, stupid.”

“Hey, hey—no name-calling when you’re with us,” Norman said. “Charlie is the
owner
. The restaurant is named after him.”

“So then who’s going to cook our food?” Carrie asked.

“I’m not sure,” Norman said.

“So it
could
be Charlie,” Carrie said.

“I doubt that, sweetheart. I’m sure Charlie hires people to cook
for
him.”

“But it
could
be.”

Norman chuckled and waved the white flag. “Yes, I suppose it’s possible.”

Lorraine sipped the remainder of her tea then placed the empty cup on the coffee table. “Are you two excited for the movie?”

Only Caleb nodded. Carrie decided it wiser to test the pocketbooks of their temporary guardians first. “Can we get popcorn?”

“Of course,” Norman said. “Can’t have a movie without popcorn.”

Carrie smiled, tested a bit more. “Can we get candy too?”

“No candy,” Lorraine said, settling back into the sofa. “It’s bad for your teeth.”

“That’s what Mom always says.”

“Well Mom is right. Popcorn will be enough.”

“Popcorn and
soda
,” Carrie said firmly. “My mouth will get dry.”

Lorraine glanced at her husband. He winked at her.

“We’ll see,” Norman said. “No promises.”

Carrie seemed to find this response acceptable, wandering out of the Mitchell’s den and into their kitchen. Caleb headed over to the sofa and jumped onto Lorraine’s lap. She let out an unavoidable “
OOF!”
as soon as the four-year-old landed.

Caleb appeared to find her slapstick response quite amusing and immediately began flight-preparations for a second launch. Lorraine quickly latched both hands onto his little shoulders, smiled and said, “No, no, sweetie—you’re going to make Mrs. Mitchell pee her pants if you do that again.”

The same pair of binoculars that had watched the silver Toyota Highlander back out of cabin number eight before exiting Crescent Lake was now watching a light blue Volvo station wagon back out of cabin number ten. Two adults and two children could be identified inside the Volvo.

“The Volvo folks are the neighbors,” Jim said as he handed the binoculars to Arty. “I’m assuming the kids in back…?”

Arty took the binoculars and peered through them. Dusk had arrived, but the binoculars were top of the line. “Yup—that’s them.” He motioned for them to move, but stopped suddenly. He turned to his brother, a devilish grin curling upwards onto his face. “Should we say something?” he said. “Should we say something cool, like the guys in those espionage movies do?”

Jim grinned back. “You mean like,
‘the hatchlings have left the nest.’
”

Arty threw his head back and barked out a single laugh. He then straightened his posture, and, in a similarly deep and serious voice, “
The bacon is in the pan.
”

Jim shoved Arty back a step while barking his own laugh. Arty rolled with the shove, invigorated by his brother’s physical exuberance. Arty’s demonstrative love for the game had always been kept on a more composed leash in contrast to Jim’s, who often slipped his leash entirely, Arty the one to catch him before Jim was lost for good—more so lately due to the state of their mother.

But not tonight. Tonight, Jim’s contagion fueled Arty. Discretion was still paramount of course, always would be; it was what separated them from the rest of the sheep. But tonight Arty and Jim celebrated this stage of foreplay as one, not as individuals. They laughed and shoved one another with equal vigor on that wooded hill above Crescent Lake. Roughhoused and joked like drunken teens on prom night, their dates waiting in the cabins below, virginities ripe for the taking. All they had to do was go down and take it.

“Come on, my brother…” Arty eventually said, placing one hand on Jim’s shoulder, the other fanning across the darkening landscape. “Let’s go have some fun.”

The restaurant known as The Walnut Creek Grille had been recommended highly by both Lorraine and Norman, who claimed it was easily the nicest and most romantic place in the area. Amy had embraced their friends’ recommendation without pause, but now grew skeptical as Patrick pulled the Highlander into the strip mall just off Walnut Creek Road.

“This can’t be it,” she said, ducking down, looking hard through the windshield.

Patrick drove slowly through the crowded lot. “This is where Norm said it was.”

“We’re in a strip mall,” she said.

“You knew that.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think it was
part
of the strip mall. I thought it was detached— like next to it or something.”

Patrick continued cruising the length of shops. The strip was long and common: a pharmacy; a book store; a pizza place; a barber shop; a video store. So far no Walnut Creek Grille.

“What does it matter?” he asked.

“Well, I didn’t get this dressed up so we could eat at Dairy Queen.”

“Come on, baby,” Patrick said, eyes still fixed on each passing shop as he spoke. “Norm and Lorraine wouldn’t have recommended it if it wasn’t any good.”

Amy shrugged. “I guess.”

The rows of shops began bending towards the right. They appeared close to the end.

“Maybe this
isn’t
the right place,” Patrick admitted. “I didn’t see it anywhere, did you?”

Amy said, “Huh, uh.”

Patrick hung a right and rounded the strip mall’s corner. Both he and Amy shouted: “
There!
”

The Walnut Creek Grille was the very last shop, a useful detail Patrick felt Norm could have mentioned earlier.

“Jinx,” Patrick said after their simultaneous blurt. “You can’t talk until you buy me a martini.”

“Gay.”

“Hmmm…already breaking the rules
and
bigoted?”

“I have a gay brother. I can say what I want with immunity.”

“I’m gonna call Eric and ask.”

“Go ahead. He’ll call you gay himself.”

Patrick grumbled.

An empty parking spot was right in front of the restaurant.

“Ooh, look at this, baby,” Amy said, pointing. “Rock star.”

“They obviously knew we were coming.”

Patrick parked the Highlander and the couple got out. Their spot was practically on top of the entrance.

“You sure this isn’t a handicap spot?” Patrick asked, checking the ground beneath the SUV, searching for even the tiniest hint of blue paint.

Amy took hold of his arm with both hands and pulled him towards the entrance. “We’re fine, come on.”

Patrick’s first words when they entered the restaurant were, “Whoa.” He looked at Amy. She looked back, a delighted smile on her face. “Deceptive isn’t it?” he said.

The exterior of the restaurant was modest. The interior was extravagant, but hardly overt in its accomplishment. It was subtle with its décor and ambience, choosing to embrace the patrons with a sense of warmth and comfort as opposed to flaunting its stature by making them feel privileged to bathe in its presence.

The restaurant was small and concise. To the right was a bar whose back mirror was lit with a dim, pleasant glow that illuminated rows of top-shelf liquor and cast a faint shine down onto a smooth marble top.

To the left was the dining area. The surrounding walls held appreciable art and small lamps shaped as ornate candles, lighting the room with a soft touch as if they were the real thing. Waiters and waitresses dressed in posh garb weaved deftly between tables covered in fine cloth and silverware, pouring wine and delivering silver trays of cuisine.

Directly ahead an attractive male and female host stood behind a wooden podium. Both smiled genuinely as Amy and Patrick approached.

“Hi,” Patrick said. “Lambert? Party of two?”

The female glanced down at the appointment book, smiled again and said, “Follow me.”

Their salads had come and gone—Patrick’s a Caesar, Amy’s a garden with fat-free Italian.

“This place is so nice,” Amy said. She sipped her glass of Pinot and sighed a deep, contented sigh.

Patrick smiled with his eyes. “Feeling better?” he asked.

“Much,” she replied. “I had no idea it would be this nice.”

Patrick sipped his martini. “No, I mean do you feel better about…everything.”

Amy took another sip of wine. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel better about that.”

“But you’re feeling a
little
better, right? A bit more at ease?”

Amy set her glass down and stared at it for a few seconds before replying. “I don’t think I’m ever going to feel a hundred percent about all that’s happened. On a scale of one to ten, I’d say this sojourn has been a two thus far—this restaurant being the only thing keeping me from rating it a one.”