Miss Adventure (18 page)

“Huh?”

“I noticed it in class on the first day.” He leans back against the counter. “You walked in so cool, looking like Jean Harlow or something. Like nothing could get to you. You sat off by yourself, but I watched you.”

He smiles and raises his eyebrows for a sec. “You have a way of calling attention to yourself. Anyway, I noticed your writing. You pressed really hard with the pencil or pen or whatever you were using. You couldn’t even use the back of the paper. It was all dented from your writing.”

“You noticed that I wasted paper?” I ask. “I recycle, you know.”

He smiles again. “I remember. No, I’m not saying you waste paper. But you do. I’ve seen you.”

“Hey!”

“I knew there had to be some serious intensity under the surface.”

“Intensity? Me?”

“I can work with that,” he says.

“But Jack,” I counter, “you’re the most easy-going guy I think I’ve ever met. You could work with anyone.”

“Doesn’t mean I want to,” he says, tossing aside the wet towel. “I don’t want to work with my parents. I never wanted to be a part of Hawkins United.”

I think of how he feels about all the Burger Barn money. “I get that.”

“My family never made any sense to me.” He hands me another plate.

I take it, even though it’s still dirty.

“Or at least, not like…” He sort of laughs. “When I was a kid, Edgar and Griselda worked for us. She was the housekeeper and he was the general handyman.”

A chill seizes my body.
Don’t mess this up
.
Don’t mess this up
.

“It’s weird,” he goes on, “but at some point, it hit me. My parents were never around and I was always wondering if I would see them at supper or over the weekend. But Edgar and Griselda were always there. When I was about ten, maybe, I realized that they were the perfect parents. Always there, in my house, taking care of me.”

“They lived with you?”

“In the second biggest guest house.”

I swallow, feeling suddenly slovenly. I keep forgetting what kind of economic bracket this guy comes from.

“They were always nice to me,” he says, “so I started fantasizing about how they could be my real family.”

I nod, wanting to ask where Luz fits into this fantasy. But I don’t say a word.

“So, I tried to really impress them, show them what a good kid I could be. I started making sure my room was always clean. I put my own dishes in the dishwasher, and I’d sneak into the kitchen and unload it as soon as it stopped running. And I started doing my own laundry. Late at night, after Griselda and Edgar went home.”

“You were left in the house by yourself at night?”

“I always had a nanny to stay with me over night. But they pretty much ignored me as long as I wasn’t making noise. I figured out pretty young that if I didn’t cause trouble, they would leave me alone.”

“But I thought you wanted a family,” I say. “Why did you want them to ignore you?”

“They weren’t like Edgar and Griselda. They were mostly college kids who came and went. I could always tell they didn’t give a flying flock.”

“Did Griselda notice what you were doing?”

He furrows his brow.

“Probably, and I bet she even knew why,” he says. “Then one day, in the summer, I was at a Dodgers game with E.J.” Jack looks at me. “My best friend. Anyway, I hadn’t cleaned my room that day because it was Wednesday, Griselda’s day off. I’d get to it later. But I ended up sleeping over E.J.’s that night and forgot all about it. Until about five in the morning.”

He turns to me smiling and shaking his head. “I woke up in a cold sweat, remembering my room. I left E.J.’s right then.” He looks heavenward, as though he can’t believe what he did once upon a time. “So there I was, running across Orange County, trying to get home in time to clean my room before Griselda saw it.”

“Did you make it?”

He closes his eyes and shakes his head.

“She saw?” I ask tentatively.

He opens his eyes. “Worse. Much worse.”

I dare to say it. “Luz?”

He nods. “I was going into fifth grade that fall, and she was going to be a sophomore in high school. I was so in love with her. Luz.” He looks all happy and dreamy one second, but then it’s gone. “She was in a totally different world.” He sounds very matter-of-fact. “But I adored her.”

“She saw your room?”

“She was helping Griselda clean it!” He turns back to rinsing. “It was worse than the in-school-with-no-pants nightmare.”

“So, did you take off your pants?”

He pauses. “Not right then.” He shakes his head. “I must have scared the hell out of them, showing up like that, sweaty and furious at six a.m. I yelled at them to get out. I told them I wasn’t lazy and sloppy like my parents, and I could clean up after myself.”

“It must have been awful.”

“Yeah. But it was the beginning. Edgar and Griselda… we became a lot closer after that. Then, when I was twelve, Luz went to college. I think they were pretty lonely. From then on, I was practically living with them.”

“Sleeping in Luz’s room?”

“That part was awesome.”

Wham
!

The kitchen doors fly open. Lupe, Edgar, Jimmy, Michael, and Antawne come marching through, bearing sauce-crusted vats, greasy garlic bread trays, depleted salad bowls. I want to shoot every one of them.

“Careful,” I warn. “Stay on the paper towel trail . The floor is pretty slippery.”

“Oooh, girl,” Lupe says taking in the mess. Then she sees Jack.

“See?” Antawne says this to the brigade, nodding to the messy kitchen. “I told you.”

Then he notices Jack. “Man, Jack. How’d you get stuck helping her?”

Jack
?

Antawne knows
Jack
?

“Owed her a favor.”

“What’d she do? Give you a kidney?” This from Edgar. I blush, thinking of his desk.

“Hey, man,” Jimmy says, greeting Jack with big, dreamy eyes.

Poor Lupe. I’m pretty sure she was dead wrong about Jimmy. And poor Edgar! He looks ready to kill Jack when he notices Jimmy practically batting his lashes.

“Wait a second,” I say, then turn to Jack. “You know everyone?”

“Met ‘em today.”

“And you guys are already best friends?” I feel so betrayed. Not sure why, but I do.

“He said you guys were friends from USC,” Lupe fills in.

Okay. That’s okay. As long as they like him because of me.

The next second, Pacquito comes charging through the door. All dog energy, ears, and tail, he skids on all the water, careening right into the army of dirty dish bearers.

“Aaaaaaahhhh!”

“What the fu—!”

“Jeez!”

“Nooo!”

Crashing, screaming, clattering.

Gabriel comes running in, just as all the pots, bowls, trays, and vats clang across the floor. “Pacquito!” he calls, flinging himself at the dog.

Pacquito actually pauses in licking all the food from off the floor to slobber all over Gabriel’s face.

“Jesus!” Edgar gets up off the floor, covered with what looks like French dressing. “Lisa! Take your damn dog.”

“It’s okay,” Jimmy says. “It’s not that bad.”

“This place is a mess!” Edgar fumes as he glares at Jack.

“I’ll stay and help clean up,” Jimmy offers sweetly.

“No!” This from me, Jack and Edgar, all at once.

“It’s cool,” Jack says. “You guys’ve all had a hard day. Lisa and I’ll take care of this.”

The tired volunteers drift out, one by one, to tidy the parking lot. “Gabriel,” I say, once Pacquito has licked clean all the pots and trays and bowls, “why don’t you take Pacquito outside to play while we finish cleaning up in here?”

A few seconds later, Jack and I are once again alone. We stand looking at the mess on the floor.

“How many moving blankets do you have in your car?” he asks.

“Four.”

“That’s enough to dry the entire floor.” He looks at me, one eyebrow raised. “Shall we?”

For the next twenty minutes, we wash everything on the floor, right where it is. Then I hold each item aloft, Jack rinses it, and I set it on the counter to dry. A few minutes later, we’re both soaked, but every surface in the kitchen is squeaky clean. Flooded and dripping, but shiny and clean.

“Let’s go get the blankets,” Jacks says.

On the way to the car, Jack picks up the story. Yes! I didn’t push or cajole, and now I’m being rewarded with the rest of the story.

“When I’d been out of college about a year,” Jack says, “I went home one weekend to visit Griselda and Edgar.”

He’d jumped ahead about ten years in his story, but I could keep up.

“But I ran into Luz, instead.”

Oh.

“She was married by this time, but not so happily. Or so I believed.” He huffs out a huge breath. “I thought it was the greatest romance. I was going to save her from her unhappy marriage and everything would work out. Me and her and Edgar and Griselda. We would all live happily ever after.”

“You had an affair with her?”

We stop at my car.

“Yeah,” he says. “But to me, it was a desperate, unstoppable love.”

His sarcasm laced with bitterness makes my throat feel hot and huge. “What happened?”

“After a few months, and one incredible summer, we got caught.”

“Oh.”

“Luz had a choice, right then. She could throw herself on the mercy of her parents and husband, blame everything on me, or….”

He turns away, rests his elbows on the roof of my car and looks up at the sky.

“I actually thought she would choose me. I really did.”

“I’m so sorry,” I rasp. I clear my throat. “So, so sorry.”

“Edgar and Griselda quit that day. Thirty-two years and they quit without even a second thought. They were so damn
disgusted
with me. Luz said I’d seduced her, that she was afraid for her parents’ jobs if she didn’t sleep with me. God!” He slams a fist into Dalton’s roof and I wince. He hits Dalton again. Hard.

“Did you ever see them again? Edgar and Griselda, I mean?”

“Four years later,” he says. “Edgar’s funeral. Luz called my parents and they told me. That’s the end.”

We stand there quietly, not even looking at one another. I lean my butt against the door but don’t say anything because there’s nothing to say. I don’t even ask why he never went after them, tried to explain.

How could he? For Edgar and Griselda to believe him, they would have to accept that their daughter had willfully and joyfully jumped into bed with a man who was not her husband. Jack would never ask them to do that. Never.

I bet he’s spent a chunk of the past fourteen years hoping Luz would find it in her heart or soul to tell Griselda the truth. But I guess she never has. And anyway, it’s too late for Edgar. Too late for Jack.

Bitch.

Jack turns to lean against Dalton like I am. He squints at the golden glint of the setting sun, looking at nothing in particular. As I watch him, I can feel it steal over me, like the solution to a Brother Cadfael mystery. Suddenly, I just know, probably because it’s so obvious, that Jack wants to be alone.

Jack looks across the street toward the HEYA parking lot, as everyone begins to drift away for the night. “Party is totally over,” he says. “I guess we better–”

“No,” I say. “It’s okay. You’ve been an amazing help. But I’ve got it from here.”

Jack nods, still not looking at me. “I’m over here,” he says, kind of shrugging down the street to his egg roll truck.

“’Night.”

“’Night.”

I’m in the garage shoving dishtowels into the washer, still fantasizing about meeting Luz and destroying her. The phone rings in the house. I run to grab it, in case it’s Jack.

“Wait, wait, wait,” I say, trying to make sense of the voice on the other end. “Who are you? Where did you get my number?”

“Keith,” yells the guy on the other end of the phone. I can tell he’s trying to hear me and be heard over background bar noise.

Great. Keith is freely giving my number to drunken guys on slow Sunday nights as if I’m a last ditch party trick.

“He said I was good at what?” I shout, trying to be helpful.

“Trivia! It’s free drinks if we win and the next round starts in twenty minutes.”

“A big trivia competition on a Sunday night? This late?”

“That’s the only way to keep anyone in here on Sunday after the games are over. C’mon. Be a sport and come down, will ya? Keith said you’re the guru of trivia.”

It’s true. I am.

It’s the one thing I’m really good at.

Funny, isn’t it? The one thing at which I excel is defined as, “That which is unimportant; insignificant minutiae.”

Still, I do kick ass at it. And I need to stop thinking about Jack. I really do.

“Where are you?” I ask, as I look around for my shoes.

* * * * *

The first round is almost over, and I have to say, I’m disappointed. Three guys and I sit at a bar table. We watch the TV monitor in front of us as it flashes questions, then we race against four other tables to be the quickest to enter the right answer. Either A, B, or C or D.

That’s right. It’s multiple choice. How lame is that?

It’s hardly a challenge at all when they’re options. I can’t believe I sacrificed a night of
Mystery
! for this. At least the guy to my right is cute.

“Pacers and trotters.” I speak softly enough so the other tables can’t steal our answer.

“What?” This from Jason, who insists on being the one who punches in the answers. Even though he doesn’t know a single one. Ignoring him, I reach over and punch in C.

“Hey!” He hovers protectively over the console.

The monitors flash with confetti graphics. We win Round One.

Jason, of course, takes all the credit. As he pumps his fists into the air, I feel a hand slide along the back of my neck.

“So,” the cute guy says, giving me tingles down my spine, “how did you know pacers and trotters? You a big gambler with your millions?”

Why did I ever agree to meet a bunch of Keith’s friends? Why?

I give him a hint of a smile. “What’s your name again?”

“Noah.”

“Well, Noah. One of the Black Stallion books,” I answer. “I forget which one. But for some reason, Alec ends up spending time at harness racing stables. That must be where I picked it up.”

“Ooo-kay,” he says, then smiles. “You’re cute.”

“So are you,” I chirp back matter-of-factly, noting to myself that he can’t handle talking about horse books. “I’m going to get a drink. Wanna come?”

Pressed shoulder to shoulder at the bar, waiting for our drinks–me for my Coke and he for his Rolling Rock–I sneak a glance at his profile. He reminds me of Aaron Eckhart.

“Keith was right about you,” he says with a slow, sexy smile. “You
are
good at trivia.”

My Coke arrives in one of those long glass bottles. With an almost orgasmic sigh, I take a long pull.

Noah holds his Rolling Rock, just staring at me. He leans in close, even though the bar is pretty tame and I can hear him just fine. “Makes me wonder if he was right about all the other stuff he said.”

I shrug. “Maybe,” I say, refusing to let him bait me.

Noah straightens up, giving me this totally hot look where he crinkles his eyes. “He said the sex was great.”

I just met him and he's talking to me about my sex life? Like he has any right? But then he takes a drink, giving me a good look at his Adam’s apple.

I have this thing for a guy’s Adam’s apple. When it comes to turn-ons, for me, it’s a guy’s hips, then Adam’s apple, then haircuts. And hands. Definitely hands.

He lowers his bottle. “Never boring. He said you always came at the same time.”

It takes all of my control not to react. Fucking Keith! Like the world doesn’t already know enough about me?

Now Keith is telling people about my orgasms? For sure that means he also told them all the awful, embarrassing stuff, too.

At least Noah has the sense not to trot out everything he knows. Smart move, since it’s pretty clear he wants to get busy with me.

“You call that great sex?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he laughs. “What do you call it?”

“Sex that’s not boring? I call that the bare minimum for what I expect out of a date.” I take a drink. “Is a lot of the sex you have boring?”

“What?” He bobbles the bottle that was on the way to his mouth, spilling some. “No. I didn’t mean that. I wasn’t saying that. I just meant, you guys came at the same time.”

“When do your sex partners come?” I ask. “Or don’t they?”

“What? Of course they do. I just–”

“Round Two is starting.” After making this important pronouncement, I head back to the table, Noah following in my wake.

I get back to our table, slide into my seat, and pull the answer console in front of me.

“Hey!” Jason is not happy.

“I work the controls from now on.” I state it, simple as that. “I’ve had enough of this bogus team spirit. Either you want me to win for you, or you don’t. What’ll it be?”

They back off.

For the next ten minutes, they mostly leave me alone.

Good.

It makes me sick to think of how I showed up tonight just so I could distract myself by trying to impress three guys I don’t even know with my awesome trivia prowess.

Did I think that would mean they liked me? And that Jack is no big deal in my grand scheme of things? Jack uses me to test his gear, which I agreed to.

Now these guys are using me, but to win free drinks. Something else I agreed to.

When I punch in the answer to the last question, I stand up to leave. Noah looks up.

“Aren’t you going to wait to see us win?”

I shrug into my barn jacket with the frayed corduroy collar, shaking my head. “I’ve got laundry to do.”

I’m almost at my car half way down the block when Noah comes running after me. I slow down, letting him jog up to me.

“Laundry?” he asks. “Seriously? I can guarantee that sex with me is better than that.”

I need to stop thinking about Jack
.

I give him a coy, assessing smile. “Really?”

“Really.” He reaches out, takes me by my frayed lapels, and pulls me into a kiss.

* * * * *

Driving home, I try really hard to concentrate on the road, not on my stupid life. What have I done? Why did I do it? I can scarcely breathe every time I contemplate convincing answers. But I need to know. Am I fool? Or not?

I should have gone home with Noah.

Okay, maybe not.

Noah seems like the type to sell the story to the tabloids. But is that really the reason I didn’t get down and dirty with him?

By the time I get back to my house, I’m so confused I top off the litter boxes with dry cat food and give Ginger’s vitamins to Christian.

I have to get a grip. It’s just that, I feel like I don’t know what’s going on in my own life. I think I might be doing everything wrong. I mean, look at Keith and me. I thought we really hit it off when we met. Then I thought we fell in love and built a forever kind of relationship. I even thought we were getting married. But I was wrong.

Sometimes I wonder what was really happening for those five years.

* * * * *

I hunker down into the couch and pay attention as the commercial ends. This is the best movie Clint Eastwood ever made.

Duh nuh nuh nuh.

“Come in,” I yell.

I’m not missing this part for Jack. I don’t care if he is helping me Advantage all the pets today.

The front door opens.

“Hey,” Jack says, practically making love to my dogs. “You ready?”

“Not yet,” I say.

Jack moves further into the room. “You’re watching TV? I have to wait for this? Lisa, I called you. You said you’d be ready.”

“The fleas will still be here in five minutes,” I tell him. “Just chill. I had no idea
this
was on. I was flipping to CNN or WNC or one of the news channels and just found it.”

“Lisa….”

“Please? They’re almost to the best line
ever
.”

Jack’s spots TiVo sitting right next to the TV. “Just record it.”

“Haven’t hooked up the dish yet. Now just be quiet. Please. We’re almost there.”

Jack stands, jaw set. “Lisa….”

“Shhhh! Here it comes.”

On screen, the Russian spy says to Clint, “
Gant, can you fly that plane
?
Really fly it
?”

“
Yeah
,” Clint says, “
I can fly it
.
I’m the best there is
.”

Wow.
I’m the best there is
. I hug my knees and rock back and forth a little. I think I even make a squeaky/hissy sound, like that of air escaping from an inner tube.

“I remember that,” Jack says, staring at the TV.

“You’ve seen this?”

“No,” he says, crinkling his brows. “At least I don’t recognize any of this. I think I remember that line from an ad, from when I was a kid.” He pauses a second. “
Firefox
, right?”

“Yup,” I say, feeling vindicated.

“I remember.” He says it this time with a ghost of a smile. “But back then, I thought they were saying, ‘Clint, can you fly that plane.’ Anyhow, move your ass.”

I try to gut him with a glare. “
Don’t
talk about my ass. Ever.”

Jack just looks at me. He doesn’t know that my post-hospital fitness regime has begun to decline. But I know it. I know it every time I look at my butt or try to squeeze it into my treacherous clothes.

“Well,” I insist, “if a bald guy was sensitive about losing his hair, you wouldn’t say to him, ‘C’mon, move your head.’ Unless you really wanted him to move his head, like if it was in the way or something.”

Jack looks at me for another few seconds then opens his mouth. “Look, as long as I’m here helping with the fleas, why don’t I just install your dish for you? It won’t take long.”

“Oh, no, you don’t.”

Jack looks at me. “What? Why not? I installed mine. It’s not hard.”

“I know,” I tell him. “That’s why I’m going to do it myself.”

“Have you ever done it before?”

“No,” I say. “When I bought it, it came with free installation. So, the TiVo guy, or the Direct TV guy, I forget which, did it. But I know how to read an instruction manual, so I’ll be fine. But thank you for offering.”

“Lisa, it’ll be faster if–”

“You men are all the same!” I bolt up from the couch and throw down the remote.

Silence. Then Jack says, “You mean we all offer to help? Because that’s all I’m doing. I’m just offering to help. I can do something for you in twenty minutes when it’ll probably take you all day.”

“So what if it takes me all day? Then I’ll know how to do it. And this is not just some ‘offer to help.’ I’ve got your number, Hawkins, so back off.”

He actually laughs at this. “You are so insane.”

“No, I’m not,” I say. “Guys do this all the time. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived through it. You offer to help. Again and again. So we women get used to it. Then we start expecting that you’ll do anything for us that’s just the least bit challenging. Fix the air conditioner. Change the light bulb. Plunge the toilet. Go up to the roof to get the tennis ball out of the gutter. Pretty soon, the resentment builds. Then, you start complaining how we’re nags. And lazy. And we can’t do anything for ourselves. Then you leave us and we’re clueless. It’s all a trap. An awful, vicious trap. So, no, thank you.”

Jack doesn’t say anything for a minute. “You don’t seem like the type to play tennis,” he finally decides.

“I don’t,” I say. “But I might be throwing a tennis ball for Aaron or Christian to go after.”

“And you’d throw it on the roof?”

“Not on purpose, but I have really bad aim. Major tendency to overthrow.” I turn to him. “And don’t think I don’t see that you’re changing the subject because you know I’m right.”

“Fine, I won’t help you.”

“I know you won’t,” I say. “Because I said ‘No,’ to your offer of help.” I huff out a breath. “But, thank you.”

“So, why am I here again?”

“Shut up.”

* * * * *

Ninety minutes and four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches later, we’re almost done with the lot of them.

“Who’s left?” Jack asks from the bathroom doorway.

“Dorothy and Jayne,” I say, peering into the mirror over the sink.

I suck in my breath as I press the cotton ball soaked with hydrogen peroxide to the scratches on my neck. Damn damn damn.

I swear my droopy dough-boy chin is coming back. I blasted it to hell once I got out of the hospital and got in shape. But now, thanks to Jack, with whom I pig-out on a regular basis, I’m gaining my weight back. And the sex between us never lasts long enough to burn comparable calories. This is not fair.

Jack doesn’t move from the bathroom doorway to go look for the cats or anything helpful like that. “Lisa, they’re both boys. You didn’t change their names yet?”

“No,” I state, “and I’m not going to. Besides, Jayne
is
a boy’s name.” I dab at my neck. “At least, he’s named after a guy named Jayne. And Dorothy from the
Golden Girls
could totally pass for a man.”

“But–”

“
Jack
.” I bite into the one syllable. “Not every guy needs a testosterone-injected name in order to feel his manhood.”

“Hey! I didn’t pick my name.”

“Noooo,” I concede, “but you’ve certainly lived up to it. I mean, seriously. What were the chances you’d end up becoming a pot-bellied actuary with a name like Jack Hawkins?”

“You’re bitching about my
name
? Seriously? What bug crawled up your ass?”

Now the big bully is actually
trying
to piss me off. He
knows
I’m sensitive about my ass!