Queenie's Cafe (23 page)

“When I stopped laughing, we had our first talk about sex,” said Barbara.

Luke set his fork down. “I remember. That’s when I learned it takes two to make a baby.”

“You didn’t know that before?” asked Jay.

“It was just me and Mom, so it never occurred to me. I just knew I didn’t have a father like most kids.”

Laura had a father and no mother. She was six when she learned all the other kids at school had mothers. Some didn’t have fathers, but they all had mothers. She came home crying that day and Dad told her she had a mother.
Queenie.

Curious about her mother, Laura stopped at the café on the way home from school the next day. Queenie gave her an ice cream cone and asked her if she liked school. But Dad came over and yelled at Queenie. He told Laura to come to the motel after school, and when he finished with Queenie, she was crying. It was the only time Laura had ever seen her cry.

“My father left when Mom was pregnant with Lily,” said Ivy. “I don’t remember much about him, except he had blond hair.”

Ivy seemed more at ease since she’d talked with Billy. She’d cleaned up and looked a lot better. Laura wondered what she’d do with a baby when she was still a child herself.

Luke asked, “Ivy, how did it go with Billy?”

“He’s awesome. He said I could testify without telling anyone where I was.”

“Is he going to get a message to your mother?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to go back.” Ivy turned to Barbara. “You’re not gonna send me back, are you? Billy said I won’t ever have to go back. He said I could go to a foster home, but Maria said I could stay with her and Carlos.”

“Sure,” said Carlos. “It’s too quiet with all the kids gone.”

“How old are you?” asked Luke.

“Fourteen.”

Laura wondered if she was telling the truth this time. Ivy seemed to respect Barbara and Maria. The two women had mothered her after Earl’s attack, and now they were mothering Ivy. Did the kid know how lucky she was to be here, where she was protected and coddled by people who cared?

“Ivy, if you want to keep your baby, we’ll help you,” said Barbara. “If you don’t, that’s okay, too. We’ll still help you. You don’t have to make a decision now. You have two or three months to decide what you want to do.”

“I’ll take care of the baby if you want to go back to school,” said Maria.

“And I’ll help,” said Barbara. “I like babies, too.”

Laura asked, “What about you, Jay? Do you like babies?” He’d been watching Barbara all evening.

“Sure. Always wanted kids, but my wife didn’t.”

“I always thought I’d marry and have more kids,” Barbara said on a sigh. “Now I’m too old.”

“You ain’t too old,” said Jay. “You’re just right.”

Laura exchanged a warm smile with Luke. Her plan to find Jay another woman had worked better than she’d hoped. Jay had a big heart and he seemed fascinated with Barbara. He must know she was a rich woman, but Laura doubted that would make a difference to him. He just wanted someone to love.

After dinner, while Maria and Ivy cleaned up, Jay said, “I really like your house, Barbara.”

“I designed it myself,” she said as they walked out the back door together.

“No kiddin’!”

Laura and Luke watched them walk away. She said, “They look happy together.”

“He doesn’t seem her type.”

“So what? I’m not your type either, but you like me, don’t you?”

He gazed into her eyes. “I like you a lot.” His kiss started gentle, but it didn’t stay that way. He pushed his tongue against her lips and she opened to him, letting his tongue touch hers in an intimate, heart-stopping kiss. She felt light-headed and weak, tingly all over. When he pulled back, she couldn’t look away.

“I’m crazy about you, Laura.”

She was crazy about him, too, but she wasn’t sure about having sex with him. Her body screamed with wanting it, but she didn’t want to be like Florence, and she didn’t want to end up unmarried and pregnant. Laura was a few years older than Ivy, but she wouldn’t know the first thing about being a mother. She’d had two mothers, yet she had none.

Queenie taught her to cook, Dad taught her to hate Queenie, and she barely knew Florence.

Laura and Luke watched Carlos throwing Molly’s ball in the yard. The dog streaked after it, tail wagging happily.

“I liberated Molly from a jerk out by the beach after he got drunk and beat her half to death,” said Luke. “She spent three days at the vet hospital, and I wasn’t about to let her go back to that jerk. I paid the bill and brought her to the ranch. She loves it here.”

“She’s a nice dog, Luke. What happened to the man who beat her?”

“I don’t know. The vet turned him in for animal cruelty. The guy didn’t come looking for her, which is just as well. Carlos offered to shoot him if he did. He loves that dog.”

“Does he offer to shoot everyone?”

“Just about. He knows how to use his gun, but I’ve never seen him point it at anything but rattlesnakes.” Luke glanced at Laura’s face. “Carlos and Maria were our neighbors when Mom owned that little café I told you about. They were good to me when I was a kid, so when we found this place and built our house—”

She stopped walking. “You built one for them, too?”

He turned to face her. “No, that house was already here. Mom and I lived there while the ranch house was built, then we fixed it up and offered it to them. Carlos had just retired and their kids were grown and gone. He was looking for something to supplement his retirement income, and I didn’t want Mom living out here by herself. Money draws all kinds of strange people. Some have legitimate needs, but some are just plain crazy. That’s why Carlos wears a gun. Mom had threats right after she won the money, the give-me-money-or-else kind.”

Molly’s ball sailed past and they watched the streak of black dog with her pink tongue hanging out.

Carlos yelled, “It’s your turn, Luke.”

Luke waved to Carlos. “They’re good people. I spent a lot of time at their house when I was growing up, especially when Mom had to work late. After she won the money, Mom helped a couple of their kids with college, but they don’t ask for much.”

Molly dropped her ball at Luke’s feet and wagged her tail, but she was already panting hard. Laura rubbed her head and the dog walked beside her, leaning on her leg now and then and carrying her red ball. She’d worn herself out.

The lawn sloped down toward a little creek lined with shade trees. Luke took Laura’s hand and they walked down the path toward a pair of benches by the creek. Molly lapped water from the creek while Luke and Laura sat on one of the benches.

Molly collapsed by Laura’s feet and she reached down to pet her. “What are you going to do with Earl’s property after you take over?”

Luke grinned. “Open a flooring business, of course. Billy set up a new corporation, Duchess Décor.”

“D & D Corporation, does that stand for—”

“Duke and Duchess. Billy’s idea. After Mom won the lottery, some reporter called her ‘The Duchess,’ and the media picked it up.”

Laura smiled. The name fit Barbara. She had a dignified, regal air about her, yet she was warm and easy to be with.

Her thoughts turned back to Duchess Décor. “So you’ll have the same type business as Earl, in the same locations?”

“All but three. He’ll lose those anyway. Some of his buildings are bigger than the flooring business needs, so we’ll sublet part of the space for interior decorating or furniture. Billy is contacting some of the people Earl put out of business to see if they’d be interested in buying in. They’d share profits, and since we’ll buy in volume, we can negotiate better prices and swap merchandise between stores. It’s a good deal for everyone. It’ll take a little longer to get everything set up, but we’ll get there.”

“Won’t Earl find out by then?”

“What’s he going to do about it? He can’t make his payments on time. He doesn’t make enough to pay his expenses at some of those stores. I’m surprised his suppliers haven’t cut him off.”

They sat quietly for a few minutes, Molly lying at their feet with her red ball about an inch from her nose. “What happens when Earl goes to trial, if he ever goes to trial for beating me? Won’t that hurt your new business?”

Luke leaned back and propped his arm on the bench behind Laura. “He’ll go to trial, and when he does, we’ll use the publicity in our favor.”

How many other women had Earl raped or beaten? She hated him more than she’d ever hated anyone, even Frank Fosdick, yet she was falling in love with his son. It didn’t make sense, yet it made all the sense in the world. They shared the same eye color and the same shape face, but the similarities ended there. Earl was a pig, a brutal man who preyed on those weaker than him, while Luke spent his life helping people to be successful.

<>

Billy called Laura with news the next day. “Florence’s husband was Henry Ralston. Everyone called him Hank.”

“What about the name and phone number on that scrap of paper? Is it the same man?”

“No, that’s Hank Peters. He lives in Tennessee. The area code changed years ago, but it wasn’t hard to get the right one. The man swears he’s never been to Florida and never knew anybody named Queenie.”

“What about Hank Ralston?”

“He was a petty criminal nearly twenty years older than Florence. She was just a kid when they married, so young she had to have her parents sign for her to marry.”

Did her parents know Hank had turned her into a prostitute? “What happened to him? Did they divorce?”

“No, he disappeared. Kind of convenient, since there was a warrant out for his arrest at the time. Presumed drowned. They found his car in the river, but not his body. Some reporters speculated that the gators got him, since they found blood in the car and the door was open. Others thought he’d staged the whole thing.”

What if he didn’t die? “Could the guy in Tennessee be the same man?”

“I don’t think so, Laura. Hank Peters is in his eighties, and except for a stint in the military, he’s lived in Tennessee all his life. If he’s alive, Hank Ralston would be around sixty.”

The phone call left Laura more confused than ever. Florence wasn’t free to marry Dad because she couldn’t prove her husband was dead. But that didn’t explain why Dad stayed in Kingston or why Laura didn’t grow up with Florence.

Laura tried to put herself in Queenie’s shoes. She wanted a husband and family, but her husband wanted out. Why didn’t she let him go and find herself another husband? According to Earl, she was a “purty little thing” before she got fat. Did she think a baby would mend her marriage?

On that tape, Dad said he was leaving at the end of that week. What happened? What did Queenie do to make him stay? And how did she convince Florence to give up her baby?

<>

After the café closed that night, Laura retrieved Luke’s boom box from the storeroom and took it back to her apartment. She wanted to listen to that Elvis cassette again. Maybe she’d missed something. She pushed the play button and listened closely.

“King of the Road.”

Laura fast forwarded to her father saying,
“Like hell we will!”

“I won’t give you a divorce so you can marry that slut.”

“I’m leaving end of the week whether you like it or not. It’s over, Queenie! I won’t stay with you.”

Elvis came back on, but this time, Laura didn’t turn it off. A minute later, Elvis stopped singing again and Laura turned up the volume.

“What do you want this time, Queenie?”
Her father didn’t sound defiant this time. He sounded defeated.

“You keep the baby and send Florence away or I’ll call the police.”

“I can’t take the baby away from her.”

“Then she’ll have that kid in prison and Hank’s family will get custody. You’ll never see it again. Is that what you want?”

Dad didn’t answer.

“You tell Florence I’ll be a good mother. If she’ll let us keep the baby, I won’t ever tell anyone what she did.”