The Jeweler (9 page)

Fender tried to be sanctimonious. “You almost look pleased that I haven’t told her.”

Sam laughed. “I am pleased! You’re a never-ending source of entertainment for me, Fender. I love you, but God, you do stupid things sometimes. So, how’s this going to work? Will you bed her and slip the ring into the eggs the morning after? Or with a note tucked under the pillow?”

Fender really did feel a little hurt. “It’s not like that, Sam. I know I usually don’t go for the long-term thing with women…” He paused because Sam was clearly trying not to laugh. “I know it usually doesn’t work out after a while, but I want it to be different with her. Don’t tell me another thing because I’ve already thought about all of it.”

“All right, studmuffin. You know what? If you think this is a chance for happiness, I’m not going to lecture you. I just don’t remember big fatty lies being the cornerstone of a great relationship.”

“Excuse me, oh Honest Sam. I recall someone in this room calling the cable company to bitch about the cable being out before remembering that he’d hot-wired the cable from his neighbor’s cable box in the first place. Ring any bells?”

“Well, go on your date and have fun. I’m proud of you, too, for bathing. That lets a girl know she’s special.” Sam got out of the shop door before Fender could retaliate.

Ginger cried in the car all the way down the mountain.

It’d just been a horrific day. She’d had lessons back to back on a miserable, wet March Tuesday. All morning long she’d looked forward to changing her socks at lunch and having a warm cup of soup. When she’d trudged back to the instructors’ room, however, she’d found another slip of paper for her, pegged with a golf tee on the big assignment board. Another lesson. A lunch lesson. She could’ve cried. But she’d turned around and marched out to the flats again, wet socks, cold toes, and all.

She never said no. She wanted the work, and she worried that if she turned one lesson down, no others would come her way.

So, she’d gone to teach another lesson. Followed by another, and then another. At the end of the day, she’d been bone tired and cold.

Her last lesson had been a kid of nine or ten. Colby was his name. The mother had wanted to stand on the snow next to them and watch. That’d been Ginger’s first hint of trouble.

Colby was a brat. A spoiled mama’s boy. He was also hopelessly uncoordinated. By the end of the hour, Ginger had been ready to strangle him. But she’d kept at it, trying to get him to wedge turn, or stop, or even just get up by himself.

When they had ten minutes left in the lesson, Colby had fallen and wouldn’t get up. Ginger had tried everything, but he was planted. So, she’d sat down in the snow next to him, resolved to wait until he decided he wanted to get up.

Which was when the mother had stormed up to them.

“What’s going on here?” Colby had seen his mother’s approach and began to wail.

Before Ginger could utter any kind of explanation, the mother had scooped her son up off the snow and lit into Ginger with relish.

“I’ll see to it that your boss knows about this negligence. I’m appalled. I left my son in your care, and this is what I come back to find? You obviously can think of no one but yourself. You aren’t competent. Do you know that?” The mother had actually seemed to expect a reply.

Now Ginger couldn’t even remember what she’d said to the woman, but it had been apologetic. Ginger was furious with herself. She hadn’t said one word in her own defense. What was worse, a tiny nagging part of her said the woman was right.

She wiped her nose on the cuff of her jacket. This sucked. It made her want to eat lots of brownies and curl up under the covers. It made her miss Brad.

Brad had fallen in love with her when she hadn’t even been trying her hardest. She’d really loved that about him, because inside somewhere she realized someone could love her just as she was, not only on her best behavior.

She’d been so thrilled to have someone, someone who loved her. She’d cleaned the house and done his laundry even before they were living together. She’d bought him presents. She was uber-woman, hear her roar.

But when she began teaching again the following season, she’d discovered—actually Brad had discovered—she couldn’t keep up the pace of super-housekeeper and also work at the resort. One Monday, she remembered, she’d been in bed, waiting for Brad to finish in the bathroom so she could get up.

Brad had gotten up before six, showering and getting ready to go in for an early surgery at the vet clinic. He came out of the bathroom and began to open and close all of his drawers, open and close the closet door.

She shook herself out of sleep. “What’s up? You can’t find something?”

She knew the answer before he even said it. “Where’s that one shirt? The one with the blue collar and the white stripes?”

She fought the urge to throw something at him. “You wore it Saturday.”

“It’s not clean?” He opened and closed another drawer for effect.

“I’m sorry, hon, I didn’t get to the washing. I was so beat when I got off the mountain yesterday.”

“It’s fine. I’ll wear whatever.” And he stomped out of the room.

Of course, he’d known exactly where the shirt was: in the dirty laundry, right where he’d tossed it. But he wanted her admission, as if it were a piece of ammunition he would save for later arguments.

Little things like that, she let slide. But she’d let other stuff slide, too, that maybe she shouldn’t have. Like asking for what she wanted.

She’d wanted things she hadn’t had the guts to ask for. She liked compliments; she liked flowers. But he never did these things for her because she’d never asked. And more than that, they never occurred to him on his own.

When the little things started to seem not so little, that was when Ginger had begun to watch the Frisbee players in the park. And then it didn’t matter.

This thought launched Ginger into another sob. “We never got to see what was next. I never got to see if it would have worked.”

She realized she was talking to herself. The car filled with her voice above the turning of the tires on the road. It soothed her to hear herself talk, even though it was the first sign of insanity. “You know what else would be soothing? A long bath and a plate of brownies.”

And then she remembered:
Oh my God, I have a date!
She didn’t want to go. This made her want to sob all over again. It was with Fender, her student. This was a full-scale emergency.

She drove down the rest of the road as quickly as she could. Maybe he’d forget. She didn’t know what to do, but she knew she didn’t want to go. She just wanted to crawl into bed, warm up, and sleep. Or try to sleep. She tried to remember where she’d put his phone number.

She parked in front of her house, leaving her skis in the back of her car. She got the door open and walked inside, already scanning the living room for the scrap of paper with his number on it.

It was no use. She looked high and low and couldn’t find it anywhere. Zoë followed her from room to room and whined with concern. Ginger spouted a long string of curses and self-pitying remarks, which seemed to disturb the big dog.

She plopped down on the couch. Giving up, she peeled off her jacket and fleece and stooped down to unlace her boots. It was six forty-five. He’d be here in fifteen minutes.
Screw it. I’m going to take off my wet socks and make a cup of hot chocolate. When he comes to the door, I’ll tell him the truth: I’m having a nervous breakdown, and you’ll have to come back another day to take me out. That’s what I’ll do.

And then Zoë puked. It was a sudden, all-at-once kind of hurl. The dog bent her fluffy head down in an arch, splayed her front paws, and let go in the middle of the living room rug. And then the doorbell rang. Ginger let out a cry of pain;
it’s official. I have entered the first level of hell.
She felt tears welling up in her eyes, and the doorbell rang again.

Fender heard a kind of strangled cry when he rang the doorbell.
Well, that’s always a sign of a good date to come.
He rang the doorbell again. For a moment, nothing happened. He was going to look pretty silly if she didn’t open the door soon.

Then the door swung open, slowly, like in a horror movie. Ginger stood a few steps back from the threshold. She was a sight to behold.

And not in a good way. Between her legs was a large Husky dog who’d apparently just vomited all over the carpet. This was evidenced by a pile of partially digested Alpo chunks, smack in the middle of the living room rug, not far behind the woman and dog. Ginger’s hair was falling out of a ponytail, and her eyes and nose were red.

“Um, hi.” This was the best he could do.

“Hi.” Ginger said this in a wavering voice. He noticed she was biting her lip, and he realized she was on the verge of crying. He hated it when women cried.

“You know, this doesn’t look like a good time, maybe I’ll call you.” This is what he usually would’ve said. Instead, he heard this come out of his mouth: “Why don’t you sit down on the couch? I’ll find something to clean up the puke.” He came inside and walked toward the back of the house, careful to avoid the toxic dog vomit.

He liked her kitchen. It had old white wooden cabinets, a comfortable feel. He grabbed a dishrag.

As he came back into the living room, Ginger tried to say something. “I just want…It’s been…She ate…” She plopped down on the couch with the most defeated look on her face Fender had ever seen.

“Shitty day, huh?”

She nodded vehemently. He knelt over the puke. It was acid-yellow and steamed a little.
Oh baby, now this is a turn-on
. The dishrag was not going to cut it. He stood again, trying not to gag, to look for a more suitable tool. “You just sit there and hold that dog. Don’t worry about anything.”

In the kitchen, Fender looked around and decided on a soup ladle and the trash can. He hurried back into the living room. It was a nasty business. He found if he held his breath while over the toxic mess, he could get the puke into the trash with minimal gagging on his part. Soon, he’d ladled all the vomit into the trash can. Then he used the dishrag to mop the spot left on the carpet.

Ginger seemed to sink a little more comfortably into the couch. “I think she knew I was going out. I don’t know what the hell she ate to make that, though.”

“Perhaps we need a priest. I saw very similar puke in
The Exorcist
. Has her head spun around yet?” He saw Ginger smile a little. He felt brave. “You know what? Why don’t we bag the movie idea?”

She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her black fleece. “That sounds really good.”

“I’ll just run down to the store and get us something to eat. Do you want me to rent a movie?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know if I can last for the two hours. Dinner here would be good, though.” She hunkered down on the couch. As she talked to him, she pulled the rubber band out of her hair. A thick tangle of strawberry blond fell down around her shoulders. Then she swept it all back up again and refastened the band.
She’s beautiful, honest-to-God beautiful
.

She went to the bathroom to blow her nose, and he hopped in his car and drove to the store. He got to the closest market and went inside. It was the natural foods grocery store. He felt lost. His idea of dinner at home was a can of SpaghettiOs mixed with chili. He ate a lot down at the Rendezvous or at Pop’s house.

Now Fender scanned the aisles. There were organic veggie snacks and cookies called “frookies” because of some scary ingredient they had. He walked to the meat case and things weren’t much better: free-range chicken, hormone-free beef, fish caught in the nets of disenfranchised Native American lesbians, that kind of stuff. Fender didn’t really get into the whole environmental thing, and he had enough self-awareness to know he lived so far away from political correctness he’d need a map to get there.

Finally, he got what looked like a relatively safe choice: a frozen pizza. He knew how to cook those. Sure, it was an organic, wheat-crusted pizza with pine nuts and sun-dried tomatoes, but it was pizza. He picked up a couple sparkling juices to go with it and headed back to her house.