ThisTimeNextDoor (10 page)

“You’ll be fine. Just you wait and see.”

“Sounds like you’re the one waiting and seeing,” Rose said. But she managed to stay polite as she said goodbye. It wasn’t as if she’d planned on ever moving back into the house, not with Phil there.

Very interesting he was the one who didn’t want her moving back in. He’d seemed rather fond of her presence in the house. So fond he’d developed a tendency to walk in on her when she was working out in the basement, getting dressed, taking a shower. For the first time in her life, she’d begun locking doors. He never said anything, never touched her. Maybe he feared if she came back it was only a matter of time.

Time. She needed a job even sooner than she’d thought.

She called the temp agency again and assured them that yes, she was proficient with Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Microsoft Excel, as well as being a talented speller and snappy dresser. They had a good-paying job starting next week, it turned out.

“Know any HTML?” the woman at the agency asked her.

“Sure. Tons.”

“Fantastic. That’s great. We were having trouble finding somebody for this assignment. I’ll email you the address and person to see first thing Monday morning. It’s in San Leandro. Will that commute be a problem?”

“Where’s San—never mind, no, it’s no problem. I’ve got a car.”

“Fabulous.”

Rose went to her laptop to see where the heck San Leandro was. “How long will they need me?”

“I’m afraid it’s only for the week.”

Rose’s hope fell. “A week? They want me doing all that and it’s only for a week?”

“That’s what they say, but many companies, if they like you, ask you to stay longer. Sometimes permanently.”

“All right. There’s nothing else for a longer term? Or something the week after?”

“We’ll be sure to let you know.”

Right. Rose hung up and studied the map on her screen. Not far at all, just south of Oakland. All the towns out here sounded the same, San This and Santa That.

In five minutes she was walking across the driveway to bother Mark again. She’d planned to leave him alone, but this was an emergency. Trixie answered the door, smiling as usual, and practically dragged her inside.

“Just the person I needed,” Trixie said. “Are you allergic to dogs?”

“No,” Rose said, following her through the house to a porch off the kitchen. “Is Mark here by any chance?” She’d learned her lesson from yesterday; best not to depend on Trixie with any messages.

“He’s working. We’ll go interrupt him in a minute, I promise, but Zeus needs his drops and Mark isn’t tough enough to hold him properly. You look like a practical girl. You wouldn’t mind giving me a hand, would you?”

“No problem.” Rose frowned at the tiny, very ugly dog in Trixie’s hands. His tongue was hanging out and one eye bugged out twice as large as the other. Tufts of hair stuck out of his upright, triangular ears. He was giving Rose an adoring smile, apparently not embittered by his own horrific appearance. “What do I need to do?”

“Just hold his head very still.”

They’d never had pets when she was growing up, but she’d always wanted one. This particular creature wasn’t what she’d dreamt of as a child, however. Hesitatingly, Rose reached out for the dog, held its little thin torso in her hands, felt its heartbeat under her palms.

“Maybe you could sit down,” Trixie said. “Hold Zeus’s head in your hands. Just for a second. Don’t be afraid to be firm.” She took out a little bottle and began to shake it.

Laughing in surprise as Zeus climbed up her chest and licked her face, Rose sank down into a chair, got a hold of the little skull with the big tongue, and held him still. “Hey, buddy, easy with the toenails there. This is my favorite sweater.”

“Great color. That periwinkle really brings out your eyes,” Trixie said, wielding the dropper. “Hold him tighter, please. If I miss we just have to do it again and I’m going to run out of the medicine. I squirted the first dose into his ear, and that’s not going to do any good, is it little guy?” She made kissing noises and squeezed the clear contents of the dropper into the small eye.

“What’s the matter with him?”

“Nothing serious. Just a little infection.” She did the next eye. “There. All done.”

Relieved, Rose released him. To her surprise, Zeus didn’t jump onto the floor to make a run for it but turned back to lick her face some more. His claws dug into her right breast, above the bra line, using her cleavage as a step stool to her face. “He smells like shampoo.”

“Two baths today. Mark let him play with a dead animal when they went running.”

Rose pushed Zeus away and set him gently on the floor. “Yummy,” she said. “So, is Mark here? I’m sorry to bother him again, but—”

“Of course you’re not bothering him. He gets his work done before breakfast. He thinks I don’t know that, but of course I do. Did you know Mark went to MIT when he was sixteen? He’s always had more smarts than he knew what to do with.”

“Which is why I’m living at home with my mother,” Mark said, coming into the kitchen. “Did you show her my baby pictures? My chess trophy from third grade? My framed SATs?”

Beaming, Trixie slipped quickly across to the kitchen doorway and gave Mark a hug. “Rose was just helping me give Zeus his drops. You’re too soft with him. It needed a woman’s touch.” She grinned at Rose. “Men are such babies.”

To Rose’s appreciative eye, Mark didn’t bear any resemblance to an infant. It wasn’t just the nice clothes, the polo that hugged his biceps and broad shoulders, the jeans that emphasized his long legs. He had a confidence when he was on his own turf that was nothing like that stumbling, nervous man who’d sat with Blair in their living room.

“You just wanted an excuse to keep her here,” Mark said.
 
“Be careful, Rose. My mother adopts more than just dogs.”

Rose surreptitiously wiped her doggy-spit-stained hands on her jeans. “I’ll tell my mom she’s got some stiff competition out here.”

“Well, I’ll just leave you two alone,” Trixie said. “The suppositories can wait until your next visit, Rose.”

“Gotta draw the line there,” Rose said. “I don’t do doggy butts. Not even Zeus's.”

Trixie laughed. “See? Tough. That’s what I like. Not afraid to say what you mean.” Hugging Zeus to her chest in one hand, she slapped Mark on the shoulder and left the kitchen.

“Now you’ve done it,” Mark said, taking out a pitcher of water from the fridge, pouring a glass. He handed it to her. “She’s on the scent. No shaking her now.”

Maybe it was her mom’s belated apron-string cutting declaration earlier that day, but right then it felt pretty good to be adopted by Trixie Johnson. She sipped the water, tasted lemon and lime, took a deeper drink. “I need your help.”
 

He slapped his forehead. “The ladder! I forgot. I’ll go get it now.”

“No, not that. Blair and John can get their own damn ladder.”

He stared at her. “Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s staying.”

“He will be.”

“When?”

“Soon. Probably in about two weeks, maybe three. He’s got to settle things back in New York, find a job here.”

“Couldn’t he have done that earlier?”

“I imagine he wanted to make sure she’d have him before he took any big steps.” Rose said.

Mark took her glass and refilled it. “What are you going to do? Just pack up and move out? Where are you going to go?”

“Thanks for the indignation.” Smiling, she patted him on his arm, reflecting that all the lifting in the world wouldn’t give her definition like that. How hard did he have to work to keep in such great shape? Because from the look of those jeans, his muscles weren’t limited to his biceps. “I’m certainly not living with them.”

“Of course not.” His expression turned from disgust to alarm. “Are you moving back home?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Good.”

“Worried about your mom missing me?”

“I’d miss you,” he said. “You’re the first woman I’ve been able to talk to since—well, for a long time. God knows how long it would take me to find another gay or pseudo-gay female to practice with me.”

“I’m so flattered.”

He grinned and his face came to life. All that charm, hiding, disguised. She stared at him, amazed by the transformation.
 

“You can take it,” he said, putting the pitcher back in the fridge. “You’re sexy and you know it.”

Her face flooded with heat. That wasn’t what she expected him to say. He wasn’t too far off. She wasn’t thin, she wasn’t the modern ideal, but she’d been getting male attention since she was in seventh grade. Strangely, her suitors thought they were seeing something the others were missing, that she should be grateful, melt under their regard, when in fact she was constantly having to say no, no thank you, I’m not interested in you in that way.

“I’ve shocked you,” he said.

“You’re full of surprises, I’ll say that.”

He grinned again. “So, what do you need from me?” His smile fell. “Better not tell my mother you’re about to be homeless. She’ll put you in my sister’s room.”

“Not unless she has a gun,” she said. “I just need you to teach me HTML. I’ve got a job starting Monday.”

“HTML? Monday?”

“It’s just for the week.”

“That doesn’t sound right.” He shook his head. “Besides, I can’t teach you HTML. That’s not my thing. And three days isn’t enough time to learn anything.”

“I just need to know enough to fake it. I can fake anything for a week.”

He laughed. “You’re crazy.”

“Look, learning a little code can’t be that hard. I’ve known some pretty dumb web developers.”

“It’s not hard at all,” he said. “At least not the code part.”

“There you go.”

“You’d have better luck with a book than with me.”

“You’re a professional teacher, right? You’re perfect.” She indulged in touching his arm again. What had he said?
The first girl I’ve been able to talk to since…

Since who?

“All right,” he said. “But don’t blame me when they fire you.”

* * *

An hour later Mark snuck out of the house with a couple of books and a laptop shoved in his backpack. He got in his car, hoping Rose would be quick. Within minutes, his mom would sense something was up and look out the window. If she saw Mark and Rose driving off together in his Jetta, she’d put fresh sheets on his bed and a fresh box of condoms on the pillow.

Rose popped open the door and climbed in. “Let’s get out of here before Blair gets back from work. I don’t want her getting the wrong idea.”

He backed up into the road, careful not to spin the tires on the gravel, enjoying the adrenaline rush of the escape and then chiding himself for being thrilled to drive away from home at the age of twenty-nine in a late-model Volkswagen without getting in trouble with his mommy.

“I really need to get out more,” he mumbled.

Her hand patted his thigh. “Workin’ on it.”

He thought about telling her it was all right to leave her hand where it was, but he didn’t want her getting the wrong idea.

The right idea.

He glanced at her. What would she be like in bed?

No. Don’t think about that. At least, not right now.

“Which café do you want to go to?” he asked.

“You’re the native. Where can we work without being interrupted?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been the type to hang out in cafés.”

He decided on College Avenue, close to the Berkeley campus. They managed to find a table in the middle of the crowded space, students already camped out in most of them with laptops, books, tablets, and drinks over every surface. Original art hung on the walls with immodest subject matter but modest price tags, mostly naked women, some men. Mark found it distracting, but was grateful none of the guys were full-frontal. At least none in the main seating area.

“It’s like being in college again,” Rose said, peeking around them.

“Is that good?”

Her tongue darted out between glossy rosebud lips to lap at the foam on her cappuccino. Mark stared, mesmerized, as those lips curled into a smile. “Oh, yeah.”

I went to the wrong college.

She took the book he had next to him and flipped through it. “Don’t you have something a little more general? Like Websites for Dumbshits or something?”

“Nope. Maybe you should’ve asked a dumbshit to help you. I buy the books for smart people.”

“Pfft. They’re great for learning something new.” She smiled at him over her cappuccino. A dab of foam clung to her upper lip. “I’ll get you the one for social skills.”

He reached over, swiped the foam away with a fingertip. “It wouldn’t help. Book learnin’ only goes so far.”

She’d frozen in place when he touched her and now watched him with those big blue eyes. “Won’t take you all the way, huh?”

“Something like that.”

She flipped through the book, scanning the pages, sipping her drink. “I’ll read this tonight. You got anything on Illustrator and Photoshop?”

“No, why?”

“They think I’m a graphic designer.” She laughed.

“And you’re not?”

“Can’t even draw a straight line.”

He groaned into his cup.

“Don’t look at me like that. I was desperate.”

“Did you tell them anything that was actually true?”

She wiggled an eyebrow. “I’ll make sure the direct deposit info is right.” She propped an elbow on the table and leaned forward, flashing her cleavage. “How hard could it be?”

He fixed his gaze on her face. “Very. You’re doomed.”

“Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Positive.”

“Why not tell them you’re a biochemical engineer? Snag that higher hourly wage from the temp agency,” he said. “Maybe even get some vacation time.”

To his surprise, she didn’t fire back a retort. Slumping over the table, she stared forlornly into her glass. “You’re right, I am doomed.”

“Now you’re making me feel bad,” he said.

“I do know a little Photoshop. And I’ve poked around a few websites. I thought it would be enough.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“Liar,” she said.

“You’re one to talk.”

Smiling, she stood up. “I need to pee. Be right back.”

He watched her weave through the crowded tables to the back of the café, her blond hair flowing down her back in long, golden waves as she passed the artistic porn hanging on the walls.