Blame it on Cupid (8 page)

There was no reason she couldn't change. Her life and job hopping had never been about character. It had been about her mother. Which would seem to suggest that this was an ideal time for her to come to grips with that old tediously upsetting history, but right now, she just had too much to do.

Because the coffee machine won the technology battle with her—again—she hauled around a mug of instant. She'd looked around and cleaned the place that first night, but now, she conducted a major search—not just to pin down a place to sleep, but to get a stronger feeling for Charlie and the kind of man and dad he'd been.

The living room, at least, had flashes of the whimsically fun man she'd once known in Charlie. The couch was shaped like a dog bone—a huge, gray dog bone in a swelty-soft suede. And in the entranceway, he'd hung a dartboard—the kind that used felt darts, not the sharp kinds, and it showed signs of wear, so it was obviously something dad and daughter played together. A heap of pillows on the floor indicated they both tended to watch the tube sprawled out.

But the strange modern art all through the house continued to spook her.

A life-sized painting took up one entire wall in the living room. The artist had signed it “Red Dominance,” and it looked as if an extremely crabby person had swathed on big, violent slashes of red and black and yellow, let it dry and put it in a frame. Turn the corner toward the kitchen, and there was an oil of a long, surreal naked body. It wasn't a sexy nude, or remotely pornographic, nothing inappropriate for Charlene to see. The figure was all huddled up, showing mostly knees and elbows, its head bent at a crooked angle, leaving Merry the impression of a living skeleton—one that jumped out at her every time she turned the corner.

Another new-age-y nude took up wall space in Charlie's den, but that one happened to be green. The green woman appeared to be screaming, although the only identifiable body part for sure was her mouth. Every time Merry passed by it, she wanted to tiptoe.

Okay, so maybe Merry wasn't precisely a connoisseur of valuable art. Her taste ran more toward big yellow smiley faces. But she couldn't seem to reconcile the Charlie she knew with the one who'd picked out these scary, ugly pictures.

She kept thinking that there had to be an important clue here. Something she needed to know. Something that would help her understand Charlene and her relationship with her dad and their lives together—if she could just grasp it.

Eventually she gave up trying to analyze the impossible and settled down to the plain old chore of picking a room for herself. The upstairs was pretty much a huge, cavernous space that had potential in the long run, but for now, Merry didn't want to be that far removed from Charlene. So she picked the spare room past the master bedroom. It had clearly been used to stash stuff no one knew what to do with, from out-of-season sports equipment to luggage to spare coats. But it had a lumpy couch bed already there. The walls were an ugly muddy taupe, but whatever. There was a bathroom across from Charlie's and a view of Jack's backyard.

Her thoughts strayed back to Jack and the kiss last night, but she ruthlessly reined them in. After she did the fresh-sheet thing, organized her makeup in the back bathroom, and carted the seasonal debris upstairs to an out-of-sight closet, it was already late morning. She still had the long, three-page list of things to tackle—only abruptly, the phone rang.

It was the school calling. The vice principal. The man sounded decent, had one of those patient, gentle voices that made Merry think he was a kid lover, but he sure had nothing but trouble to deliver.

He claimed that Charlene had slugged another kid. Because Charlie was a girl and the boy she'd punched was a foot taller than her—and because she'd never been in trouble before—the school had decided not to punish her with the usual automatic suspension. They'd also taken into account her father's death and how much school she'd already missed. But she
was
being sent home for the day—Merry had to pick her up immediately—and she'd have detention every afternoon for the next two weeks.

So much for calling all the carpool mothers and looking into grief counseling and figuring out the washing machine and checking out what clothes Charlie did and didn't have in her closet and calling the guardian
ad litem
woman to see what she was like and trying to figure out where the house finances stood…the finances especially had her worry beads jiggling, because she didn't have the first clue what it cost to maintain the place, much less how the bills were supposed to work with the estate and all.

But all that was just life crap. Nothing that mattered.

She made it to the school in less than three minutes, charged in the front door, and immediately came to a dead stop. The woebegone figure sitting alone in the hall, head bent, dejection painted in her rounded shoulders and sunk-in posture was unquestionably Charlie. It was all Merry could do not to sweep her into her arms. But then Charlie looked up, and faster than spit, her face took on a cold, defensive expression.

“I suppose you're going to yell.”

“Actually, what I'm going to do is tell the principal I'm here, so that we can go home.”

“Yeah, right.”

The VP was about what Merry had expected from the phone call—a tall reed with a quiet voice, who had a lot of things to say about violence never being an answer, and certain rules and controls being important, and about Charlene needing to rethink her actions and how they affected others.

He was ponderous and wordy, not mean, yet from the way Charlie slammed out of the school and slammed the car door and slammed into the house, you'd think somebody'd whipped her kitten.

Merry said nothing, just aimed for the kitchen, rolled up her sleeves, and faced off with the coffeemaker again. It was such a gorgeous machine. Obviously the crème de la crème. Probably cost more than she had in her savings account. But there had to be some doohickey to make the thingamabob come out so you could put the grounds in? And she couldn't find it.

Minutes passed. Then more minutes. Than Charlene said from the doorway, in a voice so disgusted it was amazing she could survive it, “What are you trying to do?”

“Oh, I'm
so
glad you're here. Is there any chance you know how to make this work?”

“Of course.” The kid came over, touched something, and the thingamabob opened like magic.

“Thanks,” Merry said, and immediately started pouring in fresh grind. It was possible she could survive an hour longer without real coffee, but she wasn't dead sure.

“Aren't you going to say anything?” Ms. Attitude had gone back to the doorway to park, clearly leaving herself an easy exit.

“Say anything about what?”

“Gimme a break. You know about what.”

Merry glanced up—once she was positive the machine was going to come through and percolate for her. “Naturally, I want to know what happened. But I figured you're probably still feeling really upset, so you'd tell me about the fight when you felt you could.”

Mentally holding her breath, she turned around, dug out the bag of Oreos from the new stash of groceries. When she turned back, Charlene had moved one foot farther into the room, but no more. More carefully than she'd treat a python, Merry cracked open the package and set it in the middle of the breakfast counter. Then she went searching for a mug. Not that she wasn't willing to guzzle the coffee straight from the machine, lapping it up like a dog if she had to, but a standard mug type container would be nice.

“He's in eighth grade. His name's Dougall. Dougall Whitmore. He asked me what was with the hair.”

Aha. Words. Merry was careful not to do any kind of victory dance—but man, it was sure tempting. “And you said…”

“I said nothing.”

“Right,” Merry murmured, believing
that
like she believed in the tooth fairy. Which, come to think of it, she had believed in until she was past puberty.

“But then he said I looked queer. Then I said if looking queer meant being like my dad, then I was happy to look like this. Then he said, well, maybe I was just a lesbo and trying to be honest about it.”

“And then?”

“Then I punched him.” It took a moment, but Charlene finally risked putting half of her skinny hip on the stool, getting close enough to reach the Oreos.

“Is your hand okay?” Merry asked.

“Are you kidding?
No.
It hurts really, really bad. I'm never hitting anybody again. It's not worth it. I thought it was broken. My whole fist.”

“Let's see…Eek! We'd better get some ice on that.” As she scrounged for a plastic bag and ice, she said, “Now, Charlie, you realize the guy's gonna be humiliated because a girl hit him. So you might want to strategize about how you want to handle that before going back to school tomorrow.”

“Huh? That's all?”

“What do you mean?” Merry gently put the ice bag on her hand, letting Charlie determine how hard or light she wanted to press it. The brush cut was starting to flop, she noted. It was the first time she'd been close enough to see that under all that wax stuff was a headful of wispy, baby-fine, to-die-for blond hair.

“You're not going to yell at me? Hand out some punishment?”

Merry sucked in a breath. This was a serious test, she knew. Maybe even a make it or break it test. She opened her mouth to respond—but just then, the phone rang.

Could one thing go smoothly today? Even the smallest thing? Was that really asking too much?

 

J
ACK PUSHED OPEN
the back door, buzzed to beat the band. What a
great
day. He plucked a beer from the fridge, a fork from the drawer and promptly carted two white containers of Chinese to the red leather chair in the living room.

He was starving—seeing as it was past nine. And he'd groused with his colleagues about the mighty long work day, but he didn't mean it.

It always seemed crazy to be paid so much to do something he loved. Back in college, he'd aimed for a degree in Geography because he'd wanted to be a cryptographer. Some idealistic cause had led him into the navy, then Special Ops, but even then the military got the idea that he should get a master's in math. No hardship. Special Ops was for the physically fit youngsters. The master's enabled him to get out and end up working for the government, getting paid lots and lots of money to do puzzles.

Codes. He loved breaking them. Some said he was the most brilliant code breaker around—and that was mighty ironic, considering he'd never decoded the mystery of his own marriage. Sometimes he went to work with two different colored socks on. Sometimes—even though he had plenty of money—he bounced a check because he forgot to add up his checkbook.

But give him a puzzle, and he was over-the-moon happy.

That he was doing something for his country gave him pride, too, but people'd think he was corny if he said that. So he tried to complain about his long hours and the tediousness of his desk job. It was better than his friends thinking he was a dork—even though he was.

Heaving a loud, lazy sigh, he scooped up the remote, cocked his feet on the coffee table and gobbled the first forkful of War Sui Gui. He'd TiVo'd a good old Steven Seagal the night before. It was a perfect end to a perfect day, Chinese takeout and a relaxing couple hours of blood and guts.

Only then his cell rang.

“It's Patty, Jack. I'm back from vacation, had a fabulous time. But I couldn't wait to call you!”

“Um—”

“Paris was incredible. Just incredible. But I have admit, I just kept thinking about how great that night was…”

The more she giggled, the more she talked, the more Jack got a tight feeling in the back of his throat. He couldn't recall anyone named Patty. Had no memory of sleeping with anyone named Patty. For damn sure, he didn't remember any blue scarves tying her up.

Hell.

He couldn't remember tying anyone up with blue scarves. Not that he was unwilling.

He weaseled out of making a date that weekend, claiming he had to work, which wasn't true. But even a casual sexual relationship was a little too weird if he couldn't place the woman.

A little less ferociously, he dove back into his War Sui Gui—only to have the damn cell phone sing again. He glared at the phone, scratched his neck. He really didn't want to risk another call right then. The one had spooked him.

But knowing it could be one of the boys, he had to answer. And he was right, because it was Kev. “Dad!”

“You got me,” Jack affirmed.

“Well, hey.”

“Hey, back.” So it was going to be one of those conversations.

“Cooper thinks we should get a car.”

“Your brother thinks that, huh? I always find it amazing, how Cooper's name comes up whenever you want something, but it's never Cooper who calls me about it.” Jack heard his son sigh heavily and with great patience.