Fast.
Jack is hurt. His face alone is so bruised and scraped he looks like he’s spent the day using his head to play the washboard in a hillbilly jug band.
“What are you doing here?” He looks grumpy and I don’t blame him.
I decide in the space of a mini-second that I will NOT be girly. I push past him and walk right into his house, without insulting him with a coo or “poor baby” of any kind.
“Lisa—”
“Jack,” I say, turning to face him, cutting short his growl. “I’m here, and I’m staying.” I give him a confident smile as I push up my sleeves.
“I don’t want you here.”
I look at the careful way he’s moving and the ice pack he’s holding in one cut up hand, and then I notice his scraped arm. I’m betting one whole side of his body took quite a beating. I swallow down my worry. I cannot be wimpy. Not with Jack.
“Maybe not,” I say in brisk agreement. “But I’m going to pamper you anyway.” With a wink, I turn on my way-cool heel and head toward the kitchen.
“What? Ow!” He says the two words almost on top of one another as he makes too sudden a move to follow me.
I have to do it. What choice is there? Jack is hurt, so I
have
to be nice to him first if I want answers. I cannot be a bitch. Not yet.
“Just lay down on the couch over there or whatever makes you most comfortable.” I call over my shoulder, “I’ll get started in here.”
Jack follows me to the kitchen in a slow but clearly pissed-off gait that has me biting back a laugh. He just looks so un-him, trying to chase me down like he’s any sort of threat.
When he steps into the fullness of the kitchen light, I get a good look at him in his faded navy sweats, a ratty T-shirt, and clean white socks. He’s got just-out-of-the-shower wet hair and a soapy smell. I swear I’m about to tackle him while he’s defenseless.
But I’ve got to concentrate. “I’ve never really done the pampering thing before,” I explain as I wash my hands at the sink. “Keith never got sick or hurt or anything.” I dry my hands on a paper towel then walk up to Jack. “I’ll help you get settled. Just tell me where.”
Jack sucks in a deep breath, probably to yell at me, then winces. “I don’t need to be pampered, and—I hope you’re listening this time—I don’t want you here.”
A nasty shock zaps through me.
What if there’s already someone here? Like a woman? A tall, built, in-shape woman with thighs of iron who can climb mountains in a porno nurse’s uniform? I’m ready to apologize and run for the door when instead I hear myself ask to use the bathroom.
“What?” Jack squawks. “No. Get out.”
“I gotta go.” I dart around him and head past the stairs toward the back hallway.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Looking for a bathroom,” I explain with mounting impatience, pretending like I’ve never been in his bathroom before and have no idea exactly where it is.
I start opening doors, any door behind which a sexpot might be stashed. Not in the laundry room where I find a dusty pile of shredded motorcycle leathers on the floor. Not in a small downstairs office. I get to the garage but can’t find the light switch. I step down and hit a button I find on the wall. The whirring noise startles me as the garage door scrolls up.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I told you,” I call back, lowering the door and flicking another switch.
The empty garage bursts into fluorescent light as Jack yells at me again. “The bathroom is right here, you lunatic! You walked right past it!”
No woman in the garage. I rush to the bathroom – no woman, not even in the tub. Jack stands right in the doorway, blocking my path with his sheer malevolence.
“What’s the matter?” I ask innocently. I try to slide past him but he grabs my shirt.
“Listen, Lisa. Ow!”
I poked him the ribs to make good my escape.
“Jesus!” Jack slumps against the wall. “I thought you said you were going to pamper me! You SUCK at pampering!”
I race up the stairs. Three bedrooms. I head toward the one at the end of the hall, sure to be the master since it’s over the garage and must be the biggest. But nobody’s in there or in the master bathroom. I get out quick, not wanting to be suspected of scoping out Jack’s bedroom. Way too embarrassing to be the chick who commits to memory the color of his comforter (white with grayish-blue seer-suckery stripes) and the number of throw rugs in his bathroom (two.)
I check the other two bedrooms lickety split but what I find is…um…weird.
Regardless, nobody seems to be lurking. Unless said woman, or man, I suppose, is hiding in a closet or under a bed.
But why hide from me?
I walk slowly back down the stairs toward Jack who waits, looking up at me.
“You are a whacked-out freak.” His unassailable pronouncement.
“Just wanted to make sure nobody else was here and I wasn’t interrupting anything.”
“You could’ve asked.”
“
You
could’ve lied.”
He huffs out a breath. “Satisfied?”
I look at him. “Puzzled.”
He chucks the melted ice pack at me then heads toward the couch. “Too damn bad.”
Deciding to ignore his surly temper, I walk into the kitchen to re-freeze the pack and make us something to eat. Luckily, the kitchen opens onto the family room in a very homey kind of way so I can keep an eye on Jack as I cook.
“Can I get you anything?” I call as I open every cupboard in the kitchen.
“Lisa, you’re not welcome.” He’s super-serious, or trying to be.
“That hurts, Jack. But I’m going to push past the pain, as I’m sure you might instruct me to do in other circumstances.”
“Why are you even here?”
“I came to rip you a new one because you cancelled on me.”
Jack stretches out on the couch and closes his eyes. “Lisa, the Blackhawk brothers finished making some bike gear we’ve been working on.” He sinks more deeply into the cushions. “What I’d usually do is I’d test it right away. So, I had to test it today, or else the staff might’ve suspected something.”
I set my palms on the counter and stare at him. “That better be the truth,” I say. “I will not put up with you just unilaterally deciding to end our deal without so much as a rational conversation.”
“You mean rational like this one?”
I start slamming items I choose for dinner onto the counter. “
I’m
not ending the deal,” I point out. “We’re in this together, whether you like it or not.”
He scowls at me. “So…what? We’re in this thing for life? I can never get out?”
I close the freezer with a
thwack
. “Of course you can. But you could talk to me when you’re having misgivings. Give me a goddamn heads-up before the decision is made. I’m just so sick of others making these decisions and– wham! My life is changed forever and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. Now, can I get you anything, or what?”
He just looks at me for a few seconds. “Scotch,” he says. “Top shelf, over the toaster.”
I take down the Glendronach and a glass. “How much?”
“The bottle should just about do it.”
* * * * *
Forty minutes later, I’m nestling myself into the big comfy chair next to the sofa, ready to tuck into the supper I’ve whipped together.
Jack is looking at his plate. “You cut up all my food.”
“I know,” I mumble around a mouthful of the best steak ever. I know, I know. I’m trying to be a vegetarian, but sometimes, I just jump right off the wagon.
He’s still looking at his plate as though his food has been cooked in a language he doesn’t understand. “Why?” he asks.
“Just eat, G.I. Joe. I promise I won’t tell anyone that I cut your meat for you.”
Jack still looks like I swiped his favorite lunch box, but he takes a cautious bite.
“Do you have kids?” I ask when his mouth is full.
He swallows. “No.” He scoops another forkful into his mouth.
I’m part impressed and part peeved that he was so ready for my question. Jesus. Now I can’t think of anything else to say.
But I still want to know why there are two kids’ bedrooms upstairs.
As I mull this over, Jack cleans his plate with the efficiency of an anteater. I put down my own plate, stand, and take his empty plate. In less than a minute, I return it to him, loaded with second helpings of everything.
“You made seconds?”
I nod.
“My niece and nephew,” he says. “My brother’s kids.”
“Are you their foster dad, or something?”
“They stay with me whenever he and his wife are both away.” He takes a few bites. “Which is at least once a month. They travel a lot for business. And they usually manage to include weekends away.”
“But the rooms, they look lived in. Not just rooms they stay in, but
their
rooms. Posters on the walls and stuff.”
“I want them to be at home. Not feel like they’re in the way.”
“Are they rich?”
“Yup.”
We eat in silence for a few seconds. “So, if the kids didn’t spend time with you, they’d be stuck with a nanny?”
Jack shrugs. “One of ‘em. They’ve got two.”
“Hmm. So, do they get to be totally wild when they’re here?”
“They run with scissors and everything.”
I take a swig of Coke. “Where do they live?”
“Laguna Nigel.”
I put down the bottle. “Orange County? So, on weekdays, you drive them to school? Glendale to Orange County?”
Jack swallows a mouthful. “Nuh-uh. We either hang glide or take the horses.”
“Hmm,” I say again, this time with an undertone of a snide Hanna-Barbera villain, “be as funny as you want, but I’ve got your number.”
“I hope it’s pi. I love pie.”
“You like kids,” I accuse with triumph.
Jack sets down his plate, then stretches along the wide, long couch. “I’d like some after-dinner coffee, Jeeves.”
I get up and make my way back to the kitchen. “Have any brandy?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
Later, after polishing off two cups of spiked coffee and a bowl of vanilla bean ice cream mixed together with Rice Krispies and Nestlé’s Quik (which he claims is for the kids), a very comfy-looking and contented Jack sinks back into the couch and closes his eyes. I’m still working on my ice cream, since I like it best when it gets all melted and soupy.
“So, you wiped out on the bike?” I ask.
“Happens.”
“And the gear?”
“Pretty good. Have a few ideas.”
“’Course you do,” I say. “Far be it from you to let a little spill get in the way of action action action.”
“May as well not waste the day.”
“That’s why I stayed.”
Jack opens his eyes and looks at me. “Why? Because of the gear?”
“You never give yourself a break,” I explain. “So I thought I’d stick around and do the honors.”
“This mean you’re going to do the dishes, too?”
I nod and smile. “When do you see the kids again?”
“They were supposed to be here all Halloween weekend, but Ted and Suzy decided to stay in town. There’s some big costume party at the club, and they want to be sure to be seen. And they’re bringing the kids with them.”
“Mmmm,” I say, savoring my ice cream. “You sound bitter. You never sound bitter. You’ve got something to say about Ted and Suzy?”
Jack sighs. “No.” He sounds like a pouty kid who’s being asked if he’s going to play ball so close to the house ever again. “Not really. It’s just….Never mind.”
“Okay. What do you and the rugrats do together?”
“Josh and Isabelle. They’ve usually got their own things to get done. Homework. Then we just hang out.”
“Running with scissors?”
“Running with scissors,” he confirms.
“Do you wish you had your own kids?”
Jack doesn’t answer, but he picks up his empty coffee mug and pours a few fingers of Scotch into it.
I take a sip of my un-spiked coffee.
“It’s what I suck at.”
What
?
I breathe carefully, afraid I’m going to pull a penny out of my pocket and ruin everything. “What, exactly,” I ask lightly, “do you suck at?”
He takes a swig of Scotch. “Forging relationships. You know, the kind that matter.”
That’s it? He-Man’s big secret is that he’s commitment-phobic?
“You suck at relationships,” I say, trying not to judge or fix, trying to remember anything I can from Mars and Venus. “Well….”
“No,” he says, “not relationships.
Forging
relationships.”
“I’m confused.”
“Some people fall into relationships or are born into them, and I’m pretty okay with those kind. No better or worse than your average schmuck, I guess.”
He pauses.
“Okay,” I say.
“But when I actually set out to forge a relationship… to make it happen because I want it in my life… well, that’s what I suck at.”
“You’re sure about this?”
“Jesus!” He shoots to a standing position, then deciding he has nowhere to go, sits back down. “Just look at Into the Wild. I tried to build this totally non-corporate company. I decided I would go employee-owned, and that we’d all be working toward the same goal. But look what’s happening. They think they're better than other people, not just other companies or other gear. They don’t want to expand into anything that’s too ‘normal.’ I got it all wrong.”
“But Into the Wild’s a business, Jack.” I try to sound off-hand, as if what he’s told me is no big deal. “Relationships with people are different.”
“Who do you think makes up the business? Nobody?” He starts laughing. Then he says something, I think.
“‘Loose all over again?’” I echo, just for clarification, sure now that he’s three sheets to the wind.
“Loose,” he agrees, “and Edgar and Griselda.”
“Oh,” I say, cluing in, “Luz.”
“Ruiz. Well, Montez. Luz Montez and Edgar and Griselda Ruiz. Luz is their daughter.”
“Oh, no,” I say, “this already sounds tragic.”
He stops laughing and looks over with raised eyebrows that almost serve as shrug. “Nobody dies,” he offers, then his eyes become bleak. “Until later.”
He switches positions on the couch then, stretching out on his stomach, with his head closer to me than it was before. I want to hear whatever he’s about to tell me. I really, really do.