“Oh,” I said after he set our plates down, “I forgot to ask you. If you were a utensil, what would you be?”
He straightened. “Excuse me?”
“A utensil. What would you be?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, then asked suspiciously, “Why do you want to know?”
“It’s for a quiz. It’s guaranteed to let us know if we are compatible. You know, for the long haul.”
“Really?” he asked. He pulled out a chair, turned it around, and straddled it to sit with us. “You have to take a quiz to see if we’re compatible?”
“Yes,” I said, trying to recover from that last move. He was just too sexy, straddling that chair, crossing his sinewy arms over the back of it. “Yes. This stuff is important, and they have a ninety-nine percent success rate. It said so.” I dragged out my phone, brought up the online quiz, and held it out to him. “Right here. See?”
He didn’t even spare it a glance. Cookie was busy cutting into her Santa Fe chicken and fending off an inappropriate smirk.
“You can’t trust anything on the Internet.”
“Can, too,” I said, completely offended.
“So, if I posted a comment saying I was an Arabian prince from Milwaukee?”
“Yeah, but you’re a big fat liar. You don’t count. I mean, look at your dad. Pathological liar
numeral uno
. Lying is in your genes.”
He leaned forward. “There’s only one thing in my jeans right now.”
“Are you going to take my question seriously or not? This could be the key to our futures.”
“I have a key in my jeans pocket. You could search.”
He was completely blowing off our chance at happiness. “What are you, twelve?”
“Centuries, maybe.”
“You’re twelve centuries old?”
He winced. “You know how older women say they are twenty-nine?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’m kind of doing that.”
“No, really, how old are you? Wait!” A thought hit me. Hard. Like a baseball thrown from the pitcher’s plate at Wrigley Field. “How old am I?” I hadn’t really thought of it in those terms. I was supposedly from an ancient race of beings from another universe, another plane of existence. How old was I?
“A machete,” he said, getting up and righting the chair.
“What?”
“If I were a utensil.”
“Does that count as a utensil?”
He winked at me. “It does in my world.”
“Okay, fine. I’d be a … a spork! Wait, what does that mean? I’m not sure a machete and a spork are very compatible.”
He took hold of my chin and lifted my face to his. “I have a feeling a machete and a spork can work very well together.”
Before I could argue, he bent and pressed his mouth to mine. The heat scorched at first, then penetrated my skin and spread through me like warm honey. The kiss, barely a peck, ended too soon as he rose, surprised Cookie with a quick kiss on her cheek, and went back to the kitchen, giving me a spectacular view of his ass.
Cookie gasped and touched the spot where Reyes’s lips had brushed, stars bursting from her eyes. “I want that,” she said, suddenly determined.
I looked back toward the door Reyes had disappeared through. “Well, you can’t have it. It’s mine.”
“No, not that. Not him.” She shook out of her stupor and said, “I mean, yeah, I’d take him in a heartbeat, but I want that. I want what you two have, damn it.” She set her jaw. “Let’s do this. Let’s set up that stubborn, rascally uncle of yours until he begs me to be his girl.”
“Yeah, Cookie,” I said, raising my hand for a high five, but she floundered. “Don’t leave me hangin’.”
“But what if he doesn’t ask me out?”
After waving toward a couple I didn’t know who’d just stepped in the front door to save my dignity, I lowered my hand and said, “I think the more important question is, do you think a machete and a spork are very compatible?”
“Charley, you have to quit taking those ridiculous quizzes.”
“No way. I have to know.”
“Fine, but why a spork?”
“Because I’m versatile. I can multitask like nobody’s business. And I like the way it sounds. It’s so … sporky.”
3
Coffee doesn’t ask silly questions.
Coffee understands.
—BUMPER STICKER
We weren’t back in the office ten minutes before the door to the front entrance opened. I’d expected Mr. Joyce, the agitated man with the issues. Instead I got Denise. My evil stepmother. Thankfully, Mr. Joyce was right behind her. He afforded me the perfect excuse not to talk to her.
Her pallor had a grayish tint to it, and her eyes were lined with the bright red only the shedding of tears could evoke. I honestly didn’t know she had the ability to cry.
“Can I talk to you?” she asked.
“I have a client.” I pointed to the man behind her to emphasize that fact.
Giving her chin a determined upward thrust, she said, “You’ve had clients for two weeks now. I just need a minute.” When I started to argue again, she pleaded with me. “Please, Charlotte.”
Mr. Joyce was holding a baseball cap, wringing it in his hands. He seemed to be growing more agitated by the second. “I really need to talk to you, Ms. Davidson.”
“See?” I pinned Denise with a chastising scowl. “Client.”
She turned on the man, her face as cold and hard as marble. It was an expression I knew all too well. “We just need a minute,” she said to him, her tone razor sharp. “Then she’s all yours.”
He backed off, raising a hand in surrender as he stepped to a chair and took a seat.
My temper flared to life, and I had to force myself to stay calm. I was twenty-seven. I no longer had to put up with my stepmother’s insults. Her revulsion. Her petty snubs. And I damned sure didn’t have to put up with her invading my business and bullying my clients. “That was not necessary,” I said to her when she turned back to me.
“I apologize,” she said, doing a one-eighty. She turned back to Mr. Joyce. “I’m sorry. I’m in a very desperate situation.”
“Tell me about it,” he said, dismissing her with a wave. He clearly had problems of his own.
With all the enthusiasm of a prisoner walking up to the hangman’s noose, I led Denise into my office and closed the door. My temper flaring must have summoned Reyes. He was in my office, waiting, incorporeally.
Then I remembered. He didn’t like Denise any more than I did. Blamed her for most of my heartache as a child. Of course, she’d caused most of it, but Reyes could be … testy when it came to my happiness or lack thereof.
“Want me to sever her spine?” he asked as I sat behind my desk.
“Can I think about it and get back to you?” I asked, teasing. Kind of.
Denise looked toward the wall he was leaning against, the one I was looking at, and naturally saw nothing. But where her usual response would be to purse her lips in disapproval, she wiped at her lapel and sat down instead.
“What do you want?” I asked her, my tone as cold as her heart.
“I’m sure you know that your father has left me.”
“At last.”
She flinched like I’d slapped her. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“Are you really asking me that?”
“I love your father.” She almost came up out of her chair. “I’ve always loved your father.”
She had me there. She’d always been an attentive wife to him. Of course,
attentive
included her agenda, which was manipulative, conniving, and venomous. I couldn’t believe that I could dislike someone so much, but Denise had always been that splinter in my relationship with my father. She did everything in her power to keep us apart. Her jealousy was bizarre and childish. Who on earth was afraid of a father’s love for his child? It just made no sense to me. It never had.
And yet she was never that way toward my sister, Gemma. In fact, she and Gemma were fairly close. I had a feeling Dad’s leaving Denise affected Gemma much more than she was willing to admit. She knew how I felt about our stepmonster, and the fact that she couldn’t go to me when she needed support made me a very bad sibling. But the truth was, she couldn’t. I had no warm and fuzzies where Denise was concerned. She’d made sure of that from day one.
“I—I need you to talk to him. He’s been sick and, and he’s not thinking straight.”
“And what do you want me to say?”
She leveled an exasperated glare on me. “I want you to convince him to come back home where he belongs. He’s still weak. He still needs medical attention.”
“I’m sorry,” I said with a soft, humorless chuckle, “you want me to convince my father to stay with you? The bane of my existence? The woman who made my childhood a living hell? After everything you’ve put me through, you want my help? Are you insane?”
Too bad Gemma, a licensed psychiatrist, was at a conference in D.C. I’d call her and schedule an appointment for Denise ay-sap.
“What have I ever put you through?”
My temper flared again, and I bit my tongue, literally, to keep my emotions under control. When I lost control, the earth shifted beneath me. An earthquake in the middle of Albuquerque would do no one any good.
Reyes straightened as though worried I’d lose control as well. I closed my eyes and took several gulps of air. This wasn’t me. I didn’t hate people. I didn’t make them pay for their misdeeds. Too many departed had crossed through me. Too many times I’d seen what people went through, what they’d endured that made them become the people they were when they died. Until I’d walked a mile in her shoes, I could not judge Denise so completely. That would make me no better than she was. I opened my eyes to her stone face, the face that brought nothing but hurt feelings and knotted stomachaches. Maybe two miles.
“I just have one question,” I said, trying to hold the resentment from my tone lest I sound like her. “Why?”
“Why?”
“Yes, why? Why did you hate me from day one? Why did you treat me like a thorn in your side? What on God’s green earth did I ever do to you?”
She sighed in frustration and let her true colors show through. Her impatience with me, with anything I had to say. “I did no such thing, Charlotte. I don’t hate you. I never have.”
I leaned forward and gave her my best Sunday smile. “I’ll tell you what. When you can admit that you hate me with every fiber of your being, I’ll help you win back Dad. How does that sound?”
“I will never say such a horrible thing.”
I’d offended her. Sweet. “So you can feel it, you just can’t admit to it?”
She squeezed the pocketbook in her lap, her fingers flexing involuntarily. “Charlotte, can we talk sensibly?”
“Wait a minute,” I said as understanding dawned. “You’re here because Dad is fed up with the way you treat me, and you’re thinking that if we become besties, he’ll come back to you.”
“I’m here because I want us all to get into counseling together. Not just Leland and me, but all four of us, including your sister.” Reyes crossed his arms over his chest and went back to holding the wall up while I stood simmering in my astonishment.
She was a piece of work. “How about you go into counseling for you? Get over yourself. And when that happens, when you can be honest with me, we’ll talk again.” I was being so mean. I wanted to applaud myself. I wasn’t a mean person by nature, so it took a lot of energy to bring out the beast in me and stick with it for more than thirty seconds. Damned ADD. But I was so proud of myself. No more being a carpet for someone else to walk on. I was my own girl, and no one was walking on this carpet but me.
“Charley,” Cookie said through the intercom.
I poked the button. “Yes, Cookie?”
“Um, are you almost done? I need coffee.”
“Oh, sorry! I’ll get it made and bring you a cup.”
“Thanks. And can you bring me the box of Nilla Wafers while you’re at it?”
“Can do.” I jumped up and headed for the Bunn. “Priorities,” I said to Denise. “That’s what life is all about.” I filled the tank with water and scooped coffee into the basket. “And coffee. From now on, I am my own priority.” I picked up the box, fished out a Nilla wafer, and stuffed it into my mouth so I could talk with it full. “No more Chawley cawpet.” Or, well, mumble with my mouth full. Denise hated that shit. “Chawley—” I swallowed. “—Charley carpet has been ripped up, and the only thing left for people to walk on is cracked, splintered wood.” God, I was good at metaphors.
“I tried,” she said, rising and perching her purse strap on her shoulder.
“Yes. Yes, you did. And a noble effort it was.” I gestured toward the door, hoping she’d take the hint. “I’m not sure what all this is about, anyway. It’s not like we could really go into counseling. He’s leaving soon for the open sea.”
She turned back to me, her face full of surprise. She blinked and I felt an understanding wash over her; then she plastered on a fake smile, one full of pity with a heaving sprinkling of contempt. One I had seen far too many times in my twenty-seven years. “And here I thought you could detect lies.”
She strode to the door and opened it before I could stop her. “Wait. What lies?”
“I’ll tell you what,” she said, turning the tables, reveling in the power she’d just acquired. “When you can grow up and take a little of the responsibility for our failed relationship, I’ll tell you what your father’s really up to.”
Without another word, she walked out, leaving me speechless.
* * *
What my father was really up to? What did she mean by that? Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to investigate now, but Uncle Bob and I were going to have a long talk the minute I was finished with Mr. Joyce. In fact, that would be my excuse to get him to go over to my apartment that evening. Nothing like killing two birds with one stone. But that sounded so bad. What did those poor birds do to anyone? I decided to change that particular cliché to “Nothing like killing two bad guys with one bullet.” Better. Maybe it would catch on, become accepted worldwide. A girl could dream.
Mr. Joyce was already standing, waiting his turn with the impatience of a kindergartner waiting for his afternoon snack.
“Come on in,” I said to him, gesturing to the chair across from my desk as I headed to the Bunn to complete my promise to Cookie. She’d need CPR if I didn’t get her a cup soon. “So, what can I help you with?”