Talk Nerdy to Me (36 page)

"I just put on a new
pot. It'll be done in a few minutes." Archie leaned his forearms on the
bar. "I never see you in here during the day. What's up?"

"I'm
meeting my cousin Rick. We have a few things to discuss. You got anything
cooking back there?"

"I got some homemade
beans and Polish sausage."

"That'll
work." Charlie's mouth began to water. He wondered If Eve had anything at
home to eat besides leftover pizza. She'd been out of town for two days. He
should have asked if ... oh, hell, she was a big girl. He couldn't start
worrying about whether she had food in the refrigerator. Next he'd be wondering
whether she'd had her car's oil changed recently.

He
could imagine her forgetting stuff like that. She needed someone around who
could help her with those little details. He was outstanding at those kinds of
details. But he wouldn't be around. How many times would he have to remind
himself of that so that he would quit daydreaming about a life he never
intended to lead?

"Here's
your coffee." Archie put a steaming mug in front of him. "And excuse
my saying so, but you look a little spacey today."

"I
have a lot on my mind." Charlie took a reviving sip of the coffee.
"Ah, that's better. Say, Archie, just between us, do you think Ed and
Darrell are in financial trouble with that Christmas tree farm?"

"Yeah,
I think they're sinking deeper into debt every year. So many people are using
fake trees these days, and neither of them are all that cagey when it comes to
the business, either. I'm amazed they're still afloat, to be honest. Why? You
want to buy that property?"

"No, God,
bo."

"It would be a great
place to raise a family."

"That's
a long way off for me, Archie." Charlie couldn't help thinking how Eve
would love the idea of living In the middle of a Christmas tree farm. But if Ed
and Darrell really were struggling that bad, he also had to wonder if they
would think stealing & hovercraft concept was the way to bail themselves
out. Damn it—there were way too many people with a good reason to break into
Eve's house.

Chapter
Twenty-one

Eve
had thrown on a bathrobe so that she could return Charlie's
shirt to him. Although she'd hated to see him leave after that, she didn't have
anything to offer him for breakfast except cold pizza, so maybe it was just as
well that he'd left so he could get some decent food.

The reject of the three
pizzas, the plain cheese, still sat on the kitchen table. Denise opened the lid
and made a face. "Gross. This could attract all kinds of pests. And didn't
you say something about mice?"

"Umm, yeah, but—"

Denise
reached for the phone book and started flipping through it.
"Exterminators. Here we go." She grabbed the cordless phone from the
kitchen counter.

"The thing is, I don't
really have—"

Denise
was already talking to someone. "Mice. Yes, that's right. No, I have a
washing machine repairman coming then. Three? That should work." She hung
up and gave Eve a smug smile. "Handled."

"I
don't really have mice." Eve had decided the relationship with her sister
was shot, anyway. She had nothing to lose by being honest.

"That
you
know of.
But with food sitting
around, I'll bet you do. It won't hurt to get the place checked out. I'll bet
you haven't done that."

"No,"
Eve said. "If I saw any, I'd buy one of those little cage traps."

"Then what?"

"I'm not sure. Turn
them loose... somewhere."

Denise
rolled her eyes. "I'm sure your neighbors would love that." She
clapped her hands together. "So! Where's this hovercraft? The washing
machine repairman will be here in an hour, and I should probably do some grocery
shopping before then."

"I
thought we could go to the Pastry Parlor and get something." Eve didn't
usually treat herself, but having Denise around made a girl deserve a cinnamon
roll. She was curious about whether they were all made with one raisin in the
middle, now.

Denise
shuddered. "The Pastry Parlor? Sounds like a hangout for carb
addicts."

"Pretty
much." Eve couldn't help herself. Denise really begged to be taunted.
"But not completely. There's some fruit involved. The Booby Buns have a
raisin on top."

"The
what?

"Or
maybe you'd rather try the Bawdy Breadsticks. They're the size of your average
penis." Charlie's, she was proud to report, was above average.

Denise's
jaw dropped. "You have an X-rated bakery in this town?"

"I'm
not sure you could go that far, but the bakery has recently started offering a
few interesting items. Charlie's mother and his aunt Myrtle own it, and they
discovered that a touch of sex sells baked goods. Last night I went over there
and helped frost some cookies for a bachelorette party. The pose reminded me
of something out of the
Kama Sutra.
The
guy was coming at her sort of sideways."

"I can't believe
this."

"Oh,
I'm sure the pose is possible." Eve had meant to ask Charlie if he wanted
to test it, but they'd been too hungry for each other to get involved in
unusual positions. Maybe another time. She hoped there would be another time.

"I
meant the bakery, not the pose. This is a small town. Small towns are supposed
to be conservative. They're not supposed to have—"

"Frosting
the cookies was fun." Eve decided to keep it up. She seemed to have thrown
Denise off balance, and this time she hadn't even had to use beads. "The
tricky part was getting the red frosting dots of her nipples exactly right. A
couple of times I had them way too close to her neck."

"Incredible."

"So,
are you up for a trip to the Pastry Parlor? You can't very well leave town
without at least taking a peek, right?"

"I...
we'll see. First I want to inspect this thing you've built. Where is it?"

Eve considered telling her
sister that the hovercraft was stored under her bed, just to see if Denise had
so little imagination that she'd go looking there. But she decided that she'd
pulled Denise's chain enough for now. "It's out in the garage."

Denise
looked at Eve's bare feet. "You can't go out there tike that."

She
could so if she wanted to. But the floor would be cold and there was no point
in rebellion just for the sake
of bagging Denise.
"I’ll stand in the doorway and answer questions from there." She noticed
that Denise had picked up all the pans in front of the door and stacked them
neatly on the counter. Of course. Opening the door, she held it back so Denise
could walk through.

"It's
purple."
Denise said it as if the color were illegal.

"It's
designed as a fun toy. It needs to be bright. Besides, I like purple."

"I
know." Denise walked around the hovercraft. "I'll never forget the
birthday cake you made me. Lavender inside, dark purple frosting
outside."

"Yeah,
I used grape Kool-Aid." Eve had been proud of that birthday cake, too, one
of her first efforts in the kitchen. Her family's horrified reaction had killed
any urge to keep experimenting in there. Now she ate mostly salads, anyway,
where all you had to do was slice and dice. Tough to louse up a salad. But she
usually put beets and purple cabbage on the salad, to give it visual zip.

"How does it
work?"

"There
are magnets underneath, which are what make it hover—like those hoverboards in
Back
to the Future Part II.
Remember those?"

"Vaguely.
I thought those movies were kind of silly, but I know you loved them." She
looked at the engine mounted on the workbench. "So you're going to put
this in there?"

No,
I'm going to wear it on my head for a photo shoot next week
"Yes.
After I test the new fuel source
I
brought
home last night and make sore the engine runs okay with it."

"What fuel
source?"

"Used
cooking oil." She pointed to the can sitting beside her workbench.
"I need to do some analysis on it, but it might convert much better than
the veggie scraps I've been using."

And
by explaining these things about the hovercraft, she was handing Denise all the
ammunition she needed to sabotage the project. Charlie might think she was
being foolish, but what was she supposed to do, refuse to show the hovercraft
to Denise? If Denise was guilty, she'd already seen the project, anyway.

Denise
made another circuit of the hovercraft. "You talk as if you've done some
research on this." She sounded reluctantly impressed.

"I've
been researching this kind of thing all my life," Eve said. "I model
to make a living, but inventions are what I love. I always have."

"That would be all
well and good if you'd stayed in school, but I'm afraid you have just enough
knowledge to be dangerous."

Eve
crossed her arms, because if she didn't she might run into the garage, bare
feet and all, and start a girl fight with her sister. "You know what? It's
not your responsibility whether I'm taking unnecessary chances with my safety.
I'm an adult now. I'm free to make my own choices." And didn't that sound
defensive?

Denise faced her. "How
do you expect me to stand by and let you kill yourself?"

"I
won't, but if it comes to that, how do you propose to stop me?" That was
the crux of the situation. Was Denise prepared to do whatever it took?

"You
are impossible, you know that?" Denise's expression darkened. "Don't
you ever think of anyone besides yourself? First you dump a guy that the whole
family liked, and now this!"

"I
was supposed to marry Lyle because everybody
else
liked him?"

"You
liked him, too! Or I assume you did. You dated him for a year, so you must have
thought he was worth something."

"He
definitely was." Eve shifted her weight uncomfortably. She'd stayed with
Lyle way too long, and she wasn't happy about that. She'd led him on, in a way,
because she been unwilling to face the truth about herself.

"What
was wrong with him, anyway? He was cute, made good money, treated you like a
queen. Guys like that aren't all that thick on the ground. At least I haven't
met that many."

Eve
heard the underlying envy in that statement. No doubt Denise would have taken
Lyle in a heartbeat, but he wouldn't have dated her. He required a certain
amount of physical beauty from his girlfriends, which was another reason Eve
hadn't wanted to stick around. She could see him trading her in once her looks
started to fade.

"Lyle
would never have understood my need to invent things," Eve said. "He
wouldn't have wanted to live in a little town like this, either. He was into
glitz and glamour."

"Eve,
hello. You're a model. It doesn't get any glitzier than that."

"I
work
as a model. That's not who
I am. Who I am is an inventor." There. That was her manifesto. Maybe she'd
make a sign out of that and tack it up on the wall somewhere. The sign would
be for herself, because Charlie already believed those things about her. She
was the one who sometimes doubted it.

Obviously
Denise doubted it, too, because she laughed. "You can call yourself an
inventor all day long, but until you've invented something that you've patented
and marketed, you're a hobbyist."

Eve
tried to tell herself that once again, jealousy was the motive behind Denise's
comment. But that was small comfort. Unfortunately, Denise was right. Until Eve
had created something that was of use to someone, something that would improve
the world in some way, her inventions were only a hobby, not a profession.

"Well,
now you've seen the hovercraft," she said. "I'll grab a quick shower,
you can change into something clean, and we'll go to the Pastry Parlor."