Going Too Far

by Jennifer Echols

  I wanted to inform Officer After that I was not insinuating a damn thing about Tiffany. I was fishing for information about myself alone.

  And now I wondered if he was insinuating that I was not cute, that I was not nice. Which I had gathered. Or that I was sexy.

  Oh hell, what was the matter with me? He wasn’t even looking at me. He was wolfing down his lunch.

  I picked up my fork. “Why don’t you ask for the night off so you can go to the party?”

  He glanced up from his food. “I can’t ask off to go to a college party.”

  “Why not?”

  “People ask off to go to their wife’s high school reunion or their son’s wedding. They don’t ask off to go to a college party.”

  “They’re not nineteen years old. Everyone should be able to ask off for what’s important to them.” I gestured to his plate. “Whatcha got there? Steak and eggs with steamed vegetables? Very healthy. Protein and vitamins, a runner’s meal. All it needs is a smoke. Too bad you’ve already had your nightly cigarette.”

  He half smiled at me, showing one dimple. “What have you got?”

  “The Meg Special.”

  “Eggs?”

  “Sort of a Tex-Mex omelet. The Meg Special is different every day.” I took a bite, chewed, and desperately needed to spit it out. I swallowed it and washed it down with coffee, which didn’t really help.

  “Tasty?” John asked.

  “A little hot,” I croaked.

  “Need some water?”

  “I can’t ask for water,” I whispered. “I have to be careful how I fix this. If I piss Purcell off, God knows what he’ll serve to people for the rest of the night.” I motioned to Purcell, and he walked over from the grill. I smiled. “How much cayenne you using?”

  “A half.”

  My Lord, half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper in two eggs. No wonder. “I like it, but it may be too spicy for the clientele. Let’s try an eighth.”

  Purcell nodded curtly and started to turn away.

  “Water, please,” John called. He muttered to me, “Thirsty tonight.”

  Purcell brought John a glass of water. When Purcell went back to the grill, John nodded to the glass.

  Watching Purcell out of the corner of my eye, I drank half the glass and slid it back to John. “Thanks,” I breathed.

  “Experimenting on the customers?”

  “I told him an eighth before I left. He just forgot.”

  “Why don’t you write it down?”

  “He can’t read.” I took a huge bite of egg to get rid of it more quickly, then a swig of coffee and another long drink of John’s water. “I try to work with him because he’s a good employee. Shows up. My parents don’t understand this.”

  “Are you going to stay here after high school and run the restaurant with them?” John took a bite of his blessedly mild food.

  I laughed. “Hell no. I’m gone the night of June seventh, after graduation. I’m not even staying around for the party. And that’s saying a lot, for me to pass up a party.”

  He swallowed. “You know this town so well. Better than I do, even. This place is yours. That’s a really good reason to stay.”

  Funny, I’d never felt claustrophobic at the Elvis table before. I looked around the diner. Maybe it was the jukebox, humming low as it did when no one put in a quarter for a song. Maybe the low hum made me nervous.

  But my gaze came to rest on John, and I knew he was making me nervous. Chatting to me like he was talking to a dead girl. Trying to trap me here.

  I said quickly, “It’s a better reason to leave.”

  “You don’t feel any loyalty to your parents? Don’t you want to stay here and help them out?”

  “I’ve helped them out plenty. They make me work here, and they don’t pay me. It’s basically slave labor. Kind of like following you around.”

  He went back to eating like my snark didn’t concern him. But he looked hurt. Those worry lines appeared between his eyebrows. I couldn’t resist him when a little bit of boy showed through the tough exterior.

  I lowered my voice. “They don’t need my help. They just pretend to need my help so they can keep me close. They’re overprotective. It’ll drive you crazy. It honestly will.”

  “Overprotective, why?” he asked without looking up from his plate. “Only child?”

  “Beats me. Anyway, they say they need me, but they don’t. They’ll hire somebody, just like they hired people to fill in this week while they’re out of town.” I took my last hell-bite.

  “What if you leave and they go out of business? Won’t you feel like it’s your fault? Oh.” He put down his fork. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “It’s the pepper, John.” I drained his water, then sniffed and dabbed at my eyes with a paper napkin from the holder. “Of course I won’t feel like it’s my fault. It’s the biggest kindness I can do them. If they can’t run a restaurant by themselves, they need to go back to selling vinyl siding. I can’t do it for them. We’d always be dependent on each other and always unhappy, feeling pressured and letting each other down.”

  “Mmph. What are you going to do when you grow up, then?”

  I glared at him. “Nice. I got a tuition scholarship to UAB.”

  He put his fork down again. “You? Got a scholarship?”

  “It’s not a scholarship for good grades,” I assured him. “It’s a scholarship for having two loser parents who can hardly keep a diner out of bankruptcy.”

  “For a needs-based scholarship, you still have to make good grades.” He sat back and stared at me like he’d never seen a blue-haired girl before. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Ha.”

  “But how are you going to pay for the rest of it? Room and board?”

  “I’ll find a job. Rent a cheap apartment on the Southside with a roommate or two.”

  He nodded. “Tiffany.”

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” I said. “That would involve planning and commitment.”

  “Right.” He continued to look at me very seriously. “What are you going to major in?”

  “Management, so I can run hotels and restaurants.”

  He laughed.

  “What the hell’s so funny? I enjoy doing this. I just don’t want to do it here.”

  He laughed harder. “I’m sorry. I just can’t imagine you managing anything.” He kept laughing until he looked up and saw my face. “What.”

  “I’ve been keeping the books for this place since I was eleven years old.” With a few months off when I was thirteen.

  “Well, how was I supposed to know—”

  “I just sat here and told you I got a scholarship to the university, and you act like I’m At Risk.”

  “If you would just tell me this stuff in the first place—”

  “Why should I? I never intended to wow you with my credentials. You’re the one who set out on this quest to save the children.”

  He drew himself up in his seat to look more threatening. “You would think someone in your position, in as much trouble as you’re in, would try to make a better impression on the police.”

  “You would think.” I couldn’t remember why I’d had a crush on this ass. “In fact, I managed just fine until you showed up at that bridge.”

  He gaped at me in disbelief. I felt myself cringe under that dark, hard gaze. “Meg, you were drunk, stoned, letting Eric Wexler feel you up, and five minutes from getting hit by a train.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I suppose I should point out to you yet again that I did not get hit by a train. I made a mistake. If I turn in my proposal to the Powers That Be, everything will work out fine. I think you’re scared to live life, and you’re putting that on me.”

  “Just the opposite. You feel guilty for planning to leave town. You’re trying to turn it around and make me feel like an idiot for staying.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said, because he was wrong. But now that he mentioned it, I could make him feel lik
e an idiot for staying. “I looked you up in last year’s yearbook, and I saw you were the ACT high scorer. I’m sure you were offered scholarships for that.”

  His steak suddenly needed his attention.

  “Big-ass scholarships,” I said. “You were captain of the state championship track team.”

  His vegetables also needed to be cut into small bites.

  “It’s pretty common for people to put off college for a year,” I said. “You could still go to UAB and join the track team with your friends, and the university would give you your scholarship back. Hell, with your police academy training, you could get a high-paying job as a security guard or a rent-a-cop while the rest of us are slaving away, waiting tables for rent.”

  “I have a job to do here,” he muttered.

  “What job? Your weird compulsion to protect and serve? You could do that anywhere. Why does it have to be here?”

  “This is my home.”

  “I thought you lived by yourself in an apartment. Is your family in town?”

  He looked up. “You mean my wife, and my children who read manga?”

  I felt myself blush. Good one. “I mean your parents.”

  He shook his head. “They got divorced when I was nine. My mom stayed in town for a few years after that, but finally she couldn’t stand it anymore, and she split. She lives in Virginia. My dad wanted me to finish school where I started, so he stayed with me until I graduated. Then he split. He lives in Colorado.”

  “This diner is the closest thing you have to a home,” I mused. “You’re like a bachelor homesteader on the prairie who eats all his meals in town.”

  “If I were a bachelor homesteader on the prairie, I’d know my way around a cast-iron skillet and some fatback.” He was looking down at his plate, but his dimples showed as he smiled at himself.

  “Your friends are gone, your family’s gone, and you’re not living in the house where you grew up. What makes this town your home? What do you have left here? Just the bridge?”

  His dimples faded.

  “Let’s just say, hypothetically, that you went to UAB,” I suggested. “Would you major in criminal justice?”

  “No. What a waste.”

  This surprised me, considering how into this cop life he was. Then I thought I’d hit on it. Aim higher. “Pre-law?”

  “No. Getting people on that end doesn’t help. You major in criminal justice or law to learn to send them to jail as cost-effectively as possible and keep them from killing each other while they’re there. But they spend their time in jail learning how to commit bigger and better crimes. Why bother?”

  “What would you major in, then?”

  “I’m not going to college, so it doesn’t matter.”

  “Hypothetically, hello.”

  Between bites he said, “Art.”

  My jaw dropped. “Art!”

  “That’s what everybody says to me. And that’s another reason not to go to college. You can’t make a living if you major in art.”

  “Some people do, if they try hard enough. It was just the farthest thing from my mind for you.” For a few moments, I watched him eat. Officer After in the dark blue uniform—I couldn’t see him as an art major. He would think art was for sissies. But Johnafter jogging in the park? Maybe. Johnafter from Spanish class? Definitely.

  I said, “You could at least work as a cop and do art on the side, and feel more fulfilled because you’d studied what you wanted to study. If you don’t, you’ll always be bitter toward your wife and your children who read manga. You’ll always wish you’d gotten out and lived life when you had the chance.” I lowered my head, trying to catch his eyes, which were still focused on his food. He wouldn’t look at me. “Why art?”

  He attacked his steak with his knife again. “That’s the way to move people, to change people, and prevent them from hurting each other and themselves. Art is the most effective form of communication. You can use it to lift the human spirit, and make people realize there’s more to life than their next meth high.” He took a bite, chewed slowly, looked up at me, swallowed. “What’s the matter?”

  I realized I was gaping at him. “Nothing.” I shut my mouth.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot that cops are supposed to be stupid.”

  “I never said you were stupid.”

  “You don’t need a college education to be a cop. You just have to be able to drive. Read. Write. Or not.” He was quoting back what I’d said that first night at the bridge.

  “Well, excuse me for making a rude comment when you had just arrested me!” As Purcell leaned over the table with the coffeepot, I said, “Waiter, this is not the policeman I ordered. I wanted one with a lot less sauce.”

  Purcell filled both mugs and turned away. “Your folks don’t pay me enough for this.”

  John watched Purcell retreat to the grill. Then he leaned across the table toward me. He said quietly, “I’m not going to college. All you’re doing is making me dissatisfied with my lot in life.”

  I leaned forward, too, and whispered like this was a big secret. “Your lot in life? A lot is something you draw, like straws. It’s chance. You didn’t get this life by chance. You chose it on purpose. If you’re dissatisfied with it, you can change it.”

  “I’m not dissatisfied.” He leaned back and raised his voice to a normal level, as if he’d flicked a switch. “So, you want to major in business so you can manage a restaurant that isn’t your parents’ restaurant.”

  I sighed and let him change the subject. It was a wonder I’d gotten all that out of Dudley Do-Right in the first place. “Yeah, and not your local Applebee’s, either. I want to experience exotic locales.”

  “Exotic locales. Like what?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to an exotic locale. I was supposed to go to one for the first time over spring break.” Like I said, it was a lot easier for me to take potshots at him when he was in uniform.

  Rather than biting, he took a bite of broccoli.

  I went on, “From watching the Travel Channel, I’d say the place in the world I’d most want a job is Key West, Florida. It looks so cool. A tropical paradise. The southernmost point in the United States, south of Miami even. And they seceded from the union. In 1982, they declared themselves a separate country from America. Did you know that?”

  “Yes.”

  “It didn’t work, though.”

  “No.”

  “No one took them seriously.”

  “Imagine.”

  I was a little irked at him for making fun of my tropical paradise. “Have you been there?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever been anywhere?”

  He looked hurt again. “Of course I’ve been somewhere. Just because I’m a cop—”

  “Oh, don’t start with that again. I’ve never been anywhere, so I don’t assume. Where did you go?”

  “All over Europe. France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg.” He traced his route in the air with his finger. “I rode the Eurail and stayed in hostels.”

  “God, you’re kidding! When?”

  “A few months ago. I graduated from the police academy in November, but I couldn’t take this job until I turned nineteen in December. I needed something to do for a month. Something other than hang out here.”

  “I am so jealous,” I said, meaning it.

  “Well. I saved up my salary for this while I was at the police academy. I figured it might be my one chance to see the world, since I’ll be in this town working for the rest of my life.”

  “Oh.” What a buzz-kill. While I was at it, I decided to push the buzz-kill further. It would help me get over my crush on him. “Did Angie go with you?”

  “She’d be scared to do something like that. Anyway, she broke up with me right before then.”

  I couldn’t resist. “Small wonder. You’re a regular barrel of monkeys.”

  He put down his fork on his empty
plate and gave me the look.

  I decided this was a good time to finish my lunch. I popped the last of the corn bread into my mouth and wished desperately that the Meg Special came with more meat so I’d have something else to do. He was still giving me the look. I could feel it singeing my hair.

  Finally I gave in and glanced up at him, and almost flinched backward with the force of his angry dark eyes.

  “God, Meg!”

  “Well, now it’s my turn to backtrack,” I said. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded.”

  “How else could you have meant it?”

  “I didn’t know you still had the hots for Angie.”

  “I don’t. But you don’t know that. You’re really going out of your way. The whole time we’ve sat here, you’ve been feeling around for a soft spot to stab me.” He closed his eyes, sighed through his nose, opened his eyes. “Do you hate me?”

  “I have good reason to hate you, John. You arrested me and ruined my spring break on purpose.” I tapped my knife on my plate. “No, I don’t hate you. But you’re not exactly innocent here. An hour ago at the crime scene, you were giving me all kinds of Sullen Malarkey.”

  Ever so slowly, the look melted into two friendly, smiling eyes. “Sullen—You were touching the evidence.”

  “You were mad at me because Will pulled my hair. Come on.”

  He glanced through the windows at the cop car in the parking lot. “The night is young. Let’s get back to work. Truce.” He extended his hand across the table for me to shake. “Friends. Partners, for three and a half more nights.”

  I put my hand close to his, then pulled away. “I can’t touch you while you’re in uniform.”

  “For you, I’ll make an exception.”

  What the hell did that mean? While the possibilities circled in my brain, I touched his wrist with my fingers. His hand clasped over my wrist, then slid back to my palm. His thumb grazed the back of my hand. There was no shaking, just tentative touching of hands.

  This was like no handshake I’d ever shared. Clumsy, and sexy, and way too friendly for comfort.

  Friends my ass.

  10

  Something bad is going to happen here,” Tiffany said.