Look Before You Jump

by D. A. Bale

  When I turned around, my panties nearly dropped where I stood. Bobby Vernet’s smile stilled my heart.

  His voice jump-started it again. “Hello, Vicki.”

  The entire room fell into a hushed silence and all motion stopped. Every eye on three levels darted toward our little reunion. Or maybe it was just my imagination. For a moment, I almost expected the Heavenly Host to break out into the Hallelujah Chorus – which would then shatter the glass enclosure and send a shower of shards right into my backslidden carcass.

  I found my voice. “Hey, Bobby.”

  All five-foot-six of me was enveloped by all six-foot-six of him. Lord Almighty, help me breathe. A different scent than what I remembered wafted from his skin. Probably something the wife liked better.

  The wife!

  Sound stirred as I pulled from the embrace to stare at the diminutive woman by Bobby’s side. Long brown curls surrounded a rounded face and dark eyes that sparkled with amusement. All five-foot-nothing was swathed in a lavender chiffon dress that revealed a small protrusion at the belly. She beamed as she grasped my hands. If it weren’t for the glow of pregnancy, I’d say the smile appeared genuine.

  “Vicki,” Bobby said, “I’d like you to meet my wife, Amy.”

  “I’m so pleased to finally meet you,” Amy gushed.

  A singer’s voice – she and Janine would get on great. The little green-eyed monster of envy threatened to climb on my back before I shook it off.

  “Finally?” I questioned.

  “Rob has told me so much about you. And this must be Janine.”

  Amy vigorously grasped Janine’s hands after releasing mine. My best friend shot me a side glance as they engaged in brief conversation. What could Bobby have possibly said to this woman to make her so eager to meet us?

  “So it’s Rob now?” I asked.

  Bobby chuckled. “Sounds a little more grown up than Bobby, don’t you think?”

  I had to laugh. “Just don’t trade the car for a van yet.”

  “It offers a little more leg room, but not as much as a truck.”

  Was it getting hot in here, or was it just me?

  Bobby handed me a card. “Give me a call if you’re free sometime this week. It’d be good to catch up.”

  Did he just…? In front of…? What the…? I couldn’t remember the last time something – anything – had made me blush. Guess there’s a first time for everything.

  Chapter Five

  Inside or outside? That was the question.

  Most quaint bistros in the Dallas area offered two choices of seating – each with their own benefits and drawbacks. Inside offered dark corners, protection for those who wished to carry on quiet conversation and hide intimate gestures. The downside for me? Temptation waiting to happen or innocent actions misconstrued.

  Choosing the table along the sidewalk for Thursday’s luncheon would keep things above board – but it was also June in Texas. Heat and humidity combined to make life for any normal person miserable. Plus Thursdays were also the church ladies luncheon, and as the newest pastoral member of the congregation Amy would be the headliner at this week’s gathering. With the close proximity of the bistro to the church, tongues would wag faster than a dog’s tail at dinnertime if the wrong people drove by and saw me and Bobby alone together.

  I sighed. No matter which seating location I chose, we’d still be screwed – er, uh, befouled – uh… Oh hell. I just didn’t want to do anything to disturb Bobby’s rehabilitated reputation. Eenie-meenie-miney-mo. The outdoor table won the coin toss.

  Call me surprised when Amy showed up on Bobby’s arm instead of attending the church luncheon. Those tongue waggers if they saw us? Out of luck today. I leapt from my chair to greet them in relief.

  “Vicki, I’m so glad to have this chance to talk,” Amy said as she grappled me in a hug. The womb-bound baby fist-bumped my hip. “Oh. He’s been pretty active today. Probably looking forward to lunch as much as I am.”

  Bobby leaned over and pecked me on the cheek before pulling out a chair for Amy then taking a seat. The physical contact sent a zing to my heart, and it skipped a beat.

  “So it’s a boy, is it?” I questioned as I returned to my wicker chair.

  Bobby beamed like a proud soon-to-be dad. “Yep, and I’m looking forward to a game of one-on-one already.”

  “Rob,” Amy playfully chastised, “we already agreed he’d choose his own sport.”

  “That’s only because you want him to play football.”

  “We are in Texas, remember?”

  “Yeah, Rob,” I interjected and scooted my chair a little closer to Amy. “What’s up with that?”

  Bobby glanced between us like a man who’d been double-teamed. Amy and I batted our lashes and stared expectantly, waiting for an answer. I’d barely met this woman, and already we’d sided together over football. At this rate, I could like Amy if I tried.

  “Uh-oh,” Bobby said. “I knew introducing an old girlfriend to my wife was a mistake.”

  Those chummy feelings I’d just had? Yeah, they disappeared right quick. Let the earth erupt and consume me on the spot.

  “You told her?” I redirected my embarrassment toward Amy. “He told you we went out?”

  Like a calm and collected pastor’s wife, Amy patted my hand. “It’s okay. Rob and I wanted no secrets between us when we married. No skeletons that would come bursting from the closet.”

  “But not…” I hesitated as I glanced Bobby’s way.

  A tinge of color popped into Bobby’s cheeks. “It’s safe to say that was never a secret after the police showed up.”

  Lord, take me now! To purgatory if the Catholics are right. Just don’t send me to Hell. I’m already there.

  No secrets? A marriage with no skeletons? Were these two serious? A couple actually communicating within a marriage was a foreign concept. My father had to be the king of closeted skeletons – or at least he tried to keep them in there. Bound, gagged, and encased in cement shoes. Any Mafia boss would do well to practice his techniques.

  Amy wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “Would it help to know I too was a wilted flower before I met my husband?”

  Wilted flower? Had this woman learned her vocabulary from my mother?

  “Maybe by tomorrow it will,” I muttered.

  ‘Cept I was no wilted flower. Plucked to the stem better described me. I was so looking forward to work tonight. I was gonna get shit-faced. Plastered on the boss’s dime – what else was new? Maybe even get laid.

  No! That kind of thinking was what had gotten me here in the first place. What had happened to my resolve to clean up my act? Lay off the getting laid? Oh yeah. Nick had happened. Then Nick happened again. And again. Yummy goodness all wrapped up in rock hard abs, rock hard butt, and rock hard…

  Victoria!

  Sometimes I conjured up Mom’s voice in my head. Her good shoulder angel to my bad. Rarely worked for me either.

  “So,” I said in a desperate attempt to steer the conversation along a new path, “what made you guys decide to come home, and why now?”

  “We always planned to return,” Bobby explained. “It just took a little convincing to move earlier than scheduled when the children’s pastorate opened up.”

  “Sometimes God’s plans are on a different timetable than our own,” Amy offered.

  The clatter of breaking glasses and an angry shout from a nearby patron interrupted my mental musings. A stream of Spanish erupted from the embarrassed waitress as she stooped to pick up shards and sop up the mess from the disgruntled man’s lunch. Moving faster than what I thought possible for a pregnant woman, Amy slipped from her chair to assist. The rapidity of her words matched the distressed waitress’s and the situation was soothed before Bobby unfolded himself from our table to help Amy back into her chair.

  “Where are you originally from, Amy?” I asked.

  A shadow mome
ntarily clouded the perpetual sparkle in her eyes. “Brownsville. Some of my extended family is still there.”

  I smiled. “You can take the girl out of Texas, but you can’t take Texas out of the girl.”

  Amy laughed and the glimmer of joy returned. “Something like that.”

  The roundtable embarrassment evaporated nearly as fast as rain in the desert. As lunch progressed, I found Amy to be a surprising breath of fresh air within the community of pious purveyors I’d grown up with. She spoke of her own past shortcomings in a nonchalant manner and explained that since she’d been forgiven her mountain of sins, she could in turn forgive the sins of others. Her demeanor reflected a peace I’d rarely seen among the holy huddlers. Surrounded by those people, would Amy eventually succumb to their ways?

  Something assured me she wouldn’t.

  I looked forward to knowing Amy better. For the first time I felt comfortable around someone of the saintly persuasion – maybe because Amy didn’t put on airs. Didn’t act arrogant and better than others with a chip on her shoulder any cow would be proud of. Didn’t speak about others with contempt that had her nose up so high she’d drown in a rainstorm. Didn’t act like the favorited chosen of the frozen. Amy was the real thing.

  Yeah, me thinks I could really like this Brownsville transplant.

  ***

  Thursday night shenanigans had ramped up to a frenzy by the time my co-worker showed his mug. The summertime wet t-shirt opener might’ve had a little something to do with the rowdiness too. Ah – gotta love summer.

  Grady left bartending duty and launched onto the platform to make announcements amid a backdrop of heavy black plastic sheeting. The usual ethereal theme of the dance floor had been removed to transform the space into more of a countrified jamboree – appropriate for the night’s festivities. Girls of all ages, shapes, and cup sizes congregated together onstage to a chorus of wolf whistles and cat calls.

  “Hey, Bud. Nice of you to show up,” I yelled, slinging drinks out at the hooting patrons faster than charges add up on my mother’s credit card.

  “Anytime, sweet-cheeks.”

  Bud – so not his real name – probably had an uppity name like Bradley to match the underlying northern accent. Most others accepted the Texas twang, as fake as his blond hair, but I could detect it as sure as I could hit a target from a hundred feet. Maybe fifty. Okay, so it’s more like twenty-five, so sue me.

  Not sure where Bud came up with the moniker, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with seeing a bottle of Budweiser upon entering the great State of Texas. Since then, this Bud’s for you has taken on a whole new meaning when asking women what they’ll have – at least in his mind.

  Slobbery lips trickled down my neck as Bud sidled up behind me, wrapped a meat hook around my midriff, and pressed against my daisy dukes. In a flash, I dropped the bottle of rum on the counter and reached behind to grip a handful of jean. The high-pitched squeak heard ‘round the bar told me I’d nabbed just the right spot. Bud didn’t so much as breathe.

  “How many times do I have to tell you, this Bud ain’t for me?” I responded. “So kindly remove your slimy lips before I do the twist and you shout.”

  That got a chuckle out of Rochelle as she dropped off a tray of dirty glasses, rinsed them out and started filling up the dishwasher. See? I don’t just crack myself up. When Bud’s lips released my neck, I relinquished my claim on his family jewels.

  “Damn, girl,” Bud said as he rearranged himself in front of God and the entire club. “You let Grady and any guy here gnaw on you all night long. What gives?”

  “First,” I said, holding up a single finger, “it isn’t just any guy here. Second, they’ve all got something you lack.”

  “You ain’t never heard no complaints from the girls I’ve been with.”

  I whirled around. Bud flinched. “I’m talking a little C-L-A-S-S. Emphasis on the C and L and less on the piece of ASS.”

  The rust on the wheels of Bud’s brain broke loose as he scrunched up his face and so obviously struggled to place the letters together to form a word. I think he gave up.

  “So what’s got you all riled up tonight?” he asked.

  “For starters, how about you dragging your sorry ass in here over two hours late? Not to mention you still smell like shit.”

  I poured a little rum into a patron’s drink and dropped in an umbrella before sloshing it onto the bar and taking a queen-sized swig for myself. The hooting and hollering near the stage reached epic proportions as Grady hosed down a particularly busty brunette. Talk about fake. The girl could use those puppies as floatation devices instead of the seat cushion in an airplane water landing. Rochelle and I exchanged knowing eye rolls. I poured her a shot then tossed back another swig of rum. It was setting up to be one of those nights where I’d need all the libations I could swallow.

  “I have other obligations, you know,” Bud said.

  “Couldn’t get it up?” Rochelle asked.

  That earned her a sideways glare while Bud scooped ice into a glass. “My other job. Cattle ain’t gonna herd themselves.”

  “You sure you ain’t talkin’ a blow job?” I slurred and filled up a line of glasses from the tap.

  “Hey, I’m doing you a favor even being here tonight, what with Wanker out of town. Don’t know why Grady didn’t get Baby in here with you instead.”

  “Cause she’d be up on stage working the crowd instead of working the bar,” Rochelle explained, balancing the tray of freshly dispensed beer and heading back into the wild horde.

  After gulping down my second Long Island iced tea amid all the other assorted sips and slurps, hell I was hardly working the bar. By the time the contest whittled down to the final five contestants, I’d finished lining the front of the counter with watered-down beer pitchers. I tied my barely-there t-shirt in a knot just below my boobs, shoved my cell phone underneath the counter then climbed atop my perch. My high-pitched whistle rattled through my pickled brain, and the patron fight over pitchers was on.

  Buy me a drink – or two or three – and I can come up with some fun ways to create a diversion. The distracting dousing took all of ten seconds away from the main attraction before the pitchers were all emptied on little ol’ me. I’m pretty sure a few got guzzled instead of thrown my direction – some people will drink anything as long as it comes from the bar. At Grady’s call, someone swept me off the bar top, and I hefted the trophy to the stage to present to the champion in all my perky glory.

  Fake Boobs ended up the winner. I was satisfied knowing mine were God-given instead of physician-provided. The whistles and appreciative stares redirected my way said Fake Boobs may have taken home the trophy, but I was the real winner in the crowd’s eyes – all hundred and something lusty, testosterone-fueled eyes.

  If I wanted, I could have my pick tonight – really any night. But even through my alcohol-induced haze, I remembered my pledge to lay off the getting laid. This was gonna be harder – er, more difficult than I’d thought. Thank God Nick hadn’t shown up tonight.

  Cleaning up after wet t-shirt night was never as much fun as the event itself. By the time I finished counting the till, my shirt had mostly dried but my daisy dukes were still a bit gooey and hiked so far up my butt I’d need surgery to remove them. My Tony Lamas would never again be the same.

  The inebriated state had cleared during clean-up faster than Bud had disappeared. Last to arrive. First to leave. Figured. I waved to Rochelle and watched out the backdoor until she safely drove off into the muggy night, then lugged the important things to the backroom.

  “Bud skipped out on clean-up again,” I grumbled to Grady as I entered the office and plunked the cash box on his desk.

  The array of security camera feeds flashed across the screens and revealed the inside of the bar from every angle, as well as the parking lot of not only Grady’s but the surrounding clubs too. My boss took security about as serious
ly as the guys did at Fort Knox. I always assumed it was carryover from his military stint.

  After he closed his laptop, I handed over the inventory tally sheets and a scrap of paper with my nightly tab. Grady barely glanced at the scrap before wadding up it and tossing it in the trash.

  He shook his head as he locked up the safe and grabbed his hat along with a black plastic bag. “I told ya a long time ago, ya don’t have to keep a tab anymore.”

  I shrugged. “I know. But I figure this way it keeps me honest.”

  “Since I hired ya, business has nearly doubled.” Grady locked the metal office door behind us and keyed in the alarm code. “What your antics bring in more than make up for what ya cost me in drinks.”

  “Okay, fine. But what are you going to do about Bud?” I asked as we exited the building and walked across the lot to my car.

  “He stayed for a good portion of clean-up this time,” Grady said.

  “Barely,” I returned. “And two hours late again. Why have you kept his lazy carcass around so long? It isn’t like I can’t handle the bar by myself.”

  Grady shrugged. “Favor to an old Army buddy, I suppose.”

  “What’d this Army buddy do? Save your life or something like that?” I asked as I dug my car keys out of my gooey pocket. “Cause if not, then you’re getting the short end of the bargain.”

  “Favors among brothers-in-arms never come cheap,” he said, opening my driver’s side door after the beep. “Bud’s his younger brother.”

  “Oh,” was all I could muster.

  “Ya smell like stale beer,” Grady observed.

  “Thanks to you I’m wearing make-up down to my ankles too.”

  “Cain’t tell me ya didn’t enjoy the attention.”

  I smiled. “It was kinda fun participating this year.”

  “Technically ya cain’t win though.”

  “I know.”

  “Here’s some plastic to put on your car seat,” Grady offered as he pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Sure you’re okay to drive?”

  “More than okay,” I said breathlessly.