by AM Hartnett
April stretched. ‘Tell them to call a cop if they don’t like it.’
‘That’s not very nice.’
‘I work for the government. I’m paid to menace private citizens for more money than I’m worth.’
Seth chuckled and rolled onto his side. He was drenched in sweat, his skin still hot to the touch as he pressed against her.
‘I want to say something.’
April groaned. ‘God, no. No bad news until I’ve showered.’
‘Nah, it’s not bad. At least, I don’t think so. I just…I want you to know that I’ve never done this with another woman.’
She raised a brow. ‘Define “this”.’
‘Keeping a woman overnight. I mean, I don’t mean keeping like you’re some object or anything –’
‘Calm down, you Neanderthal.’ She laughed and tapped his damp cheek. ‘I get what you’re saying, and…why are you telling me this?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t want you to think I screw every woman in the building, especially when you know about what happened before.’
April pushed up onto her elbows, her throb turning into a tingle as she took in his bashful expression. ‘I didn’t think that.’
He pressed his lips into a firm line, and the blossom in her chest grew as she watched him struggle to bring his next words up his throat.
‘It’s mostly been hook-ups. I tried the “with benefits” thing, but it didn’t suit me. I didn’t want to get to know any of the women I brought home. I just wanted one thing, and once I got it I wanted them out.’
‘You don’t have to tell me this,’ she said, and in truth she didn’t really want to know. She didn’t want to think about Seth in bed, doing what he had done to her with anyone else, but she didn’t want to tell him to stop. As much as he wanted to impress upon her…whatever this was, she didn’t want him to think she was jealous of the women in his past.
‘Christ, I’m probably scaring the shit out of you with this,’ he said and ran his hand through his hair, the perspiration on his brow leaving it glossy and slick. ‘I just don’t want you thinking I’m only after one thing with you.’
‘I don’t,’ she said quietly, and slipped her hand against his damp neck as she settled back down. ‘Did you just take the really long way to tell me you like me a little?’
He lowered his mouth to hers. ‘I guess I did.’
‘I like you a little, too,’ she murmured against his lips.
It wasn’t true. Not one bit. She more than liked him a little. She liked him a lot.
April closed her eyes as he kissed her and hoped he liked her more than a little, too.
Chapter Eleven
‘I am so, so sorry,’ April apologised in advance for a third time.
Seth reached across and took her hand, just like he had done the other times, and laughed.
‘It’s fine. I’m not going to fall to pieces meeting your mother.’
‘I might,’ she said, and closed her eyes.
Just when she was feeling good about herself, someone blabbed to her mother that she had a man.
A man. That’s how her mother put it, and April knew what that meant.
A man took care of you. A man completed you. A man could fix your car. A man took the wheel while you rode shotgun. A man ate the meals you cooked for him. A man put up your Christmas lights. A man mowed your lawn and fixed your leaky faucets.
OK, so maybe that last part applied to Seth, she conceded, but he only does that because he’s paid to do it – though he struck her as the kind of guy who would mow an old lady’s lawn if he lived next door to one.
She didn’t want to take him with her to meet her mother, but she’d been hoodwinked. After a half an hour on the phone evading questions about her romantic life, April found herself arguing over the fate of her grandfather’s beloved record player. She’d wanted it when she moved out – it was only tucked into the rec room and covered in folded laundry half the time – but her mother had decided to use the antique piece to punish her for moving out. She claimed it would get broken in the move, and then balked when April said she would pay a professional mover to take it.
Now she told April she could take it, when she knew April had blown through her moving budget and couldn’t afford a professional mover. She wanted it out, Freda told April, and if April couldn’t take it then it would just go out on the curb on garbage day.
‘Don’t you have a friend who could help you out?’
Argh! Friend. Synonymous with a man.
Her pride wasn’t worth that gorgeous record player going to the junkyard, and so she’d loved Seth up good and asked him if he wouldn’t mind lending her the use of his truck and his muscle. He’d agreed and told her to stop worrying about it.
She couldn’t stop worrying about it. She was about to take the man she had been sleeping with to her mother’s, and it wasn’t going to be a quick pick-up. There would be tea. There would be cookies. There would be aggravation and humiliation.
‘So, are we going to just keep driving, or what?’ he asked as the houses in her old neighbourhood became sparser. ‘I thought you said you lived in the suburbs. This is country.’
‘I did. It’s not that far off.’
‘Christ, you must have spent a fortune in gas.’
‘Just around the bend here, at the top of the hill.’
They broke through the forest-lined stretch of road and back into another cluster of houses. It was a nice neighbourhood, filled with families who wanted their kids to grow up outside the city, but close enough that the parents felt connected to the urban lifestyle.
She felt no such connection. Never did. There hadn’t been many kids living around her when she was growing up, so often she would just wander around, speaking to neighbours occasionally, but for the most part playing games by herself. She could have schoolfriends visit or she would visit them, but it wasn’t often, given that no one really wanted to burn the gas for a playdate – something she could attest to, as Seth had suggested.
She hoped her mother had cleaned up a little. April had been noticing dishes piling up in the sink and recyclables not being taken out but stinking up the porch. And, for the love of God, she hoped her mother was out of her pyjamas for once.
Not to mention the potential for Seth being given the third degree.
April had indicated that she was bringing her landlord to get the record player. Her mother had made no secret that she knew the landlord and the friend were one and the same, though the tone said everything. Freda Kaye was expecting someone she already disapproved of.
‘Right here, where the hedge is.’ April pointed as Seth slowed the truck, and took another deep breath as she prepared for her worlds to collide.
Seth was irritatingly chilled out about the whole thing. She hadn’t tried to hoodwink him by minimising the visit. She hadn’t said to him, ‘Oh, can you help me out by picking up this old antique piece?’ She’d flat out told him that her mother knew she was seeing someone and was hinting about a meeting, that she just wanted to put it out there and leave it to him, that there was no pressure but she really wanted that record player.
Sitting in his chair, Seth had crossed his arms over his chest and shaken his head as he laughed.
‘Calm down. I know you’re not desperate to get a ring on your finger, sweetheart. I’ll take one for the team if it means getting your hands on that thing, though you know it won’t exactly fit in with all this new Swedish furniture, right?’
The door was locked, as usual. Freda was obsessive when it came to safety, though that didn’t extend to cleanliness. Doors always locked. No appliances left plugged in. No candles and no incense.
April dug for her key and gave Seth one last apologetic look.
He gave her a kiss on the temple. ‘Calm down.’
She grunted and opened the door.
The smell of mothballs greeted them, followed by a whiff of fried potatoes. The usual Kaye house smell.
‘Mum?�
�� she called out, then turned back to Seth. ‘No, don’t take your shoes off.’
She wanted to add ‘and don’t touch anything, and for the love of Christ, if she asks you if you want a cup of tea or coffee, say no.’ She was sure the house hadn’t seen a can of Lysol since she left and as far as clean dishes went, she had figured out when she was a teenager that if she didn’t wash the dishes herself, they’d be so greasy that she’d only have to wash them one at a time whenever she used one.
April led him into the living room. The television was on, tuned to the usual crime shows. ‘Mum! I’m here.’
The floor creaked. April recognised that sound as coming from the computer room. Her mother appeared, small and plump, out of the usual pyjamas she wore around the house and into sweats, though her short hair didn’t seem to have been brushed.
The first look was reserved for April’s hair. Freda had been outraged when April had gone from blonde to brunette. For twenty years, Freda had dyed her hair a straw-like blonde, and she couldn’t understand why April would make such a change.
The second look, flitting over April’s shoulder, belonged to Seth. April couldn’t tell whether there was approval or disapproval in that first glance, which made it harder to determine how long they should linger.
‘Still hot out there?’ Freda asked.
‘Getting there. Mum, this is Seth. He’s going to help me take the record player.’
Seth leaned past her and extended his hand, and made his first mistake.
‘Nice to meet you, ma’am.’
‘Ma’am.’ Sure, he was at least a decade and a half younger than her mother, but he’d called her ‘Ma’am’.
‘Good to meet you,’ Freda replied, giving his hand a light shake, then turned. ‘I’ll put on a pot of tea.’
‘Oh, we really don’t have time.’
Freda scowled. ‘You haven’t been down all week. You can at least sit down for a cup of tea.’
Chastised in front of Seth, April blistered.
Behind her, he gave the back of her shirt a little tug. ‘I think we’ve got a few minutes, though one cup of tea and I’ll be pissing down my pant leg on the way home.’
And, just like that, Seth redeemed himself. Politeness bounced off Freda, but a bit of the crass improved him in her eyes.
She didn’t show it, but April saw it beneath the surface.
‘Why don’t you sit down and I’ll get the tea,’ April said, but rather than lead them into the living room, where she couldn’t hear what was said and jump in if need be, she went past them and quickly cleared the dining table.
Once she was in the kitchen, April tried to be as quiet as possible to keep from infuriating her mother, who took any attempt to tidy up as a grand insult. Three cups were quickly soaped and rinsed, along with a plate, and as she waited for the water to bubble she set the dishes on top of the deep freeze close to the archway leading to the dining room.
Maybe it was just Seth’s way, but he settled comfortably into conversation with Freda. She had simply asked how long he had owned Winsloe Court, and he ran with it even though, to April anyway, Freda tried to trip him up. He said all the right things, agreeing with Freda that living close to downtown could be noisy, but assuring her that April was perfectly safe in a neighbourhood bursting with nice family homes.
April cringed when Seth asked Freda if she had been to the apartment.
‘I don’t like elevators, and I couldn’t make it up to the third floor with my bad knee.’
‘Too bad. April’s done a great job putting it together.’
‘Well, maybe one day.’
April bit her lip. When she’d moved, she’d had it in her head that she’d have her mother over for a nice lunch and a chat, but the more she thought about it, the less she wanted that visit and the disapproval beamed at all of her nice things.
But if Seth was willing to make an appearance…
The thought thrilled her as she laid out chocolate wafers across the plate. She’d been trying not to think too far ahead since starting up with Seth. She liked the no-pressure nature of this affair. Things moved naturally: long evenings in his apartment or hers listening to music or watching movies, or drinking cold beer or soda on the fire escape, at least until they got handsy.
Thinking about asking him around when – if – her mother visited wasn’t such a bad thing, was it? Inviting him to go to dinner with her father when he visited in October…
April shook herself to get rid of the thought until she felt it was safe to let it linger a little longer. The kettle whistled and she took it off the heat, dropped a handful of teabags in the water, then took the cups and cookies to the table.
‘I keep forgetting to bring you those shortbreads I was telling you about, from that bakery around the corner.’ April sat herself down and exchanged a quick look with Seth. She hadn’t forgotten. They’d binged on them over breakfast that morning after April determined that it was too early to belt back a shot of something.
‘Oh, I can’t have pastries any more. They give me heartburn.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since I had my operation. There’s a lot of stuff I can’t have since I had my operation.’
April crunched down on a cookie. The operation had been over a decade ago, a simple preventative procedure on her bowel, but Freda brought it up whenever she felt the need for a little sympathy.
Predictably, Seth bit and asked about it, and long after April had poured out the tea the saga of those five days in the hospital went on and on and on.
‘The best nurses were when I was in recovery,’ Freda continued, and April could have mouthed along with her, she’d heard it so often. ‘Everywhere else they barely spoke to you when they came.’
‘My wife used to say the same thing,’ Seth said, and, in the aftermath, April froze.
She hadn’t told her mother that Seth had been married before. She’d hoped to avoid the subject completely for as long as she could.
‘So you’re divorced?’
‘Widowed,’ Seth said easily. ‘About two years ago. Breast cancer.’
‘How long were you married?’
‘Thirteen years.’
‘Shame. You must have married very young.’
‘Twenty.’
Freda looked quickly at April, and April could guess what her mother was thinking; she didn’t particularly like what she’d heard, but wouldn’t be rude enough to say so out loud.
Seth continued to lead the conversation this way and that, until the tea was gone and most of the cookies, and then he stood. ‘I’m just going to go out and get the moving blankets, then we can get the job done.’
‘Sure.’ Though some of her tension had abated over what she could say was a semi-successful lunch, as soon as she was alone with her mother it came creeping back over her shoulders.
Her mother followed her into the television room where the record player had sat for years.
‘That’ll give you some more room,’ April said cheerfully as she plucked the doilies and nicknacks from the surface. ‘If you move the sewing machine into the back room –’
‘That won’t give you much room when you come to visit.’
April held in her sigh. Her old bed was still in there, along with the juvenile furniture she’d never been allowed to replace. She wondered if the day would come when Freda would finally get it through her head that April wasn’t coming back.
Finally, Freda dropped her bomb. ‘He’s a little old for you, isn’t he?’
‘Not really,’ April said airily, running her hand over the record player’s dusty surface, then pulling it away from the wall. ‘We’re both adults.’
‘He’s almost forty.’
‘Mum, in five years.’
‘You think you can handle dating a widower?’
‘Mum. Knock it off.’
‘You think that now you’ve got a good job and a place in the city you can handle anything, do you?’
‘Well, I
seem to be doing all right so far, don’t I?’
‘He seems like a nice enough man, but if he’s messing around with a girl almost half his age –’
The record player’s ancient wheels squealed as April yanked it hard. She stood and glared at her mother.
‘You do know what that says about me, don’t you? That I’m too stupid to know when a man is only after what I’ve got between my legs?’
‘April, watch your mouth.’
‘You’re right,’ she went on, ignoring her mother’s hiss. ‘He is a nice man. He hasn’t tried to jerk me around and he’s here helping me with this, isn’t he? So what if he’s a little older than I am? So what if he has some baggage?’
‘I know what you’re like. You can’t see the forest for the trees.’
‘Oh, shut up, Mum. If you’re going to give me such a hard time, I won’t bring him around here again.’
Heavy footfalls announced his arrival, and he stepped into the room with a moving blanket and bungee cables draped around his shoulders, hauling a folding dolly at one side.
‘It’s got wheels,’ she remarked testily enough to earn herself a curious look from Seth. She smiled to reassure him, and he unloaded his burden onto the floor.
‘And I don’t want to break them going over the sidewalk. Once we get it to the truck, we’ll just roll it up that sheet of plywood and tuck it in.’
The last ten minutes were the longest. April gritted her teeth, not because it was a hard job getting the record-player onto the truck but because her mother hovered around with that partial scowl that wouldn’t be banished even when Seth extended his hand in goodbye.
April gave her mother a stiff hug that wasn’t returned, and, so angry she could have cried, she climbed into the passenger side.
‘You all right?’ he asked quietly once he was behind the wheel.
‘Mmm-hmmm.’ She pressed her lips together and nodded, and thankfully he didn’t ask her again, she chewed her irritation and embarrassment to pieces so he wouldn’t see.
He thought about telling her that he’d overheard what was said, that he’d listened from the hall before creeping back out and making a more obvious arrival, but he knew that wasn’t what she needed to hear. It would only make her feel worse, and right now he just wanted to banish her bad feelings.
