The Trouble with Joe

by Emilie Richards

  He told himself that he and Sam were making a big mistake.

  Sam put her hands on Corey’s shoulders and gazed into her eyes. “I mean it, Corey. You’re coming home with Mr. Joe and me until Miss Davis can find your father or somebody else in your family.”

  “I ain’t got nobody. My daddy was s’posed to be living here, but my mama couldn’t find him.”

  “Well, Miss Davis knows just how to look for him. She’s going to do the best she can.”

  “I’m going to sleep at your house and stuff?”

  “You certainly are.”

  “With him?” She hunched one shoulder at Joe.

  “I’m not moving out for the occasion,” Joe said dryly.

  “We’ve fixed up a room down the hall from ours,” Sam said.

  “Do I have to go to school?”

  “I don’t know how long you’ll be with us. But if you’re still there when the school year starts you’ll have to go to school, just like all the other children.” Sam stood. “First you’ve got to let me comb your hair, though, or they aren’t going to let you out of here.”

  “I got a bruise on my head. It hurts!”

  “I’ll be careful.” Sam held out her hand to the nurse who gratefully presented her with the comb.

  Joe watched as Sam lovingly combed the child’s stubby locks. Corey sat absolutely still. Beside him Miss Davis murmured something.

  “I’m sorry. What’d you say?” he asked.

  She turned. He thought he saw commiseration in her eyes. “I wouldn’t want to be the one who comes between those two,” she said softly. “When I find Corey’s father I’ll let you be the one to tell your wife. And Corey.”

  * * *

  COREY WALKED WITH a limp—an ankle was sprained and appropriately bandaged—but it didn’t keep her from thoroughly exploring her new home.

  “What’s that?” she asked in Joe’s study.

  He stood in the doorway just waiting for her to destroy something. “Encyclopedias.”

  “What’re they for?”

  “To learn things.”

  “Anything you want?”

  “Just about.”

  She pointed at the wall behind his desk. “What’s that?”

  “A mandolin.”

  “What’s a mandolin?”

  “It’s an instrument, a little like a guitar. Do you know what a guitar is?”

  “I’m not dumb.”

  “So you’ve told me before.” He stepped into the room to keep a better eye on her as she wandered.

  “Why’s it up high like that?”

  “I don’t play it well, but I like to look at it. It belonged to my grandfather.”

  “Ain’t nothing much. ’S all beat up.”

  “So was my grandfather.”

  To his amazement she giggled. It was a normal little-girl sound. “That’s not very nice,” she said.

  “If my grandfather was still alive he would have been the first to say it. He was ninety when he died, and he could really play.”

  “Play it.”

  “I told you, I don’t play very well.”

  “Let me play it.”

  “No.” He crossed the room and reached for the mandolin, which hung beside a window. He leaned against the desk and strummed a few chords.

  “’S that all you can do?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “You ain’t very good.”

  He put the mandolin back. “I think you’ve seen everything. From now on this room’s off-limits. There’s nothing to play with in here, but I have papers I don’t want messed up. You’ll need to stay out.”

  She frowned. “What kind of papers?”

  “Boring ones. But Miss Sam’s put drawing paper in your room, and if you need more we’ll get you more. You won’t need to take anything from in here.”

  “My room’s awful big.” She looked unsure of herself for a moment.

  Sam had spent the weekend clearing out the sewing room upstairs for Corey. Once the room had been intended as a nursery, but those days were past. Since then Sam had taken it over for sewing and school work, but she hadn’t seemed to mind turning it over to Corey. Against Joe’s better judgment she had bought curtains and sheets covered with pastel kittens. She’d also bought a hundred dollars’ worth of toys and supplies. He knew that tomorrow she intended to take Corey shopping for clothes. The hospital had provided the little girl with only the clothes she’d walked out in, and they were a size too large.

  Joe felt a nudge of sympathy. He wondered what kind of sleeping arrangements she was used to. “Your room’s not that big. And you can keep your door open at night.”

  “Don’t need no door open. Ain’t afraid.”

  “Good.” He shooed her out of his study and toward the kitchen where Sam was just putting dinner on the table.

  “I hope you like chicken,” Sam said with a smile.

  “Can we dig up Mr. Red tomorrow and see if he’s all bones and stuff?”

  Sam dropped the chicken on the table. “Whoops.”

  “Yeah, Sam, can we?” Joe asked.

  She laughed. “Let’s not talk about birds until after dinner.”

  “I want a drumstick.” Corey reached across the table with her left hand. Her right was firmly held to her side in a sling.

  “I’ll get it for you,” Joe said, moving the platter out of her reach. “You ask, and I’ll serve you.”

  “I can get it by myself!”

  “No, you can’t. Because I won’t let you.” Joe ignored the plea in Sam’s eyes. “This is the way we serve dinner here.”

  “Want a drumstick.” She pulled her hand back, but her eyes were mutinous.

  “May I have a drumstick, please?” he coached.

  She narrowed her eyes and refused to speak. He ignored her and turned to Sam. “What would you like?”

  “May I have the platter?” She narrowed her eyes. “Please?”

  “Why, certainly. A pleasure to wait on such a well-mannered and spectacularly beautiful woman.” He passed her the platter. “Would you please pass the mashed potatoes?”

  “I...would...be...thrilled.” She passed them.

  “Corey, would you like some?” he asked.

  She wove her uninjured hand into her sling and stared at him, her lip jutting a record two inches.

  “More for me, I guess,” he said. “That’s good because I love Sam’s mashed potatoes.”

  “I’ll have some,” Corey said. “Now!”

  “May I have some, please?” he coached again.

  “You already got some! The whole damn bowl!”

  Sam sputtered. Joe couldn’t risk even a glance at her. “You’ll have to leave the table and eat by yourself if you talk like that while you’re here, Corey. Use some manners and ask politely.”

  “I’m hungry! I ain’t had hardly nothing to eat today.”

  He was not impressed. He had seen Corey eat the equivalent of half a cow at a fast-food restaurant that afternoon. He leaned forward. “May I have a drumstick, please?”

  “Miss Sam, he’s being mean to me!”

  “Joe...”

  He turned to Sam and lifted one eyebrow.

  “Thank you for trying to teach Corey some manners,” she said.

  “You’re very welcome.” He turned back to Corey. “Chicken’s getting cold, kid.”

  A lesser man might have been felled by the expression in her eyes. “May I have some chicken and some mashed potatoes and what all else that I got to say please about?”

  “You certainly may.” He helped her dish up her dinner. Then he sat back to eat his own. The three of them chewed in a silent truce.

  * * *

  COREY
OPENED HER eyes. The room was dark, even though Miss Sam had left two night-lights burning. It smelled funny, too, like lemons and stuff. She liked the smell, but it sure didn’t smell like home.

  The bed was softer than any bed she’d ever slept in. She had wanted to keep her eyes open all night, so Miss Sam would stay. But she’d kept sinking down in the bed. Then she’d closed her eyes a little. Then next thing she knew, Miss Sam was gone.

  Now Corey closed her eyes again, this time because she was frightened to leave them open. There were funny shadows in the room, like long bony fingers pointing right at her. Sometimes they moved. Miss Sam said they were just the shadows of tree branches, but Corey wasn’t too sure. One of the shadows looked like the head of a monster, and she’d sure never seen no tree branch that looked like that.

  Miss Sam had given her a teddy bear to keep in bed. It was brown, like a real grizzly bear. Miss Sam had given her a book last year about a grizzly bear, a book to take home and keep. She had said that Corey could have it because Corey read so well. Her mama had put the book somewheres and Corey had never found it again. But now her mama was gone. She couldn’t take the bear the way she had taken the book.

  Corey clutched the bear tighter. She had thought about her mama’s death a lot. Mama had been so still when the men had gotten her out of the car. But she hadn’t looked sad. Just kind of surprised.

  Mama had been driving too fast; Corey remembered that. The car had sailed through the air and Corey’s door had come open and she had fallen out before the car crashed. One of the policemen said she would have died, too, if she hadn’t landed where it was swampy and all. She had heard him say it, and somebody had told him to be quiet ’cause she was listening.

  She didn’t miss her mama, and that probably meant she was bad. She was sorry Mama had died, but she didn’t miss her. Mama had never been around much, and she hadn’t wanted Corey, anyway.

  She tried not to think about the things Mama had said that night, about how her father probably wouldn’t want her, either, and how nobody would ever want her. Maybe her mama was wrong. Mr. Joe didn’t want her. He practiced looking scary on her, just like tonight at the table. But Miss Sam was glad she was here.

  Corey opened her eyes. The shadows were still there. She closed them again. The bed was soft. Softer than anything.

  * * *

  “SHE’S ASLEEP.”

  “So am I.” Joe rolled over and stared at the moonlight pouring in through a bedroom window. It was well past midnight.

  “No, you’re not. You don’t talk in your sleep.”

  He felt the bed sink. The provocative woman scent that always set his body on fire drifted over him. A long, smooth leg settled against the length of his. He felt the softness of breasts sinking against his chest. He put his arm around Sam before he could think better of it.

  “It’s a gorgeous night,” she said. “The air’s as soft as butter, and the flowers in the yard smell like the end of summer. I can smell the roses on the breeze.”

  “You’d know about the night. You’ve been up for most of it.”

  “I know, but Corey was scared. She’s not used to a room by herself. She says she always slept on a couch in the living room in front of the television.”

  “While her mother entertained in the bedroom.”

  “What?”

  “That’s the rumor.”

  “Well, I never heard it.”

  “If it’s true, it makes it unlikely that Corey’s father is going to be genuinely pleased to have her dropped on his doorstep.”

  “We’ll see what happens. I just hope it’s something good. Can you see now what a special little girl she is?”

  “What’s called for here, the truth or a husbandly lie?”

  “You must see how smart she is, and funny and...”

  “I’m waiting.”

  “And endearing.”

  “I see three hundred teenagers every day during the school year. Three hundred kids with bad attitudes and learning problems and adult-hating smirks on their faces. I’d trade her for any one of them.”

  “Joe!”

  He gathered her a little closer. “Actually, not for either of the Symonds girls. One of them comes on to every male teacher in the school and the other one makes a Saturday run over to Raleigh every weekend for a new supply of drugs.”

  “What are you trying to say? Corey places an easy third?”

  “I wouldn’t trade her for most of the wrestling team, either. One of these days they’re going to gang up and get me in a headlock in the hallway. That’ll be that.”

  “Do you know what she told me?”

  “I can guess. She told you I was picking on her tonight.”

  “She said looking at you is scary because you’re so big.”

  “I hope I stay big while she’s here, then. A little fear can go a long way.”

  “You don’t really want her to be afraid of you.”

  “I want her to know that one of us isn’t going to be a pushover.” He felt her stiffen. He continued to hold her until she relaxed.

  “Okay,” she said after a while. “I guess I deserved that.”

  “She’s a manipulator, Sam. She’ll come between us in a heartbeat if we let her.”

  “She’s a sad little girl who’s never been loved.”

  “And she knows it.” He caressed her arm. “But that’s not entirely bad. She’s a survivor. She uses what little she has to try to make a place for herself in the world. If she didn’t, she’d be even sadder.”

  “You just said something nice about her.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “I heard you!”

  He felt her hair against his lips. He inched his lips to her cheek and felt the warm, smooth curve of her flesh. “There’s nothing nice to say.”

  “Joe, I love you for this.”

  “For what? Holding my own? Holding you?”

  “For being the man I married.”

  That man lived somewhere else, somewhere in a fantasy land peopled by small children with cocky Giovanelli grins. He didn’t respond, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “I need your love and patience now.” She kissed the curve of his throat. Her hair drifted over his cheek. “If I didn’t have it, then I wouldn’t have any love or patience to give Corey. You know that’s the real test of a man, don’t you? The way he supports his woman when she really needs him?”

  He knew the real test of a man.

  She continued. “The way he comforts her. The way he makes her feel like a woman. The way he shares his life with her. I wonder why fathers don’t teach that to their sons? This world’s full of children put here by men who think the only way they have to prove their masculinity is to shoot a few sperm in the right direction.”

  She wasn’t pulling any punches. She had danced around Joe’s fertility problem for most of the year; now she was moving in for the kill. “I get your point, Sam.” He didn’t like the obvious tension in his voice. He didn’t like the way she could see into his very soul.

  “Not well enough. Let me show you what kind of man you really are.”

  Her hands were cool against his skin. He wanted to push them away, but he couldn’t seem to move. Impotence was not his problem. She had only to look at him to arouse him. It seemed like a terrible joke.

  “You’re the kind of man who knows how to make a woman feel like she’s beautiful,” she said. Her lips trailed kisses along his jaw.

  “You are beautiful.”

  “Not really. Pretty, maybe. I’ll be an elegant old woman because my bones are good. But I lack the spark for beauty.”

  “Ridiculous.” He found himself turning toward her.

  “No. And it doesn’t matter. You’ve always made me feel beautiful. When you hold me a
nd make love to me, I feel like some combination of a supermodel and Hollywood star.”

  “Supermodel?” He laughed, and the sound drifted seductively on the warm summer air.

  “Sure. You make me feel sexy. Hey, I could pose in the nude, too, if it was you behind the camera. But the pictures would be too hot to print.”

  “It had better be me behind that camera if you’re posing nude.”

  “And you’re the kind of man who knows just what to do when the going gets rough.” She stroked her hand over his chest. Lightly and thoroughly. Again, then again. “Remember when I told my parents we were getting married, and my father said he’d cut me off if I married you? And you said that was great because you wanted the pleasure of supporting me all to yourself? Well, he’s still mulling that one over. It’s the only time in his life that he couldn’t think of an appropriately quelling response.”

  “Fischer’s not so bad.”

  “And you’re the kind of man who forgives.” She stroked her hand over his hip, circling, circling the part of him that was ready to sink into the very core of her.

  “I would have walked out of their house in Chevy Chase and never looked back,” she said, “but it might have ruined my life. You knew just how to handle my parents so that they had an open door when they needed one. And when they walked through that door you never said an unkind word to them. They’re still trying to figure out why they can’t seem to dislike you. God knows, they’ve tried hard enough.”

  “You’re trying to drive me crazy.” His voice was thick, charged with desire.

  “I’m crazy. Crazy about you, Joe. You’re the only man I’ll ever want. You’re too much man for me sometimes. I don’t know what to do with you.”

  “I think you’ve got it figured out.” He took her lips, tasted and silenced them. She was the flavor of the warm night, the rose-scented breeze, the moisture-laden air. Her flesh was as soft as the rich North Carolina earth. He pulled her on top of him to feel her closer, to stretch her lithe body along the length of his and relearn its familiar secrets.

  “No! No!”

  For a minute he couldn’t imagine who was screaming. Then Sam stiffened. “Corey!”