Hot Dish

by Brockway, Connie

  Such a short sentence with such long consequences.

  “The next year was a nightmare, trying to figure out how to keep up appearances, declaring bankruptcy, trying to keep it from you, finding a buyer for the company …. Then some friends invited us on their annual trip to Las Vegas. We’d often gone with them before but this time we couldn’t afford the trip. Of course, we didn’t want them to know we couldn’t afford high-stakes gambling anymore. We had an image to keep up, in spite of the fact that we only had a few hundred thousand dollars to our names. So we went. And once we got there, we started talking about … everything. We decided to play the long shot, to risk it all, and either win back our former lifestyle or change it.”

  She shook her head, smiling but without any bitterness. “You know what happened next.”

  “You lost.”

  “And moved here.” Nina nodded. “I know you hated it. But for us, moving from Raleigh was a relief, Jenn. I can’t tell you how good it felt to stop worrying. About keeping up appearances. About how we were going to pay the bills. About what our friends would think. Moving here was like holding your breath for two years and finally being able to breathe.”

  Her mother stopped talking. It took Jenn a second to realize the implication.

  “You like it here?”

  Her mother lifted a shoulder, an apologetic movement. “Not at first. At first we were in shock and the adjustment took time but, gradually, we realized how much your father and I liked being together and not just at parties or to pass information to one another about the new landscaping or which season tickets to buy.

  “I don’t think we realized how much we’d grown to enjoy our lives here for a long time. But then, each trip we took to the city just seemed more and more unnecessary, more an inconvenience than a pleasure, and then we realized we’ve been happy here. And it was all because of something going wrong in our game plan.”

  “Why didn’t you say something? Tell me?” Jenn asked, surprised but then not as surprised as she ought to have been. Perhaps she’d deduced as much on some level.

  Her mother—her composed, regal mother—flushed, which was something of a trick in a sauna and indicative of the strength of her feelings. “We should have. But how do you say, ‘All the terrible things we said about this town and this house? We were wrong.’ We’d too much pride. And I think on some level we’ve always felt a little guilty for liking this town—especially knowing how poorly you were treated in high school. But that was high school, Jenny. And sometimes things that seem awful have a way of turning around.”

  “And you think that’ll be my story, too?” Jenn asked in disbelief. “That after working my ass off for years I will just quit and my life will magically become fuller, richer, and more rewarding?”

  “Isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that what everyone wants?”

  “Yes,” Jenn snapped back. “But with guarantees that no one will ever take them from me. And that’s what I’m trying to get through AMS, Mom. Some guarantees. I want the sort of security we had before you and Dad blew it.”

  As soon as the words escaped, Jenn regretted them, but Nina, far from being offended, only shook her head sadly and laid her thin hand on Jenn’s forearm. “Baby,” she said softly, “haven’t you been listening? We lost what we had by chasing after the same sort of goal you’ve set for yourself. There is no security. Not the kind you’re talking about. There are no guarantees. They’re illusions.”

  No, Jenn thought, her obstinacy tinged with panic, security was real. You just had to work for it. Be willing to pay the price. It was her mother who didn’t get it. “I just don’t want to end up …” Jenn trailed off, her eyes falling to the cedar branch in her lap, unable to bring herself to finish the condemning sentence.

  So Nina said it for her. “To end up like your dad and I?” She sighed and her hand fell from Jenn’s arm. “You know, Jenny, my darling girl, I am getting heartily sick of being a disappointment to you.”

  Startled, Jenn looked up. Her mother had that no-nonsense expression she’d worn so often when Jenn was a kid.

  “It’s our fault, I suspect. Because when we came here we really did intend to leave just as soon as we could find a way clear. We beat that drum for months and you”—she gave a short, derisive laugh—“well, you made it clear from the start that anyone worth his salt would not be content to languish in a backwater, nowhere place like Fawn Creek.”

  She had never heard her mom sound so coldly angry. “Mom?”

  “No, let me finish.” Her mother raised her hand to silence Jenn. “This has been too long unsaid. We didn’t choose Fawn Creek, Jenny. We wouldn’t have chosen it. But it’s been good for us here. We don’t feel like failures, Jenny, except”—Nina took a deep breath, then caught and held Jenn’s gaze—“except when you tell us we are.”

  Jenn stared at her mother’s face. Her jaw was set, her lips compressed, the angle of her head autocratic and vulnerable at the same time. She couldn’t even refute the accusation. “I …”

  “Listen, Jenny. Steve wants to buy the Lodge. He’s offered two million dollars for the buildings and the land but he says he’ll go up to three if necessary.”

  “What?” Jenn’s breath left her chest in a whoosh. Her brain went into lockdown. The Lodge gone? No. That wasn’t possible. Steve couldn’t buy the Lodge. Steve didn’t belong up here any more than she did. Less. A lot less. “Why would he want to do that?”

  “He thinks it will be good for him. Good for his art, I mean. He says that you think so, too.”

  “I never said that!” The day, which had started so serenely, had gone to dreadful and was slipping into surreal. For the last eight hours, she’d seemed to exist in a perpetual state of unhappy surprise, barking the word “What?” every fifteen minutes.

  “He thinks you did,” Nina said. “He has a very high opinion of your opinion of his work.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  Steve had actually been listening to her drunken rambling? Of course, he had. And now he planned to buy the Lodge, move all his equipment here, dive into his work, and enjoy a spiritual and creative renaissance. And he would, too. She had no doubt about it. It was just … such a Steve Jaax sort of thing to do.

  How could he do this to her? And her parents? Because now … now it was all suddenly, hideously making sense to her. Her parents’ stalwart refusal to accept her help hadn’t been pride. They hadn’t wanted to leave. They still didn’t want to leave. But how could anyone in his right mind refuse an offer of that magnitude? Sure they could find another place but it wouldn’t be here. It …

  Jenn stood up, the cedar bough falling unnoticed to her feet. She was distracted and bemused and felt betrayed by Steve and unable to understand why. It was a generous offer. More than generous.

  But then Steve would be here and she wouldn’t. Not that it mattered. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t care if the place burned to the ground. Did she? Her thoughts spun wildly.

  “When is he going to take possession?” Her voice was barely audible.

  “He’s not,” Nina said, both defiant and exasperated.

  Jenn’s head snapped around and she looked down at her frail, elegant mother, chin high as she stared her daughter down.

  “Haven’t you heard anything I’ve said, Jenny? This is our home. We’re not selling it now or ever.”

  Chapter Forty

  9:00 p.m.

  The Lodge

  Steve lay spread flat on his back, balancing a glass of Barolo on his chest. Prince, né Bruno, was wedged between Steve and the couch, also on his back, his legs dangling limp in the air. Next to him, Nina sat at the end of the couch neatly snipping coupons out of The Weekly Shopper while beside her Cash read the newspaper and muttered about the latest candidate for the Green Party.

  Across the room, Jenn shut the photo album she’d been looking at for the last half an hour. She hadn’t asked Steve to join her, and something in her body language—the way she angled her b
ack against him, a certain tension in the bow of her neck—informed him that it would not be a good idea to ask to be included. He really wanted to ask to see her pictures. He wanted to know what she considered important, or worth remembering. He wanted, in short, to be included in her life. Her past. Everything.

  He suspected that in part had been the reason he’d been so enamored of the idea of buying the Lodge. Because even though Jenn discounted its importance, he knew better. He knew it was important to her, and he knew if he held it, he might have the means to keep her coming back. Not only to the Lodge. But to him.

  In a way, the Lodge was Jenn’s butter head. On the surface there was not much value, but important keys were buried within. He wondered if she knew. Or if Nina had told her that Cash had, instead of selling him the whole thing, agreed to sell him the barn and the quarter acre it sat on. He wondered if it pissed her off because she realized what he was doing or at least somehow intuited that part of it.

  He sighed and lifted his head off the floor and poured a little more wine into his mouth and looked around at the others in the great room.

  The phone rang in the kitchen.

  “Get that, will you, Jenn?” Cash asked without looking up.

  Without a word, Jenn got up and headed for the kitchen. Steve rolled over, pushed himself to his feet, and trotted after her, Nina’s interested gaze following him.

  He got to the kitchen door just in time to hear Jenn saying, “Whatever you’re smoking, stop! I thought I warned you guys that I—”

  She stopped abruptly, her expression revealing her disdain for whoever was on the other end. She glanced at Steve and said into the phone, “I don’t want you to be in contact. I want you to leave me alone. And if you—” She stopped, held the receiver away from her ear, and stared at it crossly. “He hung up on me!”

  “Who?” Steve asked, all sorts of hitherto ignored chivalrous impulses rushing to the fore.

  “No one. Those guys with the butter head.” She frowned at him. “You should let your hair grow longer. Not everyone is lucky enough to get curls, you know.” She delivered these last sentences in an unwilling tone.

  “You think?” he asked, pleased. “What did those guys want? Where’s the butter head?”

  “I don’t know. They think I’m stupid enough to pay them twice for it. They called me on my cell earlier today and wanted more money. I told them no and now they’re pissed off.”

  Jenn moved past him.

  “Where are you going?” Steve asked, falling into step beside her.

  “They told me to look on the front step. On the way, way small chance these guys have actually left the butter head out there, I am going, even though instinct tells me I have a better chance of finding a bag of burning cow poop.”

  She yanked open the sticky front door. A shoe box wrapped in twine lay on the ground before her, a trail of men’s boots to and from a fresh set of tire tracks a short ways off.

  “Your Prince is a crappy guard dog,” she said, picking up the box. She held it up to her ear, giving an exploratory jiggle. Steve sniffed. It had an odd odor. A little off. Jenn must have smelled it, too.

  “If those assholes have sent me a dead mouse,” she said, unwrapping the package, “so help me, I will hunt them down and—” She stopped and frowned down at the open box. An oddly shaped, oddly scented … yellowish something lay on the bottom, slightly crescent-shaped and flattened. Steve recognized it immediately.

  “What is this?” Jenn asked, frowning.

  “It’s an ear,” he said. “The butter head’s ear.”

  Jenn’s nose wrinkled with repugnance, whether from the old freezer smell wafting up out of the box or the idea that someone would lop off the butter head’s ear, he couldn’t tell. He watched her closely thinking that under normal circumstances she’d have laughed. But circumstances were not normal.

  Something was bothering her, something more than the delivery of the butter head’s ear.

  For himself, Steve wasn’t laughing not only because the idiots who had his sculpture were violating a work of art—his art—but also because if they continued lopping off bits of her, they just might lop off the bit with his key in it. Or worse, lop off a piece and have the key fall out.

  It wasn’t like the key was suspended deep within the butter. Nah-uh. He’d quickly dug a hole, shoved it in, plastered it over with a plug of butter, and bang! The arrival of the bounty hunter had ended any further efforts.

  “We have to get that butter head back,” he said.

  She looked at him. “Why? What’s so important about the butter head, Steve? Why does everyone want it?”

  “Everyone?” He tilted his head.

  She flushed. “Yeah. You know, you, the mayor, the guy who offered the reward, and there’s some other guy here from Ripley’s Believe It or Not who’ll pay ten thousand for it so they can stick it in the Ripley’s Museum. The butter head is a suspiciously popular girl.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Is there something about this thing that I don’t know about?”

  “It’s important. Really important,” he began. “The fact is there’s something in it that—”

  “Steve,” she cut in. He stopped, because she’d moved closer to him and was looking up at him all serious. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had looked at him with that expression—not of expectation, but of concern.

  Thoughts of the butter head flew straight out of his mind, chased away by her obvious consternation. All on his behalf. She cared. About him.

  “Steve,” she continued soberly, “you know, maybe you’re a little overinvested in this butter head.”

  “Really?” She was such a focused, objective, and competent woman—qualities he generally didn’t particularly admire, except in Verie, and associated with desperate people who wasted their lives in a perpetual state of ambition. But if he wasn’t like that … well, she was, but she was more than that. He’d seen another aspect of her, felt another aspect, a woman who had returned his kiss unabashedly, wholeheartedly, without restraint or self-consciousness. He found this combination of budding voluptuary and stoic entrancing.

  “It doesn’t belong to you, and I have to tell you, I don’t think it’s going to belong to you,” she was saying, looking a little uncomfortable. “I’m trying to tell you not to get your hopes up about it.”

  She wanted the butter head, too, he realized. For whatever reason, it was important to her. Because … because he’d done it? Or maybe she wanted it for her parents. Because it meant something to them. That seemed even more probable.

  “I could buy it?” he suggested. He angled his head. All she had to do was angle the other way … lean in an inch … give him some sign. Any sign. Because he was suddenly wary, for the first time in ages, afraid of taking the wrong step, of going too fast, of misreading her. She wasn’t like any woman he’d ever known … and yet, conversely, she was in so many ways familiar to him. Gloriously so.

  “I don’t think so.” She shook her head. The lights overhead stroked it platinum. “You know, not everything is for sale.”

  “I know.” He nodded, watching her.

  She hesitated and then suddenly poked him in the sternum with her index finger. “This house. You tried to buy my home—I mean, my parents’ home.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed, not precisely certain why she sounded so accusing. “I can do great work here. I think this place could be really good for me.”

  “You should have told me you were planning to make them an offer.”

  “Why? I thought you’d approve,” he said. “You were just telling me how much they wanted out of here but that they wouldn’t accept your help, so I thought they might accept an offer from me. It was a win-win situation. They could get out of Fawn Creek and I could get a studio.”

  “Well, I was wrong. About them. For whatever reason, they don’t want to leave here. I think they’ve got their cemetery plots paid for or something,” she said gruffly.

  She wouldn’t own u
p to anything positive about her feelings for this place, this town. But if that was the way she wanted to play it, he could, too.

  “Sorry you’ll be stuck coming back here.”

  She shrugged. “I’ll live.”

  “Maybe I’ll see you.”

  “Well, I’ll be in New York and—”

  “I mean here.”

  “But my mom said they didn’t sell you the place.”

  “Not the Lodge or the land, but they sold me the barn.”

  “What?” Jenn raked the back of her hair with her fingers. “Why doesn’t anyone tell me anything?”

  Steve had to say it, even though he was afraid of her response, and this was so unlike him, the hesitancy, this uncertainty, this caring so much about another’s opinion of him. He hadn’t even really cared whether his wives had liked him. Him. Not what he did or what he created.

  “I can withdraw the offer, if you’d rather.” He sounded stiff rather than nonchalant.

  Jenn’s gaze rose to his. She scowled, unhappy, confused, looking as uncertain as he felt, but he could count on her being direct and honest, with both him and herself. He knew that.

  “No,” she finally said, shaking her head. “No, don’t do that.”

  He must have been getting old, he thought as he watched her go, distracted by her inner thoughts, because he found that simple sentence perfectly satisfying.

  Dunk was having trouble sleeping.

  He hurt. Karin, virtuous and voluptuous, had cut off his morphine. Twice today, once in the morning and the afternoon, she had insisted he get up and walk up and down the hallway, dragging his IV stand with him. She hadn’t offered him anything for the resulting agony aside from a couple Tylenol with codeine.

  But it wasn’t the pain that kept him awake. It was the thought of those cheating assholes who were holding his butter head hostage. Early this evening the local network had run a piece about the popularity of Steve Jaax works and how every collector of modern art in the country worthy of the name had a Jaax.