by Lori Avocato
He grabbed my arm. “You need to steady that camera on your belt and …”
I heard him talking but couldn’t believe he was giving me very clear instructions on how to use my new camera. The guy was exactly right, from what I’d read in the pamphlet. I looked at him when his lips stopped. “Where were you this morning when I could have used that info?”
“Places.”
Oh, boy. “Do you ever answer a question with something other than a mono word?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“Well, at least that’s two syllables.”
“Your hair looks like shit.”
“Latest fashion craze.” I cringed inside.
“Let’s get a coffee.”
“I … Are you asking me out?” I nonchalantly tried to fix my hair. “Like a date?”
“No. I told you I wasn’t done questioning you yet.”
Was my face appealing in bright scarlet? I wondered that as he looked at me.
I watched Jagger over my coffee cup while we sat at the table farthest in the back at Dunkin Donuts on Elm Street. He ate a Boston cream donut as if it were the last morsel on earth. Something about him said he enjoyed the hell out of food and was comfortable in his body.
Who wouldn’t be?
Okay, I thought, I have to keep this professional. I’d declined a donut since all I could think of was my ten-pound birth weight and that Jagger knew my father’s nickname for me. But watching Jagger eat had me craving Boston cream. Truthfully, I craved whatever he was eating. Made food so sexy I felt like Meg Ryan in that restaurant scene with Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally.
“Tina lifted a forty-pound bag of birdseed. That’s what was supposed to be on my tape.”
I could tell he had a difficult time stifling his laughter at my expense, but I’d give him credit for self-control. He did, however, take an exceptionally long time wiping a smudge of cream from his lip and licking off his finger all the while looking me in the eyes.
I swallowed—hard.
And nearly coughed up all my coffee. So then I took a deep breath to calm myself. Pheromones had to be wafting across the table. I knew I had inhaled some even if they were scent-free. I held my cup near my nose and took a deep breath of the pungent liquid to use as a Jagger-pheromone shield.
“Getting her lifting forty pounds would have been useful against her claim,” he finally said. He finished his coffee and sat looking at me.
“I don’t know what else I can tell you. I’m going to go over to her house again and see if I can get any more video to use.”
“You mean some video to use.” He smiled.
I smiled back. “Right.” Coming from such “strong as bull” Polish stock, I held my head up and refused to be humiliated anymore than I already had been this morning.
“You have to practice using that camera and … I’ll help you find Tina if you take that part-time job in Doctor Macaluso’s office.”
I glared at him. No sense asking how he knew. Small community of investigators indeed. I could only hope that he couldn’t read my mind. For a few seconds I thought about Jagger’s “suggestion.” Vance worked there. Did I really want to work with him in the same office? I didn’t want to lead him on: After yesterday’s lunch, he’d already planned on us having dinner together this weekend.
I looked at Jagger. Sex with Vance was never going to be the same.
“I don’t know. I doubt I’ll get much video on Tina there.” The payment Jeanine had stuck me with was due in a few weeks. Damn it. The money was sorely needed.
“You won’t get any.”
“Then why the hell should I take a nursing job there?”
“I want you to.”
“Linda Stark, please.” I held my cell phone in one hand, Tina’s business card with the office manager’s number on it in the other and watched Jagger across the table watching me.
What the hell was I doing?
I had a good premonition meter—always relied on it for my nursing—and this time the meter was telling me I could trust Jagger even if I didn’t know who the hell he was. Even Goldie had said as much. So, I was letting Jagger talk me into taking the job for a few days.
“Yes?” a female voice came on the line.
“Ms. Stark, I’m a friend of Tina Macaluso,” I lied and again flushed. Lying did that to me, but I plodded on despite my complexion, making a mental note to always wear something that doesn’t clash with crimson when I’m with Jagger. “She suggested I fill in for her while she’s out. Poor thing with that injury and all. We went to nursing school together.”
Jagger had a toothpick—from where I don’t know—and sat fiddling with it in his mouth oh-so-very casually.
Linda had me coming in to work the next day!
“Desperate,” she’d said they had been, and the local nursing agencies sent most of the staff to hospitals or home care. Doctor’s offices were last on their list. I hung up and sat back. “You have no idea how much I hate doing this.”
“Yes, I do.”
It was then that I truly realized Jagger knew more about me than I probably knew about myself.
I was going with FBI.
“Keep that thing on your belt until you need it. That way you can get it in seconds,” Jagger said as I held my beeper/camera in my gloved hand. “Don’t drop it.”
“Gee, I thought I’d take videos of feet.”
He ignored me and drove us right out to Tina’s mansion, as if he knew exactly where she’d be. Didn’t surprise me. Did amaze me. Did make me jealous. Did give me aspirations to learn from him.
We parked and found myself hurrying along a snow-covered empty lot to keep up with Jagger’s long strides. The back of Tina’s house was off to the left. Jagger led me to the bank of snow I’d dove behind last night. He kept looking at her house and doing things at the same time. Things like kicking the pile back into its original igloo shape.
Me, I would have been capable of only one thing at a time, but before I knew it, he had us huddled in the half igloo and had made a window of sorts to spy out of.
For some reason I didn’t think Jagger would call it spying.
His shoulder pressed against mine. It was all I could do not to sigh. Even through the bulky down of my Steelers jacket, I felt him.
“Is it warm in here?” Oh shit! I couldn’t believe that snuck out of my mouth.
Without a thought he said, “Snow is a good insulator.”
“Yeah. Right. Insulator.” Ack. I lifted the collar of my jacket over my nose as if it was cold, but truthfully, it was my second Jagger/pheromone shield of the day.
“She’s coming out,” he said quietly. “Get your camera ready.”
I fumbled around in the midst of my bulk and pulled out the beeper. “Here.”
He looked at me. “This is your case.”
“Oh, right.”
He moved over slightly so I could get to the hole of a window. There she was, all right. “She’s carrying something big. Looks heavy. I’ll bet it’s that forty-pound bag of birdseed!”
“Film away.”
This time my excitement wasn’t hormonally induced, although that never left my mind. I held up the camera. Just as I thought I was getting her carrying and lifting and spilling birdseed on the ground, I heard a dog bark.
It got much louder.
Jagger looked at me. “Ignore it and it won’t bother us.”
Soon a nose poked into our window. A black wet one. I was guessing German shepherd or rottweiller or bull mastiff by the size of its nose. A loud sniff followed.
The snow shifted when gigantic paws dug for a few seconds.
I pulled back, but kept my camera there ready for the second the damn dog moved away.
Suddenly the nose left, the digging ceased and a spray of liquid yellow showered into the window—flooding my brand-new beeper/camera.
Jagger shut his eyes. “Oh shit.”
“Pauline! Pauline what is wrong with you?” my mother c
alled out when I shot through the kitchen doorway.
I continued running through the hallway, past the wall of family photos and into the bathroom. “I’m fine.” I shoved the door open, glad neither Daddy or Uncle Walt was in there, and headed toward the shelf above the toilet.
There it sat.
I grabbed the pine Renuzit and held the can away from my face, then sprayed as if the bathroom were infested with flying creatures. When I thought of the day I’d had so far: the dog, Jagger, my camera. I inhaled. Deeply.
Ah.
Christmas.
Traditional holiday meals.
Outdoors as a kid.
And … family.
The scent wrapped me with comfort, working miracles much better than Prozac or Zoloft could do. I shut my eyes and inhaled again.
Bang. Bang.
“Pauline,” Mother shouted. “Are you … Do you have the runs? Oh my Lord. Michael, get the Pepto-Bismol. Did you see how fast she came through the house? Pauline has the runs!”
My eyes flew open. Geez. “Mom, I’m fine.” Suddenly I heard my father’s voice shouting from the kitchen that there was no Pepto-Bismol in the refrigerator and should he run to the store?
“Darn it all. Uncle Walt must have used it up and not put it on the shopping list,” my mother’s voice came through the door. “Walt? Did you use the Pepto—”
I opened the door and stuck my head out. “I’m all right, Mom. I don’t need any medication. I’ll pick you up some Pepto-Bismol at the drugstore later. I’m fine, Daddy!”
She looked past me as if some evidence that I really was sick and just wouldn’t admit it was lying on the floor of the bathroom. What kind of evidence, I had no idea. But this was my mother we were talking about here.
“Why does it smell like a forest in here?” She wiggled her nose a few times. As kids, we used to say Mom’s nose was like one of those drug dogs. She could smell something burning before it actually ignited. Then she would sniff and sniff the air, asking us if something was burning. As teens, we used to purposely burn a piece of toast, throw it away, and say we knew nothing about where the smell came from as Mom sniffed until her sinuses dried.
I gave her a hug. “Your Renuzit, Mom. That’s the forest scent.” Then I walked past her, heading toward the front door.
“Pauline, have you gone mad? What is this? You run in here, into our bathroom and spray my Renuzit as if some skunk had passed through. That stuff is not cheap, you know.”
I smiled. I would have thought she owned stock in the company or at the very least, once a year, was sent cartons of free cans as such a good, loyal customer. “I’ll get you a can at the drugstore, too.” Maybe I’d pick up an extra can and keep it in my purse. With this new job and Jagger, I might need some pine comfort down the road.
“I don’t need any more cans of it. I have seven in the laundry cabinet. Sit down and eat something.”
Although food was the last thing on my mind, the tone my mother used left little room for argument.
So, I sat at the table, eating a piece of blueberry pie she’d made from berries she and Daddy had picked the past summer and frozen. She used cream cheese below the berries on a flaky, homemade crust, in which she never spared the butter. Between the Renuzit and pie, I had almost forgotten about my injured camera.
“Delicious. This is delicious, Mom.”
She gave me an odd look. “It’s the same as I’ve made since you were born. I do, however, put a lot of work into my cooking. What is wrong with you tonight?” She cut another slice of pie. I was about to say I was full, when she set it on my father’s dish. He started eating without a word. Guess nonverbal communication came with years of a happy marriage.
“I’ve had a bad day at my job. Just wanted to spend some time with you and Daddy and Uncle Walt.”
Uncle Walt sat fast asleep in his chair. His dentures, now stained a light purple, slipped in and out of his mouth, mid-snore.
“Did you hear that, Michael? Her job. See what her job is doing to her?”
Daddy nodded, took a forkful of pie and put it in his mouth. Then he winked at me.
I smiled.
Mom stood to start cleaning up before Daddy had finished his second piece. “I have a bad feeling about this job. You came here to use my Renuzit because of your job. That is silly.” She leaned over toward me. “You want Renuzit, Pauline? Move back here where we can keep an eye on you, and you can spray until the room fogs up.”
Again not remembering my trip back from my parents’ house, I set my camera on Miles’s kitchen counter and glared at it. I’d fiercely wiped it over and over with a rag Jagger had given me from his SUV. The guy had everything you could need in that Suburban. The beeper/camera sat there staring back at me.
Needless to say, I had nothing viable on Tina.
“Damn it.” I had no idea if dog pee would ruin the expensive piece of equipment. I thought of calling Goldie but realized he was on his date with Miles. Nothing short of a major world disaster could get me to interrupt those two. Besides, Goldie didn’t strike me as an expert on dog pee, and I didn’t think a dog peeing on your camera was a usual surveillance happening.
No, I looked from the camera to Spanky, who was jumping at my leg, and decided I’d just have to try it out to see if it still worked. Thing was, I hated to touch it. I’d touched a lot worse in my nursing career, but I drew the line at dog pee. I couldn’t really wash the camera either, although I was tempted to shove it into the dishwasher. I could call the company I bought it from, but couldn’t take being humiliated twice—no, three times in one day—even if it was only over the phone.
I was a professional. I had to do these things on my own. So, I decided to fix myself a cup, a big one, of green tea and try the camera out. I said a few mini novenas as the microwave heated my water. I really couldn’t afford a new camera. It had to be all right. And did the warranty cover dog pee?
When the tea was done, I gave Spanky a rawhide bone to occupy him and sat at the counter staring. The camera needed more time to recover, I decided. So, I sipped and watched.
Then I took out the Windex and sprayed the camera, making sure not to soak it. I washed my hands, sat down and let it sit, airing out.
My stomach knotted when I thought of having to go to work as a nurse tomorrow. Ack. Why did I let Jagger talk me into that? Because, Pauline, the guy seems to be able to get you to do what he wants. True. There was something about Jagger that a woman just couldn’t say no to, and I didn’t mean in a sexual way.
Although Lord knows, if he asked, “no” wouldn’t be the first word on my tongue.
Midway through my tea I thought about this past week. I left a good-paying job, got a no-paying job (so far), found great friends in Goldie and Adele, met two very opposite men—Nick and Jagger—and got my camera peed on.
I finished off my tea.
Okay. Moment of truth. I picked it up and sniffed. Smelled like metal and plastic and Windex. Good sign. Truthfully, I told myself, the dog hadn’t really soaked the camera completely. Most of it had landed on the snow, since the window Jagger had formed wasn’t all that large.
“Okay, Spanks, guess you’re my guinea pig for tonight.” He looked at me with his dark black eyes, which were far too big for his head but gave him a rather cute (in a pathetic sort of way), look. “Come, Spanky.”
I aimed the beeper/camera at him. He gave me a lazy look and returned to gnawing on his rawhide. “Okay. You can stay there, but keep moving. Anything. Even your little jaw. Maybe an occasional ear twitch.”
I moved away, moved closer, moved to the other side of the kitchen and tried out the zoom feature. After I’d taped what I figured was enough for a test, I pressed STOP. Then I got the wire from my bag to connect it to my VCR. Jagger’s rag sat on the floor near my bag. I lifted it to throw it out, had second thoughts and decided if I washed it I could keep it as a memento.
What for?
I shoved it into the kitchen garbage can and told myself
to forget Jagger, for now anyway. I walked to the TV and connected the camera.
The picture came out fuzzy, but there sat darling Spanky, chewing to his heart’s content. I sunk into the chair next to the TV. “Thank you, Saint T.”
With that dilemma solved, I went into the pantry and looked under C for canned cream of mushroom soup. There were six cans since it was my favorite. Miles hated to see me eating the soup and always insisted it was for cooking, not to be eaten plain. I loved it on string beans topped with French-fried onions too, but, still, it had been my favorite soup since being a kid, when we couldn’t eat meat on Fridays.
I took a can and opened the doggie-treat container to get a biscuit for Spanky, who was fast on my heels. The little shadow didn’t miss a thing. I used the electric can opener on the counter, wiped off the excess soup, since Miles was a stickler for neatness and I was inclined to agree with him on that issue, and poured the soup into a pan. As I turned on the faucet to add the required one can of water to my soup, the phone rang.
I set the can down and lifted the receiver. Before it was even at my ear, I heard, “Pepperoni all right on your pizza?”
For a fleeting second I thought someone had a wrong number, but when the voice registered in my brain, I said, “I’m a mushroom/sausage gal.”
The phone disconnected and I looked at my can of soup. I opened the cabinet, took out a container and lid and poured the soup inside to store in the refrigerator until tomorrow. No need for cream of mushroom soup, when I’d soon be eating pizza with Jagger.
I’d set the kitchen table with the china, then reset it with paper and plastic. I didn’t want to give Jagger the wrong impression. Within minutes of my resetting it again with china, the doorbell chimed.
Miles had it playing a Brahms lullaby this month. He liked variety. I hurried toward the door, then decided again that I didn’t want to seem overeager. I’d already stepped in it when I’d asked if it was a date for coffee today. I stopped to check my hair in the brass mirror that hung above the couch, then went to the door.
Spanky beat me to it and was jumping wildly as if he could smell the pizza. I opened the door.
Jagger stood with pizza box in one hand, a bag in the other. He held out the bag. “Coors.”
