Sex & Sensibility

by Shannon Hollis

  “…meet you down there?”

  “Sorry?” Griffin came out of his dark thoughts with a start. “What was that? I got distracted.”

  Petrie—what was her first name, anyway?—chuckled with understanding. “I said, how about I meet you down there afterward? The music doesn’t start until nine. We can have a drink and compare notes. Say, around six?”

  Down where? He’d completely lost track of the conversation. Didn’t matter, anyway. He’d sooner talk to his banana tree. Better yet, he’d sooner go to a whole convention of psychics and talk to them.

  “I’ll give you a call when I’m done,” he said. “I have your cell number.”

  “Good, that’s a date.” Then she paused a little self-consciously, the first human trait he’d detected in her. “I mean that in the time sense, not the social sense, of course.”

  “Of course.” He said goodbye, disconnected and slipped the phone in his pocket. He’d make sure he was good and busy at six o’clock and conveniently forget to call.

  His jacket hung on the coat tree by the door; the keys to the truck were on the coffee table. He grabbed both. He’d already told Jay he was going back to the beach house to search it. And now it seemed Tessa was confirming that was the right avenue to pursue.

  His stomach rumbled and he realized he’d skipped lunch. Not that there was much in the house to eat, since he’d been at Jay’s almost nonstop lately.

  If Christina really was at the beach house, he was going to be eating a nice big helping of crow, anyway.

  TESSA PULLED UP behind the beach house, set the Mustang’s parking brake, and glanced at her watch. Wow. San Francisco to Santa Rita in an hour and twenty-eight minutes, not including the ten-minute stop at the In-N-Out for two cheeseburgers with no onion and extra pickles. Not bad for the old girl.

  She got out of the car and followed the path around to the front of the house. It looked exactly as it had two days ago, except that this time there was a different air about it, a sense of life.

  A sense of deeply unhappy life. Getting dumped was bad enough when you were a grown woman and at least had some tools with which to handle it. But getting dumped when you were still a teenager and only thought you were a woman was more painful still.

  Tessa knocked and wasn’t surprised when no one came to open it.

  She tried the handle and, to her surprise, the door swung inward. Christina, she thought with a smile, rule number one with secret hideaways is “Always lock the door.”

  She stepped inside and closed it, noting that the red light glowed on the alarm keypad. Christina had even disabled that. Was she thinking that Trey would come back and wake her, like the prince coming for Sleeping Beauty?

  Not gonna happen, girl. It would be more likely that some kid would walk in looking for a few portable electronic devices to sell at the flea market.

  “Christina, it’s Tessa. I’m a friend of your—of Mandy’s. Can I come in?”

  Silence.

  “I know about Trey, sweetie.”

  “Get out of here,” came a soggy voice from the bedroom.

  “Your folks are worried about you.”

  She climbed the stairs and, from the end of the hall, saw a figure rolled in a blanket and curled up on the yellow bedspread. Tessa walked into the bedroom and put the bag containing the hamburgers on the table where Griffin had—

  She pushed that thought out of her mind and unwrapped the first burger. After biting into it and savoring the fresh lettuce and tomato and making good and sure Christina could smell it, she pulled out the fries and squeezed ketchup on them.

  “Getting dumped sucks the big one,” she said, as though she and Christina had been buds for years and she was picking up a conversation where it had been interrupted. “What really sucks is building your life plan around the guy and then he treats it as though it’s nothing.”

  From out of the folds of the blanket, two dark brown, suspicious, reddened eyes appeared. “What the hell do you know about it? Get out of here, bitch!” Then her angry gaze fell on the hamburger in Tessa’s hand.

  Tessa ignored the name-calling and popped a couple of fries in her mouth. “You probably haven’t eaten since yesterday, right?”

  Christina’s hostile gaze tracked the fries from their cardboard container to Tessa’s mouth.

  “I got a burger for you, if you want it. Extra pickles, no onions.” Tessa nudged the bag and smiled behind her burger as Christina threw back the blanket and scrambled across the bed. She grabbed the second burger and had devoured half of it before Tessa could maneuver the fries out of the bag. When that was gone, she offered Christina the other half of her burger, and when she’d eaten that, too, figured the girl’s blood-sugar levels might be within human range once again.

  “You owe me an apology for calling me a bitch,” she said, and smiled. If Christina was anything like her dad, a firm stand was necessary right from the start.

  “You’re trespassing!” This was definitely Jay’s daughter.

  “Your dad hired me to find you. And I brought you supper. Two reasons why I’m not technically trespassing.”

  “My dad?” Christina frowned and poked a fry into the last of the ketchup as if she were stubbing out a cigarette. “Why should he care?”

  “He cares. He’s been a basketcase ever since you left. Tell me he isn’t this cranky when he’s normal.”

  The corners of Christina’s lips twitched, then turned down again. “He’s going to kill me.”

  Tessa shook her head. “He’ll probably cry. I’m serious. It’s clear to me he loves you like nobody’s business, and I never met the guy before last week.”

  Could it have been just last week that her biggest problem had been deciding on a thesis topic?

  “I’ve been working with Griffin Knox to find you.”

  “Griffin Knox? The security guy?”

  “Yes. You see, I’m the one who got your blue cashmere sweatshirt.”

  “My what?” The girl looked completely lost.

  “The ice-blue Stella McCartney sweater that you gave to some charity a while back for a fund-raiser.”

  Christina shrugged. “If you say so. What about it?”

  Oh, to be so rich you didn’t even know what one-of-a-kinds you were giving away.

  “Well, I’m a sensitive. I learn things about people when I touch something they owned, like a watch or whatever. I got your sweater at a thrift shop and started learning stuff about you in a big way. So your dad hired me to see if I could help.”

  And I did. Even if no one believed me. Well, guess what, guys—I found her first.

  “You found me from my sweater? Are you like a bloodhound or something?”

  Tessa laughed. “No, it’s more like I put on the sweater and a movie starts playing scenes from your life. Like when Trey bought those cotton scarves and tied you to the bed. Where was that, by the way?”

  Christina’s eyes widened. “You’re bullshitting me.”

  Tessa shrugged and waited.

  “That was here in Santa Rita. He wanted someplace anonymous so we got a hotel. Then I remembered Mandy’s house from when she showed it to me once. She doesn’t know I watched her punch in the code on the door.”

  And of course a girl brought up in houses that required expensive alarm systems would think nothing of remembering a key code.

  “Have you had enough to eat?”

  “Yeah. Thanks. I’m sorry I called you a bitch. You scared me.”

  “You shouldn’t leave the front door open. He’s not going to come back.” Tessa tried to make her tone as sympathetic as possible. She was sympathetic. She had been in Christina’s shoes a time or two herself, dreaming the exact same fairy-tale dreams. Learning they rarely, if ever, had happy endings.

  “The guy who really cares here is your dad.”

  Christina shrugged and dug her bare toes into the bedspread.

  Tessa thought about the cards she’d thrown that first day, when she was trying to figur
e out what the visions of Christina meant. “Part of what I do is read tarot. You know, the cards?” Christina looked at her as though she were a lunatic. Tessa pushed on. “When I read them for you, they told me you wanted to start something new, that you had put yourself on a course and you meant to see it through. Is that true?”

  “Yeah.” Her tone was dismal. “So much for that.”

  “Well, what if it didn’t mean Trey? What if it meant your relationship with your dad, or even getting into UC Santa Rita? I saw the applications in your room. You can do more with your life than give it to Trey Ludovic, Christina. The cards say you can plant the seeds and they’ll grow.”

  Christina cocked an eyebrow at her. “Did anyone ever tell you you’re weird?”

  Tessa smiled, and nodded with wry acknowledgement. “Yeah, lots of times. But you know what? A lot more people tell me I’m right.”

  Except Griffin. The pain needled its way into her heart. She absolutely would not think about Griffin when there was a girl who needed someone to talk to right here. A girl who needed her family and a safe place while she recovered.

  “So what do the cards say now?” Christina’s tone was challenging.

  Tessa reached for her purse. “It just so happens that I brought them with me.” She took the velvet bag out and sat on the floor, her back against the footboard of the bed so that Christina could look over her shoulder and see the pattern the cards made on the rug. “I’m going to do a Hero’s Journey spread for you. See, this is how it works. Kinda like Star Wars, you know, where Luke starts off in the Ordinary World…”

  And that was how Griffin Knox found them when he arrived ten minutes later.

  23

  From the private journal of Jay Singleton

  The saints be praised, it’s enough to make a man go back to the Church. I never really believed in anything except myself, but this could almost convince me.

  Christina is home.

  She’s well, unharmed, no bruises, scratches or anything else. I thought she’d be royally pissed that I had the cavalry out after her, but she seemed almost touched instead.

  Ding-ding, Jay. Remember what Tessa told you. “She just needs to be with you,” she said. “Needs to know that you appreciate her.”

  Okay, so maybe I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t show it all that much. But Xena, who runs my office—I mean, Catherine, never seems to complain, especially when I give her another massive performance bonus. Mandy seems to be happy with the money and the sex. And redecorating rooms every time I walk out of them. But with kids it’s different.

  I only got to see Christina once a year after she was eight. It’s hard to keep a relationship going, but I suppose I was hurt and figured Ocean Tech needed me more than she did. Despite my feelings about her mother, I can’t deny she puts Christina first and does a fine job at parenting.

  Is it too late to parent a young woman? Probably. But I don’t think it’s too late to learn to be a dad over again. If she’s willing to let me fumble at it, I’m willing to try.

  Jeez. Maybe I should quit writing it and just go tell her.

  That’s another thing Tessa said. “Say it out loud, Jay. She really doesn’t know you love her.”

  For someone so young she’s really wise. I don’t know why Griffin isn’t all over her like a dirty shirt. If I were his age and single, I might think about it, though I do wonder if she can read minds during sex. But he’s acting like a bear fresh out of hibernation. Not that he was ever Mister Congeniality to start with.

  I hear her voice in the hall.

  Practice, Jay: I love you, Christina.

  There. You can do it.

  THE BONUS CHECK would pay the bills for the rest of the school year, with a little left over for a cap and gown. But that was less important to Tessa than the apology that came with it.

  “I was wrong to have fired you,” Jay Singleton said simply. Instead of sitting behind his massive desk like the corporate kingpin he was, he leaned on the front of it like a normal guy, with his ankles crossed and his shoulders relaxed. Even the volume of his voice was out of the red zone. Evidently having Christina back safe and sound was better than a dozen bottles of vitamin B.

  “I know,” she replied with a grin.

  “Let me put that another way. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. What I should have done is followed the facts logically, the way I’d do with software code. Then I would have seen there was more than one interpretation when they weren’t at the beach house the first time.”

  “Maybe.” Tessa folded the check and tucked it in her handbag. “Or maybe what you should have done is trusted me. See how simple it can be?”

  Jay smiled, and it wasn’t a sarcastic smile, either. “There is that. So. What are your plans now?”

  She shrugged. “Go home again, I guess. Pick a thesis topic. Be maid of honor at my sister’s insane wedding. The usual.”

  “I have a feeling that life with you is never ‘the usual.’ If I ever need the services of a sensitive again, I know who to call.”

  “Thanks. I take referrals.”

  “And you can call me anytime. I mean that.” Jay held out a buff-colored business card. “This is my private number, the one that doesn’t route through the company phone system and my assistant doesn’t answer. If you ever need anything—a job, a tow, whatever—you call me on that line.”

  “I don’t suppose Human Resources would have much use for a psychology major at a computer company, would they?”

  “Maybe not, but some days I need a shrink just for myself.”

  Laughing, Tessa wished him well and stepped out into the sunshine. There was no sign of Griffin anywhere—not that she’d expected him to be loitering around, asking for another chance. Not the King of Swords.

  When he’d walked in on her and Christina at the beach house, she’d half expected a smile, a hug, some indication that he was happy about her success. But no. He’d merely asked Christina if she were all right and then called Jay on his cell phone. He hadn’t asked Tessa why she hadn’t done that in the first place, but she felt the question in the air as he’d placed the call and held her gaze while he’d ended Jay’s misery.

  So fine, she’d sacrificed the dad’s peace of mind for the daughter’s. On the whole, she felt she’d made the right choice, and Jay seemed pretty happy about the outcome if the check in her purse was any indication.

  She’d parked the Mustang next to Griffin’s truck when they’d brought Christina home. Pulling the keys out of her purse, she rounded the corner of the garage.

  Griffin leaned on the Mustang’s rear fender, looking as loose as a garage mechanic with nothing to do on a slow summer day. In her experience, though, garage mechanics never wore jeans that fit like that. Or had a body under them that was literally good enough to eat.

  Tessa had a sudden visual of the last time they had made love and how he had tasted as he shuddered and came into her mouth. Her breath hitched and a pulse of desire darted through her belly to her groin.

  Thoughts like this are not going to get you back to your normal life. Keep it low-key. Be cool.

  “What’s up?” she asked, tossing her purse in the passenger seat as casually as if the past two days had never happened. Or the past week, for that matter.

  “Heading home?” he asked.

  Some devil inside her goaded her to reply, “Well, if I were a detective I’d look at the resolved case and the car keys and come to the conclusion that yes, I am heading home.”

  If she had hoped for some kind of reaction, a nettled tone, a flash in the eyes, she was disappointed. He merely nodded. “How are you with plants?”

  “Plants?” She stared at him, mystified.

  “Yeah, you know, things that grow.”

  She tried to figure out why on earth it mattered now that she was never going to see him again. “Okay, I guess. I know about fertilizer and talking to them and stuff.”

  “Because I have this banana tree that’s probably dyi
ng. I thought if you had nothing going on this afternoon you might come over and give me an opinion.”

  Banana tree. He wanted her to diagnose his banana tree. And men thought women were a mystery. Sheesh.

  She wasn’t quite finished with the King of Swords, anyway. She wanted to see him lower that blade. She wanted to hear “I was wrong not to believe you” coming out of those beautifully cut lips. She wanted to make him smile just once before she got back in the Mustang and left town in a cloud of dust, just like in the movies.

  Okay, rewind.

  She wanted to make him smile just once before he lost it and made love to her again. And for that she’d go and diagnose his banana tree.

  “Okay,” she said. “Lead on.”

  She followed him up the highway and into Santa Rita. He lived in a postwar community with houses painted terracotta and yellow and pale pink, with hibiscus and bougainvillea thriving in yards next to tricycles and the odd wheelchair. He slowed and pulled into the driveway of a house that was neatly kept, with a carved wood door that set off walls painted in a shade somewhere between cantaloupe and rust. Not what she would have picked for him, she thought, parking behind the pickup and switching off the engine. Maybe he’d bought it that way.

  “Come on in.” He unlocked the front door and stood aside to let her pass. The walls of the house were thick, allowing the interior to stay cool even when the temperatures nudged triple digits. The room was painted cream, and there were a few pictures of—were those chickens?—hanging on them. What the place needed, she thought, was a few of Mandy’s bright cushions and striped slipcovers. This was the house of a man who furnished because he needed something to sit on, not because he needed something nice to look at while he spent time there.

  Ooh, what she couldn’t do with a house like this. Her student apartment was the house of a woman on hold, she realized. Everything was cheap, portable and fit easily in the back of a single truck, so she wouldn’t inconvenience more than one friend when she needed a driver. The only things that said, “An individual lives here,” were her plants.