CRY UNCLE

by Judith Arnold

  Or maybe the emotion she experienced at his arrival was simply a result of being his wife. Because as she gazed at him, she felt exactly what a wife was supposed to feel when she saw her husband: Comfort. Relief. Joy.

  ***

  HE’D MEANT TO make it downstairs earlier, but it was hard to get your ass in gear when you’d been tending bar till two a.m. Sure, he could have gotten home earlier—Brick would have taken the closing shift—but Joe was so freaking busy avoiding his wife that he’d turned down Brick’s offer and waited until the last patron had departed before locking up and rolling home.

  He’d been exhausted, and he’d had a few spots of blood on his shirt from that asshole who’d cut his chin. But carting an inebriated yahoo to the hospital had seemed easy compared to the test of facing Pamela without desiring her.

  When he’d found her note for him, though, he’d regretted his cowardice. He’d regretted it even more as he’d taken a quick walk through the house and seen how neatly everything was arranged. She must have worked her tail off to tidy the place up. And he’d promised she wouldn’t have to take care of the house.

  The least he could do was make sure she wouldn’t have to solo in the morning, too. When his alarm clock had buzzed, he’d wrestled against the urge to bury his head under the pillow, and he’d gotten himself properly enough put together not to send the social worker off in a huff.

  He shook her hand as she gave him her name, and then casually slipped his arm around Pamela’s shoulders. He had thought his only challenge would be pretending he was a true husband to Pam. But the real challenge was going to be acting like her husband—for instance, putting his arm around her shoulders, the way husbands did—without responding to the sexy angularity of them, and the soft fragrance of her hair, and the glittery silver in her eyes. “Is the coffee ready yet, honey?” he asked, sounding so natural he very nearly frightened himself.

  “The kitchen’s a disaster,” Pamela murmured through clenched teeth.

  He chuckled. “The kitchen’s always a disaster. If Ms. Whitley wants to deduct points for sloppiness, we’re in big trouble.” May as well own up to it, not try to hide what couldn’t be hidden.

  He released Pamela and sauntered down the hall to the kitchen, refusing to let his apprehension show. He found the Liz Monster sitting on the floor, scooping up spilled cereal and tossing it into her mouth—although her aim wouldn’t win her any try-outs with the Miami Heat.

  Keep it light, Joe coached himself. Don’t let the social worker see you sweat. “Oink, oink,” he addressed Lizard. “You’re a pig this morning, aren’t you.”

  Lizard leaped to her feet and threw herself into his arms. “Uncle Joe! You got up!”

  “Of course I got up.” No sense letting the court lady know his usual hours.

  “Pamela tried to make me eat burnt toast,” Lizard wailed. “And this yucky stuff, some kind of grapefruit that she said was pink but she was lying, and—”

  “Well, that is pink grapefruit,” he argued gently, hoisting Lizard higher in his arms and glancing over his shoulder at the fruit on the counter. “I know it’s got a kind of peculiar flavor, but I bet Pamela thought you were so mature you could handle it. Now do me a favor, Lizzie, and get the broom, and we’ll get this place all spiffed up.” He shot an affable grin toward Ms. Whitley, who was watching from the doorway. Little did the lady know, but his kitchen had rarely been as spiffed up as it was right now, even with all the cereal on the floor.

  He would have to thank Pamela for the unusual cleanliness of the place. He could have flowers delivered, or take her out to dinner—but then she might think he was making a pass at her, putting pressure on her. And he wasn’t exactly sure that assessment would be wrong.

  She materialized next to Ms. Whitley, looking worried. That she should be so eager to make a good impression on the social worker touched him. She had her own problems; she didn’t have to carry the full weight of his as well.

  “You know what?” he asked as Lizard handed him the broom. “I bet Ms. Whitley would like to see your herb garden. Why don’t you take her out in the yard and show her around while Pam and I get the floor swept?”

  Lizard would have agreed to anything not to have to help clean up. “Okay,” she obeyed happily. With a skip in her step, she led the way out onto the screened porch and from there into the back yard.

  Pamela watched, her lips pressed together, her eyes a bit too bright. “She listens to you a lot more than she listens to me,” she muttered.

  “She’s known me a lot longer,” he pointed out, handing her the dustpan and then setting to work sweeping up the cereal.

  “Besides which, you let her have her way. She made this mess; she should have cleaned it herself.”

  “And if we didn’t have that spy in our midst—” he angled his head toward Ms. Whitley’s business card, still in Pamela’s hand “—I would have crazy-glued the broom to the little beast’s hands before I’d let her off the hook. I just didn’t think this was the time or place for a show-down.”

  Pamela nodded. She looked suddenly weary. “I guess I’m not very good at parenting.”

  “You’re fine.” He propped the broom against the table and planted his hands on Pamela’s shoulders. “You’re better than fine, Pam. Okay?”

  She peered up into his eyes. He recalled the anguish he’d seen in her face the first time she’d come to his house, when her tears had seeped inside his soul and softened him up. He really hoped she wasn’t going to get weepy on him again. If she did, he’d have to hug her, and if he hugged her he’d kiss her.

  “I tried to dress nicely for Ms. Whitley—”

  “You look great.”

  “And I tried to neaten up the house—”

  “This house hasn’t been so neat since the last owner moved his stuff out. Really, Pam—you’re terrific. Okay?”

  Instead of tears, he saw something else in her eyes—a glint of anger. “If I’m so terrific, why are you treating me as if I had leprosy?”

  He smothered a groan. “If you had leprosy,” he argued, giving her upper arms a reassuring squeeze, “would I be touching you?”

  “This is the first time I’ve seen you in days, Jonas.”

  “I work lousy hours,” he rationalized. “You know that.”

  “I also know when someone is avoiding me. Where were you yesterday morning? Why did you sneak out of the house the minute my back was turned?”

  It occurred to Joe that her words could be taken as good, old-fashioned shrewishness, the stereotypical nagging-wife stuff. He didn’t have to account for himself or his whereabouts, did he? Even if this were a real marriage—especially if it were a real one—he wouldn’t tell his wife where he was going, or when, or why.

  Yet the way Pamela put it made it sound as if he was stepping out on her or something. She had to understand that the only reason he was avoiding her, sneaking out of the house and all, was because if he hung around he would start treating her the way a wife should be treated, and that would destroy their arrangement.

  He took up the broom and started sweeping. “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said it was for your own good.”

  The anger spread from her eyes to encompass her entire body. Her spine stiffened, and she brandished the dustpan as if she wanted to whack him with it. “My own good? What am I, another little child you’ve taken custody of? My own good?”

  He shot a quick look toward the window above the sink, which overlooked the back yard. “Can we talk about this some other time?” he asked quietly.

  “No, we cannot.” She knelt down where he’d amassed a pile of cereal and held the dustpan so he could sweep the cereal into it. “I thought we were equal partners in this, Joe. Equal means, you don’t make decisions for me. If it were for my own good never to see you, I wouldn’t have married you.”

  There was a compliment embedded in her rage: she wanted to see him sometimes.

  The trouble was, all she wanted was to see him. When
he saw her, he wanted a whole lot more.

  He heard a gale of laughter, Lizard’s and Ms. Whitley’s, through the screen in the window. If he could hear them, they could probably hear him and Pamela. This was no doubt the worst time in the world for them to be quarreling. Tactics demanded that he concede for now.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll try harder to wake up early.”

  “Don’t do me any favors,” Pamela retorted.

  Oh, swell. She really was a wife, wasn’t she. Here he’d swallowed his pride and given in, and Pamela refused to accept his surrender. The woman was asking for a fight.

  Joe would love nothing more to give her one. If she wanted to argue both sides, he would gladly argue right back. He was nimble; he could take anything she said and throw it back in her face. She wanted to be equals with him? He didn’t pull his punches with his equals.

  But that damned social worker was here. “Make up your mind,” he grumbled. “You want me to wake up early? Say so. You want me to sleep late? No problem. Just make up your mind.”

  “I want you to treat me like your partner, not a pariah.”

  Whatever the hell she meant by that. “Fine,” he said, just to be done with it.

  “Because it’s ridiculous that I should have to leave you notes, for heaven’s sake. If I need to talk to you, I should be able to.”

  “I said fine,” he repeated, a quiet growl.

  “This is important, Jonas. I don’t want to be brushed off.”

  He was tempted to take the broom and brush her into the damned dustpan. But Lizard and Ms. Whitley came waltzing back into the kitchen, denying him the chance. “Well,” the social worker said grandly, “Elizabeth certainly knows a lot about weeds.”

  “She’s a smart kid,” Joe grunted, relieved to have someone other than Pamela to think about.

  “I also told her we’re gonna ock-attack Birdie’s house as a project.”

  “You are?” This was news to Joe—and garbled news at that. He sent Pamela a questioning glance. Her answer was a smug look, as if to say his ignorance about this so-called project was just one more thing he didn’t know about because he’d been treating his wife like a leprous pariah.

  Lizard nodded vigorously. “With a tree house in the living room, right, Pamela?”

  “We still have to run that concept past Birdie,” Pamela said, smiling at Lizard with a warmth he wished she felt toward him, even if at the moment he wanted to throttle her.

  “Birdie is your neighbor?” Ms. Whitley asked.

  “Also Liz’s baby-sitter,” said Pamela, then gazed around the room. “I think we’re done here. Liz, would you like something to eat?”

  “Yeah. Pink cereal.”

  Pamela pursed her lips but didn’t refuse Lizard her choice. Even though he would rather not do anything for Pamela, Joe courteously filled a cup of coffee for her, asked Ms. Whitley one last time if she wanted some, and when she declined filled a cup for himself. Then he excused himself and walked outside to get the newspaper.

  The morning was hot, the grass soaked with dew and the air dense with the fragrance of greenery and sun-kissed flowers. His footsteps crunched on the gravel as he ambled halfway to the street and picked up the paper. He stood in the driveway for a long minute, the paper tucked under his arm and his mug balanced in his hand. The sky was cloudless, the palm trees motionless. A single cricket played a lazy tune somewhere to his left.

  As riled as he’d been indoors, out here he felt surprisingly buoyant. He wasn’t the sentimental sort who got all mushy at the sight of a butterfly, but the butterfly he saw flitting above his azaleas made him smile. And the lawn was so green, the heat enhancing its tangy scent. Inside the kitchen he’d been in turmoil. Out here, the turmoil was gone.

  When was the last time he’d actually stood in his front yard and appreciated a summer morning? Did the tranquillity seem greater than usual because of what had preceded it? Or did Joe simply feel it more deeply because, for some reason, he was feeling everything more deeply lately?

  So much was on the line: Lizard. Pamela. A marriage. A court battle. His sex life, or lack thereof. His future. Behind him his house held challenges, responsibilities, the life he’d somehow stumbled into.

  Yet without that life, without those challenges and responsibilities, he might not have felt the golden heat of the sun on his cheeks so keenly. He might not have recognized the distinct perfumes of the rhododendrons and lime trees, the wisteria and the magnolias. Without the spilled cereal and the heated tempers, he might never have realized what a gorgeous morning he’d awakened to.

  Maybe it was the contrast between inside and out, maybe his suppressed male urges, maybe the fear that he was about to lose a little girl who meant the world to him. But suddenly everything seemed precious, worth fighting for. Suddenly Joe Brenner felt as if everything mattered.

  With a bemused smile, he turned and went back into the house, more than ready to face off with the social worker, his niece and his wife.

  Chapter Ten

  HER OWN GOOD?

  The nerve of him, patronizing her that way! Acting as if he knew what was best for her! Pamela Hayes was a mature adult. She was intelligent, well educated, the mistress of her own fate.

  Well, not exactly. For the time being, she had to lie low and keep her cool—and for the time being, she had to be Pam Brenner, the happy housewife. She had to make this marriage work.

  She would begin by playing her surrogate-mother role as best she could. She doubted Mona Whitley would be thrilled by Pamela’s attempts at maternal behavior thus far: dragging Lizard through the bureaucratic tedium of the motor vehicle department, measuring the rooms in Birdie’s dilapidated house, bickering over the color of salmon.

  Today would be different. Regardless of how annoyed she was with Joe, Pamela was going to be the best damned mother-figure she could be. She hated failing at anything, and she wasn’t going to fail at this.

  She filled her cup with fresh coffee, took a sip, and set off in search of Lizard and Ms. Whitley. She found them on the screened back porch. Lizard had lugged a carton to the table and was systematically emptying its contents: glossy white paper and jars of finger-paint.

  What a perfectly domestic activity. Lizard might be rude and crude, but she knew how to impress a social worker. She and Pamela could finger-paint together, just like a mother and daughter would, and Joe could sulk outside, for all Pamela cared.

  Smiling, she carried her coffee to the porch and declared herself ready to tackle an art project. “I asked that lady if she wanted to make a picture,” Lizard announced, pointing to Ms. Whitley. “She said she didn’t want to get her hands dirty.”

  “Well, I certainly don’t mind getting my hands dirty,” Pamela lied, accepting a sheet of paper from Lizard’s supply. She stared at the clean white rectangle for a minute, trying to remember how one went about finger-painting, something she hadn’t done since her nursery-school days.

  Lizard seemed to realize that Pamela was stumped. Rolling her eyes at Pamela’s ineptitude, she poured two pools of paint, one red and one blue, onto Pamela’s paper. “Smear it,” she instructed her.

  Pamela smeared it—on the paper, on her palms, on her wedding band. On her blouse. On her chin when she scratched an itch. The paint was thick and slick and viscous. It was disgusting. But somewhere in the midst of all her smearing, she forgot about her spat with Joe, the spilled cereal, the fact that back in Seattle a hit man was undoubtedly still stalking her. She forgot all the tenets of architectural design. There were no parameters here, no client’s specifications, no environmental impact studies. This creation was devoted to oozing color, shapelessness, anarchy.

  To her utter amazement, Pamela loved it.

  Within minutes, she became so engrossed with the swirls and spirals and loops she was creating that she forgot Ms. Whitley’s presence. She blended the red and blue into a rich violet shade and traced flower-like shapes. She added yellow streaks, green squiggles, more red, mo
re blue. When she decided her picture was done, she took a deep breath, smiled proudly and straightened up. Ms. Whitley was gone.

  Pamela gazed around her, blinking back to full consciousness. Lizard was currently smearing paint across her third sheet of paper; her first two masterpieces were spread on the floor to dry. “I’m going to wash up and change my clothes,” Pamela said, eyeing the daubs of paint on her shirt and sighing.

  As she entered the kitchen, she heard the low murmur of voices, Joe’s and Ms. Whitley’s, emerging from the living room. Isn’t Joe lucky I dusted and vacuumed in there, Pamela thought, a twinge of her earlier anger returning. Cleaning last night, finger-painting this morning—she ought to be in the running for Mother of the Year honors.

  She rinsed her hands in the sink, then walked down the hall to the living room doorway, from which vantage she had a clear view of Joe and the social worker seated side by side on the sofa, drinking coffee and chatting. Joe spotted Pamela and rose. “Hey,” he said quietly.

  “Hey” didn’t qualify as an apology. But now, with Ms. Whitley sitting beside him, wasn’t a very good time for apologies. “I’m going upstairs to put on a clean shirt,” Pamela said.

  “Good idea.” Joe’s gaze skimmed the front of her shirt. She knew he was staring at the splotches of paint, but she couldn’t help feeling as if he were ogling her bosom.

  As if that part of her anatomy deserved to be ogled. Joe ought to save his ogling for the Shipwreck, where he could feast his eyes on the generous endowments of Kitty and the other women who frequented the joint, half-naked in their tank tops and short shorts.

  Pamela decided she enjoyed thinking the worst of him. It made her less likely to remember those few precious moments of closeness they’d shared on their wedding day. From the start she’d been determined not to let this marriage serve as anything more than a survival strategy. Labeling Joe a breast man, whether or not the label was true, helped Pamela to keep her feelings for him in perspective.