CRY UNCLE

by Judith Arnold

  “Come home early,” she urged him. “You’ll need a good night’s sleep.”

  “I’ll try,” he said, and hung up.

  Pamela lowered the phone into the cradle and let out a long breath. She felt oddly shaken. The last part of their conversation had been strangely personal, the sort of solicitous back-and-forth a husband and wife engaged in.

  She reminded herself once more of the terms of her marriage to Joe. They weren’t going to become involved. Their wedding was strictly for show. Behind closed doors they would remain separate.

  When had she lost control of the arrangement? When had she lost control of her own feelings?

  Why did she care, to the depths of her soul, what happened to Joe and his niece? Why did she feel her heart wrenching in sympathy for him? Why did it seem as if his losing Lizard would hurt Pamela as much as it did him?

  And however it ended up, once it was all behind her and Joe, how would she ever be able to find her way back to the life she loved in Seattle?

  A thump at the window startled her out of her ruminations. She glanced across the kitchen and saw the suction tip of one of Lizard’s arrows sticking to the outside surface of the pane.

  She should have been incensed at Lizard’s wild play. The window could have been shattered, for heaven’s sake. Lizard could have gotten cut by flying glass.

  But all Pamela thought, as she strolled to the back door to call the girl inside for her bath, was that Lizard was a splendid shot.

  ***

  THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS slid by in a blur. Joe could hardly remember going to the Shipwreck, chatting with the customers, tapping the kegs and tallying the receipts. All he remembered, as he reviewed the period since the Prescotts showed their hoity-toity faces on his island, were the signs, as bright as the neon lights on Duval Street, that he was going to lose Lizard.

  Joyce and Lawton were just so damned nice to Lizard. The morning they came to play with her under the watchful eye of Mona Whitley, Joyce accompanied Lizard up to her bedroom and adopted a cloying sing-song voice, making a fuss about each and every one of Lizard’s ratty old stuffed animals. Joe couldn’t believe the kid was taken in by it. Usually Lizard had a bullshit detector sharper than a state trooper’s radar gun. But she fell for Joyce’s gushing: “Oh, so this is your stuffed manatee! Why, isn’t he just adorable! What’s his name? May I shake his hand—or is it a flipper?”

  A few minutes of that, and Joe was ready to lose his breakfast. He wondered why Lizard played along, but the fact that she did made him even more certain the court was going to decide in favor of the Prescotts.

  Sickened by the prospect—to say nothing of Joyce’s saccharine behavior, Joe headed downstairs, where he discovered Lawton and Mona Whitley seated on the living room couch, drinking Joe’s coffee and yakking like long-lost friends. When they weren’t exploring their shared passion for golf, Lawton was describing the school system where he and Joyce lived. “The Hillsborough public schools are among the best in the country,” Lawton bragged. “But with state budget cutbacks, we might choose to send Elizabeth to private school, instead. There are several fine preparatory schools within a reasonable distance of our house. Elizabeth would receive the best education money can buy. Do you think she’d like to be called Betsy? She seems like such a Betsy to me.”

  “She likes to be called Lizard,” Joe interjected, which won him a reproachful look from Mona Whitley.

  That was the first day, a day Joe dealt with by heading for the Shipwreck as early as he could and submerging himself in his work. He insisted on staying until closing time, hopeful that Pamela would be asleep by the time he got home. He didn’t want to have to talk to her, to reveal how miserable he was. He didn’t want to confront the truth that it would be much easier for him to get through the night if he had her in his arms.

  The following day, the Prescotts took Lizard out for a while, with Mona Whitley chaperoning. “They’re going to win,” Joe groaned to Pamela once he no longer had to smile and wave at his niece as his loathsome in-laws ushered her down the front walk to their rented Infiniti. “They’re going to take the Liz Kid away from me.”

  Pamela patted his shoulder and said, “We’re not going to let them.” She was wearing a pair of culottes and a neat button-front shirt, obviously an effort to compete sartorially with the Prescotts. Joe hadn’t seen her dress so well since she’d moved in with him and learned what life with Lizard could be like. Turning from the door, she said, “I’m going to change into some real clothes, and then take a run to the supermarket. We’re out of strawberry yogurt. Is there anything you want me to pick up for you while I’m out?”

  He didn’t want food. He wanted...her. Not her pity, not—at that particular moment—her body, but her forgiveness. Before she could reach the stairs he snagged her wrist, halting her. “Listen, Pam—I’ve been a real jerk since the Prescotts showed up.”

  “No more of a jerk than usual,” she teased, although there wasn’t much humor in her voice.

  “I mean it. I don’t know how you can stand being around me. I sure can’t stand being around myself.”

  She smiled, a sad, beautiful smile. “The only thing I can’t stand is your negativity. I haven’t known you very long, but I think it’s safe to say pessimism isn’t your style. I wish you’d stop assuming the worst.”

  He gazed at her in the late-morning light. She appeared completely transformed from the frightened, waif-like creature who’d entered his bar little more than a month ago, searching for a husband to hide behind. Her eyes were bright with courage, her cheeks elegantly hollow, her hair brushed back and held behind her ears with tortoise-shell clips. The top button of her shirt was undone, and he could see the delicate flare of her collarbones at the base of her throat.

  For one strange, fleeting moment, he found himself thinking that the worst thing in the world would be to lose her, not Lizard.

  The notion was gone as soon as it registered on him, but it left in its wake a quiet warmth that comforted him more than all Pamela’s words, her speeches and smiles. Joe and his wife were friends. Pamela had become his partner in a very real sense.

  He pulled her gently into his arms and dropped a light kiss onto her brow. She tilted her face to look at him, and he realized that, while a few minutes with Pamela on the nearest horizontal surface would do a hell of a lot to improve his mood, holding her was nearly as effective.

  “I bet you didn’t realize what you were taking on when you married me,” he murmured.

  She met his steady gaze without flinching. “I was taking on a guy with an earring and a niece.”

  “And a double-shot of negativity.” He shook his head and grinned. “And a couple of scary in-laws.”

  “At least some of your in-laws are pleasant.”

  Thinking of Joyce and all the other pompous, snobbish relatives of his late sister’s husband, Joe couldn’t come up with a single pleasant in-law in the bunch. He frowned at Pamela’s remark.

  “Your mother- and father-in-law,” she explained. “They’re quite nice.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” He cracked a smile. “They’re three thousand miles away, and I have nothing to do with them. Of course I love them.”

  Pamela eased out of his loose embrace and sighed. “I think you’d like them, Joe. I miss them.”

  “Why don’t you give them a call?” he suggested. Here he was, the only family she had for miles—unless you counted Lizard—and he’d done nothing to create a real sense of family. “I’ll even say hi to them,” he added with a smile. It was the least he could do for Pamela.

  She shook her head. “I haven’t spoken to them since I left Seattle. I was afraid it might put them in danger. Mick Morrow could go after them and make them tell him where I am, and...” She shuddered. “I couldn’t put them at risk like that. So I haven’t spoken to them at all. I communicate with them through my lawyer. I hope you don’t mind that I’ve called him a few times from here. I’ll reimburse you for the long-distance charge
s on your bill—”

  “Over my dead body.” He undercut the gruff words with a smile. “Why don’t you call your parents now?” Even if Pamela didn’t think she was out of danger, Joe knew she was. That police detective in Seattle had convinced him.

  Again she shook her head. “No. But maybe I’ll call my lawyer. I haven’t talked to him in a while. What with the Prescotts showing up and all.” She glanced at her watch. “I could probably catch him at his desk. He tends to get into his office early.”

  “Go ahead.” And if she said one word about reimbursing him for the long-distance call, he’d shut her up. With a kiss, a real one, one that would leave her too breathless to speak, one that would lead to the nearest horizontal surface.

  She departed for the kitchen, leaving him to shake off his lust. He stared through the front screen door at the empty yard, trying to guess what the Prescotts were doing with Lizard right now, what Mona Whitley was scribbling in her frickin’ notebook, what she would report to the judge.

  “What?” Pamela shrieked from the kitchen. “My God! When?”

  Joe sprinted down the hall to the kitchen, wondering what had set her off. When she pivoted to face him, the telephone receiver still pressed to her ear, she was beaming a smile brighter than the Florida sun. She looked utterly thrilled—and more gorgeous than a woman who was off-limits to him ought to look.

  What’s up? he mouthed.

  She held up her hand, signaling that she would tell him in a minute. “You’re absolutely sure?” she questioned Joe’s new in-laws. “And he’s going to stay there?” She listened for a few seconds, then erupted in a joyous little jig. “Okay, okay,” she said into the phone. “Of course I’ll sit tight.” She recited Joe’s phone number, then said, “Keep me posted. And give my love to my parents. Make sure they know about this.” She hung up, stared at the phone in disbelief for a minute, and then launched herself into Joe’s arms. “Mick Morrow’s in jail!”

  “Huh?” The impact of her mad dash into his arms knocked the breath out of him—or maybe it was just that her nearness, when she was so radiant and jubilant, took his breath away.

  “Mick Morrow. The hit man. He’s in jail!”

  “Really?”

  “He was stopped on a traffic violation, and when he refused to let them search his car they impounded it. They found a gun, so they rescinded his bail and locked him up!” She started another jig, but with her arms around Joe, it mutated into a kind of jitterbug.

  “They found a gun on him?” Joe didn’t think that particular detail was cause for mirth.

  “But now he’s locked up until his new trial. I’m safe, Joe. I’m safe!”

  Joe was glad for her...but not without certain misgivings. Like, for instance, what were the implications of this hit man driving around with a gun? Had he been trying to track her down when he’d committed the traffic violation? How the hell had he gotten hold of a gun if he was under police surveillance? Had he intended to use it on Pamela?

  If he had, he wasn’t going to have the chance, thank God. She was thousands of miles away, and he was behind bars.

  And Joe was still going to lose Lizard. Everything would work out perfectly for Pamela, and she’d return to Seattle. And Joe was going to wind up alone.

  Being alone had suited him well enough for the first thirty years of his life—until he’d discovered that raising a kid was more fun that being alone. Playing daddy for a little girl had suited him well enough for the past three years—until he’d discovered that marriage could turn a guy inside out and upside down, could leave him hornier than he’d ever been but more willing to go the distance, to have faith in a woman, to take a chance on her...

  Losing Pamela and Lizard at the same time wasn’t going to suit him at all. It was going to devastate him.

  “So...” He extricated himself from Pamela’s embrace, hating to remove her hands from him but knowing he had to. “The creep’s in jail. What happens next?”

  “My attorney will let me know,” she said, still twinkling, exuding energy, reminding Joe of a sparkler on the Fourth of July. “In all likelihood, they’ll push up the date of Morrow’s new trial. I’ll have to go back to Seattle to testify, but this time there won’t be any slip-ups. They’ll do the job right.”

  “So, you’re going back to Seattle.”

  “For the trial,” she said, abruptly growing sober as the implications sank in. “Lizard’s fate will be decided before the D.A. in Seattle can start a new trial in Seattle. I’ll be with you for the custody hearing. And if you win, and the Prescotts appeal, I’ll be back in time for that. I’ll only have to be in Seattle a couple of days.” She peered up at Joe. Her frown told him she was worried by what she saw in his face. “I’ll get you through the custody battle, Jonas. I promised I would, and I will.”

  If he won. But what if he didn’t? Unlike the Prescotts, he couldn’t afford to drag the process through endless appeals. He would lose Lizard, and Pamela would have no reason to stay in Key West and pretend to be his wife. She would go back to Seattle to testify—and she wouldn’t come back.

  Negativity. Pessimism. That about summed up Joe’s mood.

  Without a word, he stalked out of the kitchen, no longer able to be in the same room with a woman whose elation was directly related to her chance to clear out of his life. He was angry, resentful, envious—and by storming out of the room he was acting like an ass.

  But he wasn’t going to stick around and let her see his heart break.

  ***

  LIZARD CAME HOME that afternoon with a Barbie doll. “How nice,” Pamela said through gritted teeth as Lizard displayed her prize. “Did the Prescotts buy that doll for you?”

  Lizard—weed gardener, skinny-dipper and feather wearer—grinned proudly. “Uh-huh! Look at this, Pam: you can put these earrings on her by just sticking ‘em through her ear. Isn’t that awesome?” She proceeded to poke a doll-size earring through Barbie’s ear, as if she were skewering one of Birdie’s Voodoo dolls. “I’m gonna name her Snoot, and tomorrow I’m gonna tape feathers all over her. She can be a biker.”

  “Wonderful.” Pamela regarded the doll, still new and virginal in her dream-date dress, and sighed. She herself had owned a Barbie when she’d been not much older than Lizard. She had adored dressing her doll in a variety of outfits, fitting tiny doll-shoes onto Barbie’s permanently high-heeled feet and parading her around the house. But Pamela had been a very different child than Lizard.

  What if Lizard discovered she actually loved playing with a fashion doll more than traipsing around Birdie’s house with an army of cats, or gobbling pink food, or romping in the mud? What if Lizard turned into a child like Pamela—the kind who would thrive in the affluent suburban surroundings of her aunt and uncle’s home in California?

  “Did you have fun with the Prescotts?” Pamela asked carefully.

  “Yeah. They bought me lick-rish, too.It turned my tongue black” She stuck her stained tongue out at Pamela, clearly delighted.

  Pamela watched her romp back outside. She was glad Joe had left for the Shipwreck early, if only so he would be spared the sight of his niece waxing rhapsodic about the Prescotts’ generosity.

  Pamela’s euphoria over Mick Morrow’s incarceration had been short-lived. After Joe had left for work, she’d telephoned the D.A.’s office in Seattle. He’d confirmed her lawyer’s news and told her he was hoping to put together a new trial within a month or so. “Now that you’re safe from Mr. Morrow,” he said, “perhaps you’d be willing to tell me your whereabouts, so I can contact you when it’s time to bring you back to Seattle to testify.”

  Pamela supplied him with Joe’s address and telephone number. “I’m using the name Pamela Brenner, now,” she added.

  “Oh?”

  “Didn’t my lawyer tell you? I got married.”

  “Yes, he mentioned something about that. A phony marriage, to help hide your identity. Well, you won’t have to worry about hiding anymore.”

  Pamela
nodded. In a sense, she felt she’d stopped hiding the minute she’d told the D.A. she was married. Now it was truly public information, not just in Key West but in Seattle. Now her marriage wasn’t just legal; it was real.

  Or maybe it had become real last night, when Joe had made love to her.

  No. That had been an aberration, a bit of foolishness. And if it had been an incredibly pleasurable aberration and foolishness, so what? A real marriage had to be grounded in love, and Joe had never said anything about love.

  Refusing to dwell on her own tortured feelings about Joe, Pamela went off in search of Lizard. Exiting through the screened porch, she spotted the kid in the weed garden, taping two bright yellow dandelion blossoms to her doll’s bosom. A third blossom was taped between the doll’s legs, giving the doll the appearance of a stripper about halfway through her act.

  Pamela stifled a chuckle. Apparently, acquiring a fashion doll had failed to civilize Lizard. “Nice outfit,” she joked. “What do you think your Aunt Joyce would say if she saw it?”

  “She’d hate it.”

  Pamela allowed herself a small grin at Lizard’s perceptiveness. “You’re right. I think you’d better make sure Barbie—I mean, Snoot—is always fully clothed when your Aunt Joyce is around.”

  “Why? I don’t care if she hates it. She hates lots of neat stuff.”

  “Oh?”

  “Like, she hates seaweed when it piles up on the sand and gets all smelly. She told me she hates that. And she hates the Three Stooges. She says they’re dumb. Uncle Joe and I watch the Three Stooges all the time. And she hates the name Lizard. She always calls me Betsy, which is gross. And she hates strawberry yogurt. She’s icky.”

  “She loves you very much,” Pamela said, not thrilled at having to defend the woman to Lizard.

  “Well...” Lizard taped a fourth yellow fluff of dandelion onto Barbie’s pert ponytail. “If she loves me, she oughtta love my doll.”

  “I agree. But you should respect her feelings about certain things, Lizard. It’s important that she sees what a good job Uncle Joe has done raising you.”