There was just one problem with that theory.
John had kissed her for a second time and she’d forgotten about it the same way she had his first kiss. She tried to remember what his kisses felt like, to see if she could evoke the taste of his mouth, or recall the pressure of his body pressed against her. She remembered it all right, the soapy smell of his clean skin and the muscled wall of his firm chest crushing against her breasts. It was pleasant, skilful even. It just had no effect. He was still nose-laugher John Tilbrook, the movie buff who did bad impressions of Bruce Willis and Mr T. The idea of sleeping with John was just laughable.
The clear fact she actually wanted to sleep with Dominic was side-splitting.
Bare footsteps slapped against floorboards that ran down a hallway. The sound changed when they hit rug. ‘Dad?’
‘In the kitchen.’
‘Who’s here?’
‘My new girlfriend.’
‘What happened to Big-boob Sue and Greta the Great?’
Sound travelled well from the kitchen to living room. Lesley overheard their conversation and covered her mouth to stifle a laugh.
‘Oh glory days, smart-ass is still in a pissy mood.’
‘Glory days – why can’t you just say God damn like everyone else?’
‘Because I live to embarrass you. Now look, I want you to meet—is that the same shirt you wore yesterday?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Then that means it’s the same shirt you wore the day before yesterday too.’
‘So?’
‘I never thought I’d have to worry about your personal hygiene, but maybe we need to have a talk.’
‘You talk, I’ll go watch TV.’
‘No, you’ll come meet my girlfriend.’
‘Can I do it later? I was watching Family Guy.’
‘Flash, this isn’t like taking out the garbage. You come meet her now and play the sullen, loser teenager later.’
‘Oh, Da—’
‘I’m not giving you a choice. She’s in the living room.’
‘Fine. But we’re having pizza tonight.’
Lesley heard two sets of footsteps pad across carpet in the dining room.
‘There’s nobody in the living room,’ Kyle grumbled.
‘What?’ Dominic’s boots thumped over the floorboards. ‘Lesley?’
‘I’m right here,’ she said, shifting on the couch to grab a small red blanket from an armrest.
He came around to the front of the sofa. ‘You sort of disappear into that thing, don’t you?’
‘Lesley?’ Kyle peered over the back of the couch.
She looked up at him with a smile, hiding the puppy under the rug across her lap. ‘Hi, Kyle, how’s your arm?’
‘It sucks, the—Wait…wait...you’re Dad’s new girlfriend? What? How can you…how…’ The boy started laughing.
‘OK, listen,’ Lesley exhaled and shook her head, ‘You two need to know something.’
Kyle tried to collect himself. ‘Hey, uh, I’m not trying to be insulting…’ His face went pink, eyes watering, his laughter erupting again.
‘That’s what I mean. Hang on a second. It’s not what y—’
Kyle bent forward, trying to catch his breath between spasms of mirth, ‘It’s OK.’
‘Just stop for a minute and let m—’
‘No, Lesley, I think it’s OK. I really do.’
‘But—’
‘You know, why not? Grandma is gonna have a stroke!’
The boom of Dominic’s laughter reverberated off the wall. His eyes watered just like his son’s. His shoulders shook and he leaned against one of the leather chairs for support. Lesley stared at them both, but their glee was infectious. She gave up trying to explain and began to chuckle too. She unfolded her legs and stood. ‘Yeah, Kyle,’ she said, in between snickering and picturing a look of horror on Peggy Brennan’s face, ‘the idea is hilarious, but it’s not me.’ The puppy licked her nose as she lifted it to cuddle to her face. ‘It’s her.’
The waning quarter moon cast enough light to illuminate the eyes of the coyote sauntering across the road near the elementary school. Dominic slowed to let it cross the street and wander into the canyon behind Camino Encantado.
The sky glowed with pinpricks of a billion stars. Lesley looked at them out of the Chevy’s open window. ‘I can’t see half these constellations in Chicago,’ she said. ‘There’s so much light pollution, sometimes I can’t even find the big dipper.’
‘Fabian likes to brag about the night sky out at his place,’ Dominic sniffed, ‘but he’s wrong about up here. If you pick the right place, you can see a hell of a lot, shooting stars, the planets, sometimes even satellites.’
‘I miss all that. I took an astronomy class in college. We used to go up on the roof of the chemistry building and look at Saturn through a telescope that was up there. It was mind blowing to see a planet as something more than just a bright dot on black.’
‘I find stargazing relaxing, like looking at fish in an aquarium, only without the annoying gurgling sound of the water filter.’
‘It’s less expensive too.’ Lesley yawned and covered her mouth. ‘By the way, thanks for dinner. The pizza was great.’
‘No it wasn’t, but who cares. Kyle’s happy.’
‘Happy? I think he’s over the moon. Clementine’s a good name for the puppy.’
‘I’m not looking forward to cleaning up pee or picking up dog crap, but I’m happy too. Hey, I’ve got an idea.’
‘About what, picking up dog poop?’
‘No, something else.’ Dominic checked his mirror and crossed into the next lane. Slowing, he signalled and turned right onto Range Road, directing the truck down a dark, tree-lined hill. He started singing under his breath, ‘You are lost and gone forever, dreadful sorry, Clementine.’
Lesley applied lip balm, dropped it back into her purse, and tossed the bag on the floor. She knew the street ended in a dirt track at the mouth of the local cemetery. She snorted. ‘You’ve got to be kidding. Are you taking me to Guaje Pines to look at the stars?’
‘Yep. Why, are you afraid of cemeteries at night?’ He gave her a sidelong glance.
‘No, but I’d be willing to bet you went there a lot as a teenager.’
‘Well, you’d lose that bet.’
‘So, where did you go, up to the Dome?’
‘The Dome was for stoners. I preferred the rocks out on Deer Trap Mesa. You?’
‘Since I wasn’t allowed out on a date ‘til I was sixteen, I went to a lot of movies with my girlfriends.’
It wasn’t that dark in the truck. The dashboard dials cast enough light for her to see his mouth quirk. She knew exactly what he thought girlfriends meant. She’d tried to set him straight and been interrupted by gale force laughter. She could try again now, but why bother? Kyle and Dominic believed whatever they wanted to. It wasn’t as if they were or would be friends in any actual sense. It was all so damned absurd, so hysterically funny, and the truth didn’t matter one bit. In the long run, once she finished the house, she’d go back to Chicago and that would be the end of their association.
By the time she finished thinking it all through, Dominic had pulled into the cemetery, cut the engine, and switched off the lights. Silently, he climbed out of the truck, went to the back and rummaged around, digging under the tarpaulin cover flooring. After her eyes adjusted to the dim moonlight, Lesley hopped out and met him on his way back.
‘I’ve got the apple pies we picked up this afternoon.’ He held up the paper bag, ‘We can eat them out here. I have a blanket.’
‘The pies are stone cold.’
‘They might be a little greasy, but cold grease is half the fun of fried pastry or onion rings from Sonic.’
‘All right you got me.’ She followed him beyond the wooden fence, into rows of headstones. ‘I love those golden rings of heaven, and that’s it for fast food and me, but you’re a real connoisseur of junk food aren’t you?’
‘What gives you th
at idea?’
‘I don’t know, could be the Sonic, KFC and McDonald’s trash all over the truck’s seat, the doughnuts you ate yesterday, or your fondness for slushy drinks and ice-cold, deep-fried apple pies.’
‘That trash in there is not all mine. I told you this afternoon. I don’t normally do deliveries and – this looks like a good spot,’ he handed her the McDonald’s bag and unfurled the blanket. His keys plinked onto the woollen cloth.
Lesley dug into the paper bag. ‘So whose trash it is?’ she asked, handing him a cold apple pie when he sat cross legged on the cloth. She took a seat beside him.
‘Edgar’s.’ Dominic slid down the paper covering and took a bite of cold, cinnamon-flavoured dessert. ‘He’s the normal delivery guy,’ he said after a swallow, ‘and he’s on his honeymoon.’
‘Sure he is.’
‘He is.’
‘Uh-huh. I’ve seen you eat and I’m amazed you don’t weigh four hundred pounds.’
‘Lesley?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Shut up, look at the stars, and let me eat my pie.’
Lesley lay back on the drop cloth, staring up into heaven. She heard Dominic shift beside her as he stretched out too, looking up the same way she did.
She loved this kind of summer night. Rustling sounds came from the leaves, a soft murmuring of wind in the pine trees and aspens. The stars were tiny, glowing crystals against blue-black velvet, the Milky Way the only cloud visible in the vast open sky. Lesley sighed softly.
Dominic barely managed to hold back a sigh of his own after he glanced at her. He peeled off the shirt he had on over his tee and stuffed it under his neck. Having lusty thoughts was one thing, it was pure animal response, but being with Lesley wasn’t supposed to feel romantic. He needed to say something to get rid of the thoughts of moonlight and star-lit kisses. ‘You really think,’ he said, concentrating on the winking heavens stretched overhead, ‘Kyle likes the dog?’
‘Are you kidding? You’re Dad of the Century.’ She poked him with an elbow.
While the wind moaned and tickled nosily through the trees and leaves, Dominic smiled to himself, basking in a little halo of dazzling parenting.
OK,’ he cleared his throat, ‘I’ll come clean. Right over there,’ he pointed to a darkly shadowed tombstone with a Masonic emblem, ‘by Shakes H. Dorris, was the first place I ever kissed a girl.
‘What was her name?’
‘Holly or Ivy or Heather – I don’t know, she was some kind of plant.’
‘You remember the name on a headstone, better than the name of the first girl you kissed?’
‘I remember she had braces. I got a little too enthusiastic and cut my lip.’
Lesley leaned on her elbows, letting her head drop back. For a very brief moment, she thought of Jeffery Hayden, the first boy who had kissed her. Did it count as a first kiss if she didn’t really like him? She sighed again and looked up at the constellations, picking out Cassiopeia.
Dominic tore the paper from the second pie. All around them leaves and branches rustled and creaked in the soft night breeze. Pinecones dropped and skittered their way through the brush to land on the soft earth below.
‘Oooh, here comes the Guaje Monster,’ Lesley said with a muted laugh.
‘Did you ever come down here to scare yourself silly looking for the Guaje Monster?’
‘I had better things to do with my time than hang around and wait for the Chupacapra or bogeyman. What the hell was the Guaje Monster supposed to be, anyhow?’
‘Bigfoot made of trees.’
‘Of trees?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘So kids were supposed be afraid of Tree-Foot?’
Dominic turned to his side and looked at her, shrugging. ‘You remember that movie Poltergeist?’
‘Is this where you try to convince me those packrats you think are a figment of my imagination are actually a poltergeist?’
He licked a hunk of apple stuck to his top lip. ‘I’m not saying anything like that. I just wanted to know if you remembered the kid in the movie. Not the ‘they’re he-re’ little girl, her brother, the boy who had the clown doll with that evil smile.’
‘That doll was freaky.’
‘So was the tree outside the window, especially when it reached inside and grabbed the boy.’
‘Is that what the Guaje Monster was supposed to be like?’
‘That’s what I always thought. Current lore is the monster perished in the Cerro Grande Fire.’ Dominic had one more bite of pie before his eye caught the movement. For a second, with all the talk of mythical creatures, he thought his imagination was pulling a fast one.
But what he saw didn’t look anything like an incarnation of the Chupacapra, Guaje Monster or Sasquatch. ‘Lesley,’ he half-choked on pie filling stuck at the back of his mouth, ‘get in the truck.’
She started laughing. ‘Jeez, do you know what try hard means?’
Dominic dropped the pie, grabbed the back of her shirt, hauled her up and dragged her towards the old Chevy.
‘Hey! You’re pulling my hair!’ she squealed. Then she caught sight of the dark lumbering hulk moving towards the blanket. ‘Holy—’
Luckily, she’d left the passenger side wide open. He shoved her up into the cab, leaping in after, slamming the door, and finished her exclamation, ‘Shit!’
Lesley’s heart was doing a great impression of a locomotive. Out of breath, she stared through the windshield and settled behind the wheel, pulling the light switch on the dash. Dual spotlights appeared on the star of the show. She snickered. ‘You know that old question about a bear in the woods? I guess they like cemeteries too.’
‘Oh, now that’s just wrong,’ he watched the performance, quickly rolling up his window.
‘Let’s get out of here before he starts looking for bear toilet paper. Give me the keys.’
‘The keys are with my shirt.’
‘Where’s your shirt?’
‘Out there on the blanket.’
‘Great.’ She pressed her palm against the centre of the steering wheel.
‘Horn doesn’t work without the keys.’
‘Obviously. We’re just going to sit here until it goes away, aren’t we?’
‘Guess so.’
Lesley’s chin sank against the wheel. ‘Fantastic.’
‘We can wait him out.’
‘Wait him out? What is he, a thunderstorm?’
‘A car is a pretty safe place to be in a thunderstorm.’
‘A bear is not a thunderstorm.’
‘No, but you know what I’m getting at.’
‘You and your damn junk food.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Turning to him, she pointed out the windshield. The bear meandered through moonlit gravestones and shadows cast by the headlights. ‘What do you think attracted Fozzie over there, pie-boy, my perfume?’
She smelled pretty damn attractive to him. He shrugged. ‘It could be your perfume.’
‘I’m not wearing any!’
‘Is it your time o—’
‘Uh, you are not suggesting that!’ she glared at him, her green eyes taking on an alien hue in the faint dashboard light.
‘It’s a scientific fact bears are attracted to the sm—’
‘Wow, Dr. Brennan, now you’re an expert on quarks and bears?’
‘Will you quit that?’
‘Quit what?’
‘Just stop with the whole doctor thing.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. My point is bears don’t scavenge for people. They’ll raid bird feeders or go through the trash. They don’t sniff around for pe—’
A snuffling low growl cut off the last part of her sentence.
‘Oh, please don’t scream,’ Dominic half-whispered, his eyes focused over her shoulder.
Slowly, Lesley turned to her left. A small quiver of air escaped from her open mouth as she gazed into the muzzle of a curious black bear pressing against the window
a few inches from her face. A Meaty paw with black claws scraped at the glass, which was rolled down about a half inch
‘We’re safe in the car,’ she said quietly, without real conviction, inching sideways across the bench seat, groping for Dominic’s hand.
‘Yes,’ he followed her feeble lead, ‘it’s like in a safari park. We’ll be OK.’ Dominic took her elbow, tugging her away from the window little by little until she was against his left side, his arm around her.
Lesley was a little surprised to find he was shaking just as fiercely as she was. ‘You’re not thinking about one of those shows like When Animals Attack, are you?’
‘No.’
‘Neither am I.’
The bear’s snout snuffled at the tiny open section of window while the tips of his claws curled over the edge of the tempered glass.
‘Well, maybe I am now.’
The truck shook as the animal pushed against it.
Dominic pulled Lesley even closer, the springs of the vinyl seat squeaking as she slid an arm about his waist, her knee, thigh, hip and ribs coming together with his. ‘How much do you think he weighs?’ she murmured below his ear, her mouth devoid of salvia.
‘More than you. Less than the truck. Not e—’
The inquisitive bear had just enough grip to force the window down an inch, then another, the glass squeaking slightly under the descending pressure.
They both swore in hushed unison, ‘Fuck.’
The window moaned again, moving down a little further, and a millisecond later, Lesley was in Dominic’s lap. He’d scooped her up and twisted, her hip joined to his crotch, breasts plastered to his chest, his back pressed to the corner of the truck’s interior. The steady, express train beat of his heart thumped against her sternum, his breath stirred her hair. She squeezed him tightly, an arm around his neck, fingers digging into his side, her cheek pressed to his.
Barely breathing, they stayed that way, unmoving. Long seconds passed until finally, the bear dropped down on all fours and they shared a simultaneous gasp for air.
Paws thumped on the Chevy’s door. The pickup quaked. The bear shifted again and began to rub against the side panel, scratching an itchy back. Black bear B.O., a decidedly gamey odour, drifted into the cabin of the truck. The animal’s sulphur-smelling breath was worse. Every time it had snuffled its muzzle to the glass and sniffed, the truck was flooded with the essence of rotten eggs.
A Basic Renovation Page 13
