by Ruby Laska
Griff smacked the steering wheel and whooped. “Bugsy’s, here we come! Think they’ll let me in? Not being a local boy, and all?”
His cheerfulness grated at her nerves. “You worry too much what people think. You’re—you’re a snob.”
“Me? A snob? Hey, I’m the one who’s happy to be back here. You’re acting like I’m dragging you off to war or something.”
“Whatever.”
“Besides, last night I realized…forget it.”
Junior forced one eye open and looked at him. He was dressed in the same shirt he’d worn on the ride up to Chicago, she noted, and she was pretty sure he hadn’t packed anything from the apartment. Interesting.
“What?”
“Naw…you’re not interested. Go to sleep. I’ll wake you up when you get there.” She could see, even in profile, the hint of a smile at the corner of his lips. She felt a sudden tug at her heart. He thought he knew her so well, that he could get her interest with this dumb ploy.
And it was true: he knew her as well as anyone ever had.
“No,” she said grudgingly. “I’m interested. Tell me.”
Griff grinned and didn’t hesitate. “Well, I realized that I’ve spent way too much time trying to figure out what my parents wanted from me and either trying to be that person or trying to be exactly the opposite. You know, neither way works. I think Mom’s just not capable of being satisfied.”
“Unless you took up banking, maybe,” Junior suggested.
“Yeah…I guess so. Although hey, I’d have to find someone suitable for being a banker’s wife.”
“That wouldn’t be me.”
“Naw. Not by a long shot. I’d have to start trolling the Junior League.”
“Good luck. I’m sure you’ll find someone who makes you very happy.”
Griff turned toward her, concern in his eyes, and Junior wished she’d kept her mouth shut. She always felt like this during her period, petty and irritable and downright mean.
But this time she was also feeling bereft and longing and the burden of loving someone she couldn’t have.
Not a good combination.
“Junior? What’s wrong?”
Now she had him doing that concerned thing. When he used that tone that made her feel like he really meant to be there for her, tomorrow and next month and—
“Nothing. Just tired.”
“Yeah? Well, you go ahead and nap when we get home. Maybe I’ll join you.”
“Okay.” Junior let her mind wander to her room with all its familiar surfaces and layers. She imagined her quilt, a gift from her grandmother, row upon row of pastel squares. And the mobile that Rosie had made her when she was a baby, the multicolored rabbits a little worn now, and draped with Junior’s earring collection.
Home. Home would be good for her.
Griff pulled up in front of the house, and to Junior’s relief, none of the neighbors was out in their front yards. He raced around and opened her car door for her.
She glared at him. “I can open my own door.”
Griff’s eyebrows knit together in puzzlement. “I thought you liked when I opened your door.”
“I do. Just not now.”
Griff held his hands up in defeat and backed off—but as soon as Junior pulled herself out, he reached around and closed the door behind her.
She let him take her hand without complaining, and they walked up the steps together. Some of the flowers along the walk were drooping, Junior noted. But Griff would water them tonight. He never forgot.
She stopped herself. How had she let him become so much a part of her life that she just assumed he’d be there for her?
She waited while Griff fumbled with her keys. Of course the door wasn’t locked. But she let him try, anyway. He was city, through and through. That wasn’t about to change.
At last he swung the door open, shrugged, and pocketed the keys. Halfway across the door jamb he paused, turned, and looked at her with sudden uncertainty on his face.
“Um, I know we left it in kind of bad shape,” he said. “Maybe it would be best if you just didn’t look at it too much until I have a chance to clean up a bit.”
Junior barely heard him. She slipped by him, and stood in the middle of her living room.
What had been her living room until a few days ago, anyway. The afternoon sun glinted off dust motes swirling in the room, but they provided the only sparkle in the mess. Junior hadn’t noticed the fallen two-by-fours before, with their bent nails poking out in all directions. Nor had she spotted the deep gashes in the carpet, or the toppled bookshelf.
Suddenly, she felt hot tears springing to her eyes. She hated to cry. Positively hated it. But with all these damn hormones out of whack, she couldn’t seem to control it. Angrily she ground her knuckles in her eyes, gritting her teeth.
“Uh, Junior? Um, why don’t we go stay down at the motel. Just for tonight. Okay? You’ll have hot water and electricity and—”
“You…you’ve messed up everything!”
The tears streaked harder now, hot against her fingers as she tried to wipe them away. A few strands of hair stuck to her cheeks and she pushed at them.
“I was fine! My house was fine! Everything was fine, and now—now—”
Griff took her wrists, and though she struggled against him, he was stronger. He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, following the trail of her tears. She needed to make him stop. Had to make him understand.
But she wanted him to kiss her again and again. Another wish she couldn’t have.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” he murmured against her skin. “I’ll get a few of the local guys and we’ll have it put right in a week or so. It’s be fun staying over at the motel. It’ll be like camping out.”
“No,” she managed to whisper.
“Junior, come on, we need to make this place safe. Especially the electrical. You know, that’s one of the top ways a baby can get hurt, sticking their fingers in sockets and—”
Junior froze, then yanked her wrists out of his grasp. Slowly, she backed away from Griff.
“There is no baby,” she said.
Griff said nothing, just stared at her, his arms hanging at his side.
“I’m not pregnant. I got my period. So there is no baby.”
“I—I’m—”
“You ought to be thrilled,” Junior spat out. “Isn’t this what you wanted? You’re free. No obligation. You can walk out of here without a second glance. You can forget that it—we—ever happened.”
“Junior, wait—”
“I’m going to the motel,” she muttered, pushing past him and up the stairs. “Don’t follow me. And don’t do anything else to the house, okay? Not—not one more thing. Really. I mean I’m grateful and all. But leave it alone.”
She heard his steps on the stairs behind her, as she threw things into her purse, sweeping bottles and tubes off the bathroom counter.
“This is crazy. You’re acting like it’s over just because, because there isn’t any baby.”
“Well, it is, isn’t it?” Junior spun around, brandishing a toothbrush to keep him at bay, and glared. Framed in the bathroom door, he looked panicked, his eyes dark with worry. “I mean, we don’t have anything in common, besides that. You’re, you know, urban and famous and all that. I’m…well, I don’t know exactly what I am, but I’m happy right here.”
“You don’t look happy,” Griff pointed out.
Junior pushed past him again, into her bedroom, and began yanking out dresser drawers. She sifted through lingerie, grabbed handfuls of silky things and stuffed them into her purse too.
“I am happy!” she growled.
“You’re crying.”
“You’re a jerk,” Junior muttered, slamming the drawers shut. “Look, I’m leaving. You should leave too. Take your stuff and—and go. The house will be fine. I’ll have Teddy take care of it. I’ll say your goodbyes for you. Maybe I’ll even send you a postcard. Oday?”
“Wait,” he s
aid. “Don’t leave.”
But she ran past him, down the stairs and out the door, and she didn’t look back as she flew through the neighbors yards, running like she was eight again, running her breaking heart out in a race to leave the man she loved behind.
“Are you on your cell?”
Griff could picture Gloria in her office, lighting one cigarette with the smoking ash of the last one, gazing coolly down at Michigan Avenue thirty floors below.
“Yeah, I am. Something, uh, happened to the phone here.”
Gloria snorted. “Cow probably chewed through the line or something. Okay, what’s your excuse now?”
Griff winced. He glanced down at Junior’s desk, coated now with a thin layer of plaster dust. Time to change the subject, get her defenses down a little.
“I had to go to a wedding yesterday. Kind of sudden. Something…local.” He wasn’t about to admit he’d been in Chicago and hadn’t called.
“A wedding? I thought you were just spending a couple of days in—in—”
“Poplar Bluff”
“Wherever. I thought you were just getting doing a little more research. That’s what you told me.”
“Well, I was. Uh, local customs. You know, back yard weddings and, um, flowers from the garden and pot luck.”
He was making things up on the fly, and not feeling too good about it. Somehow it seemed suddenly wrong to disparage this place that had come to feel more like home than home did.
“Uh huh.” Gloria did not bother to mask her skepticism. “Way I see it, it’s one of two things. Midlife crisis or a woman. And I think you’re a little young for a mid-life crisis.”
Griff opened his mouth to deny it, then shut it again. What the hell business was it of Gloria’s if there was someone in his life?
“There’s…some one. But it’s pretty much over.”
“Well, that’s good. Narrow escape, huh?” Gloria, relaxing at last, giggled conspiratorially. “For future reference, let me share my personal policy. When a guy starts leaving stuff at my place, it’s over. I mean, one time, you figure it’s just an oversight. But toothbrushes and shaving cream start sprouting on the sink, it’s time for the heave ho.”
Griff reddened. He and Gloria shared that kind of banter all the time, but at the moment it was having the effect of upsetting his stomach and worsening his headache.
“You never going to settle down, Gloria?” he asked. Then he regretted the question, the near-wistful tone in his voice.
“Hey, I’ve made it this far by myself. I mean you don’t become the Newberry Honoree—”
“—for Non-Fiction Excellence,” Griff finished for her, having stared up at that particular award, which held the prominent spot on the wall of her office, about a thousand times.
“Yeah, that. You don’t get there with things holding you back, you know?”
“You mean, people.”
“Hey, don’t sound so pissy about it. I have people in my life. Friends. Friends who know how to get out of the way when I need them to.”
“You don’t ever get…”
The silence stretched out between them.
Finally Gloria sighed audibly.
“No, Cowboy, I don’t get lonely. Thanks a lot for asking, and all. I assure you that if I ever feel the need I’ll give you first crack at being my personal concubine, though, okay? Now what the hell is really the matter with you?”
“I…” what, exactly? He’d fallen crazy in love and suddenly nothing else mattered? He’d been thinking he could actually get to liking the middle of a cornfield?
“Nothing. Nothing’s the matter,” he said tersely. “Except, well, here’s the thing with the book. Yesterday I decided to send it to you. I mean, it’s as done as it’s going to get.”
“Yeah? So?”
“There’s, uh, a problem with my laptop.” Ever since the big demolition project, it hadn’t been working. The little glowing apple would appear…and then just hang there, mocking him.
“So, send me a flash drive.”
Griff hesitated, drawing his finger through the white dust, leaving a line connecting the mouse pad to the keyboard.
“Griff? Tell me you’ve been keeping backups.”
“Well…” he began, then gave up. There was no way around this one. Somewhere in the middle of being with Junior he’d let everything slide, his ordinarily strict schedule, his work habits.
“Griff! You’re an idiot! Say it!” Gloria was screeching now, and he knew she’d inhale her current cigarette in about two puffs, as she always did when she lost her temper.
“I’m an idiot,” he agreed. In more ways than you know.
“Look. Take that thing and get it fixed. I don’t care if you have to carry your laptop all over town, I want my book. Now.”
“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
“I want it tomorrow, you hear? First thing.”
“Fine. Bye.”
The fight was out of him. Idly he wondered who in town besides Junior could help him. And who would even let him in the door, considering that the entire town must know by now that Junior was kicking him out. Somebody peeking through a curtain, seeing them fight in the front room. Or maybe just that eerie small-town telepathy everyone here seemed to possess.
Thinking about Junior made his temples throb. She’d been gone a couple of hours. And he’d done nothing but wander around the house. Up the stairs. Down again. Like a heart-broken gerbil on an exercise wheel, never figuring out that things would never change.
He’d had a few ideas, all of them bad. Calling the motel would just earn her wrath and hasten the process of trumpeting his exit to every resident of Poplar Bluff. Going over there and begging struck him as a losing proposition.
Besides, what, exactly would he ask for?
She wanted a baby, nothing more.
He wanted her, and nothing more. Well, sometimes he’d convinced himself that she wanted him, but his resume didn’t include any Dad potential, especially after the disaster with Carlton.
Carlton…it occurred to Griff that teenagers everywhere used computers. Hell, they knew more about the beasts than he did.
If he didn’t get that file sent, he wasn’t sure Gloria would forgive him. Not that he much cared about his job, at the moment, but anything was better than wallowing here feeling miserable. Action…any time Griff had ever felt like life was getting the best of him, he’d figured out a next step and a next step until he’d managed to outlive the problem.
He picked up the phone.
“Carlton,” he muttered. “How’d you like to help a guy out?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“You’re doing it again.”
Junior glanced at her aunt, who was settled comfortably in her favorite chair in the office, the one with the threadbare chenille. She’d overturned the waste can for a makeshift ottoman, and had her long legs stretched out on it.
“Doing what? And before you go criticizing, remember that you are the one sitting there on your hind end, and I’m the one—”
“You’re the one running around this room like a goat with a bee sting. That’s what I mean. You do this every time you get upset.”
“I’m not upset.”
“Hah!” Rosie made a loud snort of derision, and wiggled even further into the nest of the chair.
Junior sighed as loudly as she could manage, and picked up the furniture polish, dabbing at a corner of the carved leg of an old sideboard that was now put into service holding up a printer and several boxes of files. The furniture legs were thick with dust. How long had it been since she’d seen to them? That was her problem, Junior decided—she couldn’t handle details. She went along guided by the big picture, by her emotions, and all along the details were piling up in the crevices and cracks and by the time she noticed they were overwhelming.
Like Griff. She’d let herself be swept along in the tide of that incredible attraction until it seemed like something bigger. No. She wouldn’t even think the L-word—not n
ow, when it had evaporated like yesterday’s dreams. Buried under a pile of details, those little pesky facts of life that just wouldn’t change. Commitment. Babies. A future together.
“You sure don’t look any too comfortable,” her aunt said, changing her conversational tack.
“Well, if you must know, I’m not,” Junior said through gritted teeth. Her embroidered cotton skirt was rolled up over her knees so she could sit cross-legged. She’d taken off her gauzy jacket and worked in just a camisole, but it was still hot as blazes, and the furniture polish was giving her a headache.
“Uh huh. Reason I mention it, Dotty is still saving you that Thursday slot, if you ever get around to having her in to clean. Did I mention she’s selling Avon now, too?”
“Rosie…” Junior dropped her rag to the floor and wiped her hands on her skirt. A dozen possible responses went through her mind, but in the end she decided to let it drop. After all, this discussion wasn’t really about the office or the furniture or Dotty. And if she let Rosie pull her into it, there was no telling where they’d end up.
“Don’t we ever get any patients in this place any more?” she finally asked, exasperated.
“Well, your one o’clock cancelled. Minnie George. She had to take her car in ‘cause she said it smelled like something was about to blow up.”
Despite herself, Junior smiled. “Again? Didn’t they get her convinced last time there was nothing wrong with it?”
“Oh, no, Seth finally figured out there wasn’t any other way to get rid of the woman than go along with her craziness, so he told her a squirrel had been building a nest in her carburetor with cap gun tape and she was lucky it didn’t blow.”
They both laughed, and the room suddenly seemed a little cooler. Junior got to her feet, tossed the dirty rag and polish into a drawer of her file cabinet, and plopped down in a chair across from Rosie, propping up her own bare feet on the overturned can.
“Does it seem we have more than our share of, you know, unusual personalities around here?” she said idly. “The rest of the world seems a lot more predictable.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Guess I never thought about it.”
