Nothing but Trouble

by Susan May Warren

  But he’d kicked her twice when she picked him up at Fellows, once in front of Ms. Nicholson, who did nothing to hide her smirk. And when he arrived home, he tossed the contents of his briefcase on the floor of the front room, stomping on the Rice Krispies Treat that PJ had packed him for lunch. She spent a half hour digging marshmallow from the carpet.

  She had to wonder what had happened. Yes, she’d been slightly late picking him up, what with paging through a Russian dictionary for a good portion of the afternoon, spelling out rules in Cyrillic for Boris and Vera. Starting with no landlocked skinny-dipping.

  Seemed like a simple request.

  Still, fifteen minutes late wasn’t an eternity. Wasn’t worth being kicked in the shins. Twice.

  She’d found Davy in his classroom playing with building blocks. He’d made a castle with a moat, and she’d crouched behind him, watching him stack one block on top of another. He wore a slight smile, as if he might be daydreaming, and with the late afternoon sun caressing his curls, his uniform rumpled, he looked like every other four-year-old tot. Any moment he might see her, grin, and launch into her arms.

  She’d held her breath, afraid to move.

  When he eventually spotted her, he gave his castle a destructive kick before he trudged out of the room.

  He’d refused to remove his uniform for dinner.

  PJ lowered herself next to him. “Whatcha doin’, pal?” He’d taken a sheet of paper from his briefcase and now ran a red crayon over it in wide, violent sweeps that caught on the edges and striped the travertine tile floor. PJ reached for the sheet, but he snatched it from her.

  “Mine!”

  She quickly backed off. “No problem. Just wanted to help.”

  He smoothed the paper, pursed his little lips, and resumed his coloring attack on the paper.

  She peered over his shoulder and grimaced. Math problems. Or rather, connect the dots. “Is that for school, Davy?”

  He said nothing as his red crayon demolished the paper.

  “Buddy, listen, I’m not any good at math either. English, drama, journalism—I get those. Imagination skills. Math is all about rules and logic, and frankly I’m just not a logic girl. I dig the red scribbling. But that’s probably your homework, so what do you say you start at the one . . .”

  He threw the crayon. It exploded against the dishwasher.

  Outside, the smell of grilling burgers laced the air, and warblers sang in an evening serenade.

  PJ blew out a breath. Help me here, Lord. “Hey, wanna go to the beach?” After all, she hadn’t exactly completed her tan.

  Davy looked up, as if she might be speaking French.

  “The beach? Sand, sunshine?”

  A slow smile creased his face, the same smile she’d seen that morning. There you are, little man.

  Abandoning his crayons, he leaped to his feet and disappeared up the stairs. PJ cleaned up the crayons, and moments later he returned, his swimsuit lumpy and backward over his suit pants, his shirt and tie untucked, his black socks shoved into a pair of swim shoes. He picked up his briefcase and walked over to PJ.

  She resisted the urge to duck. “Okay, pal, I can work with that.”

  She grabbed her keys off the counter, and just like that, a memory ricocheted off her. Standing at the window, watching it pour down rain, muddying the backyard, her umbrella open over her head, red galoshes on her feet. And her mother putting away the contents of their picnic basket.

  PJ braced her hand on the cool granite counter. The Como Zoo. Mom had promised, just PJ and her. PJ had watched her dreams dissolve with the tears sliding down the glass door.

  Davy stared at her, wearing that same mysterious, stolen look he’d given her this morning over his Cap’n Crunch. As if she could see something inside him he wasn’t quite ready to reveal.

  She fought the crazy urge to reach down and lock him in an embrace. She’d collected enough bruises for one day.

  Grabbing her towel, she banged out the front door, Davy on her heels, and nearly knocked over the key-jangling, dark-eyed Russian standing on the stoop. Freshly barbered, with high cheekbones, he wore a silk shirt open to the third button and enough cologne to qualify for a biological weapon.

  PJ took a step back. “Can I help you?”

  “Boris ee Vera,” he growled.

  Ah, Cousin Igor. She should have guessed. She moved aside, and he brushed past her like she might be the doorman.

  For Connie’s sake, she would not leap to any conclusions.

  The sun hung low, dipping into the waves, glazing the advance of twilight with hues of gold and bronze as they motored down to the beach. PJ ran a hand through her hair, letting it tangle, supposing the beach escape might be an old habit returning from dormancy—as a teen, when math or other problems seemed overwhelming, she’d floored it straight to the cool sand and easy lapping waves of the beach, where her mind cleansed, her thoughts calmed. With the expanse of freedom spread out before her, the parameters pushing against her seemed less suffocating.

  It didn’t help that Connie had embraced math with the passion of a true Sugar, the family legacy filled with CPAs, nurses, doctors, and investment bankers.

  Davy piled out of the car and skipped across the parking lot, swinging his briefcase. PJ followed with two towels and a lawn chair. Squeals of laughter preceded little bodies running across the beach. A kite floated overhead, its tail friendly in the wind.

  “PJ!”

  The voice lifted above the laughter, followed by a hand waving furiously over the encampment of families on beach towels.

  “Trudi!” Next to her, Jack—now dry and less menacing when not throwing old men into the pool—sat on the beach blanket, cradling a baby in a water diaper. The baby—Chip, PJ assumed—tossed sand into the air by pudgy handfuls, laughing as it rained down on his head. Jack didn’t look in the least riled by the grit in his hair.

  PJ called to Davy, and they navigated their way to Trudi’s blanket.

  “Hey,” PJ said. Jack showed no hint of recognition. So this was what it felt like to be on the other side of gossip.

  “This is Jack.” Trudi gestured to her husband. He seemed nice. Innocuous. Sandy blond hair, brown eyes, an easy smile.

  Not in the least a wife-bashing, country club–brawling attacker of history teachers.

  Or a murderer. The fact that Hoffman now lay in the Kellogg morgue seared her brain like a brand, and she nearly yanked her hand from his strong grip. “He . . . hello, I’m PJ.”

  “The infamous PJ Sugar. Nice to finally meet the other half of the Trudi and PJ duo.” His words were accompanied by a warm grin.

  “Hey now, I think I get to tell my side of the story. Except, I want to meet Mike—is he here?”

  “Summer camp for the week.” Trudi picked up baby Chip, wiping sand from his hair. He toddled off toward Davy and sat next to him, patting his briefcase. “He goes every year to play football. He’s hoping to play for the Vikings.”

  PJ smiled, the words like father, like son on her lips, but she caught them. Probably Greg Morris was the last person Trudi wanted her son to emulate.

  Trudi leaned back against Jack, and they appeared so happily-ever-after that something painful twisted inside PJ. Trudi, more than any of them, deserved to be happy. Few beyond PJ knew the challenges she’d lived through at home, with her agoraphobic mother, her workaholic father.

  PJ would do nearly anything to revisit those years and rewrite them with a heroine who knew how to be a true friend.

  “So, let’s hear your side,” Jack said. “All I know is that the country club caught fire—”

  “I didn’t set it.”

  Trudi jumped in. “She has to start at the beginning. With Boone.”

  “How long do you think we have, Trudi?”

  Trudi laughed.

  PJ spread out her towel, sat down, stretched out her legs. “There are some men who should have the word trouble tattooed on their foreheads. Boone Buckam is one of them.”

>   PJ glanced at Jack, again searching for a sign of recognition. Jack’s gaze was affixed to his son, now scooping up more sand.

  “Anyway, I met him in fifth grade, and he just wouldn’t leave me alone.”

  “Really, that’s how you’re going to put it?” Trudi laughed. “Try, PJ and Boone were made for each other. Both were bred to be straight A Ivy Leaguers, with scholarships. But the minute they got together, it was like the entire world lit up. Bang. Flames—”

  “Do you have to use that metaphor, Trudi? Flames? Really?”

  Trudi grinned. “Absolutely. It was like they each saw that little smoldering fire deep inside and knew exactly the kind of fuel to throw on it.”

  “Seriously, enough with the fire.”

  “PJ wasn’t necessarily a bad girl—it was more all good fun than real danger. Like the time we filled the phys ed teacher’s car with toilet paper. And TP’d all the football players’ houses.”

  “And wrote the school fight song in shaving cream on the side of the building.”

  Trudi put her fingers to her lips. “That wasn’t me, remember?”

  “Trudi’s right. I was just trying to have fun. But it didn’t help that I skipped a few classes.”

  “You failed gym, sweetie.”

  “It was first hour—it interfered with my donut run.”

  She got a laugh out of Jack.

  “My reputation preceded me and eventually convicted me. On prom night, the kitchen wing of the country club caught fire. Unfortunately, I’d been seen with a cigarette by the back door near the trash, where it started. The fact is, it was Boone’s—but a few of his drunken friends pointed the finger at me, and Boone . . . well, he had a scholarship to protect.”

  “And it wasn’t like Director Buckam—Boone’s father—would have let his own son take the rap for it anyway.” Trudi clearly remembered that night as well as PJ. “I’ll never forget the look on your face as they hauled you away in your prom dress.”

  “You spent prom night in jail?” Jack looked genuinely sympathetic. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Yeah, well, I could have used your defense when my mother showed up at 2 a.m. She’d woken our family lawyer, and they went behind closed doors with Director Buckam. The next thing I know, he’s dropping the charges in exchange for a terse agreement that I leave town after graduation.”

  “I always wondered why you didn’t fight it, PJ.” Trudi handed a teething ring to Chip.

  “Maybe a part of me wanted to leave. I could just imagine the court battle—it would be, at the very least, ugly. Besides, my mother had already handed over a fat check to the country club director—”

  “I think Roger Buckam just wanted you away from his golden son.” Trudi touched PJ’s arm, something firm and true inside those hazel eyes. PJ leaned into them like a beggar. “But more people knew the truth than you think. Word on the street was that PJ took the rap for someone else. Someone like Boone.”

  PJ blinked, breaking her gaze away, looking at the sun now half-gone, an orange shimmer gulped by the hunger of the night.

  “Innocent until proven guilty,” Jack said.

  “Except in Kellogg.” The words in PJ’s throat scraped it raw, and she swallowed against a fresh, unexpected pain.

  “So, PJ and her prom night live in infamy,” Jack said.

  Oh, he had no idea. The fire was just the public part of the night’s infernos. PJ drew in the sand.

  “I think it takes a lot of guts for her to come back.”

  PJ lifted her eyes in time to see Trudi’s wink.

  Jack murmured something, pressed a kiss to his wife’s head.

  PJ resisted the impulse to fill the silence with words that might diminish everything Trudi had just given her.

  “Isn’t that cute,” Trudi said softly, finally. “David is reading to Chip.”

  PJ glanced at Davy. He held a book open on his lap while Chip sat in rapt attention. “The Little Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings. I love that story. Always wanted a pair of red wings.”

  “I thought the moral of the story was to be who you were created to be,” Jack said.

  “Yeah, that too.” PJ leaned back, putting her arm over her eyes.

  “You know, if I’d known you were coming back to town, I would have made sure Jack’s cousin was around. He’s single.”

  PJ shook her head. “Thanks, Trudi, but the last thing I need in my life at the moment is romance. I have to find a job, not to mention a place to live.”

  “And what about Boone?”

  What about Boone? So what if he could still turn her to liquid with a look. She refused to be that girl. She was a new creation. Not Boone’s girl. “What about Boone? This isn’t high school anymore.”

  “So you’re sticking around after Connie comes home?”

  PJ lifted her arm, squaring with Trudi’s gaze. The warmth in her eyes prompted her to shrug, add a smile.

  For today, that would have to be enough.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Can you believe I kept all this junk?” PJ dumped the top drawer of her desk onto the floral bedspread. Out tumbled pencils and paper clips, senior pictures, dried nail polish, an old tube of pink lipstick, a dog-eared book—The Littlest Horse Thieves, a story she’d always somehow identified with—and an envelope.

  Elizabeth turned from where she’d decided to dust the dresser, a soiled rag in her hand. “It was your room, PJ. I tried not to interfere.”

  PJ opened her mouth, a retort balling on her tongue. Did her mother have some kind of memory loss? What about the time she’d stood over her for an entire weekend like a prison warden and made her sort through every sheet of paper in her desk, try on every T-shirt for size? Her mother had done everything to this room but move in. Even the wall color had been Elizabeth’s choice.

  PJ closed her mouth, picked up the envelope, and dumped the contents on the bed. Tiny, slick-backed patterned shapes mounded on the comforter. “My Girl Scout badges.” She picked one up. “Oh, look, my safety award badge.”

  Elizabeth reached out for it, and PJ handed it over. Outside, the sun winked at her, beckoning, the breeze warm and sweet through the bedroom window. When her mother had called this morning, PJ had agreed to one hour of cleaning and sorting.

  One had run into three, with most of her clothing now boxed up in the give-to-charity pile. She still had to go through the boxes of memorabilia in the closet.

  Thankfully she had to pick Davy up from school in an hour. And of course, it was important to be on time.

  Her mother ran her thumb over the tiny green triangle, something distant in her eyes.

  “I don’t think I ever did all the requirements for this badge.” PJ sorted through the pile. She never did get her sewing badge—hence why the badges had never been sewn onto her sash.

  “Oh, I think so. Remember the car safety instructions? and the family fire exit plan?” Elizabeth smiled, as if reliving the day PJ plotted out the house exits and made them rehearse their escape, complete with waking from a “sound sleep” in their beds. “Remember how your father pretended to snore?”

  PJ let that memory seep into her, seeing her father lying on his bed, still in his suit; Connie in her room; PJ, the fire marshal, feigning sleep in her own, one hand on the fire alarm buzzer. When she pushed it, they all came alive—except her father, who pretended to sleep through the alarm.

  If Mrs. Johnson, her troop leader, had only known that they’d failed miserably, thanks to her father’s playacting and the fact that he grabbed both her and Connie and held them down, tickling them until they all died of asphyxiation, if not giggles.

  PJ ran a finger under her eye. “Yeah, he never did take the safety badge seriously.”

  “I’d say that probably neither did Mrs. Johnson, the way she acted when you broke the school door.”

  “You remember that?” PJ glanced at her mother, who handed back the badge and began wiping out the inside of a dresser drawer.

 
“Of course. I showed up at school, and there you were, sitting on the steps sobbing, Mrs. Johnson standing over you, screaming.”

  “I couldn’t believe that I’d broken the door. We were just playing—tag, I think—and I slammed the glass door and tried to hold it shut with my . . . my . . .”

  “Your backside.” Elizabeth looked up, something unreadable in her eyes.

  “Yeah. After that everyone called me . . .”

  “Iron Bum.”

  PJ stared at her. “You knew?”

  Elizabeth pushed in the dresser drawer. Its pewter handles rattled. “I was so angry with Mrs. Johnson for screaming at you. You were simply white with fear. She made it seem like you did it on purpose, when everyone knew perfectly well that Jaycee Cummings and Shelley Mortinsen were chasing you through the building. She and I had it out the next day. I told her she should never have blamed it on you.” She turned back to her work, scrubbing out another drawer.

  “I didn’t know you did that, Mom.”

  Elizabeth didn’t look at her, simply closed the next drawer. “Sometimes, someone just needs a champion. Don’t forget those boxes under your bed.”

  PJ slipped the badges back into the envelope. “I think I’ll sew these onto a sash after all.”

  * * *

  PJ ripped the pink slip into tiny squares and dropped it into the trash under the sink. A warning. In preschool.

  As if she tried to be late.

  Did they not know the time it took to wrestle her guilt, oatmeal pot in hand, before she surrendered to a box of Lucky Charms? And the hunt for Davy’s uniform consumed at least half the morning.

  Where was the grace?

  She picked up Davy’s half-eaten hamburger and slid it into the disposal. He grinned at her, the frosting from an oatmeal cookie wedged in his teeth.

  Roughage. That’s what she would call it.

  She rinsed off the dish and slid it into the dishwasher, drying her hands before her finger hovered over the blinking red light of the answering machine.