“I’m sorry I was harsh on Briana.”
“You should tell her to her face.”
“Somebody had to say it. One of my patients had a minor stroke a week after the block party. Several had dangerously high blood pressure. You have to think…”
“I get it,” I interrupted. “You’re on a mission. So am I. Here, taste this. I’ll cut it in half. Half for me, half for you.”
Before he could argue, I had cut one of the strudels in half, and placed his portion on a plate, shoving it in front of him. He stared at it. It oozed delicate, caramelized apples. He took a small nibble. His eyes lit up and his face formed a perfect expression of round-mouthed astonishment. He chewed slowly, his expression ecstatic. “This is… incredible!”
He was hooked. Every morning before going to work, he would stop at the house for coffee and a light breakfast. On the days that I baked, he would buy fresh cinnamon rolls and a loaf of bread to take home with him. He even began to recommend our services to those who were dissatisfied with cafeteria food. The holidays were moving in and we were operating in the black.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Anyone who thinks Halloween is just for kids is kidding himself. Halloween was invented so adults could terrify children. In the absence of children, they dance about ghoulishly with each other and hold random acts of nonverbal communications. Adults feel far more abandonment in a mask than children do, because children are always on a fantasy island. Their anonymity makes them feel powerful, whereas children find the power in their imaginations.
Adults need Halloween, children not so much. For them, it’s simply the candy rush. For adults, it was a chance to revert back to animals, or monsters or sirens. You don’t see princesses and super heroes at an adult’s Halloween party. You see pirates and villains, and predatory creatures.
Our Halloween party contained a special exuberance. A few blocks over, one of the oldest residents had died, and the house was bought by a thirty-year old couple who had not yet started having children. The neighborhood was slowly drawing in more young people. “But with more young people,” said Melanie, when everybody had exhausted each other with their masquerades and settled down to basic beer drinking. “Will come babies and children.”
Everybody cheered, believing that to be a fine idea. “It will mean we have to change our ways,” she said above the noise. “We can no longer be running around naked or getting drunk on the front lawn. We’ve got to quit being groupies. We may even have to stop holding adult Halloween parties.”
“Oh, why is that?” Groaned Jack Jones. “We just won’t invite the kids.”
“No. We have to wait until they’ve all gone to bed, because they’ll be coming to our houses trick or treating. And we don’t give them no tricks! Only treats!”
“But we can scare them, can’t we?” Asked Liz anxiously. “That would make it fun.”
“Of course we can scare them.”
Their worries over a tot-patrol take-over relieved by the possibility of having someone they could actually scare on that supernatural night, they all begin to drift into more interesting topics, such as how Lu Ellen Carter had a boob job and a face lift done at age fifty-five, and wondering just how she had managed to pay for it. And how Earnest Hunt was growing Oriental poppies and kept insisting they were Ornamental poppies. How anybody could tell what Ernest Hunt kept in his enclosed garden and green house was a mystery, as the most you could ever see was a tangle of leaves, vines and occasional spots of color.
I listened until I started to nod, then decided I needed a little livelier company. I wandered first to the kitchen, which had turned into the designated make-out station for several young and not so young couples, including Briana and the mechanic, then out to the yard where a boom box was spilling out music. A metal, portable, outside fire stove chattered with the sound of popping wood, while the flames shot into the air as neatly as a tapered haircut.
The crowd outside was looser. They swayed to the music or stared hypnotized at the fire. A few old guys staggered about until they were directed toward the house and the safety of a warm room to crash in. I accepted a glass of beer in a plastic cup, then searched through the crowd.
As usual, he needed rescuing. Dr. Andrews was caught between an old guy who kept showing him some kind of lump on his butt and a short, squat woman who clasped her hands under her stomach to demonstrate the source of her pain.
“I’m coming to take you away, ha ha, ho ho, hee hee,” I said in my sexy police girl costume, with an extra short, flared skirt, wide open bodice, and you’ve got it; a pair of handcuffs. I grabbed him by the elbow. He was wearing a silly Dracula outfit of the classic version, but with his silvering temples, it did appear right.
“To the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time,” added the doctor. “You know the song.”
“Southern girl raised on grand pappy’s memories. Of course I do.”
“I had an uncle who was quirky like that.” He chuckled and also accepted a plastic cup from a tray that was floating by. “Seattle boys.”
“You were raised in Seattle?”
“Tacoma. Just a skip and a jump away. Closer to the heartland. Closer to lumberjack country.”
“Is that where the country boys around here go? To become lumberjacks?”
“Or fishermen. If they’re not in the forest, they’re on the water.”
“Hardy little devils.”
“Have you ever seen a lumberjack? Little is a gross understatement. They like women like you, strong, strapping women.” His hand brushed unconsciously over my arm.
“You seem to know a lot about them.”
“My cousins on my father’s side are lumberjacks. Big guys. Live close to the Idaho border. They got their size from their mama. I’m at the smaller end of the gene pool.”
“You’re not that small,” I said, my mind vividly recalling the hot summer days when he’d remove his tee shirt. His body made a pretty nice wedge, with a solid six pack bracing his middle and glistening biceps. He wasn’t Vin Diesel size, but he was a good candidate for a martial arts movie. All they would have to do was show off his bod and let a stunt man perform all the tricks.
“That’s just because you haven’t seen a lumberjack yet. Maybe I should take you up north sometime so you can see some of our wild mountain men.”
“Don’t make any promises you don’t intend to keep, and that includes ‘maybe’ ones. Maybe if you don’t come right out and say what’s on your mind, I won’t be around.”
He laughed. “You are so feisty. It makes me want to show you everything, but I don’t even know where to start. You’ve seen nothing at all really. You dance to the same music they danced to fifty years ago; schedule your recreational life around house parties with a bunch of old people and trips to the farmer’s market.”
“I go to night clubs.”
“You go to night clubs! Lord, bless her, she goes to night clubs!” The doctor was getting drunk, which felt rather surprising.
“You don’t need to make fun of me,” I said, pushing at him.
“I’m not. I’m sorry.” He staggered forward and backed me up against the fence. “I’m cruel. I don’t mean to be cruel. It’s just that I don’t know how to talk to girls like you. What do you talk about, Jenna?”
“The Space Needle. I’ve never been to the top of the Space Needle.”
“That’s what you talk about?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure, and about ferrets. How they don’t have to do anything at all and they’re still funny.”
“You see,” he said, his face close to me, the alcohol spilling from his breath. “The women I know talk about the books they read; all of it very fine literature. So much of it chick lit.” He unzipped my jacket, pulling it away from my shoulders. I felt my own alcoholic fumes mingling with his.
“The women I know talk about the big three; politics, psychology, and philosophy. They discuss social reform. They are polished; another ‘p’. They t
alk so well, they make men feel small and humbled.” He pulled at the loose neck of my sweater and tasted my neck.
“The men I know talk about their favorite football team and their favorite cars. Is that so significant?”
“It could be. It puts you more in the moment, doesn’t it? Events you can follow quickly, physical rewards.” One hand crept up under my bra while the other remained braced against the fence. His middle finger poked at the nipple.
“Immediate pleasures?” I asked in a weak, muffled voice.
His lips crushed down on mine. “Cherries,” he murmured. “I knew they would taste like cherries.”
His other hand reached down to unsnap the bra, then slid around until he was squeezing both of my tits. His mouth remained firmly fixed on mine, his tongue probing between my teeth. I sucked his wild tongue in while my arms wrapped around his back, my fingers pressing, kneading and gliding over the smooth muscles.
Under the taste of beer, his tongue still tasted sweet. It was like drinking in nectar. I craved the inside of his mouth. My tongue darted in, touching and exploring along the gum line and deep into the corners, sliding over the top of his tongue.
His body was crushed tightly against mine. He lifted himself a little to allow his hand room for creeping under the waist band of my stretch jeans. His middle finger touched down on target, plowing deeply, while the rest of his hand gripped up around the crease in my thighs, framing in the softly curling patch. I groaned and began unbuckling his belt.
“No,” he said, backing off. “We can’t do this. Not here. Not now. It’s wrong.”
I squirmed as I fastened back together my clothes, not at all comfortable with this surge of unrequited passion. Cripe. I was going to have to take a shower, or find Zeke, or something. I twitched, straightening out my panties as I walked beside him. “What was that all about?”
“Nothing.” He squeezed the space between his eyebrows together with his fingers. “I’m really going to be sick. I’ve got to go.”
He really did look sick. He staggered across the space from my lawn to his and threw up just before reaching his door. The man with the cane hobbled up to me. “The doctor can’t take his liquor,” he said gleefully.
“Did you put something in his drink?”
“I’m not the kind of guy that does that, but he had a couple of whiskeys before drinking beer. That’s pretty rough, even for a drinker.”
“I’ve never seen him behave that way.”
“You’ve been here five months. What do you know? Most of us have known him since he first moved in, ten years ago. He was a young know-it-all then, and he’s a middling know-it-all now. If he didn’t think he knew everything he might actually learn something new. That’s always been his mistake. His arrogance.”
Billy walked back to the house with me, his head bobbing to one side than the other as he limped along. “You’d do better to find another young guy. These Washington hills are full of fellows who appreciate your qualities. And you’ve got a skill. You’ve got your own business. You can take a pick of any type of guy you like.”
“I think Dr. Andrews is a sad and lonely man.”
“But so am I. Very sad and lonely.”
“I’m not saying that it makes me attracted to him but it doesn’t seem right that a man like that should waste away his years on study and research and work, work, work without ever taking the time to enjoy life.”
“I worked my whole life,” said Billy soulfully, bending over his cane. “I never got to enjoy it for a minute.”
“Oh, I doubt that very seriously. I have never seen an old codger get more zest out of life than I’ve seen in you.”
“I’m making up for lost time.”
“For a beginner, you seem to have had a great deal of practice.”
“I’m a quick study.”
I shook my head. For the old folk, the evening was winding down. Billy limped off to join the last of the barely awake, whose voices murmured, rose up and fell away in disjointed conversations. Some of the necking session had retired to more private areas, while others had flopped in the living room to cool off. I found Zeke. “Wanna fuck?”
“Hell, no. I’ve had two hits of acid and I think I saw God.”
“Oh, great. Then how about sharing a bag of chips?”
“Yeah. I can do that.”
I spent Halloween night not satisfying an itch. I had been given a trick when I expected a treat. When the doctor came in for coffee, I decided to confront him. “I think we need to talk about what happened last night.”
He groaned. “I have a headache. Nothing happened, Jenna. We were drunk. I realized at the last minute we were making spectacles of ourselves in public. It was unpleasant. I went home.”
“It wasn’t pleasant? Groping me wasn’t pleasant?”
“That part was, but not like that. You deserve better. You deserve more respect.”
I bit my lower lip, not really knowing how to respond. “Don’t do that to me again. Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep, not even unspoken ones.”
“You’re making a lot of rules regarding promises.”
“It’s like this, Dr. Andrews. No. After last night, I’m calling you Lee. I can cut through a guy’s bullshit in ten seconds. I’ve heard it all, the hearts and flowers, the songs, the silver lining in the clouds. The only thing I want to hear is honesty. And you’re not being honest.”
“In all honesty, Jenna, I think you’re a very fine young girl, but you are just a girl. I love your determination. I love your spunk, but Jenna. We are two very different people.”
He was talking down to me, like a school girl. “How are we different, Lee? Because you study the internal organs and I study what to put into them? Because you go to the theater and I go to concerts?”
“It’s more than that. Trust me, Jenna, let’s keep this at a friendship level. We’ll both be happier for it.”
I didn’t get to brood over Dr. Andrews’ retreat from establishing a rapport with a willing, buxom blonde for very long. A few days after our conversation, Liz had a crisis that only Linda, with her enormous cosmetic skills, could resolve.
Liz had tried one home color kit too many. The results were a disaster. Her hair had turned a strange, muddy purple, except at the frizzled ends that exploded in neon colors. It was three days before Thanksgiving and she was in hysterics. All of her family; her children, grandchildren, in-laws and significant others would be there, and here she would be; the star of the show – with purple hair. Her tears overflowed like a water spout.
Linda put both hands on her face and clucked like a mother hen. “Oh, my dear. Oh my poor, poor dear,” she said, sweeping the distressed woman into her parlor. She sat Liz down on the magnificent chair that magically transformed the dull into gleaming and the mediocre into spectacular. It would be the most critical, hair life preserving act of her career.
Her fingers rifled through the damage. They probed deeply into her scalp. “This is going to take a long time. Do you trust me?”
Liz huddled her pudgy shoulders together. “What choice do I have? How can I explain this to anybody? Can you cover this?”
“I can but I won’t. It will further damage your hair. I’m going to strip the color out and I’m going to cut it.”
“You’re going to cut it?” Asked Liz weakly, touching her frizz.
“Do you want to look like a 1979 grandma or a modern day woman?”
“I want to be modern. Very modern.”
“Then let me do it.”
She rinsed, cleaned, stripped, steamed and nurtured Liz’s hair with protein solutions. She gave the most incredible oil infusion therapy I’d ever seen. She rubbed. She fluffed. She moisturized her hair again from a spray bottle. Then she got out the scissors and began to snip, just below the line where her hair began to frizzle out. Snip. Snip went the scissors, and with each dropping strand of color faded, frizzy hair, Liz’s eyes grew wider with terror.
When it was over, Liz
was almost too terrified to look at herself in the mirror. She felt at the sides of her head and on top. Her hair was short. Really short. She touched the spiky ends. She peeked at the mirror, trembling, then a wide smile spread over her face. Her hair had been stripped back to its nearly all-white color, except for the ends, which were a very lovely color of lavender. “I look radical!”
Liz enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving as the most radical grandma ever, while we celebrated with Jack Jones, Billy, and Zeke. The doctor didn’t come over and I told myself firmly I didn’t care.
I had a business to run, and during the holiday season, it was hopping. As the orders came in, the house filled heavily with the scent of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, mint, and chocolate. I was at the stove all day, every day, mixing and measuring, patting and cutting and really didn’t have time for idle conversation.
Briana did. Briana had completely forgiven the doctor for calling her fat. She made a beeline for the table every morning when he appeared for breakfast. She always managed to say something that would make him laugh, and it was usually with no effort. Briana just can’t help saying silly things. “I heard old man Miller had a coronary bypass,” she breezed, as I set down a full coffee cup and a Danish. “My uncle had a coronary bypass.” She set her bare foot on her chair, and pointed between her toes. “The coronary was right here. The cut all around it and it came right out.”
“Briana,” I said, slapping at her as I passed by. “It was a corn. Not a coronary.”
“It was too! Coronary is the medical term for corns.”
“Coronaries are the main arteries around your heart,” explained Dr. Andrews.
“So when you do a bypass, it’s like the way they removed the arteries in my grandmother’s legs?”
“Those weren’t arteries. They were busted blood vessels.”
“Same thing.”
I left her in Dr. Andrews’ hands. Let him take the time to teach her definitions. It’s what he really wanted – someone to teach things to. Someone he can instruct and raise up like a child. I mumbled bitterly to myself as I set about my daily tasks.
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