Desperately Seeking Daddy

by Arlene James

  How ironic that it should now reveal itself as her only friend.

  Chapter Six

  She had known from the beginning that this day was not going to go as it should. First, Davy had been even more clinging than usual that morning. Not even Cody could coax the baby away from her. The little tyrant had literally sat on her feet with his limbs wrapped around her legs while she stood at the sink doing up the breakfast dishes. She could see no reason for it, and that worried her. Maybe he was getting sick. She’d watched him closely for any sign of his constantly recurring ear infection, but he hadn’t pulled at his little ears or held his head to one side or seemed sensitive to noise, and he didn’t have a temperature. She had devoted almost her entire morning to him.

  Then, just to be certain that she didn’t get any of the remaining household chores done, her boss had called and asked her to come in to the store ninety minutes early. Unfortunately she hadn’t known that Betty had left the house without a word to anyone until after Heller told Mr. McCarty that he could count on her. She had reluctantly called her mother to fill in until Betty returned, only to hear Carmody’s voice at the other end of the line. Her mother had spent the night with a friend, according to Carmody, after generously offering him housing for a few days. “After all,” he had said importantly, “I am her favorite ex-son-in-law.” In her chagrin at discovering fresh evidence of her mother’s stupidity, Heller hadn’t even bothered to point out to Carmody that he was Fanny’s only ex-son-in-law.

  That small grace had not kept Carmody from crying on her shoulder, however. It seemed that his roommates had kicked him out for failing to pay his share of the rent one too many times. Which, of course, was all Heller’s fault for having “bilked” him out of half of his pay for that gig in Houston, about which she had had to remind him several times before collecting. He’d conveniently forgotten that he had used her car for transportation, not to mention the back child support that he still owed her. Heller hadn’t mentioned those small facts, either, which may have induced the fit of human kindness that had resulted in Carmody volunteering to come over and watch the kids until Betty returned. Just to be on the safe side, however, Heller had slipped out of the house at the same moment Carmody had entered it, giving him no chance to beg for the money back. Now it looked as if they were both going to be out the money.

  Heller looked at the steam boiling up out of the coils of her radiator and sighed. Why couldn’t she get a break, just one decent break? She’d intended to use that money for outfitting the kids for school in the fall. Looked like Punk would have to wear her brother’s hand-me-downs one more year, but that couldn’t go on indefinitely. She firmed her jaw. No use borrowing trouble. Today had plenty. Tomorrow would bring its own. The immediate problem was to get to work. She would have somebody come after the car and repair it later. She left the hood up and went back to extract her purse and uniform from the front seat. Finding a ride to her second job was another problem she’d have to face later.

  The temperature had pushed up into triple digits already, and she hadn’t gone ten steps before perspiration had beaded on her forehead and begun trickling down the valley of her spine and between her breasts. She reached up as she trudged on and literally tied her ponytail into a loose knot to get it up off the back of her neck. It fell down moments later and she found that she had neither the strength nor the inclination to tie it up again. Four blocks later, she’d have gladly shaved her head, had that been an immediate option. Her blouse was damp and sticking to her, and her jeans were beginning to rub raw spots on her slick, sweaty skin. Maybe someone would offer her a ride before she was baked to a crisp.

  As if in answer to that silent hope, a car swung around the corner just ahead and moved down the street toward her. She recognized Jack’s sedan with heart-stopping delight. Was that man destined to forever come to her rescue? She felt a stab of guilt for the way she’d treated him that day in the store, even if it had been for his own good. Not for the first time she wondered if she should have simply told him straight out what was going on, but deep down she knew that he’d have refused her request to back off. No, she had done the right thing. She told herself that again as he drove right on by her without so much as a glance.

  The smile that had fixed itself to her face slowly faded. She didn’t realize for several seconds that she had come to a stop and had turned in order to follow him with her eyes. Abruptly she turned around and strode onward. Well, what had she expected? But she knew suddenly that she hadn’t really expected it to end. Somehow she had believed he would still be there in some way. Bleakly she realized the full extent of what she’d done, and it had little to do with having to walk to work in the heat of summer. For a moment she mentally cursed Carmody Moore for being the catalyst for her disappointment, but then her roiling emotions began to subside, and she could admit that she had contributed handily to the mess her life had become. She swiped away the tears that mingled with perspiration on her cheeks and lifted her chin. She had survived worse disappointments, after all.

  She had almost reached the intersection by the time Boomer pulled up next to her in his rumbling old truck. He leaned across the cab and pushed open the passenger door.

  “Lucky for you,” he said, all but sneering, “I ain’t the type to hold a grudge.”

  Heller thought of slamming the door shut in his face, but it was another half mile to work, and she could see no good reason to walk it in the heat when a ride was at hand. She tossed her things inside, then climbed up after them, slamming the door shut. “Well, I am,” she retorted, “so don’t get any funny ideas.”

  She thought for a moment that Boomer would argue, but instead he sent her a dubious look and ground gears until he got the old truck moving. Heller sighed and propped an elbow in the open window. Could this day get any worse?

  Jack held the image of a hot, bedraggled Heller in his mind for several moments before finding the resolve to push it away. He’d be a fool to play knight-errant again, knowing how she felt about him, not that seeing her again would make any difference to him at this point, but a man had his pride, didn’t he? Why allow himself to be used? Besides, it was not as if she was in any real distress. She had surely lived in Texas long enough to become accustomed to its murderous summers. What business of his was it if she decided to take a stroll in the middle of the day? Some demon hidden deep within the recesses of his troubled mind cackled at that and pointed out what he had stubbornly refused to admit. She wasn’t out for a little jaunt, with that familiar pale green uniform wadded up in her arms.

  He had to tighten his hands on the steering wheel to keep from reaching out with needless guilt to shut off the air conditioner blowing cold into his face. What was this perversion that made him want to suffer just because she did? God knew she felt no compulsion to do the same for him. He passed her dinosaur of a car on the side of the road, its hood raised so that wafts of steam escaped into the already overheated air. He shook his head and stroked his mustache. That woman had the worst luck in the world. Car trouble was the last thing she needed. But that, he reminded himself sternly, was not his problem. Never mind that he’d have stopped if it had been any other female. Heller Moore was off-limits to him. She had as much as said it herself. He was going to use his head for once and keep his distance, no matter what his silly conscience said.

  He switched on the radio, hoping to distract himself, and heard an announcer reminding the general populace that it was necessary to keep animals confined in shady areas with plenty of water handy in order to help pets and livestock avoid heatstroke. Pets and livestock, natural creatures that spent their entire existences out in the weather, this heat was dangerous even for them. And he had let Heller walk on, her delicate face flushed and clammy, her long, thick hair wet with perspiration.

  When a ramshackle old truck passed him, he pulled to the side of the street and bowed his head against the steering wheel, yielding to the inevitable. After a moment he lifted his head, filled the chi
lled interior of his car with a long, audible sigh and started the car moving again. It would be easier to circle the block and pick her up than to turn around on this narrow street. He’d think about the problem with her car later.

  He made two quick left turns and came to a stop at the very corner from which he had first spotted her. The old truck had stopped, and its driver had leaned over to open the passenger door and speak to her. With hardly a pause she tossed her belongings onto the seat and got in. A chill began at the top of Jack’s head and shivered its way down to his feet. So much for the absurd notion that she needed him for anything. He should have known that the very next man to see her would stop—and that she would get in with him, perfect stranger or not, without the slightest qualm. Didn’t the little idiot know that she could get in trouble that way? Well, it was nothing to him.

  Gritting his teeth, he watched as the old truck shuddered and slowly pulled away from the curb. Heller stuck an elbow out the window and lifted the long tail of her hair off the back of her neck with the other hand. Having reached second gear, the truck promptly slacked off again and coasted to a stop at the intersection. Heller turned her head, and Jack felt the immediate impact of her gaze. Her eyes widened in recognition. Jack made himself relax back into his seat, one hand draped negligently over the steering wheel, his expression as composed and unconcerned as possible.

  The driver of the truck, an overweight, balding fellow from the look of him, signaled Jack to come through the intersection by thrusting his hand out and bending his fingers in one rough, jerky wave. Jack leaned negligently in his seat and ignored him. Aware that his expression was no longer impassive, if ever it had been, he fixed Heller with a hard, uncompromising stare. The truck driver made a very unmannerly gesture, jammed the truck into gear and stomped the accelerator, causing the ramshackle vehicle to shudder nearly to pieces before it cleared the intersection and finally achieved second gear again. Jack didn’t bother to wonder if it had a third as he watched Heller’s face recede and disappear. She knew, of course, that he had been coming back for her. Chalk up one more stellar performance for the world’s chief fool.

  When the truck was well down the road, he swung around the corner and went on his way. Only after he’d pulled into his assigned parking space in front of his apartment did he remember that he had been going to the newspaper office to place an advertisement for volunteers to help with the fall reading program. He’d have laughed if he hadn’t felt so miserable. What was wrong with him, anyway?

  He’d decided to help her despite his better judgment, and he should be thankful that Heller herself had saved him from compounding his mistake. Truly he did not want to see or speak to her unless he had to, and clearly that was the path fate meant him to take. Why then did he feel as if he had been kicked in the middle by a particularly mean mule?

  He pictured that rough character behind the wheel of the truck and Heller sitting next to him with her elbow poked nonchalantly out the window. A sinking sensation began in his chest and seemed to expand as it forced its way downward, congealing into a cold, heavy mass in the pit of his stomach. She shouldn’t have been with that man. Why was it all right for her to be with that slime ball and not with him?

  He jerked as if stung. No, he couldn’t possibly be jealous of a guy like that. Firstly, he had long ago established the life he wanted, and no rough, ragged bum in a beat-up old rattletrap of a truck could possibly have anything he coveted. Secondly…

  Secondly, he’d learned long ago that it was painful to be where he wasn’t wanted, and the truth was that Heller didn’t want or need him in her life. Her reason didn’t really matter. All that was left for him to do was to accept the fact that he wouldn’t be seeing her. And while he was at it, he might as well admit that he’d be envious of anyone who could claim her time, anyone at all—for a while. But only for a while. He made it a promise to himself. He would forget Heller Moore, no matter how long it took.

  Heller absently fluffed her hair with her hands. She had soaked in the tub that morning. After the week she’d had, some pampering had seemed in order. So she’d filled the tub with hot, soapy water and just soaked—until Davy had climbed up to sit on its edge and splatter her with bubbles as he smacked his fat baby feet on the soapy surface. Knowing her interlude was over, she had steadied him with one hand and shaved her legs with the other, nicking the backs of both ankles while her hair tumbled down from its loose chignon and soaked up about a gallon of water. Punk had obligingly come in and coaxed Davy out of the room so Heller could wash her hair beneath the spigot.

  Now she sat cross-legged on her bed, dressed in shorts and a matching sleeveless blouse with oversize buttons up the middle, a towel draped about her shoulders while she waited for her hair to dry. Davy clumped around the tiny room trying to keep her sandals on his feet.

  It was her day off, but she wasn’t thinking about the hundred and one things she could be doing around the house or with the kids. She was thinking about the look on Jack Tyler’s face when she’d ridden by in Boomer’s old truck.

  Had he been coming back for her? She had been certain at the time that he had, but now all she could really focus on, all she could really think of, all she kept seeing over and over again, was the look on Jack’s face. He had been hurt. He had assumed that she was with Boomer because she wanted to be, and that had hurt him because she had led him to believe that she did not want to be with him. She had hurt him twice now with that lie. Why hadn’t she just explained? He was a reasonable man. He would have understood. He still might.

  That notion had been flitting around in the back of her mind all morning, but she pushed it away, getting down off the bed to save her shoes from Davy by putting them on her own feet. She took his hand and together they walked down the hall past the bathroom and the other bedroom to the living area. Cody and Punk were lying on their stomachs in the middle of the oval rug, their chins balanced on the heels of their hands as they pored over the old storybook that Heller had picked up at a garage sale. Cody was reading aloud the captions beneath the illustrations, while Punk was busily spinning her own stories to go with them.

  “The girl spun straw into gold,” Cody read.

  “I bet,” said Punk, “that if she could spin straw into gold she could spin it into anything.”

  “So what?” Cody said, completely missing the point.

  “So she’d spin up a bunch more than gold junk. She’d spin up TVs and wedding dresses and amusement parks and—”

  “Naw, she’d just buy that stuff with the gold,” Cody argued. But Punk was warming to her idea.

  “No, listen, she could spin up a rocket ship and all the stuff she’d need to make a whole world, and she’d just blast off into space and leave that mean old troll behind. Then he’d try to get at her with magic, see, ‘cept she’d have spinned up a magic wand of her own and a whole army of fierce girl warriors with their own magic wands, and when the bad guy came after her—”

  “She’d zap him into a pile of gold dust!” Cody cried, getting into the game.

  Punk shook her head. “No! She’d turn him into a pretty little girl that ever’body would love.”

  Cody screwed up his face, liking his own idea better. “That’s dumb!”

  “It is not!”

  “Is, too!”

  “That’s enough,” Heller said lightly, stepping over them to sit down on the edge of the couch. She bent and picked up the book.

  “Read to us, Mom,” Cody pleaded.

  “All right.” Heller smiled and thumbed through the pages, looking for something that intrigued her. Davy scrambled over his brother and sister, stepping on the bend of Punk’s leg and the small of Cody’s back before falling to one knee. He immediately began to howl. Heller laid aside the book and lifted him onto her lap, crooning, “Poor knee, poor knee.” She turned him upside down to kiss the hurt away, and his tears turned to giggles. Heller hugged him and picked up the book. “Once upon a time,” she began, pointing out the words
with her finger so Davy could feel as if he was following along.

  Her voice wove a tale of good that won out over evil, of magic and wishes and deeds fraught with peril. Cody and Punk soaked up every word, eventually coming up onto the couch to look at the pictures they already knew so well but never tired of seeing. Davy lay back against her, squirmed around a bit and finally drifted into a sound slumber. When the story was finished, she carried him to the room he shared with his brother and sister and laid him in his crib. Very carefully she worked a pair of elasticized plastic pants up over his feet and legs to his waist. A faint red smudge on one little knee reminded her of that minor accident—and Jack.

  Was his knee paining him? Did he take proper care of himself, or did he just grit his teeth and bear the pain with a manly grimace? Did he have anyone to help him out when he was stuck in a chair with that leg propped up? Surely a man who did so much for others had friends and family lined up and just waiting for a chance to return a favor. But would he let them know that he was in need? She suspected not. In the same moment, hearing the front door open and Betty’s muffled voice, Heller realized that her baby-sitter had come home earlier than expected after her night out. Now she had every reason to turn the tables on Jack Tyler. She knew where he lived; he’d told her the night he’d driven her to the nursing home.

  She slipped out of the room and down the hall to snatch her purse and sunshades from the top of her dresser, then caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and paused to pin up the sides of her hair. She hurried back down the hall to the living area. Betty was stowing a six-pack of colas in the refrigerator. She looked as if she’d slept in her clothes, and when she turned, Heller saw that she’d slept in her makeup, too. Her mascara was smeared, and the pale blue eye shadow she favored had been reduced to mere smudges in odd places. Heller frowned.