“Yes, she does it really well.”
“Might even be the reason I got into acting. She’d get me to act out the parts, too.”
“She said your mother is one of her oldest friends.”
“We lived next door to Marian and her husband when I was a kid. Bill and my father were good friends, too.”
“I forget about him sometimes,” Eve said. “Marian doesn’t talk about him much.”
“She— Hey!” he shouted as a car pulled in front of them, forcing him to step hard on the brake. “Jeez,” he said. “What a goofy Gus.”
“A goofy Gus?” She laughed.
“So.” Jack started driving again. “What I was about to say was that Bill, Marian’s husband, is a sore subject for her. How much do you know?”
“That he was executed,” she said. “And Marian thought he was innocent.”
“Yeah, and I think she’s probably right, but who knows?” he said. “You never really know what a person’s capable of. Someone can be a really nice guy and still, you know, have two sides to him.”
No kidding, she thought. “So you think he did it?”
“I don’t know. The important thing to me is the impact it had on Marian.” He glanced at her and smiled. “So, how’d we get on such a serious topic already?” he asked.
She shrugged, worried it was her fault. Did she know how to have a light and casual conversation with anyone anymore?
“Do you like Springsteen?” he asked.
“I have to admit I’m not all that familiar with him,” she said.
He smiled. His teeth looked as though he’d never had a cavity in his life. “You’ll be familiar with him after tonight,” he said. “What music do you like?”
She had to think. She used to like Fleetwood Mac and Rod Stewart and Crosby, Stills and Nash, but she hadn’t listened to much music in years. “I’m into lullabies and ‘Inky Dinky Spider,’ I’m afraid.”
Jack laughed. “You were what…seventeen when you had her?”
Here we go, she thought.
“Yes.”
“What’s her name?”
“Cory. Corinne.”
“Must’ve been hard,” he said.
“It was,” she admitted. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if I hadn’t met Marian.” She studied Jack’s hands as he turned the steering wheel. His fingers were long and tanned.
“How’d you meet her?” he asked.
“A friend put me in touch with her. She said Marian might have a room I could live in. I didn’t know I’d be getting so much more than a landlady.”
“You lucked out,” he agreed. “So, where are you from? Where did you grow up?”
He certainly asked a lot of questions. “Oregon,” she said.
“No kidding!” He turned to look at her. “I lived there for a couple of years when I was a teenager. Where were you?”
This was the reaction she’d been dreading for the past three-and-a-half years. She’d told any number of people she was originally from Oregon, but he was the first who’d ever set foot in the state. She, of course, had not.
“Portland.” She held her breath, waiting for the “Me, too!”
“Oh, I was in Klamath Falls. My father was transferred there for a few years.” He looked at her, a cute grin on his face. “That’s cool, huh? We both lived in Oregon. Gorgeous state.”
“Yes.” She smiled her relief.
He had a perfect profile. Absolutely perfect. His nose was straight, not too large, not too small. His nostrils had the tiniest flare to them. His chin was strong without overwhelming the rest of his face, and his eyebrows were jet-black and thick above his dark eyes. His hair was curly, but not the least bit frizzy like hers. Still, those curls probably gave him fits as he tried to control them. Or maybe he’d given up at the attempt. He frankly didn’t seem like the type of guy who’d get too worked up over anything.
“You have great hair,” she said now.
He looked surprised. “Why, thank you, ma’am. I was admiring yours the other night, too.”
He was? “It used to be really long,” she said. “I chopped it off when Cory was a baby because she cut her hand on it.” She now wore her hair in layers that left it feeling light against her neck.
“What?” He reached over and touched her hair, his fingers brushing her shoulder as he did so. “It’s very soft,” he said. “Did it used to be like razor wire or something?”
Eve laughed. “It was a little paper-cut kind of thing. Right here.” She touched the web of skin between her index finger and thumb.
“So you cut it off.”
“Uh-huh. In the middle of the night. With cuticle scissors.”
Jack laughed, and hit the steering wheel with his palm. “I think you’re as impulsive as I am,” he said.
“I doubt it,” she said. “I have the feeling you’re an extremely spontaneous sort of guy.”
“You might be right. My car used to be this ugly brown color. I painted it on a whim.”
“Any regrets?”
“Hell, no. I love Peggy Sue.” He ran his hand over Peggy Sue’s dashboard as he drove into the parking lot. “We have arrived!” he said.
She wondered if he always spoke in exclamations. She liked it. In the past few years, her joy had come from watching Cory change from day to day and from her classes, when she’d learn something new and feel the possibilities wrapped up in it. She had that feeling now, a thrill that raced through every cell of her body.
Jack maneuvered Peggy Sue into a parking space, then got out and opened her door for her. He took her hand as though they’d done this many times before, and they started walking toward the stadium.
“‘Peggy Sue, Peggy Sue,’” he sang, “‘pretty pretty pretty pretty Peggy Sue.’”
She barely stopped to think before joining in. “‘Oh, Peggy, my Peggy Su-ue-ue.’”
Jack laughed, letting go of her hand to give her shoulders a squeeze.
“‘Oh, I love you gal,’” they sang together. “‘Yes, I love you. Peggy Sue-ue-ue.’”
He harmonized on the last line, and she grinned when the little song was over. She suddenly felt high, as if there were a drug in the air around Jack, something she was inhaling that lifted worry from her shoulders and left joy in its place. And she’d been with him all of twenty-five minutes.
The concert was wild and the crowd wilder. People passed cups of cheap wine, from which she and Jack sipped freely. She turned down the rare joint that came her way, as did Jack, and she wondered if he would smoke if she did, if he was passing up the chance out of deference to her. She couldn’t afford to be arrested for anything, ever. She couldn’t afford to be fingerprinted, either. She’d been careful at the cabin on the Neuse River, but she could never be certain she’d been careful enough.
After intermission, things got even wilder. Jack grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet, and they joined other people dancing on the stairs. She’d never danced in her life, but it didn’t matter. She raised her arms above her head, singing along with “Rosalita,” even though she was making up two-thirds of the words, dancing with a strange and welcome abandon.
They sang “Born to Run” as they walked back to the car, Eve stumbling over the words and not caring. “This was so much fun,” she said. “I mean, really. I haven’t had this kind of fun in…well, a very long time.”
“You’re good at it,” Jack said.
“I think I was at one time,” she said, remembering the person she’d been before Cory. Before Tim. Before everything had turned so deadly serious in her life.
“You mean before you had to become a responsible parent?” Jack asked.
She nodded.
“You rose to the challenge, Eve,” he said, his face sober for the first time all night. “I admire you for that, but I think you still have some fun left in you. What do you think?”
She nodded. “I think I do,” she said.
“And you know what we need now? Desperately?”<
br />
“What?”
“Ice cream!”
She laughed. “Wow, yes!” she said, the suggestion of ice cream creating an instant need in her. His enthusiasm was infectious. If he’d said they needed toothpaste, she might have responded the same way.
It was late and they drove to the one place that was always open: the University Diner.
“I used to work here,” she said as they settled into a booth.
“You did? Was it fun?”
She thought about his question, remembering the hours she and Lorraine had spent serving up grillswiths together. “Yeah, it was, actually,” she said.
A waitress took their order—two hot-fudge sundaes—and then Jack reached across the table and held both her hands in his.
“So,” he said. “Brothers? Sisters?”
“Neither.”
“Are your parents still in Oregon?”
Back to reality. “My mother died when I was twelve,” she said, “and my father is a question mark. I spent ages twelve to six…seventeen in foster homes.”
He looked stunned by the answer, and she quickly added, “It wasn’t that awful. I mean, losing my mother was awful, of course, but the foster homes weren’t that terrible.”
For the first time that evening, Jack seemed at a loss for words. Eve held her breath as he stared at her.
“I just dumped a lot on you.” She tried to smile. “Sorry.”
“No, don’t be sorry,” he said quickly. “I was just trying to imagine what it would be like to go through what you’ve gone through. Maybe that’s why you seem so strong.”
“I do?”
“Hell, yes. You have a…quality about you.”
“I do?” she repeated.
“It’s like you’re made of steel.” He let go of her hand to touch her hair. “And I don’t just mean your razor-wire hair.” He smiled. “I don’t mean that you’re cold, either. You’re anything but cold. But you’re tough. I knew it the minute I saw you the other night with Marian. You can’t be kicked around.”
She lowered her gaze to their hands. She had been kicked around, but he was right: she would never be kicked around again.
“I’m glad I seem that way,” she said. “I had no idea.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
“I don’t even know your major,” he said finally. “What are you studying?”
“Psychology,” she said. “I love it. I’m working on a paper about foster care right now.”
“Good,” he said fervently. “You can use your past to fuel your future.”
I like you, she thought.
“My family—my parents and brother—all live in Richmond,” he said. “I took time off between high school and college to travel, so that’s why I’m only now, at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, in my fourth year.”
Tim’s age, she thought. But that was the only thing the two men had in common.
“You’ve been lucky.”
“I don’t take it for granted,” he said, and she nodded. “Can I meet Miss Cory?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“I like you,” he said.
She stood up and leaned over the table, intending to kiss him softly, quickly on the lips, but he grabbed her shoulders to keep her from sitting down again, and the kiss turned into something she would not soon forget.
She called Lorraine when she got home, waking her up and not bothering to apologize.
“I met a guy I really like,” she said.
“Well, damn, Eve.” Lorraine sounded sleepy. “For a while there, I thought you were going to come over to our side. Do I know him?”
“He’s in the drama department. His name’s Jack Elliott.”
“You went out with Jack?”
“You know him?” She tensed, afraid Lorraine might say something that would ruin the precious sense of joy she felt.
“If you’ve got to be with a guy, he’s a good one to be with,” she said. “I mean, he’s not bad-looking.”
“He’s gorgeous, really,” Eve said.
“If you say so.” Lorraine laughed. “And he’s not a jock. Not the macho type.”
“That’s true,” Eve said, “but he’s still very…” She wrinkled her nose, searching for the right word.
“Manly,” Lorraine supplied with a chuckle.
“Yeah, that’s it,” she said. It was a silly word, but the image of Jack’s masculine hands and perfect teeth stayed with her for the rest of the conversation, and by the time she hung up the phone, her belly felt tight with desire.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jack arrived at one o’clock the following day carrying a canvas bag he called the “Cory-Dory bag.” Cory was not an easy child to win over, however. Especially not by a man. She’d had so little experience with them. She was generally clingy with Eve, even when she met a new woman at the park or in a store, but when Jack arrived, she leaned against Eve and buried her head against her hip.
“Ah,” Jack said. “S-h-y.”
“Y-e-s,” Eve replied. “Let’s go in the living room.”
She walked with difficulty, Cory clinging to her leg.
“So, what do you have in the Cory-Dory bag?” Eve asked.
“We have to sit on the floor to find out,” Jack said.
“Let’s sit, Cory.” She pried her daughter’s hands from her leg and sat down on the carpet across from Jack. Cory sat next to her, leaning against her as she eyed the stranger with suspicion.
Jack peered inside the bag. “Hmm,” he said. “Cory, what do you think? Would you like to see the B-thing first? Or the G-thing? Or the P-thing?”
“Wow, Cory,” Eve said. “You’ve got a lot to choose from. Which do you want to see first?”
Cory pressed against her, lowering her gaze to the floor.
“Well, I want to see the B-thing,” Eve said to Jack.
“Oh, a very good choice,” Jack said. He pulled a long green balloon from the canvas bag and began to blow it into a slender tube. “Would you rather see a giraffe or a doggie?” Jack asked.
“Giraffe.” Cory’s voice was so soft it was barely audible. Eve started to repeat the word, but Jack had heard it.
“A giraffe it is,” he said. He gave the balloon a few twists, pulled another couple of balloons out of the bag, blew them up and incorporated them into the sculpture until he had a reasonable facsimile of a giraffe.
Cory giggled, her blue eyes crinkling up the way they did when she was amused. “Do the doggie now,” she said.
“Please,” Eve reminded her.
“Please,” Cory said.
“We need hats first,” Jack said. “I never do the doggie before everyone is wearing a hat.”
He made three hats out of balloons and placed them on their heads, then began working on the dog. By that time, Cory was completely captivated.
Marian came home from the grocery store and laughed at the sight of them sitting on the floor, wearing their hats, surrounded by a menagerie of balloon animals.
“Make a hat for Marian!” Cory glanced at Eve. “Please,” she added. She was on her feet by then, moving between Eve and Jack, her small, fair-skinned hand resting at times on his shoulder as he worked. Eve studied him with gratitude. From where she sat, his dark eyelashes lay long and thick against his cheeks, his intent concentration a sham for Cory’s sake, as he created a green-and-purple hat for Marian.
“Can you make a cat?” Cory asked.
“A big cat,” Jack said. “A lion.” He roared at her, shaking his curly head against her midriff and she giggled wildly.
“A lion, a lion!” She jumped up and down.
Eve looked at Marian, who stood in the doorway, arms folded across her chest, a smile on her face. She caught Eve’s gaze, her eyes telling her, This is it, Eve. This is the man for you and Cory.
The G-thing turned out to be water pistols. Guns. Before Jack reached into his bag for them, he insisted they go into Marian’s small backyard. When he first pulled out
the gun, Eve gasped. Suddenly she didn’t know him. He was a stranger, capable of hurting them.
“Cory!” she shouted at her daughter, who stopped her wild running and looked up at the alarm in her voice.
By then, Jack had produced a yellow gun and a red gun, and she realized they were all made of cheap plastic. Still, her heart thudded in her chest.
“They’re already filled.” Jack didn’t seem to notice her reaction. He handed her the red pistol, and Cory the yellow.
“What am I ’upposed to do?” Cory looked in bewilderment at the water pistol in her hand.
“Should I show her, Eve?” Jack pointed his pistol at Cory.
“No, don’t shoot her!” Eve said. “You’ll scare her.”
“I had no intention of shooting her,” Jack said. He pointed the gun at Eve and pulled the trigger. Eve screamed, then laughed as the cold stream of water caught her on the neck. She aimed her gun at Jack and shot him squarely in the face.
“How do you do it?” Cory was still studying her gun.
Jack walked over and helped her aim the gun. She was not a good shot, but she loved the game anyhow, and within minutes all three of them were soaked and cold and laughing.
“Somebody needs to change her clothes and have her nap.” Eve ran a hand over Cory’s damp red hair once they were back inside.
“No,” Cory said.
“Yes.” Eve took her hand. “Let’s go. I’ll be back in a minute, Jack.”
Cory wouldn’t budge. “What’s the other thing?” she asked.
“What other thing?” Eve was puzzled.
“The other thing in the Cory-Dory bag,” Cory said, her focus on the canvas bag on the sofa.
“You have a good memory, Cory,” Jack said. “The P-thing. We’ll save it for another day, okay?”
Cory looked reluctantly at the bag. “Okay,” she said.
Eve took her upstairs and into the nursery, where they’d replaced the crib with a twin bed. “Do you like Jack?” she asked her as she helped Cory out of her jersey.
“Yes,” Cory said. “He’s silly.”
“I guess he is.” She tucked Cory under the covers and pulled the shade.
“Leave the door open,” Cory said, although Eve had never once closed it.