A Man for the Summer (20 page)

“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 now, 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.”

“I mean, Saturday night, when we were—”

Junior stopped abruptly, and clamped her mouth shut. She hadn’t told anyone they’d gone to the wedding. Or, for that matter, that she’d moved out of her own house. On her way to work she’d seen Griff’s rental car still parked in her driveway, but she hadn’t felt up to figuring out what to do about it yet.

“Yeah? Saturday night?” Rosie prompted.

“Never mind,” Junior mumbled, twisting the fabric of her thin skirt around her finger.

“Never mind? Hmm, nothing like changing the subject to get me interested. Let’s see. You were seen leaving town about eight Saturday morning. And you didn’t get back until yesterday noon. Olsons said they saw you getting on the interstate Northbound, recognized Griff’s car, they did, and then they stopped by your place to see if you were home and saw that your car was there. Oh, they went on in to see if you were okay, so you can figure everyone in town’s been by to see what all Griff’s done to your living room. Once they figured out you must have been with Griff, they quit worrying. I think folks like the guy. I went in your house too, by the way. I have to say I was kind of hurt you didn’t call me and tell me about the demolition right away. Course, with your trip and all, I can see where you might have forgotten to call….?”

Junior glanced at her aunt, who even after her breathless monolog looked relaxed, even amused. Rosie gave her a little wink, then sipped delicately at her tea.

“Rosie.” She sighed. “Oh, forget it. Come on, you might as well tell me what else you know about my private life.”

“Only everything…you’re staying over in the motel, you stopped by Dudder’s for deodorant and mascara, which you have to admit is pretty strange since I’m sure you have it at home. Griff was over to Carlton’s yesterday, carrying his computer, I might add. Now, Mrs. Wilkins saw him haul it back home later and Carlton said all Griff wanted was some help emailing a file or something. Merle saw him down at the diner and talked him into coming to the poker game tonight, so that ought to keep him busy.”

Junior took in all these details, aware that she cared far too much. Griff was still here. Griff hadn’t left yet. It was all she could distill from Rosie’s reporting, and she wanted to run from the room and down the sidewalk to her house, wanted to run inside and find him and hold him and never let go.

Instead, she reached for the pitcher of tea and poured a glass of her own.

“They’ll take him, for sure,” she said miserably.

“Yeah, but they play with pocket change, so the most he’ll be out is a quart of nickels,” Rosie said. “Of course, seeing as he hasn’t had a chance to develop an immunity to that chili they fix, he might be suffering a bad case of indigestion tomorrow. Hey,” Rosie added, catching the expression on Junior’s face, “I’m just kidding. Kidding, you know? Come on, honey, talk. Get it out.”

“I’m not going to cry,” Junior mumbled as menacingly as possible. “No more crying.”

“Aw, you been crying? You got your period or something?”

Junior didn’t answer. Damn it, it just wasn’t right for one person to know another so well. Of course, any one of her relatives would have jumped to the same conclusion. They knew her habits, her business—they evidently knew more about her life than she did.

“Yeah. I got my period. I’m not pregnant, Rosie.”

Rosie regarded her for a minute, a tiny worry wrinkle knitted between her arched brows. “No, huh? Are you disappointed?”


It wasn’t until Rosie asked the question that Junior realized she’d forgotten to wonder how she felt about the baby itself. All she’d been thinking of was Griff, loving him, losing him.

“I’m…fine, I guess, about the baby,” she said slowly. “I mean, I must not have really been ready for having a baby, because even when I thought I was pregnant—oh, yeah, I guess I might as well tell you, I thought I was pregnant for a few days—honestly, I wasn’t thinking about baby stuff, you know, diapers and day care and all that. Does that sound awful?” she added anxiously. “I love babies, really, I do. I just can’t picture me having one yet.”

“Sounds perfectly normal to me,” Rosie shrugged. “I didn’t think about any of that stuff until I actually gave birth. Kind of a shocker, it was. But honey, you seem awful broke up here. And what with, well, you know, your domestic situation, why don’t you tell me what happened. Did he know?”

Junior shook her head, her curls tumbling around her face in the humidity. “I didn’t tell him that I thought I was…you know. But I think he figured it out. I mean, I told him I was never late, and you know he’s kind of a detail guy, probably had it on his calendar or something but—hey, do you think the fact we didn’t talk about it means something? Like maybe we couldn’t communicate and that, uh…?”

Rosie rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you want to go analyzing your relationship. Big trap. Believe me. All those polls and questionnaires in women’s magazines—not worth the paper they’re printed on. What’s important is what you
feel
, honey. What are you feeling?”

“Terrible,” Junior said without hesitation. “Horrible. Like a squashed bug.”

“Mmmm. Thought so. How does he feel?”

“Griff? How should I know?”

Rosie clucked disapprovingly at her. “Come on, smart girl, you can do better than that. Where’d he take you on Saturday?”

“A wedding. His cousin’s. I met his mom, by the way. She
hated
me.”

Rosie smiled. “So his mother hates you—not the end of the world. She’s
there
. You’re
here
.”