After Hours Bundle (11 page)

He shrugged. “I know how arrogant that sounds. Sorry. But it's true. There hasn't been a shortage of women in my life, most of them annoying and with no identities of their own. They want me to validate them somehow, and that disgusts me. I don't want to be used—not for money, not for status, not for an identity. I guess that's the reason I'm still single and most of my old teammates are married.” Troy changed the subject, unwilling to dwell on the fact that he no longer had money or status. Now he was just a guy who mowed his own lawn, like everyone else.

“So why did you come down here from Yankeeland?”

She rolled onto her back in the water and stared up at the stars. “To get away from the stupid, lying bastard whom I almost married.”

“Care to share any details?”

“B-league hockey player, steroid user, gambler, loser. Replaced the stone in my engagement ring with a “nicer” one, a big honking CZ. But I knew about his gambling debts and figured it out.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah. The funny thing is, I never even wanted a diamond in the first place. I'm not really into that stuff. But Eddie insisted. I think he didn't want to look bad in front of his friends. Of course, he ended up looking worse than he could have imagined—though a couple of them called me a bitch and couldn't understand why, if I never wanted a rock in the first place, I'd be bothered by a fake one. Eddie drove around with a bumper sticker on his Saab after that—‘Why buy her a diamond? She won't live forever.'”

“God. The guy sounds like a real charmer.”

“Irresistible. I pine after him to this day,” Peg said dryly. She rolled to her stomach again and dove under the water. When she surfaced again, she told Troy, “It ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me. I love it here, the kooky mix of people, the internationalism, the sun and water. You've got the beach bums in their flip-flops, the show-offs dripping diamonds and designer duds, the students with their backpacks, the moms with their toddlers and the old guys with their cigars and Guayabera shirts.” She swam down the length of the pool, doing an easy sidestroke.

On the return lap, she continued. “What I love most, though, is being part of After Hours. We have a little community there, whacky as it may be. It's our corner of the world where we get to have fun working and make other people feel good. Transform them sometimes, other times just maintain their sanity in a crazy existence…a manicure can lift a woman's spirits for the rest of her day. Or a great haircut. We get models coming in here on their way to the clubs, but we also get exhausted moms who wouldn't make it through their weeks without a massage. I have one who can only afford it every six weeks or so, on the change she collects in a jar. She can't tip much, but I adore her. It makes
me
feel good to make
her
feel good.”

Troy had an odd expression on his face and his gaze had grown distant. “Peggy,” he said, “I need to tell you—” He broke off as the phone rang inside the screen porch. “Who the hell is calling me at 1:00 a.m.? This can't be good.”

He hoisted himself over the edge of the pool and strode, wet and naked, toward the porch. She was riveted by his body, sleek and silvery in the moonlight. The broad shoulders, the long lean legs, the powerful musculature of the whole.
Maybe I hate jocks and football players, but I sure do like to look at them nude.

“Hello?” Troy answered the phone. “Samantha, what's wrong?” He swore. “Call the cops!” He listened a moment more. “You know what? There comes a time when you just can't worry about that. He's doing it to himself. Call them.” He swore again. “I'll be right there.”

“Troy?”

“I have to go. My asshole brother-in-law has just shown up at my sister's house drunk. He's trying to kick in the door, and she won't call the cops because of the kids. Anyway, it's still half his property, so I don't know what the cops could do unless he's actually threatening her or them. Right now all he's trying to do is
see
them.”

“I'll come with you.” She was out of the pool already, and hunting for her clothes on the porch.

“You don't want to get involved in this.”

“The girls—maybe I can help with them.”

“Sam's there, and she's their mother.” He was already headed for the door, keys in hand.

Peggy ran after him, half-dressed. “She may not be able to handle her own emotions, much less theirs!”

“Fine. Whatever.” Even under these circumstances, he opened the passenger-side door for her, though he almost threw her inside. They were squealing out of his driveway in seconds.

She finished dressing in the car, and pulled her hair back into a ponytail with a rubber band she found in her tote. Troy's face had set into hard lines, his jaw clenched.

“Does your brother-in-law have a gun?”

He shook his head. “I don't think so. Christ, I hope not.”

“Has he ever raised a hand to your sister?”

“His specialty has always been punching holes through drywall and occasionally turning furniture into projectiles. He's never actually hit her or the kids. But he's drunk, and he's stupid, and I don't like this situation at all. He disappeared on them seven months ago, and I wish like hell he'd stayed gone.”

Peggy echoed his sentiment. As she clung to the seat while they careened around corners and broke the speed limit, all she could think about was Danni and Laura and their brother, the helpless child victims in this situation.

She felt a soul-deep rage at men who terrorized and hurt the women and children in their lives, and quite frankly she hoped that Troy, who appeared to be one of the good guys, would beat the living snot out of his brother-in-law. Maybe it wouldn't solve anything, but it would sure be satisfying.

“S
TAY HERE
,” Troy ordered Peggy. He erupted out of the car and shot over the sidewalk, up the steps and into the house he'd parked in front of. It was a neat little bungalow on a postage-stamp lawn, painted a soft blue with white trim. A familiar Nissan Pathfinder sat in the driveway, the car that Samantha used to pick up the twins from powder-puff practice. Blocking it in was a shiny black Dodge Ram truck with inordinately big tires; Peg surmised that it belonged to Sam's husband.

Peggy got out of the car despite Troy's instructions and stood in front of the place, her heart feeling as if it were hurling itself against the wall of her chest. Were Danni and Laura okay? Was their brother okay? Was Sam okay? How violent had this altercation gotten while she and Troy were driving over?

A lower left panel of the door was splintered, leaving a gaping hole, but there was no damage around the lock or the jamb.

It looked to Peggy as if Sam had let her husband—ex-husband?—inside, maybe to get him calmed down, or maybe so that the neighbors wouldn't call the police.

From inside the house she heard shouting. She moved to a window and tried to peer in through the half-closed blinds, making out Troy's big body near an overturned armchair. He had another shaggy-haired man in a lock, his forearm across the guy's throat. “Get the hell out of here and don't come back, or I will pulverize you and then snap your neck like a chicken bone.”

“Troy, don't hurt him!” Samantha, blond hair wild and cheeks tearstained, cowered in a far corner of the room, wearing nothing but boxer shorts and a T-shirt.

The smaller man called her something vile and told Troy to do something anatomically impossible. Peggy winced and hoped the kids weren't hearing this, but she knew they must be. Where were they? Hiding under their beds, poor things?

“You can't keep me off my own property, you son of a bitch!” The shaggy man snarled, trying to twist free. “And you can't stop me from seeing my kids.”

Troy's answer was to haul the man by the neck to the door. “You can see your kids during reasonable hours, when you're sober. In the meantime, you piece of shit, get away from them and get away from my sister.”

The guy scrabbled ineffectively against Troy's grip, kicked backward and even tried to turn and bite him. “I'll file assault charges, damn you!”

“You do what you have to do. The cops can come out here and take a look at the door you were kicking in. They can ask Sam and your kids a few questions. And they can inspect you for nonexistent bruises. Believe me, I'd like to take your ass apart, but it's not going to do my sister any good to have me in jail.”

Troy wrestled him off the porch and into the yard. Then he released his neck and gave him a kick in the pants that sent him sprawling. “Walk back to whatever roach motel you crawled out of.”

“Give me my keys, you prick!”

“Oh, sure. Frankly, I'd love to see you wrap your car around a telephone pole, but in the state you're in, you'd take some innocent person with you. You're not getting behind the wheel, you're walking. And you start
now.
” Troy took a menacing step toward him, and the guy stumbled to his feet. Still cursing, he lurched down the street.

Peggy expelled a breath she hadn't been aware she was holding. “Your sister has got to file a restraining order first thing in the morning.”

“Yeah. You okay?”

She nodded. “I don't know if she is, though.” She gestured toward the house. “And there's no way the children could have slept through this.”

Samantha was huddled in a corner, crying. Troy ran to her, knelt and put his hands on her shoulders. “Sam, it's okay. Sam, where are the kids?”

She raised a red, blotchy face. “Bathroom. I told them to lock themselves in the bathroom.” She wiped her nose on the back of her hand and let Troy help her up. “Coach—Peggy—what are you doing here?”

Sam headed for the hallway and the bathroom, her children her first priority, but embarrassment crept into her demeanor.

“Peggy and I were, uh, having coffee when you called.”

Sam nodded, then knocked on the bathroom door. “Derek? Danni? Laura? It's okay now. He's gone. Uncle Troy is here.”

It was Danni who opened it, her face pale. They'd all been crying. Sam and Troy hugged and kissed each one of them, and Peggy tried to swallow the lump in her throat.

Later, she made them hot chocolate in the kitchen while Troy persuaded Sam to give a statement to the police.

“It's really hard when parents don't get along and they split up,” Peggy told the kids. “Mine did the same thing.”

“Did your dad go away for almost a year and then show up yelling and kick in your door?” Laura asked.

Peggy put her arm around Laura and pulled her close. “No. My dad just got married to somebody else. But it sucked, because he also got a whole new family, and we were afraid he liked that one better.”

“Did he?” It was Derek who asked this question.

I have to be careful how I answer this.
“Um, no. Not better. But my dad was a very athletic guy, kind of like your uncle Troy. And this new family of his had a boy who was also very athletic. My brother, Hal, was a competitive swimmer, but my dad liked football. So he went to Alan's games a lot.”

“Alan was the new boy?” Danni asked.

“Yes.”

“What about your games? Did he go to those?”

Peggy ruffled Derek's hair. “Not so much. I was a girl, and he didn't think my games were that important.”

“That's really unfair. He hurt your feelings.”

Peggy nodded. “He did. But I don't think he meant to. Just like I don't think
your
dad meant to scare you tonight. He just drank too much whiskey or something and felt guilty for going away. So, not thinking straight, he decided he wanted to see you at one o'clock in the morning. And of course that's way past your bedtime.”

“I hate him,” said Derek, pushing his hot chocolate away. “He said really bad things to my mom when she wouldn't open the door.”

“Sometimes people say things they don't mean.” Peggy prayed she was handling this right.

“I think he meant them. Even without whiskey he used to be a jerk.” Derek's eyes were hard and angry. “I was glad when he went off.”

Laura and Danni didn't say anything. But the guilt on their faces spoke for them. Peggy wished she could say something, anything, to comfort these children. “It's okay to be mad at your dad,” she began. “It doesn't mean that you don't still love him.”

“I don't want to love him,” Danni blurted.

Peggy stroked her hair. “Yeah, but you probably do.”

“He doesn't deserve it.”

Peggy sighed and stroked the girl's cheek. “Well, that's the funny thing about love. You can't help how you feel about people, whether they deserve it or not.”

 

T
ROY EVENTUALLY CALLED
a cab for Peggy, since he didn't feel he could leave Sam and the kids alone. Mr. Creep might return. “I'm sorry the evening ended like this,” he said. “And I'm sorry I can't take you back to your car personally. You make the driver wait until you're inside with the doors locked, okay?”

“I'll be fine.”

“I mean it.”

“Thanks for dinner, even if I embarrassed you by falling off the bench.”

He gave her a tired grin. “Hey, I could care less. It's not me who showed my blue panties to Benito.”

She winced.

“I had a great time earlier tonight. I want to see you again…. There's something we should talk about, though.” He passed a hand over his eyes, rubbing at them with the heel of it.

“Troy. You deal with your family situation and don't worry about anything else for the time being. You know where to find me once things are more settled. After Hours isn't going anywhere.”

He didn't say anything for a long moment. “Yeah.”

The cab pulled up and Troy handed her into the backseat, passing some cash to the driver once she was settled. “Troy, I can pay my own cab fare….”

He ignored her, gave the cabbie the address and then dropped a quick kiss on her mouth. “See you soon, Peggy-Sue. Don't run off and get married.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fat chance of that. I've seen all I want of domestic bliss tonight.”

 

P
EGGY DIDN
'
T EVEN TRY
to go into her bedroom when she got home, since she knew she couldn't sleep. Her apartment seemed particularly sterile, after the ugly but somewhat endearing geezer furnishings of Troy's place. Peggy sat cross-legged on the pristine taupe carpet and stared at Marly's painting on her wall. The girl on the faux television screen stared back at her, midkick. Her red hair flew in the breeze, her jersey slid askew against her body and her athletic pants were dirtied with smudges. The ultimate tomboy, she didn't look like the kind of girl who'd ever work in a salon and day spa.

Peg twisted her mouth wryly, dug her bare toes into the carpet and started going through the mail she'd grabbed on her way in.

She discarded a flyer encouraging her to buy a house from a man with a smarmy smile, a notification for the previous resident that her cat was due for shots and a department store catalogue filled with all sorts of things she didn't need and couldn't afford.

She did open a couple of bills and a letter from the school where she coached. She scanned it, her disbelief turning to anger.

“What?”
Peggy shouted aloud to the absent principal. “I don't see anything about the
boys'
program being eliminated!” It was the perfect ending to an already miserable evening: her pet project, meant to empower girls and teach them that there were no limits to what they could do, was being flushed.