Celia's Puppies (44 page)

No matter.

If she was done with Pete’s, done with
Jacob, done with her stupid siblings, she'd just move. Maybe she’d
move to Paris where Claire Martins lived; or Costa Rica to see
Mama; or London; or Istanbul.

“
Do you know what language
they speak in Turkey, Joe?” She set down Joe’s regular
breakfast.

“
Turkish?”

Jill scowled. She didn’t speak Turkish.

Lost in thought, she scrubbed the counter.
After all, it was her last night in Denver. She’d need a good
reference in...

Dubai! She’d heard there were a lot of jobs
in Dubai. Someone said they even speak English there. She could
probably get an office job in Dubai. Yeah, Dubai. Jill smiled to
herself. She’d move to Dubai.

She just wasn’t sure where Dubai was.

Looking up, she saw Jacob through the
windows. He’s probably walking home from some OTHER girl’s house.
She scrubbed the counter with all her might.

“
Hi,” Jacob said. “You
look very busy.”

“
God, Jacob, you smell,”
Jill said.

“
Sorry,” he said. “I
haven’t had a chance to shower. It’s been an awful day.”

“
Yeah?” Jill tried for
cold. He had emailed her, called six times and sent her about fifty
texts. She paid no attention. If he wanted to break up with her, he
was going to have to do it in person. “Excuse me.”

She went to refill coffee at her tables.
When she got back to the counter, he was nowhere in sight.

Chicken.

“
He’s in the bathroom
cleaning up,” another server said as she walked by. “He said you
should wait for him.”

She went to the back to clock out. She had
packed a small bag of her possessions so she could go to Sandy’s
house after her shift. She would move the rest of her things
tomorrow, when she didn’t have to work. Coming from the back, she
saw Jacob waiting for her.

“
Carry your bag, Miss?” he
asked.

“
Listen, you don’t have to
be so nice to me,” she said. “I know what’s going on.”

“
What’s going
on?”

“
You’re breaking up with
me because I can’t marry you.”

“
I am?”

“
Well, I saved you the
trouble. I’m moving in with Sandy. In fact, I’m staying there
tonight.” Seeing his amused face, she pressed on. “I’ll move Katy
and my things tomorrow. You won’t ever have to worry about me or
Katy again. You can go to your fancy parties with your new
girlfriend.”

“
My new
girlfriend?”

“
Right,” Jill nodded at
her own logic. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a bus to
catch.”

Jacob grabbed her arms and kissed her lips.
Shocked, Jill sputtered.

“
Do you want to marry me?”
he asked. “Or do you want to move to Dubai?”

“
How did
you...?”

“
Psychic.” He pointed at
his chest.

“
That’s very
rude.”

“
You’re right. It’s very
rude,” he said. “Is it as rude as not answering your boyfriend’s
pages or phone calls?”

“
I’m not going to make
this easy for you,” Jill said. Sticking her defiant chin out, she
added, “If you want to break up with me, you have to do it in
person.”

He looked away from her then shook his
head.

“
You’re the most
impossible person I’ve ever met,” he said.

“
Well,
you’re...”

He kissed her again.

“
Do you want to marry
me?”

Her eyes searched his face. She nodded. He
stepped back. Holding out his hand, he said:

“
Come with me.”

Chapter Fifty-Four
To us?

Saturday early morning – 3:15 A..M.
Pete’s Kitchen

Without thinking, Jill took his hand. Jacob
picked up her overnight bag. They were near the door when the
manager touched Jacob’s arm.

“
See you in an hour?” the
manager asked. He held the door open for them.

“
Hour and a half will
work,” Jacob said.

“
See you then.”

Jill jerked to a stop outside the door.

“
Didn’t you read the
postcard? I can’t marry you! I can’t. I can’t. I can’t I can’t.”
Jill’s voice rose with each ‘I can’t’. “I’m not some prize or
trophy that you win. You can’t just decide something is going to
happen, then...”

Jacob dropped her bag to hold her close to
him. She batted at him with her fists but he held on. When her
storm of anger had passed, he let go, stepped back, picked up the
bag and held out his hand to her.

“
Come with me.”

Flushed from her anger, she looked him up
and down. She shook her head, crossed her arms and looked away from
him.

“
Come with me. I’ll
explain everything. But not here. Not on Colfax with an audience.
I’d rather not be after-hours entertainment for the hookers and
drunks.”

Her head turned to look at him. She let out
a breath and took his hand. He lifted her hand to his lips and
kissed the fleshy part between her thumb and index finger. They
walked to the corner, then Jacob turned right. Jill stopped
walking.

“
Where are we going?” Jill
asked. “Aren’t we going home?”

“
I came straight from
work,” Jacob said. “I have a Lipson truck in the parking lot. Plus,
I’d like a chance to talk to you before we get to the
Castle.”

He opened the passenger side door of the
truck then helped her into the big truck. Going around the bed of
the truck, he allowed himself a moment of ‘What the fuck does a guy
have to do?’ When he reached the cab, he was calm again. He started
the truck. Leaving the parking lot, he turned right on Colfax.

“
Where are we
going?”

“
We’re going to the
workshop,” Jacob said. “I want a chance to talk to you without
being interrupted.”

Jill leaned back against the seat. Jacob was
the most thoughtful person she knew. She should have assumed he’d
want to talk to her alone and in quiet, but... Her mind was so
paranoid, so frightened, so fragile. Pressing her head against the
side window, she wondered if she wanted Jacob to leave so she could
go back to her familiar world of suffering and loneliness.

“
Hey.” Jacob’s voice broke
her spinning thoughts. “We just take life one moment at a
time.”

He stopped the truck at the stoplight at
York and held his hand out to her. She smiled at him.

“
I’m sorry I get so
crazy,” she said.

“
I think we are all crazy
sometimes. I wasn’t exactly sane this morning. I’m grateful you
didn’t give up.”

She leaned over for a quick kiss before they
went through the light, only to stop at Josephine, the very next
street, and the very next stoplight. He leaned over to kiss her.
They became so caught up in each other that he didn’t notice the
green light until the car behind them beeped their horn.

Jill giggled.

Holding hands, they drove past East High
School to turn left on Detroit Street. He turned into the workshop
driveway then drove into an open spot in the garage.

“
Where’s Mike’s Bronco?”
Jill asked.

“
He likes to drive it. The
paparazzi don’t recognize it when he’s in town,” Jacob said. “It’s
at the Castle.”

Jacob hopped out of the cab and went around
to help Jill climb from the truck. They walked hand in hand through
the stacks of wood and machinery to the small office in the back.
Jacob situated Jill on the couch, then took a bottle of vintage Dom
Perignon from a tiny refrigerator. He opened the bottle and poured
two glasses.

“
To us?”

“
To us,” she said. Taking
a sip of her champagne, she said, “It’s important to me that you
understand why I can’t marry you.”

“
Ok,” Jacob
said.

“
My Mama’s life is in
danger. People want to kill her. And now she wants to come to my
wedding,” Jill said. “She knows all about you because I tell her
everything in my journals. Well, that, and her husband was at the
big party. You know where Trevor...”

Jacob watched Jill’s face. As she spoke, she
seemed to age in front of him. Her hands rubbed at her face as if
to rub out her youth and beauty in order to confront the ugliness
that burdened her.

“
Well, I say her husband
because I was really raised by my Dad. But I don’t know if he was
my Dad,” Jill said. “I asked Mom once, but she never said. You
should see them together – Mama and her husband – they are perfect,
so in love, even now all these decades later. You can just tell.
Like your Mom and Sam. I guess I want that but...”

“
I think you have that,”
Jacob said.

“
I hope so.”

Smiling, Jill took a drink of her champagne
for courage.

“
My Dad wasn’t a very nice
man,” Jill said. “He was angry. A lot. He’d yell and hit us. He’d
just get mad. Soon he’d scream and hit us. He was meanest to Mike.
If Mama got in the way, he’d hit her. That was too horrible for any
of us to tolerate. We’d make it so he hit us and not
her.

“
Our Mama was one hundred
percent for us... Is one hundred percent for us. But he… acted like
he hated all of us. Or… I don’t know. Mike wants me to talk to some
friend of his about Dad and Mama and her husband but… I feel
ashamed even speaking any of this out loud. Even to you. Even here
where it’s so safe and quiet.

“
I feel like I’m betraying
my Mama.”

Jill shook her head. She got up from the
couch and went to the water cooler. She poured two Dixie cups full
of water and brought them back. Jacob thanked her when she handed
him a cup.

“
I’ve always thought your
mother must have been wonderful. You’re so amazing with Katy. And
Katy’s not easy.”

“
No, Katy’s not,” Jill
said. “Dad used to say Mama allowed us to be difficult. Mama
allowed us to be… us. I get letters from her… every month or so.
After I send her a journal. Did I say that? I send my journals to
Mama.”

Jill fell silent. For all of her words, all
of her thoughts, it was in her deep sigh that Jacob heard the
weight of her pain and loss.

“
So, you see, I can’t
marry you.”

Jacob nodded.

“
Do you remember Delphie
making me meet some new teacher they wanted to hire?”

“
You were pissed,” Jill
nodded. “You’d been working sixteen, seventeen hour days and
Delphie wanted you to meet some teacher. But you never say ‘no’ to
Delphie.”

“
Uh, I do too.”

“
You don’t,” Jill said.
“It’s just how you are with her.”

“
Anyway, the teacher was
your mother, Anjelika Katherine,” Jacob said.

“
WHAT?”
Jill’s eyes welled with tears. “But it’s not safe. Oh Jacob,
she
will
get herself killed! You must have said no.
Please tell me you sent her home.”

Jacob picked up Jill’s hands and kissed
them.

“
Let me finish,
please?”

Jill nodded. He poured her more champagne.
In her nervousness, she drank down her full glass.

“
You remember Samantha
Hargreaves, right?”

“
She’s my lawyer for the
Trevor crap,” Jill said.

“
You remember her
boyfriend, life partner, whatever? She calls him Art but everyone
else calls him...”

“
Raz,” Jill said. “He’s
gorgeous. They make a beautiful couple. Together, they’re like
living, breathing, moving art.”

“
Right,” Jacob said. “He
works for the government. He went to Russia to speak to your
grandfather when Mike and Val were going to be on Oprah. He was
able to come to an arrangement with the Bratva… the Russian Mob.
They agreed to leave you and your family alone. While Raz was
there, he found out that your grandfather had been offered a woman
who looked very much like his daughter. Anyway, that’s how they
found out what my step-sister was up to.”

“
She was going to sell me
to the Russian Mob,” Jill said. “Wow, I thought that was just a…
story. And Katy?”

“
Same thing,” Jacob
said.

“
But why would he want us
when he rejected Mama?”

“
He’s old and lonely,
mostly,” Jacob said. “Your mother was his favorite child. After Raz
left, and Mike and Val were on Oprah, your Grandfather went to
visit with your mother. They had a kind of reunion… painful, but
good. Your mother’s no longer in danger.”

“
Why didn’t she tell me?”
Jill asked.

“
She had an idea that you
were mad at her, that all of her children were angry with her. She
wanted to meet her grandchildren before her children told her she
couldn’t. Are you angry with her?”

“
No,” Jill said. “I’m not
mad. I’ve told her that we aren’t angry. I think she’s angry with
herself.”

“
That’s what I thought,”
Jacob said. “I hired her to work at the Marlowe school.”

“
WHAT?”

“
Remember Katy talking
about the pretty lady who has her exact name?” Jacob
asked.

“
She even knew Katy’s
bedtime song.” Jill nodded. “Little Grey Wolf. It’s a common
Russian lullaby so...”