Cookie Cutter (13 page)

“Can I ask you something?”

Iris’s eyes narrow over at me but she replies with a tentative, “Sure,” anyway.

“Why do you still work for that guy?”

She shrugs it off. “I don’t know.”

I might have answered that question exactly the same way a little while ago, had someone asked me why I was working for my father. The problem back then was, no one bothered asking me. The closest anyone ever got was the secretary assigned to me directly after I was assigned my first solo case at the law firm. I was reading over the summary. I felt sick to my stomach when I saw it was Roy Silkensen I’d be defending. The same Roy Silkensen that my father had gotten off on a technicality a few years before. My admin brought me a glass of water. I downed it in five seconds. When I handed the empty glass back to her she gave me a sympathetic look. I thought she was going to ask me if I was okay, to which I would assure her I was fine but she didn’t ask me anything, she simply told me,

“You don’t look like you belong here.”

She didn’t know how right she was.

“I think you do.” Maybe no one’s asked Iris this question before either, based on the deliberate look on her face right now.

She thinks about it for a minute, then tells me in all frankness, “I guess I don’t feel like there’s much else I can do right now.”

It’s a start.

“What else do you want
to do?”

“Um . . .”

“Come on, Iris, there’s gotta be something you’ve always loved.”

“I’ve always loved Ally.”

She puts it so simply, and it doesn’t surprise me.  She doesn’t include the ex in that equation. I could ask her about it but I don’t want to. Who knows what kind of buttons I might push and I’m not in the mood for ruining her day so I drop it. It’s just as well because just like that, we’re back at my place. When I pull into the driveway, I notice another woman who’s entered my life recently.

“Hey there, Alex,” I call over and wave as I get out of the truck.

“Hey Carter.” She greets me with a huge, kid-like smile. When her eyes flick to Iris and back again that smile fades pretty quickly.

“Iris.”

“Alex.”  Iris sounds about as cold as Alex looks.

I am not touching that situation with a ten foot pole. “Headin’ out?”

Alex smiles for me again but this time, it’s not as meaningful. “Yep, gotta make the big bucks if I wanna stay in
super awesome
Spangler.”

Whoa, the words are laced with sarcasm.

“Why don’t you leave if you hate it here so much?” Iris suggests.

Alex’s expression reflects annoyance and resentment. Her cheeks are turning bright red and her eyes look like they want to kill someone. She barely resembles the woman I met the other day. Her keys jingle as she sets a hand on her hip and glares at Iris. Her sickeningly sweet smile scares me. Not gonna lie.

“Because my
mommy and daddy weren’t made of money. Because when I came to live with my gran, it was only supposed to be temporary until she died and left me this place.” She waves a hand behind her. “And a mortgage and a boatload of
other
bills to pay off in addition to my college tuition.  And with the housing prices skyrocketing like they have, I can’t afford
to just up and move because I hate this shit hole. Now if you’ll excuse me, some of us have to go work our asses off at job number two.”

The shock and awe expression on Iris’s face tells me that not only was she not expecting a comeback of any sort from Alex, but something the tiny spitfire said had hit a nerve.

“You don’t know the first thing about me.”

“Don’t want to either,” Alex says, before flashing me an apologetic look. “See ya Carter.”

I wave but don’t dare say anything. One rant is enough for me.

Iris gathers herself and starts to go. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Your parents?” I blurt it out before I can think it over. I mean do I really want to start a conversation about parental units when I don’t have the first inclination about how to deal with my own?

She still looks angry but she answers anyway. “Dead.”

“The money?” I don’t know why I ask her this one other than the fact that there seems to be so much I still don’t know about her.

“I have no idea where she got that idiotic idea.” She snorts. “I mean does she really think I’d
be here, if . . .”

Iris trails off and closes her eyes, tight.

“Bitch.” She grabs her things from inside the truck.

“Seems nice to me.”

Iris whips her head around and gives me a look of utter disbelief.

“I mean, you know, except for that whole . . . thing she did just did.”

She throws her bag over her shoulder.

“Meg says she’s a stripper.”

“A stripper?”

She cocks an eyebrow. “Have you seen
how she dresses?”

She starts off but I round the truck and keep up easily.

“So you don’t actually
know
that she’s a stripper.”

“Meg says she’s seen her come and go at all hours of the night and not only that, but---”

I slow down a little bit.

“Interesting.”

Iris stops and turns. “What?”

Forget about the irony that Meg is commenting on Alex’s comings and goings.

“Didn’t you just get offended that Alex had made an assumption about you?”

Iris shakes her head, like her thoughts are all muddied. “Well, yeah, but-.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t go making an assumption about her.”

I’ve hurt her feelings. I can tell by the way her shoulders slump and she turns to head home, slower now.

“Listen.” I grab her arm and pull her back around so she’s looking at me. “I don’t want to fight. I just wanted you to have a good day. Don’t fight with me.”

She bows her head a little and nods. “You’re right though.” A hint of guilt twists her mouth up on one end. “What Alex does with her time is really none of my business.”

And this is Iris. Listens to what others say a little too much, but at the core, she’s a good person. I should leave well enough alone. I need to get back home and finish up a few odds and ends. Maybe get some tiling started. Something about being around Iris though . . .

“Hey, what are you up to tonight?”

She sighs and glances back at her house. “I have a bazillion batches of cookies to bake. I was up until midnight last night prepping the dough. Now I’m going to be up until midnight again, baking it.”

I laugh.

“What?”

“A bazzilion, Iris? Really?”

She grants me a smile again, but no words. I’ll take it.

“Want some help?”

“What? Oh,” she waves a hand. “No, thanks, I don’t want to---”

“It’s no trouble. I’ve got a bunch of supplies I need to buy before I can start on my next project and I can’t get any of it tonight anyway.”

She watches me carefully, debating.

“I can’t be home alone and bored; I get in to trouble when I get bored.”

She remembers, I see it in her face, the first day we met, when I was waiting for her in her entry way.

“This is true,” she says, amused, and then, “Okay, come on in.”

As we walk to Iris’s house, I notice a Lexxus Limited whatchajigger pulling around the corner at the far end of Spirit Drive. It stops abruptly before it makes a full turn, then it takes off in the other direction.

Weird.

I make a mental note to keep an eye out for suspicious activity the rest of the evening and then laugh at myself because apparently, I’ve been hanging out with Iris too much.

* * *

A few hours and about fifty-five sugar cookies later,
because I have tasted tested one from each batch,
I can’t really say for sure that I’ve actually helped Iris bake, but it sure is erotic watching her.

She changed as soon as we got inside, into what she very humbly calls her baking clothes, which I suppose means she doesn’t care if she gets anything on them. There’s a few stains, what I can only guess are from previous baking sessions. That’s not what catches my attention the most though. It’s the way the jeans are ripped and torn in places that some might think show a little too much skin and how the blue t-shirt, complete with Cookie Monster and “I heart cookies” on the front has a much deeper “V” in the front than anything else I’ve seen her wear to date. Every time she bends down to put another sheet into the oven, I’m convinced she’s going to catch me ogling her thirty-six B breasts.

I can’t help it. They’re right there for Christ’s sake.

It’s not just her body that makes the way she bakes such an intimate experience, however, it’s the way she rolls the dough she’s kneaded and prodded, eyeing it as though she’s secretly communicating something to it; and how she measures the thickness of it before moving on to cutting her shapes just so. A perfectionist at her craft.

“I’ve got it,” I tell her after she slides another batch into the oven and sets her timer for two minutes less than what any recipe might call for.

She says her mom taught her that trick.

“Got what?” She looks around to take a silent inventory of what’s left to do.

“What you should be doing.”

“What?” She looks at me like I’m being ridiculous but I know people.

The doorbell rings.

Iris the baker.

She hurries off to answer the door and I hop up on to the counter, stealing another un-frosted cookie to taste test. When the front door opens I can’t see who it is but I can hear Iris’s entire demeanor change as she greets her visitor.

“James?”

“Hey Izzie.”

“What are you---?”

He sees me, mid-sentence and eyes me from the other side of Iris. “I saw your lights on, thought I’d stop by and go over the tag renewal stuff with you.”

“Oh.” She turns to come back to the kitchen. As she walks, she licks icing from her fingers and I lick my lips. “Actually, Carter took care of it for me already.”

What can I say? The woman speaks before she thinks, sometimes. And, oh boy, here we go. James’ expression turns from only slightly annoyed with my being in Iris’s home when he drops by unannounced to, what-the-fuck-does-this-guy-think-he’s-doing, taking care of my ex-wife’s problems for her. His fingers twitch beside him and I hope there isn’t a gun in this house that he knows the whereabouts of. I can see the headlines now. Jealous ex-husband douchebag attempts to murder friendly neighbor over crazy cookie baking woman with OCD tendencies. Notice my use of the word,
attempts,
because if
he makes one move on me, I swear to Pete, I will take his ass down.

He walks in, un-invited and as he crosses the threshold, Ally storms into the house, behind him.

“Hey Dad,” she says, running toward the stairs.

“Hey kiddo. Where were you?”

“Study group.”

“Who brought you home?”

Iris turns and answers for her. “A friend. Why so interested, James?”

“I can’t be interested in my daughter?”

“I just wish you were this interested when it comes to visitation.”

“Like she wants to spend time with me when she can go hang out with her buddies, right Ally bear?”

Ally shrugs but remains quiet. I know this language. Hell I invented this language.

“See?” the douchebag ex says to Iris—who also speaks her daughter’s language. The only person without a clue here is the ex.

Ally finishes her ascent up the stairs and Iris looks to me as though she feels the pain her daughter is feeling as she watches her go. Instead of chasing after her, she decides it’s time to get rid of the guy who interrupted my Iris watching.

“I’ve got everything taken care of with the license bureau, James, so . . .”

She smiles a fake smile for him and James gives me a look before he decides he better go. Good decision.

“I’ll . . . catch up with you later then.”

“Okay.” She keeps it short.

“Carter, nice seeing you again.”

I nod.
Wish I could same the same, asshole.
  He leaves and Iris pushes the door shut, keeping still with her head against the jamb for a few moments before getting back to work. She’s quiet though.

“Can you believe that guy?” I throw it out there to try and lighten the mood.

“He’s one of a kind, alright.”  She sweeps the flour on the counter into a nice neat pile. I’m guessing she’s done for the night.

“Where does he get off making that kind of assumption, anyway?”

“James usually comes up with whatever it is he wants to come up with whenever he wants to, whether it’s true or not.”

I know I need to go, she clearly wants to be alone. I’m running out of excuses for hanging out with her. I’m not sure the next time I spontaneously show up at her work to give her a ride will work, considering she’s got her license back. I want to kick myself for getting that taken care of so quickly.
I could ask her out.