Fools Paradise (14 page)

Bobby Junior raised a hand with a stiffened forefinger. Bobbyjay grabbed for it. The hand went down.

“Listen you,” Bobby Junior said, and looked over his shoulder. The patriarchs were still in a private confab, tucking their heads together like bosom buddies. Air seethed through Bobby Junior's nostrils. “You want to know what the old men are sayin'?”

Both Daisy and Bobbyjay looked at him.

“They're sayin' how Marty Dit is gonna run against Bobby Senior for the Executive Board. Again. That's how smooth and greasy he is. Smile and throw a party and everything and now he's stabbin' Bobby Senior in the back, runnin' for the Board for the hunnerth time.”

Bobbyjay's Dad jabbed a forefinger on Daisy's shoulder and Bobbyjay restrained himself from breaking it off and stuffing it down his father's throat.

“Well, you can tell your smartass grandfather from me that he's never won yet and he ain't gonna. Not this year, not ever. You hear me?”

Daisy leaned forward and jabbed Bobby Junior's stomach with her own forefinger. “You're a patsy. And you always try to roll it downhill on Bobbyjay to make him the patsy. And he still comes up smelling better than you do.” Her finger went into Bobby Junior's stomach to the second knuckle. “Two wrongs,” she said, poking forcefully, “do not make a right.”

Bobbyjay tugged at her sleeve. “Let's go. We got smelt to fry.” He dragged her off while his father's face turned purple.

It said a lot about the betrothal fish fry that Daisy was grateful to go back to work on Tuesday. She wore her tan Oshkosh overalls and her new steel-toed sneakers and she carried a clear plastic water bottle in her her new toolbox. Bobbyjay grinned when he saw the overalls.

“Now you're gettin' there. Lose the makeup and you'll look like a stagehand.”

“I'm not a dyke and I won't look like one.”

“Nobody,” he said, looking at her tee-shirt where it pushed up out of the top of the overalls, “will ever take you for a dyke.”

“So I'm setting a new fashion for girl stagehands. What is it with men and makeup? I get more grief over that than anything else.”

“Badger, right.”

Man, Bobbyjay never forgot anything. “Aw, he's just a lecher.”

“He's that, but I think he was right.” With obvious reluctance Bobbyjay added, “He was looking out for you.”

“He was right to mash me?” She tried to sound bitter, but it was hard. With Bobbyjay's kisses still hot in her memory, she felt very female today. But he had a nerve reminding her of Badger's kiss.

Then she remembered that Weasel might or might not try for her butt again at the Opera House. That was queasy-making. Good thing Weasel had been warned off...by Badger. She rubbed her palms on the thighs of her tight tan overalls.

I'm just meat to these guys. Badger knows it. Bobbyjay knows it. I'm meat to them, too, only really they both see me as Goomba's meat.

Yuck.

But Goomba doesn't guard me from Tony. Or those jerks in the train station bar or the Opera House cafeteria. Goomba feels like he has to remind me that I'm his meat.

She wanted to throw up.

Bobbyjay broke into her thoughts. “I'll mention how you kicked Badger in the balls to Dydee Grant.”

“Gee, thanks. Is Dydee liable to put a move on me?”

“He's a major gossip.”

So Bobbyjay wanted to spread the word that she was off limits. “Why do you call him Dydee?”

“Ate too much for dinner and crapped his pants at work one day.”

“Omigod.” Daisy looked down at her McDonald's pancakes with dismay. “How long ago was that?”

“I dunno, twelve years.”

“And he puts up with it?”

“Could be worse.”

“And we want him gossiping about me kicking Badger.” She snorted. “I guess at least then they might stop calling me Ditsy Daisy.”

Bobbyjay turned away from the windshield to grin at her and her heart lightened. “What do you want 'em to call you?”

“So you can spread it around?” She considered this. “Boy. It hadn't occurred to me they would hang a new nickname on me.”

“Trust me.”

“I'll have to think one up,” she said.

The light changed and he drove on. “Think quick. This week is pretty much your best shot at making it happen.”

She thought of her makeup, which seemed to freak everybody. “Vampira.”

“Taken.”

“What? There's a lady stagehand named Vampira? Who?”

“Well, they call her Elvira. She won't want you poaching. Stud-lip collitch chick, came into town couple-ten years ago, very goth. She don't dress that way any more but she answers to the name.”

That sobered Daisy. Even if she never wore the crop top again, she might be thought of throughout the entire Local as a slut. “This is serious.”

“Yup.” Bobbyjay squealed the Jeep into the ramp. “Think about it.”

“I think I'll stick with Ditsy Daisy.”

“That's why guys take what nickname they're given and be grateful. Devil you know.”

She took a deep breath. “Lead me to him.”

Bobbyjay was pleased when Daisy took lunch with the rest of the crew at Herm's across the river. The crew gathered in the scarred booths, eating double dogs with everything and shooting the shit.

She swaggered to his booth.
That's my girl,
he thought proudly.
Far as these guys know anyway.

Weasel stood up. “Uh, I'll move.” He shoved into the other side of the booth, next to Dydee Grant.

Bobbyjay scooted over. “What'd you get, Killer?”

She gave him a quizzical look. “Double dog.”

Dydee rose to the bait. “Killer? Term of endearment?”

Bobbyjay just smiled. Daisy smiled back at him. Clever girl.

“She kicked Badger in the nuts last week,” Weasel said, doing the rest of Bobbyjay's work for him.

Dydee's big trap fell open. “No! What'd you do that for?”

Daisy raised her eyebrows over her dog. “Oh,” she said around a huge mouthful, “I thought I would.”

“Shit!” Dydee shook his head. “Wally Clemson tried that in nineteen-ninety-six. He hadda leave town.”

“Isn't that my cousin Wesley's father?” she said.

Bobbyjay wanted to suggest that she keep her mouth shut for a while longer—it was still her first month on the job. But he couldn't think how to say it without annoying her. It was bad enough Weasel and Dydee were pandering to her, acting all impressed because she threw her weight around. She mustn't get the idea that it was okay as a general rule.

“I dunno, who's Wesley?” Dydee said.

Daisy opened her mouth and Bobbyjay trod gently on her foot.

A hand grabbed Daisy's arm and yanked her clean out of the booth. “Are you trying to bring shame on your family?”

Bobbyjay looked up.

Her hair-oily cousin Tony Ditorelli glowered at Daisy. He shook her arm. “Sit with your cousins, not a fuckin' Morton.”

She pulled free, still chewing her dog.

Bobbyjay half-stood and balled his fists.

“Tony-Tony,” Daisy said in a sweet little baby-girl voice.

Shit, she's going to ruin it all. They'll call her Ditsy Daisy and hit on her for the rest of her life.

“Whut,” Tony said.

In the same babyish voice she asked, “How long has it been since I kicked you in the nuts?”

Tony actually flinched. Then he looked at the table full of stagehands. They went haw-haw. He turned red.

Bobbyjay sat down, grinning.

“When was it, Tony?” Daisy said, her voice sharpening. “If you forgot, maybe it's time I did it again.”

“Uh, week ago Saturday,” Tony blurted. Sweat formed on his forehead.

Daisy leaned forward. “I'm wearing steel-toed shoes,” she whispered.

Weasel and Dydee sniggered.

Tony backed up a pace. “Yeah, well,” he said loudly, pointing at Bobbyjay. “You watch your fuckin' back, buddy. That little douchebag Bobbert has a big mouth, know what I mean?” He jabbed his finger. “So just watch it!”

After which lame display of macho he stomped to the counter and paid for his lunch.

“Bobbert?” Daisy said. “What's he done now?”

Bobbyjay groaned in spirit. “Something. All I have to do is wait.” Someone would tell him. And then he'd have to fix it.

“Tony's just saving face,” Daisy said, patting Bobbyjay on the knee.

“He won't hassle you at home?”

“Oh, probably,” she said blithely.

“Does he do what...what Badger did?”

She dimpled. “Not so far. Badger moves quicker than most.”

“Ain't that the truth,” Weasel said with admiration, and Dydee grunted. “One time Badger and King Dave bet they could sleep with all the waitresses at Corbett's within a mon—”

Bobyjay kicked him in the shin under the table and the conversation turned to other things.

It was three hours before Bobbyjay thought of his cousin Bobbert again. The head carpenter, John Tannyhill, came to him in the electrics room where he was relamping kliegls.

“Where's that dipshit cousin of yours, Bobbyjay?”

“Which one?” Dydee said and guffawed.

Bobbyjay had a bad feeling. “Bobbert? Haven't seen him all day.”

“Neither have I. Tony Dit said he sneaked off after lunch but I don't believe it.”

“Me neither,” Dydee said, after a look at Bobbyjay's face. “Hey, I hear you nailed Killer Ditorelli, way to go.”

“I'll take a look around,” Bobbyjay said, his heart sinking.

He checked the stage left coves, where Bobbert and Raybob had been known to smoke a joint from time to time. No Bobbert. No Bobbert in the piston room, although Raybob was down there playing cards and losing.

“Yo, did your brother skate out to join the Shania in at the Arena?”

“Am I my brother's keeper?” Raybob said without looking up from his cards.

No, but apparently I am,
Bobbyjay thought. He was doing it again. His relatives were cutting up and he was running after them like a mother hen. Since the smelt in the Targa, he'd been waiting for another shoe to drop.

He plodded back upstairs to the room where stagehands kept their roadboxes. Tony Dit bustled out of the room with a power drill in his hand just as he entered.

“Tony, you seen Bobbert?” Bobbyjay said, but Tony shouldered past him, leaving fresh sawdust on his sleeve.

A muffled squeaking came to his ears.

Bobbyjay thought a moment. He took a tour of the room. Bobbert's roadbox wasn't where it usually sat.

Eventually he spotted it back in the corner, jammed behind two other roadboxes.

Why would Bobbert have holes in the top of his roadbox?

Bobbyjay remembered the drill in Tony's hand—with a big paddle bit on it.

He leaped over two boxes and shoved Bobbert's box into an open space. Fresh wood shavings stuck to the wheels.

“Mmmm mmm-mm mmmmm!”

The box was padlocked. Bobbyjay raided an unlocked box for a prybar and busted off the lock. Sure enough, there was his cousin, folded up inside with duct tape across his mouth.

Bobbyjay sighed. “What did you do?”

Bobbert glared at him over the duct tape.

Bobbyjay ripped the tape off and waited for the swearing to stop.

“I din't do nothin',” the kid insisted. “That motherfucker Tony Dit sandbagged me and stuffed me into my own toolbox!”

“What did you do?” Bobbyjay said again.

Bobbert sulked. “I only laughed 'cause the word is going around, Ditsy Daisy kicked him in the nuts. She nuts all her cousins. You should of seen Badger's face, you'd-a laughed too.”

“They're journeymen. You're an apprentice.”

“They're fuckin' Ditorellis.”

“Don't you think they owe you one anyway?” Bobbyjay said, lowering the level of his rhetoric. “After the fish in the car?”

“They don't know about that.”

“You sure?” Bobbyjay squinted. “You didn't taunt them or anything?”

“You were supposed to hush it up,” Bobbert said.

Something snapped inside Bobbyjay. He leaned over his young cousin and put a heavy hand on his shoulder. “When did you taunt them?”

“At the fish fry,” Bobbert grumbled. “Marty Dit was being such a clown. I din't say we did it or anything,” he added defensively.

Bobbyjay shut his eyes. “Remember how Pop said we should keep it quiet because of the election?”

“I remember you said it. You're not the boss of me.”

Bobbyjay just stared at him. How many times had he covered for their dads when they did something primo? Bobbert was just an apprentice. Bobbyjay stared ahead into a good forty years of pulling Bobbert's chestnuts out of the fire, forty years of taking the heat and hanging his head and apologizing for being born into this family. And who knew what Bobbert's brother Raybob would add to the mix?