Hot and Bothered (14 page)

She was enjoying so many things here, Judith thought. Little things like a job well done and the reward of a long break afterward. She didn’t miss her old life … an empty life. Paul lived this every day, turning a phoenix from the ashes of his former existence. Except for one thing. His daughter. She wondered if now was the time to broach the subject again. Only every time she thought it was, it wasn’t. She decided to wait. She didn’t want anything to break the current mood.

She didn’t count on the telephone.

She was just dozing off when the phone rang. The noise jolted her back to full wakefulness.
Paul tensed for a moment, then swung his legs over the side of the hammock and got up. Judith felt the cool relief replacing his warm body even as the hammock swung harshly in reaction to his leaving.

“I may be seasick when you get back,” she murmured, winding her fingers through the rope weavings to hang on.

Paul stopped the hammock with his hand. “I’ll be back.”

She could hear him answer the telephone through the open patio door. His voice was faint but distinguishable. She smiled when she realized he was talking to his mother. Everything had happened so fast, he’d never said much about his family, and now, living with him like this, she wondered about the rest of them. Would his mother like her? Would she like his mother? She hoped so.

Gradually, it dawned on her that Paul wasn’t saying anything to his mother about his new houseguest. They were talking about what he was doing, that much was clear, but he was leaving out a big chunk of his life. Her. Judith’s stomach got queasy, and she wondered if she was becoming psychic. She had just announced she might get seasick, and not ten minutes later she felt that way. Only worse.

Why wouldn’t he tell his mother about her? Why?

Paul’s voice turned cold. “Mom, I told you
before I can’t go.… You know I would if I could.… You sure as hell know why … I’m not a kid anymore.… She’s better off without me at her Holy Communion. Dammit, anywhere near her!”

His voice rose, then he switched to Spanish. The better to yell at his mother, Judith guessed. She tried to make out the words, but he was far too fluent for her inexperienced ears.

He came outside a few minutes later. “Do you want anything to drink?”

“No thanks.” Politeness dictated she not ask who called, nor what the call was about. Politeness lasted about two seconds. “Who was that on the phone?”

“My mother.” He snorted and sat on a wicker chair. “No matter what they do, they still treat you like a kid.”

“I think that’s their job,” Judith said, smiling at him. He had said something about a Holy Communion. Amanda’s? She decided to ask in a roundabout way. “Are your parents coming to visit you? Is that why your mother called?”

“No.”

The lack of explanation was clear.

She tried again. “Pasadena’s not that far away—”

“It’s a lifetime.” The words were flat, final.

“Okay.” Roundabout wouldn’t work yet, she thought. Not fresh off his mother’s direct approach.

He sighed and leaned back in the chair. “I don’t mean to take out my frustrations on you.”

She nodded, then going as far as she felt she could, she said, “I take it your mother wants you to come to visit.”

“In a way.” He didn’t elaborate. “It’s too hot. I’m going in.”

He didn’t ask her to join him. Instead, he rose and went inside. The last remnants of Judith’s earlier sense of well-being burst. He might share his tools and his job, but he wasn’t sharing his innermost feelings with her. He asked her to stay. He wanted her to care. Maybe he didn’t want her to care too much, so he had an escape route out of their relationship. His daughter and his family were subjects she should be more involved with now. Only she wasn’t to be included.

Judith forced her escalating emotions to calm down. She hadn’t needed to hear the other end of the conversation to know that his mother had been talking about his daughter with him. That would upset him greatly. Judith understood why he didn’t want to talk about it with her, since he was already receiving pressure from his mother. Nothing was wrong at the moment other than temporary motheritis. That had nothing to do with her.

Besides, Paul wasn’t a nineties kind of guy. He wouldn’t open himself emotionally at the drop of a hat. She could be patient. Hadn’t she
been patient for years with her own parents? Too patient maybe, but she knew how to do it.

Only why hadn’t he told his mother about her?

Paul grabbed Miguel and tossed him into the water. The boy went, shrieking happily at the top of his lungs. The rest of the kids clamored for the evening water toss, something that was becoming a routine at the cove.

He shared a smile with Judith as she handed over another kid.

What had happened to his determination to protect himself from love? he wondered. He had no sooner taken that position than he was showering with her, snuggling on the patio hammock, and making love all night, every night. He was failing miserably for a man who wanted to keep his distance. But he couldn’t resist. He had only to look at Judith and he couldn’t resist doing anything and everything with her.

He tossed the child, a girl named Hermosa, and felt her delighted laughter slice through his heart. Amanda
would
love this. He never should have picked up the telephone the other day. He should have let the answering machine take the call. He didn’t need to hear his mother’s opinion, in English or in Spanish, on what he ought to be doing. Why couldn’t she understand? His ex-wife Tracy allowed his parents to see Amanda
occasionally, and his mother reported everything about her to him. That was all he could give to his daughter’s life.

But, God, how he wanted to see her again, to see how she had grown, to hear her laugh.

“Paul, the kids have been tossed at least five times apiece,” Judith said. “They look as exhausted as I feel.”

Paul glanced around at the panting but still-grinning faces. They would go until the end of forever if he let them. “Judith’s right. Game’s over for today.”

The kids groaned and protested. Judith cheered and flopped back into the water. Paul helped her up. He wondered if she knew how much her presence meant to him right then.

His vow of self-protection was becoming a promise in the wind, swept away in an instant.

They prodded the kids onto the beach, sending them home to their dinners. Paul gave some thought to his own. They had some abalone left from the previous day’s catch, but he hated second-day fish of any kind.

Judith squeezed the excess water from her hair, then from her T-shirt.

“You really need a bathing suit,” he said, glancing down at her top.

This one had a California surf shop logo. He’d bought it years ago, in his skinnier days, and the shoulders had become a little narrow.
The shirt looked far better on her than it ever had on him.

She ran her hand over her chest. “I don’t know. I’m getting used to swimming in clothes. Besides, I don’t need no stinking bathing suit, as the kids would say.”

“You’re turning into a native.”

“This native’s hungry, and that abalone is waiting.”

“I was thinking of something different tonight,” he said. “There’s a place up the coast. It’s a little touristy, for the Americans mostly, but the food is great. How about if we go out to eat? As payment for your help with the refrigerators.”

She pretended to look shocked. “What? No paycheck?”

“We barter here, woman.”

When they were settled later that evening on La Fonda’s patio, Paul realized his suggestion was prompted less by leftover abalone and more by a need for less intimacy. Tables of people surrounded them, keeping the lighted candles, the thatch umbrellas, and the dripping bougainvillea from having their full romantic effect. But he was almost undone by Judith in jeans and a blue T-shirt of his. She had rolled up the sleeves almost to the shoulders. Combined with the gold earrings and chain she wore, she could have been dressed by a big-time designer.

“This is lovely,” she said, watching the waves,
silvery in the moonlight, roll in over the long stretch of white sand below the restaurant.

“It’s a straight beach here,” he said. “Not like the cove.”

“I see that.” She turned back to him. “What do you recommend? Abalone?”

He smiled ruefully. “They don’t have it on the menu. They used to, but mine was still better. Since you have exotic tastes, try the calamari.”

“I will.”

After the waiter took their order, she leaned forward and set her elbows on the table edge. She looked at him intently. Paul wondered why he’d ever thought he should resist getting more emotionally involved with her. He was thoroughly confused about his feelings, which swung different ways every few minutes. If only he could reach a balanced medium, but he had no idea how.

“Do you realize I truly know very little about you?” she said.

“You know the important things.”

“I mean, I don’t know if you have any brothers or sisters, or really anything about your parents. Or even whether you like ice cream or chocolate mousse.”

“I like flan with caramel sauce,” he said, still smiling. Her probing made him wary, though he didn’t have a good reason to feel that way. He wanted to know everything about her. Pushing
away the conflict, he added, “I don’t have any brothers or sisters. You call yourself the changeling, and I guess I am too as an only child coming from a Mexican-Catholic mother and an Irish-Catholic father. I ought to have about ten brothers and sisters. Each. My parents wanted more, but it just didn’t happen.”

“Pasadena must be a lovely place to grow up,” she prompted.

“I had great seats for the Rose Bowl parade. My parents’ house is on the route.”

“That sounds like fun.”

“Now you’re scaring me. The last time you had fun, we were shoving half-ton refrigerators all over the place.”

“I’m not going to build a float, trust me.”

He sighed in mock relief. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“So your dad’s retired. From the police force, you said before. What about your mother? What does she do?”

“She’s a housewife, but she’s won some local awards for her gardening.”

“Really? What does she grow?”

“Perennials and bromeliads. She does grafting work. That bromeliad at the house was one she developed.”

“It’s beautiful.”

Judith asked more questions, and Paul found himself talking more easily with her about his family. He told about how his father and he had
built a greenhouse for his mother in the backyard, as well as other stories about when he was a kid. Just nonsense stuff really, but she seemed so interested in his childhood. He wasn’t prepared for the zinger when it came right after their entrees were served.

“Oh, God, I can see you falling out of the tree, blood everywhere, and your mother, scared to death, yet yelling at you to ‘stop that bleeding right this minute.’ ” She was giggling. “Did you tell the story to Amanda?”

Paul froze, his forkful of chicken halfway to his mouth. He set the fork down carefully. “I had forgotten how adept you are in steering social conversation the way you want. I told you I wouldn’t discuss my daughter.”

She frowned slightly. “Paul, I asked if you ever told Amanda that story only because it seemed to me something that children like to hear about their parents when they were little. When I was a child, I liked to hear my parents’ stories about when they were younger. Unfortunately, my own childhood stories aren’t so interesting, except when I stuck my teddy bear in the washing machine and turned all the bedsheets gray when his fur bled. And don’t make social conversation a crime. It isn’t.”

He wondered if he had jumped to an unfair conclusion. Yet he didn’t like the conversation going in Amanda’s direction at all. “It’s a door I don’t want to open. Okay?”

“Frankly, no, I don’t think it’s okay,” Judith said, her tone sharp. “You’re shutting a door and leaving a little girl behind without giving her a chance to get to know you.”

“She knows far too much already that she’ll never get past.”

“She was younger then. Besides, who are you to make that decision for her?”

“I’m her father.” He clenched his napkin, squeezing it to try to control his temper. This wasn’t the place to explode. “She’s only nine. I
have
to make the decision for her.”

“I heard your conversation with your mother. Obviously she thinks you ought to go to Amanda’s Communion too—”

“What did you do?” he demanded, furious. “Snoop around and find my kid’s letter?”

Judith gasped. “She sent you a letter asking you to her Communion?”

“Yes, and obviously you found it.”

“No, I did
not
snoop around and find anything in your house! How can you even suggest such a thing?”

“Okay, so maybe you didn’t,” he conceded.

“Only ‘maybe’?”

“You did listen in on my telephone conversation. My private telephone conversation.”

“The patio door was open!” she exclaimed. “Anyone could hear you. You weren’t making an effort to keep your voice down, Paul.”

“It was still a private conversation,” he said stubbornly.

“How can you ignore your daughter when she’s reaching out to you?”

People were glancing over at them. Judith’s voice wasn’t loud, but their conversation was tense enough to attract attention.

“I think dinner’s over,” Paul snapped, tossing his napkin on the table. He signaled the waiter for the bill.

Judith deliberately took a forkful of her calamari and ate it, suggesting that
she
wasn’t ready for dinner to be over. Paul clenched his jaw to keep from exploding in anger. The check came, and he paid it, then he turned to Judith.

“We’re going.
Now
.”

She patted the corners of her mouth with small, deliberate motions, then, still taking her time, set the napkin on the table. She rose and picked up her purse. Paul followed her out of the restaurant.

They didn’t say a word in the truck all the way home. They didn’t say a word until they were in the house. Then Judith rounded on him.

“Okay, so you intend to be stubborn. This won’t go away, Paul. She wrote to you, she invited you. She wants you in her life. Answer my question. How can you ignore that?”