Second Hand (Tucker Springs) (11 page)

He gave Paul a manly pat on the back and a wink. “Come on. First one to smash against the door of the shop has to buy dinner.”

Two days after Stacey had breezed into my life and back out of it again, I stood in my pantry, staring at what was left. I hadn’t heard from her. I hadn’t bothered trying to call her, either. I grabbed the George Foreman grill and the fondue pot. I wasn’t even hard up for cash. It was more about wanting to be rid of the past. I couldn’t get over how good it felt to empty my pantry of the leftovers from my relationship with Stacey. Somehow, each new open spot on the shelf felt liberating. Maybe it wasn’t quite healing, but it was one less reminder of my inability to be what she’d wanted.

My pulse quickened and fluttered as I maneuvered my box around to open the door to Tucker Pawn during my lunch hour, though I shoved the nerves aside. El had made it clear the kiss wasn’t a big deal. A friendly sort of teasing. My reaction was silly, because he hadn’t meant anything by it, and we were just friends.

And I wasn’t gay, I reminded myself, trying not to be alarmed at how low that truth had fallen on the list of why that kiss shouldn’t matter.

El smiled at me, as relaxed and El as ever as he looked up from the counter. “I was wondering when I’d see you again. I need to start paying you less for this stuff so you have to come by more often.”

I put the items on the counter, feeling ridiculous at the way my heart kept pounding too hard inside my chest. “I know you said you can only take one item a day, but I really want to get rid of these. The fondue pot can’t be worth much anyway, right? I mean, maybe I could give that to you, but you could pay me a bit extra for the other?”

He stared at me. I couldn’t tell if he was amused or annoyed. Finally, he smiled. “I’ll make an exception,” he said. “Since you’re my favorite customer.”

Pulse, get it together. You’re being ridiculous. He’s just being friendly. Also, you still are not gay.
“Thanks, El.”

“But you have to come back after work for the money.”

“Why?”

He rubbed the back of his head. “Well, I’ll have to fudge a bit on the paperwork, you know—”

“Could you be arrested?” He had said it was some kind of law, and yet it hadn’t occurred to me what the cost of breaking that law might be. “I don’t want you to do anything that might cause you trouble.”

He laughed. Something about it told me I was missing something obvious, like he’d told a joke and I’d missed the punch line. “No trouble. Don’t worry about that. Just come back after work.”

The afternoon was slow. Two of our patients no-showed. Brooke was sullen and sniffly. I waited for Nick to ask her what was wrong, but he never did. At three o’clock, my mother called me on my cell to give me her flight information. She’d arrive the following Saturday.

Nick ended up sending Brooke home early.

“She won’t last much longer,” he said to me after she left.

“What do you mean?”

“She and her boyfriend broke up. I bet she’ll be moving back home to California.”

Then he’d have to hire a new assistant. Hopefully he’d find somebody a bit friendlier.

Right before we closed the office, the door opened, and Velma walked in. She was dressed in tan slacks and a red blouse. Without the tennis skirt and sweater, her resemblance to the cartoon detective was less striking.

“Can I help you?” I asked from my seat behind the counter.

“Hi, Paul. I heard you worked here.”

That sounded strangely ominous. I had no idea how to respond.

“I thought I’d stop in and say hi.”

“Oh,” I said stupidly. “Hi.”

“Your yard looks great. The clematis are gorgeous, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, they’re doing really well. Thanks for the suggestion.” I wondered once again if she was one of the Curb Appeal judges. Maybe if I mentioned the contest casually, I’d get a sense of how involved she was. I was trying to figure out how to bring it up when Nick came out of his office. I didn’t think I was imagining the way her eyes got a bit bigger when she saw him.

“Oh, hello,” Nick said. “I didn’t realize we had another appointment scheduled this afternoon.” He craned his neck to look over the counter at her feet, obviously looking for the animal he assumed she’d brought with her.

“No, I don’t have an appointment.” She fidgeted with one of her earrings. “I’m a friend of Paul’s.”

Nick turned to look at me in surprise, and I tried to erase the look of utter bafflement from my face. She was a friend of mine? When had that happened?

Nick was still staring at me, obviously waiting for an introduction. “This is Dr. Reynolds,” I said to her. “Nick, this is . . .” I came embarrassingly close to calling her Velma, but that wasn’t her name.

Too bad I didn’t actually
know
her name.

“I’m Lorraine.” She held her hand out to Nick.

“Nice to meet you.”

She turned back to me. “Hey, Paul. There’s this new restaurant that just opened down the block. The Light House. Have you seen it?”

“No.” It was pretty stupid to name a restaurant The Light House when we were miles away from any significant body of water.

“I’ve heard it’s really good.” She fidgeted with her earring again. “I’ve been thinking about checking it out.”

“Oh.” Why was she telling me this? I looked at Nick. He had his head down, ostensibly reading the file he held in his hand, but I could tell he was listening. I could also tell he was highly amused. I had no idea what to say. “You’ll have to let us know how it is.”

Her smile faded a bit. Nick started coughing.

“Okay,” Lorraine said. Her cheeks were as red as her blouse. “Well, it was good seeing you.”

“You too.”

She left, and I turned back to my computer.

“What’s with you?” Nick said. “Are you still that hung up on Stacey?”

“What?” I turned to look up at him, which was a bit of a mistake. He was so confident and good-looking. I always felt intimidated by him. “What do you mean?”

He hooked his thumb toward the door. “That girl. Why didn’t you ask her out?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Why didn’t you?”

“She didn’t come to see me.”

“She was passing by.” Anyway, why would any woman want me to ask her out when Nick was standing right there? Bulging tattooed arms and blue eyes and quirky smile. There was no way I could compete with that. “She wanted to talk about the clematis I put in.”

“Clematis,” he said, shaking his head in amusement. “Yeah. I bet that’s exactly what she had on her mind.”

It occurred to me as I was locking up that night that Nick had been hinting Lorraine had been interested in me, as in,
interested.
I blushed at the idea, knowing it was ridiculous. She was a judge for the contest and checking on me. Why would she be interested in me for anything else?

Thank God she wasn’t, really, because she wasn’t my type. I didn’t exactly know what my type was, but it wasn’t Velma. Or Daphne either, really. Daphne was too pretty and popular. She’d never go out with me. Velma was too . . . Velma. Did anyone get more sexless than Velma? That only left the boys, and the dog. Obviously not.

Fred was always nice, though. I always thought he’d make a good friend.

I mused over my type all the way home. Someone pulled out of a parking spot just off the square, making me idle in the middle of the street as they pulled away, and I found myself staring across the way at the lights of Tucker Pawn. I thought of El’s dark eyes and wicked smile and the way his lips had felt against mine.

The chipmunk screamed, and a car horn brought me back to reality, where the street in front of me was now clear and I was blocking traffic.

I don’t have a type,
I assured myself, keeping my eyes firmly on the street ahead of me, not allowing my thoughts to drift even for a second to rollerblades, kisses, or the owner of Tucker Pawn.

Of course, before I made it home, I remembered I had to stop at the shop to get my money.

Scolding myself for being absentminded and ridiculous, I drove back. It wasn’t like I’d even talk to him much. Probably he’d hand me an envelope without even getting up from his chair. I tried to make the idea seem like a relief instead of a disappointment. Money would be good, I told myself. Maybe I’d treat myself to a big juicy burger for dinner.

El wasn’t even smoking when I came in, and he took his time about getting me my money. “So, Paul,” he said, after giving me the last of the cash, “how do you feel about ice cream?”

It seemed like a trick question. “Ice cream?”

“Well, it’s frozen yogurt, technically. My treat.”

What? My heart started beating too fast again. “I haven’t even had dinner yet.”

He smiled at me. “Life is short, my friend. Let’s have dessert first.”

How could I say no to that?

The yogurt shop was up the road a couple of blocks, past the unofficial edge of the Light District. We debated driving, but it was too nice a night, so we walked. El gave me a rundown of the things we passed.

“See this bar? It’s been here for ages, but they change their name every few years. They keep losing their liquor license for serving to minors.”

Next, it was a Starbucks, sitting in one of those strange wedge-shaped buildings on the corner. “This was a brothel once. Upstairs, it was a hotel. I mean, this was way back before the colleges were here. Nobody talks about it. They just say it was a hotel, but my grandma swears it’s true. She was a maid there in the sixties, and she says it’s still haunted by a whore who was killed in the attic.”

Half a block later: “This place here? This used to be the Chamber of Commerce, years and years ago. My dad’s granddaddy worked there. He remembers playing in the vault.”

A bit further on, it was, “See that horse statue? It looks like wrought iron, but it’s brass underneath. Every year, somebody comes down and polishes the dong up all nice and shiny.”

A minute later: “This store used to have penny candy. Honest-to-god penny candy. A fucking case of it. I’d take in a dollar, and go home with a bag of Swedish Fish and gum drops.”

His enthusiasm for the area was catching, and it made me feel foolish for living here so long and not knowing any of the history. “How long have you lived here?”

“My whole life.” He pointed to a bright green door ahead. “Here’s the yogurt place. It’s kind of new. Hope they don’t go out of business.”

It was unlike any ice cream store I’d ever been in. They had an entire wall of soft-serve machines, all different flavors, and each one could be swirled with the one next to it. There was an assembly line, almost like a salad bar, but with every type of topping imaginable.

“I like it here,” El said. “Other places, seems like I get a lot of ice cream, but then they charge you out the nose for each topping. Here it’s by the ounce, so I can get as many toppings as I want.”

He was taking full advantage of that, too. The cup in his hand was only half full of chocolate ice cream. He’d topped it with two kinds of chocolate chips, chocolate sprinkles, brownie chunks, and hot fudge. Just looking at it made my throat ache for a glass of water.

“How can you possibly eat that much chocolate at once?” I asked as we left the store.

“Easy. Especially with a coffee chaser. That’s our next stop.” He leaned over to peer down into my cup. “How many kinds of ice cream you got in there?”

“Three. Coconut Cream, Pistachio Nut, and Raspberry Cheesecake.”

He stopped in his tracks, staring at me in apparent horror. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“No. I put sunflower seeds on top. And Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. And some of that gooey marshmallow topping.”

“That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s good.”

“It’s an abomination, my friend. An insult to frozen yogurt everywhere.”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.” I held a spoonful out for him.

He stood for a second, staring at me, maybe trying to decide if I was pulling his leg. Finally, he stepped closer. He touched my wrist with his fingers, as if to make sure I wasn’t going to pull away, then leaned forward and let me put the spoon in his mouth.

For some reason I couldn’t explain, I expected him to close his eyes, but he didn’t. He kept them open, his gaze locked on my face as he took the spoonful of frozen yogurt into his mouth. It made me remember the kiss, the way he’d stood close to me afterward, his gaze full of strange messages that had made me think, for half a second, that he’d meant it to be real.