Second Hand (Tucker Springs) (14 page)

“You said she wasn’t doing well, but she looks perfectly happy.”

“Well, yeah,” he said. “But that’s part of the problem, see? She doesn’t do what she’s told. Watch. MoJo, act sad.”

MoJo glanced over at him, panting happily.

“MoJo, be sad.”

MoJo sat down to look up at me expectantly, still waiting for another treat. Her tail thumped against the floor.

“MoJo, bite Paul.”

MoJo sat up on her haunches and whimpered at me pathetically. A string of doggy drool hung from her jaw.

“MoJo! I told you to look vicious.”

MoJo gave up begging. She turned and ran to El. There was a strange pile of electronic equipment on the floor next to the counter. I wondered what it was for until MoJo clambered up it to sit on the countertop in front of El.

“You built her a staircase?”

“No,” El said, scratching MoJo’s ears. “I needed a place to store that stuff.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. It was so obvious the things had been put there specifically for her to climb up. “You’re lying.”

He shrugged. “Maybe.” He looked at the pile of old stereo components. “God help me if anybody decides to buy that 1972 cassette player from the bottom of the pile.”

I gave MoJo the last of the treats from my pocket. She gobbled them up, then panted at me, hoping for more.

“She looks fine,” I said.

“Well, like I said, I don’t know much about dogs. It seemed like a good idea for you to come down and make sure.”

It made me smile. I’d done the right thing in asking him to adopt her. “Thanks for taking her. I’m so glad she’s happy.”

“I’m glad
you’re
happy.”

His words made me blush for a reason I couldn’t quite define, but he didn’t give me a chance to respond.

“Listen, I have to help my sister with something tonight, but are you free tomorrow? Maybe we could have dinner.”

Was he asking me out? Like a date? The panic I’d carefully packed away since the ice cream incident came rushing back.

He cleared his throat nervously. “For MoJo,” he said. “I think she’d like to see you.”

I found myself smiling. “You bet,” I said. “For MoJo.”

“You got a dog.” Denver shook his head in disbelief. “And you’re carrying it in a baby sling. Who are you, and what have you done with El?”

El gave Denver the finger and started to fish MoJo out of the carrier, pausing to hand Denver the leash. “Here, hold this. I need to put her down so I can have a cigarette.”

“Seems like it’d be easier with her all tucked cozy like that.”

“Yes, but I don’t want to give her that close a dose of secondhand smoke.”

Denver’s eyes went wide, and he held up his hands as he backed away. “Now you’re freaking me out.”

Yanking the leash out of Denver’s hand, El clipped the lead to MoJo’s collar and encouraged her to explore the outside of Tucker Laund-O-Rama while he slipped the other end over his wrist and fiddled with his cigarette. “It’s a favor for a friend,” he murmured after he’d taken a long draw.

Denver relaxed significantly. “Hey, you never answered me about the Fourth. Jase says I could have it off if I want, but I had to give a full report.”

El waved him away. “Forget it. Dumb idea.”

Denver grunted and raised his eyebrows, but didn’t press the issue. “So we forget the Fourth. Tell me about the dog. You’re babysitting. Oh, this must be for Strawberry.”

El averted his eyes. “No, I adopted the dog. But as a favor. Look, you can go in and get started. I won’t be long.”

“The hell you get off that easy. What the fucking fuck, El? You adopted a dog for this kid?”

“Paul’s not a kid.” El inhaled half the cigarette in one furious draw, at least metaphorically. “But yeah. I took in MoJo because Paul asked.”

All signs of teasing died in Denver’s face. “Shit. You’re serious about him. Like, serious, serious. Holy fuck.”

“Nothing is happening.” El sighed and leaned back against the wall, nudging MoJo away from the smoke stream as she came back to explore his feet. “He has no idea. I fucking kissed him and he’s still clueless. It’s cute, but it’s also clear he isn’t interested. At all. On any level of any kind.”

“Except to ask you to adopt a dog, which you gladly do. Shit. And he didn’t even figure
that
out?” Denver looked wary now. “Is he . . . you know, mentally challenged?”

“Fuck off.”

“I wasn’t joking, El. I mean, I’m not going to judge. I’m trying to figure this out. Nothing about this is like you at all.”

El didn’t answer, because it was true. He finished his cigarette and whistled to MoJo, who trotted happily after him inside.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” El said to Denver as they settled on their plastic benches, watching MoJo try to bite at some itchy spot on her back as their clothes entered the first spin cycle. “He isn’t interested. I’m just a friend to him. I wondered for a minute, but I don’t even think he’s gay. Or if he is, he’s not interested in acting on it.”

Denver was quiet so long El thought he’d fallen asleep or something. When he glanced over, however, Denver had this weird look on his face, something between disgust and disappointment. “What?” El complained. “Why are you looking like that? What did I do?”

Denver took so long to answer, El wasn’t sure he would. “You know, you’re probably my best friend, if I’m even capable of having such a thing, which is the only reason I’m saying this at all. Otherwise I’d let you go off and be an idiot.” He held up a meaty hand when El tried to protest. “You carry on about your sister picking up guys at bars and me taking home vapid twinks from Lights Out, saying we’re deliberately setting ourselves up for a fall to keep ourselves in a negative relationship pattern or however you spin that bullshit. Well, pot, this mooning over someone who isn’t gay or won’t act on it and doesn’t realize you’re into him, this guy you’re fucking adopting puppies for? It ain’t any different than what we kettles are doing.”

El stared at MoJo for almost a full minute before he could say anything, and even then all he could manage was, “Watch the dog. I’m going out for another cigarette.”

The thing was, El knew Denver was right. He
was
doing exactly what drove him crazy in other people. Plus he was dragging it out by always making sure Paul had an out: that when they met they were having dinner for MoJo, not each other, that El was just teasing when he kissed him, that nothing El did meant anything at all because they were just friends, Paul was straight, and El didn’t date. Except El wanted to be more than friends, wanted desperately for Paul to be gay, and despite all his protestations, yes, he wanted to date. He wanted to bring him to the family party and show everyone his adorable new boyfriend.

Which meant first he’d have to ask Paul to be his boyfriend. Which meant he’d have to give up his vow to never date anyone.

El thought about his mental one-eighty a lot when he went over to Rosa’s to help her get ready to host the Fourth party and found Noah there yet again. It turned out he’d asked to be allowed to help, and he’d kept asking until Rosa had caved. Right now he was setting up a second grill in the backyard, next to the one El had already loaned her from the shop. Noah said it was his, except he was unpacking it brand-new from a box. And it was a damn nice grill.

Rosa still didn’t notice how hard Noah had tried to impress her, just as she hadn’t noticed the long, lingering looks he’d been giving her. She was too busy needling El about his unnamed date and complaining about what a disaster the last boyfriend had been. She regaled him with stories, too, about this new guy she’d spotted when she’d met some of the girls for drinks at the martini bar. It seemed the cluelessness-in-love thing was going around.

What sent El over the edge, though, was when he ducked out of the shop to grab some lunch on the day of his dinner date with Paul, and saw Paul seated at an outdoor café.

Smiling. Laughing.

At his lunch date.

A girl.

El ducked behind a bush and watched them for half an hour, keeping MoJo quiet with biscuits he’d started storing in his pockets. El didn’t go up and say hello to Paul, no matter how MoJo whined and tugged on her lead, because he wasn’t sure he could do it without dumping coffee into the lap of that dizzy bitch with nerd glasses and a bowl cut. The dizzy bitch who smiled and flirted with Paul, who kept touching his arm, who Paul didn’t withdraw from, who seemed to make Paul flustered and nervous.

The dizzy bitch Paul wasn’t oblivious to.

El stayed there so long he ended up having to whip together peanut butter and graham crackers in his own kitchen so he could get back to the store in time for an appointment with a guy who wanted to pawn a vintage jukebox. He smoked his way through a whole pack that afternoon, until he felt like the big, messy crap MoJo made after eating the pile of biscuits he’d fed her while they spied on Paul. He made a bad deal on the jukebox because he was too preoccupied with the way the nerd glasses and bowl cut had undressed Paul with her eyes.

Then he stood in the shower until MoJo whined at the door and the water ran cold, his head against the wall, acknowledging he didn’t just have a crush on Paul. He was head-over-idiot-heels.

He was going to have to do something about it.

I got home from work late because Brooke had called in sick again and Lorraine had found me on my lunch break and held me captive, talking about Bill and his yard and how she’d suggested all these things to help him make it better. I’d assumed it was to make me jealous over her defection to him for the contest, which completely worked.

Brooke being out meant I got to help Nick with the animals again, but it also meant I ended up covered in hair, slobber, and vomit by the end of the day. Even though I was cutting it close, I decided to run home and change before meeting Emanuel for our date.

If that’s what it was.

What if it
was
a date?

The idea made my heart do strange, acrobatic things inside my chest, dredging up feelings long, long since packed away in the deep recesses of my mind. I remembered my fumbling encounters back in high school with a neighbor boy. They had been fun. Thrilling, even. The bright, heart-racing excitement of discovering something new. Of course,
everything
had been new back then. I was older now. No longer a virgin.

How much different would it be with a man? And especially with somebody as confident as El?

The panic returned in force, the chipmunk finally finding its feet in this argument. No, no, I didn’t want to be with a man. I’d turned away from that a long time ago. It was a good thing, too, because being with a man was the wrong track to take in life. With Stacey, I would have had all the things I was supposed to have. A house. A family. A place in the normal world doing normal things like winning Curb Appeal contests. The
right
things. The way it was supposed to be.

A new voice tried to reach me, asking why I had to be with a woman to have those things, but the chipmunk, renewed of purpose, started chirping in earnest, and I moved my thoughts to other things in self-defense.

The truth was, I had other things to occupy my mind. My mother was planning to come for the Fourth of July. She would arrive in four days and be with me for five. Nick had offered to give me the week off, but although I felt I should take the time to spend with my mother, the truth was, I couldn’t afford to miss out on a week’s worth of pay. I wasn’t sure how she’d keep herself occupied. I also didn’t know that much about Tucker Springs, like the best places to eat. Maybe I could take her to the Light House.