The Cottage (19 page)

“I'm becoming an alcoholic. I think I have a severe allergy to anyone under the age of twenty-five. He can't possibly intend to have his children live here. And what if I can't throw them out?”

“We'll make the best of it, and teach them to behave.”

“You're sweet to say that, my love. But some people cannot be taught. I told him I'd whip him if he skate-boarded on my steps again, and he said he'd have me put in jail.” They were definitely off to a rocky start. But threatening to whip him had hardly been the politically correct thing to say.

“Just tell Mark to keep them out of your hair. He's a nice guy. I'm sure he'll understand.”

The next day, when Coop called him, Mark apologized profusely for any disturbance Jason had caused. He explained the circumstances to Coop, all of them, and said that he was sure the kids would go back to Janet at the end of the school year. More than likely, they would only be there for three months.

It sounded like a death sentence to Coop. All he wanted to hear was that they were leaving the next day. But there wasn't a chance. Mark swore they would behave, and Coop resigned himself to living cheek by jowl with them. He knew he had no other
choice. He had called his attorney before calling Mark, and Alex had been right. He was stuck with Jason and Jessica, and even the letter of apology Mark forced Jason to write barely mollified Coop. He was furious that Mark had somehow snuck them in on him. Coop didn't want to run a high school or a nursery, or a Cub Scout troop, or a skateboard park. He didn't want children within a hundred miles of his house, or his life. He just hoped their mother's romance ended quickly, and they'd go back to her soon.

After Coop's initial run-in
with him, Mark told Jason to stay away from the main wing of the house at all times, and only use his skateboard on the driveway. Jason saw Coop drive in a few times, but there was no further incident, at least for the first two weeks of their living there. They were happy to be back in LA with their old pals, loved their school, and thought their new home was really “cool,” in spite of what they referred to as their crabby landlord. He continued to take a dim view of them, but both the realtor and his attorneys had told him there was nothing he could do. There were strong laws to prevent people from discriminating against children. And Mark had warned him that he had kids and they'd be out from time to time. He had a right to live there with his children, even now that they were in residence full-time. Coop had no other option than to get used to it, and complain if they did something they shouldn't. And other than Jason using his front steps as a skateboard ramp on the first day he was there, so far at least there had been no other problems.

It was only on the first weekend Alex spent at the
house with him, that they both woke up at noon, and heard what sounded like a convention in full progress at his pool. It sounded like there were five hundred people shouting to each other. There was loud rap music coming from somewhere, and Alex couldn't help smiling as she lay in bed listening to the lyrics. They were absolutely filthy, but very funny, and totally irreverent about grown-ups and what kids thought of them. It was quite a message to Coop.

“Oh my God, what is that?” Coop asked with horror as he raised his head from his pillow, looking stunned.

“It sounds like a party of some kind,” Alex said with a stretch and a yawn, as she cuddled up beside him. She had traded four shifts just to be there, and things were going well between them. Coop was adjusting well to her busy life, and he hadn't enjoyed any woman as much in years. And in spite of their considerable age difference, she was very comfortable with him. Even after giving it some careful thought, his age wasn't an issue for her. He seemed younger, and far more interesting, than most men her age.

“It must be the aliens again. I think another UFO just landed.” He had had sightings of teenagers in the past three weeks, but Mark seemed to be keeping them in good control, until that morning. Coop was not yet aware that Paloma was doing occasional babysitting for them. “They must be deaf. You could hear that music in Chicago for chrissake.” He got out of bed and looked out the window. “Oh my God, Alex, there are thousands of them.” She got out of bed to look with him, and there were twenty or thirty teenagers,
laughing and shouting and throwing things, at the pool.

“Looks like a party,” Alex confirmed, “must be someone's birthday.” She thought it was nice seeing healthy, happy kids having fun. After all the agony and tragedy she saw in her daily life, it looked blissfully normal. But standing next to her, Coop looked horrified.

“Aliens don't have birthdays, Alex. They hatch at the most inconvenient time, and then they come to Earth to break everything in sight. They were sent here to destroy us and Planet Earth.”

“Do you want me to go out and tell them to turn down the music?” she asked helpfully with a broad grin. She could see that it really upset him. He loved his peaceful, orderly life, and he loved having everything beautiful and elegant around him. The songs they were listening to qualified as neither, and she felt sorry for him.

“That would be lovely,” he said gratefully, as she stepped into shorts and a T-shirt and slipped her feet into sandals. It was a beautiful spring day, and she promised to make breakfast as soon as she got back. He thanked her, and went to take a shower and shave before breakfast. He always looked impeccable, and he even looked handsome and in relatively good order when he woke up. Unlike Alex, who always woke up feeling as though she'd been dragged behind a horse on a rope all night. Her hair was all over the place, and with the hours she worked, she was always exhausted. But she had youth on her side, and she looked like a
kid herself as she went out to the pool, to deliver his message to Mark.

When she got to the pool, she saw that Mark was there, and Jessica was at the hub of a flock of girls in bikinis and one-piece bathing suits, giggling and screaming. The boys were being “cool” and ignoring them, and Mark was trying to organize a game of Marco Polo from the pool.

“Hi, how've you been? I haven't seen you in a while,” he said pleasantly when he saw her. He'd been beginning to wonder if Coop had stopped seeing her. But Mark hadn't seen any other women there either. Things had been relatively quiet for weeks.

“I've been working. What's the occasion? Someone's birthday?”

“Jessie just wanted to get together with her old friends and celebrate being back here.” She was ecstatic to be living with her father, and for the moment she was refusing to speak to her mother, much to Mark's dismay. But so far at least, he hadn't been able to sway her. He kept telling Janet to give her time, but Jessica seemed to be relentlessly unforgiving. At least Jason was willing to talk to her, but he made no bones about the fact that he was thrilled to be living with his father.

“I hate to bug you about it, they look like they're having so much fun,” Alex said apologetically, “but Coop is having a little problem with the noise. Do you think they could turn the sound system down a little?” Mark looked startled, and then winced, realizing how bad it had gotten. He was so used to the chaos of having kids around, he hadn't noticed. And he realized
he probably should have warned Coop of the gathering, but he was afraid now to even mention the kids to him.

“I'm sorry. Someone must have turned the volume up while I wasn't looking. You know how kids are.” She did, and she was happy to see that they were good, clean, wholesome kids. There wasn't a tattoo or a Mohawk in sight. Just a lot of earrings and the occasional nose pierce. Nothing scary. And none of them looked like delinquents or druggies, contrary to what Coop would have told her if he'd seen them. They were just ordinary “aliens,” in Alex's opinion.

Mark got out of the pool and went to turn the sound down on the stereo, and Alex stood smiling as she watched the kids for a minute. She saw that Jessica was a pretty girl, with long, straight blonde hair and a lovely figure, and she was giggling uncontrollably in the midst of her girlfriends, as several young boys eyed her with lust. She seemed to be oblivious to them. And then, Alex saw Jason approach with Jimmy. He was wearing a catcher's mitt and holding a baseball, and he was wearing a big grin as they talked earnestly about something. Jimmy had just taught him how to put a spin on the ball with unfailing precision. It was an art Jason had never previously mastered, but Jimmy made it easy for him.

“Hi,” Alex said pleasantly, as they stopped where she was standing. Jimmy looked awkward for a minute, and then introduced her to Jason. There was always something guarded about Jimmy's eyes, as though even looking at people now was painful. Alex could see the toll his loss had taken on him. He looked
like someone who had suffered a trauma. He had that familiar shell-shocked look she saw in the eyes of parents who had just lost their babies. But when he was talking to Jason, he seemed more at ease than when he was in the midst of adults. “How've you been?” she asked casually. “Been to any good fires recently?” The last time she'd seen him was when Mark had nearly caused a forest fire with the barbecue, and they'd paged her to come back on duty. “That was quite an experience.” They both smiled at the memory. And she still had an unforgettable vision of Coop signing autographs for the firemen while the bushes were burning. It made her laugh to think of it.

“I got a very good dinner out of it,” Jimmy said with a shy smile. “I think we ate yours after you left. Too bad you had to go back to work. But if you hadn't, we wouldn't have gotten dinner,” he said sensibly, and then grinned at his own memory of the evening. “It was quite an evening. I haven't been that hungover since I was in college. I couldn't even go in to work until eleven o'clock the next morning. He serves some pretty exotic stuff, and a lot of it.”

“Sounds like I missed a good time,” she smiled at him, and then turned her attention to Jason and asked him what position he played. He said he was a shortstop.

“He throws a good ball,” Jimmy praised him, “and he's a hell of a hitter. We lost three balls this morning, over the fence. Definite home runs, right out of the park.”

“I'm impressed. I can't hit a ball to save my life,” she confessed.

“Neither could my wife,” he said, without thinking. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. And she could see in his eyes that they had hurt him. “Most women can't hit a ball, or throw one. They have other virtues,” he said, trying to bring the comment back to the world at large and get it away from Maggie.

“I'm not sure I have those virtues either,” Alex said easily, sensing that it had been an uncomfortable moment for him. “I can't cook to save my life. But I make a mean peanut butter sandwich, and I order a great pizza.”

“That'll do it. I'm a much better cook than my wife was.” Damn. He had done it again. She could see him retreat behind a wall after he made the comment, and he lapsed into a distracted silence as she chatted with Jason, and then the boy wandered off to see his sister and her friends.

“They're nice kids,” Alex said, hoping to put him at ease again. She could see what a hard time he was having, and she wanted to tell him she was sorry, but she didn't want to upset him more than he already was.

“Mark is out of his mind with joy to have them out here. He really missed them,” Jimmy said, trying to drag himself back from the precipice. He was constantly falling into an abyss of grief. Everything he said or did reminded him of Maggie. “How's our landlord handling it?”

“He's in deep therapy, and on mood-altering medication,” she said solemnly, and Jimmy burst into laughter. It was a wonderful sound, and in sharp
contrast to what she suspected he was feeling most of the time.

“That bad, huh?”

“Actually, worse. Last week, he almost coded.” It was hospital-ese for a code blue, when all of a patient's systems failed, their heart stopped, and they stopped breathing. But Jimmy seemed to understand. “I think he might make it, but I had to brush up on my CPR training. We've got him on a respirator now, speaking of which, I'd better get back. I came out here to ask them to turn down the music.”

“What's it going to be?” Jimmy asked casually.

“It's been rap up to now, with some pretty juicy lyrics.” She grinned at him.

“No, breakfast, I mean. Peanut butter, or pizza?”

“Hmmm…now that's an interesting question. I hadn't thought about it. Personally, I'd opt for pizza, used, leftover. I live on it. With doughnuts for dessert, preferably stale. I think Coop has more mundane taste, maybe eggs and bacon.”

“Can you handle it?” Jimmy asked solicitously. He liked her, he got a sense of enormous warmth and compassion from her. He wasn't sure what she did, but he remembered it was something with babies. And he suspected she was good at it. She was obviously smart, and seemed like a very caring person. He hadn't figured out yet what she was doing with Cooper Winslow. It seemed like an odd match to him, but there was no accounting for people's choices of partners and playmates. They never seemed to follow the path you'd expect them to. Coop was old enough to be her father and then some. She didn't look like the
kind of woman to be lured by celebrity or glamour. It made him wonder if there was more to Coop than he suspected, or maybe, bad news, less to Alex. In spite of the evening Jimmy had spent with him, he didn't think much of Cooper. Charming and handsome without a doubt, but not a lot of substance or depth.

“Can I call 911 to deliver breakfast?” Alex asked, continuing the banter. He was a sweet guy, and she felt sorry for him.

“Sure, just have Coop sign for it,” he said unkindly, and then was instantly apologetic. He had no reason to be nasty about the guy, and he knew it. “Sorry, that was uncalled for.”

“It's okay, he has a great sense of humor, even about himself. It's one of the things I like about him.”

It made him want to ask her what else there was to like, other than his looks, but he didn't.

“Well, I'd better get back. I guess we won't be using the pool today. Coop definitely couldn't handle this scene. We'd have to restrain him.” They both laughed, and she waved at Mark and went back to the main wing, where she found Cooper looking petulant, and struggling with breakfast. He had burned muffins to a crisp, and had broken the yolks on all four of the eggs he was frying. The bacon was burned beyond recognition, and he had spilled orange juice all over the table.