After consulting a work order on the clipboard he held, Tom Teller told Cole, “We been hired by Chin Lang Acrobatics to clean up the mess from last night’s fire and erect a new performance tent withaaaAAAhhhh !”
Tom Teller lifted up on both toes, raised his hands in the air, and proceeded to do a remarkable imitation of the ballerina that had once danced in a circle every time I opened my jewelry box the year I was eight. Showing remarkable restraint in that he didn’t burst into laughter, Cole held out a hand while making sure not to touch our visitor. “Dude, are you okay?”
“What the hell was that?” Tom Teller demanded.
“I believe you’ve just been shocked by electric ants,” I told him, jabbing Cole with an elbow when I thought I heard a giggle.
“Are you kidding me? That felt like a damn ’lectricchair !”
“Well, they tell me everything’s bigger in Texas,” I replied, giving him Lucille’s sweetest, fakest smile.
He wiped a bead of sweat off his brow. “I guess I’ve heard that myself. Uh, I just wanted to know if you’d like the new tent in the same place as the old one. Some people got superstitchuns. They don’t want new stuff in the sameaaaAAAhhhh !”
Again with the zappy dance. “Wow,” I said. “No doubt about it, we’re going to have to call an exterminator.” I looked up into a sky so blue it seemed to confirm every story I’d ever heard about heaven.Okay, you win. After the phone call to Jericho and now this, I’m definitely at your service .
Behind me SWAT man blew up. “What the hell do you mean the case is closed? The case has barely started! A woman was assaulted last night! Some lizard face tried to kill a cop!” A moment’s pause. “I don’t give a crap what the governor—” I recognized the sound that followed because I had, in fact, made it myself a couple of times. It was the crack of a cell phone exploding against the wall.
Once again, Lucille Robinson came to the rescue. She smiled graciously at Tom Teller and said, “You know, that spot really worked well traffic-wise, so I think we’ll just keep it. Do you know when the work will be finished?”
He pranced from foot to fried foot, bobbing his head back and forth in an effort to see our furious guest. Cole pressed his mouth to my ear and whispered, “He looks like a constipated turkey.”
My smile went into rictus mode as Tom Teller spat another wad of chew onto the faulty mat.Holy crap, the guy’s going to tase himself into a coma! But again he wouldn’t address me directly.
“We should have it all done by five,” he told Cole.
“Did you hear that, boss?” he asked me brightly. “The tent will be up by five!”
I just wanted the idiot off the mat and to hell with my wounded pride. “Wonderful. Thank you so much.” I slammed the door in his face, and Cole and I helped each other back to the empty couch, where we traded stunned stares with Cassandra. On the one hand we wanted to laugh until we cried. On the other, we wondered just who Jericho meant to annihilate first.
Bergman had rescued the parts of his phone and taken them to the covered table, where he was trying to put them back together again. Jericho badly wanted to tear out the door and cave in somebody’s face, but he kept looking at Cassandra and she kept shaking her head. Uh-huh. No fractured skulls this morning, SWAT man.
“Cole,” I asked, “have we got any pop in the fridge?”
“Yeah, I just bought a case of orange soda yesterday.”
“Perfect.” I stood up. “Jericho, come with me.”
Twenty minutes later Cole returned the sledge to the ring-the-bell-if-you’re-man-enough-game guy, I put the last crushed can in the trash, and Jericho dropped into the chair beside Cassandra, looking nearly as calm as he had when he’d walked through our door. Only Bergman had stayed inside to work and watch the monitors.
Cole came back with fried ice cream for everyone, which we inhaled along with the orange-scented air.
Jericho wagged his finger at me. “That was genius. Where did you come up with the idea?”
“I had to be nice to a sick baby and two sleep-deprived, panicky new parents for three weeks. It was either this”—I waved at the trampled, soda-soaked grass beneath our feet—“or a killing spree through an upscale Indianapolis neighborhood.”
He nodded. “Sound choice.”
“Thanks.”
I took a bathroom break. A necessity, but also an excuse to grab our safe phone from the bedroom. I ignored the way my heart skipped when I opened the door. What I couldn’t avoid was the sudden realization that I’d slept right through my last trip to z-land. No trying to shoot myself in the head. No stepping into traffic or jumping out windows. No dreams at all. Just sweet, deep silence, like the kind Vayl enjoyed every single day.
As I took the phone off the dresser, I considered the black tent that hung over the bed like a huge, bloated bat. I really cared about Vayl. More than I should. Way more than I wanted to. But did I want to be like him? Still pining for what I’d lost two hundred and more years down the line? Somehow that seemed stunted and wrong.
But wasn’t I doing exactly what he was doing? Wasn’t I holding on to Matt as if I thought I’d find him in the fresh-food section at Aldi’s one day, feeling up the grapefruits with that wicked look on his face that always made me laugh? My anger at him made more sense seen that way. Like I felt he’d cheated on me by moving on. And, as a logical progression of that thought, I was being faithful by standing in place.
The buzz started low in my head and grew so loud I banged the palm of my hand against my temple.Not now. I’ve got things to do! But Raoul had his own schedule, and I’d finally learned that when he wanted to talk I’d better listen. I closed my eyes before he grabbed my vision to get my full attention and said, “You rang?”
That enormous voice boomed in my head.TURN IT ONE MORE TIME TOO .
For some reason I twisted the phone in my hand, so if I held it to my ear the receiver would be on top. No, it wouldn’t work that way.Turn it one more time too.
Matt had left me.
TURN IT.
And I had left him.
At the height of our love, we’d let death separate us. Some part of me had never believed it would happen. In fact, at some level I’d despised us both for allowing it. I’d been furious at him for leaving. And I’d hated myself for staying.
NOW THINK.
“What?”
THINK!
Holy crap, Raoul, that’s all I’ve been doing!Thinking about Matt. More than I wanted to. So few people knew him. But they all liked him. Especially Albert. I put the phone to my ear, only mildly surprised I’d already dialed his number.
“Yeah?”
“Albert?”
“What’s up? Everything going okay?”
“I was thinking about Matt today.”
“Me too.”
“Really?”
“What a poker face. Did I ever tell you he bluffed me out of a twenty-dollar pot with a king high? That’s it! And I was sitting there with a pair of tens!”
“No kidding.”
“You know why I liked him though?”
“Not really.”You don’t like anybody hardly.
“Because the day you two got engaged we had a little talk. And he said to me, ‘Colonel Parks, I just want Jaz to be happy. That’s it. It won’t matter where we are, or what we’re doing. If we’re a million miles apart or stuck like glue. As long as she’s happy, I’ll be fine.”
Don’t. Cry.“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Your brother called. He was worried about you.” My dad is a lot like a baseball pitcher. He has a windup that he goes through before he throws his curve. I should’ve recognized the tone in his voice as the windup. But it had been a while, and I was distracted.