“Big question,” Cork replied. “With lots of answers, depending.”
“I mean, what do guys look for in a girl?”
She was Cork’s middle child, fifteen years old, and had developed a bit later than her friends the slopes and curves that might catch a young man’s eye. She had never dated, channeling all her energy into sports, especially softball. She was a decent student, although academics were far less important to her than they were to her sister, Jenny. Lately, however, her grades had been slipping and Cork wondered if the current conversation might be a clue as to the reason. It was an unusual topic to be discussing with Annie. Usually they talked sports. But Cork gave it his best shot.
“I can’t speak for all guys. I fell in love with your mother because she was strong, independent, smart. I liked that. She laughed at my jokes, too.”
Annie leaned on the counter of her serving window. She wore jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt with VOYAGEURS printed across the front. She’d begun to let her reddish hair grow out, and it was at an unruly, in-between stage that made it look like licks of flame were bursting out all over her head.
“She was pretty, though. Right?” Annie asked.
Cork put the lid back on the shake maker and climbed down from the stool. “I thought so. But, you know, love has a way of making people beautiful. To each other anyway.” He put the stool in the corner next to a stack of cartons that held potato chips.
Annie was quiet a moment. “Do you think I’m pretty?”
He looked at her. Sunlight cleaved her face, and the freckles of her left cheek were like a field of russet flowers. “Gorgeous,” he said.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. Gorgeous.”
“Oh, Dad.”
He could see that she was pleased. She went back to looking out the window, at the lake that was a huge, sparkling sapphire.
“We were talking about sex at youth group the other night. Like, not officially or anything,” she added, catching the look on her father’s face. “A few of us after. We asked Randy about it, you know, to put him on the spot, see if we could embarrass him.”
She was speaking of Gooding, who headed the youth program at St. Agnes.
“Did it work?”
“Oh yeah. He got all red in the face. It was sweet.” She used sweet the way kids did when they meant devilishly enjoyable.
“What did he say?”
She scraped a finger idly along the window glass. “That men mostly want a woman they can respect and who’ll respect them back. Respect is important, huh?”
“I’d say so.”
She looked at him coyly. “When you told me why you fell in love with Mom, respect wasn’t one of the things you mentioned.”
“Respect preceded the love,” he said, thinking quickly.
Annie laid her head on her arms like a tired dog and thought awhile. “Gwen Burdick got her navel pierced and she wears these short tops so you can see her belly button ring. Guys seem to like that, but it seems to me that’s got nothing to do with respect.”
Cork almost said that there were a lot of things guys liked that had little to do with respect, but he didn’t want to open a door to a subject he wasn’t comfortable pursuing.
“I’m thinking of getting my ears pierced.”
“Have you talked to Mom?” Cork opened a carton of chips and took out a half dozen small bags. He began to clip them on the display near the other serving window.
“Yeah, she says ears are okay but it stops there.”
Thank God for Jo, Cork thought.
Two days later, Annie showed up for work an hour late wearing dark lipstick that made her look like a vampire who’d just feasted, and sporting dark eye shadow that made her lids appear to be bruised. Gold studs twinkled from her earlobes. She wore a tight red top and jeans that hugged her butt. She went about her business as if nothing were unusual. About her makeup and clothing, Cork judiciously held his tongue, thinking that he’d talk things over with Jo first. About the pierced ears, he said, “Looks good, kiddo.”
Jenny, who was also working, was blunter. “You look like a KISS groupie. Why don’t you let me help you with your makeup?”
“Who died and made you fashion queen?”
“Fine. You want to date zombies, you’ve got the right look. You decide you want to date guys, let me know and I’ll give you the benefit of my excellent taste.”
In the evening, a little before seven, Annie took a break and stepped outside. Cork watched her walk down to the dock, bend, and study her reflection in the water of Iron Lake. He hoped that she saw deeper than that awful layer of makeup, saw what he saw, her unbridled laughter, her grace when she moved on the ball field, her shining spirituality. It was what he hoped some young man would see someday, but Annie was probably right. Boys were more apt to be impressed by exposed midriffs and pierced navels.
Randy Gooding drove up in his Tracker, parked, and came to the serving window. “Hey, Cork, Annie around?”
“Taking a break down by the lake. What’s up?”
“I need to talk to her about the youth group car wash next weekend. She’s in charge, she tell you?”
“I think so.”
“All right if I go on down?”
Cork thought of warning him about Annie’s new look but decided against it. “Go ahead.”
After Gooding left, Jenny said, “I’d buy a ticket to see the look on his face.”
They watched Gooding saunter down to the dock. Annie was so engrossed studying her reflection that she didn’t hear him coming. Gooding called to her as he neared. She straightened up and turned to him, an expectant smile on her face. Gooding stopped dead in his tracks. For a moment, he just stared. His back was to the Quonset hut and neither Cork nor Jenny could see his face, but it must have been something awful because Annie’s response was a look of horror. Gooding finally spoke, and Annie took off, running in the direction of Aurora and home.
Cork rushed from Sam’s Place and hurried to the dock. “What happened?”
Gooding stared fiercely in the direction Annie had fled. “My God, Cork, didn’t you see her?”
“Yeah, I saw her.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“Like what?”
“Like she’s just asking for trouble.”
Cork knew a lot of men thought that way, a lot of cops, but it surprised him coming from Gooding. And because it was Annie, it pissed him off, too.
“It’s a look, Randy. Christ, just a look. She’s not asking for anything.”
“Maybe not, but that kind of look can get a girl hurt, even a good kid like Annie.”
“Did you tell her?”
“You bet I did.”
“What the hell were you thinking?” Cork stepped back and let the boil of his own blood cool. “This doesn’t sound like you, Randy. That was Annie you sent off in tears. She thinks the world of you.”
Gooding watched Cork’s daughter as she grew smaller with every stride that carried her away, and slowly his face changed.
“What’s going on, Randy?”
Gooding kept his eyes on Annie until she merged with all that was indistinct in the distance.
“Randy?”
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have spoken to her that way. It’s just
…”
“Just what?”
“Look, it wasn’t Annie I was seeing. It was Nina.” He rubbed his temple with his fingertips and seemed genuinely pained. “You got a minute?”
“I’ve got all the time it takes for a good explanation.”
It was dusk and everything was bathed in hues of faded blue. Gooding shifted his feet, and the old boards of the dock squeaked under his weight. He pulled on the short red hairs of his beard and stared east where the evening star was already visible.
“I don’t know if I ever told you this, but I grew up in a children’s home,” he said. “Most of us there were orphans.”
“I didn’t know.” Cork’s anger softened and he said, “Must’ve been tough.”
“It was okay, really. We felt like family, a lot of us. There was one girl in particular who was the nearest thing to a sister I ever had. Nina. Nina van Zoot. From Holland, Michigan. After we left, Nina and I kept in touch. She went to Chicago. I went briefly into the seminary, then finished school in Ann Arbor and decided to join the Bureau. I requested assignment to the field office in Chicago, mostly because Nina was there. They didn’t have an opening, so I ended up at the Milwaukee field office. That was fine. Couple of hours from Nina, I figured.