"Thank you!" I called out as she drove past me and waved. I returned my attention to my best girl.
"Do you know how much I love you?" I said into one of Martha's silky ears.
Apparently, she did.
I ran upstairs with her, put on my hat and coat, and changed into running shoes. We took to the streets we love so much, running down Nineteenth toward the Rec Center Park, where I flopped onto a bench and watched Martha doing her border-collie thing. She ran great joyous circles, herding other dogs and having a heck of a good time.
After a while, she came back to the bench and sat beside me, rested her head on my thigh, and looked up at me with her big brown eyes.
"Glad to be home, Boo? All vacationed out?"
We jogged at a slower pace back to my apartment, climbed the stairs. I fed Martha a big bowl of chow with gravy and got into the shower. By the time I'd toweled off and dried my hair, Martha was asleep on my bed.
She was completely out – eyelids flickering, jowls fluttering, paws moving in some great doggy dream.
She didn't even cock an eyelid open as I got all dressed up for my date with Joe.
Chapter 127
THE BIG 4 RESTAURANT is at the top of Nob Hill, across from Grace Cathedral. It was named for the four Central Pacific Railroad barons, is elegantly paneled in dark wood, staged with sumptuous lighting and flowers. And according to a dozen of the glossiest upmarket magazines, the Big 4 has one of the best chefs in town.
Our starters had been served – Joe was having apple-glazed foie gras, and I'd been seduced by the French butter pears with prosciutto. But I wasn't so taken with the setting and the view that I didn't see the shyness in Joe's eyes and also that he couldn't stop looking at me.
"I had a bunch of corny ideas," he said. "And don't ask me what they were, okay, Linds?"
"No, of course not." I grinned. "Not me." I pushed a morsel of hazelnut-encrusted goat cheese onto a forkful of pear, let it melt in my mouth.
"And after a lot of deep thought – no, really, Blondie, really deep thought – I figured something out, and I'm going to tell you about it."
I put my fork down and let the waiter take my plate away. "I want to hear."
"Okay," said Joe. "You know about my six sibs and all of us growing up in a row house in Queens. And how my dad was always away."
"Traveling salesman."
"Right. Fabrics and notions. He traveled up and down the East Coast and was away six days out of seven. Sometimes more. We all missed him a lot. But my mother missed him the most.
"He was her real happiness, and then one time he went missing," Joe told me. "He always called at night before we went to bed, but this time he didn't. So my mother called the state troopers, who located him the next day sleeping in his car up on a rack in an auto-repair shop outside of some small town in Tennessee."
"His car had broken down?"
"Yeah, and they didn't have cell phones back then, of course, and Christ, until we heard from him, you can't imagine what we went through. Thinking that his car was in a ditch underwater. Thinking he'd been shot in a gas-station holdup. Thinking that maybe he had another life."
I nodded. "Ah, Joe. I understand."
Joe paused, fiddled with his silverware, then started again. "My dad saw how much my mom was suffering, all of us, and he said he was going to quit his job. But he couldn't do that and still provide for us the way he wanted to. And then one day, when I was a sophomore in high school, he did quit. He was home for good."
Joe refilled our wineglasses, and we each took a sip while the waiter placed our entrées in front of us, but from the catch in Joe's throat and a feeling that was growing in me, I'd lost all desire to eat.
"What happened, Joe?"
"He stayed home. We left, one by one. My parents got by on less, and they were happier for it. They're still happy now. And I saw that and I promised myself I would never do to my family what my dad had done to us by being away.
"And then I looked at your face when I showed up last time and told you that I had a plane to catch. And everything you've been saying finally got to me.
"I saw that without meaning to, I'd done just what my dad had done. And so, Lindsay, this is the news I wanted to tell you. I'm home for good."
Chapter 128
I HELD JOE'S HAND as he told me that he'd relocated to San Francisco. I was listening, and I was watching Joe's face – full of love for me. But the wheels in my mind were spinning.
Joe and I had talked about what it would be like to be in the same place at the same time, and I'd broken up with him because it seemed we'd fallen into a way of talking more than forming a plan to make that talk come true.
Now, sitting so close to this man, I wondered if the problem had really been Joe's job or if we had conspired together to keep a safe distance from a relationship that had all the potential to be lasting and real.
Joe picked up his coffee spoon and put it in his handkerchief pocket – I'm pretty sure he thought that the spoon was his pair of reading glasses.
Then he fumbled in his jacket pocket and took out a jeweler's box, black velvet, about two inches on all sides.
"Something I want you to have, Lindsay."
He put aside the vase of sweetheart roses that was between us on the table and handed the box to me.
"Open it. Please."
"I don't think I can," I said.
"Just lift up the lid. There's a hinge at the back."
I laughed at his joke, but I'm pretty sure I stopped breathing as I did what he said. Inside, nestled on velvet, was a platinum ring with three large diamonds and a small one on each side sparkling up at me.
I finally sucked in my breath. I had to. The ring was a "gasper." And then I looked across the table into Joe's eyes. It was almost like gazing into my own, that's how well I knew him.
"I love you, Lindsay. Will you marry me? Will you be my wife?"
The waiter came by and, without saying a word, sailed off. I closed the box. It made a dull little click, and I could swear that the light in the room dimmed.
I swallowed hard, because I didn't know what to say. The wheels inside my head were still spinning, and I was feeling the room spin, too.
Joe and I had both been married.
And we'd both been divorced.
Was I ready to take a chance again?
"Linds?"
I finally choked out, "I love you, too, Joe, and I'm… I'm overwhelmed." My voice cracked as I struggled to speak.
"I need some time to do some deep thinking of my own. I need to be absolutely sure. Will you hold on to this, please?" I said, pushing the small box back across the table.
"Let's see how we do for a while. Just doing normal things," I said to Joe. "The laundry. The movies. Weekends that don't end with you getting into a car and heading to the airport."
Disappointment was written all over Joe's face, and it hurt me terribly to see it. He seemed lost for a moment, then turned my hand over, put the box in my palm, and closed my fingers around it.
"You keep this, Lindsay. I'm not changing my mind. I'm committed to you no matter how much laundry we have to do. No matter how many times we wash the car and take out the garbage and even fight about whose turn it is to do whatever. I'm really looking forward to all of that." He grinned.
Unbelievable how the room brightened again.
Joe was smiling, holding both my hands in his. He said, "When you're ready, let me know so I can put this ring on your finger. And tell my folks that we're going to have a big Italian wedding."
Chapter 129
IT WAS JUNE 6 when Jacobi called me and Rich into his office. He looked really pissed off, as bad as I'd ever seen him.
"I got some bad news. Alfred Brinkley escaped," he said.
My jaw dropped.
Nobody got out of Atascadero. It was a mental institution for the criminally insane, and that meant it was a maximum-security prison more than a hospital.