"You get the right side," he said in the darkness.
Clumsily I half fell into the waterbed, rolling up against him before I could stop myself.
"Oh my God!" I gasped, as my skin brushed up against his. He was totally-and I do mean totally-naked!
"Jack, you're… you're…"
"Well, I told you I was taking my clothes off."
"Yes, but I thought you meant you were changing into pajamas."
"Never wear 'em," he said calmly. Then he rolled slightly away from me. "That better?" He chuckled. "You are so uptight!"
"I am not!" I was edging, the best way I could, over to the wooden rail and as far away from his hot skin as I could move.
"Maggie, the human body is just a trapping for the soul. The world makes way too much of it."
I did not think I was doing any such thing.
"Maggie, it's just skin and parts. Take a deep breath and relax."
"You know, Jack," I said, fuming, "I've about had it with meditating reality away. If I breathe deeply, I will still know that I am lying in bed with a naked man!"
He chuckled a sleepier chuckle. "It's all relative, Maggie."
"What would Evelyn say about all this?"
There was a deep, prolonged sigh from the other side of the bed. "I'm sure, in her way, Evelyn knows all about it." He shifted a little in the bed, pulling the quilt a little farther up on his shoulders. The moonlight drifted through the skylight and touched his shoulders and made his blond hair seem to glow. "Go to sleep, Maggie," he murmured. "You are new to the world in many ways."
I lay there, listening, my body rigidly clinging to the far side of the bed. Slowly his breathing deepened. He was actually asleep. I stayed vigilant, thinking maybe it was all some kind of weird meditative state, but soon he began to snore gently. I clung to my edge of the bed for as long as I could, but eventually I fell asleep.
At some point in the night, I woke up suddenly to find my head nestled up against his shoulder and one of his hands resting on my arm. I was barely awake, and didn't move, because for that one moment I felt safe again.
Chapter Ten
Jack was gone again when I awoke. I don't know how he did it. I usually sleep light. Motherhood does that to you. Any sound in my house and I'd have been up and investigating. Vernell used to swear that if Sheila so much as turned over, I'd be down the hall, in her room, and checking her breathing. But for some reason, when Jack woke up and left, I'd slept through it.
I wandered downstairs, looking for coffee, and found the carafe waiting for me with a note attached.
"Evelyn waited around to meet you, but you were sleeping too hard. I'll be back later this afternoon: May need a ride to work. Hope you slept well. Jack."
I reached for a cracked mug and poured steaming hot coffee into it. A Starbucks bag lay empty on the counter. Mocha Java. I'd have to run by the Barnes and Noble at Friendly Center and pick some up for him. I wandered across the plywood floor, spotting a CD player. Music. That's what the morning called for, music.
I was not surprised to find that Jack had strange taste in music. He had a mishmash of artists I'd never heard of, along with some that I could recognize. At least he had Emmy Lou Harris. That fact redeemed him somewhat in my eyes. But I settled for a Jesse Winchester oldie. "Brand New Tennessee Waltz" floated out into the room.
I whirled around, singing softly and sipping coffee. I drifted up the stairs with my second cup of coffee and took a shower. The shower was one area where Jack seemed to have spared no expense. I stood in the stall and let two showerheads cover me in a warm spray. It was wonderful. Even his soap smelled good, like leather and spices.
By the time I'd dressed and let my hair fall around my shoulders in damp ringlets, I had a plan. A visit to Miss Sheila and then Vernell. One of those two, if not both, knew something they hadn't told me. I thought of the dark circles under Sheila's eyes when she'd come to the Curley-Que. A mama knows when something's wrong, and in hindsight, I could see there was more to Sheila's anxiety than worry about me.
I sat on the edge of the one clothing-draped chair in Jack's room and pulled on my boots. Sheila'd probably be at her after-school job at the bagel shop by now. Vernell would be at the satellite dish shop or at the mobile home lot, supervising the crew. That is, if he wasn't at the funeral home.
I ran down the stairs, added more coffee to my mug, and pushed the garage door button. Slowly the door began to edge upward, revealing a pair of new lizard-skin Tony Lama boots. I sighed. This was not going to be my day after all.
The garage door slid further up, revealing Marshall Weathers in all his glory.
"Sleep well?" he asked. He was smiling, but he didn't mean it. I could tell by the cold glint in his eyes. "Your boyfriend left about an hour ago. You didn't feel like breakfast?" There was a hard edge to his voice. Despite myself, my body started to respond.
"He's not my boyfriend," I said, my voice squeaking a little and making me sound like a guilty teenager.
"Well, I don't know what else to call him," he said. "The boy brought you home to his place. All the lights went off a half an hour later, just that little bit of candlelight coming from the bedroom. What else would you call him? I suppose you slept in separate rooms?"
"Yes," I snapped. "As if it were your business!"
"Everything about you is my business right now," he said. He was looking past me, into the living room. He was taking in the couch, the two beer bottles sitting on the coffee table in front of the woodstove, the coffee mug standing in the sink. He wasn't missing a trick, but he was looking hardest at the couch. It showed no signs of having been slept on.
"You followed us last night!" I said, the knowledge infuriating me. "That was your Jeep?"
"Might've been." He took a step closer on the loading dock. "You gonna let me in, or do you want to have this conversation out here?"
I took a giant step forward, over the doorsill, and pushed the garage door opener again. The squeaky wheel started to grind and the rusty door started rolling back down.
"Here is fine," I said. "It's not like I have anything to hide. I can talk out in the open. I don't have to skulk around in the bushes, spying on folks. You must have a lot of time on your hands, Detective, if you've gotta go following innocent people around! You don't have a love life? You've gotta go speculating on mine instead?"
He shook his head, like maybe I didn't get it. But his neck was slowly turning red. "This is gonna get us nowhere," he said. He looked at my cracked mug of steaming coffee and seemed to sigh slightly.
"Maggie, why don't you leave that there and come take a ride with me."
"Why, are we going downtown?" I stressed the word downtown, just like they do on TV.
"No, I was actually figuring we'd go over to Yum-Yums and get us a couple of hot dogs and milkshakes." The cold glint in his eyes was gone. He'd lost the anger and that astonished me. Somehow he'd just let it go, or stuffed it away in a box. He now seemed genuinely friendly.
"Hot dogs and milkshakes?" My stomach growled in agreement. I figured I owed him. I'd run out on him twice. It wasn't really that much of a choice anyway. If I got all snippy, then we'd end up downtown in his office. My stomach growled again, louder. I'd never get lunch at the police station.
He didn't wait for my answer. He assumed and started walking toward his brown Taurus.
"Where's the Jeep?" I said, following him.
"Home." He walked around to his side of the car and unlocked the door. This was not a date. This was still, underneath the friendly exterior, business. A gentleman would've unlocked your door, Mama's voice said inside my head.