Chapter Four

He was leaning against the back of his truck when I walked by toward work the next morning. I stumbled a little on the sidewalk and then went to him. Because he’d clearly been waiting for me. 

He waved, grinning as I came over.

“You survived!” he cried. “Not even a little bit of the drowned rat about you.”

I grunted, blushing. He scratched his head, frowning a little and then smiling at me crookedly, giving me that flash his eyes could make sometimes. When he was going to make a joke or make fun of himself. 

“There’s a place Rachel was telling me about yesterday,” he said, brushing his hair off his face and then pulling his cap out of his back pocket and crushing his hair under it. “Uh, I think it’s called just the Bistro or something and–”

I wriggled my nose, making note to beat Rachel senseless. She thought it was necessary to tell Zevi about what was my favorite restaurant in the area?

“Uh-huh,” I agreed, interrupting him. “Couple of towns over.”

“Well, I’d like to give it a whirl,” he said, unfazed at my snapping at him. “Could take you with. Payback for lemonade.”

“The payback for lemonade was driving me home last night,” I said.

“Mmm, right,” he agreed, play-thoughtfully. “Then payback for your kindness in the office yesterday.”

I couldn’t help it, I laughed and nodded.

“Sure, I’ll go to the Bistro with you. When were you thinking?” I asked.

“Well now I’m thinking tonight so that you don’t have time to change your mind,” he said, pretending to be shocked. 

“Not tonight,” I said, still laughing. “Rachel and I are wrapping up something kind of big. How about tomorrow?”

He snapped his fingers the way he did, raising his hand almost level to his face like he was doing a magic trick.

“Tomorrow, perfect, fantastic. Will I be allowed to come and collect you?” he asked. 

I rolled my eyes again. Inside, though, I was sort of impressed. Liked his old-fashioned courtship and giving me an ‘out’ to escape on my own if I didn’t want to drive with him.

“Yes, that would be fine,” I said. 

“Good. Continue on your merry way, be free, I just wanted to ambush and trick you into dinner with me,” he said, waving airily down the road.

I left him, still laughing.

I left work a little early the next day without telling Rachel why. I couldn’t stand the ribbing I’d no doubt receive from her. But I wanted time to change and redo my makeup before going out. 

He, of course, was promptly on time. I met him out on the porch and he gave a low whistle and pretended to do a lecherous down-up-down to me while I blushed.

“You must have forgotten that you were having dinner with me,” he joked, hand over his heart. “You surely thought it was some other, worthier man picking you up for you to look this good.” 

I slapped at his upper arm, impressed by his cool white shirt and how dark it made his hair look. 

“I just look good,” I taunted back.

He slapped his forehead, “right,” he groaned. “You’re always the prettiest girl in the neighborhood. How could I have forgotten?”

“Hush,” I said, trying hard to sound stern and not laugh. “I’m hungry.” 

He crooked his elbow out from his side and, laughing, I curled my hand over the proffered arm to be led down to his truck. 

Sitting in the cab, a little nervous, feet shushing back and forth in the well, I was glad he did as he usually did– chattered. Talking about work, his workmen, rats, bugs, dust, the music they listened to. I liked listening to him. I liked how silly and light-hearted he was all the time. He sparked a similar emotion in me to watching a well-loved and oft-seen comedy movie. Familiar, easy and goofy. 

“Hey,” I said, reaching over to tap his thigh.

“What?” he asked.

I groaned as he entered the highway.

“We could have gone back road,” I groused. “Much nicer drive.”

“Oh-h,” he said sarcastically. “I forgot to ask the Queen of the Hood what direction I should have taken on our quest. You’ll have to recall I’m new, I don’t know what I’m doing.” 

I rolled my eyes, whapping his thigh again.

“You could have asked. I know best,” I said.

His right hand left the wheel briefly, pressing my palm to his leg. I gasped, staring at him, but he didn’t look away from the road. He let me go, but I left my hand right where it was. Now, unfortunately, riotously turned on. I knew what I’d been doing by making contact– I wanted to touch him, but I crouched it in taunt and violence, like an adolescent. He gave me leave to keep touching him. 

We fell silent for a few seconds, and then he said, grinning into the rearview mirror, “I’ll do exactly as you say on the way home, my queen.” 

I groaned, head back against the seat, snatching my hand from him as he laughed.

Dinner was good too. Very good. It was my favorite restaurant. I hadn’t been there in a long time– not much fun to go by yourself. We talked and it was easy and unserious. Books and music and the goofy things we saw around the neighborhood. I told him about scandals, and he told me the gossip from the work site. He was handsome and I loved how he laughed. Letting his head roll back on his neck, laughing wholeheartedly. None of that faux-masculine stoicism from him. Just joy. I liked how he’d ask for a bite of my food with his fork already hovering over it. How much he smiled at our waiter, how sincerely he said thank you, how he waved at babies and lifted his glass toward the kitchen. Just happy and relaxed in ways I never was. Fine with being the tongue-lolling dog in the room. Glad, in fact, with having the broadest smile in the room. I never thought I could be taken seriously, behaving like he did. Honestly, I didn’t take him seriously. He seemed like a boy at play in a man’s body with a man’s money and a driver’s license. 

We wrestled briefly for the check until he reached out and pinched my cheek, making me drop the little leather folder to grasp my face. He laughed, holding it up over his shoulder so I couldn’t take it back. 

As we were walking back out to the lot, he reached out, resting a hand between my shoulder blades, guiding me back to the truck. I glanced up at him, but he was looking around, frowning over the darkness, perhaps. I stumbled as I watched him, heel caught in a ruined patch of cement. His hand on my back slid easily and quickly around my waist, setting me back on my feet.

I felt him about to withdraw his arm and rested a hand over his knuckles to keep it there. He smiled down at me. Helped me back into the truck. While he was circling around the hood, I rested a hand on my chest, trying to externally slow down my heart. Should I invite him back in when we got back to the neighborhood? No, certainly not. Bad idea. It had been a long time since there was a man, and just because this one had made me laugh and smile more than any other didn’t mean he got to get his dick wet. 

We talked all the way home, too, still about nothing important at all. Laughing a lot. Making fun of people, telling the good stories from ten years ago, cracking jokes about our bad taste. When we got back, he actually went around to open the passenger door for me, helping me down. Walking me up the porch steps until I leaned back against my door, hand on the knob behind me. 

“How do you feel about giving me a kiss good night?” he asked.

“I feel pretty good about it,” I said, smiling up at him. 

He smiled and leaned forward. I reached out, a hand on his chest.

“I feel really good about it,” I amended. 

He grinned fiercely then, cupping my chin in both his hands and leaning down to kiss me. He unrolled it like a scroll, something that felt long and deep and very worthy. Melting in all directions, my shoulder blades slumped into my door, my hips into his, losing myself in it. He stepped away, pushing my hair off my forehead, just like he had during the rainstorm. 

“Thanks,” he said.

I laughed breathlessly, “thank you.” 

“Good night,” he said, dropping down my steps.

Astounded, I reached out with both hands for him, then let them drop back down to my sides. 

“Hey,” I called, at this point he was already almost back to his truck. 

“Yeah?” he asked. Without any pressure or enthusiasm. He wasn’t expected to be stopped and invited in. Just a casual, light-hearted ‘yeah?’

“You know what you’re going to do with your building yet?”

“Nope,” he said cheerfully, smiling at me and swinging into his cab.

I went slowly into the house, setting my things down. Sitting at the kitchen table to unstrap my heels. Putting them carefully back at the front door. Going into the bathroom, scooping up oil to take off my makeup.

Glad, at least, that I hadn’t invited him in. How could I even have considered it? It was crazy of me to think of him as even a remote possibility. The idiot had grown up with money, or at least, more money than I had. He wasn’t from here, he didn’t understand the history or context of anything. His unseriousness wasn’t a game or a mask– he was sincerely incapable. I’d be ashamed to have sex with a landlord. Just because he wasn’t the worst kind of exploiter didn’t mean that he wasn’t at all. He could float along like a jellyfish if he wanted– that wasn’t me. 

There was a tingle across my nose, eyes getting dry and hot, and I worried that I was going to start crying. I was disappointed. But better to make this realization now than waking up with him the next morning. 

“Well… That’s a shame,” I said, shrugging into my mirror at myself. Trying to project how unbothered I was by watching my reflection. 

Chapter Five

I was less disappointed when I woke up the next day– or anyway, more reconciled. Reminding myself that it was better to be disappointed than regretful. At least all I was dealing with was a thwarted crush, not a failed love affair. 

I got into the office. Looked over the planner. Set up Rachel’s office for her. When she came in, she waved hello and went into her office. Then peered around her doorway from her chair at me for a long moment. I listened to her rapidly opening and closing a bunch of the drawers in her desk– no surprise there, she never kept things in the same place twice. Then she came out to me, waving a movie-theater box of my favorite candy at me. I looked askance at her as she slid it across my desk. 

Holding up two fingers in a peace sign at me, she said, “two things.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, spinning the candy around on my blotter. 

“First, candy because it looks like it was a rough night. You all right?” she asked.

“Uh-huh,” I said. 

I’d probably tell her at some point– we were pretty well involved with each other’s lives. She was my boss but we were fairly intimate. We didn’t talk about our internal lives too much, but externally we did. She joked that I would be the first one who knew she was dead or would go looking for her if she went missing, so she kept me abreast of her comings and goings. I did the same. 

“In that case, there’s someone I want you to meet,” she said, still staring at me but dropping the subject. “He’s coming in later. He’s been doing work for that business seeding group that I want to introduce you to. Know you want to do that kind of work.”

“Oh!” I said. There was a new group trying to get up and running that had branched out from the more militant members of Jaycees and the rotary clubs around here. The stated desire was to force out the big, unhealthy corporate concerns around here and buck up more independent businesses. I was very interested in that. “Okay!’

She smiled at me, gave me an A-okay and went back into her office. 

I genuinely thought a bear was breaking into the office, at least for a moment. Because the shadow being cast across the floor was that hulking and the movement that lumbering. When the bell tinkled over the door, I looked up. And had to keep looking up until my head rocked back between my shoulders.

“Hello?” I asked hesitantly.

“Looking for Rachel Berg,” the invader said. He didn’t sound like a bear. An almost melted-chocolate voice. Or someone who had grown used to speaking quietly so as to not frighten. 

Rachel came out from her office and nodded at the man.

“You can come on back,” she said to him. “But first I want you to meet Betta.” 

She stood at the corner of my desk and he approached slowly. I stood up and held out my hand to him. He shook gently too, but I lost my hand in his. 

“Betta this is Mr. Godsson,” Rachel said.

“Baron,” he rumbled.

“Baron,” I agreed.

She did the little networking back and forth. Telling him my interest and experience and how I wanted to get involved with the cause and all of that. I was realizing, as I stared up at him, that I did know him. I knew him from a couple of political campaigns around here– positions like the mayor and the sheriff. I knew him from a couple of the more militant and progressive-style political talks, too, that I used to attend. Which Rachel knew about but really wasn’t something that you’d bring up ordinarily.

“We’ve um… We’ve met before,” I said. “Or… I mean… I’ve seen you speak a few times.”

He frowned, eyebrows lowering over his eyes. Looking more bearish than ever. Eyes darting over my face briefly and coolly. He had looked big on stages and standing on the steps of town hall. He was huge, standing on the other side of my desk. His chin tilted upward, eyes going hooded. 

“You were the little girl handing out the pamphlets a couple of months ago, weren’t you?” he asked.

I sucked my cheek into my back teeth and bit down. Surprised he’d noticed me at all. He was always surrounded by people. And he was a good speaker and people listened to him. He commanded attention from the outset because of his size, but he held it because of an undeniable masculine charisma. To me, he seemed like a primitive chief. Someone who could convince his village to go to war for the right reasons. The kind of man who would lead a hunt and not stop. But unsurprised that he’d boiled me down to ‘little’ and ‘pamphlets’ because that’s all I really was in any movement. An attaché, a crafter, the one who stayed quiet and nodded. 

“Uh-huh,” I whispered.

“Good to meet you,” he said briskly.

Then he and Rachel went back to her office, to do whatever he’d actually come to do. 

When he exited, he strode past my desk with a nod, so brusque as to seem rude. I just knew he was busy. He paused at the door, however, hand on the handle, and looked back over his shoulder.

“You know the building where we’re holding the seed meetings?” he asked me.

“Uh,” I said, sort of scrambling and rolling my seat to see him better around my screen. “Yeah, uh-huh, the old municipal building, right?”

“Right,” he said slowly. His hand dropped from the knob. “How do you know it’s the municipal building?”

“I grew up in the neighborhood,” I said. “I was just away for a while, but I’m back now. For good.” 

“Did you?” he asked, eyebrows cocked.

“Yeah, my parents owned the service station that was on the corner of Eleventh and Franklin. I went away for school… and…” I didn’t want to say, “I went away for school and stayed away for a man” in front of him. “And now I’m back,” I finished lamely. 

“Bouchard’s?” he questioned.

“Yes!” I said, brightening. Remembering instantly the dings of the pressure sensors and helping my father in the shop, and answering phones for my mother in the little closet of an office that was attached.

“Mm,” he grunted. “Go to Benny’s?” he asked. “Benny’s” was the neighborhood shorthand for Benjamin Franklin high school. 

“Yessir, I did. Graduated from there,” I said.

“Must’ve been after my time,” he said. 

“Likely,” I agreed. “And I just wasn’t terribly noticeable in high school.”

“Mm,” he grunted again.

“Have a good afternoon!” I squeaked as he finally opened the door. 

“I’ll see you at the meeting,” he said, letting the door fall shut behind him. 

I was oddly flattered to be invited. Of course, it wasn’t an invitational thing. I had heard about it from a few different sources– all those various groups I was in, all the people I ordinarily networked with. But I knew he was a founding member. And the sheer fact that he’d taken the time to talk to me seemed astounding. 

I was thinking about the meeting, getting excited, wondering what, if any, action plan there was when I walked past Zevi’s building. I was hoping he wouldn’t be out there, and he wasn’t. The doors were open, I heard power tools and hurried by.