By Proxy (10 page)

She checked the date:
October!
Just a few weeks ago!
Her eyes opened wide in indignation and her mouth shaped itself into an “O.”
He meant to
philander
with her while he was away from Pepper! A smooth, lowlife womanizer!

Jenny’s blood boiled and she shook her head back and forth in outrage, bracing her palms on the kitchen counter as the old percolator wheezed and gurgled beside her, coffee spurting into the dome angrily.

With no one else to talk to, she looked down at Casey, whose brown puppy eyes widened at Jenny’s upset tone, “He has someone like Pepper Pettway in his life, but he’s trying to make time with me on the side! A weekend fling! Really! Of all the base, disgraceful—”

The phone interrupted her tirade.
The machine can answer!

“Jen. Lars here. Heard about you doing pizza with a dude last night at the Blue Moon. Just wondering about that, little sister…”

The Gardiner rumor mill was up and running early today! It was only 7:45!

The phone rang again. She knew what was coming. She pulled out a coffee cup and listened.

“Jenny. It’s Erik. Lars called. Who’s the guy?”

She counted to ten before the phone rang a final time.

“It’s Nils. You didn’t pick up for Erik or Lars. I’m coming over to see if you’re at your place, Jenny girl, and if you’re not, then I’m calling
Pappa
, and you know—”

Jenny snatched the phone off its base and pressed answer. “Nils! It’s Jen.”

“Ahhhhh.”

“You three are ridiculous. I’m not a baby. You know I can take care of myself. For heaven’s sake, you made sure of it.”

“Well, he’s a stranger. No one knows him.”

“He’s not a stranger. It’s a long story, Nils.”

“I’m warm in bed. I could use a story.”

Older brothers!
“You know Ingrid’s fiancé, Kristian? He’s Kristian Svenson’s cousin. Just visiting.”

“Visiting
you
?”

“No. Yes. Sort of, but it’s not what you think.”

Nils’s voice took on an edge. “What do I
think
, Jenny?”

“Gode Gud
, Nils, quit it. It’s a long, boring story. I’ll tell you all about it at Sunday supper. Do
not
tell Pappa and worry him.”

“Do not tell P— Sorry, Jen.” She heard him chuckle humorlessly on the other side of the phone. “Now you’re digging yourself deeper. Now I want to hear the ‘long, boring story.’ You’ve got to do better than that if you don’t want me to tell him…”

She sighed in annoyance. “Ingrid needed some legal work done up in Livingston at the courthouse. Personal, Nils. I had to take care of her part, and Sam had to take care of Kristian’s. The judge left early for the park and we had to reschedule for Monday. So, he’s stuck in Gardiner for the weekend and I had to be hospitable.”

“Ahhhh. That’s why you went north yesterday. Wondered why Maggie was walking Casey at midday.” Jenny rolled her eyes. Nils
watching
Maggie but doing nothing
else
about Maggie was old news. She thought about giving him a hard time about it, but decided to keep the peace instead. No sense in teasing him and getting him all riled up. Maggie could be a pretty touchy subject with Nils. “Sam, huh?”

“Sam. Kelley. Sam Kelley. Pretty much kin of Ingrid, so leave it alone, okay? No need to worry Pappa.”

“Yeah, okay.” He paused. “You still need a hand at school today? With the booth?”

Jenny thought about this for a moment. She
should
accept Nils’s help and tell Sam she had no interest in seeing him again until Monday’s appointment. She certainly wasn’t the sort of girl who went around with taken men. But indignation surged up in her and she realized she wanted to give him a piece of her mind personally. That meant she couldn’t cancel on him yet.

She glanced at her watch. 8:05. Sam would be here in forty minutes. “I think I’ve got it covered, Nils. You can still stop by and pick up everything later to put it together. I’ll call you boys if anything changes. See you later or tomorrow.”

She hung up quickly and raced to her room to get dressed; she needed to get to Albertson’s Grocery and back before Sam got to her place. She suddenly knew exactly what she would offer him for breakfast.

***

Sam slept like a baby.

Maybe it was gulping in all of that sweet, clean Montana air, or spending time with a girl like Jenny but either way, Sam woke up feeling great. He stretched languorously, rotating his neck to get out the morning cricks. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, sitting there for a moment, groggy until he caught sight of the alarm clock out of the corner of his eye.

“No! Crap!” He shot up, eyes wide open, realizing he had to be at Jenny’s place in twenty minutes.

After showering and shaving in record time, Sam surveyed his limited options and decided on a pair of jeans, plaid flannel shirt and the sweatshirt he had on last night. He jumped into his rental car and raced to Jenny’s apartment, giving himself a pat on the back as he pulled up in front of her building.
8:44. Not bad, Sammy. Not bad.

He took the stairs two at a time, excited to see her again. Maybe they weren’t
meant
for each other, but they were
stuck
together for a weekend, and she kept him on his toes. Might as well enjoy her company.

His mouth watered as the smells of a good old-fashioned country breakfast wafted out into the hall.
Eggs and bacon if I’m not mistaken
! He was so impatient to see her, he felt like an eager suitor, like he should have chocolates tucked under his arm, or flowers hidden behind his back.

Whoa, boy! Calm down and remember she’s not for you. Just be friendly and nice. Don’t make this more complicated.

He knocked lightly at her door and heard her call from inside, “It’s open, Sam!”

Walking into her bright, cheery apartment felt like coming home. Sure, he’d been there last night, but it was harder to get a feeling for a place at night. He walked through the short, tidy front hallway, peeking into the living room.

Bright sun shone through two windows that looked out onto Main Street. The loveseat and chair looked cozy and inviting, places to really relax with a cup of coffee, as opposed to the stark, modern furniture in Pepper’s apartment. The cheerful curtains reminded him of the handmade ones his mother had made for his room when he was small, only Jenny’s had flowers, and his had been patterned with falling leaves. Relieved that there was no fancy, modern artwork to pretend he liked, he glanced briefly at her family photos. Jenny and three blond boys in hiking boots standing from shortest to tallest in front of a massive boulder, and teenage Jenny hugging teenage Ingrid, both wearing black mortarboard caps.

He picked up the picture and looked at her face. Not so different from now, really. Fresh and unpainted, blonde hair curled around her shoulders in what he guessed was a special hair-do for graduation day.
Pretty Girl. I would have tried to hold your hand.

He didn’t want her to catch him snooping so he returned the frame to its place and headed into the kitchen. Casey wiggled from her playpen in the corner, whining for Sam to come and pick her up. He obliged happily. Jenny was still nowhere to be seen.

The table was set simply with two plates, two coffee cups and two napkins. Just what they needed. No fuss. He could smell the coffee and his mouth watered, so he poured himself some joe before sitting down at the table with Casey on his lap.

In the middle of the table was a spice wheel like his mother used to have. He put Casey in the nook of one elbow and used his other hand to spin the plate slowly: hot sauce, mustard, black pepper, white pepper, red pepper, salt, red pepper flakes, a wooden pepper mill, a clear plastic pepper mill, cayenne pepper, chili pepper and some honey.

Wow
, he thought.
Someone likes her food spicy
!

He scratched under Casey’s neck. “Where’s Jenny? Where’s your mama?”

“Jenny?” he called toward the living room.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” she replied from her bedroom. “Help yourself to coffee…and anything else you see.”

He glanced at his half-finished cup and winked at Casey. “Good thing she didn’t mind!” Casey bucked up and licked his chin from where she was lying in his elbow. He looked around the kitchen for breakfast, but he didn’t see anything else to help himself to, just the spice wheel on the table. He assumed breakfast was warming in the oven and figured he should wait for Jenny before he got started.

Jenny came into the kitchen dressed in jeans and a white, long-sleeved, buttoned-down shirt. Her jeans were belted with some sort of Indian-style beaded belt and she wore them slung low on her hips, like Sam imagined a cowgirl would wear them. She had on leather boots too—the real deal, not from Bloomingdales or Saks—and they were well worn and scuffed from years of use. Her hair was tightly braided back
. Probably a good idea. That silky mane was pretty tempting when it was down.

She smiled at him, but he couldn’t read her face and sensed something standoffish in her manner. Maybe she was still upset about him kissing her hand last night. He waited to see what would happen. He was starting to learn with Jenny, you never knew.

“Morning,” she offered, not meeting his eyes.

“Morning.”

“Hungry?” she asked pleasantly. He caught it again, that smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Sure.”

“What’re you in the mood for?”

You. On the table. Shirt optional.
“Umm. I don’t know. What’re you offering?”

“I made omelets and bacon.”

“Sounds great.”

She opened the oven and took out a warm platter of omelets and placed it gingerly on the table between the two place settings: four small omelets sat prettily on the platter, with a bunch of bacon on the side. She took Casey from him and sat down across from him, smiling that unpleasant, pleasant smile. It was starting to unsettle him in the same way a man gets unsettled when a woman says she’s “fine” but is clearly perturbed about some unknown thing.

“Wow. Four. Is anyone else coming?”

“Nope,” she replied. “All for you. The first one is green
pepper
, the second one is red
pepper
, and the third one is yellow
pepper
. Want to know what the fourth one is?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s an all-
weather
omelet. Has one vegetable in it from every season…spring peas, summer corn, autumn yams and winter squash.” She got up and placed Casey back in her pen, then turned to face Sam, hands on her hips, her eyes boring into his. “Peppers and weather. And a little bit of cheap pig on the side. I wanted you to feel at home.”

***

He stared at her, speechless, and she stared right back, daring him to confess everything. She couldn’t have been more surprised when his face suddenly contorted with a loud guffaw and he started laughing so hard his face turned red and he grabbed his napkin off the table to dab at his eyes.

Her indignant confidence took a hit from his unexpected reaction. Not that she had a world of experiences in such matters, but this couldn’t be the standard response when a man was caught trying to cheat on his perfect girlfriend! She crossed her arms over her chest and pursed her lips, watching him clutch his stomach with laughter, and at long last, collect himself.

“Jenny,” he finally said, wiping at his eyes, when he could actually speak again.

“Sam,” she replied tartly, every bit the expectant schoolmarm waiting for answers.

He gestured to her laptop, crossing the kitchen to stand beside it. Grazing the space bar with one finger, the picture of Sam and Pepper suddenly sprang to life on Jenny’s kitchen counter. “Someone doing a little Googling this morning?”

Conferring her
most
contemptuous look, she knew she should declare,
Yes, that’s exactly what I did, bucko, and you’ve got another think coming if you think you’re going to cheat on Pepper Pettway with me!
However, a little seed of doubt was taking root in her gut based on his reaction, and she worried that she may have jumped to conclusions from looking at a few glamorous pictures on the Internet.

“Jenny. Pepper and I aren’t together anymore.”

She swallowed and covered her mouth with her hand. She could feel her cheeks burning, and knew she was turning thirty shades of scarlet. She wondered for the second time in twelve hours why the forces of the universe couldn’t see fit to open large craters in the floor of one’s apartment when a situation clearly called for one. When she looked up at him, he was smiling, and to her relief he didn’t seem angry or upset, just sort of amused, eyebrows raised in quizzical merriment, waiting for her next misguided assumption about him and his life.

She had no words. She was beyond ashamed of herself for getting so carried away with her quest for information on Sam and for believing the worst of him when he had done nothing to deserve her distrust. Crying wasn’t the prerogative of the transgressor in her family growing up, so she bit her tongue and held her tears. She looked down at her boots instead.

His face took a serious turn and he looked at her closely. “Jenny, look at me. Please look at me. Listen, I know you don’t know me very well, but, I need you to know this: When I’m with someone, I’m really with them. I wouldn’t have touched you yesterday if I wasn’t free to do so. We may live in different worlds, Jen, but that’s just not the kind of man I am, or would be, in
either
world.” He looked at her, waiting for an indication that she understood and accepted what he was saying, and she nodded back.

He sat back down at the table and turned his attention to the omelets, sliding the all-weather omelet onto his plate with several pieces of bacon.

“You didn’t
do
anything to these omelets, did you?” His eyes sparkled with laughter. “I’m not going to die from too much cayenne or a rotten yam, am I?”

She closed her eyes, breathing in and closed them, breathing out. It didn’t help. She had done it again after she had promised herself she wouldn’t: jumped to conclusions. Misjudged him. How in the world could she offer a sufficient apology?
Lord help me to swallow my terrible pride and show him how sorry I am.