No Place Like Home (8 page)

He paused for effect, and although I knew at least most of what was coming, I stopped peeling to listen to his version. “And this guy walks in. Bad attitude written all over him. It’s a country bar, with a bunch of farmers and rednecks, and Billy comes in with his hair down to his waist and black leather and tattoos and a bandana tied around his head, and I thought, ‘Oh, shit. Gonna be a fight.’

“But he just walks along the back of the room, jingling from all the metal all over him—”

I snorted.

Malachi grinned, pleased. “And just sits down next to me. ‘How ya doin’, man,’ he says. And I just about fell out in a dead swoon. He was so cool, and I was fifteen years old and thinking, ‘Oh, my God, I bet he gets laid every ten minutes.’ ”

I was still smiling from the memory of the metal and laughed out loud at this. Caught, I put the potato peeler down and folded my arms, leaning one hip on the counter.

Now that he had my full attention, Malachi launched into a full-blown retelling of That Fateful Night. “He hears Michael sing and whistles low under his breath, and me, I’m dying to get his attention—you know, like maybe he’d know how I could get under Jean Anne’s blouse—and I tell him it’s my brother doing that singing.”

His eyes fixed on some place far in the past, a place he saw just over my shoulder. “And at the break, Michael comes over and shakes his hand, and I can tell they’ve talked a little, and I could see that kind of way Michael got, you know. He was attracted to this cool guy, and not like I was.” He came back from that night, looked at me, a sad smile on his face. “And I was so damned humiliated I just wanted to kill him.”

There was a raw edge to the words, and I smiled, shaking my head. “You were a kid. It’s natural.”

He bent his head, gave a twitch of a shoulder. “Billy saw it, too, but he was a hell of a lot more sophisticated than I was, and it didn’t give him any heebie-jeebies.”

“Did he tell you any tricks about getting under Jean Anne’s shirt?” I asked lightly. “As I recall, he was very adept.”

He laughed. “Well, not right away.”

I went back to my potatoes, thinking about the age thing, trying to fit Michael’s and Billy’s stories with the new information about Malachi, whom I’d always believed to be only a couple of years younger than Michael. “How old were you when your father . . . uh . . . went to jail?”

“Ten.” Gruff. Subject not up for discussion.

But I couldn’t let it just go. “Oh, my God,” I said, and remembered another piece of the story. “And you were the one home that night.”

“Yeah.” He gathered offal and walked to the trash. “Ancient history, babe, and I hate that sympathetic look, all right?”

“All you big tough guys do.” I grinned at him.

“You just call ’em like you see ’em, don’t you?”

The phone rang, startling in the quiet, and I wiped my hands. “I lived with Billy, remember?” I picked up the phone and said hello.

“Jewel, did I wake you?” It was Jordan. There was an edge of something to her voice and I frowned.

“No, what’s up?”

“I hate to ask, but my damned car won’t start and I need to get to work. Can you give me a ride?”

“Don’t scare me like that, girl! I thought somebody was hurt or something.”

“No. I’m just bummed. I hate begging favors.”

“No big deal. I’ll be right there.”

I hung up and turned to Malachi. “My sister needs a ride to work, and I’m closest.”

“Which sister is this?” He’d tucked the fish into the freezer and was wiping up the counter. A man who cleaned up after himself—wonder of wonders.

I turned the broth off, covered the potatoes with a sheet of plastic wrap. “The one you didn’t meet: Jordan. She doesn’t live far away.”

“Mind if I ride along?”

It startled me. “Uh, no.”

A glimmer in his eyes said he knew it unsettled me. “Sure?”

“Have to ride in the station wagon.”

“That’s all right.”

I got my keys. “Come on then, big boy.”

ROMEO’S ZEPPOLES

This is something you can do with the little ones—bring them all into the kitchen with you, maybe on one of those cold rainy afternoons when there’s no place for them to play. You can make the dough into little animals or letters or numbers, and let them put the powdered sugar on when they’re finished. Little ones, they like cooking.

7 cups of flour 3 eggs

1 package of yeast 1 orange peel

2 tsps salt 3–4 cups of warm water

Grate orange peel. Beat the 3 eggs. Add yeast to 1 cup of warm water and mix in the 3 beaten eggs, orange peel, and 2 teaspoons of salt. Take this and add it to the 7 cups of flour and mix with your hands. As you are mixing continue to add the remaining cups of warm water. The dough should be soft and sticky. Once you have finished, take the dough and wrap it in a clean dish towel and place it in a big pan to rise. Once the dough has risen, take a fork and let the air out. Re-cover and let it rise again. Take the dough and shape as you like. During this time fill a pan with oil and heat it. It’s hot enough when the dough drops to the bottom and comes right back to the surface. Once the dough has browned, take it out and place it on a brown paper bag.

Chapter 6

Jordan lived in “the county” as locals called it. Not quite The Lanes, as we did, though technically she did live on one of them, but farther east a little more, in an ancient adobe thatwe figured had been built around 1875, at the latest. It was crooked and required zillions of hours of upkeep, but it was also charming and very Jordan. The Arkansas River flowed not forty yards away, but the house stood on a little bluff, surrounded by huge, thick-branched cottonwoods, so it was safe from flooding. She lived there with her husband, a vague, friendly potter named Henry whom she’d met at the Renaissance fair years ago. They kept chickens and sold the eggs, grew an enormous organic vegetable garden every summer and dried it, and harvested rose hips to sell to a tea company in Boulder.

Together they’d developed a unique and interesting line of pots and bowls and dishes with whimsical forest creatures—the fey folk, not animals—peaking over brims and shaping handles. Henry sketched the designs and did the glazing; Jordan happily formed the actual pieces, painstakingly and by hand. Every weekend through June and July, they donned their Renaissance garb, loaded their goods and went north to Larkspur for the festival, and made nearly enough money to live on most of the year.

Hippies, people would call them, I guess. But that’s not the right word in Colorado. For one thing, neither of them is anywhere close to old enough to really be a hippie. For another, hippie implies drugs, a weird sort of zealousness for vegetarianism or organic sandals or uncut hair. They aren’t like that.

They’re just not exactly on the same time continuum as the rest of society. They move in tune with an inner directive, or maybe just a natural one. It’s a kind of person you see a lot around here, especially the closer you get to the mountains—amiable and relaxed and content with what is.

Malachi didn’t say anything as we pulled into the yard behind Jordan’s old Volvo, just looked at the chickens pecking in a patch of sunny dirt behind a fence. Jordan came rushing out, dressed in her blue scrubs, her hair flying out behind her. I was pleased at how pretty she looked—the prettiest one of all of us, though she’s never known it for one single minute. Or cared, for that matter. Golden brown hair springing in wild curls around a makeupless and perfect face, a big Sophia Loren kind of mouth that’s always red because she’s so healthy, a strong but very lush figure that looks truly awesome in a Renaissance gown. She halted halfway to us, held up a finger, and rushed back in the house for something.

Malachi said, “Wow.”

I laughed as she came running back out, an empty cloth bag printed with flowers flying behind her. “Gorgeous, isn’t she?”

“That’s not what I meant—I mean, yeah, are you guys twins?”

“Keep it up, sailor,” I said with a grin. “Flattery will get you anywhere.”

He raised one eyebrow, looking at me across the small space, and he just seemed huge and tempting, all of a sudden—twelve feet of thighs to straddle, a jaw that my hands wouldn’t cover, the chocolate syrup look of those eyes. “Yeah? What’ll it get me?”

“She’s younger than me,” I said. “But still older than you.”

He opened the door and got out, gesturing for Jordan to get in the front seat, but she waved him back. “You’ve gotta be the brother,” she said, patting his arm as she went by and yanked open the back door. “I already heard all about you.” She inclined her head. “You don’t look anything like Michael.”

They both got in, and Jordan pulled her hair into a scrunchy. The faint patchouli smell of incense clung to her, exotic and pleasing, and she leaned back. “Boy, you shoulda heard ’em last night. Jasmine cooed, I swear to God.”

Tossing a glance toward Malachi as I turned around to back out, I laughed. “I noticed.”

“Nana Lucy was not cooing.” She raised her voice into the crone-tones of the old woman, “ “MAL-a-KI! MAL-a-ki! What kind of name is that for a man?’ ”

He laughed. “She’ll come around.”

“Ha! You don’t know her. You know those old witches in fairy tales, the ones who bake little kids or feed them till they’re plump so she can eat them? That’s my nana.”

“
Jordan!
That is not true.”

“You were always her favorite, that’s why.” She scooted over to sit behind me as I got on Highway 50 back to town, so she could look at me in the rearview mirror and bring our passenger into the conversation. “Malachi, what do you think of this: when we were seven and six, Jewel and I both got Barbie dolls for Christmas. Jewel broke the knees of hers, and my nana took mine away and gave it to her!”

“Oh!” I looked at her in the mirror, laughing. “That is such a lie, girl! You broke my doll’s knees.”

He laughed and threw up his hands. “I’m not getting in the middle of this for love nor money.”

Jordan laughed, and I asked about her car, which she said was dying. Henry would pick her up on his way home—he did construction work most days—and they’d set out for the festival tomorrow. “You like RenFaires, Malachi? You should come with us some weekend. You’re staying awhile, right? You’d look good as a knight. Nobody is ever really big enough to pull it off. You ever swing a sword?”

He looked at me, and I smiled, but carefully didn’t look back. That’s the thing about Jordan. Like a lot of artists, she’s a little manic-depressive. In an up mood, she can outtalk anyone on the planet. When she’s down, she tends to hibernate. It’s not like she needs drugs or anything, it’s just a natural cycle for her. My mother gave her her own room—even though I was the oldest, I might add—because of it. She needed her space more than the rest of us.

She talked all the way to town. Or at least until the car intervened. Just past the university, just as we got into serious traffic, in other words, it started screaming. Loudly.

“Jewel! What is that?”

I raised my chin. “I have no idea. Three mechanics have looked at it and they can’t find it.” A guy in a three-quarter-ton pickup glared at me. I glared back. Did he think I wanted it to make this noise? “Shane says it’s haunted.”

“They check the fan belt?” Malachi asked, his head cocked, listening.

“Yep. All the belts.” The light turned and I headed down Elizabeth toward the hospital, going under a tunnel of thick trees that seemed to exaggerate the banshee scream. It sounded exactly like those shuddering electronic toys you can get for Halloween. “Checked the tires, the undercarriage, everything.”

He was frowning intently, like he knew something, and I found myself with a teeny flare of hope. If he could fix that noise, I’d cook him pies for a year. “Do you know engines?”

“A little,” he said. “I’ll take a look.”

We dropped Jordan off at the hospital, and as she got out of the car, I reached out of the window to catch her sleeve. “Hey! Do you know the address of Jane’s new house?”

She smiled and gave it to me.

When I put it back in gear, the car stopped screaming as abruptly as it had started. “Do you mind if I run by the house and look in the windows?” I asked Malachi. “It’s not far.”

“Course not. Maybe while you’re looking in the windows, I’ll look under the hood.” He shifted. Even this old station wagon wasn’t really big enough for the length of his legs, the breadth of his shoulders.

“What do you drive when you aren’t on a motorcycle?” I asked.

He grinned at me. “A truck, sugar. What else?”

“Of course. A big one, too, I bet. A Ford.”

“Naturally.”

Easy to imagine him hanging his elbow out the window of some giant pickup. What else, indeed. Pulling into traffic toward the center of town, I pointed out a graceful, exquisitely maintained Victorian house. “A museum,” I said, even though he didn’t strike me as a museum kind of guy.

“Looks haunted.”

“Definitely. We used to have to go there a lot—with Girl Scouts or the church group or school—and after the first time, I had nightmares the night before I went back. Every time. My mama finally wrote me excuses.”

“She didn’t strike me as the type to let a girl off the hook like that.”

I stopped at a light, tapping my fingers on the wheel. “Don’t judge her by last night. She just worries about certain things. On the rest, she’s all right.”

A horn tooted next to us and I looked over to see my cousin George in a low slung sports car, looking clean and sweet-smelling in his polo shirt and sunglasses. I rolled the window down and he rolled down his. “Hey! How’s business, Rich Guy?”

“Not bad.” He lifted his perfectly cut chin toward Malachi. “How you doin’?”

Malachi nodded.

The light changed, but George didn’t move right away. “Call me, will you? Maybe there’s a catering job for you—Dante Alighieri Society.”

“Fantastic!” I blew him a kiss and waved, pulling out before the people behind us could honk, though usually people would give you a second unless they were out-of-towners. “Ah,” I said, thinking aloud. “If I could do a great job for Dante Alighieri, I’d be in like Flynn.”

Malachi chuckled. “Mixing the cultural metaphors there a bit, aren’t you?”

I grinned. Brighter than he looked. “Yeah, well, hang around awhile. It’s appropriate.” I took a big deep breath. “I’ve been working so hard to get new accounts. Now, if none of my dad’s old cronies are in Alighieri, I’ll be okay.”

“Good luck.”

The possibility of the job warmed me all the way across town. I deliberately went through town to show Malachi the nicer areas of the city, Union Avenue and the emerging River Walk, then through the old, wide streets behind Mesa Junction to the quiet block where Jane’s house was located. I pulled up beneath an ancient catalpa tree in front, the enormous heart-shaped leaves casting deep shade. Some people around town clipped them into lollipop trees, but the several around the Craftsman-style bungalow had all been allowed to attain their massive height. In the grass beneath them were snowy piles of popcorn-shaped flowers, and I kicked at them happily as I walked up to the front porch.

It surprised me that Jane had settled on an older home. I would have expected her to want a clean, neat ranch style, maybe freshly built in Pueblo West or in one of the small, new neighborhoods popping up all over the place.

But I approved the choice heartily. The gardens were neat and filled with the kind of perennials that let me know a passionate and long-term gardener had lived there—irises flanking the wall to choke out weeds, thick neat stands of exuberant coreopsis, clumps of pinks and daisies. The sidewalks were neatly tended, the paint obviously well cared for. I peered in the front window and saw the trim was preserved in its original state.

A beauty. I could see my little sister adorning the archways with gorgeous, tasteful bouquets of dried flowers, could imagine the chintz and soft fabrics she’d choose for the furniture. It was a
home
, awaiting the touch of the mistress.

That sudden, odd pinch of lost chances touched me again, and I frowned a little, seeing my reflection in the window when I straightened. Behind me stood my father.

I turned around, unable to stop the sharp catch of hope in my chest. He was as surprised to see me as I was him and not able to get his stony face on fast enough to hide his expression. For one long second, we stared at each other across the thick grass of the good daughter’s house, while Malachi in all his sexy badness leaned against my car, summing up in one long body all the reasons my father still wouldn’t talk to me.

But in that split second, I saw that his eyebrows were getting a few gray hairs, and long lines marked his lean face from nose to mouth. He was wearing blue mechanic’s coveralls to protect his clothes and had a cleaning rag in his right hand, a bucket in the other. “Hi, Dad,” I said, taking a chance. “It’s a great house.”

He looked over his shoulder at Malachi. Then his mouth twitched and he marched around the house, following the path he’d evidently been on before my sudden appearance stopped him. He kept walking across the lawn to the side of the house, disappearing behind an overgrown lilac bush. I stared at the spot where he’d gone, willing myself to just walk away. To pull up my chin and throw back my shoulders and stalk over to the car with a saucy flip of my hair. The girl I’d once been urged me to do it, to show him it didn’t matter.