Rest in Pieces (32 page)
Authors: Katie Graykowski
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Cozy, #Crafts & Hobbies, #Romance, #Romantic Comedy, #Romantic Suspense, #Mystery & Suspense, #Suspense, #Mystery, #Contemporary, #kindergarten, #children, #elementary school, #PTO, #PTA
Scott truly is gorgeous. He is also tall but not blond. Because he’s Irish, he looks wholesome and laid-back with thick reddish hair, fair skin and freckles. He also has broad shoulders and lots of muscle, hence his ability to batter at my door nonstop. Add blazing blue eyes and a square jaw, often clenched when he’s around me.
Most people assume he’s a calm person because he’s so fair, not a bit brooding or frightening. Most people are wrong. Most people, including me and crooks and other bad guys back when he was a cop, soon discover a real badass beneath that freckled exterior.
We’re not good together, Scott and I, except in bed when all that energy and frustration makes him, well, very good in the sack. Otherwise, I drive him nuts. He just makes me crazy and a little sad because he cannot accept who I am.
But I still love the man. Pathetic, huh? I ponder that for a few seconds as I watch him move toward me with the stealth and grace of a tiger stalking his prey. As I writer, I hate that cliché but that’s exactly what he looks like. Stalking his prey. Me. In that instant, I realize perhaps I’m not as pitiful as I used to be. I think I’ve separated from him a little.
But still I wonder why I wasn’t enough for him. Probably would have been if I were truly blond and gorgeous like his new girlfriend.
“I heard you applied for the police academy.” He takes a few more strides toward me and glares. “What were you thinking?”
“They accepted me.”
“What were they thinking?”
Because of his backgrounds as a cop, Scott’s not forgiving of bad cops—which wouldn’t include me—or incompetent cops into which category he probably believes I’d fall. Correctly.
He runs his fingers through his thick hair causing it to stand up in odd positions, a habit he developed when we were married. “Did they do a background check? Do they know how many jobs you’ve had and what disasters you’ve left behind you?”
“I didn’t leave that many disasters behind.”
Besides, he has no room to talk. Scott’s been in the Army, worked as a cop, a personal trainer, and a lumberjack, He also played minor league baseball and would’ve made the majors if he could hit a slider. Now he’s an investigator for an insurance company. Of course, he succeeded in every one of these which is why he can’t understand me.
“I scored really high on the admissions exam,” I explain calmly, actually telling the truth.
Veins stuck out on his neck. “I never said you were stupid,” he mutters between clenched teeth.
Actually, he has but I don’t remind him. He doesn’t like it when I point things out to him or correct information. At the moment, I fear it might bring on a stroke.
Because he’s a real straight arrow, he hates my improving on information, making life a little better than reality. Yeah, he’s a real Boy Scout, except for that fidelity part of marriage. Women throw themselves at him so hard it only makes sense that one or two or six would stick.
“Rosie, you are not cop material.” He speaks slowly, each word clear and concise. “You finally found your niche. You’re a great janitor.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Perfect. Exactly the compliment every woman hopes for.” Not that I’m insulted that I clean offices but the assumption that’s the only thing I can do infuriates me. I glower at him. A mistake because, for a moment, time stands still. Really, it does, as attraction and chemistry ping-pong back and forth. Scott looks at me, his eyes suddenly glittering in a way I know very well. One could say intimately. We glare at each other for I don’t know how long, until I remember he left me and, at the same instant, he remembers why he did.
His eyes flash toward the ceiling as if he were inspecting for cobwebs although I know it was to stop locking eyes with me.
It may seem strange that a person—me—who has dusty ceilings and isn’t all that neat in her own place would be a janitor. The reason? No one pays me to dust or vacuum at home. It’s very likely Scott will find cobwebs and spiders and maybe even dragons up there because I haven’t done anything to the ceiling in so long. Because he seems so engrossed in the texture, my gaze follows his. No, nothing’s there but that stupid cottage-cheese stuff we’d always meant to scrape off and repaint but never got around to.
I know why he does this. He doesn’t want to face me, to look at me. One of his coping mechanisms. I hear him draw in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he drops his eyes to the floor and his butt into his chair.
If we were talking about butts, I’d tell you that he has the most gorgeous butt I’ve ever seen: firmer than a quarterback’s, more muscular than a track star’s. His muscles ripple under the great tight jeans he always wears. Yeah, his ass is even better than the acme of all butts: Brad Pitt’s in Thelma and Louise.
But I digress. We aren’t talking about butts. Now he’s sitting on his derriere and I, well, I shouldn’t be thinking about that part of his body because I’m only going to see it when he walks out again.
“Why in the hell did you apply to be a cop?” Exasperation is clear in the snort at the end of the sentence, the stiffness of his shoulders, and the way his boot taps on the floor. “Rosie, you’re a girly girl. An incredibly girly girl.”
Yeah, I am. Despite being tall and not a bit curvy, I am a girly girl. I love pink and lace and frou-frous that look absurd on a woman with my build. Because I can’t wear them, I decorated my house in an ultra-feminine style. My best friend says it looks like I used castoffs from Barbie’s dream house.
Pink velvet covers the loveseat and matching roses frolic on the wallpaper. The floor is bare hardwood because Scott had made one demand when he moved in: I had to give the rose pink rug away. Back then, I would’ve thrown everything pink away if he’d asked but he hadn’t so it’s still here, cheerful and girly.
He’s never looked absurd sitting in that feminine room. He never looked out of place in my frilly bed. It’s a testament to his masculinity that he could overcome the overwhelmingly feminine pinkness of my cottage.
“Rosie.” He modulates the tone of his voice to a soft scream. Then he leans back in the chair and takes a couple more deep breaths. “Rosie,” he says, his voice softer and more reasonable. “Why would you want to be a cop? You don’t like guns. Criminals scare you.”
How can the man not understand why I want to be a cop? How else can I convince him—and, of course, myself—that I’m competent in an occupation Scott sees as important? Oh, sure, he’s right about my hating guns and being afraid of criminals. If I become a police officer, I’ll have to overcome that.
I probably can. Maybe.
I sit on the sofa across from him. “I have really good references. Mr. Oliver at the office wrote a great one and so did my old boss at the childcare center.”
He sits further forward, his hands clasped between his knees and lifts his eyes to my face and speaks quietly. “Rosie, of course they did. People like you. People will do anything you ask, even when you run out on your job after a couple of months. They love you while you’re there. But,” he leans back, closes his eyes, and sighs, “you can’t become a cop, Rosie. You can’t.”
“Why not?” I ask even though I know his answer. Because I’m a screw-up. Because I have no discipline. Because I get bored so easily.
And because I embellish the truth.
No, I have to be honest here. I lie. There, I said it. I should find a twelve-step program.
“Because,” he says focusing his now calm eyes on my face, “because if you become a cop, you’re going to get yourself killed and I don’t think I could handle that.”
Well, that’s a heck of a thing to say, telling me he couldn’t handle my death at the hands of criminals.
He stands and, without another word, saunters out of the house. I consider his words, so confused I forget to check out his butt. Only when the door closes do I stand and wonder about his statement.
Someday I’ll tell him I really never had any intention of joining law enforcement, that I took the test just to see how I’d do. And to bother him, to get his attention. Not an admirable action on my part. I’ll have to come clean, someday.
Right now I struggle with the idea that as often as he threatened to wring my neck when we were married—not that he’d ever hurt me physically—he doesn’t want anyone else to kill me. I sense that counts as a huge step forward in our relationship.
From under the sofa comes Reba, my eighty-pound mostly Irish setter. She’s at least three-fourths Irish setter and at least one-fourth something enormous, perhaps a lion. That would explain the occasional golden wisps that stick up on her back. I named her Reba for the obvious reason that she’s red. Not creative but easy for all to remember. She even answers to that name occasionally, when she wants to.
I found her at the pound and chose her for protection when Scott left. Sadly, Reba isn’t the best guard dog. People scare her. She reacts not in an I’m-going-to-tear-you-apart-with-my-fangs sort of way but more in an I-think-I’ll-keep-track-of-you-from-under-the-sofa manner. Now she crawls out on her stomach, leaps to her feet and dances around me, a swirl of wagging tail and dancing flags, huge feet and larger bottom. Who wouldn’t love to have such joy around?
But I’ve lost my way again. Thinking in a clear, linear path presents great obstacles when one’s mind, mine in particular, delights in back roads and twisting turns that promise adventure but seldom get to the point about anything.
With Reba on her leash and my keys in hand, I head out to my pink Jeep. Scott gave it to me when feeling guilty about a transgression and had it painted in contrition for another lapse. As I look back, I wonder if I shouldn’t have kept him around longer to receive more costly gifts for penitence but, really, a woman shouldn’t trade away her dignity and self-worth, at least not for anything less than a pink Jeep.
On the door of the driver’s side is a magnetic sign that proclaims my business, In the Pink. Also listed there is my business number, really my home number connected to an answering machine. Someday I hope to be a cleaning magnate with a huge staff that allows me to sit at home and take calls. For now, I clean one office building by myself.
After the setter leaps inside, I climb into the driver’s seat. On the passenger side, Reba steadies herself on her broad bottom and sticks her head out the window. As I shift into reverse, back out the driveway and head toward the intersection of the 183A frontage road and highway 1431, her tail wags in delight. We’re heading for another night of work.
Or, in Reba’s case, another night of hiding under desks.
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