The Denver Cereal (28 page)

Saturday morning, 3:30
a.m.

Jill spun the empty
ceramic mug on the table in the main Castle kitchen. Not wanting to
bother anyone, she sat alone in the dark. Without work or Katy,
Jill felt lost. Mike and Valerie had even taken Sarah and Scooter
to the fishing cabin overnight.

And Jacob was out of the
picture. The nurse caught him working yesterday afternoon and
called the doctor. They sedated him until Sunday just to keep him
still long enough to heal.

For the first time in her
life, Jill just had Jill to think about.

“
But Jill is so boring,”
she said.

“
Is she?” a male voice
said from behind her.

Jill turned to see a man
come into the kitchen. He retrieved a mug from the cabinet and
poured himself a cup of coffee.

“
You’re Celia’s hot
boyfriend. That’s what she called you. Her ‘hot boyfriend,’” Jill
said. “I used to see you guys walking when I got off
work.”

“
We walked you home a
number of times,” he said. “I’m Sam. Sam Lipson. We passed in the
hospital, but with emotions high, I imagine you don’t remember
much.”

He held his hand out for
her to shake. Jill shook his hand.

“
You’re Jacob’s
father.”

“
Valerie’s too,” he said.
“It’s nice to see you again. Celia was in so much pain those last
months. The only thing that helped was walking. We’d walk for
hours. Celia was always excited to walk you home. You brought her a
lot of joy that year.”

He held up the coffee pot
and Jill nodded. He filled her cup and then sat down next to
her.

“
You don’t seem very
happy,” he said. “I can explain all the complications, but my guess
is that you aren’t sitting in the dark here wondering about my
life.”

“
Oh.” Jill nodded.
“Yeah.”

“
What’s wrong,
Jill?”

Jill looked at the man
sitting next to her. His eyes held the same patient, receptive
quality she found so attractive in Jacob.

“
It’s been a tough week,”
she said.

“
You mean your normal
doesn’t include your child almost dying, losing your job, injuring
yourself, and seeing your boyfriend attacked?” Sam
laughed.

“
What boyfriend?” Jill
asked.

“
Well, that too,” Sam
said. “I bet last week at this time you were in a very different
place.”

Jill nodded. She glanced
at Sam. He easily summed up how she felt.

“
I’m not working. And have
no idea when I’ll work again. Katy’s gone. I don’t cook or clean
for myself here. I can’t go home because Trevor’s stalking the
apartment until he gets
married
to some other girl and leaves for his
honeymoon
tomorrow. I’m
supposedly engaged to this guy that I don’t even know. My best
friend is appropriately caught up in her own world.” Jill stopped
talking as abruptly as she started. After a few moments of silence,
she took a breath. “I can’t even work out!”

“
Why don’t you come with
me today?” Sam asked. “I spend Saturdays going from site to site.
You could come along with me. You’d learn a little bit about our
business. Maybe you won’t feel so strange.”

“
Is there a lot of
walking? I tried to shop and couldn’t really do that.”

“
No,” Sam said. “Do you
need to rest?”

Jill shook her head. “I
think I’ve slept more this week than I have all of my
life.”

“
I need to say goodbye to
Ruth. Why don’t I meet you here in ten minutes?”

“
Oh, that’s why you’re
here . . . you and Delphie?”

“
I live here,” Sam said.
“I have a room on the ground floor. We’ve just missed each other
this week. But, to answer your question, Delphie and I are seeing
each other. We have for the last few years.”

“
What about your wife and
kids?”

“
Surely you know that my
children live at the Castle, Jill. As for Tiffanie? My
marriage-in-name-only will end soon. Thank God.”

Sam looked toward the
door, where Delphie stood in her bathrobe. He stood to hold her.
They were still talking when Jill returned from Jacob’s apartment
where she and Katy were staying. Delphie hugged Jill and went back
to her apartment.

Because Valerie made a big
show of leaving for the mountains, the paparazzi had retreated from
the Castle. Sam and Jill went to his Lipson Construction truck
parked in the driveway.

“
Ruth thinks you should go
ahead with your plan for the walls,” Sam said.

Jill blushed. “How did she
know I was doing that?”

Sam laughed.

“
She thinks, and I agree,
you will feel more at home when you make it homey,” Sam
said.

“
That’s assuming this will
be my home.”

“
It’s odd for you and I.
Val too. We fight against accepting what’s right in front of us.
But be honest, Jill. Don’t you feel like this is exactly where you
belong?”

In answer to his question,
Jill buckled her seat belt.

“
I’m glad you came along
today. Saturday is my favorite day. We start with breakfast at
four. Aden and Blane will meet us at the Gyro Palace. Although, now
that you and Jacob are an item, we can go back to Pete’s Kitchen.
Jacob could never handle a workday after seeing you.”

“
He really likes
me?”

“
He’s crazy about you,
Jill.”

Jill smiled.

“
You’re right. I feel like
I belong. But . . .”

“
But?”

“
I’m not sure
why.”

“
Welcome to my world,” Sam
laughed.

~~~~~~~~

Saturday afternoon — 3
p.m.

“
Who are you?” Mike
asked.

He walked into the
kitchen, where a short, slim blonde woman was riffling through the
cupboards. The woman made a disgusted sound and began tossing box
after box of cereal into a five-gallon trash can.

“
What are you doing?” Mike
grabbed box after box of cereal.

“
I’m cleaning the junk out
of this kitchen. You must be Mike.”

Mike set the cereal on the
table to grab more boxes from the trashcan.

“
STOP.” Mike
yelled.

The woman looked up at him
with a bright smile.

“
Like your cereal, do you?
Well, it’s not very good for you.”

The woman grabbed a box of
cereal that Mike was holding. They tugged the box back and forth
between them.

“
Who are you?” Mike
asked.

“
Oh, I’m Valerie Waters,”
she said. “Val calls me ‘Waters.’ I’m her trainer.”

“
And you know who I am?”
Mike asked.

“
You’re Lipson’s husband,”
Waters said.

“
How do you know
that?”

“
I figured it out. I mean,
come on. Lipson comes home from her ‘Colorado retreats’ all dreamy
and happy. No amount of yoga does what a good man can do for your
stress levels. Plus, she told me about you a long time
ago.”

“
What’s all this ‘Who is
Valerie’s husband?’ crap, then?” Mike asked.

“
I don’t know. I didn’t
know there was any,” Waters said. She moved toward the stack of
cereal boxes on the table, but Mike blocked her way. She put her
hands on her hips and said, “This is not even food. Why are you
protecting it?”

“
Jacob eats cereal. He
likes it. I like it too. We eat it together,” Mike said.

“
Oh. I’m so sorry. I’ve
never met Jake, but I know what a great guy he is.” The little
woman stood on her toes to give Mike a quick hug. “Should I put it
back?”

“
We don’t eat too much. We
eat other healthy stuff too. We just like cereal.”

“
Does Lipson eat it?”
Waters said.

“
I don’t,” Valerie said.
“I eat only wholesome food prescribed by my awesome trainer.
Hi!”

The women
hugged.

“
Mike, you know Valerie
Waters. She’s the one who is responsible
for . . .”

Valerie turned around and
pointed to her high, firm rear end. Mike raised his eyebrows in
appreciation. Valerie Waters laughed.

“
Waters is here to help me
get ready for Friday,” Valerie said.

“
You’re thin,” Waters
said. “We have work to do.”

“
Wait. If everyone knows
about me,” Mike said. He looked at Valerie and she smiled. “Why is
Wes so upset?”

“
UGH! Wesford. He’s
totally another story,” Waters said. “He’s always known that Lipson
was married.”

“
I told you that,” Valerie
said.

“
Then
why . . .”

“
Drama. Hollywood. I don’t
know,” Waters said. “I like him, Lipson. I like him a
lot.”

“
Oh, good. I’m planning on
keeping him,” Valerie said.

“
Now, where’s the gym?”
Waters asked.

“
Basement,” Mike and
Valerie said in unison.

“
Bye-bye, hot husband,”
Waters waved her hand. “We have work to do.”

“
Bye,” Mike said to the
women’s backs as they retreated to the basement. “I have an
appointment . . .”

Knowing they didn’t hear
him, he shrugged, picked up a set of keys, and left for the
garage.

~~~~~~~~

“
Oh,” Jill said. She was
sitting in the passenger seat of Big Sam’s work truck.

“
Oh?” Sam
asked.

“
Well, I just realized why
people say Jacob is gay.”

“
Because of
Blane.”

“
They look a lot alike. Is
Blane your son?”

“
No,” Sam said. “We think
he’s either my brother’s son or my dad’s son. My brother died of
AIDS in the late 1980s. Even as an old guy, my father was fairly
promiscuous. He died right after my brother. Blane was dropped at a
hospital when he was about three months old. They never found his
parents, so he spent most of his life in foster care.”

“
Did you do
DNA?”

“
Yes,” Sam said. “Celia
insisted on it when she found him. She wanted him to know that we
were his family.”

“
He’s younger than Jacob,”
Jill said.

“
By a few years,” Sam
said.

“
Why does he look so old?”
Jill asked.

“
He has AIDS,” Sam
said.

“
Oh, that’s
why . . .”

“
Exactly.”

~~~~~~~~

“
What do you mean, I have
to undress?” Mike asked.

“
How can I wax you with
your clothing on?” Jessie Dillard asked. A small woman with long,
golden hair and a bright smile, she said, “Alex? Are you staying
here?”

“
Yeah, I’ll stay,” Alex
Hargreaves said. “I’ve seen him buck naked before.”

“
But . . .
you see . . . I . . .” Mike
sputtered.

“
I’ll let you two work
this out,” Jessie said. Standing with the door half open, she said.
“I’ll be right back.”

Alex and Mike watched her
pull the door closed.

“
I don’t know about this,”
Mike said. His eyes flicked toward the door.

“
You want to fit into
Val’s Hollywood world, don’t you?” Alex asked. “How many men said
you should get waxed?”

“
Everyone I
asked.”

“
Did they say it would
kill you?”

“
No,” Mike said. “But it
might.”

Alex plopped down in the
armchair in the corner.

“
Strip.”

She pulled out the handgun
she always wore at her sacrum and pointed it at him.

“
Strip.”

“
You won’t shoot
me.”

“
Wanna bet?” Alex
asked.

Mike sneered at her and
took off his clothing. Alex pointed to the sheeted table and he lay
down. She threw a towel at him to cover his genitals. There was a
tap at the door.

“
Shooting people?” Jessie
asked.

“
Oh, sorry,” Alex
holstered her handgun.

”
What are we doing?”
Jessie asked. She looked over Mike’s body. “Can you sit
up?”

Mike sat up.

“
What do you think?” Alex
asked.

“
The unibrow has to go.
You’re seeing Michael Moore?”

“
Next week.”

“
I’ll clean up the
eyebrows but leave something for Mr. Moore to do. We should take
off all the hair from his shoulders, back and butt,” Jessie said.
She lifted the towel. “I think we can leave his chest hair. Arm
hair, too. There’s not too much of it. It’s just long. You’ll trim
it?”

“
Sure,” Alex
said.

“
Why do I have to do
this?” Mike asked.