Chapter 47
47
Cara stepped out the front door just as Jack was pressing the doorbell.
“I brought Shaz. I thought she and Poppy could hang out together,” Jack said.
“Good idea.” They took Shaz outside, where Poppy seemed ecstatic at the prospect of company, and made sure both dogs had water and toys before heading back out to the street.
“You look nice,” Cara said, as Jack leaned in to kiss her. “And you smell nice too.”
“You clean up pretty good yourself,” he said, his lips lingering on hers. “And you smell way better than me.”
“Girls are supposed to smell better than boys,” she said, then gestured down at her own capris and sheer cotton flower-printed tunic. “Am I underdressed? Where are we going?”
“You’re not underdressed at all. I thought we’d go to Guale, over on Drayton Street. Does that sound all right?”
“I’ve seen Guale written up in magazines, but I’ve never been. Isn’t it pretty fancy?”
“Not really. The food’s great, but I’ve gone in there wearing jeans before, and nobody even looks twice. Parking’s a pain though. Is it too hot to walk over there?”
“Walking’s good.” She lifted her right foot to show off her Kelly-green sandals. “I’ve even got on flats.”
It was dusk now, and the streetlights had come on, and the faintest damp breeze ruffled the fronds of a palm tree on the corner. As they were crossing Whitaker Street, Jack casually reached over and clasped Cara’s hand. And he didn’t let go when they’d reached the other side. She flashed him a smile and kept walking.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“You’ll think I’m being ridiculous.”
“Probably. Tell me anyway?”
“I don’t know. This just… it feels so nice. And normal. Walking down the street holding hands with a cute boy…”
“A boy? You make it sound like we’re teenagers.”
“All of a sudden, I feel like a teenager. I’ve truly had the most appalling day in a most appalling week, and then Jack Finnerty shows up at my door, wearing a starched dress shirt and polished loafers, and smelling like aftershave. And he’s taking me to dinner… and for a few minutes there, it made me forget my troubles. It made me remember what it’s like to have somebody to care about.” She blushed. “I told you it was silly.”
“C’mere,” Jack said. He pulled her into the darkened lane between Charlton and Jones and pressed her back against the wall of a pink stucco town house. “I’ll make you feel like a teenager.” He ran his hands beneath her shirt and slipped his tongue in her mouth.
Cara gave a very small, very feeble squeak of protest. She kissed him back, twined her arms around his neck, pulled him closer. Emboldened, he worked his thumbs under the band of her bra, teasing her nipples until she gasped and gave him a gentle backward shove.
“I am not having sex with you in an alley,” she said, smoothing down her rumpled tunic.
He chuckled and kissed her again. “We don’t call them alleys in Savannah. We call them lanes. Anyway, you’re the one who said you liked feeling like a teenager.”
“I didn’t say I liked being felt up like a teenager in public,” Cara countered. “There’s a time and a place for everything.”
Jack sighed and straightened his own shirt. “Same old story I used to get in high school.”
***
They’d just given the waiter their dinner order when Jack’s cell phone buzzed. He took it from his pocket, read the text message, and gave a loud grunt of exasperation before putting it away again.
Cara raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Zoey. I’m not answering her because I don’t want to encourage her.”
“Just out of curiosity, what does she want?”
“She claims her car won’t start. Wants me to come give her a jump. Okay, poor choice of words. Her battery is dead. Or so she claims. It’s all a ruse.”
Cara leaned forward. “Can I ask you something? What’s Zoey like? How did the two of you end up together in the first place?”
“How does anybody end up together? Dumb luck. I was dumb, she was lucky. Or the other way around. How about we talk about something else? Anything else? You said you’d had a bad day? Tell me about that.”
Cara looked around the dining room. She was glad they had come here tonight. This was good. A nice distraction. The tablecloth was pale yellow linen. There was a candle in a glass jar, and a small clear bud vase held a stem of pink alstroemeria that was a day past its prime. Perhaps she should talk to the owners about doing flowers for them. Her eyes rested on Jack. With a start she realized she might never get tired of looking at him. He had a tiny spatter of white paint on his left earlobe. His sunburnt nose was peeling. She looked at his big hands. His left hand was resting on the tabletop and he was clutching a glass of red wine in his right hand, and she noticed his thumbnail was blackened.
Her day?
“Where do I start? The Colonel continues to hound me about my bad debt and bad business decisions. Also, another contractor showed up at the shop this morning, all set to come in and look around on behalf of Cullen Kane.”
“That guy,” Jack said.
“And on top of everything else, I fired Bert.”
“For real?”
“He left me no choice. He’s been coming in late, leaving early, just generally slacking off. I figured he had some new boyfriend, but he kept pushing the limits. And this thing with Lillian Fanning’s missing epergne, he kept acting as though I was the one accusing him of stealing it. I never accused him. Whatever else he might be, Bert is no thief. Finally, today, I’d had it. I told him if he left early he could stay gone. So he did.”
“Nothing else you could do,” Jack said.
“Not long after that the second contractor showed up. He had a key to my place. He let himself in the back gate. That was the final straw. I was so mad, Jack, I couldn’t even see straight. Who the hell does this guy think he is?
“I drove over to his shop-—I mean, excuse me, Cullen Kane Floral Design Studio. And you’ll never guess who was working as Cullen’s new receptionist. Bert. My Bert!”
“Kane hired him that quickly?”
“Cullen Kane is Bert’s new boyfriend. That’s who Bert’s been sneaking around with all these weeks now. And that’s how Cullen found out my landlady died. Bert ‘just happened to mention’ to Kane that Bernice Bradley had died, and that Sylvia Bradley was refusing to fix my air-conditioning.”
“Bert was spying on you for Cullen Kane? I thought the guy was practically your best friend.”
“I thought so too,” Cara said sadly. “Bert was probably planning to quit and go to work for Cullen all along. And he didn’t even have the decency to feel guilty about betraying me. He just sat at that stupid desk wearing that stupid Cullen Kane T-shirt, smirking at me. He even had the nerve to ask me if I wanted a bottle of Perrier, or some champagne!”
“Did you let him have it?”
“I did. And then I went barreling to the back room to let his boss have it too.”
“I’d like to have heard that.”
“No you wouldn’t have. You would have been ashamed of me. I’m such a spineless jellyfish. I ended up groveling at his feet—begging him to give me a new lease and let me stay in my building.”
“I’m guessing you weren’t successful?”
Cara nodded. “Big mistake. Kane was actually enjoying himself, telling me all about his big plans to gut the place and put on a new roof and all new systems, and then raise the rent—which he said he knew I could never afford. Finally, I flat-out asked him why he was so determined to destroy me. And he just looked at me—like I was nothing. And he said what every megalomaniac says these days when they do something unconscionable. ‘It’s nothing personal. It’s just business.’”
“Bastard,” Jack said. “So, what now?”
It was noisy in the restaurant, the tables were close together, so close she could hear snatches of conversation from all directions. A woman, her voice slow and syrupy: “I told Mama you have to be firm with these people. Otherwise they walk all over you, but you know Mama.” A man’s deep voice: “You can’t get there direct from Savannah. We’ll lay over in Atlanta and get into Kansas City after five on Monday.”
Cara heard her own voice, too. It sounded tinny and somehow disembodied. “I’ve got to leave my building. Two weeks. That’s all the time I have before I have to get out. Two weeks. To pack up and find a new shop and a new apartment.”
All day long, she’d managed to push that reality to the back of her mind. She’d busied herself with the tedium of what had to get done, ordering flowers and answering emails and feeding Poppy, and dozens of other little things. But the enormity of what she was facing was gaining strength and velocity. And as she thought about it now, it felt like a huge boulder, inescapable, careering down a mountain, threatening to crush her under its weight.
She hadn’t realized she was crying until she felt the big sloppy tears sliding down her cheek. And then she was full-out sobbing, sitting in the middle of a crowded restaurant, bawling like a baby.
“Oh, God,” she said, choking back the tears. The voices around her quieted, and she knew people were staring. She crushed the linen napkin to her face, wishing she could crawl under the table.
“Heeyyyy.” Jack scooted his chair beside hers. He put his arm around her shoulder. Her chest heaved, and she couldn’t catch her breath. He put a glass of water in her hand. “Drink this.”
She managed a sip. “I’m… so… sorry.…” The words were wobbly.
The waiter came with their meals, crispy flounder for him, shrimp bisque for her. He stood—statuelike, unsure of the proper thing to do in such a situation.
“Could you box that up for us?” Jack said quietly. “And bring the check?” Of course Jack Finnerty would know exactly what to do.
***
Despite Cara’s feeble protests, he called a cab, and five minutes later he’d unlocked the door to the shop, and they were upstairs, and he’d sat her down on the sofa. While he went out to the garden to check on Shaz and Poppy, she went into the bathroom to try to pull herself together.
She was a mess. Her face was blotchy, her nose was red and running, and there were mascara trails down both cheeks. She washed her face and combed her hair and put on some lip gloss.
Jack was waiting in the living room with a glass of wine. She took a sip, and then another.
“Better?” he asked.
She nodded, afraid if she tried to speak the tears would start anew. He sat down on the sofa beside her, and gathered her into his arms. She pressed her face into his starched shirtfront, he rested his chin on the top of her hair.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he said.
The phone in his pocket buzzed. He swore softly and ignored it, but five minutes later, it buzzed again.
Jack shifted onto his left hip, took out the phone, and looked at the text.
“Dammit, Zoey,” he muttered.
Cara looked up. He held out the phone so he could read the message.
Battery dead. No way to get to motel. Found unlocked window. Bring me some pizza?
“I never leave windows unlocked over there. I’m sure she broke one so she could get back in the house,” Jack said.
“You should go home and check on her,” Cara said, hoping he wouldn’t.
He was already typing, and held up the phone again, so she could read his response.
Call a cab. Get out of my house and get your own pizza.
“You sure have a way with the ladies,” Cara said.
“Zoey ain’t no lady.”
***
After a while, Jack heated up their dinners, and was surprised to find she was actually hungry. They drank another glass of wine and rinsed out the dinner dishes.
“Will you stay here tonight?” Cara asked, drying the glasses and putting them back on the shelf where she’d so carefully arranged them on moving day two years ago.
“Do you want me to?”
Cara grasped his shirtfront, pulled him to her, and whispered in his ear. “There’s a time and a place for everything, remember?”
“I”ll bring in the dogs,” Jack said.
“Better text Zoey and tell her not to wait up,” Cara teased. She really was feeling a little better.