3 Straight by the Rules (13 page)

Ariel ran over and carefully hugged him.  He patted her back.

“How are you?” I asked, worried.  In the two days since he’d moved away, his complexion had grown more sallow, and dark circles bloomed under his eyes.

“I’m fine.”  His smile seemed forced.  He looked around the store hopefully.  “Is Jasmine here, too?”

I hadn’t told her we were visiting Tommy because I worried that she’d ditch her interview to join us.  “No, sorry,” I said.  Not wanting to jinx her chances, I didn’t mention the prospective job.

Tommy’s face sagged.  “Is she still mad at me?”

 “She’s upset,” I admitted.  Since Ariel was busy examining a case of earrings, I quietly added, “What’s going on with you two anyway?”

“It’s complicated.”

Maybe for you, I thought.  For Jasmine, it was the easiest thing in the world.

The redhead’s voice rang out from the office.  “Tommy!  Why the
hell
is the couch all wet?”

Tommy closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.  “I knocked over a bottle of water this morning.  Sorry.”

The woman waddled back into the showroom.  The butt of her jeans bore a huge, dark mark.  Ariel and I exchanged smirks.  Sam glared at us before turning back to Tommy.  “Did you  at least get that room ready?”

“I can’t move the table,” he said.  He put his hands to his stomach.  “I’m not supposed to lift anything heavier than five pounds.”

Her irate glare could have stripped paint from the walls.  “Terrific.  Now
I’ll
have to do it.”

“You do realize he’s just had surgery, right?” I asked, hating her.

“That’s Neil’s wife, Sam, and, yes, she knows.”  Tommy leaned against the counter, bracing his elbows on top.  “Sam, this is Lilith.”

“
This
is Lilith? 
The
Lilith Straight?” Sam folded her arms over her chest and sneered at me.  If she’d been passing out grades, I would have gotten a D minus.  “She’s a lot older than I expected.”

 Why on earth did everyone know me?  And why were they so disappointed?  I glanced at Tommy to see if he had the answer, but he refused to meet my eyes.

Ariel pressed both hands against the glass counter as she studied the jewelry.  Finally, she pointed to a pair of black, onyx studs.  “I want those.”

Sam ushered us into a back room and had Ariel sit on the chair.

Ari squeezed her eyes shut.  “Will it hurt?”

“They’re only earlobes,” Sam said.  “How painful can it be?”  She roughly swabbed Ariel’s lobes with disinfectant, making Ariel cringe.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” I told her.

“I want to do it.”  Tears leaked from the corner of her eyes.  “I’m just scared.”

Tommy massaged her shoulder.  “It’s okay.  I’m nervous whenever I get a new piercing, too.”

Ariel opened her eyes.  “Really?”

“Yup.  But then it’s over in a second, and I love the way it looks so much I don’t notice if it hurts or not.”

Ari relaxed.  “Okay, then.  I’m ready.”

Tommy held her hand and talked her through the procedure while she grinned up at him.  My niece had been right.  Tommy would make a really good father.

A minute later, Sam had finished and Ariel was examining her ears with a handheld mirror.  “Cool,” she said, turning her head back and forth to view each earring.

As I paid for the piercings, Neil came into the showroom rubbing his shin.  “Tommy, can you find someplace else to stow your duffle bag?  And would you stop burning incense in my office?  I can’t stand the smell of sandalwood.”

Sam slammed the cash register’s drawer shut.  “Neil, it’s time you had that talk with your
friend
.”  She folded her arms over her chest and waited.

Neil glanced from his angry wife to Tommy and back again.  “Uh, Tommy, Sam and I understand your situation right now and everything…”

“You need to leave,” Sam said.  “Go find someone else to leech off of.”

“I told you I’d pay you back after I get a job,” Tommy told her stiffly.

“Which is going to be when?” she demanded.  “I can’t afford to support another of Neil’s deadbeat friends.”

“Deadbeat!?”  Tommy stormed up to the counter.  His bald head had turned crimson, and he clenched his fists at his sides.  “Are you forgetting all those times I helped out you and Neil?”

Neil put his hand on Tommy’s chest to back him off, wedging himself in-between his friend and his wife.  “Listen, we can work this out.”

“We shouldn’t have to!”  Sam’s voice drown out the new age music playing over the speakers.  “Tommy, you have a mother, don’t you?  Go stay with her.”

“You know I can’t!”

“Why?  Because she’s too damn lazy to clean her house?”

Furious, Tommy punched the air which made him gasp in pain.  Clutching his middle, he rushed out of the store.  Ariel, tearful, tried to follow, but I held her back.  Tommy needed a few minutes alone.

I glared at Sam.  “Tommy is the most wonderful, caring person I know, and if you were the one recovering from surgery, he’d give you his own
bed
while he slept on the couch.”

Neil nodded in agreement.

Sam looked down on me like a hanging judge.  “So why don’t
you
take him back in?  Oh yeah, I forgot.  He can’t stand being around you.”

Only Ariel’s presence kept me from speaking my mind.  Clenching my jaws, I left the store with my niece in tow.

Tommy leaned against the hood of my car.  “I’m sorry you had to hear that,” he said wearily.

“Why should
you
be sorry?  That woman is a…”  I glanced at Ariel “…jerk.”

He sighed and nodded.  “Ari, I need to talk to your Aunt Lilith a sec, okay?” 

Ariel hugged him goodbye and got into the car, and Tommy and I walked a short distance away.

“Is she really going to kick you out?” I asked.

“No.  Every day, Sam spends fifteen minutes raging like she’s on a reality show, then her clock resets and the drama dies down.  That woman’s manipura is in overdrive,” he muttered.

“Things are really terrible here, aren’t they?”

“They’re not great,” he admitted.

“Just don’t go and get another tattoo,” I said.

He dropped his eyes.  “You heard that?  Yeah, I admit I want to get one.”

“Are you sure you won’t move back in with us?”

He rubbed a spot on the left side of his chest.  “There’s a whole different realm of temptations there.”

Realizing what he meant, I gasped.  “You don’t mean it!  You’re not really in love with me, you know.  It’s only the succubus.”

“I
know
it’s the succubus,” he said angrily.  “But my  heart keeps telling me it’s
you
.  When Jasmine and I are alone, I know she’s the one I really love, but the minute you come around, I get confused.  It’s like Jasmine is a radio station that’s playing my favorite song, but you keep interfering with her frequency.”

No wonder he had moved out.  Suddenly, I had a great idea.  “What if I rent an apartment for you?  That way, you could have your own place.”  I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before.  “It may take a few days, but…”

He cut me off with a wave of his hand.  “I appreciate the offer, but actually Sam is right.  I should move in with my mother.”  He pulled on the spacer in his earlobe.  “The problem is, Sam is also right when she says my mother’s house is a mess.”

“Do you want me to help her clean it?”

He laughed uneasily.  “It’s not so simple.  See, my mom’s root chakra is blocked.  I mean
completely
blocked.  She couldn’t touch the earth if she tried.  Her aura’s like a thunderstorm.”

Once again, Tommy’s spiritual mumbo jumbo confused me.  “Come again?”

“She’s a grade-A hoarder.”  His voice took on an edge.  “She’s got crap piled up to the ceiling in every room of the house.  You ever see those people on TV?  Well, they’re nothing compared to her.”

I’d met Tommy’s mother, Doris, a few times when he’d been in the hospital.  She was a stern, furtive woman who refused to talk to anyone.  “How about if I
hire
someone to throw out the trash?” I asked.  “Like an army with a battalion of Dumpsters?”

He shook his head.  “No.  My sister, dad, and I tried for years to clean things up, but it never worked.  We’d throw stuff out, and she’d just haul it back in.  I need a more permanent solution.”  He continued to anxiously tug on the spacer.  “Like having you convince her to stop being a hoarder…”

I gaped at him.

“You’ve got a demon in you, right?  And that demon is good at convincing people to do stuff, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.

 “Why not?  It would be for a  good cause.”

“I know, but my succubus is a
demon
.  She lives to do evil, not good.”

“I wouldn’t ask unless I was desperate.”  He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the ground.  “I forgot that life can be so fucking
hard
!  I know that I was only dead for a few minutes, but it was long enough for me to enjoy freedom from this damned mess on Earth. ”

Soon after I’d rescued him from the otherworld, Tommy had told me that he had conversed with God.  At the time, he’d been radiant, but over the past few weeks, his shine had dulled.

“God didn’t explain everything to me, but he told me a lot,” Tommy said.  “And for once, I had some perspective and understood the way things worked together here.”  Tears stood in his eyes.  “But now I can’t remember any of it!  It’s like I’m lost in this maze and every turn I take leads me to another dead end.  I can’t get out!”  He began rubbing his chest again.

“Are you okay?” I asked.  “You act like you’re suffering from heartburn.”  Or, Devil forbid, a heart attack.

He dropped his hand.  “I’m fine.  But, please, at least think about using your demon, okay?”

As much as I hated the idea, I had to admit it made sense.  I was great at getting people to do things, so maybe tempting Doris to clean up would work.  Plus, I wanted Tommy off that stupid couch and away from Sam, the big, red-haired devil.  “Okay, I’ll think about it,” I promised.

“Great.  Thank you.”  Some of the tension went out of his face.  “And tell Jasmine I’m sorry about arguing last night, okay?  It’s just…”  He shrugged, but his right hand went back to rubbing his chest, and his eyes once more grew troubled.

Ariel and I arrived back at the flat just as Jasmine was leaving.  She admired Ariel’s new earrings, then said, “Did you see Tommy?”  When I  nodded, she said, “And?”

“He looks terrible, and he says he’s sorry for fighting with you.”

She smiled.

“Also, he wants to move in with his mother.”

Jasmine’s mouth drew down in disgust.  “He can’t be serious!  That place is filthy.  He’ll get an infection if he lives there, I just know it.”

“I told him I would rent an apartment for him.”  I hoped Jasmine would like the idea better than Tommy had.

She shook her head.  “No. 
I
want to be the one who takes care of him.”  Her eyes brightened.  “The second job interview went pretty good.  The manager said I was a top candidate.  They’ll let me know soon.”