At Risk of Being a Fool (11 page)

Mrs. Cooper swelled like a balloon. “I am not accustomed to being interrupted.”

“I can see that,” Jeanie said. “Don’t worry, it gets easier with practice. I’ve taught for thirty years.” Brynna snickered. She scooped dirt into a pot with unconvincing innocence, her battle plan suspended. “So, this is your first day with Brynna?”

“Yes, I was out for a week, and that ham-handed Alyssa—however, that’s neither here nor there. This, this girl has been supposedly working with my son, Jason, mixing fertilizers.” Her nostrils flared. “Until this morning. I went to get her, and discovered her plastered on my—”

“Jason’s a slime ball,” said Brynna. “Get your fuckin’ story right. He did the grabbing, not me. Think I’m going mess with a geek with bad breath and a sloppy mouth? Keep him, for God’s sake, I don’t want him.” She closed her hands over a large ceramic pot.

“That will be enough out of you, young woman,” shrieked Mrs. Cooper. “Decent conduct is a closed book to you, but let me tell you—”

“You’re not actually the greenhouse supervisor, though, are you?” asked Jeanie. A note in her voice pulled up Mrs. Cooper in the midst of her rampage. “You’d be Brynna’s co-worker.”

“I hold a position of considerable responsibility.”

“In geraniums.” said Jeanie. She edged Mrs. Cooper away from Brynna’s large ceramic pot.

“And just what do you mean by that? Martha Washingtons are among this nation’s most treasured horticultural—”

“Exactly. Brynna? Why don’t you come with me? It appears that Mrs. Cooper doesn’t need your help with the Martha Washingtons. Let’s go talk to Mr. Harris.”

Brynna released the pot and stripped off her gardening apron. She headed down the other aisle. “Yeah.” She threw a final jab over her shoulder. “Maybe he can find me work in begonias.” The door shut smartly after her.

“Begonias?” said Mrs. Cooper, outraged. “That little snippet could never, not even possibly, why even I rarely—”

“I’m sure you’re right, Mrs. Cooper. The most important thing to do is separate her from your son. I’m sure you agree. And since he’s mixing fertilizers in geraniums, she’s better off elsewhere. I’m sure Mr. Harris won’t put her in begonias. A nice hosta greenhouse, maybe.”

“Well, then,” said Mrs. Cooper, mollified. “Hostas, perhaps.”

“I gather you don’t work with hostas.”

“No, of course not.”

“Naturally not.” Jeanie retreated slowly, giving Brynna time to evacuate.

Mrs. Cooper followed her, brandishing a finger. “You don’t seem to realize the affront of that young woman’s presence, let alone the temptation to the morals of every man on the premises. Not all men are as gentlemanly as my son, when faced with a prostitute.”

“What makes you think she’s a prostitute?”

“Well, I, um . . .” Mrs. Cooper averted her gaze. “I happened to be in the office one day, when that girl was talking to Mr. Harris. Quite blunt she was, totally unashamed. Well, of course, when I finally had the opportunity, I decided to advise her, give her a helping hand, you know.”

“Ah,” said Jeanie, enlightened. “So your son, really—”

“Humph.” Mrs. Cooper straightened her shoulders in offense. “I was discreet, of course—”

“I beg your pardon?” said Jeanie, anger bubbling up from deep inside her. “That was discreet? Did you ask Jason what happened?”

“I didn’t need to ask him, it was obvious that hussy—” Mrs. Cooper stretched a shaking finger in the direction of the shut door.

“I’m afraid the term ‘hussy’ is outdated.” Jeanie paused as she opened the door. “Some messages work better than others. You can coat them in honey and chocolate, and ease the bitter taste with laughter. Or you can coat them in shards of glass, and force them down with a fire hose. Which message, do you suppose, will digest better? Good day to you. I’m sure you do wonderful work with plants.” Jeanie snapped her mouth shut before anything else escaped. She closed the door on Mrs. Cooper and bumped into Brynna. “Sorry, Brynna. Let’s go see Mr. Harris about a different placement.” Preferably several acres away from any man under sixty.

Brynna folded her arms across her chest, and marched alongside her. “Go ahead, say it!” Her voice shook with rage. “How I should be grateful for this job, and for that jackass back there pawing me. Check the greenhouses, damn it, like Harris does, looking for marijuana and mushrooms.”

Jeanie said nothing. Brynna jumped ahead a couple paces and whirled in front of her, throwing her fists down to her sides. “Go ahead, yell at me,” she screamed, “like everybody else. Do this, don’t do that, mind your tongue, and for God’s sake SMILE at the SOBs. Go on. Ask me what was in the fuckin’ bag I brought to work. You’re thinking it, aren’t you? Go ahead and say it.”

Jeanie looked at the convulsed face. If she really wanted to know what was in the bag, the last thing she’d do was ask Brynna. Tenderness swept over her, as it so often did at inconvenient moments. The silly girl. “Brynna, I wouldn’t know a hallucinogenic mushroom if it bit me on the nose. You have survived in a world that would have flattened me. I respect you, I even like you, and I wish to heaven you’d quit trying to pick fights with me.”

“Heaven? Heaven? What is it with you, Jeanie? Can’t you even cuss? Are you afraid of me?”

“Afraid of you?” Jeanie gave a short laugh. “You think I’m an idiot? Of course, I’m afraid of you. Of you, Sorrel, Tonio, Dillon, and all the people in your lives I’d shiver to meet. Look at this arm of mine. These muscles are made out of Play-Doh. Think I’m going fight? No way, girl. Is that what you’re after? Go ahead, Brynna, hit me. Pull out those claws of yours, and scratch.”

“Hit you?”

“Hit me, Brynna, or give it up, and decide you’re not going to.”

Brynna narrowed her eyes. “If I did, you’d report me to Torrez.”

“Give me a break, Brynna.” Jeanie couldn’t help laughing. “What do you expect out of me?”

Brynna grimaced and fell back to her side. Silently, they walked towards the main office. After a long moment, Brynna’s fists unclenched.

“It was makeup,” she said. “In the bag. Jeanie, you’re crazy.”

“Boy, tell me about it. Seems to me I’ve heard that about a thousand times in the last month.” Of course, it could have been makeup. But it probably wasn’t.

“Yeah.” Brynna gave her a sidelong glance. “Maybe you’re not a wimp after all.”

“Ha. Look at my hands shake!”

CHAPTER
SEVEN

Jeanie shaded her eyes and applied Mackie’s rule of thumb to the construction site. Look for the large, muscled figure of Danny Rivera, and there would be Quinto jogging behind, with his hardhat, shining eyes, and endless stream of questions.

Danny waved. His grin made the world seem like a better place. “Hey, good to see you, Jeanie. Come to check out my guy, here?” Danny hauled a heavy cardboard box under one arm. “He’s a great young man, one of the best I’ve had. Never wears out on me halfway through the morning.”

“Soon’s I get my GED, I’m gonna come on full-time, ain’t I, Mr. Rivera?” The great brown eyes looked like Corrigan’s when he was hoping for a walk.

“We’ll see about that,” said Danny heartily. His eyes, meeting Jeanie’s, expressed some doubt. A subtle tilt of his head indicated a tall gray-haired man with a sheaf of papers. “We’ll have to see what Mr. Browning has to say, but I’d sure recommend him in a flash.”

“Quinto, don’t you already work full-time on Saturdays?”

“No, just a couple times, when they was behind, like they was last week,” said Quinto. He tensed and studied the ground between his feet.

That, she realized suddenly, was the day Bryce Wogan had been hurt. She hurried on, trying to ease his embarrassment. “So, what are you doing today, Quinto?”

“We been checking out the supplies of rebar. We got lots a them cinder blocks to go afore we get to the rafters. I been framing out windows, cross bracing, you know. Hey, let me show you something sharp. I just learned me this, just this morning, been working on it real good.” Quinto ran off to the trailer.

“So, what do you really think?” Jeanie asked Danny.

“Gotta love that enthusiasm. He’s got some good stuff in him, Quinto does. Not the brightest, but sometimes he surprises me.” Danny indicated Quinto jogging back, a loosely rolled sheet of paper tucked under an arm.

“See? Look, Jeanie. Them’s blueprints, see? They tells all there is to know about this building. There’s a cut-away, shows what it’s gonna look like, kind of three-D, you know.” Quinto threw his hand in front of his face, and framed the building between thumb and forefinger. “See? Just like that, ain’t it great? Then these marks here, they tell about stuff like the plumbing, and the inside walls. Look here, see? That there’s a support wall.” Quinto pointed to the drawing, and then to an empty space in the middle of the floor. Danny nodded approvingly as he scrawled his initials on Jeanie’s paper.

“It ain’t there yet, but it’s gotta go in before they get much higher. Real important, Jeanie, ‘cause if it ain’t there? The whole second floor will come crashing down, soon’s they get the furniture on it. This stuff, this blueprint, it’s important. It’s like people live, or die, depending on if these guys done their pictures right. Ain’t that something?” Quinto shook his head. “And it’s all math, Jeanie. How come none of them teachers ever told me that? Math ain’t just counting apples and money. It’s people living or dying, and I never knowed it before, ‘til Mr. Rivera showed me this morning.”

Behind him, Danny said, “You stay here for a bit, Quinto, talk to your teacher. I’ll be up on the scaffold.”

Quinto turned instantly. “Hey, I’ll go with you, Jeanie don’t care.”

“No, no, in a minute or two, okay? She’s probably got questions to ask you, about me, how mean I am, stuff like that.” He gave Quinto a wink, and strode away.

“Damn, Jeanie, I hope I get to stay on, after the program.” His eyes tracked Danny. “You think I could?”

“I guess it depends on how well you do while you’re here.”

“Yeah, only that Mr. Browning, he don’t like me.”

“You said Mr. Wogan didn’t like you either, but Mr. Rivera said otherwise.”

Quinto turned the blueprints in his hands. “Well, yeah, but that was different. Mr. Wogan, guys like him, you got to prove yourself. Mr. Wogan, he kind of waits, watches you, and if you do good, he’s okay with you. This guy, though, this Mr. Browning, he watches me too, but it’s like he thinks I’m gonna do something. He probably thinks I did that pipe bomb, but that’s crazy. Wouldn’t catch me near no pipe bombs, I ain’t stupid. Guys get their hands blown off making them, just like Mr. Wogan got.” His face clouded. “Mr. Wogan, he liked the picture I drew him, of his truck. Mr. Rivera took it to him. It was hard, ‘cause they don’t let me near none of them trucks, and that one, it’s in for repairs, and besides, I couldn’t come to the site last week. But Mr. Rivera, he said I got it down good, dents and all. Mr. Wogan, he stuck it up on his hospital wall, so he must have liked it.”

“You’re quite an artist, Quinto.”

“Yeah.” His voice slowed. “Jeanie, I’m all messed up. I don’t know what to do. Ricky, my bro? He’s always telling me, you gotta use that talent, come to the store, work in advertising, soon’s you finish the program. There’s this art school, Ricky knows some guys there.”

“That could be a great opportunity.”

“Mr. Rivera, he said that too. Ricardo, he’s really going up, he’s gonna make the big bucks afore he’s done. And Mama, you know, she’s up there in
Portland
.” Quinto scuffed the ground, his gaze straying after Danny. “Advertising, you gotta sit around all day. This stuff, here, it’s real, you know. I’m really doing something, not drawing pictures.”

“Isn’t it great that you have a choice?”

The thin face turned to her with a big grin. “Ain’t it? I got
way
more choices than I did a year ago. Don’t you worry about me, Jeanie. I’m gonna make it, one way or another. I gotta go, okay?”

“Sure thing.”

Quinto darted back to the construction trailer with the blueprints. As Jeanie left, he was swarming up the scaffold calling, “Mr. Rivera, anything you need?”

~*~

Jeanie sat in the big front office of the courthouse, waiting for Carol. Unfortunately, Carol was stuck with a weepy, middle-aged woman half-lying on the counter, sobbing out her life story.

“I can’t believe he’d do a thing like that to me. I want a divorce, I told him, and he said, why baby, I love you, I love you, I’ll never leave you, and fool that I was, I took it for true. Come to find out, he was seeing her on Tuesdays, not going to the gym. Little tramp like that—”

“Really, a lawyer is your best option,” Carol said, “If you want a divorce. Yes, dear, I know, I know—”

Sorrel walked through the back of the room, and paused in mid-step. Jeanie waved. Hesitantly, Sorrel stepped forward. “Hi, Jeanie. I can’t talk, I got so much to do right now. Really backed up, all right?” She slipped into the copying room.

Jeanie’s anxiety hiked up a notch. Sorrel’s family came down on Sunday afternoons every other week, and yesterday had been their day. Ordinarily, Jeanie could trace the visitation schedule by Sorrel’s attitude. She was calmer on the Mondays after a visit, and Jeanie had sincerely hoped that would be the case today. Instead, she seemed more wound up than ever.