Good Girls Do (28 page)
As a group they said, “Nope.”
“Eat your dinners,” Luke growled at them even as he took Angel by the elbow and led her toward the back. “Look, I don’t have time for this right now.”
“I know that. You’ve still got two Flirtinis and two Samuel Adams to get for tables five and nine. Here, let me help. I can bartend if you want . . .”
“No!” At her hurt expression, he softened his voice just a bit. “No, thanks.”
“I really don’t see how you’ll be able to manage without my help tonight, Luke.”
“I’ll make it through somehow.”
“But we’ll talk soon about Julia, right? I’ve given her time to settle down, but she’s still extremely angry with me.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“She told you everything?”
“She told me enough.”
At that point, Julia walked into Maguire’s. She stopped in her tracks when she saw her mom talking to him.
“What’s going on?” Julia demanded.
“Your mother just stopped by to say hi.”
“And to help him out,” Angel added. “He’s got two servers out with the flu.”
“I told her I really don’t need her help.” Luke sent urgent visual messages to Julia, which she apparently picked up because she said, “That’s right. I can help Luke. You don’t have to stay, Angel.”
Angel’s shoulders seemed to sag at her daughter’s words. “Oh. Well, I guess I’ll go back to the house then.”
Luke waited until she’d left before telling Julia, “She was informing the customers that the pot roast would kill them and that sugar is poison.”
“You’re lucky that’s all she did.”
“She also made the announcement that you and Luke are intimate,” Adele said even as she slapped two plates of today’s special—the pot roast—into Luke’s startled hands. “Here, take these to table twelve. The one in the corner,” she added.
“She told them we’re intimate?” Julia looked around in dismay. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope,” the diners said en masse.
“Eat!” Luke growled. This time he meant business.
Maguire’s was filled with the clatter of dozens of forks being picked up and conversations resumed.
Luke nodded his approval. “Okay then.”
Julia put her hands to her flushed cheeks. “It’s not okay.”
“Uh, that’s our dinner you’ve got there,” an older man in the corner table reminded Luke.
“Stay here,” Luke told her before marching over and depositing the two plates on the table with an irritated clatter that made the ice cubes in their drinks rattle against their glasses.
“Do you have any salt substitute . . . ?” The man’s voice trailed off at the hardened expression on Luke’s face. “Ah, never mind.”
“Wise move. Enjoy your meal.” Luke marched back to Julia’s side. “Why isn’t it okay that people know about us? Are you ashamed of me?”
His question startled her. So did the defensive look in his eyes. “No, of course not.”
“What’s the problem then?”
“I’m just not used to being the center of attention this way.”
Luke turned to glare at the room over his shoulder. “Are you looking at her again? Stop staring. Didn’t anyone ever tell you people that’s rude?”
“Luke.” Julia tugged on his arm.
“Luke!”
“Luke!”
He finally turned back to her. “What?”
“You’re right. I don’t care if everyone here knows. Hear that everyone?” she called out to them. She was tired of always being the good girl who did the right thing, who went out of her way to please other people and meet their expectations of her. “I don’t care!”
“Listen,” the woman at a nearby table said, “all I care about is getting dessert. So stop the floor show and get me a menu, would you please?”
Julia grabbed a dessert menu from the bin at the end of the bar and took it right over.
Seeing that the diners in the room were still watching her every move, she gave them her best librarian stare and took a page out of Luke’s book. “Eat!” she told them.
They did.
“This has got to stop.” Skye stated, her hands on her hips above her low-rider jeans. She’d confronted Julia first thing Sunday morning, which was unusual, because Skye was not a morning person.
So finding her in the kitchen, waiting, had already raised alarm bells within Julia.
“What are you talking about?” Julia replied.
“This thing with you and Angel. She’s trying to please you by going respectable.”
“Fat chance of that,” Julia scoffed.
“She’s got a job.
“You mean selling her scarves and hats on consignment at Bonnie’s Boutique? I heard about that already.”
“I mean a job at Aunt Sally’s Pancake House. The one by the interstate. She has to wear a uniform complete with a frilly cap and feed people bacon. Do you know how difficult that is for her? But she’s doing it for you.”
“What are you talking about? I never asked her to feed people bacon.”
“She’s trying to be respectable. She’s been looking for a so-called normal job to make you proud of her. After working at Maguire’s for thirty minutes, she figured she could make it as a waitress.”
“That’s her choice.”
“No, it’s not. She’s trying to fit into this anal town to please you.”
Julia’s patience snapped. “If you don’t like it here, you should leave.”
“I am. I rented a place over in Rock Creek. Toni and I are already packed.”
Julia was stunned. “Is Angel going with you?”
“No. She refused. She says you need her.”
“I need her to tell me the name of my real father. She told you the truth before she told me. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?”
“Get over it. Seriously.”
“This from someone who still holds a grudge over the fact that I lost some stupid cassette of yours years ago—”
“It was a bootleg Nirvana!”
“See?”
“I see all right,” Skye retorted. “I see that you’re trying to make Angel pay by ruining her life. She’s even agreed to date that dorky dentist.”
“What? Why?”
“Hello? Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? To please you.”
“How would dating Phil the dentist please me?”
“He’s respectable, isn’t he?”
Julia nodded. “Eminently.”
“Unlike the man she really likes. Tyler.”
“I never told her she couldn’t date Tyler.”
Skye rolled her eyes. “She doesn’t want to date him. She wants to get down and dirty with him. The way you are doing with Luke.”
“My relationship with Luke is none of your business,” Julia shot back.
“It’s apparently the entire town’s business. They all know about it.”
“I don’t care.”
“Then you shouldn’t care that I’m talking about it. After all, I’m your sister—”
“Half sister.”
“Oh yeah, I knew we’d get around to that eventually. You know what I think? I think the news about your father really satisfied you on some level. Because now you have a logical explanation for why you’re so different from me. Why you were always the good sister and I was the bad one.”
“You like getting into trouble. You said yourself on Christmas that you like stirring things up.”
“That’s right.”
“Like shoplifting.”
“I wondered how long it would take you to get around to that. I was a rebellious teenager.”
“What did you have to be rebellious about? You never had rules you had to obey.”
“Sure we did. Be nice. Don’t harm the earth.”
“I meant things like a curfew.”
“We didn’t grow up in a state of marshal law, that’s right.”
“So I repeat my earlier question, what did you have to be rebellious about?”
“I was pushing the boundaries.”
“Yeah, that’s one way of saying it. Being a petty thief is another.”
“Hey, there was nothing petty about what I did. I only took things from places that could afford it.”
“Like that’s an excuse?”
“I only got caught once.”
“That was all it took.” Something about Skye’s expression made her add, “You’re not still stealing, are you?”
“Why?” Skye drawled. “Do you want to check the silverware, be sure I didn’t take any spoons?”
“I meant from stores. You’re not doing that anymore, right?”
Skye was silent.
“Right?” Julia repeated.
“I may have taken one or two things recently that were made in child labor camps to bring attention to that cause.”
“How recently? Since you’ve been in Serenity Falls?”
Skye nodded.
Julia panicked. “Take it back. Right now.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I mean it!”
“I can’t. I sent the stuff to the media with a press release about the conditions in those child labor camps.”
Julia closed her eyes, imagining the police or the FBI pulling up in front of her house at any moment to handcuff Skye and haul her away.
“Why do you do such stupid things? Don’t you realize that your daughter could be taken from you if you get caught and prosecuted?”
“That will never happen.”
“You can’t know that.”
“You always think the worst of me.”
“And you always prove me right,” Julia retorted.
“Admit it, you were
pleased
to hear that we’re only half sisters.”
pleased
to hear that we’re only half sisters.”
“I’m pleased that you’re getting your own place. Where will you be living in Rock Creek?”
“I thought I’d take a bed in Sister Mary’s shelter for the homeless.” At Julia’s horrified look, she added, “Why not? That’s what you expect from me, right? Not that I might actually have rented a nice two-bedroom place with character.”
“With character? Does that mean it’s falling apart?”
“There you go again. You think I’m going to have Toni eating lead paint chips for her afternoon snack? I know you don’t think I’m a good mother.”
“I never said that. I said you don’t discipline your daughter, but I never said you were a bad mother. I know you love her.”
“We’re going,” Toni said as she trailed down the stairs with her favorite blanket in hand. Taking Julia’s hand in her small one, she tugged on it. “Come with us.”
“I can’t.” Julia got down to Toni’s level so they were eye to eye. “But I’ll come visit you if your mommy lets me.”
“I’m not the one with restrictions,” Skye said.
“Gram is staying with you,” Toni said.
Julia raised an eyebrow. Angel had never been known as Gram before.
“Yeah, she told Toni to call her Gram. It’s more traditional, more respectable, more like something out of the
Donna Reed Show
. I am going to miss your cable TV,” Skye remarked belatedly.
Donna Reed Show
. I am going to miss your cable TV,” Skye remarked belatedly.
Julia felt badly, as if she were tossing her family out onto the street. “You’re sure this place in Rock Creek is nice?”
“No, it’s a cockroach-infested hellhole,” Skye retorted in irritation.
“What’s a hellhole?” Toni asked.
“A place filled with negative energy,” Skye replied.
Toni looked from one adult to the other. “Is this a hellhole?”
“Depends who you ask,” Skye muttered before gathering her daughter in her arms. “Come on, pumpkin. Time to go.”
Julia stood. “Did you pack her books?”
Skye nodded. “They’re already in the van.”
“What about child-proofing the cabinets and drawers in the kitchen and bathroom of the new place?”
“Algee already agreed to install them this afternoon.”
Julia wrapped her arms around her middle, chilled all of a sudden. “I wish you’d given me more warning . . .”
“What for? You’ve wanted us gone since the second we got here.”
“That’s not true . . .”
“Yes, it is. Don’t bother lying.”
Julia blinked back the sting of tears. “Angel lied for thirty years.” Great. She felt like a wimp for saying that. And sounded like one, too. She hated that.
“Right. She did. And you’re going to make her pay for every one of them, aren’t you? Well, forgive me if I can’t sit around and watch you do that. I’ve told Angel how I feel. And now I’ve told you.”
“So you’re just walking away, is that it? Walking away is something you’re real good at isn’t it? Whenever things get rough, you take a hike.”
“I didn’t take a hike when I found myself pregnant and alone,” Skye countered.
“You had Angel to help you. You were never alone.”
“And you were?”
“Yes.”
“Your own choice. You could have stayed . . .”
“I don’t belong.”
“Your choice,” Skye repeated before walking out.
Julia blinked away the tears as Toni waved to her over her mother’s shoulder. “Bye bye, don’t cry, my mommy’s name is Skye.”
“Skye’s left,” Julia told Angel when she got home later that evening. Her mother wasn’t wearing a waitress uniform. “She told me you’re working at Aunt Sally’s Pancake House.”
“That’s right. That’s where I was today. And I knew Skye was leaving.”
Yet another example of how close Angel and Skye were. Julia tried not to be hurt. “She said she asked you to go with her.”
“You need me more than she does.”
“I
need
you to tell me the name of my father.”
need
you to tell me the name of my father.”
“I’ve explained about that.”
“I’m going to find out sooner or later. Luke is helping me track him down, you know. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Maybe by then you and I will have reached an understanding.”
Julia’s patience, already worn thin by Skye earlier in the day, started to fray once more. “Do you really think that wearing a frilly uniform at the pancake house and dating Phil the dentist is going to bring you and me closer together?”
“I’m trying to be a good mother to you.”
“I’m an adult.”
Angel reached out to touch her cheek. “You were an adult even when you were Toni’s age. An old soul. I just want you to be happy, and I’m glad that you and Luke are together.”
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