Mischief 24/7 (15 page)

Jade had gone over all this again with Court on their way here from the airport, but nobody could explain Sunny to her. She did get the idea that Jessica had
done something,
because Jessica had a lifelong reputation for
doing something.

When they all got to the landing, Ernesto fished in his pocket for a set of keys and opened the door to Matt’s apartment, only to be immediately greeted by a small, round, yipping bunch of brightly colored fur that had launched itself at his knees.

“Sunny, no. What did I tell you about the slobbering, huh?” Ernesto admonished, picking up the Irish setter puppy, which immediately began licking his face. “Cut that out or I’ll give you to Mrs. Chen
in 2-B. She told me that back home in China, you’re a delicacy, you dumb mutt. Okay, she was only teasing—but I don’t like dog kisses, you hear me?”

Jade turned to Court once more, her eyebrows raised, her tongue rubbing back and forth across the bottom of her top teeth as she thought this one over. Then she smiled. “She had a plan, she said, Court. She left us yesterday to go see Matt—whom she’d let fly free because he couldn’t seem to commit, if you’ll remember—and she said she had a plan. A couple of hours later, she and Matt are back together and
planning
a wedding. A dog? A dog was
her plan?”
And then, because her baby sister had amazed her yet again, Jade laughed. “Ernesto, let’s go inside, and then you can tell us all about Sunny.”

While Ernesto carefully picked up a few soiled puppy puddle pads with a pair of ice tongs he brought in from the kitchen and dropped them into a plastic garbage bag, he told Court and Jade what had happened the previous day.

“Matt brought me home and told me to start packing for school, and then he went upstairs and then he went shopping for some food—he brought me bread and milk and spiced ham because he keeps forgetting I don’t like spiced ham—and then he stayed up here, and then Miss

Jessica showed up with Mortimer and the puppy and asked me to help her.”

“Mortimer, right. Matt’s ugly black goldfish. He’d forgotten him
again.
All right. So Jess showed up, and you helped her with
what?”
Jade asked, sitting on the floor now, Sunny in her lap. Sunny looked just like Rockne had more than a dozen years ago, when Jessica had brought him home, hoping Teddy would take to him and forget his wife had just taken a permanent hike with his own brother. The girl did have a thing for dogs—and simple ideas.

“I’m still not sure about that part, the
what
part, Miss Sunshine. Miss Jessica can be a little
loco,
so I just did what she said, you know? I carried Sunny and the puppy stuff up here for her, and she carried Mortimer.”

From there, Ernesto went on to explain the look on Matt’s face when he opened the door to see Jessica standing there with Mortimer, and his reaction to having Sunny pushed into his arms.

“Miss Jessica, she said he had to learn to commit sometime, or something like that. First Mortimer, then the dog and then, someday, maybe he’d be ready to commit to a person. Like that. And then she left my amigo standing there with his mouth opening and closing, just like Mortimer.”

The next thing Ernesto knew he was being handed the dog and Matt had grabbed his car keys and was running out of the apartment while mumbling “stupid, stupid” to himself—and that was the last Ernesto had seen of Matt or Jessica.

“So they’re getting married?” he asked when he was done, looking hopefully at Court. “That’s cool. That way Miss Jessica still gets to keep Sunny.”

“The way to a man’s heart is through an Irish setter?” Court asked, smiling. “All right, I’ll swallow that. But I don’t think Sam or I are ready yet to concede that your sister isn’t a witch.”

“Uh-oh,” Jade said, looking around Matt’s very clean, yet very sad and empty-looking apartment. “Matt was just existing, wasn’t he, Court? I really like him, and I think he and Jessica will be good together. Come on, let’s grab Mortimer, too, and get back to Sam’s. Ernesto, please tell me you’re packed and ready to go.”

Jade had barely finished speaking when the door to Matt’s apartment slammed open so hard it hit the wall.

“There you are, you ungrateful little bastard. I told you I want those fancy calculator things you’ve got hidden in your room.
Now,
Ernesto, or I’ll rip the room apart.”

Jade quickly put down the puppy and got to her feet, startled by the appearance of what had to be Ernesto’s mother.

The woman was taller than Ernesto, with long, frizzed hair colored a hideous orange-red, matching the bright slash of lipstick smeared around her mouth. She wore a pair of denim cutoffs above too-thin bare legs, and a bright pink halter top studded with matching sequins. If the woman ever ate anything, it didn’t show.

Her eyes were deeply brown, the pupils dilated, and as she stood there, bracing her outstretched arms against the doorjamb, the smell of her—cheap perfume and sweat—threatened to overpower the room.

“Mama, no,” Ernesto said, quickly moving toward the door. “They gave me those calculators for college, I told you that. You aren’t going to sell them.” He looked quickly to Court and Jade and then added quietly, “You’ve been using all day, Mama. You don’t need more.”

“Don’t you tell me what I need! Don’t you ever tell me what I need!” the woman shouted, already raising one hand as if to slap him, and Ernesto flinched reflexively. But Court was too fast for her, grabbing her wrist and turning her around, right arm now pinned behind her, heading her
back out to the landing. “Take your grimy paws off me! Let me go! Who are you to…
Oh.”
The tone changed from maddened screech to come-hither nauseating. “You want some of this, pretty boy?”

Jade watched, embarrassed for Ernesto, as his mother shook off Court’s hand and ran her own hands down her body, then cupped her breasts, pushing them at Court as she made an
O
of her lipstick-smeared lips.

“Mama—”

“Ten for a quick blow, twenty if you want to touch me, you know, in my girly places. Fifty, and I’ll bark like that damn dog while you poke me any way you like if that’s what gets you off. Come on, handsome, you know you want what I got.”

Court’s answer was to grab her by the elbow and half push her down the steps with him.

Jade was already in the kitchen, her hands shaking almost uncontrollably, opening drawers to find the plastic wrap so she could seal the top of Mortimer’s bowl. “Get Sunny and his things, Ernesto, sweetie,” she called over her shoulder. “We’re out of here.”

But Ernesto only stood where he was, tears standing in his eyes, his hands drawn up into impotent fists.

“Ernesto,” Jade said quietly, depositing Mortimer’s bowl on a table and taking the boy’s chin in her hand. She looked deeply into his eyes as she took a tissue from her slacks pocket and dabbed at his cheeks. “We understand, honey. We do. And don’t be ashamed. We’re not judging. But you can’t fix some things that are broken, especially if they don’t want to be fixed. It’s time for you to go, sweetheart, start your new life. It really is.”

By the time they were back on the ground floor, Court was walking out of Ernesto’s apartment with a small canvas bag in one hand, Ernesto’s pair of new calculators in the other. “Okay, buddy. Anything else you need, we buy, all right?”

“But… but Mama?”

“I think she’s going to lie down for a while. She sends you her love, Ernesto,” Court said, looking at Jade. “I think you need your own cell phone before you go away. You can call her from college in a few days.”

“I, uh…” Ernesto looked once more toward the closed door behind Court. “Okay. I mean, I guess so…”

“How much did that cost you?” Jade whispered to Court as they followed Ernesto toward the car.

“Enough to keep her high for a while, I’m sorry to say. I’m also sorry to say that the best thing that
could happen to Ernesto might be if she used it all at one time and overdosed. I need a shower. While I was searching Ernesto’s room, she kept throwing herself at me, trying to kiss me, grabbing at my crotch, throwing out prices for each of her different
talents.
I thought I knew a lot, but she came up with things I’ve never even heard about, and never want to hear about again.”

Jade tried to ease the moment. “She couldn’t help herself. You’re irresistible.”

“Thanks for the compliment, but that woman would hump a mailbox for a nickel bag,” Court gritted out from between clenched teeth. “Ernesto never comes back here, Jade. Never.”

“You’re adopting him?” Jade asked, longing to hug him for his fierce protectiveness of a defenseless boy.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, but he doesn’t come back here. He has school breaks, he comes to me, in Virginia. I don’t care who or what I have to take on to make that happen, but that’s what’s going to happen.”

Jade watched Ernesto climb into the back seat with Sunny, then pick up Mortimer’s bowl from the macadam and clumsily climb into the car himself with the small menagerie.

She turned to Court and stepped even closer to
him, slid her arms up and around his neck. Just before she kissed him, she whispered, “There are times I really could love you, Court Becket…”

H
E COULD BE
in love with her. After only a few days. Hell, from the moment he’d first seen her walk into the hotel bar. And Teddy Sunshine and his opinions be damned.

She approached his private jet with the air of someone walking the gangplank over a tank filled with alligators, her long hair blowing away from her face, giving him a clear look at her widened eyes.

“It’s, um, it’s really not all the
big,
is it?” she said as he reached for her hand and squeezed it in his own. “In fact, it’s… I think you could say it’s pretty
small.
Like, um, like a toy plane.”

Court squeezed her hand again as he coaxed her into walking close to the jet. “It’s a fifteen-seater, which isn’t huge, no, but it’s a lot more than a puddle-jumper. Do you want to interview the pilot? Ask to see his license?”

Jade lowered her chin into the faux-fur collar of her new, deeply emerald down jacket, courtesy of the boutique in the hotel lobby. “I, uh, I’ve never flown before,” she admitted quietly. “I know, edging up on thirty years old, and I’ve
never traveled farther than the Jersey Shore. I mean, I’ve thought about flying somewhere, but there’s never been anyplace to go. Teddy flies to Ireland once a year with Father Muskie, and he’s asked me to go with them a couple of times, but… common sense says airplanes shouldn’t be able to get off the ground, okay?”

“All right, so you’re telling me that you’ve never flown before.”

Jade’s smile was tremulous. “No, I think I’m saying I don’t want to fly
now.
In
that.
I’m sorry, Court, I know I’m being stupid, and don’t try to
kiss
me out of this one, because this time it’s not going to work the way it did back at the hotel.”

Court let go of her hand and slipped his arm around her waist. “A lot of things worked out very nicely back at the hotel,” he told her quietly, recalling how they’d made love before she’d finally agreed to come with him to Virginia. Quick, and passionately hot. He was looking forward to the long weekend and more leisurely lovemaking.

He kept edging her toward the short flight of steps that led up to the plane. would it help at all to tell you we’ve got parachutes on board?”

“Not if I’m more afraid to jump out of a plane than I am to fly in a plane, no,” Jade said, but he could feel her tense body beginning to relax. “This is stupid. People fly every day, every second of every day. The chances of crashing are about a million times less than getting run over by a semi
on the expressway, and I drive on that all the time.”

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, her warm breath making a small cloud in the increasingly cold air. “All right. Let’s do this.”

“Should I be humming snatches of the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ as we march arm in arm toward the stairs?”

“Funny man,” Jade said as they reached the plane. “Everybody loves a comedian. Except maybe me.”

He grinned and waved for her to ascend the portable stairs first and then motioned for the attendant to quickly close the door behind him—before Jade changed her mind.

“Champagne for the lady, please, George,” he said quietly to his employee. “I think we’ve got a nervous flier here.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Becket,” the attendant said. “But we’ll be cleared for takeoff in just a few moments, so if it can wait…?”

“It can. Go strap yourself in, George, and I’ll do my best to keep her from trying to open a window and leap to safety.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Becket,” George answered, grinning. “I’m guessing you’ll think of something.”

“What were you whispering about?” Jade asked as Court sat down in the comfortable leather seat beside hers and helped her with her seat belt. “Did you tell him not to worry if he heard screaming back here?”

“Pretty much, yes.” Then he laughed as she grabbed his forearm in a death grip.

“We’re moving. Court? We’re moving.
Backward.
”

“Yes, the pilot finds that easer than making a U-turn through the terminal. Come here Jade,” he said, putting his arm around her again. “Let me introduce you to the joys of takeoff.”

“I’m being an idiot. I’m sorry, Court.” Again she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, tell me about the joys of takeoff.”

Court felt the plane begin to taxi forward and, from previous experience at PHL, knew they’d be taking off very shortly. He eased Jade closer to him and slid both arms around her. With his mouth close to her ear, he told her, “There’s this thing called thrust. Well, maybe not, but for the sake of this conversation, I’m going to call it thrust.”

“Thrust, huh? You would,” Jade said, her laugh shaky. “Go on.”

The pilot announced that they would be taking off in one minute.

“Oh, God…”

“Shh,” he told her quietly. “Just close your eyes and concentrate. Runways look smooth enough, but we’ll be rolling over strips in the concrete, and you’ll feel them rumble, vibrate up through the belly of the plane.”