Pretend You Love Me (19 page)

“Xanadu has cramps and doesn’t feel like celebrating,” I told Jamie on the phone.

If he knew the truth about her going to Bailey’s house, he didn’t let on. He bitched and moaned, “I don’t want to spend another
Saturday night at home with Geneviève and Hakeem.”

It was preferable to my alternative. His parents were human, at least. “So message Shane and wack off together,” I said.

Jamie clucked his tongue. “I can’t. His computer crashed. He e-mailed me from a friend’s house that it won’t be fixed until
Monday. How will I live without Shane until Monday?”

“Wack yourself.” I flipped through the three or four messages Darryl had taken off the machine. Coalton was having a rash
of backed up toilets and sinks. The Redmans hadn’t called about my bid. I wanted that job; it’d pay for the Levi’s, and even
the Carhartt coat. More than that. A lot more. It was the biggest job I’d ever done. Alone anyway. I could fit it in somehow.
Cut back on my hours at the Merc until school was out. I’d have plenty of time this summer. Just thinking about the challenge
made me drool. I wondered if I should call them.

“Shane and I need to talk about how and when we’re going to meet.”

I tuned into Jamie. “Are you still on that kick? Get off it.”

Jamie said, “It’s going to happen, Mike. It’s only a matter of time.”

A matter of time, I repeated to myself. For me and Xanadu, it was only a matter of time. I felt it in my bones. Could I wait?
I’d have to.

“Why don’t you come over and we’ll rent a movie?” Jamie cut into my thoughts. “It’ll be just like old times.”

Meaning last month. Pre-Shane. “Okay. But no horror. I get enough of that at home.”

“How is Our Little Miss Sveltlana and the lovely Kung Pao?”

“I’ll be there in ten,” I said.

Jamie’s mom met me at the door of their double-wide. Dolores, not Geneviève. Dottie to me and everyone else in town. “Mike,”
she said, “you sweetie. Where’ve you been? I’ve missed you.” She almost didn’t let me through the door before crushing me
in a hug. I’d missed her too. She smelled like bacon. Dottie always smelled like bacon.

Grandma Dottie’s Gourmet Goodies was the name of Dottie’s home business. Her baked goods were in high demand in all the Suprettes
around western Kansas. She packaged her goodies in red-and-white polka-dot boxes with dotted-swiss ribbon. Dottie wasn’t a
grandma—she might never be, seeing as how Jamie was an only child—and the gourmet ingredient in her cooking was supposed to
be a secret. Right.

The secret was bacon fat. You could smell it clear to River View. It might seem gross, but the truth was bacon fat added a
kind of earthy flavor and moistness to Dottie’s cakes and cookies.

The oven timer buzzed and Dottie threw up her hands. “Oops, my lemon bars are done. I think Jamie’s in his room. Jamie, hon,”
she called into the back. “Mike’s here.”

I liked Dottie. Loved her, actually. She was a regular mom, more mom to me than mine had ever been. Jamie’s dad was great
too. Bill, not Hakeem. He sold hay balers to farmers and ranchers, so he was on the road a lot.

Jamie padded out dressed in his cheerleader sweater and a pleated skirt. He stopped in the alcove separating the kitchen from
the living room and twirled in a circle. “How do I look?”

“Stupid,” I said. “Why are you wearing that?”

“We’re selecting our uniforms for next year.” Jamie admired himself in the hallway mirror. “The pants haven’t come in yet,
but I wanted to see how the reverse colors looked. Kimberleigh loaned me her skirt.” He did a modified split jump in the cramped
space. “What do you think?”

“If you show up at one of my games in a skirt, you’ll find out how accurate my arm is.”

Dottie laughed from the kitchen.

Jamie ignored me. Checking himself out one last time, he said, “Okay, I like it. Give me a sec to change. I picked up a couple
of movies at the Suprette.” He thumbed into the living room.

The DVDs were on top of the TV—the big-screen TV that took up half the trailer. I wandered over to see what he’d gotten. The
aroma of sugar and lemon and bacon redirected my feet to the kitchen. I didn’t realize how hungry I was. I’d only had a can
of SpaghettiOs for dinner.

Dottie was sliding a cake pan into the oven. “Oh, Mike. Good. I’m trying out a new recipe for lemon bars. Don’t tell, but
it’s really Emeril’s recipe that I’m enhancing with my own secret ingredient.” She winked at me. “I need a taste tester. Do
the honors?”

She had to ask?

She sliced a hunk from a second pan that was cooling on a rack on the counter. As I bit into the lemon bar, she watched intently,
index finger pressed to her chin.

“Hmm.” My eyes bulged. The crust was warm and chewy; the tangy lemon filling melted in my mouth. I scored her a ten with spread
out fingers on both hands.

Dottie beamed and patted my cheek.

I was savoring another mouthful of lemon lusciousness when Jamie flounced into the kitchen. He hefted himself onto the counter
next to me and filched the lemon bar right out of my hand. “What are we going to watch?” he said, chomping into it.

The movies. I hadn’t gotten that far. Dottie scooped up two lemon bars onto the spatula and held them out to us. I took both
and headed to the living room.

“Stop! Thief!” Jamie jumped off the counter.

When I saw which movies he’d picked, I groaned. “We’ve seen these a hundred times.” They were
Dumb and Dumber
and
Titanic
.

“Only ninety-nine.” Jamie flopped on the floor and extended his legs out in front of him. “The newest thing I could find was
Mean Girls
, and I hate when art imitates life too closely.”

Blockbuster hadn’t put Coalton on its regular delivery route. We could get newer than
Dumb and Dumber
though. Oh well. I could use a laugh tonight.

About ten minutes into the movie, the phone rang. Jamie bounded to his feet. “BeShanebeShanebeShanebeShane,” he said. He wrenched
the cordless off the wall. “Hello? What?” He covered his free ear with a hand. “Oh hi, Dad.” His voice went all monotone.

I remoted down the surround sound on the TV.

“Not much,” Jamie said. “It’s not like I’d ever have a date on a Saturday night. Unless you count Mike.” Jamie stuck out his
tongue at me and I sneered.

Dottie and Bill knew Jamie was gay. How could they not? They were cool. No drama when he came out. He didn’t drive, so if
they disowned him Jamie wouldn’t get far. He’d probably wind up in the backyard sleeping on his tramp. No, that’d never happen.
Anyone in Coalton would take Jamie in. We didn’t have homeless people here.

Plus, if we had discrimination, I wasn’t aware of it. Jamie and I had
grown up here. People knew us; they were used to us. I’m sure they gossiped, but it never got back to me. I never, for one
day, felt judged or excluded or persecuted in Coalton.

Jamie joked around with his dad on the phone for a while, then handed it off to Dottie. He resumed his spot beside me on the
floor. “What’d I miss?”

I just looked at him. A few minutes later, the phone rang again and Dottie answered it. “Jamie, it’s Shane.”

Jamie scrabbled to his feet and lunged for the phone. “Shane, I knew you’d call.” He listened for a long moment, then held
his heart. “I know,” he said. “Me too.” Jamie caressed the headset to his ear and headed to his bedroom in back.

They must’ve talked for an hour. The movie was boring. Old jokes. Dottie came in once to ask if I’d like a sandwich, but I
declined. It was after nine and she looked ready for bed.

I yawned. So did she.

“Where’s Jamie?” she said.

“Still talking to Shane,” I answered in another yawn.

She twisted her head and smiled down the hall. Her smile was so full, it was like she was pouring out a waterfall of love
for Jamie. I wondered if my mom had ever smiled at me that way. If once, in her whole entire life, she had felt a drop of
love for me.

S
he didn’t call me. I figured she was recovering from her Toto time playing cards with the McCalls. I didn’t call her. I didn’t
want to know what she was doing at the McCalls with
him
. When I got off work at five, there was one message on the machine. Esther Duffy. I groaned. She said her water heater had
rusted out and would I come over.

I sighed long and hard. I guess I had nothing better to do, like return Xanadu’s promised call. Ask her how she planned to
make it up to me.

Only one word described Esther Duffy. Old biddy. I guess that’s two words, but they go together. I swear, that lady was born
with a burr up her butt. She hated kids. Me and Darryl in particular. She’d storm down to our house and accuse us of stealing
her pumpkins or letting her rabbits out of the hutch. I never stole anything from Esther Duffy, or anyone else. Her rabbits
were neglected and filthy, so whoever let them out was doing them a favor. I suspected it was Darryl.

I’d forgotten about those rabbits. And Esther Duffy. We hadn’t had
any contact with her since she moved to the show homes eight or ten years ago. I wondered how she was enjoying the Tanner
boys as neighbors.

Esther met me at the door. “Who are you?” she snarled.

Old biddy. “Mike Szabo. You called me about your water heater?”

Her eyes raked me up and down. “Why are you wearing men’s underwear?”

I fixed on her mean, wrinkly face. “Because I like them.”

We had a staredown. I won. “You look like your dad,” she said.

I didn’t have anything to say to that.

“Come in, then.” She stepped back from the door. “It’s a mess down there.”

Mess? It was a disaster area. Her basement had an inch of water covering the cement slab, pooling around her washer and dryer,
the legs of the water heater entirely submerged. “I’m going to have to pump this first,” I thought aloud.

“Do what you need to do.” Esther breathed down my neck on the stair behind me. She smelled like rotten meat. “Your dad installed
that water heater. Obviously he did a lousy job.”

I seethed. That had to be ten years ago. Water heaters corrode. They rust. They fall apart, like people. I almost told her,
Lady, find someone else for this job. Almost. There
was
no one else, not in Coalton. Besides, I needed to occupy my time. My mind.

“Excuse me, ma’am.” I turned and smiled. “I’ll need to get my equipment out of the truck.”

She let me pass. I got to work.

Dad’s installation was flawless by any professional standards. Standards from ten years ago, though. It wasn’t up to current
code, or what I knew of it. I figured since I was here, I’d replace all the electrical, update the flex connector to the gas.

“I’ll need to run back to the shop for the water heater,” I told
Esther. She was lucky we had one in stock. Esther was glued to the TV, some home shopping show.

She remoted down the sound. “He did it to her, you know. They did it to each other.”

Was this a soap? It looked like QVC. “I’ll let myself out.”

“She didn’t used to be that big, your mama. She used to be fine. Not petite, mind you. Never small. But she was a nice person.
She never was all that social. Didn’t come out much. After her baby died…”

We’ve all been through a lot, okay?

Esther sighed. “She was never the same after she lost that baby. And him with his drinking.”

Shut up. I pivoted and charged out the back. Drive, I thought. Just drive. Finish the job and get out of there.

The water heater we had was a brand-new forty-gallon Rheem. I hated to give it to Esther, but what choice did I have? If I
ordered one, it’d take time. She was an old lady; she needed hot water. I struggled to maneuver the box onto the hand dolly
and up into the truck by myself. But I managed. See, Dad? Who needs you?

Hours later, as I was cleaning up, repacking tools, running a final leak test, Esther wandered downstairs with her checkbook.
“What do I owe you?” she asked.

I hadn’t considered a charge. Five dollars didn’t cover the O-ring on a toilet these days.

She said, “Will five hundred do it?”

Five hundred dollars? The water heater was just sitting there, collecting dust. My labor was the only cost. I checked my watch.
Nine-thirty. Had I been here that long? Four hours, on a Sunday. “Make it four hundred,” I told Esther. It still felt like
too much.

She ripped out her check and handed it to me. “Sometimes,” she said, “there are two people in the world who should never come
together. That’s your ma and your pop. Alone, they might’ve made it.
Together? With their addictions?” She shook her head. “They were a toxic combination.”

I just looked at her. “Yes, ma’am,” I said.