West of Nowhere (16 page)

Joy opened the back door for Barbara, who had eagerly joined them. Amber pulled the wheelchair from the trunk, and in seconds, had it put together and waiting by the passenger door.

“I hope I get to stick around long enough to see you do this by yourself, Shep,” she said, “especially the driving part. I can’t wait to see you do all that with just your hands.”

Her pop swung into his chair as Amber tugged on his shorts. “I wish I could drive with voice commands. That way I’d have my hands free for obscene gestures.”

Joy traded eye rolls with Barbara, who said, “I remember your mother telling me he tried to get her to do that for him.”

“Can you just imagine my mom—Cindy Shepard, of all people—flipping off a stranger on the highway? The pope would do that before she would.” She yelled ahead to Amber, “I wish you could’ve been there the time he got pulled over and the officer told him to step out of the car.”

“I asked the guy if he was pulling my leg. He didn’t think that was funny either.”

Though her mother was gone, Joy still felt warm feelings of family among the four of them tonight. Barbara had been a mainstay in their lives for decades, and in only a few short weeks Amber had inserted herself as well. She may have landed in Oakland totally unprepared for this job, but she’d caught on to the work aspects fairly well and had made up for her shortcomings with a cheerful personality.

Since they were steady customers at Juanita’s, the host welcomed them and signaled for Cristina to take them to their table.

“Hey, sweetie,” her pop said. “How about we start with the usual—cold beer, warm chips and hot salsa.”

“I take it you guys are regulars,” Amber said.

“This is Pop’s home away from home. They’re probably building his burrito as we speak.”

When the beer arrived, they placed their order. Then her pop raised his bottle. “To getting out of the house.”

“Cheers,” they answered.

Barbara, who had all but shoved Amber aside to take the seat next to Shep, told him, “You’re welcome to get out of the house any night you want. If these girls won’t bring you, just pick up the phone and I’ll come get you.”

“Trust me, Barbara. You can have Pop any night you want him.”

“I second that,” Amber added.

For all his insistence that they were only friends, Joy saw a sweetness in her father’s eyes when he looked at Barbara. It wasn’t the look of devotion he’d shown her mother all those years, but there was interest and genuine friendship, enough to suggest there might be more for them down the road.

“See how they treat me? They should be ashamed.” He turned to Amber. “Did you tell Joy about your test?”

Test…it took Joy a few seconds to realize he was referring to the GED practice test Amber had taken the night before at the library. “I forgot to ask. I was asleep when you got home.”

“Last night was the math part. Un-freaking-believable! The whole test took almost two hours. He’ll probably come back and tell me I should be in the sixth grade.”

“When will you find out?” With a pointed look, Joy snatched the basket of chips from her father’s hands and passed them on to Amber and Barbara.

“He’ll have it scored by tomorrow. I have to take the grammar and writing test next. Then on Saturday I do science, social studies and reading.”

“Is that going to be your schedule, three days a week?”

“Pretty much. Tuesday and Thursday from five to nine, and then on Saturdays from nine to three. But I’ll only have to study the parts I don’t pass.”

Joy nodded, working it out in her head that she could be home with her pop for those hours. “That should be fine.”

“What worries me is that I won’t be getting home until about nine thirty. And you can’t stay up that late, Joy.”

“I can come over if you need me,” Barbara said.

“It’s no big deal,” her father said. “I’m usually watching TV by that time, and they both have cell phones if I need anything…but you’re welcome to come over and sit whenever you want. It’s probably a good idea to have someone from the outside world check on my well-being every day.”

Dinner arrived and her pop ordered another round of beers.

“Make mine iced tea,” Joy said. “I’m driving.”

“Make his iced tea too,” Amber told the waiter.

“What the hell? I’m not driving.”

“No, but you’re taking anti-inflammatory medicine that makes your stomach hurt. I read on the package that alcohol makes it even worse. You don’t need an ulcer on top of what you’ve already got.”

“She’s right, Pop.” Joy was immensely impressed, not only that Amber had read the warning labels, but that she’d stood up to her father in front of everyone. It was hard to believe this was the same girl who, only a couple of weeks ago, wouldn’t even clean up after herself.

With a sullen look, her father acquiesced. “No more Goobers for you.”

* * *

In a move that had gotten to be old hat, Amber tugged on Shep’s shorts to help him swing into bed. Then she went into his bathroom to collect the towels, giving him privacy to strip down to his boxers and T-shirt for the night. She had no problem coming around when he needed help getting dressed or dried off after his shower, but that didn’t mean they were married.

“You dropped salsa on your sling. I’m going to toss it into the wash with these towels tonight.”

“Good! I can sleep late.”

“Like that would ever happen. Joy barely beats you out of bed and she’s up at four o’clock.” She started the laundry and came back to see if there was anything else he needed before she went to bed.

“Let’s just hope that burrito goes to sleep,” he said.

“Thanks for that mental image. Say, you and Barbara were looking pretty chummy there. Anything you want to share?”

“What do I look like, one of those Kardashians? I keep my business to myself.”

“Interesting…got some business, do you?”

“I like Barbara,” he confessed. “We’ve been friends for thirty-some years. Her husband Hank was a good man. I know she’s lonely. I guess I am too, but I’m carrying a lot of baggage here.”

“Seems to me like she knows that already.”

“Yeah, well…” His words were dismissive, but the look on his face gave away his interest. “I’ll say this for her. She passes all the tests.”

“What tests?”

“You know, all that stuff you put on your list that matters. She likes Joy. She and Hank never had any kids, but she took to Madison”—he snapped his fingers—“just like that. And like tonight…she fits in like family.”

“I think it’s sweet that Madison calls you Grandpa Shep.”

“God, that kid…I remember the first time Joy brought her out to visit. She was only five and I halfway expected her to freak out about seeing the wheelchair. Once she figured out I still had a lap, she was good.”

“Like Skippy.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, it didn’t hurt that I kept a few Goobers in my pocket…or in Skippy’s case, bacon bits.”

“You’ve been bribing my dog all this time? I thought he just didn’t like me anymore.” She got an extra blanket from the closet and spread it across the bottom of the bed where he could easily pull it up if needed. “In case your feet get cold.”

“Ha! Good one. I’m going to steal that. So what about you and Joy? Something going on there I should know about?”

“What the hell? Why would you even ask?” The idea that he’d picked up on her interest caused her to smile, no matter how hard she tried not to.

“Don’t give me that bullshit. I’ve been watching you two.”

Amber didn’t care that he’d noticed her looking at Joy. She was far more intrigued by what he’d seen that made him think Joy had been looking at her. “I think you’re seeing things. Maybe we ought to back off those meds.”

“I’m seeing things, all right. I’m seeing that Joy spends all her weekends at home instead of going out with women.”

“Maybe that’s because her old man’s gimpy and she thinks she ought to be home with him. And besides, she had a date this afternoon, somebody named Dani.”

“Pfft. Dani’s no date. She came along with us once to Great America—that’s one of those amusement parks—and all she did was watch everybody else ride. Hardly spoke to Madison. Joy isn’t going to go for somebody like that.”

The way Shep and Joy went on about that child, Amber figured she must walk on water. “That kid means a lot to you guys.”

“Family is family.”

Amber wouldn’t know anything about that. But if her feelings for Joy were to go anywhere, she understood she’d have to fall in love with this Madison kid as well.

Joy struck the perfect balance between her clutch and accelerator to hold the hill at Filbert and Hyde. When traffic cleared, she turned left behind a streetcar and started slowly downward toward the bay.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” Amber said. “If I’d been driving a stick shift on that hill, we would’ve rolled all the way back to Oakland.”

“You get used to it. What did I tell you about San Francisco? Isn’t it the most beautiful city you’ve ever seen?”

Amber couldn’t argue with that. The movies and travel guides didn’t do it justice, especially when they’d gone up to Twin Peaks and watched the fog creep over the Golden Gate Bridge. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s got so much character. It’s more like a person than a city.”

Joy nodded thoughtfully. “Good way to describe it.”

They’d eaten dinner in Chinatown and were making one last loop through the city at sunset before joining what Joy had described as throngs of commuters heading east across the Bay Bridge. Spending the afternoon together this way had been an unexpected treat, made possible when Shep and Barbara decided to take in a matinee movie and then dinner.

All day, Amber had been focused on any sign that Joy was interested in her. Whatever Shep had seen between them was still a mystery as far as she was concerned. Joy was her usual friendly and attentive self, but no more than usual, and hardly more than she was to everyone else.

One encouraging sign had come about by accident. Amber spilled her purse as she was getting ready to get out of the car at Twin Peaks, and before she could collect everything, Joy had walked around to open her door. It could have been simple impatience, but then she’d done that when they returned too, and that made it seem chivalrous.

“We’ll come back some weekend when we have time to walk around. There’s a lot more to see.”

“Ever since I was a kid, I associated San Francisco with earthquakes. Don’t you ever worry about them?”

“You mean like the one we had back in eighty-nine? One of my mom’s friends was killed.”

“Now you’re just trying to scare me.”

“If I’d been trying to scare you I would have added that she was on the Nimitz Freeway, which is the road we took to get over here. That’s where most of the fatalities were.” They started across the Bay Bridge. “And a whole section of this bridge fell out.”

“Oh, shit.” Amber shuddered. “Now you’re freaking me out. I don’t know how y’all can stand it.”

“Every place has its problems. Didn’t you guys get flooded a few years ago in Nashville? I remember seeing pictures of Opryland under water.”

“God, that was awful. The Cumberland River just kept getting higher and higher. It didn’t reach our apartment because we lived up on the second floor, but Molly’s car almost floated away.”

“See, I’d rather have earthquakes than floods any day. It happens and it’s over in less than a minute. I’d be the one freaking out if I had to watch water coming up around my house and didn’t know how high it was going to get. And the other thing about earthquakes is you don’t have to dread them. There’s only so much you can do to prepare. It’s not like those hurricanes you have to watch for three or four days till they’re on top of you. Give me earthquakes anytime.”

Amber still couldn’t see how she didn’t live in mortal fear for her life. But then, the stories Joy and Shep had told about landing planes on a carrier deck in rough seas said a lot about both of them. “You navy types don’t scare easily, do you?”

“There’s a lot to be afraid of in the navy, but you just do your job and trust everyone else to do theirs.” Joy grew quiet, peeling off toward Alameda when they emerged from underneath the upper deck of the bridge. “I’m scared of losing people I care about.”

“Like your mom?”

“My mom, my pop…and I always worry about the people I’m responsible for on the planes, or when I was on the aircraft carrier. The one who keeps me awake nights is Madison.”

“Isn’t Syd taking good care of her?”

“I suppose, but I’d rather be doing it myself. I think I could do a better job.”

“You really want to be a mom that bad?”

“Not just a mom. I want to be Madison’s mom. If I had it to do over, I wouldn’t have given up so easily. I thought it was best for her at the time, but now I think she’d be better off with me and Pop.”

Amber had given up her baby so he’d have a conventional life—two parents with good jobs, a nice house and enough money that he’d never have to do without. Joy was lots of things, but conventional wasn’t one of them. Before she realized it, she’d let out a groan.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just…I was…” She was caught without a decent lie. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to bring a kid to a home where you’re sleeping out in the backyard?

“Jeez, it’s not permanent. I usually stay in the house, but I moved out there when Madison came to visit so I wouldn’t wake her up at four o’clock in the morning. And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m out there now because somebody else has my room.” There was a teasing edge to her voice.

“You didn’t have to do that for me. I told you I’d sleep out there.”

“Oh, no. You’re the one getting paid to look after Cranky Pants in the middle of the night.”

“He’s not so bad if you’ve got enough Goobers.”

They pulled off the Nimitz Freeway and into the neighborhood, where Joy slowed the Jeep considerably. “I don’t intend to live with Pop forever, but I might want to stay close in case he needs me. I had my eye on a house on Fountain Street last year but I hemmed and hawed too much and someone else bought it.”