Читать книгу Drive Me Wild - Elizabeth Harbison - Страница 11

Luke stared at the closed door in disbelief.

Grace Perigon.

No, make that Grace Bowes, trophy wife of his high-school partner in crime—it was hard to call Michael a friend—and the only girl who’d ever really gotten under his skin.

Even now, with the perspective of so many years, it was hard for him to say just why she’d gotten under his skin. Sometimes he’d thought he’d hated her. Other times…well, other times, he’d thought maybe it was the opposite.

One time—one short, stupid night—he’d been sure it was the opposite.

But that had passed quickly. And in the end, he’d watched her leave town without looking back while he, all in all, had to say he was glad to see her go. As Michael had pointed out to him, not so subtly, he didn’t have what she was looking for in a guy: money, position and the potential for rapid advancement.

Not that he’d ever let Michael, or anyone else, know of his feelings for Grace.

Michael had just seemed to pick up on the situation himself. It wasn’t that Michael was particularly perceptive, or so spiritually bonded to Grace that he perceived anything extraordinary about her, it was only that he always believed everyone wanted what he had. And he was ace at keeping what was his, whether it was a car or a girl.

Michael Bowes had somehow even managed to get Blue Moon High School to retire his football jersey at the end of his unremarkable varsity run.

The strange thing was that Luke had never known Michael to let go of any of his prized possessions, even after he’d completely lost interest in them. Once in high school Luke had spotted a broken Louisville Slugger in the back of Michael’s garage when they were working on his vintage ’65 Mustang convertible…and Grace was a much finer prize than that Louisville Slugger.

It was hard to imagine Michael letting go of her. Luke had been surprised about it ever since he’d heard the news several months back that they were divorcing. At first he’d half expected Grace to come back to town, but when she hadn’t come right away, he figured she never would. He’d figured he was safe.

He’d figured wrong.

Turned down for a job as a bus driver.

That was bad enough, but she’d been turned down by Luke Stewart, who she never thought she’d have to see again…much less under circumstances like these.

She’d made a mistake with Luke, there was no doubt about it. A mistake, it seemed, he’d never forget. Or forgive. She’d made a bad bargain for her future, and, in the process, wounded his male pride. It was nothing more than a glancing blow to his ego, but he was still willing to use it against her, even under circumstances as dire as those she faced now.

Her life couldn’t get a lot worse than this, Grace thought, kicking a dead locust from the path in front of her and feeling mean. She was living at her mother’s again, with no money and no skills to get a job, even a lousy job. That was another bad bargain she’d made: the housewife bargain. Believing her future to be secure, if not deliriously happy, she’d concentrated her efforts on making a comfortable home for her family. In so doing, she’d let technology and the job market pass her by. Now she could barely even see them in the distance.

So much for saving for her future.

It was beginning to seem entirely possible that she’d be stuck in this sandpit of a town for the rest of her life. She’d become one of those wacky old ladies whom everyone referred to as “Miz Grace.” Except for the kids who would call her dis-Grace, and who would ring her doorbell late at night and run.

She walked across the pretty green campus and thought ruefully of how nice it would have been for Jimmy to go to school here, just like she had done herself. Blue Moon Bay was a far cry from Morris, New Jersey. Here you could see horses from the school room window instead of traffic. Jimmy would love that.

When she got to the small gravel parking lot, she noticed a familiar older man getting out of a shining Lincoln. It only took her a moment to place him.

“Mr. Bailey?” Fred Bailey had been a friend of her parents for years. A lifetime bachelor, he was a big lawyer with offices in D.C. and Annapolis. He’d lived in Blue Moon Bay since he was a young man. In fact, he’d grown up with her mother, and gone to school with her through twelfth grade. They’d even dated briefly before he’d gone off to law school at Princeton.

He’d moved back to Blue Moon Bay six years later, after Grace’s parents had married, and made the 90-minute commute to his offices, remaining a pillar of Blue Moon Bay society. Though Grace hadn’t thought about Fred Bailey in a very long time, seeing him brought back a flood of warm memories. He was so much like her father that she had to fight an impulse to run into his arms. She could imagine how he would smell, of peppermint and pipe smoke. Just thinking about it made her feel more relaxed than she had for months.

“Mr. Bailey,” she said again.

He turned to her, his expression blank.

Her heart sank.

“It’s Grace Bowes…Perigon,” she said, fighting back a sudden overwhelming weakness in her limbs.

His face broke into a wide smile. “Grace? Good heavens, I wasn’t expecting to see you here!” He patted his breast pocket and took out a glasses case. As soon as he put his spectacles on, his eyes grew wide behind the thick glass. “So it is you!” He opened his arms, and she gave him a hug. “Welcome home, child. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you ever since I heard you were coming back. How long has it been?”

“Since Dad’s funeral.”

“My goodness, that’s a long time. Look at you, just as lovely as ever. Your father would be so proud.” He smiled again and clucked his tongue against his teeth. “I still miss the old fellow.”

She smiled, and her chest felt full but her eyes burned again. “Me too.”

“Well, what are you doing here?” Fred Bailey asked. “Not coming back to school, I expect.” He chuckled.

“Apparently not,” she said, a touch wryly.

“Beg pardon?”

She shrugged. “Well, I was here to apply for a job, but apparently I’m not properly qualified.” She resisted the childish urge to say, That mean, spiteful Luke Stewart wouldn’t give it to me.

Mr. Bailey’s brow lowered. “What job? I didn’t think there were any teaching positions open.”

Grace cleared her throat lightly. “It wasn’t a teaching job.”

“Not teaching?” He wasn’t going to let this go. “Was it administrative?”

“It was driving. The bus. Driving the school bus.” There. She’d said it. She’d admitted out loud that she’d been turned down as a bus driver.

It felt even worse now.

“Driving the school bus?” the older man repeated, with the same incredulity he might have shown if she’d said she wanted to become a trapeze artist. “That’s no job for a Perigon. Let’s go talk to Luke Stewart and see if we can’t find something reasonable for you here.” He took her arm and started leading her to the building she’d just left.

“No. Please.” Her reaction was too strong. He dropped her arm, startled. She smiled. “I mean, the driving position really was the one I wanted. It had flexible hours and would allow me to be with Jimmy when there was no school.” She tried to imagine Luke’s reaction if she reappeared with a big gun like Fred Bailey, demanding that a new position of some kind be created for her. “But it doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t think I’ll be able to get the license on time.” She didn’t know why she felt like she had to defend Luke’s decision suddenly.

“Hmm.” He rubbed his chin. “Well, I must confess I don’t know much about that.”

“It’s okay. I appreciate your concern, but I’ll find something else.”

“I’m sure you will.” Mr. Bailey looked at his watch. “I must go. I’ve gotten so caught up in talking to you, I forgot I had a board meeting. I want to see more of you now. Welcome back, Gracie.”

The endearment took the edge off her anger toward Luke. Nobody had called her Gracie since her father had died.

“Thanks, Mr. Bailey.” The lump in her throat expanded like a sponge. It was silly to feel a melancholy nostalgia for her childhood, but she did. She watched Fred Bailey walk away, noticing his gait was now that of an old man, a little creaky, stiff in the knees. It was then that she really realized that home hadn’t just waited for her, unchanging, while she went off and started a new life up north. Things had moved on here, too. People had died, grown older; some had moved away years ago, never to be seen again.

Thomas Wolfe was right, Grace thought, you can’t go home again.

But sometimes you have to.

“You’ll find something,” Grace’s mother, Dot Perigon, said, patting her daughter’s shoulder sympathetically. “If you like, I could speak to some of your father’s old friends and colleagues. They all loved Daddy so much, I’m sure at least one of them could find something for you to do.”

Grace shook her head and fiddled with a sweating glass of iced tea her mother had put on the table in front of her. There was a twist of lemon and a mint leaf in it, just the way she had always made it. “I’m desperate, but not so desperate that I’m willing to take a job at someone else’s expense. It’s one thing when there’s a job that needs to be filled—” she thought angrily of Luke “—but quite another when someone just creates a position as a favor to an old friend, then has to pay for it.”

“But anyone would be lucky to have you around, helping out.”

“Only if they needed the help, Mom. And I think most of Daddy’s friends have got highly qualified personnel working in their offices already.”

Dot sighed and topped Grace’s glass off with tea from a pitcher. “All right, dear, but I’d be glad to speak with Fred Bailey. Or anyone else,” she hastened to add. “If you change your mind.”

Grace smiled. “Actually, I spoke with Mr. Bailey today.”

Dot looked surprised. “You did?”

“Yes, he was on his way to the school when I was leaving.”

“What did he say?” Dot asked sharply.

Grace was afraid she heard, in her mother’s voice, a determination to speak with her old friend on Grace’s behalf. And Grace definitely didn’t want that. “As a matter of fact, he did offer to twist some arms for me,” she said, deflecting the idea she hoped, before it could take root. “But I told him no thanks.”

“You did?”

“I had to,” Grace stressed. “I don’t want charity.”

“I understand. Still, it was very nice of him to offer.” Dot looked quite pleased. “Very nice.”

“Yes, it was.” Grace took a long draw of the cold tea. “You know, it was almost like having Daddy around for a moment. When I saw him, it brought all of that back to me.”

“I know what you mean,” Dot mused, with a small smile.

“So you’ve known him since high school, right? Mr. Bailey, I mean.”

“Yes, why?”

Grace stirred her tea thoughtfully. “I was just wondering why he never got married.” But she was really thinking, again, of Luke. How come he hadn’t gotten married? Was he going to end up like Mr. Bailey, a lifelong bachelor in Blue Moon Bay?

“I couldn’t say,” Dot answered, looking out the window. “Looks like Jimmy’s having a good time with the Bonds’ old spaniel out there.”

Grace took a cookie off the plate her mother had set out. “He loves dogs.”

“Maybe you should get him one.”

“Mom! I can barely take care of the two of us as it is, despite Michael’s meager monthly payments.” It was then that it truly hit her. She had to take care of herself and her son, and if things continued the way they were, she wasn’t going to be able to. She’d have to…she didn’t even know what she’d have to do. Go on welfare? She shuddered at the thought. “What if I could find a job as a cocktail waitress or something over in Ocean City? Do you think you could keep Jimmy at night?”

Dot frowned. “I don’t want to say no to you, honey, but…well, I sometimes have things to do in the evenings. I just can’t commit to staying home according to your schedule.” She assumed a pleasant expression and added, “But, as I told you, he’s welcome to stay with me any time during the day.”

Grace swallowed her shock. Though she wouldn’t say she’d ever been spoiled, exactly, and she’d always been careful not to take advantage of her mother, at the same time she never thought her mother would say no to her. Especially on something as important as this.

But Grace was well aware that Dot had already been very generous in letting her daughter and grandson move in with her. Grace wasn’t going to argue for more. “Do we still have today’s newspaper?” she asked, trying to sound upbeat, although she felt anything but. “Maybe there’s something there that I overlooked before.”

Right. Like a classified ad offering a miracle to the most desperate candidate. Now there, Grace thought wryly, was a position she definitely was qualified for. High qualified.

“So what’s she doing at night that she can’t reschedule?” Jenna Perkins asked Grace a few nights later. After an unproductive week of job-hunting, Grace had reached the end of her rope. She had to get out. Now she and Jenna were in a crowded downtown bar called Harley’s, shouting to each other over the throbbing beat of a terrible band. Jenna was Grace’s oldest friend and had once shared Grace’s dream of leaving Blue Moon Bay, but she had stayed when the time came to decide. In reflection, it seemed like the better choice. She’d married a carpenter and had twins two years after Grace had Jimmy.

“Think she’s got a secret life you don’t know about?” Jenna went on, then raised an eyebrow. “Maybe a boyfriend?”

Grace laughed. “I don’t think so. Can you imagine it? Mom dating? Good lord!” She shook her head and reached for the peanuts. “Like life hasn’t gotten weird enough as it is.”

“Ten years is a long time to be alone,” Jenna said lightly. “And your mom’s a very attractive woman.”

“Come off it, Jenna. She’s known everyone in this town for sixty-three years. I don’t think anyone new has come in to sweep her off her feet.”

Jenna shrugged. “You never know.”

“You said you had a great job idea,” Grace reminded her, steering the conversation away from her mother. “What is it?”

“Well, you know how I was working in my dad’s shop last month when he and Mom went on that cruise?”

“Sure, I remember.” Jenna’s father was the only jeweler in Blue Moon Bay, and his shop had been there since his own father had established it in the forties. “What do you have in mind? Knocking off a jewelry shop and pawning the stuff at your dad’s?” Grace laughed.

Jenna laughed with her. “Don’t think I haven’t thought of it. But no, there was a woman who came in like three times while I was working, and she must have spent at least three grand just on big tacky rings and things. Know what she does for a living?”

“What?”

“She reads tarot cards.”

Grace groaned. “Oh, no, you want to be a fortune teller?”

“Wait a minute, I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. I think I could make a mint off the summer tourists. Probably even enough to keep us going the rest of the year, if that woman is any indication. Although she did say she works in Atlantic City, which, granted, has a bit more tourist traffic. But still, I might be able to make a living off it.”

“Right. You, Bob and the twins, all living off the telling of nineteen people’s fortunes.” Grace shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“There are more tourists in Blue Moon Bay than that and you know it. The town’s going to be mobbed in a couple of weeks, just you wait.”

“Mobbed by Blue Moon Bay standards, anyway.” Since leaving town, Grace had seen “mobbed” on a grand scale. Atlantic City in summer. Walt Disney World in summer. Blue Moon Bay did get a fair amount of tourists and beach-goers, but its reputation as a family-beach town kept the wild singles and college kids away. They went to Ocean City, forty miles from here, for their fun, leaving Blue Moon Bay comparatively quiet. “But it’s not like it’s going to be mobbed with the kind of people who go to fortune tellers.”

“Everyone likes fortune tellers. You should do it too,” Jenna went on, unperturbed. “Say thirty bucks a reading, two readings an hour, ten hours a day, six days a week, that’s…” She paused, thinking.

“Unlikely?” Grace supplied.

She shot Grace a look. “Thirty-six hundred bucks a week, right? With virtually no overhead. I could live with that.” She shifted on her barstool, nearly slipping off. The bartender approached and she shouted an order to him, then turned back to Grace and said, “Now where was I?”

“Dreaming.”

“No.” Jenna speared an olive from the bartender’s supply with a toothpick, then popped it into her mouth. “Tarot cards. Seriously, think about it.”

“How about if you try it and let me know how it works out. In the meantime, I’m going to find a real job.”

“Well, you haven’t so far. I would think you’d be willing to at least consider some untraditional alternative possibilities.”

“You’d be surprised at some of the untraditional alternatives I’ve thought of.” Grace took a swig of the Mexican beer Jenna had ordered for her, but the lime slice got caught in the neck of the bottle. She poked it down and tried again, appreciating the cold, sour taste. Michael would never have come to Harley’s bar and had bottled beer with fruit in it. He’d always preferred the muted cocktail scene at the Seahorse by the bay.

Somehow the fact that her ex-husband wouldn’t like it here made the beer taste even better.

“I hate to ask this,” Jenna started carefully, “but have you thought of borrowing money from your mom?”

Grace shook her head. “Dad’s pension is good, but not so good she that she can support Jimmy and me.” She sighed. “Besides, then I’d be in debt to her, and I’d have to make the money to pay her back, so what’s the difference?”

“All right, but I wish you could just stay here indefinitely. If only there was a job.”

Grace shook her head. “You can’t go back home.”

“But you are back home.”

“It doesn’t feel like it.” In truth, nothing felt like home at the moment. Grace felt completely and utterly lost.

She leaned back against the bar and let her eyes fall on the people playing pool across the room. The music of the band pounded through her, and she willed it to shake loose the tension that had become a constant hum inside her head. She had to take at least an hour or two off from worrying, or she was going to have a nervous breakdown. There was nothing she had to think about right now, she told herself, nothing she had to take care of right this moment. Jimmy was home with Jenna’s husband and kids, and there was nothing Grace could do about her job situation tonight. This was a great opportunity to loosen up, and she was going to enjoy it, no matter how hard it was.

As if testing her resolve on that cue, the band started playing “Stand By Your Man.”

Jenna clucked her tongue against her teeth. “They’ve got to be joking.”

“No, God is.” No sooner were the words out of her mouth, than the glass door to Harley’s opened and Luke Stewart strolled in. “Uh-oh. Time to leave.” She set her bottle down and hopped off the barstool.

“What?” Jenna asked, looking in the area of the door. “What’s wrong?”

“That’s wrong.” Grace said in a low voice, pointing to Luke.

“Oh, my God, it’s Luke Stewart,” Jenna gasped. “You haven’t talked to him since high school, have you?”

“As a matter of fact, I talked to him a few days ago. I had to beg him for a job driving a bus at Connor School, and he turned me down.”

Jenna looked at her, surprised. “You had to ask Luke? Why? Is he in charge of the buses?”

“He’s in charge of everything,” Grace said, popping an olive into her mouth. “Headmaster.”

“Oh, my. That must have been hard. How come you didn’t tell me earlier?”

Grace chewed and kept narrowed eyes on Luke. The sight of him brought a warm flush to her cheeks. Residual humiliation and anger, no doubt. “If you’d been turned down as a bus driver, you probably wouldn’t be talking about it much either.”

“Wow. I guess he’s still mad about you picking Michael over him.”

“I didn’t pick Michael over him. I stayed with Michael rather than throw the relationship away over a small, brief, untested crush on someone else.”

“On Luke, you mean.” Jenna pulled the bowl of peanuts across the bar and took a handful.

Grace kept her eyes on Luke. “It doesn’t matter who it was, it would have been stupid for me to throw away a secure relationship because of some silly infatuation.”

“I don’t know. It might have spared you a lot of trouble.”

“And bought me a whole new brand of trouble.”

Jenna nodded her agreement. “Probably so. And you wouldn’t have Jimmy.”

“That’s right. He’s worth it all.” Grace sighed. “Too bad he’s going to have to live on bread and water because his mother can’t get a job, even as a bus driver.”

“Well, why would you want to drive a bus anyway? And why there? Wouldn’t it be weird to go back to your alma mater that way?”

Of course it would be weird. It felt weird even before she knew Luke was part of the deal. “There’s no other work in this town,” Grace said dully.

“Oh, come on, I’m sure someone would hire you. One of your dad’s old friends? You know, as a favor to him?”

Grace winced inwardly. “I’d sooner die than shame Daddy by taking charity from one of his friends. They’d feel obligated, I’d feel pathetic…it would be the same as asking for a handout.”

Jenna shook her head. “You’re just as stubborn as you’ve always been.”

“I’m not stubborn, I’m mature.” She laughed. “Besides, if I worked for the school, I could negotiate tuition for Jimmy into the deal, and we’d keep exactly the same hours.”

“That makes sense. And it is a good school,” Jenna acknowledged with a sympathetic smile. “Jimmy’d like the horses.”

“That’s what I thought. But it’s not like I have the option of taking the job.”

“Well, there are minuses to it too. This is probably for the best.”

“Unemployment, in this case, is not for the best.”

“Surely there’s something else you can do that would fit the bill. Somewhere.”

Across the room, Luke had stopped and was talking to a petite blonde with a heart-shaped butt and a waist the size of Grace’s thigh. Drawing her attention away from the two, Grace pulled the bowl of peanuts over and took some. To hell with fat grams. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ll find something else,” she said, still watching Luke with a growing constriction in her chest. Nerves. But the anxiety she was trying to escape continued to escalate. Her breath stopped when she noticed Luke glance in her direction, but he didn’t seem to see her.

Jenna followed her gaze and asked, “So why did he turn you down?”

“I’m not sure.” She’d remembered he was great-looking, of course, but she hadn’t remembered just how great-looking he was. The jerk. “I believe he thinks I’m not clever enough to pass the test and then drive the big, bad bus,” Grace said, taking a last sip of beer. Part of her was actually reluctant to leave, but she didn’t trust herself to be entirely civil to Luke if he should see her. “And if I screwed up after he’d hired me, he’d look really bad in front of the board.”

Suddenly, Luke turned and walked purposefully in her direction. It felt as though all the noise and music and people receded into the background. Grace was as acutely aware of him as she would have been if he were following her down a dark alley with a ski mask on.

Before she could turn away and pretend she hadn’t seen him, he raised a hand in greeting, and she had no choice but to do the same.

“The usual,” he called.

“Sorry?” Grace said, at the same time hearing a voice behind her say, “You got it, Luke,” over the din of the band and the crowd around them.

Oh, God, he wasn’t even talking to her. He’d been waving at someone behind her, and she’d waved right on back at him, like a fool. Would this day never end?

He walked right past her without acknowledgment. Then he stopped and stood behind her at the bar, apparently oblivious to her presence. He wasn’t more than two feet away from her back. She could feel the heat of him, penetrating the thin fabric of her shirt.

She slipped some money out of her purse and whispered to Jenna, “Pay the bill and meet me outside.” She had to get away before he did notice her.

“Grace?” Too late. It was Luke’s voice. He’d spotted her.

She turned with as much cool as she could muster. “Oh. Hey, Luke. Did you hire someone for that job from the hundreds of people I saw lined up by the garage when I was leaving?”

He didn’t play along. “I left a message on your answering machine.” His voice was clipped. The bartender handed him a bottle of beer with no glass. He took a gulp of it, then let out a short breath. “You get it?”

“A message?” Grace was mystified.

His eyes, which had seemed such a warm shade of brown earlier, were hard. “You got the job.” His mouth turned up in the smallest ironic smile. “Surprise.”

Grace caught her breath. She was employed? Really? This was too good to be true—or was it? “I don’t understand. The other day you told me I didn’t.”

He took another draw off his drink and set it down, hard, on the bar. Foam bubbled out of the top and ran over onto the gleaming wood bar. “I’ve been outvoted.”

Her excitement turned to apprehension. He was angry about something. Had Mr. Bailey said something to him after all? “What do you mean you’ve been outvoted?” she asked cautiously.

He lowered his chin fractionally and gave her a look that could, under the right circumstances, have been extremely sexy, but which was, instead, downright accusatory.

Something cold slithered down her spine.

“I mean,” he said, with too much patience, “that starting in three short weeks, it’ll be your job to sit on a seat covered with chewed gum, in a vehicle equipped with a Bodily Fluid Clean-up Kit, surrounded by screaming kids. Just like you wanted.” One side of his mouth cocked into a smile. “This must be a dream come true for you.”

His iciness left little doubt that Fred Bailey had indeed leaned on him.

“I applied for that job without help from anyone,” she said defensively.

“And I turned you down without help from anyone.” He drank, then leveled his eyes on Grace. “If it had stopped there, we’d have no problem.”

“What happened?”

“Fred Bailey happened,” he said, confirming her fears. “He strongly ‘suggested’ that I reconsider you for the position, no matter how unqualified you are. What did you do, call him from your cell phone as soon as you got outside?”

“No!” Grace was hurt by the accusation. “I saw him in the parking lot when I left, and he asked what I was doing there. When I told him what happened, he offered to talk to you, but I declined. I had no idea he’d done it anyway, and I’m sorry he did.”

“This is the way things have always worked for you, Grace.” Luke shook his head and took an angry slug of his beer, hammering it back down on the countertop.

“And just what is that supposed to mean?”

“That means it’s always been easy for you. You’ve always known just what you wanted and gotten it.” He lowered his voice slightly and added, “No matter what the cost.”

She railed in anger. “That’s not true. Number one, if you think this is my dream job and I went after it pulling all the powerful strings I could because I wanted it so badly, you’re crazy. And number two, I would hardly say my life is easy. You have a lot of nerve making presumptions of any sort about me.” She caught her breath. “And what do you mean ‘no matter what the cost’?”

He looked as though he was about to fire back at her, then stopped. “That’s none of my business. It’s between you and whoever you make your deals with. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“That’s right, you shouldn’t. You have no right to judge me, Luke Stewart. No right at all.”

“I’ll keep my thoughts to myself from now on.”

“Right,” she said. “Like you always have, huh? Like you even can. You may not say anything, but you have a way of getting your disapproval across.”

“I don’t think you want to have that conversation,” Luke said, in a voice that assured her that she did not.

“I don’t want to have any conversation with you!”

He raised an eyebrow. “Then you’re going to find it particularly tedious to work for me, don’t you think?”

She threw her hands up in the air. “So what do you want me to do? You want me to say I won’t take the job?” she asked, fighting the urge to do just that. “You want me to quit before I even start?”

He gave a quick shake of the head. “Oh, no, I don’t want you to quit. I want you to come in tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. and start learning the parts of the engine.” He gave a quick, humorless smile. “You had your chance to decline. Now you have to go through with this. We need a driver and, like it or not, you’re it.”