He finally gestured for her to precede him. Outside, he said, “Don’t worry about your friend. She sneaked out the back door while you were guarding the front.”
Lila stopped in her tracks. Joe didn’t stop at all.
Hurrying to catch up, she considered apologizing. Discarding several explanations, she finally opted for the simple facts. “Pepper and I will be gone for a few days.” She had to practically run to keep up. Wanting to explain, she said, “She’s convinced we both need a project. She’s researching a career change.”
If he spoke, it was lost in the breeze. After that, she conserved her energy for the fast trek. They went their separate ways where the driveway forked, she up her porch steps, he to his Jeep parked in the shade.
“Mr. McCaffrey?” she asked as he opened the Jeep’s door. “May I call you Joe?”
He turned to look at her, one foot on the ground, the other on the running board. Taking his pause as a yes, she said, “I think it’s nice, what you’re doing for that boy and his family.”
He seemed as surprised as he was uncomfortable with the praise. Just when she’d given up all expectation of receiving any kind of reply, he said, “I hope your friend’s career change doesn’t involve spy work or private investigation.”
For some reason, she smiled. “So do I.”
He glanced back the way they’d come before saying, “I would have locked the door if I’d wanted to keep people out.”
Obviously a man of few words, he got in and drove away.
Watching the trail of dust on the road, Lila thought about that goat’s milk and Joe’s unlocked doors. In the back of her mind, she wondered if she dared believe that actions spoke louder than words.
Joe wiped the pretzel crumbs and cigarette ashes off the counter, cringing slightly when he reached too far. The soreness in his arms and shoulders was almost welcome, for it gave him a focus other than the announcer’s voice booming over the TV.
The usual Thursday night crowd was here, a dozen in all. That number would double on Friday and Saturday, and by Sunday it would taper off to five or six. McCaffrey’s Tavern had been in Joe’s family for four generations, as much a tradition in Murray as the ball game droning from a high shelf behind the counter.
He’d grown up on the second bar stool from the left, his feet swinging as he slurped root beers and crunched on bar nuts, his eyes trained on the baseball players who’d seemed larger than life. He had precious few memories of his mother, who’d died when he was six. His father had raised him, and people used to say he’d done a damn good job of it. Opinions had a way of shifting overnight. Joe Sr. still helped out at the bar most afternoons, but these days his step was heavier and his shoulders stooped.
“Swing and a miss!” The announcer drew the call out the way announcers always did.
It never used to annoy Joe.
It was the bottom of the fourth. The Cougars were behind, and everyone in the tavern was grumbling about it.
A hush fell suddenly. Joe looked up, straight at the reason. Lila Delaney and her friend were sauntering toward him.
The next batter took a practice swing; the poker game continued at the back table, but Joe wasn’t fooled. Every person in the room kept one eye trained on the two women sidling up to the bar.
The blonde wore red, Lila beige chinos and a soft-looking knit shirt the color of walnut shells. Keeping her voice too low for anyone else to hear, she said, “Pepper has something she wants to say to you.”
Pepper Bartholomew leaned closer. “Lila wasn’t guarding the door. Not that it wouldn’t have been nice.”
Lila nudged her.
And Pepper said, “I owe you an apology. I’m sorry you caught me snooping.”
She winked, causing Joe to wonder if she was apologizing for snooping or for getting caught. If she hadn’t been so upper-crust, he would have called her expression sassy. She was taller than Lila and probably paid a small fortune for the clothes, the manicure, the platinum jewelry and that perfectly tousled hairstyle.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Bud Streeter said, doing something disgusting with his tongue. “Why don’t you bring a little of that honey down my way?”
Joe wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end of Pepper’s arctic glare. Not that Bud didn’t deserve worse.
“Would either of you ladies care for a drink?” Joe asked, quietly diverting their attention. “On the house.”
“Perhaps another time,” Pepper said before steering Lila back the way they’d come.
At the door, Lila looked over her shoulder at Joe. The smile she gave him felt like a small act of kindness in a vicious world.
As talk resumed throughout the bar, Bud slid his empty glass across the counter. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a couple’a new pieces of ass to choose from.”
“Watch it, Bud,” one of the women patrons warned through a haze of cigarette smoke.
Bud’s laugh was derogatory and grating. “The blonde’s flashier. Probably be fun to ride. But the brunette’s got a bigger rack. That one looks familiar.” He bit into a pretzel. “Don’t that one look familiar? Where have I seen her?”
Drunk or sober, Bud Streeter was a mean man. Joe would have liked to ban him from the bar, but at least when Bud was here, he wasn’t getting trashed in front of the television in his trailer and yelling obscenities at his three boys. If it hadn’t been for those three innocent kids, Joe wouldn’t have blamed Bud’s wife for leaving him.
Picturing his own little girl in his mind, Joe felt a pang of remorse and regret. Chloe was thirteen, and he hardly knew her anymore. A bar was no place to raise a daughter. She was better off with her friends, her teachers and the headmistress at her boarding school in Philadelphia. She would probably grow up sophisticated and smart, and none of the credit would be his.
Joe looked around McCaffrey’s. The room was long and narrow, with low ceilings, dark-paneled walls and darker corners. The clientele paid cash and didn’t tip. They hadn’t been impressed when he’d made the majors, and they didn’t care what people said about him now any more than they cared about anything else. It wasn’t that they were down on their luck. Most had jobs; some had families. What they lacked was life.
This damn sure wasn’t the life he’d chosen.
Once, he’d had dreams. These days, his contribution to society was putting up with snide comments from the biggest loser in town.
The notion made him pause. When had he stopped thinking of himself as the biggest loser in town?
Something warm and wet grazed Joe’s neck.
Fighting his way through layers of sleep, he rolled over, the sheet tangling around his legs. As he did every night after work, he’d driven back to the cabin and stood in the shower, letting the warm water carry the secondhand cigarette smoke and grime down the drain. Leaving the low window open by his bed, he’d crawled naked between the sheets, seeking oblivion.
Again, warm lips nuzzled his neck.
Easing away from those soft kisses, he groaned. Although daylight was trying to penetrate his eyelids, he wasn’t ready to wake up. He turned away from another wet kiss, then slipped back to sleep, wondering who’d sneaked into his hotel room this time. It must have been one hell of a game, because his whole body hurt. He always ached after a game, his pitching arm and shoulder especially. The party afterward must have been intense, because he couldn’t even remember who they’d played.
Whoever was in his bed with him was persistent.
“Sorry, honey,” he mumbled. “I’m married.”
Damn