Proper Care and Maintenance of Friendship (9781609417291) Page 10

  “And my uncle Gabe,” Jo continued, “had a nose all swollen and red like it wasn’t part of him at all. It was like a great big red cauliflower coming at you.”

  Jo thought she saw a smile. Fleeting, indistinct. It was something. Or a flutter of something. She leaned in a little, and pointed at the injured bear. “Is that Teddy?”

  “Teddy Michael Joseph Braun.”

  “He’s looking mighty hungry.”

  “Teddy is hungry.” Grace plucked at the string unraveling around his neck. “But he wants to eat right here.”

  Under the shade of Dolce & Gabbana. No way. “Tell Teddy there are only three people here, and as soon as he sits down at the table, two of them will leave.” Benito was done. And surely the fireplug was finished terrorizing everyone by now.

  Grace’s gaze slid by hers, and then retreated behind a sheaf of tangled hair. Didn’t she comb it? Don’t seven-year-olds comb their own hair? “Tell Teddy,” Jo continued, “that by the time he finishes his lunch, the third will be gone.”

  The boomer biker babe wasn’t going to work anyway. Fortunately, Jo had scheduled two more nanny interviews in the afternoon. Meanwhile, the smell of the mac and cheese wafted up from the kitchen. Jo was growing hungry, so Grace must be starving. By Grace’s feet was a shoebox, partially torn into pieces, which served as the stuffed animals’ bed. The kid toed it around. Then, without a word, Grace shuffled out of the fort.

  Jo sighed with relief. She reached out to take Grace’s hand, but Grace’s hands were full of stuffed animals. So Jo settled for leading the way out of the bedroom into the brightness of the condo, where Gretalda and the fireplug were deep in conversation.

  “… skidding across this waxed floor, see, and he’s got his wet hands out to break his fall, and one finger goes right into the outlet. Zap. Shish kebab.”

  “That’s what happens when no discipline.”

  “Kid’s nothing but a pile of smokin’ ashes.”

  “These kinds, they let them run wild.”

  “All they needed was a small plastic cover. A buck fifty for three. Save the kid from going crisp.”

  “It’s getting cold, Jo,” Benito said, as he spotted her coming down the stairs. “Nothing worse than cold melted cheese!”

  Gretalda and the fireplug stopped their conversation and stared. Benito clanked the last pot on the dish drainer, and then, drying his hands, eyeballed them. Jo put her hand on Grace’s head. “Folks, this is Grace. She’s one hungry girl, so we’re going to let her eat while we finish up.”

  Gretalda looked the kid over, from the bristly black stitches of Grace’s scar to the tops of her ankle socks, visible above the flood hem of her jeans. Jo suddenly noticed Grace’s dirty knees and her faded T-shirt. A well-loved shirt, apparently, for upon it lay the crinkly ghost of a number.

  Mentally, Jo added clothing to the list of things to buy. Then she led Grace toward the table.

  “Here you go.” Jo lifted Grace up onto the barstool as Grace set her stuffed animals on the table. Behind her, the fireplug hissed.

  “First thing to go ought to be those stools, lady. She’s likely to tip backward and bash her head like a melon—”

  “I’ll surely take that under consideration.” Jo handed Grace a spoon. “Look, Grace, Benito made roses out of the carrots!”

  “If everything’s done here,” Benito said, threading the dishcloth through the oven handle, “I’ll be on my way. I’ve got to soak pinto beans and marinate the squab or Pierre will chop off my—”

  “That’ll be fine, Benito, thanks.” Her phone sang. She answered it while pawing through her purse for cash. The perky tutor girl had found three candidates; they were coming in this afternoon.

  Gretalda lumbered her leather to Grace’s side. “What a cute girl you are. How did you get that cut on your head? Aren’t you eating your lunch?”

  Grace stiffened. She held the spoon in her fist. A clean spoon.

  “Lady,” the fireplug said, “I’m done here. I got enough to work out an estimate, but it’d be criminal if I left here without—”

  “I’ll be with you in a minute.” Jo closed her phone and started counting out money for Benito. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Grace’s untouched plate. “I thought you were hungry, sweetie?”

  Grace tightened her grip on the spoon and said, in a small, odd voice, “You said you made me macaroni and cheese.”

  “Yes, isn’t it good? Benito made it just for you—”

  “This is not macaroni and cheese.”

  Jo meet Benito’s gaze, then folded the bills and held them out. “Sure it is, sweetie.”

  “There’s yucky brown stuff.”

  Benito stiffened.

  Jo flashed him an apologetic look. “Oh, that’s just the crust. It’s browned cheese and bread crumbs, from toasting in the oven. This is special macaroni and cheese.”

  “Why don’t you eat your lunch, huh?” Gretalda fisted a serving spoon, took a heaping pile of the mac and cheese, and shoveled it into her mouth. “Good food,” she mumbled, bobbing her head wildly. “Good, so good.”

  “Look, Grace,” Jo said, coming around her, “we can take the brown part off.”

  Grace had gone white, which only emphasized the gray mush around her mouth. It had a few colors in it. Blue and red. Colors suspiciously like the torn-up shoebox upstairs.

  Cardboard? Grace was chewing cardboard?

  “Look, sugar,” Jo said, as she peeled the brown crust off the top of the casserole. “Underneath it all, it’s pure macaroni and cheese—”

  “No, it’s not!”

  Grace slammed the spoon. It shot out of her hand and spun off the table.

  “Now, Gracie—”

  “No!” Grace stood up on the rails of the stool and banged her fist against the table. “It’s not!”

  Jo took a step back. Benito skidded to a stop halfway to the door.

  “You, kindlein, you don’t talk to Mother like that—”

  “You lied!” Grace curled her fists around the edge of the table as if she would overturn it, tugging, tugging. “It’s not macaroni and cheese!”

  “Grace—”

  “It’s not macaroni and cheese! You told me macaroni and cheese!” She slammed her fists on the table, knocking her plate. It flipped, and spewed food across Grace’s shirt. “I want macaroni and cheese. I want macaroni and cheese!”

  Jo stood shocked into silence. Gretalda collected her purse and turned on her booted heel. The fireplug and Benito skittered after her.

  “I want macaroni and cheese!” Grace squeezed her eyes shut; her tangled hair flew around her reddened face. Hands in fists, standing up on the stool, she banged the table, screaming, “I WANT MACARONI AND CHEESE! I WANT MACARONI AND CHEESE! I WANT MACARONI AND CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE!”

  Jo’s blood went cold.

  Behind her, the front door closed with a click.

  chapter eight

  I am riding an elephant in India.

  Kate let the thought roll through her mind, keeping in rhythm with the sway of the elephant. Lush vegetation formed a canopy over her head. Raindrops from the morning’s squall pattered onto her loose cotton pants. The taste of strong coffee—served tooth-achingly sweet before they left Bandipur—lingered on her tongue.

  I am riding an elephant in India.

  The elephant’s mahout—a rail-thin young man by the name of Naseem—called a brisk command as a wild peacock stepped into the pachyderm’s path. The elephant lumbered on, unconcerned, but the bird swiftly skittered to the undergrowth, trailing his sapphire feathers like the silken train of a Bollywood star.

  She closed her eyes and tilted her head back. She breathed in the jungle air, perfumed with rosewood, sandalwood, and teak. One of the guides had told them they were visiting the wildlife refuge during the best part of the year, after the monsoons, when the purple flowers of the jacaranda burst into bloom, the Indian bison and the wild boar went into rut, and the whole forest swelled with life. />
  If it weren’t for the insects, the chattering of the German tourists on the next elephant, and the occasional waft of the elephant’s intestinal eliminations, she’d wonder if this was just another fever dream.

  But it wasn’t. She really was here. Across an ocean and a continent. In a foreign country. Buzzing across her mind was the niggling little worry about the fate of Mikey’s log cabin, Anna’s seed project, and Tess’s complicated soccer carpool arrangements. Was her motherin-law remembering to dole out the vitamins, test the kids on spelling, and remind Paul of the PTA meeting he had to attend in her absence? With an ease that would have shocked her a week ago, those buzzing concerns faded in the noise of the jungle.

  Tonight she would sleep among tigers. There would be time enough later for guilt.

  She cast a glance over her shoulder at Sam, swaying behind her. “Tell me you’re glad I talked you into coming.”

  “In Burundi, it’s cooler,” he muttered, swatting away a fly. “And the jungles are more beautiful.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t stepped out of New Jersey since George Michael left Wham!” She sifted her fingers through her hair and felt the sun’s heat trapped in the strands. “I’m glad you came anyway, Sam.”

  “It’s the least I can do, since Sarah”—he ground out her name with more than a bit of emphasis—“has abandoned you.”

  Kate let that pass. Sarah had other things on her mind. She hadn’t returned from her evening conversation with Colin. You didn’t have to be a CPA to add up what was going on. Or, Kate thought, sliding a glance at Sam’s proud head, why Sam had been moody all morning.

  “It’s best Sarah isn’t here,” she said. “Now you can be my witness.”

  Sam cocked his head. “A witness to what?”

  “To my abduction.”

  “Bloody hell. I knew you needed another day to recuperate.”

  “And waste my first vacation in fifteen years lying about a hotel room? No way.” Perched so high, on a grass mattress covered with a silken blanket, Kate felt like a maharani—a maharaja’s woman—being guided through the jungle to some distant palace. There she’d be fed grapes, fanned by nubile young men, and then thoroughly ravished. “You’ve heard the stories, Sam. About Veerappan and his gang of thirty. He trades in illegal ivory, poaches sandalwood, and kidnaps screen idols. He and his men haunt this jungle. They say he has fifty wives because he searches, endlessly, for the one woman who’ll be the ruby of them all.”

  “Kate, you’re a romantic.”

  Kate ducked to avoid a frond of greenery, and the collection of bugs feasting upon it. She never thought of herself that way when she was shoveling baked ziti into paper bowls at the school cafeteria. She supposed she used to be a romantic. Back in the days when she took eight weeks of a belly-dancing class just to surprise Paul with a veil dance on their fifth anniversary.

  Yet another talent sacrificed on the altar of motherhood.

  “Did it cross your mind,” Sam asked, “that this bandit of yours will murder the rest of us?”

  “Don’t ruin my fantasy.”

  “And what would you want, Kate, with being one wife among many?”

  “I hear harem life can be lovely. All those veils, and jewels, and communal baths—”

  “You’re mixing cultures.”

  “You never hear about those women washing dishes, or cooking meals, or doing laundry, or running errands—”

  “They wait around for the attentions of one shared man.”

  “Frankly, I can see the use of a second wife.”

  “Are you still feverish?”

  “As long as she’s the one who does all the chores. Really. She could bring one kid to soccer while I bring the other to gymnastics. She could stay home and watch the baby while I go to the gym. And if I’ve got a headache—”

  “Now, that’s just bollocks—”

  “Besides, if Veerappan has the same intense brown eyes as Naseem here—”

  “Listen to you.” Sam barked a laugh. “And Sarah insisted that Rachel was the crazy friend.”

  “Rachel was the crazy one.”

  She had a sudden, slicing memory of a ski trip in the Rockies, and Rachel’s broken body in the snow.

  “Can you hear me? Rachel? Can you move? Shit! You’ve broken your leg.”

  “Sugar-coat it for me, would you, Kate?” Her breath was short and her skin pale, but she was laughing. “Some stunt, eh?”

  “Some freakin’ stunt is right. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “You’re swearing. You’ve been spending too much time with Jo.”

  “If only you’d spent the afternoon in the stands with her, wrapped in a blanket, with some hot chocolate in a thermos.” Kate waved over the rescue snowmobile. “Ever think of doing that for fun?”

  “This is going to kill my snorkeling plans for next week.”

  “Snorkeling? Is that all you can think of? For God’s sake, did you ever wonder what would happen to all of us if you were killed?”

  “Actually, yes.” She grinned, bloody from where she cut her lip. “Yes, I have.”

  Grief squeezed Kate’s heart. It hurt, but, in a strange way, it felt good to experience the emotion so intensely. “You’d have liked her, Sam. She lived life boldly.”

  “I met her when she visited Sarah last year. But here’s what I don’t understand: If Rachel was the crazy one, then what is Kate Jansen doing here, swatting away flies in the jungle with a complete stranger?”

  “Living, for the first time in a long, long time.” Kate drew her legs up higher. “I bet, before today, you’ve never heard a single story about me.”

  Sam paused only a fraction of a second. “Sarah mentioned you—”

  “You’re a terrible liar. Sarah never mentioned me, because there’s nothing to say.” When did that happen? When did the old rock-climbing, multiple-master’s-degree Kate lose her edge? “I’m no more exciting than an advertising demographic. Middle-aged suburban white woman.”

  He gave her a quizzical look. “Don’t know too many demographics camping in the Indian jungle.”

  “Rachel is dead; someone had to take up the colors.”

  “Well, I tell you now: Don’t ask me to bungee-jump. It’s enough that we’re crossing this jungle—which, for all I know, may be a major smuggling route for opium—with what appear to be armed Tamils—”

  “Tranquilo, Sam,” she murmured with a laugh. “We’ll be fine.”

  His mouth twitched into a small grin, a grin that softened with melancholy. “That’s just what Sarah would say.”

  Three hours later, limp from exertion, Kate and the rest of the crew—who’d left the elephants behind once they reached denser terrain—trekked within sight of the camp. It was a makeshift place, with a view down to a muddy watering hole. One rough shelter stood in the middle, waterlogged and mossy, just big enough to protect the inhabitants from rain. A wide ditch surrounded the camp itself. Their guide informed them it was to keep the wild elephants from wandering in—or the tigers from jumping over.

  Kate grinned. It was perfect.

  Two men in white sarongs tended a series of fires. Something mouth-watering simmered in the pots hanging over them. As Kate dumped her backpack in a growing pile, a third man, similarly dressed, approached with a tray of drinks. Jal jeera, Sam told her, taking a precautionary sip. He’d sampled it in the marketplace the day before. Thirsty, Kate gulped it down, savoring the refreshing mix of mint, salt, and cumin.

  Settling by the fire, Kate and Sam chatted with the Germans, who were avid birdwatchers and, it turned out, believed Sam and Kate were married. Kate, feeling mischievous, didn’t bother to deny it.

  Dinner came on a broad, stiff plantain leaf. Sam instructed her to lap up a sweet, milky concoction on the lower right side of the leaf first. Then, with the help of the guide, they puzzled their way through the sweet-and-sour chutneys, the curries, the round, spiced chips, the seasoned grilled fish, and a mouth-searing dish called sambh
ar, all washed down with coconut milk drunk from the husky nut. The meal was an explosion of peppercorn, cinnamon, cardamom, and green and red chilies, and—like any meal actually prepared for her and not by her—mind-numbingly delicious.

  The jungle grew dark, pitch-dark. The light of the fires became the light of the world. Insects screamed in the canopy. Kate fingered a betel leaf—a digestive, the guide insisted, and no more narcotic than a Marlboro—then put it down. The staining of her teeth aside, she wanted no artificial stimulants to dull her experience of the night.

  Then, in open defiance of the park’s rules—no loud noises, no playing music—one of the men pulled out a sitar; another, a tall lean drum. The sitar player chanted a rhythmic, seductive song. It was old music, exotic and compelling. It slithered through her, making her hips liquid.

  Sam whispered in her ear. “Let’s break another rule.”

  She raised a brow. He carried his bag and bedroll tucked under his arm. The light played across the dark planes of his face. He smiled in conspiracy, making her wonder if he was taking this husband/wife thing a little too far. Though she knew Sam’s romantic interests lay elsewhere, Kate quivered with a frisson of excitement at the thought that someone as hot as Sam might look at her as more than a dull housewife abroad. Hey, it was just a fantasy—and a safe one, at that.

  “C’mon.” Sam headed away from the light. “You can see the stars better away from the campfire.”

  Kate grabbed her own bedroll and followed. In the dimness on the other side of the shelter, Sam unrolled his blanket and revealed the bottle inside.

  “It’s called fenny,” he told her. He pulled a Swiss-army knife from his back pocket and made short work of opening it. “I got it in Goa. It’s a liqueur made from the juice of a coconut.”

  She unfurled her bedroll next to his. “And you hiked with it twelve miles into the jungle.”

  “Camping is dull, Kate. Nothing to do but drink and… well.” His teeth flashed in the darkness. “You’re married. Those German girls think we’re married. Clearly, no bonking for me.”