A Date with Danger Read online

  “Got to give myself a facial first. I found the best scrub. It makes your skin feel like new.”

  This time the guy edging toward our table like he’s about to address Congress is squat and sweating profusely. About six feet away he gives a shy wave and says, “Hi there. I’m Eli.”

  Genuinely friendly to a fault, Bridget replies, “Hey, Eli. I’m Bridget. Care to join us?”

  Eli’s shirtfront drenches with sweat. He begins to shake so violently that I’m starting to worry he’s having a seizure before he runs for the exit. He and the first guy will probably have side-by-side asthma attacks in the hall.

  “Wow,” Bridget says, brow knit with concern. “Should we check on him?”

  “I’ll do a drive-by as I leave. He’ll never recognize me. Next to you I’m utterly invisible.”

  “Shut up,” she says good-naturedly and points at me. “Girls’ night.”

  “Girls’ night, soon,” I agree and wave on my way out. As I suspected, both brave souls are still recovering in the hall, but neither has passed out. I stride by with a quick, “Maybe next week, guys.”

  Nothing unusual happens before I get to my parents’ house for dinner. As I step out of the car to retrieve my plate of cookies from the backseat, I glance up and down the street. It looks like a normal, quiet Sunday afternoon. Not many kids playing. Most are inside with their families eating, doing their acceptable Sabbath activities. The green, manicured lawns are empty, the homes hushed. I see Sister Martin across the street sitting at the piano in her front room and faintly hear the strains of Chopin. Everything normal here.

  Yet paranoia persists.

  Shaking my head, I pick a path up the sloped driveway. The house has familiar beige paint and a black-tile roof with tall windows and flower boxes. Mom’s rose bushes are just budding in white and yellow. Dad’s old Buick perches in one corner of the driveway like a giant dog that has gone to sleep and rusted there. Dad always talks about restoring it, but if he ever actually moved it, all the neighbors would get lost—it’s a local landmark. For a moment I breathe in the familiarity of roses, car grease, and potting soil before ringing the doorbell.

  The bell is met by a chorus of muffled shrieks and a stampede of little feet rushing up the hall. After a quick argument (“I wanna open it!” “No, it’s my turn!”), the door squeaks open and two small faces appear around the jamb.

  “Jack!” cries Daisy and launches into my arms. “We’ve been waiting for you!”

  “Have you?” I ask. Jeremy Jr. has already wound himself around my ankles, and I struggle over the threshold with both of them. Once inside I’m clobbered by about ten more pairs of arms and legs and tiny faces crying, “Where’ve you been? What’s in your purse? Do you have candy for us?”

  “Take it!” I tell them, relinquishing my meager plate of cookies. “Take it—just spare me! I’d taste awful.” Half of them move off with the plate and instantly tear open the tinfoil. My Oreos will be gone in approximately twenty seconds. The other half of the kids remain attached to me, all talking at once.

  “I got a new pony animal with pink hair—” Daisy is telling me.

  “There’s a new boy in my class named Matthew—” says Jeremy.

  “I has fingers!” tiny Anna declares, splaying her hands for me to examine.

  “—and it has a sparkly tail—”

  “—um, he has four dogs. I mean, not four but three dogs, and the big one had puppies—”

  “Mama paint my fingers!” Anna’s digits are right up in my face now as she shows me her purple polish.

  This is one of the things I love about kids. They’re full of so much exuberance it just pours out of them. “They are so pretty!” I tell Anna, then to Daisy and Matthew in order, “What’s your pony’s name? And that’s awesome, dude. What kinds of puppies did it have?”

  “Okay, let her breathe a bit.” My sister Delia is ambling out of the kitchen with a stack of bowls and utensils in the crook of her arm. “Help finish setting the table. Jeremy, take the forks, and no stabbing anyone. Daisy, set out the bowls. Thank you.” She hands off the dishes, then plops Anna on her hip.

  Her daughter is a miniature of her—caramel curls and dainty features with huge brown eyes. Delia’s one of those wonder moms who teaches Primary and bandages a scraped knee while simultaneously baking fresh bread and looking completely unruffled by the whole thing. I can barely keep track of all her kids as she has roughly twenty of them. Or maybe it’s only six.

  “How was the reception last night?” she asks, giving me a side hug and fixing Anna’s crooked sock.

  “Disaster.” Stripping off my jacket, I hang it on a peg and hook my purse handle over it. “I don’t know why I even bother going to those things.”

  “The food?” Jen has followed her out of the kitchen, her pregnant belly preceding her into the room. She embraces me around the bump and chomps on a dinner roll. “That’s why I’d go. Then again, these days I’d go just about anywhere for food.”

  “How much longer?” I ask, touching her belly in the hopes of catching a kick.

  “Five weeks. I can’t wait that long.” She leans on Delia and takes off her shoes. “How have you done this six times?”

  “The first is the hardest.”

  “Really?”

  Delia smiles. “Not so much, but let’s pretend for now.”

  A younger version of Delia, Jen has the same snapping brown eyes, and her chestnut hair is cut in a pixie. Naturally slender, she’s all belly. From behind she doesn’t even look pregnant, and then she turns around and bam!

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “This baby will probably be graduating college before I give it a cousin.”

  They cock their heads in twin looks of sympathy. “Don’t be silly,” Delia says. “You have plenty of time to find the right guy.”

  “Any guy would suffice at this point. Ooh!” I point at her wedges. “Love the shoes!”

  Our conversation turns to trivial things—though to us great shoes will never be considered trivial—and we slowly migrate to the kitchen, where Mom is smuggling custard to the grandkids.

  “Mom!” Jen laughs. “What do you always say about spoiling their appetite?”

  Mom waves her off. “That’s for a mom to say. Rules for grandmothers are different. Hi!” Smelling of flour and sage and warm bread, she comes around the island to hug me. For a moment I close my eyes, inhaling her and the warmth of the cozy kitchen. No matter how old I get, coming home always feels the same.

  “Munch and Mingle?” she asks when she pulls back. “Successful?”

  By that she means did I meet any guys and fall madly in love over the mixed salad. Her eyes, copies of my sisters’ and lined with wrinkles, are full of such hope I can’t bring myself to completely crush it.

  “Maybe,” I hedge, scooping a gob of mashed potato on my finger to my mouth. “There were a few nice guys.” Of course they were proposing marriage to Bridget, not me.

  “Really? Oh!” She bustles back around the island to take the roast from the oven. “A summer wedding would be so lovely!”

  Jen rolls her eyes, and Delia pats my shoulder.

  It’s best to distract her. “Can I help with anything, Mom?”

  “No. Everything’s just now ready. Take these things into the dining room.” She hands off a dish to each of us. I take the bowl of potatoes and sample another bite en route. At the head of the table, I push aside Dad’s newspaper to kiss his cheek and take a seat to his left. He gives me a warm smile and returns to the news. Reserved and gentle, I’ve never known Dad to raise his voice or waver in anything. Always there’s that calm smile. It makes me never want to disappoint him.

  Jeremy Sr., Delia’s husband, wrangles the last two kids to the table—one over each shoulder—and deposits them in their seats. Dad sets his paper aside and folds his hands, signaling us all to bo
w our heads for the prayer.

  “Father in Heaven,” Dad begins, his voice reverent. “We thank Thee this day for Thy incredible bounty and blessings. We thank Thee for the gospel in our lives; for our ever-expanding family; and for Thy Son, who has given us everything. Please bless us all with Thy spirit, and bestow Thy protection upon Steven. Help him to feel our love.”

  Peeking beneath my lashes, I reach out and clasp Jen’s hand. She squeezes back, but I see her chin quiver slightly. Steven is her husband, serving his second tour in Afghanistan. Every day we pray he makes it back to see their baby girl.

  “Bless this food which Thou hast given, and know of our great gratitude and love. In the name of our beloved Savior and Redeemer we pray, even Jesus Christ, Amen.”

  “Amen,” we all echo. Jen releases my hand and is smiling as we open our eyes, her brave face on.

  Over roast and potatoes, Mom (who we sometimes fondly call FIN for “Family Information Network”) gives a detailed update on family members from our four brothers scattered across the states to the most distant cousins I’ve never heard of. I swear the woman knows everything about everyone. She really is an asset that law enforcement is neglecting.

  “. . . told me that Lucy is pregnant again.”

  “Who?” Jen asks.

  “Cousin Lucy! Her ninth, apparently.”

  “That’s a lot of kids,” Jeremy Sr. says.

  “You two could catch up,” Mom suggests with a chuckle.

  Jeremy smiles as his namesake son slaps a carrot against his dad’s face. “I think we’re all set.”

  “Helloooo!” a voice trills from the front door. “Knock, knock!”

  My heart plummets.

  “Come on in, Muriel!” Mom calls. “We’re at the table.”

  “I’m not strong enough for this today,” I mutter to Jen.

  “What do they say in church?” she murmurs back. “Your affliction shall be but a small moment?”

  Muriel strides into the dining room. There’s something like Mom in her big eyes and broad, smiling mouth. But she’s taller, broader, imposing, even in her proper church dress and pantyhose. Her brown bouffant adds at least a foot to her already daunting stature, and her long red fingernails are like talons. At least that’s what I thought when I was a kid. That she might just pluck me up like a vulture.

  I wasn’t wrong.

  “Well, hi!” she says, spreading her syrupy smile over the assembly. “This all looks delicious.” She purses her lips slightly. “I see you couldn’t wait for me to arrive.”

  “You said you’d be late,” Mom says, motioning to the empty seat. Perhaps it’s just Mom’s naturally sweet nature or the effect of growing up under the constant scrutiny of a sister like Muriel, but my aunt’s sugar-coated insults, grating to everyone else in the family, seem to roll off Mom as though she doesn’t realize she’s being insulted. I’m glad for her. At least one of us is safe.

  “Well, I’m sure it won’t be too cold. Roast is still tolerable at room temperature, I suppose.” Muriel moves down the line of the table squeezing the cheeks of each child in turn (they shrink back from her talons the way I used to) and deposits herself in the only empty seat at the table.

  Directly across from me.

  I wish I were back at the wedding reception.

  “Roast again, eh, Linda?” Muriel asks, reaching for the meat platter. “How very original.”

  “You don’t fuss with a classic,” Dad says and winks at Mom, who giggles into her napkin.

  While Muriel loads her plate, I hurriedly clean mine, hoping that maybe I can finish, claim a headache or something, and skip out early. Or at least I could hide in the bathroom for a while—

  “Do take time to chew your food, Jacklyn.” Muriel licks gravy from her fingers and looks up at me. “It’s rude to eat so sloppily in the company of others.”

  “Rude, yes,” I say, but I’m not talking about myself.

  She clearly doesn’t catch my sarcasm. “It’s well known that eating too quickly can lead to weight gain.” Her eyes rake over me. “You have put on some in the last year.”

  You know that relative who exists only to remind you exactly how worthless you are? That’s my dear auntie Muriel.

  “Well, I eat to cope with the loneliness. Being without a boyfriend and all.” I smile. “Perhaps you’d like to talk about that now.”

  “I don’t like to glory in other people’s suffering,” she says, her face devoid of humor. “But perhaps if you took better care of yourself, that wouldn’t be the case.”

  I nod and load my plate with seconds.

  For the next half hour, I personify gluttony in an attempt to drown out the catalog of my shortcomings. Muriel drives the conversation, stopping off here and there to scold others, but she always steers her way back to Jack. For some reason I’m her favorite. Lucky me.

  Muriel’s husband, Uncle Bert, died when he was only forty-five. They said it was a heart attack. But I once heard Dad, who has never before or since insulted anyone, tell Mom that Bert must have gotten tired of hearing what a quitter he was and finally agreed. Mom, drinking a glass of juice at the time, choked and reprimanded him without being able to fully conceal her smile.

  Bert and Muriel had five kids who all happen to live at least a state away. So she works as a florist to pass the time and spends her Sundays with us. Yay.

  “And it’s well known that girls over the age of twenty-three are not getting married,” Muriel is saying, daintily scraping gravy residue off her plate. She always uses the phrase it’s well known when she’s stating an opinion for which she has absolutely no foundation. “Our missionaries are coming home serious about finding a companion, and most of them do that by the time they’re twenty-two or twenty-three. Single girls above that age have very little hope of finding someone.” She gives me a tight smile. “Of course there’s still hope for you, Jack.”

  I nod and continue shoveling in corn.

  Muriel’s watching me. “Although, if you still want a chance at a man, you may want to slow down.”

  “I have to go.” I’m standing, napkin still tucked into the top of my skirt, before I even realize I meant to get up. There’s so much corn in my mouth I have to really chew before anyone can understand me. “I have . . . tunnel singing. Yes. There’s singing, and”—I do a square motion with my hands—“a tunnel.”

  “Now?” Mom asks. “We still have dessert.”

  “And games!” puts in Daisy.

  “Yes, but there will be men there,” I say, backing toward the door with a fork still clutched in my hand. “And clearly I need to get on that. Not getting any younger or thinner, apparently.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Mom comes around the table to me. “You’re staying, and you can sing in a tunnel later. Help me with dessert.”

  No better arguments come to me as she leads the way to the kitchen and places the custard pie in front of me. “You cut that while I get the cherries.”

  Selecting a large knife from the wood block on the counter, I hear Muriel say from the dining room, “You sure Jack should be helping you with that, Linda? You know how she gets around pie.”

  I pantomime stabbing myself with the knife and thump my forehead down on the countertop.

  4

  No creepy stalker follows me home. Although, after dessert and several rounds of charades with Muriel condemning the technique of my mime abilities, I almost wish someone would murder me.

  I manage to slip away early enough for tunnel singing but drag myself home instead. A mountain of homework stares at me from the coffee table, but I can never bring myself to do school work on Sundays. All my growing-up years, Mom and Dad didn’t allow it. Even when I would beg, “But I have hours yet to finish this project due first thing Monday!” they would calmly reply, “All right. Do you want me to wake you up at midnight or five a.m.?
” At the time I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t make a single exception to their honoring-the-Sabbath rule.

  Now I get it. By the time I got to college, it was just habit. And no matter how ill-prepared I am for a test or how far behind I am on a paper, leaving Sunday for the Lord ensures that I’ll get it done. I’ve never failed, no matter how little I knew Saturday night, when I waited until first thing Monday to finish cramming. One of those things your parents say, “You’ll thank me later,” just happens to be true. Darned if they weren’t always right.

  Sunday passes into Monday with a Jane Austen novel, and then it’s back to the grind. Mondays I only have one class in the morning, and then I’m off to the mall for an afternoon shift.

  Working retail is one of those college things, overrated and painful but part of the experience. At my age so many have graduated and moved into their professions or are already bouncing babies on their knee. And here I am folding tank tops for the thousandth time so I can just refold them as soon as some teenybopper paws through the pile and then abandons it because “They don’t have my size!”

  I’d like to accidentally smack them with a sales sign.

  Music thunders through the speakers, and the dazzling lights bore into my skull, giving me a headache in five minutes flat. I know I’m supposed to be young and hip, but it is really loud in here. I asked my manager, Tanya, about it once, and she replied, “It’s to give, like, a club atmosphere to the place. So the customers feel like they’re already partying in our clothes.” Then she trotted off on her four-inch heels to greet more teenyboppers coming in.

  Currently I’m on “go-back” duty, which is hustling the rejects from the fitting room back to their sections on the floor. I know the layout pretty well, but with new shipments and changing floor arrangements, it’s almost impossible to keep track of where every single item of clothing actually goes. So half the time I guess and just hope it’s close to where it’s supposed to be. Besides the guesswork, go-backs aren’t a bad gig. Especially as it gives me a chance to scope out the new shipment and decide what items I’ll be trading my paycheck for this week. Sometimes I feel like they should just skip drafting me a paycheck at all and let me work for clothes. Cut out the middle man.