Fools Paradise

Jennifer Stevenson

Chapter Two

The moment she’d seen the car, Daisy Ditorelli had thought, The Mortons did it. Twenty years of peace and quiet, her whole life, and now it was starting up again. She sank to her knees, stunned at the size of the disaster.

Goomba would blame her, too, because she’d left the car where they could get at it.

The trees around the parking lot were dark with menace. She was alone on the lakefront with muggers and Goomba’s destroyed car and the invisible gloating Mortons. Daisy sobbed harder.

So it didn’t surprise her at all to see Bobbyjay Morton tear up in his Jeep and jump out.

“How‑ow could you?” she accused, hiccupping.

“Hey, it wasn’t me.” He knelt beside her. “Are you okay? You’re kneeling in all this water.” He lifted her just as a fish leaped clear of the moon roof and slid, wriggling, down the windshield of the Targa. “C’mon, let’s sit down.”

He made her walk over to a park bench, fussing over her the way everybody did.

She slapped his hands away. “Stop that! I’m not made of china!” Sniffling, she eyed him. He didn’t look very guilty. Of course with that dumb jock face he never looked like anything. Maybe he wasn’t lying. “Who did it then?”

Bobbyjay turned his head as the smelt skated off the windshield and plopped onto the hood. “Beats the shit out of me. Your grandpa’s gonna burst a blood vessel. Why you driving it?”

She gulped. “We had a fight. I asked him to find me a job. I want to be a stagehand in the Local.” She clenched her fists. “I’m sick of cooking for my loser cousins and dodging their macho and breaking up their fights and picking up their socks and — ” No point in going into details. “Anyway he said I couldn’t handle the job! Right in front of Tony and Vince and Wesley! I ran out of the house.” She took another look at the car and hysteria rose up in her throat. “Now he’ll kill me!”

Bobbyjay looked doubtfully at the car. “Do you want help cleaning up?”

Everybody thought she was helpless. “No, thanks. You’d better go.”

“I can’t leave you here with this.” He got up and walked over to the car, examining it, and she followed. “Got the keys?”

“They won’t work.”

“Let me try.” Daisy handed him the keys and watched him try them. “You’re right.” He stepped back and put his hands on his hips. “Looks like the only way in is through the top.”

She looked at the fish spilling out of the moon roof and shuddered. “No, thanks,” she said again.

“I’ll do it.”

She made a noise of protest and Bobbyjay looked at her, and Daisy saw a goofy look spread across his face.

Oh, no. Not you too, Bobbyjay!

One by one her childhood playmates were growing into men and getting stupid about her. She had thought Bobbyjay was immune.

On the other hand, he was willing to reach his arm through that moon roof into a car full of cold, slimy, wiggling fish.

They locked eyes. He swallowed.

She bit her lip. “You’d do that? For me?”

“Sure,” he said huskily. He bounded up onto the hood, crawled out over the Targa’s humped top, and slid a tentative hand into the fish. “Cold.”

His jeans were ripped a little across the seat. As he stretched, she could see his bare buns work.

“I bet,” she said, swallowing.

He pulled his arm out. “I’m thinking, roll the window down and let some water out. Then we can get inside.” Lying on his stomach over the top of the car, his arm and tee-shirt sleeve dripping wet, he looked at her with that goofy new face. “If I drown, you’ll explain to the cops, right?”

“I won’t let you drown, Bobbyjay,” she said in a small voice.

With a deep breath and a determined expression, he dove headfirst through the moon roof. Water and fish poured out around his body. Daisy squeezed her hands together. His arm and shoulder and then his face appeared at the side window of the Porsche, squishing fish against the glass. She heard his elbow bump on the window. Then the window began to leak water from the top, and water began pouring out of a growing slit as the window opened, and fish slithered past in a silvery flood, and then, just as she was worrying that she wasn’t strong enough to haul his big, heavy body free, his legs thrashed, and he withdrew. A nasty squeak sounded as he slid back out of the moon roof, and then he rolled over on his back and slid, gasping, to the ground.

Daisy rushed to his side. “Are you okay?”

Bobbyjay heaved air and coughed. “Think I scratched the paint on top. Belt buckle.” He hacked some more. A fish slid out of the sleeve of his sopping tee-shirt.

Goodness. He’s been hiding a lot in that teeshirt, she thought. It clung to his shoulders, pecs, and tight, ripply stomach. She thought again of the rip in the ass of his jeans and her tongue touched her lips.

He looked up at her sorrowfully. “I think it’s gonna take more than detailing, Daisy. Can you tell him some lie, go visit a friend for a couple of days, so he won’t expect to see it right away?”

“He’ll be here any minute,” she said. “I called him right before I saw you.”

“Whaaat!?” Bobbyjay leaped to his feet.

She wrung her hands. “Well, who else could I call?”

“I didn’t see you! I mean, I was driving through the park and I noticed the car — I saw you walking up to the car — “ he sputtered, and Daisy shook her head. Mortons, all right. “He’s gonna kill me!”

“No, he won’t!” She grabbed him by the arm. Big, muscly arm, she noticed. And wet. And fishy. Goomba would blame him on sight. “I won’t let him.”

“Yes, he will!”

“No,” she said, gritting her teeth, “he won’t. I’ll think of something.”

“Oh, that’ll be a help,” Bobbyjay said. She felt like slapping him. Everybody assumed she was dumb. Nice, yes, pretty, sure, but dumb. She opened her mouth to make a point about pots and kettles and she heard her grandfather’s voice.

“You sonofabitch! Get your hands off her!”

Goomba grabbed her from behind and yanked her away from Bobbyjay. They squared off, Goomba panting and red-faced and Bobbyjay wary, holding his hands up.

“Take it easy, Marty. I didn’t do anything.”

Now Goomba was looking at the car. His fists opened and closed convulsively. “Goo — uck — fuh — ” He looked from her to Bobbyjay to the car. Then he threw himself through the now-open window, scrambling at the glove box. Fish and water slopped out. “Jesus! Jesu Christu — “ and a lot of bad-sounding Italian.

Daisy sidled over next to Bobbyjay.

Goomba spun around with his police .38 in his hand. “Prepare to die, you stupid little fucker!”

“Goomba! No!” Daisy threw herself in front of Bobbyjay.

“Get out of the way, pumpkin,” Goomba said in a quiet, scary voice. “I found him here molesting you and fucking with my car and that’s all the cops will know.”

She waved frantically. “Goomba! You can’t!”

Bobbyjay tried to push her behind him. “Get back!” He thrust her off with a shove that made her stumble.

Goomba whipped his arm up, took aim at Bobbyjay’s face, and squeezed.

The gun went click.

Goomba swore in Italian.

Daisy threw herself on Bobbyjay again. “Don’t you dare! You can’t kill him!” In desperation she shrieked, “We’re engaged!”

Her grandfather stopped cursing his weapon. “You’re what?”

She took a deep breath. “He’s my fiancé.”

oOo

Copyright © 2009 Jennifer Stevenson
Cover design: Julie Ortolon