Jem couldhearTean’s smile on the other end of the call.
“Call it bitch-ass bureaucratic beboppin’ bullshit.”
“Bebopping?”
“I don’t know what it means, but I heard it onTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
“I’ve got to get back to work.”
“The video game.”
But no laughter came.There was a strangely hesitant pause, and then “Thank you, Jem.”
“Hey,” Jem said.“That’s why you keep me around.Drive down there after dinner?”
“You don’t have to go with me.”
“Try that again.”
“I love you,” Tean said again.
Jem was pocketing the phone when Little Dick stepped into the breakroom.His wrestler’s neck was flushed, and he walked like an ape, arms held away from his body to make him bigger.He leaned over Jem, close enough that the cloud of Acqua di Gio could have qualified as chemical warfare.
“I know,” Jem said.“Get off my ass.Sell cars.Look, I already hooked him.Diane’s getting the financing ready.”
“We got a problem?”Little Dick asked.
Jem leaned back, gave him another, more considering look.The flush spread into Little Dick’s face now.Even into his little cauliflower ear.He was breathing rapidly.And although he kept his arms out at his sides, his hands opened and closed, fingers running one by one into a fist and then spreading out again.
And a little part of Jem that had been asleep for what felt like averylong time raised its head and sniffed the air.His hand drifted toward his pocket.
But Tean.
But the house.
But this whole freaking life.
That feeling like it was all water, and the harder he tried to grab it, the faster it slipped out of his hands.
He caught himself.Gave himself a mental shake—pictured Scipio coming in out of the snow and flinging half-melted drops everywhere.
“Nope,” Jem said.
“What does that mean?”Little Dick said.And then, trying to put an edge in his voice: “You being smart again?”
Jem almost saidnopeagain.Somehow, he managed to limit himself to “No.”And then he added, “No problem.”
And that was it.Little Dick’s chest swelled.He flattened his hands against his thighs.His voice grew more solid.“Because I don’t like getting mouthed off to.I was trying to have a conversation, and I don’t like you turning around and mouthing off.”
That old part of Jem was still poking its head up.Instead of that sick, clenching feeling in his gut that had bothered him a few minutes before, now something like heat rolled through him.But he took a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry.I wasn’t trying to be rude.”And then he thought of the magic words, and the heat washed out of him, and it was like an iron cramp in his bowels again.“I saw a customer.”
Little Dick grunted.“Just so we’re clear.”He jerked his head at the showroom.“Now get off your ass and sell some cars.”
7
Jem got home late, which meant Tean had already started to cook, so he had to rush through his usual welcome-home routine with Scipio—only a million kisses, this time, instead of the traditional ten million—and grab an apron and slide the pan of ground turkey off the heating element about fifteen seconds before it passed frombrownedtoblackened.
“Do you think this is still good?”Tean asked, holding up a can of V8.