Cat & Mouse

At the Giant, Damon scouted on ahead to find some RC Cola and tortilla chips. Jannie and I had a chance to talk the talk. I knew she was dying to bzzz-bzzz-bzzz. I can always tell. She has a fine, overactive imagination, and I couldn’t wait to hear what was on her little mind.

Jannie was in charge of pushing the shopping cart, and the metal handle of the cart was just above her eye level. She stared at the immense array of cereals in our aisle, looking for the best deals. Nana Mama had taught her the fine art of grocery shopping, and she can do most of the math in her head.

“Talk to me,” I said. “My time is your time. Daddy’s home.”

“For today.” She sent a hummer right past my ear, brushed me right back from home plate with a high, hard one.

“It’s not easy being green,” I said. It was an old favorite line between us, compliments of Kermit the Frog. She shrugged it off today. No sale. No easy deals.

“You and Damon mad at me?” I asked in my most soothing tones. “Tell me the truth, girlfriend.”

She softened a little. “Oh, it’s not so much that, Daddy. You’re doing the best you can,” she said, and finally looked my way. “You’re trying, right? It’s just hard when you go away from home. I get lonely for you. It’s not the same when you’re away.”

I shook my head, smiled, and wondered where she got much of her thinking from. Nana Mama swears that Jannie has a mind of her own.

“You okay with our dinner plans?” I asked, treading carefully.

“Oh ab-solutely.” She suddenly beamed. “That’s not a problem at all. I love dinner parties.”

“Damon? Is he okay with Christine coming over tonight?” I asked my confidante.

“He’s a little scared ’cause she’s the principal of our school. But he’s cool, too. You know Damon. He’s the man.”

I nodded. “He is cool. So dinner’s not a problem? You’re not even a little scared?”

Jannie shook her head. “Nope. Not because of that. Dinners can’t scare me. Dinner is dinner.”

Man, she was smart, and so subtle for her age. It was like talking to a very wise adult. She was already a poet, and a philsopher, too. She was going to be competition for Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison one day. I loved that about her.

“Do you have to keep going after him? After this bum Mr. Smith?” Jannie finally asked me. “I guess you do.” She answered her own question.

I echoed her earlier line. “I’m doing the best I can.”

Jannie stood up on her tippy-toes. I bent low to her, but not as far as I used to. She kissed me on the cheek, a nice smacker, as she calls the kisses.

“You’re the bee’s knees,” she said. It was one of Nana’s favorite things to say and she’d adopted it.

“Boo!” Damon peeked around the soda-pop aisle at the two of us. His head was framed against a red, white, and blue sea of Pepsi bottles and cans. I pulled Damon close, and I kissed him on the cheek, too. I kissed the top of his head, held him in a way I would have liked my father to have held me a long time ago. We made a little spectacle of ourselves in the grocery-store aisle. Nice spectacle.

God, I loved the two of them, and what a continued dilemma it presented. The Glock on my ankle weighed a ton and felt as hot as a poker from a fire. I wanted to take it off and never put the weapon on again.

I knew I wouldn’t, though. Thomas Pierce was still out there somewhere, and Mr. Smith, and all the rest of them. For some reason I felt it was my responsibility to make them all go away, to make things a little safer for everyone.

“Earth to Daddy,” Jannie said. She had a small frown on her face. “See? You went away again. You were with Mr. Smith, weren’t you?”

Chapter 120

CHRISTINE can save you. If anyone can, if it’s possible for you to be salvaged at this point in your life.

I got to her place around six-thirty that night. I’d told her I would pick her up out in Mitchellville. My side was hurting again, and I definitely felt like damaged goods, but I wouldn’t have missed this for anything.

She came to the front door in a bright tangerine sundress and heeled espadrilles. She looked slightly beyond great. She wore a bar pin with tiny silver bells. She did have bells on.

“Bells.” I smiled.

“You bet. You thought I was kidding.”

I took her in my arms right there on the red-brick front stoop, with blooming red and white impatiens and climbing roses all around us. I hugged Christine tightly against my chest and we started to kiss.

I was lost in her sweet, soft mouth, in her arms. My hands flew up to her face, lightly tracing her cheekbones, her nose, her eyelids.

The shock of intimacy was rare and overwhelming. So good, so fine, and missing for such a long time.

I opened my eyes and saw that she was looking at me. She had the most expressive eyes I’d ever seen. “I love the way you hold me, Alex,” she whispered, but her eyes said much more. “I love your touch.”

We backed into the house, kissing again.

“Do we have time?” She laughed.

“Shhh. Only a crazy person wouldn’t. We’re not crazy.”

“Of course we are.”