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8
Vince
Alert the presses: I’m not much of a hugger.
But Jewel’s hug seals the deal; I’m into her. All in.
Dammit.
And now I have to check out where she lives and make sure it’s safe.
I’m in my car, parked downtown at the drive-in diner, eating my usual breakfast burrito—this time I told the carhop to put some extra jalapeños and lettuce on it—while I make a phone call to my buddy Barry at the police station.
He and I worked together on a lot of child endangerment cases before I got fired.
“Hey, Barry, I need you to look up an address for me.”
“Not exactly legal, but my senior detective skills tell me you’re not up to anything sinister.”
Don’t be too sure, I say to myself.
Barry clicks some keys and reads the address to me.
“Cool, thanks, man. How’re Shelley and the kids by the way?”
Barry rattles off a long list of after-school activities between his two teenage daughters, and how he recently got his numbers back from the doctor and managed to drop his triglycerides because of his new extreme diet.
“That sounds terrible,” I say. The diet, I mean. The other stuff, having a wife and driving teenagers around to soccer games and play practice, sounds OK. Kind of.
“You might want to get your blood work checked, too, all those burgers you eat,” Barry jibes.
“I’ll have you know I’m eating a burrito with lettuce on it right now,” I reply, waving down the carhop for a coffee refill.
Barry bursts out laughing. Something has struck him not just funny but hilarious. I know what this means. When he gets like this, I’m in for some smartass comments. He’s cracking himself up with about a dozen comebacks he’s thought of. Soon, Barry is beside himself with laughter. “Oh my god…I can’t breathe…hang on…‘lettuce’ call Dr. Oz and tell him he’s out of a job. Your unemployment problems are solved, my friend.”
I can’t help but give a half smile and a laugh. “Asshole.”
He is cackling. “Hey, wait! I’ll have the girls help you set up your Instagram living well blog immediately. Take a nice picture of that healthy breakfast burrito but make sure it’s on a plate and not, like, on your lap on greasy paper. Unless you want to be edgy.”
“You seem to think I understand any of those words,” I say, nodding to the female carhop and adding a couple extra bucks onto her tip.
“You love me,” Barry sings.
I hang up before things turn weird and sincere.
I toss the half-eaten burrito back in the bag, since now I’m self-conscious about it. I sip my black-as-death coffee while I motor over to the address Barry gave me.
Jewel lives in a halfway decent apartment complex with a well-kept pool and nice landscaping. Old ladies are walking their dogs in the middle of the day. Lots of runners. Maintained sidewalks. All good signs.
Now that that goofball Barry has brought up Instagram, I go ahead and look Jewel up on social media. Her feed is full of photos of her decorating her classroom. Scrolling back, it seems to have taken her about a month to assemble all that stuff. The terrariums and animals are donated. The superhero gear also. The “quiet corner” she assembled herself as a way to help overstimulated kids stay calm.
Wow. She really loves kids.
Me? I can’t stand kids.
Correction: I like Max. I like the kids I used to know from my old job. Barry’s kids are OK but fuck if I understand a single word they say. Other kids? Totally annoying.
I scroll down, down, down and finally see a photo of her. It looks like a Roaring Twenties party kind of photo. She’s wearing a slinky black dress and her hair is styled in a flapper bob. She’s got a face full of makeup and a painted-on beauty mark under her eye. Her whole look makes me want to pick her up and carry her off to my cave, but the seductive smirk she’s giving the camera …holy hell.
