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Her improved mood lasted until she got home and found that BooBoo, in an attempt to impress on her how upset he was at having to stay in a strange house, had completely shredded one of the cushions on her sofa. Tufts of stuffing were scattered all over the living room. She closed her eyes and counted to ten, then to twenty. There was no point in getting angry at the cat; he probably wouldn’t understand, and wouldn’t care even if he did. He was as much a victim of circumstance as she was. He hissed at her when she reached for him. She usually left him alone when he did that, but in a moment of pity she scooped him up anyway and burrowed her fingers into his fur, kneading the limber muscles of his back. “Poor kitty,” she crooned. “You don’t know what’s going on, do you?”
BooBoo snarled at her, then ruined the effect by lapsing into a rumbling purr.
“Just hold on for four weeks and five days. That’s thirty-three days. You can put up with me that long, can’t you?”
He didn’t look as if he agreed, but didn’t care as long as she continued kneading his back. She carried him into the kitchen and gave him a treat, then put him on the floor with a fuzzy toy mouse to battle.
Okay The cat was trashing her house. She could cope. Her mom would be horrified at the damage and pay for it, of course, so all in all Jaine was just being a little inconvenienced.
She was impressed by her own mellowness.
She got a drink of water, and as she stood at the sink, her neighbor arrived home. At the sight of that brown Pontiac she could feel her mellowness begin to circle the drain. But the car was quiet, so evidently he had replaced the muffler. If he was trying, so could she. Mentally she put a stopper in the drain.
She watched out the window as he got out of the car and unlocked his kitchen door, which faced hers. He was wearing slacks and a white dress shirt, with a tie hanging loose around his neck and a jacket slung over his shoulder. He looked tired, and when he turned to enter the house, she saw the big black pistol in the holster on his belt. This was the first time she had seen him wearing anything except old, dirty clothes, and she felt a bit disoriented, as if the world had shifted off center. Knowing he was a cop and seeing him as a cop were two different things. The fact that he was wearing street clothes instead of a uniform meant he wasn’t a patrol officer, but was at least a detective in rank.
He was still a jerk, but he was a jerk with heavy responsibilities, so maybe she could be more understanding. She had no way of knowing when he was asleep, short of knocking on his door to ask him, which kind of defeated the purpose if she didn’t want to disturb him when he was sleeping. She just wouldn’t mow her lawn when he was at home, period. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t tear a strip off his rhinoceros hide whenever he disturbed her, because fair was fair, but she would try to get along with him. After all, they would probably be neighbors for years and years.
God, that thought was depressing.
Her mellowness and charity toward all lasted … oh, a couple of hours.
At seven-thirty she settled down in her big easy chair to watch some television and read for a while. She often did both simultaneously, figuring that if anything really interesting happened on the tube, it would get her attention. A cup of green tea steamed gently at her elbow, and she antioxidized herself with an occasional sip.
A loud crash destroyed the quietness of her little neighborhood.
She surged out of the chair, sliding her feet into her sandals as she ran for the front door. She knew that sound, having heard it hundreds, thousands of times in her childhood, when her dad would take her to the test sites where she watched them crash car after car.
Porch lights were coming on up and down the street; doors were opening and curious heads were popping out like turtles peeking out of their shells. Five doors down, illuminated by the corner streetlight, was a tangle of crumpled metal.
Jaine ran down the street, her heart thumping, her stomach tightening as she braced herself for whatever she might see and tried to remember the basic first aid steps.
Other people were pouring out of their houses now, mostly elderly people, the women wearing bedroom slippers and shapeless dresses or robes, the men in their sleeveless undershirts. There were a few high-pitched, excited children’s voices, the sound of mothers trying to keep their kids corralled, fathers saying, “Keep back, keep back, it might explode.”
Having seen a lot of crashes, Jaine knew an explosion wasn’t likely, but fire was always a possibility. Just before she reached the car in the street, the driver’s side door was thrust open and a belligerent young man erupted from behind the steering wheel.
“What the fuck!” he yelled, staring at the crumpled front end of his car. He had rear-ended one of the cars parked along the curb.
A young woman came running from the house directly beside them, her eyes wide with horror. “Omigod, omigod! My car!”
The belligerent young man rounded on her. “This your car, bitch? What the fuck you doin’ parking it in the street?”
He was drunk. The fumes hit Jaine’s nose, and she moved back a step. Around her, she could hear the collective neighborhood concern changing to disgust.
“Someone go get Sam,” she heard an old man mutter.
“I will.” Mrs. Kulavich headed back down the street, shuffling as fast as she could in her terry-cloth bedroom slippers.
Yeah, where was he? Jaine wondered. Everyone else who lived on the street was out here.
The young woman whose car had been smashed was crying, her hands over her mouth as she stared at the wreckage. Behind her, two young children, about five and seven, stood uncertainly on the sidewalk.
“Goddamned bitch,” the drunk snarled, starting toward the young woman.
“Hey,” one of the older men piped up. “Watch your language.”
“Fuck you, pops.” He reached the crying woman and clamped a heavy hand on her shoulder, spinning her around.
Jaine started forward, pure anger flaring in her chest. “Hey, buddy,” she said sharply. “Leave her alone.”
