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Of course, it had been several days since I checked my mail, but seventeen messages was an all-time high. I listened to the messages as I got out the ingredients for my salad, thinking most of the messages would be Duke and Rosie sightings.
I was wrong.
The news had spread that Lee and I were together and every girlfriend I’d ever had, even some who had moved out of town and one who lived in England, felt it necessary to phone and get the lowdown first hand. Both Marianne and Andrea had called (Marianne twice), demanding updates.
For women far and wide who knew him, hooking up with Lee was a hot news item. Lee was the Holy Grail of boyfriend-dom. Especially since it was me who had been on the sacred quest for many long, fruitless years. They all wanted the facts,allthe facts.
If I but breathed a word of what it actually was like to kiss Lee, be held by Lee, or, dear Lord, what Lee looked like naked, I might cause a riot, even a war. I might have to arm myself and fight them all back lest Lee be torn limb from limb.
It was for the better health of the female population and peace in the land that I kept my mouth shut.
Of course, I had kinda told Andrea, but I’d kept Andrea’s Richie Sambora secret. She’d keep my Lee secret, no sweat.
I made a pot of strong coffee and started cutting up pickles and onions and I let my mind wander.
Lee had made it pretty clear that I meant something to him and this was the cause of the joy that I couldn’t quite tamp down. He didn’t like me thinking I was a quick fuck. He didn’t like me crying. He didn’t like me trembling. And hereallydidn’t like it when Terrible Teddy punched me in the face.
I shivered a little bit at what might have happened to Teddy if Lee’s boys had picked him up as Lee ordered.
Which brought me to the subject of just who Lee was. He said I didn’t have a fucking clue, and at the rate he’d surprised me the last couple of days, I was thinking he was right.
I ran down the facts.
I thought Lee thought of me as his little sister. That obviously was not the case.
Lee had a workforce, people he employed. At least two of them, three if you counted Judy, the housekeeper. There were likely more. This meant responsibility and dependability. This meant people counted on him to keep them paid so they could put food on their table and roofs over their heads. This meant that somewhere along the line, Lee had become disturbingly grown up.
I, on the other hand, was avoiding growing up. My grandmother never grew up. I remembered many a time when my grandfather said to my grandmother, “Ellen, some day you’re gonna have to grow up.” And Gram would always say, “Why would I do a fool thing like that?”
I agreed with my grandmother. Growing up didn’t sound like much fun. Growing up meant diaper bags, ironing your clothes and balancing your checkbook. That seemed really boring and I was avoiding it.
Then there was the fact that Lee seemed to be a little bit better at this relationship stuff than I was. It had only been a couple of days, but he talked casually about going out to dinner or when he’d pick me up from the store. He seemed pretty comfortable with me in his bed, in his house, my clothes in his drawers, my toothbrush next to his.
How this could be when Lee went through women like water was beyond me.
Granted, the longest relationship I’d had lasted eight months, but there was a reason for that. None of the guys were Lee.
Now that it seemed like I had Lee, would I drive him away with my thrashing around in bed (although he seemed to have conquered that obstacle pretty quickly)? Then there were my crazy escapades with Ally, although he’d had a lifetime of that and always seemed to find it amusing. Of course, there was also my somewhat crazy and uncontrollable bent towards doing stupid shit all the time, although he was showing alarming dexterity at cleaning up the messes I made. And, of course, my hell bent independence and need for space, although he’d also managed to get by that by forcing me out of my space and into his. And his space was rather nice, with a great view and a housekeeper.
Yikes.
Finally, there was the scary part of Lee.
My dad was a cop. The danger level to that job was a lot higher than most and I’d lived with it my whole life. I knew it and understood it. I didn’t like it but I was proud of him. He was one of the good guys that made the world safe. The world needed guys like Dad, Malcolm and Hank, and the people in their lives had to give them space to do their jobs or we’d all be up shit creek.
Lee was…I didn’t know.
Death didn’t freak him out. He seemed to wander around comfortably both in the sunny real world that I inhabited and the slimy underworld that I hoped was temporary for me.
For Lee, bad guys had nicknames.
For Lee, driving twenty miles per hour over the speed limit, weaving in and out of crowded midday traffic on Speer Boulevard was like a Sunday drive.
Lee was offended at the thought that he’d botch a B and E. Lee oozed so much authority that crazy guys like Tex did what he ordered without comment. Lee was so dangerous that even Goon Gary and Creepy Terry Wilcox barely could hide their fear of him.
I dumped the cooked macaroni in the colander, rinsed it and left it to cool.
Then I went upstairs and slathered my body in factor 8 suntan oil that smelled deliciously coconutty. I dressed in my turquoise bikini that had the silver hoop between my boobs and the ones holding the material together at my hips and wrapped a sarong around my hips, tying it in a big knot at the front.
