Drew in blue, p.15
Drew in Blue, page 15
That was a lie. I have excellent hearing. Even when I'm lodged between a pair of legs, my hearing is stellar. I cleared my throat and tried to figure out a response, but of course I couldn't think of a single smooth way to get past the comment. “Thanks?” More question than response. Not smooth.
At least she finally blinked after I spoke. The not blinking was beginning to creep me out a little. I thought she was going to say something for a second because she took a deep breath and opened her mouth. She was interrupted, however, by the sound of Nick whimpering over the baby monitor.
She snapped her mouth shut and shook her head. “It sounds like someone's getting cranky.”
“Yeah,” I said and rolled out of bed, grabbing for my sweatpants and squirming into them. I was oddly grateful for Nick’s impeccable timing. “Guess I'd better check on him.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Awkwardness. This was not the kind of ending to the night I’d planned. When I reached the doorway, I looked back over my shoulder. She was busy searching for her scattered clothing while trying to keep her body covered with the sheet.
Nick's cries grew louder, and I hesitated outside his door, wondering if he’d had a nightmare or something. But then he let out an uncharacteristic screech that sounded like he was actually in pain. My heart did a sudden flip-flop, and I crept into the darkened room.
He didn't notice me as I maneuvered my way to the crib. A single finger of light shone in from the hallway, enough for me to see him. He was laying on his side, curled up, a frown on his face as he fought to keep his eyes open. I took another step and landed on a squeaky floorboard, causing Nick to snap to attention.
“Guess I'm busted, huh?” I whispered and lifted him up into my arms. He buried his face in my neck and howled his misery to me. I knew this wasn’t a good thing. Nick was a fan of sleeping and rarely let anything distract him from the cause.
“How's he doing?” Valerie raised her voice over Nick's wails when I carried him back to my bedroom.
“Something's up,” I said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and trying to convince him to let me look him over. “Are you going somewhere?” She’d finished dressing and was bent over, pulling on her shoes.
“I probably should let you deal with this.” She gestured at Nick, wincing when he let out a loud bellow and rubbed his face into my shirt. “It sounds like it’s getting a little uh ... involved.”
“Let me get him calmed down and back to sleep.”
Valerie ran her fingers through her hair and glanced at the clock radio on my nightstand. “Um, okay. The thing is, the crying deal? I can't really help. It's loud. I’m not good with loud. And he's showing no signs of letting up. I'll get out of the way and let you do your thing, okay?”
I reached over to the nightstand and picked out one of the socks from the last load of wash I hadn’t bothered to put away yet. Nick's face was soaked with tears and snot, so I used it to clean him up a little. Valerie seemed a little too eager for me to dismiss her. I made a shooing motion with my hand. “Go, escape while you can. I'll call you later.”
Her relief was evident. “Okay, let me know how he is. I'll call you later.” And in a heartbeat, she was gone. If Nick wasn't in such a state, I'd probably be pissed, but what can you do? I turned him towards me, balancing him on my knees.
“Okay,” I said, running my hand over his hair, smoothing the strands that stood out. “What seems to be the problem here? You're hitting high frequency levels, and the dogs in the neighborhood are starting to howl.”
He quieted down a bit and stared back at me. My stomach sank when his lower lip pouched out, quivering, and a giant tear slid down his cheek. Damn, he was good at conjuring up a pathetic look. He kept swatting at the right side of his head, trying to get to his ear. When he got a good handful of lobe, he pulled hard and threw back his head, launching into a fresh round of tears.
“Aw, crap.” I laid the palm of my hand on his face and forehead, checking for signs of fever, but I wasn’t able to gauge his temperature. His face was bright red and sweaty from crying. So I carried him back into his room, dug the digital baby thermometer out of a drawer, and stuck it into the ear he wasn't favoring. Just as I feared, he was running a low-grade fever. I cradled him to my chest, rocking him slightly in hopes the steady motion would relax him. “Ten o'clock at night, kid. Not good to get sick when I can’t call the doctor. Nothing I can do for you until the morning.”
I paced the second floor with Nick, trying to lull him to sleep, but he was having none of it. Desperation was starting to set in. Crying always bothered me. I got flustered too easily, and that stressed him out even more, and I was utterly useless to the poor guy.
After twenty minutes and still no sign of Nick wearing out, I grabbed the cordless extension on my nightstand and punched in Kris' phone number, hoping she’d be able to offer some advice. She answered on the third ring.
“He's tugging his ear and screaming his head off,” I bellowed in greeting. So much for maintaining a grip on my sense of cool.
“I'll be right over.” True to form, the cavalry arrived in record time and I practically threw Nick into Kris’ arms before she’d even gotten through the door.
“Man, he won't stop crying,” I said, my voice cracking. “I'm going insane.”
“Okay,” Kris said. She sat down on the couch and held Nick close. Her attempts to pacify him fell flat, and he only wailed harder. “Where's Val?” she asked.
“She went home.”
“Oh?” One eyebrow arched up in surprise.
“Don't get me started,” I muttered, kicking at one of Nick’s stuffed animals lying abandoned on the floor. “She bailed the second he started crying.”
Kris got to her feet and walked around the living room, gently rocking Nick in her arms as she moved around. “Well, she isn't a mom. Maybe she isn't used to kids.”
“You aren't a mother, but you're here.”
Kris visibly stiffened. She turned around and offered me a strange look that wasn’t easy to interpret. “I know Nick, though. And you called me, so ... there you go.”
“He's going to blow out his vocal chords,” I said and covered my ears with my hands.
“He's quieting down a little.” She smoothed his hair and kissed him on the forehead. “Go get a rag, dampen it, and microwave it until it's toasty warm but not hot.”
In no position to argue since I didn't have a clue how to handle an earache, I followed orders and carried the warm rag back into the living room. “Okay, now what?” Kris took the rag from my hand, handed Nick back to me, and motioned for me to sit down on the couch.
“Now you take care of your kid,” she said, laying the cloth over the ear Nick tugged on at regular intervals. After a moment, she lifted my hand to replace hers.
“What's this going to do?”
“It's going to feel good to him, that's what.”
“How do you know all of this stuff?” Nick's cries had diminished now to little more than snuffles and whimpers. He laid his head on my chest, exhausted.
“Fifteen ear infections by the age of two,” Kris explained. “Mom said a warm rag calmed me down until the antibiotics did their thing.”
It took two more microwave-warmed rags and a dose of some medicine the pediatrician had recommended for such events before Nick fell asleep again. By then, his nose and cheeks shone a deep red from the incessant crying, but he was also too worn out to stay awake. Sleep mattered most to me then, because the doctor wouldn’t be available until morning. I carried him back to bed and made sure to tuck him in just the way he liked.
I rejoined Kris in the living room and sat down next to her, scrubbing my face with my hands. “This is going to be a long night, isn't it?”
“You'd better believe it, bucko.” She patted my leg in sympathy.
This was the first opportunity I’d had to get a look at Kris. I’d been too preoccupied with the baby meltdown to realize she wasn't wearing her usual jeans-and-a-t-shirt combo. She seemed quite put together for such a late hour. “Why are you so dressed up?”
Kris shrugged and smoothed the skirt she wore. “I'm meeting someone for a drink at The Brauhaus.”
“Tonight?” I glanced at the clock, balking at the late hour. “You're meeting someone tonight? It'll be midnight when you get to the bar. What about the festival? I have to take Nick in to the doctor first thing in the morning. Who's going to mind the booth?”
She waited until I’d finished peppering her with questions and then took a deep breath. “It's just a drink, Drew. I said I'd stop by for one drink. I'm sure I'll be out long before the bar closes down for the night. I'll mind the booth until you get back. I'm rather good at managing my schedule. I think I can handle things.”
“Who are you meeting now?”
“Steve,” she said and refused to make eye contact with me. Instead, she stood up and started to tidy up the living room, a classic Kris-style avoidance technique.
I wasn’t about to back down. “Steve who?”
“Steve ... um, something,” she said, straightening a pile of Sports Illustrated magazines strewn across my coffee table.
I let my jaw go slack. She was leaving for a midnight meeting with some guy she didn't know well enough to recall his last name. Warning bells clanged in my head, and I narrowed my eyes, preparing to knock some sense into her. “You don't know his full name, and you're going to run off with him?”
Kris sighed and bent over to pick up a discarded pacifier peeking out from under the armchair. “He told me his last name, but it's one of those names. He's local, so it's either Heller, Keller, Weller, or Deller. You know how things go around here.”
“I don't like it,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed as well. Cheeks grew pink. Her mouth shaped itself into a pucker that didn't suggest she wanted a kiss. She crossed her arms and started to tap her foot. Oh yeah, Kris was getting annoyed. “He works at the paper mill. We're getting some drinks to have the chance to feel each other out.”
“Oh.” I laughed dryly. “I bet he'll feel you out real good.”
“Why does this matter?”
“Why? He might be a psycho,” I said, getting to my feet. “Where did you meet this guy, anyway?”
The pinkness in her cheeks grew into more pronounced splotches of red, and I saw the muscles in her jaw working. She clenched her teeth when she spoke. “I met him at the festival when you and Nick went off to lick all the junk food,” she said. “He’s nice. He complimented my work, and yours, and asked me if I'd have a drink with him. I said yes. Do you have a problem with that?”
“You say yes to any schlep who asks you out for drinks?”
“If they have an ass like Steve has, you'd better believe it,” Kris spat. “He’s nice. I don't get what your damage is over this.”
“Ted Bundy seemed nice,” I shot back, my hands on my hips. “Ask anybody who went out with him. Oh wait, you can't. He chopped off their boobs and killed them.”
“Oh, my God!” Kris whirled around and stomped toward the door, growling. She grabbed her purse from the table in the foyer, flung the front door open, and turned to face me. “You're the only psycho I know,” she said, stabbing the air in front of her with her index finger. “You're insane. Certifiable. I'm going to The Brauhaus, now. Do me a favor and get a lobotomy before you show up at the booth tomorrow, okay? Otherwise, you'll scare the straights.”
With those parting words, she stormed out, but I hadn’t finished with her yet. I rushed out to the porch and stared at her as she fumbled in her purse for her keys.
“Hey, little tip,” I called across the yard while she unlocked the truck door. “If he asks you what size hat you wear, run. He probably wants to find out if your head would fit the totem pole of skulls he's building in his basement.”
She climbed into the truck, started the engine, and rolled down the driver-side window. “Good night, freak show!” she yelled, flipping me the bird and adding a burnout for emphasis as she pulled away from the curb.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Loud banging and muffled curses drifted through the air as I approached the booth the next morning. Kris was not in a good mood, it appeared, and I was about to enter the lion's den. The frame of the structure shook and I hesitated outside, not yet ready to face her after last night's weirdness.
I glanced up at the sky, noting a smattering of storm clouds hovering over the mountains in the distance. They hung low and dark but judging by westerly breeze, I doubted we’d see any rain that day. Too bad, I thought. I’d rather get struck by lightning than deal with a cranky Kris.
The problem of drumming up the nerve to go in solved itself when she burst out through the opening and tossed a pile of hubcaps onto the main path. I’d been exposed and there was no turning back.
“Are you going to stand around like a moron or are you going to get in here and help me?” Kris ducked back into the booth, disappearing behind the canvas flap.
Another hubcap whizzed past my head, and I took a defensive step back. “Depends on what we're doing,” I called in after her. “If you're looking to decapitate people with that stuff, I'm out.”
Kris stepped back outside and placed her hands on her hips. “Where's Nick?” She didn’t wait for me to answer the first question before moving on to the next. “Did you go to the pediatrician?”
Saturday appointments at the pediatrician’s office were scheduled on an emergency basis only, so I had to call Jared Ensminger’s answering service. When he finally called back, Nick's constant screeching in the background convinced him of the urgency of our situation.
Nick came out with an ear infection diagnosis, a fresh batch of baby acetaminophen, and some antibiotics. He seemed in better spirits once the acetaminophen kicked in, so I called Carrie Lehr and begged her to babysit for the day, giving me the chance to focus on the festival sales without worrying about Nick too much. I filled Kris in on the details and went into the booth to make sure everything was ready for a new day.
Kris followed me inside. “Is he okay?”
Two folding camping chairs leaned up against the beam in the corner of the tent. I claimed one of the seats as my own and made myself comfortable once I’d positioned it. “He's tired and unhappy, but he's doped up, so it's all good.” Nick wasn't the only tired person in the family. I’d slept for two hours at best.
“How much is Carrie charging for this?”
Carrie could fund a trip to the Bahamas with her charges for the day. I let out a loud snort. “Idi Amin has a weekend sin tax of ten dollars on top of her normal fees.”
“Sin tax?” Kris arched her eyebrow in disbelief and filled two Styrofoam cups with coffee from a thermos.
“The sin is asking her to work on a weekend.” The girl was evil – Satan’s spawn. And she’d get away with it, too. She was the only CPR certified high-schooler in a four mile radius, and she claimed her skills put her in high demand among the parental set. At least, they did with the ones who had enough dough to be able to afford her rates. “She also adds a fifteen dollar flat charge for taking care of sick kids for over four hours. She says it’s because her immune system is put in jeopardy. I really don't like her.”
“The girl is brilliant.” Kris handed me a cup of coffee, then unfolded another camping chair for herself. “If I’d been half as cunning when I was her age, I'd be rich.” She sat down and blew on her coffee to cool it. “Have you talked to Val?”
“No.” The coffee scalded my tongue when I took a sip, and I nearly doused myself when I jerked the cup away from my mouth. Naturally, this didn't distract Kris from her line of questioning.
“Are you going to call her?”
“I don't know.”
“Are you mad at her?”
“I don't know.”
Kris slouched down in her seat and let her head loll back. “You know what? You're an effort. So she didn't handle a crying baby well. Nick is a lot to take sometimes.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I sat up straighter and glared at her.
“I mean, crying Nick is ... intense,” she said. “Maybe she got a little scared. God knows he still scares you. Scares me, too.”
“He's sick,” I muttered.
“I know he is,” she said, scowling. “I may not be a mother, but I don’t need you to tell me he’s sick. I can see it with my own two eyes.”
I winced at the sharpness in her voice. “Got something else you’re pissed at me about?”
She shrugged. “Not especially,” she muttered.
I leaned forward in my seat. “What’s the deal?”
Kris blew out a disgusted breath of air. “There is no deal. Other than you getting dodgy because your girlfriend didn’t react the way you wanted her to react when Nick started to pitch a fit.”
