“Jet! I didn’t think you’d come!”
Tex lumbered up to the table just as Eddie turned from having his back to me to looking at me. Eddie’s expression was kind of benign when he turned (though he also looked kinda curious, or at least it seemed that way to me) but the minute he clapped eyes on me, he froze and stared.
“Jee-zus, woman, look at you!” Tex boomed, “Fuckin’ A if you don’t clean up good. You look like that behind the counter at Fortnum’s, we’d have a line out the fuckin’ door!” I wanted to run. I didn’t want everyone looking at me.
I looked at Indy to give her my apologies when Indy said,
“Did you make those chocolate caramel things you said you were gonna make?”
“Yeah, right here.” I pointed to them and then said,
“Listen, I’m so sorry. I gotta go. I’ve got something else on that I can’t miss.”
“Hot date?” Tex asked, reaching for a chocolate caramel layer square.
I chanced a look at Eddie out of the corner of my eye and he was stil staring at me, no longer a frozen stare, there was activity behind his eyes, lots of it. Just nothing I could understand. I stopped trying to look at Eddie without looking like I was looking at Eddie and answered Tex, “Not exactly.”
“Shame.” Tex bit into the square, chewed twice and his eyes got huge, “Fuck! ” he exploded, chocolate and caramel flying out of his mouth. My heart seized. He looked like he was going to have a chocolate-caramel-layer-square-induced heart attack.
“Tex!” Indy yel ed, “You’re spewing al over the food!” Tex ignored Indy and was staring at me.
“These are unbe-fucking-lievable. I think I’ve final y fal en in love, with a fuckin’ brownie!” It was a nice thing to say, especial y from Tex. I smiled at him, ful -on, forgetting for a second that Eddie was there.
Only a second, because Eddie muttered something under his breath and I looked at him, stil smiling a bit. Then, I realized where I was, about four inches away from Eddie Chavez, and the smile died on my face. He was stil staring at me, but now he was staring at my mouth.
I felt my knees get a bit weak.
There was one thing on my mind… escape, escape, escape!
I turned back to Indy, “Thanks for asking me. Please ask me again.”
Indy was looking at Eddie when I talked to her and I noticed that so was Hank. Then both Indy and Hank’s eyes moved back to me and they both were sort of grinning.
“You’re always invited, girl,” Indy said.
It felt tremendously cool that she said that to me and I smiled at her. Then, there was a break in the crush behind me, I started to go but Eddie grabbed my wrist.
“Hang on, Jet,” he said.
I looked down at my wrist, then up at him. I felt his touch everywhere. It was like his fingers hit a switch and I was a light bulb and he turned me on, a total-body, electric shock.
Panic went through me and I pul ed my wrist away. If I hadn’t, I’d have thrown myself at him, right in front of his date. That would have been far more humiliating than the cup incident, I’m pretty sure.
His hands came up, palms out and his face closed down.
“What?” I asked, because I couldn’t string two words together. Even if someone told me they could cure my Mom, make her walk steady and give her back her arm, I stil couldn’t have said more than “what”.
“Forget it,” he said and turned away.
That’s when I fled.
*
That was strike two. Strike three was even worse.
*
For the next couple of months, I total y avoided Eddie. This was kind of hard to do, considering he was most definitely not avoiding me.
Before Indy’s party, Eddie came in every once in awhile, got a cup of coffee, had a chat and left. After Indy’s party, Eddie came in al the time, got a cup of coffee, had a chat and hung around to torture me.
Let me explain about Eddie Torture.
Once, Jane and I were going through a box of used books that Jane bought. We were going to put some on the shelves, but most of them were going in the dol ar bin.
I was crouched down and I had on a pair of those low-rider jeans and a fitted, square-necked, long-sleeved, plum-colored t-shirt. In the crouch, the jeans came down; the hem of the tee went up, completely exposing the smal of my back. The bel over the front door jangled and I turned to see Eddie walk in, cool, mirrored sunglasses covering his eyes. He took them off, looked down at me, and his eyes moved to my behind.
Immediately I said to Jane, “Let’s take these to the counter.” And I stood, picking up the box.
Unfortunately, the box weighed a ton and I staggered back, right into Eddie, who’d somehow managed to make it the six feet from the door to me in that short expanse of time.
Instead of just putting out a hand to steady me, both of his hands came to my hips, low on my hips, fingers splayed wide so his fingertips rested on my pelvic bones.