The Grand Finale Read online

  “And then you were broke?”

  “Well, I didn’t have my nest egg anymore, but I had social security and some money from Edward’s pension. It was enough to pay for my apartment but not enough to buy one of the new condos. And what with the cost of living now, it’s hard to find another apartment I can afford.”

  The door to the pizza shop opened and a rangy, scraggly-bearded kid strolled in. Berry assessed him at late teens. He was wearing a lumpy, wrinkled raincoat and a navy knit hat over brown, shoulder-length hair. It was midmorning and not a lot of people came in for pizza midmorning.

  “Can I help you?” Mrs. Fitz asked.

  “Maybe,” he said.

  His eyes darted around the room, taking in the ovens and the workstation and the three small tables with chairs for walk-in customers.

  “We don’t have any pizzas for take-out made up yet,” Mrs. Fitz said. “But we’d be happy to take an order.”

  The kid took a semiautomatic out of his raincoat pocket and pointed it at Mrs. Fitz. “How about you just empty your cash register,” he said.

  Berry and Mrs. Fitz froze.

  “Now!” he said.

  Berry carefully moved to the cash register. “We haven’t got much money,” she said to him. “We just opened up.”

  “Whatever,” the kid said. “Just hand it over.”

  “Honestly,” Mrs. Fitz said to him. “Don’t you have anything better to do than to rob two women? You should be ashamed.”

  “And you should be dead,” the kid said. “How old are you, anyway?”

  Mrs. Fitz narrowed her eyes and gripped the sauce ladle. “I’m not too old to take care of you. You need to learn some manners.”

  Berry had a hundred dollars in twenties and fives in the cash register. She gathered them up and held them out to the kid.

  The kid moved to Berry, reached for the money, and Mrs. Fitz whacked him on his head with the sauce spoon. Pizza sauce splattered everywhere, and the kid’s eyes went blank for a moment. Mrs. Fitz gave him another klonk on the head, and he staggered back and dropped the gun.

  “Are you okay?” Mrs. Fitz said to him. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  The kid shook his head and looked at his hand. “I’m bleeding. You just about killed me.” And he turned and ran out the door and down the street.

  “It was pizza sauce,” Mrs. Fitz said.

  Berry dialed the police and reported the attempted robbery.

  “They’re sending someone over,” she told Mrs. Fitz. “Lock the door until the police get here and leave the gun on the floor. And don’t tell anyone else about this.” Especially don’t tell Jake, she thought.

  It was ten o’clock at night and Berry and Jake sat in the dark, looking out the window of his station wagon.

  “I’ll be right back,” Berry said. “This is the last pizza of the night. As soon as I get this sucker delivered we can go home.”

  “Sit tight,” Jake said. “I’ll deliver it.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve got it.”

  “The hell you do. I’m delivering this pizza.”

  “It’s my job, my Pizza Place, my pizza.”

  Jake looked at the dingy yellow brick apartment building. “It’s late, and that’s a four-story walk-up in a lousy neighborhood. I’m not going to sit here cooling my heels while you’re in some dark hallway quietly getting mugged.”

  “I’ve delivered pizzas here before.”

  “Good. Now it’s my turn,” he said, grabbing the pizza box. “Lock the doors when I get out.”

  Berry grabbed the other side of the box and tugged. “You’ll deliver this pizza when pigs fly.”

  Jake gasped and looked out the window. “Look at that!”

  Berry strained to see. “What?”

  Jake jumped from behind the wheel with the pizza and slammed the door shut behind him. “Flying pigs,” he called to Berry.

  Berry narrowed her eyes. “Son of a beet!”

  She stomped into the building and climbed the stairs, catching Jake on the third floor.

  “I hate being told what to do,” Berry said to Jake. “Nobody can tell me what to do. This is my business. That was my pizza.”

  “After we’re married this will be a community property pizza. You might as well get used to it.”

  “Read my lips. We’re not getting married.”

  “You’ll come around,” Jake said, knocking on an apartment door.

  “If I wasn’t so tired from all those stairs, I’d kick you in the knee,” Berry said.

  The door opened and an old guy with a lot of tattoos and gray hair tied back into a pony-tail looked out at them. “What is this, tag team pizza delivery?”

  “She’s crazy about me,” Jake said to the old guy. “Follows me everywhere. That’ll be ten bucks for the pizza.”

  The guy handed the money to Jake. “I should have problems like that,” the guy said.

  “It’s not as good as it looks,” Jake told him. “She snoops in men’s windows and once she smashed my pizza.”

  “She don’t look violent,” the guy said.

  “Looks can be deceiving.”

  Berry turned on her heel and stomped down the stairs. She was all the way to the foyer before Jake caught up with her.

  “That was embarrassing,” Berry said to Jake.

  “Yeah, but he gave me a nice pity tip,” Jake said. “We might have something here.” Jake opened the downstairs door and stared at the empty street. “Where’s the car?”

  It was almost one o’clock in the morning when Jake and Berry trudged through the front door of his house. They silently made their way to the kitchen and began fixing a midnight snack of gigantic proportions. They carried the contents of the refrigerator to the round oak table and in the silvery light of moonbeams scoffed down pickles, sandwiches, ice cream, potato salad, and a pint of strawberries.

  Jake pushed back from the table while Berry picked at the last strawberry.

  “It’s okay,” Jake said. “I’ll rent a new car in the morning. The police were pretty reasonable, considering that’s the second car we’ve had stolen in less than a week.”

  “In less than a week I’ve squashed a Jeep, I’ve had two cars stolen, and my apartment’s been charbroiled.” And I’ve almost been robbed at gunpoint, she silently added. “Do you think someone’s trying to tell me something?”

  Jake shrugged. “That’s just the negative side. What about the plus side?”

  “What have I got on the plus side?”

  “Our friendship.”

  Berry’s heart got happy. Jake Sawyer thought their friendship was important. Imagine that. He liked her! He really liked her. She thought about their earlier conversation in the basement and his cavalier assumption that they’d get married. Was he serious? She rolled her eyes. Of course not! You don’t just come out and announce to a woman that you’re going to marry her and have a hundred kids and community property pizza. Besides, he’d had plenty of time to continue the conversation in the car on the way back to his house, but he’d never raised the subject. A wave of disappointment washed over her. Oh, great, she thought with a grimace. Disappointment. I’m in big trouble here. My emotional clock is not in tune with my plan.

  She would have to be strong. She would refuse to fall in love—and if she already was in love she would refuse to admit it. What she needed was some good old-fashioned hostility. A mean streak to cover up all those cozy feelings.

  Jake took her hand in his and tenderly kissed the inside of her wrist.

  Berry snatched her hand away. “Don’t kiss my wrist.”

  “Okay. What would you like me to kiss?”

  “I don’t want you to kiss anything.”

  “What a load of baloney.” He took her hand back and kissed the soft center of her palm. “How about if I kiss your—”

  “Don’t you dare!”

  He sucked on the tip of her index finger. “Can I kiss it in the shower?”

  “We’re not taking a sho
wer. Stop that!” She swallowed hard when he resumed the sucking, this time touching his tongue to the tip of her finger. She bopped him on the side of the head with a bag of bread. “I said stop that.”

  “Playing hard to get, huh?”

  “I’m not playing anything.” Berry stood at the table. “You’re going to have to go home.”

  “I am home.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot.” She carted the pickle jars and packages of lunchmeat to the refrigerator, feeling like the village idiot. She wasn’t good at this sort of thing. She was too inexperienced, too overwhelmed by his sexuality, too easily flustered by her own attraction to him.

  Upstairs a door creaked open, and one of the ladies padded down the carpeted hall to the bathroom.

  Jake put the last of the dishes in the dishwasher. “I’ll bet you a dollar it’s Mrs. Dugan. I can tell by that authoritarian thump, thump, thump of her slippers.”

  “Mrs. Dugan’s keeping her eye on you.”

  “I know. She has her radar tuned to the sound of lips meeting.” He pulled Berry into the circle of his arms. “I think we should put it to a test. Let’s see how fast we can get Mrs. Dugan out of the bathroom.”

  She really shouldn’t be kissing him, she thought, but this was sort of a scientific experiment. Who was she to stand in the way of science?

  “This is the first of the good-night kisses,” Jake told her. His warm lips brushed hers, and his hands splayed across her lower back, pressing her gently into him. When he spoke, his voice whispered into her mouth. “There are all kinds of good-night kisses. There are good-night kisses when you’re done making love and you know it’s been a very special night.” He kissed the sensitive spot just below her ear and moved his hand to her breast. “And there are good-night kisses that are the prelude to making love. Kisses that are hungry and impatient.” His hand tightened slightly.

  The bathroom door opened and feet traversed the upstairs hallway, stopping at the head of the stairs. “Somebody down there?”

  “It’s just us, Mrs. Dugan,” Jake answered. “We were having a bite to eat before coming to bed.”

  “It’s late. It’s time nice young ladies were in bed.”

  “I’m trying,” Jake sighed.

  “Alone!”

  “Why couldn’t you adopt a bunch of old ladies who were hard of hearing?” Jake asked Berry.

  Berry smiled in spite of herself. “And then there are good-night kisses that simply say, Good night.”

  Chapter 6

  He was doing it again. He was dressing in front of her. The man was a flaming exhibitionist. Berry huddled under her covers and listened to the sounds of buttons and zippers. He had no modesty. He had no scruples.

  “Aren’t you dressed yet?” she asked.

  “Why don’t you come out from under those covers and find out?”

  Berry didn’t have to come out from under the covers. She knew he wasn’t dressed. She could tell by the goose bumps on her arm. Damn him, anyway.

  “Why do you have to get dressed in my room?”

  “Because this is my room, too. Because this is where my clothes are. Because there are little old ladies occupying both bathrooms, and I’m in a hurry this morning. Because I get my kicks this way, and with Mrs. Dugan around kicks are hard to come by—you have to take them when you can.” He pulled the covers back and kissed her forehead. “You should have looked. It would have been a lot more fun.”

  He was wearing gray slacks, and a blue button-down shirt. Berry watched him move to his closet and select a tie from a well-stocked rack. “Did you really want me to look?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You would have been the only one undressed. Wouldn’t you have been embarrassed?”

  “Yeah. That’s the fun part. You know what happens when men get embarrassed? They get—”

  “I know what they get. And you’d better not!”

  He gave his tie a small tug and turned to face her. “What do you think? Do I look like a first-grade teacher?”

  Berry thought he looked more like a fully clothed model for a Chippendale’s calendar. She sat up in bed and told her heart to stop jumping around like that. He was just a man, for goodness’ sake. An ordinary man wearing a pair of pants that were perfectly tailored across his slim hips and nifty butt. An ordinary man wearing a shirt that was exquisitely cut to fit luscious broad shoulders and a just-right muscled chest that tapered down to a hard, flat stomach. Why on earth was she getting so tense over this ordinary man?

  Because he wasn’t ordinary. He was totally delicious and she should have looked. She was a fool not to have looked. After all, she had already seen almost all of him. There was only about five or six inches left to her imagination. The memory of those six inches could probably have carried her through old age. She stared at him in her best attempt at unblinking serenity.

  “You look very nice,” she said. “Any first grader would be proud to have you for a teacher.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “I have to run. I’ve called the rental agency. They’re sending a car around for you to use. Should be here by eight o’clock.”

  A cab beeped in the driveway. Jake took keys and loose change from the bureau top and grabbed a navy blazer from the closet.

  Berry listened to him bound down the stairs and out the door. She sprang from her bed and rushed to her window for one last glimpse of him. Too late. He was gone. He was dressed. “Dammit,” she whispered, “I really should have looked.”

  She was still thinking about it at the breakfast table when she noticed an unusual silence. Everyone was watching her.

  “Something wrong?” Berry asked.

  “No,” Mrs. Fitz said.

  “Nothing?”

  “Uh-uh. Nothing wrong with me,” Mrs. Dugan said.

  Berry looked at the clean teacups and unused cereal bowls. “Not eating?”

  “Maybe later.”

  “In a minute.”

  “Not just yet.”

  “Not even tea?” Berry asked.

  Mrs. Fitz fidgeted in her seat. “Well, we brewed some. We just haven’t gotten around to drinking it yet.”

  Berry poured herself a bowl of cereal and reached for the milk. She stopped short. “Oh.”

  “Something wrong, dear?”

  “No. Of course not.” She stared at the milk carton. She stared at the cereal. It looked like raisin bran. She gently pushed the raisins around with the tip of her finger. She raised her eyes to the three women. “Looks like raisin bran.”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so, too.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Berry sniffed at the bowl. “Smells like raisin bran.”

  “Does it?”

  “That’s good.”

  Mrs. Fitz narrowed her eyes. “Okay, pour the milk in.”

  Berry pushed the bowl over to her. “You pour the milk in.”

  Mrs. Fitz pushed the bowl back. “Not me. No way. No, sir. Took me half an hour to get the cereal out of my hair yesterday.”

  Berry compressed her lips. “This is ridiculous. This is just plain old raisin bran.” She moved her seat back a few inches and dribbled some milk into her bowl. Nothing happened.

  “Stir it,” Mrs. Fitz suggested.

  Berry stirred it. It didn’t crackle or pop. It didn’t fly out into space. It didn’t even bloat. “Raisin bran.”

  Mrs. Fitz filled her bowl. “Thank the Lord, I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”

  Miss Gaspich served tea, and all three women sipped timidly.

  “Tastes like tea,” Miss Gaspich offered.

  Mrs. Dugan agreed.

  Mrs. Fitz swallowed a spoonful of cereal. “Don’t know whether I’m relieved or disappointed, but I’ll tell you one thing. Tomorrow morning I’m getting up in time to have breakfast with Jake. From now on he eats everything first.”

  Berry ladled a generous helping of tomato sauce onto a pizza round and covered it with mozzarella. She drizzled a smidgen of olive oil and fresh ba
sil across the masterpiece and looked up as the front door swung open and Jake sidled through carrying two grocery bags. He was followed by an elderly man, also carrying a grocery bag. From the corner of her eye Berry saw Mrs. Fitz wipe her hands on her apron and pat her hair into place.

  “Bandit at six o’clock,” Mrs. Fitz whispered, “I’m going in for the kill.”

  “Mrs. Fitz, you’ve been watching too much television.”

  “Movies. Isn’t that Brad Pitt a honey?”

  Jake set the bags on the counter and extracted four plastic cartons containing salad. “Where’s Miss Gaspich and Mrs. Dugan?”

  “Their night off.”

  Jake pulled a stool up to the counter. “Here you go, Harry. We’re missing two ladies. Guess you’ll have to eat lots of salad.” Jake made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “Berry and Mrs. Fitz, I’d like you to meet my good friend Harry Fee.”

  Mrs. Fitz held out her hand. “My name’s Lena. Here’s a fork. You want to go to the movies later?”

  Berry raised her eyebrows at Jake. “I’d like to see you back by the refrigerator, please.”

  Jake brought a bag with him and haphazardly transferred food from the bag to the refrigerator.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Berry whispered.

  “Putting the food away.”

  “I don’t mean about the food. Wait a minute, why are you putting all this food in here? Yogurt? Oranges? Is this tuna salad?”

  “You never eat anything. When the ladies were upstairs they made you come up for supper. Now that they’re at my house you make do with candy bars.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I have my sources.”

  “It’s a lie. I take good care of myself…most of the time,” Berry said.

  “Nobody could take care of herself with the schedule you’re running. You’re suffering from too little time and too little money. You study for school while you roll out pizza dough, and you’re wearing running shoes that are held together with surgical tape because you’re trying to save money to buy a new Jeep. If that isn’t enough, you constantly let your heart rule your head. The ladies are lovely people, but they require naps, they can’t drive, they can’t deliver.” He paused and looked longingly at Berry’s mouth. “They can’t kiss.”