The South Side Tour Guide Page 8

The kids squandered no time rushing back to their rooms, stomping about like two bison calves. Andy climbed the stairs and peered around the master suite, the room his sister had once shared with Harden. Neat and tidy. No further signs of Lilly or her featured scent, or anything he might construe as feminine. Other than maybe a portrait of Harden and Lillian in a silver frame etched with fleur-de-lis that sat on the bureau.

  He set down his coffee mug and lifted the photograph, gazing at the happy and smiling couple. The picture had been taken in Cancun at what appeared to be an outdoor nightclub, where Harden and Lillian had first met while vacationing with friends. Tanned, grinning faces and sparkling eyes stared back at Andy. They were much younger then, in their midtwenties, healthy and alive. Six months after meeting, they’d married.

  The photo, Andy knew, was twelve years old. It might have been taken last week. Harden looked much the same, maybe ten pounds heavier today with a rounder face. But those same puffy cheeks! He mentally kicked himself for not being more available to him and the kids. Time stood still, but it also raced headlong. A lifetime had passed.

  Heartaches and disappointments had shaped Andy into a different person from those times—a man he’d like to keep hidden away during the daylight hours and bring out only at night. He’d learned to profit from his self-loathing and discontent with the world. Harden? He faced special challenges. How had he changed?

  Life’s bumps must have altered him in profound ways too, although Andy found him much the same as he remembered him. The good-natured, laidback country boy with a heart of gold had greeted Andy yesterday afternoon, busting a grin and ready with a firm handshake.

  Andy had read somewhere that if you stretch before exercising you should always stretch; if you never practice stretching then you should avoid it altogether. In other words, either for eternity or never. And here he stood in his sister’s former bedroom, inserting himself in the Krane household after a three-year absence. Stretching and stretching…. He could hear and feel the crack of his joints.

  He replaced the photograph and found Harden’s swimming “trunks” in the top drawer. Dark-blue, basic board shorts. Typical Harden Krane style. They still held onto a musky odor. Why do straight men believe they never have to wash swimsuits because they get wet?

  Andy carried the trunks into the master bathroom, which looked exactly how Andy had imagined for a bachelor like Harden. Organized, yet everything within easy reach. Deodorant, toothpaste, lotions—even a near-empty jar of Vaseline, which gave Andy’s heart an unanticipated palpitation—all arranged on top of the counter. The smell of Harden’s spicy aftershave still lingered.

  He stripped off his clothes and coated himself with the suntan lotion he found on the counter. Checking his reflection (leg rested on toilet seat, rounded butt profiled nicely), he decided he looked pretty good. “A killer body for a thirty-six-year-old,” Ken had mentioned from time to time. But he could use some sun. With his new career working nights, he’d slept much of the days away and hadn’t gotten as tan as previous summers. At least the bruises from his beating had faded to a faint jaundice.

  Funny how he’d become aroused once he slipped on Harden’s funky trunks. Perhaps it was the snug fit. The trunks highlighted one of his better assets. He adjusted himself, squatting three or four times to loosen the seat. But who would care how he looked in Bumfuck, Iowa?

  Just don’t go shaking your ass all over the place, Andrew.

  Olivia and Mason were waiting for him in the entrance foyer when Andy, dressed again in his T-shirt and cargo shorts over his swimsuit, galloped downstairs. The kids clutched their tote bags, bounced on toes comfy-looking inside colorful flip-flops.

  Outside, while ushering the kids into the van, Andy noticed Kamila glaring at him from the kitchen window. He hooked his Oakleys over his ears and waved to her with a touch of sarcasm. She grimaced and turned away.

  They arrived just after the park opened, and the place was empty save for a small group of children playing in the shallow end of the main pool. Andy and the kids placed their belongings on three corner lounge chairs and undressed down to their swimsuits.

  Olivia spotted an eagle perched in a tree outside the pool grounds and shouted for them to look. Andy’s cell phone dinged at the precise moment the eagle flew off. Ken with a text message. Feeling better this morning?

  Andy replied: Not bad, at pool, saw eagle.

  Fun, Ken responded. He added that they had no new leads in Andy’s assault and battery case. As if Andy expected them to nab anyone.

  With kids, talk later, Andy wrote and clicked off.

  “Hey, Krane,” one of the towheaded boys in the pool shouted. “Where’s your mom, huh? Is that guy your new mommy?”

  Mason squinted from the sun sparkling off the surface of the water. “You just keep talking, Randy Lederman. I’ll sock you like I did Mike Tuelong.”

  “You barely pinched him.”

  Andy dropped to his haunches, eye level with Olivia. “Who’s that?”

  “That’s one of the boys who always teases us.”

  Andy straightened and squared his shoulders. “Hey, little boy,” he hollered to him. “I see your mom. Over there, in the trees, swinging from the branches.”

  The children looked where Andy pointed. “What’re you talking about? My mother’s not even here,” Randy Lederman said, his face souring.

  “She’s swinging in the trees, like a monkey.”

  The other children began laughing along with Olivia and Mason. Red-faced, Randy slapped the water and swam away. On the far side of the pool, Andy could see him climb out and tattle to a lifeguard. She glared in Andy’s direction and went back to surveying the swimming pool without budging from her tall chair.

  “Well,” Andy said, wiping his hands dramatically, “I guess that takes care of little Randy what’s his name.”

  Mason grinned at him. “Thanks, Uncle Andy.”

  “No problem, Mason. Now, who wants to play dive for the nickel?”

  Mason and Olivia jumped into the pool without a care for testing it first. Kids must have the skin of hippopotamuses. Andy dug through his cargo shorts and stood poolside. The other children joined them, five altogether.

  “The first one to surface with the nickel wins.” He tossed the coin, and the children disappeared under sparkling splashes and gurgling bubbles. Olivia struggled to the bottom. She kicked and slapped the surface. Another boy came up for air, showcasing the nickel pinched between pudgy fingers.

  Andy set aside his sunglasses and eased himself into the tepid water, keeping his arms above the surface until he acclimated to the temperature. He took the nickel from the boy and said, “Keep a close eye on it, now.” He tossed it again, this time farther out toward the shallower end.

  With the water barely above chin level, poor Olivia looked to be tiring fast while she struggled to dog paddle. She gave a gallant effort and never once showed signs of disappointment each of the times she came up empty. Mason berated himself the times he failed at retrieving the coin. But he cheered louder than the others the two times he clenched it first. Andy arbitrated a minor scuffle between Mason and another boy when the coin slipped from one of their fingers. To keep the peace, Andy said, “Do over.” They played the nickel game until his arm tired.

  “You guys play amongst yourselves now,” he said, giving one final toss of the coin.

  He used the side ladder to climb out of the pool while the kids scrambled for the nickel, and stretched over Mason’s Spider-Man beach towel. Replacing his sunglasses, he rested the back of his head on the lounge chair and sighed. Relaxation.

  The children’s giggles and the familiar scent of chlorine and wet cement brought back bittersweet memories for Andy. He could almost see him and Lillian playing at Streamwood’s public pool. They used to spend hours swimming, until their skin wrinkled like a shar-pei’s. Afterward, they’d climb the mulberry trees abutting the facility and nibble the succulent, dark fruit. Other children would join them, and from
a distance they must have looked like a swarm of monkeys. They cared little that their fingers were coated in black and the sticky berry juice ran down their chins and necks.

  Pool water drying on his skin gave him a tingle. Thank goodness the awakening yellow jackets kept to the bushes. More arriving children added to the giggles that merged with the singing of the birds in the trees bordering the center. Occasional whiffs of honeysuckle from the trellis outside the bathrooms masked the ever-present smell of livestock dung that lingered even in town.

  Mason and Olivia raced up to him. Puddles of water accumulated at their feet. “Can we play under the mushroom waterfall?” Mason asked.

  Andy glanced toward the wading pool with the protruding mushroom sculpture that oozed water from its sides. “Sure.” He shrugged. “Have fun and be careful.”

  He stretched back over the lounge chair and the sound of the kids’ bare feet slapping against the pavement faded. But before he closed his eyes, a strange awareness forced his head toward the cluster of elms outside the pool. He sat upright, peered harder over his lowered sunglasses. He couldn’t distinguish a figure, but a pair of cold eyes gazed at him. He knew the difference between a casual glance and a penetrating, harsh glare, even from a stealthy distance.

  He looked over at little Randy, wrapped in a towel and shivering on the side of the pool next to the lifeguard chair. Mason and Olivia and a few other children darted in and out under the mushroom. By the time Andy turned back to the elm trees, the eyes had vanished.

  Don’t get paranoid, Andy boy. Chicago is two hundred miles away. No one out here wants to get you.

  Chapter 12

  THE solvent stench at work bothered Harden less that day. Andrew’s—Andy’s—company at the house after such a long absence blossomed like a fragrant orchid and provided longed-for peace of mind. Last night, realizing Andy slept beneath the family gave Harden an added sense of serenity. Another adult to help him with his load. Even if for a short week.

  It was approaching two o’clock, but knowing the kids’ love of water, Harden guessed they must still be swimming. He was going to send a text to Mason or Andy but decided to leave them alone. The happy knowledge the kids were playing with someone who’d watch out for them proved enough to pacify Harden.

  He liked that he had Andy to talk to last night. Kamila was never enough. As much as she involved herself in Mason and Olivia’s lives, she was distant. An outsider. Andy was family.

  Andy couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. Their house hadn’t exactly been the den of laughter lately. A stuffy oppression had loitered at Burr Oak Farm for many years. With summer at its apex—which demanded the children play, breathe, race outdoors—Andy had wrenched open their stuck lives.

  He chuckled to himself, recalling how Andy had remembered where he worked and that his dream was to farm. He sighed at his desk, feeling a genuine smile curl his lips for the first time in quite a while.

  Initially, he’d worried that Andy’s return might force the kids to pine for their mother, but there had been no sign of that. Certainly Kamila noticed the upswing of emotions. She had walked into the house that morning with a sour face.

  Was it jealousy? Perhaps he needed to speak to her. Wouldn’t that be a bit too aristocratic for Harden? Lecturing the help? No snootier than Kamila’s behavior toward Andy, he convinced himself.

  Andy was a male version of Lillian in some ways. Same dark-blue eyes. Same dirty blond hair (except years ago Lilly had begun to use peroxide). He worried Andy had become hardened by life. Was it a family curse?

  Hadn’t life walloped everyone?

  He never worried over Andrew’s homosexuality. Lillian had mentioned it in passing before he’d first met the family a few months before their wedding. He supposed it was natural to him. He’d be a different person if he weren’t gay. Harden had concluded if Andy were heterosexual he’d be less prone to open up to him. The only other man he could reveal his emotions to was Lance. But their one-on-ones came less frequently, what with life’s everyday urgencies.

  A slight yawn pulled Harden from his desk. He stretched and headed for the kitchenette. Leftover cupcakes from the surprise party they’d thrown Marshall’s office manager, Stacey Glisten, sat waiting on a tray. The ones with pink and blue frosting had already been eaten, but a few of the yellows and greens remained. They’d celebrated Stacey’s twentieth anniversary at Marshall (almost as old as the company itself) with a robust chorus of “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” Harden had mouthed the lyrics, hating the sound of his singing voice.

  “Hi there, Harden.” Arty Ficklemeyer shuffled into the kitchenette, distinctive large grin on his thin ruddy face. He had been outside smoking a cigarette. Harden could smell the signature stench on his clothes.

  “Nice out?” Harden asked him.

  “Hot and muggy. Good, there’re some cupcakes left. Need that sugar fix.” He grabbed a green cupcake with his nicotine-stained fingers and took a bite. “Imagine,” he said with a full mouth, “twenty years with the same company.”

  Arty had worked for Marshall almost as long, fourteen years. In another three, Harden would match his record. Difficult to comprehend a decade had raced ahead, while his dreams faded.

  From the small kitchenette window, he viewed the cornfield across the road. Bright sunshine and a stunning blue sky seemed to mock him. “You’ll never get to farm, Harden Krane,” the outdoors was saying. Harden turned his back on the window and began to make a single-serve coffee. The aroma of Vanilla Roast wafted from under the spout.

  “Be grateful we have jobs,” Harden uttered.

  “That’s for sure. With the way things are? Whew!”

  Harden listened to the coffee percolate, waiting patiently for it to finish. Arty shuffled behind him, his jaw cracking from eating a second cupcake. Thinner than a fencepost, Arty could mow down cupcake after cupcake and never gain a gram.

  “Word is you have a relative of Lillian’s visiting,” he said.

  “That’s right. Her brother.” Though his back was to Arty, Harden sensed Arty shifting his eyes in his typical style.

  “Good to hear,” Arty said in a high voice. “Kids glad to see him?”

  Harden removed the mug before the drip was complete and lifted the steaming coffee to his lips. “They’re at the aquatic center in Dyersville right now, having a great time, I bet.”

  Arty’s rectangular face stretched with a full grin. “Now that sounds like summer. What I wouldn’t do for a few more years of those days back. You and the kids looking forward to tomorrow’s corn roast?”

  “You kidding? I’m the head grill master this year. Got a freezer full of chicken. You’re joining our group like last year, right?”

  “If you’re doing the grilling. I wash my hands from that responsibility. Everyone is always trying to tell you what you’re doing wrong. I promise I won’t hassle you.” He gazed downward. “Will your brother-in-law still be in town for it?”

  Harden nodded over the rim of his mug. “Yep.”

  Arty lifted his head and chuckled. “That’s good. That’s good. Have him come along.”

  The dull click of approaching heels on the hallway’s Berber carpet stiffened Harden. Too late for an escape. Lucinda Jamison, the twentysomething woman whose flirtations caused him anguish and delighted Harden’s officemates, strutted into the kitchenette. She carried in her characteristic smell of jasmine perfume, so sweet and strong it gave Harden an instant headache.

  Upon seeing Harden, she grinned between lofty, rosy cheeks. “Hi, Harden. How are you?”

  “Good, thanks. Having a good day?”

  “Sure am. Hi, there, Arty.”

  “Hi, Lucinda.”

  Bleached blonde hair, slim physique, stylish attire, she was the best looking girl at Marshall. Perhaps that’s why Harden wanted to avoid her. She was too flashy for him. She even dressed slick on casual Fridays. Early in their romance, Lillian had been more down to earth. When he’d first spotted her in Cancun, s
itting with a group of girlfriends, in an instant her robust personality and far-reaching voice had attracted him.

  Age differences never mattered to him (Lilly was two years older), but considering he wanted to evade Lucinda’s passes, age was a good enough excuse.

  Lucinda slipped her mug under the coffeemaker spout and leaned against the counter, slender arms folded beneath her blouse sleeves, while the machine hissed and sighed. “Can’t wait until five o’clock,” she said, eyes locked on Harden.

  “Been a long week,” Harden agreed.

  Arty made wide eyes at him. Married thirty years, Arty probably yearned for the romance more than Harden. Arty had nudged Lucinda toward Harden her first day at Marshall, a little more than a year ago. Harden hated the jollies her attraction brought Arty and his coworkers.

  “You going to the corn roast tomorrow, Lucinda?” Arty asked.

  “I haven’t thought of it.”

  “Harden’s going to be this year’s grill master for our group. Why don’t you join us?”

  Harden mentally rolled his eyes. I’ll get you one of these days, Arty Ficklemeyer.

  “Really?” she said. “That sounds like fun.”

  A puff of steam shot up from under the coffee spout, indicating her coffee had finished brewing. She added sugar and cream and stirred it. “I think I might go.”

  “We’d love to see you there,” Arty said.

  “I better get back to work,” Harden said, sensing the fatigue settling over him again, despite the hot coffee. “I’ll talk to you guys later.”

  “See you maybe at the corn roast, Harden.”

  “Sure, Lucinda, see you.”

  Back at his desk, Harden’s head cleared from Lucinda’s perfume. Other matters needed attention. The short stack of paperwork on ethanol sat under his elbows. He sighed and flipped through the research. Not typically a clock-watcher, Harden glanced at his wristwatch. He snickered under his breath, gripped his red pen, and aimed the fine point toward his paperwork.

  Chapter 13