The Last Thing She Ever Did(75)
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
MISSING: EIGHTEEN DAYS
The Pines was one of the last places David Franklin ever thought he’d visit. Sex with some tourist who flirted with him at the restaurant? He’d do better than the Pines. Hell, just pull her into the pantry. He recalled the time that his server Carla had rubbed her ass against him—accidentally, she insisted—when she tried to wedge her way past her boss in the kitchen. Rudy, the cook, caught it and gave David the look, said something along the lines of “Why don’t you tap that?”
“Who says I haven’t?” David shot back, although he hadn’t.
Not yet.
“Everyone else has,” Rudy said, leering at Carla as she made her way out of the kitchen, arms loaded with plates of food for a noisy four-top in the front of the restaurant.
The truth was, David hadn’t even considered having sex with Carla before Rudy opened his flytrap. She was pretty and all. Cute figure. Wide-set eyes that literally smiled when she talked about the things that made her happy: her new car, her half-marathon finish in the top ten for her age group, the way she could defuse an unruly customer and still get a big tip.
To David’s way of thinking, Rudy’s comment was a challenge. David was like a compulsive gambler: any challenge fueled behavior over which he had no control.
Rudy said it. David acted on it.
A week or so later he and Carla messed around in the freezer. He pushed her against one of the lockers and the two hooked together like frozen Velcro. He told her she was sexy. She told him he was hot. She leaned into him and he acted as though she was the only thing he’d ever wanted. When the Velcro unsnapped, they stood there acknowledging almost at once that neither one of them really cared for the other.
Carla had thought she’d get a better shift, the one after eight, when the well-heeled tourists from California and Seattle got tipsy, ordered more alcohol than they should, and ran up a bar bill that always translated into the fattest tips of the night.
David had thought that by screwing Carla he’d feel like more of a stud. Now in his fifties, he felt those feelings beginning to wane unless injected with the excitement that comes with exploring a body firmer than his own. Carole had been sexually adventurous when she was with Google and needed to unwind fast: they’d made love on every form on transportation, including a helicopter and a snowmobile. Their lovemaking was rushed and exciting. When Charlie had arrived, and when the house in Bend was finally finished, Carole had all but cut him off. Certainly no more Adventureland. No more blow jobs in the car.
Carole never said so, but the implication was always more than clear: Moms don’t do that.
As he parked his Porsche, deep down David knew that he’d been challenged by his wife. She’d made him feel like shit with her comments about their teetering marriage and his apparent lack of devotion to Charlie. He loved his son. Yes, he complained about the fact that he no longer got to enjoy Sunday morning sex. He’d whined about how she controlled him with the money. None of that meant that he didn’t love Charlie.
On the passenger seat, nestled in a bag on the black leather of the Porsche, was a bottle of Old Grand-Dad. He’d drunk that from college through the failure of his first restaurant. He’d sworn on his life that he’d never take another sip. And for years now, he hadn’t, though the thirst for alcohol never abated. In a way, it propelled him to be even more successful at Sweetwater than he’d ever been. He couldn’t drink, so all of his energy and all of his angst drove him to work harder. Work filled the place that alcohol had once staked out.
But that bitch Carole. She’d pushed him so hard with her cruelly insightful remarks. Even when she didn’t say the words, she’d challenged him all right. She’d questioned his manhood. His fatherhood. His role in a world that she’d bought and paid for.
David reached for the bag and pulled the bottle from it, settled it in his lap. Its bright orange label was a roadside warning cone. He ignored it. His hands shook as he twisted the cap, the tiny metal prongs holding it to the neck snapping like firecrackers. He seethed. He knew that he was about to undo everything that had gotten him as far as he’d gone with Sweetwater. He didn’t know for sure, but the industry rumor mill had him short-listed for a James Beard Award. The Portland PBS station suggested he might appear on a local version of A Chef’s Life.
“What you do with razor clams, sherry, and cream is a culinary gift to the people of the Northwest,” the producer had said. “A rethinking, a reimagining, of the flavors that make us unique. That we love.”
David held the mouth of the bottle to his nose and hesitated before taking in the sweet, oaky, and acrid smell of the alcohol that had been his downfall so many times. A hint of citrus filled his nostrils. He flashed to the time he sideswiped a parked car and kept going, rubbing the smudge of paint from the passenger car door with an old rag. Red paint. It had looked like blood. Inside, he knew it could have been. He thought of the time he nearly had a heart attack coming home from the restaurant after drinking well past closing. How the sound of a police siren sent waves of fear through every fiber of his being. He imagined a score of passersby gawking at him as he stumbled heel-to-toe, heel-to-toe, while trying to walk a straight line, or as he tried to blow into a Breathalyzer tube, or as he slurred his speech while arguing with the police officer. The handcuffs. The mug shot. The newspapers publishing an item about it.