could I talk to you about Rudd. You are overly protective. And me being here now would never have happened.”
“So you went behind my back and worked your sex on him and he agreed to take you in?”
“I wanted to stay at Leon High, Denise. My parents were leaving town. I want you to stop and think and tell me who else would put me up for the rest of this year and maybe next?”
“A year and a half?”
“Answer me.”
Denise rubbed Tony’s back for a while and thought. “Nobody I know of.”
“There you go. I ain’t the most popular person around.”
“Maybe with the boys.”
“That’s not fair,” Aloha shot back.
Denise thought some more. Then she spoke in a low and deadly voice. “You’ve been chasing my father, using your body with him, so that you could stay here in Tallahassee?”
“No. I’ve always liked Rudd. But I didn’t know about this peace foundation thing with my folks ‘til a few weeks ago. It’s the other way around. I’d of—I would have been out of Tallahassee and Florida like a scalded bat if it wasn’t for Rudd.”
“Oh.”
“You can’t not know that the girls don’t like me because I’m, um, cuter than most, and the boys don’t like me because I’m smarter than all of them. They only want one thing—”
“‘Cuter’ is putting it mildly.”
“Listen, Denise. Rudd is the only man or boy who never wanted anything from me to start. And he has given me just as much as he’s taken from me. Do you understand?”
“You’re telling me this is not just an accommodation for you?”
“Hell, no. I love the son of a bitch.”
“Blasphemy—”
Aloha leaned back against the wall and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Self-righteousness ought to be against one or more of the ten commandments. Reckon we can amend them and not piss off Moses?”
“I know you’re trying to be funny and take the edge off this, but your mouth can be down in the gutter with your morals sometimes.”
Aloha shrugged. “Some guys like it when you talk dirty.”
“Not Daddy.”
“He doesn’t really care. But I’m trying to learn to be a class act for him.”
“Maybe it is that you’re simply looking for a father.”
“Naah. One thing Rudd isn’t to me is a father figure.”
Denise tried again. “Aloha. You are living in sin with my father, made worse by the fact that you are underage—”
“Is it any worse than when your mother was living here? Me and Rudd get along and care for each other. Can you say that about her and Rudd?”
No, Denise admitted. But this was against the Gospel. “Since we’re being so honest, tell me. Just how old are you, really?”
Aloha gave Denise a calculating look, then shook her head. “Sometimes I feel like a hundred and eighteen, but it’s none of your goddamn business. You come marching in here and try to ruin a beautiful relationship—”
“I’m trying to protect my father. What you gonna do, girl, when all the nosey neighbors figure out that you are living here in sin with a man and are not married?”
“This is nineteen seventy-eight,” said Aloha.
“One day one or more of those jerks who make everything their business is going to tell a cop, call the state’s attorney, something. Add it up yourself. You’ll be long gone and where does that put Daddy? The Leon County Correctional Facility.”
Aloha made a pistol with her hand and went, “Bang, bang, bang. I usually have a plan for almost everything. The only one I can come up with is that my parents arranged this and it is legal—”
“You living here is legal; the illicit sex part is not legal, Aloha.”
“I’ll run to my room and act innocent.”
“I have no doubt you can do that thing. Do not, do not get my father into trouble. And even if you slink out of it, you’ll ruin his reputation. As soon as a cop walks into that front door, the entire city will know. Business associates and friends alike.”
Aloha shook her head. “I don’t have all the answers, Denise. What I know is I love Rudd and—and that’s that.”
“We’ll see what he has to say when he gets home.”
“He’s already said, Denise. Else I wouldn’t be here.”
Denise was feeling lonely and left out.
“Buddy?”
“What about Buddy?”
“You and he used to date—”
“We went out a few times.” Aloha shrugged. “He was too old for me—oops!”
Denise cocked an inquiring eye. “Are you using my father as a surrogate for my brother?”
Aloha shook her head. “He was a boy, just another boy trying his best to get into my pants. I didn’t let him. There was nothing between us—then or now.”
“Buddy is an engaging, good-looking guy. I’d think—?”
“Nope,” said Aloha. “He needed to grow up.”
That was true, Denise admitted to herself. But Buddy had really liked Aloha. Upon reflection, Denise could construe Buddy to be the male equivalent of Aloha.
Denise had a frightening thought. Suppose Buddy came home? Not very likely, she thought. But if he did finally decide to face the devil in his past, watch out!
Denise needed to pray and pray and pray some more.
“Hello,” Rudd called and the front door closed loud enough for them to hear it. “Aloha? Denise?”
He came down the hall wearing slacks, a beige shirt with a tie, his normal work outfit. “Hi girls. Denise I saw your car. Glad you’re home.”
Denise stood. “I don’t think so, Daddy. I don’t wish to disturb your little love nest.”
He regarded her calmly. “Is this how it’s going to be?”
Aloha went past them and into the hall. “I gotta do some laundry.”
“You don’t have to go,” said Rudd.
“I
