Fudd than Captain America.
“I could mess up your dental work,” Sam had offered. “Get rid of that toothpaste-ad smile.”
“I’ll take my chances,” JD said. “I just won’t smile.” That promise had been remarkably easy to keep. Until today. Until Kate Livingston and her boy. He didn’t recall actually smiling at them, but he might have. A little.
Two teenage girls wandered past, popping gum and window shopping. They slowed down to admire the poster.
“God, he is so hot,” one of them murmured. For a moment, JD felt her eyes flicker over him. Shit, he thought. He’d gotten cocky about his disguise and now he was busted.
“Excuse me,” the girl said and brushed past him.
JD let out the breath he’d been holding and headed the other direction. It was crazy, completely crazy. People projected all their yearning onto an oversize poster while looking through the actual person as if he wasn’t there.
Shaking his head, he headed into the post office and checked his box. Sam had sent on a batch of bills and notices. At the bottom of the stack was an item that had not been forwarded by Sam. JD had requested it on his own, with unsteady hands and a heart full of trepidation. It came in a flat white envelope, weighty and substantial in his hands.
He couldn’t believe how intimidating this felt. It was insane. After all he’d been through, nothing should intimidate him. But this was something he’d always wanted. Always.
He opened the envelope and took out a glossy booklet the size of a small-town phone directory.
He smoothed his hand over the logo: The David Geffen School of Medicine @ UCLA.
JD told himself that he still hadn’t decided whether or not to send in his MCAT scores and begin the application process to enroll the following year. But he sure as hell might. He had the entire summer to think about it.
For the time being, he turned his thoughts to other matters. On the drive to the lake, he felt an unaccustomed ripple of anticipation. For the time being, his mother was all right, and he was finally starting to feel human again.
Five
Kate slammed the bedroom door behind her just in time, because the intruder was lunging for her.
“Aaron,” she screamed, clattering down the wooden steps and out the back door. “Aaron! Get in the car! Now!”
He was outside, tossing a stick for Bandit. Instead of responding to her panic, he scowled at her. “Huh?”
“In the car, darn it, there’s an intruder in the house,” she said, whipping out her harshest epithet. “Bring Bandit. I mean it, Aaron.”
It felt as if their escape took hours, but it was probably only seconds. Aaron and the dog got in back as she leaped into the driver’s seat.
She reached for the ignition.
Oh, God.
“No keys,” she said in a panicked whisper. “Where are the keys?”
It was a nightmare, worse than the scariest horror movie ever made, the kind in which a character named Julie (it was always Julie, no last name) fumbled in the car, desperateto escape, but the car wouldn’t start and the next thing you knew, old Julie was chopped liver.
“I blew it,” Kate said, sinking back against the headrest as she remembered leaving her keys on the kitchen counter.
A hulking dark shape loomed at the driver’s-side window. Bandit went into a barking frenzy, baying at the glass.
“Don’t hurt us,” Kate babbled. “Please, I beg you, don’t—”
“Mom.” Aaron spoke up from the back seat. He quieted the dog.
“Hush,” she said. “I have to negotiate with—oh.”
The monster, she saw, was holding out the car keys. “Looking for these?” the monster asked.
Except it wasn’t a monster, Kate observed as the red haze of terror faded from her vision. It was … a girl. Cringing at the sight of the dog.
“For heaven’s sake,” Kate said, rolling down the window. Bandit inserted his muzzle into the gap, and the stranger moved back a few more steps. “What in the world is going on?”
The girl looked as embarrassed as Kate felt. Her face turned red and she stared down at her dirty bare feet. Her messy hair fell forward. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Well, you did.” Kate’s adrenaline had nowhere to go, so it crystallized into outrage. “What were you doing in my house?”
The girl straightened her shoulders, shook back her hair. “I was, um, like, cleaning the place. I’ve been working with Yolanda for Mrs. Newman, cleaning summerhouses.”
Judging by the sleep creases on one side of her face, the kid was cleaning the way Goldilocks had for the Three Bears. In fact, she even looked a bit like Goldilocks with her coils of yellow hair. She was older, though. Pudgier. She’d clearly helped herself to a bellyful of porridge.
But like Goldilocks, the girl appeared to be quite harmless and full of remorse. Kate felt her anger drain away. “What’s your name?”
“California Evans. Callie for short. Am I in trouble?” The girl snuffled and wiped her nose. She had bad skin and carried herself awkwardly.
Studying her, Kate felt a wave of compassion, though she tempered it with caution. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“Can we get out now?” Aaron asked.
Kate still felt a bit apprehensive. The cottage didn’t have phone service and her cell didn’t work here. Yet the girl truly seemed remorseful and embarrassed by the whole incident. Kate’s customary impulse to trust took over, and she nodded. “Okay.”
Callie gasped as Aaron and Bandit jumped out. When the dog wagged his tail and sneezed a greeting, she wrapped her arms around her middle and backed away. Her face changed from red to stark white. “I’m scared of dogs,” she said.
“Bandit won’t hurt you, honest,” Aaron said.
“Hold him anyway,” Kate advised, recognizing the terror in the girl’s face. “I’m Kate Livingston and this is my son, Aaron. And Bandit.”
“He’s mostly beagle,” Aaron said. “We call him Bandit because of the black mask on his eyes.” He pointed out the dog’s unusual markings but the girl withdrew even more.
“What are you doing here?” Aaron asked bluntly.
Callie looked a bit queasy. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead and upper lip.
Oh, heavens, thought Kate. Was she sick? An addict? This was not good.
On the other hand, she reflected, the situation was terribly interesting. Kate reminded herself that she was now a freelance journalist.
