Doyle"s Pub was a fairly new place, near the DeSoto Hilton on Liberty Street.. It was busy, but the hostess led them to a booth in the far reaches of the room and a waitress came and took their drink orders.
Sliding onto the bench opposite hers, Jack looked around the room appreciatively. "I remember when this was the old Shamrock Shop. My grandmother always bought all her birthday cards here." He pointed to the far wall, where the bar was located. "And that was the candy counter. All the St. Vincent"s girls would come in here to buy candy and c.o.kes after school. Which meant the BC guys showed up too. It was a happening place."
"Still happening," Cara said, looking around. "I know they"ve been open at least a year, but this is actually the first time I"ve been in."
"Did you ever come in here, back in the day? Where"d you go to high school?"
"Not here," Cara said. "I"m an Air Force brat. I went to six different schools between elementary and high school, but I finished up in Columbus, Ohio."
"I figured." He nodded. "Not much of a Southern accent."
"I"m working on it. I"ve learned to say "fixin" to" and "crank the car" and "carry me to the store," but that"s as far as I"ve gotten."
"You should hang around my aunt Betty," Jack said. "Born and raised here, never lived anyplace other than Savannah. Half the time, even I can"t understand what she"s saying."
The drinks came then. He seemed to be studying her, waiting for something. It was making her nervous. He made her nervous. Fidgety.
Say something, she told herself. "How"s your..."
"How"s your dog?" he blurted out, at the exact same time.
They both laughed.
"You start," he said. "How is Poppy? Over her trauma?"
"She"s good," Cara said. "How about Shaz?"
"Not as depressed. I"ve started taking her to job sites with me now, and she"s kinda into that. Although Torie"s not crazy about having her at the house-she thinks Shaz intimidates Benji."
"Benji?"
"Torie"s dog. Some kinda purse puppy. I don"t know what kind of dog he is. Ryan calls him a shih tzu."
"But not in front of Torie."
"No."
"I"m lucky Poppy can just come downstairs to the shop with me most of the time. When I"m not there-is it weird that I leave the television on for her to watch?"
"Don"t ask me. I leave the Animal Planet on for Shaz. Or Sports South."
"Poppy loves that too," she confided. "That and Disney."
They sipped their drinks. Cara decided it was her turn to study him. See if she could make him feel as fidgety as she felt.
He was easy to look at. Intelligent hazel eyes with crinkle lines at the corners, that made her think he laughed a lot when he wasn"t around her. He had the dry, weather-beaten skin of somebody who worked outside, a trace of five-o"clock shadow on his strong jawline. He"d taken off his hat, and his dark hair was a little matted, but he wasn"t the kind of guy who"d be self-conscious about that. His hands, clamped around his beer stein, were strong, sun-browned, callused.
Ryan told her that Jack was getting over a bad breakup. Torie had told her about the Jimmy Buffett impersonator. Why would anybody leave somebody who looks like Jack Finnerty?
"Kinda weird our dogs look so much alike," Jack said. "I"ve been wondering about that."
"You don"t see that many goldendoodles in Savannah," she agreed. "I had to go to Atlanta to find Poppy"s breeder. Where"d you get Shaz?"
"I think Zoey got her in Atlanta."
"You think?"
"We"d talked about getting a dog, in kind of an abstract way. Like, we were running in the park one day, and she said, "We should get a dog." And I said, "Yeah." And a few weeks later, I come home, and there"s Shaz. Don"t get me wrong. I like dogs. I love "em. But it would have been nice if she"d discussed it with me."
He sipped his beer. "It wasn"t the best time to bring a puppy into the mix. Relationship-wise. We weren"t really getting along anyway. So I was p.i.s.sed at her, and she was p.i.s.sed at me for being p.i.s.sed about the dog. And we were both p.i.s.sed when Shaz p.i.s.sed on the floor, which totally wasn"t the dog"s fault. She was a puppy! It went like that. Anyway, we split up. Probably just as well."
"If it was her dog, I"m surprised she didn"t take Shaz."
"Not as surprised as me." They both laughed at that. "She was with one of her girlfriends at a bar on River Street, she met this guy, he was playing there. I guess they hooked up right away...."
His face darkened at the telling. "He"s a Jimmy Buffett impersonator, for G.o.d"s sake."
"Oh my."
"That was a Friday night," he went on. "It was late March. Ryan and I were working crazy hours, trying to finish this Victorian house on Huntingdon Street. A total gut job. So I worked all day Sat.u.r.day and Sunday too. When I got home that night, we had this big blowout of a fight about it. And again, in hindsight, I know now it wasn"t about the dog, and it wasn"t really about me working too much. At some point, I realized I needed to cool off. So I got in the truck, and I went back to the job site, and I actually slept in the truck that night, because I was too p.i.s.sed off to go home...."
"And that was it?" Cara asked.
"Yeah. How lame is this? I go back home the next morning, to shower, and she"s gone. Packed up most of her clothes and c.r.a.p, and just headed out on the road with this character, who calls himself ... get this ... Jamey b.u.t.tons."
Cara groaned. "And she left Shaz behind."
"And me. Now I"m like the opposite of what the song says. Come Monday, nothin" was all right."
22.
There was a votive candle in a jar on their table, and the small flame lit Cara"s face in shades of pinks and peach as she leaned in, listening to him tell the end of the Jack and Zoey story. She had large, expressive brown eyes, and her nose had a weird little indent at the very tip, and her hair, which she"d worn up, was falling down, strands lightly touching the bare skin on her shoulders. Her lips were the color of ripe peaches. Or was that just the candlelight? She was wearing the same orangey-pink dress she"d had on the night of Ryan"s wedding.
Why am I telling her all this? Why does she care? Why do I care?
He cared because he"d been deserted, left behind. Because Zoey had found somebody else. Somebody better. And let"s face it, he cared because she"d beat him to the punch, leaving him before he could leave her.
But why should Cara Kryzik care about any of this? Maybe ... because she"d been hurt, too. At least, that"s what Ryan had said. She was a good listener. Zoey never listened worth a d.a.m.n. You"d start telling her something, and she"d interrupt, stepping all over your sentences, making you forget what you were talking about, turning everything around, until, inevitably, whatever you were about to say was somehow about her. Her day. Her c.r.a.ppy job. Her. Her. Her.
"Do you miss her?" Cara was asking.
"Who? Zoey?" He would have shrugged off the question, but there was something about this girl that made him speak the truth, even when it was painful.
"Maybe. Yeah, okay. Sometimes. And then she pulls some stunt, like letting hours go by before letting me know that Shaz has been turned in to the vet"s office, and I"ve abducted somebody else"s dog."
She nodded.
"What about you?" he asked softly. "Ryan tells me you"re divorced. Pretty recently?"
Cara bit her lip and looked out the window. "Last April. Hard to believe it"s been a year."
"Miss him?"
"No." She fairly spat the word.
"Really? Never? How long were you married?"
"It would have been five years, but we split last year on Valentine"s Day."
Jack grimaced. "Brutal."
"It was also my birthday."
"s.h.i.t," he said softly.
"Exactly. He was a s.h.i.t. Which is why I now have a dog."
"A female dog," Jack observed.
Cara took a long sip of wine and then a deep breath. "Hate to say it, but I"d better start thinking about heading home."
"Really?"
Jack could have kicked himself. He"d struck a nerve, asking about her ex. What was he thinking? Never, ever, ask a girl about an ex. Was he that out of practice?
He put some money on the tabletop and stood, holding out a hand to steady her, as she pulled herself from the narrow booth. Her hand was small and warm, but her fingers were long, like an artist"s.
When she was standing, he released her hand, but rested his own, lightly, on the small of her back, as they made their way to the door. Doyle"s was packed now, with a din that drowned out anything they could have said, until they were back outside on the sidewalk again.
"Can I give you a ride home? My truck"s just parked over on Liberty."
"Thanks, but I"ve got the shop van parked in the lane behind the K of C."
"Oh."
His face fell, and Cara was secretly glad. They"d had a drink together. Just one. But she was starting to like him. Okay, she"d started liking him the day he brought Poppy back home, and apologized. And she thought just maybe, he kind of liked her.
"You could walk me back over to the van," she offered. "I"m no fraidycat, but I definitely don"t like walking in these dark downtown lanes at night."
"Good thinking," he said. "You never can tell what kind of lowlifes are wandering around down here on a Friday night." As they moved down the sidewalk, she hesitated, but then reached over and tucked her hand through his arm. "For safety," she said gravely. "Because you really never can tell."
He squeezed her hand, and gave her a sideways glance, and her smile was warm, as though they both shared some exciting new secret.
He could have covered the two blocks to the K of C hall in less than five minutes. Instead, he took his own sweet time. He strolled. It was a typical May night in Savannah, in the mid-eighties, and the scent of her light, flowery perfume wafted in the warm evening air.
She was walking slowly, too. "I"m a house voyeur," she confessed, as they pa.s.sed a stately town house. "I love walking around downtown, peeking in the lit windows. I want to see what kind of furniture people have, the pictures hanging on their walls, their wallpaper. My ex used to accuse me of being a peeping Tom. You ever do that?"
"No. Okay, occasionally. But I"m trying to see the molding profile, the staircase details, the old hardware, and the window casings."
"I"m even worse when it comes to gardens. I"m forever riding down lanes, hoping for a glimpse into somebody"s courtyard. Someday, somebody"s probably going to see me peeking through their fence and sic the cops on me."
"Like I tried to do after you followed me home a couple weeks ago?"
"I guess it"s lucky for both of us the cops had better things to do that night," Cara said. They walked past Liberty Street and entered the lane that ran behind the Knights of Columbus hall. Jack took the opportunity to put a protective arm around Cara"s shoulder. Just in case.
"This is me." The pale pink striped Bloom van was parked near the K of C"s back door. They heard music from inside. A group of men were standing just down the lane, talking loudly, their lit cigarettes making an arc in the inky night. They heard a loud metallic clatter, as something was tossed against a battered trash can.
"Party"s still going," Jack said, nodding in that direction. "I think I recognize a couple of those guys from the wedding. Tommy Hart, the guy in the black fedora? He used to date Meghan."
"I hope Bert"s gone home by now," Cara said. "He"s been sober two years now, and I shouldn"t worry about him, I know, but it can"t be easy for him, being around parties and booze all the time, every time we do a wedding."
"Want me to go inside and check on him?" Jack offered.
"No. He"s a grown-up. I don"t want him to think I don"t trust him. What about you, will you go back inside, to find your sister?"
Instead of answering, he pulled his phone from his pocket and showed her the screen. There was a text message- Gone out with the girlz. Don"t tell Mom.
He grinned. "That"s Meghan for you."
Cara reached in her bag for her keys, and he moved closer beside her, with his hand on her arm, and she realized, with a start, that he was probably going to kiss her. A little frizzle of electricity shot up her spine, as she realized she hoped he would.
She found the key and fit it in the lock. His hand touched her cheek, lightly, and he leaned down.
"Hey, a.s.shole!" A man"s voice echoed in the lane. They heard gla.s.s splintering against concrete, and more voices.
"Drunks," Jack said, shrugging.
"What the f.u.c.k? Man, that"s not cool!"
Jack jerked his head around to see what was happening.
More gla.s.s shattering. Shouts.
A door opened from a town house at the entrance to the lane, spilling light into the lane. They could see four men, clumped together, and a fifth man, sprawled on his back on the broken asphalt.
A shrill woman"s voice called from the back of the house. "Whoever"s out there I"m calling the cops. I mean it, I"m calling them right now!"
"f.u.c.k you, b.i.t.c.h." Coa.r.s.e laughter. But the men slunk off into the darkness, like so many feral cats. All but the one, who was still on the ground, clutching his black fedora, curled up now in a fetal position. Even from where they stood, they could hear his groans of pain.