Table For Five

He offered her a steady stream of opinion in terms so foul it would curl her ears if she could hear him. But she couldn’t, of course, which made him wonder why he bothered.

He stuffed his arms into the sleeves of his Gore-Tex jacket and shrugged the hood up over his head. He reached down and popped the hood of the truck. Without acknowledging Crystal or even glancing in her direction, he went to the back of the Chevy and got out the cables.

He felt her watching him and knew damned well what she was thinking. This was a power play. They both knew it. And by getting him to come back for her, she’d won the first round. But the fight wasn’t over. They both acknowledged that, too.

Propping open the hood, he felt the first cold trickles of rain pouring into his shoe. He looked down to see that the water was ankle deep.

“Fuck,” he said, wishing she could hear, because she hated that word so much. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He clipped the cable to the corresponding battery terminals, hoping like hell he got it right. Then he turned his attention to Crystal’s car. Correction, his car. The one she’d stolen from him, along with the house and everything else in the divorce settlement.

At least she was smart enough to pop the hood release without being told. He found the battery terminals caked with corrosion and had to chip the flakes off with his pocketknife. Then he connected the jumper cables and stepped out from under the hood. With a flick of his wrist, he signaled for her to try the ignition. It was raining so hard he couldn’t hear the engine engage.

She opened her door and shouted, “It’s not working.”

“Try it again.”

She shot him a look and turned the key. With the door open, he could see her do it. Nothing happened—no panel, no dome light, no nothing. Complete failure.

“Try again,” he yelled.

She shook her head. “Still not working.”

Out of patience, Derek motioned for her to move. She had to clamber over the console, and he was treated briefly to a flash of beauty queen leg. Even standing in a puddle in the midst of a storm, even knowing all the reasons he had divorced her, Derek felt a jolt of such irrational sexual hunger that he groaned aloud.

This of course was Crystal’s great power. This was why he’d stayed with her fifteen years instead of fifteen minutes. She was the sexiest woman he’d ever known.

And now she sat next to him, silent and ungrateful, smelling of designer perfume and…He glared at her questioningly. “Smoking, Crys?”

She offered him a skinny, flat package of cigarettes that had seen better days. “Join me?”

“Those things will kill you.”

“We all have to die of something.”

Derek shook his head in disgust while he confirmed what he’d known since he saw the condition of her battery. “It’s dead,” he said.

Rainwater dripped from his hooded jacket to the cloth upholstery.

She said nothing. She didn’t have to. Her tight-lipped, pale-faced, narrow-eyed expression said it all.

“Fuck,” he said, banging the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

She used to wince when he talked that way. That was, actually, his primary reason for talking that way. Now that she had no reaction, he shut up. Then he took a deep, cleansing breath to clear his head, filling his lungs from the top down the way his breathing coach had taught him.

Yes, he had a freaking breathing coach. He had coaches and trainers for every possible angle, physical or mental. If he didn't watch out, one of these days he’d find himself with a coach for taking a piss.

The car was littered with carelessly strewn effluvia. A clump of sodden Kleenex told him she felt as lousy about the teacher conference as he did. A pair of earrings he didn’t recognize lay in the ashtray. Crystal had a way of littering herself throughout the car, stamping it with her presence. It was littered with memories, too. This had been a brand-new car the day they’d driven Charlie to school for the first day of kindergarten. She’d sobbed miserably while big brother Cameron looked on in disgust.

Then, realizing the nest was truly empty, they’d driven to Lovers Lane, a private cliffside parking spot off the coastal highway. It was a place Derek remembered from high school, an outcropping so lofty and sheer that an ordinary car felt like the cockpit of a spaceship. That day, with both their children in school for the first time, he’d made love to her in the back of the station wagon on the scratchy gray carpet littered with golf tees, scorecards, plastic Happy Meal toys and lost pennies. He could’ve taken her home that day, to their own bed, but at home, phone calls and work awaited him.

Back then, she’d wrapped her strong bare legs around him and sighed with satisfaction. Now she handed him her cell phone. “Call your auto club.”

He snatched it from her, got the number from his wallet and made the call. The rain came down harder. The dispatcher said the first available assistance would arrive in three to four hours. When Derek told Crystal this, she said, “I’m not waiting here.”

“Go inside the school and wait.”

“That’s ridiculous. Cameron needs to be picked up in an hour and a half. And then Charlie after that. She’s playing at her friend Lindsey’s house. I don’t know how long you told the sitter to keep Ashley.”

The baby wasn’t with her usual sitter, but Derek wasn’t about to disclose that until he had to. Crystal was pissed enough at him.

“Tell you what,” he said, “get Lily to give you a ride home. I’ll pick up the kids and bring them to your place.”

“No. I’m not imposing on Lily.”

“She’s your freaking best friend,” he said, yelling now. “She’ll bail you out, no problem.”

“Yes, she would, if I asked her to. But I won’t. Our children are not Lily’s responsibility.” She regarded him with those beautiful, cool blue eyes, and it was a look of such obstinacy that Derek felt himself conceding the battle without even saying a word.

Having a family had always seemed like a reasonable prospect to Derek. A wife and kids. What could be simpler or more pleasant?

Where Crystal was involved, nothing was simple and very little was pleasant. And who knew what a circus act it actually was to juggle three kids? The laundry, the phone calls, the homework, the carpools, the scheduling of sports and music lessons. Hell, you needed an air traffic controller to manage everything.

No wonder Charlie was in trouble. Someone had dropped the ball with her, and she was failing in school. A hard knot of guilt formed in Derek’s stomach. Charlie. His little chip shot.

He checked his watch. They still had an hour and a half to kill before it was time to pick up the kids. He drew on the hood of his jacket, shouldered opened the door and went back out into the roaring storm. He disconnected the cables, closed both engine hoods, then went around to Crystal’s door and yanked it open.

“Get in the truck,” he yelled.

“But why—”

“Get in the damned truck.” He turned away, got in the driver’s seat, put on his seat belt and watched her. Even in the teeth of the storm, she moved with the unhurried grace of a queen, opening her red umbrella and then stepping out of the car. She got into the truck, then folded the umbrella and slid it under the seat.

“Did you leave your keys in the car?” he asked.

“Of course. I’m not stupid, Derek.”

“No,” he said, putting the truck in reverse. “You’re not.” Things would be easier if she was.

He headed west on the river road, the wipers thumping rapidly across the windshield.

“Where are you going?”

“We’ve got an hour to talk,” he said, ignoring her question. “So talk.”

He could feel her glare as she clicked her seat belt in place. “Charlie’s in trouble. Fighting about it for an hour isn’t going to solve anything.”

He glanced over at her and saw no trace of sarcasm in her expression.