Outside the Lines: A Novel

When I wasn’t working during the two weeks after my first date with Jack, I was busy fighting off daydreams about him. How he kissed me. How he called the next morning to tell me he couldn’t stop thinking about me. I hadn’t fallen for anyone so quickly in a long time, so part of me held on to the small fear that he might be too good to be true, but as the days passed, I grew more and more comfortable with the idea that I might have met my match.

We talked on the phone almost every night when I got home from work and saw each other almost every day, sneaking in a quick lunch or drink around our work schedules. At each date’s end, he took me in his arms and we kissed so passionately my lips were sore the next morning. I kept wondering if he’d invite me back to his apartment and what I’d say if he did. I was sort of an old-fashioned girl in that sense—I waited for the guy to make that move and usually followed my personal no-sex-before-four-dates rule. (Yes, Ryan had been an exception, but tequila shooters were involved the night I met him so I pled not guilty by reason of intoxication.)

Georgia was appalled at this rule, but no matter how much I might’ve wanted to climb in bed with Jack, I was going to wait for him to suggest it.

“You just don’t want to get rejected,” Georgia said accusatorily.

“Damn right I don’t,” I told her. Since my failed romances in my early and midtwenties with Wyatt and Stephen, I’d created all sorts of guidelines around my relationships to minimize my chances of getting hurt. I didn’t date artists. I broke it off immediately with anyone who made a promise and didn’t keep it or any man whom I caught lying. I didn’t expect perfection, but I did expect honesty and follow-through. So far, Jack was hitting the mark.

My mother was thrilled, of course, that I was dating again. “When do we meet him?” she asked during one of our Friday morning check-in phone calls. “Can you come for dinner next week?”

“It’s a little early for that,” I said. “Let’s make sure I don’t scare him off first.”

“Now, why would you say that? You’re wonderful.”

“You’re my mom. You have to say that.”

“I do not. If you were horrible, I’d tell you.”

I laughed. “Gee, Mom. How comforting.”

She sighed. “I want to meet this man.”

“How about we wait to see if we last until Thanksgiving? If we do, I’ll bring him to dinner.” The holiday was only three weeks away, and with how well things seemed to be going with Jack, I was almost positive he’d agree to have a holiday meal with my family.

“Perfect!” She was immediately appeased, and I hoped Jack didn’t mind my making that kind of promise. We hadn’t discussed where our relationship was going or how serious it was, but if how he kissed me was any indication, we were definitely on the same page.

The Tuesday following my conversation with my mother, Bryce called me and asked if I’d come over to his apartment and help him make dinner for a girl he wanted to impress. I said yes right away.

When I called to tell him where I was going before dinner at the shelter, Jack said, “You’re very sweet. And your brother’s sneaky.”

I laughed. “He’s not sneaky. He’s just nervous and doesn’t know where to start in the kitchen. The boy lives off protein shakes and egg whites. I started the pork for tonight’s dinner at the shelter yesterday while I was at work, so all I have to do is reheat it, sauce it up, and make the coleslaw and brownies.” The meals I’d served at Hope House so far had been hugely popular and this week, pulled pork sandwiches and coleslaw were on the menu.

“You are a culinary wizard. I don’t know what we ever did without you. I’ll see you later, then?”

“Absolutely.”

“Can’t wait.”

I arrived at Bryce’s apartment around eleven o’clock in the morning, which left me plenty of time to put together a great meal for his date. I texted him from his building’s parking garage and told him to come down and help me carry up what I’d brought.

“Ed!” he exclaimed, grabbing me for a bear hug when he arrived at my car. “You’re the best sister anyone could ask for, you know that?”

“Yes, I know.” I opened the trunk and pointed to the laundry basket full of food I’d brought. “There you go, big guy. Let’s get started.”

We headed up the elevator and into his tiny apartment. It was clean, at least, which was more than I could say for my own house. Pretty impressive for a bachelor pad. Our mom must have passed on her neat gene to him instead of me. I entered his galley-style kitchen and he set the basket down on the dining room table right outside the linoleum. I clapped my hands together.

“Okay! I need you to slice onions. Like this.” I gave him a quick demonstration of how I wanted the onions cut.

“What am I making?”

“Mini caramelized-onion-and-goat-cheese pizzas with balsamic reduction and cilantro to start. Lemon chicken and grilled asparagus for dinner, and coconut-pineapple sorbet for dessert.” I grabbed the container of sorbet from the basket. “Speaking of, I need to get this in the freezer.”

Bryce grinned and ran a hand through his blond buzz cut. “Lisa’s going to flip. She probably thinks I’m a muscle-headed idiot who can’t cook.”

“You are,” I teased. I set the dessert in the freezer and pulled the chicken breasts out of their packaging to pound into thin cutlets.

“Yeah, but she doesn’t need to know that.” Bryce took the Walla Walla sweets and started peeling away their papery skins.

“Why not? Take it from me. Lying to her is not the best way to start off a relationship. Maybe she’ll think it’s adorable you asked your big sister for help.”

“Who says I want a relationship?” Bryce said. He started cutting the onions in half and into quarter-inch slices, as I’d directed. “Maybe I just want to get laid.”

“Nice.”

“I’m kidding, Ed. I like Lisa. She’s a total hottie.”

“Do you know anything else about her, besides that? Or is her being hot all that matters?” I didn’t often play the wise big sister to Bryce, but in the flush of my new feelings for Jack, I felt the urge to impart some of my hard-earned relationship knowledge to him. I suspected that his raging hormones might make my efforts pointless, but I felt I could at least make an attempt.

“Of course that’s not all that matters.” He grinned again. “She likes to work out, too. So we have that in common.”

“Oh, well then. Clearly, you should be married immediately.”

He wadded up a piece of onion skin and threw it at me. It missed but landed in the sink.

“I’ll tell you someone who’s more than just hot,” he said. “Your friend Georgia. I’ve seen her at the gym a lot lately. She’s hilarious.”

“You guys talk?” I asked. Georgia had mentioned that she was working out at the same gym where Bryce was a trainer, but she hadn’t said anything past that.

Bryce nodded. “She asks me for advice on her workouts, mostly. She dropped her trainer. He was a dick.”

“Yeah, I think she got tired of him telling her to exercise. Is she paying you?”

“Not yet. I haven’t really asked her to be a client. It’s more just a friendly thing. I do check out her rack when we talk, so I guess in a way she’s paying me.”

I swatted him with a dish towel. “You be nice to her or I’ll kick your ass.”

He held up his beefy hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay. I’ll be nice. I was just kidding. Sort of.”

“Yeah, sort of.” I went back to pounding out the chicken breast between two pieces of plastic wrap. “She’s a little curvy for you, anyway, isn’t she? Don’t you like the hard-bodied gym bunnies?”

“She’s bigger than most girls I’ve dated, yeah,” Bryce said thoughtfully. “But she’s healthy and takes care of herself, you know? That’s all that really matters. Plus,” he added, “there’s something appealing about what those fleshy curves might feel like against my rock-hard abs.” He pounded both his fists against his stomach in emphasis.

“Oh, please!” I rolled my eyes.

“You find your dad yet?” Bryce reached into the refrigerator and took out a handful of cooked shrimp and shoved them in his mouth. “Sorry,” he said with his mouth full. “Hungry.”

“Apparently.” I gave the onions a stir and set them on low to gradually caramelize. “Don’t you think I’d tell you if I’d found him?”

He shrugged. “I dunno.”

“Well, I would.” I paused, setting the spatula on the counter. “I did find some of his old paintings, though, and a box of his things.”

“Really? What was in it?” Bryce took another handful of shrimp and chomped down on them.

“I don’t know.” I looked away and focused on organizing the supplies I’d brought for dinner.

“You haven’t looked?” I shook my head and Bryce raised his eyebrows at me. “Why not? That’s nuts.”

“It’s not nuts,” I said defensively. “I’m just not sure if I’m ready to see what might be in there. It was hard enough seeing his paintings.” I told him about the Garden of Eden and finding my father’s depiction of it.

“Huh. I’d still want to go through it.”

“I will. It just might take me some time to work up the courage.”

“Mom’s not too happy about your doing all this.”

I sighed and started using a biscuit cutter to create flatbread rounds for the pizza appetizer. “I know. She’s made that very clear.”

“Then why keep doing it?” Bryce dropped into one of his dining room chairs and watched me work.

“Because I need to. Whether I find him or not, I need to feel like I did everything I could. It’s complicated, Bryce. He’s my dad and he’s sick.”

“It’s hurting my dad’s feelings, too, you know.”

I stopped cutting and looked at him. “What?”

His eyes met mine. “He feels like he wasn’t good enough or something so you want to find your real dad to make up for it. That’s what’s getting to Mom the most, I think. That it’s hurting him.”

“She never said anything to me about that,” I said, slightly taken aback. John was always so jovial around me. I never thought about his being upset by what I was doing and immediately felt bad for it. “Maybe I’ll talk to him and try to explain.”

“I don’t know how much good it will do. He’ll just pretend he’s not hurt. The big bad fireman can’t show any weakness.” There was more than just a little scorn in Bryce’s tone. “‘Toughen up, son!’” he said, mimicking his father. “‘You want those other boys to think you’re a pussy?’”

“Bryce . . .” I started to say, but he waved his hand, dismissing me.

“You don’t have to say it, Ed. I know he loves me. But he’s never going to see me as anything other than a skinny little boy.”

“But look at you,” I said. “How can you say that when you’ve gotten so big? And brown?” Bryce’s Oompa-Loompa look had morphed into more of a dark tan since I saw him at his competition. It was still a little extreme, but at least he no longer appeared like he would glow in the dark.

He flipped me off and I laughed.

“Come on,” I said. “Get off your ass. I need you to get the asparagus ready and squeeze the lemons. Think you can do that, muscle man?”

“Anything for you,” my brother said, and I knew he meant it. Besides seeing my mother so happy, the best thing that came out of her second marriage was definitely Bryce.

With all our jabbering and goofing around, it took about two hours for us to finish prepping and cooking the dinner. I left him around one o’clock with written, step-by-step instructions on how to reheat the meal. I ran back home to let Jasper out, then over to my work to pick up the forty pounds of slow-cooked pork I’d made the night before. I’d gotten the meat at cost from my supplier and within the Hope House dinner budget. Juan helped me load the two enormous plastic tubs of meat into the back of my car and wished me well for the evening.

“I’ve got everything under control, boss,” he said. “I’ll see you on Thursday.”

“Thanks, Juan. You’re the best.” I gave him a quick, impromptu hug and was on my way. Anticipation danced in my belly as I drove to the shelter, knowing I’d get to spend the next ten hours with Jack. I drove around the back of the building to drop off the plastic tubs at the kitchen door. Rita answered when I knocked.

“Eden! Good to see you.” She was wearing capri jeans and a tight pink T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase wag more, bark less.

“Good to see you, too,” I said. “I come bearing meat. Lots and lots of meat.”

“Jack’s right there.” She nodded toward an empty, dirt-filled lot on the other side of the alley. “Hey, buddy!” she hollered with her hands cupped around her mouth. “Your lady has arrived with dinner!”

Feeling ridiculously pleased at being called Jack’s “lady,” I stood on my tiptoes to see over the top of my car. He strode toward us with a smile. “Hi,” I said with a wave. “What’re you up to?”

He came around my car and stood next to me. “Just checking out the lot, trying to figure out what in the hell to do with it.”

“It’s yours?” I asked.

“Yep,” Rita said. “It was part of the property deal when you bought this place, right?”

Jack shot her a hard look and a flash of guilt lit Rita’s face. “I’m going to get the coleslaw started,” she said. “I’ll see you inside, Eden.”

“Okay,” I said. “What was that about?” I asked Jack after she’d gone back into the kitchen.

“Oh, nothing.” He turned to face me and leaned in for a kiss. I felt butterflies all the way down to my toes. He pulled back and smiled, touching the tip of his nose to mine. “Hi.”

I grinned, feeling giddy. “Hi.”

“I want to do something with the lot, so I was just hanging out in it a bit, waiting for inspiration.”

“Any luck?” I asked, placing my hands on either side of his waist. I could feel the warmth of his skin through his shirt.

Jack sighed. “Not really. I was thinking maybe an outdoor sleeping area, but I’m not sure about the zoning. I’ll have to check it out with the city.” He peered into the backseat of my Honda. “What’s in the tubs?”

“A crap-ton of pork. I need a burly young man to help me get it in the kitchen and into some pots so I can sauce it up. Know of anyone?”

“Well, I’ve got the young part down, but I don’t know about the burly. I might have to call Tom in to pinch-hit for me.”

I punched his arm playfully and he let me go to open the door and carry the containers inside. I went to park my car and came back to the kitchen to find Jack and Rita in an intense discussion. Jack’s face was close to hers and Rita was nodding but frowning too.

“I’m not interrupting, am I?” I asked.

Both Jack and Rita looked up and immediately rearranged their expressions into smiles. “Oh no,” Rita said. “Just business stuff.” She brightened her smile further. “Want to get started? Word’s gotten out on the street about your mad cooking skills. I think we’ll be busy tonight.”

“Really?” I said. “I’m glad.” I looked at Jack. “Are you staying to help?”

He shook his head, still smiling. “No, I’ve got a ton of paperwork to do. Come get me if you need any more heavy lifting.”

“You know I will,” I said. I was disappointed he wouldn’t be hanging out in the kitchen with me for the afternoon, but I smiled and waved him off. It was a fine line between showing him how interested I was and sending him running from my rampant need to be with him every minute. Nothing drove a man off more quickly than a clingy woman.

“He’s a goner,” Rita commented after he’d left.

“What do you mean?” I asked as I reached to tie an apron around my waist.

“All week long it’s been ‘Eden says this’ or ‘I want to take Eden there.’” She grinned. “He’s toast.”

I blushed and she laughed. “Oh, boy,” she said. “You’re toast, too. He’s an Aquarius, so it’s a good match for you. I don’t even have to do your chart. I knew it the minute I saw you two together that night in the office.”

“You did, huh?”

“Oh, yeah. Sparks flew. I was lucky to escape when I did.”

Rita and I spent the next few hours getting the meal ready. I put together a homemade barbecue sauce while she chopped up about fifty heads of green and purple cabbage for the slaw. We pulled the massive amounts of pork apart and heated it up slowly on the stove, stirring in the sauce to help keep it moist. A local bakery had donated about ten racks of hamburger buns and I made five cookie sheets full of espresso-laced brownies. When it was all ready, Rita buzzed Jack to come help us set up, and we opened the doors for dinner.

“The line’s down the block,” Jack remarked before he let the first rush in. “I hope we have enough.”

I helped Rita serve for the first hour, putting together sandwiches and scooping up good-sized portions of coleslaw onto paper plates. One of Jack’s other employees, who introduced herself as Starr, showed up, so when the line calmed down to a dull roar, I was able to go back to the kitchen to fetch the first tray of brownies and take it around the dining room, serving each individual. Every tall, skinny man with long, dark hair sent my heart skipping a beat, but none so far was my father. Jack came over to assist me in serving the brownies, introducing me to his regular clients.

“This is Jade and Cheyenne,” he said, gesturing toward two older-looking women sitting together at a table. They were painfully thin—skeletal, really—and wore heavy makeup and skintight, peacock-hued T-shirts. “Ladies, I’d like you to meet Eden.”

“Hi,” I said with a smile. “Would you like a brownie?”

“Only if you sit down and eat one with us,” one of the women said. She had black stringy hair pulled up into a ponytail on the top of her head. “I’m Jade.”

I looked at Jack and handed him the tray of brownies, snagging three in the process. He obliged with a smile and walked away to finish handing out dessert on his own. I sat down at the table across from Jade and Cheyenne and gave them each a brownie. “Thanks,” I said. “I’m wiped out.”

“You work today?” asked the other woman, whom Jack had introduced as Cheyenne. She was blond with thin, greasy braids and no teeth. Like Jade’s, her face was pitted with angry acne scars that her elaborate makeup did nothing to hide.

“Sort of. I helped my brother cook a meal to impress a girl and then I came here to cook all afternoon. I think I need to find a career that doesn’t have me on my feet so much.”

“You should give sex work a try,” Jade said. “You’re definitely on your back more than your feet!”

Cheyenne cackled and popped a bite of brownie in her mouth. “Oh yeah, I’m sure this pretty girl wants to come be a hooker.”

“Sex worker,” Jade said, correcting her. “And why not? We make a living.”

“And we shoot it right up our arms,” Cheyenne said. She reached over and patted me on the arm. “Don’t worry, honey. We’re just jokin’.”

“I figured.” I smiled. “How long have you been coming to Hope House?”

Jade looked at Cheyenne and tilted her head. “What, since it opened?” she said. Cheyenne nodded. Jade went on. “We heard Jack was a good guy and he brought the nurse in for free HIV and hepatitis tests. Then he started doing dinner and we was hooked.” She moved her gaze back to me. “The food’s been hella better since you got here, though.”

“Well, thanks.” I felt oddly privileged to have been asked to sit down with these women. I knew from both Rita and Jack that their clientele didn’t open up very easily to strangers. I imagined what it must be like to be them, to live in their world, and I shuddered a bit internally. What did it feel like, I wondered, to have people on the street avert their eyes from you to avoid interaction? Was this how my father lived now? Alone and unacknowledged?

“What time’s your next job, Jade?” Cheyenne asked with her mouth full of brownie. Her question jolted me out of my thoughts about my dad.

“Seven o’clock,” Jade answered. “I got a regular for a half-’n-half in the alley behind his office. Get this. Dude wears pink lace panties.” She snorted. “How ’bout you?”

“I got nothing. It’s the corner for me tonight, see what I can dig up.”

“You need to lower your rates,” Jade advised.

“Fuck that. I don’t got any teeth, so I can charge more!” She opened her mouth wide to reveal slightly frightening pink and empty gums.

Jade reached in her mouth and pulled out a set of dentures. “No, I can charge more. I provide options!”

Though a little horrified at the content of their conversation, I burst out laughing. They looked at me, confounded by my amusement. “I’m sorry,” I gasped. “I can’t help it. ‘I provide options!’” They still stared at me like I was out of my mind so I explained further, trying to catch my breath. “As a chef I provide options for soup or salad and you provide teeth or no teeth. Different profession, similar business model.” I cracked up again.

Both ladies smiled and started to laugh, too. It struck me how surreal this conversation was. Like any other talk I might have with Georgia—a simple exchange of information about our respective lives. The subject matter might be entirely different, but the sense of connection was the same.

Jack came back over when he saw us laughing. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

“Options,” Jade said, and all three of us giggled while Jack appeared baffled.

He sat down next to me, pressing his leg against mine. “Did Eden tell you about her father?”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t.” It hadn’t crossed my mind to bring it up. Did my dad utilize a sex worker’s services? I cringed to consider it.

“What about your dad, honey?” Cheyenne asked.

Jack looked at me expectantly, so I took a deep breath and explained to the ladies what had brought me to Hope House in the first place. They listened intently to my description and took a long, hard look at the snapshot of him I kept in my purse.

Jade ran her finger along the edge of the photo and smiled softly. “It’s nice,” she said, “that you’re looking for him. My family wrote me off a long time ago. They think I’m a piece of shit. Which I am.”

“No,” I said, standing up to hug her. “You’re not.” She clung to me for a moment and I pressed as much feeling as I could muster into my embrace before she pulled away. I hugged Cheyenne, too.

“We’ll keep our eyes open for your dad, sweetie,” Jade said. “If we see him, we’ll let him know where to find you.”

“Thanks,” I said sincerely. “That means a lot.”

“Oooh! I got a date,” Jade said, noticing the time. “See you next week, Eden?”

I nodded. “I’ll be here.”

“Bring some more of those brownies, too,” Cheyenne said. “They were bangin’.”

After they left, Jack took my hand under the table and traced the outline of my fingers with the tip of one of his. My breath shuddered. He glanced at me sidelong with a wicked half smile. “Problems?” he asked in a mock-innocent tone.

“No,” I breathed. “No problems.” Holy crap, this man knew what he was doing. I tried not to think about where he might have learned it.

“That was great of you, you know,” he said, pulling my hand up to kiss the inside of my palm.

I smiled at this gesture. “What was great?”

“Hugging them like that. They don’t get a lot of physical affection. Some from each other, maybe, but not nearly enough. Outside of the men who pay them for sex, they’re basically touch-starved.”

I shrugged. “I’m an affectionate girl.”

“Lucky me.” He traced the sensitive nerves of my hand again and then continued up the underside of my forearm.

“What are you doing after your shift tonight?” I asked. Excitement skittered along my skin.

He locked his eyes on mine. “I don’t know. Did you have any wild ideas?”

“Well, I was thinking you might come over to my place,” I said, attempting to keep my breathing pattern normal.

“Won’t Jasper be jealous?” he asked.

“He’ll live.”

He leaned over and brushed his lips against mine. “I’d love to,” he whispered.

What the hell, I thought. Rules were made to be broken. Georgia will be so proud.