rendered senseless by his thumbs.
“The curlers were faulty and the company will be responsible for damages, including cleanup,” Jake said. “I think we should gather up the clothes and linens and take them all back to my house to be washed. The rest of this you can leave to the professionals.”
Berry squeezed her eyes shut and a tear popped out. “It makes me sad to see it like this.”
“Me too,” Jake said.
“I think I’d feel better if I cleaned it a little.”
Jake held her a little tighter. “Me too.”
“Really?”
“No,” he said, “but I’ll do anything to prevent another tear from sliding down your cheek.” He turned and rummaged through the drawers by the sink. “Where are your big garbage bags?”
“One drawer down.”
He located the bags and tossed them to her. “Here you go. Stuff the clothes and linens in these. I’m going to get the rug up before it ruins the floor.”
Berry filled the station wagon with the bagged laundry and looked up at her open windows. Jake was stuffing part of the waterlogged rug through one of them. “Bombs away,” he called, catapulting the rug onto the sidewalk below.
“Jake?”
He leaned out the window and grinned. His shirtsleeves were rolled to above the elbow, and a black smudge slanted across his cheek.
“Thanks,” Berry called up to him.
“Are you looking for a way to show gratitude?” he asked.
Berry smiled in spite of herself. She had to admire his tenacity.
An hour later Berry returned with Mrs. Fitz and Miss Gaspich. She unlocked the door to the Pizza Place and was relieved to see only a few water stains creeping down the walls.
“Just as good as new,” Mrs. Fitz commented.
Miss Gaspich set a bunch of wildflowers on the counter. “I picked these this morning in the woods behind Jake’s house. Don’t they look nice?”
Berry smelled the flowers. “They look great.”
Mrs. Fitz wrapped a snow-white apron around her middle. “We can handle this. You go on upstairs and help Jake with the apartment. Sounds like he’s having a party up there.”
Berry looked at the ceiling. It did sound like a party upstairs. There was music blaring from a radio and the sound of at least a dozen feet scuffing around. She took the stairs two at a time and found her apartment filled with people. Mrs. Giovanni stood at the sink, up to her elbows in soapsuds. Several adult Lings were scrubbing walls and scouring floors. Ling children ran from bedroom to living room in a game of tag. A tall, rawboned man turned from a sparkling-clean front window. He held a bottle of glass cleaner and looked pleased. “They’re pretty clean, now. Now you can see Mama Giovanni’s geraniums when they bloom, and down the street my Caribe Restaurant.”
Berry caught Jake by the arm as he hauled a load of trash to the stairs. “What are all these people doing here?”
“They just showed up, one by one. You were right. This is a nice neighborhood.”
“They came to help me?”
“Mrs. Ling said you were the reason her daughter won her class spelling bee last month. Said you tutored her free for weeks before the contest. Mrs. Giovanni tells me you drove her to the hospital every day for almost a month this winter when her husband had a heart attack.”
“The tall man cleaning the windows,” she whispered. “I’ve never met him.”
“Apparently you’ve befriended his wife.”
Berry looked confused.
“Anne Marie.”
Berry’s eyes opened wide. “Anne Marie?” She burst out laughing. “Anne Marie is a six-foot-tall platinum blond who only speaks French. She gets lonely when her husband is at work, so she visits me. I speak English and make pizzas, and she sits on the stool, knitting and speaking French. Neither of us can understand anything the other says.”
Jake shook his head. “How can you find time to do all these things, run a business, and go to school?”
“I’ve eliminated sleeping and only eat once a day.”
Jake was serious. “What about time for Berry?”
“I like my life.”
“I think you’re running on empty. When you say you haven’t got time for naked men-you’re right.”
“Naked men do not play an important role in my life.”
Jake grinned down at her. “I intend to change that.”
“Good thing for you Mrs. Dugan stayed home to do the laundry. I’d tell her you were talking dirty to me.”
“That isn’t talking dirty.” He leaned forward and whispered some of his future intentions in her ear. He stepped back, grinning, enjoying the look of flustered embarrassment on her face. “Now
Mrs. Giovanni bustled past with a bottle of detergent in her hand. She shook her finger at Berry. “You got a nice young man there. You’re lucky to have a man like that to take care of you.”
Jake whispered in Berry’s ear. “See, even Mrs. Giovanni thinks I should take care of you.”
“I don’t need taking care of.”
“Of course you do.”
“Not the way you mean.”
“Especially the way I mean.”
Berry narrowed her eyes and put her fists on her hips. “I guess I know what I need and what I don’t need. And I don’t need what you think I need. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
“I suppose you are-but it would be much more fun if we did it together.”
“I didn’t mean… you know perfectly well… oh, jeez.”
Jake handed her the bag of trash. “Here, this isn’t heavy. It’s scraps of wallpaper I scraped off the bedroom wall. You could take it downstairs for me. It’ll give you a chance to cool off.” He winked at Mrs. Giovanni. “Just being around me gets her all overheated.”
Berry took the bag and smacked Jake over the head with it.
Mrs. Fitz stood in the doorway of the Pizza Place and clicked her tongue at Berry. “You look like someone just stepped on your corns.”
“It’s that Jake Sawyer.”
“Isn’t he something? Um-hmmm.”
“The man has one thing on his mind.”
“You?”
“S-e-x.”
Mrs. Fitz looked at Berry. “Don’t underestimate him.”
Berry raised her eyebrows in question.
“He’s in love with you,” Mrs. Fitz said.
“We hardly know each other.”
“Sometimes your heart knows stuff your head hasn’t figured out yet.”
“He’s never told me.”
“Maybe he don’t know. Maybe he knows, but he’s afraid, like you.”
Berry squared her shoulders. “I’m not afraid.”
“Don’t tell fibs.”
“It’s just that I have this plan.”
“Bullshoot.”
“Mrs. Fitz! Such language.”
Mrs. Fitz laughed and slapped her thigh. “I know it. Aren’t I the ornery old lady, cussing like that?” She shook her head and returned to the caldron of pizza sauce bubbling on the stove. “You gotta be flexible, Lingonberry.
