The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror(13)

 

 

* * *

 

"Boy, you don't see that every day," said Tucker Case, who was sitting at a window table at H.P.'s Café, waiting for Lena to come back from freshening up in the rest-room. H.P.'s — a mix of pseudo Tudor and Country Kitchen Cute — was Pine Cove's most popular restaurant, and tonight it was completely packed.

 

The waitress, a pretty redhead in her forties, glanced up from the tray of drinks she was delivering and said, "Yeah, Theo hardly ever chases anyone."

 

"That Volvo was chasing a pine tree," Tuck said.

 

"Could be," said the waitress. "Theo used to do a lot of drugs."

 

"No, really — " Tuck tried to explain, but she had headed back to the kitchen. Lena was returning to the table. She was still in the black tank top under an open flannel shirt, but she had washed the streaks of mud from her face and her dark hair was brushed out around her shoulders. To Tuck she looked like the sexy but tough Indian guide chick in the movies, who always leads the group of nerdy businessmen into the wilderness where they are assaulted by vicious rednecks, bears gone mutant from exposure to phosphate laundry detergent, or ancient Indian spirits with a grudge.

 

"You look great," Tuck said. "Are you Native American?"

 

"What was the siren about?" Lena asked, sliding into the seat across from him.

 

"Nothing. A traffic thing."

 

"This is just so wrong." She looked around, as if everyone knew how wrong it was. "Wrong."

 

"No, it's good," Tuck said with a big smile, trying to make his blue eyes twinkle in the candlelight, but forgetting where exactly his twinkle muscles were located. "We'll have a nice meal, get to know each other a little."

 

She leaned over the table and whispered harshly, "There's a dead man out there. A man I used to be married to."

 

"Shh, shh, shh," Tuck shushed, gently placing a finger against her lip, trying to sound comforting and maybe a little European. "Now is not the time to talk of this, my sweet."

 

She grabbed his finger and bent it back. "I don't know what to do."

 

Tuck was twisted in his seat, leaning back to relieve the unnatural angle in which his finger was pointing. "Appetizer?" he suggested. "Salad?"

 

Lena let go of his finger and covered her face with her hands. "I can't do this."

 

"What? It's just dinner," said Tuck. "No pressure." He had never really dated much — gone on dates, that is. He'd met and seduced a lot of women, but it was never over a series of evenings with dinner and conversation — usually just some drinks and vulgarity at an airport hotel lounge had done the trick. He felt it was time he behaved like a grown-up — get to know a woman before he slept with her. His therapist had suggested it right before she'd stopped treating him, right after he'd hit on her. It wasn't going to be easy. In his experience things went a lot better with women before they got to know him, when they could still project hope and potential on him.

 

"We just buried my ex-husband," Lena said.

 

"Sure, sure, but then we delivered Christmas trees to the poor. A little perspective, huh? A lot of people have buried their spouses."

 

"Not personally. With the shovel they killed him with."

 

"You may want to keep it down a little." Tuck checked the diners at the nearby tables to see if they were listening, but they all seemed to be discussing the pine tree that had just driven by. "Let's talk about something else. Interests? Hobbies? Movies?"

 

Lena tossed her head as if she didn't hear him right, then stared as if to say, Are you nuts?

 

"Well, for instance," he pressed on, "I rented the strangest movie last night. Did you know that Babes in Toyland was a Christmas movie?"

 

"Of course, what did you think it was?"

 

"Well, I thought, well — now it's your turn. What's your favorite movie?"

 

Lena leaned close to Tuck and searched his eyes to see if he might be joking. Tuck batted his eyelashes, trying to look innocent.

 

"Who are you?" Lena finally asked.

 

"I told you."

 

"But, what's wrong with you? You shouldn't be so — so calm, while I'm a nervous wreck. Have you done this kind of thing before?"

 

"Sure. Are you kidding? I'm a pilot, I've eaten in restaurants all over the world."

 

"Not dinner, you idiot! I know you've had dinner before! What, are you retarded?"

 

"Okay, now everybody is looking. You can't just say 'retarded' in public like that — people take offense because, you know, many of them are. You're supposed to say 'developmentally disabled. "