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“I’ll make a list and bring it to you.”
“No need.” She rejected seeing him. “You’ll be busy.”
“Carrie.”
“Yes?”
Quite serious and deliberately vulnerable, he told her, “I’d like you to be my guest for this. Would you?”
“I’m very busy.”
“Please.”
There was a long silence. He resisted any of the crowding questions that he sweat over, like: Were she and Pepper sleeping together? Was she totally finished with Stefan Szyszko? Could she bring herself to be with him even just one or two days? He wanted her filmed with him, if the film crew did that.
She said, “I suppose.”
“You photograph so well, you’ll be the star.”
“Why Stefan Szyszko, you’re a gentleman!”
“I’m sure as hell trying.” And his breath caught in his chest over his own unexpected words. What was he saying?
She waited then said, “Call me when the schedule is solid.”
“Why don’t I pick you up now and we can figure where it’s best for the plane to land and take off?”
She laughed low and very amused.
Since he was dead serious, he wasn’t aware of anything except that she hadn’t hung up on him, yet.
Carrie’s voice said in his ear, “Now, how will we know something like that?”
And his tricky mind supplied, “We can figure how the wind blows and how we can get the takeoffs and landings with the car lot in the background.”
“Smart. Ask the pilot.”
Unhappily, his stupid tongue then demanded, “What were you doing in church with Pepper Hodges?”
Just like that, she replied, “I was so surprised to see you there that I was a total blank.”
His voice went low and velvety. “So you knew I was there.”
“The other people all looked like good churchgoers...then there was you. You tend to stand out in any crowd, but you are a sore thumb in a church.”
He was offended. “Why?”
“You look like what most women are praying about.”
“To get me?”
And her voice was soft and gentle. “To get away from you.” And she quietly hung up.
Thoughtfully serious, Stefan laid his phone gently in its cradle. He was sober and pensive. She wanted to get away from him. Why?
So he went into a period of grief. He was being shunned. He forgot all about having discarded her...so recently. He only knew she felt he was unsuitable and therefore a man for a woman to escape. His opinion of himself wavered.
His mother recognized his conduct. She was kind and gentle with her youngest. His brothers were roughnecks and laughed at him, but the fact he didn’t notice their abrasive humor caused them to ask their parents, “What’s eatin’ the shrimp?”
Their father replied, “Let up on him.”
And their mother said, “Leave him alone.”
So his brothers knew it was something serious. They made inquiries about his car business and learned he was doing great. They discussed his health and it was okay. So it had to be a woman, but they couldn’t figure out which one. He’d discarded the strawberry blonde.
They took him hunting, and scoffed at him and needled him and razed him so that he would feel loved.
And in case the problem was a reluctant woman, they mentioned that they envied him for being single and loose.... They told about all the times they’d been turned down, and they made it hilarious.
It was a great time. Then without shooting a rifle but with the beer gone, they went home. The brothers felt they’d been indispensable. Stefan would be okay, since he knew he had four brothers and they backed him.
Stefan hadn’t really noticed.
* * *
The time came when Pat Vernon, the producer from the San Antonio TV station, came to Blink to plot the flight. The television crew came along. They invaded Stefan’s house as if it was their own. And they groused at the cameraperson, who was a slender brunette woman. She didn’t budge from wanting a bedroom to herself. Selfish. They had all been unselfishly willing to share. She was just another stubborn woman.
That gave Stefan a perfect excuse to call Carrie and ask, “We have a woman cameraperson here—” He allowed that to soak in. “She insists on sleeping alone, using all of one of the bedrooms. Would you be kind enough to get her out of our hair?”
Stefan was that unkind because he wanted Carrie to understand he couldn’t be lured by another woman. While he recognized his motive, he didn’t examine it at all.
“Tell her to come on over.”
“Well, she doesn’t have a car.”
“I’ll come fetch her,” Carrie volunteered. “She can use mine.”
“What’ll you do?”
“Pepper has a sp—”
And Stefan’s speech tromped on anything Pepper might be able to do. Stefan said in a hurry, “You can have one of the spare cars.” And he was exuberant! She’d be driving one of his cars! His smile spread over his face.
But Carrie mentioned logically, “Just lend a Jeep to the woman.”
Stefan was appalled. “Uh. She can’t drive a Jeep.”
“I thought you said even a little child can drive one.”
“She’s stupid,” he hurriedly told Carrie. “She needs a basic car.”
“Mine is not automatic. Can she shift gears?”
“Yes.” Stefan had to admit it.
“Then let her use the Jeep.”
His mind racing, Stefan blurted, “I don’t trust her with one of my good Jeeps and—”
“Stefan,” Carrie was extraordinarily patient. “If you wouldn’t trust this strange female with your Jeep, then why should I lend her my car?”
“I’ll get back to you.” Then he added hurriedly, “Thank you for taking her in. The guys need two rooms. She was selfish. Just like—” And he stopped.
“Just...like...what?” Carrie’s voice was deadly.
His Baltic Sea, Polish pirate genes replied without his permission, “Just like you.” And he gently hung up on her exclamation.
He sat silently, trying to sort out how he was to handle this woman. Carrie. It was not a Polish name. It was from the British Isles. No wonder he was having so much trouble with her. The Irish had been there first and the British were still having trouble controlling them. Stefan understood the frustration of the British.
But his Polish blood understood the Irish. Poles disliked being pushed or dominated.
Then Stefan tried to think of any people who willingly submitted to another, and he came up without any race who would.
And then there were women and men. Men were in an endless struggle to try to control females. It was just about impossible. But men were tenacious and they would survive and dominate.
Fat chance.
Three
The brunette cameraperson’s name was Minnie Tombs, but a couple of the guys called her Many Times and snickered a lot.
There are just males who are slow to mature.
Minnie was enduring. Since Szyszko didn’t harass her, she looked at him with some interest, until she saw how he looked at Carrie.
Minnie and Carrie hit it off from the first glance. Carrie was that way. She fitted in with other women very easily.
Watching the two, Stefan thought he’d just made a very formidable mistake, allowing that cameraperson into Carrie’s house and into Carrie’s control. He considered them and frowned.
The men bached it at Stefan’s. The eighty-two-year-old Mac fit into the male household with ex-military ease. He was the only one who had a room alone. He’d been a master sergeant in World War II. Everybody knows a master sergeant has things the way he wants them, and he didn’t cotton to sharing a room with any other male.
Stefan had to share his room with Pat and one of the other men, and those who were left took over the third bedroom. At night, the snoring was really something.
As usual with new people, the guests were fascinated with Stefan’s last name. That started when one of them said, “You have a good TEXAS name...Cisco.”
Just the pronunciation showed the name was wrong. Stefan replied, “I’m Polish. My last name’s spelled different.”
“Yeah?”
So Stefan spelled his name and that threw them all for a loop. “What!”
The owner of the Polish name was practiced in his patience with the uninitiated.
* * *
Stefan and the crew, plus Minnie, would be out for days looking over backgrounds for filming, but they spent suppertime and the evenings at the Szyszkos’.
Besides helping with setting the table and the clearing away and dishwashing, the photo crew was primarily learning how to spell the Szyszko name, and complaining because the Szyszko parents hadn’t had daughters.
That brought up Mr. Szyszko’s telling his wife about him finally knowing how to make girls just after his fifth son was born. The guys loved the story; Stefan’s mother was patient.
About that time, Carrie brought Minnie and some other women along, and the guys got polite and careful.
Mrs. Szyszko mentioned the quietness to her husband, and he explained, “Women terrify men.”
She scoffed.
He was surprised, “Haven’t you ever noticed how careful and quiet I am around you?”
She gasped, too quickly.
Then the guests wanted to know why Mrs. Szyszko was choking. “What’s the matter?”
Patting her back, Mr. Szyszko replied, “I shocked her.”
“What did you say?” They were concerned.
“Something obviously too adult for you kids.”
They objected their youth, and they all made suggestions on how to stop Mrs. Szyszko’s coughing. “Pat her back.”
“Raise her arm up.”
“No, the left one. Higher.”
They sought to distract her. They played like apes and made strange noises and tried to scare her—the mother of five sons—but she only coughed harder.
Mr. Szyszko instructed, “You scare hiccups!” But he took his wife out of the room.
It was only then that Stefan realized Carrie had cut off just about all of her magical hair! He was stunned. She’d done that?
He stared at her. And in all that bedlam, she slid her eyes over and returned his stare. Then she turned away from him and rejoined the chattering laughter.
With Mrs. Szyszko gone from the room, Pat Vernon suggested to Minnie, “Hiccup. We’ll figure out a way to scare you.”
She was used to them and declined the entertainment.
Pat chided, “You’re selfish.”
