[Jennifer Cloud 01.0] The Shoes Come First Read online

  “I’ll know more once I’m there. I’ll e-mail if I can, I promise.” He leaned in and kissed me for a long while.

  “I’ve really got to go. Do you still have your key?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I pouted.

  “OK, there’s coffee in the kitchen. You’re on your own for food. I’ll see you soon. Bye, Jen.” And he was gone.

  I stretched out like a cat, satisfied from a night of glorious sex but slightly depressed there would not be any more of that for a while. I managed to get up and take a shower. Jake was gone, and I had to face a new job and a crazy new roommate.

  I came out of the shower with a towel wrapped around me and one turbaned up in my hair. Jake’s shirt from the night before was lying on the chair. I put it on and smelled his cologne, which immediately made me feel a little better. I strolled into the kitchen and replenished my coffee. I stripped the bed and put on new sheets, because I felt Jake’s cleaning lady shouldn’t have to change the sex sheets. Another area Jake and I disagreed. As I was making up the bed, the phone rang. I heard the answering machine pick up, and Jake’s voice let the caller know he was not in.

  I smiled; even the voice on his answering machine was that slow, warm Texas drawl. I could picture his dimples winking in and out as he said the words. The machine beeped, and I heard a giggle.

  “Hey, Jakee, it’s me, Bambi. Sorry we couldn’t get together last night, but I thought maybe we could catch a quickie before you fly off to work. Love ya, call me.”

  Oosh! My blood was boiling. I knew Jake and I weren’t exclusive, but jeez, Bambi? What kind of bimbo name was that? I dressed quickly, crumpled Jake’s shirt into a ball, and threw it on the freshly made bed. Grabbing my red Prada bag, I stomped out past the guard in the foyer. It wasn’t until I reached my car that I realized my hair was still wrapped in a turban on top of my head. Dang.

  The next day I woke up to a loud pounding on my front door. I hurried groggily down the stairs to see what was causing the ruckus. My cousin Gertrude had her face pressed against the glass window in the door, trying to see inside. I unlocked the door and pulled it open.

  “Good morning,” she said in a chipper voice.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Six a.m.,” she replied. “I’m supposed to move in today, right?”

  “Yes, but my today doesn’t usually start until at least ten on Saturday.”

  I looked past Gertie and saw a small moving van parked at the curb. I had run across Gertie at a few family functions, but it had been years since I had seen her. She was still shorter than me, but her Ronald McDonald hair had calmed down into a deep red color and hung down her back in a thick braid. She wasn’t fat but stout. She definitely came from the Cloud side of the family.

  My parents had moved out the week before. My mom cried as she loaded the last box. Now they lived in a new house with all the amenities and a neighborhood full of old people to keep them company.

  I moved aside and let Gertie enter. She was followed by her two very large brothers carrying large boxes.

  “You remember the twins, Billy Ray and Bobby Ray, don’t cha?” asked Gertie.

  “Y’all have, um, really grown,” I said. “And you guys have all your teeth, well, sort of…” They both smiled big. Billy Ray had a big gold cap on one of his front teeth.

  “Yeah,” he said, “knocked it out in football, but now I look like Mike Tyson.”

  “Absolutely,” I agreed. Not.

  Last time I had seen Gertie, she had a tongue ring and was sporting paint-on tattoos to irritate her newest stepdad. Gertie had removed the tongue ring. I guess the rebel attitude had worn out its effect on her stepdad. We helped Gertie move in and paid her brothers with pizza and beer. Six empty pizza boxes later, the twins left.

  Gertie took my parents’ old room. The space was bigger than mine, but I had turned the spare room into a closet, and my room was comfortable and familiar. I would feel weird sleeping in the room where my parents “did it.” I knew I should be more mature about such things, but, ewww, you never get over the thought.

  Gertie and I were polar opposites. I liked designer things, and she liked pink and lots of it. Her bedspread was pink, along with her curtains and most of her clothing, and she had a big pink papasan chair that took up an entire corner of her room. When I first stuck my head in, I thought the Pepto-Bismol bottle had exploded.

  “Whoa,” I told her, “this is sooo pink.”

  “I know, I think my mom told me once I looked terrible in pink, so I made it my new favorite color.”

  Gertie and her mom had a love-hate relationship. Gertie was taking classes for her degree at Southern Methodist University. At night she worked part time in the library on campus. I wondered how someone with such a loud voice could work at a place where quiet was revered. Gertie told me she spent all her time catching the college students making out in the stacks.

  When Cousin Trish married Vincent Gambino, things changed for Gertie. Vinnie and Trish moved to Manhattan. The next week Vinnie sent Gertie and her brothers off to Catholic school. Gertie explained the nuns had whacked that white-trash behavior right out of her. On the other hand, Billy Ray and Bobby Ray had given the nuns so much grief, they were expelled and sent off to military school. After a few months, even the armed forces couldn’t handle them. They were kicked out and moved back to Mount Vernon to live with Trish’s mom, Aunt Azona.

  My dad says Aint Azona could make the devil sing the “Hallelujah Chorus,” but she was heaven in the kitchen.

  Gertie told me she loved to read. When she was sent away to school, she didn’t have many friends, and one of the nuns encouraged her to read. Gertie’s infatuation with history books led her to study for her bachelor’s degree in history. She had a ton of books. The boxes filled up the entire living room. Who would have thought the redheaded, freckle-faced, kick-your-ass cousin would be a book-reading nerd? Although I thought she could still kick some ass if you pushed the right buttons.

  We decided Gertie’s books could go on Dad’s bookshelf in the living room. This way either of us could have access to them if we wanted. I thought this was a good idea. I liked to read a good book occasionally, while my nails dried.

  Dad had cleared out his homeopathic medicine books, leaving me a few about medicinal herbs and vitamins in case I had an herbal emergency. I unpacked books on medieval history, ancient Roman history, American history, and various other countries’ histories.

  I called to Gertie, who was in the kitchen. “Did you really read all these books?”

  “Yes, I have what’s called a photographic memory,” she answered from behind the kitchen wall. “I can remember anything I have read at least once. Mamma Bea said I get that from the Cloud side of the family.”

  I couldn’t recall the last book I had just put up on the shelf, so I figured I had missed the photographic memory gene. If Gertie had a photographic memory, why did she need to keep all these books? Go figure.

  I was reaching down for another book when I heard a hiss from below the box I was unpacking. Removing the box, I found a crate with a hinged metal front. Sticking through the bars was a gray paw. I bent down for a closer look, and a pair of bright green eyes squinted at me, followed by another hiss.

  “Gertie!” I hollered. “What is this?”

  Gertie rounded the corner with a bowl of ice cream. “Oooooooh, cuddleumpkins!” She put her bowl of ice cream on top of the crate and opened the metal door. I backed up a few steps ‘cause cuddleumpkins didn’t look too happy to see Gertie. She reached in and pulled out a huge gray tabby cat, stuck him in the crook of her arm, and rocked him like a baby.

  “No one said anything about a cat. I’m not sure we can have a cat.” My older sister, Melody, had allergies, so we were never allowed any animals.

  Gertie grimaced. “I already cleared it through your dad.”

  My dad loved animals; it was my mom who always put her foot down. Gertie had definitely asked the right parent for app
roval. Maybe having a pet wouldn’t be so bad. He would kill the bugs and any mice that might get in the yard.

  “This here’s Smoke, my little cuddleumpkins.” Gertie said the last part in baby talk as she kissed the cat on the head. “He’s real friendly once you get to know him.” She scratched under his chin, and he tilted his head up, rolled his eyes back into his head, and purred. I studied the creature. Cats always acted pissed off. He looked at me upside down, his green eyes barely visible through the slit-like openings. I thought he looked harmless, so I stepped forward, extending my hand to pet Smoke on the head. He opened one eye, then performed a perfect backflip out of Gertie’s arms, claws extended, and attached himself to my leg.

  “Yikes, he’s got me,” I shrieked, running around the room with the cat stuck to my leg. “Get him off, get him off!”

  “Hold still!” Gertie said, chasing after me. “He’s nervous.”

  She plucked him off my leg, along with a chunk of my sweatpants.

  “Nervous, my ass!”

  “He just doesn’t know you yet.”

  I stood panting, bent over with my hands on my knees, my mouth hanging open. “I think cuddleumpkins should stay in your room.”

  “Okeydoke. Once you make friends, he won’t jump you,” she said, placing the cat in front of the bowl of ice cream, which he licked at victoriously.

  “How long does that take?”

  “Mmmm,” Gertie said with a finger on her lips. “Oh, I’m not sure. He’s never really warmed up to anyone but me.”

  Great, not only am I sharing my space with a cousin, but now I also have a psycho cat. My life just keeps getting better. Jeez.

  Chapter 6

  Monday morning my alarm sounded, playing the sweet sound of Carlos Santana. Waking up with Carlos was at least an attempt to put me in a good morning mood. I crawled out of bed to get ready for my job as a CA for my brother, Eli. He had graduated from chiropractic school and moved back to Dallas to open his own clinic. I thought this was cool—owning your own business right out of college. I didn’t know how cool it would be for me to work for him.

  I decided to wear my white Dior sweater and black slacks, subtle yet sophisticated. I pulled the sweater on over my favorite Victoria’s Secret camisole. Damn hanger titties. These are the annoying little bumps you get when you leave your sweater on the hanger from the dry cleaner’s. I smoothed them away as best as possible, slid on my Jimmy Choo pumps with a slight mourning for my past employer, and I was out the door. I hopped in my cute car and headed east toward what we call the country.

  Sunnyside had a few farms, and I waved at the cows as I passed. My dad, being part Native American, told us if all the cows were standing in the same direction, it was going to rain. I had the top down, so I checked out the cow forecast, and about 30 percent of the cows were standing in the same direction, so I felt like my chances were good it wasn’t going to rain today. You can never tell about the weather in Texas. It’s as finicky as an old woman going through menopause. One minute it’s ninety degrees and sunny skies, the next you’re in the middle of a downpour. I chose to go with the cows instead of the local weatherman. More accurate.

  My dad’s health-food store—well, really it was a feed store that sold a lot of vitamins, but being so close to the farms, he sold more products for animals than humans—sat on the corner of Beltline Street and Main Street. The town of Sunnyside and the city of Mesquite intersected at my dad’s corner. He got the farmers and the suburbanites all in one swoop. My dad’s Ford truck was parked behind the store. He was a diehard Ford man. I beeped my horn as I passed the store and turned right on Beltline. I motored down Beltline, passed the high school, and took Highway 80 out of Mesquite.

  Eli’s clinic was in a small town called Coffee Creek, about twenty minutes east from my house. People in Coffee Creek didn’t take any shit. They were hardworking blue-collar people. Most of the locals worked on farms or at the ice-cream factory. The factory was the only big industry in the town.

  My brother’s building was located on the downtown square. I exited Highway 80 and made a beeline to the drive-through at the McDonald’s on the corner. I needed a jolt of coffee to get me motivated. The girl at the drive-through had a name tag that read “Marie.” I wanted to tell Marie that she and I were going to be good friends, because if I had to be at work every day by eight thirty, I was going to have to start it off with a large mocha latte.

  After I was properly caffeinated, I turned on Fourth Street and entered the downtown area of Coffee Creek. The big red courthouse stood tall and proud, identifying the center of the town. About twenty steps led up to the entry, lined with colonial-style columns across the front. It was a typical, small-town square with four intersections and one-way-only signs directing you around the courthouse. I passed Eli’s chiropractic office. His building was bookended by a barber on the right and an empty building on the left. A nice courtyard stretched between Eli’s office and the empty building. On the other side of the vacant building was Busch Taxidermy. He had a sign in the window that read, “Get mounted cheap.” Geesh.

  I motored around the square and parked behind Eli’s building in his employee-only parking. I tried the back door, but it was locked, so I walked through the courtyard and stood admiring the big plate-glass window that read “Cloud Chiropractic Center.” I was proud of Eli but not so sure I was cut out to work in a medical office. I tried to watch CSI one time and got queasy.

  “You can do this until the great shoe-buying god finds your resume and calls for an interview,” I said to myself as I took a deep breath and walked in the front door.

  The office wasn’t open for business yet, and I took a minute to take it all in. The waiting room was painted a soft beige color, and the carpeting was deep blue. There was a TV turned on in the corner carrying on about your bones and how you should be taking care of them. I stood up straighter and walked up to the sliding-glass window at the front counter. I could hear people talking from the other side of the glass. The window slid open, and a gray-haired lady stuck her head out.

  “We open in five; you can take a seat,” she instructed.

  To my left a door opened, and a cute girl who looked about sixteen came bouncing up to me.

  “Hi, you must be Jennifer,” she said with a perky smile.

  “Yep, that’s me,” I answered, extending my hand.

  “I’m Paulina, Dr. Cloud’s assistant,” she explained as she grabbed my hand and pumped it up and down. “I’ll show you around. We just opened last month, and we are already very busy. I think this is on account of your brother is so cute. All the LOLs just love him.”

  “LOLs?” I asked.

  “Yeah, little old ladies,” she answered. “Your brother has a way with them.”

  The gray-haired lady chimed in, “Yep, they haven’t had a hot doctor in this town since Dr. Evans moved in thirty years ago and gave away free gynecological exams with your first visit.”

  “Dr. Evans was a hottie?” asked Paulina, making a face.

  “Girl, that was back in the day.”

  “Must have been,” giggled Paulina. “Now he looks like Gene Wilder in Dr. Frankenstein. This is Mary, by the way; she is our office manager.” Paulina gestured toward the older lady.

  “Proud to meet ya,” Mary said from the window. “Why don’t you show Jennifer around the office? We have a few minutes before the morning appointments arrive.”

  Paulina showed me the front office where Mary worked, then took me down the hall, passing rooms that opened off the hallway where the chiropractic would take place. Beyond this was an open room where patients could exercise and get therapy. Paulina explained this to me as we crossed the hall into a break room.

  She also informed me she was twenty-two—could have fooled me—and had a two-year-old daughter. Her husband worked at the ice-cream factory. I suddenly felt the hands of time around my throat, and my biological clock struck twelve, reminding me I had one. I swallowed hard, breaking the grasp,
and tried to smile politely at Paulina. She poured a cup of coffee, and I followed her out of the break room and into an X-ray room.

  My brother stood looking over some X-rays placed on a viewing box. Paulina handed him the coffee and left, giving me a pat on the back. For the first time, I noticed my brother was no longer the big football jock. He was dressed in a white doctor’s coat, dark pants, and a tie. Under the coat he had a blue shirt the color of his eyes. Every strand of his dark, short hair was held in place by some space-age gel. Eli had grown up.

  “Hey, Jen,” he said, coming over to give me a hug.

  “I like the tie, but I swear I remember a certain boy proclaiming he would never wear a tie when he went to work.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess Mom was right; it does look nice, and she bought it for me.” He grinned and his cheek dimpled. “I know you do not know much about chiropractic, but you are friendly, determined, and I can teach you what you need to know.”

  I took his coffee and drank a big gulp, wishing it had some Bailey’s in it.

  “I’m a little nervous. I have never been to the chiropractor. I have no idea what you do.”

  “I think you will do a good job here.” He reached for his coffee and took a sip. “You will assist me today. All you need to do is follow me around and write down the things I say,” he explained, handing me a clipboard.

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “For now,” he said, “I want to start you off slow. I know you have never been to a chiropractor, and I want you to watch me work so you can understand what I do.”

  “No problemo,” I responded. It sounded easy enough.

  Paulina stuck her head in the doorway. “Dr. Cloud, Mr. Creedy is ready in room one.”

  “OK, thanks, Paulina,” Eli said.

  “Now what do I do?” I asked.

  “Follow me…” He rubbed his palms together and spoke in his best Mad Doctor voice.

  I followed Eli to room one, and Mr. Creedy was lying face up on the table. He was about seventy years old and had equal amounts of wiry hair protruding from his ears and nose. His head was bald except for a small crown of gray hair. He was wearing tan coveralls with big, brown, work boots covered in dry bird poop. He had his eyes closed. My brother bent down at the end of the table near the patient’s head.