“Call me when you’re ready,” said Alex. “I’ll pick you up.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Jordan said as he pushed his glasses up on his face, and then hurried behind his hungover uncle, the man used to being the teller of the joke, not its brunt.
The drive to school was slow because of the rush hour traffic, and Jordan kept switching channels on Oz’s radio. Oz hit his hand for the second time, and switched it back. “Didn’t I tell you to leave my radio along, child?”
“But I want to hear some brothers, Uncle Oz. Don’t you listen to any black people?”
“Who do you think I’m listening to right now?”
“According to that screen you’re listening to Hootie and the Blowfish,” Jordan said.
“Right,” said Oz. Their song, Let Her Cry, was blaring over his car’s sound system.
“Who the heck is Hootie and the Blowfish?” Jordan asked. “What the heck is Hootie and the Blowfish?”
“They’re a great band, that’s what. And they’re black. At least Hootie is.”
“Quit lying, Unc! Black? Him? Why he sounds like Johnny Cash or somebody!”
Oz shook his head. “You don’t know anything about good American music.”
“Like Hootie and the Blowfish?” Jordan asked. “You are so right!”
And that was when Oz, stuck in traffic, saw her. She was walking on the sidewalk right near a construction site. She held a briefcase in one hand and was munching on a bagel she held in her other hand. He nearly ran into the back of a car, and had to stop suddenly, when he saw her. Jordan looked where his uncle was looking after that sudden stop, and then smiled. His uncle couldn’t keep his eyes off of a good-looking woman if his life depended on it, he thought.
And Oz couldn’t stop looking at her. She wore a form-fitting dress that stopped just above her shapely legs, and heels so high that they made her appear as if she was walking on the tip of her toes. Her hair was thick and curly and down her back in a ponytail, and her smooth, dark-brown face looked radiant.
But just as he was admiring that face, one of the construction workers was admiring a different part of her. Her ass. He winked at his coworkers and then grabbed it with one of his hands, and squeezed. His coworkers laughed.
Gloria, who was walking to her diner from the rooms she rented at the local B & B, stopped and turned around sharply when she felt his hand on her butt. Then she took her briefcase and clobbered it over his head. “You perv!” she angrily yelled as she hit him.
But if she thought he was going to laugh it off the way his buddies were doing, she was wrong. He took his hand and slapped her so hard across her face that she fell down to the ground.
As soon as Oz saw it, he couldn’t believe it. He quickly pulled to the curb, slammed on brakes, jumped out of his car, and then ran as fast as he could run across that sidewalk and over to that worker. He took his fist and knocked that worker on his own ass so hard that the man bounced when he fell. Then, as the worker’s colleagues ran to help get him up, Oz hurried to Gloria.
“I’m okay,” Gloria said quickly as she was standing back up.
“Are you sure?” Oz asked as he helped her up.
“I’m sure,” she said, as she gathered up her briefcase. “Thanks.”
“You should press charges,” Oz said.
“Charges?” said the worker. “What are you talking? She hit me!”
“After you grabbed my ass, you perv!” Gloria shot back.
“You know you liked it!” the worker said, and as soon as he said it, Oz took his fist and knocked him down again. He moved to jump down there and continue the beating, but the man’s colleagues stepped in and kept Oz at bay.
“Thanks,” Gloria said again. “I’ve got to get to work.”
She seemed apologetic to Oz, as if she had no interest in making any waves in her new town. And he understood that. “Okay,” he said.
“Thanks again,” Gloria said again, and then began hurrying away, looking angrily at that worker as she left.
Oz looked at the worker, too, when she walked away. “Touch her again,” he warned, “and you’ll see me again.”
Then he went to his car and got inside. Jordan was staring at him. He’d never seen his uncle go out on a limb like that for somebody who wasn’t a member of their family. It was shocking to him.
Oz looked at his nephew. “What?” he asked him.
“Nothing,” Jordan said quickly. Then he smiled as his uncle drove away.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Three weeks later, Gloria was in the penthouse at The Drakos after having dinner with Alex and Kari.
“Thanks for the invite,” she said as they sat around, their bellies full, in the living room. “Dinner was wonderful.
“Alex wanted to invite you sooner,” said Kari, “but I thought we should give you a chance to handle your business.”
“I appreciate that,” said Gloria. “Because any other time and it would have been out of the question. I’ve been swamped. And once we open, I know it’s going to get even busier.”
“When Reno called and told me that you were in town,” Alex said, “I told him what took him so long. You’ve been in town.”
“That was my fault,” said Gloria. “I got so busy, I forgot to tell him I had closed on the property. He had no idea.”
“Was he upset?” Alex asked.
“No, sir,” said Gloria. “He was pissed,” she said, and they laughed.
“That’s Reno,” said Alex.
“When do you open?” Gloria asked her.
“In a week’s time. The employees will return to work on Monday after all of the electricians and painters and everybody else is gone. We hope to launch the new and improved Lucinda’s Diner on Friday.”
“She’s an old friend of mine,” said Kari. “I’m shocked she sold it, to tell you the truth. We thought it was sold before you took over, but that didn’t last very long at all.”
They heard the front door open.
Kari looked at Alex. “Expecting someone?” she asked him.
Then they heard that voice. “Where’s everybody?” It was Oz.
“Right here, Oz,” Kari said, “if you turn a corner.”
Gloria, on hearing that name, exhaled. She knew he was related to Alex Drakos, and she had halfway expected him to be at dinner with them. Truth was, she was looking forward to seeing him again after how he helped her that morning three weeks ago. But he wasn’t at dinner. But now he was just about to face her again? She thought she’d be ready for it. Now she wasn’t so sure.
“Oz is my kid brother,” Alex said to Gloria.
“I see,” said Gloria. She had no interest in giving him any backstory.
But they were distracted anyway because Oz, being Oz, entered talking, and with Jennifer, the woman from the bar, on his arm. “My friend here wants to meet the great Alex Drakos,” he was saying. “I told her there was nothing great--”
Oz stopped in his tracks when he saw Gloria. He hadn’t seen her since that morning on that sidewalk, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been on his mind. She had.