Opposite of Frozen

by Jan O'Hara

  In unison, they turned toward the front of the room, where Oliver had sequestered himself at a banquet table as far from the buffet and crowd as possible. As they watched, he tossed a pen onto a legal tablet and rose to pace, one hand gripping his phone to his ear, the other rubbing his hair in a repetitive fore-to-aft, aft-to-fore motion.

  “Eh, he’s a guy,” Page said. “Whatever it is, it’ll be fixable with good food and exercise.”

  The seniors laughed and relaxed, as she’d intended.

  “Don’t forget flirting,” Avis said with a wink.

  Page smoothed her sweater over her hips. “I never do.” She walked away with a swagger she wasn’t feeling, hoping there was a simple solution to whatever was troubling Oliver.

  * * *

  ✽

  Page filled a plate for Oliver with a little of everything that verged towards the healthier side of the spectrum. He was obviously a man who took fitness seriously. She arrived at his table, whisked away his legal pad, and set the plate under his nose as he hung up from his call.

  “Eat,” Page said, one hand on her hip. While you’re at it, tell me what’s bothering you.

  “After a couple more calls. This health insurance business is going to drive me b—”

  “Now.” To prime the pump, Page waved a strawberry under Oliver’s nose. “Let’s restore your blood sugar so you can pretend to be human again. You’re making everybody twitchy.”

  He eyed her crossly but wrapped his fingers around her wrist and guided her hand to his mouth.

  Page was virtually certain his mind had been elsewhere, that the gesture had been an unthinking intimacy, but when his lips closed over her fingers, their eyes met. There was a long moment where they stared at one another.

  Then his phone buzzed and danced on the table, dispersing the charge in the air.

  Whoever it was, they were calling with a 602 area code and didn’t merit a unique screensaver. Oliver sent the call to voicemail and turned the phone face down. His sour expression was back.

  “Your ex?” Page asked.

  He grimaced and speared a piece of broccoli with his fork. “You could say that.”

  Why that should send a lance of disappointment through her, she didn’t know. The man was gorgeous, and by how he spread money around, apparently rolling in it. Of course he’d be a babe magnet. Heck, for all she knew, he was already married, though he didn’t wear a wedding band and didn’t seem the type to cheat, given his intense loyalty to his brother.

  Still, people had a weird ability to compartmentalize. Like that banker in Toronto a few years back, who hired Page as a temporary au pair. Nicest guy around, unless you were one of his three simultaneous wives.

  No sooner had Oliver’s phone chimed to let him know he’d received a voicemail than it buzzed again. Once more he looked at the screen—a 602 number. Once more he performed the ritual of rejection.

  Page set her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand. “There is such a thing as call-blocker.”

  He cast her a wary glance. “I’m aware.”

  She tapped his phone. “If you need help, I’m actually decent with technology. One time I—”

  “Don’t meddle, Page.”

  She hadn’t intended to. Not really. In fact, her entire policy was to remain as uninvolved as possible as she flitted from town to town. But the rebuke, however softly stated, carried a surprising sting. She was astonished to find her vision blurring.

  To hide her reaction, she filched a green bean from his plate and used her legs to pull out a chair from the adjacent table. She propped up her feet and crossed her ankles. By the time she folded her hands on her belly and slid down to a pose of suitable nonchalance, she had her emotions back under control.

  “Okay, new subject. We need to plan some outings. The oldsters are already getting bored.”

  Oliver shook his head. “Don’t call them that.”

  She huffed out a breath. “Youngsters. Oldsters. It’s word-play. You have heard of the concept of fun?” When he would have objected she hurried on. “Back to my point. Bored seniors can get into as much trouble as bored high-schoolers.”

  An eyebrow arched. “You’re speaking from experience?”

  Did one exasperating senior count? “Not exactly…”

  Oliver’s eyes narrowed. “Know what I think?” He took a sip of water. “You’re the one with itchy feet.”

  Page couldn’t deny the prospect of staying in one room for one full week was giving her the heebie-jeebies. But when they had a handle on travel arrangements, there would be opportunities to escape. That wasn’t what this was about.

  “You’re forgetting who you’re dealing with,” Oliver continued. “I’ll bet most of them don’t leave their community for days at a time.”

  “And I’ll bet they do.”

  Without taking his gaze off Page or shifting in his chair, Oliver raised his voice. “Mrs. Patel, are you bored?”

  From forty feet away, where she was ensconced on a couch with two other women, pouring over a knitting pattern, Mrs. Patel looked up. “By no means, Oliver.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Patel. Carry on.” Oliver bit into a gherkin with a sharp, challenging snap.

  Page exhaled and folded her arms over her chest. “She thinks you’re charming. She’d say anything to please you.”

  He grinned. “A wise woman.”

  Page let her feet drop to the floor. “And I’m not talking about the people who are here. Obviously. I’m worried about the active seniors, like Mr. Dubois.”

  “Paul? The one who dresses like a girl?”

  “Like a New York menswear model, I would have said, but yeah.”

  “What about him?” Oliver forked up a bite of roast.

  “Last night, during your speech, he was playing footsie with Mrs. Friedel. I just saw him leave with Mrs. Carson. They were planning some horizontal crocheting, if you get my drift.”

  Oliver shrugged. “So he’s a geriatric sex machine. He’s allowed.”

  “Well, of course he is.” But Page had already seen Mrs. Carson glaring at Mrs. Friedel. “What’s going to happen when all his dates are cooped up together?”

  “Whatever would have happened in Edmonton, I expect.”

  Page stared at Oliver. Could the man be more infuriating? “Then there’s Mr. Lee,” she said. “At least I think the Asian man with the beard is Mr. Lee. Except for sleeping, I don’t think he’s spent a single moment in the hotel since you arrived.”

  “We were never going to police them in their unscheduled time,” Oliver said. “And not to be too crass about it, but if they break a hip during an activity of their own undertaking, the company’s not liable.”

  “Does everything comes down to a lawsuit with you?” she burst out, then grew aware of the turning heads in the room. She’d come over to reassure the seniors, and now she was heightening their concern. She held up a hand. “Never mind. That’s not fair. You’re only trying to do right by your brother.”

  Oliver looked to be choosing his words carefully. “We’re getting off on the wrong foot again. I’ve got a lot on my mind, but that’s no excuse for my grumpiness. I appreciate your intentions. Let me ask you this: Where are you in the profiles?”

  After this morning’s revelations about Mrs. Horton, they had decided Page’s primary job would be to establish background information on the group’s participants, thereby figuring out the scope of the company’s problems.

  “I’ve done four.”

  Oliver leaned back in his chair. “There’s your answer. If I had a bus and if I had signed waivers and if I had a suitable destination, we still couldn’t afford the time. We have to nail down the basics or I can’t take them into the States. Which means…I need to get back to work.” He pushed his empty plate into the center of the table and pulled his paperwork towards him, his attention already shifting elsewhere.

  Page stood. She watched Oliver for a moment, his brows knitting as he scrolled through his phone. />
  So that was that, then. For a brief period in Mrs. Horton’s room, Page had thought they hit a place of mutual understanding and respect. But she’d just been summarily dismissed, put in her place.

  “Guess I’m starting profile five,” she muttered to herself, then headed for her own pile of waiting documents.

  The question was, why was she letting Oliver’s attitude get to her? What was it to her if he continued to see her as a flake? He was still going to pay her, wasn’t he? Still going to take her to Vancouver. In the end, wasn’t that all that mattered?

  She wished she didn’t have the feeling trouble was brewing—trouble they could head off if they were smart. Because regardless of age, people were people. And bored people created their own entertainment, whether through violence or sex or destructiveness.

  Sometimes all three.

  Chapter 9

  The Tech and Tock exemplified the kind of schizophrenic business that could only thrive in a small town, Page decided two days later.

  She stood in the half of the store owned and managed by Frieda Kappel, awaiting the striking of the hour. Behind the proprietress, a full wall of Bavarian-themed timepieces ticked, their pendulums swinging in a cheerful rhythm.

  At two o’clock, as the clocks erupted into a brief chorus of clucks, coos, and even moos in one instance, Page clapped.

  “I absolutely love it,” she said to Mrs. Kappel, who was basking in Page’s adulation. “Tomorrow I’m coming at noon.”

  Of course, after hunkering down for days in the Thurston ballroom, some of her giddiness might be due to escape.

  This morning they had discovered Oliver couldn’t read Page’s handwriting, making the profiles she was completing effectively useless to him. Oliver had sprung into action, promising Paul Dubois a bottle of Scotch if he’d watch the seniors for the afternoon. Thus freed, Page and Oliver had gone into town for a laptop and wound up here.

  While Mrs. Kappel disappeared into the backroom, Page wandered to the Tech side of the store, where Oliver was talking computer specifications with Werner Kappel. Beyond them, a teenager hunched over a keyboard at the internet cafe.

  “Perfect timing.” Oliver straightened from the counter, where he had been bent over brochures, brushing Page’s shoulder with his.

  Page exchanged a smile with Werner Kappel. Over his graying mustache, the man had warm, brown eyes.

  “Which platform?” Oliver asked.

  Page shrugged. “Whatever you’re most comfortable with.”

  Oliver looked skeptical.

  “Being homeless doesn’t mean I lack skills,” she said. She was getting a little tired of having her abilities discounted.

  “Okay…” Oliver said, obviously picking up on her defensiveness.

  Mrs. Kappel emerged from the backroom, and set a mug at her husband’s elbow. The coffee was thick with cream, and Werner touched her hand in thanks as he took a sip and returned to the paperwork with Oliver.

  It was a simple gesture, but it held the resonance of years. Page could envision them as newlyweds, starting a business together with fresh, unlined faces—perhaps cuckoo clocks and typewriters at the beginning. Frieda would bring Werner tea when he was overtaken with customers, he’d reciprocate with a sandwich. They’d take turns opening the store in the morning and running to the bank at night.

  What would it be like to work alongside your husband like this, day after day?

  Probably a lot like you working with Oliver, a little voice said. Exasperating, demanding, entertaining. Companionable.

  She shut down that line of thought before it could go anywhere. Oliver was close to hiring a guide for the coastal leg of his trip. Once he had his computer, even if Page had been willing to give up her plans, she wouldn’t be needed.

  Mrs. Kappel caught Page staring at her clocks. “I give you good deal,” she said in a thick German accent.

  “No, but thank you,” Page said, thinking of how much space a cuckoo clock would occupy in a backpack. Speaking of which… “Is there a thrift store in town?”

  Page had been managing with the hotel sink and the toiletry items supplied by the Thurston, but she was beginning to offend herself. Time to bite the bullet and replace a few clothing items that had been stolen.

  A half-hour later, having gained the promise of a functioning laptop for the next day, Oliver opened the door to Second Verse. The bells on the door greeted them with a jingle. A middle-aged manager with brassy hair and a plump teen looked over and nodded hello.

  “You don’t need to shop here,” Oliver said quietly to Page as she preceded him in.

  It was the third similar comment.

  For some reason, rather than head back to the hotel or proceed to the pharmacist’s, where they needed to sort out medication issues for the oldsters, Oliver had announced he would accompany Page to the thrift store. He had then spent the bulk of their walk trying to convince her to shop elsewhere.

  Page hadn’t decided on the source of his objection. Was it unfamiliarity, snobbery, or simple cluelessness about her financial state?

  “I profoundly disagree.” Page ducked around a woman pushing a child in a stroller.

  The baby’s cheeks held the bloom of the outdoors. Her fleece hat was decorated with knitted ears, felt eyes and a beak, making her look like a cherubic owl. When Page crouched and cooed over her, the baby offered a toothless grin.

  Even Oliver smiled.

  Page located the section devoted to ladieswear and dove in.

  “The hotel gift shop would be better than this,” Oliver said.

  If your taste ran to leisurewear and gasp-inducing prices, Page thought. She had plans for every dime Oliver owed her, and none of those plans involved clothing.

  Time for a subject change. When it came to men and diversion, what had she and Avis talked about the other day? Food, exercise, and flirting?

  One of these things was free and presently available.

  Page removed her coat and slipped her mitts and hat into one sleeve. She handed Oliver the jacket. “Hold, please.”

  He raised his eyebrow, apparently sensing a shifting wind.

  “Being here isn’t a hardship for me,” Page said. “Where else could I find something like this?” She pulled out a house dress that walked the line between hideous and vintage. She held it tightly to her body.

  Oliver’s mouth compressed but his eyes lingered on her breasts. “Wrong size.”

  She glanced at the label. “So it is.”

  Back home was he a clothing designer or a ladies’ man or a ladies’ man familiar with designer clothing? Given the muscles lurking under that sweater, and his comfort at handling the females on the tour, the answer was obvious.

  At some point, Page’s sense of antagonism to him had vanished. She saw a man of contrasts. He was an extrovert who gave off a lonely vibe. He would spend an unlimited amount of money on his brother’s business, but was stingier than Page when it came to discussing his past.

  Thanks to all the time they’d spent working together, she knew the kind of music he liked, his favorite movies, how he ate his roast beef, and that he was unfailingly polite to his tour members.

  Maybe it was time to go deeper.

  She found a selection of long-sleeved sweaters in her size and shuffled through them. “What’s wrong with your brother that he couldn’t be here?”

  “He’s ill.” Oliver removed his own outerwear and draped it over the clothing rack.

  “That’s not very specific.”

  “And she makes a home run on the first pitch,” he said softly.

  Instead of taking offense she merely nodded and said, “Ah.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” He shook his head when she held up a black sweater with feather detailing.

  “What do you mean what did I mean? I said ah. Ah means ah.”

  “It’s the tone you used,” he said. “It was more of an ah-ha! than an ah.”

  She smiled. “If you must know, by refusing to
tell me what’s wrong with him, you told me.”

  “Bulltweet.”

  As she pulled out a purple sweater and started a pile for the change room, she looked at him under her lashes, letting her silence speak for itself.

  “Go on, then,” he said. “Take a stab.”

  “Mental illness,” she said. When his jaw dropped fractionally, she didn’t know whether to commiserate or bask in the respect dawning in his eyes.

  “Aw, dang, I’m sorry,” she said softly. “That’s what I thought. What kind? Psychotic break, drug addiction, bipolar disorder?”

  “None of the above.” When she would have discarded a low-cut red sweater, Oliver tugged it from her hands and added it to the pile.

  “But I’m in the general ballpark, right?”

  His eyes flickered. She pointed a hanger at him. “Don’t answer on the grounds you might incriminate your next-of-kin.”

  “I’m acknowledging neither your accuracy nor inaccuracy,” he said slowly, “but why those particular guesses?”

  She shrugged. “Statistical probability. A while back I worked for an actuarial agent—”

  “You? You worked in an insurance office?”

  Hadn’t she told him she had skills? “And he makes a home run on the first pitch.”

  Oliver laughed, making her smile in response. She liked that he could laugh at himself, and laugh so easily. Happy was a good look for him. From an adjacent rack, she impulsively seized a pork pie hat and placed it on Oliver’s head.

  “I don’t think so.” He pulled it off before she had a chance to achieve a rakish angle.

  Her fingers itched to straighten his rumpled hair. Yup. He was a snob. A sexy snob, but one nonetheless.

  “Anyway,” Page said, “assuming your brother is about your age, which is what, thirty-five?”

  It was way too much fun to yank his chain, but the strangled noise he made sounded suspiciously like laughter, suggesting he’d cottoned on to her.

  “Sorry,” she said with a twinkle. “The sun damage made me overestimate.”