by Lucy March
“Oh my god,” I said, stunned.
“You didn’t know he was deaf?” Desmond asked.
“No.” My mind whirled, putting the pieces together. “All those times he’d ignored me, I thought he just hated me. He loves Addie, though. I couldn’t figure it out.”
“Addie talks with her hands,” Desmond said simply, imitating the kinds of movements Addie makes with her hands when she talks. “She’s physically demonstrative. She hugs, she moves.”
“I never touch him,” I said as I watched Seamus wolf down the kibble. “I only yell at him and tell him he’s a jerk.”
“Well, if it’s any comfort, he can’t hear you. He’s pretty old for a dog. I’d guess he’s at least eleven, maybe thirteen. What did your vet say?”
“I haven’t taken him to the vet.” I gasped in sudden panic. “Am I supposed to take him to the vet? Nothing’s wrong with him, right? I mean … aside from the deaf thing, he seems okay. He’s okay, right? I’ve never owned a dog before.”
Desmond smiled. “It’s all right.”
“No it’s not!” I put my hand to my forehead. “I’m such an idiot. It’s not his fault his owner was a two-bit whore who slept with my husband, but I’ve been punishing him for it this whole time. Oh my god, I’m a monster.”
Desmond walked over to me, put his hands on my shoulders and turned me to look at him. I focused on his deep brown eyes, and my breathing stabilized.
“You’ll take him to the vet,” he said. “It’s okay. He’s fine.”
I looked past Desmond to see Seamus finishing the last of his kibble. I walked over to him and sat on the floor in front of him.
“Hey, buddy,” I said, and reached out to pet his big rock of a head. I smiled at him, and felt tears welling in my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
I put my arms around his neck and hugged him. He was warm, and soft, and he let me hug him until I pulled away, at which point he licked my face with his gross, slobbery tongue. I laughed and wiped at my face with my sleeve.
“I had a deaf dog when I was growing up,” Desmond said. “Just put your hand in his line of sight, and he’ll respond to you. You can even train him to learn certain hand movements as commands.”
Desmond reached his hand down to me and pulled me up off the floor, and without thinking, I put my arms around him and pressed my face against his chest. There was a moment of hesitation, but then he settled his arms around me and hugged me back.
“Thank you,” I said. “This has been a weird couple of days, and I’m a little emotionally unstable.” I hesitated for a moment, wanting to pull back, but not sure how to do it gracefully. “And now I’m making it weirder by hugging you.”
I could hear the rumble of Desmond’s laughter in his chest, and what was weird was that it wasn’t weird. Having his arms around me felt comforting, and I didn’t want to pull away because I was afraid that then it would be weird. I wanted to stay there, my face pressed against his chest, forever.
But I didn’t, because I couldn’t. I stepped back, and put my hand to his chest, where my face had been, right over his heart.
“I may have gotten dog slobber on your shirt,” I said, swiping at the wetness that remained on my chin. “He’s kind of disgusting.”
“It’s not a problem.”
I looked up at him and he was smiling down at me with so much warmth that I couldn’t imagine this guy ever doing anything to hurt anyone.
“Whoever you were when you did that stuff to Stacy,” I said, “you’re not that guy anymore. I think you should know that.”
He pulled back from me, and his face went stiff. “Yes. Well.”
We both went back to the counter and drank our coffee in silence for a while until the awkwardness abated, and then I said, “Can you drop me off in town? I can walk home from there.”
“Of course. Any place in particular?”
“My father’s office.”
Desmond was quiet for a moment. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“He brought Tobias back. Ball’s in my court. If we’re going to figure out what he’s up to, I’m going to have to get close enough to him to find out.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean you have to see him right now. You can give yourself some time, you know.”
I waved a dismissive hand in the air. “The more I think about it, the more I’m gonna psych myself out, so best to do it before I lose my nerve and just go out for ice cream.”
Desmond looked at his watch and said, “At nine in the morning?”
“Are you suggesting there’s a bad time for ice cream?” I asked, and he smiled.
“Silly mistake on my part. Carry on.” He put his mug in the sink. “Would you like me to go with you to see Emerson?”
I thought about it, then shook my head. “No, thanks. I need you in my back pocket. If I go parading you into his office, he’ll know we’re friends and I’ll lose my secret weapon.”
“I’m your secret weapon, am I?”
“You bet. You’re tall, you’re smart, you’re British, and you’re evil. If anyone is going to give my father a run for his money, it’s you.”
Desmond looked at me, the hint of a smile lighting in the corners of his eyes. “I don’t know. I rather think it’s you he should be watching out for.”
Chapter 10
Desmond dropped me off at my father’s office, then drove off with my suitcase and Seamus, heading back to my place to check up on Tobias. I felt weird without Seamus by my side; unprotected. Even though there wasn’t much that a big, dumb, deaf dog was going to do for me, there was something about being able to clutch his leash that made me feel anchored. Possibly it was just because he outweighed me by a good twenty pounds.
I pushed into the reception area to find my father standing by Amber’s desk, leaning over and squinting at her computer over the reading glasses perched on his nose. It took them both a moment to notice me; when they did, Emerson straightened up and smiled. Amber straightened up and didn’t.
“Punkin.” Emerson walked over to me and pulled me into a hug. He gave my hair a sniff and pulled back. “That’s an interesting perfume.”
“Thanks. It’s called Big Dumb Dog.” I went silent, and looked meaningfully at Amber. “Maybe we can talk in your private office?”
Amber shot up out of her seat. “No, that’s okay. I need to run these things to the post office.” She picked up an armful of document-sized envelopes and started toward the door. She’d almost made it when my father cleared his throat.
“Amber?” he said, and her shoulders visibly stiffened. She paused for a moment, her back to me, and then turned. She pulled on a crackling rictus of a smile, and looked straight at me, as though she had been practicing.
“I’m sorry I attacked you,” she said through her teeth. “It was a momentary lapse into old behaviors which I realize now are beneath me.”
I looked at Emerson, who was watching her with a smile on his lips, but something colder in his eyes, and a chill went down my spine. I looked back at Amber and said, “Yeah, don’t worry about it.”
Something passed between Amber and Emerson, and then she quietly turned and left. I waited until the door had shut behind her before saying, “She’s afraid of you.”
“She should be,” Emerson said. “When I heard what happened, I read her the riot act for two days straight. That’s no way for a person in my employ to behave in public no matter what, but attacking you…” His eyes blazed with protectiveness, but then he sighed and shook his head. “I damn near fired her, sent her back to work in the dirty roadside mechanic shop where I found her.” He looked at me, his expression softening. “You all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said, wishing that I had Seamus’s leash to hang onto, to keep me anchored and stop me from falling into this display of fatherly protection. “Really. No big deal. She didn’t even hit me that hard. It was the booth table that knocked me out.”
“It is a big deal,” Emerson said, his voice boomin
g. “When she’s out there, she represents me and this office, and it is not okay for her to behave like a goddamn wildcat.” He let out a breath and smiled at me. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“I’m fine.” We both went silent as the Tobias-shaped elephant in the room stood in the space between us. I waited for him to bring it up, and he was obviously waiting for me, only I wasn’t sure what to say, so I said, “I’m going to need you to tell me the truth. The absolute truth. No evasions, no loopholes, no technically-the-truths. Okay?”
He leaned against Amber’s desk, his hands amiably tucked in his pockets. “Okay.”
“Did you make Tobias disappear?”
He looked me dead in the eye. “No.”
“Did you hurt him, drug him?” I paused, and Emerson opened his mouth to speak, and then I added, “If you had him hurt or had him drugged, that counts.”
“No,” Emerson said. “I had nothing to do with it.”
“Do you know what happened to him?”
Emerson nodded.
“Will you tell me what happened to him?”
He shook his head. “Can’t do that, punkin. You know that. I may be retired, but agency business is agency business. If I tell you what I know, that puts you in danger, and I can’t have that.”
I stared him down in silence, and he sighed.
“I can tell you it was just agency business. They needed him for something, and they pulled him out of Nodaway Falls. I called in a favor, and got him back for you. That’s all there was to it.”
“Then why did they have to wipe out his memory?”
Emerson shrugged. “You’d have to take that up with the boys in ASF, and they won’t tell you, so it’s best to let it lie. You got your man back, and that’s all you’re like to get.”
I watched him, wanting to ask a million questions. What do you want? Why are we here? What is your plan? How do I fit into it?
Or was the real trick that there was no plan, that he just wanted me in his life again, in a town where I wouldn’t be the only magical? A town I could call home? If I was a parent, that’s what I’d want for my kid.
“What are you doing Saturday night?”
I blinked, shaken out of whatever fugue state I’d gotten into. “Saturday? I don’t know. Working, probably.”
He smiled, sadness in his eyes. “It’s your birthday.”
“No, it’s…” I started automatically, but realized … actually, he was right. Since I’d transitioned from Josie Streat to Eliot Parker at the age of seventeen, my birthday had been in the fall. But originally, I was a June baby.
“The town is having a celebration out at the park,” he said. “It’s the Nodaway Falls bicentennial. Gonna be fireworks, big barbecue, some bands playing. One of ’em’s even good, so I hear. Bunch of Irish fellas.”
“That’s nice,” I said warily, watching him.
“Take the night off,” he said, his voice soft. “Be my date, Josie. Come see the fireworks with me. Remember how you loved fireworks when you were little?”
“My name is Eliot,” I said quietly. The door behind me opened and Amber returned. Emerson and I watched each other as she quietly made her way to her desk and sat. I tore my eyes from him and really paid attention to Amber for the first time since I’d walked in. Her hair had been tamed into ringlets that framed her face prettily, rather than the wild fuzz that exploded into the space around her head. Her dress was clingy and short, but modest by Amber’s standards; I had a clear view of neither her midriff nor her cleavage, such as it was. Her nails were short, clear, and natural, buffed to a shine. She wasn’t chewing gum, and her makeup was still heavy, but the colors were a little more subdued.
“Hey, Amber,” I said in a friendly tone. Her eyes were blazing, on instant defense when she looked up at me, but she turned her focus to Emerson and he smiled kindly at her. Her entire being seemed to relax a little bit, and while she was still swimming in crazy, I could see her anchor herself to him. He kept her calm, instilled self-regard in her, gave her balance, and in that moment, I was proud of him.
“Hello, Eliot,” she said after a bit. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
She watched me, her eyebrows raised, her body language open. She was genuinely asking me if she could do anything for me. She was trying to be a reasonable person, and I could see the strain it took on her, but also, I could see that she was doing it for him. In a weird way, kind of like a daughter, she loved him, and she wanted him to be proud of her. His influence on her was good.
Wow.
“I was just wondering…” I trailed off and stole a glance at Emerson, who was watching Amber with no small amount of pride in his expression, and then I looked back at Amber. “Um, I was wondering if you’re going to the bicentennial fireworks on Saturday?”
This took her off guard, but after a moment of tension, she smiled—an actual real smile.
“I think so,” she said. “It should be fun. Are you going?”
“I’m not really sure yet.” I reached absently for the leash that wasn’t there. My anchor was gone, and I felt oddly off balance without that huge, stupid dog by my side, like one leg was shorter than the other or something. I looked up at Emerson, feeling more conflicted than ever. It would have been so much simpler if he was all good, or all bad. This in-the-middle stuff was unsettling. “I have to go now.”
I started toward the door, and as my fingers touched the door handle, Emerson said, “Good to see you, punkin,” and I turned around and smiled at him.
“Yeah, you, too.” And I meant it.
*
Seamus was in the yard when I got back to my place, chewing lazily on a tennis ball which he must have found on the ground somewhere. I ran to him, patting my legs.
“Hey, buddy!” I waved my hands at him, and he got up, wagging his tail, and walked over to me. He seemed happy to see me. I laughed and waved my hand at him again, and he made a feint, like a playful puppy. I walked over to the tennis ball and threw it, and he ran after it.
“I’ll be damned,” I muttered, and went inside to find Desmond in my kitchen, doing the dishes.
“Wow,” I said. “Talk about a full-service conjurer. You do windows, too?”
“Liv and Tobias have gone,” Desmond said. “I offered to clean up after them.”
“How’s Tobias?” I rolled up my sleeves and walked over to the sink. I nudged him out of the way to wash my hands and face, covered as they were with dog.
“He’s well,” Desmond said. “He’s still a bit confused, and he can’t remember anything after about two weeks before he left. Honestly, that’s quite a bit less memory than I thought he’d lose. Your quickness saved the day.” He put a clean coffee mug in the rack, and I picked up the towel and dried it.
“How’s Liv handling everything?”
Desmond’s expression darkened. “She seems to be having a tougher time. She still doesn’t know if he willingly left her or not, and neither does he, so I imagine it’s not easy for them.”
“They told you all that?”
He gave a small shrug. “I surmised.”
Desmond put a saucer in the rack, and I took it to dry. “You didn’t have to clean up, you know.”
“I don’t mind. How did it go with your father?”
I walked over to the cabinet to put the saucer away, grateful for the opportunity to hide my face. “I don’t know. He told me he didn’t have anything to do with Tobias’s disappearance. But considering that Tobias was the only agency presence in town, I could see why Emerson would want him out of the way.” I turned to face him, playing with the towel in my hand. “Any chance Tobias will get his memory back?”
Desmond put the last coffee mug in the rack and shut off the water, angling his body to face me. “It’s possible. Unlikely, but possible.”
“Poop,” I said absently as I grabbed a mug to dry. If Tobias didn’t get his memory back, then I’d never know whether my father had been behind his disappearance or not. Which meant
that I either needed to take my father’s word, a dangerous proposition, or never trust anything he ever said again, which was a heartbreaking one.
“Eliot?”
“Huh?” I turned my attention back to Desmond. “What?”
“Is everything all right?”
I took a moment to figure out how to answer that question.
“When I took on my new identity, my birth date changed to September. I never really thought about it. I changed my name, my Social Security number … everything changed. My birthday was really the least of it. I never celebrated it, anyway.”
Desmond waited in silence, not pushing, just listening. I liked that, the way he just knew there was more, and was willing to wait until I was ready to tell him.
“My real birthday is Saturday. My father wants to take me to the bicentennial fireworks to celebrate.”
“Did you accept the invitation?”
“No.”
“Do you want to?”
“I don’t know. I love him. He’s funny and smart and sweet and if it weren’t for the occasional bouts of evil-doing, he’d be the perfect father. I miss him. It’s been a long time since I’ve had … you know … family.” I continued to dry the mug in my hand, even though it was already dry. I just wanted the busywork.
There was a pause in the conversation in which Desmond took the dry mug from my hand and set it on the mug tree by the coffee maker. “There’s nothing wrong with it, you know.”
“Wrong with what?”
“Loving him,” he said simply. “He is your father.”
“I’m not worried about it being wrong. I’m worried about it being stupid.” I looked out the front window to see Seamus’s tail wagging as he plodded by. “It looks like Seamus found a tennis ball.”
“Oh, yes. I had one in the back of my car.”
I pulled my attention away from the window and looked at Desmond. “You gave him that ball?”
He pulled his car keys out of his pocket. “It’s been ages since I’ve played tennis, so I threw it out for Seamus. He seemed to enjoy it. Well, if you don’t need me for anything else here, I think I might…” He trailed off, catching my expression. “You look strange. Are you well?”