by Sarah Title
“Like I said, crappy CD collection. So, uh, I’ll have to look for those CDs.”
“Sure, I’ll print you a list. Oh, do you not want to check that book out?”
“I owe you eight hundred dollars. You’re really going to let me check something else out?”
It was eight hundred and thirty-two dollars, but that clarification didn’t seem helpful. And, no, he probably shouldn’t let her check anything else out, her track record being what it was.
“Can you put this one on Peggy’s card?” she asked, holding up one copy of the book. “She’s much more vigilant than I am.”
“Sure.” He started to look up Peggy’s account. “So, I’m glad to see you didn’t get murdered last night.”
And that is called flirting, folks.
“What?” she asked, clearly not affected by his charm.
“After Chet’s. When you said you were going to walk home and I offered to walk with you but you said you could handle yourself.”
“Right. Nope. Didn’t die. I did have to fight off a trail of assassins, though.”
“Really? And they didn’t leave a mark on you.”
“Nope. Although I did have to sell my soul to a crime syndicate.”
“Too bad.”
“Yeah. Say, do you have any books on putting drugs up your butt?”
There was a shocked humph behind him, and a mother he didn’t recognize walked by, her hands firmly over her daughter’s ears.
Great, another angry parental e-mail.
“Oops. Sorry about that.”
“If I had a nickel for every time a patron asked me about stuff like that . . .”
“You’re right. I should just Google it.”
“You wound me, Joanna Green.”
“Sorry, man,” she said, but she smiled at him when she said it.
Maybe he was good at flirting. All he had to do was talk about murder and drugs. Much more pleasant than last night, when they talked about music. Something to remember for the future.
“Oh, Trina Flunderman was in earlier. She said you’re in big trouble for coming to the library before you went to see her.”
“Ugh, yes. I keep forgetting to call her.”
“It’s hard being popular.”
“Wouldn’t you know it, Mr. Handsome Librarian.”
“Ha,” he said. Then he thought, Handsome?
“Well, I gotta go run some errands and get back to Peggy. Thanks for book group.”
“Hey, thanks for coming. You livened it up. I hope you’ll be back next time.”
“Mmm . . . doubt it. No offense. It’s this town, you know? Bums me out.”
Huh.
He loved this town.
Oh, well.
And just when he had gotten so good at flirting.
Chapter Twelve
Trina handed Joanna a beer, then sat in the fluffy chair opposite her. They clinked bottles. Max and Hazel circled them like Tasmanian devils, leaving a trail of discarded toys in their wake.
“Stay out of Daddy’s office!” Trina called after the dervishes as they ran out of the playroom and into parts of the house unknown.
“Sorry,” Trina apologized to Joanna. “I would blame it on the rain, that they’ve been cooped up all day and that’s why they’re being crazy. But the truth is, they are always like this.”
“Always?”
“Always. Except at bedtime. They are surprisingly good at going to bed.”
“They’re exhausted. I’m exhausted just watching them.”
“You get used to it.” Trina shrugged, taking a sip of beer. “Oh, hey, I just lied to you.”
Joanna laughed. “They were easier when they were babies?”
“Well, they didn’t run around. But they also didn’t go to school. For nine months out of the year, they’re the teachers’ problem. God bless ’em.”
“Poor teachers.”
“Oh, they listen to the teachers. Sometimes I think they save all of their energy up until they get home.”
Joanna shook her head. “I still can’t believe it.”
“What? My transformation into Betty Draper?”
Joanna took in her friend’s skinny jeans and oversized Replacements shirt. Betty Draper would never put black streaks in her blond hair. Trina was always more of a Debbie Harry. Except now she had a Pin-terest board.
“You’re totally a cool mom.”
“Thank you. Please tell my children that.”
“Tell us what?” Hazel was suddenly hanging on the arm of Trina’s chair, her mouth lined with something blue.
“Are you in my makeup again?”
“Just the play stuff!” Before Trina could respond, Hazel and her curls were bouncing down the hallway.
“Play stuff?”
“Max is obsessed with makeup. And I love my children very dearly, but the first time they destroyed my MAC Ruby Woo . . .”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, ouch. So I bought them some cheap stuff and told them if they ever touched Mommy’s Very Expensive Makeup again, I would trade them in for a litter of kittens.”
“Mean Mommy.”
“I know. The idea of kittens living in this house without them was very upsetting.”
When they were in high school, Trina was a good girl. At least when adults were around. The truth was, Trina could outdrink and outsmoke even Joanna. And even though she was determined to stay a virgin (she was saving herself for love, and because she liked a challenge), she still managed to get plenty of action. She just somehow never got the reputation that came with it.
If Joanna didn’t like her so much, she would hate her.
Sometimes she did hate her. But that wasn’t Trina’s fault. It was this town, this small place that arbitrarily picked one girl and called her a slut and picked another and called her a flirt. The Carringtons were a rich, nuclear family, and Joanna had been abandoned by her parents. There was no contest who was going to get picked on.
Trina always stood up for her. She gave out her share of black eyes to guys (and on one memorable occasion, a girl) who thought they could say whatever they wanted about Joanna as if she wasn’t right there. Trina was her staunchest defender.
Sometimes Joanna wondered if she wasn’t so perfectly imperfect, if she would have resented Trina less.
She certainly didn’t want her life now.
“Are you really happy here?” Joanna asked.
“I can’t imagine why you would ask that,” Trina said, miming downing her beer.
“No, really. I mean, you have a minivan.”
“The minivan is Rick’s. I drive a badass truck.”
“Remember your Bug?”
“Oh, God, that old thing? Damn, I loved that car.”
“Mommy said a bad word!” came a shout from down the hall.
“Grown-ups are allowed to say bad words!” she shouted back. “How many times did we hotbox in that thing?”
“Before every football game?”
“How else were we supposed to get through a football game?”
“And now you’re married to a football player,” Joanna said, swishing her beer bottle toward the family photos on the wall.
“Ex-football player. But yes, I married the enemy.”
“With a house in the suburbs.”
Trina shrugged. “What can I say? The heart wants what it wants. Anyway, you’ve never seen Rick without his shirt on.”
Joanna dropped her head in her hand. “Trina.” She laughed.
“What? My husband’s hot. But he’s also sweet and tough and he has great taste in music. And he knows how to be happy, you know? He knows what he loves, and he does it.”
“Selling insurance is what he loves,” Joanna asked, dubious.
“I meant me, dummy.”
“Romantic.”
“It is. He does his nine-to-five, the kids are psyched when he’s home, and he goes crazy when he sees me with power tools.”
“Don’t you ever feel, I don�
�t know, stifled?”
“Not really. But I never had the same relationship with this place that you did.”
“You mean you didn’t hate it with an undying fervor and literally count the days until you could leave?”
“I hated that calendar of yours. I wanted you to stick around so badly.”
“You could have come with me.”
“I had to go to college.”
“What, so you could stay at home with your kids?”
Trina narrowed her eyes at Joanna. “You’re doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Something is bothering you, so you’re picking a fight with me.”
“I’m not—” She totally was.
Damn best friends, all knowing you and stuff.
Rick walked in, loosening his tie and saving Joanna from too much self-reflection.
“Hey, babe,” he said, and kissed Trina on the top of her head.
“Hey.” She turned her head up and waited for a real kiss. He obliged, then reached around her for her beer.
“Hey! Get your own!”
“Daddy!” A stampede careened down the hallway and into Rick’s gut. Trina took the opportunity to stand up and reclaim her beer.
“Children!” he said, swinging each one up in turn. Swinging needs met, they ran back down the hall.
“That’s a new shade for Max.”
Trina shrugged, then smiled as Rick put his arm around her. She smiled a little less when he took her beer bottle and took a healthy swig, but she was still smiling.
“Hi, Joanna. Nice to see you again.”
“You, too.” She raised her bottle from the comfort of her easy chair. “Been a while.”
“Too long. Remember that wild week in LA?”
“That was before we had kids.”
“Babe, I think that was when we made the kids.”
“Don’t traumatize Joanna with your fertility.”
Joanna had always liked Rick, even if he was a football-playing meathead. Ex-football-playing meathead.
“Do you know how happy this woman is that you’re back?” Rick asked her.
Trina ducked her head. “She knows.”
“Just for a little while,” Joanna added. “But I’m glad, too.” Mostly glad. Afternoons like this, definitely glad.
“So what’d you gals talk about? You getting the band back together?”
“Hardly,” snorted Joanna.
“Why not? I heard you guys used to rock.” He held up his hand in devil horns and stuck his tongue out.
“Don’t make fun,” said Trina. “We totally rocked.”
“And I bet you’d look great in those leather pants.”
Now Trina snorted. “After two kids I think they take away your right to leather pants.”
“What are you talking about,” Rick mumbled into Trina’s ear, then kept mumbling into her neck as his free hand reached around to her ass.
“Gross!” came the shout from down the hall.
Rick stepped back. “How do they do that?”
“Don’t look at me.” Joanna shrugged. “You made them.”
“Hey, progeny! Go get Daddy one of his special juices!” The other room was suspiciously silent. “Fine, I’ll get my own beer. What did we have kids for, anyway?”
“Bombastic egotism?” Joanna suggested.
Rick shook his head. “Great to see you again, Joanna. But for reals, you should do it.”
“Honey, Joanna does not want to talk about music.” Trina shot her husband a look that said we talked about this when we had private couple time and were talking about Joanna behind her back.
“Hey! I’m going to get a beer!” Rick practically ran out of the room.
“Sorry about that,” Trina said.
Joanna took another swig of beer.
“But now that it’s out . . . Are we gonna talk about it?”
“What?”
“I don’t know if you know about this thing, it’s called the Internet? And it means that public figures don’t have a private life anymore?”
“I’m not a public figure.”
“Joanna.”
“Fine! It was nothing, okay?”
“Didn’t look like nothing. Looked like you abandoned your bandmates onstage and now you’re here. And if you try to tell me you came here for Peggy, I’ll make you babysit.”
“I didn’t abandon them.”
Trina waited.
“It just . . . it wasn’t right. It wasn’t what I set out to do, you know?”
Trina watched her, waiting for the rest of the story. Joanna fidgeted. The label on her beer bottle was suddenly very interesting.
Trina sighed. “Fine, we won’t talk about it.”
“Thank you.”
“So, are you done with music now, or what?”
“I don’t know. I’m not really qualified to do anything else.”
“Maybe we should do it.”
“Do what?”
“Delicious Lies.”
“I don’t know—”
“Just while you’re home. My drums are in the barn. It’ll be fun. Come on, just until you figure out your life.”
“No big deal.”
“You always land on your feet. Anyway, Bunny Slippers suck. You’re so much better than that.”
Joanna smiled. “Thanks.”
“And walking off the stage like that? Totally punk rock.”
“Totally.”
“So you’ll do it? Delicious Lies?”
“Yes, okay, fine!” Joanna wasn’t sure why she was pretending to be annoyed. This was the first good idea she’d encountered since she’d moved home.
“Yes!” Trina jumped up in triumph. “Did you hear that, hon? We’re getting the band back together!”
Chapter Thirteen
It was way too early in the morning for Joanna to be awake.
Starr did not care.
She was happily sniffing the sidewalk, stopping wherever any other dog had ever been in the history of Halikarnassus and making sure that past dog understood that this was her town now.
It was not very conducive to getting exercise.
Which was just as well, because it was also way too early for Joanna to be exercising.
She needed to find a way to burn off some of this energy, that was all. She’d felt guilty about last week, abandoning Granny for book group (although Granny insisted that she go as her proxy) and for Trina (although Granny also insisted that Joanna visit her friend). And as the urgency of Granny’s injury passed, so did a lot of the visitors, although Doris still managed to stop by to help herself to the contents of the freezer.
Which, actually, was a good thing. Joanna was getting really tired of food reheated from a pan. But Granny didn’t want to insult any of her friends by not eating the food they’d so generously delivered. Good thing Granny didn’t know about the garage freezer, which Joanna had emptied and delivered to the soup kitchen.
Still, Joanna was trying to spend more time at home. She hadn’t been lying when she said she missed Granny. Talking on the phone was okay, but there was nothing quite like just being with her. It was the only good thing about Halikarnassus. Well, Granny and Trina. And she liked Chet’s a lot. And Liam.
She stopped walking, and Starr gave her an annoyed look. “What, like you haven’t been stopping every three feet to mark your territory?”
Because now, in addition to crushing on Clark Kent, she was also talking to the dog. In public.
“Hey.”
Joanna yelped.
“Sorry. I thought you heard me running up,” said Liam, all sweaty and breathing hard.
“No, I didn’t hear you.” She shouldn’t sound so annoyed. But she was annoyed, dammit. First he erotically invades my subconscious, then he gives me a damn heart attack in the middle of the road. And he was wearing shorts.
Damn, Granny was right.
Oh, God, she thought. This is it. This is where the cool police come and take away all y
our cool points and make you take up needlepoint.
“How’re you doing?” he asked, still running in place.
The nerve of him! To destroy her life, then be nice to her?
“I gotta go,” she said and turned and walked away, pulling Starr behind her.
When she turned around, Liam was running in the other direction.
Good.
Good.
That was what she wanted.
Chapter Fourteen
Liam heard the barking even before he answered the doorbell. He opened the door to find Starr trying to bust a hole in his screen door with her little paws. Starr was attached to a giant bag of groceries, which was attached to Joanna.
This was a lot to take in. So he stood there, taking it in, while Starr continued to bust.
“Hi,” Joanna said after a while, and Liam realized he had been staring at her. He didn’t want to be rude; he just wasn’t sure she was real. But she’d just spoken, so she had to be real, right?
“Hi,” he said back. Man, I hope she’s real, he thought.
“Um . . . I don’t suppose you made other plans for dinner?”
Dinner. Oh, dinner. He knew about dinner. That was the meal he was going to start eating now. Well, as soon as he opened the box of mac and cheese.
“No . . .” He realized that he sounded skeptical. But, well. What was she doing here? Every time he saw Joanna, she acted like he’d done something to piss her off. Except for the times when she didn’t, and they chatted and laughed like two people who were interested in getting to know each other. But the rest of the time . . .
“I just thought—Starr! Knock it off!” Starr did not knock it off.
“Come in, come in,” Liam said. “Before Starr breaks down the door.”
As soon as the door was open wide enough, Starr shot into the living room. Joanna dropped the leash with a curse, and the bag wasn’t far behind. Liam threw the door the rest of the way open and reached for the grocery bag.
And ended up with a handful of Joanna’s chest.
Well, this is awkward.
“Um,” she said.
“Right,” he said, whipping his hands away from her breasts and onto the grocery bag. “Let me help you with that.”
She gave up the bag and, if he wasn’t mistaken, gave a snort. He couldn’t tell because he was headed into the house, where Starr sat on the back of the couch, panting happily. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said.