The Comeback Kiss

by Lani Diane Rich

  “Shit,” he grumbled. Well, there went that part of the plan, the part where he actually got something out of coming back to this crap hole. Unless...

  He looked in the direction of the diner. Unless he stayed one more day, took the time to track down the macaw. Then, maybe he could get a bottle of wine and sneak off somewhere with Tessa. Catch up on old times. Maybe have some new times...

  Bad idea. He knew that if he stayed, it would be in the running for the stupidest thing he would ever do, and there was certainly a healthy amount of competition for that slot. Smart Finn would have left already, but Stupid Finn had been ruling the day so far. He could feel them both pulling on him, pretty much in a dead heat.

  Finally, he ducked out onto the sidewalk, grabbed his backpack, and made a choice.

  ***

  Isabella Scuderi picked up a crate of violets from the cart and put them on the long display table near the entrance to FLOWERS, ETCETERA. She inhaled the earthy scent of the soil mixing with the sweetness of the flowers and smiled. This job definitely beat the hell out of AP Chem, which was where she would be if she hadn’t dropped all her advance classes and gotten the afternoons off from school. It had been a hell of a fight convincing Tessa to let her graduate with her class instead of finishing early. Izzy had actually had to pull out reference materials from noted psychologists on the benefits of not skipping grades in school. She was lucky Tessa didn’t require official in-person depositions from the experts.

  That’s probably what she’d have to do to get her own car. The way it was now, whenever she wanted to use the Mazda, she had to deliver a full itinerary to Tessa, who would make phone calls to check with mothers and chaperones, just to be sure. It would be impossible for Izzy to fly under Tessa’s radar if she had to ask permission anytime she wanted to go farther than walking distance from their house.

  It’s not that I don’t trust you, she’d always say, it's just that sometimes I wish Mom hadn ’t trusted me so much.

  Of course, that’s all she’d say about it. Izzy had no idea what Tessa had done that was so bad, so damaging, that Izzy had to pay the price. Her sister had all her limbs and seemed to be in full working condition, aside from being overprotective to the point of making the Amish look laid-back. But maybe now that Tessa’d gotten her precious Thing back...

  Yeah, right, Izzy thought. I’m never getting a car.

  Her back pocket buzzed, and she reached for her cell phone, checking the caller ID window briefly before flipping it open and whispering, “Not yet.” She flipped it shut and stuffed it back into her pocket just as Margie Fletcher came up from behind and put her hand on Izzy’s shoulder. Izzy smiled, hoping that Margie wouldn’t see her heart pounding under her apron.

  “Great job, Izzy,” Margie said, beaming at the display. A monkey could have put the display together, but because it was Izzy, Margie beamed. Margie’s sweetness almost made Izzy feel guilty about what she was planning, but she was only doing what she had to do.

  “I’m almost done,” Izzy said, then cleared her throat. She was so nervous. She shouldn’t be so nervous, should she? “Is there anything else you need me to do?” Say yes, say yes, say yes, Izzy chanted internally. She needed to have an excuse to stay just a little while longer, just long enough to get into Margie’s office...

  “Hmmm, no, I think you can—”

  The bell on the front door chimed, and Mrs. Sunberg came in, waddling behind a tremendous ficus tree. Margie hurried to the front of the store, listening as Mrs. Sunberg complained that the left side kept drying up and dying. Izzy’s eyes shot to Margie’s office door, slightly ajar behind the counter.

  This is it, Izzy thought, her heart rate kicking up. She pushed the cart back into the storage room, then poked her head out. Margie’s back was to her.

  Now or never.

  She slipped sideways behind the counter and into Margie’s office, carefully returning the door to its slightly ajar state. She took a moment to get her breath, then headed for the daisy still-life that sat on the wall behind Margie’s desk.

  Geez. A painting over the safe in the office. Izzy had bit her tongue over that trite safety measure—any thief worth his or her salt would have no trouble robbing this place blind—but Margie’s naivete worked toward Izzy’s gain, so despite the fact that Margie had been one of her mother’s best friends, and Izzy really liked her a lot, she’d kept her mouth shut.

  She started on the combination. It had taken two months of sneaking peeks through the crack in the door while Margie worked the safe in order to figure out what the numbers were. She clicked carefully to 50, then pulled out the cell phone in her pocket, hit her speed dial. After two rings, Sosie answered, and Izzy said, “Now.”

  “Now?” Sosie sounded nervous. Then again, Sosie was always nervous. “Are you sure you really want to do this? Maybe you should just call the police or—”

  “Sose,” Izzy whispered harshly. She’d explained her position on this a thousand times; there was no time to go through it again now. “Help me, or I’m going to Juvie.”

  Sosie gave a short whine, then said, “Okay,” and hung up. Izzy tucked the phone in her back pocket with one hand as she carefully dialed 23 into the combination lock with the other.

  The bells on the door jingled. Either another customer had come in, which would be good, or Mrs. Sunberg had left, which would be bad. Izzy felt some sweat on the back of her neck.

  Come on, Sosie. Come on...

  Izzy maneuvered the lock to 46 and held her breath waiting for the phone to ring.

  “Come on, come on,” she muttered. She could hear footsteps and no talking, which meant no other customer. Margie was a chatterbox; she couldn’t stand not to be social. Izzy had caught her talking to the garden gnomes once or twice. If there was no one in the store, Margie would probably be heading for the office; if she caught Izzy now, it would be all over. Izzy swallowed hard as she imagined how Tessa would react. Even if Margie didn’t press charges—which she probably wouldn’t—Tessa would be really upset.

  Izzy’d probably never leave the house again.

  She’d probably be homeschooled.

  Oh, Jesus, Sosie, come on...

  The counter phone rang.

  That’s my girl, Izzy thought. If anyone could keep Margie distracted with a thousand inane questions, it was Sosie. Izzy twirled the combination to the last number—18—and listened for Margie to start talking before she gently lifted the latch. A thrill ran through her as the safe opened, and she had to do a little jig to keep herself from giggling with glee.

  This was it. The last thing she needed. All the planning, and the mulling, and the maneuvering had finally come to this.

  She started rummaging through the safe. There was some cash in a bank pouch, various deposit slips and random account information, and two credit cards. Izzy rummaged farther and found Margie’s passport.

  “Damn,” she muttered. Where was it?

  “Well,” she heard Margie saying from the shop, “I suppose if you wanted to try and crossbreed a hydrangea with a hyacinth... I suppose you could... but that’s really not what we do here...”

  She felt along the safe for a false bottom, a false side. Something. Damnit. Izzy had looked almost everywhere else—Margie’s car, every nook in FLOWERS, ETCETERA. The only place left was Margie’s house, and Izzy’d need a car to get there. Then she’d have to figure out a way to break in. Then...

  “I have to go now,” she heard Margie say quickly into the phone. This followed by the sound of the phone hanging up and the clack of Margie’s heels on the hardwood floors as she headed into the office.

  “What are you doing?” Margie asked as she walked in, a mere nanosecond after Izzy set the painting straight on the wall, her heart pumping like a freight train. Izzy smiled and picked up an object from Margie’s desk.

  “Stapler,” Izzy said. “I need a stapler.”

  Margie pulled a scrunchy out of her pocket, and drew her dishwater blonde hair back into
a ponytail. “What for?”

  Izzy went blank, then started to laugh. “Oh, man. Now I can’t remember. Don’t you hate it when that happens? You go into a room for something—”

  Margie smiled. “Oh, I know. Happens to me all the time.”

  Izzy put the stapler down and looked at her watch. “I have to run. I’m meeting Sosie at the mall, and then I’ve got to check in with Tessa at Max’s. You know how she gets when I’m late.” She rolled her eyes, playing up more annoyance than she actually felt because petulant teenagers don’t arouse suspicion as easily as compliant ones.

  “Don’t give her a hard time. She just worries about you,” Margie said. As Izzy passed, Margie reached out and touched her arm. “It’s been really good having you here, Izzy. It’s a little like having your mom back.”

  Izzy nodded, smiled back. “Yeah.”

  She grabbed her backpack from under the counter and hightailed it out, not letting the smile fade from her face until the door had shut firmly behind her.

  Chapter Four

  Tessa stared out the front window of the diner as she poured Astrid’s coffee. Her eyes focused lazily on the backward image of the Max’s Diner logo painted on the front window, but her mind definitely qualified as being somewhere else.

  Or, more accurately, with someone else. It was about three o’clock, almost eight hours since she’d been caught kissing Dermot Finnegan behind the drugstore, and she could still feel him. His fingers in her hair, his breath on her lips, his everything all smooshed up against her everything...

  God. Izzy’d been right. If kissing Finn, the man who had been the bane of her existence for ten years, had this effect on her, maybe she really did need to get laid.

  “Watch it there, sweetie,” Astrid said, putting her wiry hand on Tessa’s pouring arm. Tessa pulled the carafe back just as the coffee was about to flow over the mug.

  “Oh.” Tessa stared down at the mug. Good thing Astrid took her coffee black; there was no room for sugar or cream. “Sorry.”

  “No problem,” Astrid said, her smile overly bright, her eyes focusing tightly on Tessa, watching for anything worth reporting. It hadn’t taken long for the news of Finn’s return to fly through town. Stella Hodgkiss was the heart of the gossip mill in Lucy’s Lake, and by seven-thirty that morning, Max’s breakfast business had tripled with people wanting to be at the heart of the action should Finn want to visit his uncle or his old girlfriend. Nothing happening followed by a whole lot more nothing had driven out most of the voyeurs, and now it was pretty much just the die-hard gossips—Astrid the laundry lady and a passel of PTA moms.

  “You look awfully distracted,” Astrid said. “There something you want to talk about, honey?”

  Tessa thought seriously about that. Did she want to talk about the most surreal morning of her young life, in which the car she’d been mourning for ten years had been mysteriously returned, and she’d practically gotten busy in public with a man she thought she hated? Did she want to talk about the aching and irritating disappointment she’d felt when she’d gone back to take him out of town, and he was nowhere to be found?

  She met Astrid’s grin with a distracted smile. “No. Thanks. No.”

  Astrid leaned forward over her coffee, the official Lucy’s Lake body language for There’s gossip a-comin’. “So .. . I hear they haven’t gotten in touch with Vickie yet. She didn’t tell Stella where she was going, just that she was going on vacation. And then her place catches fire. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

  Tessa shrugged. “For this town? Not so much.”

  “I bet she’ll want to give Finn a reward. You know, for saving the place. Is he going to be in town for a while, do you know?”

  Tessa forced a tight-lipped smile. “I really don’t know.” And I’m not conflicted at all about it. “Can I get you anything else?”

  Astrid’s disappointment registered on her face, and she sat back. “No, thanks, hon. I think I’ll be working on this coffee for a while.”

  Tessa nodded and glanced back at the counter, where Max Finnegan stood punching buttons on the register. Max was her boss, Finn’s uncle, and possibly the crankiest man in the state of Vermont. He’d reacted to the news of Finn’s return the same way he reacted to everything—one shake of his white-haired head and a rude grumble under his breath. Tessa could tell that Finn’s return was hitting Max hard; she’d known the man her entire life, and she knew when he was really upset and when he was just being Max.

  She also knew that he’d never admit to being upset, so there was no point in directly addressing anything. She slid casually behind the counter and started to refill her carafe.

  “Get outta here, Tess,” Max grunted. “Your shift was over an hour ago.”

  “That’s okay,” she said. “I can hang out for a while.”

  “Did I sound like I was asking?”

  She leaned one hip against the counter. “Don’t know. Been a while since I’ve heard you ask politely for anything. What’s it sound like?”

  Max turned to her, his blue eyes narrowing at her. Apparently, despite her best efforts to be casually rude, he’d sensed her sympathy. “Go home.”

  “Fine.” She jerked the strings on her apron loose. “Remind me not to try and help you next time.”

  “If I have to remind you, I’ll fire you,” he grumbled, then grabbed the carafe and brushed past her to go refill the PTA ladies’ coffee.

  Tessa hesitated for a moment as she watched Max with the PTA ladies. She didn’t want to leave him in case Finn showed up, but she knew from experience that at times of emotional intensity, Max liked to be left alone.

  She pushed against the swinging door and stepped into the kitchen just as a short girl with a shoulder-length black bob, severe bangs, and dark eye makeup skipped into the kitchen through the back door. It took a moment for Tessa to recognize her sister, and when she did, she practically dropped her apron.

  “Iz?” she sputtered. “What—what—what... ?” Tessa put her hand to her forehead and tried not to imagine her sister’s curly golden locks lying on the basement floor in the home of one of Izzy’s crazy friends. “It’s a wig, right? Tell me it’s a wig. Even if you’re lying. Please lie to me, Iz.”

  “It’s a wig, you freak,” Izzy said, cracking her gum and giving Tessa one of her trademark light-up-the-room smiles. “I’m trying out my flapper look for the Come As You Aren’t Ball on Saturday night.” She put her hands on her hips and gave Tessa a cutesy wink. “You like?”

  “Oh, hell,” Tessa whined. “You’re going to that thing?”

  “Um, yeah,” Izzy said. “I told you last month. Sosie’s aunt Grace is organizing it. It’s to raise money to renovate the old covered bridge on Morning Road. Or maybe it’s for the library? I don’t know. It’s for a good cause, though. Baby ducks?” Izzy thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Whatever. I’m sure I told you about it.”

  “No,” Tessa said. “You didn’t. Now I have to chaperone. You know they’re gonna make me bring the punch. I always get stuck with the punch.”

  “Then don’t chaperone,” Izzy said. “I’m going with Sosie, her aunt and uncle will be there, and we’re not even planning to start smoking the crack and fondling the boys until later on, so your time will be best spent staking out the alley behind the VFW afterward.” Izzy grinned and cracked her gum again. “And, hey, with the alley? No punch. Although I believe it is BYO crack pipe.”

  Tessa quirked one eyebrow at her sister. “Don’t be a wiseass.”

  “But speaking of needing a chaperone, dear sister,” Izzy said, her eyes wide with glee, “what’s this I hear about you making out with Dermot Finnegan behind the drugstore this morning?”

  Oh, for Christ’s sake. “We weren’t making out. And how did you hear about that, anyway?”

  Izzy pulled out a cherry red lipstick and ducked her head so she could see her reflection in the bottom of a hanging pot.

  “Melissa Moss was in there this morning—buying a p
regnancy test, like she needs one. She does that every month like everybody doesn’t know she’s a virgin and as if anybody cares. Anyway, she saw you guys through the window. It was all over the school by second period so I’m guessing when you get home, the answering machine will be a smoking, charred shell of what it once was.” She pulled away from the pot and smacked her lips, then casually retracted the lipstick back into the tube. “Speaking of smoking and charred, what’s the word on Vickie’s shop?”

  Tessa shrugged. “Office fire. That’s all I know. I’m just glad you’re not working there anymore.”

  Izzy shifted on her feet, a strange expression on her face. “They don’t know how it started? Seems kinda weird.”

  “Yeah,” Tessa said. Weird didn’t begin to describe the events of that morning. “So, how was Margie’s?”

  Izzy shrugged. “Fine.”

  “And your grades?”

  “Excellent.”

  “Good, because the moment your grades slip—”

  “You’re making me go back to full days at school and blah blah nag blah.” Izzy gave Tessa a look that was both irritated and loving. “You do know why all the adults on Charlie Brown sound like that, don’t you?”

  Tessa crossed the kitchen and hung her apron up on the pegs by the door. “Because the rotten kids they’re responsible for have made them clinically insane?”

  Izzy gave a short laugh, then leaned casually over the butcher-block island in the middle of the kitchen. “So... is Finn really a private detective like everyone says? That’s so cool.”

  Tessa watched her sister for a moment. She’d learned a long time ago to be wary whenever Izzy was casual. “Yeah,” she said. “He is.”

  Izzy nodded. “And when do I get to see the man who steamed off my sister’s panties in broad daylight?”

  “A: The state of my panties are none of your business; and B: Never.”

  “Big party poop.” Izzy grinned at Tessa, then her smile dimmed a bit as she glanced toward the door to the dining area. “How’s Max doing?”