Point of Attraction

by Margaret Van Der Wolf

  “What the hell are you doing getting out of your car?”

  Georgie spun around with the bat ready to swing before she recognized the voice and saw it was Nick. He was now minus the tropical wear and clothed appropriately for motorcycle riding. “Dammit! I ought to bash you a good one for scaring me like that!”

  “Answer my question,” he demanded. “You see a strange motorcycle in your yard. You have no fucking clue who it belongs to, and you get out of your car? Jeez, Georgie Girl. Goddamn it!”

  “You want to try and take my bat? Huh?”

  “Don’t think I couldn’t do it. I just don’t want another bloody nose.” He motioned for her to put her car in the garage.

  She waited just long enough to show him she would do it in her own good time, not because he told her to. It took several deep breaths to calm both her temper and her racing heart. She put the slugger behind the seat and drove the car in.

  “You want to bring in your motorcycle?” she asked, once out of the car, and handing him two bags of groceries.

  “It’s fine where it is.” With both arms loaded, he headed for the door leading to the kitchen. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Nothing,” she said, before flicking the remote. The garage door began its slide back down. “It’s too late to eat.” She unlocked her kitchen door and pushed it open.

  “What do you mean too late? Hey, hey, call her off! She’s killing me with love.”

  Daisy was all over Nick, whining for love and wagging her tail. Georgie put down the bags she was carrying. “Daisy, stop. Down, girl, sit.”

  Once the Schnauzer sat, Georgie told her to go lie down, but Daisy kept her eyes on Nick. Georgie frowned at her dog. Nick set down his burden and jerked his head at Daisy. Daisy immediately went to the table near Max and curled up.

  “You would do well to remember who feeds you,” Georgie said to Daisy, “Cause doggie, let me tell you. I ain’t no Gatsby. Man’s best friend indeed.” She then gave Nick a cutting side glance.

  Nick shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a loveable guy.”

  “Uh huh,” was all Georgie offered as she put the perishables away in the fridge and some in the freezer. “Oh, by the way. Thank you for the rose,” she said.

  “What rose?”

  She pointed to the rose she had set on the counter.

  “Oh, that rose.”

  “You made points with the girls,” she said, getting out a small vase and putting the flower in it. She put her hands to her chin and batted her lashes to mimic Brandy. “Oh, that’s so romantic leaving it on the windshield like that. Brandy could be yours in a sigh, which she did do, by the way.” This time, she did laugh. “And Lord, what a sigh it was.”

  “Yeah, okay, moving on here. Are you really not going to feed me?” he asked, toying with the rose.

  His face was so set, Georgie poked his arm. “If you’re going to pout I’ll make you a salad and bread. I’d add wine to that, but I don’t want you drunk on that thing out there.”

  “Oh, yeah, I could see one glass putting me under.” He took off his leather jacket and slipped it over the back of the chair.

  “Nevertheless.”

  He waved her off. “Just one glass.”

  As she cut up the salad, the fresh scent of the greens stirred her dormant hunger, and she made herself a bowl too.

  “Obviously you don’t eat much, the way you’ve lost weight. So why so many groceries? You expecting company?”

  “I have not lost weight,” she countered.

  “No, but wasn’t it nice of me to say it?”

  “You are such an ass. The kids are coming out this weekend and I thought we’d make dinner instead of going out. Want to come? But you have to behave.”

  “What would be the fun in that? They wouldn’t know who I was if I did that.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah... go wash up,” she told him.

  Minutes later, the toasting French bread sent out its baked aroma, though it didn’t compare to Sam’s home made bread, Georgie thought. She pulled it from the oven, put the bowls on the table, and opened a bottle to pour them each a glass, her smile hidden.

  With a wide grin of appreciation, Nick picked up the glass and drank. As soon as it went in his mouth he stopped, half choked, and there was a loud strained gulping swallow. Georgie laughed as he glared.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “That was for scaring me out there,” she said. “And it’s called Sparkling Cider, non-alcoholic. I keep it for Paula. She’s pregnant, you know.”

  “You could’ve warned me, and no, I didn’t know.” He stabbed at his salad and forced the lettuce into his mouth.

  “As Sam would say, that’s what you get for not taking the time to savor the bouquet.” Georgie waved the glass under her nose before drinking, and started in on her salad. It tasted good. “You know,“ she said between bites and pointing a finger at Nick, “If you tried sales around here instead of doing so much traveling to God-knows-where, you’d know Paula’s almost three months along.”

  “Glad to hear it. So tell me about Raggs,” he said.

  The deep sigh weighed heavy in her chest, the dinner now tasteless. “Not much to tell. Just like I told Mas... Officer Montgomery. Emmee and Brandy said one moment Raggs was there, then she was gone.” She looked down at her bowl, played with its contents, but didn’t eat.

  “Whoa, whoa, back up. What did you call Dudley Do-Right?”

  “Dudley Do-Right? Oh. You mean Officer Montgomery.” Georgie took her bowl to the sink to avoid Nick’s scrutinizing eyes he was leveling on her. The rejected greens were sent down the disposal and she ran some dish soap over her sponge.

  “Noooo, you were going to call him something else,” he said, dropping the fork in his empty bowl and getting up. He placed them next to hers and took out a dishtowel to dry what she washed. “Come on, out with it.”

  She shrugged. “His name is Mason Montgomery.”

  “Okay. What are you leaving out?”

  “He’s in my writing class,” she finally said, keeping her eyes set on the cookie sheet she was washing.

  “Aaah. So your little plot thickens here. How fortunate it was that they sent him out to investigate Raggs’ kidnapping.”

  “I’d be very grateful if you didn’t mention him being in my class to either of the girls at the shop, or the kids,” she said, taking another drink to empty her glass, then scrunched up her face. “Ugh, this does lack, doesn’t it?”

  “So is Officer Montgomery the reason that Little Ol’ Jeffrey was so testy?”

  “God, who knows. I sure don’t,” she said, washing the empty glass. Nick dried it then put it in the cupboard.

  “I wish I’d never consented to those two dinners with him.” As she spoke, she watched Nick slowly turn the vase holding the rose.

  “You actually went out on two for-real dates?”

  “Oh stop. I swear, you and Cassie. They weren’t dates. Just stuff to do with the shop books. You know tax stuff. I didn’t think he’d take them as anything more.”

  “That was silly of you,” he said, pushed the vase back into the corner then leaned against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest, his long legs also crossed.

  “Yeah, the older I get the more I learn.” She finished folding the last of the paper bags and put them next to the recycling bins. “You want to come sit for a while?”

  “No. I have to get going. What about Officer Montgomery?”

  “What about him? He’s a class mate, and a good writer, by the way.”

  “I think he’s interested.”

  “Interesting? I guess so...”

  “Interested,” he stressed, pointing at her while keeping his arms crossed. “Interested in you.”

  “You and Cassie really really need to stop? Sam...”

  “Georgie Girl, you know Sam was my bestest of friends, right?”

  She looked away to Daisy and Max, not really wanting to hear what was coming. “I have to go
feed...”

  “No,” he said, reaching out to take hold of her hands. “You have to listen. I’d give anything if I could trade places with Sam and have struck that black ice instead of him.”

  “Don’t say that...”

  “I’m trying to make a point here.” He gave her hands a gentle tug and held her left one up, his thumb and forefinger toyed with her wedding band. “It’s time, Georgie Girl. It’s time to let Sam go. It’s time to be you. There’s a life left ahead of you.”

  She pulled free and stepped back. “What does this have to do with Mas... Officer Montgomery? If I’m so ready for a man, what about you?”

  “Me! Oh, good God! That’s incestuous.” He shuddered and wiggled his fingers that she not touch him.

  Georgie laughed so hard it brought tears to her eyes; tears for the humor of it, for the longing for her Sam, and for what used to be, never to be again. And she laughed at Nick’s open shudder as though he were trying to escape from his skin that was suddenly too small for his frame. His mouth pulled to the side in that silly half grin of his, as he wrapped his arms around her and patted her head into his chest.

  “You, Cassie and me. All we have is each other. Don’t you think it was fate that brought us together as neighbors, giving us the siblings we didn’t have? Cassie on one side, me on the other. That was us.” His grin was comical and carried so many memories. “You don’t know what Cassie and I put Sam through before we let him date you. But he held in there, our Sam did."

  She opened her mouth wanting to ask more, to bring up more memories of Sam, but Nick gently urged her from him and looked at his watch. “Listen, I have to get going here. Have things to do, people to see.”

  “That is such an over worked phrase.”

  “I’m not the writer. You are. So I can use it as many times as I want.” He rolled his eyes to the ceiling with a quick dismissive wave. “What freedom that is.”

  “You can be such a... well, such a you, I guess.”

  He nudged her chin and nose with his knuckle, and she reached for his jacket, but he grabbed it first. So she got the key, led him through the front room and out the door, Daisy ahead of them. “You coming this Saturday?”

  “Not sure. The company sales rep has this thing brewing.” He raised his hands, once more fingers wiggled. “Big doings.” After he put on his helmet, he looked back over his shoulder. “What time on Saturday?”

  “About six or seven.”

  He zipped up his jacket, put on his gloves and started the motorcycle. After the roar of the motor went into idle, he gave her a thumbs-up and roared away. She watched until his taillights disappeared, then looked down at Daisy. Her nose too pointed in the direction the motorcycle had gone. Georgie patted a hand over the loyal head. “At least he’s home, Girl.” The phone rang in the house and they both ran inside.

  The caller ID indicated BLOCKED.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  With no response, she hung up. Slowly, she went about locking up, then down the hallway remembering those days how often she spent the night at Cassie’s house or at Nick’s, or they at her house... until their parents finally gave in and cut out a section in the fences. They never even bothered to put in gates. That was how they grew up.

  When she married Sam, they moved in with her dad. After her father passed away, only her two children kept the house filled with pieces of her parents. But when the kids went off to college, she told Sam she couldn’t live there anymore. It was the first of the three houses to be sold, and they bought this house; small yet big enough for her writing, kids to come visit, “and those grandchildren,” Sam had grinned, and hugged her tight. “We’re going to grow old here, Georgie, old and wrinkled.”

  Tears welled and rolled down her cheek. Sam missed the first grandchild by three years. Georgie leaned on the doorframe and flipped on the light to his small medical room where he kept his veterinarian emergency supplies. It was empty of all those things now, and made into a second spare bedroom. Steven and Paula had helped her pack everything with all the love this little family had nurtured.

  Sam was the best veterinarian to be had, and a thoroughbred mare at Prime-Breed Ranch was in trouble with a breach birth. They worked with the mare all night; saved both her and the foal. Instead of spending the night at the ranch, he drove home, but the roads had iced up during the cold October night, and her Sam hit a patch of black ice.

  I didn’t even get the chance to say good-bye to you, she sighed, wiped away the tears, and turned off the light.

  Chapter eight

  Georgie poured soymilk creamer into her morning oatmeal, flavoring it with her sugar free Hazelnut coffee syrup. While the steaming breakfast cooled, she dressed. When the phone rang and the ID said it was Cassie, Georgie put it on speaker, and sat to eat her oatmeal as she listened.

  “I see the salesman from the twilight zone was here,” Cassie said.

  “Oh, yeah. Nick was in the shop when the police were there about Raggs.”

  “He told me.” Cassie’s laughter was the clear twinkling of crystal glass in a chandelier, and Georgie prepared herself.

  “Who did?” Georgie asked, her first thought going to Mason wanting to check out Nick’s story with Cassie.

  “The nut case himself, who else? He told me he pulled the Spook thing on the cop.” Cassie finally stopped laughing and took a breath. “We had coffee last night while waiting for yet another boy-arrival into this world.”

  “I wonder if Nick’ll ever grow up; get married.”

  “Naaahh,” Cassie said. “Never happen. He’s Peter Pan, our brother is.”

  “Cassie, don’t encourage him.”

  “God, you are such a sourpuss in the morning,” Cassie said, followed with a loud overdone sigh. “You know what you need?”

  “Hanging up now,” Georgie said, more than ready to end this call.

  “Okay, okay, dropping it. Nick said it was M&M that came out to check on Raggs.”

  “He is a policeman after all.” Georgie swallowed the spoonful of oatmeal and made a mental note to do Nick great bodily harm when she saw him again.

  “And how many policemen does Portland have?”

  Georgie didn’t even try to stifle her own sigh of frustration. “Did it occur to you that the other policemen may have gotten important assignments and poor Mason got stuck with mine. I should never have called them.”

  “Oh, it’s poor Mason now, is it? And why not call? It was Mason that said you should.”

  “Okay, I can see this is turning into a KOBAYASHI MARU situation.”

  “Don’t talk your Trekie lingo to me.”

  “At least you recognized it. This is progress.” Georgie’s spoon clinked loudly in the now empty bowl as she stood staring at the phone in its cradle on the table. “It’s a term for a no-win situation, no right answer that doesn’t land you in quicksand. So, Doctor Blanes, you go deliver another baby. I am going to work. You tell Nick...”

  “Which reminds me,” Cassie said, as though she’d heard nothing of a good-bye. “Nick asked me the strangest thing.”

  “And this really surprises you?”

  “He asked me if I thought M&M was the type to leave a rose on a windshield?”

  Georgie slowly turned to stare at the rose in the vase on the counter corner where Nick had shoved it. What was it Nick had answered? Oh, that rose. But he never did say it was he that put it under the windshield wiper.

  “Georgie? Georgie, are you there? Did you hang up on me?”

  “No, I’m here.”

  “Why would he ask that?”

  “Don’t know,” Georgie said, going to the vase. “Why does Nick do anything he does?” She poked at the rose, struck a thorn, and jerked back her finger. “I have to get going. I want to get an hour’s worth of writing before I leave for the shop.”

  “I sure wish I had a job where I could just decide to write for an hour before going to work. Must be nice, you know?”

  “Uh huh. And if I were t
o look inside that little notebook you keep in your pocket; the one you scribble on while having coffee as you’re waiting for the right dilation, counting how far apart the contractions are? What would I find, Doctor Blanes?”

  “Hanging up now.”

  Georgie burst into laughter. “God, I am sharp in the morning.” And a dial tone agreed with her.

  But when Georgie put the phone back on its base, she couldn’t help but look at the rose again, the morning mirth slipping away. “So who tucked you under my wiper? Jeffrey? Jeffrey. No. But if not Jeffrey, then who?”

  Daisy barked and Georgie looked out into the back yard. A soft morning breeze sent golden leaves floating across the scene. Both Max and Daisy were doing their outdoor thing; Daisy sniffing, following that all-important scent from one end of the yard to the other along the fence line, Max sitting in his corner of the covered patio, watching Daisy.

  Georgie smiled. She had been so pleased when Sam had this huge window put in over the kitchen sink. It was like letting the outside come indoors. “I can work in the yard and look up and see you,” he said. She’d have to call the landscaping people to start dealing with the falling leaves.

  She gave the rose one more moment of reflection and headed for her writing room.

  ~~0~~

  “Hey, Georgie. Good morning. Want your usual?”

  Georgie looked at Parker, manager of the Cup Java Espresso House, but his question only brought back Tonie Clark’s words, They did say they could adjust their clocks by Ms. Gainsworth’s comings and goings. Which is not a good idea, having a predictable schedule like that.

  “Georgie? You okay?” Parker asked while making the espressos already ordered. “I heard about Raggs. I’m so sorry. Shall I make you your usual?”

  It was difficult to hear Parker over the hissing steamer and the murmuring chit chat among morning caffeine patrons. Georgie took a deep breath and said, “No. Surprise me. I need surprising this morning.”