by Ann McMan
“Nothing. It was a crank call,” Maddie said in a tone that indicated the subject was closed. She looked at Syd and tried to lighten her mood. “Would you like something else to drink?”
Syd regarded her with a curious expression. “If it’s all the same to you, I’m kinda tired. Wanna call it a night?”
Maddie gave her a grateful smile. “Yeah. That call really got on my last nerve.” She looked at David. “Do you mind keeping Syd company a minute longer? There’s something I need to ask Michael about before we leave.”
“It would be my pleasure. We’ll wait for you on the front porch.”
Maddie nodded and headed across the sun porch toward the entrance to the dining room. She found Michael at the back of the room in an animated conversation with several members of his kitchen staff. Most of the tables had already been cleared and reset for breakfast. He saw her approach, met her halfway, and kissed her on the cheek.
“Hello again, gorgeous. How was your evening? Enjoy yourself?” His gray eyes sparkled with admiration as he regarded her.
“Well, with about three exceptions, the evening was flawless.”
“Three?” He looked concerned. “Care to enlighten me?”
“Remember my trio of admirers?” He nodded. “They went a bit too far in their pursuit of happiness, and I’m afraid I had to come down pretty hard on my pal Tom Greene.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.” She handed Michael the set of car keys. “He’s going to be spending the night here with his pals. Do me a favor and slip these to him discreetly in the morning. And fix them all something special for breakfast—on me.” She smiled sheepishly. “He really did act like an ass, but I feel a little sorry for him.”
Michael stood there, regarding her for a minute. “You’re a class act, you know that?”
She rolled her eyes. “From your mouth to god’s ear. Good night, Michael. It was a wonderful meal—as always.”
He kissed her lightly. “Good night, gorgeous. You take care of that little blonde. She’s a keeper.” She glowered at him, and he backed away with his hands in the air. “Okay, okay. You can’t blame a guy for trying.”
MADDIE TURNED INTO the gravel lot beside the Jericho library and parked next to Syd’s Volvo. The town looked deserted—pretty typical for ten on a Friday night. The football team was playing at home this week, and most of the kids in the county would be out after the game, dragging the main street in Jefferson or hanging out at the local Pizza Hut. She shut the engine off and faced Syd.
“Tired?”
“Not really. I was wondering if you felt like coming up for some decaf?” Syd added quickly, “But if you’d rather head on home, I completely understand.”
“No. I’d enjoy the company. And some coffee sounds great. We didn’t really get to finish ours at the Inn.”
“Well, I can’t promise to equal your facility with a coffeemaker but I’ll do my best.”
Maddie smiled as she unhooked her seatbelt. “I can’t wait to get out of these shoes.”
“Well, then, let’s go on up.” Syd climbed out and led the way across the parking lot toward the front of the library. The weather had turned much colder, and a steady wind blew up the narrow street. A white plastic grocery bag had gotten tangled up with the chrysanthemums in the large planter that stood next to the street entrance to Syd’s apartment. Maddie knelt and carefully extracted it while Syd unlocked the door. She stood up and displayed the bag with disbelief.
“Panda Inn Chinese Bistro?”
Syd turned to her. “You’re kidding? Isn’t that in Roanoke?”
“Yeah.” Maddie shook her head and dropped the bag into a nearby trash receptacle. “That’s some kind of home delivery.”
“Or some kind of wind.”
“True. Too bad it didn’t blow some fortune cookies our way, too.”
They started walking up the narrow stairway. “Why? Are you still hungry?”
Maddie chuckled behind her. “No, I’d just like to know the future.”
“Worried about what fate has in store for you?”
“You might say that.”
Syd turned on a lamp and dropped her bag and keys on the kitchen table. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll get some coffee brewing.”
Maddie looked around the small apartment and its threadbare furnishings. She had been here once before, and she regretted that the county hadn’t done better to make the place more inhabitable. Syd insisted that she didn’t really mind, and that she spent most of her time downstairs in the branch anyway. She explained that her tenure in the area was likely to be so short that a more truncated, hotel-like existence suited her just fine. She wasn’t ready to put down roots. Not yet—and not here.
That unhappy realization hit Maddie again as she kicked off her heels and dropped into an armchair, suddenly feeling deflated. Some lingering traces of anger over the whole Tom Greene episode continued to dance around the periphery of her consciousness, and she still felt vaguely like throttling David for his less-than-subtle insinuations about her developing friendship with Syd.
On the whole, it was an evening fraught with frustration, and it reminded her of all of her good and studied reasons for keeping to herself and staying out of social situations that just ended up making her life more complicated. She turned her head and regarded what was rapidly becoming her biggest complication as it moved around the tiny kitchen making coffee.
“Need some help out there?” Maddie asked.
“Nope. Got it all under control. It’ll be ready in two shakes.” Syd walked into the living room and turned on the radio. A lyrical passage from Schumann’s Scenes From Childhood filled the air between them. Syd took off her jacket and tossed it across the back of the sofa before sinking down into its sagging cushions. She kicked off her shoes and dragged a fat ottoman over to rest between their seats. They both propped their tired feet up.
Syd turned a questioning gaze toward Maddie. “So tell me. What really happened with the phone call?”
Maddie sighed. “It was Tom and his cronies trying to track me down for a little moonlight madness.”
“You have got to be kidding. And they called your service?”
“Yeah. I was pretty pissed.”
“No doubt. You really did look like you were spitting fire when you met us in the hallway.”
“It wasn’t pretty. I felt bad about how angry I got with Tom so I asked Michael to hook them all up with something special for breakfast tomorrow.”
“Well, you’re a better man that I am, Gunga Din. I’d have ripped them all new ones and not thought twice about it.”
Maddie gave her a wry smile. “Well, if I had ripped them new ones, chances are I’d have been the unhappy one tagged with the task of stitching ’em all back together.” She playfully nudged Syd’s leg with a stocking-clad foot. “So, see? In the long run, my motivation was purely a selfish one.”
Syd laughed quietly. “I don’t know how you do it. That kind of poise just has to come from breeding.”
Maddie sighed as she slouched deeper into her chair and closed her eyes. “I don’t know about that. Sometimes I think that coming back here was a complete mistake.”
“Why? They’re just sleazebags, Maddie, you’d run into their ilk anyplace.”
Maddie shook her head. “Oh, not because of them. It’s this whole enforced socialization thing. I’m just not ready for it. I’m still too raw. And nursing my wounds just makes me seem arrogant and stand-offish.” She expelled a long breath. “Nothing is further from the truth.”
Syd leaned slightly toward her and tentatively touched Maddie’s arm. “And what is the truth?”
Maddie turned and met Syd’s eyes just as a staccato beeping sound rang out from the kitchen.
Syd slowly withdrew her hand and got to her feet. “I’ll go and get the coffee, but don’t think this means you’re off the hook.”
Maddie raised an eyebrow as she gazed up at her hostess. “Oh really? Think you ca
n make me talk?”
“Count on it.” Syd walked to the kitchen and got their coffee. She returned with two steaming mugs and a small plate of chocolate cookies.
Maddie took hers eagerly, but gave the cookies a quizzical look. “Are you still hungry?”
Syd laughed. “Not at all, but I confess to having a rampant sweet tooth. And what’s coffee without something sweet?”
Maddie leaned back in her chair and took a healthy sip of the hot beverage. “I thought that’s why I was here?”
“Oh, I see that someone has finally regained her sunny disposition.”
Maddie met Syd’s amused green eyes. “I apologize for that. I shouldn’t let stunts like the one Tom and his buddies pulled get under my skin that way. It doesn’t do much to ameliorate my whole ice-maiden persona.”
“You don’t need to apologize to me. I would’ve been likelier to have made a scene.”
“Really?” Maddie was intrigued. “You don’t seem like the scene-making type.”
“I don’t?”
“No.”
“Well, then, what type do I seem like?” Syd’s tone was playful.
Maddie set her mug on the side table between them and tented her fingers in front of her face. “The sweet, sensitive, girl-next-door, Sandra Dee type.”
“Sandra Dee?”
“Yeah . . . perky blonde actress—married to Bobby Darin—starred in all those Gidget movies . . .”
Syd stared at her in horror. “I know who Sandra Dee was, egghead. I just fail to see the similarity.”
Maddie gave her an exaggerated once-over. “Reaaallllly? No summers on the shore? No pretty, bronzed boyfriends?” She dropped her voice to a near whisper. “No surfboards in your closet?”
Syd colored. “Well . . .”
“Hah! Told ya.”
Syd threw part of a cookie at her. “I’ll have you know that I’m not in the least like Gidget.”
“Oh yeah?” Maddie said. “Prove it.”
Syd leaned forward and stared into Maddie’s eyes from very close range. The faint scent of Syd’s perfume was intoxicating. “Let’s just say that my pretty, bronzed Moondoggies were very happy boys,” she said in a low and husky voice.
Maddie stared back at her stunned. They sat in frozen silence for several moments with their faces inches apart. Maddie was overwhelmed by a sudden desire to grab Syd and kiss her. Wasn’t that what this moment called for? Wasn’t that where their conversation was leading them—where the entire evening had been leading them? She felt for a moment like an actor in the middle of a scene, and her tiny internal director was standing just off-camera waving his arms at her and shouting, “Cue the kiss. Do it, do it!” She thought she saw a brief flicker of something in Syd’s eyes. Panic? Desire? Confusion? She didn’t know. Then Syd slowly sat back against the sofa.
“Looks like you can dish it out, but can’t take it.” She gave a small, nervous laugh.
Maddie looked at her with a raised eyebrow, not entirely sure what she meant. How far was she willing to take this? How much was she willing to risk to find out?
Not much.
It was too soon. With a sinking heart, she realized that with Syd, it would always be too soon.
“Okay,” she replied. “So maybe I was slightly off the mark in my assessment of your relative innocence quotient but I continue to maintain that you’re a total cream puff when it comes to confrontation.”
Syd glowered at her. “I still would’ve decked those obnoxious drunks.”
“Don’t think for a moment that I didn’t consider it. I’d have had a better time being kidnapped by Somali pirates—at least the boat ride would’ve been fun.”
Syd laughed, and the tension between them dissipated. “You’re such a nut.”
“Well, don’t tell anyone. I’d hate to ruin my image.”
“Your secret is safe with me, Doctor.”
Maddie met Syd’s eyes. “You know, I’m beginning to think that all of my secrets might be safe with you.”
They smiled at each other shyly, and drank the rest of their coffee in silence.
AFTER MADDIE LEFT, Syd stepped back inside her apartment and stood for a moment with her head pressed against the doorframe. What in the hell was that about? She was used to Maddie’s playfulness and the easy repartee that normally characterized their interactions, but tonight was different.
She closed her eyes. My god. I almost kissed her. She was mortified by her behavior, and had no idea how to make sense of it. Had Maddie noticed? What on earth did she think? She shook her head. Jesus, how pathetic. I need to get laid.
She walked through the tiny apartment, turning off lights, and thought back over the evening, trying to catalog her impressions. There had been so much to take in. Maddie and David. She smiled. They were adorable together. But Maddie seemed agitated by David’s—and Michael’s—obvious efforts to throw the two of them together. Why? She knew that David wanted Maddie to get out more—to socialize more. Yet he didn’t seem interested in pairing her off with anyone in particular—at least, not with anyone at the Inn tonight.
She laughed bitterly as she thought back over the whole episode with Dr. Greene and his golf buddies. Certainly, they weren’t serious contenders for the attentions of the tall beauty. She remembered the look of pure chagrin on Maddie’s face when Tom Greene descended upon them in the parlor before dinner. She seemed to resent the intrusion, and she certainly escaped from their clutches with dispatch as soon as Michael announced that dinner was ready to be served. Syd felt spoiled by her ability to monopolize Maddie’s attention throughout the evening—like she had won the top prize at a church raffle, leaving all the other ticket-holders to stand unhappily on the sidelines while she paraded about with her trophy.
But Maddie seemed to be a willing participant in their virtual isolation from the other dinner guests. She didn’t seem to pay particular attention to anyone else, except David, of course.
David. Why was David so interested in finding out how much Syd knew about Maddie’s failed relationship? The nature of his query made her uncomfortable—almost as if there was something unsaid lurking behind his question. What was it? She thought back over the few comments Maddie had made about the demise of her relationship. It was true that the details were sparse. She said that they were both residents, and that their schedules were impossible. She said that he was an ophthalmic surgeon.
But wait. That wasn’t right.
Maddie never actually said “he.” In fact, she seemed skillfully to avoid using any pronoun.
For the first time, Syd wondered if maybe Maddie’s ex wasn’t a man at all. She had a sinking feeling that she was nearing the truth. That would explain a lot—like why she was still single. And why she stayed so isolated and careful about her social interactions. And why David’s suggestive teasing about the two of them was so unsettling to her.
Oh my god. And I nearly kissed her. Syd felt a hot flush surge up her neck. What if she is gay, and I just acted like a horny teenager? Christ. She held her hands against her hot face. On the other hand, what if she isn’t gay, and I just acted like a horny teenager? God. There’s no good outcome to this. I’m so totally screwed. How on earth do I face her?
She dropped down into a chair and sat staring blankly into the darkness of her apartment, overcome with embarrassment and confusion . . . and wondering vaguely if the university placement office had any job postings in Tierra del Fuego.
Chapter 6
The grand opening of the Jericho Public Library was scheduled for Sunday afternoon from two to six, and most permanent residents of the county found a reason to drop in. Even those who weren’t especially curious about this evolution in public service were lured by the prospect of sampling free food from the Riverside Inn. Although he was unable to attend personally, Michael Robertson had graciously consented to cater the event, and the elaborate spread of cold and warmed appetizers he had prepared evaporated quickly before the steady stream of area residents. The
y swarmed across the food tables like locusts, and by three-thirty, it became clear that the branch was dispensing more canapés than library cards. Syd was certain that she would run out of food well before the event concluded at six.
The throng of attendees was peppered with luminaries. All of the county supervisors were there, along with two representatives from the state library association in Richmond. Five of the six members of the local library board were in attendance—one tall doctor appeared to be the only holdout. Syd was both relieved and disappointed by Maddie’s conspicuous absence. They hadn’t spoken or seen each other since their ambiguous encounter in her apartment on Friday night, and she worried that Maddie’s decision not to attend the event suggested she was equally uncomfortable with their confusing, late-night interaction.
Roma Jean Freemantle and the inevitable Jessie Rayburn were on hand to help staff the event, and several of their fellow band members were clustered around the punch bowl, laughing and talking behind their hands.
Syd was surprised when she saw Tom Greene making his way across the facility. She made a point of intercepting him as he reached the food tables, and couldn’t help but notice the improvement in the older man’s demeanor. He was polite and deferential as he greeted her and introduced her to his wife, Muriel. Syd greeted them both warmly and expressed particular pleasure at seeing him in Jericho on a Sunday afternoon. He smiled and explained that since the branch opening coincided with his regular weekend off, he was able to attend the event.
“It’s Dr. Stevenson you really need to thank,” he added, as he reached for another prosciutto and pear roulade. “She’s holding down the fort at the ER today.”
Syd didn’t know whether to feel elated or disappointed. She remembered Maddie mentioning that she filled in for Tom at the Wytheville hospital several times a month. This plainly was one of those times.
Syd smiled at the older man. “Thank you for solving that mystery for me. I actually was wondering why she hadn’t made an appearance yet.”
“I tried to get someone to sub for her,” Tom said, glancing at his watch. “But she was pretty adamant about working a full shift today.” He met her eyes. “You know how stubborn she can be when she’s already made up her mind about something.”