“Who made it?” I asked warily. Jase’s coffee looked like sludge and tasted worse. Megan, our receptionist and Betsy’s tyrant in training, made it so weak it tasted like water.
“I did.”
“Thank you.”
She waved me off.
After I filled my insulated mug with coffee, I scaled the stairs to the conference room.
Jase sat at the end of the table muttering to himself, his glasses sliding halfway down his nose.
“Morning,” I said and slipped into the chair to his right.
He glanced up and pushed his glasses back in place. “Please tell me you brought donuts or bagels or something not healthy.”
I stared at him. “Dude. In the six years we’ve been partners, have I ever bought donuts for the office?”
“No. But there’s always a first time.” Jase removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
He looked tired and sloppily dressed—at seven thirty in the morning? Not like him at all. “What’s going on?”
“Tiffany has me on a damn diet.”
“Why? You’re in good shape for an old guy.” Jase had hit forty last month and I still owed him payback for the surprise thirtieth birthday party he’d thrown for me last year … at a senior citizens center.
“Bite me, asshole. It’s not that kind of a diet.”
“Tiffany on a vegetarian diet kick or something?” His wife, Tiffany, was a doll. Sweet, utterly devoted to him, even if she went a bit overboard sometimes. I attributed her enthusiasm to her age since she was fifteen years younger than Jase. But as far as I knew, they were ridiculously happy together—a happiness that’d been long overdue for my partner, who’d lost his first wife to cancer two years before I’d met him.
“No. It’s a ‘reproduction’ diet. She claims certain foods will build my sperm count because we’re trying to get pregnant.”
I held my hand up. “Say no more. Seriously. My brain shut off after you said sperm.”
“Walker, I have no one else to talk to about this. My friends already have kids, and none of our office staff is married or in a relationship, so suck it up and listen, will ya?”
“Fine. How long have you been trying?”
“Five months. First she started making me wear boxers. Then she took away my nightly soak in the hot tub. Last month we only had sex when she was ovulating. Now I’m on this no-sugar, high-protein diet.” His eyes met mine. “I’m freakin’ sick of steak. There, I said it. I don’t give a damn if my man card is revoked. If I have to eat another fillet I might go vegan.”
It was hard not to laugh. “How long is she enforcing this diet?”
“Her doctor said since Tiff is young and healthy, we should try ‘naturally’ for a year before looking into medical options.”
“So basically in order to get laid all the time, you’ve gotta quit eating stuff that’s bad for you for seven more months?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re getting no sympathy from me, pal. A hot woman, cooking you a hot meal, who is constantly hot to get you in bed? Yeah, your life sucks. A big bowl of ice cream is definitely worth giving all that up.”
Jase blinked slowly, like he was coming out of a fog. “God. You’re right.”
“Say that one more time? No, wait until Betsy gets here so she can record it. Then I’ll have proof.”
“Do I need to brush the dust off the Dictaphone?” Betsy said as she breezed in, holding a bagel in one hand and a coffee mug in the other.
“You’ve heard of a Dictaphone?” I asked.
“Only in the historical context. It was outdated when I started school.” She set the bagel, smeared with pink cream cheese, on the table. For a moment I thought Jase would lunge for it. Then Betsy moved it out of his reach and pointed at him. “This is not on your diet.”
“Tiffany told you that she put me on a diet?”
“Of course. I’m supposed to let her know if I see you eating foods not on the list.”
“You’d tattle on me to my wife?”
“In a heartbeat. Because I, for one, cannot wait until there’s a baby around here to spoil.”
“As much as I’d love to talk about baby bootees and cravings for carbs,” I inserted, “I have a job site to get to. So give us the rundown on last week, Bets.”
Betsy studied me. “You still grumpy about whatever happened to you last week that you refused to talk about?”
“Good question,” Jase said. “Betsy and I tell you about the things in our lives that make us pissy. Maybe you’d be less pissy if you talked it out with us.”
I groaned. “I’ll pass.”
“We’re a team. Or so you’re always telling me,” Betsy retorted. “You were an ass last week, Walker. And not just here. Did you really chew out the driver from the lumber warehouse?”
“Yes, he needs his damn driver’s license revoked. He ran over a freakin’ tree when he was backing in. The tires also ripped the shit out of the yard. So I told him I’d be forwarding the landscaping repair bill to his supervisor and he could explain how he managed to take out a tree and a rock garden on a drop-and-go delivery.”
Silence.
The outburst was out of character for me and I waited for either one of my coworkers to rail on me about it.
“So your weekend was good?” Betsy said to me. “Ask me about mine. I heard a great new band at the Cabooze. And … I might’ve banged the bass guitarist of said band.”
My gaze flicked to Jase. But he didn’t seem concerned by Betsy’s abrupt topic switch.
“I don’t think he’s seeing the parallels,” Jase said to her.
“Parallels to what?” I demanded.
“Your erratic behavior. Snappy, then defensive, and then back to your pleasant self. We weren’t sure which guy would show up this morning.”
“Is something going on with your family?” Betsy asked.
“No!” I forced myself to keep my temper in check. “You want me to share? Fine. It started last Tuesday night after my meeting with Dick …”
When I’d finished spilling my guts—without telling them Trinity’s name; I deserved some damn privacy—Jase’s mouth hung open and Betsy wore a smirk.
“What?”
“Walker’s got a girlfriend,” she said in a singsongy tone.
Jesus.
“And I know why you didn’t complain to me about the mystery woman,” Betsy added. “Because you know I would’ve dug in until I tracked her down for you. I live for that kind of Alias stuff.”
I rolled my eyes. But I knew she was right.
“When do we get to meet this chick who led you on a merry chase?” Jase asked. “I know—invite her to dinner tomorrow night. I’ll buy. Pasta.”
“Too soon,” Betsy said. “He hasn’t told his family about her. If the Almighty Lunds hear that we met this woman before they did?” She shuddered. “I, for one, do not want to deal with a pissed-off Selka Lund.”
“My mom isn’t that scary.”
Both Jase and Betsy laughed.
“Besides, you’re on night duty this week as the painters finish up the McHenry project,” Betsy reminded me.
That blew. After tonight I couldn’t make plans with Trinity until the weekend. I checked the time on my phone. I had a meeting in forty-five minutes. “Now that we’ve bonded over Jase’s low sperm count, your new status as a rock band groupie and my week of lost and found, can we get back to business?”
TRINITY
My best friend, Genevieve, was a morning person.
I was not.
We compromised. She could come over after eight a.m… . I could call her up until midnight. The texting rules weren’t clear.
So when my doorbell rang at eight oh one, I was somewhat prepared. I’d put the coffee on, but I was still wearing my pajamas. I opened the door and covered a yawn as she brushed past me. “Coffee?”
“I’ve already had four cups, so one more won’t hurt.”
Genevieve plopped down at the dining ro
om table. I heard a thump when her gigantic purse hit the floor.
I poured two cups of coffee and set them on the antique serving tray she’d given me as a housewarming gift. I’d intended to use it for special occasions, but Genevieve pointed out I’d never take it out of the cupboard. So I used it every time she came over.
She poured a slug of cream in her cup and stirred. “Now tell me about the Viking. Don’t leave out any details.”
I laid out all my thoughts, fears and weirdly happy moments with him, but for some reason didn’t tell her his name. “So what do you think?”
Genevieve took her time responding. “He sounds too good to be true—or too practiced.”
I stared at her with total surprise.
“What?”
“That’s what you gleaned from everything I told you?”
“Do I think it’s some kind of cosmic sign you two were predestined to be together? No. It’s me, Trin. I don’t believe in that crap.” She pointed at me. “And normally you don’t either. You’ve had one date with him.”
“But it was a great date. The best I’ve had”—well, ever, but Genevieve didn’t want to hear that so I said—“since I moved here and I want to see where this goes. I like him.” Walker seemed to get me and I could count on one hand the number of people in my life I could say that about.
“Then why do you care what I think? It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind.”
I blinked at her. “I guess I have.”
She smiled slyly. “That’s what I wanted to hear. You go, girl.”
“And your reasoning for playing devil’s advocate was … ?”
“I wasn’t playing devil’s advocate, chica. I was channeling Ramon. You’re too easily swayed by his opinion—which is only offered when he wants to act superior.”
“Not true. He’s—”
“A condescending ass to you, Trin. I know you don’t see it, and I hate hate hate that I have seen it from the start.” She paused and poured more coffee. “You and me? We’re best pals. Everyone knows this. And yet, in the last year, Ramon hasn’t invited me to a single bash he’s thrown. I can tell you exactly when I got put on the blacklist. That night of his Gatsby-themed party. We were knocking back Jäger bombs and he got snippy because the drinks weren’t ‘period appropriate.’”
“I’d forgotten about that.” Some of the details were fuzzy, courtesy of said Jäger bombs, but I remembered dissolving into a fit of giggles over something stupid that Genevieve had said. It was one of those times when you can’t stop laughing, and the harder you try to stop, the harder you laugh. Ramon got pissed off about my behavior and told me to grow up; I was embarrassing him and myself. Gen got in his face and lit into him like I’d never seen. So Ramon wasn’t a big Genevieve fan. But she’d said nothing to him that had been cruel or untrue—unlike Ramon, who snidely called her “your fat friend.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t connect the dots.”
“You haven’t been hanging out with him as much the last year. That makes me happy because I think he’s toxic. Plus, he’s stoned more often than not. Besides, I know where I stand on the friendship scale. I don’t see him as competition for the other half of your BFF keychain.”
She’d never let me live that down. When we’d exchanged house keys, the way friends do, I’d bought a heart-shaped BFF double key ring set and given her one half of the heart and kept the other. She’d called me a sweet, sentimental dork and hugged me. So when she brought it up, it wasn’t in a mean-spirited way, because that wasn’t her way. And that was why she was the one person in the world I could count on no matter what. I bumped her knee under the table and broke into a chorus of “Piece of My Heart.”
“Girl, I love you like crazy but you are a horrible singer.”
Just then Buttons’s loud yowl confirmed it.
“Enough about me. What’s new with you?” I eyed her uniform. “Did your shift get changed with your new promotion?”
“No. There’s a mandatory supervisors meeting at ten. The new head of zoning wants to discuss ‘critical issues.’”
“Regarding snow removal? It’s August!” Genevieve worked in dispatch for the Department of Transportation. Summers were her slow time.
“Oh, he wants to buy new equipment. But we all have to sign on before it gets pushed to the next level and no way will the dudes running the other ten zones agree to it. I swear, they throw a fit like we’re yanking away a little boy’s favorite Tonka truck. They get so attached to their machines.”
I wondered if Walker dealt with heavy machinery. I imagined him in the cab of a backhoe, finessing the controls like a lover as he made the earth move.
“What were you just thinking about?” Genevieve demanded.
“Walker’s big equipment,” I said distractedly.
She choked on her coffee. “You already know the size of his—”
“No! I literally meant the equipment he uses in his construction job.”
“Oh. So, knowing that, I won’t demand specifics on the sketches you did of him yesterday.”
“Mind out of the gutter.” I got up and grabbed the canvas tote I’d left in the entryway. I pulled out my sketch pad and flipped it to the page I’d been working on.
Her eyes widened. “Holy Valhalla—Viking dude is hot.”
“Told ya.”
She squinted at the picture.
“What?”
“Just checking to see if you at least outlined his junk.”
“Genevieve!”
She laughed. “Too easy.” She pushed pack from the table and stood. “I’ve gotta jet.”
“But we didn’t talk about sexting. Or how to send flirty texts.”
Genevieve clamped her hands around my upper arms and gave me her stern face. “Trinity. I say this with love in my heart for you as a sister, okay?”
“Okay.”
“You’re thirty-one. The fact you think you need help texting a man … it’s all kinds of paranoid, babe.”
“I don’t want to screw this up.”
“One date, Trin. Remember that. You’ve had one date with him. And prior to that one date, you lied to him about your name, you gave him the wrong phone number … and he’s still interested. So I don’t think he’ll give a damn if you’re not cutesy emoji girl when texting.”
Just like that, my paranoia fled. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Is that all of what’s dogging you?”
In the past I would’ve lowered my eyes in shame and mumbled something about being fine. But I’d gone beyond that with Gen. She knew I struggled with the highs and lows of creative chaos. She didn’t laugh it off as drama. She didn’t judge me. She didn’t tell me to snap out of it when that cloud of depression enveloped me completely. She just thrust her hand deep into the darkness, allowing me something to grab onto if I needed it. I hadn’t needed it often, but it was a relief to know it was there.
I smiled at her. “Sensors haven’t picked up signs of stormy weather ahead. You’re on first alert if anything changes.”
“Good. Losing that commission last week … ?”
“Took a bite out of me financially, but not emotionally. I’m making calls this morning about a couple of pieces I finished last night.”
“All right. Call me this week—any night but Thursday. Got a date with hot Irish rugby boy.”
“Break him in gently.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
After she left, I ditched my pajamas and put on real clothes. I’d just finished my short beauty routine (teeth brushed, hair combed) when the doorbell rang. I checked the peephole. What was she doing here?
I opened the door. “Mrs. Stephens?”
She smiled. “Surprised to see me?”
“Yes. I don’t give clients my home address.” Or encourage them to drop by. I paused. “But since your husband declined to commission my piece last week, you don’t fall into the client realm.”
“I don’t blame you for being b
itter. But there’s a method to my madness that I’d like to explain. Do you have time to hear me out?”
“I was just about to head to my studio. It’s around back.” I slipped on my flip-flops and stepped onto the porch, closing the door behind me.
When we reached the studio, I punched in my code and the door opened. I led her to the small enclosed courtyard where I’d set up a fire pit (against city code) and a lounging area.
“This is lovely.”
“Thank you. Now, Mrs. Stephens—”
“Please call me Esther.”
“All right, Esther. Give me your spiel.”
She drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair and stared into the cold fire pit.
Her unease increased mine.
Finally she spoke. “Michael’s dismissal of your proposed project last week was my doing. I’d made him think that your work was too left of center for my taste and I asked him to cancel the commission.” She looked at me. “I’m not a good liar, but I’m afraid I pulled it off too well with him. See, I’m a huge fan of your work. I picked up a piece in Santa Fe, probably seven years ago, at the Shifting Sands Gallery.”
Somehow I hid my shock and managed to say, “A watercolor?”
“And charcoal. I believe the piece is titled Desert and—”
“Darkness,” I finished. “I always loved that piece.”
“It just struck me, the complete separation of night and day. With the inky darkness at the top and the vivid colors of a reflective sun at the bottom. But, looking at it, you can’t tell if night is ending as morning approaches or if the day is fading into night.”
“There’s no right or wrong answer—that was the point.”
She nodded. “Stunning imagery. Anyway, Michael knew I liked your work and he recognized your name after seeing the Honor and Lies piece in the Federal Reserve building.”
I’d created that mixed-media piece after being bombarded with images of memorials for victims of violent crime and the news headlines about combat-related deaths. Images from soldiers’ military funerals—distorted to protect their identities—were juxtaposed with flyers, pictures and notes left at the site where a violent crime had occurred on an enormous canvas I’d textured like cement. In the corners, I’d splattered red paint to resemble blood. I’d added shell casings, broken handcuffs, frayed sections of a discarded American flag, soles from worn-out combat boots, candles and teddy bears and love notes with lipstick kisses, handwritten prayers and camo material. The 3-D effect is startling. As your eyes search out specific images, trying to separate them into neat categories, the images overlap and it’s impossible to discern between domestic violent crimes and the results of international terrorism. That’d been one of the rare works I’d created out of my own frustration and anger. I hadn’t been trying to make a political statement; I’d been searching for answers.
Just What I Needed (The Need You Series) Page 8