Sarah laughed at that picture. “Good times, huh?”
“Yeah.” He turned off the flashlight. “I’d forgotten there’d been any.”
Together, they walked through the main room. Tall windows let in the bright afternoon. Two Ionic columns flanked an arch at the back of the room that had once separated teller windows from the vault when it had been a bank, the sales floor from the cash registers when it was a clothing store and the dining area from the kitchen when it was a nightclub. The restaurant that had most recently occupied the building had put in a large kitchen at the back, on the right.
Jack looked up at the stains on the ceiling.
Sarah looked up with him. “The city assures us the roof was fixed when the restaurant was here,” she said. “They also rewired, but there’s still a problem in the room where you played. They’re not sure what happened, but the power was fried in there and still doesn’t work. Plumbing’s a little old, but functional.”
Jack glanced around at the walls that had once been a soft gold but were now dull with age. “No cracks,” he said. “That’s good.” He turned his gaze down to the pockmarked fir floor. “This flooring will be beautiful once it’s sanded and restained.”
“That’s what I thought.” She was happy with his observations so far. “Come see the kitchen.”
The walls were white and the floor and backsplash were black-and-white tiles. “It’s institutional looking,” she said, “but the appliances are big because of the restaurant, and the specs say they work.” The window looked out onto the green wall of the fabric store next door.
“Is the water on?”
“Yes.”
Jack went to the double sink and turned on the hot faucet. The pressure was strong and steam rose almost immediately.
“That’s good,” he said. “If anything, you might want to turn the water heater down a notch. There’s an elevator, as I recall.”
“Yes. At the back, just beyond the kitchen.”
The slightly musty-smelling car was small and a little rickety, but there was a new inspection sticker near the controls. Sarah and Jack stood side by side while the car rose.
* * *
JACK PUT HIS hands in his pockets. Awareness of her closed in on him, applying more pressure on his body than the rising elevator. It was difficult to see her pretty profile and the soft roundness of her and know she didn’t want children. She seemed so perfect a vessel! But he did want kids and he wasn’t a perfect prospect for fatherhood at all. He guessed everyone put limits on themselves that greatly underestimated what they were capable of.
Still, in her case it seemed a shame. And Ben had gone off to work that morning looking as though someone had hammered him into his clothes. Jack was determined not to mention her refusal of Ben’s proposal unless she brought it up.
The elevator doors parted on a big room, empty except for two men wearing ventilators, who were putting a pile of trash into black plastic bags.
“What was up here?” Jack asked.
“Living quarters for the people who owned the restaurant. They moved out in the middle of the night a couple of years ago to escape their creditors. Their furniture’s been given to Goodwill.”
Suddenly she smiled brightly. “Can’t you see this with three or four sofas, lots of comfortable chairs, craft tables to work on, a couple of televisions and earphones, and a small library in one corner?”
“The real one is right across the street.”
“True, but it might not have Crochet Monthly magazine and all the history books Vinny loves.”
It always surprised him how well she knew her clients. And how much she cared.
“I’d say if the inspection your attorney is arranging comes out well—” Jack turned slowly in a circle, looking the room over again “—this seems ideal for the seniors’ center.”
Her smile widened further. “Great! That’s what I thought. Maybe you’ll want to bid on the work if we get to move in. We’ll have to repair, do the floors, put in new light fixtures, all kinds of stuff.”
He nodded. He needed work.
In the elevator on the way down, she seemed to lose some of her sparkle. “How was Ben this morning?” she asked.
“Brokenhearted,” he replied truthfully.
Arms folded, she leaned against the wall of the car. “He told you about it?”
“Some. About children.”
“You think that’s awful?”
“Of course not. Misguided, maybe. But everybody has to do what works for them. It’s just hard to deal with when the same things don’t work for the person you love.”
She smiled faintly as the doors parted. “Thank you for understanding,” she said.
Their footsteps rang on the floor as they walked to the back door.
CHAPTER FOUR
ON MONDAY, SARAH hosted her favorite clients in the community room in the building where Jasper, her blind client, lived. She’d done a circuit of town to pick up Vinny and Margaret and they now all sat together in a large room with a wall of windows that looked out onto the ocean. A mountain ash on the back lawn had lost its bright red berries and was just beginning to turn from green to gold. There was a discernible bite in the air that said October.
She carried a plate of oatmeal-raisin bars she’d brought along from the small kitchen area to the coffee table. “I apologize for sounding like a page of an Agatha Christie novel, but I’ve gathered you all here to tell you about the talent show fund-raiser for the Cooper Building, hopefully the new home of your seniors’ center.”
Jasper, whose head was perpetually tilted in an attitude of listening, frowned in the direction of her voice.
“Talent show?” he repeated ominously. “You mean like singing and dancing?”
“Yes. Or acrobatics and juggling.” She waited for a smile from anyone. None came. “Dramatic readings,” she went on in a teasing tone. “Wild animal taming. Darts.”
“I’m good at darts,” Jasper said. He was average height and white-haired, though only in his late fifties. Then he grinned. “But one of you will have to stand in front of the bull’s-eye, talking so I can throw at the sound of your voice.”
Sarah laughed, but neither Vinny nor Margaret even cracked a smile. She had this problem with them every time they got together as a group. They liked her visits as long as she didn’t ask them to do anything outside of their comfort zones or at a time that interfered with their favorite television shows. They were happy in their apartments, at the seniors’ center and at the supermarket, but trips out of town were out, as was anything that disturbed their routines.
“Sure,” she said to Jasper. “If you give me a minute to duck first. Vinny, you played in a band on weekends before your wife died, didn’t you? Margaret sang with a traveling choir in her twenties and taught music in the school here in Beggar’s Bay. Maybe the two of you could pair up to do a song together.”
The look the two exchanged should have been accompanied by the heavy, threatening music that announced the arrival of Darth Vader.
“No,” Vinny said simply.
Sarah didn’t mind putting him on the spot. “Why not?”
“Because he knows I wouldn’t want to do it, either,” Margaret replied for him. “Vinny’s kind of...”
Sarah understood her hesitation. Vinny was difficult to describe.
“Jazzy,” she finally said. And it was no secret that they didn’t particularly like each other. Vinny was often outrageous, and Margaret tended to be stiff and formal. “My approach to music is more serious.”
“Guys.” Sarah let them see her disappointment. “I need your help. We need all of us—seniors and all of us who work with you—to support this project so that you’ll have this great place to meet. Have you been in the Cooper Building? It’s wonderful.”
“I was in it,” Vinny said, “when it was still a bank. It would be nice to have a place that was ours, a place we couldn’t be kicked out of with little warning.”
“Right. So what if you each did something individually?”
“I might be able to get some of my old band together.” Vinny picked up one of her oatmeal-raisin bars and smiled in anticipation before taking a big bite. “My drummer is still in town,” he said after a moment, “and Boseman, my guitarist, lives in Newport. I’ll bet I could get him to come down. Mmm. Delicious.”
“Excellent.” Delighted to have a positive word spoken, Sarah steered the conversation back to the general plan. “The fliers I gave you explain that all the proceeds go to your nonprofit’s bid on the building.”
Margaret looked skeptical. “Could that make us enough money? That lawyer who wants it, too, has to have more money than we do.”
“Someone on the school board knows a country-western performer whose family once owned the building.” Sarah ramped up her enthusiasm, hoping it was contagious. “That should draw a lot of people. And he’ll judge the talent show. My boss seems to think people will be happy to support something that allows their friends to stand up in public and...be brave enough to perform. Of course, you two are so good you don’t have to be brave. You’re professionals.” She touched Jasper’s arm so he’d know she was talking to him. “What do you want to do? I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with the dart thing, after all.”
Jasper rolled unseeing blue eyes at the ceiling. “Well, let’s see. I could juggle knives, leap through a ring of fire, saw a lady in half...”
“I volunteer Sarah.” Vinny passed her the plate of treats. “Have one.”
“Cute, Vinny,” Sarah said. “I’ll be working just as hard as you are, but behind the scenes. We’re here to work as a team.”
“Okay.” Vinny picked up another bar and wrapped it in a napkin. “Thank you for the treats. I’ll get in touch with my guys and see what we can do. When do I have to let you know?”
“As soon as possible. Everyone involved will rehearse together twice—once the week before and once for the dress rehearsal the Friday night before our performance. That’ll be the Saturday before Thanksgiving in the high-school auditorium. Where are you going, Vinny? Don’t you want me to drive you home?”
“No, thanks.” Vinny checked his watch, pulled on a dark blue cotton jacket, put the napkin-wrapped bar in a pocket and grinned at her. “Jasper’s driving me home.”
“Ha, ha.”
“Actually, I have a friend on the third floor and I arranged to spend a little time with him, then my son’s picking me up for dinner.” He punched Jasper in the arm, code for wanting to shake hands. “Want to come, Jazz? It’s Nick Crawford. You know him from the seniors’ bus that takes us shopping.”
Jasper shook his head. “Thanks, but I’ll stay to hear the entire plan.”
Sarah looked from Vinny’s eager-to-leave face to Margaret’s obvious reluctance, but refused to let them stop her plans. Getting them to participate in this would be good for them.
“I’m not finished, Vinny. But if you have other things to do, I can catch you up later.”
“Okay.” Vinny headed for the door. “Thank you, Sarah,” he said stiffly. “Good day, Margaret. Bye, Jasper.” And he disappeared into the hallway.
“Okay, Jasper.” Sarah cleared her throat, wondering for a moment what made her think dealing with senior citizens would be easier than dealing with children. “No knives, no ring of fire, no saws. I know you were kidding, but I’d like you to get serious for a minute.” Jasper had been sighted for thirty years until an industrial accident caused a toxic adhesive to be thrown into his face. Of the three men standing with him at the time, he was the only one to survive. Now, at fifty-eight, he was determined to do everything he’d done in his youth. His courage alarmed Sarah and everyone else around him, and he seemed to delight in that.
“What about doing a recitation?” Sarah asked. Jasper had a deep, resonant voice. “You have such a good memory.”
He seemed surprised, then asked, “Will I have a teleprompter?”
“Jasper. Didn’t I just ask you to be serious?”
“You did,” he replied, smiling. “But did you expect that I would? I guess I could recite something.”
“Great. What do you think, Margaret?”
She seemed surprised to be consulted. “I think he’d do well. He always does well.”
“Thank you,” Jasper said. “So are you going to sing, Margaret?”
Sarah read the retreat in her face. She wanted to refuse. “I’m counting on you, Margaret,” Sarah said. “You and Vinny are both adults. You don’t have to perform together, but you can coexist in the interest of ownership of a new building for the seniors’ center.”
“I don’t know, Sarah.”
“I do. I’d like you to sing ‘Among My Souvenirs’ just like you sang it for me for my birthday in June.”
Margaret made a face at her. “No one wants to hear that but you. It’s sentimental and there’s no electric guitar.”
“It was beautiful. I’m signing you up for that.”
“Sarah...”
“I think you’d have a good chance at winning. We’ll talk about it while I drive you home.”
* * *
THE AFTERNOON WAS a Northwest fall postcard as Sarah followed the coast road across town. Sunlight embroidered the ocean and seagulls called loudly as they circled and dove in search of lunch.
“I apologize,” Margaret said, “for being less than enthusiastic. But Vinny annoys me.”
“He knows that and likes to push your buttons.”
Margaret puffed up a little. “I wouldn’t date him when we were kids because he was just the way he is now.”
Sarah turned up Margaret’s street and parked in front of her apartment building, interested to finally know what the problem was between them. “Really,” she said. “He’s a nice man at heart, Margaret. Do you think you can work with us if you’ll have to see Vinny regularly?”
“I’m not sure.”
Sarah stepped out of the car and walked around to help Margaret out. “That’s a pretty old grudge to hold on to. Maybe it’s time you two talked it out. You probably hurt his pride. He’s kind of a peacock, you know.”
“Yes,” the old woman agreed. “All feathers and no bird. We simply avoid each other. Now, if you’re going to be throwing us together...”
“You don’t have to help if you don’t want to.”
“Maybe Vincent shouldn’t be helping.”
Sarah saw her chance. “But he’s getting his old band together, and you seem reluctant to...”
“Fine, I’ll do it. But I’ll perform alone.”
“Got it. So were there any stars in your music class that would make good competition for the show?”
Margaret suddenly brightened as they reached her back door. “Actually, Jack and Ben Palmer. Jack inherited a little of his mother’s singing talent, and Ben’s just a good showman with decent pitch.”
“Really.”
“Really. They and the De Angelis boys used to sing for the neighborhood when they needed spending money. One time...” Her smiled widened as she thought back. “They’d outgrown their bikes and wanted new ones. So they built a stage and set up chairs in my backyard. They charged admission and sang songs from those boy bands. They were great.”
“So they got their bikes?”
Margaret’s smile dimmed. “Ben and Mario and Rico did. Jack bought shoes for his sisters and a couple of new bike tires for himself.”
“Geez.”
“Yes. Thank you for the treats, Sarah.” Margaret held up the leftovers Sarah had packed for her in a plastic bag. “It was a nice afternoon, despite Vinny. Before
you sign me up for the song, let me work on it and see if I can still do it.”
Sarah hugged her. “Thanks, Margaret. See you Monday.”
Sarah drove home, thinking that Jack must have been a remarkable boy. Maybe that was why he’d matured into such an interesting man. Margaret was right. One person shouldn’t have to deal with so much.
She stopped at the grocery store for ingredients for the dinner she wanted to make—chicken couscous—as well as a few things for breakfast at the Palmers’. If only she could transplant their kitchen into her apartment! But at least she did have a new stove—only two burners had worked on the old one.
Finally home, Sarah decided to cook the couscous dish here. As she cut up the chicken and preheated the oven, she made a mental note to call her mother back about the Thanksgiving invitation.
Working in the cramped little room, Sarah imagined what it would be like to have yards of counter space, enough cupboards that she didn’t have to store canned goods in the bottom shelf of the small linen closet in her bedroom, and room to put a KitchenAid, a Keurig coffeemaker and a dishwasher. How she’d love a dishwasher!
Reminding herself not to waste energy on what she couldn’t have, at least at the moment, she focused her attention on slicing lemons, then browning the chicken pieces in a large frying pan.
When they seemed done, she glanced out the kitchen window and noticed the play of sunlight through the gnarled oak tree in the backyard. She pushed the window open. The air was cool, but its fragrance could have been imported from an island that grew spices and exotic flowers. She took a deep breath and let the aroma fill her being.
She blamed the sudden acrid smell in the kitchen to preheating an oven that was brand-new. She’d had it only a few days, not even long enough for an errant spill. All thought stopped when a line of flame flared out of the wall just above the stove. She stared at it, unable to believe what her eyes were seeing. The flame was just an inch tall for about a second, like the flame from a candle, then it ate its way up the wall while she watched, openmouthed, until it was halfway up, then angled left, toward the window, obviously following a line of electrical wiring. The curtains ignited, terrifying her.
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