by Arlene James
“Now then,” he said, fixing the cap in place and lowering the hood. “Next time it needs more fluid, you mix two parts antifreeze and one part water and put that in. You don’t just add plain water. Understand?”
“I think so.”
“Has it been getting hot fairly often?”
“Occasionally.”
“And when it did, you put plain water in it,” he stated matter-of-factly. “That’s how it got too diluted.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” she told him meekly.
“If it happens again, you may want to look into having your thermostat replaced,” he advised. Wiping his small wrenches clean with a handkerchief from his back pocket, he slid them back into the proper pockets, rolled up the leather case and tied it closed. “That ought to do for now.”
Without another word he walked over to his truck and got in. Amy hurried after, catching the door before he could close it.
“Evans!”
He slid his shades off and dropped them into a console between the bucket seats. “Yeah?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I mean, I’m sorry for…well, for everything, and thank you for helping me out today. I don’t know what I’d have done if you had passed me by—and you had every right to.”
He dropped his gaze. “Well, I just always figured that neighbors were supposed help out one another.”
“You’re right, of course,” she told him softly. “I’ve behaved terribly. I hope this means that you’ve forgiven me.”
He flashed her a grin. “I always forgive pretty ladies.” He settled himself behind the wheel then, while her mouth hung open, he said, “I’ve got to run. Got to shave off this sandpaper before I report to the station.” He rubbed his jaw.
She backed up, and he closed the door. Only as the truck was moving did she think to call out, “Thank you!” She doubted that he heard her. The truck had already wheeled out into the street and was accelerating through a green light. In another moment it disappeared over a slight rise in the street.
She stood in the parking lot, her groceries ruining in the back of her car, and wondered if he’d realized what he’d said. He didn’t really think she was pretty…did he?
Chapter Three
Amy stared at the open pack of cigarettes on the coffee table and imagined herself slipping the filter tip between her lips. She could almost smell the oily fragrance of the flame as she struck the lighter. She could almost feel the swirl of smoke expanding in her lungs, the shiver of nicotine euphoria that seemed alternately to tighten then relax her skin. She closed her eyes and pulled again, shocked to feel pressure on the tip of her little finger rather than the soothing inhalation of smoke. With a groan of disgust, she jerked her hand from her mouth and thrust it through her hair as the hard twang of a rock guitar throbbed through the night. Was it her imagination again, or had the volume been cranked up another notch?
Sighing, she leaned forward on the couch, laid her forehead against her knees and folded her arms over the back of her head. Why was she doing this? Why in blue blazes didn’t she just pick up the phone and get Kincaid to come home and take care of this insanity? But she already knew the answer to that. She didn’t want to fight with him anymore. She owed him for fixing her car that afternoon…and he had implied that he thought she was pretty, darn him. But that was just casual talk, the sort of thing an attractive, confident man tossed about whenever a woman was around.
Still, she couldn’t help wondering how long it had been since any man had commented favorably on her looks. Even Mark hadn’t been given to easy compliments. That being so, she would treasure them all the more, he had told her, and of course, Mark was right, which meant that she was being an idiot about this. No meaningless compliment was worth enduring the nerve-jangling blasts from the house next door. She had to do something before she started climbing the walls. It was bad enough to want a smoke at this time of night. No one should have to endure this screeching nonsense on top of that.
She got up off the couch, full of righteous indignation, and marched toward the door. On the way she did something she never did, she glanced in the gold-framed mirror on the living room wall, the one Mark’s aunt had given them. She shuddered at what she saw. Her hair had grown limp with perspiration. Her cheeks were reddened from being out in the sun, and she had no eyebrows or eyelashes at all. Had she been walking around like this all the time? Maybe she didn’t have anybody to impress, but it didn’t hurt to take pride in one’s appearance. In fact, someone had recently told her that it was healthy to do so. Her sister maybe? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she not go out this way, no, not even to put that little freak next door in her place.
She made an about-face and marched straight into the bathroom. By the time she rinsed and dried her hair, slapped on a little foundation, brushed color on her lashes and brows—which turned out to need a little plucking—and stroked on some lip gloss, the music from next door was threatening to break the glass in the windows. What on earth did that child think she was doing? She was practically begging for trouble. Well, trouble was on its way.
Head high, Amy stomped out of the house. This time when she glanced in the mirror, she gave herself a congratulatory nod. Maybe she wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, but at least she was relatively well groomed. She walked across the lawn and Kincaid’s drive, then onto the grass in his yard and up onto the porch. She couldn’t help noticing that the lawn was clipped and edged. Moreover, the grayish-blue-and-white house was freshly painted and in good repair. The welcome mat was clean, and the porch light was free of insect remains and cobwebs. Somebody had been busy. It was a wonder, though, that the windows weren’t in shards and the roof bouncing a foot or so above the walls. How did that kid stand it?
Without bothering to knock, Amy tried the doorknob. It turned freely, and she pushed it open, shouting, “Mattie? Mattie!”
Her hands over her ears, she hurried through the graceful entry and into the living room. Her feet sank into lush softness as she stepped onto the pale gray carpet. A quick scan of the room showed her two things, an impressive stereo system arranged on shelving mounted on one wall and Mattie curled up in a ball in big, comfy club chair, her arms wrapped around her head. Amy launched across the room and started hitting buttons and dials until blessed silence descended. The relief was almost physical.
“Oh, you’re home,” Mattie said sullenly and lifted her head, which showed definite highlights of green around the face this night. The shock on that face when she saw Amy rather than her father, coupled with the black and green makeup on her eyes and the coral lipstick on her mouth, was downright comical. “What are you doing here?” she asked Amy.
“Saving your hearing. What in heaven’s name did you think you were doing?”
Mattie stuck her chin out at a belligerent angle. “You can’t just walk in here,” she insisted.
Amy chuckled. “Like you’d have heard me if I’d knocked, especially since I screamed for you before I came in.”
Mattie glared. “Where’s my father?”
“I wouldn’t know. Why do you ask?”
Mattie’s eyes grew round and shimmering. She’s lonely, Amy found herself thinking.
“Didn’t you call him?” she asked Amy.
“No, I didn’t call him. I figure he has enough to do at the moment, keeping the city safe from delinquents like you.”
Suddenly Mattie’s eyes were flowing with tears. She ducked her head on a strangled sob. Amy melted like butter in summer sunlight. “Hey, now, I was only kidding.”
“I’m not a delinquent! I’m not!” Mattie sobbed.
The poor kid’s misery pulled Amy across the room. Soon she was standing beside the big jewel-toned chair. “I said I was only kidding. Listen, I won’t say a word to your father, I promise.”
“Oh, swell!” Mattie snapped, lifting her head and swiping at tears. “Just let him ignore me, see if I care!”
Amy’s freshly drawn brows rose straight up.
“Is that what this is all about? You wanted me to call him, didn’t you? You wanted him to come home.”
Mattie instantly sobered and matured. “Don’t be silly. I was just enjoying my music. I don’t know why everybody makes such a big deal about it.”
Amy folded her arms, smirking. “Right. You always enjoy your music with your ears covered.”
The child was back, eyes wide, chin wobbling. “I—I just fell asleep, that’s all.”
“Yeah? Well, that’s some trick. Maybe you could market your secret to a grateful world of insomniacs.”
That wobbling chin jutted up stubbornly. “Why are you being so mean to me?”
Amy dropped her jaw in comic outrage. “Me, be mean to you? Have I tried to burst your ear drums? Have I filed public nuisance charges? Have I purposefully blasted you out of your own house?” The operative word, and they both knew it, was purposefully.
Mattie dropped her chin to her chest. For some time she said nothing, and Amy sensed that this was a moment when she ought to keep her own mouth shut. Even when Mattie began to quietly cry, Amy kept her silence, and finally Mattie came out with it.
“I don’t know what the matter is with me. I don’t really want to go back to L.A. To tell you the truth, it really wasn’t much better. I just get so lonely sometimes.”
Amy felt an instant, unexpected kinship with this odd girl. If anyone understood loneliness, Amy did. She resisted the uncommon urge to lay a hand on Mattie’s head and said, “I suppose that’s to be expected, but you’ll get used to it.”
“Get used to being lonely?” Mattie said with some surprise.
Amy was taken aback. Had she really said that? Was that what she’d done, resigned herself to loneliness? She shook her head, as much in answer to her own thoughts as Mattie’s. “What I meant to say was that you’ll get used to living in a new place a-and that in a couple weeks you’ll make some new friends and—”
Mattie threw up her hands and uncurled, sending both feet to the floor. “You’re talking about school, but school is so lame! I wouldn’t even go if I didn’t have to.”
“Well, you do have to,” Amy said, sounding for all the world like her own mother, “so why don’t you make the best of it? You might be surprised.”
“Don’t you understand?” Mattie said desperately. “I need more than school chums!”
“That’s right,” Amy said. “You need an education.” Mattie snorted inelegantly at that, and Amy found herself feeding her the same line adults always fed teenagers. “You can’t do anything without an education.” Mattie pressed her mouth into a thin line as if refusing a dose of bitter medicine. Amy rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Don’t you have any plans, any dreams? What do you want to do with your life?”
Mattie shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know that I’m not going to find what I need in some high school.”
“Just give it a chance,” Amy urged.
“I need something more than most kids my age,” Mattie went on. “I need…”
“A mother?” Amy asked softly. Boy, did she know how it felt to need someone who just wasn’t there and never would be.
Mattie got a faraway look in her eye, a look tinged with sadness and laden with memories, a look that spoke volumes about her feelings for and need of her mother, but then she shook her head. “It’s even more than that,” she said huskily. “See, Mom’s always with me.” She tapped her chest. “She’s in here, and nothing can ever take her away. In fact, you could say that she’s more ‘with me’ than Dad is most of the time.”
Aha, thought Amy, we come to the crux of the problem. And she knew just what to do about it, but it wouldn’t do to be too obvious. She put her hands on her hips and looked around her, noting the neatness and cleanliness of the room. Not only did it look clean, it felt clean, even smelled clean, and yet it had a comfortable, homey feel about it. Maybe she ought to move halfway across the country, she thought wryly, but something told her that there was more to it than that. “On second thought,” she said, keeping her face as expressionless as possible, “I really don’t think I can just let this go by. Maybe you’d better show me where the phone is.”
Mattie’s expression was one of confusion. Amy could see that having her father brought home was what Mattie wanted, but the fact that the homecoming was apt to bring acrimony now mattered to her when it hadn’t before. Then the confusion cleared, and Amy saw real regret…and pride. Mattie wasn’t about to beg her not to call. Instead, she lifted a hand and pointed across the room to the formal dining area. “Through there to the kitchen. It’s on the right side of the door.”
Amy nodded her thanks and went off on her own into the other part of the house. The kitchen was larger and brighter than hers and spotless. A bowl of fruit sat in the middle of the table, and decorative tea towels were draped over the handles of the double wall oven. The place smelled of cinnamon and coffee, just as her mother’s kitchen had always done. You didn’t get that by moving.
She turned to the telephone and lifted the receiver. Several numbers were listed on the interior pad beneath. Beside each was a single boxed digit. Evans’s work number was the first. Amy pushed the star button and the number one. When the other party answered, she explained merely that she was Evans’s next-door neighbor and that she needed to speak to him. When the man on the other end of the line asked if she wanted to be “patched through,” she said that she did. Seconds later she was talking to Evans Kincaid himself.
“There’s nothing to be upset about,” she told him smoothly, “but I’m at your house with Mattie. Do you suppose you could drop by, on your break maybe?”
“Is she okay?” he asked immediately.
“Physically, she’s just fine,” Amy assured him, “but could we discuss this in person please?”
“Hold on.”
He returned several minutes later to say that he’d arranged to take an early break and would be there in five minutes. Satisfied, Amy went back to the living room, where she encountered a glum Mattie. “Is he coming?” she asked.
“In five minutes,” Amy announced. “I’d like a private word with him, if you don’t mind.”
Mattie’s expression became downright hostile, but she acquiesced coldly, saying, “Fine! I’ll be in my room. Just make yourself at home. You do, anyway.”
Amy contained a smile as Mattie flounced away. Then she did just what Mattie had suggested, curling up in the very chair Mattie had vacated. It was really a very lovely place, and someone had obviously tended it lovingly. Evans? she wondered. Or Mattie? Evans seemed the capable sort, but Amy sensed that Mattie was responsible for the order and comfort of the home. Her eyes narrowed with the germ of an idea. Almost before she knew what was happening, Evans opened the door and walked in.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
Amy looked toward the little hallway that flanked the dining room, then stood. “Maybe we’d better step outside for a moment. We need to talk before you see her.”
Evans put his hands on his hips and struck a cryptic pose as if about to refuse, but then he swung out an arm in invitation and acceptance. “After you.”
Amy walked out onto the porch, Evans behind her. It was a soft night, she realized, a warm, soft night, a night with purpose. She was struck suddenly by the realization that it had been a very long time since she’d had any purpose at all.
Evans came to stand beside her at the porch rail. “Ready to tell me what this is all about?”
She was more than ready. She was eager. She turned to face him, leaning a hip against the rail. “Mattie was playing the music too loud again. I mean, way too loud.”
He was instantly angry. “For pity’s sake! What’s wrong with her? She knows I can’t afford to have these kinds of complaints called in!”
“No complaint was called in,” Amy said quickly, “not by me, anyway.”
His surprise actually shamed her. She had to drop her eyes. “This time I came over and spoke with her, and…You may think I�
��m sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong, but I thought you should know…She misses you.”
He was silent for a moment, and then he said, “What do you mean, she misses me. I’m right here.”
“Are you?” Amy asked softly, daring to look up again. “I mean, you must be pretty busy, a single father with a new job in a new place. Do you really have the time for her that you used to?”
He began a glare, but it turned thoughtful before it developed much intensity. “You know it wasn’t so long ago,” he said in a near whisper, “when she didn’t have time for me.”
“Well, she does now,” Amy told him gently. “She wanted me to call you home tonight, even though she knew you would be angry.”
“I wouldn’t be angry if she didn’t pull these stunts.”
“Maybe it’s the only way she knows how to get your attention.”
He seemed to be chewing the inside of his cheek. “You think so?”
Amy followed her instincts. “Let me ask you something. Who keeps your house?”
“What?”
“Your house, who keeps it so neat and orderly? Who makes it so pleasant and comfortable?”
He actually had to think about it. “Well, we both do, I suppose. It just seems to kind of get done.”
“It may just seem to get done,” Amy pointed out, “but the truth is that someone has to be making that happen. I’d guess that someone is Mattie, but have you even noticed, Evans? You don’t seem to.”
He looked not just stunned but appalled. “You know, you’re right. I never even thought of it.” He thought of it now, leaning forward with both hands on the top rail. “It must have started as soon as her mother died. I was in a fog of grief and pain for a long time afterward, and I guess that by the time it cleared up…I remember being a little surprised that everything was running so smoothly. I guess I never stopped to think how or why.”