by Phoebe Conn
His lighthearted mood burst like a soap bubble, Luke retreated behind his desk and dropped into his chair. “I didn’t play anyone,” he swore. “Look, my job is to help these kids become responsible citizens. Sometimes they need to be jarred out of their indifference, and I do it gladly.”
Her voice was honey-smooth. “So you manipulate people for a just purpose, is that it?”
“No!” he shot back. “Is that what you think I’m doing with you?”
His threatening scowl was all too familiar, and she just shook her head. “I don’t know. You have a way of asking odd questions, and now I wonder if it isn’t just for effect.”
He leaned back and propped his hands behind his head. “I already apologized for asking if you were seeing anyone else. It was a stupid question, and I’m sorry I let my fears get the better of me.”
Intrigued, Catherine propped her hip on his desk. “What fears?”
He appeared startled to have spoken the word aloud. He sat up and yanked open his top drawer to find the credit card he’d mentioned. After a quick search, he handed it to her.
“We all have the same fears. That we’ll always be alone, or God forbid, we’ll be with the wrong person and wish we were.
“Had I realized Rafael was such a talented artist, I’d have warned you I was going to hassle him. As it was, I was as surprised as everyone else when he turned in such a stunning design. I saw an opportunity to make a point and seized it. If Toby doesn’t take Rafael over to Art Center for a tour, then I will. These kids have such slim hopes for success, I sure as hell won’t let Rafael waste his.”
Up to a point, his righteous indignation was convincing, but Catherine still harbored the suspicion she’d been used. It was an uncomfortable sensation, as though she’d worked in her garden all morning and left home without rinsing off the dirt.
“Do you have any other especially effective techniques you’d care to warn me about now?” she asked.
He considered her question a long moment and then shrugged. “You saw me ban the girls for fighting. Being tough in enforcing our rules earns the kids’ respect, but no one thinks I’m a mean, manipulative bastard.”
She took exception to his tone. “I didn’t use such derogatory terms.”
“My mistake. We still on for tomorrow night?”
He was pretending to sort the papers on his desk. Catherine saw through his feigned nonchalance, but she remained hopelessly confused about his motives. He struck her as a man of principle, but how he put those principles into practice was something else entirely.
“Yes,” she assured him. “Why don’t you come to my house for dinner? We can go to the movies later, if you like.” She pocketed the credit card as she straightened.
“I don’t want you to go to a lot of work,” Luke protested.
“It’s not much fun cooking for one, and I’d enjoy it.” Before he could argue, she crossed to the door. “How’s six o’clock?”
“Fine, I’ll be there.”
He didn’t look real pleased about it, but Catherine was still glad she’d confronted him about Rafael. Luke provided such a perplexing mixture of stubborn masculine pride and what she hoped was sincere concern that she made no effort to predict what his mood would be on Saturday night. All she could do was bake one of her favorite recipes and hope the gesture touched his heart.
Joyce had been watching for Catherine’s arrival, and when she saw her Volvo pull into the driveway, she sprinted down the street and beat her to the front door. “Please, I already know I’m an idiot, but today was such a disaster that if I don’t tell someone about it, I swear my head will explode.”
Joyce was dressed in a baggy pair of faded jeans. The buttons on her lavender shirt were misaligned, and there was a hole in the toe of her left tennis shoe. Catherine needed only a single glance to understand something alarming must have happened to her usually impeccably dressed friend.
“Come on in,” she invited. “It’s still warm. Let’s go on out to the deck.”
Joyce followed right behind her. “I went up to Shane’s nursery today, and I swear every word of this story is true, although I’m embarrassed to admit that even a minute of it happened.”
Catherine carried a pitcher of iced tea out to the patio, while Joyce brought the ice-filled glasses. She sat, propped her feet on the adjacent chair, and after a long sip of tea, encouraged Joyce to continue. “Why don’t you begin at the beginning?”
“Yeah, right, as if I could think straight.” She held her icy glass to her cheek and struggled to compose herself.
“Shane called me last night, and when we discovered neither of us had any appointments for today, it seemed like a good day to visit Oxnard. I must have changed my clothes half a dozen times before I decided to wear my pink linen sheath. It’s business-like and yet feminine.”
Catherine had had a rather trying day herself, but just coming home relaxed her enough to attend to Joyce’s rambling tale. “I’ve always liked that dress.”
“Thank you, but I was going to Oxnard after all, so I wore pink flats rather than heels. I took the notebook I use on all my jobs, and thinking we’d be outdoors, I brought along a straw hat.
“Shane’s directions were superb, and his nursery is just beautiful with a huge variety of plants all arranged in orderly rows. He has several employees who maintain the place and take care of walk-in customers while he handles big jobs and deliveries.
“We actually talked about plants, but there was a teasing sparkle in his eye the whole time.”
“And probably one in yours as well,” Catherine suggested.
“Please, I was doing my best to appear attentive and take notes, but I doubt they’ll make any sense. Anyway, the morning went really well. Then Shane invited me to lunch and said on the way, we’d stop by his mother’s hair salon so I could meet her.”
“She owns a hair salon?”
“Well, that’s what he called it, but it’s a small-town beauty parlor just like the ones that always turn up in movies. Apparently it’s been called the Curlicue since the fifties, and when Shane’s mother bought the place ten years ago, she kept the name. It was really cute and quaint, and his mother was exactly what you’d expect: a bleached blonde with a generous bosom.”
“I get the picture. Did you two hit it off?”
Joyce almost moaned. “Not really. Her name’s Marion, and she was giving a sweet little old lady a perm when we came in. When she barely glanced our way, it made me think Shane must bring in a new girlfriend every other day.”
“You don’t know that,” Catherine cautioned. “Perhaps she was preoccupied by something that had happened earlier in the day.”
“Maybe, but after being so worried about meeting her, it was insulting. After that awkward minute at the Curlicue, we went on down the street to this really nice Mexican restaurant. Then things really started going downhill.”
“What could go wrong at a Mexican restaurant? Was the salsa too spicy?”
“I didn’t have a chance to taste it. Shane was being his usual charming self, but after a couple of sips of lemonade, I excused myself to use the restroom. We were in the central patio, and Shane pointed me toward the rear of the place. When I got to the kitchen, I thought I must have taken a wrong turn, but a waitress waved me on. There was a door just past several racks of dishes, and I thought the restrooms must be through it. Anyone would have assumed so.”
Catherine could easily imagine what was coming. “They weren’t?” she asked.
“No. I ended up out in the employees’ parking lot and the door swung closed and locked behind me.” Joyce pulled a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose.
“Well, surely someone in the kitchen must have seen you go out the wrong door.”
“That’s what I thought, so I waited, and not all that patiently mind you, when I really did need to use the restroom. Then I began to worry Shane might think I’d slipped out a side door and ditched him. I’d left my cell phone in my car, so
I couldn’t call the restaurant and tell them to let me in.”
“Were you gone that long?”
“I don’t know, five minutes, ten. Believe me, it was uncomfortably long, so I began to pound on the door, but kitchens are always so noisy that either no one heard me or no one cared. At least I had the straw hat so I wasn’t getting sunburned, but that was a slight consolation, believe me.”
“Well, you’re here now, so how did you get back to Shane?”
Joyce choked on a gulp of tea and lapsed into a coughing fit. When she recovered, she looked thoroughly dejected. “I thought I’d just walk around to the front of the restaurant and go in, but there was a high fence around the parking lot and the gate was locked.
“I wish you’d been there. You’re always so sensible, but here I was trapped alone in the parking lot. I had no idea what time the luncheon shift ended and people might begin to leave, but I doubted it would be before two, and Shane would have been gone long before then.”
“Where was Shane while you were pounding on the kitchen door? Didn’t he send a waitress to look for you in the restroom?”
Smoky wound his way around Catherine’s chair and jumped into her lap. She gave her darling cat a quick snuggle but kept a concerned glance on her friend.
Joyce waved off the question. “I’ll get to that later. Anyway, there was a small mountain of broken chairs piled against the fence beside the Dumpster, and with no other choice, I hiked up my dress, and climbed up. I thought I’d just climb over the fence, but once I was clinging to the other side, I realized I was a lot farther off the ground than I’d anticipated.”
“You scaled the fence in your pretty pink sheath?” That preposterous sight was easy enough to visualize, but Catherine still couldn’t believe Joyce had actually done it.
“By that time, my dress was the least of my worries, but things just continued to get worse.”
“How? Did you fall?”
“Right on my ass, which was not only painful but humiliating. But at least I was out in the alley where I could walk to the end of the block and get back in the restaurant. Only by that time, I was such a mess I didn’t think I could face Shane. I was trying not to cry and look even more pathetic when I slipped on an oil slick, fell again, and skinned both my knees.”
“Oh, Joyce, how awful.”
“You are so wonderfully sympathetic. That’s why I knew I could tell you what happened. There was a construction project midway down the alley, and by that time there was no way I was going to leap a ditch, so I had to go back and walk the long way around the block. The Curlicue was on that corner, so I went in, and asked Marion to call Shane to come and get me, if he were still at the restaurant, that is.”
Catherine knew without being told that the Curlicue’s patrons must have all been gaping bug-eyed at Joyce. “Well, I certainly hope that Marion was helpful.”
“Oh, she was. She showed me right to her restroom and went to call Shane. By the time I got myself pulled together enough to face him, he was there. He and his mother didn’t see me standing at the back of the shop, but I heard Marion laughing about how stupid I was not to ring the bell by the service entrance.
“Now I swear to you, there was no bell to ring, but that’s really beside the point. I’d arrived a disheveled mess, and she was laughing at me. When Shane began to chuckle right along with her, I’d had it with him.”
“Was he still at the restaurant?”
“Oh yes, he’d thought I hadn’t liked Oxnard and had just gone home. So he canceled my order and was enjoying his when he got the call from his mother. It hadn’t even occurred to him I might have become ill and he ought to send a waitress to check on me. He had just assumed I’d left without telling him good-bye. Although I’ve no idea how he thought I’d get home when my car was parked at his nursery.”
Catherine knew how much Joyce had liked Shane, and she was shocked his affection for her hadn’t been deeper. “That was a strange way for him to behave.”
“That’ s exactly what I told him, but I put it in a lot more colorful terms, which I won’t repeat, but they won’t soon forget me at the Curlicue.”
Catherine had heard Joyce fume about suppliers and clients often enough to understand the petite blonde had thrown in every curse word she knew. She thought of the dear little old lady getting the perm and winced. “Oh no.”
“Oh yes, but I don’t care. Shane apologized the whole way back to the nursery, but it was too late. If he’d rather eat lunch than investigate what might have happened to me, then he wasn’t the man I’d thought him to be.”
Catherine felt sick with disappointment for her friend. “But you really liked him.”
“No, I liked what I imagined him to be. It turned out they were two entirely different men.”
“What are you going to do?”
Joyce blew her nose again. “Swear off men, I suppose. I’m so damn sick of being betrayed in one awful way after another that I’m tempted to just give up hope of ever finding a soul mate.”
“That’s understandable, but Shane must also feel terrible about this. I’ll bet he’ll send you flowers tomorrow and beg your forgiveness.”
“He owns a nursery,” Joyce sneered. “So he’d send a potted plant with the care instructions attached.”
“Wallowing in pity won’t help,” Catherine scolded. “Come on, let’s make some grilled cheese sandwiches with lots of butter.” It was therapy Joyce had insisted upon after Sam had died. Catherine hoped it would help Joyce to cope now.
“Why not?” Joyce replied. “I was too nervous to eat breakfast, missed out on lunch, and I’m too tired to cook anything for myself.”
Catherine deposited Smoky on the ground and gave Joyce a hug to start her toward the backdoor, but for her friend’s sake, she sure hoped Shane found a way to redeem himself over the weekend.
Saturday night, Luke brought a phalaenopsis with lovely white butterfly blossoms to Catherine’s house. “I’m hoping an orchid won’t bring on more tears,” he quipped.
Catherine greeted him with a quick kiss and accepted the pretty plant with unabashed delight. “They won’t, and this one is gorgeous. Thank you so much, but you needn’t bring me presents.”
“I wanted to,” he assured her. “Whatever you’re cooking smells delicious.”
“So do you,” she replied in a throaty whisper. She found it so easy to tease him outside Lost Angel. She was sorry they had to spend so much time there.
“Come on in the kitchen and help me finish the salad.” She placed the orchid on the coffee table and led the way. “Would you like a drink?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“All right, then, will you peel the carrots for the salad while I grate the mozzarella to top the chicken?”
“I’ll be right happy to, ma’am. You know how much I like to cook.” He stepped up to the sink, grabbed the peeler, a carrot, and got busy.
Quickly assured he was happy about taking on the chore, Catherine worked beside the stove to grate the fist-size hunk of mozzarella. “How was your day?” she asked.
“Busy. I’d let my usual weekend errands pile up, but at least it was a nice day to be out. How about you?”
“I gardened a bit and had lunch with a friend who’s nursing a broken heart. I realize you’re not Dr. Phil, but would you mind terribly if I asked you a relationship question?”
“For your brokenhearted friend?” he asked in a decidedly skeptical tone.
She took a quick step to give his shoulder a playful shove. “Yes. I wouldn’t ask you for advice and then use it against you!”
He laughed at her promise, but he still appeared unconvinced. “Go ahead, but you already know I lack Phil McGraw’s charm.”
“You have plenty of your own, Dr. Starns. Besides, what I’m really after is some insight, a man’s perspective, on a difficult situation.”
“Well, at least I qualify in that regard,” he replied with another burst of hearty laughter.
She
savored the magical sound to the last resonant note. Sam had filled the house with such joyous noise, and it was far too quiet now. “Fine. Let’s say you and I are in that wonderful restaurant in China Town. If I went to the restroom and didn’t return within a reasonable amount of time, what would you do?”
He grabbed another carrot. “Knowing just how long women can spend in restrooms, I’d wait awhile longer. Then I’d go and check the bar to make certain you hadn’t run into an old boyfriend or someone else you liked better than me and forgotten that I exist.”
“And if I weren’t in the bar?” she coaxed.
“I’d ask our waitress to check the women’s room to make certain you weren’t ill.”
“And if I weren’t there?”
Luke glanced over his shoulder. “Is this some kind of test?”
“No, I’d just like to know how an intelligent man might behave if his date disappeared.”
“Right. Okay, if the waitress couldn’t find you, I’d speak to the manager and ask him to conduct a discreet search. Should I consider the possibility of an alien abduction?”
“Aren’t people usually alone when that happens rather than in a popular restaurant?”
“Yes, I believe so, but it still might be too soon to rule it out.” He began slicing the peeled carrots into neat chucks as he continued. “Let’s say the manager searched the kitchen, pantry, employee bathrooms, under all the tables, and still didn’t find you. Then I’d suspect foul play and call the police.”
“Really?” She donned a pair of oven mitts and opened the oven to remove a baking dish filled with chicken breasts in a bubbling tomato and onion sauce. She sprinkled the grated cheese on top, returned the dish to the oven, and yanked off the mitts. She set the timer for five minutes.
“Wouldn’t it cross your mind I might have simply walked out on you?”
“No way. I know you, Catherine. You’re not the type to ditch a date. Even if I were the world’s biggest loser, you’d spare my feelings and concoct some believable excuse to return home early.”