“I don’t get it,” Paige said. “Why are a bunch of grown men so excited about high school football?”
“Are you kidding? In a small town like this, what else do they have to obsess over? High school sports are practically a religion around here.”
“Ugh. Spare me.” She might not be a girly girl, but she barely knew the difference between a touchdown and a rubdown. Sports were not high on her priority list. As a matter of fact, sports were nowhere near her priority list. Maybe it was time to rethink that, since Mikey Lindstrom was captain of the football team, as well as its star quarterback.
Trish patted her arm. “Amen, sister!”
“Just set the records on the table,” Rose said, closing the oven door and setting the timer. She tossed down her potholders, gathered her wayward curls into a quasi-ponytail that she secured with a rubber band, and crossed the room to take a quick look at the albums. “Hey!” she protested, picking up a Doors album and flipping it over to check the back. “This is mine! I’ve wondered for years where it went to. That little shit stole it from me!”
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” Casey said, opening a drawer and rummaging through its contents until she found salad tongs. “How do you know it’s yours? It’s ancient. He could have picked it up at a yard sale.”
“Possibly the fact that it says ROSE MACKENZIE on the back, in big black letters? Larcenous little twit.”
“He’s had that album for as long as I’ve known him, but I refuse to become an accessory after the fact. When he gets back, you can have him arrested.”
“I wonder what else of mine he has?” Rose muttered as she continued working her way through the stack, absently mouthing the lyrics to Love Me Two Times.
Casey returned to the table, uncovered the salad, and rested the tongs against the lip of the bowl. “How are you holding out, hon?” Trish asked her.
“Me? I’m fine. It’ll only be three weeks. And Paige is good company. We get along just fine, don’t we, sweetie?”
“Yes,” Paige said automatically, without even having to think about it. A couple of nights ago, they’d eaten dinner in the living room—grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup—and watched The King and I. Paige had never seen it before, but it was Casey’s favorite movie. The plot line was hokey, its depiction of Asian people racist and demeaning, but the chemistry between the lead characters was tangible, and the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein just blew her away.
“Besides,” Casey said, taking a chip from the bag and dipping it, “he calls me almost every day.”
“A phone call every day,” Paula Fournier drawled, “does not make up for the absence of a warm man in your bed every night.”
“Truer words have not been spoken.”
“Please,” Rose said. “Don’t turn my stomach. That’s my baby brother you’re talking about. I don’t want to think about him warming any woman’s bed.” She threw an arm loosely around Paige’s shoulders. “Am I right, Kemosabe, or am I right?”
Talk about racist and demeaning. Paige grinned. “You’re right, Tonto.”
“Hah!” Her aunt ruffled Paige’s hair in enthusiastic approval. “I rest my case.”
“You can’t rest any case,” Paula said dryly. “I’m the lawyer around here. Only I can rest cases.”
Rose released her niece, picked up a tortilla chip, and flicked it at her friend. “Bite me.”
The camaraderie, the joking, the ease with which these women fit together, was something new in Paige’s experience. Her mom had been a loner, had never had many female friends. Aside from Meg, who’d disappeared from their lives years ago, there had been just Lorraine from downstairs and a couple of ladies who worked at the Financial District bank where Sandy processed mortgages. But those friendships had been superficial, based on proximity and convenience instead of shared interests or lifestyles. None of her mother’s friends had been like these women, who were so loosey-goosey and comfortable together, throwing insults at each other without fear of repercussion, digging into each other’s private lives, and talking openly about sex and husbands and kids and the joys of small-town life. Although she was too young to have any dog in this fight, she still got a charge out of listening to their conversation. Being included in their circle made her feel like an adult, one of the gang, accepted in a way the girls at school had refused to accept her.
But that acceptance was a double-edged sword. The older female cousins were all away at college. Alison, in her last trimester of pregnancy, wasn’t feeling well, so she and Billy had decided to lay low and stay home tonight. Luke blew through the kitchen with his usual manic charm, greeted everyone, snagged a plate of food, and headed out for a date with some new girl. Mikey and the rest of the men wandered into the kitchen for food, then retreated back to the living room to talk football.
So she was stuck with the women. It wouldn’t have been so bad, except that it meant she didn’t get any time alone with Mikey. When they did cross paths, he was polite but distant. Almost as though he was deliberately avoiding her. But she couldn’t imagine why he’d do that. He’d been friendly enough that day they’d run into each other in the cafeteria, had even eaten food from her tray. She’d thought they were becoming friends. Now, he seemed less like a friend than a good-looking stranger.
If her mom were still around, Paige could have gone to her for advice. Sandy had dated a number of different men over the years. She would know exactly what to say, what to do. But Sandy was gone, and Paige wasn’t about to ask Casey for relationship advice. Mikey was the woman’s nephew, which made asking her for advice on how to snag his interest icky on a number of levels. Besides, Casey had been married to her first husband for more than a decade before she married Rob MacKenzie. Based on what Paige had picked up here and there, it didn’t seem as though there’d been anybody else in between. So what kind of meaningful dating advice could the woman give? She’d spent most of her adult life as a married woman.
It looked like she was on her own with this one.
***
She’d never even heard the term “five-and-ten” until she moved to this delightful burg. It was a sort of department store that sold a wide variety of cheap plastic crap. The building was ancient, with crooked wooden floors, the merchandise so dusty it made her sneeze. The whole place smelled like popcorn because, to her amazement, there was a working popcorn machine located near the cash register. It popped corn all day, and you could buy the stuff, hot and buttered, for ninety-nine cents a bag and eat it while you shopped.
“So,” Lissa said, rummaging through a bin of eye shadow, “why the sudden interest in football?”
“No particular reason.” Paige fingered a crummy plastic rain hat that looked like it belonged on someone’s great-granny. These people here in East Nowhere had a stunning sense of style. “I just thought I should broaden my horizons.”
“Right. I don’t suppose it would have anything to do with a certain quarterback?”
“Give me a break, Lissa.” She eyed her friend coolly. “Even if it did—and I’m not saying it does—what would be the point? He’d be too busy scoring touchdowns to even know I was at the game.”
“Do you think this color would look good on me?” Lissa held up a packet of burgundy eye shadow and struck a pose.
“I suppose that depends. Are you deliberately trying to look like one of the Undead?”
Lissa tossed it back in the bin and kept searching. “Maybe purple would be better. So if he won’t even know you’re there, why are you bothering to go?”
Paige picked up a bottle of perfume, uncapped it, and took a whiff. “Look, are you with me on this or not? It’s a simple sociological experiment. I want to breathe in the scent of high school athletics and see if I get carried away with hometown fervor.”
“You’re so weird. Has anybody ever told you that?”
Thinking of her newly-discovered family, she said, “I’m pretty sure it’s a MacKenzie trait.”
“So wh
at do you think? Green or blue?”
She set the perfume back on the shelf and, studying both colors, decided that neither really went well with Lissa’s dark eyes. Something in a taupe would work better. “Either one is fine,” she said.
Lissa hesitated for a moment. Glanced up at the security mirror suspended from a ceiling beam. And slipped the packet of green eye shadow into her pocket.
“What the hell are you doing?” Paige said.
Lissa widened her eyes with exaggerated innocence and said, “What?”
“You know what. Are you crazy, or are you just looking to get an early start on building your criminal record?”
“Oh, stop being such a goody-goody. I do it all the time. They won’t even miss it.” Lissa glanced around, reached into the bin again, and pulled out a tube of eyeliner.
“It doesn’t matter if they miss it, Lissa, it’s against the law.”
“Are you for real? You’re just a big chicken.” The eyeliner disappeared into the same pocket as the eye shadow. Smugly, she said, “I bet you don’t even dare.”
“It has nothing to do with daring. It has to do with ethics.”
“Ethics? Jesus, Paige, you sound like my grandmother. Look at this lipstick. This shade of pink would be outstanding on you. Go ahead. I dare you.”
Their eyes met, Paige’s cold, Lissa’s sparkling with excitement. “Go on,” Lissa taunted. “Take the lipstick, and I’ll go with you to the game.”
She knew it was wrong. This whole scenario was wrong. She’d never stolen anything in her life. But Lissa had put her on the spot, and she wasn’t one to back down from a dare. Nobody on this planet was going to call Paige MacKenzie a chicken and get away with it. She closed her fingers over the lipstick, sent a quick, silent message heavenward. I’m sorry, Mom.
And slipped it in her pocket.
Lissa winked, and Paige let out the breath she’d been holding. They turned together and coolly, casually, as though they’d just decided to break for lunch, meandered down the aisle toward the front door.
Paige got there first. Breath held, she leaned against the door. It opened, and she took a single step outside. Almost there. She started forward again and was about to clear the threshold when a hand clamped down on her arm.
And a voice that was definitely not Lissa’s said, “Not another step, young lady.”
Casey
Saturday morning. Football weather. It was one of those blue and gold fall days, so lovely it took her breath away. Paige had left on her ten-speed a couple of hours ago for Lissa Norton’s house. The two girls were planning to go shopping, followed by the high school football game, and Casey was enjoying the quiet time. Paying bills wasn’t her favorite activity, but it was a necessary evil if she intended to keep her utilities up and running. Carole King’s Tapestry album playing on the stereo helped to lessen the pain.
She was comfortably ensconced at the desk in her sitting room, checkbook in hand, Leroy snoring at her feet, when the phone rang. Casey set down her pen and reached for the receiver. “Hello?”
“Casey?” The male voice at the other end seemed vaguely familiar. “It’s Ted.”
The name drew a complete blank, and she searched her mental file cabinets without success. He must have sensed her hesitation. “Ted Burns,” he said.
It clicked. Cousin Teddy. Aunt Hilda’s son, who’d spent the last nine years as one of the town’s two full-time police officers. “Oh, Teddy. Hi.”
He cleared his throat. “I’m calling on official business. Is your husband there?”
She could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people on the planet that Rob disliked more than her Cousin Teddy, although she’d never quite understood the reason for his animosity. Teddy was a royal pain in the ass, for sure, but Rob generally got along with everyone. He would be crushed to know he’d missed Teddy’s call.
“He’s out of town. What’s up?”
“I’m not sure I can discuss it with you. Legalities, you know.”
It was beginning to come back to her, the reason Teddy’s invitations to family gatherings somehow kept getting lost in the mail. “I’m afraid I’m all you’ve got, since he’s not reachable right now. What’s this about, another parking ticket?”
She suspected that for some inexplicable reason, the animosity ran both ways. In a town with no more than two dozen parking meters, it seemed as though Rob had garnered more than his share of tickets over the past year and a half.
Teddy cleared his throat. “It’s about his daughter. I should be talking to him. You not being her mother, and all.”
Panic clutched her insides. “Paige? Is she all right? Has something happened to her?”
“You’re not her legal guardian. I really shouldn’t—”
“Oh, for the love of God, Teddy, you were at my wedding! She’s Rob’s daughter, and I’m his wife. She lives with us. If something’s happened to her, I need to know!”
“Well—” He dragged out the word, and she wanted to reach through the phone and grab him by the throat. “I don’t suppose I have a choice, seeing as how your hubby’s not available.”
Hubby? Good Lord. If Rob heard that, he’d probably march down to the police station, wrestle Teddy’s gun away, and shoot him with it.
“We just picked her and that snotty little Norton girl up for shoplifting cosmetics from the Five-and-Ten. Eye shadow, lipstick, eye liner.” His soft sound of disdain carried clearly across the phone line. “If she was my kid, I wouldn’t be letting her out of the house wearing that crap smeared all over her face. But, hey, that’s just me. I’m a small-town guy. I haven’t lived the big-city rock & roll lifestyle like you two have.”
Outside, a cloud passed across the face of the sun, erasing her good mood. “Gee, Teddy, I thought you, of all people, would realize that eyeliner is a necessary component to our Satanic rituals here at Ye Auld House of Sodom and Gomorrah.” At his silence, she rolled her eyes. The sarcasm had obviously gone right over his head. “I’ll be right there.” And she slammed down the phone. “Cretin,” she muttered.
It took her seven minutes to get to town. When she wheeled into the police station’s parking lot, she noted that the local cop shop wasn’t exactly doing a thriving business. One of the town’s two cruisers sat out front, in need of a good scrubbing. Casey parked between a Subaru wagon and a red pickup truck with a gun rack in the rear window, snatched up her purse, and marched toward the front door.
Inside, Lynda Frechette, whose father served with her on the library committee, sat at the front desk reading Soap Opera Digest. In a small office at the back of the building, voices were raised in anger. Near the receptionist’s desk, two teenage girls sat huddled together on a hard wooden bench she suspected was deliberately designed for discomfort. When the door closed behind her, they glanced up. She met Paige’s eyes, and the kid squared her jaw, but not quickly enough to mask her fear. Casey gave her a pointed look before moving in the direction of the yelling.
“I don’t give a good goddamn what you think! My daughter has never, ever done anything like this before. She’s just a kid, and—” At her entrance, Biff Norton, Lissa’s father, paused in his tirade. “You,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “This is all your fault!”
“Good morning, gentlemen. Biff. Teddy.” She nodded toward the police chief, who’d gone to school with her brother Travis. “Scotty.” The only other person in the room was a woman she didn’t know. Casey held out her hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Casey MacKenzie.”
The woman took her hand in a no-nonsense grip. “Lynn Veilleux.”
“Lynn’s the manager over at the Five-and-Ten,” Teddy said.
“Nice to meet you.” She turned to Norton. “Now, Biff, what, precisely, is all my fault?”
He drew bushy black brows together. “That kid of yours is a bad influence on my Lissa. Just three weeks into tenth grade, three weeks hanging around with that little brat of yours, and now she’s been arrested? This is al
l your fault, for bringing your riffraff to town. Maybe you should take your kid, and your long-haired freak of a husband, and go back to California, or wherever it is you’ve been living. Because we don’t need your kind dirtying up this town.”
There was a collective intake of breath, and for an instant, absolute silence reigned, while the fury rose in her so abruptly she had to clench her fists to stay their trembling.
Belatedly, Teddy appeared to remember his familial obligations. “Now, Biff…” he began.
“Thank you, Teddy,” she said, drawing herself up to her full five feet, “but I can fight my own battles. Biff Norton, you stupid, ignorant redneck, have you ever even met my husband? I can only assume the answer is no, because if you had, you’d know he’s a thousand times the man you could ever be. If he were standing here right now, he’d probably laugh off what you just said, because that’s the kind of guy he is. But I’m not quite as forgiving as he is, and if I ever hear you say another bad word about him, I won’t be held accountable for my actions.”
Norton’s eyes narrowed. “Is that a threat?”
“You’d damn well better believe it’s a threat. And in front of witnesses. You can say any nasty thing you want about me, you idiot, but Rob is off limits. Capisce?”
Before Norton could respond, Scotty Deverell cleared his throat. “Can we just deal with the situation at hand?”
“Sorry, but I’m not finished with Biff yet. As far as dirtying this town, Norton, you and I went to high school together, and I have a long memory. I could tell a few stories about the dirtying you did back in the day. But for now, just to show I’m the bigger person, I’ll hold my tongue. Unless you really annoy me again, then the gloves are off. As for Paige, that ‘little brat’ just lost her mother, and she’s hurting. That’s not an excuse. It doesn’t make what she did right, but it certainly speaks to her motivation. She’s been dealt a nasty blow, and she’s mad at the world. I should know, because I’ve been there. I lost my mother at fifteen, and believe me, it almost destroyed my life. So I understand her a little better than any of the rest of you can. Underneath the anger, she’s a good kid, with a good heart. Just like I imagine your daughter is. They got into trouble together, and I’m not laying sole blame on either of them. They’re both to blame, and they both need to be punished. Hopefully—” She turned to Lynn Veilleux. “—by their parents, and not the judicial system.”
Days Like This Page 17