“I went to the bakery. I always go to the bakery on Sunday morning.” He lifted Kate off the flattened azalea. “I was walking down the street, thinking how boring my life was before I met you, and there you were… flying through the air in your nightgown.”
“Ain’t nobody gonna help me up?” Elsie asked. “I probably broke every bone in my body.”
Dave eased her to her feet and plucked a twig from hair the color and texture of steel wool. “Next time you do windows you should use a ladder,” he said.
Elsie narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t do windows. I’m here about the room.” She straightened her coat, hauled herself up the front stairs, and let herself into the house. “How come there’s no furniture in this house?”
“Easier to vacuum,” Dave said.
“Hmmph, one of them clean freaks, huh? That’s okay by me, but I’m an old lady. I need a bed, a chair, a TV. I suppose the room’s upstairs?”
“Yeah, but the room’s sort of a mess,” Kate said. “It’s not really ready to be rented.”
Elsie stuffed her hands onto her hips and leaned forward, all set for battle. “Say what? If it’s not ready to be rented, then how come you advertised?”
“I had this little accident here yesterday.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “What kind of accident?”
“A chunk of metal from a helicopter fell through my roof.”
“Uh-huh.”
Kate brushed at a smudge of mud on her nightgown. “And it rained before we could close up the hole.”
Elsie pressed her lips together and stomped up the stairs. “Chunk off a helicopter,” she muttered. “Can you imagine? A helicopter.” She stopped at Kate’s bedroom door and looked at the bed. Then she looked at the ceiling. “It ain’t so bad,” she said. “I’ve seen worse. So where’s my room?”
Kate’s gaze traveled to the hole in the ceiling. “I was thinking of renting the third floor.”
“I guess that’d be okay. You don’t have loud goings-on in this bed, do you? I don’t put up with that sort of thing.”
“I don’t have any goings-on in this bed.”
Dave raised his eyebrows in a look that said, Oh, yeah? I could fix that.
Kate grabbed the bag of doughnuts, took a Boston cream, and stuffed it into her mouth. “Eg wibe thad smile oaf your fash,” she said, glaring at Dave.
Elsie had gone up to the third floor and was looking down at them through the hole. “Maybe we could cover this with a rug or something.”
Kate swallowed a big lump of doughnut. “I need coffee.”
“We’re going downstairs to make coffee,” Dave called to Elsie. “You want some?” He saw the horrified look on Kate’s face and shrugged. “I like her.”
“Coffee would hit the spot,” Elsie said. “How many doughnuts have you got?”
“A whole bagful.”
Elsie clomped down the stairs and looked at Dave. “You own this place? You always serve continental breakfast on Sunday?”
“Nope. I’m the next-door neighbor, David Dodd. This is Katherine Finn. She owns the place.”
“Shoot. Don’t suppose you have a room to rent,” she said to David.
“Afraid not.”
“All right, then I guess I’m stuck here.” She took Kate’s hand and shook it vigorously. “It’s a deal. I’ll rent your third floor even though you’re kinda dingy. And look at that nightgown. What’s a sweet young thing like you doing in a big ugly nightgown like that. No wonder your bed ain’t seen no action.”
“This is my favorite nightgown. It’s soft and warm, and it has little lavender roses on it.” Kate turned to Dave. “You think this nightgown’s big and ugly?”
He answered without a moment’s hesitation. He did what any intelligent man would do—he lied. “No. Not ugly at all. Not with you in it.”
That much was true, he thought. Kate Finn could make a garbage bag look good. Besides, the nightgown wasn’t exactly ugly. It was just inappropriate. Kate’s tousled hair and bottle green eyes needed satin. A hot pink satin nightshirt without panties. Or a slinky black silk teddy.
“Unh-unh, watch out for this one,” Elsie said to Kate. “He’s got plans.”
That’s when Kate decided Elsie Hawkins was okay. Elsie called it as she saw it, right up front. She’d pay her rent on time. She’d keep her room clean. And she wouldn’t have a lot of parties. Anyone that honest couldn’t have many friends.
“So what really happened here,” Elsie said. “How’d you get that hole in your ceiling?”
Kate slid her feet into slippers and wrapped a furry pink bathrobe around herself. “I told you. It was part of a helicopter.”
“Get out.”
“Really.”
Elsie took a doughnut from the bag. “So why did it fall on your roof?”
Kate belted the robe and went downstairs. “Guess I was just lucky.”
“You sure it wasn’t dropped on your house on purpose?”
“That’s crazy.” Her voice reflected more conviction than she actually felt. She couldn’t think of a single person who would want to do such a thing, but she had to admit, it was a bizarre accident.
“Well, it seems kind of strange to me that a big old chunk of helicopter would all of a sudden drop off and fall through your roof. They check those things. They get out there and they kick those wheels before they take off. No sir, I bet this was no accident.”
“The FAA is investigating,” Kate said.
“Hah, a lot they’ll find out. They’ll come back and tell you they don’t know whose plane it was. You wait and see. Remember last year when that little plane went down in northern Virginia? They said they couldn’t identify the pilot. That’s because he was a spy. Washington’s crawling with spies.”
Elsie sat on a kitchen chair. She sat ramrod straight, her shiny black purse perched on the lap of the royal blue coat, her hands folded on top of the purse. “You aren’t a spy, are you?” she asked Kate.
“Nope. I’m a cellist.” She put a pot of water on the stove to boil and set a jar of instant coffee on the table. “Hope you don’t mind instant. Anatole took the coffeemaker.”
Dave didn’t mind instant as long as he could watch Kate move around the kitchen in her fuzzy pink robe. Most of the women he knew would have rushed off to the bathroom to comb their hair and put on lipstick, but Kate obviously felt comfortable being rumpled. He liked that. She’d be the kind of woman who’d cuddle with you long into the night, not caring about wrinkled sheets or the tangles in her hair.
“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about this cup of coffee,” Elsie said. “I’m not one of them kaffeeklatsch women. Don’t expect me to be sociable like this all the time. I haven’t got all day to sit around drinking coffee. I’ve got a job.”
Kate pulled up a chair opposite her. “What kind of job?”
“I sling burgers at the Corner Café. Had to lie about my age because they’d think I was too old. I don’t ordinarily hold with lying, but there are times when it feels damn good. No reason why a seventy-two-year-old woman can’t sling burgers. I used to sell girdles in a specialty shop, but they retired me. Sold girdles for forty-two years. Just as well I was retired. I was sick of stuffing all those fat women into girdles and bras.”
She stirred her coffee, drank it down scalding hot, and stood to leave. “I gotta go now. Got a lot to do.” She took a checkbook from her purse and stood at the kitchen counter while she filled in the blanks. “Here’s two month’s rent,” she said, handing the check to Kate. “Now all I need is my key.”
Kate took a key from the hook over the toaster. “Here’s the key, but the roof has a hole in it…”
“I don’t care about the roof. Last year when I retired I gave up my apartment and moved into a senior citizens’ home. The place is driving me nuts. Nothing but old people in it. All they serve is food you don’t have to chew. You ever see pureed beef? Looks like dog food.” Elsie dropped her key into her purse. “I don’t min
d the hole in the roof. Looks like you patched it up okay. What I need is a bed without them dumb metal rails on the side.”
Kate watched the front door close behind Elsie Hawkins. “Did that really happen?”
“I think you’d better hurry up and get a bed.”
“It takes days, maybe weeks, to get a bed delivered.”
“There’s a big cash-and-carry store in Alexandria. You go get dressed, and I’ll rent us a truck, then well go buy some furniture.”
Kate smiled at him. “I like the way you keep saying ‘we.’ ”
“There’s a price for my assistance.” He reached out for her, but she moved away.
“Oh, yeah? What’s the price?”
“Undying gratitude, friendship everlasting, a compliment once in a while. And I want to see what this silly robe feels like. What is this stuff? It looks like fake pink sheepskin.”
“Yup. That’s what it is. Fake pink sheepskin.” She watched him warily. “This wouldn’t just be a ploy to fondle me, would it?’
“Boy, that really hurt.”
“Just checking.”
“You get fondled a lot?”
“Almost never.”
“I can believe that.”
“Really?” Kate stuffed her hands into the pockets of her robe. “Is that an insult?”
“It’s a compliment.”
“Oh.” Her face lit in a smile. “Thanks.”
He reached out for her again—this time with more success. He ruffled her hair and smoothed the collar of her bathrobe. “Soft.”
“My robe?”
“Your hair. The robe is okay, too.”
She felt mildly threatened, thoroughly intrigued, and uncomfortably attracted to him. She’d never been skydiving, but she thought it must feel like this. Accelerated heart rate, light stomach, rush of adrenaline, heady exhilaration, and, at the same time, a grim determination not to crash and die.
He was in love, Dave decided. Flat out in love. And he didn’t know what to do about it. He jumped when an alarm went off. “Now what?”
“Damn.” Kate whirled off to the kitchen and thumped her hand down on the clock. “I have a rehearsal. I belong to a chamber music group, and we have a performance this afternoon.”
“You keep busy.”
“This is nothing. I also give lessons. I coach a youth orchestra. I have performances four nights a week. And then I take exercise classes—”
“Sounds like a lot.”
“Behind my back they call me the Formidable Finn. I’m a driven person.”
Dave rocked back on his heels with his hands in his pockets. “Do you like that?”
“Of course I like it. Music is my life. I eat, sleep, and breathe music.”
“Yeah, well, if you don’t do something about a bed, you’re going to be sleeping music on the floor again. With Elsie.”
The upstairs alarm rang out and both of them grimaced.
“Damn! I hate that alarm,” Kate shouted.
Dave sighed. “Listen, you go ahead to your rehearsal. I can take care of this bed stuff.”
“That’s really sweet of you, and I appreciate it—” She was already halfway up the stairs.
“But?”
“But it’s not your problem. I’d feel like I was taking advantage of your friendship.” She slammed the bedroom door. “I have to get dressed!”
He stood in the hallway and stared at the closed door. “So what are you going to do with Elsie?”
“She’ll have to spend one more night in the old people’s home.” There was a full minute of silence. Kate opened the door. “On second thought…”
Dave grinned down at her. “You aren’t afraid of Elsie, are you?”
“Of course I’m afraid of Elsie. Aren’t you?”
“Maybe a little.”
She was back in the gray sweats and powder blue jogging shoes. “I’ll be done in about two hours. We can go shopping then.”
“What time’s your concert?”
“Four,” she shouted, going out the door. When she reached the bottom step, she turned around and ran back into the house.
“Forgot my cello!”
Chapter 3
They were on Route 395 heading north, driving past Crystal City, past the Pentagon on a road running parallel to the Potomac River. To the left Arlington National Cemetery sprawled in somber rows of white crosses with the Custis-Lee Mansion sitting high on a hill above. Dave kept to the right-hand lane and turned onto the Arlington Memorial Bridge. She looked at him expectantly when he parked on the corner of Constitution Avenue and Henry Bacon Drive. “I’m going to make a short stopover here. It’ll only take a minute.”
He pointed to a touch football game in progress on the playing field to their right. “See that group of guys? Those are the Blood-and-Guts Couch Potatoes. We play football every Sunday afternoon and basketball every Thursday night.” He got out of the truck and jogged around to open the door for her.
“You belong to something called the Blood-and-Guts Couch Potatoes?”
He took her by the hand and pulled her along. “You bet. Charter member.”
She curled her hand around his and thought it was interesting that from the very beginning, she’d never needed the usual amount of insulating body space with David Dodd. She liked being close to him. That was the problem; she liked it too much. And if the truth were known, she’d like to be even closer. A lot closer. She liked the way he held her hand, slid an arm around her shoulders, tweaked a curl. His touch was firm and confident without being grabby. It was possessive without being insulting. It was satisfying.
David Dodd’s touch filled a small corner of her that had been empty. Undoubtedly, it had something to do with the herding instinct, she decided. Animals needed physical contact. They needed to bump along together. And David Dodd was a good bumper. There was the potential for a wonderful friendship to grow between them. There was also the potential for a disastrous love affair. She shook off the latter thought.
“Are you going to play football now?” she asked.
“No. I’m going to recruit someone to help us get the mattresses out of that sad excuse for a truck and up your stairs.”
To Kate, the Potatoes seemed like an unremarkable, ragtag group of men dressed in mismatched sweats and ratty sneakers. Despite their name and their wide variety of ages, they looked like they were in okay shape. Someone pitched the ball to Dave, and he held on to it while the game was interrupted for introductions.
Dave waited a beat before slapping a cheerful smile onto his mouth. “So who’s going to help me with these mattresses?”
None of the Potatoes looked too excited.
“Okay,” Dave said, “beer and pizza.”
Lenny Newfarmer retrieved his jacket from a pile lying on the ground. “Too cold to play today anyway,” he said.
Another Potato admitted the sun was at the wrong angle and kept getting in his eyes. Smitty Smith thought it was too windy for football. Elmo Nichols’s shoes weren’t fitting him just right, and Ron Miller had a cramp in his calf and doubted he could run much more.
Minutes later Kate buckled her seat belt and watched the men head to their cars. “Is there anything they won’t do for beer and pizza?”
“Hey, we aren’t named the Couch Potatoes for nothing.”
“The Couch Potatoes looked like they were in pretty good shape.”
“Yeah, we’re into clean living.”
As Dave drove down Constitution, he told her about the group. “Lenny Newfarmer and I used to work together. Elmo Nichols is military. He lives in the same apartment building as Lenny. I don’t know where Smitty came from. He’s Secret Service. Howard Berk, the guy in the Notre Dame sweatshirt, is an economist at the World Bank. At least that’s what he tells us. Smitty brought him into the group.”
“Lenny Newfarmer is the short guy, right? The guy who was cold? The guy who was wearing two different-colored socks?”
“That’s him.”
“You worked with him?”
“Yup.”
“He looks like a street person.”
Dave grinned. “He’s a little eccentric.”
“Don’t suppose you want to tell me what you two did for a living?”
“Photography. Lenny’s a terrific person but a terrible photographer. We were business partners for a while. It was a disaster.”
“Photography business?”
“Mostly weddings. Some portraits. School contracts.” He shuddered. “Ugh.”
“Didn’t like it, huh?”
“I’d rather eat slugs.”
Kate laughed. “How did you manage to get into something you hated?”
“Easy. I was an art major in college. Thought I wanted to be a commercial artist. When I graduated I went to work for Adtech. Stuck it out for six years, then I decided I couldn’t handle the neon lights any longer.”
“Neon lights?”
“Yeah. I worked all day in a seven-foot-by-eight-foot cubicle on the fourteenth floor. No windows. Just neon lights. And I had to wear a tie.”
“A tie? Hey, I’d quit right there.”
“You’re laughing at me.”
“Mmmm.”
Dave carefully turned onto A Street. “It just wasn’t the way I pictured my life. Every year I felt I’d lost a little more control over my own destiny. Every year I made more money and felt like less of a success. So I quit. Unfortunately, the rent still had to be paid, so I decided to try photography. I’d done a lot of it at Adtech. It seemed okay in theory. I’d be my own boss, make my own hours, pick out my own clothes. In reality, it was boring, and incredibly time-consuming, and frustrating because there was so little creativity involved.”
“I guess I’m lucky to have found something I really loved so early in life.”
It was a simple statement, but she had said it with such an incongruous mixture of joy and wistfulness that Dave felt his throat close. He stole a glance at her and reached for her hand, taking it in his, giving it a gentle squeeze. A part of him envied her success. She’d found her niche, found something she excelled at and enjoyed. But another part of him wondered about making lifelong choices during childhood. It wouldn’t have been for him.
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