Beauty and the Thief

by Jeff Shelby

  “You two are just so sweet.” June smiled wistfully. “I’m going to miss you when I leave here.”

  “Let’s focus on one thing at a time.” I stood up. “And right now, that’s getting your apartment put back together.”

  “I’m afraid I won’t be much help,” June said. “What with my back and my arthritis.”

  “You don’t need to do a thing,” I said firmly. “Except keep us company and let us know if we’re doing an okay job.”

  She smiled, a little timidly. “I think I can do that.” Her smile wavered. “Oh, darn it all.”

  “What?”

  “I should have gotten my key back.”

  “Your key?”

  “From Rudy.”

  “Rudy?” I frowned. “Why does the VIPS man have your key?”

  “I gave him a key ages ago so he could deliver stuff if I wasn’t here,” June said. “Especially because Anne didn’t allow him to leave packages for me at the front desk. Too many of them, she said.”

  It wasn’t hard to miss the subtle bitterness in her voice.

  “Oh well,” June said, closing her eyes. “At least now she won’t have to worry about it, now will she?”

  SIX

  I recapped the last of the glue bottles scattered across the table. Our morning craft hour had just ended, and a dozen residents were leaving the room with autumn leaf mason jar candle holders.

  Of course, being Florida, we had used silk autumn leaves picked up from the local dollar store. And being a retirement home with strict fire code regulations, I’d subbed LED tea lights for the real thing.

  But the residents who’d come for the activity had enjoyed cutting the leaves off the long garland and arranging them in the mason jars. They’d liked tucking the tiny tea light inside, and tying the thin strip of raffia around the mouth of the jar. And they’d especially loved smearing glue on the outside of their jar and then dusting them with gold glitter.

  Anne, however, did not love when we used glitter. Or glue, for that matter.

  So I was desperately trying to clean up before she had the chance to happen by the room. She’d already forced me to cut activities from the weekly schedule to prep for next week’s visit and I had a feeling she would go ballistic if she found out one of the events I’d kept on the calendar was one that involved the arch nemesis to a clean and tidy room: glitter.

  “How’d the activity go?”

  I startled at the sound of a woman’s voice and then immediately relaxed when I realized who it was.

  “The residents liked it,” I told Denise. I held up the sample jar I’d created. “We made these.”

  She nodded. “I saw Ethel leaving with hers. She looked happy.” Her brow furrowed. “You better hope no one drops theirs on the way to their apartments. That’d be a mess of glass to clean up.”

  “I know.” I tossed the glue sticks into the waiting plastic bin. I’d just spent a half hour in June’s room, meticulously plucking pieces of glass and bits of plastic out of her carpet. I knew what a mess it could make.

  “I just saw Aidan,” Denise said. “He told me you guys helped clean up June’s place. Why didn’t you ask me to help?”

  I grabbed a roll of paper towels and the bottle of cleaner from one of the bottom cupboards. “I figured you were probably busy.”

  “I was,” she said bluntly. “Anne is working my butt off. But I would have helped. I wanted to help.”

  It seemed weird to offer an apology in this situation but I did. Denise acknowledged it with a faint nod.

  “Aidan told me he brought some of them oils in to June, too. That stuff she uses for her lotions and what not.” She pointed to a spot on the table. “You missed some glue.”

  I dislodged the hardened lump with my nail and then swiped the damp paper towel over the surface again. “He said he had some extras.”

  “That was nice of him,” Denise said.

  “He’s a nice guy.”

  “And cute, too.”

  I looked up. Denise thought Aidan was cute? I gave her a quick once over. Denise was twice my age…and probably twice Aidan’s age, too. I had no problem with May-December romances, and Denise was divorced so technically single, but it had never occurred to me that she thought of Aidan that way.

  She set her hands on her hips. “Stop looking at me like that,” she snapped.

  I averted my eyes, refocusing on the table instead. All signs of glitter and glue were gone.

  “Do you think he’s cute?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Aidan.” She blew out a breath, a sure sign of her impatience.

  Heat crawled up my neck. “Oh. Well, sure. I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “I never really thought about it.”

  Denise snorted. “Oh, baloney. How could you not notice? He’s as cute as they come these days. For a white boy, anyway.” She grabbed the bag of leftover silk leaves and handed it to me, her attempt at helping with cleanup. “You should like him. Go out with him.”

  I had no idea where all of this was coming from. “What are you even talking about?” I asked, my eyes wide. “We’re coworkers. He doesn’t think of me that way.”

  “Oh, please.” She swatted my arm. “I’ve seen how he looks at you. Those baby blues of his are always following you around.”

  This was news to me. “They are?”

  She gave an emphatic nod. “And he’s always putting himself in your path. You think he does that just to be friendly?”

  I didn’t want to admit it out loud, and definitely not to Denise, but I’d spent more than a passing amount of time thinking about Aidan. And not just about what a nice guy he was.

  “He’s friendly to everyone,” I said instead. “And I don’t know how he looks at me.”

  Denise raised her eyebrows. “He looks at you like a kid looks at an ice cream cone on a hot summer day.”

  I bit my lip. “Maybe,” I said. “But he’s busy with school and work.”

  “You mean like most normal people?” Denise said. “Newsflash, Sunny. Everyone is busy these days. We all got stuff going on. You gotta make time for things you want.”

  “Okay…” I didn’t think I wanted to know where she was going with this.

  “You need to do something about that boy.” She clucked her tongue. “Ask him out or something.”

  “Denise!”

  She grinned. “Oh, please. We are modern women, ain’t we? Don’t you be waiting around for him to make the first move.”

  I crouched down to pick up a silk leaf that had fallen to the floor.

  “Don’t ignore me, Sunny. Just because you don’t wanna talk about it doesn’t mean it’s going away.”

  I winced.

  Denise could be tenacious; I’d give her that.

  I just didn’t think she’d latch on to some hair-brained idea of getting me and Aidan together.

  And I certainly didn’t think I’d be reacting the way I was to the suggestion.

  Yes, I’d gone into immediate denial mode.

  So why was my heart racing and why were my cheeks warm?

  And why was I suddenly picturing a date with Aidan…and liking what I was seeing?

  SEVEN

  “Are you gonna eat this last slice?” Megan asked.

  I glanced at the greasy pizza box parked on the coffee table. The single slice of lasagna pizza called to me but my stomach groaned in protest. I’d already eaten three pieces.

  I shook my head. “I want to, though.”

  She grinned and snatched it from the box. “I should probably save it for Dylan,” she said as she bit into the gooey cheese.

  “Except you’re not…”

  Her smile widened. “I know. Too bad for him.”

  “He’ll never know,” I said. “We can get rid of the evidence.”

  “He’ll smell it, though. He has a nose like a bloodhound.” She swallowed a mouthful of pizza. “And he’s always starving after basketball.”

 
; I picked up my can of soda and took a sip. We were sitting on the couch eating dinner together, which was a rarity most weeks. With Megan’s work schedule and the time she spent with Dylan, her boyfriend, it didn’t seem like there was ever much time where just the two of us hung out. I’d known this from the beginning, though, when I’d first answered her ad for a roommate. She was a waitress at a restaurant down by the beach and kept odd hours, and she and Dylan had been together for years. We’d definitely gotten to be good friends over the last several months, but I knew where I was on her totem pole.

  “Is he coming here afterwards?” I asked.

  She nodded. “That’s okay right? You know you can tell me if it’s not. We can always go to his place instead.”

  “No, no, it’s fine,” I said, shaking my head. “I was just asking.”

  Megan ate the rest of her slice, all except the crust, which she tossed next to the four other ones on her paper plate. The girl could eat like a horse, yet somehow managed to stay as thin as a rail.

  “How’s work going?” She wiped the grease off her hands and onto a paper napkin, then wadded it up and tossed it on her plate. “Are you still sending out resumes?”

  “No, not at the moment,” I told her.

  “No?” She arched an eyebrow. “Are things better?”

  I leaned back against the couch cushion, tucking my legs underneath me. It was hard not to notice how pale my skin was compared to Megan’s tanned legs. I couldn’t blame it entirely on the fact that she had days off to go and spend at the beach while I adhered to a more typical workweek. No, it was mostly genetics. My red hair and fair skin meant that the only color the sun usually blessed me with was pink.

  I thought about Megan’s question. Were things better at work?

  She knew I’d been looking for something new for a while, and that I’d even sent out quite a few resumes for jobs outside of the assisted living and retirement community world, but nothing had really come of those. And she knew about the situation with Arthur Griggs a few months back, and how solving the mystery of what had happened to him had really sucked me in.

  But it had done more than that. It had made me realize how invested I was in the little community of Oasis Ridge, and how much I enjoyed the friendships I had with both the residents and my coworkers.

  I didn’t necessarily like my job duties there, and I didn’t like Anne Engle very much at all, but I’d decided that those weren’t reasons to leave and look for something else.

  At least not yet.

  And especially not now, considering June’s current situation. I wasn’t looking forward to the corporate visit—and all of the drama leading up to it—but I wasn’t about to up and leave anytime soon. Or even put in job applications at other facilities.

  “Gee, I didn’t think it was that hard of a question,” Megan remarked.

  I smiled. “Sorry. Just thinking.”

  “About what?” She crossed her long, tanned legs in front of her. “Tell me.”

  “Oh, we just have this corporate visit coming up and my boss is being completely ridiculous about it.”

  “Isn’t she ridiculous about everything?”

  “Yes.” I nodded. “She is. And one of the residents had their apartment broken into and a lot of her belongings were vandalized. So I was thinking about that, too.”

  “How awful.” Megan wrinkled her nose. “Who did it?”

  I swirled the soda in my can, listening to the bubbles fizz. “I don’t know. No one does.”

  “The police haven’t been any help?”

  “The police haven’t been called.”

  Megan’s brow furrowed. “Why not?”

  “It’s a long story.” I sighed. “Mostly because Anne doesn’t want any trouble before the visit.”

  “Well, that’s just stupid.” I liked that Megan was just as indignant over that bit of news as I had been. “You should call them, then. Since she won’t.”

  “I’d sort of like to keep my job,” I said dryly.

  “But what about that poor woman?”

  That was my question, too. The thing that I kept coming back to. June had no money, and her means of making any had been ripped away from her.

  “I don’t know,” I murmured. I drained my soda. “That’s something Aidan and I need to figure out.”

  “Aidan?” Megan seized on the name. “Who’s Aidan?”

  “Just a guy I work with,” I said, trying to sound dismissive but failing. “He brought some stuff in to give her when he found out about the break-in and damage.”

  “That was nice of him.”

  My face warmed and I managed a nod.

  Megan’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you blushing?”

  I looked down at my lap. “I’m not.”

  She leaned toward me and grabbed my chin, tilting my head so I had no choice but to look straight at her. “Yes, you are. Why?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You like him,” she announced. I tried shaking my head but she forged ahead. “Oh my god, why am I just now hearing about this? Who is he? Tell me everything.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Yeah, right.” She snorted. “If there was nothing to tell, why do you look like you just got your hand caught in the cookie jar?”

  I stared at her. “Who even says that anymore?”

  Megan smiled. “My grandma said that to me all the time.”

  “Mine, too,” I admitted. “But usually it was because my hand was in the cookie jar.”

  She scooted closer to me, her leg now touching mine. My skin looked like the cream filling in an Oreo compared to hers. “I’m not getting up until you tell me what’s going on.”

  “There is nothing going on,” I insisted.

  She studied me. “Do you want there to be?”

  My cheeks got hotter and she smiled triumphantly. No lie detector test would ever be as accurate as the changing color of my skin.

  “Well, do you?” Megan wasn’t going to let this go. She wanted to hear me say it.

  “I’m…undecided.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m not asking what you’re majoring in. Do you like him or don’t you?”

  I hesitated before giving the faintest of nods. It felt weird to actually admit it, to acknowledge it to someone. Because I’d barely acknowledged those feelings to myself.

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Uh…nothing?”

  Megan shook her head. “Wrong answer.”

  “What do you mean, wrong answer?”

  “You need to go on a date with him.”

  “You sound like Denise,” I muttered.

  “Denise?” Megan pursed her lips. “She’s the woman who works in the dining room, right? Your friend there?” Her eyes widened. “Wait, so she thinks you guys should go out, too?”

  Great. Just what I needed. Now that she knew others were championing the same cause, there was no way she was going to let this go.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” I said. The last thing I wanted to do was give her more ammunition.

  “You need to go out with him,” Megan insisted. “The sooner the better.”

  I was almost afraid to ask. “Why?”

  “Because. You need to date. To get out more.”

  I was offended. “What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

  “Look, you need something to take your mind off everything else.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Fine, I’ll spell it out for you,” Megan said. “You need to go out on a date so you can focus on something other than how miserable you are in your job.”

  Her tone was matter-of-fact but her words were like a gentle slap to the face.

  A wake-up call.

  I didn’t want to admit it, but she was right.

  In a lot of ways, I was miserable in my job. If I looked beyond the relationships and friendships, there was nothing really keeping me at Oasis Ridge.

&nb
sp; I just wasn’t sure that dating Aidan Yates would actually fix that.

  In fact, it had the potential to make things even worse.

  EIGHT

  I could barely see Kelly behind the desk the next morning when I arrived for work.

  An assortment of bottles and jars lined the counter, spilling over into her workspace. Still, she somehow managed to see me as I walked through the open doors and into Oasis Ridge.

  “Good morning,” she rasped. She sounded like she’d just smoked an entire pack of cigarettes.

  I waved in her direction. “Morning.” I eyed the array of items in front of her. “What’s all that?”

  “Oh, a bunch of lotions and creams.” She frowned. “I heard the news about June.”

  I nodded. “Terrible news.” I stepped closer and said in a low voice, “I think Anne wants to keep it as quiet as possible.”

  Kelly’s eyes widened and she nodded. “Oh. Of course.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Anyway, I figured I’d stop by the store and pick up some new stuff to try. Since I can’t get more stuff from her.”

  “Did you go on your way into work?” I asked. She must have been really dedicated to continuing with her skin care routine.

  “Yes and no. I went to a few places last night when I got off, and then the drugstore this morning. I figured I’d bring everything in here and go through it all. Do an inventory, maybe come up with a new plan of attack.”

  Yes, she was taking this skin care stuff seriously, it seemed. “Good idea,” I said, because she appeared to be waiting for me to offer an opinion.

  She gave me a satisfied smile.

  “Well, good luck with all of it,” I told her. “I hope you find something that works.”

  “Me, too.”

  I wanted to grab a quick cup of coffee before I headed to my office, so I headed that direction, saying hello to the residents as I passed through the Gathering Room. There were lots of residents to greet and chat with, and I moved slower than I’d wanted.

  Billie and Ruth were working a word search together, in one of those oversized books found in the grocery store. Ethel was sitting by the window, stabbing a threaded needle in and out of a piece of cloth.