by Lora Roberts
This viewpoint hadn’t occurred to Amy before. She was thoughtful until we got back to my house.
“I could really use a shower.” She picked up her knapsack and looked at me. “Would that be all right?’
“Certainly.” I tried not to think about the hot water heater. It had only started acting up after I’d done what good homeowners are supposed to do and drained it. It seemed to miss all that rusty sedimentary fluid that had lurked in its depths for untold years. Now whenever I used hot water, it fired itself up with an angry roar, and then delivered water that varied from scalding to freezing in seconds. I warned Amy about that, and she went off to clean up.
I turned my computer on, determined to finish editing a rough draft intended for Organic Gardening. It was hard to concentrate on the details of seed germination, though. And even harder to think about going back to census duty later on, facing a multitude of Renee-like people without being able to hang up on them.
Chapter 4
“So where is she?” Claudia Kaplan shrieked over the din in Bridget’s living room.
“Who?” I screamed back.
Walking in the door, I’d been assaulted by the noise and the hunger-inducing smell of something barbecuing. Claudia, an imposing woman in her late fifties, semaphored her arms across the room toward the bank of audio equipment, causing the hibiscus blossoms on her caftan to billow.
“Turn it down!”
Her bellowed request was picked up by several other people in the room, and the scruffy-looking guy who’d commandeered the tape player finally obliged. There were audible gasps of relief.
“Greg’s been experimenting with percussion as a background to his readings,” one of the women standing nearby explained in the relative silence.
“That wasn’t percussion,” Claudia said, scowling across the room at Greg, who sheepishly tucked his tape into a pocket. “That was aural torment.”
Bridget came bustling out of the kitchen. The crowd of people in there made a lot of noise, but nothing like it had been before. “That’s better,” she said, setting a stack of paper cups on the top shelf of a bookcase. “I was afraid for everyone’s eardrums.”
“Where are the kids?” Claudia squinted into the kitchen.
“I got rid of them,” Bridget said frankly. “They’re too young to worry about with so many people around.” She came over and gave me a hug. “I’m glad you could make it, Liz. Paul said you were pretty busy working two jobs.”
I offered her the bottle of plum brandy I’d brought, made by my own fair hands with the millions of tiny little plums that had appeared on a tree in my backyard a couple of weeks before. “Don’t open this for a while,” I warned her. “It needs time to mellow.”
“Don’t we all.” Claudia looked past me and around the room. “Where’s your niece? I don’t see anyone who matches Paul Drake’s rather fabulous description.”
“She’s not coming.” I nipped a cube of cheese off the platter Bridget carried. “I told her she could, though I had my doubts, but she needed something from Walgreen’s. I got the impression she really wanted to check out the scene downtown.”
Bridget regarded me with worried eyes. She is one of the nicest people I know, and she mothers everyone. Four children ranging from seven years to nine months is enough to make a woman see the world through a haze of dirty fingerprints and skinned knees. “How are you going to cope with this, Liz?”
“Hey, how hard can it be? She seems pretty levelheaded, and she’s going to get a job.”
Bridget and Claudia exchanged the kind of look that unites those who are or have been parents in superior wisdom to those who haven’t.
“Lots could go wrong,” Claudia said darkly. She looked into her paper cup. “Just thinking about it makes me thirsty. I need a drink.”
“You do, too, Liz.” Bridget handed me a cup. “There’s sangria in the kitchen.”
“Sangria. Very upscale.” Claudia raised her thick, impressive eyebrows. “When it’s just us writers, you never go to so much trouble.”
“I didn’t this time,” Bridget retorted. “Emery made it. At the last minute he wanted to invite some people, so he fancied up the refreshments. He also made some guacamole.”
Claudia began to forge a path through the crowded living room. “I hope he put in enough garlic.”
I followed her; I was hungry, and guacamole sounded good. Anything sounded good. After her nap that afternoon, Amy had finished off the crackers, both bananas, most of the bread, and the last of a jar of peanut butter. My cupboard was pretty bare.
The people in the kitchen were a different crowd. Most of them were men, some with ties pulled loose at the neck. They stood in knots, bottles of beer or mineral water clutched in their hands, jabbering as hard as the writers in the living room. One or two of the men had ponytails.
There was a traffic jam around the kitchen table. While Claudia and I waited, I overheard a man murmur, “Any viable multimedia platform needs a satellite DSP or an ASCI to get decent full-motion video.”
“No, no,” said the exquisitely dressed woman he spoke to. “The P7 has the raw horsepower to do the computations: The only question is what bus architecture you need to get the data flow rate.”
Claudia and I looked at each other. She moved majestically through, parting the crowd at its thickest. The huge bowl that held the guacamole was already half empty. I managed to snag a chipful of it. There was plenty of garlic.
Claudia found a paper plate, shoveled a quantity of guacamole onto it, added a handful of chips, and went in search of the sangria. Her space at the table was immediately filled. I was hemmed in by guys, all busily scooping and munching and still managing to talk about C++ and AutoCAD and look-and-feel, which sounded quite risqué to me but evidently had something to do with software.
I must have looked bewildered. The twenty-something man next to me finished his beer and grinned. “So, what’s your sine?”
His friend jabbed him in the ribs. “S-i-n-e,” he spelled. “Not sign as in Aquarius, but sine as in geometry.”
“Either way, I don’t know.” I smiled feebly. One of them was tall, one was short. Both had shaggy hair and were wearing short-sleeved plaid shirts and chinos. They didn’t have pocket protectors holding lots of mechanical pencils in their shirt pockets—nobody actually wears those any more except the self-consciously hip nerdsters—but their pockets somehow looked naked without them.
“Do you work for Emery?” The tall one spoke through a mouthful of chips.
“Sometimes.”
The short one said, “Do you write code or what?”
“I’m not in software.”
“Are you one of the writers?” The tall one grinned eagerly. “Emery said there’d be writers.”
“Do you like movies?” The short one pushed a little in front. “Forbidden Planet is at the Stanford.”
I cleared my throat, feeling besieged. “I’m working nights—doing the census.”
The tall one looked interested. “Online?”
“No, door-to-door.”
“You mean, you use a laptop?”
“You enter the data remotely?”
I reached for another chip. “No, I ask questions and use a pencil to record the answers.”
“Pencil?” The tall one stared at me.
“That’s what’s wrong with this country,” the short one said passionately. “The government is still using pencils!”
“Say, there are lots of women in there,” the tall one said, looking over the heads of the crowd toward the living room.
“Young ones?” The short one’s voice was plaintive. They inched away from the table and disappeared.
I felt I deserved more guacamole, but the bowl was nearly empty. I stretched my arm to reach the bottom of it, and collided with someone else on the same errand. The man was trying to juggle his beer and a plate of chips. Most of the beer and half the chips ended on me.
“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry.” He was nice
looking, early forties, tall and lean, with blond hair falling over his forehead and blue eyes that were slightly shy. “So embarrassing.”
“I didn’t look where I was reaching.” I brushed at the chips, and he dabbed my wet arm with a napkin.
“How can I make it up to you? Gosh, there isn’t even any more guacamole to offer you.” He craned over and peered into the bowl. It was nice to be tall—I often wish I were.
“That’s okay. It wasn’t really your fault.” At least the beer hadn’t gone on my wretched skirt. I was planning to gratify Drake by leaving the party early enough to get a couple of hours of the long evening twilight for my census work.
Thinking about Drake, I glanced around the room and spotted him by the back door, talking to a swarthy fellow in a loud Hawaiian shirt. The door was open, letting in the aroma of roasting meat. I rarely eat meat, but for economic reasons, not moral ones. My mouth watered.
“Listen, can I get you a drink?” The man in front of me hovered, still looking abashed. “There’s beer somewhere, or I think I saw some wine—”
“Ed! Congratulations!” Emery came up and slapped the man on the shoulder in that painfully hearty way men have. “Heard about the new product.”
“Thanks, Emery.” Ed’s face creased into a pleased smile. “We’re pretty excited.”
Emery turned to me. “I was hoping you’d come, Liz. This is your current employer.” He flourished his hand, presenting me grandly. “Liz Sullivan, Ed Garfield, CEO of SoftWrite. Ed’s got a hot new software product coming out. When is it, next week?”
“Officially, Monday.” Ed held a finger to his lips. “But actually we’re doing a bunch of stuff in the next couple of days to hype interest. Hard for a small company to get any ink without a major effort.”
“I dunno.” Emery laughed. “From what I heard, MicroMax has given you a little free publicity.”
Ed’s face clouded. “None of what you read is true,” he protested. “I don’t know where they got hold of a story like that. Our code’s developed entirely in-house. It’s completely original.”
“Of course,” Emery said soothingly. “It’s just hot air from them. Every time us little guys turn around, some mega-company claims we stole from them. Shoe’s on the other foot, mostly.”
“Right.” Ed sipped at his beer and realized it was empty. He turned another apologetic look on me. “I’ve poured my beer all over your guest. Liz, did you say? So you’re doing some temp work for us.”
“Here you go, Liz.” Emery reached into a nearby drawer. “Here’s a towel.”
“Thanks.” I blotted the beer off my arm.
Ed hovered a little. “Now you won’t want to come back to SoftWrite, I guess. What do we have you doing?”
“Data entry. This morning I did spreadsheets and mailing labels.”
“Fascinating.” Emery wrinkled his nose. “Liz is a multi-talented person, Ed. She writes, gardens—and she’s even doing the census too.”
“Really?” Ed looked a little doubtful.
“I’m just temping mornings,” I hastened to explain. “Your office manager said that was fine for now.”
“I would never interfere in Angel’s arrangements. She keeps everything running so well.” Ed gave me that nice grin, again. “So what are you doing for the census? I thought that was years ago.”
“They miscounted.” I shrugged. “Now they’re counting again.
“Typical government.” Emery shook his head. “If it wasn’t for putting some welcome income into Liz’s pocket, I’d really feel it was a waste of taxpayers’ dollars.”
Drake came in the back door, heading for Emery. “The chicken wings are done,” he said, tenderly holding a small plate of them. “You’d better get them off the fire, Emery.” He handed me the plate. “Thought you might like some.”
“Thanks.” I took the plate from Drake, while Ed drifted after Emery to the back door. The chicken wings were hot, almost too hot to eat, and coated with spices. “They’re great.”
He took one, too. “I plan to eat as many of these as I can and not bother with dinner,” he announced. “Too bad your niece didn’t come. Then you wouldn’t have to bother either.”
“How do you know she didn’t come?”
“Trained eye, my dear.” He plucked a bottle of mineral water from a cooler behind the kitchen door that I hadn’t even seen. “Here.”
“Thanks.” I sampled the mineral water. “You’re taking such good care of me. Why?”
“Do I need a reason?” He gave me a one-armed hug. “I’m just keeping you away from the sangria, so you don’t get tipsy before you go out and mingle with the weirdoes.”
I took a swig of the mineral water and promptly got the hiccups. “Drake,” I hicced, “you mingle with weirdoes every day.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” He pounded me on the back. “I don’t think of you that way at all.”
I choked. “You—”
“Oh, you mean in my job.” He was smiling, but it faded. “Just take care of yourself, Liz. There’s a lot of madness out there. I’d hate to be taking a professional interest in you.”
“It’s not even going to be dark for two more hours.” I cleared my throat and wiped my greasy fingers on a napkin. “Actually, I was just leaving.”
“Liz—”
“See you, Drake.” I shoved the plate back into his hands, then reached for the last chicken wing. “For the road,” I mumbled, heading back through the living room.
I waved good-bye to Claudia and Bridget, and went to mount my rusty steed and earn.
Chapter 5
The Venus’s-flytrap looked a little wilted. Its tightly clenched spikes reminded me of Amy’s haircut. I firmed the dirt in the small pot and gave it some water from the plastic watering can that sat on Wanda Sorenski’s porch wall, glancing around to make sure no one was watching. I hate feeling responsible when houseplants die. It’s like not taking care of pets. I put the Venus’s-flytrap in the shade; even the late evening sun was hot for a plant in shock.
Nobody answered when I knocked on Wanda’s door. It was a relief. After trying twice, I could write it off. As a formality, I checked the mailbox to see if the name agreed with my register. With that information, I could call Wanda Sorenski. But if I never spoke to her again, it would be fine by me. I was starting not to care whether my work was satisfactory, as long as I was paid for doing it.
With that numb-brain attitude, I plodded up the outside stairs to apartment 3. The low sun behind me threw my shadow up the stairs, long and thin. I thought wistfully that it would be nice to be long and thin.
Someone was home in apartment 3. A man answered the door, spatula in hand, and listened impatiently while I introduced myself. “Can this wait?” He glanced back at the kitchen. A smell of frying onions drifted past my nose, reminding me that the chicken wings had been small and not very filling.
“I could come back in half an hour or so, after I’ve done a couple of the other apartments.” I was trying to be flexible and accommodating, like we’d been told to be in training.
“Fine. Fine.” He shut the door, then I heard him throw the deadbolt. Maybe he thought I was a threat to more than his privacy.
Apartment 4 still didn’t answer; the drapes at the window next to the door were coming off their hooks, and the late afternoon sun illuminated a narrow slice of the living room. I peered through the window, shading the glass with my hand. It was empty, with rectangles on the walls where pictures had hung, and some good-sized stains on the dull beige carpet. I marked it vacant on the register and moved on to apartment 5.
This time I hit the jackpot. The man who answered the door invited me in, offered me a drink, went through the long form with no problem, and even told me that Wanda was divorced with a child, lived in a two-bedroom apartment and drove an ‘86 Honda Civic, which allowed me to fill out basic information on her. Curtis—after about ten minutes he’d asked me to call him that—was semi-retired on disability. He se
emed to know all about his neighbors.
“I’d rather ask you about these people than talk to them—Wanda particularly.” I was only half kidding. If gossip was the only way to move on through the register, I was ready to gossip.
“I just wish for your sake they were more interesting,” he said, laughing. “Wanda is only amusing when she’s angry, although that’s often. Bill Aronson”—the man with the spatula—“is frightened of me—thinks I’ll make a pass at him, as if he was that attractive.”
Curtis laughed again. He was middle-aged, medium height, skinny and graceful, punctuating his words with expressive gestures. His conversation had the pent-up air of someone who doesn’t get much opportunity to talk. He told me he’d been at a back rehabilitation class that morning. His apartment was very pale, very spare, with two comfortable chairs in the living room, a wall system of expensive-looking components beside the door, and a series of huge, startling canvases on the neutral walls.
“So all the apartments are two-bedroom?” I remembered that Jenifer downstairs had said she had two bedrooms.
Curtis nodded. “All the same—two bedrooms, one bath, impossible kitchen, not enough closets. But the price is right. It’s even better if you have a roommate, like Jenifer. But I can’t live with anyone else.”
“Is Jenifer’s roommate female?” I caught myself. “Never mind. I’m gong down there after I finish Bill Aronson.”
“Jenifer’s a cute little thing,” Curtis said fondly. “But so young. Still expects the best of everyone. Her roommate is different—into one of those strange religions, and even less fun than she used to be. I hope she doesn’t really convert Jenifer.” He got up when I stood. “We chat at the mailbox sometimes,” he confided, his loneliness more apparent. “Nice girls, really, both of them. Catch Wanda chitchatting, or even letting her little boy talk. I invited him to play catch one day, and you’d have thought I had ‘Man-Boy Love’ tattooed on my forehead. Honestly!”
I got away at last, wishing I had met Curtis under other circumstances. He would make a good friend. I went back across the upstairs walkway and knocked on Bill Aronson’s door. There was no answer. I could still smell the onions, but the man with the spatula was lying low. I knocked a third time. A curtain twitched in the living room. Still no answer.
