Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger

by Beth Harbison

  Of course my first thoughts, when Dottie had shown me Lyle’s picture, were along the same lines. He was younger than she was and pretty good-looking by any standards. That was the kind of guy who always came out of central casting as opportunist for just about any Sherwood Schwartz show. But I didn’t want to admit that to Burke and add fuel to his fire.

  Instead I just said, “I think you could hand that guy a hundred-dollar bill and he wouldn’t know what to do with the change from McDonald’s.”

  “Meaning…?”

  “He doesn’t have grandiose tastes. And I don’t mean that in the insulting way it’s coming out. I think he’s just simple. Happy. He likes to have fun and Dottie is such a spitfire they have fun together. I don’t think there’s more to the story than that.”

  “There’s always more to the story. And it always comes out in the end.”

  I appreciated that he was being protective of his grandmother, but at the same time I didn’t recognize this cynical person as Burke. When had that happened? Was his divorce more bitter than I had been led to believe?

  “Anyway,” I said pointedly. “You and I are bound to run into each other some more, so let’s just agree right here and now that we don’t need to feel weird about it, okay? Dottie may be trying to matchmake—or shit-stir, I don’t know—but we have our own lives. Right?” I got too brisk at the end there. Sounded like I was protesting too much.

  “Right.”

  I couldn’t tell from his response if he thought I was being as weird as I felt or not, so, possibly making things worse, I added, “Sorry, I don’t mean to sound impatient, I’m just in kind of a hurry. I’ve got…” What? What? What? “A … thing.” I gestured like it was just too complicated to try and explain right now.

  “Yeah, okay, sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you from anything. I just thought, you know, we should talk this over before it got weird or anything.” He started walking toward the door.

  “I appreciate that.”

  He paused at the door and turned back. “So I’ll see you around.”

  I smiled. “Probably more than either of us expects, if Dottie has anything to say about it.”

  He laughed. “Right.” Then he nodded to himself and, with a final glance toward me that could have melted my heart right then and there, he walked out into the night.

  I watched him go, glad I had abbreviated what would surely have otherwise been a long and pointlessly circular conversation that made us both feel worse.

  What I’d done was mature.

  Maybe I was making progress after all.

  * * *

  The next day at lunch, I was walking over to Mom’s Apple Pie—where they actually have a really good light turkey sandwich with cranberry jelly instead of mayo—when I spotted Burke on the corner of East Market and Newley.

  That itself wouldn’t have been so noticeably weird if he hadn’t been peering around the corner like a bad actor on Get Smart.

  “What are you doing, Burke?” I asked.

  “I was on my way into the courthouse to get copies of some documents, and”—he frowned—“I’m pretty sure I just saw Lyle with some woman.”

  “Lyle?” I echoed, then looked in the direction he’d been looking and saw nothing but a strip of shops and the post office. “Where?”

  “They went in Calloway’s.”

  “Oh.” I narrowed my eyes and tried to see inside the windows of the jewelry store but couldn’t. And even if I could, what would I have seen?

  “Why does that matter?”

  “Hopefully it doesn’t, but … why would he be going to a jewelry store with some other woman?”

  Interesting that Burke’s mind went straight to cheating. “I don’t know, why don’t you just go in and ask him?”

  “Because if he is up to something, he’ll have some quick, pat excuse and dismiss it, and then he’ll be warned I’m onto him and he’ll be that much more careful.” He shook his head. “I’m really afraid he’s using my grandmother.”

  This again.

  “Look, Burke, this doesn’t ring true to me. Does she really have that much gold to dig?”

  He looked at me like I’d just kicked him in the shins. “Do you have any idea what that property is worth?”

  “She hasn’t sold it, so at the moment it’s not worth much to a gold digger. It’s a hypothetical asset. In a terrible real estate market, to boot. That’s really not worth chasing down, is it? Surely there are more certain things out there.”

  “Quinn.” He leveled his gaze on me. “If she sold that property for half what it’s worth, his efforts would be well remunerated.”

  I crinkled my nose. “I don’t want to believe that. He really didn’t strike me that way.”

  He looked in the direction of the jewelry store. “I don’t either.…” In the silence hung the question of why he’d be with another woman in a jewelry store, though.

  And I didn’t have the answer to that.

  “Did he strike you as being in love with my grandmother?”

  I thought about it. “There’s something there. Definitely affection. Maybe it’s more of a”—I searched for the word—“Svengali kind of relationship, but I think it’s genuine.”

  He gave a short laugh. “You see Dottie as a Svengali?”

  That wasn’t quite right. “Not as much as I see Lyle as a kind of … protégé. I don’t want to say she’s maternal toward him, because that isn’t it and that sounds oogie, but, honestly, I think she kind of likes taking care of him.”

  Burke nodded. “I’m not sure it’s so great if he likes being taken care of.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean. I think it’s more like he’s a pet she adores.” Wow, that sounded even worse. But more accurate. “And he’s kind of looking at her from that point of view too. He’s not trying to take her, he wants to be taken.”

  I thought I’d nailed it perfectly, but Burke looked at me like I was crazy.

  “He has almost nothing in his bank account,” he said. “It’s not even interest-bearing. His IRA has eight hundred and fifty-eight dollars in it, from an initial deposit of twelve hundred that he made eighteen years ago. He has one credit card, I’ll give him that, with a limit of seven thousand bucks, but it’s practically maxed. Other than that, he’s got nothing.”

  “Doesn’t he have a job?”

  “He sells furniture at Rolfe’s.”

  “Actually, I’ve heard those guys can make a lot of money.” I didn’t add that I’d dated a guy who sold furniture at Macy’s Home Store and who had enough to take me to nicer dinners and dates than, I don’t know, Burke had, for instance.

  “Negligible.”

  “Define negligible.”

  He laughed. “You’re impossible. Okay, I don’t know exactly what he makes, it’s based on commission and his taxes have varied pretty wildly over the past few years.”

  I was aghast. “You checked his taxes?”

  He looked at me. Silent.

  “Isn’t that illegal?”

  “You’re missing the point.”

  “Or you are.”

  “We’re talking about character here.”

  “What kind of character does it take to dig into someone else’s private business to try to get dirt on them that may or may not be an accurate picture?”

  He shook his head, rejecting my argument. “The kind that would do anything to protect someone he loved,” he said, with genuine emotion. “And I will do anything to protect her.”

  Something in me softened. There was something noble in that, for sure. “Okay, I get that.”

  “I’m not condemning him. Not calling the police or the hit men. Just keeping an eye on the situation. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t?”

  More like me, maybe. Maybe too cautious. Too afraid what people thought. “I don’t know” was all I could say.

  He looked at me for a hard moment, then said, “I’ve got to get back to work here.” He glanced over my shoulder in the direction
of the jewelry store. “I’m not going to have a pointless confrontation with the guy here and now. But…” He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to.

  We said our good-byes and I stood there for a moment, trying to remember what I had been doing and trying to figure out why I felt so weird about the conversation we’d just had.

  Then I turned and saw Lyle walking right toward me.

  I smiled.

  He smiled back. Then he said, “Excuse me, do you know where—” He stopped, and I watched his face morph into surprise, like watching a stop-motion film of a flower blooming. “Quinn!”

  “Hey, Lyle! What are you doing here?”

  “I’m just coming from—” He gestured, and I wondered if he was going to lie. That’s how quickly paranoia like Burke’s can get to you. “That jewelry store,” he concluded.

  “Calloway’s?”

  He snapped and pointed at me. “That’s it. Calloway’s.”

  “What were you doing there? Looking for something pretty to get for Dottie?”

  “Actually, I was looking at watches.”

  “For Dottie?” She didn’t seem like a watch kind of person.

  “Nah, for me.”

  Oh, dear. Red flags were being raised on their staffs in my mind. “For you.”

  He nodded. “Dottie is insisting on getting me a watch.”

  “Okay…?”

  “And she wants to spend an absolute fortune.”

  At this point, what he’d said could have gone either way, but it was beginning to seem likely it was going in Burke’s “user” column.

  “I’ve never really understood the point of expensive watches,” I said carefully, watching him for signs of cunning. Perhaps a sharp glance, a momentary look in the eye that told me all of this was calculated. But instead he just looked as guileless as ever.

  “Me neither,” he said. “So when I ran into the salesgirl from there in the coffee shop I asked if she’d take me in and help me figure out which watch was the least expensive without being so cheap that she’d have me figured out.”

  “You wanted the cheapest watch?” I clarified. This was not what I’d been expecting to hear.

  He nodded enthusiastically. “The cheapest one I could get her to believe I want. I don’t really want a watch at all. I hardly ever wonder what time it is.”

  “You need to know when it’s time to get off work, don’t you?” I said it like I was joking, but, again, Burke had gotten to me and I found myself testing poor Lyle.

  “There are clocks everywhere there. Every living room display, every bedroom display, plus you can always ask someone what time it is, since everyone else has a watch.”

  “That makes sense.” And it did.

  “Plus I work until the work is done,” he added. Extra points. “If I don’t close the sale, I might as well have not come in.”

  “That makes total sense.” I couldn’t wait to tell Burke this. “So what did you find, watch-wise?”

  He sighed. “They’re all so expensive. I’d rather just have a nice dinner. That one we had when you were there was good. I sure did like your macaroni salad.”

  My face grew hot at the memory. “Thanks.”

  “Do you know what time it is?”

  I glanced down. “Four-ten.”

  “See?” He pointed a finger gun at me. “You can always find out what time it is from someone else if you want to.”

  I had to laugh. “You got me.”

  “No, I really wanted to know what time it was. But you also proved my other point.” Only then did he look pleased with himself. “I’ve got to go. Do you know where the Newley Street parking garage is? My meter’s going to run down.”

  I was tempted to ask at what time, but that would have belabored the point and been starkly unfunny. “We’re on Newley,” I said, and pointed north. “You just want to go that way about two blocks. It’s across from the library.”

  “I know, I’m in one of the library spaces,” he said. “That’s why I have to hurry, I need to go check out a book because those spaces are reserved for library patrons only.”

  Okay, there was a certain extra level of honesty there. I made a mental note of it. I couldn’t wait to tell Burke. “It was good to see you, Lyle,” I said. “Tell Dottie I said hello.”

  “I can’t do that,” he said. “I don’t want her to know what I was up to.”

  “Oh, right. Then I’ll just tell her myself next time I see her.”

  “Perfect!” He said it like I’d hatched the ultimate plan.

  As I watched him go, it occurred to me that there are all kinds of reasons for people to couple up. I’d never thought about it before because it seemed so singular to me. I had always wanted the big happily ever after. Didn’t everyone?

  But happily ever after depended on what you thought would make you happy. In my case, maybe it was love and romance and all the fairy-tale accoutrements. Yet maybe in someone else’s case, like Dottie’s, it was the sweet, earnest companionship of a guy like Lyle. Maybe his slight dopiness lent to the charm for her. Who knew?

  All I knew was that it wasn’t for me to judge. I hoped she’d get her happily ever after no matter what it was.

  Chapter 18

  It was as if the dry cleaner’s were suddenly the first Pinkberry to come to the East Coast. At least to my eye it was. People were coming and going—a large percentage of them women, by the way—all day long. Often leaving with long garment bags.

  “I wonder if she can do a replica of Audrey Hepburn’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s dress,” Becca stage-whispered, looking at the front window next to me.

  I looked at her. “I could. I just haven’t because it’s Givenchy, and it’s dirty pool to do a knockoff.”

  “Wow, I never even thought of that!”

  I nodded.

  “You could really copy it?”

  “Becca! Anyone competent can copy a design, it’s just not right.”

  She shrugged and looked back at what might as well have been a line forming outside the dry cleaner’s. “I think the prices for those designer clothes are outrageous sometimes, so I’m all for the knockoffs.”

  I could kind of see her point. But if I were Vera Wang I knew I’d be a lot more hesitant to agree. “I don’t know…”

  “Okay, but right or wrong, it’s what people are obviously interested in. I’ve seen them showing fakes on The Today Show a million times, so it must not be illegal.”

  “Not if it’s ‘inspired by,’ rather than a total rip-off.”

  “Okay, then maybe you should be inspired by a few famous designs, up your business, and put those people”—she gestured—“out of work.”

  I really didn’t want to admit it, but that was a good idea. I mean, I like good ideas, but I didn’t want to admit I could boost business by going trendy instead of trying to stick to my own style. But when I made that dress for Nicole, inspired by Grace Kelly’s wedding dress, was that so different from what Becca was suggesting?

  I was about to ask her when her phone rang. She answered in the same stage whisper she’d been using with me, then immediately, in her regular sharp voice, asked, “He put what in his ear?”

  And right then I knew she was going to have to cut out early again. This was the problem with Becca as an employee—she had three little kids and they each did about ten bad and/or dangerous things a day, so she was constantly having to leave on a moment’s notice.

  She’d been working with me for three years, since her youngest—Teddy—was a baby. She did great needlework and was at ease with the register, computer, and customers, so she was the perfect part-time employee … except for the fact that her times weren’t always the ones I was planning on.

  But she was a friend too, so I wasn’t going to fire her. Yet I couldn’t afford to hire someone else for the same number of hours Becca was hired for. And there wasn’t anyone out there who would be willing to sit around and wait for a Matchbox-car-tire-in-the-nose emergency to work maybe a few hours a
week.

  Becca said into the phone, “Hang on, hang on,” then put her hand over the bottom, as if that would do anything, and said to me, “I’ve got to go, Craigie has a green bean in his ear. Will you be okay?”

  I smiled. A green bean in his ear. Good lord. “Yes, of course, go, go!”

  “I’m really sorry!”

  “It’s fine. Business is slow, as you know.” I gestured limply toward the street outside.

  “I’ll make it up to you!”

  “Go!”

  “Man, I am worn out—I have got no energy for this.” She went back to her urgent instructions on the phone, saying things like, Do not use a Q-tip, do you understand me? as she went.

  * * *

  Six uneventful and customer-free hours later, I was thirty-five miles away and I was seventeen all over again. Which was bad, because when I was seventeen, I had a lot of thirteen-year-old moments.

  This was one of those.

  So much for maturity and making decisions that were regret-proof by the light of day.

  It was eleven at night and Glenn and I were huddled in his Toyota convertible across the street from Burke’s house—or what every indication we could find on Spokeo and Switchboard was Burke’s house in Northern Virginia—watching for … I don’t even know what. Some sort of clue about his life. It was a cool, drizzly night, matching my mood, but Glenn had brought what he called “stalking provisions,” including seedless red grapes as sweet as candy; sandwiches of thin white bread, Brie, sweet mustard, and roasted red peppers; and tiny little plastic flutes of chocolate mousse.

  So far, so good, in that we hadn’t seen any clear indication that he had a woman there.

  However, we also hadn’t had any clear indication that he was there either.

  “How long are we going to sit here?” I whispered.

  “Until we know something,” he whispered back.

  We could have spoken in full voice, it wasn’t as if anyone was around to hear us, but something about peering through someone’s windows shrouded only by the dark of night, and hopefully by the anonymity of someone else’s car, made it feel necessary to stay as quiet and still as possible.

  “We don’t even know if anyone’s in there,” I said, narrowing my eyes and trying to draw some sort of conclusion from the sage-colored walls of what looked like might be the kitchen, based on the brass lamp that I thought was hanging from the ceiling but couldn’t swear to it, thanks to partially closed blinds.