by Judy Baer
“I got to bed later than usual, that’s all.” I didn’t have time to comment further because Lilly and Joe walked out of the Java Jockey together and spotted us.
“Hey, what’s up?”
Lilly peered at me, her brow wrinkled in concern. Even in jeans and a simple T-shirt, Lilly looks glamorous. Maybe it had something to do with the silver and rhinestone pendant earrings and three-inch silver heels with which she combined them.
“She’s tired. Had a late night,” Joe offered.
That started a barrage of questions and then led into their own evenings, the weather and what everyone had had for dinner.
I was not in the mood for a crowd and, after a few unintelligible grunts in response to questions, I hoped to take my leaded coffee and slip away somewhere to wait for it to kick in.
No such luck. The perky little steward from last night, already in her perky little uniform, prepared for some perky early-morning cruise, perked her way toward the door of the Java Jockey.
I slid down in my seat and tried to divert my gaze, but there is no force field that can divert perky.
“Hi! Norah! How are you this morning! It was so cool having you on the Lady last night!” Miss Perky talks in exclamation points. “Didn’t you love the duck à l’orange? It’s my favorite of all the things we serve! Very romantic, too! Well, see you!” And she perked her way into the coffee shop leaving pandemonium behind for me to clean up.
“Last night?” Joe began.
“The Lady of the Lake? Connor’s boat?” Lilly demanded.
“Duck à l’orange?” Nick echoed. But Nick was the least of my problems.
“You didn’t tell me you were going sailing on the Lady last night,” Joe said. I could hear confusion and hurt in his tone. Not that he would have tried to stop me, but I could tell he would have appreciated being informed. I don’t blame him, of course, but I thought he was going to be on board and that there was nothing to tell! Silly, deluded me.
Lilly looked positively wounded. She stared at me as if I’d taken a knife to her heart. Which, of course, I had. That it was completely unintentional wasn’t counting for much at this moment.
“Who else was there?” The words cost her something to choke out, especially in front of Joe and Nick, but she obviously had to ask them.
“The crew—” I waved my hand in the direction of Miss Perky “—Connor, of course, and…” I waved my hand again, fluttering my fingers toward the universe hoping that she’d fill in the blank with the names of dozens of close friends.
“You were alone with Connor?”
“Of course not! I just told you…”
“The staff. Right.” Lilly’s expression clouded. Looking into her eyes, meteorologists would predict a massive cold front to come with snow to follow. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I thought you were all going to be there….” My voice sounded weak in my ears. Why wasn’t this caffeine working? Why wasn’t I being swallowed into the bowels of the earth? Why hadn’t I decided to close the shop and take an extended pleasure trip to Siberia instead of getting up this morning and making my way here?
“I didn’t get invited,” Nick said helpfully. “Of course, I’m new here. I wouldn’t expect to….”
“He didn’t want us,” Joe said slowly, “Apparently it was a private dinner.”
“And maybe Norah is keeping other things from us, too.” Lilly said the words slowly, with great gaps between each one, gaps big enough for me to fall into and be lost. She pushed away from the table. “If you’ll excuse me, I have things to do this morning. And I don’t have the excuse that I partied all night.”
And, as Lilly does, she swept across the street and into The Fashion Diva and slammed the door behind her.
Joe, not so given to dramatics but obviously disturbed, stood up. “Guess I’d better get back to work, too.” He glanced at me. “Come by later, Norah, if you want to talk.”
To explain, you mean? Well, there’s nothing to explain!
Nick, sweet and out of the loop, turned to me. “What’s with them?”
“Got out on the wrong side of the bed? There’s a lot of that going around.”
“Obviously.” He scratched Sarge beneath his headstall and made the bell tinkle. Then he looked me straight in the eye and said, “Connor’s a lucky guy, Norah.” And he turned and walked away.
One minute I had friends, the next I felt like a flea on a dog, a louse on a chicken, a tapeworm in a tummy. No one wanted me and it could be that some of them were willing to take active measures to stop me in my tracks.
I stumbled back home tired and teary-eyed. I knew I should have taken Bentley’s recommendation and stayed in bed today.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lilly hasn’t spoken to me in three days; Joe has been suspiciously absent from the Java Jockey; Nick has been doing crowd control for large events downtown; someone soaped several store windows along Pond Street and dumped the garbage cans upside down. And, to add insult to injury, Connor sent me roses again.
I’m just sick about Lilly. She obviously, and not without reason, feels betrayed by me and is steering clear. Not that I blame her. I feel like avoiding me myself. I don’t know how I got into this mess but somehow I think I should have known better.
The only one who’s really glad to see me lately is Auntie Lou.
“You’re looking as blue as Elvis’s shoe,” she said as I walked into her upstairs apartment after work. She had tea steeping in a pot cuddled into a tea cozy, shortbread cookies on a plate and some egg salad and tomato sandwiches—a horrible combination but they are her favorite—at the ready.
“I feel like a leper. You and Bentley are the only ones talking to me and Bentley doesn’t know English.”
“There is a little good news,” Auntie Lou said calmly as she poured me a cup of tea. “Matthew chapter eight, verse two.”
“And that is…”
“‘There was a leper who came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.”’”
“You’re right, of course. This is one for God.” I paused. “They all are, aren’t they?”
“Lilly will have to run into you eventually. Then you can tell her what happened with Connor on the Lady.”
“Nothing happened! Nothing.”
“She doesn’t know that, now does she?”
“Lou, she’s been making a play for Connor, full throttle, and he’s barely noticed. Can you imagine how she must feel? I’m sure she’s embarrassed and humiliated. Poor Lilly.” I couldn’t even be angry with her for trusting me so little in the friendship department. The evidence against me was stacked pretty high.
“I know she won’t listen to an old biddy like me, but I could tell her what a loyal friend you are.” Auntie Lou gestured toward our little supper. “You keep coming back even when I feed you egg salad and tomato sandwiches. You don’t seem to mind that there are decades between our birthdays or that you’re pretty as a picture and I could break a mirror with my looks.” She pushed the plate my way. “Sandwich?”
Silas entertained us after dinner with the fresh catnip mouse I’d brought him and it was after seven when I left Lou’s building and noticed that the lights were still on in The Fashion Diva. That meant Lilly was either unpacking stock or doing paperwork. Impulsively, I followed my feet to her back door.
“Lilly? Are you here? It’s me, Norah.”
Her pale face appeared from around the corner of a clothing rack. “What is it?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“I don’t agree. Lilly, you have to listen to me.”
“I don’t have to do anything. I certainly don’t want to hear how you betrayed me and stole Connor out from beneath my nose.”
“I didn’t do any such thing.” Unity, sympathy, love for one another and a humble mind. “I didn’t think I’d be alone with him. I thought there was a dinner party…”
/> “I expected more of you, Norah. You, of all people! You wouldn’t have said anything at all if that woman hadn’t spilled the beans when we were at the Java Jockey.”
She caught my hesitation and misread it completely. “I thought so! What other things haven’t you told me? How long has our friendship been on such a shaky foundation? Is our whole relationship a lie?”
“No, no, no! How can I make you understand…?”
“And you’re the big ‘Christian,’ too!” She made annoying quotation marks in the air with her fingers. “Now I’m really getting to see a Christian in action. If that’s what they do to their friends, then I certainly don’t want to be one.”
The kick I felt in my gut made me want to weep. “Don’t make this about being Christian, Lilly. I didn’t do anything to intentionally hurt you or ‘go after’ a man you’re interested in. It was a comedy of errors, nothing more. I have no control over Connor’s feelings, emotions or actions. If I did, I’d make him madly in love with you.”
“I don’t need your help, thank you very much. I need you to step out of the picture.”
“Gladly. I’m out. I’ve always been out. I had no idea…”
“Maybe it’s a good thing this happened. You almost had me convinced that Christians were different from others—trying to do the right thing, loving their neighbors. It was a close call, Norah. You almost tricked me into believing it, but now I know you aren’t any different from anybody else.”
“Of course I’m not. That’s the point about being Christian. We’re as flawed as they come. It’s through Christ we’re forgiven for being so imperfect.”
“I’m glad He can forgive you because it’s going to be hard for me to forgive and forget. I thought you were my best friend. I don’t see how you allowed all this to happen, knowing how I felt.”
Me, either. That’s the whole point. It shouldn’t have happened. I didn’t intend to take Connor away from Lilly. He was never hers to begin with but I didn’t want to be the one to cause her heartache and yet I seem to be dealing it out in big doses.
“Don’t confuse this with what it means to have faith in God, Lilly, please.”
“How can I help it? You’re the one who talks about God all the time…and now this.” She turned away. “I need to go home, Norah. I’ll lock the back door behind you.”
I’ve never felt so helpless. Lord, instead of being a good witness for You, I’ve suddenly become Your worst worker in the kingdom. I ask that You turn this around. Show me what I need to do—or not do.
I walked home feeling both miserable and grateful. At least God has the power to mend this shattered friendship.
“You look like you just lost your best friend.”
My head snapped up and I saw Nick peering over the hedge into my postage-stamp-size yard. I tossed my trowel to the patio stones and waved him in. My garden isn’t much, but I enjoy it. I grow perennials like irises and lilies and fill the gaps with annuals. This year I went overboard in the impatiens and begonia departments but I like the riot of color around my wrough-iron table and chairs.
“How’d you know?”
Nick is so attractive that when we’re apart I convince myself that I am mistaken, that no one can be that good-looking. Then I see him again and realize that, yes indeed, he is so handsome that it should be illegal. And wouldn’t that be a fine predicament for a cop?
“I didn’t mean it. It was supposed to be a joke. What’s wrong?”
I dropped into one of the wrough-iron chairs. “Do you really want to know?”
“Of course.”
Nick is the kind of straight-shooting guy who always says what he means and means what he says. So if he wants to know about my miserable life, I’m happy to tell him.
He remained quiet until I had exhausted my story. Every time I think about this mess I feel depleted and helpless.
Then his silence began to annoy me.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“I’m trying to figure out what that might be, other than ‘I’m sorry.’”
“Don’t you have any brilliant suggestions?”
“Time?”
“I’m impatient, Nick. I want this fixed now.”
“Prayer?”
“Are you kidding? I haven’t stopped.”
“Patience?”
“You are no help whatsoever.”
“See why I thought it was a good idea to be quiet?” He smiled a little and even though I didn’t think I’d smile again for a very long time, the corners of my mouth twitched in response.
“Okay, so you’re a smart man in a lose-lose situation. Thanks for listening.”
“That I can do any time.” He reached across the table and took my grubby hands in his clean ones. “I like listening to you, Norah. More than you might realize. You’re a very special woman.”
Whoa. Tingly feeling. Breathless. Blushing. Nice.
Then I felt tears come to my eyes. Just when I wanted to be appealing, I was going to look like an allergy sufferer before she takes whatever drug is touted on television. Just my luck.
“You’re even beautiful when you cry.”
That opened my waterworks. If he thought I was beautiful before, what must he think now? Red nosed and dazzling?
“Nick, I feel so terrible!”
“I see that.”
“And there’s nothing I can do.”
“Obviously.”
“And you keep sitting there agreeing with me. That’s no help. Do something!”
“Okay.” He stood up and pulled me to my feet after him. Then he cupped my cheeks in his hands and kissed me.
I suddenly felt wonderful all over. My condition improved even further when he gathered me into his arms.
I closed my eyes and felt his nonjudgmental, unconditional acceptance pour through me and I hung on for dear life. I laid my head on his chest and heard the steady thump of his heart. My body, which had been far more tense than I realized, began to relax.
He tucked me under his arm and we moved slowly toward the gliding swing on my deck. Then, before we got there, I felt him stiffen and heard the sharp intake of his breath. It’s a quick jump from bliss to a bombshell.
“Nick?” I pulled away and was startled to see that he was white as a sheet. “What is it?”
His body was rigid. “What’s that?” he said through gritted teeth.
I braced myself and turned to see what had caused that sort of response in him. All there was in front of me was my deck filled with flowers and Bentley leisurely licking one paw, his tail moving like a metronome on a piano teacher’s baby grand.
“Did you see something? Out on the lake?”
“That.” He lifted a finger and pointed toward Bentley.
The dog, sensing he was the object of speculation looked up, saw Nick’s pointing finger, took offense at it and growled.
Nick took two steps backward and nearly fell over a terracotta pot full of geraniums.
Bentley stood up to turn tail and run.
Nick moved to do the same.
“Hold it! Freeze!” I yelped, feeling like something out of a cop show.
Bentley dropped and rolled. I grabbed Nick to make sure he didn’t do the same. Still, I couldn’t prevent him from backing himself around to the front of my house and halfway out my front yard.
“Nick?”
“You didn’t tell me you had a dog.”
“I got him from the Humane Society. He’s a sweetie, but he still has a few issues.”
“What kind of ‘issues’?” Nick sounded sharp as if he were chewing on glass.
“He’s frightened of people and most everything else. He was abused as a puppy. Sometimes he’s a little unpredictable….”
“You shouldn’t own a dog that’s unpredictable. He should be put down.”
There are very few things that a person can say to me that will fuel my anger, but Nick just uttered one of them.
“Are you crazy? Bentley? He’s t
he sweetest, most lovable, most gentle…”
“He’s part pit bull, isn’t he?”
“Who knows? My guess is Staffordshire terrier. They look a lot like the American pit bull. And he definitely has some bulldog and a little beagle because of that sweet face. Pit bull? No matter how he looks, his personality is absolutely angelic…Nick?”
He was methodically stepping backward, forcing me to keep up with him until suddenly I found myself on the sidewalk.
“Sorry, Norah, but I don’t like dogs.”
“How could you not like…” I thought back. When had Nick ever stepped fully into my store? Certainly not when the mastiff puppies were in their cage up front. Come to think of it, he’d never been inside the store when there were dogs around at all. Had there been some connection I missed? “You really don’t like dogs?” I blurted. “How can that be?”
“Sorry, Norah. I just don’t.” His color was returning but he still looked ghastly. There was a finality in his step that alarmed me.
“Nick, are you coming back?”
An emotion I defined as sadness washed across his features. “I can’t. Not as long as you have that dog. I’m sorry, Norah, but that’s just the way it is.”
“But I’ll always have Bentley!” I wailed.
He looked as though I’d kicked him in the gut. “Then I’ll see you uptown.” With that he spun around and strode up the street, a tall, athletic receding figure. I reached out my hand toward him but he didn’t turn to look back.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Now what?
Perplexed, I stared after Nick’s retreating figure until I felt Bentley bump my ankle.
Bentley doesn’t like the street, either. It’s too noisy for his taste, so I was surprised that he’d ventured out to find me. I picked him up and held his stocky body close to mine. He laid his head on my shoulder and gave a contented sigh. How could anyone not like Bentley? And how could I like anyone who couldn’t like him?
