Just Around the Corner

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Phyllis grinned. “I’m pregnant, Sheffield, not old.”

  She wasn’t positive, because he was turning away to get to work, but Phyllis thought he grinned back at her.

  AFTER CHANGING into a pair of jeans that weren’t too tight yet, Phyllis did a quick check of her bathroom to make sure there wasn’t anything too personal or embarrassing lying out. Everything was in its proper drawer or cupboard.

  Matt vacuumed the living room while she dusted the bedroom. She took care of the towel racks, toiletries and knickknacks in both bathrooms while he vacuumed her bedroom.

  Odd, having a man in her bedroom after so many years. Odder still having him in there cleaning.

  She moved on to the spare bedroom—imagining the nursery it was soon to become, the baby who’d be living there—while he did the bathrooms. And then she moved on to the kitchen.

  She was still working on the counters when he came in to do the floors. She wiped, he swept. The smell of the cooking lasagna filled the room. She actually felt hungry.

  “I’ve hardly ever met a man comfortable enough with himself to do ‘women’s work’ so unselfconsciously.” Phyllis hadn’t really meant to speak her thoughts aloud.

  Matt shrugged and then bent to position the dust-pan. Holding the brush easily between fingers and thumb, he swept up the crumbs that had been on the floor. “That’s the beauty of being alone. I’ve got no one to impress, so no reason to be self-conscious.”

  “Most people spend a lot of their time trying to impress themselves.” She finished wiping and leaned against the counter, watching him fill a bucket with water. He splashed in just the right amount of pine-scented disinfectant, wrung out the mop as he’d done this countless times before and methodically set to work on the floor.

  “I already know what I’m made of,” he said after a few swipes. “No point trying to kid myself now.”

  “You’re secure with who you are,” she said. It impressed her—and he didn’t seem to be trying.

  He mopped.

  The buzzer went off, signaling that the lasagna was done. Reaching for a towel from the rack, Phyllis stepped on it and slid her way over to the oven.

  “How much more have you got to do?” she asked him. She didn’t think he’d vacuumed the spare bedroom yet. He’d brought out the mop for the bathroom floors and continued right into the kitchen with it.

  “Just some vacuuming.”

  “Why not stop long enough to have some dinner, then?” she asked, trying not to feel nervous about the invitation. There was something so…intimate about having him sit down to a meal with her at her own table.

  “There’s more here than I’m going to eat,” she added when he said nothing.

  He glanced over at the sizzling pan as she pulled it out of the oven. “I might have a bite or two,” he said. “But I have to finish up here first. You go ahead.”

  She did. Partially because, with the floor mostly wet, it was easier just to fill a plate and sit at the table and out of his way. And partially because she really was hungry, for the first time in weeks.

  Matt finished mopping, rinsed the mop and bucket, put his supplies away. And then helped himself to a huge portion of lasagna, using the plate she’d left out on the counter for him. Grabbing a fork from the cutlery drawer, he leaned back against the kitchen counter and ate.

  It was so nonthreatening, not really eating together at all, that Phyllis relaxed again. Maybe he was right. Maybe they really could make this work.

  “How’s your star student been this week?” she asked him when the silence began to feel awkward. He’d told her about Sophie on Monday, but nothing since.

  He shrugged, eating attentively. “About the same. I’ve seen her a few times, but she still isn’t as sharp as normal. It’s odd—she’ll be fine, and then just seem to lose her concentration.”

  Grateful for the diversion—and also because it was her nature to try to solve emotional problems—Phyllis went to work.

  “You said she’s lost weight,” she said, running through everything he’d told her about the girl. “Would you say she’s lost too much weight, or she’s just taking care of herself?”

  “Definitely too much weight,” he said, slowing a moment to glance over at her. “Her cheekbones are stark. If she were any older, her skin would be hanging on her.”

  “Does she seem to talk about food much?”

  Matt stopped eating altogether, apparently thinking back over recent conversations with the girl. “Maybe,” he said. “Yeah, I guess. I can think of several times she’s mentioned it, and since we don’t talk all that much, I guess she must mention it a lot.”

  “And you said she’s wearing bulky clothes.”

  “Yeah.”

  Phyllis remembered something else, something he’d commented on while they were at the hospital. “And she has one fingernail that’s broken when all the others are long?”

  “Yeah.”

  Anorexia. If Phyllis hadn’t been so distracted the other night, she would’ve put all the symptoms together then. Of course, the disease was usually only a symptom of some bigger emotional problem.

  “Have you noticed the hair on her arms?” she asked Matt, not sure he’d welcome her suspicions.

  “No, of course not!” He set his empty plate on the counter. “Why would you ask that?”

  “Because it sounds to me like she has an eating disorder, and one sign of the more advanced stages is body hair turning to fuzz. It’s pretty distinctive if you know what you’re looking for.”

  “I haven’t seen Sophie’s arms in ages. She’s always wearing sweaters or sweatshirts. Not that I’d notice something like that if I did see them. What makes you think she has an eating disorder?”

  He obviously wasn’t thrilled with the diagnosis.

  He cared about the girl.

  Finishing her own dinner, Phyllis checked to see that the floor was dry enough and walked her plate over to the sink. “The fingernail is a pretty clear indication.”

  “Come on, Doc,” Matt said. “Fingernails do break.”

  “And there are many ways a girl can take care of that nowadays. Even if she doesn’t have the time or money for a proper manicure, she can buy glue-on tips at the drugstore. If Sophie’s as particular about her nails as you described, there has to be a damn good reason for her to keep that one short.”

  “And what reason would that be?”

  “So she can stick her finger down her throat to throw up after she eats.”

  Standing beside her, he rinsed his own plate and handed it to her to put in the dishwasher. He didn’t say anything.

  “If she is anorexic or bulimic, she needs help, Matt.”

  “I teach lighting design.”

  “But you said she came to you for guidance.”

  “I teach lighting design.”

  “I realize that!” Phyllis said, wishing he’d let her past the barriers he’d erected. “So you don’t know about eating disorders, but you know about people. And she trusts you.”

  “There’s nothing I can do.”

  “You can at least try to get her to talk to someone, to see a counselor.”

  “I’ll suggest it on Monday,” he said, and then, “I’m going to finish that vacuuming and leave you to your bath and your book. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon to take you grocery-shopping. Thanks for dinner.”

  Before she could say, “You’re welcome,” he was gone.

  Probably just as well. He could clean for her. Take out her trash. Stand at her kitchen counter and eat.

  He couldn’t be welcome in her life.

  CHAPTER NINE

  MATT FELT A LITTLE AWKWARD. Okay, he felt damn stupid. It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to grocery-shopping, pushing a cart up and down the aisles, filling it with stuff. He did all that. Regularly. But he’d never pushed a cart being filled with stuff for someone else. He was finding out more than he needed to know about Phyllis Langford.

  Her tastes in food. What brand of
toilet paper she used. What kind of toothpaste.

  “You know, those would be cheaper at Wal-Mart,” he told her when she added paper towels and tissues to the cart. She’d chosen the same brands he used.

  A Wal-Mart had opened on the outskirts of town two years before.

  “I know.” She nodded, and continued loading the cart. “I just figured it was worth the few cents I’d have saved not to drag you to another place.”

  “I have to go, anyway.”

  She glanced back at him, the first time she’d met his eyes fully since he’d picked her up half an hour earlier. “Maybe next week, then.” Her focus returned to the list she’d been concentrating on.

  She looked great. The tight beige hip-huggers she was wearing with a black chenille turtleneck sweater were practical and sexy as hell at the same time. Hard to believe, looking at her, that she was pregnant.

  Feminine and baby items were in the next row. Phyllis eyed the baby items, pausing as though she’d like to linger, ran a hand through her windblown hair, but pressed on. She stopped in front of the feminine supplies.

  Matt studied the baby items. There were a lot of different pacifiers. One claimed that it was orthodontically tested. Matt was glad to see that.

  Phyllis slid a small bag of feminine napkins onto the underside of the basket, next to the toilet paper.

  “You bleeding again?” he asked.

  She shot him a startled look, glanced around. He’d made her uncomfortable.

  Damn. “Sorry.”

  “No.” She glanced back quickly and then away. “I mean, it’s a little late to feel embarrassed after you spent all that time with me at the hospital, listening to Dr. Mac’s thorough diagnosis.”

  Her shyness made him a little tight in the jeans.

  And that wasn’t supposed to happen, either. He pulled his black leather jacket closed, fastening the bottom of the zipper.

  They moved on.

  “I had a little more spotting this morning,” Phyllis said out of the blue as she walked slowly down the cereal aisle. The store was crowded—as it always was on a Saturday afternoon in Shelter Valley—but it still seemed as though they were in a world of their own.

  “Just this morning?” he asked, his stomach heavy. The doctor had said not to worry if there was more spotting, but he’d feel a hell of a lot better if it just stopped happening to Phyllis.

  “Yeah,” she said, taking a box of cereal off the shelf. “I called Dr. Mac’s office, though. She sees patients for a couple of hours on Saturday mornings, so I knew she’d be in.”

  “And?”

  Phyllis hesitated, her expressive green eyes shaded from him. “She thinks I overdid things last night with the cleaning,” she admitted, though grudgingly.

  “I’m glad she agrees with me.”

  Phyllis finally looked at him. “You didn’t argue with me last night.”

  “I knew better.”

  She held his gaze for another second and then turned away, grabbing a box of granola bars.

  “You know those are filled with sugar.”

  “Carbohydrates are good for me.”

  “But if you got some kind of energy bar, you’d have the carbs and a large supply of vitamins, as well.”

  “Yeah, and they taste like crap. Besides, I’m on horse-pill vitamins. I don’t think I need any more.”

  He wondered if crankiness came with the territory, or if this was just a side of Phyllis he hadn’t seen before.

  He kind of liked it. The intelligent doctor wasn’t perfect.

  Deciding to keep his mouth closed for the remainder of the shopping trip, Matt amused himself by watching her at work. She took her shopping very seriously. Comparing prices, checking things off her list.

  In the dairy section she took a quart of milk from the refrigerated glass enclosure.

  “It’s much cheaper by the gallon,” he said, forgetting his intention to mind his own business.

  “Not if you don’t use a gallon,” she told him, putting the quart in the cart. “I hate milk. I’m only buying it because Dr. Mac told me I should have at least one glass a day. I’m figuring that’s the best I’ll be able to do.”

  Matt loved milk. He went through a couple of gallons a week. Now probably wasn’t the time to say so.

  “I saw Sophie today,” he said, instead. He’d promised himself he’d talk to the girl about her situation, but only to get it off his own shoulders.

  “How was she?”

  “More talkative,” he told her. He’d actually been encouraged by that, if not by the rest of what he had to report. “She did have fuzzy arms, though. Of course, that just might be how her hair grows. It’s not like I ever looked before, so I have nothing to compare it to.”

  Phyllis shook her head. “I suspect there’s a problem,” she said, her brow lined.

  “I asked her to see a counselor.” Matt strolled along beside her, approving of her rice and pasta choices. Even the spaghetti sauce, about which he was rather particular.

  “Did she say she would?”

  “No.”

  On the contrary, she’d fought him adamantly. Said some other stuff that had made his jaw tense. As long as she had him to talk to, she didn’t need anyone else. He understood her. She trusted him. Stuff like that.

  He didn’t want her trust.

  “She says she doesn’t need the help,” he murmured.

  “Yet she comes to you.”

  “Yeah.” And it was really bothering him. He hadn’t felt so trapped since he’d been locked up in a ten-by-ten cell.

  “You need to keep trying, Matt,” Phyllis said emphatically. They were moving toward the checkout. “If you’re the only one she’s talking to, you might be her only hope. Stick close to her, gain her confidence. Maybe you’ll convince her to change her mind.”

  “Not likely.”

  He couldn’t do that, couldn’t let her get any closer. Sophie was already much too close for his comfort. Damn thing was, she was a great kid, with more potential than any student he’d had since coming to Montford, and Montford, with its small enrollment and impressive reputation, brought in only the best.

  “If you think it’ll help, I’d be glad to come and talk to her,” Phyllis offered.

  Unloading the groceries onto the counter for her—heavy items first, light items last so when they rolled down to be bagged, nothing would be smashed or damaged—Matt considered the idea. He wasn’t sure he liked it—adding another knot to the tangle that his relationship with Phyllis had become. But he sure wanted to back away from his involvement with the pretty coed.

  “I just might take you up on that, Doc,” he told Phyllis, “if you’re sure it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Not at all. I’d like to help. It’s what I do.”

  Matt nodded; he already knew that about her.

  “Besides,” Phyllis continued, moving up to the cashier as she finished emptying the basket and pushed it down toward the bag boy. “It’d be a way I can repay you for all the work you’re doing.”

  “Uh, I’m the one in debt here,” he said, glancing pointedly at her stomach.

  Her little grimace grabbed his gut and wouldn’t let go.

  “PHYLLIS?”

  Coming fully awake, hardly aware of how she’d come to have the phone at her ear, Phyllis sat up in bed.

  What time is it? “Tor? What’s up, honey?”

  Three o’clock in the morning. Phyllis tensed. Three o’clock in the morning could mean only one thing, and it wasn’t time for that yet. Tory had another month to go.

  “My water broke,” the younger woman said. “Can you come?”

  “I’m on my way,” Phyllis said, taking the phone with her as she pulled on the beige slacks and black sweater she’d worn grocery shopping with Matt the day before. “Have you called the Montfords?”

  Ben Sanders, Tory’s husband, was out of town with his daughter, Alex, that weekend, finalizing his sole custody of the child, as her mother was signing away a
ll rights. He was Sam Montford’s cousin, the elder Montfords’ nephew, something they’d only discovered the year before, when Ben had come to Shelter Valley to start his life over. Which meant the Montfords were Tory’s family now.

  “No,” Tory said. “I just want you.”

  Phyllis could hear the panic in Tory’s voice. The whole reason Ben had gone to California now—taking Alex out of school—was that he’d thought the time was safe. He hadn’t wanted to wait and go during Alex’s Christmas break. He’d figured that was too risky, cutting it too close.

  “How far apart are the pains?” Phyllis asked, slipping into black ankle boots.

  “Seven minutes.”

  Phyllis nodded. Okay, that was good. “You have a bag packed?” she asked next, intending to keep her friend on the phone until she could get to her.

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’ve called the hospital?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay.” Phyllis grabbed her keys, her purse, pulling out her cell phone. “You have call waiting, right?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Phyllis dialed the number quickly. “Pick up when it beeps,” she said.

  Tory did. And as Phyllis sped the few short blocks to the pretty little house Ben and Tory had bought from Randi Parsons the previous spring, she kept Tory distracted. Kept her talking.

  It was a long night. The drive into Phoenix seemed endless. Throughout the trip, she was helping Tory breathe through the pains that continued to come at regular seven minute intervals all the way from Shelter Valley to the hospital. It was an even longer day on Sunday. Tory dilated to eight centimeters and stopped. She needed to get to ten. And though she was no longer making progress, the contractions, instead of lessening, only heightened in intensity.

  Phyllis had been trying to get hold of Ben most of the morning, first from the cell phone in her car and then using the phone in Tory’s room. But by midafternoon she’d still been unable to reach him. The phone line to the motel where Ben was staying was busy every time Phyllis got a chance to call, and by the time she’d realized the number was wrong—two figures were reversed—and got the right one, Ben had already checked out. He was presumably on his way home—a six-hour drive—but Tory said he’d been planning to take a detour and show Alex the Grand Canyon. She left a message for him at the house.