The little girl had dreamed her grandmother’s dream, plucked it all out of her mind as neatly as if she had seen it herself. It was the first sign of Tory’s fey.
20
So ben: le angoscie tue non le vuoi dir;
so ben, ma ti senti morir!
I know well: you don’t want to speak of your sufferings;
I know well, but you feel like you’re dying!
—Musetta, La Bohème, Act Two
In two days, Zoe and Tory established a routine at the flower shop. Zoe, upon learning that Tory was an early riser, clapped her hands. “Fantastic!” she exclaimed. “You can open up then, and I can stay in bed until I feel human!”
“Well—sure,” Tory said hesitantly. “If you’ll just tell me what I need to do.”
“Easy squeezy,” Zoe said. “I’ll give you the keys, you open the door, smile at the other crazy people who like to get up early, and take as much of their money as you can get.” She gave her scarlet grin, and Tory couldn’t help but smile in return.
“Mom’s stuck in Portland till next week,” Zoe explained. “But I told her we had the situation under control.”
“She doesn’t even know me,” Tory said.
Zoe shrugged, and reached for a box of dry-cut flowers. “Your cred is good, thanks to Iris,” she said. “And hey—what’s that in your yellow bug out there?”
Tory followed her gaze. She had parked the Beetle on the street, just in front of the shop. Johnson sat in his favored place, the front passenger seat, his long nose stuck out the window, his wide black nostrils quivering. “Oh,” Tory said. “That’s the—I mean, that’s my dog. Johnson.”
“Johnson?” Zoe said. “Cool! Does he like people?”
“He seems to. I haven’t had him very long. I didn’t feel right leaving him home all day.”
“Why don’t you bring him in?”
“Well, I—I thought, a place of business . . .”
“Nah! Cannon Beach is a dog town,” Zoe said. “Mom has a papillon that goes everywhere with her. I’d have a dog myself if it weren’t for going off to U of O soon.”
And so, with startling ease, the pattern was set. Tory came in early, opening the shop in the near-darkness of a coastal winter morning, Johnson panting at her heels. She swept up the litter of leaves and stems and bits of ribbon Zoe had created the evening before, and she opened the register and turned on the fairy lights adorning the window and the holiday displays. She dusted shelves and restocked supplies. Just before ten she took the dog for a walk on the side streets of the town. At ten she turned the door sign from “Closed” to “Open,” and a trickle of customers began to come in after having breakfast at one of the downtown cafés.
For two days, Tory kept her cell phone in her pocket, close at hand. She both hoped and feared Jack would try calling the number back, and when he didn’t, she was disappointed and relieved in equal measure. She had put the file away again in its bottom drawer, but looking at it had reminded her of Ellice’s reptilian gaze, and of her chilling lack of affect as she recited everything she knew about Jack.
When the shop was still quiet, as she busied herself readying things for the shoppers who would come, Tory admitted to herself she was relieved when her phone died, her prepaid minutes gone. Ellice was a police officer. She had access to all sorts of information Tory couldn’t imagine, and it was possible, Tory thought, that she could monitor Jack’s calls. Did you need a warrant for that? Was a disappearance enough cause? She didn’t know. When she thought of the chance she had taken in calling, her stomach quivered with uneasiness. She had been reminded, looking through the file, of how intelligent Ellice was. So often the case with the sociopathic personality—but of course, in her naïveté, she hadn’t believed her client was a sociopath. She had convinced herself she was just a woman with a difficult life whose response to its challenges was anger.
Anger. Ellice was like the big, dark woman in her dream, the embodiment of pure, untrammeled fury. Neither of them seemed to need a reason. They only needed an outlet.
Now, on her fourth day as an employee, Tory settled Johnson on a rug behind the counter and began tidying the gift wrap and ribbon racks. There was a steady stream of cars rolling up and down the main street of the town now, as Christmas approached. People strolled to and fro in the cold sunshine, reading the posters for the theater across the street, buying coffee and pastries, stopping to point at things in shop windows. They wore mufflers and knit caps and thick jackets. Tory found, to her surprise, that she looked forward to ten o’clock, when she had to unlock the door and open the shop, when people would come in and she would have to smile at them, offer assistance, wrap their purchases, make small talk. This thought made her pause with a roll of embossed red foil in her hand.
Where had Ice Woman gone?
Even as she thought that, the old feeling of premonition pierced her, the dull, sudden pain running from her breastbone to her spine. Johnson, as if he felt her unease, rose to his feet, and came around the desk to stand beside her. Tory put the roll of foil in its place, and turned slowly toward the door to see what was coming.
The chilly December sun glinted on his silver hair, and he had to bend a little to see her beneath the holly wreath decorating the glass door. He waved, a little awkwardly. She waved back, and hurried to unlock the door for him. “Hank,” she said. “Good morning.”
He grinned at her. “Good morning. How’s our patient?” Johnson, tail waving a welcome, padded forward to nose at Hank’s hand.
“He’s fine, I think,” Tory said.
“And you?”
“I’m—I’m fine, thanks.” She felt awkward herself, like an adolescent not sure of how to behave. It happened sometimes—not often—that her premonitions were not so much warnings as acknowledgments, an occasional recognition of something important about to happen. She stood back for this tall, nice man to come into the shop, and she wondered when she would know why her fey vibrated so in her chest.
As she locked the door again, Hank stood looking around the colorful shop. Like everyone else, he wore a heavy coat. Its thickness made his legs look even longer and leaner than before. “I tried to call you, but I got a message saying the number isn’t working anymore.”
“Oh, I guess—yes, it died. It was just one of those prepaid things. I’m going to have to get a new phone.”
“Well, be sure and let me know the number when you do.” Hank pulled a small, expensive-looking camera from his pocket and held it up. “Shirley’s doing a calendar,” he said. “Photos of our patients, you know—one of those promotional things. It’ll be on the Web site, too.”
“Oh.” Johnson sat down in front of Hank, as if he thoroughly approved of the idea.
Hank patted his head. “I thought it would be best if I came,” he said. “You and Shirley didn’t seem to be quite—” He shrugged, and chuckled.
“She doesn’t approve of me,” Tory said. “Maybe it’s the red hair?”
“She wants me to be organized, and she thinks people should have to make appointments in advance,” Hank said. “She doesn’t seem to understand that we need to be grateful for every bit of business we have.”
Johnson panted and smiled, and Tory said, “Looks like Johnson is happy to have his picture taken.”
“Why don’t I take a picture of the two of you together?”
Tory stiffened. This was it, then. This was the warning her fey was trying to give her. She took a shallow breath, expecting the sensation in her chest to subside. It didn’t.
“Hank,” she began, then stopped. She looked away from him, around at the red and green and silver decorations, the fairy lights twinkling in swags of greenery and miniature Christmas trees. It all seemed to have gone cold, somehow. It mocked her. How could she have thought, even for a moment, that she could forget it all? That she could make friends with people, live normally? She felt his gaze on her, questioning, possibly offended. But she couldn’t look into his face. There was an edge i
n her voice when she spoke again. “Okay if you just take the dog’s picture?”
There was a frozen pause. Tory, to cover her embarrassment and anxiety, bent to smooth Johnson’s hair and adjust his collar. Hank hadn’t said anything, and when she finally summoned the courage to look up into his face, his dark eyes told her nothing. He said, with that gentleness that was so striking in a big man, “Right. Just the dog.”
Tory straightened, and as Hank took the camera from its case and adjusted the lens, she took several steps back, well away from Johnson. The flicker of Hank’s eyes told her he saw this, and a corner of his mouth twitched, but she couldn’t tell if it was from amusement or, more likely, irritation.
Johnson sat patiently, the perfect model, smiling up at the camera while Hank snapped four or five pictures. When he was done, he put the camera back into its case with deliberate, precise movements. Johnson, evidently sensing that his job was done, padded back to his blanket behind the counter and lay down with a gusty sigh.
Hank dropped the camera back into his pocket. He nodded to Tory. “Thanks,” he said. “We appreciate it. We don’t have all that many patients yet.”
He turned toward the door, and Tory hurried to unlock it for him. She glanced at the clock behind the counter, and saw that she would need to open the shop in five minutes in any case. She pulled the door open, and Hank started through it.
The sensation in Tory’s breastbone intensified. She said, impulsively, “Hank. Wait.”
He stopped in the doorway, one hand on the doorjamb, the other in his pocket. He looked remote now, his face composed, his eyes gleaming slightly with the sunlight splashing through the door. “Yes?”
Tory felt as if she couldn’t breathe past the pressure in her chest. “We don’t really know each other,” she said. “But you’ve been more than nice to me—and I haven’t behaved very well.”
Hank’s eyelids dropped a bit, as if in acknowledgment, and the set of his mouth softened. “You don’t have to explain anything to me, Paulette,” he said.
“I do.” Tory folded her arms, pressing them close to her ribs, and tried to take a deeper breath. “I have to at least say that—that it has nothing to do with you.”
That quirk at the corner of his mouth showed again, just briefly. “I’m pretty sure,” he said calmly, “that I’m the only one here.”
Tory sighed, releasing her arms, turning her face up, closing her eyes against the glare of the cold sunlight. “I have baggage you wouldn’t believe,” she said. The pressure in her chest released so suddenly she almost gasped. She couldn’t think what else she had meant to say.
When he didn’t answer, she turned her head away from the light and opened her eyes. He was watching her with a steady dark gaze. “I have a little baggage of my own,” he said. “Don’t you wonder why a guy my age is just starting out as a vet?”
“I—I didn’t really know you were just starting out,” she said. From behind the counter she heard Johnson sigh and roll onto his side. She was distinctly aware of being close to Hank, close enough to catch the scent of the soap he used, and the faintest tinge of something medicinal. His coat had fallen open. Beneath it he wore a blue denim shirt and a tie printed with dogs of a dozen breeds. It was crooked, and she had to put her hand behind her back to stop herself from straightening it.
“I’d bet,” he said, turning his head now to look out into the street, “that every person who makes it past adolescence has a story of some kind. I do. Evidently you do.”
It was the sort of thing Tory the therapist might have said. She stepped back a little, away from the beguiling male scent of him. “I just didn’t want you to think I was—that I’m just—” She clicked her tongue. “Rude,” she finished, in exasperation. “Even though I’ve been rude to you at least twice now.”
He smiled at her. “Okay, then,” he said. “I have to get to the office now, Paulette. I do have some actual appointments this morning.”
“That’s good.”
“It’s great, actually.”
A trio of women, laughing, adorned with Christmas pins and earrings, walked up to the door of the shop. “Are you open?” one of them asked.
“Oh, yes.” Tory stepped aside, out of the doorway. “Please come in.”
When they had trooped past Hank, he said, “Hey, Johnson, thanks for the picture.” The dog’s tail sounded a farewell, beating against the floor. “That’s a really nice dog,” Hank said. “I’m glad you two found each other.”
A moment later he was gone, long legs striding up the sidewalk. “Hey,” Zoe said from behind Tory. She had just come in from the back of the shop, and was unbuttoning a vintage plaid wool coat. Her red lipstick clashed violently with the orange pattern of the fabric, and she had stuck a red-and-white candy cane into her hair. “Who’s the heartbreaker?”
Tory glanced after Hank, but he had already disappeared around the corner. Zoe elbowed her. “Hey, Paulette?”
Tory closed the door against the cold air. “That,” she said, “is Johnson’s doctor.”
“Whoa,” Zoe said cheerfully. She pushed the candy cane deeper into her waxy black spikes. “Johnson, you are one lucky dog.”
The winter sunshine gave way in the afternoon to a layer of dark clouds that rolled up over the horizon and hid the early sunset. When Tory and Johnson left the shop at five, dusk already enveloped the town. The lights of shops and cafés and taverns garlanded the main street of Cannon Beach, glittering through the gloom. Tory opened the car door for Johnson, and he jumped up into his usual post. She paused for a moment, looking up and down the street, decorated now for the holiday. It was lovely, and it made her heart ache. She should be baking and decorating now, anticipating Jack’s return for the holidays, enjoying the lull in her work as her clients did the same. There would be a rush of them after Christmas, of course, as there always was. The holidays brought out the worst in everyone.
And the best. It was important to remember that.
She went around to the driver’s side of the Beetle and climbed in, but she didn’t start the engine right away. She sat, one hand absently twined in Johnson’s fur, and thought about what had happened this morning. Her fey had been prompting her to do something. She wished she understood what it was.
She started the motor, switched on the headlights, and eased the car out into the street in a U-turn. She didn’t drive toward the cottage, but turned left, toward the veterinary clinic.
There were cars in the parking lot: Hank’s white SUV, a tired-looking brown Honda, a couple of others. Tory turned into the lot, and said to Johnson, “I won’t be long.” He whined, but he stayed where he was as she turned off the motor and opened her door.
Shirley glanced up as she came in. Tory forestalled her question by saying, “Hi, Shirley. I don’t have an appointment, but I wanted to speak to Hank for just a moment.”
“He’s with a patient,” Shirley said with a certain truculence.
“Yes, I see you’re busy tonight.” Tory nodded to her, and sat down on the long banquette next to a stack of Dog Fancy magazines. “I’ll just wait till he’s free.” She smiled, picked up a magazine, and pretended to read. She didn’t need her fey to see that Shirley didn’t care for her one bit. She wondered what that was about. It couldn’t just be about appointments.
There was no one else in the waiting room. The doors to both exam rooms were closed, and behind one of them Tory heard a dog yipping, and someone soothing it. Before long the other door opened, and a woman with a cat in a carrier came out, saying something over her shoulder to Hank. He came just behind her, dressed as before in jeans and a medical coat. He was answering the woman, taking a pen out of his breast pocket. When he caught sight of Tory, his composure broke, just a little. He lost his train of thought, gave his head a shake, then led the woman to the counter, where he wrote something on a pad and handed it to her.
Shirley was taking the woman’s payment, running her credit card, filling out a form. Hank crossed the wai
ting room to Tory.
“Hey, Paulette,” he said. “Johnson okay?”
“Yes. Listen, I can wait. I know you’re busy.”
He smiled. “I’ve been busy all day. Just like a real vet.”
Tory smiled back at him. “I’m so glad.” Tory stood up, laying the issue of Dog Fancy neatly on top of the stack. “I just came to ask you to dinner, Hank. Tonight, if you can. Another night if that’s better.”
His eyebrows rose, and for a moment she thought he was going to refuse. She wouldn’t be surprised if he did. Mostly Hank had met Ice Woman, not the real Tory. Or even Paulette, whoever that was.
He smiled again, a different smile this time. He looked younger when he did it, and the weary lines of his face smoothed.
The woman with the cat carrier was at the door. She said, “Thanks again, Dr. Menotti.”
He spoke to her, then turned back to Tory. “Tonight, then,” he said. “What can I bring?”
“Nothing. And I won’t spill the wine.”
He chuckled. “I’d better bring some just in case.”
“Just come in about an hour, if you’re free.”
“Perfect.” He regarded her, his dark eyes seeming, as they had before, to see right through Paulette to the heart of her that was Tory. “Maybe we can unpack a bit of that baggage.”
Tory’s fey didn’t stir.
It had been so long since Tory cooked for anyone but herself that she felt a bit anxious about it. She wasn’t sure about the broiler on the ancient stove at the cottage, but she thought, if it didn’t work, she could always pan fry a steak. She stopped at the market, with Johnson beginning to get restive in the car, and bought steaks and onions and asparagus. She found fresh rolls in the baking section, and remembered at the last minute to buy butter. She splurged on a good bottle of Barolo. If she was going to make amends, she thought, she might as well do it right.
The Glass Butterfly Page 23
