“I thought you were heading out with George,” Paige said, continuing her task.
“That’s later. A girl’s gotta eat.” She shoveled in a large bite of green zucchini. Michael flew from the room. “Is he sick?”
Paige nodded and finished telling her about the potluck and all that happened while Linney ate.
“You never go for the spinach soufflé around here. Mrs. Teeter sometimes makes it with the old eggs. Makes you sick every time unless you have an iron stomach.”
“Thanks for the heads up. I’ll remember it next time.” Paige said looking up from the file system she had been setting up.
Linney finished eating and pulled Paige away from the papers, hoping to make a dent in one of the rooms upstairs before napping.
They left Michael to his own devices and a piece of very dry toast. By the time Paige came down for something to drink an hour or two later, he had the expansion file nearly filled with sorted renovation papers and bills.
“Wow. We should get you sick more often,” Paige said.
“Don’t you dare. I’m just now feeling better.”
“Well enough to…” She motioned upstairs.
Michael looked iffy. Winky dashed by chasing the Ben Wa ball. He caught it and rolled over on top of it, rubbing his back, and momentarily curling up.
“Maybe well enough even to do what he’s doing,” Michael said.
Winky turned over and rolled his belly back and forth on the ball and then hissed at it.
“Strike that. I have no idea what he’s doing.”
Paige didn’t either. She shrugged, “Not my cat. And thankfully not my toy either for that matter.”
She failed to mention she had her own toys, but that would have to wait for a more energetic, playful time.
They headed upstairs hand in hand. As enjoyable as cuddling was, it wasn’t like the torrid moments they preferred or had shared many times before. It was relaxing and sweet, filled with soft touches and massages as they curled up in bed. Paige spoke of her disbelief of how short a time they’d actually been together. Michael pointed out that they’d been together more hours than most people several months into their relationship.
She knew in her heart that wasn’t it. It was much more than being locked away together a set number of hours in a bed and breakfast. They matched. They relished the other’s company. They flourished together and their bodies craved the other’s touch.
But somewhere deep inside, she knew to temper the relationship so it built and didn’t flame out. The loving way his hands rubbed her back said what he felt the same. And when she turned toward him, softly stroking the line of his handsome face, she knew her eyes poured out the same meaning.
Neither spoke of love, but the words hung nearly palpable between them.
****
At the door early that evening, soft kisses became the promise of things to come. Maybe because their lazy snuggling left them with a sweet longing instead of bright afterglow, Michael’s leaving that day was all the more wrenching to Paige and from his actions, to Michael also. Valentine’s Day was only two days away. He’d promised to return even if were only a short time on February 14th. Still, the parting felt more like a tearing apart than just a quick “see you soon.”
A kiss. Another touch. A smile. Some unnecessary comment. Another kiss. He stood at the door, bags at his feet, unable to let go of her.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake!” Aunt Linney grumbled. “You, get your things, tell her you love her, and leave. And you, Squirt, stop moping. Blast your loud music when I go and get a move on. We can’t start putting this place together until we finish clearing it out. Now step out of my way. I have a diner dinner date with George. I’m not even getting free Wi-Fi out of it, so he better be a helluva lot more fun than you two were today.”
“I was sick,” Michael protested.
“You’re both sick, all googly-eyed. Move your butt. A hungry woman needs to go.” With that, Linney left.
It took a beat, but both laughed.
“You heard the woman. Go.” Paige kissed him with a happy mwwwahhh sound and shooed him away, smiling.
“Love ya. See you soon,” Michael said hastily and picked up his things. He didn’t turn around, but Paige heard his breath catch just a bit.
“Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asked herself.
The cat answered with a yowl from the far corner of the living room.
“Critic.”
****
Paige managed to fill several garbage bags from one of the spare upstairs bedroom. The master bedroom had a larger possibility of hiding treasures, but she wanted an easier space to clear. She did so, as much as she could as fast as she could. Even though the music blared, her ears were on alert for Linney’s return. Her aunt called it a date, and she wanted to be there at the ready for support.
No Linney—yet.
Paige tired of lifting the garbage bags that needed to go all the way out to the street for pick up. By the third one, she’d devised a cardboard sled for the stairs so she could just slide it down. It worked even to bring some of the bags out over the snow covering the driveway.
Her mind was on Linney’s lateness, ranging from elation that she was out on a date to worry over her being out too long. She stomped off the snow ready to hang up her coat when she noticed the last and largest bag upstairs.
With an exasperated sigh, she brought the soggy cardboard back up. Paige applied the same slide-the-bag-down-the-stairs routine but with the wet cardboard and sharp heaviness of the contents, the bag ripped completely open, spewing the contents from nearly the top step all the way down.
It was right then that Linney stepped into the foyer.
“Do you know how late you are?” Paige called down the stairs.
“Not late enough by the looks of it. I can come back when you’re done.”
“Ha. Ha. The bag ripped.”
“I see that. I think I will have to table your title of Sagey-Paigey.”
“Not funny. Do you know how worried I was? You didn’t have your cell phone.” Paige started to stuff the mess into a new bag, jamming in the pieces.
“Sure, I did. I just turned it off.” Linney left and came back with another garbage bag and wearing an apron over her clothing that said, “Everyone has their price. Mine is chocolate.”
They both bent to the task.
“So, are you going to tell me?” Paige asked.
“Tell you what?” Her aunt started from the bottom and worked fast.
“About your date. Your diner date you called it.” Paige worked her way down from the top.
“What about it?” Linney picked up pieces.
“How’d it go?” Paige picked up pieces.
“Fine I guess.” More pieces.
“Fine as in, oh, he’s cute and fun and I want another date. Or fine as in he can take a hike before I see him again?”
“Fine as in fine.”
Paige huffed. She jammed in three items. “Look, I am just trying to help you out. It seems I’ve dated more than you have since Roger. I’m trying to be a good niece and friend here and help set you up.”
“I…” Stuff. “don’t…” Stuff, stuff. “need…” Jam. “your help!”
“Everybody needs help.” They both grabbed for the last chunks.
“I don’t. Never did. Never will.”
Paige’s heart twisted with the pang of hurt.
“Oh Paige, not what I meant at all. I meant with dating and whether or not I do it again. How about this? Think of him as out of the picture then it won’t bother you.”
Paige was still upset but nodded.
“C’mere Squirt. I didn’t mean it about the help thing. I just meant about fixing me up. I need your help, here. Boy, do I. We all need it of each other, in some way or another. And some of us more than others. Let’s walk this to the curb. Okay? We can even do something corny like wish on stars like you used to love doing as a kid.”
Paige forc
ed a smile. She wasn’t upset about what Linney had said about helping each other. Whether she acknowledged it or not, everyone needed a sounding board when it came to relationships. She knew her aunt just wanted her to stop prying. She was upset about George maybe being out of the picture.
That meant it was one guy down and only one guy to go for Project Fix Aunt Linney’s Broken Heart. A project that had a Valentine’s Day due date and that was only one and half days away.
Chapter Twelve
“Oh no!” The chocolate was gone—Linney’s emergency stash chocolate saved for bad news. That meant something happened with her hospice patient. Paige wasn’t ever told any details of the cases. It was private, but she did see how much each patient meant to her aunt.
It just can’t be happening. A patient couldn’t have died. Not on Valentine’s Day. She’d worked so hard to make the day special for her broken-hearted aunt and now this.
Paige was frantic. Until she was half-way through eating it, she didn’t even notice she ate a second heart-shaped brownie she’d made for Linney and Michael. They were lightly frosted, soft, and had the perfect number of nuts. She’d been putting away ingredients when she noticed Linney’s missing chocolate bar. She steeled herself for the necessary call to her aunt.
“Aunt Linney, hello. It’s Paige,” she said, drawl thick and serious.
“I can see that on my caller ID. What’s up?”
“Well…is everything all right? I mean with you…and…”
“Paige, I told you I’m not talking about dating, especially at work.”
“No, no. Is everything okay at work? Okay, I’ll just say it. Your chocolate is gone, your emergency stash.”
“Hell no. You ate it?”
“What? No.”
“You made it sound like somebody died,” Linney said over the phone.
“Well, that’s what I thought. The bar is gone from the kitchen.”
“Oh, I know that.”
Paige was stumped. “Well, where is it?”
“In a tin.”
“In a tin? So, nobody, you know…expired?”
“Nope.” Linney’s voice softened. “Alive and as well as can be expected.”
Paige let out an audible sigh of relief. She moved to throw out her napkin and saw a dozen roses in the garbage.
“Wait, what’s this? Red roses?”
“Oh, those came, and I figured they were from Roger, so I threw them out. Hate Valentine Day’s anyway.”
“What if they were mine? From Michael? Or someone else?”
“Sheesh, didn’t think of that. Clean ’em up, would you?”
“Oh sure. I’ve got nothing better to do than wash roses. Before you go, do you have plans for the night?”
“Other than VD avoidance? Nope. Might just hang out tonight. Bye.”
Paige stood in front of a sink, trying to wash coffee grounds, old tuna, and vegetable peelings off the roses. It turned out to be a delicate process.
Her thoughts wandered to Linney. Did she need company tonight?
Her mother chose to call at that moment to wish her a Happy Valentine’s Day and asked Paige to be on the lookout for some roses for both her favorite women and that it had a funny card. Paige assured her mother she would do just that as she continued to wash the buds.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Paige? You sound funny.”
“Yes. I’m fine. Linney’s fine. Michael’s recovered, and the cat is strange.”
“What cat? Michael’s recovered from what?”
“Happy Valentine’s Day Mom. Gotta run, bye.” Paige hastened off the phone, feeling guilty about the roses her mother had lovingly sent. She managed to save most of them, though the buds looked a little worse for the wear and had a slight, non-rose, almost tuna odor. The broken ones, she just floated in a small bowl on the table next to the brownies. It looked charming actually with the scarf tablecloth she set up.
The doorbell rang. Paige hurried, nearly tripping over the cat as it leapt out of nowhere in front of her. The cat turned, hissed, and hovered in the corner, staring at the doorbell. The cat was proving more inexplicable, giving her pause before opening the door.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Paige chirped.
“Whatever. Sign here.” The rushed flower delivery person handed her a dozen red roses.
“They’re beautiful,” Paige drawled. The delivery person grunted and drove off without even looking up. In fact, she wasn’t even sure of the gender, just hurried.
The card was soggy. It had a picture of a bulldog on the front and read “Happy Valentine’s day Beayotch!” The signature was blurred. It didn’t even have a name it was addressed to. “Okie dokie, Mom. What exactly have you been drinking?”
Still holding the new vase of flowers, the doorbell rang again. Before she could open the door, the cat ran across her path, hissed, and hid. She looked about, half hoping for a hidden camera. Paige opened the door to a flower delivery service. A different flower delivery service. She stepped outside.
“Hey…” Came the voice under a hat, long hair, and beard. He held the syllable far too long. “Happy V Day. You live here, right?” He had a mellow California way about him.
“Yes.”
“Cool, cool. Needs just a little fixing up, don’t you think?”
“We’re working on it. Can I help you?”
“Oh right. Have some flowers for you.” He held out a huge vase filled with beautiful mixed flowers and waited, no instructions, the clipboard tucked under his arm.
Paige took matters into her own hands and handed him the first vase of flowers, took the clipboard, signed it, and took both vases back. The cat yowled, and the door slammed shut behind her. She turned to enter the house, but with her hands were full, she couldn’t open the closed door. “The door?”
The mellow delivery man of indiscriminate age just stared and nodded at her. “Yeah. Not sure. Don’t need to replace all of it. Just a board or two, some wood putty, filler, and stain.”
She sighed, handed him back one set of flowers, opened the door, and took the flowers back. “Oh, the card?”
“Right. Here’s my card if you want help on the house.” She showed him her hands were full so he stuck it into one of the vases of flowers.
“I meant the card with the flowers.”
“Right, well, there’s this thing with that.”
Paige waited. And waited. “And the thing is…”
“I love old houses. You can expand the porch this way.” He stepped up to what was left of the porch with broken rails and slanted roof. Then he stepped away staring up at the roof line.
“The card. For the flowers, you were giving me one.” Paige used every last bit of her upbringing to not scream at him.
“Right. Sorry. I’m filling in for someone. I really do woodworking. You see, I have all these cards.” He stuffed the clipboard back under his arm, pulled out a stack of a dozen cards, and fanned them in front of her. “Pick one.”
“Any chance you could pick it for me? Maybe one with this address or our names?”
“What names?”
“Linney, Paige, oh, it could also be Flee or Marilyn. Or even Smith or Myers.”
“Hmmm. I have My Sweet Love, Pookie, Sweetpea, and even Honeypot, but I don’t see any of those.”
“Really?”
He nodded.
“Okay, then pick one, and I’ll pretend it’s the right one.”
“Cool. Here you go.” He tucked it into the roses. “Just so you know, I might mess up on helping out with flowers, but I don’t with woodwork. It’s my thing, Linney Paige Flee Marilyn Smith Myers, whichever one you are.”
Paige looked at him. A man of indeterminate age, lots of facial hair, and a selective memory. She chose to just smile and let it all ride. “Got it. Call you for woodwork. Not too costly, are you?”
“Naw. If the house has good bones and the people have a good spirit, I don’t cost much at all. I do it for the art.”
Paige
saw a genuine smile with some intelligence to it. “What was your name?”
“John Bailey Kernstonberg, no relation.”
Paige had no idea who he meant and was beginning to doubt he was related to anybody in the area or even on the planet. “Thanks John.”
“Just call me Bailey.”
“All right, Bailey. Happy Valentine’s Day.”
This time, she made it all the way into the house and put the flowers down, one on some boxes, the other on the table near the entrance. She almost tossed out his card but decided to put his with the other business cards and wrote loves woodwork and odd on it, circling the word Bailey. She came back and circled the word odd, too.
The random card he chose for her read, “I should have told you this before. I love you, Valentine.”
The breath knocked out of her lungs. She stood, stock still and stared at nothing. Winky joined her and, for the first time, brushed against her leg. He smelled vaguely of tuna and roses.
“Could it have really come from Michael?”
The cat just purred his answer.
****
Paige broke from her reverie when her cell rang.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Flee!”
“Oh, Michael the flowers—”
“Might be…” Static. “…so, I will…” Static.
She stared at her phone and sent a text to no reply. The Wi-Fi worked but the cell reception remained flakey at best. The day was not going as planned. As for the evening, she wasn’t sure what it would hold, let alone with whom. She desperately loved the holiday and fate seemed to be against her. Rather than despair, she turned to tea and a snack to get her going.
Paige stepped into the kitchen. The vase of roses was spilled over, the buds trampled, in broken bits in a puddle on the floor. Winky sat up on the table, directly on top of the frosted brownies, and was leaning over eating the roses. He turned, meowed sweetly, and ran into the basement. She simply left the kitchen as it was and locked the basement door on him.
There was only so much weirdness she could handle, especially on Valentine’s Day. Every spot she saw in the house was makeshift. She craved clean. She craved normal. She craved an office job and work, moving tasks from inbox to done. It was close to crisis point for her.
A Paige in Cupid's Book Page 11
