by Steve Richer
“There’s no such thing…” He waited for her to finish the sentence, but she wouldn’t. As a perfect tenant. “Ali, do you trust her?”
“She’s sweet. She’s thoughtful and considerate.” And somehow Libbie Burchett seemed to pop up at the center of just about everything that was going wrong in Alice’s life right now.
Always there to offer support.
Always there to help.
To sympathize.
Always there.
“You want me to dig?”
She nodded. She wanted Walter to dig.
She wanted him to reassure her she was being paranoid.
She wanted to know.
Chapter 22
She couldn’t stay at the office that day. Everyone watching her. Talking about her.
If Walter had heard the ass-tearing Michael Tuckett had given her, then everyone else must surely have done so, too.
She knew what a cutthroat business this was. When Tom had left last year, they’d all been lining up to take his place. Like vultures, even before he’d officially left the company.
She could feel that now. One false move, and who would be first in line to sweep in and volunteer to relieve her of Mapleview? Lloyd Cooper? CeeCee Jonson? Even Jilly Tuckett? Michael had been scrupulous about not showing his daughter any favoritism but Jilly was thrusting and hard-working, and just waiting for her big chance.
Alice hated the paranoid turn her mind had taken recently. She’d never been like this before. She told Ruth she had a blood sugar issue and needed to be home. She could work from there. She hated using the diabetes as an excuse, but it was all she had right now. Sometimes you had to use all the tools you had at your disposal.
And she needed a change of scene. A change of atmosphere.
Sitting at home in the kitchen, she found herself staring blankly at her laptop screen. She really felt as if she were burning out.
She found the Deer Island figures. She had to put this right.
It was harder working with such big spreadsheets on a small screen, but she was glad she’d come home.
She should take a break. Make something to eat. She’d told Tom she’d get dinner, even though that was his job. He was the one with the flexible working pattern. And he was a better cook. But it felt like a principle thing. She could do it all.
She didn’t need him.
So he’d gone out to work in the yard. A principle thing, too, making the point that they didn’t need Rusty.
They’d get past this. They had to.
She stared at the screen, the columns of figures. Tried to piece together the steps she’d taken before to include this in the main report.
It was soul-destroying redoing work she knew she’d already done.
Her heart sank when there was a knock at the door, shattering her concentration. She ignored it. Tom was in the yard. He could deal with it.
Moments later a dark shape appeared at the kitchen door. A sharper knock.
She went to answer it. Libbie. Of course it was Libbie.
“Hi,” said the girl. “Sorry to disturb you. Are you working?”
Alice forced a smile. Seeing Libbie in the flesh, she felt instantly guilty for her paranoia earlier. The accusations she’d made to Walter. She remembered last night on the porch, the scotch.
“Oh, it’s fine,” said Alice. “I just brought some work home. I was feeling a bit rough. Blood sugars.” Repeating the lie.
“I hope it wasn’t the scotch!”
Alice smiled at their shared secret. It was strange how it seemed impossible to think anything bad about Libbie in her presence, but in her absence it became possible to doubt.
“What can I do for you?” Alice asked brightly. Perhaps too brightly.
“Oh, it can wait, if you’re working.”
“No, no. What is it?”
“I’m probably just being stupid, but I can’t work out the heating in the apartment. It doesn’t seem to be working. Perhaps Tom could take a look? He probably has more free time than you right now?”
“No, it’s fine.” She didn’t need to rely on Tom.
Outside, she pulled her cardigan more tightly around herself. The weather had finally taken a turn for fall, a chill wind whipping around the corner of the house.
“Oh, it’s cold!” Alice muttered as they paused at the apartment door. “No wonder you want your heating to work.”
The apartment temperature seemed comfortable enough, but if the weather stayed this way it was going to get cold soon.
Alice looked around. It was funny seeing someone else’s imprint on the place. The way it had subtly changed. Libbie had camera gear spread out over the dining table, as if she’d been cleaning lenses or whatever it was photographers did to maintain their equipment.
“Sorry about the mess,” Libbie said, as if following Alice’s gaze.
Libbie went across to where a big scrapbook lay on the table beside an array of lenses and swept it up into her arms. “A private project,” she explained. “Ideas. Plans.”
“That’s nice.”
Libbie smiled and went through to the bedroom to put the book away.
Alice went through to the kitchen. The heating unit was fixed to a wall between two cupboards. She checked the LCD display, trying to remember how the apparatus worked. It seemed to be okay. No warnings about pressure. No error messages. The timer seemed to be set correctly, too.
“How are things?” asked Libbie. “I don’t know how much you remember telling me last night, but I know things are tense between you and Tom.”
Alice glanced away from the unit’s display. She hadn’t drunk that much.
“We’re good,” she said. The thermostat seemed to be set correctly.
“That was quite a fight.”
Was it? Perhaps. But it was over. They were good.
She returned her attention to the display. “Aha!”
“You’ve found it?”
“That slider there.” She indicated a control at the side of the unit. “Somehow it had gotten flipped from Automatic to Manual, so the heating hadn’t come on.” She pushed it back to the Automatic position and instantly the heater roared to life.
“Oh, thank you so much. I know Tom would have fixed it too, but I’m so glad it was you.”
“Oh?”
“I mean. Well, single girl. Not that I mean anything by that, of course. It’s just, after that photo shoot…”
“The one with Marissa?” Instantly, Alice’s mind was racing. Libbie clearly hadn’t intended to say any of that, but now she’d started…
Libbie nodded. “He was asking earlier if I had any more work lined up with Marissa. I think he was hoping to assist again. I’m sure it’s nothing. He’s so helpful, isn’t he?”
“He can be, yes.”
“And the photos came out real nice. I was just sorting through the prints before I came to find you.”
Alice followed her glance, across to the table. The scrapbook had been resting on a card folder, from which a few prints stuck out a short way.
“That’s good.”
“I’m trying to pick the nicest ones, maybe leave out one or two of the more racy shots.”
Alice felt sick. “Can I see?”
“No.” She said it too quickly, and seemed to realize that. “I mean… it’s just a few silly pictures. Not interesting at all.”
But Alice had moved out of the kitchen to the dining area. She reached for the card folder. Slowly flipped it open.
The first photo showed Marissa leaning forward, hands on knees, pouting at the camera and showing far too much cleavage for a sixteen-year-old.
The next showed her kicking one leg out, her arms stretched high, a photo that emphasized all the lines and curves that this kid so unfairly possessed.
And the next showed her standing in Tom’s arms. She had one leg drawn up, the knee high, and Alice saw her husband’s arms looped easily around the girl’s waist. Every guy’s wet dream come to life.
“I’m so sorry,” said Libbie. “I didn’t mean you to see that. It looks far worse than it was. They were just fooling around. It’s harmless. Really it is.”
Utterly harmless. Seeing your husband with a nubile cheerleader wrapped around his waist.
Oh yes. Totally harmless.
Chapter 23
Tom knew Alice had come home from the office, but they’d barely even seen each other, let alone spoken, since her Ford Focus had pulled up by the house.
She’d said something about a headache and needing some peace and quiet, and that had been it. She’d settled at the kitchen table with her laptop and a look like thunder on her face.
Was she still mad with him for some reason, or had something happened at the office?
Now wasn’t the time to ask, so he left her to it.
He was still waiting for the next two transcription jobs to show up in his inbox, and normally when that happened he’d give himself some quiet time with the TV with a donut from Zak’s. Not today, though. Whatever was going on with Alice he didn’t want to add to her stress by breaking that peace and quiet she’d come home for.
He went outside. Found his way to the tool shed at the side of the house and let himself in.
It had been a while since he’d set foot in here.
He’d consider himself an outdoor type, but not the kind that rolled his sleeves up and got dirty. Hiking and mountain bikes, yes, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d fired that big mower into life. Gardens were… well, while it was Alice who always took the lead on interior décor, outside they’d always relied on someone like Rusty.
That damn kid!
How could he be so dumb? Okay, play out your fantasies on a computer. Tom had no idea what kids did these days with all the technology at their disposal. Porn on tap, and there was any number of things you could do with a graphics program.
But leaving it out in full view in his car like that? Jesus…
Rusty came across as a bit slow sometimes, but Tom had always put that down to his manner and awkwardness. He’d thought him smarter than that.
To his credit, though, the kid knew how to look after his tools. The smell of fresh oil in here was almost overpowering and that mower positively gleamed, it was so well-maintained. All the tools were lined up neatly on the workbench, or hanging from hooks. All the empty pots and boxes of fertilizer or whatever else gardeners used were perfectly arranged, any labels facing out.
Was that the sign of some kind of obsessive personality, though?
He shook his head and turned. Grabbing a lawn rake, he strode back outside.
He’d always thought he was a good judge of character, but right now his take on people was all over the place. Swinging from realizing how much he missed having Rusty around the place, not just for the work he did but for his lumbering-giant charm, and then finding ways to confirm his suspicions about the kid.
He started to rake at the leaves on the back lawn. The grass was still neat and trim from the last time Rusty had mown, but it was covered with a layer of red and golden leaves from the maples and oaks that surrounded this part of the property.
Every time he’d managed to drag a good number of leaves into a pile, a gust of wind scattered them. There must be a knack to this. A secret. Like getting someone else to do it.
“Hey, Mr. Granger. That looks like hard work. Doesn’t Rusty usually do that kind of thing?”
Rusty would do a job like this swiftly and efficiently. Of course he would.
Tom bit back on the resentment and turned. For some reason he’d expected the annoying reminder of his own inadequacy to have come from the ever-present Libbie. The voice hadn’t registered until now, when he looked up and saw Marissa Sigley.
Even though the weather had turned cold, she wore cutaway denim shorts and a floaty top that clung in all the places Tom didn’t want to be looking.
“Marissa,” he said. “Everything okay?”
“I’m good thanks, Mr. Granger.”
“But…?”
She shrugged and smiled, in a way that would get her what she wanted in almost any situation.
“Am I that obvious? My folks are out and they made me promise I’d decorate the house for Halloween, but you know what I’m like with heights… I actually came here hoping to persuade Rusty to come and hang the high-up stuff for me, but…”
“It’s a tough call,” Tom told her. “Carry on making a fool of myself trying to rake leaves in the wind, or spend some time in a warm house helping a neighbor.”
“Oh, Mr. Granger, thank you! My hero.”
He fixed her with a look and she laughed. She’d been joking. Marissa was one person whose measure he still had. While Alice and Libbie made digs about her having a crush on him, Tom knew Marissa was smarter than that. Maybe she did, a little, but he knew it was a game she played. She did it teasingly, knowing how others would see it. A bit of fun.
And right now it was something of a relief to let her play her games, have a laugh, and do something nice for someone.
He leaned into the tool shed to deposit the rake, smiling briefly at his concern that he might have put it back in the wrong place.
“Halloween?” he said, as they headed out to the street. “Is it really that time already?”
“I know, right?” She said it as a question, and for some reason that made him feel old. The kids even spoke differently these days.
He realized she was studying him closely. That made him stall for words, and that in turn made him feel like a prize fool. He remembered Alice’s—what were they? Jokes? Teasing? Accusations? The assertion that all guys had a cheerleader fantasy.
She’d joked more than once in the past that the only reason he followed the Browns was for the cheerleaders because you’d hardly follow them for their football, would you?
Marissa had said something, but he’d missed it, his mind wandering.
“What?”
“I said you seem quiet. Are you sure you’re okay to help out? I don’t want to get in the way if you have deadlines or such.”
He smiled. “Did I look like I had a deadline?”
She laughed again. She did that a lot around him, he realized.
“So, are you serious about modeling?” he asked. “I hadn’t realized until the other day.”
She shrugged, tossing her long blonde hair back as she did so. “Oh, you know,” she said, as if he’d have asked the question if he’d known the answer.
“You need to be careful. It’s a tough industry, from what I’ve heard. Easy to get exploited.”
“I guess. I haven’t really given it much thought. It just came up in conversation and Libbie said I was a natural. I kind of liked it. Weird, but cool, if you know what I mean.”
He didn’t, really, but he let it go.
“Would you do it again?”
“Are you asking?”
He laughed awkwardly, looking away. He hadn’t meant it like that and she knew it. Playing her games again.
When they came to the house, Tom saw that Marissa had already made a good start on the decorations. There was a giant inflatable pumpkin on the porch, bats and skeletons hanging in the windows, fake cobwebs sprayed around every pane of glass. Warning signs littered the front yard, and right by the path a fake hand appeared to be clawing its way out of the dirt.
“This is great,” said Tom. “I love it!”
Marissa actually blushed at the praise.
“So what’s left to do?”
“Inside,” she said. “I wanted to hang the ghosts and bats from the ceiling, but that means going up a ladder and, well…”
“Heights. I take it when you’re cheerleading you’re not the one they throw about from the top of the pyramid?”
“The flyer? No, I’m too big for that.” She kind of straightened up as she said this, and Tom had to look, reminding him of just how long-limbed and full-figured she was.
Damn. Maybe Alice was right. Maybe he was just like eve
ry other guy on the planet.
He cleared his throat. “Shall we… uh…?” He nodded toward the door, and then followed her into the house.
She already had a ladder out. Within minutes, he was up there stretching to hang fabric ghosts from the ceiling of the double-height den on hooks that were already in place from previous years.
“Be careful, Mr. Granger!”
“It’s fine.” He looked down to smile reassurance at her, and in that moment felt the ladder wobble. It was nothing, a split-second adjustment, but she’d seen it, and cried out.
“It’s fine,” he said again.
When he climbed down, she was there at the foot of the ladder, poised as if about to throw herself into his arms.
It was shock, he told himself. Nothing more than that.
“I… I thought…”
“I was fine. I was in control.”
He saw her frame relax, her shoulders dropping a little.
“Oh, Mr. Granger. I don’t know what I’d have done. You’re so cool about it.” A pause. A flitting of those blue eyes towards his and then shyly away again. “You’re so cool about most things.”
And in that moment, Tom realized he’d got it wrong again. His reading of people. Earlier he’d thought Marissa was the one person whose measure he still had. He’d seen through her knowing games, her teasing. He’d thought the flirting was just a ploy to put herself at the center of things.
He’d thought he understood.
But no.
She meant it.
As she looked at him with those big eyes, it was with an adolescent passion similar to how Rusty looked at Alice.
When Libbie had instructed her to think of someone she desired, back at the photo shoot, Marissa had looked at Tom. It hadn’t been a game. It had been an involuntary reaction.
She really did have a crush on him.
And right now the two of them stood toe to toe. Her eyes were on his, her body visibly tense again. For a brief moment, he let himself respond to all those triggers, to a girl who had become a beautiful woman, to the attention and desire, to the simple fact of being wanted.
He stepped back, bumping clumsily against the ladder.
