Lanie glanced to the right, and Jane caught movement from the corner of her eye, by the side door. Her inner sense of time said Lanie had been on the stage twenty-five minutes, and Angela said she had a half-hour show. She had probably gotten the five-minute warning.
"Getting back to Valentine's Day..." Lanie looked around the room, tipping her head to the side as if deep in thought. "Men think they are smarter than women, and women think they are smarter than men... But you know what I think? I think that hormones make idiots of us all."
Jane grinned, hearing laughter that certainly sounded like it came from both sides of the gender wars.
"Hey, equal opportunity harassment, you know? I'm all for equal opportunity, equal access, leveling the playing field. Because it's dang hard going for a touchdown when your front wheels keep getting stuck in ruts, y'know?" Lanie pivoted back on her main wheels and waggled the footrests. That got some shrieks. "You know, all this equal access garbage extends to every part of life. They have all these different programs for minorities, so no matter what your problem is, you can feel like you're just as good as everybody else. They even have music for those who can't sing." Long pause, until everybody was quiet. "They call it Rap."
Groans and chuckles from the audience.
"But really, I shouldn't make fun of Rap music, because before that we had Disco. I was never so glad I couldn't dance in my life." More waggling of footrests, more laughter, but Jane thought it was slightly thoughtful.
"Now let's get serious here for a few seconds, okay? I have some deep, world-shaking questions that have been sticking in the back of my mind for a while. Maybe you can give me an answer." She wheeled to the front of the stage and leaned forward, as if she would whisper to the front couple of tables. "I really need to know. Where is Old Zealand?"
That got her some wide-eyed, confused looks, and then some giggles.
"Just how grateful is Gerry Garcia now? And the most important question of all: If you kill Captain Crunch, does that make you a cereal killer?"
Lanie spun her chair around and zipped back to the curtain, accompanied by applause that almost shook the lights.
"You two need to talk," Angela said, and turned to include Kurt. "Jane has been busy with the renovations of her apartment, but now she needs to get to work on the shop. You're at the top of my list of recommendations, but if you want to stay there, you should discuss what she wants right away. We already have people lining up for their appointments, Jane. Not good to keep them waiting."
"Lining up?" Jane closed her mouth before demanding to know how anybody could know what her shop was going to offer when her first advertisement hadn't run yet. She suspected between the ladies at the Tattler who were setting up her first ad, the people she had talked to in town, and Angela working her own magic, her opening day was going to be a blow-out success.
"Appointments for what?" Kurt wanted to know. That little crinkle between his eyes made her think that he was still trying to place her from the orphanage.
Maybe her attempts to become invisible, before her Ghost talent awoke, had been more successful than she thought. Even when Kurt rescued her from the bullies, she wasn't memorable enough. She shook herself free from those thoughts and tried to describe the spa as simply and quickly as possible. Before Lanie rolled up to join them at the table, she and Kurt made arrangements for him to come by and look over the shop in the morning.
* * * *
Jane's apartment was decorated to her satisfaction, Spartan and open and clean, with warm colors on the walls and a pale blue ceiling streaked with swirls of clouds and even a few rainbow streaks near the windows, where she had sporadic strings of crystals to catch and fracture the light into more rainbows. She was especially pleased with the wide, low counters and open wire racks to hold her dishes and pots and pans. All her herbs had made the transition from Fendersburg without a single wilted leaf or broken stem, and she looked forward to transitioning them to a rooftop garden in the spring.
Now the time for arranging her nest was over. Time to focus on her shop. In the morning, Jane planned to finish taking the last of the brown paper out of the picture window so anybody walking by could see just what was going on. She might even unlock the front door, so anyone who was curious could come in—as long as they understood she wasn't quite open for business yet.
Several times in the last week, Jane had awakened in the middle of the night, heart pounding, fully expecting to find out her sweet, blissfully quiet life was only a dream—and in the morning she would go downstairs to her shop in Fendersburg and find Otis Hanson waiting for her with an engagement ring and the Justice of the Peace. She blamed the unsettled condition of her shop and the vagueness of the assignment from Reginald and Demetrius, to learn about the abandoned children who had stayed in Neighborlee and follow up on the children born to them, especially if they had married other abandoned children. What should she do with what she learned about them?
If she didn't dream about Otis imprisoning her in Fendersburg, she awoke from dreams of a voice calling her, whispering in words she couldn't quite make out. She woke with her heart pounding even faster than with the other dreams, a chill in the air around her bed, and oddly, a fading aroma of dampness and stone. She had that dream three times the night of her visit to the comedy club, and told herself to be grateful that Kurt was coming over in the morning to see about the renovations. No more hanging on the edge of the abyss, with a to-do list a mile long and no forward momentum.
Chapter Nine
Kurt showed up ten minutes early the next morning. Fortunately, Jane was eager to get out of her apartment and get to work, so she was dressed and waiting and had a pot of coffee and muffins from Hunky & Dory's waiting.
He was business-like and seemed genuinely interested in what she planned to do with the shop. He approved of the preliminary work she had done, simply getting to know what she had to work with—stripping paint and badly done, flimsy paneling, pulling up worn institutional carpeting, sketching floorplan ideas. He liked her tea parlor idea for the second floor. When she asked about installing an elevator for easier accessibility, he laughed in a nice way and pushed aside what she thought was just badly installed drywall to reveal an actual elevator—somewhere between an old-fashioned brass elevator and a cargo elevator in a warehouse—that went to all three floors. It turned out Kurt had helped with several phases of renovations in the Spindelmutter building, starting when he was in middle school. He knew her building far better than she did. He approved of her plans to strip the interior of the first floor down to the bare brick walls, and his approval made her feel so much steadier about all her plans. Or should she be worried that his opinion mattered to her?
Sure, Kurt had been her hero when she was in elementary school, but she didn't think she was hormonal or so unsettled from the move that she would latch onto him so quickly. By noon of their first day working together, they came to agreements on everything. She would have freestanding racks of raw wood and metal, and round metal racks hanging from the high ceiling on chains. Kurt made suggestions for where she could get the furniture she was looking for, and made checking the elevator—and fixing the doorways on all three floors—his first priority.
Over the next week, they worked together well, but it seemed like half the time she was out running around, picking up furniture and equipment and supplies. When she was in the shop, stripping paint or putting together shelving or unpacking another shipment of merchandise, Kurt was out, taking care of other jobs. Not that she thought he manufactured any excuses to avoid her—unless he thought she was making up excuses to avoid him? Then, during the short periods when they were in the shop together, she constantly turned around and found him watching her.
She couldn't figure out why. It wasn't the "checking out the goods" look she was used to in Fendersburg. She had developed a thick enough skin from warding off Otis and his idea of suave that such looks ran off like rainwater. Kurt didn't frown when he watched her, like someth
ing about her bothered or irritated him. The tendency toward blankness in his gaze made her think he was concentrating so hard that he didn't realize he had been caught. What could he be concentrating on?
Kurt joked about having an unofficial date after they pulled out of the alley behind the building at the same time and he followed her all the way over to the community center, Eden II. Both of them were going to the grand-reopening. The former factory building had been partially closed down, with limited access, during the cleanup from all the "weirdness" that occurred during the New Year's Eve lock-in overnighter. Over the weeks since then, as the investigative teams and the police had cleared the various affected rooms, the building had been gradually opened for use. After all, there were vital town functions that couldn't be shut off, especially during the winter, when the town's youth depended on indoor sports activities. A daycare center worked out of Eden II. During kinder weather, the children could be out all day, on the playground and visiting the library. Winter in Northeast Ohio didn't tend toward kindness, however.
Gina, the director of Eden II was having an official grand re-opening party tonight. Jane had taken breaks from the stripping—and airing out the shop—and putting together furniture to assemble goody packets to give away and promote the spa. Such things as tea light-sized samples of aromatherapy candles and one-dose foil packets of scented hand cream.
According to Gina, about four times the usual number of patrons came to the grand re-opening festivities, just from curiosity and because of all the publicity from the New Year's party. People wanted to see where Pamelia fell through the ceiling and Sylvia's body was found. So Jane gave away everything she brought with her and got a lot of good publicity and generated interest outside the boundaries of the town for her own grand opening.
She was excited to be meeting most of the residents of Neighborlee, almost enough to ignore the fact that the only victim from the weirdness turned out to be one of her childhood nemesis, also one of the notorious Gladstones. Sylvia Gladstone had been gone from Neighborlee a few years now, making some kind of name for herself in Hollywood. Jane wasn't going to ask what kind of name, but she could guess. She was displeased to learn that Sylvia's two jerk cousins, who were usually her henchmen in childhood tormenting games, were still in town. One was trying to make a name for himself as an architect and the other was working for the main legal firm in town, Carr, Cooper and Crenshaw.
Four days before the spa's grand opening day, Jane walked down the street to the Neighborlee Tattler to pay for the ad she had discussed with the advertising department more than two weeks before. She spent nearly an hour, sitting with the advertising and circulation people—twin sisters, Martha and Matilda—talking about her shop and her plans for the future. She signed up to have a rack inside the front door of the spa during the winter and spring to dispense papers, which gave her an automatic discount on all future advertising. The sisters made her feel like she had been adopted, and served her quite possibly the best coffee cheesecake she had ever tasted.
Assured that she had made two good friends and reassured she had chosen the best possible town to live in, Jane continued down the street. If everything went as Martha assured her, she would be too busy to explore her new home for at least a month after opening day. Better to get it done now, while she had time.
Kurt was busy finalizing the lighting for the shop and Jane didn't care for the feeling of his gaze fastened on her, the pressure of his focus resting on her for the rest of the day. With the threat of another storm approaching town, this might be the last day of nice walking weather she would have. A stop at Hunky & Dory's, then the bakery, then a visit at Divine's Emporium. After that, she would follow the inclinations as they hit.
* * * *
Penny Miller was waiting in front of the door when Jane came downstairs Saturday morning for her first day of business. With her red hair in ponytails, her freckled face free of makeup, in faded jeans and a navy WBC sweatshirt, she was a picture of wholesomeness Jane didn't quite trust. Not at first glance anyway.
"Miss Angela sent me," the girl said before Jane could open her mouth to ask what she wanted. She shrugged and handed over a business card with Divine's Emporium written out in calligraphy, the D and E oversized and surrounded with big swoops and curls until they were almost illegible. On the back, Angela had written an introduction and recommendation for the girl.
Penny Miller, age fourteen, lived in Cherry Cottage at Neighborlee Children's Home. Just like Jane had, when Demetrius and Reginald had found her.
"Well, if Angela vouches for you..." Jane shook off the shiver that raced up her spine, the suspicion she was being manipulated—or things were just a little too convenient. This was Neighborlee, after all. And she had agreed that Angela could send over girls who needed work. "Think you can handle the phone and the appointment book for me?"
The girl's big grin was reward enough for Jane.
Ten minutes later, as people started streaming into the spa like bees drawn by the honey of her "Grand Opening" sign, Jane was grateful. Penny knew everybody in town, greeted everybody with a "sir" and "ma'am" and whispered bits of information about each person before they approached Jane with a question. The girl listened avidly as Jane explained the properties and benefits of her massage oil and facial mud, mousse and gel, hypoallergenic makeup and herbal teas. When Jane was busy with her first chair massage of the day, she heard Penny repeating everything she had heard, word for word, even using the same inflections. The girl even handled several sales without asking for help.
Before she quite knew it, Jane looked up from her fifth chair massage and realized it was past noon. The traffic had slowed down to a steady trickle, but there were still three people wandering around the shop, reading the signs in front of the makeup and health food racks, and four more who had watched the last massage and wanted to make appointments for table massages next week. Jane gestured for them to wait a moment, pulled her tips out of the appropriately labeled stained glass bowl, and beckoned for Penny.
"Where's your favorite place for lunch around here?" She shoved the handful of bills into the girl's hand before Penny could answer. "Get double of the best thing on the menu. We've earned a celebration." She winked at the girl, who grinned, snagged her parka from the row of hooks by the door and dashed out, ponytails flying.
Jane said a silent prayer of thanks for Angela's help and her smart choice in sending Penny, and turned back to her customers.
"That Penny Miller's a good girl. Glad you hired her. She deserves a break," Mrs. McGuillicutty said, nodding.
"I think I'm going to miss her on Monday when she's back in school," Jane said with a sigh. "I almost feel guilty wanting her to put in a couple hours after school, but she's such a big help already."
"Thea Alcott does a good job with all her girls. When they become sophomores, there's usually a waiting list of businesses here in town, wanting to hire them. You're lucky. Now, this here brochure of yours says massage is good for the lymph system. What all is a lymph system?"
When Penny returned with their lunch, most of the customers had made their purchases or appointments, or both. Jane rang up the last sale, watched the college girl walk out the door, and dropped down onto her stool behind the counter with a gasp and a chuckle.
"One fifteen and I already have to restock. Who would have thought it?" She took a quick glance through her inventory program in the computer and scribbled notes on the stock items that were flashing, so she could pull the items from the storage room, and then turned to Penny. "Okay, I hope you brought a feast. We earned it."
To her surprise, Penny had brought salad wraps full of chunks of freshly grilled spiced chicken, fruit flavored mineral water, and potato salad. Jane had expected triple-decker burgers, extra-large shakes and greasy fries or onion rings. Maybe this kid wasn't as normal as she looked. What teenager ate sensibly?
"Great choice. I'm not paying you nearly enough, which means you're getting a raise," she said, be
fore taking a huge bite of the wrap. Jane moaned as spices filled her mouth and she crunched through the lettuce and bean sprouts, peanuts, cabbage and carrots.
"Um, Miss Wilson, how much are you paying me?" Penny asked in nearly a whisper.
"Well, let's see...employee discount of forty percent. First look at all the clothes we get in." Jane laughed when the girl's eyes lit up. She thought she had seen Penny give longing glances at the workout clothes, the leggings and wraparound skirts, shawls and vests. "All your meals while you're working. And eight dollars an hour."
Penny choked on her mouthful of mineral water.
"Not enough?" Jane handed her a napkin.
"I'm just a kid, and not full-time or anything, and that's way more than the minimum wage."
"You're worth it. Already, I don't know how I'll manage when you're in school."
Jane loved that bright smile the girl gave her, and the certainty she could trust her and be trusted by her. Penny Miller was an orphan, and Jane vowed she'd make sure her new assistant had all the help she could give. This early, she didn't have the right to get involved in Penny's life, but as they became friends and she made a place for herself in the community, that would change.
Helping one teenager find her place in the world and her path in life had to be far more worthwhile than babysitting the idiots in Fendersburg, right?
Lanie came by the spa at the end of the day, rolling up to the door and popping her front wheels up to get up the shallow, deep step of the front door as Penny was scurrying to leave. She had to be back at NCH for something they were doing that evening—Jane wasn't quite sure what it was, only that Penny was excited about it. She looked up from the crate of loofah pads she was unpacking for a display on a shallow-shelved display rack she and Penny had assembled. Penny and Lanie exchanged grins and comments. Of course. Lanie had been a teacher before she broke her back, plus being a former resident of NCH. It was logical for her to keep in touch with the children in town, especially the residents of the orphanage.
Hero Blues Page 13
