Читать книгу Hot Date - Amy Garvey - Страница 9

“How’s it going?”

Grace looked up from the pile of books and china she was sorting in her room on Sunday afternoon and sighed at Toby. “Slowly. Celeste had serious pack rat issues.”

“You know you’re procrastinating, right?” He came in to sprawl beside her on the bed, dressed in old jeans and a faded Lucky Charms T-shirt. His feet were bare, and he hadn’t even put his hoop in that morning. “You could just carry all this stuff down to the basement and dump it. You don’t have to sort through it.”

She rolled her eyes. “Have you seen the basement? It’s already a fire hazard. I’m actually not joking.”

“Just don’t put it down in the shop. We already have more stuff down there than I’ll ever sell.” He looked morose, and a moment later he flopped on his back to stare at the ceiling.

“But there’s good stuff up here,” Grace argued, elbowing his thigh. “Take this, for instance.” She held up a delicate china cake plate decorated with a pattern of swans and scrolled white ribbon. “It would be a perfect wedding gift. You just don’t know how to merchandise.”

“Merchandise?” He sounded dubious.

“Group things together,” she explained. “Make displays. Remind people that antiques can be gifts, not just stuff for the mantel at home.”

He made a face. “Such as?”

“Well, start with this,” she said, and waved the plate at him. “You could create a wedding table using candlesticks, old lace, tablecloths, picture frames, a hundred different things. And then spruce it up with some white tulle and ribbons, so anyone looking at it would know what you were suggesting.”

“That sounds like work.” He closed his eyes and tugged her pillow out from under his head and laid it over his face. “I don’t want to work,” he muttered, his voice muffled.

She elbowed him again, harder this time. “Well, unless you’re independently wealthy and haven’t told me about it—in which case, hello, not very nice of you—I don’t think you have a choice.”

“Well, neither do you,” he argued, and sat up. “And you’re up here sifting through forgotten crap instead of figuring out how you’re going to get on with your life, so there.”

She set down the plate, mostly to resist the temptation to break it over his head. “I’m thinking about it,” she said. “There are a lot of things I can do, you know. I’m considering opening my own business.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Really?

She sat up straight, trying to look convincing. “Really. I’m just not sure what kind yet. But I’ll get started for real as soon as I have this place cleaned up and suitable for inhabitation.”

“So, roughly two years from now?”

“Shut it, you,” she said, but she was smiling.

“Seriously, Grace.” He twined one of her curls around his index finger. “I know you have…experience and all, but what kind of business could you start? It’s not easy, you know. And I don’t know if there’s much call for a kind of pastry chef slash part-time wedding planner slash almost photographer.”

She smacked him lightly on the arm. “There are other things I can do. It’s just…”

“What?”

“I want it to be fun.” She turned her head to look at him. “I don’t want to do something boring. This is my chance to figure out how I’m going to spend the rest of my life. Working as a bank teller or in real estate or something, that’s not…fun.”

“It’s work, Grace,” Toby said softly. “It’s kind of the anti-fun, you know?”

“It doesn’t have to be,” she argued. “This place could be a lot of fun, for instance. You just don’t see it.”

“You know what I see?” he said, twirling another piece of her hair between his fingers. “A business that got left to me because there was no one else. A business I never really much liked. And a guy in Boston who does sound like fun, if e-mails can be believed, and whom I’ll probably never meet because I’m stuck here in Wrongsville, with the business I don’t like.”

She wriggled her head away from him and sat up. “What guy in Boston? And do you really hate it here that much?”

“A guy in Boston named Charlie Costello, whom I met on-line, and who likes the blues and Thai food and bowling and works for the city planner’s office.” His eyes were dreamy and faraway. “And sadly, yes to question number two.”

“Oh, Toby.” She snuggled up to hug him, and he gathered her into his arms. It was a comfortable feeling, curled up together that way, a little bit like two shipwreck survivors, with the pale sunlight coming through the window and nothing to do but hole up together for the rest of the afternoon.

She held on to him, snuggled in so he could stroke her head, and then sat up so fast she bumped his chin, hard. “I know! You should go up to visit him! You haven’t met yet, have you? You could tell him you’re coming up on an antique-buying trip and set up a date, and stay a few days, and then you’ll fall in love, and—”

“Grace!” He was laughing, but he was also shaking his head. “I’m stuck here with the shop, remember?”

“No, you’re not.” She waited until he got it, and sighed when he didn’t. “I’m here! I can run the shop while you’re gone. Maybe a few days away is just what you need.”

He bit his bottom lip, thinking. “It’s definitely what my love life needs…”

“Do it!” She poked his stomach playfully. “You know you want to. And I’ll be fine here.”

“That’s where the plan seems a little dangerous,” he began, and she poked him harder.

“It is not dangerous.” She scrambled off the bed and held up her hand, oath-taking style. “I will not burn the place down, or succumb to con artists, or throw anything else out the window. Except possibly Nick, and only if he really pisses me off.”

“Grace.”

“I mean it, Toby.” She gave him her best persuasive smile. “It’s a chance. It’s a possibility. Take it.”

“It’s crazy,” Toby said, but he was grinning now, and he stood up to take her hands and swing her around the room. Since toppling over one of the stacks of accumulated junk was a sure bet, he danced her into the hallway and then scooped her up in a hug. “I can’t wait to e-mail him. Where should I stay? I don’t even know what I can afford.”

He turned into the cluttered mess of his own bedroom and stopped dead, facing her with a stricken look. “Oh, my God, there’s a huge problem.”

Her heart sank. “What?”

He spread his hands in surrender. “What the hell will I wear?”

This is crazy, Toby thought, seated at the desk in the office downstairs, e-mail open and a half-finished message to Charlie typed out, the cursor blinking at him patiently.

Completely, wildly, breathtakingly crazy. One conversation with Grace and he had a flight to Boston booked—thanks to a credit card he hadn’t managed to max out—a suitcase half packed, clothes flung all over his bedroom, and his ears were ringing with the buzz of adrenaline in his blood.

“This is stupid,” he muttered softly, reading over the e-mail to Charlie yet again. He’d managed to come off as desperate, overly enthusiastic, confused, and slightly pretentious all at the same time. “He’s going to think I’m insane.”

“He’s going to think you’re adorable,” Grace contradicted him, appearing in the doorway to the office with a smug grin and a glass of wine in her hand. “Here. Dutch courage.”

“Oh, yes, because drunk e-mailing is even more attractive,” he said with a groan, but he took the glass anyway.

“You’re not going to get drunk, silly.” Grace dropped a kiss on the top of his head and perched on the edge of the desk. “And I told you what to say! You’re coming up anyway, maybe the two of you could get together, very casual and breezy. If you’re right about this thing between the two of you, he’ll be thrilled.”

He turned his face up to hers, a sudden wave of nausea rolling in his gut. “And if I’m wrong? If you’re wrong?”

Her grin softened with sympathy. “Then you’ll get a trip to Boston out of it. Some free time. A little vacation from the shop. There’s no bad here, buddy.”

How could she say that? he wondered, turning back to the computer screen. What was most shocking, to him anyway, was that she believed it.

His skepticism must have showed on his face, because she leaned over to hug him, pure Grace, spontaneous and a little clumsy, knocking a pile of mail onto the floor in the process. “You need to do this,” she said kindly. “Take a chance. I am. And I’m not just taking off to maybe have a hot date, am I? I’m starting my whole life over. You can fly to Boston for a few days, I know it.”

The tension eased out of him in a gentle breath. She was right. He could do this. He would do this.

“You know I’m either going to thank you or curse you later,” he muttered, deleting the worst of his babbling e-mail and preparing to start over.

She laughed. “I’m counting on it.”

On Monday afternoon, Grace pulled Toby’s old Celica into the driveway after dropping him at the airport.

“Wish me luck,” he’d said as he headed toward the security checkpoint.

“I’ll go one better,” she’d called after him. “I wish you lust!”

It was sort of amazing what scandalized people these days, she thought now, jerking the parking brake into place and turning off the ignition. As if half of them weren’t home downloading porn off the Internet all the time, anyway.

Toby had reminded her that the garbage went out tonight and given her a list of two dozen other things to remember: the funny noise the refrigerator sometimes made, the customer who was picking up a little mahogany escritoire on Wednesday, and a casual mention of her painful death if she ate the rest of the Girl Scout Thin Mints stashed in the kitchen cabinet. She was going to have to hunt down another Girl Scout posthaste since she’d finished them last night after he went to bed.

But for now she would start with the garbage. She was outside anyway, and it was definitely going to take more than one trip after her purging spree. The sun was out, and it finally felt like spring, warm and soft with possibility in the air. Leaving her bag on the hood of the car, she marched back to the trash piled by the garage and gathered an ambitious armful. A small cardboard box of assorted sewing notions and rusty scissors slid off the top.

A bored female voice floated down from somewhere above her. “You dropped something.”

She looked up, craning her neck over the plastic bag of moth-eaten old clothes wedged on top of the pile in her arms. “I noticed. Where are you? Wait, who are you?”

“Up here.”

Well, that was helpful. Grace twisted around and caught sight of a teenage face framed by a dark, glossy pageboy in the next-door neighbor’s upstairs window. “Um, hi.”

“You’re throwing out a lot of stuff there,” the girl said.

“You’re quite a detective,” Grace said wryly. “Want to help?”

The girl seemed to consider this, then disappeared.

Was that a yes? Shaking her head, Grace trudged to the curb and dropped the bags. When she turned around, the girl was three feet away, her hands stuffed into the pockets of a loose pair of overalls as she waited at the foot of the driveway.

“Oh,” Grace said. “Great.”

“Quinn Barnett,” the girl said without offering a hand or even cracking a smile. “I live next door.”

“I gathered that.” Grace brushed her hands off on the back of her jeans and offered one to Quinn anyway. “I’m Grace Lamb, a friend of Toby’s. I’m going to be staying here for a while.”

Quinn stared at her for a minute and then shook her hand. Her fingers were like bird bones, delicate and almost brittle. “How come?”

Grace was so busy comparing this girl, all self-possession and cool disinterest, to the way she had behaved at Quinn’s age, that it took her a minute to process the question. “How come what?”

“How come you’re staying with Toby?”

Grace narrowed her eyes. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

Quinn shrugged. “What’s the point?”

“Good question.” Grace jerked her thumb toward the pile of garbage. “If you want answers, though, you have to help me out.”

Quinn trudged beside her without a word, even though she picked up only the small, fallen carton and a half-empty garbage bag. Still, half-hearted help was better than no help.

“So?” Quinn said as they walked back to the curb.

“I left my husband,” Grace told her. “Because…well, because. So I’m starting over. Toby’s one of my best friends in the world, and he said I could stay with him while I get back on my feet.”

“Did you quit your job, too?” Asked as if the idea of a housewife was a concept one only read about in books.

“Well, no.” Grace hefted her three bags and a broken lamp onto the pile for the trash men.

“You didn’t have a job?” Asked as if Grace had recklessly broken a sacred vow.

“Of course I did,” she snapped, and caught herself by clearing her throat. “I mean, I did have a job a few months ago, but it didn’t work out. So now I’m going to start my own business, right here in Wrightsville.” As if the plans were all made and she actually knew what she was talking about.

“Doing what?” Quinn’s eyes were as dark as her hair, and far too deep for a girl who looked barely more than fifteen.

“Gardening,” Grace blurted out, the lie coming far too easily. She resisted the impulse to fold her arms over her chest defensively. The kid was like a cat. She’d be able to tell right away if Grace showed even a frisson of fear.

“There are a lot of gardeners in Wrightsville already,” Quinn said thoughtfully.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I’m just saying.” The girl shrugged again, and after two more trips up and down the driveway, they were done with the garbage haul. “Toby lets me help out in the shop sometimes,” the girl said idly as Grace gathered her bag off the hood of the car and searched for the keys. “Like, if he has to run out for a while and there’s no one to watch the shop. Like today.”

Ah. Well, she could use some company. “You want to come in for a while?”

Quinn scuffed the toe of her boot along the cement and shrugged again. “I guess.”

Grace bit back a smile and ran up the front porch steps to unlock the door. Quinn followed, all disinterest and boredom again, but once they were inside, she helped Grace turn on the lights and flipped the sign on the door to the OPEN side. She trailed a finger along the chair rail as she slowly ambled behind Grace.

“Lived next door long?” Grace asked to break the silence. Toby needed a radio in here.

“Since I was about five, I guess,” Quinn told her as she followed Grace into the kitchen. “It’s a boring street.”

“It didn’t used to be when I was your age,” Grace said, and took two bottles of Diet Pepsi out of the fridge. “But that was mostly due to Toby and me, rather than the neighborhood.”

“Toby’s gay, you know,” Quinn said archly. She’d opened her soda and was examining the inside of the cap.

“Yeah, he pretty much figured that out when we were fourteen.” Grace sat down opposite her and opened her own drink. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“Of course not!” The girl looked insulted, and for the first time there was actually color in her pale cheeks. It was hard to tell if the blush was due to embarrassment or outrage, though. “I just didn’t want you to get your heart broken.”

Definitely embarrassment, Grace thought with a pang of sympathy. Seemed as though someone had nursed a little crush on Toby before she realized that girls of any kind weren’t his type. Grace had done the same thing herself, back when Toby still had his hair, and his lanky, gawky charm inspired her to kiss him down by the canal one humid summer night.

Of course, that was a long time, and a lot of kisses, ago.

Not that any of the boys and men she’d kissed had ever truly broken her heart, she thought, staring at the bottle of soda in her hand. Even leaving Robert hadn’t done that. Maybe because she’d never truly given it to him in the first place.

She raised her eyes to Quinn’s darkly serious ones. “My heart’s pretty sturdy,” she said softly. And wondered if she would ever have a chance to test that theory again.