Читать книгу Sparkle - Jennifer Greene, Jennifer Greene - Страница 12

A week from Thursday, Poppy came to work with her internal engine on rev. She’d been to a plastic surgeon in D.C. Actually, she’d seen a second one in Arlington, as well. And as soon as she’d poured a mug of sludge from the community caffeine pot, she tracked down Web.

She knew he’d be busy, just wanted to pin him down to a quick conversation later. It wasn’t as if they didn’t pass each other a zillion times during the average workday, but she didn’t want to discuss arrangements in public.

She heard his voice in exam room one and jogged there—yet ended up standing in the doorway without saying a word. Web was with a gorgeous golden retriever—and the retriever’s owner.

Pauline was thirty-something, buxom and brunette, pretty enough if you went for the poured-in-jeans type, and was batting her eyelashes at Web as if they were lethal weapons. Poppy had all she could do not to laugh.

All the women went for Web. He couldn’t help looking like a hunk, but it was still fun to watch an unwitting Roman being circled by a determined lioness. All Web had to do was smile at a female—any age, zero or ninety, and pretty words seemed to promptly spew from the woman’s mouth like bubbly sea foam.

Web, turning to examine the retriever’s ears, caught sight of her in the doorway and shot her a please-God-save-me! look. Poppy just heartlessly grinned. Maybe he could get the golden retriever to rescue him, assuming the dog wasn’t female and didn’t fall head over heels, too.

She finally caught up with him at lunch, more by chance than plan. Web usually took off at noon, but he had a patient coming out of surgery. Mrs. Bartholomew’s cat. The cat would have been just fine in the recovery cage, but Web was Web. Took better care of people’s pets than they did.

More to the point, about the same second Poppy remembered there was cold pizza in the lab fridge, so did he. Seeing him gave her the excuse to grouch about her last customer. A cocker. The owner only came to her because no one else in a three-county radius would handle the spoiled little snapper.

“But it’s not that,” Poppy groused. “The dog has every right to snarl and growl when it’s miserable. It’s just that I don’t get why they insist on owning a cocker when both of them like to tromp through the woods. It’s just not fair. She always comes back full of prickers and burrs, and you know how cocker fur is to brush…”

Web pretended to listen to this rant—he’d heard it all before—as he helped himself to his share of the cold pizza, the part with the mushrooms. Both dived for the stash of Dr. Pepper. Rain started dribbling down the windows. A serious storm was coming in fast, judging by the darkening sky. Poppy reached up behind her to flick on the overhead.

The so-called break room was really the lab. Blood tests and X-rays and other tests were isolated in one section, but the sink and dishwasher functioned for both. A microwave made it easier to eat inside on bad-weather days, and the cot-bed was used for anyone who didn’t feel good—or for Web when he was spending the night for a favorite patient, which, of course, he’d never admit to on his deathbed. The closet had lab coats and at least one change of clothes for anybody who needed them—primarily Web and her. A critical drawer to the left of the sink was reserved for life essentials: Heath bars, jelly beans, butterscotch buttons.

“So did you survive the soccer mom this morning with your virtue intact?”

“The soccer mom?”

“Don’t waste your breath playing innocent with me. You know I mean the one with the size-eight jeans squeezed on a size-twelve ass. The one with the retriever.” Poppy rose up yet again to reach for napkins, which neither of them ever seemed to remember before they dived into food.

“Pauline. And, hey, you saw I needed help. How come you took off?”

“Because she’s cute. And God knows she worships the ground you walk on. I thought you could use a little hero worship this morning. And it’s been a while since you’ve succumbed…I thought maybe you needed to get laid.”

Web sighed. And chomped down on more pizza. “You know way, way too much about my private life. Or you think you do.”

“What, was that a rash assumption? You don’t need to get laid?” she asked innocently.

“Not to or by Pauline. No.” For an instant she caught the oddest glint of light in his eyes. But it was probably just a reflection. The window view of the Shenandoah Mountains in the distance suddenly showed a scissor of heavy-duty lightning. “I don’t need to be hooked up with any more divorcées—or nondivorcées, for that matter—who think I’ve got money.”

“I hate to tell you this, cookie, but it was never your money drawing the girls. It’s your adorable butt.”

Web wasn’t born yesterday. He put up with so much and then shoveled it back. “You have a cute butt, too, but I don’t see you running around getting either laid—or married—all the time.”

She laughed, thinking that was just the thing about Web—why they worked together so well, why they talked together so easily. She’d been hurt in her relationships. He’d been hurt in his. The reasons for their respective disastrous personal lives were entirely different, but the point was that they could easily tease each other without fear of it being taken the wrong way.

Web was too good-looking to notice a woman with her physical appearance, besides, making it even easier to banter from their respective sides of the gender fence. After two divorces, Web was so antimarriage he might as well wear a sign. And she’d had it with men who assumed it was okay to treat her ugly just because she physically was.

“Hey.” That second piece of pizza had taken the edge off. Web was still diving in. A good time for her to bring up more serious subjects. “I need to ask you something.”

“Sure. Shoot.” Although he glanced at her warily. “You want me to haul in wood for your fireplace this winter, right?”

“No. Well, yes. But this is a little more serious. I need some time off.”

“You’re telling me this why? Your schedule is totally up to you. You sure don’t need my permission.”

“I know that, but…I need a little help.” Her tangle with the cocker had left her pale yellow sweatshirt fringed with cinnamon hair. Web’s theory was the same as hers, that a meal without animal hair would be like Thanksgiving without turkey—too unnatural to consider. But just once in a blue moon she’d like to stay clean for just a few hours. “I’m going to have a little surgery done. Nothing huge, but…I’m going to need a couple weeks off from work. And I’ll actually not be home for about three days. That’s the time when I’m worried about Edward—”

“That damned rabbit?”

“Edward is not a damned rabbit. He just has a little problem with anxiety attacks. You would, too, if a human had practically burned off your behind. But the problem is that no one can seem to feed him but me. And, I have to believe, you. And then there’s Snickers.”

“You don’t still have that cat,” Web said positively.

“Don’t you start on me, cookie. I couldn’t take him to the shelter. Who would ever adopt her? She’s blind in one eye and doesn’t have a nose. She’s almost beyond ugly.”

“When she first came in after the accident, you could have listened to me. We could have made the intelligent choice and put her to sleep.”

“You talk real big,” she said darkly, “but wasn’t it just last month you took in that scruffy, mangy, derelict-looking mutt—”

“Now wait a minute. That’s completely different. I’ll find a home for Blue. He just needs to be more recovered…” Web seemed to shake himself. They’d been down this conversational road dozens of times. Which she knew, and which was why she’d started it, to distract him. “Let’s backtrack five miles. You know I’ll take care of your godforsaken rejects, just like you’d take care of mine. So forget that. What’s this surgery about?”

“Just a minor procedure.” She glanced at the clock, then popped to her feet.

“Don’t give me that shit. What are you having the surgery for? You need someone to be there?”

“No, honestly. You know I have a dad and two brothers. They’d smother me with help if I needed it—and most of the time when I don’t.” She squished a little dish soap in the sink. There were only a handful of dishes to clean up, but too little for the dishwasher, and it was a sacred rule in the lab to leave no messes. “That’s why I asked you to help with the critters. I’d just as soon stay under my family’s radar. I don’t want them worried. Nothing to worry about.”

He scooped up the napkins and paper plates, suddenly quiet, as if he were making his mind up whether to change subjects. “You haven’t said anything about your crazy inheritance in a few days.”

“Well, I told you about meeting up with Bren Price. We’re night and day in personality, that’s for sure. But we’ll get along as far as figuring what to do with Maude Rose’s old place. And as far as the jewelry…”

Web was the only person she’d told about the legacy. Initially she thought she’d go with Maude Rose’s advice, enjoy the privacy of no one knowing about her nest egg. But Web was the exception. She trusted him. After working together for four years, she knew she could.

She trusted her brothers and dad, too, of course, but it wasn’t the same. Tell them anything, and for the next five hours she’d hear nothing but heated advice and orders and discussion. Web would just let her be. He was always good as a sounding block, but besides their mutual teasing, he never interfered in anything she did—any more than she would in his life.

“Ruby still hasn’t come up with a written appraisal, but he must have called a half dozen times. It’s kind of funny, really. I think he’s shook up about doing this right, wants to be sure he keeps us informed every inch of the way. He’s far more worried than either Bren or me.”

“Doesn’t sound like he’s used to handling gems like that.”

“He isn’t. He keeps saying. But he’s honest. That’s all that really matters. Even if we don’t have the appraisals down in ink yet, he’s given us both clear pictures of what the pieces are worth. And Ruby being Ruby, I know what he’s told us is conservative.” She rinsed the last dishes and then grabbed a cloth to wipe off the table—then saw Web had beaten her to it. “It’s just still hard to believe this is real. That a total stranger would suddenly give me something out of the blue. Especially something as overwhelming as this.”

“Every once in a while the human race comes through and does something decent.”

“I know, I know. But I had no idea she knew who I was.” She shook her head, then spun around to glance at the clock again. Their hips bumped at the sink. He glanced at her, but she was no more concerned by the physical contact than he was. The time, she saw, was two minutes to one. She still had to pee and wash her hands before the next client came in.

Web, though, seemed to amble right in front of the door and then park himself. “Okay, so we’ve covered that waterfront. Now back to the main event. What’s the surgery for, Poppy?”

“I told you. Nothing serious.”

“Good. Then there’s no reason you can’t tell me what it is.”

Sheesh. It wasn’t like him to pry. “It’s just awkward, okay? A personal thing.”

“So it’s about girl parts? I know this’ll shock you, but I knew that your half of the planet had girl parts before this. I was even married. Twice.”

“It’s not about girl parts. At least, not exactly. Sheesh, sometimes you are so full of it!”

“Hey.” For a guy who was tall and lean, he sure could block a doorway. “If it’s cancer, a serious illness, damn it, you say. Right now. Quit messing with me.”

“I swear it’s nothing like that.” She almost blurted it out, but then stopped herself. She had no fear of Web judging her. It was just that mentioning plastic surgery would draw his attention to her face. Make him look at her.

Web had never looked at her before—not really. Not personally. And they had a darn good working and friendship relationship going. Why put an awkward pin in that haystack?

“Web, I’ve got a mama bluetick hound waiting.”

There. The magic words to make him move. He had critters waiting, too.

Poppy went on with her day and put the conversation out of her mind, although she had the oddest thought. Her last clip was at three, then she figured on a quick grocery run before heading home. But maybe after that she’d stop by Maude Rose’s apartment again.

There was no reason to. The idea just stuck in her mind and then itched there. There wasn’t much to still discover in Maude Rose’s place, but before they did a final cleanup and sublet and got rid of Maude’s last things…well, it just didn’t seem right to move so fast. It was like letting an old lady disappear as if she’d never existed and never mattered to anyone.

Poppy just figured she’d stop by if she had the chance, that’s all.

Even though Bren ran from the van, the rain managed to curl and whip around her. Her raincoat was soaked by the time she pushed open the door to the Righteous Senior Home, and she was gasping—mostly from laughter. On a rotten afternoon, what else could you do?

“How are you, Mrs. Price?” The receptionist smiled warmly at her. “Your dad will be so glad to see you.”

“I know. I felt bad that I wasn’t here yesterday.”

“Well, almost no one manages to come every single day. He’s fine. You know we love him and take good care of him.” The receptionist glanced at her face, then quickly away.

Bren hung up her coat, almost reached up to touch her bruised cheek and then quickly dropped her hand and charged down the hall.

There were only two rest homes in Righteous. One was Peaceful Valley, where you could smell the urine before you even opened the door. Patients wandered the halls at all hours of the day and night, and the food was worse than baby pap. No one, obviously, went there if they had a choice.

And Bren would have had no choice for her father if it hadn’t been for Charles. The bland title of Righteous Senior Home didn’t do it justice. The place was immaculate. There were crafts and card games and church services and ice cream socials—something to do every hour of the day, and someone to coax even the most recalcitrant senior to do it.

Bren paused in the doorway to her dad’s room. Two paraplegics roomed together. Their choice. It gave them someone to talk to who had the same kind of problems—and the same interests. Both were addicted to chess, played via a computer screen. Her dad, Vane, still had use of two fingers, so he could click on moves that way, where his crony, Mr. Albertson used a wand between his teeth. When they weren’t playing chess, they were usually arguing politics with each other—occasionally to the point when they didn’t speak—for an hour or two.

Her dad’s hair had disappeared over the last two years. His bald head glowed like a target for a daughter’s kisses. She blessed him with one now and loved seeing his eyes light up. “Nice weather for ducks out there?” he rasped.

“Aw, heck. We need the rain.” She walked over to Mr. Albertson’s bed and gave him a buss on the cheek. “Aren’t you handsome today?”

“Aw, go on with you. Talk to your father. Make him see some sense.”

“Ah. We’ve been talking Middle East politics again, have we?”

She listened to the two of them bristle and expound for a few minutes as she brought out some creams from her bag. They took great care of her dad here. Far better than she could ever afford on her own—far better than Charles could have afforded for her.

But Charles had managed to get her father in the facility when they were first getting to know each other—weeks after the accident that took her mom and sister. Vane was still in the hospital at that time. She’d been seventeen, the only one in the family who hadn’t been in the accident, and she’d been so overwhelmed with grief and panicky fear that she’d had no idea what to do for herself—much less her dad.

Charles had. At nine years older than her, he was still a young minister back then, but he’d known the unspoken code in Righteous—that hospitals and health care facilities tried to pull strings for those who did selfless jobs in the community, like the priests and pastors and their families. So Charles had managed to get him in, and Vane had some disability insurance on top of that, so between the two, he’d had a darn near good life here.