Читать книгу Love - From His Point Of View!: Meeting at Midnight - Maureen Child - Страница 14

The next day, Manny came over for lunch. He dropped off the paint we’d chosen and some painting equipment, then helped Seely move the furniture out of the living room.

I can’t explain how I came to agree to this. Slippery, that’s what she is. She started out by acting as if I’d already agreed. I recognized this trick, since Annie used to pull it. She’d get me to agree that music is important, mention that she wanted to spend the night with a friend, then pretend that meant I’d agreed to let her go to a concert in Denver with that friend.

When I explained Annie’s teenage tricks to Seely, she looked thoughtful and said she really needed to meet my sister. The next thing I knew we were discussing paint colors.

I did protest. She wasn’t being paid to paint my house, for God’s sake. And I couldn’t help her. She wouldn’t have let me, for one thing. I couldn’t pretend it would be unreasonable to forbid me to paint the living room, so I was bound by our agreement.

But that did not make it reasonable for her to do it, either. I asked if she’d ever done any painting.

“Not a lick,” she’d said cheerfully. “We’ll pull the couch into the middle of the room. You can lie there and supervise.”

Sage green. That’s the color we ended up with.

I sat on the couch with my bad leg stretched out, and scowled as Manny and Seely carried the last of the chairs into the dining room. Supervising didn’t suit me nearly as well as everyone seemed to think.

“You sure you don’t want me to help with the prep?” Manny was asking her as they rejoined me. “Or move the rest of the junk out?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in my direction.

“I’m sure I can work around the couch.”

“Wasn’t talking about the couch.”

Seely’s lips twitched.

“Manny thinks he’s a wit,” I mentioned. “You might not be able to tell, since his face muscles atrophied years ago. That’s the only expression he’s got.”

Manny has an evil chuckle, like a machine gun misfiring. He employed it as he headed for the front door, advising Seely in between bursts not to let me give her a hard time. He paused in the arched entry. “Meant to tell you—that doctor called this morning.”

“What doctor?”

“The one that put you back together in the E.R.”

“Oh,” Gwen said. “The idiot.”

Manny fired another couple of bursts. “That’s the one. He seemed to think you’d hurt your shoulder a few days ago instead of when you drove off a mountain. Wanted me to confirm that.” He shook his head. “Weird guy.”

“Yeah.” I frowned as Seely walked Manny to the door. Harry Meckle was weird, but he wasn’t really an idiot. Just the opposite.

The doorbell rang. I heard them talking to someone else at the door and reached for my walking stick.

“Stay put,” Seely called. “It’s just a delivery.”

I sighed and put the stick down. A moment later I heard the door shut, then she came back into the room carrying a box. “I like Manny. I wish you’d told me, though. I’m afraid I stared at first.”

“What? Oh. That’s right—you hadn’t met him in person.” In addition to being a pain in the butt, a master electrician and the best foreman I’ve ever had, Manny is a dwarf. “I didn’t think about it. To me he’s just Manny.”

She handed me the box, treating me to that slow smile. “Not ‘Manny the dwarf.’ Just Manny.”

“Well, yeah.” The logo was printed in the corner, so I knew what it held. I didn’t want to open it now. “You know how it is. Once you know someone, you don’t see them the same way.” I decided to give her a hint. “There should be a screwdriver in the toolbox. You’ll want to remove the switch plates first.”

“I was hoping for a tool belt.” She bent and rummaged through the toolbox. “I’m sure I’d feel more competent with a tool belt.”

My lips twitched. Picturing a tool belt slung around those thoroughly female hips didn’t make me think of competence.

Seely ambled over to the entry and began unfastening the switch plate there. “You like to read, don’t you? I noticed that your bookshelves are heavy on history.”

It turned out that Seely enjoyed history, too, though she was a slow reader. A mild case of dyslexia, she said, made a book a major investment of time for her. She considered herself lucky, since she’d been diagnosed early, and talked about a teacher who’d helped her. When I asked, she claimed paramedic training hadn’t been too hard. It might take her a while to read something, but, as with many dyslexics, she had an excellent memory.

Though she usually leaned more toward historical fiction than the straight stuff, she asked if I could recommend something on American history “without too many battles,” since she was more interested in people than military action.

I did, of course, and invited her to borrow my copy. By then she’d finished taping off the woodwork and was prying open the paint. She poured it into the pan. “Oh, look! Isn’t that luscious?”

I looked. She’d taken the drapes down already, so light from the two tall windows flooded the room. The old pair of painter’s coveralls I’d found for her completely obscured that glorious figure; her exuberant hair was braided tightly away from her face.

Which glowed. Not in an unearthly way, though. With pure delight. “Luscious,” I agreed.

Maybe I did know how I’d ended up agreeing to let her paint the room, after all.

As she spread great, sweeping strokes of sage green across my walls, I found myself telling her how I’d come to enjoy reading so much. I didn’t miss the architectural career I might have had; the hands-on business of construction suited me. But abandoning college before I could get my degree had nagged at me, as if I’d drawn most of a circle and never finished that last arc. So I’d started reading the kinds of things I thought would complete my education. In the process, I discovered a taste for history.

“It’s full of great stories,” she agreed, stepping back to survey her work. The roller work was almost done; next came the nit-picky brush work. “Daisy says we have to know where we come from to understand where we are.”

“Your mother sounds like a bright woman. You missed a spot up by the ceiling in the west corner,” I pointed out politely.

She glanced at me over her shoulder. “You’re enjoying this.”

“Who’d have thought it?” I shook my head in amazement. “I never tried sitting around watching someone else work. I like it.” Especially when she bent over and the coveralls stretched tight across her round, lovely bottom.

She’d ordered me to stay on the couch. I doubt she was thinking about me making a quick tackle, then rolling her onto her back on the drop cloth. I was, though. Never mind that I’d probably have passed out if I’d tried. It was just as well that our agreement kept me from pitting common sense against the irrational optimism of lust.

Seely got the spot I’d pointed out, then stretched…an inspiring sight. “So what do you think? Will it need a second coat?”

I made myself take a good look at the walls. “Hey,” I said slowly. “This looks good. Really good.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” She put her hands on her hips, surveying her work. The streak of green paint along her jaw curled up at one end, as smug as her smile. “Though I still say red would have worked, the green looks great. Refreshing.”

She’d brought me some paint chips to choose from that morning. I’d held out for a lighter, warmer shade than she wanted, being more familiar with translating the way a color looked on a tiny chip to an entire room. “You were right about the room needing color.”

“Well!” Her eyebrows rose. “A man who can admit he was wrong. Color me amazed.”

“You have brothers,” I muttered. “Or used to. You probably murdered them and buried the bodies.”

She let out a peal of laughter. “Watch it, or you’ll end up with a green nose.”

“To match yours?”

She lifted a hand to her nose. The bracelet she never removed slid down her arm. “It isn’t…”

“It is now.”

“I must look like a little girl who’s been finger painting.”

“No,” I said slowly. “You look like an uncommonly beautiful woman. Only slightly green.”

The smile she turned on me was different. Hesitant.

“Why have you never married, Seely?”

Her smile faded, as if it were on a dimmer switch and I’d just turned it down. “You’re changing the rules on me. Feeling safe, are you, over there on the couch?”

My heart began to pound. I didn’t have to figure out what she meant. “Not safe at all. You?”

She shook her head and bent to get the narrow brush I’d told her to use around the baseboards. She took the brush and the paint tray over to the window and settled on the floor, giving me plenty of time to wonder why I’d suddenly taken us both into the deep end.

Because I wanted her to know, I decided. I didn’t want her to have any doubts that I was interested, even if I couldn’t do anything about it yet. I wanted her aware of me the way I was aware of her.

I wanted an answer to my question, too.

For a while, it didn’t look as though I was going to get it. She seemed totally focused on the strip of wall she was painting next to the baseboard. At last, not looking up, she said, “I lived with a man for several years. His name was Steven. Steven Francis Blois.”

I chewed over that for a moment, then offered, “There was a king of England named Stephen Blois. William the Conqueror’s grandson.”

She snorted. “Oh, yes. Every time Steven was introduced to someone he’d say, ‘no relation.’ When they looked confused or asked what he meant, he’d grin and add, ‘to the former king of England, that is.’”

She bent and dipped her brush in the paint. “It was cute the first dozen or so times I heard it.”

Sounded like she wasn’t hung up on the man anymore. Encouraged, I said, “Stephen wasn’t much of a king. Weak. The country was torn apart during his reign—barons chewing on other barons, eventually civil war.”

“I don’t think Steven knew or cared what kind of a king his namesake had been. He wasn’t interested in history.” She chuckled. “Actually, he was an accountant.”

“An accountant.” That sounded safe and dull. Of course, a builder might sound pretty dull, too. “Doesn’t seem like your type.”

“Do we have types?” She studied her handiwork, then shifted to touch up another section. “I thought he had an open, inquiring mind. He was very New Age, you see. Into meditation, drumming, psychic stuff.”

Had he given her that chakra bracelet? I frowned. “Doesn’t sound like any accountants I know.”

“But he was still looking for rules, you see. Pigeonholes instead of answers. He didn’t think outside the box—he just used a different set of boxes.”

“So you’re not still stuck on him?”

Now she looked up. “I told you about Steven because you asked why I’m not married. While we were together, I took that commitment very seriously. We were involved for six years, and lived together for five. But it ended with a fizzle, not a bang. That was over two years ago.”

Steven Francis Blois must be a fool, to have had this woman for six years without marrying her. But maybe he’d wanted to get married. Maybe, for all her talk about taking the commitment seriously, she hadn’t been interested in taking that last step. “So, was it you or him who thought living together was a good idea?”

Her lips twitched. “Something tells me you don’t think much of living together without marriage.”

“It isn’t a moral thing for me. I just, ah…” Couldn’t think of a tactful way to put it. Well, I’d warned her I was blunt. “It’s always struck me as half-assed.”

She didn’t seem offended. “I take it you’ve never lived with anyone. What about marriage? Why have you never taken the plunge?”

“Uh…”

Her eyes lit with amusement. “Ben. You did open the subject for discussion, you know.”

I guess I had, though that hadn’t occurred to me when I blurted out my question. “I was serious about someone in college. Didn’t work out. After that…well, for several years I was too blasted busy. Felt as if I had to set a good example—couldn’t very well tell Charlie and Duncan how to act if I wasn’t being responsible myself. And Annie. Lord.” I shook my head. “I don’t know how single parents do it. I didn’t have time for much of a social life. Or the energy.”

She made a listening sort of sound, and resumed painting. “Annie’s the youngest, right? She’s been an adult for a while now.”

“I wasn’t in a hurry to get tied down right away, once Annie went off to college. I guess I got out of the habit of thinking about marriage. It seemed like there was plenty of time.”

“I imagine you were due a spell of blissful freedom. You’d been shortchanged on that when you were younger.”

“By the time I started looking around…” I shrugged my good shoulder. “It’s been suggested that I’m too picky.”

She paused in her painting. Her eyes were serious when they met mine. The blue seemed darker, subdued, like a pond shadowed by trees, hiding what lay at the bottom. I wondered if she was thinking about Gwen and the child we shared. “And are you looking now? Is marriage what you want, Ben?”

“I’m forty years old.”

She waited, letting her silence point out that I hadn’t really answered the question.

I grimaced. I had opened the subject. “I want marriage, yeah. Kids to fill this old house with noise, skateboards, dolls, friends. Younger brothers or sisters to give their big brother a hard time. And a woman to share those kids with me.” Someone who’d clutter the bathroom with female paraphernalia, and sleep beside me at night. Someone who would stay.

Her smile flashed, but somehow it seemed off. “Those skateboarding kids will turn into teenagers, you know. Your experience with your brothers and sisters didn’t put you off?”

“It wasn’t so bad. And maybe I learned a few things.” I’d had about all the serious talk I could take. “What kind of teenager were you? Wild or studious? Not shy,” I said definitely.

She chuckled and dipped her brush again. “Not studious, either. Though I wouldn’t say I was wild, exactly—I couldn’t bear to worry Daisy, so I didn’t go too far. But I didn’t have much sense. Is there anyone in the world as sure of themselves as eighteen-year-olds?”

We traded stories of our teenage days for a while. It looked as if she’d be able to finish up today, which wasn’t bad for someone who’d never painted a room before. Of course, I’d helped a little. It didn’t hurt my shoulder or my knee for me to sit on the floor and paint the strip next to the baseboards. Seely had argued some about that, but eventually she’d seen reason.

She was on the stepladder tackling the section next to the crown moldings by the time I figured out what was nagging at me.

Seely seemed open and outgoing. She swapped funny stories about growing up and spoke cheerfully about her eccentric mother. She’d told me about Steven, who I guess had been the one big love of her life.

But she’d never said which of them had preferred living together to marriage. She hadn’t said anything about why she’d moved out, either, just that it happened two years ago. Yesterday she’d admitted to being angry with her father, but hadn’t told me the man’s name, or anything else about him. And she’d implied that anything weird I’d seen that night on the mountain must have been the product of shock.

Slippery.

Seely Jones was a much more private woman than she seemed. I could respect that, and yet…I glanced uneasily at the unopened box beside the couch.

Last year I’d gone wireless when I got a new laptop. It didn’t have to be hooked up to anything to connect to the Internet. So, on my first night home from the hospital I’d ordered several books on-line, paying to have them overnighted. I probably could have gotten them, or something similar, from the bookstore on Fremont Street. Susannah would have boxed up my order and dropped them off, if I’d asked.

Or I could have gotten books from the library for nothing. I’d known the head librarian since I was five. Muriel would have looked up my card number, checked the books out to me and brought them by.

But anyone who knew me would have been startled by my current choice of reading material. I didn’t want to explain. I didn’t want anyone speculating about my sanity, either. I was doing enough of that.

Finding myself in the company of Harold Meckle, M.D., was a nasty shock, but like I said, he wasn’t really an idiot. Just a jerk. Some of the things that happened on that mountain didn’t add up, not using any of the normal ways of calculating reality.

“That bracelet you wear,” I mentioned as I finished the last bit I could reach. “Did Blois give it to you?”

She didn’t turn around. “Why do you ask?”

“You said the little stones were for, uh, chakras. And that Blois was into New Age stuff.”

“Daisy gave it to me—her version of a ‘sweet sixteen’ present.”

“She’s into chakras?”

“Among other things.”

I decided not to press for more. Not now. I’d gotten one solid answer—Blois hadn’t given her the bracelet she never seemed to remove. That was something. Far from all I needed to know, though. Maybe I’m too stubborn for my own good. I’ve been told that more than once.

I wondered what Duncan would say about the request I planned to make the next time I saw him.