Читать книгу Evening Stars - Сьюзен Мэллери - Страница 9

Chapter Three

THE ART OF The Perfect First Kiss. Averil Stanton paused to reflect on the headline, then shook her head. No way. California Girl magazine catered to girls, ages thirteen to nineteen. Talking about a first kiss was too limiting.

She continued to stare at the screen, then tried again. Every First Kiss is Different. Better, she thought. Because there was always a new first kiss. At least for them. Once you got married, the odds of a new first kiss were slim. So was the chance of a new first anything. Though she wouldn’t share that with her readers. They were young and hopeful and why depress them?

She paused to sip her tea. Not that she wasn’t happily married, she thought. Kevin was great, and she loved their life. She lived six minutes from the Pacific Ocean, in Mischief Bay—an eclectic Southern California beach town. She had her work and her friends and—

“Stop it,” Averil said aloud, then slammed her laptop shut and stood. She crossed to the window and stared out at the view of the side yard. It consisted of little more than the neighbor’s fence and the recycling bin, but was apparently more fascinating than her work.

She couldn’t focus, she thought grimly. Couldn’t write. Whatever was causing this was happening more and more. In the past few months, she’d turned in every article closer to deadline. Her boss hadn’t said anything, but Averil knew she would eventually. Digital content had to be produced regularly, and if Averil didn’t step it up, there were a hundred younger hopefuls ready to take her place. The print version of the magazine only came out once a month, but the online presence needed daily updates.

She walked to the battered armchair in the corner and dropped onto the mashed cushion. Maybe she should go see her doctor. Vitamins might help. Or hypnosis. Lately nothing had felt right. She was restless and couldn’t say why. Uneasy without a cause.

She glanced outside again. Maybe a run would bring her out of her funk. She’d already exercised that morning, but a run on the beach might clear her head. Or she could go to the mall and—

“Averil?”

She looked up and saw Kevin standing in the doorway to her small office. After dinner she’d excused herself, saying she had to work. Something she was doing more and more, she thought. Disappearing to her private space, only to realize she still couldn’t focus, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything.

Now she saw there was a tightness to his face. She came to her feet. “Are you okay?”

“I decided to sharpen the knives in the kitchen.”

Her gaze dropped to his hand where a fresh bandage covered his middle finger. “Is it deep?”

“No. It’s fine. But while I was looking for a bandage, I found something else.” He stepped more fully into her office and held up a small, round, plastic container. “We’d agreed to start trying for a baby, Averil. Why are you still taking birth control pills?”

Averil felt instant heat on her cheeks as she instinctively looked for a place to hide. Or a way to escape. As Kevin stood between her and the door and she wasn’t willing to try leaping out the window, she was trapped.

“It’s not what you think,” she said loudly, even as she knew it was. “Having a baby is a big decision. You can’t expect me to get pregnant just like that. It’s not fair or reasonable.”

She tried to stop the words, knowing they could come back to bite her in the butt later. Because Kevin was nothing if not fair. They had talked...endlessly. For weeks and weeks. They’d made lists of the pros and cons and had mutually agreed it was time to start their family. Only she couldn’t seem to stop taking the pills. Every morning she told herself she was ready, and every morning, she carefully swallowed the next tiny pill.

“You’re still on birth control.”

He made the words a statement, but she nodded anyway. She braced herself for the fight, but instead of saying anything, he turned and left.

Averil stood in her office, trying to steady her breathing, wondering what would happen now. Finally she went down the short hallway and into the other spare bedroom. The one he used as his office.

He sat at his desk, the disk of pills next to his keyboard. He wasn’t typing, but he didn’t look up at her, either.

She’d met Kevin six years ago. She’d been in her senior year of college. A journalism major, sent to report on a street fair in Mischief Bay. Not her usual assignment. Averil had been the go-to reporter for her college newspaper, accustomed to hard-hitting stories on criminals or cover-ups. But one of the junior reporters had flaked out, and she’d agreed to fill in.

She was just pretty enough to be used to a lot of male attention. Tall and blonde, which made her practically an indigenous species on a California beach. She’d been taking notes and shooting pictures, when a guy had approached her.

He’d been kind of cute, about her height, skinny, with the intense look of someone with more intelligence than the average man-on-the-street. He’d held out her camera bag and said, You left this on the bench back there.

She’d smiled and thanked him, then had playfully asked, Are you going to hit on me now?

He’d shaken his head. No, but I will tell you that you shouldn’t use autofocus in this setting. It’s letting in too much light, and you’ll lose contrast in the scene.

An unusual response. She’d studied him more closely, taking in the gold flecks in his brown eyes and shape of his mouth. He’d lacked the deep tan of a surfer—no surprise there. Engineer, she thought. Or computer science major.

You do like girls, right? she’d asked.

He’d smiled at her, then. A slow, sexy smile that had made her toes curl in her Keds and caused the noise around them to fade into the background.

I’ll take the pictures, he’d said, reaching for the camera. You make your notes.

I’m writing an article for The Daily Bruin. She paused. That’s the paper at UCLA.

I know what it is.

You’re out of college?

Yup. Just got a job at a software company here in Mischief Bay. He’d slipped the strap around his neck and started making adjustments on the camera. I went to MIT.

Smart, great smile and he had a job. Things were looking up. I’m Averil, she’d said.

Kevin.

He hadn’t hit on her, but he had asked her out. It had been three dates before he’d kissed her and nearly four months before they’d had sex. The day after she’d graduated, he’d proposed. She’d said yes to him and a full-time job at California Girl magazine.

“About the pills,” she said, stepping into his office.

“You said you were ready. You said you wanted to have kids. Have you changed your mind?”

“No. It’s just...” She took a step forward. “There’s a lot going on.”

“What’s going on now that isn’t going on all the time? We’re settled in the house, we have money in the bank. You have your job and your novel. What are you waiting for?”

She wished he hadn’t mentioned the novel. The one she was supposed to be writing. The one that was little more than a few notes and a hundred and forty-seven false starts. Saying you were going to write a novel was easy. Actually writing it—not so much.

“I’m feeling pressured,” she said, hearing the defensiveness in her voice and not liking it. “It’s so soon.”

“Our fifth anniversary is in a few months. It wasn’t exactly a shotgun wedding.”

“No, but...”

He looked at her then, his brown eyes filled with what could only be betrayal. He looked as if she’d cut out his heart.

“Kevin, no,” she breathed as she started toward him. “I’m—”

He waited. “You’re what?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Nina told you to wait, didn’t she?”

Averil had to hold back the overpowering need to stomp her foot. “You always bring up Nina. Why do you hate my sister?”

“You know I like Nina a lot. I bring her up because she’s always with us.”

“That’s ridiculous. She’s a thousand miles away.”

“No, she’s not. She’s the voice in your head. You talk to her every day for weeks until you two have a fight, and then you complain about her every day until you two make up. She’s the opinion you care about most.” He returned his attention to his computer screen. “It’s never you and me making a decision. It’s always the three of us.”

She wanted to tell him he was wrong, but he wasn’t. Her and Nina’s last blowup had been about three weeks before, and they hadn’t spoken since. Funny—Averil couldn’t even remember what they’d been fighting about.

She looked at Kevin. She could feel his pain. He wanted more, and as much as she wanted to give it to him, she couldn’t. The problem with Kevin was that he saw her as more capable than she could ever be. But how was she supposed to tell the man in her life to expect less of her?

“I need more time,” she told him. “Please, stop pressuring me.”

She waited, expecting him to say that asking her to keep her word wasn’t exactly applying brute force, but he only nodded.

“I love you,” she whispered.

He looked at her then. “Sometimes I’m not so sure.”

* * *

The next morning, Nina woke without the alarm. One of the perks of a Saturday morning. She’d had a restless night. While she’d avoided the brownies calling her name, she’d given in to the wine. Worse, she’d dreamed of Dylan on and off. Probably the result of seeing him and then watching The Day After Tomorrow.

She would guess that most women remembering a breakup went for a more classic romantic comedy or a movie that would make them cry. She would have, as well, but it was right after seeing The Day After Tomorrow that Dylan had broken up with her. She’d been making a point on global warming, and he’d announced he wasn’t going to be coming back to the island on weekends anymore.

Now the shots of ice and snow were firmly linked in her brain with the pain of losing the only man she’d ever loved. In her pathos, she’d noticed that the sheer size of the storm had matched the vastness of the emptiness filling her heart. Dylan had filled so much of her world, and now he was going to be gone.

All this time later, he was back. Not that it was going to be an issue for her, she told herself as she sat up and stretched. It wasn’t as if he’d sought her out. Their meeting had been completely random. Even on an island this small, she was unlikely to run into him very much.

For the best, she thought, standing by the bed. She would simply—

“Crap. My car!”

She’d never called Mike about it. Never asked him to tow it to his shop and start work on it. All because she’d been distracted by a handsome man from her past. Dylan had a lot to answer for.

She glanced at the clock and saw it was nearly eight-thirty. Which meant Mike’s repair shop had been open for an hour. Saturdays were busy for him, and she was pretty sure someone else would have gotten the beat-up truck that was his loaner car.

She walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone. Mike’s business card was one of a dozen held to the refrigerator by a tacky magnet designed for the tourist trade. No surprise to anyone, Nina’s mother collected them.

Mike answered on the third ring. “What?”

“It’s Nina Wentworth.”

“Hey, listen, I’m good but I’m not that good. I’ll get to it later today. I’m guessing the fuel injector, but I mean it. That’s a guess.”

Nina blinked several times. “Excuse me?”

“Your car. That’s why you’re calling, right? You’re not going to try to sell me any damn magazine subscriptions, are you?”

“What? No.” She walked over to the kitchen table and sat down. “My car is there?”

“Sure. I got a call yesterday just before closing to go pick it up. I had Benny drop off the loaner last night. You telling me you don’t know about this?”

She stood and walked into the living room. As she looked out the front window, she saw a battered pickup in the driveway.

Dylan, she thought, unable to believe he would have bothered. But there wasn’t another explanation.

“I, ah... Thanks, Mike,” she said. “I’m sorry to bother you. Let me know when it’s ready and I’ll be in.”

“Sure thing. Probably Monday. You can come on your lunch break.”

“Sounds great.”

She hung up, more than a little confused by what had happened. She checked the window again. Yup, there it was. The loaner.

She put down the phone and walked into her bedroom. She had a mile-long list of things to get done today, and none of them had involved mulling over an old boyfriend. Dylan had been nice. That spoke well of his character. The fact that she didn’t want him to be nice was her own issue.

* * *

By nine-thirty, Nina had arrived at Blackberry Preserves. As it was a Saturday, she changed the sign to read Open—not that she was expecting many customers. It was too early in the season for a lot of tourists, and locals tended not to browse on the weekends. She flipped on the light switch by the door, then walked through narrow pathways to the office in the back. After tucking her purse into a desk drawer, she turned up the heat and started a pot of coffee.

In theory, the shop’s inventory was supposed to be computerized. In reality, more than half the stock moved in and out without ever being accounted for. Bonnie’s buying trips were done with cash and accounted for with mostly handwritten receipts. Nina had known that one day she was going to have to tackle the problem, but she’d been putting it off as long as possible. And that was going to continue, she thought, returning to the front of the store.

To the left, old wooden shelves held an impressive collection of vintage lunch boxes. Everything from Hopalong Cassidy to early Batman to My Little Pony. Some were battered and worn, but others looked as if they’d never been used at all. A couple still contained their thermoses.

Bonnie loved lunch boxes because children were generally happy. That was her actual logic. She bought the lunch boxes to share her joy in that fact with others. The knowledge that they collected more than they sold didn’t seem to bother her.

Three large display cabinets held figurines of all kinds. Lladro and Hummel, along with those from more obscure artists. Even as a kid, Nina hadn’t liked the tiny statues. She’d always thought they were watching her with evil intent. The same with the antique dolls. But the vintage clothes were fun. They were dusty and smelled funny, but she and Averil had enjoyed playing dress-up.

She walked to a rack of ball gowns from the 1940s. She’d loved dancing around, a rusty tiara on her head.

You be the queen and I’ll be the princess, Averil had told her.

Nina had resisted, saying there could be two princesses. Even at nine, she’d understood that being the queen meant taking responsibility. All she wanted was to escape for a few minutes. But Averil had been stubborn.

You’re my queen, Neenie. You’ll always be the queen.

She touched another dress, remembering her sister claiming she could tell whether or not the wearer had been happy simply by the scent of the fabric. As everything smelled dusty to Nina, she couldn’t decide if her sister had been telling the truth. But Averil would only wear castoffs from happy people and carefully inspected all new inventory.

Nina supposed that everyone had strange memories from his or her childhood. Hers were about pockets of chaos followed by blissful periods of calm. Bonnie had been big on love, but not so much on structure. If there was no one to watch the girls, she thought nothing of taking them out of school for weeks at a time when she went on her buying trips.

When Nina turned twelve, she informed her mom that she was old enough to be left alone. She’d been armed with a list of reasons why she should be trusted by herself, but Bonnie had simply agreed with her. The following year, Bonnie had deposited Averil in her care, as well. She’d made sure the house was stocked with food before she headed off. There was money in the drawer and the checkbook. Nina had been faking her mom’s signature on checks for years, so paying the bills wasn’t a problem.

Nina paused by a desk lamp that Bonnie swore was genuine Tiffany and touched the smooth, colored glass. Memories lurked in this store, she thought. Hiding in corners like dust bunnies. As she couldn’t figure out how to get rid of them, she avoided them and this place. Which probably explained why Tanya had stolen. There was no one watching her.

The front door opened. Nina tensed, wondering if Dylan would be stopping by. She’d phoned to thank him for his help, but her call had gone directly to voice mail. She still wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or relieved.

But he wasn’t the one who walked in. Instead, it was a well-dressed woman with short, dark hair. She was about five-five, with dark blue eyes and a wide smile.

“Are you Nina?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Great. I’m Cindy Yoo. I’m here about the job. I saw it online last night, and I’m very interested.”

In reality, shutting down the store made the most sense. Unfortunately, that wasn’t Nina’s decision to make. She didn’t feel prepared for an interview, but they had to hire someone.

“Thanks for coming by,” she said. “There are application forms in the back.”

Cindy withdrew a folder from her large leather bag. “I brought a copy of my resume, along with several letters of recommendation.”

Nina took the papers. “That’s very professional of you,” she said slowly. As far as she knew, no applicant had ever come in with a resume before.

“I’ve got coffee going in the back,” she said, motioning to the open doorway. “Want some?”

“Sure.”

Cindy followed her into the office. Nina cleared a stack of invoices off the spare chair, then poured them each a cup.

“Black is fine,” Cindy told her, then reached for the mug.

Nina poured her own and settled behind the desk. “I didn’t know the ad had gone up already.”

“I was online checking when it popped up.” Cindy smiled at her. “I’ll just say it. I don’t have retail experience, but I’m open to learning.”

“It’s not a complicated business,” Nina murmured, studying the other woman. She didn’t know all that much about fashion, but she would guess Cindy’s clothes were expensive. Her bag seemed to be real leather, and her wedding band was a row of sparkling diamonds.

Cindy pointed to the folder. “I can get more recommendations if you need them. I’m very excited about this opportunity.”

Maybe a little too excited? Nina opened the folder and studied her resume.

Cindy had graduated with a degree in history from a university in the San Francisco area. From there she’d become a secretary in a law firm. Four years later, she had been a paralegal in the same firm. That had been followed by a move to Seattle, where she’d done more of the same.

Behind the resume were a half dozen letters of recommendation. All glowing. Each had a phone number and a vow that he or she would hire Cindy back in a second if she was interested.

“Impressive,” Nina said, then looked at her. “I’m looking for someone to run the store. It involves managing inventory and selling to customers. I can’t help but think you’re overqualified.”

Cindy clutched her mug in both hands. “To be completely honest, I really need this job. My husband is a few years older than me. I’m his second wife. Our children just left for college. One is at MIT, the other is at Stanford.”

So it was a money thing, Nina thought, able to relate to that.

“My husband is Korean. My mother-in-law, while a lovely woman, has a very traditional interest in the life of her only son. Apparently his first wife was also traditional. Perfect, according to my mother-in-law, chosen by the family. She died and he fell in love with me.” Cindy paused. “Have you heard about the Tiger Moms?”

Nina frowned. “I think I read a couple of articles. They’re focused on their children succeeding.”

“Multiply that by a thousand and you’ll understand what I’m dealing with. I’m never good enough, and while she doesn’t come out and say it, I’m certain her daily prayers include me being dead.” Cindy flashed a smile. “Or at the very least, having her son come to his senses and kick me out.”

“That could be uncomfortable.”

“Yes, it is, and she’s coming to live with us.” Cindy swallowed. “This week. He’s helping her pack right now. I want to be nice to her. But to keep myself sane, I need a job. A place where I can go and think about something else. A place to pour my energy. I swear, I’m highly motivated to learn everything I need to know.”

Nina felt her concerns melting away. “You don’t have a criminal record, do you?”

Cindy’s eyes widened. “I assume that’s not a prerequisite?”

“No. Our last employee stole from us. We wouldn’t have known except she went to a local pawn shop to fence our property.”

“The pawn shop on the island?”

“That’s the one.”

Cindy leaned back in her chair. “Seriously, that’s just dumb. But lucky for you. As to the question, no. I’ve had two speeding tickets and that’s it. I’m a good person. Ask anyone.”

Nina grinned. “Except your mother-in-law.”

“Right.”

Nina handed Cindy the application. “I’m going to check inventory while you fill this out.”

She left Cindy in the office. She would ask Sam at the sheriff’s office to run a background check on Cindy, then call a couple of references. If that worked out, she was going to hire the woman and consider herself lucky to have found her.