Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You (v1.2) (14 page)

“Yes, sir,” Quinn said, not wanting to get into a long conversation concerning Alfred Taite’s idea of what his niece needed.

His next stop was the offices of D & S. Maisie greeted him with her usual big smile, even as the reception area was crowded with at least a dozen suits in various stages of meltdown.

“What’s going on?” he asked, leaning over the desk.

“The board of directors of Swindale Memorial Library,” Maisie told him, still successfully avoiding all the many eyes trained on her in what appeared to be increasing fury. “They want us to guard their art exhibition but can’t seem to get it through their heads that we aren’t a nonprofit organization. They want us for nothing. Zilch.
Nada.
Grady has decided to take a profit. They’re back this morning to take another shot at him, and he’s keeping them waiting. How’re you, honey? You’re looking good enough to eat, as usual.”

“I’m doing fine, thanks,” Quinn said, keeping his own back turned to the angry board of directors. If they knew he was a partner in D & S they’d be on him like white on rice. “So he’s in? Really?”

“Really,” Maisie told him, sitting back in her chair, ready to punch at the telephone, which had begun to ring. “But you didn’t hear it here, okay?”

He found Grady in the conference room, stretched out on a massage table, stripped to his waist, with a gorgeous young thing bending over him, working his back muscles.

“Are you supposed to do that with a separated shoulder?” he asked as he slammed the door behind him, making Grady jump.

“Damn it, Quinn, don’t you know how to knock? I was just beginning to relax.”

“Yeah, well, this happens,” he told him, signaling for the massage therapist to leave the room for a few moments. “We ‘ve got a problem. Or we did. We don’ t now. I resigned from the Taite case this morning.”

“You did what?
Ow!”
Grady grabbed at his shoulder as he pivoted to a sitting position. “I know she’s a stick, Quinn, one of the Rich and Repulsives, but is she really that bad?”

“She’s not a stick.” The moment Quinn uttered the words he knew he’d made a mistake. His friend was much too quick on the uptake.

Grady cupped a hand to his ear. “What? What did you say? No, I couldn’t have heard that right. You’re defending the little heiress? Now, why, I’ve got to ask myself, would my good friend Quinn be defending the lady—
and
handing in his resignation from the easiest job he’ll ever find? Could it be? Is it possible? Ah, be still my heart.”

“Put a sock in it, Grady,” Quinn gritted out, flinging himself into a nearby chair. “I’m off the case, not off the job, if you must know. But it’s getting personal, and I can’t ethically take money now that it’s personal.”

“Personal? Oh, more, more. I want details, Quinn.
How
personal is it?”

“Personal enough that I can’t reconcile myself to being paid for chaperoning her, or whatever you want to call it.”

“I can think of many things I want to call it, old sport. What do
you
call it?”

Quinn scratched the side of his head. “I don’t know. But I’m interested. She’s interested.”

“Interested? All right, we’ll go with that one. You’re both interested. Which means, naturally, that you’ve not only found Miss Taite but you’ve been in personal contact with her. How personal? Never mind, we’ve already been there, right? That’s what these pain pills will do to you. So you’re going back to East Wapa -whoositz to see what happens?”

“She’s looking for a fling, Grady, pretty determined to have one, I think,” Quinn told him, not really happy that he believed what he was saying. “At least with me she’ll be reasonably safe.”

“What a man. So sacrificing, so very
giving.
You know, that might have worked, except I’ve
seen
her, remember? You’re not making any great big sacrifices here. And then what? You let her have her mad, passionate fling with you, then walk away as she gets tired of the game, goes back to her cushy mansion—and her fiance, remember?”

Quinn’s jaw muscles tightened. He stood up and pushed back his chair. “I always walk away, Grady, remember? It’s what I do.”

“And what if she falls in love with you? What then, Quinn? What if you fall in love with her?”

“That isn’t going to happen. You just keep holding down the fort and consider me on vacation, okay?”

“You’re not by chance staying somewhere called Heartbreak Hotel, are you, Quinn?” Grady asked as he slowly lay back down on the massage table. “Because if you’re not, you might want to think about it. Now call Ginny back in here if you please, so that I can lie here and decide if you’ve resigned from the case so that you won’t feel like a rat, or if this leaves you free to be a rat.”

Quinn left the door open when he brushed past the massage therapist and headed for the door. Grady’s soft laughter followed after him. He didn’t really care. He just wanted to be back in East Wapaneken in time for lunch.

Shelby had never considered shopping an adventure. But that was before she’d gone shopping with Brandy.

With Brandy, shopping was more of a “search and destroy” mission, as Shelby had learned as she followed behind her friend and a metal shopping cart as, together, they took on TJ.Maxx.

Brandy could wheel between crowded aisles, her eyes boring like lasers into the racks, picking and discarding with the precision of a berry picker sorting out rejects. “Yup. Nope. Wrong color. Oh, this is good. Come on, let’s check out the clearance racks.”

Shelby followed along, remembering well-appointed showrooms, complimentary glasses of champagne, clothing being brought to her rather than the other way around.

And clerks. Shelby remembered clerks. Helpful clerks.

“Where are the clerks?” she asked as Brandy played a quick game of chicken with a woman who’d dared to push a cart toward her as she was already halfway down an aisle.

“Salespersons,” Brandy corrected. “I’m in employment, remember? We don’t call them clerks anymore. It’s demeaning.”

“Sorry. So, where are the salespersons? I mean, what if I want to try something on and it’s the wrong size?”

“Then I schlepp out of the dressing room and get you the right size, silly. The only salespersons you’ll see in this place are cashiers. How do you think they keep the prices so low?”

“I hadn’t thought about it, actually,” Shelby admitted. “Although they probably are saving quite a bit of money in not carpeting the floor. Or cleaning it very often.”

Brandy pulled out a black summer sweater that was more of a crop-top, held it up to Shelby , nodded, then tossed it into the cart. “You’re not getting this, are you? Shopping, that is.”

“Am I buying that?” Shelby asked, eyeing the sweater. “And no, I don’t think I am. Getting this, that is. It’s just so… so
alien,
somehow.”

“Ah, poor baby,” Brandy teased, patting her cheek. “All this not being waited on hand and foot must be a real pain. Can I get you a cookie?”

Shelby pulled a face. “Very funny. And let me see that sweater.” She reached into the cart, realizing that she was worried about a price tag for the first time in her life. Trying to read the tag was like deciphering Greek. “I don’t understand. There’re stickers all over it.”

Brandy took hold of the tag and began pointing. “This is the price it should sell for, and this is the price you pay. Or the price you would have paid, except it’s on clearance, so you pay what’s on the top red sticker.
Comprende?”

Shelby looked at the tag again, then grabbed the sweater, checking the brand name in the neckline. “But… but this is… my God, Brandy, what are designer labels doing in a place like this?”

“What do you care? You’ve just saved sixty bucks. Right?”

“Right,” Shelby said quietly, then smiled. “I can get shorts, too, can’t I?”

“Shorts, tops, anything your little heart desires. Even shoes.”

“Shoes?” That was it. Shelby was in love. She stood on tiptoe, actually sniffed the air like a hunting dog going on point. “Where?”

An hour later, Shelby was the proud owner of the black sweater, three more midriff-hugging cotton tops, two pairs of denim shorts, and two pairs of sneakers, one red, one white. And she still had enough money in her pocket to buy some socks.

Ah, capitalism.
She had a whole new understanding of the concept.

The hour she and Brandy had spent in the discount store had flown by, and Shelby panicked when she looked at her watch, realizing that she had to be at Tony’s in a half hour. “Today’s going to be really busy, Tabby told me. Actually, she said Saturdays are the pits, but I think I’ve translated correctly.”

“You did. We’ll hit McDonald’s drive-through,” Brandy told her reassuringly as they pulled out of the parking lot. “You have eaten at McDonald’s, haven’t you, Shelley?”

“Will you hate me if I say I haven’t? But I have heard of it. That counts, doesn’t it?”

“God, girl, you’re
so
deprived. Nothing but artichoke hearts and caviar. Poor baby. Next time I’m wishing I was rich and famous I’m going to remember that I’d probably never get any more Mickey D French fries. That’ll cure me. So,” Brandy said, dropping Quinn into the conversation without bothering with subtlety, “did he kiss you? We left you alone out there in the hall so he’d kiss you, you know.”

Shelby busied herself rearranging the seat belt strap, as Brandy’s way of driving one way while looking another was a little unnerving. “We just went bowling, Brandy. It wasn’t even a date. Not really. Was it?”

“If he didn’t kiss you, then I guess not. Bummer.”

Shelby sat back against the seat, remembering how Quinn had looked at her for a long time as they stood outside the door to her apartment. How he had actually put out his hand, begun to reach for her, then stepped back, said he’d hoped she’d enjoyed the evening. As if she were poison or something. “Yeah,” she said as Brandy pulled into McDonald’s parking lot “Bummer.”

Her disappointment faded soon enough as she munched on French fries that did things for her palate pheasant had never been able to do. “These are delicious,” she said, her mouth full, her hand reaching into the bag for more. “I can’t understand how I’ve lived this long without them.”

Brandy reached over and patted her on the shoulder. “Ah, grasshopper,” she said, her voice heavily accented, “the tings I will show you, the tings you will leam.”

What Brandy showed Shelby next was how to weave in and out of three lanes of traffic while holding a soda cup in one hand and eating a hamburger with the other. But they arrived at Tony’s in time for her shift, which had to mean something. Not much, Shelby decided, having believed they were going to die at least three separate times, but something.

As she was climbing out of the car, Brandy leaned over and said, “Oh, did I tell you? We’re going miniature golfing tonight. The four of us. Gary arranged it all with Quinn last night, although he didn’t bother to tell me until you’d gone to bed. And please don’t tell me you’ve never played miniature golf. That’s putting only, in case you didn’t know.”

Shelby thought about her bowling scores. Thought about the 238 Quinn had rolled—the showoff. Thought about the silver cups and plates she’d won at the country club. The big silver punch bowl had been for last year’s contest on the putting green, she remembered proudly. And then she smiled.
Putting, huh?

“Oh, yes, Brandy. I’ve played golf, not that we have to mention that to Gary and Quinn. Well, this is going to be interesting. What do you say we make it you and me against the men?”

Brandy looked at her assessingly. “You’re that good?”

“Good, Brandy? Oh, I’m better than that,” Shelby said confidently, grinning as she pushed the car door closed and headed off to work. At her job. Her very real job. In the very real world. Where she was having herself a very real adventure.

And, tonight, damn it, she was going to have a very real date or know the reason why!

Tabby slid two plates in front of Quinn and whisked off to take someone else’s order. He looked down at a steak sandwich large enough to fill an entire plate, then at the mound of French fries on the other. And he figured it out. If he continued to eat three meals a day at Tony’s for the next month, he’d weigh three hundred and fifty pounds. Conservatively. Which was why he had restarted his old habit of taking an early morning run before his morning trip to Philadelphia , purely out of self-defense.

Mrs. Brobst and Mrs. Fink entered the restaurant and called out cheery hellos to everyone before seating themselves at their usual table. They looked like wrinkled toddlers in orthopedic shoes, but the twinkles in their bright eyes were those of teenagers out on a spree. They both wore flowered straw hats on their gray heads and carried pocketbooks you could have packed for a long weekend.

“Afternoon, sonny,” Mrs. Brobst said to Quinn, who returned the greeting.

“How’s the car running today?” he asked, thinking about that really cherry ‘67 Caddy that, in Mrs. Brobst’s hands, was more of an assault weapon with whitewalls.

“Fine, just fine. Hit a squirrel yesterday as we were leaving, didn’t we, Bettyann? That’s one little gray monster who won’t be eating any more of my birdseed. Doesn’t pay to play chicken with me, young man, and so I told Bettyann. You remember that next time you’re out running in your undies and you see us coming as you cross the street. Now eat up before it gets cold; don’t bother about us.”

“That’s true enough,” Mrs. Bettyann Fink agreed happily. “You’re much too
old
for either of us anyway. And those aren’t undies the boy wears, Amelia, they’re running shorts. Told you that. Honestly, if you don’t get that hearing aid checked, I’m going to go hoarse, screaming at you.”

Quinn hid a grin behind his napkin, adoring the two old ladies and their love of life even as they both headed toward their nineties.

Yes, he was getting to know the other customers in just these first few days, by sight if not all of them by name. Of course, he did know more names than Shelby did, because this was a woman who was beautiful, intelligent, remarkably hardworking—but a woman he had decided couldn’t remember more than two names at any given time.