Tell Me More (16 page)

“Oh, I have someone to do my investments for me,” she murmured. “How’s Patrick?”

“Fine.” I’d tried. What more could I say?

“Poor Patrick.” She sighed. “He won’t make anything of himself. I’m so worried about him.”

“But you’re divorcing him.” I knew no one could judge a relationship from the outside. I knew I was unfairly biased toward Patrick, but I thought briefly of wrapping that wonderful hair around her throat and squeezing it tight. “I
had
to. It was for his own good.” Her eyes opened wide and at any moment, I suspected, she could have released a few perfect tears.

Patrick, you idiot,
I thought with a fierceness that surprised me. “Yeah, right.”

I went into the stall, banging the door closed, and positioned myself for a long, loud pee. When I emerged, the only sign of Elise’s presence was one long blond hair curled into the sink.

“I got it,” Kimberly said and handed my card back when I returned to the table. As I uttered cries of protest, she said, “I guess I’d better go back to work. How about you? Still on vacation?”

“Yes, but I’ll ride to the station. There’s something I need there.”

Outside the restaurant I unlocked my bike and buckled on my helmet while Kimberly fluttered her hand in a wave to me as she drove past.

The station was quiet, music playing softly through the speakers as I entered. I greeted the few people who were around, but did not linger for conversation. I knew only too well that I’d get sucked into some sort of problem-solving session or be asked for advice or information. As I went past her office, I saw Kimberly hunched over her phone, fingers tapping her computer keyboard. In my cubicle I watered my one plant, rising with green bravery among the scatter of CDs and paper on my desk, and opened the desk drawer. After some anxious searching I found the sheet of crumpled paper I had saved. I folded it and slipped it into my pocket, and then I went home.

I had to prepare myself and to do that I exercised. Long ago this killer set of warm-up aerobic exercises had been my daily routine, my religion. As I bent and stretched and sweated, in a ragged leotard and footless tights, my mind emptied and I became a purely physical being; I poured with sweat and my muscles became light and pliant.

To cool down I did a few yoga poses and my breathing deepened, bringing me to a place of calm and serenity.

A few more stretches and I was ready. I went upstairs and called Mr. D., for the first and, I hoped, last time.

He sounded surprised, slightly alarmed, at my voice. I wondered if he had someone else there and the thought didn’t bother me much.

“Tell me why you wouldn’t acknowledge me at the Association,” I said. “Tell me the truth. I want what you should have told me all along.”

“My dear, I misjudged you. My apologies, but I thought you knew long ago the role I played.”

“I didn’t. Not until I met you upstairs and heard your voice.” My hand gripped the towel I sat on. I was too sweaty to sit directly on the sheet. “You set me up.”

“I did, yes. You mean Willis and Jake never said a word? Hmm. I underestimated them. Of course, neither of them is very clever.”

“I guess I’m not very clever, either. And why did you pass me on to Jake? That was the worst.”

“Don’t be angry. I was there.”

“Where?”

“The mirror is a two-way mirror. Most of them in the house are. The plan was that—”

“Fuck the plan. Let’s face it, you screwed up. I’ve had it. With you, with the Association, and you can tell Harry and the rest to go fuck themselves.”

“I’m afraid it won’t be that simple, Jo.”

I’d been about to hang up, but the seriousness in his voice stopped me.

“What do you mean?”

“Talk to Harry,” he said. “And, Jo, I know you’re angry, but we had something, you and me. We still do. Can you trust me, for a little longer? I don’t want to see you in trouble.”

“I already am in trouble,” I said. “I’m in trouble with you and your perverse games and I think you’re bad for me. I wanted to see this through, Mr. D. I wanted a resolution to whatever we had—”

“You wouldn’t meet me, I remember.” I was pleased to hear a note of aggravation in his voice.

“Then, I wouldn’t. Now, I probably wouldn’t, either. But things change.”

“I told you once I’d do anything you wanted.” His tone had changed to sadness.

“But now I don’t know if I can believe anything you say. I’m done with sexual experimentation, Mr. D., done with you.”

“There’s someone else? One of the boys in the Great Room?”

“No one you know.” I took a deep breath. “We won’t be talking anymore, Mr. D. You were a friend to me once—you helped me during the breakup with Hugh, and I thank you for that. I don’t know if you were planning to seduce me into the Association even then, and it doesn’t matter. I loved the phone sex, too. But it’s over.”

“I see. I won’t insult you by telling you I love and admire you. It’s too late, and you’re right, I screwed up. Look after yourself, Jo.”

So this was our last conversation. But I’d felt this before and the pain was somehow both real and a parody of itself.

I’d never even seen his face.

I clicked the phone off and laid it down. I scooped the sheet of paper with his phone number and email address into the bedside table drawer and pulled off my sweaty exercise gear so I could shower. Then I put on my pink fluffy slippers, my sweats and Hugh’s sweater with the hole in the elbow, and went down to the kitchen for a snack.

Patrick was there, stirring something in a large bowl, the scent of yeast in the air.

“I’m making bread for Thanksgiving. I’ll put it in the freezer so I won’t be in the way on the day.” He looked at me. “You okay?”

“Great, thanks.” I crossed to the kitchen sink to wash my hands. “I’m going to make some girlie decaffeinated coffee. Want some?”

“Sure. Thanks.” He dipped his hand into a sack of flour and sprinkled a handful on the counter.

As the coffee brewed, I watched him. He tipped a great creamy flood onto the floured surface, scraping the bowl with a wooden spoon. A bubble or two burst on the surface of the dough as it settled and spread; but it wasn’t quite dough yet—too runny, too uncontrolled.

He sprinkled flour over the surface and scooped, turning the mass of stuff over itself, up to his wrists in dough. He held up hands from which ragged lumpy pieces of yeast hung, and took a clumsy step toward me.

“Flesh…flesh,” he moaned.

“Irish zombies are the worst.” I reached for coffee mugs.

Patrick turned back to the counter and worked the dough, scooping, folding, pressing out bubbles and sprinkling in more flour. The mass resisted him at first, spreading and bubbling, but calmed beneath his touch, assuming a soft docility. The surface dulled with flour. He reached for a spatula and scraped residue from the counter, folding the pieces inside, pressing the dough down, folding again.

He gave a pleased sigh when he lifted the dough free, turned it over and kneaded it again, working in a regular rhythm: press with the heel of his hand, fold, turn.

“It’s looking like bread, now,” he said.

I concentrated on pouring coffee into mugs. But I really wanted to watch his hands handle the dough with such deft assurance, and part of it was that I felt I watched a moment of intimacy, a man unveiling a mystery. “It’s a bit late to be making bread, isn’t it?”

“Am I disturbing you? I can put the dough into the refrigerator if you like and work on it tomorrow.”

“No, no, that’s fine. I just thought…well, it’s going to take some time, with rising and so on.”

“Yeah. I’m not sleeping that much these days. I might as well use the time.” He smiled. “I find this very reassuring. You know, it works. Every time. You put yeast in warm water with a bit of sugar and it comes to life. No doubts, no uncertainties.”

His sleeves were rolled above the elbow. I watched the tendons on his wrists flex, the coppery hair dusted with flour.

“I met Elise today,” I blurted out and wondered whether I’d ruin his night.

“Did you, now.” His fingers didn’t pause in their smooth, rhythmic task. “A lovely girl, isn’t she?”

Well, he had married her, after all. He’d been in love with her. I made a polite sort of noise and poured milk into the mugs of coffee.

He turned the dough over and slapped it, a juicy, ripe sound. “Sexy, eh?”

“It is?” Oh, what a liar I was. I had to keep reminding myself that this was bread-making, not some sort of sensual display for my benefit.

“Yeah. Gorgeous.” Another slap. “All smooth and shiny and alive.”

The phone rang and I grabbed it and turned away to hide my reddening cheeks. “Jo?” Harry’s insinuating voice.

“Yeah.”

“We need to talk.”

“I don’t think so.” I hung up. To Patrick I said, “I hate telemarketers.”

He looked at the clock and then at me, one hand laid on the bread dough. “Right.”

He knew as well as I did that no telemarketer would call at ten in the evening.

I stepped out of his way as he headed over to the sink to rinse out his mixing bowl and clean dough off his hands.

“You look as though you’ve never seen anyone make bread before.” He poured a little oil into the bowl and stroked it around with his fingertips. I shivered. I imagined those fingertips, slick and cool, doing other things. Doing things to me.

“Of course I have. I like to watch people who are good at doing things.”

“I’m competent enough. Like I said, the yeast is the one that does the work.” He tipped the large, creamy mass of dough into the bowl and flipped it around and over, before draping a dampened cloth over the top of the bowl. “And now it’s going to sit here quietly and get busy. Who else is coming to Thanksgiving?”

“Mostly people from the station. Kimberly, maybe with a guy, maybe not. Liz and her husband. Everyone brings some sort of food. It’s fun. If there’s someone you’d like to ask, go ahead, but let me know.” I spread peanut butter on a slice of bread. “I’m on air from six until one, which is why we eat early.”

“You don’t mind working Thanksgiving?”

“No, I like it. People tend to call in with nice comments. It’s the one day they don’t complain. It renews my faith in humanity.”

He looked up from rinsing the spatula he’d used on the dough. “You don’t strike me as a cynic. If anything I’d say you look sort of innocent.”

“I’m not.”

“Innocent doesn’t mean dumb. You trust people. I like that.”

I nodded. I did trust people, perhaps too much. I’d trusted Hugh. I’d trusted Mr. D. And Patrick…was he the next? “But if you don’t trust people, you turn into some sort of paranoid crazy person. I go by my instincts. Sometimes they’re wrong, but more often they’re right.”

He laid the spatula on the drying rack. “And what do your instincts tell you about me?”

“That you just tried to seduce me with a bowlful of bread dough.” I tried to pass it off as a joke, but from the look on his face, neutral, impassive, I couldn’t tell whether I succeeded. I couldn’t tell him that I’d thought of his palm slapping my ass, his fingers smoothing and patting my skin, my sensitive areas.

He grinned. “If I wanted to use bread dough to seduce you, I’d bring you breakfast in bed. The finished product. Something delicious and flaky and sweet.”

“Delicious, flaky and sweet. It sounds like the sort of men in my life, although the flakiness outweighed the other qualities.” I finished my bread and peanut butter. “I’m going to bed. Good night.”

He nodded back, arms folded. I left him there, leaning against the kitchen counter, looking at me with that expression I couldn’t quite read.

I woke the next morning to delicious scents—yeast, sweetness, cinnamon, coffee. It was quite early, far earlier than I usually woke, but I hadn’t drawn the curtains completely closed and light streamed through. Brady lay next to me on the pillow, an inert mass of sleeping fur. As I turned, I heard footsteps on the stairs, and Brady blinked, stretched and sat up, ears pricked.

I remembered Patrick’s last statement to me. Breakfast in bed. My heart hammered and my stomach growled.

Something clinked as the footsteps halted and he knocked at the door.

Brady uncoiled, dropped to the floor and ran to the door, tail aloft. He was no fool. He knew that when people were awake there was a good chance of being fed. He put a paw on the door and eased it open, revealing Patrick and a tray, from which rose delectable scents.

He grinned. “I’m being very forward. I can leave this and go. Or I’ll take it back downstairs. Up to you. No pressure. You look like a woman who doesn’t get breakfast in bed often enough.”

I sat up. “Wow. I’m impressed. That’s really nice. Come on in.” It did cross my mind that a guy bearing a tray of breakfast, a rueful smile and an apology for appearing forward might very well expect to get laid. But I was willing to accept the offer at face value.

Brady, weaving around Patrick’s ankles, was giving the impression that unlike me he’d do anything—
anything
—for someone who’d feed him, but Patrick lifted him gently out of the way with one foot. “There’s food downstairs, you great dolt,” he said, which I found very endearing.

I scooted over so he could lay the tray on the bed and gestured to him to sit down. I wasn’t about to make a move but I didn’t want him to think I was on the same level as my cat.

He handed me a mug of coffee (he’d brought two, but I put that down to general optimism that he’d be invited in). On the tray was a plate with a gorgeous golden, puffy pastry, oozing butter, studded with raisins, speckled with cinnamon.

“Bread dough tarted up,” he said. “I rolled in pounds of butter and cinnamon and put in some raisins. I hope you like it.”

My mouth full, flakes cascading down my chest, I nodded with enthusiasm. “You’re a genius. It’s wonderful. Were you up all night?”

“No, I slept for an hour or so while the bread rose. I have a business meeting quite early, so I stayed up while it baked.” He reached to pinch off a corner of the pastry.

“It was very sweet of you. Thanks.”