Beyond Midnight (49 page)

It was heaven to hear his voice; heaven to be desired instead of rejected. But Mrs. Co
m
ford had left an aftertaste like a sour pickle, and it must have showed in Helen
'
s voice.

"
Something wrong?
"
Nat said quickly.

Helen sighed and sai
d, "Just another day in the pre
schoo
l
trade.
"
She explained what had happened.
"
I have this godawful fear that a salmonella rumor
'
s cropped up again. Someone always gets a stomach ache from eating too much ice cream at the Social; who knows how it
'
s being interpreted. Now that I think about it, everyone heard Becky
'
s friend Laurie going around moaning and groaning at the end.
"

"
She ate enough ice cream to sink the
Lusitania
,
"
Nat said, laughing.
"
What did you expect?
"

"
I know, but it doesn
'
t take much to bring down a preschool.
"

"
Look, I
'
m a numbers man,
"
he said.
"
Three withdrawals is not an anomaly.
"

Helen wanted to believe him.
"
Thanks, Nat,
"
she said, letting herself feel relieved.
"
You
'
re good for the soul.
"

His voice was amused and insinuating as he said,
"
Right now it
'
s not the soul I
'
m thinking about
. 
Lena
... let
me see you tonight.
"

She knew this had to come. She had bounced between thoughts of him and worries about the withdrawals for three days now.
"
Nat
...
no. The owl walk is one thing, but
Derby
Wharf
was a big, huge, giant mistake.
"

"
Oh, I agree. Absolutely. Pure misery, the whole time,
"
he said with an edgy chuckle.

"
No, really. There are things about me that you don
'
t know.
"

"
Let me find them out.
"

"
Beliefs I have that you don
'
t share.
"

"
Convert me, then.
"

She wanted to scream,
You'
re on the rebound, nitwit! You
'
re horny and hurt and I don
'
t mean a tinker
'
s d
amn to you! Leave me alone! Don'
t torture me with wanting me!

Instead she said softly,
"
Nat, we can
'
t go any farther with this. We can
'
t. I have two teenagers. My daughter has made me her role model for sex and is watching every move I make; my son is just itching for me to get a life so he can grab a can of spray paint and run. In a couple of more years I
'
ll be through this crisis of teenage timing—I hope—but for now
...."

Her sigh was brimming with frustration.
"
For now, any dating I did would be strictly hit-and-run.
"

There was a long silence. Finally, in a voice as low and tense as her own, he said,
"
I
'
ve taken a hit from you, Helen. Please don
'
t run.
"

Biting her lip, she looked up at the ceiling above her desk, as if a solution were scribbled there in chalk. It wasn
'
t. She closed her eyes and let out a long, wistful sigh.
"
Can we just go slow, then? Can we just do the owl walk for now?
"

He didn
'
t say yes; he didn
't say no. She hung up, half-
convinced that he was calling on his cell phone from the parking lot of the preschool. But he was in
Atlanta
, she knew, and wouldn
'
t be home until the next day. And meanwhile, who was there to put poor Katie to bed?

****

Peaches knew that Nat was planning to be home from
Atlanta
by three, which worked out well. Katie
'
s play date with Amy was scheduled to end around then.

When Nat walked into the music room in his loosened tie and rolled-up sleeves, he found Peaches deep in conversation with Amy Bonham
'
s mother.

Peaches could tell at a glance that he was disappointed to find visitors. His smile was polite and weary. Clearly he wanted a beer;
Atlanta
in summer was no picnic. Whatever energy he had was saved for his daughter. His gaze softened when he spied her at the far end of the room, playing dress-up with Amy.

"Look at this,
Daddy!
"
Katie cried, running up to him with her new stick-on earrings. She held her curly hair back from her ears.
"
Amy gave them to me. See?
"

Nat dropped his briefcase and squatted down to give her a hug.
"
Well, you look just gorgeous in them, buggles. Can I try them on?
"

Katie let out a shriek of laughter and clapped her hands over her ears as she goose-stepped back from him.
"
No-o! Daddies don
'
t wear earrings!
"
She turned and fled to the other end of the room.

"
I guess you
'
re right,
"
he told her, smiling.
"
Well, after I change clothes, you have to dance with me, because you look so pretty. Okay?
"

She turned back to her father and said,
"
Okay, Daddy. But first I hafta put this
...
this long thing on,
"
she said, grabbing a thrift shop shawl that Linda had bought for the dress-up box.
"
An
'
a hat.
"
She began rummaging through the box for suitable millinery.

Constance Bonham had been burning Peaches
'
s ears off with preschool gossip. Now she turned the heat on Nat.

In a grimly discreet voice she said,
"
Nat, have you heard about this Satanism business? Is there possibly anything to it? I want to say no—it seems so unlikely—but nowadays nothing is unlikely. I mean, these cults are everywhere. Why not
Salem
? It
'
s a natural fit.
"

Nat had been about to slip away. Now he stood there, obviously dead tired, suit coat slung over his shoulder, briefcase in his hand, and said,
"
Connie, I have no idea what you
'
re talking about.
"

"
Mrs. Evett
'
s daughter, for God
'
s sake! She was arrested for spraying Satanistic graffiti on the statue of Roger Conant!
"

Even Peaches was surprised at the change in Nat. His stance turned rigid and a dark flush suffused his face. His brows came down hard over his steel blue eyes as he said sharply,
"
Who the hell said that? Becky was there to stop her
brother
from tagging the statue!
"

Constance
gasped and said,
"
Her brother, too?
"

"
No, no,
"
Nat said impatiently.
"
I mean yeah, he sprayed paint on the statue. That
'
s all. Regular graffiti stuff. There was nothing Satanistic about it.
"

"
What did he spray on it, then?
"
Constance
asked him.

Nat snorted and shook his head.
"
I don
'
t know. Just
... stuff. Jesus. Helen was right. This town has witches on the brain,
"
he said, not bothering to hide his disgust.

Peaches had been watching his reaction with growing annoyance. Bad enough that he was intrigued by the Evett woman; but now he was defending her. This, after slipping away on Sunday night
.
She never expected him to move that fast. She bit her lip, pondering her next move.

Nat misinterpreted the look on her face.
"
Peach?
"
he said, scowling.
"
You
haven
'
t heard anything?
"

"
Not a word,
"
she said, acting as if she were trying to seem calm.
"
I
'
m as distressed as you are.
"

"
I
'
m not distressed,
"
he snapped.
"
I
'
m goddamned pissed.
"
He turned on his heel.
"
It
'
s dumb gossip,
Constance
,
"
he said over his shoulder as he walked away.
"
Ignore it.
"

Rebuffed,
Constance
turned to Peaches.
"
He doesn
'
t want to know,
"
she said flatly.

Peaches lifted her finely shaped eyebrows in the barest suggestion of a shru
g. "He's a man. Do they ever?"

****

The weather forecast was terrific right through the weekend, which meant that Helen
'
s one possible excuse for not seeing Nat—rain—would be denied her.

Not that it mattered. In their last phone call he
'
d announced his intention of getting into her life one way or another. He planned to attend the monthly meetings, to volunteer his time (and considerable talents) at fund-raising, to help chaperone field trips when the occasion arose, to crotchet potholders for the Penny Fair if he had to. Whatever it took.

It was a very grand vision.
"
Whom do you hope to impress?
"
she had wanted to know.

"
Her initials are Helen Evett.
"

"
You
'
re doing all the right things for all the wrong reasons
."

"
I
'
m doing all the right things for two great reasons: Katie and you.
"

And on it went, until finally, worn out by his relentlessness, Helen had thrown up her hands and said,
"
If you do half the things you say you will, I
'
m going to end up paying
you
to have Katie come here.
"

And now it was Saturday, and her heart was doing its
thumpa-thumpa
thing at a one-two clip, and she was obsessing over frizzy hair, baggy khakis, and the wrong shade of lipstick when the real issue, the only issue, should have been:
Where on earth can this possibly go?

Even assuming that his attraction for her was genuine and not a knee-jerk response to biological needs; even assuming that he had time, and she had time, to squeeze a relationship into their already harried lives; even assuming that they could figure out a place to even
have
the damn affair—what then?

He
'
d love her and leave her and break her heart. Or he
'
d love her and want her and she
'
d have to come clean:
By the way—Linda Byrne? Have I mentioned we
'
ve met? Very nice lady. Oh yes; we
'
re still in touch. Did you have a message for her? No problem; I
'
ll pass it on for you the next time she haunts me.