Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger (25 page)

“There are clocks
everywhere
there. Every living room display, every bedroom display, plus you can always ask someone what time it is, since everyone
else
has a watch.”

“That makes sense.” And it did.

“Plus I work until the work is done,” he added. Extra points. “If I don’t close the sale, I might as well have not come in.”

“That makes
total
sense.” I couldn’t wait to tell Burke this. “So what did you find, watch-wise?”

He sighed. “They’re all so expensive. I’d rather just have a nice dinner. That one we had when you were there was good. I sure did like your macaroni salad.”

My face grew hot at the memory. “Thanks.”

“Do you know what time it is?”

I glanced down. “Four-ten.”

“See?” He pointed a finger gun at me. “You can always find out what time it is from someone else if you want to.”

I had to laugh. “You got me.”

“No, I really wanted to know what time it was. But you also proved my other point.” Only then did he look pleased with himself. “I’ve got to go. Do you know where the Newley Street parking garage is? My meter’s going to run down.”

I was tempted to ask at what time, but that would have belabored the point and been starkly unfunny. “We’re on Newley,” I said, and pointed north. “You just want to go that way about two blocks. It’s across from the library.”

“I know, I’m in one of the library spaces,” he said. “That’s why I have to hurry, I need to go check out a book because those spaces are reserved for library patrons only.”

Okay, there was a certain
extra
level of honesty there. I made a mental note of it. I couldn’t wait to tell Burke. “It was good to see you, Lyle,” I said. “Tell Dottie I said hello.”

“I can’t do that,” he said. “I don’t want her to know what I was up to.”

“Oh, right. Then I’ll just tell her myself next time I see her.”

“Perfect!” He said it like I’d hatched the ultimate plan.

As I watched him go, it occurred to me that there are all kinds of reasons for people to couple up. I’d never thought about it before because it seemed so singular to me. I had always wanted the big happily ever after. Didn’t everyone?

But happily ever after depended on what you thought would make you happy. In my case, maybe it was love and romance and all the fairy-tale accoutrements. Yet maybe in someone else’s case, like Dottie’s, it was the sweet, earnest companionship of a guy like Lyle. Maybe his slight dopiness lent to the charm for her. Who knew?

All I knew was that it wasn’t for me to judge. I hoped she’d get her happily ever after no matter what it was.

Chapter 18

It was as if the dry cleaner’s were suddenly the first Pinkberry to come to the East Coast. At least to my eye it was. People were coming and going—a large percentage of them women, by the way—all day long. Often leaving with long garment bags.

“I wonder if she can do a replica of Audrey Hepburn’s
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
dress,” Becca stage-whispered, looking at the front window next to me.

I looked at her. “
I
could. I just
haven’t
because it’s Givenchy, and it’s dirty pool to do a knockoff.”

“Wow, I never even thought of that!”

I nodded.

“You could really copy it?”

“Becca! Anyone competent can copy a design, it’s just not
right
.”

She shrugged and looked back at what might as well have been a line forming outside the dry cleaner’s. “I think the prices for those designer clothes are outrageous sometimes, so I’m all for the knockoffs.”

I could kind of see her point. But if I were Vera Wang I knew I’d be a lot more hesitant to agree. “I don’t know…”

“Okay, but right or wrong, it’s what people are obviously interested in. I’ve seen them showing fakes on
The Today Show
a million times, so it must not be illegal.”

“Not if it’s ‘inspired by,’ rather than a total rip-off.”

“Okay, then maybe you should be
inspired by
a few famous designs, up your business, and put those people”—she gestured—“out of work.”

I really didn’t want to admit it, but that was a good idea. I mean, I
like
good ideas, but I didn’t want to admit I could boost business by going trendy instead of trying to stick to my own style. But when I made that dress for Nicole, inspired by Grace Kelly’s wedding dress, was that so different from what Becca was suggesting?

I was about to ask her when her phone rang. She answered in the same stage whisper she’d been using with me, then immediately, in her regular sharp voice, asked, “He put
what
in his ear?”

And right then I knew she was going to have to cut out early again. This was the problem with Becca as an employee—she had three little kids and they each did about ten bad and/or dangerous things a day, so she was constantly having to leave on a moment’s notice.

She’d been working with me for three years, since her youngest—Teddy—was a baby. She did great needlework and was at ease with the register, computer, and customers, so she was the perfect part-time employee … except for the fact that her times weren’t always the ones I was planning on.

But she was a friend too, so I wasn’t going to fire her. Yet I couldn’t afford to hire someone else for the same number of hours Becca was hired for. And there wasn’t anyone out there who would be willing to sit around and wait for a Matchbox-car-tire-in-the-nose emergency to work maybe a few hours a week.

Becca said into the phone, “Hang on, hang on,” then put her hand over the bottom, as if that would do anything, and said to me, “I’ve got to go, Craigie has a green bean in his ear. Will you be okay?”

I smiled. A green bean in his ear. Good lord. “Yes, of course, go, go!”

“I’m
really
sorry!”

“It’s fine. Business is slow, as you know.” I gestured limply toward the street outside.

“I’ll make it up to you!”

“Go!”

“Man, I am
worn out
—I have got
no
energy for this.” She went back to her urgent instructions on the phone, saying things like,
Do
not
use a Q-tip, do you understand me?
as she went.

*   *   *

Six uneventful and customer-free hours later, I was thirty-five miles away and I was seventeen all over again. Which was bad, because when I was seventeen, I had a lot of thirteen-year-old moments.

This was one of those.

So much for maturity and making decisions that were regret-proof by the light of day.

It was eleven at night and Glenn and I were huddled in his Toyota convertible across the street from Burke’s house—or what every indication we could find on Spokeo and Switchboard was Burke’s house in Northern Virginia—watching for … I don’t even know what. Some sort of clue about his life. It was a cool, drizzly night, matching my mood, but Glenn had brought what he called “stalking provisions,” including seedless red grapes as sweet as candy; sandwiches of thin white bread, Brie, sweet mustard, and roasted red peppers; and tiny little plastic flutes of chocolate mousse.

So far, so good, in that we hadn’t seen any clear indication that he had a woman there.

However, we also hadn’t had any clear indication that he was there either.

“How long are we going to sit here?” I whispered.

“Until we know something,” he whispered back.

We could have spoken in full voice, it wasn’t as if anyone was around to hear us, but something about peering through someone’s windows shrouded only by the dark of night, and hopefully by the anonymity of someone else’s car, made it feel necessary to stay as quiet and still as possible.

“We don’t even know if anyone’s in there,” I said, narrowing my eyes and trying to draw some sort of conclusion from the sage-colored walls of what looked like might be the kitchen, based on the brass lamp that I thought was hanging from the ceiling but couldn’t swear to it, thanks to partially closed blinds.

“So that’s one thing we need to find out. It should become evident.”

“It’s only going to become evident if we see someone. If we don’t, we still won’t know if that means no one’s there or they’re just asleep.”

“Stop borrowing trouble. And did you hear what you just did there? You said
they
. I, myself, am almost positive there’s no
they
, only a
he
. Furthermore, I have a feeling we’re going to catch at least some sort of glimpse of him.”

“
Almost
positive?”

“Okay, positive.”

“Too little, too late.”

“Sh!” He pointed toward the window. “Did you see something?”

Nothing had changed. Not one light in one window of the house we’d been staring at for almost an hour now. “No.”

We fell silent. Rain ticked, thin and sharp, on the soft convertible top that was a delight to have down on a sunny day but more depressing than a Siberian winter to sit under in bad weather.

“I can’t be this person,” I said after a bit.

“This is exactly you.”

“No, this is exactly who I
don’t
want to be.”

“Consider this a bonus round in our game. Another thing you’re uncomfortable with—facing the truth.”

“What if I don’t
like
the truth?”

He steeled his gaze on me in the mostly dark car and said, “Make no mistake. You
can
handle the truth. It will set you free. That’s why we’re here, to exorcize the demon Burke from your mind once and for all.”

“You’re mixing up your references there.”

“Sue me.”

“Anyway, what if you’re wrong? What if we see something really upsetting and then I have to live with that? What if the suspicion becomes a visual certainty that I can never unsee?” Panic at the idea built in me. “I can’t do this. I can’t. We have to go.”

“
Face it!”
His whisper became a fierce stage whisper. “Conquer this!”

“No!”

“No?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

This was asinine. “What do you mean,
yes
? You can’t just
yes
my
no
and think it’s over. Your yes doesn’t trump my no, and you don’t trump me.”

“Oh, yes, I do.” He gave a slow, purposely maniacal chuckle. “I’m the one driving.”

I reached for the door handle.

Glenn must have read my mind, because he clicked the automatic lock button before I could touch it. One tug at the door handle told me he’d pressed the child safety lock too.

“Good thing you locked the doors,” I cautioned. “This isn’t the best neighborhood. I hope no one comes along with a blunt instrument and smashes the windows.”

“You don’t scare me, little one. There isn’t a house in this neighborhood priced at under five hundred grand. This isn’t exactly Thugville.”

“Thugs don’t hang out in Thugville, they go to wealthy neighborhoods to steal.”

He flashed me a wordless look.

“He’s not there,” I said after a few minutes. “No one is. This is stupid.” But the thought made me feel curiously bereft. I’d been ready to see him. Ready to glimpse him. Eager, I guess, to glimpse him.

“He’s there,” Glenn said, suddenly serious. “Look. Top left window.”

My eyes were not what they used to be, but I stared hard until I saw the flicker of someone walking past a distant light.

“Oh!” I felt the familiar cocktail of excitement and fear at the prospect of seeing him.

“Careful, Quinn.” I felt Glenn’s hand on my shoulder. “Someone’s liable to think you care.”

“At this point, we’ve been looking at this house for so long that
anything
is going to make me feel like a lion pouncing its prey.”

Rain drizzled against the window, forming teary rivulets against the glass. It was a perfect metaphor for the way I felt, sitting outside this house feeling emotions that hadn’t changed one iota since I’d been with him, even though our lives had changed immeasurably.

Or Burke’s had anyway.

We sat in the stillness for a long time, watching the darkened house, waiting for some follow-up. The distant light was extinguished and I waited with bated breath for a light to click on in the bedroom, like a movie flickering onto a big screen, but it didn’t happen.

Then Glenn’s voice broke the silence. “What would you do,” he said slowly, “if he swung past the window right now, buck-naked, on a trapeze?”

The image was so unexpected I cracked up. “Okay, that’s it. I’ve had it. This was a dumb idea, albeit a good dinner.”

“Wait!” He pointed silently. A shadow form appeared in the window upstairs.

“That’s
him
!” There was a strange gratification, even while panic filled every inch of me.

“He looks alone.”

“Maybe. But what does that prove? We’ve got to go, Glenn. Please.
Please
. I have a bad feeling. It would be so humiliating to be caught out here.”

“Calm down, we’ll go.” He reached for the ignition, then glanced at the house and said, “Oh, shit.”

I looked. Burke was coming out the front door, heading straight for the car.

“Why?” I asked. “How did he know we were here?” I looked around frantically, and that’s when I noticed the red glow illuminating the street, the trees, the cars behind us. “Oh, my
god
, Glenn, have you had your foot on the fucking brake
this whole time
?”

Immediately he lifted his foot and the red light went out.

Oh. My. God. The brakes had provided a beacon of light through the misty night, much like a lighthouse three hundred yards off the coast.

“I’m so sorry,” Glenn said, uncharacteristically humble. “It’s habit. If you’re sitting behind the wheel, unmoving, you keep the brake on. I’m so sorry, Quinn, really.”

I couldn’t speak. It was too late.

Burke was approaching the driver’s window.

Chapter 19

“
Hide!
” Glenn rasped.

“
Where?
” I returned frantically. “Gun it! Get out of here! Maybe he hasn’t recognized us yet!”