Looking for Laura (19 page)

“It's not as if I don't think he can run the paper. He grew up with it. He worked at every level, starting as a newspaper deliverer. We can't call them newsboys anymore, did you know that? Too many girls are delivering papers, so we have to call them newspaper deliverers. But Todd was the best deliverer we ever had. I'm not just saying that because I'm his mother. He really was the best. Never threw the paper on people's roofs, never missed a house, never missed a day—not even in a blizzard. Then, when he got older, he wrote copy, he sold ads, he did layout—the old-fashioned way, by hand. Now it's all done by computer. Everything's done by computer. It's a whole new world.”

“We use a computer here,” Sally said. “I'm sure you could learn how to use one.”

“I don't
want
to learn,” Todd's mother confessed. “I like doing things my own way.”

“So Todd told you to leave the newspaper? He ought to be shot.” Saying so cheered Sally.

Helen grinned, “Now, don't you go threatening my son with death.” She sipped some more coffee. “So how is your little girl doing, Sally? Is she all right?”

“She's fine.”

“She was the light of Paul's life, you know. I didn't see much of him after you two got married, but when I did, when he'd drop by the newspaper offices to visit Todd, he always told me Rosie was the light of his life.”

“He was a wonderful father,” Sally said, meaning it. As long as he wasn't having assignations with Laura when he was supposed to be taking care of Rosie, she'd give him bonus points for his paternal devotion.

“He'd always stop in at my office when he came to
see Todd. He was such a gentleman, your husband. Always had a friendly word for me. He never gave me a hard time about my struggles with the computer.”

“There's really nothing to working a computer,” Tina pointed out as she handed Helen her change, then untied her apron and reached for her backpack. “If you can program a VCR, you can use a computer.”

“I can't program a VCR,” Helen admitted, then took another sip of coffee. “This is really good. I shouldn't be taking up all your time. I'll just go sit at that table over there.”

“You aren't taking up our time,” Sally said, but Helen held up her hands to silence her, then carried her coffee to the empty table near the black-clad scribe and settled into the chair.

“I gotta go,” Tina said, slinging her backpack over one shoulder and heading for the door. “I've got my eugenics seminar.”

Eugenics? They hadn't offered any seminars in eugenics when Sally had been a student at Winfield College. Perhaps Tina would learn from it that Howard wasn't worth breeding with. Or that he was. Perhaps his lack of a tattoo marked him as a higher order of human.

She waved Tina off, then braced herself as a throng of people spilled into the café: two businessmen toting leather briefcases and conferring solemnly as they eyed the pastries; two musty-looking professorial types, one male and one female, bickering about Joyce Carol Oates; three women in formfitting leggings, sweatshirts and headbands, apparently rewarding themselves after a vigorous workout. They ordered first: two zucchini breads with cream cheese, one cinnamon roll, three large cappuccinos. So much for all their efforts at the health club, Sally thought as she served up their high-calorie treats.

One of the businessmen answered a cell-phone call while Sally poured Sumatra coffee for them both. The professors transferred their argument from Joyce Carol Oates's philosophy of boxing to the relative merits of bran versus banana muffins—“Raisins are high in iron!” “Yes, but bananas are high in potassium!”

Sally sashayed the length of the counter in one direction and then the other, marveling at Tina's exquisite sense of timing in having left the café just seconds before this influx of customers. Nicholas, a rock star in waiting, would be arriving around eleven to help Sally with the lunchtime crush—serving coffee and light sandwiches paid him enough to keep him afloat until some record producer discovered him and landed him on the fast track to a Grammy. But eleven o'clock was more than two hours away, and by the time the professors finished arguing over who was going to pay for their croissants so they could resume arguing over Joyce Carol Oates, four more customers had entered, sidled up to the counter and ordered eight coffees, ten muffins and two large orange juices to go.

“You work too hard,” Helen commented when the spate of customers finally trickled off. She had relinquished her table to the businessmen, both of whom were now on cell phones, talking with their callers while simultaneously communicating by hand signal with each other. Helen set her cup on the counter. “You ought to hire someone to help you out.”

“This was unusual,” Sally told her. “We always get an early crowd in, but then it typically quiets down until lunchtime. I don't know why it got so hectic in here.” Not that she was complaining. Racing around and filling orders had kept her from thinking about Todd.

But now that his mother was hovering directly across
the counter from her, staring at her out of sharp, dark eyes that looked uncannily like Todd's, Sally started thinking about him again. About how he was a menace to her emotional stability, how he had really better give the damn letters back to her, how she could find Laura and get her knife without any help from him, how she owed him twenty bucks for the necklace he'd bought Rosie. How it was horribly unfair that the first man she'd kissed since her husband died had to have been Todd, and he had to have kissed like a virtuoso. A savage one.

“You need to hire more staff,” Helen declared again. “I'm not an expert on the restaurant business, but I ran a newspaper with my husband for forty years, and I know when a business is understaffed.”

“Good workers are hard to find,” Sally said. “I get part-timers from the college, but they come and go, and their first priority is school. Most people who work here don't want to make a career of it.”

“Who can blame them? I mean, what sort of twenty-year-old wants to spend the rest of her life pouring coffee in a diner? No offense meant,” she added, evidently realizing that she had just come pretty close to describing Sally.

“If I could find older people, I'd be happy to hire them. It's not that I want to hire college kids. It's just that they're the ones available on a part-time basis.”

“Oh, I'd bet there are lots of older people who'd enjoy working at a place like this. Not older, but
mature
. Mature people who feel obsolete in their other places of business. Someone who can serve coffee and snacks with a smile on her face will never be obsolete, am I right?”

Sally eyed Helen curiously. Was the woman angling for a job at the New Day? Now, that would be hilarious.
Todd's mother working with Sally. Working
for
Sally. Because her own son had evicted her from the newspaper she'd run for forty years. Because she'd had trouble learning how to use a computer.

Because her son was a coldhearted creep who could kiss like Casanova on his best day and then turn around and walk away without a backward glance. Because he could do that to the widow of his best friend, who'd turned out to be a faithless bastard.

Because the enemy of her enemy was her ally. Because if Todd had told his mother to get out of his hair, Sally wanted the woman on her side, so she could show Helen what loyalty and kindness were really all about.

Oh, the irony of it: Todd's mother working for Sally. Sally treating the woman with the respect and dignity she couldn't get from her own jackass son.

“If I could hire you,” Sally said with a smile, “I'd do it in an instant.”

T
odd was doing an AltaVista search of the word
thigh
, just for the hell of it, when he spotted a lanky man ambling through the newsroom. Walter Sloane was dressed for golf: hideous canary-yellow slacks, a plaid short-sleeve shirt, a woven white fabric belt and white shoes. Much could be said for golf, but its practitioners were rarely exemplars of good taste in fashion.

Exemplar
. Loathsome word.

He hastily disconnected from the Internet before his father reached his office. Such luck, he thought sourly, that less than ten minutes after he'd gotten rid of his mother, his father would show up.

“Hey, there!” Walter bellowed as he swung through Todd's open door.

“Hi, Dad.” He decided to be a good sport about his father's visit. His father wasn't his mother; Todd appreciated a little variety in his pests. “What's up?”

“I just thought I'd drop by. Where's your mother?”

“I sent her out for coffee.” That sounded wrong; it wasn't as if he was treating her like a gofer, asking her to run trivial errands. “Coffee for herself,” he clarified. “I thought she would enjoy a good cup of coffee instead of the industrial sludge we've got brewing here.” And he'd thought she could spend a morning driving Sally crazy instead of driving him crazy. Sally deserved it,
since she was the most driving-him-crazy woman in his life.

She would never drive him crazy again, he resolved. He was never even going to think about her again. Her exemplary thighs would never again preoccupy his thoughts.

His father's complexion was a rich chestnut hue, evenly darkened from the many days he indulged his passion for golf. Could spending hours in the spring sunshine cause senile dementia? Todd wondered, recalling his mother's frequent clucking about the old man's mental failings. Too many hours in the sun could cause wrinkles, he knew, and skin cancer. Perhaps his father ought to apply vitamin E cream to his face.

No. He wasn't going to think about what Sally carried in her bag. He wasn't going to think about what she'd rubbed on his nose. He wasn't going to think about the weird effect her touch had had on him, how it had made him infinitely more demented than his father would ever be. Todd was over that now. Completely cured. One hundred percent sane.

“What did you need Mom for?” he asked, leaning back in his chair and smiling at his father, acting as if he honestly believed his psyche had returned to full functionality.

“I wanted to talk to her about this great deal,” his father said, arranging his long body in one of the chairs that faced Todd's desk. “My cousin Dale—you remember him, don't you?”

Todd nodded. Cousin Dale was the one who'd been married four times, or possibly five. Todd remembered him, but his wives were a blur.

“He owns a place down on Hilton Head Island. A
villa, I guess you'd call it. Villa. Fancy name for a condo, but you get the idea.”

“I get the idea,” Todd said, hoping to speed things along.

“Anyway, his wife's daughter is getting married in San Diego in June, and Dale and his wife have to spend the entire month of June in San Diego. So Dale said that if we wanted, we could house-sit for him for the month. Villa-sit, I guess you'd call it.”

“Okay.”

“It's right on a golf course. Overlooking the seventh hole, he tells me. Only drawback I can see, they've got a schnauzer.”

“So you'd be dog-sitting, too?”

“Dog-and villa-sitting. I'd have to take it for a walk twice a day. The dog, not the villa.”

“I figured.”

“Not an onerous burden, am I right? Feed it, take it for a walk, scratch its belly. And we'd be overlooking the seventh hole. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me.”

“Mom doesn't want to go,” Todd guessed.

“I mentioned it to her. She said she hates schnauzers. Do you remember her ever saying she hated schnauzers? I don't. But then, maybe my memory isn't as sharp as it used to be.”

“I've never heard her say anything one way or another about schnauzers.”

“So I'm not losing my mind?” His father's face creased with a smile of relief. “I thought if she'd ever said anything about schnauzers, it's the sort of thing I'd remember. You don't forget when your wife says things about schnauzers, am I right?”

“I couldn't say, Dad. It's been a while since I had a wife.”

“I remember that,” his father said, then chuckled. “A son's divorce you don't forget. I still regret that it didn't work out. What was her name again?”

“Denise.” Todd wasn't alarmed. His father could never remember Denise's name even when Todd had been married to her.

“Denise. Right. You need a wife, Todd. A wife is a good thing.” He reflected for a minute, his eyes fading. They brightened again. “Sometimes a wife can be a royal pain in the ass.”

“I know.”

“Your mother—she keeps going on and on about the schnauzer.”

“It's not the dog she's objecting to, Dad,” Todd pointed out. “She doesn't want to spend a month at a golf resort on Hilton Head Island. She's talking about the dog, but it's the golf she doesn't want.”

“I'm telling you—a wife can be more trouble than she's worth. It's an incredible golf course. Mom and I visited Dale down there last year, remember? Great course. We had a wonderful time. Your mother says she hated the dog, but I don't remember her having any problem with it. We could spend an entire month there. It would be a vacation for us both.”

“A romantic getaway,” Todd said helpfully.

“A romantic golf getaway.” His father shook his head. “Why won't she come to Hilton Head with me? And don't tell me it's because of the dog.”

“She thinks the newspaper will fall apart if she leaves it.” Todd leaned forward, seeing an ally in his father. “She's here all the time, pretending she's still running things. But she's not running anything. She slows me down, Dad. She wants to do things her way, but her way is about twenty years out of date.”

“Here's an idea,” Walter said, leaning forward as well, until their foreheads were only a few inches apart. He grinned conspiratorially. “Leave her to run the newspaper and
you
come to Hilton Head with me. We'll golf, we'll play with the schnauzer, and maybe you'll meet a new wife.”

On a golf course on Hilton Head? Not likely. “I'd love to go golfing with you, Dad—” not true; golf bored him to tears “—but Mom can't run the newspaper by herself. She's still trying to figure out how to turn her computer on and off.”

“She doesn't have any problems with our computer at home,” Walter said, digging through his thick silver hair to scratch his head in a perfectly clichéd gesture of puzzlement. “I wonder why. Maybe it's because I do all the computer stuff at home.”

If his father had mastered the minitower desktop Todd had bought for his parents last year, the guy couldn't be missing too many marbles. So what if he couldn't recall the term
doorknob?
He'd probably had to sacrifice a little memory to make space for all the computer skills he had uploaded into his brain.

“It's not that I don't love Mom,” Todd said. “It's just that she needs to let go of the paper. If she had something else to fill her time, she'd be fine.”

“Golf,” his father suggested.

“Yeah, well, she's not as crazy about it as you are. Maybe you ought to compromise a little. One month at Cousin Dale's place, one month hiking around the ruins at Machu Picchu.”

Walter wrinkled his nose in distaste. “I hate ruins.”

“She hates golf.”

“No, she doesn't.”

“Dad, listen to her. It's not up to you to decide what
she likes.” Todd didn't want to become his parents' marriage counselor, but he saw no good in their each separately reporting to him on the idiosyncrasies and obsessions of the other. They were both idiosyncratic, both obsessive. After forty years of marriage, they should have learned how to maneuver around each other's neuroses.

His peripheral vision snagged on a figure on the other side of the glass wall, striding toward his office. Sometimes Todd greeted Eddie Lesher's approach with dread. Not this time. He would rather deal with Eddie than give his father a tutorial on how to communicate with his wife.

“Look, Dad,” he said a little too eagerly, grinning at Eddie as he neared the door. “I've got work to do. Eddie!” he greeted the young reporter who hovered on the threshold. Eddie was too skinny to fill the doorway. He sort of bisected it, though. “What's up?”

“Hi, Todd.” Eddie nodded deferentially to Walter. “Hi, Mr. Sloane.”

“Do I know you?” Walter asked, turning in his chair and giving Eddie a pleasantly befuddled appraisal.

Todd decided that not recognizing Eddie wasn't proof of incipient Alzheimer's disease. His father didn't work at the paper anymore. He came and went, and went more often than he came. “This is one of our staff reporters, Dad. Eddie Lesher. You'll have to excuse us—we've got work to do.” There wasn't a single thing Todd would want to say to Eddie that couldn't be said in front of his father, but implying that they had important business to discuss seemed the most effective way to get his old man out of the chair and out of the office.

Walter was a little slow on the uptake, but he did finally hoist himself to his feet. “Listen, Todd, if your
mother comes back here, convince her that she loves schnauzers.”

Todd smiled noncommittally and waved his father off. Wearing an eager grin, Eddie swooped down on Todd's desk. The phrase “out of the frying pan, into the fire” scrolled across Todd's mind.

“So,” Eddie said. His smile put the
grate
in ingratiating. “The piece I did on that homeless guy was good, huh?”

“It was very good.” Not Pulitzer Prize material. Not even a contender for above-the-fold. But Todd gave credit where due. It had been a solid piece of reporting.

“So, I was thinking on doing a follow-up. There are three other guys living under the railroad tracks, and—”

“No.”

“You just said the first piece was good. I was thinking, maybe a series—”

“What could you say about Homeless Man Number Two that you haven't already said about Homeless Man Number One? He's poor. He's had some hard knocks. He wants to get his act together, but he's got a thing for cheap liquor and drugs. He wishes he didn't live in the shadow of the train trestle, but he can't seem to bring himself to walk the three blocks to City Hall, where they've got a really nice Social Services Department that could find him a bed in a shelter. Writing about this once is great, Eddie. Writing about it twice is overkill. Three times is a crusade.”

“Well, someone's got to help these men.” Eddie slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans, which were so loose the fabric seemed to swallow his knuckles.

“And if you want to be the one to help them, you have my blessings. After work today, you can fix them
a nice pot of stew and take it down to the overpass for them. But I'm not devoting any more inches to them right now. Where are you on the Reddi-Mart expansion story?”

“It's coming along,” Eddie said, nudging the worn carpet with a sneakered toe. “The zoning board hasn't issued its approval yet.”

“That's your story, Eddie. The expansion should be a no-brainer. Why don't you find out why the zoning board is dragging their feet over this?”

“They're just bureaucrats.”

“Maybe they're just bureaucrats. Maybe they discovered that Reddi-Mart is dumping untreated sewage into the Connecticut River. Maybe they're looking for a payoff. Go find out.”

“I'd really rather—”

“I don't want to know what you'd really rather,” Todd warned him.

Eddie sighed forlornly, backed up toward the door, then hesitated. “I was wondering…”

Todd braced himself.

“Do you think there's room for another reporter to cover Winfield College? I really hate covering the zoning board.”

“Winfield College doesn't generate enough news for two reporters. It barely generates enough for one, and that's Gloria's beat. Why?”

“I don't know. I just thought…” He gave Todd another beseeching smile. “All those cute female students up there…It seems like a waste, sending Gloria to cover them.”

“There are cute male students up there, too,” Todd pointed out.

“But they're younger than Gloria.”

“Maybe she likes younger men. Or maybe—” he added a measure of steel to his voice “—she's a professional, doing her job with objectivity rather than using it as an excuse to flirt, which, I shouldn't have to tell you, is a good way to lose your job.”

Eddie's smile grew sheepish. “Well, I thought it was worth a try,” he said, backing up another step. “I'll go talk to someone on the zoning board.”