Monkey Wrench (15 page)

Susannah smiled. “Yes.”

“I meant to take you out to the Heidelberg, but it's getting late. How about a burger at Marge's?”

“It's exactly what I'm in the mood for.”

Joe parked and they walked across the street to the diner. Though it was Saturday night, the small restaurant wasn't that crowded. A family of four sat at one table, empty dessert plates in front of them while they chatted, and there was the usual contingent of high school kids. Only one waitress was on duty, and between customers she was filling salt and pepper shakers by the counter.

Joe took Susannah's coat and hung it with his own on the rack by the door, then went to join her at the booth nearest the front window. From that vantage point, they'd be able to look out at the street and see the corner of Gates Department Store. As usual, the store windows were beautifully decorated for the season.

But the department store windows couldn't have rivaled the front window of Marge's Diner at that moment. In her red sweater and touches of gold, with her soft blond hair and gentle expression, Susannah Atkins could have been a young Mrs. Claus as she gazed out at the snowy street.

Her eyes looked so dreamy that when Joe approached the table, he couldn't help asking, “What are you thinking about, Miss Suzie?”

She turned to him and smiled guiltily. “Onion rings.”

Joe laughed and slid into the seat opposite her. “I imagined you were dreaming about Christmas in your hometown.”

“That, too,” she said. “Food was a big part of the holidays when I was growing up. We made cookies by the truckload, not to mention a goose and all the trimmings. But just now I was thinking of my mother's onion rings. They were works of art.”

“Then we'll have onion rings tonight,” Joe declared, waving off the menus when the waitress approached. “The lady and I would like to have hamburgers, onion rings and—what else? A milkshake?”

“No, no, just coffee for me.”

“Coffee for the lady, and I'll have a milkshake. Chocolate, please. And do you have any pie left tonight?”

The waitress smiled. “Pumpkin.”

“Perfect. Save me a piece.”

Snapping her notebook closed, the waitress sketched a salute. “Consider it saved. Your dinner will be just a couple of minutes, Mr. Santori.”

When the young woman was gone, Joe leaned his elbows on the table to drink in Susannah's face. She smiled back at him, no longer tentatively, but with a genuine gleam of pleasure in her eyes. It almost took his breath away, until he remembered he should be cautious with her.

“So tell me about yourself,” he said. “Tell me about growing up in Tyler.”

It took some coaxing, but Susannah talked. She explained the circumstances of her youth—her mother's early widowhood, then her death from an illness Susannah did not divulge. Although clearly regretful of losing her mother and father, Susannah appeared to be devoted to her grandmother, who'd taken custody of Susannah when she was ten. As Joe listened, he began to wonder if Rose Atkins had perhaps shielded her sensitive granddaughter from many things during her youth. From the sounds of it, Susannah had led a very sheltered childhood.

Unlike many girls from small towns, she had not gone off to college and lost her head when confronted with so much freedom. On the contrary, she had devoted herself to studying and had graduated with a teaching degree.

“But jobs in home economics were hard to come by, so I took a part-time gofer's job at the television station.”

Joe nearly choked on his hamburger. “A gopher's job?”

With a smile, she said, “Sure. I was the one they sent to ‘go for' coffee or ‘go for' paper clips or anything else they needed.”

Joe nodded. “I get it. And someone discovered you sitting in the station commissary in a tight sweater and made you a star, right?”

Susannah laughed. She was eating her meal with gusto, but rather than munching on her hamburger like the average human
being, she broke it into little pieces and nibbled them bit by bit. It was very dainty and highly erotic, Joe decided. He couldn't take his eyes off her fingertips, her lips, the small flashes of her even white teeth. She was mesmerizingly delicate.

“Nobody made me a star but myself,” she said. “One day the woman who did the weather report on the noon news didn't show up. She had gotten a better offer from another station and left without telling anyone—she left a letter of resignation on the boss's desk, but of course it got lost. So I stood in for her at the last minute, because I was the only female working at the station and the weather forecast
had
to be done by a woman in those days.”

“You must have been pretty good.”

“Not bad,” she said modestly. “After a few months, I suggested trying a household-hints segment on the noon news.”

“Your idea? It must have taken some guts to propose it.”

“You better believe it.” She smiled, slightly flushed. “The station was run by very grouchy men, but I was too young to be afraid of failing. Anyway, the household-hint thing took off like a rocket. My popularity grew, and the grouchy men gave me my own show when a soap opera got canceled.”

“And the rest is history. ‘Oh, Susannah!' became a hit.”

She nodded. “It took years to build the audience, but it was a modest success from the start.”

“Thanks to your personality, I think.”

Susannah laughed. “Are you kidding?”

“No, I'm not. You come across as very warm on television—genuine. You're a small-town girl who's made it big, but you haven't forgotten what it's like to share recipes with your neighbors or make do with homemade things instead of running off to the nearest store to buy something.”

She cocked her head. “That's very perceptive of you. I try to think of my viewers as my friends and neighbors. It's the only way I can make it all work.”

That was interesting. Joe asked, “What do you mean?”

She concentrated on her hamburger again, clearly thinking about what she had said. “I have never put it into words,” she answered at last, “but the whole television milieu feels false. I have to be perky to a camera instead of a real person, and sometimes it's...well, I have trouble keeping my energy up. But when I think of all the people who are out there watching...” She smiled shyly. “Oh, it's silly.”

“No, it's not.”

“I remind myself that my viewers are my closest friends, that's all.”

Joe considered what Susannah said, and his thoughts must have shown on his face, because she asked, “What's the matter?”

He shook his head. “Oh, I was just thinking how sad that sounds. As if you don't have many real friends.”

“I do,” she countered at once, but she didn't sound convincing. Darting a look at Joe she amended, “Well, I have few close friends, but I'm very busy, you see. My job keeps me extremely busy.”

“So you said before.”

“I'm fine, really,” she insisted, having heard the dry edge in his voice. “My secretary, Josie, is an invaluable help, and I muddle along pretty well. I wouldn't have my life any other way.”

“What you mean,” Joe said slowly, “is that you can't figure out any other way to have it.”

Susannah stared at him for a few seconds, and during that time, he began to believe he'd overstepped his rights. But she looked away and picked at her hamburger again. “Maybe you're right,” she said softly. “I'm on a treadmill.”

“And you can't get off?”

She shrugged. “I'm not completely sure I
should
get off. What if I stop working and my life doesn't get any better?”

“Maybe you should consider slowing down a little, instead of quitting.”

“I can't,” Susannah objected. “If I don't give one hundred percent, the show will fail. I can't let everybody down.”

“You're responsible for everyone else?”

“Yes, in a way. A lot of people have jobs because of me. If I stop making the ‘Oh, Susannah!' shows, they'll be out of work. I can't do that to the people I've come to think of as my family. Why, my cameraman would be fired if I quit, and Josie might never get her shot at the big time.”

“Doesn't it seem strange for a woman like yourself to have a cameraman of her own instead of a child?”

Susannah's expression hardened. “I'd make a terrible mother.”

“I doubt that.”

“You do?” Sarcasm dripped from her words. “Well, I'm sure you're right, Mr. Santori. You know me so well, after all.”

“I know you well enough,” Joe replied, unruffled by her anger. “You're smart and caring and—”

“You know nothing about me!”

“I know—”

“You're getting bossy again,” she said sharply. “You can ask me to come look after my grandmother and you can force her to fix up her house, perhaps, but you can't step into my life and know what's good for me.”

“You're telling me to mind my own business?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” Joe said, without heat, “but before I shut up, I have one more comment, okay?”

“Just one?” she asked archly.

“Yep.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “This is it—why don't you take a leave of absence for a while and try something else? College professors take sabbaticals, don't they? Hell, even carpenters take a little time off now and then. Just take a break for a bit and look around you. Look for something you'd rather do with your life.”

“Are you always so full of advice?” she asked. “Or do I bring out that quality in you?”

Joe grinned, sure in his heart that she wasn't furious with
him. “I'm always full of advice. But you seem to need it more than most people.”

Susannah laughed abruptly. “Maybe you're right. I need a keeper most of the time.”

“A keeper?”

“Somebody to keep me on track. Usually it's my secretary. Sometimes it's Granny Rose. Sometimes I long to be more independent, but I'd be a disaster on my own.”

“I have a hard time working for somebody besides myself.”

She smiled into his eyes. “Because you'd always have a better way of doing things, right?”

He laughed, too. “Exactly right!”

“I know what you mean. Once in a while I think I'd like to be my own person. On television, I have to conform to the station's standards and ideas in everything I do. I am constantly edited, and sometimes it really goes against my grain.”

“I can understand that.”

She eyed him thoughtfully. “I think you do. But I've also come to realize that I need more structure than most people. That's why I'd be a disaster as an author, for example.”

“Would you like to be an author?”

“Sure, who wouldn't? And I've got some good ideas for books—books that would spring from my television show. Like Martha Stewart or Heloise. But I'd never cope with the deadlines.”

“You never know until you try.”

Nodding emphatically, she said, “Yes, I know my own work habits. They're atrocious. I can't keep a schedule. I get too caught up in the details and miss the big picture. That's why I need a producer and a secretary. But I have good ideas and I can implement them as long as I have the support staff. I'd like to expand my horizons, try new things, get a second chance at...well, at some things I've missed out on. But I'd need a lot of help.”

“So hire some people. Write your book, if that's what you want.”

Her eyes sparkled when she smiled. “If I thought I could make a living by writing, that would be ideal. Maybe I'd have time to look around a little, to enjoy life more.”

“And you'd be great at selling books, too. I'm sure you'd be a hit on all the national talk shows.”

“I can plug as well as anybody,” she said with a hint of pride.

“You could do a series of books.”

“Why not? Weddings and holidays, crafts to do at home, maybe a book on activities for children.”

Joe enjoyed the animation in her face as Susannah let her imagination begin to roll. She looked prettier than ever, and full of optimism.

“My first book would have to be terrific, wouldn't it? To make a big enough splash.”

“I'll bet you come up with something,” he predicted, feeling absurdly glad that she had come to the conclusion that writing a book wasn't in the realm of total fantasy. Susannah looked happy as they sat at the table and finished their meal.

But then she glanced at her watch and reacted with surprise at the time. “Goodness, it's late!”

Joe checked his watch, too, and hastily agreed to depart. A pang of guilt caught him off guard. He hadn't planned to keep her lingering over the meal, but they had allowed the conversation to carry them along. Joe paid the dinner check at the cash register and took Susannah's arm to leave. It felt natural to touch her, he noted. It felt very good, in fact.

As Joe handed her into his truck again, Susannah found herself feeling strangely at ease with him.

This is a man I could really fall for,
she said to herself, watching as he waved goodbye to the waitress through the window of Marge's Diner.
He's sweet and considerate and funny and—oh, damn, he's taken. I hope Angelica knows how good she's got it.

Reminding herself of Joe's existing relationship, Susannah allowed herself to be drawn into only superficial conversation as he drove her back to her grandmother's house. He appeared
not to notice her change of heart and again talked idly about the repairs he intended to make to the old house. He was back on a safe subject, Susannah noticed.

Maybe he felt the possibilities, too,
she thought. Perhaps Joe had felt comfortable with her all evening and had enjoyed himself as much as she had enjoyed being with him. Also reminded of his commitment to Angelica, he had backed off.