The Driven Snowe (18 page)

“What's wrong?”

Angela thought she could see people coming out of the diner. “Just please!”

May stomped on the gas, and with a screech her station wagon tore across the pavement. Within seconds, the diner was disappearing rapidly in the side view mirror. Angela breathed a sigh of relief, and pressed her forehead against the cool window. She started shaking.

“I was just going to join you guys for dinner before going home for a night alone with my husband,” May said. “You're scaring me. What happened?”

Angela thought about it. “I figured out I'm in love with Josh,” Angela said, with a little tremor in her voice. “Things pretty much went to hell from there.”

 

J
OSH WATCHED AS THE
station wagon drove off with Angela inside.

This was not how I'd planned this night to work out.

“Mister, I'm talking to you.” The young man Josh had inadvertently knocked over in his haste to get to Angela had followed him outside. He was a high-school linebacker, and surrounded by his football buddies. He obviously had something to prove, and Josh was in no mood.

“Josh, what happened?” Josh recognized Angela's two co-workers, who were eyeing the scene in amazement, and were looking for Angela amongst the crowd.

“You think you can just run into people that way?” the kid continued. “Not around here, pal. I don't care who you work for.”

The owner of the diner stepped out, looking horrified. He straightened his plum-colored suit nervously.
“If there's going to be trouble,” he warned in a prim tone, “I'm calling the police.”

“Where's Angela?” Angela's friend asked. He was pretty sure her name was Ginny.

“I said, you can't just…”

“I'm sorry,” Josh said to the kid. “I didn't mean to. I was in a hurry to catch my girlfriend. She just drove off in a station wagon,” Josh said, to answer Ginny's question.

“Where did she go?” Angela's other friend asked, her voice filled with concern.

“I don't know,” Josh said.

The kid half shoved him. “That's not good enough,” he said, glancing at his friends. “You want to get your girlfriend…”

“Josh,” a new voice drawled from the doorway, “is everything okay?”

Everyone turned to check out this new development. Shelly stood framed in the doorway. She was wearing a very short skirt, a very low-cut blouse, and a small smile.

Josh sighed in exasperation. “Does everything
look
okay?”

Angela's two friends looked at her, then at him, and he could almost hear the mental click. “It's not what you think,” he said immediately. “You
bastard,
” Ginny said. The other one couldn't say anything, apparently.

“Please…” he said, trying to stop them, but they were beyond hearing him. They stormed off toward their car, and drove off.

He turned to the linebacker, feeling poisonous. “So? You want to do something about all this?”

The kid, who had seen the whole exchange, grinned sheepishly and shook his head. “Nope. Looks like you've got your hands full.” He glanced at Shelly, and to Josh's disgust, he elbowed him. “Way to go, man. Two chicks!”

Josh shook his head. Still, it got him out of trying to reason and or battle with this kid, so he supposed he ought to count his blessings. It might be the only thing that went his way tonight.

He looked at the owner. “Could you do me a favor, and put our meal on my account? You've got me down for a few corporate parties this year. I'm Josh Montgomery, with Solar Bars, Inc.”

The man blinked. “Oh. Of course, Mr. Montgomery.”

Josh looked at Shelly, who still wore that small smile. “I think I'm going to have to take you home, Shelly.”

Shelly frowned a little, then shrugged. “Okay. I understand.”

They got into his car, and were halfway to her house, and he hadn't said a word since. He was too intent on the road, on getting rid of Shelly so he could drive over to Angela's and explain the circumstances before she blew it out of proportion. He knew her. She'd been dodging him for a week, and he was already afraid of losing her. Now what was going to happen?

“She'll get over it, believe me.”

Josh had pretty much forgotten Shelly was sitting there. “Sorry?”

“She'll get over it. Trust me. Women want to believe the best of the men they're with,” she said, and her voice was bitter. “You pretend he wasn't whispering into his cell phone. You ignore the fact that he was out till two o'clock in the morning with the boys. You just keep
building these little justifications for him, until one day he says he's leaving you for another woman. Up to that point, you listen.” She sighed. “By then, you can't believe what you're hearing.”

Josh shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I would never cheat on Angela.”

“Then why were you out to dinner with me?”

He glanced over at her, surprised. She was looking at him, her eyes low-lidded.

He shook his head. “I'm sorry your husband was a jerk, and I know how hard it's been for you, moving back to town and all. I just wanted to be nice.” He glanced at her, a little more sharply. “That's all.”

She turned away from him for a second, looking out the window. When she turned back he could see she was hurt and more than a little bit angry. “Just nice.”

“Did you really think it was more than that?”

“I thought about it,” she said slowly. “Once we started talking, though, it was ‘Angela this' and ‘Angela that.' I figured you probably cared a lot about her, and that you were probably trying to warn me off.”

He heaved a mental sigh of relief.

“Either that, or you were just feeling guilty for cheating on her,” she said, making him feel even worse. “I figured I'd know one way or the other by the end of the night.”

They arrived at her house, and he pulled into the driveway. He kept the motor running. “Well, I've got to go back to Angela,” he said quickly. “She's really angry, and she's probably hurt.”

Shelly didn't move, just looked at him for a second. “I guess asking you in for a nightcap is out of the question.”

He looked back at her, unwavering. “It is for me,” he said quietly. “Sorry, Shelly.”

She shrugged again. “Can't blame a girl for trying.” With that, she got up and walked into her apartment.

He waited until she was safely inside, then broke speed records getting to Angela's house. Her lights were out. He rang the doorbell. Several times. Then he pounded on the door. Still nothing. He peered into her garage. Her car was there, so he pounded a little more, until he was afraid the neighbors would call the cops. Then he realized—she hadn't taken her car tonight. She was probably still with her friends.

He waited for two hours, and she still didn't show up. He called her number on his cell phone. “Angela? If you're home please pick up.” No answer—not that he was really expecting one. “Okay, if you're not home, please give me a call as soon as you get in. Please. It wasn't what you think at all. Just let me explain. I want to talk to you. We need to talk.” He thought about saying “I love you,” but didn't want to drop that on her in addition to everything she was probably thinking about. If he was trying to drive her away, that'd be the smartest plan. “Just…call me.”

He hung up, waited a little more, then drove home. He'd catch her tomorrow. Then they'd talk.

 

T
HREE DAYS LATER
, he was going out of his mind. He had not heard from nor seen Angela the entire weekend. Manzanita was growing, but it wasn't that damned big, he reasoned. He'd invited Adam over, and they sat in his home office.

“She's being childish about this.” Josh prowled around the room. Adam, sitting on the overstuffed chair, just
listened to him rant. “I wasn't doing anything wrong, and if she isn't going to listen to me, then she deserves whatever she's going through right now. You know she's just blowing it out of proportion somewhere. If she'd just
talk
to me, we wouldn't be in this mess! It'd be cleared up in a matter of five minutes!”

“You've got a five-minute explanation of why you were out to dinner with another woman?”

Josh glared at him. “It wasn't like that and you know it, Adam.”

“Maybe you should try it out on me,” Adam said placidly, “because right now, you're in no state to talk to Angela. You need to cool down, see things from her side. I'm not saying you did anything wrong,” he hastily added as Josh's expression turned more fierce, “I'm just saying that she'll be fine. When she's ready to talk to you, she'll talk to you.”

“Yeah,” Josh said, rubbing at his eyes. “To tell me we're finished.”

Adam snorted. “You're my best friend, Josh, but you've got to admit that you get…
impatient,
shall we say? You want things to run on your timetable. You get these plans, and when problems crop up, you go for any way to just work around them. Sometimes, you've got to sit back, and see where things take you. Relax.” He smiled, an approximation of a Zen calm. “It'll all work out.”

Those words were no comfort whatsoever, Josh thought.

He'd barely made it through the weekend by hanging out with Adam, going over reports, working on the new product line launch, going over the media plan for the next two quarters. It was no use. He'd tried to work,
read, watch TV, but all he could see was Angela's face, and her shocked look in the diner before she'd turned and made a break for it.

Now that it was Monday morning, he was at the Manzanita Public Library, bright and early, waiting for her. He'd give her a piece of his mind, making him worry like this. Angry or not, she could have at least let him know she was okay. She could have yelled at him. She could have
faced
him.

He saw a car drive up. It wasn't her white Honda, but he did recognize the occupants. Two of the women had been with Angela on Friday night. He watched as they walked up to the door, ignoring him as they spoke in concerned tones.

“I'm worried about her,” the one he recognized as Ginny said in a hushed voice.

“It would be easier if she'd just open up a little more,” the other one, with the dark hair, said. Josh strained to catch the rest of her sentence, but she was speaking too softly. She looked up, then recognized him.

Ginny obviously recognized him, too. “You've got some nerve, showing up here,” she hissed.

“I just wanted to see Angela.” He might have expected this. “She hasn't been in contact with me all weekend. Do you know when she'll be in?”

The dark-haired one was more sympathetic. “She's feeling very hurt, Josh,” she said, in a quiet voice.

“And if you'd thought with the head on your shoulders instead of the one in your pants, she wouldn't be!” Ginny added, her eyes blazing.

“I wasn't cheating on her,” Josh said sharply, then took a deep breath. He didn't need to do this. The only person he owed an explanation to was Angela. “I want
to talk to her about this. Do you know when she'll be in?”

They looked at each other. Ginny's mouth was set mutinously.

“She's taking a few days off,” the dark-haired one explained, obviously sensing trouble and trying to avoid it. “Possibly all week.”

“She's not feeling well,” Ginny added. “And don't try going to her house, either. She's not there.”

“Where is she, then?” Josh demanded.

Ginny stepped toward him pugnaciously. “I need to tell you because…?”

The other woman spoke up. “Ginny, stop it.”

“Tanya, he's hurt her.” Ginny turned her angry gaze toward the dark-haired woman. “He's a player! You're not going to just…”

“I'm not going to ‘just' anything,” Tanya said gently. “But he's obviously concerned.”

“Ha.” Ginny glared at him. “Guilty's more like it.”

Josh gritted his teeth. “I just want to talk to her.”

“Well, when she's ready, maybe she'll get in touch with you.
Maybe.
” Ginny stomped past him and into the library.

Tanya was looking at him apologetically, ready to walk past him, but he put a gentle hand on her arm, stopping her. “Please,” he said. “I…maybe I made a mistake. I know that I never meant to hurt her, and I would never do anything intentionally to make her this unhappy. I just don't see how her spending time away from me is going to resolve the situation at all. Where I come from, we work through things. I want to work through this with her.” He looked at Tanya, wondering
how he could convince her. “I love her, Tanya. Please, help me out here.”

Tanya sighed, and he could see her crumbling a little. “I can't tell you where she is, Josh,” she said, her eyes still apologetic. “She just needs some time to herself. She'll get in contact with you.”

Tanya hastily went into the library.

Josh leaned heavily against his car, running his hands through his hair. At least he knew she was alive, he thought. He then rubbed his hands over his face. But now he was supposed to wait until she decided to talk to him?

Who knew what she'd think of, what she'd reason, while she was away from him. No. He couldn't afford to relax and let things fall where they may. He needed to figure out a way to see her.

He glanced through the window of the library, then squinted. Then he walked in. Ignoring Ginny's glare, he pulled a flyer off of the wall.

Flamenco dancing. Offered Thursdays at the Community Center, from 7 to 9.

Angela took flamenco dancing. It was her favorite class, the one she'd stuck with when Chinese cooking finished and yoga had been cancelled. Hadn't she always said how important her classes were to her?

He'd find her there.