The Room with the Second-Best View (5 page)

“Oh, and at one o'clock there's a meeting down at city hall. Would you be able to drive me?”

Albert cocked his head and eyed her. “What kind of meeting?”

Millie met his stare with a clear gaze. “The celebration committee. It'll just take about an hour.”

“I don't think you should go. The doctor said to take it easy for a few days.”

“Oh, pssht.” She dismissed his objection out of hand. “It's a meeting, not a marathon. What's the difference between sitting in a chair there and sitting in a chair here?”

“Comfort.” He laid his forearm on the table and leaned toward her. “Are you ready to sit on that air cushion in a hard chair for an hour?”

The question made her instantly aware of the tenderness in her nether region. The slightest movement threatened to upset the precarious balance she'd achieved, and as a result her body stiffened to accommodate, causing pronounced discomfort. Ibuprofen took the edge off the pain but did not go so far as to eliminate it. An hour on those hard chairs down at city hall would be miserable.

Even worse, she'd be forced to sit on the donut in public. Certainly not the dignified image she wished to project. Lulu would make crass comments of which no one would approve, but everyone would repeat in whispers all over town.

Millie straightened her neck and replied with as much dignity as one could muster while perched on a rubber cushion with a hole in the center. “All right, then you can go in my place.”

Al's eyebrows sprinted toward his hairline. “Absolutely not. I agreed to help you around the house. Attending a meeting with a bunch of women is clearly beyond the boundaries of our agreement.”

“But I have an assignment. I've spent hours doing research that needs to be presented this week.”

“Send Violet. She'll have the afternoon free since she's not painting.”

Millie shook her head. “I don't dare send Violet, not with Lulu
Thacker on the committee. Violet loses all restraint when Lulu's in the room. She can't stand the woman.”

“Neither can I.” Al folded his arms across his chest. “Make some calls. Find someone else.”

“I don't know who else to ask.” To her horror, Millie's eyes began to water. She was not a woman who cried often except at movies and weddings. Certainly she was not one of those females who used tears as a tool to get her way. She couldn't stand that sort of manipulative woman. But once the telltale prickle of tears began, she could not hold them back. Maybe it was because of the disabling ache that radiated from her tailbone all the way up to her skull, or the throbbing pain in her wrist, or the embarrassment of knowing she was being discussed over countless breakfast tables this morning. Regardless, she set down her spoon, covered her face with her napkin, and succumbed. Carefully, since any movement hurt.

“Oh, here. There's no call for this.” Albert's chair legs scraped across the floor as he pushed away from the table and hurried toward her. An arm encircled her shoulders and applied gentle pressure as he pressed a kiss on her hair. “I didn't realize how important this meeting was to you. Of course I'll do it.”

“No.” She shook her head and tried to staunch the flow. “Really. You don't have to. I just—it's only—” The words choked in her throat. “I hate promising and then not keeping my word.”

“Of course you do.” His soothing voice warmed her ear. “That's because you have integrity. Now, stop crying and finish your breakfast. Then I'm going to help you back to bed.”

She heaved a mighty sniff. “I don't want to go to bed.”

“Then I'll get you a couple of ice packs, and you can sit in my recliner. Come on. Eat up.”

Though sitting on an ice pack certainly wasn't an ideal way to spend a Thursday, the idea of doing anything else left her exhausted. The doctor said she would be sorest the first couple of days. Surely by
the weekend she'd be able to stand, if not sit, without agony. In the meantime, she ought to enjoy Albert's seldom-seen tender side.

She placed a hand on his cheek. “You really are a kind man, Albert.”

A touch of gruffness returned. “Keep it to yourself. I'd hate to have that spread around.”

A movement in the corner drew Millie's attention. Rufus heaved himself off the cushion and ambled to the back door. He turned his head and gave her a meaningful look.

Before she could interpret, Albert straightened. “I suppose I have dog duty too.”

“Don't forget to take a bag,” she said as he reached for the knob.

With an aggrieved sigh, he snatched a doggie cleanup bag from the box near the door. “Come on, mutt.”

When the door closed behind them, Millie picked up her coffee. About forcing Albert to care for Rufus, at least, Millie didn't feel guilty. Spending time together would be good for them both.

At one o'clock on Thursday, Al parked his car in front of city hall. Empty parking spaces stretched along both sides of the railroad track that divided Goose Creek's Main Street, which gave the place a vacant, ghost-town-like air. On Saturdays the town bustled with activity. He found the sight of the deserted street more than a little disturbing. Was it always this empty during the week when he was at the office in Lexington?

As he exited his car, Al scanned the buildings up and down the street. Many had been constructed close to two centuries before, and looked it. Crumbling facades, faded or paint-encrusted woodwork, bricks missing or broken. Nearly a third boasted For Sale or For Rent signs in their windows. He shook his head. What made Millie think anyone would want to stay in a bed-and-breakfast here?

On the other hand, a few of the buildings had undergone
renovations. The drugstore, for instance. And the day spa down on the far corner. His gaze was drawn there, to the newly painted trim, the neat rows of pressure-cleaned brick, and the brightly striped awning. Purple wouldn't have been his first choice for the woodwork, but Justin had put a lot of work into transforming that building exactly into what Ms. Love wanted for her establishment.

He opened the door of city hall—one of the town's original structures that had undergone a major renovation a few years ago—and entered an empty reception area. Following voices that echoed across floor tiles made to look like marble, he headed for a small conference room along the back wall.

Frieda Devall, owner of the Freckled Frog Consignment Shop—an establishment that offered a mishmash of frivolous and expensive doodads of which women were unaccountably fond—fell silent when she caught sight of him. Three heads turned his way while Frieda's eyebrows crashed together above flaring nostrils. “What are you doing here?”

“Courier service,” he announced. He set Millie's manila envelope on the table and gave it a shove toward Frieda, who seemed to be in charge by virtue of her seat at the head of the table. “If I'm not welcome, I'm happy to leave.” In fact, he would be relieved to escape this duty.

Tuesday Love, a mass of blonde curls waving from an untidy but somehow attractive mop on the top of her head, hopped up and grabbed his arm. “Of
course
you're welcome.” She slid out the wooden chair beside hers and tugged him toward it. “This group could use a man's opinion. A little Old Spice to combat all the perfume.” She gave a girlish giggle that somehow seemed natural coming from the flighty massage therapist.

Seated opposite Tuesday, Phyllis Bozarth lifted a concerned face up to him. “How is poor Millie?”

Of course the entire town would have heard about Millie's fall. Something as exciting as an injury to one of their own had no doubt
made the rounds of Goose Creek's female population within minutes of its happening.

“Sore,” he replied as Tuesday shoved him into the chair.

He was saved from elaborating when someone else barged into the room. There was no other way to describe Lulu Thacker's entrance. A thin, angular woman with a set of buck teeth that would have made Secretariat proud, Lulu and her annoying husband had moved to Goose Creek more than a year ago when they bought Al's house. Violet, who lived next door, had still not forgiven Al for the Thacker invasion.

“Sorry I'm late, girlies.” Lulu's voice held a high-pitched whine that grated on Al's eardrums. “You wouldn't believe the morning I've had. The coffeemaker got clogged and dumped coffee all over the counter. Then Frankie decided he wanted bacon, even though I had the sausage thawed.” Laden with a pair of bulging reusable bags, she dropped one on the floor and plopped the second on the table, tongue still flapping. “Of course whatever my Honey Bun wants, he gets. Especially since I forgot to turn on the dryer last night. Every single pair of his undershorts were wet.” She let loose with a laugh—a brash, unnerving assault on the ears that bounced off the walls in the small room.

Al shifted in his chair, wishing devoutly that he were not privy to news of Franklin Thacker's undershorts. Was it not enough that he spent hours every day listening to the man's annoying guffaw from the other side of his cubicle wall at work? And that every Saturday Thacker infringed upon the sanctity of the traditional Creeker watering hole, the soda fountain at Cardwell Drugstore?

“Lookie what I brought.” She began pulling jelly jars from her bag and banging them onto the table. Next to her, Phyllis jumped every time a jar hit the wood. “Enough for everyone to take home a couple. Worked on it all day and half the night, and mmm, don't my house smell good?”

Lulu caught sight of Al and squinted to peer at him. “Aren't you supposed to be at work?” Without waiting for an answer, she
continued her monologue. “My Frankie never misses a day of work. Not once in more than twenty years. Why, he wouldn't stay home on a workday if they paid him double. Every morning, rain or shine, snow or ice, off to work he goes.”

Yes, Al was aware of Thacker's excellent attendance record. He'd been subjected to a boastful narrative on the subject more times than he cared to remember.

“You brought us a present?” Tuesday reached across the table and picked up a jar. “That's so sweet.”

Phyllis examined the handwritten label on the jar Lulu slammed down in front of her. “Mustard Marmalade?”

At the head of the conference table, Frieda's nose wrinkled. “I've never heard of mustard in marmalade.”

“Be surprised if you had.” Lulu folded her empty bag and dropped into her chair. “I invented it myself. I used to glaze hams and chickens with mustard and orange marmalade, and one day I thought,
Why not?
So I whipped up a batch and it was a hit. Frankie likes it so much he spreads it on toast. Or sometimes straight out of the jar, if he thinks I'm not looking.” She indulged in another nerve-racking cackle that set Al's teeth together.

“I'm excited to try it,” Tuesday said as she stored two jars in a giant multicolored purse that looked like it might have been made out of a bedspread.

Al cast a glance sideways, but the flighty massage therapist seemed entirely sincere. He considered asking if she'd like two more jars. Millie would say that was rude, so he kept his mouth shut. But if a mustard-yellow chicken showed up on his dinner table, he would protest. He would not be able to eat a bite with the mental image of Thacker hiding in a corner to suck down spoonfuls of the stuff.

“Can we get started?” Frieda tapped a fingernail on the table. “I'm losing business every minute my shop is closed.”

Business? Al stifled a laugh. If there were customers strolling
through the streets waiting for the shops to open, they were doing a great job of staying hidden.

“Returning to our previous discussion,” Frieda continued in a take-charge tone, “to plan a decent celebration, we need funding.” She turned to Phyllis. “What did the city council say to our request?”

Phyllis, who had served on the city council for two terms, shook her head. “The city's budget is too lean. We spent over an hour trying to find any fund we could trim to try to come up with more money for the celebration. Mayor Selbo did allocate last year's budget surplus to us.”

“How much is that?” Tuesday asked.

Phyllis sent an apologetic grimace toward Frieda. “Fifty-eight dollars and twenty-four cents.”