“Good idea. See you in the morning,” he said.
As Michael and I started out, Liam Dolan appeared in the hallway, just as I had anticipated. He looked from Michael to me. “I’d be happy to give her a ride home,” he told Michael.
“She’s not going home,” Michael said. Neither he nor I added anything.
We continued down the hallway to the showrooms, both of us smiling at the way Liam just stood there looking after us, confused.
“Just give me a quick brush of it all, Michael,” I said as we entered the first showroom. “I’ll work myself deeper into it as I go along.”
“No problem. Let’s start with fixtures,” he said.
I had not realized how much there was, and after a good half hour, we had just scratched the surface, even of only a superficial view of it.
“I don’t want to take up any more of your time,” I told him. “And besides, I don’t think I should be late for my first dinner at the Winston House.”
“No, I wouldn’t do that,” he said. He looked at his watch. “You’d better let me drive you there. It’s on my way home anyway,” he said. I had a feeling it wasn’t, but I agreed, and we left together. Liam’s car was already gone. “He obviously didn’t make any effort to make up for the time lost today,” Michael said, nodding at the parking space. “I don’t know why that kid even bothers to show up at any time.”
“His father told him the same thing, practically.”
Michael grunted.
I thought about Liam. It seemed that everyone was down on him—not that he didn’t deserve it, but if no one was in your corner, you began to believe all the negative things people were saying about you. It reminded me of what Daddy called self-fulfilling prophecies. If enough people told you that you were a failure, you could start believing it, and if you did that, you would cause yourself to fail more and more, fulfilling the prophecy.
“Does Liam live with his father?”
“I suppose you could say that. Yes, of course. The Dolans have one of the biggest houses in Quincy. It’s really a mansion. Three or four families could live in it without getting in each other’s way. I’m sure Ken avoids him, or vice versa. Julia is still living there, too. I hear she’s in a romance with an X-ray technician at the hospital.” He smiled and leaned toward me. “Quincy’s small enough for gossip, but even if it wasn’t, people would still be interested in the Dolans. They’re like that family on that television show. Ken’s a very powerful guy in this city. Politicians are always knocking on his door.”
He stopped talking, shook his head, and looked at me.
“I don’t know what it is about you, Lorelei, but you get me blabbin’ like no one I know. Some days you can count on your fingers how many words I’ve spoken. I’m supposed to be the closed-mouthed, tight-lipped New England guy who’s suspicious of gossips. Look what you’re doing to me.”
“Don’t worry about it, Michael. I’m not much of a gossip. My father always told me to be a good listener first and a speaker later, much later.”
Michael laughed. “Good advice. Maybe he’s from New England?”
“No, Michael. He isn’t from anyplace you’d know.”
“Huh?”
I smiled. “We’re here,” I said, and he hit his brakes.
“Almost forgot. See how much of a creature of habit I am?”
“Thank you, Michael. See you tomorrow.”
“I can pick you up in the morning,” he said as I got out.
“I’m determined to get that walk in,” I said. “Don’t stop if you see me. I won’t want to hurt your feelings.”
He laughed. “Have a good night, Lorelei, and welcome to Quincy. And Dolan Plumbing Supply,” he called as he drove away.
I watched him go. Another vehicle pulled into a driveway a few houses down on my left, but other than that, the street was as quiet as it had been when I first arrived. I stood there, however, and concentrated on the place where I had thought I had seen the elderly man who had sat with me on the plane. Daddy had once told me that he was capable of envisioning more than imagining. When I asked him what that meant, he said it was like being a visual prophet. Sometimes he saw what would be before it would be.
“It doesn’t always happen, and it’s not a hundred percent accurate,” he had told me, “but I don’t ever belittle or disregard my visions.”
Thinking about that now gave me the feeling that he was nearby, warning me. Perhaps greater than my fear of Ava catching up with me was my fear of the Renegades, those of our kind who were outlaws, who followed their own rules and had no respect for territoriality. They moved about at will and endangered us all with their kills. Pursuing one of us was something they did with relish, as if destroying one of us strengthened them.
Despite the strength of the late-afternoon sunlight, the shadows it cast seemed to grow thicker and darker right before my eyes as I stood outside the Winston House studying the street. The shadows’ chill sent me hurrying into the house, where the sound of applause greeted me. Mrs. Winston and Mrs. McGruder stood in the living-room doorway, smiling.
“My nephew called earlier to thank me for sending you over,” Mrs. Winston said. “Seems I haven’t lost my touch when it comes to judging people, and that’s pretty important these days.”
“Amen to that,” Mrs. McGruder said.
“Come in, dear, and enjoy a glass of my special elderberry wine in celebration and meet Mr. Lamb.”
They stepped back, and I entered. Mr. Lamb rose from the sofa. He wore a light brown jacket, a dark brown tie, and dark brown slacks with laced walnut-colored shoes. His reddish-brown hair was cut short, with just a small wave at the front. His smile began in his hazel eyes and drifted through his soft, full cheeks to his pale red lips. He had a cleft chin and was just under six feet tall. He didn’t look chubby so much as slightly overweight, with an almost feminine gentleness to his demeanor. Perhaps, I thought, I was having this reaction to him because I had been confronted by so many muscular, hard-looking men at the plumbing supply company all day.
“Hi,” he said. “Welcome to the Winston House and to Quincy.”
“Thank you, Mr. Lamb.”
“Please call me Jim. Glad you got here. They wouldn’t let me sip the wine until you had yours, and Mrs. Winston knows how much I love her homemade elderberry.”
He nodded at the bottle and glasses on the silver tray Mrs. McGruder hovered over beside the end table. She looked to Mrs. Winston, who nodded, and then she began to pour us each a glass. She handed them first to Mrs. Winston, who then handed one to Jim and one to me.
“This is my great-grandmother’s recipe,” Mrs. Winston explained. “If taken in moderation, elderberry wine has many health benefits. The ancient Egyptians used the plant and its flowers to heal burns, and the British used it as a cure for the common cold and heartburn. Anyway, to our newest Quincy citizen, Lorelei Patio,” she said, raising her glass.
We all sipped.
“Thank you,” I told her. “I don’t think my own grandmother could have done as much for me in one day or been as considerate.”
Her eyes glittered, but she quickly recovered her New England proper posture and demeanor. “Well, since this is a special evening, we’re having one of Mrs. McGruder’s best dinners, roast leg of lamb. We’ll have to get to it,” she said, nodding at Mrs. McGruder. She made sure to pick up the bottle of elderberry wine as they started out. She paused in the doorway. “I’m sorry the other two guests weren’t here early enough to toast with us, but at least you and Mr. Lamb have time to get to know each other,” she said, and nodded, as if she were giving us her blessing and permission.
I looked at Jim Lamb. He smiled and glanced at the chair I was near, urging me to sit.
“I should really go up and shower and change for dinner,” I said.
“Yes. I will change, too, but they don’t serve until seven sharp, so we have some time.”
I sat, and he sat on the sofa quickly.
“I don?
??t know much more about you than that you just were hired at Dolan Plumbing Supply and arrived here in Quincy today. Neither Mrs. Winston nor Mrs. McGruder volunteers much information about any of their guests.”
“Oh?”
I laughed to myself, thinking about how much they had told me about Naomi Addison, but I did consider that they told me those things because she and I were to share a bathroom, or because they weren’t all that fond of her.
“I teach English literature and composition at the Adams School for Girls. I’m in my third year there. I was born and brought up in Boston. Attended Boston University. My family used to come to Quincy for weekends often, and I fell in love with it when I was only twelve, I think. Always knew I wanted to live here someday.”
“What age do you teach?”
“Tenth to twelfth grades. The age of wild hormones,” he added, but he blushed before I could, not that I would have. “I was told that if I could survive them, I could teach anyone anywhere.”
“You were told right.”
“And you’re from?”
“The West Coast,” I said. “We traveled about a bit.”
“What brought you here?”
I thought about being silly and saying “a jet plane,” but I smiled instead and told him I had discovered it in a travel magazine.
“Well, it takes a lot of courage to just pick up and start someplace new, especially someplace like Quincy, which I imagine is quite different from where you’ve been.”
“Sometimes we don’t have much choice but to be courageous.” I glanced at my watch. “I don’t mean to be abrupt, but after the day I’ve had, I think I need a little rest. I want to be up for the other guests and Mrs. Winston’s special dinner celebration.”
“Oh, sure.” He smiled. “I guess we have plenty of time to get to know each other anyway.”
“Have no fear. It won’t take much time to get to know me. I haven’t done all that much yet,” I said.
My reply took him by surprise. He tried to hold on to his smile, but I could see he was a little speechless. I wasn’t all that used to shy men. Ava used to say they made her stomach churn. She didn’t have the patience for them. Whether I wanted to admit it to myself or not, I shared some of that with her.
I finished my wine, put the glass down, and stood. He rose immediately.
“See you at dinner, then,” I said.
“Yes, yes,” he replied as I started out.
I was going to lie down for a while. Everything had happened so quickly, I did feel as if my thoughts were jumbled and floating like snowflakes in a Christmas snow globe. In less than a day, I had found a new place to live, a job, and a possible pool of new friends, including two young men who were obviously eager to get to know more about me. I had a great deal yet to do, of course. I needed to complete my meager wardrobe and get familiar with the city. Always lingering at the edges of my thoughts would be the question of how long I would stay there. Would something soon happen to drive me on? Would I find it impossible to be anything other than a fugitive? Was this idea of starting a new life in a new place so impossible that only someone as desperate and foolish as I was would even attempt it? How long could I keep all of my secrets, anyway?
This was the first time since I had arrived in Quincy that I could stop to think. Without the clatter, the activity and chatter about me, my mind sank softly into the pool of darker memories, still quite vivid. On top of that, I couldn’t help but imagine poor Buddy returning from the bathroom and seeing that I was gone. He probably first thought I was in the bathroom and waited hopefully, but when I didn’t emerge, he might have asked someone who was going in or who had just come out if I was in there. When they said no, he would have charged out of the restaurant and looked frantically toward the car and then all around the parking lot. If there was ever anything like cruel kindness, this was it; this was what I had done to him.
I could picture him trembling, believing that my sisters and my father had caught up with me and scooped me away. How frantic and frustrated he must have felt. What was he going to do, run to the police to tell them a tale that competed with a television horror movie? He probably wouldn’t be able to get a patrol car up to the house. He might not remember where it was himself, anyway. Even if he had found the courage and gone up there himself, he would find nothing. I was confident of that. All he could hope for was that I would call him, if not soon, someday, but that was something I would never do.
Now that I was seemingly safe for a while, I had to remain vigilant and paranoid. Had I seen a vision? Was the old man a Renegade? If I confronted one during my normal daily activity, would I have the power developed in me to sense him? A part of me didn’t want these powers. I couldn’t pick and choose from the list of skills and insights that made Daddy and my sisters so extraordinary and powerful. I had to accept it all, give myself up to the genes raging angrily within me, demanding that I permit them to mature and be who I was meant to be. How dare I challenge the fates?
But challenge them was what I was determined to do. Somehow, some way, I would be different. Surely there was some avenue of escape, some secret antidote that Mrs. Fennel, Daddy, and my sisters knew but had kept from me. I had only one goal in life now, and that was to find it.
I was so lost in these thoughts that I didn’t hear the first few raps on my bedroom door. They grew louder, almost like pounding.
“Yes?” I called. I rose quickly from my bed and opened the door. The woman standing there had to be Naomi Addison.
Daddy used to tell us that a divorced woman, especially a recently divorced woman, had a certain desperation in her face. I so enjoyed those evenings when we sat at his feet and listened to him describe the people who populated the world outside. He never came right out and referred to them as our cattle, our livestock, our garden of vegetables, but there was little doubt that he saw them that way most of the time.
“No matter how justified she is in placing blame for the failed relationship on her ex-husband, she can’t help but feel not only a sense of failure in herself but also renewed deep insecurity. How did she miss them, all those failings in her man? Will she miss them again in another? There are women out there who have been married two, three, even four times. Is it always the man’s fault? Can that be? They have to wonder, even though they would never admit such a thought to their friends.
“And what about those friends? Can they trust them now? Do they see accusation in their faces? Can they hear the insincerity in their words of support? Are they talking about her behind her back? It’s endless when you fail, because even if you can support and justify blaming it all on him, you can’t escape the fact that you missed it, chose him, and put yourself in this world of failure.
“So, there is this look of desperation in their eyes. I mean to say this is true for the men, too. They’re just as insecure about themselves, despite the bravado. You want to recognize the desperation and the insecurity in the people you meet, my lovelies,” Daddy had told us. “It will make you superior and far more confident, which is what you should be, what you are.”
Naomi Addison wore too much makeup, I thought. She was one of those women who thought that if they put a stronger bulb in their socket, they would seize the attention of eligible men and wash out the competition. Her torturous, painful hunger to satisfy her need to be loved again was not unlike Daddy’s thirst, I thought. Maybe that was what revolted me about her more than anything.
“God, get a life,” I wanted to say. “Don’t grovel and plead with your sexy clothing, lustful eyes, and voluptuous body to get yourself a new companion, who most likely will bring you back to the altar of divorce you now flee.”
If she would wash most of the heavy makeup off her face, take the brassy gold color out of her natural light brown hair, wear less ostentatious jewelry and bras and dresses that didn’t exaggerate her nice five-foot-seven, nearly hourglass-perfect figure, she just might find someone substantial. But that thought left me the moment she opened
her mouth. Her voice was thin, whiny, and nasal with condescension.
“I’m Naomi Addison. I understand we’re sharing the bathroom,” she began. “I understand you’ve been here at least twenty minutes. Does that mean it’s mine now? I need a good half hour before dinner.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “I just lay down for a moment after returning from work and lost track of time. I need about five minutes.”
“Five minutes,” she said disdainfully. “What can you possibly do in five minutes?”
“Get cleaned and refreshed,” I said.
She twisted her mouth. Her lips looked artificially boosted into fullness and ballooned a little when she curled them. There was something about the color of her eyes that suggested tinted contacts, maybe designed to make them seem bluer.
“Where do you work?” she asked, solely out of curiosity and not friendly interest.
“I just started as Ken Dolan’s secretary at the Dolan Plumbing Supply Company, mainly—”
“Ken Dolan’s secretary? You mean, his private secretary?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Her expression softened instantly. Then she smiled. “I would have applied for that if I knew the difference between a computer and a commuter.”
Figuring that was her best effort at a joke, I smiled.
“Well, I really don’t need as much time as I said. You take ten, fifteen minutes. I’ll be fine,” she said.
“I won’t be that long.”
“Don’t worry about it. Nice to meet you. I look forward to getting to know more about you.”
“Likewise,” I said, and closed the door so she wouldn’t see me giggling. Could anyone be more obvious? Surely she was hoping to get me to say something complimentary about her to Mr. Dolan. I’d have to remind her that the one with the most influence on him was Mrs. Winston, but more important, after knowing Ken Dolan for only a few hours, I could easily predict that he would never involve himself seriously with a woman like her. I wouldn’t be the one to tell her, but something told me I wouldn’t have to.