“Right there in the office,” Nick said, trying to be encouraging.
Barbara took a deep breath. “He’s really good with cars, isn’t he?”
“The best,” Nick said. “The office is right there, through that door.”
“Because my car is running much better. He even fixed the heater.”
“It was just a loose switch,” Nick said, not mentioning he was the one who’d fixed it. “Max is good at catching things like that.”
“Well, that’s what I thought.” Barbara came a step closer, and Nick realized there was something different about her. She didn’t look as flashy for some reason. Like her hair was darker or something. “I think paying attention to details is important, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” Nick gave up on remembering what color her hair had been before because he didn’t care. “Well, you can just put those cookies in the office.”
“Is he good around the house, too?” Barbara asked, and Nick decided she was weird.
“He does okay,” Nick said. “Darla never complains.” He debated saying more and decided against it. No point in getting involved.
“I know. She does wonderful hair.” Barbara seemed guileless. “She’s lucky to have Max.”
“Right there in the office,” Nick said. “That would be the place to put those cookies.”
“You’re busy.” Barbara backed up a step. “It must be wonderful to work with Max.”
“Makes my day,” Nick said.
“I’m sure you’re good, too,” Barbara said politely.
“Not very,” Nick said.
“I’ll just put these in the office.”
“That would be the place.” Nick stuck his head back under the hood of the Honda and thought, Max, you’re going to have to handle this.
And then he concentrated on the Honda because Max and Barbara were none of his business.
Quinn got home a little after three, faster than usual because she was so excited to see Katie. Katie would need to go out right away, so she’d take her out in back of the apartment the way she had that morning, watch her jump and skip across the frozen ground and then come running back, and she’d feel the exhilaration she’d felt then, the lift of having something that loved her without expecting anything from her. She’d pick Katie up as she pawed at her coat, shivering all over from anxiety and excitement, cuddle her warm, and feel Katie’s little head rest on her shoulder again. It was so amazing to have a dog of her own that she smiled as she opened the door to the apartment and called “Katie!”, waiting to hear the newly wonderful clatter of dog toenails on the kitchen tile.
The apartment stayed silent.
“Katie?”
Still no toenails. Quinn shut the door behind her and began to look, her heart pounding, checking to make sure Katie wasn’t locked in the bathroom or asleep on the pine poster bed. The apartment was small enough that she had the entire place searched in two minutes. No Katie.
She tortured herself with the thought that the dog might have gotten out somehow, but when she went to see how much dog food was left, evidence of how long Katie might have been in the apartment, both bowls were gone. Quinn found them in the dishwasher.
Bill was always tidy.
The blood rose in her face and all the irritation and frustration she’d been feeling coalesced into rage.
He’d taken her dog.
He’d stolen her dog.
It took her no time at all to cover the mile back to school.
Three
Across town at the Upper Cut, Darla backcombed Susan Bridges and tried to talk herself out of being angry. There was no reason to be angry. Max had been right the night before. Having sex while all of Tibbett watched would probably have been bad for business. And anyway, she’d had all the payback she needed when she’d turned Max down at eleven. He’d put his arms around her in the empty kitchen after Mark and Mitch had finally gone off to bed, and she’d said, “Out of the mood.” Max had dropped his arms and said, “Ooooh-kay,” and wandered off to bed himself without another word to her. Not another word.
“Ouch,” Susan said, and Darla apologized and put her mind back on Susan’s hair.
“Did you ever think of changing your style?” she asked Susan, looking over her shoulder into the gray and scarlet-framed mirror. “You’ve been doing it this way for…a while now.” Thirty years about, was Darla’s guess. “You’d look good in one of those wedge cuts. Bring out your cheekbones.”
Susan sucked in her cheeks and studied herself in the mirror. “Darryl wouldn’t even know me.”
“Well, that could be good,” Darla said. “Give him something different. Make him look at you again. Make him think he was sleeping with a brand-new woman.”
“I don’t notice you changing your hair,” Susan said.
Darla checked her light brown French twist in the mirror. “Max likes it long and this is the only way I can stand it during the day.”
“Well, cut it off,” Susan said. “Make him think he’s cheating on you.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Darla said. Actually, cutting her hair short was tempting. Except Max liked it long. It would be a crummy way to pay Max back for something he didn’t even know he’d done, that she couldn’t even explain to him. I want something different, she wanted to say to him. I want us to be new again. And there poor old Max would be, clueless as to how to give her what she wanted. Not his fault. “I couldn’t do that to Max.”
“Well, see,” Susan said.
As Susan left, Darla’s sister Debbie came back from the break room and plopped herself down on the scarlet seat at the next station.
“Mama said you haven’t called her.” Debbie checked her impossibly blonde hair in the mirror. “She said she raised you better than that and what are you thinking. Do you think I look like Princess Di with my hair this way? I thought it might be too long, but Ronnie says no. Was that Susan Bridges who just left? That woman hasn’t changed her do since the Doobie Brothers broke up.”
“Hi, Deb.” Darla swept the last of Susan’s trimmings from the scarlet and gray—tiled floor around her station and fought back the impulse to point out that since Princess Diana was no longer setting fashion, there was something slightly icky about trying to look like her.
Debbie straightened her Upper Cut smock in the mirror as she babbled on. “Do you know what I heard?” She craned her head to see if anybody at the other stations could overhear, but the only three people at work besides them were across the room. “Barbara Niedemeyer broke up with Matthew Ferguson. Dumped his butt good.” Debbie nodded her head, a good-riddance nod.
Old news, Deb, Darla thought, but kept her mouth shut as she tidied her station. Let Debbie enjoy herself. She’d probably never wanted anything different in her life, just Ronnie, the Upper Cut, and the chance to be the first with good gossip.
“And do you know what that means? She’s gonna be in here to get a new hairdo one of these days. And when she does, we’ll know who the next one is.”
Darla stopped tidying. “What are you talking about?”
“Well.” Debbie leaned forward, waiting for Darla to join her.
Darla checked her watch. It was four o’clock. “I’ve got Marty Jacobsen now.”
Debbie waved her hand. “Marty’s always late. Probably out collecting gossip again. Some people.”
“Right,” Darla said and sat down. “Okay, I’m listening.”
“Well, remember right before Barbara went after Matthew? She came in here and she had me do a henna rinse and put it all up on top of her head, only she said, ‘Make it tasteful, Debbie, and soft, like Ivana’s.’ And I thought that was funny at the time, but then when Ronnie told me she’d dumped Matthew, I thought, ‘I wonder if she’d come in for a new hairdo again,’ and that’s when it hit me.”
“Hit me, too,” Darla said. “I’m lost.”
Debbie leaned closer, letting the arm of the chair dig into her soft middle. “She was trying to look like Lois.”
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Darla frowned at Debbie. “Barbara was?”
Debbie leaned back, satisfied. “Yep. Because I remembered that when she was after Janice’s Gil, she wore that ponytail, just like Janice except she fluffed it out some and had me French-braid the top so she looked classy. And then with Bea’s Louis, it was a knot on top of her head, except she had those wisps at the side that make it look so sexy, remember? Poor old Bea just looked like she had a bagel on her head, but Barbara looked great. And then she went strawberry-blonde Ivana for Matthew, and there’s Lois with that orange beehive she will not give up even though she runs a beauty salon for heaven’s sake, so”—Debbie leaned forward again—“I figure sometime this month she’ll be in for something different. And then we’ll know who she’s after, whoever’s wife matches the new do. Isn’t that the wildest?”
“She’s after Nick,” Darla said. “She brought the car in yesterday and it didn’t have anything wrong with it.”
“Nick.” Debbie sat back, not frowning because that made wrinkles but clearly puzzled just the same. “Jeez. That could be anybody. Who’s he seeing now? That Lisa girl?”
“No.” Darla got up and began to tidy her station again. “That’s been over a while. She wanted a ring for Christmas, and he got her the Dusty Springfield Anthology. She didn’t even know who Dusty Springfield was. I don’t think he’s dating anybody.”
“Well, it’s not like any of them last long. A year, tops.” Debbie shook her head. “There’s something wrong with a man who isn’t over his divorce twenty years after it’s over him.”
“He was over that divorce twenty minutes after it was final,” Darla said, trying to keep the tartness out of her voice. Nick might not be steady with women, but he was a damn good brother-in-law, a damn fine man. And he wasn’t stuck in a rut a mile deep, either, not like some people. “He just doesn’t like being tied down.”
“A man should be married.”
“Why?”
They stared at each other, annoyed at being crossed, the same stare they’d been giving each other since Darla had first looked over the edge of her newborn sister’s bassinet and not been impressed by what she saw. There was no reason every man had to be married. Or every woman. No matter how contented Debbie was in her marriage to that fool Ronnie.
Or how contented she was with old stick-in-the-mud Max, damn it.
Something was going wrong with her train of thought. She shouldn’t be this upset. She particularly shouldn’t be this upset with Max, who hadn’t done anything wrong, who was worth twenty of that knucklehead Ronnie. She shouldn’t be bored with him, she was ashamed to feel that way, it was wrong.
But she still felt that way.
“Why are you so touchy all of a sudden?” Debbie said, and Darla felt guilty again. Debbie wasn’t a rocket scientist, but she was a good sister. Darla could have been stuck with Zoë the Exciting who left Quinn feeling gray and flat. Deb was just being Deb.
“Never mind,” she said, and Debbie said, “You mark my words, Barbara’ll be in here any day now. And if she wants to look like Lisa, she’s going to have to grow some hair because it was clear down past that girl’s butt last time I saw her.”
“He’s not dating Lisa.” Darla stood up as Marty Jacobsen breezed in late. “Maybe Barbara’s wised up and is going after unattached guys.”
“That’ll be the day,” Debbie said. “People don’t change. She’s gonna be dating married guys forever. And I’m telling you now, she ever starts hanging around the hardware store and Ronnie, she’s not going to have any hair to do, ’cause I’ll pull it out for her.”
“People change,” Darla said. “If they have good enough reason, they—”
Marty plunked herself down in Darla’s chair and said, “Hi. I’m not late am I? Are you talking about Barbara? Because she’s definitely through with Matthew. I heard—”
By four, Bill had had a long day, made even longer by the BP’s insistence on helping the boys lift, even though they knew more than he ever would. “Hey, Coach, you think Corey needs more weight?” Bobby called to him now, while Corey Mossert, Bill’s thickest athlete in more ways than one, rolled his eyes.
“He’s fine,” Bill said, and moved on to the next lifter with Bobby close behind.
“That Greta is driving me crazy. She’s old, you know.” Bobby shook his head, and Bill almost said, “She’s fifty, that’s not old,” but since the BP had just cracked twenty-eight, it was probably useless to point out the relative youth of his secretary.
“She thinks everything should be done the way that Harvey did it,” Bobby went on. “Can you imagine?”
“Actually, the way Harvey did it was the way she did it,” Bill said as he checked the form on the next lifter. “She’s always pretty much run the school.” She’d had to since Harvey had been mentally dead for the past twenty years, refusing to retire until he’d keeled over from a heart attack at the Pumpkin Festival four months earlier, finally really dead, although as Quinn had said, it was hard to tell since he’d looked a lot like he always had at the assemblies.
“Well, there, see?” Bobby said. “That’s why the school’s been going downhill; no leadership. Until now.”
Bill checked Jason Barnes’s weight stack, which was exactly the weight it was supposed to be. He could count on Jason. He nodded at the big blond senior Quinn called “Bill, the Next Generation.” Their sons would grow up to be like Jason, tall and strong and dependable.
“You know what Carl Brookner told me?” Bobby was saying.
“What?” he said, mainly to humor Bobby.
“He said he thought the levy was a go for this year.” Bobby’s eyes glittered as he stared off into the distance. “He said he’d noticed the murals and he thought a new weight room wasn’t really enough reward for what you were doing with the boys.”
“Well, we’ve needed that levy for a while,” Bill said mildly. “New textbooks, teacher raises—we’re overdue.” The murals were a touchy issue since he’d asked Quinn and the art department to do them, and she’d been against it. “Tell me again why the art kids should shill for the athletic department?” she’d said, but he’d been patient and she’d given in.
“Yeah, but here’s the thing,” Bobby said. “He said we shouldn’t aim low. He said there should be a bond issue in the fall for new buildings.” Bobby’s voice hushed a little as he remembered. “A stadium and a new fieldhouse.”
Bill straightened at that. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.” Bobby shook his head, staring into his future. “Bill Hilliard Stadium.” He didn’t add “Robert Gloam Fieldhouse,” but Bill knew it was there.
“I don’t care what they call it,” Bill said. “But we need a stadium.”
“I know, I know, Big Guy,” the BP said, eager to bond again. “And we can get it. You get that tenth trophy, and it’s ours.”
He’d get the tenth trophy. He’d spent five years building a hell of a baseball team, and he’d get that trophy.
And then the stadium. Bill smiled at the thought.
“It’s a beautiful future we’re looking at,” the BP said.
Before Bill could answer, he heard the door to the parking lot slam and Quinn’s voice came from behind him. “I need to talk to you.”
He swung around to see her breathing heavily, glaring at him. Some of the boys stopped lifting to watch until he frowned and they all went back to work except for Jason Barnes, who let his weight stack come to rest.
“Jason,” Bill said, and waited until Jason gave up and the clink of his weight stack was rhythmic again. Then he turned to the BP, now glowering at Quinn, and said, “Take over, Robert.”
Quinn stomped back toward the door, and Bill followed her, figuring she was just a little upset about the dog. Nothing he couldn’t reason her out of.
“Where is she?” Quinn demanded as soon as they were outside standing next to her car. Her hazel eyes snapped at him and color flooded her cheeks. She looked great.
“It?
??s safe and warm.” Bill patted her arm. “It’s fine. Calm down.”
Quinn shrugged his hand from her arm and took a step closer. “No, it is not fine. I want that dog back. Wherever you took her, we’re going there now to get her back. And it better not be the pound, or I’m never speaking to you again.”
“You’re overreacting.” Bill spoke calmly, but he was puzzled. Things weren’t going right. She shouldn’t be this mad. “The dog is fine. I told them not to put it to sleep. I told them to call us if nobody—”
“You took her to the pound.” Quinn’s voice shook. “You take me there right now.”
“Quinn, be reasonable—”
“I am being reasonable.” Quinn’s voice was flat, deadly serious, her round face even paler than usual. “But I’m about this far away from throwing a fit you’re not going to believe. Now you take me to get my goddamned dog!”
He handed her into the passenger seat of her car and got in the driver’s seat, thinking that he really should get her new seat covers because hers were a mess. Once he had her calmed down, they could stop by Target and pick up some. “I’m sorry if you’re upset.”
“If?” Quinn’s voice rose to a shriek. “You’re listening to me and you’re not sure? Well, count on it! I’m upset!”
“But we can’t keep the dog anyway,” Bill went on, flooding his voice with calm as he started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. “I checked with the apartment manager, and she said absolutely not.”
“Then I’ll move.” Quinn folded her arms across her chest.
Bill took a deep breath. She was upset, but she’d calm down. “We can’t leave the apartment. It’s a great deal. And it’s close to school. It’s—”
“I said, I’ll move,” Quinn said. “You can stay there.”
“Quinn—”
“It wasn’t working out for us anyway,” she said flatly, all emotion gone from her voice, only tightness there. “And now that you’ve stolen my dog, it never will.”
Bill wanted to shout at her, but he didn’t. No point in them both behaving badly. “Don’t be ridiculous. You are not going to move out.”