Moonlight Masquerade (21 page)

Al's three children were all boys and his wife never stopped telling him that he knew nothing about females, but he could almost imagine what it must feel like to be the butt of a joke made by the entire town. For the first time in his life he was glad he wasn't an “oldie,” a descendant of the seven founding families.

There weren't too many customers in the diner, so he motioned to one of the boys to take over the grill. Al knew no one could make a burger as good as his, but now and then he'd let them try.

“What do you need?” he asked Sophie as she stopped in front of the counter.

“A new life,” she said under her breath, then looked up at Al. “I wonder if I could talk to your wife for a moment. I'm not sure I have her card, and I need . . . ” She trailed off, unable to speak. She kept remembering things she'd thought, things she'd done and seen. When she was at Sara and Mike's house, they'd all
been staring at her so hard that Sophie hid out in the bedroom. What was it Reede said? They were all wondering when she was going to murder him. It made sense now. They'd all known that Sophie was being ridiculed by Reede, played for a fool. Used.

Last night he got what he wanted. Would he collect bets now? Had he, rich boy doctor, taken odds that he could get the little country girl into his bed without her even seeing his face?

Al reached for the coffeepot and filled the cup in front of Sophie and she sat down at the counter, but she didn't take a drink. “You can tear up that lease agreement if you want,” he said softly so no one else could hear.

Sophie kept her head down and nodded.

Al leaned toward her. “Does it make any difference that the doc was in here earlier telling me he was crazy about you?”

“Started to fall in love with me, did he?” she asked with so much sarcasm—and hurt—in her voice that Al winced.

She rummaged in her bag and withdrew her key ring. She had a key to Reede's apartment and she wanted to take it off, but her hands were shaking so much she couldn't do it.

Al took the ring from her and started to remove the key. But when he looked at Sophie he changed his mind. He put his hand on her arm and pulled her up. “Come with me,” he said.

“I—” she began.

“Unless you want the whole town gossiping about your every look, come with me.”

Sophie didn't have the strength to disagree, so she followed Al through the door at the back of the counter and into a little office. The big desk had chairs on either side, and masses of papers and catalogs were everywhere. As she took a seat, he shut the door, pulled down the shade, then took a bottle of whiskey out of a cabinet and poured a shot. “Drink it.”

Sophie hesitated. Her alcoholic stepfather had made her quite adverse to any form of alcohol, but after what she'd just found out, she needed any courage she could get. She tossed the shot back in one gulp, put the empty glass on the desk, then leaned back in the chair. “You want to hear the whole story about how I was duped by the local doctor? He certainly got me back for pouring beer on him, didn't he? Were you in one of the betting pools?”

Al sat down on the other side of the desk, his hands on his big belly, his apron spotted with grease. His first inclination was to tell her it wasn't like that, that Dr. Reede was really worried and yes, maybe he
was
in love with her. But Al didn't say that. “So what are you going to do now?”

“Get out of this town.”

“Good idea,” Al said. “Go home to your family and let them take care of you.”

Sophie sat there for a moment, blinking at him. She didn't really have a family. Since her sister Lisa was in college, that left only their alcoholic, lecherous step-father. Her hometown was where Carter lived, home of Treeborne Foods. If she went back there she could possibly be facing a prison sentence.

“Not so good, huh?” Al asked kindly.

“No,” Sophie managed to say.

“You have any friends here?”

“Kim . . . ” she whispered. “Jecca.”

“Ah, right, and they're not here.”

Sophie looked down at her hands and shook her head. “I'll be all right,” she said.

“What would you
like
to do? Other than run a truck over our bad-tempered doctor, that is? And I can tell you that if you go that road half the people in town will lend you their trucks.”

“Bad . . . ?” Sophie asked, her eyes wide. “But I thought everyone loved Reede.”

“That is the biggest lie you've been told.”

Sophie was so shocked that she couldn't say a word, just sat there and stared at Al.

“I see that you've not been told the whole story.”

“I'm the one who wasn't told
any
of the story,” Sophie said as she picked up the shot glass and held it out for Al to refill.

She downed the second shot, then listened as Al told her the same story Reede had, all about his good deed of taking over for Dr. Tristan. But when Reede had told it he'd left out how he'd frowned and snapped and made people so miserable that they'd rather be sick than go to him. “Old man Baldwin was having a heart attack and he made his son-in-law drive him to Norfolk rather than have to see Dr. Reede.”

“Yeah?” Sophie asked. The two shots of whiskey and Al's story were relaxing her and taking away some of her misery. “But everyone helped him lie to me. If they dislike him why would they do that?”

“You made him smile.”

“I did a
lot
of things for him,” she mumbled.

Al was looking at her in a fatherly way. “So how much money do you have?”

Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't think of telling a stranger that, but whiskey on an empty stomach was loosening her usual reticence. “One hundred and twenty-seven dollars. I have another three hundred and twelve in a bank, but I can't get to it because if I do they'll find me and maybe put me in jail. How long do you think it takes a package to get to New Zealand and back again?”

Al had no idea what she was talking about, but his main thought was that there was no way on earth he was going to let this young woman leave town in this condition. A very bad joke had been played on her, and he planned to do what he could to make it up to her. “What kinds of jobs have you had?”

“I've done lots of things. Do you need a waitress?”

He almost said yes, but then he had an idea. “You wouldn't like to help me out with a family dispute, would you?”

Sophie couldn't help frowning. In her previous jobs she'd twice been asked to help with “family problems.” This had turned out to be a euphemism for “my wife doesn't understand me, but you do.”

Al could almost read her mind and he couldn't help being flattered. “Betsy said you can make soup.”

“Soup?”

Al patted his big belly. “You saw my wife. She eats two sticks of celery and thinks it's a meal. She told me she wants me to eat more soup.”

Maybe it was the whiskey, but maybe it was the way
Al said it all, but it almost made Sophie smile. “You want me to make you some soup?”

Al was thinking as fast as he could. What this young woman needed was a way to keep busy, something to get her mind off what the entire town had done to her. And as for that, Al knew that if he used the Edilean gossip wagon correctly he could make the oldies feel so bad that they'd do anything to help Sophie out. The question was, What could she/would she do?

“Yeah,” he said. “Make some soup and sell it—” He'd meant to say to sell it in his diner. But from what he'd been told, she made those artsy soups that Druid virgins would like. They didn't really go with the theme of a 1950s diner. As for him, he thought little half-pound burgers were . . . What was that word he hated?
Metrosexual
.

Al looked around his office, searching for a solution to the problem. There were shelves of catalogs, some of them with their pages curling from age. Taped to the wall was a photo of a glass display case that he'd thought about buying but never did. That was when his wife had been nagging him to start selling grilled sandwiches. Something to do with goats and cheese.

“Do you know what a nanny sandwich is?”

“I have no idea,” she said.

“Cooked on a grill. Flat.”

Sophie blinked a few times. “Panini?”

“That's it.” Al looked at her as though she were brilliant. “Can you make those things?”

“A monkey could be trained to make panini sandwiches. You just have to stick it between two hot plates.”

Al thought for a moment, then began rummaging through a stack of papers on his desk. “Here it is.” He pulled out a fairly clean page and handed it across to her.

Sophie took the paper. It was a printout of an e-mail that read: Why don't you buy that shop from me and serve something that won't kill you with every bite? It was signed Roan.

Sophie put the paper back on the desk. “Is this the Roan who was there the day I . . . ?” She didn't finish. She knew he was one of the people who'd known she was working for the man she had dumped beer on. This man Roan had been at the tavern and later at the Halloween party and had seen that she was there with Reede.

“I see you know who he is,” Al said, his eyes twinkling. He was finding that he rather liked taking some of the oldies down to size. “Roan is a McTern.” When he could see that that meant nothing to Sophie, he continued. “He's inherited a lot of property around here, and one of the things he owns is a little sandwich shop downtown. He's been nagging me to buy it from him.”

Sophie was wondering what this had to do with her.

“The woman who was renting the place moved to Seattle. I think it was for love, but who knows? Anyway, the shop is now vacant and for rent, or for sale to me. If you want it, I can get it for you.”

“A sandwich shop?” Sophie asked. “I don't know how to run a restaurant. And I can't afford anything. If I were to stay here—which I shouldn't do—I need a job where someone pays me, not the other way
around. I can't keep staying at Kim's, so I don't even have a place to live.”

“There's an apartment over the shop. The last time I saw it, it was full of boxes, but I think it could be okay.”

“Like Reede's place,” she said softly.

Al wasn't going to put up with self-pity. “Naw. This one is better. There are big windows at the front, so you can see out.”

“I . . . ” Sophie began and she could see a thousand things wrong with this idea. She had no money, no experience, she was the laughingstock of a whole town, she never wanted to see Reede again in her entire life, and—

And this was an opportunity, she thought. Maybe, possibly, this could lead to something else. She had no idea what, but maybe there was something there. And besides, what else did she have to do? Where else did she have to go? Maybe she could turn Dr. Reede's lies into something good.

“I'll do it,” she said, and she could feel her heart pounding in her chest.

Al smiled at her with pride. He couldn't feel better if Sophie were his daughter. “Why don't you . . . ?”

“Go occupy myself for a while?” Sophie supplied.

“Tell Ray to give you a burger and fries. You need to eat to get your strength up and you need to plan what you're gonna cook.”

There was so much in Sophie's mind that all she could do was nod.

The second the door to the office closed, Al called
Roan. “You know that little sandwich place you wanted me to buy?” he said as soon as Roan picked up.

“Damn right I do!” Roan said. “The tenants left me hanging with that thing. I'd sue if I could find them. They—”

“Never mind that now. I need the store rent free for four months.”

Roan gave a scoff of laughter. “You've been drinking too much. As Kierkegaard would say—”

“Don't care what any of your relatives has to say. You need to give the new tenant the keys to that shop. My wife will draw up a lease. Four free months.”

Roan was silent for a moment. “Okay, you old grease dog, what are you up to and who is this really for?”

“You know the girl who dumped beer on Reede's head?”

“Oh yeah,” Roan said in a faraway voice. “I'll never forget that glorious moment. I will die with that image—Hey! Is this for
her
?! The little clone of Brigitte Bardot? The prettiest girl I've seen in years? The—”

“Keys!” Al said. “To the shop. Get them to her. She's going there now.”

“I'm on the way out the door.”

“Run!” Al said and clicked off the phone. He hadn't thought of it before, but big, good-looking Roan might help Sophie with a lot of her problems. The last time he'd been to see Reede as a doctor Al had been treated to a ten-minute lecture about his weight. If he'd wanted that he would have stayed home with his
skinny wife. Yeah, it might be good to introduce Roan to pretty little Sophie. Smiling, Al left the office.

Five minutes later, Roan called back. “I'm here and waiting and I want to know what's going on.”

Al told him.