Talk of the Town (5 page)

"Really?" He looked stunned.

"Sure. It needs a good home." Giving something she loved to someone who she felt might cherish it as she did was much easier than selling it to a complete stranger.

"Thank you," he said, looking at her in his intense way, as if she'd just kissed him and promised sex in the immediate future. It made her feel exposed and vulnerable and at the same time giddy and reckless.

"Mom?" Harley bellowed down the stairwell.

"What?" she snapped, embarrassed by her own emotions.

"Your sundae melted. Can I drink it?"

"Yes." Gary was still watching her. Still grateful. Still too discerning. She felt warm all over, flustered, and anxious. She started walking to the door. It was time for him to leave. "You're welcome to it, but don't let it go to your head. It doesn't mean anything."

"It means a lot to me," he said, following her when she turned out the lights and left him standing in the dark. He could take a hint. "The craftsmanship in this is remarkable. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. I'm completely taken with it."

"That's nice," she said, waiting to say good-bye at the door. "And I'm glad if you really like it, but my giving it to you doesn't change anything. Between us, I mean. I don't want you to get any wrong ideas."

He laughed, leaning a shoulder against the wall just outside the door, facing her. "You're a thought-provoking woman, Rosemary Wickum. So maybe you should give me an example of a wrong idea."

"My life is a minor mess most of the time, and I don't have the time or the inclination to deal with another man in it. You'd be wrong to think that there could ever be anything between us but a casual friendship. That's as clear as I can be about it."

It was Gary's experience with women that if they introduced sex into the conversation before he did— even in the most roundabout fashion, it was on their minds. And if they seemed concerned about it, it was on their minds
a lot.

"I appreciate your honesty, and the last thing I want to do is complicate your life," he said solemnly, his heart laughing wickedly as a look of surprise and disappointment flickered across her face. "Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?"

"What?"

"I want to take you out. You won't have to deal with a thing. No cooking. No serving. No dishes to wash. You just sit there and eat. That's not complicated, is it?"

"That's not what I meant."

"Good. Is seven too late?" His gaze lowered slowly to her T-shirt and then her jeans as if he knew she had nothing else on. "Were you in for the night or getting ready to go out before?"

"No, I ... I was in. I keep early nights."

"I'll come for you at six, then."

"No."      -

"Six-thirty?"

"Gary ..."

"I'll come at six, and if you're not ready, I'll wait. I'll teach Harley some dirty garbage jokes or maybe discuss a little social reform with Earl."

That mental cartoon made her chuckle. Then she sighed. She never could hold a line when she was laughing.

"All right. Six. But I'm not getting dressed up."

"Fine. Wear your towel."

In a flash she had her finger in his face.

"I'm not getting undressed either," she told him.

His grin and the look in his eyes sent thrills and chills up the backs of her legs, up her spine, and across her scalp.

THREE

Rose had first glimpsed Justin more than two years earlier at an art auction she'd attended just for fun. She'd been too poor to actually bid on anything. She sat in her then best dress with her skin tingling, her heart racing, while he bid thousands of dollars for a slender, sleek piece of eye-catching art deco by a little-known artist. Curious, she'd managed to get close enough to him after the sale to ask him why he wanted that particular work. He'd said, "Deco from the twenties and thirties couldn't be touched in the seventies and eighties. I predict that by the year 2020 this piece will be worth its weight in gold. . . . That is, if gold is still worth anything by then."

His reasoning had struck her as absurd. The straight lines and modern-technology look of art deco were popular but faddish in both decades. He had no guarantee that the sculpture would be worth its weight in sand, much less gold, and yet he'd been inordinately pleased with his prize. She had determined then that he was either incredibly insightful, dumber than a barrel of hair, or he had more money than he knew what to do with.

"It's an amateur show, certainly," he was saying to her now over the phone. "But it's a place to start. Jocelyn Torpuck will have a display. . . . Of course, you have to waterproof everything she does before you can hang it in your doghouse, but her friends are good buyers. We'll spread your name around at the Arts Council affair and then again at the Patrons of Fine Arts Ball. Hopefully, people will recognize your name by show time and . . ,"

"I can maybe make the Arts Council thing," she said, stretching the telephone cord from the diner's kitchen, around the coffee machine, across the pastry bar and the space behind the lunch counter to serve a BLT on whole wheat with an extra side of fries to Danny O'Brian, who owned the Ace Hardware Store three doors down. Lu had business at the bank, and Rose was tending the diner alone. "But there's no way I can afford tickets to the Patrons' Ball. What are they? Two hundred each? For cheap wine, slimy chicken, and sore feet from standing around talking to strangers who have no idea who you are and could care less? I don't think so."

"It's two-fifty this year, and if you want to make a name for yourself, you're going to have to go to these things.
You
have to make it happen. Once you start to sell, you can become an eccentric recluse. But until then, meeting the artist is half the fascination with the work—and half the buying price, I might add. I hope you're not still dreaming that someone will drive through that nowhere town, happen to see your work, buy it, and make you rich and famous. It doesn't happen like that. You have to make sacrifices. It's part of the Artist's Code or something, I'm sure. If it were easy, I'd be a billionaire by now."

"You are a billionaire."

"No, darling, only a few million. Fortunately, I have excellent taste, so it appears to be more."

"Yeah well, launching my art career this year would be pointless anyway. I won't be finished in time for the show. Not if you want to show all four at the same time."

"The three you have finished will do."

"No," she said, pouring Lucy Flannary from Lucy's Fabrics a second cup of decaffeinated coffee. Lucy was sorting through her little pillbox for her lunchtime medication. She'd forgotten her glasses at the shop again, Rose could see, and was squinting with indecision. "Lucy, these little blue pills you take at lunchtime every day …" she said, casually picking one out of the wide variety of colorful pills in Lucy's box. "What are they for?"

"My stomach, honey. I take so many other pills, I need this one to keep them from eating holes in my stomach. And I have to take them with food so
they
won't eat any holes in it. I thought you knew that."

"I keep forgetting," she said.

"No what? Were you talking to me?" Justin was asking, his voice sounding irritated over the phone. He hated the constant interruptions at the diner, but he was constantly calling her there. "I wish you'd pay attention, Rose. This is your career we're talking about."

She wanted to pay attention. She really did. But at that moment the bells over the door tinkled as it opened and the King of Trash . . . er . . . Gary Albright walked in.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, happy to see him, though she wasn't sure why. He was becoming a pest.

"What?" asked Justin. "You aren't talking to me again, are you?"

"Having lunch," Gary said, smiling at her the way a starving man might a cheeseburger. "I like to eat, remember? It's one of the many things you and I have in common."

"It's the only thing we have in common," she said, tucking the receiver between her ear and her shoulder to set paper-napkin-wrapped silverware on the counter and hand him a menu. "And I can't believe you drove all the way to Redgrove to do it."

"I'd drive a lot farther if it meant seeing you again."

For crying out loud! Now he was talking like that in public. Danny and Lucy heard him, she noticed, mortified, glancing about at the other customers. Heavens above!

"The, ah, special today is meatloaf. It's good," she said, turning away, pretending she could ignore him, untangling the telephone cord as she walked back to the kitchen door. "Where were we? Yes, I'm talking to you. Oh. Right. Yes, I said no. I don't think those three are ready to show. I know what you said, but I still think they're missing something. What? No, I'm not . . . well, yes, maybe I am afraid of failure. But why bother taking that step at all if you're not going to put your best foot forward?"

"You could show the little ones. Like the one you gave me," Gary suggested in a hissing whisper to her back, boldly listening to her conversation—which in his book wasn't the same or as sneaky as eavesdropping. "They're incredible."

Rose didn't care which book he lived by, his behavior was extremely annoying. She turned to glare at him, but he had his head turned, listening to Lucy, who was saying, "She
gave
you one of her sculptures? My oh my. You hang on to it, young fellah. It's going to be worth a lot of money someday, you mark my words. We raffled one off at the Christmas bazaar this past winter at the church. We got seven hundred sixty-four dollars and fifty cents for it. It was our biggest moneymaker. I keep telling her to take some of them down to the big cities, to San Francisco or Los Angeles or even up to Portland and sell them. She could get herself a new used pickup truck. Get her old granddaddy a hearing aid. But she won't listen to nobody but that fancy art fellah," she said, and then, leaning close, she confided, "Martin, my husband, doesn't think that fellah could find his ass with both hands." She laughed. "That's what he said to me."

Rose palmed the receiver, then stuck it on her hip and growled through her teeth. "Will you two stop discussing my private affairs? They're none of your business in the first place, and in the second place, Justin just happens to own one of the most respected art galleries in San Francisco and he knows more about metallic sculpture than anyone else around and . . . and Earl doesn't need a hearing aid. The old poop hears better than I do." She ended her sentence with a jerk of her head, marking the end of her conversation and theirs.

Gary and Lucy raised their brows at each other and tried to look duly chastised. But when Gary winked his agreement to the old lady, she couldn't hold back the waggish roll of her shoulders or the upward curl of her lips.

"Justin? I'll have to call you back, my— What?" she asked, her shoulders drooping. She raised her eyes to Gary, then to Lucy and said, "Justin says he doesn't need to find his ass. He keeps his money in the breast pockets of his silk suits and to ... to put that in your pipe and smoke it." She paused. "I know that's not what you said, but I'm not going to repeat that. Because I don't want to move to San Francisco. I like Redgrove. Look. I'll see what I can manage with the money for the Patrons' Ball, and we can talk later about showing my pieces. I have to go. Okay, I will. Bye."

"My oh my," Lucy said when Rose turned to them with thoughts of salmonella and botulism clearly on her mind. The gray-haired lady looked at her bare wrist, forgetting that she hadn't worn her watch that day. "Look at the time. I'd better get back to the shop. I need to keep an eye on Martin. He hands out all my prettiest buttons to the children if they're good while their mothers shop." She bent toward Gary again, patting his arm. "You're a nice young fellah. You can come back and eat here anytime," she said as if she owned the diner too.

"Thank you, ma'am. I will. I like the company," he said, using his grin to make her blush and titter as she walked away.

"I hope you're happy," Rose said as the bells tinkled over the door. She plopped a glass of ice water down in front of him from habit. "Justin's upset and now all of Redgrove will know I gave you one of my sculptures."

"What's wrong with that?"

"What's wrong with that? I thought you understood that I'm counting on Justin to help me show my work. He doesn't have to help me, you know. He thinks I have talent. He's been nothing but good to me and—"

"No, I meant, what's wrong with giving your sculptures away? They don't mean anything, do they? Those little ones?"

"No. Nothing. Except to me. But I don't usually give them away . . . except to certain people ... or on special occasions."

The gratification on his face became smug and exasperating. She had to stop acting on her impulses, she decided then and there.

"What do you want?" she asked, pulling a pad and pencil from the pocket of her apron.

"You're going to write it down?"

"Yes."

"Okay." He looked thoughtful. "I suppose I want what other men want. Family. Home. Something satisfying to do with my time . . ."

"To eat."

"Oh," he said, grinning, knowing full well he was getting closer and closer to triggering her detonation. "The special, I guess. Since you recommend it."

"Drink?"

"Sure. Sometimes. Do you?"

Danny O'Brian snickered into his coffee cup at the other end of the counter and the table of four ladies  behind him giggled.

"This isn't funny," she said in a harsh whisper, her hands dropping to her sides. "I work here. I have a job to do. I'm serious."

Though perhaps not as serious as she could have been, she reflected. He was so obvious in his tactics to yank her chains and get a rise out of her that it was having quite the opposite effect. She wanted to get frisky and box his ears. Light flirtation was called for, not anger. However, she'd never been any good at the former and the latter was a standard in her life—though she preferred to avoid it whenever possible.

"I can see you're serious. And I'm sorry," he said, looking far from repentant. "I'd like a very serious cup of coffee, black, when it's convenient."