She watched him while he stopped by the brunette’s table, watched the brunette’s smile widen as he talked, and then watched her laugh as he went on to the bar.
How very cheap of that brunette, letting him pick her up like that. Well, thank God she wasn’t looking for somebody if this was what it was like in the world of dating. Thank God she had Jack.
Suze turned back to look out the window at the brick street in front of the restaurant. The sun was going down, and the Village was getting the timeless look it always took on at sunset, beautiful and moody. I love it here, she thought. Why aren’t I happy?
Except she was happy. It was the twilight. Twilight was always melancholy, and melancholy beauty could make anybody a little heartsick. She’d be fine when the sun came up again.
Riley put her glass in front of her and sat down across from her again, blocking her view of the dusky street.
“You didn’t even ask me what I was drinking,” Suze said.
“Taste it.”
She took a sip. Iced tea, no lemon.
“I pay attention,” Riley said.
“So she let you pick her up in front of me. Has she no ethics?”
“God, I hope not,” Riley said. “Also, I told her you were my sister.”
He looked so calm across from her, so confident that he knew everything, and she felt the sudden urge to disconcert. If she leaned over and kissed him, the brunette would know she wasn’t his sister. That would fix him.
“What?” Riley said, looking less confident.
“I didn’t say anything,” Suze said.
“No, but your expression changed,” Riley said. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop it.”
“I wouldn’t do it anyway. No guts.”
“Good. I hate women with guts. I like ’em pliant.”
“I am not pliant,” Suze said.
“Another reason we’re not together,” Riley said.
The chair beside her scraped, and Nell said, “Why are you frowning at each other?” as she sat down. She looked tired but relaxed, so the fight with Gabe must have ended.
“Low-class company,” Suze said, moving her feet so Marlene could hide out under the table.
“Thank you very much,” Gabe said, taking the seat beside Riley.
“So how was your day?” Suze said brightly and then didn’t listen, choosing to watch Riley laugh with Nell and make eye contact with the brunette instead, clearly not caring that she was out of his life.
When Riley and Nell went to the bar for refills, Gabe said, “So how’s your life?”
“I have to quit the decoys,” she said. “I’m sorry. I really, really am.”
“So are we,” he said. “You were great to work with.”
“Thank you.” She looked away so he wouldn’t see how much it mattered to her and saw Nell, laughing with Riley at the bar. “She looks wonderful, doesn’t she?” Suze said, turning back to Gabe. “So bright and happy.”
Gabe nodded, watching Nell, too. “‘The shape a bright container can contain.’”
Suze blinked at him, amazed. In a million years, she wouldn’t have suspected Gabe McKenna of quoting poetry. “Roethke?”
Gabe looked taken aback, too. “Yeah. He was my dad’s favorite. He used to recite that one to my mother all the time. Nell makes me think of it sometimes.” He frowned at her. “How do you know Roethke?”
“English 361,” Suze said, “Introduction to Poetry.” When she got home, she was going to find her old anthology and see if that poem was as erotic as she remembered. Even if it wasn’t, she was sure it was a great love poem. Maybe Nell wasn’t alone after all.
It would be too terrible if Nell was alone.
* * *
Two hours later, Suze and Riley had both gone, and Nell was finishing off the last of her French Silk pie and trying to figure out the undercurrents of the evening. Gabe nursed a beer across from her, looking mildly annoyed because Trevor had called earlier and offered her a job again.
“Okay,” she said. “I don’t get what all that tension was about. Riley was a lot more upset about Suze quitting than he let on. What’s up with that?”
“There’s some history there,” Gabe said. “Listen, when Trevor called, did he say Jack had told him to offer you that job?”
“No,” Nell said. “And there is no history. Suze never met Riley before the night we stole Marlene. Their entire relationship is fourteen decoy jobs.”
“True,” Gabe said. “I’m asking about Trevor because it’s not like him to take direct action. Jack, yes, Trevor, no. Trevor waits.”
“He didn’t say.” Nell leaned forward over her empty plate to look him in the eye. “You told me you investigated Jack’s divorces. Are you telling me, you investigated Suze?”
“You sure you’ve told me everything you know about Margie?”
“Vicki hired you to find out about Suze and Jack,” Nell said. “My God. That’s when Riley saw Suze?”
Gabe nodded, giving up as she knew he would. “Through a motel window stripping for Jack in a cheerleader uniform. At eighteen. It permanently damaged him.” He stared into space for a moment, looking thoughtful.
Nell narrowed her eyes. “And you know this how?”
“There are pictures,” Gabe said, coming back to earth. “It must be something big because Trevor is really hot to get you away from us.”
“There are pictures?”
“Were,” Gabe said hastily. “Were, there were pictures.”
“You are ducking me,” Nell said, leaning closer.
“Like that’s possible,” Gabe said. “Of course, there’s always the possibility that it’s Jack manipulating Trevor. What do you know that Jack doesn’t want you to tell me?”
“Nothing. You have everything I know. Listen, I’m going to be finished in the basement by the end of next week. Want me to start on your car?”
Gabe narrowed his eyes. “Stay away from my car.” He stopped, thoughtful. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe they’re afraid you’ll find something. God knows, you’ve been everywhere.”
“Just to clean the car.” Nell pushed her plate away. “I wouldn’t dream of driving it.”
“I clean it. There’s nothing in there. And don’t even talk about driving it.”
“I said I wouldn’t dream—” Nell began, but he was standing up, ready to go, his keys in his hand, the Porsche insignia tantalizing her.
“I can’t think of any other reason to hire you away,” Gabe said. “It’s got to have something to do with this blackmail mess.”
“Maybe they just need a good office manager,” Nell said, pushing her chair back, careful not to hit Marlene. “So are those pictures still around?”
“You will never know,” Gabe said. “The furniture looks great, by the way.”
“You are much too sensitive about that car,” she said and picked up Marlene to follow him out into the cold November night.
* * *
Nell was disappointed that Suze had quit, but not surprised. “It’s a miracle Jack let her do it this long,” she told Riley. “At least now you’re off the hook. I know you didn’t like working with her.” She waited for him to come clean, but all he said was, “She wasn’t that bad.” Shortly after that, he began dating a dental technician who did regional theater and thought decoy work was performance art, and nobody mentioned Suze again.
Suze didn’t take the change nearly as well. “I’m fine with it, really,” she told Nell, but by the time Thanksgiving rolled around, she’d stopped smiling and her temper had frayed.
“Jack insisted on inviting Tim and Whitney,” she’d told Nell the week before. “And I told him if you weren’t coming, I wasn’t coming. And then he said I wouldn’t need you because he’d invited Margie and Budge and Margie’s dad and his wife and Olivia. Five of them. And then there’s my mother and his mother.”
“I can stay home,” Nell had said, not wanting to make any more trouble between Suze and Jack. Jack had taken to glowering at her wh
enever they met, and she was tired of it.
“No, you can’t,” Suze said. “You and Jase are the only people I want to see. You have to be there.”
So Nell had arrived early with pumpkin pies and Marlene, and had helped finish the cooking while Suze snapped Marlene into a turkey costume she’d found. Nell had been cheerful to Whitney when she looked resentful, sympathetic to Jase when he got stuck with the sulky Olivia, and patient with Tim’s mother when she made veiled comments about people getting on with their lives and not holding on to their pasts. The low point of the day had come right before they’d sat down to eat when Mother Dysart had counted the place settings, said in horror, “We can’t have thirteen at the table!” and stared pointedly at Nell. The high point had come immediately after that when Suze had stared pointedly at Mother Dysart and said, “Shall I fix you a tray?” Jase had saved the day by hauling Olivia off to the kitchen—“We’ll eat at the kids’ table just like old times”—but Jack hadn’t been amused, and he’d punished Suze by spending the entire afternoon laughing with Olivia and ignoring her. Suze hadn’t seemed to care. The family had mercifully dispersed by nine when Jack took his mother home, and she evidently decided to keep him for a while, because at eleven that night, Suze and Nell were alone in Suze’s guest room, savoring the solitude and their ninth eggnogs. Even Marlene seemed relieved.
“Thanks for spending the night,” Suze said. “I couldn’t face cleaning that up by myself.”
“Not a problem,” Nell said, stretching out on the bed in her blue silk pajamas. It felt good to stretch, good to use her muscles, and she thought, not for the first time, that she had other muscles she’d like to use, too. Celibacy sucked. There were times when she almost considered jumping Riley again, just for the exercise. “Thanks for having both me and Whitney in the same room so Jase didn’t have to split a holiday again.”
“She’s an interesting woman,” Suze said. “For a midget.” She sat cross-legged on the bed beside Nell, unsnapping Marlene’s turkey costume.
“She’s petite.”
“She’s a nasty little cockroach.”
“That’s loyalty talking,” Nell said. “She’s not that bad. And I actually don’t care about her anymore, although I’m still hoping Tim dies. The only thing I have against her now is that she’s having sex and I’m not.”
“You know,” Suze said, as she frowned at a stubborn snap, “if we had any brains, we’d be sleeping with each other.”
“What?” Nell said. “Us?” She thought about it. “It would make things easier.”
“You do think I’m cute, right?” She stopped unsnapping Marlene to hold out the hem of her ancient OSU T-shirt.
“As a bug,” Nell said. “Too bad it’s wasted on me.” Where the hell is Jack anyway?
“You look good in blue silk, too, sweetie,” Suze said. “I’m telling you, we’re missing a good bet here.”
Nell looked down at her blue silk pajamas. She did look good in blue. Maybe she should get a blue nightgown. In lace. Just in case somebody stopped by sometime. She shifted uneasily on the bed, looking for a distraction. “Have you got anything to eat that doesn’t scream Thanksgiving?”
They went downstairs to the kitchen, Marlene clattering behind them in hopes of food, and Suze peered inside the refrigerator. “Leftover lasagna from yesterday. Celery and carrots. Cheese. I think there’s rocky road ice cream in the freezer. Everything else is holiday stuff.”
“Yes,” Nell said.
“To what? The ice cream?”
“To all of it. I’m starving. Got any wine?”
Suze began unloading the refrigerator. “This is a nice change for you. We got very tired of trying to force-feed you last summer.”
“I was getting tired of being harassed,” Nell said, going for the carrots. “And then suddenly I was hungry, and now I can’t catch up fast enough.” Also when I eat, I don’t think about sex.
“Well, you’re looking a lot better.” Suze took a bottle of red wine off the shelf and went looking for a corkscrew. “Are you back to your original weight?”
“No, and I don’t want to be,” Nell said. “I like your hand-me-downs. But I’m healthy again. Well within government guidelines.”
Suze handed the bottle and the corkscrew to Nell. Then she dumped the lasagna on a plate and shoved it into the microwave. “Carbs coming up. There are probably steaks downstairs in the freezer. Want me to thaw a couple for breakfast tomorrow?”
“Sure.” Nell popped the cork on the wine. “Steak and eggs. Do we have to wait for breakfast?”
Suze went down to the basement and came back up with three steaks, which she set in the sink to thaw. “I can’t imagine being a vegetarian,” she said, taking the glass of wine Nell handed her. “How does Margie stand it?”
“How does Margie stand Budge?” Nell said, thinking of the way Budge had hovered over her all day and trying not to think of what he must be like in bed. That thought alone called for a drink.
“He worships the ground she walks on,” Suze said. “Lots of women like that.”
“Sort of like Jack,” Nell said.
“So, really,” Suze said, “have you ever thought about being a lesbian?”
“Excuse me?”
“You know, you and me. Easier than guys.”
“Oh, right. Nope.” Nell unwrapped the cheese and cut off a chunk. “I’m heavily into penetration. Or at least I used to be. It’s been a while. Months. Years.”
“Not that long,” Suze said. “Or didn’t Riley penetrate?”
“He certainly did,” Nell said. “But that was only once and he doesn’t count. He was a disposable lover.”
Suze stared silently at the microwave as it counted off the seconds, and when it dinged, she pulled the pasta out and put it on the table. Then she took two forks from the drawer, handed one to Nell, and they sat down with the lasagna plate between them.
Suze stabbed the lasagna on her side. “Disposable lover?”
“According to Riley,” Nell said around a mouthful of cheese and noodle, “women who are getting over a divorce go through a disposable lover stage when they sleep with men just to prove they can.”
“Well, he’d have access to divorced women,” Suze said. “So who else have you disposed of?”
“Just Riley.” Nell cut into the lasagna again. “This is really good.”
“There should be more than just Riley,” Suze said sternly.
“Nobody else I’m attracted to,” Nell said, and then Gabe flashed before her, standing in the doorway, looming over her, arguing with her, pushing back when she pushed him, enjoying the fight as much as she did, and she stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth.
“Think of somebody, did you?”
“Nope,” Nell said and ate some lasagna. “So lesbianism. This interests you?”
“Maybe. I’ve never tried it. I got married very young, you know.”
“I know,” Nell said. “I was at the wedding. When the minister said, ‘Does anyone here object?’ I wanted to stand up and say, ‘Has anyone here noticed the bride is an infant?’ but I didn’t.” She leaned over and put a piece of bread on the floor for Marlene, who looked at it as if it were broccoli. “If you’re holding out for lasagna,” she told the dog, “you can forget it.”
Marlene ate the bread.
“Thank you for not ruining my wedding,” Suze said.
“Don’t mention it. This is really good lasagna.”
“It has tofu in it.”
Nell slowed down long enough to look at the pan with doubt. “I can’t taste it.”
“Then pretend it isn’t there, the way you’re pretending this guy isn’t there.”
“There is no guy,” Nell said. “Tofu, huh?”
“Forget I mentioned it.” Suze refilled their wineglasses. “Ever kiss a girl?”
“Nope.” Nell reached for the butter. “You?”
“Nope.” Suze put her fork down. “We should try it.”
“I
’m eating,” Nell said. “Maybe later, for dessert.”
“So what’s new at work?”
“Not much. Gabe let me fix the furniture in his office, can you believe it? Next I’m going to get a couch and then I’m going to get that window repainted. And new business cards.”
Suze sat back and observed her. “Gabe always seems dull to me.”
“Gabe? Good heavens, no.” Nell forked more lasagna. “Riley says he’s repressed from too many years of trying to keep the firm afloat because his dad almost ran it into the ground, but I think he’s just dry. You know, the old traditional private detective cool.”
“I thought so,” Suze said. “It’s Gabe.”
“What?”
“You have the hots for Gabe. That’s why you keep pushing him, to get him to pay attention to you.”
“No, I do not,” Nell said, putting her fork down. “Are you insane?”
Suze shook her head. “I can hear it in your voice. Come on, it’s me. Admit it.”
“Well.” Nell picked up her wineglass. “I have had a few fleeting inappropriate thoughts.” She drank half her wine and then added, “But I’m sure it’s just because he looks like Tim.”
“He doesn’t look like Tim,” Suze said. “Besides, you don’t feel that way when you look at Tim now, right?”
“Classical conditioning,” Nell said, thinking about how stupid Tim had looked at dinner, holding hands with Whitney and trying to pretend he didn’t have two wives at the same table. “I think I just look at tall, rangy guys with dark hair and think ‘I should be sleeping with you’ because I slept with Tim for so long. It’ll go away.” She shook her head and drank again.
“Tim’s not that tall,” Suze said. “And I repeat, you don’t feel that way about Tim anymore, right?”
Nell considered it. Did she feel lust when she looked at Tim? Well, God knew, not today she hadn’t. He’d looked softer than she’d remembered, as if she’d left him out in the rain. Not somebody she’d want to touch, not somebody she could move against and feel bone and muscle. He looked as though, if she’d pushed a finger in him, the dent would stay.
“No,” she said.
“Well, then,” Suze said, exasperated. “I don’t see that as a setup for lusting for Gabe.”