That he was wearing the very same clothes she’d seen him in the evening before wasn’t lost on Kate. Nor was he doing a very good job at hiding a decidedly guilty expression as soon as their eyes met. With a shudder that she hoped neither John nor his mother caught, she realized his disheveled appearance could only mean one thing.
Enough already, she silently chided the universe. I get the picture, okay?
“Is this a new look?” Abby teased him.
“I was about to say the same,” he replied but his eyes were on Kate. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
Annoyance drew her brow as she ignored his question and informed him instead that she had to go. She bade his mother goodbye. “It was nice talking to you, Mrs. Neal.”
“Feel free to stop by any time,” Abby cheerfully encouraged her. “And I promise not to be such a fright next time.”
He allowed Kate to get halfway to the car before padding after her and telling her to wait up.
“I’m running late as it is,” she said, conscious of the scent of alcohol that clung to his shirt. Conscious, too, of how the beginning hint of five o’clock shadow gave him an even more manly aura while his bed-mussed hair concurrently made the years melt away.
“Late for what?” he wanted to know. He made no secret of taking in the way she was dressed and letting his eyes communicate curiosity.
“Not everything I do in my life is about you,” she retorted, hoping he wasn’t coherent enough to realize that what she just said had no bearing on anything he’d said. Out of the corner of her vision, she could see his mother slip inside and discreetly close the front door to give them some privacy.
His mouth slid into a lopsided grin that was either the product of his previous night’s imbibing or amusement with putting her on the defensive. “So how come you’re here at the crack of dawn?” he asked.
“The crack of dawn was a few hours ago,” she coolly replied. “You must have been, uh, busy and missed it.”
He shrugged. “Still doesn’t answer the question,” he said, repeating it for her.
She kept her features deceptively composed, knowing that an on-spot admission would cause what had seemed like a fairly good plan to backfire on her. “Just to say thank you for the ride last night,” she answered. “Now will you please take your hand off the car door so I can be on my way?”
“Okay but just answer me one thing first.”
“Fine. What?” She folded her arms and gazed off into space as if bored. In truth, of course, it was way too easy to get lost in the way he kept looking at her if she continued facing him.
He took his hand off the door handle and gently reached up to turn her chin back toward him. “How come everything I do seems to annoy you?”
She cleared her throat, pretending not to be affected, and as the words slowly came forth, she realized it was as close to an honest response as she dared to make. “Maybe because I never know what it is you want.”
If his fuzzy brain cells had been able to rally fast enough with a reply, he would have told her that he wanted the same thing he had always wanted but that she was the one who kept moving the goalposts on him. Instead, he watched her drive away and realized he was more confused than ever.
“Kate seems nice,” Abby remarked as he wandered back into the house and slouched without preamble into the nearest kitchen chair.
“Yeah.” He took the wet chew toy that Shelby deposited in his lap and half-heartedly began to engage her in a game of tug.
“I was kinda surprised to see her,” she continued.
“You ‘n’ me both.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant.”
John looked up. “Huh?”
“Well, when you didn’t come home last night,” She shrugged as she set a mug of black coffee down in front of him. “Not that I keep any tabs on you.”
“I crashed at Lenny’s,” he explained.
“Was that before or after you drowned your sorrows?”
“Never gonna live that down, am I?”
“Probably not but we still love you anyway.”
“At least we weren’t disturbing the peace,” he replied. “I know it’s no excuse.”
“How ‘bout your peace of mind?”
John remained silent.
Shelby, sensing John’s disinterest in their game, released her end of the toy and trotted over to see if there was anything new in her dog bowl since the last time she had looked.
“I was surprised you didn’t at least kiss her goodbye,” Abby commented.
“Shelby?”
“Kate. She was looking awfully kissable, don’t you think?”
“You know, for someone who claims she’s not keeping tabs on my life…”
“No,” she said, “just tabs on your heart and a person would have to be blind not to see who it belongs to.”
Yvette Brown’s mouth dropped open in astonishment when she looked up and saw Kate walk through the front door of Avalon Bay Gazette. “I don’t believe it!” she exclaimed with a gasp of delight as she wriggled her corpulent frame out of her chair and ambled toward the half-wall that divided the waiting area from the rest of the office. “Is it really you all pretty and grown-up?”
Though she didn’t address Kate by name, there was no question but that the Gazette’s grandmotherly receptionist never forgot a single face, even one she hadn’t seen in years. She leaned over the wooden barrier to envelope Kate in a bosomy, heavily perfumed hug, then held her at arm’s length to offer gushing praise of how well she’d turned out.
If there was a single ally Kate had learned to have in her corner during her semester stint at the paper, it was Yvette. Dubbed “The Warden” by everyone who knew her, it was Yvette who controlled what phone calls got through, which visitors got buzzed into Cliff’s inner sanctum, and which ads mysteriously got priority placement in the classified section. Make an enemy of Yvette, as so many had found out the hard way, and you made an enemy for life.
Given the circumstances that were bringing Kate back to these familiar haunts this morning, she was more than a little grateful for the long-ago time she had contributed to Yvette’s candy dish, given her a card for her birthday, and offered the use of her umbrella one afternoon when the older woman had forgotten hers at home.
“I don’t suppose Mr. White is in yet?” Kate inquired after giving her listener an abbreviated version of what had brought her back to town. Even though she’d become a certifiable adult since the last time she’d seen him, she decided it was better to err on the side of formality than to refer to him outright as Cliff.
To her surprise, Yvette informed her that he’d been in for the past hour and was meeting with someone in his office even as the two of them spoke. In the next breath, she asked Kate if she’d heard about him firing their most recent editor.
“And not a moment too soon, either, if you ask me,” she continued. “The man couldn’t take a good picture to save himself!” His shaggy ponytail and disregard for any kind of business dress code had rankled Cliff as well. “And,” Yvette continued under her breath. “between you and me, he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, either.” Yvette always had a way with words. “So what can we do for you?”
Kate withdrew an envelope from her purse. “Well, it’s sort of funny you should ask,” she replied. “I was hoping to talk to him about my doing some writing for you guys.” She quickly added that if it looked like he was going to be a while, she could just leave her resume and come back at a better time.
Yvette’s voice rose in surprise. “You’re applying for editor?”
“Nothing quite that grand,” Kate candidly replied. “But thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Oh, you’d be a natural! Just what this ol’ place needs to shake things up.” Yvette, as Kate recalled, had never kept secret her views that Cliff wasn’t the planet’s most progressive persona.
“I was thinking maybe some freelance pieces, local interviews, city council meetings.” As she continued laying out her ideas and watching Yvette ’s glowing reaction to them, it suddenly struck Kate that she was starting to get excited about the prospect of writing and creating again.
It was a rush of euphoria that lasted exactly 10 more seconds, the amount of time it took for Cliff’s office door to open and his visitor to step out.
“No, no, the pleasure’s entirely mine,” Cliff was saying as he followed in the young woman’s wake, a scene mildly comical for the fact she was at least 6 inches taller than he was. He was now enthusiastically shaking her hand with both of his. “We’ll look forward to seeing quite a lot more of you, Miss Delvaggio.”
“No, please,” she graciously insisted, “call me Gabrielle.”
Oh great, Kate thought with a sudden queasy feeling in her stomach. She’s not only got the guy, but she’s probably also just got whatever job I was hoping for.
Cliff leaped forward to gallantly hold the swinging gate open for her. As if to add further insult to injury, she pleasantly smiled at Kate on her way out. Cliff watched her entire exit, seemingly oblivious that there was anyone else in the room.
Had Yvette’s cheery “Look who came to see us!” not stopped him in his tracks, Kate was fairly sure he would have gone back into his office without even acknowledging her.
“Well, what do you know!” Cliff responded with the voice and face that conveyed he had nary a clue.
To spare Kate the embarrassment of having to jog his memory, Yvette jogged it for him. “Why I was just saying it seems like only yesterday that Katie Toscano was a student interning with us!”
A light bulb seemed to snap on in Cliff’s bald little head and though he didn’t step forward to shake her hand, he made the obligatory gesture of asking what she’d been doing with herself since graduation.
Before Kate could react, Yvette grabbed the envelope out of her hand. “You should take a look at this,” she informed Cliff as she passed it over to him.
Not exactly the “ta-da” I would have gone for, Kate thought, nonetheless heartened by the receptionist’s declaration that the newspaper paper could use someone like her. “If you have some time this week…” Kate started to say to him.
“Why not right now?” Yvette suggested, reminding Cliff in the next breath that he wasn’t doing a damn thing until lunch.
How does she keep her job, Kate wondered. Given Cliff’s pomposity, of course, maybe it was as simple as a shortage of takers if he ever decided to replace her. Besides, it was no secret that Yvette kept Cliff in line and he would be utterly lost without her.
He shot his receptionist a look. “I’m running a newspaper that’s competing with the internet,” he retorted. “It’s a losing battle. I need someone full-time to help me turn this paper around.”
“All the more reason, then, to hear what Katie has to say.”
Rather than continue an argument he wasn’t likely to win, Cliff informed her that he did indeed have a few minutes. Yvette flashed her a double thumbs-up as Kate followed him into his office.
“Let’s take a look,” he said upon settling into his desk chair and sliding a letter opener under the sealed flap.
“You’ll be happy to know I made good on my journalism background and degree,” she said, suddenly feeling anxious that this wasn’t going at all as smoothly she had envisioned it on the short drive over.
Was it her imagination or had she just seen a small piece of paper flutter to the top of Cliff’s desk when he unfolded her resume?
He had lowered his head and was now sternly regarding her over the top rim of his wire-framed glasses.
“What’s this about?” he sharply inquired.
Caught off guard, Kate started to reply that she was hoping to be able to do some freelance writing.
He turned the page around so that it dangled in front of her, “What I meant,” he said, “is who’s John?”