'We should fix you up with a hot date,' Gretchen suggested. 'After we set up for the show, we'll scout around for someone special for you. Since you're my assigned show assistant, meet me at the hall first thing in the morning. That's six o'clock a.m., Nina.'
Nina groaned.
'Lovely. Just where I'd expect to find an interesting man. At a doll show.'
'Maybe one of those Boston Kewpie doll collectors needs a tour of Phoenix.'
Nina snorted. 'I'll be on hand to help you, but I'm hoping you won't need me. April called and asked me to share her table. She can't afford it on her own.'
'The tables are only thirty-five dollars. She's that short of cash?' Gretchen said, alarmed that her assistant was jumping ship.
Nina slurped the last of her margarita before answering.
'April only charges two dollars for a doll appraisal. That's a giveaway. She needs to raise her prices to cover her costs and make a little profit. Maybe when those rich Boston Kewpie collectors come along, she can charge them five dollars.'
'You don't even collect dolls,' Gretchen pointed out.
'How are you going to share her table?'
Enthusiastic, Nina leaned forward. 'I'm going to show off my special purse dog training techniques and sign up new clients. Doll people love little dogs. We'll bring Nimrod along so I can use him for my demonstrations. A miniature dog always draws a crowd.'
Nina, eternally surrounded by an entourage of canines, had made a good point. People gravitated to Gretchen's teacup poodle like hummingbirds to nectar. Nina's table was guaranteed to be the liveliest area of the show.
'You promised to help me. We'll have to get tables close together,' Gretchen said.
'Tables are already assigned,' Nina said. 'But I'll call Bonnie and work it out in case she's positioned you in another area. Don't worry.'
Gretchen rummaged in her purse for money to pay the check. Whenever Nina said, 'Don't worry,' Gretchen began to worry. 'I still have so much to do.'
'You're in good shape,' Nina said. 'You just have firsttime jitters.'
Gretchen straightened a few crumpled bills she found on the bottom of her purse.
'What's this?' Nina said, extracting a paper napkin from between the bills Gretchen had thrown on the table.
'Just garbage. I'll throw it away.' Gretchen reached for it.
'Wait. Something's written on it.'
Nina held up the napkin with Garcia's imprint, and Gretchen stared at the handwritten word.
'Pushed!'
'Pushed?' she said.
'Is this yours?' Nina asked.
'It's a cocktail napkin.' Gretchen glanced at the next table. 'They're everywhere.' She moved her empty margarita glass and picked up the napkin that had been under it.
'This one's mine. I must have swept that one in by accident.'
'It may have been in there since last time we dined at Garcia's,' Nina said, looking at Gretchen's purse. 'I don't know how Nimrod fits with all the stuff you carry around.'
'I'm working on it,' Gretchen said, taking the napkin from Nina. 'Pushed?' she said again.
Nimrod bounced around her heels, squealing with pleasure, and Gretchen couldn't help smiling down at the puppy. Had anyone ever been this excited to see her before? Wobbles never greeted her with such enthusiasm, and she had rescued him from certain death. She'd also nursed him back to health. A little gratitude from him was in order. She picked up Nimrod, and he wiggled in the crook of her arm, struggling to climb higher and lick her face. She hated leaving him home, but he needed to learn that he couldn't go
Besides, she reminded herself; he wasn't entirely alone. He had Wobbles.
'No sloppy doggie kisses,' she warned him. 'You should be washing yourself like Wobbles does instead of trying to clean me.' She saw the tomcat eyeing her from the kitchen and stooped to rub his head before heading for the workshop. She deposited Nimrod on his little comfy bed. He promptly jumped off and bolted for the back door, which led to the pool. She heard him slip through the pet door she'd installed for him, so he could come and go whenever he wanted to.
Gretchen loved the view from the workshop window. Majestic Camelback Mountain rose before her as an earthy reminder of the vastness of the Arizona landscape. Reaching for her binoculars, she watched a few hikers climbing the mountain's steep trails. She wished she had time to join them.
What she needed to do was focus on tomorrow and finish packing up for the doll show. She had to arrive several hours early to allow for setting up the table. Three boxes of dolls were already loaded in her trunk, but she still had to sort through a few more and decide what else to take along. She gathered Chiggy's Kewpies and returned them to their original box. The restorer in her had no choice but to evaluate each one. Chipped paint, damaged clay, cracks. The one that her pets had broken wasn't the only Kewpie with unsightly cracks. Gretchen, frowning over the awful replication attempts, once again wondered why Duanne Wilson would bid on such a sorry bunch of fake dolls. Gretchen sighed heavily. He'd gotten the better end of the deal. The Ginnys were worth a lot more, and she'd miss adding them to the group of Ginnys her mother had already collected for the big show. She still thought she'd been the victim of a scam, in spite of Nina's naive comments. Her repair tools were scattered on the table, and she began to gather them up and organize them in the new toolbox her mother had designed especially for Gretchen's first doll show.
S hooks, pliers, stringing hooks, dowel rods, clamps. Gretchen ticked off the required restringing tools as she added them to the box, each tool accessorized with the pink nail polish. She added a box of standard number eleven X-Acto knife blades and looked around on the table for the hobby knife.
'Where did I put it?' she asked no one in particular. She noticed that since taking in Nimrod, she talked aloud more. It couldn't be a good sign.
Nimrod, returning from outside, perked up at her voice. He cocked his head, and his tiny tail wiggled back and forth wildly.
Gretchen couldn't find the knife.
She needed the utility knife for all kinds of repairs. How would she set doll eyes without it? She needed a pointed blade to remove excess wax or plastic. The knife was a critical tool for her. It couldn't be missing. Where had she put it?
She remembered using it to wipe glue from the Blunderboo Kewpie, so it had to be here. After a thorough search of the worktable and the surrounding area, Gretchen gave up. The knife was gone.
6
'She's answered so many questions already,' her husband says. 'Can't this wait?'
'I'm afraid it can't.'
'I keep reliving the feeling of my tires hitting that poor man's body,' she says, her voice dry and flat as the Arizona desert. She doesn't hear her husband's frustration with all the red tape and what he calls badgering. 'Gawd, I haven't slept since.'
The pills prescribed by her physician ease the emotional pain of killing another human being, but they don't help her sleep. Nothing helps her sleep.
She desperately needs to shut down and wake up later to find out that the accident has all been a bad dream. But that isn't going to happen.
Her husband slides a protective arm around her waist.
'It's all right,' she says.
