“Better, much better,” she said, “but don’t let it hang like a horse’s tail.”
I twisted my hair into a bun and pinned it in place, feeling a little creepy, knowing that this was what Mr. Gill had wanted me to do.
She nodded approvingly.
I tried to think of something to talk about that would seem natural coming from Joanna. “I have appointments with two clients today.”
She sighed. “We have plenty of money. You should focus on your studies.”
“But you have clients,” I argued.
“Mine can be trusted,” she replied. “It’s yours that bite.”
I laughed, trying to be agreeable. “I like helping people, the same way you like helping animals.”
“You must be careful whom you help,” she said. “Forget about Mick.”
“Mick?” I asked.
“Let go of the past. It’s over now. Nothing can be done.”
“Mick?” I repeated.
Her eyes sparked. “Stop pretending, Joanna! I know what you’re up to!”
I wondered if Mick were my father. “You mean my. . my lover,” I said tentatively.
She looked stunned. “Your lover?”
“Well, who else’s?” I replied, frustrated.
My aunt shook her head. “You should have married Elliot Gill when you had the chance. He would have provided for you and Anna.”
“Because he is Anna’s father,” I responded, not trusting what Mr. Gill had told me last night.
My aunt took a step back. “He is? That’s not what you told me.”
I played with my scarf, afraid that if I said much more, she would realize I wasn’t Joanna.
“You said he was from California,” Aunt Iris went on. “You said he lied about himself, gave you a false name, and never told you he was married.”
Their stories matched. “That’s right,” I replied. “I was joking about Elliot. But I can’t stop thinking about Mick,” I added, hoping she would explain why she wanted Joanna to forget him.
She said nothing more, but I had observed her response, the way she flinched at his name. As soon as possible, I would check my mother’s appointment book to see if I could find a reference to him, although the initial M began a lot of common names. Maybe Erika’s father would know who Mick was. I would call him at work.
Work! “Oh no, I’m going to be late!” I said, dropping the scarf on the bureau and rushing past Aunt Iris. I grabbed my purse from my room and dashed to my car. Flying up the rutted driveway, I sent cats racing in all directions.
“NEW HAIRSTYLE, VERY professional,” Marcy observed when I entered the shop that morning.
“It’s cooler this way.”
“It’s perfect with that necklace, pretty and professional.
The fact is, people like pretty women and pretty things, and it’s foolish for a businesswoman not to use those assets.”
“I guess.”
She laughed her tinkly laugh and turned back to the display she was creating.
The shop was busy through lunchtime, then the crowd dwindled at the usual hour — three o’clock. Marcy gave me a list of names and addresses to enter into the store’s computerized database while she worked on her laptop. We drifted in and out of conversation, and I kept waiting for her to bring up last night’s “date.” To my relief, she didn’t.
At three thirty she rose to stretch, then glanced out the front window. “I was wondering when he’d show up.”
“Who?”
“I’ve been biting my tongue,” Marcy admitted, “trying not to ask how it went last night.”
“The party was nice.”
She lowered her head to look at me over her reading glasses. “Zack was not exactly his charming, cheerful self this morning.”
I nodded but said nothing.
“I’ll stay out of it,” she said. “Given my track record before I met Dave, the last thing you want from me is romantic advice.”
She returned to her computer, and I retyped a misspelled address — three times. Zack entered the shop.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
If the normal “hi” were sung the length of a half note, we held ours for just a sixteenth.
“Hello, Zack,” Marcy said. “How is everything with your father?”
“Fine. I was hoping to talk to Anna. Can she take a break?”
“She has earned one,” Marcy replied, “but it’s up to her if she wants to take it now.”
Zack turned to me. “We need to talk.”
“I’m listening.”
“I mean outside.”
I glanced at Marcy. She had walked behind Zack, pretending to be adjusting something on a shelf, but turned her head toward me and gave a slight nod.
“All right,” I said, saving my work.
I led the way out of the shop and stopped when we reached the brick sidewalk.
“Away from the shop,” Zack directed, then added with less certainty, “Okay?”
“Okay.”
We walked all the way down to the river. I would have cracked a joke about how acute Marcy’s hearing was, but I wasn’t going to be the one to start the conversation. We reached the public landing, a square wharf that had benches for sitting and pilings for temporary docking. On this hot, sticky day it was deserted. Two sailboats rested motionless on the Sycamore, pinned to a sullen sky.
“You were at the fire site the other night,” he said.
I didn’t reply.
“I was careful,” he went on. “I made sure no one followed us. But you were there.”
What was I supposed to say? Part of me was there, but my body was home in bed.
“You got there before Erika and I did.”
He searched my face, looking for answers. He must have realized that, standing in the clearing, he would have seen anyone close enough to hear their conversation.
“Maybe I’m psychic,” I said. “Or maybe I’m just a good guesser. It doesn’t make any difference. The fact is, when you asked me out, you were using me.”
“If you were really psychic, you’d know better!”
“Erika told you to dance with me. You were following instructions.”
“Sometimes girls do that, tell a guy to dance with another girl. Girls like to play matchmaker.”
“Matchmaker! Then Erika needs to work on her skills.
Most guys aren’t attracted to ‘freckled little carrots.’” Zack flushed and muttered two swear words, for which I was grateful. It made me laugh. I’m sure he had no idea how close I was to tears.
“Anna, listen,” he said. “Things are complicated. Erika did some really stupid stuff. She broke the law, but she didn’t kill your uncle. She told me she torched the inside of the car, the seats, but she never opened the trunk. She had no idea his body was in there. She thinks someone framed her. She’s scared and trying to figure out who’s behind it. The thing you have to remember is that she hasn’t done anything to hurt you personally.”
“She could do a lot more to help,” I replied. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that the person who put my uncle’s body in the trunk could have known about Erika’s game? She needs to go to the police and give them the list of people she texts.
