At noon, Hope knocked on her neighbor’s door, and Paul showed her into the living room, where Shelly sat in a recliner wearing her blue chintz robe.
Her hair stuck up on her head like red springs and one hand was bandaged, so that just the tips of her fingers stuck out. Hopped up on painkillers and lack of sleep, Shelly was a bit rummy and feeling very sorry for herself. She didn’t want Hope’s offer of lunch, but she took one look at Hope’s fingernails and decided she’d have a manicure instead.
While Paul retreated to his bedroom for a nap, Hope ran back to her house and grabbed her vanity case. When she returned, she sat on a stool next to Shelly’s recliner and carefully conditioned and cut the cuticles on all ten fingers. While she gingerly filed the nails into perfect crescent moons, she listened to Shelly talk about last night’s drama. The house was unusually quiet and she wondered where Wally and Adam were.
“How were the little boys last night?” Shelly finally got around to asking. She set the vanity case on her lap and pawed through the rows of fingernail polish with her good hand.
“Pretty good, but they like to hit each other a lot,” Hope answered. She gently blew dust from Shelly’s fingers, then added, “And pass gas.”
“Yeah, boys’ll do that.” Shelly pulled out a bottle of Hot Pants Pink and handed it to Hope. “I like this. It looks like something a hooker would wear.”
It didn’t, but Hope didn’t want to argue. “Where are Wally and Adam?”
“Dylan hired one of the Raney girls to watch them over at his house today. He thought I could use the rest.”
“That was nice of him.” Hope took out a bottle of clear polish. “I imagine he’s really tired, too,” she said as she gave Shelly’s nails a base coat.
“Nah, he probably didn’t get home too late.”
Hope knew better and concentrated on the thumb of Shelly’s bad hand.
“Or did he?”
“Did he what?”
“Get home late. Paul said the twins got to the hospital around ten-thirty. So Dylan must have pulled up to your house about an hour after that. After grabbing the boys, he probably got home around eleven-forty-five.”
He might have made it home by then, too, if he hadn’t stayed and kissed her neck and her mouth, and if he hadn’t decided he wanted to touch her stomach and pull up her shirt. Hope kept her gaze averted and said on an indifferent sigh, “That sounds about right.” She screwed on the cap of the clear polish, then shook the bottle of Hot Pants Pink.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why do you look like something did?”
Hope finally glanced up. “I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. This Percodan has me feeling kind of funky, but I’m not totally out of it.” Shelly’s red brows lowered on her forehead. “And besides, I saw you two jump apart when Paul and I came into the kitchen. I stabbed my hand, not my eyes. What were the two of you doing?”
“Talking.”
“Yeah, right. I think he likes you.”
Hope shrugged and painted the fingernails on Shelly’s good hand. “I think Dylan likes women- period.”
“Yeah, he does. Always has, even in grade school, but he talks to you a little bit different than he talks to anyone else.”
“How?”
“When he talks to you, he watches your mouth.”
Hope bit her lip to keep from smiling. She hadn’t noticed Dylan watching her. Well, maybe once or twice.
“So what’s up with the two of you?”
The last time Hope had spoken of her love life to a friend, her friend had used it to steal her husband. She knew that Shelly was different, and besides, nothing she could tell Shelly could come back to hurt her anyway. She didn’t love Dylan, and he didn’t love her.
“Nothing really,” she answered, which was basically the truth.
“It sure didn’t look like nothing. Did he try his cheap moves on you?”
“Moves?”
“Yeah. In the eighth grade, he used to pretend to have an itchy pit so he could hook his arm around a girl and make it look like he was just scratching himself.”
Hope laughed. “No itchy pit.”
“I should probably warn you away from Dylan.”
“Why, what’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing. He just has it in his head that he can’t get involved with a woman right now. He says he has to wait until Adam is older, but the way he looks at you… well, I haven’t seen him stare after a woman in a very long time. Not since he used to watch Kimberly Howe run the hundred.” Shelly paused to blow on her nails and carefully offered Hope her injured hand. “You’ve got to admit, he’s better-looking than most of those sissy boys you see pasted up on billboards, and it’s not every man who can look that good in a pair of jeans.”
That was true.
“Paul has a flat butt.”
Hope had noticed that, too. “If Dylan’s so great, why aren’t you married to him?”
Shelly’s nose wrinkled as if something smelly had entered the room. “Sure, looking at Dylan is like looking at a work of art, but just ‘cause you can appreciate the beauty of it doesn’t mean you want it in your living room.” She shook her head, then added, “I knew I wanted Paul Aberdeen the first time I laid eyes on him in the first grade. It took me ten years to hook him, but even if Paul were gone tomorrow, I’d never be interested in Dylan that way. We’ve known each other too long, and the way he does things drives me crazy.”
“Like what?”
“He only does laundry when everything in the house is dirty.”
Since Hope was the same way, she didn’t think there was anything unusual about it.
“He puts his boots on the coffee table, and if he and Adam have a green vegetable for dinner, it’s a miracle. Dylan thinks if you eat a banana or an apple every other week, you don’t need vegetables.”
Hope finished painting Shelly’s nails and sat back and waited for them to dry. “Adam looks healthy and happy.”
“Healthy at least.” Shelly studied her injured hand.
“He’s leaving this Friday to visit his mother. He’s always a little weird when he comes back.”
“Weird how?”
“A little withdrawn and has a real bad case of the poor pitifuls. He thinks if his mama and daddy would just spend some time together, they could all live happily ever after.” Shelly shrugged. “I suppose that’s normal, though.”
“How long is he usually gone?”
“Two weeks; then it takes him an entire month to settle back into his routine. I’ve never met Adam’s mama, but she must be extremely indulgent with him, because when he comes back, he sleeps in too late and just lies around like a slug.”
Hope was dying to ask Shelly to tell her everything she knew about Dylan’s ex, but she didn’t want Shelly to know she was interested. Even if Hope had been able to share her feelings, it was too soon and too new to talk about the confusing tangle of emotions tugging at her whenever Dylan happened to smile her way.
Hope missed sitting around chatting with other women, talking about men and life and sex. She missed the kind of connection it took time to develop. A deep connection with someone who understood the inequalities perpetrated against females and the injustice of running into your high school sweetheart on a bad hair day. She missed discussing burning issues like health care, world peace, the shoe sale at Neiman’s, and whether or not size mattered.
She wanted that again. She wanted to talk about her confusion, her feelings, and her life. She wanted to tell Shelly why it was hard for her to talk about herself, why it was hard for her to trust a friend.
“What story are you working on for your magazine?” Shelly asked through a yawn.
