Lanna’s favorite color was pale yellow, an unusual color for a couch, and canary, orange, and bright blue pillows abounded on it, leaving little room to sit. Bookshelves reached the ceiling, and candles stood in rainbow-colored groups; beyond the living room was a kitchen, then a bedroom and one other small room of indefinable use. Lanna sewed, so that must be her workroom.
“Here.” Lanna set a mug of steaming tea on the table in front of her, along with a napkin. “Now, what shall we talk about?” she inquired brightly. “Macrame? South America?”
Susan picked up the hot mug and promptly set it down again. Her hands were trembling. The hot liquid splashed on her fingers, and she suddenly swallowed, very hard. Something was stuck in her throat that swallowing failed to dislodge. Something thick and aching…
“I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound-I just wanted to make you smile.” Lanna leaned over and hugged her hard. “You’ve always been an angel to work for, you know that? I love you like a sister, Susan. The teasing you put up with about my pretending to mother you… But you’ve always been the one to come through for me-the job and the apartment and a large dose of common sense when there was no one else to give me a swift kick in the butt. Whatever it is, you know damn well I’ll help you.”
“I just…” Lanna moved away, and Susan lowered her eyes, rapidly blinking away tears, her voice coming out increasingly shaky. “I just… Lately I just can’t seem to handle anything well. It’s…expectations. Expectations I had of myself, expectations Griff has of me…” Suddenly, she felt exhaustion flood through her as if she were a wind-up toy that had finally wound down. She threw back her head and folded her arms around her stomach. “The cheese incident this morning with Barbara, and the mess I made with Tom tonight. Griff doesn’t have time for me, but what the hell am I, a child? One minute I feel like a slave, and the next minute I feel so selfish. And when Griff and I
“I understand,” Lanna said gently. She studied Susan for a long moment and then informed her, “I’m putting you to bed.”
Susan shook her head. “I didn’t mean to inconvenience you. I just thought that if I could lie down on your couch until it’s time for the store to open up…”
“Hmm,” Lanna commented, a trick she’d picked up from someone she was inordinately fond of. “You found out from the doctor that you were pregnant, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” For one short instant, Susan managed a wan smile. “I
“I guessed a long time ago. About the day you started shelving the fiction on the nonfiction shelves.” Lanna chattered until she had Susan safely tucked in bed, her jeans and red angora sweater replaced by a borrowed nightgown. “We’re not exactly of a size, but tomorrow you can borrow one of my sweaters…”
The suggestion fell on deaf ears. Susan was gone, her head nestled on the pillow and her eyes closed in exhaustion. Lanna pulled the bedcovers up to her chin and left the room, closing the door behind her.
She didn’t awaken until past ten, and then to a completely silent apartment and a lukewarm sun peering down at her through the long, narrow window of the bedroom. For a moment, Susan was disoriented and lay still, staring in sleepy confusion at the ceiling.
Twenty minutes later, she opened the door to her shop below, wearing a pale yellow sweater of Lanna’s that was a tad too small, and the jeans she’d worn the night before. She’d helped herself to toast and a quick cup of coffee, but there was no time for more than that. Regardless of what a mess she had made of her life, she had a responsibility to her business, which she had no intention of foisting off on Lanna. And in that frantic rush downstairs, she had realized that no clear-cut answers had appeared from thin air, that she was no more prepared to face her fears than she’d been the night before.
Lanna spotted her over the heads of six customers. She bit her lip, then was forced to direct her attention to the people who were bombarding her with questions. Saturday mornings were like that. Susan forced a cheerful smile and dug in, taking over as she had once been very, very good at taking over. It could only last so long, though, the forced brightness. As soon as the customers thinned out, she headed for the shelves. She had a good excuse to fuss over the shelves, of course. Saturday morning people picked up a thousand books and always put them back in the wrong spots; keeping order in this chaotic atmosphere was an endless job, but truthfully, she liked it. She liked the people, and she liked the work, and she liked the feel and smell of books…and this morning every single thing she did brought on an unexpected threat of tears.
She was on her knees, working on the bottom shelf in the back, when she saw a worn pair of tennis shoes next to her. The wearer was shifting his weight, first to one foot, then to the other. Her eyes rose slowly, to jeans with patched knees on skinny little legs, to a brand-new sweatshirt emblazoned with the slogan, “Put a Tiger in your tank,” to a pair of big brown eyes she knew very well.
“Like, where were you this morning?” Tiger asked. He crouched down, delighted to have finally caught eye-to- eye attention, and offered her an effortless grin. “I’ve made my own breakfast lots of times, you know. I like to make my own breakfast. But not this morning, Susan. This morning I had all this stuff to tell you…”
His look was faintly reproachful. It tore every single string in her heart. “Tiger,” she started unhappily.
“Tom’s coming to get me in a minute,” Tiger informed her. “We’re going to Aunt Julie’s.”
“That’s nice.”
“I think we should go to McDonald’s tonight, don’t you?”
“I…don’t know,” Susan said, and had to look away from those big brown eyes. She put two more books on the shelf and took down three others.
“You want me to help you?”
“No, darling.” Lanna must be responsible for the apparition of Tiger. Susan was going to fire her…after injecting her with slow poison.
“Susie?” A tentative imitation of his father.
She was forced to look up into those limpid eyes.
“We can work out a deal,” Tiger suggested happily. “I’ll get rid of the hamsters.” He hesitated, having gotten no immediate response. “Like, that’s the deal. Okay? If those hamsters bother you-”
God in heaven, she was going to burst out crying. This wasn’t Lanna’s doing. It couldn’t be. This was Griff’s kind of dirty pool. “There is no reason in hell for you to get rid of your hamsters,” she choked out to Tiger.
“You shouldn’t say ‘hell,’” he told her, disturbed.
“I know that, darling.”
“So why did you say it?” he inquired interestedly.
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“There must be some reason.”
“Grown-ups can occasionally be idiots.”
He concurred with a nod of his head. “And if you want me to pick up my room, Susan…”
She jerked up to a standing position, only to face another pair of dark eyes. “Tiger’s going out to Aunt Julie’s car,” Tom said bluntly. “I want to talk to you.”
“
“Aunt Julie says she’s going to take you for an ice-cream cone.”
Tiger reached over to Susan, expecting a goodbye hug and some understanding as to life’s priorities. He got both. That firm, skinny little body was already wriggling impatiently, but she could hardly fail to get his message. Love offered, gift-wrapped at no extra cost.
Tom was intrigued with her office, poking into corners, opening the files, testing the corduroy chair, leaping up again. “What’s this?” He motioned to the typed list on top of her desk.
“That’s the list of the week’s bestsellers,” she answered.
“And is that supposed to mean they’re actually good books? Recommended reading?”
“Bestsellers are the books people are buying the most of. And yes, sometimes they’re the best of what’s come out-sometimes, but not always. If you don’t read much, it’s not a bad list to go by…”
Susan could have gone on. She was being shredded apart inside, and it would have been much easier to talk books, but Tom sliced through that, very casually. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to my dad.”
