“My family, we’re all merchants,” Bobo said.
It was true, I realized, though I’d never have thought to put it that way. Bobo’s family had made their money selling things; the sporting goods store that leaned heavily toward hunting and fishing equipment, the lumber and home supplies store, and the oil company that had supplied the money to build the Winthrop empire.
“So,” he resumed, “I guess it’s in my blood. See, what I’ve been thinking lately-now you tell me if you think this is a good idea, Janet, and of course you, too, Lily-I think that the sporting goods store isn’t really the kind of place most women and kids want to come into. What they want, I think, is a smaller store where they can come in without going through a lot of crossbows and fishing rods and rifles, a smaller store where they can find their running shorts and athletic bras and those kneepads you mentioned-the ones you need to wear when you take jazz dancing.”
“Tap shoes,” said Janet, longing in her voice. “Ballet slippers.”
“I think we really have an idea here.”
“It would be great,” she said, philosophically. “But ideas aren’t money to underwrite a store start-up.”
“Funny you should mention that,” Bobo said. He was grinning. He looked about eighteen, but I knew he was at least twenty-one now. “Because my grandfather’s will just got probated, and I happen to have a substantial amount of money.”
Janet gaped at him. “We’re talking serious? You weren’t just dreaming? You really think there’s a possibility of doing this?”
“We need to do a lot of figuring.”
“We?” Janet asked, her voice weak.
“Yeah. You’re the one who knows what we need. You’re the idea woman.”
“Well.” Janet sounded out of breath. “You actually mean it?”
“Sure I do. Hey Lily, would you mind if we finished Janet’s run and went over to her place to talk? What do you think about this idea?”
I felt rueful and old. “I think it’s a great idea for both of you.”
Janet’s face lit up like a torch. Bobo’s was hardly less excited. In a second, they were stretching before they began running. I noticed Bobo’s eyes running over Janet’s ass when she bent over. He gave a little nod, all to himself. Yep, it was a nice ass.
As they set off down the street, I had to smile to myself. All those hours I’d worried about Bobo’s inappropriate affection for me, all the times I’d tried to repulse him, hate him, fight my own shameful physical attraction to him… and all it took was Janet Shook’s brain, ass, and a dash of mercantile blood.
I went inside, and when I’d locked the door behind me, I laughed out loud.
The next morning-the next boring, boring, morning-I went to the library. I needed to swap my books, and I thought I might do some research on runaways. Jack had discussed printing a small pamphlet on the search for runaways, since so much of his business came from such searches. It would be good to feel I’d accomplished something.
The modest Shakespeare library was in the oldest county building, which was about the rank at which most Shakespeareans placed reading. In the summer, it was hot, and in the winter, the pipes clanked and moaned and the air was warm and close. The ceilings were very high. In fact, I believed the building had been a bank at one point in time. There was a lot of marble.
To humanize the building, the librarians had added curtains and area rugs and posters, and on pretty days the attempt worked. But today was not such a day; it was going to rain, and the uniform sullen gray of the sky was echoed in the marble. I stepped from the damp heat of the morning into the chilly marble interior and shivered. Through the high windows, with the happy yellow curtains pulled back to show the sky, I could see a silver maple tossing in a strong wind. The rain would come soon.
I consulted one of the computers, and began scribbling down a list of books and magazine articles. One article was very recent. In fact, it should still be in the current magazine area, a sort of nook made comfortable by deep chairs and an area rug.
After I’d read the article and made some notes, I picked up a copy of
Of course, here I was, reading the same article I was deriding. I held the magazine a little closer to peer at a ring some singer had paid a third-world budget to purchase. A ring… a celebrity magazine. Suddenly, some synapsis fired in my head.
The picture I remembered wasn’t in this magazine in particular, but I associated the picture with a magazine very like it.
How had I happened to see the picture? These things weren’t on my normal reading agenda. I pulled and prodded at my faint memory until I’d teased a thread loose. I’d seen the picture when I’d been at Carrie’s office, when I’d been dusting. The magazine had been left open in one of the rooms- which one? I could almost see the cover after I’d automatically flipped the magazine shut and returned it to a pile. The cover had been primarily ivory, with the picture of an actress-maybe Julia Roberts again-dressed in jeans and boots and a handkerchief, looking brilliant against the neutral color. Carrie’s office!
Trying to keep hold of the image in my memory, I drove to Carrie’s. Of course, her office was open and full of patients, and I explained to the receptionist that I wasn’t there to see the doctor, that I was trying to find something I’d lost the last time I’d cleaned. Gennette Jenks, the nurse, gave me a suspicious look, but then Gennette was always suspicious of me. A hard-faced woman in her fifties, Gennette was chemically brunette and naturally efficient, which was the only reason Carrie kept her on. I looked around the small front office, which was crammed with a fax machine, a copier, a huge bank of files, and mounds of paper everywhere. No magazines.
And no magazines in Carrie’s office besides a tattered old
The magazine I’d been seeking was in the big pile on the table by the waiting area, a few chairs at the end of the hall where caregivers could wait while their charges were being examined. I shuffled through the stack and extracted the cover I’d been searching for. I stepped sideways into the little room where the part-time clerk, a milkmaidish blonde with a lust for Twinkies, worked on insurance claims. This was the same room where Cliff Eggers had been working the morning I’d cleaned, and this was where I’d picked up the magazine and returned it to the pile. That explained why I’d remembered the magazine. I’d stood in there for such a long time while he talked to me, I’d had time to memorize the cover.
After nodding to the clerk, who gave me an uncertain smile in return, I began paging through the magazine. Once, twice… I was beginning to doubt myself when I noticed the jagged edge. Someone had removed a page from the magazine. Maybe it had had a great recipe for chicken salad on the other side-but on the whole, I doubted that. Someone besides me had found the picture interesting.
Now that I knew what issue of what magazine I needed, I returned to the library, dashing through the first blast of rain to push through the heavy glass doors. Lightning was making patterns in the sky and the wind had increased in pace, so the view through the high windows was ominous. Mary Lou Pettit, the librarian working the circulation desk, was clearly unhappy about the violence of the weather. As I crossed the large open area in front of the desk to reach the periodicals area, she caught my eye and gave an exaggerated wince, inviting me to share her anxiety. I raised my hand to acknowledge her, and shrugged.
To tell you the truth, I’ve always liked a good storm.
I’d checked the date on the magazine at Carrie’s office. Now I found that the one I wanted had been put away. I filled out a slip, handed it in, and waited ten long minutes while an aide looked in the periodicals storage room. I passed the time by watching the rain lash the windows in irregular gusts.
Refusing to peek until I was by myself, I sought out a half-concealed table in a corner behind the stacks. I turned to the page that had been clipped from the copy I’d checked. “Author protects privacy” was the uninspired headline, and I checked the other side to see if there was anything more interesting there. But it turned out to be
