“Oh, yeah.” She looked sheepish and shrugged her shoulders, a bad move. Her right breast nearly slid out of her halter top. She stuffed it back in, and the other breast almost escaped.
“Shit,” said the drunken numismatist.
“Can I help?” said the man in line behind her. Helen eyed his wedding ring and glared at him. “Er, maybe not.”
He took a step back.
The blonde was trying to subdue her slippery breasts.
Helen spotted a star-and-dagger tattoo during the struggle, which threw off her quarter count. The line kept getting longer. She paged Brad for backup. The little bookseller eyed the pile of coins and whispered, “How exactly do you think she earned all those quarters?”
“Who cares?” Helen snapped, her patience strained.
“Now start ringing.”
She finally determined that the woman had $17.25 in U.S. quarters. “You’re a dollar twenty-three short.”
The tipsy numismatist produced a roll of dimes from a large, limp leather purse. The count started again, but this time it went quicker. Helen found twelve U.S. dimes in the welter of Canadian coins. To heck with the three cents. The woman belched delicately, let go of the counter, and lurched out the door.
The next customer was a round-faced, smiling teacher who looked like a Chaucer goodwife. She had a two- foot stack of bargain books. Even with her teacher’s discount card, her purchases came to $99.81. She handed Helen a hundred-dollar bill. Helen gave her back a pathetic nineteen cents.
The teacher threw up her hands and said, “Thank God!
Now I can have the operation.”
Helen was still laughing when the woman bustled out.
“Glad something’s made you happy,” Gayle said. The line had vanished, and they could talk again. “I found Liza.
It wasn’t too difficult. She’s pregnant and the doctor’s ordered bed rest until the baby comes. There’s no way she was being blackmailed. She didn’t even know Page was dead. She sounded completely surprised.”
“Maybe Liza’s a good actor,” Helen said.
“Liza was always a bad liar. She’s telling the truth. Look, I did what you asked. Now maybe you need to ask yourself:
If Page really was a blackmailer, why only Peggy? And why now?”
Good questions. Helen tried to come up with answers all afternoon. She also asked herself why Peggy was holding back information. None of it made sense. Her brain raced like a gerbil on a treadmill, going round and round, getting nowhere, while she rang up books and watched the clock.
At six-thirty she clocked out. It was time to meet Gabriel in the store’s cafe. She would even buy her own coffee, thank you. She wasn’t starting this relationship off on the wrong foot.
Denny was working the cafe tonight, baking chocolate-chip cookies between latte orders. The heat from the oven made his auburn hair curlier and flushed his skin. There was something about a man working in a kitchen that was irresistible. Helen stood in line behind a painfully thin woman with red hair and tight Moschino jeans.
“Black coffee and a bagel. Can you scoop out the bagel?” Ms. Moschino asked.
“No,” Denny said, “but you can.” He handed her the bagel and a spoon, and she gutted the center, leaving behind a thick rope of bread.
“Why did she do that?” Helen asked when Ms. Moschino left.
“She’s on a diet.”
“Why not just eat half a bagel and take the other half home?”
“Beats me,” Denny said. “We got people in here who get mad because they don’t want cheese on their sandwiches. I tell them I can’t take off the cheese, they have to do it. It’s health-department regulations. They yell at me, saying, ‘I’m paying all this money for a sandwich and I have to take off my own cheese?’ Yes, sir. I can’t move the cheese, I can’t scoop the bagel, and I can’t figure any of them out.”
“Ah, Denny, you sound as unhappy as the rest of us.
Welcome to the wonderful world of retail.”
“Thanks. What do you want?”
“A double latte and a chocolate biscotti.”
“Whipped cream on that latte?”
She looked at the too-thin woman picking at her gutted bagel. “Absolutely.”
Helen was sitting at a table by the window when Gabe walked in. Heads turned, male and female. The skinny redhead stopped in mid–bagel bite. Gabe, with his blond hair and massive muscles, drew all eyes. But Helen looked first for his imperfections, her guarantee of a good relationship.
When he smiled at her, she saw his teeth were still crooked.
He ordered a cappuccino and a slab of double chocolate cake. Good. That would maintain the slight paunch. Nothing would stop the natural hair erosion. She smiled when he sauntered over with his coffee and cake. He seemed so easygoing compared to Dr. Rich.
They talked books, then South Florida theater. “Most people don’t realize it, but South Florida is overrun with Shakespearean actors,” he said. “Want to see
It was a real date. Helen wasn’t sure she wanted to say yes. She warily studied Gabe’s strong hands for signs of a wedding ring, but saw no tan line. “Are you in a relationship right now?”
“Not really,” Gabe said.
Helen had made three major mistakes with men since she’d moved down here. Before that, there was her ex-husband Rob, one giant step backward for mankind. If she had to interview Gabe like a prospective employer, she would.
“What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Nothing, really,” he said with a charming shrug that sent muscles rippling across his shoulders. “We just drifted apart.”
Drifted apart. That sounded nice and neutral. Not, “I followed her to work and called her fifty times a day.” They drifted apart, two ships in the night. A gentle ending.
Gabe’s cell phone rang. He checked the number and turned it off, scoring more points.
“Sorry,” he said. “I hate these things, but I need it for business.”
Helen continued to probe. She’d been burned by Rich.
No, bruised. She flexed her battered wrist. “I guess you make lots of phone calls when you’re going out with someone.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.” Gabe looked endearingly puzzled, like a golden retriever who’d lost his toy under the couch.
“A cell phone is a good way to keep track of someone you’re dating.”
“You mean like constant phone calls? I’ve got better things to do and so does she. At least I hope she does. I don’t believe in hog-tying a woman with a phone cord. You either have her or you don’t.”
He’s got me, Helen thought.
“I’d love to see the play,” she said, as her last fears were put to bed.
Chapter 14
The store’s doors were locked. Clusters of customers stood outside, noses pressed against the windows like abandoned puppies.
The group inside looked even more forlorn. Gayle the manager was dressed in her usual black, but today it was not a fashion statement. It was an undertaker’s outfit. Gayle didn’t actually say the store was closing. But even the youngest bookseller, Denny, figured it out.
“We’re fucked,” he whispered to Helen. “We’re going to wind up shoveling fries at Mickey D’s.”
