Sam couldn’t think of a good response to any of it; the better part of valor was definitely discretion. “Somebody’s been overfeeding your cat,” he said at last.
That damn cat’s still hanging around here?”
"She's not yours?”
Do I look like somebody who would own a damned
cat?"
Sam had met any number of perfectly pleasant women who owned cats. He wasn’t about to argue their merits with Rimae. Besides, he wasn’t sure she meant it anyway. “Well.
I mean, I thought she was yours.”
Rimae shook her head, laughing. “Wickie, honey, you are possessed.”
How right you are, Sam thought.
"Now you want to explain to me about these windows?”
She wasn’t going to come to him. He had to go to her, crossing the little clearing, walking past her to open the cabin door. If anything will make Al show up, it’s this.
She followed him in, looked around, sniffed at the lingering odor of ammonia and cleanser. “You cleaned the place up.”
“It needed it.”
"That much?”
“It really, really needed it.”
“Hmph.” She turned in place, noting the shampooed rug, the gleaming furniture, the scrubbed-down walls, the missing pictures, the lack of clutter. “You want to come do my place?”
“I don’t do windows.”
“Oh yes. The windows. Tell me about the windows, Wickie.”
“They, uh, got broken.”
“I can see that. I hope you weren’t having a party without me.” She walked over, checked the molding. “Nice job. I didn’t know you knew how to do this.”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t sure I knew how to do it, either,” he said. He didn’t even have to mentally cross his fingers for that one; “window replacement” was buried in one of the potholes in his memory. He’d surprised himself, knowing
what to buy and how to use the materials.
“How did it happen?”
“I have no idea,” he said with absolute truth.
She stepped up close to him, walked her fingers up his chest and tapped one red fingernail on his chin. “No idea in the world, huh?”
“Not one,” he said with false heartiness, stepping away. He raised one hand to wave to Bethica, who was walking past the cabin on the path through the trees.
Rimae shot the retreating teenager a sour look. “That kid needs to find a hobby.” Her finely penciled brows knit together. “What the hell got into you yesterday?” she asked, changing the subject. “Are you out of your freaking mind?”
“No.” The interruption allowed him to find something else to occupy himself; he got down on one knee, looking up at her while he cleaned rapidly drying compound off the blade of the putty knife, wiping it against the edge of the can. “I told you the truth about Davey. His mother drank when she was pregnant. And it affected him.”
She shook her head. “What is it with you, honey?”
“I’m just not feeling myself lately.” Mom would be so proud of me, he thought ironically. Always tell the truth, Sam, she used to say, and shame the devil. He stood up again. It was a mistake.
Rimae stretched up on tiptoe and kissed him. He caught at her arms—in case she wobbled—and returned the favor, to be polite. Mind your manners, Sam, and manners will mind you.
Mom, do you mind? he thought desperately at his memories. Sometimes his memories were rather inconvenient, especially at times like this. He didn’t know what was worse, Al the hologram trying to coach or Mom the memory sitting back and looking motherly.
Rimae pulled away.
“I still don’t know there’s anything to that. You can’t prove it. No one can. I don’t know who Davey’s mother was, so there’s no way to know.”
“I suppose not.” There was no point arguing with her. It was too late anyway. He looked down the path, hoping he could catch a glimpse of Bethica. In case that wreck was going to happen, he still needed to keep her from going to the party tonight; still needed to keep her from driving back, getting into an accident, ending up a paraplegic. It was sometimes difficult to keep track of what he was supposed to be doing on a Leap, especially when Al wasn’t around quoting odds all the time.
In any case Rimae was settling back on her heels, her fingers still entwined behind his neck. “Wickie, sweetheart, your heart just isn’t in this. How about you go get ready to work and we’ll talk about this again tonight when you get off from the second shift.”
“Uh, that’s going to be pretty late,” Sam mumbled.
“It’ll give you lots of time to think up a way to apologize for upsetting me, won’t it?” She stepped away, tapped him on the nose again, and left him standing there staring after her.
“I guess it will,” he mumbled. She turned the comer, moving out of sight, and he took a deep breath and turned to the trees, following Bethica, the one he might be intended to save.
She was waiting, as he suspected, hovering behind an oak tree near the stream, nudging a twig into the flow of the water. Leaps worked that way sometimes, as if God or Chance or Fate tried to give him a break when it could.
“Bethica?” He paused a few feet away. “I guess you heard all that. About Davey, and his mother drinking, and everything.”
“I heard.” She was looking at the ridge of mud on the toe of her sneaker.
“I know it’s hard to understand,” he offered. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense. And I don’t want to preach to you, but your baby. ..”
A wing of brown hair sheltered her face. She hunched a shoulder, building a barrier between them, and he wondered
what was going through her mind. When she finally spoke, he had to strain to hear her. “You party.”
It was true. Wickie drank. So did Sam Beckett. He wished he could promise Bethica
