A Life for a Life - Lynda McDaniel (whitelam books TXT) 📗

Alex hadn’t called back after hanging up on me. I tried calling him, but I kept getting his answering machine. That was so like him, and I was mad at myself for falling for his bullshit again. I trusted him to help out, but I could see that wasn’t going to happen. I’d have to spend my Sunday down in Asheville finding out what I could on my own.

Things had never been easy with Alex. With enough distance, I finally could see how my hang-ups tweaked his hang-ups, and vice-versa. Since my parents’ crazy relationship had been scarred by drunken fights, I tried a different tack: give in and give up to keep the peace. But that wasn’t love, just reactive thinking and conditioning. After he won his Pulitzer, things got worse. He started staying out late, holding court in restaurants and bars, as though he’d found the Holy Grail. And then he lost it. It wasn’t so much plagiarism as sloppy work habits, but the P-word in a newsroom carried a stink too nasty to ignore. He lost his prestigious role at the Post, and joined my ranks as a freelancer.

Both of us working at home proved disastrous. He started staying out even more, and later I learned, in a most uncomfortable way, that he was sharing more than his keen mind with a bevy of infatuated women. That was when I moved out and into a condo not far from my office.

At closing time, Jake and I trudged up the steps, both dog tired. (I wasn’t sure why he was dragging; he’d slept all day.) When I opened my apartment door, the answering machine was blinking. Cleva had left a message, inviting us over for dinner. Good timing. Even with a store full of food, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what to fix for dinner. Jake heard Cleva’s voice and started running around, then standing by the door. What a dog.

We enjoyed our evening together, talking about men, spring flowers, and dogs. (Jake put on quite on a show with one of his oversized Milk Bones.) The wisteria framing her front porch intoxicated us more than the sherry we sipped. When I returned home around eleven o’clock, I slept deeply in a starch-induced fog from her amazing macaroni and cheese, topped with thin, cheese-filled pinwheels of biscuit dough.

On Saturday, I worked in the store during the morning, and then got ready to go to Asheville. I’d changed my plans and decided to go then rather than Sunday. I couldn’t spend my only day off inside a cavernous building, no matter how much I loved libraries. Billie agreed to keep the store for half a day, and she was already inside, waiting on a couple of customers.

I gave Jake a good run in the back and checked with Abit about supervising another one at the end of the day, since I’d be late getting back. He and Duane were putting the final coat of paint on the rolling store, so they just waved and told me to have fun. Yeah, right.

Jake and I went back upstairs, and I came down again with a cooler for the truck. (I never knew where I’d find something I wanted to sample for the store.) As I secured it in the bed of the truck, I heard a distinctive rattle behind me. The car pulled up next to me, the driver’s window rolled down. “What in the world are you doing here?” I asked through the open window.

“Well, you wouldn’t come to D.C., so I thought I’d take another trip south,” Alex said, looking penitent enough for me to offer a small smile.

“That’s pretty fast research, fella. You didn’t cut any corners did you?” I regretted my comment the minute I saw his face. “I’m sorry—I just meant we’d talked only a couple of days ago.”

“I told you I’d already done the research. I worked on it earlier this week for you.”

“You could’ve faxed the information, you know,” I said, as we headed up the steps. Jake could hear us coming and was wildly scratching at the door.

“And have Checkpoint Charlie and everyone in the county know what I found?”

“I’d hardly call Marjorie McCrumb Checkpoint Charlie,” I said, but I dropped it after that. He’d never met her, and it wasn’t worth arguing about. Besides, I was glad he’d brought it. I didn’t have to drive to Asheville, after all.

From the landing at my apartment door, Alex shouted hello down to Abit and Duane in the backyard, waving at them like the pope at the Vatican. They both responded as though he were, indeed, some visiting dignitary. When we went inside, it was Jake’s turn to fawn. Once all the pomp and circumstance of his arrival calmed down, I sighed and said, “Okay, show me what you found.”

“Coffee first, please.” I poured him his usual—black, easy to remember—and put out some croissants and cheese and Cleva’s apple chutney on the dining table. Alex tucked into his late lunch, and I cleared my own lunch dishes and chatted while he finished. Just when I was about to sit back down, we heard a knock on my apartment door. Jake was barking like crazy, so I grabbed him by his collar and shouted through the door, “Who is it?”

“Hello, Della? It’s me, Kitt.”

I opened the door, and before I could say anything, Alex stood up, brushing crumbs from his cashmere pullover. “Oh, hello, I’m Alex Covington,” sticking out his hand. I wondered if she’d give him her special handshake.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said, overlooking me and smiling at Alex, as she gave him a plain Miss Manner’s handshake.

“Oh, you weren’t interrupting,” he said.

“I’m Kitt Scanlon. Very nice to meet you.” I bet, I thought. Ms. Long-blonde-hair-and-black-leather-boots meet Mr. Wavy-hair-graying-at-the-temples-and-Gucci-loafers.

“What’s up, Kitt?” I asked, breaking up their banter.

“Well, I’m going to have to cancel our wine and cheese tonight. Something important has come up.”

Oh, and I’m not important, I thought, but then I realized I’d forgotten our arrangements for tonight, which I would’ve missed if I’d gone to Asheville. “Well, another time,” I said magnanimously. “They both improve with age, unlike us humans.”

She looked confused. “Wine and cheese?” I explained.

“Oh, right. Well, I’ll let you two get back to your, uh, time together.” She glanced at Alex and added, “Bye-bye. Hope we meet again.”

“Same here,” he said with a stupid grin on his face.

Everyone was smiling and nodding as I closed the door. “Well, ta-ta for now. I hope we meet again,” I mimicked once I’d locked the door.

“Hey, I didn’t realize you had green eyes.”

“They’re not green with envy; they’re brown from bullshit.”

“I didn’t know you cared.” Alex smiled, his face so irritatingly smug I almost forgot I was a pacifist.

“I don’t,” was the best I could muster. To cover my pathetic comeback, I opened the door again, and started swinging it back and forth. “The pheromones are a bit thick in here. Now where were we?” Alex was laughing at me, and pretty soon, I had to laugh at me, too. I closed the door and sat next to him, eager to hear his news.