A Shiver of Wonder (18 page)

She looked up at him, and pulled her coat
tighter about her. The night was indeed cooling off. “I’ll see ya
’round,” she replied evenly. “And you’ve listened to me so much,
it’s just nice to balance things out a touch.” She raised the box
in her hand. “And thanks for this. I hope it’s good.”

David smiled at her. “It will be. It’ll be
the best disaster cake you’ve ever eaten in your life.”

David arose at seven the next morning.
Walking for an hour had helped him sleep through the night without
waking even once. Or perhaps it had been all the alcohol he’d
imbibed.

He and Johnson took an early morning
constitutional, an hour-long stroll to atone for the previous
morning’s brief jog outside. Their breakfast was an improvement
too, as David had popped into a market late in the afternoon the
day before. English muffins and an apple for him, and fresh sausage
for both of them.

Once again, though, Johnson had to remain at
the Rainbow Arms while David headed to Culpepper Mills. Today, he
had a progress meeting scheduled. And while he had no worries about
the status of the website, since he was actually several days ahead
of schedule, it seemed wiser to leave the dog at home.

David left at 9:25. And as he leisurely
headed up Fifth Street toward downtown, he mulled over the frantic
seesaw that his relationship with Genevieve had become lately. He
had thought about Jess’s role in their fight quite seriously the
night before as he’d walked home, and had to admit that he couldn’t
attach any blame to her. The fault had been solely his for bringing
up that horrid trigger word, ‘partition’. Jess
had
told him
to keep her end of their conversation to himself, and he wished
more than anything now that he’d listened.

But Genevieve’s frame of mind had already
begun to slide south
before
David had uttered the fateful
word. Her recounting of the friendship between Todd and Detective
Ormsby had been more than odd. And then her tying together the
detective’s purported sense of loss with his treatment of David
over the past week could only be considered disturbing.

As logical as she had tried to be, the
entire scenario had clearly disturbed Genevieve as well.

David really did want to meet Jess. He had
thought briefly about calling her the night before, despite the
late hour. But he had understood that this would only add fuel to
Genevieve’s fire. And he was also aware that no matter how helpful
talking to Jess might be, the real problems were something that
only he and Genevieve could solve, individually or together.

As he crossed Marion Avenue, David glanced
to his left, at the Shady Grove Elementary School. Clair was inside
of that building right now, supposedly mastering her ABCs and the
basic elements of sentence structure and numbers. Echoes of what
Mrs. Jenkins told him had begun to sound again an hour or two after
his confrontation with Detective Ormsby had ended, and he had found
himself wondering if it would be appropriate to visit her again
sometime soon. He wanted to comprehend more, he wanted to know how
a little girl with such incredible powers could exist in a world of
mundane learning, and mundane children. Were the other kids aware
that she was different? Or did Clair become an ordinary girl in
that setting, conforming to what was expected of her?

Birch Avenue loomed, and David’s gaze slid
automatically to the right, toward Genevieve’s house. She had
undoubtedly been at the bakery since seven, though, prepping for
yet another week of frenetic activity. Had David been in her
thoughts at all this morning? Or was he hidden behind a partition,
out of sight until she found the time and energy to deal with
him?

Gum and Maple Avenues passed by as David
dwelt on this, this truth whose head he had so idiotically reared
before her at dinner last night. Jess was right, Goddamn it!
Genevieve
did
partition off everything in her life. What had
been so wrong about his bringing it up, except for the fact that
Todd
had once brought it up before him?

Genevieve obviously lived her life following
the same patterns, year after year. How peculiar was it that her
boyfriends executed similar patterns as well?

At Oak Avenue, David was three blocks away
from Culpepper Mills. He checked his watch: 9:56. Perfect timing
for an hour of work before his 11:00 meeting.

At Larch, he purposely stared straight ahead
of himself, refusing to even glance toward Gâteaupia, that bastion
of phenomenal desserts, and phenomenally difficult girlfriends.

At Willow, he turned left, and then crossed
to the north side of the street at Fourth. It was going to be a
better day. It was going to be an awesome day!

~*~*~*~*~

The meeting had gone well. The suits had
been more than pleased, both with David’s progress, and with his
concepts for how Culpepper Mills would be presenting itself to the
world soon. David had returned to his desk buoyant, geared up for
another hour or so of web page building before he returned to
Johnson and an afternoon session spent at his apartment’s computer
workstation.

He exited the Culpepper Mills offices at
12:45 and, as he had the day before, headed south on Fourth. And
then he saw it.

“Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch!” He fished
in his pocket for a pair of quarters, and thrust them into the
vending machine.

The Shady Grove Courier’s front page was a
stark, black-and-white scream: “SUSPECTED KILLERS FLEE!” Below this
was a close-up shot of Detective Ormsby. “Detective Has No Doubts,”
was the header for the accompanying story.

David leaned against the side of a building
as he briskly skimmed the array of articles related to Deke and
Thickman’s flight from not only Greenville, but also the state
itself. Their guilt appeared more than evident: they had both been
arrested before for assault and battery; unnamed witnesses had
corroborated the information that Heck Vance was in hock to the
pair for a serious chunk of change; Heck Vance had apparently
decamped Greenville on Wednesday morning, fearful for his bodily
safety if he didn’t make at least the vig on the alleged debt by
that afternoon. On Monday morning, Detective Harvey Ormsby of the
Shady Grove P.D. had laid out at a press conference the detailed
trail of evidence that led in only one direction, that of John
“Deke” Decatur and Lewis Allan Thickman being guilty of having
murdered one Hector Vance the previous Wednesday, in the kitchen of
Apartment 1D of the Rainbow Arms apartment building in Shady
Grove.

“Unbelievable!” David groused to himself.
The detective must have headed directly for the Rainbow Arms after
his press conference, specifically to lie in wait for David. Talk
about a single-minded determination to inflict harm! If David had
gone online or talked with
anybody
who had known about the
press conference, Ormsby would have appeared an even bigger fool
than he already was.

He strode toward Larch Avenue, newspaper in
hand. Ormsby’s duplicity aside, this was an ideal excuse to stop in
at Gâteaupia and jumpstart yet again his relationship with
Genevieve. Why wait around for a day or a week for her to call him,
or for David to timidly contact her? This ridiculous rollercoaster
ride needed to get moving again, no matter
how
hard they had
gone flying off the rails.

He loved Genevieve, he knew that! And
Genevieve loved him. It was obvious in the way she so frequently
dumped him!

She always took him back. Just as she’d
always taken Todd back, until he’d behaved so badly and flown so
far away that
nothing
could have resuscitated their
liaison.

David flew past the bookstore, and then
flung open the door of his girlfriend’s incredible bakery.

And then his jaw dropped as he took in who
was sitting across from Genevieve at one of the tables in the rear.
How did… What the…

Was anything ever going to make sense
anymore?

It was Janice. Seated in one of the
scalloped back chairs, hands folded before her on the table, feet
dangling about four inches off the floor. Her hair was bright,
blond, and pulled back into a sassy ponytail. Neither she nor
Genevieve had noticed his entrance; their heads were close
together, and they were conversing quietly.

“Weird, isn’t it?” Lydia had strutted
straight up to him from the counter. “That’s not at all how I
imagined her.”

“Who? Janice?” David asked, his focus still
riveted by the bizarre tête-à-tête.

“Yep. How exactly is it that G never gets
jealous of anything
I
do or say to you, but she gets herself
all worked up over that? I mean, seriously!”

David finally looked at her. “She’s nice,
actually.”

Lydia performed an exaggerated goggle. “Nice
is nice. She ain’t got nothin’ on G, in any department!”

And then David smiled. “I’m with ya. I
have
tried to explain that, but…”

“I know, I know. She won’t see reason.”

“Exactly.” He lifted the blazing newspaper
headlines. “You guys see this?”

“Uh, huh. That’s the other thing I can’t
figure about G and her: this girl’s significant other was obviously
a total douche. Girlfriends in different towns, I should be so
lucky! But clearly, she exists in an entirely different world from
you. It’s just, you live in the same building is all. What’s the
whole biggie about you talking to her every once in a while?”

David’s free hand came up, and he swiftly
pulled Lydia toward him. Before he could even think about what he
was doing, he’d planted a quick, firm kiss right onto her gleaming
red lips. “I think I love you, Lydia,” he said, “I really do. If
things ever
completely
go kerplooey with G, you and I are
getting married and having tons of babies together.”

Lydia was exultant. She reached forward, and
her thumb began to wipe around David’s mouth. “You go over there
with my lipstick smeared all over ya, things’ll go kerplooey in
about three seconds.” She struck a pose. “But don’t let it stop
ya!”

And then she patted his cheek as her voice
became sultry. “And by the way, Victorian sponge wine cake, with a
mocha tres leches frosting and an olive oil garnish.”

David drew back, his countenance recoiling
with disgust. “Sticky toffee banana brownie pudding cake,” he
retorted, “with a pink lemonade glaze and candied lemon peel stuck
in the edges.”

“Oh! That does have more than a touch of
nasty to it.” Lydia stepped back with a smile. “I think we might
just have our first tie! Now. Get on over there and see what it’s
all about. I did my best to eavesdrop, but got shooed away within
seconds. I suppose even
I
wouldn’t have believed that I
truly wanted to tidy up the washrooms during my lunch break!”

David thought about kissing her again, but
didn’t. Their mutual attraction had been one of those irradiant
constants in his life since his arrival in Shady Grove, and he
didn’t want to jeopardize that joy. While Lydia gazed on with
uncloaked curiosity, he stepped toward the table where Janice and
Genevieve sat.

“Hello.” Both women looked up at him. Janice
appeared guilty. Genevieve’s face was a stony blank. “I just
thought I’d stop in for a couple minutes.” He almost held up his
newspaper, but realized that while Genevieve might find it
interesting in light of what he’d told her the night before, Janice
had undoubtedly had enough of the whole thing by now.

Genevieve pushed her chair back and stood.
She was immaculate, the bun in her hair nothing less than perfectly
rounded, her clothing impeccably neat and clean. A hint of her
brown sugar and cinnamon scent reached David, but it was an ill
match for what he saw in her eyes. They were cold, hard, and
clearly ready for the first day of her workweek to be over, done,
and gone.

“Thank you for coming by,” she said stiffly
to Janice. “I do appreciate what you told me.”

Janice nodded to her. “No problem. Sorry to
drop in on you like I did.” Her chin indicated the half-eaten piece
of devil’s food cake glazed with a dark buttercream ganache that
sat on a plate before her. “And thank you for the cake. I’ve only
had one other as good as this in my whole life.”

David had to bury a smirk as his eyes shot
to Genevieve’s face, anticipating exactly what occurred: slightly
flared nostrils, and the most miniscule narrowing of her eyes. “No
problem,” she mumbled to Janice. And then she pivoted and escaped
to her kitchen. Not one word had she spoken to her boyfriend of
over eighteen months.

Janice cautiously met David’s eyes, and then
her own sank. “I only meant to tell her that there was nothin’
between us the other day. When she drove up, when you were touchin’
my arm.”

David slid into the seat so hastily vacated
by Genevieve. His newspaper was laid facedown on the table. “Thank
you for trying,” he said lightly. “I told you on Sunday, you did
nothing wrong.
We
did nothing wrong.”

She looked away from him, toward the
washroom doors. “As my daddy used to say, she listened, but I don’t
know if she heard nothin’.”

“She heard,” David shrugged. “But the truth
of the matter is, she knows full well that there’s nothing to be
mad about. It’s just her way of deflecting from what’s really
eating at her. Which isn’t you. Did the other cake that was as good
as this one happen to be inside that box I gave you last
night?”

Janice’s head swiveled, and she met David’s
gaze. “Yeah. How ’bout that? Who knew one town could have two
dessert places this good in it?”

David grinned in reply, amused by the idea
that Genevieve had actually provided Janice with
two
slices
of heaven in a twenty-four hour period.