Dangerous Alterations (3 page)

“Not even that.”

“Then she ought to have her head examined if you ask me,” groused Rose.

“I suppose. But when you’ve practically raised someone since childhood I guess you don’t want to see their faults. Human nature.” Still, it was hard to keep the sting out of her words. It wasn’t that she’d expected Jeff’s family to abandon him completely, because she hadn’t. But a little empathy might have helped at the time. Something, anything, to let her know they’d understood her need to call it quits on the spot.

“More like ignorant stupidity if you ask me.” Lynn looked up at her chemo drip then closed her eyes, her voice little more than a whisper. “Have you seen him since that night?”

“There’s been no reason to see him. Our lives took two separate paths from that day forward and I don’t foresee them ever having to cross again.” And for that, Tori was grateful. The clean break had allowed her to move on—in her career and in her life.

“I wish I could say the same,” Lynn mumbled.

“There must be a way for you to get along on your own. Isn’t there?”

The woman addressed Margaret Louise’s question without so much as raising her eyelids. “That’s not the cards I’ve been dealt.”

“Cards?” Rose asked.

“That’s right.” Lynn pulled her pillow to her chest and released a cough that nearly shook the room. “But that’s okay, the ace of spades has to turn up sometime. Everyone is entitled to at least one in life, right?”

Her words were cut short by the hesitant pitter-patter of Hannah’s shoes on the linoleum between their cubicles. “Mrs. Calder?”

“Yes?”

The nurse’s face paled to a near perfect match of the uniform she proudly wore. “Mrs. Calder. I’m sorry. It’s just that—”

“She’s gone, ain’t she?”

Hannah took hold of the woman’s hand and nodded her confirmation as the meaning behind their brief, yet public exchange hit Tori with a one-two punch.

Vera Calder was dead. Of that, Tori was certain.

But it was the part that followed—the part that had her stomach clenching, the room spinning, and Margaret Louise running to her side—that she simply couldn’t understand.

Somehow she’d gotten through the next two hours, the position of her head alternating between the back of her chosen chair and dangling between her knees in an effort to keep from passing out.

Convinced she was still in shock from watching Vera code, Hannah had repeated her offer to locate a chaplain in short order.

Margaret Louise, on the other hand, was certain the mere notion of someone dying had upset Tori’s stomach and had placated her with crackers hijacked from the health center cafeteria every five minutes until Rose’s drip was complete.

Even Rose seemed to pin Tori’s reaction to Vera’s death on something it wasn’t.

Yet Lynn, the one woman who should have known better, had thought nothing of asking Tori to contact Jeff about his great-aunt’s demise. It would be easier that way, Lynn had explained, especially since Garrett despised the very ground on which Jeff walked …

Dropping her head onto her desk, she moaned. She always knew family dynamics had the potential to be tricky business, especially after spending two years in close proximity to Jeff’s. But still, hadn’t her obligation to that crew ended that fateful night over two years ago?

It had if she had half a brain in her head.

Which, unfortunately, she did not.

What she
did
have was a heart that had been shaped by her late great grandmother—a woman who had put what was right over what felt good every single day of her life.

And what was right in this particular situation meant her path was about to cross with one she’d vowed to steer clear of for the rest of her life.

“So much for vows,” she mumbled.

“Oh, I don’t agree. Not at all. Vows are the difference between doing and not doing.” Dixie breezed into the office Tori shared with her bedridden assistant, Nina Morgan, and claimed the folding chair to the side of Tori’s desk. “Would you believe my luck? I found this in the basement during a break in patrons.”

Tori mentally counted to ten then lifted her head to see the obviously ancient coffeemaker the woman held in her hands. “It was in the basement because it’s old.”

Dixie waved her objection away. “Old, schmold. Just because something isn’t twenty doesn’t mean it’s outlived its usefulness, Victoria.”

“In coffeemakers it does.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ve already plugged it in and it heated up like a champ.” Placing the coffeemaker on the desk, Dixie narrowed her eyes at Tori. “What happened? You look positively awful.”

“That’s because, once again, our dear Victoria, didn’t pay enough attention to her makeup application this morning,” proclaimed an all-too-familiar voice from the open doorway. “But just because one’s sweetheart is out of town doesn’t mean one should get lazy, now does it?”

Tori’s earlier moan morphed into an exasperated groan. “Leona, please.”

Margaret Louise’s twin sister pranced into the room, her perfectly manicured fingers wrapped tightly around the brown bunny nestled in the crook of her arm. “Please what, dear? Please help you with your makeup? Please get rid of those atrocious circles under your eyes? Please guide you in making this office look”—Leona gazed around the room—“
inviting
to those of the opposite sex?”

“Oooh, I could help with the office, too,” Dixie offered, the same frightening look from earlier that morning returning to her eyes in spades. “Perhaps I could find a coffeemaker for us, too.”

“Us?”

Jumping to her feet, Dixie marched over to Nina’s spotless desk and sat down with an unmistakable air of authority. “Of course. If I’m to cover for Nina while she’s out on bed rest, I’ll need a place to plan and prepare.”

“P-plan and prepare?” she stammered.

“Precisely.”

Leona froze in the middle of the room. “Dixie? Did you hear that?”

Dixie looked up from her newly acquired desk. “What?”

“I think I hear someone seeking your expert assistance in the main room.”

“I’ll take care of that right away.” Dixie stood, crossed the office with several quick strides, and disappeared into the hallway. “If you need anything, you know where to find me.”

Feeling the first twinges of a smile, Tori let her gaze travel from her friend’s salon-softened gray hair to the pale pink linen suit that hugged her surprisingly toned body, and back again. “You heard no such noise, did you?”

Leona shrugged then lifted the bunny to her plump lips for a kiss. “How else was I supposed to rescue you from that insufferable woman?”

Tori knew she should protest Leona’s unkind description of their fellow sewing circle member, yet all she could do was laugh. If only for a moment.

“So what brings you by?” she asked as she pulled a pencil from its holder and turned it slowly between her fingers.

“I wanted to hear your thoughts on my sister’s little plan. See if I could prevail on your good taste.”

She stilled her pencil. “What are you talking about? What plan?”

Leona shifted from foot to foot. “Margaret Louise didn’t tell you?”

“No. I—”

“What’s wrong, dear?” Leona asked. She sat down, claiming the same folding chair that Dixie had graced before the pull of Nina’s desk had relocated Tori’s perpetual thorn across the room. “You look … torn.”

And just like that, her personal coach on all things southern had summed up her mood with one simple word.

“I have to contact Jeff.”

Ever so gently, Leona nestled Paris back into her arms, stroking the bunny’s soft fur with a loving hand. “Time to gloat?”

She stared at her friend.

Flipping the fingers of her free hand over her palm, Leona inspected her barely hours-old manicure. “Because, if you ask me, he could stand to hear that you’ve not only found your prince charming, but that your prince charming has also asked you to marry him.”

“Why would I do that?”

“To make him jealous.”

Tori felt her mouth gape open and worked to close it. “I could care less what Jeff knows about my life and even less what he thinks about it. I’m with the right person now, that’s all that matters.”

“Suit yourself, dear.” Leona crossed her legs at her ankles and cast a pointed look in Tori’s direction. “Then I give up, dear. Why else would you need to call him? Are you planning on inviting him to the wedding?”

“I’d have to say yes in order to have a wedding to invite him to, remember?” But even as she said the words, she knew she was being cryptic. Leona had freed her of Dixie’s overeager plans and for that she should be grateful. Toss in the fact that she valued Leona’s sometimes insightful, sometimes infuriating opinion on most matters and, well, it only made sense to come clean about the stifling weight that had been thrust upon her shoulders. “Jeff’s great-aunt died of a heart attack this morning. Virtually in front of my eyes.”

“Was she overweight?”

“A little, I guess.”

“Did she smoke?”

She thought back to her encounters with Vera Calder during her relationship with Jeff. “She did.”

“Well there you go.” Leona gestured toward Paris with her chin. “He’s been such a good boy lately. He got out by accident about two-and-a-half weeks ago and he found his way back home all by himself. And then, just last night, when I was planning my attire for today, I asked him which purse I should use and he twitched his little nose at this one.” Leona lifted an off-white beaded clutch from her lap and held it up for Tori to see. “He has impeccable taste for one so young.”

“And rabbit-like,” Tori added before steering the topic back to Jeff. “I have to call Jeff to tell him about his aunt.”

“Why?”

“Because his stepcousin won’t do it.”

Leona’s recently waxed eyebrow rose in curiosity. “Why not?”

“Jealousy, I guess. Vera was crazy about Jeff and merely tolerated her late husband’s child, Garrett. And Lynn is right … if I don’t make the call, it might be months before Jeff finds out.”

“Who on earth is Lynn?”

“Garrett’s soon-to-be ex-wife. They lived with Vera.”

“You’re making my head ache, dear.”

“Then it must be contagious.” Leaning back in her chair, Tori spun around to look out at the grounds of the library, the view of the hundred-year-old moss trees failing to provide the sense of peace and comfort they normally did. “I saw them both—Lynn and Vera—while I was with Rose this morning. Lynn happened to be having a chemo appointment across from Rose’s cubicle. I guess Vera was there to lend Lynn some support.”

“I don’t see how having a heart attack is giving support, dear.”

“Lynn said she had a weak heart and Hannah, the nurse, concurred.”

“So you call Jeff and tell him. What’s that, maybe ten or eleven words? ‘Jeff, it’s Tori. Vera kicked the bucket this morning. Call Garrett.’ See? That’s not too bad.”

Tori stared at the leafy branches as they swayed in a rare summer breeze. Was Leona right? Was she making it harder than it needed to be? After all, once the news was delivered, she could forget all about Jeff once again, couldn’t she?

“Now, can we go get some lunch?” Leona prompted. “Deirdre over at the diner called to say a truckload of firefighters from down south just stopped in for lunch and I want to extend a warm southern welcome while they’re here.”

“ ‘A warm southern welcome’? Is that what they’re calling it now?” She allowed the momentary image to ease some of the tension that had hovered around her body like a suffocating storm cloud all morning. And it felt good. Really good.

“If they stay because of my welcome, we’ll decide what to call it then.”

Tori rolled her eyes, then stood. “Did Deirdre happen to say how old these firefighters are?”

“Age doesn’t matter, dear. I can tame a twenty-year-old just as surely as I can tame a sixty-year-old. It’s all in the presentation.” Leona rose to her feet and led the way to the door, stopping to give Tori a once-over. “Which is why I must insist you put on a little lipstick before we leave. We don’t want your warm southern welcome to be met with cringing, now do we?”

 

 

Tori rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. She’d put off the call for as long as she could, using everything and anything she could find as an excuse for waiting—lunch with Leona, shelving books, re-shelving books, re-re-shelving books, making dinner, cleaning up after dinner, alphabetizing her junk mail before tossing it in the trash, et cetera. Yet now there were no more excuses to be found.

Except perhaps the fact that it was approaching nine thirty in the evening. If she waited much longer she’d be off the hook.

For about twelve hours anyway.

No, getting it over with was a better option.

Without taking her focus off the ceiling above her bed, Tori reached for her cell phone and flipped it open, her fingers instinctively finding the number she’d once called as often as four times a day.

There’s always the chance he’s moved …

Buoyed by the hope the thought provided, she held the phone to her ear and listened to the rings. One. Two. Three. Four—

“Hey, this is Jeff.”

Her stomach lurched at the sound of his voice, the familiar and friendly tone momentarily throwing her off her game. “Uh … Jeff? Um … uh … it’s Tori.”

“Tori? Oh my gosh, baby, how are you?”

She closed her eyes against the term of endearment she’d once treasured, yet now despised as the farce their entire relationship had been. “I have some bad news.”

“Are you okay?”

She nodded.

“Baby … you still there? Are you okay?”

Realizing her mistake, she put words to her unseen action. “I’m fine. But I have something to tell you.” Inhaling every ounce of courage she could muster, she proceeded. “It’s your great-aunt. Vera. She passed away.”