Going Back (8 page)

“Yes,” Robert Torrance said with
obvious disdain. “You have to cross the river to the wilderness to
look at more houses. Suit yourself, Brad. Live in the boondocks if
you must. But if in my dotage I do become incapacitated, I’ll thank
you to put me in a nursing home here in town rather than transport
me to that barren wasteland west of the Hudson.”

Brad allowed himself a weary smile.
He wasn’t going to persuade his father of New Jersey’s virtues
tonight—and, in all honesty, he didn’t really care what his father
thought about the state. Whether or not Robert Torrance approved of
his son’s choices didn’t matter to Brad.

What mattered was that he himself
had to approve of his choices. He approved of his choice regarding
a place to live. But the other choice, the choice he’d made about
Daphne, didn’t sit well with him. It troubled him that he’d
pigeon-holed her as he had. It troubled him that he couldn’t bring
himself to think of her in a romantic context. She had so much
going for her, and yet...nothing clicked between them. He could
gaze into her round green eyes and feel nothing but respect for who
she was today and remorse for what he’d done to her long
ago.

He ought to feel more, but he
didn’t. And it bothered the hell out of him.

***

“HAVE YOU HEARD from Andrea about
the party?” Phyllis asked.

Daphne wedged the telephone more
snugly against her ear, as if she could keep Brad from listening in
on the conversation. He already knew about the party Andrea and
Eric were hosting in his honor Saturday night; he’d mentioned it
that morning when he’d arrived at Daphne’s office. But she held her
cell phone tight and averted her eyes, just as she always did when
she received a personal call at work. It was an old habit dating
back to her first job after she’d graduated from college, as an
assistant buyer at a department store in Chicago. Her boss had been
a tyrant, demanding that employees refuse all phone calls not
related to business. Of course the staff had disobeyed, but they’d
learned to be secretive.

“Are you going to be there?”
Phyllis asked.

“Probably. Are you?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,”
Phyllis said. “What’s Brad Torrance like these days, anyway? Andrea
tells me you’ve spent a couple of days taking him around to look at
houses.”

“He’s fine,” Daphne reported. Brad
couldn’t help hearing, and he glanced up curiously, apparently
conscious of the fact that she was talking about him. She smiled,
then slowly and deliberately inspected him as he watched her,
lifting her eyeglasses up to her forehead and squinting at him. “He
hasn’t aged too badly, Phyllis,” she reported, lowering her glasses
back into place. “No gray hair, no double-chin, no signs of an
incipient pot-belly.”

Me?
Brad mouthed, jabbing his thumb into his chest as
he stared at Daphne.

She covered her phone with her hand
and whispered, “It’s Phyllis Dunn, from school. She’s going to be
at the party Saturday, and she wanted to know how you
looked.”

Brad nodded; evidently, Phyllis’s
name rang a bell. Then he grinned. “No pot-belly, huh,” he
whispered back. “Has she got a pot-belly?”

“You’ll find out Saturday night,”
Daphne answered before turning her attention back to her caller.
Phyllis was chattering about something, and Daphne had missed half
of it. “What?”

“I said, the good news is that
Steve and Melanie Persky are coming down from Armonk for the
party,” Phyllis reported, naming a couple of other friends who
dated back to Daphne’s college days. “The bad news is that Andrea
invited a bunch of her TV people, so the party’s going to be
overrun with show-biz folks.”

Daphne laughed. Unlike Phyllis, she
found Andrea’s professional colleagues colorful and entertaining.
“How about Jim? Are you bringing him along with you?”

“I can’t see a way out of it,”
Phyllis lamented. “Are you coming alone?”

“I was thinking I’d bring Paul
Costello,” said Daphne.

“Bo-ring,” Phyllis
chanted.

“How can you say that? You’ve never
even met him,” Daphne complained.

“I figure, if you’re dating him, he
must be safe,” Phyllis rationalized.

When Daphne had started dating
Paul, about a year after she’d moved to Verona, he hadn’t been
especially safe. An English teacher at one of the local high
schools, he was sharp, passably handsome, and possessed of a quirky
sense of humor. He and Daphne had given the romance their best
shot, but after about six months they were forced to admit that the
chemistry wasn’t right. “I can’t help it, Daphne,” Paul had
confessed, “but I think of you as a sister. I’m really
sorry.”

Daphne had been sorry too, at the
time. Now, many months later, she was beginning to sense that it
was her lot in life to be thought of as a sister by every
interesting man she met, and she was doing her best to accept it.
Despite the fact that their relationship never caught fire, Daphne
and Paul enjoyed each other’s company, and they frequently saw each
other when they were both free. That Daphne was free more often
than Paul made her only the slightest bit jealous.

“Sometimes he’s safe and sometimes
he isn’t,” Daphne said. “You can judge for yourself Saturday night.
I’ve got to go. The guest of honor is drooling all over listings.”
She said the last part loudly for Brad’s benefit. He glanced up
from her computer screen, grinned and stuck out his tongue,
pretending to pant.

“He’s there now?” Phyllis
exclaimed. “Give him a kiss for me, Daffy. I’ll see you in a couple
of days.”

Daphne said goodbye and hung up the
phone. “Phyllis asked me to give you a kiss,” Daphne
related.

Brad’s grin widened. “On her
behalf, or your own?”

Daphne considered an assortment of
answers before opting for honesty. “Hers,” she replied. “But I’ll
let you wait until Saturday. Kisses should never be delivered by
middlemen.”

“Spoilsport,” Brad teased before
turning his focus back to the monitor. “I’m almost at the end of
the West Caldwell listings,” he told her.

“Have you found anything you want
to look at?” she asked.

He shook his head. “What I’ve found
is that you’ve already shown me the best properties. But this is
informative. Give me one more minute, okay?”

She’d already set up a few
appointments before he arrived at her office a half hour ago. But
she always encouraged her clients to peruse the listings, just in
case she overlooked a property they might wish to see. Before he’d
begun viewing the listings, Brad had asked her to educate him on
real estate lingo. She had explained to him that “a cozy little
charmer” meant the house wasn’t much bigger than a tool shed, that
“very special” meant the floors were uneven and a mismatched wing
had been added off the garage, and that “this one won’t last” meant
the house had been on the market for over a year.

Daphne wasn’t sure what had
happened between yesterday and today, what had changed between them
to make her feel more comfortable in Brad’s company. Perhaps it was
simply that he seemed more comfortable around her.

Shortly after he’d arrived at the
office, Brad told her about the dinner he’d had with his father the
night before, during which his father had referred to New Jersey as
a wasteland. He told her that he really liked the expanded cape
she’d shown him the previous day, the one priced at $560,000, and
that he’d like to see it again if they had time that afternoon. He
told her he’d stopped by his new office that morning to shake a few
hands, and his associates there swore that, while they didn’t want
to pressure him, they sure hoped he’d settle in soon because they
could really use him at his desk. He’d also mentioned the party
Andrea and Eric were hosting in his honor.

Brad was undoubtedly used to being
needed and feted, Daphne thought as he scrolled through the last of
the West Caldwell listings. He hadn’t sounded boastful when he’d
mentioned the party or the warm reception he’d received at the
office. Instead, he’d sounded at home, as if he were confiding in
an old friend.

Daphne was hardly Brad’s old
friend. Yet she greatly preferred his mood today to his gruff
demeanor yesterday. While she usually didn’t like to mix business
with pleasure, she saw no reason to reject Brad’s
friendship.

“Nothing,” he said, swiveling the
monitor back around to her.

“All right. We’ll look at what I’ve
already set up.”

Daphne knew the first house they
visited would be a bust the minute they stepped inside. The selling
broker, an overbearing woman named Midge, was waiting for them in
the living room, and she immediately wrapped a plump arm around
Brad’s shoulders and swept him away, babbling about what a fabulous
family home this would make. “There’s a wonderful playroom for the
children,” she gushed. “Do you have children, Mr. Torrance? No?
Well, don’t give up. My husband and I tried for seven years before
we hit the jackpot. What? No wife? Well, a nice young man like you
ought to be able to find someone sooner or later. Come, let me show
you this absolutely adorable nursery upstairs...”

The second house Daphne took him to
was the sort which, in listings, was usually described with the
phrase: “has great potential.” The place was falling to pieces.
Several windows were cracked, some roof shingles lay on the ground
near the front door, the electrical wiring was inadequate and the
linoleum in the bathroom had been stripped off to reveal the warped
floorboards underneath. “It’s under two hundred thousand,” Daphne
pointed out cheerfully as Brad dusted the cobwebs from his hands
and strode out of the house, smoothly sidestepping the fallen
shingles.

“What a bargain,” he muttered,
climbing into the car and staring straight ahead, as if he couldn’t
wait for her to transport him away from the dilapidated building.
“Can you honestly picture me rewiring a house?”

“You could hire a
contractor.”

“Daphne, look at me.” He extended
his hands beneath her nose. “Not a single callous. I’m helpless
when it comes to repairing things.”

“I’m sure you aren’t.”

“I am. Whenever anything breaks, my
instincts tell me to run for cover.”

“Everyone’s instincts tell them
that,” Daphne granted, starting the car and pulling away from the
curb. “But when that option isn’t available, most people roll up
their sleeves and tackle the problem.”

“Do you think I’m like most
people?” Brad asked, gazing at her profile as she concentrated on
the road.

“I don’t know,” she answered,
sensing that he was hinting at something far removed from house
repairs, but not sure what it was.

“There have been times, Daff...”
His voice drifted off, and his gaze left her to focus on the
dashboard. “Times when I was so lazy, I just threw away whatever
was broken and...yeah. I ran for cover. I suck when it comes to
fixing things.”

Daphne considered his words. He was
obviously no longer talking about “handyman’s specials” or even
broken objects. He was talking about friendships, relationships,
broken feelings and messy affairs. One messy affair in particular,
perhaps.

Her recollection of that affair was
that she, not Brad, had been the one to run for cover. And if there
had been anything to repair, it would have been as much her
responsibility as his to fix it.

They’d both failed—but neither of
them was noticeably broken anymore. Houses couldn’t mend their own
roofs, but human beings had a talent for regenerating
themselves.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Daphne
said, keeping her tone as light as possible. “We’ll stay away from
fixer-uppers from now on.”

He turned back to her, and she
could feel the glittering blue light of his eyes bathing her. She
risked a glance at him and absorbed his wistful smile. “That’s
probably a wise policy,” he agreed.

Avoiding fixer-uppers meant taking
the chance of missing a property that, with just a bit of tender
loving care, could be made perfect. On the other hand, the odds of
finding such a rare house were slim, and she and Brad had already
agreed that they didn’t want to waste time.

So she drove him to the next house
on her schedule. The roof was tight, the floors were covered with
plush carpets and polished hardwood floors, the walls had been
painted recently and every window frame sported a double-layer
thermopane. The appliances were new, the lighting fixtures
attractive, the yard recently mowed and the shrubs pruned. The
house boasted a price tag approaching $600,000—worth it for a
dwelling that was clean and safe, with no surprises and no
additional work necessary. This was a house that demanded nothing
from its owner other than a fat wallet and an appreciation of its
pretty practicality.

Daphne wasn’t terribly shocked when
Brad told her he loved it.

“IT’S NOT THAT I hate driving in
the city,” Paul said as Daphne’s car emerged from the Lincoln
Tunnel into Manhattan. “It’s that I hate parking in the
city.”