Somewhere Along the Way (4 page)

“I know,” she answered. “I need a little space alone to think. When I get all settled in, I’ll call and invite everyone over.” In this size town he could probably drive around and check every apartment complex if he wanted to, but Hank was too honest to spy.

Just my luck
, Liz almost said aloud. Only one perfect man born this generation and he happened to be her big brother. It was hard for any guy she dated to measure up to him.

“You need any money?” he asked, as she knew he would.

“Nope.” She hesitated, then lied again. “I’m set.” She’d taken enough from him. It was time she made a little on her own. “I’ll call if I need anything,” she promised as she walked him down the hallway to the outside door.

Liz watched, with the door open, until he got halfway down, feeling change covering her like rain.
Good-bye, big brother
, she almost yelled, knowing that she was cutting strings even if he wasn’t aware.

Hank looked back. “Maybe we could go to lunch sometime? I’m usually in town on Tuesday.” By the time he’d offered, he was at the bottom and in front of a dry cleaners and a used bookstore that rented the first floor of her building.

“It’s a date.” She waved as he shoved back his midnight hair and planted his Stetson solid before facing the wind. She almost felt sorry for the guy. He ran a ranch, served as chief of the volunteer fire department, and tried to make the women in his life happy. With an out-of-touch mother who spent her days designing pots, two divorced sisters, two great-aunts, and a niece living at the ranch, Hank’s job wasn’t easy. Liz moving out gave him one less female to worry about. Maybe he’d have time to finally marry the woman he’d loved all his life.

Turning back to the mess of cheap furniture and office supplies, Liz almost wished she’d given in and let everyone help her.

“No,” she said as she pushed the first box aside. “I have to do something for myself. I have to be good at something besides going to school.” She might not be ready to move to New York or Chicago and be a big-time lawyer, but she could stand on her own two feet for once right here in Harmony.

By late afternoon Liz had managed to get all the furniture in place. The office had two rooms. One small front reception area and one large square office with north windows running from floor to ceiling.

“North windows,” Liz could almost hear her mother saying, “they’re the best. Unchanging light. Artist light.”

Liz only hoped they might prove to be lawyer light as well. She’d like to make a go of something for once. It would be nice to live without change for a while.

She crammed the wicker chairs, small table, semicircle desk, and two plastic plants into the reception area, leaving only a huge desk, six file cabinets she’d picked up at a salvage store, and a long blue couch to fill up the big office. Nothing matched. She’d seen room arrangements at Goodwill that made more sense.

The south wall of the office had a tiny white sink, a small kitchen area for making coffee, complete with a black microwave and a green mini refrigerator.

The ladies’ room was down the hallway, near the back door that went to a small parking lot. She shared the second floor with three other offices. All of which looked empty.

As she began unpacking a box that had been in storage for the three years since her divorce, she fought back tears. The day she’d left her husband, Eddie, had started with them yelling as she tossed dishes into a few boxes. She hadn’t planned where she’d go, she’d just wanted out, so the odd assortment of cups and plates she now unpacked were just the first things within reach.

In the end, Eddie had helped her load her car, as he’d always helped her. The last time she saw him, she’d been pulling away from the condo he’d bought because he thought she wanted it. Tears were running down his cheeks, but he hadn’t said he loved her. He’d only told her that she’d be back. He’d yelled that she was going to miss him and his money and all their things. If he’d just said he loved her, or needed her, she might have turned around.

Liz tossed a pot under the sink, realizing no one had ever needed her. She was the extra, the accessory everyone liked having around, but didn’t see as vital. She’d been just one of the “things” Eddie had collected on his way up the corporate ladder.

Grabbing her bag, she headed for the gym she’d joined yesterday. Once there, she stormed right past the exercise equipment and went to the dressing rooms. After fifteen minutes in the hot tub, she took a shower, washed her short hair, combed the curls with her fingers, and left. No one seemed to notice her coming or going. Somehow she’d slipped into that age, or that size, that was gym invisible. In a month she wouldn’t be twentysomething, she’d be thirty-something, and that was only a few steps away from dead, she figured.

Shadows were long when she got back to her office. If anyone noticed her car parked in the back lot, they’d think she was working late. Not that anyone would notice. A person would have to be walking in the old dried-up stream to pass within sight of the lot. She’d noticed the bookstore owner parked in front of his shop, probably to show people he was open, and the dry cleaners closed at three. It appeared the parking lot was all hers.

She pulled the dusty curtains closed before she turned on the lamp atop her desk. Nine o’clock, time for bed, she decided. With no TV and no one to talk to, it seemed her only option.

Pulling pillows and a blanket from her empty file drawers, she made her bed on the couch, tugged off her tennis shoes, and climbed in.

“Perfect.” She giggled to herself. She couldn’t afford an apartment, but this place, with its large storage room for her clothes, could double as both office and apartment. She’d have to work with the ladies’ room, but being able to shower at the gym would solve most of her problems.

Liz snuggled in, smiling. She was alone for the first time. She’d moved from home to the dorm, from the dorm to marriage, from marriage back home. It was time.

She wasn’t just an extra in this game of life, she was a lawyer. People would need her, need her help, ask her advice. Before her family found out she was homeless, she’d have clients and be able to afford a place. Maybe she’d buy a house. There were a few in the historical district a block away that only needed a makeover. Big old homes like Winter’s Inn that had been turned into a bed-and-breakfast by the past three owners and little bungalow homes in between that would be more her style.

The desk lamp flickered a warm glow on the brown carpet, the yellowed-white walls, and the army-green curtains. “Definitely a house, painted in sunset colors.” She whispered her dream. “With a swing on the front porch and flowers everywhere.”

The wind howled outside and the curtain billowed slightly, letting in cold air. Liz wrapped the blanket tighter, figuring out why old Mr. Kaufman had insisted that the place rented “as is.” Apparently, paint wasn’t all it needed. North windows didn’t seem so perfect anymore.

By six the next morning when the heating system clicked on for the day, Liz wore two pairs of socks and her coat beneath her blanket. She climbed out of her couch/bed, grabbed her makeup, and ran to the ladies’ room. Thirty minutes later, she was dressed, all evidence of her bed had vanished back into the file cabinet, and she had coffee brewing.

At eight, when she placed her new sign in the window, she was ready to welcome clients. At ten, when someone knocked on her office door, she was asleep with her head on her desk.

Liz jumped up and frantically looked for her shoes. She found only one, so after a few moments of panic, she limped through the reception area to the door.

A potbellied postman raised his eyebrow as he looked her up and down, but didn’t comment on her missing shoe. “Name’s Jerry. You’re new on my route.” He never stopped chewing his gum as he talked.

“Yes.” Liz didn’t feel the need to tell the postman her name. It was on the door and probably on every piece of mail in his hand.

He handed her the stack of letters. “I’ve been holding these for you since you signed the lease.” He glanced around her to the small front office with its tiny desk and plastic plants. “If you leave a box by the door, I’ll drop any mail off there and won’t have to bother you if the receptionist isn’t here.”

“Okay,” she said aware that he was trying to see into the next office. A receptionist was so far down on her list of things she could afford, she hadn’t even thought of hiring one.

“Thank you.” She crossed her arms, waiting for him to leave. Jerry the mailman was nosy, and in a small town where everyone talked about the Mathesons, she didn’t need nosy. “Anything else?”

He looked down at his pack. “Yeah, would you hold G. L. Smith’s mail so I can quit dragging it up here every day? He’s across the hall from you.” Jerry frowned at the door. “Up until last week I could open his door and toss his mail in, but about the time you rented, someone locked his door.”

“Maybe G. L. did?” Liz took her neighbor’s mail and tossed it on one of the wicker chairs. Paint chips flicked off and dusted the carpet like dandruff.

Jerry shook his head. “He hasn’t in years. Don’t see why he would now. I’m betting Mr. Kaufman locked it. He keeps a key to all the offices just in case there’s a water leak or something.”

“When will Mr. Smith be in?”

“Don’t know. Never met the guy. He gets UPS and Fed Ex deliveries too. The lady in the laundry told me she signs for them and brings them up to the office. She said she did it just to be nice, but every time she climbs up with mail, she finds a few dollars dropped in her mail slot.” Jerry raised his bushy eyebrow again. “You don’t think he’s dead in there, do you?”

“No,” Liz answered. “We’d smell him by now.”

Jerry nodded.

Liz grabbed the door frame. “Thanks,” she said, closing the door before he could ask any more questions. G. L. Smith had as much right to his privacy as she did. It made sense that Kaufman had a key, but she didn’t like the idea. Tonight she’d be shoving a chair against the door.

She tossed her mail, which looked like mostly bills and “Welcome New Neighbor” notices, on her desk and microwaved the last cup of her morning coffee.

Before she remembered to look for her shoe, she heard the front door open again. Limping to the front, Liz was surprised to see Edith from the diner a block over. All the locals knew her and loved her. Edith had been waiting tables at Cass’s Blue Moon Diner since she was in high school. She was sweet and kind; her only flaw had been in her choice of husband. If Harmony ever had a citywide cleanup day, he’d be part of the trash they took out.

“Morning, Edith.” Liz’s smile was honest this time. “May I help you?”

“I brought you a few of Cass’s blueberry scones for your first day at work. Hank was by this morning and told me you were setting up an office. Now that’s exciting, girl.” The woman, still in her apron, handed Liz a plate covered with a napkin. “I bet your mother is real proud of you.”

“Thanks.” Liz doubted her mother had noticed, but that wasn’t Edith’s problem. She motioned with her head toward a chair in front of her desk. “Got time to stay a spell?” Edith always looked tired, and Liz realized she’d never seen the woman sitting down.

“No. I got to get back before the lunch run starts. I was just wondering if you charge for hypothetical questions about the law.”

“No. Ask away. If I can pass the bar, I should be able to come up with an answer.” Liz was already guessing the question would be something about declaring tips on income tax forms, which wasn’t her specialty, but she’d do her best.

“And what I say in here, is that like something you say in confession with a priest? It can never be told?”

“That’s right.” Liz smiled, happy that Edith trusted her.

Edith looked down at the mud-colored carpet. “I was just wondering, if a woman killed her husband accidentally, would she go to jail?”

Liz took the shock of her question without flinching. For the first time she noticed that the dark circles under the waitress’s eyes were bruises. “If it was an accident or self-defense, she would not go to jail.” She set the scones down and took Edith’s hand. “Are you okay, Edith? Is there something I could do?”

Edith shook her head so hard her whole body seemed to vibrate. “No. I’m fine. I was just asking for a friend.”

Liz suddenly felt very old. “Well, tell your friend that there are other ways out. If she wants to, she could come talk to me. I wouldn’t charge her for a visit.”

Edith wiped her hands on her apron. “I’ll tell her. I got to be going. Cass will run off the folks if he’s there alone.”

Liz welcomed the change. “He is a bear of a man. I’ve never heard him talk except to yell.”

Edith smiled. “Yeah, but that don’t bother me. Underneath, he’s a good man. Never known him to cheat anyone or turn down any drifter who can’t afford a meal.”

Liz’s opinion of the man lifted slightly, especially because if she didn’t get paying business she might be one of those drifters dropping in for a free meal. It would beat going home to a thousand questions and her sister’s I-told-you-so attitude.

WEDNESDAY
JANUARY 16, 2008
BLUE MOON DINER