Final Masquerade (17 page)

He hesitated before saying, “Of course."

Outside, he held the car door for her. She was silent during the ride to her apartment.

"Please don't be angry,” he whispered. His eyelashes and tiny hairs on his nose glowed in the moonlight.

"I'm not angry. It's just that. Look, I've explained it to you several times—"

Burt interrupted her troubled speech. “No, you haven't. All you've said is you're recovering from a bad relationship."

"That's right. An intelligent man would surmise that—"

"Okay,” he said, his tone sharp.

She extracted herself from the car before he could come around and open the door.

After shutting her apartment door and listening for the sound of his retreating footsteps and the front door squeaking shut, Paige tiptoed downstairs and went for a walk. The city was so quiet. Only the soft thud of her footsteps could be heard as she wandered several blocks north. She stopped at the intersection where the big yellow truck had appeared. What was it—just a week ago?

Paige crossed her arms and imagined Chris’ truck looming into sight.
He leaned forward for a better look. He smiled. His big hands wound the enormous steering wheel. The truck performed like an acrobat and thundered to the side of the road. It didn't stop at the curb though. The engine roared deeper and stronger, then leaped over onto the sidewalk and thundered toward her.
Chris’ smiling face changed. Now it was Burt's leering grin coming at her.

The next thing Paige knew she was leaning against her closed apartment door, the raised panels biting into her spine, her breath coming in bottomless bursts.

What did the vision mean? That she wanted Chris? That she should let Burt closer? She'd never been good at dissecting dreams. She'd never been a good judge of character. Wasn't that how she ended up with Stefano in the first place? A handsome man comes along, says a few nice things, and she jumps into bed with him.

Paige leaned away from the door and slipped out of her jacket.

Letting the hot shower needles beat on her face, she made up her mind about one thing—tomorrow she'd break off her relationship with Burton David Palmer.

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Paige didn't know how she got in front of the quilt shop. She'd been walking and sipping hot green tea and rehearsing what she'd say to Burt later. “I can't see you any more. I'm in love with..."

Love? God no. She'd only known Chris a couple of days. Love was impossible. Particularly when all the signs pointed toward him working for Stefano. She simply could not fall in love with anyone—especially not the handsome Canadian-turned-Texan.

She knocked timidly on the quilt shop door and went inside. A light at the back burned brightly. Joy, smiling, opened the door and ushered Paige between aisles of upright bolts of fabric arranged with similar colors together: a rainbow you could actually touch, to a long narrow room behind the main shop where six other women had already gathered around a rectangular table. Each held her quilt in varying colors and styles, in different degrees of completion.

A round gray-haired woman offered Paige a cup of coffee. Paige held up her cup of tea. “I'm good, thanks."

"Hi, I'm Sonja. Welcome to our little gathering.” She held up her quilt. It was an Amish style in bright primary colors. Excellent workmanship, but the colors were too gaudy for Paige's tastes.

A buxom blonde, whom Sonja called Melanie, displayed a nearly completed project. Her handiwork wasn't on a par with the others but she had energy and zest, something Paige was beginning to feel. A sort of adrenaline coursed through her, a longing to be working on her own project, even though she hadn't handled a needle and thread since she was thirteen. Violet, her nanny, believed everyone, boys and girls alike, should be prepared for “whatever life might throw at you". She'd instructed Paige and her brother in the ways of sewing and cleaning.

Paige took to the needle like a hummingbird to flight. Joy watched with a look of satisfaction, having been responsible for discovering another quilting buff.

Paige nearly ran home to her apartment, eager to dive into her new pattern book. As she closed the door, she spied the note that had been jammed underneath. She unfolded the paper, knowing it was from Burt. Though he'd repeatedly said she needed a phone, so far she'd resisted. The note voiced a renewed apology for last night and said he hoped she'd still go out with him the following evening, to
Buca Di Beppo's.
Yes, she would meet him. And break the news that she couldn't see him any more.

She settled on her sofa bed and slowly turned the pattern pages, concentrating on each design, mentally matching the hundreds of bolts of material she'd seen in Joy's store to the quilts shown in glossy color in her book. A glass of merlot on the coffee table stood nearly forgotten, beads of moisture collecting on the base of the stem. Finally Paige settled back, propping several pillows between herself and the stuccoed wall. She held the book at arm's length picturing how the appliquéd rose quilt on page seventeen would look in the apartment. She visualized colonial blue combined with rose and yellow, and nodded.

Later, she sat in the dark, dressed in an oversized T-shirt, leaning against the same pillows, staring out at the twinkling sky. Three days ago she'd finally sold the van. She drew the bag of Stefano's money from the space between the wall of the kitchen sink and the cabinet. Then she switched the money from the sale of the van with an equal amount: her version of money laundering. Who knew what ability Stefano had to trace what she'd taken? Perhaps that was how he'd found her in Barstow. That in mind, she sat on the tiled floor and examined the bills. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

She should go to Minneapolis soon. It would be nice visiting with Nina, and retrieving her package. Soon. First, she needed to free herself of Stefano. If he followed her, and did something to Nina or her family, Paige couldn't live with herself.

Paige sighed. Would she ever be free of him?

The following morning, she ate at the deli down the street, seated on a stool at a tall table facing the intersection. Propped under the table was the plastic bag holding her new purchases: fabrics and quilting supplies. Paige was anxious to begin working on her project but had one more stop before heading home, an interview at the University of Michigan Library for a position as the librarian's assistant.

She wore a trim navy pantsuit, white silk blouse and a new pair of Manolo Blahniks that pinched each big toe but, the heck with that, they looked great. The gossamer corner of a red silk handkerchief peeked from her left breast pocket.

Paige watched the people scurrying past and wondered where each was going. To work, probably. That guy in the three-piece suit had to be a lawyer. A woman who stopped in front of the window to answer a cell phone jammed up the crowd behind her. She turned to scowl at a dark-haired man who crashed into her. Paige could tell he was apologizing because he nodded and pointed a lot. There was a cigarette in his hand—between the second and third fingers.

Chris!

Paige shot off the stool. Her left toe snagged on the heel of her right and she nearly toppled on her face. She righted herself and sprinted to the sidewalk. The man in the suit was still there. The woman on the cell phone was still there. Chris was gone. She cast about wildly, searching the workday crowd for his head. She elbowed through the crowd for a half-block in each direction, but found no sign of the dark-haired man.

Paige retraced her steps to the deli to collect her things.

So, Chris was in town. That meant he was searching for her, didn't it? Trouble was: should she run
from
him or
to
him?

The tall raised panel doors of the library banged shut behind her. The aroma, like that in a bookstore, usually brought feelings of nostalgia. Today it only made her sad and lonely. She stiffened her spine and stepped up to the closed office door of the librarian, Mrs. Agatha Zrony. Since she'd anticipated a round gray-haired woman in wire rimmed spectacles and polyester suit with a personality to match, Paige was not disappointed. The woman was the stereotype that her name and profession dictated. She motioned Paige to a seat in one of the leather chairs primly set before an enormous desk, then raised battleship green eyes to meet Paige's. Her eyebrows lifted as though she had formed her own opinion of someone bearing the name Ernestine Yates.

"Miss—er, Ms. Yates. Tell me why I should forego interviewing the remainder of these candidates...” She waved a sheaf of employment applications in the air, “...and hire someone such as yourself."

The old Paige wouldn't have hesitated to put the woman in her proper place. The new Paige pulled in a breath and replied, “I'm an avid reader. I know the Dewey decimal system inside and out. I'm prompt. I love working with people and I'm a hard worker. I also am good at fending off unwanted salespeople and am very good at accepting blame for things which aren't of my doing.” And that was no understatement.

Agatha Zrony gazed at Paige for ten seconds. Those ten seconds stretched into twenty while Paige pondered thoughts of escaping. Ten more seconds passed. Whether waiting for Paige to rescind her statement or formulating her own reply, Paige didn't know or care.

Gradually, a Mona Lisa-type grin crept over the wrinkled face. “I do believe I've just hired myself an assistant. I think we'll get along famously. Call me Agatha."

Paige half-stood and extended a hand across the desk. Agatha pumped it enthusiastically. “You can start tomorrow at 8:00 a.m."

In the hallway, Paige sighed. Eight a.m. was an hour as foreign to her as space exploration. But the job would relieve the boredom—not loneliness, certainly not loneliness—that she'd been suffering of late.

After a wonderful Italian dinner at
Buca Di Beppo's
, Burt took Paige's elbow and steered her away from his Audi. They walked, hand in hand, the several blocks to Loose Park where he led her to the same bench from which she'd fed the ducks a few weeks ago. Her mind was awhirl with what she'd say later—to let him down gently. All through dinner he'd watched her with a look that shouted, I know what you're thinking and I'll do anything to stop it from happening.

She leaned back and looked up at the cloudless black sky with its thousands of twinkling stars. “Tell me how you became a journalist,” she asked.

"Wow. Long time ago. In high school I wrote for the school paper. I did a piece on weather and how it related to the kids’ and the teacher's moods. Got rave reviews. My senior English teacher told me I should be a writer. Since it came easily, and I was always looking for the easy way out, I guess the rest is history. After high school I took a course in journalism at the community college."

"Here in Kansas City?"

"That's K.C to us locals.” He smiled. “About midway through the second year I read an ad in the Star that they were looking for a reporter. I was hired on the first interview and started in the local news department. After four years I got bumped to the national desk. That's where I've been ever since."

"What are you working on now?"

"A piece on Santa Barbara, about the winery there."

"The one just off Route 101?"

Burt threw a quick look her way. “You're familiar with Santa Barbara?"

Paige stood up and stretched, and said without looking at him, “I visited there once. My father was a wine aficionado. We toured a number of wineries when I was fifteen. The Santa Ynez Valley is one of the best wine making areas in the world."

"That's a lot of information from a woman who professes an aversion to learning."

"Some things warrant learning, don't you agree?” She picked up a flat stone from between Burt's Floorsheims and walked to the lakeshore. The wind stirred tiny silver swells that glittered in the light from the pole nearby. Paige cast the stone sideways the way she and her brother did at the family's twelve-room cottage on Lake Powell in Utah. The rock skipped twice and sunk out of sight.

She turned. “Did you visit Santa Barbara to research the winery?"

He leaned forward placing both hands flat on the bench beside him. “As a matter of fact I did, about two months ago."

He came to stand beside her on the shore, but she moved away as though she was headed back to the bench. “The other day you mentioned early retirement. Do you have plans for after that?"

He followed her, using a gentle touch on her elbow to guide her toward the car. “A few. I've vacillated so many times that I keep delaying the actual date. I want to have something lined up. I don't want to sit on my duff waiting for something to fall into my lap. I want to travel, but don't think I'd be able to enjoy it by myself. I want to keep writing. I want to—"

"What do you want to write?"

"I have some ideas for a novel, but right now don't want to stay put to work on it. I thought I might do some travel writing or maybe get a position as a writer with a wine magazine, get paid to travel the wine regions of the world.” He stopped and turned her by the shoulders until they were face to face. “If I had someone to travel with..."

"Me? You barely know me. Why, we haven't even..."

"Don't remind me,” he lamented. “But, I happen to think you're worth waiting for. Would you? Go with me, I mean."

Tell him, she ordered herself.

"I know, I know,” he continued. “Ernie Yates, the lady who never does anything on the spur of the moment."

Tell him now.

"That's what I like about you."

"Is that all?"

Burt put his arm through hers and they ambled along the path toward his car.

Paige shut her apartment door and leaned back against it listening to Burt's retreating footsteps on the stairs. What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she tell him she couldn't see him any more? For some reason, the words would not leave her mouth. Could it be because every time she looked at him Chris’ face appeared? Each time she opened her mouth, Chris's lips smiled, Chris’ mustache twitched, Chris’ arms wrapped around her. Was a phantom Chris better than no Chris at all?