Wish Upon a Star (13 page)

As Shawn cast a shrewd eye toward the industrial-size coffeemaker, I nudged him with my elbow. “Don’t even think about it!” I warned. “We’d be the very first suspects.”

He shrugged. “There’d be two others, at least. The understudies for Tom and Amanda.”

“I don’t like those odds.”

“Just you wait,” he said. “A few weeks into rehearsal, and you might be ready for anything.”

A tingle of apprehension rippled down my spine. I didn’t know whether I was afraid that Shawn was right…or that he was wrong. What if I ended up hating
Menagerie!
What if the show was terrible, and I was stuck in it for months?

Yeah. Like being stuck in a Broadway show was a bad thing.

In the end, the second half of rehearsal went like clockwork. The cast read through the script. An accompanist played the musical pieces on a piano while the songwriter spoke-sang the words. Ken assured everyone that the show was in a state of flux, that we’d discover more about our characters as we worked together. We’d find the unique shape of our production, pitching in to create a stunning new version of Williams’s play.

I was exhausted by the time we filed out of the rehearsal hall. Listening to Martina’s take on lines that I believed should be mine was more wearisome than I’d expected. I felt drained, enervated, as if I’d spent the entire day locked up with a difficult friend who bemoaned her perfectly satisfactory love life while I had none of my own.

It was only late afternoon, but I barely stifled a yawn. “I could go to sleep right now and not wake up until tomorrow morning.”

Shawn laughed. “Not me!” He preened a little as he bounced down the sidewalk. “Patrick and I are going to a party tonight.”

“It’s Monday!”

“Cole Porter’s birthday is only celebrated once a year,” Shawn said with a sly wink. “I’ve been working on my medley for weeks.”

I grinned, despite my fatigue. “How de-lovely,” I said. Shawn blew me an air kiss and sashayed off into the afternoon light.

Shaking my head, I made my way downtown. It felt good to walk. The air was warm, hot even, but the typical summer humidity hadn’t settled in yet. The pedestrian gods favored me, and I made every single light. A distant church bell was tolling four o’clock as I turned onto my street.

Somehow, in the past two weeks, everything had become automatic about living in the Bentley. I said hello to George, the doorman. I dug out my keys as I crossed the lobby. I hit the correct button in the elevator without thinking. I moved down the hallway, already imagining the cost-effective ramen noodles I was going to eat for dinner—I had my choice of chicken, beef or spicy shrimp.

But this time, there was something different about my new home. This time, neighbors stood in the hallway.

I hadn’t met any other Bentley residents yet; if not for the cluster of mailboxes in the lobby, I could have believed that I was the only person living in the entire building. Now, though, a woman stood in her doorway, directly opposite mine, talking to a man in the hall. I slowed my footsteps as I approached, reluctant to call attention to myself, not wanting to interrupt a conversation between strangers.

But the man in the hallway wasn’t a stranger.

“Timothy!” I exclaimed, so surprised that I almost dropped my keys. I flashed on the picture I’d painted in my mind just before I’d left Garden Variety a couple of weeks before—the image of Timothy standing in my doorway, kissing me good-night. I shoved away the thought; it wasn’t worthy of me. Not the new me. The one with the Master Plan.

“Erin,” Timothy said, smiling in easy recognition. He looked comfortable in his sleek black jeans, in his matching soft work shirt and his capacious apron.

“What are you doing here?” I managed to choke out. It was absurd for me to be blushing. He couldn’t have read my mind when we’d last seen each other. He had no way of knowing that I’d been thinking of him that way.

But what
was
he doing there? Was it possible that Garden Variety made deliveries? I glanced at my neighbor, but her hands were empty. In fact,
Timothy
held a pair of paper grocery bags. A forest of greens cascaded over one edge.

The bright leaves reminded me of my Master Plan peace lily, languishing on my counter. I really had to water it, as soon as I got inside. It was high past time for Amy to ask about how the plant was doing. My sister knew me too well to accept a lie.

Obviously unaware of my inner lily-based guilt, Timothy gestured with his shopping bag. “Just picking up some produce from Dani. I assume you’ve already met?”

“Um, no,” I said, really looking at my neighbor for the first time. She could have been a poster child for some senior citizen “green” movement. Her work shirt looked every bit as soft as Timothy’s, but hers was faded denim, embroidered with intricate designs—flowers and leaves and rainbows all picked out in brightly colored thread. Her too-long jeans were nearly white from wear. She’d rolled up the cuffs to show off a pair of Birkenstock sandals that might have been the first ones off the company’s production line. She complemented the open shoes with brilliant turquoise socks.

By way of greeting, she laughed. “I’ve knocked on your door a couple of times, but you’ve always been out.” Her voice was soft, comfortable, as if she’d spent her years consciously rubbing away any hint of rough edges from her words. “You’re subletting from my son and his fiancée. I’m Dani Thompson.” I found myself smiling when I met her earth-colored eyes. Her face was weathered, deep wrinkles telling stories about long days spent beneath the sun. Her hair was woven into a long braid, hanks of gray twining through dark chestnut.

“Pleased to meet you,” I said, extending a hand. I felt calluses on her palm when we shook.

“Likewise,” she said warmly. “And I’d love to chat now, but I’m late getting a blog post up. Guerilla gardening waits for no woman!” She glanced at her watch, a huge, blocky Timex that looked as if it had taken a licking more times than anyone could remember. Before closing her door, though, she raised one hand to cup Timothy’s cheek. “You’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do?”

“Of course,” he said. He smiled reflexively at her touch, but the expression faded as soon as she stepped back.

Dani glanced at me. “Perhaps we can share a cup of tea soon?”

I nodded, liking the idea, even though I didn’t know much about the woman. She tsked and looked at her watch again, then said goodbye and darted back inside her apartment.

I stared at Timothy as Dani’s door snicked closed. When the silence ripened into something tangible, I said, “Um, this is a strange coincidence.”

He shrugged. “Dani has a way of bringing people together.”

“But here? I mean, what are the chances?”

“When you basically sublet from one of the city’s key guerilla gardeners? And I run a restaurant specifically designed to make use of guerilla produce?”

I stared suspiciously at the greens in his bag. “What
is
guerilla gardening?”

He nodded toward Dani’s closed door. “Dani leads the Gray Guerillas. They’re a group of senior citizens determined to reclaim city land. They plant wherever they can, trying to make the city a more beautiful place to live. They sell their produce to people like me.” His lips twisted into a self-mocking smile. “People who want to make a difference.”

I remembered the smudge of dirt on Becca’s wrist, when she’d helped me in the box office. She must be a guerilla gardener, too. Come to think of it, I’d read an article in the newspaper about the new environmental movement. The mayor had even held some sort of press conference, a month or two before.

I hadn’t realized that Timothy had such a social agenda with his restaurant, but I wasn’t actually surprised. Anyone who made a point of feeding homeless people and calculating prices on slips of butcher paper…

I glanced at his bags of produce and realized that I should invite him into my apartment. Offer him a cup of tea. Something to eat.

Remembering my earlier vision of him standing on my threshold, though, I blushed. There was really no way for me to follow through on the invitation. I didn’t have the first idea of what to serve a real chef. Yeah. That was the problem. My lack of cooking ability.

I glanced at Timothy’s face, trying to figure out if he thought it was weird, my keeping him standing in the hallway. I wished that I could invent a mood thermometer, a simple device to tell me a person’s emotions. I didn’t need to read minds—I wasn’t greedy. I just wanted to know if the people around me were amused. Puzzled. Whatever.

Timothy’s face was inscrutable, though. His beard was scruffy, as always. His hair still looked like it had never been introduced to a brush. Funny. The rough-and-tumble image didn’t seem immature on him. It didn’t make me think of a spoiled little boy. Timothy, unlike Sam, looked like he was destined to be rumpled, rough-edged in a nonthreatening manner. An adult who was making his way in a less-than-perfect world.

Upon closer examination, though, I saw something more. There were creases beside his eyes, weary lines that made me think he was exhausted. I thought about the maternal tenderness Dani had shown, just before she ducked back inside her apartment. “Hey,” I said, as if I had a right to know. “Is everything okay?”

He sighed. “It’s that obvious, huh?” Shrugging, he set his grocery bags on the floor, nudging one with his toe when it started to fall over. He clenched his hands into fists and then loosened them, like a cat contemplating the best path to trapping some elusive prey. “I think I’m going to lose Garden Variety.”

“Lose it! Why?” I didn’t waste time wondering at the jagged shape his words cut into my heart. Sure, I was new to the neighborhood. Of course, I’d only eaten at Garden Variety a couple of times. Yeah, this was only the third time I’d talked to Timothy. But I already loved the restaurant, adored Timothy’s concept, and I respected what he was doing, feeding the homeless for free even as he ladled up incredible meals for us paying customers.

He ran a hand over his face, like a man pushing away the lingering tendrils of a nightmare. His fingers were long, wiry, and I could only imagine the work he accomplished with them, day in, day out, in his kitchen. A disobedient part of my imagination strayed toward what else he could accomplish with strong hands like that, but I bit the inside of my cheek, reminding myself that I was through with men.

At least until I had my personal life under control. Until I’d achieved my own personal goals. Until the Master Plan said that I could take an interest in anyone male. A little more than fifteen months from now.

Damn. I really had to remember to water that peace lily.

Timothy said, “My lease is up in seven weeks, and my landlord is making it impossible for me to stay.”

“Why? What’s he doing?”

He shrugged, letting the lithe movement siphon off some of his obvious frustration. “He’s tripling my rent.”

“That’s crazy!”

“He’s allowed to—it says so in my lease. But I’ll never make enough on the restaurant to meet his demands.”

“Does he have someone waiting to move into the space?”

“I don’t think so.” Timothy shook his head.

“But why would he do that? It doesn’t make any sense!” Outrage boiled beneath my words.

“He doesn’t really care if he gets someone who can pay what he’s asking from me. He just wants me out.”

“But why?” My shock made the words sharp. I couldn’t imagine what Timothy had done to offend his landlord. He was soft-spoken, perceptive, a shrewd businessman. Sure, his restaurant model was a bit unusual, but in the crowded field of food purveyors in New York City, that should be a virtue, not a vice. Certainly not a vice to warrant a tripling of rent, a virtual death sentence for his business.

“According to the letter I got this morning, I’m encouraging vagrancy. I’m bringing an undesirable element into the neighborhood.”

“Undesirable—” I spluttered.

“Let’s face it,” he interrupted, and then he sighed. “The homeless folks I serve aren’t exactly the most popular people on the block.”

I thought about the look that had crossed Sam’s face when he realized what was going on at that back table. But then, I remembered the quiet submissiveness as Lena asked for Timothy’s permission to use the restroom. Garden Variety’s homeless customers weren’t hurting anyone—except for, maybe, Timothy. And then, only if you measured the bottom line, which I somehow suspected he rarely did.

“What are you going to do?”

His face was grim, his eyes hardened into agate pools. “Close up shop. Unless I can figure out a way to pay three times the rent without driving away every single paying customer I have. And without abandoning the people who rely on me, like Dani.” He nodded toward my neighbor’s closed door. “She needs to sell her produce to keep the Gray Guerillas up and running, so I can’t just shop somewhere cheaper.”

Before I could offer any brainstorms—or at least some heartfelt condolences—my phone jangled with Amy’s ring tone. I glanced at my watch. Five o’clock. A strange time for her to call; she was usually fixing Justin’s dinner just about now. “Excuse me,” I said. “I should take this.” Timothy gestured broadly as I snapped open my phone. “Hey,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Erin!” The urgency in her voice slammed a knife between my ribs.

“What’s wrong?” Fear jolted my heart into overdrive. Timothy leaned forward, obvious concern stretched across his shoulders, written on his features. I could only shake my head, though, unable to answer his silent question, unable to explain.

“You have to get out here!”

“Where? Amy, where are you?”

“New Brunswick Memorial.” Her voice was shaking so badly I barely made out the words.

“What happened? Are you okay?” And then a sliver of ice shot through my brain. “Is Justin?”

“He tied a towel around his neck for a cape. He said he was Soldierman. I only went inside the house for a minute. The phone was ringing, and I told him to stay in the front yard.” She started sobbing—harsh, racking cries that broke my heart.

“Amy, what happened? What happened to Justin?”

“He climbed up on the roof. He climbed up, and he jumped off, like he thought he could fly.” I caught my breath, picturing the rose trellis that Justin must have used as a ladder, the gutter he must have balanced against before he leaped. “Erin,” Amy said, “he won’t wake up. My baby won’t wake up!”