Always Florence. Muriel Jensen

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СКАЧАТЬ the rack and got down on one knee to hold it up against Sheamus. Stitched to create the appearance of muscles across the torso and along the arms, the costume brought a smile to the boy’s face. Sheamus wrapped his arms around Nate’s neck. “Thanks, Uncle Nate! We got it!”

      “Great. Now we have to get candy for the trick-or-treaters.”

      “How can we give out candy?” Dylan asked. “Aren’t we going to be at the Monster Bash?”

      “Stella’s going to stay until we get back,” he said.

      Nate cringed inwardly at the thought of the event. The city-sponsored Halloween celebration held in a Parks and Recreation building was intended to keep children safe while letting them enjoy a ghoulish experience. He heard it was an ordeal for parents, who often commiserated with each other about having to go.

      There was a brief discussion over the merits of mini chocolate bars, small boxes of licorice and sour candy. Nate bought several bags of each.

      “Can we get something to drink?” Dylan asked at the checkout. “I’m thirsty.”

      “Sure.” Nate pictured a tall gin and tonic, but led the boys to the Starbucks on the other side of the store. “We shoulda brought the brownies with us,” Sheamus said on the drive home. “They would taste good with this.”

      Nate found the boy’s reflection in the rearview mirror. Sheamus drew on the straw of his smoothie so hard that his thin cheeks sucked in. “We can have them for dessert tonight. Stella left us mac and cheese for dinner.”

      Dylan grumbled. “She’s a really good cook, but I like the mac and cheese in the box better.” Then he asked seriously and without warning, “Do you think Bobbie had cancer?”

      His older nephew’s out-of-the-blue observations never failed to surprise Nate. Mostly because they were usually on target.

      “Her hair looks like a man’s. And she looks kind of like she has a bad cold. You know what I mean?”

      Nate knew exactly what Dylan meant. Their neighbor had beautiful eyes, but they were a little soupy, as though she wasn’t quite well. And he, too, had wondered about her hair.

      “Yes, I do. But we shouldn’t mention it unless she does.”

      “She’s kind of skinny,” Sheamus contributed. “But I like her. We should have her over for dinner sometime. When Stella makes that Mexican stuff with the chicken and the corn chips.”

      “Mexican chicken casserole.” Nate nodded. “I like that, too. But Bobbie has a lot of work to do. Especially after what happened today.” He let that hang in the air a moment for guilt effect. It was probably bad parenting, but he was just an ignorant bachelor pressed into service.

      “She could come on game night,” Dylan suggested. Nate studied the boy, wondering why his nephew suddenly seemed keen on the woman. Could it have been the brownies? “When Hunter comes over to watch our big TV.”

      Hunter had lost his own accounting business when his office manager embezzled from him, then disappeared. Hunter had liquidated all his assets to pay creditors and his employees, then moved into the Grand Apartments with a few pieces of furniture he’d saved, and an old television he’d bought at Goodwill. He loved coming over to watch big games and play-offs on Nate’s plasma TV.

      “We’ll see how it goes.” Their neighbor had kindly given them brownies, but he couldn’t imagine she’d want any more to do with them.

      “I don’t think she has a husband.” That was from Sheamus, who thought Nate needed a wife. Nate had explained over and over that he had more than he could handle with the two of them and the business, but the boys’ mother had been a wonderful, warm, funny woman, and Sheamus was trying hard to put those qualities back into his life. He didn’t realize that not all women were like Sherrie.

      “I didn’t see a ring.” That was from Dylan, who enjoyed stirring things up.

      “She could have a boyfriend.” Nate paused to sip at his coffee and thought longingly of that gin and tonic. “There’s no way of knowing that.”

      “If she isn’t married to him,” Dylan said, “it doesn’t matter. She’s still available.”

      “That’s a big word.”

      “I’m a smart kid.”

      “I don’t know. A smart kid would stop annoying me by trying to get me married off.”

      Dylan met his eyes in the mirror, smiled grudgingly and the subject was dropped.

      Nate pulled into their driveway, congratulating himself on a day that had turned out better than it had begun. He’d made peace with their neighbor, found the right costume for Sheamus and had a conversation with the boys that hadn’t ended in tears or with Dylan stomping away.

      And they had brownies. All in all, a successful afternoon.

      * * *

      BOBBIE DUNKED AN English Breakfast tea bag into the hot water in her favorite pink mug and picked up her ringing phone. The caller ID read Molloy, D. J. She prepared herself to lie through her teeth.

      “Hi, Dad!” she said cheerfully, carrying her tea to the kitchen table and sitting down. Monet leaped onto the table and rubbed against her face. He smelled of fabric softener. He’d been sleeping on top of the dryer again. She pulled him onto her lap. “How are you doing? How’s the arthritis?”

      “Under control.” His voice was deep and gentle. It had soothed many a patient in his long career as a general practitioner. He was retired now, and Bobbie’s health had become his focus. “I’m taking my glucosamine chondroitin and getting my exercise. How are you? Still thinking the move to Astoria was a good idea?”

      When she’d left Los Angeles to come here, she’d had a hard time convincing him she’d be fine on her own. He’d watched over her treatment, moved in with her to manage her recovery, and hovered over her with suggestions about diet and exercise until she knew she had to get away. Not just for herself, but for the single women in Whittier, California, who were interested in him but had taken a backseat to his daughter’s illness and recovery. Bobbie wanted him to reconnect with his own life so that she could go to Florence with a clear conscience.

      The commission from Sandy Evans’s office had come at the perfect moment. Bobbie could have completed it in Whittier, but the lease was up on her apartment and she didn’t want to sign another one, or move in with her father. When she’d explained her predicament to Sandy, her friend had offered her the monthly rental of this tiny two-bedroom in Astoria that she’d inherited from her aunt. The selling point had been the two-car garage that Bobbie used as a studio for messy papermaking.

      “I love it here,” she said. That was true. The hilly old neighborhoods with their turn-of-the-twentieth-century homes were wonderful for walking, collecting leaves and flower petals, and enjoying beautiful vistas. Even in tightly built areas there was the occasional empty lot where she could see the broad Columbia River and the Washington hills on the other side. “I walk all the time and the air smells of wood smoke and pine.”

      “Mmm. That sounds heavenly.”

      Encouraged by his approval, she went on, stroking the cat as she talked. “Sometimes, СКАЧАТЬ