Beemer at the airport.
"How did you get in?" she said.
"The door was unlocked."
Thanks, Nina.
She felt her face flush. How long had he been watching her?
"Do you know what day it is?" Steve asked softly, a hesitant smile on his face, a few blond locks falling loosely across his forehead. He was as handsome as ever.
"It's October first." Gretchen laid the marker on the table. "Friday."
"That was a rhetorical question, Gretchen. Today is day number sixty-two since you left Boston. You refused every one of my calls. You can't hide forever."
Why not? Gretchen was a master at dodgeball. Confrontations weren't her specialty. She considered herself more the ostrich head-in-the-sand type.
"You should have knocked at the front door," she said to fill the uneasy void.
"Would you have answered?"
"Another rhetorical question?" Gretchen felt angry, and her anger energized her. She had nothing to explain. She was the injured party, and he wouldn't force her into a conciliatory role, as he'd done so many times in the past.
"There's someone else, isn't there?" he said. Predictable.
Steve of the inflated ego could never imagine that the end of their relationship might be his fault. He has the nerve to ask me if there's someone else? "I believe you stole my line." Gretchen saw him blanch, and she felt smug satisfaction. He'd been the one who cheated, not her. And he couldn't claim it was a random moment. It was an affair with someone at his office.
"Nina says you're dating a police officer."
Gretchen wanted to correct him but didn't. Matt Albright was a detective with the Phoenix Police Department. They'd met right after she had moved to Phoenix. His mother presided over the Phoenix Dollers Club.
Not that they were "dating" as Steve believed, thanks to her Chatty Cathy aunt. It had been only two months since her breakup with Steve. She wasn't ready. Still . . .
"Where did you see Nina?" she said. Nina was at it already.
"Outside. She was in a hurry. Some dog appointment, she said."
He had been watching her before he announced his presence.
"Nina's truth is like pulled taffy," Gretchen said, carefully. "It looks like a solid mass in the beginning, but as it's pulled, it stretches until in the end the candy undergoes a complete change."
"I'm not sure I followed that," Steve said.
"Nina operates on a different plane than the rest of us."
Gretchen had been up since five o'clock prepping for the show, and a wave of tiredness hit her.
"Is she still seeing auras and tuning in to the universe?"he asked.
"She hasn't changed."
"New Age Nina," he said with a forced laugh.
Steve walked to the table, and Gretchen backed away. If he touched her, she might lose her resolve.
Stay strong. The Birch women's motto. He ran his hands over the tools she was about to pack up for the doll show. All had been dipped in Poodle Skirt Pink. Gretchen noted his manicured fingers before she turned away.
"I can't get into a discussion about our relationship right now," she said with an indifference she really didn't feel. "I'm behind on my prep work, and I have a lunch meeting."
Steve, used to pressure in the courtroom, appeared unruffled. He came across the country to get me back; he must have prepared a grand opening argument. The only hint she had that he was unhappy was the way his hand abruptly stopped brushing across the repair tools. Steve had changed so much since he'd begun his pursuit of the law office's partnership. Late hours. Preoccupation with his job. Where had his passion gone?
Or was she the one who'd changed?
He pulled away from the table. "Of course," he said, civilized beyond all doubt. "Later today, then."
Gretchen waved at the disarray in the workshop. "I still have all this to clean up, and I'll be working at the doll show starting very early tomorrow."
"I'll find you at the show," Steve said, exuding practiced self-confidence.
But his voice held a hint of disappointment, and his eyes seemed to plead for an opportunity to present his case. Gretchen needed a continuance. She had to postpone the hearing.
Did that mean she wasn't sure of the verdict?
Garcia's was one of Gretchen's favorite restaurants in Phoenix. After a short wait in the crowded bar, she and Nina were escorted to a table.
Nina, believing she could best detect auras emanating from people if she adhered to a strict vegan diet, scooped guacamole onto a tortilla chip and sighed.
"This vegan diet is harder than I thought it would be,"
she whined. "Are you sure I can't have