them wanted it to be, if both of them made an effort. But after trying so hard for so long, Wanda was pretty much out of effort herself. Ken had to be the one to make the next move.
He turned, and his hand was on the doorknob before he spoke again. “Maybe I’ll see you in the morning.”
She could feel her shoulders droop, but she kept her voice even. “Stranger things have happened.”
He’d been gone a while before she made her way to the telephone. She wasn’t worried he would come back now. Not until she was sound asleep and a new day had begun. She knew the pattern. She had hours on her own until she finally went to bed. But she wasn’t going to spend them alone.
She made a pot of coffee, cut slices of the mocha pecan pie she hadn’t told Ken about—let him find the pie if he ever looked in the refrigerator. In the bedroom she changed into a peach silk nightgown with silly little satin straps that barely held it in place. She liked the way the silk brushed her thighs and the cut of the gown hid the sag of fifty-seven-year-old boobs. The girls weren’t as perky as they once had been, but no matter. They were sure perky enough to make her feel sexy and womanly, and she needed that tonight.
She left her hair up and her makeup on, because she wasn’t going to bed. Instead, after she made a tray with a carafe of steaming hot coffee, the pie and real linen napkins, she settled herself on the sofa, lounging like Cleopatra on her barge down the Nile. All she needed to complete the image was the asp. Luckily her personal asp had just left for the night.
She picked up the telephone and dialed a familiar number. “Hey, hon,” she said, her voice low and soft. “You’re being seduced, ’cause I’m here all by myself.” She listened for a moment, nodding as she did. “Now that would be swell. You know that’s exactly what I want to do. I’m just lying here waiting.”
chapter six
Tracy wasn’t sure how she got interested in shells. Apparently moving to Florida did one of two things for people. Either a new resident learned to appreciate Mother Nature’s exquisite craftsmanship, her use of color and intricate details and, yes, old nature woman’s sense of humor—because what was funnier looking than a sea horse? Or that new resident got so thoroughly sick of shell wreaths, shell-filled lamps, shells with candles inside them, that the beauty became instantly invisible and shells on the beach were just an annoyance to crunch under flip-flops.
She had started in the second camp, victimized by some of the most hideous shell art ever conceived. A previous resident of her cottage had glued shells to everything that didn’t move. Furniture and door frames, window ledges and even the toilet-seat cover. Then, as if that weren’t bad enough, the “artist” had strung shells into room dividers. Tracy had found a shell-studded nativity scene packed in the closet, with the baby Jesus lying in a conch instead of a manger. She had packed it right back up and sent it to Sherrie, as a thank-you for all she had done to help Tracy during the divorce. It would be just like Sherrie to send her a box of Rocky Mountain oysters in return.
She wasn’t sure exactly when she’d begun to appreciate shells. Somewhere along the way, as she removed the offending artwork, she stopped seeing the art and started noticing the motivation for it, the shells themselves. The journey to finding her own shells, unadulterated by craft glue or varnish, had been a short one. And the best time to find them was just before sunrise.
The day after finding Herb’s body, Tracy woke in the dark and knew that she wouldn’t be going back to sleep. She had dreamed she was home again, dressed in a designer gown she had sold in a consignment shop before leaving California. In the dream, though, the dress still belonged to her, and she looked wonderful in it. Tan, fit, unworried. She sailed through the door of the country club where she and CJ had been members, only to be stopped by two men in dark suits carrying walkie-talkies.
“You don’t belong here,” she was told. Then, as people gathered to watch, the two men turned into eagles, grasped her in their talons and lifted her high above the building. As she