Twelve
P lease don’t let me screw this up. She could feel Wes’s exhilaration but knew he would respect her taking the lead. Wes could be good like that, not letting his ego interfere with something he wanted. If the way to get Dot talking was to let Nadine do it, he would.
He probably thought he could do it better though.
Dot was dressed more sedately than usual, in a deep copper pantsuit with a cape that wrapped around her shoulders. She wore no necklaces, but a series of ebony bangles climbed up her wrists until they wedged into the flesh of her arm. Her weathered face was serious, and Nadine hoped this was a sign she was ready to stop messing with them.
“Was that something you saw in your own life as well?” Nadine asked to move the conversation in the direction she needed.
Dot adjusted her rings. “What do you think?”
“It would be impossible to avoid,” said Nadine. “I once did a school project with a guy who took my name off and handed it in as his own. He said the ideas were his so it was his project. Forget that he did none of the work.”
Wes twitched beside her, but both of them knew she wasn’t referring to him.
Dot’s expression didn’t change. “What happened?”
“I complained to the professor, and he said idea guy deserved the benefit of the doubt. The prof gave me the same mark and considered it fixed.”
“It often happened when I was a teacher.” Dot sat forward and nudged the plate of squares toward Nadine. “Boys were encouraged to ignore boundaries to get what they wanted. Not only those of the girls, although they got the brunt of it. It was easy to see the men some of them would become. Selfish people who became vicious when they met resistance. They lacked empathy because they never had to see from another person’s point of view. The world catered to them from when they were children. The more money and respect the family had, the worse it was.”
“Is that what made you start writing?”
“I started writing out of boredom.” Dot smiled, her big teeth unnaturally white and shiny. “However, I continued writing out of spite.”
Nadine sat up, as did Wes. “Spite?”
“Some might call it revenge.” Dot yawned. “Enough for today.”
Although Nadine wanted to scream into the smooth leather of the couch arm, she didn’t bother to argue, knowing when she was beat. Seeing that Dot was waiting for her to beg for more, she also wanted to give her back a little of her own medicine.
So instead of protesting, she nodded solicitously. “We’ve stayed past our hour. Get some rest, and we’ll see you next week.”
Dot frowned as Octavia jumped on her lap, displacing Erma. This wasn’t how Nadine was supposed to react, but she’d boxed herself in.
Nadine hid her smile. It was rare to get the edge on Dot. If they played this right, they might get the full story out of her today. Chills went over her body at how close they were. At this point, she didn’t care if it was an exclusive. She wanted the mystery solved for her own peace of mind. What was Dot hiding? She had to know but had a feeling that to flat out ask would mean losing her chance completely.
“You didn’t finish the squares Maria made,” Dot griped. “She’ll be disappointed.”
Nadine cast Wes a glance, hoping he would get the hint that it was his turn to step up. He looked back as if understanding the situation called for the good cop. Dot had given them the hint that she wanted to be convinced into telling them what happened, the same way she’d let them know they should keep coming to the gate while telling them to take a hike. She was ready.
He opened his mouth. This was their big moment. All Wes had to do was say something like, I know you’re tired, but could we finish these delicious squares? Some suck-up phrase—he’d excel at that—so Dot could feel good about letting them stay, and Nadine could continue this conversation. She could follow up on that most tantalizing of comments.
“Some might call it revenge.”
Revenge on who? Who ? All she needed was a name. A date. Any fact she could trace like a hound with a scent.
Then Wes said, “See you soon!” and stood up.
Nadine looked at him in disbelief. She almost wanted to see if Dot had the same moment of, You jackass, do you not know how to play this game? The back-and-forth, like two people fighting over the bill?
But Wes was smiling at them as he adjusted his sweater. Who wore sweaters in the summer? What was wrong with the man?
“Thank you, handsome.” Dot’s voice was gleefully malicious, as if she knew what Nadine had been aiming for and was gratified to have witnessed this own goal.
Nadine stared hard at Wes but made sure her smile was pleasant when she turned to Dot. “You know,” she said, trying to salvage the situation. “I would hate for Maria to think we didn’t enjoy her squares. Perhaps we could stay and finish them?”
“Oh no, I couldn’t have that, not when your colleague is so eager to leave.” Dot’s eyes glinted with joy behind her glasses. “I’ll ask Maria to pack you some to go.”
Nadine could have cried in rage. They were so close, but Dot was struggling to her feet and calling for Maria. She made one more attempt. “Can I ask you about—”
“Of course.” Dot didn’t turn around. “Next Sunday.”
Dammit. Wes held out his arm to escort Dot from the room, and Nadine stood to follow. On the way, she caught sight of Thirty Pieces of Silver , this time propped up with a newspaper clipping poking out from its pages. She reached out to see what it was marking.
“Come along, girl.” Dot’s voice drifted over.
Nadine snatched back her hand. She’d get to the bottom of this next week. Great job, Wes. That was what she got for counting on him.
***
There is always next week , Wes thought as Maria handed him two containers of lemon squares. It wasn’t Nadine’s fault she’d been blocked by Dot, a woman who had achieved grand master status in mind games.
Then again, Nadine seemed more pissed than was warranted. She’d gotten some good traction, and he thought she’d be pleased about that.
Once the front door closed behind them, he turned to Nadine. “You shouldn’t feel too bad about blowing it,” he said generously. “You were getting there.”
“You absolute…” She sputtered as if trying to think of a term before settling on “Walnut!”
“What, me?” He was astounded.
“What were you thinking?” She groaned. “You were supposed to step in and play peacemaker!”
“Peacemaker? How was I supposed to know that?”
“I don’t know, context clues? Reading the room?”
“I did read the room,” said Wes, peeved. “She said it was time to go. Why did you think this time to go was different from other times to go?”
“She was only pretending. This is the game .” Nadine blew out her breath. “She wants to make us work for it. We could have gotten the answers we need, but thanks to you, we have to wait another week.”
“You don’t know that.” He pinched the bridge of his nose to keep the frustration from spilling out of his brain. “What we do know is that she told us to leave. I’m not going to pressure her.”
“I can’t believe you.”
They weren’t shouting, conscious of the intercom, but they were whispering loudly and emphatically.
Wes took a breath. “Look, Nadine. Dot is an old and sick woman who said she was tired and wanted us to leave. You were paying attention to the wrong things.”
“Oh, for… You have the social awareness of Sir Latimer.” Nadine squeezed her eyes shut as if feeling physical pain. “Whatever.”
She got in the car and slammed the door as Wes stepped back. He’d been hoping to get a ride to a subway stop, but the way Nadine gunned it out of the circular driveway said he was on his own. He tucked down the disappointment.
Worse was that Nadine’s reaction called out a concern he’d had over the years that had resurfaced after the conversation with Jason. He had never been like Tyler, who pressed and pushed until he got the answer he wanted. Wes was confident in his work but disliked riding roughshod over people. He never saw the need for Tyler’s chest-thumping performances. The loudest voice wasn’t always correct.
He crossed the driveway with the two boxes of lemon squares, since Nadine had taken off before he could hand hers over. He lifted the lid and ate one as he squinted at the sky. The afternoon sun had disappeared behind a low layer of cloud, and the wind was picking up. He hoped he could get home before the rain.
To his surprise, Nadine’s dusty car sat outside Dot’s gate, and the passenger side window rolled down when he came out.
“Wes.”
Part of him wanted to keep walking. If they didn’t have to work together, he might. He stopped. “What?”
“Uh, do you want a ride?” she asked, looking past him.
The first fat drop of rain landed on his nose. He wasn’t a martyr, and they should talk. “Fine.”
She unlocked the door, and he got in, putting the box with fewer squares in the back for her.
“Where do you live?” she asked.
“West End. Dovercourt and Dupont.” He glanced out the window. “If you want to drop me off at a subway station, that would be convenient.”
“I’m at Ossington and Dupont, so I can take you home.”
He looked over. “I didn’t realize we were so close.”
“I moved in a few years ago,” she said, changing lanes to turn on Lawrence Avenue.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Then Wes gave up on what was, by any measure, a pathetic conversation and returned to brooding about what happened. He was certain he had read the situation with Dot correctly. The silence in the car seemed extra heavy, and it took Wes a moment to realize it was because Nadine didn’t have music playing, like an absolute weirdo.
Nadine changed lanes with more aggression than required for a ten percent twist of the wheel, then sighed. “Look, I don’t like working together any more than you do, but you can’t deliberately try to hamstring me.”
“I know you want to think the worst of me, but she wanted us to go.”
“No. We were in a delicate dance of wits, and you bungled it.”
Wes wanted to tell her she was wrong and leave it at that, but she was correct about one thing. They had to work together, which meant they had to communicate and not only so she could see that he was right. This felt like one of those conversations where it was important to at least try to understand each other’s perspective. He would keep his mind open to her almost certainly wrong viewpoint. “You think Dot wanted to be forced into talking?”
She frowned. “You’re trying to make it sound bad.”
“Sorry, what euphemism would you find acceptable? Urged to communicate? Provided an opportunity for verbal collaboration?”
She jammed on the brakes harder than necessary at the red light. “Fine. I do think that. She said to go, and I said okay. Then she started talking about how we didn’t finish the squares, the same way she complained about us not bringing food to her gate.”
When Nadine put it like that, her (mis)reading of what happened made a little more sense. After all, it was how they got an interview with Dot in the first place. “I didn’t see it the same way,” he said. “When we were at her gate, she could have stopped answering. This time, we were in her space, and I saw an old woman who was a little scared of what she’d said and needed to come to grips with it. She’s on the verge.”
There was a long pause as Nadine negotiated traffic. “Why do you say she was scared?”
He thought about Dot. “She jerked a little after she said the revenge thing, and her eyes darted to the side. Then she pressed her lips, almost like she was biting the words back, you know?”
Nadine tapped the wheel. “We’re interpreting the situation in very different ways. All those things you noticed could have meant nothing.”
“Except she also told us to leave. I’m not going to force her into talking if she doesn’t want to. It’s her story.”
Nadine’s mouth was set in a line. “A story she offered us.”
He looked over. “She can change her mind if she wants.”
Silence. They passed the big storage warehouse on Dupont. “I’m getting near your place,” she said. “Tell me where to go.”
He provided the directions to his house. When she pulled up, he opened his mouth to suggest they finish the discussion, but she was steadily looking out the windshield, hands at ten and two on the wheel. He got the hint and got out. Nadine didn’t look his way as he closed the door, leaving him feeling empty.
It didn’t matter. Good riddance. He looked at the box in his hand. At least he’d kept the one with more lemon squares. Those things were delicious.
***
The next few days weren’t great for Wes. Work had slowed with the summer heat, and Rebecca had insisted on planning out content for the fall. Looking at photos of the autumn trends—the usual corduroy and plaid, although he’d made a pitch to feature a collection of socks made of spun oatmeal—made him feel prickly despite the Spear ’s overly air-conditioned offices. At home, his mother had been upset because Ella wasn’t back from Vancouver, despite Wes reminding her Ella had never set a return date.
Yet it was the fight with Nadine that weighed heaviest. He struggled against the need to reach out and smooth things over but knew he would inevitably be the first to break. It was what he’d always done in his relationships, the same way he’d agree instead of speaking up on everything from where to go for a weekend to what to have for dinner, feeding his intense need to simply make sure things went well no matter what.
Which was why he was surprised when his phone beeped with a message from Nadine on Wednesday. You were wrong but do you need a ride to Dot’s this week?
Wes laughed out loud, feeling immediately lighter. That was what he would expect from Nadine, and he was glad not to have to talk about this misunderstanding ad nauseam. You were wrong and I do need a ride , he wrote back. Thanks.
Sometimes two people saw things in different ways, and that was it. It was good enough to agree to move on.
Even if one of them was totally wrong.