62. Chapter 62
Chapter 62
While David sat in his car and waited for Paige in the semi-lit parking lot of her apartment building, he texted Evan.
DAVID: Ashley’s giving me custody.
Evan’s response was almost immediate.
DICK: Holy shit, that’s prodigious!
DAVID: Please use normal words.
DICK: What? That is a normal word.
DICK: Anyway, since congratulations are in order, why don’t you come to the bar and we’ll have a celebratory drink?
DAVID: I can’t tonight. Another time.
DICK: Okay. Make it soon, though.
DAVID: I will.
DICK: I’m going to want all the details on the meet with Ashley, too.
DAVID: You got it.
He set his phone down, then leaned back in his seat, and just as his eyes closed there was a sharp knock at his window, startling the shit out of him.
To his disappointment, it wasn’t Paige.
“Hello, David,” Mrs. Harte said. “What are you doing out here?”
He rolled down the window. “Waiting for Paige to come home, because I need to talk to her.”
“Why don’t you just call and talk to her, then, instead of loitering in the parking lot for God knows how long?”
The suggestion was delivered with enough friendliness to make it not offensive. “I tried that earlier, but it didn’t work out very well, so I decided talking in person would be better.”
She gave him a probing look before saying, “Are you two having another ‘misunderstanding’?”
“Sort of.”
“Hmm. Well, you look like you could use a drink,” she told him.
The observation made him wonder how bad he looked. “I really could,” he replied.
“Come with me, then.”
After a brief pause, he got out of his car and followed Mrs. Harte into the building, then up to her apartment. Once inside, she led the way into the kitchen, where she grabbed two heavy, beautifully cut, Waterford crystal tumblers from a cabinet and set them on the counter, before turning to him and asking, “What would you like to drink?”
“What do you have?” he countered politely, deciding that no matter what she had—even if it was sherry or cognac, or whatever it was older people drank—he was going to have some.
She gave him a look that said he was trying her patience. “It’ll be easier if you just tell me what you want.”
“All right. Uh, bourbon, if you have it.”
“Woodford Reserve, or Knob Creek?”
Shit, she had the good stuff. “Knob Creek.”
“Neat, or on the rocks?”
“Neat.”
Mrs. Harte opened another cabinet and pulled a bottle of Knob Creek from it. After placing a large ice cube in one of the glasses, she proceeded to pour two fingers of the amber liquid into it, then poured double that into the other one.
When she handed him the glass without the ice cube, he took it with gratitude; he needed this drink more than he needed air. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied, then held up her glass. “To William,” she said quietly, before taking a drink.
“To … William,” he repeated after a brief hesitation, and took a drink of his own.
She looked at him with a hint of amusement. “Do you know who William is?”
“No. I don’t.”
“Then why are you toasting to him?”
“Because you did. I figured it was the polite thing to do.”
“William is my late husband,” she explained. “I always toast to him.”
“Oh. That’s nice.”
Still looking amused, she turned and began walking out of the kitchen. “There’s a hockey game on if you care to watch it with me.”
The weird and unexpected change of subject had him saying, “A hockey game?”
“What? Did you think I only watch Wheel of Fortune, or something?”
Despite the fact that their fledgling ‘friendship’ seemed to be holding after the dinner at Paige’s, a part of him still hoped he wasn’t walking into some sort of trap, where he was murdered with a letter opener and his body stuffed into a closet, as he followed her into the living room.
Expecting to see furniture covered in gingham or heavy floral brocade, he was surprised to see the couch and oversized chair upholstered in a gray chenille fabric, with coordinating gray and cream colored throw pillows, none of which sported cute sayings on them. It was a room that looked more Pottery Barn than Walmart, with tasteful pictures on the walls and knick-knacks on the coffee table and fireplace mantle.
The focal point of the room, though, was her book collection. Four 3x6 bookshelves lined one wall, each full of books, with some stacked on top. As David rounded the couch to take a seat, he read some of the authors: John Grisham, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Jackie Collins, Johanna Lindsey, Tom Clancy, Nora Roberts, Michael Connelly, Diana Gabaldon, V.C. Andrews, Jodi Picoult, and Danielle Steele, to name a few.
“This is quite a collection,” he told Mrs. Harte as she settled into the chair.
“That’s only half of it.”
“Damn. You must read a lot,” he said, only to wish for the words back because they sounded so stupid.
She shook her head as she picked up a remote control and turned the TV on. “Those were all William’s—including the romances. He was the reader, not me. The only thing I ever really read was the TV Guide, back in the day.”
He took a drink of whiskey, appreciating the smooth burn and looked back at the bookshelves, thinking about Mrs. Harte not as a barracuda, but as a woman who kept a thousand of her dead husband’s books. Books that she’d never read. “How long ago did he die?”
She didn’t immediately answer as she concentrated on finding ESPN, then frowned when she saw the Rangers were trailing by two with only a minute left in the game. “Twelve years ago. But every day, it feels like yesterday.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” Mrs. Harte gave him a quick smile, then took a long drink of her own bourbon. “We had many good years together, and when I join him, we’ll have many more.”
“Paige and I only had seven.”
“I know, and I’m sorry for that. But maybe you’ll have more.”
He gave her a surprised look.
“What? I figure that’s where you want it to go, right? Or are you really just going to date her for a while, and then not marry her?”
“No, that’s where I want it to go.”
“Then maybe you should quit having so many misunderstandings with her,” she pointed out.
“You’re right.”
She tilted her head at him. “You seem like a good boy—for the most part—so it shouldn’t be that hard, should it?”
He didn’t know what caught him off guard the most, the ‘good’ part, or the ‘boy’ part, but he decided to address the latter. “I’m thirty-five.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I just meant, you know, that being thirty-five makes me a grown man. Not a boy.”
“I’m seventy, so you’re still a boy to me,” she said, then changed the subject. “So, what did you do this time?”
“I thought I was a good boy.” He was mostly asking out of curiosity since he had done ‘something’ this time.
“Good boys aren’t perfect. William was one of the best, but he put himself in the doghouse many times. And you were waiting for Paige in her parking lot and not the other way around, so the odds you did something wrong are pretty strong,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Not to mention, you seem awfully defensive.”
“Well, that’s not fair. And I’m not being defensive,” he said, sounding even more defensive, because she was totally right.
“Not fair? Didn’t you just say you’re a grown man?”
David was about to defend himself when the sound of a buzzer stopped him. Mrs. Harte glanced at the TV, frowning when she saw the Rangers had just been scored on again, and turning away in disgust as the final seconds ran off the clock.
“You a big Rangers fan?” he asked.
“Only when I have money on them. And tonight I did.” She sighed. “I probably shouldn’t have bet against the Penguins at home.”
“How much did you bet?”
“A hundred dollars.”
He raised his eyebrows. It seemed like a very large amount for someone on a fixed income, but what did he know? The lady had top-shelf booze. “That’s a pretty heavy bet.”
“It was my bingo winnings from last week.”
“Damn. I didn’t realize bingo was that … lucrative.”
“Of course. Did you think I play it just for fun? Because honestly, it’s not that much fun.” Then, in whiplash like fashion, she turned off the TV and changed the subject back to what it had been before it veered off into side bets. “So, what did you do?”
He sighed, not wanting to answer.
“Is it sort of bad, or really bad?” she asked.
“Probably really bad.”
She gave him a fairly sympathetic look, which surprised him. He was still relatively sure if he was on fire, the only reason she’d throw water on him would be to save her couch.
David drained his Knob Creek, then gave her the very abridged version of events, after which she remained silent for several moments. “Well, I’m not going to blow smoke up your rear and say you don’t have a problem, because you do. And I’m not going to tell you she’ll forgive you right away, because she probably won’t—and she shouldn’t. I’m also not going to tell you that you can’t make amends for this, because you can—and you should. But I will tell you, ‘Good luck’.”
“Oh. Well, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, then tilted her head toward her front door. “And you’re going to need it because I just heard her come home.”