Two Weeks Earlier
Bob and the dogs and I turned the corner from First onto Maple. “This is nice,” Bob said looking around. “I used to hear about this place when I lived in High Cross.”
The autumn sun mellowed the facades of restored two-story buildings, most built in the late nineteenth century of brick and native stone. A variety of upscale shops and restaurants, including my cousin’s antique store, attracted clusters of well-dressed women and an occasional man, even on a weekday morning in October.
“You haven’t been here before?” I asked. He shook his head. “It used to be pretty depressing, back in the Sixties and Seventies.”
Bob paused in front of the store that specializes in vintage radios. His gaze lingered on a beautiful floor model from the Forties, with rounded edges and Bakelite knobs. “I remember seeing an article in—was it Newsweek? I guess I thought anything this popular would be tacky.” He laughed. “I'm putting my foot in my mouth, I'd better be quiet.”
We moved on. Emily Ann and Jack walked side by side in front of us, getting smiles from almost everyone we passed.
“I thought so too,” I said. “I have deeply rooted notions about anything touristy. But when I moved back here I found it’s…maybe homey is the word.”
We crossed Second and passed the toy store with the old Lionel train in the window, then Bob paused once more to study the yarn shop display, a tangle of silks artfully arranged around a toy tiger kitten.
That’s when I heard a voice calling my name. “Louisa! Oh, LEW-EEEE-SA! Is that you?”
I froze, unable to believe my ears. Moving two thousand miles to a small Midwestern town had not been enough. I looked over my shoulder and saw a tall, broad shouldered woman crossing the street, carefully highlighted and tousled hair gleaming in the morning sun. Her brown slacks and matching shirt looked expensive, and a dramatic ankle length duster of heavy cream silk flapped around her.
“Oh. My. God.” I muttered. As she drew near, I bared my teeth in what the charitable might mistake for a smile. Bob looked back and forth between us with an interested expression.
The woman stopped in front of us, giving Bob a thorough inspection before focusing on me. She ignored the dogs. “I thought that was you.” Her voice was nearly as loud as when she was shouting across the street. “So this is where you ended up, or are you visiting too? And, I see, not alone. Have you remarried already?” She cocked her head and raised her brows at Bob.
As the dogs sat down side-by-side and peered up at our faces, I pried my stiff jaws apart to make some sort of answer. But Bob was ahead of me.
“No, no,” he said in bluff and reassuring tones, “Louisa and I are just old friends. She grew up here, you know. I'm Bob Richardson.” He stuck out his hand and pumped hers up and down.
“Um, Bob, this is Doris Carter,” I managed, “who used to work with my husband.”
“Yes, poor Roger,” she sighed. She slowly shook her head and closed her eyes, the picture of sadness. “Such a tragic loss, though given the circumstances I don’t suppose you felt it as much as the rest of us.” She pressed her right hand against her chest where her heart would be if she had one.
My cheeks flamed as I tried to find something to say, something I could say aloud, since “you vicious harridan, I wish you would spontaneously combust” didn’t seem quite tactful. But again, Bob stepped in.
“You know, one of the things I have always admired about Louisa is her ability to keep her private feelings private,” he said, a friendly smile relentlessly in place. Before Doris could react, he went on, “And are you staying in the area? It's a great time of year for a visit, isn’t it?”
“Why, yes, I got a chance to combine business and pleasure,” she told him, and everyone else within a block who was not stone deaf. “I have a conference in St. Louis on Thursday, so I decided to spend a few days checking out the shopping here. I've heard so much about it. I bought a little vacation home on Whidbey Island recently and it needs just everything.”
“Well, you’ve certainly come to the right place,” he told her confidently. “Don’t miss the shop with the antique linens, and OKay Antiques is rather special too. Now, if you’ll excuse us, these dogs are getting restless.” He continued to smile pleasantly, took me by the elbow to get me moving, and shook his obviously placid dog’s leash. “Come on, Jack, let’s get that cookie we promised you.” And we moved down the street away from Doris.
When we were far enough away not to be overheard, Bob looked down at me with a rueful expression. “I'm sorry,” he said, “that was really pushy of me, but bullies annoy me. She is a bully, isn’t she? I hope I didn’t read her wrong. Tell me she’s not your oldest friend.”
A little laugh forced its way out of me. “She’s absolutely a bully, and no friend at all. I always think next time I'll stand up to her, but I'm so amazed at what she’s willing to say that I stand gaping like an idiot.”
“Not at all. The rude have a serious advantage.” His smile was slightly wicked. “But being politely rude back can be fun.”
At the Bluebird Café I reached for the gate that led into the patio, but Bob already held it open. I walked over to the door into the café. The window in the upper half framed the picture of a waitress pouring coffee into a heavy china mug for a woman with curly black hair and bright cheeks, sitting at the counter. I tapped on the glass, and they both looked around and waved. Raising my hand in greeting, I pointed toward the patio tables. The waitress nodded back at me.
Pantomime over, I turned back to Bob. “How about over here?” I twitched Emily Ann’s leash, and we went to a table in the back corner. I was going to sit in the chair facing the street, but Bob pulled out the one on the other side of the table with a little gesture. I settled myself in it and smiled at him, enjoying the contrast between his courtly manners and the way Roger had ignored me when we were in public together. Bob hung his pack from the back of the other chair and sat, gazing over my shoulder toward the street. Emily Ann settled in the shade of the large green market umbrella by my chair. Jack looked around, sniffing the air.
“Jack, lay down,” Bob said, and the dog obligingly went under the table, giving a little grunt as he flopped on the brick floor.
I knew that by lunchtime the place would be full, but now only one other table was occupied. A bearded man with fluffy red hair tonsured around a shining bald spot read the High Cross newspaper, sipping from a mug.
“You know, you were amazing. Are you an actor?” I asked Bob. “You came up with that stuff so quickly, it was like watching improvisational theater. I thought you’d never been down here before.”
“I haven’t, but I could see the stores across the street from where we were standing. I thought it might get her moving. I can't say I immediately warmed to her.”
“She’s horrible, and she’s horrible on purpose. And she’s a lawyer, so she’s also horrible by profession. I can't believe she’s here. I thought I'd never have to see her again. If she really does go into OKay Antiques we’ll have to fumigate, or have an exorcism.”
“You know the place?”
“It belongs to my cousin. Kay. I work for her part time.”
“Does Kay know Doris?”
“I'm sure she’ll recognize her from my husband’s funeral, but I don’t think they spoke to one another. Doris doesn’t notice people as individuals unless they are clients.”
“I gathered from what she said that you’re a widow. I’m sorry,” he said simply.
“Um, thanks.” Several voices erupted in my head, the haughty one insisting that my private business was my private business, and another reminding me that I didn’t want to think about Roger, let alone speak of him. Still another said Bob saved you from Doris, you owe him some sort of explanation. Just keep it light. “It was kind of—ugly. We had just split up when he died.”
I bit my lip to prevent more from spilling out. The arrival of Cleta, the waitress, saved me. Her graying hair towered above her in a beehive, and her outfit of classic shirtwaist dress and little apron was complemented by the enormous cross trainers on her feet. “Mornin’, Louisa,” she greeted me, looking with interest at Bob. “How you doin’ on this beautiful day?”
Too late I realized that coming here might have been a bad idea. Not that Cleta is a gossip, but Maple Street is a tight little community, and everyone knows everyone else’s business. No doubt word had already started to travel that I was sitting on the patio at the Bluebird with a strange man and his dog. When I'd peeked inside from the patio, Cleta had been pouring coffee for Eileen, who owns Trellis Island, the garden-art store. I knew that two minutes after she downed the contents of that mug, she would be in my cousin’s shop saying, “Kay, you’ll never guess who I just saw at the café.”
I shrugged mentally and smiled up at Cleta. “Hey, Cleta,” I answered. “I'm good. This is Bob and his dog Jack. They’re new in town and I wanted them to get off on the right foot café-wise.”
“Nice to meetcha,” Cleta nodded at Bob, and looked around for Jack. He emerged from under the table, wagging. “And you must be Jack,” Cleta said. He wagged harder. “Well, you be a good boy and I’ll bring you a cookie.”
She turned back to Bob and me. “So what’ll it be? Dog biscuits all around, or do y’all want something less crunchy?” A stub of pencil hovered over her order pad, which was solely for the convenience of the kitchen since Cleta never forgot anything.
“I want a pot of Earl Gray, hot,” I told her.
She grinned at my Star Trek reference. “You got it, Captain.”
“And one of Dorothy’s cinnamon rolls,” I added.
“Coffee for me, and a cinnamon roll sounds great,” Bob said.
“All righty then,” Cleta said, and went to get our food.
Jack followed her for a couple of steps. “Here, boy,” Bob said, and he turned back to lie by Bob’s chair.
I looked at Bob and tried to conjure up some normal, socially acceptable remark. “How about you? Are you married?” That’s subtle, said one of my mental voices. Go ahead and cut right to the chase.
He looked rueful. “I was, several years ago, but my wife decided a struggling writer wasn’t as good a bet as an insurance actuarial. I haven’t been brave enough to try it again.”
Instant alarms went off in my head. “You’re a writer? A reporter?” I hoped my voice sounded normal and only mildly interested.
“Nothing that exciting. I do technical manuals and the occasional magazine piece.”
“So no newspaper stuff?” If he was a reporter, I thought, I'd have to be careful. I'd learned from the publicity surrounding my husband’s death that the most innocuous utterance could become something quite different when quoted out of context on the front page of a newspaper.
“Not really, just any kind of freelance I can sell. You said you work for your cousin in her antique store?”
“Yes, part time. I mind the store when she needs to be somewhere else, and help her move stuff around, and buy stuff at garage sales, which is fun. What kind of magazine pieces have you done?”
“Oh, uh, usually for trade publications. You know, the latest on potato blight for a farmers’ co-op newsletter, how technology is changing the way pipelines are riveted together.”
“People really read about that stuff?”
“Only potato farmers and pipeline riveters. I never seem to do anything any normal person would want to know about.”
“I'm not sure how much normality I can claim, but I admit I've never read anything on those topics.”
“Did you work in an antique store in Seattle?”
I shook my head. “I was the personnel, excuse me, human resources manager for a computer firm. You know, I never liked that phrase. Human resources. Made me feel like I was involved in a cover up for something illegal.”
Bob chuckled. “Yeah, people as products. Maybe I could get an article out of that for some HR newsletter. So did you up and quit your job to move back here?”
“No, shortly before my husband died the company went belly up. And both my parents died within a few weeks of each other, and I inherited their house. So I moved back to Willow Falls.”
“That’s rough.”
I shrugged. “For a while I made my way through the entire top half of that chart that assigns numerical values to life events so you can rate exactly how stressed out you are.”
Bob nodded. “I know that chart. Changing jobs and a death in the family get about the same score, which says something about the average workplace.”
I started to reply, but Cleta bustled up with a laden tray. “Here we go. I had one of the rolls earlier. Dorothy outdid herself today.” A carafe of coffee and a teapot went on the table first, followed by a flowery cup and saucer in front of me and one of the heavy mugs for Bob. Unmatched dinner plates holding enormous cinnamon rolls, gooey with frosting, settled in front of each of us. “This ought to hold you till lunch.”
Bob stared at his roll. He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes at the scent of cinnamon and yeast. “Wow. This ought to hold me till next week.”
Cleta chuckled as she bent to lay a plate with an assortment of homemade dog biscuits in front of each dog. “Wait till you see what’s on the lunch menu,” she told him, straightening. “You’ll get hungry again. Okay, doggies, eat up.”
Emily Ann and Jack rose, wagging, and started crunching their treats. Cleta smiled down at them before turning to slide the check under the salt shaker. “Everybody all set?”
We nodded, and she headed back into the café. I busied myself pouring tea and adding a little milk to it, then cut a bite of cinnamon roll. It was heaven. I looked across the table at Bob, who was savoring his first bite. “Wow, this is good,” he breathed. “Am I ever glad you tried to steal my car this morning.”
When Emily Ann and I arrived home later that morning, I flipped open my computer and logged onto the Internet. I typed “Bob Richardson” into the search box on the Google page and sat back to scan the results. More than ten thousand entries were immediately at my disposal. I took off the quotes and added High Cross, but that only increased the number of hits. I tried an advanced search. Ah, now we were down to a mere 2800 or so.
I read the descriptions of several pages. The many obituaries didn’t seem appropriate, unless he was a spy or a fugitive who had stolen some dead guy’s identity, which struck even my fevered imagination as farfetched. Dozens of genealogy pages beckoned; they might be about this Bob Richardson but I'd never be able to tell. Unfortunately I hadn't thought to ask him his grandmother’s maiden name. I saw that I could buy some rather fetching water lilies bred by a Bob Richardson. I noticed as well an artist, a professor, a hypnotist, a floral designer, a minister, a restaurant owner, and a dog groomer, but none of their web pages sported portraits. Too many Bob Richardsons in the world to be able to find a particular one this way.
What I didn’t find was any article, about potato blight or pipeline rivets or anything else, authored by any Bob Richardson.