of events neither one of us is particularly thrilled about.”
“You think your uncle doesn’t want you here?”
Once more rattled by that dark, penetrating gaze, Roxie sidled over to a freestanding hutch, picking up, then turning over, one of her aunt’s many demitasse cups.
“I think…he wants to wallow,” she said, shakily replacing the cup on its saucer. “To curl up with the past and never come out. I’m not exactly down with that idea. Frankly, I think the only reason he finally agreed to let me start sorting through Mae’s things was to get me off his case.”
“And you’re not happy because…?”
Roxie could practically hear the heavy doors groaning shut inside her head. Talking about her uncle was one thing. But herself? No. Not in any detail, at least. Especially with a stranger. Which, let’s face it, Noah was.
“Several reasons. All of them personal.”
His eyes dimmed in response, as though the door-shutting had cut off the light between them. What little of it there’d been, that is.
“So is it working?” he asked after a moment, his voice cool. “You trying to get your uncle out of his funk?”
“I have no idea. Opening up to others isn’t exactly his strong suit.”
A far-too-knowing smile flickered around Noah’s mouth before he glanced down at the notes, then back at her. “To be honest…this is shaping up to be kinda pricey, even though I can guarantee Dad’ll cut Charley a pretty sweet deal. And I haven’t even seen the upstairs yet. I mean, yeah, we could paint and patch—and we’ll do that, if that’s what you want—but I’m not sure there’d be much point if it means having to do it all over again five years from now. But the windows should really be replaced. And the cabinets and laminate in the kitchen. We can refinish the wood floors, probably—”
“Oh, I don’t think money’s an issue,” Roxie said, immensely grateful to get the conversation back on track. “Not that much anyway. I gather his work at Los Alamos paid very well. And he and Mae lived fairly simply. And there was her life insurance….” Another stab of pain preceded, “Anyway. Wait until you get a load of the bathroom….”
Feeling as if he’d gotten stuck in a weird dream, Noah followed Roxie up the stairs, the walls littered with dozens of framed photos on peeling, mustard-striped wallpaper. Mostly of Roxie as a baby, a kid, a teenager. A skinny, bright-eyed, bushy-haired teenager with braces peeking through a broad smile. Funny-looking kid, but happy.
Open.
Then her senior portrait, the bushiness tamed into recognizable curls, the teeth perfectly straight, her eyes huge and sad and damned beautiful. Almost like the ones he’d been looking at for the past half hour, except with a good dose of mess-with-me-and-you’re-dead tossed into the mix.
A warning he’d do well to heed.
This was just a job, he reminded himself. And she was just a client. A pretty client with big, sad eyes. And clearly more issues than probably his past six girlfriends—although he used the term loosely—combined.
Then they reached the landing, where, on a wall facing the stairs, Roxie and her parents—she must have been eleven or twelve—smiled out at him from what he guessed was an enlarged snapshot, taken at some beach or other. Her mother had been a knockout, her bright blue eyes sparkling underneath masses of dark, wavy hair. “You look like your mom.”
Roxie hmmphed through her nose. “Suck-up.”
“Not at all. You’ve got the same cheekbones.” He squinted at the fragrant cloud of curls a foot from his nose, and a series of little pings exploded in his brain. Like Pop Rocks. “And hair.”
“Unfortunately.”
“What’s wrong with your hair?”
“You could hide a family of prairie dogs in it?”
If he lived to be a hundred he’d never understand what was up with women and their hair. Although then she added, “But at least I have no issues with my breasts. Or butt. I like them just fine,” and the little pop-pop-pops become BOOM-BOOM-BOOMS.
Before the fireworks inside his head settled down, however, she said, “Mae and Charley really were like second parents to me. Even before…the accident. If it hadn’t been for them I honestly don’t know how I would’ve made it through that last year of school. All I wanted to do was hole myself up in my bedroom and never come out. Until Aunt Mae—she was Mom’s older sister—threatened to pry me out with the Jaws of Life. So I figure the least I can do for Charley is return the favor.”
“Whether he likes it or not,” Noah said, even as he thought, How do you live with that brain and not get dizzy? Because he sure as hell was.
“As I said. And the bathroom’s the second door on the right.”
To get there Noah had to pass a small extra bedroom that, while tidy to a fault, still bore the hallmarks of a room done up for a teenage girl, and a prissy one at that—purple walls, floral bedspread, a stenciled border of roses meandering at the top of wall. None of which jibed with the woman standing five feet away. Except the room made him slightly woozy, too.
“You like purple?”
She snorted. “Aunt Mae wanted pink. I wanted black. Purple was our compromise. Didn’t have the energy to fight about the roses.”
“Somehow not picturing you as a Goth chick.”
A humorless smile stretched across her mouth. “Honey, back then I made Marilyn Manson look like Shirley Temple. But…guess you didn’t notice, huh?”
A long-submerged memory smacked him between the eyes, of him and his friends making fun of the clot of inky-haired, funereal girls with their raccoon eyes and chewed, black fingernails, floating somberly through the school halls like a toxic cloud. One in particular, her pale green eyes startling, furious, against her pale skin, all that black.
“Holy crap—that was you?”
To his relief, Roxie laughed. “‘Twas a short-lived phase. In fact, I refuse to wear black now. Not even shoes.” Grimacing, Roxie walked to her bedroom doorway, her arms crossed. “I put poor Mae and Charley through an awful lot,” she said softly, looking inside. “I even covered up the roses with black construction paper. Mae never said a word. In fact, all she did was hug me. Can you imagine?”
His own childhood had been idyllic in comparison, Noah thought as a wave of shame washed over him. Man, had he been a butthead, or what? “What I can’t imagine, is what hell that must’ve been for you. I’m sorry. For what you went through, for…all of it.”
“Thanks,” she said after a too-long pause.
“So you gonna paint in there or what?” Noah said, after another one.
Roxie turned, bemusement and caution tangling in her eyes. “Why? Not gonna be around long enough for it to matter, God willing. So. The bathroom?”
Yeah, about that. Nestled in a bed of yellowed, crumbling grout, the shell-pink tiles were so far out of date they
