In Gus’s office, dust motes spun in lazy circles. “I don’t suppose,” I said, “that you’ll tell me who took the bike.”
“You suppose correctly.”
My involuntary sigh made him smile. “But,” he said, “I’ll give you a little unsolicited advice. There’s a Robert Laird over on Crowley Drive, that short road behind the elementary school, who’s the same age as your Oliver.”
Robert of the spaghetti worms?
“He has a couple of older brothers,” Gus went on, “and let’s just say I doubt either one cares about making the honor roll.”
Jenna and Bailey; now Oliver and Robert. I suddenly saw it all—Robert and Oliver stealing lawn ornaments and putting them in front of the school; Robert and Oliver bashing mailboxes with baseball bats; Robert and Oliver driving down the road with a backseat full of empty beer cans, the radio turned to volume eleven, seat belts flopping loose, a gravel truck pulling in front of them . . .
I shook the images away. “What about the parents?”
Gus looked grim. “The ex-husband? He lives on the other side of town and picks up the boys maybe once in three visitations, hangs around long enough to mess up their heads. The mother has had a series of live-in boyfriends who get younger and younger. No one disciplines those kids. Maybe a slap every once in a while.”
Inviting Evan over for dinner suddenly seemed like a very bad idea. Not that he was my boyfriend, of course, but still . . .
“If I were going to pick a friend for my son,” Gus said, “it wouldn’t be one of the Laird boys.”
I wanted to say that maybe Robert was different. That maybe Oliver would be a good influence on a troubled child, that maybe Oliver’s kindness and compassion would bring out the best in young Robert, that Robert would graduate from high school, be the first in his family to go to college, marry happily and raise a large, loving family whose only thoughts were to do good in the world.
But this wasn’t a fairy tale, and none of that was likely.
The next day I left Lois in charge. It had taken a promise of time off between Thanksgiving and New Year’s to get Marcia to come in and help. I’d tried Paoze and Sara first, but Paoze had an exam in Shakespearean drama and Sara’s organic chemistry lab was something she couldn’t skip. “Sorry, Mrs. K,” she said, “but I’m not getting this section on ring systems, and if I miss this lab, I’m toast.”
The expressway extended ahead in a long curve. It was a sight that, for me, inspired meditative thoughts. When driving long distances, I rarely played the radio or listened to CDs. Today’s meditation was “Come Up with a Brilliant Observation That Will Lead to the Conviction of Agnes’s Killer.”
I spent fifty miles coming up dry. Clearly, it was time to lower my expectations. Maybe by the time I got to Chicago, I’d have figured how to manage Marcia better.
Fifteen miles later, I switched to calculating the odds of both of my children choosing unfortunate friendships in the same year.
Ten miles after that, I turned on the radio.
“Good morning.” The receptionist at Browne and Browne smiled at me. The office was high rent, with colors and decor and lighting courtesy of expensive interior decorators. The complex shadows cast by the skylight and black stainless steel light fixtures didn’t come cheap.
“How may I help you?” she asked. I approached the counter. Made of glass block and lit from within by deep green lights, it spoke softly of cleverness and luxury and a dose of magic. The woman, roughly my own age but model skinny and with dangerously long fingernails, tilted her head slightly to one side.
“I have an eleven o’clock appointment with Bick Lewis.” I gave her my name.
She lifted the phone receiver from a base that had as many buttons and flashing lights as an aircraft cockpit. “You’re welcome to have a seat.”
I thanked her and ambled over to the waiting area, my shoes making a slight squishing noise on the hard floor. I eyed the copies of Structural Engineer and Architectural Digest, glanced at the leather and metal chairs, a sure trap for the unwary, and elected to stand.
“Hello, hello.”
Yesterday I’d heard the same voice through a hundred and fifty miles of phone wire and had envisioned a well-rounded sixtyish man with oxford shoes, white shirt, and a red paisley tie to match the suspenders that hid beneath a black suit coat. The reality was a little different.
“Beth Kennedy, right?” A thin man, maybe thirty years old, pumped my hand. “Good to meet you, good to meet you.”
The top of his head was in my direct line of vision. I looked down to see into his face.
“Thanks for meeting with me on such short notice.”
“No problem.” He whisked me through a low-ceilinged hallway lined with photos of what I assumed were buildings designed by Browne and Co. A few I recognized—a Chicago skyscraper, a Madison library—but the palatial residences were just blurs on my vision.
“Here we are, here we are.” Bick ushered me inside an office. As I gingerly sat in a twin of the lobby chairs, Bick spun around a leather monstrosity and plopped down. Inside the huge chair he looked like a small child in his father’s office.
“D’you mind?” He held up a pipe and a pouch of tobacco.
“You’re allowed to smoke in here?”
He grinned. “Partners get privileges. Yes, yes, I know. How does an undersized, pipe-smoking punk make partner of one of the largest architectural firms east of the Mississippi? Well, it ain’t my innovative designs.” He started stuffing his pipe with tobacco. “And it ain’t my engineering expertise.”
“Then what is it?” What could matter more than architecture at an architecture firm? It’d be like a doctor not knowing how to diagnose shingles. Or a children’s bookstore owner not knowing the plot of The Indian in the Cupboard.
“I’m the best rainmaker they’ve ever had.” He ripped a paper match out of a matchbook, and a small flame flared. The stink of sulfur wafted by as Bick held the match close to the pipe’s bowl and puffed furiously. A small cloud of smoke billowed around his head. He opened another desk drawer and set out a plastic rectangular box the size of a four-slice toaster. It whirred into motion, and the smoke was sucked into a vent.
Bick caught my lifted eyebrows. “Compromise, compromise,” he said. “I can smoke if I use this little guy. It’s not the same, though.” He looked around the room. It was the size of a small master bedroom. “There’s nothing like a room filled with pipe smoke.”
“No doubt.”
His laugh was as deep and rich as his speaking voice. If he sang, it’d be a low bass. “Are you married?” he asked.
I looked at my empty left ring finger. Taking off those rings had been one of the hardest things I’d ever done. The sudden and overwhelming sense of failure had taken me by surprise. I’d been prepared for sorrow, but not for such a stunning sense of disappointment in myself. So much for those vows I’d taken for life. I’d meant every word, every syllable, and now I was raising two children by myself. Where had I gone wrong? What was wrong with me?
My voice didn’t want to work, but I coughed it loose. “Why would you guess I’m not married?”
“Not a guess, not a guess.” He aimed the pipe’s stem at me and, for the first time, I took note of the intelligence in his face. “Facts. You and your husband divorced last year. You own a bookstore. You became the Tarver PTA’s secretary a month ago.”
I stared at him. Half of me was annoyed at what felt like a personal invasion; the other half was impressed. A tiny portion was flattered, but I stomped hard on that part. “I called yesterday afternoon at three thirty. How do you know all that?”