“There were a couple on there the other morning when you dropped me off here too. Did you check the ID box?”
“Uh-hmm,” she acknowledged with a nod, as she shot past me in the opposite direction this time. “All unavailable except one, and it was a data error. What about your other two?”
“Same. Unavailable.”
“Hmmm,” she remarked. “Wonder what that’s all about.”
“Well, the hang-ups on there yesterday might have been the media from the night before,” I speculated as I followed her into the kitchen.
“Here.” She pushed a cutting board holding a large knob of ginger across the island toward me. “Peel and slice. It goes in this bowl here.”
“For the marinade?”
“Yeah. After you’re through with that, mince three or four green onions and throw them in there too.”
“How do you think ostrich tenderloin is going to go over with this crew?”
“They probably won’t even know it isn’t beef unless we tell them.”
“Well, if we do let it out of the bag, I get to be the one who tells Ben.”
“Just as long as I get to watch.”
“You can run the video camera,” I joked as I pulled a knife from the block on the counter then retreated back to the other side of the island so I wouldn’t be in her way.
“So don’t you think reporters would have left messages?” she asked after a moment.
“What? You mean the hang-ups? I don’t know.” I shrugged as I absently scraped the skin from the pungent ginger root. “Maybe…maybe not. They probably didn’t figure I’d return the calls if they did, so they might have just been trying to get lucky and catch me.”
“I suppose it’s probably nothing. It could be just some telemarketing outfit,” she offered. “They always mask the caller ID.”
“Maybe, but we hardly ever get those anymore. Not since we got on that no-call list.”
“True, but even that doesn’t eliminate all of them. Non-profit’s and political organizations have a loophole.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I agreed. “Just seems funny that we’re getting so many all of a sudden. We don’t have an election happening anytime soon.”
“Well, it’s the holiday season; whoever it is might not even be looking to sell us anything. They might be a charity begging donations.”
“Yeah. I guess that makes sense.” I nodded. “Especially since nine-eleven was just a few months ago.”
As if it had been listening to us all the while, the object of our discussion pealed once again.
“I’ll get it,” Felicity said as she quickly wiped her hands with a dishtowel and stepped over to the wall phone.
“Well, don’t commit to anything over twenty-five bucks,” I half-joked.
“Hello?” she said, tucking the handset between her ear and shoulder.
I waited quietly for a moment, looking over at her and halfway expecting the call to be another hang-up.
“Oh, hi,” she declared, instantly riddling that suspicion with holes. “Uh-huh… Yes… Uh-hmmm… Okay, that’s fine. So which paper are you using? Okay…but it’s still gloss? Really? What’s the factor on this lot? I can’t imagine it being off by that much. No kidding. Well, can’t you adjust for it?”
This side of the conversation sounded more than just a bit photographically technical, so I turned my attention to the ginger and began thinly slicing the golden-yellow rhizome.
“What does your analyzer say? Uh-huh…Yeah… Well, if I remember correctly you’re dead on with my readings. Uh-huh… Sure, that would be fine,” my wife continued behind me. “Just dial in a bit of cyan for me if you would. That should take care of it. Sure. That would be great. No, I don’t need to see it; I trust your judgment. And besides, you’ve got the original print for comparison. No, really, I trust you. No problem. Thanks for calling. Yes. Sure. Uh-huh. Happy holidays to you too. Sure. I will… Yes… You too. Bye-bye.” She hung up the phone and immediately exclaimed, “Sheesh!”
“Problems?” I asked, still focusing on the culinary task I’d been assigned.
“Oh, that was Harold over at Arch Labs,” she told me as she stepped back over to the counter and rolled her eyes. “He’s using a different lot of paper, and the color was slightly off on that batch job I gave him a couple of days ago.”
“So isn’t that something he can just correct for?”
“Exactly.” She nodded vigorously as she began the task of cleaning the platter of fresh ostrich tenderloins and placing them into the bowl of marinade. “That’s exactly what he’s supposed to do. That’s why I gave them an original print to compare to. There’s no need to call me on something like that.”
“I don’t want to sound harsh, but is this Harold guy incompetent or something?”
“No, that’s not it. He’s really very good at what he does, and he knew exactly what he needed to do to fix the problem,” she answered with a sigh and followed it with a slight pause before continuing. “Actually, I’m afraid I might know why he called.”
“That would be?” I tossed a handful of the ginger slices into the marinade and continued chopping.
“I hate to sound like I’m full of myself, but I think he’s got a crush on me.”
“Hmmm…” I nodded. “That’s not terribly surprising. I mean, look in a mirror, sweetheart. You’re pretty easy to have a crush on.”
“Still trying to score points, are you?”
“If I can,” I said. “I suspect I can use all of them I can get.”
“Uh-hmmm,” she returned. “Thought so.”
“I really meant what I said though.”
“Thank you.”
“So…is it working?” I asked.
“What?”
“The scoring points thing.”
“Keep trying.” She grinned. “I’ll let you know when you’re out of the red.”
“Oh, so that’s how it works.” I chuckled. “Do I get any hints on how I can get bonus points?”
“You want a hint? Okay. Think in terms of a full body massage.”
“Long or short?”
“Long. Definitely very long. With warm oil, candlelight, and a nice bottle of wine.”
“Could be fun. That all?”
“That’s just to get started. You could follow it up by drawing me a warm bath with lavender and chamomile, and then while I’m soaking, you can do all the dishes that are going to get piled up from tonight’s dinner.”
“Ouch. Now it sounds like work. How about just the massage and bath part?”
“Nope.” She shook her head. “Package deal.”
“Okay, so how many points do I get for it?”
“I’ll let you know afterwards.”
“Ahhh, I see.” I grinned as I nodded and then voiced a different thought, “So anyway, back to the earlier subject. Maybe our mystery caller is your secret admirer.”
She shuffled a half step toward the phone and leaned forward then stepped back. “Well, the ID shows Arch’s number, so if it’s him he forgot to mask it that time. Besides, I don’t think it’s anything that serious. Only a bit of a crush, and I could even be wrong about that.”
“Oh well, it was just a theory,” I returned then feigned concern. “My, my, my…a secret admirer. Should I be worried?”
“What? Me with Harold?” She chuckled lightly. “I’m thinking maybe no.”
“Whew!” I let out an exaggerated and highly dramatic sigh of relief. “Had me concerned for a minute there.”
“Of course,” she mused aloud, “if you don’t clean up your act and stop having all these little midnight encounters with the spirits of dead women…”
“Hey, you’ll want to talk to them about that.” I splayed my hands out in mock surrender. “I’m not entirely at fault there.”
“Not entirely,” she allowed, “but you do get some of the blame.”
“Yeah, I do.” I nodded. “I know I do.”
“If it wasn’t for the fact that they are all residing on a different plane, I think I’d be the one with something to worry about.”
“Never,” I said. “Besides, I’m pretty sure they don’t have crushes on me. They’re all just looking for closure so they can move on.”
“I know,” she echoed. “I still get a bit…I don’t know… Jealous, seems like too strong a word for it…”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, stopping and looking over at her. “But you have absolutely nothing to worry about. You know that.”