“Thanks for watching them tonight.”
“Dan said he wanted an evening alone with you.” He squeezed her shoulder. “I think you scared him half to death with that accident. Me, too.”
“Still, you have better things to do than babysit.”
“I have nothing better to do than spend time with my two nieces.” He glanced at his watch. “You can return the favor, though.”
“Anything.”
“The guys at the center are jealous of this little Thursday excursion the girls get to take. They want equal time. Could you manage that somehow in your schedule? They could come to the library when you’re working your part-time shifts.”
She hesitated only a split second, but Nick must have caught it. Sometimes, he was too good at reading people.
“You don’t like working with the boys, do you?”
“I prefer to be with the girls.” The boys reminded her too much of someone else, long ago.
“Forget it then. I can do something else with them that they’ll like as much.”
“No, no, I want to help out. You never ask me anything.”
“Tessa, really, it’s okay.”
Dan came bursting through the front door of the library, precluding any further discussion. His face was lit with excitement. Anticipation. She knew him so well, had studied his moods, so she could prepare for them.
He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Hello, sweetheart.”
“Hi.”
“You look like you could scale Mt. Everest,” Nick said. “Did something happen?”
“Yeah. I’m glad you’re both here.” He grinned at his brother. “And that I have Tessa alone tonight. We’ve got something to celebrate.”
“What?” Tessa asked, already smiling.
“I’m being named Citizen of the Year.”
“Oh, Dan, that’s terrific.” The award had been instituted two years ago, and Tessa was hoping it would fall his way.
“Yeah, terrific.” Nick tried to sound enthusiastic, but Dan’s need for respectability always grated on him.
“Come on, Nick. It’s my thing, even if it isn’t yours. There’s a banquet honoring me next month. I want everybody there.”
Tessa had caught his excitement. “The girls, Janey and her family…”
“And our mother, right?” Nick asked.
“Of course.” Dan said.
“I’ll let you know.” Nick clapped Dan on the shoulder. “Congrats, Dan. I’m happy for you.” He started to walk away. “I have to find the kids.”
“Nicky?” Tessa called out.
“Yes?”
“Will you come to the award dinner?”
“Sure.”
After he left, Dan said, “He won’t. Not if Mom’s there.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Don’t.” In a rare display of public affection, he picked her up and twirled her around. “No negative thoughts. Nothing’s going to spoil this for me. Nothing.”
JACKHAMMERS WERE GOING OFF in his head. He sneezed into his handkerchief, then blew his nose. Frankie was ready to smash somebody’s face in as he rode the Iverton bus to the outskirts of town. Trixie wasn’t here. How could she not be here?
He’d scoured the place for her. First, he’d gone to her grandmother’s house. The shingles were new and the porch refurbished, and somebody else owned the place. Grandma Addie was gone. No loss there. She’d hated him….
Get out of here, you’re not welcome.
Trixie says I am.
You’re not right in the head. Leave her alone.
And when they’d gotten in trouble she’d screamed at him again. You crazy bastard. You corrupted her. She was a good girl until you came along.
He’d told the old biddy to go to hell. Trixie was his, and he could do anything he wanted with her. Hadn’t she told him that, in the letters stuffed in his duffel bag?
The ugly industrial scenery of downtown Iverton rolled by. He’d checked out the diner where she had worked all those years ago. They had new owners, too, who didn’t remember any Trixie Lawrence.
Now, he was headed to the south side of town. That bitch Janey, who was always trying to interfere, always trying to protect Trixie from him, for God’s sake, had ditched this place, too. But her old boyfriend, Teaker, still lived here. He might know something about Trixie.
Frankie got off at Farrell Street and walked up the hill; the bartender at Crane’s Beer Hall had told him where Teaker lived. Man, what a dump, Frankie thought as he found the shack. An old man tottered out.
“I’m lookin’ for Teaker. The guy at Crane’s says he lived here.”
The man came closer. “I’m Teaker. Who are…holy shit, Frankie, is that you?”
Frankie knew his mouth dropped. “What happened to you?”
“Fifteen years, Frank. You look older, too.”
Can’t be as bad as you. He ran his fingers through his gray hair, noticed the veins in his other hand were more pronounced. “I guess.”
“I had some bad times. Not as bad as you, though. I never went down. How’d ya hold up in there?”
“Letters. From Trixie.”
“I thought she was in the can, too.”
“Got out after a while. She wrote me every day from here. That’s why I’m back.”
“Trixie? She ain’t living in Iverton no more.”
“I don’t get it.” Frankie cocked his head and thought hard. The pain, which had started to recede, instantly came back. “Got any beer?”
“Yeah, sure. Come onto the porch.”
Frankie sat on a rickety chair under an overhang. Once he chugged some ale, he could think more clearly. “You ever hear from Janey?”
“Shit, no. She married some doctor and went to live in New York.”
His heart began to beat fast. “New York’s a big place. The city?”
Teaker lit a cigar and sat back. “Nah. On a lake, I think.”
“There’s a shitload of lakes in New York.”
“I dunno which one.”
“Who might?”
His old drinking buddy raised his bushy gray eyebrows. “I think there was somethin’ in the paper a while back about her doctor husband getting a grant to find a cure for some disease.”
“Yeah? Who’d know about that?”
“Maybe Mrs. Fox.”
Frankie recognized the name of the librarian he and his buddies used to terrorize. “Hell, she ain’t dead yet?”
“She’s too mean to die, Frankie.”
“You remember Janey’s new name?”
“Nope. But the article could tell you.”
Frankie finished his beer and crumpled the can in his fist. Promising to bring up a six-pack later that night and reminisce about