“You didn’t. Haven’t slept a whole night through in...can’t remember when.”
“Sorry to hear it.”
“Don’t be. I’m used to it.”
Vern seemed in a mood to chitchat...the last thing Maleah wanted to do. There were a lot of things not to like about this night: Kent, behaving like they were a couple when he had no right to. Frosty winds. Sleety rain. Grouchy, nosy old neighbors. Eliot, for starting the whole picture debacle in the first place. And Ian Sylvestry, for looking sad and wounded earlier tonight.
She took hold of the icy screen door handle. “I’m off tomorrow afternoon.” They’d been neighbors since Maleah bought the town house, eight years ago, and doubted they’d said more than a hundred words to one another in all that time. “Why don’t you come over, say, two o’clock. I’ll make us some coffee and we can get better acquainted.”
One eye narrowed. So did his lips. “Why?”
“Because I want to prove to you that I’m not an inconsiderate, dumb as a box of rocks, noisy, educated by liberal professors kid. And I want you to prove to me that you’re not as mean and cantankerous as you seem.”
“Yeah? Well, you’d seem mean and cantankerous, too, if you caught your neighbor digging through her trash at...” He pulled back the cuff of his robe to read his watch. “...at fourteen minutes after three.”
Ought to be an interesting chat, Maleah thought, hiding a yawn behind her free hand. If he showed up.
“You like cheesecake?”
“Love the stuff.” He squinted the other eye this time. “Why?”
“I know a little bakery. Cheesecake is their specialty. I’ll pick one up after my last meeting so we can—”
“—get better acquainted.”
“Right.”
“Just so’s ya know, I don’t do coffee.” He patted his chest. “Bad for the ol’ ticker.”
But of course...
“Two o’clock,” she said. And please, wear something other than that ratty old robe.
Maleah locked up, then shook rain from her waterlogged parka. Some landed where it was supposed to...on the mudroom rug. The rest soaked her favorite flannel pajama bottoms.
Now, if she hoped to get any sleep at all before the alarm chimed at six, she’d have to change.
This horrible, never-ending night was Ian’s fault. One hundred and ten percent.
And if she ever saw him again, that’s exactly what she’d say.
* * *
OVER CHEESECAKE AND DECAF, even Vern asked to tag along with Maleah to help serve breakfast at Our Daily Bread. “Must be something a grumpy old geezer can do.” He was amazingly good with on-the-spectrum kids.
Moments after introducing him to the rest of the volunteers, Berta, who managed the place, tossed him an apron and put him to work scouring pots and washing dishes.
Maleah delivered another huge tray, piled high with dirty dishes. “I forgot to warn you, this is where she starts all the newbies. She says if they can handle this back-breaking chore, they’re in it for the right reasons. Sorry...”
“The woman is right, so there’s nothin’ to be sorry for. What’s up with that, anyways? Did your folks knock you around when you were a kid?”
“Of course not. I was raised in the least dysfunctional family you’ll ever meet.”
“Good reason to quit apologizing, then. Don’t want people thinkin’ less of them, do you?”
Odd, she thought, because Ian had been the first person to ask why she said sorry so often.
“Mashed potatoes to serve up,” she said, leaving the steamy kitchen.
She’d no sooner plopped a scoop into a partitioned tray when the gray-bearded gent on the other side of the counter said, “This is my cousin, Ian. He’s a little shy, or he’d tell you himself...he thinks you’re real pretty.”
Maleah thanked the cousins for the compliment and ladled a double serving of gravy onto each tray.
Yet another Ian reference. Yesterday, a little leukemia patient asked Maleah to paint a wolf on her brother Ian’s cheek. And on the way home from Hopkins, the guy who gave her change for a twenty at the Harbor Tunnel toll booth wore a name tag that said Ian. How was she supposed to stop thinking about him if the universe insisted on throwing reminders in her lap?
During the drive back to Ellicott City, Vern talked nonstop about how fulfilling it was, working at the soup kitchen.
“I have a car, y’know. Ain’t been driven in a year, maybe more. Gonna have it serviced, so’s I can go downtown more than once a week.”
“That’s good of you.”
“Nah. I have my problems—who doesn’t?—but I’m better off than a lot of people. Seems only right to give a little, after all the taking I’ve done in my lifetime.”
He’d said much the same thing in her kitchen, but she hadn’t pressed for details. If he wanted to tell her about his past, he’d do it with no prompting from her. She pulled into her driveway as Vern said, “You know what I think?”
Already she knew him well enough to realize he’d tell her, no matter how she answered.
“I think you’ve got man troubles. Big ones that go way back.” She couldn’t very well deny it, now could she?
“You wanna talk about it? I’m told I’m a pretty good listener.”
“Thanks, but maybe some other time. I have a bunch of chores waiting for me inside. And then I have to go back to the office.”
“Crazy workaholic. What’s so important it can’t wait ’til Monday morning?”
“The Washburne-Albert Institute is about to launch its annual month-long winter fund-raiser.”
“I’ve heard about that. ‘Kids First,’ right?”
“Yup. Maybe you’ll have time to go to the craft fair or the antiques auction.”
“Maybe...”
“And if you have a lady friend you’d like to impress, I might be able to wrangle a couple of tickets to our good old-fashioned Baltimore bull roast, or even the grand finale...the black tie dinner.”
“Black tie? No way I’m rentin’ a monkey suit to eat rubber chicken.”
Not overly enthused.
“You’re a Ravens fan, right? And wasn’t that an Orioles banner I saw on your front porch last season?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So a couple guys from each team—and a coach or two—have said they’ll participate in the autograph session. We signed a couple of top ten recording artists and half a dozen or so movie stars, too.”
Vern shook his head. “My, my, my. You’re a walking, talking sandwich board, aren’t you? I hope they’re paying you extra for this off-duty PR.”
Laughing, Maleah got out of the car. “I enjoyed working with you today, Vern. It’s been a real pleasure seeing the jovial, generous side of you.”
He slammed the Jeep’s passenger door and knocked on its red roof.
“Feel like talkin’ about that man trouble today?”
Was the universe conspiring against her?
“Back in high school, I had a boyfriend. He got involved with some rough characters,