He called, listened. The phone at the other end rang. And rang some more. Thinking he might have punched in a wrong number, Rob disconnected, and reentered it. More unanswered ringing. How could there be nobody at either place? He wasn’t the type who was quick to worry, but this did invite a bit of concern. All Rob could figure was that both Julia and his wife were out back with the dogs. For what reason, he didn’t know. He just hoped some sort of emergency hadn’t cropped up that required their combined attention.
Rob pressed END, flipped the phone shut, and laid it on the passenger seat beside him. His hands at six and nine again, he gave his engine more gas despite the intensifying rain. The misplaced ledger had suddenly dropped down the ladder in priority, and indeed had almost entirely slipped out of his mind.
He was too busy wondering what the hell was going on at home.
Cynthia Howell was preparing the baby’s cereal when she happened to see the accordion folder on the kitchen phone stand.
A box of Gerber’s Wheat with Apples and Bananas in one hand, a small pot of warmed up formula in the other, she stood staring at the folder with sudden distress. Hadn’t Rob been working on the payroll ledger before the ball game? She believed so. And if that folder contained what she thought it did…
“Glumph owwp mooie!” Laurie blurted from her high-chair, slapping the food tray with a tiny palm.
Cynthia turned to her, sniffling. Her head felt fat with congestion, and she only hoped the cold germs she’d been carrying around the past few days wouldn’t jump to Laurie.
“When Daddy finds out what he left behind,” she said, “I’ve got an inkling he’s going to have pretty much the same comment.”
“Blehhk!”
“You bet.” Cynthia said. “That, too.”
She checked the time on the wall clock and frowned. It was a few minutes past eight. Rob had told her he liked to do the payroll the first thing after he got to the hotel on Sundays, get it out of the way to make sure the checks weren’t late, and she was surprised he hadn’t given her a frantic call by now. But it could be something else had come up that took precedence. Or maybe she was being too quick with her conclusions. This might be a different folder than the one she’d seen him poring over last night. Or he could have removed the disk and printout from it before he started out this morning, transferring it to a different one for some reason.
Cynthia poured the cereal into the bowl, added a little formula, and stirred them together.
“Pleoww!” Laurie said.
“I know, peapod. Breakfast’s coming. Just be patient with me another second.” Cynthia set the spoon down on a folded towel. The cereal was a tad too hot and really needed to sit anyway. “I’d better see what kind of upset to expect from Dad.”
She went over to the phone stand, picked up the folder, hastily examined its contents, and felt her optimism of last resort evaporate all at once. The CD and printout were inside. Rob had, in fact, forgotten the payroll ledger here at home.
Cynthia reached into a pocket for a tissue and blew her nose. She decided she’d better not postpone informing Rob of her unhappy discovery. The sooner he knew, the sooner he could start back for the folder, or figure out if there was some less inconvenient alternative. As far as she knew, though, he wouldn’t be able to get his work done without it.
She read the Fairview’s phone number off the bulletin board above the stand, lifted the receiver… and to her mild surprise got no dial tone. She frowned, pushed down the disconnect button, released it, and again heard only dead silence in the earpiece.
Perfect, Cynthia thought. Just perfect.
She tapped the button a few more times without any better result, then noticed the keypad lights were out and inspected the phone wire to make sure Laurie hadn’t crawled under the stand and messed with it, pulling or loosening the plugs from their jacks. Everything looked to be in place.
“Spo flig?” Laurie cooed behind her in a tone that genuinely sounded as if she understood the problem and wondered what they were going to do to solve it… although Cynthia had to admit her maternal pride tended to exaggerate the kid’s natural gifts from time to time.
“Wish I knew,” she said stuffily, and considered a moment. A few minutes ago she’d heard Julia driving uphill to the center. After feeding Laurie she could take a walk over there, see whether the problem with the telephone was confined to the house. If it was affecting the entire property, and the business phone was down, too, then they would be able to report the trouble using Julia’s cell phone.
Cynthia reached into her house robe for another tissue and blew her nose again. That sounded to her like a plan.
She moved to the window. It was a dark and gloomy morning, and it occurred to her that she might have to get Laurie’s slicker out of the closet before they left the house. Also let the dogs in from the outdoor pen. Better find out if the rain had started yet.
Even before Cynthia pushed aside the curtain she could hear patters of moisture against the glass. But now something else caught her interest downhill. Two PG&E vehicles were entering the drive. A utility van first and then a station wagon. She watched them approach slowly, the van heading up toward the rescue center, the wagon turning in toward her house.
Cynthia glanced briefly over at the electric range on which she’d prepared Laurie’s formula. The indicator light for a hot burner pad was still on, telling her there had been no interruption in electrical power. Nevertheless, she had a hunch her questions about the phone outage were about to be answered.
She stayed at the window long enough to watch the station wagon come to a halt and a uniformed worker get out. Then she started toward her front door, hefting Laurie off her seat along the way.
The baby nestled against her shoulder, Cynthia opened the door just as the worker reached it, and was met by yet another of the young — albeit already eventful — day’s surprises.
“Top a’ the mornin’, laddies and lassies,” Julia said, amusing herself with an atrocious cartoon leprechaun’s accent. “Shall ye all do your morning toilet, mayhap have yourselves a wee bit of a workout afterward?”
Thirty pairs of keen, curious dog eyes looked at her from gated stalls to the left and right. Before she’d let herself get too settled in at the shop, Julia had decided to step out the back door to the kennels and let the rescues into their exercise yard, knowing they wouldn’t budge once it started to rain. Greys were as obsessive about keeping their living areas clean as they were balky about getting wet, and she didn’t want them bursting at the seams if the bad weather were to arrive and persist throughout the day.
Julia looked down at Viv, who was already out of her stall beside her.
“You gonna help me open these gates for your buds?” she asked with enthusiasm, dropping the cruddy Irish.
Viv wagged her tail, lowered her forequarters into the play position, and then turned over on her back, rolling about with her long front legs upstretched and her lips pulled into a distinctive greyhound smile.
Julia watched her for a bemused moment, then bent and rubbed her stomach.
“Why do I get the feeling nobody in this joint’s got the slightest clue what I’m talking about?” she said.
Over his car radio, the word Rob Howell had heard the WKGO 810 traffic reporter use was ponding. As in, “Drivers should expect some localized ‘ponding’ in sections of the Santa Cruz Mountains, especially along eighty-four near the Highway Thirty-Five turnoff, where we’ve seen periods of heavy rain over the last hour.”